Chalice Lighting by Eric Eckberg
The journey that has left my family and I on the cusp of over a year of separation began with a Fedex envelope left on the doorstep on the Friday before Labor Day weekend last year. All of you with government experience know what happened next: 4 days of unanswered phone calls and unanswered questions: where was I headed, how long, what unit, what job, and most importantly, how could I get out of it.
We spent much of those 4 days scared, holding each other against the obvious worst case scenarios. Some of our favorite cds would cause both of us to start crying. At some point Sunday night, we got sick of the hollow, helpless feeling and started making our lists. All those things we needed to get done to prepare for the next 450 days. All those memories we needed to make in the intervening time to ease the pain of separation.
We ended up with 5 months together before I reported in to Fort Benning – 4 months more than what the Army usually grants mobilized Individual Ready Reservists (indeed, some of my compatriots received considerably less than that due to their circumstances).
And now, we’re in the midst of writing this next chapter of this story, in addition to a lot of letters and emails. The prologue is written as summarized above. The main body will come with time, one letter, one word, one sentence at a time. The denouement is the tough part, the part that makes us both apprehensive; even in the best case we’ll find ourselves married to very different people than before.
Regardless, it will be our story, and we look forward to being able to tell it and retell it later. So, I light this Chalice for all of our stories, told and retold, in print and not yet written. And given my current status and the Memorial Day Holiday, I would be remiss if I did not specifically include those stories cut short of the men and women who died in service to their country.
Readings
We have two readings. The first is from Lillian Rubin’s The Transcendent Child. The book is a study of people who overcame horrific abuse.
Together, their interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligence fostered the kind of intellectual and psychological restlessness that demanded that they reject easy explanations and kept them searching for their own ways of understanding. Indeed, in some ways, it was the search itself that propelled their transcendence because embedded in it was their determination not to be passive victims of their circumstances. Instead, they struggled to gain some feelings of efficacy, to maintain some sense of control, if not over external events, then over how the perceived those events and managed them internally.
It was through such striving to place what psychologists call “the locus of control” inside themselves that they took a crucial step in the development of a sense of efficacy in the world. People who consistently feel victimized by external events place the locus of control outside themselves and assure a continuing sense of victimization. But even in situations where people are regularly victimized by prejudice, discrimination, injustice, and brutality, some escape victimization, at least in part, by their conviction that they’re not totally helpless—a belief that allows them to engage in a persistent struggle to retain control over some aspects of their lives, whether internal or external.
The second reading is from Jazz musician Mose Allison. These are the lyrics to his song, “What’s Your Movie?”.
What’s your movie?
Are you taking a trip to the moon?
Are you playing the rustic buffoon?
Or is it the brilliant but ruthless tycoon?
What’s your movie?
Are you the artist who’s misunderstood?
The bad guy trying to do good?
Or the nicest damn fella in the neighborhood?
What’s your movie?
Are you the long suffering motherly mate?
Or would you settle for a fashion plate?
Or are you the schemer we all love to hate?
What’s your movie?
Are you playing the talk of the town?
The prince who gave up a crown?
Or are you standing up singing as the ship goes down?
What’s your movie?
Sermon
So, what’s your movie? When you tell the story of your life to others, what kind of tale do you tell? Is yours a tragic story of broken dreams and bad luck? Or is it a story of resilience and accomplishment? Is it a love story? An adventure story?
Oh, sure, we all start with the basic facts: where we were born, where we grew up, something about our families. When you and I tell our stories, the bare facts are necessary elements of the story, but the facts are not the story. The story is how you and I shape these facts, how we choose which facts are worth telling, how we string the facts together.
The story you and I tell about ourselves is enormously important. In a very real sense, you and I are our stories. My story is ultimately how I see my self, how I see my life, how I make sense and meaning of my life. My story is who I am to myself and to others. And your story is who you are.
I bet that each one of us, when we were young children, had someone tell us that we could be anything we wanted to be. Maybe it was a parent or a relative or a teacher. “You can be whatever you want to be,” they told us. What nonsense! Why do people persist in telling children such blatant lies? I wanted to be a major league all star. I wanted to strike out the side in the ninth inning to win the World Series. I wanted to be Johnny Unitas’s replacement as quarterback for the Colts. After I heard my first opera I wanted to sing at the Met and La Scala. Trouble is, I am a mediocre athlete at best and can’t carry a tune to save my life.
Facts do matter. Reality sets limits on us. It matters if you were born poor. It matters if one of your parents was abusive. It matters if we went to good schools or bad ones. Some of us were born with more natural ability than others.
Yet facts only matter up to a point. The facts aren’t the story.
One of this morning’s readings was from Lillian Rubin’s book The Transcendent Child. Rubin became fascinated in her therapy practice by the ability of some people to overcome, to transcend, horrible life events. What is it, she asked herself, that makes one person able to transcend terrible events while other people, facing the same trauma, end up broken and profoundly emotionally impaired? In her book she explores several case studies of patients who suffered horrible mistreatment as children.
One of the key factors, she found, was that those who were able to transcend terrible suffering told their life stories differently. The transcendent children did not tell stories of victimization. They were not in denial about what had happened to them. They told stories in which they told the truth about horrible treatment, but they never framed these stories as stories of victimization. That is, they were able to retain a sense that they were not powerless. In their stories, they always saw themselves as having some agency, some ability to make things different. And eventually they did. The story they told themselves about what had happened to them empowered them to change things later on.
You see, they could have told themselves a different story. They could have told themselves a story of being powerless, of deserving horrible treatment. They could have told themselves stories of how they were doomed or fated to suffer helplessly. These stories would have been just as true to the objective facts. Yet these stories would have trapped them. Some true stories are empowering. Other true stories can help create a prison for the soul.
This Memorial Day weekend we remind ourselves of some of the worst facts of our collective story. War has ruined and changed so many lives. Yet even here, among the terrible facts of war and the horrible memories of those who have witnessed war first hand, it matters what story we tell. The pain of war and the memory of war should be a story of lessons learned. One of the problems humanity faces is that we so easily forget the facts and the lessons of war. When we remember, truly remember, war we are all the more determined to avoid it. Memorial Day so easily slips into the opposite of remembering; it easily slips into denial of war’s reality and a kind of glorification of brutality and carnage.
There is always more than one true story. Facts matter. But how we interpret and frame the facts of our lives matters just as much. The story you and I tell shapes who we are and what we will become. It matters what story we tell about ourselves. It matter a lot.
I believe we all need to reflect from time to time on our life histories and the stories we create about ourselves. Of course, your story and my story are not yet over. I believe we need to do three things: we need to look back; we need to look around; we need to look ahead.
First, of course, we look back. You and I need to look back so that we can understand where we are today. Our story is like a road map. Imagine a road trip to Maine. Now imagine such a trip without a map and without road signs. Think about how disorienting that would be. Imagine stopping for gas somewhere in what you believe might be Iowa, but not being sure. Imagine not knowing where you have been or where you should look for a place to stay the night. Our life story is our map in time. It tells us where we are and where we have been. Our story locates us. People who have suffer amnesia or other forms of memory loss are literally lost in time. They are truly not themselves any more. Without our history we have no identity.
Each one of us is a traveler through time. Like all travelers, we need to stop once in a while and get our bearings.
Now imagine for a moment different ways you might tell your own story. Each of us has had difficult times. How do you tell that part of the story now? Is there another way to frame that story—another way that is just as true to the facts? Think of one other way to tell the story of struggle and difficulty. Now let yourself feel how a different story changes the present.
My life, like yours, has had its ups and downs. Actually, I believe that overall I have been extraordinarily fortunate. But I have had my struggles. As I think back, I realize that I can tell several true stories. If I let myself slide into self pity, I can see a string of bad luck, of lost opportunities, of false starts. When I was young I had a bad lottery number in the draft that forced me to derail my career. My son’s life-threatening illness forced me away from an academic career. And on it goes.
I can also tell my story as a series of wondrous adventures—adventures that have enriched my life immeasurably and that I would never had embarked upon on my own. Without my “bad luck” I would never had lived in Canada. I would never had experienced the fabulous adventure of community journalism. I would never have had the chance to live in Peru and work there as an advisor to a newspaper. I would never have found this faith and would never have entered the ministry. Using exactly the same facts, I can see my life as a string of wonderful opportunities that came disguised as bad luck.
Two stories. In one I am a hard luck case. In the other I am blessed beyond belief. Which one I believe, which one I tell myself and tell others, makes all the difference.
After we look back, we look around. All of our stories end, of course, today. That is because the story of each of our lives is still unfolding. But just like the traveler checking the map, where we have been places us where we are right now. What story are you telling about yourself right now?
Here we are, right now. Where are you? Where am I? (I saw I wonderful bumper sticker a few years ago. It said: “Hard work got me where I am today. Where am I?”) What is good, rich and satisfying in your life right now? What needs changing? Is this a happy chapter? A tragic chapter? A confused chapter? Is there some baggage from the past you need to let go of? Are you carrying bitterness? Is there someone you need to forgive in order to free yourself of anger? Some wise person once said that forgiveness is giving up all hope for a better past.
More importantly, what possibilities are there for each of us right now?
We look back to understand how we got to where we are. We look around to see the present. Then, and perhaps most importantly, we look ahead. The rest of your story and the rest of my story remains to be written. The past and the present set certain limits and constraints, but within those constraints we have freedom. Indeed, we have as much freedom as any people who have ever lived.
None of us can foresee the future. None of knows how much longer we have to live. Yet we have a chance to shape the story of the rest of our lives.
Here is where our religious values, where the great religious traditions of humanity, come into play. What do I want the rest of my life to look like? When I ask that question I immediately face the question of my deepest values. What do I hold sacred? What is really, really most important to me? And how can I live the rest of my life guided what I hold most sacred?
The older I get the more I have come to appreciate the relationship between what is simple and what is complicated, and between what is easy and what is hard. I too often make the mistake of believing that what is simple is easy.
The most important things in life, I have concluded, are actually pretty simple. Like all of you, I want love, friendship and respect. Like all you, I want to do meaningful work, work that furthers some great purpose. I want to experience beauty in nature and in art. I want to be inspired. I want depth in my relationships and in my feeling and in my thinking. I want peace and I want to help create it. With some minor variations, we all want the same things. We hold a common vision of what is sacred, of what is good, in life. It is all pretty simple; there is nothing complicated about it.
And living in harmony with what we hold sacred is really, really hard. As I look to the next chapter of my life that I hope to write I realize I need a couple of things to pull it off. I suspect you and I need the same things. First, in order to shape my future I need discipline. I need the discipline to take time. I need the discipline to turn away from the ten thousand distractions—from junk food to junk mail to junk e-mail to just plain old junk. I need to take the time and energy to do those things that keep me connected to what I really care about.
What connects you with what is most sacred? Is it working with your hands? Is it service to others? Is it making music? Is it walking in the mountains? Is it a regular spiritual practice like meditation? Is it exploring new ideas and new places? I suspect it is some combination of these. Again, it isn’t complicated.
Beyond the discipline to do those things I know I need to do, I also need help. I need some support. So do you. We all do. Living religiously, living a life that is faithful to what we all hold sacred, is something we do together. Together we gather to reaffirm what we believe and to draw strength and support from each other. Together we engage in those practices that keep us connected: worship, music, learning, meditation, service.
The truth is that my story and your story are not individual stories. We may think that they are, but they aren’t. Do this little thought experiment. Try telling the story of a significant period of your life without involving other people in the story. It can’t be done. We live in a network of relationships all our lives. My story isn’t just my story; it is the story of my parents and my wife and my children and my friends and my congregation. And just as others are part of my story, I am part of hundreds of stories. Our stories intersect. Together, we are part of a story that transcends us all.
So, what is your movie? What comes next? Each and every one of us gets to write the next chapter of our stories. We are free to interpret the past and to create the future.
May we each write a story filled with love, service, adventure, joy, and accomplishment. May we find the discipline to stay focused on what truly matters. May we support one another.
I can’t wait to see the rest of the movie.
Amen.