All I Know So Far

Rev. Douglas Taylor

10-27-2024

Sermon video: https://youtu.be/n1zNy_MKmpI

Several years back I started collecting a playlist of positive songs that were written as advice from a parent to a child. When I was a teenager, Rod Stewart did a cover of “Forever Young.” This song was all over MTV during my senior year in high school; and later when I was a new minister, someone used it during a private Child Dedication ceremony. I think that’s what cemented it for me. I had played “Cat’s in the Cradle” by Harry Chapin and “Father and Son” by Cat Stevens, but they were less examples of what I longed for and more cautionary tales. This old Bob Dylan song offered a message I wanted to embody as I entered adulthood.

Then, in the ‘90’s, as a young father, the radio was playing “You Gotta Be” by Des’ree.

You gotta be bad, you gotta be bold, you gotta be wiser

I love this song.

Listen as your day unfolds
Challenge what the future holds
Try and keep your head up to the sky

This was peak wisdom for me as a young parent. I loved it. This is what I wanted to instill in my children. I particularly resonated with the message that you gotta persist – you have to keep at it. You don’t have to be perfect, but you do have to be bold.

Over the years I added more songs to my playlist. 93 Million Miles by Jason Mraz; Growing Up by Macklemore, I Hope You Dance by Lee Ann Womack, and Dear Winter by AJR; I’m sure you have your own playlist, your own songs that carry wisdom down through the generations.

All I Know So Far is the most recent addition to my playlist. It is a song written by Pink just a few years ago (2021). Pink says the song was envisioned as an advice-filled love letter to her daughter. The lyrics talk about finding strength in the face of adversity and fear.

And when the storm’s out, you run in the rain
Put your sword down, dive right into the pain
Stay unfiltered and loud, you’ll be proud of that skin full of scars
That’s all I know so far

It is a call to be open to the hard parts of life, to be vulnerable. That’s all I know so far. Pick reveals some hard-won wisdom in this song. If you have some time, listen to the full song by Pink. It’s worth it.

This morning, my focus is to offer something akin to these songs on my playlist – a sermon highlighting my message; not to my children but to the world. They say every preacher has only one sermon they keep repeating and reframing and revising over and over. Which makes me wonder: what is my one sermon?

I toyed with the idea of asking all of you to answer for me; to set aside some time for any of you to share what you see my one message to be. What is the overarching message you’ve heard from this pulpit over these past 20-plus years? But then I figured that was a tricky question to put you all on the spot with. And honestly, if I’m doing my job right, your answers would be more about you and what you’ve needed to hear than they would be about me and what I’ve been trying to say.

I’ll give you a preview – a small hint of what is to come. It’s going to be about love. And I don’t mean the soft, commercialized stuff we are sold in ads. I mean the transformative power of love. I mean it the way James Balwin was talking about when he said:

The longer I live, the more deeply I learn that love—whether we call it friendship or family or romance— is the work of mirroring and magnifying each other’s light. Gentle work. Steadfast work. Life-saving work in those moments when life and shame and sorrow occlude our own light from our view but there is still a clear-eyed loving person to beam it back. … In our best moments, we are that person for another.

                                    (From Nothing Personal)

But I’m getting ahead of myself. I only meant to give you a hint, a small clue for what I think I’ve been saying from this pulpit these past 20 years. Because let’s be honest – I don’t only preach about love.

I feel like I have a fairly wide range of sermons week by week. I preach on social issues and theological questions, UU history and various holiday themes. I preach about grief and anti-racism, forgiveness and covenants.

On Sundays, I share my own collection of influences such as the various Bible stories and key passages from the Tao Te Ching, and a myriad of poems and song lyrics. I share with you my fascination with Process Theology, Annie Dillard’s poetic naturalism, and Winnie the Pooh’s simple way. I have an eclectic taste. 

Consider the recent few sermons from September and October so far. I preached about political divisiveness one Sunday, war and peace the next, followed by a climate revival and then a homily on forgiveness, before rounding it all out with a collaboration Sunday message about the ethical harvesting of sweetgrass as it applies to your own living.

What is the common thread through all of these different topics, nestled in each of those sermons? Maybe it is something about how to be human together. Or, as I’ve already hinted, maybe it’s all about loving and being loved.

Let’s sit with that first idea for a few minutes; maybe every sermon I preach is something about ‘how to be human together.’

I have not done a comprehensive review, but a recent perusal of my sermon catalogue revealed to me three prominent themes that I keep circling back to – each of which does feed into the idea that every sermon might be about ‘how to be human together;’ or more broadly about love.

The first theme I hear myself bringing up a lot is brokenness. The Ingathering Sunday story about Celia and the Sweet Sweet Water in which she almost made it home with the saving water but she tripped and broke the glass.

I talked about how we are all broken, we all have broken places in our lives and in our hearts. And how many times have I quoted that Leonard Cohen song in which he claims there is a crack in everything, that’s where the light gets in. Our brokenness hurts, but it also opens us. And our brokenness is a path into empathy as we see the brokenness in others.

From this root idea I talk a lot about vulnerability and courage, trust and compassion. From this root idea of brokenness I challenge ideas such as perfection and shame and Original Sin and the illusion of self-sufficiency. In short – I talk about love. I talk about ‘how to be human together.’

A second theme I hear myself bring up a lot is resilience. If we are broken, it is because we fail and we fall and get hurt. It happens. And after we fall, after we break – we rise. Helen Keller is remembered for saying; “Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.” Yes, there is trouble in the world, and so we will rise to meet it.

From this root idea I often speak about the resiliency of nature after disasters and devastation. Healing and resilience are natural qualities – it is what nature does with even the slightest bit of life remaining. And from there I talk about how we are part of nature and we, too, are resilient. And from there I talk about how we can create communities of resilience. In short – I talk about love. I talk about ‘how to be human together.’

A third theme I hear myself bring up a lot after brokenness and resiliency is something about community. I learning I’ve more recently come to articulate is that healing doesn’t happen in isolation, real healing is a communal experience. I often frame this as something this congregation can be – a healing community.

From this root idea I talk about the theological concept of Beloved Community, about liberation theology and liberative justice. From this root idea I talk about covenant and the bonds that set us free, that hold us accountable, and compel us to grow. In short – I talk about love. I talk about ‘how to be human together.’

So that is how I see myself able to have such a variety of topics and themes on any given Sunday but the one sermon I am preaching over and over is about how to be human together – about loving and being loved.

There is a book by Prentis Hemphill called What It Takes To Heal. A colleague put out a call over the summer saying she wanted to read this book and to have a group of colleagues who would read it with her and process it with her. It’s a good book. Near the end of the book, Hemphill talks about a transformative experience they had centered around love.

Kasha was my friend for many years before anything romantic happened. It wasn’t until the passing of my grandmother, not too long after her grandfather had died, that we fell in love. It surprised us both, that our grief opened up the door for love.

On a visit to see her in Hawai’i, she built an altar for my grandmother and her grandfather. They sat next to each other up there, framed and smiling, encircled in leis. She sat just below, and asked me to tell her stories about my grandmother. I was overwhelmed by the beauty of this invitation. Did I deserve to be loved like this?

I shared and she listened with a steady presence. She gave me room to feel, and instead of being repelled by my vulnerability, she moved closer. The tears poured and she didn’t rush to wipe them, just put a hand on my back, asked another question, or let the silence wash over us.

[Later]… At the airport as I was leaving, I said to her, “I wish a love like this for everybody. Imagine what it could do.” (p194-5)

Imagine what that could do. James Baldwin wrote:

“Everyone wishes to be loved, but in the event, nearly no one can bear it. Everyone desires love but also finds it impossible to believe that he deserves it.”

            ― James Baldwin, Tell Me How Long the Train’s Been Gone  

Imagine what it could do if everyone could experience the love Prentis Hemphill received at that ancestor ritual in Hawai’i. Imagine being loved yourself. Imagine others being loved – maybe even people you can stand, people you hate. What if someone loved them? Imagine what that could do.

Listen as your day unfolds
Challenge what the future holds
Try and keep your head up to the sky
Lovers, they may cause you tears
Go ahead, release your fears
Stand up and be counted
Don’t be ashamed to cry

It’s okay to be a little broken, indeed it will help to be broken open. Your humanity will grow as you are open to the light that shines through the brokenness of others around you. Don’t be ashamed, go ahead and release your fears. We have each other to help heal each other. This is how we are human together.

All I know, all I know, love will save the day

In a world without end,

May it be so.

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