Sermons

READING: “Sense of Blessing” by Rev. Peter Friedrichs

I know what a blessing looks like,
and I’m not talking about a picture of
the Pope placing his cupped hands
on a child’s head.

It looks like the midnight delivery
of a stunned and wide-eyed Indian orphan
to her adoptive parents at the baggage claim
carousel in Terminal E of Logan Airport;
and a full moon rising over Mt. Katahdin
on an autumn night so clear and cold
it makes your teeth ache.

I know what a blessing smells like, too:
The head of your month-old niece,
thrust into your arms by your dead-tired
sister who wants nothing more than a
few hours of uninterrupted sleep;
and the aroma of fresh-baked bread
that catches you off-guard
as you walk past a bakery,
head bowed against the cold, and grief,
on the way to your grandmother’s funeral.

A blessing tastes like the cherry
popsicles you used to split with
your dad on the front stoop just
before bedtime in summer,
when the light was soft and
the pavement still hot under your toes.

The deafening roar of water cascading
into an Ithacan gorge is the sound
a blessing makes; and, too,
the silence of the pre-dawn forest,
when the insects have gone to ground
and birds have not yet begun
to bid the morning welcome.

And I know – thank God I know –
how a blessing feels: Like walking
out of the shadow of a skyscraper,
or your own fear, and feeling the sun
on your face for the first time in forever;
and waking up every morning
next to the person who saved your life.

READING: “This too is real …” from a blogpost by Parker Palmer
Two weeks ago, I co-hosted a webinar on some of the world’s most urgent and intractable problems. The speakers were folks who are doing good work on issues like racial justice, gun violence, and climate change, so there was at least a little hope in the air.

But confronting hard realities like these is heavy lifting, and it’s easy to get discouraged, even fall into despair…

Halfway thru the webinar, my co-host, Sharon Salzberg, led us in a meditation break. As we settled into silence, Sharon asked us bring our attention to such simple things as the sounds in the room where we sat, the sensations in our bodies, our own breath…

Then she invited us to bring to mind a recent experience of joy. I went back to a moment on a hike I had taken a few days earlier. I was photographing a flower when a beautiful hummingbird flitted in and out of the frame, and by dumb luck, I was able to get this shot.

I was focused on this moment of joy when I heard Sharon say, quietly, “This, too, is real.” All of a sudden, my world was rebalanced…

Alongside the hard realities we must deal with, life offers a million moments of delight—and they, too, are real. Staying in touch with delight as it comes and goes will help us do our share of the world’s heavy lifting.

What brings joy to you?

SERMON:

You’ve all heard many times the Irish Blessing for one who is beginning a journey.
May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face;
the rains fall soft upon your fields and until we meet again,
may God hold you in the palm of His hand.

And here is a similar blessing from UU Poet, the Rev. Lynn Ungar:
May you go out in peace and may you come back in joy. On the road in between, may you find what fills your heart, feeds your mind and inspires your imagination.
These are wonderful blessings and I would be delighted to receive such a blessing from a loved oned at the beginning of a journey.

A blessing – A blessing is something one person bestows on another.
This kind of blessing is exactly akin to the Pope placing his cupped hands on the head of a child and speaking words of blessing for that child.

This blessing comes from one person to another – and it can be very wonderful.

That’s not the kind of blessing I want to talk about today – so even though this is exactly where your mind went when you read the title for today – Blessings of the Journey – it’s not what I am inviting you to experience.
Not a blessing for your journey, but rather, the blessings of your journey.

These blessings are not words or ritual acts bestowed on us from someone else. This is a blessing not FOR the journey or ON the journey of your life.
This is the blessing OF the journey of your life; the very essence of the journey itself as you experience it.

So much difference lies in a such tiny part of speech – the participle.
There whole difference lies in one little word – OF. Blessings OF your journey.

Like my colleague, Peter Friedrichs, we know what a blessing is – and it isn’t always external, it doesn’t always come from someone else.

Blessing can look like ….
The full moon rising over Mt. Katahdin
Blessing can smell like ….
A newborn baby
Blessing can taste like ….
A cherry popsicle
Blessing can sound like ….
The silence of the pre-dawn forest
Blessing can feel like …
Waking up every morning next to the person who saved your life

Blessing is a full body experience that is yours because you have experienced it within yourself. You alone know it and it is yours.
You know it because you were paying attention and you noticed it; you didn’t let the moment of joy and fullness and wonder pass undetected.
You saw it
You smelled it
You tasted it
You heard it
You felt it

The Buddhists have a word “SATORI.” It cannot be easily defined. But this is as close as we can get: sudden enlightenment and a state of consciousness attained by intuitive illumination.

Sudden enlightenment – it comes and then it is gone as quickly as it came.
The impact remains.
The memory of that instant of enlightenment endures.
You felt it.
You knew it.
It was real – though so very fleeting.

Blessing can be like satori.
Sudden warmth and a conscious awareness of personal blessing.

Perhaps you know what I’m talking about.
I imagine that most – maybe all – of you have had such a moment.
Perhaps you have had many such moments; enough to fill a lifetime with the overwhelming inner sense of blessing so rich that your life is full and complete – though far from over.

These moments can take our breath away.
We might drop to our knees in wonder, in awe, in gratitude.

These blessings are the gift of joy from within ourselves – – and we only receive these blessings when we are paying attention; when we notice our own lives – – precious moment to precious moment.

Life is hard. The journey is long and often uncertain. It can be lonely and sad.
Life is also wonderful and awe-inspiring.

Parker Palmer reminds us that it’s all real.
He and has co-presenter, Sharon Salzberg, were leading a webinar on the world’s greatest and hardest problems with people who are doing really good work on things like racial justice, gun violence and climate disaster. People were engaged and they were also exhausted.

That sounds like us. We are working on the really difficult things of this life. We are committed to living our faith and being of service to ourselves and others. It’s heavy lifting sometimes – most of the time.

As Parker Palmer says, we can get discouraged and even fall into despair.
We may need a rescue in that moment.

That’s when Sharon Salzberg halted the webinar and called for a break. She invited all the participants to pause and rest and sit quietly and breathe.
Sharon invited people to bring to mind a recent experience of joy.

Each person in the webinar sat quietly and recalled their joy.
Many went into their meditation deeply and were aware only of their own thoughts and feelings – resting in the place where joy is found and remembered and cherished.

Sharon quietly said …. “This, too, is real.” This too is real.

The hard realities we must face and address are real AND there are millions of moments of delight. Both are real.
The blessings of the journey are found here – in what is real. …. Hard realities and delight.

There is always more for us to do to be the people we want to be and to create the world we want our children to inherit.
Parker Palmer reminds us that “staying in touch with delight as it comes and goes will help us do our share of the world’s heavy lifting.”

I know that many of us are consumed with climate devastation, mass shootings, wars around the world, Congressional Hearings and the increasingly violent threats toward Pride Month activities and LGBTQIA+ people everywhere. This is real. This is part of our journey. The blessing of this side of our journey is three-fold. We are engaged and actively participating rather than being victims of our times. Second, we have the knowledge that we are not alone. And lastly, there is real and lasting room for hope. Let us not undervalue these blessings.

I also know that we share a most amazingly beautiful planet. The wide universe is the ocean we travel and this earth is our blue boat home. The blessings of everyday beauty and seasonal changes in our plant and animal life are astonishingly wonderful and awesome.
Let us never neglect the power of these blessings of our journey.

Here is the question for each us of this morning.
What brings you joy?
Where are the blessings of your journey?
Stay in touch with that joy and those blessings.
You need them.

Hold them.

Peter Friedrichs knows.
“And I know – thank God I know – how a blessing feels: Like walking out of the shadow of a skyscraper, or your own fear, and feeling the sun on your face for the first time in forever…”

Dear friends, your journey is a blessing – when it is fraught with challenges and when it is filled with delight. Both are real. There is blessing in all of it.
May we all pay attention. May we notice. Let us not fail to recognize and embrace all the blessings of our journey through this one precious life.

Blessed Be. I Love You. Amen.