by Barbara Coeyman, Intern Minister

A sermon given May 26, 2002

First Unitarian Church

Portland, Oregon

A few months ago I saw a movie about the life of Rhosina Levine, a Russian-born pianist and teacher. She taught at the Julliard School of Music in New York City in the mid-20^th century. Levine was an inspirational teacher—her students included the likes of pianists such as Van Cliburn. As I watched this movie, I felt great nostalgia. Seeing Levine teaching, I remembered some of my own music teachers from my childhood and college years. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not putting myself in the same category as Van Cliburn, but as I watched clips of Levine’s students so moved by the great music they played, I realized how performing music had moved my soul during my student days. Back then I probably never called music "spiritual," but, in fact, as I now realize, it was.

As I watched this movie, I also felt regret that I probably hadn’t had really soulful musical experiences for a long time. A few days after the movie, I got out my instruments; I play a family of string instruments called viols. I repaired a few broken strings, I adjusted a warped bridge, and I started practicing again, in the privacy of my own kitchen. I could tell I was out of practice—I had no pads on the fingers of my left hand, cushions that string players develop from pressing against the strings. At first my fingers were tender after just five minutes of playing. But I persisted, every day playing a little longer. After a few weeks I got together with some other viol players here in Portland for living room playing. In spite of the sore fingers, it surely felt good to get back into a music routine that was also, I could tell, feeding me spiritually.

What feeds you spiritually? Are there activities that used to nurture you that you would like to pick up again? Maybe there are new things you are interested in pursuing.

"Spirituality" might be a controversial subject in some Unitarian Universalist congregations, especially those with a humanistic orientation—I know, I’ve tried to preach on spiritual topics in some of them. Clearly, in this Portland congregation and among many people new to Unitarian Universalist churches generally, spiritual development matters. Our church’s mission statement, for example, includes as one of its goals the "fostering of lifelong spiritual growth." To that end, we have many activities such as women’s and men’s spiritual circles, and adult education classes such as "Writing as Spiritual Practice." In the worship survey that we conducted here a few weeks ago, 81% of the respondents said that spiritual growth was among the two most important reasons that they attend worship services.

Many non-churched people seeking spirituality admit that they don’t want religion—that is, they don’t want to join a church—they just want a more spiritual life.

Certainly, we experience spirituality in many settings apart from church, but I prefer to develop spirituality in a religious context. A church community provides a grounding and a focus for spiritual development through the history, or theology, or worship traditions of the church. In a church community, we are also likely to find others with very similar spiritual quests. Sure, spirituality and religion can exist exclusively of one another, but I prefer that they embrace one another.

In keeping with ideas about connections between spirituality and religion, a few weeks after watching the Levine movie, I attended a workshop on spirituality conducted by an Irish Catholic religious education leader, Thomas Groome. The workshop included about a hundred or so Unitarian Universalist ministers and religious education directors.

Groome’s theme focussed on how religious leaders may foster greater spirituality in all of our work as people of faith, in church and out of church. To stimulate our thinking, at the start of the workshop, Groome asked many thought-provoking questions about our own personal understanding of spirituality.

His questions revealed that "spirituality" is one of those faith words that people use very differently; I suppose because our spiritual experiences are so different, so personal. However, we certainly could tell when we were in the presence of a spiritual person, especially when Groome told a story about his mother, Maggie. Maggie’s spirituality was grounded in caring for the poor. Now, you have to imagine hearing Groome’s delightful Irish brogue in this story, which I can’t come close to imitating. In the words of Groome:

"I want to tell you about John, who used to saunter past my childhood home and greet my mother with a ‘Hello, Maggie. God Bless the work.’

"Maggie invariably responded, ‘Yes, always a good day when we have our health.’

"John Finnan, with his tattered clothes and raw-boned appearance, lived alone, in a dilapidated cottage. Most people in the village knew that John relied on Maggie and Bride Fox, another neighbor, for daily food.

"At lunch time, John always looked as if he were just passing by. Maggie would say, ‘Beg yer pardon, John,’ as if delaying John’s important business, ‘I cooked too much meat and potatoes again today and I hate to see them wasted. You’d do me a great favor to come in and finish them up for me.’

"John usually answered, ‘Well, Maggie I’ve had plenty to eat already but, like yerself, I hate to see good food go to waste.’ Then he’d finish off a fine lunch and report the latest news of the village to Maggie.

"Even as a child, I was awed by the process, when they both knew what the other knew, but I never questioned my mother. Finally, I did ask why she didn’t just come out and say, ‘Hello, John, lookin’ for yer lunch again? I have it ready for you.’

"I have never forgotten her response, ‘Well, it might hurt John’s feelings to say that. And I could begin to think that he’s in my debt. The poor are their own gift to us, and we owe them.’

"To this day I remember my mother’s lesson: that we are all partners in this process called life and in this search for the spiritual. I called my mother a ‘star of heaven.’"

Maggie’s story generated conversation about the qualities of spirituality. Most participants at the workshop agreed that spirituality has something to do with connections that reach toward the center of our being, as Maggie’s generosity did. Most also talked about spirituality as a pathway to the sacred, as Groome learned about through his childhood experiences. But rather than reciting others’ definitions in any more detail, let me take a stab at unpacking the understanding of spirituality that I came away with from Groome’s workshop.

For me, spirituality has three features that make it highly relational. First, spirituality is a sense of connections I feel within myself, how my various parts—my emotions, my reason, my physicality—communicate in making me aware that I am alive.

Spirituality is being with myself. Then, connections move from myself to that which is not myself, other humans, other living things, the earth. It is being in the world. Finally, spirituality especially involves connections to the sacred mystery of life, a mystery that

I call God. This mystery resides both within and outside of my connected self—the theological term for this sense of god in everything and everything in God is "pantheist." Through these inner and outer connections, as these connections go in whatever direction they will, I then experience a transformation that enables me to see life in new ways, to unpack new layers of meaning in being alive.

That’s what spirituality means to me. Your explanation might be very different from mine. That’s okay. We have all had different experiences that have revealed the spiritual and so we explain it differently.

Recently, I read a book called Four Spiritualities, written by a UU minister, Peter Tufts Richardson. Richardson helped me understand how spiritual orientation may be related to personality type. For example, in my relational orientation to spirituality, connections outside myself matter most. Richardson explains this outward orientation as compatible with the extrovert personality type, which I am. I feel most spiritually enriched when I’m connected to others. When I start to feel that I’m in the world by myself, or worse, that I need to run the world by myself, I know it’s time for spiritual renewal. If I have a choice, I find this renewal best in being with other people.

Richardson’s theory seems to work. Just to illustrate a bit further, he says that the opposite, the introvert personality type, will more likely find spiritual sustenance through the inner world of ideas. The introvert’s renewal is best found through individual reflection and periods of quiet. There’s a lot more to Richardson’s ideas, and I encourage you to read his book if you want to know more.

It seems that greater spiritual awareness for everyone is desirable. Now, here’s the challenge: we can work at becoming more spiritually aware. We have the capacity to enhance our own spirituality through our actions and our attitudes. Anything we do to influence our spiritual growth becomes a spiritual practice. Music is again doing this for me. The connections of my hopefully well-tuned instrument resonate with my own connections and open me to understanding the world just a little differently.

Spiritual practice is not only for the Ghandis or Mother Theresas or Jesuses or the Dalai Lamas of the world. Spiritual practice is for each of us. In fact, I would hope that spiritual practice is part of the commitment each of us makes to a religious community we choose to join, just as we make a financial commitment.

Not only is spiritual practice something each of us can work on. The emphasis these days among spiritual leaders seems to be on locating our spiritual practice in everyday, ordinary activities. Spiritual practice does not require huge commitments of time or money. The Spiritual dimensions of life are evident everywhere, not just in holy places and exceptional deeds, or in expensive retreats or time-consuming rituals. The sacred can be found in ordinary experiences, if we only take advantage of them.

In fact, finding the sacred in the ordinary is part of most religions in the world. In Islam, signs of God are sought in the everyday. Hindus find God in cows, in plants, in the smallest creatures. Buddhists know God through small routines like dish washing. In

Christianity, God is revealed through Jesus as shepherd. In the Old Testament, Jahweh appears as weaver or eagle. Indeed, the mystery of life may be revealed in so many ordinary ways.

It is this everyday aspect of spiritual practice that Maggie illustrated so well. She found her connections to the sacred through her kitchen, her friends, and news of her village. It is this everyday aspect that I’ve put back into my music-making. I realize now that for years my practicing was driven by the goal of public performance. Now my playing is primarily in the everyday-ness of living rooms, or in worship settings, without public consumption or professional evaluation.

Let me offer a few more examples of everyday spiritual practices, knowing full well that I will leave out many that you practice, and also that some that I name you may not agree with. I think it’s important to remember that the spiritual practice is not the spirituality, the practice is only the means to achieve the spirituality.

In addition to music, creative activities such as writing or painting, sculpting or quilting, weaving or cooking or flower arranging can be spiritual. These activities can help us see new combinations and connections in our raw materials and so in our lives.

Everyday spiritual practice also takes place with the materials of the mind, through prayer, meditation, reading, building alters, attending spiritual retreats, or remembering loved ones who are no longer with us. Physical activity is definitely spiritual practice for many: hiking, skiing, jogging, walking, tai chi or golf condition our bodies and so our spirits.

And don’t forget kite-flying, an excellent way of soaring out of ourselves into new connections. Good self-care is spiritual practice, through observing a sabbath, maintaining rituals at mealtime, petting our cats, establishing boundaries for what we can and cannot do. And, as Maggie demonstrated, helping others and doing work for the world is spiritual.

There are also some cautions about locating spirituality in everyday activities. Especially with the current boom in spirituality, it is all-too-easy to use the term casually and label any experience as spiritual. For example, I would be hesitant to call casual hobbies spiritual practice because of the on-again, off-again nature of our commitment to them. For an everyday activity to be spiritual practice, we must do it intentionally and with integrity, so that it becomes a real part of our daily routine, as when Maggie prepared John’s meals. It’s relatively easy to be intentional when spiritual practice is led by an institution like a church, or by a spiritual director. On our own, however, everyday spiritual practice requires a lot more personal discipline.

Since the Levine movie, I’ve become quite intentional about practicing music.

I try to include some—even ten minutes if that’s all the time I have—in my morning routine with my other spiritual practices. But it takes discipline. It’s also important to remember that this discipline does not imply drudgery. I know that when I get into a "have to" mindset, when I think that I have to play music to be a good person that day, it’s less effective spiritual practice. I’ve heard spiritual practice described as "saltiness" because it spices up our awareness of being alive. When we use salt because we think we have to, we tend to stop tasting it. It’s the same with spiritual practice. I realize now that my relationship with music became drudgery years ago because I somehow stopped tasting music’s saltiness.

Let me close with Fred and Mary Ann Brussat’s story about another movie, a movie that illustrates the saltiness in everyday life. The 1995 film "Smoke" is about a cigar store manager, Aussie, in Brooklyn. Every morning at exactly 8:00 a.m. Aussie takes a picture of his store from across the street. He’s up to 4000 photos—over eleven years’ worth. One day he shows the photos to Paul, a writer suffering from writer’s block, thinking it may help Paul overcome his block. Paul comments, "They’re all the same." Aussie replies, "Yes, they’re taken from the same spot, but the details are all different . . . people’s dress, the lighting, traffic, bikers . . . they’re all different. This corner may be just one little part of the world, but things take place here too." Aussie understood the importance of the seemingly ordinary. He understood that spiritual journeys can occur on our own street corners.

Any activity or attitude is everyday spiritual practice if approached intentionally and with love. There are so many ways each of us may be transformed through the sacred in the ordinary.

May each of us continue to find spiritual sustenance and spiritual growth in our personal lives and in our lives in this congregation.

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Copyright 2002, Barbara Coeyman.  All rights reserved.