Our Soul Matters them for the month of February is “Resilience.” And, along with the question, “What does it mean to be a people of resilience?” we are asked, “When did we decide that resilience was a solo project?”
It’s all a reminder that while resilience has a lot to do with what is inside us, it equally depends on what is between us… We survive our pain by having the strength to tell others about it. We find the courage to make our way through the dark only when we sense we are not alone. Internal and individual grit only gets us so far; empathy, assurance and love from others gets us the rest of the way [SMC].
So, come join us. You DON’T have to do it all on your own!
“The Rest of the Way”
A Sermon Offered at All Souls Church, UU
Feb 9, 2020
Rev. Shayna Appel
Blurb: Our Soul Matters them for the month of February is “Resilience.” And, along with the question, “What does it mean to be a people of resilience?” we are asked, “When did we decide that resilience was a solo project?”
It’s all a reminder that while resilience has a lot to do with what is inside us, it equally depends on what is between us… We survive our pain by having the strength to tell others about it. We find the courage to make our way through the dark only when we sense we are not alone. Internal and individual grit only gets us so far; empathy, assurance and love from others gets us the rest of the way [SMC].
So, come join us. You DON’T have to do it all on your own!
Welcome & Announcements
Chalice Lighting
We light this flame in honor of all that leads us forward,
all that leans down and helps us up after we fall,
all that reminds us why we started,
all that tells us there is still hope and seeds of surprise,
even when no lights are in sight,
even when warmth seems so far away.
May this hour of tender and courageous connection
help us fall in love again with this wild world.
May it reignite our trust that the path ahead will be gentle.
May it tempt us back to joy.
May it leave us dancing to the lure of emerging light.
Hymn #1008 When Our Heart is in a Holy Place
Opening Words By George Odell
We need one another when we
mourn and would be comforted.
We need one another when we
are in trouble and afraid.
We need one another when we are
in despair, in temptation, and need
to be recalled to our best selves again.
We need one another when we
would accomplish some great
purpose, and cannot do it alone.
We need one another in the hour of
our successes, when we look for someone
to share our triumphs.
We need one another in the hour
of our defeat when with encouragement
we might endure and stand again.
We need one another when we
come to die, and would have gentle
hands prepare us for the journey.
All our lives we are in need, and
others are in need of us.
Anthem
Time for All Ages Two Frogs by Christopher Buice
Reading(s)
Waiting for the Fog to Clear by Mark Nepo
We all have these moments when the rose loses its color for some reason, or the music no longer stirs us, or the sweet, gentle soul across from us no longer seems to soften our heart. To move in and out of meaning is as natural as moving in and out of light because clouds form and dissipate… It reminds me of a man who built a home on a cliff by sea, only to have a month-long fog roll in. He cursed the place and moved away, but a week after he’d gone, the fog cleared. Being human, we all have fogs roll in around our heart, and often, our lives depend on the quiet courage to wait for them to clear.
“Heavy” by Mary Oliver
That time
I thought I could not
go any closer to grief
without dying
I went closer,
and I did not die.
Surely God
had his hand in this,
as well as friends.
Still, I was bent,
and my laughter,
as the poet said,
was nowhere to be found.
Then said my friend Daniel,
(brave even among lions),
“It’s not the weight you carry
but how you carry it –
books, bricks, grief –
it’s all in the way
you embrace it, balance it, carry it
when you cannot, and would not,
put it down.”
So I went practicing.
Have you noticed?
Have you heard
the laughter
that comes, now and again,
out of my startled mouth?
How I linger
to admire, admire, admire
the things of this world
that are kind, and maybe
also troubled –
roses in the wind,
the sea geese on the steep waves,
a love
to which there is no reply?
Sermon “The Rest of the Way”
Our Soul Matters them for the month of February is “Resilience.” And, along with the question, “What does it mean to be a people of resilience?” we are asked, “When did we decide that resilience was a solo project?” According to our Soul Matters Curriculum;
It’s all a reminder that while resilience has a lot to do with what is inside us, it equally depends on what is between us… We survive our pain by having the strength to tell others about it. We find the courage to make our way through the dark only when we sense we are not alone. Internal and individual grit only gets us so far; empathy, assurance and love from others gets us the rest of the way.
On April 25th of last year, I went to my local medical center for an annual mammography. My sister is a twenty year survivor of breast cancer, I lost a first cousin to cancer when she was only 34 years old, both of my parents were diagnosed with, and saved from the ravages of, colon cancer. In short, I have lived most of my life fairly certain that at some point, I would experience a cancer diagnosis so the question was really more of a where and when, than an if.
On April 29th I was called back to the medical center for an ultrasound and three days later underwent a biopsy to confirm what the ultrasound had already made perfectly clear. There was a mass in my right breast and it needed to come out.
Fast forward through an entire month of insurance induced hell and on June 13th, as most of you are aware, I underwent a lumpectomy. The tumor was twice as big as they had first thought, and it had spread to my lymph nodes so, final diagnosis…Stage III Breast Cancer.
I was OK with the initial finding of the tumor. As I said, it was not unexpected. Treatment of breast cancer has come a long way over the years and surgery isn’t a particularly stressful experience for me. Truthfully, I experience surgery as more of a day off than anything else. (Maybe not the beacon of my mental health!) So, again, apart from the insurance induced hell I experienced, I was doing pretty well to and through surgery. It wasn’t until the follow-up appointment with my most excellent, kind and compassionate surgeon, Dr. Oseni, that things began to come apart.
One week later I met with a truly extraordinary oncologist by the name of Dr. Rau. During that meeting I learned that I had won the full Monty of cancer treatment. I would undergo between 16-20 weeks of chemotherapy followed by another 4-6 weeks of radiation, followed by 10 years of hormone suppressing drug therapy. I was sent home to think this all over with a little folder of material I nicknamed “Grim’s Fairytales.” In it was contained the medications I would be receiving, all the possible side effects those medications could cause, as well as the ones that were certain to occur, and the precautions I and those around me would need to take while I underwent this “therapy.” I’m not going to get into all that was contained in my little folder. Suffice it to say it was so bad my good friend and colleague, Olivia Holmes, who had accompanied me to the appointment, “accidentally” took Grim’s Fairy Tales home with her when she left my house later that afternoon. Afterwards she would confess that she didn’t think I needed that information on the day I was trying to digest the diagnosis. It was one of many good calls Olivia made for me throughout the process.
As the days progressed and I had a chance to look through Grim’s Fairy Tales in full, an odd calmness settled over me. I am 59 years old, I have lived a really full and gratifying life, I am apparently not afraid of death, and chemotherapy just looked like a really grim option. So, I decided I would forego treatment and just ride out whatever time I had left. Another wonderful colleague, Barbara McKusick-Liscord, and my minister, Maureen Frescott, had the courage and the good sense to not try and talk me out of it. Despite whatever feelings they may have had regarding my decision, they both demonstrated the fortitude of Spirit to sit with me in that decision.
About a week later I connected with an old friend who was a flight nurse out of Hartford Hospital back when I was serving the East Hartford Fire Department. Kim had worked as an infusion nurse, and quite frankly, she agreed with me. If it was her, she said she wouldn’t do chemo. Kim’s wife is a surgical P.A. and she also agreed that she wouldn’t do chemo… “But,” she said, “I would ask your oncologist what this is likely to come back as, because it’s not likely to come back as breast cancer.”
So, I asked Dr. Rau what this cancer was likely to return as and she assured me it would be far worse than breast cancer. In all probability, it would come back as brain, pancreatic, bone or liver cancer. And this was the moment where chemo suddenly became an attractive alternative to other options. Besides, my friend Kim informed me that there were, in fact, people who sail through chemo. I had no idea.
“But wait,” I said, “those are probably long distance vegan runners who have never smoked or drank or done anything harmful to their bodies like sucking in carcinogenic fumes at a house fire or in the remains of the World Trade Center, right?”
“Au contraire,” said Kim. “The people who do best under chemo are the people who, like you and me, have abused the hell out of their bodies because our bodies have experienced enough of toxins to know how to manage them.”
So much for clean living!
In the midst of all of this, and a number of pretty angry tantrums, there were all of you. I am your minister, you are my beloved congregation, and the love I have felt here from you and for you kept calling me back to my higher angels. It kept pulling me back from the edge of despair, despondency and discouragement, and it reminded me that there are people counting on me to do my part in all the work that is not yet done. In other words, you all were among the people who gave me a reason to go on at a time when I would have been just as happy to cash it all in. (Well, you and Arlo!)
So, I took a deep breath and I dove in to treatment. Those of you who know me even casually probably have figured out by now that, once I jump into something, I’m going for it – full tilt boogie! I am either going for something 100%, or I’m sitting it out. And there is not a lot in between!
With your support and well wishes, and the care of so many friends and family members, I underwent 18 weeks of chemo followed by 6.5 weeks of radiation and today I am cancer free and living with an 85% plus chance of remaining that way. (The hormone suppressing therapy will bump that up to about 92%.) And I gotta tell ya…Today, I am happy and grateful beyond belief to be thus!
How did I get here? I’m a tough broad…it’s true! But, if this journey has taught me anything, it has confirmed 100% what our Soul Matters curriculum is asking us to look at today. Yes, resilience has a lot to do with what is inside us. But it it equally depends on what is between us…
We survive our pain by having the strength to tell others about it. And I am so grateful to those colleagues and friends who listened to me when I absolutely did not want to step into the abyss of treatment that was before me. We find the courage to make our way through the dark only when we sense we are not alone. And the reason I knew I was not alone was because they were not trying to talk me out of anything, or into anything. They simply listened and affirmed where I was at. They were not overriding my choice to not undergo treatment, even though in retrospect, I suspect that they were hoping I’d change my mind. I was effectively in the river of sh*#, and they were good enough to get in with me, and sit there with me, until I was ready to get out.
Once I got out of that river, reconnecting with my internal resources was up to me. But, as our Soul Matters Curriculum reminds us, Internal and individual grit only gets us so far; empathy, assurance and love from others gets us the rest of the way. And that’s where you all came in. Your empathy, your assurance and your love got me the rest of the way and for that I will always be grateful; always have a place in my heart for you all.
Thank you. Thank you for sticking by me when I thought I could not go any closer to grief without dying. With your love, I went closer, and I did not die. Thank you for sticking by me when my laughter…was nowhere to be found.
In Waiting for [My Own] Fog to Clear, I have been reminded yet again that We all have these moments when the rose loses its color for some reason, or the music no longer stirs us, or the sweet, gentle soul across from us no longer seems to soften our heart…Being human, we all have fogs roll in around our heart, and often, our lives depend on the quiet courage to wait for them to clear.
But we don’t need to do that alone! You see, It’s all a reminder that while resilience has a lot to do with what is inside us, it equally depends on what is between us… We survive our pain by having the strength to tell others about it. We find the courage to make our way through the dark only when we sense we are not alone. We need one another in the hour of our defeat when with encouragement we might endure and stand again.
All our lives we are in need, and others are in need of us. Internal and individual grit only gets us so far; empathy, assurance and love from others gets us the rest of the way.
Amen.
Hymn #360 Here We Have Gathered
Offering
Offertory words by Marge Piercy
Alone, you can fight, you can refuse,
you can take whatever revenge you can
but they roll over you.
But two people fighting back to back
can cut through a mob,
a snake dancing file can break a cordon,
an army can meet an army.
Two people can keep each other sane,
can give support, conviction, love, massage, hope, sex.
Three people are a delegation,
a committee, a wedge.
With four you can play bridge and start an organization.
With six you can rent a whole house,
eat pie for dinner with no seconds,
and hold a fund raising party.
A dozen make a demonstration.
A hundred fill a hall.
A thousand have solidarity and your own newsletter;
ten thousand, power and your own paper;
a hundred thousand, your own media;
ten million, your own country.
It goes on one at a time,
it starts when you care to act,
it starts when you do it again after they said no,
it starts when you say We and you know who you mean,
and each day you mean one more.
Blessing Candles of Joy & Sorrow
Seeking That Which Unites Us, By Sara Eileen LaWall
Spirit of Life and Love,
In this time of uncertainty
Of fear and angst
Our nation holds its collective breath
In this time
When rhetoric blusters about
And words are used as weapons
Our nation clenches its fists
Tightens its shoulders
Eyes squeezed shut
Some are preparing for a fight
May we remember we are a people of resilience
We have faced uncertainty before
We have weathered storms
We have been consumed by flames
We have risen like the phoenix from the ashes
And we will again
We the people
May we remember our shared humanity
Our universal kinship; our interdependence
As we unclench our fists and breathe together
Breathing in love and breathing out peace
May we recognize the spark of the divine inside all of us
Even those we are not quite sure about
In this time of uncertainty
We remember the good will go on
As we work to move forward together
We the people
Seeking that which unites us
With our arms reaching out wide
For life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness
May love prevail.
In the name of all that is holy we pray, Amen.
Unison Affirmation
Hymn #131 Love Will Guide Us
Extinguish the Chalice By Maddie Sifantus [adapted]
We extinguish this flame,
but we keep its light in our hearts.
With its message of love and justice,
we take it outside these walls to the world,
until we are together again.
Closing Circle