First Parish Unitarian UniversalistA Clean Sweep
A sermon preached by the Rev. Deborah Cayer
Minister of Sharon Unitarian Church
At First Parish Unitarian Universalist - Canton, MA
May 30, 2004
One warm day this spring I hauled most of my winter clothes out of my closet and exchanged them for spring and summer things that had been in storage. In the process I weeded out quite a few pieces. I was surprised at the size of this discard pile because I had just taken bags and bags of clothes to the drop-off box this fall. It’s amazing what we accumulate.
It’s that time of year when many of us get the urge to clean up and clear out. Sometimes all the stuff in our lives builds up to unbearable levels and we just can’t fit one more item onto the shelf or into the closet. Even our junk drawers runneth over. It’s time to let some of it go.
Sometimes even the things we truly need pile up and it’s hard to find daily essentials—bills to be paid, library books to be returned, receipts for our expense reports, the list of what to pick up at the hardware store—or even a stamp or pencil! Sometimes it all just merges and becomes part of a huge, disastrous pile on our desk or dining room table. Really, all we want is to be able to find our keys!All we want is a storage place where the hats and mittens won’t fall on our heads when we look for a box of photos. We just want a spot for our umbrellas and boots that’s handy, but that we won’t trip over when we come home. We just want our everyday stuff stored in some efficient way. When it’s way past time to clear out, we need a clean sweep, at least through part of our life.
Even if we don’t live with huge disorganized messes, it’s the way of the world for our possessions to become dusty, dirty, spotted, torn and dull with use. Things fall apart. It’s a law of physics. Our things aren’t alive and can’t care for themselves, so it’s up to us to polish and repair, clean and mend them. And put them away where they belong.
But we do tend to have a lot of stuff. We live in a culture that urges us to buy. Even beautiful things that were once considered rare luxuries are now easily affordable: fresh flowers in winter, silk shirts, colorful tableware, books, foods from non-European cuisines. All this consuming has simply become a way of life for us, as natural as breathing. But if consuming has become like breathing for us, we can’t just inhale or we will die. We have to find ways to exhale, to let go, for our own well being. This is true in the physical world, and also in the spiritual dimension of our lives as well. It’s necessary for us to let go of some of our stuff.
There’s a Zen story about a very learned professor of Asian studies who went to a Japanese monastery in order to learn first hand. The Zen master received the professor in his private room and another monk brought in tea. As soon as he was seated, the professor began to talk and talk about Zen. The master said nothing, but as the professor talked on and on, the master picked up the pot and began pouring tea into the professor’s cup… and he didn’t stop.
After a few moments, the professor noticed what was going on because the tea was soaking the table and floor mat. “Stop, stop, what are you doing?” he cried. The master looked at him calmly and said, “Just as the cup can’t hold more tea when it is already filled, how can I give you anything when your mind is already filled?”It was an invitation for the professor to be quiet, to empty his mind in preparation for receiving something of value.
We too must empty out our minds, clear out our inner chatter, our ideas, our old ways of thinking in order to simply notice what’s constantly coming at us. We must become quiet in order to figure out what is important and what isn’t. We have to sweep out our overfull lives before what is new can, first, be contained, and then, used.
Toinette Lippe once noticed that the word “content” has two meanings. She says, “I find it wonderful that [content] means both “that which is contained” and also “being satisfied”. Both meanings come from the past participle of the Latin verb continere. Contentment is a peaceful and unruffled state, but nowadays it is all too rare.”
There’s a wonderful connection between how we hold and care for our possessions and our peace of mind. I’ve noticed that when I’m in the middle of a creative project, especially if it’s something new that I’m learning about, I haul out a lot of stuff. I open files and pull out books. Or I make big messy piles of fabric and glue and paper, heaps of beads and string and yarn, paints, postcards, things from nature. Everything gets all jumbled up, juxtaposed in new ways I never thought of before. When I look at my office or the kitchen and see a big mess, it’s how I know things are really cooking, and that something wonderful is going to be the result…eventually. I’ve learned to really like making big messes in the process of creativity.
But there are times when chaos is just chaos and it’s not helpful. Are you content with your office system? Does it work for you?What do you do with all of your client files and resource files, correspondence, paper and electronic, and urgent business?When I first began ministry I had no idea how to organize all of this. I love this work and try to do it well, but I was discontent with my organizational systems. It took me a really long time to figure out a filing system that actually works. I notice that as I have become more confident and clearer about ministry, all my office systems are functioning much better. Or maybe it’s the other way around—that the organizing books and workshops I sought out have truly helped me be more organized, and so now with my materials properly contained, I’m more content. Either way, I know that these days it’s much easier to plan and be prepared in part because I can put my hands on the stories, memos, reports, books and files that I need.
Sara Ban Breathnach says, “There is an immediate emotional and psychological payoff to getting our houses in order. We might not be able to control what’s happening externally in our lives but we can learn to look to our own inner resources for a sense of comfort that nurtures and sustains.” There’s a connection between the order in our homes and offices and our sense of being supported in our life.
Many of the world’s religious traditions have had similar concerns with how our daily life supports our inner spiritual life. Many tell us that ordering our lives is an act of prayer or meditation, and is worthy of our careful attention. For instance, order shaped every action and nurtured every aspect of Shaker life. These were people who understood all their work as constant, joyful prayer.
Mother Ann Lee, founder of the religious sect, often said, “There is no dirt in heaven.” Members of the community were expected to keep personal belongings and tools in such perfect order that they could be found absolutely ready on a moments notice. Order in the Shaker community was sacred, and there is beauty in the forms and functions of Shaker boxes and brooms, rakes, hand tools, spinning equipment and kitchen ware. Their buildings are also beautiful, full of well designed, well constructed furniture, as well as cupboards and pegs that make their environments extremely useful, simple, and comfortable.
The medieval Benedictine monasteries also had an ethic of simplicity and hospitality. The day was marked by hours devoted to prayer and work in a particular order. Daily labor for food and for the physical life of the community was done in the morning; copying manuscripts and other work of more lasting effect was done in the afternoon. And shaping it all was a daily round of prayer every three hours.
You can find this attention to the ordering of daily life in Asian religious traditions as well. Edward Espe Brown tells about the “four and nine days” at the Zen center where he once lived, dates with a number four or nine that come at least once a week, when there is a lighter meditation schedule. This allows for communal work, the sweeping, raking and polishing that maintain the common spaces. He notes that everyone participated in the community work, and that there was a saying “The higher you go, the more excrement you are willing to clean up.” It was the head monk’s job to clean the public bathrooms.
And there was also time to work for oneself—to do laundry by hand and clean your room with broom and rag. Brown says, “I cleaned my room religiously during that time…I chanted a mantra that I had made up: ‘Get in the corners. Get in the grooves. Got out the dirt. Get out the blues. Empty the trash. Remove the debris. For a few minutes each week, cleaning my room was the assigned spiritual practice. What a surprise. And what a gift…”
It’s very interesting that in monastic life, the work of daily maintenance is part of the prayer that creates the sacred order. Did you know that the word “routine,” originally meant a course of travel for trading, or religious pilgrimage?Now it’s come to mean ordinary. It also suggests, hopefully I think, that like monastic people, we too might find the sacred in the ordinary if we look for it.
We could begin with paying attention. Toinette Lippe tells of a time that she took a workshop with the Dalai Lama. She listened carefully but didn’t understand anything he said.“ …however, I soon became aware that his actual teaching—at least for me—was going on at another level. I noticed that whatever he did or said, he did with his whole being—whether it was laughing, talking or just resting. Part of him was not doing something else. He was completely concentrated in the moment, and the power of his unsplintered attention was electrifying. Not only was all his attention given to whatever he chose, but mine was also. Since he was not distracted, neither was I. I left the conference in some amazement, never before (or since) having met anyone who appeared able to focus in this way.”
It might be easier to focus in a meditation hall. But how do we focus when we’re carefully analyzing a report and the phone rings, and while we’re talking, a colleague stops by to ask our advice?Or how do we focus when a child cries, the dog has an episode and dinner begins to burn?Lippe says that when she worked in a busy office she learned to turn her attention from one thing and focus fully on the next. She says that we really only work at one thing at a time, even if we think we’re multi-tasking. The discovery that she made for herself was to learn not to bring her concern for what she had just left with her into her next task. Instead she trained herself to focus on what she had chosen to do. Work can be accomplished in small, interrupted increments she says. If you’ve ever been the parent of a baby and preschoolers you know this is the only way some of the work of the world can possibly get finished.
How can our ordinary day, our ordinary work with all its interruptions lead us to what is whole and holy?What might lead us to growth, insight, wisdom, spiritual maturity and peace?
The point of paying attention is to put us in touch with our authentic self, our real self. This is the part of us that connects with the divine. It’s also the part of us that is not so easily persuaded by Madison Avenue so merchants can relieve us of our dollars. If you know who you really are, it’s easier to know what you truly love. If you love the environment, you simply don’t want to buy furniture made from wood from endangered species. If you love your children, you don’t buy things that steal their future, such as gas guzzling cars. You won’t buy them clothing made in sweatshops by other children.
And by paying attention you can also figure out what you need. How many bananas can you eat before the remaining ones go brown and mushy?How many pair of shoes do you really need to take on your vacation?How do you actually use the rooms in your home?Do you need to put on an addition, or could you simply use your existing space in different ways?The authors of The Not So Big House books have pointed out that in most of our homes formal dining rooms get used a couple times a year, but we often have no place at our main entrance to drop off our mail, keys and park our muddy shoes. A few simple rearrangements can make our modern houses work much better for us. And we don’t always have to take on a second mortgage to fund this improvement.
One morning earlier this spring I spent a delightful quarter hour watching sparrows building nests in a thick bush right outside my door. The small birds would flit from roof to stair railing and pause before entering the shrub. They sat there looking around for predators, trailing long strands of dry brown grass five or six times their own length. I noticed that later in the day, when the birds had enough of a nest, they had stopped building. They had gone on to other things in their life.
What about us?Do we know when we have enough of a house, enough clothes, enough time logged into our work?Do we know when to stop and simply get on with other aspects of our life?
Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Every spirit builds itself a house, and beyond its house a world, and beyond its world a heaven. Know then what world exists for you.” I believe that if we pay attention, we will know how much of a house our spirit needs. If we pay attention, we will know that most of the time, our spirit loves and thrives within a world that is orderly, and that when we live our lives in order, we are living in harmony with the divine, and we are in a kind of heaven already. We can enter into it fully alive, right now, today.
The Buddha said, “Wherever you live is your temple if you treat it like one.” Our attention, our contemplation, our prayer can become our temple in time, right in our own homes. If we become quiet and pay attention, we will know exactly how much our lives can hold. And perhaps we will find that when make a clean sweep of what is more than simply enough, more than what our lives can hold, we ourselves will become content, and our lives may even be—for a few moments each day—heavenly.