How Shall We Live?
Part IV: On Spiritual Searching or Digging in the Dirt
The Rev. Joshua Mason Pawelek
Unitarian Universalist Society: East
Manchester, CT
October 28, 2007
Peter Mayer sings: “And what if all the sages talking about realms out of reach would memorize the pages of gravity?”
My younger son, Max, who is eighteen months old, likes digging in dirt. Over the past few months, whenever we go outside, Max grabs a plastic shovel from his shelf in the garage and enthusiastically bobs and waddles over to the three small pine trees lining our driveway. He squats at the base of the middle tree and digs in the dirt. He puts his shovel in the ground and loosens a scoop of brown, sandy earth. He lifts it slowly; he studies the scoop intently—his gaze pierces; and then very slowly he slides the dirt off the shovel back onto the ground—again and again and again. Peter Mayer has given me words for what Max is doing. He is memorizing “the pages of gravity.”
I don’t know what question Max’s young mind is really asking as he conducts this almost daily ritual, but he’s clearly asking one. His stare is so fixed, as if he’s looking for something—not something in the dirt—not a worm or a mole or an acorn or some other buried treasure. It’s as if he’s looking for the nature of dirt itself. I’ve seen him touch it, smell it, taste it, share it with others—but it’s that intense gaze which says, “I need to know what this stuff is. It’s hard and solid underfoot, but in my shovel it becomes a billion tiny pieces that flow like water. How does it do that?”
I hear it said a lot, “young children are sponges.” They are learning the world around them, taking in vast amounts of data and integrating it into their knowing. Their quest for information is very natural, very much a part of who they are. They are open, quizzical, experimental, self-directed, uninhibited, compulsive, and at times obsessive. They are firm believers in the notion there are no bad questions. They love to ask “why?” “what?” and “how?” They are sponges. We might also say they are searchers.
When it comes to adult spiritual searching, I contend the most important model we have may be that of young children learning the world for the first time. And this is good news. In some way or another, we’ve all been there before. Our bodies remember. Do you remember digging in dirt? Do you remember memorizing the pages of gravity?
I’m making my way through a series of sermons about the Unitarian Universalist principles entitled “how shall we live?” Today I’m reflecting on the fourth principle, “the free and responsible search for truth and meaning.” I find the fourth principle to be one of the most eloquently stated of the seven. For me, it very clearly answers the question, “how shall we live?” When it comes to matters of spirit, we shall search.
I believe searching is not simply something we do in our spare time. I believe searching is a more central part of the human identity, part of who we are. Consider again the image of the child digging in dirt, memorizing the pages of gravity—open, inquisitive, trying to understand. This is our natural, original state. If we have stopped searching it is because we have somehow unlearned our natural, original state. I think we are unlearning it all the time. I am moved by the poem, “Ars Poetica,” by Sam Hamill. He makes reference to “the going forth”—the journeying, the adventuring, the seeking, the searching. He says it is the going forth which keeps us alive. He says that although we likely will never find that which we seek, “we venture out, each alone, to find that the going forth is home.” And perhaps that is the question behind Max’s digging in the dirt: “How does it feel to be home?”
Principle #4 refers to the free search. We choose our path; it is not chosen for us, not imposed upon us. We come to it of our own volition. Freedom also means access to many paths along which we may search for truth and meaning—many methods, practices and guides. We refuse to limit our search to the pages of one sacred book, to the confession of one holy creed, to the pronouncements of one all-powerful bishop or pope, to the spreading of one holy gospel, to the predicting of one apocalyptic world-ending catastrophe, to the hoped-for coming of one final heaven, or to the seemingly merciless judgment of one, strident, angry paternalistic deity. “The seas,” says Hamill, “are mysterious, deep and wide.” As spiritual searchers over the course of our lives we pour through the pages of many books, both secular and sacred. We pour through the pages of prophets, poets and sages. We pour through the pages of nature and science, stars and atoms, oceans and desserts. We pour through the pages of injustice and oppression. We pour though the pages of creative human expression. We pour through the pages of sorrows, lamentations, cries, moans, broken dreams and deep frustrations. We pour through the pages of hope and joy, triumphs of the human spirit, moments of peace and justice. We pour though the pages of family, community and all the ties that bind us together and keep us healthy and whole. We pour through the pages of tradition. We pour through the pages of invention. We pour through the pages of life like little children digging in dirt, asking “Why?” “What?” “How?”—wondering how it feels to be home.
Of course, when a non-Unitarian Universalist looks at a day, week, month or year in the life of our congregations, the spiritual searching we do may appear random, scattered, unorganized and chaotic. And, well, it is. Unbridled freedom inevitably breeds an element of chaos, which is why we also refer to the responsible search. What does it mean to conduct a responsible search for truth and meaning? The responsible searcher expects the discovery of truth and meaning to take time. The responsible searcher’s commitment to a particular practice is long-term. The responsible searcher is patient, disciplined, and intentional. The responsible searcher reflects on the search, asking “What am I learning? Am I still on the right path? What do I still not understand? What am I missing?” The responsible searcher attends to the needs of mind, body and spirit; learns from play as well as study, spontaneity as well as routine. The responsible searcher seeks evidence before making truth claims. What evidence has my search yielded about the world, people, life, divinity, connection, death, sin, evil, goodness, justice, love? The responsible searcher seeks multiple sources of evidence: words on pages, words spoken, observations of nature and human behavior, gut feelings, intuitions, personal experiences, family and cultural wisdom. The responsible searcher is humble and grateful. The responsible searcher keeps in the back of his or her mind the four simple words: “I could be wrong.” And, when the search leads faiths and cultures different from one’s own, the responsible searcher strives to be in respectful relationship with people from that faith or culture, strives to know that faith or culture beyond a mere surface level, and seeks permission to search within the boundaries of that faith or culture. With freedom must come responsibility.
I confess: during my time in seminary and through my early years of ministry I felt like a spiritual fraud. I could speak well enough about the free and responsible search for truth and meaning, but privately I couldn’t articulate how I was doing it, and I was desperately hoping nobody would ask me. I tried prayer. It felt inauthentic. I tried meditation. I couldn’t quiet my racing mind. Spiritual retreats didn’t appeal, nor did finding a spiritual director. I didn’t keep a journal, build altars or practice yoga. I was aware of all these paths—and many more—and I couldn’t point to a single one I was traveling.
And I still can’t. And despite how much searching takes place here at UUS:E, there are many of us who can’t point to a regular spiritual practice in our lives. If you followed me around for a week you would more likely witness me in some very unspiritual moments: yelling at my kids, letting stress get the better of me, forgetting to step back from a tense moment, making rash decisions. But I no longer feel like a spiritual fraud, either about that time in my life or currently.
It turns out I was searching back then, but my search didn’t fit into any of the traditional categories—prayer, fasting, meditation, etc. I was digging in the dirt of my life, and I think this is the way many of us actually search. For example, when I began my ministry I was sick with anxiety from moving to a new place, starting a professional career, wanting to appear is if I knew what I was doing. My body was reacting with symptoms of stress I had never had before. I had no idea what was happening and it frightened me. While I wasn’t praying or meditating or going on retreat, with the help of a therapist I was engaging in a very intentional, daily study of my body’s relationship to anxiety. I was learning to listen to my body, inhabit my body, know my body. I was figuring out what it meant to be not so young anymore. I was learning to recognize feelings I hadn’t had before—fears, insecurities, angers. Instead of pushing them away or letting them overwhelm me, I was learning to just feel them and be comfortable with them being a part of me.
This was also the time I was letting go of my dream of being a famous rock ‘n’ roll drummer. It’s hard to let go of dreams—even ridiculous ones. But as the dirt in that shovel came pouring down, something happened. My drumming stopped functioning as a career, as a means to an end, as something commercial, and started functioning as a practice—as a daily, embodied, creative, expressive and joyful practice. I was back in that natural, original state. Once I let go of the dream, and all the pressure was off, I very naturally began engaging in theological reflection on music, rhythm, space, time, sound, tides and waves—reflections which have become central to my personal theology and prayer life today.
This was also the time I began to understand long-distance running not as a competitive sport but as a spiritual practice. I began to observe the power of daily physical exercise not only to maintain health, but to cause insights to happen that would never happen if I stayed hunched in front of a computer screen. In the midst of preparing a sermon, for example, trying to figure out how five or six different ideas fit together, thinking about it ad nauseam never works. But during the course of a four or five mile run, without thinking, the insights come. The clarity comes. The ideas suddenly fit together. Disciplined physical activity moves the mind in ways the mind cannot move itself. There are studies of this phenomenon. I still don’t understand it. But I trust the power of physical movement to massage the unconscious mind in such a way that the conscious mind realizes what it needs to realize.
This was my digging in the dirt. This was my searching, my going forth, my being home. None of these things would fit on a list of typical spiritual practices, but these are the things that caught my attention, helped me weave mind, body, and spirit into a more fluid whole, and began to give me some sense of the contours of God. Or so I thought.
When we learned Stephany was pregnant there was much joy and excitement in our home. Then we learned our 20 week old baby had a massive heart defect and would require a series of open-heart surgeries after birth. Some searching is unanticipated, required by circumstances beyond our control, and painfully difficult. We built an altar and we prayed for our baby to survive—and for once it felt authentic. Earlier Peter Mayer sang “God is a river, not just a stone.” What an important teaching. In that moment of receiving the news of Mason’s condition, whatever stone I was clinging to was not God. Whatever vision of a happy, healthy family I was anticipating was gone in an instant. We I eventually came to a new vision of familial health and wholeness, but in that moment a river raged around me. And in the midst of it there was an invitation to let go, to fall, to trust that this frightening, dizzying, terrible force flowing all around me would not destroy me, that it might actually carry me. And so I fell, and found myself, once again, like a child digging in dirt, memorizing new pages in the book of gravity, learning a new feeling of home. As Peter Mayer sang, “What if to reach the highest place you had to fall?”
We are searchers, but the truth and meaning we find is often not the solid stone we thought it was; not firm ground but loose dirt sliding out of a child’s shovel. We all fall in some way eventually—when you’ve been through surgery and chemotherapy and radiation and you learn the cancer is back; when you learn a friend has attempted suicide; when you learn flames are rushing over the dry mountains towards your home and you have to escape in the middle of the night; when you learn a family member has been deplyed to the war zone—you realize the way you thought life would be is not the way it will be; you realize your dreams may fall short; you realize you can’t escape the pain of living; you realize the stone you’re clinging to is not God. It’s time to let go. It’s time to fall. And falling, which is also trusting, is perhaps the most profound searching we can do. Our saving grace is that we know how to do this. Each of us at some time in our earliest years memorized the pages of gravity. Our bodies remember. We’ve always known how to fall.
Through my digging in the dirt I have learned to trust my body. I have learned to trust fear is not an enemy. I have learned to trust the spaces between the notes, the spaces behind the notes, the crashing of waves, and the pulling of tides. I have learned to trust the way my mind, body, and spirit interact and create insight. I have learned to trust falling, even though I don’t like the recognition that it’s time to fall. I have learned to trust the river. And though there have been blessedly few times in my life that I’ve had to fall through pain and despair, I have learned to trust the wisdom that comes in the wake of such falling and trusting. There are many ways to talk about that wisdom. Many people who’ve endured great suffering or who’ve confronted the reality of their own death will say, “the world looks different now.” “There’s a life-fire burning in everything.” “I don’t want to take my life for granted anymore.” “I can see beauty all around me.” I’ve invited Peter Mayer to sing about this wisdom. It’s the wisdom that comes from trusting. It’s the wisdom that comes from finding home again. It’s the wisdom that comes from digging in dirt: Everything, everything, everything is holy now.
Amen and Blessed Be.
Benediction
As we extinguish the flame of our Unitarian Universalist chalice, our symbole of faith, hope and love, I offer these words of pray. Through all our going forth, through all our searching, may we continue to memorize the pages of gravity. May we find the courage to fall when it’s time to fall. May we dig in the blessed dirt.
