Does Anyone Really Like Herding Cats?
Sermon given at Brookfield Unitarian Universalist Church
November 20, 2016
By The Rev. Craig M. Nowak
Every now and then someone will ask, “Where do you come up with your sermon titles?” Given today’s sermon title, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised when someone asks. The answer is quite simple, really. I choose titles rooted in feelings, experiences or reflection related to the sermon theme or topic.
Today’s sermon title is rooted in experience. Which does not mean I was literally a cat herder in a previous career, but rather I, like most, if not all of you here today, have experienced life, despite my best efforts, striving and trick to to hold it all together, as a hectic, maddening, unpredictable, exhausting, and sometimes futile endeavor. A battle of sorts for some sense of security and peace. And often a loosing one. Few people live any length of time without experiencing some point or time in life this way. And, indeed more people than not experience life this way most of the time.
The theme of today’s sermon and to which the sermon title is related, is surrender. More, specifically, the sweet surrender to reality.
Looking out I can already see some of you wondering, “What do you mean surrender?” After all, most of us have been taught, “Never surrender!. Surrender, we’ve been told, means to accept defeat or to resign ourselves to some unbearable reality. Spiritually speaking, however, we might think of surrender more as making peace.
Surrender is a spiritual concept frequently associated with Islam. Indeed, the word Islam comes from an Arabic root meaning surrender and peace. Yet some idea or concept of surrender is common to nearly every major religion, though some emphasize it more than others. In theistic traditions, like Islam, Christianity and Judaism, the reality surrendered to is God. And in such faiths, practices are developed to keep adherents mindful of the presence or reality of God. I recently witnessed a beautiful example of such a practice in New York City. It was close to dusk. I was walking down a street between Madison and 5th Avenue and encountered a man, a food vendor, prostrating on a small prayer rug, pointed east. Among the five pillars of Islam, essentially practices of surrender to God, is the ritual of prayer five times a day.
Now, there was a time when I might have asked a man like this how he finds or makes time for such a practice in his life. A question which, if he’s anything like other Muslims I’ve talked to or known over the years, would probably surprise him. For surrender is not about FINDING or MAKING time at all, it is, as noted in our second reading, an “APPROACH” to life. An approach fundamentally different from what spiritual teachers call, “the way of the world.” Or what William Houff might call the way of the jet boater.
In addition to reminding us surrender is in fact an approach to life, not something we add onto an already over scheduled existence, Houff’s reading, with its analogy of jet boating and whitewater rafting to approaches to life, offers us another gift. He reminds us that surrender is not dependent on the existence or belief in a deity. A point Buddhism makes as well and one crucial for Unitarian Universalists who hold widely differing theological views, including who, what or if God is.
Indeed, surrender to reality, in the spiritual sense, is surrender to some larger Truth or Ultimate Reality. For some that’s a deity, for others it may be a set of teachings or principles which transcend our particular life, time and individual circumstances.
Still, it can be hard to shake the image of surrender as something only certain people with time on their hands choose to do in addition to or in lieu of “real” life. But here’s the thing, according to Dr. Ailreza Nurbakhsh, a Sufi teacher, “True surrender is not a self-conscious decision carried out as the result of a series of deliberations. It usually happens after years of frustration in finding the ‘right’ way to manage our lives, the right way to deal with others or to control our self-destructive behavior. Eventually, some seekers finally give up and surrender.”
We might say then, that surrender happens when we to stop trying to herd cats. That is, when we finally accept the futility of our resistance to reality. Or to use Houff’s imagery, when, tired of getting nowhere, we step off our jet boat with the dead motor and into we a big yellow inflatable rubber doughnut.
If this seems hard to hear, it is because these are fighting words to our ego. Surrender asks us to accept things the ego doesn’t want to hear, namely we’re not in control and we are not independent.
Intellectually, we know this and yet human beings behave and treat one another and our planet in ways that resist or deny altogether, our condition. Surrender then, is not about shoring up our intellectual argument or applying reason to convince others or ourselves of our condition as human beings. As the Sufi’s teach, surrender, by and large, comes about gradually through experiences that pull or nudge us toward a different path or mode of travel.
The experiences which seem to most powerfully pull or nudge us toward surrender are often experiences of disappointment, shock, horror, sadness, anger, failure. Experiences we don’t readily welcome and try hard to avoid. At such times, a lot of people double down with an ego response, arguing, clawing for reasons, blaming others or themselves. But a few, recognizing these as part of who we are, acknowledge it as such and move beyond the ego’s defenses. Picking up a shovel, they start clearing the big pile of you know what blocking their path. Its not always pleasant, but unlike herding cats, it can be done….and many a spiritual tradition insists, must be done, if we are to fully experience and embody what Meister Eckhart meant when he said, “If the only prayer you say your whole life, is “Thank you.” That will suffice.”
We see the connection between surrender and gratitude in “The Drum.”, a story that gives us a sense of what surrender looks and feels like as lived experience. Right away the story confronts us with the reality of limits. The mother can’t afford to buy her son the drum he so dearly wants, no matter how hard or long she works. All of us here have limitations, some can be overcome with effort, but some can’t no matter how hard or how long we try. Yet, our culture resists this notion, a denial of reality that can ignite self-loathing, resentment and a sense of failure.
The mother in the story, however, is aware of the reality of human limitations. She’s also aware that limitations are not the same as powerlessness. This awareness helps her accept and move past her particular limitations and toward possibilities. The story reminds us possibilities emerge and are more readily seen when our energy is not given to fighting reality. So even though the mother can’t give her son exactly what he wanted, she can give him something.
The stick she gives her son, though not the drum he wanted, is gratefully accepted. More than simply an alternative, and some might say, a lesser gift, it is received as an opportunity or invitation toward imagination by the boy. Something not as easily seen had the boy’s focus been given to how much the stick was not what he wanted.
As the story progresses we see the impact this shift in perspective has not only on the life of the boy, but others with whom he comes into contact with as well. Like the whitewater rafter in our other reading, the boy learns to navigate the river of life and is able to respond to people and situations he encounters in way that feels more in harmony rather than resistance to the ebb and flow of life. In the end the boy, drum in hand, has realized surrender as the pathway to what we long for most, a life for which, “Thank you”, says it all.
Of course, this is an idealized story. What about real life? Well, surrender is all about real life because it demands we let go of our illusions about ourselves, others and the world. Surrender helps us move from reactivity to responsiveness in whatever we encounter in life, moment by moment, day by day. It can be easy to dismiss or scoff at it because its hard…remember…like shoveling _____. Part of what makes surrender so difficult is that it’s not a one time deal. It takes practice.
Some years ago, a parishioner from another church who had often heard me preach and attended some workshops I had facilitated asked me how, in the face of all the troubles and, in particular, social justice issues in the world, I could remain, not only calm, but hopeful.
My first thought was, “Calm? Hopeful? Oh my God. You should hear the cacophonous ranting peppered with equal measure of justifiable and self- righteous indignation that goes on in my mind or that I subject my poor husband to listening to before everything settles.” But it does settle, eventually. And so I began talking about surrender, though I’m not sure that’s the word I used at the time. Not long into our conversation I sensed I was not being very articulate and so I paused and shared with her this story:
Whenever I’m distressed, whether about something in my own life, the human condition, or the state of the world, I go outside at night and look up at the sky. The vastness of the dark night sky that stretches beyond my field of vision reminds me of how small I am…that I am but a small speck in the great vastness of time and space. At the same time the stars I see, which seem to shimmer with greater intensity and increase in number the longer I gaze into the darkness, remind me of how great I am. That I’m part of a much larger whole that existed before me and will continue on after me. In that moment I am comforted knowing I am so much smaller and greater than I ordinarily am able or willing to admit, especially in the face of distressing events or circumstances.
She nodded seeming to indicate some familiarity with the sense of the experience, if not the precise practice that elicited it. In the end, her question and response to my story, reminds me now that few if anyone really does like herding cats. Some may be attracted initially to the challenge, but before long, resisting reality just gets tiresome.
When our approach to life, the people and events of this world is predicated on a need for control, the belief control is possible, and we can do it all on our own we’ve consigned ourselves to a long, exhausting assault that brings suffering to many and victory to none. For such a life, thank you is hardly the first word, let alone prayer, that comes to mind.
“Thank you” as the ultimate prayer Meister Eckhart speaks of becomes possible when we begin to surrender. Those moments we realize and accept our smallness and greatness. When we release our pretense of control and begin to discern our place among the other stars. When the emotional and physical energy we might otherwise spend on trying to exert control we do not have is given over to opportunities to be light in the world. And who knows, maybe my light, your light, our light, will be as stars in the night sky, offering another distressed heart and mind, some perspective and some comfort; a chance for sweet surrender. May it be so.
Happy Thanksgiving
Amen and Blessed Be
Sermon given at Brookfield Unitarian Universalist Church
November 20, 2016
By The Rev. Craig M. Nowak
Every now and then someone will ask, “Where do you come up with your sermon titles?” Given today’s sermon title, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised when someone asks. The answer is quite simple, really. I choose titles rooted in feelings, experiences or reflection related to the sermon theme or topic.
Today’s sermon title is rooted in experience. Which does not mean I was literally a cat herder in a previous career, but rather I, like most, if not all of you here today, have experienced life, despite my best efforts, striving and trick to to hold it all together, as a hectic, maddening, unpredictable, exhausting, and sometimes futile endeavor. A battle of sorts for some sense of security and peace. And often a loosing one. Few people live any length of time without experiencing some point or time in life this way. And, indeed more people than not experience life this way most of the time.
The theme of today’s sermon and to which the sermon title is related, is surrender. More, specifically, the sweet surrender to reality.
Looking out I can already see some of you wondering, “What do you mean surrender?” After all, most of us have been taught, “Never surrender!. Surrender, we’ve been told, means to accept defeat or to resign ourselves to some unbearable reality. Spiritually speaking, however, we might think of surrender more as making peace.
Surrender is a spiritual concept frequently associated with Islam. Indeed, the word Islam comes from an Arabic root meaning surrender and peace. Yet some idea or concept of surrender is common to nearly every major religion, though some emphasize it more than others. In theistic traditions, like Islam, Christianity and Judaism, the reality surrendered to is God. And in such faiths, practices are developed to keep adherents mindful of the presence or reality of God. I recently witnessed a beautiful example of such a practice in New York City. It was close to dusk. I was walking down a street between Madison and 5th Avenue and encountered a man, a food vendor, prostrating on a small prayer rug, pointed east. Among the five pillars of Islam, essentially practices of surrender to God, is the ritual of prayer five times a day.
Now, there was a time when I might have asked a man like this how he finds or makes time for such a practice in his life. A question which, if he’s anything like other Muslims I’ve talked to or known over the years, would probably surprise him. For surrender is not about FINDING or MAKING time at all, it is, as noted in our second reading, an “APPROACH” to life. An approach fundamentally different from what spiritual teachers call, “the way of the world.” Or what William Houff might call the way of the jet boater.
In addition to reminding us surrender is in fact an approach to life, not something we add onto an already over scheduled existence, Houff’s reading, with its analogy of jet boating and whitewater rafting to approaches to life, offers us another gift. He reminds us that surrender is not dependent on the existence or belief in a deity. A point Buddhism makes as well and one crucial for Unitarian Universalists who hold widely differing theological views, including who, what or if God is.
Indeed, surrender to reality, in the spiritual sense, is surrender to some larger Truth or Ultimate Reality. For some that’s a deity, for others it may be a set of teachings or principles which transcend our particular life, time and individual circumstances.
Still, it can be hard to shake the image of surrender as something only certain people with time on their hands choose to do in addition to or in lieu of “real” life. But here’s the thing, according to Dr. Ailreza Nurbakhsh, a Sufi teacher, “True surrender is not a self-conscious decision carried out as the result of a series of deliberations. It usually happens after years of frustration in finding the ‘right’ way to manage our lives, the right way to deal with others or to control our self-destructive behavior. Eventually, some seekers finally give up and surrender.”
We might say then, that surrender happens when we to stop trying to herd cats. That is, when we finally accept the futility of our resistance to reality. Or to use Houff’s imagery, when, tired of getting nowhere, we step off our jet boat with the dead motor and into we a big yellow inflatable rubber doughnut.
If this seems hard to hear, it is because these are fighting words to our ego. Surrender asks us to accept things the ego doesn’t want to hear, namely we’re not in control and we are not independent.
Intellectually, we know this and yet human beings behave and treat one another and our planet in ways that resist or deny altogether, our condition. Surrender then, is not about shoring up our intellectual argument or applying reason to convince others or ourselves of our condition as human beings. As the Sufi’s teach, surrender, by and large, comes about gradually through experiences that pull or nudge us toward a different path or mode of travel.
The experiences which seem to most powerfully pull or nudge us toward surrender are often experiences of disappointment, shock, horror, sadness, anger, failure. Experiences we don’t readily welcome and try hard to avoid. At such times, a lot of people double down with an ego response, arguing, clawing for reasons, blaming others or themselves. But a few, recognizing these as part of who we are, acknowledge it as such and move beyond the ego’s defenses. Picking up a shovel, they start clearing the big pile of you know what blocking their path. Its not always pleasant, but unlike herding cats, it can be done….and many a spiritual tradition insists, must be done, if we are to fully experience and embody what Meister Eckhart meant when he said, “If the only prayer you say your whole life, is “Thank you.” That will suffice.”
We see the connection between surrender and gratitude in “The Drum.”, a story that gives us a sense of what surrender looks and feels like as lived experience. Right away the story confronts us with the reality of limits. The mother can’t afford to buy her son the drum he so dearly wants, no matter how hard or long she works. All of us here have limitations, some can be overcome with effort, but some can’t no matter how hard or how long we try. Yet, our culture resists this notion, a denial of reality that can ignite self-loathing, resentment and a sense of failure.
The mother in the story, however, is aware of the reality of human limitations. She’s also aware that limitations are not the same as powerlessness. This awareness helps her accept and move past her particular limitations and toward possibilities. The story reminds us possibilities emerge and are more readily seen when our energy is not given to fighting reality. So even though the mother can’t give her son exactly what he wanted, she can give him something.
The stick she gives her son, though not the drum he wanted, is gratefully accepted. More than simply an alternative, and some might say, a lesser gift, it is received as an opportunity or invitation toward imagination by the boy. Something not as easily seen had the boy’s focus been given to how much the stick was not what he wanted.
As the story progresses we see the impact this shift in perspective has not only on the life of the boy, but others with whom he comes into contact with as well. Like the whitewater rafter in our other reading, the boy learns to navigate the river of life and is able to respond to people and situations he encounters in way that feels more in harmony rather than resistance to the ebb and flow of life. In the end the boy, drum in hand, has realized surrender as the pathway to what we long for most, a life for which, “Thank you”, says it all.
Of course, this is an idealized story. What about real life? Well, surrender is all about real life because it demands we let go of our illusions about ourselves, others and the world. Surrender helps us move from reactivity to responsiveness in whatever we encounter in life, moment by moment, day by day. It can be easy to dismiss or scoff at it because its hard…remember…like shoveling _____. Part of what makes surrender so difficult is that it’s not a one time deal. It takes practice.
Some years ago, a parishioner from another church who had often heard me preach and attended some workshops I had facilitated asked me how, in the face of all the troubles and, in particular, social justice issues in the world, I could remain, not only calm, but hopeful.
My first thought was, “Calm? Hopeful? Oh my God. You should hear the cacophonous ranting peppered with equal measure of justifiable and self- righteous indignation that goes on in my mind or that I subject my poor husband to listening to before everything settles.” But it does settle, eventually. And so I began talking about surrender, though I’m not sure that’s the word I used at the time. Not long into our conversation I sensed I was not being very articulate and so I paused and shared with her this story:
Whenever I’m distressed, whether about something in my own life, the human condition, or the state of the world, I go outside at night and look up at the sky. The vastness of the dark night sky that stretches beyond my field of vision reminds me of how small I am…that I am but a small speck in the great vastness of time and space. At the same time the stars I see, which seem to shimmer with greater intensity and increase in number the longer I gaze into the darkness, remind me of how great I am. That I’m part of a much larger whole that existed before me and will continue on after me. In that moment I am comforted knowing I am so much smaller and greater than I ordinarily am able or willing to admit, especially in the face of distressing events or circumstances.
She nodded seeming to indicate some familiarity with the sense of the experience, if not the precise practice that elicited it. In the end, her question and response to my story, reminds me now that few if anyone really does like herding cats. Some may be attracted initially to the challenge, but before long, resisting reality just gets tiresome.
When our approach to life, the people and events of this world is predicated on a need for control, the belief control is possible, and we can do it all on our own we’ve consigned ourselves to a long, exhausting assault that brings suffering to many and victory to none. For such a life, thank you is hardly the first word, let alone prayer, that comes to mind.
“Thank you” as the ultimate prayer Meister Eckhart speaks of becomes possible when we begin to surrender. Those moments we realize and accept our smallness and greatness. When we release our pretense of control and begin to discern our place among the other stars. When the emotional and physical energy we might otherwise spend on trying to exert control we do not have is given over to opportunities to be light in the world. And who knows, maybe my light, your light, our light, will be as stars in the night sky, offering another distressed heart and mind, some perspective and some comfort; a chance for sweet surrender. May it be so.
Happy Thanksgiving
Amen and Blessed Be
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