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Renewing the Spirit:
Reflections on the Summer of 1999
A Sermon Given
by The Reverend Roger Fritts
on August 15, 1999
at Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist Church
Bethesda, Maryland
Most ministers have within them two illusions about ourselves. We
often hold these two illusions at the beginning of our ministry (for
the first fifteen or twenty years). I suspect that we clergy share
these illusions with others including many teachers, social workers,
lawyers, medical professionals and scientists, and others.
On the one hand we believe that we are very good at what we do.
We believe we are so good that given a chance, given the right
opportunity, we can have almost as much impact on the human
race as Jesus had.
The second illusion, we hold simultaneously, is the feeling that
we are frauds. This is the belief that we are really not very good at
all in being ministers, and that we are always on the verge of having
our incompetence discovered.
The result of believing in both these illusions simultaneously is
that we throw ourselves completely, into our work. We become totally
absorbed in it, working nights and days, weekends and holidays.
We see our work as the testing ground for our worth and the
validity of our lives. This approach to work can lead to disaster.
I remember at the Unitarian Universalist General Assembly in 1995
having dinner with a colleague from New England who is about
my age. This man was experiencing enormous success in his
church. I asked if he would be willing to lead a board retreat at
Cedar Lane to share his ideas and he agreed. However, it was not
to be. A week after the General Assembly he was dead of a stroke.
Friends told me that he suffered from diabetes. He had not found
time to keep his doctors' appointments. I know of other examples
of ministers who work themselves to an early death. Of course this
behavior is not just the ministry. It is an aspect of modern work
with which all of us struggle. In the words of the Unitarian
philosopher William James:
Every man who possibly can, should force himself to a
holiday of a full month in a year, whether he feels like
taking it or not.
Each June, for my own spiritual renewal, I plan a vacation. This
summer, because the Unitarian Universalist General Assembly was
in Salt Lake City, my plan was to explore southern Utah and
northern Arizona. It would be an opportunity to slow down, to
shake the tension, and to refresh my spirits. Leslie went to the
General Assembly, where she was a speaker at four workshops.
Afterward, she headed back home to an empty house, which was
a vacation for her. Our oldest son was in music camp. I started to
make my way south with my two younger children to my father
and stepmother's home in Prescott, Arizona.
I love the open spaces of the west, with their blue skies, tall
mountains, and deep canyons. To explore I need only a car with a
radio that can pick up National Public Radio. Although, I found
that in Utah and Arizona it is easer to find the stations that carry
Rush Limbaugh than to find the one that carries Diane Ream.
What are the many benefits of a vacation?
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On vacation I shed my role as a minister. As I travel, "What do you
do?" is a frequently asked question. Mostly, it is polite
conversation, but it is also a way of defining an individual and
establishing a sense of status. I know one minister who deals with
this question by telling strangers he works for the CIA. As a spy,
he explains, he cannot talk about his work. This answer gives him
peace and quiet on long airplane rides.
Personally I answer the "What do you do?" truthfully.
However, when I am on vacation, I do not welcome the question. I
prefer to be a man of mystery.
To a waiter or a waitress I am only a stomach to be filled.
To the motel clerk I am only a guy in a tee shirt looking for an AAA
discount. Because they do not know my role, I do not have to
prove anything, control anything, or be responsible for anything.
When I visit churches on vacation, I resist the temptation to check
the microphone, confer with the organist, or search for the ushers.
Instead, I sit in the congregation and open myself to receive and
learn from what the worship leaders offer.
The change in roles can be unsettling. No one asks for my advice.
The local press does not call. I become aware of the fact that I am
dispensable. On the other hand the change of roles is also
liberating. Free of obligations, I can listen to the sermon and sing
the hymns with a wonderful sense of freedom.
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On vacation I gain perspective. Often, I am close to the action,
caught up in the daily activity. I fall into ruts and surrender to
routine. The calender dominates and I respond to the next task or
the next meeting. When I drove on the back roads of Utah, with
my 13-year-old son and my 8-year-old daughter as company, I
could reflect on my busy lifestyle. As I look at the beds of ancient
seas, and the 1000 year old homes of native Americans, I remember the
words of Elisabeth Kubler-Ross:
"In order to be at peace," she wrote, "it is necessary to
feel a sense of history -- that you are both part of what has
come before and part of what is yet to come. Being thus
surrounded, you are not alone; and the sense of urgency
that pervades the present is put in perspective."
A vacation is a time to pause, step back and evaluate. All the
mission and vision statements will suddenly seem less crucial. A
feeling of self-importance cultivates delusions. Leonardo da Vinci
advised:
Go some distance away, because then the work appears
smaller, and more of it can be taken in at a glance. A lack
of harmony or proportion is more readily seen.
I gained my most-distant view one beautiful summer day about a
month ago. With my 13-year-old son, I visited Lowell Observatory,
the largest private astronomical observatory in the world. As we
walked through the buildings on Mars Hill west of Flagstaff, the
place reminded me of how small the earth is in relationship to the
size of the cosmos. Astronomers have detected two billion
individual stars in our galaxy and fifty million galaxies beyond
ours. These vast numbers put my petty concerns into perspective.
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On vacation I rediscover myself. I get away from the ordinary
and the routine to find myself again. Caught in the daily
responsibilities, I lose touch with who I am. In constant contact with
many people and with a desire to please others, I lose touch with the
core of my own wisdom, the core of my own feelings. To renew my
own identity I walked down streets in Salt Lake City that I had
walked down when I stayed for a month in that city as a child. I
visited my sister and my cousin and together we renewed our
memories of our childhood together forty years ago. I visited
national parks in Southern Utah that my parents had taken me to
in the 1950s. I spent an afternoon with an aunt who was my
mother's sister. My father and I drove up to the Grand Canyon
together, walked along the rim and had lunch at the El Travar
Hotel.
These experiences revived old feelings, renewed forgotten memories,
and reaffirmed the core of who I am.
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On vacation I seek growth. Among other things a vacation is a
time to read, one of my life's greatest pleasures. This summer I
read a new novel by Gail Godwin, a short history of Unitarianism
in Europe, a biography of the founder of the Unitarian church in
Czechoslovakia, the new Bob Woodward book about the last five
presidents, and a mystery novel. I found an article in the New
Yorker about Physical Intelligence very stimulating. Congregations
expect Unitarian Universalist ministers to be highly educated
clergy. However, during most of the year finding time to read or
study, unless it is for a sermon is difficult.
Summer vacation is also a time for me to experience spiritual
renewal through the arts: music, painting and drama. I have visited
museums and movie theaters. I can recommend the Iron Giant.
It is a wonderful movie.
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On vacation I renew my relationship with my family. The
busyness of work separates me from my children and my partner.
The stresses of work leave me with less energy for the people with
whom I live. On vacation, I try to repair the divides in my
relationships. I spend more time with my extended family of my
brother and my sisters, my father and stepmother. I visited with an
aunt, an uncle, a nephew and a niece. I spent more time with my
children and my wife. A trip that Leslie and I took at the end of
July was a little like recreating our honeymoon of eighteen years
ago, renewing the promise of the original vows.
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And, on vacation I try to have fun. After visiting five national
parks in Southern Utah, my son informed me that he was tired of
looking at rocks. We headed down the Interstate in the red 1999
Mustang that Hertz had provided. In Las Vegas, we drove to an
enormous hotel aimed at aging Baby Boomers and their families.
As we entered the lobby there were slot machines and red velvet
wall paper around us. Over the loudspeaker I heard the old 1960s
song based on Ecclesiastes:
To everything, turn, turn, turn, There is a season, And a
time to every purpose under heaven. A time to love, a time
to hate. A time for peace, I swear it's not too late.
Well it was time for me to check into a Las Vegas hotel. The kids
watched as I made a donation of a dollar in nickels to a slot
machine. I explained that gambling was a game for people who
were not paying attention when they were in math class.
Our visit to Las Vegas was not just a lesson about how humans exploit
each other's weaknesses. The hotel had an indoor amusement park and a
circus show that ran twelve hours a day. We played at the arcade, rode
the rides and watched the circus acts. At night we walked along the strip
to see the lights. For my children it was the high point of the trip.
What are the benefits of a vacation? On vacation:
- I shed my role as a minister.
- I gain perspective.
- I rediscover myself.
- I seek growth.
- I renew my relationship with my family.
- Finally, I have fun.
Eventually, however, the trip ends. I do understand the Calvinist
emphasis on work. Work gives us a sense of worth, a set of values
and commitments, an accessible group of friends and colleagues,
and a feeling of success and accomplishment. Work, I believe, is
a critical source of spiritual renew. We were not meant for
permanent vacations. In the words of George Bernard Shaw. "A
perpetual holiday is a good working definition of hell."
I am glad to be back, my own illusions about myself were put in
perspective by a summer break. This summer we can read about
fear of a conflict with China, or with North Korea, or between
India and Pakistan. The war in Kosovo is over, but the aftermath
of death and hatred remains. In our own country we feel deep
concern about white male rage as it is manifest in random shootings
in Atlanta and Los Angeles. One son of a former president has
died in a tragic plane crash, while another son of a former
president hopes himself to be the next president. We rejoice in a
soccer victory of American women and the popularity of a movie
about the search for a witch in the woods of Frederick County
fascinates us. In this last summer of the century we live in
interesting and sometimes difficult times. I am ready to be back. I
am glad to be home.
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