"Advent: The Dark Days
of Winter"
A Sermon of Music and Verse
by Rev. Charles Blustein Ortman and Dr. Artis Wodehouse
December 6, 2009
(Note to reader: This sermon was delivered within a musical
conversation of metrically spoken verse and music played on harmonium.
If at all possible, you may wish to listen to its presentation found
here).
SERMON:
Introduction: Music: In Memory of George Noblemaire Louise Vierne
Part I: An Introduction to the Season;
Verse:
Last Saturday I had the occasion
to put my late father-in-law's ashes in my backpack
and carry them,
on a hike with other family members,
into a forest reserve back in Illinois.
The date had been earlier set because
we would all be together to celebrate
Thanksgiving.
An odd, ironic and very rich concurrence,
an apt convergence, I think.
We walked along the trail, into the woods,
now turned to fields of leafless trees.
We found a pleasant spot there
where a meandering stream formed a deep bend
affording us a landing
from which we could launch the ashes into water,
water that carried the ashes
with our tears
away.
It was left to me to say something
and so I remembered words I wrote
some three decades ago
when a dear friend had died.
They are words I often recite, even here
When, with the loved ones of those departed,
we plant ashes in our Memorial Garden
just here, out in front.
The words remind me of the truth
of our human, earth-bound experience…
"Fiery autumn fades to brown.
The final leaves so slowly find their way to the ground.
Soft white cloud overhead,
So soon comes sunset of red.
Seasons whirl, their cycles spun.
Just as birth so death does come."
("Fiery Autumn Fades to Brown" CBO 1978)
In his Sonnet LXXIII (78) William Shakespeare speaks of this same
seasonal and seemingly eternal truth:
That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou seest the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire
Consumed with that which it was nourish'd by.
This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.
In olden days, no matter our heritage, our ancestors were a rural
people. The whole world operated from a rhythm that stemmed from
the cycles of an agrarian calendar. Seasons of festival or fasting
were tied to seasons of human husbandry with the earth and its creatures.
Liturgical calendars, ecclesiastical schedules of spiritual life,
developed keeping religion apace with the more natural rhythms of
bodies: men and women; earth, moon, sun.
In this season, in olden times, when so many animal populations
either died off or fell into deep, long slumber, when the harvest
was brought home and stored for the time ahead, when the darkness
of night stretched its shadowy boarders overwhelming the edges of
the day, when the rhythms of plant life slowed, the rhythms of the
people dawdled too, in a kind of syncopated harmony.
In this season, in olden times, when the leaves had abandoned their
branches, when woodland streams turned cold and gray, when fields
lay bare and barren winds blew over them, this season provided a
spell for holding darkness and even death, close to heart.
In olden times, this darkening season was a time for solitude,
for turning thoughts inward, for remembering. It was a time for
discovering the wear and tear from yet another year of aging; a
time for uncovering losses and reconnecting strengths. It was a
time for gleaning perspective, as the season just past settled into
a Spoon River-like gathering among its kin of yesteryear.
In olden times, in some parts of the world, this season was known
as Advent, a time of marking time, of putting things away, and waiting;
a time of emptying out, of expectancy. To everything there is a
season, and this one holds in it both a time to seek and a time
to lose. The time to be born though, has past. And though it may
come again, this is a time for dying.
This is advent, on the Christian calendar. It is a time of longing,
of expectation, of waiting. It is a time of night; it is a time
of darkness.
Music: Chorale No. 2 (1989) David Thomas Roberts
Part II: Toward the Mystery in the Dark;
Verse:
Medieval mystic, Meister Eckhart wrote:
This word is a hidden word
and comes in the darkness of the night.
To enter this darkness put away
all voices and sounds
all images and likenesses.
For no image has ever reached into the soul's foundation
Where God herself
with her own being is effective.
I was talking the other day with a friend who is also colleague
of mine. He told me about an experience he had that lasted for several
years and ended just this past spring. It seems that about five
years ago he began to find quarters lying around his house. Actually,
he never found more than one quarter at any particular time.
But, just the same, from time to time he would find one. Sometimes
on the carpet, sometimes on a table, or a shelf, or somewhere else,
always unexpected. The interesting thing was that no one in his
household was ever missing any quarters. There was no explanation,
really, for where they were coming from.
Not too long after the quarters began to appear, my friend was
talking with an acquaintance over dinner. He mentioned the odd occurrence
of the appearance of these quarters. And his dinner companion asked,
"Tell me, did someone die recently?"
"Yes," my friend answered. "My mother died just
a month ago."
"Well," said his companion, "Oddly enough, I've
heard of this sort of thing before. Seems it's not an uncommon experience.
I've heard of others who have lost loved ones, and then shortly
after began to find coins in random places, around their homes.
There's no logical explanation, but I suspect that the deceased
person is somehow trying to communicate, leaving mementos as some
kind of message to the bereaved. Maybe that's what your mother,
your late mother is trying to do." And the quarters continued
to appear.
My friend, who is a rabbi, related this experience in a telephone
conversation with his older brother, who is also a rabbi, but out
on the West Coast.
"Well," said his brother. "All she's leaving me
are nickels!" And then he laughed, as many of us would laugh.
"I'll believe that something like this could happen,"
his brother said, "whenever someone comes back from the dead
to show me where they've hid the money." And still from time
to time, the quarters continued to appear in my friend's home.
And from time to time the brothers would talk on the phone. My
friend would mention the quarters and his brother would laugh and
respond that still, he was only getting nickels, although in truth
he wasn't even getting any nickels. He wasn't finding any coins
at all. This went on for some five years, and then just this past
spring, my friend invited his brother to come and visit, and to
preach to his congregation for the holiday of Shavuot.
A couple of days before the older brother arrived, my friend found
a couple of dimes on the floor of his study. He didn't think much
about them. But he picked them up and put them on the edge of a
coffee table in the living room. He just left them there. Over the
next several days, as he walked past the table, occasionally he
would glance at them, noticing the dimes lying there near the corner
on the edge of the coffee table.
On Shabbas morning, Saturday, the day before his brother was to
fly back home to California, the two rabbis were getting ready to
go to services at the synagogue. They stood in the living room talking
for a moment before heading out the door. As they did, my friend
happened to catch a glimpse of the coffee table expecting to see
the two dimes that seemed to have become ensconced there.
The dimes were gone. In their place were two other coins, a quarter
and a nickel. There was no apparent explanation.
It also happened to be the fifth anniversary of their mother's
death. The brothers stood there together in the living room, for
several minutes, quite unable to speak. They did however, share
the inescapable feeling that their mother had somehow brought them
together. "The hair on the backs of our arms stood straight
on end, as we stood there in silence," my friend told me.
True story. Make of it what you will. But as I heard author Barbara
Kingsolver mentioned in a recent interview, "A mystery that
can be understood… is not a mystery."
There is mystery in life. There is mystery in death. Mystery seems
to be at home in the darkness, darkness of the night, or darkness
of our under-conscious. There are many gifts, I suspect, waiting
to present themselves to us from within the mystery. This is a season
for the exploration of that place, of the mystery, perhaps to find
the gifts that have been left for us there.
Retired Unitarian Universalist minister, David O. Rankin wrote
a meditation, Singing in the Night:
I love to pray, to go deep down into the silence:
To strip myself of all pride, selfishness, and coldness of heart;
To peel off thought after thought, passion after passion, till I
reach the genuine depths of all;
To remember how short a time ago I was nothing, and in how short
a time again I will not be here;
To dwell on all joys, all ecstasies, all tender relations that give
my life zest and meaning;
To peek through a mystic window and look upon the
fabric of life-how still it breathes, how solemn its march, how
profound its
perspective;
And to think how little I know, how very little, except the calm,
the silence, and the signing, signing in the night.
Prayer is the soul's intimacy with God, the ultimate kiss.
Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes wrote, "The Dream
Keeper:"
Bring me all of your dreams,
You dreamer,
Bring me all your
Heart melodies
That I may wrap them
In a blue cloud-cloth
Away from the too-rough fingers
Of the world.
The growing darkness of this season invites us in to meet ourselves
here within the mystery of this world, the mystery of the universe
itself.
Music: Chorale Prelude (1989) David Thomas Roberts
Part III: Is This the End?
Verse:
The poet Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote these foreboding, Lines Written
Among the Euganean Hills:
Senseless is the breast and cold
Which relenting love would fold;
Bloodless are the veins and chill
Which the pulse of pain did fill;
Every little living nerve
That from bitter words did swerve
Round the tortur'd lips and brow,
Are like sapless leaflets now
Frozen upon December's bough.
Being in the dark is a giving into death… at least a little.
It's not so much acquiescence as it is surrender. It's letting go
of what we know and embracing, for all we are worth, the mystery
that lies below that which we know. Whether it is now or later,
true death awaits us all. Whether we engage in it now or never,
the mystery that holds and sustains us now, will come to claim us
back into its breast.
Shakespeare wrote, "If I must die I will encounter darkness
as a bride and hug it in my arms." God, I pray, please give
me the strength, and the courage, and the grace to be such a lover
of life, even in the face of letting go.
Feminist theologian, Susan Griffin wrote, "Nothingness spreads
around us. But in this nothing we find what we did not know existed."
When we let go, when we go into the dark, if we would be honest
there, we would come face-to-face with nothingness. Experiences
of nothingness, I have to believe, are never superficial; they are
about the very essence of our being. They are our encounters with
the great mystery.
D. H. Lawrence wrote:
"This is what I believe: That I am I. That my soul is a dark
forest. That my known self will never be more than a little clearing
in the forest. That gods, strange gods, come forth from the forest
into the clearing of my known self, and then go back. That I must
have the courage to let them come and go. That I will never let
[hu]mankind put anything over me, but that I will try always to
recognize and submit to the gods in me and the gods in other men
and women. There is my creed."
It's sometimes said that, "We are all amateurs at facing death."
In so many ways I suspect that, no matter how long we live, it's
also true that we are amateurs at facing life. In death we let go
of life. In the darkness though, we embrace it. "The paradox
is," Albert Nolan suggests, "…that a [person] who
fears death is already dead, whereas the [person] who has ceased
to fear death has at that moment begun to live."
Some of you may remember words that poet and songwriter Laura Nyro
wrote and sang some years ago:
I'm not scared of dying and I don't really care.
If it's peace you find in dying, well, then let the time be near.
If it's peace you find in dying, when dying time is here,
just bundle up my coffin cause it's cold way down there,
I hear that's it's cold way down there, yeah, crazy cold way down
there...
My troubles are many, they're as deep as a well.
I can swear there ain't no heaven but I pray there ain't no hell.
Swear there ain't no heaven and pray there ain't no hell,
but I'll never know by living, only my dying will tell,
only my dying will tell, yeah, only my dying will tell.
The dying that is available to us through the growing darkness
of this season, the dying available to us in literature and song
is about dying. But it's about more than that. It's about our relationship
with dying. And so really, it's more about our living. It's about
how we live; why we live; to what end we live.
Music: Offertoire: In Memory of Pierre Villey Louis Vierne
Part IV: Shadows in the Dark;
Verse:
Langston Hughes wrote, "Suburban Evening:"
A dog howled.
Weird became the night.
No good reason
For my fright --
But reason often
May play host
To quite
Unreasonable
Ghosts.
If the thought of our dying invites us into relationship with the
prospect of living, wherein comes our fear of that prospect?
Many of us have been taught
and so we teach our children in turn
to fear the darkness.
Strange how it is offered,
in the negative.
"Don't be afraid of the dark,"
they said and now we say.
And the unspoken message is,
"There is something to be afraid of there,
but don't be."
And then, of course,
we are.
I have spoken a number of times,
these past weeks
on the topic of evil.
Still, there is much to be said of it.
There will always be.
A disservice though, I think
I may have committed
against the subject
is to have laid it out as a
dichotomy.
A false dichotomy, between it and good.
The opposite of good is not evil.
It is indifference.
Evil and good are parts
of one same thing -
human behavior.
Our human behavior.
They are about approaches we make,
responses we form
to the truth,
which is,
that we are here… for a while.
We are born through pain
into knowing from having not known;
then dying, often likely through pain again
back into not knowing.
It's not that we did not know
nor that we shall not.
It is just that we do not.
We do not know, cannot know
from whence or from wither;
but only this,
only this brief moment…
only this human lifetime… can we know.
And in our efforts to make sense
of what this is
we choose either
to lift ourselves, altogether,
or we choose
to lift our self, alone,
higher than the other.
We call one good, and the other evil.
Sometimes we do the one.
Sometimes we do the other.
The first keeps us in good company,
connected, embracing, a grasp to secure.
The latter puts us against the rest
isolated, insulated, invested in armature.
Right or wrong, how can we know?
Perhaps we cannot, but even so,
that will not let us off the hook
for asking the questions
that must be asked,
or for living out our answers.
And where is it that we might find,
a space to do our asking?
Could it be in that frightening place?
In the darkness, or the clearing in it
where our gods and our devils
come and go?
Could it be in the nighttime
that this season makes so inviting,
Would we dare to answer
this invitation?
And so dear friends,
if you have come for answers this morning,
I must apologize.
For I serve up only questions
That we each must realize.
So let our hearts sing out their song
of life in deepest yearning.
That we might hear our inmost quest
and in it here our calling.
If there are ears besides our own
that might hear our spirits pleading,
Let us give them thanks
for the comradeship,
their company in keeping.
But let this task be ours to take,
to live this life we're living.
And let this cup be ours to drink
in pain, in joy, in striving.
Come, O, come, Emmanuel.
Give comfort to all exiles here,
and to the aching heart bid cheer.
Come, O, come, Emmanuel.
And dawn in every broken soul
as vision that can see the whole.
Come, O, come, Emmanuel. This is our time for making ready.
Be with us as we seek to find our way through day and night.
Come, O, come, Emmanuel, into the darkness give us sight.
Music: Communion: In Memory of Edgard Guilbeau Louis Vierne
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