Sermon: The Full Catastrophe by Rev. Audette Fulbright November 11, 2012

Transcription

1 Sermon: The Full Catastrophe by Rev. Audette Fulbright November 11, 2012 The title of today's sermon may be familiar to some of you it's a quote from Zorba the Greek, who said, of his life, that he had a wife, children, a house, everything: the full catastrophe. Over time, it has come to capture a certain perspective: the idea that our lives do, in fact, encompass the full catastrophe - joy as well as sorrow, grace and disaster or disappointment, love and loneliness. We are healthy sometimes, ill other times. Even into the most fortunate and happiest lives, some pain and difficulty emerges. One of the greatest challenges in our lives is to figure out how we're going to deal with this simple, inescapable truth. There is more. Because while it's true the circumstances of our lives encompass the full catastrophe, perhaps even more significant is the fact that we ourselves embody the full catastrophe. We are generous, loving and kind; we are angry, sullen, and cruel at times. We care deeply and reach out in love, and we also pull back and punish those we care about. There is no perfect person, no-one who ever escaped the utter human-ness of being human. Jesus cursed the fig tree and drove the money changers from the temple. The Buddha believed for a while that no one was bright enough to understand what he had come to through Enlightenment. This is what the Dalai Lama has said: A good heart is the source of happiness and also the source of strength. It is the source of success, patience, tolerance. It is also the source of good health, good sleep, good appetite. If your heart is filled by anger then no sleep, no appetite, no smile. Then you ruin your own health, ruin your friendships. Even your furniture will be damaged, because you'll get so angry you go like this! (he laughs and pretends to pound the table) Anger and negative hatred are the source of all bad things. Of course, sometimes I get angry. Big events do not create anger, but small small things create anger. The invasion by the Chinese is a tragedy; it is negative, ruthless behavior. But I don't feel anger. I feel very sad. And I feel compassion. But when staff members here do a small thing, such

2 as incomplete work or insufficient work, then I feel very irritated. Then I use harsh words! ( pgs , Tying Rocks to Clouds, by William Elliot) It's part of being human, to have emotions, to experience a range of reactions and responses. We can't stop being human and we can't control all the experiences of our lives, but we do have choices in how we respond. Writing this sermon, I reflected on how often, over my years of ministry, I've said or written or prepared to say these same words, to share these same ideas. And each and every time, I have acknowledged, with a tinge of disappointment but mostly with a small chuckle of humble amusement, that this is a sermon I need to hear again and again and again. So listen in while I talk to myself, all the while hoping that you, too, will hear something useful. Even though we can't control all the circumstances of our lives, and even though we can't and probably would not really want to get rid of the range of human emotion we will experience in our lives, we do have choice in how we respond. One of them is simply to remember that we have choices in our responses. When something happens to us, we can choose to become angry, or to act out in frustration or disappointment - or we can choose to let it pass quietly, to laugh or to show compassion, to ourselves or others.. In order to do this, however, there must be a little space between what we experience and our response. Often, we are moving through life so quickly, and without full attention, when something unpleasant or simply unexpected happens, we are on autopilot and our response is a reaction not a choice, not a response. Just a reaction. And those reactions arise from what we have practiced most often. Let me give you a small example. I am an excellent driver. In the wheelhouse of my life skills set is a really good relationship with space and moving or stationary objects. And I love to drive. I have a broad sense of the road and what others cars and drivers are doing. I trust myself behind the wheel. All of which is nice, but as with most things, there's a shadow side. I am a terrible passenger, especially if I'm sitting in the front. I consider it a mark of my husband's grace and spiritual discipline that I'm still alive, because it's possible I'm the worst back-seat driver in the world. Why? Because I'm wired to respond to my in-car/on-road environment in a particular way, and it's different from the way Rob

3 drives. He's a good driver, just not as good as me. But seriously, when I'm a front seat passenger, my brain is still trying to drive, and unless I distract myself thoroughly, I'm reacting reacting reacting all the time. There's no space, you see, between my brain registering the brake lights of a car three ahead of us and my desire for some response. React, react, react. It happens all the time. Perhaps you join some family member for a holiday, and discover yourself responding to them just as you did when you were a child or when they were a child old tapes are playing somewhere in your head, and instead of responding to the actual moment and present interaction, you respond to those old tapes, old wounds, or react from a place of unmet need. It's only human. There are ways to create space between what happens and our response; ways to slow our reactivity and allow us to really choose how we want to respond. The answer comes down to practice. How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice. Richard Carlson has a practice I'm very fond of. He says, when in conversation with other people, after they have finished speaking and before you begin, take one breath. Just breathe once before answering. This does a few things. It allows you to fully bring your attention to what the other person is saying, instead of half-listening while judging what they are saying and rehearsing what you want to say. It feels a little awkward at first, breathing before speaking. In the beginning, it can feel like a chasm of silence. Really, it isn't. It's a practice that allows you to experience more fully the moment of between. Between an initiating event and how you respond. Between your partner's thought and your own reply. It's a wonderful way to interact with other people, and at the same time, it's more than that it is a practice that will spill over into other areas of your life: a simple way to create space between what is said or experienced, and how you choose to respond. I like to envision it as creating space for a little sunlight between what happens and how I respond. It is, quite simply, the difference between reacting, and responding authentically and with choice to life. There are so many ways to talk and think about how to respond to life. Buddhism, in particular, is a spiritual practice that invites us to live in the present moment, and see beyond the illusion of ego. Meditation is one of the world's most enduring paths to that

4 goal. The term Full Catastrophe Living was coined by Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn, who wrote a book by the same name. He has spent his career studying serious illness, such as heart attack and stroke, and helping people find a way to live full lives of meaning no matter what their experience is or has been hence the the expression. You may also know him as the author of the book on meditation called Wherever You Go, There You Are. That might be the alternate title of this sermon, as well. In that book, Kabat-Zinn talks about meditation as a way of learning to surf. He says, People who come to our clinic quickly learn that stress is an inevitable part of life. While it is true we can learn, by making intelligent choices, not to make things worse for ourselves in certain ways, there are many things in life over which we have little or no control. Stress is part of life, part of being human, intrinsic to the human condition itself. But that does not mean we have to be victims in the face of large forces in our lives. We can learn to work with them, to understand them, find meaning in them, make critical choices, and use their energies to grow in strength, wisdom, and compassion. A willingness to embrace and work with what is lies at the core of all meditation practice....[it is]captured nicely in a poster of a seventy-somethingish yogi, Swami Satchinananda, in full white beard and flowing robes atop a surfboard riding the waves off a Hawaii beach. The caption reads: You can't stop the waves, but you can learn to surf. (pg of Wherever You Go, There You Are) We can learn to surf. A way we might be able to live more fully in the full catastrophe is a deep and abiding self-acceptance. We live in a culture that constantly offers up the message: you are not enough: you are not healthy, beautiful, thin, smart or young enough...your house, car, clothes and anything else you may own is not enough not big enough or new enough or cool enough. Your ideas and opinions will be challenged at every turn. It's a cacophonous assault and a constant barrage. If, as is true for most of us, this outer noise meets an inner dialogue that is equally critical and damning, sometimes it's a wonder any of us can get out of the bed in the morning. One of my favorite writers is Anne Lamott. What I like about her, aside from the beauty of her writing, is that it is painfully honest. A recovering addict and single mother, she fights her personal demons in full view. There are so many stories to choose from, but this one, called Forgiveness, is from her book, Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith.

5 Most of us, if others could see or hear our thoughts, observe our every moment, are at least some of the time, a hot mess. We rush, we fight, we fall down, we say terrible things we regret. It's ok. We're human. It's not an excuse not to try to become better people...just by being here this morning, you are saying, I want to live my life the best way I can, with hope and meaning, and love, and a few friends along the way. But living full lives of meaning means accepting our imperfections even while we work to do a little better every day. Even imperfect, we are worthy of love. Even when we are wearing our fat pants or we can no longer do the things we once did when we were younger, we are worthy and lovable. Even when we have lost our temper again or dropped some ball we had really wanted to juggle, we are worthy and we are lovable. Just by being here and being alive, we have inherent worth and we have dignity. Our Universalist heritage insists that we are good by nature, good down to our core, and that good is the deepest essence of who we are. So you, your whole and full self, with all your flaws and all the wonders and insight you carry within you, you are welcome, worthy, and you are loved. The work of this church, as a community of faith, is to constantly remind one another of the deep truth about ourselves: we are inherently valuable, inherently worthy of being alive, and we are loved and loving. Flawed, imperfect: still worthy. If this can be a message we take in, and live out when we are together, we can change the world we can save lives, offer hope to a world that needs a saving message and experience quite badly at times. What do I hope you will take away from our time together this morning? That it is ok that we are human, perfectly imperfect. That from the knowledge of our full humanness, and the knowledge that others are also fully human, we can practice choosing how to respond to one another and the circumstances of our lives we can't stop the waves, but we can learn to surf. We can remember to slow down and respond to what is actually happening in this moment, rather than reacting to old tapes or trying to escape this moment by replaying old moments or trying to skip ahead to some moment in the future. We can keep in mind that even the Dalai Lama sometimes lets the little things get to him; it happens. All it means is you, stop, make amends where needed, forgive

6 yourself, and try again. John Lennon once famously said, Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans. Another wit added, How do you make God laugh? Tell Her your plans. What we people of faith have learned is that life is richer, deeper, and experienced with more grace when we show up to it, and bring ourselves: the full catastrophe. May, just for today, you find peace in being yourself. Amen.