Beyond Cynicism

Rev. Mark Stringer

First Unitarian Church of Des Moines

September 23, 2001

Opening Words 

“Morning Poem”  by Mary Oliver

Every morning the world is created.

Under the orange sticks of the sun the heaped ashes of the night turn into leaves again.

And fasten themselves to the high branches—and the ponds appear like black cloth on which are painted islands of summer lilies.

If it is in your nature to be happy you will swim away along the soft trails for hours, your imagination alighting everywhere.

And if your spirit carries within it the thorn that is heavier than lead—if it’s all you can do to keep on trudging—

There is still somewhere deep within you a beast shouting that the earth is exactly what it wanted—

Each pond with its blazing lilies is a prayer heard and answered lavishly, every morning,

Whether or not you have ever dared to be happy,

Whether or not you have ever dared to pray.

Meditation for 9/23/01

Reason above all reason

That which cannot be fully named nor understood…

Torrents of grief still flow for many of us

Drowning our spirits with unanswerable questions.

The events of recent days were powerful reminders

That no matter how well we come to know this world we share

There will always be things beyond our comprehension

There will always be things that challenge our trust in the value and meaning of our time here on this earth.

And yet…

How can we not be in awe of this life…

this complex assortment of days and nights

ever-beckoning us to believe despite our despair…

to believe that there is a strength beneath our suffering

to believe that our lives hold infinite possibilities, even in our pain

to believe that joy may sprout in the most unlikely of places.

How can we not be in awe of this life?

May we greet our days with gratitude

gratitude for the changing seasons and the cooling days of autumn

Gratitude for the smiles of children we pass on the street

Gratitude for the love and compassion of our companions, animal and human

Gratitude for the opportunity we have each day to

offer ourselves to something greater than our individual lives

to something more than our isolated doubt and fear

to something positive in a world seemingly filled with negatives.

May we greet these days,

these only days we will ever know,

with a resilient gratitude

ever-beckoning us to believe

to believe in ourselves; to believe in each other

and to believe in this life that we share.  Amen.

Readings 

Miles Davis, from an interview in which he describes how to get musicians to go beyond themselves:

"If you put a musician in a place where he has to do something different from what he does all the time, then he can do that--but he's got to think differently in order to do it.  He has to use his imagination, be more creative, more innovative; he's got to take more risks.  He's got to play above what he knows--far above it--and what that might lead to might take him above the place where he's been playing all along, to the new place where he finds himself right now--and to the next place he's going and even above that!...I've always told the musicians in my band to play what they know  and then play above that.  Because then anything can happen, and that's where great art and music happen."[1]

Albert Camus, from Resistance, Rebellion, and Death:

"Like many [people] today, I am tired of criticism, of disparagement, of spitefulness--of nihilism, in short.  It is essential to condemn what must be condemned, but swiftly and firmly.  On the other hand, one should praise at length what still deserves to be praised.  After all, that is why I am an artist, because even the work that negates still affirms something and does homage to the wretched and magnificent life that is ours."[2]

Sermon

          If you take a peek into the windows of the old Toyota I drive, you will discover a lot about me.  The condition of the dashboard would suggest that I don’t dust very often, the assorted pieces of paper on the floor would indicate that I rarely vacuum, and the multitude of home-made cassette tapes scattered in-between and underneath the seats would convey that I love to hear music in the car.  Further investigation would yield even more evidence of my love for “tuneage,” as I used to call it when I was in high school, for the glove compartment is so packed with tapes that every time it is opened, an avalanche of plastic threatens to erupt.  It’s true: I’ve always been someone who likes to have music playing when I drive.  Sometimes I sing along, sometimes I just listen, but rare is the occasion when I choose to have my sojourns through the streets not accompanied by some kind of melody. 

In the days immediately following the recent terrorist attacks, however, I suddenly preferred to travel in silence.  Music, particularly in the car, seemed out-of-place and inappropriate…an intrusion on my sorrow.  I felt the need to travel in silence because it was all I seemed capable of handling.  The world had grown noisy enough and I didn’t want to add to the din.

In the silence, I spent a lot of time looking to the trees of this city as though they might hold some answers to my questions.  In the rustling of their leaves, I longed to hear a song of peace, a song of hope, a melody that might somehow drown out the droning reports of a world seemingly gone mad.  The response I received was, like much of the past few days, mostly unsatisfying.  Natural scenes that I normally would have found inspiring were so incongruous with what I knew to be happening in the world, particularly New York City and Washington, D.C., that they merely added to my despair.  My quiet drives through the mostly quiet streets of Des Moines were a mocking reminder of the thousands busy at work in and around the smoldering mountain of remains…the thousands desperately calling out across newly-formed chasms for their loved ones.  Nature had observed the violence, but did not seem to have an answer for my questioning. 

My self-imposed silence did offer me two important things though: First, it gave me the space I needed to grieve…space that I was happy to wrestle away from the infectious, round-the-clock news coverage that mostly has been just stoking the fires of our national anxiety.  Second, the silence gave me the opportunity to recognize that I needed something more; I discovered the need to call upon something that could transcend the despair and destruction.  For me, at least part of that something was the very thing I had been avoiding…music.

I recalled other confusing times in my life and how music had comforted my fear and challenged my complacency, how it had provided the boost I needed to trust the world and to trust my fellow humans during times when trust did not come easy.  Music had been an essential element of my faith…the faith I now needed to call upon to make sense out of what seemed totally senseless.   Now I know that faith, like other loaded words in our culture’s religious vocabulary, can be a tricky concept, one that should be approached carefully, with acknowledgment that each person’s faith can be as unique as her fingerprint.   For those of us who find notions of a supreme being, particularly the puppet-string pulling God, or the police officer God, to be irrational, or dangerous, or at best incomprehensible, the very idea of faith seems spurious.  Many of us who do not self-identify as theists may have difficulty acknowledging faith because we are often unsure to whom or to what we should be faithful.

All the talk these days about people relying upon their faith during the current world crisis may be leaving some of us with more questions than answers.  If less than two dozen men can commandeer four airplanes with the intent to destroy thousands of human lives, including their own, all the while basing their mission in their faith, how are we to understand faith as anything more than a demonic road-map to destruction?  Why should we rely on faith, when it seems clear that faith was a primary fuel of the hatred that slammed into our lives and which continues to threaten all that we hold dear?  An important preface to any answer we might muster to these questions is that while the particulars of faith are personal, faith as a concept is neutral. The content of one’s faith is what gives it value, not the fact that one claims to have faith. 

Liberal theologian Henry Nelson Wieman interpreted faith as one’s “ultimate commitment”….the act by which an individual commits herself in the wholeness of her being, so far as she can, to what she believes will transform humanity as she could not do by herself.[i]  Did the terrorists have faith?  They certainly had an ultimate commitment.  However, unlike many present here this morning and around the world, their commitment was not to the power of human reason.  Their commitment was not to the motivating force of love.  Their commitment was not even based in what the majority of peace-loving Muslims believe.  Their commitment was based in hatred…pure and simple hatred.  The transformation of humanity their faith sought was one of destruction and terror.  Not much of a faith to those of us who believe in the inherent worth and dignity of each individual…not much of a faith for those of us who trust in a goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all…not much of a faith for those of us who hold an ultimate commitment toward loving our neighbors as ourselves.  I think that Wieman would have acknowledged the terrorists’ commitment, but he would have denied that they had a working faith because their ultimate commitment lacked an essential component.  Wieman believed that in light of the mysteries that comprise our existence, one’s faith (or religious commitment) must have a dual character:  It should be guided toward the pursuit of the highest degree of knowledge while at the same time always recognizing its inherent limitations.  He wrote, “A man’s religious devotion becomes a form of pernicious idolatry leading to dogmatic fanaticism and blind cruelty if he does not practice his ultimate commitment in this dual manner, on the one hand seeking the best knowledge that he can get, on the other recognizing his fallibility and accepting the consequences of it.”[ii]

The terrorists did not adequately acknowledge their own fallibility…and thousands died because of it.  May we learn from their mistake.  May the over 90 percent approval rating our president now has for his response plan…most of which is still unknown…not lead him and his advisors to look past our own national fallibility, or else more innocent lives may be sacrificed in the name of a truth that can never be fully known nor understood, especially without input from all those involved.

As each of us chooses and/or strengthens our own ultimate commitment in this dangerous time, does our collective presence on this September Sunday morning indicate that we do indeed share some kind of common faith?  Do we collectively have something to rely upon in times like these, when life appears so expendable, and evil so ineffable?  I think we do.  Merely by gathering together, by joining our voices in common speaking and singing, by trusting that there is something beyond ourselves that can be discovered in community with others, we are displaying faith.  By extending our efforts beyond our singular lives through showing care and concern for others—whether they be loved ones or strangers—we are exhibiting faith.  And by providing a place where our children and youth can explore the questions of their developing commitments, we join with their parents in participating in the supreme act of faith that is raising and nurturing the generations who will follow.

Does it matter that we may not view the questions of our shared existence in exactly the same way?  I don’t think so.  But I think it does matter that we give ourselves to something beyond cynicism…that we nurture an ultimate commitment to that which reaches beyond the immediate bounds of our always limited knowledge and towards that which is ever-emerging, ever-evolving…that we discover “a path of heart that enables us to perceive the mysterious meaning of life, to confront and overcome obstacles, to live with doubt and paradox, [and] to be at home in…[the] world….”[iii]

I describe this faith as that which maintains our trust in life, even when life seems most untrustworthy.  Faith is whatever grounds our actions, whatever drives our passion, whatever allows us to believe that there is a reason we should give ourselves to something greater than our own self-interest…something greater than our cynicism.  And as someone who has leaned upon music in my own times of despair, I appreciate the words of the 15^th-century Indian poet Kabir who said, “Faith is the bird that sings to the dawn while it is still dark.”

Singing to the dawn while it is still dark. 

          I once heard singer/songwriter David Wilcox tell a story about singing into the darkness.  The story took place when Wilcox was working as a street musician, just starting out, playing for whomever would listen.  One day, a man who was sharing the corner with him, waiting for the light to change, listened to Wilcox's music for a few minutes, and then, with a look of disgust, spat out "Why don't you get a job?"...to which David responded, "Why don't you sing?"

          Why don't you sing?  Why don't you sing?  I can almost imagine what the man's response would have been, particularly now.  "Look buddy, I'll tell you why I don't sing.  The world is a mess. There are people starving, injustice is rampant, the environment is deteriorating, people can't drive, there is no privacy, people care more about sports than they do about schools, kids are killing each other, the whole country is on drugs, the politicians don't care about anything except getting re-elected, my vote doesn't count anyway, I'm working harder for less money, scientists are screwing with the genetic makeup of life, people I love are getting sick, and now there are people who are acting on the belief that their God wants them to murder innocent people...Why should I sing?"

          Knowing his music well, I think Wilcox shares this confusion, as we all do.  He just believes that there is something beyond despair...beyond the cynicism that keeps us from giving the gifts that we have, something beyond the cynicism that clouds over the endless possibilities of our lives, something beyond the cynicism that drowns out the song of our living.  When I was again ready to hear music, I quickly reached for one of Wilcox’s songs, a portion of which I share with you now.

“I know that compassion is all out of fashion,

and anger is all the rage

Grow up and give in to that cynical spin

That you see on most every page

We all know what's wrong with the system

How the people are puppets and fools

And if they're not strong, it will trick them

They get used up like factory tools.

The kids just give up in those schools.

But what is it really that's keeping me,

from living a life that's true?

When the worries speak louder than wisdom

It drowns out all the answers I knew

So I'm tossed on the waves of the surface

Still the mystery's dark and deep

With a much more frightening stillness

Underneath.”[iv]

I think the frightening stillness Wilcox sings about is part of Wieman’s dual nature of faith: an ultimate commitment to that which we do know always tempered by the acknowledgement that we can never know it all.  There will always be a frightening stillness…one that calls out for our music…one that calls out for our faith. 

          The Miles Davis quote offered in this morning’s reading covers similar ground.  To play jazz, one has to be willing to go beyond that which one knows…to trust in the emerging music even when it seems like everything is falling apart.  Miles told his musicians to play “above what they know” because he wanted them to have some faith. He was encouraging them to sing into the darkness before the dawn. This kind of commitment is at the heart of jazz, the music that UU ethicist Sharon Welch claims could heal us if we just listened closely enough, precisely because it is a music of faith.  She points to the musical improvisation of jazz—one musician offering her best attempt against the always shifting template of what the other musicians offer—as an inspiring analogy to life, which might encourage us to move away from unattainable goals of perfection and toward a more modest hope of resilience in the face of life's ambiguities.[v] 

          It's been said that "jazz operates at the 'knife edge of failure.'"[vi]   Maybe that's because good jazz requires risk, and actually builds upon mistakes.  Sounds like what I would call a life well-lived:  it involves risks and builds upon mistakes.    Also sounds like what is called for in this time of unprecedented tragedy.  We need to build upon mistakes.  We need to acknowledge our fallibility and recognize that in life, as in jazz, a note played is rarely good or bad on its own…its value is usually determined by the note that follows.

          It’s time for us to make and nurture some ultimate commitments.  It’s time for us to play above what we know.  The world is hungry for some faith…faith grounded in respect for knowledge and for fallibility.  The world is hungry for some music...particularly the music built from collaboration and improvisation.  What notes will we play in the days ahead?  The future will depend on our answer.

          Oh, and by the way, if you see me driving around town, don’t be surprised if I don’t hear you honking.  I plan on having my car stereo cranked.  I’ve got some tuneage to play.

Closing Words

Adrienne Rich, from Dream of a Common Language

"My heart is moved by all I cannot save: 

So much has been destroyed

I have to cast my lot with those

who, age after age,

perversely, with no extraordinary

power, reconstitute the world."