"Get me to the church. Get me to the church. Be sure to get me to the church on time." You may recall the words - if not the tune - from the musical "My Fair Lady." Early in my Sabbatical I had a dream. I'm not much of a dreamer - at least not very good at recording my dreams, but this was exceptional.
It may have been driven into my unconscious by an experience in 1964 at the Oak Park, Illinois, Universalist Church (designed by Frank Lloyd Wright). I was to be a substitute preacher for the minister who was recovering from a heart attack. Joyce's parents were visiting. I was eager to get to church and so left Joyce to drive her parents there. I don't have a very good sense of direction, and I got lost, had no change for a phone call and no one on the streets to ask directions. I was half an hour late. Joyce and her parents were sitting there with no idea where I was. The minister had done all the readings, the congregation had sung all the hymns, the offering had been taken and everything had been done except the sermon - which was on the foibles of human nature.
Back to my dream. I was late for church and people - I don't know who - were delaying me. I was panicked. I didn't want to be late, but there seemed nothing I could do. I had to get to the church on time.
I'm not good at dream analysis, but I do know that despite the joys of having the freedom and time to read and write, to sail and swim, to travel and think - you were never far from my mind. I knew I had to get to the church on time. This time.
I'm always a little anxious about this first sermon of fall. It's been over four months since last I preached. I worry I'll be like the commencement speaker in Garrison Keillor's novel Wobegon Boy, "(who) talked for twenty minutes, and when he sat down you couldn't remember a word of it. One of those self-erasing speeches."[1]
There was a sign on my office door when I returned that was not far off the mark. "I've gone to look for myself. If I should return before I get back, keep me here!" It's been good being on Sabbatical, what has been called "the leisure of the theory class." I've had time to think about what we do here together. This annual rite, "Coming Home Like Rivers to the Sea", never seems to lose its charm, and poignancy, and meaning.
It's difficult to have a spiritual center without a geographical center. We need anchoring in a particular place in which we feel at home. After all our journeys, after our search for vacation Shangri-Las, after all our wandering, it is good to come back among those who know and love us.
It is the caring community of this congregation that beckons to us - friend and stranger - to come home. A colleague of mine recently wrote "the meaning and purpose of every journey is to come home."[2] It's good to be home.
Every September we share both our joys and our sorrows in this homecoming ritual. I can remember the rung-out (clean) diaper marking the birth of a baby, the announcement of an engagement, the tears at the death of a loved one. It is always good after a journey to come home, to be home, but just as important, to share the story of our sojourn with others who really care about hearing it. These are not the interminable "slides of our trip you just have to see;" here are stories that are our essence.
What are we, any of us, but a bundle of memories - stories about where our lives have taken us. And church is that unique place where we are allowed - encouraged - to tell our stories and to listen to those of others. Stories are the bearers of religious meaning.
Although most of my Sabbatical was spent in the Finger Lakes reading and writing, I did join a group of Unitarian Universalists for a two-week trip to southern France. Our first evening found us visiting the small town of St. Paul, perched atop a mountain near Vence, where we spent our first few nights. There was an art show opening and a public festival to mark the occasion.
Though weary from our long flight, we boarded our rental vans and wove our way up the mountain to this incredibly charming village with its cobblestone streets. There was a throng of people from all walks of life -- all intent on celebration. We rubbed elbows with townspeople and tourists, shared wine and cheese and chatter and took a crushing walk through the gallery. It was a wonderfully joyous beginning to our trip - totally unplanned - completely serendipitous - theologians would call it grace - but, in any case, reminding me that so much of the joy of life simply comes to us - if only we are ready to receive it.
Then there was another unplanned event in France. One of the exciting things about travelling with my wife, the ultimate tour-leader, is that not everything is scripted. Oh, lodging is reserved, as are a number of meals and a general geographical locale. But beyond this, there is considerable flexibility. So it was one day when those who love to read maps - including our indomitable tour-leader - decided to take a short-cut through the mountains to our next destination. The road looked good, running along a mountain stream. The sign at the beginning of that road said "No trucks," but we were in mini-vans. We decided to do it - besides, to backtrack now would make a very long trip.
It was simply beautiful, driving along a plunging mountain stream. Soon it became breathtakingly beautiful - with the emphasis on breathtaking. The road quickly narrowed to one car width with periodic wider points in the road through which two small vehicles could squeeze. Down and down and down we plunged - at about 5 miles per hour, which was as fast as we dared go on a road clinging to the edge of a mountain with a two-foot stone retaining wall separating us from a thousand foot plunge into that beautiful mountain stream.
One of my passengers, who was riding at the right window of the van, had been sleeping when we began this adventure. His seatmate awoke him so he could enjoy the view, which he did after an exclamation which we won't repeat here and a rapid increase in heart beat as he looked straight down at the yawning gap of the gorge. When we finally got through this narrow chasm there was a pull-off so we could pause to enjoy what we had experienced. We were too scared to fully appreciate it at the time. Then we saw a monastery nestled in the side of the chasm. I suspect it was no accident that a place of prayer had been situated in that particular spot. It was utterly terrifying at the time, but became one of our fondest memories of the trip. How often, when we live close to the edge of life, do we find a kind of wild beauty and breathless meaning.
Another day we were driving through this incredibly lovely countryside, winding our way along a valley set between two ridges of mountains. We spotted some hang-gliders in the distance. We followed their flight for the next hour or so - occasionally losing them against the brown of the rocky mountain or the azure blue sky. They seemed to hang almost motionless in the sky, slowly yielding to gravity's inexorable pull, circle upon circle, gracefully gliding along the valley. Though I'm not tempted to take up this literally breath-taking sport, I tried to imagine what it must feel like to be floating there in the sky with only a thin skin of fabric and some lines holding me aloft. And it struck me that what supported these high fliers was invisible. Ultimately, it is the invisible powers of the universe that support us in more than hang-gliding.
I experience the reality and power of these invisible forces somewhat less dramatically when sailing. You know there is wind because you see the flags fluttering in visible proof, and you experience the swell of the waves being pushed by something you cannot see. Then you are in the midst of invisible powers. Most of the time they propel you across the water and you love their silent power, and you mock those in their power craft who pollute the air and water with their fierce and urgent noise. The sailor is at ease - floating before the beauty of moving air - propelled by forces that cannot be seen, yet are as real as the sight of the shore and the slap of the waves. I thought of Annie Dillard's words: "The secret of sailing is to sail on solar wind. Hone and spread your spirit 'till you yourself are a sail, whetted, translucent, broadside to the merest puff."[3]
Back in the quieter reaches of New York State - than which there is nothing more beautiful - there was a night at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center. It was the New York City Ballet and Stravinsky's "The Firebird." It was, of course, spectacular - both in sound and sight. As we sat there in the upper reaches of the balcony, I noticed a young man sitting behind us - alone, but dressed in the kind of tuxedo musicians wear - though he had taken off his coat and tie. I presumed he was one of the musicians from an earlier selection, not playing in the Stravinsky. And, being rather curious about people and not at all bashful, I began a conversation, asking if he were one of those musicians. In a way, he said. It turned out he was a conductor himself, who was going to do the "Firebird" later that summer, and he was trying to get some pointers.
His wife was also a musician it turned out. He was director of a youth music camp some miles away and had rushed from conducting a concert there to hearing a concert here. I had meant our conversation to be just a brief friendly exchange, but I had triggered in him an impassioned lecture on his love of music, the joy of teaching youngsters, and, by the way, here was his card and the schedule for his group's performance later that summer at Saratoga. There, on a warm Adirondack night, I not only enjoyed superlative music, but also experienced the life-joy of a music-maker.
My last musical experience of summer was quite different. My mother, as you may remember, was selected "Ontario County Senior Citizen of the Year." One of her rewards was two lawn-seats at Finger Lakes Performing Arts Center. She had wanted to hear Kenny Rogers and Anne Murray, but I was out of town with Joyce attending her 45th high school reunion - sigh. The only alternative for us was Barry Manilow. Now, I had heard of him, but didn't know anything about his music. Not to worry. We picnicked in my car and walked toward the shell, carrying our lawn chairs, and found a spot with a good sight line. After a warm-up act Manilow came on to the whooping ovation of the crowd, 10,000 or more fanatic fans. This guy must be good, I thought. He was good - personable, funny - backed up by a thirty piece orchestra. The crowd recognized every song and just about everyone sang along except me. I didn't recognize a single song. But my mother did! When I told this to my younger son, I received a lecture indicating that I was pop-culture impaired, living apart from the world in which most people lived. I was sufficiently scolded, but not sure what to do about it. In any case, the concert was quite loud - even for my mother without her hearing-aids, and so we left early. But I learned how our elders - especially my 87-year-old mother - inspire us by their joy in living and take us into experiences we could not have without them.
And so I revel in telling these stories to you. Why? Because I think you are interested. I believe you care about what nourishes one of your ministers. I believe this is a place where our stories - happy and sad - meaningful and painful - can be told and heard and shared. Where we pour out our cups of memory into a common container.
John Karl of the Samaritan Pastoral Counseling Center once wrote about a workshop in story-telling which he led. He asked his students to "'share a sacred experience you had as a member of this parish." One story especially intrigued him: "One night, I pulled out my keys to open the front door of the church so that I could do the cleaning. It would not open. The key did not turn the lock. I tried again. The lock stuck. Then, I noticed. I had used the key for the front door of my home. I automatically reached for my home key to open the church door. Then, I realized, this is my home, too. My hands and whole self automatically knew it."
Another story from a choir member that I could have told after nearly 30 years among you: "For years, I sit in the choir loft in the back of the sanctuary and look down at the people. I especially watch the . . . children with parents . . . I have seen children grow up, leave, then come back and now bring their children. I remember who used to sit with them. I remember people who were here, but are gone. When you sit where I have sat over the years, the church is never empty. All the pews are full."[4]
That's the way I feel as I rejoin the community of this congregation. Most of us live in many houses over the years, but we have only a few real homes - where the spirit is welcomed and celebrated. This is one of them. Here we experience a sense of at-oneness with the world in which we are but one creature among many; in the cosmos - blessed with a feeling that we have a right to be here - to occupy sacred space and precious time for a cosmic instant.
I leave you with a New Yorker cartoon in which a woman stands next to her husband in a living room filled with partygoers and says to him, "What do you mean, 'let's go home?' We are home."[5]
That's the way it is for me. I hope this is home for you as well.
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