by Rev. Terry Davis
Delivered at Northwest Unitarian Universalist Congregation on May 1, 2016
When Gail and I bought our old house over 25 years ago, we unwisely chose the smallest room in it as our “family room.”
The space was originally conceived as a screened-in porch when the house was built in 1935, something also known in the before-air-conditioning South as a “sleeping porch.” The idea was that when it got too hot and humid to sleep in the bedroom, one could drag a pillow out onto the sleeping porch and attempt a better night’s rest. With cool tile flooring and screened windows to keep the bugs out, this alternative bedroom offered appreciably more comfortable quarters back in the day.
Well, our screen-in porch was converted by a previous owner to a closed-in extra room. The screens were replaced with windows and a space heater was installed in one of its brick walls. There is still no air-conditioning or what I would call a “real” heating source in that converted porch, so it gets rather chilly in the winter and unpleasantly warm during the hottest summer days.
When we moved into our house, Gail and I adopted that room as the one we would gather in to watch TV. We managed to squeeze in it a gold corduroy love seat, a cane-seated chair, and a pretty large TV, which sat in the corner on a trunk.
Cozy, yes. But not exactly the greatest place to watch TV in January or August unless you didn’t mind shivering or sweating. But we made it our little den nevertheless.
Well, four years and two dogs later, we found ourselves rather cramped in that space when, in the evenings, all four of us sat cheek-to-cheek on that small gold sofa, with two of us trying to unwind and watch a movie or something.
And, so, it wasn’t too long before we made grand plans to build an addition to our house that would provide a larger, climate-controlled family room, along with an office and some additional storage space. When that home improvement project was finally complete, the former sleeping porch in the front of our house initially was abandoned. It became one of those rooms rarely used, like my grandmother’s parlor with the plastic-covered furniture.
Eventually, however, there came a time when I needed a quiet corner to read and journal in in the mornings, and our bedroom wasn’t working so well anymore for that purpose. And so, I rediscovered our porch, which we renamed the sunroom, by the way, and staked my claim.
The sunroom – with its gold corduroy sofa and the chair with the now-busted cane seat – is also now my quiet space and favorite room in our house. It’s the place I go to when I’m seeking to find peace – or rather, to connect to that peaceful place that I trust resides inside of me.
I have guarded my peaceful place against intruders: Gail and our new dog Miles are welcome by invitation only. And, despite its temperature swings, it’s the place I go to any time of the year when I’m seeking to clear my head and listen to my heart.
As we heard during our Call to Worship, it’s said that the ancient Chinese philosopher Lao-Tzu wrote that peace on the largest scale is only possible when we have peace on the smallest scale – that is, peace within ourselves. Before I encountered this Taoist teaching, I hadn’t thought about my contribution to world peace beginning with a commitment to my inner peace.
But as the days go by, and I become more aware of just how vital the feeling of peace is to my emotional, physical and spiritual well-being, I am beginning to believe that there’s really no other way to bring about greater harmony in the world.
And, so my message to you today is this: let’s help create a peace-filled world by dedicating ourselves to personal practices that will help each of us create a peace-filled life.
As Lynne suggested in her reflection, we can begin by recognizing what robs us of our peace and by consciously choosing to minimize or eliminate those things in life that leave us feeling restless, irritable and discontent.
This isn’t to say that seeking greater peace means I should check out of life and all its strivings. On the contrary, some of the world’s best known messengers of peace have put themselves smack in the middle of turmoil. They relied on their faith and sense of inner peace to keep themselves anchored and able to move on.
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While Lao Tzu’s Taoist philosophy teaches that peace for all begins with peace in one’s own heart, Taoism also suggests that the way to achieve this inner harmony and gain clarity and wisdom is to practice the principle of emptiness.
As I understand it, emptiness in the Taoist tradition means to adopt a state of mind that is characterized by simplicity, quietude, patience and frugality. A humorous Taoist story entitled “A Cup of Tea” offers a look at the importance of emptiness as means to achieving wisdom and peace.
It goes like this:
Nan-in, a Japanese master, welcomed into his home a university professor who had asked to see him. The professor arrived, answered the master’s simple, polite greeting with a brusque, arrogant reply, and strode past him into the house.
The old man followed his guest quietly into the sparsely furnished living space and watched, his customary peaceful expression undisturbed, as the professor seated himself without being asked.
“Will you honor me as my guest for tea?” Nan-in asked the professor.
“Yes, I’d like tea,” was the blunt reply. “And I want to ask you some questions,” the professor continued with a self-satisfied smirk. “They say you are very wise, and I would learn what you have to teach.”
“Certainly,” Nan-in replied. “I will gladly share all I know. But first, let us have tea.”
The professor frowned at Nan-in, then sighed impatiently. “Very well,” he said, his voice curt. He rearranged his silken coat. “After tea.”
Nan-in focused on his task. He prepared the tea to the perfect temperature, steeped it just long enough but not too long, and set the simple, lovely dishes in an orderly arrangement on the cloth. The professor cleared his throat and adjusted his coat again. Nan-in at last finished all his preparations and was ready to pour.
The master held the pot over his visitor’s cup and began to serve him tea. The professor impatiently reached for the cup before it was half-full, but Nan-in continued filling the cup. He poured his visitor’s cup three-quarters full and then kept on pouring.
When the cup was full to the brim, Nan-in kept pouring, and the tea ran over the edge of the cup into the saucer. Nan-in, gazing calmly at the cup, continued to pour, and the tea overran the saucer and began to run over the table. The professor watched the overflow until he could no longer restrain himself. “The cup is full. No more will go in!”
“So it is,” said Nan-in contentedly, and he stopped pouring tea into the cup. He looked at the professor with his kind, steady gaze, and said, “Like this cup, you are full to the brim with your own opinions, your own importance. How can you learn anything unless you first empty your cup?”
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While this tale speaks of emptiness as a means toward gaining wisdom, it seems to me that the same can be said for gaining inner peace. We must first empty ourselves of those thoughts and feelings that get in the way.
For Lynne, it sounds like emptying her tea cup involves intentionally banishing those thoughts that keep her from experiencing liberation and the pleasure of her active and meaningful life. For me, emptying my tea cup involves my morning practice of sitting in my former sleeping porch, where I quietly write down on paper my thoughts and feelings about anything that’s troubling me.
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While I believe that cultivating personal peace is important, I don’t believe that it’s an end in itself. Neither, it appears, did our Unitarian ancestors who lived during the 19th century and called themselves Transcendentalists. Transcendentalists were Unitarians who sought beauty, meaning, and peace in Nature – and who felt a deep calling to live lives of personal integrity and to bring about social change.
They included people like Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Theodore Parker, and Margaret Fuller.
While it’s true that these Transcendentalists went to the woods for peace and spiritual connection, they also championed causes such as civil disobedience, the abolition of slavery, environmentalism, Native American rights, women’s rights, and education reform.
With a love for our peaceful and beautiful wooded setting, I like to think that Northwest Unitarian Universalists are a lot like those 19th century Unitarian Transcendentalists. We look out of these Sanctuary windows, and I imagine that some of us feel a sense of relaxation and appreciation for the natural world that lies on the other side.
I imagine that this view and this place helps us empty our tea cups of the worry, the busy-ness, and the mind clutter that make up our lives. We come to Northwest and sit in this Sanctuary and perhaps the stress drains out of our body. We connect to new and old friends. And, it all feels very peaceful and good.
And, yet achieving this inner peace cannot be the end of the story. Our Transcendental heritage encourages us to take our rested and restored minds, bodies and spirits and go forth into the chaos. We are encouraged to go forth and follow in the footsteps of those who wisely knew that achieving inner peace was the way to achieving justice and a more meaningful connection to the wider world.
And so, as we go from here, may we recognize that our effort to cultivate more peace in our personal lives is for us . . . and for so much more. When we empty our tea cups and regain a feeling of peace and wholeness, may we also in that moment see that we have a responsibility to help bring peace to others.
May we embrace this opportunity and this demand of our faith for the well-being of our heart and soul and the well-being of the world.
May it be so. Amen.