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Spiritual Love
A Sermon Given
by The Reverend Kathleen Hepler
on July 29, 2001
at Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist Church
Bethesda, Maryland
Spiritual. I love the word. Some don't, I know. I love the word
because, for me, it describes a vibrant reality of living. 'Spiritus,' the
Latin. 'Ruah,' the Hebrew. It means breath. The breath of life. The
animating force. Aristotle called the soul, the life principle.
Spirituality is that (activity, attitude, awareness, behavior, developed
character) that allows a person to enter into the life principle as
vibrantly, as honestly, as courageously, as peacefully as we can.
Spiritual. Christian Baldwin wrote that, "Spiritual Love is a position
of standing with one hand extended into the universe and one hand
extended into the world, letting ourselves be a conduit for passing
energy." "So, perhaps our task in this shaky, fast-changing, bewildering world
in which we live is to make music, at first with all that we have, and
then when that is no longer possible, to make music with what we
have left," said Jack Riemer of the Houston Chronicle.
In the end, the lucky ones see the world with great love, and play
whatever music they can with whatever strings they have left!
This is not really high-fallutin' stuff here. It is practice in the every
day. It is some basic patterns of awareness and the effort to live within
those patterns that can make a life more meaningful, more peaceful,
more alive, more gratifying, more in tune with the basic truths and the
best we can be living out these truths.
So we use breath as a metaphor, and begin to talk about love that is
spiritual, love that bequeaths a life that allows a person to enter into
the life principle as vibrantly, as honestly, as courageously, as
peacefully, as joyfully as we can.
Many of you have read or heard of the Jewish philosopher Martin
Buber and his book, "I and Thou." In a shortened version perhaps
one could say that his whole philosophy is that, "all real living is
meeting." He is saying that the 'I' of a person is only truly itself when
it is lived is lived in the 'I/Thou' context as opposed to the 'I/It'
context. The idea that a spiritual life is one which connects one's 'I'
with all else in reverent 'Thouness.'
In an 'I/It' stance, the I is not in true relationship with another. It is
an objectifying stance that keeps the 'I' from seeing another or life in
whole, keeping the 'I' lonely in separation. This objectifying stance
not only makes the individual lonely and removed, and it is the core
of why many, many horrible things to happen in the world. As long as
someone can be an 'It' all sorts of violence can ensue. The 'I/It'
paradigm creates enemies. It allows us to cavalierly abuse the
environment and each other. Buber has a wonderful passage about a
tree and the difference between an 'I/It' and 'I/Thou' relationship with
a tree.
In the 'I/It' paradigm, we can say that sin is the lack of connection to
the awareness of the interdependence of life. Living from the 'I/Thou'
paradigm puts everything in a connected mode and is really what love
is.
Buber wrote that the primary word is 'I/Thou.' Whenever we can
speak that primary word, love is present.
Buber writes about our lives in the womb being the ultimate
experience of 'Thou' when we are totally connected to the life force.
Upon birth we begin to differentiate and to become an 'I' separate
from The Great Mother. We become an 'I' capable of living an
'I/Thou' life through the initial 'Mother Thou.' The spiritual journey
is about staying differentiated as a unique 'I' at the same time staying
connected to all life in an 'I/Thou' relationship.
I've just watched the movie "Billie Elliot." What an exquisite film! All
about the process of learning to love from the place of 'I/Thou.' Billy
is an 11 year-old boy whose mother has recently died. He lives with
his grandmother for whom he cares, his father, and his teenage brother
in a coal-mining town in England. They are poor. The miners are on
strike. The family is full of hardship, anxiety, and grief.
Beautiful Billy is taking boxing lessons. A case can be made for
boxing being the ultimate 'I/It' sport. The task of literally beating up
the other in order to win. Billy is not good at it. But Billy watches the
girls' ballet class in the next room and feels himself pulled there. He
loves to dance. The extraordinary thing about this character is that he
goes to the girls and he accepts an invitation to join them despite
cultural norms. Despite what anyone would say about him, he goes
for the strengthening of the 'I,' the soul, the person who is calling him
from the inside out to be a dancer in this life. He doesn't want his
macho father to know, so he hides his ballet slippers under the
mattress and practices in the bathroom.
But dance he will! For Billy is already living out of the original word
of 'I/Thou' which calls for the 'I' to love itself beyond convention.
The original word of 'I/Thou' transcends gender-role expectations
and many other cultural norms. To see this young boy so
self-differentiated; it is a sight to behold! Scene after lovely scene of
this boy answering his being's call to greatness. In this regard, he is
living a spiritual life as his being is connected to the life force in a
courageous and vibrant way against many odds. His teacher, as
brusque and cold as she can be sometimes, sees Billy whole; she sees
where his spirit wants to go. They enter into a relationship from the
context of 'I/Thou.' There is a scene of them dancing together that is
the primary word of 'I/Thou' set in motion. It is to die for.
(Interesting phrase isn't it, "To die for?" Dying to the old self into
new being.)
As you can imagine, eventually Billy's father catches him dancing in
the community center. He rages in and stops toe to toe with his son.
Billy meets his gaze straight on and begins to dance for his father. It
is a respectfully defiant dance that says, "I will be my greatness. Here
I show you. See me whole. Love me in my greatness." Billy gives
his father the opportunity to live from the 'I/Thou' stance. He invites
him to open his heart and to go another way. He is saying, "don't you
stay stuck in your anger and one dimensional way of looking at the
world. Come along with me to transformative love."
When the spirit dances true and unashamed, when the heart is opened,
and the mind free, nothing will stay the same.
Thou. My spell check says it is not in the dictionary. How sad. It is
a word, in my opinion, that in its saying making sacred that which one
is pointing to in its saying. When one is living from Buber's 'I/Thou'
paradigm, there can be no hate. "Hate is by nature blind. Only a part
of a being can be hated." So then, by seeing others whole and with a
heart of compassion, there is no hate.
Hey, now. This does not mean no action against that which harms
you. This does not mean living with abuse in the name of no hate.
The 'I' sometimes needs to boundary itself from the presence of
another in order to respect itself. Yet, it seems to me that one must
ultimately do the work to make the other (who may feel like the
enemy 'It') into a 'Thou', if one wants to be free within. This can be
a long and arduous journey, but a very fruitful one if one wants the
inner and outer life to be more vibrant, courageous and peaceful.
"The original word is 'I/Thou'," said Buber. All true living is in
meeting. It is relational. It beckons forth the best in self and the best
in the other. We breathe into our beings the vitality that comes when
we listen deeply to another without judgment. We breathe in that true
meeting, and we change ourselves. We sit with another who rubs us
the wrong way, and we breathe deeply and ask our heart to be open
in compassion. We realize that with compassion we begin to see how
cut off the other is from their own greatness of being. We do not have
to get anxious about what they are saying. We reflect in how cut off
from joy their being is in its current state. By our listening or gently
boundary setting or offering our own story or holding a hand, we
invite that person to realize how 'Thou' they are. We know right
away when someone puts us in the light of 'Thou,' even if we say
nothing, that they are being treated in a sacred manner.
Billy Elliot has a childhood friend named Michael who is gay and a
cross-dresser. (By the way, these two ways of being do not always go
together, but in this film they do.) Billy is straight and a ballet dancer.
He does not just tolerate his friend, he meets him in honesty and
openness. Many tender scenes of two very different boys loyal to one
another in their becoming. No finer example of an 'I/Thou'
relationship.
Oh dear, I guess I can't tell you the end of the movie which would
make a great end of the sermon! I want so to tell it. Suffice is to say
that Billy continues to encourage those around him to be with him in
a sacred manner of love. The ending is powerful, redeeming, and big.
Yet it is in the small nuances and interactions that the story lives. In
our spiritual interactions it is this meeting; a brief meeting and that
meeting, and then this one lived from the heart of compassion and the
knowing which we are all connected in this life. There is great
suffering and what we all want most deeply is to be seen, met, and
loved. We want to move from 'I/It' relating to 'I/Thou' relating.
This is the angst of our cry the day we are born. This is the joy of
existence when we remember what we were born knowing.
This is the meaning of the word spirituality that I cherish. The
practice is to live congruent with your best sense of who you were
meant to be, and then to serve the world by acting in relation to the
world from an 'I/Thou' mindset more and more and more often.
Poem
The thing is to love life.
To love it even when you have no stomach for it, when everything you've held dear crumbles like burnt paper in your hands and your throat is filled with the silt of it.
When grief sits with you so heavily it's like heat, tropical, moist, thickening the air so it's heavy like water, more fit for gills than lungs.
When grief weights you like your own flesh only more of it, an obesity of grief.
How long can a body withstand this? you think, and yet you hold life, like a face between your palms.
A plain face, with no charming smile or twinkle in her eye, and you say: yes, I will take you.
I will love you, again.
Ellen Bass, Author — California
In the end, the lucky ones begin to see the whole world with great
love, all of it - the pain, the greed, the fact of our own death, seeing
those we love die or suffer, abuse. In the end, the lucky ones begin to
see the whole world with great love no matter what; all of it - the joy,
the giving, the fact that we live at all, the privilege of being with those
we love no matter what the duration, great gentleness. If we are
lucky, we will do what we can to be in relationship with life from an
'I/Thou' frame of reference and make the most of this dear gift of life
in whatever circumstance we find ourselves. A story now from the
book, "Living An Extraodinary Life," by Robert White.
Itzhak Perlman, the violinist, came on stage to give concert at Avery
Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center in New York City. If you have ever been
to a Perlman concert, you know that getting on stage is no small
achievement for him. He was stricken with polio as a child, and so he
has braces on both legs and walks with the aid of two crutches.
To see him walk across the stage one step at a time, painfully and
slowly, is an unforgettable sight. He walks painfully, yet majestically,
until he reaches his chair. Then he slowly sits down, puts his crutches
on the floor, undoes the clasps on his legs, tucks one foot back, and
extends the other foot forward. Then he bends down and picks up the
violin, puts it under his chin, nods to the conductor, and proceeds to
play.
By now the audience is used to this ritual. They sit quietly while he
makes his way across the stage to his chair. They remain reverently
silent while he undoes the clasps on his legs. They wait until he is
ready to play.
But this time, something went wrong. Just as he finished the first few
bars, one of the strings on his violin broke. You could hear it snap. It
went off like gunfire across the room. There was no mistaking what
that sound meant. There was no mistaking what he had to do.
People who were there that night thought to themselves: "We figured
that he would have to get up, put on the clasps again, pick up the
crutches and limp his way off stage - to either find another violin or
else find another string for this one."
But he didn't. Instead, he waited a moment, closed his eyes and then
signaled the conductor to begin again. The orchestra began, and he
played from where he had left off. And he played with such passion
and such power and such purity as they had never heard before. Of
course, anyone knows that it is impossible to play a symphonic work
with just three strings. I know that, and you know that, but that night
Itzhak Perlman refused to know that.
You could see him modulating, changing, recomposing the piece in his
head. At one point, it sounded like he was de-tuning the strings to get
new sounds from them that they had never made before.
When he finished, there was an awesome silence in the room. And
then people rose and cheered. There was an extraordinary outburst of
applause from every comer of the auditorium. We were all on our feet,
screaming and cheering, doing everything we could to show how
much we appreciated what he had done.
He smiled, wiped the sweat from this brow, raised his bow to quiet us,
and then he said, not boastfully, but in a quiet, pensive, reverent tone,
"You know, sometimes it is the artist's task to find out how much
music you can still make with what you have left."
What a powerful line that is. It has stayed in my mind ever since I
heard it. And who knows? Perhaps that is the [way] of life - not just
for artists but for all of us.
"So, perhaps our task in this shaky, fast-changing, bewildering world
in which we live is to make music, at first with all that we have, and
then when that is no longer possible, to make music with what we
have left," said Jack Riemer of the Houston Chronicle.
In the end, the lucky ones see the world with great love, and play
whatever music they can with whatever strings they have left!
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