• Home
• About Us
• Worship
• Staff & Board
• Social Outreach
• Adults & Family
• Youth & Children
• Funding
• Sermons
• Calendar
• Share-the-Plate
• Caring Circle
• Small Group Ministry
• Searching For the Future
• Directions

Survey Results
of the Westminster Unitarian Church Ministerial Search Congregational Survey. (This is a PDF file and requires Acrobat Reader.)

Newsletter | Minister | Email Us

Westminster Unitarian Church
We celebrate the inherent worth and dignity of every person

Days of Awe

October1, 2006
Westminster Unitatian Church
Rev. Barbara Fast


Opening Words

Marvelous Error…
Antonio Machado
 
Last night, as I lay sleeping
I dreamt – marvelous error-
That a Spring was breaking out in my heart.
I said: Along what secret aqueduct are you coming to me
Water of a new life that I have never drunk?
 
Last night as I was sleeping
I dreamt – marvelous error-
That I had a beehive here inside my heart.
And the golden bees were making white combs and sweet honey from my old failures.
 
Last night as I was sleeping
I dreamt – marvelous error-
That a fiery sun was giving light inside my heart
It was fiery because I felt warmth as from a hearth
And sun because it gave light and brought tears to my eyes.
 
Last night as I was sleeping
I dreamt- marvelous error-
That it was God- It was God- it was God I had here inside my heart.


SERMON: 
The Days of Awe

L’Shana Tovah – May you have a good year

I found this story in Mark Epstein’s book, Going To Pieces Without Falling Apart.

There was a Chinese monk, who after years of practice with no enlightenment went to his master and asked for permission to go to the mountains to seek enlightenment in an isolated cave.  

He took his beggars bowl, which is really a symbol for being open to life, his robes, and a few possessions and headed out on foot to the mountain.   As he started to climb he saw an old stranger carrying a huge bundle on his back winding his way down the mountain path towards the monk.  In this story the old stranger is a bodhisattva, who is one who is enlightened but who chooses to remain on earth to help others achieve enlightenment.

Greeting the monk, the old stranger asked him where he was heading. The monk replied, " I am heading to the furthest mountain to find a cave in which to meditate...I will stay there until I die or realize something".

The old stranger was silent. The monk then was compelled to ask the old stranger this question...  “Tell me, do you know anything about enlightenment?”

At that the old stranger dropped his bundle onto the ground.

 Just like that the monk was enlightened.  

At which point the monk asked. “Now what?”

Earlier this year I was in my office here meeting with a new family. Their children are with us and their son is about ten years old. He was reading Genesis, specifically the story of Adam and Eve.

He describes how Satan gets Eve to eat the apple, by telling her that God lied to her and that she will not die if she eats the apple. She will gain important  knowledge.

I asked him, “ Did Eve die when she ate the apple?”
“Not right away” he replied.

How do you feel about that?

“That bothers me.’

I said yes, exactly. We human beings are bothered by the knowledge that we are born and that we die. It is something he will get to think about and wrestle with his whole life.

The Book of Life is open. These are the Days of Awe, the Jewish High Holy days. The ten days between the New Year and the day of Atonement.

The Book of Life is open. It opens for this year, 5757,  on Rosh Hashanah, and closes at the end of the Yom Kippur, the day of Atonement. The ten days in between are called the days of Awe.

Rosh Hashanah is a time of remembrance. A time to taste fresh apples dipped in sweet honey.

Yom Kippur begins tonight. It is a day of fasting and prayer. It is a solemn day for fasting, reflection, repentence. For the asking for and giving of forgiveness. A day to envision the possibility of reconciliation.

Forgiveness and reconciliation is a theme in all great religions.  “Atonement” can be broken down into: “At-one-ment”, implying that when we forgive and are forgiven, we are brought back into relationship with one another. Within our self, with our life, with God. It is a place where we might find wholeness. It is holy ground. It is not easy.

I knew an older woman …who had dragged her leg…for years avoiding surgery on her hip. She feared doctors and preferred the pain she knew to the unknown. Until she could avoid it no longer. Her surgery was successful but she still dragged her leg.

For over a year after completely successful hip surgery she was still holding onto that habit. In fact the habit was causing her harm…She was unable to stop it by herself…no matter how much she understood…She had adapted to this bad habit.

After a while she lost faith that it could be different….she was disappointed…in her doctors, self, her body, God.  The denial set in.  She came to believe that she felt better walking dragging her leg.

Are you attached to a belief that keeps you off balance? What unhealthy relationship, or practice or have you been clinging to?  Is there anything weighing you down? Who is it that you are still arguing with.  Are working out your justifications.   Are your old prides getting in the way.

Is it time for you to forgive?  If so, who would you forgive?  Yourself, some one else, someone right here?  Even if they haven’t said I’m sorry? Even if they are clueless that they hurt you?

It is not easy to “I am sorry.”
 
At our Board retreat yesterday, we worked in the living room of the board president.  One of her white chairs had some indelible blue marker on it. Her two year old grandbaby had used the chair, briefly,  as a chalk board.

Mom took him over to grandma and asked him to say “ I am sorry.” He could only hide his face in shame.  He could not say I sorry. Of course Grandma forgave him long before.

It seems to me that to be able to begin a new year- while the book of life is open - requires the element of forgiveness.

At the time of the Jewish New year there is a custom where you throw bread crumbs into the water, as a symbol of throwing away your sins. Usually they’re simple bread crumbs. But Rabbi Richard Israel, inspired by Robbie Fein, created a varied menu of bread options as tashlick. These are but a few.

for ordinary sins use white bread
exotic sins use French bread
particularly dark sins use pumpernickel
for complex sins multi grain
for twisted sins use pretzels
tasteless sins use rice cake
sins of indecision use waffles
recurring slip ups- banana bread
for silliness nut bread
excessive use of irony use rye bread
for theft use stolen
promisquity- hot buns
promisquity with gentiles- hot cross buns
Pride- puff pastry
For dropping in with calling first- pop overs

You all get angel food cake for bearing with me…

Forgiveness is not easy to do at any age.

Here I want to quote you from John MacDougal.

“Forgiveness is giving up hope for a better past. Resentment is expecting the past to change. Forgiveness is accepting the past as real, accepting our injuries are real, and accepting that our lives are changed because of those injuries.

When we forgive, ourselves and others, the past can become the past, part of history, part of who we are, without dominating our present.  It helps to believe that we do not have to do this by ourselves.”                 John MacDougal  

Forgiveness is a kind of grieving process. Forgiveness is a layered process.
It does not mean we have not been hurt, wronged.
Forgiveness does not mean that we have no boundaries.

Let me be clear.
Forgiveness, does not mean that we have to abandon safety.

In the book, Autumn Gospel – Kathleen Fischer writes that the ultimate freedom of spirit comes only with the breakthrough of forgiveness…”In forgiving and being forgiven we are restored to the human community. We no longer deny our limitations, failings, and dependence on others.”

Forgiveness is a profoundly important aspect of every religion. When we forgive, asked or unbidden- we bring into life that which binds us to each other..our humanity. We are more like each other than we are different.
This wisdom, is key if peace is to be possible in this world of religiously inspired strife.

Religion at its best, invites us  to put our baggage down…

The monk then was compelled to ask the stranger this question...  “Tell me, do you know anything about enlightenment?”

Baggage is a burden. Walt Whitman talks about that…”My precious burdens Whitman says… My precious burdens I carry them wherever I go… “
Our old failures get as heavy as heavy as our children’s back packs  And we carry them around… Do you know why angels can fly? Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly…

How can you take yourself lightly if you are carrying around old baggage.

Throw your sins into the water. Reconcile to your humanity, let go of what gets in your way of being connected to the vital life giving force of the universe…at heart of Universe…God, Goddess, Great Spirit…or use no name at all..for naming is the final obstacle  and it too gets in the way of the great connection…

I read somewhere that forgiveness is not something we “do” it is something we discover.
Sometimes in a dream.

“Last night I dreamt- marvelous error- that I had beehive  and the bees were makes sweet honey from my old failures…”

The book of life is open: It is not open forever. We are human. Like Eve discovered.

There are Four things we need to say to those we love before we die:

Please forgive me.
I forgive you.
I love you.
Thank you.

Please forgive me. I forgive you. I love you. Thank you.

That monk went to his master and asked for permission to go to the mountains to seek enlightenment in an isolated cave.

He met an old stranger carrying a huge bundle on his back...winding his way down the mountain...towards the monk. He asked the monk where he was heading.

The monk replied, " I am heading to the furthest mountain to find a cave in which to meditate...I wills stay there until I die or realize something".

Silence.

The monk then was compelled to ask the stranger this question...  “Tell me, do you know anything about enlightenment?”

The old stranger dropped his bundle onto the ground.

 Just like that the monk was enlightened.  

He put down his defenses, his burdens. His vanity.   The monk had another question…

Now what?

At that the old stranger smiled, picked up his bundle and continued down the path...
Isn’t that the truth!

These are Days of Awe because if we reconcile with our lives, however aweful we may feel about some of our life, it is an awe filled, awe inspiring, awesome moment in a life.  
 
Every day is an opportunity to put down our burdens… and pick them up …in a new way… that is THE challenge and opportunity. That is THE INVITATION in community.

The monk still had to pick it all up again…and continue on his path…there still will be troubles there will still be death…disease, illness, suffering…loss, sadness, grief, conflict, hurts, misunderstandings, clumsiness, every day.
We are human beings…
 
Hold out your begging bowl…for the possibility of healing…
for love, care, compassion…it is a new year

The book of life is open in these then days and tomorrow night it will close for the year..and yes- we are bothered by truth we do not live forever…it is THE baggage we human beings carry with us…
But it is a New Year!
L’Shana Tovah – May you have a good year


Copyright Barbara Fast 2006
May be used with attribution.

Print This Page   Email This Page