Beginning Again In Love

Prayer

Tomorrow night Jews the world over will celebrate Yom Kippur ­ the Day of Atonement. This holy time begins with the prayer Kol Nidre. The composer Max Bruch created a setting for this prayer for cello and orchestra. For our reflection this morning we will hear a recording of this work. As the music plays, I will read an adaptation of the traditional Kol Nidre prayer, written by Mark Belletini, senior minister, First Unitarian Universalist Church, Columbus, Ohio.

We vowed, not so long ago, to live lives that added, not subtracted.
We promised, not so long ago, to live lives that matches our words, lives not hard and brittle with anger, but soft with letting go.
We made an oath, no so long ago, to live lives that reached for the stars, and did not consist of strings of little disappointments, or fragments of the shattered dreams we once used as mirrors to see how good we looked.

The days have flown quickly, and they will flow quickly in the year to come.
Circumstance, stress, and brokenness come to all ­ it is the human condition.
And thus I say before the witness of the blue sky bending above, and before the nodding blue chicory flowers of early autumn still growing here below,
and before the clear eyes of children not yet born,
children who will inherit the world from us,
that all the vows we will make not long from now,
all the promises we will make, all the unspoken oaths we will declare,
are hereby cancelled, annulled voided, and made unbinding.

We are free, not to promise to be good,
but simply to get on with loving each other.
We are free, not to vow great transformations,
but to engage life with tenderness and understanding and outpourings of kindness.
We are free, not to swear oaths of everlasting loyalty and righteousness,
but to continue to be generous to each other, to ourselves, and to the common good.
At the start of the new year, we begin again in love.

Sermon

Part I ­ After the Storm

It is fitting that the Jewish holiday Yom Kippur should begin with a storm. It is true that big storms like Hurricane Andrew and Hurricane Floyd can be very dangerous. Yet these storms are nature's way of cleaning the Earth and of replenishing our water supply ­ water, without which there would be no Life.

However, storms have a way of disrupting things, of changing our lives without warning. Looking back over my calendar for last week I am startled to see that because of Hurricane Floyd 12 important meetings and one important conference that I had on my calendar were cancelled. I'm disappointed that we didn't have our consultation with Margaret Beard, UUA Director of New Congregations Ministry and District Executive Mary Higgins. That event may not be rescheduled. The conference, The Next Horizon, a gathering of leadership -- professional and lay ­ from many new UU congregations has been rescheduled. In October we will have a chance to meet with people from along the Atlantic seaboard to hear what challenges and celebrations their congregations are encountering as they bring new churches into being.

I'm sure Hurricane Floyd disrupted your lives and, possibly, brought some damage to your homes and property. At the very least, you had to decide whether to stay or leave, board up or not to board up, tape or not to tape your windows, gather or not to gather your precious belongings.

Let's take time during our worship this morning to listen to one another. In a few minutes I'm going to ask you to form yourselves into groups of three. Choose people with kind faces. You might want to choose people whose stories you've not yet heard. When you get into your groups of three, choose the person to speak first, the person to speak second, and the person to speak third. Then let each person speak while the other two listen. The listening part is the most important. Just listen. Don't ask questions. Don't volunteer a matching story. Just listen. Listen to what is not being said as well as what is being said. Listen for pain and listen for joy. Finally, think to yourself what one word you might choose to characterize the experience of the speaker. Each speaker will have two minutes to tell his or her story. That is not a lot of time, so be sure to move it along and hit the high points. I will let you know when to begin, when the first speaker should end and the second begin, when the second should end and the third, begin and when we should come back together as a large group.

Now, form your groups of three.
[GROUPS FORM AND SHARE]

I asked you to think of one word to characterize the experience of the people whose stories you heard. Let us take a moment, now, to hear these words. Each of you should have two words. Just say them into the eye of our worship space, this holy void, around which our lives whirl. Let our words become one with the space which unites us.
[PEOPLE SAY WORDS]

Part II ­ Beginning Again in Love

In the time we have remaining, I want to reflect on Yom Kippur.

There is a book on the New York Times best seller's list called A Walk in the Woods. It's written by Bill Bryson, and it describes his hike along the Appalachian Trail with his friend, Stephen Katz.

Neither Bryson or Katz is a hiker. Bryson has at least done some research and knows what he's in for. Katz has simply responded to Bryson's request in his annual Christmas letter that someone accompany him on his hike. Bryson is a fine, upstanding writer who lives in New Hampshire with his wife and kids. Bryson characterizes Katz as "Iowa's drug cultureÖthe one person I knew on earth who might be on the run from guys with names like Julio and Mr. Big." They have barely seen each other since their youth in Iowa 25 years earlier. Yet Katz is the answer to Bryson's prayer ­ his 2,000-plus mile hike will not be a solitary experience. He will have someone to walk with.

Their hike is full of mis-adventures. Early on Katz ­ struggling with the weight of his pack ­ decides to jetison most of the food he's carrying. Bryson, too, truth be told, also lightens his load by throwing out food. Because they hike separately, meeting only occasionally during the day, neither is aware that the other has thrown food away. So on the first part of the trail the two of them eat raisins for breakfast and drink coffee which has been filtered through pink toilet paper ­ instead of filter cones.

They encounter an unseasonal storm which dumps not inches but feet of snow on them. They discover terrain they can barely traverse. They take mini-vacations from their hike, staying in scuzzy motels and eating hot food however poorly prepared in local diners or fast food places. At one point Katz falls off the wagon. At another point Bryson finds himself suffering from hypothermia. They do not hike 2,000+ miles ­ the full length of the trail. They do not even hike the distance they had set out for themselves, including a rugged 100-mile stretch that was to have been the culmination of their journey. Yet the journey is complete ­ not because they followed the plan Bryson had set out for them ­ but because on the trail they truly meet one another.

On this journey the two men discover freedom, not "to vow great transformation" ­ Bryson to make the perfect hike, Katz to live a life of perfect sobriety. Rather, the two men come "to engage life with tenderness and understanding and outpourings of kindness." Each man has two gifts ­ the journey and a companion for the journey. Without one or the other they would not have discovered how to be generous with one another, how to begin again in love.

At the turning of the Jewish New Year, the Weather Goddess has given us Hurricane Floyd and we have given each other the gift of listening. May both of these experiences help us learn how to be generous with one another and how to begin again in love.

Shalom ­ Peace, friends. Let us sing together Hymn 95 "There Is More Love Somewhere."