IN SEARCH OF A SOUL II

(Solitude and Wonder)

The Rev. G. Bradford Hall

St. Margaret's Episcopal Church & School

December 8, 1996

In the rolling hills of Eastern Pennsylvania, live a dedicated religious group of people called the Amish folk. Their religion and culture is based on simplicity. They choose to live without most of the modern conveniences of our world and with a life dedicated to God and a healthy family home-life.

One day, an Amish man momentarily stopped his farming to watch a new neighbor move in. They were obviously not Amish, as among the many items that came out of the delivery van were a deluxe refrigerator with a built-in ice maker, a state of the art stereo system with compact disc drive, a remote controlled television with VCR, and a Whirlpool hot tub — the works!

The following day, the new resident was welcomed by the Amish man and his wife who brought a gift of homemade bread. After the usual preliminary greeting and cordial conversation, the Amish man concluded with “. . . and if anything should go wrong with your appliances or equipment, don’t hesitate to call me....”

“That’s very generous of you,” the new arrival interrupted, “thank you. I didn’t realize you were a repairman.” “Oh no,” the Amish man responded, “I’ll just tell you how to live without them.”

On this second Sunday of Advent, we begin the second in our sermon series “In Search of a Soul.” Last week, I proposed a (religious) New Year’s resolution: to live more simply in order to get in closer touch with our spiritual self. I suggested that we could do this by traveling a bit lighter through life, shedding some of the burdens, both external and internal, which hold us back from our “search for the soul.” We are to live as Anne Morrow Lindbergh put it so well:

“In grace as much of the time as possible,
and with such harmony that the outer self
and the inner self become one.”

One of the “facts of life” that I have slowly learned over the years is that there is a precedence involved: inner harmony precedes outer harmony. It is very difficult to get your physical and emotional life together until you’ve faced up to and gotten your spiritual life together.

What that means is that we must learn to live in occasional solitude in our “search for a soul.” This is not an easy task for most of us because it means being alone with ourselves. We remember the panic of being a wallflower, as Anne Morrow Lindbergh reminds us, because being alone feels like being left out. So we fill our void with toys, noise and chatter —anything rather than face being alone.

Living in solitude means relearning how to be alone with ourselves (and eventually God) as our only company. Anne Lindbergh writes of her experience:

“For a full day and two nights I have been alone.
I lay on the beach under the stars at night —alone.
I made my breakfast —alone.
Alone I watched the gulls...
Alone at my morning work at my desk, and a late lunch at the beach.
It seemed (that when) I was separated from my own species, I was nearer to others... the beach, the tides, the pelicans, and sandpipers. I was in harmony with the earth.”

And soon I felt in harmony with my fellow people —even in my solitude. For it is not physical solitude which separates one from another, but spiritual isolation. It is not the physical wilderness of the mind, the desert of the heart, because Lindbergh concludes:

“When one is estranged from oneself, then one is estranged from others too. Only when one is connected to one’s own core is one connected to others.”

How we go about the process of connecting with our core —searching for a soul —is a very personal and unique experience. I think we all have our own distinct and personal route inside. What is common for all of us is that we must set aside time to be alone. Most of us have many “irons in the fire.” We are pulled by this need and that person, so we learn to set aside time and schedule ourselves. We make time for the hairdresser, time for a golf date, time to shop, and time for social engagements. These times are accepted as inviolate. In this same way, we must schedule our spiritual life —set aside inviolate time to be alone with ourselves and learn to live in solitude in the room of our soul.

As I was writing these very words last Thursday morning, alone in my study, a brightness caught my eye from outside the window next to my chair. I looked out and, for the next 10 minutes, watched an incredible sunrise unfold. Minute by minute, from deep orange to bright pink, the sky exploded with light and color. It was a God-given moment for me because the experience reminded me of a second side of living in grace. For, along with seeking inner harmony through solitude, grace allows us to live in outer harmony, with joy and wonder.

Author, Rolle May, in an old classic, Man’s Search for Himself, tells us about the importance of wonder as a part of life. “It underlies Jesus’ high regard for children,” because, he says, “unless you become as a little child, you cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” This statement has nothing to do with childishness. It refers to the child’s capacity for wonder, a capacity found in grace-filled adults and creative people, from Einstein to Matisse to Mother Theresa.

Wonder is the opposite of cynicism and boredom. It indicates that a person is in touch with both the inner and outer self. Wonder is the awareness that there is more to life than meets the eye —that there are new vistas to be explored, new depths to be plumbed. As the final prayer in the Baptismal Service makes so clear, wonder is a gift from God:

“Now, O Lord, give (those who are newly baptized)
an inquiring and discerning heart, the courage to will
and persevere...and the gift of joy and wonder in
all your works.”

An archetype of this kind of joy and wonder in life is found in the classic English children’s stories written by A.A. Milne, Winnie the Pooh. Listen to how Pooh Bear is introduced in the first book.

“Edward Bear, known to his friends as Winnie the Pooh, or Pooh for short, was walking through the forest one day humming proudly to himself. He had made up a little hymn and was now practicing it —Tra la la la la. Pooh was walking along gaily, wondering what everybody else was doing and what it felt like to be everybody else.

Pooh Bear loved life and though he always got himself into lots of little scrapes, like getting stuck in the hole which led into Rabbit’s treehouse, Pooh always managed to wiggle through, journeying through life with an attitude of joy and wonder.”

Pooh Bear is contrasted with a second character in Milne’s story who is just the opposite. Listen to how he is introduced:

“Eeyore, the old grey donkey, was nearly always dour and sad. He stood by himself with his head hanging between his legs in a thistly corner of the forest. It was listed on the map as Eeyore’s Gloomy Place. Eeyore stood there thinking sadly to himself, ‘why?’ When he met Pooh Bear bouncing joyfully along the road, he looked up and said, ‘How do you do?’ ‘And how are you?’ responded Winnie the Pooh. Eeyore shook his head from side to side. ‘Not very how,’ he responded, ‘and I don’t seem to have felt very how for a long time.’”

Throughout the delightful tales of Milne’s books, Eeyore and Pooh Bear represent the two sides of life —two choices— living with cynicism and boredom or living a life with joy and wonder. The children who hear these stories (and I suspect the parents who read them) catch on very quickly that they would rather have a Pooh Bear in their life than hang around gloomy old Eeyore. I suspect this is one reason why teddy bears are so popular in our English culture.

Well, it is time to close this second chapter of our Advent —Search for a Soul. I’ll close as usual with a timely story which you have heard once before, but which captures what I’m trying to say about the grace and joy of child-like wonder. A father shares this experience while Christmas shopping at the mall:

I had been strolling our seven-month-old son, Justin, up and down the walkway in the mall. It was time to rest and for a few moments I was leaning against a planter, rocking Justin who was perched in his stroller. Justin was at the age where he was taking in everything, watching everybody as they walked by. While we were resting there, I noticed a woman, perhaps 70 or so, walking down the corridor towards us. This woman was obviously upset. She had a shopping bag gripped in one hand and a purse clamped in the other. Her teeth were set; her jaw was clenched; her eyes glared; and as she marched down the walkway people were moving out of her way. What I did not notice was that Justin was also watching her. As she got close to us, her head sort of twitched back and forth and it twitched toward Justin. Still walking, she kept looking at him and Justin looking at her. And then Justin smiled, and he kept smiling at her. And I watched as all of the hardness in this woman melted. She let out a sigh, put down her bags, and for several minutes the two of them giggled and cooed, Justin grabbing for her glasses, the woman tickling his toes, both of them simply glowing in the delight they were giving each other. After some time she paused and she said, “God bless him...God bless him.” Then she looked up at me and she said, “And God bless you, too.” She walked away transformed by the grace of a child and bearing with her a Christmas gift, the gift of joy and wonder.
AMEN

The Rev. G. Bradford Hall
December 8, 1996