Podcast: Play in new window | Download
© Emily Tietz
June 29, 2008
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org
Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button.
PRAYER
We pray from a place that knows there is much beauty in the world to behold.
We pray from a place that knows there is endless love that has the power to connect us all.
We pray from a place that knows that it matters what we believe.
The Angels of our Better Nature call us to notice the beauty.
The voices of our Higher Selves call us to remember love.
Let us listen to them.
There are voices that would have us judge someone else’s worth to be less because their approach is different than our own.
There are voices that would make us feel “less” because we don’t match someone else’s set of ideas.
There are voices that would focus us only on ugliness, and disconnection and tearing down.
But we know there is more love somewhere.
Let us listen to the Higher Voices.
The ones that add life to life; the ones that encourage us to come alive, and allow for everyone and everything around us to do the same.
Let us listen to those voices.
SERMON
This sermon started over breakfast one morning. I sat across the table from my husband and saw a man who looked like he had something exciting to tell. “What,” I asked. Well, he had spent the morning brainstorming things he tells himself that he should or shouldn’t do/ be/think/feel. Several pages later, he felt quite light.
That’s when we sat down to breakfast.
“I should like cats!? He said. – I always thought that I should like cat’s because my sister liked cats and not dogs.”
When we were first married 8 years ago, there was some discussion about whether we’d get a cat or a dog. He was a cat person. I was a dog person. I’d grown up with dogs. Beyond that, when I was very young, my dad developed severe asthma and cats were one of the triggers. So in a very serious way, I learned that we should not have cats and that stayed with me into adulthood.
I had to laugh at David’s revelation because sometime during our college years, my sister Mary announced that all dogs, as pets, should be big and black. She had read that somewhere and seemed to put stock in it, so I adopted the idea.
In 38 years, Mary has never had a large black dog. In 36 years, neither have I. But for some reason the idea had weight and for years I thought that if I got a dog, it should at least be big, if not dark. But that didn’t appeal to me and I wondered if something was wrong with me because of it. It’s likely that Mary forgot about this “should” shortly after our conversation, but I held onto it because it came from my wiser older sister. It’s funny how that can happen.
David and I now have two cuddly 12-pound miniature dachshunds. One is red, and one has white, brown, and black spots. Getting them was his idea, and I happily obliged.
My dad now lives happily in the same house as a cat. His allergies are under control.
Each one of us let go of a “should” and we are all happy for it.
The funny thing about “shoulds” is that they often originate as an appropriate response to a specific situation. And then they turn into absolutes inside of us so even when a situation changes, the “should” stays. It may or may not be relevant or even helpful anymore. And it can hold us back from some really great experiences.
My resistance to cats well beyond the years I lived with someone who was allergic (and apparently beyond the years they were detrimental to his health) to them is a light-hearted example.
There is a story about a woman who always cut the front and back ends off of a ham before putting it into the oven to bake. Her husband asked her one day why she always did that. She didn’t know precisely, but that’s how her mom had always done it so it must be the way to cook a ham. She called her mom to find out why. Her mother laughed and explained that her baking pan was too small to fit the entire ham so she had to make it fit somehow.
The behavior was a relevant response to having a small pan. It wasn’t so relevant in the daughter’s life. And she had thrown away a lot until she examined the ‘should.?
From the time we’re born we take in messages. Messages about how we should behave, what we should like, how we should act, who we should be, and how to apply these standards to other people or situations. These “shoulds” affect our lives and they affect our souls, often in profound ways.
What might our lives be like if we consciously examined our “shoulds” ; if we figured out where they came from, who they belong to, and whether or not they are helpful in our lives now; if we looked at what choices are presented to us by our “shoulds” , and what choices are denied.
What might our lives look like?
That’s what I’d like to consider this morning.
So dogs and cats were the lighter side of the breakfast conversation that David and I had one morning. It turns out that I needed to give the church a sermon topic that day and now I had one.
Of course the next thing to do was to have a party. I invited my girlfriends over for good food and drink and thoughts.
Only some of the time did we directly talk about ‘shoulds.?
But we talked about them all night.
We told stories about growing up. We talked about motherhood a lot ? either about our own mothers or the newness of being a mother that many of my friends are now experiencing.
We gathered to talk about “shoulds” ? and talked about motherhood.
Interesting.
I don’t think that is a coincidence.
As girls, we often try to emulate our mothers, or be the opposite. Either way, we define ourselves by them for at least a while. Then we become the age our mothers were when we first tried to emulate them, maybe we become mothers ourselves, and we try to figure out what womanhood means in light of her. There is bound to be a lot of “shoulds” there.
The same could be said of a man’s experience.
It is from our parents that we learned that we shouldn’t run out into the street, or touch a hot stovetop, or pull the ears of a dog. It is from our parents that we learn we should say “please” and “thank you,” brush our teeth, and get a good night’s sleep.
And things much more profound.
Things like self-respect, or shame. Things like self-care, or denial. Things like trust, or fear.
And so on.
We learn these things from countless other places too. But they start at home.
The “shoulds” and ‘shouldn’ts? that we learn build the essential framework for the codes we live by. I don’t think our experience of life can be separated from these codes, or even (should) be. After all, it’s these codes that make groups of people able to function together. They give us identity. They give is direction. They keep us safe.
But they can also do the opposite. And then they’re detrimental.
And then, of course, there are the “shoulds” that start out as appropriate responses to a certain situation, and stay with us long after the situation has changed and the should is no longer helpful.
So much of what we believe we should or shouldn’t do comes from layers of indirect conditioning. Then we are compelled to live by a code that we’re not fully conscious of or can’t really articulate. We just know somewhere deep in our fibers certain do’s and don’ts.
We tend to assume others live by the same do’s and don’ts
And we get surprised when we discover that they don’t.
And we even get offended when someone doesn’t live up to our unspoken ideas about what should and should not be.
Then we set ourselves up for a lot of struggle and a lot of trouble and a lot of missing out on neat things.
Examining our “shoulds” ? and choosing our “shoulds” ? is a helpful thing to do.
There is a saying that goes, “We give ourselves away one inch at a time.” How far can you go before there’s nothing of You left?
I think it’s also true that we can chip away at another person one inch at a time. How much can we chip before there’s nothing of that person left?
I think so much of what allows us to give ourselves away one inch at a time is to believe that another person’s “shoulds” are more legitimate for our own lives than what our own soul tells us.
And I think so much of what allows us to chip away at someone else is the belief that our own set of “shoulds” is more valid than his or hers.
Jim Hightower spoke here about a month ago and he quoted someone ? I can’t remember whom, and I may not even accurately remember the quote, but it went something like, “Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken.”
That’s a little hard to do without consciously examining what should messages we live by, who they really belong to, and then choosing the ones that work for us now.
We formulate our “shoulds” and ‘shouldn’ts? one inch at a time, too. And we rarely notice.
But it’s helpful to notice.
It is helpful to notice because then we can actually decide which ones add life to life; which ones make us come alive; and which ones allow us to be wholly ourselves.
This has everything to do with the soul. It’s really no different than examining and consciously choosing one’s religion ? both are about what we fundamentally believe, and how we intend to live, and what we want to pass on.
Becoming conscious of the “shoulds” we live by allows us to discern which ones belong to the voice of our Better Nature, our Higher Selves, or something more squashing.
How many people choose a profession, or a partner, or make other major life choices that kill their spirit a bit more each day because of an adopted should?
And then how many other people suffer because of that person’s frustration?
Becoming conscious of our “shoulds” is not about navel-gazing. It is about coming alive.
It is an essential part of being able to find the path that makes us come alive, because we can only do it if we shed someone else’s idea for us.
What might our lives look like if we examined the choices presented to us by our “shoulds” ?
A few stories came to mind as I was thinking about this theme.
One is a story about Gandhi. It may be true, it may be legend, it may be a bit of both. But it’s good?
A woman came to Gandhi and asked him to please tell her son to stop eating sugar. It was ruining his teeth and hurting his health. Gandhi thought about this for a minute, then asked her to come back in a week.
A week later she returned and made the same request, and Gandhi thought again, and again asked her to come back in a week.
This happened a couple more times before Gandhi finally advised the son to stop eating sugar.
The mother was both relieved and exasperated. If that’s all Gandhi was going to do, why did he make her wait so long and come back so many times?!
Well, he had to successfully stop eating sugar himself first, and it was much harder to do than he had expected.
There is a “should” in that story. A big one – and it’s not about sugar. One that makes us go, “Ahhhh – yesss.” The “should” has something to do with integrity ? and the Angels of our Better Nature recognize a kindred voice here.
There is another story about Lance Armstrong in the 2001 Tour de France. Lance and his strongest competitor, Jan Ullrich, were neck and neck. Then Ullrich crashed. Armstrong pulled over and waited until his rival could return to the race. He said that he couldn’t imagine taking advantage of the situation.
There is a “should” in that story. A big one. One that makes us go, “Ahhhh-wow.” The “should” has something to do with humanity, or respect ? and our Higher Selves recognize a kindred voice.
So please don’t hear me saying that “shoulds” are bad and we need to throw them out the window. They can be very life giving. They are even necessary for life. It’s just helpful to think about the ones we’ve got and the ones we want, and how that affects our lives and those around us.
I’ve been reading a book by Renee Peterson Trudeau called The Mother’s Guide to Self-Renewal. I’m not a mother, but my neighbor, who is a new mother, discovered it and invited a group of friends ? new mothers and non-mothers alike ? to join her in reading a chapter a month and then getting together to discuss it.
Last month’s chapter observed a “should” that is alive and well in our culture ? the “should” that says we must be strong and independent and not need to ask for help if we’re going to be worth much. The author observed how demoralizing this can be, especially when one is trying to figure out how to be a new parent while keeping the rest of life functioning.
Then she shared the story of a woman whose husband travels often for work. When he goes out of town for a week or more, Sarah, mom of two toddlers, has her sister babysit one night so that she can go out to dinner with a girlfriend. She also has a high-school neighbor come over a few evenings to help with dinner, baths and bedtime, and she makes sure she has easy-to-prepare food going into the week. Sarah says, “I used to dread these business trips and would want to dump the kids on my husband the minute he returned from his trip. Now I have learned that I just have to build in extras support when he’s away on a trip. Not only is the week more peaceful and enjoyable, but my husband returns to a family that’s happy to see him. Rather than being resentful that he’s been gone.”
She examined a should ? the one that told her she should be independent and able to take care of everything in her life herself. She challenged it and found a way to invite others in. What she came up with has added life to her life, and to the lives of the ones she loves the most.
What might our lives look like if we examined the choices presented to us by our “shoulds” ? And then found the courage to choose a better path?
Here’s a different kind of story. One with weighty consequences.
I knew a woman when I lived in Chicago who had a very strong Christian faith. Her particular understanding of the faith was that, when someone dies, one should celebrate and only be glad because that person was now experiencing the ultimate eternal life. This is not every Christian’s understanding of an appropriate response to death by a long shot, but it was hers, and she is not alone in it.
Penny was very close with her mother, and during the last years of her mother’s life, her mother lived with Penny. One of the things that brought mother and daughter together so strongly was their shared faith. Her mom told Penny that when she, the mother, died, Penny should not feel sad. She should only feel happiness and rejoice that her mother was in heaven.
Her mother probably meant these words to be comfort.
And Penny expected to only feel happiness and rejoicing.
But that’s not how she felt when her mother died. Penny felt the awful aching hole that gets wrenched in us when someone we dearly love dies.
And it scared her.
It made her feel very ashamed.
Grief naturally brings crisis of it’s own. Penny’s was layered with a confusion and self-doubt that made her feel worthless, and it was all because of a ‘should.?
What kind of faith did she actually have if she felt sadness at the loss of her mother, instead of joy? Did it mean that she didn’t believe strongly enough? Would God reject her because of her unfaithfulness? Could she show her grief and still be acceptable to other people? How selfish must she be to feel pain for her own loss, and not exuberance at her mother’s gain? Did she not love her mother enough to be happy for her? And her list went on.
Her beliefs about what she should feel and ‘shouldn’t? feel, how she should and ‘shouldn’t? respond were so ingrained in her that when she was confronted by her actual experience, her “shoulds” shredded her.
It’s helpful to take notice of what should and ‘shouldn’t? messages we live by. It’s helpful to ask ourselves whose voice they belong to. Is it a voice that builds up, or beats down?
Only when we ask ourselves these questions can we actually decide which “should” messages add life to life; which ones make us come alive; which ones allow us to be wholly ourselves and present with others. And which ones would be better given back to their source.
We would choose to keep many ‘shoulds,? but now they would belong to our own voice and that kind of should feels very different. We would choose to let go of other “shoulds” and while that wouldn’t always be easy or pain-free, it would ultimately feel good and be a step toward gaining our own lives back.
What might our lives look like if we examined the choices presented to us by our “shoulds” ?
A couple of weeks after my party, I sat with one my friends on her front porch well into the night.
At the party, she seemed to redirect the topic anytime a “should” came up. “I figured out why I didn’t want to talk about “shoulds”,” she announced. “I feel so bad anytime I think of them. They’re just a weight hanging over my head or a finger waiving at me. I think of all the things I’m not getting to, or the person I’m not being with my son or my husband or at work, and I feel overwhelmed and like I’m falling short. And I feel stuck.”
Exactly.
She shared that she was trying something new. Anytime she thought she should be doing something, she changed the “should” to a “could” to see how that felt. It always felt freeing. It gave her choices.
This has everything to do with the soul. Not just our own souls, but those around us. We give ourselves away one inch at a time. We chip away at another’s soul one inch at a time. We also affect people around us by the well-being of our own soul.
I don’t think it’s accidental that all religions end up with a list of them. We recognize that there are certain codes that make life meaningful and full and larger than our own meiopic world and these codes deserve the qualification of “holy”.
As we spoke together in this morning’s reading:
“It matters what we believe.”
Some beliefs are like walled gardens. They encourage exclusiveness, and the feeling of being especially privileged.
Other beliefs are expansive and lead the way into wider and deeper sympathies.
Some are like shadows, clouding children’s days with fears of unknown calamities.
Others are like sunshine, blessing children with the warmth of happiness.
Some beliefs are divisive, separating the saved from the unsaved, friends from enemies.
Other beliefs are bonds in a world community, where sincere differences beautify the pattern.
Some beliefs are like blinders shutting off the power to choose one’s own direction.
Other beliefs are like gateways opening wide vistas for exploration.
Some beliefs weaken a person’s selfhood. They blight the growth of resourcefulness.
Other beliefs nurture self-confidence and enrich the feeling of personal worth.
Some beliefs are rigid, like the body of death, impotent in a changing world.
Other beliefs are pliable, like the young sapling, ever growing with the upward thrust of life.?
It matters what we believe. And our “shoulds” have everything to do with that.
