Call to Worship
Words of the Persian mystic Rumi:
Today, like every other day, we wake up empty
and frightened. Don’t open the door to the study
and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument.
Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.
Friends we gather here on this sabbath day,
To recognize our interdependence,
To give thanks for our lives and for this good green earth upon which all life depends.
And to know that we, and all of creation’s beings, might be called beloved.
Come, now, and let us worship together.
Sermon
To quote the song (“Keep Your Head Up” by Andy Grammer):
I know it’s hard, know it’s hard
To remember sometimes,
I’m seeing all the angles
Thoughts get tangled
I start to compromise
My life and my purpose.
Is it all worth it?
Am I gonna turn out fine?
And the song has an answer.
And keep your head up, oh,
And you can let your hair down, eh.
And keep your head up, oh,
And you can let your hair down, eh.
Not bad advice. Not bad advice at all.
These past weeks I expect most of us have learned some things about ourselves and the ways we have learned to cope—or not to cope—with all that is in our world right now. How we’ve managed to keep our heads up—or not. And the part about letting our hair down… well maybe that has been a little bit more of a challenge for some of us than for others.
No, this time has been a test for many of us—most of us I expect. Yes, most of us are making it but it has not been easy. Some have found themselves in serious bouts of depression. Some have found their levels of anxiety go through the roof. Many have experienced waves of fear—unlike what they have ever experienced before. Fears for our lives and the lives of those we love and care for. Financial worries for ourselves or for our loved ones.
And maybe right now we are Ok but what about a few months from now—or even years? Yes, these have been extraordinary times and yes, there is a lot all of us are holding right now.
When our usual patterns are disrupted, it may be then that we learn some of the things that help us get through. And from what I’ve been hearing many of us are doing that. But what about all that as this goes on, maybe for a long time? That longer reality has sunk in for me a little deeper the last couple weeks. I heard one expert interviewed this week who said that we’re just at the beginning of all this. Using a baseball game metaphor he said we’re only in the second inning and that we have lots of innings to go. Hearing that was a little sobering.
So what does it look like for us to sustain ourselves for the longer haul?
I’d like to talk this morning about spiritual practice and what that means for us in these times.
Now those words spiritual practice may be more familiar—and maybe more comfortable for some of us than for others. When we hear those words we might imagine some deeply spiritual person deep in meditation or prayer, maybe off in the woods somewhere, maybe by a peace lake or stream. We might imagine someone chanting om as part of their practice. Maybe they are there in some beautiful—and possibly painful—yoga pose. And so we may or may not imagine ourselves engaged in such a thing.
But spiritual practice can take many forms and I’d bet that it is actually something most of us are doing in one form or another. You see I think spiritual practice is really about making space, about intention. It is about paying attention and noticing what is stirring for us. Or maybe to notice that we haven’t settled enough to do that. It is a way of checking in and asking how is it with my spirit? How is it with my soul?
Important questions to be asking ourselves right now.
In today’s story for all ages, Cassandra led us in a mindfulness meditation. It began with that most primal of spiritual practices—mindfulness of our breath. We breath in. We breathe out. Breathe in. Breath out. Breathe in. Breathe out.
Have you ever found yourself feeling anxious or afraid? Or maybe just really stressed? And in that moment have you taken a good deep breath? When I have been in that place what helps more than anything is that attention to my breath, and maybe repeating that a time or two. Breathing in. breathing out.
And I think that gets to the heart of most spiritual practice. It comes down to noticing. It comes down paying attention. It is about doing something that helps us to focus on our being. The specific practice isn’t as important as the intention behind that practice. It is about making a space to notice those fears, that anxiety maybe that sadness, maybe even joy.
So what are some of the things you’ve been noticing lately?
Just how important loved ones, or community are to you?
Things that maybe we took for granted?
Maybe an awareness of just how privileged we are?
Or maybe noticing how nice it is that there aren’t so many cars on the road? Or how we used to spend a lot of our time shopping for things that we really don’t need?
Or maybe being aware in ways that we haven’t been before how the food we have on our table is a blessing, and most of all a blessing we have because of the farm workers and grocery workers and the truck haulers and so many others that make it possible for us to have all that?
In times that can feel so out of control, so chaotic, part of how we can center ourselves is to find those practices that feed us, that ground us.
I’m trying to take more time for meditation and prayer. For me that is finding a space and being quiet and noticing the thoughts that are stirring in me. It means noticing the distractions that come into my mind. It is making a space to think about the people in my life who are struggling. It is a place to notice the things that I am struggling with.
I’ve found walks are important—even if my dog is still trying to figure out what the social distancing thing is all about. If I can imagine her question it would be so what’s the deal with crossing the street all the time?
Cooking has been important. That is creative time for me. This week I ventured into the world of yeast bread, some thing that has kind of vexed my whole life. But after watching all those episodes of the Great British baking show I mustered the courage. And low and behold it worked.
Now if I can just figure out how to use turmeric in my cooking.
And I’ve heard from others of you things that you have found. Walking among the trees or in our neighborhoods. Noticing the smells and the sounds. Noticing the beauty around us.
It may be making masks for others and for ourselves. It might be finding ways to work for justice in ways we haven’t done before. It may mean checking in with our loved ones on a regular basis. It may be some other creative pursuit that feeds our spirit.
Part of what we are asked to do in our lives, probably now more than ever, is to bear witness to what is around us and to make our way in whatever reality we find ourselves in.
Whatever the particular practice might be isn’t as important as how it helps us to stay centered, how it helps us to stay grounded. How it helps us stay connected to our source, however we might define that source to be.
Elie Wiesel tells the story of a young boy in a small East European town in 1941. One day the combination town fool and wise man, Moche, approaches him as he is praying.
“Why do you pray?”” he asked the young boy.
“I don’t know why,” the boy said.
“And why do you pray, Moche?” the young boy asked him.
“I pray to the God within me (to) give me the strength to ask … the right questions.”
Strength to ask the right questions.
Prayer or whatever spiritual practice we might use is not so much about how god responds, but it is more about our own response. In the voicing of prayer or in exercise or whatever form we might choose, hopefully that helps us to get closer to what is most important.
It is sitting with what is stirring in us. What is most important is the door that opens up when we allow ourselves some space. To gain a deeper perspective on where we are in the scheme of things.
Earlier this month our lay ministers were checking in about the things that are getting them through these times. May folks talked about the practices that are helping them in these days. One of them struck me in particular.
For Woody English, the spiritual practice that has been sustaining him is studying geology.
As Woody tells the story this all started many years ago when his work as a doctor took him to many parts of Oregon. As he has had more time in later years he has been drawn back to some of those places, wanting to explore them more. So Woody and his wife Annie got a small travel trailer. One of their trips led them to Eastern Washington around Spokane to an area called the Channeled Scablands for the way the earth is crisscrossed by long channels cut into the bedrock.
All of this led Woody to sign up for a geology class at Portland State is his retirement. He told me that he has been a student of history all is his life but that studying geology has opened up his sense of history to a much larger time frame. He was used to studying history from a human perspective but now he has found that geology offers a whole different perspective on our lives and our place in this much larger, this much longer history.
Woody told me this has affected how he thinks about things. He said he has come to see how we are all part of some much larger story. And all of that has been especially important in the last few weeks, how it has been a source of grounding for him. How it puts even something as terrible as this pandemic into a much larger evolutionary context. Most of all, he said, in the context of one’s own mortality. That we’re all products of these rocks, these molecules. He said it has led him to the awareness that eventually when we die we fold back into that which gave us birth, that all of this flows back into a much deeper sense of belonging.
Part of life’s journey is to understand our place in the world and our place is some much larger mystery.
So much of life has felt so chaotic in recent weeks. So much fear, so much confusion, so much misinformation, so much loss. And maybe too, awareness of the things we take for granted. Awareness of our privilege. All of it pretty humbling when we think ourselves as being part of something so much larger.
Carl Jung in his writings said chaos is something so valuable that we should seek it out. It is the prima materia, the original stuff, blessedly free of order and meaning, the ground of new ideas and new experience. “The egg stands for chaos,” he wrote, Out of it will rise the phoenix, the liberated soul.”[1]
The chaos of these times can take us out of our usual patterns. They can make us aware of things we may not have paid all that much attention to. Those things that are important and maybe those things that aren’t as important as we thought they were.
In a world of brokenness we need to be in touch with our own brokenness, with our own pain. It is then we are able to be more fully present with the pain and brokenness of the world. That is not an easy task, but something that the spirit asks of us.
As we are able to be with that brokenness—with that despair—we are able to touch not only our pain but also our own sense of power and agency. We touch into our own imagination and creativity. We are receptive to how we might see our story in a different way. That the choices we do make matter. That it is important for us to be mindful not only how our lives are dependent upon others but that others, too, are dependent on us.
But it means a willingness to leave our comfort zones. It means being willing to stay in that place where we don’t have all the answers but where we can also trust that we will be OK no matter what.
One of the rituals in our household in these last few weeks has been to go outside and hear the noisemaking at 7 pm every evening as a way to express thanks for first responders, to medical folks, to grocery works and farm workers. It has come, I think, out of a need to express solidarity with others, as a way to express gratitude for so many things in our lives.
So our pattern has been to go out on our front porch each evening. One day this week—it happened to be Earth Day—it was a little chilly and we were not outside. But at dinner time we opened the window so that we could at least hear the pots and pans banging and human voices cheering. But as we opened the window those sounds were drowned out by a different kind of cacophony. Seems that in a huge maple tree in our neighbor’s yard, which just in a last couple weeks has spring to life with a new set of leaves, out of that tree came the sounds of what sounded like hundreds of baby birds making a huge noise, which I think was a call for their own dinner. We happen to live on a busy street and sometimes it can be hard to hear things but not in this case. The little birds were a call to aliveness, they were a reminder of new life. They were somehow communicating a message that the earth, in all of its complexity and beauty and resilience, was so very much alive, and that we are a part of it all.
Words by Billy Collins:
But it is hard to speak of these things
how the voices of light enter the body
and begin to recite their stories
how the earth holds us painfully against
its breast made of humus and brambles
how we who will soon be gone regard
the entities that continue to return
greener than ever, spring water flowing
through a meadow and the shadows of clouds
passing over the hills and the ground
where we stand in the tremble of thought
taking the vast outside into ourselves.[2]
Taking in the world—living in the world—with integrity and love is what we are called to do every day of our lives. So simple and yet so challenging. Keeping our heads up. And even letting our hair down sometimes.
It is a dance, this moving in, this moving out of this chaos and order. Moving from that place of knowing to that place of not-knowing, from that place of ease to that place of disease.
We are asked to live faithfully these days, that we will find the answers we need, that we will know our calling in the world, that we will know, day by day by day, moment by moment by moment, breath by breath by breath, how it is we are to live. Amen.
Prayer
Spirit of life, you move in ways so subtle, so mysterious. Help us as we find our way. Help us as we recognize how we are all in this together. Help us most of all to see our own lives connected to others, those at risk, those who are the most vulnerable. Help us to live in the presence of chaos and despair and in the presence of wonder and beauty too. Be with us, no matter where our journey takes us. Remind us that we never journey alone. Amen.
Benediction
I was talking with a friend last week who shared a conversation he had had with a cloistered nun. For her, what we might call isolation and quarantine is not all that new. This was the advice she gave for living in these times:
Establish a rhythm.
Remember that right now what we’re experiencing is solitude, not isolation. Remember that there is a choice.
And finally, every day—every day—let the people you love know it.
Good people, may this be our promise. May this be our practice.
This is the day we have been given. Let us rejoice in it and be glad.
Go in peace. Practice love. Amen.
[1] A Hymn by Thomas Moore, Parabola, Chaos and Order, Fall 2003, pp17.
[2] Excerpted from “Directions” by Billy Collins. https://www.poetseers.org/contemporary-poets/poet-laureates/billy-collins/directions/
Topics: Possibility