First Parish Bedford UU

Ingathering Welcome

delivered by the Rev. John Gibbons

At The First Parish in Bedford, Massachusetts, Unitarian Universalist

on September 13, 2009

Each year, as we begin a new church season, I seriously wonder why we put ourselves through all this. For all our ideals, our efforts seem like that of Sisyphus who was condemned to push a rock up the mountain, only to have it roll down again and he would push it up again, again and again and again. How pointless, it would seem.

Much of what we do together as a congregation is to extract meaning from the seemingly meaningless. I struggle with meaninglessness, sometimes: the sense that my little efforts will do no good and, I believe, that all of us know times that are difficult, dispiriting and sometimes bleak. I do not arise every day with “Oh, What a Beautiful Morning” warbling from my throat.

So let me tell you a Scottish story, a true story and one without a single joke in it, a story that has actually lodged in my soul. You might hear it as but a maudlin sentimental story but I caution you: Do not.

There was a Scottish doctor and writer named A. J. Cronin who, in his 30’s, came down with some serious medical problems and was forced to retire. In search of rest and hoping to write, he moved to a village in the Scottish highlands. However, he became progressively more depressed and empty; his writing went nowhere.

One day, desperate and near the end of his rope, Cronin went for a walk. Down the road he came upon old Angus, a farmer working his land, ditching his bog. (Now I don’t know how many of you have first hand experience in ditching bogs, draining wetlands…but I am confident that metaphorically you all have intimate experience ditching your bog.)

So it was that this farmer knew of his Cronin’s illness and sensing that Cronin was about to give up, his weathered face darkened. He was a silent man and it was long before he spoke.

‘No doubt, you’re the one that’s right, doctor, and I’m the one that’s wrong” he said. “My father ditched this bog all his days and never made a pasture. I’ve dug it all my days and I’ve never made a pasture. But pasture or no pasture I canna help but dig. For my father knew and I know that if you only dig enough, a pasture can be made here.’

Cronin later wrote, “He had what I had not: a terrible stubbornness to see the job through at all costs, an unquenchable flame of resolution brought to the simplest, the most arid of duties of life.”

Well, it seems that encounter was the turning point in Cronin’s life. He returned to his writing, stuck with it and succeeded.

Each of us, in our own lives digs a bog, sustained only by the possibility that something good will come of it. It is a moral and spiritual challenge that we persist in shaping the character of our lives, the character of our community and country, the character of our world.

Old Angus said, “I canna help but dig. For my father knew and I know that if you only dig enough, a pasture can be made here.’

Now I have only one further Scottish tale to tell, and it is the story of the great Robert the Bruce who so inspired the Scots that, upon his death, his head was detached from his body such that, when the Scottish armies went into battle, his comrades would throw his head forward in the midst of their enemies and then, with great enthusiasm and joy, rush forward to reclaim the head of Robert the Bruce so that, again and again, it might – like one of those beach balls – be chased and claimed and the cause advanced.

Now there’s probably a lot about that story I do not want to think about, but whether you are stirred by bagpipes or jazz or by the example of your neighbor or the head of Robert the Bruce, or simply by this beautiful morning, let us move onward – and next week inward – and upward – toward all our ideals and possibilities, forever and ever. We canna help but dig. A pasture can be made here. Amen.