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Sermon Index

AHEAD OF THE CROWD

by the Reverend Phyllis L. Hubbell
at the First Unitarian Church of Baltimore
on the 14th of May 2000

"I've got the horse right here; his name is Paul Revere." Next Saturday, horses much like Paul Revere, Valentine, and Epitaph will compete for first prize at the Belmont Stakes, the second of the three races that make up the famed "triple crown" of horse racing. The horses will give their all, but only one of them will win. A very good horse will win that day. But once in 20 or 30 years, a horse wins all three races. That horse approaches perfection. She or he goes down in history, leaving behind stories that will be told for generations.

Today we tell the story of one of the perfect ones: Secretariat. Secretariat was born on March 30, 1970. He was a beautiful red colt, with impressive lineage, and a nearly 25-foot stride. Think about that for a moment. Picture four 6-foot tall men and women laid end to end and then imagine a horse whose legs spread that distance and a little extra.

His owners thought about racing him but he was easily distracted. Focus is important in a racehorse. So his trainer tried putting blinkers on him to keep him looking straight ahead. Now Secretariat began to get the idea. Still, his first race started poorly. Just out of the gate, two other horses slammed into him. It was a short race, so there wasn't much time to make up for the lost ground. Yet somehow, Secretariat managed to finish fourth. That was surprising enough under the circumstances that some reporters began to watch him. The rest of the year, he won every race but one, in which he was disqualified. He was named Horse of the Year.

In his third year, he won all of his early races except one that he lost because he had an abscess in his mouth. Dreams of the coveted Triple Crown began to seem more real. The first of the three races is the Kentucky Derby. That day, Secretariat, was slow out of the starting gate. He was last as the horses came around the stretch for the first time. This race, however, was longer than his first. Long enough for Secretariat to stretch out. Unlike most horses FONT-FAMILY: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-hansi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; symbol; Symbol"> who slow down towards the end of a race FONT-FAMILY: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-hansi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; symbol; Symbol"> Secretariat ran each quarter mile faster than the one before it. His nearest rival, Sham, broke the track record, but finished second. Secretariat set a new track record and won by 2 lengths.

At the Preakness two weeks later, Secretariat was last out of the gate again. Now any mathematician or horse race follower knows that you want to run as close to the inside of the track as possible because that's the shortest distance. But Secretariat took off on his own to the outside, going around the other horses, passing them all. Instead of losing steam, Secretariat led the pack for the rest of the race, beating second-place Sham by almost three lengths and unofficially setting another track record.

By the time the Belmont Stakes came around, few wanted to compete with Secretariat. Only four horses challenged him, among them that nearly great horse, Sham. The Belmont Stakes is 12 furlongs, substantially longer than either the Derby or the Preakness. Horses who conquer the first two races sometimes cannot keep up their speed for the additional length. This time, Secretariat and Sham left the starting gate right away. Both battled for the lead for the first five furlongs, ten lengths head of their nearest rivals. Then Secretariat began to pull away, and Sham dropped back to last.

Most horses, once they are comfortably in front with no competition in sight, relax and slow down. But not Secretariat FONT-FAMILY: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-hansi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; symbol; Symbol"> not on this day anyway. As his owner, Penny Chenery, would later say, this was the day that Secretariat just felt like running.And what a show he put on that Saturday afternoon. He flew around the far turn at Belmont Park, the distance between him and rest of the field increasing quickly and by incredible margins. It was 10 lengths; then 12; then 14; then 20. At one point, famous jockey Eddie Arcaro, riding one of the other horses, thought he was gaining on Secretariat, because the horse looked smaller and smaller. Sometimes, when a horse gets tired, he seems to shrink. Instead of slowing down, however, Secretariat passed the finish line FONT-FAMILY: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-hansi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; symbol; Symbol"> 31 lengths, about the length of a football field FONT-FAMILY: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-hansi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; symbol; Symbol"> in front of the rest of the horses.

No horse has ever won the Belmont, and very rarely any other race, by a greater margin. Secretariat smashed the record for the course by two full seconds. More than 5,300 racing fans kept their winning tickets as keepsakes, rather than cashing them in. Sham, who had raced against the big colt three times, finished 43 lengths behind him, heartbroken. Sham never raced again.

It was reported in the Baltimore Sun that golfer Jack Nicklaus, who was watching the race, "fell to his knees before his TV set, cried and pounded his fist on the floor. His reaction disturbed him. 'Why me? I'm not a racing fan,' Nicklaus told CBS race commentator Heywood Hale-Broun.

'Jack,' he said, "your whole life is a quest for perfection, and you saw it in the Belmont,

and it moved you.' Nicklaus nodded."

Secretariat is the only Triple Crown winner to set a time record in all three races, and all of his records still stand. His Belmont Stakes is widely considered to be the greatest performance by a thoroughbred racehorse ever, anywhere. He died in 1989, at age 19. The necropsy revealed a 21-pound heart, nearly twice the normal size.

Wilma Rudolph also had a big heart. She practiced and practiced, pushing herself beyond the wildest dreams of her doctors, who expected her paralysis FONT-FAMILY: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-hansi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; symbol; Symbol"> the result of polio contracted when she was a child FONT-FAMILY: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-hansi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; symbol; Symbol"> to be permanent. Then, when she went to the Olympics, she ignored pain and injury, running better than she had ever run before, recovering from a fumble to win not one but three gold medals.

We have become wary of the quest for perfection. Too often, it has meant not only self-sacrifice but self-destruction. Too often, it has left in its wake driven people, filled with guilt, heartbroken, like Sham, at their failures, unable to enjoy their successes. For the shadow side of the quest for perfection includes both an obsessive pursuit of the impossible and self-righteous judgment of those we deem less worthy.

But that is to misunderstand perfection. The Buddha tried asceticism on his search for enlightenment, at one time limiting himself to six grains of rice a day. He is reported as saying that during this period, he would touch the skin on the front of his stomach and feel his backbone. But he discovered that this was not the road to enlightenment and discarded such extreme measures for what he called a middle way.

Too often in the search for perfection, we lose sight of what it looks like. We become so extreme that we get lost in the details. The Buddha threatened his health in the search for an end to suffering. A parent takes on five more clients to cover a big mortgage while his or her child is being tempted by drugs. We color-code our files while someone is starving. This isn't perfection. Perfection waits for those of us who dedicate our lives to becoming incarnations of the divine, following a call to love, to creation, to beauty, to some special gift that the universe has granted us. One of the runners in the movie Chariots of Fire says that when he runs he feels God's pleasure. The true quest for perfection brings God's music to our hearts.

Too often in the search for perfection, we drown out that song. The search becomes about ourselves FONT-FAMILY: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-hansi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; symbol; Symbol"> our insecure selves, our needy, greedy selves. We try to be perfect so that others will admire us. So that we will finally think that we are good enough. So that we will be better than others. We find ourselves snapping at others who do not meet our high standards. The music stops. We lose the joy.

Isn't perfection devoting our lives to becoming incarnations of the divine, while at the same time letting go of the need to succeed? The need to have others recognize our efforts? Isn't it letting go of the desire to judge others whom we perceive are not trying as hard as we are? Isn't it being filled with the holy as we work, planting a garden beside a busy road, playing basketball with our children or, like Wilma Rudolph's mother, sitting in the back of a bus with her daughter on the way to the hospital, trusting that the laundry and the cooking and sewing would get done in time, well enough? Isn't it making a difference in the world? Whether it is by sweeping up broken glass in an alley or by writing a concerto, perfection is working with joy, with love, and with passion.

Wilma Rudolph's mother had 22 children. She had to sew their clothes herself out of colored feed bags. She had to cook and clean and nurse her family when they were ill. Still, she found the time and energy to take Wilma for treatment to Nashville FONT-FAMILY: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-hansi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; symbol; Symbol"> 50 miles away FONT-FAMILY: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-hansi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; symbol; Symbol"> twice a week. Was her life any less a quest for perfection than Wilma's? Was her accomplishment any less? Is it any wonder that Wilma accomplished what she did?

style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'">If we would, each one of us in this room could change the world. More than 150,000 mothers will march in Washington today for stricter gun laws when they could have stayed home and had breakfast in bed. The idea for the march started with one person, one mom, who had heard about someone shooting at children at The Jewish Community Center in California. When she applied for the permit from the National Park Service, she estimated that 10,000 people would march. That was a year ago. Imagine how she feels this morning. Picture her this afternoon, looking at all those faces stretched out before her.

Changing the world isn't easy. It takes people willing to follow their gifts, their callings. It takes courage and fortitude. Energy and vision. But oh, the joy that awaits us. Oh, what we could do if only we would try.

Listen: The race is about to begin. Are you ready? Are you ready? FONT-FAMILY: 'Dutch801 Rm BT'; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">