Let the Mystery Be
Margaret Bauman
UU Church of Loudoun Mar 27, 2005
1st Reading: Cakes By Therese Wilson
In our first reading we were inspired to envision an afterlife and a safe-haven for our loved ones. Our second reading presents quite a different take on the mystery of what happens after we die.
2nd Reading: REALIZED ESCHATOLOGY by Reverand Scott Alexander
Eschatology is the religious (or theological) study of "end"
things, of "final" realities.
Having a realized eschatology, then, means that you believe that the
final (or ultimate) realities of life are to be realized (achieved...known) in
THIS lifetime -- on this earth, here and now…not in some future world or
worlds…not in some future life or lifetimes.
Having a realized eschatology simply means that you put all your
theological eggs in THIS LIFE’S BASKET.
Realized eschatology is the belief that if there is something called
heaven or hell (if there is something called sacredness, eternity, perfection,
or "the holy"), it is here, in this lifetime, upon this earth.
Mark Morrison-Reed recently
wrote:
We are all dying, our lives are always moving toward completion. We need to learn to live with death, and to understand that death is not the worst of all events. We need not to fear death, but life – empty lives, loveless lives, lives that do not build upon the gifts that each of us have been given…lives that are like living deaths…lives which never take the time to savor and appreciate…lives in which we never pause to breathe deeply. What we need to fear is not death, but SQUANDERING the lives we have been miraculously given.
Sermon
Thirteen years ago my brother-in-law took his own life leaving a wife and 4 children, the youngest of whom was three. He had been depressed and dejected over losing his job, which was in no small way tied up with the crumbling of his marriage. He was not a substance abuser or bad guy. He worked hard and loved his family. He just wanted a regular life with family, Steeler games, and friends. (not necessarily in that order—he was a big sports fan!) When he died, all I could picture was his twinkly big eyes—the same eyes I look into every time I see my niece Hannah-the apple of his eye. I submersed myself in imagining the desperation that must have gone into those last hours as he went to K-Mart purchased a hunting rifle and drove out to the state park thirty or so miles away. I filled my gut with what I imagined those last few minutes must of felt like. The butterflies in his stomach, the slight nausea, the pain in the palm of his hands and the numbness in his feet as he cried so deep and so long and so purifying (as those long, deep, emotion filled cries always are.)—I put myself there and wanted to feel that pain—as if I felt like he could know someone was out there who was feeling for him.
At
his funeral the priest, a young man with expansive thinking held John up with
honor and love. When he described
John’s death as Jesus with his arms open as wide as John’s despair was deep, he
envisioned John falling into them and being enveloped in the most all-encompassing,
pure love. I had never felt more
comforted. I knew in the depth of my
being that John was home and I keep that image with me to this day.
For years when big events
occurred, or new cultural changes came on the scene, or this past winter as I
watched the Steelers finally attaining
some of the former glory of John’s young adult years, I feel bad that he
is missing it, but I feel like he is out there somewhere “with the best seat in
the house” as my brother said recently about my mom who died last year.
I find myself preparing my
grief into neat packages for those I have loved and lost. I imagine them looking down upon me and this
world from above. Sometimes I think of
them auditing what I am doing at a particular moment. I also celebrate their death by celebrating their life and what
they left behind. I have, in my
spiritual search come to believe that a persons after-life consists of what
they do while they are on this earth in body.
That what lives on is their legacy; how they touched the earth and the
people who entered their sphere of influence while they were here. I think about the very real dichotomy that I
live with—very comfortably I might add, that My head believes one thing and my
heart another. When I think about my
own mortality, the rational “legacy” concept is enough for me. That is the way I remember most people,
honor their lives and live my own (when at my best!). It doesn’t seem to be quite enough for me though, when I have
to accept the passing of those truly dear ones or those lost tragically. That is when the other half of the dichotomy
kicks in. Suddenly, I do believe that
the afterlife may include a spirit or two; that souls may continue to exist in
some form or that connections between this world and the unknown are viable.
I remember hearing a sermon
by Rev Alexander at River Road UU about Realized Eschatology, of which you
heard a brief explanation of in the second reading this morning. Many people walked out of that service very
disappointed. I think it was less about
the finality of the theology but more about the presentation of the theology as
Unitarian Universalism distilled to its most basic essence.
Here is a further excerpt from that sermon:
“I have come to realize that
perhaps the fundamental difference between Unitarian Universalism and the
religious beliefs of the majority of people in this culture lies here -- within
this great question of what happens to us when we die. I like the way my friend
and colleague Dennis Daniel puts it:
QUOTE ‘One of the tasks all
Unitarian Universalists face from time to time is the one of trying to explain
to people who have no idea whatsoever
of Unitarian Universalism what in the world we are about….After years of working
at it, I’ve gotten the answer down to three words…THIS IS IT…This [simple
phrase] is what UUism has to say to the world. The essence of UUism is
precisely: THIS IS IT…we are the miracle, there is no other. And if people ask
you what that means, tell them that it means that this is the one life we have
been given, the one life we know we can shape. This is the world where we must
do our work…this is where we bump into God or holiness or meaning or the force
or Gaia….THIS IS IT, here, now, today!"END QUOTE
Well, Rev Alexander and the realized eschatological
view feels kind of exclusionary, doesn’t it?
I think Gaia might expect more than to be just “bumped into”. But there you go -another theology. Makes sense…doesn’t do much for that wound
I’ve been licking for years only to be healed by the belief that.one day—in one
lifetime or another, that inflictor of the wound will get their
come-uppance.
I have friends who have
psychic experiences, have readings done regularly from many different methods,
and read voraciously about near-death experiences and the afterlife. I believe much of what is out there is
true. I believe there really are ghost
stories, that serendipity is a real phenomenon, that pre-destination, karma,
and reincarnation exist. I believe my
sister is an “old soul” who is so “out there” because she really hears a
different call. Because her soul is so
much more evolved than most people. Her
choices make her an outcast; poor, and lonely.
But she is incapable of making other choices that would make her life
easier. I ask myself why that is and I
accept that she hears a drummer that has a higher (and I do believe it is
higher) calling. The day my mother
died, this sister, having just finished the poem you heard as the first
reading, heard what sounded like an owl out on the branch frequented by hawks
across the road. It was in the middle
of the day so incredulously she grabbed her binoculars and went for the
door. Sure enough—not only was it an owl—but
a Great Horned owl—which many First Americans believe to be the transitional
carrier between this life and the next.
She knew this was mom coming to say goodbye . What a great story! And I
believe it to my very core. I accept
this without ever having had a psychic experience (at least not one above a 1
or 2 on the psychic Geiger counter.)
So why do we need to explain
these things? And what of the
explanations that millenia of minds (and egos) have provided us. Why do we need to know how it all began and
where it is all going. Just as we have
the theory of Evolution, Creationism, and Intelligent Design, we have abundant
theories on what happens after we die.
And by the way---allow me to
go off on a tangent for a moment—speaking of where we came from—do you all know
where that ridge that goes from between your nostrils and you upper lip comes
from? As a child, my mother always told
me that before we are born we live in heaven with all the beauty and wonder and
angels gliding about. And right before
we are born an angel touches us there and says “Don’t Tell” and off we go with
all memory erased. Oh-and the
bellybutton is when they give you a little poke a-la- pillsbury dough boy and
say “you’re done”.
Now seriously---Both these
questions –‘How did the world and life begin?’ and ‘Where do we go when we
die?’ bookend the real treasure—Our Lives.
Rev. Alexander arguably believes those questions are irrelevant and our
time would be better spent focusing on the “books” if you will –the stuff in
between the bookends -not what may or may not be holding them up. But I think that just as there is something
more than the concreteness of the here and now, There is something more to the
human species –and perhaps other living species as well. As long as we experience the existence of
emotional feeling and intangible thought, we as humans are going to search with
amazing diligence and perseverance for that which can explain these
unexplainable things to us in ways that speaks to us—that we can hear. And those ways, my friends, are as varied
and multitudinous as the peoples who pepper this great earth.
Whether we believe that
there is something out there beyond our life, or that what you leave behind is
your legacy but you are fini—caput! or any odd, rich, incongruent
combination of the theories that exist, the bottom line is that we DON’T know.
So we each travel our paths making the best sense we can out of our
lives and the world. We live each day
as if it were our last. OR -we live
each day with that carrot of everlasting life dangling before us. Or we just don’t give a hoot and live
without conscience or purpose.
I honor and hold up our
fourth principal to individually and freely search for what has truth and
meaning and I honor this place where I can live in my dichotomy.
Pause…
And when I return as an alpha-male Golden Hawk king
to equalize my karma from my 18th century stint as a ravaged
milk-maid, I will be checking in to make sure you all remember me, this sermon
and my legacy.
Song: Let the Mystery Be