Coming Alive to Life

A Sermon by Rev. Nancy Roemheld

At First Unitarian Church of Omaha

November 12, 2006

            What does it mean to be “spiritual?”  In this day, when “spirituality” is in, and “organized religion” is out, this morning I’d like to look for a definition and theology of “spiritual.”  To this end, breathing is more than a means of propulsion; it is a spiritual principal.

            The prophet Elijah was an angry man, as prophets are wont to be.  There he is, trying to fight all the evil in the world, dealing with all kinds of bad behavior…and nobody will listen to him.  In fact, he thinks the people want to kill him.  So he runs and hides in a cave.  Then Yahweh turns up and Elijah is treated to a pyrotechnic show of wind, earthquake and fire, and learns that Yahweh is not in those destructive forces.  And when Elijah, that angry man, steps from the cave he is calmed by “a still small voice” or as other translations tell it, “the sound of a gentle breeze,” or “a gentle whisper,” the sound of breathing calmed Elijah.

            Elsewhere in the Hebrew Scriptures, in Genesis, is the Bible’s first definition of “spirituality.”  God formed Adam from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.  Thus Adam became a living creature.  That first breath, in Hebrew Rauch, in Greek, Pneuma, in Latin, Spirare - in this first meaning, spirituality is nothing more nor less than coming alive to life.

            After the creation of Adam, the Garden of Eden is planted.  The verses map out in great detail the geography and boundaries of the arboreal garden called Eden .  Traditionally, the Garden of Eden has been located as a special spot on this planet, somewhere right in the midst of where Desert Storm took place.

If ever the words, “Your God is too small” were making its force felt in the world, it is today.  We now know not only how vast a galaxy is - a galaxy is so big that a light ray takes 100,000 years to go from one side to another - traveling at 186,000 miles per second.  We now know that there are thousands, even millions of galaxies even larger than the one we are in.  We also now know that as far as our Milky Way galaxy is concerned, life is not common.  Planet Earth is the only planet in this galaxy is which the experiment and experience of life has taken shape.

            Now, here is something for you to ponder:  Might it not be that the Garden of Eden is not a place on the planet, but the planet Earth itself?  Indeed, it seems as if those bible verses are describing the entire known earth as experienced in the 9^th or 10^th centuries Before the Common Era.  The suggestion is, therefore, that the whole Earth is the garden planet of the Milky Way galaxy.

I have a question for you - what is the world’s oldest profession?  No – it’s not that - gardening is the world’s oldest profession.  The first commandment to Adam, the first gardener was to “till” the garden and “care” for it.  The Hebrew word for “keep” (shamar) expresses deep protection and care.  We are not simply to till or tend the garden, but also to “keep” it in deep protection and care.  The creative work is not yet finished, we are co-creators of the world.  What is more real, more down to earth, more elemental than gardening?  Gardening puts us in touch with reality and therefore embodies the elements of a spiritual experience.

            There are some who associate the life of the spirit with the “supernatural” and the “otherworldly.”  They make a distinction between reality and spirituality.  But no spirituality worthy of the name divorces us from reality.  Rather, it puts us more intensely in touch with it.  Spirituality doesn’t take us out of the real world - it immerses us in it, or, more accurately, we are already immersed in the real world, and all we need to do is “come alive” to it and see the depth.

            In this connection, we may ask just what constitutes reality.  Is it only what we see and hear and touch?  Is it only what we can measure, or speak about with precision?  This is how we tend to identify reality in our everyday language.  We may even go so far as to equate reality with the least pleasant aspects of existence, as in “hard, cold, reality.”

            “Back to the real world,” we may say after a hike to the top of the mountain, or a day spent walking by the ocean, or a week-end of gardening.  And often we say it with resignation.  But what if reality is present on that mountain top?  What if reality is the force that grasped us by the sea that was uncovered for us in the garden?  What if that reality is there all the time as we walk the streets of the city, or scrub the kitchen counter, or sit at our computer, or work and play and fight with our families?  What if it is here right now, in our day to day existence, and all we are called to do is come alive to it?

I’m not suggesting that we seek to live on a spiritual “high.”  I do not suggest that life should be one long series of dramatic mystical experiences.  Some people think that peak experiences are the whole point of spirituality, and they enter spiritual practice in fervent pursuit of peak experiences.  If they don’t have them, they fear they have done something wrong.  If they do have them they fall prey to spiritual pride.  Either way, there is attachment, which is always spiritually dangerous.

            As Shunryu Suzuki says in Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, “if you are trying to attain enlightenment, you are creating and being driven by Karma, and you are wasting your time on your black cushion.”  If we are blessed with a mystical experience, we can count it as a gift, be thankful, and then move on.  Spirituality is at once more ordinary and more wonderful.  It is about being fully alive in the midst of the day-to-day, about being fully present in every moment.

            As Thoreau said, “Now or never.  You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment.”  Coming alive happens in different ways for different people.  Those of us who are off-the-scale “intuitives” need to wake up to what comes through our senses.  Those who are “sensates” need to wake up to their intuition.  Some of us will need to awaken first to our own pain; others will need to wake up to the pain of others.

            Coming alive can be sudden, as when an alarm breaks into a deep sleep.  Something, perhaps a life crisis, shakes us from our complacency, and our lives are never the same again.  But awakening can also be slow and gradual, as when the dawn seeps into our consciousness on a lazy morning.  It can happen in layers, as with the slow opening of a flower’s bud.  In the course of our lives, we may well experience both ways of awakening - of coming alive to life.

One Sunday morning, back when I was serving the Athens, Georgia congregation, I went with our Coming of Age Class (ages 11 and 12) and their mentors to the worship service at Mt. Pleasant Baptist Church - a Black Baptist Church - and they have a service that could shake you from any complacency!  It’s loud and boisterous, with carrying on and singing with piano and drums.  I wrote a special prayer for the occasion, choosing my words carefully, wanting my prayer to be ecumenical - UU/Baptist - it was a prayer of thanks, and also a prayer for wisdom and strength and courage - that we all might work together for the cause of justice and peace amidst the turmoil in our country.

            As I offered the prayer, the men from the Deacon’s bench, and then others around the room joined in with me saying, “Amen” and “Yes!” and “Well?” and “Tell it sister.”  It’s an experience that’s hard to describe.  I felt lifted on a wave of voices.  There was a warmth, a glow, that seemed to fill the room.  I sensed something there, invisible, yet just as real as the paper I held in my hand.

I have sensed a similar glow here in this room, and I know some of you have too - even though our services seem somewhat quiet and sedate compared to Mt. Pleasant ’s.  That “something” happens here too, and when it does, it draws everything and everyone into community.  Is this the Spirit of Love at work?  Or, does the Spirit of Love open our hearts to a reality that is here all the time?  Can we let the Spirit of Love breathe in our lives?  Can we say this morning that we are alive to life in all its wonder and mystery?  “To see the World in a Grain of Sand and Heaven in a Wild Flower…”  To hear the music that plays beneath the hum of daily life, to feel the love that is all around us, if only we pay attention.  May this be our gift, our way.

Amen.