The Transient and the Transcendent
Sunday Service - May 31, 10:00am
Rev. Julie Stoneberg
Music: Glen Caradus
My theology is built on the idea that we are all on a journey, that we are all in process, and that nothing is ever complete. Does this mean that nothing is permanent? Or are there some things that ‘transcend’ the process?
Opening Words
Harry C. Meserve
And why are we here? Harry Meserve has this to offer…
"It is not the purpose of religion to lift us up out of the ordinary world into some supernatural world of special revelation. Its task is to show us the divine in the midst of the human; the eternally significant as it appears within the framework of the commonplace, day-to-day events."
Come, let us celebrate our humanity.
Story For All Ages
An Egg is an Egg - Nicki Weiss
Reading
The Layers - Stanley Kunitz
I have walked through many lives,
some of them my own,
and I am not who I was,
though some principle of being
abides, from which I struggle
not to stray.
When I look behind,
as I am compelled to look
before I can gather strength
to proceed on my journey,
I see the milestones dwindling
toward the horizon
and the slow fires trailing
from the abandoned campsites,
over which scavenger angels
wheel in on heavy wings.
Oh, I have made myself a tribe
out of my true affections,
and my tribe is scattered!
How shall the heart be reconciled
to its feast of losses?
In a rising wind
the manic dust of my friends,
those who fell along the way,
bitterly stings my face.
Yet I turn, I turn,
exulting somewhat,
with my will intact to go
wherever I need to go,
and every stone on the road
precious to me.
In my darkest night,
when the moon was covered
and I roamed through wreckage,
a nimbus-clouded voice
directed me:
“Live in the layers,
not in the litter.”
Though I lack the art
Though I lack the art
to decipher it,
no doubt the next chapter
in my book of transformations
is already written.
I am not done with my changes.
I am not done with my changes.
Message
This reading comes from one of my favourite authors, Annie Dillard. The season is a bit off, but the message is spot on:
“It is still the first week in January, and I’ve got great plans. I’ve been thinking about seeing. There are lots of things to see, unwrapped gifts and free surprises. The world is fairly studded and strewn with pennies cast broadside from a generous hand. But--and this is the point--who gets excited by a mere penny? … if you crouch motionless on a bank to watch a tremulous ripple thrill on the water and are rewarded by the sight of a muskrat kit paddling from its den, will you count that sight a chip of copper only, and go your rueful way? It is dire poverty indeed when a man is so malnourished and fatigued that he won’t stoop to pick up a penny. But if you cultivate a healthy poverty and simplicity, so that finding a penny will literally make your day, then since the world is in fact planted in pennies, you have with your poverty bought a lifetime of days. It is that simple. What you see is what you get.”
One of the most acclaimed sermons within historical Unitarianism is a sermon delivered by Theodore Parker in 1841 on the occasion of the ordination of a colleague. Because of this sermon, Theodore Parker is remembered as one of the key prophets of religious liberalism. The sermon was entitled “The Transient and the Permanent in Christianity,” and in its day, was quite inflammatory. In it, Parker claimed that the doctrines and rituals of the Christian church were transient, and had little to do with what is permanent or transcendent…that being the word of God spoken through conscience, reason, and faith.
His sermon is a good read, and I’d encourage you to take a look at it some day. I find Parker’s argument quite convincing as it applies to what is transient, making a good case that understandings created by humankind are often but crude explanations and are subject to question and change. On the other hand, I find him quite vague when it comes to naming what is permanent. I suppose this is the human condition…we seem to always be in search of the truth, the unchanging, the eternal. In this immanent existence, we better understand what is transient because it is so ingrained in the nature of life. Even if we do not like it, we understand and accept change as a given. It is much more difficult to name what is permanent, or what some might call, the Truth.
My personal theology is not based on something transcendent, but rather is grounded in impermanence, in transience. It is based in process thought, and today I’d like to give you a brief tutorial; that’s why you got the handouts with the color illustrations on them. Some vocabulary that may be new to you, so please bear with me, and hopefully I’ll be able to at least give you a basic understanding. Process thought is based on the metaphysical philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead in which ‘reality is not made up of material substances that endure through time, but of serially-ordered events which are experiential in nature.’[1] (Slide 1) Whitehead called each unit of existence an actual entity, which is made up of an ongoing process of events, forever changing...always ‘becoming’ rather that ‘existing.’ An actual entity exists on the atomic level…and the larger things that we see as objects and persons, Whitehead called ‘societies of actual entities.’ But for our purposes, to make it easier to understand, we can talk about a person or a thing as a single actual entity.
Slide 1
Look at Slide 1. An entity is not one moment, not one circle in the succession, but rather the whole history of individual moments. The key to this is that just as one moment comes into being, it simultaneously passes away, and another moment becomes, only to immediately be gone, etcetera, etcetera. Nothing is ever static long enough to exist unchanged… it is always in a state of ‘becoming.’
In the process of becoming, an entity is influenced by three things. The first, and perhaps the most powerful, is its past. What I am right now is greatly determined by what I was a moment ago. This inheritance of the past is inherent in the serial moments of becoming that make up an actual entity.
Slide 2
The second influence is that which surrounds us…(see slide Two) We live in community, and every actual entity is constantly interacting with other actual entities. As each successive moment in each actual entity comes into being, or concresces, it is influenced, not only by its own past, but also by all the contemporaries of that passing moment.
Slide 3 shows how everything around us contributes to what we are to become in the next moment. As the Kunitz poem says, “I have walked through many lives, and I am not who I was, though some principle of being abides.” That which we ‘positively prehend’ or actively take into our becoming, colors what we will be in the next moment. This is rarely so drastic as the colors in this slide would indicate…change is generally more gradual than this…but these colors do illustrate the fact that we are influenced by outside forces and beings. So far, I hope, this is generally comprehensible to you… that we are influenced by both our past and by that with which we come into contact. Sometimes we’re aware of it and sometimes we’re not; but to some degree, our level of awareness affects the intensity and persuasiveness of these influences on our becoming.
Slide 3
One thing I love about process thought is the way that it addresses our seventh principle, the interdependent web of all of existence. So it is important, I think, to note that in process thought, just as other actual entities are influencing our becoming, we are also influencing the becoming of others. (Slide 4) It is this give-and-take, this touching and receiving, that resonates with me and so directly addresses the incredible importance of paying attention to our interconnected web. It matters what we do. It matters who we come into contact with, and it matters how we interact with all things and beings.
Slide 4
The third factor (illustrated in slide 5) in an actual entity’s becoming is what Whitehead called the “lure of God.” For Whitehead, God is alternatively described as ‘creativity’ or ‘beauty’ or ‘harmony.’ He believed that we are all given a sort of vision or longing for this beauty/ creativity/harmony, and that this vision is what lures us forward in process. My seminary professor described Whitehead’s view of God as an ‘ongoingness.’ Maybe we could also then liken this to Parker’s idea of permanence. That which remains unchanged and permanent might one description for god.
Slide 5
Trying to understand ‘god’, or the transcendent, is the place where many theologians have connected with process thought. A pre-eminent theologian with Unitarian connections, Charles Hartshorne, who was also a student of Whitehead, makes a case for a conception of the divine which is both absolute (or permanent) and relational (or transient and in flux.) He believed that God has to be absolute and reliable AND relative and affected by process. In his view, God is both creator and created. I’m not convinced about all of Hartshorne’s conclusions, but I greatly admire his attempt to understand the reality that Parker spoke of in his infamous address. We live in transience and are compelled by what we believe to be permanent. We cannot really know permanence; it is a transcendent concept…something that we cannot really ever fully understand, perhaps because permanence is so far outside of our experience.
I think I’ve told you before that Rev. Forrest Church talks about religion as a response to the dual realities of being born and having to die.[2] A person’s religious beliefs, or theology, then, should be helpful in making sense of what comes in between birth and death. A theology that can’t help you when the going gets rough is not a theology worth its salt. So how does process thought and theology help me?
Well, for one thing, process theology gives me hope. It affirms that everything is alive and changeable, and everything has some capacity for creativity. Along with that hope and possibility comes a lesson in responsibility, since in each occasion, in each becoming, I have to decide how to take account of the world it experiences.[3] This goes so far as to call us each to play an active role in the construction of reality, even in the construction of God.
Process theology reminds me that it matters what I take from my experiences and relationships, and that it matters what I leave with those with whom I come into contact. On our journeys, we stop for a while...for rest...for nourishment...to enjoy another’s company...to be of service. I’m reminded of a favourite photograph which shows two men pitching hay in a field, with a tractor and a motorcycle close by. What I see in that photo is a motorcyclist who stopped for a while to help. On our journey, there is much to be gained by stopping and ‘communing’ and contributing. Each learning and experience we have, here at UPF or elsewhere, is something we can ‘positively prehended’ into our beings, in ways that change us and move us toward God as it were. This calls me to honour all that I have received in relationship, knowing that I have also made a difference in another’s becoming.
Process theology also requires me to pay attention to ‘how’ I become. Whitehead believed that how an entity becomes is a determinate in what that entity is. In words reminiscent of Annie Dillard’s call to pay attention to a found penny, Rev. Victoria Safford has called us to pay attention to this blue-green world, exploding with diversity of life. She writes, “What song would come out of your mouth, what prayer, what praises...what reverential gesture would you make to greet that world, every single day that you were in it?” To positively prehend something requires both attention and reverence. To take something in with love and a creative spirit will have a different outcome than to take in that same influence with anger or resentment or fear.
For another thing, process theology has helped me to understand and accept loss. Loss is required in every moment of becoming, because that moment of becoming means that the last moment perishes. In order for the new to come into being, the old must pass away. Since loss is a given in this theology, since it is recognized as an integral part of being and becoming, it can be honoured and taken seriously.
Lastly, process theology creates meaning in my life by helping me to see that nothing I have ever said or done is entirely wasted, because it serves the process of all becoming. What I do, in some small way, helps to create what is. As Rabindranath Tagore writes, “the same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day, runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures.”
And what of the transcendent? In process thought, the transcendent is that creativity which moves the process along and is always available...it is a storehouse of all possibility. Henry Nelson Weiman called it the ‘creative interchange’...a phrase that he used in place of ‘god.’
About twelve years ago, Vaclav Havel gave a speech called “A Sense of the Transcendent” in which he explored the connection between an awareness of the transcendent and human relationships in a multi-cultural global society. In that speech he said, “Since time immemorial, the key to the existence of the human race, of nature, and of the universe, as well as the key to what is required of human responsibility, has always been found in what transcends humanity, in what stands above it. Humanity must respect that if the world is to survive…. We should look for what unites us: in an awareness of the transcendent.”[4]
This is the permanence that Parker spoke of. This is the “lure of god” that Whitehead concluded must exist. This is the creative interchange that we engage in if we pay attention. We are united in our vision and our dream of the transcendent…that better world, that higher conscience, that world community of peace and harmony, that enduring love. This is how we are to survive and to survive brilliantly…by basking in all that connects us. That is the principle of being that abides.
Process theology is a theology of hope based in awareness and responsibility. This I believe. Any passing away, any change in what we mistook for permanence, is simply another opportunity to open up to all the possibilities. How we use that opportunity is up to each of us. May we be lured toward ever-increasing beauty and chaos, ever-challenging adventures and relationships, ever-hopeful action and responsibility. Amen.
Closing Words
As Mr. Kunitz writes, we have made of ourselves a tribe, and every stone on the road is precious to us, every change matters in who we are becoming. We are not done with our changes.
May we allow ourselves to get excited by the mere pennies in our lives, and choose to “live in the layers”, knowing that we are bound to one another in our ever becoming, ever changing journey. So it will be until we are together again. Amen.
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