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Reading – Brian Ferguson
Today’s reading is from “My Grandfather’s Blessing: Stories of Strength, Refuge, and Belonging” by Rachel Naomi Remen.
Sometimes the very things that threaten our life may strengthen the life in us. David was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes two weeks after his seventeenth birthday. He responded to it with the rage of a trapped animal. Like an animal in a cage he flung himself against the limitations of his disease, refusing to hold to a diet, forgetting to take his insulin, using his diabetes to hurt himself, over and over.
He had been in therapy for almost six months without making much progress when he had a dream. In his dream, he found himself sitting in an empty room without a ceiling, facing a small stone statue of the Buddha. David was not a spiritual young man, but he was at least a familiar with the image of a Buddha. In his dream he was surprised to feel a kinship toward the Buddha, perhaps because this Buddha was a young man, not much older than himself. The statue seemed to have an odd effect on him. Alone in the room with it, he had felt more and more at peace when, without warning, a dagger was thrown from somewhere behind him. It buried itself deep in the Buddha’s heart.
David was profoundly shocked. He felt betrayed, overwhelmed with feelings of despair and anguish. From the depth of these feelings had emerged a single question: “Why is life like this?” And then the statue began to grow, so slowly that at first he was not sure it was really happening. But so it was, and suddenly he knew beyond doubt that this was the Buddha’s response to the knife.
The statue continued to grow, its face as peaceful as before. The knife did not change either. Gradually, it became a tiny black speck on the breast of this enormous smiling Buddha. Watching this, David felt something release him and found he could breathe deeply for the first time in a long time. He awoke with tears in his eyes.
As David told the author his dream, he recognized the feelings he had when he first saw the dagger. The despair and anguish, and even the question “Why is life like this?” were the same feelings and questions that had come up for him in his doctor’s office when he heard for the first time that he had diabetes.
As he put it, “when this disease plunged into the heart of my life”
His dream offered him the hope of wholeness and suggested that, over time, he might grow in such a way that the wound of his illness might become a smaller and smaller part of the sum total of his life.
Prayer – Brian Ferguson
As we gather today we are a community in pain. We are a community which feels divided and disconnected from each other. Our religious community last night made perhaps the most difficult decision a religious community can make – the act of dismissing a minister.
For some this may feel a vindication for their pains and wounds of the past. For others this may be a fresh wound and dashing of their hopes for the future of this community. For some it is both hopeful and painful.
For those who find hope may they have the compassion to reach out to help those hurting. For those who are hurting may they find the strength to embrace the help of others.
While each of us is acutely aware of our own pain, past or present, may we reach out to others in a spirit of compassion and empathy to remember the pain of all others.
We are at a time where all of us are asking what next, what now? What does this mean for us as an individual and our religious community?
We are a community in shock and in grief. Regardless, of what we thought should happen last night – we are here together today, at this moment and in this place – this sacred time and this sacred place.
This is an act of hope and perhaps from this small seed can emerge the first small step in an act of healing. An act of healing ourselves, our relationship with our religious community and our relationship with the sacred.
We profess our hope of healing our world. The need for healing seems very close to each of us at this time. Let us be guided in all we do by the better angels of our natures.
May we all find the capacity to grow from our wounds and not become our wounds. May we grow so our wounds become a smaller and smaller part of who we are.
And may each of us find the guidance and strength we seek to be an agent of healing for ourselves, for our community and for our world.
Amen
Sermon: Now What?
Rev. Susan Smith
The text of Rev. Susan Smith’s sermon is not available but you can listen to it or watch it by clicking on the play buttons above.
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Remen, Rachel Naomi. My Grandfather’s Blessing: Stories of Strength, Refuge, and Belonging
