Channing Memorial Church
Unitarian Universalist
Ellicott City, MD
The Reverend Susan LaMar
October 19, 2003

"Reverence"

 

First Reading                    Lao-Tzu

A good traveler has no fixed plans
and is not intent upon arriving.
A good artist lets his intuition
lead him wherever it wants.
A good scientist has freed himself of concepts
and keeps his mind open to what is.

Thus the Master is available to all people
and doesn’t reject anyone.
He is ready to use all situations
and doesn’t waste anything.
This is called embodying the light.

 

Second Reading: Wings, Mary Oliver

I saw the heron
            poise
                        like a branch of white petals
                                    in the swamp,

 in the mud that lies
            like a glaze,
                        in the water
                                    that swirls its pale panels

 of reflected clouds;
I saw the heron shaking
                        its damp wings –
                                    and then I felt

 an explosion –
            a pain –
                        also a happiness
                                    I can hardly mention

 as I slid free –
            as I saw the world
                        through those yellow eyes –
                                    as I stood like that, rippling,

 under the mottled sky
            of the evening
                        that was beginning to throw
                                    its dense shadows.

 No! said my heart, and drew back.
            but my bones knew something wonderful
                        about the darkness –
                                    and they thrashed in their cords,

 they fought, they wanted
            to lie down in that silky mash
                        of the swamp, the sooner
                                    to fly.

 The President of the Unitarian Universalist Association, The Reverend Bill Sinkford, has been provoking deep thought and a lot of discomfort and controversy and conflict in our denomination in the last year or so. That is as it should be! In case Unitarian Universalist congregations all over this country, Canada and the rest of the world were being too agreeable within and among ourselves, he has issued a challenge that has gotten many people all riled up. He makes a speech somewhere in the country, writes an article for the UU World, the denominational magazine that goes to all members, and we all go nuts. Some of us say, “Boy oh boy, it’s about time someone said those things. I’ve been waiting for it for years.” Others say, “Who the blankety blank does he think he is, talking like that! He clearly doesn’t ‘get it’ when it comes to Unitarian Universalism! What’s the matter with the guy?” They write letters to the editor of the UU World. When his remarks make the local press, they write letters to the editor of their local papers taking stands one way or the other.  

And Bill Sinkford just smiles. . . . . 

So what is this [volcano] erupting in our denomination? It is Mr. Sinkford’s call for  Unitarian Universalism to find and claim – or perhaps reclaim -- a vocabulary of “reverence.” Of worship. Of God and of ultimacy and of mystery. Of the holy and the sacred.  

Some of the comments people are making I find totally baffling. I would have thought that we were totally comfortable with an extremely wide range of approaches to that which is holy and sacred. Yet the language with which some people are responding is the language of fear and conspiracy. One person referred to religious language as “mumbo-jumbo religiosity.” One person quoted in the Los Angeles Times, an atheist and lifelong Unitarian, said that she was monitoring what she sees as a “creeping theism.”  Creeping theism? What the heck does that mean? There have always been theists in our denomination as well as atheists and agnostics, and folks who reject an label at all. And it is interesting to watch people react to the call, which includes an invitation for the denomination to grow, with a desire to stay small. One person says he was specifically seeking a “smaller population that would harbor [him as a non-theist] who aligned with the social justice issues of the UUA.” Interesting that he wants to among a small population of non-theists, rather than a large population of non-theists and others who align with social justice issues. We are not just ambivalent about our language – we are ambivalent about how many of us we want! 

One at a time, ministers all across the country are picking up on the theme of religious language, a vocabulary of reverence and preaching on it, perhaps taking a position in agreement with him or disagreeing with him, or somehow weighing in on the controversy. This morning is my turn. 

Except that I am going to start in a different place. I am going to start in a different place because of where I believe this particular congregation is within this whole discussion, controversy, conflict, whatever you want to call it. I just tend to call it Unitarian Universalism. 

The different place I am going to start from is drawn from my sense that there is a stunning consistency in this particular congregation about what it means to be a church. [Please note that I used the term consistency, not unanimity!] You who have founded this church or subsequently found it are not afraid of the language of reverence, of the sacred, of the holy. The founders of this congregation were intentionally open and affirming of religious language and that has appealed to others.  

And yet, we as a congregation are not quite all the way there yet either, and as we grow the conversation will continue and continue and continue. You have heard me say before, and will hear me say again, that this continuing conversation is the “there.”  

What I am going to do this morning is push a bit on what we are supposed to do with this reverence after we have it. 

To do that, let me first backtrack a bit to talk about what reverence is. The dictionary defines it as a feeling of profound awe and respect and even love.[1] It cross references the word honor. I guess it is all of that, but I am left a bit flat by that definition. Reverence for includes a spaciousness that for me isn’t sufficiently captured by that definition.  

So I turned to another source, a book given to me last year, written by a philosopher. This philosopher offers an intriguing approach, by identifying reverence as a virtue – a forgotten virtue, in his opinion.[2] He locates virtues within a system of ethics, and defines virtues as a capacity to have certain feelings and emotions which incline those who have them to do what is right. Reverence, in this system, in his framework, is the “well developed capacity to have feelings of awe, respect, and shame when [and this is the most important part] these are the right feelings to have.”[3]  The well-developed capacity to have feelings of awe, respect, and shame when these are the right feelings to have.  

So having reverence just because someone says you should is not reverence. And, he tweaks us to include a bit of shame, because if we learn we have had reverence for someone or some thing that does not warrant it, it is our feelings of shame that will help us to change. By this definition of reverence, much of what we might say is irreverent is in fact reverent. Our philosopher describes this as follows:

“When people praise a film or a song or a book for its irreverence, I think they almost always are using the wrong word. They mean to give praise for boldness, independence, honesty, and a boisterous contempt for anything pretentious or arrogant. All this is compatible with reverence.”[4] 

The interesting challenge here at Channing, it seems to me, is how to practice with one another in a Unitarian Universalist Church that from the start did not shy away from religious or reverent language.  

As with the woman who was concerned about “creeping theism,”  the worry, it seems to me, is for each of us to learn and practice engaging with those who have totally different perspectives. Not to see it as “creeping,” – creeping theism, creeping atheism, creeping paganism, creeping Buddhism -- but as a source of wonder, and opportunity to learn about someone else’s capacity for awe.  

I’m thinking of  a woman who came last year to my mining for treasure and contemplative conversations classes. She, too, is a lifelong atheist. I’ll never forget one evening when she blurted out in frustration, “but I just don’t have any spirituality. I get fed and nourished and grow best and thrive in my relationships with family and friends.” And I replied simply, “so that is your spirituality. What’s wrong with that?” The look on her face was priceless. Never before had anyone affirmed her way of being in the world, that which fed her and was most meaningful and truthful in her life as spiritual. It had always been defined as non-spiritual, or a-spiritual. I would go so far as to call it God, but that is not what is most important. The reality is what is important, not what it is called. Reverence.

 Our philosopher, gives a wonderful description of a moment of reverence among a group, in this case a group of amateur musicians. Listen to his words describing a scene: 

“The four amateur musicians in a pool of light have reached the last note of Mozart’s ‘Dissonant’ Quartet, and they have done so more or less at the same time. They find contact with each other’s eyes, all looking to the first violin to see how long to draw out the note. They fall silent for a moment, subdued by a sense of awe none of them could fully explain. They are not impressed by their own playing; all are conscious of measures counted incorrectly, of pitches missed. They know the piece, however, and they have been aware of harmonies they have not played or heard: from one perfectly resolved dissonance they can extrapolate the perfections of the piece.”[5] 

So they know they have not done the piece perfectly; yet something happened. Reverence. Woodruff describes what he thinks happened:  

“(1) The musicians have been engaged, more or less harmoniously, on a project as a group; (2) their project involved ceremony [the chairs and music stands arranged in a certain way, respectful discussion of what to play, decision deferred to the first violin, no audible complaints about the viola’s first note, and so on. . .] (3) they have felt themselves largely without ego; (4) they have felt themselves to be part of a clearly defined hierarchy that was painless for all of them; and (5) they have achieved in the end a shared feeling of inarticulate awe. . . .

A sense of impending awe” says Woodruff, “allows the ego to slide back in the order of awareness, and that makes the hierarchy painless, and so the four people become able to play as a group.”[6] 

A “striking absence” from this scene, says Woodruff, is any mention of God or faith. “The first violin believes that nature itself is divine, the second violin is a Lutheran, the viola is a Jew, and the cellist is an agnostic. Yet they have been united in reverence.”[7] 

I would like to see us use this story of the imperfect amateur musicians as a parable for a religious community – specifically this religious community.  

The Commonwealth of God is like . . . imperfect musicians finding reverence as they strive to make music together.  

Perhaps I am drawn by the underlying assumption of amateurness – the imperfect musicians playing simply for the joy of playing, the joy of producing the music from out of their bodies and through their instruments. 

Isn’t that kind of like what is going on here, theologically? Imperfect people – us – coming together for the joy of exploring whatever it is that grows our capacity for awe. The joy of coming together not for perfection, or sure salvation, but for the sometimes  amateurish discussions and conversations about what each of us holds most dear. Coming together to have our own “ah-ha” moments of insight and awe, and to speak of those moments to one another without any expectation of it being downplayed or ridiculed because it is not part of a preconceived doctrine, whether held by the church as a whole or by some other individual within the church. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could all drop our egos about our own journeys, and share conversation about one another’s imperfect, incorrectly counted measures of spirit, because every once in a while we will hear a perfectly resolved dissonance? 

This kind of reverence, the kind that we bring together into community, is akin to both humility and empathy. As our philosopher suggests, it involves allowing our ego to slip away – humility. It also involves a deep listening to another, in the case of a community like this, many others, in a way that allows us to open and grow and change.

 It is poetry that captures this best. Think, for example, about Mary Oliver’s words from the reading this morning: 

An explosion, a pain – also a happiness I can hardly mention

As I slid free – as I saw the world through those yellow eyes . . .  

No! said my heart, and drew back. But my bones knew something wonderful about the darkness – and they thrashed in their cords. 

That is a true empathy. When we listen to another’s journey and really hear their reality for the first time. To see through their eyes, into their truth. To take it on to ourselves and into ourselves with a depth of understanding we have not had before. When we revere their reality. Beyond respect. Way beyond tolerance. Far beyond acceptance. It is an integration of our being, our truth – our bones and our cords --  with those of others. It does not mean that we must give up our own “first choice” of spiritual path, although we may, or it may be altered significantly. We will find ourselves seeing through a set of “yellow eyes” and then green eyes, and then turquoise eyes – each new experience changes us a bit. That silky mash of the swamp contains thousands of seeds and microbes each nourishing a different bit of our own spiritual body and the body of this church. 

We have much work to do together as we work to become a little subset of a divine/human commonwealth. For example there are words in our present mission-vision statement that are hot-button words for some of you – some because you want them changed, and some of you because you don’t want them changed, some of you ambivalent. What a golden opportunity to figure out what to do with our reverence! How to put into practice the profound spirituality that you have brought here through reverent, though imperfect conversation! This is what we will  begin with the “Start-up Follow-up” on November 9^th, and beyond. Through a deep circle, through a conversational technique that allows each one of you to be heard, we will begin to make our imperfect but awe-inspiring music together, to feel the transformation of our bones and our cords. Please come.