Staying True to Our Intentions Rev. Susan Frederick-Gray March 22, 2015

Transcription

1 Staying True to Our Intentions Rev. Susan Frederick-Gray March 22, 2015 Reading Our reading this morning is from Belgian born, American poet, May Sarton. It is a poem that speaks to the path of becoming our true selves. It is called Now I Become Myself. Worn other people's faces, Run madly, as if Time were there, Terribly old, crying a warning, "Hurry, you will be dead before--" (What? Before you reach the morning? Or the end of the poem is clear? Or love safe in the walled city?) Now to stand still, to be here, Feel my own weight and density! The black shadow on the paper Is my hand; the shadow of a word As thought shapes the shaper Falls heavy on the page, is heard. All fuses now, falls into place From wish to action, word to silence, My work, my love, my time, my face Gathered into one intense Gesture of growing like a plant. As slowly as the ripening fruit Fertile, detached, and always spent, Falls but does not exhaust the root, So all the poem is, can give, Grows in me to become the song, Made so and rooted by love. Now there is time and Time is young. O, in this single hour I live All of myself and do not move. I, the pursued, who madly ran, Stand still, stand still, and stop the sun! Staying true to our intentions S Frederick-Gray March 22,

2 Sermon All this month, we have been exploring what it means to live a life of intention - to live with mindfulness about who we wish to be, the values we wish to embody in our lives. Last week, Susan Goldsmith talked about intention being not about the things we wish to do, but who we wish to be - and invited us all to take time over the next couple of weeks to try, in addition to making our to do lists, to sit down and really think about a to be list naming the qualities of being that we wish to embody in our lives. Like the wallet card, or other things we carry or hold on to, this to be list can be a reminder, a helpful aid to us in staying true to our intentions. Today, let s take our conversation about living with intention a step further and ask ourselves the very real question of what do we do when we fall short of our intentions. After all, we will. Both individually and collectively, despite our best aspirations we will fall short, we will let ourselves down, hurt each other, break bonds of love and respect and trust. There are many ways that we fall short of our highest aspirations to love, to create the beloved community, to live in such away that we build one another up, rather than tear one another down. So what do we do when we realize we ve fallen short? How do we get back to our intentions? The number one tool for getting back on track is forgiveness and making amends. In October, we spent a whole month reflecting on forgiveness. Forgiveness isn t easy. Truly making amends, owning responsibility for how we have hurt others, or hurt ourselves takes honesty and humility. And actually forgiving, well that s a whole other story. My spiritual director says that we cannot actually forgive, that forgiveness is grace - it is a gift from beyond ourselves. All we can do is be willing to forgive. We can make ourselves ready to forgive, the rest happens as a gift. But getting to the place where we are willing to forgive, that alone can be work enough. Now, when I speak of forgiveness, I do not mean some casual, oh, forget about it, or gosh I am sorry you are hurting. What we really need is a more robust way to practice making amends and to offer and receive forgiveness. In October, when during our exploration of forgiveness, we looked at a model of what is called the better apology. The better apology incorporates honesty, responsibility and reconciliation into the process of forgiveness. So, I think a lot of us are aware that I am sorry you were hurt by what I said, is not a real apology; it s trying to let go without finding understanding and making amends. An apology involves taking responsibility for some hurt that one caused, even if unintended. A better apology looks like I did this. It hurt you. I take responsibility for that. I am sorry I hurt you. Here is what I will try to do differently in the future. Will you forgive me? This allows us to move to reconciliation because it means we take responsibility and shows understanding of each other so critical for relationships. It also offers a commitment to try to do something differently. How many times do we repeat the same mistakes, whether it is selling ourselves short, or not considering someone else? In response, we can beat ourselves up, feeling shame or guilt, or perhaps not putting much stock in it at all. And when this happens, we often find ourselves right back on the destructive road. Staying true to our intentions, means really finding understanding behind our actions, why are we hurting ourselves, why do we think we are Staying true to our intentions S Frederick-Gray March 22,

3 not worth more, why are we hurting those around us, and then owning our understanding and making commitments to do something different. We will lose our way. We will forget what is most important. We will act less well than we hope to act, speak less lovingly than we would like, because we are human. It s good to know you are not alone. I am not alone in this. And to remember that we all need forgiveness to return to what is important. Without forgiveness, we would lose hope. The contemporary Buddhist teacher and writer Pema Chodron teaches, The most fundamental aggression to ourselves, the most fundamental harm we can do to ourselves, is to remain ignorant by not having the courage and the respect to look at ourselves honestly and gently. Honestly and gently, they go together. Honestly is the clarity part, the piece that doesn t allow us to delude ourselves, nor hide behind the ego, finding blame only in others, but the courage to really see ourselves clearly. Gently is the compassionate and forgiving part. The capacity to offer and receive kindness and forgiveness and move back to what in us is true. But more than forgiveness, I d like to offer another way of thinking about staying true to our intentions, and this path has more to do with bringing who we are into alignment with who we hope to be. It is really about discovering and living our authentic selves. Listen to these words again of the poet May Sarton: Worn other people's faces... All this month, we ve looked at intention as the values we hope to live by, the people we most want to be. But what if there is a prior question to all of this, and that question is Who am I? Who am I really? I don t want to get too existential here. My point is that we can be really good at telling ourselves who we think we should or ought to be. We learn these skills early, after all. One of the key things our parents do for us is set rules and guidelines for how we need to be and what we need to do. Even religion does this - even our own liberal religion. We can be quite good at ingraining within our children and adults a sense of this is who you need to be - this is who you ought to be. This is the value that is most important. I know I am great at saying this. For me these fundamental values are love, compassion and an abiding sense of gratitude for all that is life. But I speak from my experience, my truth. The deeper truth is that the best way for any of us to stay true to who we are is to move beyond living the lives we think we should, to living the life that reflects, and allows us to grow as we are and ripen and give forth fruit naturally, without hurting the root, as Sarton describes. From wish to action, word to silence, My work, my love, my time, my face Staying true to our intentions S Frederick-Gray March 22,

4 Gathered into one intense Gesture of growing like a plant I love it! How many of us resonate with the experience of having worn other people s faces, tried on different roles, or the idea that it has taken time to become ourselves. Getting to our authentic selves begins by stopping the running, the race against time to achieve the most, to be the best, to save the world. Who or what are we running from? Life it here - all we need is here. We drive ourselves mad, I think, with our running. And maybe we cannot escape it fully - it dominates the norms of our culture. So find a radical space to be - to be you - to welcome you and life and being. Let that hour - that one hour sit, and be still, and stop the sun, if you will, as Sarton describes, and grow and become in its light - unhurried, unafraid, simple, merely being. Oh, may it be so. I myself am still in this journey - maybe others of you are too, a journey of letting go of the pieces of ourselves that we feel we need to be, and learning to listen to our life in order to understand who we truly are. In his book Let Your Life Speak by Parker Palmer, (we looked at this book a few weeks), Palmer shares a Hasidic story that highlights this tension between being ourselves and being who we think we are supposed to be. Rabbi Zusya shared this wisdom in his old age. He said, in the world to come, they will not ask me, Why were you not Moses? instead they will ask, Why were you not Zusya. Palmer goes on to say, It is a strange gift, this birthright gift of self. Accepting it turns out to be even more demanding than attempting to become someone else! In the children in our lives we see that each child is unique. From the start, we each arrive with different gifts, different ways of being in the world. And then we spend the next 20 years, in some ways, trying to mold that gift into some box. Some of this is good, we try on different faces, try out different things, experiment, test what we ve been told. But sometimes, we come to listen more closely to the voices outside ourselves who tell us, or told us long ago, who we needed to be - sometimes we listen to comply, sometime in opposition, but never really listening for what inner wisdom lives within us. As we get older, we have an opportunity to listen again to our own lives. To ask not who must I be, or what must I value most, but honestly, what do I value most? Asking ourselves, who am I? honestly and gently, and then giving ourselves the freedom to be that person. Worn other people's faces, Run madly, as if Time were there, Terribly old, crying a warning, "Hurry, you will be dead before--" (What? Before you reach the morning? Or the end of the poem is clear? Staying true to our intentions S Frederick-Gray March 22,

5 Or love safe in the walled city?) Now to stand still, to be here, Feel my own weight and density! [I become myself] There are key tools we can carry with us to help us stay true to our intentions. One of those is articulating our intentions - writing out that to be list and keeping it with us or putting it where we see it every day. Carrying that wallet card of values you believe and want to embody - whatever it may be for you. These are tools, to be reminded, and be mindful of our deepest values and sense of self. Another tool is the ability to make amends to others and ourselves, so that we can make room for forgiveness, and be both honest and gentle with ourselves when we fall off our path, so we can start again anew, without the guilt and shame of the past - letting it go. A good rule from 12-step programs is to take it one day at a time. Live your commitment, your intention today, in this moment, this hour, this day, let tomorrow come tomorrow. And finally, and maybe most importantly, is making sure that your intentions really are a reflection of who you are, not who you think you are, not who you think you need to be, but honestly and gently and fully yourself. Discover your authentic self - and be it. Give yourself the permission, the freedom, to look at your life, to see yourself clearly, and hear in your story, who you are - and understand that simply being you, the gift you are, rather than seeking to be somebody else, or match someone else s measuring stick, is the final step in staying true to your intentions. As Parker Palmer writes Our deepest calling is to grow into our own authentic selfhood, whether or not it conforms to some image of who we ought to be. As we do so, we will not only find the joy that every human being seeks - we will also find our path of authentic [being] and service in the world. Staying true to our intentions S Frederick-Gray March 22,