Sermons

Minister: Rev. Margaret A. Beckman | Gradually you will return to yourself,
Having learned a new respect for your heart
And the joy that dwells far within slow time.
~John O’Donohue
READING “More Than a Cup of Soup” Kathleen McTigue
Falling into the Sky, A Mediation Anthology. Edited by Abhi Janamanchi & Achimanyu Janamanchi. Boston: Skinner House Books, 2013 (p4)

Not far from where I work there is a little hole-in-the-wall café, a good place to pick up a quick lunch. You have to be in the mood for soup, however, because all this place serves is soup, accompanied by a homemade bread roll.

You also have to be feeling open-minded and flexible, because there is only one kind of soup made fresh each day, though sometimes you can also have yesterday’s soup at a reduced price.

The woman who works behind the counter always looks glad to be there, doing what she’s doing, and she often knows her customers by name. Last week there were a half-dozen people waiting in line to be served but she still lingered with an old man at the counter who already had his soup and bread in a paper bag.

She asked after his health and then asked about his wife. She commiserated with him when he told her about their illnesses. When she said goodbye, she touched his hand lightly, smiled into his face, and told him she’d look for him tomorrow.

It was a wonderful thing just then, to be marooned on this little island of calm amidst the impatience, irritability and general craziness of life, in a place where someone makes her living by patiently shaping and then serving two of the world’s most basic and nourishing foods.

It can’t be an easy way to make a living and it’s surely no way to get rich. But there is serenity in the woman’s face and a gentleness in her voice when she invites you to make the one simple choice available there: butter roll or rye?

Watching her at work, it’s easy to believe that some small corner of the world’s fabric is being patiently, lovingly stitched back together – and that something more gets carried out the door than a bag of bread and warm soup.

READING
RESPONSIVE READING No. 468 WE NEED ONE ANOTHER

SERMON

Jonathan
I loved my ex-wife very much, and she loved me in return. I met her during a stable and happy period of my life, but a few years after we got married, my bipolar disorder and lack of awareness in how to healthily cope with it dragged me down into a prolonged depression Ruth was there with me, by my side, being as supportive as she knew how to be. It wasn’t enough. I was drowning. Many days I was unable to get out of bed.

We loved each other deeply, but it wasn’t enough to save me or our marriage.

Tiffany
Six months ago, I fell in love with my boyfriend: a date in a cafe that turned into six hours of conversation lost in each other’s eyes. Both nervous and awkward, but instant connection. I remember walking out of that cafe and ending the date with a hug; my heart skipped a beat.

Months later, my boyfriend was aware of my diagnoses.

He was aware I survived a serious suicide attempt that I did not want to survive — an attempt that has left me struggling with the guilt and anger of surviving. What he was not aware of was the constant obsessive and intrusive thoughts that I have nearly every moment of every day.

We had a long conversation and then he said it . . .
“What happens when I’m not enough?”
I saw the fear, the concern, the love and the pain in his eyes. I cried. I had no answer for him.

Nikki
I have been a caregiver for my mom going on 8 years. My mom and I have been very close my whole life. I always promised my mom that I would never put her in a nursing home, but I can’t do it anymore. My mom has so many health concerns, and every day she is getting worse and worse. My mom has parkinsons, demensia, rhuematoid arthritis, osteoarthritis, and she had a hip replacement over 10 years ago that did not work and has daily pain in that leg. I hate to see my mom suffering, it is so hard for her to do day to day things.

I am married with 3 grown children and I work full time day shift. I got pretty much no help from homecare or my family. Every day I see my mom declining more and more, The worst is when I am at work, I worry about her so much, always wondering if she is ok, the worst thing is her demensia is getting really bad, I am so worried about her going outside and getting lost, or her turning on the stove, or just not even knowing what she is doing.

Three different stories of family and love and impossible choices about how to love when things get really difficult.

“What happens when my love and devotion are not enough?”
Ten words.
One question.

Nearly all of us, at one time or another, will ask this question, “What happens when my love and devotion are not enough?” There is rarely a satisfying answer. Once we get to the point of actually admitting the possibility that our best intentions, our best efforts, and all the love and devotion we can muster are not enough to solve the problem, fix the situation or change the circumstance our loved one faces, we already know there is no simple answer.

With our parents, close friends, partners and children, our love is deep and our devotion is strong. This is true and it is rarely questioned because all these people feel our love and benefit from our devotion.

It is also true that people face some really difficult things. Life is not always gentle and kind. There is suffering in every life. Some of us are dealt a rotten hand and just getting from one day to the next is a significant challenge – one that cannot be accomplished without the support of others. Love can accomplish a lot – more than many of us would have believed before we were thrown into a situation where we needed every bit of love to support our parent, friend, partner or child. We have a relationship with the loved one that is very, very important to us. We value it and want to honor it and live into the fullness of this relationship.

All this is true. And that is what makes life so wonderful and rich and rewarding. There are people who are so special to us that we say without reservation or hesitation, “I will love you completely and forever.” And then we go about making that promise a reality in our lives. All goes well and we are happy.

Until it goes wrong and we are unhappy.
Wrong in any number of ways.

Jonathan and his wife couldn’t stay married.

Tiffany’s boyfriend knew he might not be able to provide the level of support she would need if her illness became acute and dangerous to her.

Nikki loved her mother and was determined to care for her in her final illness, and she could not do it all herself.

All three of these people made every effort they could to solve the problem, care for their loved one’s illness and make real the promise to love no matter what. All three of them are human beings doing the best they can in all of life’s changes and challenges.
All three of them experienced the devastation of realizing that their love and devotion were not enough to provide all that their loved one needed.

Most of us, frankly, will, at some point, be faced with a similar situation. Perhaps you’ve been there and done that. Perhaps you can already imagine what it might be that could bring you to this place.
Our love and devotion are real. Our loved ones know it and feel it and are deeply blessed by our love and devotion.

Sometimes, all our personal efforts to do what we want to do fall short, we are not enough. The pain of that realization is crushing.

We internalize this “not enoughness” as personal and comprehensive failure.
Failure is not all-encompassing; it is quite specific.
Not being able to do all that is required is not a failure of love. It is a reality of our humanity.

You are not your efforts.
Your value as a human being is not the same as the success of your efforts.
Your love is not diminished when all your efforts cannot halt the suffering.
You are a whole and precious spiritual being – as is your loved one who is struggling with living, and sometimes dying.

What to do. Well, there are things we can do when this happens.

Letting go of impossible definitions of love helps.
Letting go of all the “shoulds” and gargantuan expectations of our own stamina and skill in our responsibility for your one helps.
Letting go of specific outcomes as a measure of our love helps.
Making a careful and honest inventory of our available resources helps. Figuring out what love can do helps.

There are things that do not help.
Guilt does not help.
Dropping out completely because of burn-out or being overwhelmed does not help.
Taking everything on our own shoulders alone and not talking about it with those who love us does not help.
Sulking and sacrificing our own health and well-being do not help. Running away exhausted, empty, and angry or humiliated does not help.

When faced with the reality that we are losing ground and all that we are doing is not enough or has become counter-productive, we can pause, rest for a moment, and ask ourselves a few probing questions.

What are my goals in loving this person?
What are the goals of my person?
Do I know what is most important to me and to my person – today?
What would it really take to get that?
Can I find a way – utilizing all my available resources – to achieve that?
If the answer is yes, then what must I do now?
If the answer is no, can we together revisit the questions about what is most important given the changing reality of our situation and then ask with a revised sense of what is possible, what can I do now?
What resources do we have that we might call upon to help?

All too often, we find that we cannot have what we want, no matter how much love and devotion we give our person.
We want the person to recover from a serious and perhaps terminal illness or condition.

We want our person to be different from the way they really are, without all their burdens of mental and physical illness.
We want our person to emerge from the depths of depression or be freed from the chains of acute substance use disorder.

Essentially, we want our person to be relieved from suffering and we want our efforts to help make that happen. Life doesn’t always work that way. We know this to be true. Yet, we fall into these very human traps. Sometimes we feel as if we are all alone and this is devastating to our own spiritual health and to our ability to love in ways that can continue benefit our person.

If we cannot find our way out of the growing weight of guilt, failure, anger and despair, we sacrifice our own life and still we cannot have what we want for our loved one.

Here are a few ideas I invite you to consider.

Taking good care of our own mental, physical, and spiritual health is never wrong and is not a rejection of our love and devotion for the person we love.
Calling upon our resources to come to the aid of our loved one and ourselves can make a huge improvement in what seems like an impossible situation.
Being able to separate our value as a person and the gift of the love we share for our person from the specific success of our personal efforts to make their life better may be the key to unlocking our own despair, fatigue and burnout.
Love is not never having to say we are sorry. Love is being able to say we are sorry for what we cannot provide and finding new ways of being a fully loving and supportive presence in a changed understanding of our relationship.

One more thing I invite you to take to heart and practice. We are a beloved community.

Together, we are strong and smart and resilient.
We – even together – may not be able to achieve exactly what is wanted, for life does not allow for that. But, we are most assuredly better together than we are individually. When one of us suffers from knowing that their best expressions of love and devotion are not enough to save or care for or rescue their loved one, we can be counted on to come together as this beloved community

to love each other
provide resources,
to reason together about what is possible,
to give company to the suffering and respite to the weary
to remind each of us, whenever needed, that none of us is alone
to be strong when another is weak
to validate the brokenness that comes from a sense of “not enough”
to celebrate achievements and successes
to grieve loss
to share the journey wherever it takes us

Being beloved community requires a commitment from each of us to bring what we have, to be what we can be, to ask for what we need, to step into the breach when we can, to serve in best ways we know how to serve, to always and forever, love as if our lives depend on it, for they do.

All our lives we are in need, and others are in need of us.
This truth is the blessing and the demand of beloved community.

We are up to this task. We can do this amazing and wonderful and beautiful and sometimes hard, but always worthy, thing.

Blessed Be. I Love You. Namaste.