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Unitarian Church of Sharon
4 N. Main St.
Sharon, MA 02067
781-784-3652
E-mail UCS
The Heart of the Matter
Sermon by Rev. Deborah Cayer
November 11, 2007
Jack talked to us this morning about the Accessibility and Improvement to the Meetinghouse project. For some, the folks who have been knocking themselves out going to several meetings a week for quite a few months now, now we’re finally getting to the exciting part—new building plans are coming soon; strategic planning will be taking place the first Sunday in December. The feasibility study will take place in January; we’re on track to have a combined Capital Campaign and Canvass in March based on a vision that congregation members create together.
Recently, as information and requests have been filtering out from the Steering Committee and the Board, this project is beginning to get a bit more real for the rest of us as well. Surprisingly real, in some cases. I’ve noticed that lately, when various committee members have begun to consider what this project is going to mean for the work they do, after hearing specifics, at least one person in every group has looked up with a slightly overwhelmed expression and said, “Maybe we should slow this down. Are we really sure this is the time?”
In response, I have said what I’ve also heard AIM Committee members say with confidence, “Yes, now is the time. Very trustworthy individuals have done and are continuing to do the research and planning. They’re bringing back the information and their work has been checked by others. Decisions are being made openly and fairly. This project is coming together nicely. And right now the stock market is good, prices for construction are a bit lower than they have been, although with oil rising in price that won’t be true later. Right now we have a threshold of opportunity right in the middle of the path we’ve been aiming for. Now is the time.”
It is a bit scary. We know why we need an elevator, and we’re committed to that project. But why bother to put on an addition? In a nutshell, because putting on an elevator will take up space in our RE wing, and we don’t have enough space for all our programs for children as it is. And the space we do have is configured wrong for the kind of children’s and adult groups that are currently using it.
We also don’t have anywhere near enough of or the right type of office space for our Administrator, our DRE, our Treasurer and contract bookkeeper. And we’ve just added a Youth Coordinator to our staff. We need different kinds of space for these folks to work in.
But even more than these very good reasons is something even more important. We need this new space for the Future. We need new and different space so that we can host different kinds of adult programs—perhaps things like yoga, meditation, spirituality and art classes; or community forums on current local and national issues; or education and support programs for single people, parents and families; or a place for community dialogue.
At a recent meeting some of the folks were talking about what they hope this congregation will be in the future. A vision that spoke to many was of the congregation as a place that’s important in the life of the larger community—a heart for the community that’s open to liberal and progressive groups and individuals who share our values and mission.
I always carry in my mind an image of this church all lit from within at night. In my mind it’s a small, beautiful glowing jeweled box in the night. And in a time of war and other big troubles in the world, it’s a powerful image that reminds me that in the midst of a broken world the lights are on because people are in the building, because they’re passionately committed to making the world a more loving, caring place. In the heart of this building, people are coming together in meaningful ways to find solutions to the problems of the world.
And I’d like this to be a somewhat larger jeweled box so that we can welcome everyone who is weary and looking for hope, everyone who wishes to get meaningfully involved in the work of social change. I’d also like this to be a place where people can renew their bodies and minds through classes and groups, their spirits with music and poetry, and silence, beautiful silence.
Because as we well know, the world is in tough shape. The modern genocides, wars, diseases, and climate changes are new, filled with aspects and dimensions we’ve never seen before. The number of orphans in Africa because of AIDS, the brutality of Darfur, the level of tension in the Middle East, the magnitude of global climate change are all new. National politics in Washington have reached a level of impasse that just shouldn’t exist if our system of government was working.
We actually know what to do about some of this. We have international agreements and treaties, we have the medicine, we have the technology and political solutions to turn things around. What we don’t have is the belief that we can do it.
Margaret Wheatley has taught in some of this nation’s finest business schools; now she works with community groups because that’s she believes these are important places that will produce the real change that our world needs. She says that we already have most of what we need to change the world. What we don’t have is the will to change. She says, “We can’t continue to operate from…blind faith in human ingenuity. Our ingenuity has already provided solutions to critical problems. We already know how to create a healthy, life-affirming future for all peoples. We have a different problem — developing the will to act once we know what to do. The gap between the knowing and the doing is only bridged by the human heart…”
In this morning’s reading, the poet asks us if we will stand firm in our convictions despite all the ways that the world asks us to compromise. “I want to know if you are prepared to live in the world with its harsh need to change you…” “I want to know if you are willing to live, day by day, with the consequences of love and the bitter unwanted passion of your sure defeat…” At the very heart of life, he suggests, we have to live with these kind of terrible tensions…the tug of the world’s constant beguiling, alluring, seductive invitations to compromise what we hold essential at the heart of our life, in exchange for security: love, money, sex, powerful relationships. It may cost us in worldly ways if we won’t play along he says, but if we take a stand, hold our ground, “I have heard,” he tells us, “in that fierce embrace, even the gods speak of God.” When we stand our ground we stand on holy ground, and in that wild place we might encounter what is sacred, what is ultimate to us whether we call it God or by another name.
Love, money, sex, power…you don’t have to be a Washington official to be affected. It’s part of the human condition that affects window washers and school teachers, poets and priests, fishermen and astronauts, each one of us. We don’t want our friends and neighbors to think we’re weird, strange or different. No one wakes up one morning and says to him or herself, “Well I think I’ll intentionally set off on a path that will insure that I’m really alone and lonely. Or maybe today I’ll go down the road that’ll really put my job in jeopardy.” So when your heart tells you one thing and your employer, or friends, or family ask you to do something completely different, it can be a struggle.
It helps a lot to be with people who think about the meaning dimension of life, who have made difficult decisions to live with integrity, even though it might cost them dearly. It helps to be able to talk with one another and hear each others’ stories. The affirmation and encouragement you gain by simply sharing stories is sometimes the only thing that keeps you going.
Albert Schweitzer said, “At times our own light goes out and we are renewed by a spark from another.” On Christmas Eve, we turn out the lights in the meetinghouse and pass a flame candle to candle around the perimeter. The resulting light that glows in the heart of the church on one of the darkest nights of the year is made from the radiance of each of our individual lights. Where did that light come from out of the darkness? It came from one little light that we pass person to person. It’s like watching courage or hope travel around the room from one to another.
In a modern world where politics and war and other troubles press on us, we need a place to come to renew our hearts and minds. We need to be met with kindness and caring. We need to be welcomed and invited to get involved. We need to find people to connect with and something to fill us up, spiritual food—the Sunday service, or a discussion group, a support group or social action group.
Or a good protest…on one of the coldest days last winter a bunch of us bundled up and brought our kids to the Rt. 95 overpass on Rt. 27 and held up peace signs. We took an unscientific survey that compared the number of affirmative waves, thumbs up, honks and flashing lights to rude hand gestures. We had to make it an aerobic protest just to keep our feet from going numb. Valerie and Judy heroically faced into the biting wind for more than an hour. Janet Limke and her boys brought a big insulated jug of hot water for tea and hot chocolate.
In a world where we are fighting to get our government to recognize the will of the majority of the people, it was a very encouraging thing to do. Thirty five of us reached out to several hundred people to say, “You are not alone in your longing for peace and sanity. And we’re going to stand out here in the freezing cold, making jokes and laughing our heads off to make sure that you know that.” It wasn’t high level negotiation and diplomacy; it wasn’t carefully nuanced argument. It wasn’t skillful, dedicated grassroots networking. It was street theater. We made a difference. We had a blast.
Meg Wheatley says, “If we are willing to open our hearts to what’s going on, we will find the energy to become active again. We will find the will and courage to do something. This is true in our individual lives, in our communities and organizations, in our nation-state.
“And it is how we can restore hope to the future. It is time for us to notice what’s going on, to think about this together, and to make choices about how we will act.”
There was one more thing about that day last winter. It was really great to bring our zany joy and reenergized hope back here the next morning and share it with everyone who wanted to be there but just couldn’t make it. It’s kind of a noble thing to take a stand, then pack up and go home to do the laundry. But in a world where cold, cold winds keep blowing out the flames of hope, it’s also important to bring back the stories and share the joy and encouragement. It’s important to have this place to bring it back to. It’s important to us, and it’s important to the ones who might be desperately looking for something just like us but who don’t know we’re here.
The writer, Joyce Rupp, tells this story: “There is an Ethiopian legend about a shepherd boy, Alemayu, that speaks to me of the power of hope. Alemayu had to spend the night on a bitterly cold mountain. He had only a very thin cloth to wear. To the amazement of all the villagers, he returned alive and well. When they asked him how he survived, he replied:
“ ’The night was bitter. When all the sky was dark, I thought I would die. Then far, far off I saw a shepherd’s fire on another mountain. I kept my eyes on the red glow in the distance, and I dreamed of being warm. And that is how I had the strength to survive.’ “
I think this little church building can be a glowing light that helps others who are desperate for sustenance to survive. What if we offered yoga on a Tuesday night and people walking home from the train came to it because they saw the lights on and found a flyer that we passed out to them and it was just what they needed? Or what if we offered space to an agency that provides parenting workshops and as a result even just one parent changed their responses to just one child and the lives in just that one family changed for the better? What if we offered community forums and people who have passion for everything from bike paths to wind energy found one another and united their efforts?
People are working hard to make sure our building project will be successful, not so that we’ll have a beautiful building, but so that the space can become the heart of a community that passionately cares about a good, sustainable future and offers programs and groups that help bring it into being. They are working hard on the building project so that it is a place to bring our hearts when we are weary and need to rest with food and friends, music and laughter, and also with meditation and prayers and tears. They are working hard, and they could use some help and they would love it if you offered to join them for a simple task or a more involved part of the project.
As we move forward into this sometimes daunting, sometimes scary fundraising/building project, may we remember that we’re building a bridge into the future. May we be wise and remember to pass the instructions and good ideas heart to heart, hand to hand, flame to flame. May all our effort create a beacon in the night that anyone who is lost, cold and alone can easily locate, and then enter, rejoice and come in.
Margaret J. Wheatley, Turning to One Another: Simple Conversations to Restore Hope to the Future, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc. 2001-02
Joyce Rupp, Dear Heart Come Home, Crossroad 1996
The poem quoted is “Self-Portrait” by David Whyte. You can find it in Fire in the Earth, Many Rivers Press, 1992
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