BLESSINGS FOR THE JOURNEY

Summit UU Fellowship  6/15/08   Rev. Kathleen A. Green

     In Mary Oliver’s Going to Walden:

“It isn’t very far as highways lie.  I might be back by nightfall, having seen the rough pines, and the stones, and the clear water.  Friends argue that I might be wiser for it.  They do not hear that far-off Yankee whisper – how dull we grow from hurrying here and there!

Many have gone, and think me half a fool to miss a day away in the cool country.  Maybe.  But in a book I read and cherish, going to Walden is not so easy a thing as a green visit.  It is the slow and difficult trick of living, and finding it where you are.”

     Many of our life’s journeys revolve around a “going to Walden”; where Thoreau claims he went “…because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”  Walden - where others have claimed to have found their muse.  A place of peace and reflection on both our sense of solitude and our sense of community.  Our life journeys are not so easy a thing as a green visit.  Our life journeys require the slow and difficult trick of living and finding Walden right where we are.  And I would posit that recognizing the value of the travel companions who exist along the way is very much a part of that trick.  Sometimes those companions are with us but for a brief moment, and at other times, they accompany us for many, many miles.

     We need each other as we journey through life; to teach us about ourselves; to offer directions when we are lost.  Hm-m-m-m-m, perhaps I need to pause right here.  I realize there are some among us who are challenged by the thought of asking for directions.  It has been said that it’s a “guy thing” – men don’t like to ask for directions.  Now, I do not think that is entirely true, but today is Father’s Day, and as I am thinking of my own dad today, I will tell you that summer vacations during my childhood were always an adventure.  Not because of where we went or what we did but because without fail we always got lost!

The five of us packed up the station wagon and headed out for the Great Smokey Mountains, or the southern coast of Texas, or California, and even  Niagra Falls.  There were usually several coffee-stained maps stashed in the glove compartment and numerous stops on the side of the road to read them.  And, of course, numerous stops to threaten my younger brothers and I within an inch of our lives if we didn’t stop giving the peace sign to every car we passed, counting how many returned the gesture.  Unfortunately, my mentally disabled brother didn’t always get both fingers up!  My father was the type who didn’t think it necessary to stop and ask for directions until we were completely lost.  Completely lost in what would invariably appear to be the most dangerous parts of whatever area we were traveling in.  Traveling in at night! 

     One particular summer our journey placed us somewhere in New York City, “taking the scenic route” my father would say, thinking he could actually justify the dozen wrong turns he’d made by saying that.  The night sky turned the unknown area into one that seemed a million miles from our comfortable hotel room in Manhattan.  My mother instructed us to lock our doors (no worry about seat belts in those days, but be sure to lock those doors!).  Thinking that at this point the map might not be the best way to find our way back to the hotel my father decided to finally ask a passerby.  There weren’t many passersby at that time of night, on this street, in this neighborhood.  But my father slowed the car, rolled down his window and said, “Excuse me, miss.  Could you help us?  We’re looking for such-and-such street.”  The passerby just happened to be what my mother so delicately called ‘a special lady,…of the evening’.  I can only presume that when the ‘special lady’ saw the station wagon with an Oklahoma license plate, filled with a frightened and harmless white family, out of place in the black Harlem neighborhood, she took pity and directed us back to midtown.   What a journey!   What an unlikely travel companion, and what my mother wouldn’t have given for On-Star or a GPS system back in the 70’s!

      We do not always know where our journey will take us next or just how long a particular pathway will be clear and open.  The journey can be unpredictable.  No matter how much we may plan and prepare, we don’t always know where the journey will take us next.  That not knowing can be intimidating and unsettling.  It can also be exhilarating.  It isn’t that uncommon to plan to be in one place, or with a particular purpose, or even a person, for what seems like forever, and then along comes a hairpin turn in the road (sometimes with no apparent warning signs) and we find ourselves in a new place,  an unexpected place, or all alone, in the midst of unfamiliar circumstances.

     In the unknown and the unexpected, it is good to welcome companions. 

         According to the 13^th century poet Rumi:  “The way is full of genuine sacrifice.  The thickets blocking the path are anything that keeps you from that, any fear that you may be broken to bits like a glass bottle.  This road demands courage and stamina, yet it’s full of footprints!  Who are these companions?

They are rungs in your ladder.  Use them!  With company you quicken your ascent.  Every prophet sought out companions.  Rushes and reeds must be woven to be useful as a mat.  If they weren’t interlaced, the wind would blow them away.”[1]

     Our journey through life is all about relationships.  The idea of “going it alone” is really an illusion.  We travel through life being in relation with others and it is through our relationships with others that we may be more fully able to learn about ourselves. 

     I have found that with nearly every travel companion, no matter how fleeting or insignificant the relationship may seem, there is something to be learned.  And just as the various pathways on a journey may end, or turn, or change, some of our relationships will end - whether by choice or not:  divorce, job loss, geographical distance, death.  What we choose to take from that pathway of the journey, from the relationship with that travel companion, can significantly influence our future travel experience. 

     When I served the Unitarian Church of Evanston, IL, as their Ministerial Intern and then Summer Minister, my dear travel companion from that congregation, Bob Adams, passed away.  I thought about what I would choose to take from that relationship into the next pathway of my journey.  I met Bob on my first Sunday as the ministerial intern.  He was an elderly gentleman, though slightly younger than his ill-health would show.  And he was feisty, fiery, and frank.  I wasn’t wearing any kind of nametag or distinguishing mark, other than my nervous excitement.  Bob saw me from the other end of the long hallway and headed straight to me, hand extended.  “So.  You’re the new minister.”  I sheepishly answered, “Well,….I’m the ministerial intern.”  Bob was not amused.  He shot back, “Well, you’re not the janitor, are you?”  Now my UU mind began racing with thoughts:  and what’s wrong with being the janitor, can’t a woman be a janitor, a janitor is just as valuable as a minister, you don’t think I look like I could be the janitor if I wanted to be the janitor, I’ve been known to sweep a floor or two in my time.  But I smiled and said, “No, I am not”.  “That’s what I thought.  You’re the new minister.  Welcome.”!  Many Sundays later, just before the worship service began, Bob approached me and said something that I know he had said to others, but had not said to me before this one morning.  He took my hands, looked me in the eye, and said, “You are a blessing”.  I had overheard Bob say this to others but had no idea what it would feel like having it said to me.  “You are a blessing”.    I’ve since thought about the importance of letting my travel companions know that they are a blessing to my life, a blessing in my journey.  I have begun to use that phrase myself.   But I still wonder how Bob knew that I needed to hear those words on that particular morning.  From my own experience, I know we need to hear it from each other and we need to say it to each other.  This I will take with me as I travel on. Thank you, dear travel companion.   

    In Nigeria, people say of someone who has died, “Their feet are in agreement; in other words, they’ve ceased moving.  For the wise elders know that life is movement.” 

      As we come to the end of our congregational year, the end of my first year as your minister, the end of school for some, what will you choose to take with you as you travel on – summer vacations, life changes.  Let us all remember that going to Walden is not so easy a thing as a green visit.  It is the slow and difficult trick of living, and finding it where you are.   Finding your Walden Pond wherever you are on your journey.  Discovering it by way of the relationships that you find yourself in, however momentary or extended they might be.  Perhaps discovering a bit more about yourself through the interconnectedness of those who travel with you and those you meet along the way.  To all of you here today, visitors, friends, and members alike, I say “You are a blessing, my dear travel companions.”

Blessed be our journeys.