Uncertainty Anchors

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Rev. Chris Jimmerson
November 27, 2022
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

We have been experiencing a great deal of change and uncertainty in our lives and even within the church. Change and uncertainty are inevitable in life – sometimes even desirable. What sustains us though, what do we hold onto during times of greater than usual uncertainty?

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

The art of progress is to preserve order amid change and to preserve change amid order.

– Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947)

Affirming Our Mission

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

Meditation Reading

There’s a thread you follow.
It goes among things that change.
But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt or die;
and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread.

– William Stafford

Sermon

Several years ago, I was a student chaplain at what was then the public hospital for our area, Brackenridge, which has since been replaced. The floor to which I had been assigned had a section of rooms that were for in hospital, hospice care to, as much as possible, keep people out of pain while we worked to get them into a hospice out in the community or arrange home hospice.

I got to know a woman who, through a great deal of hardship, had immigrated from Korea. I’ll call her Lillie though that was not her real name.

Lillie had been diagnosed with end stage lung cancer. She had a teenage son and daughter. She and her children had been the victims abuse by her former husband. Her greatest concern was for her children and what might happen to them after her death.

Lillie was a part of an evangelical, very conservative religion, and yet as we talked together, we found spiritual common ground in our belief in the inherent worth and dignity of all people.

She also had a deep reverence for the interdependent web of which we are a part. She had been an avid gardener and hiker before she got sick. Nature, the interdependent web was where she said that she most strongly experienced the God of her beliefs.

Sometimes, she would ask me to pray with her.

I’m not sure what she thought of my “spirit of love and life” language, but she seemed to find comfort through the prayers.

Over time, she accepted the inevitability of her condition. A social worker and her nurse helped get her set up for home hospice care so that she could spend her last days without pain and with her children.

On the day Lillie was scheduled be discharged, the pastor and several members of her church visited her at the hospital. They convinced her that God was going to cure her cancer. God was going to save her life. They talked her into canceling the hospice care and took her home without pain control. Within only a few days though, her condition got much worse.

She suffered needlessly, until she reached out to her social worker, finally re-establishing home hospice care at the urging of her children, who did not want her to suffer such terrible pain.

Our spiritual topic this month is change and uncertainty. I share Lillie’s story with you because it illustrates how false certainty can be more harmful sometimes than living in uncertainty.

The truth is, there is very little certainty in life. Things are always changing. And that can be good. Creativity-creation itself only occur if there is change and uncertainty. And yet, change and uncertainty can still feel scary to us.

What sustains us, what do we hold onto, especially when change is even greater than the usual – times are even more uncertain? And let’s face it, we have been through a lot of change and uncertainty in, oh, the last decade at the church.

We tore up our building. The end results are this beautifully expanded sanctuary, a magnificent art gallery, a new kitchen and restrooms that make us proud. Still, that was a lot of change and disruption.

We have seen so much social and political upheaval.

We have a new majority in the House of Representatives – there’s no telling what they might do. We have witnessed the rise of explicit racism and other forms of bigotry. We have seen hate come out of the closet.

And of course, we went through a pandemic and sheltering at home, practicing virtual church for two years.

Then there was the snowpocalypse. Locusts and murder hornets. And then there is global climate change.

We are also in an interim transition period here at the church, after our former senior minister, now minister emerita had to retire.

That is a lot of change and a lot of uncertainty and I’m sure there are things I missed.

So, how do we sustain ourselves through such times?

Well, author and researcher Jonathan Fields coined the term “certainty anchors” for that which we can hold on to even during the most uncertain of times.

Building upon his work, as well that of others, here are the five “R-words” of how we might sustain ourselves during uncertain times.

The first R-word is RITUAL. Meditating, praying, a daily gratitude practice, the candle lighting we do here at the church, as well as our other rituals can help us through changing times. They provide a steadiness and help calm the anxieties that can arise from change.

Closely related to ritual – having REGULAR ROUTINES can help us feel anchored when the world seems to be changing all around us. Jogging each morning, coffee with the morning paper (or iPad), working out at the gym regularly, frequent nature hikes, saying to our spouse “I love you at the end of each day” – our regular routines can give us something to hold onto through changing times.

When Wayne and I first moved to Austin from Houston (or tried to) his initial job in Austin fell through. So, he had to go back to his prior job in Houston, and for over a year, we lived in separate cities. That was a big change!

One of the ways we made it through that challenging time was that we established regular routines that kept us connected and feeling anchored talking on the phone each evening, taking turns spending the weekend in each city and the like. The routines helped us maintain a sense of steadiness.

The next “R” word is REWARD. It can help sustain us through changing times when we reward ourselves and each other. What’s something you have done that was great? Tell yourself how great it was!

I love this poem by Derek Walcott:

Love After Love

The time will come when,
with elation you will greet yourself
arriving at your own door,
in your own mirror and each will smile
at the other’s welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger
who was your self.

Give wine.
Give bread.
Give back your heart to itself,
to the stranger
who has loved you all your life,
who knows you by heart.

Take down the love letters
from the bookshelf,
the photographs,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.
Reward yourself.

Likewise, ask yourself what has your spouse or partner done lately that you really appreciated. Tell them how great it was. How about your children? The rewards we give ourselves and others provide us all with a sense of stability and accomplishment even in the midst of great uncertainty.

Now, here is an “R-word” that I loved – REVERENT PURPOSE. Well, one word starts with an “R” anyway! Holding our values with deep respect, having a mission we embrace with great awe and veneration can help steady us as we travel the seas of change.

Now, we say our mission together every Sunday. Another ritual! It is good though to also remind ourselves of the values from which our mission arises. Our values are beautiful statements about who we are as a congregation. Let me repeat them for you now:

- TRANSCENDENCE – To connect with wonder and awe of the unity of life

- COMMUNITY – To connect with joy, sorrow, and service with those whose lives we touch

- COMPASSION – To treat ourselves and others with love

- COURAGE – To live lives of honesty, vulnerability, and beauty

- TRANSFORMATION – To pursue the growth that changes our lives and heals our world

My beloveds, those are values worth living.

Our values and mission together help keep us focused on what matters most even when the world gets turbulent – they provide us a with a vision for moving into the future together no matter what changes and surprises may come.

Well, our final certainty anchor is that most vital of “R” words – RELATIONSHIP. We hold on to one another through times of change.

We anchor and steady one another. Our loved ones can sometimes be the anchors we cannot always provide for ourselves, especially in the midst of storms – uncertainty hurricanes or ambiguity tornados. We do not have to weather these alone.

And in this religious community, we have a covenant – a set of solemn promises we make to one another about how we walk together in the ways of love.

These are our promises for how we channel a river of love that flows through our universe with one another and hold one another steady through the tides of change. Then, we go out beyond these church walls living our values and mission and bringing the change we hope to see in our world, rooted in love and justice. And that river of love keeps flowing through our universe.

And sometimes we forget that we can find ways to dive into it and let it carry us through the change that is life, even when that change may feel like chaos.

We can breathe, in the river of love. We can rest in its currents.

We can hold on to one another and float toward distant shores we are only beginning to imagine.

There is so much change right now, some welcomed, some not so much, some about which we may feel ambiguous. This will not change:

I am with you.
The river of love is still flowing.
It is the constant in which we may choose to swim in life.

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