by Rev. Dr. Marilyn Sewell

Jan Borr

Andrew Cronk

Melanie Downie

A sermon given April 14, 2002

First Unitarian Church

Portland, Oregon

CALL TO WORSHIP

Good morning! We come together once again to give thanks, to remind ourselves of the values dearest to us, and to find inspiration to live lives of integrity, blessing others as we go. Come, let us worship together.

I want to begin this morning by sharing with you the source of my interest in young adults.

Well, I was a young adult once, and as I think back on it, I realize that it was one of the most difficult periods of my life. I moved from North Louisiana to New Orleans for my first job as a high school English teacher. I was about as naïve as they come. Since I had just broken off an engagement to the only person I knew in New Orleans, I found myself lonely and confused. I moved seven times in the next few years, and lived with various roommates. I didn’t make enough money to have a car, so I was even further isolated. And since the social life in New Orleans revolved around drinking, I wasn’t comfortable at the parties. To assuage my loneliness, I signed up for a computer dating service, the first of its kind. I paid my $6.00, for which I was guaranteed three names of men who were matches for me. I did not hear from the computer for a month, nor for two months, nor three. Only six months later did the letter come, on the kind of paper with green boxes. The computer informed me, "There is no one in the New Orleans area who is compatible with you." And I didn’t even get my $6.00 back!

Now I think about my sons, Kash and Madison. Both graduated from good colleges, but now at ages 29 and 30, they still have not found their way, vocationally. I think they will, but they both seem lost at the moment. The older son has a wife and two-year-old child, and with both parents working, they make barely enough to make ends meet. It is not possible for either one of them to stay home with their child. My son wonders where all his dreams went. The younger son went to law school, but found that he does not want to be a lawyer. He wants to teach high school, but he has huge debts from law school. I want to help them, but I know that their lives are their own now. I can just be there to love them and offer whatever wisdom I have, when it’s asked for.

Yes, my own life as a young adult was not easy, but at least I had a job I loved, and it wasn’t difficult to get that job. And I was sure of my direction in life. Teach until I could find "Mr. Right," and then get married and have babies. It was pretty simple.

Today it’s not so simple for our young adults. I met with a group of them to hear their concerns, to get a sense of what their lives are like. I learned that they want to be independent, want to be treated as adults, yet they care very much about what their parents feel and think. Once out of school, they are faced with the prospect of building a community of friends, when they may know no one, so loneliness and isolation are a theme. As one young woman put it, I don’t want any more "five-wedding summers." They wonder if they are OK, wonder if they are falling short, compared to their peers. Some of us may think that this is a carefree time—typically when they are out of college, but not yet settled into a career and perhaps not in a committed relationship—but it is not carefree. Young adults experience the stress of getting and keeping a job, sharing housing, lacking clear direction

What do they want from us, the older generations? That surprised me—they want to know the stories of their family, who these people were, and how the generations who went before may have influenced who they are. So identity is important. They want to know our experiences, to see what we have learned from the lessons of life. They do want guidance and mentoring—they want us to stay involved in their lives.

But rather than my telling you what they said, I want you to hear from them, to hear in their own words what their lives are like. I hope in some way their sharing of themselves will make it clearer to the rest of us how we might more fully understand young adults, and when they need us, how we might help them on their way.

--Rev. Dr. Marilyn Sewell

Good morning. The story I’m going to share with you today began over two and a half years ago, in July of 1999. That was when I began to experience a sharp, shooting pain in my left breast. Now, I already knew that I had a mass in that breast. A nurse had discovered the mass during a routine exam several months earlier. She had assured me that it had all the characteristics of a benign mass, and that I shouldn’t worry about it. So I didn’t. At least, not until it started to hurt.

I went to see my doctor and he confirmed what the nurse had already told me—the mass was probably benign. I also learned that caffeine made the pain worse, so I quit caffeine. But the problem didn’t stop there. While the mass was probably benign, they couldn’t say for sure unless they took it out. Also, while managing my caffeine intake lessened the pain, it didn’t make it stop. My doctor and I eventually agreed that it was best to remove the mass. The surgery was set for November 1, 1999.

At this point in my life, I had been living in Portland for a little over a year. I’d moved here with a job, three suitcases and a few thousand dollars, but no friends and no family in the area. I’d had some trouble making friends since moving here. It wasn’t like college, where you knocked on your next door neighbor’s door and made an instant friend. I wasn’t dating anyone at the time of the surgery, and I was sharing an apartment with two roommates who were best friends from childhood—to say I was a third wheel in that relationship would have been a gross understatement. I’d also started a new job in August and was still getting to know my co-workers. I didn’t have a whole lot in my life. I felt very alone.

On the afternoon of my surgery, a co-worker drove me to the clinic. It was just day surgery, under local anesthetic. My doctor was young and wasn’t overly confident about doing the surgery alone, so he asked a more senior surgeon to be present. That surgeon brought along a nurse. When I entered the room, they said to me, "You know, we have a medical student here today who’s never seen this procedure before. Would you mind . . . ?" I thought, "Well, heck, why not? Why don’t we just make it a party?"

But the truth is, as I was lying on that table, I had never felt so alone in my life. There I was—I had four people staring down at me with what can only be called professional concern. The person who was waiting for me in the lobby was a virtual stranger. No one was going to be home when I got there. My roommates worked evenings, and no one had offered to stay with me. I was having a potentially life-changing surgery, and I didn’t have anyone to share it with.

And, you know, of all the things about adulthood that have surprised me, the loneliness is the one that I was least prepared for. I knew that life wasn’t going to be fair—Mom drilled that one into me. And I knew that life was going to be hard, and that I wasn’t always going to get what I wanted. But no one ever sat me down and said, "You know, it’s going to be lonely sometimes, and scary too, but it won’t be that way forever."

A lot of times, when you see someone my age—and I do this too—you think, "Boy, she sure has it made. No kids, no career to tie her down. She can stay out late at night, take off whenever she wants . . ." But we forget how lonely it can be without a partner or kids. We forget how scary it is before we have a career, when life is uncertain. We forget what it’s like to struggle through the low-paying ranks of a career while trying to pay off college debts. We forget that each stage of life has its good side and its bad side.

The end of this story is that the mass did turn out to be benign. A year and a half later, I had to have a similar surgery. By that time, I had co-workers, a roommate and friends with whom I was close and who supported me, and a partner who lovingly cared for me. But the most important thing is that I learned a valuable lesson, the one no one ever told me about. Yes, life can be lonely, and sometimes it’s really scary, but it won’t be that way forever.

Thank you.

--Jan Borr

Good morning! My name is Andrew Cronk and I am delighted to be here this morning speaking as a young adult in this congregation. Quite honestly, I am a bit relieved that I still qualify as a young adult. When you wake up one morning and find more hair on your bottom than your top, you can’t help but wonder if you are really young any more.

I am a Presbyterian by training and a Unitarian by serendipity. I came to First Church just over a year ago in midst of a mid-life crisis. Or at least I hope it was my mid-life crisis visiting me a decade ahead of schedule.

You see, all my life I had been following a recipe that I had learned at a very early age. This is not a recipe you can find in one of Mom’s cookbooks. In fact, It may not be written down anywhere at all. But I believe that every one of us is tacitly aware of this life recipe. In a large pot combine an education, good grades, hard work, a career, a wife, a mortgage, 1.9 kids or pets – bake under medium heat for 30 years, stirring occasionally.

I followed this formula diligently. In 1996, I began working on a doctorate degree in computer science. In 1998, I married and purchased a home with my wife. But in 2001 it was becoming evident that I had left out some key ingredient – perhaps I had confused the baking powder with the baking soda. After 3 years of pounding out computer code, my hands began to falter. I would come home from work every night with a burning pain from my first knuckle up to my elbow. There was little I could do except sit on the sofa with bags of frozen peas on my forearms to numb the pain. I really hate frozen peas.

Chronic pain, a chronic shortage of cash, and chronic miscommunication strained my marriage. My wife and I drifted apart and regrettably separated. A few months later, my thesis advisor died of lymphoma. He was only a couple of years older than myself and I admired him tremendously. With him I laid to rest my aspirations of a Ph.D. and a career in high tech. I resigned from my research position shortly thereafter.

In a large pot combine an education, good grades, hard work, a career, a wife, a mortgage, 1.9 kids or pets (I opted for pets) – bake under medium heat for 30 years, stirring occasionally. Nowhere did the recipe call for pain, or grief, or loss – nor was there a helpful sidebar explaining what to do in the event of death, divorce, and unemployment.

And so I turned 31, not feeling particularly young at all. In fact, I felt quite flat and down right sorry for myself. I listened to the radio and felt like every sad song I heard was about me – and I was quite amazed at how many songs I had inspired. But time slowly gave me perspective. My experience, while perhaps condensed, was not unique. No, my experience was part of something much greater—the human experience. In this room, this morning sits a wealth of human experience – a wealth of human wisdom. I’m willing to bet that the vast, vast majority of people in this room today have experienced the loss of a loved one, the grief of a relationship ending, or the unease of financial insecurity. Without the context of the human experience represented here in this room this morning, these hardships can seem insurmountable to someone dealing with them for the first time.

I was asked share my experiences of young adulthood and suggest ways the congregation can assist during this period of life. Now, I’ll be the first to admit that a shoebox of non-sequential, unmarked twenty-dollar bills would be helpful. However, what would be even more valuable are your stories of perseverance and triumph. Your collective wisdom provides the context the young adults need to keep perspective as they search for happiness in their relationships and fulfillment in their careers.

In a large pot combine the fellowship of friends, the love of family, a righteous cause, a new hobby, a supportive church community, and stories of triumph - bake under medium heat for 90 years, stirring occasionally.

Thank you.

--Andrew Cronk

"Roots hold me close; wings set me free; Spirit of Life, come to me, come to me."

These are words we sing every Sunday, but each time I hear them they speak to me in a slightly different way. As a young adult, those wings seem to be itching at every turn… just yearning to take flight, to discover new territory, to take me somewhere I’ve never been before. There was a time when I thought that my wings were all I needed to discover what this world is all about. But as I get older, I am starting to see the significance of celebrating my roots. If I don’t understand where I’ve been, how can I possibly make sense out of where I’m going and even where I am right now?

This past December, I returned from an 18-month work assignment in the south of France. Although this must sound like a dream come true, in reality I was pretty miserable most of the time. I felt lonely, isolated and very, very afraid. A few months before moving back to the States, I invited my mother to come spend a week with me at my home in Montpellier. As part of her visit, we took the train into the town of Ghent, Belgium to spend a few days with some relatives who mom hadn’t seen since she traveled to Europe with her own parents in 1962, forty years ago. We spent three jam-packed days leafing through photo albums, filling in the blanks on the family tree, discovering the quaint little village and sharing all the old family secrets. At the end of the trip, mom & I settled into a hotel room for the night. Slumping wearily into a chair, I suddenly understood all the reasons why I had to leave Europe. Those wings that had brought me so far had simply forgotten why they were flying. Silently watching my mother pack her suitcase and recalling all I’d seen and heard and experienced over those last few days, I burst into tears. My roots were right there in front of my eyes, yet somehow I’d managed to get so wrapped up in my grand adventure that I’d lost sight of what really matters.

Sharing such a significant experience with my mother made me understand that although our wings may lead us down the path of self-discovery, it’s that connection to our roots that allows us to make sense out the things we discover along the way. Without keeping our roots close to our hearts, regardless of whether or not those roots seem perfect in retrospect, we’ll keep on flying until we are either lost or just too tired to turn back.

As a young adult, I often feel like I’m wandering around in the dark without anything stable to hang on to. It’s a transition period with no built-in structure or support network. I’m far away from the familiar comforts of my parents’ house. Even the noisy dormitory filled with supportive college friends is now a thing of the past. However, I don’t yet have a long-term partner or a family of my own. To many people, this might seem like a pretty cozy place to be. Young, single and free to set whatever course I choose… and even to change my mind on a whim if I happen to find something better. So where’s the problem?

Early in my young adulthood, it did seem like a pretty good deal. But somewhere along my quest to discover the world, I managed to lose myself in the process. I desperately longed to reconnect with the people and places that had shaped my earliest ideals and values. Discovering my extended family in Belgium was enough to remind me just how much I’d strayed from the things that are truly important to me. Young adulthood has made me realize that although my wings are strong, my soul is still fragile. Roots offer our souls a safe place to rest until it is time to embark upon the next adventure.

"Roots hold me close; wings set me free; Spirit of Life, come to me, come to me."

--Melanie Downie

PRAYER

God of the very young, and God of the very old, God of all ages and sizes and colors—we come this morning asking that our sense of community be strengthened. We pray that we might ask for help when we need it, and we pray that when our help is needed, we may give it freely. Generations come and go, and still we need, always we need, good work for our hands to do, and we need love in our lives. May we be thankful for those who have gone before, and may we give a hand to those who follow.

So be it. Amen.

BENEDICTION

As you go from this place today, carry in your heart that—young or old or in between—you are a part of a community of people who care about you. Go in love, and go in peace. Amen.

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Copyright 2002, Rev. Dr. Marilyn Sewell.  All rights reserved.