"Therefore we do not neglect the ceremonies of our passage: when we wed, when we die, and when we are blessed with a child, when we depart and when we return; when we plant and when we harvest....We live, not by things, but by the meanings of things." The words of Antoine St. Exupery.[1]
This is our celebration of the living tradition. Today we mark in a public way the formal rites of passage for 1998 in our congregation. In preparing for the service I became curious about those at which I have officiated and checked my records. In the course of 37 years of ministry I have presided at more than 500 ceremonies of child naming and parent dedication, 480 weddings and union ceremonies, and 280 memorial services.
That was a staggering revelation - I'd never counted them before - and it reminded me of the many individual lives in which I have played a part - from beginning to end. It has been a privilege to be there with people in so many situations - happy and sad. Often I find myself on an emotional roller-coaster, moving from birth to death, from joyous to tragic, in the space of hours. There are times my head and heart spin at moving through the life cycle so quickly, albeit vicariously.
Then I began to reflect on my personal rites of passage and their meaning for me. I was baptized as a Universalist, though I don't remember the occasion very well. How often have I stood upon this platform or in our Memorial Garden to welcome children into this religious community. While the words are important, I know the thrill is anticipating what these innocent creatures will do - will they eat the flower or throw it on the floor? Will they cry or laugh? Will they sleep or awaken? We thrive on the unknown - in this rite of passage as well as in life.
I vividly recall the occasion of the dedication of our older son Matthew at a family Christmas service at the First Unitarian Church of Ithaca where I was minister - 31 years ago. I preferred to be father, not minister, on this occasion, and so I asked a beloved friend and colleague, Angus MacLean, my seminary dean and fellow minister at the First Unitarian Church of Cleveland, to officiate. My parents and in-laws were there, and it was a major occasion.
Matthew, age one, had his own ideas, however. My ministerial robes and serious countenance at the magnitude of my responsibilities did not impress him. Nor did the 164-year-old family Christening gown he wore. Instead of being a sweet and cuddly infant in my arms, he became fascinated with the children in the front row of the church. He greeted them with a Bronx cheer - sputtering and bubbling through the service. They, of course, responded with laughter. He thought of it as applause and continued. So it was that we ushered our first-born into the Unitarian Universalist family.
Coming of Age ceremonies are a rite of passage too often neglected in our culture. At our church we have a Religion in Life program every other year for high school age students - a year-long exploration of Unitarian Universalism and their own beliefs. This culminates in the legendary trip to Boston and participation in the adult worship service upon our return - by reading or delivering a short homily. These students are then invited to join the church.
I regard this program fondly, for by it I decided to become a minister. A friend and I worked with our Universalist minister in what was then Scouting's God and Country Award. Since it was a small church and there were only two of us, each of us was charged to lead a worship service at which the other preached, and later reverse roles. So it was I came of age - after a fashion - by preaching my first sermon at age 14. I've been doing it ever since - though sometimes never quite sure I have come of age.
I recall an experience that made me feel like I had come of age - though there was no ceremony to mark the occasion. As I was working on a sermon one day an old picture which I had quite forgotten fell out of a book. It was a black and white photo of me at 14 or so hitched like a horse to a hand cultivator operated by my father. One of my rites of passage into the adult world was providing the muscle power to dig up our garden - I felt useful, important, adult. That event, as much as anything I can remember, reminded me that I could contribute to the world. But where is the ceremony for this?
Marriage and union ceremonies are one of the great delights of the minister. Getting to know two people in love, trying to help them think marriage when they are thinking wedding, helping them to create a ceremony of minimum length and maximum meaning, standing there as prompter, witness, legal signator is a heavy burden - but I enjoy the experience.
There have been moments when I thought I would lose one of them - a bride who broke into truly hysterical laughter as she was about to repeat the wedding vows; the snowstorm that made the bride and groom so late the rest of us had the reception first; the Kissinger-like negotiations with Jewish and Christian parents I had to do during the rehearsal for an interfaith wedding.
I thought back to my own wedding. By the time we were married in 1961, I was already a wedding veteran - I had performed two. I knew the ropes. After all, I was the minister. Being a groom would be a cinch. I knew all was well. After all, bride and future mother-in-law had it all planned; and if push came to shove, I had half-a dozen ministers or ministers to be in the wedding party to complement the two who officiated.
I had not counted on how nervous I would be - well, let's face it - I was scared! I wasn't uncertain about my choice - I had known Joyce for 10 years, courted her for the last two, delayed my proposal, fearing rejection. When I worked up the courage she said, "I might just think about it," her subtle way of saying "yes."
She was collected and composed as always. But there I stood, ramrod straight, like a West Point graduate, brush-cut and all. I don't remember much of the ceremony - only that people said that I was somewhat zombie-like moving in programmed ways and getting through it. Consequently, I am always sympathetic with brides and grooms - "been there - done that" - and once is enough!
It is in the conduct of memorial services that I feel most humbled. To honor a human life in the space of an hour or less is a daunting charge. I always wonder if I have spent enough time in preparation - picking out appropriate readings, encapsulating an entire life in brief moments, comforting loved ones whose lives are changed forever.
The privilege of such responsibility is not only in sharing one of life's most poignant moments with people, but of being constantly reminded of one's own mortality. Not a day goes by in which I do not think seriously about death - not in a morbid sense - but in a way which makes life all the more meaningful. After all, someday some minister will officiate at mine. I do not want to make the mistake of thinking death happens to other people, but not ministers.[2]
Performing memorial services is one of the most difficult things I do. That reality was underscored at the memorial service for my father some dozen years ago. His death at 88 was not unexpected, but grief overwhelmed me just the same. Though having conducted many memorial services myself, having watched in awe other adult children eulogize their parents, being there with life-long friends and family, I knew I could not speak.
I wrote my tribute - soaking the paper with healing tears - and asked the officiating minister to read them. It was hard nonetheless. I learned from the other side of the pulpit how necessary these final rites are for the grieving process - how necessary to acknowledge death, to celebrate a life, and to be reminded life goes on and on.
Over my years of ministry I have come to appreciate these rites of passage more and more. They are markings on the journey; they compress the knowledge and experience of our ancestors into dramatic events that carry truth; they are an outward sign of an inner reality.
They have absolutely no utilitarian value - they can't be calculated - can't be reduced to numbers - only exist as meanings within each of us. They intensify experience and give us a heightened sense of our identity and life meaning. "We live not by things, but by the meanings of things."
We need such markings on the time line of our lives so that one day is not just like every other. We punctuate time by celebrating events at the beginning, the middle and the end of our sojourn; we invent ceremonies to celebrate the times that denote the "great occasions" in our lives. We need this time to process the life transitions - all too often we tend to just speed through them..
John Hughes put it well in his screenplay for "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" when he has Matthew Broderick's character say, "Life moves pretty fast; if you don't stop and look around every once in a while, you could miss it."[3] And it would be a shame to miss it, to miss the meaning of those events, those memories, those celebrations on the way that remind us each of us has a story to tell - from beginning to end. By celebrating these rites of passage the basic life questions are put to us and underscore. When are we grown up, if ever? When are we old? When do we start "summing up" a life and when do we "keep going"?
I have become increasingly surprised that the politicians who are running the country often are younger than I am. How can anyone that young know enough? I ask, and then I know they don't. Nevertheless, I have become more and more interested in the emerging debate over Social Security - some say it will go bankrupt in what - 2030 or so! I worry about this for my sons - who will be retiring in that time frame. Only then do I realize that, despite my hope and plan and expectation to reach 100, I may very well not be around then. When does one begin to feel old - and what ceremonies mark that occasion for each of us?
The troubadour poet and preacher Ric Masten has an arresting image that helps me think through these dilemmas:
"I turned forty awhile ago and came dribbling out of the locker room
Ready to start the second half.
Glancing up at the scoreboard I saw that we were behind 7 to 84,
and it came to me then we ain't agona win, and considering the score
I'm beginning to be damn glad that this particular game ain't gonna go on forever.
But don't take this to mean I'm ready for the showers.
Take it to mean I'm probably gonna play one hellava second half.
I told this to some kids In the court next to mine and they laughed,
But I don't think they understood.
How could they, playing in the first quarter only one point behind?
Well into autumn, the third period, I have discovered that winning the game
Is not what is important.
What is important, though, is that I look good while losing."[4]
Looking good while losing. I like Ric's imagery though I don't agree that we're losing. The danger is that as the Fool says to His Majesty in Shakespeare's King Lear: "Too bad you have gotten old before you have gotten wise." These rituals of our lives help make us wise by reminding us our lives have a beginning and an end. They help intensify the movement from one to the other in the blessed middle.
We are always on the boundary - on life's boundaries - the boundary between infancy and childhood, between childhood and adolescence; between adolescence and adulthood, between adulthood and parenthood and grandparenthood, on the boundary between work and retirement, on the boundary between life and death. Our task is to move across those boundaries -- marked and unmarked - to grow into humanhood.
We need to mark the path by which we walk. We need these rites to remind ourselves that life is not simply a series of random episodes signifying nothing - rather it is a story, and these rites of passage are landmarks of the soul, chapters in the autobiography we write each and every day from beginning to end.
In the words of one of my mentors, minister, colleague and friend, Max Coots:
"When love is felt or fear is known,
When holidays and holy days and such times come,
When anniversaries arrive by calendar or by consciousness,
When seasons come, as seasons do, old and known, but somehow new,
When lives are born or people die,
When something sacred's sensed in soil or sky,
Mark the time.
Respond with thought or prayer or smile or grief,
Let nothing living slip between the fingers of the mind,
For all of these are holy things we will not, cannot, find again."[5]
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