Sermon given by Rev. Frank Clarkson, September 22, 2024.

Our worship theme for this month is “Seasons,” and it’s timely, isn’t it? Sometimes planning actually pays off! We’d been in this long stretch of warm and dry weather, and then, something shifted. It was on Thursday, which dawned looking like another warm and sunny summer day—it was still summer, until this morning at 8:43 am—but on Thursday, in the afternoon, the wind shifted to the east, and started blowing harder (I know this because I was out fishing), and that chilly east wind blew in clouds and drizzle and what had started to seem like an endless summer flew away, like the birds you see overhead these days, flying south.

I’m not here to give you a weather report. But aren’t the seasons an apt symbol for our lives? Isn’t this how it goes? Life is going along, day after day, you start to get into a rhythm, you may even feel comfortable, you think, “I’ve got this,” then, all of a sudden, something changes; things are different. Parenting is like this. You finally figure it out, and then they change. But it happens to everyone. You meet someone, and your heart goes all aflutter. You or someone you love gets a scary diagnosis. Your baby grows up and moves away.  

Often, it seems, these changes don’t give us much warning. You’re going along, living your life, minding your own business, and all of a sudden, something happens, out of the blue, that knocks you off balance. It may be a happy change; it may be an unwelcome one. Like it or not, here’s the truth: change happens. 

There’s an expression from science that comes to mind, it’s a theory actually, called “punctuated equilibrium.” I learned this years ago because it was the name of a particular pizza that we loved. Black olives, red peppers, goat cheese, red onions, cheese and herbs, in case you’re wondering. But punctuated equilibrium the theory says that species undergo long periods of stability, staying pretty much the same, followed by short periods of rapid change. Isn’t this what our lives are like, mostly? Periods of equilibrium, stasis and stability, interrupted and punctuated by change and upheaval.

I wonder if you’re feeling any of that that right now. Aren’t we in this congregation feeling kind of punctuated these days? Two beloved elders church have died in recent weeks, our dear choir director Lisa moved to Atlanta to be with her financé, and I’m retiring in June. It’s a lot of change, isn’t it? A lot of loss, I know.

There’s a poem I remember at this time of year, these lines:

“You know what happens. The days shorten,
the nights grow colder, the summer ends. (“The Summer Place,” Robley Wilson Jr.)

All of a sudden, something changes. Or someone you love is gone. Then what do you do? I hope you have people who will gather around you. We each have our particular ways of coping, of adapting (or not), of making meaning. Anne Morrow Lindbergh, in her book Gift from the Sea, reflected on this; our tendency to resist the shadow side of change, the part that involves loss:

“We have so little faith in the ebb and flow of life… We leap at the flow of the tide and resist in terror its ebb. We are afraid it will never return. We insist on permanency, on duration, on continuity; when the only continuity possible, in life as in love, is in growth, in fluidity - in freedom, in the sense that the dancers are free, barely touching as they pass, but partners in the same pattern. The only real security is not in owning or possessing, not in demanding or expecting, not in hoping, even. Security in a relationship lies neither in looking back to what was in nostalgia, nor forward to what it might be in dread or anticipation, but living in the present relationship and accepting it as it is now. Relationships must be like islands, one must accept them for what they are here and now, within their limits--islands, surrounded and interrupted by the sea, and continually visited and abandoned by the tides.”

Isn’t this the invitation of every season, and of life itself? To be present to what is; whether we see it as good or bad, whether it brings gladness or sadness. It’s obvious that this present moment is the only one we have, so why do we spend so much of our time living in the past or waiting for the future? The invitation is to live, as much as we can, in this moment. And whether it is a joyful one or a painful one, to be open to it, and the possibility it holds. This is the way to be more alive, by being open to and engaged in this present moment, whatever it may hold. 

Virginia Woolf wrote about this in her journal. She said, “If one does not lie back & sum up & say to the moment, this very moment, stay you are so fair, what will be one’s gain, dying? No: stay, this moment. No one ever says that enough.”

It’s one thing to say “Stay, this moment, you are so fair,” when it is a beautiful moment. You want to take a picture of it so you can remember it. Maybe post it on Instagram. But how often to we say “Stay, this moment,” when our heart is hurting or we are racked by loss? How many of us take a picture so we can remember those hard times? But here’s the invitation: to be present to the hard and lonely and sad moments too. This is what life demands of us, and it is in these times when we are likely to hear the assurance of the Spirit, which whispers, “I am with you. And I will never leave you to face your perils alone.” (Thomas Merton). 

When you can look into the shadows, when you even try to do this, you’re making progress on the way of your soul’s journey; you’ve moved beyond the intro level, and heading into the depths.

Dag Hammarskjöld knew something about this; about trying to live faithfully and courageously in the modern world. He thought about, and practiced, living an active life of service in the world, while at the same time living, “in harmony with himself as a member of the community of spirit.” He modeled himself on mystics who practiced self-surrender and cultivated the inner life so he’d have the strength to answer the call of duty in the world. This, I believe, is what he meant by humility: being aware that you are part of something larger than your self; that the world doesn’t revolve around your wants and needs, that getting outside of one’s own ego opens up a more expansive world and way of being. It’s a message you don’t hear much these days, and it’s needed. 

“To have humility is to experience reality, not in relation to ourselves, but in its sacred independence. It is to see, judge, and act from the point of rest in ourselves. Then, how much disappears, and all that remains falls into place.”

Do you know what he’s talking about? It’s about being present to what is, in this very moment. It’s looking at things as they are. It’s being centered, grounded in your own being-ness, and then able to look around and see what matters.

“In the point of rest at the center of our being, we encounter a world where all things are at rest in the same way. Then a tree becomes a mystery, a cloud a revelation, each person a cosmos of whose riches we can only catch glimpses. The life of simplicity is simple, but it opens to us a book in which we never get beyond the first syllable.”

This is the promise of the spiritual life, the examined life, the well-lived life—whatever you want to call it. It is a life of service, of commitment, of care; and it is rooted and grounded in being here, while you are here. Being here, now, in this particular moment, this holy moment in ordinary time.

I hope and trust that coming here reminds you of this still center, this point of rest; and encourages you to find and make space for this kind of presence in your daily life. Because this is what we need, isn’t it?; and it’s what our world needs these days, people who know how to be present to this moment and to each other. That is how we help and heal ourselves, one another, and our world. 

To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven. A time to be born, and a time to die. A time to hold on, and a time to let go. It’s a lot, I know, this being present to what is. And it’s what life asks of us, and requires of us. It’s what we are here for. It’s what we are meant for, and made for. 

We clasp the hands of those that go before us,
And the hands of those who come after us.
We enter the little circle of each other’s arms
And the larger circle… of all creatures,
Passing in and out of life
Who move also in a dance,
To a music so subtle and vast that no ear hears it
Except in fragments.

In this world without end,

Amen