"In that first hardly noticed moment to which you wake, coming back to this life from the other more secret, moveable and frighteningly honest world where everything began, there is a small opening into the new day which closes the moment you begin your plans.

What you can plan is too small for you to live. What you can live wholeheartedly will make plans enough for the vitality hidden in your sleep. To be human is to become visible while carrying what is hidden as a gift to others. To remember the other world in this world is to live in your true inheritance.

You are not a troubled guest on this earth, you are not an accident amidst other accidents. You were invited from another and greater night than the one from which you have just emerged.

Now, looking through the slanting light of the morning window toward the mountain presence of everything that can be, what urgency calls you to your one love? What shape waits in the seed of you to grow and spread its branches against a future sky?

Is it waiting in the fertile sea? In the trees beyond the house? In the life you can imagine for yourself? In the open and lovely white page on the waiting desk?"

"We sit on a single grain of sand on this vast cosmic beach and argue over who has the goods on God. Is it the atheist or the theist? The Hindu or the Buddhist? The Catholic or the Protestant? The Muslim or the Jew?

We duel (sometimes to the death) over which religious teacher has the best insider information on God and the afterlife. Is it Jesus? The Buddha? Muhammed? How about Nietzsche, Gandhi, or Freud? Billions of accidents conspired to give each of these compelling teachers the opportunity even to teach.

Knowing this - pondering numbers beyond reckoning - doesn't strip me of my faith. It inspires my faith. It makes me humble. It fills me with awe.

If our religion doesn't inspire in us a humble affection for one another and a profound sense of awe at the wonder of being, one of two things has happened. It has failed us, or we it. Should either be the case, we must go back to the beginning and start all over again. We must reboot our lives until the wonder we experience proves itself authentic by the quality of our response to it. (pp. 232-233)

A remarkable thing took place March 12th in Atlanta. The day before, upon returning to court on charges of rape, Brian Nichols over-powered a deputy, then shot and killed Superior Court Judge Rowland Barnes, his court reporter and two others. Nichols escaped, setting off the largest manhunt in Georgia's history. [1]

Late than night, Mr. Nichols took Ashley Smith hostage in her apartment. A widow, her husband having died in her arms four years ago after a knife fight, Smith pleaded for her life. She said: "Don't kill me and leave my five your old daughter, Paige, without both a daddy and a mommy." She found a glimmer of compassion in Nichols when she asked whether he had any idea what the families of those he allegedly had killed might be feeling. At one point, she read to him about God from a popular book called The Purpose Driven Life [2]. In the end, she argued that God had sent Brian Nichols to her so she could show him he was not totally lost.

This tragic affair ended non-violently and far more readily than any had anticipated. That morning, Nichols surrendered peacefully. Of course, the media descended on Smith, who credited her faith in surviving the ordeal. I wondered what was it about this book that so helped Ashley Smith find such courage and grace.

The Purpose Driven Life is the work of Rick Warren, founder of a so-called megachurch in southern California [3]. The book is a daily meditation on the question: why DO you get up in the morning? It's an easy to read guide for thinking about that question. It has sold in the millions, touching apparently many lives in addition to Ashley Smith.

A closer look at Warren's work gave me what I expected, a straight-forward account along traditional Christian lines [4]. He begins with a premise:

Well, that's refreshing, I thought. I have no problem with that. I, too, believe we each have a reason for being that goes far beyond our life satisfactions. Life's purpose always is about something more than your ego, your life, your clan or tribe, or even your nation. But if my purpose is not about me, what is it about?

Warren asserts that the world is God's work and our purpose is to serve God by serving others. He says Jesus shows the way. While we might quarrel some with the scriptural justification and invocation of an intervening God, I imagine most Unitarian Universalists could say, yeah, that makes sense. We don't own creation and we fulfill our humanity by helping others. Certainly, Jesus is among the teachers we sometimes turn to for how to do it. So far, so good.

Warren also argues that people get wrongly focused in their life purpose [5]. He writes,

I think he's right; society in general does not celebrate the giving soul. Yet, if the world's definition is wrong, wherein lies our greatness? His answer (and his cardinal point) won't surprise you: "You were made for God not vice versa and life is about letting God use you for his purposes, not your using him for your purposes." This is the radical opposite of self-centeredness narcissism so typical of our day.

You may say it differently, but am I off base thinking you might agree that the answer to life's meaning is not found in all the things that typically count for success in our society? Is my hunch close at all that you and many Unitarian Universalists would agree that living for ideals which transcend your life and lifetime for the betterment of others is our life purpose?

I'm not interested is reviewing Warren's work. You can read it if you're interested. I was just glad to see points that in large measure might appeal to religious liberals. We can learn from others. And would that we Unitarian Universalists had something as accessible and life-transforming as this book to help any of us in an hour of deep trial. Tell me, where would you turn in a moment such as Ashley Smith faced?

Let me now broaden the discussion a bit. The fundamental religious question is not what we often fuss about here. The nature of God or Goddess or no gods at all, the Bible or other scriptures, salvation in this or an after-life, not even rules for living such as the ten commandments - as interesting as they are, they are not the core question of spiritual yearning. No, what haunts our night and directs our day is that question:

It is a question that stirs in that "frighteningly honest" "small opening into the new day which closes the moment you begin your plans." How you answer it is what gets you going, keeps you focused, and convinces you life's worth all the effort.

Too often, though, you and I fail even to notice there's a question. So captive are we to the plans and the responsibilities of our lives, we plunge on ahead as if we know where we are going. Frankly, we lose that split second connection to the eternal in our hurry to be about our day. We fail to ask: How shall I live this moment best? As sailors without a sextant, in time, we get lost, heading this way, then that, to no clear end.

You know what I mean [7]. The child says, "Look, Mommy." Mommy says, "Don't bother me now, I've got an important call to make." The wife says, "Honey, do you still love me?" The preoccupied husband, never taking his eyes off the latest important game, mumbles without feeling, "Of course, I do." At work, we make one minor compromise after another until we don't even notice who we have become. Daily, we read of lives ruined by the seductions of careers, the big house, awards from our colleagues, glory, or money in the bank.

More broadly, we're all stuck in an economy that depends upon using things and people up - degrading the earth and each other. We're often a long way off the ideal course of our lives. In far less tragic ways, many today feel like Brian Nichols. Ashley Smith quoted him saying[8]: "'Look at me. Look at my eyes. I am already dead." Is this not what Thoreau warned of long ago in Walden: "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation." Lives without meaning soon sink, far too often taking others down with them.

Last week, I invoked Edwin Markham's epigram [9]: "Defeat may serve as well as victory To shake the soul and let the glory out." Sometimes, before the calamity of suicide or murder, or the slow death of tedium and shopping, events yank us back to raw edge between being and non-being, to that moment of frighteningly honest awakening. A crisis becomes a wake-up call. What are we about? Why do we bother, with anything? Aware that we haven't the slightest idea of why we are on this earth, we face the big question: What's it all about, Alfie? Why did I get up this day? Why did you? And: Will we get up tomorrow? If so, what difference could it possibly make?

Poet Adrienne Rich says poignantly[10], "there comes a time . . . when we have to take ourselves more seriously or die." So successfully have we avoided the question, when it finally comes, the choice is life or death. At that moment of awakening, perhaps for the first time, we can ask: What am I willing to give my life to and for? In the asking begins the answer. Ashley Smith had to ask that question. Out of her life purpose, she saved who knows how many lives in addition to Brian Nichols'.

I won't be glib, so I'm going to let that hang there for a moment. What are you saying to yourself? How do you answer: Why will you get up again tomorrow? Have you a reason more compelling than habit?

The great William Ellergy Channing once noticed [11], "Sometimes we learn the true way by having first tried every wrong one." The trouble with hopping into the shower in the morning, plunging on ahead with our daily plans, is we get caught up in the ways of the world. We place our self-worth and life purpose in the hands of others. Make a lot of money? You're a success. Have adoring friends? You're a good person. Get your name in the papers and your picture on the magazine? Are you on the best-dressed list? Are you popular? Is your home in house-beautiful magazine? Do your parents brag about you? Does your car carry a bumper sticker about your kid being on the honor roll at school? Well, then, you've made it. You're in the big time.

Since by definition, most of us are average and will never be on those lists of social success, only one conclusion can follow. Being common and just simply decent is not good enough. Society says you've got to be the first on your block, among the members only crowd to be of any value. If not - well, forget it. Clearly, you're a loser. I have felt that way. How about you?

It is a seduction. I don't think anyone is immune, so strong is our need for social praise. As much as any, I want my name in Who's Who. I want to be recognized for having made my mark on the world. When I am not clear about my life's purpose, those gold stars take on an extraordinary importance. And what price will I, will you pay to be among the stars? If you lose your moral and spiritual center and go after the socially approved and lauded standards of success, you may be ok [12]. More often, you just might worship the wrong things.

This is no new insight. Religious inspiration always says the same thing: until you're ready to put away your false gods, you will not know the truth of your life. Matthew (16.26) attributes to Jesus, "What does it profit you to gain the whole world if you lose your soul?" Pursuing the idols of worldly success and social sanction often kills our humanity. "Sometimes we learn the true way by having first tried every wrong one." The folks leading Enron and MCI Worldcom should have listened. I am sure you can think of others, or times you turned wrongly.

Rick Warren offers the traditional Western alternative of winning the world: winning God's world. We are supposed to be create the kingdom of God among us. The answer to Guy Noir's [13] persistent question is, "not my will, O lords, but yours." Frankly, that's not so bad - many, perhaps all our moral problems arise from thinking we're in charge here, that we know best what needs to happen and then trying to force it on others.

That's where we go astray and get into hot water. As Forrest Church observes, "If our religion doesn't inspire in us a humble affection for one another," something's gone very wrong. Or as Proverbs (16.18) warned long ago: "A haughty spirit goes before the fall." Perhaps, just perhaps, our sorry world would be better off if people did begin their days with "not my will, but yours, o God."

There's another, more humanistic, way to think of this that works better for me, perhaps for you as well. The reason I get up in the morning is to pursue what the Buddha called "right livelihood" [14]. What is meant by that? Right livelihood is walking your talk according to your highest ideals and doing so more often than not [15]. It is what theologian Frederick Büchner [16] means when he says your life purpose is found "where your deep gladness meets the world's deepest need." Right livelihood is more than a career. It is a vocation. It is a way of aligning your life according to those values you want to see outlast you. Right livelihood is what David Whyte means when he asks: "what urgency calls you to your one love?"

However, asking the question is one thing. Hearing and heeding that call is not so easy. Those every day demands are legitimate and won't go away. Who has the time to listen? Well, that's why we're here today. The truth is: unless you're planning somehow to live forever, who has time not to listen?

French essayist Blaise Pascal said (in his essay Pensées, 1670) something I'm fond of: "All man's troubles come from an inability to sit alone in a room." The pathway to discerning your life call requires paying attention and setting aside time to be still. That's what the Buddha said. You have to stop and smell the roses on a regular basis. You need to look in the mirror and notice who's looking back.

No one can give you the answer to why you get up in the morning. Only you can do that. However, we can help each other. The church can guide you, even if it's only to remind you to gather rosebuds while you may. While there are many pathways of discernment - I prefer the practice of quiet mindfulness and contemplative prayer myself - each invites you to enchant your life with intentionality and awareness, humility and awe. That is, again to quote the Buddha, pay attention with infinite compassion to your life and to those around you. Simple as that. Difficult as that.

Whatever pathway you choose - and if you don't already have a routine spiritual practice, speak to me - you need to imbue it with an urgency and compelling quality that you will help you take your life far more seriously than you normally do. You need some way frequently to ask:

One simple to describe, hard to do, exercise is to compose a no more than 25-word personal mission statement. Then put in on your morning mirror. Find ways to work it into your daily observations and conversation. End your day using it as some form of prayer. It will remind you why you did get up that morning and prepare you for the next. Mine is: "To love God by loving creation and all within by living a life of integrity."

What I am talking of here is simply a making sacred everything you do. To see the infinite in every sand grain of your life, as illustrated in this story [17].

A 12th century traveler comes to Paris late one afternoon. Having noticed on the horizon the rising structure of Notre Dame, he stops at the as yet incomplete building. Amidst the debris and dust of construction, he asks several workers what they do. "I am a glazier," says one. "Another month and I will compete this stained-glass window." Another says, "I am a master carpenter. I am responsible for the doors to the cathedral." And a third, "Ah, stone-mason, that's me. I carve the stone you see above." And so it goes until he encounters an old woman, deep in the shadows, with a broom cleaning up after the other workers. "What do you do here?" the traveler asks. She pauses, looks around as the setting sun's rays make the dusty air glow, and then proudly says, "I am building a grand cathedral to the glory of God."

This is your life, friends, building a life to the greater glory of the divine, however you understand that. It's not about you. It's about something far more than you often or can know. For the last thing I must say to you today is though we may work with love and dedication, the final end is not ours to know. The good we yearn for, the ideal we strive to see become real is ever beyond our reach, and not totally in our control. In this we must have faith, that the seeds we plant foretell the world to come [18]. May your daily moments be filled with such hope, such purpose, such faith. My blessings on each of you in your journey. Amen.

A Lesson for This Life:

The kingdom (of God) is not only beyond our efforts, it is beyond our (imagination).
We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God's work. Nothing we do is complete, which is another way of saying that the kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said. No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection. No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the church's mission. No set of goals and objectives includes everything.

This is what we are about:
We plant seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces effects beyond our capabilities.


We cannot do everything and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.
This enables us to do something, and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way,
an opportunity for God's grace to enter and do the rest.


We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders, ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own. Amen.

Endnotes:

[1] References and excerpts are taken from "Hostage reads 'Purpose-Driven Life' to alleged Atlanta killer" By Erin Curry; BP News, 14 March 2005. (http://www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?ID=20340).

[2] The Purpose-Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here For? by Rick Warren (Zondervan, 2002). The essential notions of the book are summarized (p. 306) by Warren as derivatives of the so-called "Great Commandment" (Gospel of Matthew 22:37-40) and the "Great Commission" (Matthew 28:18-20). Five emphases follow:

a) "Love God with all your Heart": You were planned for God's pleasure, so your purpose is to love God through worship.
b) "Love your neighbor as yourself": You were shaped for serving, so your purpose is to show love for others through ministry.
c) "Go and make disciples": You were made for a mission, so your purpose is to share God's message through evangelism.
d) "Baptize them into.": You were formed for God's family, so your purpose is to identify with his church through fellowship.
e) "Teach them to do all things.": You were created to become like Christ, so your purpose is to grow to maturity through discipleship (all emphases his).
Excerpts here are taken off line at:
http://www.purposedrivenlife.com/samplechapters/index.aspx.

[3] The Saddleback Church is among a handful of "entrepreneurial-based" churches, serving memberships in the thousands. Its web site claims: "Today the church averages over 20,000 in attendance each weekend on its 120 acre campus and lists over 80,000 names on the church roll." http://www.saddleback.com/flash/default.htm. Others include the Crystal Cathedral, also in California and Willow Creek Community Church in suburban Chicago.

[4] There is a wide range of convictions that characterize Christianity; hence, the many differing denominations. However, all have at their core these essential ideas:

a) A living God is the creator, sustainer, and redeemer of all existence.
b) The Hebrew and Christian scriptures are the revelation of God's plans. Some Christians interpret the Bible as a literal description of events - primarily those known as "fundamentalist" and "evangelical."
c) The story of Jesus' life - found in the four Gospels Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John - is the fulfillment of the "Old Testament" prophecy. He is the literal "son" of God. His ministry of healing and miracles, primarily to the poor and disenfranchised, are models for human living. His cruel death and sacrifice on the cross provides vicarious atonement for all of humanity's sins.
e) The first mystery of Christianity is Jesus' incarnation and dual nature: wholly God and wholly human. The resurrection from death is the second mystery and proof of God's ultimate love.
f) While Paul taught that Jesus sacrifice was for all, the Christian church, in its many manifestations, primarily teaches that only those who accept Jesus the Christ as their personal savior will be guaranteed salvation.

[5] This, too, is a familiar notion, most famously phrased by St. Paul in his letter to the congregation in Rome: "The good I would do, I do not; the evil, I abhor, I do." Romans 7.19. In both Hebrew and Christian teaching, humans are fallen creatures, defined by their sin.

[6] I should note that this question emphasizes doing. An equally vital and necessary question that goes with it is: Who am I? This is a question of being. Religious teaching often emphasizes that you've got to get the inside straight before you can do your talk. Words like "integrity" and "authenticity" are notions that both precede and follow from the praxis or "purpose" of your living. The good news is you can begin at either place, for being leads to doing, and doing brings you back to being. It is the reflection and contemplation on that nexus that defines spiritual practice.

[7] Christianity and Buddhism both make the claim that we are distracted from life by our busyness. The beginning of a fulfilling life is to pay attention (as the Buddha would say) or to get right with God (as Christians say).

[8] See note 1, above.

[9] Edwin Markham, American poet, (1852 - 1940).

[10] From Transcendental Etude by American poet, Adrienne Rich (b.1930): "There come times when we have to take ourselves more seriously or die: when we have to pull back from the incantations, rhythms we've moved to thoughtlessly and disenthrall ourselves to silence, or a severer listening, cleansed of oratory, formulas, choruses, laments, static crowding the wires. We cut the wires, find ourselves in free fall, as if our true home were the undimensional solitudes, the rift in the Great Nebula."

[11] I've held onto this quotation for years, but have not yet found its source.

[12] There is nothing wrong per se with wanting the recognition of others. Indeed, I would argue we need it to survive. The question here is to what extent to we live for adulation versus to what extent we live for service. As the ancient preacher Ecclesiastes warned, "Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity." 1.2.

[13] The private eye on the 8th floor of the Acme building in Garrison Keillor's Prairie Home Companion stories.

[14] Right livelihood is the 5th element in the Eightfold Path of the Buddha which leads to the cessation of suffering. The other elements are: right view, right resolve, right speech, right action, . . . right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration.

[15] David Whyte captures the same idea in one of his poems: "To have a firm persuasion in our work - to feel that what we do is right for ourselves and good for the world at the exact same time - is one of the great triumphs of human existence." From Fire in the Earth, 1992.

[16] Frederick Buechner (b. 1926), American clergyman and novelist, From Wishful Thinking: A Seekers ABC (Harper, 1993), p.119.

[17] My thanks to Robert Fulghum, Unitarian Universalist minister and American writer, from whom I first learned this story.

[18] Neo-orthodox Christian preacher and theologian, Reinhold Niebuhr (1892 - 1971) captures this idea in his prayer:

"Nothing worth doing is (ever) completed in our lifetime; Therefore, we must be saved by Hope.
Nothing true or beautiful makes complete sense in the immediate context of history; Therefore, we must be saved by Faith.
Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone. Therefore, we must be saved by Love.
No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as from our own. Therefore, we are saved by the final form of love which is Forgiveness."
The Irony of American History (Charles Scribner's Sons, 1952).