by Rev. Thomas Disrud

A sermon given June 10, 2007

First Unitarian Church

Portland, Oregon

This is the season of graduation ceremonies. It is the time of year when we stop and celebrate all kinds of educational milestones—those completing one step in their journey and moving on to what is next for them.

And as we watch those graduates move into the world, it is easy, in them, to see the future. Certainly when I think about the young people from this church I see heading into the world that is the first thing that I feel. When I have spent time with our youth, when I hear what they have to say when they present a worship service, when I have a chance to see how they are together, I come away inspired. I am amazed at all that they seem to know and all that they seem capable of doing. The future, at least from this vantage point, seems brighter because of it.

My memory from being on the other side of graduation—the part where you are ending one chapter and heading into what is next—is that there was a whole lot that was unknown. That heading out to what is next is exciting and also pretty scary. And yet when I think back to my own high school graduation (now quite a few years ago) I seem to recall feeling like I knew quite a bit. I graduated with a class of 42 people from Pecatonica High School in Blanchardville, Wis. I remember walking down the aisle with my classmate Betty Novinski. I was one of four speakers and I remember giving a speech that was based on the words of William Allen White, the noted Kansas newspaper journalist:

“I am not afraid of tomorrow, for I have seen yesterday and I love today.”

I remember thinking those words were pretty cool when I found them. I remember thinking it was pretty cool to base a graduation speech on them. I bet over the years there have been a lot of graduation speeches based on those words.

That speech seems like a long time ago. With the perspective of time, I’m not so sure about the not being afraid of tomorrow part. Actually now as often as not tomorrow does seem a little scary. And what I think I’ve learned is that some of that is based on experience. The more years we live the more history we have.

It is strange, but when I think back to that time I actually feel like I knew more back then than I do now. In some ways I think that might be true.

In life we integrate our experiences, our histories, our learning and we find our way in the world. In this process we get to know how things work, something about others and maybe even something about ourselves. We come to know our gifts and also our limitations. We figure out the things we have some modicum of control over and the vast sea of things that we have no control over at all.

And sometimes it seems for some of us there are lessons that we have to keep learning over and over again, sometimes it seems just because that is our path and there is something in that lesson that is never going to stick for us and so we keep learning and learning and learning and hopefully, one day will find the answer. Our knowing, we learn, has limits.

What I have found, maybe you have too, is that as I know more I also come to know all that I don’t know. Life is strange like that. What I find is that the two seem to live side by side—the known and the unknown. Sometimes it is the simple awareness of how the universe is vast and complex and there simply are things that over and over again we keep learning. We find that there are many ways of learning.

What happens is that we might be accomplished in so many ways, but we find ourselves not knowing what we need to know.

A story.

A businessman needing to attend a conference in a faraway city decided to travel on country roads rather than the freeways so he could enjoy a relaxing journey. After some hours of traveling he realized he was hopelessly lost. Seeing a farmer tending his field on the side of the road, he stopped to ask for directions. “Can you tell me how far it is to Chicago?” he asked the farmer. “Well, I don’t rightly know,” the farmer replied. “Well, can you tell me how far I am from New York?” the businessman questioned again. “Well, I don’t rightly know,” the farmer again replied. “Can you at least tell me the quickest way to the main road?” the exasperated businessman asked. “No, I don’t rightly know,” the farmer again answered.”

“You really don’t know very much at all, do you?” blurted the impatient businessman. “Nope, but I ain’t lost,” the farmer calmly answered.[1]

Sometimes it is when we are lost that we have to begin our search. Think about those times in life when we are thrown for a curve. Think about those times when we don’t know what will happen. It is in that moment that something new can come along. And that is how life is. Day by day and in the process of experiencing life we learn more about who we are.

The philosopher John Keats talked about it as the work of the soul. He said: “Do you not see how necessary a world of Pains and troubles is to school an intelligence and make it a soul? A place where the heart must feel and suffer in a thousand diverse ways!”[2]

Schooling an intelligence and making it a soul.

All of our lives we are learning and growing creatures. It is in the living of our lives that we come into the fullness of who we are.

How our souls get shaped comes down to mystery. We are born with inherent qualities. We are influenced by the people and environments around us. All of this shapes us to become the people we become. And still so much of our response to any given event will vary from person to person. Over time our lives take a shape and form unique to us. We figure out what’s important.

This past week I heard an interview with a woman named Juanita Smith of Lima, Ohio. She was preparing to go to her 70th high school reunion that day. She graduated from Lima South High School in 1937 with 188 other students. She married a fellow student in her class. She said that when she saw him walking down the hall she knew she would marry him.

And when asked about what is important in life she didn’t need to think very long about her answer: taking care of family, a strong belief in God, trying to be broad-minded about other people’s beliefs—all of those things are important to success. She added that she didn’t think scads and scads of money was the answer to success. “There’s a whole lot more to it than that,” she said.[3]

What is asked of us no matter what our age is that we keep learning. We are asked to be in the present time and bring into it all the experience that life has brought us. One experience is integrated into all our other experiences. Life moves, maybe not in a straight line as much as it moved in a circle.

We come to know that there is knowledge and that there is wisdom and that the two are not the same. Wisdom doesn’t just come from a certain amount of learning or from reaching a certain age. It is something much more mysterious.

Knowledge is important. Knowing what’s going on in the world is important. But it is also important to be in touch with the many kinds of knowing and come through living our lives with open hearts. How it is we embody gratitude and compassion and love. How it is we are in relationship with others and with the earth.

Part of that wisdom is a coming to know—and also accepting—not only what we know but also what we don’t know. It is our ability to live in that place of unknowing and for that to be all right.

In all of this there’s a paradox. Life gets more complex and at the same time it gets simpler. Wisdom, perhaps, is finding ourselves in that place of clarity. When we come round right, as the Quakers might say. Sometimes it is about emptying—it is about being in that place of not-knowing. It is in that place of being receptive.

And yet there is a lot that makes things complicated these days. It is so easy in these cynical times to get jaded—in the midst of Paris Hilton and debates about tape on sidewalks by parade routes. In that milieu we might somehow miss so much of the wonder around us. We might also keep our hearts from witnessing to the tragedy and injustice so present in the world. Do we miss seeing things through new eyes? That is the kind of thing that children teach us. They so often see things that we older and more learned people miss.

The writer Thomas Moore introduces the idea, a little tongue-in-cheek, that we consider a system he calls “lower education.” He writes, “In this school a student comes to us with a Ph. D. and after four years of ‘learning’ we withdraw the degree the next step is a four-year high school course, beginning as a senior and ‘advancing’ to freshman, when we take away the diploma. Finally come the elementary years, beginning with eighth grade and descending to first. After completing the first grade and student becomes the teacher.”[4]

We can’t know what will come our way tomorrow or the next day or the next. Our task—the spiritual task—is to be present with what is before us and to move from that place of groundedness.

I read a story once about a woman on a subway train in New York City. “The station’s crowded, and as she leaves the train she realizes she is holding only one of her gloves. She looks back into the car and sees the matching one on the seat, but it’s too late to rush back and retrieve it. Suddenly, as the doors begin to close, she flings out her arm, and tosses the remaining glove on to the seat alongside its mate. The doors shut, and the train pulls away.”[5]

I love that story. Think about that gesture—in that moment deciding to give the glove away knowing that without its other it is not going to be worth much to her or to anyone else. Think about the act of generosity that is exhibited there.

What was it that prepared her for that moment? What lessons had she learned, what wisdom had she come to have that brought her to that place? Was it just an impulse? Was it somehow the sum of many experiences she had had in her life? We cannot know.

What is it in any of our lives that prepare us for the present or the future? We can’t know what will be asked of us. We can’t know how we will respond to any given situation.

We all are asked to be learners in a particular kind of way. We are asked to live with our hearts open—to the beauty and brokenness of the creation—that we constantly school our intelligence that our souls might grow.

Words of Rumi:

Don’t run around this world

looking for a hole to hide in.

There are wild beasts in every cave!

If you live with mice,

the cat claws will find you.

The only real rest comes

when you’re alone with God.

Live in the nowhere that you came from,

even though you have an address here.

That’s why you see things in two ways.

Sometimes you look at a person

and see a cynical snake.

Someone else sees a joyful lover,

and you’re both right!

You have eyes that see from that nowhere,

and eyes that judge distances,

how high and how low.

You own two shops,

and you run back and forth.

Try to close the one that’s a fearful trap,

getting always smaller. Checkmate,

this way. Checkmate that.

Keep open the shop

where you’re not selling fishhooks anymore.

You are the fish swimming free.

Change is happening, my friends. Change is always happening. That is one of the few things we can predict. We can’t know what the world will be like in 70 years. We can’t know what the world is going to be like in 7 or 17 years—or even 7 months or 7 days.

These are times when we don’t have readily available easy answers.

But let’s also be clear: These are times when we have no choice but to be engaged.

They ask us to live with open hearts, that our intelligence might be schooled and our souls might be grown.

They ask us to live with a faith that we will know what we need to know no matter as we live in the midst of this one wild and precious universe.

Prayer

Spirit of life, be with us in all our days. Call us into a fullness of being. Help us live with the complexities of life, help us to be lifelong learners. Cultivate in us trust in the knowing and also in the unknowing. Grant us wisdom and courage.

Benediction

Live with an open heart, good people, that you might bring love into the world. Go now this day in joy and in hope.

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