So That Fresh, Green Leaves Might Grow
Reverend Janet Parsons
Gloucester UU Church November 13, 2022
“The moon changes, the atmosphere changes,
And yet this is all somehow a constant,
Something solid to count on, Constantly in motion.” (Mary Wellemeyer, Constantly in Motion)
I think a great deal of cycles these days. Of course, this is prompted in large part by the change of seasons, as we transition toward winter. Each year, the plants die back, the leaves fall, and the sun gets daily lower in the sky. We know all this, of course. And this year, the cycle of life is especially apparent to those of us in this congregation, as we have had to say goodbye to so many people in just a few short weeks – Sylvia Anthony this past summer, then Rufus, and Lee, Linda, and Marge. At times such as this the unending cycle of life in which we live our lives is so much more apparent: the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth.
As Mary Wellemeyer said in her reading, we can depend on all the changes. They are something we can count on, even though the earth and everything around us is constantly in motion. I am so struck by the paradox in her words, how change is both something solid, and something fluid. We can count on it, but we cannot stand still on it.
Our theme this month is Change. And it might feel to you right now as though we’ve had nothing but change in the past few years. We’ve had enormous losses, of activities, travel, time with family and friends. We learned how to be alone a great deal. We learned how to run a church community in new ways: think about our Zoom sessions, and our online worship services. All this was unimaginable just three short years ago. But of course, the pace of the change has felt relentless and sometimes unmanageable. And unwelcome.
A minister of mine once told us, “Change is inevitable. Growth is optional.” That stayed with me. I was fairly new to church life at the time, and was learning rapidly how to engage with life’s journey, and with the never-ending changes that call us to adapt and adjust. Too often, I would find myself taking stock of myself and thinking, “Well, I’m not the way I was last year, or a few years ago – I can really see how I have grown in this area or that area. But isn’t this good enough now? Can I just stay like this?”
And the sun, and the moon, and the stars and the tides reply, “No. You cannot stay like this. In fact, you’re not who you were when you asked the question.” We stand on the beach and see that the next wave that rolls in is a little higher than the last one.
For this reason, I often say that although life is a giant cycle, in fact, we experience it more as a spiral. We go around and around, yes, returning to the seasons in their time, as the sun rises and then sets. But when the sun rises again, or fall or spring returns, we are not the way we were when we were last standing in that place. We have spiraled, perhaps upward, perhaps downward. The moment in space, that very spot, might look the same, but we have moved within it.
There are so many words that help us to grasp this, that sense of everything being in motion. Of course, as we confront and adapt to change, we can think of ourselves as evolving. Evolution – the root of that word is from the Latin, from evolvere – “to roll out or away – to unroll, unwrap, unfold.”
And then there’s Revolution. The root of this is easier to guess at: the act of revolving, turning, to change direction.
Both of these words that imply great change in life: evolution and revolution, are rooted in movement, in change.
Parker J. Palmer, who we’ve been hearing quite a bit from lately, talked yesterday about the meaning of revolution. He commented that the election last week could be considered a non-violent revolution. As he put it, “the Red Wave did not materialize, the MAGA movement was weakened, and a lot of people said no to political madness. We the People turned the wheel…”
Palmer also shared a poem by UU minister Lynn Ungar, called Revolution. She wrote, “Revolution isn’t the same as victory. Revolution is the turning of a wheel whose essence is change.”
It seems, then, that in our lives we have frequent opportunities for our own revolutions. We turn, and turn again, one day facing this way, another day looking backward, then turning to face the future again. We are never on a straight path, moving forward. We are in a lifelong walk through a labyrinth, moving forward for a time, doubling back, feeling as though the center is almost within reach, and then finding ourselves heading almost back to the beginning. I invite you to think for a moment about the incredible wisdom of a labyrinth, how without a single word the designers in the Middle Ages managed to convey the reality of the human journey.
The Sufi master Rumi understood this. And he tried, in his poem The Guest House that Pat read a few minutes ago, to offer what we need in order to navigate, to evolve and revolve, to gracefully accept the changes that are never ending. Rumi told us, in this new interpretation:
“Every day, and every moment, a thought comes like an honored guest into your heart. My soul, regard each thought as a person, for every person’s value is in the thought they hold. If a sorrowful thought stands in the way, it is also preparing the way for joy. It furiously sweeps your house clean, in order that some new joy may appear from the Source. It scatters the withered leaves from the bough of the heart, in order that fresh, green leaves might grow.”
Welcome the changes, urged Rumi. Orient your thinking so that rather than dreading change, dreading something new and different, wonder what it might be bringing you. What might a change sweep from your heart, what dry dead leaves might be raked away so that fresh green leaves might grow?
My friends, as we constantly confront change, I invite you to think of yourselves as revolutionaries. But how should revolutionaries act? We think of revolutionaries as people with weapons, who are angry, and willing to fight for changes that ensure their rights, who are willing to be violent. But in her poem, Lynn Ungar offers us another way to think about how to be a revolutionary:
“Don’t bother arming yourself,” she wrote.
Instead, disarm…Disarm yourself of the need for comfort.
Go lightly into places where you are a stranger…
Pledge allegiance to the tree outside your window…
Fill your arms with fruit, with flowers…”
Our response to change is a conscious choice. Will we cling to the old dead boughs, or embrace the new green growth? Will we remain in a place of anger and bitterness, or will we seek ways to foster life, to generate life and health and growth for all?
Change is inevitable, yes. It is constant. The moon and the tides will tell us that every day. But our response is a choice. Choose to evolve, to be revolutionary. Who knows what will arrive in our houses when we turn toward new life and growth?
With gratitude and courage for the labyrinth,
Blessed Be. Amen.
