"Waving Back"
A Sermon by
The Reverend Bill Clark
It happened every summer, like clockwork. Every last week of July and first week of August we would be off. My father would walk into our rooms and shout, rise and shine you campers. That was his routine, his ritual. He would wake us with rise and shine to ready us for our two weeks of summer camping on Cape Cod.
Once the car was loaded we would all pile into the Chevy station wagon, the ones with large wings on the back and the third seat facing backwards and we would head up the Connecticut Turnpike towards the Cape.
My brother and I always sat in the backseat, the one facing backwards. There was a certain sense of freedom not facing the same direction as everyone else. Hmm, I think I took that to heart as I got older.
We would sit back there and play that aged old game we called waving and wondering. Waving at all the cars as they followed or passed us by and wondering who would wave back.
Waving. It is an age-old ritual. It happens on turnpikes and freeways. It happens between neighbors and nomads. And it happens between strangers and friends. Waving.
In a letter written to Miss Manners, one confused soul wrote once; "Dear Miss Manners, Should one wave when meeting someone or should there only be an exchange of waves at parting? Signed confused.
Miss Manners replied that she could find nothing specifically addressing waving in any books of proper etiquette and concluded that it should be an individual decision, about waving or waving back. All I can say in thank goodness we were spared a treatise on the etiquette of waving.
This summer while lounging on one of my favorite beaches, I learned a great lesson on the ritual of waving. A lesson, which to me, had great theological implications.
I was at the very end of my favorite beach in Provincetown, called Hatches Harbor, where very few tourist go. You need to walk quite a distance to get to the harbor. It's a place where, when the tides go, there are small wading pools for comfortable and convenient swimming. On this day there was one family further down the beach. A mom and dad with two small, what appeared to be twin boys, maybe three years old. The two boys were playing with their mom in the remaining pools left from the outgoing tides. It is a perfect place for young kids to wander and play amidst the shallow pools, running and splashing the warmer Atlantic waters and observing what the outgoing tides may have left behind. These young boys had their pails in hand and were jumping, running, laughing with their mom, while their dad, it appeared had gone back to their beach blanket to retrieve the family camera. It was a fair distance from where his family was playing.
As he started to return to them, I heard the mom say; "let's wave to daddy, so he can find us." The two blonde and sun tanned youngsters began to wave their hands wildly in the air, following moms example. They waved and waved, jumping excitedly, hands, arms and fingers all moving at once as only uninhibited three years old can.
I turned to glance in the direction of dad. I could see him walking, head up and eyes, seemingly facing his excited family......and yet there was no response. He walked on motionless.
The mom and kids kept up their waving as best they could until eventually having received no response, gave up and returned to the wonders of the tide waters and their treasure hunt. I felt crushed for them and began in my mind to berate the father. What are you too proud to wave back to your own family? What are you blind?
My imagination began to play out the drama of their life. Perhaps they were going through a difficult time right now and he just did not want to acknowledge their existence. This was probably their last family vacation together before the divorce and this wave was her final attempt to cry out to him and plead, "hey look at us, we are your family, we need you! We love you. Look at us we are still here!" And look he wouldn't even acknowledge them.
See what happens when a minister is on vacation and alone on the beach. If there is no drama, crisis, need for pastoral care he creates one.
Having felt crushed for this poor American family, I returned to my book, the one that was obviously not keeping my attention. A few lines of reading later and I heard the mom say, "Let's try again, wave to daddy so he can find us. Let's see if he waves back?" The boys and mom began again to wildly wave their arms in the air. I thought, "You go girl!" That's right, never give up! You keep trying. Keep waving, he'll see you eventually. As I kept watching them and smiling to myself at mom's determination, I forgot about dad. Suddenly the boys were jumping and waving wildly and began to run.
I turned in the direction of dad. And there he was. Jumping and waving, his arms and legs moving in all directions as if he were doing jumping jacks in mid air. He continued to wave wildly as his two boys, still waving their arms and laughing, ran toward him.
They met about half way and dad scooped up his two boys and swung them around in the air. Mom eventually caught up and they all embraced laughing. "You saw us, you saw us," the boys shouted.
"Sure I did," dad replied. Then I heard mom say. "You see I told you he would. You always have to try again. And you always wave back."
You always have to try again and you always wave back! These were the profound lessons I was taught that day on the beach in Provincetown. If some one does not see you, acknowledge you, accept you, don't walk away in disgust or disillusion. Try again, try again, try again. The gesture may have been too small. The distance between you too great. The valleys, the rivers, the beliefs, the points of view to wide, yet try again. Try again, because that is who we are as a people of faith. That is who we are as a people of this our chosen faith of Unitarian Universalism. We try and try again and affirm all human beings. We do our work in affirming and promoting that all people have worth and dignity.
And if someone waves to you, acknowledges you, offers you the simple gesture of a ritualized and sanctified wave, waving back is essential. Waving back is imperative. Waving back is the affirmation we all need, yes I see you. In waving back we say yes I affirm you and yes I acknowledge you as a fellow human being for who you are and for where you are. In waving back we say that there are no distances too great, there are no points of views so far apart that I cannot acknowledge you as a fellow human being. Waving back, puts us, even if only for a moment, in a mutual relationship.
The theological implication of this simple gesture cuts right to the heart of our faith. As we read together in our responsive reading this morning and as we hear every Sunday in this house of worship we are a shared faith without a creed. What we do have are guiding principles that set for us a framework in which to practice and live out our faith. Our first principle, the inherent worth and dignity of every person and our seventh principle, respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part, to me are the bookends that hold this faith in place. These two principles are the left and right hands that hold us together in mutual relationships. Unitarian Universalist minister, James Ishmael Ford stated; "I believe the first and the seventh principles are each partial intuitions of our deepest truths, the preciousness of the individual and how deeply, tightly we are all woven together."
It is preciously this individualism and this connectedness of our faith that makes the simple gesture of waving back a profound theological ritual. Why? Because it is about relationships. It is all about relationships. From our first principle to our seventh principle, we are asked to be in right relationship to ourselves, one another and this planet we have the privilege to live upon.
"Right relationship," states Unitarian Universalist theologian Thandeka, as a liturgical act is our theological foundation." I will say that again. Right relationship, as a liturgical act is our theological foundation. Now what is she saying here?
First, that as Unitarian Universalist, we are often accused of having low or no liturgy. We do not read weekly from the Hebrew or Christian scriptures as set up and decided upon by a governing body. We do not offer a communion supper at our worship services. We do not offer gospel readings or prayers to an unseen diety. What we do offer is being in right relationship. Right relationship where we hear or witness ones pain of loss or suffering from illness in the sharing of candles of joy and concern. We do offer challenging our selves and one another to be the best human being we can possibly be. We do offer righting relationships of oppression. We do offer righting relationships so they are not based on racism, sexism, ageism and homophobia. We do offer acknowledging everyone's right to freedom, liberty and justice. We do offer and ask that we take our values and principles out of a framed mounting on a wall or a recited page in print and live them, live them out in the world to build that land of peace, power and human possibility. This is what I hear the Reverend Thandeka saying.
That our theological foundation is a foundation of working towards and being in right relationship with our selves, one another and this world. And this act of being in right relationship is our daily liturgy. This is our ritual. Our ritual that makes the daily living of this life sacred, holy and divine.
And the intensity, the power, the force that allows us to do this work of right relationship. The moving towards one another, the solving of internal and external conflicts, the waving and waving back to those we are challenged by, and who challenge us, the affirming of all human beings worth and dignity, the energy that helps us do that work of right relationship, that is the energy I call God. It is not an unseen diety, rather it is a tried and true felt force, a power of love integrity and connectedness. This is our daily liturgy. This is our ritual. This is our theological foundation as Unitarian Universalist. One of being in right relationship with one another. And you know it can all begin by the simple act of waving back.
When I was traveling in Italy in the late seventies I visited the Vatican on Christmas morning. This was quite a thrill for a born and raised Catholic. The crowd in St. Peter's Basilica grew with excitement as they carried down, then, Pope Paul VI to the altar. As he passed through the crowd, high above their heads, he waved and blessed them all. A young couple with their toddler son was in front of me and they raised him high to see the Holy Father and I imagined to receive his blessing. As he approached I heard the mother to tell her son, wave to el papa. Now the Italian children had a wave that was not a mere moving of the hand. It was a kind of finger wave like this.
The young boy waved vigorously. Suddenly the Holy Father turned toward the young boy and began waving back. There was Pope Paul VI waving back exactly as the youngster waved to him. The parents were overcome with joy and tears. The crowd around the family shouted and cried out, el Papa. The parents held their son close as if personally touched by the Pope's blessing. Touched by the Pope's simple yet profound gesture of waving back.
In waving back there is acknowledgment. I see you. I acknowledge the divine light, the holy place, the humanity that is within and between all of us.
In waving back there is affirmation. I see you. I affirm the light within you as you have seen mine.
In waving back there is recognition. I see you. I recognize that we are all made of the same light. May our lights shine together to bring this world to a place of peace.
My friends, as the Buddha said, make of yourself a light. A light that allows the spark of your common humanity to meet others eye to eye, heart to heart and hand to hand. Affirm and promote the worth and dignity of very person and our connectedness to one another with the simple and sacred act of waving back.
Waving back begins to put us in right relationship. This is our liturgy for today. In the etiquette of waving, you must always, always, try again and you must always, wave back. (WAVE)
Blessed Be