The Path of True Intention

a sermon preached by Rev. Khleber M. Van Zandt V at First Unitarian Church of Alton, Illinois, June 7, 2009

 

It’s June and some of you are graduating:  some from middle school to high school, some from high school to life or to college, some from college perhaps, some simply from one moment to the next.  Especially this time of year with so many graduations around, you can find many people who take it as their God-given task to tell other people how to live well.  And you who are graduating are obliged by convention or good manners to listen to others’ suggestions for what to do with your lives, regardless of whether you understand what they’re talking about or not, and whether the person speaking understands the world you’re coming into or not.

If you’re graduating from Middle School or High School about now, there are a couple of good reasons for you not to listen to me today.  The first is I didn’t graduate from high school – I dropped out after the 10^th grade and got married and had a bunch of kids.  So if you’re a high school graduate, you’re already one up on me. 

The second reason not to listen to me today is that I came of age in a different world than this one.  I look out at the world out there as it is now and I’m as confused and bewildered as you are, probably even more so.  Oh sure, many things remain the same:  the wars continue just like they did when I was your age.  Millions are still hurting and hungry in the world, just like they were decades and centuries and millennia ago.  And many of us continue to think we can solve all the world’s problems just by thinking about them, just like we did long, long ago in that galaxy far, far away where I grew up.

But, as many things have changed, a lot has changed, too.  When I was your age, I could trade out my car’s engine and transmission with a few hand-tools in my backyard.  When I was your age, I used punch cards to program the one and only computer available to students in the Fort Worth Public Schools.  When I was your age, I was able to vote for women and ethnic minorities for public office, but there was no way any of them was ever gonna win.  Now, in the age of Obama, I’ve got several computers I carry with me and so many in my car that it’s impossible for me to fathom how to fix anything about a car beyond changing a flat tire.  A lot has changed.

SO, take what I say to you today with a grain of salt – a large grain.  Because I didn’t do it right when I was your age, and because I’m not your age now and you face a far more complicated world than I did way back when.

Will that stop me from my intention to tell you what to do with your lives?  Not for a minute – I love you too much to be quiet.  I love you too much to let you go out there and stub your toes on the same sharp corners I did without at least telling you what I think has helped and what I think has hurt in my life.

 

First of all, I want to talk about three things:  what you want, what you need, what you deserve.

Want:

You’re going to get some of the things you want in your life and probably most of the things you need, but not all of them.  Which is okay – I think it’s true that you should be careful what you pray for because you just might get it.  I think it’s particularly important to try to figure out whether what you want is to make you the best you can be, or whether what you want is simply to instantly gratify one of your baser urges.  I’ve felt like I had to do one thing or another, like I needed to do one thing or another, only to find out it was only envy or pride or hormones driving me, and then as I looked back I found out I hadn’t needed those things at all – I hadn’t really even wanted those things.  Be careful about what you want.

There are plenty of writers and thinkers out there who’ll tell you that you ought to do what you want.  One of my favorites, the comparative mythologist Joseph Campbell, talks about following your bliss, meaning not that you should do what you want every minute of the day, but that you should figure out what makes you deeply happy, what makes you the best you can be, and then you should follow that path with all your being.  This makes sense.  I hear from people who say they are so glad to finally be free from the peer pressure to do what others want them to do and to be what others want them to be.  Don’t be too disheartened:  these are people in their 70’s and 80’s, but maybe you can learn from them and get it right much earlier in life.

Author and self-help guru Wayne Dyer talks about getting yourself aligned with something he calls “the Power of Intention,” some force in the universe that intends the best for you and for all beings.  The way Dyer explains this power of intention, you have a choice:  you can either accept the positive energy that’s all around you and be lifted and supported by it or you can reject it and begin to attract negative energy into your life and surroundings. 

Dyer’s ideas seem similar to the recent blockbuster book, The Secret, which tried to give a new look to a lot of old sayings about the ‘power of positive thinking.’  The Secret said that whatever you think will happen will happen, and that whatever you want in your life, you just have to think about it right and hard enough and it will be there for you.  I would like a doughnut…

While I have found it to be true that my attitude about myself and about the events of my life does have an effect on my experience of the world, placing one’s ultimate belief in the power of one’s mind alone has profound limitations.  Better to use Dyer’s vision of connecting and aligning one’s mental and emotional powers with the powers of universe, whether you call those powers Intention, or bliss, or God.

 

Need:

I don’t remember anyone talking to me about the difference between wanting and needing when I was your age.  Given that we all need air, water, food, and shelter to stay alive, I had to find out that when I thought I needed something besides air, water, food, and shelter that I’d better be careful.  When I said to myself, “I need a drink” (meaning an alcohol beverage), I’d better look at whether I was becoming dependent on alcohol.  When I said to myself, “If that relationship falls apart, I’ll die,” then I’d better look more deeply at what was going on inside me that made me think I needed it so bad.  You need air, water, food, and shelter.  I believe you need to be who you’re supposed to be.  Beyond that, be wary of your dependence on outside substances; paraphrasing many sages from many traditions, happiness comes from within, not from excess drink or dependent relationships or sex or drugs or rock’n’roll.

 

Deserve:

Jane Rzepka, minister of the Church of the Larger Fellowship, tells a story from Hasidic tradition:  “Religious people should always have two pockets in every garment, a slip of paper in each one.  The first slip of paper should say, ‘I am but dust and ashes.’  And the second should say, ‘For me the universe was made.’”

On the one hand, for you the universe was made.  You are God’s gift to creation.  You have the potential to change the world.  You are critically important to all that’s going on around us.  As someone who’s so important to so many, you deserve to get some of what you want and to get most of what you need.  Keep that slip of paper in one pocket and remember that it’s there any time you want to look at it – for you the universe was made.

On the other hand, you are but dust and ashes.  There are billions of us who are very much like you.  When you leave here, and you will leave here, life on earth will go on as before because you are but dust and ashes.

This paradox is profound and difficult, and a struggle I suggest you continue to indulge in.  How can one be both critically important and totally insignificant at the same time?  I think it comes down to this:  being willing to invest all of yourself in the processes of life and none of yourself in the outcomes.  To intend the best, to consider the issues, to work for justice and equality, and to be the best you can be is critically important.  But to imagine that it’s all up to us is foolish and defies experience and shows a lack of faith in the true powers of the universe.  To throw up one’s hands in exasperation and to quit trying is the only real defeat.

 

How will you keep all these things in mind?  How will you figure them out for yourself?  I didn’t do so well at this when I was your age, but it has become very important to me to sit still and be quiet for a while everyday.  The Unitarian Universalist minister, Harry Scholefield, used to say that he meditated for a half hour each morning, unless he had a particularly full day and then he’d meditate for an hour.  I have found that being willing to invest a little time in listening to what’s going on between myself and the universe has helped free me from the things I thought I needed and help me understand the difference between need and want.  You can call what you do during this time meditation, you can call it prayer, you can call it any number of things.  What I do I’d call a spiritual practice, and I wish for you the benefits I have found in practicing, especially as it helps to figure out what you want, what you need, what you deserve, and how to follow your bliss and find your own path of true intention.

 

So, whether you’re graduating from something right now or not, there it is, yet another message from someone concerned for your future but not standing in your shoes.  To stay on the path of true intention, keep thinking about the difference between what you want and what you need.  Keep two slips of paper in front of you so you remember what you deserve.  Keep a spiritual practice so you’ll be able to juggle all these competing demands.  And do all that you do with your whole self and with a sense of love.  God knows the world needs your help right now and in the times to come.

So may it be.