The Sacred Journey

Sunday, January 7, 2007

Rev. Arthur Lavoie

CALL TO WORSHIP

The world cannot be discovered by a journey of miles,

no matter how long, but only by a spiritual journey,

a journey of one inch, very arduous and humbling and joyful,

by which we arrive at the ground of our feet, and learn to be at home.

Wendell Berry, “The Unseen Wilderness”

READING

The Living Tradition we share draws from many sources:

Direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder, affirmed in all cultures, which moves us to a renewal of the spirit and an openness to the forces which create and uphold life;

Words and deeds of prophetic women and men which challenge us to confront powers and structures of evil with justice, compassion and the transforming power of love;

Wisdom from the world’s religions which inspire us in our ethical and spiritual life;

Jewish and Christian teachings which call us to respond to God’s love by loving our neighbor as ourselves;

Humanist teachings which counsel us to heed the guidance of reason and the results of science, and warn us against idolatries of the mind and spirit;

Spiritual teachings of earth-centered traditions which celebrate the sacred circle of life and instruct us to live in harmony with the rhythms of nature.

                                                From the By-laws of the Unitarian Universalist Association

SERMON

It was a clear, crisp fall day several years ago.  I was in seminary, living in Berkeley, California and was struggling with my call to ministry.  We all reach this point at one time or other in our seminary training.  The call has become murky, has lost its clarity and we become overwhelmed with the struggles of life, the challenges of learning to become a minister.

And the voices of self-doubt begin to intrude.  “Can I really do this?” they say, “I’m not good enough, or spiritual enough, or wise enough to be a minister.”

So, I was having one of those kind of days and I decided to go out to Sibley Park in the Oakland hills and walk the labyrinth.  There are several labyrinths in the San Francisco bay area and I had found walking a labyrinth to be a very meditative and enlightening practice.  I had always found it difficult to meditate.  I am often too restless and my mind is distracted too easily to sit in a quiet place for very long.

When I walk a labyrinth, though, I found that the movement of my body helps to release some of that excess energy and I can relax more fully into the experience. 

So, that day I went to my favorite labyrinth, located at the bottom of a small canyon or quarry in one of the parks that runs along the Berkeley and Oakland hills.  It is a beautiful setting with this rock wall facing three sides of the labyrinth.

I walked the path, watching my breath, absorbing the beautiful, tranquil sights and sounds around me.  I got to the center and looked up.  There on the hillside right in front of me was a small, somewhat scraggly bush.  But it was blazing red and looked like it was on fire. 

Now in the bay area fall is a fairly non-descript season.  Trees usually change from green to brown with little color in between. And red, you never see red.  But here was this bush ablaze with glorious red color.

I felt like Moses coming face to face with a burning bush in the midst of the desert.  In the midst of my own emotional desert I was given hope and meaning through a “burning bush.”  My call to ministry was strengthened and renewed.  And I was reminded once again that ministry like life does not demand perfection, just the will to strive to be the best I can be.

I wonder if any of you have had a similar experience?

What was it like for you? 

Where do you go to find peace and clarity in the midst of your emotional turmoil?

For all of us, whatever the journey to self-discovery has been, whatever the path to clarity and insight, it is a sacred journey, an archetypal story of feeling empty, lost, or confused and venturing forth in search of meaning and truth. 

We are, each one of us, on such a journey.  It is an intrinsic part of the human experience.  From the time a child learns to speak one of the most often used words is, “Why?”  We spend much of our lives asking questions, discerning answers, searching for truth.

We search for that which fills deep empty places and gives our lives meaning and value.  We yearn for wholeness, for rootedness, for a community of people with similar values, who are on similar journeys.

In our fourth Unitarian Universalist Principle “we covenant to affirm and promote a free and responsible search for truth and meaning.”  We hold up and identify as sacred the life journey that each of us is on.

The Rev. Frederic Muir writes:

“The need for meaning is not a physiological or organic need like the need for food and air.  Neither is it strictly nor exclusively a psychological need, like the need for nurturance and affirmation.  Meaning is a religious need, sustenance for our souls, life for our spirit.”                                      With Purpose and Principle, Edward A. Frost, ed. pg. 54

Two Unitarian Universalist ministers, Nancy and Barbara are hiking together in the American southwest.  They have climbed this hill and are sitting on a rock as they pause to take in all that they experience around them.  The vista is breathtaking.  Multi-colored rock and sand, a few desert plants, and a beautiful blue sky open out before them.

As they sit there contemplating this abundant beauty another woman comes bustling up the trail.  When she reaches them she asks excitedly, “Where is it?”  “Where’s the vortex?”

Nancy and Barbara don’t have any idea what she is talking about.  But, Barbara, in all of her calm, ministerial wisdom, points to a spot a little ways off and says, “Its right over there.”

The woman goes over to the place Barbara has pointed to, unpacks a couple of crystals and other objects from her bag, conducts a little ritual, and then turns and hurries back down the trail.  Her quest was so focused, her vision was so limited that she seemed to miss everything that could have been in her realm of experience in that moment.

How often is our journey like that of this woman?  We think we know what we’re looking for, we assume we know what the answer will be, we do everything in our power to make our reality fit the assumption we have, and we totally miss the boat.

When you walk the labyrinth, when you follow the sacred journey of life, you quickly learn that even though there is only one path, this single path does not always take you where you think it will.  You actually begin close to the center, then make your way to the outside and then circle back in again.  Just when you think you’re going to go right to the center, there is another loop that you have to take before your journey is complete.  And perhaps you look around and say, “How did I get here?”  “Did I miss a turn somewhere?”  “Have I lost my way?”

Our life’s journey is not a race that is quickly or easily completed.  The path we are on in our personal spiritual development is not a search for the next fad.  This is not a scavenger hunt, where we might frantically collect as many different religious rituals or artifacts as we can. 

We are on a journey that is a thoughtful and mindful engagement with the world that brings us a depth of understanding and insight.  And we must stay in one place long enough to explore it with some seriousness and find the wisdom that is there.

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote:

“God offers to every mind its choice between truth and repose.  Take which you please—you can never have both.  Between these, as a pendulum, humans oscillate.  One in whom the love of repose predominates will accept the first creed, the first philosophy, the first political philosophy met. . . .  That person gets rest, commodity, and reputation; but shuts the door of truth.  One in whom the love of truth predominates will keep aloof from all moorings, and afloat.  That person will abstain from dogmatism, and recognize all the opposite negations between which, as walls, his or her being is swung.  Such a one submits to the inconvenience of suspense and imperfect opinion, but is a candidate for truth, as the other is not, and respects the highest law of being.”

And, where do we look to find this truth and meaning?

Unitarian Universalism offers us a set of guideposts.  We call them the “Sources of our Living Tradition,” and I used these sources as our reading this morning.  As UU’s we recognize that “truth and meaning” can be found in the depths of our own experience of “transcending mystery and wonder,” which some call God.  We also recognize that every religious tradition, every philosophy has some kernel of truth and can be a pathway in our exploration.

One day the gods decided to create the universe.  They created the stars, the sun, and the moon.  They created the seas, the mountains, the flowers, and the clouds.  Then they created human beings.  At the very end, they created Truth.  At this point, however, a problem arose: where should they put Truth.  Where should they hide Truth so that human beings would not find it right away?  They wanted, you see, to prolong the adventure of the search.

“Let’s put Truth on top of the highest mountain,” said one of the gods.  “Certainly it will be hard to find there.”

“Let’s put it on the farthest star,” said another.

“Let’s hide it in the darkest and deepest abyss.”

“Let’s conceal it on the secret side of the moon.”

At the end, the wisest and most ancient god said, “No, we will hide Truth inside the very heart of human beings.  In this way they will look for it all over the Universe, without being aware of having it inside themselves all the time.”                  

from a sermon on the Fourth Principle by the Rev. Dr. Marni Harmony

So, even though truth is personal and is located within each of us, the searching, the journey is necessary, for truth can only be clarified into meaning through engagement, engagement with our own experience, engagement with these sources, and engagement with each other.

It takes great courage to be on such a journey, to leave what is sometimes familiar and strike out on our own.  It can also be a lonely journey.  One of the great gifts of Unitarian Universalism is that it helps us to find companions and fellow travelers to share such a voyage of discovery.  We may find different truths, use different guideposts, but we do not have to search alone.

These are the things that make our search a responsible one, that we use these guideposts and that we search in community, not it isolation. 

As Walt Whitman wrote in Song of the Open Road

Afoot and light-hearted, I take to the open road,

healthy, free, the world before me.

Whoever you are, come travel with me!

However sweet these laid-up stores—

however convenient this dwelling, we cannot remain here;

            However sheltered this port, and however calm these waters,

we must not anchor here;

Together! the inducements shall be greater;

we will sail pathless and wild seas;

Onward! to that which is endless as it was beginningless,

            to undergo much, tramps of days, rests of nights,

To see nothing anywhere but what you may reach it and pass it.

To look up or down no road but it stretches and waits for you—

            To know the universe itself as a road—as many roads—

as roads for traveling souls.­

Walt Whitman, Song of the Open Road

Blessed Be