What Shall We Do?

January 5, 2003

"We live our lives amid endings and beginnings, but mostly what we know are continuations."

--Charles S. Stephen, Jr.

But when you come to think about it, we always begin right in the middle, whether of our own lives or someone else's. There are no true beginnings since perhaps the Big Bang, and indeed, there are no real endings, either. There is only the middle, only the continuation. We live among continuities. And difficult though it can sometimes be to accept, it is in these continuities that the sacred lies and that the sacred must be sought. There is no magic new beginning; there is no real starting over; we must begin where we are, and as we are, in the middle of our lives. We must begin in the middle of whatever joy or sadness, whatever fullness or emptiness, there is. As the ancient author of Ecclesiastes reminds us, there is "nothing new under the sun."

Nonetheless, I suppose the New Year does offer an opportunity for evaluating our lives anew, and for making what we like to call "resolutions." I have never been particularly good at these, but perhaps that says more about me than about the practice itself. Unitarian Universalist minister Roy Phillips once wrote,

There's nothing wrong with making resolutions. Any excuse we have for reflecting upon the quality of our living should be taken and used to good advantage. But it should be noticed that every resolution for living in the new year . . . has within it the sense that time is running out and it does matter how we use the time which has been made available to us.

All of us, I believe, are on the way, all of us are making the perilous journey, all of us are struggling upwards toward the light. All of us could be doing better, right here in the middle of our lives. Some of us are just holding on at the moment, but this too, I believe, shall pass.

The loss of one of my dearest friends in the last year makes me more aware than ever of the preciousness of friendship. Friendship takes time, usually years, to develop, and as we get older it seems to become more difficult to find the time in which to cultivate it. As Wordsworth warned long ago, we waste too much time in "getting and spending." Our lives are filled with busy-ness. This seems to me a telling symptom of our times. We have forgotten how to be at ease. I honestly think we work too hard. Perhaps it is a way of avoiding our mortality--we never stop long enough to think about it. We don't take the time to grow friendships, and consequently there is sometimes no one with whom we can share our deepest hopes and dreams, our longings and our passions. We are isolated from one another. Then we reach a certain age and realize that time is slipping away, and there doesn't seem to be enough time to do the work of making friends. How shall we use the time that remains to us? This pressing question is on my mind as we enter the year 2003.

I am well aware that I sometimes lack the courage of my convictions. I don't always speak out when I should. There are so many troubling signs of the times that sometimes it seems totally overwhelming. Impending war, religious and racial hatred, environmental decline, poverty, and violence of every kind threaten our planet and our spirits. It feels like an uphill battle. What am I really doing to change it? I know that some are looking to me for advice and comfort. What am I doing to make a difference? I know that I could be doing more in my role as a moral teacher. Avoidance of conflict and subtlety don't always get the job done. Nor, necessarily, does just setting a good example. Sometimes we have to speak out loud and clear. I am going to try to do that in the future. What about you?

I long for something to believe in--how about you? I confess that I have pretty much lost faith in the political system to make any kind of meaningful change. Politicians of both the left and right are more interested in maintaining the status quo than in making serious systemic change. There is, it seems to me, a real void in truly moral leadership, not only in this country but around the world.

And I sometimes despair of religion making any real difference, but what else is there? Religion seems more divisive than otherwise, and because I have given my life to a religious calling I find this really depressing. I hate being associated with religious fanatics and chauvinists. (That includes, by the way, UU chauvinists. I have always disliked religious apologetics, even for my own chosen religious faith, because it is defensiveness that is the major problem in this world.)

My religious faith is and always has been deeply personal. Though I have chosen to practice my faith as a Unitarian Universalist, I am less concerned about being a good UU than about being a good person. Sectarianism is part of the problem, not the solution. It is what we do, not what we call ourselves, that matters most. We give honor to Unitarian Universalism when we try to live the best lives of which we are capable.

I want something deeper in my life. I want the sense of mystery and wonder. Dare I say I want the presence of God? I long for connection with others--deep, meaningful connection. I don't find it enough in my life right now. Our society as currently constituted does not encourage connection. We are separated socially, religiously, racially, and economically. We don't even know our neighbors. Though there are more of us living closer together than ever before, we seem to grow further and further apart.

One of my hopes is that the church can be of service here. The church, for all its flaws, can still function to bring us together. It can be a place of care and intimacy, if we work to make it so.

I want to be in touch with my own deepest feelings, and to be able to share them with others whom I love and trust. I want conversation that counts. I long for those with whom to share not only my grief, but also my joy. It is not agreement that I need, but companionship. What can I do to encourage that kind of companionship in my life during the days to come?

I want to laugh more and to have more fun. There is so much sadness in life. There are terrible losses to be endured. But there is also joy, and I want to appreciate the joy in my life. I want to live in the knowledge of the joy that is and that still can be. I want to affirm life even in the face of death, even in spite of death.

I want to be a more compassionate person. I want to be less judgmental. I want to be more patient and generous with my time and treasure. I want to reach out more and be less reticent. I want to say my love more loudly and clearly than I have done before. I want to be a better father, husband, minister, and man. It is never too late to improve upon ourselves.

I want to relax and to take things less seriously. I want to be more realistic about what is important and what is not. I want to have less and to enjoy it more. I want just to be more often than I am. I want to be at peace with myself and others. Mostly, I want to appreciate what I am and have.

Finally, I want to be a source of hope and courage along the way. I want to be less pessimistic. I want to look on the bright side more often than I do. I want to seek out others who are hopeful and learn from them. I want always to keep a positive attitude.

These may seem like tremendously high, even impossible goals, and perhaps they are. But I truly believe that this is what our religion call us to do and to be. Religion calls us to connection and renewal. It seeks us out in our despairing moments and offers us the hope of a better tomorrow. It reminds us always that we are not alone. It calls us to be better than we are. And it is available to us in the middle of our lives, where we need it the most.

Religion is about our efforts to make sense of the insensible, and to imagine the unimaginable. Where is our sense of urgency? A new day is dawning, a day of our lives. What shall we do with it? What shall we do with this new day we have been given? And what shall we do with our lives? What shall we do?

The Rev. Harold E. Babcock