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Sermons by Reverend Don Beaudreault

Intimacy: The Joy, The Fear
Rev. Don Beaudreault
Unitarian Universalist Church of Sarasota, FL
September 18, 2005

OPENING WORDS: "We come together this morning to remind one another."

We come together this morning to remind one another
To rest for a moment on the forming edge of our lives,
To resist the headlong tumble into the next moment,
Until we claim for ourselves
Awareness and gratitude,
Taking the time to look into one another's faces
And see there communion: the reflection of our own eyes.

Kathleen McTigue

SERMON: "Intimacy:  The Joy, The Fear"

One night, I did leave the house and walked for hours, wishing to disencumber myself. But my bones failed me and the lights of an all-night diner were irresistible. I entered the steamy, greasy, warmth, felt the meat smell cling to my clothing. I sat down at the counter and picked up a matchbox. On it was printed ACE 24-HOUR CAFÉ - WHERE NICE PEOPLE MEET. And tears came to my eyes for the hopefulness, the sweetness, the enduring promise of plain human love.

The waitress looked at me, an old man with a night's growth of gray-green beard. My eyes, I knew, were feverish, the mad eyes she must have got used to on the late-night shift. She said, "How about another cup of coffee, dear?" I smiled and thanked her.
(from The Company of Women, Mary Gordon)

*****

Good morning, friends! And welcome to the Unitarian Universalist version of the ACE 24-HOUR CAFÉ - WHERE NICE PEOPLE MEET. Hopefully, the qualities of "steamy, greasy, warmth," will be in sufficient supply for you today! And yes, we will provide coffee, dear - after the service.

Today we are talking about how we as a congregation might be that ACE 24-HOUR CAFÉ - a place of "plain human love."

We are going to do this by some of us formally introducing a major program to our congregation called "Small Groups." It is a working concept that is relevant for many organizations, not just for religious ones; but it is becoming increasingly vital to many of our Unitarian Universalist congregations.

And it is about time that we got onboard! And thanks to those of you who have been working hard to make this happen!

In regard to our spiritual experience, I believe that the formation of Small Groups is an attempt people are making to discover what they are lacking in other aspects of a UU church life: intimacy.

Now, in attempting intimacy, we might very well discover joy, but also we might find fear.

I predict that for most of us, the Small Group experience will become a blessed necessity in our lives. Some of us, however, might want to line up with that great and feisty comedian Groucho Marx who:

. sent a telegram to the exclusive Friar's Club in Hollywood, to which he belonged: "Please accept my resignation. I don't want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member."

Joy, fear - it's all possible. Welcome to the Unitarian Universalist experience!

But isn't it good to come here this morning! To perhaps have both the joy and the fear and the full spectrum of human emotions! Here we are with those of like minds and hearts and purposes. Here where we can be more truly ourselves, and expect others to be themselves as well. It is, indeed, a blessing to find each other; to feel that we will not be condemned because we might not agree with the "flock."

We are here, as Kathleen McTigue tells us in our Opening Reading:

Taking the time to look into one another's faces
And see there communion: the reflection of our own eyes.

Being a part of this community reminds me of a passage from a favorite book of mine called Delight - a collection of tiny, intimate essays, by that delightful Brit, J. B. Priestly. In fact, Priestly sounds like a Unitarian Universalist to me, when he talks about feeling left out of "the group" until he finds a familiar, friendly face. Then he feels right at home. The writer's portrait of his experience might very well speak to us gathered here today:

There are some places and situations that offer you nothing but despair. Somehow you cannot be yourself in them. Everybody and everything there cancels you out. You are alone among the Enemy. Anything you say or do or can even imagine yourself saying or doing would mean nothing. You seem to have wandered out of your world, have perhaps lost it forever. To cope with such situations, such places, such blank-faced monsters, you would have to be born again. You are being asked to exist in strange dimensions. All waking hours begin to seem like a nightmare, and only as the day ends and you retreat thankfully to bed do you catch a gleam of sanity. So what a wonderful thing it is to come unexpectedly in such a place or situation upon a friend! Suddenly - there is the familiar face, with every feature a landmark in a sensible country. Here are the eyes that see you as your old established self. The strange dimensions have vanished. Into these ears you can pour your talk and be understood. The very sight of that nose restores you to a comprehendible world. "Hel-lo! What on earth are YOU doing here?" It is the voice - at last - of an affectionate fellow creature. What delight!

Have you ever had such an experience of feeling alienated by a group then discovering a friend in such an environment? Hopefully, you feel that this home is a place of friendship for you!

Now, we do not know how "intimate" a friendship Priestly might have with this personage, but it is obviously a mutually satisfying relationship!

Of course, there are many kinds of friendships: friends by association or affiliation; mentoring friends; caring friends.

We have all of those kinds of friendships in this church. The newer and/or shyer among you might yet to discover this, but believe me, this is a very "friendly" church.

Sometimes friendships in our congregation are the kind indicated by the actions of Emerson in the following story:

As a child, Ralph Waldo once watched a (man) cutting up some wood. The task was beyond young Emerson's strength, but finally he saw a way to be useful. "May I," he asked, "do the grunting for you?"

Indeed, we have many dear "friends" in our church family who do the "grunting" for us - who care deeply, who are there when we are ill of body, mind or spirit; who do the menial, but necessary tasks to help the rest of us get along!

And there are other friendships of association or affiliation that we make in the various activities that occur in our congregation.

There are, too, relationships where a mentoring aspect occurs.

But what about "intimate" friendships - generally within the human dimension, and specifically within this congregation?

The word "intimate" comes from the Latin word, "intim(us)" meaning "close friend." This is the most profound type of friendship any of us could have - where we feel free to reveal our innermost thoughts and feelings to each other, and vice-versa - despite any consequences.

Truly, in this congregation there might very well be some intimate friends among you, but most of us are friends of a different nature: friends of common purpose and direction, i.e. friends of association or affiliation, who might very well mentor each other and care for each other.

But. we are not, generally speaking, intimate friends. And it is always an amazement to me that some of you, who have been associated with this church for a long time, have never met each other!

So, Sunday after Sunday I "pulpitize" about our coming together as a "beloved family" that is seeking love, truth, justice, freedom, equality - for ourselves and others in the world.

Now, those are pretty big goals, I know. And I do believe them! But I also know that these sentiments and courses of actions established to achieve these goals, do not necessarily allow us "to reveal our innermost thoughts and feelings to each other, and vice-versa."

Sometimes the organizational structure, the bylaws, the policy manual, the "in-groups," the family system of any organization block intimacy rather than encourage it.

I find it highly ironic, and as I get older, sometimes tragic, that even a church cannot create a community of "intimate" friends.

I am aware that some of you at this moment are agreeing with me, and that some of you are not.

And that some who have left this congregation would agree with me. They left because they did not feel that they were a part of this congregation.

Good on you if you are not agreeing with me - because, hopefully, that means you have intimate friends in this congregation - "intimate" by your definition and application of the word.

But some of us do not have such "intimate" friends within this or any other congregation.

Again, I am talking about "intimacy" that allows friends to reveal their innermost thoughts and feelings.

It is what Robert Zend is referring to when he says:

There are too many people, and too few human beings.

As wonderful as they are, for some of us, the various groups and committees within this congregation do not provide this need of seeing the human being.

Nor should they, necessarily, because they allow for a different aspect of association, some of it being the "business" or "erudition" or "expressive" natures of our congregation.

What is needed, therefore, is a different kind of group - one that promotes "intimacy" - and that is what we are here to support today.

In the following reading, Jean Shinoda Bolen speaks of the kind of experience that might very well be possible within what we call the Small Group, a community that promotes intimate friendships. Bolen refers to that as an aspect of "soul" - but we can call it whatever we want. Says she about one person deeply communicating with another:

Another place where I find soul, one of the strongest places, is in the presence of other people whom I meet at soul level. It happens whenever a dialogue takes place in which both people are truly present, tuning in to really hearing each other and reflecting back. A sense of discovery occurs, as when musicians get together and improvise a musical dialogue, a dialogue that depends on letting go of ego and defenses. To voice something you're feeling and put observations into words with another person who is totally present is a creative act embodying soul and love. (from Handbook for the Soul, Jean Shinoda Bolen)

Oh, to achieve such a connection with another human soul - how wonderful, indeed! Isn't that what a spiritual community is supposed to be about?

Unitarian Universalism is different from most so-called mainline expressions of religious fervency, in the fact that we do not have to stay within the parameters of creed or practice. We do not have to sit straight up in the pews and shake our heads in agreement with whoever might be the minister de jour. We do not have to hide nor show our emotions - we have a choice. Turn these and other "not have to" expressions around, making them positive, and realize that what we are talking about is freedom - freedom to create new ways of being once we realize that we can break down the barriers that have prevented us from doing so.

Small Groups allow this within our Unitarian Universalist congregations. They are symbolic ways of saying to the rest of the world that has sometimes dubbed us as the intellectually elite, the head-trippers, the debate society religion, the flock with all the relevant statistics and polysyllabic words, that no, we are not GOD'S FROZEN PEOPLE, we feel, and we feel deeply, and we want to share our feelings and our deepest longings with others.

And sometimes, we feel so very intently, that we simply cannot - nor should - talk. We are there for others when talk is superfluous, when feeling is all, when heart-to-heart necessitates silence - as in the following moving passage by Henry J. M. Nouwen:

I remember the time that a friend came to me and told me that his wife had left him that day. He sat in front of me, tears streaming from his eyes. I didn't know what to say. There simply was nothing to say. My friend didn't need words. What he needed was simply to be with a friend. I held his hands in mine, and we sat there.silently. For a moment, I wanted to ask him how and why it all had happened, but I knew that this was not the time for questions. It was the time just to be together as friends who have nothing to say, but are not afraid to remain silent together.

Today, when I think of that day, I feel a deep gratitude that my friend had entrusted his grief to me. (from Here and Now)

I do think that most of us need a little help from our more expressive friends when it comes to being able to connect in such intimate ways. I know intimacy is a scary thing to achieve for most of us. It means that we must reveal ourselves - perhaps part of ourselves with which we are most uncomfortable. It means that we say that we are not perfect, that we are controlling, that we are needy, that we are .. fill in your particular blank or blanks! I have mine, you have yours!

At any rate, it would be totally idealistic of me to expect Small Groups or any other device to create intimacy between people. That is because I have given up on people - I mean in trying to predict what people will do (including what I will do, since I am one of those people!)

Still, I passionately believe that Small Groups - and the specific process they have constructed - does allow for an attempt to reach intimacy.

Finally, let me just say to those of you who are wary of such a process; who feel that you have nothing to gain from connecting with others in this manner; that you are perfectly content as you are - good on you!

But do consider the words of Rabindranath Tagore when he talks of the joy as well of the fear of being human in his meditation called "Fearful Joy":

Is it beyond thee to be glad with the gladness of this rhythm? To be tossed and lost and broken in the whirl of this fearful joy? All things rush on, they stop not, they look not behind, no power can hold them back, they rush on. Keeping step with that restless, rapid music, seasons come dancing and pass away. Colors, tunes, and perfumes pour in endless cascades in the abounding joy that scatters and gives up and dies every moment.

CLOSING WORDS: "Love is the Spirit of This Church"

Love is the spirit of this church, and service its law.
This is our great covenant,
To dwell together in peace,
To seek the truth in love,
And to help one another.

James Vila Blake