GETTING TO KNOW YOU A Meditation on Spiritual Community

GETTING TO KNOW YOU
A Meditation on Spiritual Community

Mitra Rahnema & James Ishmael Ford

18 September 2016

Unitarian Universalist Church of Long Beach

JAMES

An extremely long time ago, I believe there were still corners of the globe where dinosaurs lurked I was working in a large used bookstore in San Diego. Not long before that I’d been an inmate in a Zen monastery up near Mount Shasta, so the owner of the bookstore assigned me to tend to the religion and metaphysical sections of the store which he referred to as the nutsy cuckoo area, at least when in a good mood.

I came to really like it. Actually, my favorite task was caring for a very large rack of pamphlet literature. All of those pamphlets were interesting, many of them quite old, and some seriously weird. I vividly recall the pamphlet that through a detailed study using pyramid inches applied to the structure of the pyramids, of course, to find otherwise hidden messages, of course, that established beyond any reasonable doubt that Kaiser Wilhelm II was in fact the antichrist predicted in the Book of Revelations. On that subject, well, of pyramids, anyway, my all time favorite of those pamphlets established, again, against any reasonable doubt that the actual Holy Land of Biblical fame was Ireland. The pamphlet detailed how a long ranging conspiracy between the Roman Empire and England, never trust a Brit, rewrote history to have it all take place in the Near East instead of the Emerald Isle. And in support their dastardly plan even moving the pyramids from their original location outside of Dublin, the real Jerusalem.

Okay, maybe not my favorite pamphlet. That would have to be one published in Boston, I forget now, something like a twentieth or thirtieth reprint dating to the eighteen nineties and published by the American Unitarian Association of “Unitarian Christianity,” also known as the Baltimore Sermon, preached in Baltimore, in 1819, by William Ellery Channing. To this day I remember holding the aging pamphlet in my hand, skimming through it, then borrowing it to take home and read more closely.

A few years ago I re-read it, and I have to admit I’m not sure what it triggered for me, or, rather I recall that sense of a way back to my natal Christian religion, but stripped of all the things I found, well, that belonged with pyramid inches and conspiracies to move Jerusalem from Ireland to the near East. Actually Reverend Channing didn’t do that, but he took some major steps in that direction. The very next Sunday I went to the local UU church. And the sermon lulled me into a very peaceful nap.

What was important, really important was meeting members of the congregation. Something happened on that Sunday, which changed the entire course of my life.

MITRA

We are all we have ever been – in this moment in time – we are.

Getting to know a person, a purpose, a span of one precious life is about learning the moments that defined the path taken. A long time ago I lived in a community of friends that I shared a dinner with at least three times a week for over five years. We did group vacations and house projects together. We shared our lives. Entering ministry changed that. Early in ministry, as I moved from place to place, I went through deep grief for the loss of people in my immediate life who knew me before ministry. They only knew what I was to them now.

For example, people I interacted with week by week didn’t know I used to think I was butch, and before that a geek, and before that a hippie, and from birth I was a bitch. They never knew my curiosity solidified by a special childhood book about a girl required to complete various life puzzles. They didn’t know that I was heartbroken by a girlfriend who left me for her uncle and then six months later left him for my best friend. Or that, with another woman I learned the depths of love and commitment. They didn’t know that for years, day after day, I experienced the early morning quiet, watching the world light up, and building my inner life as I worked shaping loaves of bread or prepping breakfast specials. They didn’t know that with very little experience or knowledge I volunteered to plan a California tour of artists/activists from the Amazon rainforest only to find out later that local environmental leaders were making bets that I would not be successful – I was hurt. They didn’t know that I thought we could stop a war from becoming up until the moment the war started and I sat on the stairs of a gym crying. They didn’t know about the first time some said – that was racism, or sexism, or homophobia, and that the naming of it calmed my heart. There are so many moments that they did not know – the moments that are the purpose and texture of our speaking, our interpreting, and who we are.

It is daunting not to have life reflected in the eyes of people around us. Those who were there when you told them about this ah-ha moment and tried something different, or those who loved you when you lost your way, or even those who weren’t embarrassed to hang out with you after that really bad haircut, or during the funky outfit phase, or those who kept you from buying those practical glasses that made you look like a socially scientist.

All these moments are what shape our beings – help us figure out who and why we are. When people give witness to our moments we are affirmed that we exist. When we lose those people due to death or distance that affirmation of our existence is different, more abstract, a little harder to recognize.

So, we tell our stories – we tell of the moments that mattered – to try and explain why we are here and to build new friendships. They are the stories about how we took another direction, how we felt pressure, how we broke free, how we came to make the decision that this is the best way for us. If we are lucky we meet people who offer witness to our stories, people who will hold them in love and allow them to be woven into new friendships. But we are very full people – and the older we get the more stories there are to hold – they can sometimes feel redundant – or overwhelming. So we try the best we can to seek resonance with our own – and love people for who they are in this moment in time.

For loving them for who they are is affirming that all they have ever been is present now and it matters to the relationships forged ahead. For it ain’t over yet.

JAMES

We have stories. We might even say we are stories.

My father was a charming rogue with a love of the drink and an unerring eye for the get rich scheme that would get him in terrible trouble. During my childhood he spent several stints in prison. And, I recall one Christmas that happened only because of the Firemen. At the same time he loved to read, particularly science fiction. And my mother, long suffering and never able to let go of the charming rogue and who followed him until he died, she love mysteries. So, wherever we were, house or apartment, or, briefly, but more than once, car, there we always books around. Perhaps of course, I dropped out of High School. But landed a job in a bookstore. Not the one where I found William Ellery Channing, and with him, Unitarian Universalism. That was later. But these bookstores would be the playground of my intellectual formation.

More important for me, or, equally, anyway, I was on a spiritual quest from as far back as I can remember I left my childhood Baptist tradition in adolescence, after a brief sidewise glance at Vedanta, I found Zen. A period in a monastery followed, two brief marriages, that bookstore where I found the UU world, and then finding Jan. After that, back to school, a lot of school, then twenty-five years of ministry, before we retired here to Long Beach as the perfect spot to be near Jan’s family and have our own lives.

I guess I’d have to say about me is that I’ve enjoyed some successes, I served some good churches, I’ve published four, well five books depending on how you count such things. But, I also have some deep driving part in my heart that even all those years of Zen study haven’t cured, that I sometimes summarize as never being fully satisfied, never having enough degrees or publishing enough books. A hunger that extends from those childhood hurts.

What I find critical is how I can bring all of it here, how I can be both the accomplished minister and meditation teacher and the confused and hurt kid from far onto the wrong side of the tracks. And I can bring it here and be with Jan and you all and with Reverend Mitra, and all of us together in our strengths and our weaknesses, continue to grow deeper. It’s the miracle of a gathering like this. There’s something in the intimacy of presence each of us to the other that opens something, that allows something. And, that breaks my heart and makes me so grateful.

In the Uppadha Sutta we are told. “One day while walking quietly together, out of the silence the Buddha’s attendant Ananda declared, “Teacher, to have companions and comrades on the great way is so amazing! I have come to realize that friendship is fully half of an authentic spiritual life. They proceeded along quietly for a while more, before out of that silence the Holy One responded. “No, dear one. Without companions and comrades, no one can live into the deep, finding the true harmonies of life, to achieve authentic wisdom. To say it simply, friendship is the whole of the spiritual life.”

MITRA

All of us, no matter our age, have a story to tell about our lives. From the time we can first speak to the time of our last breath.

When we think about what brought us to this moment – to be sharing this hour of worship with one another – we might think about our morning or week and deciding to go to church this Sunday. Or we might think about the last month or couple of years, or even farther back and our learning of Unitarian Universalism. We might consider our spiritual quests, our search for community, our moments of rejection and moments of acceptance. All of it becomes a thread – that goes far back, and through the present, into the future. It is just one thread woven in the tapestry of each life that we can travel up and down in our minds eye. No longer are we just made up of moments, we are made of thousands of threads, that touch, overlap, and weave into this moment in time. That becomes our spiritual stories.

Just as no single cell can survive on its own, and no part of the body (the lung, the heart, arm or leg,) make up a human being, so too no moment makes up a life. It is the interaction of cell to cell, part to part, moment to moment, story to story that really defines who we are. And, so is true that our existence is defined by person to person, interaction to interaction. Sometimes the affirmation comes in the reflection in another’s eye, or word, or listening ear. Sometimes it is a mere presence of another. Friends and even strangers who we interact with define our existence. Which means we need one another.

We are all we have ever been. So, can we bring it all here? I imagine that is a question that many wonder. Will I be accepted for my gifts and my fears? It is a daunting task for a community to welcome the wholeness of each and all. But it is what we do – to know and allow ourselves to be known, to love and allow love in return. We strive for this – to honor the ministry of every single life. We may not always hit the mark but will we continue to try. We do so in order to live out the great covenant of mutuality – one that says we are made both stronger and gentler together.

I am thrilled to shepherd this congregation’s relationship with Rev. James and I am grateful to be in collegial relationship him and his ministry. He brings to the Unitarian Universalist Church of Long Beach a centering spirit, a joyful self-reflection, a teacher’s energy, a commitment to justice, an intellectual enthusiasm, and a deep spiritual practice that he shares with the world. I can imagine many ways for his ministry to enliven and enrich our community and I look forward to witnessing how it will unfold in the years to come. I hope you all will take time to get to know Rev. James, and to honor his ministry by sharing one of your stories.

Let us also remember that Rev. James is not the only one new to our community. So too are visitors, new members, new friends, new staff and so much more. On top of the newness there are long standing relationships which we can get to know deeper and deeper. So it is right that this September we remember our most welcoming self and think a little more about how we respectfully get to know one another. How we elicit and listen to the stories of another and how do we offer our stories so others can get to know us. Because, when we share one of our moments we are really saying to another – I believe you can hold this moment with me, and that is an honor. That is quite a huge blessing to give another – really it is the “whole of our spiritual life.” This fall may we all get to know one another a little more.

May it be so.