‘Not As Expected’ – 19/02/23
Musical Prelude: ‘Theme from the Rococo Variations’ by Tchaikovsky – played by Benjie del Rosario and Clive Pollard
Opening Words and Chalice Lighting: ‘Surrender to this Life’ by Gretchen Haley
Our opening words this morning are written by Gretchen Haley in a piece called Surrender to This Life – and it sums up today’s message – life does not always go according to plan and yet I truly believe we can access the resources to deal with what comes our way. I wonder if Gretchen’s title ‘Surrender to this Life’ speaks to you this morning?
Give up the fight For some other moment
Some other life Than here, and now
Give up the longing for some other world
The wishing for other choices to make
other songs to sing other bodies, other ages,
(other countries, other stakes Purge the past; forgive the future—
for each come too soon.) Surrender only to this life,
this day, this hour, not because it does not
constantly break your heart but because it also beckons
with beauty startles with delight
if only we keep waking up
This is the gift we have been given:
these ‘body-clothes,’ this heart-break, this pulse
this breath, this light,
these friends, this hope.
Here we re-member ourselves All (a) part of it all—
Giving thanks, Together. Come, let us worship.
Thanks for joining us this morning in person and online for Kensington Unitarians’ Sunday gathering. For those of you I’ve not met before I’m Sarah Tinker and I’m glad to be with you. Let’s take a moment to bring all of our self to this time and place, even the difficult aspects of our lives may find some comfort here in this time and space as we explore together today’s theme of ‘not as expected’. Our Unitarian chalice flame is lit and beams a warm welcome to you. It connects us with one another and with our wider world – one people living one life, on this our o so precious planet earth home.
Hymn 172 (green): ‘All Are Welcome Here’
And that theme of welcome is found in our first hymn today – which is hymn 172 in the green hymnbook and words will also appear on your screens at home: Now open wide your hearts my friend and I will open mine, and let us share all that is fair, less of the yours and mine. Do feel free to sing or simply listen – hymn 172.
Now open wide your hearts, my friends,
And I will open mine,
And let us share all that is fair,
All that is true and fine.
We gather in this meeting house –
People of many kinds:
Let us, below the surface, seek
A meeting of true mind.
For in our company shall be
Great witnesses of light:
The Buddha, Krishna, Jesus – those
Gifted with clearest sight.
Like them, we seek to know ourselves,
To seek, in spite of fear;
To open wide, to all, our hearts –
For all are welcome here.
Candles of Joy and Concern:
Each week when we gather together, we share a simple ritual of candles of joy and concern, an opportunity to light a candle and share something that is in our heart with the community. So we invite anyone who would like to do so, to light a candle and say a few words about what it represents. We’re going to go to the people in the building first, and take all of those in one go, and then I’ll call on the people on Zoom to come forward.
So I invite some of you here in person to come and light a candle and then if you wish to tell us briefly who or what you light your candle for. We’re asking people to keep their masks on for this candle lighting – please keep your masks on – if you use the hand-held microphone, get it really close to your mask, and SPEAK UP, people really want to hear what you have to say. So point it directly at your face and keep it nice and close to your mask and then people at home as well as here in the room will get to hear you. Thanks.
(in person candles)
And if that’s everyone in the room we’ll go over to the people on Zoom next – you might like to switch to gallery view at this stage – just unmute yourselves when you are ready and speak out – and we should be able to hear you and see you up on the big screen here in the church.
(zoom candles)
And I’m going to light one more candle, as we often do, to represent all those joys and concerns that we hold in our hearts this day, but which we don’t feel able to speak out loud. (light candle)
Time of Prayer & Reflection:
Spirit of Life and love, we come once again to be reminded of the reality of your presence in our lives; we seek your stillness and peace, your presence and grace in this sacred place.
May the promise of your peace remind us that all is yet well, despite the burdens we may bear, and anxieties too often with us. May our weakness and our failings find forgiveness and as we find peace may we find also the strength to dismiss the failings we may be quick to judge in others.
We know that the work of acceptance is the work of a lifetime, there is always more for us to understand about ourselves and about others.
In the spirit of gratitude I invite you if you wish to think of someone who you feel accepted by, accepted just as you are or if no-one immediately comes to mind, you might think of a time or a place when you felt you could really be yourself, no need to pretend to be otherwise. …..
Is there an individual or a group that you could be more open hearted towards? Are you able to accept the failings of others? Knowing their failings could as well be your own?
And in a few moments of shared silence I invite you to send your thoughts and prayers now to people and places in the world where there is discord, suffering, cruelty, injustice. ….. Let us call to the god of our hearts and our understanding to guide us on best ways to work towards change in our world.
And may the world be kinder and more humane because of our presence here on earth, this day and all days, amen.
Reading: ‘The Duck of Enlightenment’ by Kathleen McTigue
I wonder if you’ve ever had the experience of an animal, maybe an insect or a little mammal, being in your house when they really shouldn’t be there – for their own good. I’ve experienced cockroach chasing in lands afar and nearer to home I’ve been visited by a baby bat, several pigeons, a robin and a fox – and at least three of those really wanted to get back out again. The fox looked as if he’d like to stay for supper and decided to have a lie down in the kitchen. This must be why I so like this reading which describes someone’s encounter with a duck in their living room. I’m just a bit suspicious that she was so easily caught – all the animals that have come into my home led us a merry dance before they discovered the open windows. I’ll tell you about the bat later, over a cup of tea.
‘One spring afternoon I went home a little early so I could claim an hour of study time before my children got home. As I opened the door, I was greeted by both cats, which was a little odd because they don’t usually condescend to notice our coming and going unless it’s dinner time. One of them promptly bolted out the open door while the other wrapped himself persistently around my legs. As I stood puzzling over this behaviour, at the edge of my vision I caught a sudden motion in the family room where there should be no motion at all in the empty house. With the hair rising on the back of my neck I slowly moved into the house and rounded the corner of the room, and then I saw it. There was a duck in the family room. A wild brown duck – a live duck. In the family room.
My brain actually stopped completely for a couple of heartbeats. What should the brain do after all, with so utterly unexpected a sight? I stood there in the doorway and said out loud, “There is a duck in the family room,” as though it would help me believe it. None of the windows were open. The doors were properly closed. The duck huddled in the far corner of the room next to a clutter of books and DVDs, radiating the hope that if she kept perfectly still I wouldn’t see her. Carefully I caught her up – a small wood duck, female, her heart tapping frantically against my hands – and carried her outside. I looked at her, full of wonder for this little visitation. Then I opened my hands. She leapt into the air in a great arc of liberation and beat her wings in a straight line of escape all the way to the horizon.
I went back inside to investigate the breach of household security, and within a few minutes the mystery was explained. A trail of ashes spilled from the fireplace, and here and there on the wall and against the ceiling I saw soot in little feather-shaped impressions where the duck had thrown herself up towards the light. It all made sense then, how a duck could come to be standing in the middle of my house. But I felt lucky that for the space of a few breaths, my linear, deductive mind had been shocked into silence. When something tumbles us into that state of wonder, the unexpected quiet in our heads is like a window flung open on the world. Instead of the routine, predictable story we live each day, there is something new under the sun and, surprised out of our minds for a moment, we actually see. Startled awake, we receive what’s in front of us: simple, astonishing, unedited.
Afterward, basking in the dazzlement of my visitor, it occurred to me that it really shouldn’t require a duck in the family room to awaken my wonder. Isn’t the same lovely little wood duck just as wondrous, just as worthy of my awe and my open and grateful heart, when she is out in the woods where she belongs? The real miracle is not that her frightened heart beat against my hands for a moment but that her heart beats at all – that her heart beats, that my hands can hold, that my eyes can see.’
Hymn 180 (green): ‘This Our World’
Our next hymn has a beautifully mournful tune and a beautiful message – that the world’s sorrows are eased by our love and compassion for one another. Let’s stay seated and imagine singing this song to one another – it’s number 180 in the green books and the words will also be on screens. This old world.
This old world is full of sorrow,
Full of sickness, weak and sore;
If you love your neighbour truly,
Love will come to you the more.
We’re all children of one family;
We’re all brothers, sisters too;
If you cherish one another,
Love and friendship come to you.
This old world can be a garden,
Full of fragrance, full of grace;
If we love our neighbour truly,
We must meet them face to face.
It is said now, ‘Love thy neighbour’,
And we know well that is true;
This the sum of human labour,
True for me as well as you.
Meditation: ‘Letting Go of Certainty’ by Rebecca Copolla
Let’s ready ourselves for a meditative time now. There’ll be a short reading to lead into a shared silence and that will end with a chime from our bell and be followed by a soothing piece of music on clarinet and piano – called Sicilienne by Maria Theresia VonParadis, an Austrian 18th century composer who lost her sight at an early age.
So let’s get ourselves as comfy as we can, maybe soften our gaze, or focus on the candle flames, enjoying the feeling of resting as we sit or lie, aware of the contact between us and the chair, us and the floor beneath our feet, the strength of the earth holding us, and the gentle rhythm of our breathing helping us to turn our attention inwards as I read these words called Letting Go of Certainty by Rebecca Copolla.
Let go of the idea that you know
what breathing should feel like.
Just notice the breath as it moves
in and out
of the body.
Let go of certainty.
Be with the breath as it is.
Allow openness. Allow curiosity.
Notice the mind.
Each thought that arises.
Allow openness.
Don’t judge your mind.
Or your experience.
Be loving in your curiosity about each thought.
Let go of certainty.
Let go of any idea about what
you should be thinking,
accepting your thoughts exactly as they are.
Be with your self as you are.
Be curious about who you are.
Love how you are in the world.
Gently take a deep breath,
maybe even a big sigh,
re-enter the present moment,
and the stream of your life.
Period of Silence and Stillness (~3 minutes) – end with a bell DING
Musical Interlude: ‘Sicilienne’ by Maria Theresia von Paradis – played by Benjie del Rosario and Clive Pollard
In-Person Reading: ‘Expect Chaos’ by Vanessa Rush Southern read by Brian Ellis
I used to think life could be counted on to be stable. It was my parents’ fault. They carefully engineered my world to send just that message. My evening bedtime was the same. The bag lunch my mother packed every day was basically the same. The way my father did my hair every morning was one of two very predictable styles. Every day, without fail, there was someone in queue outside school to pick me up. Things moved along with amazing certainty.
A predictable life does a child good in many ways. It makes the world feel safe. It frees us up to concentrate on important things like schoolwork and figuring out who we are. Yet, I’ve come to see that life, unlike the routines of my childhood, is not predictable.
A few weeks ago I found myself saying something I had said many times before: “When this chapter/snag/transition is over, life will begin again.” My husband chimed in from the corner of the room to say, “Haven’t we been saying some version of that for five years now?” Indeed, we both realised, perhaps we’d been duped. Perhaps this is life. Perhaps change is life. Frustrations and snags are life. Maybe instead of being taught to expect stability and predictability, we should have been taught to expect chaos or at least constant transitions and snags; we should have been told that turbulence in the air is the norm, not the exception. Keep your air sickness bags close, ladies and gentlemen, this ride will be shaky.
The theologian Sharon Welch was interviewing women managers a few years back, trying to find out what approach made some more successful, gave some more professional longevity. What she found was that the women who survived and thrived in their jobs were the ones who didn’t take chaos personally. The women who thrived were the ones who didn’t think they had failed when things went “wrong” at work. Instead they were the ones who came to work asking, “What will it be today?” and then looked around to find out what “it” would be.
Physics tells us there is chaos in the cosmos, in every atom in the wanderings of every electron. Why should our existence be any different? So, here is our new life philosophy, or at least part of it: Expect, watch for, and embrace uncertainty; dance with the madness of the cosmos, not against it; leave your door open and your heart ready for anything. In this adult world, it may be the only way, not just to survive what is inevitable but to thrive in the midst of it.
Address: ‘Not as Expected’ by Rev Sarah Tinker
Have you done any online shopping recently? When a parcel had to be returned, the manufacturers kindly provided me with a list of reasons why I might be returning the unwanted item. Wrong colour, wrong size, bought in error? One tick box choice immediately caught my eye and made me smile ‘Item not as expected’. That summed up my failed shopping attempt. It also summed up life for me at present – not as expected. And I know some of you are experiencing similar turbulence in your own lives and the lives of those you love. But alas we can’t send life back to the retailers or manufacturers for failing to live up to our expectations.
I’ve always appreciated the saying ‘the best laid plans of mice and men’ which comes from Robbie Burns’ poem ‘To a wee mouse’. He wrote it when his ploughing disturbed a field mouse’s home and he described with such compassion the little mouse’s distress. But then he realised that for the mouse the suffering would be less than for us mortals because the mouse lives in the present moment. Life is less painful, Burns recognised, if we manage to stay in the present rather than looking back on times past or forward into a future that exists only in our thinking. You can probably imagine how a human mouse might respond to the destruction of its living space by a plough: ‘I’ll never make the nest so cosy again and how am I going to replace the sofas I worked so hard to pay for? I was so happy here – I’ll never be happy again.’
Such teachings as ‘the best laid plans of mice and men’ are found in all the world’s religious and philosophical traditions – you may know a version of the Yiddish proverb – ‘We plan, God laughs’. Or the Buddhist teaching that we need to learn to accept the difficulties we come across in life as our path – not as obstacles to be avoided. ‘Expect chaos’ as the reading we heard earlier reminds us. ‘Adjust your expectations’ Buddhism teaches ‘and disappointment and suffering cease’. This particular subject is one where I still find myself in the junior class – with much still to learn. But a very helpful teaching on this theme has stayed with me for many years. It was from a course taught by Landmark Education where we learnt the three key causes of the upsets in our lives – thwarted intentions, undelivered communications and unfulfilled expectations. Next time you find yourself emotionally troubled it may help your understanding of what’s going on – to step back awhile and ask:
Are my intentions thwarted?
Is there something I need to communicate?
Do I have expectations that are not fulfilled?
These sorts of teachings form a counter-balance to our o so human tendency to think that things ‘shouldn’t be this way’. We experience something we dislike or find uncomfortable and we resist it. ‘Life shouldn’t do this to us. Life shouldn’t be this way’. But what a release it can be to accept that this is the way it is – whether we like it or not.
‘We can learn to recognize that the difficulty is our path instead of trying to escape from it. This is a radical yet necessary change in our perspective. Our difficulties then are not obstacles to the path; they are the path itself. They are opportunities to awaken. Can we learn what it means to welcome an unwanted situation as a wake-up call? Can we look at it as a signal that there is something here to be learned? Can we allow it to penetrate our hearts? By learning to do this, we are taking the first step toward learning what it means to open to life as it is. We are learning what it means to be willing to be with whatever life presents us. Even when we don’t like it, we understand that this difficulty is our practice, our path, our life.’
‘And when hardship strikes, we can learn not to point the finger of blame — at another person, at ourselves, at an institution, or even at life itself — and instead turn our attention inward. When we’re in distress, this is often one of the hardest things to do, because we so want to defend ourselves. We so want to be right. But it is much more helpful to look at what we ourselves have brought to the situation — beliefs, expectations, requirements, and cravings. Then we might gradually come to understand that whenever we’re having an emotional reaction, it’s a signal that we have some belief system in place that we haven’t yet looked at deeply enough. With practice this understanding gradually can become our basic orientation in life.’ I’m grateful to the Buddhist teacher Ezra Bayda for these particular teachings (adapted).
Life has a tendency to bring problems our way. This is the nature of the material world. Things break down from time to time don’t they. And we have to deal with them. Our dealing with life’s problems can be a battle if that’s how we choose to be, to struggle, to curse, to take it all personally. Why me? I wonder if any of you have your own ‘why me?’ situations going on at present? It’s a very human response isn’t it, to take life personally.
But if we are able to step back from the drama or the upset of it all a different perspective might emerge. Things happen constantly in life and sometimes they happen to us. To accept the reality of what is rather than resisting it can in itself be a remarkable act of liberation. Our resistance, our dislike, of a situation, may be making the experience far worse.
Words like acceptance and surrender don’t necessarily mean ‘give up’ though in some situations giving up or giving may be the wisest thing to do. But by turning our response upside down – by welcoming the difficult – oh hello …. (fill in your latest difficulty here) I wondered when you’d turn up, it was only a matter of time. Oh hello illness, hello rejection, failure, utter stupidity, loneliness, irritation. We can all fill in the gaps here. I wonder what you are having to greet in life at the moment.
Within this radical acceptance of the difficult is an underlying idea about us – if we can accept what is difficult the implication is that we trust ourselves to deal with what is coming our way. We are ‘big enough to take it all in’ as community facilitator and writer Margaret Wheatley puts it. The more we stay in the present moment, in a place of witness to what is, the more able we are to stay open and ‘awake’. When we resist what is, we are afraid – afraid we won’t cope, afraid things will get worse, afraid of our feelings. In the present moment, we stay with what we encounter and what we feel, with ‘what is’ rather than with what might be. Our fears, our imaginings are mostly of the future. When we learn to welcome the difficult we remain more in the present moment, the only moment there is. And there we might find the peace that arises when we know that life cannot always give us what we want, cannot be certain, safe, secure. And there we might also find the re-assurance that we oft times have all the resources we need to deal with whatever life brings our way, however unexpected that may be, we are indeed ‘big enough to take it all in’. Phew, thank goodness for that. Amen.
Hymn 198 (green): ‘For the Healing of the Nations’
Our closing hymn today is an old favourite ‘for the healing of the nations’, number 198, and I reckon we could use it just as well as a call out for healing in our own lives and in the life of our world. Let’s sing together.
For the healing of the nations,
God, we pray with one accord;
For a just and equal sharing
Of the things that earth affords.
To a life of love in action
Help us rise and pledge our word,
Help us rise and pledge our word.
Lead us ever into freedom,
From despair your world release;
That, redeemed from war and hatred,
All may come and go in peace.
Show us how through care and goodness
Fear will die and hope increase
Fear will die and hope increase.
All that kills abundant living,
Let it from the earth depart;
Pride of status, race or schooling,
Dogmas keeping us apart.
May our common quest for justice
Be our brief life’s hallowed art,
Be our brief life’s hallowed art.
Announcements:
With thanks to our musicians Clive Pollard and Benjie Del Rosario who’ve played so beautifully for us today and thanks also to our tech team of Ramona Cristea here in the church and Hannah sorting everything out for folks online – we couldn’t do these services without you. And thank you Brian for our reading today.
Benediction: ‘lives as small boats tossed upon waves of uncertainty’
The seasons turn once more, as winter gives way to spring’s fresh beauty.
The weather alters each day, along with the wind’s direction.
Our lives are as small boats tossed upon waves of uncertainty.
And yet within us we may discover a core of such strength and stability.
We may surprise ourselves in our steadiness, whatever life blows our way.
May each of us find our sense of being anchored in the midst of life’s turbulence,
Accepting with grace all that occurs. Amen, go well all of you and blessed be.
Rev. Sarah Tinker
19th February 2023
