“This Wild and Precious Life, Revisited”
Brookfield Unitarian Universalist Church
June 6, 2021
The Rev. Craig M. Nowak
“What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
Nearly eight years to the day have passed since I echoed Mary Oliver’s question as
the opening line of a sermon. It was June 9, 2013, the second Sunday of my
candidating week after which you voted to call me as your minister.
Then, as now, I find Mary Oliver’s question especially fitting in this season of
graduations. I can hear her words being lifted up in one way or another in
commencement addresses all over the country, whether being held in person or,
due to Covid, over platforms like Zoom. Words part advice and, perhaps more
than ever in the receding shadow of Covid, part warning. And not just to the
young women and men graduating from high school or college into life’s
uncharted waters, but to all of us who have seen our purpose, meaning, and
values profoundly tested this last year and a half.
I don’t recall the precise words of any of the commencement speeches I’ve heard
from college or grad school, let alone high school, but I’m certain some version of
Mary Oliver’s question was put to the graduating classes of which I’ve been a
part. And I’m sure that my response then to such a question, knowing something
of how I likely heard it then, was full of thoughts and ideas, dreams even, of
accomplishments or destinations…another degree…a job making “good”
money…a relationship… a house in the suburbs…standard American dream kinda
stuff.
Eight years ago I shared that having lived a few decades beyond high school and
college graduation, I had come to realize that my initial understanding and
response to questions like that Mary Oliver puts to us in her poem “The Summer
Day”, was greatly limited. And that to confine it to a list of accomplishments or
hoped for destinations would have missed the question’s point entirely…For
Oliver’s is a question less concerned with a destination than it is about the
journey…a journey common to us all as living beings…and it is this journey, the
journey of a lifetime and its meaning, that Oliver’s words invite us to ponder and
explore. The pandemic and a recent trip to the mid-west have re-affirmed both
the necessity and wisdom of her prompting for me.
A little more than a week ago I was in Rockford, IL where I visited the Laurent
House. The Laurent House was designed by the famous American architect
Frank Lloyd Wright, who, incidentally, was a Unitarian. In fact, Wright was the
nephew of the Unitarian minister Jenkin Lloyd Jones who founded All Souls
Unitarian Church in Chicago, Illinois, as well as its community outreach
organization, the Abraham Lincoln Centre.
Of life, Rev. Jones once said, “Anyone who imagines that bliss is normal is going
to waste a lot of time running around shouting that he has been robbed. The fact
is that most putts don’t drop, most beef is tough, most children grow up to be just
like people, most successful marriages require a high degree of mutual toleration,
and most jobs are more often dull than otherwise. Life is just like an old time rail
journey ... delays, sidetracks, smoke, dust, cinders, and jolts, interspersed only
occasionally by beautiful vistas and thrilling bursts of speed. The trick is to thank
the Lord for letting you have the ride.”
That “trick”, as Jenkin Lloyd Jones called it, was surely something Kenneth
Laurent was well acquainted with when, in 1948, he and his wife Phyllis
commissioned Jones’ nephew, the architect Frank Lloyd Wright, to design a
home for them. Such an event might not be especially notable except that just two
years earlier surgery for a spinal cord tumor left Ken Laurent, then in his late
20’s, with paraplegia, the loss of movement in the lower extremities and torso.
Laurent would require the use of a wheel chair for the remainder of his life.
Now, I don’t know how or even if Wright’s Unitarianism influenced his work as
an architect or his interaction with the Laurents. Indeed, Wright, being human,
was as famously flawed as he was gifted, broad knowledge of which is a price
more frequently paid by those occupying the pantheon of public genius and fame.
Nonetheless, the home Wright designed for Ken and Phyllis Laurent and
completed in the early 1950’s was decades ahead of the American Disabilities Act
(ADA) accessibility guidelines. Touring the house, I was not only struck by how
thoughtfully designed it was, but also how warm and inviting it is.
Our guide for the tour noted that later in life, Ken Laurent, reflecting on the
multiple, daily indignities he faced in the world outside his carefully and
beautifully designed home due to his condition, observed Wright had not only
provided for his physical needs, but, as importantly, his spiritual needs.
Laurent’s insight and appreciation and Wright’s contemplative approach to
Laurent’s home brings to mind the words of another Unitarian minister, William
Ellery Channing who, in 1838, wrote, “Science and art may invent splendid
modes of illuminating the apartments of the opulent; but these are all poor and
worthless compared with the common light which the sun sends into all our
windows, which [he] pours freely, impartially over hill and valley, which kindles
daily the eastern and western sky; and so the common lights of reason, and
conscience, and love, are of more worth and dignity than the rare endowments
which give celebrity to a few.”
Channing’s concern or focus on the awe and wonder of existence, the source of
that existence, and the capacity of the human mind to perceive and thus share in
it its grandeur and mystery is not unlike Mary Oliver’s many musings in “The
Summer Day”, “Who made the world? Who made the swan, black bear, and
grasshopper”…these miracles before our eyes…through which Channing’s
“common light” shines and is acknowledged in Oliver’s realization...”I don’t know
exactly what prayer is...BUT...I know how to pay attention.”
“I know how to pay attention.”
And there, in six words, she gives us her answer to the question she leaves us
with, “What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life.?
Attention, wonder, curiosity…any number of words like these describe an
approach to life that seeks to engage, immerse, involve oneself… to live… rather
than merely pass the time. A way of living marked by its embodiment rather than
taking up space. It is life lived in deep appreciation and amazement of both the
brevity and breadth of our experiences as finite beings...a response to life spoken
of splendidly in Constantine P. Cavafy’s poem, “Ithaka” as well...
“As you set out for Ithaka”, he writes, “hope the voyage is a long one, full of
discovery, full of adventure.... Arriving there is what you are destined for. But do
not hurry the journey at all.” “Better”, he says, “if it lasts for years, so you are old
by the time you reach the island, wealthy with all you have gained on the way, not
expecting Ithaka to make you rich.”
These are words which speak to...which lift up.... a quality of life over a standard
of living.
They are honest words reminding us life’s journey won’t always be easy...with
“Laistrygonians and Cyclops, angry Poseidon...” and global pandemics along the
way, but accompanied with unconventional wisdom... “don’t be afraid of
them....”
Such words do not, in this moment, demand our full understanding, but ask only
our attention...
“Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey. Without her you would not have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now. And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have
fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience, you will have understood by
then what these Ithakas mean.”
These are words for the journey, about the journey of life, words that remind us
that our destination, our accomplishments in this life are secondary to how we
get there and all that we learn and experience along the way. Indeed, they are
words that seek to remind us of that ancient wisdom born, of “shadow and light
source both” (Rumi) of hardship and joy, wisdom which the cynics of our age
would have us believe is mere cliche, the journey is the more important than the
destination.
Yet, the pandemic and its effect on daily life around the globe has undoubtedly
moved many to question not only the viability but the value of life defined by
speed, of instant everything, where to pause is to lose ground in the race to hurry
up to keep up. Prior to the pandemic the words of poet prophets like Mary Oliver
and Constantine Cavafy seemed radical...perhaps even foolish. Calling us as they
do to pay attention or as the apostle Paul might say “pray without ceasing”... to
notice with wonder and humility, as Oliver does, the grasshopper who moves her
jaws back and forth instead of up and down...but Oliver is no fool, she knows this
is life at its most profound and true....mysterious and miraculous.
As does Cavafy, who calls us to a life of intention as well as attention, “Keep
Ithaka always in your mind”, he writes, “...but not hurry the journey at all... may
you stop at Phoenician trading stations to buy fine things, mother of pearl and
coral, amber and ebony, sensual perfume of every kind—as many sensual
perfumes as you can; and may you visit many Egyptian cities to gather stores of
knowledge from their scholars.” His words encouraging us to immerse ourselves
in life and its many wonders.
Still, as the effects of the pandemic continue to recede for many, such an
approach to life may remain desirable to some, seem indulgent to others, but may
very well be dismissed as utterly impractical. Life is, after all, too busy....too
short, we say. There’s no time for questions about how to live it. No time to
consider anything other than our destination and the shortest route possible to
ensure a timely arrival.
But I hope not, for what then? We arrive at a place empty of meaning and
ourselves perplexed by the hunger and angst in our soul. Lost in a sinking feeling
we’re far from home but have gone nowhere. That we have achieved passage
through time but not lived even one moment of its passing. I don’t know about
you but that’s about as close to something like hell this Unitarian Universalist
minister can imagine.
And so I leave you with a question to savor and live, the question with which we
began, courtesy of the late Mary Oliver, a question which, incidentally, is the way
through and out of that imagined hell,
“What is it you intend to do with your one wild and precious life?”
Amen and Blessed Be
Brookfield Unitarian Universalist Church
June 6, 2021
The Rev. Craig M. Nowak
“What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
Nearly eight years to the day have passed since I echoed Mary Oliver’s question as
the opening line of a sermon. It was June 9, 2013, the second Sunday of my
candidating week after which you voted to call me as your minister.
Then, as now, I find Mary Oliver’s question especially fitting in this season of
graduations. I can hear her words being lifted up in one way or another in
commencement addresses all over the country, whether being held in person or,
due to Covid, over platforms like Zoom. Words part advice and, perhaps more
than ever in the receding shadow of Covid, part warning. And not just to the
young women and men graduating from high school or college into life’s
uncharted waters, but to all of us who have seen our purpose, meaning, and
values profoundly tested this last year and a half.
I don’t recall the precise words of any of the commencement speeches I’ve heard
from college or grad school, let alone high school, but I’m certain some version of
Mary Oliver’s question was put to the graduating classes of which I’ve been a
part. And I’m sure that my response then to such a question, knowing something
of how I likely heard it then, was full of thoughts and ideas, dreams even, of
accomplishments or destinations…another degree…a job making “good”
money…a relationship… a house in the suburbs…standard American dream kinda
stuff.
Eight years ago I shared that having lived a few decades beyond high school and
college graduation, I had come to realize that my initial understanding and
response to questions like that Mary Oliver puts to us in her poem “The Summer
Day”, was greatly limited. And that to confine it to a list of accomplishments or
hoped for destinations would have missed the question’s point entirely…For
Oliver’s is a question less concerned with a destination than it is about the
journey…a journey common to us all as living beings…and it is this journey, the
journey of a lifetime and its meaning, that Oliver’s words invite us to ponder and
explore. The pandemic and a recent trip to the mid-west have re-affirmed both
the necessity and wisdom of her prompting for me.
A little more than a week ago I was in Rockford, IL where I visited the Laurent
House. The Laurent House was designed by the famous American architect
Frank Lloyd Wright, who, incidentally, was a Unitarian. In fact, Wright was the
nephew of the Unitarian minister Jenkin Lloyd Jones who founded All Souls
Unitarian Church in Chicago, Illinois, as well as its community outreach
organization, the Abraham Lincoln Centre.
Of life, Rev. Jones once said, “Anyone who imagines that bliss is normal is going
to waste a lot of time running around shouting that he has been robbed. The fact
is that most putts don’t drop, most beef is tough, most children grow up to be just
like people, most successful marriages require a high degree of mutual toleration,
and most jobs are more often dull than otherwise. Life is just like an old time rail
journey ... delays, sidetracks, smoke, dust, cinders, and jolts, interspersed only
occasionally by beautiful vistas and thrilling bursts of speed. The trick is to thank
the Lord for letting you have the ride.”
That “trick”, as Jenkin Lloyd Jones called it, was surely something Kenneth
Laurent was well acquainted with when, in 1948, he and his wife Phyllis
commissioned Jones’ nephew, the architect Frank Lloyd Wright, to design a
home for them. Such an event might not be especially notable except that just two
years earlier surgery for a spinal cord tumor left Ken Laurent, then in his late
20’s, with paraplegia, the loss of movement in the lower extremities and torso.
Laurent would require the use of a wheel chair for the remainder of his life.
Now, I don’t know how or even if Wright’s Unitarianism influenced his work as
an architect or his interaction with the Laurents. Indeed, Wright, being human,
was as famously flawed as he was gifted, broad knowledge of which is a price
more frequently paid by those occupying the pantheon of public genius and fame.
Nonetheless, the home Wright designed for Ken and Phyllis Laurent and
completed in the early 1950’s was decades ahead of the American Disabilities Act
(ADA) accessibility guidelines. Touring the house, I was not only struck by how
thoughtfully designed it was, but also how warm and inviting it is.
Our guide for the tour noted that later in life, Ken Laurent, reflecting on the
multiple, daily indignities he faced in the world outside his carefully and
beautifully designed home due to his condition, observed Wright had not only
provided for his physical needs, but, as importantly, his spiritual needs.
Laurent’s insight and appreciation and Wright’s contemplative approach to
Laurent’s home brings to mind the words of another Unitarian minister, William
Ellery Channing who, in 1838, wrote, “Science and art may invent splendid
modes of illuminating the apartments of the opulent; but these are all poor and
worthless compared with the common light which the sun sends into all our
windows, which [he] pours freely, impartially over hill and valley, which kindles
daily the eastern and western sky; and so the common lights of reason, and
conscience, and love, are of more worth and dignity than the rare endowments
which give celebrity to a few.”
Channing’s concern or focus on the awe and wonder of existence, the source of
that existence, and the capacity of the human mind to perceive and thus share in
it its grandeur and mystery is not unlike Mary Oliver’s many musings in “The
Summer Day”, “Who made the world? Who made the swan, black bear, and
grasshopper”…these miracles before our eyes…through which Channing’s
“common light” shines and is acknowledged in Oliver’s realization...”I don’t know
exactly what prayer is...BUT...I know how to pay attention.”
“I know how to pay attention.”
And there, in six words, she gives us her answer to the question she leaves us
with, “What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life.?
Attention, wonder, curiosity…any number of words like these describe an
approach to life that seeks to engage, immerse, involve oneself… to live… rather
than merely pass the time. A way of living marked by its embodiment rather than
taking up space. It is life lived in deep appreciation and amazement of both the
brevity and breadth of our experiences as finite beings...a response to life spoken
of splendidly in Constantine P. Cavafy’s poem, “Ithaka” as well...
“As you set out for Ithaka”, he writes, “hope the voyage is a long one, full of
discovery, full of adventure.... Arriving there is what you are destined for. But do
not hurry the journey at all.” “Better”, he says, “if it lasts for years, so you are old
by the time you reach the island, wealthy with all you have gained on the way, not
expecting Ithaka to make you rich.”
These are words which speak to...which lift up.... a quality of life over a standard
of living.
They are honest words reminding us life’s journey won’t always be easy...with
“Laistrygonians and Cyclops, angry Poseidon...” and global pandemics along the
way, but accompanied with unconventional wisdom... “don’t be afraid of
them....”
Such words do not, in this moment, demand our full understanding, but ask only
our attention...
“Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey. Without her you would not have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now. And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have
fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience, you will have understood by
then what these Ithakas mean.”
These are words for the journey, about the journey of life, words that remind us
that our destination, our accomplishments in this life are secondary to how we
get there and all that we learn and experience along the way. Indeed, they are
words that seek to remind us of that ancient wisdom born, of “shadow and light
source both” (Rumi) of hardship and joy, wisdom which the cynics of our age
would have us believe is mere cliche, the journey is the more important than the
destination.
Yet, the pandemic and its effect on daily life around the globe has undoubtedly
moved many to question not only the viability but the value of life defined by
speed, of instant everything, where to pause is to lose ground in the race to hurry
up to keep up. Prior to the pandemic the words of poet prophets like Mary Oliver
and Constantine Cavafy seemed radical...perhaps even foolish. Calling us as they
do to pay attention or as the apostle Paul might say “pray without ceasing”... to
notice with wonder and humility, as Oliver does, the grasshopper who moves her
jaws back and forth instead of up and down...but Oliver is no fool, she knows this
is life at its most profound and true....mysterious and miraculous.
As does Cavafy, who calls us to a life of intention as well as attention, “Keep
Ithaka always in your mind”, he writes, “...but not hurry the journey at all... may
you stop at Phoenician trading stations to buy fine things, mother of pearl and
coral, amber and ebony, sensual perfume of every kind—as many sensual
perfumes as you can; and may you visit many Egyptian cities to gather stores of
knowledge from their scholars.” His words encouraging us to immerse ourselves
in life and its many wonders.
Still, as the effects of the pandemic continue to recede for many, such an
approach to life may remain desirable to some, seem indulgent to others, but may
very well be dismissed as utterly impractical. Life is, after all, too busy....too
short, we say. There’s no time for questions about how to live it. No time to
consider anything other than our destination and the shortest route possible to
ensure a timely arrival.
But I hope not, for what then? We arrive at a place empty of meaning and
ourselves perplexed by the hunger and angst in our soul. Lost in a sinking feeling
we’re far from home but have gone nowhere. That we have achieved passage
through time but not lived even one moment of its passing. I don’t know about
you but that’s about as close to something like hell this Unitarian Universalist
minister can imagine.
And so I leave you with a question to savor and live, the question with which we
began, courtesy of the late Mary Oliver, a question which, incidentally, is the way
through and out of that imagined hell,
“What is it you intend to do with your one wild and precious life?”
Amen and Blessed Be
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