First Parish Bedford UU

Audio

“SALEM: Sympathy, Attunement,
Limerence, Equipoise and Metis”
A sermon by Rev. John E. Gibbons
delivered on Sunday, March 27, 2011
at The First Parish in Bedford, Massachusetts

I’m in a bit of a quandary.  I’m trying to figure out what this sermon is about.  I’m not too sure.  That may not bode so well for you.  Good luck!

Actually, that is probably what this sermon is about: being in a quandary, trying to figure things out, not being too sure.  These may be good things.  This probably is a sermon about humility.

I’ll tell you the story-behind-the-sermon.  I keep a file of sermon ideas: ideas that come to me in the middle of the night or while shaving, newspaper articles, stories, poems…obituaries can contain some hidden gems.  Most recently, I noticed that I’ve been clipping several of the columns of David Brooks in the NYT.  Brooks is a conservative, meaning he writes about conserving important values, but he’s not ideological or predictable, he’s often a Republican but not always (he supported Obama), and from time to time he also changes his mind in refreshing ways (he was a big supporter of the invasion of Iraq, for example, but evolved into a more skeptical position).

Most recently, he’s written about what he calls “the new humanism” and from him I learned these words, sympathy, attunement, limerence, equipoise and metis.  More about those odd words later.   I discovered in my clippings that a persistent theme to Brooks is a call to modesty and humility, good conservative values.

Here’s a taste of Brooks:
“We’re an overconfident species,” he writes.  “Ninety-four percent of college professors believe they have above average teaching skills.  A survey of high school students found that 70 percent consider themselves to have above average leadership skills and only 2 percent consider themselves below average.  Men tend to be especially blessed with self-esteem.  Men are the victims of unintentional drowning more than twice as often as women.  That’s because men have tremendous faith in their own swimming ability, especially after they’ve been drinking.”

Brooks takes aim at easy narcissistic targets like Mel Gibson, Charlie Sheen, Moammar Gadhafi and other celebrities who think they’re “total…bleepin’…rock stars from mars.”

From a book titled, “The Narcissism Epidemic,” Brooks cites his favorite piece of sociological data: In 1950, thousands of teenagers were asked if they considered themselves a ‘very important person?’ Twelve percent said yes.  By 1990, that number had jumped to a whopping 80% who said, “Yes, in fact I am a very important person.”

Brooks is quick to say that this doesn’t make them narcissists and self-esteem is surely a good thing, but more of us seem to claim VIP status while fewer adopt a more modest or humble posture.
There’s one of those cynical – not motivational – but de-motivational posters that says, “Always remember that you are unique.  Just like everyone else.”

Ministers are not exempt from narcissism:  There’s the story of the minister talking to his wife on Sunday afternoon, feeling pretty good about his morning’s sermon.  And, with a twinge of ill-concealed pride and fishing for a compliment, he asks her, “How many great preachers do you think there are?”  To which, his wife responds, “One less than you do!”
 
Many Americans think we in this country have the best health care, transportation, education, democracy and life expectancy when not only are we not #1 but, in some cases, we are among the worst of the worst.

You’ve heard about “American exceptionalism”: there’s often a disconnect between our self-perceptions and reality.

“Students in the Middle East, Africa and the US have the greatest faith in their math skills. Students in Japan, S. Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan have much less confidence, though they do better on the tests.”

Another journalist suggests that we have raised a generation of “praise addicts” and reports that “many college students would rather receive a compliment than eat their favorite food or have sex.”  Whaat?  What’s become of us?

From my parents who grew up in the depression, I learned the expression that, “I complained because I had no shoes until I met a man who had no feet.”  Recently there was a Kudzu comic strip in which the preacher, Will B. Dunn, quotes that saying to Kudzu who responds,  “Heavy.”   But then, after a reflective moment he says, “I complained because I had no call-waiting until I met a man who had no iPhone.”  The preacher responds,  “I weep for this generation.”

“We have shifted,” again Brooks says, “from a culture that emphasized self-effacement – I’m no better than anybody else, but nobody is better than me – to a culture that emphasizes self-expansion.”

Actually I came across another old Kudzu cartoon in which the Rev. Will B. Dunn is talking to his mechanic, Dub, while Dub is working under the hood of a car. "Dub, I'm thinking of running for president, but a couple of things worry me!" The mechanic says, "Like what?" Reverend Dunn: "Finances! Y'know, a presidential campaign costs a ton of money!" Dub just mumbles: "Mmm ..." The Reverend then says: "... Plus, I don't know if I have the personal qualities! ... Y'know, it takes a colossal ego to run for president and I frankly don't know if somebody as humble as me can do it!" Dub continues working under the hood. In the last panel, with his head still under the hood and his hands still down in the engine, Dub says to the waiting Reverend Will B. Dunn, "Yeah, running for president costs a lot of money all right!"
Humility in the sense I’m suggesting is not only a personal quality; it’s a quality of common life. Still quoting Brooks, “Citizenship, after all, is built on an awareness that we are not all that special but are, instead, enmeshed in a common enterprise.”
Brooks is not just a sentimentalist or nostalgic for any bygone virtues but he does have some modest observations about ways of being in the world that are meaningful, and I want to speak more personally about us, individually and as a congregation and a community.

Too often, he observes, we have defined success in terms of individual achievement: IQ, MCAS, SAT’s, degrees and professional skills.  While these, of course, are important there are deeper talents that matter more.  And here I’m reminded of some of the things that are what we are about as a Unitarian Universalist faith community.  These are the building blocks, if you will, the ingredients that make up humility.

Just for the sake of remembering these words, some of which are odd smarty-pants words, I’ve made them into the acronym, SALEM.  Here are their definitions:

Sympathy: the ability to fall into a rhythm with those around you and thrive in groups.
Attunement: the ability to enter other minds and learn what they have to offer.
Limerence: … moments of transcendence when the skull line falls away and we are lost in love for another, the challenge of a task or the love of God.
Equipoise: the ability to serenely monitor the movements of one’s own mind and correct for biases and shortcomings.
Metis: the ability to see patterns in the world and derive a gist from complex situations.

We gather here in community, in part, because we hope to grow in sympathy, to fall into a rhythm with one another and thrive together.  We hope to become more attuned to one another’s hearts and minds.  We hope for an experience of limerence (which does not mean we want to learn good limericks) but rather that we bring down the boundaries that separate and divide us from one another and from all that is larger than ourselves, love of one another, love of God or higher purpose.  Here may we grow in self-awareness, equipoise and knowledge of our own biases and shortcomings.  And here too may we learn to discern patterns, bigger pictures and the ability to manage complexity.

I am not a proponent, you know, of self-flagellation or hairshirts.  Occasionally, though, I think we need some balancing of our pridefullness. I’ve always admired what was said of Broadway choreographer Bob Fosse, of whom it was said, the amazing thing—the key to his genius—was "to see Bobby’s confidence and his insecurity jitterbugging together across the stage."

This morning I preach about humility because this is something, I believe, that I and we most need to learn – if we are to fulfill our potential as persons, as parishioners, as citizens.

Do you remember the man who was asked the secret of his long marriage?  “Every morning,” he said, “I look in the mirror as I shave and I say to myself, ‘You’re no prize either!’”
 
We can be smug, individually and as a congregation.  I can be smug.
This morning we welcomed new members.  You know, I often give advice to people who are church-shopping to try ‘em all, check out every church far and wide and then when you find the perfect church, you should join it.  And, at that precise moment, you should know that your perfect church is somewhat less perfect than you imagined it to be.

As something of an aside, I have a bee in my bonnet about such humble gentilities as saying “please…and thank you…and you’re welcome.”  Of those expressions, the one that has fallen most out of usage is “you’re welcome.”  “Thank you,” I say in the store.  “No problem,” says the big lug across the counter, as if my business was actually an imposition for him.

This is why, when new members join this church we go through a little ritual and we do not say, “No problem.”  Religion, if practiced rightly, ought to cause a few problems in your life; it is an imposing thing.  Nonetheless, I want to say to all our new members, as well as our old members and all of you in whatsoever state of limbo you may be in, “You are welcome!”  You are welcome as you are, and as you aspire yet to be.

We talk a good game about welcoming everybody and yet that’s not always the game we play.  We say, for example, that we welcome everybody but, you know, over-educated people who bandy about fancy-pants words like equipoise, limerence and metis run the risk of being the educated fools my father warned me about.

Next Sunday we celebrate our newly opened windows and our new elevator – both of which are tangible expressions of our aspirations to accessibility.  In a way it will be an extension of this sermon because to become more accessible one must bring down that which would instead cause us to be more exclusive; and thus we’ll celebrate our extraordinary humanity also makes us akin to humus and directs us to humility.  Sometimes we practice a kind of Unitarian Exceptionalism and we can do better.

But there is one more example of humility I want to put before you this morning.  It is contained in a note I received this week from Bedford resident and good friend of First Parish Hina Hirayama McConnell who gave me permission to share this with you:

Dear John,
I hope you will forgive me for writing to you, with a moral and intellectual quandary. While my family survived the recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan unscathed, the unfolding catastrophe in that country has really affected me. I am grief-stricken, and find it difficult not to weep at seeing the unimaginable plight of so many people who lost so much.

I so want to help, as does everyone else. But will giving money to Japan really help the people who are suffering? Is money what Japan needs? (As was reported by the NYT, the Japanese Red Cross has made it clear that they do not need monetary assistance, but the American Red Cross has raised almost $40 million anyway.) In addition, I cannot ignore a moral question: is collecting money for Japan, one of the wealthiest countries in the world, not taking away from the present and future needs elsewhere? What about Haiti, for example, where people still need so much 14 months after their earthquake?

I consider both Japan and the US my countries, but I am also a citizen of the world. As devastated as I am at seeing the plight of so many of my compatriots, my pain does not give me license to forget other people elsewhere.

I speak as an individual, and do not represent the Japanese community. In fact, my quandary is probably an unpopular -- or even incomprehensible -- one for many Japanese residents here. Many of my Japanese friends here are trying to organize in Bedford a fund-raising event for Japan soon, but I have not been able to morally commit to it.  (Hina sent me a subsequent note wanting to make clear that she did not judge anyone’s actions negatively; that her reservations were purely personal.)

And she concludes:
That so many people want to help speaks volumes about how indeed caring people are of others, and I myself am much comforted by that knowledge. I am extremely grateful. But still, an unresolved moral and intellectual question remains. It would be easy for me to go along with the rush of emotion, and in fact it might make me feel better, but I owe it to all the people who are dead or missing in Japan to think, to really think, how we can make a difference.

Thank you very much.
With best regards,
Hina Hirayama McConnell

I responded to Hina, saying in part, that I thought her thought process would touch others' hearts and minds in grief and rationality, struggling to keep one's integrity amidst conflicting loyalties, looking for the largest common good.  I said to Hina, “At least you know you are in a quandary.  I worry about those who are not.”  Yours in quandary,  - John

I cite Hina’s struggle as one which, each in our own way, we may emulate.
May our confidence and our insecurity jitterbug across the stage – our pride and our humility.

I hope you will forgive me for preaching to you an uncertain sermon.  Life is a quandary; we’re all trying to figure things out; we’re not sure and we are blessed.

Yours in quandary.  Thank you very much.
- John