New Beginnings

Roberta M. Nelson

January 5, 1997

Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist Church

Bethesda, Maryland

The personal time with Chris, my daughters and with Jack and James are cherished reminders of how important family is to me. I take the good-natured joking about being a doting grandmother in stride. I had little connection with any of my grandparents growing up — they had either died or lived far away — but I watched with joy the nurture, love and connection that my children had with my parents during their growing years. It was a strong bond fashioned of care and concern that kept them connected until my parents died. My mother was an avid Boston Celtics fan. It was a source of great delight to her that she and Joy could share the ups and down of the team.

There were may other sharings that have become part of our family’s story and lore. I am not sure what kind of bond will eventually be forged between my grandchildren and myself but I hope it will be as rich and rewarding as my children’s was.

Mary Pipher, in her new book The Shelter of Each Other, writes

The love of grandparents and grandchildren is often incredibly pure and powerful. I’ve noticed that most children who have known their grandparents grow up loving older people.... Children who have not had the privilege often regard older people as scary or at best irrelevant. ... We need to remember that children learn from grown ups. They need to hear their stories, their jokes, their trials and tribulations. They need the tales and moral fables. The right and wrong ways to do things.

I know that time and distance often make these connections difficult, but I urge you to find a way to connect. If you are without grandparents or grandchildren, I urge you to reach out to adopt each other. We need each other for spiritual growth. Linda Weltner, a UU writer for the Boston Globe, recalled an occasion when her own grandson struggled with fear and wrote,

Watching Danny, I felt as if I were catching a glimpse of the earliest source of spirituality in human beings, for what is the basis of religion but the feelings of one small person dazzled by a greater power which both captivates and terrifies. ... When I looked at Danny, his heart thudding, his eyes wide, I did not see a ’fraidy cat, I saw my grandson, the theologian.

There was time to smell the flowers, take long walks, garden, know and read the new biography of the Bront‰s, all 800 pages with 125 pages of notes. There are parts I will read again. What I enjoyed the most was the insight gained from reading about all the family, their interactions, their influence on one another. The author’s research reveals a strong social conscience and outspoken support for unpopular causes. Their father, far from being a dour recluse, cared deeply for his children whose mother died at a very early age. He outlived them all, supporting each in a unique and loving way. In spite of hard times, financial strain, painful deaths and unhealthy living conditions, the family enabled one another to create some of the outstanding writings of their time. It’s a great read.

Much of my sabbatical time was guided by my work on the Haunting House curriculum. Families and houses have a common fascination for me. In her book, Sacred Dwellings, Wendy Wright writes

The doorway proclaims that hospitality, the most ancient of practices is part of the home’s spiritual life. This is the sacred space where the family opens itself to friend or stranger. Whatever the style, these are sacred spaces within the home where hospitality is experienced as a spiritual practice and gift.

I retreated to Maine to write and, perhaps inspired by the many Maine writers, did my best work there. I was asked in the midst of the work, “What has changed since the curriculum was written twenty-two years ago and what are you going to change?” At the same time, many people were expressing concern that we might change it too much. It is obvious to me that the curriculum is beloved by many. In twenty-two years the world has changed dramatically. Our children are exposed to issues that barely crossed our minds at that time. The new curriculum will be more inclusive and will be more explicitly aware of diversity. Today there are many family configurations. We want our children to be more aware of race, class, gender — albeit at their age level. One of the most significant changes culturally is the wealth of children’s books that can open doors to new understanding about all these issues. Today, there is much more to be learned in the family and the home. There is much that we can do in the religious community to nurture our children’s spiritual growth. Many of the sessions in the new “Haunting House” are being written for parents and children to share together. Even now parents are an integral part of the program. In the future, their role will be stronger. Mary Pipher writes,

Children like coziness, adults nearby and safe places to hide out and watch activities. They like routines, predictability and familiar places. They like tree houses, alleys and places under stairways. The spaces we construct for children and the spaces we leave alone for them affect their mental health. Places can protect families as well. Families can have their spots: parks, restaurants,museums, front porches—I would add churches—where they like to be together. These sacred places can be anywhere.

Interest, rituals, celebrations, places, stories, pictures, metaphors all protect families. They transcend time. They give families a context and meaning, a history and philosophy. “The protective walls of a family are not made of stone but of love,” Mary Pipher writes. The role of the Haunting House curriculum is the role of the church: to nurture our spiritual growth.

And finally I want to return to some of your wishes for me: rejuvenation of the spirit, haunting, wondering places, time to find what you need, time for reflection. When I left in September, I invited you to think about a special house or a special place in your house—a place of solitude, dreaming, remembering, memory.

This morning I invite you once again to close your eyes and to get in touch with a place that evokes for you a sense of awe, mystery, wonder. Is it a sunrise or sunset, a mountain stream, or a snow-capped mountain? Is it the ebbing tide or a sandy beach? Is it a starlit night, a shooting star, a thunder storm or a rainbow? How do you feel there, when do you go there, how often do you experience that sense of wonder, awe and mystery? I urge you to hold on to that place, that feeling.

Rachel Carson, in A Sense of Wonder, writes

If I had the influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children, I should ask that her gift to each child be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life, as an unfailing antidote against the boredom and disenchantments of later years, the sterile preoccupation with things that are artificial, the alienation from the sources of our strength. ... One way to open your eyes to unnoticed beauty is to ask yourself, “What if I had never seen this before? What If I knew I would never see it again?”

I am not a maker of New Year’s resolutions, especially ones that would be hard or impossible to make come to fruition. But I am aware that life in the Washington fast lane is taking its toll on us and on our children. I have spoken before about the frantic, frenetic, frazzled lives I hear and read about, the longings I hear from people who want more time: time to be, time to regroup, time to reflect. To make a New Year’s resolution that would enable some of these to take place in our lives would be a mammoth undertaking and might subject us to deeper despair about how our lives seem at times totally out of our control. The Shelter of Each Other is a book that is going to guide me as I review some of my thinking and priorities. It offers some ideas and suggestions I hope we can incorporate into our church program. In her counseling with families, she encourages the use of the natural world and settings as healing places in times of trouble and despair. I have never read a book about/for families that is so tuned into what is happening today. She writes, “Our culture is at war with families. Families in America have been invaded by technology, mocked by the media, isolated by demographic changes, pounded by economic forces and hurt by corporate values.” And yet families are surviving. Families have proven to be resilient, adaptive, creative, compassionate. “They have been shelter from the storm,” and Pipher says, “our last great hope.” We need to be purveyors of hope. We need to be about restoring community and rebuilding the infrastructure of families.

Let us all become conscious of our places of wonder, places that heal our souls and make us feel whole again. And let us resolve to share these with our children and grandchildren. In this way, let us begin to repair our brokenness and reclaim some of the values that strengthen our spirit.

Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist Church
9601 Cedar Lane, Bethesda, Maryland 20814-4099
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e-mail: office@CedarLane.org
Sunday Services at 10 a.m.
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