"Living Our Faith"

Author John Updike recently paid a moving tribute

        to William Maxwell, former editor of The New Yorker magazine,

                after Maxwell died this summer at the age of ninety-two.

"He was a rare, brave spirit,"

        Updike wrote.

"He was...so large-minded, 

        so selflessly in love with the best the world could offer,

                that he enlarged and relaxed those who knew him."

 

Weeks after I first read Updike's words,

        I kept returning to them

                as if they were a mantra 

                        for the secret of a good life,

                                they seemed to say so much.

To love the best the world can offer;

        to cherish what is beautiful, fine and true;

                to take what is good and give it life within oneself:

                        simple attitudes with complex implications,

                                they render a faith that takes discipline,

                                        decency,

                                                and hope.

The good life is a choice we make

        to love what makes life good.

 

A simple concept,

        not so simple to implement.

I know I'm not the only one who keeps a little list     

        of evidence that life is not entirely good.

The smaller, more petty the hurt –

        the greater its power to ruin my day.

I catalog instances of diverse inconsiderations,

        lines jumped,

                elevators not held,

                        red lights run,

                                as if I am keeping score.

 

We do need to monitor these events.

Small slights lead to greater harms

        in a world in which we can easily spot

                the  "banality of evil," 

                        as Hannah Arendt so memorably put it.

The deceptively minor ways in which we fail to consider others,

        the personal and persistent ways in which we are knocked about

                in the course of the day,

                        are mere starting points on a continuum,

                                which leads we all know where.

Violence against humanity begins with small slights

        and runs its malignant course to the end of the line,

                when it's too late to ask how this happened.

 

It’s easy to keep going in this direction.

The greatest challenge to my faith in the goodness of life

        is the daily abrasion 

                of our inhumane ways with one another.

It can be bad here in this city, 

        where we are caught

                in a great web of isolation and anonymity,

where we are stuck with the tendency to see 

        what is wrong,

                not what is good.

Even worse, we may feel so much despair about it

        that we fear there is no way

                we can make it better.

 

The conflict sometimes feels as stark 

        as choosing between loving what is good

                or despairing what is bad.

It takes more than a simple act of will

        to stay on the upside of that one.

But the choice is all we have.

Whoever we are,

        whatever the assets or deficits that shaped us,

                we choose what we shall love,

                        how we shall live,

                                and where we shall place our faith.

 

"A person will worship something,"

        wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson,

                "have no doubt about that.

We may think our tribute is paid in secret

        in the dark recesses of our hearts –

                but it will out.

That which dominates our imaginations and our thoughts

        will determine our lives, and character.

Therefore it behooves us to be careful what we worship,

        for what we are worshipping

                we are becoming."       

 

Another mantra for a good life,

        offered by one of the most original thinkers

                in our Unitarian Universalist tradition.

Emerson was a keen observer of hypocrisy,

        especially in the religious arena,

                and declared, in forthright ways that irritated others,

                        the need to connect the inner life

                                with the outer behavior.

Forget what people say they believe,

        but look at what they do.

 

Emerson would have been greatly amused by this story 

        told by the dean of Duke University Divinity School:

"The principal of [a private] high school 

        was taken aback by the phone call,"

                he relates.

"It came from an inmate in a nearby prison.

He was known to be wealthy,

        but had been incarcerated 

                for having acquired some of his wealth

                        by fraudulent means.

Now the man was offering to make 

        a significant donation to the school.

 

"In return for this donation,

        the inmate wanted the high school to make it possible 

                for his adult son, a high school dropout,

                        to receive a high school diploma.

As the principal inquired further,

        it became apparent that the inmate did not want the son

                to have to do anything to earn the diploma.

He simply wanted the son to be sent a diploma.

"The principal was flabbergasted.

Why, she asked the inmate,

        did he care so much that his son,

                now in business for himself,

                        receive his diploma?

'Because education is important,'

        replied the inmate.'"

 

Emerson would have laughed about the hypocrisy,

        but he also would have sensed the tragedy

                of such a lapse in understanding.

Our vital connections are all we have,

        and they are called forth by what we worship

                and how we live our lives.

Emerson also sensed the tragedy of failing to integrate ourselves

        with what is good in life,

                a tragedy which he believed was abetted

                        by the emptiness of much that passed for religion.

He called for a new religion that identified with what is real and natural,

        another way of looking at the best the world has to offer,

                and he believed that in this connection,

                        people find their faith.        

 

The little story we told – and sang – this morning

        gives us an image

                of the vital connection between our inner lives and the outer world.

Baby goes to sleep when papa bear

        takes the little cub on a boat ride

                through the night time sounds of nature.

"I knew the right song," says papa about his success –  

the right song being the good sounds of life all around them.

This is what we need too.

The goodness of life is all around us,

        if we listen for the right song

                and sing it, in turn, to those who follow us.

That is what we ask our teachers to do,

        and why we are so grateful for the choice they make.

For anyone who chooses to pass on this tradition 

        to the next generation

                must put aside pessimism and despair

                        and embrace instead the goodness of life.

They make the choice to teach,

        but they also make the choice 

                to love the best the world has to offer,

                        and not all that can go wrong in it.

Education is important.

 

What attracts so many of us to a faith community –

        and keeps so many of us, including me, in one –

                is the choice we make

                        to ally ourselves with what is good in life,

                                and to keep that goodness alive

                                        for those who follow us.

It's a conscious decision;

        sometimes we make it over and over again.

The things we don’t like in life –

        the slights, the disappointments, the inhumanity, the despair –

                hover over us, even here.

Any time we can decide to leave,

        to declare it empty or wrong,

                not what we had hoped.

And anytime we can choose to stay,

because even though much in life is empty and wrong,

        not what we had hoped,

                we keep our faith

                        in what is best about it.

Allies in the struggle to believe in the goodness of life,

        we become each other's helpmates in making it so.

That is what we try to do here,

        and more often than not,

                it’s the right song and the right choice for us.

 

If we grow into the likeness of the thing we worship,

        as Emerson observed,

                our choice to stay with what is good

                        helps us to be good.

Selflessly love the best the world has to offer,

        and you may become your best self.

Again the truth emerges from the small and undistinguished events

        of daily life:

                as we hold the elevator door,

                        return the supermarket cart,

                                let someone into our lane,

                                        or give a stranger the benefit of the doubt.

These small events take the measure of our character,

        these acts of civility are how we live our faith.

 

Is there more to it than that?

Perhaps, but we'll never know

        unless we do what comes first.

The choice to ally ourselves with the goodness of life,

        the discipline to stay with it, even when we have our doubts,

and the decency to extend that goodness to others

        are the most decisive moves we can make

                toward making our world a more humane and civil place.

 

We live our faith through the small and simple acts of goodness

        that keep our humanity on the side 

                of all that makes us good.

I can think of no better way

        to be known by our friends

                or to be remembered when we're gone.

To be a decent, humane and loving person,

        with a faith so simple anyone who knows us

                can understand and see

                        the best the world has to offer

                                in what we have made of ourselves.