Reconciling to the Mystery, by Rev. Linda Olson Peebles, Aug. 23, 2009

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For All Ages by Rev. Linda Olson Peebles, Aug. 23, 2009

        Forty years ago in August, when I was a teenager, asking questions about the mysteries of life, a lot of people my age went to a big music festival which we call Woodstock now. It was a time of musicians and idealists, envisioning a new world.

        In the month leading up to the festival, everything went wrong. The organizers lost the original place where they were supposed to hold the concert. At the last minute, they found a place, arranged for staging and lights and equipment to come in, and got ready for the few thousand folks they thought would arrive. Guess what!? They had guessed wrong. Young people came from all over, thousands and thousands. Not 10 thousand. Not 50 thousand. Not 100 thousand. No. Close to 500 thousand. WAY more than the concert planners guessed.

        Richie Havens – a wonderful singer and composer – was the opening act at Woodstock. Because of the huge crowds filling all the roads and highways into this little farm community in upper state New York, many of the musicians who were scheduled hadn’t arrived. And a lot of their sound equipment was stuck in traffic. So the organizers asked Richie – who had an acoustic guitar and some friends with drums – to do a long first set – he only needed a mike for his voice and one for his guitar.

        He played and he played. After the first hour, they told him to keep playing. So he played and played – every song he knew. And after more than two hours, they said – keep playing! The most famous song he played that day was one he made up – in the moment – on the stage – in front of a huge crowd of eager folks. The song was later called “Freedom”. He pulled this song up from all he was, from all the songs he had heard before, from where he’d come from and who he was – and it came from the eyes and faces of the crowd in front of him. Where did it come from? It was a mystery!

Sometimes the most wonderful things happen not because we plan them or control them – but because we just show up. Like Richie Havens and 500,000 very young music and peace lovers – we show up. And then let the mystery happen. Just our Being Here can make the world amazing. Just our Being Here – ready to sing a new song, ready to clap our hands, ready to be together in love – can bring joy into the world. No matter where we have come from or where we are going, or who we are – each of us is important. Each of us needs to show up, open to the love and the mystery, and then be here! And each of us is beautiful when we do that. Believe that. Believe that.

Sermon

Reconciling to the Mystery, by Rev. Linda Olson Peebles, Aug. 23, 2009

        This summer, I’ve been thinking a lot about how I can, how we can, become reconciled to all the contradictions in life – the joy and sorrow, hope and despair, the way things are and they way we’d like them to be, the journey and the purpose of the journey…

        My thoughts have been interwoven with some stories that I love.

        Here’s another Woodstock tale told on this 40th anniversary. As you know, many of the folks gathered for the festival of love and peace, music and community, also were imbibing and ingesting a wide variety of mind-altering chemicals. It became pretty obvious pretty early in the four-day festival that there was a need for caring response to the folks who had rough reactions to the chemicals. And so an infirmary was set up at what they called the “Hog Farm” and one of the story-tellers on a public radio documentary recalls this scene – watching thousands of trippers over the four days freaking out, coming down the hill toward the Hog Farm for help. One guy was in great distress, and kept yelling “ Florida – 1944 – Joyce!” He was upset and could not be consoled.

         A professional therapist was there and came to him, trying to wrap him in a full hug - “You need body contact.” The guy recoiled and kept yelling “ Florida – 1944 – Joyce!” Another healer came to him, and said “Don’t focus on your hallucinations. See instead the inner eye! Find the inner eye!” And the guy kept yelling “ Florida – 1944 – Joyce!”

        Finally, a scraggly guy, who looked to have some street experience, came to him and said – “What is your name?” “ Florida – 1944 – Joyce!”

        “What is your name?” “ Florida – 1944 – Joyce!”

        “What is your name?” “Bob!”

        “OK. You are Bob. You are tripping. In a few hours you will come down.” And he repeated that several times.

        And Bob got it, and he hung out, being reminded now and again that he was Bob, and that he would come back from this trip soon, and be fine. It seemed to help him. As he came down, the guy who had helped said, “See those folks coming down the hill, all freaked out? That was you a bit ago. Now you help them too.”

        Bob was helped, not by trying to find the inner eye or even by figuring out who Joyce was. He made it through his crisis with just the assurance that stuff happens, that you are you, and that you can help others too. Just being there, in the mystery.

        Here’s another story from this summer. It comes from this summer at the UU Association’s General Assembly in Salt lake City. Each year, several congregations are selected to be honored for some growth they have experienced. They prepare a video telling about themselves, which everyone sees at the big Plenary session. This year, one of the congregations honored was the UUs of Bloomington, Indiana. They showed their video, and everyone applauded, and then a women ran up from the back of this huge room with 5,000 people, and came to the floor mike and asked the Moderator if she could speak. She was excited and breathless, and really motivated to say – “I want to testify that the Bloomington congregation saved my life! 45 years ago, when I was a new college freshman at Indiana University, I was lonely and lost – and I came to the church one morning. They welcomed me in, and showed me they saw me and cared about me. Even though I was an 18-year-old with no money, and sure to leave town when I graduated in 4 years, they were there for me. Because of that congregation, and their welcome to a college student, I became a committed UU (I’d never heard of it before) and over the years have been an active leader in every UU congregation I’ve lived near.”

        She had made it through her crisis with just the assurance that stuff happens, that you are you, and that you can be helped and help others too. Just being there, in the mystery.

       I love that story. And one more summer story, in two parts.

       Part 1 - This spring – in March – I went to a concert in Alexandria, given by Holly Near and a duo called Emma’s Revolution. I’ve been a fan of Emma’s Revolution – that’s Pat Humphries and Sandy O – for years. At the concert I ran into a just-turned 21-year-old, Katie Tyson. She had brought her parents to hear these singers whom she also loved. I had known Katie when she was a child, growing up in the congregation I used to serve, the Mt. Vernon Unitarian Church. It had been a long time since I’d seen her, although I had known she’d been a leader in UU youth work during her high school years. Now she was graduating from Boston University, she had come out as a lesbian, she was in love and in a partnership, and she was filled with joy.

        Then just a month later, while I was in Boston with our Youth Group UU heritage trip, we ran into Katie! The second time I encountered her, after so many years apart. She ran up to us when we visited her church, and gave us a tour of the whole place, even up into the high steeple to see the view and played the bells. She told the youth how important UUism was to her, how important her churches in Boston and in Virginia had been to her, and how much it mattered to stay involved in UUism during college. She had been selected to be the chair of her Boston church’s stewardship campaign that year!

        Then – in June at GA – there was Katie! A leader in young adult programs. I ran into her at an invitation-only party, given by the UUA Moderator. She remarked to me on how meaningful it was for her that we had run into each other three times in a row, after so many years, bringing to her mind where we’d come from, who we were, thinking about where she was going. The meaning behind it all was like a mystery. She told me she was thinking of studying for UU ministry. She felt so empowered by the UU faith and community. It meant everything to her.

        Then – Part 2 of this story. One week after the GA conversation, on a narrow road in Colorado, a car passing a truck in the rain crossed the center line and crashed head-on into Katie’s car, and Katie was dead.

        That’s not the part of this story I love. I love the earlier reunion parts. I am totally captivated by the 2nd part of this story that happened next. Immediately, as news spread of the sudden loss of the beautiful life force of Katie - around the nation, through Facebook and cell phones and then in worship services in Boston and Mt. Vernon – there was such an outpouring of love and support in the shared grief, singing songs, sharing stories, and recommitting to the Spirit of Love found in UUism. It was a testament to Katie – and it was a testament to her UU community. Her minister in Boston, Rev. Kim Crawford Harvey, wrote a lovely note to me telling me how Katie had told her how much the multi-generational ministry at Mt. Vernon had meant to her growing up, and how empowered she had always felt to be a leader in UUism because of it. At the services in Boston and Virginia, youth, young adults, and adults together shared in paying tribute to both Katie and to the community which she had been a part of and had loved.

        Over and over peopple spoke a truth – something Katie had learned at MVUC - We can make it through our crises with just the assurance that stuff happens, that you are you, and that is beautiful, and that you can be helped and help others too. Just being there, in the mystery, in love.

        We UUs don’t teach a dogma; we don’t teach the truth of a specific kind of God or of literal scriptural authority. We don’t make promises we don’t believe in.

        We teach values – that love matters, that we matter, that people together discover answers to the great questions, and seek justice for one another in love.

        We teach that there is a great mystery to it all, and that it is beautiful and powerful to be a part of the mystery, to love the questions and the questioners, and to love those who join us on the journey.

        Some people worry that we need to give sure and certain answers – who is god and who is the one teacher, the one scriptural authority; and what does happen to us after we die? Some people worry that we are not giving our children something to believe in, something to hope for, if we don’t teach a sure and certain dogma.

        But this is what I have found in progressive religious faith. We give our children ourselves and our love. We ask the questions about who we are, and what we do together on our shared journey, and where have we come from and where are we going in this shared life? We celebrate love. And we teach that the transcendent, the wonder, the awe, the holy – all that is felt in our hearts, in our senses - is real, even if so much of this journey remains a mystery. And we teach that mystery is wondrous. We can live in that mystery and believe in the certainty of the power of love and justice-making here and now – by being here with one another.

        This is an endorsement for each of you to make the effort to show up, just be with one another, see one another, and to include seeing people different from you, especially those younger than you! The greatest lesson we teach our children is not in any lesson plan, but in our being there, knowing them and learning with them - as teachers, as caring friends, as trusted advisors who make our faith real by showing up. Over the years, a church community fulfills its calling not just by its just works. It fulfills its calling if it lives out its faith and passes it on to its own children. We are a community of over 1400 adults and 500 children and youth. Every year we ask 120 of you to spend time in learning groups with children and youth on Sunday mornings. To give testimony, by being here with them, evidence that we do believe in Love and Community, even if other answers may be questions and mystery. This is what we are called to do!

        These summer stories are all about how we give each other strength to show up just as we are, to ask the questions and find the meaning, in good times and bad, in crises and in celebration. It may not be easy, but at least if we show up, giving courage to one another to be open to the mystery – then the struggle can become a dance, an embrace, a journey.

        On Katie’s last night at GA, she helped Emma’s Revolution at their concert in Salt Lake City. I share with you part of their theology of living in the mystery, which must have been Katie’s too.

                We are living ‘neath the great big dipper,

                We are washed by the very same rain,

                We are swimming in the stream together,

                Some in power and some in pain.

                We can worship this ground we walk on,

                Cherishing beings that we live beside,

                Loving spirits can live forever,

                We’re all swimming to the other side.*

        How can we reconcile the contradictions in our lives – love and hate, life and death, joy and sorrow, savoring the beauty of the world and struggling to change the ugliness?

        We can reconcile it by seeing it as a whole. And by staying on the journey, with one another, with eyes open to it all. Whether we are on a stage or in a crowd of thousands making it up as we go, or in a small room with one person who is on a bad trip…. Whether we are a busy leaders in a large congregation doing great things, or just a human being seeing the confusion in the eyes of one young person …. Whether we are celebrating the happiness of life and love, or mourning the tragedy of life ended and love heart-broken… We remain – me with you and you with you and us with so many others – brothers and sisters. We remain, faithful to the whole, believing in love, reconciled to the mystery, swimming together. Amen.

*Copyright Pat Humphries

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