This morning I want to ask a simple but powerful question. What opens a heart? What opens your heart? How, in the midst of life’s chaos and tragedy and loss, do you keep your heart open?

 

Yesterday, I came downstairs to quite a scene. Scattered here and there were clusters of books. The bookcase in our living room was missing a few shelves of children’s books and there was Norah, with a big Menard’s bucket (our future baby’s diaper pail) full of books. She had placed four or five books by the stove, under the dining room table, by the couch, the rocking chair. Salt daddy. I’m putting salt down. She said to me, excitedly. Now, this is my Midwestern girl, I thought. Putting salt down to take away the ice. And I thought, now this is my Unitarian Universalist girl—books have great power—to melt away the hardest ice!  Unitarian Universalists have stood for lots over time—freedom, individual conscience, solidarity with the marginalized—but perhaps more than anything we have stood for the idea that education, and books, and learning, and what our early minister William Ellery Channing called self-cultivation.  How appropriate I thought, that MY little girl was using books as salt to wipe away the frozen places, the hard places, the nearly dead places.

 

And then I noticed that she moved away from the children’s books, On the day you were born and Pooh, and started in on my James Baldwins and Thomas Mertons, and that game was over.

 

The image, however, remains. What is the salt that wipes away your frozen places, your nearly dead places? What in the midst of life’s cold reality, keeps your heart open?

 

I can say in my own life that books—and education—helped to define me. When I got to college, I was taught Ulysses by James Joyce, One Hundred Years of Solitude by Garcia Marquez. One weekend I read a young author from Bennington College and saw the Killing Fields. My whole world, which had been relatively cloistered in Galesburg, Illinois, opened up. I saw new vistas. I saw new possibilities. I saw myself emerging. I saw myself in new ways. I was 18 years old. I had a faith then that supplied the answers. I wanted a faith that contented itself with more and more questions, always open to new possibilities, always open to new revelation. I wanted to grow a new heart. It put me on a trajectory, at old Appalachian State University in Boone, NC, where at 20 years old, I’d set an appointment with the United Methodist minister, a young beautiful minister who preached once a year nothing more than Letter From A Birmingham Jail to his congregation. This, I said, is someone I want to talk to. Since this is Black History Month, would you like to hear those words again, and be reminded of our near recent history and be reminded again that struggles for liberation continue apace…

 

I guess it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say wait. But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick, brutalize, and even kill your black brothers and sisters with impunity; when you see the vast majority of your 20 million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can’t go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see the tears welling up in her little eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see the depressing clouds of inferiority begin to form in her little mental sky, and see her begin to distort her little personality by unconsciously developing a bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son who is asking in agonizing pathos: "Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?" when you take a cross country drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading "white" men and "colored" when your first name becomes "nigger" and your middle name becomes "boy" (however old you are) and your last name becomes "John," and when your wife and mother are never given the respected title of "Mrs." when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tip-toe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of "nobodiness"—then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into an abyss of injustice where they experience the bleakness of corroding despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience.

 

So I went and asked my questions. I read and I read and I read, everything I could get my hands on. This Methodist minister told me that there was a Unitarian Universalist fellowship in town (I kept questioning the trinity and hell. I was quite sure I didn’t believe in a God whose m.o. included hell.). I went and frankly never looked back. That first Sunday I went, they were doing a thanksgiving indigenous persons seder and memorial. I was hooked. Without One Hundred Years of Solitude, without the longing for education, without that yearning, that desire to keep my heart open, to the new, I would not be here today, I would not be a Unitarian Universalist.

 

Jeannie Nakamaru sat in my office this week and said, If I had not gone to Guatemala in an effort to learn Spanish, I would not have learned about the disabled children there and I would not have experienced so many transforming things. I would have been doing something, but I am so grateful that I found this.

 

So, one of the things we know keeps a heart open is getting out of your comfort zone, trying new things, finding your place in the world.

 

The Public broadcasting service says it pretty well, Stay Curious.

 

What keeps your heart open?

 

I want to tell you the story of John Murray, an early American Universalist. You may recall his name from the reading in the back of the hymnal.  Read this…

I want to tell you about John Murray and Thomas Potter. In the mid-1700s, Potter was farming land in Good Luck New Jersey, a member of a prominent family. Though illiterate, he was successful and deeply religious. He was something like a Baptist Quaker, but he caught wind of a new religious idea called universalism—it was opposed to strict Calvinist predestination and believed that all would be reconciled to God’s own self. He worked out his own theological ideas, based on his reading of scriptures, and sought out others like himself and invited them to his house for discussions. After a while, as you can imagine, his spouse started to object and forced him to build a meeting house where such discussions could take place. He soon dreamed of having a universalist minister preach this new universalist gospel. He waited and waited.

Meanwhile, in England and Ireland, a young man with an intense interest in religion and a powerful speaker was reaching a life crisis. John Murray converted from conventional Anglicanism to Methodism, but then he heard about universalism. He was convinced. He was convicted. He started preaching that gospel—that God loved everyone and would restore all creation to God’s own self. The Methodists, not quite so convinced fired him. A crushing loss. But soon dwarfed by the death of his wife and child. He was adrift. He nearly landed in a debtor’s prison. But instead he set off for the America, aiming to put religion behind him.

He booked passage on the brig “Hand in Hand” (how perfect is that?) bound for New York. Well, the Hand in Hand got stuck in a sandbar in the Jersey shore. The captain unloaded some of the cargo on to a smaller local boat and Murray was asked to oversee it. The Hand in Hand was able, now lighter, to continue on its way, but just then the wind shifted and Murray’s vessel could not follow. He soon found himself on the coast of New Jersey asking for help. He was directed to Potter’s farm.

When Potter saw John Murray, he exclaimed with joy, “I have longed to see you. I have been expecting you for a long time!” No, no. Murray said. I am through with all of that. Potter, however, was convinced. If your boat is still stuck on Sunday, you’ll preach for us. If it clears before Sunday, you are free to go. Sure enough, Murray’s little boat stayed stuck until Sunday afternoon and Murray preached a message of universalist faith—that God’s love embraces the whole human race—to Potter. Murray, in 1793, was instrumental in forming the Universalist Church of America, one half of the denomination that we now embody.

 

I tell this story, to let you know of Murray’s life. The loss of his parish. The loss of his family. The crushing poverty. All of it could have sounded the death knoll for this remarkable man. And he keeps getting stuck, even on the Hand in Hand, stuck in the middle of a Jersey swamp, he’s stuck. He must have been despairing. But soon enough he encounters one who says, “It’s great to see you. I’ve been longing for this moment. I have been expecting you.” Potter and his small chapel.

Sometimes, we are Murray. Tossed around in life’s crashing waves. Adrift. Lost. Confused. Uncertain. Unsettled. If we keep moving, I think, if we keep after it, I think, we come eventually to a person, a path, a scenario, that says, “Finally. What took you so long. Welcome home. Let’s get on with it. The meaning and purpose of your life.”

Sometimes, we are Potter. Holding out faith, despite all the evidence, that our fierce belief in and commitment to love and humanity and creation, will make the world a better place. We wait and we wait. And at every turn, there is someone in front of us who holds the truth, someone who can increase our ability to appreciate life anew, someone to whom we can turn and say, Thank Goodness you are here. I’ve been waiting to hear your story and your version of the good news of life, and life abundant.

Potter could have given up, but kept his heart open, kept having the discussions, kept believing in the goodness at the heart of all creation. Murray could have given up, tossed and turned and battled and bruised, but he stepped on to that Hand in Hand, and stepped in to the loving embrace of the hands of Potter, who believed in him.

Friends, all around us we see the power of those who keep their hearts open. They change the world. They change our view. They make us laugh and give us hope.

 

When we keep our hearts open, we too are changed and we too become change agents. But, come on, Roger, I’m not sailing to Jersey anytime soon. I’m not going to chuck it all for a chance to preach the universalist gospel that God’s love embraces the whole human race.

 

I am just doing my thing, enjoying my grandchildren, raising my dogs, doing my work. What can I do, to keep my heart open?

 

Well, the stories I’ve told today point to some ways—getting out of your comfort zone, gaining perspective about the adversity of life, having hospitality (I’ve been waiting to see you. Welcome!).

 

But let me suggest, whatever your path in life, some ways to start the day with grace and gratitude and joy. Try one of these things this week and see what happens to your heart.

 

Sing an alarm clock halleluiah. When your alarm clock goes off this week, say, The days are gods! I will rejoice and be glad in this day!

If you work in a building with a stair case, take the stairs. Climb purposefully. One step at a time. Catch your breath. And on each landing, think about one thing you are grateful for. Say thank you to that thing or person. Climb the next step. Repeat.

 

Mindful Single-tasking.

All around us are clues that the world values multi=tasking. Buck the trend. Focus on one thing at some point in your work day. Instead of dividing your concentration among many tasks, do one thing at a time with intentionality and prayerfulness. Offer your work as a gift to the universe, ask for the grace to do it meaningfully and without anxiety.

 

Cookup a memory, or pray a peanut butter minute. If you are a cook, pay attention to the memories that are sparked by the dishes you served. Perhaps your mother’s favorite broccoli recipe will be remembered by you. Give thanks for her life. Perhaps there is something your father loved to do (with me it was make special hot chocolate.) Give thanks for those who have enriched your life.

Or if you are preparing a peanut butter sandwich for your child’s school, say a little blessing for your child, his friends, her classmates, her teachers.

 

These things, lighthearted and not difficult, may help to keep your heart open to life’s ongoing and powerful revelation and our tradition, the Unitarians and the Universalists, believed powerfully that the revelation of life is that we are all grounded in grace and beauty and love and that life is a blessing, for which we should give thanks and as a response to that good blessing in which we should live with hearts wide open.

May it be so. Many blessings friends.