A Sermon by Barbara W. ten Hove
Paint Branch UU Church, Adelphi, MD — Feb. 3, 2008

FLAMING CHALICE DEDICATION by Bruce Baker, worship associate

I was sick during this past week. I had that mild but annoying cold that has been going around here recently. For almost two days I just laid in bed too sick to work. But I wasn’t so sick that I couldn’t think or read. So I used the time between naps to read some of the writings of the great nineteenth century Unitarian Minister Ralph Waldo Emerson from a book by Barry Andrews called Emerson as Spiritual Guide.

Emerson got me thinking about time and experience. In a sermon called “Works and Days,” he says that the notion that this hour is not the critical decisive hour is an illusion. This is because it is only in the present moment that we live our lives. “Write it on your heart,” says Emerson, “that every day is the best day of the year.”

But as I lay in bed feeling somewhat miserable I did not feel convinced that this was the best day of the year. In fact it felt completely unremarkable, even less than ordinary. But when I thought about it some more I realized that if I look at my life as a journey where I am trying to go from one peak experience of joy and fulfillment to another there is no way that the path can always be at the peak. We have to descend to low points somewhere along the way. And I can find ways to appreciate and benefit from the low points, even if they are unpleasant. Resting and healing is just as much a part of the journey as every other step we take.

We all have some bad days that are difficult, painful and unpleasant. These are days to be endured. We just need to get through them. But if we keep moving along our path we usually come to a better place and find happier days. I have a good friend who advised me once while I was experiencing one of the darker journeys in my life: “If you are going through hell, just keep on going.” Don’t stop or give up the journey just because things are hard. If you do you will stay stuck in that very unhappy place.

So I had a couple of bad days this week, but I got better, and I enjoyed being just a little sick for the opportunity it gave me to think and read some more of Emerson, especially this passage from his essay called “Experience.” He says, “to finish the moment, to find the journey’s end in every step of the road, to live the greatest number of good hours, is wisdom.”

I dedicate the lighting of this chalice to appreciation of this and every moment of our journey in life.

Sermon: WHAT IT’S LIKE TO LIVE NOW Barbara W. ten Hove (2/3/08)

I have always been one of those people who spend a lot of time thinking and planning for the future. Jaco and I laugh about what inveterate planners we are, but we enjoy the process of imagining what we might do in the future and making plans to get there.

I am also someone who enjoys looking backwards. I love to go though old family picture albums, tell stories from the past, and just generally reminisce about where I’ve been.

One way ministers can do this is to read old sermons. During a recent attempt to transfer some documents off a very old computer onto our newer one—since the odds are a time will come when this will be impossible!—I came across a sermon I had written over ten years ago with the provocative title, What It’s Like to Live Now. I remembered (sort of) this sermon as one I had enjoyed writing and reading it after all these years reminded me why.

I based the sermon on a book with that title. Meredith Maran, a writer from the Bay Area in California, asked herself “What is it like to live now?” Her answer took the form of a book about her life. She asked herself, “What is it like to love now?” (As a lesbian, Maran had firsthand knowledge of how difficult it can be.) She also asked, “What is it like to stay alive now?…to parent now?…to change the world now?” I remember that it was a great read. More important for our purposes, it forced me to ask myself the same question. What is it like to live now?

In 1996, when I wrote the first version of this sermon, my life was quite different than it is today. It was fascinating for me to read the thoughts I had in those days about health, and community, and religion. As I reflected again on this significant question—What is it like to live now?—I realized that it was time to rewrite and preach this sermon again.

But before I reflect on the answer to the question I invite you to take a moment to reflect back over the past week. What kinds of things did you do? Did you go to work? Did you look for work? Did you help your kids with homework? Did you see a movie? Did you cook a meal? Work in the garden? Write checks? Volunteer? Let the images of your life rise up before you.

Now, take a moment and sense, if you can, what the week meant for you. Do you feel content with how you spent your time? Are you happy? Angry? Fulfilled? Frustrated? How do you feel about your life right now?

How we live right now is a deeply spiritual question, because our faith challenges us to view the present as a place where holiness abides. To live our lives not for some afterworld but for the betterment of life today, it is critical that we occasionally ask ourselves, “What is it like to live now?” and reflect on whether we are living the way we’d like to live. Indeed, some theologians will tell us that the Holy is found in the asking and answering of these kinds of questions.

What is it like to live now? As I asked myself that question, I found myself tending toward broad generalities. We live in the early 21st century. We live in the DC metro area in a time of turbulence and change. While all of those things are true, they don’t really answer the question fully. What is it like, for me—for us, for each of you—to live at this time, in this place, in this way?

Such questions have to be answered specifically because each of us lives a unique life, unlike any other. Today, I will address three different but related questions about what it’s like for me to live now. As I do so, I invite you to think about how you might answer the same questions. Perhaps over coffee you can share your thoughts with others in this beloved community.

So here is the first question I decided to ask myself. “What is it like to be a woman now?”

My mother and I became feminists around the same time. Along with many other women and girls in the early 1970’s, we were inspired by the work of women like Gloria Steinem and Shirley Chisholm who paved the way for younger women to find fulfillment in a world beyond the home. As a teenager, I was deeply impacted by one significant relationship I had with another girl my own age. She was a middle child, a girl between two brothers, born into a family where girls were not supposed to be anything but cute. She was (still is) incredibly smart, but her father put her down constantly, and though I did not know it at the time, he also beat her.

Because of our friendship, I began to realize how much my parents’ respect for my brains and my gifts were a blessing to me. My friend tells me that I was her first friend who saw her as a person with gifts and skills. She taught me many things, not the least of which was how to articulate my belief in the power of women to do whatever and be whoever they are meant to be.

Now, over thirty years later, I find that I am still a feminist. Yet, living in the world today as a woman is not as simple as I expected it to be back then. Gender roles are far more fluid than they once were. I applaud this even as I admit to finding it unsettling at times. What it means to be a woman (or a man) is not set in stone as I once thought it was. Gender can no longer be considered a static thing. In fact, I wrestled a lot this week about whether or not I should even ask myself the question about what it’s like to be a woman now. But given the interesting gender politics still with us, and the issues that continue to impact me as a female living today, I decided to go ahead even as I recognize that the bifurcation of humans into only two genders is shifting as I speak. And that is one interesting thing about living right now.

As a woman in ministry living in the world now, I feel a lot less alone than I did when I first asked myself these questions. There are far more women clergy in the world now than there were when I was ordained in 1985 and it is rare that I encounter overt sexism. That I still encounter it is part of what it’s like to live now. The glass ceiling is real and women are still generally expected to make the hard choices about children and family and home in ways that seem, at least to me, to elude many men. This hits me quite personally at times.

Just the other day, a doctor questioned me about my childless state. Twice he asked me if my decision not to have children was truly a choice. It was as if he couldn’t believe a woman who could bear children wouldn’t choose to. It was none of his business and he can’t know of the complicated journey that led me (and Jaco) to make that choice. But I can assure you he would not have asked Jaco the same question. That’s part of what it’s like for me to be a woman today.

The world has changed a lot for the betterment of women since I was born nearly fifty years ago. A woman is a serious contender for the presidency, after all. But there is still a lot we need to do to make gender less of an issue in politics, religion, and culture. But as a woman in today’s world I do feel I have choices, far more than my mother did or her mother before her and for that I am grateful.

What is it like to be a woman today? Complicated, challenging, confusing. Joyful, powerful, blessed. All this and more.

What is it like for you to be a woman today? Or a man? Or someone for whom gender is fluid?

My next question segues nicely from the first since I can’t separate my experience of being a woman from my experience of being an American. “What is it like to be an American now?”

I come from a family with roots in this country going back many generations. Early on my parents taught me to love my country more for its ideals than its reality. Growing up in the 1960s and 70s, in a liberal family, I was never one to look at my country through rose-colored glasses. I came of age during the Watergate hearings and the end of the Vietnam War. I saw America as a place with many flaws.

And yet, I cannot help but love this nation. Our experiment of democracy has proven its strength in the midst of extraordinary obstacles time and again. Most Americans I meet are good people who care very much about things that matter, including things that matter deeply to me, like religious freedom, environmental protection and equal rights under the law.

But it is also true that America today is a different place than it was even a few short years ago. I could say a lot about the shattered dreams that the past seven years have wrought. Americans are no longer beloved by other nations. We have become a truly global world and America has not quite figured out our place in it. More and more Americans, myself included, see ourselves as much as global citizens as we do Americans. In that capacity, much of the good things about being an American—like our incredible prosperity, our freedom to move about this enormous country in automobiles and airplanes, and our belief that all of us are entitled to live and do as we choose—is being called into question. More and more we know that our way of life is not sustainable. We know that what we do here impacts people all over the planet. We know that something has to give, but many of us aren’t exactly sure what.

What it’s like to be an American now, is to be confused and challenged by all the change that is happening and the changes that we still have to make. Personally, I find that these past few years have made me, for the first time, occasionally ashamed to be an American. I don’t like many of the choices we in this nation make. And even though I don’t like them, as an American I am complicit in them. That’s one aspect of what it’s like to be an American now.

But if I take a deep breath, and look around at all of you and this beautiful church and our fabulous children I can’t help but be grateful for the good that has emerged within this nation over our long history. Right now, race and gender and religion are things we in this country can freely talk about, even if it hurts to do so. Right now, I can cross the border from this blue state to our red state neighbor without passing through guarded checkpoints. Right now, I can criticize the leaders of my country without fear of arrest. Few of these things are true in many countries around the globe.

What is it like to be an American now? Complicated, challenging, confusing. Joyful, powerful, blessed. All this and more.

What is it like for you to be an American now?

Finally, I have to ask myself, “What is it like to be a Unitarian Universalist now?”

Like some of you and unlike others, I have been a Unitarian Universalist all my life. I don’t have a demarcation between when I was something else then became a UU. Even so, my journey within our faith community has been just that—a journey. What I thought about Unitarian Universalism many years ago and how I feel about it today are different. My personal faith has evolved and changed, and so, I would grant, has the larger faith community we call Unitarian Universalism.

Today—right now—Unitarian Universalism seems poised on a precipice. When I was growing up as a UU the energy that had made our faith a fast growing religion in the 1950s had all but dissipated. Churches were struggling and the excitement that culminated in the Civil Rights era turned into petty bickering in the post-Vietnam War era. Lots of people left the church in those days, bitter about broken promises and lost dreams. And that negative energy influenced our faith for many years.

Yet, gradually, in the last few years, I feel a bit of a sea change. Now, as a faith community we seem to deal more honestly with our differences than we did in the past. We have learned to accept responsibility for our shortcomings while building on our strengths. We have discovered that we’re proud of our faith and more of us are teaching our children to become UU. While we continue to argue about such things as religious language and the role of religion in the public square these disagreements no longer seem to carry such heat and anger. We listen better to each other, and we are even finding ways to celebrate and share our faith more eagerly.

But living today as a Unitarian Universalist can be also horribly frustrating. Though we have begun spending the money to put our name and our message out into the larger religious world, as a UU I continue to feel marginalized and not without reason. We are a part of American culture and the tendency to put everything into black and white haunts us as well as everyone else. Because we are a religion, some in the liberal world dismiss us as irrelevant. Because we are a liberal religion, some in the conservative world dismiss us as a non-religion. Thus, just about everyone ignores us.

That attitude impacts how I feel about being a UU today. After nearly 25 years in the ministry I am still astonished at how many people think that churches and clergy have no role in our secular, materialistic world. I boil when I am told I am not religious because my view of the Holy is not narrowly defined by ancient texts. I cringe when people make stupid jokes about Unitarian Universalism as a religion that is about nothing, that stands for nothing, that does nothing. I look around this room each week and know we are so much more! Being a UU today isn’t easy, for any of us.

But I must say that personally and professionally right now I can’t imagine doing anything else. I love the challenges my work brings to me. I love to hear from so many of you how this faith has changed and shaped you, held and healed you. I love to look out at each of you and know that I am not alone in dreaming and praying and hoping and working for a better world and that my religion shapes how I do that.

What is it like to be a UU now? Complicated, challenging, confusing. Joyful, powerful, blessed. All this and more.

What is it like for you to be a Unitarian Universalist now?

Your life may share many qualities with mine or it may differ dramatically. Each of us experiences the big and small issues of life in our own way. I hope that, as you go about your day and your week, you might take a moment here and there to reflect on your “right now”—to look at your life and its place in the larger world; to ask yourself questions that might elicit energy toward growth and change, or toward acceptance and peace. I encourage you to do so without judgment or blame.

Each of us is born into a culture and we each must continually make choices that move our journey onward. There are lots of things we can change about our circumstances and plenty of things we can’t. Learning to live right now requires patience and passion, energy and acceptance, and a paradoxical combination of “going with the flow” and learning how to swim upstream.

What is absolutely true is that none of us can be promised any more than this present moment. To be mortal means to have a limited number of moments on this earth. How we choose to spend those moments is the gift we can offer the world. Perhaps that’s why it’s called the present. Our present to the world is our life. May we learn to live it with grace.

Living in our world is complicated.
     No simple answers, no obvious path.
Living in our world is joyful.
     Extraordinary people, beautiful earth.
To live in our world is challenging. 
     So much at stake.
Living in our world is powerful.
     Our gifts are many and the work is real.
Living in our world is confusing.
     Whom do I follow? When do I lead?
Living in our world is blessed. 
     The Holy is all around us.

As we move forward, moment-by-moment, living our life now, may we give thanks for this precious day and for all that is our life.