Reverend Dr. Marilyn Sewell

First Unitarian Church
Portland, Oregon

October 13, 1996

Grace fills empty spaces, but it can only enter where there is a void to receive it, and it is grace itself which makes this void.
--Simone Weil
Gravity and Grace

There are times in my life when I can't quite catch hold of this term abundant : abundant, as in rich, full, satisfied, with excess to give. Mornings when I pull the covers over my head and hunker down, resenting the light; days when I can't seem to find a kind word, even for those I love the most; moments when I walk past a store window and see a broken figure reflected back and wonder how she could ever feel whole. Something seems awry, and I don't even know what. "This is a religious leader?" I ask myself. And then I answer myself. "Yes, this is a religious leader. A human being. Subject to body chemistry and weather changes and the full moon and disappointment and longing, just as much as anyone else."

I know too much, then, to offer simplistic solutions to your own longing, to tell you just to "think positive." This reminds me of a religious figure, a visitor from the East, who some years ago came to this country and was given among other things the writings of Paul the Apostle and the best-seller The Power of Positive Thinking , by Norman Vincent Peale. He told his host as he left the country that he found "Paul appealing" but he found "Peale appalling." So, no, it won't do to tell you to mouth a few mantras, to throw out a few affirmations to the universe, in the hope that you'll be lifted out of the muck you may feel stuck in.

But I will ask you to consider the following: that you're not likely to get anything better, and that what you have is OK. "O my gosh, did I hear her correctly? Did she say what I have is OK?" Well, yes--of course, some times will be better than other times, but what you're basically stuck with is called the human condition. I'm speaking of the nature of our living. It's full of such nasty stuff. So at some point we need to decide to fight it, or join it. The human race, that is.

And then, here's the good news. Once you decide that suffering really is what folks have to do, then you can begin to have fun. It's a paradox, but that's how it works. Grief and pain become not just grief and pain, but a door. A door that allows grace to enter. And that makes all the difference.

You've all seen them--the people who accept life on its own terms and thereby transform it. My very own mother was amazing this way. Now here was a woman whose mental illness cost her her marriage to the only man she ever loved. She lost her children as well. A beautiful professional dancer in her youth, she spent most of her adult years working in the homes of others. She died young of cancer. You might ask, "What could she possibly feel good about? How could she even go on?" And yet here was a woman who laughed from deep inside herself, who couldn't be more delighted when her downstairs neighbor graduated from college, who was deeply involved with her nieces and nephews, and who said to me a few weeks before her death, "Life has been good to me." At her funeral, the priest said, "Complaining--well, that just wasn't her cup of tea."

Another individual comes to mind, this one a young man from this church. Last year he learned that he has AIDS. So on Sundays, I keep my eye out for him, and when he comes through the line after the sermon, I hold him close. I want to make it all go away. One Sunday he came with tears, but then a radiant smile broke through; he said that he knew he was going to die, but the illness had also been a blessing. He had found new depths of love and of self-knowledge that he had never been able to reach before. The illness was a closed door, and now it was opening. I have to add a postscript to this story. I am pleased to tell you that the new AIDS drugs are working remarkably well for him, and he seems to be recovering. He feels good! Amazing. Now he has a different task: to decide what to do with the new life he has been given, the one he thought he would not be living.

Abundance. That feeling of fullness to overflowing comes in the midst of everything else, in the midst of the stalled traffic when you get Garrison Keillor on OPB, in the lovely rows of artichokes at the grocery, when you sink your hands in the warm steaming water and scrub the stained pot. As poet Susan Griffin says, "<love> sees like the iris of an eye,/ when the light is right,/ feels in blindness and when there is nothing else is/ tender, blinks, and opens/ face up to the skies." That door again, that opens when there is nothing else.

Essayist Nancy Mairs struggled with her husband's adultery. She writes, "I have never felt more hurt than I do now. I am angry. I am bitter. I try to weep but my eyes feel blasted. . . . Over and over when he clings to me and weeps as I cannot and says, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," I hold him, stroking his back and murmuring reassurances: that I love him, that I'll be all right, that he hasn't "spoiled" us, that through this pain we can grow. Forgiveness is not even in question. It is simply, mysteriously, already accomplished." Mairs continues, "I always expect spiritual insights to shower like coins of light from on high. When instead they bubble up from the mire like will-o'-the wisps, I am invariably startled. Grace here , among these lies and shattered vows, sleepless nights, remorse, recriminations? Yes, precisely, here: Grace."

Just as there are laws of nature, I'm convinced that there are spiritual laws. We've just been looking at one of them--acceptance of what is leads to generosity of spirit and redemption of what is. And another law seems to be, by my reckoning: give what you need to get, and you will get what you're giving. Now, if this sounds just a little too "wu-wu" for you, just try it out. You want love? Give love. You want peace? Bring peace wherever you go. You need money? Do you know anyone, of any income level, who doesn't think he needs money? Give away money, and your wants will change, and what you most deeply want will come to you. This is the theology of abundance.

Hear this story. "Time before time, when the world was young, two brothers shared a field and a mill. Each night they divided evenly the grain they had ground together during the day. Now as it happened, one of the brothers lived alone; the other had a wife and a large family. One day, the single brother thought to himself: 'It isn't really fair that we divide the grain evenly. I have only myself to care for, but my brother has children to feed.' So each night he secretly took some of his grain to his brother's granary to see that his brother was never without.
"But the married brother said to himself one day, 'It isn't really fair that we divide the grain evenly, because I have children to provide for me in my old age, but my brother has no one. What will he do when he is old?' So every night he secretly took some of his grain to his brother's granary. As a result, both of them always found their supply of grain mysteriously replenished each morning.
"Then one night the brothers met each other halfway between their two houses, suddenly realized what had been happening, and embraced each other in love. The story is that God witnessed their meeting and proclaimed, 'This is a holy place--a place of love--and here it is that my temple shall be built.' And so it was. The holy place, where God is made known, is the place where human beings discover each other in love."

I stop as I am writing this sermon, for my doorbell brings me down the stairs. Who is this, interrupting my work? Two little nippers with umbrellas, out in the rain selling raffle tickets for their school--two girls, maybe eight years old, a redhead with freckles sprinkled across her nose, and a brunette with a bob. They trip over each other's words as they tell me about the new science lab they will have as the result of this raffle. "I like your nails," the dark-haired one says. I glance down at my pearl nail polish. "Well, what are you raffling off?" I ask. They smile up at me. "A trip for four to Disney World!" they answer, breathless. Talk about the vacation from hell! "Sure, I'll buy a ticket," I say, and I fill out the ticket stub. "I like your nails," the one says again, and twists on her toe. "Thank you," I say. They are my neighbors, from just around the corner, they tell me. Their visit--these children full of hope and laughter in the rain--their visit tells me what I've been telling you: the world is abundant and unfolding ever more fully in its abundance. I needed somebody to tell me that my nails are beautiful. Contrary to the headlines, contrary to the advertisements all around, contrary to our learned cynicism--the nature of this earth and the nature of its Maker is abundance.

We give, then, out of this fundamental understanding: there is enough, there is enough. And through that giving, we open the door to our own redemption. Last Friday I had the privilege of being in a group dialogue with poet and Buddhist Gary Snyder. Toward the end of the discussion, someone asked Snyder, as student to master, "What is it we should do?" I think most of us there knew what the questioner meant: in the light of the savaging of the earth from ignorance and greed, in the light of incomprehensible violence, in the light of all that calls to us, what is it we should do? Gary Snyder thought a moment and then answered simply, "Start with what is on your doorstep." Start with your partner. Start with your children. Start with the frail old woman who lives next door. Start with your garbage, real and metaphorical. Recycle that garbage, real and metaphorical. Start with your church, where your deepest values are confirmed and acted out in the world. Start with the one who sits beside you in the pew. Start with keeping the church clean. Start with repairing the steeple. Start with making room for those who want to come to this house of worship. Start with the kids at Outside In. Start with the family who slept on the church steps last night. Start with what is on your doorstep.

As for me, I know what I'll do. I'll start with you. These sermons are not about advice or persuasion--they are love letters, don't you know it? I'll be with you when you in your loss and desperation, and then when life turns around, I'll celebrate your newness with you. Insofar as I can, I will make this church a place where you will be safe, and where you can be loved just as you are, that you might become what you were meant to become. I will not tolerate complaining because it is not worthy of you. But I will be always open to hearing how we can make our church more workable and more hospitable. I will never let you be satisfied with being less than you can be, as individuals or as an institution. I will be with you as you plan, as you sing, as you grieve, as you become. I start with you, for you are near at hand, on my doorstep. And of course my children, my two precious boys. And my friends, scattered all over the country now. And I start with writing, with the word, for in the beginning was the Word, and such as I am, I have to spell out my salvation.

This is how I am saved--not saved from hell, but saved from my narcissism, my narrowness, my greed, my fear--the broken figure in the store window. This is how I melt my icy heart. This is how I know luxury of the spirit, lushness, abundance.

Live on the line of paradox: know that you are made to suffer, thus freeing yourself for joy; whatever you need most, give it away, without a thought; and forget about going to mountain top for your salvation: look on your own doorstep. There you will find all you need.
So be it. Amen.

PRAYER

O Holy One, we acknowledge that you have blessed us beyond measure. But blinded by this world and heir to all the troubles of the flesh, often we cannot receive your good gifts. Make us aware of the abundance that so fills our lives. Help us to give thanks with every breath we take. Amen.

Copyright © 2000, Reverend Dr. Marilyn Sewell. All rights reserved.