First Reading: A Buddhist story

A long time ago there lived a prince. His father, the king did all he could to shield his son from the harsh realities of the world. Giving him the best teachers and toys, he raised the prince inside his large estate. But the young prince wasn't to remain sheltered. While riding through a village, he saw a woman hobbling and hunched over. The prince couldn't take his eyes off her. He asked his servant, "Why does she have such wrinkled skin, and why does she walk like that?" The servant responded, "She is an old lady. Everyone gets old sometime or another. Don't you know that?" The prince remained quiet. On the next excursion, he came across an emaciated boy lying on a stretcher carried by two men. With a terrible rash and fever, the boy groaned about pain inside his belly. "What's the matter with him?" the prince asked the charioteer. "He's ill, people get sick all the time." And yet another day, the prince saw a band of people tearing at their clothes and weeping. Among them was a man lying motionless. "Why is everybody so upset and why is that man not moving?" The servant said, "He is dead. Everyone dies sometime and most of us must deal with losing someone close to us." The prince didn't know what to say.

The young prince couldn't get the old woman, the sick boy, or the grieving people and dead man out of his thoughts. He wondered, why, why do these things happen? His questions disturbed him so much he drafted a note for his father. It said, "I renounce my heir to the kingdom; for I must leave you and learn why people suffer in this world." The prince took off in search of answers. He thought that he should take nothing but a begging bowl and one set of clothes. For years he meditated on why there is so much suffering. Then one day while sitting under a Bodhi tree, he had a great realization. There are no answers, no good reason for why suffering happens. Instead, there is the response. The only way to transcend the world of suffering is to become an embodiment of compassion.

Second Reading: Adapted from St Theresa of Avila

God has no body on earth but ours,

No hands but ours, no feet but ours.

Ours are the eyes through which God sees the world with compassion.

Ours are the feet on which God travels to those in need.

Ours are the hands with which God blesses people and comforts them.

A mother questioned her six-year-old girl why she was late coming home from school. The young girl said, "There was a boy on the side of the road upset because his bicycle was broken." The mother responded, "Honey, you don't know how to fix bicycles." The girl replied, "I know that! I stopped to help him cry." I don't know if the story is true, but wouldn't it be a child to subvert the conventional wisdom for finding a reason to stop? It is our conditioning, that most of us adults, when seeing someone in distress, would seek to fix what is visibly broken rather than offer some companionship to one who is hurting.

The Buddha, according to the legend of his childhood, gave up his title to becoming the king, the ruler of the practical world. Instead he sought a depth response to the great suffering in the world. The Buddha is arguably one of the most practical of spiritual teachers, in that he teaches to go the middle way, to practice moderation. We Unitarian Universalists often find a deep affinity for his teachings that make use of critical inquiry. The Buddha enjoyed good arguments and offered compelling insights. Many of the teachings attributed to him make good rational sense. On the other hand, a vivid mythology still flourishes, the childhood legend a case in point. Yet this story speaks more deeply to me of our human condition than many of his rational teachings.

One of the reasons why I am Unitarian Universalist is because, for us, critical inquiry is a core religious value. We don't expect people to accept religious claims without putting them to the test of personal reflection. We encourage questioning the veracity of any claim to ultimate truth. We abhor the practice of spoon feeding religious beliefs. Here in Woodinville, there are 19 churches. Fourteen of them, I understand, claim that any path other than following Jesus Christ in their way leads to hell. That means the other five of us, known as the Cottage Lake cluster of liberal religious churches, seek to teach people that critical reflection is essential to religious faith. And thus we cannot satisfy ourselves with the answers of some of our Christian friends who believe their's is the only way. I agree with the Buddha, freedom is not contingent on finding answers but on the choices we make on how to live and be in this world.

For us Unitarian Universalists, being reasonable is our joy. It can also be our failing. At times, reasoning only can go so far. At San Francisco General Hospital, as I talked with people with AIDS, my capacity to reason didn't help much. When sitting with parents whose baby girl was born at one pound five ounces, what good does critical inquiry in and of itself? Or listening to a friend whose partner leaves a relationship without any clear reason? Or comforting a friend who has lost a relative to a random act of violence akin to the shootings during a young adult worship service in Fort Worth two weeks ago?

Rather than sharing with you stories from my experience as a minister, I think its appropriate to share one that not only hit home for me, but also is an experience all of us have had or will have--the loss of my grandparents. Four years ago my grandmother suffered a stroke that rendered her paralyzed and unable to swallow. Before then, I had hardly even been in a hospital. My grandfather was there at his wife's side every day for months. My mom visited a lot, but both my dad and I didn't like being in either the hospital or the care center she was moved to. While I was in seminary, I traveled to Bakersfield once a month as the consulting student minister for the UU fellowship there that didn't have a regular minister. During these visits, I always pushed myself to visit grandma.

It was hard. I never knew what to say or do. Often there were long awkward silences. Even more often though, she complained about some pain or other and was telling someone to get something or adjust a pillow. I wanted some time with her where she could just be with me. Holding her hand helped. But I wished I could just come in and say 'Hello, grandma, I love you' and have a period of silence, at the end which, I could say, 'Goodbye grandma, I love you.' But hardly any time elapsed before she started her usual complaints and requests. Then an idea came to me: to sing to her. So I took a hymnal with me to the care center. It was almost Christmas, so I sang all the Christmas carols whose tunes I knew. She listened quietly, remaining quiet the whole time; the longest stretches I ever remember her being quiet for. I know she was listening. When I finished, she said, "That's nice Alan but you changed the words."

My grandma died three years ago. My grandfather's health went through cycles of deterioration and recovery until this past July. While he was alive, he periodically got choked up at times, tears filling his eyes. One evening, about a year after my grandmother's death, I was eating dinner with my parents when we started talking about grandpa. Mom said to my dad, "He believes you think he is crazy because he gets emotional all the time." My dad responded, "I have no idea why he'd think that." Because I happened to have talking to grandpa earlier that day about, I spoke up. "Dad, grandpa says he believes you think he's crazy because when he starts crying, you look away and you don't say anything." My dad, looking wounded, said, "Well, there's nothing intelligent to say."

In that one comment, I realized a sublime truth.

There is nothing intelligent to say in the face of the mysteries in our life, both those that bring great joy and those that bring deep pain.

There is nothing intelligent to say about death

There is nothing intelligent to say when your partner leaves you

There is nothing intelligent to say about the birth of a child.

There is nothing intelligent to say about falling in love.

There is also nothing intelligent to say when we do something that causes someone else pain. When we are the ones who leave our partner, or say something hurtful that ends a friendship.

It is in that void where there is nothing intelligent to say that I believe we need to look for answers. Most likely, the answers won't be reasonable. They won't always make much sense to the practical mind. They may differ among us. But we can find answers that ring true within us.

Fyodor Dostoevsky struggled with the limits of human reason. In (what I believe to be the greatest novel every written) The Brothers Karamazov, one of his characters, Ivan Karamazov puts his entire faith in reason. He seeks answers to the injustice and rampant suffering he sees all around him. He rejects the notion of paradise if its founding requires the suffering of even one innocent child. Of course, in our world, there are countless suffering children and adults. So, for Ivan, our world is a living hell.

Ivan finds no adequate answers. For him, there is no alternative to reason and understanding. Angry and lonely, he suffers the alienation of holding on to something that brings him no ultimate solace. He finds temporary solace, unexpectedly, by the patiently listening ear of his brother Alyosha. But he never sees this lifeline his Brother offers him. Ivan instead remains a prisoner of his own mind, in lonely anguish while silently demanding that the world be just. Ivan falls ill with a fatal brain disease.

Religion in the eyes of Ivan was a farce that claims to justify all suffering and injustice. I agree with Ivan, that type of religion--which claims all suffering has a purpose--demeans humanity. After living through or reflecting back on the twentieth century, how can anyone pretend that everything happens for a reason? Ivan is a hero for us Unitarian Universalists as he holds on to reason to debunk horrific claims. But he never lets go. Worse, Ivan misses the gift his brother, Alyosha, offers him: compassion.

In my experience, the people with the most real hope are those who have braved contact with struggle and still strive to live meaningful lives. The more we can accept and embrace suffering--our own as well as others, the more we can claim for ourselves the real hope that comes through the living relationships we have with others.

As Unitarian Universalists, we may identify ourselves as Christian or Buddhists, humanists or pagans. No matter what our theological beliefs are, we can always find common ground in our struggle towards compassion and clarity, as well as in the liberation that comes from making peace with that struggle.

And this struggle does not come only in the face of suffering. One of my colleagues tells a story of her own about witnessing one of the great mysteries of life. Marilyn Sewell was in her early twenties when she was invited by a medical student to come to the hospital and see a live birth. Her friend convinced her that being robed in a student gown and mask that she wouldn't be noticed. She entered the large room with lots of cubicles, waiting with other medical students to hear, "There's one coming in Number 3." So off they went. As she witnessed the birth, tears began streaming down her face. Her mask was soaked. Then a doctor looked her way and said, I need--and said something with a long name. She went to the cabinet, and fortunately a bottle with that long name was right there. She gave the doctor the bottle and then promptly fainted!

In the face of such mystery, there is nothing intelligent to say. For her, in that time and space, the most honest response was tears upon tears. As Marilyn Sewell puts it, "Words would have been insufficient. And so it is for us Homo sapiens--we talk and talk and talk. But sometimes the talking stops, and we must go deeper, then tears cleanse the way for the buried language of the soul. We weep when a friend dies. We weep when our daughter gets the letter saying the college of her dreams has accepted her. Or when our son is teased at school because he has funny hair, and he does have sort of funny hair. Or when we hear Handel's Messiah once again at Christmas, and we stand during the Hallelujah Chorus, hopeful, though we are in a season of cold. Or when we are called "nigger" or "kike" or "faggot" or "bitch" by someone who is ignorant and afraid. Or when we hear that the medical test was positive, or negative. Or when we get a note saying, "I love you. I'm there for you." Or when the snow is falling in big, soft flakes, and the earth is perfect, and the moment is perfect, and we cannot imagine wanting anything to be any different from the way it is."

This past week, one of the members here came to talk with me. She asked me how I clarify what is real and important in my own life, which is what brings me closer to the source of my truth. I was surprised that my answer was so quick--for me tears are one of the quickest ways of reaching the buried language of the soul: tears of joy, tears of pain, tears of disappointment, tears of thanksgiving. I imagine tears carving an ever-greater empty space within me, a space that makes way for the embrace of awe, beauty, and pain. The greater that cavern deepens in my own life, the greater I find is my capacity for compassion and joy.

Ancient Israel shared a similar belief. They had tear cups which people would cry their tears into. A full tear cup was a sign of status--it showed that a person had really lived and knew both the deep pain and joy of life.

Wayne Muller in Legacy of the Heart says, "[T]he suffering we feel has never been ours alone; it is simply a fragment of the suffering given us all as children of flesh and spirit. ... When we isolate and withdraw from humanity, we not only deny ourselves the love, comfort, and nurture available from our friends, family, and neighbors, we also deny others access to our gifts, our wisdom, our heart, and our spirit."

Here at the Woodinville Unitarian Universalist Church, we do well to foster the space where people can share with one another. One of the sister circles has chosen to be not only a social group but also an intentional supportive environment where women can gather together for both fun and sharing. The Lifeguards are planning opportunities for worshipful forms of sharing and listening. It is a deeply religious quest to offer companionship to one another.

Our church should be a place where we feel safe to be who we are. I have already been touched by how many of you are able to cry here at worship. It is through tears and laughter that we can be fully human. As each of us moves forward on our own journey of cultivating compassion and clarity, we can look to making the wider community more whole.

Towards the end of his lifetime of compassionate service, Albert Schweitzer noted a profound correlation between our happiness and the happiness of others: "One thing I know, the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve."

Blessed be, my friends. Amen.