Endings Are Beginnings

Rev. Richard Venus (MVUUF Minister 1991-2005) - 2005-08-21

This being my last, I want to share with you something new, something old, something borrowed, something blue. The old and borrowed are two stories reflecting ideas central to my understanding of Unitarian Universalism and the nature of the ministry. The first story is from no other than my favorite theologian, Robert Fulghum. Would you expect any other?

Fulghum tells of an experience he had while attending a conference near the village of Gonia on a rocky bay of the island of Crete. A Greek Orthodox monastery is located there and alongside it is an institute dedicated to human understanding and peace, and especially to rapprochement between Germans and Cretans. An improbable task, given the bitter residue of wartime.

This site is important, because it overlooks the small airstrip at Maleme where Nazi paratroopers invaded Crete and were attacked by peasants wielding kitchen knives and hay scythes. The retribution was terrible. The populations of whole villages were lined up and shot for assaulting Hitler’s finest troops. High above the institute is a cemetery with a single cross marking the mass grave of Cretan partisans. And across the bay on yet another hill is the regimented burial ground of the Nazi paratroopers. The memorials are so placed that all might see and never forget. Hate was the only weapon the Cretans had at the end, and it was a weapon many vowed never to give up. Never again.

Against this heavy curtain of history, in this place where the stone of hatred is hard and thick, the existence of an institute devoted to healing the wounds of war is a fragile paradox. Its creation is the result of the life and work of a doctor of philosophy; teacher, politician, a resident of Athens but a son of this soil, Alexander Papaderos. At war’s end Papaderos came to believe that the Germans and the Cretans had much to give one another--much to learn from one another. That they had an example to set. For if they could forgive each other and construct a creative relationship, then any people could.

To make a lovely story short, Papaderos succeeded. The institute became a reality--a conference ground on the site of horror--and it was in fact a source of productive interaction between the two countries. Books have been written on the dreams that were realized by what people gave to people in this place.

By the time Fulghum came to the institute for a summer session, Papaderos had become a living legend. One look at him and you saw his strength and intensity--energy, physical power, courage, intelligence, passion, and vivacity (vâ-vas-ity) radiated from his person. And to speak to him, to shake his hand, to be in a room with him when he spoke, was to experience his extraordinary electric humanity. Few men live up to their reputations when you get close. Alexander Papaderos was an exception.

At the last session on the last morning of a two-week seminar on Greek culture, Papaderos rose from his chair at the back of the room and walked to the front, where he stood in the bright Greek sunlight of an open window and looked out. We followed his gaze across the bay to the iron cross marking the German cemetery.

He turned. And made the ritual gesture: “Are there any questions?”

Quiet quilted the room. These two weeks had generated enough questions for a lifetime, but for now there was only silence.

“No questions?” Papaderos swept the room with is eyes.

So, Fulgum writes, I asked.

“Dr. Papaderos, what is the meaning of life?”
The usual laughter followed, and people stirred to go.

Papaderos held up his hand and stilled the room and looked at me for a long time and seeing from my eyes that I was serious.
“I will answer your question.”

Taking his wallet out of his hip pocket, he fished into a leather billfold and brought out a very small round mirror, about the size of a quarter.

And what he said went like this:

“When I was a small child, during the war, we were very poor and we lived in a remote village. One day, on the road, I found a broken piece of a mirror. A German motorcycle had been wrecked in that place.

“I tried to find all the pieces and put them together, but it was not possible, so I kept only the largest piece. This one. And by scratching it on a stone I made it round. I began to play with it as a toy and became fascinated by the fact that I could reflect light into dark places where the sun would never shine--in deep holes and crevices and dark closets. It became a game for me to get light into the most inaccessible places I could find.

“I kept the little mirror, and as I went about my growing up, I would take it out in idle moments and continue the challenge of the game. As I became a man, I grew to understand that this was not just a child’s game but a metaphor for what I might do with my life. I came to understand that I am not the light or the source of light. But light--truth, understanding, knowledge--is there, and it will only shine in many dark places if I reflect it.

“I am a fragment of a mirror whose whole design and shape I do not know. Nevertheless, with what I have I can reflect light into the dark places of this world--into the black places of the hearts of men [and women]--and change some things in some people. Perhaps others may see and do likewise. This is what I am about. This is the meaning of my life.”
Dr. Papaderos got it right. To shine our light into the dark places is a large part of what it means to be Unitarian Universalist.
“I am a fragment of a mirror whose whole design and shape I do not know. Nevertheless, with what I have I can reflect light into the dark places of this world--into the black places of the hearts of men [and women]--and change some things in some people. Perhaps others may see and do likewise. This is what I am about. This is the meaning of my life.”
It is no surprise to anyone to suggest that religion in America has undergone an incredible transformation in the last 30 years or so…a religious reversion to the fundamentalism of generations ago has overtaken America. The spiritual vocabulary of our day, with its defining terms such as god, soul, sacrifice, faith, mysticism, salvation, grace, redemption, have been taken over by religious fundamentalist and defined in ways that the abuse they render may last for centuries.

There has been a fusion of right-wing politics and religiosity that has changed America’s leadership and altered our identity in the eyes of the world and created a mood of close-minded vehemence in millions. As author David Duncan notes, “Critics of the right-wing/fundamentalist conflation are now often demonized not just as traitors to America, but as enemies of a new kind of Americanized God.”

The Christian Right has a fully-automated evangelical machine that runs 24/7 with TV bombast, sham healings, and congregation-fleecing scams in three-ring circuses and victory campaigns. It inserts lobbyists and politicians in its pulpits and political brochures in its pews, claims that both speak for Jesus while raising millions for neoconservative political think tanks and war. This truth-fleecing work is headed by a president who goads us toward theocracy at home while decrying theocracies overseas.
Never in my lifetime have I witnessed such a use of so-called Christian theology for such political and sectarian purposes.

This defamation of religious language cannot be undone by turning our backs on religion, but by reopening each of those fundamental religious word’s true history, nuance and depth. Mr. Duncan adds, “Holy words need stewardship as surely as do gardens, orchards, or ecosystems. When lovingly tended, such words surround us with spaciousness and mystery the way a sacred grove surrounds us with peace and oxygenated air. But when we abandon our holy words and fail to replace them, we end up living in a spiritual clearcut.”

I would suggest that we Unitarian Universalists are to be like Dr. Papaderos’ mirror in this time when religion has lost its way. We are to be those who honor the religious words that guide us. Ours is to give witness to the themes in the principles we hold dear by holding up to the light the worth and dignity of every human being, offering support for justice, equity, and compassion in human relations and the acceptance of one another, giving encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations and truly demanding, in our misguided America, a free and responsible search for truth and meaning. These are more than principles we print on the last page of our bulletin, they are guideposts that would serve the world well in these times of war, and growing starvation, and rampant deadly disease, and the increasing devaluing of human life. What these words call us to do can be the mirror we reflect into the dark places and serve as a beacon to those searching for truth and meaning in a world of rampant Islamic, Rabbinical, Christian fundamentalism.

I am reminded of one of my very favorite stories that I told 14 years ago, in an early sermon. It is a true story written by Vincent Canby of the New York Times who tells of waiting for the subway train at 42nd Street and Broadway. When the train arrived and the passengers poured out a young man, dressed in dirty torn blue jeans and a tattered jacket squeezed through the crowd and pointed a finger at man dressed in a very natty blue suit, crisp white shirt and rep tie who had just boarded the train. The scruffy looking young man then shouted, “Hey mister, give me back my yo-yo.” The man in the suit suddenly looked about, stared back at the young man in seeming disbelief. But the kid in the torn jeans kept it up. “Hey mister, give me back my yo-yo.” And because he was standing between the doors the train would not move, only open and shut again against the kid’s shoulders.

After several minutes of this harangue, a beefy looking man, who looked much like an off-duty steam fitter, got out of his seat, grabbed the kid and shoved him back on the platform. The doors then closed and the train started down the tracks.

After a minute or two, Canby noticed that the man in the blue suit then reached into his pocket and pulled out a round red object that obviously was a yo-yo.

“Oh my God,” said one of the passengers, “He does have the yo-yo.” Others just stared in disbelief.

When Canby got off at the next stop he looked about to see if there was a movie camera around taking focus on all this. This was not a movie, but real life. And Canby concludes, things are not always as you expect them to be.

I certainly would not have thought twice about the man neatly dressed in blue serge to have taken the kid’s yo-yo. I often miss what is right before me because I am not looking for it. To see the new, the true, often means changing our way of seeing and we don’t like change.

While I am sad to leave this congregation as your minister and it is difficult to say goodbye, it is a good thing I am leaving because I don’t like change, I get in its way. Change is what we have been about these past several years and it is time to have new eyes and ears to be your minister because she will help you see the world in new ways and while that is painful it is also healthy and vitally important for the Fellowship’s future.

I am not alone in not liking change, however. Most human beings don’t like it either. As the old adage would have it, we would rather fight than switch, and stay as we are is what we know and feel most comfortable being. We will do, consciously or unconsciously, whatever it takes to stay with the known, the familiar, the safe. It is survival mode. But if MVUUF is to thrive it will have to change. Your new minister will not do things as I have done them, just as I did not do things as my predecessor did them. In part, because I didn’t know what he did and the person following me won’t know how I did things, but also because fresh eyes and ideas are necessary for a healthy congregation to thrive.

There is a danger that you will wait until you have dotted all the i’s and crossed all the t’s before you move ahead. There is a danger that you will make sure you have all the money you need, or all the bylaws you need, or all the insurance you need before looking at what is needed next. It is the human way. It was said of the painter Cézanne that he helped us see the world in a new way. And so it should be with this place. A fundamental of being a church is not seeing the world as we have always seen it, but looking in ways unplanned, unprogrammed, unexpected, and then being faithful to the words we hold dear; those words that call to mind the prophets of old who asked that justice run down like water and love flow like an everlasting stream.

I ask, as I leave, that you not settle for what is, not waiting for perfect to be, but to dream of what you want and not let what is stand in your way of achieving it. You are a vital, vibrant, intelligent and witty congregation who has shown you can work miracles. Just look around you at this magnificent building and its environment for proof of that. Now celebrate what has been, but don’t settle for it. Be more than you have ever dreamed you can be.