Seeking
Closure
January 8, 2006
Rev. Paul Beckel
First Universalist
Unitarian Church ~ www.uuwausau.org
[re sitting in meditation] Letting yourself simply experience your difficulties without getting caught up in thoughts about how much you dislike them and in wishes that you didn’t have to deal with them in the first place will change your experience of difficulties. But be very clear about this: It’s not a matter of denying discomfort or resisting unfavorable circumstances; it is simply being willing to relate to all things just as they are—and practicing anyway....
John Daishin
Buksbazen
Beauty
is before me, and
Beauty behind me,
Above
me and below me hovers the beautiful.
I am surrounded by it,
I am immersed in it.
In my youth, I am aware of it, and, in
old age,
I shall walk quietly the beautiful trail.
In beauty it is begun.
In beauty, it is ended.
Navajo
CHILDREN’S FOCUS
“To stop the train in cases of emergency
pull on the chain pull on the chain penalty for improper use five pounds.”
READING “The Glove in the Subway” by Jane Ranney
Rzepka, adapted
...A subway platform during the morning
rush hour at Grand Central Terminal. A train pulls in; a woman gets off. Before
the doors close she realizes that she is holding only one of her leather gloves.
She looks back into the train and spots the matching one on the seat. It is
obviously too late to dash back in to retrieve it, so with a shrug, she flings
her arm out and, the doors about to close, tosses her glove onto the seat
alongside its mate. The doors shut, and the train pulls away.
...To throw a favorite leather glove into
the oblivion of a moving train must involve small pangs of uncertainty, pangs
of some degree of loss, pangs of upset. After a lifetime of struggling not to
lose our mittens, then our gloves, cavalier abandonment does not come easy.
[...But stopping the train is no longer
possible when we’ve stepped off onto a new path.]
SERMON
My computer has
crashed – I am not exaggerating – 50 times in the past month. I am reluctant,
however, to do what needs to be done – whether that is repair or abandonment.
It’s not a question of money. Computers are getting so inexpensive that it’s
clearly not cost efficient to sit and reboot indefinitely. But still. Far too
many times I have sought to “fix,” or “improve” my computing situation... only
to find it much more hassle than it is worth. Upgrading always seems more
hassle than it is worth – and yet – there’s often no alternative.
I have not gone
out to look at new computers. I just keep hoping that it will get better on its
own. Even though I know it probably won’t get better on it’s own. So I have
done the maintenance I know how to do, purged the hard drive, and created
backups of most of the files I really
want to keep. But I have not backed up everything that I’d like to keep.
Believe it or not, I hang on to all of my emails, sent and received, and I
often refer back to them for information.
But – and this
was hard for me – I chose not to back up my emails. When the final crash comes,
I’m going to have to let them go.
In the global
context of power struggles and personal losses I know this is not a terribly
big deal. But you deal with what you’ve got in front of you.
I’ve got a
similar situation at home. We’ve been intensely cleaning, maintaining, sorting,
prioritizing, and throwing stuff away. Even the old sippy cups with Eeyore and
Pooh. Of course it’s hard to get motivated to do this, so I’ve been thinking
about the impending loss of my home. I don’t know if that’s going to be in 2
months or 2 years or 20 years...but it’s going to happen so I might as well get
ready – both psychologically and pragmatically.
Actually I am
not that proactive and
self-motivated. Jane and I spent the day yesterday with her parents, looking
for a new home that might house all 12 of us. Yes, even the furry ones. Many
things about this arrangement remain uncertain but it could be a new stage for
all of us. Mike and Mary Jane are in their mid-60s. If they move to Wausau they
will be giving up a beautiful lakeside home -- in the woods, in a warmer
climate. I honor the foresight they are showing: knowing about transience;
knowing that loss comes sooner or later; knowing that sometimes it’s better to
give up the other glove...rather than to risk diving back onto a moving train.
***
Jane and I have a friend who had a baby
due around New Years a few years ago.
About Thanksgiving, that year, we learned that the baby came early,
stillborn. Our friend, of course, was
struggling with wave after wave of intense and conflicted feelings. Anger, despair, emptiness, exhaustion... and a resolve to go on, and to handle
this crisis in the most healthy way possible.
One thing that helped her to deal with
her loss in a healthy way (this is what
she told us – it sounded just excruciating to me) was the full experience
of labor, which had been necessary even after the discovery that the baby had
died. Then, following delivery, she was able to see and to hold her baby, and
give him his name, Gabriel.
Our friend told us that she was finding
further healing by talking about her feelings with friends. And a memorial service was planned. A few
days later we received a very typical, adorable, baby-in-hospital-blanket
photo...and the announcement:
Thy father and thy mother shall be glad,
and she that bore thee shall rejoice...
A service of remembrance will be
held...etc...Join us to honor the birth and passing of our own little angel.
I cringed when I saw that photo. “Why did
she do this?” I wondered. Is her grief
keeping her from thinking straight? And
later...I didn’t know what to think,
or feel.... Well, maybe this is the right thing for her, but hey, don’t throw
it in my face. And then, finally, after
a few days, I found that I felt thankful toward our friend. Thankful that she had
had the courage to face the loss of her son, and to share the depth of her love
and her pain with us. What trust it
takes to reveal oneself to a friend in this way.
***
New Year’s is an artificial time for
closure. Rarely do the events of our
lives coincide conveniently with the movement of the celestial spheres. But as a predictable milestone in our lives,
the new year’s transition can be a
powerful symbol – and a useful reminder – that in order to move on to the new,
we must, from time to time, leave things behind us. The earth may not turn on our timetable, but its turning does remind us that death and renewal are as
precious as they are inescapable. Still, the coming of the new year is not
magic. It cannot enable us to close fresh issues that are not ready to be
closed. A week after the tsunami I doubt anyone was saying, well it’s a new
year, let’s leave our sorrows behind. Even now – a year and a week after the
tsunami – I marvel at those who are ready to move on.
***
Which things
should we leave behind us as we move into 2006?
Material things?... things on the to-do list?... grudges?...
obligations?... perceived obligations? In
2005 you may have resolved to be a better friend, a better citizen, a better
parent, a better student of life or maintainer of your health. If any of
these things have been sitting in a pile – a real or psychic pile – for more
than a few months, perhaps they were not meant to be. Is it perhaps time to
clear the way for the blessings and the trials of 2006?
***
A few years ago Cardinal Bernardin died.
His tenure as a leader within the Catholic Church was widely heralded and an
NPR show was discussing what it was that made Bernardin a great religious
leader. I was taken by one of his colleagues’ comments. He said what made
Bernardin great was this: he knew how to close a meeting!
Well. Is that such a big deal? As I’ve
observed myself and others over the years, I’ve found that yes, it can be.
Closure. I resist it. I flee from it. Sunday services, which are supposed to be
the core of our communal religious experience – even with a week of preparation
– I find that concluding and moving on is the one thing I never quite get
around to.
What was closure for Bernardin? What his
colleague said about him was that he was able to summarize -- even following a
meeting with a group of people with diverse interests who had been disagreeing
with one another for hours – he was able to summarize for the group what they
had in common... what common goals bound the group together as they were about
to depart.
I’m going to keep working on that. And I
encourage you to do the same. Whatever your setting. It can be a powerful
unifying experience. And watch – how often do the gatherings in which you
participate have a moment of closure... or do they just kind of peter out? And
do you assist in closure? Or do you just wander away? Real closure, for a
group, probably requires the effort and intention of everyone.
***
Real intention.
On the other hand...I’ve
always appreciated the example of Napoleon, who, it is said, didn’t open his
mail for a week. So by the time he found out about a problem, it had already
taken care of itself. Just let things
be, perhaps, and closure will come of its own accord?
A recent news
article [NYTimes 12/29/05, “Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright,” by Timothy D.
Wilson] reported on some psychological studies on the process of navel gazing.
Is it helpful, they asked, to look inward – to think about the past, to analyze
our motives, to dwell on our intentions and feelings? Or is this all more
trouble than it’s worth? Well, according to this article, in study after study,
people who thought about their lives ended up being more depressed, less
satisfied, or with lower self-images compared to other groups who thought about
clouds, or compared to those who rated their level of happiness without taking
time to think about it.
Do we need to
be so self-conscious? To talk, to debrief, to cry out? Sometimes, definitely.
Admiring, grieving, and making copies for our fallible memories can be a part
of any spiritual upgrade. But in the end, every upgrade involves winnowing and
sifting, stepping off, and letting go.
RITUAL OF CLOSURE
After our closing hymn (during the
postlude) I invite you to participate in a ritual of closure. What do you need to let go of? Stress?
Your need to control? Being a
victim? Your need to fix people? Unmet desires? What desire do you wish to
leave behind?
There is a postage stamp sized square on
the corner of your order of service. I invite you to write a couple of words
there, tear if off, and place your last scrap of 2005 in the burning bowl and
gather ‘round till the end of the postlude for our benediction.
CLOSING HYMN #116 I’m
on my Way
BENEDICTION
...behind all of our differences,
Beneath our diversity
There is a unity that makes us one
And binds us together
In spite of time, and death, and the
space between the stars.
We pause in silent witness to that unity.