Simple Gifts

September 10, 2000

"Tis a gift to be simple,
'tis a gift to be free,
'tis a gift to come down
where we ought to be. . . .

The gift to come down "where we ought to be." I don't think the Shakers meant that "ought" in a prescriptive or pejorative sense. I think they meant it in the sense of, "where it is in our best interests to be." To "come down" where we should be, where we will be happiest and therefore most productive and useful, most kind and loving, both to ourselves and to others.

And when we find ourselves
in the place just right,
'twill be in the valley
of love and delight.

Hey, finding ourselves, our own, best true selves, is still where it's at!

That's what religion is really all about. It's about the search for identity on a cosmic scale. It's about figuring out who we are, who we're meant to be.

Now, the Shakers had a different idea about how they should find themselves. They believed in celibacy, after all! Most of us don't. But they also loved to dance! And unlike the Baptists in the old joke, they weren't afraid of where it would lead. . . . They loved to dance and sing, and they believed in community, not the kind of community we believe in, perhaps, but a community nonetheless. And they wanted to change the world, beginning with themselves as they were. They thought they could make the world a better place, silly them. And so do we.
Yes, they were concerned about the eternal life of the soul, and not with the ephemeral things of the earth, with the things that are lasting, and not with the things that shall pass. They were a lot more otherworldly than we are. Still, as Marilyn Hoffman writes, "Shakers believed that the work of the hands had to reflect the moral order, and that the outward appearance of things revealed the inner spirit." Now, there's a concept (tell that to your messy teenager).
And so they built, beautiful things, yet simple things, things that were functional and well-made, things that reflected their inner spirits. As June Sprigg has written, the Shakers "believed that home was the nearest equivalent to heaven on earth." So they tried to make it look that way. And it should be, shouldn't it? Though we know that it isn't always, it's the ideal toward which we strive, and we need ideals in order to survive in this crazy world.

Our church, too, is a home: a family beyond family, a place where we come to try to create that better world that we, too, dream about. For we all long for a better world, just as the Shakers did. They wanted their buildings and their furniture, as well as their actions, to reflect that world. And so they strove to create the perfect community, based on ideals of beauty and utility and simplicity, based on their belief that spaciousness and light streaming through many windows were divine ideals. We, here, can certainly identify with that!

We Unitarian Universalists may be more worldly than the Shakers, but, hey, we're dreamers, too! We just believe that this world is what's really important. But that doesn't mean that we can ever lose sight of those divine ideals of beauty and justice and love and mercy about which all the preachers and prophets have spoken.

And lest we forget, and think that the Shakers were just another other-worldly religious sect, just a bunch of religious fanatics trying to escape from a corrupt and decadent world,--they believed that it was their duty to take in orphans, to give them a home and a family, to give them love in a time when there was no social service system or safety-net to take care of children who had lost their parents or been abandoned by them. That's about as this-worldly an undertaking as there can be! And more often than not, those children would choose to remain with the Shakers for their entire lives, though it meant of life of celibacy and sacrifice, because the Shakers were a family. They cared for one another. Unfortunately, they ran out of orphans! They become obsolete, though the lessons that they taught endure.

For they knew that the most important gifts are simple gifts: gifts of kindness and love, the freedom to be who we are regardless of what the world may think, simplicity and hard work. The gift of being unashamed. Wow.

And they loved to dance! That's actually how they got their name.

These Quakers used dance as a kind of ecstatic meditation. Like the Hebrew prophets of old, they would dance and sing themselves into a trance-like state, a kind of moving prayer, faith in motion. They would bow and bend. And so they got the name "Shaking Quakers," or "Shakers" for short.

That name was meant to be an insult and a slur upon their religion. People were making fun of them. But the Shakers knew something that their detractors did not, and so, gladly, they took the name "Shaker." And they danced, and as they danced they sang!

When true simplicity is gained
to bow and to bend we shan't we ashamed;
to turn, turn, shall be our delight,
'til by turning, turning, we come round right.

Isn't that what all of us strive for, too? To "come round right"? And how shall we do that? To me, that is the religious quest in a nutshell. The Shakers suggested that we need to take responsibility for ourselves and for our own religious well-being, no matter what anyone else may think. Sometimes that means self-sacrifice. And they believed in re-creating the world in a manner that would represent their ideal. I happen to think that is not so very far from the true spirit of Unitarian Universalism.

All of us, in our best selves, seek that turning which will bring us more and more toward the light. Traditionally it is called "conversion." But what it really means is "turning." Turning away from what harms us and divides us within and among ourselves; turning toward what will make us healthy and whole, and ultimately reconcile us with one another. Finding ourselves in "the place just right." We could definitely stand a lot more dancing.

And we could stand to be reminded on a regular basis of the "simple" gifts of all our lives: gifts of love and loveliness and light. Not only the gifts that we receive, but the gifts that we can give: gifts of treasure, yes, but just as importantly gifts of time and the gift of our presence in the lives of those who love and need us and depend on us. Those may be people within our own family, within our own community, or they may be people in the larger family of all humankind. For as Rabbi Hillel reminds us, "If I am for myself alone, than who am I?" Who am I?

The goal of all our striving, then, is to come round right. To be right with ourselves, to be right with others, to be right with the ground of our being, or what some of us call "God." To come down where we ought to be; to know that when we make that leap of faith into whatever it is that our hearts hold dear, we will be caught and held, we shall not fall. Fearless and unashamed. Joyful, and in beat to the rhythm of the universe.

For it is as the mystic said: "All shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well."* And it is as the poet assures us: "Lie back, and the sea shall hold you."** We know it as a hope mainly, but occasionally we know it as a present reality: here, now. May our lives be blessed with simple gifts, and may we ever be grateful for that greatest gift: Life, itself. Welcome home! Amen.

The Rev. Harold E. Babcock

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Notes:

* Julian of Norwich
** Philip Booth