“THE BEST THINGS IN LIFE”
A sermon by the
Sunday, October 11, 2009
All
We hear it said that "the best things in life are free." I am here to declare that is not true, at least not always, or at least not always in the way people mean it.
There are many ways in which it is true, that "the best things in life are free." There is no admission charged for you to smell a flower or enjoy a starry night. You do not have to drop a quarter into some machine in order to laugh at a joke or play hide and seek with a toddler. In this sense, these wonderful and common experiences of life are free for the taking.
But there's another way in which this aphorism is misleading and inadequate. It is misleading because each of these activities is transient -- as delightful and enriching as they are, they are only a small piece of experience that do not stand alone to fulfill life or all the great yearnings of life. The aphorism is inadequate because few of us find our life complete and abundant by the simple accumulation of such discreet experiences like these, as pleasing as they may be in and of themselves.
The phrase is also misleading because even if the best things in life are "free" in terms of financial cost, that does not mean necessarily that they are easy to have, or that they are easily accessible. Some of the best things in life that we understand as "free" require from us a great deal from us.
I wish to talk about the best things in life and to consider that they often take a substantial effort, commitment, investment, and discipline.
What are the best things in life? We could each probably construct our own lists which would differ from one another. I have gathered a list of four things which I consider to be among the best things in life. Your lists would look different, I suppose, but I doubt that your list and my list would be too far afield.
The first thing on my list of the best things in life is learning. I view learning in its broadest sense: it means personal growth, it means intellectual challenge, it means wrestling with novel ways of seeing the world, and very often it means wrestling with sometimes painfully new ways of seeing the world.
Learning may not always come with a price-tag of dollars and cents, but it rarely comes easily and it usually involves great effort or hard knocks.
When I was sixteen years old, the day I got my driver's license was the most triumphant day in my life up until then. Like most teenagers, I was just on top of the world. Driving? Nothing to it. You point the car where you want to go, press the peddles in the proper order, and that's all there is to it.
Three days after I got my license, I had an accident. Make that, I caused an accident: it was my fault. It wasn't serious as auto accidents go--just the proverbial fender bender--but I was devastated. I pulled out into an intersection before looking carefully and...crash.
Let’s call this a "learning experience." A very painful learning experience for a sixteen year old who just received his license a few days before. Here are some of the things I learned that day: I make mistakes. I can hurt people and hurt myself through carelessness. I learned something about my own vulnerabilities, about my own fallibilities, about my own limitations, and about my own faults. I also learned a lot more about driving and intersections than I had previously known.
What I learned that day was incalculably valuable. In fact, I learned so much that day that I didn't have another accident until nearly a quarter of a century later!
Most – nearly all – learning experiences in life involve effort and struggle and sometimes even pain. If you've changed your religious convictions at any point in your life, or changed your political opinions, if you once held prejudices that you had to let go, or if you have lost some sense of certainty about what is right and wrong and questioned some of your own values, then you are doing the work of learning lessons. Anyone who has had to change their deeply held convictions about something, discovers that life lessons may be "free" in terms of financial costs, but "free" does not mean "easy." True learning is rarely easy to accomplish.
We learn in life when we stretch our minds, and like physical stretches, mental stretches can take great effort. In this sense, learning is rarely free or easy. The cost is hard work and discipline, and sometimes pain.
Let me move on to the second thing on my list of the best things in life. Another of the four best things in life, I believe, is our relationships with other people, the sharing of our lives with others around us.
Are good relationships free or easy or effortless? Anyone who has been a spouse knows the answer to that. Anyone who has had a mother or father, who has raised a child, or who has nurtured friendships knows the answer. Good relationships take work. Sometimes they take hard work. Sharing our lives with others around us is truly one of the greatest parts of being alive, but it is also among the most difficult and stressful aspects of life. Good relationships require investment of time and commitment and energy and emotion.
And by relationships I am not just referring to family: anyone who has bosses or co-workers or neighbors or friends -- which is to say all of us -- knows by experience that most relationships work only when we are committed to seeing them work, and sometimes even commitment isn't enough.
Sharing our lives with others around us is truly one of the greatest parts of being alive, but it is also among the most difficult and often the most stressful facets of living.
The third thing on my list of "the best things in life" is any effort we make to improve the world, to reach out to others and make some mark in the world that affects it for the better. By this I mean acting on love for justice, and acting on a sense of responsibility for the community and society we live in.
It may in part be a cliché, but it also happens to be true psychologically, that when we devote ourselves to issues that are bigger than we are, or when we give of ourselves to others -- children, people who are lonely, people who are oppressed -- or when we become involved in efforts to make this world better, we help ourselves as well, and become filled with the sense of our own lives having made a difference.
To affect a positive difference in the world is one of the best things in life. But it is hardly free and easy. Most progress in this world comes about by tireless efforts of countless people who struggle and work and devote themselves to just causes. These efforts are among the best things in life, but they can cost a great deal of commitment and devotion -- they require struggle, passion, sweat, and sometimes tears.
The last item I'll mention on my list of "life's best things" I will call, simply, "celebration." By this I refer to those times when we are able to pause from the other efforts -- from the learning and the relationships and the struggles of the world -- and celebrate the life we have been given. It sounds a bit odd at first, I guess, but it is an important element in life. This is the point at which we stop to smell the roses, or look up at a starry sky or play hide and seek with a toddler or laugh at a funny joke, or do all those things that we consider to be the "free" gifts of life. We celebrate.
But celebration makes sense only in terms of that which came before it. We celebrate a job well done, a turning point in life, the opening of a new chapter in life, or the passage out of an old one. Whatever it is we are celebrating is usually the product of much hard work, often great struggle, and frequently the devoted effort of many people.
So here is my list of the best things in life:
1. Learning and growing personally.
2. Sharing our lives and building
relationships with others.
3. Reaching out with compassion to make the
world better.
4. And celebrating the values we have
inherited and nurtured in life.
Now comes a confession. I did not construct this list out of thin
air. In fact, I didn't construct it at
all. I stole it. I stole it from
1. Learning and growing personally.
2. Sharing our lives and building
relationships with others.
3. Reaching out with compassion to make the
world better.
4. And celebrating the values we have
inherited and nurtured in life. (This
is what he calls Sunday "worship")
He didn't call these "the best things
in life," but I do. And further, I
say that the best things in life are not free. They require great effort, commitment,
investment, struggle, sometimes painfully, sometimes joyfully. They don't happen easily or effortlessly. Nor do they happen perfectly.
But they do happen here -- with some struggle, a lot of commitment, and devoted effort of many members and friends. Very few organizations in society offer the potential of this list I've made. Some organizations offer some of them, but few aspire to them all. This congregation can do so, but only with the commitment of effort on the part of individuals.
I am most impressed when I see these things
happen here, and they do happen often.
* The
learning and personal growth that happens when people explore challenging new
ideas and begin to question old biases and worldviews.
* The
relationships and personal sharing of lives not only in social gatherings or
conversations, but in the coming together in times of personal crisis or sorrow,
the comforting hands and voices, or just simple presence of friends who feel
the pain of other friends.
* The
shared concern for issues of justice and peace and equality, a community that
provides avenues and encouragement for members to make this world better, to
reach out with compassion to a hurting world.
To find ways in which individuals can have their lives make a difference
in the world.
* And
finally, the opportunity for joining with others in celebrating the values we
share, the inherited tradition of free thought and free religion, the common
quest for open exploration, the Sunday worship, the potluck dinners. These celebrations bind us into a more solid
community in which the best things in life can be celebrated.
This pledge drive is an opportunity to embrace this community and enhance it through the things that make the best things in life possible: through commitment and effort and investment and participation.
“Beatitudes for
Blessed are those who yearn for deepening more than escape; who can renounce smugness and be shaken in conscience; who are not afraid to grow in spirit.
Blessed are those who take seriously the bonds of community; who regularly join in celebration and learning; who come to church on time, and never let mere weather or inertia keep them home; who come as much to minister as to be ministered unto.
Blessed are those who bring--not send--their children; who invite their friends to come along, to join in fellowship, service, learning, and growth.
Blessed are those who know that the work of the church is the transformation of society; who have a vision of a Beloved Community transcending the present, and who do not shrink from controversy, sacrifice, or change.
Blessed are those who support the church and its work by their regular, sustained and generous giving; of themselves as importantly as financially.
Blessed are those who know that the church is often imperfect, even inadequate, yet rather than harbor feelings of anger or personal disappointment, bring their concerns and needs to the attention of the church, its ministers, and leaders.
Blessed are those who when asked to serve, do it gladly; who realize that change is brought about through human meeting, and who do the dull work of committees, and stay till the end.
Blessed are those who speak their minds but with compassion. Blessed are those who can take and give criticism and who keep alive their senses of humor.
Blessed are they indeed.
And Blessed are all of us at All Souls.