Shoes That Fit
Sermon given at the Brookfield Unitarian Universalist Church
December 2, 2018
by The Rev. Craig M. Nowak
A couple of weeks ago, a gentleman who is a member of my other congregation in Connecticut, approached me as I passing between the fellowship hall and kitchen. From the look on his face and knowing something of what he’s been dealing with of late, I was sure this going to be a pastoral moment. I stopped to listen to him, his lips parted and the question came… “Where did you get those shoes?”
It was not the kind of question I was expecting.
He went on to explain that he’s been looking for a pair of comfortable shoes that he doesn’t have to tie. I get it. In my experience, when your shoes don’t fit, life doesn’t quite feel right.
Indeed, sometimes it’s quite painful.
I recall now something I did in high school. It was early in the first quarter of my freshman year. I was thirteen years old and a couple of friends and I decided to walk home. But here’s the thing, I didn’t live near the school.
Still, the two hour trek it would take to walk home that day might have been okay except I attended a parochial school. And that meant we were all wearing dress pants and shirts, a tie, jacket…and yes, dress shoes. And for me, not just any dress shoes, but brand new, dress shoes, not yet “broken in”. Let’s just say a two hour walk in brand new shoes…big mistake! About a quarter of the way into the walk I began to feel a slight burning sensation in my feet. By the time I was home, they felt like they were on fire. It was of course, due to blisters….lots of them. The telltale sign of ill fitting shoes. The moral of the story…don’t take long walks in shoes that don’t fit.
And yet that’s precisely what the Swiss psychologist Carl Jung said human beings routinely do. We, “walk in shoes that are too small for us.” That is, we go through our life constrained by what the spiritual teacher Henri Nouwen, in our first reading this morning calls, “the ways of the old country.” Ways, in Nouwen’s words, that have become “precious to you (us)” but are in fact illusions of security cloaked in the guise of the familiar, the routine, the popular, the way things have always been done.
And even as blisters form, even though they hurt, even though we keenly feel the disconnect between ourselves and our lives, we continue on, quietly, perhaps stubbornly attached to the old country. Not because we’re flawed or lazy or stupid, but because deep down we’re scared.
Yes, the blisters hurt, but they’re our blisters. It is hard to imagine shoes that fit, hard to imagine life different from what we know so well.
It is in the midst of this often subtly numbing journey that the genius of the current season is revealed. Shorter days and longer nights draw us inward…inviting us to face what we fear, discern what we need and confess that what we long for cannot be found in the old country, as it were.…the place…the ways… we’ve inhabited for so long but is not really our home.
And here, within, the genius of the season it met by the wisdom of the observances and celebrations of the season…Advent, Christmas, Hanukah or Solstice and their focus on light. Light we prepare for, welcome, give thanks for and remember as steadfast.
The light of the season, in collaboration with the dark, draws out outward, encouraging us…”fear not” as the angels urge, nudging us to trust that we, “will find what we need” and inspiring us to try on shoes that fit, to go where we are called to go…to enter the new country, “where our Beloved dwells.” A place of genuine peace and goodwill toward all. Our true home.
Now, depending on your level of cynicism this morning, what I’ve just said might resonate with you in deeply moving and perhaps unexpected ways. Or, it might sound like the basic story line of every Hallmark holiday movie you’ve ever seen or heard about. Either way, the question often emerges, “How does this work in so-called real life?”
It’s a fair question. As Henri Nouwen observes, “It seems you keep crossing and recrossing the border. For a while you experience real joy in the new country. But then you feel afraid and start longing again for all you left behind, so you go back to the old country. To your dismay, you discover the old country has lost its charm.” In other words, it’s hard. It’s hard because what we are really talking about here is hope. And hope is not a “one and done” deal.
Hope is also not what the spiritual teacher Don Bisson calls, “ego optimism.” That is, a passive belief that everything will just work out the way we want. Or conversely, the belief that if we fight or try hard enough, the outcome we desire will become a reality. Taking these forms hope is easily lost or exhausted… as votes are tallied, the rain fails to stop and the fire still rages on. When another shooting claims innocent lives. When the rejection letter arrives, that job offer never comes, or another treatment fails. Hard reminders that sustainable hope is not and cannot be delusional or heroic. No. Hope is and must be much closer to the ground than that. As I see it, hope is the capacity to inhabit our vulnerability and journey toward where we are called to go. As Nouwen observes, “The only way to go there is naked and vulnerable.”
At first this seems counterintuitive. But as the poet and philosopher David Whyte notes, “To run from vulnerability is to run from the essence of our nature…and… refuse the help needed at every turn of our existence.” Whyte reminds us, “Vulnerability is not a choice.” Rather the choice is how we will inhabit our vulnerability.
Hope is birthed as we come to recognize our vulnerability in the words of David Whyte, as, “the underlying, ever present, and abiding under-current of our natural state.” And indeed the natural state of all life. A reality reflected in the Christian faith through the Christmas story where hope arrives as a helpless child.
Realizing and accepting vulnerability as our natural state we’re freed from the exhausting, futile task of defiantly setting ourselves apart from existence that we might bravely and completely join in wearing shoes that fit.
Inhabiting our vulnerability “robustly and fully” as Whyte’s says, is our pathway to experiencing our kinship with each other, with all of life.
A pathway to a larger more understanding, more compassionate, more courageous self and life as individuals and a nation.
As individuals imagine how different our approach to aging and all that comes with it might be if we inhabited our vulnerability fully? How much more compassionate might our response might be to people look or love differently from us, whose life and experience is unlike our own? How much more courageous might we be in how we live our faith and values wearing shoes that fit?
As a nation imagine how different our approach to climate change might be if we inhabited our vulnerability robustly? How much more compassionate might our response to migrants seeking a better life be? How much more courageous might we be in the exercise of our founding values domestically and internationally in shoes that fit?
Hope is lost when we resist our vulnerability. Or as Whyte puts it, When we, “attempt to become something we are not.” And though it might look like strength through defiance, it is as Whyte says, “Perhaps the prime and most beautifully constructed conceit of being human and especially youthfully human.” A conceit, he warns, must eventually “be surrendered with that same youth, with ill health, with accident, with the loss of loved ones.” Holding ourselves to be the exception we stay in shoes that are too small for us and remain outside of existence.
As a faith which emphasizes full engagement with this life, here and now, regardless of our individual conceptions of theologies concerning any afterlife, fostering hope as our capacity to inhabit our vulnerability and journey toward where we are called to go is a central task of Unitarian Universalism. Indeed, the late Unitarian Universalist minister James Luther Adams called religious community, “The place where you get to practice what it means to be human.”
Given vulnerability is the natural state of all life, what makes us human, at least in part, is that we can choose how we inhabit that vulnerability. We can choose, as David Whyte says, “to inhabit vulnerability as generous citizens of loss, robustly and fully, or conversely, as misers and complainers, reluctant and fearful….”
And so it is we gather here as a faith community. A Unitarian Universalist community. To create space for our bodies and in our hearts and minds. To build a welcoming, not merely tolerant, community. And to journey together in worship, song, service, spiritual exploration and social engagement to reflect, discern and inhabit our vulnerability that we as we arrive at the gates of existence throughout our lives, we might risk ourselves, and enter…staying longer each time in the new country.
And at this time of year, we gather to recall the genius of the season and engage the wisdom of the celebrations and observances of the season, revealed through the juxtaposition of light and dark, song and silence, giving and receiving. In so doing we, as individuals and a community are again invited inward and drawn outward to meet, and ultimately embrace our vulnerability that we might live with hope the whole year through, in good times and bad, wearing shoes that fit.
May it be so.
Amen and Blessed Be
Sermon given at the Brookfield Unitarian Universalist Church
December 2, 2018
by The Rev. Craig M. Nowak
A couple of weeks ago, a gentleman who is a member of my other congregation in Connecticut, approached me as I passing between the fellowship hall and kitchen. From the look on his face and knowing something of what he’s been dealing with of late, I was sure this going to be a pastoral moment. I stopped to listen to him, his lips parted and the question came… “Where did you get those shoes?”
It was not the kind of question I was expecting.
He went on to explain that he’s been looking for a pair of comfortable shoes that he doesn’t have to tie. I get it. In my experience, when your shoes don’t fit, life doesn’t quite feel right.
Indeed, sometimes it’s quite painful.
I recall now something I did in high school. It was early in the first quarter of my freshman year. I was thirteen years old and a couple of friends and I decided to walk home. But here’s the thing, I didn’t live near the school.
Still, the two hour trek it would take to walk home that day might have been okay except I attended a parochial school. And that meant we were all wearing dress pants and shirts, a tie, jacket…and yes, dress shoes. And for me, not just any dress shoes, but brand new, dress shoes, not yet “broken in”. Let’s just say a two hour walk in brand new shoes…big mistake! About a quarter of the way into the walk I began to feel a slight burning sensation in my feet. By the time I was home, they felt like they were on fire. It was of course, due to blisters….lots of them. The telltale sign of ill fitting shoes. The moral of the story…don’t take long walks in shoes that don’t fit.
And yet that’s precisely what the Swiss psychologist Carl Jung said human beings routinely do. We, “walk in shoes that are too small for us.” That is, we go through our life constrained by what the spiritual teacher Henri Nouwen, in our first reading this morning calls, “the ways of the old country.” Ways, in Nouwen’s words, that have become “precious to you (us)” but are in fact illusions of security cloaked in the guise of the familiar, the routine, the popular, the way things have always been done.
And even as blisters form, even though they hurt, even though we keenly feel the disconnect between ourselves and our lives, we continue on, quietly, perhaps stubbornly attached to the old country. Not because we’re flawed or lazy or stupid, but because deep down we’re scared.
Yes, the blisters hurt, but they’re our blisters. It is hard to imagine shoes that fit, hard to imagine life different from what we know so well.
It is in the midst of this often subtly numbing journey that the genius of the current season is revealed. Shorter days and longer nights draw us inward…inviting us to face what we fear, discern what we need and confess that what we long for cannot be found in the old country, as it were.…the place…the ways… we’ve inhabited for so long but is not really our home.
And here, within, the genius of the season it met by the wisdom of the observances and celebrations of the season…Advent, Christmas, Hanukah or Solstice and their focus on light. Light we prepare for, welcome, give thanks for and remember as steadfast.
The light of the season, in collaboration with the dark, draws out outward, encouraging us…”fear not” as the angels urge, nudging us to trust that we, “will find what we need” and inspiring us to try on shoes that fit, to go where we are called to go…to enter the new country, “where our Beloved dwells.” A place of genuine peace and goodwill toward all. Our true home.
Now, depending on your level of cynicism this morning, what I’ve just said might resonate with you in deeply moving and perhaps unexpected ways. Or, it might sound like the basic story line of every Hallmark holiday movie you’ve ever seen or heard about. Either way, the question often emerges, “How does this work in so-called real life?”
It’s a fair question. As Henri Nouwen observes, “It seems you keep crossing and recrossing the border. For a while you experience real joy in the new country. But then you feel afraid and start longing again for all you left behind, so you go back to the old country. To your dismay, you discover the old country has lost its charm.” In other words, it’s hard. It’s hard because what we are really talking about here is hope. And hope is not a “one and done” deal.
Hope is also not what the spiritual teacher Don Bisson calls, “ego optimism.” That is, a passive belief that everything will just work out the way we want. Or conversely, the belief that if we fight or try hard enough, the outcome we desire will become a reality. Taking these forms hope is easily lost or exhausted… as votes are tallied, the rain fails to stop and the fire still rages on. When another shooting claims innocent lives. When the rejection letter arrives, that job offer never comes, or another treatment fails. Hard reminders that sustainable hope is not and cannot be delusional or heroic. No. Hope is and must be much closer to the ground than that. As I see it, hope is the capacity to inhabit our vulnerability and journey toward where we are called to go. As Nouwen observes, “The only way to go there is naked and vulnerable.”
At first this seems counterintuitive. But as the poet and philosopher David Whyte notes, “To run from vulnerability is to run from the essence of our nature…and… refuse the help needed at every turn of our existence.” Whyte reminds us, “Vulnerability is not a choice.” Rather the choice is how we will inhabit our vulnerability.
Hope is birthed as we come to recognize our vulnerability in the words of David Whyte, as, “the underlying, ever present, and abiding under-current of our natural state.” And indeed the natural state of all life. A reality reflected in the Christian faith through the Christmas story where hope arrives as a helpless child.
Realizing and accepting vulnerability as our natural state we’re freed from the exhausting, futile task of defiantly setting ourselves apart from existence that we might bravely and completely join in wearing shoes that fit.
Inhabiting our vulnerability “robustly and fully” as Whyte’s says, is our pathway to experiencing our kinship with each other, with all of life.
A pathway to a larger more understanding, more compassionate, more courageous self and life as individuals and a nation.
As individuals imagine how different our approach to aging and all that comes with it might be if we inhabited our vulnerability fully? How much more compassionate might our response might be to people look or love differently from us, whose life and experience is unlike our own? How much more courageous might we be in how we live our faith and values wearing shoes that fit?
As a nation imagine how different our approach to climate change might be if we inhabited our vulnerability robustly? How much more compassionate might our response to migrants seeking a better life be? How much more courageous might we be in the exercise of our founding values domestically and internationally in shoes that fit?
Hope is lost when we resist our vulnerability. Or as Whyte puts it, When we, “attempt to become something we are not.” And though it might look like strength through defiance, it is as Whyte says, “Perhaps the prime and most beautifully constructed conceit of being human and especially youthfully human.” A conceit, he warns, must eventually “be surrendered with that same youth, with ill health, with accident, with the loss of loved ones.” Holding ourselves to be the exception we stay in shoes that are too small for us and remain outside of existence.
As a faith which emphasizes full engagement with this life, here and now, regardless of our individual conceptions of theologies concerning any afterlife, fostering hope as our capacity to inhabit our vulnerability and journey toward where we are called to go is a central task of Unitarian Universalism. Indeed, the late Unitarian Universalist minister James Luther Adams called religious community, “The place where you get to practice what it means to be human.”
Given vulnerability is the natural state of all life, what makes us human, at least in part, is that we can choose how we inhabit that vulnerability. We can choose, as David Whyte says, “to inhabit vulnerability as generous citizens of loss, robustly and fully, or conversely, as misers and complainers, reluctant and fearful….”
And so it is we gather here as a faith community. A Unitarian Universalist community. To create space for our bodies and in our hearts and minds. To build a welcoming, not merely tolerant, community. And to journey together in worship, song, service, spiritual exploration and social engagement to reflect, discern and inhabit our vulnerability that we as we arrive at the gates of existence throughout our lives, we might risk ourselves, and enter…staying longer each time in the new country.
And at this time of year, we gather to recall the genius of the season and engage the wisdom of the celebrations and observances of the season, revealed through the juxtaposition of light and dark, song and silence, giving and receiving. In so doing we, as individuals and a community are again invited inward and drawn outward to meet, and ultimately embrace our vulnerability that we might live with hope the whole year through, in good times and bad, wearing shoes that fit.
May it be so.
Amen and Blessed Be
Proudly powered by Weebly