Sunday Service Unitarian Universalist Church of Palo Alto February 10, 2002 Making Space for the Given as Gift by Rev. Kurt Kuhwald A Definition of Prayer: A quality of attention such that what is given becomes gift. ---Stephen Mitchell

It is my hope that Mary Oliver's voice, that we heard in our reading this morning, will carry through this sermon. Her question, I believe, brings us up against the reality that what has been given to us in this life contains a wild and precious essence. I define it as Gift.

Today as we open, once again, the issue of community membership by inviting in the newest members of this congregation, we are stepping off into a further domain where what has been given becomes gift. That is what the centering thought written in our Order of Service for this morning is all about. Achieving a quality of attention, of attitude, of consciousness---some call it prayer---that will allow what has been given to us to transform in our inner beings, and in the way we live our lives, into Gift.

The question that resounds for me today is this: "How . . . may our lives become spacious enough and honest enough to make room for the sacred?"

The question, first, raises the vital, organic experience of existing within the context of a Life. Our lives. "How may our lives . . . , " I ask. There, of course, is the primary gift: We are alive. We live. And this life of ours extends over a period of time that at some moments seems timeless and infinite. It has movement, growth, achievement, failure, decline. It is filled with moments, as vast in number as the night sky, and it is just as mysterious. And within that mysterious context we are called to something large, larger than ourselves. I contend that the larger than ourselves-ness of our living happens when we come into a true encounter with the Gift-ness of it all, the raw, unmitigated beauty of it all.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, one of the great 19th century voices of Unitarianism, before he quit the faith over a fight about Holy Communion, saw the effect of that larger dimension of being when he wrote, in 1838, that "Life is comic or pitiful, as soon as the high ends of being fade out of sight . . ." In other words, when we lose the fundamental meaning of being in it self, we become nearsighted, and can only attend to what our untutored senses routinely encounter. "That is always best which gives me to myself." he said. And that "self" was the given self which was transformed into gift by allowing its being to know and experience freedom, full statement, truthfulness, openness and affirming love.

The gift of our lives, coming into a fuller and fuller statement of our deeper being, is beautiful. It offers us the core, the true nature of beauty, which as one writer put it, "is the normal condition of a thing being as it should be." (Ade Bethune)

Our lives, our selves, in their normal condition, being as they should be, are expressions of true beauty. They are gifts. But then, saying this, we are faced with the question of what is normal. In the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered community, that question, "What is normal?" is turned on its ear. You've seen the bumper sticker, I'm sure: "Why be normal?" But we know what that means. The normality being derided is the status quo that sanctions hate, the status quo that denies its own prejudice, calling it, for instance, "The Defense of Marriage."

The normal condition of a thing being as it should be---which reveals its beauty---would never carry a banner of hatred; because hatred is a restrictive emotion that limits our capacity to see and receive the fullness of the world. The world as Gift.

But how can we make space for that beauty, for our lives as gift? What is it we must do? How is it we must be?

Two words are central: "spaciousness" and "honesty."

Let us look at spaciousness, at space first. Let us look at where that space is we must enter to receive the given as gift. Let us look at what is contained in that spaciousness, when we enter it.

Here is a poem by James Wright that I have read to you before, as an example of celebration. It can take us to that spaciousness, that will open it for us, that will gift us . . . it's called . . .

A Blessing

Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota,
Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.
And the eyes of those two Indian ponies
Darken with kindness.
They have come gladly out of the willows
To welcome my friend and me.
We step over the barbed wire into the pasture
Where they have been grazing all day, alone.
They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness
That we have come.
They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.
There is no loneliness like theirs.
At home once more,
They begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness.
I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms,
For she has walked over to me
And nuzzled my left hand.
She is black and white,
Her mane falls wild on her forehead,
And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear
That is delicate as the skin over a girl's wrist.
Suddenly I realize
That if I stepped out of my body I would break
Into blossom.

Yes!

The space where the given can be fully known as gift . . . that space is off the highway, the highway that leads right through the heart of middle America. The space is through, on the other side of, a fence, barbed and authoritative in its hurtfulness. The space is entered at twilight, the time between the worlds of everyday consciousness and dreaming--the place of unusual awareness, of wakefulness altered by the great shift in light, altered by the vast spinning of the earth, unnoticed by us, but irrevocable and persistent.

The space is that place where the great animals of the spirit live and thrive, delicate, with eyes darkened with kindness. Powers that come home to us when we make the committed gesture, when we approach with desire and intention. Energies of the heart, affectionate, wild and available---and so like the wonder of what we know of the human: delicate, vulnerable---like the wrist of a girl.

The space is that place where we are filled with the blossoming of tenderness, of care and regard---only restrained by the limits of our bodies. Waiting for us to write it all in the poetry of our breath, of our living, of our daring to follow our vocation. To express our lives as Wright has done in this very poem.

The poem leads us to the normal that is true beauty by the very fact of its author's sensitivity and daring.

? Choosing to go off the highway. Through the fence.

? Choosing to enter a less clinical, analytical consciousness--a different kind of awareness that invites the hidden to come forth, that is receptive to the intuitive.

? Choosing to allow a tenderness of heart; to open a kindness from out of our aloneness.

? Affirming and saying "Yes" to the blossoming of joyfulness, to the naturalness of our own feelings.

In these and here is how we enter the spaciousness of the inner field where the givenness of our lives can be understood and experienced as Gift.

But I listed "honesty" as well as "spaciousness" as ways to make room for the sacred. And here I want to talk about community.

In each of the previous three churches I have served, I have worked with the Board of Trustees to create a covenant of communication. In each of them, the points we developed had a lot to do with how to honestly encounter the Given that each of us represents to other people, and they to us---and the Given of our mutual realities--which may yield the Gift of Great Price.

? The point that invariably underlay all of the others in functional, behavioral terms said, "Stay at the table." "Stay at the table."

What this means is that the work of building community requires that we make an honest commitment, or in more sacred terms, a covenant.

Our continental UU Pagan groups recognize this---they call themselves the Covenant of UU Pagans. They are not just Pagans, nor even UU Pagans, they are folk whose Pagan belief, expressed within the context of UUism, calls them to covenant with one another.

That means that they will stay at the table with one another---committed to be honestly present to one another---even when the going gets difficult. They have agreed, in sacred time and sacred space, in other words, to walk together.

That term "to walk together" is critical in order to understand UUism and how this liberal religious phenomena holds together in spite of the fact that we represent a tremendously large spread of belief: from Atheist, to Agnostic, to Buddhist, to Pagan, to Christian, to Theist. There are folk, throughout this continent, and the entire globe, whose belief spans these theologies---yet who call themselves UUs. How can they, how can WE, because that range exists right here at UUCPA---how can we ever form one community, if we differ so widely?

The question was formed much more poetically and powerfully than I have by the Jewish prophet Amos. In the third chapter named for him in the First Testament, he asks: "Can two walk together except they be agreed?" "Can two walk together except they be agreed?" The verse has historical importance for us because it was used by opponents of Unitarianism during the twenty years from 1805 to 1820 when Harvard Divinity School was taken over by Unitarians due to the appointment of a Unitarian as its Dean. The response to the argument that two cannot walk together unless they ARE agreed made by the conservatives has shaped our liberal vision down to this day.

To quote Harvard Professor Emeritus, Conrad Wright, a powerful voice for our UU community: "We believe deeply in the capacity of men and women of good will to walk together in religious fellowship, despite . . . doctrinal differences. It is [our] deeply held conviction that it is possible to respect and even love our companions despite theological disagreements." And then he goes on a few lines later: "And liberals often go a step further, to say that diversity of opinion is a good thing, which can be a source of creativity, even of life itself."

I contend that "often" going that step further is not good enough. To create authentic religious community that is robustly and vitally liberal, we must consistently choose to stay at the table--and to mix metaphors--we must consistently choose to walk together. It must, in fact, become a fundamental element in our religious identity.

Lastly, regarding this point: we can only walk together if we are willing to trust and if we are willing to love. Trust and love, both of which require that we make a conscious effort to go beyond how we normally define the boundaries of our selves and our lives. Trust and love are both necessary if we truly intend to walk together.

Twining through the bitterness of living life in fearful restriction and competitiveness, love and trust require that we step through the fence guarding the field where the Dark eyed Indian ponies wait with their kindness, their tenderness, their precious wildness.

Traveling alone, as we ever are in the deep fastness of our inner selves, we can create spaciousness for our journey. Traveling with others, as we are able to do if we are willing to dare the choice to love and trust, we can choose to honestly risk the consequences of living in community. Both dimensions of our path form the single taper which can fill our spirits with flame, the flame of authenticity, the bright fire of the sacred.

Let us, together, dare that journey.

Ashé. Amien. Shalom. Blessed Be. Namasté.

What is your reaction to this sermon? Please send comments to Reverend Kurt Kuhwald