First Parish Cohasset

Thought for Contemplation- A human life is like a single letter of the alphabet. It can be meaningless. Or it can be part of a great meaning. The Jewish Theological Seminary

“Grace Abounds”
The Rev. Dr. Anita Farber-Robertson
First Parish in Cohasset
January 9, 2011
Readings: by Walt Whitman from the Preface to the Leaves of Grass
From Honey in the Rock, by Harold Kushner
Both are attached at the end of this sermon
Shay’s father was giving a speech at a fundraising dinner at a school for disabled children. His son Shay was one of the children who had been nurtured in that school.

He and Shay had walked past a park where some boys Shay knew were playing baseball. Shay asked, ‘Do you think they’ll let me play?’ His Dad knew that most of the boys would not want someone like Shay on their team, but as a father he also understood that if his son were allowed to play, it would give him a much-needed sense of belonging and some confidence to be accepted by others in spite of his handicaps.

He approached one of the boys on the field and asked (not expecting much) if Shay could play. The boy looked around for guidance and said, ‘We’re losing by six runs and the game is in the eighth inning. I guess he can be on our team and we’ll try to put him in to bat in the ninth inning.’

Shay struggled over to the team’s bench and, with a broad smile, put on a team shirt. His father watched; …the boys could see his joy at his son being accepted.

In the bottom of the eighth inning, Shay’s team scored a few runs but was still behind by three.

In the top of the ninth inning, Shay put on a glove and played in the right field. Even though no hits came his way, he was obviously ecstatic just to be in the game and on the field, grinning from ear to ear…

In the bottom of the ninth inning, Shay’s team scored again.

Now, with two outs and the bases loaded, the potential winning run was on base and Shay was scheduled to be next at bat.

At this juncture, do they let Shay bat and give away their chance to win the game?

Surprisingly, Shay was given the bat. Everyone knew that a hit was all but impossible because Shay didn’t even know how to hold the bat properly, much less connect with the ball.

However, as Shay stepped up to the Plate, the pitcher, recognizing that the other team was putting winning aside for this moment in Shay’s life, moved in a few steps to lob the ball in softly so Shay could at least make contact.

The first pitch came and Shay swung clumsily and missed.

The pitcher again took a few steps forward to toss the ball softly towards Shay.

As the pitch came in, Shay swung at the ball and hit a slow ground ball right back to the pitcher.

The game would now be over.

The pitcher picked up the soft grounder and could have easily thrown the ball to the first baseman.

Shay would have been out and that would have been the end of the game.

Instead, the pitcher threw the ball right over the first baseman’s head, out of reach of all team mates.

Everyone from the stands and both teams started yelling, ‘Shay, run to first!

Run to first!’

Never in his life had Shay ever run that far, but he made it to first base.

He scampered down the baseline, wide-eyed and startled.

Everyone yelled, ‘Run to second, run to second!’

Catching his breath, Shay awkwardly ran towards second, gleaming and struggling to make it to the base.

By the time Shay rounded towards second base, the right fielder had the ball. The smallest guy on their team who now had his first chance to be the hero for his team.

He could have thrown the ball to the second-baseman for the tag, but he understood the pitcher’s intentions so he, too, intentionally threw the ball high and far over the third-baseman’s head.

Shay ran toward third base deliriously as the runners ahead of him circled the bases toward home.

All were screaming, ‘Shay, Shay, Shay, all the Way Shay’.

Shay reached third base because the opposing shortstop ran to help him by turning him in the direction of third base, and shouted, ‘Run to third!

Shay, run to third!’

As Shay rounded third, the boys from both teams, and the spectators, were on their feet screaming, ‘Shay, run home! Run home!’

Shay ran to home, stepped on the plate, and was cheered as the hero who hit the grand slam and won the game for his team

‘That day’, said his father softly…’the boys from both teams helped bring a piece of true love and humanity into this world’.

Shay didn’t make it to another summer. He died that winter, having never forgotten that he had been the hero.

‘the boys from both teams helped bring a piece of true love and humanity into this world’.
Shay’s father told the tale to raise money from this secular crowd. It was never-the-less a tale of a profoundly religious experience.
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,…have patience and indulgence toward the people,…- go freely … with the young,…- re-examine all you have been told in school or church or in any book… dismiss whatever insults your soul; and your very flesh shall be a great poem…

That is what happened that day… a day in which the lives of two teams of ordinary boys were filled with compassion, love and grace. A day when not only Shay and the boys were changed, but every parent and sibling, every adult and school mate and neighborhood kid who sat in the stands was transfixed and transformed.
What was it that happened that day? Religious values were put into practice. Religious ideals were realized. And the flesh of those boys became a great poem, as they embodied the wonder of what is most deeply human in every joint of their bodies.
We never know when that will happen. Grace abounds. When we are open to it, we too may find ourselves having profound experiences like the people had that day on the baseball field. There are other times when grace is only a possibility, lurking on the edges of our life. It offers us the option of taking the risk Shay’s father took, the risk of putting ourselves squarely in its path.
We don’t always do that. I am continuously amazed by how readily we put ourselves in harm’s way over and over again. In emotional harm’s way. We fill ourselves with expectations of others that are unlikely to be met. We repeat old behaviors that have brought us frustration or regret, expecting each time, a different outcome.
I have a friend who has issues with her nieces. Every year she gets excited about buying Christmas gifts for them. And every year she gets annoyed because they did not write thank-you notes. This upsets her. She then remembers that they didn’t write thank-you notes last year either, or in any year she can remember before that, which only increases her annoyance. She feels disappointed with them. She feels angry with their parents for not teaching them what is polite and proper. And each year she sets herself up for disappointment and anger again.
This week something shifted. After her annual rant, she stopped and realized that if you keep doing what you’ve always done, it is foolish to expect different results. She announced to me that she has decided that she will no longer set herself up for disappointment. She will stop giving them gifts. I listened sympathetically, and went home.
But when I got home I thought, “Well, that is a lose/lose solution if I ever heard one.” She will lose the pleasure of choosing gifts and they will lose the pleasure of receiving them. It didn’t make sense to me.
I was disturbed by her solution.
Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, … – go freely 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…
The words of Whitman told me why I was uneasy. What is important are neither the gifts nor the acknowledgments. What is important is how we understand ourselves and how we move in the world. Are we living lives that embody the values of our faith and the aspirations it engenders? Are we living by the rules of the book, or the guidance of the open heart? What would it mean to:
“Love the earth and sun and the animals …give alms to everyone that asks … – go freely with …the young…?” What would that look like? Feel like?
For one, you could decide that your pleasure was in the giving. If you give for the pleasure of it, then maybe you could write thank-you notes to your nieces thanking them for having given you great pleasure by being your nieces (or your grandchildren, or whomever it is of whom you are thinking,) and thanking them for making you so happy by receiving your gifts .
Hmmm. That’s different. There is real grace in that- the joy of giving, the joy of acknowledging how fortunate we are to have such people in our lives, and the joy of giving them the pleasure of affirmation.
What a novel idea! Everyone wins. I think I have just talked myself into doing it! One more example of grace showing up.
Each lifetime is the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.
For some there are more pieces.
For others the puzzle is more difficult to assemble.
Some seem to be born with a nearly completed puzzle.
And so it goes.
Souls going this way and that
Trying to assemble the myriad parts.

But know this. No one has within themselves all the pieces to the puzzle….
Everyone carries with them at least one and probably
Many pieces to someone else’s puzzle.
Sometimes they know it, sometimes they don’t.

And when you present your piece
Which is worthless to you,
To another, whether you know it or not,

Whether they know it or not,

You are a messenger of the Most High.
And there you have it. What I call incarnational theology. We are each the vehicles of grace, each the carriers of the holy that blesses and heals, emboldens and strengthens, each charged to give it away to everyone who asks, and even those who don’t. It may not always be a homerun, or an epiphany that changes your life, but
when you present your piece
Which is worthless to you,
To another, whether you know it or not,

Whether they know it or not,
You are a messenger of the Most High.

Readings:

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
——————–

There must have been a time when you entered a room and met someone and after a while you understood that unknown to either of you there was a reason you had met.

You had changed the other, or (they) had changed you. By some word or deed or just by your presence (together) the errand hd been completed.

Each lifetime is the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.
For some there are more pieces.
For others the puzzle is more difficult to assemble.
Some seem to be born with a nearly completed puzzle.
And so it goes.
Souls going this way and that
Trying to assemble the myriad parts.

But know this. No one has within themselves all the pieces to the puzzle.
Life before the days when they used to seal jigsaw puzzles in cellophane,
Insuring that all the pieces were there.
Everyone carries with them at least one and probably
Many pieces to someone else’s puzzle.
Sometimes they know it, sometimes they don’t.

And when you present your piece
Which is worthless to you,
To another, whether you know it or not,

Whether they know it or not,

You are a messenger of the Most High.

“A Selection Sublimely Natural”

Evolution Sunday

on the occasion of the 150^th anniversary on November 24

of the publication of Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species

Reflections by Rev. Dr. Jan Carlsson-Bull

First Parish Unitarian Universalist

Cohasset, MA

November 22, 2009

An Amazing Story – I

Just months ago we observed in Sunday morning worship the 200^th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin on February 12, 1809.  As a congregation, we participated in Evolution Sunday; and no, it’s not just Unitarian Universalist congregations that celebrate the ties that bind religion and science.   We joined with over a thousand congregations of all sorts from every state and 15 countries.   Today we’re an early bird congregation in celebrating these ties.  Most participants are waiting until February to do so, with Darwin’s birthday as the benchmark.   So far, 550 congregations from 49 states and nine countries will participate in “Evolution Weekend 2010.”   New congregations are still signing on for this next observance.  But there’s an interim anniversary that I believe is cause for celebration now—that is, the 150^th anniversary of the publication of The Origin of Species.   November 24, 1859 marked a life changing event about life changing.

I knew as I sorted my thoughts for our earlier celebration that I must read it, so I made a foolish promise.  I vowed that with summer’s arrival, I would take The Origin to the beach with me and complete it there—silly me!    If Darwin had his reasons for delaying publication of his seminal theory of natural selection, I suppose I’m permitted to follow in the same spirit—that is, putting off the actual packing the book into my beach bag, hoping it wouldn’t drown in sunscreen or saltwater, and settling in for a good long and not easy read.

July passed.   August passed.   In the early days of September, Darwin accompanied me to the beach, and I dived in—to the waves, yes, but also into the pages of this remarkable work that is aptly read in a setting that breathes eternal change, a setting where land and ocean and the creatures of both are in the constant throes of what we might call a selection sublimely natural.

Let’s work backward from the publication of Darwin’s epiphany.   Epiphany…a term commonly used to convey a religious revelation, yet so adaptable to an event that conveyed a revelation of nature.   Epiphanies often hold hard truths to which we often respond with doubt, denial, even hostility and rage.   So it was when The Origin of Species moved from Darwin’s desk to the shelves of British booksellers.

In Darwin’s diary, he posts in the autumn of 1859:

“Finished proofs (thirteen months and ten days) of Abstract on Origin of Species; 1250 copies printed.  The first edition was published on November 24^th, and all copies sold first day.”

A second edition, of 3,000 copies, was issued on January 7, 1860, less than two months after the first.   Four editions would follow.

Why did it take Charles Darwin so long—20 years to be exact—to formulate his findings in a volume that he could share with the larger public?   The short and sermon-friendly answer is that he was concerned about the response of religious leaders, and he was concerned about the response of his dear wife.   The prevailing theory of Creation was—and still is in many quarters—that species were created distinctly and separately by God and that humankind is one of these species.  The term Creationism applies in current rhetoric.   Darwin wrote in The Origin:

“On the view that each species has been independently created, I can see no explanation of this great fact in the classification of all organic beings; but, to the best of my judgment, it is explained through inheritance and the complex action of natural selection, entailing extinction and divergence of character…” (113)

It was his practice throughout the manuscript of The Origin of Species to explain himself, to give all possible evidence for the theory of natural selection over distinct acts of creation, and to serve up the harvest of observation that he had gleaned on his five-year voyage on the HMS Beagle, that extended from late December 1831 to early October, 1836.

“The voyage of the Beagle,” wrote Darwin decades later, “has been by far the most important event in my life, and has determined my whole career…” (Autobiography, 31)

Just a few short years after returning to Britain, he began to distill his theory of natural selection.  Yet eight of his published works would precede publication of The Origin. If one can procrastinate productively, Darwin did it, aided and abetted by a strong dose of anxiety.   In the reflections that he wrote in his final years, he explained how in the common struggle for existence that he observed in the habits of animals and plants, it struck him that

“…under these circumstances favourable variations would tend to be preserved and unfavourable ones to be destroyed.  The result of this would be the formations of new species.   Here, then, I had at last got a theory by which to work; but I was so anxious to avoid prejudice, that I determined not for some time to write even the briefest sketch of it.”

(Autobiography, 48)

All the while he was writing about other, related matters of science.   His published works totaled 19, again, eight of them issued before The Origin.

The concerns of his wife, Emma, also figured in Darwin’s reticence to publish his theory early on.   I trust that the recent PBS film, “Darwin’s Darkest Hour,” cites a historic conversation between Charles Darwin and his physician father, Dr. Robert Waring Darwin.   The two are astride a coach bumping across the English countryside, and young Charles confides to his father his hope to marry Emma Wedgewood, who happened also to be his cousin.  (Surely not enough was known, even by Charles Darwin, about the possible consequences of marrying one’s cousin.)

“Well,” remarks the elder Darwin, “there’s only one drawback I can see—religion!  …she’s pious, like all the other Wedgewood women.”

To which Charles responded,

“Emma’s Unitarian, Father.   You know how grandfather described Unitarianism.”

With a burst of laughter, his father spoke:

“A featherbed for falling Christians!  Unitarianism,” he explained, “may be a wishy-washy sort of Christianity compared with the fire-branding Evangelicals, but make no mistake, Emma believes in things—in the after-life and hellfire and soul, but I assume you don’t.”

“Well,” answered Charles, “I’m less certain than I used to be.”

“Well, I don’t believe in them,” retorted his father, “and your grandfather didn’t, but to women of Emma’s [mind], they are matters of vital importance.    ….the way around it is to pay lip service, go to church and that sort of thing, if possible avoid discussions, and above all, never, under any circumstances, reveal your true opinions.”

This conversation aside, Charles and Emma married in 1839 and remained happily married.   Through the birthing of ten children, the grievous deaths of two of them in infancy, and Charles’ increasing ill health, they were devoted to each other and to their children.   Nonetheless, Charles’ love of Emma and his respect for her beliefs was a factor in his reticence to publish a theory that flew in the face of established religion—alas, even Unitarianism!

The deciding event that propelled Darwin into distilling his theory for publication was a letter received from the British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace.  Darwin had already set to work on an extensive narrative of his views, when the letter from Wallace arrived in the summer of 1858.  It bore an essay that contained, in Darwin’s words, “exactly the same theory as mine.”  And it came with a request that if Darwin found favor with this essay, he might send it off to his close friend and advocate Charles Lyell, the eminent British geologist.   What followed was an interim publication that included a segment of Darwin’s manuscript and Wallace’s full essay.  Neither aroused much public attention.  As Darwin reflected in his later autobiographical sketch:

“This shows how necessary it is that any new view should be explained at considerable length in order to arouse public attention.”  (Autobiography, 49)

Urged on by his close friends Charles Lyell and J.D. Hooker, the esteemed British botanist, Darwin set to work in September of 1858.

“I abstracted the MS. begun on a much larger scale in 1856,”

he wrote years later,

“…and [I] completed the volume on the same reduced scale.  It cost me thirteen months and ten days’ hard labour.  It was published under the title of the Origin of Species, in November 1859.  Though considerably added to and corrected in the later editions, it has remained substantially the same book.”

Had Charles Darwin given full vent to his inclination to write his theory comprehensively—that is, with what for him would have been a far more satisfying host of observations and explanations, we might wonder if it would have been accessible to the larger public.   I find it remarkable that the not quite 400-page edition that I’m still reading is the “short story” of Darwin’s theory of natural selection.  But I shouldn’t.  I shouldn’t find it remarkable at all that the larger work of Charles Darwin’s lifetime held a level of detail fitting the complexity of its subject—the very origin of species.   It’s a story of which you and I are a part, as the myriad forces of nature continue to sort and select over time measured in eras that encompass life’s beginning into this very morning.   Thank you, dear Charles Darwin, for paying such close attention, for recording what you found, and for at long last publishing this amazing story in which we each and all partake.

An Amazing Story – II

“As buds give rise by growth to fresh buds, and these, if vigorous, branch out and overtop on all sides many a feebler branch, so by generation I believe it has been with the great Tree of Life, which fills with its dead and broken branches the crust of the earth, and covers the surface with its ever branching and beautiful ramifications.”

he wrote in The Origin.   Darwin was not simply informed by what he observed; he was moved, he was inspired.
While Charles Darwin was not what we call a Creationist, while he didn’t believe in a micro-managing God, while he didn’t understand we who are human kind to be the final act of life on this planet, he held what I recognize as three core stances of a deeply religious person—that is, humility, awe, and gratitude.  And by religious, I mean tending to what matters most and asking the big questions, such as how life came to be as it is on this planet on which we find ourselves.   The question rises from the life work of Darwin and grounds the observations and conclusions that led to his publication of The Origin of Species.

Many times he was asked about his views on religion, and he thought often on the matters linked with religion, most especially aboard the HMS Beagle as he circled the world and noticed and noticed and noticed.   In the autobiographical sketch penned for his children at the age of 67, just six years before he died, he again broached the question about the source of belief in the existence of God.  He cited the common difficulty “of conceiving this immense and wonderful universe, including man with his capacity of looking far backwards and far into futurity, as the result of blind chance or necessity.”  It’s a stance that suggests theism and a stance that he held as he wrote The Origin. It’s a stance that with the passing years grew weaker, as Darwin’s acknowledgement of non-knowing grew stronger.

“The mystery of the beginning of all things is insoluble by us, and I for one must be content to remain an Agnostic,” he wrote.  (Autobiography, 75)

Interesting, I suppose, that the term agnostic was presumably coined in 1860 by Darwin’s close friend and advocate, the British naturalist Thomas Huxley.
Charles Darwin readily acknowledged the friendship and scholarship and thoughtfulness of others.   Without calling himself humble, which would have rendered him otherwise, he simply was.   Nowhere is this more apparent than in his acknowledgement that natural selection does not assume any “advancement of life.”   In the first edition of The Origin, he wrote:

“Although extremely few of the most ancient species may now have living and modified descendants, yet at the most remote geological period, the earth may have been as well peopled with many species of many genera, families, orders, and classes, as at the present day.” (The Origin, 111)

In the third edition, he appended a section in which he stated:

“…natural selection includes no necessary and universal law of advancement or development—it only takes advantage of such variations as arise and are beneficial to each creature under its complex relations of life.”

We as humankind do not necessarily advance as time does.   Such a view of what we loosely refer to as homo sapiens is humble to the core.

As for awe, how could one with a lifetime of observing and theorizing natural phenomena and posing the image of “the great Tree of Life, which fills with its dead and broken branches the crust of the earth, and covers the surface with its ever branching and beautiful ramifications,” harbor anything other than awe?  Wonder and awe are hand in hand religious stances, though by no means stances of religiosity, which tends so quickly to ascribe a cause.

As for gratitude, it was manifest in caring for the well-being of others and considering the very real discernment of a peer who had arrived at the exact same theory as his and whom Darwin affirmed and acknowledged, even as he moved quickly into a 15-month marathon of distilling his own.   It was manifest in his love of his wife, Emma, his children, and his understanding that the world was far larger than he and his family and friends and associates, far larger.   Gratitude is a giving of thanks through day to day behavior, a not taking for granted the givens of life, and a deep commitment to sharing what one witnesses in a precious and fleeting lifetime.
Darwin’s faith may have faded in conventional terms, but his humility and awe and gratitude only increased.  It is telling that when Charles Darwin died on April 19, 1882, surrounded by his dear family, neighbors and notables from religion and science gathered a week later in Westminster Abbey to pay final tribute.   It is even more telling that one of the pall-bearers was a Mr. A. R. Wallace, that is Alfred Russel Wallace.

May Charles Robert Darwin rest not in peace, but with sufficient restlessness to counter all possible boredom that might accompany eternal tranquility.      Amen.

Sources:

“Agnosticism,” from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnosticism.

“The Clergy Letter Project,” Michael Zimmerman, http://www.butler.edu/clergyproject/Backgd_info.htm.

“The Clergy Letter – from Unitarian Universalist Clergy – An Open Letter Concerning Religion and Science,” http://www.butler.edu/clergyproject/Unitarian_Universalists/UnivUnitarianClergyLtr.htm.

“Darwin’s Darkest Hour,” a PBS Production, Directed by John Bradshaw, Teleplay by John Goldsmith, Produced by Michael Mahoney, http://video.pbs.org/video/1286437550/.

Charles Darwin, The Autobiography of Charles Darwin, Introduction by Brian Regal, originally published in 1887, The Barnes & Noble Library of Essential Reading, New York, 2005.

Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species, with an Introduction and Notes by George Levine, originally published in 1859, Barnes & Noble, Inc., New York, 2004.
Richard Milner, “Darwin’s Universe: Home of Darwinian Scholarship, Music, Art, and Entertainment,” http://www.darwinlive.com/