Sleepy Hollow for UNICEF RE Presentation by Dan Feldt

Another round of applause for our stars -- Sam and Quinn Kirchner,  Becca, Gwen and John-David May, and Madeline Schwartz. Also appearing were Melissa Schwartz, Joy Grainge, Colin Kirchner and Dan Feldt. They all did a wonderful job in our presentation of Sleepy Hollow for UNICEF. A big thank you goes out to the congregation on Sunday for their contributions to the UNICEF trick-or-treat boxes. I'm sure it was your open hearts, not the threat of missing body parts, that sparked your generosity.

$137.52 was collected. Using their math skills, the children figured out that this money could buy 4,057 vitamin-packed  micronutrient powder packets or 306 packages of ready-to-use therapeutic food. Both are critically important for the nutrition of children during the first three years of life. They also reported on the many countries helped by UNICEF and the importance the mother’s health. Thanks again for your generous  giving. If you missed your chance to contribute this Sunday, there are a number of trick-or-treat boxes in the Gathering Room. Please feel free to fill them up!

Another couple of numbers that are important are 16 and November 5. Sixteen is the number of people signed up for “The World's Religions” sessions, so there are still a few spaces available. Please see me if you'd like to be added to the class roster. November 5 is the date for the first meeting from 7 to 9 o'clock.  The book we’re using for source material, Huston Smith's The World Religions, is rich and textured reading. I'm sure we're all looking forward to sharing this experience.

That's all for now, the RE kids will be sharing their many talents with the congregation a few more times this year.  ~Dan

 

 

 

"Please Wait... Your Life is Loading" by Jessica Carter

So where do we begin in our search for meaning and suffering? For many people the search begins with their religious tradition. Although different religions may have different ways of understanding the meaning and purpose of human suffering every world religion offers strategies for responding to suffering based on its underlying beliefs. In the Buddhist and Hindu models, for example, suffering is a result of our own negative past actions and is seen as a catalyst for seeking spiritual liberation.

            In the Judeo-Christian tradition the universe was created by a good and just God, and even though his master plan may be mysterious and indecipherable at times, our faith and trust in His plan allow us to tolerate our suffering more easily, trusting as the Talmud says, that “Everything God does, He does for the best”. Life may still be painful, but like the pain a woman experiences in childbirth, we trust that the pain will be outweighed by the ultimate good in produces. The challenge in these traditions lies in the fact that, unlike in childbirth, the ultimate good in often not revealed to us. Still those with a strong faith in God are sustained by a belief in God’s ultimate purpose for our suffering, as a Hasidic sage advises “When a man suffers he ought not to say ‘That’s bad! That’s bad!’ Nothing God imposes on man is bad. But it is alright to say ‘That’s bitter! That’s bitter!’ For among medicines there are some that are made with bitter herbs.” So from the Judeo-Christian perspective suffering can serve many purposes: it can test and potentially strengthen our faith, it can bring us closer to God in a very fundamental and intimate way, or it can loosen the bonds to the material world and make us cleave to God as our refuge.

            While a person’s religious tradition may offer valuable assistance in finding meaning even those who do not subscribe to a religious worldview may upon careful reflection find meaning and value behind their suffering. Despite the universal unpleasantness, there is little doubt that our suffering can test, strengthen and deepen the experience of life. Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, “What does not destroy me makes me stronger”. And while it is natural to recoil from suffering, suffering can also challenge us and at times even bring out the best in us. In The Third Man, author Graham Green observes, “In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed--but they produced Michaelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance.  In Switzerland, they have brotherly love, five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did they produce?  The cuckoo clock.”

Sermon

            We are faced with challenges on a daily basis.  Some challenges are large and seem insurmountable.  Will I make enough money this month to pay my bills?  Can I afford to send my kids to college?  I can’t believe the doctor said I’ll have to wait a week for the test results.  How am I ever going to live without mom now that she’s gone?

            Some challenges are small.  What should I make for dinner?  Who am I going to get to pick the kids up from school?  Of course I’m stuck on the side of the road with a flat tire when I’m already running late for my appointment.

            Whether big or small, it’s how we face these challenges that makes us who we are and shapes our lives.  These challenges give us strength, they provide us with wisdom that makes the next challenge that much easier.  They teach us the value of friendship, love, kindness, compassion and patience.  They teach us what it feels like when we don’t receive these values from others.  And I think ultimately they teach us just to give ourselves and others a break.

            Everyone has had those days where everything seems to go wrong.  Where it seems every time you turn around the universe decides to present you with another obstacle.  You know the days I’m talking about.  I had one of those days that seemed to last for fifteen years.  Then I learned to change the way I thought and the way I approached my life.

            I came up with 4 great rules to live by.  4 rules that will serve you well when facing any kind of challenge or adversity.  

Rule # 1, Know you are not alone.

 

            In the time of the Buddha, a woman named Kisagotami suffered the death of her only child. Unable to accept it, she ran from person to person, seeking a medicine to restore her child to life. The Buddha was said to have such a medicine.

            Kisagotami went to the Buddha, paid homage, and asked, “Can you make a medicine that can restore my child?”

            “I know of such a medicine,” the Buddha replied. “But in order to make it, I must have certain ingredients.”

            Relieved, the woman asked, “What ingredients do you require?”

            “Bring me a handful of mustard seeds,” said the Buddha.

            The woman promised to procure it for him, but as she was leaving, he added, “I require the mustard seed to be taken from a household where no child, spouse, parent, or servant has died.”

            The woman agreed and began going house to house in search of the mustard seed. At each house the people agreed to give her the seed, but when she asked them if anyone had died in that household, she could find no home where death had not visited--in one house a daughter, in another a servant, in others a husband or parent had died. Kisagotami was not able to find a home free from the suffering of death. Seeing she was not alone in her grief, the mother let go of her child’s lifeless body and returned to the Buddha, who said with great compassion, “You thought that you alone had lost a son; the law of death is that among all living creatures there is no permanence.”

We are not alone.  Every one of us has suffered.  We can all remember low times in our lives where we felt our worst.  Remember these times and rejoice in them.  For it is these times that teach us the most.  These times that allow us the ability to empathize with our neighbors, our family, our coworkers, or even strangers.

Look upon challenges and adversity as a learning experience.  Look upon them as an opportunity to afford another that which you wish you had yourself.  Look upon them with favor and your life will be richer than your wildest dreams.  

Rule # 2, Take a step back

“Well, you’ve mentioned the need for a high level of enthusiasm and determination to transform one’s mind, to make positive changes. Yet at the same time, we acknowledge that genuine change occurs slowly and can take a long time.” I noted. “When change takes place so slowly it’s easy to become discouraged. Haven’t you ever felt discouraged by the slow rate of progress in relation to your spiritual practice or discouragement in others areas of your life?”

            “Yes, certainly.” he said.

            “How do you deal with that?” I asked.

            “As far as my own spiritual practice goes if I encounter some obstacles or problems, I find it helpful to stand back and take a long term view rather than the short term view. In this regard, I find that thinking about one particular verse gives me courage and helps me sustain my determination. It says:

                                                As long as space endures

                                                As long as sentient beings remain

                                                May I too live

                                                To dispel the miseries of the world.

Have patience.  Have patience with the world, have patience with others, but most of all have patience with yourself.  Your life isn’t over yet.  Even if you were 150 years old, there is still good to be done and changes to be made both within the world and within yourself.  You are a work in progress.  Your life is still loading.

Rule # 3 Sometimes all you have to do is listen

            The Dalai Lama was due to attend a small reception held in honor of a group of donors who had been strong supporters of the Tibetan cause. Outside the reception room a large crowd had gathered in anticipation of his appearance. By the time of his arrival the crowd had become quite dense. Among the onlookers I saw a man whom I had noticed a couple of times during the week. He was of indeterminate age, although I would have guessed middle 20’s, maybe early 30’s, tall and very thin. Notable for his disheveled appearance, he, however, had caught my attention because of his expression, one that I had frequently seen among my patients--anxious, profoundly depressed, in pain. And I noticed slight repetitive involuntary movements of the musculature around his mouth. “Tardive dyskinesia” I had silently diagnosed, a neurological condition caused by chronic use of antipsychotic medication. “Poor guy” I thought at the time but quickly forgot about him.

            As the Dalai Lama arrived, the crowd condensed, pressing forward to greet him. The security staff, most of them volunteers, struggled to hold back the advancing mass of people and clear a path to the reception room. The troubled young man whom I had seen earlier, now with a somewhat bewildered expression, was crushed forward by the crowd and pushed to the edge of the clearing made by the security team. As the Dalai Lama made his way through, he noticed the man, broke free from the mooring of the security crew and stopped to talk to him. The man was startled at first but began to speak very rapidly to the Dalai Lama, who spoke a few words in return. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but I saw that as the man spoke, he started to become visibly more agitated. The man was saying something, but instead of responding, the Dalai Lama spontaneously took the man’s hand between his, patted it gently, and for several moments simply stood there silently nodding. As he held the man’s hand firmly, looking into his eyes, it seemed as if he were unaware of the mass of people around him. The look of pain and agitation suddenly seemed to drain from the man’s face and tears ran down his cheeks. Although the smile that surfaced and slowly spread across his features was thin, a look of comfort and gladness appeared in the man’s eyes.                         

Sometimes we don’t have to solve the problem.  Sometimes we can’t. There is no quote, no gesture, no gift that can make it better.  It just is.  But if we can take the time to listen, to be present in the moment, to experience another’s pain with them, that is all that’s required.  That is what they need at that moment.  Something that costs you nothing but is priceless to them.

Rule # 4 Pray Daily

            The practice of approaching our problems rationally and learning to view our troubles or our enemies from alternative perspectives certainly seemed like a worthwhile pursuit, but I wondered to what degree this could bring about a fundamental transformation of attitude. I remembered once reading in an interview that one of the Dalai Lama’s daily spiritual practices was the recitation of a prayer, The Eight Verses on the Training of the Mind, written in the eleventh century by the Tibetan saint, Langri Thangpa. It reads in part:

Whenever I associate with someone, may I think myself the lowest among all and hold the other supreme in the depth of my heart.

When I see being of wicked nature, pressed by violent sin and affliction, may I hold these rare ones dear as if I had found a precious treasure!

When others, out of envy, treat me badly with abuse, slander and the like, may I suffer the defeat and offer the victory to others!

When the one, whom I have benefited with great hope, hurts me very badly, may I behold him as my supreme Guru!

In short may I, directly and indirectly, offer benefit and happiness to all beings; may I secretly take upon myself the harm and suffering of all beings!

Some of you are the scientific kind or perhaps you don’t believe in prayer or you prefer to call it something else like meditation.  No matter what you call it, it is still the releasing of wishes, hopes, and dreams from your heart and soul.  Thoughts, usually positive ones, that you direct into the world, the universe, or towards a certain person. I pray a lot.  My favorite place to pray is in my car, at the top of my lungs, with the windows rolled down.  Or in my shower at 5:30 in the morning when I’m chiseling the sleep out of my eyes.  Singing is my prayer.  I pray every chance I get.

So remember these rules the next time some seemingly overwhelming obstacle falls into your path.

You’re not alone - We are here for you

Take a step back - Remember your life is still loading, this moment is not all that’s left

Sometimes all you have to do is listen - Be present in the moment

Pray daily - Share your positive thoughts with the world

I’ll leave you with insight from someone far more enlightened than I.

            The Dalai Lama's Instructions for Life

Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk.

1. When you lose, don’t lose the lesson.
2. Follow the three R’s:

Respect for self

Respect for others and

            Responsibility for all your actions.

4.                  Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.

5.                  Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.

6.                  Don’t let a little dispute injure a great relationship.

7.                  When you realize you’ve made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.

8.                  Spend some time alone every day.

9.                  Open your arms to change, but don’t let go of your values.

10.              Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.

11.              Live a good, honorable life. Then when you get older and think back, you’ll be able to enjoy it a second time.

12.              A loving atmosphere in your home is the foundation for your life.

13.              In disagreements with loved ones, deal only with the current situation. Don’t bring up the past.

14.              Share your knowledge. It is a way to achieve immortality.

15.              Be gentle with the earth.

16.              Once a year, go someplace you’ve never been before.

17.              Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other.

18.              Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.

19.              If you want others to be happy, practice compassion.

20.              If you want to be happy, practice compassion.

Caring for the Earth by Jeff Green

I want to start out by being grateful for the group that I am in here at the Park Forest Unitarian Universalist Church.  I have been able to inherit the legacy left behind by our late Fenn Taylor of the Care for the Earth Series. I hope to do as well as Fenn did in his time with it.

I would like to go into now about a topic of global warming, possible corporate ugliness, testifying in Springfield Illinois, dirty coal, asthma, workers losing their jobs. Got an email from Sierra Club telling of a hearing of 5 coal plants being sold to Dynegy Energy corp out of Texas. Dynegy corp would like a 5 year variance on the pollution control investment or they will close down 2 of the plants.  Would I like to come testify or present my point of view in Springfield in front of the Illinois Pollution Control Board. That is like flies on honey for me.

The hearing was Tuesday,  September 17 starting at  9:00 am in the morning. There would be a free bus leaving Chicago at 6 am in the morning and 3 meals will be paid for. Wow!!!!! How can I turn that down. I would of paid to go, but this is just fine also.

Now to get to work on the UUCPF crowd. There were a lot of people that wanted to go, but there were pressing responsibilities pulling them in other directions. But when you get the chance to make an impact on something this big, by all means go for the ride. Of the Unitarians that could pull themselves away, Rich Oram and Andy Stevens made the commitment.

We are headed to 70 East Lake Street which is in front of the Sierra Club headquarters in Chicago. I stayed overnight at Rich’s house to take the electric train to millennium station downtown Chicago. On the train at 4:35 am Rich opened Dynegy Corp on Wikipedia to read out loud what they were about. Ken Lay (who is now in jail) helped to start this group awhile back in the 1980’s. There are several names and spin offs all the while till Dynegy is finally arrived at. What we are noticing, there a few ceo’s going to jail, holding companies that absorb the debt, other companies that get all the profit. The in debt company goes bankrupt and poof, the debt is all gone. There are law suits up and down dealing with their business model. This company could be modeled for the bad greedy corporations in a movie.

We get off the train thinking we only have a short time to get to the bus before it leaves. There are about 4 or 5 people there when we arrive and we are fed bagels, donuts and coffee. Turns out we didn’t leave until 7:10 am. Could of had an hour’s more sleep out of this. Chicago to Springfield Illinois would be on the order of 200 miles. Going through Chicago traffic in the beginning and then out into the country we arrived in Springfield sometime after 12:00 pm. Signed into the Illinois EPA building, had a room to put our stuff and into the hearing we went. The place was packed with Ameren employees wearing bright safety vests as their group identity. There was about 40 or 50 Sierra Club people compared to about 100 Ameren employees. From rumors, the employees were paid to be there. One woman overheard in the bathroom, the lady’s supervisor told her she had to be there or she would be fired. She had wanted to stay back for her daughter’s baseball game.

This being my first hearing, it was interesting to watch the different testimonies of the many employees asking for the variance to go through so that they could keep their jobs. There was a  break for lunch as we went back to our spacious room. My thought going back in is this was a real set up by the company to possibly pit environmentalists up against jobs.  Truthfully I’m angry about the workers being pawns in the Dynegy game.   Dynegy from my point of view isn’t any more behind these workers than they need to be. Just don’t cost Dynegy very much money. 

Testimony continues with business people getting up and saying that Dynegy is great for their business and how reputable they are. They would all like the variance to be approved. The reason given is that there needs to be certainty in the business market and this variance will give them the business confidence that they need. Many testimonies of just regular life that depends on making a living, community leadership in their towns, boy scouts, girl scouts, softball, baseball, schools ect. I believe this to be true. If the two plants are closed down this will take a big chunk of money out of those communities. Layoffs at schools and other small businesses will have to close up shop. The overall demeanor of the testimony of the pro variance was rather light in intensity.

When the Sierra Club members stepped up to the plate, the tone was a different one.  We came on with passion about our position on the variance. Obviously we are against the variance. Richard came up and brought his Hospice nursing experience of the pain his patients are in when they can’t breath in the last stages of their life. This would refer to the asthma that people get when in the high pollution zones living down from the power plants. These people die from not being able to breath at the end of their life suffering the whole way. Andy Stevens started out with “If I were in a different situation, I would be like you talking to keep my job.” Referring to the Ameren employees. Andy looked them in the eyes and spoke clearly to them letting them know how he felt. Andy went on to finish the rest of his testimony. My turn up to bat, I had prepared something the day before on prenatal and childhood development from fossil fuel pollution. After hearing all the different testimonies no one was talking about global warming. Basically I was flying without any notes to refer to. I was short sweet and to the point. I remember mentioning that we can easily reach 3*C by 2100 from carbon pollution. And yet there was an answer to this dilemma. The world can run on 100% renewable energy. Out of Stanford University, there are several peer reviewed science papers showing just how to do that. I looked at the Ameren Employees in the room, “We can put all of them to work building the new energy system.”

A lot of the Sierra Club people got up and literally hit the ball out of the park. They were on message, they had intensity, it was a great team effort. The ride home was later than I thought getting in my door at midnight and going to work the next day up at 6:15. I would do it again though.

For those of you with internet capability, the Environmental Law and Policy Center has put it succinctly as to Dynegy’s plans. They are claiming hardship as Ameren truly was by having a shell company with no funding that is taking over the five plants. Dynegy themselves are well healed to do the work of pollution control.

 

http://elpc.org/tag/dynegy

Temporary Shelter: A Sermon by Beverly Feldt

This time of year, the lovely crisp fall, is rich in Jewish holidays.  It’s the Jewish New Year, among other things.  I’ve always enjoyed the idea of the year beginning anew at this time – back to the days of new school supplies, stiff new leather shoes that gave me blisters, and lots of new adventures with a new teacher in a brand new grade.

So when Pat Segner asked me to talk to you today about the Jewish holidays, I agreed immediately – partly because I can never refuse Pat anything.  And doing this service gave me a chance to explore more deeply a part of my own heritage that I mostly know through a child’s perspective.  So in preparing for this service, doing research and thinking deeply, I can “grow up” my own understanding a bit – and then I get to share it with you.

Yesterday was Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish Calendar – the Day of Atonement.  Sundown last night marked the end of the High Holidays which began eleven days ago with Rosh Hashonah, the birthday of the world. 

Rosh Hashonah, like all Jewish holidays, also began at sundown – a week ago Wednesday.  Jews around the world gathered in synagogues and temples to hear the sound of the shofar  (the ram’s horn)  and celebrate the beginning of a new year.  Families ate sweet foods in hope of a sweet year to come:  apples with honey; round challah bread, which symbolizes the cycle of life; honey cake;  and tsimmes, a luscious casserole of carrots, sweet potatoes and dried fruits.

Rosh Hashonah also ushers in the Days of Awe:  ten days of repentance, in which Jews examine their actions of the previous year, make amends for wrongdoing, and ask for forgiveness – first from the people they’ve harmed, and only then from God.

The image that Judaism uses at this time of year is the Book of Life, in which God inscribes the name of every person who will live in the coming year.  According to tradition, on Rosh Hashonah God decides who will live and who will die, based on their actions during the previous year.  The book, however, remains open for ten days, and those who sincerely repent their moral lapses can sway God’s hand to add their names.  On Yom Kippur, the last of the Days of Awe, the Book of Life is sealed.

All day yesterday, Jews around the world fasted, taking no food or water from sundown Friday to sundown last night.  Many went to the synagogue, to hear the Kol Nidre prayer, with Aramaic words set to a moving traditional melody.  They prayed for forgiveness for everyone, secure in the knowledge that God will bless all who truly work to repair the harm they’ve done and promise to do better in the coming year.

Most of you are probably familiar with these holidays, from Jewish friends, books, or other sources.  If you’re puzzled by the way I say the names, let me explain:  when I was a kid, I learned Yiddish, the language of the Eastern European Jews from whom I am descended.  And although I didn’t grow up in a very observant household, everything I learned then about Judaism had a Yiddish accent to it.  So I pronounce the Hebrew names of these holidays with that Yiddish accent, which is different from the way they’re pronounced in Israel.  So I say Rosh HaSHOneh instead of Rohsh HashohNAH, and Yom KIPper instead of Yahm KiPOOR.  That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

 

So with one pronunciation or another, you know something about the High Holidays just past.

But this coming Wednesday, at sundown, begins a Jewish holiday that most of you have probably never heard of:  Sukkos, or Sue-COAT, the feast of the huts.  Right now, all over the world, Jews are building small rustic shelters called Sukkahs in suburban back yards, on city balconies, even up on the roof.  For a week, these tiny, fragile shacks will be their homes. 

Like everything else in Jewish life, there are rules about the Sukkah.  It must be built outdoors, under the open sky.  It must have at least three walls, although they don’t have to be solid.   The walls can be made of wood, of canvas stretched over PVC pipe, or a number of other materials.  The Sukkah must be sturdy enough not to move in the wind, but it’s actually supposed to be rather flimsy – a temporary shelter.  But it must be large enough for the family to have their meals there, and maybe even sleep there.

The most important part of the Sukkah is the roof.  It must be made of natural materials, loosely woven or placed so that you can see the sky through it when you’re sitting inside, but not so open that there’s more sunlight than shade in the Sukkah.  This covering has the delicious name of skhakh, which I think may be hard even for Jews to pronounce.  Skhakh can be made of tree branches, bamboo, corn stalks, two-by-fours – anything that once grew from the ground and has been cut off.  It should let the rain in, and the starlight. 

Many families decorate their Sukkahs with colorful art work and string lights around the inside.  They put tables and chairs in the Sukkah, and sometimes rugs and sleeping bags – because you’re supposed to spend as much time as possible in the Sukkah for the entire week of the holiday.  Eat your meals there.  Sleep there, too, unless it’s too cold or raining.  Invite guests to join you, sing songs, tell stories.  Become, for seven days, a dweller in a temporary shelter.

 

I’ve loved this idea ever since I was a kid.  I was always trying to persuade my parents to build a Sukkah in our tiny city back yard.  Sadly, I could never talk them into it.  But in our classrooms right now, our religious education kids are constructing models of Sukkahs. 

It’s also customary to hang seasonal fruits and vegetables inside the Sukkah.  In the U.S., Jews often use the gourds and tiny colorful corn stalks that appear in markets in the fall.  If this reminds you of Thanksgiving, you’re on the right track.

Because Sukkos is a harvest holiday.  Like Thanksgiving, like Harvest Home, it celebrates the gathering in of the fruits of the earth, with gratitude for the abundance that sustains us.

It’s thought that the Sukkah itself harkens back to the small temporary huts built in the fields during harvest time, so the workers could make the most of the shortening days and not waste time traveling back and forth to their homes.  Make hay while the sun shines. 

Over time, the Sukkah was also associated with the temporary shelters made by the Israelites during their forty years of wandering in the wilderness after the Exodus from Egypt.  During that time of unsettled, nomadic life – according to the Torah – all their sustenance came directly from God.  So appreciation of the gifts of life, and gratitude for the natural world, are a deeply rooted part of this holiday.

There are a lot more customs around Sukkos – some of them quite unusual.  If you’re interested in learning more about this holiday, or in discussing some of the ideas in this sermon, I’ll be leading the Forum after the service.  We can look at the models of Sukkahs as well.

When I started doing research for this service, I was surprised by how close in time Sukkos was to Rosh Hashonah and Yom Kippur.  Was it only this year, I wondered?  But no, Sukkos always begins five days after the Day of Atonement.

That got me thinking about the sequence of these holidays.  Five days after an extended period of deep thought, asking forgiveness, and finally fasting and prayer – and suddenly there’s a week that’s known as Z’man Simchataynu, the season of our rejoicing.  In fact, Sukkos is the only holiday of the Jewish year in which we are commanded to rejoice.  What’s going on here?

Imagine with me.

It’s the night of Yom Kippur, like last night.  It’s been a very long, very emotional day in the synagogue.  We’ve fasted, and we feel it.  We gather with family and friends, weak, tired, but happy, to slake our thirst and feed our hunger – together.  Despite our shortcomings, despite our flaws, we are still here, still with work to do and love to give.  We imagine our names, written in letters of gold in the vast Book of Life.  We’ve encountered the fragility of life, in sorrow, and have made it through to another year.  We are grateful, and humble, and joyous.

And we are human.  So very likely, within a day or two, as we go back to work, to school, to ordinary life, we start to get a little bit careless.  Or even arrogant.  We start to take life for granted again.  We forget our humility, and start to think – again – that that we’re in control of our lives.  We forget our gratitude, and become impatient – again.  We forget our joy, and begin – again – to focus on our petty grievances.

So soon!  But this God the Jews envision is a pretty patient God, who understands us.  Who knows we need to be reminded.  

So just when we’re in danger of slipping back into all our old careless ways, along comes Sukkos, to give us another encounter with fragility, with the temporary nature of life.  The last encounter was in sorrow.  This one will be in joy.

Imagine that it’s the first night of Sukkos, and you and your family sit down to dinner in your Sukkah.  The tiny lights you strung around the top are lit, and the traditional candles as well, and you recite the blessings for the holiday.  You’ve got that special feeling of sitting outdoors, with the evening breeze stirring the skhakh on top of this temporary shelter.  It’s cool now, and the fragrance of the food mixes with the sharp scents of falling leaves, that unmistakable smell of autumn.  You look up through the skhakh and see the first stars appear. 

You know your solid, dependable house is right nearby.  But for now, for the next seven days, this is your real home.  Tonight you don’t seem to need all the stuff that’s piled up in those rooms where you usually live.  Here, in this little hut, you have air, food, drink, loved ones – everything you need for life, and a good life at that.  You can see the shining eyes of the kids, excited to be camping in their own back yard.  You won’t have to nag them to go to sleep tonight.  It’s an adventure, and it’s home.  The wind suddenly whips around the Sukkah walls, and you wrap your sweater a little tighter around you.

And gratitude, and humility, and joy come back to you, in a new way. 

For this is the world, the real world:  not the one you imagine most of the year, where you’re the boss of everyone, and only you can make things happen, and life is complicated.  And you worry about security, and the future, and your to-do list.

But in the Sukkah, all that fades away.  Somehow, under the night sky, you understand something different about life.  You see that, although you eat the fruits of the harvest, you didn’t make them grow.  Even the vegetables from your own garden, which you tended, didn’t come solely from your own work.  It’s clearer now, the way life really works.  Not just for the plants, but for you as well:  you’re at the mercy of the wind and the weather, and somehow you just know that at the heart of it all, there is mercy. 

 

For you can feel, feel in your blood and your bones, how fragile life is, and what a gift it is. 

 *     *     *

To me, this is the deep message of the Sukkah:  nothing is guaranteed, and everything is given.

In the wilderness, the Israelites realized their complete dependence on God.  They had no farms, no homes, no livelihood – they didn’t even know where they were going.  And yet they were sustained.

So are we.  We think it’s because of our plans, but sometimes I think it’s in spite of them.  We have no ultimate power:  life and death are out of our hands. 

As we experienced this week, as we experience over and over again, lives end suddenly, and nothing we can do can change that.  We can console each other, wrap ourselves in each other’s arms, but it’s a temporary shelter.  Our bodies are a temporary shelter.  Perhaps the world is, as well.

Yet Life persists, and we each thrive in our season.  And the mystery of all this is what my ancestors called God.

In their wisdom, they gave us the feast of the temporary shelters.  To help us find peace, and joy, in this mystery we never really fathom.

 

Amen.