A couple of weeks ago the church got an email from a high school student in a far out suburb from Rochester. The student was writing a paper on homosexual marriages, she said, and she knew that our church performed these kinds of weddings. She was wondering if she could interview someone from the church for her paper - so Tim Wilson, our social justice coordinator went to meet with her. He brought with him the newspaper articles and newsletter columns we've all written over the past few years - he brought information about how Unitarian Universalists have been welcoming lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people into their congregations and fighting for full equality for all people, and of course he brought himself as well - a kind and patient man eager to explain how our faith calls us to be in the world.
When Tim arrived at the high school and met up with this student - he kept his eyes peeled for any indication of this young woman's motivation in writing her paper. With no visible piercings or political buttons - no purple hair or large dangling crucifix - Tim was stumped as they made their way through the conversation. Slowly but surely Tim's use of the phrases - same-sex marriage and marriage equality - replaced the student's repetition of the words "homosexual marriage" - and she listened respectfully to the information Tim had to share. Still stumped as to why she was writing this paper, the interview ended and the young woman walked Tim to the door. As he turned to leave she thanked him and said quietly, "It's really hard to be a lesbian in a high school this small."
Just looking at this student - there was no way to know the struggles she faced each and every day - just looking at this young woman - there was no way to know the pain she dealt with underneath her put-together appearance - walking into this situation there was simply no way to know what was about to transpire - and there Tim was, offering help, hope, and healing to a stranger without even knowing it.
It was a healing moment, I have no doubt about it. A moment of connection and of hope for a student struggling to make her way through already difficult years surrounded by prejudice and fear. And it was a healing moment for Tim as well, I dare to guess - a healing moment when all of the work he and we have done to be a voice for justice and inclusion in this community paid off - a moment that made all those years of marching past the hateful protesters at the gay and lesbian pride marches worth while. There in that moment this young woman and this dedicated man offered healing to each other.
And simply put that is the good news that I have to share with you this morning - that even though pain is inevitable in this life of ours - so is healing - if only we can open ourselves to its power and presence in our lives.
Ever since human beings could think about more than food and shelter, ever since the beginning of religious and theological gatherings, people brought questions to themselves and to one another about their experiences of pain and suffering. The Buddhists, reaching back to their origin 1500 years ago wrestled with these questions head on - acknowledging four noble truths in life - the first of which states that suffering exists for all of us and the last of which offers the hope that freedom from suffering is possible if one follows the spiritual guidance of the Buddhists' Eightfold Path. It sounds so simple when it is outlined there - all we have to do is let go of our attachment to things and desires and ideas and align our lives with our highest ideals and we will be free of suffering.
But we all know that it is no easy task to let go of our attachment to the way things are and to the people and places and ideas that we love - it is no easy task to live lives of integrity that balance our care for ourselves with our care for others and for this world. And so we continue to gather together across cultures and continents wrestling with those first and still primary religious questions. Wrestling with the reality that no matter how much we wish or work for it to be different - pain and suffering inevitably come to all of us in our lifetimes - and it is up to us not only to heal, but to try our best to make sense of it all.
And for me this is where the church comes in. As Unitarian Universalists, we turn not to one holy book for guidance when things in our life shift, but we turn instead to our own Unitarian version of the trinity - we turn to our own experience, conscience, and reason to create and test our beliefs - with theologies and ways of understanding evolving throughout our lifetimes as new ideas and insights and experiences surely come our way. As Unitarian Universalists, we need more than platitudes from the pulpit to help us get busy with the challenging task ahead. If we are to make sense of our lives - if we are to answer the unique question that is our individual life - as my friend the Rev. Janne Eller-Isaacs would say, then we will need to use the pain that comes our way to help us wake up and turn in toward one another.
Several years ago I attended a clergy gathering just a few days after I had presided over a memorial service for someone who had died under particularly tragic circumstances. As I shared my experience with the family and the lingering sadness that it brought with my colleagues, the Rev. Carl Thicthener listened intently, and then quietly but clearly spoke up. He brought to the table years of experience in the ministry and in life, and I listened eagerly to his words. "I don't know what to wish for for you Jen," he said matter-of-factly, "a hard heart or the pain that comes with this kind of loss." A hard heart or the pain that comes with this kind of loss - stated so simply it became a clear choice for me - I will always choose the pain over a hardened heart - and I left our gathering that day feeling sad, but feeling strengthened as well, trusting that my pain was a sign of my still beating and wide open heart.
Rev. Richard Gilbert - beloved minister emeritus of this church - spoke last weekend at a training held here for social justice activists. As he prepared us to go out into the world and give voice to our values, offering up a vision of the church as a spiritual center with a civic circumference - Rev. Gilbert reminded us of a difficult but important truth. "If we lose the capacity to connect with suffering," he said, "we are spiritually finished." If we lose the capacity to connect with suffering we are spiritually finished.
So while I would never suggest going out of your way to bring more pain or suffering into your life or my own - I will suggest that when pain and suffering come - as they inevitably do - that we can embrace them rather than running from them - I will suggest that we can choose how we cope with them and we can choose to see them as opportunities not only for spiritual growth but also as evidence that our hearts continue to beat - I will suggest that we continue to love and to lean in to the mysteries of life even though we know that pain inevitably comes with any and every attachment.
Our ability to connect with human suffering, as Rev. Gilbert said, keeps us grounded and growing - and I truly believe that our pain can be a touchstone of spiritual growth and connection as we heal ourselves and one another.
One of the realizations, I think, that pain can bring is the deep knowledge that healing is possible from most any situation - that healing and regeneration are natural processes for us that seek to go on whether we allow ourselves to be swept up by their current or not. In moments of difficulty I find myself looking to the natural world for hope and inspiration and I remember an account given by the Quaker author Parker Palmer in his book, A Hidden Wholeness. He writes - "On July 4, 1999, a twenty-minute maelstrom of hurricane-force winds took down twenty million trees across the Boundary Waters. A month later, when I made my annual pilgrimage up north, I was heartbroken by the ruin and wondered whether I wanted to return. And yet on each visit since, I have been astonished to see how nature uses devastation to stimulate new growth, slowly but persistently healing her own wounds." Nature uses devastation to stimulate new growth, Palmer reminds us, slowly but persistently healing her own wounds. When I hear this story I remember that we too, are a part of this nature and that we too, hold within us the power to heal our own wounds as we slowly but surely use the devastation that arises in our lives to stimulate new growth.
We carry within us the power to heal ourselves and others - often times without even knowing that we are doing it. We don't need an advanced degree or special talents or training to do this - we need only recognize the gift we all carry - the potential and the responsibility that each one of us possesses to act as healers for ourselves and for one another. We can be and we already are one another's healers - we are one another's witnesses and guides, one another's sources of strength, shifters of perspective, and restore-ers of order in a chaotic world. We are the hands of kindness, the gaze of concern, the jokester that brings laughter back to life - we are the healers of this world because frankly, there never has been and there never will be anyone else to do it. It is up to us. And whether we offer these gifts to ourselves or to one another - each one of us has the power and the responsibility to offer the unique kind of healing we have to give to this bruised and broken and beautiful world.
Just before Christmas, I had the privilege of visiting a young man at the Wyoming County Correctional Facility. His mother, a Unitarian Universalist from Illinois, wasn't going to be able to make the trip to see him for several months and she called to ask if someone from our church would be able to go out and check on him. Of course, we said, and off I went to be searched and questioned, to sit and wait as the twice-monthly visiting window for this young man quickly slid closed. As I sat in the converted cafeteria waiting for him to be brought in, I watched the prisoners and their families and friends all spread out at arms-length distance from one another - all watched over closely by roving guards with stern faces and attentive gazes.
As I sat and waited one particular family caught my eye. It was an older couple - parents I presumed of their imprisoned son who sat at one end of the table in his matching shirt and pants. Few words were exchanged among this family that morning - but in so many ways words seemed unnecessary.
Off in the corner vending machines and microwave ovens loomed - and family members of all the prisoners took turns pumping quarters into the machines to get hot wings and pizza slices, hamburgers and sodas and chocolate bars for their loved ones. The mother that caught my eye had been up walking around - going back and forth from table to vending machine and microwave and back to the table again throughout her short visit - gathering napkins and plastic silverware, pizza and hot wings for her easily fifty year old son. As she moved back and forth she deftly set the table there in the visiting room - carefully unfolding the institutional paper napkins to create a table cloth, lining up the napkin and the silver ware just so - removing the wilted plastic wrap and presenting the steaming food to her son as if it were a three course Thanksgiving dinner. No words were exchanged by there she was - offering the best she had to give to a son she longed to reach.
It was another healing moment - that I am sure of - a moment of healing for mother and son - a moment of normalcy in an abnormal environment - a brief window of care and concern that crossed the gulf of fault and forgiveness. And while the creation of this healing moment for mother and for son took place in what should be an extraordinary circumstance - no matter what our circumstances, we always have the opportunity to set the table for another - demonstrating our love when there is nothing else to do.
The healing we offer ourselves and one another rarely takes on a grand form, but rather it more regularly takes place in the smaller, less celebrated moments when we simply listen, reach out a hand, or do our best to offer kindness when the world seems to be spinning out of control.
As our very own Susan B. Anthony once said, "Sooner or later we all discover that the important moments in life are not the advertised ones, not the birthdays, the graduations, the weddings, not the great goals achieved. The real milestones are less prepossessing. They come to the door of memory unannounced, stray dogs that amble in, sniff around a bit, and simply never leave." These moments and memories that never leave us - so often they are memories of seemingly small things - moments when we have carved out for ourselves or for another a rest note - a sabbath time in the midst of chaos - so often they are memories of a hand of hope or help or healing when we felt lost or defeated - memories of a person understanding us as no one had before - experiences of rebirth and resurrection and repair that bring us together when before we felt so alone.
"People often use spirituality like medicine when they're in a tough situation." - the Western Buddhist teacher, Pema Chodron, said recently. And so they should, I say, because in those moments of difficulty spirituality can remind us of the opportunities that come along with the pain, because when things fall apart religion can offer us a place to grapple with the tough but persistent questions of life urging us to wring some small bit of usefulness from our suffering, because as we struggle each church community can help us to remember that we are not alone and that we all carry within us not only the power and the potential for healing but the responsibility to be healers for ourselves and for one another as well.
While healing ourselves and others can seem like a daunting task - let us not forget that healing happens most often when we least expect it - it happens when we show up for an interview with a student at a high school, it happens when we set the table for another with care in the midst of chaos, it happens when we see with new eyes an experience we used to bury deep in the darkness of our memory. Healing comes to all of us - through music and nature, through hands outstretched and hands held tight, through conversation and quiet and a willingness to wake up and pay attention to the truths that reveal themselves within and without.
Whether it is in the rest notes of our lives - the pauses between what has been and what will be - or whether it comes on a particularly clear day so happy, as the poet wrote - with fog lifted and hummingbirds stopping over honeysuckle flowers - those healing moments do come - moments when we realize that we have weathered the storm, moments when we forget for a time whatever evil we may have suffered, envying nothing and no one, feeling no pain, and straightening up there in the garden to see the blue sea and sails - or here in Rochester - to see the sun shining brightly in the deep blue sky on a chilly day in February.
These healing moments come as a surprise most every time - but they are there for us waiting - always. They are there for us waiting just as surely as the sun will set tonight and rise again tomorrow and they will come to us all just as surely as we are and always will be healers for ourselves and for one another.
May it always be so, and amen.
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