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-
 Reflections
on faith and life by Rev. Kathryn Timpany
Senior Pastor
First Congregational UCC, Sioux Falls, SD
3.28.07
Sabbath. A
day set aside for rest, for remembering that you are not in charge of
the world, God is. A day to remember that the richness and blessing of
your life does not depend on your productivity, nor on the depth or
breadth of your understanding, nor on anything else at all that you
can do for yourself, but only on sheer grace itself.
In this
pastors’ household, Sabbath falls on Monday. And so out we went a
couple of days ago, into the inviting liveliness of the warming day,
to tidy up the yard, now that winter’s stranglehold has finally
broken. Rake in hand, I stepped up to the row of shrubs I had so
carefully and symmetrically trimmed last fall, ready to clear the
leaves out from under their skirts.
Only, for
two of them, there were no skirts. Nibbled down to the nub, they were,
telltale little round pellets of deer droppings littering the driveway
in front of them. If I had been sitting here at this window out of
which I am looking right now, and it had been open, I would have been
able to reach out and touch them as they feasted. Around the corner,
more bushes shorn, along with the little sapling I had such hopes for,
as it showed its jaunty intention to take the place of its
grandfather, who had died of cancer last summer.
Sabbath
lesson # 1, down pat: You are not in charge of the world. You share it
with the deer, and all other living creatures whose hearts beat as
mysteriously as yours. And the deer care more for succulence than
symmetry. So be it, amen.
Chores
quickly done, compulsion for perfection nicely jettisoned, we took to
the road, aiming for Blue Cloud Abbey near Marvin, since many have
told us of its charm and allure. And indeed, it was all we expected,
and more. Perched atop the rolling hills in the glacier lakes country,
it stands open, unafraid and unlocked, its arms trembling with
wideness enough to welcome all travelers and pilgrims who seek the
serenity it offers, generous spaces created to evoke, at best,
whispers of response. Spaces you can lose yourself in, which is quite
the point. Spaces silent enough so that you can listen for, and hear,
the beating of the Holy Heart itself.
But it was
the abundance of gifts along the way that brought us almost more
delight than we could contain, happy lessons in the folly of thinking
that anything worth paying attention to, like the whimsy of the human
soul, can ever be simple or predictable, let alone under anyone’s
control.
There was
Paul Bunyan’s anchor, held aloft by a giant iron claw and chain, above
the quarries that give Big Stone City its obvious name. There was
Madison, Minnesota, Lutefisk capital of the world!, its water tower,
among many other things, adorned with a cartoon rendering of the most
unappealing fish of all time, source of strong Norwegian stamina and
pride.
South of
Madison, on a fully paved county road, we were halted by a cattle
drive in full swing. Thirty five head of black angus yearlings,
escorted by three bonafide cowboys – one astride an ATV and two on
horseback (one of which was a very competent little boy of about 6 or
7 years), hupp-hupping along the road. "It got warm on us – they’re
moving a bit slowly," the head wrangler offered with a grin as we
waited our turn for access to the road. Moving forward again, we could
not help but notice that the manure trail we slalomed through
stretched for a good five miles.
At
Trevitt’s cafe in Milbank, SD, you can get homemade spaghetti with
meat sauce, cole slaw and garlic bread, all you can eat, for $4.50,
and you can listen in on the talk of the town, which may be a little
hushed this day, since there are strangers to be regarded out of the
corner of an eye. And a little further on down near Aurora, you can
see South Dakota’s own version of Carhenge (a western Nebraska
landmark), a long stretch of yard and ditch filled with artfully
re-created vehicles and car-parts.
And you can
read out loud together as you go, sharing the rich wisdom of someone
like Krista Tippett, host of the highly acclaimed radio show,
"Speaking of Faith". (Yes, you do want to pick up her new book for
yourself, as soon as you can.)
Here,
listen in with us for a moment:
- "I
first met the original memoirist of the Holocaust, Elie Wiesel, in
that vanished divided Berlin. He survived the Nazi reign of
terror, but his sister and father and six million other Jews
succumbed....He had asked to meet with a group of young Germans.
He was nervous about this meeting, and afterward he was visibly
shaken. Together with another journalist, I sat with Wiesel and
his wife. ‘I had never before considered,’ he said, ‘that it could
be as painful to be a child of those who ran the camps as a child
of those who died in them.’" Speaking of Faith, Viking 2007:39
- And this
from famous physicist, Albert Einstein, who fled Berlin as the Nazi
war machine began to rise, and whom we mainly remember for his
scientific contributions to our store of knowledge:
- "The
fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the
fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and
true science. He who knows it not and can no longer wonder, no
longer feel amazement, is as good as dead. A snuffed-out candle.
It was the experience of mystery, even if mixed with fear, that
engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we
cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason
and the most radiant beauty– it is this knowledge and this emotion
that constitutes the truly religious attitude. In this sense, and
in this alone, I am a deeply religious man." ibid:107
- What a
genius, this God! What a trickster! To think, that merely keeping
Sabbath could be so much fun, could rest our souls so thoroughly,
could bring us round right again, just as easy as that. Makes you
wonder why everyone doesn’t try it, as a matter of fact.
- May you
honor your heart’s desire to freely soar at least one day this week.
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