Stretch—A Solstice Service
Rev. Dr. Leon Dunkley
Winter, 2011
You do not have to be good
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves
—Mary Oliver, Wild Geese
To live in St. Paul is a wonderful thing—especially when it’s all covered in snow…especially when winter bears down and when the night folds its wings and descends over the Mississippi River. It’s really wonderful. It’s really beautiful. It’s really cold and really intense. The first winter was terrible for a Jersey boy like me. The severity seems to wane over time. Days start to feel warm when the Farenheit temperature is more that 20°.
In St. Paul, the first snowfall come quite early…in late-October, before the all of the leaves have fallen from the trees. It’s a light-hearted snowfall but it is too early nonetheless. By mid-November, tho, the earth goes entirely away. It tucks itself in frozen excellence beneath blankets and blankets (and blankets!) of dry white snow. The snow is so dry and light that you don’t always have to use a shovel. If you stay on top of the game, you can actually use a broom. That doesn’t happen in New Jersey.
In St. Paul, the snow powdery, unpackable and colder than Jersey snow. And the blankets of snow don’t melt. They remain blankets of snow for months. All sense of smell goes away. The sun gets sluggish and barely lifts itself over the horizon—as if only for its required office hours. It’s really weird. It never quite feels like the actual day arrives. One has to adjust to a new sense of reality but once one does, it all becomes quite wonderful. Ice skating, curling, outdoor winter-sport festivals, indoor beer-drinking festivals, skijoring… The painters paint paintings about it. The poets pen poems about it. Musicians make music about it. It’s wonderful. There is a song by Peter Meyer that goes…
When it’s late December dark and cold (where is the light?)
When old man winter’s burning low (where is the light?)
When the sun goes off the bed too soon (where is the light?)
And there ain’t nothing but a skinny moon (where is the light?)
Won’t you tell me where is the light…
Oh, the lights inside of me
—Peter Meyer, Where Is the Light?
This is an excellent message to remember when the weather is so extreme.
St. Paul is an excellent town. “All the men are good looking and all of the children, above average”…if you believe what they say on Prairie Home Companion. Do you know the show? Have you heard about it? You can see it live if you go in the old Fitzgerald Theater in town. It’s beautiful and intimate and fun… No wonder the show is such a success. Garrison Keillor was the host last year during the Christmas season and, true to form, he started the show by telling jokes.
The twin cities are pretty religious. Minneapolis is powerfully Lutheran and St. Paul, historically Catholic. The Unitarians, who have been active in St. Paul since 1852, are somewhat of an anomaly. Ubiquitously unnamed, we are often referred to in municipal documents as “the liberal church.” We are few in number there. Very few. In fact, it is often said that there are more Lutherans in Hennepin County, Minnesota than there are Unitarian Universalists…in the world. So, a show like Prairie Home Companion is comfortable in taking its liberties. Garrison Keillor often leads the charge, regaling his audience with UU jokes. What a niche! Because the live audience is always new, the the same old jokes are told again and again. You’ve heard them before.
Question: What do you get when you cross a Unitarian Universalist with a Jehovah’s Witness?
Answer: Someone who knocks on your door for no apparent reason.
And...
Question: What is a UU terrorist?
Answer: Someone who burns a question mark on your front lawn.
The list goes on. This year was special. I heard a UU joke that I had not heard before. Here is what I can remember:
A Lutheran, a Catholic and a Unitarian Universalist took a canoe trip one day with Jesus. The Lutheran and the Catholic decided that Jesus should go with the Unitarian Universalist, the UUs having so much more to learn from him. When they got out to the center of the lake, the Unitarian Universalist dropped his paddle in the water. He said, “Jesus, I can’t believe I just did that! The paddle slipped right out of my hand. It must have be all the sunscreen that I am wearing. Would you mind turning around and paddling over so I can pick up my oar before it floats too far away?”
Without thinking, Jesus said, “I have a better idea.” He stood up straight, stepped out of the canoe and walked across the water to get the paddle.
Upon receiving the oar from Jesus, the Unitarian Universalist thought to himself, “Oh, my God! Have I ever got an incredible story to tell!”
In about an hour’s time, they came ashore and Jesus went quickly upon his way. The Lutheran and the Catholic in the other canoe came ashore a few minutes later. By the time they got there, however, Jesus was nowhere in sight. “What was it like?” they asked the Unitarian Universalist with great excitement. “How did it feel to paddle around in a canoe alone with Jesus?”
And the Unitarian Universalist said, “It was amazing,” with a big smirk of his face. “Did you know that that guy can’t even swim?!”
I guess it’s fun on Prarie Home Companion to make fun of Unitarian Universalists. We sometimes feel more pride than outrage when they do. But still, somehow, I get a funny feeling from Garrison Keillor. It seems like he is actually quite intrigued by us…or that we scare him in some way or something. I mean, what other reasons make sense of his long-term fascination with us? I think that he respects the tenacity of this tradition of liberal faith, the transcendental church that follows Jesus but does not worship him. I think secretly Keillor loves what Unitarian Universalists represent. Perhaps he is not yet bold enough to be public about it. Perhaps the idea of coming out as a Unitarian Universalist, for him, is too great a stretch. Perhaps the tradition of worshipping Jesus is too precious and to dear to relinquish. Who knows for sure? It doesn’t matter. He’s just good at telling jokes.
Garrison Keillor knows that worshipping of Jesus happens more regularly at the other end of the religious spectrum, at the other extreme, where Christianity is not joking matter…like in Uganda right now with its crafting of legislation against homosexuality.
Mark Kiyumba, the minister from the Unitarian church in Kampala, just gave a public address in St. Paul. He was telling us all about it. What he said was truly fascinating but to simply describe what has been happening in Uganda as “Christian” is too great a stretch. Stretches are supposed to feel good, not violent and burdensome. Would you agree?
Stretches… The idea reminds me of a story.
Years ago, I was playing Ultimate Frisbee on a field in front of the Oceanic hotel in New England. The sun was out and the wind was low that day. It was gorgeous outside. So, we dicided to play Ultimate Frisbee and the competition was fierce. I was on the team that was playing against an old friend named Robbie Thayer. He and his team were very good. I just wanted to survive the game. I didn’t think that we had a chance at winning.
Robbie was covering me. Robbie was better than me and I knew it. He was highly skilled. The only advantage I had over him was speed. At one point, I tired to surprise him. I broke fast. I just took off running. I started going deep when I thought he wasn’t looking. It was my only chance. I had a few steps on him before he noticed and so I yelled to my teammate, “I’m going long!!” My teammate threw the disc immediately, almost the full length of the field. Now, it was up to me to chase it down and catch it.
I sure that the disc was beyond my reach and Robbie was sure as well. That knowledge didn’t stop either one of us from going for it anyway. I didn’t stop chasing the Frisbee and Robbie didn’t stop chasing me. It was pretty awesome. That kind of moment, for me, is the best kind of moment that sports can offer—the boundary-pushing moment, the moment of striving into what seemings to be impossible.
The Frisbee started losing speed. Its momentum started to wane. My eyes filled up with hope and I kept trying. As the Frisbee began to fall to the ground, I took a final step and dove. So, did Robbie. We were in the air for what felt like a long time, just stretching…just stretching out, reaching farther than he and I had ever reached before and like a miracle, I felt the spinning, plastic disc on my fingertips and I grabbed it! I hit the ground chest first. It knocked the air out of my lungs. The taste of dirt and grass was in my mouth but I didn’t care. I was elated! I was ecstatic! I thought, “What a way to score a point!!!” until someone on Robbie’s team noticed that I had not crossed the goal-line.
“Score!!” Robbie said with authority. “He’s not the the enzobe but let’s let it go! Let’s call it good. That was awesome. It just doesn’t get much better than that!”
I can’t remember who won the game. I just remember that I loved pushing the boundary of what I thought that I could do. I loved trying that hard and stretching that far! It was sweet. It was a lesson in life.
There are many spiritual practices that encourage us to stretch, that encourage us to reach beyond what we think is possible. Yoga is one example. Tai Chi is another. In each of these practces, the postures are given names—Eagle Pose, Standing Bow, Sun and Moon, Black Dragon Serves Tea… Sun and Moon is my favorite.
Sun and Moon posture about coinciding opposites. It is about simultaneously occurring extremes—a winter solstice within the body, the long stretch of the night in December and the compression of the day. The trick, of course, is holding these two extremes in balance. The trick is holding the tension of opposites.
Black Dragon Serves Tea is more complicated. It requires a bit more stretching. You have to hold your hand in an inverted position that is so extreme that one could balance and serve a cup of tea in the palm of your right hand.
When I first learned about this posture, I didn’t fully understand it. I didn’t commit to it but I tried to do what I could but I didn’t try very hard. It figured I was too tense and too uptight. I figured that I just couldn’t do it.
Learning to stretch that much can take a fair amount of time. Or so I thought, until my teacher stepped up to me while I was making a pretty mediocre at the posture. He stood strategically behind me and drove a hard finger into my left shoulder blade. It hurt a little bit and I was angry at first but he taught me something. He showed me that I wasn’t really trying. He made me more fully commit to the practice. He forced me to put my back into it.
Yoga postures are not only physical. They are meant to strain the body and they are also meant to stretch the soul. They are meant to unveil the balance within the body of opposing extremes—Sun and Moon, stretching and compression, tension and release, grasping and letting go. That’s the ways it is in yoga and the way it is in life.
Yoga, Tai Chi and even Ultimate Frisbee are physical and spiritual practices. And their greatest practitioner, in my view, was unlikely.
There was a woman in the Alzheimer’s Wing of the family hospital that I used to serve in San Francisco. Let’s call her Deirdre. Deirdre must have been almost 70 years old. She was a young girl. She was young in spirit, at any rate. Deirdre was stationed on the Alzheimer’s Wing but also struggled with another serious condition. She was almost completely paralyzed. She lived in a mobile, reclining chair that could be easily wheeled about. She was quite social and loved to be with people. So, everyday and without fail, her nurses and her attendants would wheel her up and down the hall—to the dining room, to the TV room and on special occasions, even outside. She could not move and she could not speak. She could allow herself to be moved around the world in her special chair.
One day, I sat next to her in the TV room. We were watching a documentary dancing in Hollywood films. It was a collection of some of the greatest dance sequences ever filmed. When Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers took the stage, I watched a miracle happen. Deirdre did not walk on water. She did not rise from her chair and outdo Ginger Rogers. She simply made a pattern of her breath enough to notice. Fred and Ginger danced and the music was lovely.
Heaven, I’m in heaven
And my heart beats so that I can hardly speak
And I seem to find the happiness I seek
When we’re out together dancing cheek to cheek
—Irving Berlin, Cheek to Cheek
Can we sing that together?
Heaven, I’m in heaven
And my heart beats so that I can hardly speak
And I seem to find the happiness I seek
When we’re out together dancing cheek to cheek
—Irving Berlin, Cheek to Cheek
Deirdre did not sing but she did the same thing that you just did. Before each line, she took a little breath. She could do that much. I heard her faintly. At first, I didn’t know if what I was hearing was actually true until I leaned over to her and took a chance. I whispered, “I think you have a beautiful singing voice” and a little tear fell from her right eye. The two of us sat with each other, my temporarily more able hand on hers—balancing our opposites, trying to reach each other.
Together, our lives had mastered a form—a most perfect a pas de duex. Together, our lives were a couple’s dance that put poor Fred and Ginger to shame. Deirdre reminded me…
You do not have to be good
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves
—Mary Oliver, Wild Geese
Ours had been a sacred dance that we performed together. It was born of life journeys that stretch through time and space in beautiful ways, life journeys that follow the sun and follow the moon—hold the two, even at their extremes, in perfect balance.
Happy solstice. Blessed be and amen.