“…we can never be born enough.
we are human beings for whom birth
is a supremely welcome mystery.
the mystery of growing,
the mystery which happens only and
whenever
we are faithful to ourselves.
life for eternal us is now.”
e.e. cummings
Ineffable
to Ineffable
We are in the business here, of
tending souls. It is difficult, yet
rewarding work, complicated by our theological diversity and by our natural
resistance to religious language.
Our Universalist heritage teaches
that all souls are ultimately reconciled with God and when I speak of our
souls, I am speaking of that ineffable part of us that longs for connection
with the ineffable that we call by many names: Spirit of Life, God; Yahweh,
Elohim, Allah; Mother-Father God; Beloved Mystery, Nature, the Oversoul, the
Collective Unconscious, the Ground of our Being, Holy One, Transcendent
Love.
No one knows for certain about that
ultimate reconciliation of ineffable soul to ineffable source, but we do know –
in the meantime – that “life for eternal us is now” and so when I speak of
tending souls I am also speaking of our evolving human-ness that experiences
reverence, awe, and wonder in nature; I am speaking of that unique personal
core, that unique spark and spirit of life within us, that longs for love, and
purpose, and connection not only with the ineffable, not only with the natural
world of which we’re part, but also longs for connection – deep connection -- with
other human beings.
Meeting
J
We are in the business of tending
souls and earlier this summer we had a chance to do just that at our Harry
Potter daycamp. Our theme was
"Lumos" -- which, in Harry Potter parlance is the incantation for “let
there be light.” Our focus was on the
light that is all around us, and the light that shines from within us.
For example, when we considered the light that is all
around us we talked about the sun and stars, and we talked bioluminescent
creatures – we even had a live, bioluminescent scorpion that we checked out
under a black light. When we considered the
light within each one of us, we talked about a person’s kindness and strength,
their compassion and their creativity, their power to offer blessings to the
world by the way that the treat other people.
11 children came to the camp, their ages ranging from
6 to 15. One of those children was “J”, a
13-year old boy who has recently undergone those growth spurts that 13-year old
boys endure -- at times he seemed to be all feet and gigantic sneakers.
There is a truth that is hard for me to admit to
you: I was nervous when J first arrived
because I recognized immediately that he would require a lot of attention, and
I did not know if we were prepared –-- I did not know if I was prepared --
to work with him.
When in doubt, gather information. I talked to J’s mother who explained to me
that he has the mental capacities of a 6-year old boy in that evolving 13-year
old body. She shared a litany of his
medical conditions which include, in her words, mental retardation, ADHD,
autism, and epileptic seizures that play havoc with his memory – especially
around language. This makes it hard for
him to remember and to follow directions.
As I listened to his mother it became clear to me that
she is a fierce, devoted and frankly exhausted mother who must advocate for her
son every single day. She is a loving
mother, too, who ended her litany with these words: “My boy is also smart, and
he is sweet.”
Seeing
J: What the Heart Understands
I worked closely with J during the
week, witnessing the challenges and frustrations he experiences due to that
list of conditions that are beyond his control.
I saw the smart and sweet, and even the funny J, too.
More importantly, I witnessed J’s yearning to believe
in and trust in us, trust that we were not going to exclude him because of his
differences because let me tell you something:
he may struggle to understand a lot of things but he understands
exclusion, he experiences it often. He
doesn’t know why it happens – he’s doing his best – but for reasons he is
unable to grasp his best is often not good enough and he is teased, turned
away, left out, excluded. This hurts
him, deeply.
If we are truthful, each one of us has experienced
exclusion, has been judged “lacking” because of some innate “other-ness”, has
been rejected despite our best offer of our true-est selves. We can understand J’s yearning to be a
welcomed part of a beloved community that sees us, cares about us, accepts us
as we are. We walk through these doors
seeking something and we understand J’s yearning for a beloved community
committed to sticking with us as we continue our personal evolutions, continue
our shared journeys toward wholeness.
We understand J’s longing because we, too, long to be
met at soul-level, we long to get to that place of which Rumi sings – that
place beyond all ideas of rightdoing and wrongdoing. It is a place of soul-tending and risk-taking
where we can share the deepest longings common to the eternal us: our longings for love and purpose.
Mid-week of Harry Potter camp J led
Lisbet and me to that place of soul-tending because he had the innocent courage
to ask for what he needed.
“Tell her about me,” he said to
Lisbet, pointing first to himself and then to me. “Tell her about me.”
Lisbet could have responded in many
ways. She could have told me all the
things I already knew, all the things that were so immediately evident upon
meeting J, all the factual things that J's mother had shared with me on that
first day of camp. But that's not what J
had asked for. When he said “Tell her about me” what he was
really asking was, “please, see ME…see ME in all my wholeness, please see the
SOUL of me that is not retarded or autistic or epileptic or forgetful or
frightening or unnerving; please, see the SOUL of me that is so much greater
than all of those things that keep me apart.
Please, come with me to that place of understanding; please, can we go
together to that place of SOUL-TENDING."
And then Lisbet offered J the gaze of blessing. "Carmen," she said, "this is J. He is a kind person with a big heart. He is a little mischievous, and he also wants
to do well. His grandfather died
recently, and J misses him terribly.”
J had been watching and listening as Lisbet
spoke. When she finished he looked at
me, nodded, and said, "Yes.
Yes."
J’s little shining face was a
billboard-sized affirmation of inherent worth and dignity. In those moments of soul-tending, he had not
been found lacking – this is so much a part of his ordinary experience.
Rather, for those soul-tending moments, two people had
taken the time to journey with him, to be present to him, to witness that
truest part of him that he knows is in there.
It was a moment of grace. It was sacred respite from the chaos and
cruelty, suffering and frustration, that is so often his daily bread.
We had been called on to tend a soul, and we did not
fail him.
Souls
Flat & Flabby
I could end this sermon right now, end it on this
sentimental, feel good note. But we must
remember that our religion calls us beyond sentiment, and that our shared ministries
must be more than sentimental, feel good, sunshine moments because – as you
heard in this morning’s reading -- "whenever
struggle is replaced by sedate doctrines our souls go flat." I would add that our souls go flabby if we
settle always for "doing good"
rather than "being with."
We are here, together, because we do not want our
souls to go flat or flabby. We are here,
together, because we choose to be – choose the meaningful work of tending souls
by way of the comforts and challenges that we offer to one another, we, the eternal
us, engaged in the living quest for love and purpose.
Because I do not want our souls to go flat or flabby I
cannot leave you with only the tender moments of J's affirmation, "Yes!
Yes!" There is more to the story –
a harsh second chapter that involves misunderstandings, accusations, offenses, defenses,
and a series of phone calls that resulted in J’s mother deciding that he would
not be allowed to come back on Friday, to the final day of camp.
I was devastated.
Here’s the evolved truth: on that
last day of camp I was as eager to see and spend time with J as I had been
nervous and hesitant to spend time with him on that first day of camp.
I had a choice:
to let it go, or to try again for connection. In this instance letting go would be the
easiest thing for me to do because it had all grown so complicated.
The
Meaningful Way
But our religion does not beckon us toward the easy
way, it beckons us toward the meaningful way.
The meaningful way is the soul-tending way and without connection, it’s
just not going to happen. My heart reminded
me of my connection to J -- “Tell her about me” –and so I picked up the phone
to call his mother. "There’s been a
terrible miscommunication," I said to her, "and I am so sorry for my
part in it. Could we try to find our way
to a different place?”
I am pleased to tell you that we did
find our way to a different place, pleased to tell you that I was there when J
came running through the Parish House doors to sign in for his final day of
camp. And I’m going to also tell you
that my heart broke a little bit when he looked at me and said, “My mom told me
that I upset people here and I didn’t mean to do it and I’m so sorry, it made
me sad and it made me cry when I thought about it.”
The work of soul-tending comes down
to this: Are we “a healing presence for
one another, or a hurting presence”[1]
for one another? Actually, the answer is
always YES. If we are connected, rather
than indifferent, if we are open, rather than arrogant, if we are loving,
rather than fearful, if we are robust in soul rather than flat or flabby in
soul, then the answer will always be yes:
we are either healing presence or hurting presence for one another.
When J offered me an apology he really did not need to
give, I had to choose between being a healing presence or hurting
presence. If I tried to truthfully and
simply assure him that he had had no real part in it all, that would only have
further confused and thereby further hurt him.
His apology, although totally unnecessary, was the very
best he had to offer in that moment. And
so under the gaze of J’s blessing I said, “Everything is okay. Please don’t worry. I’m glad you’re here.” In that
soul-tending moment I was a healing presence for J; but here’s what I really
want you to know: in that soul-tending
moment, he was a healing presence for me.
We choose to be together here, engaged in the
soul-tending, meaningful work of comforting and challenging, encouraging and
forgiving, teaching and learning, connecting and reconnecting in our quests to
live with love and purpose.
Life for eternal us, is now.
[1]
From Marilyn Sewell, as heard in the documentary Raw Faith.
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