Listen to a podcast of this sermon.
Readings
"Love after Love," by Derek Walcott
and
When we see the secret beauty of anyone, including ourselves, we see past our judgment and fear into the core of who we truly are—not an entrapped self but the radiance of goodness. As our trust in our basic goodness deepens, we are able to express our love and creativity more fully in the world. Rather than second-guessing ourselves, rather than being paralyzed by self-doubt, we can honor and respond to the promptings that arise from that goodness. In a similar way, when we trust the goodness in others, we become a mirror to help them trust themselves…When we are not consumed by blaming and turning on ourselves or others, we are free to cultivate our talents and gifts together, to contribute them to the world in service. We are free to love each other, and the whole of life, without holding back. -- from Radical Acceptance by Tara Brach---
Here we are. Two weeks into 2013. Another new year.
How many of you participated this year in the age old tradition of setting some kind of new year’s resolution? And how many of you have participated in the just as old tradition of already breaking that resolution?
The beginning of the new year is a momentous occasion. It can be a time when we resolve to give up bad habits and to take up newer, healthier ones.
Going to the gym more often.
Meditating more often.
Drinking less coffee.
Taking up a new hobby.
This drive toward self-improvement, toward progress is so rooted in our Western culture, isn’t it?
The dawning of the new year is one occasion when it is in our collective consciousness that we can resolve to make ourselves better in some way. But the urge to improve ourselves in ways big and small is almost constant.
In our kitchen, we have a set of fill-in-the-blank refrigerator magnets that a friend gave to us. Each one says something like – eat more ____. eat less ___. We have a sticker I picked up at the farmer’s market that says “eat more kale.”
So these prompts to self-improve are all around us.
Taking stock of how we’re living our lives and how we might want to live more intentionally in line with our values can be a meaningful activity. However, I believe, too often, the root motivation for self-improvement projects is this belief: I am not enough.
I am not skinny enough.
I am not smart enough.
I am not organized enough.
I saw a cartoon recently with two angels, standing on a cloud labeled cloud #8. And one is saying to the other “Well, yes, I am happy, but I could be happier.”
I am not happy enough can be added to the list.
Our drive towards making ourselves better in all of these different ways can often cloak a fundamental belief in our own deficiency. Our feeling that we are less than.
Now, the first of our seven Unitarian Universalist principles states that we affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person. Regardless of race, class, sexual orientation – we recognize in each other the goodness that is at the root of who we are.
This principle is at the heart of many of our justice initiatives – our fight for marriage equality, our work for immigrant rights, and much more. It is commendable the ways we Unitarian Universalists are constantly pushing forward to make this first principle a lived reality for all peoples.
Yet, it is my belief that it is often easier for us to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of others even before ourselves. We open our hearts to embracing the goodness of those around us without fully embracing our fundamental goodness.
The most common way this shows up is in the judgments of ourselves we carry around.
I have shared with you all that I spent a summer in training as a hospital chaplain. My regular assignment was to the neurology and stroke unit of the hospital. One day another chaplain referred me to a patient who had been admitted to my floor just a few days prior. He was younger than most of the other patients in that unit – only in his 40s, an employee of the hospital with a young family, and he had suffered a sudden stroke. I was just beginning to learn about the various ways having a stroke might affect one’s neurological capabilities especially with communication. Well, I went to visit this patient. The room was filled with cards and flowers and pictures of his young daughter. As I began conversing with him, the injustice of his situation became apparent. Here was a man whose life had been changed in an instant. As I began to ask him the usual questions of whether it was okay to visit and how he was feeling, it became clear that that he was still struggling to regain his speech. The most he could say with a pained look in his eyes was “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” I continued my attempts to visit with him thinking I would make it easier by just asking him yes or no questions. But still he could only say “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” Finally, after about ten minutes, with a pained look on his face, the patient was able to get out the words: “you can leave, you can leave”.
It is hard to express the level of inadequacy I, and I’m sure he, felt in that situation.
About a week later I met with the group of summer chaplains for one of our regular times of reflection and it wasn’t until then, until I shared the story of that visit and the floodgates opened and wave after wave of tears burst forward that I realized that I had been holding this failure against myself that entire time.
Our desire to be good or to be helpful, to project security, or to show others we have it all together can drive us towards sometimes subconscious critique and self-judgment.
Buddhism teaches that we suffer when we see ourselves as separate from other living beings and when we become separate from our very selves.
Tara Brach, a renowned psychologist and teacher of Buddhist mindfulness, calls this particular separation from our selves in which we become fixated on our imperfections, “the trance of unworthiness”, the trance of unworthiness.
When we are in this trance, we experience our lives through a lens of personal insufficiency. This can play itself out as perfectionism, or avoiding the risk of failure, or turning our judgments upon others.
The roots of the trance can go deep. This basic sense of not measuring up is reinforced by our cultural drive to prove over and over again that we are worthy. Our fears and insecurities can be passed down from generation to generation.
While I was writing this very sermon, my mother called me. She lives in California and has been viewing some of my sermons online. She asked what I was doing and I told her I was writing my upcoming sermon, “well, you know,” she said, “I was just watching last month’s sermon and if I can offer you some advice…”
I didn’t even need to hear what words came next. I could feel my body tighten as I braced myself in anticipation of her criticism. The suffering caused by this belief in our inadequacy can show up in subtle ways just like that.
You are talking with a friend about a new artistic endeavor she has set upon and it triggers you to quickly chide yourself for not being on the ball with your own artistic projects. Or, a co-worker shares that his family is planning to get away together for a weekend camping trip and you lament how you’re never able to find the time for such things.
Often, these thoughts of not quite living up don’t just stay in our heads but manifest in how we treat others.
When my mental tally sheet of all the things I’ve failed to do in a day starts to get long, one of the habits I can fall into is to turn my criticism on my husband’s driving. You’re going too fast. You’re going too slow. You’re following that car too closely. Why did you go this way? This other way is much faster.
I’m sure none of you have experienced this.
But you probably have your own examples of times when judging yourself harshly leads to treating others in ways you would rather not.
The spiritual practice of mindfulness can help loosen the grip of the trance of unworthiness and help us to instead embrace our goodness.
Many of us are familiar with the spiritual practice of mindfulness. Rev. Kent led our children in an exercise of mindfulness earlier in the service. Mindfulness is a way of slowing down, of paying attention and being present to what is before us. Just like the children did with that raisin.
Meditation is another form of mindfulness. One that is often associated with that word. Sometimes meditation is characterized as a clearing away of thoughts. And the “mind” part of the word mindfulness naturally directs our attention up here to our heads.
However, in many Asian languages, the word for "mind" and for "heart" are one in the same. I realize this can take a moment to imagine. But we might try translating mindfulness to heartfulness and see how that shifts or opens up our understanding.
The doctor and writer Jon Kabat-Zinn describes mindfulness as "awakefulness." It is a state of being awake through the whole of our being. Becoming aware of our bodies, of our thoughts, of our emotions, in this space, in this moment. Becoming awareness itself.
After sharing the story of my visit with my fellow chaplains, I took some time alone. I went for a walk and found a small patch of grass near a creek just beyond the parking lot. I sat down feeling overwhelmed by my sadness and grief. And as each emotion presented itself, each label, I just said yes, and this, too. Failure. Yes, I feel like a failure. Shame, yes. Doubt, yes. And slowly my heart softened. And I could feel a gentleness. A kindness towards myself.
Through mindfulness, through heartfulness, through awakefulness, we can learn to hold ourselves in kindness.
Creating this space for awareness is something we can each do at any moment.
It may simply be while you’re standing in a line that doesn’t seem to be moving at the grocery store. Pause. Impatience. Pause. Worry.
Or when you receive an email at work that just pushes your buttons. Pause. Irritation.
The act of simply pausing and bringing our attention to what is present in us is an act of kindness. We are saying, I see myself clearly and I hold myself with love.
Derek Walcott writes,
The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other's welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.
Can you greet yourself arriving at your own door?
Can you accept that at your core you are goodness?
Some of you may be wondering, why is Joan asking us to spend so much time focused on ourselves? Isn’t this just another form of self-help or narcissistic indulgence?
For me, embracing our goodness has direct and profound effects on how we treat others in our personal lives, how willing we are to dedicate ourselves to social action – embracing our goodness affects the ways we enact our love in the world.
As Tara Brach writes, “When we are not consumed by blaming and turning on ourselves or others, we are free to cultivate our talents and gifts together, to contribute them to the world in service. We are free to love each other, and the whole of life, without holding back.”
We are free to love without holding back.
In their book, Made for Goodness, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and his daughter Mpho share this story of loving without holding back.
They met a woman named Mrs. Maphosela (Mah-PAW-selah) living in an impoverished black township outside of Cape Town in South AfricaOne day many years ago she saw a child out on the street alone late at night. She asked her where her mother was and the child said that her mother was sick. So, Mrs. Maphosela gave the child something to it. The next day and the day after that this happened again. It turned out that the mother had HIV and when she was close to death she asked Mrs. Maphosela to take care of her child for her. Word spread. And soon others were asking her to take care of their children or just leaving children on her doorstep. When the Tutus met her, she was living in a three-room house with a corrugated-iron roof and she was taking care of twenty children from the ages of 8 months to 21 years old. They would bring out pallets to sleep at night. The boys slept in the kitchen and the girls slept in the bedroom with her. She had volunteers-women who were just as poor as she was-who would come to help cook and clean. And, according to the Tutus, what was so striking at Mrs. Maphosela’s house was how obvious it was that the children were loved and that they loved her.
We are all free to embrace our goodness and to love without holding back.
May it be so for us in this new year and always.
Watch a video of this sermon below.
