If Only:
A Sermon on the Discipline of Compassion for Ourselves

So it's just odd, You know?! All the ways we find to beat ourselves up for the lives we've got.

We may not believe in Carl Dennis' God, but who of us doesn't have the voice of that god in our heads? Much more often than we'd like.

If only I'd taken college more seriously. Not been such a screw up!
If only I'd not taken that first drink. Or the second. Or the third.
If only I'd had the courage to pursue my passion, not the career path that society endorsed.
If only I hadn't said what I did
    Or had said what I should have.
If only, in my marriage, I'd tried harder
    or trusted more,
    or not trusted him so much.
If only I'd taken better care of my body.
If only I'd been better at keeping in touch.

If only... If only... If only... These "If Only stories," they haunt us all.

I certainly know they've haunted me, especially when it comes to all the time I imagine I've wasted.

For years, I beat myself up for my first marriage. Not out of guilt or resent, but simply for being so foolish. What was I thinking marrying so young?! And once I knew it wasn't working, how could I not have said something earlier? What a coward! I just ended up hurting her more. And wasting so many of, not only my years, but also hers. If only... if only...

I also think about how early on I was introduced to the "If Only" storyline. My mom was a master. Her "if only" story went off like clockwork. Every time she had a bad day teaching her high school students or saw a young women on TV playing a doctor, the same old story would be told. "That's what I wanted to be: a doctor. But my father forbid it. Women have only three choices, he said: Secretary, Nurse or Teacher. I won't pay for or allow anything else." The thing that always struck me was how her story would end each time, not with anger toward her dad, but with her energy turned back on herself: "I just didn't have the courage to stand up to him," mom would say. "If only I'd had the courage to stand up for myself."

And I'm thinking today too of friends. I can't count the number of times, I've sat with older male friends who say they wish they'd worked less or been more emotionally available to their kids. "It just wasn't how it was done back then," they say. "And sure, our fathers certainly didn't model hugs & "I love you's" for us. But you know I should risen above it. If only I had, I know my kids and I would in a better way today."

And I don't know, friends, maybe some of this we can blame on the season that is upon us. Fall has a way of evoking nostalgia. To see the leaves die, fall and lay so sadly on the earth, forces one to reckon with time and how we've used the all-too-few days we've been given. Regret, missed opportunities, mistakes and wasted time - it's all just a natural part of looking back.

And yet, here's the thing: When we listen to others' looking back, when we listen to others share their "what if's" and "if only's," we so quickly and kindly jump to compassion - a compassion that we just do not seem to extend as easily to ourselves.

And so my question today is: Why?
What is it that makes compassion for ourselves so hard?

Indeed sometimes I think it's not even on our radar screen. In addition to this being the season of falling leaves, it's also the time of year we talk about forgiveness, especially in UU congregations. Honoring the Jewish tradition, we annually engage the wisdom of their high holy days: Yom Kippur - the Jewish New Year - a time of taking stock and moving ahead with a clean slate so to speak. And for our Jewish friends, forgiveness is a big part of that.

But unlike our Jewish friends, our UU sermons and discussion somehow regularly get stuck on the part about forgiving others - with the most common message being about how forgiving others is a gift we give ourselves, about how we don't need to forget but we have to let go, or else our anger becomes a prison that locks us in the past. It's an important message. No doubt about it. But, again, it's ultimately about what others have done to us, not about what we've done to others, and certainly not about what we've done - and do - to ourselves.

And the reason that's most often given for this is pride. That's why, it is said, we UU's never get around to looking at forgiveness for ourselves - let alone compassion for ourselves. Simply put, the logic goes, we don't think we need any - forgiveness or compassion.

As has been pointed out by those outside as well as inside our tradition, we UU's have never been all that keen on confession. Indeed I ran across a number of sermons while doing research for today that did a great job of calling us on the carpet for this. They rightly pointed out how we religious liberals often take our rejection of a judging God a bit too far. Having been beat up by guilt in our early experiences with religion, we'll be darned if we're going to allow another preacher to get up there, shake his finger at us and tell us we need to look at our mistakes. And so the celebration of inherent worth swallows up the stage, completely eclipsing any talk about the disciplines of self-examination. In other words, we tend toward the adolescent, these criticisms say, with us needing and wanting everything to affirm us. Thus, with this celebration of self taking up all the air in the room, is it any surprise that we're not that well schooled in the discipline of compassion for self?!

Well, maybe, right?

I mean, I certainly don't want to dismiss this critique, but obviously, today, I have my doubts. Obviously, I'm thinking something else is more at play.

And it's a friend that's helped me see it.

I was talking to her about Carl Dennis' poem and about this struggle we all have with our "If Only's." And that's when she shared her's. "I have a father with profound mental illness," she explained. "And for a long time, I thought I could save him - or at least prevent his illness from ruling his life, if only I tried hard enough, if only I could set up the perfect support system, get him connected with the all the right treatment programs and on all the right medication regimens. And so that's what I did. But time and time again, he didn't follow through. He'd undermine everything, in small and big ways - from faking taking the pills to just disappearing for days and even months on end. For a long time I was angry at him for that. I mean, how could he do that? To himself ...and to me !"

"And so, for the longest time," she went on, "I thought my greatest work, my greatest spiritual discipline was to forgive him. But over time things have changed, turned on their heads even. You see, with the help of therapists and spiritual directors and wise friends, and a lot of soul searching, I slowly came to an awareness that my real work, my real spiritual discipline, was not about forgiving HIM, but forgiving MYSELF - forgiving myself for not being able to make everything right."

"I realized," she said, "that what I was really mad at, was not his illness or his decisions, but my own powerlessness."

Good God! I don't know about you, friends, but that story knocked me off my seat. For me, it changes everything! For me, it says:

Forget that stuff about pride. Forget that stuff about us avoiding self-compassion because we think too highly of ourselves to need any. Forget that stuff us being obsessed with affirmation and self-celebration. No, what I hear my friend saying is that the real reason self-compassion is so hard for her - and so hard for us - is not because it requires us to admit that we aren't perfect, but because it asks us to accept that we are not in control.

And that's a totally different ball game! It's a ball game that suggests that our primary struggle is not with our inflated ego, but with our fear; not so much with some adolescent belief that we don't NEED any help, but with a more fundamental worry that - if we don't do it all - we won't GET any help!

Which means - of course - that this is not just a sermon about the discipline of self-compassion, but also a sermon about the discipline of surrender.

And man does that make things tricky today! Because if anything gives us UU's - and us human beings - the "hebegebees" more than someone telling us we need for forgiveness, it is certainly someone telling us we need to surrender.

Am I right?!

I mean, who of us - when we are honest with ourselves - wouldn't prefer to beat ourselves up for making a mistake, than admit there is nothing we can do or could have done! Powerlessness is, after all, so much more scary than focusing on our mistakes. Mistakes still imply that there is a hope of us regaining and staying in control.

And, man, are we afraid of giving up control.

This, friends, is what, I think, makes self-compassion so much more complicated than it seems at first blush. It is a discipline that involves and requires giving up control and trusting in something other than ourselves.

And here's where we need to bring Carl Dennis and his poem back into the discussion, because he reframes what it means to surrender and to trust in a way that is, I think, so much more accessible to us UU's. Let's be honest, far from being an act of self-compassion or self-care, we usually see surrender as self-abdication - as not just giving our power up, but giving our power over - to something or somebody else.

Remember when I mentioned the hebegebees? Well, this "giving our power over" is a big part of those hebegebees, right? I mean, cults ask for surrender. Crazy cult leaders like Jim Jones with his famous cool aid ask us to surrender our will and choice to their greater wisdom - to bow down, so to speak, and follow them blindly.

But this is not what Carl Dennis saying or encouraging. He is simply inviting us to surrender to and embrace life - with all its inevitable mistakes and imperfections, all it's uncontrollable - ABSOLUTELY UNCONTROLLABLE - messiness and uncertainties. There is no God in the sky, he says. But his main point is to remind us that WE are not god - nor do we have to try to be God. That's how we come to our own rescue, he says. We don't need to be in control of this life of ours; We don't need to make all the perfect choices. We just need to sit down and connect with the imperfect life we've got - just as we'd connect with the imperfect friend we got. What's his big spiritual advice? Simply to stop worrying and write that friend a letter!

What?! What?! Seriously, what kind of advice is this?! It's almost silly. Seemingly flippant. Certainly too easy. But that's what he says - almost playfully so.

And I think that's exactly the way he means it. Playfully. I think he wants us to imagine a giant smile on his face. A smile on his face that will hopefully put one on ours. It's ok to relax, I think he's trying to say. You can let go, for once already! There is joy in surrender, for god's sake! Surprising and healing joy!

Stop all this manic silliness. Stop trying to fix or perfect things. Just relax, give yourself a break and just reach out to, surrender to and open up to what you already got. And when you do - I think he's trying to say - you will discover that it's all alright ...JUST...AS...IT...IS!

You don't have to worry about the "WHAT IF's" or the "IF ONLY's." You don't have to beat yourself up, he's saying. You can forgive yourself for not having been able to make everything go as you'd planned or hoped... because this supposedly failed life of yours? Well, when you look closely enough, frankly not all that bad.

In fact, it's even good enough to write a letter about!

Imagine that! Imagine that - not having to beat yourself up or be perfect... for everything to still be alright!

And frankly friends, I don't have have much more to add to that today, except to simply share how my friend's story ended.

"Once I was able to forgive myself for not being able to make everything right," she said, "a whole new story with my Dad opened up. Not one in which I got the dad I wanted but one in which I got the dad I have."

She went on to talk about how surrender for her is now not so much a matter of "giving over power" but "opening up to life" - a means of being kind to herself, a means of releasing herself from the oppressive expectation that the story is all up to her.

As we talked, I was able to tap into that self-kindness, that self-compassion, too. And I found myself retelling the story of my first marriage. "Yeah," I said, "You know it's just plain silly for me to tell the story of my first marriage as a "failed marriage." Truth is it just wasn't a marriage that was meant to last a lifetime. It had a lifespan that frankly gave me a lot. So much."

And I then I thought of my mom. No, she didn't have the courage to stand up to her father. But even though she lost control of her story, it was nevertheless a story that allowed her every summer off to spend with my brother and me. Thinking back - right along side her "if only's" - she also talked about being grateful for that.

And my older guy friends. I thought of them too and how the story of their relationship with their kids isn't over yet. And even if it doesn't end up as they hope, what they learned from their previous mis-steps will surely be put to use somehow in the way they offer themselves and emotionally open to others.

And I'm ending up today - right now - thinking of all of us, and how if we are willing to be kind to ourselves and forgive ourselves for not being able to make everything right, we will certainly discover a new story, in which everything...AS...IT...IS...will be alright - more than alright!

May it be so. Amen.

Scott Tayler, Parish Co-Minister
October 30 2011