The Places We Have Been, The People We Have Known, The Times We Have Shared
It was a morning in August.
We had returned from most of our traveling. We had been to Indianapolis for the General
Assembly--over three thousand Unitarian Universalist gathered for an extended week-end
to conduct business, to worship together, to hear reports, to participate in workshops, and to establish and renew friendships.
We had been to Ohio to visit an old college friend. We had taken an international
cruise--from Sandusky, Ohio, to a Canadian island in Lake Erie--going through customs
and all the rest. We had visited Chautauqua, in western New York State, where we
had conducted a service for the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship. We had been to Cape
Cod for five delightful and restful days with the Spragues. Now we were home, hoping
that several weeks of painting and papering and scrubbing might rescue the house
from years of benign neglect.
It was a morning in August, and I was aware that the summer was slipping away and
that before I was prepared for it, the autumn, with its special excitements and possibilities
and inescapable press of responsibility would be upon us. As I started out with the dog on my morning walk, the sky was gray, and it matched my state of mind. I
was brooding over the state of the world. The season of political conventions was
upon us--a fact which always darkens my mood. The President of the United States
had just announced that he would sign the bill which he said would end welfare as we know
it, but which I saw as a moral retreat from the nation's commitment to care for its
children and for those among us who have been caught up and spit out by an economy
and a society which has no need of them. My inner skies were as clouded as the heavens under
which I was walking.
The dog, as is his habit, stopped by the telephone pole to sniff, moved on to the
post supporting the stop sign, and then trotted slowly up the street, taking in vast
amounts of information, and leaving traces of his own passing. Up the street we
went, my mind closed off and focused on a world of problems and disappointments. I was composing
mental letters to the President, expressing my anger and my fury as what I considered
a bitter betrayal. Up the street we went, the dog with all his senses open to the world integrated in and integrating the larger reality.
We reached the point in our walk where every morning the dog pauses, sniffs the air,
turns around and begins the journey back home. Blindly I followed him, turning down
the hill, allowing him to lead the way, only resisting when I became aware of the
fact that the dog, intoxicated with the great, wide world, was wandering into the middle
of the street.
And then, half way down the hill, something happened. Without warning, there was
a sudden shift in my vision. A leaf on a tree in front of me began to dance. I
suppose there must have been some air current which had caught it. But of all the
leaves on that tree, only one was dancing. Caught in some wordless ecstasy it twisted and bounced
on its stem, as if it were inviting me to join the dance. I stopped in my tracks.
My dog, Bart, tugged at the leash and then wandered into the brush to sniff a bit
while waiting for me to proceed. Watching that leaf I became aware of the song of
a single bird--fluid, graceful notes bubbling out of a small creature I could not
see or identify. And then the gray sky above opened and in the rift of the clouds
blue sky and bright sunlight appeared.
In that moment, on that August morning, it was as if some healing hand had reach out
to touch my soul. The inner clouds dispersed and I remember thinking, "This is the
day I have been given; I will rejoice and be glad in it." My anger and my sense
of betrayal, my deep frustration at the direction the world seems to have chosen remain
as strong as ever. But the sense of impotence in the face of monumental, impersonal
forces faded away. Once more the world of nature had reached out to calm my troubled
soul. Once more I felt at home in this world. Once more I felt empowered to speak the
truth that is in me. Once more I knew that my responsibility is to that deep, underlying
truth, that I am not required to win, but rather to keep faith.
The dog and I went on home and I changed into my work clothes and went back to painting
the wood-work, my mind continuing to draft a careful letter to the President of the
United States. It was a very small, very quiet, very personal moment. But when
I think of the summer of 1996, this will be the defining event--the moment when a dancing
leaf and a singing bird invited to rejoin the dance, to ground myself in the gracious
world that is our home, to focus upon what I am called to do and be and to trust
the process in all things.