"True Joy: On Not Complaining That The World Will Not Devote Itself To Making You Happy"

Liturgical Materials for Sunday the 7^th of November, 1999

Mark Belletini, Minister First Unitarian Universalist Church of Columbus, Ohio

Opening Words [Next] [back to top]

We are here
on a bright November morn,
to worship, to remind ourselves once again
of what we already know,
that we are small parts of a great universe,
that our lives are bound up with each other's lives,
that we don't know everything or even close to it,
but that love, our end, our means,
is also our deepest, and most sublime purpose.

The First Reading [Next] [back to top] comes from the preface to George Bernard Shaw's 1903 play Man and Superman. I found it in the 1999 California AIDS Ride handbook.

This is the true joy in life---being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one, being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap, being a force of nature instead of a feverish little clod of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not make you happy.

The Second Reading [Next] [back to top] is San Antonio poet Naomi Shihab Nye's poem 1998 poem "Messenger"

Someone has been painting
NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE
across the backs of bus benches,
blotting out the advertisements beneath
with green, so the strong silver letters
appear clearly at corners,
in front of taco stands, and hardware stores.

Whoever did this
must have done it in the dark,
clanging paint cans block to block
or a couple of sprays---
they must have really wanted to do it.

Among the many distasteful graffiti on earth,
this line seems somehow honorable.
It wants to help us.
It could belong to anyone...
Latinas, Arabs, Jews, priests, glue sniffers.
Mostly I wonder about what happened
or didn't happen in the painter's life
to give her this line.
I don't wonder about the person
who painted HIV under the STOPS
on the stop signs in the same way.

NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE.

Did some miracle startle
the painter into action
or is she waiting or hoping?

Does she ride the bus with her face
pressed to the window looking
for her own image?

Daily the long wind brushes YES
through the trees.

Sermon: "True Joy: On Not Complaining That The World Will Not Devote Itself To Making You Happy" [Next] [back to top]

My dear friend Doug Robson has been visiting in Columbus this weekend. He and I used to live not too far from each other back in Oakland for a number of years. Now that I live here in Columbus, I can say that one of the things I miss most about my time in Oakland is the capacity to just drop in to Doug's place late at night for bit of ice cream and conversation.

He's been doing double duty this weekend,...visiting me, and attending the wedding of his friend Laura over at First Community Church.

I care about Doug deeply. I don't think it's very often that you meet someone and know clearly within a few short minutes that you are going to be fast friends with this person for the rest of your days,  but I assure you Doug is such a man for me.

I suppose, in a way, you could say that this sermon is sort of a gift to Doug, this man I love so much. But I assure you that you could just as easily say that this sermon is a gift from Doug to me.

How can a sermon I am preaching be a gift from Doug? That's easy. A remarkable event in Doug's life inspired this sermon lock, stock, and barrel. You see, this last June Doug rode his bicycle from San Francisco to Los Angeles, as part of the California AIDS Ride.

If you need a geographical analogy to understand that distance, it would be like you riding a bike from your home here in Columbus, Ohio, all the way to Nashville, Tennessee as the crow flies, or, considering the twisting, mountainous roads in California, all the way to Atlanta.

This is obviously not a trek you would do as a lark. Doug, and all the rest of the men and women who rode in the AIDS ride, got themselves into shape for such a long haul months in advance. Doug, for example, routinely used to take fifty and hundred mile rides into the hill country north of the Bay on weekends.

The purpose of the California AIDS ride? To raise funds for clinics treating HIV patients, especially early intervention clinics.

The purpose of the California AIDS ride? To raise money for transitional living programs.

The purpose of the California AIDS ride? To raise income for AIDS prevention especially for those under 25. This is especially important I think...of the 40,000 people in the United States this year that will be infected by HIV, 25% of them will be teenagers.

Does any of this fund raising go into measures that might help defeat the tremendous upswing of HIV infections in central Africa, in Thailand?  No. Its purpose is more focused than that.

Does a single cent go to support HIV struck African American and Latino communities isolated in the inner cities of many large North American cities on the East Coast or even here in Columbus? No. Its purpose is more focused than that.

The yearly California AIDS ride raises funds for only one small area of one single state...albeit a large one, in the western United States. Its purpose is to support specific agencies in specific urban neighborhoods working for specific and very focused results. This limited focus is good sense, I think. This broken world can only be healed piece by piece, never all at once.

How much did they raise this year in support of this limited but mighty purpose? About 11 million dollars.

How many people rode their bikes between the two great cities? About 3000. Each bicyclist that wants to ride has to pledge a minimum of 2500 dollars for the privilege. You do the math and see that each rider contributed an average pledge of 3600 dollars.

These riders were not asked to offer a goal. These riders were not asked to merely take good aim. These riders were asked for a pledge, a solemn promise, something you guarantee you will give unless dire circumstances prevent you from doing so. And $2500 was the least they could pledge.

Do they pledge this money from their own limited resources? Undoubtedly, a few may have. But, the AIDS Ride organizers expected the bicyclists to engage their own personal communities of family and friends to contribute, as a sign that all great tasks require allies of the heart. Though many found asking for the help difficult at first, each rider eventually succeeded in their efforts. My friend Doug, for example, raised $7000.

The 3000 bicyclists spent the night in Tent Cities erected along the way. They each had to bring many changes of clothes, spare shoes, spare bike parts and patch kits, water bottles, and gloves. The Tent Cities were set up, and nourishing food was provided along the way by a staff a thousand fold strong.

The coordination to enable all of this to proceed apace still boggles my mind. Permissions, routes, first aid supplies.... so many things to plan for, to imagine, to organize.

But all of this organization and coordination is not the purpose of the California AIDS ride. It enables the pledges to be fulfilled, yes, but the California AIDS ride is greater than the sum of all the planning meetings, organization, policies or even pledges. It's about the people, the people who form a community focused on high purposes.

I say this, you see, because Doug gave me his copy of the AIDS Rider's Handbook. In it, I not only found the sassy quotation from George Bernard Shaw, I also found these amazing words:

"The AIDS ride is about moving us beyond our limits, both as individuals and as a group. It goes beyond the fundraising, the challenges and training, and actually doing the Ride. It includes the way we treat one another, and interact with one another throughout the year, and during the Ride. (It's about) moving beyond our past experiences of the way we care about each other, and into a context of possibility. It's about the possibility that we can work as a team, in total support of one another---in a way that recognizes the well being of the group as important as the well-being of the individual.

Expect the unexpected on the Ride. Expect people to offer you help. Expect people to ask how you are doing. Expect people to support you and cheer you on in a way you've never before experienced. And expect to give that back.

The Ride is about responsibility and integrity. (It's a) demonstration that the world can work, if people work together. It's really possible."

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I don't know about you, but as soon as those words reached my heart, I told Doug that I had a sermon to give. A sermon about the possibilities that can hum in this congregation we call "a church."

My vision of the church. AIDS Ride

You know, I am not sure if I can tell them apart. Let me read the passage from Doug's AIDS Ride Handbook again, this time, using the word "church" instead of AIDS Ride.

"The church is about moving us beyond our limits, both as individuals and as a group. It goes beyond the fundraising, the challenges and training, and the church work itself. It includes the way we treat one another, and interact with one another throughout the year, and during the church life.

Church is about moving beyond our past experiences of the way we care about each other and into a context of possibility.

Church is about the possibility that we can work as a team, in total support of one another, in a way that recognizes the well being of the group as important as the well-being of the individual.

Expect the unexpected in the church. Expect people to offer you help. Expect people to ask how you are doing. Expect people to support you and cheer you on in a way you've never before experienced.

And expect to give that back.

The church is about responsibility and integrity.

(It's a) demonstration that the world can work, if people work together. It's really possible."

-----------------

That's what is really possible.

"No it's not," I hear someone say.
"Such a vision is just not possible."
"It's too utopian," I hear someone say.
"What about you know who?" someone says to me.
"He'll never get with the program.
He's always carping about something.
Nothing makes him happy."

Or "You know how she is," someone says to me.
She's always whining or crabbing about something,
negative, negative, negative."

No, no, the vision I offered includes him.
And it includes her.
And it even includes all those voices that carp
and say "yes, but...."
And, yes, it even includes those people who complain that other people are negative or obnoxious.

Negative people exist, I know that.
Annoying people exist.
I should know...I annoy people all the time.

But is it possible that giving up on them is better than patiently teaching them by example and direct speech how to communicate more effectively and kindly?

You take their concerns seriously, you know, without taking their poor ability to express their concerns personally. In the vision of the possible church I see, there might be a bit of room for us all.

Of course, as we engage each other with kindness and reality, I don't suppose it would hurt for each of us to drink a few glasses of spiritual adrenaline in the form of Shaw's reading first, this reading I found in the AIDS Ride Handbook.

"This is the true joy in life...being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy."

Being a "force of nature" seems a lot better to me than complaining that the world will not devote itself to making me happy.

Being caught up in a mighty purpose seems a lot better to me right now than whining that I am not the center of the world. Copernicus should have taken care of that illusion 400 years ago.

Doug says that the people on the California AIDS Ride were the least whining group of people he had ever known. The camaraderie, the mutual caring, the mutual support were breathtaking. Inspiring.

The possibility that the world could work this way was tangible in the air, he said. There were a lot of different people on the ride. Straight and gay, men and women... every color, religion, and philosophy were represented. Some were HIV positive themselves. Some were older, some younger. And yet they treated each other with courtesy, working together to transcend themselves. They poured themselves vigorously into the higher and "mighty" purpose of "moving beyond past experiences of the way we care about each other and into a context of possibility." A context of possibility. That's the kind of church that appeals to me.

Susan B. Anthony, in our story this morning, said something about possibility. "Failure" she said, "is impossible." She believed in the power that glows in "a context of possibility."

She didn't live to see all that she dreamed come true, but that was of no account. She didn't expect to.

Susan B. Anthony didn't expect the world was there just to make her happy, and fulfil her wishes. But she believed in her heart of hearts that men and women could relate to each other differently. She knew that it would take time, more time, even, than she had to live. But she did not whine that it would never get done.

Did she get tired, tempted to give up? Sure.

Did the AIDS riders get so tired that some of them wanted to give up? Undoubtedly. No one denies that a mighty purpose can do you in for a while, lay you low, wear you out. But being worn out is a lot better, says Shaw, than getting to your final day without having engaged in anything more wonderful than a whine or complaint.

Our San Antonio poet, Naomi Shihab Nye, notes the signs on the bus benches..."nothing is impossible." Sounds a bit like Susan B. to me. Ms. Nye sort of likes the phrase. It's a lot better, she says, than most of the graffiti you find on walls or benches. But, she doesn't know what it's for, or what its context might be. It could be simply a personal thing, a private statement that is ultimately unknowable.

However, the poet understands at once, and with clarity, why someone might have "painted HIV under all the stops on the stop signs." The purpose of those stop signs, the information on them, was inescapable.

I remember the day I first heard about AIDS. I was reading the New York Times back in 1981, and stumbled across a tiny article relating how certain young men were coming down with an illness usually found in 70 year old men. The only thing these men had in common was that they were all gay, or rather, homosexual, since the NY Times in those days refused to use the word "gay." I remember thinking quite clearly "Now what?"

And then it exploded.

A mysterious syndrome inviting rare diseases. Strange symptoms. Terrible prejudices. Invincible ignorance. White hot blame. Outright hatred. Isolation. Medical reluctance.

The notable silence of the government. The notable loudness of some churches.

In short, a thousand reasons to give up. In short, a thousand reasons to snarl grievances and lift up ailments, and give in, exhausted and bitter. But instead, the gay community, joined by lesbian and straight allies, decided to become "a force of nature."

Some of the initial protests were awkward, certainly. Larry Kramer's unbridled anger, for example, set some folks on edge. But you know, sometimes, in a noisy room, you have to shout in order to be heard.

And then came the AIDS walks, the AIDS rides, the AIDS concerts and art shows, the lobbying, the legislation, the religious grappling.

No one waited around until the president could say the word AIDS aloud, something he never did in eight years. No waiting around for the churches to offer their belated sops. No waiting around for the world to devote itself to making them happy or even thinking or caring about their health. But instead, believing in their hearts that people could treat each other better, they began to enact that possibility in their lives.

My friend Doug rode hundreds of miles, and raised 7000 dollars to make the world a place where failure is impossible, and where nothing, even love, even care and tenderness, even justice, even new healing of mind and body, is impossible.

My prayer this morning is that I might wear myself out the way Doug wore himself out....being used for a mighty purpose: more love than less, more justice than injustice, more cooperation than competition, more togetherness than individual impulse, more kindness than is usually expected, and more expectations of people moving beyond their past experiences and working together in the spirit of what is possible.

And as the poet reminded us at the end of her poem: "daily the long wind brushes YES," YES, failure is impossible, "through the trees."

Prayer to the Earth  [back to top]

Oh earth,
you are our home, our sanctuary, our solace.
You disperse our fatigue and weariness with the laughter of crisp yellow leaves still clinging on branches,
the seductive grin of the sun glancing off the sidewalk, the round dance of the stars wheeling overhead.
When we think we are the center of things, or terribly important, you blow, or shake or flood,
and show us how small we really are,
reminding us as ever that justice is our idea,
not yours.

You slant the light just so in autumn that we might remember.
You sing us lullabies of birdsong, anthem of whale, that we might feel at home.
Blest are you, earth, our home, our sanctuary, our solace.
You are the place where all possibility resides. Amen.

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