Sermon

INTRODUCTION: Yesterday morning, I was writing and rewriting this sermon, actually feeling pretty good about the direction I was headed, as well as the fact that I was close to being finished – when the phone rang. It was my oldest sister, Norma, from Oklahoma City.

I think most who know Norma would agree that hers has not been a storybook life. Most recently she was widowed, but several years before that, her beautiful 27 year-old daughter was killed while riding a motorcycle. Last year her other daughter Pam was incarcerated in a state penitentiary on narcotics charges. And her only son has had a continuing series of serious personal struggles.

It’s so bad that I always feel guilty when Norma asks how my own children are doing, because I can honestly say how blessed they, and I are.

Anyway, in our phone conversation, Norma told me of driving over last week from Oklahoma City to Muskogee, Oklahoma, then to the Eddie Wilson Correctional Center nearby in Taft, Oklahoma to visit her 46-year-old daughter Pam. While there, she learned that Pam had successfully finished her G.E.D. and would graduate from high school this May. With her G.E.D., it means she can now work in the prison office and use her considerable computer skills, which is a huge boost from the job she now has.

One other thing: Norma was especially proud that Pam had been designated as the valedictorian of her graduating class. Then Norma explained the reason she had called. She said that as they visited, Pam related that she is supposed to make a valedictorian speech and she was really nervous about it. She didn’t know what to say. According to her mother, she asked, “Do you think Uncle Wayne would help me?” I’ve never been more complimented.

That request had a way of focusing my day. A 46-year-old mother of two, with three grandchildren, locked in a prison cell in the center of No Place, USA – Taft, Oklahoma – is trying to turn her life around, and she wanted to know if I would help celebrate a major accomplishment for her, even if it’s taking place in prison. She’s finished her G.E.D. and she’s graduated at the head of her class.

When she went in she was emaciated, a skeleton, with a deadly pallor to her cheeks; now she’s eating, exercising, reading, and going to chapel.

She once had a nice home, family, a loving husband, and a responsible position in the computer division of a large company. Now her children will not even come to visit her, nor let her grandchildren come, her home is a state prison in Oklahoma, and her latest husband preceded her to prison.

I realize that we could say, don’t get your hopes up. It’s just a bunch of convicts, of drug addicts, a part of the revolving door of crime in our society. The statistics are daunting. But we could also say that there’s something very basic here that applies to all of us – about making mistakes and turning our lives around with the help of friends and family.

So what if you were the minister of a Unitarian congregation who instead of a G.E.D. has had wonderful educational opportunities, who is speaking to a highly educated audience, many with graduate degrees from some of America’s finest institutions – certainly few if any with a high school diploma earned while in prison. How would it affect your sermon preparation after talking to your sister who is so proud that her middle-aged daughter is the valedictorian of her G.E.D. graduating class in the state prison in Taft, Oklahoma?

Recently, Roy Kennix and Frankie Jennings and I went to lunch. Roy has spent his professional life working to enable minorities in the workplace, especially African Americans. We talked about the huge hurdles that young black men have in America, where almost a third have been through some phase of the criminal justice system.

Roy mentioned a recent experience where he was attempting to support a young man who had just finished time in prison. He desperately wants to stay out of prison. He needs a job and a way to pay bills and buy food. In the process of talking about finding him employment, Roy sought to identify his skill sets – what had he done in the past and what kind of work he would be best at. Roy quickly discovered that though 30 years old or more, the man had never had a job in his life. His brushes with the law began when he was a young teen and now after several incarcerations, he was looking at a dismal future, facing the bleakest of circumstances, and with the most minimal of skills. Unfortunately, he is not unique.

Roy’s counselee and my niece live at another slice of life. How does what we say work for them?

In answer to that question, I propose rather than the sermon I had almost finished, that we do a rewrite that includes someone like my niece trying to hold on as the lifeboat slips away…who’s grabbed hold of a piece of the lifeboat, but it has nails in it…who knows what her family and society think about the mess she’s made of her life.

Let’s say instead of “How to live in three dimensions,” that we talk about three handholds to grab on to, three ways to think about our body, mind and spirit.

OUR BODY IS A GIFT OF THE UNIVERSE (OR IN RELIGIOUS LANGUAGE) A GIFT OF GOD.

Stephen Jay Gould says that the greatest of all evolutionary questions about human existence is not how did our species come into existence, nor when did it happen. The greatest of all questions is “Why did we emerge on the tree of life." Why are we here? Is there a purpose to existence? No matter where we live on this planet…in a beautiful or modest home…or in a prison cell…why?

The late Dr. Gould contended that the reason our species is here on Planet Earth is the result of the "glorious accidents of an unpredictable process." Had it not been for a large extraterrestrial object triggering the extinction of dinosaurs 65 million years ago, we mammals would still be small creatures confined to the nook and crannies of the dinosaurs' world, he says.

So if there are no primordial clues, no cosmic messages left for us, no footprints on the sands of the heavens, then why are we here? How do we live our lives in the absence of any universal guidelines? If there is no galactic lease detailing cosmic expectations…if there is no solar system agreement listing responsibilities for us as terrestrial tenants…then why are we here?

One clue might well be this: If we all came from the muck and the mire, then we all belong to each other…we all belong to the Universe…we’re all children of the Cosmos…offspring of God. If we all were once present in a glorious accident of cosmic glory, then we all have unique claims to citizenship status in the Universe. And as the astronauts have informed us, there are no borders from the view of the heavens, no state or national borderlines from space. This is one planet…one piece of the Universe…and we are a part of the physical Whole.

Our bodies are gifts. We are related to all the other human bodies, as well as all the other species, and all the other chemicals and minerals and things that are. We have a glorious and ancient lineage. Further:

Oncologist Dr. Carl Simonton has written, "I can't see how any thinking person can help but see the relationship between what a person believes and the eventual outcome." Writing nearly 2,000 years ago, the philosopher and playwright, Lucius Seneca, contended that, "It is part of the cure to wish to be cured."

Our minds are wonderful gifts that transcend the limitations of the body. One of my favorite quotations has always been that little excerpt from Lewis Carroll's, The Adventures of Alice in Wonderland. Alice says to the queen, "There's no use trying: One simply can't believe impossible things." To which the Queen replied, "I dare say you haven't had much practice. Why when I was your age, I always did it for half an hour every day. Why sometimes I believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

Our minds have marvelous capacities. Dr. Simonton tells the story of a patient with a lung cancer that had spread to the brain. Despite the diagnosis, he had only missed work a few hours each time for treatment. But he also started to spend more time with his family, taking them on business trips with him. He told Dr. Simonton, "I had forgotten that I didn't look at the trees. I hadn't been looking at the grass and the flowers for a long time, and now I do that." Also, every week he improved, getting stronger and healthier – both in body and mind.

SPIRITUALITY IS A VALUE-ADDED RESOURCE TO THE HEALTHY FUNCTIONING OF OUR MIND AND BODY.

I read a book some years back about the early pioneers in physics. Men like Max Planck, Albert Einstein, and Werner Heisenberg. The book made the point that as a result of their discoveries in physics, they had become mystics with a profoundly spiritual appreciation of their lives and world.

Now it is difficult to imagine, initially at least, how working with differential equations or mathematics would produce spirituality. (Sorry about that, Susan.[2]) In fact, there is nothing I recall about my minimal studies in physics or math being a very "spiritual" experience, unless “Help me, Jesus” qualifies.

Yet the reality is that in the process where matter is converted into energy according to the relationship E=mc2, that equation combined to introduce both the enormous power and the potential destruction we know today as nuclear energy.

But how did that have anything to do with creating a sense of awe, mysticism, and spirituality in those pioneers of the scientific frontiers. It was at least three things.

1. We human beings have a knowledge of the world which comprises hundreds of millions of years, even billions of years of existence. We know about the forming of this planet 5 billion or so years ago, and of the forming of the Universe some 13.5 billion years ago. That alone creates a sense of awe and reverence. We know about the enormity of the past and can also project far into the future. Finite though we are, we have the capacity to address the infinite.

2. Even more impacting, with all of this knowledge about our world, the truth is that we humans are only given an infinitesimal portion of time to live and work with this knowledge, and to use it. We are aware of the ages of this planet, our solar system, and our Universe – millions and billions of years beyond our imagining – but we – we are only here for a teeny tiny blink of the cosmic eye. Our mortality creates an enormous sense of finitude.

3. Imagine if you can that we have the capacity to convert into motion the potential energies that have accumulated during millions of years. Nuclear power has given to our species capacity far beyond our own individual strength.

It’s why Einstein especially realized that our reach had exceeded our grasp. Our inner capacities are too small. We need supplement to the soul to help us to address the advances we have made. It's as though we have been permitted into a future time zone, but without the moral and inner resources to handle the discoveries we make. Which is why our world constantly teeters on the brink of self-destruction, hoping that bandit nations and demagogues will not gain the ability to use such nuclear knowledge to blow the rest of us to kingdom come.

Which is why the invasion by America of Iraq, because they supposedly possessed weapons of mass destruction, was such a boondoggle. We now have no credibility in the world as a nation and a people to talk to others about the threat of nuclear destruction. We have squandered our moral capital and our spiritual resources. In the future to which we have been thrust, we are babes in the woods, not knowing what steps to take next.

For those early scientific pioneers, their option was a spiritual one. It’s an option that all of us should consider, whether we are scientists or a woman in prison.

CONCLUSION

So what will I write for my niece? This is only a skeleton, but first, I want to suggest that she tell Flannery O’Connor’s story about the children coming home from school through the pastures of Ireland. When they came to a wall too high to climb over, they threw their hats and caps over it, so that they had no choice but to make it over. They did that by helping each other. The hurdles they face both in finishing their time and meeting the challenges of life on the outside are huge. They must throw their hats over the wall, and make the commitment.

Secondly, despite the things that have happened, responsibility rests with each of them. “They, he, you” are no longer acceptable vocabulary. It must be “I.”

As graduates they’ve proved they can do it. They can take care of their bodies, their minds and their spirits.

Finally, as the little signs say on the highways, they are wild flower plots…not weeds. They are wild flowers in a wonderful world that can also be harsh and cruel. It’s up to them to make the difference.

[1] Given on April 30, 2006, at the All Faiths Unitarian Congregation, meeting in the Foulds Theater at the Alliance for the Arts, 10091 McGregor Boulevard, Ft. Myers, FL, by the Rev. Dr. Wayne Robinson, Minister.

[2] Dean of the School of Engineering at Florida Gulf Coast University and a member of All Faiths.