"By the Seat of Our Pants:
Learning as We Go"
A Religious Education Sunday Homily by Rev. Charles Blustein
Ortman
June 6, 2010
SERMON:
The Buddha once said, "This existence of ours is as transient
as autumn clouds. To watch the birth and death of beings is like
looking at the movements of a dance. A lifetime is a flash of lightning
in the sky. Rushing by, like a torrent down a steep mountain."
The point is not that we are really small in the scheme of things,
although that is true. The point is that things are always transient,
always changing.
Lots of times when I see people that I know on the street or in
a store at the Y, they'll often greet me with a, "How ya doin'."
And it's not really a question; it's a greeting. And the proper
New Jersey response to, "How ya doin," is of course the
same greeting in return, "How ya doin'." I'm from Illinois
though, and so sometimes I forget where I am and I take the statement,
"How ya doin'," as an inquiry into my state of well-being
or my happiness or whatever, and I boldly answer the question.
Other times, people may offer a different greeting, but with the
same expectation. "What's new?" Now you have a few different
typical responses you might use to respond to, "What's new."
You might say, "Hey, what's new." Or you might respond,
"What's happenin'." Or you could default to the old reliable,
"How ya doin'."
I'm wondering what some of you might say when someone greets you
with, "What's new?"
When somebody asks me, "What's new?" I'm ready; I jump
on the opportunity to respond, "It's all new! Every bit of
it. I've never been at this particular place and time before, and
it really is all new."
I'm reminded of an Aesop's Fable that I'll bet a number of you
are familiar with too. It's, Androcles and the Lion.
A slave named Androcles once escaped from his master and fled to
the forest. As he was wandering about there, when he came upon a
Lion lying down moaning and groaning. At first he turned to flee,
but finding that the Lion did not pursue him, he turned back and
went up to him. As he came near, the Lion put out his paw, which
was all swollen and bleeding, and Androcles found that a huge thorn
had got into it. The thorn was causing all kinds of pain. He pulled
out the thorn and bound up the paw of the Lion, who was soon able
to rise. Then the Lion licked the hand of Androcles like a pet.
And then the Lion took Androcles to his cave, and every day would
to bring him meat and food to eat.
But awhile afterwards both Androcles and the Lion were captured.
The slave was sentenced to be thrown to the Lion, after the Lion
had been kept without food for several days. The Emperor and all
his Court came to see the spectacle, and Androcles was led out into
the middle of the arena. Soon the Lion was let loose from his den
and rushed bounding and roaring towards his victim. But as soon
as he came near to Androcles he recognized his friend, and fawned
upon him, and licked his hands again like a friendly pet.
The Emperor, surprised at this, summoned Androcles to him. Androcles
told him the whole story. Whereupon the slave was pardoned and freed,
and the Lion was let loose to his native forest.
Now, Aesop tells us that the moral of the story is this: "Gratitude
is the sign of noble souls." And I have to agree; it is. To
be grateful for our lives and all that we've been blessed with is
a most important part of our growth as noble human beings. And,
while the story was made up by Aesop and as far as he was concerned
it was about gratitude and nobility, I really think we can get a
lot more out of the story than that.
I think another moral of the story is this - pay attention to where
you are and what's going on around you, and even if it is by the
seat of your pants, you can learn as you go just what it is that
you need to know.
Androcles was a slave, and then he wasn't. Brand new situation;
he'd never not been a slave before. Then he comes upon a great lion.
He may have seen lions before or maybe not, but he'd never seen
this lion before, and he'd surely never met one up close. Brand
new situation; this lion didn't want to chase him. Something must
be wrong. It didn't matter to Androcles that it was the lion for
whom something was wrong. Something was wrong and he could make
it right, and the lion could be made better.
I want to give you a hint about something. This lion isn't really
a lion. It's a metaphor; it represents something that really scares
the…bejeezus out of you. It's probably a good idea not to try
to take a thorn out of a lion's paw at home, unless of course you
do it metaphorically!
Anyway, Androcles ends up living for a while in the lion's cave.
Brand new situation; he was being served lunch instead of being
served for lunch! And then they were both captured and Androcles
was a slave again, but not like the first time, because now he knew
something about freedom, about not being a slave.
Brand new situation; it's all new. Androcles was saved by his friend
the lion, and then both of them were safe and free because both
of them had paid attention to what was going on around them. Both
of them had found ways of caring for and for serving one another.
Both of them were served and saved by the things they had learned,
by the things they had done, and by the ways in which they had cared
for one another. Brand new situation every time.
This morning we celebrate our Religious Education program and more,
we celebrate the children and their adult leaders in it. Talk about
new situations; just ask a few of them. As a former RE teacher myself,
I know they found themselves in brand new situations often through
the year.
Watching our existence, our transient existence, is like looking
at the movements of a dance.
Many of our children begin here with a Child Dedication ceremony.
And in that ceremony I touch their eyes, their mouths and their
hands with a little bit of water. It's not a ritual of superstitious,
cleansing magic. It's a ritual symbolizing a spiritual awakening
to the world. We want our children to pay attention. We want them
to see what's going on around them. We want them to say the things
they need to say - the expressions of their hearts and the articulation
of their assessments of beauty, justice and compassion in the world
around them. And we want them to do the work of the world that finds
its way into their hands.
That's why we have the various RE classes for the kids through
the years leading up to their Coming of Age year. It's so that their
eyes, and their mouths, and their hands - so that their lives -
will be a blessing to themselves and to the world.
But here's the thing, and the adults here already know this, but
our children are just learning it. The thing is that it's not easy.
It's not easy to see all that the world has to show us. It's often
not easy to speak the truth and to say what needs to be said. It's
often not easy even to know what ought to be done, let alone do
it.
There are a lot of scary things out there that we have to learn
how to make peace with. There are 9/11's and Gulf Coast disasters
after Gulf Coast disasters. There are futile and fatal competitions
between ideologies and there is unmitigated oppression. There is
our world on the brink of unsustainability. There are bullies and
cheats and liars.
And the thing is we can't just teach our children one way to deal
with these challenges because the challenges are always changing,
always appearing as a brand new situation. What's new? It's all
new; it's always new.
I have to think though, that if we are like the lion in the fable,
and grateful for what we've been given, we too might acquire a certain
nobility in our lives. Ironic isn't it that nobility requires humility.
And if we are like both Androcles and the lion, if we pay attention
to ourselves, to each other and to the world around us, if we care
about what we are paying attention to, we will learn the things
we need to know to get through any new situation that might challenge
us. It might not make things easy, but it can help to get us through.
So when you see our kids at Coffee Hour, or anywhere else, you
might want to help them out by asking them what they're paying attention
to? What they are learning about their lives? What they are learning
about the world? And maybe sometimes those might be good questions
for all of us to ask ourselves - what are we paying attention to?
What are we learning about our lives? What are we learning about
the world?
In our lives we need one another in accommodating and celebrating
our joys and happiness. Even more I think, when we are facing difficult
or even frightening challenges, we need one another for support,
or to help pull out a painful thorn. In teaching our children to
be there and to pay attention, we all can learn to be there and
to pay better attention ourselves. And I suspect it will always
be by the seat of our pants, learning as we go.
"This existence of ours is as transient as autumn clouds."
What's new? It's all new; it's always new.
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