Unitarian Universalist Church at Washington Crossing

Opening Words:

“The future is not a result of choices among alternative paths offered by the present, but a place that is created–created first in the mind and will, created next in activity. The future is not some place we are going to, but one we are creating. The paths are not to be found, but made, and the activity of making them, changes both the maker and the destination.” John Schaar

“I’m a Modern Man (excerpted)” by George Carlin Tonight Show with Jay Leno on 11-15-05: “I’m a modern man, digital and smoke-free; a man for the millennium. A diversified, multi-cultural, post-modern deconstructionist; politically, anatomically and ecologically incorrect. I’ve been uplinked and downloaded, I’ve been inputted and outsourced. I know the upside of downsizing, I know the downside of upgrading. I’m a high-tech low-life. A cutting-edge, state-of-the-art, bi-coastal multi-tasker, and I can give you a gigabyte in a nanosecond. I interface with my database; my database is in cyberspace; so I’m interactive, I’m hyperactive, and from time to time I’m radioactive.”

Just moments ago some of our 2nd and 3rd grade children were up here to mark a transition in their lives. Can you remember much from that time in your life? If I really focus and look at some old pictures, I can remember a few things from that age, but not too much. I can remember much more from 1966 when I was like the young people here who will soon graduate from high school.

1966 was the year John Lennon said, “We (The Beatles) are more popular than Jesus.” It was the year that the unmanned Soviet Luna 9 spacecraft made the first controlled rocket-assisted moon landing. Then a few months later the US Surveyor 1 landed on the moon, the first American spacecraft to soft land on another world. Later that year Lunar Orbiter 1 took the first photograph of earth from its orbit around the moon.

1966 was the year Indira Gandhi was elected Prime Minister of India and when John Kerry officially left active duty in Vietnam but I did not remember that either of those events happened that year. Nor did I remember that it was in 1966 when the Supreme Court ruled in Miranda v. Arizona that the police must inform suspects of their rights before questioning them.

I do remember another group called “The Supremes,” the first all-female music group to attain a number one selling album. I remember 1966 was the year James Meredith., civil rights activist, was shot while trying to march across the state of Mississippi.

It is amazing; when something important happens we think that we will never forget it. Still, take it from someone who knows, if you are a new parent, you should write down the things about your child as they happen, because looking back in ten or twenty years much will have slipped away. Most of us, just cannot remember many of the significant things that happen during our lives.

John Schaar wrote that, “The future is not a result of choices among alternative paths offered by the present, but a place that is created–created first in the mind and will, created next in activity. The future is not some place we are going to, but one we are creating. The paths are not to be found, but made, and the activity of making them, changes both the maker and the destination.”

We pass through one phase or stage of life and there lying in front of us are many potential paths, just waiting for us to decide which life to create. Which path will we go down? When we look at the future, searching for some indication of what path we should follow, we can and should ask for advice, we can see what direction the wind is blowing, we can take aptitude tests and even consult a fortuneteller, but ultimately we have to search our hearts and ask ourselves, what now? Which life shall I create?

As Robert Frost wrote, “The Road Not Taken”

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Our question is not which path we shall follow into the future, but rather given the number of paths, which life should I create. It definitely is more complex today in 2010 than it was for me in 1966. We can create many more roads today and there are many additional detours, side roads and roadblocks that call on us to make ever more choices and to use increased creativity.

This is a moment of change, a moment of ending and of beginning. Every moment, however, is or can be a moment of change, a moment of ending or beginning. We are called to be aware of the moments that we want to identify and mark as special, and meaningful. They ought to be noted and possibly even celebrated with a ceremony that joyfully recognizes the personal and spiritual changes taking place. Like one’s First Affirmation, or receiving a special and significant award from your congregation, or graduating from high school or…

In all the moments of our lives we are growing and changing. We need to notice the moments we wish to give greater value by recognizing and celebrating them. When we do that, we experience that moment with greater purpose, meaning, and spiritual significance. Thus, it is that today we grasp the beauty and spiritual uniqueness of this moment of transition in our life.

Do not wait to recognize fully the marvelous significance of this moment in your life. Do not wait until some future date when you might be asked what you would do differently if you had your life to live over again. Be fully aware of this moment of transition from who you are now to who you are becoming.

Do not be like the tadpole in a children’s story who did not realize he was going to be a frog someday. He had known a caterpillar who had become a beautiful butterfly and he so wanted to change from his lowly position as a tadpole into a beautiful butterfly like his friend had done. Let us, unlike the tadpole, pay more attention to what we are becoming rather than trying to emulate others

Joseph Campbell who died 23 years ago wrote, “There is no security in following the call to adventure. Nothing is exciting if you know what the outcome is going to be. To refuse the call means stagnation. You enter the forest at the darkest point where there is no path. The very cave you are afraid to enter turns out to be (the) source of what you are looking for. The purpose of the journey is compassion. The return is seeing the radiance everywhere.”

Remember, radiance and possibility and compassion are everywhere, even if we are tempted to believe that today we are in the most trying and worst of times. Howard Zinn, who recently died, wrote, “To be hopeful in bad times is not…foolishly romantic; it is based on the fact that human history is a history of not only cruelty, but of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future —- the future is an infinite succession of ‘presents,’ and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”

We were born for these times. Yes, climate change is happening, thousands of gallons of oil continue to flow into the Gulf of Mexico, the war in Afghanistan continues to claim more and more lives, as does fighting in so many other parts of the globe. But these transitionary times call for those who are not afraid. “The future is not some place we are going to, but one we are creating. The paths are not to be found, but made, and the activity of making them, changes both the maker and the destination.” (John Schaar)