| |
 “. . . to arrive where we started
and know the place for the first time.”
T. S. Eliot’s words never rang truer as today, the day on which this congregation returns to the physical space that housed it during the early years—a
familiar place filled with warm memories and beautiful natural surroundings. But nothing stays exactly as it was, not even Flat Rock Brook.
Flat Rock Brook sits on the vestiges of the Palisades Forest, an old natural woodland. Some time around 1876, the pond behind this building was formed by damming the brook after which this center is named. Although this parcel of land was never developed, it saw many transformations of the land around it and was itself put to different uses at least in part over the course of time, including a crushed stone quarry site and a shooting range for this city’s police department. In 1969, Englewood voters approved a city bond issue to acquire open land and the property on which this nature center now stands was bought. In 1973 the Englewood Nature Association, an independent nonprofit organization, was founded and a year later it changed its name to Flat Rock Brook Nature Association. Since we were last here, the “Backyard Habitat for Wildlife" native plant gardens were added as well as the Nature Playland. Improvements on current facilities have continued in recent years and are bound to continue during our stay.
And just as this is not the same place it was when we were first here, neither are we the same people we were at that time. Some members have moved away since then and others have arrived, some never having had that original Flat Rock Brook experience. Ministers have come and gone, and children have grown and moved away from home.
Despite the temptation to say it is so, we cannot claim to have come full circle for as a congregation, we are different from the way we were then. And so perhaps it is like the spiral spiritual path I spoke about a few weeks ago—a spiral which we ascend or descend to reach greater understanding as we gain more life experience and get more in touch with our core. This path readily permits us to revisit places where we have been before and view them from a different perspective. The ministers and congregants with whom we have walked this path have all contributed to our transformative journey in big ways and small. Our perspective has changed because we are not the same as when we started.
Along with the excitement of relocating to a new place, there is a sense of loss at leaving yet another one. Some of you expressed that on our last day at West Side Presbyterian. We had no parting ritual or observance. So focused were we on the move that we do not plan ahead for one. But we wish whoever follows us in that space good will and success in their growth. May they enjoy their time there before they too move on.
Those who became part of this religious community while we were housed there, may have some nostalgic feelings about it even if you are supportive of this move. Perhaps one consolation we can all have is that this time our choice to move was graced by our free will to do so. There were no city-mandated deadlines to vacate the previous premises nor differences in theology that precipitated our move. There was no urgency to move for one reason or another except the yearning of our hearts to be in a setting that nurtured our spirit in ways not possible where we were.
It was the children who seem to have felt the loss more than anyone else. Children are seldom consulted when adults make big decisions and it was no different this time around. Last week during coffee hour, I was informed that our youngest members were upset about moving. One or two were threatening a boycott of our new place. Sally Cummings and I sat with them for a while and listened to their complaint. What they would miss most was the long indoor balcony on which they could run, and play multilevel games when they included the floor below. The new place does not offer such fun and excitement. We talked for a while and soon the conversation turned to relocations that would excite them more and make them feel the move would be worth their while. At the top of the list was a church on the moon to which we would all travel by rocket. As the conversation got more and more creative and laughter came more freely, we were able to talk about some of the benefits of being here at Flat Rock Brook. And while not yet ready to concede totally, I think what began to appeal to them were two things—the door up there (pointing to door high on the wall with no steps leading to it) and the possibility of holding class outdoors in warmer weather. Children are resilient. And in a few weeks, I am sure they will have found other appealing aspects of our new home.
It is interesting how we call home or house the place in which we gather with other like-minded and like-hearted people to develop our souls. For many of us it is the place with which we choose to associate the most outside of the residential abode we also call home. Almost always we think of our spiritual home not only as the physical building in which we meet but also as the religious community that lives on beyond these walls, the rituals we observe, the ethos we create as we strive to be better citizens of the world and spiritual beings. All of these form the place where we bring our tender souls for healing, for understanding, for nurturing.
According to Clare Cooper Marcus, “A right home . . . can protect, heal, and restore us, express who we are now, and over time help us become who we are meant to be.” And so it is with our spiritual home. As I look around our surroundings, I feel as if we are deeply steeped in the seventh Unitarian Universalist principle, the one that encourages us to affirm and promote the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part. While on the surface this principle may speak to many of the natural world, of the plants, animals, and minerals that have no voice yet can be hurt by our carelessness, for me it is greater than that. It is the sum of all the other Unitarian Universalist principles before it and what calls us to be religious people. It is about the relationships we must forge in order to carry out this principle to its highest level.
The Reverend Forrest Gilmore, co-minister of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Princeton, makes this point very eloquently in his essay about the seventh principle:
“We make a profound mistake when we limit [this principle] to merely an environmental idea. It is so much more. It is our response to the dangers of both individualism and oppression. It is our solution to the seeming conflict between the individual and the group . . . Our seventh Principle may be our Unitarian Universalist way of coming to fully embrace something greater than ourselves. The interdependent web—expressed as the spirit of life, the ground of all being, the oneness of all existence, the community-forming power, the process of life, the creative force, even God—can help us develop that social understanding of ourselves that we and our culture so desperately need. It is a source of meaning to which we can dedicate our lives.”
Perhaps this is why we are back at Flat Rock Brook. Perhaps this is why so many of you jumped immediately at the opportunity to return here. As we sit in this building located in nature’s cathedral, we are reminded in some visceral way of our highest aspirations. Of all the places this congregation has been, it is the place constructed and maintained by people outside our religious community that best expresses and best reminds us of our purpose.
Yesterday, at the Leadership Retreat, we had the opportunity to envision this congregation five years from now. Those who saw us still here, had visions of this room being filled to the rafters, toddlers wandering about the aisles, from one friendly adult to another, nurtured with our love and absorbing our Unitarian Universalist values as if by osmosis. One person saw us preparing for a congregational meeting after the second service—an all important meeting at which we would vote to purchase a permanent home.
Home is where seeds are planted and cared for with love, cultured to give fruit over and over again. Home is where ideas are birthed and nurtured until they become reality. Home is where we dare to dream about the future and endeavor to make those dreams real. We are home once more. Welcome home.
One person, intrigued by a friend’s comment that he would not become a member of a particular church because it did not feel like home, conducted a survey of others who had found a spiritual home. Here are some of their responses to how their church was like home:
- Everyone knows who you are and they love you anyway.
- It is a refuge during storms.
- Others notice when you are hurting and they care.
- Everyone is expected to contribute in some way.
- Others support and encourage you.
- You attend events just to show support.
- Memories are important.
- There is a lot of love, some spoken, some silent.
- There will be challenges.
- You are learning together.
- No one is perfect.
- You have fun times together.
For these reasons and many others, we call what we have “home.”
The opportunity to “arrive where we started and know the place [as if] for the first time,” is a blessing. It is a blessing that we cannot take for granted and squander. This is a time to recommit to all that we hold most valuable, to recommit ourselves to the transformative journey on which we embarked as individuals at some point in our lives and as a community twenty years ago, to recommit to nurture and support that which keeps this community going and which promises to take us to levels never before reached. This is a time to take stock of that for which we have longed and endeavor to make it a reality. And we can do that in the safety of our new “old” religious home.
As we return again to the home of our soul, we dedicate this space to our highest aspirations and to the values we strive to live by. To mark this important milestone in our congregational life, we light symbolic candles of love, joy, friendship, spiritual enlightenment, and unity.
- We light a candle for love. May we speak words of peace and act with compassion.
- We light a candle foro joy. May our doors be always open in fellowship. May the walls protect us from harm. And may the windows let in the joyful light of the Universe.
- We light a candle for friendship. May our relationships prosper and our community flourish.
- We light a candle for spiritual enlightenment. May we grow in spirit as we learn together.
- We light a candle for unity. May we always value and appreciate the diversity that brings such richness and wholeness to our community.
Let us stand and join hands with the persons next to us as we pray— as we pray that we may make and nurture connections with each other and with all seekers after truth who come to our doors. And that this be a place in which we are most fully and deeply ourselves. Whoever we are, whatever our gender, age or ability, whatever our beliefs or cultural background, whomever we love, whatever our gifts, may we walk together in the ways of truthfulness, service, holiness and love.
Que así sea. Blessed be.
|
