Sermon given by Rev. Frank Clarkson, March 17, 2024.
In these weeks when our worship theme is “Images of the Divine,” some of you have been sharing with me your ideas and images and experiences of this mystery that we do catch glimpses of from time to time. We’ve been having conversations about how we apprehend the presence that some of us call God, and how fleeting these experiences can be, and how hard it can be to talk about them. But that’s why we’re here—to point toward the good and the true, to open ourselves up to these holy mysteries.
And there is something powerful and beautiful about sharing these moments with others. It’s an act of trust, and spiritual intimacy, to talk about our experiences of awe and wonder. Cil Dullea wrote to me about about a hike in Maine, up to a mountaintop with her son, when something unexpected came to pass. She wrote,
“Four golden eagles appeared, encircling the invisible thermals rising, powering their lift. They swung trapeze between their shoulders tilting on unseen strings, serene marionettes dancing rituals of Penobscot God’s, a mountain ballet for a privileged few. Caught-up in their spell we sat transfixed, time unmeasured, having to remember consciously to breathe. I’ve never been more held within awe.”
Carol Adler wrote to share her image of the Divine:
A golden sphere of lightness
Contracting and expanding
Morphing from one shape into another
Floats
just above my head.
It sheds
Its goodness, Its power, Its energy
Upon me.
This is the love of those who are no longer part of our Earth.
Their arms can no longer wrap around me.
Their laughter can no longer bring a smile to my lips
Their gentle fingers can no longer brush my brow.
But all of the love they had and still have for me
is captured
in the glowing sphere of lightness that hovers
just above my head
Shedding its golden light.”
Thank you, Cil and Carol, for sharing your beautiful and poignant images with us.
Did you notice that in each of their descriptions, they are looking up? I think of the first line from Psalm 121: “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.” And of course the holy is all around, as likely to be found in everyday, down to earth places as in mountaintop experiences.
Years ago, back when I worked as a photographer, I took a weeklong workshop with the National Geographic photographer Sam Abell. I admired his work, and sensed that he was a person I’d like to spend some time with—and he was. One day that week, Sam was showing us some of his photographs, which have a balance and beauty and quiet presence about them. One picture particularly struck me. Sam made it when he was on assignment in Alaska, traveling by canoe. One day, the canoe rolled over and most of his cameras ended up in the water, ruined. Dejected by this turn of events, Sam decided to take a walk away from the river. As evening fell, he says, “An owl and I surprised each other. Instead of flying away, the owl flew in slow, silent circles around my head, then disappeared. When it reappeared, it flew on a direct line at my eyes, then abruptly up and over me at close range. I made the picture at this moment.”
The photo has an eerie quality about it. A dark shape, fuzzy at the edges, seems to hover over a bleak landscape. After Sam told us this story, he remarked that a critic had once told him, “It’s a terrible bird photo—the owl isn’t even sharply focused.” As we talked about the image, and the disaster of drowning your cameras, I felt moved to say, “To me it looks like a picture of God.” If you’d like to see it for yourself, there’s a book of Sam’s photographs, with this one flagged, on the round table at coffee hour.
Photograph by Sam Abell
What we’re inviting this month is a deeper conversation about the holy. That presence which is with us all the time, inviting us to notice. As Rev. Gretchen Haley says,
We have already missed too much beauty.
Our minds so mixed up with multi-tasking,
Toggling back and forth
between hope, and fear
worry and wonder.
The sun rises with an insistent light
and the morning breaks
with the promise of the holy
disguised as babies gurgling,
and dogs groaning…
All that this day asks
is that we risk showing up
with our eyes open
that we might bear witness to the whole of life…
One of the things I love about you is that you keep showing up. Wer’e pretty good at this! Those of you who are newer here, think about the first time you came, or the first time you headed over to coffee hour—it can feel risky, right? Some of us sat in a circle on Wednesday night and took the risk of sharing our own experiences of the divine. And it was good. I’m holding that space again this week, after Vespers, at 7 pm, if you’d like to come.
Before Covid, too often I took for granted the ability to show up, how much it means. What a gift and a privilege it is to be able to show up, in body; also in heart and mind and spirit. In person and also via zoom—some of you are coming from a distance, or because it’s too hard to get here in person, and we are so glad you’ve come too!
What is a community like ours but people who commit to showing up for one another? Who undertake the journey of being curious about and attentive to the longings of our souls and the leadings of the Spirit. Who understand that, on the spiritual journey, it’s necessary to have companions, for support and encouragement, people with whom you can share your sorrow, and your joy.
Where can you have these kinds of conversations these days? Where can you connect with people of other generations and backgrounds and theologies? Where can you trust that there are people holding open a space for you to become yourself, without shame or fear? This church invites you to risk showing up, to have faith that who you are and what you bring is welcome and wanted and needed here. To have faith that this is a place where we are all invited to share our gifts, and extend our care, so that together, we do our part to help heal and bless one another, and our world.
This is the time of year when we ask you to make a financial commitment to the church, so we can do the things, some of them behind the scenes, that make it possible to be a healthy and thriving congregation—things like paying our staff, and caring for this beautiful old building, keeping the lights on, and the heat and internet working. I hope you got one of these pledge cards in the mail, and that you will fill it out, like Tracey and I did yesterday, and turn it in today, or soon. Before you do, I hope you will take some time to ponder, “What do I want to give, what am I able to give, that reflects my commitment to, and my gratitude for, this community?” And if we all do this, giving as we can, then it works out beautifully.
We spend your money carefully here, we have skilled and devoted people leading our efforts and managing our finances, and I hope you know that whatever you can give makes a difference, a real difference, in what we are creating, together, in these days. Thank you for your help, and your generosity.
I often find images for the divine in song lyrics, like these from Van Morrison:
Let go into the mystery
Let yourself go
You've got to open up your heart
That's all I know..
And in the hymn we sang earlier:
Age after age we rise, ‘neath the eternal skies,
into the light from the shadowed past:
still shall our pilgrim song, buoyant and brave and strong,
resound while life and mountains last.
This journey of faith requires courage and trust; getting lost sometimes, letting go, trusting that you will be found. And I can testify that in time this journey does bring liberation and connection and joy. That passing through the shadows does make us braver and stronger, and can bring a surprising buoyancy to life, that is the wondrous joy of being alive, awake to the mysterious presence all around, to the truth that each of our days, even with its troubles, is a a gift.
Let’s hear John Ciardi again:
What lifts the heron leaning on the air
I praise without a name. A crouch, a flare,
a long stroke through the cumulus of trees,
a shaped thought at the sky — then gone. O rare!
Saint Francis, being happiest on his knees,
would have cried Father! Cry anything you please
But praise. By any name or none. But praise
the white original burst that lights
the heron on his two soft kissing kites.
When saints praise heaven lit by doves and rays,
I sit by pond scums till the air recites
Its heron back. And doubt all else. But praise.
I love his assertion that doubt and praise are not mutually exclusive. That you can use any name, or none, for that force which lifts the heron; that offers a surprising moment of inspiration, on eagles’ wings: a healing balm in times of trouble; the felt presence of those loved and lost.
We are here to be recipients of this grace, to be like instruments, tuned for praise! Let us be people who yearn to explore these strange new worlds, to boldly go where we have not gone before! And let this be our prayer:
Fill us with a living vision,
heal our wounds that we may be
bound as one beyond division
in the struggle to be free.
Grant us wisdom, grant us courage,
ears to hear and eyes to see, ears to hear and eyes to see.
“God of Grace and God of Glory,” by Felix Adler)
Now and always,
Amen.