THE MIRACLE OF PRESENCE

A Homily by James Ishmael Ford
8 September 2002

So here we are, gathered together again. Again. For one hundred and fifty-eight years women and men and children and youth have been gathering together as the First Unitarian Society in Newton. We’ve been gathering for one hundred years and more in this very building. Once again the summer is over, the glorious languid heat and exuberant flowering is overripe, is at its last great bubbling. And once again we gather.

There is a cycle, a rhythm to things that perhaps we can tangibly feel today. Most of us, certainly most of the grownups, can feel somewhere deep in our bones, even in the midst of this weekend’s heat, the cold winds of the far north gathering together. There can be little doubt we are facing the turning of a season.

Autumn is just ahead of us. And just so we are turning, you and I. Among the many other things of our lives, the cycle, the rhythm is moving and we are beginning again our work and play and time together as the gathered community of faith that is the First Unitarian Society.

Of course it doesn’t actually begin. There has been no time in these last one hundred and fifty-eight years when we actually ever ended, giving a time from which we can "begin." This summer so much has been going on that my formal report to our Board of Trustees ran twice as long as it normally runs. We’ve had among us births, and among us deaths, marriages have begun, marriages have ended: we experienced changes of all sorts. And so in the flow of our lives there is a continuity that has not been broken.

As a thread through all of this that has been going on over the summer, some part of us have continued to gather together every Sunday morning. No doubt we were a small band gathering in the parish hall, sometimes only a lingering memory of our larger community. But our offices have been open all summer. Noreen and Fran and Anne and I have been here, each of us, for large parts of the summer. There has been a thread of continuity. And sometimes much more than a thread.

Also within that continuity there have been changes. Some small, some large, some devastating. And it is important, so very important to acknowledge all these things. So, here today on the cusp between an old and a new, and in the midst of what has been going on unbroken for a hundred and fifty-eight years, we allow ourselves to stop and pause.

In many ways that is the purpose of Rosh Hashanah, the spiritual New Year of the Jewish calendar. Here we find a time in the ongoing flow of life to pause, to reflect. Maybe in this we can allow ourselves a moment to catch a breath. And maybe we can allow ourselves to reflect just a little within that moment.

Certainly that’s what all the pomp and ceremony is about. This is a special time; this is a precious time. Here we are today, back in the sanctuary, clergy robed, choir robed, stories shared, joys and sorrows shared. Here we find ourselves in a moment that while as common as dirt, certainly as common as that Sunday which circles around every seven days, as common as that season which circles around every year; we also find ourselves in a moment where we allow ourselves the possibility of something new.

So, what is that? What is the new we find in the ordinary? What is the possibility we find in the constantly returning cycles of life? What is it that makes the cycles of our lives spirals not circles, similar but not quite the same? What is it that Anne and I’ve been pointing to in those lines we’ve shared so far today? "Gonna let my little light shine, shine, shine." "When I was born there were trees here for me to enjoy that I did not plant." "You can take the eggs, but you can’t take the eggs and the mother bird." But, most of all, most of all: "Gonna let my little light shine, shine, shine."

I think all of this has to do with the miracle of presence. I believe when we gather together in this sacred space, as so many of us have done for so long, we are placing ourselves in a moment which while as ordinary as the seventh day of every week, is also a moment so precious and beautiful we call it holy.

I suggest that holy is simply about being present. The dictionary tells us a lot about the present and presence. It is the state of being "within sight or call or at hand." It is "the place in which one is present; the part of space within one’s ken, call, influence…" Now I find those definitions helpful.

But there is something more, as well. The dictionary also tells us presence is about a presence of mind, "that state of the mind in which all its faculties are alert, prompt, and acting harmoniously in obedience to the will, enabling one to reach, as it were spontaneously or by intuition, just conclusions in sudden emergencies."

The ability to reach just conclusions in sudden emergencies. I love that last definition. Here perhaps we also find the meaning of those stories we’ve heard today: of an old man planting trees he cannot possibly see produce fruit, of a pancake hunter being warned by God to take what is needful for the day, but to remember tomorrow as well.

I think that knowing about tomorrow is a special kind of knowing, a special kind of presence that is perhaps unique to us as human beings. Our presence needs to be grounded in this very moment. But, it also needs to be able to extend out to the farther reaches of time.

This is the source of the power and grace of our human knowing. We need to be right here, now. And that presence, this presence right here now, needs to encompass the past and the future. There is a miracle that can happen when all this is brought together. We can change. We need not continue in a circle repeating our mistakes, our sins. We can change, the once and future can be different, can be better.

So, a concrete example. We need fully to feel the joy and sadness most of us may fear is overwhelming as we think about Gerry Krick. Gerry. For many in this room there will never be another person that deserves the name minister. He was a good and powerful presence for us. I know how much I owe him, for his support, for his kind and generous guidance in these first two years of my own ministry here. We all owe him so much, for what he gave us.

And so, our presence must, of course, of course, include Gerry Krick. In allowing Gerry his place, both his living and his dying, within us, within you and me, we are enriched. He does continue to live transforming us by our willingness to include who he was as our living now, as our living presence. Doing this can be a miracle of new possibility.

And we need also to look forward, to our children and youth and those new possibilities. The spiral of presence is constantly widening; us and the world itself. Within the mystery of our willingness to be present, we need at this moment to cast our love forward, to, as it were, remember, re-member, rejoin ourselves to the future. We must allow the future to be experienced at least in part here and now.

So, another concrete example. We are today celebrating the Coming of Age program that formally began just yesterday, and which has been continuing as part of who we are for nearly twenty years. In our presence to this moment, we should be remembering the children, our future. I suggest we should be remembering how no matter whether you come into this room a parent or not, please believe me, you are surrounded by your children. And whomever you came into this room with, you are also surrounded by parents and aunts and uncles and grandparents. That is part of the mystery of presence.

That mysterious act of ownership, how the children around you, and the grown ups around you all have some claim on you, and you have some claim on them. All of us are bound together by some sense that approaches family. Family. A dangerous term, and not completely accurate. But what we are about here has some of that sense; some feel of obligation and care and love that we share together. We are, have no doubt, all invested in each other’s future.

Certainly this is some of what we find in our covenant of presence. And it is also part of why I find a certain joy in the pun of presence and presents. There is no doubt as we gather together we are being given a gift. It is a gift from the heart of the world that is always being presented, but which without a little attention, without stopping once in a while, say once every seven days, and consciously noticing, we might miss.

And it is there; it is here, that we might find the meanings in those stories and those phrases. "Gonna let my little light shine, shine, shine." "When I was born there were trees here for me to enjoy that I did not plant." "You can take the eggs, but you can’t take the eggs and the mother bird." But, most of all, most of all: "Gonna let my little light shine, shine, shine."

This is all about the miracle of presence.

It is all about what we are in our gathering together.

Our dreams and our hopes all brought home, here, and now.

Ain’t it a joy?

Amen.