| October 7, 2007 | Go Gratitude: Hands Follow Hearts Reverend Jane Bramadat |
Meditation Matins (excerpt) by Denise Levertov
Marvelous Truth, confront us at every turn,
in every guise, iron ball, egg, dark horse, shadow,
cloud of breath on the air.
Dwell in our crowded hearts, our steaming bathrooms,
kitchens, full of things to be done, the ordinary streets.
Thrust close your smile that we know you, terrible joy.
(SLT # 500)
Sermon
Last year I joined a group on the internet called “Go Gratitude.” Its purpose was to promote gratefulness as one of the most essential attitudes a person ought to have. And this gratefulness was to be shown every day - regardless of whether the day was particularly enjoyable or not. The point was that being alive and having unexpected possibilities abounding is always worthy of thanks. These are the world’s optimists and given the world’s present precarious situation, it is helpful and healthful to be reminded of possibilities and of what many determined groups of people can accomplish in spite of overwhelming odds.....Some, of course, sneer at such a simplistic concept and point out all the woes in the world. I am well aware of all the woes, (this morning my alarm didn’t go off and I ran out of hot water in the shower....but then I remember that at least I have water..) but I choose as well to clutch an optimism banner firmly in one hand to help achieve balance. From such a perspective I wish each of you a Happy Thanksgiving...hoping you appreciate what you have in the way of friends, of causes, of values, of communities that allow you to end each day with appreciation for being alive.
I think it could be said that my sermon this morning displays a sort of cautious optimism. Its thesis is easy to say and difficult to do: Follow your passion; Let your actions mirror your values; Let hands follow hearts.
My words and thoughts come from a portion of the 'Marvelous Truth' piece that was read during Meditation: truth can bring us to a terrible joy. Whatever truth is recognized and realised leads to deeper awareness and with it a terrible joy - a joy that is at the same time intense, disturbing and transformative. It is a joy that comes from living out of the center of your being; of being balanced between being and doing; having a sense of being pulled towards goodness, purpose, satisfaction.
In our Unitarian Universalist faith perspective each of us is expected to do the necessary work of uncovering truth and then living out the consequences of that truth. We then, sometimes with fear and trembling, find a way to share our insight or truth awareness with our religious community. There are no shortcuts for us, no acceptable ancient or modern ready-made explanation for the way the world operates.
This morning I want to explore the relationship between what we believe and what we do. My sermon title tells you what my experience and my insight tell me is a truth - that hands follow heart in the matter of what we do about our beliefs.
What I mean is this: once we have found a religious perspective or a truth that resonates with our understanding and experience of life, we need to demonstrate its truth by our actions. Once we have found the religious path that is our heart's delight; a path on which our journey can be walked with wonder, companionship, challenge and integrity - then we will find that the work of our hands [figuratively and literally] will follow our hearts. The work of our hands is taking action to support and complement the religious perspective we choose. The work of our hands brings the meaning of our spiritual path into clear focus.
A corollary I encourage you to consider is that religious community requires the same 'following' that the individual does. Religious community is also a unit - a body of people who have covenanted to walk together in peace and love, in struggle and laughter; people who have found the same religious principles to be of importance and who choose to use both intellect and insight to apply these principles to their lives.
Hands follow hearts. I do not present this to you as an easy truth. It is not one to which we can respond, "well that should be no problem, I know exactly where my heart's delight is, I'll put all of my action there." Because, of course, our hearts pull us in many directions at once and so we cannot possibly answer all the claims our hearts will make upon us.
Let me briefly use myself as an example. It is still difficult for me to accept that I was not able to look after my mother and father when they could no longer look after themselves. This is the first generation in our family that the eldest daughter has not looked after her mother and father in their old age.
My decision met with the approval and understanding of my two brothers and my immediate family. My parents had become incontinent and required 24 hour care. I would have had to give up my ministry and my ministry was something both my parents applauded, supported and felt was a life-affirming task. And they also expected me to take care of them. My hands wanted to grab hold of both of these heart's desires and challenges - ministry and parental care - and make them shine from my efforts. I was not able to do both and it still weighs on me. One thing I know for sure , is that it is often not possible to do everything my heart might want me to do.
I also have truths that are more positive - like observing that small children are always curious and completely unprejudiced; like knowing the amazing bounty of friends who help me overcome roadblocks that seem to have no solution. Nourishing and appreciating my friends will be one of the last actions I will relinquish...
The example of wanting to juggle the care of my parents and continue my ministry, however, does not disprove my contention of the morning that hands follow hearts. It just acknowledges the complexity and paradox of the choices we all have to make. Because we all make choices daily. If we do not follow at least some of our heart's urgings we become closed and isolated. We find that we can't laugh too heartily at anything because then we would become open and susceptible to change and that would be uncomfortable and that is something we prefer not to contemplate. Yes, we may sometimes wonder why we feel bored and lonely, but we don't wonder about this too long because this would require us to examine whether or not we are answering our heart's call and doing what is required by it.
Listen to this anecdote from Unitarian Universalist minister and author Robert Fulghum. In his book It Was On Fire When I Lay Down on It, Fulghum tells the following story:
“Dear Fellow Pilgrim,
There you were, Hong Kong airport, end of the summer of 1984, tensely occupying a chair next to mine. Everything about you said, "Young American Traveler going Home"...Lucky kid, I thought.
When the tears began to drip from your chin, I imagined some lost love or the sorrow of giving up adventure for college classes. But when you began to sob, you drew me into your sadness. Guess you had been very alone and very brave for some time. A good cry was in order. And weep you did. All over me. A monsoon of grievous angst....Indeed, you were not quite ready to go home; you wanted to go further on. But you had run out of money and your friends had run out of money, and so here you were having spent two days waiting in the airport - standby with little to eat and too much pride to beg. And your plane was about to go. And you had lost your ticket. You cried all over me again. You had been sitting in this one spot for three hours, sinking into the cold sea of despair like some torpedoed freighter. At some moments you thought you would sit there until you died. After we dried you off, I and a nice older couple from Chicago, who were swept away in the tide of your tears, offered to take you to lunch and to talk to the powers that be at the airlines about some remedy. You stood up to go with us, turned around to pick up your belongings. and SCREAMED. I thought you had been shot. But no . . . it was your ticket. You found your ticket. You had been sitting on it. For three hours. Like a sinner saved from the very jaws of hell, you laughed and cried and hugged us all and were suddenly gone. Off to catch a plane for home and what next. Leaving most of the passenger lounge deliriously limp from being part of your drama.
I've told the story countless times. "She was sitting on her own ticket," I conclude, and the listeners always laugh in painful self-recognition.
Often when I have been sitting on my own ticket in some way -sitting on whatever it is I have that will get me up and on to what comes next- I think of you and grin at both of us and get moving.
So, thanks. You have become, in a special way, my travel agent. May you find all your tickets and arrive wherever it is you want to go, now and always.”
To fashion this anecdote to my topic more clearly, I ponder: I wonder if often we are not sitting on our own hands when we are casting about in despair [intentionally or unconsciously] for the answers to our heart's desire. I wonder if we often do not sit around in a 'pool of grievous angst' wondering .....why we cannot find more depth or more loving human contact or more purpose in life? It is only when we stand up and take action that we realise that we had the answers within us all the time.
What action, you may ask? Well sometimes one has to start with what is nearby, because if you have been sitting on your hands for a long time, there may not be much feeling in them! Depending on your own way of relating to life, at first you may want to do things quietly and on your own, testing the results of your action against your truths. Others may plunge right in noisily and joyfully and become involved in one thing after another. They may even be irritated that others do not see the same need for hands in the same places and be critical of others’ choices.
Let us take, for example the situation of one's religious and spiritual growth How do hands follow heart here?
Well, think for a moment about your present religious home - whether it be here or elsewhere. Is it a place that stimulates you and challenges you and comforts you and sings to you? Is it a place where you find a sense of trust, of adventure, of friendship? Do you involve yourself in any of the activities? Do you give and give and never feel appreciated? Are you able to take anything for yourself? Can you hear the still, small voice of the spirit? Does the place matter enough that you can overlook the human failings of both other people and yourself and still feel a joy for the journey? Do you allow yourself time to listen to your own cautions and creativities? To listen to the wisdom of your experience, the interweaving of others' experiences?
You may be saying to yourself. 'But I thought this religion would leave me alone. I would get to think my own thoughts, believe whatever I wanted to believe and not have to commit to anything.' This is both correct and incorrect. Nobody is going to tell you what you are allowed to think, or ought to think, and of course you must believe what your reason, conscience and experience tell you will make the best use of your entire being as you are pulled towards goodness, purpose and satisfaction.
But what is the point of a belief if it does not require validation? After awhile there is a hollowness or defensiveness about protecting one's right to noninvolvement. Certainly I agree, a person ought to be noninvolved if their heart is not in it.
This sermon is not a pitch to find more members for committees or an attempt to push you into joining this religious enterprise. Although if there is a landslide of people who want to help or to join, who am I to stand in the way of growth?!
Rather, this sermon is an encouragement, an invitation, for you to talk to your heart and find out if you are in the place that is best for you. If this is not occurring, then for your own mental and spiritual health you need to gently but firmly move on and get those hands engaged somewhere else! I believe with every fiber of my being that any religious perspective or spiritual path that has genuinely claimed your heart, will naturally require your hands to follow suit. That is, it will require you to have a sense of active involvement and commitment to that which brings your life meaning.
I further suggest [as I hinted at earlier] that hands need to follow hearts not only in individual matters but also in the matter of our religious community as a whole.
We already bring forward this attitude into the arena of Social Action when we take on some social responsibility projects as a whole community as we do with the HOW (Healing Our World) projects..
And we have dynamite religious principles, strong-willed and strong-hearted people, many moral imperatives that our religious values can communicate and hands that will get us up out of our easy chairs - that's what we have.
When hands follow hearts they help to make possible the visions and dreams of our intellect and insight. May we strive for the balance that involvement gives us - both in our individual lives and in the life of this religious community. At all times may we reach out our hands to one another in welcome, friendship and commitment.
|
| ||
|
First Unitarian Church of Victoria 5575 West Saanich Road Victoria, B.C. V9E 2G1 |
Phone | (250) 744-2665 |
|---|---|---|
| Fax | (250) 744-2610 | |
| churchoffice@victoriaunitarian.ca | ||
| Design | webmaster@victoriaunitarian.ca | |
| Website hosted by UUism Networks | ||