Daring Dreamers
First Reading: from T.S. Eliot’s "The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock"
And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions
Before the taking of a toast and tea.
In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.
And indeed there will be time
To wonder, ‘Do I dare?’ and ‘Do I dare?’
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair—
[They will say: ‘How his hair is growing thin!’]
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.
Second Reading: from Madeleine L’Engle, Dare to Be Creative, an address to the Library of Congress
We think because we have words, not the other way around, and the greater our vocabulary, the greater our ability to think conceptually. The first people a dictator puts in jail after a coup are the writers, the teachers, the librarians—because these people are dangerous. They have enough vocabulary to recognize injustice and to speak out loudly about it. Let us have the courage to go on being dangerous people.
I heard someone announce, categorically, that all college professors are communists. That’s a pretty ugly way to think. Perhaps education does open our eyes to injustices which make us uncomfortable; if we don’t know about them, we don’t have to do anything about them. Perhaps people who read and write and have enough vocabulary to think with are universe disturbers. But we need to disturb the universe if, as human beings on planet earth, we are to survive. We need to have the vocabulary to question ourselves, and enough courage to disturb creatively, rather than destructively, even it is going to make us uncomfortable or even hurt.
Sermon:
Each year at the San Francisco Gay Pride parade, a dear friend of mine dresses up as a fairy and frolics about, encouraging others to join her, if only for a few seconds. With a giant grin, and a graceful lilt, she weaves in and out of the crowd beckoning others to shed layers of convention. Roxanne is the kind of person who teaches you how to dance, even when the music has ended. I know Roxanne from seminary. She was three years ahead of me. She’s a Quaker who is a professional storyteller. Few people do I know such as Roxanne who so fully follow their dreams, even though it can mean living without a secure income.
A group of five of us seminary students, including Roxanne, formed a spiritual direction group. We were all quite different from one another, different ages, backgrounds, and goals. One day, one member talked about how she never played as an adult until she had children, that she restrained herself from ever saying or doing anything out of line with her personality. She said that it was as if she was constantly monitored by an inner SS guard. Well, we got to talking about how common it is that we as human beings have built into our psyches an inner leash holder. And I must say, that a couple of us felt our inner leash holders allow very little slack, sometimes threatening a choke hold. Then Roxanne said to us, with just a tinge of her southern drawl, "I don’t think I’ve ever had an inner leash-holder."
Well the vast majority of us do—and it behooves us to notice when an inner leash-holder serves us and when it doesn’t. Today I want to reflect on those moments in our lives that call upon us to act, those times when we are faced with opportunities to make a decision that could alter the course of our lives, whether it be a decision to take a step towards fulfilling a dream, or to stand up for one’s own convictions, or to make a commitment to another person, organization, or campaign.
If you are a dreamer, I dare you
The common message of our culture is, if it feels good, then do it. Two hundred years ago Calvinism defined the cultural norm characteristic of our Puritan ancestors: If you enjoy it, it must be wrong. The reasoning was simple: you are to do what is good in the eyes of God, and that, according to the belief of the age, requires toil and struggle. It wasn’t until the ‘60s, as the early baby boomers came of age, that feeling groovy became the primary motivator for behavior in American culture. Over the last two hundred years, our Unitarian Universalist heritage has taught that people must live by their own conscience—that the eyes of God, if you will, are within the human psyche.
I am a product of our culture, and I agree, one should do what one enjoys, within limits of responsibility and reason. What concerns me is an expectation prevalent in my generation that something must be wrong with you if you aren’t enjoying your life; that is, if you’re struggling, then it must be your own damn fault. This sentiment runs rampant through conservative politics. It pushes for cultural isolationism, to relieve us from the discomfort that comes with noticing the differences among us. It urges a conformity of lifestyle that sanctions the status quo.
Our world here in the Pacific Northwest, on the northeast side of Puget Sound, we enjoy plenty of material and cultural privilege. We can easily resemble the women who come and go speaking of Michelangelo. How often does each of us prepare a face for the faces that we meet? T.S. Eliot, in the Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock, offers a haunting critique of an affluent society where there appears to be no need to make real decisions. Instead there’s time for a hundred indecisions and for a hundred visions and revisions before sitting down to toast and tea. Who here doesn’t deliberate over little decisions and revisions which a minute would reverse? Like J Alfred, each of us must grapple with, "Do I dare?"
Following the maxim, ‘if it feels good, do it,’ can lead to a dead-end. For it usually doesn’t feel very good to come face to face with what is real or what is true in our lives and society. To wade in the water of the unknown is terrifying. Yet, if we are to be more than a dreamer who only dreams of daring, we must claim our own authority. That is, we must be aware of what is important to us and how we are in relationship with others. It can be a painful process. It may be akin to going through a midlife crisis. A conversation between a Kripalu Yoga teacher was listening to one of her students who was going through such a transition. After describing the turmoil she was beginning to confront in her life, the student lamented "I can’t believe I am falling apart." The yoga teacher responded, "I don’t think so, I think you are falling together."
There is an element of risk in all adventure. To dare to pursue a dream means giving up the security that is at odds with achieving that dream. The security might be financial, it might be emotional, it might be political. The question for many becomes, "Do I dare put my security into jeopardy?" For others it is "Do I dare to not follow the hope in my soul, the convictions of my conscience, the calling in my gut?" But the question for most of us is, "When is it time to act?" I suppose the most honest answer is, when we are disturbed.
This goes hand in hand with the Gnostic teachings of Jesus. I am curious how many of you have heard of the Gospel according to Thomas. It is one of the books of the Bible that was cast out in the fourth century. Yet historians believe it to be one of the two earliest books about the teachings of Jesus, earlier than the more familiar gospels of Matthew, Luke and John. The Gospel according to Thomas, unlike the other gospels, is not about the life of Jesus but comprises of a series of teachings. Here is an example,
"If any of you seek, you will find.
When you find, what you find will disturb you.
When you are truly disturbed, you will be amazed
and your power will influence the All."
I believe Jesus dared to live out and teach a vision of the world that subverted conventional paradigms.
In today’s world, there are plenty of happenings to be disturbed by which call for a response that calls for challenging conventional norms. I will choose one particular incident for which we have just reached the one-year anniversary. A young man in Laramie, Wyoming was tortured, chained to a fence, and left to die. The only apparent reason for this brutality was the fact that Matthew Shepard was gay. With good reason, people all over the country were upset, disgusted, outraged. I wish the media would have focused more on what I believe made possible this hateful event—the silence in our culture about gays and lesbians. Our country takes a don’t ask, don’t tell stance, thus sparing those who are ignorant from discomfort. If there was more national discourse that was meaningful, if there were more community leaders publicly acknowledging the worth and dignity of gay people, if there were more news articles openly affirming the truth that love between two people of the same sex can be as fulfilling, as worthy, and as life-giving as heterosexual, then there would be no room for tacit toleration for violence and verbal assaults on gay and lesbian people. If you are horrified and deeply disturbed by the violence, may you in conversation with family and friends find opportunities to break the silence that killed Matt Shepard.
An accomplished photographer, Jerry Ullesman has a compelling philosophy of art. He believes that one doesn’t truly do art until its more uncomfortable not to do it, so that one’s art becomes a passion, an expression that needs to come forth. Of course one may agonize in developing one’s art, but there would be even more internal suffering without it. As human beings, we flourish when we pursue our truth.
Howard Thurman puts the dilemma of modern life quite elegantly:
The reassurance of a secure income, the quiet glow of working with a safe and respected institution in conventional ways, the sense of well-being that comes from being accepted by everyone because one’s thinking is "sensible" and safe, all of this makes for a certain kind of deep tranquility. But there is apt to be no growing edge and very little of the tang and zest of aliveness that only the adventurous spirit knows.
Howard Thurman lived at his growing edge throughout his life. Born black in the South at the turn of the century, Thurman was lucky to receive scholarship after scholarship that launched a career that included teaching in seminary, mentoring Martin Luther King Jr., and being the first black man to take a Dean position at an Ivy League school. And yet the most adventurous part of his life was still to come. He left his academic position in Boston to follow his calling to move to San Francisco and build the first inter-racial inter-denominational church in America. The Fellowship of All Peoples thrived under his leadership, but unfortunately has struggled since his death twenty years ago.
Sometimes moving closer to one’s truth takes a leap of faith. I learned a lot from Roxanne—my friend with no inner leash holder—during another meeting of our group. We met in a room about thirty feet long. I don’t remember the conversation, I just remember Roxanne coaxing me to go to one corner opposite to the corner she went to. "Okay, Alan, you need to learn how to go to your edge. We both will run fast towards one another and stop just before we collide." The first time I started quick and then quickly slowed down. Roxanne urged me to try again. I slowed down when we were at least two feet from one another. The next time, I was focused. I ran right towards Roxanne as she was coming to me, and I waited to the last second to stop. I could see that we may very well collide, and at that instant, Roxanne, jumped up into the air. All I could do was turn slightly and catch her. We spun, somehow gracefully, Roxanne with her arms up in the air! Roxanne taught me a lot about taking a leap of faith.
The decision to act can create great energy. I am inspired by what occurred in this town in 1991. A group of people dared to envision a liberal religious community in their vicinity. The energy spread. At the first official gathering where individuals could come and sign their names to designate themselves members, the leaders thought maybe 30 people would show up. Three times that number came. It was an exciting time.
It pains me that many of those original people who dared to dream—and committed time and money—left this church. For us to be a healthy organization, we need to acknowledge the pain and the hurt and the anger that led a vast majority of the original congregation to let go of the dream that had given them so much hope and joy.
In the face of disillusionment, Dietrich Bonhoeffer demonstrated great courage during the late 1930s. Having been a minister in Germany, he was teaching at Union Theological Seminary in New York. When Hitler began gaining power, he returned to his homeland to do all he could to stop Hitler. It was not long before Bonhoeffer was arrested. While in prison, he wrote a series of letters and papers that are among the finest theological reflections of this century. More than anyone of my own personal heroes, Dietrich Bonhoeffer raises grave concerns about dreaming. In his words,
Those who love their dreams of community more than the community itself become destroyers of the latter, even though their personal intentions may be ever so honest, and earnest, and sacrificial. God hates visionary dreaming. It makes the dreamer proud and pretentious. The persons, who fashion the visionary ideal of community, demand that it be realized by God, by others and by themselves. They engage the community with their demands, set up their own law, and judge all … accordingly.
As we dare to pursue our dreams for our own lives, for this church and for the world, we must remember that we must stay humble if we are to flourish; we must be able to face disillusionment with all its disturbing aspects; and we must remember to accept ourselves, our community, our world and remember that what we are working with is as worthy as any unrealized wish.
If you are a dreamer, I dare you
I close with a passage from Madeleine L’Engle’s prophetic address to the Library of Congress, from which today’s reading was also taken:
A librarian friend of mine told me of a woman who came to her and urged her to remove Catcher in the Rye from her library shelves (Catcher in the Rye has long been a favorite of the vigilante groups). The woman announced that it had 7,432 dirty words in it. "How do you know the exact number?" my friend asked. "I counted them." "Did you read the book?" "No."
How dreary to spend your time counting dirty words, but not reading the book. And how revealing of the person who is counting. We do find what we look for.
So let us look for beauty and grace, for love and friendship, for that which is creative and birthgiving and soul-stretching. Let us dare to laugh at ourselves, healthy affirmative laughter. Only when we take ourselves lightly can we take ourselves really seriously, so that we are given the courage to say, "Yes! I dare to disturb the Universe."