MY SOUL IS A RIVER

MY SOUL IS A RIVER

Interdependence and Social Justice

A Sermon by
James Ishmael Ford

13 January 2008
First Unitarian Society
West Newton, Massachusetts

Text

When you do things from your soul,
you feel a river moving in you, a joy.
When actions come from another section,
the feeling disappears.
Don’t let others lead you.
They may be blind or, worse, vultures.
Reach for the rope of God.
And what is that?
Putting aside self-will.
Because of willfulness people sit in jail,
the trapped bird’s wings are tied,
fish sizzle in the skillet.
The anger of police is willfulness.
You’ve seen a magistrate
Inflict visible punishment.
Now see the invisible.
If you could leave your selfishness,
you would see how you’ve been torturing your soul.
We are born and live inside black water in a well.
How could we know what an open field of sunlight is?
Don’t insist on going where you think you want to go.
Ask the way to the spring.
Your living pieces will form a harmony.
There is a moving palace that floats in the air
with balconies and clear water flowing through.
Infinity everywhere, yet contained under a single tent.

Jelalludin Rumi (translated by Coleman Barks)

Most of us are familiar with that story of a rising flood in a small southern town. Braving a harsh storm the police go through the neighborhood and warn people it’s time to evacuate, the river is washing over its banks. Everyone does. Well, almost everyone. One old man tells the policewoman, “Thank you. But I’m putting my trust in God. He’ll protect me.” The rains continue to fall and later as the water begins to wash over the stoop to his house a worker from the Red Cross having made his way in a canoe right down the street yells out to the old man, “It’s time to go. The river continues to rise and has spread half a mile beyond its banks.” The old man waves him on, saying, “I trust God will save me.” The river floods, and the waters continue to rise. Finally the old man is sitting on the roof holding onto his chimney. A National Guard helicopter drops out of the sky and hovering above the chimney and old man a voice cries out, “We’re lowering a rope. Grab it.” The old man calls out into the rain and wind, “Don’t worry. God will save me.” The storm is rushing and the helicopter is forced to leave. The flood continues and the man drowns. When in heaven he confronts God saying “I trusted you to help me.” God replies, as I hope you know, “I sent help three times.”

Last week I spoke of spiritual practices, looking at some of the “why” and the “how.” I consider this sermon a continuation of that; I hope as you hear it you’ll agree. This week I want to address the other part, our actions and particularly social engagement, both the “why” and the “how” within one liberal spiritual perspective.

Reflecting on the “why,” I find myself thinking of rivers. I think of that old joke and that rising river and I find among the useful notions it contains, that image of the river itself also points to deeper truths. Rivers are probably among the first order metaphors for us human beings. Rivers bring life giving waters, and nourish the soil. The great human civilizations all grow upon the fertile banks of rivers from the Nile to the Tigris and Euphrates to the Indus and Ganges to the Yellow. Even failed ones like the mound builders of the Mississippi depended upon rivers.

These days as ultra urban creatures we can sometimes miss the value of these older nature-based metaphors. I know growing up in a part of the country where rivers are mostly seasonal streams mixed up together with living in the middle of a city for just about all of my life, rivers just weren’t in the front of my mind. Then, when we first moved from California to Wisconsin and I saw creeks that were wider than our previous experiences of rivers, I noticed how I began to take the image a bit more seriously. Sitting beside a rushing river Heraclites’ observation how “you can’t step into the same river twice…” became an image I really understood. And Marcus Aurelius’ observation “time is sort of a river of passing events, and its current is strong; no sooner is a thing brought to view than it is swept away by another which takes its place, and which also will soon be swept away” began to make deep sense.

Those images speak to a significant part of how I’ve come to understand life. There’s something about the way we think that inclines us to see things as substantive. No doubt our making things concrete, nouns, if you will, has a certain utility. But, actually everything is in motion, everything is changing; ultimately we’re all verbs. At least best I can tell. We’re all like currents within a rushing river, a constant flow of shifting circumstances. A bit of brush catches in an eddy and that whirlpool becomes me, becomes you. In an important sense we, you and I and everything are that flowing river. Our sense of self, our individual identities; are simply moments in that flow, a catch of twigs and sand and maybe a fish or two. Then the current shifts and we are gone. But the river, the river continues.

The important thing for me in this reflection on rivers and self is how in the last analysis we’re all one. You and I are connected in the deepest possible way; we are all, every precious one of us, the river. And, this is the really important part: I suggest that deep knowing of our connections is also our profound call to reach out to one another. Whether we respond by an act of kindness, by working at a food pantry, or struggling to shift the political and economic order; the impulse rises out of our body-knowing we are connected, we are all related through our mother the river.

By my best lights, that’s the why for all our encounters, the deep motive for our wishing for justice and harmony, for being kind and attentive to others. I could go on, no doubt it’s important to unpack this more deeply. But not today. For the rest of our time today let’s consider the how of it. Now I need to begin with a caution. Who here has seen the movie “Charlie Wilson’s War?” A really interesting film, I thought, with enough complexity to offend people of just about every political sensibility. I liked it.

There was one thing in particular I believe relevant to our consideration today. Near the end of the movie Philip Seymour Hoffman’s character, a rogue CIA agent told what he called a “Zen story.” Actually, it’s not a Zen story at all; it’s an ancient Chinese Taoist story. That’s close enough for Hollywood, I guess. However, I prefer the fact that in the original the protagonist isn’t a Zen master, just a farmer.

It goes quite simply. There’s a farmer with a horse, which makes her a little more affluent than most. The horse runs away, which is devastating. The villagers commiserate saying “How sad.” In the movie the Zen master substituting for the farmer says, “we’ll see.” In other versions, the farmer asks, “why do you think this is a misfortune?” Another has her say “Maybe.” And still another has the farmer say, “I don’t know.” I like that one best of all. Later, the horse returns with a whole herd of horses instantly making the farmer the richest person in the village. The villagers congratulate her, to which she responds in the different versions, “we’ll see,” or “why do you think this is fortunate?” or “maybe,” or my favorite, “I don’t know.” Later still the farmer’s son falls while riding the horse, breaking an arm and a leg. This is a time without antibiotics and healing is problematic. The villagers commiserate only to get the same response. Not long after, the army marches through conscripting all the young men. With his broken limbs they don’t carry away the farmer’s son. You know the punch line.

In the movie this points out the unintended consequences of our actions, in that example the high-minded intervention in the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, providing arms to the Mujaideen, who following their own mysterious currents, will eventually become a well-armed Taliban. In fact the principle applies to all our actions. If we’re all part of something larger than ourselves, say separate currents of a river, who knows where the slightest shift in the current will carry us? There are so many ebbs and flows, rocks and brush, we just can’t call it. I don’t think, however, this is a call to refrain from action. Not in the slightest. After all we’re creatures of action, our lives are flowing, we can’t stop for more than a moment. So, how to deal with the dilemma of not knowing with certainty where our inevitable actions will lead?

Here I find myself thinking of the Hindu spiritual classic the Bhagavad Gita. It addresses this issue, calling us to act and then, so simply, to let go of the results of our actions. I think there’s something quite important here. The Gita observes how “action alone is within your control.” The point is bare and hard to avoid. Our control “never extends to the fruits.” That’s just the way it is in a world where things are verbs not nouns, and our actions are currents in a great stream rushing headlong to a distant sea.

UU minister Fred Small observes how this understanding actually inspired Mohandas Gandhi in his actions. Fred writes “By letting go of results, Gandhi could devote all of his attention to the quality of his action without agonizing over every possible consequence, which he knew he couldn’t control anyway.” Then Fred makes the essential point “…means and ends (are) the same. So long as the means (are) sound, failure and defeat (are) inconsequential.” We are what we do. I’ll return to this point.

First, the question arises, in a world in which we are all intimately connected, where we cannot be sure of the results of any action, and yet there is no way to avoid action, how do we act? For the last part of this time, let’s consider the how of spiritually informed social engagement. At least as best I can tell.

I find an anonymous verse from the Western wisdom tradition outlines the way perfectly. It comes from another of those first order metaphors, in this case agriculture. “Sow a thought and reap a deed/Sow a deed and reap a habit/Sow a habit and reap a character/Sow a character and reap a destiny.” Talk about a plan for life that makes sense.

We start with who we are right here. There’s little we can control, but we can start with our thoughts. Do I indulge negative or hostile or angry or grasping thoughts? I certainly think them. They arise naturally, all of them. But, do I need to nourish them, to water them, to feed them? It seems better to starve those thoughts and instead nourish, water and feed those other thoughts that also rise naturally, of connection, of care, of gentleness, of kindness. There are a hundred ways to approach this. Here I just want to hold up that you can.

I take on this mental discipline and find deeds leap from my thoughts that are also wholesome. A small act of kindness, perhaps. A check written for a small but good cause, a day helping Jackie Colby with the food pantry, or joining in one of the ongoing projects of our Social Action Committee.

Each deed repeated becomes an ingrained action, part of who we are. Perhaps that check leads to visiting the center I supported like the East Boston Ecumenical Community Council. Perhaps we join with Lynn Holbein in visiting prisoners or planning for the next UU day at the legislature. Perhaps its closer to home, like volunteering in the Religious Education program without actually having a child in it.

With each action, small or large, done just because it seems, it feels the right action, an action of care and kindness and living compassion while at the same time letting go of the results; slowly reshapes us, you and me. I believe doing this not only shows us who we are but also reveals who we will become. Simple enough, but to accomplish it requires attention, diligence, a willingness to fail and start again.

Here, at the end of this reflection, let me draw your attention back to that little joke I led off with, and its deeper point. Where will we ever hope to see God’s hand except in our own, in our reaching out to another? And, one more thing, such good news: God hasn’t sent help three times, but billions upon billions of times. We just need to respond. We follow this way, and our lives become informed by that flowing river, and we ourselves become life-giving waters. We, each of us by our open-handed actions, become the current of possibility. Our souls become flowing rivers, nourishing the soil.

Amen.