SPINNING THROUGH THE GREAT NIGHT

A Homily by
James Ishmael Ford

24 September 2000

I often speak of our Unitarian Universalist spiritual practice as the Art of Conversation. Some take this as a joke. We are after all the religion that often seems more interested in a conversation about heaven than with heaven itself. But, I’m not kidding. And here is why. Obviously we do love to speak. But, I suggest there is a simple step we can take that raises this passion to the level of spiritual discipline. We must also learn to listen. When we do, when we speak and listen, we really do enter an authentic path toward depth.

When we are seeking the deepest things of our lives, those concerns about meaning and purpose and direction, we need to listen as well as to speak. In both actions, each in their place, each in their time, we find what we need; we find almost all we need. Here in our Art of Conversation the great questions of spirit are addressed.

Without any doubt, here in this place, we are confronting the great questions of spirituality. Here, in this sanctuary, we find ourselves confronting the great questions of life and death, of individuality and of communal responsibility. These are our spiritual concerns.

Perhaps of course, near the beginning we need to address that amorphous term: Spirituality. A difficult and complex word, undoubtedly one with too many meanings, too many nuances. But, at the same time, I believe this term spiritual is speaking to our deepest longings, and our most cherished hopes.

Spirit, the word itself comes to us through Middle English, back through Old French, to Latin. Spiritus means, quite literally breath. The breath of life. Here in this usage we find cognates throughout the languages of humanity, pnumena among the Greeks, barach in Hebrew and baraka in Arabic, ch’i in Chinese and atman in Sanskrit. All etymologically come from their words for breath, ordinary breath.

Now, as I hope we all know, we Unitarian Universalists are not bound by a specific creed or a necessary and compelling focus. But still we do find among ourselves eras with some particular emphasis, where our attention seems to go for a period of time.

We seem to have two areas of greatest concern in particular as our primary ways of engaging reality: heart and mind. I’ve addressed each to some degree already this year. Like the warp and woof of some precious fabric, our liberal religious way has woven reason and emotion, mind and heart together, at some point emphasizing one somewhat more and at another the other.

So, in the early nineteenth century our penchant for reason came to the fore as an articulation of modern Unitarian thought, with attention to texts and context. Then, with the Transcendentalist revolution, we claimed a time with a particular focus on human intuition. By the turning into the twentieth century we found naturalism and scientific method an especially significant emphasis. And now again, moving toward the cusp into the twenty-first century, we’ve reclaimed a particular emphasis on what we discern as matters spiritual.

So, acknowledging the rational part of us, what do we mean by spiritual? Beyond meaning breath what is spiritual about? The range is, I find, astonishing. Some use spiritual to mean concern with psychic phenomena or alternatives to conventional medical models. Others mean spiritual to speak to the mystical traditions among the world’s religions, seeking the points of connection at the deepest levels of our existence. And, of course these are simply two ends of the spectrum. We mean so many more things, as well.

But for today let me suggest a possible working definition. For most of us in this room spiritual might mean that which gives us life. I think we can honor the etymology of the word by noting that what the word spiritual addresses for us, are those human experiences of meaning, of purpose, of depth and direction. And, today, I hope we can spend some time attending to some of the specifics of what that kind of spiritual might mean among us.

So here I find myself thinking of the spinning of our planet into the Autumn, and all of what that can mean as we reflect on the nature of spirit and the spiritual. Living most of my life in the tepid climate of California, the shifting seasons have been for the most part an intellectual exercise.

During most of those years in that lotus land, we understood two seasons, wet and dry. The Dry season extending throughout most of what the rest of the world calls Spring and Summer and a good part of the Fall, is warm and dry to hot and very dry. And the Earth itself at this time is mostly shades of brown. The Wet season extending through the winter is marked by occasional rain as well as the emergence of deep and lush greens.

I gather it is somewhat different here. Here seasons are a little more in your face, I’ve been told. As, of course, it is throughout much, most of the world. Here the Autumnal Equinox that we have just experienced really means something. The bite of cold will soon be with us. Foliage will take on a riot of color, leaves will fall, and sooner than most of us are going to be ready, snow and bitter cold will envelope the countryside and us.

However, noticing the turning of the seasons is not just an intellectual or even poetic exercise. Encountering the seasons spiritually can speak to the most fundamental aspects of our existence. From the dawn of time, our sense of any meaning to be found within life and death are intuited through our observation of the seasons.

Our planet spinning through the great night teaches us in its cycles the very nature of reality: of birth, of flourishing, of failing, of death. And, it adds a little kicker that is not so evident in our ordinary lives. In the spinning through that great night, we also discover at least the possibility of new life, of rebirth, of some precious continuance, and wider relationship. And here, I suggest, spirituality, the weaving of meaning births for all peoples.

No wonder people over the generations have looked to the moments we can mark in the cycles of earthly existence, and see spirituality, the sacred, the holy. Here in this special moment where the day and the night are exactly the same, we notice our bodies respond, and some magical doorway opens.

Our ancestors reflected on each slice of time as a special gift where they could consider the nature of existence. Each season teaching us something. This is why most all cultures have developed an art of astrology. And, I believe it is why we can find even modern thinkers such as Carl Jung suggesting "We are born at a given moment, in a given place, and like vintage years of wine, we have the qualities of the year and of the season in which we are born."

Now we live in a modern and scientific era, and our own tradition particularly honors reason as one of the fundamental ways of knowing. So, most of us do not find the ancient arts of astrology of any particular use on our contemporary quest for meaning. But, nonetheless, I suggest, we can find value in stopping for a moment in awe at the progression of our planet through the great night, and to see our own lives woven into that progression, into that spinning, into that mystery.

We will find different meanings, I believe, than did our ancestors. This is only as it should be. Even as things do have some constants, some qualities that do not differ over the ages, like the seasons themselves, we also bring into this our accumulated knowledge, and our ability to learn.

And so we change. In the midst of a cosmos that has much that to human consciousness seems at one and forever, there is change. And we, you and I demonstrate it in so many ways, not the least of which, is how we take the old lessons and remake them as we are remade, to learn, to expand to grow ever deeper.

I love how the Japanese take this season, what they call Higan, and which means the "other side of the river of death." Here at this time where the day and night are equal, it is particularly appropriate for us to reflect on the meeting of life and death. The winter is perhaps the best time for us to reflect particularly on death. The spring is a magical season for us to consider hope and renewal. And here at the time of equals, it is may be particularly the time for us to consider the meeting of life and death.

And, I suggest perhaps it is the perfect time to reflect on what is it that we are about as we gather together into this special place, into this old MeetingHouse, into this sacred space. Here we can gather ourselves, find our perspectives, perhaps taste that renewal, and the go back into the mix of life, into the mix of life and death, with perspectives that allow us to act with grace, and kindness and maybe even, to seek justice.

For me this spirituality is pretty much a naturalistic thing. I personally feel no need to posit anything beyond our natural universe to find the glory of unity and the mystery of relationship as straightforward expressions of the natural world. But nonetheless, so wondrous as to be deserving of such words as sacred and holy and spiritual. However, others among us find different perspectives from the same information.

Which brings us back to the Art of Conversation. We count within our tradition, and sitting in many pews in this very congregation, those with a strong theistic perspective, who find God’s fingerprints all over the majesty of creation. And sitting right next to that person we have those who find all this language of spirit and God at the very least useless, and possibly even harmful for those committed to living in the real world.

And so, it is here noticing that, where the possibility of a conversation appears, trembling, waiting. And, perhaps of course, that opens up an additional concern, one last I’d like to address today. It turns on the term "free pulpit." The free pulpit has an ancient use among us. It is also, to my mind, badly misunderstood, by both ministers and the laity.

Among the laity freedom of the pulpit is often thought to mean that anyone standing in this pulpit is free to say any silly or foolish thing they want. In fact this term stands for a privilege granted only to the called minister of a given congregation. Here at FUSN, I’m currently the only one called to say any silly or foolish thing they want from this pulpit. I call it the guarantee-not-to-be-fired this week clause.

The important corollary within our tradition to free pulpit is free pew. I speak as best I can from the depths of my being. And no one, not a single one of us is called to believe it. Unless, we’ve tested it for ourselves, unless you find it resonates with your own testing and tasting. Here in our understanding of the Free Church, individual minds and hearts come together without creed, to find that best we can find because we test and challenge and in all this, love together.

Here the Art of Conversation emerges as a spiritual discipline. It can happen in many places, one of which, just one, is in this room. In this congregation we’ve a long tradition of talk back, of congregational reflection on those musings from the pulpit. And here we claim, from time to time, a special acknowledgement of the free pew, where all are invited to speak, hopefully from the depths, but certainly from where we actually are. This is part of our way into spiritual depth.

And so today, I invite the dialogue, the conversation. What do you think of spirit? What do you think is spiritual? And where do you think our common concern for this ancient, difficult and promising word might be taking us?

THE CONVERSATION

I would like to conclude with a poem from the UU minister Lynn Ungar, "Autumn Equinox." I think she takes us to the great point of such exercises as we’ve just accomplished, of all spiritual practices.

You may think of it
as marking the long descent,
the slide into winter’s weariness.
Such moments are not easy to accept—
don’t we all want to petition
some cosmic governor
to grant summer a reprieve?
But the sentence is always cast,
the scales will always tip,
whatever you might think is just.

In this brief, breath-catching
moment at the top
you may recall the slow climb of summer,
the safe, steady ticking up the tracks.
The self-possessed might even
gaze out and glimpse
the jostling fairgrounds and
the quiet that stretches beyond the fence.

Look quickly. Even now the car
tips forward and picks up speed.
As the wind in your face increases
and your stomach leaps, remember:
This is the ride you came for,
the fear and the sense of flying.

Winter won’t seem long
when you slide to a halt
around the final curve.

Ah, I love Lynn. She always cuts to the chase. Please attend. Please don’t waste your time. It is all too precious; it is all so precious.

Amen.