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By Dr. Bruce T. Marshall
May 16, 2010
Reading:
The Honest Idiocy of Flight
A poem by Robert Graves speaks of butterflies—their “honest idiocy
of flight,” “lurching here and there by guess and God and hope and
hopelessness.” Any number of quotations sound this way and so, I
think, do we. But privately.
Publicly we speak the civilized language of human beings who have
things under control. No idiocy, no lurching. The world sees that we
function well and happily. Other people believe it, and even we
begin to believe it. Life moves forward as always.
Privately, though, we experience long stretches of turbulence and
the occasional sudden downdraft. So many in our church feel alone
when things go poorly at home, when they feel their age (whatever it
is), or when they grieve. So many feel alone in their money worries
or career problems. Awful life situations seem to set us apart from
one another.
Normal lives include these awful parts. They don’t always show from
the outside; it’s hard to believe any other folks at coffee hour are
feeling the same kinds of screaming pain, or emptiness, or
entrapment, or panic, or precariousness, or low-grade worry. Lives,
even lives well-lived, don’t stay in place for long—at least that’s
how it seems from the peculiar vantage point of the minister’s study
It’s a help, I think, to accept “the idiocy of flight,” the
butterfly flight-pattern so firmly implanted in the human mind and
heart. Let the lurching, then, be no surprise, and know that we’re
all up there flying every which way, together.
Jane Ranney Rzepka
in A Small Heaven
Sermon:
Here is something that happens to most of us at some time or
another: let’s say you’re driving along a street that’s familiar,
but you haven’t been there for awhile. You realize that something’s
not quite right, you feel a little off balance. Then you happen to
look up and notice something missing: maybe a building that had
served as a landmark, maybe a great big tree that you had often
admired, maybe a whole row of houses replaced by something else or
now just empty space.
None of this affects you personally. You might not have ever been in
that landmark building that’s gone. Or the big tree: it’s just a
tree; trees come and go all the time. But things look different now,
a marker you had relied upon to show the way isn’t there, and you
have to find a new one. It’s disconcerting. You have to adjust.
Something has changed.
When I was a senior in college—the first year we were allowed to
live off campus—my best friend and I rented an apartment in a place
called “The Pines Tourist Home.” It was just as sleazy as it sounds,
run by a skinny old guy with no hair and no teeth who spoke in a
high-pitched voice with an Appalachian accent who everybody just
called, “Tucker.” He didn’t seem to own a first name. I think the
place even had a burnt out neon sign in front, but I might be
imagining that.
The Pines Tourist Home was an old house—large, two-story brick,
stately at one time—that faced the National Road as it made its way
through eastern Indiana. This old house had been cut up into
furnished apartments for students. Inside, it was shabby and
tawdry—I still remember how it smelled—and I loved it. My friend and
I learned how to cook, had intense conversations that ran into the
night, invited our friends over (who all were immediately jealous of
our place), had a party or two. It felt like my first step out into
the world, living the way I wanted to. When I graduated and had to
leave, I mourned.
Several years later I passed through town and stopped by the Pines
Tourist Home. The old sign was gone now. Workmen swarmed over the
place, tearing down the apartment dividers, bringing its dark wood
molding back to life, papering the walls, restoring it to its
original identity as an elegant one-family home. In the years that
followed, I liked thinking of it that way: my old room now as a
tastefully decorated bedroom or study.
More years passed: fifteen—maybe twenty—and I found myself in that
town again. I drove down the National Road, seeking a glimpse of my
old home. I drove by once, overshot it, turned around, drove by
again, turned around yet another time before I realized that the
gaudy, brightly lit, yellow and black one story bunker of an auto
parts store was on the spot where the Pines Tourist Home had stood.
The house was gone; the namesake pines that had grown around were
gone too, replaced by a black asphalt parking lot. And where my
second floor apartment had been and all kinds of good things had
occurred—now it was just air above the auto parts store. I gazed
above the roof of the store—up into the space where I once had
lived—and tried to comprehend what had occurred.
Change: everything in this world is always changing. And we are
called to adjust.
One day we happen to look in the mirror. Well, we look into mirrors
all the time, but mostly it’s when we are on our way someplace else,
and we don’t really notice. But then we do—one day—look at the
person staring back at us, and wonder if we even recognize who we
see anymore. Because we’ve changed: sometimes for the better, often
for the worse, but mostly it’s just that we’re different than we may
remember ourselves.
We change. The circumstances of our lives also change. People who
had been part of our lives grow up, go away, move on to other
things. Family members age, they get sick, they die, and we must
adjust to a life different from what we had known. We move to new
communities where the landscape looks different, shopping is
different, maybe the accents are different, customs are different.
We advance into a different stage of our lives. We graduate and get
a job. We marry, have a child, then children. Our careers zig and
zag; for awhile we have money, then we don’t. We adjust to different
demands, different realities, a different pace of life.
Organizations too change. They are born, they experience the hope
and optimism of youth, they settle into middle age, then they get
set in their ways, lose their vitality, their strength, their sense
of purpose. Who could have believed it would happen even to General
Motors: invincible General Motors? Or Bell Telephone, Pan American
Airways, TWA, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, the New York Central:
all now gone or dramatically altered. We could go on and on.
Meanwhile, other organizations have come on strong, taken their
place, guided by the vision and enthusiasm of youth.
Churches change too. They are human organizations; they have a life
cycle. Some are born, live for awhile and then die. Drive through
New England or in small towns of the Midwest, and you’ll see their
shells. Former church buildings now housing gift shops, restaurants,
arts facilities, community centers. (A lot of these, by the way, are
small-town Universalist churches that didn’t survive.) Other
churches find ways to continue, reinvent themselves, change to meet
changing times, changing circumstances.
• • •
I have heard a liberal defined as one who welcomes change, who is
drawn to the possibilities in what is new. A liberal is optimistic
about the future, guided by a faith that we can address the
challenges we encounter such as injustice, inequality, human
suffering. A liberal, then, advocates for change, creates
organizations that plan and execute change, stirs things up to
create change when people get too set in their ways. A liberal looks
to the future and anticipates a better tomorrow. The idea of
progress as a good thing is a contribution of liberalism.
I have heard a conservative defined as one who values what is. The
conservative is reluctant to advocate for change because change
brings unintended consequences. Industrialization brought pollution.
The growth of the suburbs decimated the inner cities. The
availability of automobiles brought traffic jams. The conservative
is not optimistic about the human capacity to create a better future
and so prefers to keep things as they are: to deal with a known
present rather than an unknown future.
Each of us has bits and pieces of liberal and conservative in us: we
welcome some changes, resist others. On the matter of the Pines
Tourist Home being replaced by an auto parts store: I’m a rock hard
conservative. If that’s what progress looks like, I want no part of
it. But on what seems to me the steady progress of affirming human
rights in my generation, I’m a liberal. It’s happened because people
have been out there, advocating for change. It wouldn’t have
occurred any other way.
Some change is good, some isn’t. But mostly: change just is. We can
work for change and end up with some successes and a lot of
unintended consequences. We can try to keep change from occurring,
to the best of our ability. But change is built into the fabric of
being. Everything is always changing.
Let me tell you a story. This is about a young man, a prince, whose
father hoped that his son would eventually follow him as ruler of
the kingdom. He was a smart and accomplished young man, loved by
all. Those who knew him agreed that when his turn came, the prince
would be an exceptional king who would bring glory and prosperity to
the land.
Except that there was one little wrinkle. (There’s always one little
wrinkle in these stories.) When the young man was still a baby, a
wise man—a seer—visited the child and made a prediction. He said
that this was truly a special child. One day he would become a great
leader—or he would become a great religious teacher. The wise man
could not say which.
The current king—the father of this child—was pleased at the
prediction that his son would grow up to be a great leader. But he
was worried about the other side of the prediction: the great
religious teacher part. So he sought to use his influence to make
sure that whatever seeds of religious concern might lie dormant
within his son, they would not have an opportunity to develop.
The king saw to it that his son lived a life of unusual luxury and
pleasure. He lived in beautiful places, he wore only the finest
clothing, tasted only the best food his kingdom could offer. If he
wanted something, the young prince had only to ask, and his wish
would be granted. He was surrounded by those who entertained him,
flattered him, made sure that he would experience no want. To cap
off this privileged life, the prince married a beautiful princess
who bore them a beautiful son.
But despite having all that life could offer, the young prince was
restless. Something was missing, something was wrong: he could not
say what. His father the king had forbidden him to leave the palace
grounds but one day, in defiance of his father, the young prince
convinced a servant to take him out into the community disguised as
an ordinary person to see what ordinary life was like. And on this
trip to a nearby village, the young prince encountered a disturbing
sight: he saw an old man. He had never seen a truly old person
before; he had never really thought about the fact that people age
and change. The young prince returned to the palace and thought
about what he had encountered.
Then on another day, the prince again convinced a servant to take
him beyond the castle walls and into a village where he had another
disturbing encounter: he came upon a person who was very sick.
Again, he was deeply troubled; he had never before encountered
serious illness. And then on a third day, the prince again went out
among his people, and this time he encountered a funeral procession.
He realized that life is not an endless succession of pleasant
experiences of the sort that he knew at his palace: in life there is
sickness, there is aging, there is death. He returned to the palace
deeply shaken: he realized that life is impermanent, that we are all
subject to suffering and death.
Now instead of enjoying his endless days of luxury and privilege,
this young man became obsessed with the impermanence of life. He
yearned to find a way to alleviate the suffering that results, to
make life bearable not just for himself but for all.
The prince ventured from his palace once again, seeking an answer to
the questions that now plagued him. This time, he encountered a holy
man, a pilgrim, a seeker: one who had given up everything to follow
the religious life. From this man there radiated a calm, a sense of
peace, a sense of acceptance. The prince decided then and there not
to return to the palace. He gave away his expensive clothing and
exchanged it for the simple orange robe of the holy man. He
renounced his privilege and set off on a great search to find an
answer to the impermanence of life in this world, the presence of
change and the suffering it brings.
The former prince endured many hardships as he wondered from place
to place but could not solve the problem he had set out to address.
Finally, he came a tree. He sat down under the tree—a bodhi tree—and
resolved to wait until an answer was revealed to him. And then it
was: the answer came, and he become enlightened. The prince became
the Buddha, whose special contribution has been to address the
dilemma of impermanence—of change—and the suffering it brings. There
is a story that the Buddha was once asked, “Are you enlightened?”
His response, “No, I am awake.” He had awakened to the nature of
life in this world.
Buddhism gives a different response to impermanence than what we
find in Western religions such as Christianity. Christianity looks
to find something solid and unchanging beneath the impermanence of
our lives which can serve us as an anchor, a foundation to our
transient lives. Buddhism takes a different approach. The Buddhist
embraces the impermanence. We are always changing, the Buddhist
says, everything is always changing. Life can be compared to a
river, always flowing, always a little different. Yesterday’s river
is not the same as today’s river and it’s not the same as tomorrow’s
river. The answer to impermanence is not to try to capture the river
but to embrace each moment in the present, right here/right now, as
the center of reality. Suffering comes from trying to hold on to our
lives as they are, even as they are changing. Relief from suffering
comes from accepting each moment as it is, just as it is, and then
letting it go.
• • •
Everything is always changing. How do we live with that: in our
personal lives, in the life of the community, in organizations like,
say, churches. How does this church—now in the midst of
change—address the challenges that result?
We can embrace the liberal side of our tradition that urges us to
look ahead to what we may yet become, to identify who we want to be
and work toward that. The mission/vision process in which we have
been engaged for much of this year is a tool that enables us to do
that: determine who we want to be and then make decisions—sometimes
hard decisions—to take us in that direction.
We can also respect the conservative side of our tradition, for
Unitarian Universalists have sometimes taken the side of an issue
that urges us to respect what we have before tearing it down in the
name of progress. This means identifying what we most value—what is
at our core—and holding fast to that. Perhaps it is our commitment
to human rights, to justice. Perhaps it is our commitment to the
free search for truth and right. Perhaps it is the sense of warmth
and family that is part of the personality of this church. Perhaps
it is the diversity of this congregation, its affirmation of what
unites us, even as we are in some ways different.
Both the liberal and the conservative approaches to change have a
role as we consider the future of this congregation. But there is
something else too: an approach to change that helps keep me
centered and that might be more similar to the Buddhist way than
what we find in the Western religious traditions.
I’ll introduce this with an image. This involves me driving and
getting lost. You might notice that I have a lot of stories
involving me getting lost, which is because that’s happens a lot and
so I have ample opportunity to reflect about it.
One set of conditions that gets me lost is when I am driving at
night, and it’s raining or misty or just wet. Even though I might be
on familiar roads, the rain changes the way things look, and it
throws me. The familiar markers don’t appear the same, and I don’t
know where I am, and I have in fact driven by my own house, not
recognizing it under these altered conditions.
The mistake I make under these conditions is trying to find
something familiar to serve as a point of reference. It’s a mistake
because everything looks different in the rain and the mist: there
aren’t any familiar points of reference. What ultimately gets me
home is not looking for what’s familiar from past trips but working
from what is and finding a pathway based on these altered
circumstances. I adjust, think through my route, and then I can find
my way home. It’s taking life in this moment and what it’s trying to
tell me, rather than remembering something from the past to get me
where I am going.
Let me try another way of saying the same thing.
By the time you get to my age—probably long before—each of us will
encounter times when the conditions of our lives change and become
barely recognizable to us—like a rainy night changes the way things
appear. Then the familiar markers don’t help. It’s happened to me:
everything looks different, and I don’t know how to get home.
Sometimes I’ll try to react to these changes by trying to find
landmarks from a previous time in my life, when things were going
better, when things were going well. But at that point, our friends
the Buddhists will say, “No, no, no. That’s yesterday’s river. Let
go of it. Be present today, to what is today. Be present now, in
this moment. Only then will you find your way.” And so I adjust. I
stop comparing now to what has been and stop fussing about why it’s
all so different and, instead, seek to be present to what is now, in
this landscape of changed circumstances. That’s when I begin to find
my way.
The same approach applies for this church as you are facing change:
going through a mission/vision process, seeking a new minister,
trying to determine who you will be, looking for the next steps for
this congregation to take. Yes, what you have been and what you have
stood for is important and should be honored. Yes, the dreams you
hold for what you can be are also important. But mostly, I think,
being present right now is what will help you face change. As it can
help any of us face the changes we encounter in our lives. Being
attentive. Being calm. Accepting it as all right, part of the
natural flow of existence. That’s how to face change.
In the opening reading, Jane Rzepka observed, “Lives, even lives
well-lived, don’t stay in place for long.” That’s correct: a truth
of existence. We do a lot of lurching around, even when it’s not
visible to others. Because the ground is always changing, the river
is always changing, the air is always changing.
As Jane put it in concluding her piece, let it be no surprise, then,
“and know that we’re all up there flying every which way, together.”
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