 Good morning, First Unitarian in Madison. It's so good to be here, even though I'm hundreds of miles away here in Annapolis, Maryland. You can see a picture of the Tessa Peak right here. Next time I come there, I'm looking forward to speaking with you and again, and seeing the inside of your beautiful Frank Lloyd Wright sanctuary. I also want to say thank you to Reverend Roger and Kelly, Reverend Kelly, for inviting me to speak with you today. Partly because we in Annapolis are doing ministers of equal standing cooperation or partnership with Reverend Anastasia Zinke. And maybe after the service, I can talk to you a little more about that. But today, I am talking about a similar thing, how two need to become one. How we need to move towards sort of a new kind of American transcendentalism, which is something that will come and should come naturally for us as Unitarian Universalists. Transcendence to go beyond, to stretch is kind of what we do, to stretch our understanding of the God or no God of our understanding. So how do we go beyond in this point in our history, in our country, in our world, to find unity, peace, homeostasis individually and collectively? Well, I hope to share with you how we can transcend these dichotomies as people. And I hope my message will stretch your thinking. I hope that in the spirit of our forebearers who stretch the thinking of traditional Christianity, who went beyond the Bible way back when, will inspire us today to go beyond what we might traditionally see as our reality. What's emerging is a convergence of the linear and non-linear, from data and theory to quantum possibility, from either or to both and. A paradigm shift is happening. I don't know if you see it when you watch the news or watch television, we are struggling as people with judgments, with how to live with each other, with differing opinions, with strange beliefs that our friends and family might have. Why does it feel like the collective consciousness of humanity is wrestling with itself? It is, it's because it is. We're moving from the primary story, the traditional Christian story and traditional Judeo-Christian values that leave it to beaver society, the 1950s culture to a new kind of a world, a more diverse world, diverse in ideas and beliefs and in race. And humans are now having to learn through evolution, how to transcend barriers of race and gender. So this is a big time for us. We're trying to figure out ways how to live as one body of human beings, not separate and unequal, but together. So what I'm saying is that this is what evolution naturally does to us. And we really don't have a choice. Well, we could leave society, become a monk or something like that, or we can adapt. That's what Darwin was all about. Not survival of the fittest was all about not necessarily strongest, but the most adaptable. So we have to adapt. And so we are in this paradigm shift and it is moving us from linear to quantum thinking or linear and quantum thinking. I wanna say more about that in just a moment. Quantum thinking says that the future is created by how we perceive the past in the present moment. That's why on television you see a lot of shows sort of re-narrating the past, retelling the stories of past that instead of getting his story, we're getting more of our story. The future is created by how we perceive the past in the present moment. So let me explain this idea of paradigms and quantum thinking and linear and non-linear. The first thing is that we are always viewing the world through a paradigm or pattern. When the data doesn't match the experience, we call it a paradigm shift. The term paradigm shift was made popular by the scientific philosopher Thomas Kuhn in his book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. He describes paradigm shift as a fundamental change in the basic concepts and experimental practices of a scientific discipline. A paradigm shift happens, quote, when the distinct established patterns, theories, common methods and standards that we recognize change. So this can be due to scientific advancements, changes in industry, changes in a religion. And I wanna add that one field influences the other. A change in science eventually leads to changes in the religious landscape. A change in industry changes the way we live our lives because as our seventh principle reminds us, we're all a part of an interconnected web of existence. And so historically we've seen this with Copernicus and Galileo. Remember that? Oh, hey, the powers that be, the sun revolves around the earth. No, look through this newly designed telescope that I put together. The earth revolves around the sun along with all these other planets. There's a lot of stuff going on out there. Oh, it wasn't taken kindly. Time passed, there were a lot of killings, persecutions, people were called heretics, burned at the stake, thousands killed, but the new discovery emerged. It became our reality, a part of our reality. And the religion and the state and humanity as a whole had to make that adjustment. And tangentially, I just would like to say that it would be nice if we could learn new things, new concept, new ideas without killing so many people. And in fact, even though we witness a lot of violence today, we're actually living in the least violent time in human history. So that's Stephen Pinker in his book, Are the Better Angels of Our Nature. Why violence has declined. Interesting. We continue to evolve. So the change or shift is always happening and it alters the way we view each other and the world. These new ideas clash with what is comfortable and normal. And that's why I like to say that normal is so overrated. Every pioneering change, every paradigm shift has occurred because people dare to think outside the box. And if you look, they were those who were on the edge or marginalized. And that's why UU has done so much for our culture, marriage equality, gay rights, anti-racism work. We have always been on that cutting edge as a faith and been a valuable resource for America to expand, evolve and grow. But I posit that we will have to change even more with this next shift. We're moving from duality to non-duality or shall I say duality and non-duality. We're moving from either or to both and. And this takes me right to Sir Isaac Newton, who some physicists say is the reason we are stuck in linear thinking as a society. Now Newton of course did a good thing. He helped us to understand gravity and helped create a scientific method that was based on empiricism and knowledge, not necessarily just faith and myth. However, his method, especially by Westerners has become its own dogma. It's been seen as its own way, truth and life unless the scientific method needs to be looked at again. What does this scientific method say? Well, if you can't explain it or if it's not legitimate, well, it's not real. The primary Orthodox religion did the same thing to institutional Christianity, which is why science ran from religion after the dark ages. We had this split in religion and science and common in traditional religion. If the explanation falls outside of the organized guest or the canon of scripture, then you're called a heretic, burned at the stake, Catholics and Protestants both participated in this. It couldn't be science and religion. It had to be either or. And it left us all bruised and bleeding. So traditional religion and science are stuck in their dogmas. The question is, are we as Unitarian Universalists stuck in our own dogmas? That's a good question, but that's not my message today. The point is that new paradigms are here today. New ideas are emerging about God, nature and reality. All you have to do is look them up. They're all over. We're moving from the quantum toward more feeling, moving from the linear to the quantum, which includes more feeling and experience and wonder and awe and mystery. The conjunction and is asking up to hook up those words, phrases and clauses. Why? Because if you take a macro cosmic look, we live in a both and reality and in an either or reality. But I think we need to move towards the both and to realize the large possibilities we have to be in relationship with each other. What if we could take the best of science and the best of spirituality and blend them together? You're seeing that emerge now, my friends. When you look up quantum physics or the double slit experiment, it's been around for a long time. Or the science behind complementarity or what they're doing with DNA. You begin to see concepts that ideas that are awe-inspiring, awe-inspiring like staring at a mountain. Science that opens your mind, body, spirit complex to what the Eastern religions have said for centuries. And the esoteric traditions, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, there are others. They've said this as well. That the two must become one. As a scripture in the gospel of Thomas, when the two become one, then you will say mountain move and it will move. That's a Gnostic gospel, not included in the canon of scripture. So look again at society and see in the midst of all of this otherness, a beautiful new pluralistic non-dual story manifesting. A new story of both and which is wrestling with but also complimenting the story of either or. It makes me think of the Bible Old Testament story when Jacob wrestled with the angel. The two wrestled all night trying to resolve the differences. And there are lessons for us here that we too are here to balance the polarities that divide us so we can find peace individually and collectively as a species. We move from linear to quantum thinking by going deeper, by daring to ask questions. We move our thinking toward the quantum by seeing the lines and the circles and the waves as one, not just the separate parts. Quantum thinking is all about changing your perception and seeing things as complimentary or as working together. If you look at the slide that's going up on your screen, you can see that you're looking at a linear and non-linear equation. Lines, linear, ask us to look at from point A to point B and the intersecting points of course. A circle says that we are more than just straight that we are clear to and we're straight, yes, but also angular and round. We go many directions in our evolution. And then of course, when you're thinking about math, math always says, you know, solve for X, X is the unknown. Solve for the X, for the unknown, for the awe, for the mystery, for the strangeness. As with Dr. Taylor was talking about in our reading this morning, the mystery. If you, if we stop opening up to the unknown to the possibilities in life, then we are stuck in a linear equation. And I'm arguing this morning that we are both linear and non-linear equations and even more. There is room for all the possibilities. I was reading an article published by the Society of Actuaries and actuaries look at trends and patterns to assess financial risk. This paper was discussing the future of actuary science written in the year 2000 entitled Little Tint Versus Big Tint, Newtonian Versus Quantum Thinking. Listen to these words from Doran Swerdland speaking at the conference of actuaries. He is the CEO of the Human Resources and Financial Services Company. He said this, the first idea is that Newtonian thinking talks about either or. It is either this or that. Whereas the quantum point of view is both and. Either or is a linear type of thinking in Newtonian whereas quantum is more multidimensional. Look at it from a quantum perspective and you can actually have a third alternative which is not a compromise of the two but it's a third alternative that might have no relationship to the other and can emerge as completely different. It's like with a Venn diagram. You put two circles together and a third thing emerges. When we think multidimensionally, a new thing presents itself. Rebecca Parker, one of our resident theologians for Unitarian Universalism, she calls this process theology, one plus one equals three. When you open up your perspective from the micro to the macro or the micro and the macro, you perceive things differently. When you move from particular to universal or particular and universal, you see the beautiful dance of life. Process theology says to us that a third way can emerge. And this is similar to George W.F. Hegel who believed this to be true in his dialectic when he talked about the thesis antithesis and the synthesis. A new construct emerges from the two. It's not just duality but duality and non-duality. It's not us versus them but us and them. It's not me and mine but rather mine and ours. It's not science versus spirituality but science and spirituality. As you think about this new ministry configuration that's gonna get you outside of your traditional box, I want you to continue to think both and, continue to expand the possibilities. Dare to do something different like our forebearers did. They knew that God was bigger than one book. And instead of fighting over spoils, they created something new and exciting. A new paradigm, a new way. My friends, this is an unprecedented time on our planet. Welcome to the 21st century. A time of adaptation. A time of probability and a possibility. A time of religion and science. A time for you and me. Blessings. Amen.