First Parish Cohasset

Thought for Contemplation: “May our joys always be heightened, our sorrows lightened, and our lives enriched by the time we spend together here. -AnneTreadwell,

“Epiphanies Great and Small”
The Rev. Dr. Anita Farber-Robertson
First Parish in Cohasset
December 11, 2011

Reading from How Christ Got Into Christmas by Peter Samsom
From For Everything there is a Season by Wallace Robbins

I was driving along Humphrey Street on Wednesday. Humphrey Street is one of the main streets in Swampscott, going through the center of town, following the coast line. It is a popular route, and at this time of year, two weeks before Christmas, there is no low-traffic time of the day. Of course, I was in a bit of a hurry. I had somewhere to be, and with the slow pace of traffic was bound to be late. “But those are the breaks,” I said to myself. “It is that time of year, you just have to go with it.”
My self talk was working and I felt myself relax into the situation. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a garbage truck- a big green smelly garbage truck pulled over on the right, in the parked car lane. The truck’s left hand turn signal went on. It wanted to pull out into the stream of traffic, a stream in which the cars were much closer together than the length of a garbage truck.
The car in front of me hit the brakes. Not hard. That wasn‘t necessary. We were not going that fast. But definitely braking, it actually came to a stop and let the garbage truck in.
I was in shock. Why would someone let a smelly garbage truck in right in front of them? Right in front of them when the traffic is creeping and they will be stuck behind this lumbering, slow smelly vehicle for who knows how long! I was on the verge of annoyance when I was grabbed by wisdom, or grace or God- quite likely all three.
Why would someone do that? To be kind. To be generous. To extend compassion. To experience the connection with another human being, a garbage truck driver who is just doing his job. To feel the peace and well being that comes with good will.
Oh. Oh! I thought. And unexpectedly, I did not feel annoyed; I felt love. I felt love for the unknown driver in the little red car in front of me who had brought me to my senses, who like the angels of old announced to me the Holy is here, Emmanuel. I
could have missed it.
I keep needing that reminder. Maybe you do too. I found myself thinking about something that happened to me at this time last year. It was the strangest thing in a most ordinary of places.
Twenty people were gathered for an aerobics class two weeks before Christmas- same time as it is now. Their stress levels were probably pretty high, demands on their time were significant. As they waited for the instructor to begin they chatted about Christmas gifts purchased, preparations still to be done, work loads at the office, the safety of toys being peddled for the holidays, relatives coming, people they were going to have to disappoint one way or the other. They were ordinary people with ordinary lives carrying extraordinary stress. Maybe you can relate to that. They had carved out this one hour for themselves- an hour at the gym.
As I said, it was two weeks before Christmas, so to bring the holiday spirit into the class the instructor had substituted a tape of Christmas carols for her usual class music. So, these twenty people jumped and turned, kicked and squatted, pumped their arms, lifted their knees, danced and stretched until their hearts were racing and they glistened with sweat…while the invisible choir sang mightily of wonder, of angels, of God and of hope.
It was an incongruous sight; you might have even thought it a bit sacrilegious. It would be hard to get less lofty, or to be closer to the nitty gritty of life and the messiness of biological realities, with all the aches and groans, smell and sweat, than they were that day. That’s what I was thinking.
The music changed, as the music does when the song is over but the tape goes on. The opening bars of the new song came on, and then, in incredibly perfect timing, the voices broke though.
“Joy to the world, the Lord is come!”
Not just the recorded voices singing polished notes out of the loudspeaker, but the people. It was electrifying. About two thirds of the class had spontaneously exploded in song. “Joy to the world!”
Everyone was startled. The spiritual dimension of the joy of movement and dance was revealed and uncapped. It poured forth, like the foam of a soda bottle inadvertently shaken and opened. Erupting with a force all its own, it sprayed over everyone until even those few who were speechless with astonishment joined in.
“let heaven and nature sing, let heaven and nature sing.”
And they sang. An epiphany.
In that moment it was clear what the prophet Isaiah had meant when he said:
For you shall go out in joy,
And be led back in peace;

The mountains and the hills before you
Shall burst into song,
And all the trees of the field
shall clap their hands. (55:12)
My questions about the propriety of working out to religious music were gone. Especially at Christmas, the holiday when we remember that all that is holy and sacred within us dwells within a body, our body and infuses it. We know not God except in the flesh and blood of our body, encountering another in the flesh and blood, leaf and wood, shell and stone of physical life.
We are more in danger of desecrating the holiday by denying that it is about the messiness of birth, the frustrations of love, the loneliness of being isolated, and of being far from home. We are more in danger of missing the epiphanies in our lives when we seek them in other times, places and dimensions. For Christmas takes place in the here ad now, between you and me and one another, wherever we happen to be. It is about the ways in which the holy dwells among us, breaking through in unexpected moments, like making room for a garbage truck, or caroling in a gym class, and as it did 2000 years ago with the birth of a baby. The holy was made flesh.
When the class was over the instructor walked to the back of the room to open the door. Waiting was the babysitter with the teacher’s toddler. The child had wanted to come up and see Mommy. He ran in and grabbed his mother around her legs. She sat down on the floor, picked him up and put him in her lap. He snuggled, safe and happy.
The class walked out, not saying a word about the precious moment of singing. But I watched them, watched them look upon this mother with her baby and knew that this was a class that had known God with us, however you name it; their eyes shone as they smiled to see that God sitting there, flesh meeting flesh, heart meeting heart.
It is two more weeks until Christmas. Two more weeks of epiphanies great and small. Two more weeks when we can be ready to experience the holy, God with us, flesh against flesh, hand to hand, heart to heart. Once you learn how to do it, you don’t ever have to stop.
God with us. Emmanuel. It happens all the time.

Thought for Contemplation: “Blessed is the influence of one true, loving human soul on another.” -George Eliot

“Waiting”
The Rev. Dr. Anita Farber-Robertson
First Parish in Cohasset
December 4, 2011

Reading: I Am Waiting by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
(ATTACHED AT END)
Waiting. Waiting. Were you having trouble waiting for the poem to be over? It is a long poem- very long. Nearly 600 words. It is so long that when I used it last year, I only read a part of it. I found myself waiting for it to be over.
It is a great poem though- a great poem for this Advent season, when we spend our time both waiting and wishing for things. Happily, Steve and Polly and Jack were willing to help me out. By changing voices maybe some of the impatience was relieved, maybe the ability to listen to the words was increased, maybe we were helped in the waiting. I think I was.
`But maybe I did us a disservice by making the poem more accessible, less irritating, or annoying. After all, maybe that was part of the genius of the poem; it created the feeling of impatience, the kind of impatience we often feel while waiting. At least that was what it had done in me. Maybe I deprived you of it a little bit. You are probably fine with that- didn’t need any more irritants in your day, your week, your advent season, did you?
But waiting time is important. On some level we know that- we have to wait for the seeds to germinate before we have plants. We need to wait for the dough to rise before we have bread. I remember years ago when I was a child my mother would make Junket Rennet custard. Do any of you remember Junket? We liked it, but you had to wait and wait for it to set. If you jostled it, it would not get firm, would not turn into custard. So we walked gently and learned to wait. It was a treat. My mother did not make it often. To us, the waiting seemed worth it. And slowly we learned, I learned, that there is a time for every season, a time to be in a hurry, a time to get up and do things, and a time to wait.
The wise ones, our spiritual ancestors understood the importance and the power of waiting. We find it in the stories we tell and the holidays we mark. Moses and his people had to wander in the desert for forty years before they were allowed to enter the Promised Land. Forty years of preparation, of learning how to be a people, how to govern themselves, developing an identity, nurturing a next generation that was born in freedom and never knew slavery, forty years of preparation before they were ready for a home of their own. Forty years. A long wait. It can put our impatience with the slowness of solutions to surface in our country and our global economy in a different perspective.
Sometimes we have to wait before we can make the paradigm shift; sometimes the story we tell ourselves about ourselves has to get unbearably disconnected from our experience before we are willing to create a new one. Sometimes the life style we have connected to our identity has to get untenable before we are willing or able to consider something new. It was hard for our Hebrew ancestors to create an identity as a free people, hard to create a story in which they were self determining, and yet still dependent on the beneficence of powers beyond themselves, God, to survive in the desert. Hard for them to believe it was better to be hungry and free, than fed and sheltered and slaves. And I wonder, what is the paradigm shift that we will have to make for the world to be a hospitable place in which all can dwell.
The Christmas story draws on the yearning and the dreaming put forth by the prophet Isaiah nearly 3000 years ago.

they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.
Isaiah 2:4b
It is a yearning that still speaks to us…speaks for us.
We have been a long time waiting.
Isaiah goes on:
The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness
a light has dawned.
You have enlarged the nation
and increased their joy;
they rejoice before you
as people rejoice at the harvest, …
For …
you have shattered
the yoke that burdens them,
the bar across their shoulders,
the rod of their oppressor.

For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given,
and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the greatness of his government and peace
there will be no end.
He will reign on David’s throne
and over his kingdom,
establishing and upholding it
with justice and righteousness
from that time on and forever. Isaiah 9:2-7 selected

It is a yearning that still speaks for us. We yearn for the righteous leader, one who will establish a kingdom of justice and righteousness. A Prince of Peace. Maybe that is why we feel such heartache when our government disappoints us, when our elected officials disappoint us. We want to have a leader who is a wonderful counselor, a Prince of Peace, establishing and upholding justice and righteousness. It would be so nice to have a savior. Everyone falls short. And so we get angry and frustrated with the disappointment and the waiting.
I think of the Spiritual that we used to sing
They say that freedom is a constant struggle
They say that freedom is a constant struggle
They say that freedom is a constant struggle
Oh Lord we’ve struggled so long,
We must be free, we must be free.
We are free, and we are waiting too, because it takes time…it takes time to prepare, time to notice what is working and what is not, time to relinquish what does not serve, and time to become the people we want to be.
In the Christian tradition the waiting is built into the liturgical year. There are four weeks of waiting in Advent before the arrival of Christmas. Advent, intended to be preparation time, waiting time that is not wasted and purposeless, but intentional, waiting, waiting, waiting for something to happen.
Ferlinghetti gets us where we are vulnerable. He catches us by seeming to express something we all easily understand. Impatience. Waiting for wishes to be fulfilled. Observing the ridiculous in the world and waiting for someone to come and straighten it out. Waiting for the world to get fixed or our irritations soothed, or our boredom alleviated. Waiting that is foolish, filled with inappropriate wishes and an absence of responsibility. Waiting for someone else to take care of everything.
Sure we can relate to that. Even if we don’t live out of that stance, we know it- somewhere. Surely we each have had a day or a time or a week or a year when we just wanted someone to come in a clean up this mess- the mess of our lives, of our days, or our country. Foolish as it is, we can wish it now and then anyway.
But just when Ferlinghetti gets us there, gets us to that place where we can say “Yes, I am waiting, I am waiting too, if not for the things he is saying then for some things similar, and maybe just as foolish…” just when we are almost there, feeling the wishing, the wanting and the impatience of waiting, he jumps over the chasm, the great black hole that could swallow us and tells the truth. He tells us what it is that is truly on the line. He is waiting, perpetually awaiting the rebirth of wonder.
And we are not or annoyed or impatient any more. He has nailed it.
Waiting for the rebirth of wonder. We need wonder. But wonder is not something for which you plan. It is not something that has a place in organized life, or rational life. It is not something that you can include in your budget – your budget of time or money. It has a life of its own, and will have its way with you, if you let it. It is ironic, isn’t it?
Before the Hebrews could escape slavery, Moses had to be able to see the burning bush and notice the wonder – that it burned and was not consumed. That stopped him. Stopped him long enough to pay attention. Absorb the wonder and the possibility-the possibility of freedom for his people.
So here we are on December 4th. Three weeks until Christmas. We are invited to enter into the wonder of Mary growing with child, and the power of the life of a poor carpenter’s son, one life immersed in wonder, that changed the world.
I know that you are busy this season, have things to do for the holiday. And things will get done. But I invite you to truly let the season work its magic, by allowing for the waiting time, the time that can feel pointless, and wasteful, the time that allows for the rebirth of wonder, and with it, maybe, the rebirth of your very life.

Am Waiting By Lawrence Ferlinghetti
I am waiting for my case to come up
and I am waiting
for a rebirth of wonder
and I am waiting for someone
to really discover America
and wail
and I am waiting
for the discovery
Of a new symbolic western frontier
and I am waiting
for the American Eagle
to really spread its wings
and straighten up and fly right
and I am waiting for the Age of Anxiety
to drop dead
and I am waiting
for the war to be fought
which will make the world safe
for anarchy
and I am waiting for the final withering away
of all governments
and I am perpetually awaiting
a rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for the second coming
And I am waiting
For a religious revival
To sweep thru the state of Arizona
And I am waiting
For the grapes of wrath to be stored
And I am waiting
For them to prove
That God is really American
And I am waiting
To see God on television
Piped into church altars
If they can find
The right channel
To tune it in on
And I am waiting
for the last supper to be served again
and a strange new appetizer
and I am perpetually awaiting
a rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for my number to be called
and I am waiting
for the Salvation Army to take over
and I am waiting
for the meek to be blessed
and inherit the earth
without taxes
and I am waiting
for forests and animals
to reclaim the earth as theirs
and I am waiting
for a way to be devised
to destroy all nationalisms
without killing anybody
and I am waiting
for linnets and planets to fall like rain
and I am waiting for lovers and weepers
to lie down together again
in a new rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for the great divide to be crossed
and I am anxiously waiting
For the secret of eternal life to be discovered
By an obscure practitioner
and I am waiting
for the storms of life
to be over
and I am waiting to set sail for happiness
and I am waiting
for a reconstructed Mayflower
to reach America
with its picture story and TV rights
sold in advance to the natives
and I am waiting
for the lost music to sound again
in the Lost Continent
in a new rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for the day
that maketh all things clear
and I am waiting for retribution
for what America did to Tom Sawyer
and I am waiting
for the American Boy
to take off Beauty’s clothes
and get on top of her
and I am waiting
for Alice in Wonderland
to retransmit to me
her total dream of innocence
and I am waiting
for Childe Roland to come
to the final darkest tower
and I am waiting for Aphrodite
to grow live arms
at a final disarmament conference
in a new rebirth of wonder

I am waiting
to get some intimations
of immortality
by recollecting my early childhood
and I am waiting
for the green mornings to come again
for some strains of unpremeditated art
to shake my typewriter
and I am waiting to write
the great indelible poem
and I am waiting
for the last long rapture
and I am perpetually waiting
for the fleeting lovers on the Grecian Urn
to catch each other at last
and embrace
and I am awaiting
perpetually and forever
a renaissance of wonder

by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
\

Thought for Contemplation- “Gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.” G. K. Chesterton

“Risking Thanksgiving”
The Rev. Dr. Anita Farber-Robertson
First Parish in Cohasset
November 20, 2011

We are talking about Thanksgiving- giving thanks, and surely there are enough things for which we can be thankful- can you name some of them?

Come on- sure you can- let‘s hear it!
We are not lacking in reasons for gratitude.

Thanksgiving Day though, is a particular kind of holiday of thanksgiving. It is thanksgiving at the time of harvest. For as long as people have been planting crops and harvesting them, there have been holidays of thanksgiving at the harvest. And it is right to do so.
Last Sunday I talked about the appropriateness of cultivating deference and humility in the face of the wonders of life, and here we are, face to face with some of the most basic and wondrous of those realities. The harvest. Once again I am captured by wonder. I resonate with Joyce Kilmer.

I think that I shall never see,
a poem as lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the sweet earth’s flowing breast.

A tree that looks at God all day
And lifts her leafy arms to pray.

A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair.

A tree whose bosom snow has lain,
Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.#

Only God can make a tree. You may resonate with that, or you may be one who pulls back, one who has no place for God in your life. And that is okay. But believer or not you and all who gather here know that with all of our gifts and strengths and imaginations as human beings, not a one of us can make a tree. We can genetically engineer it. We can plant it in the earth. We can water it and cultivate it. But we cannot make it grow. That power comes to the tree, as it does to every living thing, and every seed waiting to be a living thing, from a source of life and power outside of ourselves. The name I know for that is God. You may name it how you wish. No matter the name, we know that it is neither you nor I who does that- not you who moves the molecules and causes the growth cells to divide and to know what to do; it is not me who takes the sun and rain and soil and turns them into trunk and leaves and apples. We gather at this time of harvest with deference and humility as well as gratitude.
But when we acknowledge our limitations, when we really face the fact that we cannot make a tree or an apple, a broccoli or a pumpkin, instead of wonder and gratitude, we may experience fear.

One day toward the latter part of summer a farmer sat on his front porch smoking his corn cob pipe when a stranger came up the walk.

“How’s your cotton coming?” the stranger asked.
“Ain’t got none,” was the answer. “Didn’t plant none. ’Fraid of the boll weevil.”
“Well, how’s your corn?”
“Didn’t plant none. ’Fraid of the drought.”
“How about your potatoes?”
“Ain’t got none. Scared of the potato bugs.”

The stranger finally asked, “Well, what did you plant?”
“Nothin’” answered the farmer. “I just played it safe.”#

The farmer knew there were risks with planting, just as the settlers and the Indians knew there were risks with encounters between them. The settlers and the Indians took the risk and gathered in a harvest of relationships as well as food. The farmer played it “safe” and had nothing.

Sue Bender tells the story of her friend Yvonne.
On the day of their marriage, Yvonne and her husband were given a gorgeous antique Hopi vase.
After the ceremony someone carried the vase on a tray with too many other things, and dropped it. The (vase) broke into many pieces.

“A perfect moment,” she smiled. “The (vase) was only whole for the ceremony.”#

How often are we only grateful for what comes to us in the form we expected, or the gift or outcome for which we wished or hoped? How often do we miss the opportunity to be grateful for the blessings hidden when life disappoints, when it turns out differently from how we’d hoped or planned? Yvonne deeply understood the opportunity to re-arrange her expectations and the object of her gratitude. Instead of being grateful for a vase to decorate her home, she was grateful for the gift that symbolized the perfection of the marriage moment, a
perfection that we all know will never be known again.
Reflecting on Yvonne’s gratitude, we perceive a gift – Yvonne’s gift to us- the relinquishment of expectation that frees us up to receive the gift as it is offered before us.
So, what truly are riches? For what should we be grateful? What risks should we take in the service of our highest values? And what do we lose if we don’t risk at all?

When all is said and done the discernment is ours, in the privacy of our hearts, our minds, our daily lives. At the end of the day, at the end of each day, can we come to understand what of life remains precious when we hold on to it, and what is better when relinquished and what is even multiplied when shared.
I wish for each us that this thanksgiving be a day that calls forth risk in the service of growth, and gratitude that blossoms without reward. Sometimes, gratitude is its own reward. May it be ours. May it be so. Amen.

Thought for Contemplation- “Gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.” G. K. Chesterton

“Risking Thanksgiving”
The Rev. Dr. Anita Farber-Robertson
First Parish in Cohasset
November 20, 2011

We are talking about Thanksgiving- giving thanks, and surely there are enough things for which we can be thankful- can you name some of them?

Come on- sure you can- let‘s hear it!
We are not lacking in reasons for gratitude.

Thanksgiving Day though, is a particular kind of holiday of thanksgiving. It is thanksgiving at the time of harvest. For as long as people have been planting crops and harvesting them, there have been holidays of thanksgiving at the harvest. And it is right to do so.
Last Sunday I talked about the appropriateness of cultivating deference and humility in the face of the wonders of life, and here we are, face to face with some of the most basic and wondrous of those realities. The harvest. Once again I am captured by wonder. I resonate with Joyce Kilmer.

I think that I shall never see,
a poem as lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the sweet earth’s flowing breast.

A tree that looks at God all day
And lifts her leafy arms to pray.

A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair.

A tree whose bosom snow has lain,
Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.#

Only God can make a tree. You may resonate with that, or you may be one who pulls back, one who has no place for God in your life. And that is okay. But believer or not you and all who gather here know that with all of our gifts and strengths and imaginations as human beings, not a one of us can make a tree. We can genetically engineer it. We can plant it in the earth. We can water it and cultivate it. But we cannot make it grow. That power comes to the tree, as it does to every living thing, and every seed waiting to be a living thing, from a source of life and power outside of ourselves. The name I know for that is God. You may name it how you wish. No matter the name, we know that it is neither you nor I who does that- not you who moves the molecules and causes the growth cells to divide and to know what to do; it is not me who takes the sun and rain and soil and turns them into trunk and leaves and apples. We gather at this time of harvest with deference and humility as well as gratitude.
But when we acknowledge our limitations, when we really face the fact that we cannot make a tree or an apple, a broccoli or a pumpkin, instead of wonder and gratitude, we may experience fear.

One day toward the latter part of summer a farmer sat on his front porch smoking his corn cob pipe when a stranger came up the walk.

“How’s your cotton coming?” the stranger asked.
“Ain’t got none,” was the answer. “Didn’t plant none. ’Fraid of the boll weevil.”
“Well, how’s your corn?”
“Didn’t plant none. ’Fraid of the drought.”
“How about your potatoes?”
“Ain’t got none. Scared of the potato bugs.”

The stranger finally asked, “Well, what did you plant?”
“Nothin’” answered the farmer. “I just played it safe.”#

The farmer knew there were risks with planting, just as the settlers and the Indians knew there were risks with encounters between them. The settlers and the Indians took the risk and gathered in a harvest of relationships as well as food. The farmer played it “safe” and had nothing.

Sue Bender tells the story of her friend Yvonne.
On the day of their marriage, Yvonne and her husband were given a gorgeous antique Hopi vase.
After the ceremony someone carried the vase on a tray with too many other things, and dropped it. The (vase) broke into many pieces.

“A perfect moment,” she smiled. “The (vase) was only whole for the ceremony.”#

How often are we only grateful for what comes to us in the form we expected, or the gift or outcome for which we wished or hoped? How often do we miss the opportunity to be grateful for the blessings hidden when life disappoints, when it turns out differently from how we’d hoped or planned? Yvonne deeply understood the opportunity to re-arrange her expectations and the object of her gratitude. Instead of being grateful for a vase to decorate her home, she was grateful for the gift that symbolized the perfection of the marriage moment, a
perfection that we all know will never be known again.
Reflecting on Yvonne’s gratitude, we perceive a gift – Yvonne’s gift to us- the relinquishment of expectation that frees us up to receive the gift as it is offered before us.
So, what truly are riches? For what should we be grateful? What risks should we take in the service of our highest values? And what do we lose if we don’t risk at all?

When all is said and done the discernment is ours, in the privacy of our hearts, our minds, our daily lives. At the end of the day, at the end of each day, can we come to understand what of life remains precious when we hold on to it, and what is better when relinquished and what is even multiplied when shared.
I wish for each us that this thanksgiving be a day that calls forth risk in the service of growth, and gratitude that blossoms without reward. Sometimes, gratitude is its own reward. May it be ours. May it be so. Amen.

Thought for Contemplation- “You can’t get used to the stars no matter how long you live here.” Jennifer Egan
“Cry Wonder
The Rev. Dr. Anita Farber-Robertson
First Parish in Cohasset
November 13, 2011
Readings: Walt Whitman from 1855 Preface to the Leaves of Grass
Lydia Peelle : Mule Killers

“I love it when you talk.”
Colleen was talking to me, a cup of tea in one hand and a handful of peanuts in the other. We were on break in the Advanced Writer’s Workshop, a class I am taking this fall.
My mind leapt to my New York accent; Colleen being born and bred in Boston might have noticed it. Some people like New York accents. I looked at her quizzically, hoping for clarification.
“When you speak it is so fresh- I just love it.”
I waited. “Like tonight when we were all talking about the piece Julie (our instructor) had given us to read. Everyone is saying all of these good things about it and you say, “It didn’t speak to me.” “I mean, it was just so fresh and so real.”

I blushed. And I thought of Walt Whitman.

take off your hat to nothing known or unknown, or to any man or number of men -–

Was that what I was doing? Sometimes I am socially inept, making faux pas’ left and right and sometimes Colleen is right. I am courageous. This particular night I may have been a little of both.
This class is made up of a dozen fascinating people, writers published and hopefuls. The instructor had handed it out as a good example of unusual and excellent writing. So most people were commenting on what they liked or thought was strong about the piece.
Colleen’s perception was that I did not distort my opinion or experience to conform to the instructor’s expectations. She experienced it as “fresh,” and revitalizing. I realized that while I valued the instructor’s opinions greatly, which was why I was paying for this class, I was not going to, in Whitman’s terms “take off my hat” to anyone. I don’t think it is arrogance.
I was prepared to learn from our instructor. To change my mind even. But I was going to do that by being there as fully myself as I could be.

Still, just as I cannot sit comfortably with accepting an instructor’s assessment of a writing piece, so neither can I sit by and fully accept Walt Whitman, profound Unitarian Universalist that he was. In the service of truth and for the good of my soul, I do need to take off my hat to that which is larger, deeper, and commanding of deference now and then. Which is why I was so taken with the short quote from Lydia Peelle’s Mule Killers.

My grandfather was a man who never wore a hat, even to town. Uncover thy head before the Lord, he said, and the Lord, he believed to be everywhere: in the trees, in the water of the creek, under Calumet cans rusting in the dirt.”

I was touched by that. As Unitarian Universalists we are so often caught up in an anti-authority stance, or in reactivity to the unequal distribution of power that may leave us feeling diminished, that when asked for deference we resist. Deference is not something we often do well. I think in such circumstances we recall, if not explicitly, then implicitly, through the subtle messages of our tradition, the words of Whitman.

take off your hat to nothing known or unknown, or to any man or number of men -

But where is there room for awe and mystery in that? Where is the truth that we did not create ourselves? That we are beholden to forces we do not fully understand for our existence and our survival?
I think of the words of Jennifer Egan:

You can’t get used to the stars no matter how long you live here.

Who can get used to the stars? And at what cost to us, if we should do so?

Out of the stars in their flight, out of the dust of eternity, here have we come…
This is the wonder of time; this is the marvel of space; out of stars swung the earth; life upon earth rose to love;
This is the marvel of life, rising to see and to know;
Out of your heart cry wonder:
Sing that we live.

Sing that we live. And sing that we live in an environment that we did not have to create, a gift beyond measure.
When Job was feeling sorry for himself, and for all of the tribulations that were befalling him he began getting annoyed with God. And God answered him out of a whirlwind.

“Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?
Tell me, if you understand.
Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!
Who stretched a measuring line across it?
On what were its footings set,
or who laid its cornerstone—
while the morning stars sang together
and all the angels shouted for joy?
“Who shut up the sea behind doors
when it burst forth from the womb,
when I made the clouds its garment
and wrapped it in thick darkness …?

And Job understood that no matter the trials, no matter the suffering, he was clinging to a life that was a gift, that for all the annoyance, he loved life with a passion, this life that he could not create or buy or generate in any way. It was a wonder beyond measure, before which we can only be humbled.

I did not always pray. I did not always know how to pray or feel comfortable praying. For many many years I was stuck. There was a prayer in my heart, a prayer in my soul, and I did not know how to give it expression. It was the prayer of gratitude.
I could look up at the stars, try to reach my arms around the trunk of a great tree, watch the crashing waves of the ocean, see the sky turn brilliant with a shimmering cape of orange and pink as the sun went down, and I would want to express my gratitude, to fall down on my knees, or take off my hat, or do whatever I could do with my body to express the deep truth that I was blessed. I was blessed with life and with the capacity to enjoy it, to know pleasure as well as pain, to marvel at the mysteries of life, and the knowledge that I was a part of that Great Mystery and I did not create it. The awe and the wonder felt true, as true as anything I had ever known.
Maybe that has happened to you – in the face of love, in the face of beauty, in nature, in music, in art. – a feeling of astonishment that one could be so filled, so fortunate, a feeling of gratitude that knows no bounds.
Meister Eckhart, thirteenth century mystic said:

If in your whole life the only prayer you ever said was “thank you,” that would be sufficient.

I don’t know about its sufficiency. I think there are times when our gratitude also needs to move us to feelings of compassion and acts of justice. But I do know that without the gratitude, all else is hollow, and that gratitude is the companion of humility.

Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown,

Or, better yet, take off your hat to everything. Experience the joy of humility and deference before that which is not you, and is wonderful.
Take off your hat to everything. For surely, there is no where you can go, no where you can be, where you could not be stricken with awe and gratitude. You can feel it rise up in your chest like a bubble growing. Feel it moving in you. Moving, pressing, seeking to be expressed. What joy. What love. Out of your heart cry wonder: and sing that you live.

The Readings:
I:
Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown, or to any man or number of men – go freely with powerful uneducated persons, and with the young, and with the mothers of families- re-examine all you have been told in school or church or in any book, and dismiss whatever insults your soul; and your very flesh shall be a great poem, and have the richest fluency, not only in its words, but in the silent lines of its lips and face, and between the lashes of your eyes, and in every motion and joint of your body.

-Walt Whitman
From the 1855 Preface to the Leaves of Grass
II
My grandfather was a man who never wore a hat, even to town. Uncover thy head before the Lord, he said, and the Lord he believed to be everywhere: in the trees, in he water fo the creek, under Calumet cans rusting in the dirt.”

Mule Killers by Lydia Peelle