The Pilgrimage of Life
Unitarian Coastal Fellowship
December 28, 2014
1
The Pilgrimage of Life. Think of our lives as a journey in search of
wisdom, or wholeness. At times we travel together with beloved others, and
at times we travel alone. As we come to the end of one year and the
beginning of another let us pause, together, to look at the roads we have
traveled, and the ways that lie ahead.
Reading:
from the Introduction to Love and Revolution, poetry by Alastair McIntosh
(2006)...
I think Joseph Campbell was right when he said that all great stories
share a common theme. There is the departure, when the fresh-faced hero
sets out on life's journey; the initiation, when she or he hits troubled rapids;
and the return, bringing back gifts and blessings that help to sustain the
community through the process of eldership.
Such is the path of any of us who rises to vocation's calling. We
gradually open out to a life that is greater than our small, egocentric selves.
As Campbell concludes: “The effect of the successful adventure of the hero
is the unlocking and release again of the flow of life into the body of the
world.”
This calls for nothing less than … seeing our activism, whether it is
social or ecological, as spiritual articulation. …
...[we are called] to an incarnate politics – to spirituality rendered
carnal, [that is,] engaged with the flesh and fabric that forms our world.
… this spirituality constantly renews the face of the Earth and of weathered
humankind.
To work with such forces in a world that is largely oblivious to them
inevitably makes one feel...that one is transgressing. [The journey is not
easy for those] who dare to tread life's elemental ways.
Lonely, perhaps, you roam the paths of love, but not alone.
[Alastair McIntosh. 2006. Love and Revolution, pp. 11-12].
We shall not cease from exploration
and the end of all our exploring
will be to arrive where we started
and know the place for the first time.
T.S. Eliot
Sermon:
Do you ever feel as though life just comes at you? There you are, minding
your own business, just trying to get through the day, just trying to get from
day to day. And then there comes the mail, or an e-mail or a text or a phone
call alerting you to a bill that needs to be paid, or something you must do, or
somebody who needs you or wants you, or something that has happened that
needs to be followed up on. (I've seen commercials on television where
there's a knock on the door and it's Publisher's Clearing House delivering a
check for a million dollars, but I've never known anybody who's had that
happen. In my world, the mail brings bills, and calls to action). The
morning paper or the radio brings news – and draws you into the story of a
shooting, a scandal, a political standoff, a suicide bombing. No wonder
people watch cat videos on YouTube. No wonder there's a move afoot to
institute a weekly “technology sabbath.” Being plugged in or connected can
raise your level of anxiety and stress. And it certainly can make you feel as
though life is coming at you, faster than you can take it in. Faster than you
can handle it.
Imagine a different way. Imagine living a different way. Instead of feeling
as though you are fighting to keep your feet under you and struggling to
maintain your balance while life comes at you ever-faster, ever-crazier,
imagine yourself moving through life at a pace that you, yourself, can set.
Imagine taking time enough to absorb the events of one day before moving
on to the next. Yes, things happen outside you, around you, even to you.
But imagine yourself not as passive recipient of the onslaught of life, but
rather as active participant, sifting through events and new insights,
challenges and opportunities; extracting from them truth and wisdom, the
essence and fulness and flavor of life. Imagine your life as a journey in
search of wisdom, or wholeness.
Alastair McIntosh, quoting Joseph Campbell, sees this journey as the
common theme of all great stories. I would go one step farther: this journey
of departure and initiation and return is the common theme of all lives fully
lived. It is the theme of my life, and of yours, if we are willing to accept the
challenge of being fully alive.
To be alive is, precisely, to participate in life's journey, knowing that it will
not be easy. To be alive is to be willing to open out to a life that is greater
than our small, egocentric selves, knowing that opening out will stretch us
beyond what is familiar, beyond what is comfortable, beyond what we
already know.
“We shall not cease from exploration,” wrote the poet T.S. Eliot, and it
would seem that the drive to explore, to learn, to know more is rooted deeply
in human nature. But Joseph Campbell, in conversation with Bill Moyers,
take us deeper: “People say that what we're all seeking is a meaning for life.
I don't think that's what we're really seeking. I think that what we're seeking
is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely
physical plane will have resonances within our own innermost being and
reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.” [Campbell and
Moyers. 1988. The Power of Myth. p. 5].
A journey towards being more fully alive is a pilgrimage – a sacred journey.
Scholar of religion Huston Smith wrote, “the object of pilgrimage is not rest
and recreation – to get away from it all. To set out on a pilgrimage is to
throw down a challenge to everyday life.” [Smith. 1998. Foreword to The Art of
Pilgrimage by Phil Cousineau. p. xi].
There are three movements to the journey. The first one is the departure –
“when the fresh-faced hero sets out on life's journey.” Departure itself is no
small thing, for it represents moving away from what is familiar, leaving
behind what is known and comfortable, setting out into the new, the
unknown, the mysterious. (♫ Mystery, mystery. Life is a riddle and a
mystery ♫). Even beginning the journey demands courage on our part.
Mustering up the courage to take that first step is our declaration of intent to
be an active participant in our own life, no longer to be the passive recipient
of what is already well-known, or whatever happens to come along.
Perhaps we turn off the radio, or stop reading the newspapers. Perhaps we
declare a technology sabbath. Perhaps we take up a spiritual discipline:
meditation, or yoga, or kayaking, or walking, or fly-fishing; making music
or art or poetry. Perhaps we choose to reconnect with an estranged friend or
relative, or to make up a quarrel; to schedule that doctor’s appointment or
that surgery; to break that habit we’ve been meaning for years to kick; to
fight back against that diagnosis or that addiction. Perhaps our pilgrimage is
a physical journey, but our story this morning reminds us that truth and
wisdom, the essence and fullness and flavor of life are as present in every
small droplet of salt water as they are in the ocean; as present in every small
action in your life as they are in the great wonders of the world; as present in
every ordinary moment as in the times of great drama. No, the departure on
a pilgrimage is nothing more or less than the decision no longer to live on
the surface of life. This is why Huston Smith calls setting out “throwing
down a challenge to everyday life.” And more than a declaration, more than
a challenge, the departure is also an act of trust – that when we step into the
unknown we will, somehow, find a place to set our foot, somehow find a
path to follow.
For you know, and I know, that rarely does any journey in this life go
exactly as we had planned it. Always there are detours, stumbling blocks,
rivers to cross and troubled rapids to run and trackless stretches where, as we
journey, we make our own road. (♫ Where do we come from? Where are
we going? ♫) The journey of life is never easy, not even – or maybe
especially – when we try to hide from the journey, when we try to stay safe
in the known and the familiar and instead find ourselves buffeted by events
from without. And when we set out exploring, it is not for rest and
recreation – not to get away from it all – but rather it is a recognition and an
honoring of the life force within us impelling us toward the challenges met
and faced and lived through and put behind us that are the experience of
being alive. This is the initiation, and in the meeting and the facing of
challenges, we find ourselves changing, moving into a new maturity; we find
ourselves tasting and taking in and being seasoned by truth and wisdom, the
essence and fullness and flavor of life – the salt in the water that flows
around us as we live on this earth and flows through our very veins as life's
blood.
We shall not cease from exploration
and the end of all our exploring
will be to arrive where we started
and know the place for the first time.
And so the pilgrimage leads away, and into unknown territory, and through
trials and challenges and troubling rapids. And then the road turns toward
home, toward the place where we started. This is the return. But now we
are different, and so we see more deeply; more clearly; more thoughtfully,
perhaps; more cynically, perhaps; more wisely and truthfully. Now we
know the place for the first time. And we come bringing back gifts and
blessings that help to sustain the community, for we are older now; we are
elders now.
For every pilgrimage departs from a familiar place, and every pilgrim takes
their leave from a community that has been a part of all that she has known
and all that has shaped his life up until the moment of departure. If your
journey is a sacred journey, then the community that you go out from is your
religious community - this religious community. And while you are gone,
we hold a place for you, and we read with interest and with love any
postcards you might send back from your travels. And we hear with
compassion news of your trials and tribulations, and we celebrate news of
your successes and triumphs, recognizing them all as integral parts of your
journey. And when you return, we greet you with respect for the journey
you have taken, knowing that, because of your travelling, you are older now,
wiser now, stronger now; you are an elder now. And we recognize that,
sometimes, it takes time and support and even healing from the journey
before a pilgrim is able to know and to name and to share the gifts and the
blessings. For the journey is not easy for those who dare to tread life's
elemental ways. Lonely, perhaps, you roam the paths of love, but not alone.
When you are ready to share, we hold ourselves open to hear you, and to
learn from you, and to be changed by what has changed you.
For as the gifts come clear and the blessings emerge, we, too are changed –
each one of us who would listen and learn, and the whole community from
which the pilgrim has gone out, and to which the pilgrim does return. And
then the journey begins again, for we shall not cease from exploration, not as
long as we are fully alive. And always, always, there is more of life to
experience, more mystery, more rapture.
So what has been your journey in this year that is ending? And what are the
gifts and the blessings that it has introduced into your life? If you have
words, and if you are willing, I invite you, on behalf of this religious
community that holds you and holds us all, to name the pilgrimage that you
have been on, and to name one blessing that has been bestowed on you, that
might help to sustain the community. If you will raise your hand, I will
bring you the microphone so we may all hear.
Naming journeys and blessings
Thanking for journeys and for blessings
And let us now, in silence, listen for the echoes of all we have heard this
morning, within and without, spoken and unspoken.
The bell will lead us into silence, and music will lead us out.
Bell
Silence
Music
Amen.