THE WATERCOURSE WAY
Reflections on Leadership

A Sermon by
James Ishmael Ford

18 February 2001

When Bob Senghas told me the subject of his installation sermon was going to be "ultimate authority," it sure seemed he let me think it would be about the Buddhist concept of sunyata, emptiness, the great void. I was rather pleased we’d get a high falootin discourse on deep spiritual issues.

Set just the right tone for my new ministry, I thought. Then, as it turned out, he gave us a brief discourse on our authority issues. You know. How we within Unitarian Universalist communities all have trouble with authority. Yeah, I thought. Never trust a minister; that’s for sure.

But, I have to admit it was intriguing. For instance he clearly told us there was no direct corollary with his choice of sermon and anything he heard about us in particular. He repeated that point several times. Nonetheless, during the reception following the service, a fair number of us now in this room were asking, was that addressed to us? Do we have authority issues?

Well, of course it was. And yes we do. But it isn’t that we’ve done anything bad here. He wasn’t wagging his finger at the First Unitarian Society in Newton. It’s just what we are. Unitarian Universalists are notorious non-compliants. We are the religious community of people who will not be told what’s what. We think for ourselves, thank you. And so, of course, we have issues with authority. This runs deep for us.

Certainly it includes shadow territory of distrust and suspicion for all things asserted. We can be paranoid about authority. An important point which Bob made. And, as he suggested we need be wary of this. But there is a high end for this inclination to distrust as well. For instance we belong to the crowd represented by that current bumper sticker "Don’t believe everything you think." Not only are we suspicious of outside authority, at our best we extend that inclination of distrust, even to our own thoughts and surmises.

This is something very good. Many of us have taken this problem with authority common among us and made it a spiritual discipline. I want to underscore how significant this inclination of ours can be. As we bring this sense of challenge and questioning into our lives, and direct it at ourselves as well as others, we move beyond simple and facile suspicion, sort of a spiritual paranoia, if you will; and toward something very interesting, very rich.

Today, I want to reflect on the nature of our engagement with authority as such a spiritual discipline. There are a basket of questions here. Where do we find authority? How do we deal with it? What does this dealing with, our actual engagement, mean for us as we lead? And, what does it mean for us as we follow? What are the dangers, and what are the promises of our gathering together, following and leading, where everything can and will be challenged?

This is how I see it within our context as a living and vital congregation. Here is how it works for me. I have the astonishing honor of being our face, of speaking from within the heart of this community; both back into the community and out into the larger world. On the one hand there, of course, needs to be some of that old comforting the afflicted and afflicting of the comfortable.

On another, as difficult as this is to admit, I am limited in my own wisdom. So, of course everyone here should test and weigh, and be suspicious of anything that issues from this pulpit and my mouth. I know I am. For instance, while I was called here at least in part to manifest a social justice ministry, I can, I have, and I am certain, I will say things that are less than generous, or even right.

Frequently I will speak from my prejudices and misunderstandings. As much as I might hope otherwise, I will be politically partisan. Like that old joke about our denomination being the Democratic Party at prayer, even when I am trying to speak to deeper issues from deeper perspectives, I will fall into the cant of my political ideology.

And I will fail in other areas, as well. Spiritually, I will often also miss the mark. I have in the past, I do, and I will misstate the deeper insights of some among us. I will miss wise perspectives and maybe even say, right out, how they’re obviously wrong. When I am.

So of course you should hesitate, and expect to believe nothing, until it has been tested for your self. I will fail, even as I suspect you do on occasion. My highest aspirations will fall short in their application, right here in front of everyone. But, and this is the glorious but: faithful to our spiritual covenant to not turn away, I do promise to try to notice; and when I fall, to get up, to dust myself off, and to try again.

I can do this because there is something powerful and true about us. It is here that we come to that best of our problem with authority. There is something astonishing about us, and our way; that makes us more than a political debating club or a program of ethical instruction for our children. We have something here. We stand in a stream of wisdom, soaked through our socks and right into our blood and right up to our hearts and minds.

At my best, at my most transparent, when I’ve given myself over to this place beyond judgement, I find how I really can speak from within our community, and its ancient insights. I can, on occasion, be more than the sum of my parts. I can transcend my ideologies and spiritual arrogances.

So, ask why? Why? How? I believe that within our gathering together we have revealed some mysterious way to draw upon an ancient wisdom. Ancient: perspectives of relationship that rise with the first articulation of human language. And renewed every time we gather together in humility and hoping for new possibilities.

This is about finding a middle-way between extremes. Forgetting our arrogance, we find simplicity, patience and compassion. We find it when we distrust our own opinions as much as those of others. We demonstrate this wisdom as we listen deeply to each other. In such a deep listening we grow beyond our original and probably necessary narrowness into something broad and profound.

My life is witness to this, as are so many lives within this community. It is this broad and beautiful middle way between the extremes of violent opinion, where we cautiously listen to each other and to ourselves, and then move on. Here is how it works. We try it and fail. Then we try again and succeed. And then, truthfully, we try again and fail again. But the process continues, maybe slowly, but constantly we find ourselves deepening.

Our spiritual tradition, I suggest, is one of those that aspire to a deeper freedom. In this quest we join with those who have shaken off chains of tyranny since the beginning of human organization. We join with who ever struck out on her or his own against the will of the tribe. We join with who ever challenged the king or the priest or the bishop.

And, as we’ve moved forward on this path of autonomy, I think we’ve also learned that at some point it is necessary to play well with others. Within this process we’ve learned our own shortcomings. Frequently, we’ve discovered, the greatest tyrant turns out to be the one living in our skulls. So, while we do need direction and guidance from friends who’ve walked the way before us, and from our own experiences; still we need to weigh everything anyone says. Anyone, including ourselves.

It is here within this challenge the broad middle way of Unitarian Universalism begins to emerge. So, where does that way take us? What is it that we find if we allow ourselves to move beyond suspicion and trust, to allow the fullness of our being, and the fullness of each other? Here I think we move into a sacred space, which is an ancient and yet ever renewed vision of relationships.

To deepen our understanding of this way I think we can look to one of the old East Asian traditions. I’ve frequently written and spoken about the wisdom I’ve found in Taoism, one of the deep currents from old China, and how I feel it anticipates much of our contemporary liberal faith. Here is the fifty-seventh poem from that old collection called the Tao Te Ching, sometimes translated as the Way and its Power, or sometimes by my preferred version, the Way and its Virtue.

"If you want to be a great leader, you must learn to follow the Tao. Stop trying to control. Let go of fixed plans and concepts, and the world will govern itself. The more prohibitions you have, the less virtuous people will be. The more weapons you have, the less secure people will be. The more subsidies you have, the less self-reliant people will be.

"Therefore the Master says: I let go of the law, and people become honest. I let go of economics, and people become prosperous. I let go of religion, and people become serene. I let go of all desire for the common good, and the good becomes common as grass."

This is an interesting text, rich and complex. Certainly, I believe, worthy of considerable challenge, and much reflection. One of the things I particularly like about it is how it can be accepted in part by several of our differing contemporary political and economic philosophies.

On first blush it might sound quite libertarian: let go of fixed plans and concepts, and the world will govern itself. But, if your biases go another way, it can sound liberal: the more weapons you have, the less secure people will be. And, from another direction should you wish, it can sound conservative: the more subsidies you have, the less self-reliant people will be.

But I suggest it is rather more radical than are our contemporary libertarian, conservative or liberal perspectives. I believe it speaks to what might be on the other side of our sense of challenge and resistance to authority. It may speak to how we truly are when we’ve discovered our freedom, when we’ve learned to lead and to follow as circumstances dictate. It is about when we let go of needing to control, of being right. It is also about, I think, what our dynamic faith leads us to, beyond such narrow concepts as liberal and conservative.

Robert Aitken, very much one of my heroes once mentioned how he had almost back to back conversations with two contemporary spiritual teachers. The one was a Zen priest who had been teaching for years and years in Hawaii. He told Aitken how he didn’t understand; he worked and worked, but nothing seemed to come of his labors. After all these years he had no discernable organization, no serious students, and no idea of what to do next.

Then shortly after that Aitken was in San Francisco talking with Shunryu Suzuki, the teacher of the San Francisco Zen Center. Like that teacher in Hawaii, Suzuki said he didn’t understand what was going on. He’d been here for years, and done absolutely nothing. But, now he was surrounded by an enormous organization, brilliant students studied with him. Much smarter than he, Suzuki added. And now he had no idea what to do next.

How different these two "no idea of what to do next" was! The fifty-ninth case of the Tao Te Ching speaks of Suzuki’s way, and I think quite possibly of ours, as well. Here, I feel we find the other side of just questioning authority, just challenging others and even ourselves. Here is the farther shore, where something new appears. In the rapture of that new let me quote this text by indiscriminately throwing out pronouns, he and she like random seeds in the air.

"For governing a country well (or maybe a church, or maybe our own hearts) there is nothing better than moderation. The mark of a moderate person is freedom from her own ideas. Tolerant like the sky, all pervading like sunlight, firm like a mountain, supple like a tree in the wind, he has no destination in view and makes use of anything life happens to bring her way. Nothing is impossible for such a person. Because he has let go, she can care for the people’s welfare as a mother cares for her children."

Near the end of this small volume of ancient wisdom that seems so appropriate for us as Unitarian Universalists, we find a concise summary of the way, of I believe quite possibly our spiritually liberal way. In the sixty-seventh chapter we are told. "Some say that my teaching is nonsense. Others call it lofty but impractical. But to those who have looked inside themselves, this nonsense makes perfect sense. And to those who put it into practice, this loftiness has roots that go deep.

"I have just three things to teach: simplicity, patience, compassion. These three are your greatest treasures. Simple in actions and in thoughts, you return to the source of being. Patient with both friends and enemies, you accord with the way things are. Compassionate toward yourself, you reconcile all beings in the world."

Isn’t this a Unitarian Universalism you can recognize? Beyond political party, beyond our self-descriptions of Christian or Jewish or Buddhist or whatever, isn’t this a description of the real wisdom we’ve encountered throughout our lives? Simplicity, patience and compassion: don’t we know from the marrow of our bones that these are the rules for living a good and wholesome life? Aren’t these the rules bubbling from the deep well of our hearts, life-giving waters for finding justice and peace?

So, of course these should be our rules for leadership, as well. Simplicity, patience and compassion. And, isn’t this, looking beyond our problems with authority, just what we’re hoping to be? I look out at you. I think of our lives together so far. I think of the things we do. I think of the ways we are. We all try to do our best. Frequently we fail each other and ourselves. But, we don’t turn away. We pick ourselves up, we dust ourselves off, and we try again.

I am sure this good and sweet middle way through the cares and tares of the world is Unitarian Universalism at its very best. It certainly is our way here within the warm embrace of the First Unitarian Society in Newton. It is a birthing of hope into the world. And may it always be so.

Amen.