Unitarian Universalist Church at Washington Crossing

Spring is a time of renewal and transition, a time of new life sprouting up out of the mud and muck. We can see it all around us in the natural world — tender small blades of plant growth bravely emerging from the cold wet earth.

“And the day came,” wrote Anais Nin, “when the risk it took to remain tight inside the bud was more painful than the risk to blossom.”

Yes! Haven’t you felt that way at times? We all fear the possibility of becoming the person we are meant to be, fear that if we risk emerging out of our protective shell in search of our life, the one we want to have, something painful will happen. We fear that we are deluding ourselves. We fear that we will once again be stomped into the ground if we dare emerge up and out into the light of day. And yet, and yet, isn’t it painful, day after day, year after year, remaining pressed tightly inside of our fears, fears of what might happen if we dare to risk to blossom?

Just two weeks ago, I was in New Hampshire. Believe it or not, there were places there where snow still lay on the ground. Seeing that dirty snow piled on the ground on April 25 brought back memories of twelve years ago when I came down here from New Hampshire. It was April 1997 and I was pre-candidating for this pulpit. Alison and I meet with the members of the UUCWC Search Committee and we became excited about everything we saw and did and pleased with those we met. One very pleasant surprise was experiencing the delightful spring weather enjoyed here in the Delaware River Valley. Green leaves on trees and bushes, and colorful flowers bursting forth in abandon. Believe me, it was a warm and welcome change from the spring weather we were experiencing in northern New England. And, the congregation that was described to me seemed like the warm and welcoming place where I could risk fully becoming the person I wanted to be, risk discovering the life I wanted to have, risk being the minister I wanted to become.

During this past month, I saw a great deal of spring weather since I traveled from Miami, Florida to downeast, Maine and back here again. I experienced and re-experienced the many and varied stages of spring, repeatedly. There were times when I felt like I was in the midst of summer warmth and then the next day, I felt like I had reentered the cold chill of winter. Of course, one does not really have to travel to experience that sort of radical weather shift during the month of April. Last week while in Maine, I experienced a drastic shift from a cold spring morning to the warmth of a summer day and then back again to winter temperatures all within 24 hours. Is it any wonder that April has gotten the reputation of being the cruelest month?

Spring can bring the pure delight of blooming forsythia, lilacs, wisteria, rhododendrons and azaleas. Yet, New Englanders also know spring as frost-heave season, mud season, and of course black fly season.

Spring, when you stop to analyze it, is a lot like life in general. Life is filled with beauty, joy, love, passion and the excitement of what might be. Like the springtime of the year, however, we can emerge from the joy and bliss of life’s new possibilities and experience the cold reality of personal pain, an illness, the financial mess that dominates our country and the world, or just a pervading fear that keeps us tamped down within.

Our opening words, point this out, as if it were merely about the world of nature.

“I am beginning to see sprouts.
Little glowing green life
pushing against gravity,
weight of earth to find light.”
– from “Sprout” by Sue Ludwig

At various times in my life, I have felt like I was pushing against gravity. There are times when I could feel the entire weight of the earth pushing against me. During such difficult times, it was hard to see any light or find any hope. Many of us have felt some of that during the past months, months of unending negative news about unemployment possibilities, our retirement funds shrinking and a general negative economic mood.

Even more serious than such financial woes, however is the weight of the world we feel on our hearts when we or someone we love is battling a serious illness, faces the last stages of life, or when a loved dies. We, as a community of faith, just this past week experienced such a loss with the death of John Sears. Members of our congregation have seen loved ones die, as Nina Todor did with the death of her brother. Without question, the hearts of those gathered here today there are experiencing additional losses.

All of us have known significant loss in our lives. I remember well how I felt when my father died, it was not unexpected, but it carried finality with it. When my mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s we watched her loose connection with us, eventually with herself before she died. Ten years ago, when I was diagnosed with cancer my potential loss became intimately more personal.

Looking back from my present perspective, I see those times when I was in the midst of a muddy and mucky mess as the times that provided a source of deep and passionate rebirth. There are times when the risk of remaining tightly inside has become more painful than the risk of living the life I deeply want to live. For example, I had to admit to myself that remaining within the Lutheran Ministry was not the right place for me. It was a risk leaving the ministry that I had worked and studied for through college and seminary. When I stepped out of being a minister, I felt like I had stepped out into a sticky muddy mess. I really did not expect ever to return to the ministry. Yet, I found my way into the Unitarian Universalist ministry and this is where I found everything I wished for and so much more.

Likewise, when I was in the midst of a divorce many years ago the risk of remaining within a dead relationship became more painful than the risk of emerging out of it. Initially, what I discovered felt like a very cold and mucky place. I was pessimistic about my future. Yet, when I found myself building a new life with Alison it was not what I had expected to find, but it has been everything I wished for and much more. I cannot say the same about the deaths of loved ones in my life, or my mother’s Alzheimer’s. They were definitely muddy places to traverse and my heart felt heavy, but living through such losses has helped me discover within myself a much stronger and much more reflective person.

Years ago, I was stuck deep within a particularly muddy and mucky church conflict. Once again, the risk of remaining tightly inside became more painful than the risk of living the life I deeply want to live. That experience clearly and powerfully helped me discover a sense of personal power as well as humility. Parker Palmer pointed out in the reading we used today, that “…the word humus – the decayed vegetable matter that feeds the roots of plants – comes from the same word root that gives rise to the word ‘humility.’” (From Season by Parker Palmer) When negative experiences come at us and leave mud on our faces, we may just discover that the mud is fertile enough to help something new and wonderful grow from the experience, if we are willing to face the risk of growth.

In looking at our lives from the perspective of the four seasons, that which is obvious is often neglected. Before spring becomes beautiful it is dominated by the mud and muck of decay. Look carefully in the muddier parts of your life and you are likely to find small green stems of possibility struggling to emerge into the light.

One of my favorite stories is about the parents who had identical twin sons. Looking at them, it was nearly impossible to tell them apart except in their attitudes toward life. One boy was a complete and utter optimist. The other boy was a complete and utter pessimist. As you can imagine, the pessimism of the one son soon grew to be wearing. No matter what they did for him or got for him, it was never enough. He remained unhappy. And, the optimism of the other son, eventually got on the nerves of the parents. They tried everything to even the two boys out a bit. They asked their doctor what to do but she could not seem to help. Finally, it increasingly got on their nerves.

So they took their boys to a therapist and asked his advice. He met with them and then when talking with the parents alone, he said the solution to your problem is easy, on their next birthday get the little pessimist a room full of the most expensive and wonderful toys you can buy and put them in his room when he is asleep. And, for the optimist, they asked, “What do we give him?” For the optimist, said the therapist, “Fill his room with a load of horse manure.” “What?” the mother and father asked, “are you serious?” “You heard me, wonderful toys for the pessimist and a load of horse manure for the little optimist.”

Being desperate for a little balance in their family they followed his advice. On the morning of the birthday, they waited quietly outside the door of their little pessimist. When they heard him talking, they opened the door and there he was in the midst of all those beautiful and wonderful toys, kicking them out of his way saying that the neighbor kid had received toys much better than his.

The parents looked at one another and shook their heads. Then they heard shouts of joy coming from the room of their little optimist. When they opened his door there he was digging through the pile of manure shouting, “You can’t fool me, where there is this much horse manure, there has to be a pony.”

Well, maybe we cannot quite be like that little optimist. But, spring can teach us to trust that there are green stems of possibility in the midst of the worst mud and muck that we might ever encounter. Winter is over; the time of frozen expectations is past. The brilliant green of the leaves is out, the vibrant colors of spring flowers are coloring nature in reds, yellows, blues, purples as well as many other colors and subtle shades.

Springtime can bring passion and abundance. There is no hording or holding back during spring. The flowers on my peach tree were so abundant that if they all developed into peaches, the weight would cause the tree to fall over from the sheer weight. The grass growing in my yard is coming on thick and vibrant, as are the dandelions. Nature knows that the heat of summer will follow the verdant spring, scorching and killing some of its new growth, but its spring arrives with abundance and abandon anyway. Nature knows that autumn winds will eventually follow summer and the freezing winds of winter will not be far behind. Yet, spring celebrates its arrival with a carnival of colors and green growing possibilities, it risks blossoming because the pain of staying wrapped in on it self is a greater risk.

We are often tempted to see things pessimistically. We know that all this new spring growth will have to be cut back and collected, like the weeds from our gardens. We are tempted to see things on the pessimistically when we note that the economy is in shambles, companies are failing, housing costs are declining, and bills keep piling up. Then, looking around the world, bombings in Iraq are way up again as are the killings in Afghanistan. And now there is fear of swine flue as well as other dire predictions.

In the face of our fears, we need to follow natures lead and celebrate the abundance of colorful growth all around us. Rather than following the temptation to become discouraged during this uncertain time, we need to participate in the generosity of spring’s abundance. That is what dancing around the May Pole is about as is the practice of filling May baskets with flowers and giving them away.

We need the type of courage described by Alice Mackensie Swain, “Courage (she wrote) is not the towering oak that sees storms come and go, it is the fragile blossom that opens in the snow.” That is the kind of courage we want to grow deep inside us.

I am in search of my life,
Not the one I was dealt,
but the one I want to have.

Not the one
repeatedly stomped into the ground
popping up where I least expect it,

But the one where
I wake up each day
excited to be on a path
blooming with maybe nothing I expected
but everything I wished for.

I have been tending to the hard work.
I have unearthed and tilled
and reseeded the dead areas.
I am beginning to see sprouts,
Little glowing green life
pushing against gravity,
weight of earth
to find light.

They are in search of their life.
They know more than I
how to shed the confines of the seed,
thank it for its lesson, and grow.
“Sprout” by Sue Ludwig

I am delighted and excited to be back from my sabbatical, it has been a time of growth and emerging. I am delighted that we are entering this lovely and verdant month of May together. Yes, the natural world with its perennial seasons warns us that if we really want to live our lives we cannot cling tightly to our inner walls, we must risk poking our self up and out, blossoming with abandon.

This is true for us as individuals. And, this is so for us as a community of faith, hope, love and action. This is the path that we are excited to be on together. We wake up each day looking forward to what we might find blooming at our feet. It may not be what we expected but more than likely it will be everything we wished for and more. Together, we can tend to the hard work of building and nurturing our community. The earth has been tilled and reseeded now is the time of beginning. Now is the time to risk blossoming into the life we have always wanted to live.