There was a man named Tim who was a shop teacher in high school. He was probably in his mid 50s. He’d been teaching shop most of his adult life. Then the principal of his school came to Tim and said there was a summer institute being offered that explored exciting and new methods of teaching shop! He wanted Tim to go. Tim refused, saying it was unnecessary. It was just another fad that would come and go. The principle tried to convince Tim to go, to no avail. For two years, Tim went head to head with the principal over this issue, insisting that this was all just a fad and he wasn’t going to buy into it. One day, the principle, probably exhausted and frustrated, asked Tim, again, why he was so resistant. And this time, Tim answered him differently. He was afraid that if he went to the workshop, he would find that everything he had been doing as a teacher for all those years was outdated and wrong and he would leave the institute feeling like he was too old to continue teaching.[i]
How often have we found ourselves in this kind of situation? Faced with a new possibility, a new direction, a great opportunity, and instead of embracing what is before us, we dig in our heels and find any reason in the book to say no. And usually, at least I know this in my case, the more resistant I am, the more likely that the reasons I give for my resistance are not the real reasons, they are just covers, excuses, sometimes so well crafted that I may actually convince myself they’re absolutely true. Well, you know what’s going on? For some reason, I’m afraid. I’m afraid of approaching that possibility, and rather than copping to be being afraid, I have developed a highly complex reason to turn my back and walk the other way.
Have you ever done that? I’m sure that in this wise and spiritually advanced group of people, I would be hard pressed to find anyone who ever ran away from fear! I would like to know. If any of you has never run from fear, raise your hand... Well, I guess I’m in good company, and I’m glad you’re here. Because we have all done it, and we’ve all paid a price for doing it. All that resistance, all those really good rational sounding reasons, are based in fear. Fear of change. Fear of looking inadequate. Fear of failure. Fear of loss. Fear of looking stupid. There’s all kinds of reasons that we respond to opportunity with fear. And it feels way easier, somehow, to give an excuse or to make up some really rational sounding reason for saying no, than to simply say, “I’m afraid.”
Why is it, you think, that it’s so hard for us to say we’re afraid? Why is it so much easier or somehow more likely that we’ll spend all that time and energy covering up our fear, rather simply admitting it?
Parker Palmer, a well-known educator and writer, in his book “A Hidden Wholeness” talks about how so many of us live divided lives. By divided lives he means that we live in some way divorced from our inner selves, our inner sense of knowing, and it’s because we live these divided lives, that we are separated from our own selves, separated from others, and held back from truly living in harmony with our deeper inner values.
He gives some examples of what a divided life looks like. Listen to them and see if any sound familiar to you:
Think of the woman who never sang her song or told her story. Somehow, way back in her history, she began to conceal parts of herself. Who knows why she made that decision. Perhaps she grew up in a family where it was not safe to say what you really thought or believed. Perhaps she was raised in a religion that demanded she behave a certain way. Perhaps her community valued self-control more than individual expression. Perhaps she simply did what so many women and men have learned to do to survive. And so she lived a divided life. In fact, she had become so successful at living her divided life that she wasn’t even aware it was divided! When her husband asked her to sing her song and tell her story, she didn’t even know what he was talking about.
But the fact is, he did ask. And my personal hope is that something changed because he did, and even if she didn’t remember at the time, I wonder if his very question woke something up in her and that someday not only will she remember her story and song, but she will have the courage to tell it to her husband, just like Tim finally had the courage to tell the principal the deeper reason for his resistance.
We live divided lives because of fear. And we have fear because we live divided lives. It’s a big circle. Where did it start? Who knows? All I know is that is exists now and it exists in most of our lives. And what I also know is that most of us, in fact many of us, don’t want to live that way. Most of us are not as far gone as that woman. Most of us have not forgotten that we have songs to sing and stories to tell.
And I believe, that’s why most of us are here this morning. I would hazard a guess that if you found yourself in church this morning, it’s because you want more out of life. It’s because you’re not satisfied living a divided life. It’s because you’re not satisfied living in fear and resistance. I believe that there is deep within most of us the strong desire to live undivided lives where we are open to what comes to us, and where we are not afraid to live according to our values.
When I told you that story about Tim, I left out an important part. The part about what else was going on in the rest of Tim’s life as he went head to head with the principal. What happened to Tim is that he found a supportive community.
Parker Palmer has come to the firm belief that what we need to live undivided lives is people that we trust. Now the obvious question here, is what is the basis of trust? Why do we trust some people, and not trust others? Well, we trust people when they respect us. When we know that they have our best interests in mind, that they won’t betray us. We trust people who accept us for who we are, and give us the room to simply be ourselves. Palmer started what is called “Circles of Trust,” small groups of people whose agenda is simply “to help each other listen to their own souls and discern their own truth.” (53) His groups are not dissimilar to our Covenant Groups here at Emerson. There is a general rule of acceptance. You don’t push people to be what you need them to be. You respect who they are and ask that they respect you in turn. You give people room, but you also ask that when they take the room they need, they stay in relationship with you.
Well, Tim found himself in a Circle of Trust which met for eight retreats. Most of the time, he wondered why he was there. It was not Tim’s nature to talk about his feelings or to hang out with people who did, but something kept him there. Mostly he stayed silent, simply listening to the others. And they gave him the room to be silent. And most importantly, nobody tried to fix him. He would often confide to the session leader that he did not know why he was there or what the point was. But by the sixth session, he began to see how much fear ruled his life and how it was keeping him from living. That’s when he could finally tell the principal what was going on. Tim got to that place because he had a trusted group of people with whom he could take his time, and unwind from the fear. It’s in trusting relationships that we are freed to back away from the blocks we put up, blocks we have come to believe we need in order to be safe.
We can’t push people into wholeness. We can’t push people into undivided lives. Much as the blocks they put up may frustrate you to no end, you have to give people room to find their own path. If that woman’s husband demanded to hear her song, chances are she’d retreat into an even more divided life. Hopefully he’ll give her the room to come around and be able to accept what that looks like if and when she gets there. Because who knows what she has to say! Could that principal ever have predicted what Tim would finally say to him? It’s pretty amazing, actually, what happens when you give people room. When you trust people with their own journey. To use the words of Parker Palmer, “Transformation happens precisely because we don’t demand it.”
I would like to believe that this Chapel can be a Circle of Trust. I would like to believe that this can be a place where each of us can work towards an undivided life, a life where we are no longer imprisoned by fear. I know that in this Chapel’s 20 year history, there have been times when this church has provided a circle of trust. And I also know that there have been times when that hasn’t happened, when, for some people, this was not a safe place. This church is, after all, a place filled with human beings each with our own fears, our own histories and our own ways of being.
As Unitarian Universalists, we tend to be an independent lot. We need a lot of freedom, a lot of space, in our lives. That’s why many of us choose to become Unitarian Universalist. But sometimes we are so in need of room for ourselves that we focus more on preserving it for ourselves than extending it to others. When that gets out of balance, then our churches are no longer safe places. It doesn’t mean not having boundaries, it doesn’t mean tolerating inappropriate behavior, but it does mean practicing a kind of radical roomy openness.
The person who lives a divided life is unable to respond to the heartfelt needs of another person. The person who lives a divided life that is able to ignore and belittle injustice. The person who has suppressed their song and story may feel hard pressed to respond to the suffering of others because they can’t even feel their own suffering. If we are distanced from our own inner values, we are capable of doing great harm, and of being completely unaware of it. If we as people of faith allow ourselves the room to stop, to be, to heal, and to be open to transformation, then we will become unwilling to distance ourselves from the suffering of others, and no longer able to accept the excuses we make for doing so.
This week, I want each of you to go home and think about one thing in your life that feels out of balance, one small thing in your life that shows where you are leading a divided life. I’m asking you to give yourself some sacred room, the same kind of sacred room that you would hope to offer to someone you really loved. When you’ve settled on that one small thing, find one small action you can do to restore some balance in that area of your life. And then, I want you to tell someone about it. Someone you can trust, someone who respects you. Someone who you know will give you that sacred room to share something really important.
And finally, I want each of you to prepare an openness inside of you should someone decide that you are the person they trust and with whom they wish to speak.
Peace be with you.
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Updated: 10/23/06