Sermons

OPENING WORDS  ~ a poem by Hafiz, a 14th century Persian lyric poet
I sometimes forget
that I was created for Joy.

My mind is too busy
My heart is too heavy
for me to remember
that I have been
called to dance
the sacred dance of life.

I was created to smile
to Love
to be lifted up
and to lift up others.

O Sacred One
untangle my feet
from all that ensnares.
Free my soul
that we might
Dance and that our dancing
might be contagious.
READING ~ Life Prayers by Elizabeth Roberts and Elias Amidon
Each of us is blessed with moments of grace, moments when our soul becomes clear and quiet. Our worrying stops. Our yearning and planning and waiting for fulfillment stops. There is nothing to be done since everything is already happening. Grace uncovers the mysterious essence that unites us with all beings. Through its gift, the place, the time, the sky, and ourselves are revealed in right relation. What is inside of us and what is outside of us comes together, if only for a moment. In this moment and place we sense the indwelling essence of Spirit and stand humbled before its mystery. We know and are known by something larger than ourselves. Who can say what ignites these moments of illumination?
READINGS
“Somewhere, right at the bottom of one’s own being, one generally does know where one should go and what one should do. But there are times when the clown we call “I” behaves in such a distracting fashion that the inner voice cannot make its presence felt.”― C.G. Jung

“The inner voice is something which cannot be described in words. But sometimes we have a positive feeling that something in us prompts us to do a certain thing. The time when I learnt to recognize this voice was, I may say, the time when I started praying regularly.” ― Mahatma Gandhi

“If you don’t become the ocean, you’ll be seasick every day.” — the prophet Leonard Cohen.
SERMON

Good morning. My name is Jacquie Robb and it’s a pleasure to meet with you in this beautiful space. My home church is the UU in Belfast, and I look forward to getting to know you better here in Castine.

Last year I participated in the Wellspring program, which is a deep dive into the UU Sources. While I was familiar with our 7 Principles, I was much less so with the Sources. Just in case you don’t recall these 6 sources at the moment, they are, in a nutshell:

Direct Experience
Sacred texts
What the UU calls prophetic speakers and I call Wisdom teachers
The “Golden Rule” found in all religious traditions
Humanist ethical principles… and the
Recognition that we are part of the natural world and not separate from it

That’s not quite how they read if you look them up, but that’s my interpretation.

I wasn’t sure how the Sources might inform this homily until I read the “theme” for March: Transformation. This really struck a chord for me. Like many of us, I like to think of myself as being lifelong learner. I reflected about those transformative experiences in my life, and I’ve been blessed with a few, when I really learned something… not information, not knowledge, but a little bit of wisdom. And I realized what all of these truly transformative experiences, were teaching me… and what I’m still learning… is not how to lead, but how to follow: “Not my will but Thine.” How to follow the dance of Spirit, God, Source, Mystery, by whatever name or none you choose.

PAUSE

When i was a child, my favorite saying was ‘I’d rather do it myself.’ Do you know a kid like this? Did you raise a kid like this? Were you that kid?

Another often used expression, according to my parents, was “I Know!” I don’t know if they ever thought this cute, but I quickly learned that it can be really annoying in a child. And as an adult? It’s a recipe for disaster.

But that’s a part of this American, independent, exceptionalism culture, right? I’m not the only one who grew up thinking, “Why can’t I do it myself, or completely know it – whatever “it” is?” In terms of spiritual practice, though, I’ve come to see that this desire – to know, to do – has been bountiful “grist for the mill” as Ram Dass would say. And this grinding has led me to value Not Knowing, and Not Doing, at least in the western cultural model.

But unless you make the effort, how else is there to change, to transform?

With what I call my “original operating instructions” of doing it myself and the priority that I have to be the one who knows, it’s no surprise that direct experience was the ONLY way Spirit could introduce herself to me, using the natural world as her vehicle. And lo and behold, we have the first and sixth of the UU Sources Pantheon.

What were those first direct experiences? Those times when Spirit whispered to me that I might not be the sole protagonist in the universe? The same as for many of us, I imagine. Lying on my back in a grassy lawn, f inding animals in the clouds overhead until I seemed to merge with the sky. Playing in the woods until I felt completely at home with the trees and brook and insects. Later, as a teen, dancing with the full moon in an open f ield… no drugs involved. I remember one pitch dark night, walking home along a dirt road in Lubec, when a vast Presence made itself known. Not dangerous, but not quite friendly, the dark felt immense and alive and indifferent to this puny woman/child that found herself running for home.

I had no language, no vocabulary to describe these experiences; only later did I name them and consider them a part of my spiritual growth and heritage.

These direct experiences with “that which are bigger than me” made me curious. But because I had no language to give them meaning, and because I still had the mindset that I had to “do it myself,” I turned to books. While I was taught some Bible stories as a child, the first “spiritual” book that really grabbed me was Be Here Now by Ram Dass. It came out in 1971 which means I must have been 17. On one level, I had no earthly idea what the book was talking about. But it spoke to something far beyond my intellect; it touched my heart.

From then on, I read voraciously, looking to be touched by Spirit again. I read Zen, Jewish, Christian and Hindu texts, mostly commentary but sometimes primary source material as well… the Torah, the Gnostic Gospels, the Bhagavad Gita. And… this is the second UU Source: sacred texts. I learned to meditate from books. It was still a sideline – the world and my place in it was much more interesting, but over time this research phase deepened into the third UU Source – listening to wisdom teachers or prophetic voices.

Listening engages the body in a different way than reading, doesn’t it? When you listen to somebody who seems completely at home with the sacred, those teachings resonate in your entire system. Your whole being is affected in that moment, and your mind and heart can be changed. They can inspire inner growth… they can inspire transformation. Sermons sometimes do that for me. The best are a mysterious but also quite ordinary transmission of the wisdom of how to dance with Spirit.

I was 36 when I found my first teacher, a woman who would change my life profoundly. It was a humbling experience. It became obvious that I did NOT know much, that I couldn’t DO this spiritual path thing myself. I began, maybe for the first time in my life, to listen. To truly listen… listen from the heart. At first, I listened “in order to” feel that transmission from teacher to student. But the best spiritual guides will teach us to listen not TO them but FOR the source of all wisdom, however you define that. In this way, wisdom teachers cultivate direct experience and direct experience guides us to texts and teachers… and to a transformation from outer sources to an Inner Listening.

When I did “hear” something, what is it? Very seldom words, let me say that straight out. As my ability to listen inside deepened, it felt more like a pulsing energy that makes life juicy and delicious. In Hinduism, this is called Shakti, a recognition of the world and ourselves as a single tapestry woven of one single intelligent energy.

What I began to discover is that there’s really no such thing as “doing it myself.” For instance, I can dance by myself, but I’m always in a room or outdoors; I’m following external music or an internal rhythm. I think I know what tomorrow will be like for me, but tomorrow has a way of surprising me, only every time. So my question became: is it possible to follow the dance of not knowing, to be satisfied with feeling like I’m not in charge, the one making things happen?

Almost two years ago, I had a profound experience in not doing. What I thought I was signing up for was a 10 day meditation retreat. I’d been on many others over the years, so I assumed I knew what I was getting into. This assumption – always a mistake for one who is a recovering “knower” – should have been my first clue that I was in for a different kind of experience. Because instead of meditating for 45 or 60 or 90 minutes a day, which I was prepared for, we danced.

Now I love to dance. I’ve moved my body to music from classical to Motown, disco to ambient. But there was always a part of me that, especially when younger, was practicing the “right” moves, wanting to look sexy or graceful. The dancing at this retreat? It was different.

There were over 100 people in this retreat, in a big tent outside. The music was loud, and it had a heavy base beat. The playlists were skillfully mixed and produced, but like nothing I had ever heard before. They might start with Pachelbel’s Canon and then morph into some electronic rave version of the Canon, then to a piece of aria before transitioning to some weird synthesized interpretation of opera, to Italian pop music. … It felt completely overwhelming. We danced for an hour and a half every day. Oh, and we were all blindfolded.

That first day, I really didn’t like this. I tried to get away from the speakers, but they seemed to be everywhere. I tried to get away from people, but they seemed to be everywhere. And an hour and a half is a really long time when you’re uncomfortable.

But what I’ve learned from direct experience, reading sacred texts, listening to wisdom teachers and just plain practice – is the ability to differentiate between the voice of my ego, and that still inner voice within. My ego wanted to go home;, badly. Spirit wanted me to stay and dance… and maybe learn something.

No surprise here… for me, the key was surrender. I had to lose my opinions and judgements in order to lose myself to the dance. And when I f inally could let go of knowing and doing… it was fascinating. When I followed the energy, the inner dance, I didn’t judge the music, I didn’t get tired, and I didn’t bump into people. Remember, we were all blindfolded, so sometimes I’d feel someone’s energy wanting to dance with me and then I would have to listen really closely to whether the energetic I was in wanted to meet the other’s energy or whether it wanted to dance away. And sometimes, despite the beat or pace of the music, the energetic body wanted stillness, not movement.

It was a profound teaching for me about the reverence of allowing and the grace of following. No performance, only a deep listening to how my body was being led, while noticing and fully accepting whatever arose.

One of my beloved teachers, Adyashanti, wrote,
This isn’t a battle against the mind. Eventually the mind realizes that it just wants to be in adoration of a truth and a wisdom that it cannot contain. God is always dancing – always. When you start to follow instead of lead, you start to follow the inner movement that is not speaking. It leads; you follow. Eventually the leading and following are just one movement. There is really no leading, no following.
PAUSE

Of course, there are many ways of dancing with Spirit other than dancing. If any of you are sailors, you know this well. You can decide you want to sail to MDI one weekend but if the wind isn’t with you, it’s just not happening, unless you motor the whole way. Or you are on a favorite trail through the woods, but it’s slick, and you didn’t bring your ice grabbers. You can either bull your way through and hope you don’t fall, which I have done many times, or you can bow to the ice and the woods and turn around.

How do you dance with Spirit? Or another way to put it: how does God dance with you? The dance isn’t always comfortable, but it’s always interesting… if you are willing to be transformed.

As the prophetic voice of Leonard Cohen wrote: “The older I get, the surer I am I’m not running the show.” As I’ve eldered, I’ve become more comfortable with not knowing, with doing less, filled with the wonder of letting go, “amazed and inarticulate with thanks”, as David White wrote.  I’m still a work in progress, but I’m learning that we can use anything – any moment, any feeling, any type of experience – to turn toward the Divine. That everything… everyone… every place… every situation… is part of the sacred dance.

May it be so in our lives. Amen.