Although I will be here for the next two Sundays, this is the last sermon I will preach before Stephany, Mason, and I leave for Boston on May 1st for Mason's last of three heart surgeries. For those of you who aren't familiar with our situation, Mason was born three years ago with a congenital heart defect that can be managed through a very specific surgical regimen. It has been two-and-a-half years since his last surgery. We've been anticipating this final surgery and growing in our anxiety as the date approaches. I want to take this opportunity to share with you the same theological reflections I shared with my previous congregation three years ago as we approached Mason's birth and first surgery. In doing so I'm going to tell you some of the narrative of my spiritual journey over the last fifteen years. In the interest of transparency, I want to share these thoughts with you because it is good for me. It is part of the way I take comfort as I come closer to that final moment when I must relinquish control, hand my child over to a surgeon, and accept there is nothing more I can do.
At its core, this is a sermon about letting go. As one approaches a surgery, chemotherapy or radiation treatment, any major medical intervention, there is a degree of control one must relinquish. You put yourself or your child fully into the care of someone else; you let go. I'm also speaking about letting go in a more general sense. Our lives move through stages, punctuated by moments of realization: we aren't the person we used to be; our bodies can't do what they used to do; we're no longer interested in the work that used to excite us; we've grown passionate in response to new work; we fall in and out of love; we face loss and grief. In so many ways we must learn to let go. And yet-and yet-beneath it all, within the spaces-the often painful spaces marking the transitions of our lives-deep, deep truths abide. Though we must search for them, though we must struggle to find them, these truths are always there; there is always solid, reliable ground. As we contemplate times of change in our lives, times when we must let go, Theodore Parker's question is both comforting and challenging: "Will you cling to what is perishing, or embrace what is eternal?"1
Twelve years ago-March, 1993-I preached my first sermon. I preached at the Unitarian Universalist Association headquarters in Boston where I was working at the time. The sermon was called "Liberal Religion in the age of Punk [Rock]." I compared the values of rock 'n' roll to the values of Unitarian Universalism. I was probably preaching to myself more than anyone else in the room, for during the course of writing that sermon, I realized my commitments to Unitarian Universalism were deeper than my commitments to rock 'n' roll. It didn't mean I wasn't crazy about rock music. I was. I suppose it really meant I was finally beginning to understand I would survive if I didn't become a rock star. Even so, this realization took a while to sink in. Nine more years to be exact. I kept playing rock music. I signed my first record deal two years later, the year I entered seminary. I signed my second record deal the year I graduated from seminary and moved to Connecticut to become the minister at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Norwich.
Intellectually I understood my life's journey to be heading into Unitarian Universalist ministry, but it was hard to let go of rock 'n' roll. It was hard to let go of booking the shows, playing the gigs, late-night drives back from New York City or Philadelphia or Boston, (sometimes in the middle of raging snow storms) and then having to go to work the next day, rehearsals in small, grimy, damp, poorly lit basement rooms, playing to empty houses, playing to full houses where nobody knows who you are and definitely does not want to hear you playing, breathing in the smoke of one hundred cigarettes, bass players and guitarists who are always turning up their amps, falling asleep with ringing ears and a pounding headache. Sometimes I wonder why it was so hard to let go. Then I remember: it was my dream to be a rock 'n' roll drummer, a famous rock 'n' roll drummer. It is hard to let go of dreams. It is hard to accept that life isn't going to turn out exactly as you'd hoped. It's hard to change.
After nine years of knowing I would never become a rock star, I finally played my last concert in February of 2002, a few months before Mason was born. Having a child seemed like the right reason, finally, to let go of this dream. Before then there just wasn't a clear point at which it seemed necessary to let go. I want to tell you some of the reasons why this clarity didn't exist, why so many years passed between the moment I realized it was time to move on from rock 'n' roll and the moment I actually played my last concert.
One of the reasons it was so hard to let go is because that contrast between the values of rock 'n' roll and UUism was not nearly as stark as I thought it was back in 1993. That contrast between rock 'n' roll and liberal religion almost immediately became more complex, more muddied and blurry, and then suddenly, one day, rock 'n' roll and professional ministry were no longer at odds with each other. In some instances they made perfect sense together. A colleague of mine started a movement called Soulful Sundown, a Sunday afternoon worship service geared towards young adults which used rock bands instead of choirs. And people danced in the aisles instead of sitting quietly in the pews. Whenever they hired my band, I got to preach-an added bonus. I always used to get up in the pulpit and say, "I can't believe they're gonna let the drummer talk!"
Oddly enough, or perhaps not, once I started seminary, once I started working more intentionally on my spiritual life, once I realized my commitment to liberal religion was deeper than my commitment to rock music, I became a better musician. I want to tell you how this happened because it ultimately has everything to do with letting go and moving on. How did I become a better musician? I'm a drummer, and I used to think I was good because I listened to great drummers and could integrate their stylistic ideas into my own. Everyone does this. We're taught to do this. My teachers would always say, "learn to play like your idols." And of course they would suggest a few drummers to idolize if they didn't think my chosen idols were worth idolizing. My two favorite drummers have always been John Bonham of the great British blues rock band, Led Zeppelin, and Clyde Stubblefield, one of the drummers for James Brown, the godfather of soul, the grandfather of funk. When I played I would imagine Bonham or Stubblefield, and others, and my playing would sound good. I knew it sounded good because I'd receive good feedback from other musicians.
Then, in seminary I spent some time in theological reflection on rhythm and drumming. I remembered something I had learned as a child, but hadn't paid much attention to in recent years: drums are as old as humanity, the first instruments; and they were used originally to capture the sounds and rhythms of the natural world. Those sounds and rhythms were nothing less than the sounds and rhythms of the gods. Drums, for so many cultures, came to represent the voices of the gods on earth.
I started to pay close attention to and reflect on the natural rhythms all around me: the crashing of waves on New England beaches; the rubbing wings of crickets in summer; my wife's breathing after she falls asleep; the blaring cacophony of Canada geese heading south for winter; the heavy drool-filled panting of my childhood Labrador retriever; the buzzing of honey bees; the wind whispering through Connecticut woods on sunny spring days; the sound of April rain on warm, dark pavement. All these rhythms have one fundamental characteristic: if you listen closely there is always a moment of pure silence between the sounds, between the notes. These moments of silence between the notes are what give the natural world its inherent rhythm. In my rock band we used to call it space-space between the notes. If there were no spaces there would be no rhythm, and no way to mark time, no way to dance. Life is not a complete wall of sound; life is rhythm. As the voice of the holy speaks through the natural sounds of the earth, it always leaves a silent space in which we have time to reflect on and respond to what the holy is saying to us. These natural rhythms are not just sounds around us; they are a continuous invitation into dialogue with divinity. The drum, properly played, is a celebration of that invitation in our lives.
As I sat there on my drum stool, banging away with the bass and guitar, I stopped imagining my drumming idols, and I started imagining waves and birds and thunder and cats and rain and geysers and wind, and I became a better musician. I knew it because people said to me: "you're doing something differently." "You've been practicing." "You sound great." But more importantly, I knew it because it felt better. It felt right. It felt great. I had never felt that way about my own playing, hadn't known I could feel that way. I clung to that feeling. I trusted it. I let it guide me. I was discovering something that mattered more than my childhood dream.
And then, finally, I played my last concert. I finally let go of rock 'n' roll. I finally let go of that dream. But I didn't let go of what really matters. And that's why my musical journey has been so profoundly spiritual for me. When Theodore Parker preached The Transient and Permanent in Christianity in 1841, he argued that religion always takes certain forms, and winds its way into rigid doctrines, and fixed rituals. These things, he proclaimed, are transient. They will fade. They will change. If we cling to them, we fade with them. The love at the heart of Jesus' teaching, the peace at the heart of creation, the immediacy of divinity within and all around-these things are permanent. These are what matter. I finally came to understand that rock 'n' roll, for me, is a transient form that attempts to express an eternal pulse, a permanent vitality that is part and parcel of life on this planet. I don't think I could have let go of the form any sooner than I did. I don't think I could have let go before I made the connections between drumming and the sounds of nature, between drumming and the voices of the gods. Before I made the connection, I couldn't bear to have the music go on without me. I couldn't let go. Now I know that certain, specific music goes on without me, but I, like all of you, have an ongoing invitation to dialogue with divinity. It is there all around me and I mean to celebrate that invitation through my ministry and in my private life. The music doesn't end. We just learn to play differently as the priorities of our lives change.
I still remember a conversation Stephany and I had with our obstetrician about Mason's heart after we had first learned of his defect. We were actually listening to his heart beat in utero, bouncing along at 140 beats per minute. Boom-boom-boom-boom-boom. Wow. I had expected to hear something damaged and broken, not strong and healthy and confident. I looked at the doctor who had a big smile on her face. "Isn't it awesome?" she asked.
"Shouldn't we be hearing the defect?" I wondered out loud.
"No. The heart-beat is the heart-beat," she said. "You'll hear that no matter what. The heart-beat isn't affected by the form of this defect." What an amazing metaphor. I think the truth of any religion-its message of love, its message that all are welcome, its heart-beat, if you will, is not ultimately bound by the form the religion takes. The truth cannot be contained in any doctrine or ritual. The truth is permanent. The form is transient. And so it is with our lives. Changes will come. This we cannot avoid. And we will struggle with letting go, with handing our children over to surgeons. But our task is not only to struggle with how to let go of old patterns and behaviors and ways of being. Our task is to discern what is transient and what is permanent. Our task is to discern what truly matters, and what, in the end, doesn't. When we know this, letting go is not so difficult; letting go is, in fact, a path to deeper truths.
That day in the doctor's office, Stephany and I just listened to the solid rhythm of our baby's heart-beat, beautiful spaces between the notes. And it dawned on me: I am leaving my childhood dream behind, but here is the new music in my life. Here is our new and precious dialogue with divinity. Here is the voice of the gods. Here is my invitation. The beat goes on.
Amen. Blessed Be.