First Parish Bedford UU

“The Parable of the Selkie”

A Sermon by Rev. Megan Lynes

Delivered at The First Parish in Bedford, MA

On May 9th, 2010

We begin with a folk tale from the Orkney Islands off the coast of Scotland, as told by Mara Freeman.

Long ago on an island at the northern edge of the world, there lived a fisherman called Neil MacCodrum. He lived all alone in a stone croft where the moorland meets the shore, with nothing but stirring of the sand among the shingle for song.

But in the long winter evenings he would sit by the peat-fire and watch the blue smoke curling up to the roof, and his eyes looked far and far away as if he was looking into another country. And sometimes, when the wind rustled the bent-grass, he seemed to hear a soft voice sighing his name.

One spring evening, the men of the clachan were bringing their boats full of herring into shore. They swung homeward with glad hearts, and their wives lit the rushlights, so that the wide world dwindled to a warm quiet room.

Neil MacCodrum was the last to drag his boat up the shingle and hoist the creel of fish upon his back. He stood a while watching the seabirds fly low towards the headland, their wings dark against the evening sky, then turned to trudge up the shingle to the croft on the machair.

It was as he turned he saw something move in the shadows of the rocks. A glimmer of white and then – he heard it between birds’ cries – high laughter like silver. He set down the creel, and with careful steps he neared the rocks, hardly daring to breathe, and hid behind the largest one. And then he saw them – seven girls with long flowing hair, naked and white as the swans on the lake, dancing in a ring where the shoreline met the sea.

And now his eye caught something else – a shapeless pile of speckled brown skins lying heaped like seaweed on a boulder nearby. Now Neil knew that they were selkie, who are seals in the sea, but when they come to land, take off their skins and appear as human women.

Crouching low, Neil MacCodrum crept towards the pile of skins and slowly slid the top one down. But just as he rolled it up and put it under his coat, one of the selkie gave a sharp cry. The dance stopped, the bright circle broke, and the girls ran to the boulder, slipped into their skins and slithered into the rising tide, shiny brown seals that glided away into the dark night sea.

All but one.

She stood before him white as a pearl, as still as frost in starlight. She stared at him with great dark eyes that held the depths of the sea, then slowly she held out her hand, and said in a voice that trembled with silver:

"Ochone, ochone! Please give me back my skin."

He took a step towards her.

"Come with me," he said, "I will give you new clothes to wear."

The wedding of Neil MacCodrum and the selkie woman was set for the time of the waxing moon and the flowing tide. All the folk of the clachan came, six whole sheep were roasted and the whiskey ran like water. Toasts overflowed from every cup for the new bride and groom, who sat at the head of the table: McCodrum, beaming and awkward, unused to pleasure, tapped his spoon to the music of fiddle and pipe, but the woman sat quietly beside him at the bride-seat, and seemed to be listening to another music that had in it the sound of the sea.

After a while she bore him two children, a boy and a girl, who had the sandy hair of their father, but the great dark eyes of their mother, and there were little webs between their fingers and toes. Each day, when Neil was out in his boat, she and her children would wander along the machair to gather limpets or fill their creels with carrageen from the rocks at low tide. She seemed settled enough in the croft on the shore, and in May-time when the air was scented with thyme and roseroot and the children ran towards her, their arms full of wild yellow irises, she was almost happy.

But when the west wind brought rain, and strong squalls of wind that whistled through the cracks in the croft walls, she grew restless and moved about the house as if swaying to unseen tides, and when she sat at the spinning-wheel, she would hum a strange song as the fine thread streamed through her fingers. MacCodrum hated these times and would sit in the dark peat-corner glowering at her over his pipe, but unable to say a word.

Thirteen summers had passed since the selkie woman came to live with MacCodrum, and the children were almost grown. As she knelt on the warm earth one afternoon, digging up silverweed roots to roast for supper, the voice of her daughter Morag rang clear and excited through the salt-pure air and soon the girl was beside her holding something in her hands.

"O mother! Is this not the strangest thing I have found in the old barley-kist, softer than the mist to my touch?"

Her mother rose slowly to her feet, and in silence ran her hand along the speckled brown skin. It was smooth like silk. She held it to her breast, put her other arm around her daughter, and walked back with her to the croft in silence, heedless of the girl’s puzzled stares. Once inside, she called her son Donald to her, and spoke gently to her children:

"I will soon be leaving you, mo chridhe, and you will not see me again in the shape I am in now. I go not because I do not love you, but because I must become myself again."

That night, as the moon sailed white as a pearl over the western sea, the selkie woman rose, leaving the warm bed and slumbering husband. She walked alone to the silent shore and took off her clothes, one by one, and let them fall to the sand. Then she stepped lightly over the rocks and unrolled the speckled brown parcel she carried with her, and held it up before her. For one moment maybe she hesitated, her head turning back to the dark, sleeping croft on the machair; the next, she wrapped the shining skin about her and dropped into the singing water of the sea.

For a while a sleek brown head could be seen in the dip and crest of the moon-dappled waves, pointing ever towards the far horizon, and then, swiftly leaping and diving towards her, came six other seals. They formed a circle around her and then all were lost to view in the soft indigo of the night.

In the croft on the machair, Neil MacCodrum stirred, and felt for his wife, but his hand encountered a cold and empty hollow. The only sound was the rustle of bent-grass on the machair, but it did not sigh his name. He knew better than to look for her and he also knew she would never come to him again. But when the moon was young and the tide waxing, his children would not sleep at night, but ran down to the sands on silent webbed feet. There, by the rocks on the shoreline, they waited until she came – a speckled brown seal with great dark eyes. Laughing and calling her name, they splashed into the foaming water and swam with her until the break of day.

Now that you’ve heard the story of the Selkie I want to pause to ask you a question. In your own life, have you ever been asked to pretend that you were someone you were not? Or a different question: have you ever asked someone else to be someone they are not? Lastly: have you ever wished to be someone you are not?

I believe these five statements to be true:

One. You cannot be anyone other than who you are, and who you are called to be.

Two. You are not called to be perfect; you are worthy just as you are.

Three. You are not meant to ask others to be someone they are not.

Four. On rare occasions in your life you will have a chance to set your captive free.

Five. You can choose to live a life that frees others from captivity you did not create.

Ever since I arrived at First Parish last August I have been exploring for myself the same questions I asked you a moment ago. I have been relearning in the last nine months that I cannot be anyone other than who I am and who I am called to be. When I accepted your offer to serve this congregation and join a church staff of highly qualified professionals, as your new parish minister, I knew I was accepting a task worthy of only my best efforts. How I fretted those summer months before arriving in August. There was nothing I wanted more than to arrive on the scene with enough knowledge, skills, patience, chutzpa and humility to be able to serve you well. I would have liked very much to be reassured ahead of time that my mistakes, which were inevitable, would not actually kill any of you, or myself. I did not realize then that you would not ask me to be perfect.

But oh how much I wanted to be exactly what each of you had wished for in a new second minister. Of course that is impossible because all your wishes are different. Last month I attended a conference for first-year ministers. There I learned that ministers in their first two years of ministry experience a learning curve so high that they learn more in those first two years than they learned in all their years of preparation and practice beforehand. It is also said that they will learn more in those first two years of ministry than in all the following years of ministry, combined.

Preaching is only one particular kind of ministry challenge, but it has taken me the length of a full term baby to realize that, if I try to prepare a sermon so that I can “preach like John,” I become instantly enmeshed in a terrible tangle of self-doubt and self-criticism. I love John’s sermons. Yet when it comes time for me to write something, I have to remind myself that I can only listen for a sermon through the context of my own understanding. I admit, it has been reassuring to hear John joke sometimes from the pulpit that he should just sit down rather than preach. “God did not speak to me this week,” he kids. I guess we all have some degree of self-doubt. How easy it is to compare ourselves to others; right away we start to feel worthless and isolated in our struggles.

I cannot tell you how many mothers, this year alone, have told me, each in their own way, that they wish they could be better mothers. They compare themselves to other First Parish moms, or to their own perfect-in-hindsight mom, or to the moms on TV, and they feel simply terrible. Not all the time of course, but enough that it hurts. I think we each have our own way of comparing ourselves to someone else.

I am reminded of the story of Rabbi Zuscha. You may have heard it before. When Reb Zuscha was old, and didn’t have long on this earth, his students found him crying. “Why are you crying?” they asked. Are you crying because you’re afraid when you die and go to heaven, God will say “Why were you not more like Moses?” And Reb Zuscha said “No. I am crying because I’m afraid when I get to heaven, God will say, “Why were you not more like Reb Zuscha?”

On the occasion of Mother’s Day 2010, if I could wish you one blessing, I would wish for all the mothers here, and all those who have mothered or cared for others, regardless of gender, to be suddenly free from the worry that you have not been enough. Thank you for being a mother. Life continues to flourish because of you.

I believe that each of us has been given one body, one mind, one internal shining spark of divine worth – and this spark is ours to keep and share as we like, and no one can put it out without our consent.

Truth number one: You cannot be anyone other than who you are, and who you are called to be. We owe it to the world to cease all unreasonable harsh self-criticism. We owe it to the world to love, value, and respect ourselves, no more or less than we love value and respect all others.

Another question for you. How many people in here (at one time or another,) might describe yourself as a perfectionist?... Me too. To all of us perfectionists in the room, I would like to say this – truth number two: You are not called to be perfect; you are worthy just as you are.

I would like to comment on the quest for perfection. Sometimes the best way to understand a culture is to unpack ancient stories. Just as the Orkney people of Norse origin have told one another stories about Selkies for centuries, many of the stories and ethos in New England can be traced back to our Puritan roots. Even today, four hundred years after the settlement of European Christians on the continent, we are still inspiring and judging ourselves and others based on messages rooted in Christianity.

The idea that we must be perfect is one that at least in part can be traced back to The Sermon on the Mount. This sermon is considered to be the most direct summary of the teachings of Jesus. Gospel writer, Matthew, reported Jesus to have said: “Be you perfect as your heavenly father is perfect.”¹ Now that sounds like a tall order for the Jews of his time, the Puritans of old, or us today! But let’s look a little deeper at what he might have been meaning. The word often translated as “perfect” does not in this instance have the later Greek meaning of being “totally free of imperfections.” It does not refer to moral perfection. This usage of the word “perfect” is about truth and sincerity and being a “true” person. For this reason, biblical scholar W. F. Albright translates the passage: “Be true, just as your heavenly father is true.” In the parallel text to Matthew’s “be perfect just as your father in heaven is perfect” line, Luke wrote: “Be you compassionate as your heavenly father is compassionate.”² Both Matthew and Luke precede this message with the admonition to “love your enemies.” So it can be said that the true biblical meaning of spiritual perfection is to be compassionate, not “free of imperfection.”³ What a completely different message.

I chose the parable of the Selkie to share with you this morning because when I read it, I could sense snatches of my own life, or those I love, in each of the characters. Could you? Selkie: bereft, lost, trapped, out of her own skin, trying to be something false for someone else. Husband: a man lonely enough that he would cling to the hope that he could change the very nature of another living soul. The children: at times unaware, but in the end caught between two worlds, trying to bridge the distance between different realities and hold onto their joy. The message of the Selkie story is clear: We are not meant to ask others to be someone they are not. That is the third truth. There are families all over the world, for reasons each uniquely their own, where someone is forced to live a lie, pretend things are fine, or form themselves into someone they do not want to be. In apartments and huts and mansions all over the world there is sadness, falsehood and loss deeper than the ocean. But for every home where someone waits, spirit battered and broken, there is another home where someone breaks free, or is at last released from the tangle of a relationship that was not meant to be. How is it, I do not know, that so often the children in these families, time and again find ways, despite it all, to play in the waves?

Learning to be compassionate is like tuning in to an old transistor radio. We have to move past the fuzz and messages from other programs in order to locate the message we need to hear. I need help, fuzz, fuzz, can you help me? Fuzz, fuzz. When we can hear a call for compassion coming in directly to our ears and hearts, we can figure out how to act. The challenge is to practice listening.

Mary Oliver’s poem, The Kookaburras, speaks to the fourth truth: on rare occasions in our lives, we have a chance to set a captive free.

In every heart there is a coward and a procrastinator.

In every heart there is a god of flowers, just waiting

to stride out of a cloud and lift its wings.

The kookaburras, pressed against the edge of their cage,

asked me to open the door.

Years later I remember how I didn’t do it,

how instead I walked away.

They had the brown eyes of soft-hearted dogs.

They didn’t want to do anything so extraordinary, only to fly

home to their river.

By now I suppose the great darkness has covered them.

As for myself, I am not yet a god of even the palest flowers.

Nothing else has changed either.

Someone tosses their white bones to the dung-heap.

The sun shines on the latch of their cage.

I lie in the dark, my heart pounding.⁴

You are in charge of freeing yourself and others from the tangles you encounter or may have had a part in creating. In saying this I mean no harshness, and there is no judgment from me. Only you will know if you have something to attend to and release from captivity; for my part, I have my own kookaburras to set free.

This last truth I share with you because I believe there’s a difference between the religion we talk about and the religion we live. Our goal as Unitarian Universalists is to knit the two closer together. Here our fifth truth guides us: You can choose to live a life that frees others from captivity you did not create.

The possibilities for how to do this are endless. Human rights activists throughout history have modeled this for us. But we needn’t be a Gandhi, an MLK or a Mother Theresa in order to do our part. Each in our own way, we strive to do the one most compassionate thing that we can figure out to do in order to help another person. In only nine months at First Parish I have witnessed such a variety of acts of service that there is no way to list them all. Some of you volunteer at the Lowell Transition Center on behalf of individuals whose lives are torn apart by poverty. Some of you help Iraqi refugees fight discrimination and find jobs. Some of you visit parishioners who are homebound, homeschool your children, or work tirelessly toward peace in the Middle East. There are so many forms of captivity. There are so many ways to free a soul.

I leave you with one final story that was sent to me by a fellow chaplain when I worked at Brigham and Women’s Hospital downtown. It is an example of how someone, a captive himself, figured out how to set a kookaburra free.

Two men, both seriously ill, occupied the same hospital room. One man was allowed to sit up in his bed for an hour each afternoon to help drain the fluid from his lungs. His bed was next to the room’s only window. The other man had to spend all his time flat on his back. The men talked for hours on end. They spoke of their wives and families, their homes, their jobs, their involvement in the military service, where they had been on vacation. Every afternoon, when the man in the bed by the window could sit up, he would pass the time by describing to his roommate all the things he could see outside the window. The man in the other bed began to live for those one hour periods where his world would be broadened and enlivened by all the activity and color of the world outside.

The window overlooked a park with a lovely lake. Ducks and swans played on the water while children sailed their model boats. Young lovers walked arm in arm amidst flowers of every color and a fine view of the city skyline could be seen in the distance. As the man by the window described all this in exquisite details, the man on the other side of the room would close his eyes and imagine this picturesque scene. One warm afternoon, the man by the window described a parade passing by. Although the other man could not hear the band, he could see it in his mind’s eye as the gentleman by the window portrayed it with descriptive words.

Days, weeks and months passed. One morning, the man by the window passed away. As soon as it seemed appropriate, the other man asked if he could be moved next to the window. The nurse was happy to make the switch, and after making sure he was comfortable, she left him alone.

Slowly, painfully, he propped himself up on one elbow to take his first look at the real world outside. He strained to slowly turn to look out the window beside the bed. It faced a blank wall. The man asked the nurse what could have compelled his deceased roommate who had described such wonderful things outside this window. The nurse responded that the man was blind and could not even see the wall. She said, “Perhaps he just wanted to encourage you.”

But I think, what he wanted was to set his friend free.

My dear ones, I learn beside you.

~ You cannot be anyone other than who you are, and who you are called to be.

Nor can I.

~ You are not called to be perfect; you are worthy just as you are.

As am I.

~ You are not meant to ask others to be someone they are not.

Nor am I.

~ On rare occasions in your life you will have a chance to set your captive free.

May we all be this brave.

~ You can choose to live a life that frees others from captivity you did not create.

May we live lives of faith in just this manner always.

Amen.