Choosing Life – Wild or Mild?
UU Fellowship of Midland, MI
January 29, 2006
Jane Thickstun

 Reading

Today’s reading is a poem by Mary Oliver called “A Dream of Trees.”

There is a thing in me that dreamed of trees,
A quiet house, some green and modest acres
A little way from every troubling town,
A little way from factories, schools, laments.
I would have time, I thought, and time to spare,
With only streams and birds for company,
To build out of my life a few wild stanzas.
And then it came to me, that so was death,
A little way away from everywhere.

There is a thing in me still dreams of trees.
But let it go. Homesick for moderation,
Half the world's artists shrink or fall away.
If any find solution, let him tell it.
Meanwhile I bend my heart toward lamentation
Where, as the times implore our true involvement,
The blades of every crisis point the way.

I would it were not so, but so it is.
Who ever made music of a mild day?

 

Sermon

            There is a thing in me that dreamed of trees.  I love Mary Oliver’s imagery: “a quiet house, some green and modest acres, a little way from every troubling town.”  I, too, have thought how lovely it would be to have time; time to spare, with only streams and birds for company.  I, too, thought perhaps that was what was needed to make the poetry flow.

            When I was young and living in my parents’ house, I imagined such a place.  We lived in the North Country, and winters there were long and cold.  I imagined a big bubble-kind-of-structure in our backyard that nobody else could enter.  Inside it was like summer, and there were trees and grass and a stream with a little waterfall.  In my mind I would sit on the rocks by the stream and read, or just enjoy my surroundings.  It was a beautiful, warm, solitary place, and just imagining it helped me endure the cold of the winter and the friction of family life.

            I have been drawn to living in the country, away from people, closer to nature.  I have even been drawn to the hermit life, believing that, since my creative impulse requires solitude, the more I could remove myself, the more and better I could create.

            I looked at the lives of the philosophers I admired, and found that most led fairly solitary lives.  I’ll share with you a description of how one of them lived – the German existentialist philosopher Heidegger.  In a forward to Heidegger’s work, Existence and Being, an author describes two visits he made to the philosopher:

            On both occasions when I met Professor Heidegger . . . , I had to drive for an hour to the small town of Todtnau in the Black Forest Mountains, then to climb still further until the road became a path and all human habitation scattered and invisible.  There on top of a mountain, with the valley deep down below, with nothing but space and wilderness all around, in that small skiing hut, I spoke to the philosopher.  He had not been to Freiburg for six months when I saw him for the second time.  His living conditions were primitive; his books were few, and his only relationship to the world was a stack of writing paper.  His whole life revolved within those white sheets and it seemed to me that he wanted nothing else but to be left in peace to cover those white sheets with his writing.

            The atmosphere of silence all around provided a faithful setting for Heidegger’s philosophy. . . . the external world faithfully reflected the world of the mind. . . . in Heidegger’s case it was the spirit of overwhelming solitude.”  (Stefan Schimanski, from Existence and Being p. ix-x)

            That kind of life definitely has its appeal, at least for me.  But I have never lived as a hermit, nor even had a house in the country, except for short-term retreats.  And those retreats are valuable – extremely so.  But I’ve found that ultimately it is engagement with the world and not withdrawal from it that leads to a full and fulfilling life, no matter how difficult, how frustrating, how downright ugly it can be at times.

            It is through conflict with others that we grow – grow in humility, in compassion, in understanding.  As much as I believe Nature speaks to us, and sometimes even with fury, we still need to engage with the world of people to experience all of our limitations and all of our potential.

            There’s a story from the Desert Fathers, a group of monks who lived as hermits.            “A brother asked Abba Matoes: What shall I do?  My tongue causes me trouble and whenever I am among people, I cannot control it and I condemn them in all their good deeds and contradict them.  What, therefore, shall I do?  The old man answered him: If you cannot control yourself, go away from people and live alone.  For this is a weakness – Those who live together with others ought not to be square, but round, in order to turn toward all.  Further, the old man said: I live alone not because of my virtue, but rather because of my weakness.  You see, those who live among people are the strong ones.”  (Desert Fathers, from Stories of the Spirit, Stories of the Heart, p. 151)

            Those who live among people are the strong ones.  How true.  But we all can become strong.  Unlike the old man in the story, I wouldn’t recommend living alone and away from people.  I would tell that brother to live among people precisely in order to become more round, in order to learn to control himself and get along with people – something that will never happen if he removes himself from society.  And it won’t be easy, and it’s apt to be quite painful, and it may never even happen – but brother, if you take the risk, you are choosing a more wild, more exciting and fuller life than if you withdraw and live by yourself, quitting, admitting defeat, giving up any hope of growing and changing.

            Of course, it’s important to have a balance.  It’s good to retreat now and then, to alternate periods of engagement with periods of solitude.  A solitary retreat can renew us and fortify us for our engagement.  It offers us opportunity to reflect on our experience, to find our center and reconnect with our deeper selves.

            Such a retreat need not be for a long period of time.  A week or a weekend alone in the wilderness is wonderful, but productive periods of solitude can be found every day through a practice of prayer or meditation.  A daily withdrawal is a good idea– to keep us centered, to help keep the “I” differentiated from the “we”.  A balance is important.

            An example of a meditation practice getting out of balance is told in this traditional Tibetan Buddhist tale:

            “Saraha married a fifteen-year-old house girl, left his home, and went into another land.  He settled in a solitary place, where he practiced the Dharma while the girl out begging for his food.  One time he asked her to prepare some radishes for him.  She mixed some radishes in yogurt and took them to him, but he was sitting in meditation, so she went away without disturbing him.

            “Saraha remained uninterruptedly in meditation for twelve years.  When he finally arose, he asked, ‘Where are my radishes?’  The serving girl replied, ‘How could I keep them? You have not risen from meditational trance for twelve years.  It is now spring, and there are no radishes.’ Saraha then said to the girl, ‘I will go to the mountains to meditate.’  But the girl replied, ‘A solitary body does not mean solitude.  The best solitude is the mind far away from names and conceptions.  You have been meditating for twelve years, yet you have not cut off the idea of radishes.  What good will it do to go to the mountains?’”  (Traditional Tibetan Buddhist tale, The Soul’s Almanac, p. 99)

            After twelve years, the man still wants radishes.  He hasn’t moved on to any new ideas, any new desires.  He hasn’t grown.  He hasn’t lived.  Meditation hasn’t made him wise or at peace, or any less selfish than he was when he married a young girl and sent her out begging for his food.  He is no better off than he was twelve years before . . . and he must be pretty hungry!

            The girl in the story suggests that Saraha can have solitude without going anywhere.  Solitude can mean being alone in a physical sense – going into the woods alone, or maybe just going into a room in the house where nobody will disturb us.  But solitude also refers to a state of mind, a positive sort of independence of spirit.  Solitude is usually best achieved by being alone, but that’s not a requirement.  Likewise, one can be alone without achieving solitude. 

            Marcus Aurelius, Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher, describes this internal sense of solitude.  He says:

            “Men seek for seclusion in the wilderness, by the seashore, or in the mountains – a dream you have cherished only too fondly yourself.  But such fancies are wholly unworthy of a philosopher, since at any moment you choose you can retire within yourself.  Nowhere can man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul; above all, he who possesses resources in himself, which he need only contemplate to secure immediate ease of mind – the ease that is but another word for a well-ordered spirit.  Avail yourself often, then, of this retirement, and so continually renew yourself.  Make your rules of life brief, yet so as to embrace the fundamentals; recurrence to them will then suffice to remove all vexation, and send you back without fretting to the duties to which you must return.”  (Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, p. 63-64)

            And return we must.  As Mary Oliver says, “the times implore our true involvement, the blades of every crisis point the way.” 

            Our involvement is necessary.  The world needs us and we need the world.  It’s not easy.  Marcus found the demands of maintaining and defending an empire to be extremely difficult and perhaps even against his inclination, but he had a strong sense of duty, and was one of the better emperors Rome ever had.  He was fair and merciful and good.  The world certainly needed him.  It needs us no less.

            The world needs us and we need the world.  Without experience to reflect on, solitude can’t be productive.  We can stay fixated on radishes.  Mary Oliver reminds us that our creative powers shrink or fall away if we back away from involvement, if we seek moderation, if we seek a peaceful life.  When we interacting with other people on anything other than a superficial level, if we are truly involved, conflicts are bound to arise, things get messy, sometimes painful.  We can avoid the pain by withdrawing, but at what cost?  It comes as a package deal.  With Mary Oliver, we can wish it were not so, but so it is.

            Who ever made music of a mild day?  If we choose a mild life, away from it all, away from troubles, worry and pain, can any music spring from our souls?  The creative spirit within us is nurtured by involvement.  It wants to go wild – let’s let it.

            Let’s let other people into our lives – even people who think differently than we do, even people we may not like.  Let’s be involved with others and with the world.  Let’s let our souls sing wild tunes or create new ideas.  Let’s get out of whatever ruts we may be in.  Let’s let go of the dream of trees, or the thing in us that dreams of trees.

            We only have this one life – let us make the most of it.  Let us not waste twelve years meditating on radishes we never even eat.  Let us cultivate the ability to find solitude within, so that we can avail ourselves of it often, without needing to go away.

            On another level, let’s make sure this congregation is involved with the world.  Just like an individual, a congregation can dream of trees, can seek moderation, the easy road, can seek to be a place of peace only, where conflict is to be avoided and engagement with the world is definitely to be avoided.  Let us rather be a congregation that encounters difficulty and even some pain, but makes wild music for all the world to hear.

            Let us all, together and individually, make wild music for all the world to hear.

            Amen.