September 21, 10:30am (Sare Gordy)
Let’s go back to the beginning of another century – the turn 0f the 20th century. 1901 is a big deal in Buffalo history as the time of the Pan American Exhibit and the assassination of President McKinley.
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Good morning.
Let’s go back to the beginning of another century – the turn 0f the 20th century. 1901 is a big deal in Buffalo history as the time of the Pan American Exhibit and the assassination of President McKinley.
But let’s begin the year before in 1900 when a massive hurricane swallowed Galveston, Texas whole and killed 8,000 people. Then, in 1901, McKinley is assassinated.
In the following year of 1902 a volcanic eruption on the island of Martinique killed 38,000 people in a single moment.
Still in the same five year period, in 1906, San Francisco has its famous earthquake and fire killing 3,000. That same year an earthquake in Colombia kills 1,000. Still in 1906 an earthquake in Valparaiso, Chile kills 20,000. And the bookend on this half-decade of devastation was a famine in China in 1907 during which 20 million died in one year.
God only knows what went on in Africa, Australia, the Middle East or Siberia in those years. But one thing that didn’t go on at the turn of the 20th century that is taking place right now is the sandstorm of information about every and all disaster, war, genocide, economic meltdown and the death of anonymous individuals who die from noteworthy causes two continents away.
You and I are standing in the middle of what might be the collapse of US Capitalism as we have known it, at the same time we also inundated with horrendous details about: Hurricane Ike, North Korea’s restoration of its nuclear program, Iran’s Ayatollah threatening all Israelis, the US and Russia threatening each other over Georgia, tainted baby formula in China, the US bombing deaths of 90 Afghan civilians, the forced starvation of hundred of thousands in Sudan, and, Global warming witnessed one chunk of ice at a time.
Whether from CNN or the blogosphere, we are drenched with disasters in great detail whether or not we experience them personally and whether or not we can exert any personal influence upon solving them or caring for their victims.
Add to this invincible storm of devastation, threat and calamity a personal trauma, crisis or grief and our perspective on the world, on life itself, and on our own circumstances can be utterly distorted.
In fact, even if everything is going along well for us personally, all that information about things utterly beyond our control can change our perception dramatically. And you know as well as I do that “perception is reality.” In other words, how we perceive things, whether we are accurate in our perception or not, shapes our actions and responses.
So…
in a moment like this one, when institutions we have come to depend upon are collapsing, and the vault of our trust in elected leaders is more bankrupt than Baer Stearns, and we fear for our jobs or our investments or our pensions…we need to step back.
In times like these, that our ancestors both near and far on the timeline of history have endured and survived, we need to step back. We need to step back and name what is most important to us. We need to step back and name who is most important to us. We need to step back and name who and what we have in our lives. We need to step back and name who and what we need to reach out to and hold – for their sakes as well as our own.
It is in times like these that we need to step back from the fury of information that is being thrown at us and filter it out so that we can see our own situation clearly. Like a dancer that affixes her gaze on a single point while she spins furiously on her toes so that she can retain her balance, we likewise need to affix our gaze on a single point,
on a point that we trust…that we love…that we know is more solid than anything else we know.
From there, from affixing our gaze on that single point, we will have the perspective we need rather than the perspective that others seek to give us. That is very important. We need a better, truer, more authentic perspective than the one that others seek to give us.
CNN and the Blogosphere – and any other media source of information, does everything it can to capture our attention
with bigger, louder, bloodier, scarier and deadlier stories. Their information and how it is delivered is used for their own self-interest not the public interest and not your interest or mine.
Now having said that, I do not believe there is only one single point in our spiritual wisdom upon which to affix our gaze.
Our tradition has multiple points and a long history of guides, mystics and teachers who offered different tethers in a storm that work differently for different people.
Abraham and Sarah; Moses and Exodus; Ruth and Naomi; Isaiah, Jeremiah and Micah; the parables and teachings of Rabbi Jesus; the mystical, resurrected Christ; the wisdom of Paul; the female and male mystics of the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries; the social prophetic martyrs of the 20th century…
In one sense they are all part of one giant pier upon which to tether ourselves in turbulent times, but it is too big to hold onto the whole thing and so we must choose a piece for ourselves.
We can’t really hold onto the whole but we can wrap ourselves around the solid branch of the giant tree that is most familiar and comforting and challenging for us at the time we need it most.
For me personally, and I have had to draw on it recently, that point on which to affix my gaze is trust…Trust that no matter what, no matter what, it will be okay because of God.
Now I don’t mean magical thinking in the sense that because of God no one gets hurt and everything turns out like Disney in the end. I mean because of God, whatever happens, it will be okay. Whether or not I survive or those I love survive, it will be okay because I trust God is merciful. I trust God to be God and therefore whatever happens will be graceful.
But what that really means is, that I am able to grab hold of a perspective that it is not really about me and it is not about those I love, it is about something much bigger and greater than myself.
To trust God to be Godis to gain the perspective that it is not about me, or mine, or the nation or church I belong to…To trust God to be God is to gain the perspective that it is about so much more than I can see at any given moment, that I cannot judge the outcome.
To trust God to be God is to keep my vision affixed on what I value and cherish most and to hold onto those things and with determination and faith rather than fear and anxiety.
To trust God to be God allows me to reach out and grab hold
of hands I see reaching out in fear and holding them at the same time I allow them to hold me.
Trusting God to be God means strengthening our connection to others in community at the very moment our knee-jerk reaction is to recoil and pull away and nurse our hurt or fearin isolation so that nobody will know.
I mention all of this not only because of the disintegration of the financial system that began bleeding through its mask this week, but because of the parable from Matthew.
It is an image of the tether to which I affix my gaze in difficult times. God is like the Generous Employer who gives everyone the same pay regardless of when they began working.
Let me repeat that because it almost preaches itself.
God is like the Generous Employer who gives everyone the same pay regardless of when they began working.
That’s great news to anyone except those who have been working all day. That’s great news to anyone except those who nurse on resentments because someone gets more than they do. There is something in this parable that is very much like the story of the Father with the Prodigal Son whose generous love and embrace of the derelict son fills the oldest and dutiful son with nothing but resentment.
There is something in this parable very much like the story of Jonah who complains bitterly to God that the whole reason he ran away from God in the first place was because he knew that if he really went and warned the bad guys to clean it up, that God was going to grant them leniency.
It just burned Jonah up that late in the game God was going to be merciful instead of stingy with a kind of justice that punished them for not being good enough. Jonah’s was a resentment that revealed his deeply self-centered perspective.
And it is just not that difficult to identify with Jonah, the Prodigal’s oldest brother or those who worked the whole day for the same pay. Everyone of us here has sucked on that toxin before. Everyone of us here knows the bitterness of that bile. Everyone of us here knows the perverse pleasure of nursing resentment years and years after the perceived offense.
But resentment and bitterness is not the primary disease, they are the only symptoms. The primary disease is a gaze that is affixed to the Self. The primary disease is being fatally rooted in “me and my own.” The primary dis-ease is a self-orbit that knows no higher ground.
But these parables and stories that consistently come at us from out of our tradition, push our gaze upward and outward toward a perspective that is much bigger and greater than ourselves.
That does not mean we don’t matter. It does not mean our needs are unimportant. It does not mean that our losses and pain are not grievous and debilitating.
They are…Rather, it means we are a small part in a much bigger story and our meaning is derived, not from our part in the story but from the story itself.
This reflex we have to focus on ourselves and what we feel or need or want in a difficult moment, has a concretely physical corollary. Think about pain.
When we are in pain our instinctive response is to tense up and recoil but that makes the pain more intense and harder to endure. When we teach ourselves to breathe through the pain and relax the constriction of our muscles, we discover that the pain becomes less intense and endurable.
Likewise, when we can affix our gaze in difficult and painful moments on our trust that the kingdom of God, and this life we are living, is part of a bigger and more meaningful story than our own self-interest…we find ourselves able to unclench our fists, reach out and receive love and comfort as well as give it. So I don’t really know what that means
for the long-term health or demise of American Capitalism
or Global Warming or this immoral war in Iraq but I do know that I can see and hear and comprehend much better when I hold onto trust in God, unclench my jaw and hands and start reaching out to hold yours…and allow you to hold mine.
Amen.
