Sunday, October 11, 2020: Let Us Make Sanctuary…
Good morning and thank you for joining us in celebration this morning…together we are celebrating this beautiful Fall morning…we are celebrating all of the blessings that are showered down upon us, even in such uncertain times…we are celebrating the Goodness of Life Itself. Even in the most challenging, compelling times, we celebrate together, and life is good, yes?
In addition to the sheer Goodness of Life, there are cultures all over the world that celebrate the abundance of the harvest, the abundance of the Divine Mother, at this time of year. I would like to acknowledge and celebrate a couple of Holy Days with you this morning. Last Friday marked the end of Sukkot, the 8-day Jewish holiday that we spoke about a couple of weeks ago…you might remember that Sukkot is a harvest festival commemorating the Exodus and the dependence of the People of Israel on the will of God to sustain them as they were exiled from their homeland in Israel. The ancient Hebrews were Nomadic people who were exiled over and over again. And so, rather than ground themselves in Place, they kept their stability by grounding themselves in Time, in Tradition and Ritual. This is why there are so many Jewish Holidays.
Also, this coming Monday, October 12, is Canada’s Thanksgiving Celebration, which happens on the second Monday in October and celebrates the harvest and other blessings of the past year. Did you wonder why the Canadian flag was on display this morning?
And on that same day, we are celebrating Indigenous Peoples’ Day, also known as Columbus Day. It is also celebrated on the second Monday in October. Our calendars may still say Columbus Day; but since Christopher Columbus never actually set foot on this continent…and it is the indigenous cultures who first lived here, and helped the new settlers to survive their first years in this new land, we celebrate and honor the Native American tribes of North America and commemorate their shared history and culture.
We are such a rich blend of cultures in this country…what a gift. I think it is important to learn about our various traditions and histories. It helps to grow in understanding…it remind us of who we are, where we’ve come from, and how we are all connected.
Let’s take a moment before we go any further for our own short ritual…to remember and sense our connection as human beings… coming together with a common desire…to be the change we wish to see in our world…to take part in the conscious evolution of humanity…so that we can leave the world better than we found it for our children and their children.
Let’s take a couple of deep breaths, and with each breath, allow yourself to settle into a field of Peaceful and Powerful Aliveness, where we are all One, vibrating together…and feel into this moment, into the gathering of this sacred community.
Feel into the gratitude that we feel for having this time to re-center ourselves…to reconnect with what we know to be True…
Visualize with me a global web of consciousness, each of us a point of Light, all connected across the planet, all beings who in this moment, might be sitting in meditation or prayer, might be attending sacred services…acknowledging the Presence of the Divine… consciously connected by our whole-hearted devotion…feeling the collective intention that brought us here…feeling the impulse to grow and evolve that’s awakening in all of us.
As we sense this very intimate connection, breathe in the Peace, the Power, and the Presence of this moment, and then send it forth into the atmosphere as you exhale…
This is our time of Sanctuary. This is how we find our center, and how we establish our oneness with other beings. It lends power to the work we are doing here together.
Our theme for the month of October is Moving into Mindfulness…and last week, at the Taizé, we used the topic Making Time for Mindfulness as the focal point of our meditative journey. We agreed that living life mindfully doesn’t take any additional time…rather, it takes conscious awareness…it takes presence. And when I am present with whatever is happening, time seems to slow down.
The title of today’s message is Let Us Make Sanctuary, and it comes from the work of Dr. Bayo Akomolafe. He is the executive director of The Emergence Network, a group of concerned beings who are inquiring into the ways that we, as modern humans, respond to crises. Its members believe that we need to make quantum leaps in how we think about ourselves and our world so that transformation can occur. The Network’s message is one of social change, but it is deeply grounded in the Spiritual Life. So let’s begin by taking a look at Bayo’s most well-known quote… “The times are urgent. Let us slow down.” (Repeat)
When Bayo Akomolafe speaks these words, he is not talking about simply taking a break. Of course, in this time of pandemic, we are being called to slow down in this simple way. And judging by the pace at which our culture was moving, this is probably a good thing. And yet, there is something far larger and deeper than simply slowing down.
There a seismic shift happening right now on the planet. Have you noticed? And most of us would probably agree that it is calling us to something new. The question is, what? What are we to do? How are we to move forward?
In keeping with our multicultural flavor this morning, I would like to share a story with you. This is a story that comes to us from ancient Egypt, from a time when that land was called Kemet. The story goes something like this…
The land of Kemet was ruled by a god named Ra. Now Ra had a bad habit…he drank too much, and he made a habit of blustering through the world, drunk as a skunk. The people would make fun of him, and ask him, “What kind of god are you, that you would behave this way?” One day, Ra got angry and basically threw a tantrum. It is said that he stormed his way all the way back to heaven. When he arrived, he called his daughter/wife/mother to his side (this is somehow one being). She asks Ra, “What’s wrong?” And Ra replies, “I’m sick and tired of those humans. They don’t worship me the way they used to.”
Deeply angered, in defense of her husband, and without Ra’s knowledge, Hathor returns to earth and sets about taking care of the problem. She leaves no stone unturned…she kills every human in her path. She is determined to wipe out all of humanity so that her husband can be at peace. In her growing rage, she begins to get sloppy…she is creating puddles of blood all over the place, which she then drinks up as a way of cleaning up after herself.
When Ra sees what she is doing, he comes down to earth and says, “Stop…no…this is not what I had in mind.” He’s not really a bad guy. But Hathor wouldn’t stop. Not knowing what to do, Ra gathers with a couple of other gods and they make a plan. They decide to trick Hathor…they pour red wine on the ground, so that she will mistake it for blood and drink it up. Well, their plan works, and Hathor gets very drunk and finally falls into a drunken sleep.
This story offers the mythology behind the African tradition of pouring libation, pouring drink to the earth to deceive the destructive forces…to please or placate the gods. This is a mythology that reminds African communities that in order to live well, to walk in Truth, we must always be mindful of appearances…that our human stability is tenuous…that it is with God’s Grace and blessing that we maintain our stability.
Dr. Akomolafe observes that there is a tendency in our modern society to make assumptions. First, we assume that for the most part, we are stable and coherent…we are indebted to nothing. It is easy to forget how precarious our lives really are…how lost much of humanity really is. He says that, “We take it for granted that all we have to do is keep moving along the trajectory we are on and everything will be fine. If we just apply our human genius and determination, we’ll find our way.”
He points out the paradigm of Liberal Humanism that we are currently grounded in. It holds that we are free from entanglement, with no need to honor our ancestors, pay homage, or hold rites of passage, because we’ve outgrown these primitive practices. We’re modern, free, sophisticated…we have arrived.
But then something happens…a series of crises, like pandemic and natural disasters…and we’re reminded that sometimes things happen that are beyond our control. And in our stopping and waiting, we are reminded how indebted we are…how dependent on one another and the planet…how fragile we are in the face of the unseen. This is where slowing down in times of urgency takes on a deeper meaning.
It doesn’t mean simply slowing down, facing the same direction we’re already heading…it means stopping long enough, and with a willingness to really see what is before us, and changing our trajectory based on our remembrance that we are indebted to one another, dependent on one another. It means acknowledging that our attachment to being free, to doing and having whatever we want, whenever we want it, gets in the way of true freedom, the God quality of Freedom, which is inherent to all beings, and which all beings have the innate right to experience.
Another cosmology that comes to us from indigenous cultures around the world is that of a crossroads, a place where two paths cross, and at the intersection there sits a trickster, holding agency in his hands (ashay)…holding the outcome, the way the world will materialize in his hands. We might talk about the trickster as maya…the illusion of perception. If we give power to the illusion, then it holds agency, or influence and power, in our lives.
It is only at a crossroads, that we can see how things that are seemingly disconnected, or even opposing, come together…how old paradigms that no longer serve us can be overturned or released and how new ones are already poised to take their place.
There was a time that humanity was at a crossroads…we knew the earth was flat. And then, someone introduced the idea, complete with evidence, that the earth was round. It didn’t take long for the paradigm to shift 180 degrees. There was a time when we believed the earth moved around the sun. And then, someone said, “No, the earth is rotating on its axis.” And not long afterward, the entire paradigm had shifted. Of course, I don’t recommend being the one who first speaks out for something so far outside of the conventional wisdom. We all know what happens to those people.
I believe that we are at a crossroads…that there are many things changing and changing quickly. Or maybe I should say that there are a lot of things we are pretty sure about, things that just might not be true. Let me ask you a question…How many centuries have people been persecuted because of a gender identification that did not align with the cultural norm? And now, seemingly overnight, there is an openness and acceptance that has never existed before. Of course, we may have a way to go, but hasn’t there been a huge shift?
And what about racial tensions, prejudice, and biases? I believe we are heading squarely into having to finally face and transcend these perceived differences…it is happening here and now…we’re in the midst of a major paradigm shift around race and ethnicity.
And what about the ecological crisis? It feels like we are being faced with challenges that are causing us to finally question, and maybe even change the way we are living together on planet Earth.
So why am I talking about these things as part of a spiritual message? Some people think that social engagement and spirituality are separate topics and shouldn’t mix. But we believe that everything is God in form…there’s not a spot where God is not.
The type of slowing down I am talking about is not meant as an instruction to individuals to change the pace at which they are living, although this might be part of the change for us individually. It is actually a call to prayer…an invitation for humanity to see with the eye behind the eye…to hear with the ear behind the ear…to feel with the heart behind the heart. It is not about figuring out what I, as an individual, can do about racial justice. Rather, it is to listen for a deeper Guidance, and to approach other people, situations, and the world, in ways I’m not accustomed to…in ways that are not yet comfortable. It is a call to surrender my need for control…to let go of all I thought I knew and get comfortable in not knowing, so that new possibilities can surface…new paradigms can emerge.
And sanctuary…true sanctuary…is where slowing down happens. The times are urgent. Let us make sanctuary.
The root of the word Sanctuary comes from the Latin, to make sacred. And this idea of sanctuary was borrowed from the medieval pagan practices of the 16th century. When a person was accused of killing someone, he became a fugitive, and would run until eventually he was caught. But along the way, there were sacred sites that were safe places for a fugitive to rest. He would be admitted for a period of time to recover his strength, to find peace. These were sanctuaries. Places where officials could not go…a very humane practice, I think.
Sanctuaries are meant for fugitives…for people who have nowhere else to go. This is where humanity finds itself today. As a human family, we had inadvertently killed and buried that part of us that knows and feels our Unity with all of life. The direction we were moving is no longer an option. We are fugitives…but we are exhausted. We need to make sanctuary…to stop and rest, find peace, and from that stillness, begin to look in another direction…look for other options.
And so I leave you today with a prayer. It is a prayer of deep gratitude, a prayer (in honor of our Indigenous brothers and sisters) honoring the sanctity of all of life. This prayer is offered by Robin Wall Kimmerer in her book Braiding Sweetgrass.
Today we have gathered and when we look upon the faces around us we see that the cycles of life continue. We have been given the duty to live in balance and harmony with each other and all living things. So now let us bring our minds together as one as we give greetings and thanks to each other as a People. Now our minds are one.
We are thankful to our Mother Earth, for she gives us everything that we need for life. She supports our feet as we walk about upon her. It gives us joy that she still continues to care for us, just as she has from the beginning of time. To our Mother, we send thanksgiving, love, and respect. Now our minds are one.
We give thanks to all the waters of the world for quenching our thirst, for providing strength and nurturing life for all beings…to the Fish life in the water. They cleanse and purify the water the water…they give themselves as food. We turn to the vast fields of Plant life that sustain all of life…the Food Plants that nourish, the Medicine Herbs that bring healing, and the Trees that offer shelter and symbolize Peace.
We gather our minds together to send our greetings and thanks to all the beautiful animal life of the world, those who walk about with us…those who fly and move about over our heads.
We are thankful for the powers we know as the Four Winds…the Four Directions…to the Sun, the Moon, and the Stars…to all of Creation.
We gather our minds to greet and thank the enlightened Teachers who have come to help throughout the ages. When we forget how to live in harmony, they remind us of the way we were instructed to live as people.
We now turn our thoughts to the Creator, or Great Spirit, and send greetings and thanks for all the gifts of Creation. Everything we need to live a good life is here on Mother Earth. For all the love that is still around us, we gather our minds together as one and send our choicest words or greetings and thanks to the Creator. Now our minds are one.