October 28, 7:00pm (Kevin Westling)
We do not have to detach from our bodies to encounter the holy. We do not have to renounce the flesh or try to let go the body and soar with the spirit, in order to exercise the spiritual.
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Sermons @ Trinity
October 25, 2009
Trinity@7
The Rev. R. Cameron Miller
Close your eyes and share a few common experiences with me, for the next few moments.
Your toes hollow wet sand
as frothy brine licks your feet
tossing the tiny specks of millennial debris
against your tingled skin.
Standing there, stork-like,
the voice of ocean surf sings you forward
while the practical voice
of dry clothing and things to do
issues warnings to step back.
You are in a moment
between the waves of time.
The scent of newborn
softly swirls like spring into your nostrils.
You hold that sweet silken scull to your lips
and just hold it there,
soft as anything you have ever known.
This tiny, weightless morsel
is at one and the same time
all of human history,
you at one time
and its own marvelous self…years in the unwrapping.
You are in a moment
between the waves of time.
You were momentarily swallowed by the crowd
the music
the moment
the entire concert milieu…
lost momentarily outside yourself
as if a drop in the ocean of other drops,
mingled indivisibly in the soup of life.
But you didn’t feel yourself slipping away
and now you’ve bounced back into shape
and you are you,
surrounded by hundreds or thousands,
and the sound of notes swirling and hovering
like invisible spirits through the night air.
You were one then many then one again.
You are in a moment
between the waves of time.
Your lungs burn.
Up, up, up, up you swim toward the top.
The bubble of air inside your lungs
is pushing you up
as if a child screaming for its parent:
reaching, reaching, reaching out to be reunited
with the air up there above the surface.
You want to be under,
in the warm water that is your origin
where you can fly weightless like superman,
but you lost your gills en utero
and the bubble inside is burning now…
burning, burning, burning to be free.
Into the colder air and hotter light you crash,
breath exploding out
only to hungrily suck it all back in
still greedy for more.
You are in a moment
between the waves of time.
In the night
enveloped in the soft safety within the nest of covers,
your body entangled and lost in another’s –
all boundaries soon evaporating
between warm, smooth human flesh.
In the dark you see only what you feel.
In the warmth of the 98.6 you share
which one is it you feel?
In the pleasure you share,
that joy you crave to give and yearn to receive,
you fall deeper into one another until finally
the release awakens you to your own body.
You are in a moment
between the waves of time.
The ancient Hebrews had a story
about the beginning of the Cosmos,
when God created everything in six days.
At the end of each day
God surveys the art that has been rendered
from tips of divine fingers.
“Good” God says.
Each day God says, “Good.”
On Wednesday of that first week,
God is so excited,
God says, “Good. Good.”
Native American spirituality
breaths deeply of the Earth
and grins broadly with the same goodness.
The Earth, many tribes taught,
is holy,
is divine,
holds us like a mother cradles her child.
The point is,
we do not have to detach from our bodies
to encounter the holy.
We do not have to renounce the flesh
or try to let go the body and soar with the spirit,
in order to exercise the spiritual.
Just the opposite.
Enter the material and the physical deeply,
and we will be led to an encounter with the holy.
When we are grounded deeply in the physical world
and utterly in the moment,
then we will find ourselves in one of those
moments between the waves of time.
There we will encounter the holy
that is folded into every moment,
whether or not we are present to it.
So…
touch the darkness
breathe the stillness
hear the silence
taste the light
and smell the calm.
Move beyond thought,
enter the body
and meet God there.
Please, when you light a candle tonight
let yourself feel the presence of your body…
how your feet and ankles move you like a conveyor…
let your fingers feel the smooth wax of the tapers…
see the beads of liquid fall from the wick…
watch a flame struggle to be born…
feel your shoulders as you turn from the wall…
hear the fountain wave good bye as you walk away…
Come…be present in your body.
God is here with open arms…not outside you
but in your body.
