As I retired in 2018, I had worked at Paradise Valley United Methodist Church for over 20 years. As an associate pastor to a congregation of about 1500 I had worked with the people, with their children, taught classes to all ages, counseled people, organized camps, officiated at weddings, funerals, preached and then it was time to leave. In the United Methodist system when a pastor leaves a church, you are asked not to return for a while so that the congregation will accept the new pastor as their pastor, turning to them and not automatically to you. So I left and I haven’t been back. When a person leaves, there are holes that you can’t expect another to automatically fill. But the empty space gives the opportunity for someone new to step in, someone different, perhaps with even better ways of handling things. That is as it should be. We don’t replace one another, but we do all serve. I hope these words I bring can provide you good food for thought.
One of my favorite Pete Seger’s songs from the 1950’s was inspired by an ancient poem written over 3,000 years ago, “To everything (turn, turn, turn), There is a season (turn, turn, turn,), and a time to every purpose under heaven: a time to be born, a time to die, a time to build up, a time to break down, a time to work, a time to play – everything in its season.“
I am going to share with you 3 ideas – one, that it is important to discover a purpose for our lives, second that it is vital to take our clues from the physical world of reality, and third that it is important to discover and develop practices that will help sustain our purpose for living.
Part 1 – Discover a Purpose
Life is a journey – it may be an open road, a twisting path or a narrow and upward way. We will need courage, faith, compassion and endurance to face the challenges. In all the places we find ourselves, and with whatever forks the road puts before us, we hope we have the eyes to see, the friends we can count on and faith and people who help sustain us.
I’d like for you to take a moment right now to think of someone who has been important to you during your life. One person who has been there when you needed them. Someone who cared about you. A teacher, a friend, family member, even a stranger. Close your eyes gently and just think of them in a moment of silence and gratitude. . . . . . And as you open your eyes, say a silent thank you to them. Some memories are worth revisiting.
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You never know who you will meet next. Perhaps you remember a famous story told long ago:
Jesus was walking with his disciples and followers to the city of Jericho. Crowds were lined along the way, shouting to him, welcoming him. But there was this one blind, city beggar Bartimaeus who shouted out to get his attention. Others told him to shut up and be still. He shouted all the more and Jesus stopped, and said, “Call him here”.
Whoo, aren’t you lucky some said, he wants to talk to you…. So they helped him up and brought him to Jesus who asked him, “What do you want from me.” “Rabbi,” he replies, “I want to see.” “Go, your faith has healed you.” And he went on his way seeing like everyone else.
You never know who is going to be walking down the road. Suddenly an opportunity opens up – will you be able to grab it. Bartimaeus was so desperate – he was making a nuisance of himself, being inappropriate, loud, and selfish – wanting something for himself. They tried to hush him up. He refused to be quieted. . . . . And then he was called. All of a sudden the tone of the crowd changed – get up. He heard you. Take courage. And then Jesus asks, “What do you want?”
Now here is where I would have messed up the story. It takes me a long time to decide what I want. I have to get desperate to be able to grab the spotlight for myself. But Bartimaeus KNOWS the desire of his heart. “I want to see.” No excuses for himself or for Jesus – you asked – this is what I want. And Jesus says, “Go, your faith has healed you.” So many times, our healing is in our own hands if we but knew it. Yet it takes someone outside of ourselves for us to notice it and for us to accept.
When I went to college, I didn’t have a clue what I wanted. The future was nebulous. My freshman year we read a short book: Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. If you haven’t read it, do so. If you have, it’s worth a 2nd read.
In 1946 Viktor Frankl wrote about his experiences as an Auschwitz concentration camp inmate during World War II. In those horrific circumstances he wondered why some people survived the awful experience and even came out able to live again and others simply gave up. He discovered that “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” Let me say it again another way……. As much as it is possible, the responsibility for my life is on me. We are not victims in that.
We all come into this world and wonder what am I doing here. Am I here for something special, to do, to be, to act. Purpose – your purpose will be different from mine and I can’t live your life, neither can you live mine. It’s your purpose.
Part of our life’s journey is to discover how to live that out, no matter what the circumstances are – to discover our heart’s desire and purpose. Will we choose to live out of love or out of fear?
Love and goodwill does not protect us from experiencing all manner of accidents, good or bad. But love does have a transformative power that can sustain us through the circumstances of life. It becomes a peace that passes understanding and a love that knows no boundary that settles deep within us and can become a living stream bubbling up out of us.
“Those who have a ‘why’ to live, can bear with almost any ‘how’.” (Viktor Frankel) We don’t know where life will take us, the twists and turns and roadblocks that will come up – but if we discover a sense of purpose – and return again and again to it – refining it along the way, that purpose gives a foundation to our life. And each season we enter into, we will find ourselves redefining, rehoming the purpose that drives us.
Part 2 – Take your Cues from the Practical World
So discover your purpose, and then pay attention to the world you live in. It is amazing to me how much the practical world provides insight into the spiritual or transcendent world. Babies first discover life by putting things into their mouth. They gain knowledge through a concrete sense of knowing long before cognition. It is not until puberty, with chemical changes in the body that people develop the mental acuity of abstract thinking – metaphors, similes, poetry, paradoxes. Then we learn to live into that – we have to give up some old ideas as we transform into new understandings. Belief in Santa Clause grows up. We still sometimes mix the concrete and abstract of way of thinking – but we were created to be spiritual beings. Following the road to that means we need to pay attention to the physical and move on from there. The concrete world mimics – gives substance to the mystical world you cannot see – but whose reality exists. We begin with the foundation – a firm foundation.
Let me give some examples of where the concrete world is the prototype of the Spiritual World.
Heart – physically, it is an important organ, vital to life, but very vulnerable. It must be protected by a strong bone structure back and front. The arteries and veins create in it the ability to give and the necessity to receive. So in life we talk about being balanced:
you can’t just give (that leads to pride) –
you must equally be able to receive (that leads to humility). And receiving indicates your vulnerability – that you must allow yourself at times to let down the walls that you have built up to protect you – let them fall down so that you can let others in. A heart needs to receive to be able to function properly, to be authentic.
There is something important here about vulnerability. I want to share with you some insights from Emma Seppala out of Psychology Today Blog in 2016: “Why do we fear vulnerability? We are afraid that if someone finds out who we really are, they will reject us. While we may try to appear perfect, strong, or intelligent in order to connect with others, in reality pretense often has the opposite effect: Research by Paula Niedenthal shows that we resonate too deeply with one another not to perceive inauthenticity. We even register it in our bodies. Our blood pressure rises as a physiological response- which may explain our discomfort around inauthentic or “fake” people. Vulnerability here does not mean being weak or submissive. To the contrary it implies the courage to be you. It involves uncertainty, risk and emotional exposure.” So take heart and live from your heart’s vulnerability.
2) Spiritual Masters and Philosophers use stories, parables, and proverbs as teaching tools. Often they take the physical and extrapolating transcendent meaning.
Still waters run deep . . .
There is a silver lining behind every cloud . . .
Actions speak louder than words . . .
A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush . . .
It’s a story where there is a meaning beyond the physical meaning of the words. When we go beyond the concrete meaning of common images, we find new realities worth living.
When we engage the practical world, we can find new meaning if we go beyond. It is vital that we don’t make the practical world fit into our idea of what is actually true.
“When perception comes into conflict with reality, perception always wins.”
Dictionary definitions:
Perception: a way of regarding, understanding, or interpreting something, a mental impression
Reality: The world or state of things as they actually exist. . . existence that is absolute, self-sufficient or objective and not subject to human decisions or conventions.
There is a phone conversation the President of the US had with the President of Ukraine in July. The fact of the phone call is accepted. The debate is due to the perception of groups of people in what was actually said and how that is being interpreted. Perception can BECOME our reality . . . . .
Some people still insist the world is flat and that group is growing. Instead of looking at the evidence of what the scientific world gives, they refuse it if it doesn’t fit their definition of what they believe. If we do not accept the same facts, then we end up with different understandings of what reality is. Do we see reality, or do we see our expectations, our perception of what we expect to see?
You have eyes – see
Didn’t you see that, one person may say to another. We often see what we expect to see and not what is there – we just miss it. According to our personality and personal history, we are paying attention to specific things and miss others completely. Drop your mental assumptions of your expectations and see what is.
You have ears – hear
In our political arena coming up to the election, we are very aware of this one. Two people can hear the same speech and they will come out with totally different opinions. Allow yourself to hear without preconceived assumptions and allow yourself to take in other opinions; not as easy as it seems. We all come to the meeting with our personal history.
If what we see or hear challenges our assumptions, we start wondering, how can I spin it to match what I believe. Instead, what if we risked letting the evidence challenge our assumptions?
You have hands – work
Work side by side with others – our attitudes about others often change when we get to know someone. “Oh he came from that country. Oh, she grew up in that community. Oh, they believe that.” Getting to know someone can persuade us to change our preconceptions and builds relationships that go beyond doctrines.
In Israel some years ago a group began to hold youth camps that put together, Palestinian and Israeli youth. They lived and worked together and began to tell each other their stories, their experiences of life. And amazingly they developed friendships and changed perceptions. (Long term, I don’t know how it came out).
How do we drop our expectations? One thing I know: Be open to life with curiosity, even when it challenges your dominant beliefs in life.
Eckhart Tolle reminds us” “Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having at the moment.”
Remember again your attitude (your choices) that is what you have control over – not someone else’s actions, thoughts.
Part 3
Discover a purpose, pay attention to life lessons, and develop a practice that supports your journey.
Looking back on your life – it’s not quite how you would have planned it. Some things became not so important. Other things happened, got in the way. – WHAT did you do with it? What are your doing with it now? Some changes will look negative on the surface, but you may come to realize that in this circumstance space is being created in your life for something new to emerge.
One of my favorite sacred story is from the Old Testament. A voice is calling this child in the night. He mistakes it for his teacher – goes in and wakes him up. I’m here!. Teacher says GO BACK TO BED. Happens 3 times. Finally the teacher says, “Maybe God is calling you. Next time sit up and say, ‘Speak, I’m listening.’ ” So the next time that is what the child does. And his life changes. We often don’t recognize the voice calling us – Are we listening? Are we ready to hear what life is telling us?
The Muslim poet Rumi cautions us, “Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.”
Life comes at us with all sorts of joys and challenges. What do we do with it is what matters. “Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.” ~Rumi
Become the authentic you. Allow a vulnerability that opens to leading somewhere. Develop a practice of your own that might draw you closer to life. . . . . . Learn to be brutally honest with yourself, don’t make life have to fit your beliefs. Help your beliefs be developed by the world as it is.
I want to end with a prayer from David Adam’s poem, The Cry of the Deer: It is a rendition of the prayer with my commentary:
Weave a silence onto your lips – stop talking
Weave a silence into your mind – stop imagining what was, what is, what might be
Weave a silence within your heart – be still allow yourself to know
Close your ears to distractions – listen for what/who is moving in your life
Close your eyes to attractions – focus on life’s presence in you now
Close your heart to temptations – surrender to the silence connecting us all
Calm us, O Lord, as you stilled the storm. . .
Still us, O Lord. And keep us from harm,
Let all tumult within us cease,
Enfold us Lord in your peace.
As you breathe this breath in let the peace of this moment flow into you, and as you breathe this breath out know it leaves to go out into the world touching the air we all breathe in. Open your eyes keeping your presence here, now.
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