Go Out Into The World…
Reflection given at the Brookfield Unitarian Universalist Church
June 19, 2016
The Reverend Craig M. Nowak
Dedication: For the 49 people killed and those injured in the deadliest mass shooting in
United States history at Pulse in Orlando, FL June 12, 2016.
Why?
Like many of you, I too have asked what has perhaps been the most asked question these last seven days in the wake of the massacre at The Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida.
Why?
A question that will surely be asked for weeks, months, even years to come.
Why?
A question without an answer, at least not one that will ever truly satisfy.
Why?
Why even ask why? But we do. We must. We want to understand. Our rational mind insists on a rational explanation. Our broken hearts ache for an answer to bear the intensity of our grief. Why is a cry of theological and existential despair. It is the question we ask repeatedly in the face of life’s uncertainty…in the face of our mortality…and, as we have been reminded this week following the horror in Orlando, in the face of human tragedy, particularly acts of hatred and violence.
The pain, anger, confusion, frustration and sadness we feel wants a simple or simplistic answer. So we ask why hoping that maybe this time uncertainty isn’t a fact of life and the complexity of our humanity is less, not greater, than we generally assume.
We will never stop asking why in the face of life’s uncertainty, our mortality or human tragedy. It is a necessary question. For we cannot, nor should we, deny how we feel. But why is not the only question, nor even the most important.
Equally, if not more essential is the question, How shall we respond?
In the wake of the shooting in Orlando, we have seen a variety of responses from religious leaders, politicians and scores of ordinary citizens which have ranged from the vile and opportunistic to the compassionate and selfless. And in this we are reminded that despite all that we cannot control in life, we do have a choice in how we respond.
I had selected the excerpt from Wordsworth’s poem as our reading for today several weeks ago. At the time, I planned to approach today’s message through a different lens. Orlando changed that. Following the news of the shooting I considered changing the reading. Yet, as I sat with it, reading it, reflecting on it and reading it again several times, I realized it was still the right reading for today.
In the poem, Wordsworth reflects upon the impact the experience and memory of beauty has had on his life. Revisiting a wondrous landscape, he recalls that in difficult times, he owes to its “beauteous forms” what he calls, “sensations sweet, felt in the blood, and felt along the heart and passing even into my purer mind.” Wordsworth reminds us of the saving power of beauty. And while he, at first, speaks of the beauty of a particular landscape, he doesn’t limit the experience of beauty, nor its salvific power, to the natural world.
Indeed, he further recalls, “feelings too of unremembered pleasure; such perhaps, as have no slight or trivial influence on that best portion of a man’s life, his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love.” Through the experience and memory of these, Wordsworth finds himself in a…“blessed mood in which the burthen of the mystery, in which the heavy and weary weight of all this unintelligible world, is lightened.
Wordsworth’s testimony is compelling. And indeed points to a way forward, toward a new day. In the wake of the hideous ugliness of violence that is thrust upon the world, we are called to respond with beauty. We are called to respond by living and lifting up lives of awe inspiring, life-changing, majestic beauty. Beauty born of our everyday choices…
The choice to love rather than hate one another.
The choice to include rather than exclude one another.
The choice to affirm rather than judge one another.
The choice to be generous rather than greedy with one another.
The choice to live from an attitude of abundance rather than scarcity.
The choice to commit to justice over convenience and action over resignation.
The choice to live hope into being rather than retreat into the grave of apathy.
To respond to ugliness with beauty. That is what we strive to do here in this community of faith. It is what we have strived to do for generations. It is why in our own “hours of weariness…amid the din of towns and cities", in the face of an indifferent world, when we’ve come here, remembered this place or its people, we too have experienced, as Wordsworth writes, “sensations sweet…and…a blessed mood” which permeates our memory and our lives to bring solace to our hearts and mind.
And while we certainly come here and return to this place to be challenged and to grow too, we continue to come because it sustains us in ways we perhaps can’t always articulate…but which, when we gather, live and act in community, lightens the heavy and weary weight of this “unintelligible world.”
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke of creating the Beloved Community. I say to you this morning, the Beloved Community is birthed in beautiful community. Of a people gathered who respond to life’s ugliness with beauty. People who commit and strive to embody beautiful lives. Look around you! You are beautiful! We are beautiful! What we do here is beautiful!
When hearts are broken and the world is awash in tears, we must never think that beauty doesn’t matter. On the radio the other day I heard a man who survived the attack in Orlando describe being rescued by a first responder. It was a heart-wrenching story. Yet, upon the ugliness of the tragedy, was shone the light of beauty. Light that did not erase or obscure what had happened, but insisted ugliness would not have the last word. After sharing details of his rescue, the survivor ended by saying to the first responders, “I love you guys forever.” Beauty endures.
And beauty shared multiplies. We do not gather here for ourselves alone, but also, as our mission states, “for the larger world.” Thus we are called not only to choose beauty for and among ourselves, but to carry it beyond these walls, to go out into the world…to share it that it might take root and multiply.
The media is filled with stories of thousands of people choosing beauty in response to an unspeakable ugliness. Giving blood, attending vigils, challenging and petitioning lawmakers, offering prayers, making donations, engaging in acts of kindness great and small. As the days, weeks and months pass the coverage of these stories will taper off but their impact will live on and in time, we, though unable to answer why, may nonetheless, “with an eye made quiet by the power of harmony, and the deep power of joy, see into the life of things.”
Therefore, may we who gather here always choose beauty…and today, this summer and everyday let us go out in to the world to live it….share it…and multiply it.
Amen and Blessed Be
Reflection given at the Brookfield Unitarian Universalist Church
June 19, 2016
The Reverend Craig M. Nowak
Dedication: For the 49 people killed and those injured in the deadliest mass shooting in
United States history at Pulse in Orlando, FL June 12, 2016.
Why?
Like many of you, I too have asked what has perhaps been the most asked question these last seven days in the wake of the massacre at The Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida.
Why?
A question that will surely be asked for weeks, months, even years to come.
Why?
A question without an answer, at least not one that will ever truly satisfy.
Why?
Why even ask why? But we do. We must. We want to understand. Our rational mind insists on a rational explanation. Our broken hearts ache for an answer to bear the intensity of our grief. Why is a cry of theological and existential despair. It is the question we ask repeatedly in the face of life’s uncertainty…in the face of our mortality…and, as we have been reminded this week following the horror in Orlando, in the face of human tragedy, particularly acts of hatred and violence.
The pain, anger, confusion, frustration and sadness we feel wants a simple or simplistic answer. So we ask why hoping that maybe this time uncertainty isn’t a fact of life and the complexity of our humanity is less, not greater, than we generally assume.
We will never stop asking why in the face of life’s uncertainty, our mortality or human tragedy. It is a necessary question. For we cannot, nor should we, deny how we feel. But why is not the only question, nor even the most important.
Equally, if not more essential is the question, How shall we respond?
In the wake of the shooting in Orlando, we have seen a variety of responses from religious leaders, politicians and scores of ordinary citizens which have ranged from the vile and opportunistic to the compassionate and selfless. And in this we are reminded that despite all that we cannot control in life, we do have a choice in how we respond.
I had selected the excerpt from Wordsworth’s poem as our reading for today several weeks ago. At the time, I planned to approach today’s message through a different lens. Orlando changed that. Following the news of the shooting I considered changing the reading. Yet, as I sat with it, reading it, reflecting on it and reading it again several times, I realized it was still the right reading for today.
In the poem, Wordsworth reflects upon the impact the experience and memory of beauty has had on his life. Revisiting a wondrous landscape, he recalls that in difficult times, he owes to its “beauteous forms” what he calls, “sensations sweet, felt in the blood, and felt along the heart and passing even into my purer mind.” Wordsworth reminds us of the saving power of beauty. And while he, at first, speaks of the beauty of a particular landscape, he doesn’t limit the experience of beauty, nor its salvific power, to the natural world.
Indeed, he further recalls, “feelings too of unremembered pleasure; such perhaps, as have no slight or trivial influence on that best portion of a man’s life, his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love.” Through the experience and memory of these, Wordsworth finds himself in a…“blessed mood in which the burthen of the mystery, in which the heavy and weary weight of all this unintelligible world, is lightened.
Wordsworth’s testimony is compelling. And indeed points to a way forward, toward a new day. In the wake of the hideous ugliness of violence that is thrust upon the world, we are called to respond with beauty. We are called to respond by living and lifting up lives of awe inspiring, life-changing, majestic beauty. Beauty born of our everyday choices…
The choice to love rather than hate one another.
The choice to include rather than exclude one another.
The choice to affirm rather than judge one another.
The choice to be generous rather than greedy with one another.
The choice to live from an attitude of abundance rather than scarcity.
The choice to commit to justice over convenience and action over resignation.
The choice to live hope into being rather than retreat into the grave of apathy.
To respond to ugliness with beauty. That is what we strive to do here in this community of faith. It is what we have strived to do for generations. It is why in our own “hours of weariness…amid the din of towns and cities", in the face of an indifferent world, when we’ve come here, remembered this place or its people, we too have experienced, as Wordsworth writes, “sensations sweet…and…a blessed mood” which permeates our memory and our lives to bring solace to our hearts and mind.
And while we certainly come here and return to this place to be challenged and to grow too, we continue to come because it sustains us in ways we perhaps can’t always articulate…but which, when we gather, live and act in community, lightens the heavy and weary weight of this “unintelligible world.”
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke of creating the Beloved Community. I say to you this morning, the Beloved Community is birthed in beautiful community. Of a people gathered who respond to life’s ugliness with beauty. People who commit and strive to embody beautiful lives. Look around you! You are beautiful! We are beautiful! What we do here is beautiful!
When hearts are broken and the world is awash in tears, we must never think that beauty doesn’t matter. On the radio the other day I heard a man who survived the attack in Orlando describe being rescued by a first responder. It was a heart-wrenching story. Yet, upon the ugliness of the tragedy, was shone the light of beauty. Light that did not erase or obscure what had happened, but insisted ugliness would not have the last word. After sharing details of his rescue, the survivor ended by saying to the first responders, “I love you guys forever.” Beauty endures.
And beauty shared multiplies. We do not gather here for ourselves alone, but also, as our mission states, “for the larger world.” Thus we are called not only to choose beauty for and among ourselves, but to carry it beyond these walls, to go out into the world…to share it that it might take root and multiply.
The media is filled with stories of thousands of people choosing beauty in response to an unspeakable ugliness. Giving blood, attending vigils, challenging and petitioning lawmakers, offering prayers, making donations, engaging in acts of kindness great and small. As the days, weeks and months pass the coverage of these stories will taper off but their impact will live on and in time, we, though unable to answer why, may nonetheless, “with an eye made quiet by the power of harmony, and the deep power of joy, see into the life of things.”
Therefore, may we who gather here always choose beauty…and today, this summer and everyday let us go out in to the world to live it….share it…and multiply it.
Amen and Blessed Be
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