by Rev. Thomas Disrud

A sermon given January 7, 2007

First Unitarian Church

Portland, Oregon

I have to begin this morning with a little confession about New Year’s resolutions. I have to admit that over the years I have become a little skeptical about just how effective they really are.

We make them and most of the time not much happens. In fact we are only a week into the New Year and I would bet that a lot of resolutions have already been forgotten. I heard a statistic that about one-third of Americans make resolutions but that by the end of January the vast majority of them are history.

There are all kinds of reasons why we don’t keep our resolutions. A lot of them are not all that realistic—how many pounds we will lose, how many times a week we’ll go to the gym.  Many of them don’t come with any kind of a plan—just the end result we hope will happen right away. And many of them may come from somebody else’s expectation of what we should be—maybe more than they actually come from us.

But more than all of that, I think a big part of why so many resolutions don’t come easily is that change—real change at least—is hard. Now when I say real change I mean when we really shift how we do something or how we see ourselves in the world. That’s the kind of change that doesn’t happen in a few weeks but maybe takes a few years to actually work through.

There’s a reason why the status quo is the status quo. We are creatures of habit and whether we are entirely happy with where we are or not, at least it is familiar. With change comes something new and unknown. We may want that on the one hand but maybe not on the other. Change involves risk.  Sometimes we really don’t want to go out on a limb because we might find ourselves out there alone. And what will we do if we fail? Will we be embarrassed? Will be lose our status? Will people still love us if we are different in some way?

And yet, despite the risk, there is still that desire for change that bubbles up. There is still that inner pull that wants something to be different in our lives. We may want to change how we are with our children or our spouses or with our friends or colleagues. We want to use our time differently, using more of it to focus on the things that are the most important, and not on the things that it seems we spend our time on now. Or maybe we simply want to be more generous or forgiving and compassionate—to ourselves or to everyone around us.

But all of that takes time, it may not be clear we are getting very far, and then we find that we have made progress one day. Sometimes we need some help from the right teacher.

A story.

Ben Zander teaches graduate students at the New England Conservatory of Music. The students, instrumentalists and singers, are taking a two-semester exploration into the art of musical performance, including the psychological and emotional factors that can stand in the way of great music-making. Zander writes about his frustration after many years of teaching. He said that he would promise them that if they applied his theories and applied themselves that they would have breakthroughs in their music making and in their lives.

But he said that he would see the same obstacle appear year after year. The students would be in such a state of chronic anxiety about the grade and the measurement of their performance that they would be very reluctant to take risks with their playing. They learned early on that making mistakes was not an option if they wanted to succeed.

So Zander decided to do something different, something that he hoped would put the students at ease. On the first day of class he announced, “Each student in the class will get an A for the course. However, there is one requirement that you must fulfill to earn this grade: sometime during the next two weeks, you must write me a letter dated next May, which begins with the words, ‘Dear Mr. Zander, I got an A because…,’ and in this letter you are to tell, in as much detail as you can, the story of what will have happened to you by next May that is in line with this extraordinary grade.”

The students were to put themselves into the future and look back at their accomplishments as if they had already happened. Zander told them that he was especially interested in the person they would have become by next May. He was interested in the attitude, feelings and worldview of that person who will have done all she wished to do or become everything he wanted to be. He wanted them, he said, to fall passionately in love with the person they described in their letter.

The idea is not to focus on all the things that will limit us, but to focus on what is possible. It is how we choose to orient ourselves. Michelangelo once said that inside every piece of stone lies a beautiful sculpture. The job of the sculptor is simply to remove what is in the way.

For musicians, and for all of us, Zander writes, it is important not to get so focused on measuring ourselves against others because in that process we can learn that it is not okay to take risks which can lead to failure. We need to live in the trust that the failure is not the whole and that in the end we will be the right place because of what we’ve learned.

A student named Tucker wrote:

Today the world knows me. That drive of energy and intense emotion that you saw twisting and dormant inside me, yet, alas, I could not show in performance or conversation, was freed tonight in a program of new music composed for me… the concert ended and no one stirred. A pregnant quiet. Sighs: and then applause that drowned my heart’s throbbing.

I might have bowed—I cannot remember now. The clapping sustained such that I thought I might make my debut complete and celebrate the shedding of

The mask and skin

That I had constructed

To hide within,

By improvising on my own melody as an

Encore—unaccompanied. What followed is

Something of a blur. I forgot technique, pretension, tradition, schooling, history—

Truly even the audience.

What came from my trombone

I wholly believe, was my own

Voice.

Laughter, smiles

A frown, weeping

Tuckerspirit

Did sing.

Zander writes that, in the music world, so often young people are trained to master techniques and develop habits only to be sent into a world that is backbiting and critical, one where it is not okay to take risks—the very thing you need to do to be a great performer. It is often when we make a mistake that we are given the greatest lesson we could imagine.

Zander writes that it is very important for the student to have the technical skills to play. What the “A” does is put the teacher in a better position to support the outcome the student really needs. Does it work? It did in Zander’s class. It called the students to think of their study in a whole new way.[1]

I went to a seminary that didn’t have grades but that was on the pass/fail system. When I was applying and when I got in I didn’t think a whole lot about this. But then I started to take classes. What I learned was that I was oriented to doing what was required, what was expected, and getting a good grade—your basic quid pro quo. But if I just had to pass the class, all of a sudden I had more responsibility to figure out exactly why I was taking the class. It wasn’t as much about what the teacher wanted or what the school wanted but to figure out what I wanted from the class. What a radical idea. At first I didn’t like this at all. I liked the old way of working for that grade.

But after a couple of semesters I came to see it differently. What I found was that I started to take my classes a whole lot more seriously. I came to have a whole different sense of ownership of my education.

So what would it look like if we knew that we were going to get an “A” at the end of class—no matter what life course we are taking—just by doing what we set out to do? How would our lives be different?

What might be different is the very way that we look at everything around us. We might become oriented to what is possible, not what is not possible. We get used to handing out grades all the time—to ourselves, to our families, to others. We learn to play defense to make sure we can anticipate what is going to go wrong.

Life has a way of teaching us every day that we are not perfect, but that doesn’t keep us from wanting ourselves and others to be just that. But we need to find a way to see our own wholeness—in the gifts we have and yes, even in all the ways that we fall short. We then start from that place. We live with a faith that what we have will be good enough. But first and foremost we see that we are good and whole just the way we are.

Our job first of all is to be present in the world and always working to see the world as it is and as it might be.

Now I can hear what is probably going through your mind right now. Yeah, right. There he goes again. Sounds a little like Pollyanna to me. Keep on the sunny side.

Yes, what I’m saying might well sound pretty hopeful. But I know that what I’m saying is not easy. In fact it is not at all easy. It may in fact be downright radical. It is something we keep practicing over and over again. And maybe over time we start to see things a little differently. 

I think most of the time we know, at least on some level, what it is we need to prosper in the world. Sometimes we need to plant ourselves in good rich soil in order to find that out. But most of the time I think we probably know.

And yet it is so easy to live by the “shoulds” in life—all those things we should be doing. It is easy to listen to the voices that say “Why would you think that is even possible? You know that is not going to succeed.”

But there is the other voice that says, try it. You are alive and you are well—just try it. You have gifts and it is up to you to use them.

We need to orient ourselves in such a way that we look for the possibility that is there. We can either look at the world in all the ways that it is not likely to work or we can look at the world and imagine how it can work.

Be the change you want to see, said Gandhi, embody what it is you hope for and see what happens.

How are we to be in the world? I have found sometimes that as a minister I try to see in someone what they are wanting for themselves. It might be courage, it might be hope, it might be a more forgiving heart for self or others. But there is sometimes a shift when we actually begin to see it for ourselves.

The poet e.e. cummings once wrote, “we can never be born enough.” We can never be born enough. The spirit, over and over again, calls us to new life. Part of life’s journey is to learn and grow and change—in ways that invite us into more learning and changing and growing.

As I try to focus less on what needs fixing and more on what is right in front of me, on what is good and possible the world begins to look different.

Strolling along the edge of the sea, a man catches sight of a young woman who appears to be engaged in a ritual dance. She stoops down, then straightens to her full height, casting her arm out in an arc. Drawing closer, he sees that the beach around her is littered with starfish, and she is throwing them one by one into the sea. He lightly mocks her: “There are stranded starfish as far as the eye can see, for miles up the beach. What difference can saving a few of them possibly make?” Smiling, she bends down and once more tosses a starfish out over the water, saying serenely, “It certainly makes a difference to this one.”[2]

It is hard in these times we live in to know just where to begin. We live in times of so much uncertainty, so much loss. We can’t know what will be asked of us at any given time. Sometimes we may just feel stuck in place. But each day that we are alive presents to us an invitation.

Words of poet David Whyte:

Above the mountains

The Geese turn into

The light again

Painting their

Black silhouettes

On an open sky.

Sometimes everything

has to be

inscribed across

the heavens

so you can find

the one line

already written

inside you.

Sometimes it takes

A great sky

To find that

Small, bright

And indescribable

Wedge of freedom

In your own heart.

Sometimes with

The bones of the black

Sticks left when the fire

Has gone out

Someone has written

Something new

In the ashes

Of your life.

You are not leaving

You are arriving.[3]

The desire to begin a new year with resolve comes from the awareness that we are arriving every day of our lives. It comes from the awareness that the world needs us to be present to all of its pain and all of its beauty.

At the core of coming together, here is a chance that we might look for what is possible together and to know that we are not alone on the journey.

What if we looked at the New Year—what if we looked at every day—as an invitation, to be born again and again?

I have some good news this morning. We’ll figure it out with the help of the spirit, maybe this year, maybe the next. Maybe the right path today will not be the right path tomorrow.

We live in times that ask much of us. We are asked to be open to what the spirit might be calling us to do—to have courage, and perseverance, and openness.

We are asked to practice how we might be in the world, to live in right relationship with ourselves, with others, with the earth. We may be asked to use our gifts in ways we haven’t used them before. That will take courage and faith.

But the good news is, we are here in a new year, a time full of challenge and full of promise. Here’s to a new year. May our lives be full. Amen.

Prayer

Great Spirit, be with us this day. Into this silence now we bring our hopes and dreams for this new year. Guide each of us that we might use our gifts well, that we might have courage, that we might know hope. Remind us that we are not alone. Call us to be open, to live in faith of what the world might be. Amen.

Benediction

Resolve to remember that you can never be born enough. In all your days use your gifts to bless the world. Go in love and go in peace. Amen.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Copyright 2007, Rev. Thomas Disrud.  All rights reserved.