Unitarian Universalist Meeting of South Berkshire

June 5, 2005

“The Secret of Well-Being”

or

“How to Get to Heaven from South Berkshire”

Rev. Kathy Duhon

It’s good to be back. You all look so good.

I feel good. So good, I’m going to start with a joke. I came across this one while I was on sabbatical, but I’d heard it once, years before, in a sermon. I don’t remember anything else about the sermon, but it’s a good joke, and has elements that remind me of my sabbatical.

A man went on vacation and arranged for his mother to stay at his house and take care of his cat. And, just to be sure, he asked his next-door neighbor if he would look in on them every day and make sure they were all right. “No problem,” said the neighbor. The man took off and after a couple of days he called the neighbor and asked how things were going.

“Well,” the neighbor said, “your cat died.” “Geez,” the guy said. “You have to come right out and tell me like that? Couldn’t you have a little more consideration? I’m on vacation. Couldn’t you have broken it to me a little more gently? Like first telling me that the cat was on the roof, then that the cat fell off the roof, then maybe the next day telling me you had taken the cat to the vet – like that, not boom all at once! By the way, how’s my mom doing?

“Well,” said the neighbor, “she’s up on the roof…”

I read many, many books, of many varieties, on my sabbatical, including a book of jokes, where I found that one, and some books with humorous essays. I sensed I had become a bit too serious as a minister, although I am someone who loves to laugh. Also, Jon wasn’t there, who always keeps me laughing.

That joke has so many layers, doesn’t it? I find it fruitful for spiritual thought, as many jokes are. There’s the problem of our controlling behavior, of not living in the now, of not being mindful of each other, and of course, of the transience of life. This joke is pointing toward one of my favorite subjects, death, but more on that later.

An important goal of my sabbatical was to research and write an essay on well-being. I figured a 3 – 5 page essay would do to capture the wisdom of my seeking. Three months into 5 pages? I think not. I have written a monster 33 page essay, a short book, really, which is available for you to pick up, if you dare. You don’t have to read the book, though. I will take from it for this sermon, and for future sermons. I also wrote the rough draft of a book on veterans, which many of you helped with by doing interviews. More on that another time.

I described 3 levels for understanding well-being. First, there are the practices that people engage in; what they do that gives them a sense of well-being. Secondly, there are principles which the practices reflect – what’s really going on. You don’t have to do every practice in order to have well-being, but if you have well-being, you probably will be engaged in every principle. Finally, there is the secret of the universal path of well-being itself, a one-liner that encompasses all the rest. If we can follow that one wisdom, we will have well-being, of that I have no doubt. So, today you are going to find out how to get to heaven from South Berkshire – the secret of well-being.

Here are a summary of the practices that I found people told me were important for their well-being, or showed me by their lives of well-being: creativity, doing what you love, music, doing things that are challenging, quiet time, community living, simple living, service, seeking wisdom, moderation, exercise and healthy diet, nature, gratitude, laughter, and doing a spiritual practice. I’ll just talk about three of the fifteen today.

First, quiet time and time spent alone are crucial ingredients to many for their well-being. The retreat centers I went to are places of quiet, often with noise curfews to rival the strictest children’s camp. Built into any good religious workshop is time to reflect or meditate, and time to be away from the group and by oneself. Last month, in my cabin in Nova Scotia, I was quite alone, surrounded by quiet, and could go for a whole day or two without seeing anyone or speaking with anyone. It was not lonely; it was wonderful, although perhaps I would not go quite as far as Henry David Thoreau. He wrote, in the book Walden, “I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.”

In the cabin was a guest book with many wonderful reflections on the beauty, restfulness, quiet, and restorative nature of the solitude there. Here is one that captures beautifully the well-being of time spent in quiet solitude: “June 11, 2004, 11:30 p.m. The silence speaks volumes, my heart is loud, my breath soft. I came looking for one thing and found another. Lessons – it’s not the letting go that hurts, it’s the holding on; the joy is in the journey, not the achievement; today I am not in charge of the universe.” Quiet solitude brings wisdom and well-being.

A second practice that brought well-being was living in community. I visited many types of intentional communities, but this practice can also be extended to our neighborhoods and other social groups, especially this congregation. One of the great benefits of community living, like the gift of solitude, is the sense that you are no longer in control, that the world does not rely upon you alone, that you do not have to be Captain Karma or Super Saint. Yet, you are relied upon to be available and to respond to others. So many folks I met in the last three months were living in community. Even when they seemed to be the staff of a conference center like Rowe or Omega, they were really living together in a special way, behind the scenes, and loving it, despite the challenges. Many people told me how good it was to live in community.

Community living is not easy. It involves letting go of some pleasures, of some privacy, and of some individual preferences. The people you are around may be having a bad day, or a bad year, as in the therapeutic communities, and are not always pleasant. And yet, the sacrifices of community living seem mostly to bear great fruit, with some folks living contented lives, and others journeying on a path of healing.

One mentally ill man told me that one of the most important things his community provides for him and other residents is to get them to do things together. I especially enjoy being in communities where a variety of ages of people is represented, with folks doing things together and relating across the generations. Well-being is found in the fellowship and friendship of community life, as well as in its support for doing good and living well.

Community living fosters the feelings of trust and belonging, which are both important for well-being and cannot be easily sought by oneself. At one community they trusted me with power tools; at another they trusted me with holding the llama steady while a monk clipped his toenails. I learned to trust my ability to navigate on my own, to fix minor things that needed fixing, and to build fires in the woodstove. Trust is an important element of relationships, including that most basic relationship with oneself. Being able to trust the universe or God is the path to being able to let go. Building trust is a way of building well-being.

Folks belong to communities the way you belong to a family, in a deeper way than we belong to most groups. Belonging gives us a shared understanding of who we truly are, one of those vital questions we are always trying to grasp. Being a community member, like being a member of a religion, gives us the assurance that we are worthy. The larger we can feel the belonging, to the All in All, the better it is for well-being.

The last practice I want to talk about today is simple living. My life was fairly simple for 3 months. I lived in small spaces, had a moderate amount of my belongings with me - the biggest part of which were books. I did not use the internet, encountered very minimal media of any kind, made only one kind of list - for going to the store - mostly stayed away from cities, noises and stress, and spent much of my day walking, reading, and doing spiritual practices. Such simplicity was truly a joy.

It wasn’t easy to get simple, though, and I didn’t succeed all the time. There was a certain outlandish lobster dinner I treated myself to in celebration of Mother’s Day. I sometimes felt antsy from media-withdrawal, and I’d consider finding a cinema to see a movie, but I resisted, several times. I had to re-train myself not to enter my room and immediately wonder if I had phone messages or e-mails. I got used to wearing the same clothes over and over again, although I admit I did buy a couple of new purple things.

The people I met were usually immersed in simple living. Most places I went had gardens, kept at least chickens, and recycled in a big way. These community folks tended to wear much less variety in clothing than I did, whether monk robes or farmer clothes, and also eschewed the media for much of the time. Of course, these were the people actually living at the places where I retreated; folks in my position were not necessarily embracing the simplicity.

Many of the attendees who went to Omega seemed to be on turbo-retreat from their overly abundant lives, and that weekend was not enough to reduce the feeling that they lived in a whirlwind. They brought tons of luggage, ignored the plea to use cell phones in restricted areas only, treated themselves to expensive body work, and left the gift shop with big bags full of stuff. Yet, I do think their well-being was increased – it’s just they had so far to go.

I met one extremely wealthy couple on sabbatical, and I had to work hard to hang onto my well-being around their entourage of overflowing life. I know why Henry David Thoreau sometimes sounded cranky about maintaining his simplicity.

I came across a quote from Mahatma Gandhi, in an essay by UU minister Ken Brown about simple living as a spiritual practice. Gandhi said, “Civilization, in the real sense of the term, consists not in multiplication, but in the deliberate and voluntary reduction of wants. This alone promotes real happiness and contentment.” Folks I stayed among, who were living simple lives over months and years and decades, did seem remarkably content and happy, and not desiring anything more.

I noticed that the simplicity I experienced was not only about gardens, and being unplugged, and the reduction of desires, but something more intangible. The people I was with, including myself, were living life beneath the surface complexities that we are often engaged with, and were day in and day out working on the deep simple truths. Whether we were engaged in service or Christian prayer or Buddhist teachings or singing, we were consciously, together, working on the simplest stuff in life – love, faith, hope, joy, well-being. This happens here during Sunday services, and sometimes in our other smaller groups, but rarely have I spent so much time with so many others so engaged in living simply in the spirit.

I describe a dozen other practices in the essay, and seven principles, but we don’t have time for everything today. The principles I found for living a life of well-being are: living a life in the spirit, mindfulness, loving yourself and others, answering life with your best, letting go, surrendering to the mystery, and wonder. At other times we’ll examine the principles, as well as the other practices, but for now, let me turn to the secret of well-being, the universal path that is all you really need to know.

Live in the face of dying. Live in the face of dying – that’s the secret. Live as though you will die tomorrow or next year. That will focus us on what we should do to live well. This wisdom kept coming up everywhere. In fact, there are many quotes to this effect, from Mahatma Gandhi to James Dean, Nikos Kazantzakis to Henry David Thoreau. Well-being requires living in the face of dying, which is simply facing the truth of life. Embracing Sister Death, as St. Francis taught, means that we live more in the present, more lovingly, more truthfully. That’s the secret of well-being, which is lived in many particular ways, and draws from various wise principles.

I came across a wonderful story about a woman who, as a young girl, went to hear Helen Keller. Afterwards, she said she was so moved that she went up to speak to Helen Keller. She said, “I blurted out: ‘Miss Keller, why are you so happy?’ and she laughed and laughed, saying: ‘My child, it is because I live each day as if it were my last and life, with all its moments, is so full of glory.’”

I learned from many wise and kind teachers these past three months, but my favorite teacher, the one who really kept ringing with truth and love and gave the clearest sense that he understood and lived a life of well-being, was Philip Simmons. Some of you may recognize the name because a few years back the UU World magazine was publishing his essays, but they stopped when he died of ALS, Lou Gehrig’s disease, about three years ago. The book is Learning to Fall, and I recommend it highly. He did have to live as though he would die soon, and it made all the difference – he became very wise. As the psalmist wrote, “teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart.” (Ps 90:12)

Those who actually know they are dying soon have some special knowledge that we can try to borrow. As Elisabeth Kubler-Ross and David Kessler, who have spent much time with dying people, comment, “Patients at the edge of life will tell you that they find incredible happiness in realizing that there is nothing to fear, nothing to lose.” Jack Kornfield notes, “At the end of life, our questions are very simple: Did I live fully Did I love well?”

Now you know how to get to heaven, to paradise, from right here and right now. If we live in the face of dying, then we know the Way of Joy. We are living a life in the spirit, centered, loving ourselves and others, answering life with our best, letting go, surrendering to the mystery, and filled with wonder and awe. That is the universal path of well-being. May you walk it well.