Sermon given by Rev. Frank Clarkson, July 11, 2021
There’s a passage from the novel Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson, that I’ve shared with you before. It evokes in me the same feeling that I got the other day, listening to the music we just heard for our offertory. The speaker in this novel is an aging pastor, looking back and reflecting on his life and ministry, and I love how he describes the blessing and peace of an ordinary Sunday in church; he says,
Sometimes I have loved the peacefulness of an ordinary Sunday.
It is like standing in a newly planted garden after a warm rain.
You can feel the silent and invisible life.
All it needs from you
is that you take care not to trample on it.
Who among us isn’t hungry, these days, for a taste of the silent and invisible life? Or is it just me? I don’t think it is. We live in an often noisy, busy, rough and tumble world. Some moments of peace would be nice, yes? In the depths of your being, isn’t there a quiet voice longing for at least a bit of that?
The good news, and it is good news, is that if you’re hungry for the quiet and mysterious life, it is very near you. It is right here. You just have to look for it, and quiet down a bit, maybe wait a bit, and keep your eyes and ears and heart open.
Are there places that make you feel particularly good, or glad, when you are in them? Do you have a favorite chair, or a spot in your back yard, if you have a back yard? Maybe it’s when you’re in the company of a beloved pet, or by the ocean, or out under the sky or beneath the shade of a big tree. You know that feeling, don’t you, of being at peace, at home in your self and in the world?
Who among us wouldn’t like more of that? My question is, what are you doing about it? Too often, it seems, I happen upon these moments accidentally. And there’s nothing wrong with that. But it’s also possible to put yourself in the way of peace, and grace. By becoming more aware of those places and experiences that you love, that are good for you, and seeking them out.
Many of us assume that these are like so-called “mountaintop experiences,” and that you have to go off somewhere special, somewhere far away, to have them. But that’s not my experience. No, I think part of their magic is that they are often hiding in plain sight, very close to home.
Since I was a boy, I’ve loved basements and workshops, and tool sheds. I like being around these useful things, that are beautiful in their simplicity and their functionality. When I knew I’d be bringing you church from here in Seattle today, this space, our son Will’s garage and workshop, seemed like the right place. Some years ago, I had a winter Sunday off from church, and I went down into our basement, where I had some furniture refinishing project going. I put on some hymns to sing along with, and I very happily spent several hours down there. I sent a picture of that setting to my kids, with the caption, “Worshipping this Sunday in the basement.”
If you were going to lead a worship service, from anywhere, where would that place be? What place would you invite us to? And why? What is it, about that place, that speaks to your heart? And are you spending enough time there?
Since sometime last fall, a small group of us have been gathering on Zoom, Wednesday mornings at 8 am, for what we call “Writing as Spiritual Practice.” That’s the name I gave it when we started, but this group was really was my wife Tracey’s idea. Eight or ten of us gather to write in our journals. One of us starts the gathering with a few words, an invocation of sorts. And then we write in silence, for 30 to 40 minutes, with some quiet music playing in the background.
On recent day there was the most beautiful birdsong coming through the window of one of the folks at our gathering, and it came through Zoom into each our our computers, and fell upon our ears. That lilting birdsong felt like such a welcome and unexpected blessing. It brought me the kind of peace that I’m thinking about today.
It brought me into a place of peace and gratitude that felt like what, at its best, prayer or meditation brings us to. And so I want to try and offer that to you, in this moment. Will you let yourself be grounded, and still, if you aren’t already? Will you take some moments to just be, and breathe, while I offer you this little meditation on peace in this ordinary and present moment?
Source of all, thank you for your ongoing invitation to rest in your presence, to just be here, in your beautiful order, where everything has its place. Thank you for your invitation to us, to settle down, and settle in, and be here, in this moment. To see it and cherish it and love it, while it is here. To be present, just present; awake to the wonder of it all.
O Great Spirit, take my heart, which is your heart also, talk all our hearts and help us, to feel more deeply the divine connection that is right here. Among us, between us, between all beings.
It is a vulnerable place to be, in this openness, this open-heartedness. And it is also a solid and secure place—to rest, to just be, with nothing to do and no where to go. Right here, where we have enough. Where we are enough. Just as we are.
Source of all, we give thanks for the gift of this moment, and these companions, and for your spirit, with us, now and always.
. . .
Before we end, I’m going to read you a couple of lines from Marie Howe’s poem again. I was in my car, a few years ago, when I heard her voice and her poetry for the first time. The interviewer mentioned the title of her collection of poems, The Kingdom of Ordinary Time, and she had me right there, at the title. Because we live in a time where people want to make a big deal out of things, and make them complicated. For something to be good it has to be extreme and extraordinary, hard to get to and hard to find. But isn’t some of what’s best in life found in the ordinary? In the simple, unadorned, almost unnoticed aspects of daily life? Those things and moments you just have to slow down for, and open your eyes up to, in order to apprehend?
It can seem to be like a paradox or a secret, that if your life feels empty and lacking meaning, the inclination might be to begin a hurried search, to head out there, on a big and heroic journey. At least today, I’d encourage you not to do that! But rather, to slow down, to be still, to wait and watch and pay attention. “I don’t know exactly what a prayer is,” Mary Oliver wrote, “I do know how to pay attention.”
In my experience, when you do this, when you breathe into this very ordinary moment in your very ordinary life, you will start to get glimpses and gifts—bits of awe and wonder and meaning that come upon you, like unexpected birdsong through an open window.
These moments of peace may come slowly and sporadically, in bits and pieces, but as you learn to abide in the mystery and the grace of this life, as you learn to rest in that source of all, then you do find that you have arrived at a place of peace and wholeness. You don’t have to go anywhere else. You are Here.
Let’s listen once more several lines from Marie Howe’s poem, “The Gate”:
I had no idea that the gate I would step through
to finally enter this world
would be the space my brother's body made…
This is what you have been waiting for, he used to say to me.
And I'd say, What?
And he'd say, This—holding up my cheese and mustard sandwich.
And I'd say, What?
And he'd say, This, sort of looking around.
May we be people who say, “Thanks be for this. For all of this.”
Amen.