"It Can be Wide" - the Reverend Alison Hyder

April 28, 2002 - the Unitarian Universalist Meeting House of Provincetown

If, on a starlit night, with the moon brilliantly shimmering,
We stay inside and do not venture out, the evening universe remains a part of life we shall not know…
If, on a cloudy day, with grayness infusing all and rain dancing rivers in the grass,
We stay inside and do not venture out, the stormy, threatening energy of the universe remains a part of life we shall not know.
If, throughout these grace-given days of ours, surrounded as we are by green life and brown death, hot pink joy and cold gray pain and miracles – always miracles –
If we stay inside ourselves and do not venture out, then the Fullness of the universe shall be unknown to us
And our locked hearts shall never feel the rush of worship.

READING: from the book Spoon River Anthology, by Edgar Lee Masters: this is the story of a town told by the inhabitants of the local cemetery. Stories of regret, and infidelity, bitterness and love. Each poem is the words said by a different character. These are the thoughts of “Samuel Gardner” as he lies buried under a tree:

I who kept the greenhouse,
Lover of trees and flowers,
Oft in life saw this umbrageous elm,
Measuring its generous branches with my eye,
And listened to its rejoicing leaves
Lovingly patting each other
With sweet aeolian whispers.
And well they might:
For the roots had grown so wide and deep
That the soil of the hill could not withhold
Aught of its virtue, enriched by rain,
And warmed by the sun;
But yielded it all to the thrifty roots,
Through which it was drawn and whirled to the trunk,
And thence to the branches and into the leaves,
Wherefrom the breeze took life and sang.
Now I, an under-tenant of the earth, can see
That the branches of a tree
Spread no wider than its roots.
And how shall the soul of a man
Be larger than the life he has lived?

SERMON: “It Can Be Wide” - Rev. Alison Hyder

There‘s a remarkable view in the night sky this week. Some of you may have already gone outside to see it. A recent Harvard Smithsonian Press Release writes:
…the world hasn't seen anything like the planetary traffic jam that's going to occur the last week of April and the first two weeks in May! Inching across the sky like bumper-to-bumper commuters on their way to work, a rare planetary alignment will allow sky observers to see every planet in our solar system in a single evening! “This is truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience."

…In late April and early May, when the planets line up, they will not be arranged behind one another or the Sun. Instead, they will present a beautiful line across the sky from horizon to near zenith. For a period of a little more than three weeks, anyone looking west at sunset will be able to see the planets Mercury, Venus, Mars, Saturn and Jupiter. A few hours later at 4 A.M., armed with a large-size amateur telescope, they can continue their grand tour by observing Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, a few wandering asteroids and maybe even Comet Ikeya-Zhang in the east. Finally, by quickly glancing down at the ground, they will have completed their grand tour of the solar system…
Even more amazing, two very special events will occur during this planetary line-up. On May 10, the planets Mars and Venus will appear to pass so close to one another that, to the naked eye, the Roman God of War and the Roman Goddess of Love will become one. Earlier, on May 5, something even more spectacular will happen. The bright planets Mars, Saturn and Venus will group together to form a perfect equilateral triangle in the western sky. This dazzling configuration will be visible almost everywhere on Earth. In the Middle East, this pyramid-shaped specter will hang directly above Bethlehem. Oddly enough, more than 2,000 years ago, this same grouping of planets may have caught the attention of the Biblical Magi. On April 1, 2 B.C., the planets Mars, Saturn and Venus came together to form a perfect equilateral triangle over the city of Bethlehem. Now, in the 21st Century, amid the turmoil taking place in the Middle East, the ancient Roman gods of Love, War and Agriculture/Wisdom, are coming together to look down upon this war-ravaged landscape once again.
[edited from the Harvard Smithsonian Press Release April 3, 2002. See sky charts at skynewsmagazine.com or harvardsmithsonian.com]

For thousands – perhaps millions – of years, we humans have looked for the keys to our fates, hoping to find something – some star, some portent – that will guide our lives. We chart our horoscopes to find clues to our personalities and our relationships. We read palms and tea leaves and go for psychic readings. While we may dismiss clichéd predictions about long sea voyages or a meeting with a handsome stranger, we still long for a glimpse of the future. I bet I’m not the only person here who has an old Chinese cookie fortune tucked away in her wallet. Of course, some of us are much too rational and scientific for anything as illogical as numerology or tarot cards or the predictions of Nostradamus. Instead, we use statistical analyses of market flow, and actuarial tables, and psychological studies to plan for our future. We study our family medical history so we can figure out our genetic predispositions and take the necessary precautions. Whether it’s through technology or the Dow Jones or the Psychic Hotline, we humans want to know our fate.
In ancient China, naturalist Chet Raymo says, “our constellation Scorpio was called the Azure Dragon, or the Dragon of the East…, a wise and majestic incarnation of the awesome power and infinite splendor of Nature.” Jade carvings of this dragon were called “ju-i” - the name literally means “as you wish.” [The Soul of the Night, p 207]
“As you wish,” the constellation proclaims. Not “as fortune would have it;” not “as the scriptures predict.” Your fate is not written in the stars. Instead, the Azure Dragon tells us that our destinies are in our own hands, made up of our desires and discoveries and the questions of our hearts. There is no research that will predict the hour of your death, or the depth of your relationships, or the direction your wanderings will take. If there is one thing that we have learned - that the world has affirmed in the last year - it is that every life is fragile, and precious, and at risk. No one lives in isolation.
But if we can’t control our fates we can direct our lives and make them more meaningful and beautiful and hopeful and just plain full. So that even if we were to die tomorrow – get hit by lightning or bitten by a snake or succumb to our body’s many failings, finally, once and for all – gratitude and wonder would still outweigh regret.
There’s a Mexican saying: “Life may not always be long, but it can be wide.” It can be wide.
Back when I was about 30, I read a book by Linda Goodman that said that we do not have to die. We can choose to live forever in our bodies and some people did. Do. She gave various prescriptions for entering into this condition, first steps to purifying and preparing for immortality. For a while I gave it a shot. And then I realized that I don’t want to live eternally. I have absolutely no desire to suffer this mortal coil for longer than I must. I don’t like exercising now, or flossing. And I can’t even imagine having to feed myself for another 200 years. Besides, the book gave no advice about escalating real estate prices or the quality of house music in 2075.
So I decided in the end (so to speak) to be a child of my time. I want to make the most of my abilities now. Instead of looking magically toward some future, I want to invest in this world, complex and odd and amazing, with all the poverty and suffering and surprises, the constant compromise and risk, the spectrum of colors and smells, and every strange promise it holds today. I hope to embrace as much of the world as I can, to widen my arms and my heart and my life with them.
“And how shall the soul of a man / Be larger than the life he has lived?” asks Samuel Gardner, in Spoon River Anthology. He’s dead now, and from underground sees how strong and extensive the roots of a tree are. The grand old elm grew broad because its support went wide and deep. And in its magnificence that tree provided shelter for birds and animals, shade and oxygen, and inspiration for countless people.
But for humans, it is almost the other way around. Of course we need strength and grounding. But we grow (our souls and hearts grow) not only for the sake of others, but because of them. We are fed when we serve others - when we are generous, and caring, and supportive. When we listen to each other, and learn about the hopes and struggles of people different from us. Our minds expand and our imaginations soar with each new experience of the world, whether it’s kayaking in the Pamet, a trip to Tibet, or a ride on the Chicago el. We will never bloom if we don’t allow ourselves to expand and grow, to change our ideas and tastes and expectations.
It helps to take some risks (whatever that means to you), something to help you relate to the world in a new way. Maybe the risk is physical. Some of us – whether because of abuse or violence or illness or memories of childhood ineptitude – do not trust our bodies. We do not feel connected to them. Learning how to feel the power or grace or sensitivity of our bodies – climbing a rock-face, taking dance therapy or just letting ourselves be massaged – can be a huge accomplishment. You can challenge your body in a contradictory new way, against what it’s used to, to learn what your body can do.
But for most of us, our fears aren’t really physical. They are about our core identity: our knowledge, appearance, values, norms. These are the things that at the same time define and yet constrict and limit us, and ultimately stifle us. We do need to know what we love and what we stand for, and who we really are. But if we become too fixed or narrow in our outlook, we’ll find ourselves moving in a smaller and smaller world, looking for people that are just like us, and confirm our identity. We put ourselves in a box. We are afraid that if other people’s opinions and styles and beliefs are right, then we must be wrong. We will make a mistake, and look ignorant or inept. And then we will feel unworthy, unacceptable, unloved. No one likes to feel that way. So we make judgments about others, belittle or ignore them. Or we just refuse to leave our own comfort zone, and remain in ignorance of other cultures and ideas and possibilities.
I want to tell you a story, a true story that took place in South Dakota. High school sports are very important in the Midwest, but the rivalry is particularly intense when the Indian teams from the reservations play white kids. In the fall of 1988, the Lady Thorpes, the women’s basketball team from the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, went off to the town of Lead to play a game. Ian Frazier, in his book, On the Rez, says,
When Pine Ridge is the visiting team, usually their hosts are courteous, and the players and the fans have a good time. But Pine Ridge coaches know that occasionally at away games their kids will be insulted, their fans will not feel welcome, the host gym will be dense with hostility, and the referees will call foul shots on Indian players every chance they get….
Getting ready in the locker room [at Lead], the Pine Ridge girls could hear the din from the fans. They were yelling fake-Indian war cries, a “woo-woo-woo” sound. The usual plan for the pre-game warm-up was for the visiting team to run onto the court in a line, take a lap or two around the floor, shoot some baskets, and then go to their bench at courtside. After that, the home team would come out and do the same, and then the game would begin. Usually the Thorpes lined up for their entry more or less according to height, which meant that senior Doni De Cory, one of the tallest, was first. As the team waited in the hallway leading from their locker room, the heckling got louder. The Lead fans were yelling epithets like “squaw,” and “gut-eater.” Some were waving food stamps, a reference to the reservation’s receiving federal aid…. The Lead high school band had joined in, with fake-Indian drumming and a fake-Indian tune. Doni De Cory looked out the door and told her teammates, “I can’t handle this.” [A freshman student named] SuAnne [Big Crow] quickly offered to go first in her place. She was so eager that Doni became suspicious. “Don’t embarrass us,” Doni told her. SuAnne said, “I won’t. I won’t embarrass you.” Doni gave her the ball, and SuAnne stood first in line.
She came running onto the court dribbling the basketball, with her teammates running behind her. On the court, the noise was deafeningly loud. SuAnne went right down the middle, but instead of running a full lap, she suddenly stopped when she got to center court. Her teammates were taken by surprise, and some bumped into one another. …SuAnne turned to Doni De Cory and tossed her the ball. Then she stepped into the jump-ball circle at center court, in front of the Lead fans. She unbuttoned her warm-up jacket, took it off, draped it over her shoulders, and began to do the Lakota shawl dance. SuAnne knew all the traditional dances – she had competed in many pow-wows as a little girl – and the dance she chose is a young woman’s dance, graceful and modest and show-offy all at the same time… SuAnne began to sing in Lakota, swaying back and forth in the jump-ball circle, doing the shawl dance, using her warm-up jacket for a shawl. The crowd went completely silent. “All that stuff the Lead fans were yelling – it was like she reversed it somehow,” a teammate said. In the sudden quiet, all you could hear was her Lakota song. SuAnne stood up, dropped her jacket, took the ball from Doni De Cory, and ran a lap around the court dribbling expertly and fast. The fans began to cheer and applaud. She sprinted to the basket, went up in the air, and laid the ball through the hoop, with the fans cheering loudly now. Of course, Pine Ridge went on to win the game. [pp 208-9]

More than that, the return trips were always good. The girls from the teams got to know each other over time. They hung out at tournaments, and met the parents. What SuAnne did made a lasting impression and changed the whole situation.
It’s easy to fantasize being SuAnne Big Crow, small and brave and beautiful and dignified. Every one of us has dreamed of being a hero. We wonder whether we would have the guts to stand up for our beliefs, to seize the moment and not get paralyzed by fear or indecision. One of the legacies of September 11th is the example of the fire fighters and the EMTs, and also of the regular folks who helped each other down smoky stairwells, or banded together to rush the hijackers. Everyday people acting with fortitude and presence of mind. They have become a proud part of our collective American identity.
But what about the people from Lead? What was it like to be them - sitting there, scornful and cruel, taunting those girls from the safety of the mob? I think we all know, at least a little. We’ve all felt smug and superior at times. We’ve felt the power of group identity. We’ve hidden within the crowd, we’ve gone along with injustice and bigotry and violence. But the people from Lead had the conscience and the grace and the imagination to change. They actually stopped and saw, really saw, an Indian for the first time. They felt the holiness of SuAnne’s dance, and compared the stupidity of their fake whoops and chants with the beauty of the real thing. They realized they were wrong. And they allowed themselves to change, to open their minds and their souls to a new truth against every stereotype and prejudice their popular culture taught them. That’s a kind of bravery too. Not every single one of them was transformed, of course. But many were, enough to change the relationship of the two communities forever.
SuAnne Big Crow died in a car crash just a couple of years later. But there is much, much more to her story, to her spirit and influence in her community than I can relate.
Life may not always be long, but it can be wide. As wide as the night sky, and as big as our dreams and imagination can make it. As deep as you wish. But you have to go outside of yourself and outside of your own expectations, and open yourself up to creation, to other people. To change. To risk. You may fail or feel stupid at times. But that won’t last. Because gradually, you’ll feel more and more at home, more aware of your connection to others and sure of your part in the world. And you’ll be infused with wonder and love for this precarious little planet, adrift in space.
There are once-in-a-lifetime opportunities, happening every day. Look out!

CLOSING WORDS: from “Our Town” by Thornton Wilder

“But soon we shall die… and we ourselves shall be loved for a while and forgotten. But the love will have been enough; all those impulses of love return to the love that made them. Even memory is not necessary for love. There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning.”

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