Opening Words:
From the day we arrive on the planet
And blinking, step into the sun
There’s more to see than can ever be seen
More to do than can ever be done
There’s far too much to take in here
More to find than can ever be found
But the sun rolling high
Through the sapphire sky
Keeps great and small on the endless round
It’s the Circle of Life
And it moves us all
Through despair and hope
Through faith and love
Till we find our place
On the path unwinding
In the Circle
The Circle of Life
It’s the Circle of Life
And it moves us all
Through despair and hope
Through faith and love
Till we find our place
On the path unwinding
In the Circle
The Circle of Life
Sermon:
The Sufi mystic, Rumi, writes: “I have lived on the lip of insanity, wanting to know reasons, knocking on a door. It opens. I’ve been knocking from the inside.”
I like that poetic image – knocking from the inside, because we’re convinced we’re outside, needing to get in.
In his signature poem, Song of Myself, Whitman says:
“I have heard what the talkers were talking.
The talk of the beginning and the end.
But I do not talk of the beginning or the end.
There was never any more inception than there is now,
Nor any more youth or age than there is now;
And will never be any more perfection than there is now,
Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now.
Urge and urge and urge,
Always the procreant urge of the world.
Out of the dimness opposite equals advance…
Always substance and increase,
Always a knit of identity… always distinction…
always a breed of life.
Stout as a horse, affectionate, haughty, electrical,
I and this mystery here we stand.”
We’re on the inside, but we’re knocking on the door to try to gain entrance; we’re on the inside of eternity, but we insist on knocking on the door as if we’re stuck outside.
We’re on the inside of the mystery, but we insist on thinking that the mystery is out there, somewhere.
We’re on the inside of the Divine Spirit – God, if you will – but we insist on painting a picture of an anthropomorphic God who is out there, and we’re knocking to try to get to Him, inventing religions to try to let us in.
The Easter story, for me, is a reminder that we’re already there; we’re on the inside, but we need to embrace this marvelous mystery. That embrace is the indication of our willingness to accept the limits of our knowing, in the usual rational sense. Hubris is the refusal to accept the limits of our knowing, and it puts us ‘on the lip of insanity.’ Hubris is the opposite of the humility we need to feel so we can sing with the poet:
i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes
(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday;this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)
how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any—lifted from the no
of all nothing—human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?
(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)
– e. e. cummings
Easter is about death and resurrection; it’s about the earth; it’s about the circle of life…
It’s about moving from despair to hope…it’s about faith, beyond the stories, images, beliefs…
It’s about the interior life. For me, at least, it has nothing to do with some historical event that happened thousands of years ago in some distant, designated holy land; it’s about what’s happening here and now, to you and to me; this is the holy land – it’s not geographical; it’s not a place to fight over, claiming that God gave it to us.
That’s the kind of thinking Rumi suggests is ‘on the lip of insanity!’ It’s insane to have people killing one another in the name of a god they invented; it’s insane to have people fighting with one another about a particular piece of land that’s more holy or sacred than some other piece of land; more sacred than a human life.
We’re knocking from the inside. Poems and myths and music help us to realize that we’re already here. The spring flowers help, too!
For believing Christians, Easter is about the death and bodily resurrection of God in the second person of the Holy Trinity…the Son, who is God taking human form.
For some of us – for me – the Easter story holds profound human truths about what it means to be born into this world; to live; to struggle and suffer; to love; to have loved ones die or leave in other ways…and it’s about the possibility of renewal. It’s about hope.
The Easter story paints a portrait of one life: the birth, life, suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus. By telling the story of one man’s life, it invites me to consider my life, and your life – each person’s life. It invites me to consider the ‘circle of life.’
We experience our lives in a linear fashion – ‘the talk of the beginning and the end.’ We have a beginning date – it’s on your driver’s license. We think in terms of a line that moves toward death.
It’s a natural way to think. But on a spiritual level, we’re able to realize that there’s another way to understand life –not as a line with a beginning and an end, but as a circle; the circle of life.
At the risk of over-simplifying, that’s the Easter story, for me.
I promised to tell you about the memorial services, at which I officiated in honor of Dana Reeve.
We did the first one on March 9, a couple of days after she died; just as we did for Chris, a couple of days after he died. Those services were private: Chris’s was held at their home; Dana’s was at the home of a friend of hers in Bedford, NY. There were about 90 people — family and closest friends.
Several friends and one of Dana’s two sisters did readings; when Dana’s sister, Deborah, got up to read, she said, “I’m going to go off script for a moment. I want to tell you about the first time that Will attended the Unitarian Church in Westport with Chris and Dana. When he came home he asked Dana, “Mom, are we transsexual or transvestite?” She was surprised, and wanted to know why he asked such a question. He said, “Well, it says at the church that we welcome homosexuals, transsexuals and transvestites, and I know we’re not homosexual.”
At that service I spoke briefly about Dana – how she came to the church without letting me know she was here; she was scouting for a place for Chris and her, and possibly for Will. I said how, after I got to know them, she told me, “I could be anonymous, Chris couldn’t…”
I said: “Dana had a deep spiritual life; she didn’t make a display of piety – her very being was spiritual. She was a rare and beautiful spirit, and that spirit will live in each of us, because we were touched by it –more than merely touched by it, we absorbed it. We loved her for it, and just as importantly we’re now able to love ourselves better because of her. That’s a kind of immortality – it’s very real; it’s very deep.”
The essential thing about that first service for me was the need to break through the denial. That’s our first response to the death of a person with whom we’ve been close: “No, it can’t be.”
Dana’s death was a surprise to everyone – except her doctors at Sloan Kettering, who had told her to ‘prepare.’ She refused to believe it, refused to accept it.
I had arranged to visit with her on Wednesday, the 8th of March; on Tuesday morning, the 7th, Lory came to me as I was preparing breakfast and said, “You’ll need to brace yourself for this…Dana died…”
“Oh, no!” I said.
In the Kubler-Ross paradigm of the grief process, denial is first. Then there’s anger, guilt, bargaining and acceptance.
While these so-called stages of grief make sense, they’re not so neat and clean; and they don’t follow a linear pattern.
The second, more public service, was held at the New Amsterdam Theater on Broadway last Monday afternoon, April 10. It was also private, in the sense that it was ‘by invitation.’ There were 1700 invitations; all of the seats in the theater were filled; each seat was assigned, as it always is at the New Amsterdam where the Lion King has been playing for some time.
Since it was the fourth such service I did in just 18 months, there were lots of familiar faces; some of the same speakers, and talk in the reception area where we gathered before the service was serious and solemn…and sad.
It’s not an exaggeration to say there was a palpable sense of despair, with comments like, “This should not be happening…this is different from Chris’s service…’
Several times there was anger in the air; a tone of despair mixed with the unfairness of this death; the kind of unfairness Job expressed.
Mostly, though, there was a deep sense of sadness; grief.
My officiating was mostly a matter of being present; by the time of this fourth service I had become a familiar ministerial presence.
I was nervous, and I’m not used to getting so nervous. At 3 o’clock, when the service was scheduled to begin, the stage manager came to me and said, “We’re holding the start of the service so we can seat Bill and Hillary Clinton.” I got more nervous!
I inserted myself into Dana’s service a little more than I did at Chris’s services. That is to say, I made several comments about Dana and Chris’s relationship to the Unitarian Church in Westport. And I recited more poetry.
I opened with John Ciardi’s White Heron, explaining that it was one of the poems that both Chris and Dana responded to; it affirms the spiritual aspect of life, expressed in the idea of awe, of praise, without the need to put a name on it.
What lifts the heron leaning on the air
I praise without a name. A crouch, a flare,
a long stroke through the cumulus of trees,
a shaped thought at the sky—then gone. O rare!
Saint Francis, being happiest on his knees,
would have cried Father! Cry anything you please
But praise. By any name or none. But praise
the white original burst that lights
the heron on his two soft kissing kites.
When saints praise heaven lit by doves and rays,
I sit by pond scums till the air recites
It’s heron back. And doubt all else. But praise
After that opening I read the piece about ‘A Successful Life’ attributed to Emerson:
“To laugh often and love much. To win and hold the respect of intelligent persons, and the affection of little children.
To earn the praise of honest critics and to endure, without flinching, the betrayal of false friends.
To appreciate beauty always, whether in earth’s creations or men and women’s handiwork.
To have sought for and found the best in others and to have given it oneself.
To leave the world better than one found it, whether by nurturing a child or a garden patch, writing a cheery letter, or working to redeem some social condition.
To have played with enthusiasm, laughed with exuberance, and sung with exultation. To go down to dust and dreams knowing that the world is a little bit better, and that even an single life breathes easier because we have lived well, that is to have succeeded!”
There were several speakers. One of them, Peter Kiernan, who is now Chairman of the Board of the Christopher Reeve Foundation, said, “When you spent 15 minutes with Christopher you knew you were in the presence of a great man. When you spent 15 minutes with Dana you knew you were a great man!”
I was reminded of the comment I had made at the first service for Dana: “Because of her influence on us we’re able to love ourselves better.”
He said it much better than I, but we affirmed the special influence that Dana had on our lives. You got a taste of it when she stood here to thank you – all of us – for the way we welcomed her and Chris, providing a safe space for them.
Isn’t this the kind of influence Jesus is said to have had on people? Didn’t Jesus make those with whom he ministered feel like a great person? Not in an ego-centered sense, but an acceptable person, forgiven for your shortcomings and mistakes.
Susan Sarandon was one of the speakers. She talked about visiting Dana during some of her darkest hours, and Dana said, ‘I’m so lucky…I have a room with a view – I can see the sunrise…so when I’m awake all night I can look out my window and see the sun coming up…”
When she and I spoke at the reception following the service she said, “I’m so glad Dana found your church…I saw how important it was for her…before Chris died…and then afterward.” She said, “You know, Dana was a very independent thinker, and a deeply spiritual woman. So the Unitarian Church was a perfect fit for her.”
The three Reeve children spoke last, beginning with Dana and Chris’s son, Will. He has poise and charm beyond his years – he’s a gifted young man. Among other things he said, “My mom was the best.” He was brilliant. He adored his mother. It was mutual, of course.
Everyone asks how Will is doing; and what the future holds for him. My sense is that he is an exceptionally strong, gifted young man, beyond his years. (He’s not yet 14.)
His parents gave him what he needs to navigate the years ahead of him.
Chris’s children, Alexandra and Matthew spoke last.
Midway through the service Audra McDonald sang Smile
Smile though your heart is aching
Smile even though it’s breaking
When there are clouds in the sky, you’ll get by
If you smile through your fear and sorrow
Smile and maybe tomorrow
You’ll see the sun come shining through for you
Light up your face with gladness
Hide every trace of sadness
Although a tear may be ever so near
That’s the time you must keep on trying
Smile, what’s the use of crying?
You’ll find that life is still worthwhile
If you just smile
That’s the time you must keep on trying
Smile, what’s the use of crying?
You’ll find that life is still worthwhile
If you just smile
It’s a paradoxical song: Smile though your heart is aching…even though it’s breaking. The words say ‘smile,’ but the sentiment says ‘weep.’
Jack O’Brien, director of lots of Broadway hits and films, expressed his utter frustration and even anger at Dana’s untimely death. He said, “I’ve been trying to come to terms with it; I’ve been trying to make some sense out of it, and I can’t, I just can’t.”
Then he said, “The only thing I can think to say in response to this terrible loss is that we must be better. Be better.”
I quoted Jack in my closing words, and I concluded the service with the words Dana and Chris often heard here, at the close of our Sunday worship service. So I’ll save them for the close of this service.
May there be moments for you, this spring, and in the days and years ahead…special moments when you realize that you are already ‘on the inside.’
You simply need to embrace the mystery; to know that ‘what lifts the heron’ is there for you to praise, ‘by any name or none,’ but Praise! And be blessed.
Closing Words: Now, say to thyself, ‘If there’s any good thing I can do, or any kindness that I can show to any person, let me do it now, let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.’