We
All Shall Be Changed
The
Rev. Glenda C. Walker, Emerita
And do I die?
How should I die?
My atoms
are the same that existed
on the first day of the universe.
My elements
are identical with the make-up of
The stars.
I am one with all that is,
and my brief life a comet’s trail
across the starry universal night
I do not die.
My elements are scattered.
New lights, new comets’ trails will use them.
There is, because of me, a new note in the song
sung by the morning stars.
By the Rev. Kathleen D. Korb, Unitarian
Universalist Minister
Why
it was wonderful; Why, all at
once there were leaves,
Leaves
at the end of a dry stick,
small, alive
Leaves
out of wood. It was
wonderful.
You
can’t imagine. They came by the
wood path
And
the earth loosened, the earth
relaxed, there were flowers
Out
of the earth: Think of it: and
oak trees
Oozing
new green at the tips of them
and flowers
Squeezed
out of clay, soft flowers,
limp
Stalks
flowering. Well, it was like a
dream,
It
happened so quickly, all of a
sudden
it happened. By Archibald MacLeish
This is dragonfly season. Millions of them are darting through the air
– great green and brown ones with a wingspread of three to four inches; wee
blue ones, like lances of sapphire light; little inch-long yellow ones, and
beautiful, rusty red.
Today I spent three hours on the dock
watching one make that wonderful transition from the life amphibious to the
life of the air.
I was tying the boat, when I saw what
looked like a very large spider, crawling up from the water and out on a
board. It moved with such effort and
seemed so weak….I gave the creature another glance and….then I sat down to
watch, for I realized that this was birth and not death.
Very slowly the head emerged and the
eyes began to glow like lamps of emerald light.
A shapeless, pulpy body came working out and two feeble legs pushed
forth and began groping for a firm hold.
They fastened on the board and then, little by little and ever so
slowly, the whole insect struggled out….
Two crumpled lumps on either side began
to unfurl and show as wings. The long
abdomen, curled round and under, like a snail shell, began to uncurl and change
to brilliant green….The transparent membrane of the wings, now held stiffly
erect, began to show rainbow colors, as they fanned slowly in the warm air, and,
at last, nearly three hours after the creature had crept out of the water, the
great dragonfly stood free….certain stupendous phrases rose in my mind and kept
sounding through my thoughts.
“Behold, I show you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be
changed.” ….
When I came to myself I was standing
a-tiptoe gazing up after it, my breath was coming in gasps and I heard my own
voice saying: “It is sown in weakness,
it is raised in power….”
From “The Miracle of Renewal” by Laura Lee
Davidson, in SISTERS OF THE EARTH
CHILDREN’S
STORY The Great Change by White Deer of Autumn
SERMON “We Shall All Be Changed!”
Today we celebrate
the Great Change. We celebrate rebirth,
resurrection, immortality, reincarnation, if you will.
If we are pagan,
at this time of year we celebrate the vernal equinox, perhaps the Anglo-Saxon
spring goddess Eostre from whom the word Easter is undoubtedly derived.
If we are secular
or pagan, we celebrate the rebirth of leaves out of bare branches of
winter. We celebrate the resurrection of
the crocus poking its head from beneath last year’s detritus. We celebrate the weak creature which crawls
out of the backwater pond to unfold its wings and rise in power as the
dragonfly.
We celebrate
longer days of sunlight.
If we are
Christian, we celebrate the resurrection of the crucified Christ: the Jewish reformer, rabbi, prophet, messiah
– whichever you consider him – whose resurrection was not of his earthly body
but was, and is, in the spiritual body of the Christian Church.
In
They are onto
something in the Hindu traditions. In
those traditions, when one dies one is reborn into a higher state or a lower
being, depending upon how one lived in this life. The Brhadaranyaka Upanishad states: “As a man acts, as he behaves, so does he
become. Whoso does good actions becomes
good; whoso does evil action becomes evil.
Whatever action (karma) he does, that he attain.”
From the Hindu
perspective, the seeds of our actions or karma live on in this life and the next, and, at death, we
transmigrate into another form or state of being, rarely another human being.
Depending upon
one’s perspective – one’s reality, one’s beliefs – rebirth, resurrection,
reincarnation, immortality are realities observed or wishes, fulfilled and
unfulfilled.
Let’s examine
these phenomenon. Let’s examine rebirth
resurrection, reincarnation, and immortality as realities observed or wishes
fulfilled and unfulfilled.
Many of us want a
life after this life. Why? It’s difficult to accept the loss of loved
ones. It’s difficult to accept the loss
of self. We want at least our
consciousness – our spirit, soul, or psyche – to continue. We enjoy life. We don’t want it to end. We want an opportunity to be with a loved one
again: one who we didn’t sufficiently appreciate in this life, perhaps, or one
with whom we need to make amends for some rift in relationship in this
life. Our wish for another life with the
same consciousness and with some of the same companions is understandable. Loss is hard; grief is lonely.
One can easily
understand how the myth of the physical resurrection of the crucified Christ
developed. Peter and James – all of the
apostles – ran away. They left Jesus to
stand trial and be crucified alone.
Judas betrayed Jesus. According
to the Gospel of Luke, Peter denied his relationship with Jesus three times
before the cock crowed. Who among the
followers of Jesus would not want to believe that he was resurrected from the dead? Their time with him was brief: a mere three years. They wanted to make amends for their
betrayal. They wanted – no, they needed – to be forgiven by him and
perhaps they were, for according to the Gospel of Luke, on the cross Jesus
said: “Father, forgive them; for they
know not what they do.” Of course the
disciples were not around to hear Jesus say that.
Even the Apostle
Paul, who never knew Jesus in this life, had amends to make, for until his
dramatic conversion, Paul had persecuted the followers of Jesus.
In the aftermath
of such betrayal, it is not surprising that heaven and hell became
preoccupations. What apostle who
betrayed Jesus would not experience Hell?
Judas committed suicide. What
apostle would not have imagined heaven:
a place where he was reunited with Jesus? But heaven and hell are of this world. You and I have been in both heaven and hell
in this life, but perhaps I shouldn’t speak for you.
So where does this
leave us?
Frankly, I’m with
Stephen J. Gould, Harvard paleontologist, who was invited to give the Ingersoll
Lecture on Immortality the last year I was in
I’m with Karen
Armstrong, British academic and former nun, author of several excellent books,
who gave the Ingersoll Lecture on Immortality this past November. She said: “It is impossible to understand the
meaning of immortality if we are not prepared to give up the demands of the
clamorous, frightened, and greedy ego.”
Armstrong continues: “Immortality
is not an endless succession of moments; it is not everlasting. It is not confined to a posthumous existence
in the future. It is an eternal now.”
I have no idea if
some psyche energy in the form of our present consciousness survives in the
atoms or neutrinos of the universe to meet up with one another in another realm
of being, but I’m sure of what happens to our physical bodies. The words of Paul Sears describe it
well. When I saw them etched in the wall
of the Great Hall at the University of Oklahoma’s Natural History Museum, it
was an “ah ha!” experience. I recognized
what is, for me, truth.
The face of the earth is a graveyard. And so it has
always been…each
living thing restores when it dies
that which has been borrowed to
give form and substance to its brief
day in the sun. What is lent earth
has
been used by countless generations of plants and animals now
dead and will be required by countless others in the future.
It would be well
for us to give up “the demands of clamorous, frightened and greedy egos.” It would be well to get beyond the
insecurity, at best, the fear and guilt, at worst, that feed the idea that we
are special beyond all other life forms and deserve life everlasting, be it in
heaven or hell. We are no more the
center of the universe than the flowers blooming here in our sanctuary this
morning, the caterpillar which becomes a butterfly, the leaf that appears at
the end of the dry stick in spring, the nymph that clings to a board as it
exchanges its aquatic life for the life of a creature of the air.
It seems clear to
me by observing the death and rebirth abundant in nature that, like all other
life forms, our bodies decay and become sustenance for other forms of
life. We are not unique in this
sense. We have borrowed our elements
from the earth. We return them to earth
and this Great Mystery in which we life and breathe and have our being.
Many of us lack
humility. We fail to appreciate the
incredible gift of life, albeit a brief thread in the fabric of eternity. We are greedy; we’re afraid. We too often fail to fully live now in our
preoccupation with wanting to live again later.
We receive our cup of life from the Great Mystery and we don’t want to give it back.
We refuse to
accept reality. Reality is process; it
is change. We are a part of an unending
process. A cyclical process, aptly called the Great Change or Great Mystery.
Abraham Joshua
Heschel writes: “If the human race
perishes it will not be for lack of information, but for lack of
appreciation.” Heschel reminds us: “Just to be is a blessing. Just to live is holy.”
If we perish as a
race, it may well be because we can imagine another life and, therefore, don’t
appreciate and fully accept stewardship of this live and its life-giving and
sustaining environment.
(Which Secretary
of the Interior was it that was unconcerned about the degradation of the
environment because there was, he said, another world and life to look forward
to?) (James Watts)
In our arrogance,
fear, and insecurity, we fail to fully appreciate today, this moment. We fail to fully accept the blessing of
being. We fail to reverence this holy life.
What a waste of
the sacred! What a waste of joy!
“Behold, I show
you a Great Mystery.” We shall not any of us sleep. “We shall all be changed.” We shall die and be sown in weakness to raise
in power in new life forms. That is the
myth – the truth – of rebirth, resurrection, reincarnation, immortality.
Our ancestors were
onto something. They just didn’t fully
understand what they were onto: what
Wanba’s Grandmother and Paul Sears knew.
The basic building blocks of being – animate and inanimate – are
immortal, so far as we know. The energy
of the universe is the Great Mystery, God, Creativity, the process that Wanba’s
grandmother identifies as the Great Change.
Death will be our healing, as
Pitukim declares in the novel PASTWATCH.
Death is our redemption. Death
ends the pain of failing bodies, the loss of loved ones, the guilt-ridden
conscience. Death ends all that and then
gives birth to new life. Death isn’t the
end; it’s a new beginning.
Don’t put my body
in a concrete vault: above or below
ground. Sow my ashes in a backwater
pond. I want to be reborn an iridescent
damselfly like the one that sat on a leaf near me in the Oklahoma woods or the
one that folded her wings to rest on the arm of my lawn chair while I was
reading at the edge of a New Jersey lake.
That’s my hope for
rebirth, resurrection, reincarnation. No
offense, but I don’t want to be with you in an afterlife. I want to be with you now, today, in this
life. That’s why, in retirement, I
stayed in
I want to sing
hymns with you now, today!
I want to run into
you at the Grand Theater, the Farmers’ Market and the grocery store and visit
with you there for a few minutes.
I want to laugh
with you over lunch with you upstairs or at the Hoffman House or over dinner at
your house!
I want to ponder
important questions with you at Meaning Makers, God’s Debris, and Book Pack!
I want to admire
the new addition to your home!
I want to walk a
few rounds with you in the mall!
I want to climb
the tower on
I want to walk
alone along the
I want to watch
the innocent faces of your children as, by turns, they squirm and whisper to
one another or listen raptly to the story in the Sunday Service!
I want to hold
Maggie Schmidt and I want to hold her now, right after this service!
I don’t want to se
my father in some future life. I see him
now whenever geese fly!
I don’t want to be
with my mother in the hereafter. I am
with her now when I wind the Dutch girl music box that sits in my bedroom
window.
I want life and I
want it abundantly now… not after
death in some imaginary realm.
I don’t want life
after death with my present consciousness.
I want to pour my cup of good back into the Great Mystery so the Circle
of Life will remain unbroken, for to quote Richard Jeffries (adapted), I
believe:
It is eternity now.
We are in the midst of it.
It is about us, in the sunshine;
We are in it, as the butterfly in
the
light-laden air.
Nothing has to come,
It is now.
Now is eternity.
Now is the immortal life.
What do you want?
Amen.
CLOSING HYMN O Day of Light and Gladness # 270