RESOLVED: Beginning Our Spiritual Life Over Again

INTRODUCTION: The Talmud, the book of rabbinical commentary on the Torah, makes the following statement: “We do not see things as they are. We see them as we are.” Let me repeat that if I may: “We do not see things as they are. We see them as we are.”

Which if that be true, would suggest that facing a new year is not so much looking around externally, as much as it is looking internally…discovering the spiritual dimension to who we are and what life is about.

And in doing that, we need to understand that we live in an echo chamber. Every question that we ask, echoes back, and addresses us. Every issue that we pose for consideration is then posed back to us.

So rather than thinking about the New Year from the perspective of resolutions we might make, as we considered last Sunday – what we want to continue, to start and to stop – I want to suggest instead, that we consider starting this New Year again, from the perspective of a new start spiritually. If the key to life is, life lived at a deeper, more inner level, then, how do we access it? Do we look to the East? Do we look to Rome? Do we look to the Bible? Where?

In this past year, several of us experienced the loss of loved ones, of close friends, of relationships, of partners and spouses. I was in Naples Friday visiting Dr. Ingrid Martinez-Rico. On my way home, coming down 41, I saw some people on a corner with signs out in a demonstration for peace. Guess who was among them? Archie Goodwin, whose wife we lost this past year. She was a constant presence at our peace demonstrations on Wednesday afternoons at Colonial and McGregor. But also we lost David Taylor, whose wife Mary Ellen was one of the people who initiated those demonstrations. But we lost not only Arlynne and David, but also Linda Jacobs, and Bill Peed, and Pete Forcey and others who were near and dear. Their absence is a huge void.

Many of you lost jobs in the past year or were on the other end and had to be part of letting people go. A lot of us have lost serious money in the current economic crisis. Some of us may have faced serious health problems, problems with our children, or some problems with our parents.

Now we’re looking and asking: What prospects are present for the New Year? Where do we turn? Where do we find resources to face not just the coming year, not just the coming week or month, but today and tomorrow? How can we make it to Monday…to Friday…to Sunday?

The questions which the community of faith always faces are, not only how do we live when things are going well, but how do we keep going in times of crisis and need?

Though I know it's terribly presumptuous, I want to offer what I think are some of the resources that faith offers us to make it, to face the New Year…the new days of 2009.

If the Talmud is correct, it’s not a matter of how things are, but how we are.

As I’ve related before, when Poet William Stafford was once asked, "When did you decide you wanted to become a poet?" he answered, "That's the wrong question: Everyone is born a poet. For a poet is nothing more than a person discovering the way words sound and work...which is in fact a description of every toddler learning to talk." He said, "I just kept on doing what everyone starts out doing. The real question is not, 'when did I start,' but 'why did other people stop?'"

I want to suggest that the source of help for living is not so much something we need to find outside of ourselves, as much as it is to rediscover something already present. I want to suggest that we may need to reopen the spiritual mines that we thought were permanently closed.

To repeat a mantra of mine: "If we are a snapshot of the big picture...if we are a microcosm of the macrocosm...then everything out there is in here...everything up there is down here."

That's another way of saying that you and I possess within us the capacity for experiencing the cosmos. You and I possess within us the healing power of the Universe. You and I possess within our bodies, our minds, and our spirits, the treasures of antiquity. We are rich beyond measure. We share the genetic resources of countless generations of teachers, lovers, saints, sinners, wise women, warriors, scientists, healers, and prophets. We are a part of the cosmic soup that nourishes the world. We are breathing the air exhaled by Plato and Aristotle, Moses and Jesus, Mohammed and Buddha, Einstein, Michelangelo, and Mozart, Dr. King, Mahatma Gandhi and Mother Teresa. And the same enabling power that was present to them is present to us.

In an earlier, more primitive period, the locus of this power was understood to derive from a god out there. That god was imaged as a king on a throne, as someone to bow down to and worship, and if one did that long enough and humbly and sincerely enough, then just possibly, God out there would come down here and help us.

Very few of us find that to be a meaningful resource. And in the process of rejecting that notion, some of us reduced the universe to only that which could be boxed into the laboratory or explained by logic. But may I suggest that that view is somewhat limiting.

More and more we are recognizing an awesome presence in our lives – not out there, but in here. The more open I am to the possibilities of life and living, the more open I am to my spiritual side, to my intuitive side, and to my creative side, the fuller and richer my life becomes. And that's not an experience unique to others, but it is available to each of us. Each of us is free to explore the spiritual dimension of life.

Now I know many of us are atheists, agnostics, and humanists, plus a whole lot of “whatevers.” But the whole notion of atheism, and agnosticism were born in reaction to supernaturalism…the notion that God is up there, in heaven, on a throne, manning a giant switchboard for prayers, blessing this one and zapping that one. But I’m not in any sense referring to the supernatural god of classical theism. That god is dead...dead as a do-do bird. And thank God, that god is dead. Nietzsche made punctuated that point more than 100 years ago. The agenda has changed.

For, if in fact, reality is relative, if in fact the universe is expanding, if there are billions upon billions of other planets, stars, and solar systems, and at least a billion galaxies, and if there are possibly other mega-universes beyond our comprehension, the real issue now is, how do we address the awesome capacity resident not only within every part of our world, but also in us? In what way do we name the incredible mystery of existence which presents itself to us in tiny cells and giant storm clouds, in ants and elephants, in the majesty of the mountains and the sheer glory of the sunset, in the beauty of the face of our beloved, and the smile of our children? How do we respond to the miracle of life, birth, and death? How do we explain pain and guilt, faith and hope? How do we name the reality before which we stand, before which we live and before which we die? That is the real question. That is the life question.

After we've come up with our name, the absolutely imperative claim we must make is that whatever we name that presence, know that IT – that presence – is within us to enable us to make it from Monday to Sunday, from get-up-in-the-morning time until it’s time to go to bed.

Whatever the name, I’ve stood on an ocean’s shore, and heard the roar and seen its waves beat upon the beach. I’ve looked out upon that ocean-scape and seen how a bright full moon makes every wave seem like giant slivers of silver. As I thought of family and friends in Minneapolis and Oklahoma City, Amarillo and Dallas, New York and Los Angeles, and all the states in between, I realized they very well could be seeing the same beautiful full moon. And I wished for them that the presence of whatever it is that we name IT, that it would be real to them...not as a belief system...not as some intellectual boondoggle…but as an awareness that can transform us from doubt and fear to love and hope. And in so doing empower us not only to search our own souls, but also to work for a world in which women and children are no longer abused, in which the poor no longer are hungry, in which the victims of prejudice will no longer be discriminated against, and in which peace will become a reality for war weary zones.

God is not some bigger than life person on a throne somewhere. God is in you and me. And we've got a mind. And we've got a heart. And we've got a spirit.

The real question then, is much more practical: how do we access the divine presence already within us? If there are so many resources present in our world, then how do we find them, how do we make them ours?

Searching is the essence of the spiritual experience. No one stays at the same place in their spiritual understanding. In the same way that we can never put our foot back in the river in the same flow of water, neither is it possible to go back to past spiritual perceptions. We have to keep working at finding a new awareness and reality.

Once upon a time an outsider happened to visit a monastery. He was intrigued by the walls, the quietness, the sound of chanting wafting through the grounds, and men walking quietly in pairs repeating prayers. Baffled, nonetheless by the whole idea of a group of men living in retreat from the rest of the world, he asked one of the monastics, “What do you do here?”

His answer, “Oh, we fall and we get up, and we fall and we get up, and we fall and we get up again.”

As we face the dawn of a new year, I’m sure there are many of us who can look back at the year 2008 and nod our head in agreement. There has been a lot of falling, and getting up, and falling again, and getting up again.

The fact that we’re here though, means we fell, but we fell forward! But forward, nonetheless!

One of the insights of Einstein's special theory of relativity was the impact of the observer upon that which was observed. I think that's true in life as well. Our attitude goes a long way in determining the reality we will experience in the coming year. Our faith attitude makes a difference. It requires that we be open and that our attitude be accepting and inviting.

It reminds me of a wonderful New Yorker cartoon for Christmastime, which shows a woman opening her Christmas gifts. Taking the top of the box off, she looks up at her husband and exclaims, "You perfect angel. You got me exactly what I needed, to exchange for what I really wanted!"

That's good theology as well. We have to work with what we have, and sometimes we need to exchange what life has given us for something better. It may be the attitude that counts.

The core human experience has remained the same from Cro-Magnon Man or people until today: namely, we are awed at the wonder of life, and are equally devastated by its ending. We love ourselves and the natural world we are a part of. We express our intelligence and gratitude in art, religion and civilization; conversely, we display our ignorance and intolerance in brutality, war and destruction of our environment.

And all the time, we search for understanding of how it all happens, and continues to happen and what existence will be like in the future.

On his deathbed, the Buddha is purported to have said, “Do not accept what you hear by report; do not accept tradition; do not accept a statement because it is found in our books, nor because it is in accord with your belief; nor because it is the saying of your teacher. Be lamps unto yourselves.”

We will pause for 7½ minutes of brief questions as a part of our Conversation Café. The Service and Support Council will provide microphones for you to speak into.

[1] A sermon presented on January 04, 2009, as the first in a series entitled, “BEGINNING AGAIN IN 2998. RESOLVED: Beginning Our Spiritual Life Again (I), followed by the Conversation Café at All Faiths Unitarian Congregation, meeting at the Crestwell School, 1904 Park Meadows, Ft. Myers, FL, with the Rev. Dr. Wayne Robinson, minister.