Embracing the Passing Show*

It hit me with the force of revelation. It was my junior year of college. I had just broken up with my girlfriend—actually, truth be told, she had just broken up with me—and I was talking with my father on the telephone. He said: God never promised that life would be a bowl of cherries.

Really? Wow. God never promised that life would be a bowl of cherries. That obvious fact had somehow escaped me. The scales fell from my eyes. I would never again see my life the same way.

If not life will be a bowl of cherries, what does God promise? It strikes me now as an odd concept. On a human level, promises sound great but are not always kept. We are skeptical about their delivery on the other end.

And yet the notion of God’s promise occurs often in the letter to the Hebrews and elsewhere in the scriptures. The word promise and its derivatives occur at least ten times in chapters ten and eleven in Hebrews.

The reading today catalogues various exemplars of faith, some who had obtained the promises and some who did not, living, as last week’s reading said, in the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

Here's how Hebrews describes that second category of unnamed saints: Others were tortured… some faced jeers and flogging, while still others were chained and put in prison. They were stoned; they were sawed in two; they were put to death by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated — the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and in holes in the ground. These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised.

We need not look far for modern exemplars. Martin Luther King Jr. comes readily to mind.

But our ancestor in faith, Abraham, is the most important example of how believing isn’t necessarily seeing. Abraham journeyed from a present clarity to a future of profound ignorance, one commentator wrote. He journeyed from what he had to what he did not have, from the known to the unknown, from everything that was familiar to all things strange.  Abraham died, as Hebrews says, “without having received the promise.”[1]

Apparently, God’s promise, whatever it is, is often delayed, or not realized at all, or maybe not even kept. In the meantime, all we know is that life isn’t a bowl of cherries. And not being a bowl of cherries, our default response is to feel anxious about it.

Earlier this summer, there was an article in the New York Times by the author and journalist Daniel Smith entitled Nothing to Do But Embrace the Dread. Smith has recently written a book entitled Monkey Mind: A Memoir of Anxiety, on which the Times article is based. In it he documents his experiences with a kind of anxiety that results in panic attacks, bouts of insomnia and thoughts of what he calls "existential ruin."[2]

It’s estimated that 40 million Americans suffer from anxiety disorders of some kind and, whether disabling or not, all of us experience anxiety. So I found his article compelling, even enlightening, having something of the same effect as my father’s bit of wisdom from thirty-five years ago.

We all want to get rid of anxiety, Smith says, like we’d want to be rid of emphysema or eczema. And if you suffer from anxiety, he writes, you will wish for a mind that does not spin every slightest situation into catastrophe—a mind that approaches everyday life with poise, reason and equanimity.

But there are two glitches with wanting to be rid of anxiety, he says. The first is that it is an emotion universally felt and necessary for survival, not to mention for a full experience of human life. Toss aside the bath water of anxiety, he writes, and you will also be tossing aside excitement, motivation, vigilance, ambition, exuberance and inspiration...

The second glitch, he says, is more complex, having to do with the nature of anxiety itself. For all its attendant discomforts and daily horrors [anxiety] has at its heart a vital truth, even a transcendent wisdom. This truth...is of the essential uncertainty and perilousness of human life. Its fragility and evanescence.

Anxiety emphasizes these aspects of existence with an almost evangelical fervor... “Anything can happen at any time,” anxiety says, “There is no sure thing. Everything you hold dear is at risk, everything is vulnerable. It can all slip through your fingers.”...And of course, Smith says, this is right.

The solution, he says, is to embrace the dread. Fighting it only makes it worse, the harder you fight, the further you fall....The value and necessity of anxiety mean that it will persist until the last breath. It is impossible to extinguish, no matter the level at which it affects you....you might just be able to find relief, and even redemption, in this very impossibility.

For what is the message that everything is fluid but its own solid fact? What is the relentlessness of uncertainty but something about which you can always be certain? And what other choice do you have? The wisdom is already ringing in your ears. You might as well listen. It won’t get you out, but it will without doubt get you through.

Life isn’t a bowl of cherries, my father said. So what the hell, you might as well embrace it. Or, as the poet Mary Oliver has written:

to live in this world

you must be able

to do three things

to love what is mortal;

to hold it

against your bones knowing

your own life depends on it;

and, when the time comes to let it go,

to let it go.[3]

Which is to say, embrace the passing show, with all its attendant anxiety, grief, and exquisite moments of joy. Love it all, as if your life depends on it.

And maybe—finally—this is God’s promise: at the heart of the passing show, of everything that is mortal, is love, transfiguring it from within, and from which we can never be separated.

And letting go into that, you’ll find a measure of peace. Maybe even enough to get you through. AMEN

* A Sermon Preached at St. Nicholas Episcopal Church; Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost; August 18, 2013; Hebrews 11:29-12:2

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[1] Clendenin, Daniel B. “The Journey with Jesus-Notes to Myself” August 18, 2013 http://www.journeywithjesus.net/

[2] Smith, Daniel “Nothing to Do but Embrace the Dread” New York Times, July 14, 2013

[3] Oliver, Mary From “In Blackwater Woods” New and Selccted Poems Vol. 1

Backyard Bird Triptych

Scene One

These days there is a proliferation of goldfinches in the backyard. They are affectionately known as “goldies” at our house. When a squirrel is not hugging the nyger feeder, hanging upside down and inhaling the seed through the tiny portholes, these frisky yellow birds vie for a perch. As autumn approaches and the daylight wanes, these bright presences bring cheer. Lying on the hammock Sunday afternoon, I gazed up at the sky. A flock of goldies bounded and flashed across that blue expanse, singing all the way—“potato chips, potato chips, potato chips!”

Scene Two

The gray feathers and bits of down are strewn across the ground underneath the bird feeder—the remains of a Mourning Dove. Years ago, I watched from the window as a sharp-shinned hawk perched stock still on the back fence. A mourning dove, foraging on the ground, flew off in a whistling whirr of wings. A split second later, the dove disappeared in a cloud of feathers falling to earth. Unwitnessed, I suspect this bird met the same fate. The backyard is its own cosmos, life and death unfolding everyday.

Scene Three

There’s a Blue Jay in our backyard that thinks he’s a hawk. He announces his arrival with the downward slurred keer-r-r of a Red-tailed hawk. I was fooled the first few times. I know now that, when I look out the window, I’ll see a crested blue bird bounding among the feeders and not a raptor. Peterson calls the jay a showy, noisy bird and Sibley an expert mimic. Perhaps that’s the point. Other birds scram when he cries out hawk-like, descending to the roof of the shed. The feast is spread out before him. He can dine alone.  

Returning to Where We Already Are*

They confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on the earth, for people who speak in this way make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of the land that they had left behind, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one.

Hebrews 11: 13b-16b

Some years ago, I discovered an old faded and yellowed photograph found among others that had come from my grandmother. From previous research done on my father’s family, I recognized the scene.

Outside a farmhouse a group had gathered on the front lawn. In the shadow cast by the house, seven formally dressed venerable looking folk sat in chairs in the front row. The men bearded and bow-tied, the women in long dark dresses.

Behind them stood twenty-five others, the women on one side, the men on the other. A gentleman sat in a horse drawn carriage off to the far right, at the edge of the gathering. And on the horizon, one can just make out the form of a distant mountain.

Further investigation revealed that the photo was taken on July 4^th, 1902. The occasion was the Heald family reunion at Sumner Hill, in the foothills of the western mountains. It was a celebration loosely held in conjunction with Old Home Week, the actual date having been set in August by the then Governor of Maine, John Fremont Hill.

Old Home Week was first established in 1899 in New Hampshire, when former residents of the state were invited back to visit their hometowns. Maine adopted the practice a year later. Marked by parades, processions, picnics, bonfires, fireworks and all manner of festivities, it was intended to promote tourism, historic preservation, and economic development.

The later half of 19^th century in New England had been witness to a westward emigration on a massive scale and many rural communities were in decline.  In a rapidly changing America, Old Home Week was meant to call home the wayward and solidify a sense of rootedness in place and community.

The Heald family was a case in point. Of the eight surviving offspring of Hiram and Sophronia Heald, six left Maine in search of opportunity elsewhere. Two settled in Massachusetts—among them my great-great grandfather—two went out to Wyoming, one to Kansas, and another set off for California.

On that July 4^th, all but one sibling returned to the old homestead. All around them were gathered cousins, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. And up the road, on the summit of the hill opening out to views of the White Mountains to the west, was the family cemetery, where two brothers who had died in the Civil War were buried, and other ancestors had been laid to rest.

For those living in New England in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the meaning and sense of home had taken on a new social, economic and indeed spiritual urgency.

In the face of an ever increasingly mobile population and the attendant degradation of the environment and natural landscape, the meaning of home is no less important today than it was one hundred and thirteen years ago, perhaps even more so.

In the letter to the Hebrews, the unknown author speaks of our spiritual forebear Abraham departing from his native land to set out in faith for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; and he set out, not knowing where he was going.

And, in accordance with the promise, his descendents became as many as the stars of heaven and as the innumerable grains on the seashore. And yet they confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on the earth, seeking a homeland, desiring a better country, that is, a heavenly one.

They were seeking a homeland.

Unlike most interpretations of Hebrews that point to an other-worldly realm—and in spite of the author’s own intentions—I  don’t believe that this homeland is far away but rather right here, now. It is the air we breathe. It is the earth beneath our feet. It is the ground upon which we stand.

We set out, not to a better land, but to this one, now seen anew with fresh eyes. Old Home Week is every week, when we return to where we already are.

Seven years ago I set out, not knowing where I was going. I resigned from my congregation in Yarmouth and left behind my work of twenty-three years. I refused job opportunities in the Midwest and Northwest. I had no idea what I was doing next, having let go of what I had already done. I ventured forth by intentionally staying put. I set out on a journey of faith to parts unknown.

The twelfth-century Dominican mystic, Meister Eckhart, used the image of the grunde or ground to express the deepest realm of the soul where we dwell with the Divine. He wrote: God’s ground is my ground and my ground is God’s ground. Walking in faith, we are awake to this ground of the soul that stands at the center of everything that exists. And for me, this spiritual ground has everything to do with the tangible ground—the earth—on which I stand.[1]

In his book Staying Put, the novelist and essayist Scott Sanders, offers a bioregional reading of this ancient spiritual ideal. He writes: The likeliest path to the ultimate ground leads through my local ground. I mean the land itself, with its creeks and rivers, its weather, seasons, stone outcroppings, and all the plants and animals that share it. I cannot have a spiritual center without having a geographical one...If our interior journeys are cut loose entirely from...place, then both we and the neighborhood will suffer.[2]

Sanders couldn’t have offered a better advertisement for Old Home Week.

These days, my spiritual practice is very simple. It’s about staying put. It’s about staying put with eyes wide open, which is to say with eyes of faith, seeing God alive in the local, not far off but close at hand. We’ve lived in the same neighborhood, on the same bit of land, for over twenty years. And I’m just now coming to know it.

Friday morning I awoke in the dark to the sound of thunder.

A sudden downpour. Then the storm passed off to the east, out over the water. A light breeze stirred the leaves. Water dripped from the eaves outside my study window as I sat sipping tea.  And out of predawn gloom, I heard the cardinal’s chip call, then cheer, cheer, cheer! Just that.

And those people we meet everyday and the strangers in our midst. Or old familiar faces emerging from a yellowed and worn photograph. We are all seeking a homeland, solid ground on which to stand. By God’s grace, we rejoice that we’re already here, in this very place and not another.

Concluding his article, a reporter from the Lewiston Sun Times wrote of the Sumner Hill reunion: A fine display of fireworks on the evening of the fourth, to which the public was invited, marked the close of a red-letter day... AMEN

Photo: Heald Homestead, Sumner Hill, Maine

* A Sermon Preached at St. Nicholas Episcopal Church, Scarborough, ME; August 11, 2013

 

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[1] Christie, Douglas E. The Blue Sapphire of the Mind: Notes for a Contemplative Ecology ; Oxford University Press, pg. 26

[2] Ibid.; pg. 27

Old Home Week

The old photograph is badly faded, the forms ghostlike. They are gathered in the dooryard of the family homestead on Sumner Hill in the foothills of the western mountains of Maine, seven of the eight surviving siblings seated in the shadow of the farmhouse.

At first glance, they are a dour lot. The men with nary a smile, bow-tied with vests and jackets; the women with long dark dresses, even on this warm summer afternoon. A little girl wearing white with a bow in her hair is seated still in her grandfather’s lap as she gazes at the camera. A gentleman holds the reins of a horse drawn carriage at the edge of the gathering. And beyond him, on the horizon, one can make out the form of a distant mountain.

Behind the assembled siblings stand their cousins, children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, the men on one side, the women on the other. On July 4, 1902, they have come together from near and far for a Heald family reunion. It was a celebration loosely held in conjunction with Old Home Week, the actual date having been set a month later by the then Governor of Maine, John Fremont Hill.

Old Home Week was conceived of by Governor Frank W. Robbins of New Hampshire in 1899, when former residents of the state were invited back to visit their hometowns. Maine adopted the practice a year later. Marked by parades, processions, picnics, bonfires, fireworks and all manner of festivities, it was intended to promote tourism, historic preservation, and economic development.

The later half of 19^th century in New England had been witness to a westward emigration on a massive scale and many rural communities were in decline. The population of Sumner fell from a high of 1269 in 1840 to 802 in 1900.  In a rapidly changing America, Old Home Week was meant to call home the wayward and solidify a sense of rootedness in place and community.

The Heald family was a case in point. Of the eight surviving offspring of Hiram and Sophronia Heald, six left Maine in search of opportunity elsewhere. My great-great grandfather, Lysander Heald, settled in South Weymouth, Massachusetts, where he was a leather cutter for the booming shoe business. Hiram moved to Sandwich, Massachusetts, where he was a principal owner of the Norway Tack Co. and was engaged in cranberry raising. Abel emigrated to Sheridan, Wyoming, where he operated several cattle ranches; he was followed by his sister Emogene sometime later. Althea moved to Cawker City, Kansas, with her husband. The youngest, Oscar, raised fruit in Pasadena, California. Only two siblings remained at home, Marcella and Stephen.

On that July 4^th, all but Oscar returned to the old homestead. And up the road, on the summit of the hill opening out to views of the White Mountains to the west, was the family cemetery, where two brothers, James and Frank, having died in the Civil War, were buried. Here too, the sibling’s parents and grandparents were laid to rest.

A reporter for the Lewiston Sun Times wrote about the festivities: A traveler passing along the road over Sumner Hill any time within the past week, would have seen a group of tents just a little on the north side of the summit, and a few rods above the residence of James H. Heald...

It was near this spot that Benjamin Heald, one of the pioneer settlers of Sumner located, at the age of twenty years; made a clearing in the midst of the forest, and established a home which has never been owned outside the name and is now occupied by his descendents of the third and fourth generation...

From Benjamin, the farm passed first to his son Hiram Heald, whose children from both near and distant states have during the past week been sheltered by the parental roof, while his grandchildren and great-grandchildren have been enjoying a happy gypsy life with the little group of snow-white tents for their temporary home....

The exercises were mostly informal. Dinner was served in the shade of the maples on the green, after which an hour was spent in brief speech making, story telling and reminiscences...An interesting letter of regret was read from Oscar F. Heald, the brother who was unable to be present...

A fine display of fireworks on the evening of the fourth, to which the public was invited, marked the close of a red-letter day in the Heald family.

Living Worth Dying For

There was a rich person who had a great deal of money. He said, ‘I shall invest my money so that I may sow, reap, plant, and fill my storehouses with produce, that I may lack nothing.’ These were the things he was thinking in his heart, but that very night he died.

Gospel of Thomas 63: 1-3

One of my daughters recently voiced her concern that I’m going to “drop-dead” any day. Citing my occasional noontime consumption of processed bread with peanut butter, she stated: “Your diet is horrible.” In fact, my diet is largely vegetarian. Furthermore, this summer, she has cooked most of the meals herself, using fresh, local, unprocessed ingredients.

As to my imbibing alcoholic beverages, she stated: “Beer is bad for you.” I replied: “Actually, in moderation, I don’t think so. I further pointed out that I workout at the gym several times a week, a fact that failed to impress her.

In fairness, her anxiety may stem from having been out of the country when I had a cardiac “non-event” (my word) last winter. Granted, I have an underlying cardiac congenital condition but it’s being closely monitored.

Sure, my grandfather and great-grandfather died of heart disease. And, yes, on Sukie’s side, there’s a similar issue with high cholesterol and cardiac disease.

But I sense that my daughter’s anxiety comes from a deeper place, an inevitable place if you will, for those who pay attention and listen carefully to our lives. I have a hunch that she’s beginning to sense how vulnerable she is—how vulnerable we all are—in the face of life’s fragility.

No longer just an idea, the feeling of impermanence may be taking up residence in her soul. Not surprising that this is occurring even as she is seeking her own way of living wholeheartedly and authentically in the world. What some might call finding a spiritual path.

And I believe, in the end, that’s what the reading from Luke’s gospel is all about.

The parable tells the story of a rich farmer who, on the very day he is savoring his prospects for a long and comfortable life, comes to life’s end. Some scholars have pointed out that this story is indistinguishable from the typical moral instruction of the wisdom tradition of Jesus’ day; therefore, they concluded, it’s not unique to Jesus but reflects more the manner and tone of the gospel’s author.[i]

But there’s another version of the parable.

It’s from the Gospel of Thomas, a collection of Jesus’ sayings discovered at Nag Hammadi, Egypt, in 1945, dating from the first century. Many scholars feel it may more accurately reflect Jesus’ voice and style. It’s simpler and avoids the moralizing tone of Luke’s story.[ii] The rich man is here not a farmer but an investor, seeking such a high return that he will lack nothing:

There was a rich person who had a great deal of money. He said, ‘I shall invest my money so that I may sow, reap, plant, and fill my storehouses with produce, that I may lack nothing.’ These were the things he was thinking in his heart, but that very night he died.

In Luke’s version, the farmer’s folly is emphasized. Here the stark incongruity between the rich man’s thoughts and his abrupt end is highlighted.

Jesus’ was not here condemning setting aside enough to secure a comfortable retirement. That was outside his immediate frame of reference. That we should be responsible stewards of our resources, for ourselves, and future generations, there can be no doubt.

But in this parable, Jesus was talking about greed, not good stewardship; greed being an inordinate desire to possess more than we need. Which is to say, in the end, he was talking about the quality of our attention, what we attend to, what’s of ultimate meaning and importance to us. Or to put it another way: what’s worth dying for?

Forrest Church, for over thirty years the Senior Minister of All Soul’s Unitarian Universalist Church in New York City until his death in 2009, delivered some one thousand sermons in the course of his ministry. One way or another, he said, they always circled back to a single theme.

Time and again, he would return to the abiding theme of love and death. Variations on that theme, he wrote, sound from my heartstrings. It was central to his definition of religion: Religion is our human response to the dual reality of being alive and having to die...

Knowing that we must die, we question what life means. The answers we arrive at may not be religious answers, but the questions death forces us to ask are, at heart, religious questions: Where did I come from? Who am I? Where am I going? What is life’s purpose? What does it all signify?

Death is not life’s goal, he wrote, but it’s terminus. The goal is to live in such a way that our lives will prove worth dying for. This is where loves comes into the picture. The one thing that can’t be taken from us, even by death, is the love we give away before we go.[iii]

Knowing that we must one day die, we attend to that which is most important, which is love.

In June, I shared with you that I had learned that a dear childhood friend, Margie, had early onset Alzheimer’s; that she was in the late stages of the disease; and that I hoped to visit with her soon. Last week, after church, I drove down to Massachusetts to visit with her and her husband, Matt.

Matt greeted me at the door and said that a caregiver was feeding Margie her lunch, could he and I sit out on the porch and talk? And so he talked about the journey he had traveled with Margie since her diagnosis some years ago. About how he was committed to caring for her at home. About how challenging it had been.

And then he laughed and said: It’s been an absolute nightmare and, you know, it’s the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done. Stuff I used to worry about, I don’t worry about anymore. I know now what’s most important.

He didn’t say, but he could have, that he had already achieved his goal, that he had lived in such a way that his life—and Margie’s—was worth dying for.

My daughter, Bekah—the one who thinks that I’m going to drop-dead at any moment—is heading to England in just a few weeks, where she will be studying for her master’s degree at the University of London. She’s asked that Sukie and Anna and I join her for Christmas. The wardens have graciously given me leave (Roy Partridge will be with you on Christmas Eve), so we’re going.

On Christmas Eve, we hope to attend A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols at the fifteenth century King’s College Chapel in Cambridge. This year, we’ll all be together in that hallowed space, and it will be our care and delight to prepare ourselves to hear again the message of the angels as the sun sets and evening comes to Cambridge.

That simple message: the holy presence at the heart of all—all that’s most fragile, most vulnerable; that holy presence, like love itself, worth living and dying for. AMEN

 

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[i] Funk, Robert W; Hoover, Roy W.; The Five Gospels Macmillan Publishing Company; pg. 339

[ii] Ibid.; pg. 339

[iii] Church, Forrest; Love and Death: My Journey Through the Valley of the Shadow; pg. x

Candle In The Dark

One of my daughters (she shall remain nameless) recently voiced her concern that I’m going to “drop-dead” any day. Citing my occasional noontime consumption of Pepperidge Farm oat bread (processed!) with my peanut butter, she stated: “Your diet is horrible.” In fact, my diet is largely vegetarian and she prepares much of what I eat.

As to imbibing alcoholic beverages, she stated: “Beer is bad for you.” I replied: “Actually, in moderation, I don’t believe it is. In fact, hell will freeze over before I stop drinking beer!” I further pointed out that I workout at the gym several times a week. It failed to impress her.

In fairness, her anxiety may stem from having been out of the country when I had a cardiac “non-event” (my word) last winter. Granted, I have underlying bicuspid aortic valve disease (a congenital condition) but it’s being closely monitored. Sure, my grandfather and great-grandfather died of heart disease, the former while watching TV with a neighbor “the [Fire] department men being unsuccessful in their attempt to revive the stricken man.” And, yes, on her maternal side, there’s a similar issue with high cholesterol and cardiac disease.

Perhaps she’s beginning to sense how vulnerable she is—how vulnerable we all are—in the face of life’s fragility. No longer just an idea, the feeling of impermanence may be taking up residence in her soul. Not surprising that this is occurring even as she is seeking her own way of living wholeheartedly and authentically in the world. What some might call finding a spiritual path.

We’ve just made plans to join her in England for Christmas. On Christmas Eve, we hope to attend A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols at the fifteenth century King’s College Chapel in Cambridge. She’s never known a Christmas without listening to the live broadcast. This year, we’ll all be together in that hallowed space, and it will be our care and delight to prepare ourselves to hear again the message of the angels. That simple message: the holy presence at the heart of all—all that’s most fragile, most vulnerable—like a candle in the dark.