To Make a Beginning

September 17, 2006
Westminster Unitatian Church
Rev. Barbara Fast

RUMI
Keep walking, though there is no place to get to
Don’t try to see through distances, that is not for human beings
Today like every day we wake up empty and frightened
Don’t go to the library and read a book
Take down a musical instrument
Let the beauty we love be what we do
There are hundred’s of ways to kneel and kiss the ground


SERMON
 “To Make a Beginning, Setting the Boat, or Wholly, Holely, Holy “

To make a beginning was the first title I chose for this sermon when I had to pick a title 2 weeks ago. It is from TS Eliot:

“What we call a beginning is often the end
And to make an end is to make a beginning
The end is where we start from.

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started  
And know the place for the first time.”

One way I began here was to look through you Parish Record. These words were at the beginning.  They were written by The Reverend Sam Osgood on September 23, 1849. 158 years ago. He was passing this book onto the next minister.

“I leave it to my successor, wishing him every blessing of human sympathy and Divine Grace.”

As I wrote this sermon, it began raining.  Soon it was pouring. Then some of my street was under water.  The working title became “row, row, row” your boat.

Our younger son rowed in high school. I schlepped him to Regattas, which definitely was part  of this girl’s vocabulary growing up.

This summer I decided to make anew beginning. And learn how to row. As a spiritual practice.

I went to a rowing camp.  

When you are a beginner rower, the first thing you do, after you get in the boat, is tip it over. To see if you can get back in.  I managed it, but it was not pretty. I felt clumsy. Old. Then when you are all wet and cold, you begin. You take up your oars, which are long and heavy, which cross over in front of you and, which, when out of the water and out of balance, will tip your boat.

When you bring up your oars, slowly, as a beginner, it helps to bring them up at the same time, otherwise they will tip you over, but do not being them up exactly at the same time, because you will crush your hands.  Two objects cannot occupy the same place at the same time.

To glide after you stroke, you “feather” the oars, so they lay flat just above the water’s surface. So they do not get in the way of your progress. Your effort. When you manage that, you will glide, exhale and recover.

 When done well, the boat moves thought the water, seamlessly. You are one with the lake, herons, hawks, rain, and deep shadows of trees. By the end of the first day, I had made a beginning.
 
The next day dawned drizzly. A few black and blue marks had risen along my rib cage.  After another round in the boats, the coaches gave us the “rules.”

Number 1 - Set your boat. Seek stability.  
The only thing you are in control of is yourself- sometimes not even that.

Stability brings confidence & flexibility. There is a story that a master of martial arts was praised for his swiftness. He said the he was the most swift, not with punches, but with returning to his center.

Number 2 - Build Core Strength. Build you core strength so you can keep the boat set.

Number 3 - Seek Correction Always . Seek Correction Aways.
Correction is not reaction. Reactivity tips the boat. It is an over correction.
With a set boat and core strength practiced, correction becomes fluid. It is like improvisation.   

Number 4- Here the knarly coaches, who spend 6 out of 7 days on the water over six months a year- said with a chuckle, “Expect trouble.” Expect trouble.  There are so many things we cannot control on the water.

These were the coaching tips. Gained from earned experience. I practiced these first things.

My son rowed eights. Which is different. You are part of a team. You must seek correction always, making adjustments to your teammates. You must adjust to others in the boat. You cannot row anyway you like to row.  If someone cannot moderate their pace for the boat, someone is going to catch a “crab”, which is an oar in the neck. Then you stop. Then you reset the boat. Then you begin again. With intentionality.

A racer who is injured will sit, oar resting on the water, “feathered”, still and stable. The rest of the teams rows back to boathouse. You will finish, and find your self older and wiser and back home. The next day is practice, again. That is why it is called “practice”.

My son’s greatest frustration was when they could not set the boat. It made every effort harder. Every stroke less effective.

He came home elated when they kept the boat set, even when the waters were troubled.

In every 8 boat is the coxain. A tiny person sitting in back of boat, looking ahead, into the distance, speaking into a mike, or if it doesn’t work, encouragement & steering.
    
You might remember that my husband teaches social work at Yeshiva University.  The undergraduate college is a Jewish religious college. They recently created a Crew Team, but they were not winning any races. So the Coxain went to see how other teams practiced and he came back with this tip. “Only one person does the yelling.”  

After Homecoming Sunday, I began my week with a walk with a friend.  It was my day off. It is one way I set my “boat”. Her son has challenges. He won’t seek help. He wont let go of his arguments with the world.

She cannot help him much. One way she helps herself is to help others in similar positions, with a parent groups that is sustaining. There are days she wakes up frightened.  Each day she asks: What does loving the beauty in him look like this day?  It is a practice. It is working.

As we walked and talked we passed a bench. On the bench were fresh bright flowers and a plaque. A son born 1965 perished on 9/11/2001.  If you sat on this bench you would see the skyline of Manhattan.

She bursts into tears. There she is crying for someone else, for herself, for someone else’s son, for her son. I hug her. And she does this very hard thing. She lets herself be hugged. She lets herself receive care.  I whisper into her ear “Thank you for enduring my hug.” She laughs and thanks me for knowing her so well.
 
We feathered our oars for a moment, and let ourselves glide. We took a moment to let ourselves recover. We are practicing.  

Just because you cry, does not mean that you are not a warrior.

Later that day, I had a call I needed to make. I know a young woman interning at a middle school in a city where most of the public school kids are at the poverty line, and many speak Spanish.  She is bilingual.

When she was 6, one of her two older sisters, who was 13, was killed.  A few years ago, her father died. September is a time of anniversaries.
 
Her father kept rowing. His life was altered, forever. Most times we do not meet this kind of trouble. Thank God. He died younger than he should have.

His life cannot be reduced to grief. The beauty he loved was teaching. He nurtured his students. He never stopped loving.   Loving his wife, his children and eventually his grandchildren.  A few days before he died, he met granddaughter. We take comfort in such things.  

I gave the eulogy at his funeral.

Members of their faith community walked with them. Even though there was no place to get to, even though they woke up empty and frightened day after day. The family let themselves receive human sympathy when they could bear it. They let others row from time to time, as needed.

Religion at its best, is what binds us to what matters most. It sustains our lives. Life is not perfect. The challenge is not just to love, but to persist in loving. Even if we are quite never whole again.

Maybe it when we are full of holes and ragged frayed edges, that we become real and therefore Holy.

    It was here that I realized that my sermon title is WHOLLY, HOLEY, HOLY.  

    My friend had to create her compassionate community.  For mothers and fathers.  This empowers, consoles , and helps sustain them and her. Helps them persist in loving. There are those who have sustained longer than she. They give her strength and stability.

    This dear father rowed his boat as best as he was able and he was so good. He remained compassionate.  
 
    Setting our boat means creating, sustaining, deepening compassionate community. And receiving their care.  Empowered community. It matters that we set our boat. Faith community matters. We share the ministry of caring.

    Because this father did not feel listened to or understood by his minister. And he yearned to be, if not understood, listened to. He yearned for a compassionate witness that does not seek to fix, but humbly offers human sympathy and divine grace.

    And so did this minister.  On the day of the funeral, I listened to that minister’s private confession: A simple humble acknowledgment that he had missed the boat.
I felt compassion for him. For both of them.
 
We ministers do miss the boat from time to time. I will miss your boat sometime. I am fully human. That is why a faith community matters so much. There are many folks rowing. We may even “catch a crab” as we knock oars, as we share leadership.

Hosea Ballou said, “if a religion cannot be reduced to practice have none of it.”
The coaches said practice habits that work – that build core strength.

Are your habits working for you? Are you practicing habits that work for you?

For your individual goal how is inner peace, core stability, self control, growing compassion.

The only person we can control – is our self – and sometimes not even that.

Self control is of the essence in a world that is not stable, that is it itself in trouble and troubling to the soul.

SET THE BOAT OF YOUR SOUL  BY SPIRITUAL PRACTICE
SET YOUR BOAT, BUILD CORE STRENGTH, BE STABLE,
SEEK CORRECTION ALWAYS.
PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE.

Then you need not about trouble, because you will be ready.

You know what the coaches also said?
Practice 5 minutes a day  holding your blades off the water

Don’t just do something- sit there!

Five minutes a day rest your oars on the water…and breathe look around you and don’t just do something- sit there. We cannot all be yelling…

You and I are not here for trivial pursuits …to merely serve ourselves…the world is troubled…and we must practice in order to face whatever comes.

 My Friend- is rowing long distance even thou she does not know if there is any place to get to…and she cannot see through distances…Even though she wakes up empty and frightened…

She took up a an old practice recently - something she let go of when she left for college- her violin- she takes down her musical instrument …and makes beauty.  
She is finding  her way to let the grace of the world embrace her and sustain her. She loves her son beyond life. There are things we cannot seem to find words for – especially to those we love the most- we cannot even seem to keep them safe- though we pray for them dearly…
 
Last Monday that intern learned that her father had taught her supervisor. Her father had been his mentor. Had changed his life, his professional calling. She laughed at the mystery of it all.

Her father has not left his family- the human sympathy he shared with is students and his family – lives on – and he watches over his daughters even now. Death ends a life not a relationship.

In October she will marry.  We will be there.  And we will be happy. I will officiate with the congregation’s new minister.

There is such grace and beauty in this world… It is almost more than a body can bear…

And it is LOVE that gets you on board in the end…keeps you coming back, climbing back in, even when you are wounded.  
 
I will let go of the oars now..I leave them in your hands.  

I wish you every blessing of human sympathy and divine grace.


CLOSING WORDS
Miller Williams

"Have compassion for everyone you meet, even if they don't want it. What appears conceit, cynicism or bad manners is always a sign of things no ears have heard, no eyes have seen.  You do not know what wars are going on, down there, where the spirit meets the bone."  

Copyright Barbara Fast 2006
May be used with attribution.









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