April 24, 2005… BEING HERE

Singing Together “Come, Come, Whoever You Are”

Come, come, whoever you are

Wanderer, worshiper, lover of leaving

Ours is no caravan of despair

Come, yet again, come.

RE Teacher Recruitment

The RE Committee is beginning recruitment for teachers for our next church year. There are opportunities to serve for all levels of commitment and experience. Men and “grandparent-types” are particularly encouraged to consider helping out. Most classes will be organized in 10-week blocks. The 7-9 grades will be doing the “Our Whole Lives” curriculum for the entire church year; teachers must be trained for this curriculum, and there is a weekend training in La Crosse in September. Please contact Samantha Masterton for more information, or visit the tables in Yawkey Hall.

Children’s Focus Grandmother’s Pigeon, by Louise Erdrich

Grandmother is eccentric. When she sails away to Greenland on a porpoise and doesn’t return for a year, her family decides to clean out her room. Among her things, they find a nest with three eggs in it; when mother picks up the nests, the eggs hatch. It is impossible to explain (although the children suspect the stuffed pigeon on the mantle has something to do with it.) They call in an ornithologist who is shocked to find that the birds are from an extinct species of carrier pigeons, and this creates a scientific and media circus. Eventually the family decides to set the harassed birds free, but not before attaching notes to their legs. Later, a letter arrives from Grandmother, saying that she’ll be home soon, thanking them for the notes, and asking them to take care of her pigeon.

Children’s Blessing “May Peace Surround You”

Offering “From You I Receive”

Reading: excerpts from “Called Out” by Barbara Kingsolver

The spring of 1998 was the Halley’s Comet of desert wildflower years. While nearly everyone else on the planet was cursing the soggy consequences of El Niño’s downpours, here in southern Arizona we were cheering for the show: Our desert hills and valleys were colorized in wild schemes of maroon, indigo, tangerine, and some hues that Crayola hasn’t named yet. Our mountains wore mantles of yellow brittlebrush on their rocky shoulders as fully transformed as eastern forests in their colorful autumn foliage. Abandoned cotton fields – flat, salinized ground long since left for dead – rose again, wearing brocade. Even highway medians were so crowded with lupines and poppies that they looked like the seed-packet promises come true: that every one came up.

The warm first days of March appear to call out a kind of miracle here: the explosion of nearly half our desert’s flowering species, all stirred suddenly into a brief cycle of bloom and death. Actually, though, the call begins subtly, much earlier, with winter rains and gradually climbing temperatures. The intensity of the floral outcome varies a great deal from one spring to another; that much is obvious to anyone who ventures outdoors at the right time of year and pays attention. But even couch potatoes could not have missed the fact that 1998 was special: Full-color wildflower photos made the front page of every major newspaper in the Southwest.

Our friends from other climes couldn’t quite make out what the fuss was about. Many people aren’t aware that the desert blooms at all, even in a normal year, and few would guess how much effort we devote to waiting and prognosticating. “Is this something like Punxsutawney Phil on Groundhog Day?” asked a friend from the East.

“Something like that. Or the fall color in New England. All winter the experts take measurements and make forecasts. This year they predicted gold, but it’s already gone platinum. In a spot where you’d expect a hundred flowers, we’ve got a thousand. More kinds than anybody alive has ever seen at once.”

“But these are annual flowers?”

“Right.”

“Well then…” Our nonbiologist friend struggled to frame her question: “If they weren’t there last year, and this year they are, then who planted them?”

We glanced at each other nervously: Where had they come from? Had these seeds just been lying around in the dirt for decades? And how was it that, at the behest of some higher power than the calendar, all at once there came a crowd?

The answers to these questions tell a tale as complex as a Beethoven symphony. Before a concert, you could look at a lot of sheet music and try to prepare yourself mentally for the piece it inscribed, but you’d still be knocked out when you heard it performed. With wildflowers, as in concert, the magic is in the timing, the subtle combinations.

For a species, the bloom is just the means to an end. The flower show is really about making seeds, and the object of the game is persistence through hell or high water, both of which are features of the Sonoran Desert.

Desert wildflowers have had millennia in which to come to terms with their inconstant mother. Once the plant has rushed through growth and flowering, its seeds wait in the soil – and not just until the next time conditions permit germination, but often longer. Some germinate quickly, and some lie in wait, not just loitering there but loading the soil with many separate futures.

The scientific term for those remarkable plants, “ephemeral annual,” suggests something that’s fragile as a poppy petal, a captive to the calendar. That is our misapprehension, along with our notion of this floral magic show – now you see it, now you don’t – as a thing we can predict and possess like a garden. [But] the blazing fields of blues and golds is neither a beginning nor an end. It’s just a blink, or maybe a smile, in the long life of a species. The flowers will go on mystifying us.

Message Part I

Peter Seller’s movie, BEING THERE, is one of those rare movies that made a lasting impression on me. If you’ve never seen it, it’s about a sheltered, well-mannered, and incredibly simple-minded gardener, Chauncey. When his employer dies, he is left to fend for himself, and when he stumbles into the real world, he is mistaken for a savvy social commentator. Chauncey only talks about gardening, but when he does, everyone assumes that he is making sophisticated analogies about the meaning of life. That’s what I love about the movie…the garden analogies…and of course the joke played on all those who believe Chauncey Gardner to be brilliantly wise. And maybe he was.

My charge today is to reflect upon what has mattered about ‘being here’…this place that has felt like home… Here in Wausau, this “far away place”…here for these now nearly eight months that I have been a ministerial intern in the care of this congregation. I take the lead offered by Chauncey Gardener and offer a few gardening metaphors in order to impart a bit of something that might at least ‘sound like’ wisdom.

It’s not that I am a master gardener. And, it’s not that I think one simple analogy is the quintessential key to understanding. I was pleased to learn, when I was at Pacific School of Religion, that ‘seminary’ literally means ‘seed bed’…a place for seeds to grow...to be nurtured and nudged along. And grow I did. But, even four years in seminary could be compared more to being in the basement in a peat pot under a grow light…it was just the beginning… just a yearning toward getting out in an actual garden to grow, blossom, and fruit. My experience in Wausau has been one of being out in a garden, a community garden, a place where, like life, there can be disappointments and failures…ideas and relationships that don’t sprout or thrive, and a place where, like life, many things flourish and thrive. In this place, we continually plant, tend, and harvest.

As I reflect on ‘being here’, I find that it is no small task to share my experience in the span of one Sunday morning. I hope you don’t find this self-indulgent, for I can only really see this internship through the lens of my own experience. I trust that you will also consider the impact that being part of a teaching congregation has had on you and your growth. Much has mattered during these months. Much has mattered on several different planes. First, there are the people involved…each of you, each of the staff, Rev. Paul, me. And many of you, actually each of you, has contributed to my personal growth, so if I am to believe in the power of interdependence, I must trust that this internship has had some reciprocal effect on you.

Beyond the personal level, there is First Universalist Unitarian Church of Wausau, this challenging, complex, beautiful, beloved church. We should consider its past, its future, and its changing identity as it embraces being a teaching congregation. I believe that being a teaching congregation affects what this church can be in the community, how we are seen by visitors, and also communicates how seriously we take education and the care for our future. Since my time with you is limited, I can see only a brief cross-section of a flowing history…something like a snapshot of an arrow in motion. I have entered this garden in just one season of its life. You are left to tend the garden so that it flourishes, renews itself and bears fruit for generations to come.

Then there’s the impact of this internship felt beyond our garden gate…that is, the role of an internship and of ministry in our global movement. Gardeners, at least gardeners with moral values, are concerned not only with their own little plot, but also with the larger cycle of the planet’s ecology. This larger picture is difficult to keep in mind, because it is less intensely felt, yet I believe it is vitally important. We must also tend to this liberal faith so that it can continue to be an agent of change in the world. You have now contributed to the training of a minister for that movement. You have made a difference.

I came to Wausau as a sprout and I have grown in the tender care and instruction of this congregation …so much more than I had anticipated. I have been taught through practice, reflection, experience, relationship, and yes, through errors. Exactly how have I grown since I’ve been in Wausau?

Well, some of you may recall that when I arrived here I was unable to articulate a vision for my ministry. Here, I have seen more clearly how a communal goal of beloved community can impact each person’s individual growth; in other words, community is the soil of transformation. Now, I am convinced that I want to continue to work this soil, to continue on the path to parish ministry. You have given me the great gift of birthing me into professional parish ministry.

I have gained confidence in my abilities as a minister…in part because I have gained competency through practice but more because of the constant affirmation and care that you have shown to me. You have been stewards of my growth. I thank you.

Another fruit of my internship has been my increased commitment to Unitarian Universalism and a strengthened belief in its potential to be transformational in our lives and our world. I am a relatively new UU, and something of a skeptic in all matters, so making a convert of me is quite an accomplishment. You can be proud of this.

And, working with Paul has been such a gift. I couldn’t have imagined such a wonderful supervisor/intern relationship, a mentor with so much concern for my development, a collegial relationship that will last throughout my career. This internship would not have happened but for Paul’s vision and persistence. Working with Paul here in Wausau has helped me to recognize an unexpressed heart wish…that is, to find a permanent settlement as part of a ministry team (in other words, not as a solo minister in a church) because the nourishment offered in such collegiality has been crucial to my health and productivity. You are so lucky to have him as your minister.

Yes indeed. Potentials can lie dormant, unhatched or ungerminated. Sometimes it takes vision and a trust in human nature to see that potential. Maybe the conditions here were unpredictably perfect for germination. And maybe there has been magic in this internship. Like the eggs from Grandmother’s Pigeon, things have hatched and bloomed in unforeseen ways…like the ephemeral annuals that burst out unexpectedly. You have brought out the best in me. You have helped me to become more confident in my abilities. You have convinced me that parish ministry is the place for me and that I am on the right path.

This has made me consider how we attend to all of our relationships… not just the relationship of the teaching congregation to the intern. What if we daily, every moment, considered the seeds of possibility in each other? What if we each felt it our duty as sacred gardeners to tend those seeds, to encourage each other, to appreciate the unique beauty in each other, and to rejoice in the good that sprouts and grows? Then perhaps, as Chauncey Gardener says, all will be well in the garden.

Singing Together: “Spirit of Life”

Reading: The Parable of the Sower, Mark 4:1-8

Again he began to teach beside the sea. And a very large crowd gathered about him, so that he got into a boat and sat in it on the sea; and the whole crowd was beside the sea on the land.

And he taught them many things in parables, and in his teaching he said to them: “Listen! A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seed fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured it.

Other seed fell on rocky ground, where it had not much soil, and immediately it sprang up, since it had no depth of soil; and when the sun rose it was scorched, and since it had no root it withered away.

Other seed fell among thorns and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no grain.

And other seeds fell into good soil and brought forth grain, growing up and increasing and yielding thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold.

Message Part II

Yes, I’ve always loved garden analogies. The parable of the sower has been a favorite of mine since I was a little girl. I’m not sure why. In the context of my childhood, seeds were interpreted to be souls, and I often wondered if I had fallen on rocks, or in thistles, or in good soil. My UU church in Oakland has a huge round stained glass window in the front of the sanctuary depicting a Bruegel-esque sower, something like the picture on our screen. Thinking of sitting in that church on Sunday mornings, I am reminded of one of the stories told in our story-telling workshops this winter; I’m afraid I can’t remember who wrote this, but the writer’s child apparently spent many a Sunday staring at our nativity stained glass window, contemplating the hands of the baby Jesus. She thought he had been given the wrong hands, adult-size hands. Well, I had a similar experience studying the sower in Oakland… many a Sunday morning, I left the world of the service and entered the world of the sower as I sat in the pew. I make no apology for that, because it was a church experience made religious for me as I contemplated that richly-colored window.

When I was in high school, I was active in putting into place a Community Action Council in the little city of Brainerd Minnesota. One of our projects (along with a community Christmas pageant and a recycling center) was a community garden. I can remember standing in a large triangle of land at the intersection of several highways…staring at the prairie grass and envisioning a quilt of garden spaces with tidy rows, lush soil, and voluminous plants. In that moment I could not see the hours of backbreaking digging in the scorching sun, or the weeks of hauling water, or… well, all I could see was a beautiful vision of a flourishing garden that would connect people with the earth and with each other.

Truth be told, the soil in that triangle of land was not ideal…at least not as it lay in natural prairie. It was sandy and compacted and fraught with weeds. Creating a garden there was incredibly hard work…it required top soil and fertilizer and rock picking. It required willing workers with seed-catalogue dreams. Well, workers with dreams showed up and made it happen. I think that garden still exists today.

I’ve heard tell that having an intern was somewhat of a contested issue. I don’t take this personally. I trust that you were doing your best to see into the future, to see if it such an idea was worth tending to, whether it might take energy away from other things that needed nourishment and love. Some of you didn’t think the garden was ready for a big unknown seed like an intern. And this is important work for the gardener…to know when to plant and when the field must lie fallow. Others of you thought that the soil of this church was ready, and I’m grateful for your vision. Fact is, becoming a teaching congregation was an unknown quantity…I was an unknown quantity. This internship could have been as disastrous as it was successful but for your belief in my potential and your confident encouragement.

Now here we are near the end of this season together. This was a ‘first’ for all of us. Paul’s first mentoring experience, my first internship, your first foray into being a teaching congregation. As with the desert ephemeral annuals after a rainy season, the conditions here in Wausau just happened to be right to foster a bountiful harvest…certainly in me and hopefully in you.

Now I see I different beauty in Jesus’ parable of the sower, for it speaks to balance and reciprocity…both needs and gifts. There’s an implied interdependence. When I hear this parable now, I identify with each part. Am I a seed? Or the soil? Am I the weather conditions? Or the sower? Well, I believe that each one of us must play all of the each roles at different times, and it is this ever-moving dance of relationships that can keep us all working together to grow a healthy beautiful garden. We cross-pollinate. We learn from one another. We rely on one another in order to grow, bloom, and to make new seeds. This is the balance of things. There’s a powerful alchemy between willingness and potential…like photosynthesis we exchange oxygen and carbon dioxide…the one given by some and needed by others and the other needed by some and given by others.

Mindfulness of this ongoing balance can inform our decisions and our actions. Ask yourself what you want the outcome to be. What kind of a garden do you envision and is what you’re doing contributing to that possibility? Even if there’s no clear answer, the questions are vitally important in keeping your intention in front of you. What I can assure you is that you are good teachers…you are master gardeners. And your baskets are overflowing with seeds of potential that others can help you to grow. As Marianne Williamson so beautifully wrote: We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us. It’s in all of us.

This is the balance of things. There is magic in the everyday. The very nitty-gritty, getting-your-hands-dirty of gardening can produce seriously unbelievable flowers and luscious vegetables. It is both mysterious and naturally predictable. On one level, I am in awe of the outcome of our time together. On another level, it only makes sense that so many loving hearts working together would create a thing of beauty.

This is the balance of things. I have been given so much by all of you, and in return, I have given my talents, ideas, and willingness. You sowed, I grew. I gave, you received. Some of the things I have planted have taken root; others have fallen on rocky soil. It has been a magical year brought about by nothing magical at all…just willing hearts. Yet there is something magically serendipitous about this, even though the magic is the direct result of seeing possibility and then working to make it happen. Visioning. Planting. Tending. Harvesting. Preparing for next time.

I don’t think I’ve talked with you about this, but I love process theology. Process theology pays attention to the process of becoming. It is built upon the philosophy of Alfred Whitehead, built upon a theory that every moment comes into being in a ‘concresence’ …using the information it receives from its past, its present, and from a lure toward the good. Just as fruit must die to create seed for new beginnings, every moment, every becoming, every “actual entity” must end for the next to begin. Likewise, this internship must end in order for the seed of ministry that you have fostered in me to take root and grow in this great movement. Our time together must end in order for you to plan for the next season in this church’s garden. I hope that you are proud of what you have accomplished in me. I encourage you to give tender care to each other…every each other…every single being who visits here, who works here, who plays here, who worships here…please give to each other what you have given to me. I pray that you will hold me in the palm of your hand (always), open your arms and release me into the wind.

So may it be. Amen.

Singing Together: “Dear Friend” and “Building Bridges”

Dear Friend, dear friend

Let me tell you how I feel,

You have given me such treasure

I love you so.

Building bridges, between our divisions

If I reach out to you, will you reach out to me,

With all our voices and all of our visions

We can make such sweet harmony.

Benediction: Dawna Markova, from A Grateful Heart

May I, may you, may we not live unlived lives.

May none of us live in fear

of falling or catching fire.

May we choose to inhabit our days,

to allow our living to open to us,

to make us less afraid,

more accessible,

to loosen our hearts

until they become wings,

torches, promises.

May each of us choose to risk our significance;

to live so that which comes to us as seed

goes to the next as blossom,

and that which comes to us as blossom,

goes on as fruit.

Postlude “Melody in F by Rubenstein” Ray Kraemer, piano

April 24, 2005

Marianne Williamson

Opening Words and Chalice Lighting Melody Moberg, bass

Singing Together: “Spirit of Life”

Singing Together: “Dear Friend” and “Building Bridges”