First Parish Cohasset

Thought for Contemplation-   ”All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware.” Martin Buber

 “What Will Happen?”

The Rev. Dr. Anita Farber-Robertson

First Parish in Cohasset

 May 20, 2012

Readings:

from Broken Buddha by Meg Barnhouse

What Will Happen?  By Naomi Shihab Nye(attached
below)

 

 

“Don’t worry too much,“ the poet says, “about what job you have.”

 

Easy for her to say.  Easy advice in the abstract, when it is not
your life that is rolling in the storm with you shifting your weight, trying to
find a moment or two of balance so that you can get your bearings and do what
needs to be done.

 

“Don’t worry too much about
what job you have.”

 

Easy for her to say when one
kind of job pays the bills, and other kinds do not.

 

“Don’t worry too much,“ the
poet says, “about what job you have.”

 

But what if she is talking
about something else?  Maybe it is
not  about employment. Maybe she is
talking about what we understand as our job, essentially.

 

Is our job to make everyone
happy?  To fix everyone’s problems?  To make everyone get along?  To support a family?  Or is it to do the best we can? To love
God?  To love our neighbor?

 

What exactly is our job?  Your job?
Is the one you claim the one that is really yours?  Or is it the one sold to you when you were
too young to know any better? Does it change according to your situation?  Is your job to be the rescuer in your family,
but something very different in the world of work or love?  Or, if you push really hard, is it the
same?  Do you keep signing up for the
same job over and over and over again, regardless of the venue?

Well, I am here to tell you that you can change that.  You can give up the job of complainer  or fixer, the job of trouble maker or savior,
the job of loser or of winner or of clown.
You can give it up in your family, your workplace, your circle of
friends.

The church is a good place to begin.  That is one of its most important roles and
missions:  to give us practice in being
our truer selves, our better selves.  To
practice being the community we want to be as well as the people we want to be.
Practice. The church is not perfect.

Oh,

you noticed that…

The church is simply the place where we agree to try.  We agree to try to live up to our aspirations
and our obligations. We agree to try to learn and grow and become a  more compassionate and more just people.

We agree to try.

Trying may seem weak.

I understand that in the
south when someone asks you to be somewhere
or do something you don’t really want to do, the polite answer is “I’ll
try.”

“I’ll try.”    It is, as I understand it, a polite
fiction.  Everyone knows that “I’ll try”
means I won’t be there, or I won’t do it.

So, particularly if you are from the south,
saying, even to yourself “I’ll try,” is an admission  that you won’t get there; you won’t do it.

 

But  we are talking here about the church.  We are
talking about a community that holds us and supports our growth,
including the agreement we make to try to live up to our aspirations and
obligations,  and to try to learn and
grow and become a  more compassionate and
more just people.

We agree to try.

We are warned:

 

 

Perfectionism
makes us weak-rigid, exhausted, afraid of trying something we don’t already
know how to do, and more critical of ourselves and others than we should
be.   We either drive ourselves cruelly,
or we give up.^[1]

 

Hmmmm.

If we are not aiming for
perfection, what are we doing?  If our
job is not to “get it right” what is our job?

I think we can learn something from the world of jazz.  Here we are this morning enjoying jazz, but
do we understand what makes it alive?
What makes it possible?

 

I am not a musician and I do not know all of the
intricacies about jazz.  What  I do know is that while it has rules that
give it form and structure, it is not about rules.  And, it is not about perfection.  Because jazz is a discipline and a practice
that first and foremost creates an environment for creativity and the ability
to continuously realign according to the time, the mood and the situation, it
is not interested in perfection.  Jazz is
not interested in perfection.  It is
interested in beauty.  In
exploration.  In wonder.  In expansion. In discovery. In relationship.
In integrity. In harmony.  But not
perfection.

When a group of jazz musicians play together they share
responsibility for the music they create together, not just for their piece of
it.  They play off and for each
other.  They let one lead and then step
back to let another lead.    There is
fluidity that allows for innovation, surprise and delight…not perfection.

What would that look like in your life?  If there was fluidity in your role?  If you tried to share a job that once was
only ours. Or tried to learn a job that once was someone else’s?  What if you decided that no one in your
office, or your family needed to be the complainer, or the fixer, the weak one
or the strong one, the fool or the winner?
What if all of those jobs were abolished?  What would you do then?  Who would you be?  Would it be scary?  Would it be fun?

In my family growing up I was the smart one.  My middle sister was the graceful and
athletic one, and my youngest sister was the pretty one.

We all knew it was Belinda who was the swimmer, the runner,
agile lover of physical activities.

I read books.    I
never learned how to run or throw a ball. What was the point?  I just didn’t have that gift.  It was Belinda’s.

But God has a sense of humor.  I was given a daughter who was a born
athlete.  She was agile, balanced,
fearless.  The summer she turned four she
spent hours teaching herself to do a cartwheel.
As her mother I knew I needed to support this great love, and signed her
up for gymnastics.

She took to it as though she were born to live in a gym. At
six she was recruited to be on a special team for girls with promise as
competitive gymnasts. By age seven she was spending every day at the gym, and I
was too.  I didn’t know anything about
gyms.  The environment, its practices and
its smells were all strange and foreign to me. I learned to make my way around
the periphery as a parent.

When I was turning 39 they opened a women’s health club in
the same complex as my daughter’s gym.

“Mom, you should go there,” she encouraged.  “Try it out.”

There I was 39 (Jack Benny’s age J), not getting any younger.
Maybe she was right.  Maybe I
should try incorporating some regular physical exercise into my life.
(shudder).  It sounded healthy, but quite
frankly, awful.

I guess the approaching birthday catapulted me over the
resistance and into that women’s gym.  I
was astonished.  I loved it.  I started taking classes three times a week
as suggested. Soon I missed it on the days I didn’t go.  I became a regular.  Now I can hardly remember the me who thought I
didn’t like exercise.  On days I can’t
get to the gym I walk- miles.  And I feel
so good and happy.  To think that I
almost missed it, almost  had a life
without that joy and that health because exercise was “not my job.”  It was Belinda’s.

The poet says:

Don’t
worry too much, what job you will have.

…Work
on what you love,

Your
needs will be met.

 

“Work on what you love.
Your needs will be met.”

Sometimes that means letting
yourself discover new loves, new niches to occupy, new ways of being you.

You stand at a threshold… in the life of this church, and
truly in your own life

Will you choose what you love- or will you take the risk-
and choose what you might grow to love?

 

There is no right or wrong.
It is all your adventure…packed with joy and trepidation.

And of course, I assure
you,  there will be  no perfection.   Embrace and enjoy it for all it is worth.
And it is worth quite a bit.

Blessed be, and Amen.

 

————————————————

 

What Will Happen?

By
Naomi Shihab Nye in Transfer

The honeybee and the monarch,

Whose lives are much shorter
than ours,

Hover briefly in flowers

That don’t have much to
offer.

 

Making distinctions may be
more helpful

Than any great talent.  Knowing which way

To turn at corners, that
little compass needle

Tipping inside your head.

 

Wrap a few words around your
waist- persistence,

resilience-where some
wear passports.

 

Don’t worry too much, what
job you will have.

Alberto said, Work on what
you love,

your needs will be met.

 

No test  can measure anything important.

 

On the bulletin board at the
San Francisco Zen Center,

someone is looking for “an
unobtrusive person”

Whose first duty every
morning will be to make coffee.

 

This could be you.

Thought for Contemplation: “No one’s life is ordinary. We’re all the heroes and heroines, with fate or flaws to bear.” Maeve Binchy

“Ordinary People”
the Rev. Dr. Anita Farber-Robertson
First Parish in Cohasset
Mother’s Day
May 13, 2012
Readings: Why God Made Moms, author unknown
Joy in Ordinary Time by Meg Barnhouse

I was a young mother. Twenty two years old when I brought my just born son home from the hospital and laid him, swaddled tight the way he liked it, in the crib.
I had planned so hard for him. Had waited a year to conceive and then set about my nesting. I made maternity clothes and baby clothes. I took the hand-me-down crib, stripped it and sanded it and painted it with loving care. Especially the wooden relief figures of Bambi and the forest creatures. They were so sweet.
I’d made new slip covers of beautiful autumnal colors for the loveseat in his bedroom, and painted green and white circus tent stripes on the ceiling, so he would have something interesting to see as he stared up all day from his stranded position in the crib.
I had dreamed and longed and planned for him; it seemed for as long as I could remember.
And then he was there. There! There in my house, in the crib I had painted, on the sheets with little pictures of Jack and Jill. Tiny. Having lost weight in the hospital, just barely 7 pounds. Tiny.
I looked at him from what seemed like a safe distance- midway between the crib and the door. And I trembled. Trembled. This little creature trusted me. The universe had entrusted me with his care, and he, naïve, innocent, unknowing, had trusted the universe and now trusted me. His life was in my hands. And I had not a clue of what I was doing.
It took me years to realize that none of us did. Not my friends, and shockingly, not my parents. They had been faced with the same outrageous demand as the one I had encountered:
“Make it up!”
“Nobody really knows what they are doing. Just make it up!”
I loved my son, with a love so deep it hurt. But it didn’t really help me to know what he needed from a parent. I had to make it up and wait thirty or forty years to hear from him the verdict.
Happily he is a forgiving child. And if the verdict is not completely “not guilty” it is at least forgiven. It is not so easy with all of my children. Neither is it so easy with all of our parents or for that matter, grandparents. Some mistakes are huge. And between them are the things we did right, or they did right…the right words spoken, the right silence allowed to hold us, the right acknowledgement, or dismissal of a mistake or relinquishing of an embarrassment. The right things…They are all there too.
How old were you when you realized that your parents did the best they could? Maybe it wasn’t good enough. But it was the best they had in them to give or to do.
How old were you when you realized that your parents were people?
I remember how old I was when I realized, or rather was confronted with the reality that my teacher was a person.
I was in the second grade. We were in the supermarket- my mother, my sisters and I, and there, in the produce section, squeezing the fruit and vegetables, was Mrs. Dowling. Mrs. Dowling, my teacher.
What was she doing there? What was she doing there! my little confused self screamed in my head. But I said it softly, I think.
“Mom, what is she doing here?” I am sure I whispered.
“She’s shopping, just like the rest of us. She’s buying her groceries.”
My mother said it as though it were simple. But it wasn’t simple. It was turning my whole world upside down.
My teacher went shopping. Bought groceries. My teacher ate, had a life and a home. I was astounded.
All this time I had thought…I had thought that she lived in the “Teacher’s Closet.”
You know- that closet that was in the front of our classroom- the one with the huge, wide oak door and the gold letters stenciled on it “Teacher’s Closet.”
What was a Teacher’s Closet for, if it wasn’t for storing the teacher when we weren’t there in the classroom?
You may have had a shock like that when you realized your teacher was a person, or when you realized that your mother was a person, that she had parents too, parents who had raised her, taught her things, made her angry, encouraged and embarrassed her. That she was scared of things and learned things, and was once very small.
The Apostle Paul said in his wise letter to the people of the church in Corinth
“When I was a child I spoke like a child; I thought like a child;’
I reasoned like a child. When I became an adult I put an end to childish ways. (I Cor. 13:11)

It isn’t always easy.

My mother once told me about her earliest memory. She was a baby standing in the crib, crying and crying and no one was coming to take her out. She was furious and frustrated. That part I could understand. Furious and frustrated. She still was that some of the time. But for the longest time it created the weirdest picture in my mind, my mother with her glasses and thick head of wavy brown hair standing in a crib angry and frustrated, crying to be picked up.
Eventually I got the mental picture of my mother to shrink and look more like a baby, but it was hard to get rid of those glasses!
She would laugh now it she were still here listening me to tell it. She could always step back and laugh.
Meg Barnhouse says:
Celebrate being alive, drawing breath, celebrate that you are achingly sad today and that it will pass. It is good to feel feelings.
Celebrate that there is a love so big and good that it hurt to lose it. That there was a time so sweet that you ache, remembering it.#

We’ve had all kinds of mothers, present, absent, kind and cruel- some of them all in the same person. And here we are: full grown. No matter how much we may have wanted more, somehow we got enough to live and grow and thrive.
Celebrate being alive, drawing breath, celebrate that you are achingly sad today and that it will pass.#

Through the confusion of that complex jumble of feelings, of hurt, and love and gratitude, I seek a celebration…a simple celebration that honors what has been good.
And so I close with this poem, by poet laureate Billy Collins:

The other day I was ricocheting slowly
off the blue walls of this room,
moving as if underwater from typewriter to piano,
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
when I found myself in the L section of the dictionary
where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.

No cookie nibbled by a French novelist
could send one into the past more suddenly
a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp
by a deep Adirondack lake
learning how to braid long thin plastic strips
into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.

I had never seen anyone use a lanyard
or wear one, if that¹s what you did with them,
but that did not keep me from crossing
strand over strand again and again
until I had made a boxy
red and white lanyard for my mother.

She gave me life and milk from her breasts,
and I gave her a lanyard.
She nursed me in many a sick room,
lifted spoons of medicine to my lips,
laid cold face-cloths on my forehead,
and then led me out into the airy light
and taught me to walk and swim,
and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard.
Here are thousands of meals, she said,
and here is clothing and a good education.
And here is your lanyard, I replied,
which I made with a little help from a counselor.

Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,
strong legs, bones and teeth,
and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,
and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.
And here, I wish to say to her now,
is a smaller gift- not the worn truth

that you can never repay your mother,
but the rueful admission that when she took
the two-tone lanyard from my hand,
I was as sure as a boy could be
that this useless, worthless thing I wove
out of boredom would be enough to make us even. #

It’s not about being even, or even being fair. It is about celebrating ordinary life and ordinary people. Ordinary people, who might happen to be your mother.
Amen.

Thought for Contemplation: “Money moving in the direction of our highest commitments nourishes our world and ourselves. Let your soul inform your money and your money express your soul.” -Lynne Twist, The Soul of Money

“To Make Your Soul Grow Wings”
the Rev. Dr. Anita Farber-Robertson
First Parish in Cohasset

April 15, 2012

Reading:
Sometimes there’s a mountain that I must climb
Even after I’ve climbed one already
But my legs are tired now
And my arms need a rest
My mind is too weary right now
But I must climb before the storm comes
Before the earth rocks
And the avalanches of clouds buries me
And smothers my soul
And so I prepare myself for another climb
Another Mountain
And I tell myself it is nothing
It is just some more dirt and stone
Another plateau and enjoy the view
Of the trees and the flowers below
And I am young enough to climb
And strong enough to make it to any top
You see the wind has warned me
About settling too long
About peace without struggle
The wind has warned me
And taught me to fly
But my wings only work
After I’ve climbed a mountain.

Nigerian poet -Abiodun Oyewole

My wings only work after I have climbed a mountain. I know what he means- or at least I think I do. I am after all, a mountain climber myself. I remember one evening around Christmas. My family was up from New York for the holiday. We’d had some good days together. As evening wore on, my mother and I were talking about my plans to go hiking, snowshoeing in the White Mountains with friends after my company had left. I was noting the levels of snow and how hard it was going to be, breaking trail up the slopes. My mother looked puzzled. Why, she wanted to know, would I do such a thing, if it was so hard. No one was making me do it.
The question stopped me up short. No one had asked me that question before, and I had not asked it of myself. Why was I doing this hard thing purely voluntarily, with no measurable pay-off? The easy answer, which I gave her, was that it was because the woods were beautiful, the mountains were beautiful, full of grace and majesty, and the only way to encounter them in that way is to go there and walk around on them. That was the short and simple answer. But I have found myself thinking about it many times since. Why is it that I climb mountains, not only in winter but in all seasons, not only in New Hampshire, but in Colorado, Wyoming, and Washington State, the Pyrenees and the Alps? In addition to the very real access to beauty that is uniquely available to the hiker, there is the deep and satisfying sense of mastery- of having developed a level of skill and competence that is a source of connection as well as satisfaction. No longer afraid or intimidated, but wisely humble and respectful, I can bring my presence to the mountain and allow its presence to meet and engage my own. All this is true. And with it comes the deeper truth of the transcending moment when I have joined my mind and spirit to my body, and those dimensions of my being, functioning together as the one unit they are, and are able to achieve things I find astounding. I do, at some point, feel as Oyewole feels, that I have grown wings.
It is hard to explain, but I know that the experience of transcendence is profoundly related to the experience of integrity, of the coming together of mind and body, heart and soul. The experience of transcendence is a relative of transparency. When we are unabashedly ourselves, acting as a coherent self in which our words, our actions, our values and our dreams are congruent, recognizable to others, but most importantly recognizable to ourselves, we can feel the shift, in which we become both lighter and stronger, embracing and being embraced by what is highest and holiest in our lives.
It doesn’t need to be climbing mountains. Any venue will do. It might be at your place of work, your neighborhood, or it might be when you are filling out your tax returns. There are opportunities every day in every setting to choose to be present, without disguise, so that the words of our mouths, the meditations of our hearts and the deeds of our hands are reflections of our deepest values, and of the persons we most wish to be.
It is not easy. Oyewole knows that. He has to engage in the hard work of the inner struggle to keep on keeping on, in pursuit of the worthwhile. He has to stretch. He has to talk to himself, continuously reminding himself of what is important. He says:
You see the wind has warned me
About settling too long
About peace without struggle
The wind has warned me
And taught me to fly
But my wings only work
After I’ve climbed a mountain,

I think he is teaching something of deep importance- offering a window into the life of the soul that not only hungers and thirsts for meaning, but yearns for real work, and the challenge of meaningful growth. Easy won’t get you there, but faith in values worthy of a life’s commitment, and the honesty and perseverance to live them will.
The story is told of a pastor who made an appeal in church for a great and worthy cause. A certain woman, a member of the church, came to him, handed him a check for $50, and asked if her gift was satisfactory. The pastor looked at her and replied” If it represents you.”
After a moment of soul-searching thought she asked to have the check returned. A day or two later she returned and handed her pastor a check for $5000, again asking, “Is this satisfactory?” Once again her pastor replied, “If it represents you.” The truth seemed to be driving deeply. After a few moments of hesitation she took the check back and left.
Later in the week she returned, again with a check. This time it was for $50,000. As she placed it in the pastor’s hand she said, “After earnest, prayerful thought, I have come to the conclusion that this gift does represent me and I am happy to give it.”
Not all of us have $50,000 dollars to give. But all of us have some gift that is enough of a stretch that it will bring us to the place of integration, where mind and body, heart and soul are unified in common meaning, common values, common purpose, that place up the mountain which requires that we each have the experience that Oyewole had and understood:
I must
climb before the storm comes
Before the earth rocks
And the avalanches of clouds buries me
And smothers my soul
And so I prepare myself for another climb…
You see the wind has warned me
About settling too long
About peace without struggle
The wind has warned me
And taught me to fly
But my wings only work
After I’ve climbed a mountain.

The woman’s pastor asked her to identify the gift that would truly represent her. A seemingly simply question, one which pushed her to do the kind of spiritual mountain climbing of which Oyewole speaks. And when she was finished, she was astonished at how high she could climb, and how with the climbing, her heart and her spirit were able to take flight.
It is amazing work, this task of becoming the people we mean to be, of becoming the change we wish to see, of seeing clearly what we want and what it is in us that needs to change to get us there. Spiritual practice. No one ever said it would be easy. All that we have ever said is that it is worth it.
And here, wonder of wonders, we have this place and this community in which to cherish our dreams, develop our values, and learn how to climb the mountains that teach us how to live them. In return this community asks one gift of you…a gift of your choosing, the gift that will most truly represent you. Take your time. Think, reflect, and pray on it. What will it be- the gift that represents you?…the one that will make your soul grow wings.

Thought for Contemplation: “A story is like a painting. It doesn’t have to look like what you see out of the window.” Barbara Kingsolver, the Lacuna.

“Easter Reflection: Because It Is Good”
The Rev. Dr. Anita Farber-Robertson
First Parish in Cohasset
April 24, 2012

Readings (attached at end): Mark 15:42-47
Mark 16:1-8
from Pro Ecclesia, Winter

It was dawn. The sun was barely risen; shades of red and pink oozed out from the sky and sea, spreading a film of color upon the ever expanding beach.
A young man stood on the beach gazing at out at the receding tide. He bent, picked up a starfish, lifted his arm and with all his might threw the stranded star fish back into the sea.
Then he bent and picked up another. Repeating the arc with his arm, he threw the next starfish back into the water. He had been doing this for awhile.
A stranger had been watching him from afar. Walking toward the young man he scanned the beach. Hundreds of starfish lay stranded out of the water.
The young man bent and took another starfish. Lifting it high over his head he prepared to fling it back into the sea.
“Why are you doing this?” asked the stranger. “There are there are miles of beach, on each hundreds of starfish are stranded. Too many for you to make any difference.”
The young man looked at the stranger then looked up at the starfish in his hand. He shrugged and threw as hard as he could. “It will make a difference to this one.” he said.

Hope,” says Va’clav Havel “is an ability to work for something because it is good.”

Not because it will succeed, but because it is good.

It is an Easter message that can carry me.
I think of the words by Reinhold Niebuhr :

“Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime; therefore we are saved by hope.”

And I think of the story we remember today. The story of Jesus’ ministry, his death and resurrection.
Now many of us are comfortable with the story of Jesus ministry. And many of us accept the likelihood that Jesus of Nazareth, challenger of the dominating status quo was punished severely for that crime with crucifixion.

But resurrection? That is a harder story to swallow.
There are Christians who believe that Jesus was resurrected bodily three days after his death. And there are Christians who believe that he was resurrected in a spiritual body. And there are followers of Jesus and his teachings who do not really care about what happened to him after he was murdered by the state. But most folks recognize Jesus as one who worked for something because it was good, and not because it had a chance to succeed. Certainly it did not have a chance to succeed in his lifetime…and maybe it never will.
Will there ever be a time when peace and justice are a reality?
Will there ever be a time when everyone will be welcomed and included in the power and fabric of society?
Will there ever be a time when we will love and protect our neighbors as much as we love and protect ourselves?
Jesus called that time, the Kingdom of God, the time when God’s values would be lived out in the social order, the time when hearts would be opened and people would know that we are all kin, all the beloved.
He called us to live that truth.
Jesus didn’t ask that we perfect the world in our lifetime. He asked only that we do our part.

“… he said, ‘To what should I compare the kingdom of God? It is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.’ (Luke 13:20-22)

The Kingdom of God is like yeast; it is like the leaven someone mixes in with three measures of flour.
When I have read this, I imagined that I was to be the leaven – sometimes I am…and sometimes you are. Whenever we act as agents of peace and justice we are the leaven in the loaf.
When high school students in Swampscott wore hoodies to school last week to express their solidarity with Trayvon Martin, when people around the country sign petitions demanding justice, transparency and accountability in relation to the death of the 17 year old boy, they are working the leaven into the loaf, the leaven of justice…for surely there is no peace if there is not justice.
But Jesus does not say that when we behave like that woman, and work our leaven of justice into the loaf of life, we are working toward the kingdom of God.
That is what I always thought he said and meant but Jesus doesn’t say that.

Jesus says:
… ‘To what should I compare the kingdom of God? It is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.’

Jesus doesn’t say that the leaven we mix in will cause the loaf to rise, becoming the kingdom of God.
He says:
To what should I compare the kingdom of God? It is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.

The kingdom is not some far off time and place. The kingdom of God is like the yeast, not like the outcome!
Whoa!
That is very different.
The kingdom of God is not about the end time or about outcomes. The kingdom of God is about us, now, about what we are doing and how we are doing it. When we stand on the side of love, when we try to “do justice and love kindness,” when we recognize that our self interest is not separate from the well-being of all citizens of our land and our planet, when we throw a stranded starfish back into the sea, we are not just the leaven in the loaf, we are dwelling in the very kingdom of God itself.
I didn’t make this up! It is right there, in scripture. In Jesus words. I find that compelling.

Some religious folks argue about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. And some argue about whether Jesus was resurrected in the body or in spirit. And you may enjoy participating in the arguments. Many do. To each his own.
As for myself, when I am fed by Jesus’ wisdom and sustained by his message of infinite love, I feel his presence is with me. When I lift my voice for justice, or act to strengthen love, I am in the kingdom of God. Regardless of the set-backs and the fatiguing long term prospects, when I act for love and justice, Christ is risen within me, and I am dwelling in the kingdom of heaven.
Each of us can be the leaven in the loaf of peace with justice. Each of us can act, not because we know the loaf will rise, but because it is good. And when we do good, we are dwelling not only in hope but in the very kingdom of heaven. May it be so for you. And may you cherish those moments when you find yourself there, in the kingdom of heaven.
Amen.

Readings:
Mark 15:42-47 The Burial of Jesus
When evening had come, and since it was the day of Preparation, that is, the day before the Sabbath, Joseph of Arimathea, a respected member of the council, who was also himself waiting expectantly for the kingdom of God, went boldly to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then Pilate wondered if he were already dead; and summoning the centurion, he asked him whether he had been dead for some time. When he learned from the centurion that he was dead, he granted the body to Joseph. Then Joseph bought a linen cloth, and taking down the body, wrapped it in the linen cloth, and laid it in a tomb that had been hewn out of the rock. He then rolled a stone against the door of the tomb. Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses” was laid.

Mark 16:1-8 The Resurrection of Jesus
When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him.And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb.They had been saying to one another, ‘Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?’When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back.As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed.But he said to them, ‘Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him.But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.’So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.
——————–

“The late Va’clav Havel the dissident Czech writer who became his country’s president after the fall of the iron curtain, differentiated between hope and optimism. Hope he said, “ is not prognostication. It is an orientation. It is an orientation of the spirit, and orientation of the heart; it transcends the world that is immediately experienced, and is anchored somewhere beyond its horizons…It is an ability to work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed…(Hope) is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.”

Pro Ecclesia, Winter,
as quoted in the Christian Century, Feb. 22, 2012, p. 8

Thought for Contemplation:
God determines who walks into your life . . . it’s up to you to decide who you let walk away, who you let stay, and who you refuse to let go . . .
Author unknown

“The Path Opens”
The Rev. Dr. Anita Farber-Robertson
First Parish in Cohasset
New Member/Palm Sunday
April 1, 2012
READING;attached at end
My friend and colleague in the Accredited Interim Ministry, Barbara Child, tells this story about a Unitarian Universalist congregation she served some years ago. This congregation had an extraordinarily dynamic strategic planning committee. One of the members of the strategic planning committee was married to an actor with a great appreciation for improvisation. That morning she sent the committee something from an interview with Tina Fey.

In the interview Tina was talking about moving from Chicago to NYC to work for Saturday Night Life. While packing she came across a folder on her bookshelf. She had written quotes all over the front of it.
A couple of them were: “Greet everything with yes.” And: “The fun is always on the other side of a yes.”

The folder was from an improvisation class she had taken at Second City in Chicago. The quotes were some of the “rules” of improvisation. When she found the folder, she realized the class had changed her life.

She thinks of times when she’s been asked to do something and she’s thought maybe she wasn’t ready for that, or maybe it was a little early for this to happen to her. But the “rules” had become ingrained:

“Say yes and you’ll figure it out afterward.”

She says that saying yes allows you to move forward.

When she sat there on the floor with the folder, she realized the folder had broader use than for her work in comedy.

“Life is improvisation,” she realized. “All of those classes were like church to me. The training had seeped into me and changed who I am.”

Saying “yes” opens up a world. It is a world of faith, of engagement, of welcome. To embrace a theology of radical hospitality, of deep inclusion, is to engage in the spiritual practice of which Tina Fey speaks, the spiritual practice of welcome, of saying “yes.”
Today we welcome in our new members, Edwin Amy, Katie, Phil and Kate, who also have extended their own welcome to us. We have been welcomed into their lives even as we have welcomed them into ours. We and they have said our “yes,” to each other.

And so I a reminded of the words of the poet Robert Bly:

The path opens before our eyes
Turning into open country,
The wilderness
Becomes the path of paths.

Now is the path
Of leaving the path.

And we hear our own voice
Demanding of ourselves
A faith in no-path,
When there is no faith at all.

And moving forward takes feral courage,
Opens the wildest
And most courageous light of all,

Becomes the hardest path of all
The firm line we drew in the sand
Becomes the river we will not cross.

But the river of the soul flows on
And the soul refuses safety until it finds the sea.

The ocean of longing,
The sea of your deepest want,
The gravity well of your own desire,

The place you would fall becomes
In falling
The place you are held.
…….

the soul refuses safety until it finds the sea….
The place you would fall becomes
In falling
The place you are held.

My friends, once again you, with the ocean of longing are at a place where you have erased the firm line in the sand. There need not be a river you will not cross
The path opens before your eyes

And you are, with Tina Fey, in the improvisation class. Possibly in your personal lives and definitely in your life together you are standing at an open door, before an abundance of possibilities. Tina observed that that improvisation class had been for her like church. It had changed her life. With a simple invitation to change her orientation toward what scared her, or unsettled her, to what made her nervous, or fearful that she would not be up to the task, with that invitation to embrace the unknown and become a real player in the game, her life was opened, expanded, changed.

You are on the threshold of a new beginning. Anything is possible. And happily you are accompanied and supported through this amazing and exciting time by the synchronicity of the seasons. Hosanna! A season of yes.

It is of course spring- and an early spring at that. The world mirrors and echoes the surge of vitality and life we feel here today. It started with crocuses but we are now fully into blooming daffodils and budding tulips. I delighted in my dog Willy’s excitement on Tuesday upon seeing a big fat robin on the Parish House lawn. He knows something is going on! The whole natural world is saying “yes,” to new life, new love, new beginnings. It is, but it doesn’t look that hard from here for the daffodil and the robin to say “yes.” What would they know about how scary it can be for Tina Fey or you or me?

The robins and the daffodils might not know much about how unsettling or even scary it can be to step out onto the path that opens before us, but the Israelites surely did when they followed Moses out of slavery and into the desert where they wandered for forty years. They said yes to the chance at freedom, and because they did we are here now. Thursday is the first night of Passover, when the story is retold, not only that we might remember how they risked and sacrificed, but that we might be inspired to accept the invitations to spaciousness that come to us.

The robins and the daffodils might not know much about how unsettling or even scary it can be to step out onto the path that opens before us, but Jesus did. Today, Palm Sunday marks the day of his entry into Jerusalem. He came to challenge the powers that be, to confront the system of oppression and dominance under which the people lived. He came unarmed, on a donkey in noted contrast with the Imperial entourage that entered on horses with pomp and circumstance and military might from another gate. He entered accompanied by cheering throngs. His people were the peasants, the poor, the ones considered unimportant, marginal. His was a yes so large it could not be contained by anyone, even by eventual death. Jesus proclaimed a yes that embraced all people, and invited everyone in.

ee cummings, poet, and Unitarian Universalist, captures the essence of the message, the message of Moses, Jesus, the robins and Tina Fey. The message for our time, and truly for all time.

love is a place
and through this place of
love move
(with brightness of peace)
all places

yes is a world
& in this world of
yes live
(skillfully curled)
all worlds ee cummings

My friends you have been issued an invitation… an invitation to enter the world of yes, in which live all worlds. As you listen, dream, watch and wait the path opens before you. May these days, the days of your lives, bring for you the blessings of love, the stirrings of wonder and the courage to welcome life with a “yes.“

Living churches have problems;
dying churches don’t.

Living churches make lots of noise;
dying churches are peaceful as a tomb.

Living churches often outspend their income;
dying churches would not dream of giving or spending more than they did ten years ago.

Living churches are full of unfamiliar faces;
in dying churches, everyone has known everyone for years.

Living churches say, “We’ll find a way;”
dying churches say, “We can’t do that.”

Living churches talk about money, life, death, love, birth, anger, and the weather.
Dying churches talk about the weather.

• Steve Crump (UU minister)