Open Minds, Welcome Hearts
This sermon was preached at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Huntington on 9/17/17. It reflects on some of the foundational tenets of Unitarian Universalism, and the wisdom they offer us in our times of brokenness and self-doubt.
We’re coming to the end of the last weekend of Summer. (I know, boo.) Some years it feels like Winter stretches out for six months, and Summer is over in a couple of weeks. This year was like that for me. It was a full Summer, but in a blink, it was still over. In my younger years, Autumn was my favorite season. I loved the warmer weather, but I was also looking forward to the cooler days for hiking, and pumpkin picking; and Halloween was a second Christmas for me as a kid and a teen.
But as an adult, especially one without kids of my own, all the holidays of childhood take on a different feel; not less, but different. As we grow up, and older, we see old things with new eyes – when we’re at our best. Even if we have kids; they grow older, and they too grow up. The seasons, and the holidays and holy days, take on new meaning for all of us, at each stage in our lives. We learn to love them anew, with a deeper meaning, if we’re lucky.
As the poet’s words that opened our service said, “The years of all of us are short, our lives precarious. Our days and nights go hurrying on and there is scarcely time to do the little that we might.” This is the quintessential challenge of religious life. As a mentor of mine often spoke (The Rev. Forrest Church), “Religion is the human response to being alive and having to die.” He, himself, died quite young, at the age of 61. As I was writing this, I was realizing that the anniversary of his birth and his death is this coming week, right after the Autumnal equinox, on the 23rd and the 24th respectively. Despite himself dealing with a nasty form of cancer at too young an age, he was never maudlin about aging or death.
The ideas of change, and ultimate concerns, are spiritual bedrocks of religious life. We are born, we live, and we will die. We can choose to live our lives, conscious of that truth, or we can live our lives hiding from it. Faith – faith asks us to live knowing our time is short; to leave quiet footprints marking where we loved our neighbor, where we mended the broken, where we chose to help lessen the burden of another, and so too – where we choose to let our neighbor in, to help us in our times of need. Help when we have the strenght to help, and let others help us when we’re in need. All are spiritual moments; all are sacred.
And so too, the poet continues, “Yet we find time for bitterness, for petty treason and evasion. What can we do to stretch our hearts enough to lose their littleness?”… How can we craft open minds, and welcome hearts – how can we stretch to lose our littleness? We all try our best, and still, from time to time, we get mired down in the smallness of pumping our egos up on righteous indignation; on tiny angers for the sake of being angry – separating ourselves from our neighbors, as we feed our sense of being wronged. There’s a strange and foolish attraction, for some of us, or maybe most of us, in seeking out the chance to feel being wrong.
In Unitarian Universalist circles, we say it in differing ways, but we often come back to the words printed on our letterhead, and atop our order of service; openness, mindfulness and reverence. These three words, these tenets, call us back from the path of bitterness and petty treasons; they remind us that there is something more to this life than our smallest selves. I try to come back to them each week in services, because even though they are so easy to say, they are so hard to remember to live. It’s the quest of a lifetime.
Openness, mindfulness, reverence. If you’re with us today for the first time, or you’ve traveling with us for forty years, we come back to them again and again, in differing ways, and sometimes in different language, but that’s what we point to time and again. How do we stay open to other views; how do we stay open, when the world feels like it’s shutting door after door. How do we keep our hearts open, without breaking, when the doctor shares the worst news we can imagine? Religious life is knowing we are born, and we all have to die. …How do we stay open before that eternal truth? We face that, day after day – and we are at our most human, when we are honest before that most raw of facts.
Mindfulness, in the face of pain and in the face of joy – it may begin in meditation and prayer, but it’s lived in our offices, and on route 110, when we’re trying to make a left hand turn off of Jericho Turnpike (especially then), and when we flick the channels of the news; when the divorce lawyer sends their paperwork, and when our boss hands us the pink slip. This too is life; and this too shall pass. Can we handle all this outside of religious community; yes – yes we assuredly can; so many of us choose to face it alone. But the burden is lighter when we do it together – it may not be any easier, but our hearts can be more cared for when we’re not alone. And the world is teeming with excuses and distractions – to not face what is always before us. Religious community, at our best, hopes to help us live mindfully, aware and full of heart; when we are whole and when we are broken, but still to live, through it all.
…And reverence, reverence is seemingly so counter-cultural these days. In the push and pull of life, and consumerism, and workaholism, and power, and pride, reverence gets the short straw. We are trained to want, or desire, but not to revere. We are taught to strive, and persevere, maybe even to crave. But reverence suggests a relationship; a relationship that’s not predicated on control or ownership. And in a culture where we commit idolotry to the gods of consumerism, control and ownership are the high priests.
The great Jewish theologian and rabbi, Martin Buber, used the phrase “I-Thou” to talk about reverence, and he meant it in a relational sense. When we come to respect the worth and presence of another – whether it’s your neighbor, or God, or the tree on the corner that comes alive, vibrant in its springtime pinks, or it’s autumnal reds – when that bush is burning with vibrancy – and we are present to see it as it truly is – that is reverence.
To see, and to be seen – that is reverence; that is spirituality; that is our purpose, and our meaning, and our highest virtue. And in this religious home, we strive to ingrain that sense of reverence, in our hearts, and in the hearts of our kids, and their kids, and in their kids. We look across the generations and hope for a world more whole for those that will inherit it. May we pass what has been given to us, reverently to the next, and to the next, and to the next. That is reverence – knowing in our heart of hearts that we remain in relation with generation after generation after generation. As the poet closed, “how does it happen that we are not kindred in all things else? How strange and foolish are these walls of separation that divide us!” Religious life, holy life, is tearing down the walls that foolishly separate us. We are here, together, in this one, precious life. May we live knowing that truth in our hearts – with openness, mindfulness and precious reverence; a reverence that speaks from our core, to the hearts of all those we meet along the road.
A colleague of mine, the Rev. Rosemary Brae McNatt, who used to lead our congregation on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, and now heads our seminary on the west coast, Starr King, often joked that as UU’s, even though we gave up the Trinity – the idea that God was Father, Son and Holy Spirit, we still remained loyal to our trinities. We still wrote in three’s. Faith, Hope and Love; or Justice, Equity and Compassion (as our second principle teaches); or even Openness, Mindfulness and Reverence that I’ve focused on today. But we have so many more that become foundational to our practical theology.
To return to the Rev. Forrest Church, from earlier, he has another “three” that’s constant to our practical theology. Sermon after sermon would come back to this spiritual teaching, “Want what you have, be who you are, do what you can.” This may be both simple, and the most counter-cultural spiritual message we can offer in these trying times. The crush of commercialism demands we crave more and more – we replace reverence with desire; we’re not whole until we conquer more. That’s not spiritual, that’s base. Want what you have. Imagine that. Imagine wanting what you already have. Not moving on to the next thing, or the next success, but relishing what is already before you.
In this human circle, imagine being enough, already, as you are. For some of us, that’s easy; for some of us, that’s quite hard. We’re all broken spirits doing the best we can, AND we’re all magnificent souls blessing the world before us. We are both broken, and quite whole. We are a gift, and we’re only doing our best at any given time, if we are even doing our best – all at the same time.
Be who you are. When was the last time, someone asked you to consider being…you. So much of life, these days, seems to be trying to tell us to be better, or more, or something other than who we are. We are all unique gifts, and to be honest, sometimes unique challenges, in this one precious life. But as much as any of us need to grow, we all need to grow, we all are a gift to this world – when we’re at our best. We can struggle, and wrestle and cry tears of frustration or tears of joy, over who we are, but we are who we are. Be who you are. No one else can. Get better when you can, but don’t feel a failure for who you born to be.
The broader world tells us to fix ourselves, to correct who we are in light of social norms. Be more masculine, be thinner, be more straight, be more powerful, be white, have more hair, be more athletic, and it goes on and on. We can lie our way into exhaustion and demoralization. But what we need, is not more “be different’s”, we need more “be who you are.” No one else will ever be you. Be you. Be you in all your awkwardness, and all your glory. In your mistakes and your perfections. Life is infinitely varied, and infinity needs role models. Be that role model for that kid that needs to see you; be that role model.
And, definitely, do what you can. For those here that are doing, oh so much, I might advise you to manage all that you do. We are not bottomless wellsprings of doing. But for those that are looking to be pushed a wee bit more; do what you can. There is always another things that needs doing, to heal the broken corners of the world where we will. Be that healing. Want what you have, be who you are; do what you can.
If you’re new to our Fellowship and looking for a new ministry in your life; I’ll offer three immediate suggestions. Our community garden, the grounds we use to grow food for town pantries, can always use more help. Head on back there when groups are working (any garden volunteers present today – or go up to those folks after service today to learn more.) Two – at the end of Oct, on the 28th, we’ll be hosting a full day training on accompaniment – to help support immigrants as a friendly presence when their time for court hearings take place. And three – in a couple of months, we shift over to housing our cold weather shelter for migrant men (any HIHI volunteers present today – you’ll definiltey hear more in the coming months, but you can ask those folks after service to learn more.) Do what you can.
RevWho 
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