Seeing with the Heart
Jan K. Nielsen
Well, the snow has come.
Last week, we called ourselves to worship
with Phillis Levin’s poem, “Letter to the Snow.”
We asked, with the help of the poet’s voice,
“Why aren’t you here? . . . . It is better when you surround me . . . .
when I arise and sleep being held by your light.”
For some of us, Friday’s snow was like a giant present.
Some of us like lots of snow and see it as a gift from the gods-
especially when it means a day off from school;
others here may be more likely to call 8 inches of snow –
and more on the way - a curse.
This is true of most things in life:
the way we see things depends on our perspective, our attitude.
Any two people can see quite differently
the same thing, the same situation.
I am reminded of that line from Antoine St. Exupery,
in his book, The Little Prince:
“The real meaning of things lies not in the things themselves,
but in our attitude towards them.”
We are nearing the height of the winter holiday season.
It’s a time when the human soul looks for meaning.
Sometimes, though, in this season, we get off track.
We can look for meaning in the wrong places
and miss the chance to find, and know, real meaning,
the kind that satisfies the soul.
Today is what we have named “A Celebration of Light,”
this day when we mark
the Winter Solstice, Hanukkah and Christmas,
each a celebration of the light that sustains body and spirit.
Today is the Winter Solstice,
that time when the earth is farthest away from the sun.
The Solstice marks
the official beginning of winter in the Northern Hemisphere;
winter arrived here this morning at 7:04 a.m.
For generations, people who have lived the farthest north
have lit candles to brighten the darkest days of the year,
and to show faith
that light filled days, and warmth, will return.
In the Scandinavian countries during Medieval times,
the glow of a candle in a window
signaled wandering strangers
where they might find someone
willing to offer food and shelter for the night.
To this day, a traveler in those countries
can see candles aglow in the windows of homes and shops,
day and night,
even in the warmer months.
The candles both give, and celebrate, the gift of light.
Tonight is the first night of Hanukkah,
the Jewish Festival of Lights.
During Hanukkah,
Jews remember and celebrate
the miracle that happened
when a small band of Jews called the Maccabees
rose up against their oppressors
and took back their temple.
After their victory,
the Maccabees needed to re-consecrate their temple,
but had only enough oil
to keep the lamps burning for a single day.
That night a miracle happened
when a single day’s oil burned for eight days,
allowing the Maccabees time
to make their temple sacred once again.
It is traditional during Hanukkah
to eat foods cooked in oil, like latkes,
in remembrance of the miracle of the oil.
Hanukkah is a celebration of religious freedom,
a time when Jews and all people
can remind one another
to keep the flame of justice
burning bright, now and forevermore.
I don’t have to remind any of us
that today is also the Sunday before Christmas.
There are only a few shopping days left --
and, by this point in the holiday season,
anticipation, and stress, can run high.
Just driving near the mall
can challenge one’s good will and good cheer.
Christmas is one of those times
when we can get really off track.
Christmas is a celebration of light.
For Christians, Jesus is the “light of the world,”
and the celebration of his birth
marks a new beginning Christian church year.
It is a time to light candles, sing songs of hope and good cheer,
and remember the light of the star the night Jesus was born.
Christmas is also a time when people,
whatever their understandings
of Jesus and the Christmas story,
can rededicate themselves to living
in their day to day lives
the essence of the Christmas message:
give to others
and live in peace.
It is our focus on the giving and receiving of gifts
this time of year that can get us off track.
This is true whether they are given
in celebration of Hanukkah or Christmas,
or some combination of the two --
or given to mark “the season in general”
by the non committal among us.
Gifts can be fun to give and to receive,
a way to tell one another,
“I care about you,”
a way to offer hope,
and to share a bit of the joy of being alive.
But sometimes we can miss that message
in our focus on the thing inside the wrapping paper.
To see the real gifts,
we can’t rely on our eyes.
“It is only with the heart,” writes Antoine St. Exupery,
“that one can see rightly.
What is essential is invisible to the eye.”
Life is about learning to see with our hearts.
We can get way off track in our lives
when rely only on our eyes to see
and don’t also look at life, and one another, with our hearts.
We get off track because we get way too focused on “stuff” –
the stuff we get, and the stuff we give.
This is true all year long.
We can look for meaning in the things we have
as a way to avoid
making meaning out of the way we live our lives.
It’s as if the malls have become our temples,
writes Anna Quindlen, and the designers, our gods –
false gods, I might add.
Her column in this week’s Newsweek is well worth reading.
When my Newsweek arrives,
I always turn first to the back page
to read Anna Quindlen’s words,
which run every other week.
I quote her often; she speaks my language.
I had just clipped her piece
and tossed it into my sermon file for this week
when I saw in my mail an envelope from Tom Montgomery
on which he had written
something like “time sensitive holiday mail –
important reading inside” and, inside,
was a copy of her piece
filled with Tom’s underlinings.
In commenting on the current economic news
Anna Quindlen quotes a friend
who one day not long ago stood in front of her closet
and thought, “Why did I buy all this stuff in the first place?”
This, she says, is an important holiday question,
for, as her headline reads, “Stuff Is Not Salvation.”
“Here I go, (she writes), stating the obvious:
stuff does not bring salvation.
But if it’s so obvious,
how come for so long people have not realized it?”
Stuff is not bad.
We need some stuff to live, and to thrive.
Poverty, and real need,
are both life denying and should not be romanticized.
But so much of our stuff goes beyond meeting real need,
and blinds us to what is real, what is essential.
We get off track when we look for meaning in things, in stuff.
“Meaning,” says Anna Quindlen,
“real meaning is what we are always trying to possess.”
Regardless of what our wish lists say,
regardless of what we may have written in our letters to Santa,
what most of us really want
is far more basic than anything we can find in a store.
We want to belong.
We want our lives and our time on this earth to matter,
to count for something.
We want hope that, in the end,
the work and struggles of our days will all be worth it.
We want to care and to be cared for.
We want love.
“We live not by things,” writes Antoine St. Exupery,
but by the meanings of things.”
This holiday season,
whatever gifts you give,
whatever gifts you receive,
look at those gifts not just with your eyes.
See the gifts of the season, and one another, with your heart.
Your life will be the richer for it.
Remember that wisdom from the Little Prince:
What is essential is invisible to the eye.
We see rightly only with the heart.
The Universalist Church
December 21, 2008