O Workers, Can You Stand It?

O Workers,  Can You Stand It?

Rev. Robin Landerman Zucker

First Unitarian Church of Pittsburgh

September 2, 2012

Seen any political ads lately? I would assume the answer is “Yes,”  unless you never ever ever watch  TV,  or you have been under a rock for the past couple months.

In one series of anti-Romney ads that have run fairly consistently, a former paper mill worker from Indiana tells the story of building a platform for visiting executives from Bain Capital who proceed to fire the entire workforce and shutter the mill that very day. He recalls, “I looked around and realized we had built our own gallows, and well, it made me sick.”

In another version, a woman fired from a Bain-owned company two years prior to retirement and receiving her pension, laments how her health insurance was cancelled, and as she remembers, Well, it broke my heart.”

There may or many not be a third ad in this series in which the former employee confides that the wholesale obliteration of his livelihood, “crushed his spirit.” If not, it would be a fitting finale to the other two. 

These ads are effective for several reasons:

1. They spotlight the priorities of venture capital firms like Bain- chop up companies, sell the profitable pieces, close down the unprofitable (or expendable) ones, and make big buckets of money, regardless of the human cost.

2. They lift up the physical, emotional and spiritual effects that collude when a person loses their job, their livelihood, and their vocation. Or, when the prospect of even having a livelihood or vocation is crushed and seems unattainable.

3. They ask us to consider the cost of consuming cheap foreign made goods in America, and how we consume and consume on the backs of a diminished human workforce who used to actually make things, right here in America.

4. They remind us that labor unions have been weakened by political and social forces to the point where companies like Bain can actually get away with such wanton disregard for decent Americans who work in paper mills and shoe factories and aluminum plants.

We cannot deny the tendency of human nature towards greed. Many of Mohandas Gandhi’s sayings are famous, but one that is appropriate for Labor Day is, “There is enough for everyone’s need, but not for everyone’s greed.” O workers, how can you stand it?

I have always admired people who can make things – not just fancy things or artsy things, but make things like 2 ton steel pipes, motherboards, and gigantic, perfectly sliced redwood lumber planks I saw stacked up in lumber yards in Northern California.

And I admire countries that value people who make things, whether in factories, or cottages, or blacksmithing huts. I admire the America that once valued its factory workers and its craftspeople enough to safeguard their jobs and wages.

Statistically, we are either #1 or  #2 behind China in global manufacturing production. Although this may shock you (it certainly surprised me), the truth is that we manufacture goods in America more than ever before, but technology has replaced human beings on the factory floor.

We still “do the work,” yet, in the past decade, six million manufacturing jobs disappeared and about as many people work in manufacturing now as did at the end of the Depression, even though the American population is more than twice as large today.

Some would say this is inevitable progress, and it is. Yet, as the Rev. Martin Luther King so astutely noted: “All progress is precarious, and the solution of one problem brings us face to face with another problem.”

For instance, one problem that arises here is that the workers who have been replaced by machines still have a human and social need to be of use, to submerge in a task, to derive a sense of self worth and identity from their labor.

And this dimension cannot be quantified through cost analysis (at least not financial cost analysis). On the balance sheet of emotional, social or spiritual cost analysis? Well, there the expense is high and the revenue quite low. Neither bread nor roses in the bottom line.

In an article for the Atlantic Magazine (Jan/Feb 2012) entitled, Making It In America, journalist Adam Davidson visits the Standard Motor Parts plant in Greensville, SC, to profile the state of manufacturing in the US through the lens of two employees, an unskilled worker named Maggie and a skilled worker named Luke.

Maggie, who has no higher education, completes an assembly process for fuel injectors. The only reason Maggie has a job at all, according to the owner Larry Sills (who seems like a decent person),  is because the part she assembles is too fragile to ship overseas to be completed by lower wage workers in their facilities in Poland, Mexico and China.

Luke fares better. He is one of a new class of factory workers who possess the advanced math skills and machine tool technology training to operate a complex (and obscenely expensive) machine called the Gildemeister. In the past, three –four people (and their own single machines) would have been needed to perform the functions of this one astounding apparatus.

South Carolina has been particularly hard hit by this shift. After NAFTA and later the opening of China to global trade, mills in Far East and Mexico were able to produce and ship textiles more cheaply, shuttering one mill after another. The ones that continued to operate replaced workers with autonomous computer run machines.

There’s a joke in cotton country (one of those not-really-so-funny jokes) that a modern factory employs only a man and a dog. The man is there to feed the dog and the dog is there to keep the man away from the machine.

Politicians give us faux facts and what Stephen Colbert calls “truthiness” about job creation, but the reality of manufacturing costs in the US underscores why the job crisis will be so difficult to solve.

If you grew up in one of the blue collar towns in the Mon Valley (and maybe some of you did), then there were often only two very distinct choices – stay in town and work in the mill or another blue-collar vocation, or go off to college and step up to a white-collar profession.

One choice was not necessarily better than the other. Unions guaranteed very good wages and benefits for steel workers and in some cases, their jobs were more secure.

How the people of Pittsburgh know the myriad ways this way of life has been shattered. In the town of Duquesne alone, virtually every child under 18 receives food assistance.

Not all factory workers are cut out to retrain as computer programmers. The decimation of manufacturing jobs has blown a hole into a culture of work that has always been and will always be a source of pride for Pittsburgh and other so- called rust belt cities in America.

But now, our society consumes more than we make. We are the world’s consumers, purchasing cheap foreign made goods like crack heads.  And the workers who once made our shirts and our cars and our TV sets and our steel – they’re at the dollar store, consuming what they can afford.  O workers, how can you stand it?

One of my newer Boomer-era friends here in Pittsburgh is one such Mon Valley native. He grew up in Monessen. His immigrant grandfather and his father worked in the Mill. So did most of his uncles and cousins. He worked factory jobs in the summer and was smart and clever and ambitious enough to earn scholarships, first to a New England boarding school and then to CMU.

He set out on a promising career in economics, but circumstances brought that to an end, and now, he works in Warehouse Logistics; a blue collar job in a warehouse on the site of the old Homestead Steel Works. Ironic, isn’t it? As he quipped, “Well at least I have a job…and (with a shrug) it’s familiar. Some of my former colleagues would not be able to handle the move from corner office to warehouse.” So, the dilemma exists in reverse, too.

Labor unions were meant to ensure job security, safe conditions and a living wage. Yet, even unions can do only so much to counterbalance rising production costs and the pressure on companies to produce goods at price points palatable to the American pocketbook. What role have we played, with our consumer cravings and our insistence on bargains, in this conundrum?

The undeniable hard facts about the extinction of thousands of blue collar jobs in the wake of technological advances casts a skeptical eye on both parties fiery rhetoric about job creation in the future.  Create jobs where? There are only so many small business to create a job or two, here and there. And how? Roll back production systems to an all-human workforce?

This is not tenable, and we’ve already learned during the recent financial meltdown and through the municipal challenges in Allegheny County and elsewhere, that our population cannot shift en masse over to finance or high tech or even education and health care and expect guaranteed lifelong, satisfying, sufficiently wage-earning livelihoods.

If you are invested in a mutual fund or own stocks, you undoubtedly want your investments to grow, to perform, right?  If the companies you own shares in do well, it is partially because they have balanced the needs of workers with the needs of consumers and the needs of investors. It’s a tricky economic and moral puzzle. If your mutual fund is performing again, great! But this, too, comes at a cost.

In my sphere, I tend to encounter people who like to work and who want to work; people who “submerge in the task.” Our attitudes towards work, towards the work ethic so vaunted in our culture, evolved from many social and religious sources including the Hebrew Scriptures, where we find in Leviticus the laws of righteousness regarding the wages of hired servants. And let’s not forget that the Bible also gives us the Sabbath  and sabbaticals– a time of rest from work.

Within the Buddhist eight fold path, we find the fifth precept or path of right livelihood. Buddhists interpret this as employment or business that is beneficial to the community as well as the individual. In Buddhism, all human activities must ultimately benefit the community. In Hinduism, Sangha or community is often paired with Seva, or service. Karma yoga is the yoga of work.

This led me to look at our own Seven Principles. I am heartened that only the first principle, dealing with the inherent worth and dignity of every person, is concerned with the individual. All others are oriented towards community. 

Our second principle – justice equity and compassion in human relations - represents the very bedrock of organized labor.

My colleague, the Rev. Ann Fox who has traveled extensively in India and the Near East reminds us that small enclaves of people have organized labor by engaging their religion’s teachings on right relations. One such organization is called Sarvodaya that has involved people in 5,000 villages in Sri Lanka. “ Sarva” is a Sanskrit word that means “all” or “everyone.” And “ udaya” connotes “awakening.” Put together, it means, “Everyone wakes up.” That’s a wake up call we could use here in the USA. 

The Sarvodaya communities have based their work philosophy on the Right Livelihood precept. They have added to this other teachings of the Buddha: metta, which means loving-kindness; karuna, which means compassion; and mudita, which means benefiting others. At their village meetings, these words are used constantly to make decisions about work and profits and the maximum benefit to the whole.

Our work, including our volunteer work gives us the greatest opportunity to put our beliefs into action to benefit the whole. Paul of Tarsus, the apostle, thought that work was a very important part of life. He was a tent-maker himself, even though he was a wealthy man and did not have to work. He was adamant that everyone should work and contribute to the community. The Dalai Lama counsels us all to learn a useful skill; did you know that he is an expert at fixing clocks and watches? (of course, his watch just says, “Now.” :)

Skilled or unskilled, workers like Luke and Maggie want their work to be fulfilling, too, to mean something, to be a right livelihood. When Thomas Jefferson alluded to “the pursuit of happiness” in the Declaration of Independence, what he had in mind was the inalienable right of individual citizens to choose their own religion, political affiliation, and their vocations.

And through these vocations, the individual finds a purpose, a grounding. Without it, work becomes drudgery, regardless of how grateful one is for the paycheck. As we read earlier, "The pitcher cries for water to carry and a person for work that is real."

What happens to a society, then, that can no longer promote or sustain the pursuit of vocation? What becomes of a citizenry that can no longer see the point of aspiring because the values of their society are so upside down and, as a result, the job prospects or even the path towards professional fulfillment, towards right livelihood, have become so murky? Well, it makes them sick; it breaks their hearts; it crushes their spirits. O Workers, how can you stand it?

Here at First Unitarian, more of us than not are in the position to ponder these questions of fulfillment in our vocations. We can choose and we can act. Even so, plugging into passion and purpose in our current work or finding work that deeply satisfies us requires opportunity.

Although our current labor statistics are grim, I believe we can strive to be optimistic and do our best to preserve and nurture the soul of work, the ideal of right livelihood and the value of right relations that labor unions have sought to provide and safeguard for our citizenry. And we must do some soul searching on where we fit in to this fragile dynamic as consumers and investors.

In his book The Prophet, Khalil Gibran tells this story:

“Then a ploughman said, Speak to us of Work.
 And he answered, saying: You work that you may keep pace with the earth and the soul of the earth.



For to be idle is to become a stranger unto the seasons, 

And to step out of life’s procession, that marches in majesty and proud submission towards the infinite.



When you work you are a flute through whose heart the whispering of the hours turns to music.

Always you have been told that work is a curse and labor a misfortune. But I say to you that when you work you fulfill a part of earth’s furthest dream, assigned to you when that dream was born,



And in keeping yourself with labor you are in truth, loving life.”

So may it be for us.

Amen.

© 2012 Rev. Robin Landerman Zucker. All rights reserved. Material may be quoted with proper attribution.

Open Your Arms if You Want to be Held - a sermon about Belovedness (with poetic interludes)

Open Your Arms If You Want To Be Held

Rev. Robin Landerman Zucker

First Unitarian Church of Pittsburgh

February 12, 2012

In our reading earlier, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. gives us one of his quirky but poignant vignettes of a ragged street person named Mary Kathleen O'Looney who surrounds a long-lost love named Walter F. Starbuck in a busy city plaza. She encircles him with shopping bags and takes hold of his wrist. She will not lower her voice. " Now that I've found you, I'll never let you go. Look me in the eye, Walter," she says, "you used to tell me all the time  how much you loved me. Were you just lying to me?"

Vonnegut notes how this kind of melodrama always draws a crowd. And sure enough, people surround them in the plaza.  "Some people were crying," so the story goes. "I myself was about to cry," admits the narrator, who finally comes to recognize the bag lady as “one of the four women he had ever loved.”

"Hug her," said a woman in the crowd. "I did so," he writes. "I found myself embracing a bundle of dry twigs that was wrapped in rags. That was when I began to cry myself."

[I first heard this story in a sermon delivered by the Rev. Gary Smith many years ago and have never forgotten it] because Vonnegut's tale moves us and transports us into terrain laden with emotional land-mines. This touching episode of a "bundle of dry twigs wrapped in rags"  and the former lover she yearns to hug leads us to a few basic, but crucial, questions this morning.  In your heart of hearts, you'll each know how these questions pertain to your individual lives, if at all.

-  What do you  think "love" is?

- Are you willing to treat your beloveds AS beloved?

- When it is hardest to love, can you strive to love harder? 

- Will you allow fear and pride, anger and unhealthy behavior, to keep you from the hug that might be waiting just on the other side of these self-imposed barriers?

"Open your arms if you want to be held," the poet Rumi instructs us. What might it take for you to do this very healing thing with the ones you consider your nearest and dearest?

Those of us who minister can tell you about couples, gay and straight, who come in to talk with us joyfully about their upcoming weddings or services of union, as well as those who come to our offices to cry and tell us about the bumps in their partnerships.

[A colleague has noted that] “All of these meetings increase our awareness of three things: how deep and enduring is the human need for strong attachment; how deep and enduring is the human need to be affirmed in our own way, and how fragile are the bonds that keep us connected if both partners do not begin from an awareness of the crucial need to nurture the relationship as it unfolds.”

It should go without saying that in order to nurture a relationship, one needs to acknowledge that there is a relationship in first place. (the dreaded “R” word!) As humorist Dave Barry explains (clearly for a heterosexual audience), this nod isn’t always automatic, especially for his fellow males. 

Barry writes to his female readers: “Never assume that a guy understands that you and he have a relationship. The guy will not realize this on his own. You have to plant the idea in his brain by constantly making subtle references to it in your everyday conversation, such as:

-- "Roger, would you mind passing me a Sweet 'n' Low, inasmuch as we have a relationship?"

-- "Wake up, Roger! There's a prowler in the den and we have a relationship! You and I do, I mean. Not, the prowler and me!” 

-- "Good News, Roger! The doctor says we're going to have our fourth child, which will serve as yet another indication that we have a relationship!"

-- "Roger, although you forgot our anniversary again, I want you to know that we've had a wonderful 53 years of marriage together, which, by the way, clearly constitutes a relationship."

Barry’s dead-on humor does make us laugh, but the truth behind the wit might also skewers our hearts. Relationships are hard and they require vigilance. This truth is underscored by the multitude of books, tapes, workbooks, seminars, and counseling regimes designed to help us dig up our rosy illusions about relationships, and in their place, plant more firmly-rooted methods for loving others well in the real world.

Arguably,  the most famous prescription for  "love" appears in St. Paul's Letter to the Corinthians in the New Testament.  This idealized, but wise, view of love is, not surprisingly,  one of the most popular readings for wedding ceremonies.  Of course, if this love litany came with step-by-step, easy-to-follow instructions, we'd likely see a drop in the need for marital counseling, in domestic abuse cases, and in the demoralizing 48% divorce rate.

Many of us know these words well: " Love is patient; love is kind, love is not envious or boastful  or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful. It does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things."  Gulp!

Although this definition appears hopelessly simplistic and unattainable, Paul gives us a love that is a revolutionary act!  And, like all revolutionary acts, this love of Paul's requires elbow grease and discipline. He never claims it will be a breeze; and many of us can attest that it isn't. There have been many-a-time when the last thing we’ve wanted to do is give or receive a hug.

Paul's love is an abiding love which recognizes that although affection and passion may ebb and flow, commitment and compassion can/should remain steadfast. It is spiritual union. It's a love for grown-ups.  It's a love that asks us to get out of the way.   In its most fearless form, it is a dangerous and unfashionable love.

INTERLUDE: While Love is Unfashionable -- Alice Walker

While love is unfashionable

let us live

unfashionably.

Seeing the world

a complex ball

in small hands;

love our blackest garment.

Let us be poor

in all but truth, and courage

handed down

by the old spirits.

Let us be intimate with

ancestral ghosts

and music

of the undead.

While love is dangerous

let us walk bareheaded

beside the great River.

Let us gather blossoms

under fire.

"Let us be poor in all but truth and courage," Alice Walker encourages us. "Love endures all things," writes Paul.  "Hug her," said a woman in the crowd. 

And I'm recalling now how this plea in Vonnegut's story comes after Mary Kathleen, desperate for acknowledgement, has cried out, "You used to tell me how much you loved me, Walter...were you just lying to me?" Her words spring from the page and pierce our hearts. How personally some of us may relate to her anguish.

Surely, not all relationships are salvageable no matter how hard we love or how bravely we keep at it. I realize that, especially given my work with people who are experiencing divorce, despite their best efforts. If you've struggled and been wounded in an unhealthy relationship that has ended,  my heart is with you.  If you are suffering now, my heart is with you.  If you are not in a relationship and are  yearning, my heart is with you.  Try to hear my words in a broader context of relationships in your life.

In certain cases, disengagement does equal self care and right relationship means no visible bond at all. Absolutely, especially if there has been abuse of any kind. 

There are times, though, when we do feel safe enough and optimistic enough to reinvest in our partnerships despite past disappointments or the inescapable challenges down the road.

For the couples who meet with me for marriage preparation, that means getting ahead of the curve, learning key communication skills,  and how to turn towards on another to develop and sustain real intimacy. In every wedding ceremony, I share my #1 motto for successful relationships: “Hug first, solve problems second.” I teach that to parents, too.

In a fable from the Hasidic tradition,  a discouraged man tells his Rabbi, "The feeling of love I have for my wife comes and goes. I used to love her more. What should I do?"

"Love her," responds the Rabbi.

"But you don't understand," pleads the man, "the feeling of love just isn't there sometimes."

"Yes, I understand," says the Rabbi, "if the feeling isn't there, that's a good reason to love her."

"But, how do you love when you don't love? When you're angry or resentful?"

"Love is a verb," answers the Rabbi. "It is choice. So, love her. Listen to her. Affirm her. Are you willing to do that?"

"I want to," admits the man, "but I am so afraid."

"O, Beloved, how numerous are my fears… I shall withstand all my fears as they arise within me, “ laments  the Psalmist. What is it we so often fear in our relationships? Loss of control? betrayal? being totally exposed to our partner? closing ourselves off to other prospects?  Are we afraid that we are essentially unlovable so we craft a script that validates our theory?

The way I see it, a vital  relationship is not meant to be like a ship safe in a harbor. There is danger built into it because a mature partnership  bars the easy way out or the quick fix. It must set out on the open sea. It demands change and compromise, ever deepening self-awareness and the capacity to accept difference, the ability to struggle, to endure, to grow together, and to forgive.

But our fears can hold us back, and surely, some of these fears are valid. Perhaps, we've wanted to hug or be hugged by our partner and we've been met repeatedly with a coolness that has closed down our hearts little by little. We've been punished instead of sheltered; we've withheld rather than abided (or visa versa).

If we are fortunate,  fate and circumstance break our hearts open and give us a kind of window to wisdom and courage,  and we become more compassionate and humble, caring and brave,  in spite of ourselves.

The author Anne Morrow Lindbergh (of Gifts form the Sea fame) gives us as eloquent a description of open-hearted partnership as we might find. This is somewhat ironic since  her autobiographies reveal the  cold marriage she endured with her  emotionally aloof, but publicly charming husband., CharlesLindbergh.

One can imagine that she ached for the graceful dance between partners, who, in her words, "moved to the same rhythm, creating a pattern together, and being invisibly nourished by it." "The joy of such a pattern," she wrote, "is not only the joy of creation or the joy of participation. It is also the joy of living in the moment...There is no place for the possessive clutch, the clinging arm, the heavy hand." Lindbergh is right on target. 

A loving hug given in trust and openness carries a different quality of connection than grab and clutch and cling.  It is, as the poet Marge Piercy defines it, "To Have Without Holding."

           

INTERLUDE: To Have Without Holding - Marge Piercy

Learning to love differently is hard,

love with the hands wide open,

love with the doors banging on the hinges,

the cupboard unlocked,

the wind  roaring and whimpering in the rooms

rustling the sheets and snapping the blinds

that thwack like rubber bands  in an open palm.

It hurts to thwart the reflexes

of grab, of clutch;

to love and let go again and again.

To love consciously,

concretely, constructively.

I can't do it, you say it's killing

me, but you thrive,

you glow on the street  like a neon raspberry,

You float and sail like a helium balloon.

To have and not to hold,

to love with minimized malice,

hunger and anger,  moment by moment balanced.

How well some of us know the pain of loving wide open. Especially if we've attempted it and had our hearts stomped on. Even so, loving wide open is the true path to the beloved, and it is do-able.  To stretch the muscles; to thwart the reflexes of grab, of clutch, of withdrawal; to love with minimized malice. Piercy summarizes the "how-to" portion of this equation well when she describes the process as one of loving "consciously, conscientiously, concretely, constructively."

What might these adverbs mean to you personally in your individual relationships? Loving consciously? loving concretely? loving constructively? Yes, it will be dangerous. Yes, it will be challenging. And, yes, it may lead to a depth of intimacy and union you've never experienced before or dreamt was possible.

INTERLUDE: The Sunrise Ruby -- Rumi

In the early morning hour,

just before dawn, lover and beloved wake

and take a drink of water.

She asks, "Do you love me or yourself more?

Really, tell the absolute truth."

He says, "There's nothing left of me.

I'm like a ruby held up to the sunrise.

Is it still a stone, or a world

made of redness?

It has no resistance to sunlight."

The ruby and the sunrise are one.

Be courageous and discipline yourself.

Completely become hearing and ear,

and wear this sun-ruby as an earring.

Work. Keep digging your well.

Don't think about getting off from work.

Water is there somewhere.

Submit to a daily practice.

Your loyalty to that

is a ring on the door.

Keep knocking, and the joy inside

will eventually open a window

and look out to see who's there.

The ruby and the sunrise are one," writes Rumi. "Be courageous and discipline yourself, submit to the daily practice.

[As the Rev. Thea Nietfeld suggests] Welcoming the sacred Beloved into human belovedness becomes a practice, a way to nurture spiritual growth. A commitment to love intentionally keeps us committed to a life of truth-telling.

And, rather than tightening our grip on our partners, we liberate them. In effect, we say, “I will trust you to love me honorably out of your own free will.” This is a great gift to give a partner; certainly more precious and enduring than flowers or chocolates.

Speaking of which…Valentines Days is Tuesday, in case you had not noticed. Wednesday morning will come all too soon.  FTD and Godiva will hate me for this but – here goes: 

Roses wilt; cultivate attentiveness. Valentines get tossed in memory boxes; try respect. Charm fades; develop humility.  Chocolates go right to your hips; focus on your heart. Romantic love puts stars in our eyes, yet only a clear vision of how we interact and how we might better interact with our partners will see us through the inevitable fog that descends on even the best relationships.

In her poem entitled, "The Hug," Tess Gallagher reminds us of what we (like disheveled Mary Kathleen O’Looney) often yearn for in our most intimate relationships,  but which we  sometimes push away or neglect to give through fear or pride or by not loving consciously.

"So I walk over to him," Tess Gallagher writes,

" and put my arms around him and

try to hug him like I mean it....

I put my head into his chest and snuggle in.

I lean into him.

I lean my blood and my wishes into him.

He stands for it.

This is his and he's starting to give it back so well

I know he's getting it.

This hug.

So truly, so tenderly we stop having arms..."

"Clearly, a little permission is a dangerous thing," Gallagher continues.

"But when you hug someone,

 you want it to be a masterpiece of connection,

the way the button on his coat

will leave the imprint of a planet in my cheek when I walk away.

When I try to find someplace to go back to."

So, if you can, give permission. Leave an imprint on another’s cheek. Love with the doors banging on their hinges. Glow on the street like a neon raspberry.  Acknowledge and honor the “relationship.” Gather blossoms under fire.

Open your arms if you want to be held.

"Hug her"..."Hug him"... says this woman in the crowd.

Amen.

Benediction: Shel Silverstein

I will not play at tug o'war.

I'd rather play at hug o'war,

Where everyone hugs

Instead of tugs,

Where everyone giggles

And rolls on the rug,

Where everyone kisses,

and everyone grins,

And everyone cuddles,

And everyone wins.

So may it be.

Amen.

Some Assembly Required - A sermon about being "complete," missing pieces and all

Some Assembly Required

First Unitarian Church of Pittsburgh

January 15, 2012

Rev. Robin Landerman Zucker

Like many folks nowadays, I find email blasts each morning in my inbox  from the company Groupon, offering me discounts to everything from Mexican meals to pedicures to monogrammed Ipod cases.  Just yesterday, as if on cue (and reading my sermon writing mind), Groupon enticed me with “10 deals to mend broken resolutions” – oh dear, and its only January 15!). The offer included odorless e-cigarettes, online meal planning from e-mealz, Shaun-T's Rockin Body workout sessions, luggage (hmm- a resolution to travel? OK!), and my absolute favorite, Zaggota weight loss hot pants.

I demurred. Yet, having bought Groupons in the past, I know that the fine print often includes a standard form (with spaces for name, address, age, and such) and the following instructions --“Must be completed prior to redemption.”

OK, I’m a minister  and this request has struck me as unintentionally amusing and even, profound,  because I’ve detected a theological suggestion in that coupon caveat –“must be completed prior to redemption” and found myself debating the truth of it  in my head. Are we ever truly complete? Are we meant to be complete? How complete do we have to be for redemption, according to our own standards or society’s?

And, ultimately, how might we reframe our inherent incompleteness as a blessing rather than a deficit and in doing so, embrace the process of spiritual growth as one of assembling and reassembling ourselves, rather than one of pursuing perfection?

If we begin with Silverstein’s story, “The Missing Piece,”  we find that  completeness or wholeness may not be what we had presumed – that stereotypical perfect package where all the components fit snugly and effortlessly together. If you recall, we roll along with our little Pac-Man pilgrim as it pursues the elusive missing piece that it presumes will offer a kind of redemption.

The little minimalist minstrel sings it’s catchy, little ditty as it rolls along  -- Oh, I’m lookin for my missin’ piece; I’m lookin for my missin’ piece. Hi-dee-ho, here I go. Lookin’ for my missin’ piece.” Okay, it is hard to imagine us rolling along so merrily when we feel broken or incomplete or uncomfortably flawed.  Hi-de-ho here we go! Not likely. I ‘d reckon  it’s far more likely that we’re already in the grips of “Can I keep my New Year’s Resolution?” angst.

Perhaps we’re anxious because we believe, or have been led to believe, that we need to be one or more of the following: perfect, accomplished, or Oprah-ized to our best selves, we seek redemption through often unattainable and self-defeating resolutions.

Absurdly ambitious but essentially worthwhile promises spring from our lips (and/or our hearts) as Ryan Seacrest bellows out the countdown in Time Square – “I’m never going to get angry at my spouse, children, friends again.” Or, “I will exercise every day for the rest of my life without fail” I’ll be fluent in Swahili by Easter,” “No more cupcakes for me, ever!”

Or, the most open-ended and amorphous resolution of all (the easiest to keep and the easiest to break) --“I will be a better person.” We’ve been conditioned to believe that we do, in fact, need to be “completed” prior to redemption – regardless of whether that redemption comes in the form of relational love, societal acclaim, or theological salvation.

In “The Missing Piece,” we learn, along with Silverstein’s zen-like creation, that we are only complete or whole as human beings when something is missing; for it is then that we allow a space that can be infused with holiness and the lessons of an imperfect life.

 For the purposes of this sermon, I ask that we consider the word “holiness” with all the splendid homonyms that present themselves – hole with an “h,” and whole with a “w.” When we understand holiness as some impossible standard of perfection, we miss the point. I like the idea of highlighting the “hole” in holiness – a space for searching and growing and assembling and reassembling our beliefs and values and character and ideals. Holiness understood as an opening for grace and self-acceptance and even, appropriate resolve.

Too often, though, we want to fill up that space in a misguided quest for wholeness that masks a creeping, underlying drive for perfection. The psychoanalyst Otto Rank calls this the “disease” of perfection and explains how a quest for what we commonly understand as perfection is really a quest of the ego, the smallest part of the self, and not the deeply spiritual quest of our higher selves.

Simply put – perfection relates to the ego; wholeness relates to the soul. Which would you rather nurture? Rank suggests that this tyrannizing drive for perfection has been passed on from each generation to the other in our culture, that this need becomes life-threatening, sick-making and self-abusive.

 In my view, the pursuit of wholeness (that is, with and without the “w”) is about process and about integration, not about completion or perfection. If we cling to the notion that holiness is perfection and not wholeness, we fall prey to shame or guilt or self-loathing when our resolutions head south.

On a personal and social level, on a physical and spiritual level, we miss the whole point of what our personal and communal pilgrimages are all about.

It’s helpful to remember that pilgrimage, in the most classic sense, has always been a challenge that takes the pilgrim in directions he or she didn’t expect to go.

For instance, in China fifteen hundred years ago, it meant walking long distances in straw sandals, depending on alms for food, visiting teachers, and trying to settle what’s known as the "great matter": “What is this? Who am I?  How do I live a life that is impermanent? Given that life is impermanent, how do I live? What is this?”

These are urgent questions when we come to have a strong sense of our own existence in the world; when our mind is somehow turned from its preoccupation with acquiring material goods, acquiring knowledge–being one who knows. Getting. Improving. Exhausting! 

As Stephen Batchelor argues in his book,, Alone with Others, this horizontal dimension of having or getting just goes on and on; it’s insatiable. There's never enough. But sometime, something will turn or transform our attention to the deeper dimensions of being and holiness., where will ask: What is it to be human – imperfect and incomplete? What is this life? How shall I resolve to live now and also to seek?  This becomes the “great matter” in a real, imperfect, ever-evolving world.

As we often discover, despite Groupon’s relative success in selling the prospect of achievable perfection, such an outcome doesn't hold up so well in the harsh light of reality. Life involves us humans who are by definition flawed. Yet we’re not alone.

 I wonder: Have you ever seen a perfect tree, entirely symmetrical with no flaws or brown leaves or deformities of any kind? Have you ever seen a perfect rock or beach or dog? (please, don’t tell my dog I said that!)

As a society, we lionize our leaders, cast them as mythic, perfect exemplars,  and then, understandably, we don’t feel worthy to emulate them. African American scholars like Cornel West have argued, for example, that Martin Luther King, a complex, flesh and blood, flawed human man,  is harmed by his superhuman status. West writes that “if you leave the impression that the only worthwhile changes are by those who were perfect, you cultivate the status quo by suggesting that those with human failings are unqualified, and this can dissuade everyone. West goes on to reflect that King’s life and work is a powerful testament to what imperfect mortals can aspire to and achieve.

An acknowledgement of this important distinction between perfection and reality goes back to ancient times. Plato, for one, put forth the wise philosophy that only the idea of something is perfect, but that its realization, its expression in worldly terms is always a mere shadow of that perfection.

We catch a glimpse of this Platonic ideal in the Creation Story from Genesis, too.  After all, during the weeklong process of Creation, the God of Hebrew Scriptures inspects his daily endeavors and pronounces them "good;" not "perfect," mind you -- just "good!" An A-/B+ kind of effort with the imperfection built right in. Should any of us, expect more from our human endeavors?
          On this point, I agree with The Rev. Ken Sawyer, who has preached that "Mostly what we [should] have hopes of achieving, of being, of experiencing, of expecting of others, is something good enough to bring a smile, calm an anguish, kindle a hope, foster justice or lighten despair." "Good enough and realistic enough to satisfy the soul-not-over expectant."  I love that idea and his wording– a soul not over-expectant. That would be a soul who considers how our blessedly imperfect lives are part of Creation, and as such, are "good" and "good enough," but that they are also messy and chaotic and full of holes or missing pieces or even, extra pieces that we’re not sure what to do with.

At times (perhaps, even often!) , our lives resemble Robert Fulghum’s funky clock (from the reading earlier) that’s all “cuck” and no “oo.” It doesn’t seem fair, because we got those simulated wood pieces fairly well assembled, and the darn thing should work, shouldn’t it???

From an early age, a belief may become embedded in us to get things just right. “We want there to be no loose strands, no rough edges. Sometimes we come pretty close to such perfection and have been surprised to feel our disappointment in the product, Something is missing, We've tamed the life out of it." (Clarke Wells)

We could be talking here about Silverstein’s character who discovers after finding it’s missing piece that it can no longer roll slowly enough to enjoy the company of a worm or butterfly; and in the end, realizes that perfection is boring, and that fulfillment comes from gently putting the piece down, and continuing its bumpy journey.

I’m guessing that many of us have had the experience of interacting with (or living with) a perfectionist – someone who is deathly afraid of making mistakes or acknowledging incompleteness, and who judges themselves and others harshly when the inevitable mistakes occur. It may be somebody in your family, somebody you work with; somebody you serve on a committee with;  maybe it’s you.

I wince now at the memory of how I charged through a self-defeating, perfectionistic phase in my 30’s. What I’ve discovered is that this type of operating in the world and in relationships is destructive, futile and causes only misery. It certainly will never lead to any form of redemption or transcendent harmony. At this point,  for me, the goal is not an A+ life…if I can sustain a solid B (or, even a passing grade) from day to day,  well, that’s good enough for me.

When we cultivate honesty about ourselves, forgive ourselves with compassion, resolve appropriately, and allow ourselves to grapple with our imperfection and incompleteness, our lives actually improve. Our self-esteem may be strengthened. Our relationships will most definitely benefit.

We come realize that we should not hope to fill all the holes in ourselves and that our human predicament is like a missing cat ad in England that reads: "Lost cat -- old, mangy, one-eyed, limped, neutered, crippled. Answers to the name, "Lucky."

So, I ask you to join me in resolving today to create an opening for holiness and authenticity and for living in the messy moment. As we do this, individually and together in beloved community, we will discover things about ourselves --about our inner resilience, our sense of humor, our integrity, genuine convictions, and faith --for good or for ill.

Let’s not waste those moments when the clock only goes “oo” by glossing over, denying, avoiding, or neglecting their message. Many jagged or smooth or misshapen pieces may become lodged in that space we’ve left faithfully and courageously open -- illness, divorce, loss, boredom, joy,  success, uncertainty, amazement, fear, loneliness, and wonder.

Mistakes will be made. The imperfect life is inevitable. Growth is optional. Knowing that, are you willing to keep on rolling with a dynamic hope, come what may? Are you ready to bid farewell to rigid resolutions and allow yourself to be surprised by meanderings?

If so, venture forth. Be incomplete and utterly redeemable through your kindness and authenticity, rather than because of your accomplishments or possessions.  Pursue improvement without illusions. Remember that joy and sorrow, success and failure are ever woven fine. Keep your inner toolbox at the ready for assembling and reassembling with humility and humor; stow those extra pieces in your catch-all drawer.

Sing your soul out (Hi-dee-ho) or laugh it up the wind. Cultivate curiosity. Chat with a butterfly. Ask: Who am I? What is it to be human? How shall I manifest this one wild and precious life right now? There are only 350 days remaining, you know, until the ball drops, and the yearly resolution reflex twitches again.

In the meantime, skip the Groupon hotpants,  and resolve (as best you can)  to be moderate in all things. All things, that is, but compassion for yourself and for those precious pilgrims who roll along beside you, missing pieces and all.

So may it be. Amen.

© 2012 Rev. Robin Landerman Zucker. All rights reserved. May be quoted with proper attributions.