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Sermon Index

LIVING AS IF IT MATTERED

by the Reverend John Parker Manwell
at the First Unitarian Church of Baltimore
on the 4th of November 2001

In Mitch Albom's little book called Tuesdays with Morrie, he describes through flashbacks the young Mitch, in college, who dreamed of making a difference in the world. He is drawn to Morrie Schwartz, his favorite professor, who encourages his students to resist the conventional pursuit of money and things and instead to cultivate relationships and community interests. Mitch takes all of Morrie's classes. But after graduating, he finds himself swept up in making a name for himself as a sports writer. He travels the world, interviewing the rich and famous, and he lives his life in the fast lane.

Then late one night, surfing the television channels, he chances on Ted Koppel interviewing Morrie Schwartz, now living with Lou Gehrig's disease. Mitch goes to see his old professor, and aech Tuesday for the next several months, Mitch pauses in his busy life to visit with the dying Morrie. Each time they choose one of life's great questions to discuss. Morrie, each week a little weaker, approaches death as he approached his life, determined to leave behind him some wisdom, some blessing, to the world. He retains a special fondness for Mitch, once his promising student, now drawn back for this new chance to claim again the dreams of his youth.

Most of us, when we were young, had many dreams. Dreams of lives that would make a difference, that would leave the world a better place. "What happened to me?" asks Mitch. "The 80s happened. Death and sickness and getting fat and going bald happened. I traded lots of dreams for a bigger paycheck, and I never even realized I was doing it."

We don't sell our souls intentionally, like Faust. We're like Mitch. We sell them and never even realize we are doing it.

It took the shock of Morrie's dying to awaken Mitch Albom to what had happened to him. What will it take for us?

Both as a nation and as individuals, we who survived can learn from September 11 what might otherwise have taken us much longer to learn. The lessons will keep unfolding, for they are many and complex. We spoke last month of some lessons for our nation. For ourselves, one thing we can learn with certainty is the lesson that life is fragile. Of course we've always known this. As we get older, every obituary reminds us. Yet it can take the shock of a September 11 to awaken us to the truth that next time it could be us. We can concentrate our minds on it.

Will we let it devastate us? Disable us with fear? I was heartened, on Friday night, when we concluded our fall newcomers class with a potluck supper and talked about our hopes. I think all of us acknowledged that it's much harder now to find hope. But hope is hardy. The dominant theme I heard was that however hard it is, and whatever happens, if all of us do what we can, we can make a difference. We may never see it. But we have to live in the faith that how we live can make a difference, does make a difference. And that in coming together as a congregation, we can help each other to make that difference. That is our faith, and it gives us our hope.

Our time may come tomorrow. Or we may live to be 100. We cannot know. But it is so easy to let our lives become engrossed in things that are not the most important; to become so engrossed that we rush headlong into the daily round without reminding ourselves each morning of what it is we really want to do with our lives.

An ancient story is instructive. You may remember it. The Rabbi of Berdichev once saw a friend hurrying along the street, looking neither right nor left. "Why are you rushing so?" he asked. "I am pursuing my livelihood," the friend replied. "And how do you know?" continued the Rabbi, "that your livelihood is running before you, so that you have to rush after it?" Perhaps it is behind you, and all you need to do to encounter it is to stand still. Stand still, my friend, stand still."

Where is the life we long to live? Where are our dreams? Could they be right here next to us, waiting for us to turn to them?

Our goal must be to put our dreams at the center of our lives. Not tomorrowa luxury to be put off until our lives slow downbut today. If we can do this, our days will still be full and busy, but now we'll live with singleness of purpose. We'll no longer drift, or feel pulled in all directions because we don't know what we really want. Life will feel all of a piece, oriented toward a purpose as a plant turns towards the sun.

What will be that purpose? I have spoken before of casting a holy shadow, a shadow that blesses the world as we pass, without our even knowing it. What that means for each of us will be different, for we have different gifts and life experiences.

It may be service to the larger community, the work of mercy and peace and justice. The need is so great that it's easy for us to feel overwhelmed. The Quaker Thomas Kelly has written of overcoming this by keeping in the background of our view a broad awareness of the world's great pain and brokennesswhile keeping in the foreground a focus on some small corner where we feel most called to make a difference. We then can sleep at night, in trust that others will feel called to other corners, and between us, the world will change.

Which corner will be ours? No one can answer for us. The answer must come through continuing reflection, prayer, and struggle. It is in the religious congregation that we find encouragement for this task and companions along the way. As we share our hopes and dreams, we may find others who feel called to join us.

Perhaps it will be in working with prisoners, or with children in our struggling schools; perhaps in helping newcomers to our country to improve their English. I see these dreams coming to life right here in our own congregation.

Or it may be public service, or some other service agency. Any number of us are so engaged. Although we work with others outside the church, or even alone, the church can stretch our vision, and offer solace and strength to sustain our lives.

There is justice and caring, also, for our planet Earththe only one we have. Some among us dream of living in greater harmony with all of life, of leaving a smaller footprint on the earth. Living in smaller houses; riding bicycles and buses; and so much more.

Not all are called to direct engagement in the work of justice. Perhaps, for a time, the family will be our corner. In the words of our anthem, "What more have we to give to one another/than love and understanding?" In church and family alike, we would "make a world for the gladness of children..." and gather, too, "a store of love for parents...for the aged."

The call is not always to a different place. Sometimes the call is to see the world and the work we already do through different eyes, to bring to it gentler hands and a brighter vision of what life could be, with more love and understanding. Even when our bodies falter, and we become dependent, we need to remember that a word of encouragement, even a smile, can bless the world, make someone's day, change another's life. Do we not still cherish the times we've been thus blessed?

As we say yes to any of these calls, we may still shop, and spend, still go the mall or the marketbut now having more, or the latest, will no longer drive us. Now, we may think harder about what we really need to live on, and how much we set aside for causes that stir our hearts. Now, we may even think about the difference we can make with what we leave behind, after we are gone.

"What will you do," asked the poet Mary Oliver, "with your one wild and precious life?" She wrote of cultivating our awareness of the wonder and beauty all around us. But awareness opens us not just to the beauty of a grasshopper. As we grow in awareness, we begin to see the beauty, the divine potential, in the people in our lives. Our imagination grows, and we begin to understand the beauty, the divine, in all people, in all of life. We begin, also, to feel the pain in other lives, and let ourselves imagine what could be. We begin to dream, and our dreams begin to live, on the growing edge of our lives.

I have been moved to read, this week, a collection of essays by young "Gen X" leaders who, against all trends, have joined churches, synagogues, and Buddhist groups with exciting new visions of service to humanity. Let me share with you, as I close, a metaphor offered in the final essay, by a Dominican sister, Theresa Rickard. She reminds us of two obscure women in the story of the exodus from Egypt, the midwives Shiprah and Puah. When Pharaoh ordered that all the Hebrew infants be killed, they found the courage to resist, and a way to save the infant Moses. Without them, the Hebrew people might have perished in Egypt. Rickard goes on:

It is the job of those of us in the church today to help show people how to be midwivesand change the world. Many ordinary people today are midwives of life and hope. They go about their daily lives loving, and sacrificing for others....

She speaks of one such person, "Antonia Diaz, an 85-year-old Puerto Rican woman with a tough mind, incredible perseverance, and a tender heart," a woman she had known in her South Bronx parish. Faced with a landlord who abandoned Diaz' building, and an exodus of tenants as the neighborhood burned and the squatters moved in, Diaz refused to leave. Somehow, she organized the remaining tenants. She formed a cooperative to collect their rents, hired a new superintendent, and asked those who refused to pay rent to leave. One squatter, a drug kingpin, laughed at her, and said, "Go home, old woman." She took him to court. A marshal removed his fancy furniture and put a padlock on his door. He was furious, and threatened to kill her and burn the building. She got the police to come, and rallied the tenants. The drug kingpin was defeatedand the smaller dealers fell into line. Soon, the city made a gift of the building to the tenant cooperative.

Any of us, says Sister Theresa, can be an Antonia, can be a midwife of change. Our church itself can midwife change. I like that image. That's what it's all about.

Today is the first Sunday since September 11 when we will not be closing our service with our hymn of solidarity, "This Is My Song." We will not sing it, but it will continue to sing in our hearts.

Today, it is time once again to pick up the pieces of our lives and begin to move on. Not back to where we were on September 10, but ahead to where we are called to be, have dreamed of being. It is time, in the face of tragedy and hate, in the face of doubt and of fear, to turn again to life and say Yes. Yes to Life. Yes to Truth. Yes to Love.

It is time to begin to live as if it really mattered, mattered as it has never mattered before.

How will you and I answer Mary Oliver's question? What will each of us do with our one wild and precious life?

The world is waiting for our answer.

Sources:

Album, M. Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, A Young Man, and Lifes Greatest Lesson. New York: Doubleday, 1997.

Oliver, M. The Summer Days. Sewell, M., ed. Claiming the Spirit Within: A Sourcebook of Womens Poetry Boston: Beacon Press, 1996.

Rickard, T. The Church as Midwife: Ushering in Life and Hope. In: Goldsten, N.E., ed. Spiritual Manifestos: Visions for Renewed Religious Life in America from Young Spiritual Leaders of Many Faiths Woodstock, VT: Skylight Paths, 1999.