A Good Connection
A sermon delivered by The Rev. Kathy Schmitz on August 26, 2007
At
Tomorrow is an important day… at least for some of the people in the room. What happens tomorrow? School starts. So, that’s pretty important for the kids who are going back to school… and for the grown ups in their lives.
For many of you, there will be new friends and new teachers, new classes and new things to learn. Some of you are probably going to new schools. This can be pretty exciting or scary – I always try to think of new things as exciting – but sometimes a little scary creeps in there, too.
Those of you going back to school tomorrow probably do not all feel the same way. Some of you even feel different from one minute to the next – just within your own self. That’s ok, even normal. New things can bring up all sorts of feelings.
No matter how you are feeling, we can be pretty
sure that most of you will be making new connection very soon.
Connections to people. Connections to ideas and to new ways of doing
things. To new activities and new interests. In a couple of weeks,
there will be even more opportunities for new connections as the new religious
education program kicks off here at
The beginning of new school years reminds me of all the very different ways that people learn and approach new situations. It’s something that people have talked a lot about in recent years. I know that some schools even have classes that help students learn about the different ways of learning and to discover which ways work best for them
I remember the first time that I really understood differences in learning styles. We have 2 daughters, Pam and Riky. They are young adults now but once upon a time they went to kindergarten (Anyone here starting kindergarten this week?). When Pam and Riky each started kindergarten, there was a rule that you had to wear a tag with your name and your phone number on a piece of yarn around your neck. You had to wear the tag every day at school, all the time, until you could say your phone number by memory.
As the time for Pam to start kindergarten approached we practiced our phone number. We often did it riding in the car – making it into a sing-songy little poem. In no time at all, Pam could recite her phone number.
Two years later, it was time for Riky to start kindergarten. We started practicing. We practiced and practiced and practiced. And still Riky did not know the number.
Then one day, Riky and I were playing the card game, Concentration. This is the game where you lay out the cards face down and take turns flipping them over trying to make pairs. When there is no pair, you turn the cards back down and try to remember where they are for the future. Riky was exceptionally skilled at this game. Once I got over the fact that I was being trounced by a 5-year-old, I suddenly had a thought.
I reached for a pad of paper and wrote down our phone number. I handed it to Riky and said, “Read this to me.” She did. I took the paper away from her and said, “Now, close your eyes and read it to me again.” She gave me one of those looks that said ‘What have you done with my usually sane mother?” but when I persisted, she closed her eyes, and, to her amazement and my relief, she read the number back to me.
We never had to sing the number in the car again because, from that moment forward, Riky just knew it.
Increasingly educators acknowledge the different ways that people learn – some more easily through seeing, some through hearing, some through touch and movement. Of course, most of us learn in all these ways, but many of us have a preference, or a way that is easier for us.
In business, it has been common place for managers and employees to be taught about different styles that people have for how they take in information, how they process it, and how they make decisions. One common tool for this is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Perhaps some of you have used it. If you haven’t, you may have heard people tossing around letters like “Oh, I’m very ENFP and she’s like, you know, an ISFJ, so that explains everything.’ Well, it doesn’t explain everything but it is one of many useful tools for understanding our differences. I’ve experienced it in both business and congregational settings. It helps us to understand ourselves and other people and, in its best application, it helps us to see how our differences can be our strengths. And recognizing the power of our diversity is something that we strive for in our Unitarian Universalist congregations.
When one begins preparing for the Unitarian Universalist ministry, one is required to have a career assessment – to make sure that this is a reasonable direction to pursue before investing a lot of time and money in the process. During that assessment, we all discover our 4-letter “type.” So, it was in a seminary lunchroom that I first heard the prayers that go with each type.
I’ll spare you the letters. You don’t need to know them. Just know there are 16 types.
Just see if you know anyone whose prayer might sound like this…I’ll just read some of them.
ISTJ: Lord help me to relax about insignificant details beginning tomorrow at 11:41.23 am e.s.t.
ISTP: God help me to consider people's feelings, even if most of them ARE hypersensitive.
ESTP: God help me to take responsibility for my own actions, even though they're usually NOT my fault.
ESTJ: God, help me to not try to RUN everything. But, if You need some help, just ask.
ISFJ: Lord, help me to be more laid back and help me to do it EXACTLY right.
ISFP: Lord, help me to stand up for my rights (if you don't mind my asking).
ESFP: God help me to take things more seriously, especially parties and dancing.
ESFJ: God give me patience, and I mean right NOW.
INTJ: Lord keep me open to others' ideas, WRONG though they may be.
INTP: Lord help me be less independent, but let me do it my way.
ENTP: Lord help me follow established procedures today. On second thought, I'll settle for a few minutes.
ENTJ: Lord, help me slow downandnotrushthroughwatIdo.
INFJ: Lord help me not be a perfectionist. (did I spell that correctly?)
INFP: God, help me to finish everything I sta
ENFP: God, help me to keep my mind on one th-Look a bird-ing at a time.
ENFJ: God help me to do only what I can and trust you for the rest. Do you mind putting that in writing?
People are different. We know this. Any yet, still, even in our open-mind spiritual communities, we sometimes loose sight of this reality. We know that people have different learning styles… so why would we be surprised that people have different spiritual styles as well?
I am not talking here about people having different theologies or philosophies or world views – though, of course, people have those differences.
I’m talking about the different
ways that people approach their theologies, or philosophies, or world
views. It’s a different way of thinking about
the diverse journeys that people take and that might be supported here at
Understanding these journeys is important for several reasons – institutional, personal, and relational.
First, as I mentioned is institutional. How can this congregation mindfully support a variety of types of journeys?
Second, from a personal perspective, the more you understand the journey you are on, the more likely you are to connect with others who might share that path and to look to mentors that have walked the path before you. In this way you will connect more fully with that which is most important to your spiritual exploration.
Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, the more you understand the alternate paths that others are on, the more you will be able to connect with them in other important areas -- the more people will be able to enrich each others journeys by sharing what each has experienced so far on their own.
These paths have been described by many people and
traditions in numerous ways. In
Another lesson from
Note here again, we are not talking about different theologies. All the paths I’m talking about can take place within, for example, the religious tradition of Hinduism… they can also take place within the context of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. The different paths can be found among those who ground their world view in nature or science. Each path helps those who walk it to connect more deeply to the sources of meaning in their life.
As I said, the paths have been described in many ways, with many models. No one model captures it all but each can be a useful starting point for discussion. I’d like to share the model described by Unitarian Universalist minister Peter Richardson in his book “Four Spiritualities.”
Let me tell you the names that
The Journey of Unity
The Journey of Devotion
The Journey of Works
The Journey of Harmony
For today, I invite you to consider… if you recognize yourself in any of these descriptions… if you recognize the any of the people you love… if you recognize any of the people who you find… to be at times a frustration… or perhaps at other times a mystery.
We start with The Journey of Unity. Those on this path
are looking for the big picture that makes sense of it all. This is a path that seeks knowledge and understanding.
According to
Are you or someone you know on The Journey of Unity?
Next we move to The Journey of Devotion. Those on this path are looking for direct connection. This is a path that seeks to experience devotion through and to a source of love, often in the form of a god or goddess or their representatives. According to Richardson, The Journey of Devotion values pilgrimage, and heroes, and stories. It is direct and hands on and holds personal experience central. It values simple things and direct service.
Are you or someone you know on The Journey of Devotion?
Next we have The Journey of
Works. Those on this path look for meaning through action and
service. This is a path that sees individual
action as important in the unfolding of universe. According to
Are you or someone you know on The Journey of Works?
Last, we have The Journey of Harmony. Those on this
path are open to the unfolding mysteries in life. This is a path of
increasing self-awareness. According to
Are you or someone you know on The Journey of Harmony?
Four spiritualities. Unity. Devotion. Works. Harmony. Four journeys found across religious and philosophical traditions.
I suspect at times a Christian scholar and a Jewish scholar might find they have more in common with each other than either would with a mystic of their own tradition… and visa versa.
A Muslim and a Buddhist working side by side to eradicate hunger might connect more than either would with someone of their own faith who chooses a more contemplative life… and the other way around.
Four spiritualities. Unity. Devotion. Works. Harmony.
We may have our preferences but few of us walk one path exclusively.
But knowing about the paths can help us find our footing on our own journeys.
Consider the child born into a family that values only hard work and study but who themselves longs for personal connection. What if the child knew that what his hearts yearns for is valid?
Or the young adult who realizes that the devotional prayer with which she was raised leaves her empty but working at the local soup kitchen fills her up.
Knowing the paths can help us find our footing.
It can also help us walk more easily with one another.
Consider a meeting of a social responsibility task force within a congregation.
One person suggests helping to refurbish homes in a struggling neighborhood.
Someone else remarks that it is more important to change the public policies that make life in the neighborhood a challenge.
But, replies the first, while you are out lobbying for change, the rain is still pouring through the roofs of those homes today.
When we understand the paths that others walk, we can stop arguing and find ways to honor all our journeys. For if we stand back we see that it is true that both policies and roofs need repair. Can we find ways for our paths to complement rather than compete with each other?
Or how about if our journeys support one another?
Those who leave the walls of this building to repair policy in the state capital as well as those who go to repair roofs down the street will return for times of rest and renewal. Those whose nurture the institutional and devotional life of this community help to ensure that they can find here a place to rejuvenate.
Those whose passion is out in the world can help ground the institutional and devotional life of this community by reminding others of the need to live responsibility in the world and calling the congregation to a continuing relevance in the larger society.
Those who study and look at the big picture can remind the quickly impassioned to consider the consequences of their actions. Those with a fire in their bellies can call others out of their ivory towers and off their meditation pillows to engage with the world.
If you were to look at the covenant that this congregation says together each week, you would find that it does in fact honor all of these journeys. I leave that exercise to you as homework.
(For reference: Love is the doctrine of this church,
the quest of truth is its sacrament,
and service is its prayer.
to dwell together in peace,
to seek knowledge in freedom,
to serve human need,
to the end that all souls shall grow
in harmony with the divine —
thus do we covenant with each other.)
The Journeys of Unity, of Devotion, of Works, of Harmony
Different paths that twist and turn. Varied journeys that intersect and merge at times.
Different paths. Each with its blessings and its challenges. Each with different maps.
Returning for a moment to the question of learning styles.
When I am looking at a map, I need to turn it so that it matches the reality on the ground. If north on the map is facing south in the real world, I need to either turn the map or move myself. My spouse, Charlie, does not have this need. But, he has learned that he will communicate better with me if he accommodates my need in this area. (Thank you!)
Now I love maps, especially when they are oriented in my preferred direction. So when our daughter Pam learned to drive, I would draw her maps for the places she needed to go. If she got lost, the next time I would draw her what I thought was a better map. Now, this is the child who learned her phone number by singing. No matter how good a map I might ever have drawn, it was never going to be the right set of directions for her. This is a child, now an adult, who is verbal. The very best way to give her directions is with words, not pictures. And so, I have stopped drawing her maps.
And so it is with our spiritual lives. Too often we keep trying to help others by explaining more precisely the journey we are on. But if we really want to make good connections, if we are to truly offer each other acceptance and affirmation, if are truly to honor the many paths and many sources that we have available to us, then we will sometimes need to met others where they are instead of demanding that they join us where we are.
So this in my invitation to you this week: Look for opportunities to turn your map on its head or to set it down complete. Try to speak a new spiritual language. Peer down a path you have not yet explored. Seek out opportunities to connect with others in new and creative ways. In this way you will bring more love and light into the world. In this way you will change lives… beginning with your own.
May it be so.
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