Listen:
OPENING WORDS: "Welcome Morning"
There is joy
in all:
in the hair I brush each morning,
in the chapel of eggs I cook
each morning,
in the outcry from the kettle
that heats my coffee
each morning,
in the spoon and the chair
that cry "hello there, Anne"
each morning,
in the godhead of the table
that I set my sliver, plate, cup upon
each morning.
All this is God,
right here in my pea-green house
each morning
and I mean,
though often forget,
to give thanks,
to faint down by the kitchen table
in a prayer of rejoicing
as the holy birds at the kitchen window
peck into their marriage of seeds.
So while I think of it,
let me paint a thank-you on my palm
for this God, this laughter of the morning,
lest it go unspoken.
The Joy that isn't shared, I've heard,
dies young.
-- Anne Sexton
READING: from Telling Secrets
I remember sitting parked by the roadside once, terribly depressed and afraid about my daughter's illness and what was going on in our family, when out of nowhere a car came along down the highway with a license plate that bore on it the one word out of all the words in the dictionary that I needed most to see exactly then. The word was TRUST. What do you call a moment like that? Something to laugh off as the kind of joke life plays on us every once in a while? The word of God? I am willing to believe that maybe it was something of both, but for me it was an epiphany. The owner of the car turned out to be, as I'd suspected, a trust officer in a bank, and not long ago, having read an account I wrote of the incident somewhere, he found out where I lived and one afternoon brought me the license plate itself, which sits propped up on a bookshelf in my house to this day. It is rusty around the edges and a little battered, and it is also as holy a relic as I have ever seen.
-- Frederick Buechner
SERMON: "Things"
Do you know that old hymn written by Cecil Frances Alexander called "All Things Bright and Beautiful"? First published in 1848, the piece is still included in many hymnals, although not in our current Unitarian Universalist one. It is, however, a hymn some of us grew up singing.
A childlike verse, one indicating trust in the Lord God, its first few lines go:
All things bright and beautiful,
All creatures great and small,
All things wise and wonderful,
The Lord God made them all.
Each little flower that opens,
Each little bird that sings,
He made their glowing colours,
He made their tiny wings.
These sentiments, and the ones articulated by both Ann Sexton and Frederick Buechner in our previous readings this morning, illustrate an age-old, but newly reconstituted theme, which can be summarized by the title of one of our UU meditation manuals, The Gift of the Ordinary.
This is the idea, that each thing, each event, each creature, each person, in our life, is a gift, is a miracle; that what appears to be the ordinary is really the extraordinary; that, in effect, all of existence is, for how can we really explain who or what we are and why we are here - that is, in eternal, cosmic terms.
Today I would like us to consider this miraculous nature of our being, in relationship to the things that make up our life - not the events, creatures or people.
The Sufi poet Rumi says about this perspective on life:
Know, oh my son, that each thing in the universe is a vessel full to the brim with wisdom and beauty.
And the Japanese philosopher Soetsu Yanagi confirms this thought with the "Mingei Theory" which
celebrates beauty in everyday ordinary and utilitarian objects created by nameless and unknown craftsmen. According to Yanagi, utilitarian objects made by the common people are beyond beauty and ugliness. (Wikipedia)
As Yanagi puts it:
Even the common articles made for daily use become endowed with beauty when they are loved.
In regard to the philosophy of things, think about "pantheism" - where the sense of the divine transcends a merely anthropomorphic designation i.e., the belief that God is made in man's image.
Extending this idea, we can say that the various things or objects we have can be for us talismans, sacred objects filled with linked to divine purpose, or to a mystical (meaning inexplicable) realm.
Now, I don't know if any of you think of your personal bathroom as a shrine filled with talisman, but think about it for a moment when it comes to all the things you set up on your bathroom shelves.
Shaun McNiff helps us with this one:
If I came from an aboriginal community and did not know the contents or functions of things in the cosmetic containers, jewelry displays, grooming tools, shaving equipment, and other items laid out in personal rooms, I might think they were shrines and collections of talismans. We use these tools of transformation to influence events in the future and endow ourselves with good fortune, and the presence of benevolent and protecting spirits. (Earth Angels)
Ah! Bathrooms will never be the same after thinking about this possibility. But let us came back to this room, this place called a "sanctuary." Take the idea of a lucky charm. Any of you have such an object on your person this morning? Anyone have a rabbit's foot? A special piece of jewelry? A meaningful photograph? A two-dollar bill? Something you believe will bring you good fortune? Or perhaps something that will ward off the evil spirits?
If you do, you are being smiled upon by that ancient Roman goddess, Fortuna, the deity of good fortune.
Linda Hogan writes in her book Dwellings about the holy powers of a feather:
My first eagle feather, light and innocent, was given to me by a traditional healer I'd gone to see when I was sick. He told me a story about feathers. When he was a child his home had burned down. All that survived the fire were eagle feathers. They remained in the smoking ruins of their home, floating on top of black ash and water. The feather he gave me was one of those. I still keep it safe in a cedar box in my home.
There is something alive in a feather. The power of it is perhaps in its dream of sky, currents of air, and the silence of its creation. It knows the insides of clouds. It carries our needs and desires, the stories of our brokenness. It rises and falls down elemental space, one part of the elaborate world of life where fish swim against gravity, where eels turn silver as moon to breed.
What are the things in your life that bring you a deeper awareness of your existence, a way of viewing the world beyond its ordinariness?
Certainly for many of us, our ability to read opens ever-new vistas - and this might mean for those of you who are living with the challenge of weakening or lost eyesight, listening to books on tape, or reading books via the Braille method.
There is a classic story from the original television series "The Twilight Zone" whose setting is amidst the devastation following a nuclear blast. The only person left alive is a man with glasses, who after the horror at realizing his circumstance, rejoices in the fact that he has come upon the remains of a public library: more books than he could ever read in a lifetime. And reading has been his passion. Despite the loss of other human beings, he will, in effect, never be alone - as long as he can read.
Jubilant about this at least, he accidentally drops his glasses, and in trying to find them again, steps on them, shattering both lenses.
The story ends with his standing amidst the books, wailing at the injustices of circumstance.
It can be argued that the ending suggests human beings should always expect the next unforeseen circumstance, since the world is random - without rhyme or reason, without good intent or evil, and therefore the things we posses are fragile and ever mutable; then again it could be argued that there is a divine author (even surpassing the mortal Mr. Serling), or there is a purpose or fate that creates this script - for good intent or evil. In this latter case, such a divine author is reminiscent of one who created the plague-infested script for the biblical character called "Job."
A possible theological justification for the shattered eyeglasses and therefore the shattered existence for the last surviving human being on the planet is that the fellow should not rely upon material things (i.e. books), but should turn toward God in a kind of obeisance. By such a humbling of the man's spirit, the true insignificance of humanity in general is symbolically established. Perhaps the moral of the story is simply this: that we should not rely upon things or objects for meaning and purpose, but turn toward things of the transcendent spirit.
The non-materialists in this world, however, are few and far between. Such an ascetic existence is hardly for most of us an aesthetically pleasing one. We need our things, don't we?
Perhaps our things are really things of the spirit. In this vein, let us continue praising such a quality about the books we read.
Books - for many of us are a lifeline to the world of people and ideas. Books are things that make life more fascinating and intriguing; things that can bring us knowledge and enjoyment; indeed, a variety of thoughts and feelings.
Lyall Watson in his book The Nature of Things speaks of the energy books have even if you never open them. He tells us:
This sensitivity about books is fueled, I believe, by an intuition that they are variations of the emotional fingerprint. They carry with them, even as multiples, something of the author or designer. It helps that they are largely organic, made of paper and leather, which seems to help them "speak." It is the common experience of anyone who owns or uses a library, or spends any length of time in the company of books, that you pick up something even from unopened volumes, almost by osmosis. The shelves seem to communicate in ways that racks of tapes or microfilm never can or will. And long familiarity with a collection eventually produces what Arthur Koestler called intervention by the "Library Angel" who causes volumes to leap from the shelf and open at the precise page that contains the reference you require, even if you are not yet consciously aware of such a need.
In fact, this might not be an irrelevant way to find a sermon illustration.
Still, again, as wonderful as things can be for us - in the power of their symbolism, in the magnificence of the physical and psychological energy they might provide us - there is a caution we must have, lest we become attached to them in a brutalizing, egotistical manner.
The poem "Ozymandias" by the Romantic poet Shelley suggests a similar theme to Rod Serling's story about the man lost amidst the ruins, and really to the so-called vanity of the human species a la the trials and tribulations of the Old Testament's Job.
The poem paints an image of the remains of an ancient statue depicting the one-time mighty ruler Ozymandias. What is left?
Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read...
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look upon my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
But where are his works? Gone. All the things he created - perhaps palaces, temples, lush gardens, other statuary all indicating a kingdom he once ruled - are gone:
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
So, things are important, perhaps even necessary to our survival, but how important are they in the timelessness of eternity? And therefore, why should we be attached to them.
I guess by collecting things, we might think we are assuring a kind of immortality for ourselves - but then after we are gone, what happens to those things?
Still, things - perhaps the simpler things of our existence, the least expensive ones - can be symbolic of so much richness to our life.
Of course, not all things possessing a "spiritual" power - by "spiritual" I mean things that call us out of our everyday state of awareness to an appreciation of a higher degree for the mystery of life - not all of these have a lovely connotation to them.
Those of us, who have been to the Children's Holocaust museum in Tel Aviv, know of the startling power of seeing that sculpture made from the actual shoes of the children who died during the scourge of Nazism. This sculpture, this object, speaks to humanity of its own potential for brutality. But at the same time in viewing this incredibly moving "thing" - the viewer is also challenged to work for the common good of humanity.
Yes, we need such symbolic things to remind us of the tragic, and to spur us own to a more enlightened existence. We need objects of art - not just for the sake of their beauty of form and perhaps of function, not just because they make a stand for social justice, not simply because they tell the story of a bygone or present or futuristic era, not simply because they remind us of our own stories, needs, longings, appreciation, sharp edges, mellow curves, but simply because they are art objects, complete unto themselves, having a power within themselves, a palpable presence.
Consider children again - and shoes, this time shoeboxes. David J. Wolpe tells us in his Teaching Your Children About God:
Children do not study shoeboxes to manufacture better boxes. They study them because they ARE. That is a rare but wonderful devotion. It is important and necessary to study things for some purpose. It is holy to study them for no purpose. Each moment is precious not because of what it can be used for, but simply because it is. Creation is only one use of time. Another is appreciation.
In other words, the things we have that make us happy don't really have to have a purpose. And for our having such things - no matter how silly or odd or bothersome these things might be to someone else - we should not be made to feel ridiculous or bad.
Certainly there is at least one thing in your life that you simply cannot part with. Think of it this way: this thing or things are not just part of you, but are you, as much as your heart or brain is you.
Let me close with these poetic thoughts:
You sit in a house, a box, within which there is an ocean of boxes,
All empty vessels floating around and beneath and over you.
And waiting here and there, between the boxes, float your things:
The possessions that state who you are, and what is important to you -
They ARE you - in all your moods: silly, and vain and serious and ridiculous;
The things that bring you back to what you were and want to remember or to forget.
Some are ragged, worn, torn, and bruised - abused, misused over the years:
Family stuff, inherited, created, found;
Others are new and sparkling things, smelling of recent trips to shopping
malls and discount stores, things you thought you could not live without.
But today is the day to sort and discard; or to sort and keep.
The boxes are waiting, adrift, seeking cargo;
The cargo is waiting expectantly, wondering about the odds of survival.
And you, too, wonder about your odds.
Perhaps, you, too, are merely a cosmic "thing" in an ocean of things,
Floating for awhile, finding a box to inhabit, then floating again,
On the sea of eternity.
CLOSING READING: "Take, for example, a pencil..."
Take, for example, a pencil, ashtray, anything, and holding it before you in both hands, regard it for a while. Forgetting its use and name, yet continuing to regard it, ask yourself seriously, "What is it?" ... Its dimension of wonder opens; for the mystery of the being of that being is identical with the mystery of the being of the universe - and yourself.
-- Joseph Campbell