What Unites Us?

© 2009, Revs. Bill and Barbara Hamilton-Holway

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What unites us?

We didn’t agree on this sermon…

It wasn’t really that we didn’t agree with each other.

Our words didn’t agree with our actions.

This was a busy week.
And the main sewer line pipe at our house broke.

It wasn’t a big deal, in the big picture of all that goes on in lives, it was just an irritant.

We couldn’t take showers or flush the toilet or wash the dishes.

We were hectic and harried. You’ve had weeks like that.

It didn’t seem like there was time to just sit and breathe or to love our neighbors, and our nearest neighbors were putting up with water on the street and noise of jackhammers. We weren’t loving ourselves so well either.

We’d write about the joy of living and loving and then take our frustrations out on each other. That’s not an easy thing to admit, but it’s true.

We’d write about savoring and saving the world, but we weren’t doing either. We’d write about how there’s got to be more than work and do, do, do, while we kept doing, plowing through a lot of tasks.

We’d write, “Life is precious and short. What do we want to make of this time together?” We weren’t making the time what either of us wanted.

If it’s hard for two people to unite our beliefs with our actions, then how can a whole congregation do it?

Are our words in accord with our lives?

Frustrated late Friday night, I thought about having a drink or something more to eat. I paused long enough to know that wouldn’t help. I drank a glass of water.

We went to bed Friday night without a sermon.

When I woke up on Saturday, I didn’t go and just immediately turn on the computer.

I stretched my body. I sat in the chair where I sit when I want to be quiet and pay attention to my breathing. I imagined warm light bathing over my head and neck, down my shoulders and back, my arms, torso, legs, feet and toes. I imagined air flowing into the tight spaces in my head and in between my vertebrae. I imagined the air expanding my heart.

Then I just sat and breathed. When my mind wandered, I paid attention to the sounds of a bird outside the window. When the bird sounds stopped, I focused on a dog barking to keep my mind from thinking. I returned to affirmations I have used before. “I choose to experience this moment. I restore my inner balance with my compassionate attention. I neutralize my negative emotional charge. I am responsible for my own peace of mind.”

Admitting how hard it was, made it so the two of us could begin to be able to say—I rejoice and am glad in this day!

I give thanks that we are here together!

We are young and old, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, straight and questioning.
We are atheist, theist, agnostic, pagan, humanist, Christian, Buddhist, Jew, naturalist, mystic…many of us, some of each.

Some of us love classical music and others want contemporary songs. Some are looking for community, others for social action, some for intellectual stimulation, others for personal spiritual growth. Some of us want a moral, ethical foundation for our children, others aren’t sure what we’re looking for, but we feel something essential in our lives is missing.

Each of us is unique and shaped by our diverse experiences. All of us are full of opinions. So, are we just a conglomeration, a hodgepodge, each pursuing our individual paths, coming together to finagle and debate?

Do we unite in any common cause and greater purpose?

Life is precious and short. What do we want to make of this time together?

We have been given so many good gifts—the shining sun, the ocean, the beautiful, bountiful earth. We have resources, opportunities, imagination… What do we do with our abundant blessings?

We are here, each of us breathing, all of our hearts beating. What do we want to make of this gift of life?

Yesterday we gathered with members at the sites where four people were shot and killed this last week in Richmond. We took hands, and Kim Duir said she was thinking of the parents whose children went out and didn’t return home, the empty chairs at family tables. Standing there on the spot where people were killed made real the precious gift of life.

We were born and we will die. 14th century Sufi poet Hafiz says, “Now let’s get down to the real reason why we sit together and breathe.”

Each of us could write a manifesto on why we sit here together and breathe. In fact, we wish each of you would write your reasons for what brings us together. Each of us would express it differently. And each of us would express it differently on different days. What unites us? What do we have in common?

In between birth and death, we’d like aliveness, to be human together, laugh and cry, and be reminded of what’s most dear.

We all want to be seen for who we are, recognized, appreciated, honored, and encouraged to be our deepest, truest, most authentic selves.

We want to know our own uniqueness and connect in caring relationships, to forgive and be forgiven, love and be loved. We want to know our particular gifts make a difference in the world.

We all have fears.

We all are wounded.

None of us perfect. We all make mistakes and begin again.

Dwelling in all that’s wrong or all that’s hurting in us and in the world, or being cranky about it all, is not what we want out of life.

No matter how wounded we are, there is a part of each of us that can never be destroyed. What are we to do with our deepest, precious self?

We agree that the religious impulse is broad and deep and can’t be confined to any one religion or set of ideas. We benefit from many teachers, Buddha, Moses, Jesus, prophets and activists, people whose lives teach care for the well-being of all, loving the least of us. What do we do with the gifts of wisdom from so many traditions and disciplines?

We unite in feeling sorrow when we witness another’s heart break.

We unite in joy…when together we welcome babies with their clear eyes, fleshy splendor and freshness, the world of possibilities before them.

We feel hope that all of us human beings are capable of tenderness and empathy.

I’m always touched by members, who right after a loved one’s death, show up for the Sunday service. They say they need and are strengthened by community. They give all of us the message that grief isn’t our private sorrow, that we support one another, our presence lifts each other’s spirits, allows us to carry on.

We unite to breathe and experience awe, wonder, and gratitude. What do we do with our gratitude?

We want something more than the secular world offers, more than hate-filled name-calling, fear-mongering and grabbing as much money and status as you can.

Happiness has less to do with money and more to do with decency, friendships and service.

Poet Hafiz says it comes down “to love more, and be happy.”

We unite as people wanting to be moral, ethical, decent, and kind.

We come together in creative interchange, what psychologist Jacquie Lewis calls close encounters of a holy kind. We change and grow.

I was a part of a small group program, like our chalice circles. When we began our group included one person turning sixteen, another becoming eighty, one young pregnant woman and another woman on dialysis, a U.S. Viet Nam War veteran and a woman forced to leave her home in Viet Nam when all the rest of her family was killed. We didn’t debate or discuss. We listened deeply. All of us shared stories of joys, sorrows, loneliness and connection, disappointments and moments of glory. The woman on dialysis didn’t live to become a grandmother, but she did live to hold the new born baby who became the youngest member of our group. There were tears as the Vietnamese woman and the war veteran told their stories—a soldier, a family, a country torn apart by war. The first Gulf War was beginning and we all joined together with the larger community to rally for peace. We were literally walking our talk.

Many of us can be on the streets in the Greater Richmond Interfaith Program’s Harmony Walk. All of us can participate by walking or by sponsoring walkers at whatever gifts we can give. Amounts are important, but less important than our unified effort with people from the community, the schools, other religions, Sikhs, Catholics, Jews, Methodists.., being visible on the streets, raising funds to feed the hungry. Taking action together brings hope.

Once when BART cars were filled with people all going to the Ferry Building for a peace rally, a couple of people started singing, “Ain’t gonna study war no more,” And the sound grew as more and more voices sang, “ain’t gonna study war no more, ain’t gonna study war no more.” I felt connected, at ease and at peace with strangers in a spirit-filled united effort for peace.

Right after September 11, 2001, in stores and on the streets, people spoke to one another with an awareness of how precious life is and how interconnected our fates. We can always touch the lives of strangers.

Our mission is to shape the public sphere toward justice. Our calling is to be just and decent and kind in our daily interactions with clerks, clients, family and neighbors. And grow to know everyone is our neighbor. Our mission is for our core values to be manifested in the public sphere and in our personal lives.

We want to transform ourselves and our world and that’s a big undertaking. To do so, we need to grow spiritually. The spirit needs space. It gets cramped and tight and tense without regular participation in Sunday services and daily nurture through sitting quietly, meditating, reflecting on inspirational words.

What we do with our gifts and gratitude, what we do with the teachings we’ve received, what we do with our precious selves is grow in spirit, in love and in service.

We give back. We were created to appreciate the world and to co-create the world.

We are here, as E. B. White named it, both to save and savor the world, to appreciate our blessings and joyfully share them.
As our influence together in the world expands, we grow in our joy at being alive!

Hafiz ends his poem, “Now let’s get down to the real reason why we sit together and breathe and begin the laughing, the divine laughing, like great heroic women and magnificent strong men.”

Dear heroic ones, dear magnificent ones, becoming-stronger-all-the-time ones, in love, hope, and promise abide.

We unite to create loving community, to grow spiritually and in integrity, joy, and service. As one of the oldest covenants of our tradition proclaims, love is the doctrine of this church, the quest of truth is its sacrament, and service is its prayer.