Ours Is Not
A Caravan of Despair

A Sermon by
Rev. John E. Gibbons

Delivered Sunday, December 3, 2000

At First Parish in Bedford

– Rumi, 13^th century Persian mystic poet

Today is the first Sunday of Advent, and the Christmas trees are beginning to appear on car rooftops. And here it is also a new member Sunday. And today there’s this AIDS Quilt hanging here (a large panel of the famous AIDS Quilt is displayed on the chancel, part of the annual commemoration of World AIDS Day on December 1)… be sure you take a closer look at it later…there are hidden wise secrets upon it, like this panel which says, "Your dentist is the first to know. See your dentist." I’m not sure what that means. And, still, Wendy Jehlen may be the most memorable feature of this morning’s service, dancing to Job’s suffering complaints and Kahlil Gibran’s musings about beauty. Suffering and beauty are in abundance. And, as for me, I still am a bit dazed after my father’s death three weeks ago. And, let’s see, I said that the topic of this address is "Ours Is No Caravan of Despair." A fine title. OK. How shall we make sense of all this?

First, I truly appreciate your many expressions of concern for me. "How are you?" I am asked frequently, and I really am OK. But I am different—as I expect at least those of you who have experienced the death of a parent or other loved one know quite well. There is a kind of porosity to my emotions right now. Memory fragments come unexpectedly to mind: the sound of my father’s sneeze (he always put a loud odd "hooey" sound at the end of a sneeze). Every now and then—and especially at the accustomed hour of 10 on Saturday mornings—I think, "I should be telephoning him," and then I realize he’s dead. And on Thursday, I went to pick up some Chinese food at the Great Wall and there was this very old man outside on the sidewalk struggling with his walker being helped oh-so-slowly into a waiting car by a woman who might have been his daughter, and for a moment I thought—but only thought—to take her aside and tell her how I so miss just such slow mundane pain-in-the-butt precious moments.

I’ve heard it said, and I’m beginning to believe it, that in our interior (some-would-say spiritual) lives where we grow our souls or come into our full maturity, in that place deep within us, the voices of those who are dead are at least equal to those of the living (they equally command our attention); and as we listen to these voices we are still affected and, perhaps afflicted, and sometimes comforted as well. One of the spiritual uses of memory is to attend, pay attention, to this dialogue between the living and the dead.

Which is why this Quilt is so important, as it defies silence, and denial, celebrates memory and challenges us to make meaning of their deaths. Remember the words of Archibald Macleish? "The young dead soldiers do not speak. Nevertheless, they are heard in the still houses: who has not heard them?… They say: Our deaths are not ours; they are yours; they will mean what you make them. They say: Whether our lives and our deaths were for peace and a new hope or for nothing we cannot say; it is you who must say this. They say: We leave you our deaths. Give them their meaning. We were young, they say. We have died. Remember us." So saith also this Quilt.

I tell you about my father’s sneezes and call attention to the both inspiring and disturbing presence of this Quilt, because I know that when you enter this room, there are many voices in each of your heads—comforting, disturbing, distracting. Church is not so much a place for the triumphant, faithful, familial and happy as it is a place for the rest of us.

One of my colleagues in the ministry, Dick Gilbert, says this in a way I like. He says, "Religion is more than mindless jumping up and down about how super it is to be alive." It is just super to be alive, but that’s not the whole story of who we are. We are—just like the words of the round we sang—wanderers, worshippers, lovers of leaving… and the song leaves out one critical line of the Rumi poem upon which it is based: "Come though you have broken your vow a thousand times before" is the other line. Come, yet again, come, even though your life isn’t the way you would have it be.

I’m told that a common experience in this congregation is that people who are going through tough times—deaths, divorces, confusion, strife, sheer bodily deterioration, loneliness and all sorts of trouble—people find that it is often difficult to come here and sit among people who seem so normal, so happy, la-la and carefree. That disappoints me. Normal, happy, la-la and carefree? That’s not me and it’s probably not you. Church is a place for wanderers, worshippers, lovers of leaving, folk who have broken their vows a thousand times before—and I suppose there’s room enough for the disappointed as well. And I wish it were easier for us all to come and acknowledge that it’s hard being whomever we are.

So, how can it be that ours is not a caravan of despair? My colleague Patrick O’Neill tells of an experience he had as a child. It seems that while walking home alone from school one winter day, he was set upon and beaten up by some older bullies and left lying in the snow. A neighbor woman, with a heavy foreign accent, took him into her home and gave young Patrick some hot cocoa. Seeing the rage in his eyes, she gently said to him, "You are angry at those boys. It is natural for you to feel that way, given what happened, but now—let it go. This day has other things for you."

He later learned that the woman and her husband were both survivors of a concentration camp during World War II, when he happened to notice a tattoo on the woman’s forearm. It was, of course, her identification number form the prison camp. And when Patrick innocently asked about the tattoo, the woman gently replied that the number represented her past, not her present and it was not going to be her future. Patrick goes on to say:

"Imagine hearing that from a death camp survivor. Besides the hurts and indignities of an unfair universe, this day has other things to give you. Beside the anger and the hurts that you want to carry in your heart, this day has other things to give you. I heard that from someone who knew a thing or two about pain and anger and being a victim."

I’m trying to say that life’s deepest satisfactions arise not from packing up your troubles in your old kit bag; neither is life all grief, suffering and sorrow; but indeed it is possible to find beauty and even joy in the reality that encompasses all that life has to give. "Joy and woe," said William Blake, "are woven fine." Or, as was said of Broadway choreographer Bob Fosse, the amazing thing—the key to his genius—was "to see Bobby’s confidence and his insecurity jitterbugging together across the stage." I wish that we—here at First Parish—could be even more tolerant of both our confidence and our insecurities. Beauty, so saith Wendy’s dance, is the product of suffering and ecstasy.

Now, continuing my theme of bleak sorrow, suffering and death, I at last take note of an obituary which appeared in yesterday’s NY Times. It is that of Gwen Grant Mellon, aged 89—founder, so says the Times, of a hospital in Haiti. It seems that, following a messy divorce from her first husband, Gwen Grant went to Arizona where she taught horseback riding at a dude ranch. There she met a fellow named Larry Mellon who owned a neighboring ranch, and they ultimately married. Then in 1947, her husband was deeply moved by an article in Life magazine about Albert Schweitzer (the sort-of Unitarian) who, you know, founded a famous hospital in West Africa. On the spur of the moment, Larry Mellon said, "I think I’ll become a doctor and practice in the underdeveloped world." To which his wife Gwen Grant Mellon replied, "You’re right, we don’t want to sit around looking at the damn cows all our lives." I sure hope I say something as comedically-prophetic that they can work into my obituary! So, anyway, they both go to medical school and end up founding this hospital in Haiti, a place that now sees more than 1000 people a week, and where, even after her husband’s death, she worked until the day she died. And meaning in her life and improvements in the lives she touched, all derived from her prophetic imperative: "We don’t want to sit around looking at the damn cows all our lives."

Now, it’s at this moment that, were I a really clever sermon-writer, I’d segue into Advent and the Christmas season because, of course, it was the shepherds who also came to the prophetic imperative that "we don’t want to sit around looking at the damn cows all our lives." The shepherds chose, instead, something like a star and that they followed, making of course all the difference. This day, the shepherds too said, has other things to offer us.

So I ask what damn things do you fear sitting around and looking at all your lives, and what other sights might you set your eyes upon? "What will you do," asks the poet Mary Oliver, "with your one wild and precious life?" This day has other things to offer.

Beauty, says Kahlil Gibran is "a heart enflamed and a soul enchanted." Hey, enflamed and enchanted, that’s a lot like your heart! So, dance for suffering and for beauty, Wendy. Jitterbug your confidence and your insecurity. This day still has many, many other things to offer.