Message from Jan

“Message from Jan”
First Parish
Unitarian Universalist
Cohasset, MA
February 15, 2009

Greetings and love to each and all on this mid-February Sunday morning as you gather once again to worship.

What does it mean to worship? Of course we’ll never reach consensus on an answer. We’re Unitarian Universalists after all. I do believe our capacity to worship together without consensus on what it means is a clue to how exactly we are bound in this strange and wonderful community of faith that we share—that is, love as a covenantal relationship. Not love as something distilled in a stale and dubious definition. Not love as an unattainable standard that is instant pie in the sky. Not even love in the form of chocolate that is savored, digested, and quickly forgotten—though the savor part is probably a point on which we actually could reach consensus. Rather, love as a dynamic fluid relationship of joys and concerns, silence and song, activity and respite, questioning and wondering, striving and stumbling—all laced with a behavior of deep caring.

For me, love is how we care. One of the most important questions to which I’m called to respond day after day is how I love, how I care, and what I love, what I care about.

Lest we lean too quickly into the ethereal stuff of love, what I sometimes call glazed donut theology—glazed on the outside, preservatives on the inside, and a hole in the middle—consider our morning reading, Teilhard de Chardin’s “A Hymn to Matter.”

“Blessed be you, harsh matter, barren soil, stubborn rock,” moving into:

“Blessed be you, universal matter, unmeasurable time, boundless ether, triple abyss of stars and atoms and generations..”

From the immediacy of soil and rock, we travel into the far-reaching stuff of “universal matter” and “unmeasurable time.” We travel right out into the stars. This is affirmation that is grounded and transcendental, immediate and ultimate, here and now, and time without borders.

What do we love and how do we love? Loving the soil and the rock and the stuff that we recognize as earth-stuff is just as “spiritual” as loving the outer realms of space and time, the far stretches of imagination. It reminds me of the phrase chosen by a longtime Christian Ethics professor at my alma mater, Union Theological Seminary. Dr. Beverly Wildung Harrison referred to “embodied spirituality.” When I think of Bev, this notion works on a personal level. While Bev became one of our nation’s foremost feminist theologians, my first encounter with her when I arrived at Union was as the senior counselor on my dorm floor in McGiffert Hall, standing in the kitchen and teaching me how to make a proper cheese fondue! I love Bev for what she taught me about feminist theology AND for what she taught me the fine tunings for a sumptuous fondue. I know now what an artery clogger it is, but I can still savor the smell and the taste and permit myself every year or so to prepare a batch, no recipe needed.

We love and we remember with an embodied spirituality. Sometimes our sense of taste figures in, sometimes our sense of smell, sometimes our sense of touch. Commonly our object of love is within our field of vision or our field of hearing. All are constructs of the material world. As for love itself, it’s both grounded and transcendent. I do believe it outlasts our material selves as we know ourselves; but while we’re here in the form we assume as living breathing humans, our material selves matter mightily.

We’re brought hard into this truth this very winter as so many of us find ourselves challenged by injury and illness. You bet your life, we matter as matter! How well we function physically is intimately related to how well we function in ways that we don’t commonly consider physical. How we could ever buy into a tension between the physical and the spiritual is beyond me. Teilhard de Chardin observed and affirmed their intimacy. Charles Darwin observed and affirmed their intimacy. My friend Beverley Wildung Harrison recognized and affirmed their intimacy. We are body bound, body constrained, body defined; and it’s a matter of opinion as to whether we’re body liberated when we die.

The expressions of love and caring that you have shown me in these past weeks have been wondrously material. I smile with appreciation at every card, every e-mail, every visit. And my husband, Dan and I, ingest with appreciation every magnificent meal that you have delivered. Who even fantasizes about cheese fondue when you deliver the likes of aromatic stewed apples, citrus crusted fish, Swedish meatballs (prepared with ground turkey, thank you), acorn squash laden with apples and cranberries, chocolate meringues, and a tart that goes straight to my heart through my tummy. A Hymn to Matter? Absolutely! Food for body and soul? Explain the difference; I can’t.

I know this morning you’re hearing the strains of Johann Sebastian Bach through the sounds of organ, oboe, and voice. What can be more sublime than the music of Bach? Thank God or whomever or whatever magnificent twist in the process of natural selection that permitted us, who are human, to make music and enjoy it.

As this morning’s offering is given and received, ingest the sublimity that is this segment of Bach’s Magnificat, and be reminded of the truth held in the words of our closing hymn:

“…we are in the making still—as friends who share one enterprise and strive to blend with nature’s will.”

In this extraordinary here and now in which you sit side by side singing, praying, listening, leaning into whatever it is that you need this morning and whatever it is that happens this morning, we are like grace notes in a composition that goes on and on and on. As such, may we share the measures of our lives note by note, act by act, life by life, honoring the dynamic covenant of love that girds our glorious lack of consensus on what exactly it all means. It is the variation that enriches the community, the variation that makes harmony possible.

Consider what you love. Consider how you love. Consider that lyric of our final hymn reminding us that “what we love we yet shall be.” Trust it. Trust the love. Trust the covenant of love. There are no hard truths in this hard winter, but the songs that we sing and the notes that we heed are buoyant with the sacred here and now and the vibrant possibility of what can yet be.

“This is the marvel of life, rising to see and to know;
out of your heart, cry wonder: sing that we live.”

ring the words of Robert Weston.

The intricate twining of body and spirit, intimate and ultimate, here and now and time without end proclaim that the wonder of Creation of which we are a part is barely underway.

In this winter of hard realities, breathe, taste, touch, smell, listen, watch. Sing a hymn to matter. Sing a hymn to the love that matters most of all.

I love you each and all—
Jan


Sources:

Teilhard de Chardin, “Hymn to Matter,” in Singing the Living Tradition, The Unitarian Universalist Association, Beacon Press, Boston, 1993, 549.

John and Mary Evelyn Grim, “Teilhard de Chardin: A Short Biography,” http://www.teilharddechardin.org/biography.html.

William DeWitt Hyde, adapted by Beth Ide, “Creative Love, Our Thanks We Give,” in Singing the Living Tradition, The Unitarian Universalist Association, Beacon Press, Boston, 1993, 289.

Robert T. Weston, “Out of the Stars,” in Singing the Living Tradition, The Unitarian Universalist Association, Beacon Press, Boston, 1993, 530.

Message from Jan

“Message from Jan”
First Parish Unitarian Universalist
Cohasset, MA
February 8, 2009

Greetings on this Sunday morning of being together in worshipful community.

It’s gratifying to imagine you clustered in the Meeting House on this day that promises a balmy 40-something. You could be out walking on the beach; you could be out breathing the scent of a promised spring in air that has been sub-freezing for so long; you could be somewhere other than here. Of course some of you probably are walking on the beach right now; some of you probably are outside inhaling the promise of spring at this very hour. You are where you are, but there is something about gathered community in worship that is sacred. You’re affirming your need to consider the intimacy of religious community and the ultimacy of those matters about which we sing and pray and speak and ponder. And there is much to sing about, pray about, speak about, and simply ponder, as we move through a winter that is trying body and soul.

What if we turned this winter upside down? Some of you might think: “Aha, the Southern Hemisphere sounds pretty good about now!” But I believe you know what I’m talking about—the hurdles of illness and injury, the heartbreak of loss, and the harrowing dynamic of our nation’s economy that has become the high uncertainty of our global well-being.

The Preacher of Ecclesiastes was right by half: “There is nothing new under the sun.” The other half? Everything is new under the sun. It’s a new morning, a new hour, a new moment, a brand new breath. We bring into our “now” all that has happened, for good and ill; and we bring into our “now” all the possibility, all the vision, all the hope for what and how we might be.

A case in point. One among us suffered a serious fall this past December. For a perilous while, her life hung in the balance. An ambulance was called. Emergency surgery was performed. Surely it was the longest night for all who know and love her. Then slowly but surely the waiting and the wondering stretched into the knowledge that recovery is happening. In the words of her husband, “Baby steps, baby steps.” Our dear friend is healing.

Baby steps are how we all learn to walk, however slowly. There is much yet uncertain; there are no certainties for any of us. Yet healing is happening; recovery is in process. And from that fall to the astonishing steps she has taken, you have been there for our beloved friend and her husband and their family. You have been there in caring community. You have visited; you have sent cards; you have prepared meals for her husband; you have brought flowers to brighten the days of our dear friend who is returning, step by step, word by word, smile by smile, hand clasp by hand clasp.

So many of you have known the harshness of this winter through injury and illness and for some of our families, through the loss that is death. In just a few weeks, we’ll come together to celebrate the life of a young woman whom we have known and loved, a young woman who has for so long suffered from a debilitating illness. We miss her, and our hearts go out most especially to her husband at this time. Once again, you have been there with your love and support—not just this winter, but for many many winters of body and soul for this family.

“There is nothing new under the sun,” and everything is new under the sun. Every illness, every injury, every round of surgery, even each passing has marked an exquisite opportunity for us as a community of faith to practice our faith, to reach out, to listen, to know most of the time that we can’t fix whatever is ailing whomever, but we can be there. Healing and loving presence are at play amid a winter when the winds have blown harshly and the snow has fallen bounteously and the ice has sent us spinning sometimes out of control. What good is a faith if it doesn’t take practice? What good is a covenant of love if we aren’t there to hold hope for each other, when, as the song goes, “Hope is hard to find.” We find it in each other.

Be assured, be absolutely assured, that you have reached out and been there in the most loving way for me and my family through my autumn diagnosis of early stage breast cancer, through two initial surgeries and then through this major surgery just over a week ago. You have sent notes and e-mails of care and concern. You have brought meals to warm heart and tummy. You have sent flowers with the promise of spring. You have picked up the slack that I’m leaving in my four weeks away from you so that I might return in the best possible health. And you have shared your delight at my news that all that blankety blank cancer is gone. You’ve even laughed with me as I talk about my “brand new breast,” beyond embarrassment at talking to a congregation about my bust line, old and new. From Dan and me, thank you for your love and care. Thank you!

Many of us continue to struggle and resist the constraints and ambiguities of illness and more. All of us live with the abiding knowledge that life does not come with a guarantee of any sort. We light our chalice Sunday after Sunday reminded that the flame is dynamic; our faith is alive; and revelation is ever unfolding.

So let’s consider the revelation that is ours for the choosing as we move through this time. The realities of malady and misfortune are real. The realities of jobs lost and pensions nose diving are real. The realities of uncertainty are certain. Instead of retreating into anxiety or despair or a paucity of imagination that never suits us well, consider that this is our winter of promise. This is our winter of possibility.

This is a winter in which we keep our promise of living a covenant of love. This is a winter in which we make good on our promise to be faithful as members and friends to support one another and the 286-year-old institution that is this church. This is a winter in which we consider what our nation is all about, with a new administration struggling to lead a turning of the tide in bringing America not back to what we’ve been but ahead to what we might be as a nation that might at long last make good on our promises for the common good. This is a winter in which we are gifted to consider what we need and what we don’t, what is need and what is greed, and to discern the difference with new found consciousness. This is a winter to take a fresh look from the inside out and the outside in, from the intimacy of our First Parish community to the outer bounds of global well-being. This is a winter in which the roots of crocus and daffodil are moving differently, because the soil has changed. Its harshness is its possibility.

Consider the mission of this congregation:
We welcome all to our inclusive spiritual community. We affirm our Unitarian Universalist principles and put them into action by worshipping together, caring for one another, and working for a safe, just, and sustainable world.

Consider our principles as Unitarian Universalists, from honoring the basic worth of every person to affirming the interconnectedness of all life.

Welcome, affirmation, thoughtful action, deep caring, hard work, and a reverence for each and all. We are welcoming new faces, new families. We are trying out new ideas. We are finding fresh ways to put our principles into practice. We are discerning caring community through presence and more. We are hard at work on matters of sustainability and possibility. We hold hope that our nation might move beyond mere economic recovery into a new-found commitment to the common good.

Let us give thanks for such an amazing winter!

I miss you. I can’t wait to be with you on the first Sunday of March. And I love you each and all,
Jan