Winter Warmth
Brookfield Unitarian Universalist Church
December 19, 2021
Rev. Craig M. Nowak
“The fault lies not in our stars, our hormones, our cycles, or our empty internal spaces, but in our institutions and our education- education understood to include everything that happens to us from the moment we enter this world of meaningful symbols, signs, and signals.” So wrote the late art historian Linda Nochlin in her 1971 essay “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” As Nochlin’s words suggest it is not because great women artists haven’t or don’t exist, it is because we have been told or taught they don’t.
This is why a significant part of social justice work involves unlearning. For centuries we have been told and taught that people of different genders, sexual orientations, races, ethnicities, abilities, and so forth are not fit for or are incapable of excelling in any number of endeavors because it is not their destiny, in their nature, or compatible with their physiology. A fallacy largely bought into over time which becomes self-perpetuating by the lack of attention and representation given to groups considered unfit or incapable.
The effect extends far beyond the marginalization of various groups over time. Indeed, I have no doubt humanity has been incalculably impoverished by this tragic, egoic folly. I got a glimpse of that impoverishment as it applies specifically to humanity’s treatment of women artists about two weeks ago when I went into Hartford (CT) to see an exhibition at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, “By Her Hand: Artemisia Gentileschi and Women Artists in Italy 1500-1800.” (It was a fabulous exhibition that I highly recommend -it runs through Jan 9, 2022) As I walked around the gallery viewing the assemblage of paintings, drawings, and prints by women artists of Renaissance and Baroque Europe, I was both enthralled and saddened. Saddened by the thought of how many lives waiting to be lived, the spark within, were snuffed out and how much in turn the world has missed out on.
I often experience that same sense of both amazement and sadness coexisting within as I engage in spiritual reflection. There is such a treasure trove of literature, poetry and prose, not to mention music, fine and decorative art inspired by or produced over time for the various religious traditions of the world that are today grossly devalued by the prevailing literalism of believer and non-believer alike.
Indeed, just as with social justice efforts, religious and spiritual practice and exploration also requires significant unlearning, to flourish. Unlearning meaning a reexamination of what we’ve been told and taught about religion and spirituality and its purpose and meaning in our lives.
And so as you might imagine I was heartened to overhear a conversation between a group of women at the exhibition on women artists. They were discussing a painting of a biblical subject. At first they focused on the painting, then they started to talk about the story it depicted. It was brief conversation but I confess to being impressed and even hopeful as their discussion was not limited by a naive embrace nor mocking dismissal of the story that is often the hallmark of literalism. Indeed, they were getting at something bigger, to be discovered through story rather than given and received as explanation, and which lies beyond the confines of a literal reading not just of religious stories, but our lived experience as well.
Take today’s reading, “The Rebirth of the Sun”, for example.
Just by the title we know it relates to the winter solstice. And indeed, its a pretty imaginative account of the winter solstice. It is also literally, scientifically false. But does that mean the story is untrue?
Stories, rituals, and celebrations related to the solstice predate scientific understanding of the the astronomical event that give us solstice, but they didn’t completely cease once humanity figured out what was going on.
The stories, rituals, and celebrations survive because they offer us more than facts. They relate or speak to our lived experience as human beings, inviting deeper engagement into this life that we often place and live on autopilot. In short, stories, rituals, and celebrations point us toward truth and wisdom the facts alone do not offer or adequately capture.
One of the reasons I really like the story that was today’s reading(s) is that it offers at least two points of entry or facets through which to explore our own experience of night and day, dark and light. The entry point or lens through which you heard, entered or viewed the story today may say something about where you are at and what, if anything, you need or might offer others.
It would not surprise me if a lot of people identified with the sun in today’s story, which is described as working hard, shining, and giving energy to others all year long.
Modern life, influenced as it is by social media, slick and ever advancing technology, and the incessant drive to “crush” whatever we do, (that’s excel at, for those of us over a certain age), expects us to shine all the time without fail lest we be labeled inadequate, slackers, or takers. An expectation that has been magnified during the pandemic in a culture where rugged individualism which forbids and frowns on any admission of need, let alone dependance on, others, ironically betrays its own doctrine of personal responsibility in favor of shifting the burden to the newly dubbed, “essential worker.”
And so, like the sun in the story, we may feel spent. Exhausted and barely able to keep our own light flickering, we just can’t shine for others right now. And yet the pressure to shine, shine, shine, never ends, as if the need for rest and recuperation were a personal moral failing.
Still, some of you may relate to the children in the story, viewing the diminishment of light in yourself, others, and the larger world with concern. That concern may be self-directed, knowing that winter is an especially difficult time for you emotionally, spiritually, even physically. I know for myself I have a harder time getting up to go the gym now that its dark in the early morning. I still go, but I’m dragging. For others, its more serious, like the return of seasonal depression.
The concerns arising with the diminishment of light or onset of winter may also be directed outwards, to people you know and love, or to the wider world, suffering maladies of every imaginable form for want of the good or essential that we commonly associate with light. A frigid day may turn our thoughts to those without adequate shelter or a biting wind remind us of bitterness present in a relationship. These and other associations may induce feelings of sorrow and isolation, even anxiety which feel all the more difficult to shake in the close quarters of winter.
At the same time the story avoids the familiar trap of either/or thinking that often informs our conceptions of light and dark. Indeed, in the story neither light nor dark is absolutely good or bad. Instead, night’s embrace of the tired sun reminds us of our own and other’s need for rest and retreat, while the children’s songs and celebration in gratitude for the sun also speaks to our need to be seen and appreciated for who we are, a need that, when met, rekindles the flame within us and others and allows us to shine once more.
This is its beauty and relevance.
For while as a literal explanation of the winter solstice it falls flat, as an imaginative story that speaks to the human condition, lifts up the reality and place of both light and darkness in our lives, and reconnects us to the truth of our interdependence and the cyclical nature of life, it is as true as any fact about the winter solstice and to my mind, more relevant to our lives and our relationship to one another.
“At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.” These words by Albert Schweitzer are so beloved that they’re often used as words for the chalice lighting in UU churches. I chose and offered them as our call to worship this morning because they gently and beautifully compliment, indeed, summarize today’s reading as a means of reflecting on and living the truth and wisdom the winter solstice offers us each year.
Opening with an experience familiar to all, “At times our own light goes out”, Schweitzer then breaks with convention. He declines to judge our light going out as good or bad. Maybe we needed it to go out for a while. There’s no reason to feel guilty about, resist, or deny it. It’s just part of life and being alive. And so yes, sometimes our light does goes out. And when it does, it may then be, as Schweitzer writes, “rekindled by a spark from another person.” And with all this imagery of light and sparks, it’s easy to imagine this rekindling as a forceful, even if lovingly intended, nudge or cheering up, or sudden burst of inspiration that sets us newly aglow.
But in the context of winter, it may in fact be a slower process that gives rise to what we might call winter warmth, that is, the ability to hold both dark and light in creative tension within us and shine once more. Indeed, in her book, Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times, writer Katherine May observes, “We need friends who wince along with our pain, who tolerate our gloom, and who allow us to be weak for a while, while we’re finding our feet again. We need people who acknowledge that we can’t always hang on. That sometimes everything breaks.”
Thus, those who have “lighted the flame within us” are not simply cheerleaders. They are those who nurture winter warmth within us by holding us as and where we are - like the night in our story, embracing the sun in its weariness- as much as they boost our spirits - like the children singing the sun’s praises, recognizing, and giving thanks for its being.
This is what a spiritual family does for one another.
Whether their biological, chosen, past or present, it doesn’t matter, for most importantly, those we count as our spiritual family are the people who, in every season, journey with us as we are, through our ups and downs, as companions. They are people experienced in holding dark and light in tension.
Resisting the anxious urge to fix us, they are free to embrace us fully, and thus offer and teach us in their own way, how to love…ourselves, our neighbor, and Life itself.
And they are the ones for whom you have been invited to create an image of light and which you are now encouraged to take with you today.
(INVITE PEOPLE TO HOLD UP THEIR LIGHT)
May these be a reminder to give thanks to those who, when our light has gone out, have nurtured its rekindling, inspired our nurture of others, and, having lighted the flame within, help spread winter warmth this and every season.
Amen and Blessed Be
Brookfield Unitarian Universalist Church
December 19, 2021
Rev. Craig M. Nowak
“The fault lies not in our stars, our hormones, our cycles, or our empty internal spaces, but in our institutions and our education- education understood to include everything that happens to us from the moment we enter this world of meaningful symbols, signs, and signals.” So wrote the late art historian Linda Nochlin in her 1971 essay “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” As Nochlin’s words suggest it is not because great women artists haven’t or don’t exist, it is because we have been told or taught they don’t.
This is why a significant part of social justice work involves unlearning. For centuries we have been told and taught that people of different genders, sexual orientations, races, ethnicities, abilities, and so forth are not fit for or are incapable of excelling in any number of endeavors because it is not their destiny, in their nature, or compatible with their physiology. A fallacy largely bought into over time which becomes self-perpetuating by the lack of attention and representation given to groups considered unfit or incapable.
The effect extends far beyond the marginalization of various groups over time. Indeed, I have no doubt humanity has been incalculably impoverished by this tragic, egoic folly. I got a glimpse of that impoverishment as it applies specifically to humanity’s treatment of women artists about two weeks ago when I went into Hartford (CT) to see an exhibition at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, “By Her Hand: Artemisia Gentileschi and Women Artists in Italy 1500-1800.” (It was a fabulous exhibition that I highly recommend -it runs through Jan 9, 2022) As I walked around the gallery viewing the assemblage of paintings, drawings, and prints by women artists of Renaissance and Baroque Europe, I was both enthralled and saddened. Saddened by the thought of how many lives waiting to be lived, the spark within, were snuffed out and how much in turn the world has missed out on.
I often experience that same sense of both amazement and sadness coexisting within as I engage in spiritual reflection. There is such a treasure trove of literature, poetry and prose, not to mention music, fine and decorative art inspired by or produced over time for the various religious traditions of the world that are today grossly devalued by the prevailing literalism of believer and non-believer alike.
Indeed, just as with social justice efforts, religious and spiritual practice and exploration also requires significant unlearning, to flourish. Unlearning meaning a reexamination of what we’ve been told and taught about religion and spirituality and its purpose and meaning in our lives.
And so as you might imagine I was heartened to overhear a conversation between a group of women at the exhibition on women artists. They were discussing a painting of a biblical subject. At first they focused on the painting, then they started to talk about the story it depicted. It was brief conversation but I confess to being impressed and even hopeful as their discussion was not limited by a naive embrace nor mocking dismissal of the story that is often the hallmark of literalism. Indeed, they were getting at something bigger, to be discovered through story rather than given and received as explanation, and which lies beyond the confines of a literal reading not just of religious stories, but our lived experience as well.
Take today’s reading, “The Rebirth of the Sun”, for example.
Just by the title we know it relates to the winter solstice. And indeed, its a pretty imaginative account of the winter solstice. It is also literally, scientifically false. But does that mean the story is untrue?
Stories, rituals, and celebrations related to the solstice predate scientific understanding of the the astronomical event that give us solstice, but they didn’t completely cease once humanity figured out what was going on.
The stories, rituals, and celebrations survive because they offer us more than facts. They relate or speak to our lived experience as human beings, inviting deeper engagement into this life that we often place and live on autopilot. In short, stories, rituals, and celebrations point us toward truth and wisdom the facts alone do not offer or adequately capture.
One of the reasons I really like the story that was today’s reading(s) is that it offers at least two points of entry or facets through which to explore our own experience of night and day, dark and light. The entry point or lens through which you heard, entered or viewed the story today may say something about where you are at and what, if anything, you need or might offer others.
It would not surprise me if a lot of people identified with the sun in today’s story, which is described as working hard, shining, and giving energy to others all year long.
Modern life, influenced as it is by social media, slick and ever advancing technology, and the incessant drive to “crush” whatever we do, (that’s excel at, for those of us over a certain age), expects us to shine all the time without fail lest we be labeled inadequate, slackers, or takers. An expectation that has been magnified during the pandemic in a culture where rugged individualism which forbids and frowns on any admission of need, let alone dependance on, others, ironically betrays its own doctrine of personal responsibility in favor of shifting the burden to the newly dubbed, “essential worker.”
And so, like the sun in the story, we may feel spent. Exhausted and barely able to keep our own light flickering, we just can’t shine for others right now. And yet the pressure to shine, shine, shine, never ends, as if the need for rest and recuperation were a personal moral failing.
Still, some of you may relate to the children in the story, viewing the diminishment of light in yourself, others, and the larger world with concern. That concern may be self-directed, knowing that winter is an especially difficult time for you emotionally, spiritually, even physically. I know for myself I have a harder time getting up to go the gym now that its dark in the early morning. I still go, but I’m dragging. For others, its more serious, like the return of seasonal depression.
The concerns arising with the diminishment of light or onset of winter may also be directed outwards, to people you know and love, or to the wider world, suffering maladies of every imaginable form for want of the good or essential that we commonly associate with light. A frigid day may turn our thoughts to those without adequate shelter or a biting wind remind us of bitterness present in a relationship. These and other associations may induce feelings of sorrow and isolation, even anxiety which feel all the more difficult to shake in the close quarters of winter.
At the same time the story avoids the familiar trap of either/or thinking that often informs our conceptions of light and dark. Indeed, in the story neither light nor dark is absolutely good or bad. Instead, night’s embrace of the tired sun reminds us of our own and other’s need for rest and retreat, while the children’s songs and celebration in gratitude for the sun also speaks to our need to be seen and appreciated for who we are, a need that, when met, rekindles the flame within us and others and allows us to shine once more.
This is its beauty and relevance.
For while as a literal explanation of the winter solstice it falls flat, as an imaginative story that speaks to the human condition, lifts up the reality and place of both light and darkness in our lives, and reconnects us to the truth of our interdependence and the cyclical nature of life, it is as true as any fact about the winter solstice and to my mind, more relevant to our lives and our relationship to one another.
“At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.” These words by Albert Schweitzer are so beloved that they’re often used as words for the chalice lighting in UU churches. I chose and offered them as our call to worship this morning because they gently and beautifully compliment, indeed, summarize today’s reading as a means of reflecting on and living the truth and wisdom the winter solstice offers us each year.
Opening with an experience familiar to all, “At times our own light goes out”, Schweitzer then breaks with convention. He declines to judge our light going out as good or bad. Maybe we needed it to go out for a while. There’s no reason to feel guilty about, resist, or deny it. It’s just part of life and being alive. And so yes, sometimes our light does goes out. And when it does, it may then be, as Schweitzer writes, “rekindled by a spark from another person.” And with all this imagery of light and sparks, it’s easy to imagine this rekindling as a forceful, even if lovingly intended, nudge or cheering up, or sudden burst of inspiration that sets us newly aglow.
But in the context of winter, it may in fact be a slower process that gives rise to what we might call winter warmth, that is, the ability to hold both dark and light in creative tension within us and shine once more. Indeed, in her book, Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times, writer Katherine May observes, “We need friends who wince along with our pain, who tolerate our gloom, and who allow us to be weak for a while, while we’re finding our feet again. We need people who acknowledge that we can’t always hang on. That sometimes everything breaks.”
Thus, those who have “lighted the flame within us” are not simply cheerleaders. They are those who nurture winter warmth within us by holding us as and where we are - like the night in our story, embracing the sun in its weariness- as much as they boost our spirits - like the children singing the sun’s praises, recognizing, and giving thanks for its being.
This is what a spiritual family does for one another.
Whether their biological, chosen, past or present, it doesn’t matter, for most importantly, those we count as our spiritual family are the people who, in every season, journey with us as we are, through our ups and downs, as companions. They are people experienced in holding dark and light in tension.
Resisting the anxious urge to fix us, they are free to embrace us fully, and thus offer and teach us in their own way, how to love…ourselves, our neighbor, and Life itself.
And they are the ones for whom you have been invited to create an image of light and which you are now encouraged to take with you today.
(INVITE PEOPLE TO HOLD UP THEIR LIGHT)
May these be a reminder to give thanks to those who, when our light has gone out, have nurtured its rekindling, inspired our nurture of others, and, having lighted the flame within, help spread winter warmth this and every season.
Amen and Blessed Be