Unitarian Universalist Church of Palo Alto

Weaving the Web

November 18, 2005
Rev. Amy Zucker Morgenstern

Usually, on the Sundays I’m not at UUCPA, I like to sleep in. On November 6, though, I was up at 5:15 a.m. and on the road at 6, headed to San Francisco to walk a half marathon. By the time I would have been starting the second service, I had crossed the finish line and was heading back to my car, having had a spiritual experience worthy of the best Sunday morning.

I am not an athlete and have never aimed to be. I chose to walk in this race because twelve weeks before, I had resolved to become healthier and stronger, and I needed a concrete goal to spur me to keep exercising. The best I hoped for was to finish: to walk 13.1 miles without stopping. Or so I told myself. Around mile 9, as I realized that I would truly be one of the last to finish — if I finished — I felt a little tug in my middle as pride I hadn’t quite realized was still there let go its grip and fell away. There on the Golden Gate Bridge, padding along in the misty rain, I realized how often I avoid suffering that wound to my pride by simply not doing things that I can’t do superlatively. I had already accomplished my main goal; I felt how much more fit I was every time I ran up a flight of stairs. And I was soon to accomplish my second goal and complete a half marathon. But it wasn’t easy for me to leave it at that — to honor my own aims and accomplishments and not mind that not only was I not the best in the field, I was just about the worst (1505th out of a field of 1510, to be exact). That realization was a revelation, and one that I hope will make me a little more free, and you too.

I’d like to keep walking half marathons, and I’ll also aim to walk them a little faster each time. Will I be able to make those the only goals — to compete only against myself and not against anyone else? Will I be able to pry myself away from seeing life as a race to be won or lost?

The president of my previous congregation once gave a sermon in which he urged us not to shy away from mediocrity. Some of the most fun things in our lives can be things we don’t do particularly well, he pointed out (and played his flute to prove it). What a shame if we avoided them for no better reason than a foolish insistence on excellence in everything.

Excellence is important in its place, and so is competition. But I look around this valley of ours and see how often we compete needlessly. I wonder how many other people avoid doing things that they enjoy, or would enjoy, only because they’re not very good at them, or as good as most other people. Even as a congregation, we have trouble celebrating all the wonderful things we do because we want to do everything perfectly. Yet we don’t need to do everything perfectly, or even superlatively, in order to do what is important to us and do it well enough. I hope as we walk together, we can forget about going for every blue ribbon and keep an eye on our true goals.

— Blessings,
Amy