Sharing:The Formative Years of My Spiritual Life by Sharon Givens

    Looking back on the formative years of my spiritual life and the path that has led me to become who I am, I am amazed by how resilient the spirit is.

    I think I have always had an adventurous spirit, but it was "and remains" tempered by a deeply held sense of the profound, awe at the beauty of the world, and a strong desire for knowledge.

    When I was a child of about 6 or 7, everyone said I would become a school teacher.  My secret desire was to be a missionary.  I was enthralled by the mystique of "faraway places" and I wanted to go to those places.

    My spirit was eager for life.

    The Russians launched a satellite into space.  We named our cat "Sputnik".  John Kennedy was elected.  Madison Avenue began telling us that bigger was better and we must keep up with the Joneses.  The neighborhood dogs killed the cat.  My father had a heart attack.  My grandfather died.  The President was assassinated.  And I was growing up mimicking the racist and prejudicial attitudes around me.  In 8th grade I wrote a science paper on "colonizing the moon".  I wanted to go there.

    My spirit was confused and wanted to escape.

    During my high school years, Vietnam was a constant backdrop at the dinner table.  My school was integrated by a small group of black students from their "separate-but-equal" school on James Island where we all lived.  I saw that they were smart, caring, no different from me.  My junior-year  history term-paper topic was the November presidential election of 1968.  Martin Luther King was assassinated.  I questioned the racism around me.  I watched Robert Kennedy being assassinated.  I was glued to the television for three days as the nation mourned and buried this leader, this hero who had moved me deeply.

    My spirit was crushed.

    My senior English term paper was titled "Vietnam: The Moral Issue."  I concluded in 1969 that the "war" Congress never declared was immoral and United States troops had no justifiable reason nor right to be there.  At graduation, one of the speakers said, "Look around at your classmates.  A year from now, four of you will be dead."
 
    My spirit was charged with righteous indignation.

    Several months later, my parents called me at college.  They shared an incident that had happened at the Methodist Church which they helped to found.  It seems the minister had invited several black families to attend Sunday worship.  When the ushers had seated the visitors, half the congregation got up and walked out.  Those who didn't leave complained, and the minister was let go shortly after.  He was a mentor.  He subsequently left the ministry.  I, too, left the church of my childhood.

    My spirit could not be nurtured by that kind of Christian hypocrisy.

    As I was finishing my first year of college, the Ohio National Guard fired on and killed four college students at Kent State University.  My campus rioted in response as did so many others.  I remember magnificent Southern magnolia blossoms near the old library on campus filled with tear gas.

    My spirit was disillusioned, disgusted, and cynical about both church and state.

    These were the world events that shaped the formative years of my spirit.  I was 19 years old and my spiritual life was in shambles.

    Looking back with my 50-year-old eyes, I thank the Great Universal Spirit that my small individual spirit is so resilient.  For were it not, I think I, too, would have chosen to drug myself.  Instead I chose a different path.  My adventurous spirit took me to places that were the dreams of my childhood, not as a missionary but as a traveler discovering the uniqueness of the ordinary in other peoples lives.

    My spirit has been buffeted many times by the winds of pain, but buoyed many more times by the waters of hope.  Somehow, I never quite lost the childish belief that we the people are basically good and will do the right thing.

    I continue to resonate with the profound beauty of a rose, a smile, a friendship, the Big Dipper, the oceans, the music of Bach and Handel.

    Today, battered though it has been, my  spirit is singing with this community.

Sermon: by Mark Hayes

    Today we continue our consideration of pilgrimage as a metaphor for life and the quest for spiritual growth and understanding.  In the past couple of months we have talked about the longings in our hearts that lead us to seek a path – a way – that can help fill the emptiness we experience.  And we’ve talked about the callings we experience that help define the directions our paths should take.

     Now we find ourselves on the threshold, ready to set out on the journey to which we’ve been called.  And so we consider our departure – that single, crucial, first step over the threshold that is required on every journey, of one, of a hundred, of a thousand miles or more.

     But let’s not be too hasty.  Between call and departure comes the time of preparation for the journey.  The quality of the preparation will determine, or at least affect, the quality of the journey.  And so let us take some time to consider how we might best prepare ourselves for a fulfilling, rewarding pilgrimage.  One that will satisfy the longings that sent us on our quest to begin with.

     Of course when we talk about a pilgrimage, or a journey, we may be speaking either literally or symbolically.  While my main aim is to consider the spiritual journey, the symbolism or metaphor may in fact apply at many different levels, to many different situations.  The pilgrimage may be a literal trip, such as we might take as a vacation.  Or we might be talking about embarking on a new career path.  Or we might be talking about preparing to embark on the ultimate journey: death.

     Whatever the form of the pilgrimage you are preparing to make, I think there are some general principles that can enhance that preparation.  One form of preparation is to consult others who have made the trip.  This may be face-to-face, or it might mean reading the relevant books.  A travel guide can suggest some highlights to look for, as well as some pitfalls to avoid.  But while such a guide can provide helpful hints, and may give some sense of the possibilities of the voyage, it cannot replace the voyage.

    The map is not equivalent to the journey.  The map or guide can point to and define the path, but you must travel it yourself to get the full experience.  This point is fairly self-evident in the case of literal travels through time and space.  The maps and guide books, of necessity, are selective and incomplete.  There may be those who travel only vicariously through books or movies or their imaginations.  I see the true value of those means as motivators to hit the road myself.  They can point me in the right direction so that I might engage the world myself and, as Thoreau said, “suck the marrow out of life.”

    There are, of course, many spiritual guide books available.  These include the sacred texts of the world’s great religions.  But they also include myriad additional first-person accounts from across the centuries, right up to the present.  And there are new ones every day.

    With the huge volume of spiritual literature available, how are we to choose the best, the most appropriate to guide our own preparation?  I would suggest two tests to apply.  First, look at others who have followed a particular guide.  How has it served them?  How satisfactory and helpful has the journey been for them?  And second, how compellingly does the guide speak to you?  Does it address those aspects of the journey that are important to you?  Do the language and the content ring true?

    Another part of the preparation for departure is to take care of unfinished business that might detract from the full appreciation of the journey.  How much do you enjoy your vacation when you know there is a pile of unfinished work on your desk awaiting your return?  Or when some unresolved situation preys on your mind, crowding out more enjoyable thoughts?

    One thing I’ve learned about working with people who are terminally ill is that one of the greatest gifts you can give is assistance in dealing with unfinished business.  It often has to do with relationships.  Estrangements or unresolved conflicts cause agitation and resistance to letting go.  Or it might have to do with getting their affairs in order, being satisfied that the needs of their surviving loved ones are taken care of.  Whatever the particular situation, tying up the loose ends makes possible a peaceful death – a good death.

    When setting out on a spiritual journey, taking care of unfinished business may mean coming to terms with negative aspects of your earlier religious or spiritual life.  When it became clear to me that my childhood faith was not adequate for me, I rejected every bit of it.

    My naive understandings of religious concepts were all I had, and so I was not even open to the possibility of more sophisticated and authentic understandings.  The very mention of words like God, prayer, grace, or faith triggered an automatic, irrational reaction that actually hindered my further spiritual development.  That reactivity was a part of the unfinished business that I had to take care of before I could move ahead with a fully open mind and heart.

    And so an important part of the preparation for a pilgrimage of the body, mind, or spirit is to uncover those factors that are likely to undermine the quality of the journey, and to eradicate or neutralize them.

    Another prerequisite for a successful trip is to pack appropriately.  In The Art of Pilgrimage, Phil Cousineau says “How we pack our bags defines our journey.”  I think he’s right.  After all, what you choose to take along becomes your tools, your resources, for enhancing your experience.  Or it may become a burden that can limit your experience.

    For me, one key here, as in so many things, is balance.  At our house, there are two extreme approaches to packing for a trip.  One is to spend five minutes throwing a few clothes in a suitcase and trusting that anything else needed can be found along the way.  The other extreme is to pack every possession that might possibly have a use during the trip.  And to include clothing appropriate to every possible nuance of weather and every conceivable form of activity.

    I think there is some middle ground between the adventure of facing whatever you encounter, and the comfort of having planned for every possible contingency.  You want to pack those things that will enhance the trip, but not so much that you’re loaded down with excess baggage and with the responsibility of keeping track of it all.

    So what might be included on the packing list for a spiritual journey?  First, some of those guidebooks that you’ve already identified as being helpful.  And I think the most helpful are likely to be those that help to define the questions, and to point in some fruitful directions.  Not those that claim to provide final answers or define precisely the destination.  The most authentic spiritual guides will acknowledge that the most they can do is point toward the moon.  They won’t promise to hand you the moon.

    Another important thing to take along on the journey is some form of spiritual practice or discipline as a tool for staying focused and centered on the path.  It may be prayer or meditation.  It may be reading.  It may be journaling.  It may be music.  It may be service to others.  It may be a combination of these, or something else altogether.  Whatever it is, it can act as your compass, allowing you to monitor your heading and maintain the direction you have chosen.

    Finally, I would recommend taking some companions along on the way.  You and your companions may not end up taking exactly the same journey, or experiencing it in exactly the same way. But the companionship itself can add dimensions to the experience beyond what is possible on your own. You also may not travel with the same companions the whole way.  Be alert to those you encounter along the way whose company may enrich your own journey.  And be prepared to offer of yourself to enrich theirs.

    In a sense, the distinction between the journey and the preparation for the journey is artificial.  Preparation is a part of the trip, and does not end at the moment of stepping over the threshold onto the path.  Furthermore, much of our preparation occurs outside our consciousness.  All of life is preparation for what is to come next.

    What we’re really talking about today is bringing our preparation into awareness and making it intentional.  And again, that intentionality does not end once we hit the road.  A large part of the preparation for a fulfilling spiritual journey consists of cultivating a certain state of mind.  And equally important is to maintain that state of mind along the way.  In that sense, then, our preparation carries on throughout the journey.

    And what are some characteristics of that state of mind?  I’ll mention a few.  You may think of others.  First is to open your ears, your eyes, and your heart to the sacred nature of all that surrounds you.  Philip Cousineau suggests that you “Imagine your departure as a metamorphosis.  Through simple acts of intention and attention, you can transform even a sleepwalking trip into a soulful journey . . . [by treating] everything that comes your way as part of the sacred time that envelops your pilgrimage.”

    I have long believed that the major factor distinguishing spiritual experience from ordinary, mundane experience is the quality of attention we pay to our surroundings.  Paying attention to the voices, the movements, the interactions, the juxtapositions around us, and feeling deep within the interrelationships and interdependence of all things is, for me, at the very heart of spirituality.  If you have spiritual questions, you must be open to the universe’s answers.

    Another quality or attitude that I think is important to carry along on the journey is being prepared for the unexpected.  That sounds paradoxical of course.  After all, if you’re prepared for something, it obviously can’t be totally unexpected.  But what I really mean is to be ready and open to being surprised.

    This is really a warning against preparing too thoroughly.  If the itinerary is planned too precisely, down to the minute, and down to the mile, you may well miss some of the most interesting landmarks.  If your attention is totally focused on what you want or expect to see/hear/taste/smell/feel, that may well limit what you are able to see/hear/taste/smell/feel.

    And one final characteristic that may be required to maintain that openness to the unexpected, is courage.  Stepping off into the unknown, leaving behind the familiar and the comfortable, can be a scary proposition.  And yet that very fear and apprehension may add to the depth of meaning of your life if you can muster the courage to face it and pass through it.

    In closing, I offer the words of the Rev. Wayne Arnason, which I’ve used as a benediction a number of times:

 Take courage friends.
 The way is often hard, the path is never clear,
 and the stakes are very high.
 Take courage.
 For deep down, there is another truth:
 you are not alone.