A People of Calling

By revjudegeiger

Our annual Water Communion Service, also honoring Rosh Hashanah. 9/9/18

(Tell the story of the Waterbearer🙂

All this month we will be reflecting on what it means to be a people of vocation. It’s a big word that can mean work, or our job, or a profession. Religiously speaking, it also means “calling” – what are we called to do or be. In the water-bearer story, the leaky bucket felt pain because it wasn’t doing what it thought it was sent out to do; but it was actually fulfilling its purpose – flowers were growing from the broken places. Our calling in life, is where our total humanity fits the worlds deepest needs. But we don’t always recognize it.

Instead, sometimes we can get really focused on the cracks in our buckets, that we don’t see where they can be of value – or how they may help us or the people around us – or how they play into the bigger world around us. By a show of hands, who here often feels like they have to be perfect – to have to hide the cracks – to never let any water spill. Ok, look around (that’s a lot of hands.) Ok, put your hands down. Who here expects the people aroundthem to be perfect all the time, to never show their cracks, to never let any water spill? We all know some people who seem harder on others than themselves, but that seems to be less common, plus we never know what’s really going on inside their heads, maybe they’re really quietly rough on themselves.

Why are we normally so much harder on ourselves than we are on others? We can beat ourselves up real well. Why? Some of it is about our ego. We hold up our sense of self-worth so high, that any mistake we make that makes that picture of greatness less than perfect, is something we focus on again and again until we can erase it so our ego looks shiny again. I doubt many of us think or feel this way on purpose, it just happens. That’s kind of a faith in our ego, or our false sense of perfection. And that’s something that our principles teach us against.

What does our first principle say? (Inherent worth and dignity of every person, and some may say every being. In our classrooms we often just say, “everyone is important.”) Do we all agree with our first principle (can I get some nods, hands, amen’s, or even hear-hears!) Well, I’m going to ask us all to have a little faith in that first principle. Sometimes, that’s what religion is about – trusting in a teaching or a value even when you might be having a hard time seeing it or feeling it. Just because you’ve lost faith in your worth despite our imperfections, doesn’t mean it’s true. Just because the kid at the next table during lunch hour is being mean to you, doesn’t mean they’re right. When people are mean to you for little reason, it’s normally much more about them than it is about you. And this religion teaches us that we have value, we have worth, despite our little cracks, or our mistakes, and especially regardless of what the mean bully (of any age) may tell us. People are always going to share their opinions, but they’re not always going to be right.

(People are always going to share their opinions, but they’re not always going to be right.)

And for those of us who are always the stable ones, the ones helping others, the ones who are the problem solvers never with any problems of our own (on the outside), I remind us that sometimes even the caregiver needs help. Sometimes, we’re not perfect (usually in fact), and sometimes our cracks help something else grow like in the case of the water bearer. When we feel rough, or bruised, or tired – where are those places that feed our inner wells? Where’s the water come from that the water bearer is carrying? Many of us brought water forward earlier symbolizing the places in our lives that nourish us. How do we build those wells in our lives? How do we make sure they’re close to home?

Think about those places in your lives that feed you. What is it about them? Is it the community or friends? Is it the scenery? Is it a sense of peace, or ease, or just a place where you have no responsibilities? Maybe it’s the sense of history? If you can’t think of a place or a source that feeds you, please, come up and talk with me later and we can sort out how this Fellowship may give that nourishment.

Some of us may have brought water from our local summer camp, Fahs. (A lot of us have the camp’s t-shirts on today.) It’s a place where people are acting their best selves; it feels safe; there are chances for fun, for challenging yourself, for growing up, a chance to rest, it’s been a beautiful spot too.

All these things nourish ourselves. Rest, good people acting well, safety, fun, challenge, growth and beauty. Getting away, traveling to places like this, are definitely important and worth doing. Sometimes we just need to get out of the routine of the every-day to get back to ourselves; to see the world anew. But the truth is, those wells that nourish our spirits, are in our backyards too. The garden at my house that feeds (mostly the birds, squirrels and resident rabbits these), and encourages our puppy “Lola” to play, leap and get muddy, is a well too. And not just for her. Sometimes allowing the silly into our lives may not be efficient, or clean, but it can remind us to have fun. That it’s not all about being serious, or diligent, or working hard. The muddy dog, wet from the garden hose foolery, is the very image of turning that-which-is-a chore into something rejuvenating – something nourishing – even if it means that maybe the puppy can’t come inside anytime soon. My husband will call out; “Lola is not allowed on the couch!”

The trick, or the challenge is to allow those places like Fahs Summer Camp to be allowed into our lives the rest of the year in small ways. To look at the routine in new ways and turn it into something different. I recall as a kid hating Sundays in the Winter. All that was on TV was golf (ugh) and it was too cold to play outside, and we didn’t have computers when I was young (gasp), and I was an only child. The very image of boredom!  Now a-days, with job, school, and volunteer efforts taking us in so many directions, I wish for boring days at home! It’s how you look at it. Boring isn’t always such a bad thing, and sometimes it’s good for us to learn how to be a little bored and comfortable with it.

There’s often the drive to pretend all those places of nourishment are far away, or only available at another time. In the Winter we hate the cold and in the Summer we hate the heat and humidity. In September comes the great debate between those who love the pumpkin spice, and those who love to mock it. We wait all year for a great vacation (if we can afford the travel) pining for the warm beach, and finally when it comes, by the end of the week or two we’re sometimes pining for home. (Sleeping in my own bed, is a phrase we often say when travel becomes a chore, rather than a dream.) They’re all normal reactions, but they’re all a little crazy-making too, right? Building those wells that nourish us, wherever or whenever we are, is the religious practice. Universalism teaches us that wherever else Heaven may be, Heaven is also on Earth, here and now. We only need to be open to seeing or feeling it. To not saying that Heaven is some place else that I have to wait to get to. The summer camps of the world are awesome places, with a community we love to spend time with. And that community, in large part, is literally here too – all year long. For the lovers of Fahs (we have something like 60-80 from our community there every year),  for the Fahs lovers, I challenge you to bring Fahs here as much as you can. What was the theme for Fahs this year (it’s not a place, it’s the people – here’s a clue, read the back of someone’s Fahs’ t-shirt in front of you.) To be your best self in this community, as this community has been its best self at Fahs. To make this Home a bit of the places of paradise you’ve found elsewhere. It’s already here; even if we can’t always see it.

As we come to a close, I’ll remind us of the wise imagery we heard earlier in the service from Rev. Amanda Poppei: “Life has often felt to me like a jigsaw puzzle… or really, like the mess of pieces when you first dump out the box. When I’ve been faced with multiple decisions at the same time, it’s felt as though I’m not sure which piece to fit in first. Little by little, I try piece after piece until one clicks. Then I can recognize the pieces that might fit around it, and eventually the pattern emerges — not just in the picture I’m creating, but in the mess of pieces I have still to pick up.”

Being a people of calling can mean taking up the challenge of the jigsaw puzzle; our lives are not always straight forward stories about progress by progress. Sometimes our lives are about making sense and meaning out of the mess of the pieces dumped out of the box. Sometimes, what’s left behind, the pieces that are still remaining, are more about our calling than all the neat places we’ve fitted before.