Sermon given by Rev. Frank Clarkson, March 5, 2023.

Have you had the experience of the right thing showing up at just the right time? Like when you’re feeling lonely, needing someone to talk to, and a friend drops by or calls you on the phone? Or you’re needing some inspiration or wisdom, and the right thing appears? I experience this with books—one I’ve been meaning to read for years catches my eye, jumps off the shelf at me, and when I start reading, it feels like it’s come to me at just the right time.

This happened right at the start of my sabbatical. Which I am so grateful for, by the way. It was easy to step away for a month because of our wonderful staff and leaders here, and it sounds like you all thrived while I was gone, which doesn’t surprise me. Thank you for this gift, which came a a good time. And I’m glad and grateful to be back with you!

So I was saying, in the first day or two of this sabbatical a book caught my eye. Church member Marleen Chin gave it to me a couple of years ago, and it’s been sitting in a stack of books I’ve been meaning to read. And the title grabbed me: The Art of Stillness. That’s what I was longing for on sabbatical—time to be still, to quiet my mind. The subtitle grabbed me even more: Adventures in Going Nowhere. So this little book by Pico Iyer was the first thing I read on my sabbatical, and it shaped how I lived this past month.

If there was a theme for my sabbatical, it was this: adventures in going nowhere! I had no desire to go off on a big trip. My soul longed to be close to home, to be quiet and still, to let my adventuring be a walk around the neighborhood, a trip to the compost bin, or to fill the bird feeder, or shovel some snow. 

Our worship theme for this month is “The Journey.” And maybe you, like me, tend to think of the journey as a going out: a pilgrimage to an unknown place, a trip to a foreign land, or, perhaps, a journey back to a home from long ago. We tend to think of the journey as a big and heroic undertaking, right? Venturing out toward some faraway place that’s calling us. I have loved those kinds of journeys, and am grateful for chances to take them.

There are other kinds of journeys too, like getting married, or taking up a vocation, or joining a church. It was certainly the start of a journey when, fifteen years ago, you called me to be your new minister. It has been a blessed journey for me, this pilgrimage we have been on together. When I think about you and this place, a book title, by Maya Angelou, comes to mind: Wouldn’t Take Nothing for My Journey Now. That’s how I feel about you, and this place, and this way we are traveling together. 

A couple of years ago I started to see going through these pandemic years as a kind of pilgrimage, and I still wonder about holding open a space where we can share our pandemic stories with one another. Maybe this spring, when we seem to have finally come to a more settled place, could be a good time for that?

There are so many ways we can explore our theme of “The Journey” this month. Who knows where we might go? Today, I want to invite you to join me on this journey of looking within. And these last weeks of winter, when we know that spring is coming, but it’s not here yet, this is a good time to try staying put and sitting still, exploring what Pico Iyer calls “adventures in going nowhere.”

For some years now, I’ve had a daily practice of sitting in silence. First thing in the morning, I sit still and try to quiet my mind. I say silent prayers for those I love and those who are sick or suffering; I give thanks for my many blessings. And in time the words fall away, my mind quiets down, and we and enter a deeper, silent space. And sometimes we do get to the place that Psalm 46 describes, and that the choir sang about: “Be still and know that I am God.”

This practice has helped me, especially over the past few years, to stay relatively calm through some tumultuous times, to be grounded in a world that can seem determined to pull us off center. And these days, I find myself wanting and needing to go deeper. To be more in touch with the parts of my self that I’ve neglected, and pushed into the shadows. To journey deeper in here.

It’s interesting that Pico Iyer, who’s known best for his travel writing, wrote this book about going nowhere. He understands that making time for stillness is especially needed in our high-speed world, where there are so many voices calling out for our attention. He writes, “It’s as if almost all of us now feel like emergency-room physicians, perpetually on call and obliged to heal ourselves but unable to find our prescriptions amid all the data on our desk.”

And what’s needed is right here. Like the choir sang:

Be still and know that I am God; let peace embrace your heart,
Be still and know that I am God; let fear and anguish now depart.
Though the earthquakes rage; though the tempests roll, 
though the storms conspire to destroy,
Be still and know that I am God; the earth shall rise again in joy.

I was listening to a recording of this anthem in the car a couple of days ago, and it touched me deeply; all of a sudden it helped me realize that I need to deepen my understanding of the Holy, to see God less as judge and critic, and more like a loving parent and caring friend. To more deeply accept what our Universalist faith has long proclaimed, that the nature of God is love, like a friend who wants us to be happy and free. I’ll put a link to this anthem by Karen Marrolli with the sermon on our website, so you can listen to it if you like.

There are, of course, a number of ways to be still, and you have to find the ways that work for you. You could  check our our Tuesday mindful meditation group, or our Wednesday morning online writing group; and if you’d like talk about this, please let me know—we could have a quiet conversation. I’d welcome that.

Our own wonderful Clare Fortune-Lad will be featured in a story in next Sunday’s Boston Globe about her practice of taking a weekly technology sabbath day. Every week Clare takes the radical and courageous act of turning off her devices for a day! She reminds us that there are many ways to be still; that it’s not that hard, once you decide to do it, to go nowhere!

But you may ask, “How can I justify sitting still when there is so much to do, when it seems that our world is on fire?” One answer, that I know from experience, is that when we are stressed and overwrought we aren’t much help to others. There is a kind of self-importance in proclaiming, “I’m so busy!” But does our anxious world need any more stressed and hurried people? No.

Pico Iyer writes, “Going nowhere… isn’t about turning your back on the world; it’s about stepping away now and then so that you can see the world more clearly and love it more deeply.”

“It takes courage,” he says, “to step out of the fray, as it takes courage to do anything that’s necessary, whether tending to a loved one on her deathbed or turning away from that sugarcoated doughnut. And with billions of our global neighbors in crying need, with so much in every life that has to be done, it can sound selfish to take a break or go off to a quiet place. But as soon as you do sit still, you find that it actually brings you closer to others, in both understanding and sympathy. As the meditative video artist Bill Viola notes, it’s the (one) who steps away from the world whose sleeve is wet with tears for it.”

This is something mystics and sages have known since the beginning of time, but that we in our mechanized and modern world tend to forget. That the antidote to too much activity is doing nothing for a change. That going nowhere could be the richest adventure we ever take. 

In this time of so much noise, the invitation is to be still and know that there is a presence that holds us, with love and care. That even with all its trouble, we are part of a good and holy world, that life is a gift and a blessing. That all around us there is an amazing grace, just waiting for us to be still, and notice; to know its presence, and receive its blessing.

Amen.