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Unitarian Church of Sharon
4 N. Main St.
Sharon, MA 02067
781-784-3652
E-mail UCS
Building a Universe
Sermon by Rev. Deborah Cayer
October 14, 2007
When Mary Oliver sits in a field, she often goes into a reverie that connects her to the larger cosmos. When she tells us things about clouds, or trees, or bears, or bugs I listen, because she’s pointing toward something important. “Near me,” she writes, “I saw/ a single cricket; / it was moving the grains of the hillside/ this way and that way. / How great was its energy,/ how humble its effort./….”
She reminds all of us that at times we labor at tasks. We move everything from one little pile to another. There is all the endless work of dusting and lawn mowing, laundry, cooking and cleaning, all the repetitious chores that once completed will need to be done again, usually sometime very soon. This is cyclical, endlessly returning work. And it’s also important, necessary work. The poet praises both the “energy” and the “humility” involved in such tasks.
When someone teaches you how to do this kind of work well, and to take satisfaction in what you do, I think it can turn into something more. I remember that when I was a kid, and my father discovered some hinge or latch or pipe or fitting in our house that needed fixing, he always called one of us kids to do the repair job with him. Actually, he would call out, “I need a Gopher!” And the first kid in sight would be ordained to the task: “You!” And then the newly ordained go-fer was dispatched to the basement to go for the right tool, or the right little metal or rubber widget needed for the job.
I think my dad actually could have done most of this a lot faster by himself, because during this process there was a constant conversation shouted from the basement up to the floors above: “Which hammer? The one with the blue handle and the round head?” And my father, who by then would be stuck in a cramped, uncomfortable place holding together some dangerously bulging pieces of the house would roar back in exasperation, “No the one with the flat head!”
So by the time each one of us was in second grade, we knew the difference not only between a ball peen and regular hammer—we also knew the difference between wood screws and metal screws. And because our dad constantly included us, over time we learned when to oil or sand, and how to use the right tool in the proper way, and to put things back when where they belonged. And later, when we used the door or window or faucet, or passed the place where we had once hurt our foot on the splintered wood or protruding nail, we could see that the world was restored to order; it was all working the way it was supposed to work. And there was real satisfaction in knowing that we had helped make it so.
There is a kind of beauty in the way that ordinary things work simply and well. My husband and I have been the caretakers of a historic house for about four years now. We settled in and immediately felt quite comfortable. In part, I quickly realized, this is because things as simple as the house’s old brass hardware makes me very happy. The hardware especially is just the right size and shape for human hands. And because all these things are in proportion to both the human body and the house, it makes a connection between persons and the built environment that tells me, every time I move through a room that this place was built for people to live in; we belong here. The house welcomes and holds us in a special way.
I have lived in quite a few subdivision ranch houses and they’ve provided more than adequate shelter; I’ve had encounters with the world and my own inner life in each place I’ve ever lived. But there’s something particularly satisfying about being held within a space that’s been carefully designed to hold human beings, a place designed to remind us of our relationship to the shelter itself, and also to other people and the natural world.
We’ve been talking here the past few weeks about awe and wonder. I think that it’s our awe and wonder about the world and our experience that inspires us to make art, even the simple art of a nicely put together meal or a well ordered workbench; it’s also what inspires us to carefully create beautiful music or painting or architecture that points toward and holds a memory of our experience. Our awe and wonder also create a place that holds our ideals, our principles. And so when we create out of this experience, we end up surrounded by truth, and beauty, and especially by love.
Which helps, especially when we remember that even though yes, truly, there are ugly, brutal, random, terrifying, hurtful parts of life, we also live in beauty; we dwell with truth. We might find a reminder of this larger truth within something that has been carefully, beautifully arranged, or built or repaired. And because we repair, renew and create, we are able to remember that underneath what is sometimes flaking, splintering, cracking, or breaking in our lives, one of the ultimately real sources of energy and hope and inspiration available to us is love. We don’t have to be so afraid. We are entirely capable of exploring and creating something new that never was before.
There is another kind of holding environment that is not exactly a place, but is rather a time, or a quality of being in relationship. When someone is there for us, perhaps after school when we’re little, or when a friend is there for us during a crisis or an important event after we’re an adult, their attention and caring and love creates a kind of holding environment that helps us know that although something truly awful, or at least awfully big may have happened to us, we are not alone. Others care about us and want us to be well. We are loved, and for a time, while we need it, their presence is a reminder that our lives are rooted in love.
Sometimes this feeling even comes to us over a distance, through a poem, or novel, or a piece of music, the author or composer long dead or far away. And still the music holds us and our experience in a way that allows us to knit ourselves into a new form, to find a new wholeness, either because it’s a time in our lives of natural turning and growth, or because something in our life has broken and desperately needs repair.
When real people are there for us, they create a kind of holding environment that is very much like “Greek amphoras for wine or oil, Hopi vases that held corn…” These people and what they offer may have a simple elegance, or they may be earnestly clumsy. Actually, when we find ourselves needing to lean on someone, we are often kind of messy. Our noses and eyes stream, our feelings spew forth as they’re released in the caring presence of another person. Our bodies might survive without such times and places and people, but I am convinced that our spirits and our souls will not, can not.
All of this is about something so essential and so close to the bone of what it really means to be a human being that it becomes the meaning making dimension of religion.
It’s so close to the bone, to the soul, that in reality, in truth, when we renew and repair, and especially when we venture into a new state of being, we bring our lives into harmony with the sacred.
All of this has made me think about how a congregation not only can be a good holding environment—a place of shelter and security, but also one that encourages us to find a way to grow our minds, hearts and spirits through our all our learning, growing and caring in relationship. This is “congregation as art school, congregation as dance academy,” a place that encourages our energy and enthusiasm, even if we’re feeling totally worn down or torn up by life.
Holding environments are like “Greek amphoras….and Hopi vases…” they are elegant and useful. If you’ve ever seen anyone work in very skillful ways according to a set of principles, or seen a team work in skillful ways according to a shared covenant, you have witnessed this kind of elegance and beauty in their work. It’s the elegance of a great surgical team, or teaching team, or orchestra, or any group that has practiced together according to a set of guidelines or rules or principles. Often this beautiful choreography is exactly what it takes to support health and safety, or even life itself. Yes, there is what goes on behind the scenes that’s not so pretty—sometimes it’s more like sausage making—you really don’t want to watch the process. But when there’s accountability to an agreed upon set of practices there is the chance of success, and there is vitality.
I believe this is true in congregational life. We need to follow our own rules and policies and best practices so that our working and being together might become a beloved community, the dynamic skill of being in right relationship with one another. I believe this is possible even in times of change or crisis—times of sausage making—and that, in fact, such stressful times are where some of our best creating actually emerges.
This fall we’ve been talking about change and transformation, and we find ourselves in the midst of it. For the past couple years a team of people have been at work on plans for our elevator and expansion project. And starting in a few weeks, they’re going to ask us to begin to come to a variety of meetings that will go on for the next few months, so we can share our thoughts and responses to work as it’s accomplished.
We’re actually on a really tight timeline and things could get kind of heated up around here as we prepare to fundraise late this coming winter and break ground in very late spring. Knowing that at times this is going to be stressful, the people who have been hard at work have committed to working together with honesty, respect and kindness, so that what we end up with isn’t just a nice elevator and expanded space, and a lot of hurt, angry people standing around the sides of the ribbon cutting ceremony with their arms grimly crossed, vowing to never set foot in the building “ever, ever again”.
Rather, the vision is that everyone who starts out and joins in will be present at the ending celebration and beyond. Together we’re already learning lots of new things together, such as new ways of communicating and planning and making decisions. What’s becoming very clear is that this project is not only about building a structure. It’s also a huge opportunity to build beloved community.
In a congregation, what helps people create this kind of spiritual, beloved community are the promises we make to one another, which become a religious covenant. The promises of our covenant can weave us together into a community that is strong enough to withstand chaos, conflict, change, even crisis, if we call on one another with kindness and respect to come back to what we’ve agreed on when we miss the mark. This is crucial. Our way of being ethical depends on being mutually accountable to one another.
The world isn’t like this at all. This is highly idealized; it’s true. Which is exactly why we need to do all this in here—so we can take it with us and help to make it different out there. We begin by taking the time to make careful agreements about how we’re going to be together. As we get into this project, things are going to heat up and there are going to be conflicts, ranging from minor to major. And when this happens it’ll go much better if we remember our promise to stay in the room, at the table, in relationship. It’ll go much better if we help each other remember that love is the doctrine of this church.
This project is worth doing with elegance and care, with truth and love, because it’s going to be a home for beauty, truth and love for us, for our children and for lots of people who are not yet here who need this place very, very much.
As we move through this project, let’s help one another remember that we’re not just building a building. We’re building a home for our souls. In the material world this will be a few thousand square feet. And yet, we’re also building in the spiritual world of right relationships and beloved community. In that realm this project translates into something the size of a world, a cosmos, a whole universe.
And it’s entirely possible that we will succeed in both these realms, especially if we honor our promises as we work grain by grain, task by task, to treat one another with honesty, respect and love.
The Mary Oliver poem referred to in this sermon is “Song of the Builders.”
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