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"If you doubt you can accomplish something, then you can't accomplish it. You have to have confidence in your ability, and then be tough enough to follow through." - Rosalyn Carter

“…the far goal of education—as of psychotherapy, of family life, of work, of society, of life itself—is to aid the person to grow to fullest humanness, to the greatest fulfillment and actualization of his highest potentials, to his greatest possible stature. In a word, it should help him to become the best he is capable of becoming, to become actually what he deeply is potentially.” - Abraham Maslow

“Focus on your potential instead of your limitations.”

- Alan Loy McGinnis

“When we treat man as he is, we make him worse than he is; when we treat him as if he already were what he potentially could be, we make him what he should be.”

- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“A sobering thought: what if, at this very moment, I am living up to my full potential?”

- Jane Wagner

Some of you know already that I am in school working toward degrees in Psychology and Religious Studies. Last semester, one of my classes at the University of Wisconsin Marathon County was called Philosophy of Religion, Human Nature and Society. This class has earned a spot on my list of favorites and the content, in a manner similar to Zen Buddhism, alternately tied my brain in knots and opened up new pathways. One of the things we were asked to do in this class was to decide for ourselves whether human nature is fundamentally good or bad. Now, just about every time I’m faced with an either/or, black or white type of question, I’m always stymied. Things are almost never so simple. By the end of the semester, my view on human nature was “it depends”. We have the potential for both good and bad, yin and yang and, accessing the good, or “being of use” as in the title of the poem I read before the meditation, depends upon an interdependent relationship between the individual and society. A key part of the direction this relationship takes when it comes to human nature and potential can be described in a phrase my husband Nick and I learned in a recent parenting class: “Act As If” (p. 27).

Chick Moorman, a widely acclaimed parenting expert, coined this phrase as a way to help parents teach their children responsibility. He says that when our children claim they can’t do something we often ply them with something like, “Sure you can, come on, try…What children and parents don’t realize is that trying doesn’t work. Only doing works. Anyone busy trying is not busy doing. Trying is often an excuse for giving up” (p. 27). The way I see this is in terms of creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. The way we choose to think and speak about our lives affects how they turn out to a large enough degree to be meaningful.

The way we choose to think and speak about our lives affects how they turn out to a large enough degree to be meaningful. So, when I’m asked whether I think human nature is fundamentally good or bad, I might answer with Buddha’s parable: “It is as if a man, wounded by an arrow thickly smeared with poison, were to say to his surgeon: I will not have this arrow removed until I know who shot it, his [income and social standing], his height, his color, where he comes from; the kind of bow the arrow was shot from, the wood of which the shaft was made and the species of bird whose feathers adorn it. [Truly], before these questions were settled, that man would have died” (Smith, 1995, p. 68) In other words, instead of theorizing on whether human nature is fundamentally good or bad, I am going to act as if it is good. Imagine the kind of world it would be if we all acted as if we were here to find the best in ourselves and each other. As in the story Richard read today, it takes courage to act as if we are in the process of living out our highest potential and it takes courage to treat others as though they are living out theirs. We are very fortunate to be Unitarian Universalists in this regard, because we are encouraged and nurtured in our quest to do just that with both ancient and recent wisdom to draw upon from traditions around the world. Let’s explore what some of them have to say on the subject.

Socrates, through the voice of Plato in his much read “Republic”, tells us, “children[s’] development is all important. Children[s’] education should be such that they learn by habituation to feel pain and pleasure at the proper things” and we should help children “discover rhythms appropriate to a life of courage and self-control.” Plato says that learning and becoming masters at the art of asking and answering questions…or Dialectic study…is key…the art of asking and answering questions. My daughter Katie, at four years old, is, I’m happy to say, quite adept at this already. Recently, she asked me why parents are sometimes wrong. Most young children see adults as the be-all, end-all of the entire universe. To her, it was quite disconcerting, I’m sure, that these all powerful beings in her life could actually be just flat-out wrong from time to time in a good year, and more often than not in a bad one. Mustering up my 10 years of mommy wisdom, I said, “Because we’re human and humans sometimes make mistakes. Humans can’t know everything.”

Strangling in stifled laughter, I smilingly said, “There’s no such thing as aliens.”

I said, “You’re right.” ********** Out of the mouths of babes. When I take the time to have these conversations with my children, fighting that urge that says “I’m so busy and in such a rush” or the urge to say, “because I said so”, and I act as if my children’s’ questions are worthy of conversation, I sometimes am rewarded with a conversation like this one….one that I rush to write down after it’s over.

Judaism offers us some excellent examples of acting as if we are all chosen ones, persevering through situations that have not been perfectly aligned, working individually and collectively with challenges that seem incomprehensible. Our primary textbook in the class I mentioned before was Huston Smith’s Illustrated World Religions. He said “…the Jewish affirmation of the world’s goodness equipped them with a constructive starting point. However desperate their lot, however deep the valley of the shadow of death, they never despaired of life itself. Meaning was always waiting to be won. The opportunity to respond creatively was never absent” (p. 184). Jewish recognition of human frailty rode right alongside a recognition of the human potential to rise to ever-greater heights. Smith also said, “[t]he remarkable feature of their anthropology, though, was that without losing sight of human weakness they saw [at the same time] its unspeakable grandeur” (p. 185). One needs only look to someone like Viktor Frankl, and his ability to find beauty and meaning in life while imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp, surrounded by the worst behavior human nature has to offer, and suffering of a magnitude that can barely be imagined to find an example of the highest pinnacle of human potential. He truly acted as if life were worth living and human nature had better to offer.

Hinduism has wisdom for bringing out the best in human nature as well. This tradition acknowledges what it means practically, to be human. Hinduism embraces a natural desire for pleasure and tells us to pursue pleasure with the caveat that our pursuit must be guided by basic rules of morality: do not lie, cheat, steal or succumb to addictions. It is wonderfully pragmatic in its recognition that humans desire pleasure, and if we are denied pleasure, that will be the very thing we become obsessed with to the exclusion of anything else. It then recognizes that, eventually, pleasure will not be enough and moves us on to the next step and the next, until finally, we reach that which is good within us, makes us useful in the world, and helps us to look beyond ourselves. If we act as if we are free to access our own spark of divinity, our own connection to the force of ultimate goodness and use its fuel to nurture others on their path to the same, who knows how much good we can accomplish. As Smith says about Hinduism, “[i]ts attraction for the mature is major. Myriads have transformed the will to get into the will to give, the will to win into the will to serve” (p. 21). ************** Myriads have transformed the will to get into the will to give, the will to win into the will to serve.” This is a lesson humans can embrace on our path to becoming all that we can be.

Buddha also offered us lessons on becoming all that we can be. He said, “I am awake”, and we can learn a lifetime of lessons in that statement alone. How much of what is truly meaningful and important in life would we notice if only we were awake to it? I see in Buddhism a pragmatism again that acknowledges the practical complexities of life and counsels us to choose The Middle Way. When faced with a black or white question that asks if human nature is good or bad, we can choose the middle way, acknowledging that it can be both, while also pledging to act as if we expect the best we have to offer each other. We are also wise to remember that Buddha “saw ignorance, not sin, as life’s primary adversary” (p. 75), and work to make education a right for people of all ages, not a privilege attainable to only a few. As Buddha said, “vow not to enter nirvana until the grass itself be enlightened” (p. 85) or act as if it is just as important for your neighbor to find his or her best self as it is for you to find yours.

Then we have Jesus. If ever there was a figure who truly embodied the belief that we are all divine, Jesus was that figure. He was a champion at acting as if. Smith says about Jesus… “[w]hat made him outlive his time and place was the way he used Spirit not just to heal individuals but—this was his hope—to heal humanity, beginning with his own people” (p. 207). Jesus taught us the healing and transforming power of love. “If we too felt ourselves to be loved, not abstractly or in principle but vividly and personally… that experience could reduce our fear, guilt, and self-obsession to zero. [Jesus] “gave, not prudentially in order to receive, but because giving was [in his] nature” (p. 216). Jesus lived his principles and encouraged others to do the same. He encouraged personal responsibility and authenticity in a way that people could not help but be enthralled with. Smith goes on to say, “Where there is wholehearted love for the All, for the universal good as we might say, the will wants that good, and rules are superfluous” (p. 220). ********* “Where there is wholehearted love for the All, for the universal good as we might say, the will wants that good, and rules are superfluous.” His was not a faith based upon coercion, but upon love for his fellow man and a desire to nurture humanity’s journey to actualizing their potential.

Actualizing our potential is a journey…one that we all start and end in different places. Some of us are fortunate to have strong and nurturing parents and support networks when we come into this world and begin this journey, but many of us do not. I was once in a book group where a member said that parents who did not expose their children to all the proper influences were dooming these children to be nonproductive members of society who would drain societal resources. I did not then, and do not now agree with her conclusion. First, the list of proper influences is ambiguous and fluctuating. Secondly, growing good people is a societal responsibility as much as it is a parental responsibility. Finally, all human beings possess the power to change their lives qualitatively, to act as if this is the moment they will begin realizing their potential, at any age. Often people just need a helping hand to either discover for the first time, or to rediscover that spark within themselves. As Abraham Maslow says, “…the far goal of education—as of psychotherapy, of family life, of work, of society, [of religion], of life itself—is to aid the person to grow to fullest humanness, to the greatest fulfillment and actualization of his highest potentials, to his greatest possible stature. In a word, it should help him to become the best he is capable of becoming, to become actually what he deeply is potentially” (p. 49).

Recently, I received two letters in the mail on the same day. The first was an acceptance letter from UW Stevens Point congratulating me on my acceptance to that school for the fall of 2007 and advising me that I would be on academic probation for my first semester there. I attended UWSP several years ago and ended one of my semesters there on an academic low note due to some personal challenges. I could have let that failure define me and shape how I thought about my potential, and I did for a while. However, joining this church turned out to be a new beginning for me…. I found a support network that helped me act as if I could grow. The second letter I received in the mail that same day was from UW Marathon County congratulating me on earning highest academic honors last semester. I’ve learned to look for the light at the end of the tunnel even in the darkest of situations in my life and I believe that doing the same for others is of the utmost importance. Socratic philosophy offers some insightful wisdom on this subject. Plato says, “[so] let us reason with the unjust – who is not intentionally in error, but has never been asked the right questions about what is and is not noble and honorable. Don’t blame them for the predominance of their lower nature, but uplift them to be, as far as possible, under [their] own rule, and barring that, the rule of someone more just.” He goes on to say, “This is why we need leaders who have eyes that can see inside at what lives in one’s heart. Such a one will see the soul as she is, not crusted over like the sea god Glaucus, but rather, he or she will look to her love of wisdom, her happiness, how different she could be if she follows [a] superior principle.” Now, this superior principle, this act as if, self-fulfilling prophecy approach isn't a simple, across the board panacea...life will turn out pretty rotten sometimes even when you are making a full faith effort, but this is a much nobler, healthier way to approach life than some of the alternatives.

As Unitarian Universalists, I see us doing just that. I see us doing it here in our church community and the community beyond these doors. I see you reaching out to help others reach their potential, and for that, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. Further, I see you doing it with wisdom and responsibility. You do not make yourselves indispensable or allow people to depend too heavily on you. Elaine Pagels, in her book The Gnostic Gospels says, “Gnostic sources often do depict Jesus answering questions, taking the role of teacher, revealer, and spiritual master. But here, too, the gnostic model stands close to the psychotherapeutic one. Both acknowledge the need for guidance, but only as a provisional measure. The purpose of accepting authority is to learn to outgrow it” (p. 131). Here in this church we help people accept authority and learn to outgrow it…. we act as if every human being is a wellspring of potential. For that, I am grateful. Amen.

Smith, H. (1995) . The Illustrated World’s Religions: A Guide to Our Wisdom Traditions ( 2^nd ed. ). New York: HarperCollins.

Maslow, A.H. (1994) . Religions, Values, and Peak-Experiences. New York: Penguin Group.

Moorman, C. (1998) . Parent Talk: How to Talk to Your Children in Language That Builds Self-Esteem and Encourages

in the task, who go into the fields to harvest and work in a row and pass the bags along,