Ministry

October 11, 2009

The End Is Where We Start From Reverend Don Vaughn-Foerster

As the story goes, one Saturday morning, a young boy and his mother were strolling down the main street of a country town.  She was window-shopping and he was dawdling when they came upon a well-dressed man who seemed to be wandering around a bit confused.  When the man saw the two he went straight toward the boy who did not seem occupied and asked, "Say, young fellow, where is the post office?"  The boy gave him a doubtful look and said, "Why, it's just around the next corner to the right."  The man thanked him and walked quickly away. 

The next day was Sunday and the boy's mother hauled him off somewhat unwillingly to sit next to her during the church service.  To their surprise, the man who got up to deliver the sermon was the same man who asked directions to the post office.  He was the new minister come to town and this was his first service there.  He announced his sermon title as "Sending Letters of the Spirit to God" and proceeded to say that this kind of mail cannot be "sailed through the air" like a paper airplane or enclosed in a bottle and tossed into the sea or even deposited in a letter box for someone else to deliver.  It would only arrive if sent by the vigorous exercise of one's own heart.  One could not simply wait for the message to float upward somehow but must impart one's own energy to its delivery.  At this point, the young boy turned to his mother and said, "I guess he couldn't find the post office after all." 

As far as the boy was concerned, if the man had just listened to the directions he gave, those "letters to God" could have been sent the day before --and sent more efficiently.  Some of you may have a reaction to me such as the boy had to his new minister.  I suspect I have been asking (and will continue to ask, at least for a while) questions that fall into the "Where is the post office?" category.  But, I need to know such things if I am to communicate with you and we are, together, to have an effective transitional year. 

Now, although I don't share the preacher's theology, I do like his dynamic approach.  In this world of continual change (as described by Heraclitus and experienced by anyone who has tried to understand how they got where they are), we can't just say we want to go somewhere oand expect some cosmic mail carrier (some mail-angel or fe-mail-angel) to deliver us.  To have any influence on our own fate, we need such a working knowledge of transitions that we can move ourselves in the right direction on our own.   

There is a lot of literature on the subject, and, in sum, it supports my basic belief that the primary task for the congregation is not just to trust some divine or "kismetic" delivery service (to invent a word), but to move ourselves positively and creatively through the transition.  The especial role of the interim minister, whose mere presence tends to provoke questions and promote self-examination (if not outright uneasiness), is to help the congregation examine its own nature, predispositions, and desires.  An interim/transitional period is a time for reality checks, a time perhaps for regrouping, a time for shedding old, unsuspected baggage (such as sacred cows, skeletons in the closet, and elephants roaming unacknowledged about the room) as well as for preparing to greet and accept a new settled minister enthusiastically and optimistically.  The interim ministry can be declared a success after a new settled minister has been called and it is clear that the choice made by the congregation was a good choice. 

Earlier this month the Board of Trustees and I had a retreat, at which the Board and I had a conversation that will guide much of what we will be doing this year.  However, this morning I don't want to talk about what we talked about that day as such.  Rather, I want to say some things about transitions themselves, things we need to know if we are to focus clearly on where we want to go. 

There is a widespread misconception of what a transition is.  Mostly people seem to think that it is simply moving from an old situation that has ended to a new situation that is beginning.  It seems merely to be a matter of stopping what you have been doing and starting to do something different.  People say, "Don't cry over spilt milk" or "What's done is done," or "Let bygones be bygones" or "Just get on with it!"  But this doesn't help us get used to whatever has changed or to internalize lessons from change that require us really to know what an ending is.   

In the usual view, "endings" have to "come to an end" before "beginnings" can be begun.  When an "ending" fully finishes, we say, is when a "beginning" can fully begin.  But in life, there are, usually (if not always), little endings and little beginnings that quite often refuse to come in chronological sequence but insist on overlapping.  Actually, many endings can only fully occur after some beginnings are attempted.  So there may be a lot of "pulling and hauling" going on in our hearts and minds before we settle down to some of the inevitable changes in our lives.  Certain things simply have to happen before there can occur a natural and complete ending that frees us to move on to a healthy beginning.  That is, we have to be realistic about the true character of the old situation and this may entail determining, along with its positives, what some of its real negatives were.  Without such knowledge, it may not be possible to set a new course appropriate for the future. 

People who are supposed to know about these things (sociologists and other experts in change) tell us that endings may require us to take some things off a pedestal that have been important to us.  Or, in modern parlance, we may have to do some "diss-ing".  By the way, "dis" is a prefix that comes to us from Latin by way of Middle English.  Its basic meaning is "to do the opposite", as in disestablish.  Modern slang, unfortunately, has turned "dis" into a verb meaning "to treat with disrespect or contempt" but it has value this morning as a clarifying word element.  With a capital "D" it is also a noun, which is the name of the Roman god of the underworld whom the Greeks called Pluto.  [You know, that means that the astronomers not too long ago not only plucked Pluto from the planets, they "dissed" Dis.  But I digress.  Or, with some etymological justification, I could say I dis-gress. 

But, back to my point about the need to take some things off their pedestals, there are four "disses" that comprise this process.  They are: disengage, disidentify, disenchant, and disorient.  These words stand for actions involved in bringing an old situation to a complete enough end that we are free to move on to a new beginning.  They are not meant to cancel out the "good" of the old we want to keep.  They are meant to encourage a realistic and critical look at that of which we have been a part.  I'll describe, generally, what they are and may return to them more completely later as circumstances may require. 

Disengage, for instance, is what a newly married couple does when they move away from old family and friendship ties to create a new life for themselves.  They are "letting go."  Dis-identify is what we do toward the past when we separate ourselves from old practices and commitments enough to open our minds and hearts, our attitudes and behavior to allow newer, healthier modes of belief and behavior to become part of our lives.  Disenchantment is what happens to us if, or when, we become aware that something or someone was not as perfect as we had thought - when we find out for sure that there is no Santa Claus, that parents and friends, too, sometimes lie and treat us shabbily, that what looked unshakable under our feet does indeed shake.  Disorientation - that's what happens to us when the swirl of changes going on around us causes us to lose our sense of direction - which can happen in almost indiscernible ways after that which is familiar is gone. 

The point is not that these aspects of change are always present or inevitable.  They may not be.  The point is that frequently they do happen and, when they do, it is no sign of courage or optimism to deny their existence.  To drive underground these almost inevitable aspects of endings is to adopt an avoidance optimism that allows the dark side of relationships and behaviors later to pop up again to sabotage projects, goals, and relationships that, otherwise, would succeed.  The point is to deal with everything that is part of transition and to do it in such a way that the negative does not arbitrarily outweigh the positive and the positive does not obscure the real presence of the negative.  Clarity in these matters is a prime virtue.  We have to know that what we think is the case really is the case and not some knee-jerk reaction based on desire or habit and not on thought.  We have to do this in order to be ready for a real beginning.

However, we certainly do want our new beginnings to spring from the positive bases of our experience both as a congregation and in our personal lives as individuals.  This congregation and the individuals who comprise it have a strong and positive base.  Present here is a resilient history, a positive heritage, and a reservoir of good will to pass on to the future.  In the statement of its purpose and mission in its bylaws, this congregation has made it clear that its basic values include religious tolerance, spiritual growth, individual freedom, and the pursuit of truth, as well as the fundamental primacy of the democratic method in collective decision-making.  This congregation, I have found, truly affirms reason and compassion as its guide and freedom as its method. 

Furthermore, each one of us has brought into this room this morning a religious bundle of aspirations, commitments, and goodwill that has been part of our personal lives, and not just the life of this congregation, and Unitarianism at large.  Individually and collectively as Unitarians, we do affirm and promote the worth and dignity of every person.  We do strive for justice, equity, and compassion in human relations.  We insist on the freedom to seek truth and meaning on terms that mean something to us.  We recognize that all of life is an interdependent web on this planet, and possibly in the universe.  Most of us have voiced our commitment to these principles or we wouldn't be here.  This kind of commitment bodes well for a great future for this congregation and its members upon the successful ending of the old and the healthy beginning of the new in this period of transition.   

There is one final point I must make.  It has to do with why I am really here.  An analogy from the physical sciences (one that I picked up from John Weston, the head of Settlement for the Department of Ministry) spells it out.  Envision all the patterns, norms, and habits of a congregation to be like a supersaturated solution of some chemical

compound in a beaker.  Now, drop into this solution a crystalline solid of the same compound and ching!  The contents of the entire beaker crystallize around this seed crystal.  Actually, the same chemical compound may crystallize in several different ways because the compound in the beaker takes on the shape of the seed crystal.  Such, it can be said, is the response in a congregation to a new minister when the match is good.  Over time, the crystalline shape of the minister -- primarily the shape of the minister's relational style -- has a profound shaping influence on the style of the whole congregation. 

Once the crystalline structure in the beaker is fully formed, you can take a surgical saw and pliers to remove a seed crystal; but, then, what happens to the crystalline structure?  Nothing!  It has a hole in it, but otherwise, it is what it was.  Drop a new seed crystal onto the crystalline structure, a crystal of the same compound but differently configured, and what happens?  Nothing! Boink!  It bounces right off.  Over the years that's what has happened to hundreds of Unitarian ministers when they tried to succeed other ministers who strongly shaped congregations for good or for ill. 

Now imagine a second beaker containing a solvent.  Pour this solvent onto the crystallized solid in the beaker, apply warmth, agitate gently, and watch the solid dissolve once again into a supersaturated solution.  Now you can take a new, but differently configured crystal of the same chemical compound that bounced off the larger solid earlier, and add it to the newly dissolved supersaturated solution.  What happens this time?  Aha!  A new crystalline structure forms, which is differently configured and takes its shape from the new seed crystal.

What is that solvent?  What enables the fully formed crystalline structure to become fluid once more, yet allows it, as well, to re-form around a new seed crystal?  In crystallized religious societies it is an interim ministry.  The interim minister's mission, purpose, and function in a congregation's life is to assist it and its lay leadership to become fluid once more, no longer crystallized around former ways of doing things -- not in order to re-crystallize around the interim minister but to become capable of forming a new, beautiful, and as yet unimagined configuration with an as yet unknown seed crystal, which will be the next settled minister to come into a long term relationship with the congregation.

This is why you and I are spending this year together.  Not just to solve problems but to see that liberal religion continues to thrive and to "dissolve" (there's another "dis" word) whatever intractable crystallizations there may be and the "disses" they may represent so that you can flow with the currents of change onto new and even more rewarding circumstances.  The point is to get down to that firm but fluid foundation on which we can make the most of what we have and that gives this congregation a base on which most realistically and hopefully to build an evolving community with new ministerial leadership.  The point is to become clear enough in our minds as to what the situation here really is and what the possibilities really are that we can know both where we are and where we are going. 

In the meantime, can someone tell me, before next Sunday, where the post office is?