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Victoria Shepherd Rao
Don Smith
17 October 2004
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org
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PRAYER
We will remain together in silence for a moment or two after these words of prayer.
(SLT #505 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 sufferings that are going on around us,
let us practice the establishment of peace in our hearts and on earth.
Amen.
AN AFFIRMATION OF FAITH:
Don Smith
When the first Worship Associates meeting was held in the fall of 2003 I proposed “A Proper Response” as a service title. In trying to express the idea behind the title, I used this example:
You’re driving to work; you have an important meeting to attend when you get there; you’re running a little bit late, and you’re a little tense. You hear a siren and are forced to pull over to wait for an ambulance to pass. How do you respond? You probably check your watch and wonder why, of all mornings, this had to happen this morning. That’s a very natural response, but is it the proper response? The person in the ambulance may be fighting for their very life, and minutes–or even seconds–might make the difference. How does being late to a meeting-regardless of how important that meeting may be-compare to the struggle the person in the ambulance is dealing with? Maybe a proper response would be to hope that the person is OK; to care about their well-being, maybe say a little prayer if you’re inclined to that sort of activity.
Well, the title “A Proper Response” quickly morphed into “Dealing with Traffic” and was then rejected by the group. Probably a good decision, but it made me think that I need to find better ways to express what I mean. I presented my idea again this year and it made it to the short list, with the title “Reflections on Road kill”. It’s one of the mysteries of life, but I digress.
In the same way that I can improve my ability to say what I mean, I can also improve the way I respond to people, events, and the challenges that life puts before me. I would like to have the proper response be my natural response. The only way to affect this change is to become the kind of person who responds the way a person ought to respond. Is that too circular?
I read a book many years ago that demonstrates this point better than I ever could. Psycho-Cybernetics, written by Maxwell Maltz, an internationally acclaimed plastic surgeon, was published in 1960. He realized that no change he could make with a scalpel was as important as the self-image of his patient; that how we see ourselves determines who we are.
The main theme of this book, as I recall it, was that we can be whatever we want to be, and that the way to become the person we want to be is to imagine ourselves as that person. This is all about visualization and is based on the premise that the subconscious mind cannot sort real experiences from imagined experiences. If one spends an adequate amount of time envisioning themselves in the role they want to play, they will become that person.
The book leads the reader through a series of exercises wherein the ideal person is imagined in every detail, over and over again. He imagines himself as that person, living the life of that person. What does that person do first thing in the morning? How does that person dress? How does he interact with others? What kind of car does he drive? What kind of house does he live in? And on, and on, and on. The point in all of this is to convince oneself that they are that person and to see themselves, over and over again, acting as that person acts. With time, the subconscious believes it, and the transformation is complete.
To my mind, that’s sort of what coming to church is all about. I come here to think about what makes one a better person, to associate with others who would also like to be a better person – who desire to live life more fully, be more of a blessing to those around them and the world at large. If I can then imagine myself as that better person, I can transform myself.
Sometime I wish I needed less work, but I still hope that someday I’ll make it through a day and have all of my natural responses be proper responses.
When we respond, we do so from our center – from our values. What we value is what we worship. We worship what we value. It’s the same thing. Therefore, as Emerson said, “it behooves us to be careful what we worship, for what we are worshipping we are becoming.”
I can’t wait to hear how Vicki responds to road kill. It just might tell me everything I need to know about her.
SERMON:
Reflections on Roadkill and the Imagining of A Proper Response
Or What To Do When You are Dead on the Road,
based on Worship Associate theme: A Proper Response
by Don Smith
Since we have been in Austin we have had our share of car troubles. Our little Honda Civic is an ’88. She’s a true blue Canadian vehicle with the kilometers per hour on the speedometer and huge rust holes to prove it. My mother got her brand new in ’88 and gave her to my husband and myself when we set off to California ten years later.
We towed her here to Austin behind our Uhaul. It felt at the time like we were doing something quintessentially continental and North American’. Not exactly as awesome as the folks who bumped their way across the roadless land in wagons but still, a sort of adult rite of passage. Anyway, all that to say we sure were glad we didn’t try to drive our old car the distance. She broke right down once we got here. The car was in the shop for the better part of two weeks and I rode my bike down here to work each day.
It was a nice ride down Grover Avenue from Ohlen Street. Twenty minutes of wide road, sparse traffic, small intersections and best of all, a slight downhill slope that let you glide pretty near the whole trip. One day I was gliding by and came across the smashed remains of a turtle. The body parts were scattered but most of the hump back shell was intact so you could see how big the creature had been. I was characteristically disturbed at the sight. I stopped there and lingered awhile.
It was a nice stretch of the road. There is a soccer club field, not too big, surrounded by mature trees and a good amount of scrub. Between the field and the road was a generous ditch space. The grasses growing were long and the air along there was sweet with mature grass smell. There was a coolness from the area of green. What a good place for creatures to live I had thought before I ever saw the turtle’s body.
The next day the whole roadkill tale was swept away with the streetcleaner, all except for the oily patch on the asphalt. Those stains stay a long time on the roads. As if the Earth holds onto the trace and memory of that life’s passing, even if most of the people passing by don’t notice.
Another time, I was peddling along Grover, right behind McCallum High School. There at the back utility entrance to the school, right where the driveway melds into the gutter at the side of the road, was the body of a dead full grown cat. Unlike the turtle, this cat was remarkably intact. It was dessicated, dried up. There was no trace of blood and the black and white fur was just dusty looking. It was the well preserved casing of the creature. It stayed there many days and I always looked for this body. I thought about how many high school students saw it each day and what they thought of it. Were the young people amused, repulsed?
One day, the cat’s body was gone too but it has lingered on my consciousness and got me to think about how roadkill elicits in me a connection with what it means to be alive and to die as a creature of this world.
Let me explain about what it means to be alive and to die as a creature of this world. This is by no means conclusive, just reflections gleaned from roadkill. For one, having a body is great but we have to be careful to keep all our vital organs in place. If we get hit by a car, chances are our body will be destroyed, maybe so badly that it cannot continue with enlivening processes. What to do when you are near dead on the road? I hope I would rest my head down on the gravel and remember that I am at home there, help on the way or not. Trusting death as much as I have trusted life, as mysterious, as sacred.
Twenty years ago or so, I was just out of high school myself and attending a small university in Peterborough, Ontario about two hours drive from my hometown. Half of the trip was on a two lane highway cutting through countryside, farmland and forested land. What folks used to urban sprawl call “cottage country”. I did the trip a lot, liked to go home for the weekend. But I hated the roadkill. Every trip, many times, you would drive past dead creatures: raccoons, rabbits, deer, dogs, cats, hawks. (Now here I have been told the main victim of roadkill is the Armadillo).
Well, it is a story about finding a proper response. There I was doing this trip and every time getting upset and feeling sick about the roadkill. What was it that upset me so? Well there was the road cutting through the countryside, slicing the land and natural habitat up with high-speed death traps. Who’s to blame? Road and highways are essential infrastructure. The speed of travel on highways is fast, doesn’t allow much reaction time. No one tries to run over the unexpected animal in the lane. In fact, I believe most people would try to avoid hitting animals but they simply cannot prevent the event. I used to have a high school French teacher who was passionate about telling his students, many if not all new drivers, that if you are going to hit something in the road, to do it right and make a clean kill of it. His intent was to prevent the needless suffering of the one hit but not killed outright. And I guess that is a more merciful approach, though if I had the chance to do anything I’d try to steer clear.
Yet, he must have had a point. I never asked him if there was a story behind this extra curricular teaching. But I have wondered about the many times that we see the roadkill at the side of the road, just on the shoulder. How did the creature get there? They must have been hit in the middle of a lane. Did they crawl with their last strength and will to a place out of harms way? How many cars roared over them in their injured state?
All these questions would haunt me and I was finally so tormented I realized I had to do something. The core of my being cried out for me to act out, to express the anguish I felt at these dead creatures lying on the side of the road and at the brutal impersonal and terrifying nature of their death. As I thought about what I could do in response to roadkill, it became clearer to me that there was something about car after car after car passing by the bodies, seemingly oblivious to their presence, which was what I could not accept. I could not act as if their deaths on the road did not touch me. If I just winced and shook my head and felt bad and drove on, how was that in any way different from what another person on the same road who didn’t even notice the roadkill would do?
So, I got myself a shovel and determined to remove the bodies of animals I encountered on the side of the road, to remove them from the sight of unseeing or uncaring eyes. I could envision myself lying there, alone and bleeding, terrified by the roar of the cars passing by. Now, if it was a human casualty, there’d be ambulances and sirens and police. But for other creatures, we know death will come.
It seemed important to not only remove the body from the roadside where it came to rest, but to take it to a place which was truly restful. It might be a sheltered place under a tree, or in amongst long grasses. If I could, I’d find a shady spot. Someplace where the body touched the Earth, where the body again bore some relation to the Earth. This seemed right.
And it felt right. No one was too happy about my new activity, least of all my best friend who was going to nursing school and learning too much about germs. She insisted I wear gloves, and sometimes I even wore a mask. I didn’t make a big deal of it. I saw the body, I stopped as safely as I could. I backtracked and I encountered the death scene. I held my sadness and regret as I provided this service. I believed I was doing the right thing, making the proper response and I felt much less anguish as a result. I expressed the value I gave to the lives of these creatures by accepting some responsibility in showing respect for their bodies in death. I did that for a couple of years.
Was that a proper response? How do we make such evaluations? We need to have a standard of truth or value to measure our responses with. And this is where families, religious traditions and communities help. They can help by asking what actions and approaches will lead us to feelings of trustworthiness or integrity, or of being in right relationship to God, or to our highest ideals or values. Is it useful to others and worthy of God?
Now the idea of proper is a bit sticky. As soon as the notion of proper is defined, out goes our radar for everything judged improper by the same definition. There are several definitions of proper. Something might be called proper when it conforms to established standards of behavior. By another definition, something is proper when it is suitable, fitting or right.
If we remember what Don had to say about the proper response to an ambulance going by maybe we can illustrate these different notions of what is proper. You are in the car zipping along to the next meeting and you hear the ambulance siren. Yes, it is inconvenient to stop and pull over for the speeding ambulance but instead of feeling frustrated and annoyed at the delay, Don suggested that a response based on compassion for the person inside the ambulance might be a more proper response for someone who values people more than time, who seeks right relationship with others more than a perfect record of punctuality. Such a response fits with Don’s values, people over schedules, and vision of compassion.
Ambulance is coming. What do you do? Well, the law defines a proper behavior for the drivers of other vehicles on the road. Slow down, pull over, stop until the emergency vehicle passes. This is the way our society expresses the value we place on human life, the faith we place in effective emergency response. Following the law and moving out of the way for the ambulance is making a proper response. But is it enough?
Do you say a little prayer for the folks in the ambulance? I think it is a compassionate response, a proper or fitting response for anyone who wishes to cultivate loving kindness in the world.
I don’t know for how long now, probably since my son’s birth, we have been saying the same simple one line prayer when we pull over for an ambulance or even when we hear sirens of any sort. We stop whatever we are doing and say, “I hope everyone is going to be alright.” The full text of the message would read something like, “we can hear or see that some emergency situation is unfolding, and chances are some people are in a bad way right now, but we hope the best for them and that they will make it through this trouble.” This response demonstrates our awareness of and concern for ALL people (all living creatures). I know if it was me the ambulance was coming for, I’d be comforted thinking that everyone it zoomed by was wishing me well.
Now if you don’t have compassion for the one in the ambulance, it does not mean you are a bad person but, on the other hand, it is easy to agree that exercising our compassion is a fitting response if we value compassion and mercy in human beings. I do not know what Don does now when he stops for an ambulance, but I encourage him and everyone to hope for the well being of those in distress, to say a little prayer, to move beyond the frustration or inconvenience and try to see the bigger picture, the one where we are all in there together.
In the gospel of Luke someone asks Jesus “Who is my neighbor?” and Jesus replies by telling the story of the Good Samaritan. (Lk. 10:29-37 NRSV) “A man is going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead.” Kind of like roadkill, the image of an abandoned injured person elicits feelings in us of pity and revulsion. For there, but for the grace of God, could be me, or you, any of us. Now the story continues, and the poor man lying by the roadside is passed by and ignored, even by religious people. Finally, a foreigner comes across the man on the road and helps him, bandaging and tending his wounds, taking him to a shelter and paying for his care. So, who is the neighbor to the man on the road? Jesus said it is “The one who showed [the man] mercy.” Jesus is very clear in the teaching he does with this story. It is not about being a Jew, in the same tribe, it is not about living in the same neighborhood, no, we are called to extend our mercy to anyone who is in need of it.
This makes us all neighbors to each other, bar none. A bit overwhelming. It may be too difficult to grasp, especially when you consider how often we remain strangers to our neighbors in the urban jungle. Perhaps thinking of others as our brothers or sisters, uncles, or aunts would be more apt to arouse our compassion towards others. In India, it is the custom to use these familial terms with strangers. We lived in a big apartment complex and all the kids would call me auntie and I was amazed at how it changed my sense of relationship. They called me auntie and I became an auntie to them. That is, I got a mind set that had me willing to act as their guardian or resource person if need be.
Now back to another scenario Don talked about. No ambulances but another rushed car drive. This time someone with an old klunker of a car is stranded in the road. And you are there waiting it out. You might be frustrated and annoyed but what is the proper response Don wonders. He thinks maybe gratitude for having a nice car seems like a better response. And gratitude is a good-attitude basic, but as the owner of an old klunker, I’d like to return us to compassion. Chances are good no one wants to hold up traffic or drives an old unreliable car because they love it. We are doing what we can with what we’ve got. Like the bare and beaten man, our vehicular vulnerability is clear to all who care to look on us. And how does one look upon another who is in trouble or need? Is it proper to ignore them as outside our circle of concern? Is it proper to curse them for imposing on us? Is it proper to wish them well with an understanding smile? Is it proper to try to help them? How does compassion call you to respond? What would you be inclined to do if you saw your sister or brother there, an aunt or an uncle?
Imagine the knarl of traffic and all the sullen-faced folks sitting in their cars, gripping their steering wheels, white-knuckled. What would the effect be if a few able-bodied souls got involved to help move the disabled vehicle?
The stranded motorist would have her anger and anxiety transformed into feelings of gratitude and solidarity. Everyone in the blocked cars would be changed, moved from feeling frustrated and helpless to feeling heartened and hopeful. And what about the few able-bodied souls who got involved? They could see themselves as the heroes of the hour, real-life role models, agents of change for the better, witnesses to the simple fact that the power of transformation is at hand at all times.
As religious liberals we are perhaps more free and willing than other religious folks to imagine the range and reach of a compassionate response to the many things in life that touch us and call us to act like the kind of people we want to become. Davidson has a simple way to put it, he says we are here, together as a religious community, to become better people, partners, parents, and citizens. I have spent some time this morning reflecting on how roadkill has moved me in this transformative process. But roadkill, as sad and sorry as it is, is also a somewhat manageable phenomenon to confront. But there are other much more complex situations which prod us to imagine and demonstrate a compassionate response and to which I offer no answer this morning: What, for instance, is the proper response to war? What is the compassionate response to Iraq? Climate change? Corporate-owned mass media? Terrorism? Fascism?
Let us become practiced in compassion, so we can come together and make the seeking after of compassionate responses to such situations our habit as a religious community. Like Don said, we can use our imaginations and, guided by our shared values, envision liberal religious approaches to the circumstances of our age. We need to, because one way or another, we will worship something. Let it be love.
