“Hell is other people.” (Jean-Paul Sartre) Or, in the immortal words of Cheap Trick, “I want you to want me.”

A meditation on the ego–our egos–as a source of tyranny, or as a source of solidity, resiliency, solidarity, and strength. To be our true selves matters, for ourselves and for the world.

Offered on Sunday, September 3, at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Spartanburg, SC.

A recording of the reflection may be found here:

A transcript excerpt may be found here:

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That is the divine “I”,

the divine self,

the beautiful ego

 

speaking its true being

 

and by the very light of its brilliant existence

 

awakening us to our true being,

calling us to our true selves.

 

We have seen this week how much we need one another.

We hear the beauty and possibility of desire,

of longing to connect with one another,

in our songs.

 

And we see in our families, in our work, in our leaders, in our history,

how distorted and ravenous

the ego can become,

 

what an all-consuming tyrant

we can be—

 

individually, and as a nation.

 

Thich Nhat Hanh

discards doctrine

to call us to our true selves,

 

to manifest in this moment

the full beauty and wisdom

of just who we are.

 

And James Baldwin

who is just that beautiful, and wise, and brilliant

in the fullness of his being,

 

reveals the tyranny of our nation’s ravenous ego,

the endless and all-consuming narcissism of white supremacy,

 

by saying:

“I am a man. I don’t exist for you.

What is it about your own narcissism

that you needed to imagine me as something different for yourself?”

 

Stand in the fullness of your being,

in the beauty and wisdom

of your “I am,”

 

of your divinity,

 

Your light,

your desire,

your song

 

will illuminate the world

to who we truly

may be.

 

“We all fail in life…we always die too soon, or too late.” (Jean-Paul Sartre)

A meditation on failure. A meditation on existence. A meditation on our existence. A meditation on pushing beyond the limits of our work, to reveal the truth of ourselves. A meditation on the City of Light.

Offered at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Spartanburg, SC on August 27, 2017.

A recording of the sermon may be heard here:

An excerpt of the transcript may be found here:

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What this place represents,

what you have created here

and in which I join you

is a place trying so hard

to do what others literally—literally—believe cannot be done

 

that in the very failure to convince them

you witness to that for which

you are striving so hard:

 

a community of love, beyond belief.

 

And that is just the point:

It is not just a question of the work we accomplish in life,

but of the life our work creates in us.

 

Our work may finally be assessed as incomplete.

Some may one day call it unfinished, or a failure.

 

Nevertheless,

may it create in us

the very thing we so long

to achieve through all our labor.

 

Consider Sartre & de Beauvoir.

Their work,

each in their own ways,

was incomplete, and easily critiqued,

full of flaws,

by many measures, failure.

 

And yet their pursuit of their work

created of their lives

a witness—

for all of their flaws,

with perfect clarity,

they witness—

to freedom

and the commitment to matter in the world

and to each other.

 

We see in them what they tried so hard to write for others.

 

And Aquinas

who endeavored the Summa,

a complete compendium of faith and reason,

 

but who was stopped short

by a vision

beyond all words and images,

something he could not describe

even after the thousands of pages he had written,

 

the end of all his work

that somehow communicates

what all his ideas and words and work

had striven to say,

 

as if his very failure fulfilled

what he had striven so long

to accomplish:

 

a witness to a reality beyond human understanding.

 

And this is my hope for us, for the work we join in together here—

that we will attempt so much,

that we will risk so much,

that even in our failing,

 

all which we have striven to achieve

will be revealed in the way we live our lives.

 

We are certain to fail in a thousand ways,

to let one another down,

to misunderstand each other,

to offend where offense was not intended,

to come up short,

to overreach.

 

What we are attempting here

is too implausible

to all work out.

 

May we have the vision and the courage

the reason and the faith

to do it any way,

 

to strive,

to try and to fail,

 

but to work, together, over and over,

in the search for what is really true

in our lives

that no external authority can finally condemn.

 

In our incompleteness,

in whatever finally stops us,

 

may the world see clearly

exactly that for which we strove

with such brilliance.

My son thought very hard, looking intently at this new place his father had brought him.
“We have all kinds of people here,” Ruth explained gently, helping him make sense of what he was hearing.
“This is an everybody church!” shouted Ben, leaping up in his chair.

Why does this matter?

A sermon preached on Sunday, August 20 at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Spartanburg, SC.

A recording of the sermon may be found here:

An excerpt of the transcript may be found here:

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Why does this matter?

 

Just look at the world. And look at us in it.

 

How powerful it is

to be in a place

of connection,

and belonging,

 

a place where difference

is not only valued

but is loved,

 

a place of truthful conversation

and deep encounter

without coercion, or threat,

or violence.

 

And why does this matter?

 

It matters how we live together.

It matters how we use our knowledge.

It matters how we share our resources.

It matters how we think.

 

It matters how we treat one another.

It matters what kind of world

we decide

this time around the sun

we will create.

 

And when we do this

with intention,

with risk,

cognizant of ourselves

in relationship to others,

 

something more happens—

not just goodness,

not just justice,

not just healing,

not just community—

although it includes all of these things—

 

Something more happens:

 

a kind of magic.

 

That is what an eclipse is:

bodies in relationship,

illuminating one another.

at the very moment of their mutual darkness.

 

We use the word “eclipse” to talk about something that is ending,

or being surpassed,

something losing its supremacy,

something dying and fighting for its life.

 

Hear how much

that echoes our own fears,

as individuals, as peoples.

But that is not what an eclipse is.

 

An eclipse

is bodies

very different from one another

coming into alignment

such that we see suddenly

in their relationship with one another

 

something startling—

 

darkness & light fused in cosmic glory—

 

which is also nothing more

than their very nature.

 

In an eclipse, sun and moon—

and our position on earth,

our small but crucial place in it all—

 

come for a moment

into a particular alignment.

 

And from this momentary vantage point

aspects of the sun,

its different colors and circles of light

can be seen.

 

In its very darkening,

through its relationship

with the moon,

 

we see the sun’s light

in a new way.

 

And not just the sun,

but all of life

is presented in a different aspect

during that brief intersection of bodies—

the temperature drops,

animals and plants become disoriented,

people—that particular form of animal that we are—

become confused too, frightened or ecstatic or both—

stars come out,

and astronomers

and astrologers

after long preparations

hasten to study

the heavens and our place in them

across this sprint of time.

 

In that moment

the light & the darkness

are not the same

but together,

mutually revealing

what is true to both—

 

what is really just their nature,

common and ordinary—

 

but unseen

when they are not together.

 

And when they are:

 

unearthly glory

people will travel the world

to encounter.

 

And so with us—

each of us

full of light,

full of darkness,

full of knowledge and religions

and resources and power,

 

full of life,

common & extraordinary.

 

So often we have chosen

to dominate and overwhelm

out of fear of what we will lose

if we don’t,

 

fearing that we will be eclipsed

and die forever

if we don’t conquer first

the world around us

and the people of this world.

 

So often we have chosen

the lie of supremacy.

 

And in consequence

we have destroyed worlds.

 

But if we choose instead

alignment

& relationship,

 

not a false unity or sameness

but a universe of different bodies

in relationship to one another,

 

connected to one another,

 

revealing the glory

of one another,

 

what brilliant darkness,

what luminous shadow,

 

might be seen in us?

 

This is an everybody church.

Every body,

earthly & celestial,

dark & light,

of every name

and gender

and origin

and belief

 

has a home

in this world,

 

has a home

here.

 

Whatever your orientation,

whatever your gravitational pull.

whatever your light,

whatever your darkness,

 

whatever your history

and your place in it

 

you have a place here.

 

Let us reveal to the world

what is so rarely seen,

something extraordinary

that is also just us,

 

bodies luminous

in our movement

together.