A BOOK OF QUALITIES
A Sermon by Anne Bancroft & James Ishmael Ford

27 January 2002

Anne
This past June, at General Assembly - the annual national gathering of Unitarian Universalists - the speaker for the Ware lecture was the Reverend Dr James Forbes from the renowned liberal pulpit, the Riverside Church in New York City. He was one of Time Magazine’s twelve best sermonizers in 1999, and he was indeed dynamic.

He spoke of being a human race activist, dedicated to our common struggle to support each other regardless of our differences. He ended with a poem he wrote - words from his God to all people, the last stanza of which has remained with me: "Love yourself, Love me, too. And whatever else you do, Love my children."
This being Teacher Appreciation Sunday, the topic of children seems natural, but this morning we would like to broaden our definition. I’m quite sure the "my children" referred to in Dr. Forbes’ poem includes all of us, big and small. And while we often think of learning as being a top down activity, on closer reflection it is clear that we have as much to learn from the young as they from us, and then, of course, we can all learn from each other.

Our focus this morning is on some of the characteristics we learn along the way that can help us to be better human beings. James and I are drawing from "The Book of Qualities," by J. Ruth Gendler. It is a compilation of character descriptions, from which we have chosen six. And our challenge to you is to think of where and when you may have witnessed or acquired these for yourself.

We begin with "PERSEVERANCE"

Is there a school where Perseverance teaches classes? I want to meet him face to face and see what he looks like. I have heard so much about him. It is not that I want his feedback. I am sure he would tell me to "keep working," and I already know that. It is not just me either. Offhand, I can name at least three friends who are as curious as I am. One is a scholar, one is a writer, and the third is a young parent. I would write Perseverance a letter inviting him to come here and teach at the neighborhood school, but no one around here knows where he lives or how to find him. I read somewhere that they were trying to hire him to co-host a PBS series on the creative process, but he would have none of it. Says he is shy in front of cameras. Truth is, he turns down all offers which distract him from his work.

James
Perseverance is one of those strange and mysterious human qualities, something we all admirer, something to which a few of us devote ourselves, and something which each of us desperately needs. I’ve come to discover in my capacity as a spiritual director within the Zen traditions I have to say two things so frequently I refer to them as "Zen teacher 101."

The first is "forgive yourself," or your neighbor, whomever you’re blaming for your situation, your lack of completion, of success. The important thing is to see you didn’t accomplish your goal, whatever that goal was. But when we’ve acknowledged that, we’ve opened a door. From that moment it is important to quickly move beyond blaming, pointing the finger. Such an expenditure of energy can be a certain unhealthy pleasure, like eating that sixth or tenth chocolate chip cookie. Now there are ways in which accountability is important. But for the most part, wallowing in blame is a dead end, simply one more reason not to do the task.

Usually in the context of a Zen interview this has to do with a commitment to meditate regularly. I say, great, you’ve acknowledged you didn’t live up to your goal. That is the first thing. Then I suggest the second: dusting one’s self off, and starting over. Perseverance. Whatever needs doing--doing it. Small tasks, large tasks, all are accomplished by continuing on. The secret is when you don’t succeed, to not accept that as the end of the matter. Rather, after feeling sad or angry or regretful; getting up, dusting oneself off, and starting over again. This is the great secret. Perseverance.

(As an aside, Perseverance didn’t return those letters from PBS, because they were addressed to Mr. Perseverance; and it turns out Perseverance is a woman.)

Our next reading is from "CERTAINTY"

Sometimes all the Qualities seem to talk at once, and I don’t know who to listen to first. Certainty comes into the room and stands in the doorway and gives me a good long look until I hear the silence again.

When Certainty is bored, he disguises himself in old clothes and goes to the bars with Confusion. He has an outstanding sense of direction; he knows how to walk until everything makes sense again. When Certainty is lost inside his mind, he writes his name over and over until he is back.

Certainty knows many alphabets. He is an architect with language. His words build meanings. He loves fine calligraphy and beautiful type. He once told me, "My love affair with language goes down to the letter."
Although Certainty is an excellent scholar, he starts to miss the trees when he spends too much time with his books. He enjoys documenting his thoughts and investigating philosophical theories. In his own inimitable way he is trying to find out where ideas come from and how they grow.

Anne
There were many absolutes in my house growing up – many certainties. "If it’s nice, it’s right." "Gentlemen always stand when a lady enters the room." "Nice girls don’t chew gum." At every opportunity where my mother is complimented on her children, she replies, "Thank you. They must have had a very good mother." Of this, she at least likes to appear quite certain.

There were so many rules that were stated with such certainty, that I am leery of it as an adult. It seems rigid and unforgiving. I am tempted to throw the baby out with the bathwater and see only gray in the quandaries life presents us. Yet it gave us – as children – a very clear sense of place, of expectations. We knew what we were bouncing off of.

To say with certainty how one feels about something is enormously liberating, and I worry that as Unitarian Universalists we are particularly uncomfortable with this characteristic that could be such an asset. It seems to me there can be value in certainty; if we have examined – very carefully – what it is we decide to be certain about.

Elsewhere, Gendler writes of "PAIN"

Pain is subtle. He has cold grey fingers. His voice is hoarse from crying and screaming. Some people think any time they feel something they don’t understand, it is Pain. Other people think feelings themselves are a sign of Pain. When people try to avoid him, he follows them silently and turns up as the bartender or the bus driver or the auctioneer. Pain has an elaborate filing system for keeping track of everyone; he is thinking about asking an old friend of mine to computerize it.

The local university wants to grant Pain tenure, but the students insist his teaching is overrated. The faculty is impressed because when Pain presents his work, it sounds meaningful and difficult. Pain respects people who are willing to take risks. If you face him directly, he will give you a special ointment so your wounds don’t fester.

James
I think it is that last line which is most important in this meditation. Pain has a special relationship with people willing to take risks. And it is true, when faced directly pain gifts one with a magical ointment. So, what might that be? What can this meditation possibly suggest for us, making our way through life, inclined as we are to that natural animal instinct to go toward pleasure and away from pain?

I try to parse out a distinction when talking about this subject. With others who’ve reflected on this situation, I’ve come to believe pain is natural and unavoidable, but suffering is optional. By this I mean there are simple realities to our existence, which while not always pleasant are just the way they are. Pain fits this like an old suit of clothes. I’m cutting carrots for a stew, and in a moment of distraction I slice my finger: Instant pain, and blood, and mess.

Sure I could have avoided that moment of pain by paying a little better attention to the matter at hand. But, even if the slice comes from my evil cat sneaking up on me from behind, and in a moment of reverie thinking he is a saber tooth tiger and I a lumbering mammoth, and my only guilt lies in having allowed this beast inside the house; the resultant slices hurt. That pain just is. It is a warning to take care.

But then there is the suffering that comes when I cling to some thing or person, holding on too tightly, squeezing out the life of it or, him, or her. This is something different. This is the pain of the heart when I fear for loss, or actually have lost. Here the cut is within my being, my mind. Here the pain is created not as a warning and an assist, but through my wallowing in "what ifs" and "what should be’s". This pain, this suffering, is no one’s friend.

However, when we face these things directly, then something can happen. When I do not turn away from the reality of the falling and shattering of a treasured coffee cup, or, to up the ante, even the death of a friend; when I face it head on, and allow the pain to be what it is, connected to that loss, but only in that context, there is a salve, there is a magical ointment. It allows me to be with that pain and to not transform it into needless suffering, the festering ill of the dark places of our human hearts. Instead it becomes a friend, helping on the great and mysterious way.

Then Gendler writes of "COMPASSION"

Compassion wears Saturn’s rings on the fingers of her left hand. She is intimate with the life force. She understands the meaning of sacrifice. She is not afraid to die. There is nothing you cannot tell her.

Compassion speaks with a slight accent. She was a vulnerable child, miserable in school, cold, shy, alert to the pain in the eyes of her sturdier classmates. The other kids teased her about being too sentimental, and for a long time she believed them. In ninth grade she was befriended by Courage. Courage lent Compassion bright sweaters, explained the slang, showed her how to play volleyball, taught her you can love people and not care what they think about you. In many ways Compassion is still the stranger, neither wonderful, nor terrible, herself, utterly, always.

Anne
My friend had a terminally ill child. He was sweet and lovely and charming and often uncomfortable. His care consumed her time and yet they lived as normal a life as possible – and she taught me about compassion. Her first thought was always for his well-being, and that of her husband and other child. He would hurt, and she would say simply, "I’m sorry. I’m so sorry." Her gift to him was to validate his struggle, and lighten it in doing so. It was exquisite, and so humbling to witness.

Gendler speaks of "WISDOM"

Wisdom wears an indigo jacket. She takes long walks in the purple hills at twilight, pausing to meditate at an old temple near the crossroads. She was sick as a young child so she learned to be alone with herself at an early age. Wisdom has a quiet mind. She likes to think about the edges where things spill into each other and become their opposites. She knows how to look at things inside and out. Sometimes her eyes go out to the thing she is looking at, and sometimes the thing she is looking at enters through her eyes. Questions of time, depth, and balance interest her. She is not looking for answers.

James
I hear this meditation, and instantly I hear echoes from those two great definitions of wisdom, one from the ancient East and the other from the ancient West. Each, I think, offers a perspective that helps, that points a way that truly reveals what we are from before the creation of the stars and planets.

These are the first chapter of the Tao Te Ching, from the wisdom of China, and the first poem of the Psalms of David, from the wisdom of the Near East. Each sets the stage for our insight, our wisdom, yours and mine. Each reveals much to whoever will listen. Here to repeat them I will draw upon the renderings by Stephen Mitchell for both poems. First, from the classic of the way and its virtue, from the mists of old China:

"The way that can be told/is not the eternal Way./The name that can be named/is not the eternal Name.//The unnamable is the eternally real./Naming is the origin/of all particular things.//Free from desire, you realize the mystery./Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations.//Yet mystery and manifestations/arise from the same source./This source is called darkness.//Darkness within darkness./The gateway to all understanding."

And the second is contained in our Hymnbook, from that taproot of our Western culture, the rocky and yet strangely fertile soil on the Eastern shore of the Mediterranean. "Blessed are the man and the woman/who have grown beyond their greed/and have put an end to their hatred/and no longer nourish illusions.//But they delight in the way things are/and keep their hearts open, day and night./They are like trees planted near flowing rivers,/which bear fruit when they are ready./Their leaves will not fall or wither./Everything they do will succeed."

And, perhaps out of that, Gendler writes of "JOY"

Joy drinks pure water. She has sat with the dying and attended many births. She denies nothing. She is in love with life, all of it, the sun and the rain and the rainbow. She rides horses at Half Moon Bay under the October moon. She climbs mountains. She sings in the hills. She jumps from the hot spring to the cold stream without hesitation. Although Joy is spontaneous, she is immensely patient. She does not need to rush. She knows that there are obstacles on every path and that every moment is the perfect moment. She is not concerned with success or failure or how to make things permanent. At times Joy is elusive – she seems to disappear even as we approach her. I see her standing on a ridge covered with oak trees, and suddenly the distance between us feels enormous. I am overwhelmed and wonder if the effort to reach her is worth it. Yet she waits for us. Her desire to walk with us is as great as our longing to accompany her.

Anne
I don’t think joy – for most adults – is a daily occurrence. We are so weighted and distracted with our constant cares. It seems to me that Joy requires notice – putting aside all else to capture its moment. In this, the child truly has an advantage. In my mind’s eye I see the two-year-old casting himself with abandon off the edge of the couch, trusting fully that he will land on something or someone soft, and his face is joy!
I think of it as fleeting, and we in our adultness often too wary to risk such abandon. What a marvel when we risk, and let ourselves go, and jump, and feel it. It is the spirit’s gift to the mind. It is explosive. In the moment when I knew that the love I shared with another human being was greater than our different upbringings could deter, that we could build a life together despite the world’s resistance, I felt breath-taking, lung numbing joy.

James
So, Anne and I’ve shared some descriptions of human qualities, and we’ve shared our reflections on these qualities. We hope they’re of use. As we draw this sermon and service to a close, I would just remind us how in the context of a celebration of teachers and teaching that something mysterious and beautiful happens when we give ourselves to each other.

I know that I never learn so clearly as when I have the task of teaching. I know that there is mystery and joy when we share ourselves each of us with the other. And I know that in a moment any one of us may be able to teach the greatest sage, and in another moment, maybe even the same one, any one of us can learn from Anne’s two-year-old child.

So mysterious.
So beautiful.
Amen.