Entering 2022 – TOGETHER!
Indianapolis First Friends Quaker Meeting
Pastor Bob Henry
January 9, 2022
Good morning and Happy New Year friends and welcome to Light Reflections.
Every year about this time, I find myself cracking open Meg Wheatley’s seemingly timeless (or maybe even borderline prophetic) book, “Turning to One Another: Simple Conversations to Restore Hope to the Future” – a book that surprisingly celebrates its 20th anniversary this year. It is based on a set of queries for people to ponder and discuss about the long-neglected act of communication or simply talking and listening to one another.
I was draw back to it this week by a chapter in the current book I am reading during my daily devotional times – which had me pondering my own communication practices.
This time as I re-read through some of my notes and highlights, I came across the following quote – Meg says,
“Our twenty-first-century world is descending into aggression, fear, and separation. War, genocide, violence, slavery, pandemics, poverty, natural disasters – all these are commonplace in this new century, despite most people’s deep longing to live together in peace.”
I think I have read and quoted this on numerous occasions, but as the years continue to unfold, I find it more and more true. 20 years ago when Meg wrote those words she somehow could see the trajectory we were on and what we would be most in need of – living together in peace.
In many ways, I sense 2022 should be a year of heeding Meg Wheatley’s call to again “turn to one another” and acknowledge that we need each other more than ever.
Over the Holiday break, I don’t know about you, but I was overwhelmed by how many weighty people we lost in the last couple of weeks of 2021 - from Betty White to Desmond Tutu. It really had me reflecting on the importance of the people in our lives.
Ironically, Desmond Tutu and Meg Wheatley both had similar responses to the world in which they lived. Desmond was heeding the warning first in South Africa and then ultimately to the world. And his answer to the condition of the world was summed up well in one single African word –
UBUNTU - which roughly translated means “A person is a person through other persons” – or simply “I am because of who you are.”
But to get more to the core of what ubuntu means let me share how the late Desmond Tutu described it. He said,
“Ubuntu … speaks to the very essence of being human, saying, my humanity is caught up, is inextricably bound up in yours, we belong in a bundle of life….It says I am human because I belong, I participate, I share, and harmony, friendliness, community are great goods.
Social harmony is for us … the greatest good, that you and I are made for interdependence. You and I are made for complementarity.
You have gifts that I don’t have, I have gifts that you don’t have. You might almost see God rubbing God’s hands in glee, “Voila, that is exactly why I created you, that you should know your need for the other.”
Friends, one of the best places for us to experience ubuntu or where we can learn to turn to one another is right here within this Meeting. First Friends is a place which helps hone our gifts and our deep longing for peace by our interaction and care for one another.
Just take a moment and look around you and notice the people in this room (or in the virtual space) that you need in your life, or that have made a difference in yours or someone else’s life, or that care, love, and befriend people that you may have a hard time reaching out to.
The truth is that we need each other, and First Friends provides a furtile ground for just that support and experience to blossom. All our gifts, talents, abilities, experiences, quirks and particularities are key to our identity, and yes, ultimately our unique purpose as a community of faith.
The Apostle Paul echoes these same thoughts in his first letter to the Corinthians. He said,
14 Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of many. 15 If the foot would say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. 16 And if the ear would say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. 17 If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body were hearing, where would the sense of smell be? 18 But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose.
Or as Desmond Tutu illustrates it:
Have you seen a symphony orchestra? There is a person at the back carrying a triangle. Now and again the conductor will point to him or her and that person will play "ting." That might seem so insignificant, but in the conception of the composer something irreplaceable would be lost to the total beauty of the symphony if that "ting" did not happen.
Folks, you are here at First Friends for a reason.
We need each other.
We need this training ground for learning to live together in peace as Meg Wheatley suggested.
And we need this as a place to practice Ubuntu and become real and genuine people who truly love and care for one another.
Whether Meg Wheatley a practicing Buddhist, or Desmond Tutu an Episcopal Archbishop, or the Apostle Paul from the Bible, there is something universal about this calling to one another.
My friend and fellow Quaker minister, Phil Gulley in his book “Living the Quaker Way,” brought it even closer to home when he described another view of the church – what I hope our community at First Friends could be described as and embrace. Phil says,
“...there is another church....It is found wherever and whenever peace, joy, and compassion carry the day...It labors not for its own glory, but for the well-being of all people everywhere.
It rejoices when the marginalized are included. It sees in its fellow beings not sin and separation from God but potential, promise, and connection. Wherever people love, it is there. Whenever people include, it is present.
Whenever people join together in spirit of compassion and inclusion this church feels at home, for those virtues have been its priority from its earliest days. This church existed since the time of Jesus, but it’s benevolent spirit predates the Nazarene.
It is not the province of any one denomination; its adherents can be found in every movement and every faith.
While others bluster and rant, its members go quietly and cheerfully about their ministries, determined to bring heaven to earth.
This church seeks to learn, understand, and include. It is of the world, loves the world, and welcomes all people as its brothers and sisters. Where borders separate, this community straddles the partition, refusing to let arbitrary lines rule their conscience and conduct. They are, in every sense of the word, members of one another. Community and compassion are their bywords.”
That’s the type of community I want to continue to develop and nurture right here at First Friends in 2022. Right here on our property, in our communities, in our parks, our workplaces, the restaurants we frequent, WHEREVER we (the Church) find ourselves.
This, I believe, is living within ubuntu and embracing a mentality that is willing to first turn to one another.
Now, let’s be honest, this isn’t always that easy. People disappoint us, they fail us, they let us down. They even sometimes frustrate us and make us not want to be around them.
Just maybe when we look around this room (or we think about the people in our meeting) we are reminded of people who have not been this type of community for us. That is also part of the challenge. There will always be people we disagree with or that frustrate us or that we do not particularly like.
With those individuals, it takes, on our part, some personal awareness, some education, and often some reflection and even action to stay committed.
This is where Desmond Tutu is right. Practicing ubuntu and turning to one another also means we must learn to forgive, to listen to and allow other voices to be heard, to lay down our judgements, personal desires, political preferences, for the greater good of the community.
My hope in this New Year is that we would commit first and foremost to turning to one another once again, to take the time to journey with those God has placed within our community, to embrace the spirit of ubuntu, and to remember to acknowledge those playing the triangle in our symphony.
I would like to close this sermon with a poem written by a dear Quaker friend of Sue and mine, it summarizes well this call to journey together, and I think it is my favorite poem by Sarah Hoggatt. It is called The Journey Worth Taking and can be found in the book, “Spirit Rising: Young Quaker Voices” - which I highly recommend and is in our Meeting’s library.
The Journey Worth Taking by Sarah Hoggatt
We come from far-off lands,
cultures apart, struggling to
understand a foreign tongue,
another viewpoint, another way to live,
to see, to hear God in different words.
We listen, opening to new sights, perspectives,
ways to love as we discover
we are unique parts of a greater circle,
distinctive expressions of the Divine Life.
Yet our voices together lift up the mountains.
Our chorus pulses the river down the outward
flow into a world needing to hear the rushing tide.
We are on a journey and it may not even
matter so much where we end up,
but that we rise up to take the voyage.
We speak the truth of our lives,
hear each other and are changed.
We can love without complete understanding,
Walking the light together while miles apart.
If in the tension we can find
the one light we are birthed from,
the thread through our stories,
we may discover we are brothers, sisters all
of one skin, one laughter, music, lilting, free,
if we can just find the courage to come together
And take the journey.
Now as we enter this time of waiting worship, I ask you to ponder the following queries:
1. How aware am I of the need for others in my life?
2. Who may I need to “turn to” this week and listen to more intently?
3. As a faith community, how might we at First Friends embrace a spirit of ubuntu in the coming year?