Half Heaven, Half Hell

"The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven."
-- John Milton

Meditation: by David R. Slavitt a poem entitled “Hell”  (from Falling from Silence: Poems)

Hell is very much like heaven except

that the furniture there has somehow been misarranged,

a pipe in a wall is leaking (the plumber again

has failed to show up), and the freezer compressor is shot

so that food is defrosting, and where is that serviceman?

Such trivial things! Surely, the great-souled and wise

seem not to mind, while we, other and lesser

(but honest about our feelings)...do we know better?

And must we keep still? Don't we have the right to complain?

But where is a pen that works? And where are my glasses?

Reading: by the liberal theologian Rebecca Parker from A House for Hope: The Promise of Progressive Religion for the Twenty-first Century (p. 9) 

Beginning in early-nineteenth-century America, some Christians argued that fear of hell and hope of heaven do not make an adequate religion. They saw the debilitating fear created by evangelistic preaching of the type Jonathan Edwards made famous in his sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” [The activist and abolitionist] Elizabeth Cady Stanton, exposed to such preaching as a child, describes creeping out of bed at night, sitting on the stairs, shivering, seeking comfort in the glow of the lights in the parlor, because she was so frightened that the devil would come that night and take her off to hell…

The universalist Christians preached instead that God’s ultimate purpose is the salvation of all souls. Hell was not a postmortem realm – it is present in this world when greed, violence, and exploitation wreak havoc on human well-being and the earth. Universalists believed sinners would be held to account for the harm they caused, but that harm had to be redressed here and now, and God’s love had the power to ultimately transform all injustice and purify even the most sinful soul, even if it took most of eternity to do so! Heaven could be found in this world wherever love prevails and the gifts of life are stewarded with reverence and respect. And celestial, eternal heaven is where God’s love ultimately will transform all humanity…

Reading: by the professor of medicine Hilary Tindle from Up: How Positive Thinking Can Transform Our Health and Aging (p. 27) 

Optimism is a general hopefulness for the future. Pessimism, usually considered optimism’s polar opposite, is a tendency to lack hope for good things to come, or to take a lack of hope one step further and expect the worst. … Optimism is the ability to see your own bright future as real, and bring it to the present. It’s as if you’re able to “borrow” from your own vision – like money in the bank – to get through the hardship today, in order to make that future a reality. But instead of borrowing money, you are borrowing the psychology of success – the confidence, conviction, and other myriad furnishings of your own bright future. And unlike with a true bank account, you don’t have to subtract from the total every time you make a withdrawal, because your ability to imagine is infinitely renewable.

Reading:  a Zen Buddhist story (from Stories of the Heart, Stories of the Spirit, by Feldman and Kornfield)

A big, tough samurai once went to see a little monk.  “Monk,” he said, in a voice accustomed to instant obedience, “teach me about heaven and hell!”

The monk looked up at this mighty warrior and replied with utter disdain, “Teach you about heaven and hell?  I couldn’t teach you about anything.  You’re dirty.  You smell.  Your blade is rusty.  You’re a disgrace, an embarrassment to the samurai class.  Get out of my sight.  I can’t stand you.”

The samurai was furious.  He shook, got all red in the face, was speechless with rage.  He pulled out his sword and raised it above him, preparing to the slay the monk.

“That’s hell,” said the monk softly.

The samurai was overwhelmed.  The compassion and surrender of this little man who had offered his life to give this teaching to show him hell!  He slowly put down his sword, filled with gratitude, and suddenly peaceful.

“And that’s heaven,” said the monk softly.  

Half Heaven, Half Hell

A Sermon Delivered on January 25, 2015

By

The Reverend Axel H. Gehrmann

(Drink from glass of water. Hold it up. Examine it.)

What do you think, is this glass half empty, or half full? 

(Take another sip. Examine. Put glass away.)

Last week I did a quick Google search of the world wide web, in order to determine the latest world wide wisdom on this question. And this is what I learned:

The optimist  says the glass is half full.

The pessimist says the glass is half empty.

The realist says the glass contains half the required amount of liquid for it to overflow.

And the cynic... wonders who drank the other half.

The worrier frets that the remaining half will evaporate by next morning.

The fanatic thinks the glass is completely full, even though it isn't.

The entrepreneur sees the glass as undervalued by half its potential.

The computer specialist says that next year the glass capacity will double, be half the price, but cost you 50% more for me to give you the answer.

The insomniac will be up all night wrestling with the question.

The existentialist wonders what is the point of the question.

The nihilist breaks the glass.

(from http://www.businessballs.com/glass-half-full-empty.htm)

Jonathan Edwards, the preacher who in 1741 memorably envisioned sinners in the hands of an angry God, writes, God “holds you over the Pit of Hell, much as one holds a Spider, or some loathesome insect, over the Fire… he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast in the Fire…; you are ten thousand Times so abominable in his Eyes as the most hateful venomous serpent in ours… It would be dreadful to suffer this Fierceness and Wrath of Almighty God one Moment; but you must suffer it to all Eternity: there will be no End to this exquisite horrible misery.”

I think it is safe to say, Jonathan Edwards was a “glass-half-empty” kind of guy. 

Our Universalist forebears disagreed with him, and offered a more hopeful “glass-half-full” alternative. They preached that God is not angry but loving, and that God’s love will ultimately transform all injustice and purify all souls. 

But perhaps more significant than the Universalists’ conviction that God is more interested in heaven than hell, is that they envisioned both heaven and hell not as other-worldly realms awaiting us after death, but rather realities we encounter in this world, here and now. Hell is wherever we find greed and violence, exploitation and cruelty. Heaven is wherever we find love and justice. Heaven is wherever we embody reverence and respect. 

* * *

Are you a glass-half-full or a glass-half-empty kind of person? When I look at my own life, I am undecided. 

Last week a good friend died suddenly, and I felt very bad about it. I felt bad that I didn’t have a chance to see him during a health crisis that turned out to be the final weeks of his life. And I felt bad for his family, whose grief is surely much more deeply felt. I was reminded of other losses, and the sadness that is an inescapable aspect of life. I was in a very glass-half-empty frame of mind.

But there were moments when I was reminded that my friend had lived a long and rich life. And that I was fortunate to spend many happy moments with him, during which I enjoyed his wit and quirky humor, his imaginative way with words, and knack for telling stories that broadened my own perspective, and deepened my appreciation for life’s small everyday joys. And I could see how, even amidst a sense of sadness there was much for which to be grateful. It was a distinct glass-half-full feeling. 

* * *

After two decades of clinical practice Hilary Tindle has come to the conclusion that whether we look at life optimistically or pessimistically makes real difference, not only in terms of our subjective sense of happiness, but in objective measures of physical health.

A hopeful outlook can provide us the gumption we need to seize opportunities we might otherwise dismiss as too doubtful or demanding, Tindle says. A pessimistic outlook can lead us to sabotage any sense of hope for healing and improvement. 

Whether positive or negative, or some combination, everyone has an outlook on life. Our respective outlooks, Tindle writes, “both precede and predict our risk of heart attack, stroke and cancer: the number one, two, and four causes of death among U. S. adults according to the latest CDC report. What’s more [our outlooks] predict the very risk factors that are known to cause major illnesses of aging – risk factors such as smoking, obesity, high blood pressure and cholesterol, and diabetes.” (p. 27) 

And more importantly, we each have the capacity to control our outlook. And this, in turn, is perhaps the most significant way we can influence our own health and well-being. We can learn to see things in a different light. With practice and over time, we can consciously cultivate a different perspective. 

But sometimes our outlook can also shift suddenly. “It may be brought on by a shocking or catastrophic event, such as the illness of a friend or family member,” Tindle writes. “In my own case, bouncing back from my life-threatening heart condition in college brought all of my blessings into sharp relief.”

When Tindle was in her early twenties, she discovered that she had a congenital heart condition. Previously undiagnosed, she realized that she had had several brushes with death during childhood without knowing it, every time she almost collapsed after strenuous exercise.

She writes, 

“Ironically, feeling close to my own mortality provided a rare and valuable reference point that only bolstered my hopefulness. During open heart surgery, my heart stopped beating for two hours on bypass, but I woke up – knowing that every day is a gift that it is possible to overcome the most dire of situations. Looking back twenty years later from the vantage point of an… academic physician, wife, and mother, I realize now it was the first time a serious situation had forced my “outlook” hand, and, instinctively, I played the hope card. This somewhat unconscious act, as well as the positive outcome itself – a 360-degree spin from healthy young woman to invalid and back again – began the evolution of the can-do attitude that [now] often becomes my default.” (p.4)  

* * *

Sometimes we may think that our outlook depends on the cards we are dealt by life. Some of us are luckier than others. Those of us who are healthy, successful, smart, and blessed with a loving family and partner, we imagine, will consider the glass of life half-full. Others who are afflicted with painful chronic illness, who toil at poorly paying jobs with nasty bosses, and often feel unappreciated and lonely, will invariably conclude that their glass is half-empty.

But this is not necessarily the case. The events of our lives don’t determine our outlook. In fact, just the opposite may be true.

In 1989 a study published by researchers at the University of Melbourne, Australia, tried to show to what extent life events on the one hand, and our outlook on the other, affects our happiness. The researcher figured our outlook might account for 40 percent of our happiness, and life events might account for 60 percent. Or maybe the other way around.

The researchers interviewed people on several occasions over many years, and carefully gathered data. But they soon realized they had made fundamental mistake. The psychologist and neuroscientist Elaine Fox writes: 

“As their study progressed, it was clear that the same kind of thing kept happening to the same people over and over again. Lucky people were lucky again and again. Likewise people with lots of bad experiences, like relationship breakups and job losses, seemed to encounter one bad thing after another. [The researchers’] assumption that [outlook] and life events would have separate influences on happiness was wrong. Instead, [outlook] itself had the strongest influence on what happened to people. The optimists had more positive experiences, while the pessimists had more negative experiences.” 

If we stop and think about it, this shouldn’t be a complete surprise. Elaine Fox says,

“Picture a bubbly, outgoing child who is warm and friendly. People are much more likely to respond to this child with smiles and physical affection than they are to a withdrawn, unsmiling child. If [the child] behaves consistently, the social world of the happy child will inevitably be more positive than that of the frightened child. There’s no luck involved: the emotional style of the child is playing a part in the kind of social world she inhabits. How we act in the world changes the kind of environment we experience and hence the range of opportunities and problems likely to come our way.” (Rainy Brain, Sunny Brain, p. 3, 4)

* * *

Are we destined for heaven, or are we destined for hell? Our answer to that question is more than idle speculation about the final destination of our lives. The answer we choose may determine the course our life will take. 

For Elizabeth Cady Stanton, frightening visions of a fiery hell, and a devil who could come out at night and whisk her away, left her sitting on the stairs as a child, terribly scared, comforted only by the sight of the lights glowing in the living room. 

As she grew older, she realized how damaging these frightening images were to her own sense of health and happiness. She had the courage to question, and finally reject them. When she was much older, looking back on her life, she wrote, “The memory of my own suffering has prevented me from ever shadowing one young soul with the nonsense and terror of the old theologies.” 

The nineteenth-century Universalist preacher Hosea Ballou shared her views. He challenged Edwards’s notion of an angry God bent on damnation, not only on theological grounds, but also social grounds. 

Imagining an ultimate divine division of the saved and the damned, makes it too easy to find a theological justification for the separation of humanity. We separate us and them, good and bad, those who deserve a larger share of wealth and power on one side, and those justifiably condemned to poverty and powerlessness on the other. Hosea Ballou said, if people imagine a divisive punishing God, they will model themselves after this God and feel justified in being cruel themselves.

Ballou firmly believed “God’s love embraces the whole human race.” And because it does, we should strive to resolve our divisions and conflicts through peaceful means. We should strive to love as God loves.

* * *

Asking ourselves, is the glass half-empty or half-full is really the wrong question. The question implies that the answer must be one or the other. Whereas the truth is, it is both. Our glass is both half-empty and half-full. 

Every life has moments of hope and moments of despair. Every life has moments of anger and moments of love, moments of sorrow and moments of joy. Every life has moments of violence and moments of peace.

These are our experiences of heaven and hell. And as the samurai in our story learned, we can move from heavenly realms to the depths of hell and back again in a heartbeat. 

Like the samurai, we will each have moments when we are consumed with anger, when we speak harshly, and unthinkingly hurt others – often those closest to us, often those we care most about.

And like the samurai, we will each have moments when we realize that we are recipients of kindness and compassion, most of it undeserved. From our earliest childhood, we were sustained, clothed and fed, through acts of kindness and love we did not earn. When we remember the love that surrounds us and sustains us, and when we remember to share the kindness we have known, extending it to others – we will experience peace and deep gratitude.

* * *

Heaven and hell aren’t places at which we arrive when our lives come to an end. They are places we visit each and every day, often without even realizing it. 

If we pay attention to our outlook, we can recognize where we are. If we realize that we are drifting toward hell, we can chose to change direction. If we realize we are stuck in a hellish place, we can shift our perspective and get to a different place. 

Sometimes this will be easier than others. But if we try, if we practice, we will get better at it. 

If we pay attention we will realize that hell is very much like heaven. Heaven is very much like hell. The differences are minor. The furniture is slightly misarranged, a pipe is leaking, the freezer compressor is shot. The wise ones among us will not be too concerned about these trivial things. 

Heaven is within our reach. It is our own bright future, which we can bring into the present. We can create heaven, when we clearly envision a world of justice, and firmly embrace a spirit of hope, and put that spirit into action.

May a spirit of hope grant us wisdom and strength 

That our every word and deed might help build heaven on earth.  

Amen.

Hands Up, Don't Shoot

"The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people."
-- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Musical Meditation: a song by John Legend and the rapper Common, called “Glory.” It is featured in the movie “Selma.” The movie portrays the events of March 1965, which many consider the emotional high point of the civil rights movement. If you have not yet seen the movie, I highly recommend it.

Excerpt:

…Hands to the Heavens, no man, no weapon

Formed against, yes glory is destined

Every day women and men become legends

Sins that go against our skin become blessings

The movement is a rhythm to us

Freedom is like religion to us

Justice is juxtaposition in us

Justice for all just ain't specific enough

One son died, his spirit is revisitin' us

True and living living in us, resistance is us

That's why Rosa sat on the bus

That's why we walked through Ferguson with our hands up…

Reading: by Emanuella Grinberg from the article “Why ‘hands up, don’t shoot’ resonates regardless of evidence” (CNN News,  Jan. 11, 2015)

… Before a grand jury convened in the case, protesters and activists seized upon the idea of a young black man raising his arms in surrender, transforming it into a protest symbol that persists today. After a grand jury declined to indict Wilson, in rallies and demonstrations the phrase came to symbolize something larger than what transpired in the Michael Brown case.

"Hands up, don't shoot" has become shorthand for police mistreatment of minorities, one that's spreading beyond traditional protest scenes. It has evolved into a national movement with demand centered on changing what some see as systemic problems in law enforcement that lead to mistreatment of minorities.

Protesters, pro athletes, Broadway performers and congressional staffers have used the gesture in public in a show of solidarity. Last month, when nine police officers walked into a Mexican restaurant in Brooklyn, an employee raised his hands in an apparent protest of the police, the restaurant said; the officers left.

Reading: by James Baldwin from “The White Man’s Guilt,” an essay published in Ebony magazine in August 1965. James Baldwin was among the thousands who participated in the March from Selma to Montgomery in the spring of 1965.

[My skin] color seems to operate as a most disagreeable mirror, and a great deal of one’s energy is expended in reassuring white Americans that they do not see what they see.

This is utterly futile, of course, since they do see what they see. And what they see is an appallingly oppressive and bloody history, known all over the world. What they see is a disastrous, continuing, present, condition which menaces them, and for which they bear inescapable responsibility. But since, in the main, they seem to lack the energy to change this condition, they would rather not be reminded of it… [But] guilt remains, more deeply rooted, more securely lodged, than the oldest of old trees.

And to have to deal with such people can be unutterably exhausting, for they, with a really dazzling ingenuity, a tireless agility, are perpetually defending themselves against charges which one, disagreeable mirror one may be, has not, really, for a moment made. One does not have to make them. The record is there for all to read. It resounds all over the world. It might as well be written in the sky. One wishes that Americans, white Americans, would read, for their own sakes, this record, and stop defending themselves against it. Only then will they be enabled to change their lives….

White man, hear me! History, as nearly no one seems to know, is not merely something to be read. And it does not refer merely, or even principally, to the past. On the contrary, the great force of history comes from the fact that we carry it with us, are unconsciously controlled by it in many ways, and history is literally present in all that we do. It could scarcely be otherwise, since it is to history that we owe our frames of reference, our identities, our aspirations. And it is with great pain and terror one begins to assess the history which has placed one where one is, and formed one’s point of view. In great pain and terror because, thereafter, one enters into battle with that historical creation, Oneself, and attempts to re-create oneself according to a principle more humane and more liberating: one begins the attempt to achieve a level of personal maturity and freedom which robs history of its tyrannical power, and also changes history…

Reading: by Langston Hughes, a poem entitled “I look at the world”

I look at the world

From awakening eyes in a black face—

And this is what I see:

This fenced-off narrow space   

Assigned to me.

I look then at the silly walls

Through dark eyes in a dark face—

And this is what I know:

That all these walls oppression builds

Will have to go!

I look at my own body   

With eyes no longer blind—

And I see that my own hands can make

The world that's in my mind.

Then let us hurry, comrades,

The road to find.

Hands Up, Don’t Shoot

A Sermon Delivered on January 18, 2015

By

The Reverend Axel H. Gehrmann

On a Saturday morning last October, when my wife, Elaine, and I joined a march and rally in downtown St. Louis in support of Michael Brown, who had been shot and killed two months earlier, I was struck by the power of people joining together in peaceful protest. That evening we joined hundreds of others for a vigil at the site of Michael Brown’s shooting, on Canfield Drive, and marched with them to the Ferguson police station two miles away. And on November 25^th, the day after the announcement that the grand jury would not indict Darren Wilson, the police officer who killed Brown, we joined an assembly outside the County Courthouse in Urbana, and a small march that circled from the courthouse to the County Jail across the street and back, disrupting traffic on Main Street for a few minutes.

At each of these gatherings people carried signs with slogans, there were speakers who called for justice, and as we marched, we chanted. “No justice, no peace,” or “I am, Mike Brown.” But the chant that I found most powerful was “Hands up, don’t shoot.” Shouting those simple words, watching hundreds of men and women and children – most of them black –raise their hands in the air, conveyed a message that to me seemed more powerful and poignant than anything else I saw or heard there.

* * *

The gesture of raising our hands and calling out “Hands up, don’t shoot,” of course, doesn’t capture what actually happened on that Saturday afternoon in early August, when Michael Brown was confronted and then killed by Darren Wilson. Despite the extensive witness testimonies, several autopsies, and careful analysis of bullet entrance and exit wounds, there is no consensus on exactly where Michael Brown’s hands were when he was shot – at his side, at shoulder height, or over his head. What we do know is that Michael Brown, an 18-year-old unarmed black man, was killed because a white police officer says he feared for his life.

* * *

I don’t know if you caught the news story about the shooter in Chattanooga, Tennessee. On the day after Christmas, a shooter drove around in a car through the city, pointing a gun out the window, shooting at people on the street and other cars. 

The police was alerted, there was a car chase, and at one point the shooter, who was wearing body armor, even pointed a gun at a police officer. Amazingly, the shooter was “taken into custody without incident or injury.” The shooter’s name is Julia Shields. She is a 45-year-old white woman.

The New York Times columnist Charles Blow ponders the implications. 

“Take a moment and consider this. Take a long moment. It is a good thing that officers took her in “without incident or injury,” of course, but can we imagine that result being universally the case if a shooter looks different? Would this episode have ended this way if the shooter had been male, or black, or both?... It’s hard to read stories like this and not believe that there is a double standard in the use of force by the police.” (“Privilege of ‘Arrest Without Incident,’” NYT, Jan. 4, 2015)

Michael Brown wasn’t shooting or threatening anyone when he was approached by a police officer.

Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old boy, was walking around a Cleveland park on his own, keeping to himself and playing with a toy gun. John Crawford was walking around an Ohio Walmart, talking on his cell phone, absent-mindedly carrying an air rifle he had picked up from a shelf in the store. Antonio Martin last month pointed a gun at a police officer at a gas station in suburban St. Louis, but didn’t shoot. And during a traffic stop of Jerome Reid in Bridgton, New Jersey last month, a handgun was “revealed.” That’s all.

Charles Blow writes, none of them “had the privilege of being “arrested without incident or injury.” They were all black, all killed by police officers. Brown was shot through the head. Garner was grabbed around the neck in a chokehold, tossed to the ground and held there, even as he pleaded that he couldn’t breathe; it was all caught on video. Rice was shot within two seconds of the police officers’ arrival on the scene. Crawford, Martin and Reid were also cut down by police bullets… Why weren’t these black men, any of them, the recipients of the same use of force — or lack thereof — as Julia Shields?” asks Charles Blow.

* * *

What do we see when we look at black men? Do we see people, just like us? Do we see fathers and brothers and sons? Do we see friends and neighbors and colleagues? Or do we see something else?

What do we see, and what do we feel? 

In the transcripts of Darren Wilson’s grand jury hearing, we get a glimpse of what his encounter with Michael Brown felt like. Wilson said, “When I grabbed him, the only way I can describe it is I felt like a five-year-old holding Hulk Hogan… that’s just how big he felt and how small I felt from grasping his arm.”

And we get a glimpse of what Darren Wilson saw, as he fired his pistol at the unarmed 18-year-old he was chasing and telling to stop. When Michael Brown, already shot and bleeding, stopped and turned toward Officer Wilson, he said, he saw “the most intense, aggressive face.” He “looked like a demon, that’s how angry he looked.”

But Darren Wilson is not a five-year-old, who grabbed hold of Hulk Hogan.  He is a twenty-eight year adult, ten years older than Michael Brown. It is true, Michael Brown was heavier than Wilson. But both of them were big men. Both stood six foot four.

And Michael Brown was not a demon. He was a recent high school graduate, a young man at the cusp of adulthood. It is a tragedy that Darren Wilson was unable to see that Michael Brown was a person. 

* * *

It seems that many white Americans have a very hard time seeing black Americans. We seem to have a very hard time recognizing that they are people, just like us. Why is that?

Judith Butler, a professor of literature and critical theory, has grappled with this question. And she has come to the conclusion that our inability to see is inextricably linked to the realities of race in America. In a recent New York Times interview she explains, 

“anti-black racism figures black people through a certain lens and filter, one that can quite easily construe a black person… who is walking toward us as someone who is potentially, or actually, threatening, or is considered, in his very being, a threat. In fact, as we can doubtless see from the videos that have swept across the global media, it may be that even when a black man is moving away from the police, that man is still considered to be a threat or worth killing, as if that person were actually moving toward the police brandishing a weapon... 

It may be important to see the twisted vision and the inverted assumptions that are made in the course of building a “case” that the police acted in self-defense or were sufficiently provoked to use lethal force. The fleeing figure is coming this way; the nearly strangled person is about to unleash force; the man on the ground will suddenly spring to life and threaten the life of the one who therefore takes his life.

These are war zones of the mind that play out on the street.” (“What’s Wrong With ‘All Lives Matter’?” Jan. 12, 2015)

* * *

Judith Butler’s analysis is insightful and very timely. It speaks powerfully to the most up-to-date events in the news: the latest shocking police killing of another black man.

But perhaps even more tragic than the shocking news, is that this isn’t news at all. This is history. Almost fifty year’s ago, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote, 

“there is no single answer to the plight of the American Negro. Conditions and needs vary greatly in different sections of the country. I think that the place to start, however, is in the area of human relations, and especially in the area of community-police relations. This is a sensitive and touchy problem that has rarely been adequately emphasized. Virtually every riot has begun from some police action. If you try to tell the people in most Negro communities that the police are their friends, they just laugh at you.”

Almost fifty years ago Dr. King wrote, 

“Men [and women] of the white West, whether or not they like it, have grown up in a racist culture, and their thinking is colored by that fact. They have been fed on a false mythology and tradition that blinds them to the aspirations and talents of other men. They don’t really respect anyone who is not white. But we simply cannot have peace in the world without mutual respect.” (A Testament of Hope)

* * *

The tragic events we are witnessing today are not news. They are history. They are examples of an experience far too familiar to African Americans for decades now, for centuries.

Fifty years ago, James Baldwin described the experience: white Americans simply don’t see him. They see something else: they see a mirror image of themselves. A mirror image of their own fears. A mirror image of their own history, and unsettling memories they would rather forget. 

The image they see when they look at Baldwin isn’t pretty. It is a frightening reflection of our own appallingly oppressive bloody history – a history easily understood all around the world – but too unsettling to be acknowledged and accepted for what it is, in this country.  And because we are unwilling to look at our history, our guilt remains more deeply rooted, more securely lodged than the oldest of trees.

* * *

“Hey, I’m not a racist,” I want to say. I want to throw up my hands. “I’m not racist.” I feel a knee-jerk impulse to defend myself. I want to defend myself with dazzling ingenuity, and tireless agility. I want desperately to defend myself – as if my life were on the line. I want to change the subject. I want look away. I want to run away. But, of course, I can’t.

Because the ugly history I see whenever I look into the face of a black man or woman or child, has much less to do with them, and much more to do with me. I carry this country’s history of racism with me. 

Part of me continually resists accepting this simple truth. “My parents never owned slaves,” I want to say. “This has nothing to do with me,” I want to say. “Heck, I was born in Germany. And anyway slavery was abolished centuries ago.”

But, of course, it has everything to do with me. Because I am white, and I live in a country in which for years now I have benefitted from all the privileges that are granted people who look like me. 

It has everything to do with me, because I have never been stopped by the police, because I looked suspicious to them, or dangerous. It has everything to do with me, because I have never been followed by store detectives, who considered me a potential shoplifter. It has everything to do with me, because I have never been denied a loan. And throughout their school career, my children have been treated by their teachers with utmost respect. And when they have acted out, as children invariably do, they were given the benefit of the doubt, and granted every opportunity to succeed.

It has everything to do with me, because every moment of every day that I am not actively working to dismantle the racism that permeates this society, I am passively perpetuating it and quietly continuing to reap the rewards bestowed upon me, simply by virtue of the color of my skin.  

Our history is present in all that we do. It frames our identities and our aspirations. It is an ugly and frightening history. Confronting it can feel overwhelming. Struggling to get a handle on it, we may feel like five-year-old children in a wrestling match with Hulk Hogan. 

If we honestly assess our history, the history, which has brought us to where we are today, the history that has formed our point of view, we will invariably do so with great pain and terror. If we dare to do this difficult work, it will invariably involve great pain and terror, because we are entering into battle with that most formidable historical creation: ourselves. We will have to look at ourselves in the mirror, and come to terms with the fact that the face we see isn’t pretty. It’s frightening. It looks like a demon.

But we can re-create ourselves according to a principle more humane and more liberating. We can achieve a level of personal maturity and freedom that robs history of its tyrannical power… We can change history.

We can look at the world from awakening eyes. When we look and see the walls oppression built, we can tear them down. We can look at ourselves with eyes no longer blind, and see that our own hands can make a better world.

If we dare to open our eyes, we will see Selma is now for every man, woman and child. We will see that though one son died, his spirit is revisiting us, is true and living in us.

May we open our ears to the truth that resounds all around the world.

May we open our eyes to what might as well be written in the sky:

We can’t have peace in the world without justice and mutual respect.

May that world be on our mind

And may we hurry the road to find.

Amen. 

Better and Better

"We have always held to the hope, the belief, the conviction that there is a better life, a better world, beyond the horizon."
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

Story: by the scholar of Judaism Howard Schwartz, from “Gathering Sparks”

…For a long time no one spoke, and then you asked, “Where did all the stars come from?”

And your grandfather said, “Long, long ago, before this world was created, God sent forth ten vessels, like a fleet of ships, each carrying a cargo of light. If those vessels had reached their destination, the world would have been perfect. But the further they traveled, the more fragile they became. Finally the vessels shattered, scattering sparks of light throughout the heavens. And that is how that stars came into being.”

And you said, “Oh.” And you looked up at the sky filled with glowing sparks, and you saw the stars as if for the first time.

Then your grandfather said, “But the sparks did not only fall in heaven, they fell everywhere, in so many places that God needed our help to gather them. That’s why we were created – to gather the sparks, to gather the sparks no matter where they are hidden.”

And you asked, “But how can sparks be gathered?”

And you grandfather said, “Every time you do a good deed, one of the sparks is set free.”…

Meditation: by Mary Oliver, a poem entitled “First Snow”

The snow

began here

this morning and all day

continued, its white

rhetoric everywhere

calling us back to why, how,

whence such beauty and what

the meaning; such

an oracular fever! flowing

past windows, an energy it seemed

would never ebb, never settle

less than lovely! and only now,

deep into night,

it has finally ended.

The silence

is immense,

and the heavens still hold

a million candles, nowhere

the familiar things:

stars, the moon,

the darkness we expect

and nightly turn from. Trees

glitter like castles

of ribbons, the broad fields

smolder with light, a passing

creekbed lies

heaped with shining hills;

and though the questions

that have assailed us all day

remain — not a single

answer has been found –

walking out now

into the silence and the light

under the trees,

and through the fields,

feels like one.

Reading: by the bestselling author M J Ryan, (who according to her website, is also an executive coach and change expert) from This Year I Will…: How to finally change a habit, keep a resolution, or make a dream come true (p. 2) 

I believe that people can change. Not just superficially, or temporarily. I believe that we have the ability within us to truly rearrange our inner landscape and make changes happen within ourselves and our lives. … We can make a dream come true or bring something new into being. Big or small, grandiose or humble, we can have the things we want in life.

But it’s not easy, as anyone who has tried to change a habit or do something knows. Our brains create strong tendencies to do the same thing over and over. We say we’re going to change, we may even do it for a little while, but soon we find ourselves back to our old habits…

Reading: by the psychologist Kelly McGonigal from The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and what You can Do to Get More of It (p. 88) 

Progress! Progress is good, and making progress on our goals feels good. So good that we like to congratulate ourselves: Well done, you!

Maybe we should think twice before we hand ourselves the gold star. While most of us believe that making progress on our goals spurs us on to greater success, psychologists know we are all too quick to use progress as an excuse for taking it easy. 

[Research has] shown that making progress on a goal motivates people to engage in goal-sabotaging behavior. In one study, [researchers] reminded successful dieters of how much progress they had made toward their ideal weight. They then offered the dieters a thank-you gift of either an apple or a chocolate bar. Eighty-five percent of the self-congratulating dieters chose the chocolate bar over the apple, compared with only 58 percent of dieters who were not reminded of their progress. A second study found the same effect for academic goals: Students made to feel good about the amount of time they had spent studying for an exam were more likely to spend the evening playing beer pong with friends… 

In practical terms, this means that one step forward gives you permission to take two steps back. 

Reading: an anecdote retold in various religious traditions. Here is a Christian version as told by Anthony DeMello (Taking Flight, p. 116) 

One day a bishop knelt before the altar and, in an outburst of religious fervor, began to beat his breast and exclaim, “I’m a sinner, have mercy on me! I’m a sinner, have mercy on me!”

The local priest [standing nearby], inspired by this example of humility, fell on his knees beside the bishop and began to beat his breast and say, “I’m a sinner, have mercy on me! I’m a sinner, have mercy on me!”

The sexton who happened to be in church at the time was so moved he could not restrain himself. He too fell on his knees, beat his breast, and cried out, “I’m a sinner, have mercy on me!”

Whereupon the bishop nudged the priest and, pointing toward the sexton, said with a smile, “Look who thinks he is a sinner!”

Better and Better

A Sermon Delivered on January 11, 2015

By

The Reverend Axel H. Gehrmann

“Every day, in every way, I am getting better and better.” This saying was first popularized by the 19^th century French psychologist Émile Coué. He developed a method of self-hypnosis or autosuggestion that involved repeating this sentence, as a kind of mantra, again and again, maybe twenty times, preferably at the beginning and at the end of every day. 

It was Emerson, who said, “that which dominates our imaginations and our thoughts will determine our lives... Therefore, it behooves us to be careful what we worship, for what we are worshipping we are becoming.”

Coué took that notion one step further. He believed that whatever idea exclusively occupies our minds turns into reality. If we are sick, we are more likely to get well, if we say to ourselves “I am feeling better. I am feeling better,” than if we say, “I feel sick. I feel sick.”

Every day, in every way, I am getting better and better…  What do you think – if you repeat these words again and again, will you really get better? Is this an exercise in self-improvement or and example of self-delusion?

I do think many of us would like to get better and better. I know I certainly aspire to be a better husband and father, just about every day. I know that I am imperfect, and that there are many areas of my life that offer ample room for improvement. Like millions of Americans who periodically peruse the self-help and self-improvement literature in their local libraries, and who start every year with a long list of new resolutions, I want to be a better person. But change is not easy. 

* * *

A few weeks ago I had a rare chance to go to the movies with my son, Noah - just the two of us, father and son, an opportunity for “male bonding.” The movie we watched was one he had selected, called “Whiplash.” It’s the story of a 19 year-old jazz drummer named Andrew Neiman, who is a music student at a highly respected conservatory in New York City. Neiman dreams of becoming a world-famous drummer. He practices furiously and feverishly, in order to meet the daunting demands of his instructor, a man named Fletcher. 

The movie seemed particularly relevant for us, because Noah is also a jazz music student, who hopes to become an accomplished performer. Early on in the movie there is a scene where Neiman and his supportive father are sitting in a movie theater, sharing a bag of popcorn. Noah and I looked at each other with a grin, because we were sitting in a movie theater negotiating how to share our bag of popcorn, watching them negotiate how to share their bag of popcorn. 

Sadly, the movie isn’t about the heart-warming relationship between a son and his supportive father. The movie is all about the highly charged relationship between the music instructor and his student. Fletcher’s teaching style is cruel and confrontational. He is manipulative, abusive, and demeaning. Fletcher believes that by radically challenging his students, taunting them, telling them they are pathetic failures, he will inspire the most dedicated and talented of them to reach unimagined heights of musical skill. The students that aren’t destined for greatness, of course, will break down under the pressure. But the best of them will become even better. 

Fletcher believes it is his duty to wage a merciless psychological war on his students, relentlessly pushing them to perform better and better. He doesn’t settle for adequacy, he demands excellence. His pedagogy is memorably captured, when he says: There are no two words in the English language more harmful than “good job.” 

I don’t want to give away the ending, but suffice to say, the hero, Andrew Neiman, remains true to his dream. And while I doubt my son would like to be subjected to the kind of torture Andrew Neiman endured, he did thoroughly enjoy movie. Though in many ways painful to watch, it left him feeling exhilarated and inspired. 

* * *

What is it that inspires us to change for the better? What is it that helps us make our dreams come true? 

Should we silently recite the words “Every day, in every way, I am getting better and better,” until we feel we are indeed improving? Should we focus on the progress we have made, so we can repeat it and reinforce it?

Or is the sense of satisfaction we get when we have done a “good job” the beginning of our undoing? “There are no two words in the English language more harmful than ‘good job,’” Fletchers says. Is this a joke?

The implication seems to be, that only a profound sense of our essential inadequacy will motivate us to do better. Only an overwhelming sense of our inferiority will inspire a superior effort. Or to take this idea from the realm of music to religious practice, it seems as if the fervor with which we profess our sinfulness, is in direct proportion to the purity of our virtue and the depth of our devotion. And so the bishop, the priest, and the sexton compare and compete, each hoping to be a greater sinner, and thus more likely to be a greater saint.

* * *

It seems crazy not to celebrate our success, as we make incremental progress toward our chosen life goals. And yet psychologists say this is exactly what we should do. Kelly McGonigal says, a sense of success inhibits progress and weakens our resolve. Whenever we savor the single step we have taken forward, we are more inclined to follow up by taking two steps back. 

She explains it like this: Whenever we attempt to cultivate better and healthier habits, we are pitching two parts of our brain against each other. One part of our brain is concerned about our long-term interests (whether losing weight, saving money, or fulfilling our life goals), the other part wants to satisfy our immediate impulses (whether eating that piece of chocolate, buying that nice new jacket, or spending hours on the sofa watching trashy TV). When we make momentary progress toward our long-term goals, that part of our brain satisfied and takes a break. And the brain then turns its attention to the goal that has not yet been satisfied, and yields to the voice of self-indulgence.

* * *

Most people consider progress good. This is especially true for Unitarian Universalists. One of the hallmarks of our liberal faith, is that it is progressive. We believe in progress. We believe we can be better people. We believe we can make the world a better place. 

Centuries ago, unlike our Christian contemporaries, who believed that humans were all sinners and most were destined for eternal damnation, our forebears believed humans were essentially good, and that all people were destined for universal salvation. Today we express this belief, when we affirm the inherent worth and dignity of every person. 

Are psychologists saying our affirmation of human progress actually holds us back? Is our very hopefulness its own undoing? It would seem so. 

McGonigal writes, “Although it runs counter to everything we believe about achieving our goals, focusing on progress can hold us back from success. That’s not to say that progress itself is a problem. The problem with progress is how it makes us feel – and even then, it’s only a problem if we listen to the feeling instead of sticking to our goals.”

“Progress can be motivating, and even inspire future self-control,” she says, “but only if you view your actions as evidence that you are committed to your goal. In other words, you need to look at what you have done and conclude that you really must care about your goal, so much so that you want to do even more to reach it. This perspective is easy to adopt; it’s just not our usual mindset. More typically, we look for the reason to stop.”

In order to get better and better, we need to focus on our commitment to the goals that lie before us, rather than the progress behind us. One easy and effective way to do this is to remind ourselves why we are trying to change. 

McGonigal recounts a study in which researchers asked a group of students to remember a time when they successfully turned down a temptation, and resisted their urge for immediate gratification. Similar to other studies, as a consequence of pondering their past virtue, the students’ moral resolve faltered. 70 percent of them took the next opportunity to indulge in some version of choosing the chocolate bar over the healthy apple.

But when the students were asked to remember why in the past they had resisted temptation, their moral resolve remained strong – 69 percent resisted the next temptation. Simply raising the question “why?,” served to remind them of a greater meaning, and the consequences of their actions. And like magic, this boosted the students’ self-control, and helped them make choices consistent with their overall goals.

“Remembering “why” works,” McGonigal says, “because it changes how you feel about the reward of self-indulgence. That so-called treat will start to look more like the threat to your goals that it is, and giving in won’t look so good.” Her simple advice is: The next time you find yourself using past good behavior to justify indulging in bad habits, pause and remember the why.   

* * *

What is it we are trying to achieve? What is our vision of a better life? What would it look like to be a better partner, a better parent, a better person? What would it look like if we were perpetually taking part in an ongoing effort to build a better world? And most importantly: Why are we trying to get better and better?

One way to think about it is that we are each in our own small way trying to help repair the world. Tikkun olam is the phrase in the Jewish tradition. This idea - and the myth of the ten vessels – was conceived by the sixteenth century rabbi Isaac Luria. Luria was born 42 years after the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492. His life was shaped by the experience of exile. The myth of the ten vessels was an attempt to find a new sense of religious meaning, in light of a challenging past. 

“Instead of seeing their exile in far-flung countries as a punishment,” Howard Schwartz writes, “the myth explained that God had put them in those places for a purpose – to gather the sparks [of holy light]. This gathering took place whenever a person performed good deeds, [which helped repair] the world. Eventually the world would be restored to pristine condition.” In this way the expulsion from Spain was turned into a blessing.

Tikkun olam, he says, “proposes that everyone should do their part in trying to improve the world by becoming environmentally aware, by seeking peace, and by living one’s life with the awareness of the needs of others.”

Our children’s story this morning tells us, every time we do a good deed, one of the sparks is set free. When we plant a tree, a spark rises up. When we help our neighbors, we can see a spark in their eyes. When we are kind to animals and the earth, a spark of kindness enters the world. And little by little we make the world a better place. One day, when enough of these sparks have been gathered, there will be peace in the world.

* * *

“Every day, in every way, I am getting better and better,” is a familiar saying. It is a fine mantra. But whether it serves to inspire self-improvement or self-delusion really depends on us. 

Will we recite this mantra simply as a feel-good recipe, or as a demand for action? Will we settle for past progress, or will we strengthen our resolve to create the future of our dreams? Will our accomplishments foster a sense of self-satisfaction, or will they deepen our commitment to reach our highest goals? 

Every day, in every way, we can fulfill a higher purpose. Every day, in every way, we can serve a greater good. Every day, in every way, we can find sparks of the sacred in star light and in silence, and in the snow – “its white rhetoric everywhere/ calling us back to why, how,/ whence such beauty and what/ the meaning…”

Every day, in every way, we can be better and better.

May we have the wisdom to somewhere see the path 

that leads us to a better future.

And may we have the courage to follow it.

Amen.

Again and Again

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
-- George Santayana

Meditation: by Dana Gioia “New Year’s”

Let other mornings honor the miraculous.

Eternity has festivals enough.

This is the feast of our mortality,

The most mundane and human holiday.

On other days we misinterpret time,

Pretending that we live the present moment.

But can this blur, this smudgy in-between,

This tiny fissure where the future drips

Into the past, this flyspeck we call now

Be our true habitat? The present is

The leaky palm of water that we skim

From the swift, silent river slipping by.

The new year always brings us what we want

Simply by bringing us along—to see

A calendar with every day uncrossed,

A field of snow without a single footprint.

Reading: from the Jewish scriptures, the Book of Ecclesiastes, 1:3-10 (New Living Translation)

3 What do people get for all their hard work under the sun? 4 Generations come and generations go, but the earth never changes. 5 The sun rises and the sun sets, then hurries around to rise again. 6 The wind blows south, and then turns north. Around and around it goes, blowing in circles. 7 Rivers run into the sea, but the sea is never full. Then the water returns again to the rivers and flows out again to the sea. 8 Everything is wearisome beyond description. No matter how much we see, we are never satisfied. No matter how much we hear, we are not content.

9 History merely repeats itself. It has all been done before. Nothing under the sun is truly new. 10 Sometimes people say, “Here is something new!” But actually it is old; nothing is ever truly new. 

Reading: by the Jungian psychologist James Hillman from The Force of Character and the Lasting Life (p. 63) 

Repetition is a major specialty of old age. Conventional geriatrics links this habit to failing short-term memory: You don’t realize you’re telling the same story again because you don’t recall having already told it, and often. Repetition, they say, demonstrates a withering brain.

Old people repeat, almost exactly. If this is a symptom, it is also their style. I once interrupted a garrulous uncle in his eighties in the middle of one of his boringly familiar travel stories. “You’ve already told me that,” I said. Quick as a wink, and just as irritated as I, he shot back, “I like telling it.”… He refused to allow the eye and ear of youth to judge a characteristic of later years. He knew the joy of the groove.

Repetition brings together the very old and the very young. They share this pleasure. Why conceive of repetition as a failure rather than as a necessary component of imagination? Why not, instead, conceive of the need for novelty as an addiction? After all, repetition is essential to the oral tradition, to passing on stories from generation to generation. It seems to be the means by which the lore of the ancestors is kept alive and kept right….

Reading: by May Sarton, a poem entitled “New Year Resolve”

The time has come

To stop allowing the clutter

To clutter my mind

Like dirty snow,

Shove it off and find

Clear time, clear water.

Time for a change,

Let silence in like a cat

Who has sat at my door

Neither wild nor strange

Hoping for food from my store

And shivering on the mat.

Let silence in.

She will rarely speak or mew,

She will sleep on my bed

And all I have ever been

Either false or true

Will live again in my head.

For it is now or not

As old age silts the stream,

To shove away the clutter,

To untie every knot,

To take the time to dream,

To come back to still water.

Again and Again

A Sermon Delivered on January 4, 2015

By

The Reverend Axel H. Gehrmann

New Year’s Eve this week was quite a day. Elaine, the kids and I woke up that morning in a motel south of Big Sur on the California coast. Our challenge was to get home before midnight. We checked out early, hopped in the car for a four hour drive to Oakland, where we caught our Southwest flight to Midway airport in Chicago. 

The good thing about flying Southwest, we learned, is that you don’t have to pay extra for your checked baggage. We also learned that this means a lot of people tend to bring a lot of baggage. So though we arrived at Midway reasonably on time, around 8:30 in the evening, waiting for our three duffel bags to appear on the baggage carousel was much more time-intensive than we had expected. And the fact that we weren’t sure where our bags were supposed to arrive, because all the information screens were broken, didn’t help. 

Finally our luggage arrived, we bolted to the airport shuttle to economy parking, piled into our car, and hit the road. Elaine, the speediest driver in the family, took the wheel. 

The traffic gods smiled on us that evening, and amazingly we arrived safely at home just minutes before midnight. I broke out some LaCroix sparkling water for a New Years toast just as the last seconds of 2014 ticked by. When the clock struck midnight, I gave Elaine a kiss, and listened for the sound of the New Year commencing. I listened for a bang, a siren, or at least some firework. But I didn’t hear a thing. I looked out the window, and the night looked as dark as ever. The first moments of 2015 looked no different than the last moments of 2014.

The next morning I got up to make my first 2015 cup of tea. And you know what, it looked and smelled and tasted just like the cup of tea I have made every morning for the last weeks and months. 

And when I went for a morning walk, the neighborhood streets of 2015 looked exactly like the ones I walked in 2014, and 2013, and 2012.

Some part of me expected 2015 to somehow be different. It is a brand new year, after all. And some small part of me was disappointed to realize that nothing changed. But, of course, I know better. That’s the way of the world: the sun rises the same way, again and again, and I will go about my mundane business day after day.

* * *

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” This saying is often attributed to Einstein, and sometimes to Mark Twain or Benjamin Franklin. But – according to sources on the all-knowing internet -  it was most likely first written by Rita Mae Brown, in a 1983 mystery novel.

If the frequency with which this definition of insanity is cited is evidence of its accuracy, then there must be something to it.

As the Atlantic Monthly put it: “Insanity is doing something over and over, but expecting a different result. That pretty well describes campaign finance reform in America.” (“The Only Way to Fix Campaign-Finance Regulation Is to Destroy It,” July 30, 2012)

Or as the Washington Post put it: “They say that the essence of futility is to keep doing the same thing while expecting a different result. But is that what key government forecasters are doing in determining their outlook for the economy?” (“Forecasters Keep Thinking There’s a Recovery Just Around the Corner. They’re Always Wrong,” Feb. 19, 2013)

As a the New York Times article put it: “They say the definition of insanity is repeating the same action, and expecting a different result. By that measure, Congress has lost its mind.” (“Over the Cliff and Back,” Jan. 4, 2013)

* * *

Doing the same thing over and over again – if not a sign of insanity – at least often feels dispiriting. 

The story of Sisyphus is one of the most well-known of Greek myths. It's the story of a king, who tries to outwit the god Zeus. Homer says Sisyphus was the wisest and most prudent of mortals, who, among other things, put death in chains. 

As Albert Camus tells the story, Sisyphus was accused of a disrespecting the gods. He stole their secrets.  And for this he was finally condemned to ceaselessly roll a rock to the top of a mountain. Every time he reached the top, the boulder would tumble back down, and Sisyphus had to take up his task again and again for all eternity.

The ancient Greeks imagined that endlessly repetitious labor was the worst kind of punishment they could inflict on a human being.

* * *

The notion that repetition is inherently dispiriting is also found in the words of the Preacher in the book of Ecclesiastes. What do we get for all our hard work? Generations come and generations go, but nothing changes. All is vanity, all is meaningless, all our toil is nothing but chasing after wind. There is nothing new under the sun.

The Preacher says, doing the same thing again and again is pointless. Expecting anything to change, anything to be different, anything to be new is insanity. But this is not the Preacher’s final answer. In the end he hints that there are deeper truths worth pursuing, truths more meaningful than all our striving for worldly profit or pleasure.

* * *

In an article entitled “The Definition of Insanity Is…” the clinical psychologist Ryan Howes questions the saying that links insanity to repetition. He says, doing something again and again can be very valuable. The word for this kind of positive persistence is “perseverance.” Perseverance means sticking with a course of action in spite of all difficulties, obstacles or discouragement.

The story of Sisyphus and the book of Ecclesiastes are talking about something else. Psychologists call it “perseveration”: “the pathological, persistent repetition of a word, gesture or act.” Perseveration can be caused by anxiety or obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). We engage in perseveration when we try to finish unfinished business by recreating old unresolved problems, all the while hoping for a better outcome. Some describe these dynamics in terms of an inner child that exists within every adult. When this hidden child feels helpless and hurt, it can be a real challenge for the adult to foster healing. Our motivations are then misunderstood, our goals misguided, and we can get stuck in unhealthy patterns. 

Perseveration can seem like a kind of insanity. But perseverance is just the opposite. Ryan Howes says, 

“Repeating the same constructive behavior over and over, hoping (one day) for a positive result is difficult but virtuous. It's the effort made by eating oatmeal every morning, brushing your teeth after every meal and daily journaling. It's weekly therapy, consistent workouts and taking time for spirituality. It's … Mother Theresa tirelessly serving the poor. Or someone working to systematically overcome shyness, build healthier habits or communicate better with their spouse. It's a 12-stepper taking it "one day at a time." The qualities of perseverance, consistency, loyalty - these are beneficial to health and definitely not insane. And they're doing the same thing every day, hoping for some measure of progress.” (Psychology Today, July 27, 2009)

* * *

For James Hillman doing the same thing over and over again also has unique value. For him it has less to do with acquiring new skills, and more to do with deepening our understanding and appreciation for past experience. 

As we grow older, we relish repetition. We are happy to hear the same old stories, and tell the same old tales. Novelty interests us less and less. Instead we prefer to savor our memories. In reviewing our life we are trying to make better sense of it. As Hillman puts it, we are attempting  “to turn [past] events into experiences, to draw out their emotion and gather them into patterns of meaning.”

“Without insight into its nature, [the past is] a mere jumble of unintelligible facts, a life history strung together by dates and jobs, trips and illnesses like a vast… biography stuffed with data and empty of conclusions.” (p. 92)

James Hillman writes: 

“When Grandmother tells yet again about the chimney fire that blazed onto the roof and almost burned the house down, and recounts how each member of the family did this and that, the story is boring only if you listen with an ear for fact. 

But the story is also a lesson about concealed dangers, about protecting “home,” about family collaboration, and about the [characters involved].

Why must these stories be told repeatedly? What is the story trying to tell beyond Grandmother’s telling, and why are grandmothers through the ages repositories of stories? These stories, repeated and repeated, over and over, show the loremaking, mythologizing function of the psyche, which turns the disasters and celebrations of the family, of the town into foundation stones that give background and underground to the patternless flow of daily events. By means of repetition the psyche forms significance from the ordinary. It is as if the soul begs for the same stories so that it knows that something will last.” (p. 64)

As we grow older, our short-term memory seems to become less reliable. We forget where we put down the car keys, where we left our glasses, and whether we turned off the oven. But our long-term memories of places we’ve been, and people we knew decades ago become stronger and more interesting to us.

When we are young, we are fascinated by all things new, and history seems irrelevant. As we grow older, and hopefully wiser, our perspective shifts. Acquiring new information seems less relevant, while gaining a better understanding of the past seems more important. We have less of a need for novelty and in order to grasp deeper truths, we let other things go.

* * *

This is a notion of wisdom also found the pages of the Tao te Ching. In Chapter 48, Lao Tzu writes: 

In pursuit of knowledge, every day something is added. 

In the practice of the Tao, every day something is dropped.

Our task, says Lao Tzu, is to emulate the ancient masters:

The ancient Masters were profound and subtle.
Their wisdom was unfathomable.
There is no way to describe it;
all we can describe is their appearance.

They were careful
as someone crossing an iced-over stream…
Fluid as melting ice…
Receptive as a valley.
Clear as a glass of water.

The question Lao Tzu asks each of us, in Chapter 15, is: 

Do you have the patience to wait 

till your mud settles and the water is clear?

* * *

New Years is the most mundane and human holiday, the feast of our mortality. It is a celebration of all the paths we have traveled, and that have brought us to this day. It is a moment to pause and ponder the past, to savor our memories, and to imagine what lessons we have yet to learn. 

This year, may we clear some of the clutter from our minds. May we shove off the clutter like dirty snow, and find hidden beneath it clear time, clear water. 

May this year allow us to clear the silt from the stream of time, to let the mud settle, and let the water become still.

May we take the time to dream of days gone by,

of lessons we learned and people we loved. 

And may the wisdom we gain guide us on our way,

As we take another step into the future,

Again and again, every moment of every day.  

Amen.