"Weak Ties" - the Reverend Alison Hyder

August 3, 2003 - the Unitarian Universalist Meeting House of Provincetown

Connections are made slowly; sometimes they grow underground.

You cannot tell always by looking what is happening.
More than half a tree is spread out in the soil under your feet.

Penetrate quietly as the earthworm that blows no trumpet.
Fight persistently as the creeper that brings down the tree.
Spread like the squash plant that overruns the garden.
Gnaw in the dark and use the sun to make sugar.

Weave real connections, create real nodes, build real houses.
Live a life you can endure: make love that is loving.

Keep tangling and interweaving and taking more in, a thicket and bramble wilderness to the outside but to us interconnected with rabbit runs and burrows and lairs.

Live as if you like yourself, and it may happen:

Reach out, keep reaching out, keep bringing in.
This is how we are going to live for a long time: not always,

For every gardener know that after the digging, after the planting, after the long season of tending and growth, the harvest comes.

READING: by the zoologist and author Stephen Jay Gould:

The central enigma of our lives is that we possess such capacity and such power for both unspeakable bestiality and for inspiring decency.
Human nature, if definable at all (and I do not despair) is neither admirable nor lamentable, but merely flexible enough to beget our best and our worst without any apparent strain or driving self-doubt.
The pathways of human decency always contain more stories of bitterness than of good works. But I do not despair for our species. I do not despair because, overall, by chance, perhaps, the decency outweighs the bestiality. We are caught in a cruel structural asymmetry of consequences. Surely, acts of positive kindness (or at least of passive decency and consideration) predominate overwhelmingly in human behavior in all cultures.... But these ten thousand acts of kindness (smiling at a child, stepping aside to let another pass) go unrecorded for their very normality…their reinforcement of benevolent stability. The rare act of cruelty has greater impact and cancels in our mind all those ten thousand bits of decency. Our tragedy lies in the fact that rare events of the [cruel] side have inordinate power to shape history and can therefore overwhelm the vastly more common acts of kindness. But the bright side of this cruel asymmetry resides in the sheer quantitative imbalance of the items themselves: evil may have more impact, but remains rare. Thus, if we could ever figure out a way to harness ordinary behavior as the driver of history (as well as the substrate of normalcy), we might achieve that great vision of a just and stable world.

SERMON: “Weak Ties” - Rev. Alison Hyder

There is a story – and I don’t know if it is true or not – about a town in eastern Europe. It was a small town, with shops and farms and a synagogue and an orphanage.
Every year at the New Year the orphanage commissioned the local seamstress to make a set of new clothes for each child. The seamstress had few possessions, and no social position, but she had a special light in her eyes and a richness of spirit. She took a special delight in making shirts and skirts and trousers for the orphaned children out of the remnants leftover from her wealthy customers’ orders. The children were excited to receive the clothes each year. And the directors were pleased that orphans were so appreciative of their brand-new outfits.
The seamstress lived and died quietly. Over time, the town grew into a bustling suburb. Eventually the orphanage closed down. The little temple became a grand synagogue.
As Rosh Hashanah approached, the congregation was discussing ways to raise money. Then the president of the synagogue remembered that a very successful industrialist had spent his childhood in the local orphanage. “Perhaps if he would come and worship with us for the High Holy Days, he would share with us the secret of his success.”
The industrialist lived in another town, but he was a sentimental man, and he accepted the invitation. “So,” said the president of the synagogue, in a self-important voice. “Tell us. What is the secret of your success? From rags to riches, eh?”
“It is actually very simple,” replied the industrialist. “When I was a child, you know, I lived in the town orphanage. Now you might understand the loneliness of an orphan. All too many nights my pillow was wet with tears, tears of longing for my poor, dead parents, tears of anger for my blighted future. In spite of the kindness of the staff and the company of the other children, I often felt very alone.
“So every year, I waited impatiently for the New Year to come. For, in honor of the holiday, each child was given a new set of clothes. We all looked forward to it. Now, simply receiving a set of clean, never-before-worn clothes might have been special enough. But the new clothes held a special secret: each year, in one of the pockets, was a small note. The note was just for me. And I savored its message throughout the year. It reassured me that I was not alone and that I would not spend all the days of my life in longing.”
“But,” said the host, “what was written on the notes? What words could have made it possible to rise from that to this?”
“That is not what’s important,” replied the industrialist. “Someone, and I never learned who, sent those messages just to me. And that made all the difference.” [taken from “Rosh Hashanah Sermon” 1987, by Sue Levi Elwell, in Four Centuries of Jewish Women’s Spirituality, ed. by Ellen M. Umansky and Dianne Ashton]
Each one of us needs to feel that we belong. The world is a large and often overwhelming place, painful and harsh. Small acts of loving kindness, of affirmation, or even the most simple acknowledgement, have a cumulative effect that is profound. And not just for the one who receives them. Each time we reach out to another being – with a smile, a courtesy, a compliment or an apology, some bird seed put out on a cold winter day – we acknowledge our deep interdependence with others.
Every once in a while I think about the past – about mistakes I’ve made, about chances missed, and mostly, about relationships that never developed. What would have happened if I’d spent one college vacation working at Star Island instead of going home to my friends? I would have made new friends, perhaps have fallen in love with someone who lived in Montana or Maine. I might have followed them to another school. My entire life would be different, with different friends and opportunities. Every decision, each relationship, would have influenced my choices and led me on a new path. I might not have become a minister, and almost surely wouldn’t be here in Provincetown now.
I can’t picture my life without the friends I love, or imagine being in a situation as fulfilling in so many ways. Is all this the result of destiny, or accident? Or just a personal knack for adaptation? Who can say? All I know is that I am thankful for what I have. And so I can have no regrets, only gratitude for the web of support and kindness that has directed me along my way.
I can call to mind wonderful teachers and supervisors who taught and inspired me, the examples of my parents’ respectfulness and creativity, the friends whose love saved me from loneliness and insecurity. There have been significant events and special times. But my life has also been the product of many friendly moments, random acts of goodness, of generosity and courage and candor from strangers and acquaintances, and fleeting moments of kindness and grace.
It is remarkable to consider, but every one of us is sustained by a system of humanity. Every day, we go to work or the store, we read our mail, check the weather; we schedule an appointment for an interview or a tune-up. Someone else is answering the phone, answering our questions, giving us room, a glance, a chance. Acting with responsibility and decency.
Most of you have heard of the term “six degrees of separation.” The theory is that each one of us is linked to every other person in the world through a chain of only about 6 acquaintances. Author Malcolm Gladwell explains:

In the late 1960s, a psychologist named Stanley Milgram was wondering how humans are connected. Do we all belong to separate worlds, operating simultaneously but autonomously, or are we all bound up together in a grand, interlocking web? …Milgram’s idea was to test this question through a chain letter. He got the names of 160 people who lived in Omaha, Nebraska, and mailed each one of them a packet. In the packet was the name of a stockbroker who worked in Boston and lived in Sharon, Massachusetts. Each person was instructed to write his or her name on the packet and send it on to a friend or acquaintance who he or she thought would get the packet closer to the stockbroker. If …you had a cousin outside of Boston, for example, you might send it to him, on the grounds that – even if your cousin did not himself know the stockbroker – he would be a lot more likely to be able to get it to the stockbroker [through another acquaintance. In the end,] Milgram could establish how closely connected someone chosen at random from one part of the country was to another person in another part of the country. Milgram found that most of the letters reached the stockbroker in five or six steps. [Malcolm Gladwell, “Six Degrees of Lois Weisberg,” The New Yorker, January 11, 1999]

This makes for a very small world. And it is even more surprising when you consider that most of us make our friends through proximity – because they live in our apartment building or neighborhood, work or go to school with us, or maybe play on the same team. We don’t tend to seek out friends from other worlds. But our lives bisect and interconnect with strangers all the time, though old school friends, distant relatives, merchants, hair dressers. And these relationships are more significant than we think.
Malcolm Gladwell is a cultural journalist for New Yorker magazine and the author of The Tipping Point. Gladwell talks about the importance of acquaintances in our lives, “what sociologists call the ‘weak tie,’ a friendly yet casual social connection.” [The Tipping Point, p. 46]. These are people we might have met at a conference or a bar, maybe someone you met who was wearing a familiar team jersey or lodge pin or chalice jewelry. It is the sometime relationship, the familiar face, like our postal clerk or our best friend’s cousin. It is through these “weak ties” Gladwell says, that most people find their jobs, get information, and make connections.
On the surface this doesn’t make sense. Why should these casual acquaintances help us? And how? Gladwell quotes the research of Mark Granovetter in this. Our friends, after all, occupy the same world that we do. They work with us, or go to the same schools, churches or parties. So how much could they know that we don’t know? Mere acquaintances, on the other hand, are more likely to have access to information that we don’t. They can pass along news, advice, and assistance from a fresh perspective. They give us access to diverse groups, whole new worlds. The more open we are to different people, the more we benefit. Granovetter calls it “the strength of weak ties.” This, Gladwell adds, is why integrated schools and minority college admissions programs are so important. It is not just a better education that helps people advance. It is access to a broader range of people. It is the connection to a wider circle of community.
These “weak ties” provide us with added comfort and connection, a sense of our place in the world. They become part of our “tribe.” For as much as we may value diversity, humans crave familiarity. We are more comfortable with people who are like us, who seem to share with us some kind of experience or interest. We want to feel that the world is a predictable place. We are more likely to reach out to others when we feel safe.
We have been fed on models of violence and competition and scarcity. But anthropologists and animal researchers have begun to turn their attention from “the survival of the fittest” to models of tribal cooperation. Though animals may compete for food and mates, most species rely on cooperation to survive. Humans have endured and thrived though the qualities of helpfulness and responsibility. We have always depended on the kindness of strangers.

Anthropologist Stephen Jay Gould reminds us of the capacity for human goodness. “Surely,” he wrote,

acts of positive kindness (or at least of passive decency and consideration) predominate overwhelmingly in human behavior in all cultures.... But these ten thousand acts of kindness (smiling at a child, stepping aside to let another pass) go unrecorded for their very normality…their reinforcement of benevolent stability. The rare act of cruelty has greater impact and cancels in our mind all those ten thousand bits of decency. Our tragedy lies in the fact that rare events of the [cruel] side have inordinate power to shape history and can therefore overwhelm the vastly more common acts of kindness. But the bright side of this cruel asymmetry resides in the sheer quantitative imbalance of the items themselves: evil may have more impact, but remains rare. Thus, if we could ever figure out a way to harness ordinary behavior as the driver of history (as well as the substrate of normalcy), we might achieve that great vision of a just and stable world.

We may never comprehend the impact that one simple courtesy or decent act has on us or the world, how easily lives are changed by chance or by grace. The clerk scooping ice cream or in a boutique, the woman with the collie, the kid handing out fliers – any one of these could be a source of enlightenment. The person sitting next to you could betray depths of suffering that call forth a wellspring of new understanding. You may have common friends or interests – or illnesses. Every encounter is a fresh start.
Each one of us has the capacity for good or harm. We can lighten someone’s day, or smite them with a harsh word. We can change the world, or dwell in our own fear and shame.
Poet and social worker Alison Luterman has chosen love. She says, “I pray on the subway going home, in the train filled with commuters – just sit there with my eyes closed, breathing in and out. I let each person I’ve encountered that day float into my heart, where I embrace them and then let them go. Rapid transit is my temple; it maketh me sit down with no phones ringing; it leadeth me through the noise and whoosh of the city of death.” [“This Thing About Goodness,” quoted in The Sun]
This is what we do here each Wednesday morning in our Healing Hearts meditation group. We hold the world and heal the world in our hearts. We create love, intentionally, imperfectly, with our thoughts and our breaths and the warm clasp of hands.
We come to the Universalist Meeting House, as we come to Provincetown, to extend our tribe, to live for a moment that vision of stability and safety and justice. We do our best – that’s why we’re here – to offer each other trust and compassion, and a caring hand. Making real connections, reaching out and reaching in, tangling and interweaving until the boundaries disappear and we are made whole.
This is our work as people of faith - as individuals of principle and purpose. To use our power to heal, and not to hurt. To proclaim the values of harmony and peace and respect. To bind up the brokenhearted, and to remind the world that goodness and kindness and decency prevail. And to find the courage to see beyond ourselves to a lonely and orphaned planet.
Open your heart to yet one more person. Looking deeply, you will see your own beauty reflected in their eyes.

CLOSING WORDS: by Hilaire Belloc - “The Telephone”

To-night in million-voiced London I
Was lonely as the million-pointed sky
Until your single voice. Ah! So the Sun
Peoples all heaven, although he be but one.

---

info@uumh.org