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Rev. Chris Jimmerson
March 10, 2019
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org
We often talk about our spiritual path. But is that journey inward or outward or both? Sometimes to become our truest self, we also have to unbecome who we are not.
Call to Worship
WE TRAVEL THIS ROAD TOGETHER
by Tess Baumberger
From the busy-ness of every day we gather once a week to remember who we are, to dream of who we might become.
We travel this road together.
As companions on this journey, we share the milestones we meet along the way. Individual moments of joy and sorrow become shared moments of comfort and celebration.
We travel this road together.
We share this journey across differences of belief and opinion
Because we value diversity and because we care for one another.
We travel this road together.
Today as we take the next steps, let us notice our fellow travelers:
The burdens that they carry, the songs that inspire their hearts.
We travel this road together.
As we gather in beloved community, let us open the holy havens of our hearts,
Let us share the sacred places of our souls For we are pilgrims who share a common path.
We travel this road together.
Reading
HAVING COME THIS FAR
by James Broughton
I’ve been through what my through was to be
I did what I could and couldn’t
I was never sure how I would get there
I nourished an ardor for thresholds
for stepping stones and for ladders
I discovered detour and ditch
I swam in the high tides of greed
I built sandcastles to house my dreams
I survived the sunburns of love
No longer do I hunt for targets
I’ve climbed all the summits I need to
and I’ve eaten my share of lotus
Now I give praise and thanks
for what could not be avoided
and for every foolhardy choice
I cherish my wounds and their cures
and the sweet enervations of bliss
My book is an open life
I wave goodbye to the absolutes
and send my regards to infinity
I’d rather be blithe than correct
Until something transcendent turns up
I splash in my poetry puddle
and try to keep God amused.
from Special Deliveries, New and Selected Poems
(Broken Moon Press, 1990)
Sermon
Zen Buddhism has a story in which a man is on a horse which is galloping very quickly down a road.
A woman standing alongside the road shouts, “Where are you going? It seems like it must a very important destination”.
The man on the horse replies, “I don’t know! Ask the horse!”
Sometimes, life’s journey can seem that way, can’t it? Like we are being carried along with much less control than we like to think. Like so much of what happens to us that can suddenly change the direction of our journey is random and beyond our control – illness, falling in love, death, accidents, sudden and unexpected experiences of beauty, joy, wonder and awe.
Our life span faith development religious education classes and activities are exploring the concept of journey this month.
Wow, that’s a big topic.
There are so many ways to think about journey. There are so many types of journeys we take – from literal geographical travel to thinking of life as a journey.
We often talk about our exploration of spirituality as a journey. And that can mean journeying inward, outward or both.
So often, our spiritual journeys, our journeys of personal growth, involve not just becoming our full or true selves but also leaving behind, unbecoming identities, ideas and beliefs we were taught earlier in life involving religion, gender, race, sexuality and so much more.
Facing life’s inevitable difficulties and struggles, as well as moving through life passages (coming of age, marriage, beginning or ending a career, etc) can all seem like their own distinct journeys even as they are also wrapped up within the overall journey of life.
And as I mentioned earlier, so much of what happens to us during life’s journey is beyond our control. Like the man on the horse in the Zen story, we have some agency – we can try to point our journey in a general direction through the education we obtain, the spiritual and health practices in which we engage, the relationships we cultivated etc.
But like that spirited horse in the story, our life events have a mind of their own and our journey can suddenly be altered by unexpected events that cause our lives to go galloping off in a different direction, whether we like it or not.
And so to make some sense of our journey, we create a narrative – we tell ourselves a story to make meaning of our lives, and it is through these stories, how we respond to our journey, that we may find more agency. It is not complete agency because much of the story we create is unconscious and the events of our ongoing journey keep altering the narrative we are creating for ourselves.
However, the opposite is also true. The stories that we tell ourselves can also alter the direction of our journey, and this is especially true if we take the time to examine what implicit, unconscious narratives we are creating for ourselves, thereby making them conscious and explicit. By doing so, we can change the story if it is one that is not helping us; that is pointing our journey in an unhealthy and harmful direction.
Frank Loyd Wright, one of the greatest architects of the twentieth century told the story of how he used to visit his uncle’s farm.
One winter when he was nine, Wright and his uncle took a walk across a snow covered field. His uncle stopped the young Wright and pointed to the tracks in the snow they had left behind.
His uncle told him, “Notice how your tracks meander all over the place from the fence to the cattle to the woods again, while mine go in a straight line from start to finish aiming directly at my goal. There is an important lesson in that.”
Years later, Wright realized he was going to have to unlearn the story his uncle had implanted in his young mind that day.
To become the architect he wanted, to live the life he wanted, he was going to have avoid walking the straight line. “It was then I determined” said Wright, “not to miss most things in life as my uncle had.”
He had taken a story that had been implicit, made it explicit and then changed it to a story that better suited the journey he wished to pursue. Now, of course, recognizing the subliminal stories we are telling ourselves so that we can change them to more beneficial narratives can be difficult, so I want to share with you a few thoughts that might be helpful for doing so.
Many of you are likely familiar with author and comparative mythology/comparative religions scholar Joseph Campbell’s concept, “The Hero’s Journey”.
Here is a short video that takes us through the key components of this concept.
Hero Video
Campbell said that these myths exist in all cultures because they help us make sense of the challenges, fears, and difficulties we face in our own journeys.
We all face problems in life. We all have to leave our comfort zones sometimes.
And yet, how often has it been difficulty, failure, even loss that has eventually led you to an experience of transformation?
What if we all thought of ourselves as on a hero’s journey (and to avoid misogyny and gender binaries a “Shero’s or their o’ s journey)?
Might that help us live more richly and fully? If we could see ourselves as moving through the cycle described in our video, might it help us change what could otherwise be an unhelpful narrative we have constructed when confronted with challenges we fear?
Campbell once said, “In the cave you fear to enter lies the treasure you seek.”
David Whyte is a poet and philosopher that has another concept that I think can help us construct more helpful narratives.
I want to let you hear him briefly describe what he calls, “The conversational nature of reality.”
Whyte Video
I loved that story because I think the immigration officer grabbing his attention so humorously demonstrates this “conversational nature of reality”. It changed the story he was telling himself about that immigration officer.”
I think one of the false stories that we tell ourselves is that we can construct an identity separate and apart from our world and other people, when, in fact, we can only do so in relationship to all that we encounter – this is the conversational reality of our journey.
Whyte talks about having spent almost two years in the Galapagos paying deep attention to the animals and birds and landscape around him. He began to realize, he says, “…my identity actually depended on how much attention I was paying to things that were other than myself and that as you deepen this intentionality and this attention, you started to broaden and deepen your own sense of presence.”
Larry Smith, author, journalist and editor stumbled upon another tool that I think might be very useful to us in unearthing the implicit stories we may be telling ourselves about our journeys.
Smith heard a legend about Earnest Hemingway being challenged to write a novel in six words and Hemingway’s powerful response.
I’m not going to share his response in worship today because it could be emotionally triggering for some of our folks, but you are welcome to ask me about it one on one later.
Smith started a project he calls six word memoirs wherein he ask people to describe where they currently are with their journey – tell their current story and state of mind in 6 words. He created a website for folks to do so.
I think this is a powerful way to access our unconscious stories and get at the emotional content because we have to engage our most creative selves in order to tell our stories in six words.
The six word memoirs people have shared range from the poignant to the humous to both. I want to show you just a few examples. You can see more at www.sixwordmemoirs.com.
Six word video
I may have written that last one after experiencing several unexpected, potentially life-changing and certainly challenging life events all within a short time period.
I invite you, as you are moved to do so, to think about what you might write as your six word memoir. We have provided pens and Postit notes here in the sanctuary. There are more on a table in front of the windows overlooking the courtyard from inside the foyer.
If you choose to share your story, please post it on those same windows in the foyer.
You do not have to include your name if you don’t wish to do so.
Cheating by using contractions is allowed.
Six words!
That brings me to the last thought about unearthing our stories I’d like to discuss today.
I think a wonderful purpose this church serves is sharing our stories like this in this our beloved religious community.
A couple of Saturdays ago, I was here for the launch of the monthly “First Arts at First UU” presentations our Gallery Ministry Team is presenting. First Arts allows artists to showcase their work.
Church member, Shirley Steele shared with us some of her wonderful artwork. Even more so, I was touched with how she shared with us some of her journey as an artist, as well as some of her personal story because, of course, you can’t really separate the two.
At the same time, an Austin Chamber Music concert was going in here in the sanctuary. We had only just gotten permission from the City of Austin to use the sanctuary addition and had not even had our first service with it ourselves.
Some how though, it seemed appropriate, even touching somehow, that one of our partners with whom we have chosen time after time to journey would be getting to use the new space even before us.
Here at the church, we walk our spiritual journeys together in beloved community. Our journeys can bump up against each other and those of our partners with whom we journey, and that can sometimes help us turn our journeys in more life-giving, life-fulfilling, creative directions.
We can share our stories with each other from a place of trust and vulnerability. We can sometimes help each other rewrite the story we are telling ourselves if needed to make our most life-fulfilling journey more possible.
Like with Campbell’s “hero’s journey”, being capable of changing our story in ways that turn our journey toward transformation is an almost divine-like ability.
Helping each other to do so is a gift of grace that we can give to one another.
Amen.
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