seeing everything differently

Seeing Everything Differently (1 John 4.7)

Jeremy Rutledge, Circular Congregational Church

October 11, 2020

As a girl, Mary Power couldn’t see very well. She was severely myopic and experienced much of the world in a blur. In her own words, she had no idea that “you could see leaves on a tree from the ground.”

Yet Mary didn’t know what she didn’t know. If you’ve never seen the leaves sharply, then how would you notice their detail? She spent a lot of time outside, walking near Brier Creek in Eastern Oklahoma. And it was there, in the creek, where she had a revelation. Before she got eyeglasses, and without knowing exactly how limited her vision had become, Mary was given a mask and snorkel. She donned them and waded into the creek. When she looked beneath the surface, everything changed.

Due to the refraction of the water, Mary could see everything clearly. “You can imagine how beautiful it would be,” she said, “when you see detail that you’d never known. . .” All of a sudden, an entirely new world came into view. Just beneath the surface, Mary found a universe of life which had previously been hidden from her. The beauty of it took her breath away. In her words, it was a “flashbulb moment. . .where I just had to be underwater looking at life that way for the rest of my life.” 

No surprise that Mary Power grew up to become such a notable biologist, making indispensable contributions to our understandings of keystone species in freshwater ecosystems. She saw things that no one else had seen. But it all began when she stopped walking by the water, stopped staying at its surface, and waded in with her mask and snorkel to take a deeper look. 

I first learned Mary’s story while watching an episode of the PBS television show Nature entitled “The Serengeti Rules.” I recommend that episode to you if you’d like to learn about keystone species and their import to different ecosystems, but along with the brilliance of the science I was struck by the power of the metaphor. I was drawn to the story of Mary, the girl who couldn’t see very well until she looked beneath the surface. Then she couldn’t stop seeing.

That metaphor strikes me as nearly perfect for this year. More than any other time in my life, I feel that I’m seeing things differently, more clearly than before. I feel that I’ve been walking by the creek all this time, seeing the world a bit out of focus, until the pandemic plunged me into a bracing new reality, one that was surprisingly vivid. 

Personally, I have seen my life a little better, my own strengths and shortcomings mirrored back to me and magnified by all the time at home. Politically, I have seen the country in a new relief, so much rushing to the surface that should have been obvious to me before. Spiritually, I have seen my own faith and our church quite differently, and this has been the most exciting part. This is what has taken my own breath away. Looking beneath the surface of this moment as a church, what we see is as beautiful as what Mary saw swimming among the pond weeds and the pickerel.

Before this year, we all had our experiences and understandings of church. Circular Church, our church, has been a fixture in Charleston for centuries. We have a clear and strong identity as a place of welcome and a people of service. We are known, I think, for not being too pretentious or perfectionist, for our willingness to take a stand, for our embrace of the arts and sciences, for the inclusive banners we hang and the good trouble we try and cause with others in our justice work. In fairness, we have also been known for our slight disorganization, our knack for trying to do too many things at once, and our occasional self-righteousness, beginning, of course, with the pastor. Yet on the whole we’re been all right, earnestly trying to follow the way of Jesus and love our neighbors and the earth along the way. In fact, I dare say we may have been a bit satisfied before the pandemic. After all, we were getting a number of things right. But only of the things we could see. 

When the pandemic arrived, it did so with the force of a single question. That question was not, How will we worship remotely? or How will we put on programs? or even How will we care for each other? but Can we see everything differently? 

Right away we began to see things that we hadn’t seen before. As we put worship online, moved committee meetings to Zoom, added coffee hours and driveway visits, dropped paper notes in the mail, we saw needs that had been going unmet. As we imagined church beyond just the Sunday morning visit to Meeting Street, we began to stretch our idea of who we are and what our work is in the world. As we thought out loud about how to reach out even as we tried to follow the science and stay safe, we began to reconceive of things we had always done. Well, we could do a baptism in this way, we could welcome members in that way, we could do our justice work in this way, and on and on we saw. 

I shouldn’t have been surprised when the first letters came in. Some were from far away. People had been watching on YouTube, tuning in from places that had no progressive church to attend. I remember one with particularly beautiful handwriting. A man shared of his struggle to find kindred spirits until he happened upon us and saw through his screen a community of people, a church, that felt like home. Some of our own members even wrote to say that they could hear better and see better when the service was online. Others who were not always able to make it downtown had new access. Without even meaning to, our online services had expanded the circle. 

This is not to say that the pandemic has been anything but a struggle. Speaking for myself, I have found it the most challenging and difficult time in my vocational life. The work is harder, the loneliness deeper, the fatigue deep and abiding. I haven’t really felt rested since last year. Like so many, I look forward to a day when we can be together again and be church in some of the most familiar ways. Yet I don’t really want to go back. I want to go forward with this expanded circle, this wider view, or to use Mary’s metaphor, to go deeper, to keep looking beneath the surface to see all the wonderful interrelations that had been hidden for too long. So when we do worship in person again one day, we still plan to film and livestream. When we have committee meetings, we hope to make them accessible through the use of technology. When we host classes and lectures, we intend to share them as freely as possible. When we think of church, we hope it will be in broader and more expansive ways. 

Today is the beginning of our stewardship campaign, the time of year we ask everyone to pledge of their time, money, and energy to the work of the church in the year to come. And today I’m especially excited to respectfully ask you to give of your time, money, and energy to our progressive and inclusive church. No one knows what the year to come will look like, only that it gives us a rare opportunity to be and bring church to more people than ever. In these difficult times, I believe a church community like ours can be a lifesaver for people. I know it has been for me. Which is why my family and I are increasing our financial pledge this year. We know what the money we give does, where it goes and how it helps. The money supports our sacred space and grounds, it supports our online services and offerings, it supports increased staffing hours to bring more programs to those who are searching and more technology to make things easier to access for the many. And we’ll add to our financial pledge our gifts of time, energy, and our heartfelt prayer for our church, its people and its work.

Speaking for myself, I can say that Circular Church has deepened my own understanding of the way of progressive faith with its many questions, struggles, and joys. And speaking for myself, I don’t know how I would have made it through this year without Circular. I say that not only as your pastor, but simply as a person. What I am most interested in is all that we have learned, all that we are learning, this year. So much is coming into view. So much more that we could do. So much more that we could be. So many more ways to reach out in care for each other and the world. 

And I never thought I would say this in the fall of 2020 after all that we’ve been through. But what if we are only beginning to glimpse where our faith may take us? What if 2020 is simply our mask and snorkel, through which we may see the beautiful interconnections just beneath the surface? What if, in the words of the old Christian letter, no one has really seen God until they have seen love. Then they see everyone and everything differently. Never to be the same again.

Amen.