“Our Dwelling Place”
Pepper Swanson
Eden United Church of Christ
Hayward, California
The Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost
October 26, 2014
Psalm 90:1-6, 13-17
In this month’s
Atlantic Monthly
, Robert Parker, one of the magazine’s culture writers, tells a very poignant story about the comedian Robin Williams, whom we lost to suicide last August.
In his story, Mr. Parker explains how he watched, with his son and three nephews, all under the age of 13, Robin Williams’ very popular movie
Mrs. Doubtfire the night before
Robin Williams’ death. To the boys, who were naturally curious why such a talented actor would take his own life, it was quite a coincidence that they would watch the movie the very night before the sad news would break. To Mr. Parker, however, it was less of a coincidence and more of a statistical inevitability, because as he reports:
“I’ve been watching Mrs. Doubtfire at roughly four-month intervals, alone or in the company of whoever will watch it with me, since the day it was r eleased.” In fact, later in the article he estimates that he’s seen
Mrs. Doubtfire about 83 times. It is, to him, a
“security-blanket” or “thumb in the mouth” movie, a movie that he watches time and time again to sooth and compensate, to literally and figuratively rescue him from what he calls “sloppy nights, dubious mornings, and bottomless afternoons.”
I found Mr. Parker’s admission that Mrs. Doubtfire was his “go to” movie for comfort and security a real eye opener because, well, because I thought I was the only one who used movies that way! Tired: Harry Potter. Sick: Harry Potter. Sick and Tired: Harry
Potter. Sometimes, just to mix it up: Pride and Prejudice . And I’ve noticed that When
Harry Met Sally gets played a lot at our house, too; bu t in that case I’m the one rolling my eyes and saying, “What, again?”
What I really liked, however, about Mr. Parker’s story (besides the fact he confirmed I’m not a complete idiot about Harry Potter movies) is that he captured something very poignant about the transitory nature of human life and death:
“Death,” he wrote, “if we are loved at all in this world, is a centrifuge: at the moment of cessation, it throws our essence outward, scattering us abroad with supernatural force and largesse. And in the hearts that receive these essential shards or sparks we are, for

a short time, revealed
—who we really were, what we really meant. For a short time.
Then it’s back to the common muddle and the general noisy sleep: life.”
Parker has used the apt and beautiful image of a glass centrifuge to illustrate something true but sad: human life is transitory, passing, fleeting. We are born, we live, and we touch others but ultimately we do pass on and are forgotten. Even someone as famous, as funny, as wealthy, and as beloved as Robin Williams may touch us deeply and profoundly at their passing but only for the time we take to process their lives and then return to our own, which will in time will come to their own conclusion.
We all know this —death and taxes after all—but it bothers us. I dare say, it bothers us a lot.
It is something we may ponder when we’re young, but as we age we really start to think about it more often and a little differently. In time, it isn’t the certainty of death that bothers us nearly as much as our desire, our hope, our expectation that our lives, at their conclusion, should have some meaning, that we will have done something good, if not great. We want, by and large, to have achieved something definitive, not merely survived.
But if the truth be told, survival is often the only thing that is really and truly available to us. Sometimes, no matter how hard we try, we barely make a dent in the world we are born into. That’s why, sometimes, the passing of very talented, famous, and wealthy people like Robin Williams creates an existential crisis for the rest of us. We say to ourselves: if he or she had it all (talent, money, fame) and couldn’t find enough meaning in life to live, what chance do I (talent-less, poor, unknown) have of finding or making meaning in this fleeting existence?
As I was sorting through my own thoughts about the meanings of life and death and doing some reading, I realized that no one had ever told me that there were two completely natural and normal processes that humans undertake to find meaning in life.
These processes are called “reminiscence” and “life review.”
Of course, I had heard of “reminiscence,” but I always thought of it as just a fun thing we do when we run into an old friend. I didn’t realize that it was a naturally occurring and universal process that humans use to make life more meaningful. Periodically through life, individual events will come to the forefront of one’s mind and be recounted, often with friends and family. Psychiatrists say that “reminiscing” often serves a very important purpose, giving old memories new and more meaningful emotional content than if they had not been recalled or shared.
“Reminiscence” is primarily an emotional and feeling way to process moments of life.
“Life review” is also a naturally occurring, universal mental process. “Life review” is when past experiences return to one’s consciousness in a progression, particularly unresolved conflicts.
“Life review” is not a dysfunction of the ill or symptom of decline in the elderly, but a process that all humans, young and old, may engage in as they
Pepper Swanson, “Our Dwelling Place,” 10/26/2014, page 2 of 5

approach the end of their life.
“Life review” also emerges naturally in those who experience the loss of loved ones.
“Life review” is primarily a thinking or analytical way of processing one’s entire life. “Life review” can be good or bad, depending on how well the individual does at surveying and re-integrating their past experiences and unresolved conflicts. Psychiatrists say “life review” can be very life-enhancing because as the events of one’s life come forward, the conscious mind has an opportunity to reconsider and reorganize what the events meant, thus giving new meaning to one’s entire life.
Knowing that “reminiscence” and “life review” are naturally occurring processes that can be key to understanding our lives gives me a keener appreciation of how important we are to each other in the challenge of understanding what human life means. The next time someone tells you about an important event in their lives, you have a golden opportunity to help them understand it in a more positive fashion. It reminds me and makes me oh so grateful for all the times someone heard my story, patted my hand, and said, “well, you were so young,” or “you just didn’t know any better,” or better yet, “you aren’t like that anymore.” It’s moments like that which have been instrumental in teaching me that all the events of my life —good or bad—are part of a larger and more meaningful narrative.
Another thing we can do for each other is to remind each other that some of the models we carry in our heads for what makes life meaningful are absurdly achievementoriented or ridiculously monolithic in their approach to life. In her 1989 book, Composing
A Life , Mary Catherine Bateson pointed out that we are inundated from a very young age with the idea that our life story should be coherent, progressive, purposeful; a singular quest. We are taught to think that at the end of our life, the most fitting image of our life’s biography should be a massive sculpted tree trunk of our own carving. In reality, most lives are composites; a very rough order created from a myriad of constantly changing responsibilities and opportunities. In reality, we “improv” our way through life
—taking jobs, making families, raising children, living out our lives with what’s available rather than what’s ideal. The more realistic image for one’s life is a patchwork quilt, crafted from life’s odds and ends.
The Reverend Nancy Osborne, who trains and supervises chaplains, has suggested that the Bateson’s “life is a quilt” metaphor works great in one other way. Somewhere beyond “reminiscence” and “life review” is a process she calls “life synthesis.” “Life synthesis” is a deliberate spiritual process that brings together the moments of our lives and the whole of our lives with the call of God toward wholeness and peace. In other words, “life synthesis” is a metaphorical stitching together of the pieces of our life—our reminiscences and what emerges in life review —with love, be it our love, the love of others, or the love of God.
For Osborne, a meaningful life is when all the scraps of one’s life are held together, not by coincidence or happenstance, but by love and when God’s love provides the backing that makes those sewn together scraps a warm and useful blanket.
Pepper Swanson, “Our Dwelling Place,” 10/26/2014, page 3 of 5

Today’s Scripture reading from Psalm 90 makes a lovely example of what Osborne means. The psalmist, as we like to call the unknown author of these ancient songs, is keenly aware that the length and meaning of human life is rather ins ignificant in God’s time. After all, to God a thousand years is like yesterday when it is past and humans are like dreams that God sweeps away each morning.
But this is not where the psalmist begins or ends his thought about humans and God.
Like a good “life synthesis” or a beautiful patchwork quilt, the psalmist sews the idea that human life is short and insignificant next to two magnificent ideas, both of which are worth thinking about.
The first is that we carry out our lives not only within God, but within a God that encompasses all time and space:
Lord, you have been our dwelling-place
in all generations.
Before the mountains were brought forth,
or ever you had formed the earth and the world,
from everlasting to everlasting you are God.
Second, our God that encompasses all time and space, the God in whom we dwell, has what we mortals need to make life meaningful. The psalmist prays for God’s love:
Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love,
so that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
And for meaningful work for our hands:
Let the favour of the Lord our God be upon us,
and prosper for us the work of our hands
—
O prosper the work of our hands!
Psalm 90 calls us to see not that we are insignificant or that our lives lack meaning, but that God is significant and that God’s love gives meaning to our lives. In other words,
Psalm 90 calls us to measure our lives not by the shortness of our time, our power and accomplishment, but by the infinite horizon, love and knowledge of God.
As Reverend Osborne says, when we sew our life together with God in the way the psalmist has, I think we learn a little about ourselves:
We learn that sometimes we need help figuring out the meaning of life. As Robert
Parker points out in his article, watching Mrs. Doubtfire so many times not only brought him in touch with his own grief but enabled him to see what a large role unresolved grief played in Robin Williams’ comedy and suicide. When love of family and friends is not enough, we need help, both human and divine.
Pepper Swanson, “Our Dwelling Place,” 10/26/2014, page 4 of 5

We learn that in every stage of our life, other people, be they friends, family, or our larger community, are critical to the natural process we deploy to make our lives meaningful. Remembering, sharing, talking, and processing together, more than counting our money or our achievements, is fundamental to shaping a life that is meaningful to us.
I dare say we might even learn that we watch too many movies over and over again, rather than turning to the wisdom of our Scriptures, like Psalm 90, to find that it isn’t just us but generation after generation that has struggled with these questions about the meaning of life and found their answers in God, rather than Mrs. Doubtfire or Harry
Potter.
But more important than what we learn about ourselves is what we learn about God. We learn that sometimes God is the only one who can help us remember and reorder, the only who can heal, the only one that can hold it all together. We learn that we dwell in
God not because God is bigger or more infinite than we are, but because God is the love we need to sew our life into something both beautiful and meaningful. Amen.
Pepper Swanson, “Our Dwelling Place,” 10/26/2014, page 5 of 5