First Parish Bedford UU

Ingathering 2010
Rev. Megan Lynes & Rev. John E. Gibbons
Sunday, September 12, 2010
On the Common at The First Parish in Bedford, Massachusetts

Opening Words

“Autumn Equinox”
Lynn Ungar

You may think of it
as marking the long descent,
the slide into winter's weariness.
Such moments are not easy to accept --
don't we all want to petition
some cosmic governor
to grant summer a reprieve?
But the sentence is always cast,
the scales will always tip,
whatever you might think is just.

In this brief, breath-catching
moment at the top
you may recall the slow climb of summer,
the safe, steady ticking up the tracks.
The self-possessed might even
gaze out and glimpse
the jostling fairgrounds and
the quiet that stretches beyond the fence.

Look quickly.  Even now the car
tips forward and picks up speed.
As the wind in your face increases
and your stomach leaps, remember:
This is the ride you came for,
the fear and the sense of flying.
Winter won't seem long
when you slide to a halt
around the final curve. 


Water Ceremony and Welcome from Rev. Megan Lynes

Good morning!  Welcome home! 

This summer I joined John and six others from our Bedford church on a pilgrimage to our partner church in Transylvania.  It was truly an experience of a lifetime, one filled with new cultures, new friendships, new understandings of our Unitarian roots.  It was also an experience filled with the thrill of the unknown.  One night our group stayed in a hotel that must have been employing energy saving techniques.  It seemed that many lights were on a motion sensor.  All the hallways were windowless and pitch dark.  They remained that way until the traveler stomped through the darkness waving one’s arms in the air.  Suddenly a light would turn on.  Ah ha!  Five feet of light!  What was beyond that circle of light however, was completely unknown...  The desired room number?  A staircase?  A silent onlooker?  Who knew?  So risking it all, the traveler stomped on.  Pop!  The next light flicked on!  ...just as the light behind dimmed out.  And so it went, until the daunted traveler decided to accept that it is not necessary to see the entire length of the hallway in order to proceed the next few feet. 

All will be illuminated in time.  Trust and forward motion creates new vision.

At the start of this church year, I stand here in the first circle of light with you.  I see you, you are glowing!  Your faces are pools of warmth.  As we gather again on the threshold of a new year, I am reminded how it is in community that we experience the importance of thrashing about and searching for a way forward.  It’s here that we find companions to trust or a stranger in need of compassion.  It is in community that we uncover thousands upon thousands of reasons to proceed forward through this mysterious and marvelous unknown journey we call life, we call justice, we call hope, we call sanctuary, we call faith.  It is good to be together again.

I know that I am not the only one who has gone on a journey this summer.  In a moment we will have our Water Ceremony, during which time, anyone who has brought water back from their summer can add it to the large glass bowl up front.  If you didn’t bring water, but want to pour water symbolizing your experience, there is a pitcher up here. 

Just as separate streams meander and return to the ocean, so too do our unique journeys tell a part of our community story.  A few weeks ago I invited people to tell me about where their water is from.  By the time our water ceremony is over, our bowl will contain water from eleven different states, Nova Scotia, Norway, Budapest, Transylvania, Jerusalem and the Ganga River in India.  You have visited rivers, ponds, oceans, waterfalls, swimming pools, glaciers, ancestral fishing grounds and public baths.  You have camped and boogie boarded, hiked, kayaked and white water rafted.  You’ve returned to a cabin made generations ago, lived on a ship with grandpa, gone home to the family farm for water from the pump, and attended the river festival and feast of Shiva.  You’ve been to Ferry Beach, Old Orchard Beach, Chatauqua Institute, and Star Island.  You’ve reported turtles, frogs, hawks, ducks, dragonflies, sand pipers, a hummingbird, and a great blue heron.  Many wrote about the joy of children, best friendships, grandparents, grandchildren, and the sadness of teens growing up and moving on. 

For all the happy stories, there were many painful ones too.  The water we collect today will contain a few drops from a kitchen faucet given by a housebound ocean-lover, some water will come from an intravenous saline drip, and we’ll add two cups of water that a dehydrated man should have drunk.  One person saved real tears and will contribute this to our collection.  Some of you have traveled a thousand miles within the walls of your own heart.  Some of you may still be waiting for that one warm glow of light to pop on.  The ocean we arrive at today has room for us all.

This is why we return to religious community each year, and why we welcome the new among us; we come to tell our stories, to listen with a loving heart, to find a way through, to work with passion for a world made right, to learn and give thanks, to be and become.

Here we unite our journeys, here we return home.
~~~
Sharing of waters
And now, you are invited to come forward to add the water you have carried with you.  After you have poured your water into the bowl, you can walk to the table and write down where your water came from on a slip of paper and then hang it on our line of prayer flags.  Everyone who told me ahead of time where their water came from has a flag with the story on it.  Take a minute to look at them later.  For now, as friends add their water, I invite you to turn and greet your neighbor.  Ask them where their water came from, tell them welcome home.
~~~
Blessing
May our gathering together this morning be a blessing for one and all. May it inspire us to a year of hope and love and courageous faith. And may we walk that year in the full awareness – as often as possible – of the blessed ties that bind each to all.
Amen.





Welcome from Rev. John Gibbons

The Summer Place
by Robley Wilson, Jr.

Remember how at the summer place—
the cottage where the family went
in June—we always set up a card table
for the jigsaw puzzle: Mt. Rainier,
or Scenes of Yellowstone/500 pieces.

It was the vocation of bad weather.
On days when the birches glistened
outside the screened porch and the roof
carried the drumming of rain, we worked
at it. After a long, dreary Sunday

it began to look like something—
Old Faithful, or a torrent of glacier.
The border was done first, it fit
the square table almost to the edges.
Outside it, pieces were scattered

like fragments held suspended by
Nature's gravity. In fact the center
was chaos. We had arrived at a sky
of clearest, delicate blue, an expanse
showing no complications of shadow.

O the difficulty of putting together
a heaven without clouds. Each shape
seemed, at first look, like any other;
We used them to teach ourselves patience,
frustration. It is only play, we said.

All vacation, whenever we walked past,
we stopped a moment, tried the picture
for random mortisings, shrugged, quit.
Some evenings we discussed whether or not
to free the table for some better use.

But it happened now and then we found
a piece that fitted. Slowly the sky
was bluer, wider and higher, the island
of bare table diminished, the disorder
we solved. We said: I think we have it.

You know what happens. The days shorten,
the nights grow colder, the summer ends.
Just when we imagine the puzzle ready
for finishing, two pieces come up lost
and we never make the heaven we look for.


So here we are, folks.

I’ve suggested that life is like a roller-coaster.  And Megan says it’s like the hallway where one after another lights illuminate a dark hallway.  “All will be illuminated in time. Trust and forward motion creates new vision.”  And then there’s stuff about water.  And now I’m talking about jigsaw puzzles.

There’s another old joke about the man who climbs to the top of the sacred mountain and meets the guru, who tells him, “Life is like a hot tamale.” He returns and ponders the meaning, but just doesn't get it, so returns to the mountain. This time the holy man says, “So... Maybe life is not like a hot tamale.”

So maybe life is like a roller coaster or a light or a jigsaw puzzle or water or maybe, a hot tamale…or maybe not.

But here’s the one true thing:

This is a place where we all can practice being human.
Whoever you are – wander worshipper, lover of leaving – here we may be ourselves.
Here we will affirm that there is no us and them…no Christian, Jew, Muslim, atheist, Unitarian Universalist, female, male, gay, straight, old, young, Republican, Democrat, Tea Party, Coffee Party, white, of color, questioning, queer, grieving, celebrating…we gather beyond categories; there is only us.

And, oh yes, we’re also Christian, Jew, gay, scared, proud, pretty, disfigured, Tea Party, queer; grieving, maybe life is or maybe it’s not like a hot tamale.

Nevertheless, we aspire for this to be a place of learning, a place of respect, a place of safety, a place of protest, a place of affirmation, a place of prayer, a place of skepticism, a place of acceptance, a place, not always of optimism but always of hope.
 
When we are together, this is not a spectator sport: here we are not to study or to observe or to be holier-than-thou or to quote from NPR or the New York Times or from the UU World, but we are here to engage, to be a part of, to participate, experience, be hands-on, get our hands dirty.  And sometimes when we’re really tired, it’s also OK to be spectators.

And just to return to my own metaphor of the jigsaw puzzle, we’ll fill in a lot of borders and basics and obvious stuff and then there will be a whole lot of bedeviling sky and we’ll do our best to make it a whole picture and yet, come next June, we’ll be – I guarantee it – more than two puzzle pieces short of heaven.  A few links short of a chain.  A few kernels short of a full ear.  A few feathers short of a duck. A few straws short of a barrel.  A few ants short of a picnic.

I know of nothing more worthwhile than what we are trying to do here and now: we will change the world and change ourselves; we will strive for lives of meaning and joy.

Life may be like a roller coaster, motion-detector lights, water, a jigsaw puzzle or a hot tamale.  Or maybe not.  It is what it is; let us be thankful and let’s deal with it.  Stay loose.  Amen.