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Sermon Index

WHAT I LEARNED THIS SUMMER

by the Reverend Phyllis L. Hubbell
at the First Unitarian Church of Baltimore
on the 17th of September 2000

Every summer we go off with a stack of books, seeking inspiration for sermons for the year ahead. We have already told some of you that both John and I discovered the work of Rachel Remen this summer and simply fell in love with her writing. We started with her newest book, My Grandfathers Blessing and liked it so well we went out and bought her earlier book, Kitchen Table Wisdom. Remen started her professional life as a pediatrician. Like John and me, she found herself increasingly drawn to work that engaged the spirit as well as the mind. Eventually, she left her work as a pediatrician and became a grief counselor.

One story in particular stayed with me. "Josh," a gifted cancer surgeon, came to Remen because he was depressed. Day after day, year after year, he heard the same old complaints, saw the same old diseases, with much the same result. He was considering retiring early.

Remen suggested he try something other patients of hers had found helpful. Every night, before bed, she asked him to write down answers to three questions."What surprised me today?" "What moved me?" "What inspired me?" He resisted at first. But when Remen noted that "Its cheaper than Prozac," he laughed and agreed to give it a try.

Three days went by. On the fourth, Josh called Remen. "Ive tried this for three days now. All I get is nothing, nothing, and nothing. I hate failure. Is there a trick?" Remen laughed. "Try looking at it like a journalist, a novelist, a poet. What are the stories you see around you?"

More days went by without a call. Six weeks later, Josh came in carrying a notebook on his visit to Remen. Talking of the exercise she had set him, he said that at first all he could think about that surprised him was how many millimeters a cancer had grown or shrunk. The only inspiring thing he noticed was when a new drug treatment began to work. But gradually, he began to notice how some of his patients showed an amazing amount of dignity and courage in the face of tragedy. "[H]e saw people who had found their way through great pain and darkness by following a thread of love, people who had sacrificed parts of their bodies to affirm the value of being alive, people who had found ways to triumph over pain, suffering, and even death." "At first," he said, "I only noticed these things as I looked back, hours later. But after awhile I began to notice these things as they occurred. I began to change. The way I related to patients changed.

"One day, I was talking with a mother who had brought her two little girls with her to the appointment. Suddenly, I thought about how she was somehow managing through the discomfort of chemotherapy to take care of these little girls whose needs for a mother hadnt changed to accommodate her mothers illness. She could have easily just given up. Instead, they were shiny and well dressed. Obviously well cared for. Clearly, some will to live was allowing her to keep on going. I remarked on this to her. I added that this strength might one day heal her. She smiled¾ it was the first time I remember her smiling¾ and said my words meant a lot to her. After that, I began asking my patients questions I never would have before. Where do you find the strength to get through this? I found different patients had very different responses.

Patients began bringing me gifts. Id never gotten a gift from a patient before. One of them brought me this." He held out a beautiful stethoscope with his name engraved on it. It was clear from the look on his face that this present meant a lot to him. "And what do you do with this," Remen asked. He paused for a moment, recognition breaking out on his face. "I listen to hearts," he said. "I listen to hearts." This story excited me. I literally felt that it had changed my life, at least in some modest way, changed how I wanted to do church. I didnt yet feel I had a complete understanding of what it meant, but I felt I had reached a watershed moment. This was it. Something I had been moving toward for several years. But now I needed to find out what "it" was.

I have long felt something missing from most churches I visit. Our church feels like one of the best. It is a church where people very devotedly are trying to make a difference in the world. Still, we leave worship and if we linger at all, it is for the Coffee Hour or for a committee meeting. I dont know about you, but I find it difficult to have conversations that get below the surface at coffee hour. Let alone, in committees. It happens, but rarely. I feel, and I know some of the people working on the Journeys Committee have commented that our church needs more spirituality. But "spirituality" is such an amorphous term. It is one of those words that means many different things to many people. What is this thing called spirituality that so many of us long for?

What I think it most often means for Unitarian Universalists, is some sense of connection with something bigger than ourselves. It is that sense of being in harmony with the universe, but also in harmony with all that is good and true and just in the universe. It is a sense of connection with other people and with nature. Another way of putting it is that it is a sense of experiencing the depth of existence. We find it sometimes in relationships, sometimes in nature, sometimes in working for justice and, sometimes, too, in church. Still this spirituality thing is elusive.

Like most of us, most of the time, Josh was caught up with the mundane, the daily, the repetitive. Yet all around him were stories of life and death, hope and despair. Patients were clients to him; diseases, cures. He felt no sense of the majesty of their lives. The sacrifices a mother made for her children. The bravery of one. The wit of another. The wisdom of still another. He saw, but he didnt see. He heard, but he didnt listen. As so many of us dont most of the time. The eyes of our eyes and the ears of our ears are asleep. We see trees, but no forest. So we end up drifting. Having no sense that our lives have any meaning. Perhaps weighted with despair by the trouble we see.

But isnt church supposed to wake us up? What are we about if we are not about a lifelong journey of spiritual growth that lets us hear with our heart? See with our soul? What are we about if we do not renew the spirit? Church should be a place that changes our lives. That opens us and deepens our relationship with the world we live in. That provides hope and inspiration. Awe and wonder. Shouldnt church be providing us with questions like those Remen posed as well as a place to share the answers with others like ourselves?

John and I have been talking for a year now about covenant groups. Covenant groups are a concept that many ministers in our association are interested in and developing in their own churches. Basically, covenant groups are small groups that meet regularly for sharing around a topic. Members share worship, check in, share their responses to a topic, and give back in some way to their community and the world. The groups may center around a spiritual theme or an intellectual one, but sharing, community building, and worship are at the core.

We are offering two covenant groups this fall, one for women and one that is an extended introduction to Unitarian Universalism. Remens book has made me see these groups as an opportunity for sharing around the life-changing questions I mentioned a few moments ago. These questions are a gift the church can give us. But they can also go further than Remens counseling relationship in offering an opportunity to share our answers with others like ourselves. There is something holy about conversations in a group in which we speak about ultimate things.

It is the questions that allow us to say things we never knew where inside us. That open all of our senses¾ that open, too, our spirits. What surprised you this week? All week, the weather forecasters had been predicting thunderstorms on Friday, when I had a whole day free to entertain a close friend visiting me from Germany. I thought wed have to go shopping or visit museums. Instead, the sky cleared. We had the most spectacular day. We spent it over in Annapolis, lunching outside, wandering around the historic district, and going for a cruise.

What moved you this week? I was struck by the story of a 7-year-old deaf girl whose mother died in a drug-related incident. Her mother was the only one in her family who spoke sign language. What will she do now?

What inspired you? Someone I thought I knew decided to quit her safe job and follow her heart.

We all have our own answers. But some of mine are answers I would have never noticed if it werent for those questions. Answers that now give me pleasure when I would have forgotten. The more I reflect, the more I discover. But add to my own reflections the opportunity to reflect with others, and still more depth is possible. The questions Remen posed are only a few of the questions that we can treasure. But we need to take just a few and stay with them if we would change our lives.

So let us take these three¾ "What surprised me?" "What moved me?" "What inspired me?"¾ and live with them this year. Every now and then, we will remind you of the questions¾ in the Beacon, or in a Sunday Bulletin. I invite you to make them a part of your meditation practice. Write down your answers or simply ponder them in your heart. Talk about your responses at coffee hour or use them for questions at your committee check in. Sometime next year, we will come back to them, perhaps in a before-church forum or in a special service that will give all of us an opportunity to share.

Underneath our daily lives lies the realm of the sacred. This world is not less troubled than what lies above it. Indeed, everything that is a part of our daily life is present in this other realm as well. But when we find our way there, we are filled with the spirit, connected by the spirit, surprised by the spirit, moved by the spirit, inspired by the spirit, carried by the spirit. When we are cut off from the sacred, our lives become often become arid, oppressive. For a time, work sustains us, play renews us, the search for power and money drive us. But someday we find ourselves asking: "Isnt there something more?"

May we find that more in this place, with these people. May we take it with us, wherever we go.