If I needed you

Rev. Meg Barnhouse
April 7, 2019
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

Using the music of Townes Van Zandt, combined with the April Soul Matters theme of Wholeness, we will talk about how we need one another in order to be whole. How can we care for one another? Is there a way to be loving and challenging at the same time? How do we reach out with compassion? Is compassion always the best approach to another person? How much are we supposed to take care of ourselves and how much do we take care of others?

Call to Worship

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr

Something should remind us once more that the great things in this universe are things that we never see. You walk out at night and look up at the beautiful stars as they bedeck the heavens like slinging lanterns of eternity and you think you can see all. Oh, no. You can never see the law of gravitation that holds them there. When I speak of love I’m not speaking of some sentimental and weak response. I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of love. Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality.

Reading

LITANY FOR PEACE (adapted)
Thich Nhat Hanh

“Let us be at peace with our bodies and our minds.
Let us return to ourselves and become wholly ourselves.
Let us be aware of the source of being,
common to us all and to all living things.
Evoking the presence of the Great Compassion,
let us fill our hearts with our own compassion-
towards ourselves and towards all living beings.
Let us pray that we ourselves cease to be
the cause of suffering to each other.
With humility, with awareness of the existence of life,
and of the suffering that are going on around us,
let us practice the establishment of peace in our hearts and on earth.”

Sermon

“Heart of Compassion” story

I wanted to use the music of Townes Van Zandt because I love his lyrics, and he’s a local man. Some of you probably knew him. Some have been sharing your stories about him this week. I don’t know him, though, just watched a documentary of his life, which was lovely and frustrating and sad to watch. “To live is to fly,” he wrote, “low and high.” He certainly did both. In the movie friends tell a story about him being at a party. I’m not sure I remember the details exactly, but they were on on the balcony of a place, pretty high off the ground. He sat on the balcony’s ledge, and then, he explained afterwards, he just wondered what it would feel like to fall, so he fell. Throwing himself at the experience of life. That looks like something he did over and over. It looks like he was one of those people who are both amazingly easy and hard to love. There is a story in our culture about genius, about artists, that the more brilliant they are, the more messed up they are. The picture of the writer banging away on the typewriter keys, a bottle of whiskey on the table, or the rock star barely about to stand up, trying to get to the gig… It’s almost as if our culture both loves and loves to punish artists. They get to ride with the muse, they get to live in a garret and stay up all night and be adored, and then their passion, their excesses, carry them swiftly toward their own destruction. If you live too long they make jokes about you, about how after the nuclear winter, there will just be cockroaches and Cher. They blame you for aging, for continuing to be passionate about making art long after you should have thrown it over for a more responsible job.

In the writings of my colleague James Ford, I came across this: He says “I found myself thinking of something Achaan Chah Subato, the great Theravandan meditation master once said about broken glasses. I have it framed and hanging on a wall in my office:

“One day some people came to the master and asked ‘How can you be happy in a world of such impermanence, where you cannot protect your loved ones from harm, illness and death?’ The master held up a glass and said ‘Someone gave me this glass, and I really like this glass. It holds my water admirably and it glistens in the sunlight. I touch it and it rings! One day the wind may blow it off the shelf, or my elbow may knock it from the table. I know this glass is already broken, so I enjoy it incredibly.'”

When I read some of Townes Van Zandt’s poetry I see someone beating their wings like a moth against this truth. Everything and everyone is already broken. It takes the Sages years of humility and meditation to come to a place where they can look this truth fully in its face and find the joy in it, in being absolutely present in every moment with the beauty that is also there. Can you enjoy a friendship if there is always the lurking danger of one of you doing something that will end it? Can you look back at a marriage that ended and see that it was good for a while? Can you love your children knowing all of the dangers that are around and within them? Most of us can block out the knowledge that security is an illusion, that pain and joy intertwine in life, that when you love, you open yourself up to loss. Poets and artists don’t have that ability. They might try to forget what they see using drugs or alcohol, but when the daylight comes they see it all over again, the bright sharp truth that can blind you with its urgent light and send you spinning.

In the song “Rake,” Townes Van Zandt writes:

You look at me now, and don’t think I don’t know
What all your eyes are a sayin’
Does he want us to believe these ravings and lies
They’re just tricks that his brains been a playin’?
A lover of women he can’t hardly stand
He trembles he’s bent and he’s broken
I’ve fallen it’s true but I say unto you
Hold your tongues until after I’ve spoken
I was takin’ my pride in the pleasures I’d known
I laughed and thought I’d be forgiven
But my laughter turned ’round eyes blazing and
Said my friend, we’re holdin’ a wedding
I buried my face but it spoke once again
The night to the day we’re a bindin’
And now the dark air is like fire on my skin
And even the moonlight is blinding

Sooner or later what you know in the day stays with you at night, and what you know and do in the night comes all into your day until you can’t pretend any more that they’re separate. What you know when you are conscious and awake stays with you even when you are in your chosen oblivion. Once you see the fragility of things you can’t unsee it. You have to love if you can, knowing that what you love can go away. And for a poet, you have to keep writing about it.

What is the proper response to this painful realization? Is it to say “Gracious, that’s depressing, let’s not talk about it?” That is what most of us tend to do. As we grow in our spirit, though, we can learn that the best response to the pain, the joy, and the impermanence of this life is to embrace it with a wild courage. To respond to the pain with compassion. For others and for ourselves.

The British writer Warsan Shire writes:

“later that night
i held an atlas in my lap
ran my fingers across the whole world
and whispered
where does it hurt?
it answered
everywhere
everywhere
everywhere.”

I am a happy person by nature, even though I worked as a therapist for many years and held oceans of pain in my ears, my eyes and my heart. I want to hold an atlas in my hand, acknowledge what Dr. Shire saw, and add “Where is beauty and joy? Everywhere. Everywhere.”

In Townes Van Zandt’s song “If I needed you” both are there.

If I needed you would you come to me
Would you come to me for to ease my pain
If you needed me I would come to you
I would swim the seas for to ease your pain
Well the night’s forlorn and the morning’s born
And the morning shines with the lights of love
And you’ll miss sunrise if you close your eyes
And that would break my heart in two

How do we deal with a world of such impermanence? By being present to each moment, not wishing it away or clutching it to us. As the English poet Blake said

“he who binds to himself a joy, doth the winged life destroy. But who kisses the joy as it flies lives in Eternity’s sunrise.”

Being present to each moment, and having compassion for all beings. Now, this part feels wearying to me. All beings, really? Most of us survive by blocking out some of the horrors of the world, or acknowledging them but not dwelling on them. I remember the Buddha lived in a world without TV, much less the 24 hour news cycle. I take him to mean compassion for everyone you meet in your day. Still that’s wearying. Some people are hard to keep feeling compassion for, as their problems seem to be self-inflicted and they don’t seem to learn. An addicted friend is hard to stay compassionate towards.

Then I remember. Oh, compassion doesn’t mean you have to fix it. You just feel for them in their struggle, if there’s no more to do for them. The Yogic teaching is helpful here. When you are acting with compassion toward someone for whom your compassion is not doing any good, and you are emptying yourself for someone who lets whatever you pour into them leak out, or when someone is just playing you, that is called “idiot compassion.” In this world things change fast. We try to stay present to the moment we’re in, compassionate to the people we’re with, and to ourselves. We learn as we go.

As Townes wrote:

To live is to fly
Low and high
So shake the dust off of your wings
And the sleep out of your eyes

Hardly anyone in this life is healthy enough or wealthy enough not to need other people. Some of us have strong ideas about the people we need, but we’re often wrong. Teachers, another learning experience. Compassion fatigue. Not for any of you all, but for the world. “Where does it hurt?” Everywhere.

Yes. And. There is joy and pleasure everywhere too. I’ve needed a lot of help in my life. I’ve given a lot of help in my life. I have to say I like giving it more.

IF I NEEDED YOU
Townes Van Zandt
If I needed you would you come to me
Would you come to me for to ease my pain
If you needed me I would come to you
I would swim the seas for to ease your pain
Well the night’s forlorn and the morning’s born
And the morning shines with the lights of love
And you’ll miss sunrise if you close your eyes
And that would break my heart in two
If I needed you would you come to me
Would you come to me for to ease my pain
If you needed me I would come to you
I would swim the seas for to ease your pain
Baby’s with me now since I showed her how
To lay her lilly hand in mine
Luke and Lil agree she’s a sight to see
A treasure for the poor to find
If I needed you would you come to me
Would you come to me for to ease my pain
If you needed me I would come to you
I would swim the seas for to ease your pain

We take care of each other to a certain extent, but not over certain boundaries. American Pema Chodron describes a conversation she had with an old man who was living on the streets for over four years. No one looks at him or talks to him. Sometimes someone gives him a little money, but no one really looks at him. No one asks how he is. It’s very lonely for him. People respond from discomfort, fear, anger, or judgment. According to Chodron,

“Only in an open space where we’re not all caught up in our own version of reality can we see and hear and feel who others really are, which allows us to be with them and communicate with them properly.”

This openness is sometimes called emptiness in Buddhism. It means not shutting down or holding on too tightly When Things Fall Apart,

I found myself thinking of something Achaan Chah Subato, the great Theravandan meditation master once said about broken glasses. I have it framed and hanging on a wall in my office:

“One day some people came to the master and asked ‘How can you be happy in a world of such impermanence, where you cannot protect your loved ones from harm, illness and death?’ The master held up a glass and said ‘Someone gave me this glass, and I really like this glass. It holds my water admirably and it glistens in the sunlight. I touch it and it rings! One day the wind may blow it off the shelf, or my elbow may knock it from the table. I know this glass is already broken, so I enjoy it incredibly.'”

The false view of being an artist meaning you have to be tortured and addicted.

RAKE
Townes Van Zandt
You look at me now, and don’t think I don’t know
What all your eyes are a sayin’
Does he want us to believe these ravings and lies
They’re just tricks that his brains been a playin’?
A lover of women he can’t hardly stand
He trembles he’s bent and he’s broken
I’ve fallen it’s true but I say unto you
Hold your tongues until after I’ve spoken
I was takin’ my pride in the pleasures I’d known
I laughed and thought I’d be forgiven
But my laughter turned ’round eyes blazing and
Said my friend, we’re holdin’ a wedding
I buried my face but it spoke once again
The night to the day we’re a bindin’
And now the dark air is like fire on my skin
And even the moonlight is blinding
FLYIN SHOES
Townes Van Zandt
Days full of rain
Skys comin’ down again
I get so tired
Of these same old blues
Same old song
Baby, it won’t be long
‘fore I be tyin’ on
My flyin’ shoes
Flyin’ shoes
Till I be tyin’ on
My flyin’ shoes
Spring only sighed
Summer had to be satisfied
Fall is a feelin’ that I just can’t lose.
I’d like to stay
Maybe watch a winter day
Turn the green water
To white and blue
Flyin’ shoes
Flyin’ shoes
Till I be tyin’ on
My flyin’ shoes
The mountain moon
Forever sets too soon
Bein’ alone is all the hills can do
Alone and then
Her silver sails again
And they will follow
In their flyin’ shoes
Flyin’ shoes
They will follow in their
Flyin’ shoes
Days full of rain
Skys comin’ down again
I get so tired
Of the same old blues
Same old song
Baby, it won’t be long
Till I be tyin’ on
My flyin’ shoes
Flyin’ shoes
Till I be tyin’ on
My flyin’ shoes

Most sermons during the past 19 years are available online through this website. Click on the index link below to find tables of all sermons for each year listed by date (newest to oldest) with topic and speaker. Click on a topic to go to that sermon.

SERMON INDEX

Podcasts of this and other sermons are also available for free on iTunes. You can find them by clicking on the podcast link below or copying and pasting this link. https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/first-unitarian-universalist/id372427776

PODCASTS