“In Spite of Everything . . . Thank You”

Image by ScienceGiant from Pixabay

Perhaps this morning, on this particular weekend, some of us feel a kinship with the English Romantic poet William Wordsworth, who, in 1802, wrote his sonnet “The World Is Too Much with Us.”

Wordsworth had just about had it with what he experienced as the excessive and cynical materialism of the First Industrial Revolution, its distancing people from their oneness with nature, and from their spiritual core. A few passages from his sonnet:

The world is too much with us; late and soon,

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers: -

Little we see in Nature that is ours;

We have given our hearts away . . .

For this, for everything, we are out of tune;

It moves us not. Great God! . . .

So might I . . . have glimpses that would make me less forlorn.

Yes, we do gather, on a regular basis, with our everyday joys and sorrows, sometimes feeling that those personal sorrows are indeed too much with us, laying waste our quest for truth and meaning. And then there are days – or months, or years, or decades - when it seems there’s almost no distinction between the world’s having given its heart away, and in doing so, laid waste the heart of our own spiritual power, our personal quest for truth and meaning. That is, colliding tomorrow, January 20, are two events on the world stage that strike some of us personally as quite out of tune. It is the day we celebrate the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. And, at noon tomorrow, will be the second Inauguration of Donald Trump as President of

our country. Perhaps the sense of collision as these two events fall on the same day arises from the inability to separate celebrating the birth day of Martin Luther King, from remembering his death day. A number of years ago my son Isaac and I visited the site of his death day, on that balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. I will never forget it. For in that remembering, we are forced to recall the heartless acts that laid waste, or at least cut short, the spiritual power by which he gave hundreds of thousands of people their first glimpse of being less forlorn.

At noon tomorrow, in Washington DC, and in the days immediately following, what will the world glimpse? And if we are not too numb to be moved by anything we glimpse that seems without heart, if we are not too numb to feel forlorn, what will we do about it?

We will, of course, welcome any and all actions that are in tune with the sacred spiritual core of every human being. Yet will we, in the hours and days that follow noon tomorrow, find a way to recall, to re-member, to reclaim the spiritual power embodied in the lives of people like Martin Luther King, Jr.?

Well, certainly Martin Luther King knew the spiritually transforming power of song, and hymns. He grew up singing the hymns of his father’s Ebenezer Baptist church, often singing them solo in front of hundreds. In his 1964 book, Why We Can’t Wait, he wrote about freedom songs as the ‘soul’ of the Civil Rights movement. He said they are not only songs; they are a ‘resolve’. They change you.

And so, with thanks to the late Civil Rights Activist James Weldon Johnson for the words, and his brother for the music, let us sing together our Opening Hymn. It has been a number of years, and certainly before the pandemic, that this community has had a program for children and youth. But I take it for granted, that the child who becomes the adult, still lives in each of us – the child broadly defined at various ages and stages – preschooler, school age, teenager, young adult even.

So in that spirit, I want to have a question for the child, broadly defined, who is here today, within each of you.

You can see that these steps up front, where the children and youth used to sit during the Intergenerational part of the service, before they went to their own groups, are still here. So if that child in any of you would like, for today, just to imagine coming forward and having a front row seat for thinking about this question, please, do so!

However, as you can see, right now this beautiful grand piano kind of takes up a lot of this space in front of the steps, so for today, it’s okay if the younger person in you stays right where you are.

I have a question for you, related to what the grownups are going to be thinking about in Part Two of the sermon time today – their part. But this, Part One of the sermon time is more for you – the child.

And I ask this question today partly because tomorrow we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day. And from what I’ve learned, part of the reason he was so brave in working to help others who were suffering from prejudice, was because he was encouraged as a child to ask and seeks answers to what we call spiritual questions.

So the question is – Have you ever – as a child, including as a teenager or young adult, had what you would call a spiritual experience?

Now that’s a pretty big and confusing word – spiritual - and people don’t all agree about what it means. So before you think about any answer you have, let me describe what spiritual experience means to me. You might have a different definition.

One thing many grownups do agree about, is that when life gets really wonderful, or really awful, or really confusing – sometimes they find themselves thinking about things like spiritual questions.

So what are Spiritual Questions? Most human beings, even starting at about age four or five, think about what we might call the big questions of life. I think of these as spiritual questions.

For example . . .

Why was I born?

Why do I have to die?

What am I supposed to do with the time in between, called my life? (Do any of you ever think about questions like these? . . . Raise your hand if . . . )

Some other spiritual questions are things like:

Why do bad or sad things happen, and sometimes to good people? And why can’t I fix those things?

Why do people sometimes hurt each other, whether in families, or all over the world,?

(Do any of you . . . . raise . . . .)

Another big spiritual question that people, starting in childhood, often think about is What does the word God mean?

I remember when my son Isaac was about four years old and I discovered how he was thinking about this question. We had talked about God as love and as inside each of us, and in the universe. But he had just seen the movie “Aladdin”, with the part about the Magic Lamp. One day shortly after that, he and I were walking at sunset on a summer night in Portsmouth, NH, past a house with beautiful shrubs along the sidewalk.

The sky was streaked with colors of pink and blue. He looked up at me and asked, “Mom, is God sort of like a Blue Genie?” He might have been thinking about the Blue Genie that comes out of the magic lamp in Aladdin.

But while I was trying to think of the best answer to his question, he answered it himself. “Oh no!” he exclaimed. “Now I remember!” he said as he patted the shrubs next to us. “God is in the bushes!” he declared. There are so many spiritual questions most people, beginning as children, think about - What is the universe really like? Does it think, does it care about me? Am I part of the universe? Do I stay part of the universe after I die? Was I part of the universe before I was born?

(Anybody ever wonder about these things? . . . Raise your hand . . . )

And, what does love have to do with all this? So those are some of the spiritual questions.

And what I mean by a spiritual experience is what happens when you are really wondering about one or more of these big questions and suddenly you have a strong feeling that there is an answer. You suddenly feel safe that even if you don’t completely understand all the details of the answer, you are led on a path to learn more.

Let me give you four examples, though perhaps these examples are more for the teenager in you!

1) First, let’s say you are asking what the universe is really like, does it care about people, about me, what is God, and so on. You know bad things happen, but maybe you are outside in nature and see something very beautiful when one of these questions comes to you. Or maybe you’re suddenly very happy from some everyday thing like your favorite meal, or having a hot shower.

You might then suddenly experience that the universe, that life, is a beautiful, awesome gift in spite of how many bad things happen, to you, or in the world. You might suddenly find yourself drawn to a path of positivity, of feeling in love with life – of wanting to say thank you! that life itself is a blessing. That there is something, instead of nothing – What a wonderful surprise!

2) A second example of a spiritual experience - Let’s say you are questioning why bad or sad things happen, in spite of all the blessings. Maybe it’s a time when someone you love has died or is in trouble, or you lost something you loved, like a pet; or someone was mean to you or you see other people in the world being treated unfairly. And you ask “Why?”

A spiritual experience that might come when you are asking this question could be a feeling that you are drawn to the path of negativity, of not trying to be cheerful all the time, and instead to let go and let the sadness or negativity flow through you. Maybe you even shed some tears.

Often, then, something very surprising happens. Suddenly you might feel love for everyone else in the world because . . . you suddenly realize that they are in the same boat as you! Everybody has sorrow at times. And when you know this, you don’t feel so alone anymore, and you are able to help others, because you can say with your whole heart, “I know how you feel.”

3) A third example, of a spiritual experience - This might happen when you are asking why you were born, or what you are supposed to be when you grow up, or what you’re supposed to do with even just the next day or hour of your life. A spiritual experience that might happen when you ask these questions, could be suddenly hearing your quiet inner voice drawing you to the path of creativity – of listening to, and loving, the special gifts, or blessings that are needed from you, that only you can create in the best way. Some would say that’s because God is the loving power that creates new life not only in the Universe, but in and as each one of us. Day by day. Hour by hour, even.

4) And the last example of a spiritual experience - Sometimes you might be asking the spiritual question of how your special creative gifts might make a difference for good in the larger world. In asking this question, you might feel yourself drawn to the path of transforming something that’s sad or hurtful to a few people or many people, or to the Earth, by, with others, together creating something good, and loving. It could be any work that calls you to give your special gifts, working alongside the gifts of others, to create more love in the world – helping people who are treated unfairly because of their skin color, as Martin Luther King did; helping girls and women in the world have as much freedom and power as boys and men do; working to keep our sweet planet Earth safe and healthy. People come together with their uniquely creative gifts, in all kinds of communities, to use those gifts to transform the world. And today, let us remember that one very wonderful type of those communities are Unitarian Universalist congregations – just like this one here, where you bring your gifts. The UU Meetinghouse of Chatham. So now, after that Sermon Part One – that remembers and honors the tender

child and valiant youth that lives in you – please hold this question in your hearts and minds.

Have you ever, as a child or a youngster, had what you would call a spiritual experience?

Remember those experiences and the spiritual questioning which seemed to cause them. It may be then that when you are a grownup, and you tell someone about those experiences, you will find others have had them too. And you may find that when life seems really wonderful, or really awful, or really confusing, you will know how to grow what we call a Spiritual Practice which is, simply, making a habit of asking the Questions and listening for the quiet voice that leads you on the path of experiencing an answer.

I invite the ‘children and youth’ in you to stay with us a little longer – through the Anthem, the Sharing of Joys and Sorrows and Concerns, the Offering – and during that time to hold in your heart and mind the question of: Have you ever, as a child or youngster had what you would call a spiritual experience?

The Anthem - “Can I see another’s woe and not be in sorrow too?”

William Blake, the author of the Anthem’s lyrics, was an 18 th .19 th century English poet who had what he considered spiritual experiences throughout his life, beginning in childhood. His compassion for the suffering of others, as expressed in the Anthem, was echoed about two hundred years later by Martin Luther King, Jr, in his ‘Letter from the Birmingham Jail’. These familiar lines:

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial ‘outside agitator’ idea. Anyone who lives in the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere in this country. May it be so.

Rev. Dr. Barbara Whittaker-Johns

After the US Presidential election, I joined that part of the world that was lost, in despair. It certainly has felt like personal grieving. I know better than to assume that my interpretation of the significance of the election outcome, and its aftermath, matches even half of the country’s view, or uniformly even 100% of any UU congregation. And yet – for the first time in decades I found myself longing to do something, to fix it all, somehow.

Like many of you - so I’ve heard - I have a history, though limited, of marching, of demonstrating – primarily in the Civil Rights era. I did not participate in the 2017 March in DC, on Inauguration weekend, after Hillary lost, organized as the Women’s March. But I did read up on the version being organized this year as the People’s March – held yesterday in DC – this time by a consortium of various groups. This march was much smaller than

the one in 2017, or so I read as of last night. But I planned to go to the march this weekend, and blew off any hint that it made one whit of difference that it had been something like five decades since my dearest friend Ann and I drove to DC in her husband’s powder-blue Cadillac for a march in which we learned what it was like to get tear-gassed. This was before Ann and her New York City executive husband were divorced, and we made a sign for that Cadillac window indicating that the swanky car belied the fact that there were two true-blue Hippies inside. And on the right – that is the left - side of things.

My son Isaac loves that story, plus the drama of those of other times - of my sitting in, as in an all-white church in North Carolina over Easter weekend; or marching all alone in a hostile environment - all with various elements of drama involved.

And so I thought, well, I could go to the People’s March and give him a sequel to update his on and off impression that maybe his Mother has some example to offer with her life. However, when I declared my intent to go to protest events in DC this weekend to five or six friends who are my peers, age-wise, and asked them to

join me, I got not one taker. Then, synchronistically perhaps, Dolly asked me if I’d like to lead the worship service today. Faced with the prospect of going alone to the March, I said yes to being here today, instead.

That’s how I came face to face with – What in the world is there to say or do, of any inspirational value, in a worship service relative to this juxtaposition tomorrow? A President who claims, at least, he will immediately force millions of people - immigrants who contribute to our well-being, and who need the safe haven of our wonderful experiment in democracy - to go back to where they came from, and in that process possibly to be separated as families or held in detention camps.

That world view, is cast in sharp relief against the words of the man whose birthday we, as a nation, honor tomorrow - Martin Luther King, Jr. Those words I read which he wrote from the Birmingham jail: We are tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial ‘outside agitator’ idea. Anyone who lives in the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere in this country.

As I thought about this juxtaposition, I remembered the stories of Martin Luther King’s grounding as a child in spiritual questions and experience and his spiritual practice as an adult. And I realized I had never heard about any spiritual questioning encouraged in the childhood of Donald Trump; had never heard him refer to any

spiritual experiences, except indirectly, related to the recent assassination attempt; had never heard him refer to any spiritual practice, except perhaps his business venture with the Trump Bible. Perhaps it makes a difference in our politics. Perhaps it really makes a difference in our politics whether or not one, and we as a nation, as a culture, value both spiritual practice and nurturing it in the children in our families, in our midst anywhere. So what I finally decided to do with this service, is to share the only two things that at this very moment, I know how to do in the situation of this weekend. First, to affirm that when life gets really wonderful, or really awful, or really confusing, one way to get on the path of being at home in the Universe and being

of use is through spiritual practice. And second, to recognize that if we don’t listen to the spiritual questions

and experiences of the children in our midst, and then teach them about spiritual practice, they may never receive that blessing of having a spiritual practice.

I say that even though lots of us, myself included, discover it mostly on our own. Sometimes we discover it on our own because we remember even an isolated spiritual experience we had in childhood, which is the question I put to the child within you, earlier.

There are many types of spiritual practice of course. I’m guessing that among all of you are practitioners of a wide variety of understandings of spirituality and of spiritual practice. But since I believe that sharing our spiritual practices with one another affirms their transforming power in the world, I decided to share the practice that has been mine for a long time. This is the practice of the Four Paths of Creation Spirituality as articulated by the theologian Matthew Fox.

You heard me allude to these four paths in the Intergenerational first part of the sermon. The four paths have instinctively been my practice for as long as I can remember, but they came into clear focus for me, in a way that I could then articulate with others, when I did a Doctor of Ministry program in CA with Matthew Fox at what was then called the University of Creation Spirituality. I was on sabbatical from my role as Senior Minister at First Parish Arlington, MA.

Let me share a reading from Fox’s writing that summarizes what Creation Spirituality is about and how it’s implemented in four paths of practice. He gives these paths ‘fancy’ Latin titles!

“Honoring creation as original blessing, Creation Spirituality integrates the wisdom of Western spirituality and the global indigenous cultures with the emerging scientific understanding of the universe and the passion for creativity. .

. . On the individual level, creation spirituality recognizes the artist, mystic, and prophet in each person and that humans have to dig and work at finding their deep self, their true self, their spirit-self.

“This journey of digging toward salvation can be named as a four-fold journey or practice: [first] the via positiva – the path of delight, awe, wonder, gratitude for the blessings of creation. [Second] the path of via negativa – that of darkness, silence, suffering, letting go, accepting what is, before renewal and understanding of self and others can take place. [Third] that of via creativa – of birthing one’s own unique creativity. [Fourth] And the via transformativa – the path of using one’s own creativity in community to bring about compassion,

justice, and healing in the world.”

I have to acknowledge here, that as part of one piece of incorporating my DMin studies into parish ministry, I did four – four separate - services on Fox’ four paths of creation spirituality.

And today I’m trying to touch upon all four in one service! Now nothing I said in the Intergenerational part of this sermon describes in any concrete way what spiritual practice involving these four paths might actually look like. So let me use this last section for a few specifics.

First, these are not paths that you travel once and that’s that. They arise from our questioning and seeking, over and over again in life, and in any order, asking us to travel the path of spiritual experience that each one might offer. Second, the naming of the paths is meant to call our attention to the experiences that are all necessary to our evolution as spiritual beings. It’s not so much that we seek these paths as that we acknowledge that the questions of meaning with which we all struggle – consciously or unconsciously – often lead to these spiritual experiences of gratitude, bursting with thank you’s – the via positiva; of letting go and surrender to what is, tears – the via negativa; the path of recognizing our own unique calling and divinity – whether as applied to the coming years, or the coming minutes and hours – the via creativa; and fourth, the

path of recognizing our power to transform the world when we bind our unique selves in union, in community, with others. The via transformative.

Third, after acknowledging the questions of meaning that are part and parcel of being human, we must acknowledge that in preparing ourselves for spiritual experiences on the four paths, we must also acknowledge that between birth and death we are embodied beings who must do embodied things if we are to

know how to be at home in the universe. Now the list of things we might do in our spiritual practice as embodied being is endless. I can only share a few of mine and of others I know. For example, when I find myself on the path of the via positiva, maybe on a beach walk at sunrise, I say thank you God. I say it out loud – if no one is around that is; or if I’m at home, and I want to say ‘Thank you’ our loud, I unplug those darn

listening things like Alexa. Or I open my journal and write thank you God. I make a list.

Way before my DMin program, when my son Isaac was little, I was able to engage him in bedtime prayers. The first part was thank you’s. By speaking aloud, even at the age of 3 or 4, the list went on forever.

When I’m on the path of the Via Negativa, sometimes I use the Muslim prayer beads my grandmother brought back from her travels. I aloud my sorrows, the things I just can’t figure out how to handle, my failures, the things I need help with, bead by bead. Fortunately, the string has a lot of beads on it . . .

Meditation, prayer, dance, music, yoga, nature walks, journaling, sharing circles, reading, dialogue with a trusted other - the list is endless of those embodied ways we might journey on the four paths of finding our spirit self, that is at home in the universe.

But I am remembering this weekend a long ago experience I had where, before I had any awareness of Matthew Fox and his four paths of creation spirituality, I knew to invite the youngsters in my midst at that time, down the path of the via creativa and via transformativa. Let me close with that example of embodied

spiritual practice, which I hope some of them might still recall.

It was a time in our country not unlike our current time. It was the spring of 1970, a year and a half after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr, and I was teaching fifth grade in Ridgewood, NJ, a very affluent area. By then I had a Master’s in Special Education and among my students were a few with learning disabilities.

One was John, whose mother Ann became my best friend and with whom I’d made that trip to DC in the powder blue Cadillac. Given that trip, the raging of the Vietnam War, the death of King, not to mention the culture wars, and my students’ acute awareness of divergent political world views among their family members and within the community, I decided to engage them in putting on a musical for the whole elementary school. I was not, am not, a professional musician.

The title was, embarrassingly enough, “War, Race, and Pollution”. Nothing subtle about that, I guess.

My friend Ann was a classical pianist. She performed the accompaniments to the songs the kids chose to learn and perform. Her husband Jack was an amateur photographer and supplied projected photos of the various crises in our country as the backdrop for the students’ songs, and acting.

SLIDE 1

This is the photo of the kids in their formal 5 th Grade class picture.

SLIDE 2

These are photos of them in costume for the musical; each chose to represent a segment of our culture at the time Their closing number was one they knew, as recorded by the Youngbloods.

“Everybody get together try to love one another right now.”

The principal, Mrs. Nichols, was a lovely woman but very straightlaced. For example, she made clear she preferred my hair in a French twist, rather than loose and curly. Ann’s son John, sometimes demeaned by his father for his school performance or long hair or wanting to play the guitar, did indeed play the guitar in the show. After the closing song, ‘Everybody Get Together’, there was a standing ovation. The principal wept. I was stunned.

I was out of my teens by about seven years, married to my first husband, but in terms of recognizing that event, at the time, as a spiritual experience, I was still a child. If today you asked me about my spiritual experiences as a child, I would name those when I was 9, and 11, and 20 and this one when I was 27. They

have been foundational.

Slide 3 John and his four siblings, around 1970

John and I today are friends, though he still sometimes calls me Mrs. Bakker – with two k’s. He is a professional musician on his guitar, a successful owner and CEO of a music production company, which recently won a technical Grammy. Of his four siblings he has lost two sisters, meaning my dear friend Ann

has lost two of her children. At the same time, I have never known a more joyous family. Somehow, they have traveled all the paths, opening again and again, to joy and gratitude. Even in the midst of - perhaps in spite of - sorrow and loss, this is a family who again and again returns to the path of ‘Thank you’.

May it be so for all of us, now, and in all the days to come.

Slide 4 – Young child, seeming to be in deep thought with quote:

“Many people have their first spiritual experience in childhood, that of an innate and natural connection with what is sacred and holy. The playfulness, joy and curiosity of our childhood can become a foundation for the delighted rediscovery of this spirit in our practice.”

(Jack Kornfield)

Please take a few moments in quiet meditation now to visit the question I asked earlier of the child in each of us, and which you see on the screen. Did you ever have a spiritual experience in your childhood or youth? If so, how might you tell, share, with others, the story of that experience.

. . . . .

And as we go forth today, may we remember these words of 13 th century German mystic and creation spirituality theologian, Meister Eckhart.

If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is ‘Thank you’, it will be enough. Amen.

Guest Minister, Rev. Dr. Barbara Whittaker-Johns

UUMH, January 19, 2025