by Rev. Terry Davis
Delivered at Northwest Unitarian Universalist Congregation on May 18, 2014
I love peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I didn’t have my first one until late in life – 18 years old and a freshman in college. For some reason, this American school lunchbox staple was not a part of my middle class growing up experience. My mother usually packed me sandwiches made of ham, bologna, pimento loaf or some other Oscar Meyer lunch meat – made with Wonder bread smeared with Miracle Whip.
I suppose these options were considered healthier or more appetizing than the humble legume spread and Welch’s grape jelly combo (that’s a question I plan to pose to my mother).
And, yet, I remember being envious of my elementary school classmates who unwrapped PB&Js from folded wax paper or pulled them out of little plastic bags at our cafeteria table. Those white squares, stained purple with peanut butter oozing around the edges, looked so decadent, so delicious. I imagined it was like eating dessert for lunch.
When I went off to college and encountered the Student Meal Plan, little did I know that the PB&J sandwich would soon be my best friend. At dinner time, more times than not I passed on the Shepherd’s Pie or other mysterious hot meal of the day. Instead, I went to the table where a giant ceramic jar of peanut butter sat with a knife sticking straight up in the middle of it. I made myself a sandwich – sometimes two –using a generous dollop of peanut butter and a dash of jelly.
Living on the PB&J meal plan, it wasn’t long before I acquired what was known as the “Freshman 15” – that’s 15 extra pounds for those of you unfamiliar with the expression.
Today, PB&J sandwiches are still my go-to lunch or dinner when I need to make something quick and easy. I’ve since gone with peanut butter and jelly products that are organic and have no sugar added. And, that white Wonder bread has been replaced with 100 percent stone-ground whole wheat. I imagine this means that my sandwich is healthier and (as a bonus) meets the Unitarian Universalist sustainable eating guidelines.
Yet, despite these improvements in the health and justice status of my PB&J, there’s something about this ordinary sandwich that I couldn’t have improved on by one bread crumb. And that’s this: the peanut butter and jelly sandwich – the most unadorned of meals and perhaps one of the most economically accessible – surprisingly also meets some of my basic emotional needs. Its simplicity satisfies. Its creamy texture and sweetness is soothing. Its ease of construction lowers my stress level and leaves me feeling assured. With all of those added benefits, I’ve concluded that PB&Js will forever be a staple of my diet.
If it’s sounding like I’ve elevated the lowly peanut butter and jelly sandwich to something akin to a spiritual experience, perhaps I have. Why not? After all, in both historic and modern times, food has served an important role in providing not just physical sustenance, but also emotional and spiritual well-being.
Think of Jesus and his bread and wine at the Last Supper . . . the Friday night Jewish Shabbat with its egg-rich Challah bread . . . or the midday chicken dinner after church on Sunday. Throughout the ages, we have used food to sustain our bodies and to celebrate the intangible and sacred sustenance that faith and faith communities provide.
When Neal and I discussed today’s sermon, I told him that I was interested in exploring this topic of sustenance. I wanted to examine what in our daily lives is as accessible, as simple, and as nourishing to our hearts and spirits as a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Neal’s confession that he initially struggled with this question affirmed something that I have come to realize for myself – and that may be true for you, too: there is a difference between engaging in experiences that stave and those that save.
Activities that stave off my worries and fears can be good distractions and provide momentary stress relief. But, experiences that save me are ones that provide true sustenance . . . they fill my heart and spirit in a way that connects me to beauty and a profound sense of well-being.
And, just like food, I’m finding that the simpler the experience, the more healthful and holy it is for me.
Therefore, I would like to suggest to you today that to uncover those PB&Js in life that are simple, satisfying and fill us up, we must be willing not to settle for staving but to go for saving. We must be willing to look at each day as an opportunity to fill our hearts and spirits with all the beauty, wonder and joy that life has to offer – both in good times and in times of pain.
For me, knowing what staves and what saves is not always an easy thing to do. As Neal acknowledged in his reflection, when we’re stressed, engaging in mindless activities like mowing the grass or watching TV can help us unwind. Studies, in fact, show that engaging in undemanding, mundane activities can be good for us – they allow our minds to wander and provide fertile ground for creative incubation.
However, engaging only in activities that take the edge off of our stress can also be a little like eating appetizers before a meal to stave off my hunger. They’re delay tactics. What I need is the real deal – something more substantial and sustaining.
From Unitarian Universalism’s Christian heritage, there’s a gospel story about Jesus who faced a similar choice between staving and saving. Ready to start his ministry at age 30, Jesus begins by going off alone into the desert for 40 days to fast and pray. Jesus ate absolutely nothing during those days, and so he was quite famished by the end.
During this time, the devil decided to pay Jesus a little visit. Seeing that Jesus was weak in body and possibly in spirit, Satan believed he had a shot at getting Jesus to abandon his faith. The devil appeared to Jesus and tried to persuade him to break his fast. Picking up a stone, Satan says, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.”[ref]Luke 4:3, NRSV.[/ref] Jesus, of course, resists Satan’s offer and replies “Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”[ref]Matthew 4:4, NRSV.[/ref]
But that doesn’t stop the devil from trying again. Being a persistent guy, Satan takes Jesus to the top of the Jerusalem temple. He tells Jesus to throw himself off of the top to see if the angels will save him, to which Jesus replies that he won’t test his faith that way. Still not willing to give up, the devil then whooshes Jesus away to a high mountaintop. He promises to give Jesus all the kingdoms he sees in the valley below if only Jesus will worship him – to which Jesus finally tells Satan to get lost.
This ancient story reminds me that it can be tempting to stave off my discomfort with superficial fixes rather than engage in those activities that will sustain me at a much deeper level. My own story of recovery from food and alcohol abuse is a perfect example of my attempt to do just that.
Rather than address my deep spiritual hunger that lay below the surface, it was easier for me first to indulge –and then overindulge – in habits that eventually lost their magic. My saving experience was one of finding a community and a simple design for living that ultimately provided me with real, life-giving sustenance.
In a society that some argue is better paid, better fed, better educated and healthier than any time before, social psychologist David Myers says that we live in a time of acute unhappiness and spiritual hunger.[ref]David G. Myers, The American Paradox: Spiritual Hunger in an Age of Plenty (Yale University Press: 2000), 5 – 6.[/ref] He writes:
Since 1957, the number of Americans who say they are “very happy” has declined slightly, from 35 to 30 percent. We are twice as rich and no happier. Meanwhile, the divorce rate has doubled, the teen suicide rate has more than doubled, and increasingly our teens and young adults are plagued by depression.
I have called this soaring wealth and shrinking spirit “the American paradox.” More than ever, we at the end of the last century were finding ourselves with big houses and broken homes, high incomes and low morale, secured rights and diminished civility. We were excelling at making a living but too often failing at making a life. We celebrated our prosperity but yearned for purpose. We cherished our freedoms but longed for connection. In an age of plenty, we were feeling spiritual hunger.
To identify a way to save ourselves, Myers suggests that we pause for a moment and ask, “What’s the most satisfying event you have experienced in the last month?”
This question, says Myers, was posed to groups of university students, who were then asked to rate how well 10 different needs were met by the satisfying event. At the top of the list, says Myers, were self-esteem, relatedness (feeling connected with others), and autonomy (feeling in control). At the bottom of the list of satisfaction-predicting factors was money and luxury.
I offer these findings not to suggest that there’s anything wrong with wealth. Rather, I think Myers is inviting us to consider that if our lives primarily consist of material things and experiences that stave off boredom, depression or fear, then we’re likely to be suffering from a case of spiritual hunger.
So, what can we do about it? What is the proverbial PB&J sandwich that feeds both body and soul? I think Neal nailed it when he remembered fondly his friends back at college and their up-all-night conversations. Or the way he feels when he hugs his wife and children. It seems that a chief way we can find sustenance in our world is to have close, supportive relationships.
Myers supports this conclusion by affirming that human beings have a deep need to belong. He says those persons supported by intimate friendships or committed marriages are much likelier to declare themselves “very happy.” Myers notes three other factors he says will save us from spiritual hunger, including:
- experiences of connection, meaning and deep hope, which are often found in congregations;
- a perceived sense of control over one’s life; and
- a regular experience of being absorbed in an activity where we lose consciousness of self and time.
It seems that the key to satisfying our spiritual hunger is to have more everyday experiences involving people we love and that reinforce our sense of hope, connection and immersion. Spending more time family or friends can do that for us. Being a part of a loving faith community can do it, too, as well as engaging in simple activities that build up our esteem and tap into our creative energies.
For me, the easiest way for me to save my spirit daily is to intentionally look for life’s abundance and beauty everywhere. To accomplish this, I must first start with getting out of my head so that I can pay closer attention to my surroundings.
Once I’m able to do this, something magical happens. Everyday sightings – from bright yellow Dandelions growing through a crack in the sidewalk to the wobbly toddler walking triumphantly out of the coffee shop with her proud parents – become more than the ordinary stuff of life. They take on a new hue, a richer texture. They feed my soul with their simplicity and feed me well. Just like the ordinary and extraordinary peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
As we go from here, may we find ourselves getting rid of the junk food in our lives that passes as spiritual nourishment. Instead, may we opt for those delicious and holy experiences that bring us connection, hope, joy and a warm feeling in our bellies.
May it be so. Amen.