The Rev.
Originally written in Dec. 2000,
updated for September 23, 2007
A
man found an eagle’s egg and put it in the nest of a backyard hen. The eaglet hatched with the brood of chicks
and grew up with them. All his life the eaglet
did what backyard chickens did, thinking he was a backyard chicken. He scratched the earth for worms and
insects. He clucked and cackled. And he would thrash his wings and fly a few
feet in the air. Years passed and the
eagle grew very old. One day he saw a
magnificent bird far above him in the cloudless sky. It glided in graceful majesty among the
powerful wind currents with scarcely a beat of its strong, golden wings. The old eagle looked up in awe. “Who’s that?” he asked. That’s the eagle, the king of the birds,”
said his neighbor. “He belongs to the
sky. We belong to the earth – we’re
chickens.” So the eagle lived and died
as a chicken, for that’s what he thought he was.[1]
There
once was a man named Daedalus, considered widely to be the cleverest of all
artists and craftsmen in Greece. Indeed,
it was Daedalus who traveled to Crete to design the amazing labyrinth where
King Minos held captive the deadly Minotaur. But, like many clever men, Daedalus eventually
fell out of favor with the King, and he and his son Icarus were imprisoned in a
tall stone tower near the sea. Soon
Daedalus conceived of a clever plot to escape.
Father
and son saved the crumbs from their food to entice seagulls into the tower, and
then patiently collected their feathers, while also hoarding the wax dripping
from their candles. Daedalus made two
sets of wings from the feathers, and taught himself and Icarus to fly.
At
last they were ready to set out on their journey to freedom. As he tied the wings to his son’s body,
Daedalus warned him not to soar too high, lest the sun melt the wax. When they left, local fishermen mistook them
for Gods. Icarus, filled with joy and a
sense of heady freedom after his long confinement, began soaring, higher and
higher. Higher and higher he went, feeling
as if he were himself an eagle who could brush the very heights of the heavens. But soon the heat of the sun melted the wax,
and Icarus plunged to the sea and perished.
His father reached his homeland with sorrow in his heart, and never
attempted flight again.
Many –
perhaps most – of us have lived parts of our lives believing we were chickens –
doing as good chickens do, until one day we looked up into the sky and sensed
that we might actually be able to fly.
One potential trap of dogmatic faith is the limiting of one’s
horizons. Failing to see that all
religious wisdom and writing at best point in the direction of universal truths
– something like signposts in a forest -- one can forget that the spiritual
life requires our participation and our own deep discernment about what is
right and true.
We are
simply not all the same on this planet – there are chickens and eagles and
birds of all feathers among our human race – and religion is not a one-size-fits-all
proposition. Yet; it is also possible to
be deluded into thinking ourselves superior, having cast aside what may have
felt like the shackles of a formerly narrow view of truth. Like Icarus, we try on our wings of freedom
and become giddy with the sensation of flight itself, so much so that we fail
to notice that we are destroying that which has held us up. Perhaps tragedy strikes, or some event in our
lives throws us into the existential pit and we realize that our wings have no
more wax, and we are about to plunge into the sea. We have failed to build at our cores a
spiritual foundation to replace whatever it is we have rejected, and so we find
ourselves hollow at the center.
As
Michael Werner, a UU and a former president of the American Humanist
Association writes:
Religion
began not in a church, but around a campfire.
In the ancient glow of flames and embers, stone-age parents confronted
the eternal questions of existence. Who
are we? What is our purpose? What happens when we die? How should we live? Why
is there suffering? Why be good?…
[Unitarian
Universalists, he continues] have done an excellent job on such functional
aspects of religion as building nurturing, supportive communities. But religion must answer the questions by the
campfire. Our duty resides not just in
the process, but also in providing the content.
It is
certainly a temptation for Unitarian Universalists to become “rejectionists”
rather than taking on the difficult (but, I would argue also immeasurably rewarding)
task of building a faith of one’s own. Go
to any larger UU gathering, and you will find bumper stickers and T-shirts that
celebrate the leaving behind of creeds and our rejection of fundamentalism. “My karma ran over your dogma” is a favorite
of mine. “My Goddess can beat up your
God.” There are little fish with feet
that say “Darwin.” There are fish
without feet that say “Gefilte.” Ok –
they are funny, and it’s OK to have a sense of humor about it all. But a bracelet being sold by “Uni-uniques”
might be a good meditation piece for all of us – produced as an alternative to
all of the “WWJD” (What Would Jesus Do) jewelry on the market, it has the
letters “WWUUD” – “What Would UU Do?”
Here we
are – we’ve flown out of the chicken coop!
Now, what would UU do? The task
we all have before us is to slowly and even painfully, moment by moment and day
by day, discover what is worthy of reverence in our living. Like all people of faith, we need to attend
to those basic questions of human living that were discussed around campfires
in ancient days. Who are we? What are we really? Why do we live? And by what are our brief lives made
worthwhile?
Being a
UU isn’t just about wearing T-shirts that show people worshipping a coffee pot,
or having bumper stickers that say “To question is the answer.” Being a UU isn’t even just about attending
services on Sunday mornings, or even just participating in the challenging and
wonderful work of community building by serving on committees and boards. Being a UU means using that freedom you have
been granted through the struggles and sacrifices of generations that have gone
before us to use our brains, our hearts and our souls in our quest for truth
and meaning. And, it means sharing our
gleanings of those truths with one another, and with the world at large.
I have
often failed in carrying out the great discipline it requires to build such a
faith. Desiring to simply sit in silence
every day so that I can open a listening ear to my soul, I often fail to do it. The demands of daily living easily overwhelm
the determination to set aside special time for simply being. Like all of us, it sometimes requires a
wake-up call for me to remember how much I depend on a firm spiritual
foundation to live my life the way I truly want to be – with grace and
simplicity and heart.
Years
ago I had the chance to spend a day in meditation at a Zen Center in Salt Lake
City. Not only were we asked to remain
in complete silence throughout the day, but we were even asked to avoid eye contact
with the other participants, freeing us from normal social niceties, and
allowing us to shift our focus from without to within.
Taking a
walk through a nearby graveyard after lunch in the silent companionship of my
fellow retreat participants, I was struck by the great tide of our human
generations. The tombstones were grouped
according to faiths – the Latter Day Saints in large numbers over here, the
Catholic graves there, the Chinese Buddhists in a small fenced in area with a
large oven for burning offerings, and a Jewish section, with stones resting on
the tops of the markers, indicating a belief that all would meet again at the
rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem.
What had they found in the afterlife I wonder? Who was right; who was wrong? Where they still so divided, or was there a
sort of unity in the realm beyond?
On that
sunlit day, walking through the dappled light of trees showing off their fall
brilliance, it was easy to imagine a sort of grace resting over the wheel of
life. Somehow at that moment I found
myself in touch with more than the daily grind, more than the suffering present
in much of living. I was touching the
peace that is beyond all understanding and the love that moves beyond our
abilities to give.
The next
Friday, my father called to tell me he had prostate cancer. Although he was at an early stage and later
treatments would leave him cancer free, as he remains today, I couldn’t know
that at the time of that phone call. I
have watched Tracy go through this during the last few days as her father’s condition has gone up and
down, but it is difficult to remain in that state of peace and love when a
crisis like this descends upon you. Not
only are you crazy with fear and concern for your loved one, but it is always a
harsh reminder of ones own mortality when a person who is precious to you
stands vulnerable before you, saying the words “I have cancer” or “I have AIDS”
or “I had a small stroke” or “I have only six months at best to live.” Upon what can we rest our faith – we who are
without creed and dogma – at such times?
I know
for me, the answer is so simple that it is stunning – I need to sit still in
silence. For you the access to the great
mystery may be found in books, in conversation, in music, in nature, or prayer
of some kind. But how often are you
sipping at that well? Are you engaged in
critical thinking about your faith? The
question we must all ask ourselves is twofold:
Are we living out the questions that our free faith allows us to ask?
and, What is the gift that our individual quest has to offer back to the world?
The
spiritual life lived fully will contain moments of ecstasy – like the one that
Icarus experienced as he brushed his wings against the very heavens themselves. And, it will contain moments when we suddenly
look up at an eagle in flight and either realize that there might be more to
life that clucking and pecking, or quickly look down and go on acting like a
chicken. Yet either scenario has the
potential of paradoxically poisoning our souls (my term for the most authentic
self). Many the great spiritual leader
has tasted of enlightenment only to become addicted to the glow and abused his
or her power through sex or through gluttony. And more quietly, many the eagle has lived and
died thinking it was a chicken without ever trying out its magnificent wings.
We
Unitarian Universalists are perhaps less likely to staying in religious chicken
coops than others. This is not to say
that all people who are members of dogmatic faiths are chickens – no – because
there are many who delve deeply into systematic religions and who do not
mistake the religious markers for the way itself. But we who are Unitarian Universalists have
chosen to seek for the truth wherever it may be found – in the world religions,
in science, in philosophy, and in our own direct encounters with the Great
Mystery. But if our karma has run over
our dogma, where do we now stand, and are we really taking on the journey with
all that we have to give?
Unitarian
Universalism is more than a rejection of creed and lifeless dogmatic believe –
it is a faith that affirms our worth and dignity as diverse individuals and
that celebrates the power of our engagement with the web of life. Our symbol, if you notice is not an empty
chalice, but one that is filled with a dancing, living flame – the light of
truth, the energy of action, and the warmth of love. It is up to us to make something of these
ideals – not because we are fallen beings who need redemption, but because we
are blessed to live in freedom.
What has
perplexed many is to name the enduring center of Unitarian Universalism – is it
our exalted history, is it humanism, is it pluralism, or perhaps our prophetic
social witness? What is the content
beyond the process that Michael Werner suggests that we must offer? Or, in other words, what is our saving
message?
To me,
the saving message of Unitarian Universalism is twofold. First:
at the heart of life, our very lives, abides a transforming and
sustaining love. It is inherent in each
one of us. It is what I would call a
spark of divinity within each one of us, and what a humanist might call the
potential for goodness within. This is what we point to when we say in our
first principle: each one of us has inherent worth and dignity. And second: we are inextricably linked
together, you and I, in a web of life.
This means that we are each accountable for the good of all beings –
each of us called to be the justice-makers, and the sustainers of a healthy
world environment. On the other side, it
also means that none of us – regardless of particular theology – is ultimately
alone. We are here to care for and help
one another, that we might amplify our joy, and share our sorrows.
But you
don’t have to take it from me. The
saving message of Unitarian Universalism is found in each of our journeys,
because this is a living faith, rather than one that is simply received. The center of Unitarian Universalism is found
in the conversation, in the search itself, and in the worthiness of your
contribution to the quest for truth. May
we live out the journey with our all
– we chickens, we eagles, we sparrows, we herons -- in the spirit of love,
justice and peace.
Amen.
[1] from Stories of the Spirit, Stories of the Heart, gathered by Jack Kornfield and Christina Feldman.