"Right Relations"

Would it surprise you to learn that Robert Frost, that iconic modern poet of New England, was in born not in Boston, or New York, or Maine, but in California? A son of San Francisco, he lived in the northern part of the state from birth until his father’s death, and at age 11 he moved with his mother to Massachusetts. As a poet, professor, and lecturer, Frost identified himself strongly with the rural life of New England, with images like those I shared with you in his poem, “Mending Wall,” a moment ago: a rambling old stone wall, an apple orchard, a stern and quiet neighbor, a walk in the pine woods. Perhaps it is because New England was Frost’s adopted country that he took to it so well. Or perhaps it shows the true nature of his California childhood, that he took to reinvention of his roots and his identity at such an early age.

It may seem to you here today an odd choice, to bring Frost and his New England pastoral poetry here to the foggy shores of Santa Monica. In a time of misty mornings and fall foliage in New England, when the New York Times prints the percentage of trees that have turned in upstate New York, Maine, and Vermont, so that the “leaf peepers” can mathematically calculate what regions offer the best viewing – in this time of turning for the East Coast, here on the West we have soggy palm trees shedding a heavy frond or two in a wet drizzle, we have pots of glowing geraniums, we have perpetually purple bougainvillea. We have that wide and eternal ocean, the Pacific, glowing in the setting sun, we have the everyday drama of those mountains and canyons, outlined in orange at the closing of the day, as the dusk comes earlier, as the seasons turn in their own way, as there is autumn even here, even in its own way here in Southern California.

But in New England they have stone walls separating fields of green or gold. I used to work in a town like the one Frost evokes here, I can see the low stone walls climbing up and down in the fields. I’m told the stone walls of New England are a testament to the rocky ground itself. When the trees were first cut and the farmers cleared a field, they would unearth rocks and pile them as the edges of their land. These field rocks then got stacked and eventually arranged, with no little skill, into stone walls that still stand or crumble to this day.

Something there is that doesn’t love a wall, Frost writes, that wants it down. Hunters bring down the wall in their chase for rabbits, the freezing and thawing of the ground beneath the wall brings it down. And when the wall collapses, people can get through the gaps, “two abrest,” as the narrator writes. So an annual chore is for property owners to go and mend the wall. The day the narrator describes here is one when two men have met up on either side of their wall, and are “wearing [their] fingers rough” with picking up the stones and putting them back on the wall. Instead of conversation, Frost gives us the scrabble and heft of the stones themselves, the image of two rugged individuals, two reserved New England men, working without talking on the mending of the wall.

This Friday night many of us gathered here to talk about the ministry of this congregation. Some of what we talked about brought to light the expectations, stated and unstated, we have for one another in this community, for how we work side by side, for what we want to be working on, together. What is the culture of our community, what can be spoken of easily and what less so? Are we as welcoming as we want to be not just to newcomers, but even to longtime members? What are our commitments to our neighbors, and to the wider world, and how will we be accountable to them?

Back in New England, we overhear the conversation between two neighbors again, those two men, one quiet, one unquiet, one steady and solemn, one full of mischief. They are walking alongside the fields and placing stones back in the gaps on the wall. The narrator protests the need for a border fence at one point, saying “before I built a wall I’d ask to know / What I was walling in or walling out, and to whom I was like to give offense.” But his companion isn’t much interested in conversation, or in considering whether fence-building is really what they ought to be about on this particular morning. Instead, he is taken with the statement most of us have probably heard before, “Good fences make good neighbors.”

Not “good discussion makes good neighbors,” or “great compassion makes good neighbors,” or “friendship makes good neighbors.” He likes the saying very much, but his companion is not so sure it is wise. Why do fences make good neighbors, he asks, and the poem ends on a somber note, with the narrator comparing his neighbor to a “old-stone savage armed” moving in darkness, unwilling to give up a bit of inherited wisdom in the light of new information.

Like Frost’s narrator, I am unconvinced that good fences – good rules, good standards, good inherited wisdom– alone can make us good neighbors. Instead, I find myself taken not with the image of the fence in question, but of the two neighbors working side by side alongside it, moving with a sense of shared purpose. What is being mended, after all – is it the wall, or the neighbors?

One of the most difficult aspects of seeking right relationship is finding examples and role models who currently practice compassionate communication, who treat one another the way we want to be treated, who can show us how it can be done. Instead, it can be all too easy to find examples of “wrong relations” in our lives, in our media, and on our TV screens.

“Wrong relations” can be played for comic effect, and I can’t think of how many romantic comedies begin from a premise of deceit, when one partner tricks another, when one partner pretends to be someone he or she is not, only to require incredible mental calisthenics from their characters and audiences to somehow recover from this premise and produce a happy couple at the end. But there is a tragic dimension to wrong relations, too, and it is all too easy to read about them everyday: the breakdown in perpetual peace talks in the Middle East, cycles of threat and corruption as far away as Afghanistan and Pakistan, and as close to our doors as the city councils in Bell and Vernon, a battle-locked Congressional lunchroom in which Senators fear being seen with the wrong person from the wrong party at the wrong time.

How did we get here?

My colleague Fred Small, minister of First Parish in Cambridge, writes sagely,

The problem is not conflict… The problem is expression of conflict that falls short of the respect and compassion each of us deserves.

In thinking especially about the power of wrong relations derail our thinking, diminish our spirits, and diffuse our life energy, Fred has written that:

Other religious communities face these same challenges, but they are bound together
by common creed and sacred scripture that can sustain them when relationships fray.
Our congregation embraces diverse beliefs and spiritual practices: we are bound together principally by our mutual respect, caring, and trust. When these fail, we are undone.

I know many of us here this morning can think of examples of how we have failed to offer one another respect, caring, and trust. Not only in the distant past, but even in the past few days or weeks. Times when we’ve acted and reacted thoughtlessly. Times when we’ve gotten caught up in a win-lose dynamic and chosen opposition rather than observation, callousness rather than curiosity.

Times when we have had an issue with one person, but instead of taking it to that person, we have complained to a third person. Yes, I am talking about triangulation, a watchword of right relations I’m sure many of you are familiar with. Triangulation occurs when I have an issue with my brother’s holiday plans, and so I go directly to my mom to talk about it. Triangulation is so very common, and so very human, and so very difficult to work on. But there is another way, another path, and it is a path that can strengthen our spirits. It is the path of compassionate communication.

Whatever issue is on the table between you and the person you are avoiding remains there on the table long after you’ve spoken with the third party. Yes, there are times when we need support and encouragement from others to think about how to approach another person; in some circumstances, these supportive others may even accompany us to the necessary confrontation. But it is rare that we can avoid direct, honest communication. This is one of the most challenging aspects of right relations, but also one with the most potential to transform us and our community.

Right relationship is not about avoiding conflict and confrontation. It is about bringing the care, respect, and kindness heralded in our first principle to one another even when we disagree, when the information is cloudy, or when the expectations we have for ourselves and one another lie unstated and unsaid.

Often conflict presents special challenges to seeking right relationship because it conflict moves quickly. Our bodies and brains have evolved over time to protect us from conflict, real or imagined, and in the moment we are programmed to rely on instinct, and to revert to using the oldest parts of our brains. A therapist colleague of mine calls this our “reptile brain.” The reptile brain is useful in situations of physical danger. But – and this is important- our reptile brain is not good at email. So much of the conflict I observe in our church communities arises from precisely the moment our scaly, taloned fingers hit “send.” Please do not let your reptile brain write emails. Please do not let your reptile brain copy others on emails. As much as possible, emails at church are for scheduling, not for discussion or meaningful communication, unless you are a member of a specific discussion-oriented email list. And even there – beware the reptile brain!

If it takes me longer than five minutes to write an email – or if my email is inching past two or three sentences or a brief paragraph -- I should probably pick up the phone or wait for an in-person conversation. In person, I can listen to much more than words: tone, inflection, silences, nuance. I can be reminded of my human self – not just my reptile brain.

This weekend, in our ministry workshop and with the board at our retreat on Saturday, we set aside time to draw out some of the healthy expectations and standards we in this community are practicing, for seeking right relationship with one another. Such as speaking and listening to one another with care and respect. Trying on new ideas before accepting or rejecting them. Balancing the scales of constructive feedback, by saying both what we appreciate and what we think could be improved. And remembering to appreciate one another and say thank you.

At the close of Frost’s poem, the mending wall has been repaired, but it seems the relationship between the two neighbors has begun to fray. Good fences make good neighbors, says the one, but our narrator thinks there is more to the story, and so do I. I wonder if the lasting image Frost means us to see is not of the sturdy stone wall, newly repaired and built up to mark clearly the borders of this field and that. Instead, I think it is image of the two neighbors working side by side at it, the way they bent themselves to the task of mending, the work of repair and rebuilding what had been broken. May we, too, be so committed to working together, to seeking right relationship, to reweaving the fabric of community when we have offended, May we, too, ask one another for help in rebuilding relationships and unlocking the wisdom that brings out the best in us and in others.

May it be so.