Courage for In-Between Times

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Rev. Jonalu Johnstone
October 23, 2022
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

We are living in In-between, or liminal, times – in this church and in the world. In between pandemic and virus eradication, in the midst of changing climate, in between senior ministers. We need courage because in liminal times, we are uncertain. Unpredictability can bring danger, confusion, pain and general messiness. In short, crisis. Facing these times with courage, though, can also bring new insights and a new way of being in the world. How will we face in-between times together?

Chalice Lighting

This is the flame we hold in our hearts as we strive for justice for everyone. This is the light we shine upon systems of oppression until they are no more. This is the warmth that we share with one another as our struggle becomes our salvation.

Call to Worship

IN BETWEEN
Kate R. Walker

In between, liminal, that space where we wait.
Between moments; events, results, action, no action.
To stand on the threshold, waiting for something to end,
And something new to arrive, a pause in the rumble of time.
Awareness claims us, alert, a shadow of something different.

In between invitation and acceptance.
In between symptom and diagnosis.
In between send and receipt of inquiry and question.
In between love given and love received.

Liminality, a letting go, entering into confusion,
ambiguity and disorientation.
A ritual begun, pause … look back at what once was,
Look forward into what becomes.
Identity sheds a layer, reaches into something uncomfortable to wear.

In between lighting of the match and the kindling of oil.
In between choosing of text and the reading of words.
In between voices and notes carried through the air into ears to hear.
In between — creation thrusts ever forward.

Social hierarchies may disassemble and structures may fall.
Communities may revolt or tempt trust.
Tradition may falter or creativity crashes forward.
Leaders may step down or take charge.
The people may choose or refuse.

In between, storm predicted, the horizon beacons.
In between, theology of process reminds us to step back.
In between, where minutia and galaxies intermingle with microbes and mysteries.
In between, liminal, that space where we wait: Look, listen, feel, breathe.

Affirming Our Mission

Together we nourish souls, transform lives, and do justice to build the Beloved Community.

Meditation Reading

Look well to the growing edge” All around us worlds are dying and new worlds are being born; all around us life is dying and life is being born. The fruit ripens on the tree, the roots are silently at work in the darkness of the earth against a time when there shall be new leaves, fresh blossoms, green fruit. Such is the growing edge” It is the extra breath from the exhausted lung, the one more thing to try when all else has failed, the upward reach of life when weariness closes in upon all endeavor. This is the basis of hope in moments of despair, the incentive to carry on when times are out of joint and men have lost their reason, the source of confidence when worlds crash and dreams whiten into ash. The birth of the child – life’s most dramatic answer to death – this is the growing edge incarnate. Look well to the growing edge”

– Civil Rights theologian Howard Thurman

Sermon

I learned a lot about insects in the last congregation I served. With both an ag school and a USDA Agricultural Research Center in Manhattan, Kansas, we had more entomologists – insect scientists – in that congregation than I had ever met before. So I learned something about insects.

The caterpillar inside the chrysalis is literally digesting itself, actually using its own digestive juices to break down its own body into undifferentiated cells, cells that can become anything. Well, not all of its body. There are pieces that remain intact like the tracheal tubes, for example. Plus, there’s some stuff in there already, imaginal discs, that are prepared under the right circumstances to turn into butterfly parts – eyes, antennae, legs, mouthparts, genitals, and of course, wings. Wings that allow the butterfly to take off and soar, leaving behind its old life limited to a small patch of earth to be able to travel anywhere – or at least on its instinctual migration track. But before the wings, there’s the cocoon. No wonder the caterpillar is impatient. Before we get to the glorious wings, we have to soak in the goo. Not a fun place.

Of course, metaphors like caterpillars turning into butterflies cannot fully represent human experience. I simply want to introduce the idea that the in-between time required for transformation is not always easy or pleasant. Any of you ever been through labor to birth a child?

French Reform rabbi Delphine Horvileur talks about a Hebrew word, mashber, which means crisis, yes, and it carries a deeper meaning. It comes from the name of a tool used in birthing, and relates to a place of breach, the mouth of the womb. She says, “It’s a time of anger and hope, death and life. It’s the birthing of something new and no one knows what that’s going to be.

Or maybe you’ve moved? You’re not in one place or another place; you’re in between. In between can feel really crappy. Messy. Unpredictable. Controversial. No wonder we so often want to rush through transitions to get out the other side. It does not always feel good to be in the middle of it.

Another aspect where I draw on the caterpillar metaphor.

The caterpillar has no idea what’s going on, or what it will look like when it’s done. Yes, I know, insects have no self-awareness, despite Kafka’s “Metamorphosis” and Jiminy Cricket and all the cute little animated bugs that have appeared onscreen since. The point is that transformation happens to the caterpillar based on stuff going on inside it, hormones and such, but outside the poor little caterpillar’s voluntary control.

So, have I got you excited about transition yet? It’s a messy, horrible process outside your control and you don’t know what you’ll have at the end of it. Nobody’d sign up for that voluntarily.

Or would we? Have we? In Unitarian Universalism, we do not commit ourselves to a savior, a creed, or a book. We commit ourselves to one another, to a covenant that we share, to a mission that we embrace. We commit ourselves to an approach to religion and spirituality, indeed to a way of life. And a way, that if it is followed, will change us.

I came into Unitarian Universalism from Southern Baptist churches where I had learned about personal salvation and had rejected much of the theology I had learned, though not all of it, and not all of the forms, some of which I still loved. As a young UU, I discovered feminist theology and paganism and embraced a whole new worldview, though not in a well integrated way. I like to say I went to seminary as a Southern Baptist Pagan Unitarian Universalist. My theological- and even my geographical- journey has meandered in ways unexpected and even unguessable by a younger me. I swore I would never live in Oklahoma, and I’ve lived there longer than anywhere in my adult life. I left Christianity for good, only to rediscover the words of Jesus through new lights. As the cantankerous White Kentucky farmer Wendell Berry has written: “You do not know the road; you have committed your life to a way.”

So here we are on a way, a path, a journey. And we discover ourselves in what I like to call liminal times – in-between times. Not only in this church, in the larger world, too. We are living in between the Industrial Age and the culmination of climate change. We are living in between the pandemic and whatever it is that comes next. Politically, we are living in between — I don’t even know how to describe that mess.

And in this church, you are in between called senior ministers. One era is over, and another hasn’t yet started. Yet here we find ourselves – in between, in the goo in the cocoon, in liminal space.

Franciscan ecumenical spiritual and social activist Richard Rohr writes:

The edge of things is a liminal space-a holy place or, as the Celts called it, “a thin place.” Most of us have to be taught how to live there. To function on the spiritual edge of things is to learn how to move safely in and out, back and forth, across and return …. When we are at the center of something, we easily confuse essentials with nonessentials, getting tied down by trivia, loyalty tests, and job security. Not much truth can happen there. When we live on the edge of anything, with respect and honor (and this is crucial!) we are in an auspicious and advantageous position.

And … I remind you that it does not always feel auspicious and advantageous.

The in-between place does not always feel auspicious and advantageous, but has more potential for truth and learning than the center does. We need courage to be here where we are because it is dangerous and unpredictable. Like crossing a street. Potential danger. And potential for truth and learning, if we have the courage for it.

I wonder whether that gooey in-between pupa inside the cocoon, the chrysalis that is neither caterpillar nor butterfly recognizes that it still has tracheal tubes or that the imaginal discs will become butterfly pieces. I wonder if it misses its legs or its eating. I’m sure it can’t imagine what it is to fly.

So, the in-between times are confusing and dangerous and unpredictable. Yet, they are ripe for religious transformation.

And as my UU colleague at Church of the Larger Fellowship Michael Tino has said, “Being comfortable is not the point of religious transformation.”

What, then, is the point of religious transformation? Why would we even want it?

Other religions certainly have staked their claims on transformation. The individual salvation – turning your life over to Christ – of evangelical Christianity; the enlightenment or satori of Buddhism. Other kinds of in-between times that lead to transformation may also have a religious underpinning or tone. The day you decide you have to quit drinking. The moment you receive the cancer diagnosis. The process of grief you endure as you mourn the death of your spouse or sibling or child. Life-changing events, crises, often soaked in pain, take us to an in-between place in our lives that can stimulate transformation. Crises, of course, can be positive, too – coming out, experiencing the birth of a child, awakening to a new career path. And none of it is limited to one part of our lives, but touches multiple parts of our life. Though there is continuity between who we were and who we become, so much has changed that we could say we’re a new person.

Unitarian Universalism is more modest in its aims than many religious traditions, but has an element that points towards transformation. Our third principle includes the encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations. Spiritual growth may seem less ambitious and flashy than enlightenment or salvation, more gradual and ongoing. It’s about the same thing, though – change. We may see one as a steady measured march and the other as a rapid sprint, but they both boil down to change.

As I said a moment ago, transformation often comes in response to crisis, when one cannot go on living as one has, and has to turn some other direction. Some years back, I learned something about learning from UU minister Gary Blaine. Even though my original career was as a teacher, I had never fully realized this, but as soon as I heard it, I knew it was true. The first stage of really significant learning, of truly taking in a new way of organizing your view of the world, is a place of utter confusion, of living in the goo inside the cocoon. Confusion is the sign that your current way of organizing knowledge and making sense of the world no longer works. You have been introduced to a fact that does not fit. You can cram it and force it, or you can deny the fact that doesn’t fit. Or you can reconstruct your worldview. When you are in that place in between world views, you are readying yourself for change.

Oh, you can resist change by denying the reality of things you see in front of you, whether your own mortality, climate change, or persistence of white privilege, male privilege, class privilege, and so on. Denial is a really effective strategy; it can stave off transformation for years.

Besides denial, another resistance tactic is to accept the truth of facts, but refuse to allow them to change anything else in your worldview. So, you might accept that climate change is real and that humans are the instigators, but continue to embrace the idea that the bottom line economic benefits are the only factor to consider in decision-making, essentially not allowing the facts to matter in how you proceed, staving off the crisis for another day. Or, accept the reality of white privilege without accepting that resisting it means you have to change profoundly.

Here’s a secret I’ve learned over and over. Most people do not have a coherent worldview. Rather, we humans have different philosophies we apply in different parts of their lives. Someone might say, “God is Love/’ but only apply the love of God narrowly to people like them. Someone may have one set of eyes for their business life and another for the way they relate to their children. Usually, it’s not as conscious as Machiavellian scheming or as pretentious as hypocrisy. Mostly, it’s poor self-awareness and lack of reflection about the fit between our values, beliefs and actions. As individuals and as a community.

If we want to live an integrated, whole, honest life, though, if we want our community to reflect the values we espouse — and some of us seem driven to try to do that, when we encounter the ways that our behavior does not match our values, we are forced to change. And that’s what in-between times can push us into, if we have the courage to face what we can learn, if we allow ourselves to really notice.

But we have to start in confusion, in between, in the messy goo. Uncomfortable, maybe painful, and full of potential. That’s why we need courage in these times.

I leave you with the full meditative poem by UU Rev. Kate R. Walker

IN BETWEEN
Kate R. Walker

In between, liminal, that space where we wait.
Between moments; events, results, action, no action.
To stand on the threshold, waiting for something to end,
And something new to arrive, a pause in the rumble of time.
Awareness claims us, alert, a shadow of something different.

In between invitation and acceptance.
In between symptom and diagnosis.
In between send and receipt of inquiry and question.
In between love given and love received.

Liminality, a letting go, entering into confusion,
ambiguity and disorientation.
A ritual begun, pause … look back at what once was,
Look forward into what becomes.
Identity sheds a layer, reaches into something uncomfortable to wear.

In between lighting of the match and the kindling of oil.
In between choosing of text and the reading of words.
In between voices and notes carried through the air into ears to hear.
In between — creation thrusts ever forward.

Social hierarchies may disassemble and structures may fall.
Communities may revolt or tempt trust.
Tradition may falter or creativity crashes forward.
Leaders may step down or take charge.
The people may choose or refuse.

In between, storm predicted, the horizon beacons.
In between, theology of process reminds us to step back.
In between, where minutia and galaxies intermingle with microbes and mysteries.
In between, liminal, that space where we wait: Look, listen, feel, breathe.

Benediction

Prayer for Living in Tension
By Joseph M. Cherry

If we have any hope of transforming the world and changing ourselves,
we must be
bold enough to step into our discomfort,
brave enough to be clumsy there,
loving enough to forgive ourselves and others.
May we, as a people of faith, be granted the strength to be so bold,
so brave,
and so loving.

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