First Parish Unitarian UniversalistFaithfulness and Alongsidedness
Rev. Cricket Potter
First Parish Unitarian Universalist - Canton
February 7, 2010
Reading
Our reading is from My Grandfather’s Blessings by Rachel Naomi Remen. Remen is cofounder and medical director of a Cancer Help Program in northern California, and she has been counseling those with chronic and terminal illness for more than 25 years. She has written numerous books all of which offer stories of hope and healing.
Here is a story about a present her grandfather brought her when she was four years old:
“Once he brought me a little paper cup …. (and) it was full of dirt. (After filling the paper cup with water and putting it on the windowsill, he said…) ‘If you promise to put some water in the cup every day, something may happen.’
And so I promised. At first, curious to see what would happen, I did not mind doing this. But as the days went by and nothing changed, it got harder and harder to remember to put water in the cup. After a week, I asked my grandfather of it was time to stop yet. Shaking his head no, he said, ‘Every day (dear one).’
Remen goes on to describe how the second week was even harder and by the third week, it was a real challenge to keep watering the cup every day. But, she was faithful in her watering, even if it meant getting out of bed at night once she remembered her promise.
“One morning,” she writes, “there were two little green leaves that had not been there the night before. I was completely astonished. Day by day they got bigger. I could not wait to tell my grandfather, certain that he would be as surprised as I was. But of course, he was not. Carefully he explained to me that life is everywhere, hidden in the most ordinary and unlikely places. I was delighted. ‘And all it needs is water, Grandpa?’ I asked him…. ‘No, (dear one),’ he said. ‘All that it needs is your faithfulness.’”
Sermon
George Buttrick, one of the great professors of preaching, was once asked by a young divinity student, “Rev. Buttrick, just how many points should a good sermon have?”
Buttrick gave a wry smile and answered as only he could, “Well, my young friend, I would think at least one.”
Sound advice!
And truly, Buttrick and most other professors who coach and prod us wannabe preachers into writing something meaningful will also say that each preacher really only has one or two messages that they offer, ever.
What we preachers do week after week is share that message in different ways and from different angles.
I am not shy about saying that my message is about the power of community and relationship.
It is about the grace and love, forgiveness and compassion, hope and courage we are called to offer one another as we both fumble with our humanness and lift up all that is our humanity.
And when I say “one another,” I don’t just mean our friends and family.
I include in that our brothers and sisters in the larger world for we are all deeply connected.
This is my message because it is what I know to be true and meaningful in my own life.
We can be powerful sustenance for one another.
So, as we look toward Valentine’s Day with all its renditions of love, I want us to reflect upon one way we can show our love and care.
Let’s call it “alongsidedness.”
Peter Steinke, a long-time church consultant whose books and articles are like scripture to me in the wisdom they impart, uses this word “alongsidedness” to describe the healthy relationship that exists when people are able to develop and share their own individual ideas and perspectives while still remaining very much engaged within a larger group (from his book Healthy Congregations: A Systems Approach).
It’s a way of being together that honors the unique worth and dignity of the people in our lives.
It defines wholeness within a group not as sameness or even seamlessness, but rather as connection and cooperation.
Wholeness is relational - different parts coming together and coming alive.
Think of a group of people walking alongside one another.
There is space between each person and it seems fluid.
In this group, any one person can reach out and touch the people around him or her, but there is no sense of people being hemmed in.
Rather, there is a sense of a shared journey.
A sense that if one person tripped or stumbled, others would be nearby to offer an arm or other support to get them back up and on their journey.
In psychology terms, this is called differentiation.
Differentiation allows me to be me and to honor my own unique experience of the world while also honoring those of others.
It’s a balance between two basic pulls or forces we constantly reckon with in relationships, that of distancing and that of dissolving or enmeshing.
As Steinke describes,
“The distancing threat … is insisting on having one’s way…. People (get) cut off from one another.”
I often experience it as an ultimatum: “Do this, or else I’m leaving.”
Likewise Steinke suggests,
“The dissolving threat is to fuse with one another.”
In this scenario, we can lose individual identities and ideas, feel that we all have to act alike or think alike to get along.
Dissolving derails us from honoring each person’s inherent worth and dignity and denies the unique story they bring to the world.
Being with those we care about – our family and friends and community members – without distancing or dissolving is a huge challenge.
Think of how often we deep down want others to see things our way and do what we think is best.
Of course it’s best!
And then when we don’t get what we want, our first reaction is to get angry or want to walk away.
It takes courage and patience and lots of healthy love to be with these differences and put the extra effort into finding a middle ground together, particularly when it’s someone very close to you.
I know that all too well as a mother and a daughter.
Perhaps Kahlil Gibran says it best in The Prophet when he speaks of how we are to view our children:
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself…..
You may give them your love but not your thoughts.
For they have their own thoughts.
Now, I certainly don’t want to limit this relationship thing to parents and kids only.
We are all the sons and daughter’s of Life’s longing for itself.
We are all called to affirm and uplift the unique goodness of the people in our lives.
Perhaps no one touched more people in his life with this kind of affirming presence than Fred Rogers, fondly known by all his TV viewers as Mr. Rogers of Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood.
To me, Fred Rogers embodied exactly what it is to companion others in a loving and spacious way through their ups and downs.
In the book I’m Proud of You: Life Lessons from My Friend Fred Rogers, Tim Madigan shares this about his dear friend:
“Fred wanted to know the truth of your life, the nature of your insides, and he had room enough in his own spirit to embrace without judgment whatever that truth might be.”
I love that image of having space enough in one’s spirit to embrace someone else’s truth without judgment.
Tim Madigan knew that he could turn to Fred no matter how ashamed he was or how unlovable he felt at times.
He knew that Fred would listen without judging and offer support without sugarcoating the pain in his life.
Once, when Madigan seemed to be experiencing one failure after another in his personal and work life, Fred responded,
“Your wounded heart is a very beautiful heart.”
What I hear from Fred Rogers is a faithfulness to the beauty within each person.
He didn’t need to fix them or smother them.
He only wanted to encourage them on their path.
And taking this idea beyond our immediate circle of friends and loved ones, what does that look like in the larger world?
How do we be faithful and walk alongside those we don’t know and may never meet?
Because we can’t just let our love end at the walls of our homes or the walls of this sanctuary.
We are called by the longing of Life itself to reach out and offer our love for all its sons and daughters.
Truly, we can’t experience wholeness until our neighbor does as well.
I know that you are already doing some of this work as a community — with the Womansplace Crisis Center, Habitat for Humanity, and of course the Canton Food Pantry with our canned food drive this month.
I also believe that we can engage more deeply.
At a recent Open Forum, we began this conversation and agreed that we wanted more time to really hear one another’s ideas so that we can come to a shared goal that we can commit to as a community.
My friends, that is alongsidedness at work and that is being faithful to our place in the larger world.
In this way, we can be part of an effort within our larger Unitarian Universalist movement called Standing on the Side of Love.
We can be active with our love, make it a verb and an ethic, not just a noun.
We can widen the circle of justice and care so that those who are marginalized can begin to experience their worth and dignity.
The reality in our own lives and in everyone’s lives is that we are all glimmers of the divine, and yet we all need help at times in believing that.
We have all failed at times, been put down, let others down, and felt downright broken.
Yet, I know from my own experience that healing and wholeness always await us if we can embrace that essence of who we each are – beloved creations, sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself – and if we can turn to one another for encouragement, forgiveness, and support along the way.
I am reminded of a quote attributed to the early Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria,
“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle.”
I once heard a radio special on NPR that focused on the hard work of real day-to-day love — not the sugary, fair-weather kind.
It included different stories about individuals who stuck by the people and causes in their life sometimes amidst significant challenge.
While I have forgotten the specific stories and names, I will never forget this one comment,
“Love is not for the sentimental or faint of heart.”
My response was, “Amen to that.”
As we approach Valentine’s Day, may we each reflect upon how we can better walk alongside the people in our lives and be faithful to an even broader circle of love.
Let’s show our love as a verb and an ethic.
Let’s be spacious and courageous in our love so that we affirm the spirit that shines uniquely in each one of us.
May it be so.
Amen.