"On Spirituality and Religion"
A sermon by Rev. Charles Blustein Ortman
September 27, 2009
READINGS:
Our first reading is by A. Powell Davies entitled, Why I
come to Church. Davies was a Unitarian minister who died in
1957. He served for a while at our nearby congregation in Summit
and went on to gain national renown from his pulpit at All Souls
Unitarian Church in Washington, D.C. For decades he provided a powerful
liberal religious voice by combining a passion for civil rights
with a deep concern for both spiritual and worldly issues. He wrote:
Let me tell you why I come to church. I come to church-and would
whether I was a preacher or not-because I fall below my own standards
and need to be constantly brought back to them. I am afraid of becoming
selfish and indulgent, and my church-my church of the free spirit-brings
me back to what I want to be. I could easily despair; doubt and
dismay could overwhelm me. My church renews my courage and my hope.
It is not enough that I should think about the world and its problems
at the level of a newspaper report or a magazine discussion. It
could too soon become too low a level. I must have my conscience
sharpened-sharpened until it goads me to the most thorough and responsible
thinking of which I am capable. I must feel again the love I owe
to others. I must not only hear about it but feel it. In church,
I do. I am brought toward my best, in every way toward my best.
Our Second Reading, The Task of the Religious Community, is
written by Mark Morrison-Reed. Mark, one of our few African-American
clergy, is Minister Emeritus at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation
of Toronto.
The central task of the religious community is to unveil the bonds
that bind each to all. There is a connectedness, a relationship
discovered amid the particulars of our own lives and the lives of
others. Once felt, it inspires us to act for justice. It is the
church that assures us that we are not struggling for justice on
our own, but as members of a larger community. The religious community
is essential, for alone our vision is too narrow to see all that
must be seen, and our strength too limited to do all that must be
done. Together, our vision widens and our strength is renewed.
SERMON:
It was mid-December and the late afternoon was warm, but not unseasonably
so. Try as it might, the low-angled sunlight couldn't quite make
it into the pillared promenade that lined the Galleria in front
of the shops across the piazza from the Duomo of St. Augustine,
patron saint of Milan. Besides shade, the curved walls and arched
ceilings of the Galleria provided excellent acoustics for a couple
of buskers, street singers, such as ourselves.
My partner and I had been at it for a couple of hours. We had enjoyed
some good-sized crowds of appreciative audiences. We had our pictures
taken for the next day's edition of Il Foglio, one of the local
newspapers. We'd met an opera singer, Charles English, who was starring
in a production of, Figaro at LaScala, and who'd invited us to dinner.
Our guitar case was filled with thousands and thousands of lira.
For those of you who remember the value of the lira back in the
1970's, it wasn't much. Still, we'd probably cleared over a hundred
bucks that session, and that was good enough to call it a day.
We packed up our guitars and set out across the piazza. We were
feeling pretty good about the world and about Milan in particular.
It was still too early to think about supper. People were heading
in all directions. Some of them were passing in and out of the Duomo,
which with its Baptistery and Tower, is the great cathedral of Milan.
We thought we'd wander in for a look ourselves. The cathedrals in
Italy are rather incredible museums altogether. This one dedicated
to St. Augustine was no exception. It was a huge work of art, itself,
filled with countless smaller, but no less beautiful, pieces.
We meandered in, stopping along the way at several of the side
altars, heading our way up toward the apse in front. When we got
up to that area we noticed, off to the side of the apse there was
an open door. We couldn't really see where it went. But there it
was and there wasn't anyone telling us not to go through it. So,
of course, we did. Then we found ourselves in a dimly lit hallway
that led through a number of other smaller rooms. Some were filled
with paintings, some statuary. Some of the rooms were small chapels
that had probably seen countless christenings, weddings and funerals
over the centuries.
We continued on and eventually came to a staircase. Still, there
was no one suggesting or telling us that we shouldn't go down the
stairs. So, of course, accepting their tacit invitation, we began
to descend. Down they went through basements and cellars, through
undercrofts and crypts. Down they went through stone, earth and
time.
After a while, we began to hear voices singing a long ways off
in the distance. We followed the sound, down further through the
darkness until we finally reached the bottom of all those stairs.
A stone path led us along stonewalls. The chanting voices grew louder
and stronger, as we went. The light in the cavern gradually grew
brighter, too. Sparsely spaced gleaming torches, attached to the
walls by antiquated iron holders, now lit our way towards the source
of the singing. We crept along.
We held our breaths as we turned a final bend, and found ourselves
on the edge of a grand, torch-lit chamber. We stood there in the
shadows of an ancient catacomb, an earth hewn, high domed, subterranean
cathedral that lay deep below the other cathedral above. The luminous
faces of the brown-robed monks shined intermittently in the flickering
light. Their continuous voices infused the air with harmony, energy
and beauty. If the monks noticed us at all, they didn't let on.
We stood there, very still, in awe and appreciation, listening to
the eloquent Gregorian chant of their evening vespers service. "Kyrie
eleison. Christe eleison. Kyrie eleison." "Lord, have
mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy." Alleluia!
They sang in agreement. They sang in community. They sang in ritual
tradition. They sang from their hearts because it was in their hearts
to sing.
I have no recollection of ever leaving that chamber. I remember
standing still for a very long time. I remember the flickering torchlight,
the Robeson, the uplifted faces and those voices singing some of
the most beautiful music I've ever heard. I remember being held
- in that moment - by a force that had brought me to that place
and held me there, held me in that experience. I don't remember
leaving. Perhaps a part of me is still there. Maybe in some way,
we're all partially there together, now.
There are so many ways to think about spirituality and religion.
People have so many ways of even defining those words - spirit and
religion. Some folks use them synonymously. I don't. I find it helpful,
in my spiritual and religious practices, to distinguish a difference
between the two. They are both pursuits, worthwhile pursuits. They
have much in common but, I think, have different means and ends.
Spirituality, or spirit, comes from the Latin root spiritus, which
means breath. Religion also comes from a Latin root, religio, which
means to bind, to bundle or to gather up.
So let's start with spiritus, breath. Breath is the start. Without
breath we are each no more than a lump of clay. But we do have breath,
and with it we are alive. We eat; we drink; we stink; we wash up;
we laugh; we sigh; we try; we cry; we love; we make love; and we
reproduce. We think; we care; we fall short of our expectations
and we soar to great heights. We do all of these and so much more
because we are alive. And we are alive because we have breath. Breath
is first; is primary; is primal. Spirituality is about our relationship
with that which holds us in life, our most fundamental connection
to life.
In the origin stories of people around the world, gods breathe
life into the human. It is a gift. It is THE gift. It is life.
Where do we come from? I don't know. Where do we end up going?
I don't know that either. But I do know that breath is what keeps
me here, keeps us here, in between our coming and going. In my deepest
yearnings, in my highest aspirations, in my most painful grieving
moments and in my greatest joy, breath sustains me in my experience,
through my experience. It connects me to the larger stream of life
that is the source of that breath. Spirituality is of spirit, of
breath, of life, of being. Spirituality is about the individual
quest of being at one with being.
Religion is hardly devoid of spirituality. Hopefully, it's filled
of it. But religion is a larger enterprise. What spirituality is
to the individual, religion is to the community, perhaps to the
culture. Religion is the binding, the gathering into community those
who place their spiritual quest within a common endeavor. "The
central task of the religious community is to unveil the bonds that
bind each to all," said Mark Morrison-Reed.
The character of religion may vary incredibly. The bonds that hold
each to all might be quite dogmatic, confining, even totalitarian.
They might be open, confirming, and encouraging. They might carry
with them the threat of the pain of death, and hope for an afterlife.
Or they might include in them the promise of a more meaningful and
hopeful life, here and now. They might be familial or cultural.
They might be discovered or adopted. They might be of ancient origin
or of recent incorporation. Whatever the character of these bonds,
however we may come by them, hopefully they provide us meaning and
hope, a sense of connection and an uplifting of the forces and sources
that sustain life.
That's what I think was going on for those monks singing deep beneath
the Duomo of St. Augustine. They were experiencing meaning and connection;
they were strengthening their faith and their hope. They were responding
to their lives communally, ritualistically and institutionally,
promoting that force which gives and sustains life. They named that
force alternately Lord, Christ and God. What they were doing there
that I witnessed, was they were having a religious experience.
For me in that same space and in that same time though, the experience
was more of a spiritual nature. I did not belong to their community
or subscribe to their theology, even though neither of those issues
was an obstacle to my spiritual experience. I did have a deep feeling
that I'd been called into that space, that I'd been led there. I
felt some kind of connection between my singing to audiences out
in the streets of Milan, to Charles English's singing to opera fans
at La Scala, and to the singing of these monks to unseen listeners,
both corporal and incorporeal.
I was one of the street people. I was one of the opera enthusiasts.
I was one of those unseen guests. And I experienced a primal sense
of communion that transcended time and space. I could have just
as well been flung out into the Milky Way, but instead, there I
was rooted in sight, sound, smell and touch. I did not feel especially
connected to any god that could be named. Instead, I felt quite
united with all that is, with some kind of god that I could not
name, a god that I'm sure I could not even imagine.
Sometimes we come to worship with our religious community in the
hopes of having deeply felt spiritual experience. Sometimes we are
fortunate and that's exactly what happens - music strikes a chord;
words heal a wound; physical touch soothes the spirit. But I think
the truth of it is that this isn't the only place where that can
happen. We can have deeply felt spiritual experiences where ever
we might be - in our homes, our yards, in conversation, on walks
in the woods or in our neighborhoods, or even by stumbling unwittingly
into spiritual experiences in all manner of likely or unlikely places.
I suspect that we have more, and more meaningful, spiritual experience
when we practice our spiritual discipline. We enhance our experience
of the spiritual, when we regularly and intentionally explore, experience
and express our primal relationship with that which holds us in
life. It's like most things; the more you practice, the better you
get.
It seems mistaken though to think that we can come here to the
UU or go anywhere with the expectation that ministers, or musicians
or the community will provide spiritual experience for us. We do
well though, to come to our shared religious experience to be reminded
here of our spiritual selves and encouraged in our spiritual disciplines.
I'm quite sure that I would do an abysmal job of it on my own. I
need for my own quest to be tethered here to yours. I know a lot
of people don't need that. There have been aesthetics and hermits
through the ages who have lived deeply spiritual lives, but not
necessarily religious ones.
Spirituality within a religious context calls us to explore our
deepest and most primal connections to life so that we might recognize
that through the cooperation, encouragement and engagement with
community, we are more than individuals. We are part of a much larger
whole, part of each other's lives, part of this shared planet and
infinite universe.
Religion, done well, is built on a foundation of spiritual experience,
creating a cathedral, a temple, of right relationships within the
context of at least the aspiration of beloved community. It is in
this common effort that we are reminded time and again what the
old Universalists knew all along - that we are all children of the
human race. We are all interdependently and inextricably related
to one another. Our salvation, however we might want to define salvation
- whether in the here after or in the here and now - our salvation
is about all of us. Our religious lives that we remember here must
encourage us and sustain us in living our day-today lives in ways
that promote and do not denigrate; that unite and do not of divide;
that bind and do not rend or wound the human spirit.
In closing, there's one other thing that I've brushed up against
a couple of times that I want to touch on directly, and that's hope.
I'm sure that others are informed by different experiences, but
I can't imagine how hope can occur within isolation. If our spirituality
does not lead us to communion with others, if it is self-fulfilling,
I can't help but to think that it is narcissistically shortsighted.
The proliferation of hope is, or ought to be, one of the major manifestations
of the religious community.
When we provide for one another an environment of expectation for
being our very best selves, there is hope. When together we hold
up the plights of the downtrodden and the marginalized, and then
together we aspire to the holy work of promoting love and creating
justice, there is hope. When we have lost at love, or work, or health,
or in any facet of life, and we are able to carry that burden within
the context of the caring witness of one another, there is hope.
Alone our vision is too narrow to see all that must be seen, our
strength too limited to do all that must be done. Together our vision
widens, our strength is renewed, our faith grows, and our hope is
sustained. We must feel again and again, the love we owe to one
another and to others. We must not only hear about it but feel it.
Here, in our religious community, buoyed by our spiritual convictions,
there is hope. Here we are indeed called to be our very best, in
every way called toward our very best.
As spiritual beings, as religious bodies, may we come to recognize
our place in the stream of life and in the history of humanity.
May we dedicate ourselves to the salvation of all.
Amare eleison. Love, have mercy. May we live to be the instruments
of love and the agents of mercy. Alleluia!
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