First Parish Sermon

 Fear is amazing. 

I was completely convinced that I was running too long, that I had lost the crowd in some way. So powerful was this fear that towards the end I actually skipped a small section of the text. 

In my conversations with people afterward I realized that my perception had been simply that: my own perception. Created by my own fears. As I moved through those fears, rather as I was carried through these fears by others’ love, I was blessed with a great lesson. 

That morning here in January I knew that a large part of my purpose here on earth is to minister. As a direct result of those moments of fear and trepidation I gained a greater sense of my self and of my purpose. 

Of course every morning is not our first sermon. Every day is not an enormous public transition witnessed by most of our closest friends and family. Most days are average functional days in which we do what we normally do. But I’m here this morning to tell you that there is little if any difference in importance. 

Every moment and experience which we find ourselves in is an opportunity for growth. This growth, this evolution is the highest calling we have in this life. We have been blessed with this gift of life - custom fit with each and every miniscule detail that perfectly provides us with our path to fullness.

Dawna Markova, a modern day sage and consultant writes, 

I will not die an unlived life
I will not live in fear of falling or catching fire
I choose to inhabit my days
To risk my significance to live
And to allow that living to open me,
Making me less afraid, more accessible, 
So that which comes to me as seed
Goes on to the next as blossom
And that which comes to me as blossom, 
Goes on as fruit.

We have choices in this life. Especially when we are most challenged we can fight the events of our life as they unfold. We can close ourselves to them, deny not only their power to teach us but even their very presence as reality. Equally, we have the option to embrace our existences, to accept the events of our life and allow them to open us. Now this way of being is far from passive. It is more a call to the most powerful and complete action. It is a call to action grounded in reality. These events which seem most puzzling, most unjust and most wrong, are exactly the events and the portions of our being which merit the most attention, acceptance and love. 

One of my most cherished and revered teachers, Rosalie Deer Heart, teaches, among other things, on the various dimensions and functions of the soul. She teaches that each and every one of us is a soul incarnate. Our soul has come into this life to learn and to evolve. As we gently allow our living to open us, as we embrace our lives exactly as they are, we more fully inhabit our days, and more fully become ourselves. Through the living of this life we nourish our soul and it evolves. The challenging relationships and circumstances of this lifetime are our soul’s masterful coordination of our most needed learning. The circumstances and events of this life have been custom fit. Each moment from the most profound to the most profane are custom fit for our soul, specially ordered for our own evolution. 

This is an excerpt from a book by Jack Kornfield a Buddhist monk called, A Path With Heart:

Naomi Remen, a physician who uses art, meditation and other practices in the healing of cancer patients, tells the story of a young man of about my age who came to her after one of his legs had been amputated at the hip in order to save his life from bone cancer. When she began her work with him he had a great sense of injustice and hatred for all "healthy" people. It seemed bitterly unfair to him that he had suffered this terrible loss so early in life. His grief and rage were so great that it took several years of continuous work for him to begin to come out of himself and to heal. He had to heal not only his body but also his broken heart and wounded spirit. 

He worked hard and deeply, telling his story, painting it, meditating, bringing his entire life into awareness. As he slowly healed, he developed a profound compassion for others in similar situations. He began to visit people in the hospital who had also suffered severe physical losses. On one occasion, told his physician, he visited a young singer who was so depressed about the loss of her breasts that she would not even look at him. The nurses had the radio playing, probably hoping to cheer her up. It was a hot day, and the young man had come in running shorts. Finally, desperate to get her attention, he unstrapped his artificial leg and began dancing around the room snapping his fingers to the music. She looked at him in amazement, and then burst out laughing and said, "Man, if you can dance, I can sing." 

When this young man first began working with drawing, he made a crayon sketch of his own body in the form of a vase with a deep crack running through it. He redrew the crack over and over, grinding his teeth with rage. Several years later, to encourage him to complete his process, Remen showed him his early pictures again. He saw the image of the vase and said, "Oh this one isn’t finished." When she suggested he finish it then, he did. He ran his finger along the crack, saying, "You see here, this is where the light comes through." With a yellow crayon, he drew light streaming through the crack into the body of the vase and said, "Our hearts can grow strong at the broken places."

If we can take that first leap, that first quantum stretch of our hearts to open ourselves to our lives exactly as they are, then we have truly begun the path towards our own truest happiness.

This is hardly easy. We live in a society which in many ways seems intentionally organized to create a sense of inadequacy, of insufficiency within our hearts. We are constantly surrounded with images specifically engineered to make us feel too fat, too old, too poor, not enough. The bulk of advertisements out there seek to create this false sense of lacking. And oh, do we buy into it. Hand over fist we consume vastly beyond our needs. We believe that this consumption will leave us full and satisfied. We are convinced that the newest, fastest and biggest thing will fill a void within us. Before we know it we believe that we don’t have a nice enough stereo, a new enough car, a large enough house. What’s more we believe that these things, that these material things will bring us happiness. Well guess what, that void is self-perpetuating. It has been meticulously designed so that it will never be filled. 

I believe that all we lack is true understanding. I believe that the emptiness, the longing we feel is from a perceived separation. We feel separate from one another, alone and isolated. Even more distressing, we feel separate from ourselves, from the person we want to be. 

As one great Indian master, Sri Nisargadatta, put it, "The mind creates the abyss, and the heart crosses it." The mind creates the abyss, It is our mind that perceives lacking. Through the conscious and unconscious processes of our mind we create and accept this supposed insufficiency. It is through the power of our hearts that we can cross the abyss and see the truth of abundance. Through the transformational power of love we can create a paradigm shift within our own beings and thereby within the world. 

The great thinker and theologian Teillhard De Chardin writes, 
 

"The day will come when, after harnessing the ether, the winds, the tides, and gravitation, we shall harness for God the energies of love. And, on that day, for the second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire."

De Chardin wrote this in Peking in 1934. He most likely could have had no idea of how far the technological advancements would have come in the sixty some odd years between then and now. Far beyond the ether he spoke of, we have etherNET. All the power in the world, all the functional technological advancements have only served to perpetuate the fundamental and widespread unhappiness which surrounds our society today. The last true frontier, the one true revolution will be one from fear to love, and the time to start is now. 

So where do we start? Where can we take that leap? 

The answer is simple - This house. This very place. It is in this very moment that this colossal undertaking begins. Within these walls, from the moment you stepped into these walls we have been practicing. In the society at large it is all too easy to lose our bearings. We can slip from a mental and emotional space of love and acceptance into the safety zone of fear and superficiality. 

This is hard work, friends, it is an uphill battle to love this life - but it’s hardest at the beginning. This life of love is an art to be practiced and explored, and our lives are our laboratories. The principles and precepts of this church give us the framework within which we can safely explore the depths of our hearts and minds. It is here within these walls that we can risk our significance to live. As we hold the deepest reverence and respect for one another we provide the safety needed to show our weakness, to expose the deep cracks within ourselves. And it is that very exposure which allows the light to pour forth. Once the light is streaming the cracks are beside the point. They are simply the vehicles through which we can know love, through whose aid we can grow. 

So it’s like this: we come together with clear intention to hold each other gently and respectfully in this sacred space. Through this clarity and intention we can truly honor the distinct being we are within this life. We know that we are accepted not in spite of our challenges and imperfections, but rather directly because of them. Through this acceptance we begin to fulfill our soul’s purpose on earth in this existence - and you know what - It's fun. 

To be loved, to be truly accepted as we are is the most fun, the lightest and freest feeling we may be able to know as humans on earth. With clear, vibrant and respectful relationships as the center of our beings, this life flows with a power and a fury. 

The time to discover this fire is now. This morning in this sacred space surrounded by these loving hearts and open minds. In this house we are safe to be our truest selves. May it be so. 

Dear Friends, we have been given this life as a gift, as a sacred gift custom fit to our soul. May we open to this life. May we risk our significance to live this life exactly as it is. Through the cracks in our being, may we shine glorious light on ourselves, on each other, and out into this world. 

Amen.