The Unitarian Fellowship of Peterborough

We were made to enjoy music, to enjoy beautiful sunsets, to enjoy looking at the billows of the sea and to be thrilled with a rose that is bedecked with dew...Human beings are actually created for the transcendent, for the sublime, for the beautiful, for the truthful...and all of us are given the task of trying to make this world a little more hospitable to these beautiful things. 

 

"You hear an old song and the face of a lost loved one suddenly appears, and in the space of the song the loved one grabs your loneliness by the collar and sends it out the door.

"You stand before a painting and the peaceful landscape calls you in — or a scene of violent pain holds you in thrall — and for a minute that's longer than eternity you enter the serenity, or you rage and grieve along with the picture's tortured souls.

"You read a piece of poetry and for the span of a minute — or an hour — you find a space to sit and listen to the sound of naked joy, or to stare into the face of unfathomable grief.

"More than anything else, that's what good art does: not answer questions or set agendas, but create space — space to laugh, to mourn, and to wonder who and how and why we are."

 

It’s been a busy week. When I finally sat down yesterday with the task of writing a sermon for today, it took me some time to collect my thoughts. I’ll begin by sharing the list of assumptions where I started:

-          We all have an imagination...we are all capable of forming mental images or concepts of things that are not readily available to our senses.

-          We all create ‘art’, by expressing ourselves in a unique way, whether it is through conventional art and crafts, or by conveying who we are through such things as attire, gestures, personality, actions, etc. 

-          The process of creating something tangible, be it an idea or a work of art, can be a hugely gratifying experience, adding meaning to our lives.

-          The process of creating something, tangible or in our imagination, allows us to touch the spirit...accessing a part of ourselves that is not engaged in any cognitive way. 

-          Not all ‘products’ of our creation or imagination are accepted as equally valuable, and this perceived judgment can stifle our efforts. 

-          The process of imagining is central to creating dreams and visions, and in making meaning of our experience.

Lots of thoughts...not a lot of focus. Imagination. Creativity. Art. Spirituality. Meaning. Let’s see what we can make of it. 

 

Over the summer I read a book by sociologist Robert Wuthnow titled “All In Sync: How Music and Art are Revitalizing American Religion.” I read it because it seems that this congregation is made more vital through music and our artistic endeavours, and I thought it would be interesting to hear what he had to say....to perhaps learn, in the manner of appreciate inquiry, how we might build on this asset we have. Reading the book, I was intrigued by the idea that the line between religion and art is becoming more and more blurred...or at least, it is this author’s contention that churches ought to sit up and take notice of the importance of art in our process of making meaning and connecting with what is spiritual.  

 

We have out in the foyer right now, a representative sampling of the ‘art’ of this congregation...things made by hand and from the heart. We’ve heard, and will hear more of, the ‘art’ of Jessica and her father, the creative impulse expressed through voice and instrument. Many of us, while not considering ourselves to be imaginative, let alone artistic, work with wood, or in the garden, or with words, to create, or put things together, in ways that are pleasing and beautiful. And in that process, whether we’re simply puttering around or very intentionally creating something new out of a variety of parts, we are creating meaning and purpose and joy. 

 

When I was away last week, I stayed for a few days with some very good friends in Denver. They have a beautiful home, and self-profess to be better at buying art than making it, yet I repeatedly saw each of them re-position a vase, or re-arrange the flowers, and then take a split-second to step back and enjoy the pleasing affect. What is it that makes us follow the impulse to create the beautiful? What is it that inspires someone, like Pat for example, to pick up a musical instrument and learn to play? What is it that seeps into our hearts when we gaze at a stained glass window, or that washes over us when we hear a hauntingly beautiful symphony? 

 

It is certainly not unusual for one to express that their god, their church, is found in nature, in a particular kind of intentional communion with creation. I expect that this is true for many of you...that some of your peak religious experiences have occurred in the midst of the natural world’s beauty.   There is something about beauty, wherever we find it, that tugs at us, pulling us into an experience of the divine.

 

Process theology, which has at its core an understanding that all of existence is in process and not static, contends that there is in all of us a lure toward beauty, or goodness, or god...a sort of motivating force that can determine our direction if we pay attention to it. And this beauty, this god, is also in constant process, being created and re-created in every moment. Some traditions would say that we are created in god’s image; more liberal traditions would say that we create god in our own image; I think process theology would say that we and god co-create in an ongoing ‘making’ in which we are each constantly created and re-created. This is the work of a religious imagination.

 

Religion is, etymologically, a process of collecting or binding together.   There is a DH Lawrence quote that I’m fond of, that says that “a person has no religion who has not slowly and painfully gathered one together, adding to it, shaping it, and one's religion is never complete and final, it seems, but must always be undergoing modification.”

 

This last week, the Canada World Youth, two of which are staying at my house, were engaged in an art project in which they were to make something out of recycled items. I’ve made ‘junk sculptures’ before, and I assume they found as I did, that even given the same resources to work with, each person will put them together in slightly, or completely, different ways. And all of the configurations...some large, some small...some fanciful, some sturdy...some colourful, some drab...all of the configurations are artistic expressions.

 

This is how we comprise our lives...by collecting ideas and perspectives from some metaphysical recycling centre, combining them with our personal experiences, and then organizing those ‘found objects’ into something unique and all our own. In the process, we also contribute to that communal recycling resource, creating something for others to use and learn from. This is the art of living a life of meaning. 

 

We take in...whether that be through an experience of a work of art, an encounter with a stranger, an unforgettable moment in nature, an incidence of grace, even the circumstance of pain and sorrow...and out of our experiences we create meaning. From that, we project, by use of our imagination, our idea of what it is that is worthy of our time and effort. We picture what we want to move toward, and we move toward that which we picture. And that projection, by virtue of its very existence, contains a claim of our own worth as a self-creating artist. 

 

I don’t know about you, but I can sometimes struggle with the notion of ‘art.’ Historically, and perhaps too often, to say ‘art’ is to mean ‘high art’ or that art which somehow, by someone somewhere, is judged to be ‘real’ art. I worked in the professional theatre after college, and I still carry some residual judgment baggage that would have me ‘dis’ artistic effort that doesn’t meet a particular standard. I often wish I were less discriminating. I would like to be appreciative of all artistic effort. And how can I change that except by imagining how it might be different and then working to keep that vision within my sights? 

 

Still, I don’t know if we can ever completely get away from comparing ‘product’.   We know when we see fine art, when we see excellent craftsmanship, when we hear an extraordinary musician. We also know when our efforts don’t quite measure up. But I wonder if we couldn’t find a way to appreciate the process no matter what the result? I wonder if we might re-learn a respect for the value of imagination in our lives.   I wonder if we might see each person’s unique imagination as the highest form of art? 

 

I’m sure you’ve all heard the theory that a child’s imagination is pretty uniformly stamped out by social norms and a culture that doesn’t really appreciate it. As a child grows into adolescence, they become aware of norms and expectations, and are less willing to live in the world of their imagination. Somehow the presence of judgment or comparison makes us less likely to access our imagination or to use our artistic abilities. Many of us have learned that our personal imaginative expressions are not art, that they should not be shown outwardly, or even inwardly for that matter. We allow marketing experts tell us what is fashionable and even what is beautiful. We simply don’t value our inherent and unique abilities to create. 

 

William Ellery Channing wrote something that is captured in our hymnal at # 484. I don’t think he was writing about being imaginative, not directly anyway. But he does express a way of living that for him is an art form. It begins...

To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury and refinement, not fashion; to be worthy not respectable and wealthy not rich.

After listing other qualities he finds desirable, he concludes...”This is to be my symphony.” 

 

The theme “how shall we live” could perhaps also be captured in similar language. What will be your symphony? In what way will your life be a work of art? “How Shall We Live?” is a question grounded in process theology. It assumes that there is an aim in every moment for us to constitute ourselves in some satisfactory way. It assumes that what we do in each moment affects what we will be in the future. It affirms the fact that we can create who we will be. 

 

And all of this takes imagination.  Imagination, after all, is not about what is tangible or about what already is. Imagination is taking our own experience and perspective and uniqueness, and putting it all together in a vision of something not yet realized. To live imaginatively is to value the presence of imagination in our living. To live imaginatively is to believe in our own ability to be a co-creator of all that is. 

 

The familiar words of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr....words that our collective visions have hung upon for some four decades, begin, “I have a dream....” I have a dream. I can imagine a world, a community, beyond what we have now. I can imagine a place where our children will not be judged by the colour of their skin. I can imagine a time when imagination, however manifested, will be praised for the art form that it is....where creativity is never stifled by expectations, but rather is nourished and encouraged, and given universal value. 

 

The creating of art is an expression of meaning, and in turn, art can help each person in hir quest for sacred experience. Imagination is central to both the creation and the experiencing. Imagination, or the creation of that which is beyond what we can sense, is available to all of us without judgment, without comparison, without question. Wuthnow maintains that this makes room for a spiritual democracy, in which each person has a voice and the right to experience the divine in hir own way. 

 

What is Unitarian Universalism but an insistence on this spiritual democracy? We affirm our individual right, with the support and acceptance of a community, to use our religious imagination to put ourselves on the path that feels right and good....to use our religious imagination to envision how we might live in a way that serves love and freedom. 

 

I would expand Wuthnow’s conclusions about the blurring boundaries between religion and art to say that there are similar blurred distinctions between imagination and spirituality, between creativity and meaning. In other words, it is impossible to think about “how we shall live” without engaging our imaginations. It is impossible to together create the world of which we dream without first imagining it. In this way we are all artists, using our collective imaginations to tap into our deepest yearnings, and from there to create the beloved community of which we dream. 

 

Libby Roderick sings, How Could Anyone Ever Tell You You Were Anything Less Than Beautiful. Each of us holds a piece of the beauty we seek; there is beauty inside of you. It will take all of us...each voice...each vision...each colour in the palate. Each of us has the ability to imagine the beautiful and to respond to it by living in its service. The world needs all that you can imagine. Imagine That!  

Wendy Beckett said that “All art that really draws us to look at it deeply is spiritual.” I say that all is spiritual when we look at it deeply and in search of the meaning it holds. In the words we sometimes sing together:

May your life be as a song, and may its music serenade you, that you might dance, or skate, beautiful patterns in your life and in the lives of others. Imagine what will be if we do!     Amen.