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Living on the Cutting Edge |
Years ago, while I was walking innocently on a downtown street in an East Coast city, an earnest and friendly man said in a happy voice, “I hope you are having a good day.” Then he handed me a piece of paper. I was in a hurry so I didn’t look at it right away. Later, when I did, I got a mild shock. What he had handed me was a small pamphlet headlined; “The Day of the Lord is Upon Us Now!” The writer, apparently a preacher of self-appointed fundamentalist origin, recounted the fortuitous events, which led three strangers to his home one night, and he described a vision one of them had early the next morning. The vision “prophesied” that The Wrath of God, the Day of the Lord, is here now!” It also prophesied that God’s judgment is coming upon the earth because of “the vileness, the wickedness, the sinfulness of humanity.” The vision added: “Others this particular morning …will know that this is the hour.” Then the writer listed three other persons in different parts of the world who reported having the same vision on the same day. What surprised me was not the vision in the handbill; I had heard someone proclaiming the same kind of message since I was a child surrounded by self-appointed prophets of Fundamentalism. What surprised me was the warm and happy way in which the man conveyed this threat. He wasn’t grim or preachy or condemning in any way. Instead, here was a man passing out tickets to Armageddon and doing it in the best of humor. This man apparently had found a reason to exist, a reason to be! His was a kind of short-term expectation, but it was a reason, nonetheless. He was dealing with something meaningful to him and, to him, important enough to go out into the world to share his purpose and meaning with others. I tell you about this happy doomsayer because he is a somewhat perverse model of something that I suppose everybody wants. Most of us would like to be so caught up in living that we exude such feelings of rightness and joy as we go about our daily activities. We want to be where life is really lived, where life expresses the best of the human qualities we have. Most of us want to be right on the “cutting edge” where we come in direct contact with being alive and full. I doubt that even the most confirmed cynic or misanthrope would deny that, in his or her heart, there is a deep yearning that life proceed directly and well and that the self be fulfilled. Furthermore, but here the cynic and misanthrope may leave us, most of us believe that directness, wellness, and fulfillment are possible. We not only want, but also believe we can have rightness, genuiness, and joy. Religions historically have promised this in some form at some stage of temporal or eternal existence. Especially in our liberal religious tradition do these characteristics seem desirable and possible. Thoreau, as in this morning’s opening words, is only one voice among thousands of others that assures us that we can elevate our life by our own conscious endeavor to be more truly what we are. We have this grand ideal. It draws us toward it as nectar draws the bee. But this ideal is tricky to attain. We are too likely to settle for less than it really takes, which is what I think the “happy doomsayer” did. I suspect he was happy because he was sure that he would make out all right on that final day. His peace of mind was at the expense of the projected eternal suffering of others. Some of us, however, cannot be satisfied with that kind of equation. Individual salvation without generally available salvation seems to be no salvation at all. Rather, it is just another form of alienation from life. But, in our frenetic, chaotic world such answers seem to be the ones most often sought. The message we hear the most is: “Follow this way and avoid the inevitable dismal fate of the majority of humankind. Save yourself!” We hear it from Fundamentalists; we even hear it in the self-centered theologies of many mainline churches. To some extent we hear it in our own Unitarian Universalist emphasis on personal autonomy – especially where personal autonomy does not acknowledge the larger collective responsibilities of individuals. We even hear it in our context in a more minor form when one person thinks his or her agenda is the only one the group should pursue. However, existence is not put together in such neatly separate packages that the individual can truly be fulfilled if others are not. And yet our hunger for a meaningful life of our own is so strong that we will pursue our ways separately and selfishly even though we sense from the outset that those ways promise a cruel outcome for others. This is to say that pursuit of personal salvation for ourselves alone (here, in our liberal context we can read: self-fulfillment) can easily be attended by a simultaneous loss of compassion. We can, almost against our will, fall prey to easy, selfish answers that separate us from others – as if we were resigned to life as inadequate, alienated, and inauthentic before we have had even a taste of what adequacy and authenticity are. Why? Why do we so often act like mindless poker players and place our bets before we know what’s really in our hands? Why do we jump at the offer of salvation for ourselves knowing -- or the good life, or the full life for ourselves, or at least suspecting, that it will not heal our rift with others but worsen it? Cultural influences and conditioned behavior certainly play a part in what we do, but to me the main culprit is more subjective and more basic. What causes this, I think, is something I would describe as an “undertow” – an unconscious assumption of the mind or a hidden attitude of the heart that acts to drag us below the sea of human concern to drown us in ourselves and in our old habits of thought. It is the automatic “hold” we place on anything that demands a fresh or unprecedented response from us, especially if it makes us think we will have to question our own motives or modify our usual behavior. Too often the first urge is to play it safe, not to risk ourselves. Too often we are afraid we will lose what we already have if we face up to the new or the unfamiliar. Too often we don’t want to let the momentum of the past carry us forward into new formulations, new adventures. Rather, we back away from life’s “cutting edge” and stay locked in where we already have found some certitude and comfort. Essentially, we often risk our lives on the future, gullibly expecting that nothing will change. It would seem we have a paradox here. It would seem that we place our bets too soon and yet we are reluctant to lose what we have. Yet it is no paradox when you realize that what we place our bets on are answers that seem to require the least initiative from us and the least openness to the fresher, more erratic aspects of the world. On a profoundly existential level, as far as our real inner character and self-perception are concerned, answers that don’t threaten us with questions and the need to change are the easiest for us to follow. They require only our submission, not our initiative; only our habits, not our creativity. We are just too comfortable sliding down the path of least resistance. For some people, selling flowers on the roadside (as many cult members did in the ‘70s), or passing out tracts on the street, or finding a parking space on an immense megachurch parking lot require only assent to someone else’s authority – to the preacher’s, the prophet’s, or the group’s. They are not necessarily asked to struggle to know the nature of what they already are inside themselves and what the world itself really asks of them. Nor are they necessarily urged to try to rearrange themselves in a way that fulfills not just themselves but the people and the world around them. In too many of today’s quick, easy, and usual solutions to the problem of living, one’s own powers for generativity, creativity, sharing, responsibility-taking, thinking, and appraisal are not called forth. Although there seems to be no existential risk in following another person’s authority and way, if the truth be known, that is the greatest risk of all to the integrity of our self. The same can be said about our more prosaic and standard answers that, on a less ultimate level, fit us into our professions, our jobs, our daily routines, our social groups, our political and religious groups. Too often these things require nothing more from us than our willingness to follow precedent, to do as others (or the leaders) do, or simply to do as we are already habituated to doing. On this day-to-day level out in the world, we are encouraged to skirt – not confront – life’s profound demands and opportunities. Seldom are we urged truly to follow our own direction wherever it takes us or to probe for whatever the true dynamics of the situation or of the real needs of others may be. Rather, out in the world we are given contradictory messages. We are exhorted to be true to ourselves and yet not rock the boat, to be moral and ethical and yet self-serving. Here, even though we may be a wealthy financier or a university professor, we can be just as gullible as the followers of Jerry Falwell and James Dobson or an Iranian ayatollah or a Mideast dictator or the extreme wings of political parties. We can lose ourselves in the undertow just as completely. I believe this is because we let ourselves be “sucked in” because of two things. We can be seduced by either a narrow morality that makes us carping cynics or a spiritual laziness, which makes us gullible mystics – or by both. Too often we have the dual beliefs that, on the one hand, all forms of life (especially human beings) will ultimately act only for their own advantage but that, on the other hand, rather than having to act for ourselves we can coax or coerce nature or God into doing it. The “carping cynic'’ slogan becomes: “Each one for himself/herself and the devil take the hindmost.” The lazy mystic slogan becomes: “Save me, God, and I’ll burn incense, preach your gospel, and pray a lot!” Such attitudes set us up to be disappointed by other people and to have a vaunted opinion of ourselves as creatures that the universe is obligated to serve. We become tainted by a carping or a lazy egocentricism whose fervor comes more from anxiety than from clarity of knowledge -- more from fear of change than from courage born of experience. We settle for answers that blunt our initiative and that do not cut through to the core of the matter. But we can rise above playing it safe. We can truly risk ourselves on the rightness, genuineness, and joy that can be ours. We can recognize that the power the undertow has to suck us down is our own self-preoccupation and laziness. We can recognize that, although the cynic in us does grow out of an obvious human self-centeredness, the cynic overlooks the real presence of altruism, self-transcendence, freshness, and growth in human life. The cynic denies or overlooks real humane values. We do, after all, live in a universe that is more than ourselves. We have no choice but to live by needs and laws that are not of our own making. Our destiny is so intimately tied to the destiny of others that we truly cannot save ourselves without helping others do the same. We can remind the lazy mystic in ourselves that our own actions are part of the universe’s continuing creation. We have an effect on the world we live in – and on ourselves. What we think and believe leads us to do certain things and what we do makes a difference in what can later be done by ourselves and others. We can ill afford to shove off onto a benevolent deity or some other equally obscure power (such as the Fates, or Destiny, or Determinism) even a little of our responsibility for helping create a better, more meaningful world. Finally, after recognizing our penchant for playing it safe, our misplaced cynicism and our lazy mysticism, we can recognize the fact that we can surmount all these things. We have it in us, individually and collectively, to delve deeply into life and to take personal initiative in experiencing, appraising, striking out in new, more fulfilling and ennobling directions. This is, after all, one of the basic reasons for churches: to be a place where we can remain our own persons but become a part of a larger dynamic whole. But, even without churches or organized religion of any kind, we still can respond to the world by becoming not a passive agent fighting a holding action to preserve our comfortable beliefs and habits but an active, participating contributor to making the world more whole, more fulfilling, more alive. All of this has an especial relevance to this congregation at this time. We are all currently on that interface where the past can be honed into a new beginning. We are right in the middle of a transition from an accustomed set of priorities and ways of doing things to a yet to be realized new set of priorities and new ways of doing things. This congregation is in transition. It is in the middle of an interim period -- the usual time when energies are low, issues are confused, and a new pathway is not yet clear. This is not an easy time, but it is probably one of the most fruitful opportunities that you as a congregation will have for many years. It is an opportunity to re-envision yourselves – an opportunity to reach a deeper understanding of the true character of this institution and community you enjoy as friends and comrades. It is an opportunity for gains to be consolidated and for torches to be passed. The great thing about this opportunity is that you have the optimism, resources, and talent to handle this situation well. There is good will, talent, and energy aplenty and a deep desire that liberal religion thrive both in the larger community and in personal lives. There is commitment to the continual creation – and re-creation – of a congregation working to create “a better world by nurturing the heart and expanding the mind,” endeavoring to “provide a safe, caring community where all can freely explore diverse religious thought,” and striving “for justice and equality with the power of compassion and compassionate power.” You may recognize these words. They are taken from this congregation’s Mission Statement. Henry David Thoreau has said it well. In one of my favorite quotations from him he assured us that we can “carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look.” If there are fundamental beliefs in Unitarian Universalism, this is one of them. This places us on the “cutting edge” – where the momentum of the past hones us to an edge that can carve a new beginning out of old materials and unexpected opportunities. I’ll end with a story. It is about Destiny. Destiny came to an island many centuries ago and summoned three inhabitants before her. “What would you do,” Destiny asked, “if I told you that soon this island would be inundated by an immense tidal wave?” The first person, a cynic, said, “I would eat, drink and carouse all day and all night.” The second, a mystic, said, “I would go to the sacred groves with my loved ones and make sacrifices to the gods and pray without ceasing.” The third person thought for a while and then said, “I would assemble our wisest citizens and begin at once to determine how to live under water -- or how to get out of here!” It is this person who truly confronts life, who swims its currents – who knows how to use what looks like an “end” to make a new beginning. This person lives – truly lives –- on the cutting edge of life. As do we all when we take the results of yesterday and the ingredients of today and with them carve and paint our new world of tomorrow. |