So last week Charles Schulz retired from drawing the comic strip Peanuts. In a recent episode, Lucy is about to leave for school with her little brother Linus but Linus is nowhere to be found. Lucy eventually finds Linus still in his room, hiding under his bed.

"I’m never going to school again," Linus cries from under the bed. "The teacher asked me if I thought I’ve learned everything I need to know. I think she was being sarcastic. Anyway, I said, ‘Yes.’ Now she’s mad at me."

Lucy then asks, "Do you think you’ve learned everything you need to know?"

Linus responds, "I think I’ve learned all I need to know to live under a bed."

It’s a good question: how much do we need to know to live – out from under a bed? Do we need to be able to pass the MCAS tests? Graduate from high school? Many people would say yes. Go to college, graduate, go on to graduate school? Well, it depends; maybe yes, maybe no. Is it necessary to read the New York Times daily, or will Saturday and Sunday suffice? How ‘bout keeping up with the New Yorker or getting the Learning Channel? More information, it seems certain, will not be our salvation. There are already so many sources of information, and we can sometimes flit from one to another with such frequency that one metaphor for our culture is that of the couch potato with remote control in hand, channel-surfing from one thing to the next: superficially observing, nibbling, grazing over a million things, but understanding, knowing, and deeply affected by hardly anything.

I’ve seen a few movies over the holidays, Dogma, The Talented Mr. Ripley, and most recently The Green Mile. In the sense of stimulating thought and conversation, there are actually quite a few good movies out now; but frankly I’m feeling over-stimulated. Dogma and The Green Mile, in particular, are very different films, but both of them throw at the viewer every theme but the kitchen sink. In Dogma, religion comes across as a mass of confusions, bigotries, superstitions and profoundly good ideas mixed in with good, bad and stupid humor, sex, violence, George Carlin and Alanis Morrissette. The Green Mile is a Stephen King story that must have been a page-turner of a book, and is a gripping movie too, yet it mixes social commentary on race and the death penalty with religious imagery – the innocent black condemned man crucified – electrocuted – by tearful white jailer-centurions, with a dash of new age magical healing enchantment and, as an added bonus, an appealing performance by a circus mouse.

I’m not really reviewing these films; I am saying that they left my head spinning and aching; and I think they’re a remarkable mirror reflection of our contemporary culture: a culture of too much going on all at once with little clarity; and too often we understand, know and are deeply affected by almost none of it.

It’s like channel-surfing or drinking at the fire-hose but I’m also reminded of the feeling of standing at the rim of the Grand Canyon and the scene being so vast that it is really impossible to take it all in.

This is a sermon about focusing, choosing, differentiating, limiting our field of vision to that which is most important, that which most deeply affects us and to that which we can most deeply affect.

Not only in the movies but religiously, you may have noticed, it’s a pretty wild world out there. Remember when good Presbyterian (Episcopalian, Jewish, Unitarian, Catholic, you-name-it) parents raised good Presbyterian whatever kids, generation after generation. Plant a radish, get a radish, not a Brussel sprout. Now your kids turn into Buddhists, Sufis, evangelical Christians, orthodox Jews, Libertarians, Rastafarians, atheists and Brussels sprouts all the time!

I’ve been to a few church growth workshops, and the mainline Christians have realized that they now live in a new world with no mainline; people don’t so much convert from one thing to another as they never were much of anything to begin with or they’re a million things all at once. "I’m spiritual but not religious," so many people say. The church growth people refer to our present era as being similar to that of first century Christianity when Judaism and orthodoxy coexisted with mystery religions, cults, apocalypticists, pagans, Gnostics, and emperor worship. The Christian evangelists knew then and know now that they can assume nothing. Followers will not fall into their laps. By whatever means, they must differentiate if they’re to have any market share at all.

That’s the key word in this sermon: differentiation. And that’s why I put the definition of self-differentiation at the top of your Order of Service. In the current din of cultural messages, differentiation is what we – as individuals, as families, as communities, as a church – need most to do. I think it’s our central religious task.

Differentiation means being somebody; taking a stand; knowing oneself; risking; putting it out there. It’s a psychological term, and the definition I gave is one written by Murray Bowen, the founder of family systems therapy. Bowen, as a therapist, insisted that people have to find their own internal compass, gyroscope, and reason for living – no therapist can do it for you. An ideal therapy session, Bowen would say, was one where the therapist offered not a single judgement but asked only questions.

I may make his method sound absurd, but this could lead to incredible lengths of chutzpah. Bowen, on the floor of a mental ward, was once approached by a patient who said he was suicidal. "How would you commit suicide?" Bowen asked him. "I’d take pills," the patient responded – and, without blinking, Bowen pulled a prescription pad from his coat, asked "How many do you think would do the job?" and filled out the scrip. Now, a good many of you will pay no further heed to my sermon now that I’ve uttered such lunacy, but the essential vital truth is that we must challenge ourselves and others to figure it out for ourselves – despite the din of temptations – what it is that truly matters. The patient, by the way, found Bowen so bizarre that he turned and walked away.

Differentiation is for one person in a couple to say "I feel like going to the movies" while the other says "I feel like going for a walk" and for each to do different things and, at least once in a while, for that to be perfectly OK.

Differentiation is the response of a wife whose husband was working more and more and more and more. She didn’t nag him. She merely told her husband that she wanted him to increase his amount of life insurance. The husband says, "Huh? Is that what I really want to do?"

Differentiation is the response of the husband who learned his wife was having an affair. He got travel brochures and encouraged the wife and her lover to take a romantic trip. The wife says, "Huh? Is that what I really want to do?"

Extreme examples? Sure. But don’t miss the point: Differentiation is to separate your identity from all those around you who would rather tell you who you are or take away who you already are. Differentiation is taking a stand. You who have come to me for counseling – God help you – know that I usually get around to suggesting "insensitivity training," raising your threshold of personal discomfort and gradually learning to prefer acute pain over chronic pain.

This isn’t all psychology. Jack Mendelsohn and I were driving in the car somewhere last week, and he reminisced about the remarkable life of Elliott Richardson who, you know, died over the holidays. In 1965, Jack flew to Selma for the civil rights demonstrations led by Martin Luther King and Richardson happened to sit next to Jack on the airplane. They talked a little, but Richardson was quiet, brooding. After all, they didn’t know what they were getting into and the situation was tense, confused and dangerous. After a while, Richardson sat up, almost startled, and blurted out, "This is about the right to vote! This is about the right to vote!" Despite all the legal machinations and maneuverings, the cultural ambiguities, this was about something quite profoundly simple. That too is differentiation.

Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat on the bus was an act of differentiation. It’s an act of differentiation for the Vermont Supreme Court to say that, despite all the righteous hollerings to the contrary, for the life of them they can’t figure out why gay people shouldn’t be able to enter into legally protected relationships.

Differentiation and discernment of what is truly most important, I suggest, is our foremost spiritual task; it’s our primary challenge as individuals and as members of this religious community: we are here to ask one another and ourselves, "Huh? Is this what we really want to do? What do we stand for? What is it we most should be doing?" And I have no idea whether that leads you to questions of life or death, or Jesus or George Carlin or marriage or divorce or going back to school or quitting your job or blowing the whistle on wrong-doing or deciding that it’s time to have a child or get a vasectomy or learn to pray or get your signature on one of those GBIO petitions or leading you to acts of personal growth or social justice – these are all for you to decide – but we are here to learn to differentiate and discern that which is most important.

Victor Frankl, survivor of the death camps, once said, "We had to learn ourselves, and furthermore we had to teach the despairing (ones), that it did not matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life but instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life, daily and hourly."

You remember the old story that the way to be most faithful to God is to pretend that there is no God and that only you – you alone – are responsible.

How do we filter out all the confusing cultural messages, discern and differentiate?

It is said that the ancient rabbis challenged one another to state the essence of Judaism while standing on one foot. That may explain a good many pithy aphorisms. The Pharisees questioned Jesus, "Which is the great commandment?" He said, perhaps standing on one foot, "Thou shalt love the Lord, thy God, with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind. And the second commandment is like unto it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two hang all the law and the prophets."

Sometimes for Unitarian Universalists it’s a challenge to get us to take a stand – on either foot! Many people mistakenly believe that Unitarian Universalism does not allow them to come down in any one spot in regard to a serious question of belief. We are "tolerant" and therefore we don’t choose a position. So what should a good Unitarian Universalist parent say when your kid asks, "What should I do, Mom?" How about looking your kid straight in the eye and saying "Well, you can decide for yourself BUT here’s what I’d do." The kid has something to struggle with and examine.

It’s the same here in church. We say here that each is free to choose his or her own religion – so long as other views are tolerated and encouraged. As a minister, I try to point out when I am expressing my own opinions and beliefs, and I fully expect others to disagree. That is what makes for a healthy and lively church, but for that to happen, at least some of us will need to choose a foot. Unitarian Universalism is about being who we say we are, and on one foot or two, walking our talk.

I’ve tried to think of other examples of differentiation. There’s Kurt Vonnegut in God Bless You Mr. Rosewater. He’s been asked to baptize some babies:

In the early Christian church, the apostle Paul said, "You will know us by the way we love one another." You won’t know us by our cappuccino coffee hour or our up-to-date facilities or our learned ministry or our promise of eternal salvation, either, but by our love. That’s differentiation.

There’s an old poem, doggerel really:

Well, almost all.

Charlie Brown this time has gone to Lucy as the noted family systems psychiatrist and the sign says that the doctor is "IN." Charlie Brown is despondent. "What can you do when you don’t fit in? What can you do when life seems to be passing you by?"

Lucy answers. "Follow me…I want to show you something…" as they climb a hill-top. "See the horizon over there? See how big the world is? See how much room there is for everybody? Have you seen any other worlds?" and Charlie Brown says, "No."

"As far as you know, this is the only world there is, right?"

"Right!"… "There are no other worlds for you to live in…Right?" "Right!"

"You were born to live in this world…right?" "Right!"

And then turning to him, Lucy says, "Well live in it then! Five cents, please."

Living out from under the bed means discerning and differentiating that which is truly most important. It means living in this world but not necessarily being of it. Five cents, please.