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LET ME CALL YOU SWEETHEART

(and why it would be good)

Sermon by Rev. Jack Donovan, February 12, 2017 Unitarian Universalist Church of St Petersburg

READINGS (printed after sermon)

Gathering In the Beginning, adapted from the Gospel of John ch 1 Invocation

I Am the Self, from the Bhagavad Gita, UU Hymnal #611 I Who Am the Beauty, by Starhawk

Meditation I Went to the Woods, from Walden, by Henry David Thoreau Readings Before the Sermon

How Do I Love Thee, by Elizabeth Barrett Browning The Gift, by Mary Oliver

Stardust, by Barbara Rowell

Benediction Blessing, from a Chinook Peoples Prayer

SERMON

For several months, Sunday sermons have been focused on belief systems with which we might compare and grow our own. For this month, I’d like to

shift temporarily to questions about values. And for today, for Evolution Day celebrating Darwin’s birthday, February 12th, and for Valentine’s Day this

week, I’d like to talk about what value makes the world go ‘round. It has something to do, I think, with “Let me call you sweetheart”.

From the moment my daughter was born, I have called her “Sweetheart,” now usually shortened to “Sweetie.” From that moment, her presence on Earth

and in memory has sweetened my heart.

Also, about a year after I met Alisun and had worked with her on an interfaith committee, I began to notice that her presence, too, filled my heart with

sweetness – and I wanted to call her sweetheart. And it came to be, though I usually call her “My Darling” to avoid confusion in the household. Coming to

call, or be called by someone, “Sweetheart” - such a transcendant transforming moment.

Can you remember the first time someone called you “Sweetheart”? I don’t mean your parents saying “Eat your peas, sweetheart” or the waitress at the

diner saying, “What’ll it be, sweetheart?” I mean that naming that crosses a previous boundary of intimacy and changes you and your relation to the world

forever. It’s like the power of Adam and Eve taming the world by naming the animals – You are antelope, you are lion, you are panda, you are dolphin, you

are Sweetheart. Oh my God! Cupid’s arrow of spiritual lightning transforming you head to foot.

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Yet, on this Valentine Evolution Sunday, the heart, for all its stunning power,

seems not to have evolved much farther than love of self, family, mate, and off-spring. That ain’t bad evolution. But it seems that love is not all we

need. The seeds of love too seldom flower on unfamiliar soil – thereby entombing joy, making gladness mortal, pinning down the triumph songs of

life like a biologist’s collection of beetles.

But we don’t give up hope. We feel it from its full expression as in the words,

“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways!” We get the feeling that love – a most sweetened heart - is the end and purpose of Being – of your being, of

Being Itself, of the energy empowering life, of the passion in children, parents, saints, cosmos. The poet is asking us, Is this feeling not the divine

expression, the heart of the universe beating forth from the beginning - or what else could be moving the universe and holding it together?

I believe this self-expression of the divine spirit into life was even the answer

that Henry David Thoreau found at Walden Pond - going into the dark woods a lost soul, but leaving the woods at last with enough vision of the true Self and

enough strength of will to give hope and help to a world in stifled desperation – a far step on the journey of life.

When I was seven years old, I swung on a branch of that spirit myself in Walden Woods, taking swimming lessons at Walden Pond -- going into the

unfamiliar dream world of underwater for the first time, but with the foundation of the hands and eyes of the Red Cross instructors holding up my

body and building up my confidence. There, I would say, I was witness and beneficiary of another upward outward dimension of the spirit of love – caring

beyond family to let the little children come and go safely forth, buoying their spirits in the ocean of life.

And doesn’t Mary Oliver show us a still further dimension for declaring who is your “Sweetheart”? – bringing the gift of Mahler to a mockingbird, and being

rewarded ever after with love for the perched singer, for singing life, for a

giving mind, for the Self which takes this world so seriously. This seems to me to be a flourishing of the seed of the loving soul even in unfamilial fields.

Who can say what ends it will reach with its sputter and the white blossoms in its wings? Perhaps it will reach the ends of Being and ideal Grace.

The poet’s and mockingbird’s experience was unique. But we all have these potentials, it seems - journeying the passage of time and space to interact with

one another, take the measure of things, choose with love. This is not unique for the world. But it is evolutionary – and it is unique for each of us.

So how shall we establish this triumphant way? It seems we are not having much luck at the moment at home or around the world. The Taoist always

hedges, saying, We shall see. But what can we do to press our faith into our fate and share it so our fate is a blest and blessing one?

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Our five year old granddaughter Daisy and I were practicing drawing pictures

of people last weekend. She decided to draw herself with a great big head. Inside the head she drew lots of interlinking circles. “That’s my brain,” she

said. Then she drew a few boxes at the edge of the circles. “Those boxes are my thoughts,” she said.

Such is humankind – though often with less awareness than some five year olds --a vast swirling network of neurons generating limiting little boxes of

understanding, feeling, and even delusion. How can one’s neurons generate a box big enough – a logos, a concept, an expression big enough - to provide

space for the whole world to prosper in body, mind, and spirit? How do you get out of your little box when its expression of love is too small to expand your

realm of sweethearts?

Well, let us look around and reflect. We’ve just had the example of the

Tibetan monks, creating their sacred world peace mandala from sand and then

dissolving it to show there is nothing to fear in the passing flow of impermanence and even something to applaud and cherish and, with

compassion, spread through that ocean of life.

When I reflect back, I particularly remember a retreat I attended decades ago

in which the teacher – a retired UU minister - described one practice he valued as a way to expand and deepen consciousness and bliss:

- Get up early, he said, and read a text you might find profound; - Take a word from that text – or a word of your choosing;

- Meditate upon that word for 10 to 40 minutes; - Go for a walk with that word filling your mind;

– Or, take a quote from the text and memorize it as you walk; or - Write a poem from your meditation to memorize on your walk

Words which that teacher particularly favored for meditation, as I recall, were

Looking, Listening, Meeting, Trusting, Choosing, Persisting, Caring, and Thanking. He didn’t include Love on his list. I think he thought Caring was

a more substantive productive word for Americans. Over the years I’ve added a few words to his list, to better find my center and hold to it and let it hold me

so things won’t fall apart. My favorite for meditating and training one’s spirit is the word, “Appreciating” or “Appreciate”.

I like “Appreciating” as a centering meditation or contemplative prayer for several reasons. First, like “Caring”, it seems to encourage more activity and

productivity than the word “Love” encourages.

Second, it has three interrelated meanings that strike me as conducive to my

best state of mind. The three meanings are: One, Appreciation as Understanding, as in “I appreciate your explanation” or “I

understand your explanation”;

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Two, Appreciation as Gratitude, as in “I appreciate your kindness” or “I am

grateful for your kindness”; and Three, Appreciation as Enhancement, as in “Your house value appreciated” or

“Your house value increased.”

The third reason I like the word “Appreciating” is that I find that remembering,

repeating, and reflecting on “Appreciating” helps keep me more constantly in an affirming, uplifting flow of life, despite the distracting and sometimes

unsettling flotsam and jetsam of every day activity. It feels a lot more like holy time, more like my faith influencing my fate, more blossoming, more

immortal gladness for being shared in a song of life.

The focus on Appreciating lets my mind deepen in understanding, gratitude,

and helping life. It leads me to call lots more people Sweetheart, at least in my spirit. I have come to feel that “Appreciate” may have been the

originating Word of creation.

I am not claiming that this core Reality of gracious and appreciating Being is who or what I always dependably am. Hormones, neurons, societal

conditioning, small boxes of unhelpful beliefs and habituated attitudes in one’s mind – all can have riptide influences on our course of life, yours or mine.

But it is my strong sense from study and experience that the practice of meditating on desired values and states of mind like “Appreciating” can help

enlarge and even evolve the worth of the life we lead and in some real way change the world for the better.

Perhaps you will find other compelling words that help you more. Perhaps the word is “Grace” or “Gracious Source.” Perhaps the word is “Spirit”. Perhaps

the word is “Sweetheart”. Perhaps the word is “Stardust”. I commend them all to you with appreciation.

For his birthday, let the last word go to Darwin, from On the Origin of Species:

“Any being, if it vary however slightly in any manner profitable to itself, under the complex and sometimes varying conditions of life, will have a better

chance of surviving, and thus be naturally selected…. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a

few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms

most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.”

This we’ve come to know: The group that can come to appreciate every

person and every creature and teach the rest of us how – theirs will be the evolution that selects us all.

That group could be us.

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READINGS

Gathering

In the beginning is the Word, and the Word is with God, and the Word is God.

All things come into being through It, and without It not one thing comes into

being. What has come into being through the Word is life, and life is the light of all people, the children of God, full of grace and truth.

- adapted from The Gospel of John, ch 1

Words for Meditation

From Walden, ch. 2, “What I Lived For”

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not,

when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was

quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a

broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and

genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my

next excursion.”

From Walden, ch. 18. “Conclusion”

“I left the woods for as good a reason as I went there. Perhaps it seemed to

me that I had several more lives to live, and could not spare any more time for that one…. I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if you advance

confidently in the direction of your dreams, and endeavor to live the life which you have imagined, you will meet with a success unexpected in common

hours…. In proportion as you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor

weakness weakness. If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.”

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Readings Before Sermon

How Do I Love Thee, by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height

My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.

I love thee to the level of every day's Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.

I love thee freely, as men strive for Right; I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.

I love thee with a passion put to use In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose With my lost saints, -- I love thee with the breath,

Smiles, tears, of all my life! -- and, if God choose,

I shall but love thee better after death.

The Gift, by Mary Oliver

I wanted to thank the mockingbird for the vigor of his song. Every day he sang from the rim of the field,

while I picked blueberries or just idled in the sun. Every day he came fluttering by to show me, and why not,

the white blossoms in his wings. So one day I went there with a machine, and played some songs of Mahler.

The mockingbird stopped singing, he came close and seemed to listen. Now when I go down to the field,

a little Mahler spills through the sputters of his song. How happy I am, lounging in the light, listening as the music floats by!

And I give thanks also for my mind, that thought of giving a gift.

And mostly I’m grateful that I take this world so seriously.

Stardust, by Barbara Rowell

To the Stars that in their dying

leave the Stardust whence comes all – To the Sea that birthed you –

To the Land that nourished you – To the Sky that sheltered you –

To the Spirit of Life that sustains us and lives through us –

And to that Love that lives forever – To eternity – and beyond –

We commend you.

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Benediction

Blessing, adapted from a prayer of the Chinook Peoples

We go out upon the earth; may we appreciate its ways.

We go out upon the mountain; may we appreciate its ways. We go out into the forest; may we appreciate its ways.

We go out into the field; may we appreciate its ways. We go out into the water; may we appreciate its ways.

We go out among the creatures; may we appreciate their ways. We go out among the peoples; may we appreciate their ways.

We go out with our great ancestors; may we appreciate their ways. We go out with the great spirit; may we appreciate its ways.

May we appreciate the gifts of all; may we appreciate the gifts of all.