“Life goes on”
Dear church,
The poem from Howard Thurman that we heard earlier could have been written today. It could have been written during the anxious days after 9/11, which is now – hard to believe – a quarter century ago; it could have been written during the race riots of the 1960’s; it could have been written during the Balkan war in the 1990’s or during financial crisis of 2008. As a matter of fact, the poem, which was published in one of Thurman’s books in 1953, was penned by Thurman sometime in the 1940’s, and I don’t even know the exact context. But you bet that during those times people dealt with crisis and chaos, social injustices, race tensions and of course a big war overseas where many young men lost their lives. Yesterday, we buried George Long who lived on 6th Street, and we were reminded that one of his brothers, Earl, served in that war and never came back. The family was notified some-time in the early 1940’s when this poem was created.
What Thurman wrote is heartening and hopeful without being ever oblivious to the scope of the problems we are facing. In its spiritual message it echoes many parts of the Bible. “The wisdom of life transcends our wisdoms” Thurman proclaimed with the authority of a wise man. Paul had written that the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom (1. Corinthians 1:18). Same thing. Wisdom is not a human prerogative. In our industrialized, digitalized, automated world, we often forget that wisdom is baked into this life and manifests itself in all of creation, all over the place. God speaks through the Book of Nature as much or even more as through the sacred Book of the Bible, which we revere. God speaks through the Book of Nature and we… just have to look. We humans, often so sure of ourselves, are usually the last ones to catch up to the wisdom of creation. But our young people may be ahead of us. There is hope!
Last week, at our Nature camp, I often came away impressed by what this generation of children already knows about the inner workings of nature. They know a whole lot more compared to what I knew when I was their age. I thought it would be cool for them to learn that trees communicate with each other through their root systems. There are little fungi attached to the roots and through them, trees can send distress signals to their fellow arbors to receive help[ in the form of nutrients. Charity and social responsibility, it turns out, are not human inventions. They are baked into God’s creation and part of its survival and its will to live. It teaches us that together we are stronger. I was about to share my beautiful fun fact that with our campers when one of the boys had the audacity to answer the question. He already knew that trees communicate via their root systems. And several others in the group knew it as well. Maybe this generation is becoming more mindful of the blessings and the wisdom of Nature, of Life, of Creation. There is hope!
“The purpose of life outlasts our purposes,” Thurman writes. Maybe we can grasp that truth when we get older. When we are young, we are so busy finding our shtick; when we are in middle age we worry about our children’s future and maybe a little bit already about our own legacy. How will people remember us? When we get older, it starts to dawn on us that the purpose of life is far greater than our single-life purpose. At points in life we are so worried about ourselves, silly goose! “The purpose of LIFE outlasts our purposes!” Howard Thurman was a wise man. His words speak to us who are living many decades later; they speak truth to our deceptions and hope to our fears. They ground us in something bigger and something smaller, what Thurman calls the little graces of life. Jesus said, “Look at the lilies in the field. Look at the sparrows.” They teach us not to excessively worry. Howard Thurman speaks of the little graces.
He has that in common with Mary Oliver. Those two deep souls pay attention to the little things in life. Some people, especially smart people, intellectuals, tend to escape into big abstract concepts that are hard to understand. Smart people are smart but they are not necessarily wise. Often times they are quite foolish, in fact. These two poets teach us to pay attention to the little graces of life. Mary Oliver says, “Pay attention not to the concept of the grasshopper, but to this particular grasshopper that is sitting right in front you on a summer day somewhere out in the fields. It’s the specific, small things and beings of life that teach us to trust, to live, to breathe, to see, to be, to have faith. Ideologies have never fed the souls of anyone. Being in touch with life is what helps us to live.
A last reflection on a part of the Howard Thurma poem. Jesus said, “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” Thurman is not afraid to talk about evil in this world, and we shouldn’t either. And he is quite right and fully aligned with Christ when he gives us this advice during trying times when evil shows up. Thurman writes,
“Over and over we must know that the real target of evil is not destruction of the body, the reduction to rubble of cities; the real target of evil is to corrupt the spirit of man and to give his soul the contagion of inner disintegration. When this happens, there is nothing left, the very citadel of man is captured and laid waste.”
Believe it or not what he writes is full of hope. Why? Because this means that we have a choice. We can refuse the corruption of our spirit, no matter how corrupt the outside world may be or may become. With God’s help, we can protect the sanctuary of our soul.
“Therefore the evil in the world around us must not be allowed to move from without to within. This would be to be overcome by evil. To drink in the beauty that is within reach, to clothe one’s life with simple deeds of kindness, to keep alive a sensitiveness to the movement of the spirit of God in the quietness of the human heart and in the workings of the human mind—this is as always the ultimate answer to the great deception.”
Amen.
