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September 14, 2008 – Do You Want Fries With That?
sermon
the coming darkness
Sept 21, 2008
Ellsworth, ME
Rev. Leela Sinha
The coming of the dark is the coming of limits, the coming of boundaries, the coming of edges. Our summers here are vast, open spaces of mile-long days; as the equinox comes we feel the shift, close windows, don sleeves and sweaters, light lamps to hold the edges of the evening back for a few more days. It is in our cultural nature to fight limits, turn on the lights, turn up the heat, hold tight to that perfect-weather day. It is our habit to resist the darkness.
But it comes anyway.
It lets itself in at the kitchen door, puts the water on for tea, and boots up the computer. One day we arrive home and it’s got its feet up in the living room with our favorite novel.
It comes uninvited, stays as long as it wants, and doesn’t do its own dishes or use coasters on the good furniture. When it leaves our home looks like it’s been hit by a tornado. It could be anything: death, depression, divorce, children going to college, a change of jobs, a change of fortune, or a change of seasons. It comes. And it stays.
resistance really is futile.
Discipline is not.
In her book, Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert writes about several struggles she has while studying and practicing at an ashram in India. One of them is the voice in her head while she tries to meditate. Another is her resistance to the Gurugita. The Gurugita is a 182 verse Sanskrit chant that she describes as “The murderous thing we do here.” She doesn’t like the tune. She doesn’t like the words. It makes her smoke and steam and sweat. It makes her so mad that she skips out in order to meditate or call home, even though she traveled halfway around the world to stay at this place. And the hardest part is that the ashram won’t give her anything to really rebel against. One of the people she consults says, “You’re not here as a tourist or a journalist; you’re here as a seeker. So explore it.”
“So you’re not letting me off the hook?”
“You can let yourself off the hook anytime you want, Liz. That’s the divine contract of a little something we call free will.” (Gilbert, Elizabeth. Eat, Pray, Love. p.164)
And yet she goes, fuming and full of rage she goes, full of irritation and resistance she goes. And then one morning she oversleeps. As she is grouchily preparing to leave the room she discovers that her roommate has accidentally locked her in, and that’s with a padlock.
Something–coincidence, conditions, God–has handed her a perfect excuse. What does she do?
She jumps out the window, drops about 14 feet to the cement, and runs, barefoot, to the temple. Because she has to be there.
It occurs to her about three or four verses in that she actually doesn’t want to be there. And then she hears her Swamiji’s voice laughing: “That’s funny–you sure act like somebody who wants to be here.” (as above, p.168)
In that moment something shifts for her and she makes a conscious choice to have a different relationship with this practice that clearly calls her. It’s a chant of love, so she finds someone she loves deeply, unconditionally, intensely–a dear nephew named Nicky–and she chants it as a lullabye for him, on the other side of the planet. She chooses the shift, and it happens. She cries through the hour and a half, which feels like ten minutes, and then drops into deep meditation. She writes, “Needless to say, I never missed the Gurugita again, and it became the most holy of my practices at the Ashram…and of course I called my sister the next week and she said that –for reasons nobody could understand–Nick suddenly wasn’t having trouble sleeping anymore.”
**
I’ve met a lot of people who come to church daring the minister to do something useful, do something relevant, do [...]
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By Unitarian Universalist Church of Ellsworth, Mainesermon
the coming darkness
Sept 21, 2008
Ellsworth, ME
Rev. Leela Sinha
The coming of the dark is the coming of limits, the coming of boundaries, the coming of edges. Our summers here are vast, open spaces of mile-long days; as the equinox comes we feel the shift, close windows, don sleeves and sweaters, light lamps to hold the edges of the evening back for a few more days. It is in our cultural nature to fight limits, turn on the lights, turn up the heat, hold tight to that perfect-weather day. It is our habit to resist the darkness.
But it comes anyway.
It lets itself in at the kitchen door, puts the water on for tea, and boots up the computer. One day we arrive home and it’s got its feet up in the living room with our favorite novel.
It comes uninvited, stays as long as it wants, and doesn’t do its own dishes or use coasters on the good furniture. When it leaves our home looks like it’s been hit by a tornado. It could be anything: death, depression, divorce, children going to college, a change of jobs, a change of fortune, or a change of seasons. It comes. And it stays.
resistance really is futile.
Discipline is not.
In her book, Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert writes about several struggles she has while studying and practicing at an ashram in India. One of them is the voice in her head while she tries to meditate. Another is her resistance to the Gurugita. The Gurugita is a 182 verse Sanskrit chant that she describes as “The murderous thing we do here.” She doesn’t like the tune. She doesn’t like the words. It makes her smoke and steam and sweat. It makes her so mad that she skips out in order to meditate or call home, even though she traveled halfway around the world to stay at this place. And the hardest part is that the ashram won’t give her anything to really rebel against. One of the people she consults says, “You’re not here as a tourist or a journalist; you’re here as a seeker. So explore it.”
“So you’re not letting me off the hook?”
“You can let yourself off the hook anytime you want, Liz. That’s the divine contract of a little something we call free will.” (Gilbert, Elizabeth. Eat, Pray, Love. p.164)
And yet she goes, fuming and full of rage she goes, full of irritation and resistance she goes. And then one morning she oversleeps. As she is grouchily preparing to leave the room she discovers that her roommate has accidentally locked her in, and that’s with a padlock.
Something–coincidence, conditions, God–has handed her a perfect excuse. What does she do?
She jumps out the window, drops about 14 feet to the cement, and runs, barefoot, to the temple. Because she has to be there.
It occurs to her about three or four verses in that she actually doesn’t want to be there. And then she hears her Swamiji’s voice laughing: “That’s funny–you sure act like somebody who wants to be here.” (as above, p.168)
In that moment something shifts for her and she makes a conscious choice to have a different relationship with this practice that clearly calls her. It’s a chant of love, so she finds someone she loves deeply, unconditionally, intensely–a dear nephew named Nicky–and she chants it as a lullabye for him, on the other side of the planet. She chooses the shift, and it happens. She cries through the hour and a half, which feels like ten minutes, and then drops into deep meditation. She writes, “Needless to say, I never missed the Gurugita again, and it became the most holy of my practices at the Ashram…and of course I called my sister the next week and she said that –for reasons nobody could understand–Nick suddenly wasn’t having trouble sleeping anymore.”
**
I’ve met a lot of people who come to church daring the minister to do something useful, do something relevant, do [...]