Sermon given by Rev. Frank Clarkson, November 21, 2021.

“What is this life if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare?” Those lines we just sang were written a hundred years ago by the Welsh poet William Henry Davies. It was about fifty years later, my mother tells me, that my kindergarten teacher said something quite similar. One day she told my mom, “I think it’s sad that children these days don’t have much time to lie in the grass and look at the clouds.” And life hasn’t gotten simpler or slower since then, has it?

I’m not trying to romanticize those days before cable TV, or the internet, or these little computers we carrying around with us. I’m not saying that back then our culture was a contemplative paradise. It wasn’t. We’ve actually changed in some positive ways; we’ve grown and evolved a bit. These days more people have some kind of mindfulness practice. More people have done therapy and other kinds of inner work. We’ve getting more in touch with the wonder and mystery of life, and that’s a good thing.

When you were young, were you ever told, “Make yourself useful!” or “Don’t just sit there, do something!” Meditation teacher Sylvia Boorstein turned that saying around; she wrote a book about mindfulness called Don’t Just Do Something, Sit There.

Our November worship theme is “The Way of Imagination,” but I have to confess that several weeks ago, I had the thought, “I don’t have much heart or energy for imagining right now. I’m tired. I need to rest, to go slow, to be fed.” Anyone else feeling that way? That got my attention, and since then I’ve been trying to slow down. So this is a sermon I myself need to hear. Maybe you need to hear it too.

I love this week of Thanksgiving, this late-fall time when we celebrate the harvest. From  gathering with loved ones to eating pie to raking leaves, it’s a lovely national celebration of hearth and home and the gifts of this good earth. It’s meant to be a simple and spacious celebration, and however you observe Thanksgiving, I hope it will be good for you this year.

And we need to acknowledge, don’t we, that it’s such a privilege to have a home, and enough to eat; that we have much we can often take for granted. We whose ancestors came to this country from somewhere else, we should take seriously the fact that, on Thursday, Indigenous people and their allies will gathering in Plymouth for a National Day of Mourning. They’ve been doing this on Thanksgiving for over fifty years now, and it’s important that we acknowledge that when white people came to this land, our arrival came at a great cost to Native Americans. We need to hold that reality, and let it inspire us to work for more justice.

There is a human cost to our capitalist way of life, which celebrates striving and toiling, and values individual gain over the common good. And many of us have benefitted from the wealth and the goods our system produces. It’s complicated, but we know it comes at a cost—to exploited workers, to our environment, to future generations, who will be left with the mess we’ve created. It makes me sad that the day after Thanksgiving, retail employees have to go to work early because it’s such a huge shopping day.

No wonder so many are longing for a simpler life! We’re inviting you, this month, to open your heart and mind a bit wider, to explore what may seem to be off limits or off the map, to let the dislocation of this time we’re living in fuel some new wonderings and wanderings. Who knows where your imagination might take you?

But it’s hard to enter the way of imagination if you’re like a hamster on one of those little wheels, always running, going nowhere fast! It takes some time and intention to enter that open and spacious place where the imagination will come out and play. It’s sad if we don’t have much time to lie in the grass and look at the clouds, But what’s keeping us from that, from taking time for the care of our souls? And for others, and for our home, this good earth?

Maybe I’m preaching to the choir. You’re here; you seem to know that coming to church, as unproductive as it may seem, is somehow good for you! And many of you have practices that keep you grounded, in touch with your inner life and with the Spirit. But maybe you could use a reminder, and a little encouragement, in these days, to make some space for quiet, for contemplation, for reflection, for imagining.

In a culture and a season that will push us to speed up, there’s another invitation: to slow down. That prayer by Teilhard de Chardin has been showing up unexpectedly in my mind lately. It’s like someone is trying to send me a message!

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new.

And yet it is the law of all progress
that it is made by passing through some stages of instability—
and that it may take a very long time. 

The invitation is to be here, where you are; to be present to what is going on right now. Which is how we invite deeper thoughts and imaginings into our awareness. Those of you who meditate, you know this, don’t you? Teaching the mind to quiet down takes both practice and a letting go; it takes time. But every now and then, something shifts; a new, life-giving awareness comes. It’s like a layer of insulation gets peeled away from your heart, and you feel a deeper connection to all things. And this can make you feel more vulnerable, and more at home in the world. 

There have always been mystics and contemplatives with their countercultural practices. Showing us that there is another way—a deeper life, a more human pace. Reminding us, as Rumi wrote, “there are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.”

Last Sunday I said that I want and need to bring more of a spirit of imagination and adventure to my days. To have less dread, and more wonder. The best way I know to do this is to carve out a more spacious life. To get off the hamster wheel and out under the sky! Where your perspective can’t help but be changed! Like we heard in Christine Robinson’s version of Psalm 123:

I gaze at the starry skies
Drawn to every tiny light.
Drawn to what I know of each one’s unfathomable distance,
astounding size, profound age.
I look to this big picture to help me imagine You.
The intricate patterns bind us.
Have mercy on your tiny servant.
Who watches for you in the watches of the night.

On the four Wednesdays in December, we’ll be offering vespers, a simple service for evening, here at 6 pm. It’s a good way to watch in the night, here in our dark and candlelit sanctuary, with some music, a few words, and plenty of silence. 

The other day one of you was telling me about a meditation retreat you did from home, with a bit of online support. Lately I’ve been imagining a silent retreat day at home. A day with no talking, and no electronics, just being open to the silence that is always there, if we will slow down enough to hear it.  For some of you, this may seem impossible right now. And for others, it may not be attractive at all! But if the idea of silence and more spaciousness moves you, please don’t hesitate to ask for help. There are people here who know about this, and who practice it. Let me know if you want to help making connections, or if you’d like to explore these things.

Back when I was feeling restless in my previous vocation, before I had any idea I’d be heading off to seminary, I started a daily writing practice. And that was a big help. First thing in the morning, I wrote, and this often brought me to a better place. Eventually I came to imagine an unexpected way forward. In those morning pages, I often wrote myself from a place of malaise or feeling lost toward a place of gratitude. Most days the last words I’d wrote were a little prayer of thanks. 

That’s the thing about following the leadings of your heart and soul. They point you toward where you need to go, where you truly want to go. Where you can imagine a more expansive life. Where you are at home with yourself, and in the world; grateful for what is, and for what is yet to be.

If you are longing for a deeper, more meaningful life, take heart. You don’t have to go anywhere. It’s very near you. And it’s not that hard to find it, not really. You just have to slow down, and wait. You just need to practice the radical and life-changing art of listening for that quiet voice within. Being present, being awake, being open—to this moment, to this life.

Amen.