I sit in my office, my mind full of ideas - too many ideas - when suddenly and without warning a gentle breeze moves through the window and stirs my wind chimes. Their gentle ringing distracts me from the buzz of my computer and transports me to another realm. It is sheer beauty, an exquisite sound that resonates with the deep places of my being.
I stand in a monastery courtyard, taken with the beauty of carefully raked gravel, lovely bushes, and bamboo. It is all too perfect, it could not have been arranged any other way. A gong sounds - a deep, mellifluous chime that seems to come from an eternal past and beckons me to contemplation. Its resounding tone reminds me of the mystery within.
I purchase a small bell, a replica of the great gong. It hardly imitates the gong's majesty, but it reminds me that I have an inner life, that everyone has an inner life. It is a reminder to take time for the journey within.
Wind over chimes, hammer on gong, clapper on bell, sounds of the spirit, sounds that have echoed down through the ages, sounds that have inspired monks and priests and priestesses and gurus and oracles and prophets and all who have aspired to hear the inner music of creation, sounds that speak of ultimate things, music for healing the heart.
The breeze blows in my window again and stirs the wind chimes. A tiny tinkling becomes a melodious scale, and I hear for a time an inner music that restores, and I am glad.
I have just returned from New York City - the Big and Noisy Apple - a far cry from the wind chimes in my office. I was there to address the Unitarian Universalist United Nations Office spring seminar on globalization. For the better part of three days I negotiated getting around in the noise, the crowds, the pace. I had good instructions from my son who has lived there for 15 years, but I would still have gotten lost without the kindness of strangers. One man in overalls, a workman, made sure I caught the right train to the A line; another young woman I approached kindly directed me to the right A train for the airport. One of New York's finest pointed out the direction of the UN when I was disoriented in the forest of skyscrapers which intimidated a country lad like myself.
These are the random and the not-to-random acts of kindness that enable us to move through the day and the night - I call them chimes of care - for they keep life in harmony when we are up against the discords of existence.
It is good to note these chimes of care in our world. We have been deeply chastened by the events of September 11th; chagrined by the tensions of traveling; chastised by the ugly specter of war in so many places on our globe. I have had to dig deep to find some grounds for hope. A parable and a true story from the Jewish tradition come to my rescue - even as Jews around the world are obsessed with events in and around Israel, while the rest of us watch in disbelief at senseless violence spiraling out of control, perpetrated and perpetuated by both parties to the conflict.
Two rabbinical students were debating when exactly the day begins. One claimed that the day started when a person could see a tree in the distance, and could tell if it were an oak or a fig tree. "No," the other replied. "The day begins when you see an animal in the distance, and can determine if it is a sheep or a goat."
The two students argued strenuously, and then decided to consult a rabbi. "You both have it wrong," the rabbi answered. "When you see a man in the distance, and you cannot tell if he is an Israeli or a Palestinian, but you are willing to claim him your brother, and when you see a woman in the distance and you cannot tell whether she is a Jew or a Muslim, but you are willing to call her your sister, that is when the day begins." Would that it might be so in this great family of all souls.
Israeli author Aubrey Hodes told of a dramatic experience during the Six Day War of 1967 in the Middle East that gives hope. As a Medical Officer in the Israeli Army, he was part of the force occupying Gaza City. "I was standing in front of the ambulance sorting out bottles and bandages when I saw a man in front of a prickly-pear hedge about 20 yards away. He was about 60, fat and partly bald, in a filthy white shirt and torn khaki trousers, a civilian Arab. He took one hesitant, groping step, and I saw that one arm hung in front of him with blood seeping out of the piece of cheap, colored cloth tied around it. Now he was coming slowly, like a crippled crab, towards the ambulance.
Suddenly he made a desperate rush towards me and flung himself full length on the wooden bench in the shade of the olive trees. I looked at the arm. It had been broken, probably when we shelled the town, and it was starting to suppurate and smell in the midday heat. . . . He seemed to have decided that he could do nothing more; it was in my hands; fate would decide what happened to him; he could not care any more. He closed his eyes and lay on the bench, shaking and sweating." Hodes, as best he could, dressed, splinted and bandaged the arm. "While I was doing all this I did not think of him as an Arab, as someone belonging to the town and country we had occupied. To me he was simply a man with a broken arm: and I had to set it."
After he had done this, he related how two young soldiers from his unit, drunk with victory, came by and saw what he was doing for an Arab enemy. They were outraged and wanted to "have a little fun" with the helpless man. Hodes pushed the patient into the ambulance and blocked their path to him. "Give him to us!" the older one snarled. "Else we'll fix you instead." He refused. They came back with an officer. After a tense confrontation he ordered Hodes to bring the Arab out. He turned red and sputtered, "Move away from the ambulance. Else you'll get a bullet in your head!" After several frightened moments Hodes again refused, and they left. He quickly got the Arab from the ambulance and sent him back to the hedge from which he had come.
"I knew if I let them push past me . . . something would have shriveled within me, something which was present and stronger now would have died not only for the frozen isolated moment in the dunes but for the rest of my life."
That is a dramatic example of the chimes of care. Most of us will never be in such a traumatic situation. But even faced with the prospect of helplessness before the worst in human nature Hodes was the good Samaritan - the good neighbor. All this by way of introduction to the obligations of our mutual ministry.
How we care for one another is not only an ethical responsibility but a spiritual discipline. Vivian Paley, in her book The Kindness of Children speaks with her elderly mother. "Mom, I have an odd question for you. Have you ever witnessed a spiritual event?" Her mother responded, "Something to do with God? A miracle, do you mean? I don't know. Nowadays it's a miracle if people are nice to each other . . . I'm not sure about spiritual."
My time with you is short, and I still have things to say - a kind of summing up - if you will - a reiteration of themes of my ministry these past 32 years. It has been fascinating - this experiment in human nature and human relations. Unitarian Universalists are among the most interesting souls on this earth, and ministry is a good vantage point from which to observe the human scene.
I see a great many people caring for others in expected and unexpected ways. Caring is the glue that helps hold a congregation, a country, a world together. Unitarian Universalists are good care-givers - we want to fix things, to mend things, to make things whole. But what about those occasions when "there's nothing that can be done?" How do we deal with our "joys and sorrows" then?
We can be recalcitrant in our oh-so-human relations. One minister, who shall remain nameless, detected an unwillingness on the part of "newcomers" and "oldtimers" to greet each other at church, and decided to do something about it. He announced that, beginning the following Sunday, there would be a time in the service for everyone to turn to those seated near them and greet them with a friendly hello. After the service, one member of the congregation turned to the person in the next row back and said cheerily, "Good morning!" The other stared back in shocked indignation, and snapped. "That doesn't start until next Sunday!"
Sometimes we are just plain ornery - we very human beings - like two porcupines huddling together for warmth. We need each other desperately and yet we are so often unwilling - even unable - to ask for or to receive help.
For example, I know that the Joys and Sorrows part of our service is controversial - some of us may share items that others believe inappropriate or trivial - some of us talk too long - some of us wouldn't be caught dead in front of a microphone sharing personal joys or sorrows.
In some churches of our size the presiding minister reads words of joy or sorrow from the pulpit. Here it is participatory. I know it makes people uncomfortable from time to time. I sometimes worry how much of my sermon to cut because this portion of the service has gone on so long. But I also know of churches where joys and sorrows is the dominant feature of the service. All the rest is commentary.
I make confession - I introduced joys and sorrows some years ago - and I have accepted the criticism that goes with it. However controversial it is, I believe it has brought us closer together as a community - we have shared real tears and real laughter and real experiences. Many have said how much they have appreciated the caring that flows from the congregation after they have spoken.
Problematic though Joys and Sorrows may be, it is far better than the sentiment expressed by a cartoon from a Toronto newspaper: a group was seated in a circle of chairs facing outward, away from one another. Someone was explaining to an onlooker: "We call it the unencounter group. We just sit and don't bother anyone, each of us lost in our own private delicious thoughts and excursions."
Yes, we are an interesting group. One of my favorite and most popular meditations about our life together emerged out of a noisy encounter in the Susan B. Anthony Lounge during one social hour after church. Two parishioners whom I thought I had taught well were engaged in an argument about the scheduling conflict of two important church programs - the canvass and the annual ski trip. I didn't intervene, as it would have been highly embarrassing to all of us. Instead I wrote "Gentleness in Living," which has been one strong, and, I hope, consistent theme in my preaching, if not always in my behavior.
Be gentle with one another -
The cry comes out of the hurting heart of humanity;
It comes from the lives of those battered
With thoughtless words and brutal deeds;
It comes from the lips of those who speak them,
And the lives of those who do them.
Be gentle with one another.
Who of us can look inside another and know what is there
Of hope and hurt, or promise and pain?
Who can know from what far places each has come
Or to what far places each may hope to go?
Our lives are like fragile eggs -
They are brittle -
They crack and the substance escapes.
Handle with care!
Handle with exceeding, tender care
For there are human beings there, within,
Human beings vulnerable as we are vulnerable,
Who feel as we feel,
Who hurt as we hurt.
Life is too transient to be cruel with one another;
It is too short for thoughtlessness,
Too brief for hurting.
Life is long enough for caring,
It is lasting enough for sharing,
Precious enough for love.
Be gentle with one another.
With all the help we can be to one another, there are times when problems arise that cannot be solved. There are illnesses that cannot be cured. There are issues that cannot be resolved no matter how hard we try. Each of us will die.
We are problem-solving creatures - we Unitarian Universalists - and cannot abide the intractability of those that resist solution. We have a hard time accepting the humanly unfixable. What do we do when there is nothing to do?
Sometimes we simply need to be there - to be a gentle and loving presence in the face of the insoluble. As the German proverb goes, "Sorrow shared is sorrow halved." Being there, being present, though without words to assuage the pain, to provide the cure, to resolve the dilemma - is hard work. But sometimes we do simply need to be there - to be gentle with one another - to be as Father Henry Nouwen put it - wounded healers. So, hear my little confession about caring - some learnings from 32 years among you. In the holy quiet of this hour I make my confession that I am but one wounded healer among many who worship here. In the sacred stillness of this time I make an act of gratitude for being a member of a healing community. In the quiet of this place I acknowledge the power of people to heal in ways they know not of.
I am grateful for the grieving who have accepted my fumbling efforts to comfort. I am thankful for the friendless who have allowed me to become their friend. I pay tribute to the hurting who have shared their pain with me. I give thanks for the seekers who have ushered me into their holy of holies.
I remember the reticent who have had the courage to speak with me of difficult things. I celebrate the happy ones who have caressed me with their joy. I praise the wise ones who know no one else can solve their problems for them. I delight in the insightful ones who can smile with me through their tears at the ironies of the human condition. I admire the hopeless ones who live in faith despite the finitude of our common humanity. I am grateful for the generous ones who forgive my failure to help.
I am humbled and helped by the caring ones, who serve even while they themselves are in great need. I am eternally blessed by all the wounded healers who walk with me along paths both steep and lonely. In the holy quiet of this hour may we feel the blessing of beloved community.
In the sacred stillness of this time may we sense the healing powers of community flowing through us. In the hallowed calm of this place may we become one people and be made whole.
We are, therefore, we love -
Cosmic bits of mass and energy come to life together.
We love, therefore, we are.
May we be humble before the wonder of what we dare to create.
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