As our opening words by Annie Foerster describe, we come into this place whole and broken, commencing and concluding, laughing and weeping, stumbling and learning, depleted and energized, and many other states and stages across the spectrum. We have a lot going on in these many lives, and the lives that touch these lives, and the lives beyond those.
Some quiet time to reflect, in solitude and together, is a gift, and may that gift keep unfolding for each of us as the days and weeks ahead unfold.
Some of you have heard me speak before about a text called the I Ching. This ancient Chinese oracle has also been known as the Book of Change, or the Book of Changes, and has served many purposes. It provides a tool for divining the meaning of current events and their trends into the future.
As a Taoist text, it also simply offers a description of the way that energies and forces arise in life and fall away over time. In a sequence of 64 chapters, it presents, in a kind of poetry, how each condition emerges, reaches its apex of intensity, then declines and transitions into the next condition, which naturally evolves out of the previous one. These cycles are described as they appear in nature, in society, in the sphere of interpersonal relationships, and in an individual's personal journey and inner life.
In the translation by Wilhelm and Baynes, there is a passage that comes to mind for me at particular times, and it came to me as I was turning my thoughts to the subject I'm to be exploring today—the subject of being there for one another, in a simple ministry of presence, through the thick and thin of life.
The passage appears in the 29th chapter, or 29th hexagram, Kan, the Abysmal. This chapter describes the inevitable times when adversity comes, without it being the fault of anyone. It is an unavoidable reality of life that we are sometimes subject to difficulty and hardship. In those periods, those times, we are encouraged to be like water, which flows steadily onward, filling up all the places through which it moves.
The text says, "[Water] does not shrink away from a dangerous spot nor from any plunge…and it remains true to itself under all circumstances."
There are times when a person, or a community, faces an abyss. And that person or community does the best it can to just flow onward, filling in the depths that open up before it.
So the idea of water flowing into and filling up an abyss this is the larger context of the chapter. But within this chapter appears this passage:
A jug of wine,
a bowl of rice,
earthen vessels
simply handed in
through the window.
There is certainly no blame in this.
This passage refers to those moments when, because the time is one of hardship and the situation is difficult, formality and ceremony must fall away, and all that remains, all that matters, is the sincere intention of the heart, presented in simplicity.
There are times when we feel like we ought to have more to offer another, or better to offer them, or we ought to be able to offer it more gracefully. But all we can do, and all that "being there" calls for, is some simple nourishment, placed in earthen vessels, handed through a window to one in need.
We might have liked to invite them to a fine table, with delightful food on pretty dishes, or a better wine than what comes from a jug. We would, if we could, give them more than a bowl of rice.
But in fact, this is a moment when not only is ceremony not possible, it is not necessary, because right here, right now, the deeper intention to be there for that other person is all that really matters, and that sincerity of heart comes through, even in this simplest of gestures.
Why am I speaking about this at this time? Because there is a lot going on in people's lives here, and we want to keep building a stronger net of caring for all who come into our midst, in all stages of life.
This is my own offering of uncomplicated food in earthen vessels, some simple encouragement to attend to one another and reach out, even when we feel a bit awkward, even when we don't think it's the right time, even when we don't think we have much to give or the right thing to give.
I came across a story in a little book called Yes, There Is Something You Can Do. Author Carolyn Rasmus tells a story about her 85-year-old mother, who was essentially living alone because Carolyn's father was in a nursing home. Carolyn would call her mother often and send her little things from time to time. One of the things she sent was a book calendar that had some pages in it labeled "Thank You Notes to God," each page with blank lines numbered 1-30.
She didn't think her mother would pay any attention to these, but one day Carolyn received a note from her mother and tucked into it was one of these pages, the "Thank You Notes to God." On it her mother had listed the things that made a difference, the small things that sustained her. The list was comprised of gestures like…
A telephone call from Mildred
A visit from Anita
A chat with a friendly person in the mall
A magazine from Kay
A visit from our cousins in Detroit
A call from Evelyn
A day of rest
A card from Carolyn
… and so on
Carolyn Rasmus writes: "Each of the things my mother was thankful for cost little if any money and took little time. Each was a simple act of selfless service—people to people…heart to heart acts of love."
There it is…
…a jug of wine, a bowl of rice,
earthen vessels simply handed in through the window.
In the reading by Parker Palmer, he moves to the message that we want to create a presence that is neither invasive nor evasive. A ministry of presence is just that, neither invasive nor evasive, but two solitudes meeting each other.
When Parker Palmer speaks of the violence that can be done in love's name, he doesn't mean out-and-out abuse. He means well-intended but misguided and perhaps anxious efforts to do, or to fix, or to give, in a way that is not entirely helpful.
Violence is a heavy word, and we need not frighten ourselves with it.
But I think what he is getting at is that, like the butterfly, the person journeying through a difficult passage is in the midst of a profoundly personal process. This is true of children as well as adults. That individual is working out their own sense of things, their own meaning, truth, responsibility, evolution.
Another person's situation may in fact closely resemble something that I have been through. It may be helpful to say, "I went through something like this. I understand. I'm here for you." Sometimes talking with someone who has been through a similar challenge can be comforting and strengthening.
More often, though, under the guise of helping, we feel the impulse to tell our own stories because it serves our own longing and need. We may want to tell that person the existential punch line before they've had the opportunity to figure things out for themselves.
Each individual's process of living into what life has given them, or taken from them, and what it will mean for them, what they need, who they will become through this, is a unique process of becoming—like the butterfly emerging through its own effort.
Being present to that work of becoming, being a caring witness, can be a wonder and a miracle and an honor. And also, sometimes simply being present can feel like an act of extreme patience and endurance. And yet, seeking to speed things along, or trying to fix the problem, or show the way, or offer unrequested advice or pearls of wisdom, may not be helpful. It is presumption we need to be careful of. I think this is what Palmer means by "invasive." And the antidote to it is listening and curiosity.
But he also encourages us not to be evasive, not to turn away because we are afraid of doing or saying the wrong thing, because it feels awkward, or because we fear we have nothing helpful to say or offer.
I'm going to share with you something about myself that might be surprising: From my childhood, I have carried in me an odd fear of making telephone calls. It's not a phobia, and it's not all the time, it is just a minor and inexplicable difficulty that I must perpetually override in order to do this work and in order to maintain relationships of any kind. I think I inherited this oddity from my mother, who I know also had this difficulty for no explicable reason.
The only explanation for this strange apprehension that I have been able to discover from observing myself is that when we make a phone call, we are inserting ourselves into a relatively unknown emotional environment. We do not know what is happening over there, in that world into which we are calling. It is possible the person we reach may be tired, sad, anxious, grumpy from a disagreement they've had with someone in their household, or grumpy from a disagreement they've had with me, or stressed out, overwhelmed, or in any other emotional state other than delight to receive the call.
So, reaching out by telephone can mean extending oneself into an unknown emotional environment, deprived of the cues we might rely on if we could actually see or sense that person's availability for connection.
I am gradually learning to detach myself from the outcome of that conversation and do what is right by that individual and trusting that moving on the caring instinct is what matters.
Just make the gesture, make the call. It may be a bad time. Our effort may be deflected because it may be hard for the receiver to receive. Or our gesture may be rebuffed, because the person we are reaching out to is distracted or in pain and cannot be gracious in that moment.
Scott Peck writes:
When we take an extra step…we do so in opposition to inertia or the resistance of fear. Moving out against laziness, we call "work," and moving out in the face of fear, we call "courage." [Since it requires an extension of ourselves], love, then, is a form of work or a form of courage.
It is not ours to control the outcome. It is ours to make the effort to demonstrate love, in a way that is neither invasive nor evasive. Keep it simple and sincere.
A jug of wine,
a bowl of rice,
earthen vessels
simply handed in
through the window.
There is certainly no blame in this.
In Kahlil Gibran's famous work, The Prophet, in the closing lines of his passage on Friendship he writes:
In the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures. For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning.
In the unassuming gestures of kindness and presence, in simply being there, and being there simply, two solitudes walking together, we keep the light shining in.
In closing, the word "comfort" comes from the Latin elements "com" and "fortis" —"fortis" meaning "strength," or "to strengthen," "com" meaning "with." We are strengthened by being with one another.
May it be so!
Let's rise and sing together "Comfort Me" by Mimi Bornstein.