Sermons

Minister: Rev. Margaret A. Beckman | “Every object, every being, is a jar full of delight.” ~ Rumi
 

READING The Guest House

JELALUDDIN RUMI, TRANSLATION BY COLEMAN BARKS
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.

He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice.
meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.

Be grateful for whatever comes.
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
 

READING “The Delights of Our Lives” blog by Miriam Ava, August 17, 2014 
We’re swimming, breathing, being in delight.

We meet people we admire; we brush space with strangers who grow into friends; we revel in the things that enliven us. We distill down what we’re here to become & create, and we set foot on matter. For real, this time.

Sometimes, when circumstances don’t support our preferences, it’s comfortable to forget that the world’s wide open. We can choose to stay here, or we can decide to go there. In order to move ahead, not in competition with others but in our very own lives, we have to leave behind the good to make room for the better. And sometimes, what we consider good is just average that we’ve come accustomed to — like cracks in a wall.

The delights of our lives are at our imagination’s finger tips. Spirit’s lighting the way. It’s up to us if we’re willing to listen…subtle hints, cosmic giggles, intuition, funny coincidences… What matters is that our beloved feet are deeply rooted in the energy of the here and now so that we can fly high.

For when we delighted, life is good. And thus the delights of our lives become the lights of the world.
 

SERMON

How it all began.

One day last July, feeling delighted and compelled to both wonder about and share that delight, I decided that it might feel nice, even useful, to write a daily essay about something delightful. I remember laughing to myself for how obvious it was. I could call it something like The Book of Delights.    …….    A month or two into this project delights were calling to me: Write about me! Write about me! Because it is rude not to acknowledge your delights, I’d tell them that though they might not become essayettes, they were still important, and I was grateful to them. Which is to say, I felt my life to be more full of delight. Not without sorrow or fear or pain or loss. But more full of delight. I also learned this year that my delight grows—much like love and joy—when I share it.

(Preface.) Gay, Ross. The Book of Delights: Essays. Algonquin Books. Kindle Edition.

We might be tempted to sympathize with a person who asks, “How can we be joyful in a moment like this?” To which Ross Gay responds: “How can we not be joyful, especially in a moment like this?” He says joy has nothing to do with ease and “everything to do with the fact that we’re all going to die.” To be with Ross Gay is to train your gaze to see the wonderful alongside the terrible, to attend to and meditate on what you love, even in the work of justice. We practice tenderness and mercy in part because to understand that we are all suffering, is one quality of what Ross Gay calls “adult joy.”

(transcript, On Being)

 

I love that declaration- “How can we not be joyful, especially in a moment like this?”

I think he is saying that in a moment like this, it might be easy to slip into despair or anger or nihilism – therefore, we must be joyful, so we know that there is another way to live – the way of delight, shared with others.

We all pretty much know that delight is one of those few things, along with joy, happiness, gratitude and love, that multiplies when we share it. We feel better, and scientific studies have demonstrated that we are better. Higher levels of well-being — more happiness —   more love —   then … more delight.

It’s a wonderful (delightful) cycle of emotional, spiritual and physical health.

Let’s share some delights. I’m hoping that you will feel lighter and happier and, yes, more delighted when we share a few really great episodes of delight. It might be a word or a sighting of something or an interaction with another person, animal or nature herself.

I’ll start with a couple from the year-long observations of Ross Gay. I wish you could hear him in his own voice. It’s wonderfully alive and playful. His delights become commentaries on life.

 

Sharing a Bag
I adore it when I see two people—today it was, from the looks of it, a mother and child here on Canal Street in Chinatown—sharing the burden of a shopping bag or sack of laundry by each gripping one of the handles. It at first seems to encourage a kind of staggering, as the uninitiated, or the impatient, will try to walk at his own pace, the bag twisting this way and that, whacking shins or skidding along the ground. But as we mostly do, feeling the sack, which has become a kind of tether between us, we modulate our pace, even our sway and saunter—the good and sole rhythms we might swear we live by—to the one on the other side of the sack. I suppose part of why I so adore the sack sharing is because most often this is a burden one or the other could manage just fine solo—which makes it different from dragging Granny’s armoire up two flights of steps, say, or wrestling free a truck stuck hip-deep in a snow bank. Yes, it’s the lack of necessity of this act that’s perhaps precisely why it delights me so. Everything that needs doing—getting the groceries or laundry home—would get done just fine without this meager collaboration. But the only thing that needs doing, without it, would not. (Nov. 26)

 

The Sanctity of Trains
Something I’ve noticed riding on Amtrak trains, like the one I’m on right now between Syracuse and Manhattan, is that people leave their bags unattended for extended periods of time. Maybe they go to the end of the car to use the bathroom, or sometimes they go to the far end of the train to the café, which smells vomity like microwave cheese. My neighbor on this train—across the aisle and one row up—disappeared for a good twenty minutes, her bag wide open, a computer peeking out, not that I was checking. She is not unusual in this flaunting of security, otherwise known as trust, on the train. Nearly everyone participates in this practice of trust, and without recruiting a neighbor across the aisle to “keep an eye on my stuff while I use the restroom,” which seems to be a coffee shop phenomenon. {Trusting one’s coffee shop neighbor, but not the people in line, et cetera. I suppose, given the snugness of a train, especially if it’s full, one might speculate there’s a kind of eyes-on-the-street-ness at play, although it seemed to me, this morning, when I was first leaving my valuables on my seat for pilfering, my laptop and cellphone glittering atop my sweatshirt and scarf, most everyone was sleeping and so provided little if any eyewitness deterrent.}

I suppose I could spend time theorizing how it is that people are not bad to each other, but that’s really not the point. The point is that in almost every instance of our lives, our social lives, we are, if we pay attention, in the midst of an almost constant, if subtle, caretaking. Holding open doors. Offering elbows at crosswalks. Letting someone else go first. Helping with the heavy bags. Reaching what’s too high, or what’s been dropped. Pulling someone back to their feet. Stopping at the car wreck, at the struck dog. The alternating merge, also known as the zipper. This caretaking is our default mode and it’s always a lie that convinces us to act or believe otherwise. Always. (Mar. 2)
 

Our delights are brief in the telling – even if detailed and sustained for long moments in life. For us, it’s a moment, a story, a memory, a sighting, even a single word.

I really want to thank those of you who sent me your delights. My delight in your delights has been a great joy. No commentary from me needed.

From Sue Clement.
Just thought I’d share something that amazed, and delighted, me in a recent interaction with a woman I see frequently at the exercise class I go to.  It was during a heatwave last summer when she said she was off for the weekend to her camp on a lake in western Maine.  I asked her where it was and she told me it was a place called Worthley Pond.  Well, that happened to be where Clem (my late husband) and his parents had a camp, and where he spent a lot of his childhood.  So, I told her that and she asked what their name was …  Well, I told her and her jaw dropped.  Not only did she know where their camp was but she had grown up in Rumford in the house next door to them, so she had known them for years.. !  Wow.  Another example of what we all say sometimes … “it’s a small world”! And a delight.

From Brooke Tenney, for whom when it comes to an essay, less is more … I agree. These delights are pictures – a snapshot, really, of a moment that brings a smile and brightens a day. She says,
I have two “delights” for you today.
A glimpse of a young, lovely blond woman with a fresh, innocent smile.
Two goldfinches in my birdbath. 

From Anne Parsons.
My delight was seeing so many people in the pews last Sunday.  Over the years, we have put much effort into growing our congregation.  There were visible results last week.  Regulars were there, returning members and friends, visitors and guests, and especially young people.  And everyone seemed to have such a good experience.  What a joy for me.

From Caroline Mathiasen
I’m sending a moment of delight on watching some goldfinches.  Before it occurred, I’d been thinking about other happy moments and wrote a little piece about grandchildren visiting in Castine.  I decided it might not be quite what you were looking for, but I’m sending them both along in case the grandchildren moment meshes with other people’s submissions in a useful way.

The Goldfinch moment:
We recently installed iron railings on either side of the steps leading down to our back yard.  The steps end at an ash tree where we’ve hung a thistle feeder for goldfinch.  Yesterday I spied a female goldfinch perched on the end of one of the railings and a male goldfinch on the other.  Suddenly they began changing places, flying back and forth over and over in what appeared to be a game.  They seemed to be having a wonderful time, and I felt I could almost hear them laughing. 

The grandchildren reminiscence:
On beautiful August Castine days I’m reminded of a perfect moment 10 years ago when our two sets of pre-teen grandchildren were visiting from opposite coasts.  My husband arranged to install a zip line that glided over our pond, and their joy in using it, and in being together, still makes me smile with reminiscent delight.

Thank you for the wonderful assignment, Carolyn Mathiasen

From Anne Price.
Walking in the woods and the yard and seeing tiny mushrooms in August,
so small that you have to look closely to see what they are.  There are
tiny white ones, a cluster of beautiful little beige ones, and one by
itself, brilliant shades of red, looking like a sufi’s costume as he
twirled about.  The larger mushrooms will come in October, but these are
just tiny little jewels in August.

 

Notice. So much of what makes for a joyful, delightful, meaningful life is our ability to notice. To notice is not exactly the same as paying attention. They both require intention, but I think paying attention is more sustained and requires more discipline. To notice is simply to be awake and open to the life that is all around us – and seeing what’s there. Often what’s there is utterly delightful.

Blogger Christine Kane offers this: I suggested writing a “Here’s What I Love” list — 100 things that delight you. Writing it will make you smile and remind you that life’s pretty cool…

Here’s my list. Feel free to add to it!

She lists 100 things that delight her . . .  and each of us could do the same in just a short time of reflection.

Standing in your yard listening to snow fall late at night
Woodsmoke in late fall
The full moon sparkling on water
Your favorite blue jeans
Lying on your beach blanket and watching sand crabs walk sideways
Swinging on swings
The olive bar at Whole Foods
Pottery
When Harry Met Sally
Trees

I’ve been noticing and living with delights for the last little while as this morning’s talk has taken shape – reading Ross Gay’s book and finding articles and blog posts and even scientific studies about delights. My world is filled with delights – many more now that I’m on purpose and with purpose noticing.

I will share with you just a bit of all that from the last few days.

The sound of rain falling on the screen porch roof during a summer rain.

Watching Cedar, our chocolate lab, run after a pair of red foxes – never able to catch them, but dashing after them with full speed just the same.

Wild Maine blueberries right off the bush.

Simple delights. I smile again just reviewing the list in my mind.

Sometimes sharing a simple delight opens a new conversation or deepens a relationship. Sometimes a delight is flat out amazing. Such was the case yesterday afternoon.

Christy and I were with friends out on Green Lake for a late afternoon slow lazy boat ride. Watching for the eagles and loons that live there. At one point, Christy cut the motor; we stayed still and watched. It was a pair of loons, beautiful in their plumage. One was floating along at a respectable distance. The other loon was going around in circles, diving and coming up through the surface of the water in a small arc just long enough to take a breath and dive under again. This went on for a good while. We thought maybe there was a school of fish near or even under the boat. It came closer and closer – about 15 feet. Then all four of us got really quiet and leaned over the side to watch more carefully. We have heard that loons swim under water, but we’d never seen it – until that moment. Utterly amazing. Breath-taking. Beautiful. And best of all – seeing a loon swimming under water has been on Christy’s rather short bucket list for about 20 years and she’d just never seen it. … until now. Joy. Delight. Shared with friends. Life is good. How could we not be delighted in a time such as this?

My Dear Spiritual Companions, life is given to us that we might be joyful in the company of each other and the wonders of creation. Noticing that which delights us enriches our lives and the lives of those with whom we share those moments. May we notice more, and may we share more. Your joy feeds my joy. Your delight delights me. If anything can keep away the darkness that sometimes threatens to overtake us, it may very well be the love and joy of shared delights that lift our spirits and fill our days with gladness.

May it be so for each of us each and every day.

Blessed Be.   I Love You.   Amen.