Sharing
Sharing physical space, food, and spirit are some of the ways to practice recognition of our interdependence. Opening our hearts is difficult in tough times, yet music reminds us of the potential for finding joy in sharing. This sermon was written for the Unitarian Universalists of Fallston and was delivered on November 13, 2011.
A lot of people aren’t sure what to think about the Occupy Wall Street movement. Depending on who is doing the talking, we hear descriptions that sound like entirely different situations. Some people say that the movement lacks focus, others say that the movement’s goals are being ignored by the media. Critics say that the gatherings are filled with problems like addiction, sexual assault, mental illness, and medical needs that are beyond the protestors’ ability to address. Supporters say that the challenges they face are America’s challenges made visible, exacerbated by corporate greed and political neglect. Crushing the protest, they say, won’t solve any problems, it will only hide them from the public square.
Some news channels portray the activists as irresponsible, young, lazy hippies. I’m hearing a lot from friends across the country, people my age and older, most of them employed and all of them wishing to be employed, who find plenty to be responsible for in the camps. They are pedaling to generate electricity, volunteering in first aid, staffing the interfaith sanctuary, and typing up press releases.
My colleague Michael Tino described the experience he heard over and over from people involved in New York. He asks us to imagine being in a newcomer’s position:
You’re inspired by all of the different people who have come to this place to be with you even if those people have come for different reasons—even those people who are in that place who believe very different things than you do. You’re inspired by all of them.
You have deep, warm conversations about issues that matter—real, genuine conversations about real, genuine issues. You engage in meaning-making in a way that you have never done before.
You are fed—a delicious, diverse meal that fills your stomach and nourishes both body and soul.
You’re asked about your skills and gifts, and encouraged to give back to the community, because they want you to be a part of it. Your’e invited into conversations—good conversations about race and racism, classism and economic justice, violence, myth and peacemaking—deep, good conversations about justice struggles that everyone is involved in. The conversations are not perfect, but everyone is trying their best. Everyone is staying at the table.
Contrast that with the portrayal of disorganized malcontents, so dangerous that cities are willing to spend money they don’t have and divert resources from emergency services in order to scatter people who are assembling.
I imagine that there are a number of opinions here about the Occupy Wall Street movement. Some of us may have some concerns or different points of view. Some of us may be too caught up in surviving to have thought much about it. Personally, I’m agree with the protestors, and it’s OK if you and I disagree. My point is that there is something about Occupy Wall Street that touches nerves. There are strong reactions on all sides.
I think part of what’s driving the emotions in opinions about the movement is that there are different philosophies of sharing. The idea of interdependence in our society and how to bring health to our whole system rests on visceral concepts like family, basic needs, and what it means to be human. When times are hard, the impulse is to withdraw, to see ourselves as isolated because we don’t feel that we have anything to give back. When people don’t have a lot of money or tangible resources to spare, that might lead them to step back from other people, lest they be asked for something that they don’t have to offer, or just because hard times are exhausting.
Maybe what’s behind the push to break up the protests is that viewing one’s well-being as linked to the well-being of “the least of these” might feel like a threat. Accessing our reserves of sympathy is harder when we’re stressed. Hearing about social issues is a reminder that people are vulnerable.
Being connected to one another doesn’t have to mean depriving ourselves of what we need. Still, sharing of any kind is hard. Whether we’re sharing deepest feelings or a vision of the future or the last cup of coffee in the pot, acknowledging the whole picture of our own needs and the needs of others is uncomfortable. Feeling depleted makes us defensive. Moments of honesty with ourselves and others about our gifts and limits, our needs and our assets, helps us thrive in our interdependence. But it’s not easy. Keeping our hearts open to sharing takes practice.
It seems to me that sharing material resources is just one aspect of acknowledging our interdependence. It’s a highly visible aspect, like a snow-capped peak. Underneath, we have a mountain of emotions that influence our ability to give and receive with open hearts. We are all in this world together. We need each other. There are many forms of sharing that we can practice to get used to the idea of our interdependence. Physical space, food, and spirit are some of the things we share here at UUF, so let’s start with those.
Sharing Space
Sharing space is one way to practice opening our hearts to interdependence. Simply by being in the same place at the same time, we become more aware of what we need from those around us in order to feel welcome and of what we have to give. In physical presence, we can pick up more hints from others about their assets and their needs. Sometimes we come to understand each other’s limits by stepping over them, and we come to understand our gifts by reconciling afterward.
The seminary I attended is housed in a small building. It’s actually a converted house. There was a back yard with a little water feature. Officially, there were four parking spaces carved out of the back yard. This is in Berkeley, where street parking is competitive. In order to make the most of the space, students, faculty, and staff parked two or three cars deep in the lot. We left our keys on a peg board in the office so that someone else could move our car in order to get out. At least, that was the theory. Sometimes people forgot. Sometimes cars got scraped up. Sometimes students got stressed when they were running late and there was not an inch of asphalt available.
Several times a semester, we had All School Meetings to discuss issues affecting our community. The announced topic for one was “the parking lot as a metaphor for spiritual community.” Some of the students responded that they didn’t want to talk about metaphors, they wanted to talk about the parking. We did both. People told their stories and shared their feelings, using “I” statements as much as possible. We heard the history of why the parking lot was the way it was. We re-committed to being as considerate as possible. I made a mental note not to complain or gloat about my commute on public transportation, because I would not have wanted to trade with someone who had no choice but to drive. Even among people who were learning and teaching about religious leadership, we had to admit that none of us were free from anxiety, selfishness, or forgetfulness. All of us had occasions to forgive and to seek forgiveness. Practicing humanity was a worthwhile educational experience.
Physics says that two objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time. Biology says that a body is a system of organs and smaller bodies constantly in motion, many objects knit together in one space. As separate parts, sharing space seems impossible. Together as one, a group can make better use of space that a bunch of individuals alone. Conflicts that arise only in physical space—put away your blocks, rinse your dishes, take out the trash—arise because they are the meeting places of needs and limits. Sharing honestly about desires, fears, abilities, and limits strengthens relationships. We have lots of opportunities for those conversations when people show up to be in the same place together.
I’ve spoken before about the Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp in Berkshire, England. The first activists arrived in September of 1981 to protest the housing of American nuclear missiles at the Royal Air Force base there. They tried negotiating and inviting debate. The following May, 250 protestors formed a blockade. In December of 1982, there were 30,000 women joining hands around the outside of the base. In December of 1983, they did it again with 50,000 women. The protestors were a continuous presence from the day the first women arrived, staying on through the time when the last missiles left in 1991. Activists remained to protest the UK’s own Trident Missile Programme and to ensure that the land would be handed back to the community. They kept the peace camp going until 2000. (More re-tellings of this story are available here and via Wikipedia.)
The peace camp had to move frequently in response to evictions and vigilante attacks. They had no electricity or running water, and they lived outdoors in all kinds of weather. I imagine that tempers would get short in those conditions. Out of this situation of physical presence and shared commitment came art and music. The words to the song “Building Bridges” (#1023 in Singing the Journey) are attributed to all of the women at the Greenham Common peace occupation.
Building bridges between our divisions
I reach out to you, will you reach out to me
With all of our voices and all of our visions
Friends, we can make such sweet harmony
When I learned this song, I thought the words were, “If I reach out to you, will you reach out to me?” Instead, the words are “I reach out to you.” No “if.” That makes the next phrase, “will you reach out to me?” an invitation, not a bargain. Community starts with the courage to show up.
Being in community with other people in shared physical space is one way to practice open-heartedness. We become aware of the way our gifts and blessings are intertwined. Even moments of tension can bloom into deeper communion or lively creativity.
Sharing Food
Another way to practice open-heartedness is to share food. We do love to eat together here. Hospitality hour, Murder Mystery dinners, sweet snacks at Soulful Sundown, we are a group that feeds hungry souls. After service today, the elementary RE class will be selling popcorn to benefit Circle of Hope.
Next week is Stone Soup Sunday, when we’ll celebrate abundance. Families of children in the elementary religious education class should bring a bag of frozen vegetables. Everyone else is invited to bring something that goes with or on soup, such as bread or gluten-free crackers or cheese. Lucille is going to lead the kids in making her famous vegetable beef soup with pasta. I’m going to bring vegetarian soup. If you have a dietary restriction, please let me know today so I can pick a recipe.
I might go with my old stand-by, black bean and tomato soup. This was a recipe I started using in my early twenties, when bringing my own food to potlucks was a novelty. “Wow! I can feed people! A lot of people! From one pot!” Even if I used potent amounts of fresh garlic, black bean soup was within my budget. Although I can’t take credit for anticipating this, friends who were lactose intolerant or allergic to wheat or trimming saturated fats from their diets all appreciated having something else at the potluck to eat.
I was familiar with the feeling of not having many options at a gathering. I remember when I was fourteen or fifteen and had decided to stop eating pork. I went to my family reunion and found the traditional dishes: green beans with ham, black eyed peas with ham, pulled pork sandwiches, chopped salad, macaroni and cheese with ham, chef salad with ham, and Jell-O. My people know how to feed many mouths with very little money, so I understand why so much of our cultural food is pig-based. Nevertheless, I felt lonely with my dinner roll.
Reclaiming the potluck experience as a young adult was exhilarating. I craved belonging to a group where I could be myself and know other people who were being themselves. Covered dishes like casseroles, veggie chili, and spinach lasagna are just the thing for bringing people together. Ingredients bubble and mingle, becoming a single food, joining everyone who eats it into one body.
At least, it can work that way. I’ve been there plenty of times for lectures about leaving the special meals for the people who requested them, or about labeling common allergens, or about buffet etiquette for portion sizes. Just like sharing space, sharing food is a practice of being aware of our own and each other’s gifts and needs. We ask, we communicate, we remember.
Being able to share the meal is a powerful experience of welcome. Making something that meet’s someone else’s needs in addition to my own feels like giving a hug (and you know it’s hard to give a hug without getting one back). Sharing food is a good example of the moral principle that taking care ourselves is part of taking care of each other. Bring something to the feast for you, and bring something for others. As it says in the Talmud (Pirkei Avot), “If I am not for myself, who am I? If I am only for myself, what am I? If not now, when?” It’s almost as if the ancient rabbis had been to a potluck or two. Being open-hearted in our understanding of interdependence also means being loving toward ourselves.
Most UU congregations don’t officially celebrate communion all that often. (Some do.) Yet we do eat together, we feed our bodies from the same table, and we understand ourselves as one body of people. Maybe we need some way of reminding ourselves that sharing food is a form of interdependence, it strengthens our community. There’s an adaptation of an old hymn:
Let us break bread together, all as one
Let us break bread together, all as one
We will walk through this land
With all people, hand in hand
Oh, friends, fill our living with our love
(Let us sit down together…)
(Let us rise up together…)
As an interdependent community, we understand that the way we share food matters. Every person’s well-being affects us all. Each person who is able feeds themselves and others, ensuring that we all arrive feeling welcome, and that we part from each other in peace.
Sharing Spirit
When we gather in church, there is a spiritual aspect to our sharing space and sharing food. We’re a pluralistic community, and figuring out how to share spirit, how to celebrate the sacred together can be a challenge. Words like worship, God, and religion are sustaining for some of us and disturbing for others. We could avoid some outward conflict by not being overly religious and avoiding certain words, but I don’t think that’s consistent with our respect for interdependence. On a buffet, you can ignore the foods that don’t appeal to you. In a spiritual community, we share family style. Removing those foods means someone goes hungry. Finding a balance allows us all be nourished and challenges all of us to experience just enough discomfort to grow.
We can start with the things we do have in common, and build on that by taking the risk of sharing our diversity. I think we can agree that love and compassion are central to this life. Love empowers us to have honest conversations about our differences, to stay in those conversations when things get real. Compassion speaks to our hearts, letting us know the truth of our connections with others as we share joys and sorrows. Celebrating love and compassion reminds us that we are not alone. I would venture to say that calling attention to love and compassion brings us into contact with the holy.
We have different names for the spirit we share: the divine, God, Spirit of Life, laws of nature, the eternal, the ever-changing flow of time, the ultimate. By whatever name, we invoke healing when we speak from our experience of the sacred. In a moment, I’m going to ask you to speak about times when the divine is present for you, times when compassion stirs your heart, times when your soul finds its home. First, we’re going to sing.
This is a song in the teal hymnal (Singing the Journey, #1048). The music was written by Jacques Berthier for the Taizé community in France. The words mean, “Where charity and love abound, God is there.” For me, I take that to mean either that charity and love are as close as we need or have to God, or that the Spirit of Life works through human beings when we practice charity and love. In any case, compassion is a spiritual practice.
Let’s start by repeating the words:
Ubi caritas
et amor
Ubi caritas
Deus ibi est
Take a moment now to think of those sacred moments. When have you felt that the spirit of compassion was nearby? When have you felt uplifted by the forces that create and sustain life? If God is present for you, when has God been present? Speak as you are moved. (Reflections are spoken. Repeat song.)
When we share spirit, we come to understand that interdependence is woven into our ultimate being. We feed our souls, and we encourage others to feed their souls, even when their diet is different from our own.
Conclusion
Sharing from the heart is an outgrowth of a deep understanding of our interdependence. Facing up to the truth that our destinies are tied up together isn’t always easy. There are ways to practice awareness of our interdependence.
Sharing physical space in community gives us opportunities to turn tension into bridges of understanding. Hearts open in the process of speaking and listening. Show up. Pay attention to each other’s gifts and limits. Join together as creativity in motion.
Sharing food works best when we consider ourselves and others. All of our needs and hopes, our values and talents, become part of the casserole that fuels the community. Nourishing ourselves and each other is a spiritual practice.
Sharing spirit is a challenge in a pluralistic community. It is a challenge that spurs us to personal growth. When each one of us names the sacred as we experience it, all of our souls are nourished.
May these practices of sharing open our hearts and bring us into daily awareness of our interdependence. May we know that we are connected, bound together in a tapestry of compassion and love.
So be it. Blessed be. Amen.
