Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of the Emerald Coast
Heart Strings
Rev. Rod Debs
February 14, 2010
Lyrics: ”The String”
by Peter Mayer, Bountiful CD
I have found a hole in the center of the heart
Through which a thread goes, enters and departs
It’s fastened in the middle to inside of me
From where it then continues through the heart of everything
So when I get a feeling like a pulling on the chest
I have to ask if that was me or one of the rest
Sometimes it’s painful, sometimes just a tap
Sometimes it happens violently and knocks me on my back
When pain is not just mine alone, that’s when I know
Somebody’s tugging on the string
And when I start shaking, like a tremor in the ground
Or and organ pipe in rank when it’s resonating sound
Such a fine emotion of such intensity
Takes a hold, and I know that it can’t be only me
Then I guess that someone, maybe far away
Has grown a little tired of the instrument they play
And somehow has discovered that universal thread
And reached out a courageous hand and plucked that chord instead
When life seems like it’s only music, then I know
Somebody’s playing the string
And sometimes when I stand beneath the sky at night
I take up the slack till the string is tight
And staring at the stars, I take a step or two
And I see them move
I think I see them move
Everything’s connected like peas are in a pod
Or beads upon a necklace, decorating God
Going around the rosy, we’re all in the ring
Hand in hand, like a strand through the heart of everything
Valentine’s Day is perhaps the most appropriate time to address `love,’ arguably one of the two most poorly defined words, concepts, realities in human experience. (The other ill-defined term is `God.’) `Love’ has been used to speak of paternal or maternal possessiveness, kinship, sibling affection, compassion, infatuation, lust, loneliness, neediness, commitment, and myriad combinations of such sentiments.
My childhood notions of love were shaped by the cultural clichés that God is love, that Jesus loves everyone, and by the Beatles’ truism that “All you need is Love…, Love is all you need, Love is all you need, Love is all you need.” Without a clear definition, I found it really hard to say that I loved my parents because, you see, I didn’t feel romantic affection for them. And I knew that the infatuation I felt for potential partners was more lust than love. `Love’ meant anything and nothing.
Buddhist use of the phrase “loving kindness” makes a lot of sense to me. Kind, compassionate behavior rooted in a sense of personal affection— loving kindness seems to be something worthy of commitment. Stories of Jesus’ loving kindness were planted in my earliest childhood memories, coupled with the teaching that Christianity is at its core, imitation of Christ, being like Jesus. The Great Commandment defined “loving God” and “loving my neighbor” as two sides of the same coin: to love God was to love my neighbor. “Love” meant the kind compassion Jesus showed to the poor and marginalized, outcasts, “the least of these, our brothers and sisters.” Loving kindness.
Love was tough for me growing up. I couldn’t love everybody. I didn’t even like everybody! It was not until I was in my thirties and in seminary that I learned a key element of love: mutual relation. Power and control and submission are not qualities of love. Since then I have come to feel that the mutuality I can offer is respect, to take each one seriously whether I like them or not. On reflection, it is not sentimental affection that I long for myself. The love I want is to be taken seriously, as in our UUA covenant we affirm “the inherent worth and dignity of every person”. Mutual relation.
In his song “The String,” Peter Mayer sings: “Everything’s connected like peas are in a pod / Or beads upon a necklace, decorating God / Going around the rosy, we’re all in the ring / Hand in hand, like a strand through the heart of everything”.
To experience this “string,” this sense of being connected to everything and everyone, seems to me to be the defining goal of religion, from the Latin, religio, to bind together.
Albert Einstein explained the fact of interconnectedness that we find so hard to feel, when he said: “A human being is a part of the whole that we call the universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest–a kind of optical illusion of his consciousness. This illusion is a prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for only the few people nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living beings and all of nature.”
To be whole, to experience the reality of interconnectedness, is that elusive “meaning of life.” To achieve wholeness is to realize that each person is literally a part of me, my own flesh.
Our natural proclivity to seek union, wholeness through religious practices of loving kindness is regularly challenged by another natural proclivity to see ourselves as separate and to fear and fight the other, each against all. In recent years, functional MRI brain scans localize in different lobes of the brain, perceptions of separateness and perceptions of interconnectedness. The question is: Which will prevail in shaping our relationships?
The story is told (and deserves retelling) of a Cherokee elder teaching a young boy that we all have two wolves inside us. “One is a wolf of honesty, kindness, justice, moderation, selflessness, compassion and love. The other is a wolf of greed, lust, selfishness, calculation for his own benefit and wickedness. And these two wolves are forever opposed to one another.” “Which wolf wins?” the boy asked excitedly. And the answer? “It depends upon which one you feed.”
Aikido master Mitsumi Saotome writes: “If you were all alone in the universe with no one to talk to, no one with which to share the beauty of the stars, to laugh with, to touch, what would be your purpose in life? It is other life, it is love, which gives your life meaning. This is harmony. We must discover the joy of each other, the joy of challenge, the joy of growth.”
To realize life’s purpose, we must feed the good wolf of honesty, kindness, justice, moderation, selflessness, compassion and love.
In his metaphor of the Charioteer, the ancient Greek philosopher Plato also presented a psychological model of human motivation. In The Republic Plato described the individual (and the state) as consisting of three distinct human competencies, our Appetites, Passions and Reason. Plato painted us a picture of a Charioteer with two powerful steeds: one represented the Appetites which drive us to material consumption, and the second, our Passions that drive us to psychological pleasures, good feelings. Although these two steeds might easily drag the Chariot to excess from one appetite to another, or chasing after myriad, fleeting feelings, it is our human capacity to Reason, the charioteer within this metaphor, which by harnessing and directing the steeds of Appetites and Passions towards wise goals, that Good and Just ends can be attained.
Both metaphors, the wolves and the Charioteer with two steeds, both affirm that we humans have powerful motivations, passions, feelings, appetites, which wisdom would instruct require both respect and direction.
Religious and secular society often moralize and condemn the individual Charioteers for not whipping our steeds under absolute control. On the other hand, at our best, both secular and religious culture help direct our steeds and feed our better wolves. How often we take for granted the support we receive and owe to one another. How often we miss opportunities to guide, support and encourage one another’s better efforts and forgive so that another might stand and try again. George Odell wrote:
“We need one another when we mourn and would be comforted.
We need one another when we are in trouble and afraid.
We need one another when we are in despair, in temptation,
and need to be recalled to our best selves again.
We need one another when we would accomplish some great purpose,
and cannot do it alone.
We need one another in the hour of success,
when we look for someone to share our triumphs.
We need one another in the hour of defeat,
when with encouragement we might endure, and stand again.
We need one another when we come to die,
and would have gentle hands prepare us for the journey.
All our lives we are in need, and others are in need of us.”
My hope and prayer for this congregation, is that we will feel the strings that attach us to one another and to our neighbors close and distant. May we feel tugging on our heart strings. May we make it our mission to find what we can do to make our interconnections healthy and joyful and effective for those who need our collective support. We are part of one another. May our passion be compassion.
Everything’s connected like peas are in a pod
Or beads upon a necklace, decorating God
Going around the rosy, we’re all in the ring
Hand in hand, like a strand through the heart of everything