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June 25, 2006 First Unitarian Church of Des Moines
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“Life in community isn’t always easy, but it’s the only place we can practice being human.” from David S Blanchard – “Why did the UU Cross the Road?” from A Temporary State of Grace, Skinner House, 1997.
Call to Worship:
“A Call to Worship”by David S. Blanchard, from A Temporary State of Grace, Skinner House, 1997.
Come down off the ladder. Wash out that paintbrush. Shake the sand out of your shoes. Get up off your muddy knees, and give the garden a morning off. Fold up the newspaper. Turn off the coffee pot. Close up your calendar, already filled with dates, and times, and people, and places that claim you. This church is ready for you to fill its rooms, to create its spirit, to generate its warmth, to kindle its light. This church is ready for you to make community, to create beauty, to bend it toward justice, to serve its ideals. This church is ready for you to be here, honoring our past, invigorating our present, and dreaming our future. This is your church. Here we are home. Here we are whole. Let us begin.
Meditation:
“Prayer for Those Gathered in Worship” by Barbara Pescan, from Morning Watch, Skinner House, 1999.
In this familiar place, listen: to the sounds of breathing, creaking chairs, shuffling feet, clearing throats, and sighing all around. Know that each breath, movement, the glance meant for you or intercepted holds a life within it.
These are signs that we choose to be in this company have things to say to each other things not yet said but in each other’s presence still trembling behind our hearts’ doors these doors closed but unlocked each silent thing waiting on the threshold between unknowing and knowing, between being hidden and being known.
Find the silence among these people and listen to it all – breathing, sighs, movement, holding back – hear the tears that have not yet reached their eyes perhaps they are your own hear also the laughter building deep where joy abides despite everything Listen: rejoice. And say Amen.
Reading: Excerpted from “Heaven and Hell at the Breakfast Table”by Christopher Buice, from Roller Skating as a Spiritual Discipline, Skinner House, 2002.
“… Sometimes I ask myself, “Whither shall I go to flee from my relationships – whether they be with my family, friends, or coworkers? Whither shall I go to escape my ties to my neighbors – whether they be rich or poor, male or female, gay or straight; red, brown, yellow, black, or white?” For we are all members of one family related to each other and the Divine. We are all gathered around the common table of Creation. The way we relate to each other may mean the difference between heaven and hell. I do not believe that salvation is an escape from our relationships. It is not about simply waiting for some heaven or bliss in the hereafter. I believe that salvation can be the experience of peace, goodwill, and reconciliation in the here and now in the context of our relationships. For, if we do not experience salvation in the present moment, then we are unlikely to follow it wherever we may go.”
Reading:
“How to Pick a Watermelon … or a Relationship” [Read by two people as a responsive reading]
1.
Look the watermelon over, choose a firm,
symmetrical watermelon that is free of bruises,
cuts and dents.
1. Look the relationship over. Choose a firm relationship. Yes, there may be some blemishes, but it turns out that dealing with those blemishes often enriches and deepens our lives, and makes us love even more.
2.
Lift it up - the watermelon should be heavy for
its size. Watermelon is 92% water, which
accounts for most of its weight.
2. Lift it up – the relationship will be heavy for its size. It will require the strength of your love to carry it throughout your life.
3. Turn it over - on the underside of the watermelon there should be a creamy yellow spot from where it sat on the ground and ripened in the sun.
3. Turn it over – on the underside of the relationship there will be a spot that has been hidden from the sun. We all have them – the spots kept hidden as our relationships ripen – the things we withhold, our fears, our hopes, and our dreams. Far from being a blemish - they too are an enriching and important part of being human.
4. Along with a creamy underneath, a ripe watermelon sounds hollow when tapped with your knuckles. You can learn to distinguish the sound... tap several melons at the market and pay attention to which ones sound hollow. If you find a melon that thuds dully, compare that sound to the others and find one that does NOT.
4. Relationships, too, have a resonance that you can learn to distinguish. Listen to your relationships and pay attention to which ones resonate. If you find a relationship that “thuds dully” – compare that sound to the others and find those that do NOT.
Sermon:
“Personal Watermelon”by Greg Pelley
It was one of those cold, wet, and dreary March days - the kind of day that Mother Nature throws at us just as we’ve begun to let ourselves believe that Spring would be upon us soon. That morning, I walked into the market to do some shopping, shivering off the mist and carrying a travel mug full of hot coffee in a futile attempt at warm comfort.
Inside, as my eyes adjusted to the bright lights of the store, I was immediately stuck with a vision. Right in front of me was a bin full of what appeared to be watermelons. I blinked, not sure of what I was seeing … at first I couldn’t place it, but there was something distinctively off about these melons – they had the right color, alternating jagged stripes of dark and light green – but something still seemed wrong. It took me a second to divine their flaw. They were small, too small to be real, I thought, none of them larger than a bowling ball. Stuck in the bin was a sign that read – “Personal Watermelon, $4.99.”
Now perhaps it was due to the inclement weather, the chill that the coffee couldn’t break, or the fact that this was March - and not July - and therefore way out of season for watermelon, but the whole image – these way-too-small melons and the phrase “personal watermelon” – occurred to me as oxymoronic. Aren’t watermelons supposed to be huge? In my mind, they should be at the brink of being too heavy to carry alone. If you bought a watermelon, a REAL watermelon, there is no way that the act could be “personal” – watermelons, by their nature, are meant to be shared – and best shared amongst friends and family on a hot summer day. And as this thought stays with me as I go about my shopping, I am reminded of one such summer day when I was growing up.
I remember it was hot – that thick and heavy heat that applies slow pressure on every pore of your body. August in Robinson, a small town on the east side of central Illinois, was often like that. There is stillness in the air that will not give even the slightest breeze a chance to rustle the leaves of the long rows of corn. The only movement in the fields in Crawford County was the interminable mechanical nodding of the oil pumps. All was silent, as if the air was too stifling to admit waves of sound.
We awoke early, and prepared our escape. Our lungs seized at the damp heat as we hauled red-and-white ice chests from our air-conditioned spilt-level house to the station wagon. Dressed in bathing suits, t-shirts, and sandals, we piled into the car, constantly pulling our legs off the hot vinyl seats as we headed south along the East Coast of Illinois, following the Wabash River down to its juncture with the Ohio. There, we would meet our friends, load up their boat with the provisions, and set out to find a suitable sandbar to stake our claim for the day.
My sisters and I were given the job of digging a large hole near the water’s edge. It had to be at least a couple of feet deep – down where the sands were a constantly cool 40 degrees, and where the sun would not warm them. Into this hole was placed a huge Jubilee watermelon, we covered it with sand, and marked the spot with a phalanx of sticks.
We then set about the real business of that day – playing along the sand bar, swimming in the river, letting the current carry us downstream a bit, and lazily gazing at the barges plying their way down to the Mississippi and eventually to the Gulf.
Late in the afternoon, when the temperature along the river was well into the 90’s, and we were pretty well broiled, my sisters and I set out to locate the phalanx of debris that marked our watermelon. We carefully excavated the fruit, washed it off in the river, and brought it to our father for carving. We then sat on the sandbar, with the cool, sweet juice of the melon dripping off our fingers and chins. We spit the black seeds onto the beach and wondered out loud if they would germinate there next spring, and if we came back to this sandbar next year, would the tangled vines of a watermelon patch greet us? We decided that if we were to return the next summer, we would have to bring a lot more friends with us, to harvest and consume all those watermelons.
I suppose it was this memory and dozens like it - hot summer days spent with my family and friends that ingrained in me the sense that watermelons were meant to be shared – they are a sort of a ritual - [a] summer communion. And it is the idea of communion that contrasted so jarringly that March morning as I contemplated the meaning and measure of “personal watermelon.”
Watermelon is believed to have first been found in the Kalahari Desert in Africa. The first record of a watermelon harvest was in Egypt, 5000 years ago. From Egypt, merchant ships spread the plant throughout the Mediterranean and along trade routes. By the 10th century watermelon had found its way to China. Today China is the largest producer of the fruit – 126 billion pounds per year. (The US produces about 4 billion pounds, fourth behind China, Turkey, and Iran.)
It is interesting to note that the rind of a watermelon is deceptively hardy looking, but is actually quite fragile, and therefore impossible to harvest mechanically. That's why watermelons are still picked by hand from the field. They are then passed hand-to-hand from the field to trucks, which take the melons to packing sheds, where they are sorted and hand-packed, crated into bins or placed in cartons for shipment. So if harvesting watermelons isn’t done alone, I wondered why should the fruit be consumed alone?
Now, to be fair, the term “personal watermelon” is just a marketing gimmick. There are actually several varieties of small watermelons that have been grown and sold for years. So truly, what bothered me so much was the sign that emphasized that these melons were “personal” - as in “for your personal use only,” and not to be shared. And therein lay the crux of my inquiry: Have “we” become so insular, so isolated from our family, friends, and communities that there is a market for the “personal watermelon?”
The evidence for our isolation seems to be everywhere, and so common as to be simply just the way life is in this society. For example, we have gated communities that vainly attempt to shut out all that is considered undesirable, and within those gates, a demand for conformity of nearly every aspect of our home life. We commute into work each day, alone in our huge shiny metal boxes, oblivious – or sometimes even hostile – to those shiny metal boxes surrounding us on the freeway. When we return home, we retreat to our own fenced-in backyard and deck… with the members of our families away - each on their own personal schedule, or watching TV, or surfing the internet. We email the person sitting in the next cubical, instead of having a face-to-face conversation. When in public, we either have cell phones or ipods glued to our ear, shutting out those immediately around us.
Sociologist Robert Putnam exhaustively studied the decline in what he terms “social capital” in the US over the last 30 years, and published his results in a book entitled Bowling Alone. The title of the book refers to the fact that over the last 30 years or so, participation in league bowling has precipitously declined, while participation bowling as an activity has remained steady, and even increased. In other words, people still like to bowl, and do so frequently … but we don’t join leagues anymore … we prefer to “Bowl Alone.” And it is not just bowling leagues… membership in civic organizations of all stripes has fallen since the mid 1960’s. Fewer people give dinner parties. Fewer people vote. Fewer people are engaged in their communities in any meaningful, general, and selfless way. What Putnam found is that “we” have given up our social capital – our interconnectedness to our community.
The possible reasons that are often given for the decline in civic engagement are many, and you’ve probably used some of these yourself … The following is Robert Putnam’s list of possible reasons based on his research:
Now, if you are like me – some of these probably hit pretty close to home. I found myself agreeing with some of the reasons on this list, and giving a solid “Harrumph” to others.
Applying some scientific rigor to the list, Putnam was able to winnow out some of the suspects, and combine others to form a sort of best-guess formula for why we have disengaged ourselves from our communities. He found that the reason is about 10% work (time, economics, 2-career families), 10% sprawl, 25% television/technology, and about 50% generational, with the remainder being an unnamed “other.”
Now, after attempting to digest Putnam’s work, and after trying to find some meaning or measure to the reasons why we have become so isolated and insular from our communities, I find myself ... well … nowhere.
It is easy to talk about broad societal shifts, or some abstract reason or theory that places the blame for our apparent isolation on “them.” You know “them.” They are the ones in the suburban gated communities, not me. They are the ones clogging the freeway sitting alone in their SUVs, not me. They are the ones who don’t have dinner with their families, don’t vote, and don’t join bowling leagues. It is, after all, “them” that looks at a bin full of personal watermelons and thinks, “Thank GOD – someone has finally gotten these things down to a manageable size!”
But you know, it wasn’t “them” that had a visceral reaction to a display of watermelons when they walked into that market that cold March morning. And it wasn’t “them” on the Ohio River sandbar that hot August afternoon. And no amount of fixing blame, no abstract sociological formula, and no stand of righteous indignation will ever change “their” course.
So now I am left with the one thing I had hoped to avoid. Perhaps my original inquiry – “Have “we” become so isolated, so insular, that there is a market for personal watermelons?”- is asking the wrong question. Perhaps the more appropriate question is Have I? Have I become so isolated, so insular, that a marketing ploy like “personal watermelon” would be so effective? And while I loath the possibility, I have to ask the question. And endeavor to answer it:
To be sure, the family and friends that shared that watermelon with me on the banks of the Ohio are now scattered across the country. Since graduating high school, my choices on where I lived rarely considered the proximity of my family. I moved easily from one place to another, without any palpable sense of loss of relationship. Even after eight years in Charlotte, North Carolina, it wasn’t difficult for us to pick up and move to Iowa. Because even though we had good friends there, somehow we weren’t tied to that community, or socially invested there.
I spend a great deal of time on my computer – in relative isolation – working, emailing, and otherwise not being personally engaged in the community. And even when I ‘get out’ and go to a coffee shop or some public venue, I am usually engaged in a book rather than a conversation. Or WORSE – I am enthralled with the drive-through Starbucks … you see, that way, I can be alone in my car, sipping my overpriced chain-store coffee and - barring being carjacked – I’ll never have to concern myself with any sort of social engagement with anyone in my community. So when I honestly assess my lifestyle, I am surprised to find that it is just as likely to be me that they are aiming for when they market “personal watermelon. ··· When I was in high school, I lived in a suburb of Phoenix, Arizona. I worked part-time in a small grocery that catered to the guests of the resort and golf course across the street, the handful of local residents, and a number of field hands that worked the truck farms nearby.
At the end of their twelve-hour-plus day, the field hands, almost all of the Hispanic immigrants, would come in to the store. Rarely did they speak English, and I did not speak Spanish. But I quickly learned a couple of words – just enough to help these tired men and women find what they needed. When they would question “Cerveza?” – I learned to say “el pasillo cinco.” (in aisle 5). When they would ask “Sandia?” – I learned to reply “en la frente.” (in the front.)
Later, I would be taking out the day’s trash from the market, I would find the field hands sitting on milk crates out back of the store, drinking beer and eating watermelon. There would be at least dozen of these workers, dusty from the desert farms, exhausted from their labor, and still smiling, laughing, and sharing their fruit and drinks with each other. Admittedly, I couldn’t understand what they were saying. Nor could I understand their life at all – the hard labor for low wages, the transitory nature of their work, the necessary abandonment of their families and homes…. But what I could understand, in that moment is their community – their leaning on each other for love and support in a place that was simultaneously generous and hostile. And despite their obvious exhaustion at the end of their day, this was the time and place to share of each other – to be in community.
And as I think of those field hands, and they way they formed a community with whomever was around, I wonder what I have missed? How is it possible to form relationships with people you don’t really know? How does one actually go about doing just that?
In the short time my wife and family have been here, this church has generously welcomed us into its community. For me it has been an extraordinary experience. And whether my isolation has been personally created, or is part of a larger societal change, it has been here that I have at least begun to shed its vestiges. It is this community that has shown me that it is possible for me to form relationships with people I don’t know. And it is here that I have discovered that there is nowhere I can go to escape from my relationships. It is here that I have been able to experience the salvation of “peace, goodwill, and reconciliation in the here and now.” It is here that I have discovered a place to practice being human. And it is this community that has shown me the joyful absurdity of selling fruit labeled “Personal Watermelon.”
“Go in peace, go making peace.”
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