It is a Blessing

Sermon Offered at South Church Portsmouth, NH

Martin is a janitor who works for our congregation. He has cared for the building for many years. In the first few months of my employment with South Church, I can remember coming to work through the back door on Court street in the mornings and down the stairs to the social hall where I would often find Martin cleaning up from the 7 am AA meeting. I would greet him with some version of, “Good morning, Martin. How are you today?” To which, every time, he would respond, “I’m perfect. And so are you.”

I am a little uncomfortable admitting this, but I also remember that at the time, and for quite some time, I really didn’t like that response. In my mind as he replied, I would think, “That’s not what you’re supposed to say to this question.” I knew he didn’t mean to offend me. I could tell, even without knowing him very well, that he was speaking philosophically- that this was a practice of mindfulness; or gratitude. I just didn’t like it. It felt like he was pushing something on me that I didn’t want. It was fine if he wanted to reply that he was perfect… but the ‘and so are you’ bothered me. In my view he was breaking an unspoken rule I had somehow learned about spiritual practice. My question was appropriate for coworkers starting their day. His response was too personal. It felt uncomfortable in the same way that it might feel uncomfortable if someone said ‘I will pray for you,’ when you do not have a practice of prayer in your own life, and the offer leaves you feeling weird.

Sometimes I’d laugh and reply with some kind of counter response—something like, “oh, I don’t know about that!” Or, “Hmm. I don’t feel perfect.” As I headed off to my office. But in a relatively short period of time, I simply stopped asking Martin how he was. I would say, “good morning, Martin,” and he would return a ‘good morning, Kirsten” back to me, and we would go on our way.

I liked Martin from the start. He is pleasant and easy going. I just didn’t like that one exchange, and so I avoided it. IF he noticed my shift in greeting, he never mentioned it.

Time passed.

It’s a funny thing, when you work with people for a long time. Martin and I had very different work schedules, but slowly, I began to learn things about him.

He was a boat maker for many years. He lives near the water, and takes a dip nearly every day. In the winter, he often cuts out a hole in the ice for this activity. Martin is deeply spiritual. He spends a lot of time thinking. He has a fascinating shorthand that he uses to record his thoughts about life on scraps of paper that he carries in his pocket. When I am able to slow down and strike up a conversation, he is very generous about sharing his time and his ideas. He seems like he has gotten to a place in his spiritual practice where it has become a formidable buoy for his life, and informs his choices and his priorities. Even when he is in the midst of really hard stuff, he seems to take it all in stride, aware that there is always something to learn from what is unfolding in a moment. Honoring the emotions that come, recognizing what is his to hold, and what he can let go, knowing that things will change; evolve.

Martin, for years, has planned his working hours in this building around the always changing happenings of our busy community. To do this, he pays close attention to the church calendar. Still, many times, Martin has come in on a Friday night or a Sunday afternoon, expecting to be able to mop the social hall, or vacuum in the sanctuary only to find me with some collection of people in the midst of a program that I forgot to put on the calendar. Sleep overs and parent groups have interrupted his work. Glitter has complicated his tasks. Paint has splattered on the carpet. Sometimes we cook in the classrooms…

Every time (Every time!), when I come to Martin with my hands clasped, to apologize for disrupting his routine, he always has the same response. “It’s a blessing,” he says, “everything is as it is meant to be.”

His gratitude has not stopped me from apologizing for missteps and messes, but over the years I have learned to trust his response. Martin truly sees it all as a gift.

I have come to appreciate him deeply and I have learned things from him, including his gentle, but consistent reminders that there are deep rewards which come from having a spiritual practice, and, when you deepen into a truly meaningful practice, it is all but impossible to keep that part of yourself contained to specific times and places.

I grew up in a Unitarian Universalist congregation, but it has only been the last few years that I have begun to understand that what Unitarian Universalism has the potential to be, and how UUism is actually practiced in our churches- those are two different things. I don’t mean that as a criticism. If anything, it’s an invitation to breathe.

I am perfect, and so are you.

I think when I was growing up, something about the way we talked about religion gave me the impression that UU’s should keep our personal beliefs out of the way most of the time, so that we don’t make one another uncomfortable. The idea of avoiding discomfort doesn’t seem like a bad goal, but I have discovered it can have the effect of separating people from one another. Now, when I reflect upon this puzzle, I realize that asking people to minimize parts of themselves for the benefit of others—that’s problematic. I do not want to ask people to keep parts of themselves hidden, I want a faith that celebrates human difference, and marvels at all that we share.

I want our young people to learn about spiritual practices and for us to encourage them to develop their own. That is far less likely to happen if we are not sharing our own faith journeys with one another.

December is a busy month. UU congregations spend this month contemplating lots of different source traditions; digging into Christian teachings, Jewish practices, Black church traditions, and Pagan rituals. We do this because of our shared commitment to the many religious identities represented among us, because intentionally multi-faith experiences break down walls in a world that is too often building them up, and because we have a culture of curiosity in this church, a desire to learn about new things, to find new inspiration. It is no surprise that this month asks a lot of us, and we have to be careful or we risk missing something important. Curiosity is not a bad thing, we can enjoy being exposed to faith experiences that are unfamiliar to us or are quite a stretch from our own world view, but when that occurs, it is easy to separate ourselves from what we are observing. Conversely, if a particular offering speaks to our personal beliefs, we run the risk of feeling like this part is specifically for me, which can also isolate some of us from everyone else.

So what is the work, then, for us as a collective, in order to be in religious community with one another rather than engaging in spiritual practices… individually… next to other people… while those people may or may not be doing the same?

“We are here to awaken from the illusion of our separateness,” says Thich Nhat Hanh.

Religion- writ large- has a complicated history. It has not always been practiced with good intentions, it has been used to hoard power, to manipulate followers, to separate people from one another. Like everything else humans do, it can be a tool to grow love or a tool to grow hate. Unitarian Universalism is not exempt from either of those outcomes. There is nothing inherently ‘special’ about us in this way. However, this idea of covenantal community, a faith that welcomes people with a wide range of perspectives into religious practice, and puts the focus on how we commit to be in community with one another, that idea is compelling. And. If we hope for this faith to be transformative and not shallow or exclusive, it requires real intention.

I am so glad that Martin has a practice in his life that is a buoy for him. What is required of me so that I can receive his understanding when he offers it to me, even if my own perspective draws from a different pool?

I am so grateful to be in community with people who have a practice different than my own. What is required of each of us so that we are actively sharing as we grow; So we are connected through our differences, not in spite of them?

Every Sunday, we pledge to nurture spiritual growth through worship, learning, and community. How are we checking on ourselves to make sure spiritual growth is living through all of our spaces?
How do we talk about the challenges that come with that intention?
What does that look like for you?
Early on, my role in this congregation compelled me to start actively examining my own faith and trying to figure out my own practice. I have been blessed to have meaningful relationships with many deeply faithful people, where I can explore these questions. Among those people are athiests, agnostics, Moslems, Christians, Buddhists, Pagans, Quakers.. What I have observed in all of them, is that they all practice their faith, consistently. (Even if they don’t use the word ‘Faith”, themselves.)

We know this. We know practice is a key to healthy living, to improving in an instrument or a sport. This is true about church, too.

Poet Mary Oliver in her poem, Sometimes, wrote:

Instructions for living a life: Pay Attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.

When I read that, knowing her well (at least as well as you can know someone by reading what they write), I immediately heard in those words a reflection of her spiritual practice.

Spiritual practice becomes religious, I believe, when it is shared with others, when it is changed by others. As UU’s we are essential to one another. Covenant depends on more than one person.

What I have discovered about my own practice, is exemplified in my story about Martin. As I grew into this work, I found it increasingly impossible to keep my own faith in a neat box. The more it reveals itself to me, the more it spills out of me in all kinds of ways. I think people sometimes avoid certain topics around me because they fear I may say something that will make them uncomfortable. How’s that for ironic?

It’s hard to answer a question the way you are expected to answer it, when the question has begun to mean something very different for you.

God is not a part of my faith, but the way God lives in the hearts of people with whom I am committed, allows me to make space for God in my heart somehow. It feels a little like a guest at my table, and I am happy to welcome Them when They show up.
We each have so much to learn, and collectively, we have so much to do if we want to create the Unitarian Universalism that might someday exist.

What do you believe about how the world works?
What has changed for you over time?
What do you do, every day, to push yourself to grow?
Who are your teachers? Who do you teach?
What do you do with suffering?
With grief?
With hate?
With fear?

Relationship is essential to finding the answers to most of the biggest challenges we face- as individuals, as part of a family, a church, a community, a country, a planet. Everything we do not know about other people and other living things is a liability for our collective liberation. I believe that inspiration, hope, energy, awe, all of the things we need to nourish our souls, can be found in the work we endeavor to do with one another.

Teachers are everywhere, and you can spot them when the things that are most essential to who they are, seep out and are offered to you. When you begin to learn how to welcome those moments, you start to discover them everywhere. They grow, much like the light that will begin to grow next week, as we pass the solstice and move toward spring.

What begins here in this small community, inevitably spreads beyond our walls.

Pay Attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.
It is a blessing.

Journey toward Truth

Sermon at South Church Portsmouth- March 10, 2019

Click to listen to this sermon

For many Christians the observance of Lent began this past Wednesday. Lent is a time of penance and reflection marking Jesus’ 40-day fast in the desert- a journey he took at the start of his own ministry.

On the subject of Lent, the Rev. Dr. Amy Laura Hall writes:

Lent is a time for digging and sleuthing, for doing the archival work of the soul. This includes one’s own individual soul, and also the soul of a community, of a neighborhood, of a city, of a school. Lent is a time for uncovering the detailed mess of our history, and I recommend this discipline of memory right alongside the strange assurance that God means salvation for us.

I am a UU who believes in salvation as something we can find in this life we are living, not that it is some promise to come after death, and the Rev. Dr. Hall’s description resonates deeply for me.

I like this image of doing the archival work of the soul. I think I’ve been doing that kind work for some time now, and I don’t know how that work will unfold or what kind of sacrifices it will demand of me, but digging and sleuthing is as close to a description of my personal spiritual practice as any other that I have been able to articulate.

I wish I had started this archival work earlier in my life. I often feel like I’ve come late to the game. This morning I would like to talk about my growing understanding that there was a cost to the innocence of my childhood and early adulthood. I am speaking today from a place of inquiry- feeling my way around something that is still unfolding in my own understanding.

I wonder who I would be, if I had been taught a more honest version of the world when I was growing up. As it was, I am sure I was far less sheltered than many of my peers at the time, and I know I had more exposure to different people, of different ages and identities than many middle class white children in our country, then and now. Still, I was in many ways insulated from much of the truth of the world.

I did not have to grapple with experiences that many other children had no choice but to face. I had well educated parents, a wider family network with accrued wealth which allowed my parents to pursue higher education and to take risks knowing they would not fall too far if they failed. I was shielded from most violence, and hardship. I was loved and encouraged. I lived in a well-resourced school district and I was told that I could be and do anything I set my mind toward.

All of that is as it should be I think, but, I was not told enough about the responsibility that comes with being given all these things in a world where not everyone has the same leg up. I was not told enough about the dark side of all of my good fortune; About why my ancestors were lifted up, while others were kept down. And I was definitely not taught enough about our collective history, or about how to go about righting the wrongs of our collective history. Or about how to change directions on this road we have spent the past many decades fortifying- This road, which continues to sacrifice some for the benefit of others, which continues to benefit me, and my children, and to marginalize other families, other children.

I was not told enough, and so, the outward work of archiving in my community is complicated by the internal work I still need to do within myself. I wonder if any of you feel similarly?

Sometimes when I attempt to tackle injustice in the world, my approach feels clumsy, like one step forward leads to two steps back. A seemingly simple effort reveals layers and layers of complexity which requires more unpacking, more reading, more listening and learning—or unlearning. That within the work of archiving is the pain of realizing how many times I did not recognize the harm that was caused in order for me to have all that I was given. A cycle of seeing the impact of oppressive systems in the world around me and finding ignorance within me that makes me complicit with those systems.

We are not living in a world today which operates from the belief in the worth and dignity of all people, but we as a congregation- we aspire to that principle in this church. And every Sunday as we lift up that aspiration, we also commit to inspire one another to act on our faith in the larger community. I wonder, is it possible to truly recognize the worth and dignity of all people, and to act on our faith, without doing this work of uncovering the detailed mess of our history and how it has sometimes made us blind to truth?

Jeanne Theoharis is a civil rights historian, who published a book last year called A More Beautiful Terrible History. It examines the way we talk about the civil rights era, and calls out the way that our stories about that time are consistently romanticized, made more palatable and more polite. She explains how, by shifting and softening our telling of even this recent history, we “impoverish our ability to see how change happens.” She writes, “As a nation, we need fuller histories- uncomfortable, sobering histories- that hold a mirror to the nation’s past and offer far- reaching lessons for seeing the injustices of our current moment and the task of justice today.”

The archival work we are called to do then, includes digging into the history we have been taught with a critical eye, and looking for the parts of history that have been hidden or distorted or untold. The work, is not work any one of us can do alone, it demands inclusiveness- so that each of us are able to discover what we did not realize we were missing through the wisdom of other people’s life experiences and histories.

So, to begin this soul work we each must examine the ways we hold privilege, the unique set of advantages we have had in our life. Then we must seek wisdom from teachers, leaders, writers and friends who were not given that same privilege, and then, we must listen and build our understanding. Again and again and again. Men cannot dig up the experience that women know in this world without listening and learning from women. White people must seek out the wisdom that is so generously, and at such risk, written and recorded by black and indigenous people of color. Cis gendered folk must acknowledge that they have no fluency in the experience of being transgender or genderqueer. Those with wealth must confer with those who have learned from poverty first hand. The list is long, but we each have truths to teach one another, and things to learn from each other. Privilege must be counter-balanced with the responsibility of a journey toward truth and understanding, which is what will lead us to reconciliation and salvation. That journey is a journey that we must do together.

In Silent Spring, Rachel Carson wrote: “We stand now where two roads diverge. But unlike the roads in Robert Frost’s familiar poem, they are not equally fair. The road we have long been traveling is deceptively easy, a smooth superhighway on which we progress with great speed, but at its end lies disaster. The other fork of the road — the one less traveled by — offers our last, our only chance to reach a destination that assures the preservation of the earth.”

I agree that we need to switch roads, but if you listen closely, Carson’s not speaking to everyone—because she says the road we have been traveling is deceptively easy- that we have progressed with great speed. I wonder how that reads to someone who was left behind by what has been called progress? I wonder how that reads to the people who have been on that other road all along? I love Rachel Carson’s writing. I reel when I think about the fact that she wrote those words in 1962, and some of us we are still travelling that superhighway at devastating cost to our planet and it’s people, but play this out with me. Because I think the beautiful is here with the terrible.

We haven’t all been on the superhighway, so the other road is already built. Has already been traveled. This journey toward truth is not new, even if today is the first day that you start digging. That is a sign of the salvation that is here for us, I think. I am awakening to the idea that even if I am late to this journey, I’m not blazing the trail, I am just joining the trailblazers. We just need to show up, and ask the people who have been waiting for us what we can do to help?

And so, I come to this final piece of my inquiry today. Mary Oliver says, “Teach the children. We don’t matter so much but the children do.” Many of the children in our community are also growing up in a world that caters to their success, and my experience is teaching me that in that circumstance it makes us believe we can keep them sheltered and safe, and wait to talk about the hard stuff, (which we are still figuring out for ourselves). Too often, when we finally start having those conversations, we have to tip toe to try to soften the news, because it can come as a shock.

Here at South Church, our comprehensive sexuality education program, OWL, begins in 5th grade, and each new round involves a gentle conversation with parents, many of whom are worried that it’s too soon to start talking about some of the program topics with their pre-teens. Together we grapple with the deeply rooted desire to protect our children from difficult topics, to protect their innocence and we compare that urge with the powerful research that says the sooner you begin having age-appropriate conversations about sexuality with children, the more healthy and resilient they will be as they grow into adulthood. That program we begin in 5th grade is actually a late start, as there is K-1 curriculum that we haven’t yet built into our church offerings.

I wonder what would our world look like if all children were raised with comprehensive sexuality education? What if we also invested in creating comprehensive anti-racism anti-oppression curricula? What if we collectively decided that the consequences of innocence are worth examination? That leaving the most privileged children in our country unaware of the challenges faced by those with the least privilege is detrimental to the all of our collective liberation?

In raising my two sons, I think I’ve gotten better at tackling all this over time; I’m sure they both still have a fair amount of sleuthing ahead of them, and I am also fairly confident that they are ahead of where I was at 12 or 18. We’ve talked, for example, about privilege and guilt. That getting comfortable with that feeling of guilt is a necessary step to looking at the world with honest eyes. That working on it now, will help them be allies when they are older, that I wish I’d learned about that when I was young- because the discomfort eventually unfolds into something like fluency.

My sons and I went on a backpacking trip recently and I asked them what it was like to be growing up at a time when most everyone acknowledges we are facing an imminent environmental disaster?

My 12 year old responded, “You know, it’s not awful because, no matter what, we know it’s going to be really bad.”

And my older son nodded in agreement.

And that might make you feel sad, but I will tell you that in that moment I felt peace from their response, because it reinforced this suspicion I have that hard truth is still truth, it is still far less destructive than not being told. It is fortifying, because when you have the information you need to make informed decisions, you make informed decisions. When you know truth, it optimizes the potential that you will make choices that point in the right direction, it minimizes the chances that you will do harm or be harmed.

So, even if we are stumbling through the work of archiving our souls, and uncovering the mess of our history, even if, like me, you feel like you’ve started late to the game, the other road is ready for our arrival, and it is ready for our children too.

A more beautiful terrible.
It’s not awful, because we’ll know what’s really bad, and we’ll know also the beauty of our collective truth.
Because our collective wisdom will make us all wise, and it will make us all strong, and it help us to be ready for what is yet to come.

May it be so.