Threshold

“Threshold”

A Sermon by Rev. Dr. Jan Carlsson-Bull
First Parish Unitarian Universalist
Cohasset, MA
January 4, 2009

Few of us get carried across a threshold…certainly not the temporal threshold we recognize as a new year. We look both ways before we step. Janus, the Roman god namesake of January, was well equipped to do exactly that, having sprouted from the pantheon with two faces, one for looking back, the other, for looking ahead. When I came to the age of wondering about my own given name, Janice in full, I never counted it as good fortune to carry the nominal legacy of a two-faced god. One face was quite enough. Then years later I chose to take care of two annoyances with one fell swoop. I chopped the “ice” (the i-c-e) off my name, removing the January chill attached to that second syllable, and took care of any possible confusion with that ill-topped Roman god. Besides I was born in September, and I’ve long thought that September was a more apt time to begin the year, as those among us who are Jewish do, with Rosh Hashanah, literally “the head of the year,” observed in this month that straddles summer and fall.

Nonetheless here we are atop a threshold widely recognized as the new year, January for better and worse. As I’ve moved through more seasons of living, I’ve found a wisdom attached to that two-headed god. It’s a wise thing to look behind us—to reflect, to ponder, to discern, to analyze even what has transpired beyond us and within us and in that dance between the two—and to look forward—to imagine, to envision, to hope, and to anticipate, even to plan, dangerous as that often is.

Remember, if you can and will, this time a year ago. What were you reflecting on from the previous year? What were you hoping for and anticipating in the year ahead? What has transpired that you couldn’t possibly have anticipated? Who has been born? Who has become ill? Who has died? How has it been with your career and with the job that you hold or held? What inklings did you have of the economic turmoil? What celebrations have you marked? What do you most remember about this year that came as a full-blown surprise? What promises—resolutions even—did you make at year’s outset that you’ve kept? I’m trusting here that there are New Year’s resolutions that are actually honored!

We stand on the present threshold anticipating the inauguration of a president many never thought could be elected in this country where race and racism still carve a fault line. We stand on the present threshold hoping that a new regime will hold strategies that work for the common good—to move us out of the hole of this economy; to bring to an end a war that for so many thousands, even millions, has become completely untenable; to forge a wise diplomacy that will prevent yet another war; to craft a system whereby all might know the benefits of comprehensive health care. Of course we don’t all agree on these matters, but they impact us all—intimately and ultimately.

As Kathleen McTigue reminds us:

“…we stand at a threshold, the new year something truly new,
still unformed, leaving a stunning power in our hands.”

How commonly do we consider new time as the receptacle of “a stunning power?” Yet it is. How we move through whatever time is ours to know is a precious and powerful gift. What do we want to reflect upon come the end of December 2009? What do we hope to have accomplished? How do we hope to have lived? With what quality of energy will we be satisfied at having expended and toward what end? And yes, how generous do we hope to regard ourselves with regard to this very faith community as we look in the rear-view mirror that captures our reflections 12 months’ hence?

The longer we’ve lived, the more residue of time we accumulate, the more promises we’ve made that we would be or do or act in such and such a way, the more times we’ve disappointed ourselves and others in following through and the more times we’ve also surprised ourselves and others in making good on what we say we’ll do and be. Early January is like standing on a ridge. On one side, we view the panorama of how we got there. We recall the encampments, the near slips, the encounters with other travelers, the respites, the celebrations, the days that we dare to regard as ho-hum days when nothing special seemed to have happened. With no particular logic, details come to mind that embody what matters to us. Sometimes it’s a conversation with a friend. Sometimes it’s a decision made to take a day, a whole day, with no plans at all. Sometimes it’s a moment shared with someone who’s no longer here to share such a moment. Sometimes it’s a detour in a route we thought we were on. On the other side, we look off into the distance and imagine, bringing the wisdom and folly of where we’ve already been, bringing the lessons learned and half-learned and ignored into view. With what wisdom and humility and necessary humor will we set off into the space-time markings of a new year?

One of my favorite gifts received this Christmas was a calendar, given to Dan and me by our daughter, Lisa, and son-in-law, Rob. The feature attraction of the month-by-month visuals is Oliver Daniel Lemon, born February 22, 2008. Can you guess what they chose for January? The ultrasound! There he was—“about-to-be” tiny Oliver, nestled in Lisa’s womb, squirming, not quite ready but almost, to make his debut. With the blizzard of February 22, he knew it was time to come on out and take a look. Oliver didn’t quite stand on a threshold last January; he swam in it.

With year’s end, he’s about to walk. He’s babbling coherently—not an oxymoron at all for a parent or grandparent.

It’s always struck me that the personas of a new year were “Father Time” and a brand new baby sparsely clad in a Happy New Year banner, as if one year were a lifetime for this incarnation of a single earth-arc around the sun. What if that were the case for us?

Imagine, you’re about to be born. Imagine, by deep December you’ll be old, ancient even, close to that other threshold that we know as death. Time is condensed. You have a year to do it all, to be who you want to be, to come to full blossom and to lend whatever you will to this earth-time that is your life. How different might it go for you? How different?

To begin, I suggest we go back as far in our memories as we possibly can. Some of us might stop short at five or six. Others can stretch our imaginings all the way into our cribs. Do you remember what it was like to greet the day standing up in your crib and letting out a holler of exuberance that sounded the alert to whomever was hopefully there to satisfy your needs? Maybe it was a cry of hunger: “I’m awake, and I’m famished!” Then again, maybe there was another element or two for which babies are known to greet the morning. What do we call it? A need to be “changed!” Change is what greets the infant and what follows us in endless variations throughout our lives. Change is the mark of life itself, though of course it does have particular significance when it comes to changing a baby. The baby responds by changing us in ways we couldn’t imagine at the outset of parenthood—even grandparenthood.

“O come let us adore him!” Not until he’s changed thank you!

A newborn, a new year, a fresh start, a threshold of possibility. Change is not just imminent; it’s a given.

Yet we’ve all heard the maxim that the more things change, the more they remain the same. This view finds particular eloquence in the biblical book of Ecclesiastes. Futility, thy name is the Preacher of Ecclesiastes. In the very first chapter, we read:

What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done;
and there is nothing new under the sun. Is there a thing of which it is said, "See, this is new"?
It has been already, in the ages before us. There is no remembrance of former things, nor will there be any remembrance of later things yet to happen among those who come after.
Ecclesiastes 1:9-11 (Revised Standard Version)

And all the way into the final chapter, the preacher continues, culminating with the proclamation:

“Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher; all is vanity.”
Ecclesiastes 12:8 (Revised Standard Version)

Not exactly the life of the New Year’s party!

In contemporary voice, the reflections of yoga teacher Robert Levine on the Winter Solstice and the New Year seem at first hearing to echo the ancient Preacher:

….despite this change in the calendar, the events in the world seem to go on in the same way that they have gone on before. Wars continue. Poverty persists, authoritarian leaders consolidate their grip on power, and the ice caps melt as the mean temperature of the world continues to rise. It is a new year, but time passes on and the world seems not to notice.

Unlike the ancient preacher, Levine pulls us out of the well later in his narrative:

Despite the lack of apparent change, we still continue to hope, to hope and believe that we can make positive change in our lives and make positive change in the world.

The long night of the winter solstice and the long winter nights altogether invite reflection and hopeful imagination. Writes Levine:

When the sun rises and the new year begins it is up to us as spiritual and political beings sharing this planet to figure out how we can live with all our disagreements and conflicts. There is nothing idealistic about this, for do we really have any other choice?

Well yes, we do, I believe we do. We can retreat into the cocoon of despair and denial that there is nothing new, that all is vanity, that what can we do anyway in the face of the violence in Gaza, the economic uncertainties here, the threat of another conflict in Afghanistan, the maladies and illnesses and injuries that have befallen so many among us. We can retreat and step off that threshold of possibility. We can also pause here and say “Yes” to the “stunning power” of perspective that this time affords. Like that ancient Roman god gifted or cursed, whatever your perspective, with two faces—one to look backwards, the other, to look ahead—we can do both with one face, with one set of hands, with one heart. And we can do more with hands and hearts joined in community.

Through this very community in which we worship together this morning, we can reflect and discern and ponder and wonder aloud, “What if?” What if we take to heart whatever we’ve learned from this past year and all years past? What if we own our power to act spiritually and politically in the direction of the common good? What if we ingest the lessons of time past and with eyes and hearts and minds wide open step off this threshold into a new year with hope seasoned by our ponderings? What then?

Come January 2010, you tell me. What then will have come to pass?
Amen.


Sources:

The Book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible (King James Version)

Robert Levine, “Reflections on the Winter Solstice and the New Year,” lifesherpa.com/magazine, http://www.lifesherpa.com/magazine/society/2008-01-levine-time-solstice.htm

Kathleen McTigue, “New Year’s Day,” in Singing the Living Tradition, The Unitarian Universalist Association, Beacon Press, Boston, 1993, 544.