"Just to be is a blessing. Just to live is holy." A simple truth shared by Rabbi Abraham Heschel, Jewish mystic of the 20th century. "Just to be is a blessing. Just to live is holy."
So much of our life is spent on trying to figure out the point of things. What's it all for? What am I for? What am I doing this for? We crave purpose and meaning, we want our lives to make sense, to have substance, to be relevant, to be going somewhere. We want to know why it can be so hard, or why we feel we've missed the boat, or why we don't always get our way… what's it all for?
In order to sense a meaning, or, be at ease about our meaning, we must first have a sense that we are alive. The first step is to be aware, to realize that we have life, that, we, indeed are life. This first step is of consciousness, having the gift of recognition… of being involved with being. Just to be—and know it—is a blessing. Just to live—and have life—is holy.
When we realize this, there are many understandings available to us. One is that we are not alone, that we are a part of a larger network of being. We have our own perspective, our own entrance into the larger knowing but the wisdom of who we are is not our own invention. What we make of our days is ours to create… but what we are basically about is in the gift of awareness not the accomplishment of being.
This is consciousness, the awareness of being among or within… The Latin root of this word has to do with joint or common knowledge (conscious). I am conscious of life because I am somehow connected to it. I am one with life and I can somehow be aware of that.
Philosopher Max Velmans wrote: "Anything that we are aware of at a given moment, forms part of our consciousness, making conscious experience at once the most familiar and most mysterious aspect of our lives."1
There are many forms of consciousness, many ways that we are aware—body, mind, spirit—all are responses to the life we are in, each have meaning to the life we form. And on this level—this basic beginning of "what for?"—on this level we cultivate trust in being and allow for the truth of being.
It is then that we can move the way we move and sound the way we sound and relate the way we relate, ever open, ever sure of the abundance of which we are a part… the abundance that we do not have to compete for… the abundance that we do not have to prove ourselves to…
If we do not have this basic trust we begin to see ourselves as alone, in charge, without help. Without trust, we carve out lives with a kind of antagonism and defensiveness and arrogance that creates a road we can travel, wondering why we are anxious or cynical or depressed or bored. If we do not have trust we put ourselves in the center of the universe rather than a part of the universe, assuming a command that we do not have and a dismissal of larger life that is simply not true.
Religions at their core are designed to encourage this trust in the cosmos, given many different names, but soon our need to feel less vulnerable in this vast presence has us trying to organize the truth and systematize trust. The moment we assume control of our awareness and judge our consciousness, we've lost the natural understandings that keep us humble, grace-ful and fully aware. We then become scared, and create enemies, and close doors and claim righteousness. As soon as we declare ourselves in charge of truth, we've lost our way, we've confounded our "what for?"
Now there are times when we flow in truth, so to speak; when we are in tune with the harmony of being. When we cherish life we can know what is not life, when we honor truth, we can know what is not true. We have an intuition for life affirmation and we can know when we are going against the grain. Things seem to fall into place, we have a sense of well being and a generosity toward all being. It is then that we are in "the know."
Rev. David Blanchard told a story recently about Samuel J. Stone. This was a man who lived in Canton, Ohio in the 1930s, during the depression years. One year he placed an ad in the Canton Repository, the local newspaper, stating that a "Mr. B. Virdot" would send a check to assist families without work or warmth, food or medicine, housing or strength. He asked people to send letters to a post office box and describe the need. One hundred and fifty people, out of the hundreds who sent letters, received a check, signed "B. Virdot," which turned out to be a pseudonym combining his daughters' names. Some of the checks were as small as $5, but the flow of generosity came from an unknown source within the larger source of being which we share. This was discovered recently by a grandson in an old suitcase in his grandparents' attic on its way to the city dump. Inside the suitcase were 150 cancelled checks and scores of letters describing the need for help.2
What For? For generating goodwill. For reaching out and reaching in and finding home, without fanfare, without recognition, without judgment. For following the intuition of the moment and responding to what was before him.
We get better at this, at tapping into our consciousness of shared being. We get better at this when we practice awareness, when we take hold of the moment and the being within us, around us and expressed through us.
The other morning, going out to retrieve the paper, there was a newly fallen thin blanket of snow. The trees and skies were etched in blue and grey, and white mist kissed a gentle haze between earth and sky. It was astoundingly beautiful. There was a blue grey panel of clouds, I suppose, that was thick enough to block the rising sun. A column of light, heralding the coming sun, shot up like a spotlight into the heavens. I could not see what was directing the golden light in such a specific line into the sky. It beckoned my witness, I would have been a fool to dismiss it. Slowly the wall of clouds had a shimmering outline of white gold, increasing in intensity till the sun popped into view, spreading the single line of gold light into the expanse of sky.
Stuff like that is happening all the time. The next moment light shed a pink hue on the landscape as the grey intermingled with the morning's welcome, giving the trees and distant fields rose colored entrance into the day. And I was simply there. It had little to do with me, except in witness and an affirmation from all the cells within me. Yet that acknowledgement of beauty and wonder helps me realize my partnership, my companionship with this home we call earth. It helps me realize that my particular life drama has a place but is not all there is by any stretch of imagination.
One of our basic functions in life, one of the what for's in our life is to bear witness. We tell stories, we listen to others. We share where we have been and what we see. We accompany those in their sorrow and rejoice in their joy. We join voices in harmony and protest, we join strengths in projects and celebrations. We claim that we have passed this way and stand in awe of all who have gone before.
One way that the "what for" becomes evident, or, even less important is in the doing of our lives. A colleague many years ago, when asked why she would want to be a minister, replied that she found her way by doing ministry. I found that answer to be so true and hopeful, it stayed with me. I have also found that that is true with me as well.
Just in this last month there have been countless times when my work has been both task and witness, both feeding and being fed.
Witness… it is what stirs the creative spirit within, it is what brings us to interaction and then a clearer intention. It is what else us opens our heart in compassion and broaden our scopes of understanding. It is what gives another their momentary "what for" as bearing witness needs an acknowledgement, the other to have seen. "It is good to see you," we often say, to which some aptly reply, "It is good to be seen."
"The beating heart of the universe is holy joy," wrote theologian Martin Buber.3
That spark of life that brought us to being, that energy from which we have consciousness is that beating heart of joy. It is that Yes within us.
When we say Yes to our true being, we enter the world of possibility. We see ourselves as active partners, co-creators in the world in which we live. We realize our power to harm and to heal. We realize we work with the greater life by tapping into the creative energies that generate its life. We do this through affirmation and courageous willingness to accompany the power of wonder.
And because the greater life is far more encompassing than we can imagine, the Yes we are affirming is also a step into the unknown. Living with the tension of unknown answers and the risk of an open future is much of what Unitarian Universalism is about.
When we pay attention to our innate creative spirit, we find a way for our lives to respond, in fact, more often than not, that response becomes the priority. It is then that we begin to fill the emptiness, heal the brokenness, create new avenues for growth, and engage ourselves in something beyond the simple business of our lives… Yes!
Unitarian Universalism calls us to enter the sometimes chaotic diversity of individual response and work toward a collective creation of a just and compassionate society. It does not confine spirituality to a certain ritual or dogma, nor necessarily to the day of gathering. It acknowledges that the in breaking of spirit, the Yes, can happen anytime. Anywhere. Any how. And because of the interdependent nature of creation, we must risk connection to come to our fullest selves.
That's a risk that can feel very dangerous, welcoming a vulnerability and loss of control of outcome that causes many of us to avoid or shut down through the varied distractions that we can convince ourselves are more important than the work of opening our spirit.
William James, American philosopher, wrote in a letter some 100 years ago: "Most people live, whether physically, intellectually or morally, in a very restricted circle of their potential being. They make use of a very small portion of their possible consciousness, and of their soul's resources in general, much like a man who, out of his whole bodily organism, should get into a habit of using and moving only his little finger."4
There is always something more to connect with. That is why many people come to a religious community: they know there is something more, something which speaks to the yearning—whether it is a collective consciousness, a force of nature, or God.
Church, when filled with the collective experience of past and present lives, can provide a form, a springboard or safety net, for that search. It can provide resources, inspiration, strength and training to apply our lives, individually and collectively with a sense of deeper meaning and follow through. It can help us discern, from the knowledge and experience of our Yes, what parts of our lives we need to say "no" to. We find through the growing affirmation of our "yes" where and when that "yes" is stifled within ourselves and others. We honor a discipline of meeting and engagement till inspiration from within unfolds a moment of truth.
And bit by bit, we identify what is unhealthy, even toxic, or unjust, even oppressive and we find the strength to remedy what should not be through justice advocacy and embrace of world community.
When we bring our selves to our Unitarian Universalist gatherings, we risk arousing a connection with joy or sorrow, challenge or comfort, surprising awareness or sobering recognition. And we generate trust that it all brings us a little more wisdom for the next moment.
Copyright © 2010 Lisa Ward. All Rights Reserved.