Perseverance, Balance and Other Lessons of Summer

Rev. Leslie Takahashi Morris

Thomas Jefferson Memorial Church – Unitarian Universalist

August 20, 2006

They say moss does not grow on a rolling stone, yet it grew the last years on our neglected canoe.  More noxious substances were deposited by our neighbor cat on the small, basic kayak I got for my birthday last year and almost made David return because I knew we couldn’t afford it in money or time.  More than a few days into July, our family’s precious time together truly began with an intentional effort to do something fun together and the canoe and kayak were ready props.  Yet this trip began more in battle than beauty—first, the roof rack had to be purchased and tried, then we all had to hit our head on its bars which extended in unfortunate width over all the doors.  We had to be late getting started and we had to realize in the move we had forgotten where some of the accoutrements were.  We had to clean the accoutrements once we found them, not to mention the cat gifts on the seat of the kayak we had only used once since October.  Some of us had to argue about whether six year-olds had to wear life jackets and others of us had to quibble over the right set of roads to take to the Rivanna Reservoir. 

We had picked a morning when we thought we had enough time only to discover that all the roof-racking-paddle-finding-cat-pee-removing-life-jacket-resisting-route-debating had eaten up most of our time and that we only had a very narrow window before Garner, our 17 year-old, would have to go to work.  It hardly seemed worth it, trivial, just as this story may seem trivial to some in the light of all we have held here this summer.  Then, just like now we had had a lot of hard news—news from family members and members of this congregation, the war and its revelations had seemed relentless, the idiocy of our state’s policymakers unprecedented.  All the frenzy and resistance in our getting there was part of wondering if it was really okay to do something restful, to do something joyful, to just BE. 

Yet, somehow, we made it to the water and then, there we were, gliding across the water and around the bend and as soon as we were away from the somehow ominous dam, it was quiet. We soon saw a heron and a few sunning turtles and heard the musical splashing of water off the paddles and….we had entered that deeper rhythm.

The rhythm was simple and physical on the summer’s first water trip, that first breaking of the work-a-day routine, the re-realization that the world is a natural place that exists aside from insatiable email and piles of paperwork and that one’s being has intrinsic value beyond its ability to be useful to others and bank the constant fiery knowledge that important things remained undone.

Sheer dogged perseverance had allowed us to arrive at that moment in the boat.  Perseverance had been required to simply enter into the heat of that July day, to simply say ‘Yes, we are going to let some things go undone because it is time to be present,” to understand that connections with the pleasures of life does not mean denying its harder realities.

In the kayak, I was at the water’s edge.  The small boat moved to my movement and reminded me of how precarious balance always is, how I needed a little of this and a little of that and how a little more of either could cause over-correction.  The heron, having flown off when we came, returned to fish poised on one leg in a world made less perfect because of our arrival. 

Later, when our son, Liam, joined me in my tiny craft,  that  second beloved body upped the ante— with the extra load, movements had to be slower and more deliberate—for the weight shift threatened to disturb the delicate balance and course corrections became more essential.  His precious extra weight also reminded me how important it was to retain my balance.

This is a time when we as a congregation bear extra weight.  As David has already mentioned, when we discussed this topic in July, it was as light summer fare, yet the lessons of this summer have not been light.  This is a summer when we have cried and hoped and wished and prayed and cleaned and cooked and cared for and heard one another.  We have tried to be persistent in our willingness to offer help and we have tried to know how to balance our love for the people we want in our life with the need to allow them to be able to retain the dignity of choice and ultimately to be free from pain and suffering.  We have tried to balance care for others with care for ourselves, and grief with laughter.  We have been reminded of the fragility of life, and what a tragedy it would be not to savor and experience it.  We have tried to hear beneath isolate events some larger hope or message and we have tried to not shy away from what is right before us.

For, despite it all, the urge to life is persistent.  And in its absence, memory is persistent and love is persistent.  And in this church this summer, care was persistent in a way that helps me understand more fully what this community can create here together if we remember it is not ours alone to do, that the larger context is not one we set or determine, much as we would wish to do so. I will end my summer reminded of the giddy joy of connection and love and the inevitability of loss; the great balance between the individual and the community which is so uniquely challenging in our faith; of that great balance between life and death in which we all hang. This is not just a reminder for summer.  We have within us and between us that deeper rhythm that holds us when loss is devastating, when life seems overwhelming, when plans are not perfect, when people show flaws, and even when some of our best intentioned efforts are rejected or take on a tone we never intended them to have.  Together in this place, we are reminded that despite all we cannot know and all we cannot do, our efforts to love and connect are our best chance at being part of some greater whole, some larger hope and they offer a promise that will persevere.  Only through them can we traverse the whole of creation, open our hearts and minds beyond limit, and find the deeper, peaceful river which can carry us.

Amen. 

Meditation

Where in you does a hope lies unvoiced….

A prayer remain unasked….

A request lie unheard….

A peace lie unclaimed. 

This is a moment for every hope unexpressed within you.

This is a space large enough to hold the sadness you fear will break you.

This is a place to know your vulnerabilities, to acknowledge that no one of us can be always and ever in control. 

This is a time expansive enough to hold the terrible and the wondrous.

This is a peace deep enough to remind us of those costly bonds of love which bind us to miraculous acts larger than ourselves.

Let us take some moments to share in silence that which we cannot hold alone.

May we find the courage to seek, reach, connect, and be in the awe-filled truth of our existence:  that so much is beyond our control and yet everything depends on our willingness to live with intention and faith.  So may it be.  Amen.