Unitarian Coastal Fellowship
April 27, 2003
© Rev. Sally B. White

Good morning!

I am so glad to be here with you this morning, to see your faces and hear your voices. For weeks and weeks, now, I have been thinking about you, wondering about you, holding you in my heart. At last, we are together!

The journeys that have brought us here have been many and varied. We have traveled through time and across great distances to come to this time and place; we have walked over streets that branch and re-branch. At last, we have arrived.

And yet, we all know that we are gathered here, not at the end of a long journey, but at the very beginning. We rest here, for a moment, on the forming edge of our lives. We take the time to look back over the journeys that have brought us here, to look forward to the journey that lies ahead. At last, we can begin!

As we look back over the journey of "Search" that has brought you and me together here this morning, let us consider that this journey is more than we see on the surface; more than the itinerary of dates and places, choices and discoveries that we chronicle as we tell our stories. This road that we are traveling is a pilgrimage: "a transformative journey to a sacred center," in the words of Phil Cousineau, in his book The Art of Pilgrimage. Not necessarily a physical journey at all, "pilgrimage is a spiritual exercise, an act of devotion…a journey of risk and renewal. The prospect stirs the soul, demands a leap of faith, and awakens joy at the crossroads. If taken in this spirit, pilgrimage is poetry in motion, a winding road to meaning." [p. xxiii; p.29]. As we travel, we are transformed. We are no longer who we used to be. And the longing for transformation, for deep inner integrity, is what has called us to the journey in the first place.

The journey begins in longing, and is fueled, at the beginning, by faith – a confidence or trust that the "something" we are seeking is indeed out there somewhere. Faith is an act of will, but not of self-will. Faith is a willingness to let go of the known and the familiar, to risk and to trust that the unknown holds possibilities that we cannot see from here, that will make us more than we are now – that will bring us joy when we encounter them at the crossroads.

Your journey began in yearning; was fueled, in the beginning, by faith. In your December newsletter, Interim Minister Rev. Rudi Gelsey rejoiced at what he called "dramatic developments encouraging the Unitarian Coastal Fellowship to move forward into a promising future." First among these was your decision, in November, that "after two decades of wandering in the wilderness of extension, yoked, and part-time ministries, it was time to search for a full-time minister to arrive here in August or September, 2003." The first sentence of the ministerial profile, written by the Search Committee to describe the minister you seek, describes "a full-time parish minister who is willing to ‘go down the road with us.’" "Go down the road with us!" This yearning to begin a new journey – this call to pilgrimage – is indeed a choice for risk and renewal. In the same newsletter, Dwight Rettie wrote in his "President’s Column" that during the discussion that preceded the vote to move to a full-time pulpit, "good questions were raised and cautions explored. I think we not only realistically know the risks involved, but also sense the substantial benefits that can flow from having a full-time minister – to help us grow and share experience and expectations." Committing the resources of time, energy, and money to embark on such a new beginning is no less than a leap of faith!

Likewise for me. Seven years ago, my family and I journeyed from Durham, North Carolina to the California coast, called west by a teaching job for my husband. We left behind a church community that had supported us through five years of joy and pain, and I left behind a job, as Director of Religious Education, that I had loved. This was not our first such move. For more than two decades, we, too, had wandered as in a desert, searching for a promised land that offered a sustainable mixture of rewarding and challenging work and stimulating and supportive community for an idealistic mathematician, a religious seeker, and four independent-minded children to sink our roots into. As we made our plans to leave Durham, I had several conversations with mentors and friends about my own yearnings, and I resolved to apply to study at Starr King School for the Ministry in Berkeley. My admission to Starr King marked the beginning of my journey to this very moment: a decision to engage in the study and preparation that would enable me to embrace and serve the call to religious growth and leadership that had been growing stronger and clearer in me for a decade. A leap of faith, carrying risks and costs – dollars spent in tuition, hours spent in travel and study and practice, floors un-vacuumed, meals thrown together or eaten on the run. Last August, I began preparing my ministerial profile and assembling a packet that I might send to congregations that might consider me as their minister. A leap of faith, holding unseen possibilities – of transformation and integrity, of unimagined destinations.

The journey continues in hope: "the feeling that what is desired is also possible, or that events may turn out for the best." [Webster’s Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language]. Hope is more focused than faith; hope is the expectation of a favorable future – and a particular one at that. As faith turns to hope, the future begins to develop a particular shape, and character. We begin to imagine what destinations lie ahead, what joys we may encounter along the way.

Here at the Unitarian Coastal Fellowship, the vision of a prospective minister was sharpening. The ministerial profile was fleshed out: "We seek a minister who is energetic, committed to the care of the congregation, and who possesses a sense of humor. He or she should provide a message that challenges us[;] … will need to be a facilitator[;] … should be accepting of our diversity and our desire to expand our religious community through outreach and social action." The journey had begun, and by March, the Search Committee reported in the newsletter that they had selected three prospects, and they continued on their "quest with optimism." There was a growing sense that this whole thing might just work!

Early in January, Sandy Kunkle called me to talk about this church that was "yearning for a long-term relationship," wanting to grow in numbers and in depth without losing the feel of community. The next week, I talked by telephone with the search committee in an hour-long conversation that ranged from Martin Luther King Day leadership to creative fundraising and grant-writing. In March, I flew through a long rainy night to spend a busy weekend with the search committee . Now I could put faces and stories to the names and disembodied voices that had come through my telephone. Now I could see myself in this church, in this town (literally – thanks to Penny Hooper’s photographs!). Now I could envision myself as your minister, imagine myself growing in my ministry as the Fellowship grows in size and strength and mission and ministry in the community and in the world. I could imagine us walking down the road together. Already we were journeying together in hope, creating together a shared picture of a new future where what is desired by each of us is not only possible, but is enhanced by the vision and the companionship of the other.

And so we have come to this moment, resting here on the forming edge of our lives. We come to the part of our journey which asks much of us, and which offers us transformation in return. We come to the heart of the journey, which both demands and offers love.

Paul’s "Hymn of Love" in the 13th chapter of the Corinthian letter sets out a vision of love which supports the community, which underpins the life of each member, and which never ends. This love – Paul uses the word "agape" – begins not with the individual human being, but with God’s grace – the infinite, unconditional love in which we are held, and which draws from us love for our brothers and sisters. This is not romantic, or even "personal" love; this love is cosmic, and it can indeed transform us. The mark of this love is selflessness – the abandonment of pretense, the surrender to total honesty. "If I speak in the tongues of mortals and angels," – in other words, if I show off my learning and sophistication by quoting others or using technical jargon – "but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or clanging cymbal" – noisy, but neither musical nor meaningful. "If I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing" – I am more interested in impressing my hearers than I am in speaking the truth. Paul brooks no arrogance, no smoke screens, neither insincerity nor posturing. Only humble openness is really love, and that love will endure beyond the end of the present order, beyond the end of prophecies and knowledge, to a time when "I will know fully, even as I have been fully known." Such love, faithfully practiced, can transform us, and can make our fellowship a beacon in this community, a lighthouse in a stormy world.

But Paul was writing in a very different time and place than ours. In the intervening 20 centuries, much has changed. Our understanding of love has changed, and we hear the word differently than the Corinthians did. Paul’s love, beginning in and flowing back to God, is what we might call a "theological" or a spiritual love – a moral imperative. Joseph Campbell, in "The Power of Myth," introduces us to the twelfth-century troubadours "the first ones in the West who really thought of love the way we do now – as a person-to-person relationship." Campbell explains this new ideal, which he calls Amor:

Joseph Campbell sets this emergence of an ideal of personalized love within the context of the great myth of the human experience – the hero’s journey. It is no coincidence that this journey is, in essence, a pilgrimage, fraught with challenges that test us and teach us at once. Both Paul’s agape and Campbell’s amor represent challenges with the power to transform us, each and all. Love is the path we follow, and love is the way we move forward; "love," in Campbell’s words, "is the pain of being truly alive." [PoM, p. 205]

Today in our culture the individual reigns supreme, sometimes to the detriment of social institutions and often at the expense of the very humility and honesty that Paul demanded of the Corinthians. We struggle to re-learn (or, to learn in the first place) the importance of self-discipline, self-differentiation, and a world-view wide enough to provide a context for healthy relationships. We need to be taught that loving is hard work, and is much, much more than the happily-ever-after seizure of "falling in love." We need to be reminded that in order to be loving, we must first love ourselves. In order to love another, we must first know who we are, and then we must willingly and intentionally risk sharing ourselves with precisely the openness, honesty, and humility that Paul describes.

Openness, honesty, and humility, but not selflessness. On the contrary, the decision to love demands an unflinching commitment to the self – a willingness both to know who you are and to bring your whole self to the relationship – strengths and weaknesses, hopes and fears, warts and all. Furthermore, it demands an unflinching commitment to the other – a willingness to do the hard work of paying attention, to risk knowing and being known, to challenge or to praise as necessary and appropriate.

This is the challenge that lies ahead of you and me, beginning today. Having taken that leap of faith, having traveled to this moment with hope, we have come together at last. We begin, now, to take the time to look into one another’s faces and see what we recognize there. We begin, now, to tell our own stories, and to hear each others’ stories – yours, and mine. We pay attention, to ourselves and to each other. We begin to build the deep knowing that provides the only possible basis for trust that is the only possible prerequisite for love. And we understand that in speaking and in hearing we will be changed, and we will change one another. As we share, we will be transformed. And it will not be easy. I remind you of the words of Joseph Campbell: "Love is the pain of being truly alive."

And I believe it will be worth it. I am no Paul, no Joseph Campbell. But I know a little bit about love. And I know you do, too.

I know that in 28 years of marriage, there have been moments of grace when Jim and I have communicated without words, knowing simultaneously, as soon as the social worker called, that yes, the time was right to apply to adopt a second baby. And there have been times when each or both of us struggled to find some way just to put deep pain into words, just to hear the other’s frustration or disappointment through our own anger or fear. In joy and anguish, with words or silence or tears or a simple hug, we have worked through whatever it was – together.

I know that in 25 years of parenting, we have celebrated at three graduations in one joyous week, and we have lain awake nights missing an absent child, agonizing over choices that we would have made differently (and would that they had made differently). We have celebrated at the wedding of our younger son – moved to tears by pride and by concern at the enormous step this not-yet-20-year-old and his 18-year-old bride were taking. Through laughter and tears, ecstasy and agony, nothing that we have faced has ever been stronger than the love that holds us together. We may not know what to say, we almost never know how to fix what’s wrong, or how to hold on to what’s wonderful and make it stay forever. But we can be there. We can show up. We can walk together.

For that, in the end, is what love is.

Walking together is what we will do this week, you and I. We may talk about what’s wrong with ourselves, with each other, or with the world, but I’m pretty sure we won’t be able to fix much of it. There will be moments that will be wonderful, but we won’t be able to hold on to them or make them stay forever. What we will be doing is, in the words of the hymn, "mak[ing] channels for the streams of love where they may broadly run," [Hymn #299]. At last, we can begin learning what we need to know to decide, next Sunday, whether we want to make an unflinching commitment to go down the road together. In openness and honesty, in humility, in vulnerability – in faith, in hope, and most of all, in love.

"And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love."

May love abide in us, and between us, now and through the week ahead.

And may it always be so.

Amen

Top of page