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By Dr. Bruce T. Marshall
June 20, 2010
READING
Letter to my Sons
by Clarke Wells
It struck me last week, on the brief walk between the parsonage and
church, that I shall not always be here, and what a pity it would be
if I should leave without having given some last-minute advice to my
fast-growing sons. Though they might survive without it, I
conjectured, I’m not sure I could. So I hurried up across the lot,
unlocked the door, sat down and wrote:
A letter to my sons:
What I want to say before any grey advice, is simply thank you.
Thank you for coming to live in our house. You have added beyond
measure to your mother and me. And since our life was already rich
before you came, that is saying plenty. I wish to communicate to you
a deep and abiding hello. I love you more deeply than our culture or
my hang-ups have ever permitted me to say. So I say it now, for you
and the whole world to know, thank you for being
Now I advise. Remember you are free. Though I’ve tried to affirm all
kinds of determinisms to get myself off the hook for the occasional
mess I’ve made of things, it won’t wash. You are partly free, at
least, therefore partly responsible for the person you become. You
are artists working on your own creation, you. Sculpt, paint, dance,
write, think, sing greatly. Express yourself, yes, but deeply. Avoid
the shallows, the trivialities, and the mendacity that will suck out
your soul if you leave it unguarded long.
Two. You will undergo someday, unless you fake it or dehumanize
yourself, pain deeper than you believe is possible to experience.
You will bear unspeakable grief. I hope you endure and I commend to
you during those periods long walks, cursing, planting tulip bulbs,
Bach, and holding close all night to someone who gives a dam.
Three. In my book orthodoxy is a synonym for fear and
self-righteousness. But beware lest the liberalism in which you have
been nurtured does not become a synonym for self-congratulation,
vacuity and lack of passion.
Four. And please, no heavy feelings of obligation toward your mother
or me. You have been pure gift in our lives. For God’s sake—I think
you are both overly conscientious—don’t ever try to win one for the
Gipper. If you lose you’ll feel embarrassed; if you win you’ll get
superstitious.
Do, if you want, someday, maybe, if you’re so inclined and have the
time, go ahead, yes--plant a wild plum tree for the old man.
SERMON
I’m going to begin this sermon with a confession. Confession is said
to be good for the soul. I don’t know if that’s true or not. But I
do know that confession is good for a sermon—gets everybody
listening from the start.
So here’s my confession. Fourteen years ago—in 1996 when I was
minister of First Unitarian Church of Cleveland—I gave a sermon
entitled, “Advice from a Dad.” It was a pretty good one. The
Cleveland newspaper picked it up and printed just about the whole
thing. That article must be online somewhere because I still get
emails about it.
The title of that sermon, “Advice from a Dad,” sounds suspiciously
like the title of today’s sermon, doesn’t it? This is where the
confession comes in. This is the third time I’ve done a sermon with
this title. Father’s Day comes at the end of the church year. By
now, I’ve used up all the creative thoughts that have been allotted
to me for the year. Why not pull out a sermon that’s ready-made?
Trouble is: each time I do this sermon, I have to change it.
Circumstances change, life changes, my advice changes. That first
time back in 1996, the person I had in my head when I wrote it was
my daughter, then age seven. She’s 21 now, with us here this
morning. What made sense when she was seven sounds kind of silly
today.
My life is different today from what it was 14 years ago; my family
is different. I went through a divorce; I married Amy, the love of
my life; and in the process acquired three step-children, which has
been an unexpected joy. People talk about the perils of a blended
family, and I’m sure there are many. But for Amy and me, it has been
only gift, bringing richness to our lives and also, I hope, to all
four children.
I have heard it said that each minister has one sermon—just one. You
keep preaching it over and over again. There is truth in that. In
thinking about ministers I know and have known, I often have a sense
for the sermon that is their life and work. Trouble is, what’s easy
for me to see in others is hard to identify in myself. I’m not sure
what my one sermon is, so I keep revising, trying to get it right,
finally, this time.
That’s what this sermon is: my old themes, reworked from the
perspective of today, which just happens to be Father’s Day. With
all of you here listening in.
● ● ●
And so, to my children:
I address you from the middle of my life—no longer young, not quite
old—from somewhere at the far end of middle age. This is a time when
I have learned some things in my passage through life, but I’m still
looking ahead for possibilities. From this perspective—a life still
in motion—I offer some advice.
Before I get into that, I want to assure you that you are not under
any obligation to take my advice. You are not in this world to
please me, to do things I want you to do. As you are not in this
world to realize dreams that might have come up short for me. You
are in this world to discover who you are and become who you can be.
Simple as that. My goal in whatever role I have had in your
upbringing has not been to mold you; it is to support you and be
present as you pursue your own journeys.
I sometimes see children engaged in an awful struggle to please
their parents—to get them to finally approve. Even grown-up children
do this. I note this factor when planning wedding ceremonies.
Weddings that come to a Unitarian Universalist minister often
involve some unexpected twist in the lives of the people being
married. They may have left behind the religion of their childhood.
Or this is an interfaith marriage or an interracial marriage or
both. Or there has been a divorce. Or the couple is gay or lesbian.
As we plan the wedding, we go through agonizing contortions to
mollify this or that relative, put something in that will make him
or her maybe a little more approving. We get involved in what
amounts to a well-meaning deception, driven by the fear that our
parents will discover who we really are. I am so sorry when we feel
we have to deceive people in order to buy their love.
I want to assure you that you do not need to earn my approval; you
do not need to earn our approval. You’ve already got it. Each of
you—all four children—are marvelously distinct individuals with your
own views, your own ways of being, your own talents and gifts, your
own places in the world. You have no idea how proud of you we
already are.
● ● ●
That said, my advice. First: listen. That’s it, listen. Very simple,
except that just about nobody does it. At least, not for very long.
Learn to listen to other people, what they say in words but also
what they say in how they use their bodies and what they say by what
they do.
Learn to listen to yourself. There’s wisdom inside if we have the
patience to pay attention. Most of my really big mistakes, I think,
could have been avoided had I just listened to that feeling in my
gut that was trying to tell me something I didn’t want to hear.
And learn to listen to the forces of the universe that pulse through
us, offering guidance and wisdom and beauty. Annie Dillard once
noted that we spend most of our waking hours going around saying,
“Hello!” to ourselves. We run a constant monologue in our heads
about ourselves, to ourselves. Turn that off sometimes, and you’ll
find that the universe opens.
If I know one thing from my life—the big thing I’ve learned—it is
that listening has power.
You may remember Michael Moore’s documentary from several years
back, Bowling for Columbine, about the murders at Columbine High
School. Oddly, what sticks with me from that movie is not the story
or the retelling of the events of that sad day. Rather, it’s an
interview in the film with the rock singer, Marilyn Manson. He’s a
fairly edgy guy, not most parents’ idea of a role model.
He was asked, “What would you say to the young people of Columbine
High School, after this horrific event?” Without so much as a pause,
Marilyn Manson replied, “I wouldn’t say anything to them. I would
listen. I would listen as long as any of them wanted to talk.”
Last year when I was consulting minister at the Tennessee Valley
Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville, I had an opportunity to
test that. This is the church where a man with a shotgun entered a
Sunday service and started firing, killing two, injuring six. My job
was to help with the process of healing, and when I entered that
situation, I did not know what I could do to help. But I suspected
that what Marilyn Manson had said regarding the Columbine shootings
would be true in Knoxville too. There wasn’t a whole lot I could say
to the people who had gone through this—but I could listen. I
listened, and I listened, and then I listened some more. Because
that’s how healing occurs: being in the presence of someone who
cares, who pays attention, and who lets you talk as long as you need
to.
So what does this mean for you, as you make your way through life?
Just this: from time to time amidst the busyness and the challenges
and the bad times and the good times, you might sometimes stop. Be
quiet. Listen. Receive. Be present to whatever or whomever is out
there, trying to reach you.
● ● ●
My second piece of advice: watch out for the girl in the gorilla
suit. (You can write that down if you want to.) Watch out for the
girl in the gorilla suit.
In a study conducted by behavioral scientists, subjects were shown a
film of a basketball game, and they were asked to count the number
of passes made by players on one of the teams. A little while into
the game, a woman dressed in a gorilla suit appeared on the screen,
stopped, turned, faced the camera, and beat her fists on her chest.
After the game was over and the film stopped, each of the subjects
was asked, “Did you notice the gorilla?” The response of half the
people—50%—was “What gorilla?” They were so intent upon doing their
task that they didn’t notice a gorilla in their midst.
As you—our almost grown-up children—make your way through life, you
will be surrounded by gorillas. That is, things in plain view that
you don’t see because you aren’t expecting them. To some degree
that’s fine. It is a marvel of the human mind that we filter out
what is irrelevant so that we can concentrate on what is. But then
our world narrows. We only see what we’re accustomed to seeing. The
world conforms to what we already know and what we already believe.
From time to time, turn off those filters. Let things in that you
don’t expect. Look for the gorillas. It will help you become alive
and vital. It will open possibilities. It will keep you young.
“Watch out for the girl in the gorilla suit” not because you should
be afraid of her but because you miss too much of life if you don’t
notice she’s there.
● ● ●
Number 3: Try something. If it doesn’t work, change it and try it
again. If that doesn’t work, change it and try it again. If it still
doesn’t work, repeat the above steps.
It’s strange: the memories that stick as life lessons. One takes me
back to 8th grade when my English teacher assigned each of us to
choose, read, and give an oral report on a biography or an
autobiography. I think he had in mind George Washington or Susan B.
Anthony or Thomas Edison. Well, I chose Harpo Marx. I don’t know why
because I wasn’t sure who he was. I had never seen a Marx Brothers
movie and so the title of the autobiography, Harpo Speaks, was kind
of lost on me. I remember giving the book to my teacher for his
approval, and he paused for a long time, looked up at the ceiling,
and then finally said, “Well, ok.”
It’s a great book. One lesson was: you need to have fun. It’s ok to
be silly. Life is too short and tenuous and sad not to laugh about
it. That was good for an overly serious kid like me.
But what I really remember—and what keeps coming back in a variety
of circumstances—is his description of how the Marx Brothers created
their vaudeville acts. Originally, the Marx Brothers played
vaudeville, only later did they make movies. When they first went
out on the vaudeville circuit, the brothers would work out a routine
that they knew was completely hilarious. Just thinking about it got
them all to laughing.
So with great confidence, they went on stage before a live audience
and: it flopped. What seemed so hilarious in their heads didn’t work
with real people. So they changed the act, dropped parts that fell
flat, added others, did a little ad-libbing, and they got a few more
laughs. They kept on doing that—trying out things, dropping what
didn’t work, keeping what did—until they got the response from their
audiences that they sought. The Marx Brothers movies are so good
because they were based on skits that had already worked in the real
world.
I think that Harpo Speaks should be required reading for those in
all manner of fields like, oh, for example, planning foreign policy
or economic policy. I can’t tell you the number of times I worked
out a problem in my head and came to a solution that succeeded
brilliantly in my imagination but that flopped in reality. The
lesson I have to keep reminding myself is that addressing real
problems in the real world with real people is a matter of constant
interaction. Trying things out, failing, getting rid of what doesn’t
work, keeping what does.
It’s this balance between reflection and action that makes it
possible to meet the challenges and create the opportunities of our
lives.
● ● ●
Number 4. You have been raised to be peaceful people, and you are.
You are all lovely, gentle, kind people. But there will likely be
times in your lives when you will have to take a stand, when you
have to fight. Now, I don’t mean this in the Hollywood sense of
being pushed around by bullies until something snaps and then you go
on a rampage. Yes, there are plenty of bullies out there, but I’m
not talking Hollywood movie revenge here.
What I’m talking about are those times when something demands your
attention—demands that you act—because your existence as a person of
integrity is at stake. I can’t tell you when that will happen or in
what realm of life, whether it has to do with an occurrence in the
larger society or whether it is personal in nature. All I can say is
that when it occurs, you’ll know. No need to go out and create such
occasions; they’ll find you.
When this happens, when it seems that your life is at stake, you
might be forced to make some hard decisions. Decisions that you are
yourself not entirely comfortable with, decisions that not everybody
will like. You might be forced to fight for what you believe, for
who you are.
Accepting this has been hard for me because I like being nice. I’m
really good at being nice. If I’m not being nice, there’s an inner
voice that tells me I’m doing something wrong.
But in looking back, the times I’m proudest of are those times when
I fought for something that mattered, that mattered deeply, even if
it meant going against the grain. Those times when I tried to honor
my own sense for what was right—even if I didn’t succeed. You won’t
always win the battles that you enter. There’s no shame in that.
What does matter is that you try, that you fight when it’s
necessary, that you remain true to yourself.
● ● ●
My last piece of advice follows from the previous one. This one
involves death. Death is ever-present. It’s an example of a girl in
a gorilla suit. Pay attention. Make death your companion, not your
enemy.
This is the year cancer entered our lives, all of us in our family.
Cancer changes everything—and cancer changes nothing. Let me
explain.
It changes everything because life doesn’t look the same as it did
before. Cancer brings us face-to-face with our own mortality, the
fact that we are finite, that our time on this earth is limited,
that if cancer doesn’t get us, something else will. We can’t just
let our lives go along because after a while we run out of life.
Here I’ll call upon Woody Allen. Now I know, not everybody loves
Woody Allen. But I do—always have. Yeah, he’s made some bad movies,
but haven’t we all?
I remember an early monologue when he was just starting out as a
stand-up comedian. In this story he is being chased by a gang of
hoodlums—I can’t remember why—and as they draw closer, he feels in
mortal danger, and his whole life passes before his eyes. Seeing
himself as a kid again, back in Kansas, swimming at the swimming
hole, fishing and frying up a “mess-o-catfish,” going down to the
general store, getting a piece of gingham for Emmy Lou.
And he realizes: it’s not his life. He thinks he’s about to die, and
the wrong life flashes before his eyes.
Cancer changes everything, and it changes nothing. It doesn’t change
the essence of the people that we are. The point of keeping death as
an advisor is that we don’t live the wrong life, the life that
society might dictate, the life that others demand of us, the life
that even those who love us might want for us.
When you are facing a dilemma and have a big choice to make, I
suggest that you include in your process a walk in a cemetery. Take
a walk in your chosen cemetery and chances are your thoughts will go
to the fact that our time is limited, that nothing is forever and so
we are called to live now. Keep that simple truth as an advisor. It
has a way of bringing us back to essential things.
● ● ●
Hence, this year’s version of Father’s Day advice, June 20, 2010.
How to summarize? I’m remembering a conversation I had a few days
ago with a man at Collington, the senior residence center where
several people from Davies are living. He didn’t say how old he is,
but I would guess the late 80s or early 90s. He told me he had
always thought that by the time he got to this age, he would have
answers to all of his questions. But he doesn’t. He said he has more
questions now than ever before.
This man spoke with some sense of surprise and regret, as if his
lack of answers is a personal failure. But I don’t think so. I see
it as a mark of success, to go through our lives guided by ever more
questions. Albert Einstein put it this way, “The important thing is
not to stop questioning. Never lose a holy curiosity.”
Each of us has our time in this world—with its scents of spring and
summer, sounds of laughter and song, glimpses of earth and stars,
times of challenge and worry and heartache, and sometimes too a
vision of heart-rending beauty. Then we get off, and somebody else
takes a turn.
Enjoy the view, the ride that is yours. And don’t pay too much
attention to advice, mine or anybody else’s. Life is a gift, not an
obligation. It is a present that we have done nothing to deserve but
that is ours to create and experience as we will.
As it is put in the Old Testament, the Book of Ecclesiastes, “Go,
eat your bread with joy, And drink your wine with a merry heart; For
God has already accepted your works... Whatever your hand finds to
do, do it with your might.”
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