REVEREND MICHAEL NELSON, AUGUST 25, 2011

Unitarian Universalism does not tell you who to be. This seeming lack of direction is not without meaning. We are asked to find what moves our life into the sublime; not once, not for all time, but like the rolling sea. Stasis is not an answer. We are encouraged to know how each living thing has its role in the evolution of the cosmos.

Tom Toad and Tanya, his big sister, hold races across our front porch. Tanya usually wins. They can sit for hours. At least it seems like hours. I lack the Zen patience to track how long they remain motionless, in wait for the unsuspecting insect to move within tongue’s reach. When they need to get, they can hop faster than you’d think a sag of ancient skin could. Their patience and swift discernment astonish. Their song, nothing like a bullfrog, haunts and makes us glad for their presence.

A way to envision one’s self as a Unitarian Universalist is to live in the open space of a Jean Valentine poem:

 There is a stone
 Where the Buddha was.
 Nothing: air,

In painting, the negative space is as important as the focus. In an abstract painting, it becomes more important, because the subtle or sharp interplay between what comes forward and recedes calls for sustained attention to their relationship. If it slackens a dead space appears. Because our lives tend to be consumed with tasks, projects, worries, diversions, books, chat … little room exists to have a relationship with the invisible. Take the mug that holds your coffee. A rounded, solid block of clay leaves no place for java joy. The opening leads to the emptiness that allows us to pour in and out what wakes us up!

We need something to call us, to provide a shape for meaning. The call for compassion begins inside. The less cluttered we are with fixed ideas, resentments, despair, more opens for loving kindness; the kind that begins with an increasing self acceptance. We, by our history, genes, family life have had differing opportunities. Some lives are marked by advantage and others by disadvantage. Per, a Swedish wisdom seeker, believes that not having the cultural advantages of the elite can provide surprising opportunities. His advice, “Don’t wish for something you didn’t or don’t have, but examine and pursue what may not be fully seen but beckons with vital possibility.” Sometimes what brings the most meaning is nothing we can name. The still toad, so relaxed in its vigilant alertness and then the quick fly catching flick, doesn’t tell me how to be, but does show a way. As in painting and the coffee mug our lives require the right balance of form and emptiness. What we choose to do can keep us blocked with dissatisfaction or it can encourage us to sing and race when the urge strikes.

May you find your place in what sometimes feels like nothing. May it be charged with vitality!

Michael