Self-Compassion
Preached 5/17/2020 at SouthWest UU in N. Royalton OH
By Rev. Meg Mathieson
Are we all relaxed? All loosey-goosey from meditation?
I wanted to tell you a little bit about our friend Emily Dickinson. She was a fan of meditation, too. Because our religion is a little loosey-goosey as far as definition, we like to sometimes go back and claim folks as one of us, you know, UUs, before there was a UU denomination.
Similarly, because the modern idea of homosexuality and heterosexuality is relatively new - yes, BOTH of those concepts are new! The word heterosexual wasn’t invented until the late 1800s.
So similar to UUs going around claiming earlier folks as our own, gay people too, we like to claim our own before the word gay or lesbian had its current meaning.
Emily Dickinson was both. That is, ideologically she was UU, even if the denomination didn’t exist yet. And she was a lesbian, even if she never called herself one. She was a part of the Transcendentalist movement, a contemporary of some Unitarian favorites, like Emerson and Thoreau.
A few minutes ago, we saw our own Mike Gold’s beautiful handwriting set with Ryan’s voice to Emily Dickinson’s poem, Some keep the Sabbath. Our Miss Dickinson, like many of us, grew up in a religious household, in a conservative and pius community. And, like many of us, she bucked against religion, not wildly rebellious, but quietly certain that the Christianity that surrounded her was hypocritical and untrue.
“Some keep the Sabbath going to church,” she said, referring to her family and friends. “I keep it staying at home.”
What rebellious subversiveness! Any of us who have been exposed to true puritanism know how very blasphemous and sinful the idea is, you cannot have holiness without the blessing of the church! Without the guidance of a priest! You cannot keep the sabbath staying at home.
“With a Bobolink for a Chorister,” she continues, delving ever deeper into sacrilege, “and an orchid for a dome.”
Look around you now. What lovely items, what lovely and holy sounds adorn the very chapel where you are?
While we feel stifled in our enforced Sabbath, Emily Dickinson beckons us. “There is no need to go to what humans call a sanctuary,” she is telling us, “when the holy is right where you are.”
Her bobolink is her chorister, what is your chorister right now? Do you hear traffic on your street? A birdsong? Children arguing? A dishwasher working? What is the gorgeous and sacred music of the chapel that you call home?
Miss Dickinson wears wings to Sabbath, have you brought yours? As you sit at your dining room table, or on a couch, or maybe in bed, perhaps still in pajamas? Have you remembered to wear your wings? You are a holy creature, no matter where you are. This is a holy space.
I’d like to read a short reading by another woman sage: Rabbi Rebecca Alpert:
…As Abraham Joshua Heschel taught, the Sabbath directs our attention to the deep connection between time and space. ‘The earth is the Lord’s’; means that we do not own it. We are reminded that in the first creation story, the Sabbath was really the crown of creation, since humans were created on the sixth day and the Sabbath on the seventh. Jewish liturgy links Sabbath and creation, reminding us that the most creative act may be to rest and appreciate the world around us. On Shabbat we refrain from commercial activities — we give consumption a rest, too, and remind ourselves that life is about being with people who matter to us, not only about buying or doing things.
The Torah also commands us not only to rest on the seventh day but also to give the land a rest, rotating crops in the seventh year (shmitah), and then in the fiftieth year (seven times seven, of course) to celebrate a jubilee (yovel), relinquishing ownership, forgiving debts, and starting over again. Of course, we don’t know whether this was ever done, nor is the obligation meant to be carried out anywhere but in the ancient land of Israel; it surely reads more like an ideal than a reality that could be practiced. The biblical punishment for not carrying this out is famine, drought, and exile from the land.
The commands of shmitah and yovel and their attendant consequences are what Arthur Waskow has called ‘an ecologist’s warning: poison the earth, and it will poison you.”
Poison the Earth and it will poison you.
When I read this it sounded so familiar. So I pulled up my sermon from a month ago for Earth Day. A month ago, I stood here and quoted Chief Seattle, who said, “All things are connected. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the children of the earth.”
All things are connected. And our Sabbath-taking is not just for us. It is for all people, all life, all things. We take Sabbath time in order to allow the Earth time to heal herself, in order to starve and put a stop to a violent virus, and in order to allow ourselves an emotional and spiritual cleansing.
Our connection has never been more apparent than it is now. A butterfly flaps its wings in Brazil and a hurricane comes to my back yard. I sneeze into my hand and shake yours and somehow your grandmother, who I have no notion of at all, is in grave danger.
So let us stop fighting this Sabbath. May we relax into it. Certainly it’s not easy after a lifetime of being taught that our personal worth is wrapped up in our productivity. It’s not easy when many of us fear for our financial future. It’s not easy for those of us who hunger for human contact and interaction. We are certainly not all natural introverts like our dear Emily Dickinson, who would prefer her own company to the rush of greeting church friends. But we can learn from her, and those like her, that there is a different kind of joy to be had in the quiet moments. The solitary moments hold a holiness that cannot be found in the sanctuary.
We must relearn how to keep the sabbath staying at home, as the Poet suggests. There is a beauty and, I dare say, a dignity, to keeping the sabbath, staying at home, in the full knowledge that you are holy. That you are wearing your wings.
I’d like to read a bit from this book - I’ve read from this book at the pulpit before, Wayne Muller’s excellent book that is titled “Sabbath.” He speaks here of the cyclical nature of life, and the place of Sabbath in that cycle.
(p. 72-73)
“We can refuse to listen.”
Well, this book was written back in the days when we could refuse to listen. People refused to listen to prophets and sages, they refused to listen to Emily Dickinson and they may have refused to listen even to Wayne Muller, but those days of choosing not to listen are over. We can no longer refuse.
We must find ways to live simply, to live cleanly and carefully. To keep the Sabbath staying at home. To find the holiness there, in your kitchen cupboard, on that chair in your bedroom that is covered in clothes. We can no longer keep ourselves occupied and entertained every moment. We must remember that there is a love holding us, and like spokes on a wheel, the closer we draw to that love, the love that is within and without, not waiting here in the sanctuary, but at home right now where you are! The closer we draw to that love, the closer we draw to one another.
Rebecca Parker said that there is a love holding us, and there is a love holing all that we love. I consider myself an agnostic, but I’d hang my hat on that. I know that’s true. I guarantee you. There is a love. She is right. There is a love holding all that we love.
May we rest in that love.
Because it’s that love, not the reopening that we are all holding our breath for - it is that peace and that love that brings us together.
Preached 5/17/2020 at SouthWest UU in N. Royalton OH
By Rev. Meg Mathieson
Are we all relaxed? All loosey-goosey from meditation?
I wanted to tell you a little bit about our friend Emily Dickinson. She was a fan of meditation, too. Because our religion is a little loosey-goosey as far as definition, we like to sometimes go back and claim folks as one of us, you know, UUs, before there was a UU denomination.
Similarly, because the modern idea of homosexuality and heterosexuality is relatively new - yes, BOTH of those concepts are new! The word heterosexual wasn’t invented until the late 1800s.
So similar to UUs going around claiming earlier folks as our own, gay people too, we like to claim our own before the word gay or lesbian had its current meaning.
Emily Dickinson was both. That is, ideologically she was UU, even if the denomination didn’t exist yet. And she was a lesbian, even if she never called herself one. She was a part of the Transcendentalist movement, a contemporary of some Unitarian favorites, like Emerson and Thoreau.
A few minutes ago, we saw our own Mike Gold’s beautiful handwriting set with Ryan’s voice to Emily Dickinson’s poem, Some keep the Sabbath. Our Miss Dickinson, like many of us, grew up in a religious household, in a conservative and pius community. And, like many of us, she bucked against religion, not wildly rebellious, but quietly certain that the Christianity that surrounded her was hypocritical and untrue.
“Some keep the Sabbath going to church,” she said, referring to her family and friends. “I keep it staying at home.”
What rebellious subversiveness! Any of us who have been exposed to true puritanism know how very blasphemous and sinful the idea is, you cannot have holiness without the blessing of the church! Without the guidance of a priest! You cannot keep the sabbath staying at home.
“With a Bobolink for a Chorister,” she continues, delving ever deeper into sacrilege, “and an orchid for a dome.”
Look around you now. What lovely items, what lovely and holy sounds adorn the very chapel where you are?
While we feel stifled in our enforced Sabbath, Emily Dickinson beckons us. “There is no need to go to what humans call a sanctuary,” she is telling us, “when the holy is right where you are.”
Her bobolink is her chorister, what is your chorister right now? Do you hear traffic on your street? A birdsong? Children arguing? A dishwasher working? What is the gorgeous and sacred music of the chapel that you call home?
Miss Dickinson wears wings to Sabbath, have you brought yours? As you sit at your dining room table, or on a couch, or maybe in bed, perhaps still in pajamas? Have you remembered to wear your wings? You are a holy creature, no matter where you are. This is a holy space.
I’d like to read a short reading by another woman sage: Rabbi Rebecca Alpert:
…As Abraham Joshua Heschel taught, the Sabbath directs our attention to the deep connection between time and space. ‘The earth is the Lord’s’; means that we do not own it. We are reminded that in the first creation story, the Sabbath was really the crown of creation, since humans were created on the sixth day and the Sabbath on the seventh. Jewish liturgy links Sabbath and creation, reminding us that the most creative act may be to rest and appreciate the world around us. On Shabbat we refrain from commercial activities — we give consumption a rest, too, and remind ourselves that life is about being with people who matter to us, not only about buying or doing things.
The Torah also commands us not only to rest on the seventh day but also to give the land a rest, rotating crops in the seventh year (shmitah), and then in the fiftieth year (seven times seven, of course) to celebrate a jubilee (yovel), relinquishing ownership, forgiving debts, and starting over again. Of course, we don’t know whether this was ever done, nor is the obligation meant to be carried out anywhere but in the ancient land of Israel; it surely reads more like an ideal than a reality that could be practiced. The biblical punishment for not carrying this out is famine, drought, and exile from the land.
The commands of shmitah and yovel and their attendant consequences are what Arthur Waskow has called ‘an ecologist’s warning: poison the earth, and it will poison you.”
Poison the Earth and it will poison you.
When I read this it sounded so familiar. So I pulled up my sermon from a month ago for Earth Day. A month ago, I stood here and quoted Chief Seattle, who said, “All things are connected. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the children of the earth.”
All things are connected. And our Sabbath-taking is not just for us. It is for all people, all life, all things. We take Sabbath time in order to allow the Earth time to heal herself, in order to starve and put a stop to a violent virus, and in order to allow ourselves an emotional and spiritual cleansing.
Our connection has never been more apparent than it is now. A butterfly flaps its wings in Brazil and a hurricane comes to my back yard. I sneeze into my hand and shake yours and somehow your grandmother, who I have no notion of at all, is in grave danger.
So let us stop fighting this Sabbath. May we relax into it. Certainly it’s not easy after a lifetime of being taught that our personal worth is wrapped up in our productivity. It’s not easy when many of us fear for our financial future. It’s not easy for those of us who hunger for human contact and interaction. We are certainly not all natural introverts like our dear Emily Dickinson, who would prefer her own company to the rush of greeting church friends. But we can learn from her, and those like her, that there is a different kind of joy to be had in the quiet moments. The solitary moments hold a holiness that cannot be found in the sanctuary.
We must relearn how to keep the sabbath staying at home, as the Poet suggests. There is a beauty and, I dare say, a dignity, to keeping the sabbath, staying at home, in the full knowledge that you are holy. That you are wearing your wings.
I’d like to read a bit from this book - I’ve read from this book at the pulpit before, Wayne Muller’s excellent book that is titled “Sabbath.” He speaks here of the cyclical nature of life, and the place of Sabbath in that cycle.
(p. 72-73)
“We can refuse to listen.”
Well, this book was written back in the days when we could refuse to listen. People refused to listen to prophets and sages, they refused to listen to Emily Dickinson and they may have refused to listen even to Wayne Muller, but those days of choosing not to listen are over. We can no longer refuse.
We must find ways to live simply, to live cleanly and carefully. To keep the Sabbath staying at home. To find the holiness there, in your kitchen cupboard, on that chair in your bedroom that is covered in clothes. We can no longer keep ourselves occupied and entertained every moment. We must remember that there is a love holding us, and like spokes on a wheel, the closer we draw to that love, the love that is within and without, not waiting here in the sanctuary, but at home right now where you are! The closer we draw to that love, the closer we draw to one another.
Rebecca Parker said that there is a love holding us, and there is a love holing all that we love. I consider myself an agnostic, but I’d hang my hat on that. I know that’s true. I guarantee you. There is a love. She is right. There is a love holding all that we love.
May we rest in that love.
Because it’s that love, not the reopening that we are all holding our breath for - it is that peace and that love that brings us together.