"On the Beach" - the Reverend Alison Hyder
April 22, 2001 - the Unitarian Universalist Meeting House of Provincetown
Opening words: “Yes to the Earth” Sibilla Aleramo (Italian, 1876-1960)
So radiant
in certain mornings’ light
With its roses and cypress trees
Is Earth, or with its grain and olives;
So suddenly
it is radiant on the soul,
Which stands then alone and forgetful
Though just a moment earlier the soul
Wept bloody tears or dwelt in bitterness;
So radiant
in certain mornings’ light
Is
Earth, and in its silence so expressive,
This wondrous lump rolling in its skies;
Beautiful, tragic in solitude, yet smiling,
That the
soul, unasked, replies,
"Yes," replies, "Yes" to the Earth,
To the indifferent Earth, "Yes!"
Even though
next instant skies
Should darken, roses too, and cypresses,
Or the effort of life grow heavier still,
The act of breathing more heroic,
"Yes,"
replies the battered soul to Earth,
So radiant in the light of certain mornings,
Beautiful above all things, and human hope.
Readings: Henry David Thoreau "If a man does not keep pace
with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.
Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away."
John Coltrane: “My goal is to live the truly religious life, and express it through my music. If you live it, when you play there’s no problem because the music is part of a whole thing… My music is the expression of who I am, my faith, my knowledge, my being.”
Sermon: ”On the Beach” - Rev. Alison Hyder
"Tomorrow,
and tomorrow and tomorrow
creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
and then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing." (Macbeth V., v., 17)
So said Macbeth, in Shakespeare’s play by that name. Life is hard
and all of our attempts at success futile and sad. There is little enough
a person can do to find meaning in a world that is unforgiving and harsh.
Why bother, after all? Of course, Macbeth had just pulled off a few murders,
including the king and one of his own best friends. His wife – herself
no saint, but still his main advocate – had just killed herself,
and Macbeth was realizing that he wasn’t exactly the noblest laird
in the land. Sure, he’d made himself the King of Scotland, but on
the other hand, he wasn’t what you’d call settled in life.
No one appreciated him. Not a happy guy, our Macbeth. He tried to live
out his destiny, and it led only to ignominy and death. “Most men
live lives of quiet desperation” said Henry David Thoreau. But Thoreau
was determined not to be one of them, so he set out to discover for himself
just what he enjoyed doing, what things gave him joy and inspired him
with wonder. Beginning with the basics, doing his own rough chores without
benefit of custom or culture. In his small cabin by Walden Pond, he learned
how to listen to himself and fit himself into the rhythm of nature. Thoreau
wrote:
There were times when I could not afford to sacrifice the bloom of the
present moment to any work, whether of the head or hands. I love a broad
margin to my life. Sometimes, in a summer morning, having taken my accustomed
bath, I sat in my sunny doorway from sunrise till noon, rapt in a revery,
amidst the pines and hickories and sumachs, in undisturbed solitude and
stillness, while the birds sing around or flitted noiseless through the
house, until by the sun falling in at my west window, or the noise of
some traveller's wagon on the distant highway, I was reminded of the lapse
of time. I grew in those seasons like corn in the night, and they were
far better than any work of the hands would have been. They were not time
subtracted from my life, but so much over and above my usual allowance.
[Walden]
Thoreau was a free and single white man (and a Unitarian), but he was
expected to comply with the norms of a civilized and polite society. He
chose not to conform blindly to others’ dictates, but to “march
to the beat of a different drummer,” that of his own heart throbbing
within. It is hard to find one’s way in the world without surrendering
one’s individuality or succumbing to a soporific greed; working
to support a lifestyle that causes us stress.
There are plenty of people telling us how to live – how to look
cool, what to buy, how to have fun. There are passes to Disneyland, package
deals to Aruba, White Parties and Adventure vacations. Books tell you
how to find fulfillment and what’s wrong with your relationship.
Martha Stewart extols the expensive but tasteful joys of simple domesticity.
Pleasure is a commodity, with its own set of experts.
Well, and who doesn’t want to be happy? I do. We may learn through
struggle and pain, but it’s much easier to be cheerful and kind
when life is pleasant and things are going our way. In an inversion of
the Golden Rule, we tend to mete out to others the treatment that we ourselves
receive. If we think the world is treating us kindly, we are more likely
to pass along our good fortune and be helpful to other people. And that
makes us feel better in return.
Bertrand Russell, English Philosopher, mathematician, and all-around smart
guy said, “the secret of happiness is this: Let your interests be
as wide as possible, and let your reactions to the things and persons
that interest you be as far as possible friendly rather than hostile.”
The best guarantor of happiness is to have an open mind and heart.
Happiness is not an activity, but a by-product of our actions and thoughts.
Most of us can’t wake up and plan happiness, saying “I think
I’ll go and do Joy today.” The most we can do is to know what
it is that makes us happy, and try to maximize these activities. And that
takes a little bit of self-knowledge. A lot of the things we think will
be fun instead leave us feeling empty and unfulfilled. Sometimes it takes
years before we realize that we don’t have to follow the pack, that
we’d rather walk on the beach in spring than lie around with the
crowd in July getting tanned and thirsty. Or that the feeling we thought
was righteousness was a fear of opening ourselves up to change. Smugness
and happiness are not the same thing. One is based on judgment, and the
other on acceptance. One is rigid, and the other is open to new information
and new experiences.
You can’t be too particular. The more interests you have, the more
you’re open to knowledge and experience, the more things there are
that will make you happy. You’ll appreciate not just the fact that
the migratory banded lesser yellowlegs you see here on the shore have
just flown about 400 miles in one day en route from Martinique (where
if you’re lucky, you may see them again this winter), but also that
the shape of the nails in the floor of AB Hall can tell you how they were
made, and about when. Or hearing someone’s name will set off all
sorts of associations with word origins and ethnic studies. For instance,
did you know that all last names that end in the I-A-N sound - like Saroyan,
or Mamoulian or Kervorkian – are from Armenia? Or that Ivan and
Juan and Ian all mean John?
The world is before us, waiting to be seen and appreciated in all its
diversity and strange detail. All it takes is observation and a little
friendly curiosity.
Expanding your interests heightens your self-confidence. And you don’t
have to be an expert. While it’s fine to specialize in one area,
and delve deep into the arcane details of that subject, true happiness
and sympathy lie, I think, in a broader perspective. Knowing how to fix
a leaky faucet as well as what kind of clouds indicate rain and the color
combinations that create a sense of tension or depth makes you feel competent
and attuned to the world as you live in it, moment to moment. Knowing
how to make a great casserole as well as the type of rigging used on 18th
Century Schooners will get you more dates. You’ll gain more insight
into other people and their cultures and enjoyments. And that can increase
your sense of belonging and trust and help you to take more chances, extending
your world ever wider.
Our sense of wonder and awe grows stronger the more that we learn. I’ve
read that back in the 1930s scientists thought that quantum physics would
unlock all the keys to the universe. But instead, it just inspired more
and deeper questions about the origin of the cosmos and the mysteries
of human consciousness and perception. The more we know, the more we are
aware how fragile our place is, how dependent on the right combination
of oxygen and heat, on other creatures and the avoidance of lead in our
systems. There are a lot worse things than to feel very small and humble.
It rather makes us grateful that we exist at all, that out of the womb
of stars the earth was born to be our home.
For gratitude and happiness go hand in hand. Every time we recognize a
particular aroma or notice the graceful arc a plane makes as it turns
we are saying a little prayer of gratitude for the pleasure of being alive
and aware. And we string each moment into a daily rosary of happiness
that we make up throughout the day.
One way to add to your happiness is through your awareness of your blessings.
Many of you, I know, already do this as part of your spiritual practice.
At some point while you are meditating or before you go to sleep you give
thanks for the gifts of the day, remembering them, reliving the small
pleasures and moments of insight and the expressions of love both received
and given. If you continue to do this, you will find that this exercise
takes longer and longer all the time, as you become more conscious of
all that you have to be grateful for and the many things that make you
happy. With this practice, you really are making perfect: your days becoming
better and better - and not just in your mind. Throughout the day, you
will begin to look for moments of happiness to add to your list, and you’ll
gain more insight into what stirs and amuses you and fills you with joy.
Rabbi Harold Kushner wrote, “When your life is filled with the desire
to see the holiness in everyday life, something magical happens: ordinary
life becomes extraordinary, and the very process of life begins to nourish
your soul.”
Once we have a sense of the things that lift and fulfill us, we are freed
to discard some of the things that oppress us, the things we keep out
of habit or fear of loss, because we needed them when we were younger
or because we’re told that’s the way things are done. This
is what the great Jazz musician John Coltrane found when he kicked his
drug habit. It wasn’t necessary to playing great music, whatever
his peers thought, Byrd notwithstanding, and was getting in the way of
his full expression. “Once you become aware of this force for unity
in life ,” he told Nat Hentoff, “you can’t ever forget
it. It becomes part of everything you do… There is never any end.
There are always new sounds to imagine, new feelings to get at. And always,
there is the need to keep purifying these feelings and sounds so that
we can see more and more clearly what we are. In that way, we can give
those who listen to us the essence, the best of who we are. But to do
that at each stage, we have to keep cleaning the mirror.” [1966,
liner notes to Meditations]
Chinese author Lin Yutang said “Beside the noble art of getting
things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom
of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials.” This does
not mean that we should chuck all responsibility or close our eyes to
sorrow, but to learn how to craft our lives so that we can spend our time
– and our resources – on the things that let us grow. Practicing
happiness is a way to find strength and power and consolation in the midst
of pain, so we can get through the difficulties with a measure of peace.
In fact, it is one of the best preparations we can make for the encroaching
limitations of aging. Our mobility may decrease, eyesight fail, even our
wits. If you have trained yourself to have an open and curious mind and
a grateful heart, you will never be completely bereft. Resources will
bubble forth from within like a fresh spring of water.
Knowing your own happiness is a skill, and you are the only specialist
there is. Others may sell fun toys or preach their own form of pleasure,
but true happiness must be felt from within.
UU minister Jane Rzepka tells this story:
I met her on the beach, a British matron - heavy-set, properly dressed,
sixty-ish. We struck up a conversation.
We talked about this and that, and before long, somehow she wandered into
a long saga about her dental history. I closed the book I was reading;
I could tell I was in this for the long haul.
“Bridge work.” I don’t know what that is exactly, but
she’d had a lot of it, and it kept popping out, or falling apart,
or getting bent, or whatever bridge work does when it goes awry. Though
I consider myself a trained professional (in listening, not dentistry),
keeping on top of this conversation was getting to be pretty hard work,
at least for beach duty.
But then she said, “it’s the snorkeling that does it. My dentist
has told me that I have to give it up.” Her face changed then, and
her voice, and she looked at me and said, “But it is my fondest
pleasure.”
With that, she stripped down to her bathing suit, put on her white bathing
cap, carefully fastening the strap under her chin, grabbed her snorkel
and fins, and headed out. She was grinning from ear to ear.
As we sit in silent meditation for the next few minutes, think about your
fondest joy. Choose one specific thing that gives you pleasure –
and ask yourself precisely why it makes you feel good. What part of you
does it reach most deeply?
Closing Words: Mary Oliver “Going to Walden”
It isn't
very far as highways lie.
I might be back by nightfall, having seen
The rough pines, and the stones, and the clear water.
Friends argue that I might be wiser for it.
They do not hear that far-off Yankee whisper:
How dull we grow from hurrying here and there!
Many have gone, and think me half a fool
To miss a day away in the cool country.
Maybe. But in a book I read and cherish,
Going to Walden is not so easy a thing
As a green visit. It is the slow and difficult
Trick of living, and finding it where you are.
