a sermon preached by the Rev. Dr. Tim W. Jensen
at the First Religious Society in Carlisle, Massachusetts
Sunday January 29, 2006
READING: from Our Endangered Values by Jimmy Carter
I believe that anyone can be successful in life, regardless of natural talent or the environment within which we live. This is not based on measuring success by human competitiveness for wealth, possessions, influence, and fame, but adhering to God’s standards of truth, justice, humility, service, compassion, forgiveness, and love.
*******
[extemporaneous introduction -- last night’s Circle Dinner and bacon-wrapped scallops...]
....these were my favorites when I was living on the island, so naturally I was eager to make them for all of you as well. But having never done them before myself, I was also naturally a little anxious about trying to prepare such an ambitious appetizer. Obviously, the first place I looked for an appropriate recipe was on Google, but I also e-mailed a bunch of my friends on Nantucket to see what kind of hints they could give me.
The most useful advice actually came from the “washed ashores,” since folks who grew up on the Island seem to have this information in their DNA, and tended to tell me things like “wrap the scallops in bacon, secure with a toothpick and broil until done.” One person told me about the last time they went scalloping and came home with only three scallops (one of which was empty)...which led to the advice “first, find some scallops.” But after pricing authentic Nantucket Bay Scallops at Whole Foods for $29.95 a pound, I decided to go with the frozen scallops from Trader Joe’s instead.
Another person cautioned me against using plastic toothpicks, while another advised me to soak the wooden ones in water for a half hour first in order to keep them from scorching under the broiler. A lot of people suggested partially frying the bacon beforehand, since it’s almost impossible to get the bacon crisp under the broiler without also ruining the scallops, which (as you probably know) sophisticated scallop connoisseurs simply eat raw right out of the ocean. So basically it’s the bacon you are trying to cook, and the most common mistake is to broil the scallops too long in the process.
This was also the advice given to me by the professional chef I dated briefly when I was still living on the island -- only she used the word “parcook,” and then suggested finishing the assembled appetizers in a sauté pan on the stove rather than under the broiler. But that just seemed like a little too much culinary technique for a novice like myself...maybe I’ll try it the next time instead.
And then without a doubt the most important piece of advice I received was not to cook them too far in advance. Apparently preparing bacon-wrapped scallops is a lot like preparing a sermon: there’s a lot you can do ahead of time in terms of research, and planning, and even selecting and preparing the various ingredients, but if you really want the best results you need to serve them up fresh out of the oven. A bacon-wrapped scallop is not exactly the sort of thing you want to prepare months in advance and then throw in the freezer and try to zap back to life in the microwave at the last second (although I did see a product kinda like that in the frozen food case at Crosby’s Marketplace, and if the price hadn’t been nearly a dollar a scallop I might even have picked up a package just for purposes of comparison).
Rather, the secret to preparing good scallops (and good sermons) is using simple, timeless recipes together with the best possible ingredients available, and to serve them up hot and fresh just in time for enthusiastic consumption by a hungry and appreciative group of friendly and forgiving people. And if occasionally they turn out just a little raw or half-baked, that’s still probably preferable to stale or burnt....
I do want to talk a little more specifically about the Ministry this morning, but not about MY ministry. Rather, I want to talk about OUR ministry -- the ministry of this church -- the things we do together as a community of faith to serve one another and the wider world. According to our historical faith tradition, Unitarian Universalists believe that EVERY human being is called by our Creator to both a general and a specific vocation or “calling” -- first to become the most honest and authentic people of faith we are capable of becoming, and then also to discern the unique gifts which each of us brings to the table in service of both God and Neighbor.
This particular set of beliefs is known as the doctrine of "the Priesthood of All Believers," and it has been an important component of our liberal theology since the time of the Protestant Reformation. Within our faith tradition, Clergy are not like caterers, serving up novel and exotic tidbits to satisfy the sophisticated tastes of worldly and demanding connoisseurs, or even a comforting spread of the same tried and true favorites, rehashed and reheated weekly for mass consumption. Rather, Unitarian Universalist congregations and their clergy work in PARTNERSHIP with one another, attempting always to bring out the best in one another, and together creating something collaboratively which none of us could have possibly created by ourselves.
Of course, the word minister does mean “servant,” and back in Medieval times much of the administrative and clerical work of the world was in fact done by clerics. The opposite of ministry (or at least its antonym) might be thought of as “Majesty” or more specifically, magister -- the Latin word for “master.” Sovereign rulers would employ both magistrates, who exercised secular authority in courts of law as representatives of the King; and also ministers, who took care of all the little administrative details which kept the kingdom running smoothly.
Ministers of the Gospel meanwhile served an even higher Sovereign, the “Master of the Universe” whose kingdom was not of this world, yet who had given the world the Church in order to serve and comfort the people of God. Here in colonial New England, Puritan ministers sometimes referred to themselves as “ambassadors of Christ,” who were responsible for representing the interests of THEIR Sovereign in much the same way that a foreign minister of some secular government might represent the interests of the King of England or France.
Yet whether humble or exalted, the fundamental work of ministry is service. And according to the doctrine of The Priesthood of All Believers, this is true regardless of whether you are an ordained member of the clergy with some sort of specialized theological education, or simply an ordinary member of a larger community of faith seeking to do God’s work in the world.
Last year just before the holidays I preached a series of sermons about “The Purpose Driven Unitarian” in which I talked about five key activities through which churches serve the wider world: Worship, Education, Fellowship, Community Outreach (which of course includes Social Action) and Pastoral Care. And now I’d like to pick up on that theme by talking a little about how individuals serve within the church -- how we discern our vocation, and discover our own unique “ministry,” as part of a larger faith community.
Of course (as anyone who has seen me out walking with my dog will quickly understand) it is one thing to hear the call, and quite another to answer it. And yet often it seems to me as though just the opposite is even more true -- sometimes we know perfectly well that we are being called to serve, but it seems as though there are so many different places where our efforts are needed that it’s hard to know where to begin. So the challenge of vocational discernment has at least these two components: first figuring out our own unique gifts for service, and then figuring out how and where we can best make use of them.
Discovering our own unique gifts for ministry involves a little bit of soul searching, and a good deal more simple trial and error. It’s not merely a matter of figuring out what we do best -- it also requires figuring out what gives us joy, and leaves us with a sense of accomplishment. In the so-called “real world,” a lot of us get stuck in jobs that we don’t really like but which we do competently enough that other people will give us money to keep doing them...and this is important, because SOMEBODY has to do those jobs, and we all have to eat.
But this should never really happen in a church. In church we are looking for the jobs that will feed us Spiritually -- perhaps not the easiest jobs, perhaps not even the jobs that we do best -- but jobs that stretch us, and allow us to feel like our efforts have really made a difference. And if there are certain jobs that nobody seems to want to do, perhaps it’s time to take a good, hard look at whether that job needs to be done at all. But all of the truly worthwhile jobs will eventually attract someone who considers that particular job worthy of their own best efforts.
And likewise, one of the key responsibilities of the church as a whole is to find a worthy job for everyone in the congregation. These can be big jobs or little jobs or even the very important job of watching others do their jobs and praising and encouraging their efforts. Believe me, there’s nothing like an appreciative audience to make someone feel like their work was worth the effort. And if they then feel inspired to lend a hand as well, so much the better.
The challenge of figuring out How and Where our service can do the most good is even more complicated. Sometimes the most meaningful jobs are not the ones that intrinsically give us joy, but rather those very difficult and troubling tasks where the needs seem overwhelming, and the rewards are not always easy to see. These are the jobs that threaten to break our hearts -- jobs which require a great deal of courage if we are to avoid becoming discouraged, and where the encouragement of others is especially important and appreciated. Yet these are often the most worthy jobs of all, because they allow us to express our most important and deeply-felt values, and even though the results of our efforts may seem small, they are intrinsically meaningful in their own right.
And let’s face facts. We are not always going to be 100% successful in everything we attempt. Actually, let me put this a slightly different way. We are NEVER going to be 100% successful in ANYTHING we attempt. Or if we are, we probably aren’t attempting to do enough. But we shouldn’t let this stop us. The call to ministry is a call to serve something infinitely larger than ourselves, and the work of ministry -- my ministry, your ministries, our shared ministry -- is never done.
I like to think of it as job security.
But just because we understand and accept that we are never going to be 100% successful doesn’t mean that we should think of ourselves as failures. Failure is an entirely different phenomenon altogether. In all walks of life, success is generally the result of a series of failures, and “overnight success” is usually the product of a lifetime of hard work. The only real failure is giving up: on yourself, on your dreams, on God.
I know it sounds a little corny to those of us who are really agnostics (or maybe even closet atheists), but God never gives up on us. So why should we give up on God?
Even if we don’t fully understand, even if we don’t really believe in the kind of Deity we were told about as children, the notion of a powerful Spirit of Creativity larger than our own will or personality, which we can look to for Hope and Inspiration and Encouragement, and which is Just, and Generous, and Compassionate, yet which will always remain ultimately Mysterious and beyond the control of human beings, is an idea in which we can learn to place our trust, a “theory” which helps to explain, however imperfectly, the reality of our experience.
And when we make the decision to serve that Creative Spirit, and to act compassionately and generously toward our neighbors, and to promote hope and defend justice in the world, we are engaging in ministry, whether we chose to believe it or not.
And still, the possibility of failure is a very real danger. In their insightful study of failure in warfare, Military Misfortunes, historians Eliot Cohen and John Gooch present a sophisticated paradigm for analyzing and understanding why some military operations go terribly, terribly wrong. “All battles are in some degree... disasters” military historian John Keegan has observed, but some battles are obviously more disastrous than others. According to Eliot and Gooch, many of these military disasters can be understood as some combination of three far more basic failures: the failure to learn, the failure to anticipate, and the failure to adapt. Any one of these failings is often enough to result in a defeat on the battlefield, while the combination of all three is generally a recipe for a catastrophic military debacle.
But even for those of us who are NOT responsible for planning and leading military campaigns, these same three failings present a similar (albeit somewhat less lethal) danger. What new lessons do we need to learn in order to be confident that our “intelligence” is accurate and up to date? What changes or potential surprises can we anticipate, and how do we prepare ourselves in order to meet those challenges when they occur? And perhaps most importantly, once we discover that a situation is not entirely what we expected, how quickly can we adapt in order to deal with the new circumstances in a timely and effective manner?
Traditional tactics that may have once worked well in times past may be outdated when it comes to overcoming more contemporary obstacles, while the tried and true strategies which allowed us to achieve the objectives of a previous generation may no longer be relevant or appropriate for accomplishing our current mission. Learning how to learn, anticipating the unexpected, and adapting ourselves rapidly to changing circumstances are the keys to overcoming the threat of failure and transforming potential defeat into victory. And it begins when we overcome our fear of trying new things, and embrace the challenge of attempting something we have never done before.
Finally, it’s not enough for just a few individuals within an organization to possess these qualities. They need to become widely shared by everyone, from top to bottom. The intelligence experts in Washington knew that the Japanese were up to something on December 7th, 1941; and had even cabled American military bases in the Pacific to warn them of the fact. But the commanders on the ground at Pearl Harbor -- Admiral Kimmel and General Shorter -- were slow to receive word of this alert, and then failed to anticipate its seriousness or communicate it back down through the chain of command.
Other early warning signs of the impending attack -- radar contact with the incoming planes, and an encounter with a Japanese submarine outside the harbor -- were likewise misinterpreted or ignored, so that when the Japanese struck that Sunday morning it was with complete surprise and devastating effect. And it was only their failure to adapt to the overwhelming success of their initial attack, and to press home their advantage by returning to destroy the fuel depots and repair facilities, that allowed the Pacific Fleet to recover from its defeat and fight another day.
Of course, nothing so serious as a surprise attack by a hostile foreign power ever seems to happen in churches. But the principles at work within the organization are very much the same. As a community, we actively need to encourage one another to learn new skills, to anticipate future changes, and to adapt ourselves to those changing circumstances. We need to communicate more effectively with one another about the things we have learned, so that we have a common understanding of our goals and our mission; and we need to teach one another the things we each need to know in order to accomplish that mission successfully. And when we do, we will have created a truly “shared” ministry. And the larger ministry of this Church will reach out into the world in ways we can now hardly imagine....
Thursday, January 26, 2006
Sunday, January 15, 2006
A Misguided Benevolence?
a sermon preached by the Rev. Dr. Tim W. Jensen
at the First Religious Society in Carlisle, Massachusetts
Martin Luther King Jr. Sunday January 15, 2006
I know that folks have kinda become accustomed these past few months to hearing me start out my sermon with something funny, but do you have any idea how difficult it is to find a funny story about Martin Luther King Jr? This was the best I could come up with:
Q: Why did the Chicken cross the road?
A: Because she had a dream....
Ok, here’s another one...One afternoon while the zoo-keeper was making his rounds he noticed that the orangutan was reading two books: the Bible and Darwin's Origin of Species. Surprised, he asked the ape, "Why are you reading those?"
"Well," replied the orangutan, "I just wanted to figure out whether I am my brother's keeper or my keeper's brother."
In any event, thought I’d try something a little different this year for Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Generally I like to use this Sunday as an opportunity to celebrate Dr. King’s life -- to talk about what a great man he was, and the important things he accomplished (or at least tried to accomplish) for our nation, and also the many ways his life has inspired me personally in my own ministry over the years. But this year I want to try something a little different. This year I want to talk about the unfinished business of Dr. King’s legacy: about the challenges that are still before us a half century after Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus, and set in motion the chain of events that would eventualloy lead to the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and in the process elevate this young, southern, profoundly eloquent black Baptist clergyman to national and then world-wide attention.
I’ve been thinking about these issues not only because of the ways that they’ve come up during the Samuel Alito confirmation hearings, but more particularly as I’ve been reflecting about the racial overtones and subtexts of the recent riots in France, and of course the tragedy of New Orleans in the aftermath of Katrina. I sincerely believe that thanks in large part to the work of Dr. King and of those who followed him, America potentially has a great deal to teach the world about diversity, pluralism, and how to live together peacefully and prosperously in a multicultural democracy. But before we can effectively teach these lessons to others, we first have to finish learning them for ourselves.
We’ve certainly had more than enough time to do our homework. The first black African slaves were imported into North America by the Dutch in 1619, although both the Portuguese and the Spanish had already introduced African slavery into their American colonies almost as soon as the New World had been “discovered” by Europeans a full century earlier. By 1776, when Thomas Jefferson and the Continental Congress declared to the world that “We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness...” there were approximately half a million Americans of African descent living in a condition of involuntary servitude in the territory that would soon become known as the United States -- a number that would grow to nearly four million by the time of Emancipation four score and seven years later, despite the fact that the Jefferson administration had outlawed the further importation of slaves into the United States in 1808, and that all of the northern states had already abolished slavery within their borders by 1804.
But Eli Whitney’s invention of the cotton gin in 1793 had revolutionized the economy of North America, and in the process created a vast internal market for slave labor, which domestic slave traders were more than happy to supply. The happiness of both southern planters and northern mill owners was pursued at the expense of both the liberty and often the lives of a captive labor force whose only real share of the prosperity they generated was to be beaten and whipped, to be raped, and to witness the systematic destruction of their families as husbands and wives, sons and daughters, aunts, uncles, cousins, nephews and nieces were “sold down the river” in order to pick the cotton that made the textile industry here in New England possible.
And then it was only after another century of discrimination and exploitation, of segregation and sharecropping, and an intentional and systematic suppression of liberty and denial of justice often violently enforced by night riding lynch mobs, that Martin Luther King Jr. stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and addressed the quarter of a million people who had gathered there to listen to him, and countless more who would hear his message through the media, both that day and on down through the years. The words King uttered that day, and especially his vision of a time when “the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave-owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood,” and where “little children will...live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character” remain so vividly in our minds that we can easily overlook the point he was trying to make earlier in the speech: that the people assembled there that day had “come to our nation’s capital to cash a check....a check which has come back marked ‘insufficient funds.’ We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so we’ve come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice....”
We Americans like to believe that we live in a Land of Opportunity: a “melting-pot” of immigrants from all over the world, where anyone who is willing to work hard and sacrifice can create a better life, if not for themselves, than at least for their children. And yet there is one significant and easily-recognizable group of our citizens who still have not fully shared in this promise. Their families have typically been in this country far longer than mine, for instance; and for generations they have done much more than their fair share of the truly difficult, back-breaking menial work that has made American prosperity possible. The persistent influence of this long-established cultural racism becomes even more problematic when we recognize that the idea of “race” itself is simply a social construction. It has no basis in modern biology; it is merely something we have taught ourselves to see. Biologically, the children of former slaves and the children of former slave-owners often ARE literally brothers and sisters to one another, or at the very least distant cousins. It’s not a pretty story, but it is a scientific and a historical fact. Racial inequality is the lingering legacy of a 500 year old ideology which was used by one side of a large, extended family to justify and excuse the buying and selling of the other side of that family as property, exploiting them as if they were merely another form of livestock, and shamelessly profiting from that exploitation.
There’s at least one additional complicating factor in this already complex social equation, which is that because of this long heritage of economic exploitation, skin color has also become a marker of social class in this supposedly-classless society of ours. Yes, it’s a stereotype, and yes it’s also a form of prejudice, but the sad reality is that even today, if your skin happens to be dark, the immediate assumption (often not without reason) is that you are poor as well. And if you also happen to be young, and male, and wearing a particular style of clothing, a lot of people are automatically going to presume that you are dangerous and up to no good as well. All too often these kinds of negative expectations become self-fulfilling, as young people learn to see themselves as others see them, and give in to the pressure to live up to the stereotypes. And on some level it doesn’t seem to matter how hard you work or how much you study, how well you dress or how wealthy you become, even whether your image becomes a beloved international cultural icon and your name a familiar household word. Michael Jordon or Michael Jackson, Oprah or OJ. You may be rich, but you’re still not white...and in a world where black or white still seems to matter, it can often seem like that’s the ONLY thing that matters.
The complexities of healthy race relations are baffling even for the most perceptive and well-intentioned. No one now living in America today is individually responsible for the injustices of slavery, even though many of us have benefited indirectly and collectively from the legacy of that peculiar institution. I think it’s a little more difficult to make the case that the descendants of former slaves do not somehow still suffer from the vestigial consequences of their ancestors’ oppression, even though it’s unpopular to acknowledge that reality in a society which values the ideal of self-reliant individualism. How can we possibly hope to have repaired the social damage done by four and a half centuries of legally sanctioned injustice in a mere four decades? Certainly we’ve made a great deal of progress since that day two score and three years ago when Martin Luther King Jr. stood on the steps of the Lincoln memorial and insisted that Uncle Sam make good on his bad check. But the interest alone on that enormous debt may well be more than we can pay back in our lifetimes. And the longer we wait to pay what we owe, the harder it will be to pay it back in full.
I know there are many people in our society, and probably many people right here in this church, who dismiss the idea of paying reparations for the injustices of slavery as hopelessly naive: at best a form of misguided benevolence intended primarily to assuage liberal guilt, and with little real chance of correcting the situation it presumes to address. And if it were simply allowed to become a matter of writing out checks to every living descendent of slaves now residing in America, this would doubtlessly be true. But it also occurs to me that once we accept the undeniable truth that the children of former slaves and the children of former slave-owners are in fact members of the same family, there is another tried and true method for giving a hand-up to one’s down and out relatives.
Try to imagine how you would react if one of your children dropped out of high school and started hanging out with a tough crowd, experimenting with drugs and running afoul of the law. I know it happens, even here in a place like Carlisle; but I also imagine that most of us would make every possible effort and spare no expense to get our child back on the right track again, and that even if we ultimately failed in our task it wouldn’t be for lack of trying. None of us want to spoil our children, but none of us want to see them fail either...so we try to give them the skills they need to succeed in the world, while at the same time attempting to shield them as best we can from at least the potentially most disastrous consequences of their inevitable mistakes. And if they need a favor, or a loan, or a job, or simply a helping hand from the old man...well, who among you, if your child asked for bread, would give them a stone?
Of course, there is a down-side to old-fashioned Nepotism which needs to be taken into account as well. When people mistakenly learn to take their advantages and privileges for granted; when success comes too easily, and certain individuals are promoted over other deserving souls solely because of their family connections, not only does it call into question the legitimacy of all their other achievements, but they may also fail to develop the abilities they need to confront and overcome real adversity when they meet it. Finding that right combination of challenge and preferment, which allows individuals to learn from their mistakes without being destroyed by them, is a delicate matter. The pressure to succeed in a community where expectations are high and failure is simply not an option can feel overwhelming. But it is marginal compared to the stress of living in a fundamentally hostile environment where the consequences of even the slightest failure are often fatal.
Navigating a world where the idea of race is understood as just a fiction, but the consequences of racism are still very real; where individual resonsibility and achievement are valued, but collective obligations conveniently overlooked, and collective privileges taken for granted; where skin color has become an indelible marker of social class, but the harsh economic and cultural realities of a society divided by class are often ignored or denied by those who benefit from them most; and where stereotyped expectations and prejudices shape the perceptions and the experiences of both the Privileged and the Marginalized, is certainly not easy for even the most humble and enlightened souls. Yet the path from where we are to the world envisioned by Dr. King leads through that complex labyrinth, and up a steep (and often slippery) slope to the top of a mountain, and then beyond. Let’s not be afraid to follow where it leads. Why did the chicken cross the road? Because she found the courage to pursue her dreams, and to sing aloud as she walked, in the words of the old Negro spiritual:
“Free at Last! Free at Last! Thank God Almighty, we are Free at last....”
at the First Religious Society in Carlisle, Massachusetts
Martin Luther King Jr. Sunday January 15, 2006
I know that folks have kinda become accustomed these past few months to hearing me start out my sermon with something funny, but do you have any idea how difficult it is to find a funny story about Martin Luther King Jr? This was the best I could come up with:
Q: Why did the Chicken cross the road?
A: Because she had a dream....
Ok, here’s another one...One afternoon while the zoo-keeper was making his rounds he noticed that the orangutan was reading two books: the Bible and Darwin's Origin of Species. Surprised, he asked the ape, "Why are you reading those?"
"Well," replied the orangutan, "I just wanted to figure out whether I am my brother's keeper or my keeper's brother."
In any event, thought I’d try something a little different this year for Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Generally I like to use this Sunday as an opportunity to celebrate Dr. King’s life -- to talk about what a great man he was, and the important things he accomplished (or at least tried to accomplish) for our nation, and also the many ways his life has inspired me personally in my own ministry over the years. But this year I want to try something a little different. This year I want to talk about the unfinished business of Dr. King’s legacy: about the challenges that are still before us a half century after Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus, and set in motion the chain of events that would eventualloy lead to the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and in the process elevate this young, southern, profoundly eloquent black Baptist clergyman to national and then world-wide attention.
I’ve been thinking about these issues not only because of the ways that they’ve come up during the Samuel Alito confirmation hearings, but more particularly as I’ve been reflecting about the racial overtones and subtexts of the recent riots in France, and of course the tragedy of New Orleans in the aftermath of Katrina. I sincerely believe that thanks in large part to the work of Dr. King and of those who followed him, America potentially has a great deal to teach the world about diversity, pluralism, and how to live together peacefully and prosperously in a multicultural democracy. But before we can effectively teach these lessons to others, we first have to finish learning them for ourselves.
We’ve certainly had more than enough time to do our homework. The first black African slaves were imported into North America by the Dutch in 1619, although both the Portuguese and the Spanish had already introduced African slavery into their American colonies almost as soon as the New World had been “discovered” by Europeans a full century earlier. By 1776, when Thomas Jefferson and the Continental Congress declared to the world that “We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness...” there were approximately half a million Americans of African descent living in a condition of involuntary servitude in the territory that would soon become known as the United States -- a number that would grow to nearly four million by the time of Emancipation four score and seven years later, despite the fact that the Jefferson administration had outlawed the further importation of slaves into the United States in 1808, and that all of the northern states had already abolished slavery within their borders by 1804.
But Eli Whitney’s invention of the cotton gin in 1793 had revolutionized the economy of North America, and in the process created a vast internal market for slave labor, which domestic slave traders were more than happy to supply. The happiness of both southern planters and northern mill owners was pursued at the expense of both the liberty and often the lives of a captive labor force whose only real share of the prosperity they generated was to be beaten and whipped, to be raped, and to witness the systematic destruction of their families as husbands and wives, sons and daughters, aunts, uncles, cousins, nephews and nieces were “sold down the river” in order to pick the cotton that made the textile industry here in New England possible.
And then it was only after another century of discrimination and exploitation, of segregation and sharecropping, and an intentional and systematic suppression of liberty and denial of justice often violently enforced by night riding lynch mobs, that Martin Luther King Jr. stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and addressed the quarter of a million people who had gathered there to listen to him, and countless more who would hear his message through the media, both that day and on down through the years. The words King uttered that day, and especially his vision of a time when “the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave-owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood,” and where “little children will...live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character” remain so vividly in our minds that we can easily overlook the point he was trying to make earlier in the speech: that the people assembled there that day had “come to our nation’s capital to cash a check....a check which has come back marked ‘insufficient funds.’ We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so we’ve come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice....”
We Americans like to believe that we live in a Land of Opportunity: a “melting-pot” of immigrants from all over the world, where anyone who is willing to work hard and sacrifice can create a better life, if not for themselves, than at least for their children. And yet there is one significant and easily-recognizable group of our citizens who still have not fully shared in this promise. Their families have typically been in this country far longer than mine, for instance; and for generations they have done much more than their fair share of the truly difficult, back-breaking menial work that has made American prosperity possible. The persistent influence of this long-established cultural racism becomes even more problematic when we recognize that the idea of “race” itself is simply a social construction. It has no basis in modern biology; it is merely something we have taught ourselves to see. Biologically, the children of former slaves and the children of former slave-owners often ARE literally brothers and sisters to one another, or at the very least distant cousins. It’s not a pretty story, but it is a scientific and a historical fact. Racial inequality is the lingering legacy of a 500 year old ideology which was used by one side of a large, extended family to justify and excuse the buying and selling of the other side of that family as property, exploiting them as if they were merely another form of livestock, and shamelessly profiting from that exploitation.
There’s at least one additional complicating factor in this already complex social equation, which is that because of this long heritage of economic exploitation, skin color has also become a marker of social class in this supposedly-classless society of ours. Yes, it’s a stereotype, and yes it’s also a form of prejudice, but the sad reality is that even today, if your skin happens to be dark, the immediate assumption (often not without reason) is that you are poor as well. And if you also happen to be young, and male, and wearing a particular style of clothing, a lot of people are automatically going to presume that you are dangerous and up to no good as well. All too often these kinds of negative expectations become self-fulfilling, as young people learn to see themselves as others see them, and give in to the pressure to live up to the stereotypes. And on some level it doesn’t seem to matter how hard you work or how much you study, how well you dress or how wealthy you become, even whether your image becomes a beloved international cultural icon and your name a familiar household word. Michael Jordon or Michael Jackson, Oprah or OJ. You may be rich, but you’re still not white...and in a world where black or white still seems to matter, it can often seem like that’s the ONLY thing that matters.
The complexities of healthy race relations are baffling even for the most perceptive and well-intentioned. No one now living in America today is individually responsible for the injustices of slavery, even though many of us have benefited indirectly and collectively from the legacy of that peculiar institution. I think it’s a little more difficult to make the case that the descendants of former slaves do not somehow still suffer from the vestigial consequences of their ancestors’ oppression, even though it’s unpopular to acknowledge that reality in a society which values the ideal of self-reliant individualism. How can we possibly hope to have repaired the social damage done by four and a half centuries of legally sanctioned injustice in a mere four decades? Certainly we’ve made a great deal of progress since that day two score and three years ago when Martin Luther King Jr. stood on the steps of the Lincoln memorial and insisted that Uncle Sam make good on his bad check. But the interest alone on that enormous debt may well be more than we can pay back in our lifetimes. And the longer we wait to pay what we owe, the harder it will be to pay it back in full.
I know there are many people in our society, and probably many people right here in this church, who dismiss the idea of paying reparations for the injustices of slavery as hopelessly naive: at best a form of misguided benevolence intended primarily to assuage liberal guilt, and with little real chance of correcting the situation it presumes to address. And if it were simply allowed to become a matter of writing out checks to every living descendent of slaves now residing in America, this would doubtlessly be true. But it also occurs to me that once we accept the undeniable truth that the children of former slaves and the children of former slave-owners are in fact members of the same family, there is another tried and true method for giving a hand-up to one’s down and out relatives.
Try to imagine how you would react if one of your children dropped out of high school and started hanging out with a tough crowd, experimenting with drugs and running afoul of the law. I know it happens, even here in a place like Carlisle; but I also imagine that most of us would make every possible effort and spare no expense to get our child back on the right track again, and that even if we ultimately failed in our task it wouldn’t be for lack of trying. None of us want to spoil our children, but none of us want to see them fail either...so we try to give them the skills they need to succeed in the world, while at the same time attempting to shield them as best we can from at least the potentially most disastrous consequences of their inevitable mistakes. And if they need a favor, or a loan, or a job, or simply a helping hand from the old man...well, who among you, if your child asked for bread, would give them a stone?
Of course, there is a down-side to old-fashioned Nepotism which needs to be taken into account as well. When people mistakenly learn to take their advantages and privileges for granted; when success comes too easily, and certain individuals are promoted over other deserving souls solely because of their family connections, not only does it call into question the legitimacy of all their other achievements, but they may also fail to develop the abilities they need to confront and overcome real adversity when they meet it. Finding that right combination of challenge and preferment, which allows individuals to learn from their mistakes without being destroyed by them, is a delicate matter. The pressure to succeed in a community where expectations are high and failure is simply not an option can feel overwhelming. But it is marginal compared to the stress of living in a fundamentally hostile environment where the consequences of even the slightest failure are often fatal.
Navigating a world where the idea of race is understood as just a fiction, but the consequences of racism are still very real; where individual resonsibility and achievement are valued, but collective obligations conveniently overlooked, and collective privileges taken for granted; where skin color has become an indelible marker of social class, but the harsh economic and cultural realities of a society divided by class are often ignored or denied by those who benefit from them most; and where stereotyped expectations and prejudices shape the perceptions and the experiences of both the Privileged and the Marginalized, is certainly not easy for even the most humble and enlightened souls. Yet the path from where we are to the world envisioned by Dr. King leads through that complex labyrinth, and up a steep (and often slippery) slope to the top of a mountain, and then beyond. Let’s not be afraid to follow where it leads. Why did the chicken cross the road? Because she found the courage to pursue her dreams, and to sing aloud as she walked, in the words of the old Negro spiritual:
“Free at Last! Free at Last! Thank God Almighty, we are Free at last....”
Sunday, January 8, 2006
A Religion Like Sunshine
a sermon preached by the Rev. Dr. Tim W. Jensen
at the First Religious Society in Carlisle, Massachusetts
Sunday January 8th, 2006
Opening Words: “Avoid fried meats which angry up the blood. If your stomach disputes you, lie down and pacify it with cool thoughts. Keep the juices flowing by jangling about gently as you move. Go very light on the vices, such as carrying on in society. The social ramble ain’t restful. Avoid running at all times. Don’t look back. Something might be gaining on you.”
--Leroy “Satchel” Paige, How to Stay Young [Colliers, 1953]
******
When I was living down in West Texas many years ago, I heard a story about a fundamentalist preacher who was driving home from a holiday party one New Year’s Eve when he was pulled over by a Texas Ranger.
Smelling alcohol on the minister’s breath, and noticing an empty wine bottle on the floor of the car, the officer asked: “Sir, have you been drinking?”
“Only water,” the evangelist replied.
The Ranger shined his flashlight on the bottle and said: “Then why do I smell wine?”
The preacher bent over and picked up the bottle, sniffed it and exclaimed “Praise Jesus! He’s done it again!”
I don’t know about you, but I for one am happy to have the holidays behind us. Even though the nights are still long and the weather bitter cold, and in many ways the worst days of winter are still ahead of us, it’s comforting to feel like we’ve at least turned a corner and are starting something new -- that from here on out the days are going to grow longer and longer (at least for the next six months) -- that the light is slowly but inexorably coming back into the world, and with it (eventually) warmer weather and the rebirth of new life in the spring.
Images of light and darkness are commonplace in the realm of theology. We seek enlightenment, see the light, or perhaps give ourselves over to the dark side, succumb to the temptations of the Prince of Darkness. And of course as you all know, virtually every week I like to conclude our service with a benediction that begins “Be ours a religious which like sunshine, goes everywhere.” These words (and the others which accompany them) were originally written by the 19th century Unitarian minister Theodore Parker (who is perhaps best known around here as the minister for whom my dog is named).
Theodore Parker was a remarkable man. He grew up in Lexington in a farming family (in fact his grandfather, Captain John Parker, had commanded the Minutemen on the Lexington Common in 1775). Parker attended Harvard College, but was never granted a degree because he couldn’t afford to pay his tuition, even though he completed the entire four year curriculum in about a year and a half. He was a prodigious scholar, an outspoken abolitionist and social activist, and he had some very radical ideas about theology as well, which at first were not very well received by his colleagues in the ministry, but eventually became widespread throughout our movement as a younger generation of ministers who greatly admired Parker and who shared his views began to preach about them to their congregations.
One of Parker’s most influential ideas was his concept of “Absolute Religion.” Parker believed that spirituality (or what would have been called in those days “the religious sentiment”) was something instinctive to the human soul, and that all historical religions were simply imperfect cultural manifestations of an underlying natural or “absolute” religion, which, like sunshine, was everywhere under the sun. These ideas weren’t original to Parker, but he expressed them with such eloquence and enthusiasm that his “new views” soon became known as “Parkerism,” while those who agreed with his “abundant heresies” were called “Parkerites.” Theodore Parker died of tuberculosis in 1860 at the age of 49, while on a trip to Italy which he hoped would restore his health. But his theology lived on in the hearts and minds of his many admirers, some of whom formed an organization known as the “Free Religious Association” in order to carry the flame of Parkerism beyond the boundaries of the Unitarian Church.
In the early 1870’s the Unitarian minister James Freeman Clarke published a two-volume work titled Ten Great Religions which explored this idea of “the sympathy of religions” in great depth. Two decades later, Unitarians (and Universalists) in Chicago were the principal organizers of the first ever “World Parliament of Religions,” which brought together representatives of faith traditions from all across the globe in order to discuss the common themes among their faiths. By this time, Parker’s “new views” had become old hat, and his notion of “Absolute Religion” was an almost Universal article of faith among religious liberals and other freethinkers.
In the brief introduction to Unitarian Universalism he wrote in collaboration with his colleague John Buehrens titled Our Chosen Faith, Forrester Church uses an extended metaphor of a cathedral to describe the unity within diversity which undergirds this style of understanding the religious life of human kind....
*****
Imagine awakening one morning from a deep and dreamless sleep to find yourself in the nave of a vast cathedral. Like a child newborn, untutored save to moisture, nurture, rhythm, and the profound comforts at the heart of darkness, you open your eyes upon a world unseen, indeed unimaginable, before. It is a world of light and dancing shadow, stone and glass, life and death. This second birth, at once miraculous and natural, is in some ways not unlike the first. A new awakening, it consecrates your life with sacraments of pain you do not understand and promised joy you will never full call your own.
Such awakenings may happen only once in a lifetime, or many times. But when they do, what you took for granted before is presented as a gift: difficult, yet precious and good. Not that you know what to do with your gift, or even what it really means, only how much it matters. Awakening to the call stirring deep within you, the call of life itself -- the call of God -- you begin your pilgrimage.
Before you do, look about you; contemplate the mystery and contemplate with awe. This cathedral is as ancient as humankind, its cornerstone the first altar, marked with the tincture of blood and stained with tears. Search for a lifetime, which is all you are surely given, and you shall never know its limits, visit all its apses, worship at its myriad shrines, nor span its celestial ceiling with your gaze....
Welcome to the cathedral of the world.
Above all else, contemplate the windows. In the cathedral of the world there are windows without number, some long forgotten, covered with many patinas of dust, others revered by millions, the most sacred of shrines. Each in its own way is beautiful. Some are abstract, others representational; some dark and meditative, others bright and dazzling. Each tells a story about the creation of the world, the meaning of history, the purpose of life, the nature of humankind, the mystery of death. The windows of the cathedral are where the light shines in....
Fundamentalists of the right and left claim that the light shines through their window only. Skeptics can make a similar mistake, only to draw the opposite conclusion. Seeing the bewildering variety of windows and observing the folly of the worshipers, they conclude that there is not light. But the windows are not the light. The whole light -- God, Truth, call it what you will -- is beyond our perceiving. God is veiled.... Consequently, not only the world’s religions, but every ideology, every scientific worldview, every aesthetic school, has its windows in the cathedral of the world. In each the light and darkness mingle in ways that suggest meaning for those whose angle of vision is tilted in that particular direction. Attracted to the patterns of refracted light, the playing of shadows, the partial clarification of reality, these people are also worshippers; their windows too become shrines.
None of us is fully able to perceive the truth that shines through another person’s window, nor the falsehood that we may perceive as truth. Thus we can easily mistake another’s good for evil, and our own evil for good. A true, and therefore humble, universalist theology addresses this tendency, which we all share, while speaking eloquently to the overarching crisis of our times: dogmatic division in an ever more intimate, fractious, and yet interdependent world. It posits the following fundamental principles:
1. There is one Reality, one Truth, one God.
2. This Reality shines though every window in the cathedral...
3. No one can perceive it directly, the mystery being forever veiled.
4. Yet, on the cathedral floor and in the eyes of each beholder, refracted and reflected through different windows in different ways, it plays in patterns that suggest meaning, challenging us to interpret and live by the meaning as best we can.
5. Therefore, each window illumines Truth (with a large T) in a different way, leading to different truths (with a small t), and these in differing measure according to the insight and receptivity of the beholder.
*****
In his subsequent, companion chapter of Our Chosen Faith, co-author John Buehrens makes the following observation: “I have one problem with the image of ‘the cathedral of the world,’ John writes. “Within the cathedral, no one seems to be talking to anyone else.” It’s one thing to be able to appreciate the artistry of windows other than one’s own favorites, but a deep and abiding understanding of different faith traditions requires dialogue, which in turn produces new insights which become the common property of all. And this is also true for people who nominally share the same faith tradition, but whose individual experiences perhaps give them different perspectives on the same set of symbols and concepts.
Mere words will never be able to express completely the full spectrum of our collective individual experiences of the sacred, the holy, the divine. No image, graven or otherwise, can capture the awesome and terrifying magnificence of God’s countenance (assuming that God even has a countenance, or that we will ever see it face to face and live). And as Forrest also reminds us, “God is not God’s name, but our name for that which is greater than all and yet present in each.” We use words and pictures and metaphors and images to communicate with others our often life-changing experiences of something which is essentially invisible and unspeakable, and which often (at least at first) leaves us speechless. Yet until we find the voice to speak our truth in love, and the attentiveness to listen lovingly to the truths of others, we remain alone in our faith, isolated from the rest of the human community.
Likewise, we all know that sunshine doesn’t really go everywhere. Sometimes it’s night, sometimes it is cloudy or overcast, and there are some places where “the sun don’t shine” and where we would really rather not go, either literally or figuratively. Yet the metaphor of sunshine, which gives the world light and warmth and life, and is literally the ultimate source of everything that is (at least here in our corner of the universe) is a powerful image for describing the natural, universal, Absolute religion which is the ultimate source of enlightenment for every historical faith tradition, and remains the source of our own spiritual experience as well. There are countless varieties of plants in God’s garden, and even more in the wild, wild wood beyond our cultivation. But with fertile soil, and ample water, and just the right amount of organic compost, they all bloom under the same sunshine, and bear whatever fruit they are capable of bearing. And they all have inherent worth and value in God’s sight.
My wish for us all in this season of new beginnings is that we give ourselves the opportunity, the space, and the sunlight to bloom. And yes, we will probably need to do a little weeding and pruning, and yes we are also going to need to water and fertilize and cultivate our garden, and protect our seedlings as best we can from the unwanted nibbles of wild creatures. But this is all certainly well within our ability. By working together, side by side, communicating honestly and sharing our dreams and our collective vision, by rolling up our sleeves and getting our hands just a little dirty, the perennial seeds we plant this spring will provide us with a miraculous harvest in seasons to come, when the days once more grow shorter and darker, and sunshine seems only a distant memory.
*******
READING: (authorship unknown)
‘Twas the month after Christmas, and all through the house
Nothing would fit me, not even a blouse
The cookies I’d nibbled, things I just HAD to taste
At those holiday parties had gone straight to my waist.
When I stepped on the scales there arose such a number
That I dashed from the room! (well, less a dash than a lumber).
I recalled all the marvelous meals I’d prepared;
All the gravies and sauces and beef nicely rared,
The cakes and the pies, the bread and the cheese
And the way that I’d never said “No thank you, please.”
As I dressed myself in my husband’s old shirt
And prepared once again to do battle with dirt--
I said to myself, as only I can
“You can’t spend all winter disguised as a man!”
So -- away with the last of the sour cream dip
Get rid of the fruit cake, every cracker and chip
Every last bit of food that I crave must be banished
Till all the additional ounces have vanished.
I won’t have a cookie -- not even a lick.
I’ll want only to chew on a celery stick.
I won’t have hot biscuits, or corn bread, or pie,
I’ll munch on a carrot and quietly cry.
I’m hungry, I’m lonesome, and life is a bore--
But isn’t that what January is for?
Unable to giggle, no longer a riot.
Happy New Year to all, and to all a good diet!
at the First Religious Society in Carlisle, Massachusetts
Sunday January 8th, 2006
Opening Words: “Avoid fried meats which angry up the blood. If your stomach disputes you, lie down and pacify it with cool thoughts. Keep the juices flowing by jangling about gently as you move. Go very light on the vices, such as carrying on in society. The social ramble ain’t restful. Avoid running at all times. Don’t look back. Something might be gaining on you.”
--Leroy “Satchel” Paige, How to Stay Young [Colliers, 1953]
******
When I was living down in West Texas many years ago, I heard a story about a fundamentalist preacher who was driving home from a holiday party one New Year’s Eve when he was pulled over by a Texas Ranger.
Smelling alcohol on the minister’s breath, and noticing an empty wine bottle on the floor of the car, the officer asked: “Sir, have you been drinking?”
“Only water,” the evangelist replied.
The Ranger shined his flashlight on the bottle and said: “Then why do I smell wine?”
The preacher bent over and picked up the bottle, sniffed it and exclaimed “Praise Jesus! He’s done it again!”
I don’t know about you, but I for one am happy to have the holidays behind us. Even though the nights are still long and the weather bitter cold, and in many ways the worst days of winter are still ahead of us, it’s comforting to feel like we’ve at least turned a corner and are starting something new -- that from here on out the days are going to grow longer and longer (at least for the next six months) -- that the light is slowly but inexorably coming back into the world, and with it (eventually) warmer weather and the rebirth of new life in the spring.
Images of light and darkness are commonplace in the realm of theology. We seek enlightenment, see the light, or perhaps give ourselves over to the dark side, succumb to the temptations of the Prince of Darkness. And of course as you all know, virtually every week I like to conclude our service with a benediction that begins “Be ours a religious which like sunshine, goes everywhere.” These words (and the others which accompany them) were originally written by the 19th century Unitarian minister Theodore Parker (who is perhaps best known around here as the minister for whom my dog is named).
Theodore Parker was a remarkable man. He grew up in Lexington in a farming family (in fact his grandfather, Captain John Parker, had commanded the Minutemen on the Lexington Common in 1775). Parker attended Harvard College, but was never granted a degree because he couldn’t afford to pay his tuition, even though he completed the entire four year curriculum in about a year and a half. He was a prodigious scholar, an outspoken abolitionist and social activist, and he had some very radical ideas about theology as well, which at first were not very well received by his colleagues in the ministry, but eventually became widespread throughout our movement as a younger generation of ministers who greatly admired Parker and who shared his views began to preach about them to their congregations.
One of Parker’s most influential ideas was his concept of “Absolute Religion.” Parker believed that spirituality (or what would have been called in those days “the religious sentiment”) was something instinctive to the human soul, and that all historical religions were simply imperfect cultural manifestations of an underlying natural or “absolute” religion, which, like sunshine, was everywhere under the sun. These ideas weren’t original to Parker, but he expressed them with such eloquence and enthusiasm that his “new views” soon became known as “Parkerism,” while those who agreed with his “abundant heresies” were called “Parkerites.” Theodore Parker died of tuberculosis in 1860 at the age of 49, while on a trip to Italy which he hoped would restore his health. But his theology lived on in the hearts and minds of his many admirers, some of whom formed an organization known as the “Free Religious Association” in order to carry the flame of Parkerism beyond the boundaries of the Unitarian Church.
In the early 1870’s the Unitarian minister James Freeman Clarke published a two-volume work titled Ten Great Religions which explored this idea of “the sympathy of religions” in great depth. Two decades later, Unitarians (and Universalists) in Chicago were the principal organizers of the first ever “World Parliament of Religions,” which brought together representatives of faith traditions from all across the globe in order to discuss the common themes among their faiths. By this time, Parker’s “new views” had become old hat, and his notion of “Absolute Religion” was an almost Universal article of faith among religious liberals and other freethinkers.
In the brief introduction to Unitarian Universalism he wrote in collaboration with his colleague John Buehrens titled Our Chosen Faith, Forrester Church uses an extended metaphor of a cathedral to describe the unity within diversity which undergirds this style of understanding the religious life of human kind....
*****
Imagine awakening one morning from a deep and dreamless sleep to find yourself in the nave of a vast cathedral. Like a child newborn, untutored save to moisture, nurture, rhythm, and the profound comforts at the heart of darkness, you open your eyes upon a world unseen, indeed unimaginable, before. It is a world of light and dancing shadow, stone and glass, life and death. This second birth, at once miraculous and natural, is in some ways not unlike the first. A new awakening, it consecrates your life with sacraments of pain you do not understand and promised joy you will never full call your own.
Such awakenings may happen only once in a lifetime, or many times. But when they do, what you took for granted before is presented as a gift: difficult, yet precious and good. Not that you know what to do with your gift, or even what it really means, only how much it matters. Awakening to the call stirring deep within you, the call of life itself -- the call of God -- you begin your pilgrimage.
Before you do, look about you; contemplate the mystery and contemplate with awe. This cathedral is as ancient as humankind, its cornerstone the first altar, marked with the tincture of blood and stained with tears. Search for a lifetime, which is all you are surely given, and you shall never know its limits, visit all its apses, worship at its myriad shrines, nor span its celestial ceiling with your gaze....
Welcome to the cathedral of the world.
Above all else, contemplate the windows. In the cathedral of the world there are windows without number, some long forgotten, covered with many patinas of dust, others revered by millions, the most sacred of shrines. Each in its own way is beautiful. Some are abstract, others representational; some dark and meditative, others bright and dazzling. Each tells a story about the creation of the world, the meaning of history, the purpose of life, the nature of humankind, the mystery of death. The windows of the cathedral are where the light shines in....
Fundamentalists of the right and left claim that the light shines through their window only. Skeptics can make a similar mistake, only to draw the opposite conclusion. Seeing the bewildering variety of windows and observing the folly of the worshipers, they conclude that there is not light. But the windows are not the light. The whole light -- God, Truth, call it what you will -- is beyond our perceiving. God is veiled.... Consequently, not only the world’s religions, but every ideology, every scientific worldview, every aesthetic school, has its windows in the cathedral of the world. In each the light and darkness mingle in ways that suggest meaning for those whose angle of vision is tilted in that particular direction. Attracted to the patterns of refracted light, the playing of shadows, the partial clarification of reality, these people are also worshippers; their windows too become shrines.
None of us is fully able to perceive the truth that shines through another person’s window, nor the falsehood that we may perceive as truth. Thus we can easily mistake another’s good for evil, and our own evil for good. A true, and therefore humble, universalist theology addresses this tendency, which we all share, while speaking eloquently to the overarching crisis of our times: dogmatic division in an ever more intimate, fractious, and yet interdependent world. It posits the following fundamental principles:
1. There is one Reality, one Truth, one God.
2. This Reality shines though every window in the cathedral...
3. No one can perceive it directly, the mystery being forever veiled.
4. Yet, on the cathedral floor and in the eyes of each beholder, refracted and reflected through different windows in different ways, it plays in patterns that suggest meaning, challenging us to interpret and live by the meaning as best we can.
5. Therefore, each window illumines Truth (with a large T) in a different way, leading to different truths (with a small t), and these in differing measure according to the insight and receptivity of the beholder.
*****
In his subsequent, companion chapter of Our Chosen Faith, co-author John Buehrens makes the following observation: “I have one problem with the image of ‘the cathedral of the world,’ John writes. “Within the cathedral, no one seems to be talking to anyone else.” It’s one thing to be able to appreciate the artistry of windows other than one’s own favorites, but a deep and abiding understanding of different faith traditions requires dialogue, which in turn produces new insights which become the common property of all. And this is also true for people who nominally share the same faith tradition, but whose individual experiences perhaps give them different perspectives on the same set of symbols and concepts.
Mere words will never be able to express completely the full spectrum of our collective individual experiences of the sacred, the holy, the divine. No image, graven or otherwise, can capture the awesome and terrifying magnificence of God’s countenance (assuming that God even has a countenance, or that we will ever see it face to face and live). And as Forrest also reminds us, “God is not God’s name, but our name for that which is greater than all and yet present in each.” We use words and pictures and metaphors and images to communicate with others our often life-changing experiences of something which is essentially invisible and unspeakable, and which often (at least at first) leaves us speechless. Yet until we find the voice to speak our truth in love, and the attentiveness to listen lovingly to the truths of others, we remain alone in our faith, isolated from the rest of the human community.
Likewise, we all know that sunshine doesn’t really go everywhere. Sometimes it’s night, sometimes it is cloudy or overcast, and there are some places where “the sun don’t shine” and where we would really rather not go, either literally or figuratively. Yet the metaphor of sunshine, which gives the world light and warmth and life, and is literally the ultimate source of everything that is (at least here in our corner of the universe) is a powerful image for describing the natural, universal, Absolute religion which is the ultimate source of enlightenment for every historical faith tradition, and remains the source of our own spiritual experience as well. There are countless varieties of plants in God’s garden, and even more in the wild, wild wood beyond our cultivation. But with fertile soil, and ample water, and just the right amount of organic compost, they all bloom under the same sunshine, and bear whatever fruit they are capable of bearing. And they all have inherent worth and value in God’s sight.
My wish for us all in this season of new beginnings is that we give ourselves the opportunity, the space, and the sunlight to bloom. And yes, we will probably need to do a little weeding and pruning, and yes we are also going to need to water and fertilize and cultivate our garden, and protect our seedlings as best we can from the unwanted nibbles of wild creatures. But this is all certainly well within our ability. By working together, side by side, communicating honestly and sharing our dreams and our collective vision, by rolling up our sleeves and getting our hands just a little dirty, the perennial seeds we plant this spring will provide us with a miraculous harvest in seasons to come, when the days once more grow shorter and darker, and sunshine seems only a distant memory.
*******
READING: (authorship unknown)
‘Twas the month after Christmas, and all through the house
Nothing would fit me, not even a blouse
The cookies I’d nibbled, things I just HAD to taste
At those holiday parties had gone straight to my waist.
When I stepped on the scales there arose such a number
That I dashed from the room! (well, less a dash than a lumber).
I recalled all the marvelous meals I’d prepared;
All the gravies and sauces and beef nicely rared,
The cakes and the pies, the bread and the cheese
And the way that I’d never said “No thank you, please.”
As I dressed myself in my husband’s old shirt
And prepared once again to do battle with dirt--
I said to myself, as only I can
“You can’t spend all winter disguised as a man!”
So -- away with the last of the sour cream dip
Get rid of the fruit cake, every cracker and chip
Every last bit of food that I crave must be banished
Till all the additional ounces have vanished.
I won’t have a cookie -- not even a lick.
I’ll want only to chew on a celery stick.
I won’t have hot biscuits, or corn bread, or pie,
I’ll munch on a carrot and quietly cry.
I’m hungry, I’m lonesome, and life is a bore--
But isn’t that what January is for?
Unable to giggle, no longer a riot.
Happy New Year to all, and to all a good diet!
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