It is so good to be with you all today. I can’t tell you how fond I’ve become of seeing your faces here on Sunday morning, and feeling the warmth of those of you joining from afar.
As Reverend Tom mentioned at the beginning of our service, this is my last Sunday with you all. I want to start by expressing my deep gratitude that you have welcomed me so warmly over this past year, both as Intern Minister, and these past couple of months as Summer Minister.
I hope you know how honored and humbled I am to have gotten to know you all. This church, a whole community of communities, is full of so many beloved people, and I appreciate the kindness you’ve shown me, as well as the trust in my ministry.
Most interns only stay for the church year, so I feel lucky to have had this extra time. And I have exciting plans going forward: tomorrow I begin a chaplaincy internship at Legacy Emanuel hospital, where I will be offering spiritual care to patients, families, and hospital staff for the next few months. This is one of the last stages in my journey of becoming a minister. I am glad I get to stay in Portland a little bit longer, and move further into my calling.
This is a change, like many, that feels right. Though, it is not without a feeling of loss. In leaving my position here, I will have to take considerable distance from this community, in order to make space for your new Intern. So, this is a goodbye.
But I’ve seen that this congregation is familiar with change, and I see that you are ready for this and the many other changes already stirring in this place.
For one, life under a global pandemic has taught us all not to hold on too tightly to plans, to expectations. We know that circumstances can shift rapidly, and the next right move may be very different from the one we were hoping for. As individuals, and as a church community, you have had extensive practice in this kind of change.
I was not here for those early pandemic days, but I’ve watched how you all navigated the past year with mostly grace. Re-opening, slowly, carefully, in the fall, closing again during the beginning of the Omicron wave. Each of us, discerning our own risk tolerance. All of us, trying to balance our need to be together with the realities of this virus. Multiplatform worship, small groups gathering on Zoom, outdoor events, hoping the weather holds.
And to say nothing of your ministerial transition. Or all the ways that your unique life stories have unfolded in recent years. Milestones, losses, adjusting to a new sense of reality. Opening up to growth, to encountering the world differently than you were previously used to.
I think you know that change is not just a necessary part of life to trudge through. As part of being human, we must learn to not only accept change, but to find ease in flowing through it. There are many spiritual traditions around the world that give us wisdom for this work.
So, I’m scheduled to be talking about our seventh UU principle today, which states:
“We covenant affirm and promote the interdependent web of life of which we are a part.”
What does this principle have to do with accepting change? It doesn’t seem apparent right away.
In recent months, I’ve come to understand that when we talk about relationship, we are talking about change. Because when we are in relationship with one another, especially if we are interdependent on one another, we are allowing ourselves to be shaped and changed by one another.
To be in relationship is to open ourselves to the thoughts and stories of another. To allow our bodies to learn what it is like to share space with someone, to create memories with them. To acknowledge that there is wisdom they offer that we have not encountered before. If you remember my jar of truth metaphor from a few weeks ago, this is what I’m talking about.
To enter into relationship is to agree to be changed, even in subtle ways, by another. It is a crucial part of the spiritual journey that I hope we can pay more attention to.
Not only is change a steady undercurrent of life, but relationship is too.
We can study this principle expressed in nature through the field of ecology. Ecology assumes that organisms cannot be understood without looking at the other organisms they are in relationship with. The reading that Reverend Tom shared with us this morning is about exactly this.
The passage comes from Merlin Sheldrake’s book Entangled Life, which inspired the title of this sermon. The book serves as a grand overview of the wonderful world of fungi, and all the things that those who study them–mycologists–are learning from them. This sermon is not about fungi in particular, so I’ll let you read the book for more details, it’s fabulous.
In this passage, in particular, Sheldrake is talking about the way that fungi teach us about the interdependent web. That fundamentally, at the cellular level, we humans contain multitudes. We exist because of the symbiotic relationships that our bodies form with the microbes inside us. As he says, “‘We’ are ecosystems that span boundaries and transgress categories. Our selves emerge from a complex tangle of relationships only now becoming known”
Ecology and related fields are teaching us that we are not just living in the context of relationships, but we ourselves are those “tangles of relationships.” And I can’t help but feel a sense of awe when I think of this.
And how beautiful too. There are always opportunities for continuing to shape one another and be shaped by our relationships. Though it may feel unstable, nothing stays the same for very long, so we may as well lean into the creative potential that change brings.
There is the famous Octavia Butler quote from her Earthseed series:
“All that you touch
You Change.
All that you Change
Changes you.
The only lasting truth
is Change.
God
is Change.”
So, it is best to get in right relationship with change. With beginnings and endings, with letting ourselves be shaped by those we live alongside.
Fundamentally, I think that this is what church is about, and it has been a pleasure spending the last year exploring these themes with you all.
A few times here I offered celebrations of the pagan festivals, in a “Wheel of the Year” event series. When I first envisioned these events, I expected them to be an outlet of expression and exploration for those of us who lean earth-based in our spirituality. To get in touch with and celebrate the more-than-human world, in an intentional and communal way.
Over time, I started to understand a deeper pattern. Each of these festivals is about marking the transition away from one season, and preparing for the next. Samhain, or All Hallows Eve, is about truly entering a time of darkness, a thinning of the veil between this world and the beyond. The winter solstice, Yule, is about resting in the depths of that darkness and finding richness there, but also celebrating the beginning return of the light. Imbolc, in early February, is a late winter celebration that seeks to cleanse stagnant energy while preparing for the very earliest signs of spring to come that are already on their way.
All of these holidays follow this same pattern: celebrating the moment we find ourselves in, while preparing for what is to come. As the earth turns, there is something to learn from each present moment, while acknowledging that we are passing through thresholds constantly. Change is always on the horizon. This is not something to be resisted by holding on too tightly to any singular moment, but to be honored through rituals to ready ourselves for each new chapter.
So, when I think about the interdependent web, I think about relationship. And when I think about relationship, I think about change. I think about all the potential we unlock when we come together to co-create one another.
If you’ve heard me preach before, this may sound familiar, because it is an idea that has resonated so much over this past year for me. It is clear to me that any time we get to live in community, but especially in church, we are awakening so much potential for change and growth. When we face an uncertain future (as the future is forever uncertain), we can at least be sustained and prepare ourselves for uncertainty by choosing one another.
By choosing one another, we can tell each other our stories, encourage each other’s growth, comfort each other in times of hardship, and know a fuller picture of the world by appreciating the unique gifts that each of us brings. And we can stir each other up into hope.
This principle, the interdependent web, tells us about a fact of life, one that we do not need to do anything to make true. We are interdependent whether we like it or not. This principle is here simply as a reminder, one that can hopefully inspire us to be present to the richness of our relationships, the creative potential held within them. It reminds us why it is that we are here together.
Again, let me state that it has been an honor to serve this congregation. One of the most fulfilling pieces has been hearing how my work has changed or shaped you, even in small ways: The way a story has stuck with you, and helped you shift your understanding of a challenge in your life. The way you’ve been inspired to take action on a problem you see in the world. The way you’ve felt joy, or comfort in the spaces we’ve created together.
I cannot tell you how humbling it is, and I want you to know that I have learned and grown just as much, if not more, from you. I will carry so many precious memories away with me. I think especially of my time with the UUA Organizing School participants, Lay Ministers, the Social Justice Leadership Team, my Wellspring Cohort, anti-racist learning circles, my Internship Committee and the Reproductive Dignity Cohort.
What it boils down to though, is that so many of you have shared of your lives with me, and I am grateful. I see in you an innate curiosity paired with fierce drive and steady wisdom. This is a community committed to journeying together.
Thank you for letting me be a part of your journey. Our paths diverge here, and it is bittersweet, but I am comforted to know that our journeys will continue in their own way and time.
I want to close with a prayer that I wrote early in my time here at First Unitarian. I share it again, in gratitude.
Will you pray with me now?
Spirit of Life, Spirit of Love, forever moving amongst and within us, we call out your name.
We seek to know grace, so that we might honor our interconnectedness this morning, with each other and those who have gone before us.
When we witness suffering, in ourselves and in the world around us, may we know compassion.
When we are at a loss for words, when we’re unsure of the path ahead, may we be guided by this compassion to be witnesses still;
To know and to feel the truth that this human family is broken, and that it is breaking with every life lost and with each time someone’s dignity is denied.
When we find ourselves exhausted and defeated, and unsure of where to go, may we keep witnessing, turning ever further toward your still, small voice.
And, Spirit of Life, remind us too that the experience of suffering does not close us off from the possibility of joy.
Remind us that knowing brokenness does not close us off from our inherent wholeness.
May we know that our interconnectedness is a miracle, and may it be a refuge for us, felt in the voice of a friend, in the touch of a loved one, in memories of days spent in good company.
May we remain grateful for the goodness we’ve witnessed and enacted in the world, and may the warmth of our lives together hold us in love as we move into a future that is as uncertain as ever.
We ask, dear God, to know your presence, that it may remind us of what is sacred in each precious moment, even when in our brokenness.
And may you teach us that sacred presence too, that we might know ourselves here and now, that we may be present for this one wild and precious life.
May it be so. Amen.
Topics: Our UU Principles