"Sweating It Out"

Then said a teacher, Speak to us of Teaching:

And he said:

No man can reveal to you ought but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of your knowledge.

The teacher who walks in the shadow of the temple, among his followers, gives not of his wisdom but rather of his faith and his lovingness.

IF he is indeed wise he does not bid you enter the house of his wisdom, but rather leads you to the threshold of your own mind.

The astronomer may speak to you of his understanding of space, but he cannot give you his understanding.

The musician may sing to you of the rhythm which is in all space, but he cannot give you the ear which arrests the rhythm nor the voice that echoes it.

And he who is versed in the science of numbers can tell of the regions of weight

and measure, but he cannot conduct you thither.

For the vision of one man lends not its wings to another man.

And even as each one of you stands alone in God’s knowledge, so must each one of you be alone in his knowledge of God and in his understanding of the earth.

Reading #2 : My Grandfather's Blessings, by Rachel Naomi Remen, MD. p. 1

"OFTEN, WHEN HE came to visit, my grandfather would bring me a present. These were never the sorts of things that other people brought, dolls and books and stuffed animals. My dolls and stuffed animals have been gone for more than half a century, but many of my grandfather’s gifts are with me still.

Once he brought me a little paper cup. I looked inside it expecting something special. It was full of dirt. I was not allowed to play with dirt. Disappointed, I told him this. He smiled at me fondly. Turning, he picked up the little teapot from my dolls’ tea set and took me to the kitchen where he filled it with water. Back in the nursery, he put the little cup on the windowsill and handed me the teapot. "If you promise to put some water in the cup every day, something may happen," he told me.

At the time, I was four years old and my nursery was on the sixth floor of an apartment building in Manhattan. This whole thing made no sense to me at all. I looked at him dubiously. He nodded with encouragement. "Every day, Neshume-le," he told me.

And so I promised. At first, curious to see what would happen, I did not mind doing this. But as the days went by and nothing changed, it got harder and harder to remember to put water in the cup. After a week, I asked my grandfather if it was time to stop yet. Shaking his head no, he said, "Every day, Neshume-le." The second week was even harder, and I became resentful of my promise to put water in the cup. When my grandfather came again, I tried to give it back to him but he refused to take it, saying simply, "Every day, Neshume-le." By the third week, I began to forget to put water in the cup. Often I would remember only after I had been put to bed and would have to get out of bed and water it in the dark. But I did not miss a single day. And one morning, there were two little green leaves that had not been there the night before.

I was completely astonished. Day by day they got bigger. I could not wait to tell my grandfather, certain that he would be as surprised as I was. But of course he was not. Carefully he explained to me that life is everywhere, hidden in the most ordinary and unlikely places. I was delighted. "And all it needs is water, Grandpa?" I asked him. Gently he touched me on the top of my head. "No, Neshume—le," he said. "All it needs is your faithfulness."

The title of my sermon today is "Sweating It Out." I want to talk about the hard work of living a value-committed (some would say God-centered) life and how trust in others can be a lifeline to growth in character, skill and spirit. As Unitarian Universalists we tend to pride ourselves on our independent thinking, but today I would like to raise the question of being open to the possibility of prophetic teachers in our daily lives. I have left time for a talk-back after the sermon.

In her book, My Grandfather's Blessings, Rachel Naomi Remen writes of being the daughter of two academic, research oriented parents who had no use for religion, and of being profoundly influenced by her grandfather who she describes as an island of mysticism in a sea of science. In the opening passage her grandfather is giving her an experience of his God-centered way of being in the world. He is helping her to internalize, at four years old, a certain kind of commitment to life and an appreciation that life is everywhere although she can't always see it...

The superficial lesson is that by watering a seed you can get a plant to grow. But Naomi's grandfather never once mentioned a seed and he is certainly not giving her a botany lesson. He wants to initiate his granddaughter into larger mysteries. He wants Naomi to learn what it means to be faithful. He wants to open her up, to know in her bones, as he does, that the correct object of our faithfulness is to be no one thing, such as a plant. He hopes, rather, to guide her in her faithfulness to the mystery and wonder of life itself.

The dictionary defines faithfulness as true and constant in affection or allegiance to a person [or thing] to whom one is bound by a vow, be ties of love, gratitude, [or ]honor; firm in the observance of duty. Faithfulness is a noble quality. So, should not the object of our faithfulness be something obviously worthy? Was it fair to ask her to devote her allegiance to what looked like a barren cup of dirt and not tell her what to expect or look for?

Grandfather wanted Naomi to experience not only initial excitement and curiosity of her responsibility to water the dirt but also the struggle, resentment and desire to quit that followed. He wanted her to suffer through the whole process. I suspect that uncertainty and disappointment, the feeling of "why am I watering this dirt?" were also central and valuable parts of the experience. He wanted her to feel this lesson on becoming faithful to the life her eye could not see, rather than think it. He was a wise teacher who made an enormous impression on her life even though he died when she was seven years old.. The rest of Rachel Naomi's book, My Grandfather's Blessings, is well worth reading, if you are interested in how she learned, through him, to bless life.

Do you remember The Karate Kid, a popular movie a few years ago? In some ways, the story of the main character, (The Karate Kid) resembles the author Rachel Naomi Remen because he is taught by an older wise one, a Mr. Miyagi, one who is not, but could be, his grandfather. One of my favorite scenes takes place just after the karate master agrees to teach Daniel karate. In the first lesson we see Daniel being taken, not to the karate studio, but to Mr Miyagi's car where he is shown how to wipe a car with a cloth most effectively. "Wax on - wax off," Mr. Miyagi says. If you've seen the movie, or even if you haven't, you probably realize that Daniel is being taught valuable lessons about patience, trust, self discipline and hard work, traits that must be developed because they are essential in karate, but he doesn't know it yet. This feels nothing like what he is after. His struggle, resentment and desire to quit mount as Daniel is left to perform "wax on wax off" for hours, not to one car but to a fleet. "Wax on - wax off, ... this is hard work, and boring. He is also made to stand still on a rock for long periods of time as the waves come in, and to paint a fence using only certain motions with great discipline. Daniel is furious, thinking this work has nothing to do with his goal and it looks nothing like the lessons that the other kids are getting under other teachers. In spite of his resentment, his bond with his teacher is strong enough so that he doesn't quit. Later we will see the patience and perseverance work its magic in the boy as he is able to face difficult situations with physical prowess, confidence and equanimity. By trusting his teacher, Mr Miyagi, he learned to grow though experience, achieving a state of being that could not be arrived at through study.

Recently the Omni Theater at the science museum has been showing Shackleton's Great Adventure to the South Pole., the story of explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton's attempted crossing of the Arctic Continent. Some of you might have seen this or other versions. The story of how Shackleton and his men survived nearly two years in the barren, frigid Antarctic after their ship was caught in pack ice and eventually crushed has caught the public imagination. Shackleton, their leader didn't just keep his 27 men merely alive after their prophetically named ship, Endurance, was wrecked. Under the most dire of circumstances -- a wrecked ship, no communications capability, 1,200 miles from civilization, limited resources, and a steady diet of seal, penguin, and dog, he kept them calm, sane, focused, and motivated. He was not only their teacher. He believed they could survive, but knew he would have to draw out from them a capacity to interact with each other in a positive way that would make it possible. His faith in their ability to survive became their faith. They put their trust in him, and their faith, under these circumstances, became their lifeline.

The leader, the one known as the wise one or the prophet, plays a large role in conventional religion. Jesus, and Buddha and Muhammed live today as virtual teachers, mediating people's lives through text and the spoken word. Unitarian Universalism has spoken little on this topic, putting strong emphasis on personal growth but without the mention of teachers or leadership. We are wary, and rightfully so, of abandoning our own thinking, and blind trust is not something I would ever advocate. We advocate a democracy of learning rather than a hierarchy for transmission of knowledge. Although we haven't advocated teachers, neither should we assume that relating to a wise one in trust is un-Unitarian Universalist. Great teachers help us discover what is already present in ourselves and they do so, by giving us a push to develop beyond what we might do by ourselves. The life that has been positively affected by such a teacher has been blessed.

In two weeks I will be attending a retreat led by an extraordinary teacher, the Buddhist nun, Pema Chodron hoping to deepen my meditation practice. I need the push, I desire to do deeper work than I am capable of alone. Meditation is an experiencial discipline so I will have to trust her.