"Summer Time" Rev. Roberta Finkelstein Reflections on the spiritual rhythm of summer, using poetry and prose of the season. Sunday, August 7, 2005 “Summer Comes” by Robert Weston Now blows the wind with soft, relaxing warmth. The sun beats down. The cattle seek the shade beneath a tree or cooling waters of some damned-up pond. The schools are out. Children swarm in the playgrounds and the streets, and eager city folk, vacation-bound, crowd the broad highways. The lakes and seashores lose their solitude and all the world seems turned to carnival. What of ourselves? There could be, now, deep peace, a time for soul-searching. We might turn to examine our own lives, to sort and probe our tendencies of thought, to sift the true from false in the things of doubt, the beautiful from ugliness unmarked. The sun beats down; it is time for a pause. Even the trees seem resting for a time as if to meditate and gather strength for the more strenuous times that lie ahead. And shall not we? Here’s the unfinished clay, half-moulded, that still waits on us to think what we have been and what we are still to become. Now is a time to think the pattern straight. Thinking the Pattern Straight Thinking the pattern straight. Although Robert Weston uses the metaphor of unfinished clay, what his meditation brings to mind for me is a kaleidoscope. Not the kind with all the pieces of colored glass in it, but the kind that takes the every-day objects in the room and rearranges them into new and unexpected visual experiences. This kind of kaleidoscope, using only simple prisms, is the kind you look through and see the world right in front of you configured in surprising new ways. Now you could, through the prodigious application of principles of physics, figure out the various permutations of pattern that this kaleidoscope would produce. But why would you want to work that hard? Instead, I just turn my kaleidoscope towards my world, then wait for a pattern to emerge. When that happens, I hold still, and just gaze at it. Try it, metaphorically. It may be that in that still gaze you will see the true picture of what you are still to become. The month of July was supposed to be my vacation month – a time for rest and renewal and for thinking ahead in unstructured ways – a time for assessing my priorities, looking at the way I spend my time and energy, and rethinking the pattern. Unfortunately, life got in the way of my month off. At the very beginning of the month, I got a call from the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice. They were, at the time, anticipating a resignation from the Supreme Court, and were putting together clergy persons in each state who could act as media advocates from the faith community. I have been a long time advocate of reproductive choice; in fact I was the keynote speaker in Richmond this past year for Pro-Choice Lobby Day. Plus I have gone through a 4 day media-training program offered by the Unitarian Universalist Association. So it was logical to assume that I could serve in this role. But I didn’t want to. I wanted to be totally off. I told them so; they said they understood. The very next day, Sandra Day O’Connor resigned, and I realized that I just couldn’t sit on the sidelines when my particular talents were needed. So I called them back and set out to learn what I needed to do to serve as an effective advocate for faithful pro-choice voices. To be honest, part of me resented this intrusion into my leisure, and I despaired of ever getting any real time off. But then I realized that this was not an intrusion or distraction, it was a gift. At General Assembly this past June, Rev. Patrick O’Neill preached a powerful sermon about Walden. Not about Thoreau’s retreat into the woods for 2 years, but his return to the world. Why did he leave the woods, and give up the life of contemplation? Because the world needed him. The Fugitive Slave Act had been passed, the abolition movement cried out for articulate advocates. The story goes that when Thoreau was jailed for his refusal to pay taxes in protest, Ralph Waldo Emerson went to visit and asked, “Henry, what are you doing in there?” Thoreau’s response was, “Ralph, what are you doing out there?” I don’t ever want to be on the wrong side of the wall when the world needs me. I don’t ever want to be accused of neglecting the work I am called to do. Immersing myself in the work of the Religious Coalition turned out to be an opportunity to point my kaleidoscope in an unexpected direction. Being an activist helps me to see an aspect of my ministry. This is a summer of new direction professionally – I anticipate new patterns, new insights. But I also know that there are ‘given’s about the ministry of Reverend Roberta Finkelstein that will be constant in the midst of change. In coming back from my Walden to the work that I have done for so long in advocacy of reproductive choice, I got a glimpse of the “not-yet” Reverend Roberta – the one that I am still to become as I begin this Interim Ministry in Frederick. And even in the midst of that unexpected challenge, I did take some significant time for myself. I read some trashy mystery novels, spent some quality time with my dog and cats and husband and son, spent a week at our beach house on Martha’s Vineyard, and attended the very fun UUMAC – the Unitarian Universalist Mid-Atlantic Community. UUMAC is a week-long family camp located on a college campus in Allentown, PA. I recommend it to any of you who would like a vacation where your entire family can be part of a safe intergenerational community, learn more about your faith, and have a really fun time. I am reminded of a book I read several summers ago – The Hours by Michael Cunningham. (And I want the record to show that I read it before they made a movie out of it.) Clarissa, one of the main characters in the novel, summed up what I learned in the month of July this year. She said, “There's just this for consolation: an hour here or there when our lives seem, against all odds and expectations, to burst open and give us everything we've ever imagined . . .” I have had some of those hours already this summer, in spite of moving and starting a new job and taking on unexpected roles. I hope for and expect more such hours as I ply my kaleidoscope all around this building and this community. I’d like to hear from you now on this idea of thinking the pattern straight. Anybody else have moments of insight this summer? “The Beach” by Anne Morrow Lindbergh The beach is not the place to work; to read, write or think. I should have remembered that from other years. Too warm, too damp, too soft for any real mental discipline or sharp flights of spirit. One never learns. Hopefully, one carries down the faded straw bag, lumpy with books, clean paper, long over-due unanswered letters, freshly sharpened pencils, lists, and good intentions. The books remain unread, the pencils break their points, and the pads rest smooth and unblemished as the cloudless sky. No reading, no writing, no thoughts even – at least, not at first. At first, the tired body takes over completely. As on shipboard, one descends into a deck-chair apathy. One is forced against one’s mind, against all tidy resolutions, back into the primeval rhythms of the sea-shore. Rollers on the beach, wind in the pines, the slow flapping of herons across sand dunes, drown out the hectic rhythms of city and suburb, time tables and schedules. One falls under their spell, relaxes, stretches out prone. One becomes, in fact, like the element on which one lies, flattened by the sea; bare, open, empty as the beach, erased by today’s tides of all yesterday’s scribblings. And then, some morning in the second week, the mind wakes, comes to life again. Not in the city sense – no – but beach-wise. It begins to drift, to play, to turn over in gentle careless rolls like those lazy waves on the beach. One never knows what chance treasures these easy unconscious rollers may toss up on the smooth white sand of the conscious mind; what perfectly rounded stone, what rare shell from the ocean floor. Perhaps a channeled whelk, a moon shell or even an argonaut. But it must not be sought for or – heaven forbid! – dug for. No, no dredging of the sea-bottom here. That would defeat one’s purpose. The sea does not reward those who are too anxious, too greedy, or too impatient. To dig for treasures shows not only impatience and greed, but lack of faith. Patience, patience, patience, is what the sea teaches. Patience and faith. One should lie empty, open, choiceless as a beach – waiting for a gift from the sea. Waiting For A Gift My husband has an interesting approach to nutrition that involves Oreos. He often says that he is eating the Oreos “for balance.” I have not probed deeply into the rationale for this statement; it is something I take on faith. But the idea of balance is very important – so important that I have to say that I chose this reading “for balance.” Balance between mind and spirit, between intellectual effort and emotional stillness, between doing and being. Rev. Hank Dunn, the chaplain of the Hospice of Northern Virginia, reminds us that “the Hebrew way of looking at humans is that we ‘are a soul,’ not that we possess a soul. Body, soul, and spirit are so intertwined that it is difficult to know where one begins and the other ends.” And UU minister Jeanne Nieuwejaar tells us that “we are not human beings having a spiritual experience, but spiritual beings having a human experience.” If we are to pay attention to balance – to the soul that we are – we need to cultivate the art of waiting. Waiting, as Anne Morrow Lindbergh says, for a gift, whether it be from the sea – definitely my source of choice – or from the hills or from music or from the sound of laughter or from silence or from a labyrinth laid in the grass. One aspect of our liberal religious faith is the obligation for each of us to take seriously the cultivation of the soul through various spiritual practices. Many of you are already on that path – creating rituals and practices that are meaningful to you in helping you to clear your minds and making room for the expansion of heart and soul. I am a labyrinth walker. I first experienced the labyrinth at my home church in Arlington, VA. I visit labyrinths whenever I have a chance. Several summers ago, I was the theme speaker at the Summer Institute in the Ohio-Meadville District. One of the workshop leaders had laid out a labyrinth in the grass in the common space. An amazing thing – even though it was in the very middle of the campus and the hustle and bustle of a 300+ person intergenerational conference – it was definitely holy ground. One morning I walked that labyrinth, and when I got to the center, I knelt down in the sun and waited. I closed my eyes, and soon felt the hot sun bathing me – but not in an unpleasant way – I was surrounded by warmth and comfort – and I realized that I was so glad to be alive that nothing else mattered. That sense of profound gratitude was a gift – a gift from the labyrinth, and from the sun, and from the soft summer breeze. This past week, my first among you, has been extremely busy. I started out at Evening Camp – leading singing and a scavenger hunt. I have met with several committees, many of the leaders of the congregation, and several individuals. I have introduced my dog to many of your children, much to his delight. Lots of stimulation and conversation, not much quiet. But I have also had moments of feeling grounded and centered. The most profound, this week’s gift from the sea, came not, in fact from the sea, but from the Stewardship Committee. At the beginning of their meeting, I was invited to make my pledge to the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Frederick. This was a spiritual moment for me. My salary is part of the public budget of the church. You pay me $57,000 a year. I have pledged 3% of that amount back to you. I consider a pledge of 3% of income to be a sustaining pledge, a level of stewardship that I hope all of you will move towards this fall (unless you are already there). Pledging is, for me, a spiritual discipline. From the moment I filled out my pledge card, I experienced the church differently. Now when I walk through this amazing and beautiful building, I feel like an owner. I am gratified to know that I am contributing to it’s upkeep, that I can take partial credit for the fact that it rises like a beacon out of the grass and announces the presence of liberal religion to all who drive by. Whenever I speak with the very capable and dedicated staff members – Michelle and Jessica and Sue– I feel gratified to know that I am contributing to their fair and just compensation. As I watched the children stream in for evening camp, I felt gratified to know that I am one of those who make that program and all the other programs of the church possible. The sea, says Anne Morrow Lindbergh, does not reward those who are too anxious, or too greedy or impatient. Not just the sea – but life in general seems to follow that rule. We are rewarded for our hopefulness, for our generosity, and for our patience. Patience and faith, Lindbergh reminds us, are the gifts of the sea. In patience, and in faith, let us begin this adventure in mutual ministry together. Amen.