holy ground by luana goodwin

8/8/2019 Holy Ground by Luana Goodwin

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FIRST UNITARIAN CHURCH OF PHILADELPHIA

A UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST CONGREGATION

2125 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia PA 19103

Office (215) 563-3980 www.philauu.org Fax (215) 563-4209

Holy Ground

Luana Goodwin, Congregational PresidentSunday, July 25, 2010

Without intending to do so, we summer worship associates may be presenting a series on

the declared sources of our Unitarian faith. Last week, Christine spoke about our Christianheritage. This week, I turn to the Transcending Mystery.

This first source of six of these is described as: Direct experience of that transcendingmystery and wonder, affirmed in all cultures, which moves us to a renewal of the spirit and an

openness to the forces which create and uphold life.I believe that this may be a Source of some discomfort for many of us. We shrink from

talk about God. When last asked, in preparation for the Search process that resulted in Rev.Nates calling to be our minister, over 70 percent or our congregation identified as Humanists.

Humanism is commonly understood as nonreligious philosophy emphasizing human values.And so, what meaning and relevance do concepts of transcendence or the holy have for

us? Where do they intersect with our lives or appear in our worship? How does it contribute toour shared bond and identity?

Brought up and receiving my catechism as a Methodist and so biblical stories wereinstilled in me. I was always impressed with the stories of Moses: his cradle floating in the

bulrushes, his discovery by the Pharoahs daughter and adoption by the royal family, and hisheroic rescue of the Israelites from Egypt and guidance of that ragged band to the threshold of

the Promised Land. A transcendent yet potent, insistent, often vengeful diety is pervasive in allof these stories

Now I thought I had remembered that Moses was wondering in search of his mission inlife when he encountered in the desert a bush that was mysteriously burning but not consumed.

Not so, he had fled Egypt because he had killed an Egyptian, who he saw beating a Hebrew, andthat fact could not be hidden. His people of origin (the Hebrews) were shocked by his crime and

the Pharoah was angered and ordered his death; but, Moses had found a comfortable place forhimself, marrying into the family of a wealthy priest, and owner of many sheep. And he was out

tending a flock. He was getting on with daily living.Many years ago, I audited a course in the religion department at Temple University. The

course I chose to take was Hermeneutics or interpretation. The professor, Dr. Sam Laeuchli,had concluded that the best way to understand a text, be it myth or scripture, was to enter it by

acting it out. And this became our practice.

Now the manner of writing in the Bible tends to be rather cryptic. The stories are not fullblown narratives or in-depth accounts of the events. They are more often sketches, althoughsome details are given. After all, in the Old Testament, it is not so much the people and their

feelings that are important, it is rather the way in which God engaged and used them.When Dr. Laeuchli prepared a group to enter a text, he set the scene for the story. He

might even contemporize it; but, he would always summon additional characters join the play, tofill in some of the blanks that the author had left in the text.


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For example, if we were to prepare to play the story of Moses encounter with theBurning Bush, we might also call the Pharoah who was harboring a murderous resentment of this

young man whom he had accepted into his family, only to be betrayed. Or we might call Mosesmothers, original and adoptive, both of whom probably felt grief over his crime and his self-

imposed exile. Or his sister. Or a royal brother who had envied him his place at court and now

feels vindicated and rightfully reinstated. Or his new father-in law, who had welcomed himinto his family and expected him to remain a loyal son. Moses situation was complex and hewas, no doubt, aware of many voices each with different perception of him and expecting

different things from him. He may have felt conflicted. The story does not tell us that; but, itseems quite likely. We can understand such complex human predicaments.

When he asked the presence, that he perceived so palpably, to identify itself, he wasinformed that he was in the presence of I am that I am. There are any interpretations of the

text. I once heard a version The One from which words fall away. That had meaning for me.The presence of a powerful force: indescribable, unnamable, unknowable.

What did Moses receive from his encounter with this presence? It was a commission,spoken as if by a Being, to rescue his people and lead them on a sojourn toward a Promised

Land. Though Moses may have been assaulted by an array of conflicting voices, one clear voiceemerged. Moses attempted to dodge the commission, saying that he was unable to speak and act

as the task demanded; but, the compelling voice countered his attempts to elude and gave himthe tools that he needed.

The God or transcendent power portrayed in the Old Testament was external andcommanding, using selected men, and sometimes women, to shape history. Is that a presence

that we can believe we will encounter in the 21st century? Here we might want to leave to worldof Moses and travel forward to our own.

As Karen Armstrong instructs us in her book, A History of God, our concepts of thatphenomenon have evolved over time. As we can trace an intellectual history of mankind, so we

can trace an evolution in thinking about God. Any concept of God is, after all, bound to ourhuman abilities to comprehend and communicate.

Armstrongs prize-winning book is well worth reading in its entirety. I must confess thatI have partaken of beginning and ending chapters only. The next to last chapter explores The

Death of God. She notes that, in the early nineteenth century, advances in science andtechnology and the assertions of Marx, Darwin, Nietzsche and Freud, to name a few, led people

to question whether their remained any place for God. And we people of liberal religious bentmay still be in their thrall.

We need not have the same expectations for our encounter. Where Moses encounter onHoly Ground was with a potent presence exterior to himself, I am going to suggest that

experience we seek may be of wholeness or of encounter more likely to be perceived as comingfrom within or among.

Now renewed encounters with the spirit do not come without preparation. We, likeMoses, might have to free ourselves to wander. We may have to step away from the forms and

beliefs we were taught by our parents or elders. We may have to reconsider the way we directour time, thoughts, and energy. It may not be comfortable. It may feel humbling. Moses was

even instructed to take off his shoes. What could be a more basic item, more essential forprotection in a desert than SHOES!

Armstrong suggests that the seminal religious question was that has echoed through theages is: Why are there beings at all, rather than just nothing? This question, posed in the face of


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the infinite, has been with mankind since we became thinking beings. If anything, it becomesmore knowable and unknowable as science progresses. The more we know and the closer we

think we are discovery, the further beyond us it appears. It is a question that is common to all ofus.

We are extremely finite beings in a vast cosmos. We could well feel abandoned and lost

if we did not fix our thoughts and aspirations on present and concrete things. We are only on ofmore than 600,000,000 people: we could feel adrift in the sea of humanity. We could settle onskepticism as our response to the bewildering rain of situations and circumstances that bombard

us. We, like Moses, are subjected to the divergent expectations of our culture, our parents,spouses, children, and ourselves.

Dare I say that I think that the intentional search for experience of the Wholely may be ananchor? Rather than working our hardest to block awareness of the Infinite that surrounds us,

can we engage in awe with it? And in doing so may we find our own limited understanding andcapacities placed in an entirely different context and thereby gain a quite different and most

revealing perspective.I will return now to Professor Laeuchli and his hermeneutic methods as I experienced

them in workshops beyond the Temple classroom. He guided us through a process, sometimes ahalf or whole day in length, during which the diverse voices of the myth or embellished story

expanded their conversation: pleading their cases, sometimes merging empathically, other timesenlarging their conflict, diverging to points far from understanding. He also included exercises

either demonstrative or meditative in nature. At some point, in each of the workshops I attended,I and most of the other participants arrived at a point of arrest: when the conflict was halted or

resolved for a profound moment. It always came unexpectedly seemingly unbidden. Thatmoment was, for me, Holy Ground.

I have pondered ways to describe my feeling when I think I am in the presence of theHoly or in Holy Ground. It is an encounter with a vast, yet resonant silence. It is for me an

opening to draw upon that a huge generous and generative resource. And if I can stay with thosefeelings, I may for that time feel myself to be at one with that silence, that support, that

abundance, that generativity and creativity. I feel myself to be engaged with the center of being.And I may, like Moses, emerge with new perspective on whatever questions or challenges I am

facing in my life. The encounter, however, is an interior one as contrasted with Moses exteriorone.

If we allow such encounters to take place, we may, like Moses, be able to see beyond thetraffic of our daily lives, to work out some integration between seemingly incompatible currents.

Or at least, we can find some rest and reprieve from them.At the end of her book, considering the Future of God, Armstrong draws upon the

wisdom of the Mystics to point the way if God, the Holy, is to have a future. They, she says,have always insisted that human being must deliberately create the sense of God for themselves,

with the same degree of care and attention they devote to artistic creation. The word God isonly a symbol of a reality that ineffably transcends it. That reality can only be touched by the

intuitive part of the mind and is not accessible through the logical, rational faculty. Today, shenotes, people may have lost the will to make this imaginative effort.

I come to church every Sunday to meet the Holy, to connect again with a sense ofwholeness. I wish I had other reliable spiritual practices and places; but, this is the primary. I

am grateful for the company of people, such as yourselves, who are joined with me in theimaginative quest for the Holy and wholeness. May it be so.


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Benediction

May you, through this experience of worship, whether through the music, the words, thegathering, the meditation.have come in touch with the Holy. May you keep that assurance

with you and share it as you go forth.

holy ground by luana goodwin

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