...and a Hopeful New Era
a sermon preached by the Rev. Dr. Tim W. Jensen
at the Second Congregational Meeting House on Nantucket Island
Sunday January 6th, 2002
***
I’ve been having a little trouble with writer’s block these past couple of weeks. Not that this is so unusual for me; one of the principal challenges of being a writer is that you inevitably encounter writer’s block, and over the years one develops little tricks for getting around it. But these past couple of weeks have been particularly bad. The trouble wasn’t so much with my sermon as it was with my widely-anticipated and always-popular Annual Holiday Letter, which I’d actually hoped to get done early this year, but which I’m ashamed to say I still haven’t finished now two weeks after Christmas. It’s not that I don’t have anything to say. If anything, the problem is that I have too MUCH to say: I’ve finished my Ph.D. and started a great new job, moving all the way across the country in the process, my brother has a new baby, I’m living this idyllic life on a “quaint and picturesque” island thirty miles out in the Atlantic Ocean (that language comes straight out of the guidebook, by the way), surrounded by all sorts of friendly and interesting people... and that’s just the GOOD stuff! Throw in the events of September 11th, and all the juicy, personal gossip that a pastor might not necessarily choose to share with his flock, and the question becomes what NOT to write. Too much inspiration can be a very dangerous thing. Especially if you’re not really certain how the story is going to end.
Thinking too hard about what NOT to write is always a difficult conundrum for a writer. The solution, of course, is simply to write down everything you can think of, and then to go back and edit what you’ve written...but this is a lot easier said than done, especially when you are feeling the pressure of a self-imposed deadline, and want to get it right to first time. So naturally, I did what any normal person in my situation would have done: I went out and bought myself a bag of cookies. Not just any cookies, mind you, but Pepperidge Farm “Nantucket” cookies: “the Best Chocolate Chunk Cookie in the World.” Have any of you actually sat down and read a bag of these cookies? I’m not talking about the side panel here, which informs the careful reader that, if they eat the whole bag (which, of course, I eventually did), they are consuming 1120 calories and 56 grams of fat, which is basically a little more than half of what my daughter tells me I ought to consume in an entire day of normal eating. So what do you think? a couple of bags of these, a little black coffee (or maybe some herbal tea), plenty of fresh water, a decent multi-vitamin, and I’m good for the entire day. (I can just see my daughter cringing now). But actually, I was thinking of the back of the package, here by this picture of the Brant Point lighthouse and this lovely-looking cookie with a bite already taken out of it. “Nantucket... an island getaway with rolling hills, full of simple beauty. The perfect name for the simple richness of a treat chock full of mountainous rich, dark chocolate in a melt-in-your-mouth cookie full of real creamery butter and brown sugar. Sink your teeth into the big satisfying taste and you’ll know why we call it the World’s Best Chocolate Chuck Cookie. Thank you for trying our cookies. We hope you are truly satisfied.”
Wouldn’t it be great if true satisfaction really were as simple as tearing open a colorful bag of cookies and sinking your teeth into a melt-in-your-mouth treat chock full of mountainous rich dark chocolate, real creamery butter, and brown sugar? I mean, even if you had to pop the cookie in the microwave first for ten to fifteen seconds for that “fresh-from-the-oven taste,” it would be pretty miraculous, wouldn’t it? But here’s my real question. Is the problem that the cookie doesn’t live up to its packaging? Or is the real problem that our expectations are often too high?
For years I used to celebrate the beginning of a New Year by stopping off at the post office and mailing in my sometimes as many as nine entries to the Publisher's Clearinghouse Sweepstakes. One of the dubious advantages of living in a household with three different last names, and reading a lot of magazines, is that you tend to get a lot of junk mail. I'm not sure why I ever actually bothered to send them all in -- no one I know has ever won anything from one of these contests. I guess it just seemed worth an hour or so of licking and pasting, and a few dollars in postage, to have the right to daydream about what I would do with all that money if I actually won it. Margaret always thought of it as a values clarification exercise: where your treasure is, there shall your heart be also. Personally though, I always sort of thought that if I ever really did win something like the Publishers Clearinghouse Sweepstakes, the first thing I would do is hire somebody to do all of my worrying for me. Then I could be free to daydream as much as I like, and the only thing I would have to worry about is whether or not I could trust my designated worrier....
There's something about the coming of a New Year that lends itself naturally to daydreaming, to a spirit of hope and optimism, a sense of possibility and new beginning. It's difficult to ignore it even if we try. I once read somewhere (probably in a magazine) that the three most common resolutions this time of year are to quit smoking, to lose weight, and to "get in shape" (whatever that means) -- but having smoked two packs a day from the age of seventeen to the age of thirty-three, and then gaining fifty pounds when I finally resolved to give them up in earnest, I’ve pretty much concluded that it’s probably best to follow the path of “all things in moderation, nothing to excess,” and to learn to be content with whatever shape I am. The tough part is realizing that, no matter how much I work out, or how closely I watch what I eat, I'm never going to be seventeen again, or even thirty-three; that the fantasies of youth are unavoidably tempered by the realities of maturity, and that I will never, say, throw a long pass for the winning touchdown in the fourth quarter of the Rose Bowl, nor even daydream about it with the same intensity that I did when I was younger. With each New Year a little bit more of my life is behind me; with each new beginning, we mark an end to another dream that will never be.
Knowing this, I think it's important that we learn to choose our resolutions with care. Quitting smoking and losing weight are fine, for as far as they go, but what kind of "shape" do you really want to be in a year from now? What would you do if you won ten million dollars, and what's keeping you from having the best part of that now, if you choose? This is what I learned from my years of daydreaming about winning the lottery: that the really important things in my life have nothing to do with money per se; but rather that it is the illusion of freedom which money seems to buy, the ability to stop worrying about the trivial and the mundane, and to concentrate on the truly significant, that is truly appealing about all that junk mail.
The wisdom to concentrate on what is truly significant is not really something that you can purchase with cash. It's the product of a willingness to search your own soul, and the courage to pursue what you find there. And it's also an ability to recognize your responsibilities and confront your limitations, to affirm your commitments and the values on which they are based, to balance the demands of the present with the possibilities of the future, and to walk that narrow path from wishful thinking to knowing contentment. When you finally take the time to figure out what really matters, to move beyond dreams of a thirty-two inch waistline, or cars and clothes and boats and travel, and recognize your more essential hunger for a spiritual freedom which material things so often only pretend to satisfy, you discover that it takes more than a nice house to make a real home, and that the true measure of wealth lies not in what you have acquired, but in your capacity to share generously with others.
Our lives can often seem like a series of compromises between the material demands of physical survival and frustrated aspirations of a more intangible nature, which we often but dimly understand. We look at our lives, we feel that something is missing, we hunger for something more, and then we try to fill that empty space as best we can: by consuming things that we probably shouldn’t, or perhaps just more than we properly should, material things, at times even something so simple as an entire bag of chocolate chip cookies. But however you may resolve this year to change your lives for the better, I do hope that some of you, at least, as you're evaluating your priorities for the coming year, will chose to bump your participation in the life and activities of this church a few notches higher on the scale. It doesn’t have to be a lot; just find some small thing that captures your interest, and then maybe bring a friend along to do it with you. I can attest from personal experience that it really is a lot easier than either quitting smoking or losing weight. And it really can help you get in shape for whatever it is you dream of doing in the years ahead. Within this community of memory and hope, we strive together to create from our dreams a sacred space of wisdom and renewal. Resolve, this year, to take a little more time to more fully become a part of it, so that it, in turn, may more fully become a part of you.
at the Second Congregational Meeting House on Nantucket Island
Sunday January 6th, 2002
***
I’ve been having a little trouble with writer’s block these past couple of weeks. Not that this is so unusual for me; one of the principal challenges of being a writer is that you inevitably encounter writer’s block, and over the years one develops little tricks for getting around it. But these past couple of weeks have been particularly bad. The trouble wasn’t so much with my sermon as it was with my widely-anticipated and always-popular Annual Holiday Letter, which I’d actually hoped to get done early this year, but which I’m ashamed to say I still haven’t finished now two weeks after Christmas. It’s not that I don’t have anything to say. If anything, the problem is that I have too MUCH to say: I’ve finished my Ph.D. and started a great new job, moving all the way across the country in the process, my brother has a new baby, I’m living this idyllic life on a “quaint and picturesque” island thirty miles out in the Atlantic Ocean (that language comes straight out of the guidebook, by the way), surrounded by all sorts of friendly and interesting people... and that’s just the GOOD stuff! Throw in the events of September 11th, and all the juicy, personal gossip that a pastor might not necessarily choose to share with his flock, and the question becomes what NOT to write. Too much inspiration can be a very dangerous thing. Especially if you’re not really certain how the story is going to end.
Thinking too hard about what NOT to write is always a difficult conundrum for a writer. The solution, of course, is simply to write down everything you can think of, and then to go back and edit what you’ve written...but this is a lot easier said than done, especially when you are feeling the pressure of a self-imposed deadline, and want to get it right to first time. So naturally, I did what any normal person in my situation would have done: I went out and bought myself a bag of cookies. Not just any cookies, mind you, but Pepperidge Farm “Nantucket” cookies: “the Best Chocolate Chunk Cookie in the World.” Have any of you actually sat down and read a bag of these cookies? I’m not talking about the side panel here, which informs the careful reader that, if they eat the whole bag (which, of course, I eventually did), they are consuming 1120 calories and 56 grams of fat, which is basically a little more than half of what my daughter tells me I ought to consume in an entire day of normal eating. So what do you think? a couple of bags of these, a little black coffee (or maybe some herbal tea), plenty of fresh water, a decent multi-vitamin, and I’m good for the entire day. (I can just see my daughter cringing now). But actually, I was thinking of the back of the package, here by this picture of the Brant Point lighthouse and this lovely-looking cookie with a bite already taken out of it. “Nantucket... an island getaway with rolling hills, full of simple beauty. The perfect name for the simple richness of a treat chock full of mountainous rich, dark chocolate in a melt-in-your-mouth cookie full of real creamery butter and brown sugar. Sink your teeth into the big satisfying taste and you’ll know why we call it the World’s Best Chocolate Chuck Cookie. Thank you for trying our cookies. We hope you are truly satisfied.”
Wouldn’t it be great if true satisfaction really were as simple as tearing open a colorful bag of cookies and sinking your teeth into a melt-in-your-mouth treat chock full of mountainous rich dark chocolate, real creamery butter, and brown sugar? I mean, even if you had to pop the cookie in the microwave first for ten to fifteen seconds for that “fresh-from-the-oven taste,” it would be pretty miraculous, wouldn’t it? But here’s my real question. Is the problem that the cookie doesn’t live up to its packaging? Or is the real problem that our expectations are often too high?
For years I used to celebrate the beginning of a New Year by stopping off at the post office and mailing in my sometimes as many as nine entries to the Publisher's Clearinghouse Sweepstakes. One of the dubious advantages of living in a household with three different last names, and reading a lot of magazines, is that you tend to get a lot of junk mail. I'm not sure why I ever actually bothered to send them all in -- no one I know has ever won anything from one of these contests. I guess it just seemed worth an hour or so of licking and pasting, and a few dollars in postage, to have the right to daydream about what I would do with all that money if I actually won it. Margaret always thought of it as a values clarification exercise: where your treasure is, there shall your heart be also. Personally though, I always sort of thought that if I ever really did win something like the Publishers Clearinghouse Sweepstakes, the first thing I would do is hire somebody to do all of my worrying for me. Then I could be free to daydream as much as I like, and the only thing I would have to worry about is whether or not I could trust my designated worrier....
There's something about the coming of a New Year that lends itself naturally to daydreaming, to a spirit of hope and optimism, a sense of possibility and new beginning. It's difficult to ignore it even if we try. I once read somewhere (probably in a magazine) that the three most common resolutions this time of year are to quit smoking, to lose weight, and to "get in shape" (whatever that means) -- but having smoked two packs a day from the age of seventeen to the age of thirty-three, and then gaining fifty pounds when I finally resolved to give them up in earnest, I’ve pretty much concluded that it’s probably best to follow the path of “all things in moderation, nothing to excess,” and to learn to be content with whatever shape I am. The tough part is realizing that, no matter how much I work out, or how closely I watch what I eat, I'm never going to be seventeen again, or even thirty-three; that the fantasies of youth are unavoidably tempered by the realities of maturity, and that I will never, say, throw a long pass for the winning touchdown in the fourth quarter of the Rose Bowl, nor even daydream about it with the same intensity that I did when I was younger. With each New Year a little bit more of my life is behind me; with each new beginning, we mark an end to another dream that will never be.
Knowing this, I think it's important that we learn to choose our resolutions with care. Quitting smoking and losing weight are fine, for as far as they go, but what kind of "shape" do you really want to be in a year from now? What would you do if you won ten million dollars, and what's keeping you from having the best part of that now, if you choose? This is what I learned from my years of daydreaming about winning the lottery: that the really important things in my life have nothing to do with money per se; but rather that it is the illusion of freedom which money seems to buy, the ability to stop worrying about the trivial and the mundane, and to concentrate on the truly significant, that is truly appealing about all that junk mail.
The wisdom to concentrate on what is truly significant is not really something that you can purchase with cash. It's the product of a willingness to search your own soul, and the courage to pursue what you find there. And it's also an ability to recognize your responsibilities and confront your limitations, to affirm your commitments and the values on which they are based, to balance the demands of the present with the possibilities of the future, and to walk that narrow path from wishful thinking to knowing contentment. When you finally take the time to figure out what really matters, to move beyond dreams of a thirty-two inch waistline, or cars and clothes and boats and travel, and recognize your more essential hunger for a spiritual freedom which material things so often only pretend to satisfy, you discover that it takes more than a nice house to make a real home, and that the true measure of wealth lies not in what you have acquired, but in your capacity to share generously with others.
Our lives can often seem like a series of compromises between the material demands of physical survival and frustrated aspirations of a more intangible nature, which we often but dimly understand. We look at our lives, we feel that something is missing, we hunger for something more, and then we try to fill that empty space as best we can: by consuming things that we probably shouldn’t, or perhaps just more than we properly should, material things, at times even something so simple as an entire bag of chocolate chip cookies. But however you may resolve this year to change your lives for the better, I do hope that some of you, at least, as you're evaluating your priorities for the coming year, will chose to bump your participation in the life and activities of this church a few notches higher on the scale. It doesn’t have to be a lot; just find some small thing that captures your interest, and then maybe bring a friend along to do it with you. I can attest from personal experience that it really is a lot easier than either quitting smoking or losing weight. And it really can help you get in shape for whatever it is you dream of doing in the years ahead. Within this community of memory and hope, we strive together to create from our dreams a sacred space of wisdom and renewal. Resolve, this year, to take a little more time to more fully become a part of it, so that it, in turn, may more fully become a part of you.
posted by The Eclectic Cleric at 10:17 AM
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