the stars at our feet

The stars at our feet.

Jeremy Rutledge, Circular Congregational Church

Dec. 24, 2022

On Monday, the United Nations biodiversity conference reached an historic agreement to protect 30% of the Earth’s land and sea. Such action will save scores of plant and animal species from extinction. More than 190 nations signed the agreement.

They could hear the ocean, but they could barely see it. It was unusually warm for Christmas Day, and a fog had settled along the shoreline.

The tide had begun to recede, leaving pools for the children to explore. They peered into them in astonishment.

Sea stars had washed in. Asterias forbesi their scientific name. Forbes’ common sea star, though they were anything but common to the children. A boy picked one up and held it in his palm. The star was reddish-brown dotted with white.

The stars covered the beach, spreading far into the fog. All the Christmas dog walkers and beachcombers, children and others bent to look. Waves could be heard through the fog. And the laughter of discovery.

Some of them had heard the old story the night before. The story of a family welcoming the birth of their child. They listened in the pews and imagined a bright, starlit night. It was an earthy story that took place in an animal pen. It was a story of dirt and straw, a mother holding a newborn, nursing, singing, drifting off.

Over time, the story had become heavenly. Ecclesiastical councils and arguing theologians got a hold of it and sharply divided heaven from earth, parsing out the sacred from the profane, the holy from the human. But at its heart the story was a human one. Mother and child. And it was an earthy one. Born in the night, here on the earth with the lowest creatures looking on.

Children heard the story and they knew it. The heavenly was the earthy, there was no difference. The miracle was here and now. It was a holy night. A sacred birth. A blessed mother. Just as every night, every birth, every mother.

The story was radical in its simplicity. Heaven and earth were joined that night. If only people would learn to recognize it. The love they sought was already among them. The gift they hoped for was given. The Christmas they dreamt had come. Just look around.

It had always been true. Stars in the sky and angels singing. Stars on the beach and gulls laughing. The miracle, as the old Zen master said, was simply to walk the earth. So the miraculous didn’t happen only once, long ago. It happened every day, every time people stopped to notice. Yet some times were easier than others.

Christmas Eve and Christmas morning were among those times. All of the ordinary things — the church sanctuary, the old friend, the familiar song — shone differently. Maybe it was the greenery or the fine clothes or the memories of holidays past, it was hard to say. For a moment, it did feel like heaven and earth were joined. For a moment, it felt like real peace. For a moment, like good will.

The true gift of Christmas would be to carry the moment on. To live out peace on earth and with the Earth. To practice good will to all, every member of the great family of life. To look up at the stars as the shepherds in the story. . .and down at the stars as the children on the shore and fall into a quiet reverie.

For long after the wrapping paper would be collected and the trees taken down, the natural world would remain, offering its daily gifts. And the best gift to offer in return was to join in the work of protecting it by consuming less, sharing more, and seeking a newfound balance.

After examining the sea star for a long time, the boy returned it to the water. Friends, may we be as mindful of how close the miracle is, as we say to each other this night. . .

Merry Christmas.

blue christmas

Blue Christmas

Jeremy Rutledge, Circular Congregational Church

December 20, 2022

We buried my father the week of Thanksgiving. Days later, we sat at a carefully set table. I remember looking at a plate of turkey and stuffing and having no appetite. I felt like I was going to be sick.

As someone said grace, I prayed for the strength to get a few bites down. I hoped to make it through the meal without crying.

This was only my introduction to feeling blue during the holidays. For as soon as Thanksgiving ended, the Christmas season began. Everything was holly and jolly. Everything was joyful and bright. But I was bereft. Heartsick. My favorite person had died, and I was having trouble eating and sleeping. When people asked me what I wanted for Christmas that year, I just looked at them. I couldn’t really understand the question.

I walked through that first holiday feeling its loneliness and dissonance. At home, we didn’t feel much like having a tree. We were unsure how to set the table for Christmas. Should we leave my father’s chair sitting empty? Should we take it away? The same was true with our stockings. We got caught on each question. The smallest things became a struggle. Every tradition that had once been so light and lovely became something heavy we were forced to bear.

These things happened thirty years ago, but the memory of them returns every year. This Thanksgiving, like every Thanksgiving, I felt a momentary queasiness as I looked at a plate of turkey. This Christmas, like every Christmas, I turn the dial when an overly cheerful song comes on the radio. This holiday, like every holiday, I still wish my father was here. I miss him.

I share this tonight because I suspect that everyone here can relate. This service was created to make space for all who are grieving, lonely, or feeling blue during the holidays. Some of us have felt blue for a long time and the holidays just bring it back. Others are going through their first holiday season of grieving and doing their best just to make. Many are someplace in between along the way, feeling melancholy for any length of time or number of good reasons. For you don’t need to be grieving the loss of a person to feel blue, though many in this room are. You may grieve the breakup of a marriage or the loss of a dream or a change in health or an ongoing pandemic or climate change or anything else. If you’re a sensitive person who is paying attention, then you’ve undoubtedly got your reasons to feel blue. And if that’s the case, then you’re among friends.

The truth is that sadness is part of the human condition. The dissonance we feel at the holidays is that our culture doesn’t leave much room for our sadness. All the cheer, all the bombast, and all the busyness this time of year exist at the surface; they move quickly past the parts of our experience that are more difficult to name and sit with. Yet the holidays would be much more meaningful if we made room for the full depth and breadth of our human experience. Christmas would be better if we just said it was okay to be blue.

Philosopher Kieran Setiya recently wrote a book about this. It wasn’t about the holidays, in particular, but it was about our culture’s tendency to avoid or deny things that are difficult. Eschewing the dry titles often associated with academic philosophy, Setiya called his book Life is Hard; its simple premise is that we should tell the truth without softening it and then try and help each other as best we can. Setiya begins with his own experience of physical suffering and all the terrible advice people offered him. They told him he’d learn from it, that he would be strengthened by the struggle, and so on. Yet Setiya was having none of it. No, he said. What I’m going through is just hard. The truth is that I’m in a lot of pain and that it’s difficult and that it’s part of life.

In Setiya’s view, what helped the most was simply being heard. He wasn’t looking for anyone to explain his suffering, attribute it to some greater good, or try and soften it in some other way. He was actually looking for human connection and empathy. Not everything could be fixed, he knew. We should stop pretending that it can and simply be present to each other.

Friends, this is all we’re trying to do tonight. We’re making a space where it is okay to feel blue. We cannot fix the sadness that brought us here or the loneliness or the questions. But we can honor them. We can say that not only is it normal to grieve, but that it is beautiful in its own way. We grieve for that which, and we grieve for those whom, we love. So as we make a space to feel blue, we are making a space for love.

Life may indeed be hard, as the philosopher says, but it can still be meaningful. We can find meaning in caring for each other. We can find meaning in gathering on a dark night. We can find meaning in listening to the piano, trumpet, and violin. In joining our voices in gentle songs. In trimming the tree with blue ornaments. And in realizing that as we do all of these things, we are not alone.

We are among friends as we say, however sweetly, and however sadly, to each other,

Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas.

Amen.

this project will never be finished

This project will never be finished. (James 3.13-18)

Jeremy Rutledge, Circular Congregational Church

Dec. 4, 2022

She looked up from the table and smiled. What’s your name? she asked. Oh, it’s not for me, I answered. It’s for my person.

Her eyes glinted. What’s your person’s name? she asked. Sara, I answered.

We spoke for a moment as she inscribed the book. The poet had read to a packed auditorium. There was a nervous energy to the place. The country was on the brink of war. Her verses dreamt of peace.

Are you going to the march next week? she asked. Yes, I answered. I’m visiting Sara in Indianapolis. We’re going together.

I remember the gentleness in her voice. The fierce resolve in her poems. The warmth of our brief conversation. She handed me the book and wished me peace. I wished her the same.

Afterwards, I walked out into the cool Houston night. I opened the book. For Sara, it read. Thank you for your witness for peace. (signed) Naomi Shihab Nye, 2003.

A week later I gave Sara the book. We bundled up and joined the march in Indianapolis. There was a snowstorm that day, but we all walked together. Children, church people, older veterans with their hats and medals. No to the war, we said. Not in our names. People marched in over 150 American cities that day. Around the world, demonstrations were held in more than 60 countries. The BBC said 8-10 million people took to the streets.

A month later, our country invaded Iraq.

I pulled the book off the shelf this week. I opened to the inscription and read Naomi’s words again. I thought of those heady days when millions of ordinary people dreamt of stopping a war. And I heard the poet’s voice in my mind, her gentleness, ferocity, and warmth.

Our theme for the second Sunday of Advent is peace. Peace in our hearts and our world. It’s a dream common to many faiths. In our own tradition, the old book of James comes to mind. It was a letter written among early Christians extolling the value of action, of works, of living out our commitments. Faith without any works is dead, says the old letter. And one of those works is the work of peace. We heard it this morning.

The letter encourages its hearers to be gentle and peaceable. Avoid envy and bitterness, it says. They’ll eat you up from the inside. Rather, seek a different way of being that is less selfish, less ambitious, more to do with the greater good of living justly and peaceably together. The fruit of peace will come, says the letter, if we first sow its seeds. It’s a beautiful sentiment, but it leaves us with the question of how we are to do that. How do we sow the seeds of peace?

I might suggest starting with poetry, in general; Naomi Shihab Nye’s poetry, in particular. I have been reading it for half my life now and I return to it regularly. In part, this is because her poetry is so clear and compassionate. In part, this is because her imagery is so powerfully affecting. And in part this is because it is so playful. Like the poet herself, Naomi Shihab Nye’s poetry is welcoming. It invites us into conversation and then sends us off with a wink and a blessing.

There are a number of poems that I wish I could read to you, but I’m afraid we haven’t got the copyright to include them all in full. If I could direct you to a few, they would include Naomi’s tongue-in-cheek poem, “Famous,” which tells of how the river is famous to the fish, the boot is famous to the earth, and so on as it turns a different eye on renown. I would recommend her most well-known poem, “Kindness,” which she says came to her all at once, as fast as she could write the words down; it contains one of the most stirring endings of any poem I have ever read. And I would urge you to read “Gate 4-A,” in which strangers at the airport offer an unforgettable image of beloved community, if only for a moment.

Yet a certain mantra comes to mind when I think of peace and the work of peacemaking. It’s from one of her lesser-known poems, “The Art of Disappearing,” in which Naomi imagines refusing to participate in the game of small talk. As the verses go, she vexes imaginary conversation partners with her playful responses. When people at a party suggest finding a time to get together, she smiles and says, Tell them you have a new project. It will never be finished.

The poem is not meant to be anti-social; it’s just anti-social convention. And the project Naomi is working on, the project of attending to the world, becoming more deeply human, and making peace in ourselves and our communities, really will never be finished. It doesn’t fit into small talk because it’s simply too big for that. Her line became a joke among us long before I met her and she signed the book. This project will never be finished, we’d say, about this thing or that, but sometimes we just meant the whole thing.

And peace is like that. Peace is the project that will never be finished. For that very reason we are invited to give ourselves to its work with the poet’s abandon. The goal is not to finish the work of peace, but rather to do it regularly, meaningfully, and well. To cultivate a peaceable way of living. To develop our senses of patience and mindfulness. To watch. To listen. To wait. To nourish. To attend. To care. And to look up at every person and smile. What’s your name?

In a recent conversation on the podcast “Musings of the Artist,” Naomi Shihab Nye spoke of how distractable we all are. A thousand things a day compete for our attention. Yet we have it within us to slow things down and shape our lives differently. This is the first step to peace, this kind of careful intention. She began her recent collection of poetry, Voices in the Air, with the following words:

“Take a break from multitasking. . .Try giving yourself regular times a day for reading and thinking—even if just for a minute or two. Mindfulness, many agree, is profoundly encouraged by regular practice. . .How long does it take to read a poem? Slowing to a more gracious pacing—trying not to hurry or feel overwhelmed—inch by inch—one thought at a time—can be a deeply helpful mantra. It’s a gift we give our own minds.”

And that’s the project, friends. The one that will never be finished. Learning to slow ourselves down. To cultivate peace in ourselves. To try and create the conditions for peace in our communities. To find the gentleness, ferocity, and warmth that is needed to do the lifelong work.

If Naomi Shihab Nye is any indication, and I’m sure she is, then we can do it all with a glint in our eye and a poem for a prayer.

Amen.