Another New Beginning!

ANOTHER NEW BEGINNING IN STORE

            Over the past six years, as I’ve gotten to know you pretty well, both as a member of the congregation and as your minister in residence, I’ve felt welcomed and appreciated.  I’ve appreciated you all in return, as I’ve seen you reach out to new folks, rally around when folks are struggling, eagerly show up for coffee or pizza or a cool drink at a happy hour or coffee klatch.

            And now we are preparing to make another new beginning together, with each of us heading into a new stage of our lives.

         When I arrived at PUUF, you had been hungry for a minister for awhile, and…..I was  hungry too, because once you’re called to the ministry, you can’t just drop it.  I had to find a way to be useful.  So together, we started a new phase in the life of the Pacific UU Fellowship and in my life.  It was exciting times together and has been a source of joy, I hope, to you as well as to me.

            But time moves on and we change as we make our way through our lives.  We’ve experienced many changes together, we’ve experienced losses and joys, troubles and successes.  And here we are at the start of a new church year which will end in a different way than our previous years together have ended.  We will have transitioned yet again---you to the excitement of a new minister next fall, we hope, and I to a retirement in which I will be in a different relationship with you all.

            Many of us are a little nervous about the change----you hope for a new minister who will bring good changes, though maybe even slightly uncomfortable ones.  I’m a little nervous because I want to stay in the area but have to be careful not to interfere with the new minister’s relationship with you all.

         So to celebrate this new beginning and to think about its challenges, I’d like to tell you a story which comes from the Sufi tradition. You may know already that Sufism is the mystical branch of Islam. This is a story about a stream and a desert.  We know about streams around here; we may not be so familiar with deserts, but this story, I hope, will illustrate an important point.

THE STREAM AND THE DESERT

          High on a faraway mountain, a little stream flowed out of a hidden source. As the water flowed down the mountain, it passed through all kinds of places, rocky ravines, quiet meadows, past beaver dams and through lakes and ponds.
         Sometimes the little stream leaped and danced and bubbled as it raced down a canyon or sometimes it drifted lazily through a forest meadow or even disappeared underground for a short distance. It had never encountered an obstacle that it couldn't surmount, either by leaping over it or going under it or around it or wearing away the rock that captured it.
         But one day it reached the edge of a vast desert. "Hey, no problem," said the little stream to itself. "I've never been stopped by any obstacle before. No desert is going to stop me now!"
         So the stream flung itself at the desert. And its waters disappeared, absorbed by the sand. It threw itself at the hot desert sand again and again. And every time, its waters disappeared.
         "This can't be," said the stream. "If the wind can cross the desert, certainly I, a stream, can cross it too!" And it continued to fling itself at the hot sand. And every time, its waters disappeared.         

         "But it is my destiny to cross the desert," cried the stream, in despair. And as it rested dejectedly at the edge of the desert, getting its strength back, and wondering what to do next, it heard a small, still, whispery voice. And this is what the stream heard the desert say.
         "You can't cross the desert using your old ways," said the desert. "I am not like a boulder or a tree or a rocky ledge. It is no use hurling yourself at the desert like that. You will never cross the sand this way; you will simply disappear or turn into marshland."
         "But how I can get across?" cried the stream. "I don't know any new ways; I only know the old ways. The wind can get across the desert. Why can't I?"
         "The wind is your new way," said the desert. "You must let the wind carry you across the hot sands."
         "How can that be?" asked the stream. "How can the wind carry me?"
         "You must let yourself be absorbed into the wind," said the desert. "The wind will catch you up in that way and carry you across the desert."
         "No!" cried the stream. "I am a stream with a nature and an identity all my own. I don't want to lose myself by being absorbed into the wind."
         "But that's what the wind does," said the desert. "The wind will catch you up and carry you across the desert and set you down again very lightly so you can become a stream again. Trust me and trust the wind."
         "But I might not be the same stream on the other side of the desert, if I've been absorbed by the wind and carried a long way. I won't be myself if I let the wind carry me and set me down again in a new place."
         The desert understood the stream's fear but it also understood the mystery.
  

       "You're right," said the desert. "But you won't be the same stream, no matter what. If you stay here, you will turn into a marshland and that's not a stream either. If you let the wind carry you across the desert, the real you, the real heart of you, the essence of everything you truly are, will arise again on the other side to flow in a new course, to be a river that you can't even imagine from where you are standing now."
         "How can this happen?" asked the stream, mystified by this new idea.
         "The wind has always done this," said the desert. "It takes up the water and carries it over the desert and then lets it fall again. The water falls as rain and it becomes a river, joined by waters from all over the world which have crossed the deserts to come together."
         "But can't I just stay the same?" asked the stream.
         "You cannot in any way remain the same," whispered the desert. "Movement is your very nature. It will never cease until your true destination has been reached."
         As the stream considered this, it began to remember where it had come from and it had a memory deep in its heart of a wind that could be trusted and a horizon that was always out of reach but always a new beginning.
         So the stream took a deep breath and surrendered itself to the power of the wind and the wind took the vapor of the stream in strong and loving arms and took it high above the desert, far beyond the horizon, and let it fall again softly in a new place.
 

        And the stream began to understand who it really was and what it meant to be a stream. And over the years, it allowed the wind to take it again and again until at last it found itself in the ocean, from which all life comes and to which all life returns.         (Story adapted many times from the original.)
            We are the stream right now.  And the desert, the challenging place, is the year ahead of us.  We will be placing our trust in each other to find our way to the next part of our lives.  If we have faith in ourselves, our values, and our hopes, we will allow the wind, i.e. the process, to carry us through the work of selecting a new minister and whatever that will mean to the living water that is the Pacific UU Fellowship.

            It’s both scary and thrilling, as many of life’s challenges are.  We will work our way through whatever comes and if we heed our commitment to our UU principles of love and understanding, we will find ourselves in a new place, with new adventures and new friends, both as a group and as individuals.

            In the words of Douglas Adams’ classic Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, let us clasp this immortal quote to our hearts and remind ourselves:  “DON’T PANIC!”

            There will be plenty of time for questions and discussions and decision-making and voting before anything is put in place.  The board will offer an informational service on Sept. 23, two weeks from today, to start the process, announcing and commissioning our chosen search committee, and getting us underway with the capable support of our search committee and board.  We are in good hands with them.

            Let’s trust the process, refrain from panicking, and at this moment, pause for a time of silent reflection and prayer.