|
By Dr. Bruce T. Marshall
January 24, 2010
Reading
The reading is by the Unitarian Universalist minister, Jane Rzepka.
It’s called, On Being Scared.
“I spent some time this weekend with an old friend, a dentist. She's
considering buying her own practice, but wonders if she could retain
the current patients and attract new ones. She wonders if the office
staff would like her, or befriend her too much, or resent her, or
desert her; she wonders about bill collecting, spending too much
time on crowns and root canals (which she likes) at the expense of
oral surgery (which she doesn't); she wonders about being a good
wife and mother and all-around person. She's scared.
“My friend is intelligent, well organized, energetic, terrific with
teeth...but scared. It makes me think: we all are. Scared we'll lose
the company's big Formica account, scared we'll miss the time
change, scared we're handling the kids' curfew wrong, scared our
money will be in all the dumbest places when tax laws change, scared
of our failing health, scared of everything falling apart, scared
that nobody really loves us, scared of the fragility of all
creation. Scared.
“O Spirit of Life and Love, we aren't the giants we'd like so much
to be, and the world can loom so large. When all is quiet and we are
small and the night is dark, may we hear the tender breathing of all
who lie awake with us in fear, that together we may gather strength
to live with love, and kindness, and confidence.”
Sermon
This morning I would like to share some thoughts about personal
spirituality and how it might be expressed and experienced among
Unitarian Universalists.
Personal spirituality: what is that? When might it enter into our
lives?
Well, for example, those times when you are scared. When you wake up
during the night, and your breathing is shallow and quick, when you
wonder how you’ll gather the strength to deal with what’s facing
you—then you’re in the realm that personal spirituality addresses.
Or maybe you find yourself distracted, not quite engaged. Feeling
that you’re skimming along the surface of life, and you yearn for
something deeper. There too we’re talking about developing personal
spirituality.
Or you’re facing a crossroads and don’t know which direction to
choose. You’ve turned things in your head over and over again, but
the right choice is not clear. So you look for guidance, some deeper
wisdom, to point the way.
Or maybe you find that you’ve become pretty good at the “how” of
life, that is, how to earn a living, raise a family, keep the
mortgage paid. Maybe you’re to the point where you’re doing well,
but then the question appears, “Why?” Why am I doing this? What is
life’s purpose?
Personal spirituality has to do with how we approach such questions.
How do we find the resilience to get us through hard times, how we
do maintain a sense of relationship to life and experience its full
vitality, how do we draw upon a deeper wisdom to help us find what
we are called to do and be? How do we address the question of why?
There’s a name for this process of developing personal spirituality.
It’s called “spiritual formation” and is traditionally defined as
deepening your relationship with God. If the term God doesn’t work
for you, we might try another way of talking about the same thing.
Such as, “the force that gives us life,” however we may conceive of
it. The vital force of life within each of us that extends
throughout all of existence. A force always present—unseen but that
we may sometimes encounter, personally. A force of life that draws
us toward what we can do and be.
Then morning, I would like to convey a few principles of spiritual
formation. These are so basic that we find them in just about any
religious tradition. And yet: they might also be counter-intuitive.
It’s not the way we live most of the time. These principles
challenge us to approach our lives in different ways than we usually
do.
• • •
From the Zen Buddhist tradition comes a story of a Zen master who
was approached by a man who asked him, "Master, will you please
write for me some maxims of the highest spiritual wisdom?"
The Master immediately took his brush and wrote the word,
"Attention."
"That’s very nice,” said the man. “But what else do you have? Will
you add something to that?”
The master picked up his brush and wrote, "Attention, attention."
"Well," remarked the man, "I don't see much depth or subtlety in
that. Surely there must be more.”
The master took up his brush again, "Attention, attention,
attention."
Now getting angry, the man demanded, "What does attention mean
anyway?"
The master answered gently, "Attention means attention."
Paying attention is the cornerstone of the spiritual life. It is the
most basic practice for developing one’s spirituality, no matter
what your specific tradition happens to be. Being aware of what is
right here, right now. Very simple.
But how do you do that? Paying attention sounds like concentrating.
Studying. Trying really really hard. You know, the furrowed brow
stuff, discipline, forcing your mind to do what you want it to do.
But no, that’s not what it’s about. In the process of spiritual
formation, becoming attentive is different from how we usually
conceive it. I’ll illustrate with another story.
"What do you wish from me?" the master asked the young man who
appeared before him.
"I wish to be your student and become the finest practitioner of
karate in all the land," the boy replied. "How long must I study?"
"Ten years, at least," the master answered.
"Ten years is a long time," said the boy. "What if I studied twice
as hard as all your other students?"
"Then it will take twenty years," replied the master.
"Twenty years! What if I practice day and night with all my effort?"
"Thirty years," was the master's reply.
"How is it that each time I say I will work harder, you tell me that
it will take longer?" the boy asked.
"The answer is clear,” the master replied. “When one eye is fixed
upon your destination, there is only one eye left with which to find
the way."
Spiritual formation is not about reading more books and assembling
more degrees and being able to speak with authority about all manner
of things. Nothing wrong with that; it’s just not spiritual
formation.
Spiritual formation is a process of emptying, of opening, of making
room. Of becoming the empty cup so that you can be filled. We
develop the spiritual side of our lives by letting go.
A learned university professor of oriental studies visited a Zen
master at a temple in Japan. The master received the professor in
his private room, and an attendant brought tea. As soon as he had
seated himself, the professor began talking on and on about Zen
philosophy. The master said nothing as he poured the tea into his
guest's cup. The professor hardly noticed, and kept talking and
talking—he felt, in fact, wonderfully inspired.
Suddenly, he realized that the Zen master was still pouring tea even
though the cup had long since overflowed, and the tea had spilled
out onto the mat. And still the master continued pouring.
"Stop, stop, what are you doing?" cried the professor. The master
looked up. "Just as the cup cannot hold any more tea when it is
already filled," he said, "how can I give you anything when your
mind is already filled?"
In order to make progress along the spiritual pathway that is ours,
we are called to empty ourselves. We approach our lives with an
empty cup that may then be filled.
• • •
Hence three basic principles of spiritual formation: attention,
letting go, emptiness and openness.
There are different ways to practice these principles. There are
many opportunities to be attentive, to let go, to become empty and
open. Meditation works for some, not for others. Or yoga. Or
something more active like hiking, sailing, running. Or communing
with nature. Or working in your garden. Or building a shed. Or
creating art, poetry, music. Any of these can work.
What I do: I walk. For me, walking is a spiritual practice. For as I
walk, I let go, become attentive, listen to what’s going on around
me and to what’s going on in myself. It doesn’t have to be a
beautiful peaceful wonderful location in which to walk. Most places
can do just fine. Amy and I live a 20-minute walk from the Silver
Spring Metro Station. She works in Washington and takes the Metro to
her job. So each morning I walk with her to the station.
The walk to the Metro station and the return walk home are my
primary spiritual practices, but they’re different. On the way
there, walking with my spouse, is not a real good time to meditate.
It’s not a time to be quiet and contemplative. During the walk to
the Metro station, Amy and I talk, mostly. It’s a practice that
keeps us in touch with each other, that keeps us grounded.
On the way back home, though, I’m on my own. Then I can be quiet and
attentive, and I can listen. So what do I hear? Well, first of all,
traffic. My heavens, it’s noisy out there with engines and honking
and sirens and the occasional screech of tires and people screaming
into cell phones and sometimes too a car that comes by thumping with
the bass line of whatever’s playing on the audio system inside.
But it’s just noise, you know. If I don’t let myself get attached,
if I don’t become angry or resentful about it, then it drifts away.
I mean, it’s still there, but it doesn’t capture my attention.
So when the traffic noise is set aside, and I listen inside myself,
what do I hear? First of all, usually, there are issues and concerns
I have been living with and that need more work. And let’s be honest
here, sometimes that’s all that comes into my mind. It gets crowded
with thoughts and worries and plans and feelings of obligation and
memories of things that happened recently or long ago.
But sometimes even this drifts away. First the traffic noise fades
and then those everyday things that crowd my mind—they too go away.
It might take a longer walk than from the Metro station to our
house, but sometimes I find myself listening more deeply. Below the
surface noise, below the clutter of thoughts that usually occupy my
mind, down to a level where I begin to encounter my own voice, my
own sense for what is real to me, what is right for me, what I am
called to do and be.
That’s when it seems that I come in closer relationship to that
vital force of being that some people call God. It’s a force of life
that somehow calms my fears when I am scared. And when I am feeling
distracted, not quite engaged, that same force of life brings me
back into relationship.
Or when I have a decision to make and I’ve gone through all the
logic of it, and I still can’t make the ends meet, that same process
helps: attention, letting go, emptiness and openness. Then—from
somewhere—a solution might come, something I hadn’t thought of
before, but that seems right.
And that question of the “why?” of existence—why are we here? My
encounter with the force that gives us life gives me responses to
that question too: answers that are not what I would have thought of
on my own.
• • •
I’ll give you an example, something that happened a while back but
that I still remember.
I have been here at Davies for almost—but not quite—five months.
Let’s call it four months and change. You might not yet know this
about me so I’ll confess: I am not one of those fortunate people who
has the gift of a naturally sunny personality. I worry. I am
anxious. I expect the worst. I have the capacity to be grumpy. If
you doubt any of this, ask Amy. She looks up to the sun and the
stars; I look down for the potholes. (By the way, my experience is
that most couples feature a similar yin/yang of outlooks.)
So given this temperament, imagine my surprise when one night I woke
up, suddenly and with a start, feeling—well—happy. Just plain happy.
Maybe this feeling had started in a dream and drifted with me into
consciousness. Or perhaps this feeling itself had awakened me. I lay
in the darkness aware of a sensation concentrated in the center of
my body which radiated outward.
A simple joy: that’s what it felt like. A sense of well-being, of
comfort and belonging in the world. In trying to describe it, I find
myself resorting to oxymorons. A peaceful excitement. A lively calm.
Occasionally something wonderful occurs in a dream, and it lingers
upon waking up. But as I lay in bed scanning memories of that
evening’s dream production, I could not find anything that might
have produced such a result. So maybe its origins were in real life.
Maybe something especially good had just happened or was about to
occur. But I couldn’t think of anything. It seemed like joy without
a reason. Un-vetted joy.
I drifted back to sleep, and this feeling accompanied me. Even if it
hadn’t originated in a dream, now it became part of my dreams: a
context of well-being that colored and flavored images of my
unconscious. Then when I awoke again, that feeling—that
sensation—was still present.
Maybe it was something I ate. Maybe I tried to squeeze one too many
meals out of a leftover. Or maybe I was seriously ill. A feeling of
euphoria can accompany a number of medical conditions including
stroke, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, schizophrenia, and lead
poisoning.
Or maybe, I thought, maybe I’m going to die. Sometimes when a person
has been gravely ill—barely conscious or even in a coma—he or she
will suddenly awaken and become lucid and full of life. Then a few
hours later or perhaps during the night which follows, that person
peacefully dies. Some view this as an anticipation of the next life,
a glimpse into eternity. Others interpret it as a side effect of a
brain engaged in its final act of shutting down. As it’s being
decommissioned, the brain offers a final tribute to life.
I don’t know what I believe, but—uncharacteristically—I couldn’t
summon enough anxiety to worry about it. I slid back into the
pleasant sensation I had been inhabiting and returned to sleep.
So the night gradually became day as I coasted back and forth
between the world of dreams and consciousness. Even when I got up
and entered daytime activities, that feeling of peace and well-being
remained, though diminished in intensity. Throughout the morning it
slowly dissipated, and by lunchtime was gone.
I was sorry for it to go. Part of me would like to have that sense
of deep joy with me always. But to remain there would likely put me
at a disadvantage in traffic. Also with those people who show up on
my front porch demanding that I buy magazine subscriptions.
And I know you can’t hold on to such moments of grace. They come of
their own accord, as gifts and cannot be made into possessions or
entitlements. A story is told of the Hindu god Krishna who appears
as a farmhand to a group of women who milk the cows. When he invites
them to dance, each turns from her chores and joins the whirl of
motion, in which Krishna appears in such abundance that each maiden
feels that she is dancing with him and then begins to believe that
Krishna is hers alone—at which point the god disappears.
But even if I can’t hold on to my own experience of the dance—that
sense of life’s simple joy—I do remember. And somehow this memory is
important: a reminder
that amidst the ups and downs of a day, there is something enduring
and true at the center of existence.
It seems like an answer to that question of “why?”. Why are we here?
To know the simple joy of being alive. This not a sophisticated and
learned response to the question of life’s purpose, but it is what I
encounter—sometimes –when I am attentive, when I let go, when I am
empty and open. Then I find beneath the struggles of our lives, an
essential rightness to being—a simple joy in existence—that that
makes the struggles we encounter worthwhile. Yes, we are scared. But
sometimes too we find ourselves carried along by a force of life
that inspires and renews and at other times just helps us get
through. A force of life that can make all things new.
• • •
Hence personal spirituality. Being
attentive, letting go, becoming empty and open. And thereby finding
a way of relating to the force at the center of being, the force
that gives us life.
I grew up as a third generation Unitarian Universalist in
west-central Illinois. Many years later, memories sometimes appear
that take me back to that time and place. Among these memories is
the hymn that we’ll sing to close and from which I derived the title
of this sermon: O Life That Maketh All Things New. It was composed
in 1874 by Samuel Longfellow—who was a Unitarian minister and
younger brother of the poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Samuel
Longfellow also served a brief stint as minister of First Unitarian
Church of Washington, forerunner of All Souls Church in DC. This
hymn celebrates the vital force that flows through our experience,
making all things new. “...the freer step, the fuller breath, the
wide horizon’s grander view, the sense of life that knows no death,
the Life that maketh all things new.”
|
