Walk, Don't Walk

It's one of my favorite images in the play, The Search for Intelligent Life in the Universe, by Jane Wagner, the award-winning playwright and life partner of Lily Tomlin. The main character, Trudy, a gentle and wacky bag lady, finds herself standing on the corner of Walk, Don't Walk. It seems that she has told the intergalactic travelers that she is instructing in the art of human life that she'll meet them there around lunchtime - but instead she finds herself standing there alone, waiting at the corner of Walk, Don't Walk.

Trudy: Now, since I put reality on the backburner, my days are jam-packed and fun filled. Like some days, I go hang out around seventh avenue; I love to do this old joke: I wait for some music-loving tourist from one of the hotels on central park to go up and ask someone "How do I get to Carnegie Hall?" Then I run up and yell, "PRACTICE!" The expression on peoples' faces is priceless. I never could have done that stuff when I was in my right mind. I'd be worried people would think I was crazy. When I think of all the fun I missed, I try not to be bitter.

Now I'm not here to advocate losing our minds in quite the way Trudy did if we can help it, but I do think that a tight grip on our own, over-individualized version of reality can cause us a bit of trouble sometimes. Perhaps you know what I'm talking about. When all we can see are our bank accounts and our career trajectories, when we start to care too much about what others think of us, when the spontaneity and fun has slipped out of our lives, when we get lost, letting our values go by the wayside in favor of ease and comfort, declaring that we do enough already, that we can't possibly let another story of suffering or tale of oppression into our minds and hearts - when we forget the innumerable blessings we live with simply by chance - it is then, I think, that we need to pause on the corner of Walk, Don't Walk and listen more closely to Trudy's wisdom.

Reality, Trudy tells us, "is no more than a collective hunch," - the "leading cause of stress of those who cope with it."[1] And the kind of reality that I choose to believe that Trudy is talking about - the kind of reality that keeps us mired in self and devoid of laughter, the kind that holds us back from doing what we can to make our lives and the lives of others even just a little bit better - is something worth trying to shake.

So this morning as we gather on the first Sunday of the year, here on the corner of Walk, Don't Walk, I invite us all to shift our perspective a bit. And I ask us to give this perspective shifting a try not only because I trust that gentle and wacky baglady in Jane Wagner's play, but because I believe that there is something fundamentally wrong with our culture and I believe that as fish swimming in that polluted water, we cannot escape the toxic effects of its poison. Our culture - you may have noticed - seems to thrive on individualism and more recently our modern day theologians warn that we are slipping into the grasp of acedia.

Described as a debilitating demon as far back as the fourth century by the desert monks - acedia plagued the faithful and now, centuries later, modern theologians are taking it up again and claiming it as a predominant feature of our culture.

The master preacher, Fred Craddock, describes the modern day experience of acedia as something we might recognize as compassion fatigue. It's "the ability to look at a starving child...with a swollen stomach and say, 'Well, it's not my kid.'...Or to see an old man sitting alone among the pigeons in the park and say, 'Well...that's not my dad.; It is that capacity of the human spirit to look out upon the world and everything God made and say, I don't care." (Acedia and Me, 115)

Simply understood, acedia is a lot like sloth - but it is not quite right to think of acedia as mere laziness. After all it would be hard to claim laziness for many in our country. Our culture, the author Wendy Wasserstein writes, glorifies "people who do Pilates at dawn, work their BlackBerrys obsessively on the morning commute, multitask all day at the office, and put a gourmet meal on the table at night after the kids come home from French and fencing lessons, but, Wasserstein asks, 'are these hyperscheduled, overactive individuals really creating anything new? Are they guilty of passion in any way? Do they have a new vision for their government? For their community? Or for themselves?" (Acedia and Me, 130-1) "When you achieve true slothdom," the author Wendy Wasserstein claims, when we find ourselves slipping into the grasp of acedia, it is not that we are lazy, but rather that we have come to the place where we "have no desire for the world to change." (Acedia and Me, 130) We are content with things just as they are - largely because they are ok for us.

In her book, Acedia and Me, the spiritual writer, Kathleen Norris, notes that acedia has taken root in our lives "when we complacently measure the world by the scope of our own limited outlook." (Acedia and Me, 127) - and sadly, she says and I agree, "As we grow more reluctant to care about anything past our perceived needs, acedia asserts itself as a primary characteristic of our time." (Acedia and Me, 126)

I believe that Norris is right when she claims that a self-centered approach to life has taken over our culture - and I also agree with the fourth century desert monks that acedia may in fact be the most difficult of thoughts to overcome. I know without a doubt that when we find ourselves trapped within the isolating version of a false reality we can become imprisoned in our own fears and desires. I know without a doubt that when we cannot see past our own perceived needs we miss out not only on the pain of the world, but on its joy and beauty as well. And I know without a doubt that this can be a lonely place - a place where it becomes all too easy to lose perspective and lose our way.

When I think of folks losing their way, I can't help but remember the story of the founder of American Universalism, John Murray. Now many of us probably already know some of this story. Way back in the 1700s, Thomas Potter, a well-to do but illiterate farmer who had come to believe in the concept of universal salvation built a chapel on his land for the preacher he knew would arrive. But after the chapel was built Potter waited and waited and waited - and as he waited - faithfully believing - over twenty years passed.

Finally, a preacher did arrive in the form of John Murray, a man who found himself at Potter's door after the ship he had sailed on from England ran aground on a sand bar off the New Jersey coast. Thomas Potter, we're told, exclaimed with excitement - "I've been waiting for you" - when Murray arrived and begged him to stay on and preach in his chapel. It was a Friday, and Murray had promised himself that he would never preach again, but Potter's faith moved him, and after much pleading John Murray made a deal with Thomas Potter. If the ship was still stuck on the sand bar come Sunday morning, Murray would take up the pulpit. Well the ship stayed put and John Murray did take up Potter's pulpit. From that moment forward, John Murray preached the message of Universal Salvation to all who would hear and soon after he founded the first Universalist church and became known as the founder of Universalism in America.

This is an amazing story, there is no doubt. Many have called it our one and only miracle story, and it is surely a story full of wonder and possibility no matter how you see it. But for me, this story as it is so often told leaves out the telling of the real miracle - the miracle that happens not by chance or providence, the miracle that happened then and continues to happen each and every day when we look for healing and redemption not from above - but from between.

I want to explain what I mean - and to do that I have to begin our story a bit further back in time. Before John Murray ever arrived on our shores, back when he still lived in England - he had served as a Methodist lay preacher and he came to embrace Universalist theology after hearing one of our brightest stars. His peers, however, weren't too happy about his conversion and he was soon excommunicated from his spiritual home. Soon after this disappointment, Murray's beloved wife and son both fell ill and try as he might to save them, they both died, leaving him doctor's bills which he could not pay. Thrown into debtor's prison, our hero, John Murray, fell deep into depression. Upon his release from prison he resolved to make a fresh start in the New World, declaring that he would put aside his life's calling and swearing never to preach again.

As John Murray stumbled upon our shores he arrived depressed and nearly broken. Acedia had taken hold and our hero had understandably lost the ability to care about anything beyond his individual perceived needs. This man of great ideas who had been battered and almost broken by the storms of loss and of life had come to a place where he was content just to survive - content to settle for being less than he dreamed could be - content to let the cares of the world wash over him and leave him unaffected. He could not envision a brighter future or summon the energy to create one - until he met his unlikely friend in faith, Thomas Potter, that is. And this, for me, is where the second miracle of the story occurs. The miracle that comes from between us.

Potter's embrace of John Murray for exactly who he was, his faith in Murray's message and his reason for being, his encouragement and wagering, his unconditional love and support literally brought John Murray back to life. In so many ways, I believe that the restoration of John Murray's spirit by the love of Thomas Potter - this back-story to our often told tale - is the real miracle. It is the miracle of what can happen between us when we open our hearts. It is a story of rebirth and salvation here on earth - and it is the kind of story many of us know in our own lives and in the lives of those we love.[2]

Because after all, who among us has never felt sad or broken, and who among us has never seen this kind of despair in another? Who among us has never known loneliness or isolation, and who among us has never lifted a hand to help another - making a difference we never could have anticipated? Who among us has never received a phone call or a card or a word of encouragement at just the right moment? Who has never had someone believe in them when you were feeling unsure yourself?

These miracles of connection grounded in love happen between us and save us each and every day as we struggle with the wonder and the challenge of being human.

So many worries, so many troubles and winds of life can knock us off balance. It takes fellow travelers on the journey and unlikely friends in faith to steady us and restore our hope, to call us back to our vision and our values - demanding that we loosen our grip on our fears and open our hands to the unknown possibilities of the future. We need one another, here in this religious community - to keep fresh before us the moments of our high resolve - to wash away the dust and the grit that can creep in on our journey - we need one another if we are going to shake loose the acedia that has taken root in our culture, that feeling of not caring and at its worst, of not even caring that we don't care. We need one another if we are to shake loose from these bonds and remember that to which our lives are committed.

Now there are days, of course, when we will feel discouraged on our journey. Days when we will wonder if it is worth drawing together the little energy we have to make any effort at all - and on these days we need on another more than ever.

I for one find inspiration here in our church community on those days, and also in the stories of others. On days like this I remember the story of Greg Mortenson - the mountaineer and founder of CAI - the Central Asia Institute - a man who repeatedly risks his life to spread diplomacy one book at a time, building schools for both boys and girls in the heart of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Told in the book, Three Cups of Tea, Mortenson's tale takes wide and dangerous turns - but the story that sticks with me today is a simpler one - and it takes place in perhaps the most unlikely of spots, in the middle of a Mr. Sports store in Apple Valley, Minnesota.

Greg Mortenson, you see, was preparing to give one of his slideshows about the CAI - hoping to raise enough money to keep the struggling agency afloat. Mortenson hated public speaking, he claimed, and after twenty minutes spent setting up two hundred folding chairs as store employees buzzed around him sorting inventory for the after-Christmas sale - Mortenson found himself sweaty, tired, and dejected. Despite his best efforts at publicity his audience held exactly two people, both store employees. Unsure of what to do, Mortenson fired up the projector and began his presentation - showing slides of the mountain, K2, and "images of Fatima, Nargiz, and their classmates, smiling over their textbooks in the newly built Gultori Girls Refugee School." As these images flashed across the screen, Mortenson noticed a professorial-looking middle-aged male customer leaning around a corner, trying to ...study a display of ...watches. Mortenson paused to smile at him," he remembers, "and the man took a seat."

Mortenson spoke for thirty minutes more, sharing his passion for education as he detailed the crushing poverty that these children faced every day and unveiling his plans to "begin constructing schools the following spring at the very edge of northern Pakistan, along Afghanistan's border." (Three Cups of Tea, 227) As the presentation ended, six hands applauded and the small audience departed, leaving Mortenson to retrieve the 200 hundred CAI newsletters he'd placed on each of the seats. "On the seat of the last chair in the last row, next to the display of digital watches, Mortenson found an envelope torn from the back of a CAI newsletter. Inside was a personal check for twenty thousand dollars." (Three Cups of Tea, 228)

With a pause and a smile on what surely felt like a low day, our intrepid mountaineer and school builder welcomed this professorial-looking middle-aged man into his audience and into his life's work, and in doing so, he saved them both.

Some days, I know, it is hard to believe that our small actions matter. Some days it is hard to believe that others might share our vision, that true change for us as individuals or as a community is really possible. But as spiritual people committed to aligning our lives with our values it is up to us to do what we can to connect more deeply with our best selves, with each other, and with our understanding of the holy. As spiritual people, we are called to act in love and hope to create something new - embracing the best vision we can imagine for ourselves and for our world community.

When we reach out to one another we cannot always know who we will help - or if we will help anyone at all. And that is ok. Sometimes the actions we take simply keep our own hearts from hardening with despair and that is enough. Other times, our actions set in motion wheels we never could have foreseen. Whatever the outcome, it is worth the risk to pause, as the poet Mary Oliver instructs us, when the goldfinches sing out in all of their raucous glory. It is worth the risk to pause, as the great preacher Fred Craddock says, when we see an image of a starving child with a swollen stomach or pass a lonely gentleman in the park. It is worth the risk to pause, I believe, it is worth the risk to pause, to feel, and to act.

So as we stand here on the corner of Walk, Don't Walk, together this morning - allowing ourselves to pause and to feel - may we leave this place renewed in spirit and strengthened in heart - reminded by the poet that "it is a serious thing just to be alive on this fresh morning in this broken world." - challenged by the possibility that this could be the moment when we come to understand "what Rilke meant when he wrote - you must change your life." Let us lean in to the power and wisdom and strength of each other and of this church community as we shake loose the bonds of our sometimes toxic culture, as we believe again and act as if we can and do make a difference in this world.

May it be so, and Amen.

Jen Crow, Associate Minister
January 4, 2009

1. http://www.culturevulture.net/Theater/Tomlin.html
2. Re-told here based on a story by Rev. Liz Strong found at: http://www.uuworld.org/ideas/articles/2745.shtml