Minilogue - January 2008

The Transient and the Permanent

By the Rev. Bruce Johnson

A letter from the Unitarian Universalist Ministers’ Association arrived in the mail last week, reminding me that the twenty-fifth anniversary of my ordination is coming up in January. I have to admit that it made an impression on me. I don’t often pay much attention to my own birthdays and milestones and anniversaries, but I’ve been thinking about this one quite a bit. Not that there’s anything particularly sacred about the number twentyfive, but it’s as good an excuse as any to pause and reflect on my journey in ministry. A lot has changed in twenty-five years, but some things remain the same.

I never was a big fan of the Grateful Dead, but there is one line from their song, “Truckin’,” that gets in my head every now and then, especially lately; “Sometimes the light’s all shinin’ on me; other times I can barely see. Lately it’s occurred to me what a long, strange trip it’s been.” My ministerial “trip” has not been all that strange, perhaps, but certainly mysterious. There have been ups and downs in my journey, detours and bypasses, occasions when I have doubted myself and my direction, even times when I’ve lost my way in the dark and have had to stop and ask for help, getting out the map and checking the moral compass by flashlight. But I’ve always felt the call to continue, and I feel it still. I think that I ‘ve grown and matured some over the past two and a half decades, but I also recognize that there are some things about me that haven’t changed at all. The “I” who is writing these words is, in a certain sense, the same “I” who wrote the first sermon I preached after my ordination. I remember it --as they say-- “like it was yesterday.” I delivered a short homily at an interfaith celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday. My name appeared in the local newspaper and a few days later, I received my first piece of hate mail. Welcome to the ministry!

In 1841, the Unitarian minister, Theodore Parker, preached a famous sermon on “The Transient and the Permanent in Christianity.” He was concerned to sort out what was essential in his faith from what was merely accidental, to separate the kernel from the chaff, to distinguish the baby - so to speak - from the bathwater. He felt that the transient, historically derived elements of the Christian tradition could and should be discarded, leaving only the imperishable and absolute teachings of Jesus. These truths, according to Parker, are like the principles of Euclid’s geometry - they do not depend on the personality of Jesus for their validity. I’m not sure it’s quite so simple to separate the teachings from the teacher, but Parker was certainly on to something with his basic contrast between the transient and the permanent.

A few years ago, I attended a convocation of UU ministers gathered to consider the theme of “The Transient and Permanent in Liberal Religion.” It was Parker updated for the twenty-first century. We wondered if Parker, or Emerson, or Ballou - or any of the great Unitarian and Universalist leaders of the past - would recognize what Unitarian Universalism has become. Much has changed over the centuries, but some essential spirit remains the same and animates our congregations. Continuity and discontinuity dance and contend with each other in the ongoing evolution and reformation of our living religious tradition.

At the individual level, we are all aware of a basic distinction within ourselves between the passing and impermanent aspects of our personality, and the deep sense of identity that remains the same through all the changes of our lives. Even people who have undergone major conversions and transformations recognize themselves - at some level- as being continuous with past selves. Some religious traditions refer to this deep abiding identity as the “witness,” and attempt to cultivate its clear and calm sense of inner detachment through the practice of meditation. The ancient Hindu scriptures, for example, speak of “two birds, inseparable friends, who cling to the self-same tree. One eats the sweet fruit of the tree; the other looks on without eating.”

In modern times, the Spanish poet, Juan Ramon Jimenez, beautifully describes this elusive and paradoxical quality of self-consciousness in his poem, Yo no soy yo:

I am not I
I am this one
Walking beside me whom I do not see,
Whom at times I manage to visit,
And whom at other times I forget;
The one who remains silent when I talk,
The one who forgives, sweet, when I hate,
The one who takes a walk where I am not,
The one who will remain standing when I die.

Who is this one that walks beside us throughout our whole lives? Some may call it soul, or spirit, or Atman, or the Buddha Nature. For me, it remains a mystery. It is enough to know that I have been an intimate witness to my own impermanent ministry, even as we have all been enduring witnesses to our own passing lives. I’m not sure who or what will “remain standing” when I’m gone, but I hope it’s some of the values and ideals that I’ve tried to “stand for” in my ministry; respect for the depth and diversity of religious language, symbol, and ritual; a commitment to ongoing learning and honest dialogue; simple compassion as the starting point for ethical action; creative play as a form of prayer and the arts as doorway into the sacred; reverence for the power of stories to heal, guide, and transform; and love for this earth and its creatures. After twenty-five years, I’ll settle for that.

Happy New Year,
Rev. Bruce