"Lessons from the Road:
Part II"
A sermon by Rev. Charles Blustein Ortman
July 26, 2009
READINGS ANCIENT AND MODERN:
The ancient reading for this morning is from the "Sayings
of Lao Tzu."
All things in Nature work silently. They come into being and possess
nothing. They fulfill their function and make no claim. All things
alike do their work, and then we see them subside. When they have
reached their bloom, each returns to its origin… This re-version
is an eternal law. To know that law… is wisdom.
The modern reading is from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 18th
Century German poet, novelist, playwright, courtier, and natural
philosopher, one of the greatest figures in Western literature.
"As if whipped by invisible spirits, the sun steeds of time
run away with the light chariot of our destiny, and nothing remains
to us but to hold onto the reins with calm courage, steering the
wheels, now right, now left, from the stone here and the abyss there.
Where it goes-who knows? One hardly remembers from where one came."
SERMON:
For those of you who may not have been with us last Sunday, I'll
take a minute to fill you in on where we were that bought us to
this particular moment. I had set out last week to share lessons
and metaphors that I had experienced along the 3,000 mile bicycle
expedition I took just a couple of months ago. There were so many
things, both obvious and discreet, that were and are worth taking
a closer look at and sharing. And so I didn't quite finish.
The point we reached last Sunday was recognizing that, when riding
a bike up a mountain, it's easy after a while to imagine, on every
uphill surge, that you are climbing the last rise before reaching
the ultimate top of the mountain. Almost invariably though, you
go around the next bend and find that that isn't the case. There's
another uphill stretch waiting to be climbed. Or maybe there's another
descent before yet another climb, toward - what you hope to be -
the new apparent, but even further ultimate objective. And though
I hadn't intended it at the start, that's sort of where my sermon
ended last week. I wasn't even close to my goal of sharing with
you the many mountains of metaphors from the trip. In retrospect,
I probably wasn't even halfway. So we'll see where we get to this
morning.
Moving on…
To begin this morning, I wanted to share a couple of assumptions
that I'd held at the onset of the trip, and how those assumptions
played out in reality. For the first one, I suppose the metaphor
is that of order. In an orderly universe, things unfold in an orderly
manner, yes? Another name for this metaphor might be the scientific
method. I actually do subscribe to this metaphor. Certain things
give way to other things that one can trace back to some origin.
Understanding what has happened helps us to predict what will or
could occur. The point is though, that it's easy to get tripped
up on the premise that we can reach into the great mystery and come
out with a handful of predictable orderliness. The order of things
is so much easier to see in retrospect than it is when we're in
the midst of things, like… say… a bicycle ride.
So one of the assumptions I held was that it would be smart to
make the trip riding with a tail-wind from the west coast to the
east coast. Whenever we tune in to learn what the weather forecast
will be on any given day or for the next few days, it's easy to
see that weather patterns typically move from west to east, all
the way across the continent. Riding over 3,000 miles pushed by
prevailing tailwinds, seemed to make a lot more sense than going
the opposite direction, riding against headwinds.
That was the assumption. The reality of our experience though,
proved that there are no such things as prevailing tailwinds. Oddly
enough though, the reverse situation, prevailing headwinds, does
indeed exist. Prevailing headwinds are not only a reality, they
are…well…they are prevailing. Our trip lasted 47 days;
we actually rode on 45 of those days. On at least 40 of the riding
days we rode into headwinds that ranged in velocity from a moderate
breeze to 40 MPH winds. Riding as fast as you can into a 40 MPH
wind leaves one going barely fast enough to stay upright.
Goethe wrote, "As if whipped by invisible spirits, the sun
steeds of time run away with the light chariot of our destiny…"
I'm pretty sure he was talking about headwinds. And I know he was
right; they do run away like that. I just don't understand how.
I often thought, on the trip, that if I turned around and headed
into the opposite direction, the winds would turn right around with
me and would still be blowing right into my face. I suppose that
might be grandiose thinking. Imagining that nature will or ought
to meet our expectations - even when our expectations fly in the
face of what we want - is really some kind of arrogance. Modern
day mystic and author, Laura Teresa Marquez, warns that, "Arrogance
and rudeness are training wheels on the bicycle of life - for weak
people who cannot keep their balance without them."
I suspect that this particular lesson is a lot like crying over
spilled milk. What's the use? My late father-in-law would often
say, "You just have to play the hand you were dealt, that's
all." When we learn to do that, not to cry over spilled milk,
or to get stuck not wanting to deal with our hands or our circumstances,
then we can take of those training wheels. The truth is they really
do slow us down.
Moving on…
The other assumption I had starting out was that this ride would
provide endless hours, even days of opportunity for uninterrupted
contemplation of the universe. While, as I've illustrated numerous
times already, assumptions very often fail to pan out, this was
one that truly came to pass. I had hoped to ponder the universe
in exploration of what for me would be uncharted territories of
new discoveries, realizations and sensitivities. And that's exactly
what I had plenty of time to do.
What I had not imagined though, was just exactly what part of the
universe might be available to me that I would have the opportunity
to probe. Would it be the infinitely vast expanses of the macrocosmic
heavens? Would it be the immeasurably microscopic realm of the molecular
underpinnings of existence? I know that what I often think of as
divine or of the mystery can sometimes be approached either from
such a grand larger view of the cosmos where heavenly bodies dance
in swirling rhythm or from an infinitesimally miniscule view of
the atom's pulsating, undulating whirl of positive and negative
particles.
What I got was somewhere in between. The part of the universe where
I found myself primarily attuned was a fairly well defined segment
of the universe. It was the ever constant but varying patch of road
just in front of me. It tended to be about 10 to 15 yards wide,
by about 10 to 25 yards deep. Still, that was the part of the universe
within which I mostly found my being, understood my experience,
found a perspective of my past and anticipated the future. Within
the field of that distinct rectangle lay all the verities of my
existence and - in truth - the answers to my deepest questions,
on any given day.
Within the limits of those parameters, I was able to find myself
and my world. At times it appeared that I was the only living being
within that space. But of course that was an illusion. My 100 to
200 square yards of universe was loaded with life of all kinds.
Flora, fauna, wildlife, not such wildlife, friends, strangers and
machines all filled my universe at various times. I was there in
relationship to and with all of them, if and when I was able to
take the time, to have the discipline to notice. The point is, whatever
we perceive our limitations to be, however we might limit our perspective,
the point is to pay attention and to notice.
How often do we feel that if, just something were or weren't so
(whatever that something might be) that our lives would be so much
better and we would finally be satisfied? I'm guessing that, if
we are looking for something that isn't in our own backyards, it
probably isn't something that we really need anyway. The challenge
is to see through the illusion of our limits. That sure is a lot
easier said than done, isn't it? Still, it is worth doing. There
is a lot to notice and pay attention to.
19th Century German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer took the dim
view that, "Every [one] takes the limits of his [or her] own
field of vision for the limits of the world." Les Brown, leader
of the band renowned and named for him - and obviously a philosopher
in his own right - had a less damning view of human limitations.
He said, "Life has no limitations, except the ones you make."
The Buddha taught that there are never really limits within perceived
limitations, only the possibility for the refinement of our perspective.
And we are left, the Buddha taught, to pay attention and to notice.
Moving on…
Several weeks ago, when I gave my first sermon after returning,
I listed many of the best parts of the trip. The list was long but
it was not exhaustive. There were so many bests that I couldn't
list them all in a single sermon. At least I thought I couldn't.
What I learned after that service though, was that many of you also
wanted to hear about the low end of things. "What was the worst
thing that happened, Charlie?" many of you asked.
You might expect that the worst thing was the accident I had in
Kansas when I attempted, unsuccessfully, to ride over a challenging
railroad crossing. Truth is that really wasn't the worst thing,
and I'll tell you why shortly. I'm not sure just what the worst
thing might have been, but I can tell you about the most miserable
thing...
We started the day in Springer, New Mexico, setting out early because
the weather was supposed to start out ugly and then get worse as
the day wore on. We rode out along Maxwell Avenue, heading toward
the highway on the edge of Springer. We were riding in a pea soup
fog punctuated by a driving rain. The electronic marquee in front
of the Farmer's and Cattleman's International Bank said that it
was 42 degrees at 6:30 AM. "Oh, my God," I mumbled a quiet
prayer to myself.
The weather forecast did not let us down. Things got…well,
they did not get any better. The challenges were many. It was cold
and rainy. I was soaked to the skin and freezing. My eyeglasses
were dripping wet, inside and out, and all fogged up, so that I
had to take them off, which is not a particularly good thing. And
to top it off there was a headwind that kind of made everything
go in slow motion. You might have had dreams like this; I have.
We three riders were all fairly miserable and so each of us kind
of went at our own fastest pace, trying to get somewhere, anywhere,
so we could get out of the weather. Towns are infrequent in northern
New Mexico. 35 miles up the road we arrived, one by one, at the
almost not-town of Gladstone. I arrived about an hour and a half
after Bill and about a half hour after Kriss. I really have not
been exaggerating about how slow of a cyclist I am. They were already
well on their way to being warm and dry when I walked in to the
Gladstone Mercantile Exchange, which was run by a kindly woman named
Thelma.
When Bob Dylan wrote the line, "'Come in' she said, 'and I'll
give you shelter from the storm,'" I think he must have had
Thelma at the Mercantile in mind. She had plenty of hot coffee and
did not mind that we were walking around in our soggy, stocking
feet, nor that we had strewn our wet clothes all over her store,
so they might dry. I was sore, and wet, and cold, and grouchy and
hungry. After a few minutes, I walked over to where Thelma was hanging
out and asked if I could get a couple of eggs over easy with some
whole wheat toast.
"Sure," she said. "But you should know that, even
though we call it whole wheat, it really isn't. Is that okay? I
nodded.
"You want some jelly with that?"
"Do you have strawberry?" I asked.
"No," she said. "But I do have some homemade jelly
that I think you might like."
"Yep," I said, "sounds great." My meal was
perfectly fine and certainly hit the spot. A little later, when
we'd finally thawed out and dried up as much as we were going to,
and it was time to start riding again, I asked Thelma what I owed
her for the food.
"Well, we don't really serve breakfast here," she said.
"But I could see that you needed it. Do you think $2.50 would
be okay?"
We were warmed not only by the wood stove at Thelma's Mercantile
Exchange, but by the warmth of her gracious hospitality and generous
care. I don't know how many times we said, "thank you."
Quite a few.
When we got back outside, we looked up at the sky, which looked
just like the horizon because it was still so foggy you couldn't
see the fence along the side of the road. It was still raining and
it may not have been any colder, but it wasn't any warmer either.
The thing was though, that now I was warm. I didn't feel cold again
that whole day. Talk about a breakfast that sticks to your ribs!
"I've always depended on the kindness of strangers,"
said Blanche DuBois in "A Streetcar Named Desire." She's
not alone in that regard. But I suppose that was Tennessee Williams'
point. She wasn't alone. She depended on others. None of us are
in this alone. We all depend on the kindness of strangers. And in
turn we become the stranger, here to extend kindness to others.
A funny thing happened a few more miles up the road that same afternoon.
A rancher passed by me. His brake lights went on and then he backed
up and hopped out of his pick-up truck. "I'd be real glad to
give you a ride into Clayton," he said.
"No thanks," I said. "That's my goal for the day.
I'll have a couple of friends waiting for me when I get there."
And I told him a bit about our bike trip.
He pleaded with me, "It's terrible out here! What if one of
these truck drivers don't see you in all this fog?"
"I'll be fine," I thanked him. Every vehicle that had
passed me all day had left a nice wide margin of safety as they'd
gone around. I knew I was visible. "I'll be fine," I said
again. "And thank you so much for taking the time to stop and
offering me a ride."
"Oh, don't mention it," he said. "And please forgive
me for bargin' into your affairs like this." Can you imagine!
The one thing that might be worse than failing to extend hospitality
for this fellow was the possibility of sticking his nose into somebody
else's business.
It's as though, on this day - that had begun so miserably - I had
stepped into a mirror image of a metaphor offered by the ancient
Greek poet Homer, "The gods, likening themselves to all kinds
of strangers, go in various disguises from city to city, observing
the wrongdoing and the righteousness of [people]." Or maybe
it was I who kept running into strangers who were the ones who were
gods in this experience.
My hope is that we all get to take turns at being the well met
stranger, and then at being the welcoming host. Hospitality is such
a precious gift… from every perspective of it.
Moving on a bit…
I said I would get back to the incident of my fall on the railroad
tracks in Kansas. I won't belabor this story because I told you
about it in a Story for Children of All Ages segment back in June.
(You can listen to the audio recording of that story on our website
at: uumontclair.org) Suffice it to say that on the morning of the
fall, I was moving along at a good clip. I hit the tracks; my wheel
got caught between them and the road; I went down - hard, slapping
my head off the pavement; my helmet saved my life; I scraped and
bruised much of my body; I scraped and bent much of my bicycle,
and I was really grateful just be alive.
But it was the same kind of experience with strangers all over
again. It could have been awful, but it wasn't. Passing motorists
stopped to help, literally before my bicycle wheels stopped spinning.
A short while later, our SAG driver, Martha, and I were on the way
to the to the hospital emergency room, when we blew out a couple
of tires on our supply wagon. We were pulled off to the side of
the road, when the very next driver to come along, stopped and volunteered
to take me all the way to the hospital. It was 15 miles out of his
way, and when we got there, he wouldn't leave until he was sure
that I was receiving the care and treatment that he would want for
himself.
Once again, gods likening themselves to all kinds of strangers.
When I hear the media instructing parents of young children to teach
those children never to trust a stranger, it breaks my heart. We
are saved through strangers; I'm sure of it. We can never be saved,
never be sustained in isolation. We are part of an interdependent
web of being. We are only saved, sustained, when we take others
into consideration, and they do the same for us. I would hope we
could teach our children to revere the stranger. I also hope that
we could teach our kids to use their helmets when biking, as well.
Moving on…
So, once again it looks a lot like we have just about reached the
summit, the point toward which we are heading. But as we round this
next bend, I can already see that we still have a ways to go. We're
not there yet. There are more lessons from the road and metaphors
to share. There's the dead zone, and the community on the move.
There's the eye of the beholder, the looks that can be deceiving,
and so many others. I'm going to hope we can ride through some of
these together again, when I return in September.
Renowned journalist and author of erotica Anais Nin wrote, "The
personal life deeply lived always expands into truths beyond itself."
The great Unitarian orator and activist A. Powell Davies wrote,
"Life is just a chance to grow a soul."
It's my hope that wherever you ride between now and when we see
each other again, or wherever you walk, or wherever you work, or
play, or do, or be anything - wherever you are, my hope is that
you will take some time for your spiritual discipline, to pay attention,
to notice what's there and who you are in the mix. And I will hope
that that will provide you with even more meaning in your experience,
because it all really is a journey, and our journeys are full of
experience. Isn't that something! Isn't that wonderful! Isn't that
something to pay attention to!
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