Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of
“Listening to the Messages"
Sunday, March 29, 2009
by Rev. Sarah Schurr
God talked to me. It’s
true. God really talked to me. It wasn’t like that burning bush Moses saw
with the booming voice of God that you can read about in the Hebrew
scriptures. It also wasn’t like the
groundskeeper that took the form of divine in the TV show, Joan of
Arcadia. It wasn’t even like the voice
of George Burns talking to John Denver like it was in that 1970’s hit movie “Oh
God”. But I heard her, God talking to me
– Sarah Schurr.
Appropriately enough this
happened at GA, the Unitarian Universalist General Assemble of
Congregations. I was in the bathroom
when I heard this message from the divine.
I was waiting in line in the bathroom, as usual, between workshops. The line was long but the mood was friendly
and I watched and listened to the people around me. There were two older ladies at the sink,
washing their hands. One older lady was
using some paper towels to wipe off the counter. Not just in the sink she had
used, but the area about three feet to each side of her. Another older lady smiled at her and said,
“You must have been a Girl Scout” and the first lady smiled back and replied,
“Yes, you know what we used to say, ‘leave it better than you found it’”. Boom.
It happened. When she said that last phrase, I felt the words resonate
in my head and my soul. “Leave it better
than you found it”. I had heard those
words before, but today they sounded different to me. They truly felt like a message to me from the
something greater than myself in the universe.
I smiled and thought to myself, “That is it! That is what my life is about. That is why I am in this world…to leave it
better than I found it”. I felt, as they
say in some churches, filled with the Spirit. I was given my life’s mission in
the GA bathroom. In that bathroom line
that day, I expect there were about 20 women. Some other people might have also
listened in on that conversation about cleaning up the counter. Some might have even thought it was
sweet. I doubt if any others felt that
they were getting a message from the divine about the purpose of their
existence.
Sounds crazy? Maybe.
But I know I am not the only one to have this kind of experience, when
suddenly you hear or notice something that truly resonates with you. That speaks to you in some important way,
telling you something you need to hear that day. I remember a day during my seminary training
when I was riding in the car along I-5 with another UU ministerial
candidate. We were talking about how
sometimes we felt overwhelmed and pulled in so many directions. Tending to class work, church volunteering,
family needs, time to ourselves…Then we saw it.
One of those big flashing programmable signs on the freeway, meant to
signal drivers of upcoming accidents or delays.
Suddenly flashing above it was the message, “Balance your load”. We just about went off the road we laughed so
hard. We were both struck with how that
had been just what we needed to hear at that moment. We both felt it was one of those messages
from the universe that there for us to listen to. I am sure that sign was programmed by the
highway department with log trucks in mind, not middle aged student ministers,
but hey…God works in mysterious ways.
You might be thinking, “Did
I stumble into the wrong church this morning?
That minister is using the word God here in the kind of way that some
Unitarian Universalists find strange to say the least.” Am I really talking about some old man
sitting up in the clouds sending down custom made miracles, like in the
movies? No, I don’t think so. Yet, I do believe that sometimes things in
this universe seem very convenient in how they work out and I have to wonder if
things in this life are always as random as we might think. There are wise people in this world who say
there is no such thing as a coincidence.
I’ll let you chew on that idea for yourself, and draw your own
conclusion.
I may not believe that old
man sitting on a cloud, sending down that custom made miracle I am looking for,
but I really do think there is such a thing being open to wisdom. The wisdom of the universal order, as it
were. I think wisdom is all around us,
if we are open and able to pay attention to it. This kind of thinking was very
popular with our Transcendentalist ancestors in the
There is a deep
power in which we exist and whose beatitude is accessible to us. Every moment when the individual feels
invaded by it is memorable. It comes to
the lowly and simple; it comes to whosoever will put off what is foreign and
proud; it comes as insight; it comes as serenity and grandeur. The soul’s health consists in the fullness of
its reception.
I expect many of you have had that
experience…when you experienced an “ah ha” of insight or wisdom. When things suddenly became more clear to you
than every before. When you experienced an influx of understanding. Maybe you were enjoying some time in nature
and you suddenly had a deep understanding of how you are connected with the
earth and other living things. Maybe you
saw your father’s smile on your grandchild’s face and knew deep down that those
who have died are never really gone.
Maybe you found yourself getting furious and obsessive over some
meaningless and petty thing at work and suddenly realized that you really
needed to gain perspective on your life and your priorities.
The trick with these bursts of wisdom, these spiritual
software upgrades, is that we cannot custom order them when they are
needed. We can go through dry patches of
weeks, month, and years when we could really use wisdom and insight and yet it
seems to be in short supply. I will
admit that this happened to me not so long ago.
You see, when I was in divinity school I was thinking big thoughts all
the time and reading the texts of the world’s religions. It was exciting. Not only that, but I was pretty much forced
to have a spiritual practice. OK, not forced, but it was hard to avoid. Every class began with a ritual or prayer or
mediation. We all had to take turns
leading these activities and in that I had a really diverse program, I was
exposed to everything from Sufi dancing to being anointed with holy oil. Finding ways to be in touch with the spirit
was a regular part of my life. I found
that amazing wisdom and insights were pretty available to me back then, like
finding sand dollars on the beach after a storm. They were there for me to pick up. Then I had my year of internship here at
UUFC. I was immersed in a religious
existence as I took my place on your staff team, helping to lead all of you on
a spiritual path to the best of my ability.
I prayed and meditated on a regular basis as part of my job. I looked at everything from a spiritual
perspective. I felt really connected to
my higher power. Wisdom was coming at me
fast and furious. It seemed like I was
in a dialog with the universe. Then I
graduated from my internship and was ordained.
By the way, I need to take this time to thank you again for that
ordination. It was one of the finest
days of my life. I will never forget
it.
Anyway, after I became a
real minister I no longer had a system in place to see that my spiritual life
was tended. I was a real minister now
and it was up to me to do. OK, fair enough. I did fine for a while. I knew what to do and really liked my
spiritual activities. But I didn’t get a
church job fresh out of school. I found
myself busy with other aspects of my life.
I needed to earn money to help with household expenses so I got a job in
my previous profession of Social Work.
It is good work and I still get to help people. But I found that when I
no longer spent regular time as a religious professional, it was easy to let my
spiritual life slip. It became like
eating right and exercising. It was
something I knew was good for me, but I was often distracted by what I thought
were more immediate concerns, like getting out the door on time on Monday
morning and keeping the dishes caught up.
Connecting with God became uncommon rather than routine.
This shift was not without
consequences, I am afraid. You see, when
I stopped paying attention to the spirit, I stopped paying attention to the
messages from the spirit. Where
inspirations and wisdom was flooding into me before, soon it seemed pretty much
unavailable. The well was dry. It was as
if I had lost my internet connection and I was unable to log in to receive
those wisdom messages. It didn’t feel good.
I was worried if I had lost something that I would never get back.
So what does a person do
when they need spiritual guidance, I went to a minister. I sat down with a friendly colleague and
asked about this. She said that this was
not necessarily a permanent problem. She
suggested that if I gave God a little attention every day, that I would
probably get some attention back. Yes,
we UU ministers talk that way sometimes.
So I tried it and, low and behold… it worked. Sometimes I would light a
chalice and do some readings for myself.
Sometimes I would meditate. I
began silently praying for the people served by the agency where I work, in
addition to providing them with good social work services. I replaced my
bedside book. I exchanged a paperback mystery novel with a book of Buddhist
meditations. It helped a lot. I found that flow of wisdom and messages from
the universe began to be available again.
Now I don’t think that the
messages stopped existing. I think I
stopped seeing and hearing them. I think
I was so busy with the mundane tasks of dishes and watching TV news broadcasts
that I was not listening to the messages.
I expect they were still there. I
just wasn’t hearing them. I was not
tuned into the spirit. I was not paying
attention on that level. It reminds me
of a story in the introduction of a book of spiritual essays called Breakfast
Epiphanies by David Anderson. He tells
of someone at a party recounting what a bad day they had. This party guest had been stuck on the
interstate, standing along the side of the freeway with a sick car, waiting for
a tow truck. Another party guests said,
“Was that you with the blue sedan? I saw that car standing there along the
highway and someone standing there next to it.
If I’d know it was you I would have stopped”. Anderson goes on to say that that pretty much
sums of his search for God, “If I’d have know it was you I would have
stopped”. David Anderson is a minister
who also says that sometimes he gets wrapped up with picking up the
dry-cleaning and getting to the church board meeting on time and can find that
this results in him wearing a kind of blinders.
He is so focused on mundane things in front of him, that he doesn’t
recognize the divine right next to him.
Well Ralph Waldo Emerson
told us about this, in that passage I read before. He said this divine wisdom and insight can
come to all of us. Says even the lowly and simple can attain this kind of
insight. But it comes to those who will
put off the foreign and the proud. I
think this means it comes to those who are willing to take some time to step
out of the usual routine. Those who are
open to messages from unusual and unexpected places. Those who can allow time and space to get to
know their true self in the real world.
Maybe that is why Emerson’s disciple, Henry David Thoreau went out to
live at
and take up a little life into our pores. Those insights Thoreau
gathered along the banks of Walden Pond
have become a liberal religious travel log and guide for the spiritual
seekers for generations since as he shared wisdom like this “To
be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a
school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of
simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust” , and “I learned this, at least, by my experiment;
that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors
to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected
in common hours.” Thoueau may not
have been spending every day in a seminary class or in Buddhist meditation, but
he was maintaining an active spiritual life.
He was taking time to shed the trappings of life to be open to deeper
mysteries. He was available to listen to
the voice of God and gather the wisdom the universe had available.
Emerson
tells us that, not only is this wisdom available to all of us, it is vital to
the health of the soul. What on earth,
you might say, is the health of the soul.
Well, I take it to mean living a full and meaningful life. The body, the mind, and the spirit all
being tended and cared for. Maybe
Emerson is warning us that if we are not tending our healthy soul, that we will
miss out on wisdom and insight – thus leading a less meaningful existence in
our journey thought life.
The
ancient Hebrews knew this was important.
One of the 10 Commandments, the laws the people of Moses continue to
find as a source of authority, is “remember the Sabbath day and keep it
holy.” They had this as a priority that
as you struggle though your existence, finding food and tending your flocks,
you must take one day a week to stop the usual work of survival and think about
the important things. To be with family,
to gather in community for meals, to think about God, to pray. Even when wandering in the desert for 40
years, this kind of thing was seen as vital to the survival of the individual
and the tribe.
I
am sure there a bunch of nice ponds around
I
believe that when we maintain that spiritual side of our existence, when we
tend our soul, that we are able to take off the blinders that David Anderson
talked about and recognize the divine in our lives, or at least the wisdom of
the universe, when it has a message for us.
We can be open to wisdom that abounds in this world for those who have
eyes to see and ears to hear.
I sometimes think that it is not a coincidence
that I heard the voice of God in the bathroom line at GA. I had never heard the voice of God in the
bathroom line at the movies or at the shopping mall. I have spent way more time in those
lines. But while I was at GA that year,
I was participating in worship several times a day. I was singing UU hymns. I was surrounded by people of faith. Spending
some time in a spiritual frame of mind may have helped me to hear the voice of
God when I needed to hear her. Spending
some time looking at life through a spiritual lens may have allowed me to see
what I would otherwise have been blind to.
Many
of you know that the first of our UU principles is that we respect the inherent
worth and dignity of every person. You
may not be so familiar with our Unitarian Universalist six sources. These sources are where we claim to get our
religious wisdom and authority. The
first of our sources reads, “Direct experience of that transcending mystery and
wonder affirmed in all cultures, which moves us to a renewal of the spirit and
an openness to the forces that create and uphold life.” See folks, I didn’t make this up. We as
UUs covenant to regard those direct human experiences to that which creates and
upholds life. When we tend our spiritual
life and are open to new insights, we can experience these direct experiences
of the transcending mystery affirmed in all cultures. This is to live a life of fullness, wisdom,
and joy. May it be so.