Interdependence in four worlds
This sermon was given the morning of Erev Yom Kippur at the Universalist Unitarian congregation at Davie, Florida, who were kind enough to let us use their space for Yom Kippur Services.
Everything is connected. When we try to pick out any one thread by itself, it is hitched to everything else. ~John Muir
Jake was a twin, born second, when his mom delivered them, literally grabbing at his brother’s heel. By the time the boys were grown It seemed Jake spent his whole life reaching for light in the shadow of his brother. Although older by only minutes, his big brother was everything he was not – tall, strong, and did I mention, Dad’s favorite. Things got out of hand, and before you know it, Jake was running for his life, chased by the voice of his brother vowing to kill him after their dad died.
Do you recognize this story? This vignette is the story from Genesis, the death threat in chapter 27:41 The brothers are Jacob and Esav,or maybe you recognized it from a family you know -the story is as new as today, and as old as humanity. The brothers are in competition & the parents play favorites, and the family falls apart its center cannot hold.
We need each other in four worlds. The four worlds, in Jewish mystical tradition, exist simultaneously in different levels. They sort of correspond to Abram Maslow’s levels of human needs. The first level is physical. A story that I read a couple of weeks ago in the NY Times, was of a journalist who went on vacation to spend time with her elderly mother. The two of them went snorkling together. At first it was wonderful, but then her mom got into trouble. Getting water into her snorkel, she began to flounder. At first the journalist tried to rescue her mother, swimming toward shore with her mother in tow, but there was a current, and she wasn’t getting anywhere. She was quickly becoming exhausted. She suddenly realized that if instead of swimming, she use one hand to hold her mother, and the other to wave for help, someone would see them who would be much more able than her to help! Her mother lived –and is in her 90s now. The article was entitled: What all successful people have in common. It turns out the “thing” is the ability to round up help, not to tough it out alone! We need one another on a physical level.
The next level of existence and of needs is emotional – we need to feel safety and a sense of belonging. Dr. Naomi Remen (of blessed memory) tells the story of a college student named George, in her wonderful book, “Kitchen Table Stories”. Remen counseled George when his father had suffered from cancer and his housemate Michael had been a tremendous help and support. They became roommates the following year as Michael continued as a grad. student. But this year Michael was getting into trouble using a lot of cocaine and such, hiding it so that nobody else seemed to notice. George was a practitioner of Buddhism. The core of his teaching was to be non-judgemental, and not to interfere. This was not easy for George –in his family folks were always telling the kids what to do. Their friendship reached a crisis point one evening when George brought Liz, a girl he was fond of to the apartment to find Michael shirtless, dazed and covered in his own vomit. When he looked at Liz’s shocked face, he just “lost it”. He picked his friend up, put him in the shower, and told him all the criticisms he’d tried so hard not to say. “It’s too hard watching you throw yourself away” -and then an ultimatum: clean up or get out. Next morning George felt awful –contrite, scared, ashamed of having lost the discipline of ten years of Buddhist practice. He’d responded just as his dad would. Would Mike even be there, he wondered.
He was –pale and looking ill, but straight. Sitting on the sofa and waiting for his friend. They talked. George heard things he hadn’t known about Michael. He was the only child of a wealthy family, raised by “paid strangers” and sent away to boarding school and camp. He’s been given anything he ever wanted, except for the time and attention children/people need so much. In the shower, Michael knew his life mattered to George, and knew he was causing his friend pain. “I knew I was in trouble, but I didn’t know anyone enough to help. Will you help me, George?” George and Michael went to addiction counseling together and stayed friends. George’s honest, authentic self was just what Michael needed! We need one another on this second, emotional level.
On a third level we are connected to all living things. In the natural world interdependence is simply a fact –Life is a magnificent web and we are a part of it. it’s how ecosystems, habitats and the creatures in them survive .Perhaps you know about the teeth cleaning fish and the sharks – or the clown-fish and the anemone. Competition, as we saw with Jacob and Esav does exist – the clashing of antelope horns, the pounding of the silverback male gorilla’s chest, but they are for show, very rarely resulting in death. Humans are the only animals to do that. All the creatures need one another, as we need other creatures for our oxygen, our food, for digestion and much more. Within our bodies, organs are interdependent, within our tissues cells are interdependent, and within our cells chemicals, which themselves are dead as a doornail interact and give rise to much more than the sum of their parts – to life itself. When we were children, we knew we were a part of nature. We disconnect ourself now to our detriment. This poem by the medieval Sufi poet Kabir expresses this poignantly.
I talk to my inner lover and say
why such a rush?
We sense there is some sort of spirit
that loves birds and animals and ants.
Perhaps the same One who gave you Radiance in your mother’s womb
Is it logical that you would be walking around entirely orphaned now?
The truth is you turned away yourself, and decided to go into the dark alone
…You have forgotten what you once knew
The One referenced in this beautiful poem can be God, who is also the connection who saves Biblical Jacob. Unable to ask his brother for help, he dreams of a ladder whose feet rest on the ground, and whose head is in the heavens, and awakens knowing “God is in this place but I, I didn’t know” This ladder to the heavens, connection to the Divine Sublime, is the fourth level of existence. For me (this was my capstone)
G8d is in the magic and the mystery in the spaces between parts of a system. G8d is In the love sparkling between a mother and child, lovers, or friends, as well as in the gravity that holds galaxies and planets and atoms together Those seem very different, – they are G8d immanent, and G8d transcendent. The interstices – the part you don’t see at first glance – in the Relationship between the parts, that’s where life is, that’s where love is, that’s where G8d is. In a Torah scroll, the letters are hand written in black ink. Each letter is limited. But the spaces between the letters are continuous, and unlimited. The Torah was given, say the mystics in black fire upon white fire . Here are the centuries of interpretations, the holiness that surpasses a generation’s limited understanding, the flexibility to evolve with the times. Here is where scripture comes alive. For example
Deuteronomy 30:19 G8d tells us: I have set before you this day, life and death, blessing and cruse, Uvacharta b’chayim choose to be In life so that you and your offspring may live. The medieval commentator Ibn Ezra explains what it means to choose life – to love is to live- for love surpases death. According to shir haShirim, the song of songs – only love is as fierce as death.
What story will our lives tell. If we choose rightly and often enough, to embrace inter -loving, the world we are building can be the world we envision in our dreams
Life happens in the space between…..I wrote this song, Between from a place of despair:
Take my hand & help me climb, I’ve been in the depths below
Why am I here among all these broken hearts
Ok, it’s my own heart, that’s been so hollow I’ll admit
How can I climb, Help me see beyond, my own four walls
Life happens in the space between
And there are angels going up and going down
You are that angel
Helping me to see the way to climb free
Ev’ry rung is made of love, and gravity
Helps me to return the favor done me
Jacob he ran to the wilderness
Leaving behind security, in the quest for superiority
Made of his brother an enemy
But Jacob don’t you know
It’s brothers that we need
Chorus
Maybe between is all we ever have
Between heaven and earth…death and birth
Between you and me G8d can rest
Helping us find our way through this wilderness
Jacob never climbs that ladder in between
So did he miss the point of his great dream
G8d was in this place though it did not seem
It would take a struggle so supreme
To help him realize that dream
Chorus
May the spaces between our two communities be filled with love and understanding, and may we be renewed for a year of life in all four worlds!
