Subject: "How My Mind Changed" PASS THIS TO AT LEAST SIX PEOPLE IN
THE NEXT 10 MINUTES
You know those messages people pass to others, the ones that make it
easier for us to let others know that we love them because there's a
good message already written for us to send on?
Please think of this as one of
those messages, that I am
passing on to you to tell you I love you and that you can pass on to
people whom you love. That's what this is about. That's where the
"pass this to at least six people in the next 10 minutes" thing came
from. :-)
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-by way of Rev. Forrest Church, given to a bunch of people September
20, 1998, part of "How My Mind Has Changed."
..... As for my sermon, the good news is, given that Kami sent my
last week's sermon about the Clinton mess out to everyone, and given
that my mind hasn't changed over the last seven days, I can talk
about something else this Sunday. The bad news is, for those of you
who came to church to hear something really important or
earthshattering, I am going to devote my last sermon as a
forty-something person to a free-flowing set of ruminations about
myself.
Actually, I'm going to do this twice over the course of the fall --
I'll wait till November for the second -- sharing with you how my
mind has changed, which means in essence how I have changed, during
my twenty year call as your minister. I have to do it twice, because
I have a few theological observations that won't fit in this
morning's sermon. How my mind has changed about the Bible, for
instance, and how my mind has changed about God. But before I get to
that, I have to do something that almost undoubtedly is less
important but does by nature take precedent, how my mind has changed
about myself.
To ensure that you will leave this morning with at least one story
that will make you feel better about yourselves -- better at least
about the most stupid thing you have done recently -- let me share
with you the most egregiously stupid act I committed on the verge of
fifty.
Until about a month ago, I have been completely bored by members of
this congregation who came in for pastoral counseling about the
trauma of turning forty or fifty, or even thirty for goodness sake.
Fortunately, by the time we reach sixty most of us have come close
to growing up, by seventy we've made it, and by eighty or ninety our
daily pains are more likely to preoccupy us than our birthdays are.
Nonetheless, until last month, I had little sympathy for any
prospective fifty-year old who was obsessing about getting old. And
then it happened to me.
So what did I do? I went back to the gym. I changed my diet. I lost
20 pounds. And then, or during the course of all this, I simply lost
it. I did the stupidest thing among those things that don't really
matter that I'd done since I was sixteen. I dyed my hair.
Don't laugh (Okay, you can laugh!) But just think of how magnificent
I would look right now if you had seen me the day I did it. Black. I
chose black. My hair has never been black, but since I always take
three aspirins rather than two when I have a headache, black somehow
seemed right. Fortunately, I was alone at the time, alone for three
days at home writing, with my wife away on business and the children
at camp. I dyed both my hair and my beard. I dyed them black.
After an initial blush of admittedly vain self-satisfaction, I
looked at myself in the mirror the next morning and was appalled. I
may have looked fairly good, but I sure didn't look right. So I
started taking showers. Three a day. I even tried shampooing with
something made for men than is supposed to enhance one's gray hair.
The problem was, my hair wasn't gray any longer. It was black.
But not for long. At the end of three days, not only was I cleaner
than I have ever been before in my entire life, my hair was no
longer black.
"What's happened to your hair," Carolyn said. "Your hair is green."
To be fair, my hair was green with a tint of yellow. I confessed,
and took a shower.
"Why would you ever do such a stupid thing?" she asked. (By the way,
this is a woman who has always accused me of being insufficiently
vain.)
"I guess I wanted to feel young," I sheepishly replied.
Before I try to turn this into a sermon, I have to tell you one more
completely embarrassing story. It is the same story. I was 16, away
on summer break. I was working at a ranch. All the girls put lemon
in their hair to lighten it in the sun. At the end of the summer,
liking the effect but a month behind and needing to catch up, I put
lemon, lots of lemon, in my hair. Nothing seemed to happen. So I
added a full bottle of peroxide. This was a mistake. It was a bad
mistake. My hair turned bright orange.
With three days till school, all I could do was to cut it all off.
So I had very short, very bright orange hair. To draw attention away
from it -- I've never had much of a sense for fashion -- I went to
school the first day in a bright orange shirt and electric orange
socks. I looked like a carrot on speed. Clearly, dying my hair was
one thing I would never do again.
So here I am, thirty-four years later, preaching a sermon on what I
have learned. Obviously, in certain respects, not a heck of a lot.
But even here, maybe something. Maybe that all of us are at least a
little insecure. Maybe that we try to camouflage our insecurities
sometimes in superficial ways. Maybe that, when do we embarrass
ourselves, the best thing we can do is get a good laugh out of it.
Even let others laugh at us and with us. My favorite line in all
theology is G. K. Chesterton's quip that "Angels fly because they
take themselves lightly." By the same token, the devil fell on
account of his gravity. In general, we humans are remarkably, if not
always intentionally, humorous creatures.
It's not a bad thing to laugh at ourselves. In fact, it's a good
thing. I may have learned this out of necessity, but I also have
learned that if we don't laugh at ourselves, we may be overly
tempted to be severe with others.
For instance, my memory of orange hair, not to mention the foot-long
proto-Ziggy Top beard and very distressed levis made at least half
way decent by safety-pins that I sported in college, stilled my
tongue this summer when my eldest son, who in other ways is quite
stunningly successful, showed me his nipple ring. To a parent there
is nothing stunningly successful about a nipple ring. But, given
that I was about to have green hair, I a very pleased with myself
for giving the nipple ring a pass.
So that's the first thing I have to say this morning. If you can,
when you can, give yourself and others a free pass. Accept and
forgive. Lighten up.
Just remember, all of us are going to die. And when we do, none of
us is going to have much more than the faintest idea what life was
all about.
If there is a heaven, and if I go to heaven, my guess is that I will
have scored more points by being kind to taxi cab drivers and
over-tipping waitresses, than for anything else I have done or not
done.
I must admit, I don't think much about heaven, but I have always --
and in this job you have too -- thought a lot about death. As most
of you know, my own definition of religion is a simple one. Religion
is our human response to the dual reality of being alive and having
to die. We are the animal who knows it is going to die and therefore
questions what life means. These are religious questions. They are
religious questions, both for atheists and true believers.
Over the years, I have come to believe that what our lives mean has
far more to do with what they mean to others than with what they
mean to ourselves. I have also slowly begun to realize -- even
though I often fail to act on this, that when we are too absorbed
with ourselves --with our careers, positions, needs, even our dreams
-- we close others out, and our circle of meaning is diminished.
For me, therefore, one of the great things about turning fifty is
this. I am finally beginning to reckonize -- and this is truly
redemptive -- most of the things I dreamed of accomplishing, I will
not. For instance, though I have been blessed with the opportunity
of writing books, I am never going to be guilty of committing a best
seller. For me, spiritually, at least today -- you may have to check
back tomorrow -- that is more of a relief than in is a
disappointment.
We should always do our best. Of course we should. We should always
strive to do better in our lines of work. But to get obsessed about
our accomplishments (so often framed in a negative print image
against others' apparent but often imagined accomplishments) only
serves to cut us off from others, even, and sometimes especially,
from the people who have the best chance of redeeming our lives.
Think about these people. Our family. Our coworkers. Our friends. If
we let them, they redeem our lives by loving us for who we are, not
for who we'd like to be. They redeem them by challenging us to be
better people in little ways, not major ways, the little ways in
which we can surely change to make their own lives better, their own
lives and ours as well. And finally, perhaps most importantly, they
redeem our lives by reminding us daily that their own lives are as
important as our own. As important, as flawed, and as wonderful.
In this regard, much of what I have learned in life are the things I
know I have to keep learning. Love takes practice. And kindness,
that too. And forgiveness. Even self-acceptance takes practice. This
is simple, daily, and supremely important stuff.
For me, my most important teacher is my wife, though she is and
probably always will be frustrated at how poor I sometimes am with
my lessons. My children also teach me. In part they teach me to
remember what it is like to be a child. Not to be childish, but to
be a child. We all are children. We continue to be children.
Ultimately -- and I do believe this, I finally believe this -- we
are children of God. That, of course, is another sermon.
As I close these remarks, I realize that I may be as guilty this
morning as the person who says to you, "Well, enough about me. What
do you think of my hat?" All I can promise is, my next sermon,
whether you like it or not, will have nothing to do with my hat.
But I will say this. You are all, almost every one of you, far more
lovable and forgivable people than you think you are. I know that.
And you need to hear that. You need to hear it from the pulpit, even
if you have to put up with the preacher saying that he himself is
actually a far more lovable and forgivable person than he thinks he
is. Not that he fully believes it. None of us does, not fully. If we
did, we might be dangerous, far more dangerous than we actually are.
What I can say this morning, without exaggeration, is that I love
you. I love you not only for the little things you do to make this
world, our world, a slightly better place, but also for accepting
your failings when you fail; for your weaknesses, which connect you
to all of us; for daring to expose yourselves by reaching out for
help; and also, perhaps especially, for your courage (most of us are
far more courageous than we know) in times of trial.
I can also say this. I need you just as much as you need me. That
goes for you too, for you and others. Especially in matters of faith
and spirit, we need one another. We need one another's love and
inspiration, others critique and chastisement, not more -- that
would be silly -- but at least as much as we need our own self-love
and self-esteem. And they need us too. They need us as much as we
need them. Salvation may be an individual quest, but redemption is a
corporate enterprise.
That's all I have to say this morning. Thinking about it, I retract
my apology. I really haven't been talking about me. I've been
talking about us. And we're okay.
Amen. I love you. May God bless us all.
Copyright AllSouls 1998. copyright exception not for profit,
educational
http://www.allsoulsnyc2.org/publications/sermons/fcsermons/how-my-mind-changed.html
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love, Larry
