Our sermon this morning is adapted from Rev. Susan Lamar. I wanted to share her message because she has something profound to say about hope that she presents in a way I could not. It’s also important to me that we hear the words of non-male leaders from the pulpit on a regular basis.
In part of her sermon, Rev. Lamar discusses her mother’s dementia. I feel a little uncomfortable reading such personal sharing that is not about my own life. But I suspect dementia is coming for my family at some point; I learned last year after having my DNA sequenced that I am APOE-epsilon-4 homozygous, which means I have an 11x higher chance than average of developing dementia. In the previous couple generations of my family, no one has lived long enough to develop dementia, due to cancer and nautical tragedies. But I hope that if and when my family members or I develop dementia, we are able to approach it the way that Rev. Lamar describes. Her words were helpful to me, and I hope they will be for you, also. Here’s what she says:
Nasrudin rode the train to work every day. One day, as usual, the train conductor came and asked him for his ticket. He began fumbling around in his coat pockets, and his pant pockets, and then in other people’s pockets. He looked in his briefcase, in his bags, and then in other people’s bags.
Finally the train conductor said, “Nasrudin, I’m sure you have a ticket. Why don’t you look for it in your breast pocket? That is where most men keep it.”
“Oh no,” said Nasrudin. “I can’t look there. Why, if it wasn’t there, I would have no hope.”
I love Nasrudin. He is my favorite trickster, my favorite wise fool.
We begin our January theme of Hope and Despair today. As we enter into a new year, Hope offers a reason to look forward and be transformed. It is a time to bring our attention to this crazy, indefinable, delicate thing called hope. As Emily Dickinson wrote:
Hope is the thing with feathers –
That perches in the soul –
And sings the tune without the words –
And never stops – at all…
Perhaps that is a poem that Nasrudin should learn.
But what is Hope? Is it something you have – like Nasrudin’s ticket, and therefore something you can lose? Is it something you are – hopeful? Is it something like a thing with feathers that flits around? Does it ever fly away? Or does it perch permanently in the soul?
We are talking here about spiritual Hope – the one with a capital H. We are not talking about lower case hope – I hope I get that job, I hope I get a pair of ice skates for Christmas, I hope Jimmy asks me to the prom. Those are wishes, desires, that will or will not be fulfilled. It is fine to use the word hope for them, as long as we don’t get them mixed up with our spirituality, with our way of being in the world.
Capital H hope is something else entirely. It has to do with our relationship to that Creative Energy that empowers us as members of and actors in a complex universe. That thing with feathers that perches in every soul, singing. In your soul.
Note my language: It has to do with . . . Or – It is kind of like . . . Or — It feels . . .
We can’t quite get hold of it . . . .
In Christianity, Hope is considered a virtue, along with two others – faith and love. Our working definition for virtue is “a disposition that creates habits or passions that incline us to do the right thing.” So Hope might be some kind of a disposition, that orientation, that inclines us to do what is right . . . but how? That doesn’t quite get me there . . .
I would suggest that Faith has to do with the ultimate values that we set our hearts on, that we trust, and that we are loyal to. That guide us toward something good, or goodness itself. Perhaps Hope is a general sense that those ultimate values will guide us toward a better world. So Faith is the loyalty to a value, and Hope is the conviction that our work will move the world toward that value, even if only just slightly. This is the sense that Vaclav Havel uses the word in when he writes in Disturbing the Peace that Hope is “an ability to work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed . . It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.”
Hope holds us in relationship with the good, even if it appears we cannot succeed.
The Zen teacher Bernie Glassman, founder of Zen Peacemakers, has a similar approach to Hope. Like Havel, he makes a distinction between upper case Hope and “expectation.” He gives as an example a group in Yonkers, NY, which set as its hope the elimination of homelessness there. But they had absolutely no expectation that they would succeed. Hope is what allows us to work for the good, for the value, without any expectation. If our work succeeds, that is wonderful. But if it does not, it doesn’t mean that what we are doing is not still “for the good.” It doesn’t mean that our faith – our loyalty to the ultimate value is misplaced.
We really are in spiritual territory here, not in the territory of goals and objectives. With Hope we are talking about Creative Energy playing in and through humanity. Using our creative energy toward the good of eliminating homelessness is good whether we succeed or not. And so we set our hearts on that. In Yonkers, Zen Peacemakers did, in fact, reduce homelessness by 75% — but it was the Hope and the work that did it, not the expectation.
See the difference? It’s a very fine, almost gossamer different. A very Zen difference!
Even without specific expectations, though, Hope is more than just work, I think.
Hope contains a disposition, an orientation, toward the future. Somehow Hope includes a vision of something that is possible, that is not here right now. Nasrudin’s lost ticket is a symbol of all the losses that follow us through life. I would suggest that even if the ticket was found in his breast pocket, it might represent a loss of Hope. For it would keep him on the same journey, the same train ride that he takes every day. Nasrudin – meet Emily Dickinson. The little bird is unabashed. Look in your breast pocket. But find Hope elsewhere.
[Pause]
I have been thinking about this kind of Hope as I have been watching my mother’s health decline rapidly over the past few months. Her cognition has deteriorated markedly, and last week she lost the use of her motorized wheelchair for safety reasons – her own and that of others. This represents an enormous loss – that chair was her last ticket to independence.
The whole idea of “future” takes on a completely different meaning now. When we think about the stages of life, we can think of our early years as a time of learning, when we gain knowledge, habits and character – a time of preparation for the future. Then we reach a time of building family, vocation, and community – a focus on the future of that family and community. Then a time of retirement, when we do deep, spiritual inquiry, making meaning of what went before, and developing (we hope!) wisdom that can be transmitted to those who follow.
But my mother is in a stage beyond that. It is as though life has renounced her – she is precisely and only in the present moment, where she can neither remember the past nor envision a future.
What, I have been wondering, is the ticket within that very end stage? What is the thing with feathers there?
Where this has taken me, spiritually, is a realization that my mother is in a very Zen place. She has neither Hope nor Not Hope. She certainly has no expectations. She is not optimistic, but neither is she pessimistic. Some of that is just her personality, I suppose. She is on the train of life, with the conductors and passengers surrounding her, pulling for her – family and friends and even her caretakers in the facility where she resides. We hold the Hope. We hold her in Hope. Especially family and friends. She can no longer make meaning of her life, but we can – and do. There is a transfer taking place that is different from the transfer of knowledge that she offered over the past few decades, or the transfer of wisdom, different even from the grief of watching her own past disappear.
It seems to be a transfer of the meaning-making. It is up to us to make meaning of her life, as well as our own. In that relationship resides Hope. This has startled me, though somehow in the grand scheme of things it makes sense. I receive her life in a very different way. It feels kind of feathery! In a way it is a ticket to a place I didn’t even know existed. Despite the loss, there is Creative Energy at work.
Every stage of life has its own form of ticket, it’s own form of Hope, where we feel we have lost something.
The question for each of us is: Right now in your life, what is the ticket that you think is lost?
Because, though you think your ticket is lost, there may be a feathery bird fluttering around, trying to get your attention. It happens all along the train ride, doesn’t it? You grow and change, you lose your ticket.
You think you want to be out from under your parents’ control, and then you are off at college, or in your first apartment, and you feel a little lost – what’s your ticket?
One that surprised me, maybe because I never had children, was young mothers, after they have their last child – what’s their next ticket?
When the last child leaves home . . . what’s your ticket?
Losing a job you love . . . what’s your ticket?
Retirement – what’s your ticket?
Grieving the death of someone close to you – what’s your ticket?
What is your ticket, right now? What makes sense for you, right now, regardless of how it turns out?
Nasrudin was wrong. Even if his ticket is lost, anchored beyond his horizon is Hope. I mean, look around. There are lots of lost tickets, but there is also plenty of Hope. Hope is in the Creative Energy, in that chip of divinity that each of you carries. It is always there anyway, but it is especially there when all the chips are brought together in spiritual community.
So think about your ticket and cast your eyes toward the horizon, and beyond. May it be so, and may we be the ones to make it so.
So think about your ticket and cast your eyes toward the horizon, and beyond.
May it be so, and may we be the ones to make it so.
Delivered at Northwest Unitarian Universalist Congregation
January 6, 2019
© Rev. Jonathan Rogers