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The Next Chapter
A Sermon Given
by Rev. Alida M. DeCoster
January 11, 1998
at Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist Church
Bethesda, Maryland
It is perfect that Mary and Dick selected Robert Frost's poem "The
Road Not Taken" for this service. There have been so many points
along the way in my life, and yours too, I am sure, when we were
faced with a choice to go one way or another: choose this school or
that, this husband or wife, this or that job, one or another attitude
toward a situation. Often these choices mark the beginning and
ending of chapters of our lives. I remember struggling over a
decision in 1979. I was living in Chicago and in a relationship that
wasn't going anywhere. I was finishing a degree, getting over mono,
depressed. I needed a change, but I wasn't quite ready to make it. I
would draw lists of pros and cons about jobs, about the relationship,
about moving. I knew I was in a bad place, but the way wasn't clear.
I think there are some times in life when we have to wait until things
get really bad before we are ready to change. That is because change
is very hard, and the way is not clear.
Finally, I decided to move back home to St. Paul, Minnesota and
make a fresh start. It was in some ways the classic attempt at a
"geographical cure", but it turned out to be a very good move. I
found an interesting job, a nice apartment, reconnected with old
friends, and rejoined my childhood church. That last decision, which
seemed minor at the time, eventually led to my ministry and call to
Cedar Lane. Just as I moved back to my old home town, my brother
was packing up and moving to Colorado, leaving his home town for
good. I remember him saying as he left, "It's time for a new chapter".
How do we know when it is time for a new chapter? Sometimes we
do not have much choice about it. Someone dies, children move
away, we are laid off and so forth. In those cases, new chapters are
forced on us. Today, I am talking about making choices and taking
risks. I am talking about the journey of consciousness, that is, paying
attention to our own need for growth and change and taking the risk
to follow what we know in our hearts to be our true path.
Sometimes this means doing something that others object to.
Sometimes, it means doing something hard. We come to forks along
the way, and we must choose a path. We are often reluctant to give
up familiarity. The comfort of familiarity may influence us strongly.
But eventually, the life force and our need to grow will emerge. In
order to feel congruent, we must risk change. Or, in times of good
fortune, new opportunities may beckon.
Today is a significant day in my life, a day I knew would come
eventually. that I will resign from Cedar Lane on September first.
I would like to read the letter that has gone out to all members and
will go out in the next newsletter.
Dear Friends,
As I sit in my beautiful office and gaze out at our lovely courtyard, I
think again for the millionth time how lucky I am to be a minister at
Cedar Lane. When I watch you come in on Sunday morning,
recalling my times with you individually, I realize once more the joy
and power of church life. Whenever I meet with you in a group, and
through brainstorm and consensus decide upon a course of action, I
am again reassured of the potential of human endeavor. So it is with
difficulty, I have decided with Perry that it is time for me to resign
from Cedar Lane as of September 1, 1998.
As so often in life, this is a paradoxical decision, for the driving
reason is that I need the time and energy to become a parent. I am
leaving Cedar Lane so that I will be free to take care of the child we
plan to adopt. The adoption is not yet imminent, but I am the kind of
person who likes to do things carefully. I want to do a good job of
leaving. It will be sad and hard, despite the happy reason. I want to
be able to focus on saying goodbye well before I have the excitement
and demands of parenthood on my plate. If there is a time gap
between my resignation and the adoption, that is fine.
You may wonder about my future career. I am wondering as well.
I see myself in a quieter form of ministry in the future, such as
counseling or chaplaincy. I have had an incomparably challenging
and rewarding twelve years at Cedar Lane. I am not sure that parish
ministry will be a good fit for me in the future. Still, I plan to stay
involved in the Unitarian Universalist movement through district and
national activities.
Thank you dear friends for your loving ministry to me over these
dozen years. I am privileged and blessed to have been called to be
with you, and because I am staying in the area, you will probably see
me around once in awhile. Professional ethics require that I stay
away from Cedar Lane for a time, depending on the comfort of my
successor and I am respectful of that requirement. I will no longer
perform weddings or memorial services for you, but I know that
Cedar Lane will always be there for you to provide loving, quality
ministry. I am fully with you now until I leave. As we grieve, may
we also celebrate.
Love always,
Alida
Now, as you see, we are at a crossroads. Change comes and choices
must be made. The process is both painful and invigorating. The
question I am asking myself now, is how does one do a good job of
saying goodbye in ministry? I have strong close ties with you. I must
go away from you. How can this be done in a way that honors and
treasures the special relationship we have?
A wise consultant, Roy Oswald has written a helpful manual for
ministers leaving their positions called Running Through the Thistles.
In it he describes a big thistle filled field that he and his brothers had
to walk around to get to and from school everyday. Sometimes they
were in a hurry and had to go right through that big thistle patch, and
they found what they thought was the best way to do that which was
to go very, very fast. That seemed to minimize the pain, simply by
decreasing its duration. But doing it that way also increased its
severity. The more effective way to go through the thistle patch was
to do so carefully and slowly. He says this is also true of ending a
ministry. Though we may be tempted to get the pain over with, it is
better for everyone to be real and present and not rush through it.
Oswald observes that ministers often have trouble with their own
feelings of loss, abandonment and guilt. We can be afraid of all the
painful feelings our departure raises in others and in ourselves. Many
ministers are not able to "be with" their own feelings of grief, so are
unable to be with their congregants during the time of transition.
They may tend to "disappear in place". Often, too, they are moving
quickly to a new settlement in another community and it is impossible
to really tell people how much the ministry has meant to them and
how hard it is to leave. Of course, not every minister leaves under
happy circumstances, but I feel blessed with the good feelings of a
successful ministry here, and that makes it harder to leave.
One of the things people often do when someone they love is leaving
is to shut down. It feels easier to just close the door and turn away.
I don't want to make too big a deal of my leaving either, but I would
hope that all of us can stay with our real feelings and can stay open to
each other in a real way for the rest of my time here. Some people
will feel disappointed. Some will feel sad. Most will feel happy for
me. Others may feel some anxiety about the future. Whatever we are
feeling, I hope we can be real about it. I hope we can stay in
relationship as much as possible as long as we are together. We still
have many present moments to share.
In the early sixties a minister named Granger Westberg wrote a
classic booklet called Good Grief. He refers to the many stages and
manifestations of grief, and particularly emphasizes the many smaller
losses in life that do not often get the acknowledgment that major
losses do. He refers to such things as a friend moving away, a change
of job, the death of a pet, and the moving away of children. He
described modern life almost forty years ago as being so mobile and
people being so cut off from familiar ties that we are probably in a
perpetual state of mild to severe grief. Of course this is worse today.
We endure more losses and cut off than we realize and it takes its toll.
That is why we need communities like this.
However, community is no cure all. It takes work. There are
disappointments and losses. What helps is if we can stay with each
other in the presence of our genuine feelings, including
disappointment, anger, love, sadness, fear, and joy. This does not
mean we wallow in narcissistic feelings, but accept them and express
them so that we are able to move through them. Some of the
reactions to loss Westberg names are shock, sadness, depression,
loneliness, physical symptoms, panic, guilt, anger, resentment,
resisting love, and eventually, hope and affirmation. I don't expect
you to have all these feelings about me leaving(!), but they are
common feelings associated with loss, and not just the major losses
like the death of a close loved one. They arise from all the losses
inherent in living.
It is my fond hope that we can stay in genuine relationship as long as
I am here. I do not rule out a future relationship with you as a
member of this church. It just won't be soon. In the meantime, I will
read the newsletter avidly and keep in touch with staff members.
Cedar Lane will always be part of my life.
It may be that you are too distracted by my announcement for me to
proceed with some more typical sermon observations. Nonetheless,
I would like to reflect some more about the road not taken. And,
about the road less traveled. Those two kinds of roads are both
represented in Frost's poem.
M. Scott Peck's first well known book was The Road Less Traveled.
It was on the bestseller list for years. The first line of the book sticks
in my mind: Life is difficult. Accepting that life is difficult is what
makes it less difficult. Peck goes on to explain the struggles of
emotional growth, and the rewards of maturity that come with the
struggle. He calls it the road less traveled, because choosing to take
a painful but rewarding path of consciousness is not as common as
continuing to live automatically and unconsciously. The implication
is that not very many people really make a commitment to their own
growth. It is hard, it is painful to always stay aware of our growing
edges and our emotional challenges. It is a discipline. Peck sees
therapy as I do. It is not just the last resort of people with desperate
problems. Therapy is very beneficial for healthy, growing people
who want to take risks, stretch themselves, and learn from their
losses. The path of consciousness is the road less traveled. Spiritual
life calls us to it. Therapy is not necessary but and attitude of self
development is. This has been my message to you over and over
again in my years here. Take the road less traveled. Know yourself.
Keep growing. Risk change if you are pulled toward a new challenge.
Wake up! In Thoreau's words, suck out the marrow out of life so that
when you come to die, know you have lived! Take the road less
traveled and live. It will make all the difference.
Grieve, too, the road not taken. Quoting Frosts's poem, "Two roads
diverged in a yellow wood, and sorry I could not travel both, and be
one traveler, long I stood and looked down one as far as I could to
where it bent in the undergrowth.... (And) knowing how way leads
on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back..." How prone we are
to dawdle at the crossroads because we are but one traveler. We
know the finality of such choices.
I think of the Scarecrow at the fork in the yellow brick road in Oz.
Dorothy comes along and says "Now which way do I go". The
talking scarecrow suggests one way, then the other, then says "Some
people do go both ways". The decision is then postponed as Dorothy
and the Scarecrow talk with each other and begin a friendship. They
decide to join together to go to the Wizard of Oz to make their
requests. As they finally get organized to go on their way, the
choice of the path is no longer an issue for some reason. They just
choose and go. This is interesting. It suggests that good
companionship helps us cope with the losses inherent in making
choices.
Many people have trouble making choices and delay the choices as
long as possible. This happens often in relationships. In deciding to
marry someone, one gives up the possibility of waiting and choosing
someone else. In choosing to divorce, we give up on the possibility
of transformation. Gains and losses are part of every choice. What
we need to remember is that we can grow whatever we choose. The
possibility of growth is always there if we are aware of it. Even if we
stay in the same old situation, our inner voice will tell us how we
need to change if we are willing to listen
Wake up, the Buddhists say. That line I remember from Peck's book
reminds me of the four noble truths of Buddhism. Peck said, "Life is
difficult. Accepting the fact that life is difficult is what makes it less
difficult". Gautama Buddha taught, these noble truths: 1. Life is
suffering. 2. Suffering is caused by attachment. 3. To end suffering,
end attachment. 4. To learn to do that, follow the eight fold path of
Buddhist practice. These terms may seem harsh or incomprehensible
to Western ears, so Peck's version of this philosophy may be more
understandable. There is something we can glean from what the
Buddha is saying, though. Much of our suffering does come from our
resistence to change. We are attached to things the way they are. If
we can train ourselves to be less needy, less thirsty, less attached to
what we want, we truly will find more joy. If we can trust that in
letting go, wisdom and serenity will come, then we find true peace.
This is what is meant by ending our attachment. It is being less
needy, more open to experience, more willing to accept our own
feelings and experiences. Willing to accept that loss and difficulty
come with life but that learning from loss and difficulty actually
brings more joy and growth. The enlightened one lives in true joy.
In closing, I wish to tell you something of where my own spiritual
path is leading me. First, it is leading me to motherhood, which will
be a great joy and a great challenge. As so many of you know, and I
only know in theory, parenthood changes your life forever. It has
many struggles, but they are worth it. Children help us grow our
souls, and I am eager for the experience. I am also very grateful to be
facing this prospect, when I had given up on it. I really cannot quite
believe it yet, and we have many hurdles to go until our goal of
parenthood is realized. We would like to adopt a domestic infant if
at all possible, and this involves developing lots of contacts. You
may actually hear of a child who is available for adoption. Think of
us!
Beyond parenthood, and it is difficult to see beyond that right now,
I also have a vision of my professional future, and it has to do with
what I have been speaking of this morning. I am interested in being
a spiritual coach. I make a distinction between therapy, which deals
with the healing of the past, and spiritual coaching which deals with
our growth goals for the future. I wish to provide growth oriented
coaching for individuals and groups. I wish to continue to help
people clarify their theological beliefs and create their spiritual
practices. I wish to help people along the road less traveled, as I plan
to stay on that road myself. We shall see. Nothing could have
prepared me better for such a practice than being with you for these
years. Thank you for all you have taught me about life and ministry.
I am scheduled to be in the pulpit two more times. On February 22,
I plan to give a memory lane sermon titled " I Remember When". I
will be reminiscing about things that have happened at Cedar Lane in
the last twelve years. I welcome your input. On May 24, I will
probably preach about Unitarian Universalism, and our mission in the
world. I will participate in other services and continue to be active in
pastoral care and committee work. I am with you all the way. And
when parting comes, may it be sweet.
Last modified: Mon Jul 13 14:06:54 EDT 1998
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