Return Again

by Rev. Terry Davis

Delivered to Northwest Unitarian Universalist Congregation

on September 22, 2013

If you studied physics in middle school or high school, somewhere along the way you probably encountered that 17^th century English physicist, mathematician and Unitarian known as Sir Isaac Newton.

As you may recall, Sir Isaac Newton developed a few little discoveries about the laws of nature that were revolutionary. The one law he discovered that we might associate with him the most is the law of gravity . . . the physical law that supposedly starting brewing in his head the day an apple fell on it.

To discover the law of gravity, as well as uncover other scientific discoveries, Newton had to develop a new kind of mathematics to help him with his calculations. Do you any of you know the math that Newton founded to help him out? He developed what we know today as calculus, which one definition describes as the mathematical study of change.[1]

Some of you might agree with me when I say that calculus is not an area of math for the faint-hearted. Historically, the calculus of Newton’s day was concerned with infinitesimals, which involved manipulating infinitely smaller and smaller quantities – which I find a mind-boggling notion. Today, modern calculus is based on something called limits.

As I understand it, a limit (which is written as a symbol in a calculus equation) is typically used when it’s not possible for an equation to calculate an exact answer. A limit, therefore, expresses the full value that the equation is approaching, rather than its exact, fixed value. Or, stated another way, a limit determines the answer that the equation is heading towards, because it is not possible to calculate a comprehensible solution.

This idea of finding answers and meaning in the approach rather than in the destination is not restricted to calculus, of course. Whether we are contemplating the cosmos . . . or we’re experiencing the challenges of caring for growing children or elderly parents, it seems that there are many times when we cannot know the end result of things.

We might hope that by probing the outer reaches of space we will find answers to the meaning of life. We might wish that our children will grow up confident and content or that we or our parents will experience a peaceful death. And, yet, like an elusive number in a calculus equation, these outcomes are indeterminate. The answers are not meant to be known now – or ever.

Instead, at best, we may get a sense of where things might be headed.  Rather than know the destination, life invites us instead to gain wisdom and understanding from the journey and the possibilities we may be heading towards.

I believe this opportunity to seek answers in the approach rather than the destination is one of gifts the autumn equinox presents to us, which we are celebrating today.

As we move through the fall these next few months towards the ending-season of winter, we can notice how the cooler temperatures and fading light may be inviting us into a period of deeper reflection about the path our lives may be taking. We can use this approach to winter as a time to gain insights and answers about ourselves that may not be possible once this autumn season is past.

As Elizabeth mentioned in her story, the autumn equinox is the day of year when the hours of daylight and the hours of darkness are the supposedly same because the Earth’s spin axis is at a 90 degree angle from the sun. Equinox literally means “equal night.” And, Sir Isaac Newton, by the way, used his amazing mathematical mind to make a few important discoveries about the equinoxes, too.

Because the equinox happens only twice during the year – now and again in the spring – it has special significance in a number of cultures and religions.[2] In Greek mythology, for example, the autumn equinox marked the beginning of fall and the return of the goddess Persephone to be with her husband Hades in the underworld.

The Chinese celebrate the abundance of the summer harvest this time of year in their annual Moon Festival. And in Japan, the week coinciding with the autumn equinox is a time for honoring the dead in the Buddhist tradition, and observers will visit gravesites to clean and decorate them.

Here at Northwest after our religious education hour today, our earth-based spirituality group called CUUPS will be celebrating Mabon, the pagan festival that honors the second harvest and the impending dark.

As we think about this season of change, how might we use autumn’s long good-bye to summer as an opportunity to deepen our spirituality? In our reading this morning, I believe the American poet Mary Oliver suggests that it indeed is spiritually richer for us to live fully in our numbered days, rather than to contemplate what will happen when endings finally do arrive.

Like an elegant calculus equation, Oliver seems to be telling us that Nature wisely finds its answers and purpose in its approach to death, rather than by wondering about an unknowable destination.

From Oliver’s poem, we can imagine that she is right where we are today: at the end of summer and at the beginning of change and decline. She wonders about the life around her that will be leaving her.

“What happens/to the leaves after/ they turn red and golden and fall/away?” she asks. “What happens/to the singing birds/when they can’t sing/any longer? What happens/to their quick wings?”[3]

As she thinks of summer’s end and is reminded of the cycle of life and death, Oliver’s mind leaps ahead to ponder one of life’s most mysterious questions . . . a question whose answer will not be discovered during the journey towards winter. She asks:

Do you think there is any
personal heaven
for any of us?
Do you think anyone,
the other side of that darkness,
will call to us, meaning us?[4]

But, like the rest of us, Oliver does not have precise answers about the nature of heaven. Again, like that calculus equation, she can only approach answers about heaven and death by observing the continuity and reciprocity of life. She writes:

Beyond the trees
the foxes keep teaching their children
to live in the valley.
So they never seem to vanish, they are always there
in the blossom of light . . .

[And] the roses have opened up their sweetness
and are giving it back to the world.[5]

Mary Oliver sees these living things heading toward death – something truly unknowable – and she notices their lack of human fear and ambition.

And, she too, desires to experience that feeling of being in the moment without concerns about her own ending. She says, “I wouldn’t mind being a rose/in a field full of roses” never asking “how long [we] must be roses, and then what. Or any other foolish question.”[6]

I selected this poem to share with you this morning because it seemed offer some important observations about what it means to be in a time when things are receding, declining and moving towards endings.

If we used this time to contemplate the nature of death as Mary Oliver did, what might our feelings be?  What are our feelings about growing older, about our own decline and eventual ending? Are we full of questions as Oliver was about this unknowable destination?

Author Laura Berman Fortgang, who also writes for The Huffington Post, started thinking about her decline and journey towards the end of her life when she turned 50. She likened this season in her life to being on “the back nine” of the golf course. Fortgang says that, once she started thinking of approaching the end of her life, “her soul [begged her] with greater urgency to live full out” . . . and she soon discovered that “things seem to be more about letting go and reducing spiritual clutter rather than acquiring the new.”[7] She writes:

I have more room for good people because I have let go of
the hope that those relationships I’ve let linger would get better.
I have more room to love my family well because I say no to
activities that don’t match what truly matters to me. I have room
for my possessions because the garbage is being given away or thrown out . . .

I now understand why my parents always say they don’t need
anything for their birthdays every year.[8]

Fortgang observes that being on the back nine does cause some anxiety. “You can pick up the right club and still not make the hole,” she says. “And, guess what? The game goes on until it’s over.”[9] Ultimately, she says, the question becomes, will the back nine be fun or intense? Will it bring happiness or despair?

As your fifty-something year-old minister, I am aware that my time of decline is now . . . slowly, perhaps, but surely. And, as I enter the back nine of my own life, I’m not asking myself questions about death. Instead, like Oliver and Fortgang, I’m asking myself questions about life.

What do I want to be doing with the time I have left? What will I make room for in my life and what needs to be, as one of my colleagues says, “strategically neglected”? Who are my role models for lives well lived?

On that last question, some of the persons who have impressed me most are those who lived fully into their passions for as long as possible. Like summer’s last roses, they continued to open their factories of sweetness and give it back to the world.

One that comes to mind was a cigar-chomping, elderly gentleman named Lew Gordon. After a long and successful career in public relations in the Atlanta area, he decided in his seventies to return to school to pursue a new career. He earned his degree in counseling and was working as a career advisor and counselor at Oglethorpe University when I was a student there.  Lew brought the patience of age and the wisdom of life experience to his role. He was an especially great listener. And, so, during a particularly difficult time for me, I often visited him in his tiny and cramped office just to talk.

Lew was a tall, slender guy, and he practically had to fold himself in half just to get behind his beat-up wooden desk. On his office wall was tacked a single poster that read, “Do what you like and the money will come.” As an English major with college loans and no clue about what I wanted to do after graduation, that poster’s message was one I really needed to believe in.

Lew helped me find a communications internship my senior year of college, and he arranged a few interviews with a few old PR buddies of his in Atlanta (persons, I found out later, were some of the most influential people in the Atlanta public relations business). Lew was not in good physical condition. But like he did about his past power and influence, Lew kept the facts of his declining to himself.

A few years after I graduated and moved on with my life, I learned that Lew had died after a long struggle with cancer.

All these years later, Lew continues to stand out for me as a role model. For me, he was a rare rose. He started an entirely new career late in life, drove his little Dodge Omni to work every day, smoked his cigars . . . and spent hours with me like he had all the time in the world.

Lew didn’t seem to be living this last chapter of his life with the question “then what.” Rather, he seemed to be enjoying his back nine and the rich rewards of this part of the game. And, as a young student and his friend, I was grateful that Lew had found the approach to life’s end to be a time of answers and personal fulfillment.

As we consider the autumn equinox and this time when Nature says good-bye to summer and takes the long journey to winter, may we use this season of changing colors, weather and light to reflect on how we’re living our lives in this moment.

May we not be concerned with where we’re headed, asking ourselves “Then what?” or any other foolish question. Rather, may we know that our answers lie in our approach to our endings . . . and that it’s the journey to that indeterminate destination that will tell us all that we need to know.

May it be so for you and for me. Amen.