Rev. Megan Lloyd Joiner
Unitarian Society of New Haven
August 26, 2018

Audio link to Blessing of the Backpacks

excerpts from “Eclipse” by Angela Jackson

 

We carry the news with us. It sits in the eyes

Like cold tears, like the lake at midnight

And in the dark thick and cold we say we see through

As we study the company of stars in the North American sky….

 

The cup runs over in a perfect curve across the moon, over and over,

Until all that is left is a silver worm of light,

or a single-celled animal.

The rest is obscured by a quick flow of cloud, moon behind shadow,

Shadow behind clouds.

We blow into our hands and say and pray that we evolve.

 

Reading

 

from “Song of the Open Road”

BY WALT WHITMAN

 

Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road,

Healthy, free, the world before me,

The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.

 

Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good-fortune,

Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing,

Done with indoor complaints, libraries, querulous criticisms,

Strong and content I travel the open road.

 

The earth, that is sufficient,

I do not want the constellations any nearer,

I know they are very well where they are,

I know they suffice for those who belong to them.

 

(Still here I carry my old delicious burdens,

I carry them, men and women, I carry them with me wherever I go,

I swear it is impossible for me to get rid of them,

I am fill’d with them, and I will fill them in return.)

 

Sermon “What’s In Your Backpack?”

 

When I was in high school,
my backpack weighed nearly as much as I did.
There were times, putting it on, when I had to regain my balance,
stop myself from falling over
and then lean far forward to counteract the weight
suspended by two heavily burdened shoulder straps.

Now I feel that way some days when “I carry the news.”
How about you?

 

In high school, my backpack was a fixture in my life:
on my back, beside my desk during the day at school
and at home at night,

one in the sea of backpacks outside the cafeteria

during the twenty minutes we had to scarf our lunch

in the middle of the day.

 

I carried huge books in that backpack

with my initials embroidered on the back:

history and biology, calculus and physics.

There were philosophy and religion books in there too,

a Bible even – I went to Catholic school, after all.

Those, blessedly, were lighter – at least physically.

 

What’s in your backpack these days?

What is it you carry with you throughout the day and into the night? What is it you carry that either enables you to be your best self

and do your work in the world – whatever it may be –

and what is it that weighs you down,

sometimes so much it feels like you might topple over?

 

What’s in your backpack?

 

Now someone asked me if we are doing this service today

because my daughter is starting Kindergarten this week.

Well, perhaps subconsciously.

Perhaps I needed an extra blessing of her from this congregation.

She was really a baby when we arrived here

and now she’s off to kindergarten.

The truth, is I’ve been wanting to do this “blessing of the backpacks” for years now because first,

I want the children of USNH to know that they carry the love

of this congregation with them wherever they go.

I want that for our adults too, of course,

but I believe it’s especially important for our kids!

And second, I want the adults of this congregation

to know how important your support for our young folks

and each other is.

When we are frightened, when we are trying new things,

when we are taking bold steps into the unknown.

Our collective power to bless and embolden,

to share love and courage and hope and joy and determination and friendship (from the blessing of the backpacks) is nothing to sneeze at.

In fact, it can be nothing short of life giving and life saving.

Let us not forget that.

We are powerful, and what we do here is important.

 

So, as our children and the parents

and teachers among us prepare for a new school year,

I’d like to invite us to think about two categories

of things that we metaphorically carry on our backs

as individuals and as a community:

First, the “delicious burdens” that are so difficult to lay down. Whitman is talking in his poem, I think,
about people he carries with him, men and women,
his delicious burdens.
But I think the stories we carry, the past foibles,
the shoulds and the shouldn’ts,
so many of the things we carry deep in our hearts,
become delicious burdens.
I like thinking of them that way because it explains
how they become attractive in their own way like old friends
or ex-lovers and laying them down becomes all the more difficult.
So, let’s examine them today, the delicious burdens we carry.

And second, let’s consider the tools that help us make our way
in the world, the resources and ways of thinking
we need to be the people we wish to be, we hope to be, we try to be. How do we reconcile the two the burdens and the tools?
How do we make space for everything we are carrying,
everything we need to carry?
And what, if anything, do we need to let go, to take out of our pack? What might we need to leave behind?

 

First, let’s imagine our back packs.
(you might choose to close your eyes)
What does your look like?
Is it functional or fashionable or maybe both?
Are your initials embroidered on the back
or have you decorated it in a certain way?
Is it covered in pins and buttons?
Is it brand-spanking new or way past its prime
and frayed in familiar places?

 

How does it feel on your back?
How do the straps feel on your shoulders?
Does it fasten around your waist or clip at your chest?
What color is it?

 

Now let’s imagine what’s inside.
What delicious burdens do you carry with you?
What stories do you carry?
What past regrets or fears?
What hopes and dreams — realized or thwarted?
Reflect for a moment if you would
on what has filled your pack up to this moment.
What fills your pack right now?
How heavy is it?
Are there things you want to hold on to?
Are there things you are ready to let go?

 

~

 

What are you ready to take out of your pack?
Now is the time.
Here at the beginning of a new season, a new year.
Time to change the story you tell yourself.
Time to create a new story,
fill your backpack with tools that will serve you
rather than burdens that weigh you down.
What do you think?
Can you do it?
It’s not easy.

 

This summer, at General Assembly and during our summer travels,
I changed a habit I have of carrying a huge heavy bag
filled with anything and everything
I could possibly think about needing in a given day
and instead have been carrying this small backpack
filled only with the essentials:
sunglasses, a notebook, a couple of credit cards and some cash,
my ID, my phone, sometimes an iPad for impromptu sermon writing. Believe it or not, an umbrella and a sweater can fit too
if I squeeze them in.

My friends noticed.
“Kudos on the little bag,” one remarked at General Assembly.
And a bit incredulously: “How’s that working for you?”
The truth is, I missed some of my things,
but my body noticed the difference –
and my body didn’t miss them at all.
My back and shoulders hurt less.
My neck wasn’t sore at the end of the day.
I felt like I could walk forever.
When we let go of our burdens,
our bodies are sometimes the first to know relief.

 

So what are the essentials for our metaphorical packs?
They are different for each of us,
but I want to propose this morning
a few things that I believe each of us
would do well to carry in our backpacks this year.
Here’s my take:

 

Let’s put in that pack a spiritual practice.
Be it meditation or prayer, journaling or reading, or creative practices like making art or crocheting or quilting or knitting,

or active practices like yoga or walking or hiking or jogging. Perhaps your spiritual practice is coming here on Sunday morning.

 

Let put in that pack something that helps to clear our minds,
focus our attention, connect us to our priorities,
and to something greater than ourselves.
Some of us struggle to identify a spiritual practice
that works for us,

and even more of us struggle to find time to actually practice. Whether it’s children or work or a to do list a mile long
and I know that folks who are retired are not exempt from this.
You are the busiest of all!
But if we are to not only survive but thrive in these times
in which we find ourselves,
we must find a spiritually sustaining practice.

 

Writing in Sojourners magazine in January 2017,
Wes Granberg-Michaelson said:
“the inner lives of many have been thrown into disequilibrium….
we need to discover the roots for resistance
and creative public engagement
that can be spiritually sustained for the long run.”

So let’s put in spiritual practice.

 

Second, let’s put in our pack some appreciative inquiry.
I know, it sounds like I’ve been to a management seminar,

and I’ll tell you, that wouldn’t be a bad thing.
The truth is, thanks to one of our savvy lay leaders,
I recently began to notice how not only I,
but many in our congregational system seem to focus on
what isn’t working, what needs to be fixed,
problems that need to be solved.
I noticed that I not only do this at work
but in the rest of my life as well.
And what a drag it can be! For me and for everyone around me!
I think it’s pervasive in our culture.
We ask: what isn’t working?
What can we do better?
What needs to change?

 

What if we asked instead: what is working well?
What are we or I doing right?
Given what is now, what might work well in the future?
I think asking questions like this in our personal and professional
and especially our congregational life
will change our perspective and open up possibilities
we never could have imagined while we were solving problems.

 

So we add some appreciative inquiry to our back pack.

 

Three more things for a solid five.

 

I suggest that another tool for this time is an abundance mindset.
I’ve never been one for manifestation theories or a prosperity gospel, you know:

“God wants you to be rich, so do what I say and you will be.

Or think it, believe it, and pray it, and it will come,

whatever it may be.

But I’ve been through enough budget cycles now here at USNH
to know that plan it, ask for it, live it, and things work out.
A scarcity mindset serves no one, gets us nowhere and is exhausting. And it is what is fueling the political rhetoric so many
of us are so enraged by.
There’s not enough room in our country,
not enough jobs, not enough, not enough…

 

A Unitarian Universalist adult religious education curriculum
on generosity states the following:
“A spiritual mindset of abundance perceives gifts such as time, energy, money and love as plentiful and accessible. It involves a focus on gratitude for all we are able to give and receive, rather than a focus on those things we are not giving and receiving.”

How might an abundance mindset change
the way you approach your life?
How might it change how we approach our congregational life? There’s only one way to find out!

Let’s add it to the back pack.

 

Two other tools for these times.

 

We must have the tool of prioritization.
There are so many demands for our attention.
So much news to carry.
So many needs to be met, mouths to be fed, issues to care about.
And really, no matter how abundant our mindset, we cannot do it all. And so, while we nurture a spirit of abundance,
we must also work to prioritize what is most urgent and important. This is as true for us as individuals as it is for us as a congregation. What is most urgent and important
and what kind of resources does it demand?

Let’s put prioritization in the pack.

 

And our final tool for these times, we already have.
We created it as a community.
We just have to put it in our backpack.
It’s written right on the back of your order of service.
Our covenant of right relations.
This is a time when civility has gone out the window
and when it is easy to turn our anger and frustration
inwards to bicker and fight amongst ourselves —
that goes for the larger us of American progressives,
the slightly smaller us of Unitarian Universalists
and the local us of us here at USNH.

Let us remember that we created an approved
a covenant that outlines how we want to be together.
A roadmap for treating each other with the respect and care
that enables us to do good work together,
to have difficult conversations and make change
when it is sometimes uncomfortable.
It allows us to live together in community
when we do not all believe or need or want the same things.
It is a tool that enables each of us to consider
how we want to be in our own lives,
how we want to treat those we love
and those we might not love so much,
and those we do not even know.
Our covenant is a powerful tool.

Let’s put it in the pack.

 

Spiritual practice, appreciative inquiry, abundance mindset, prioritization and covenant.
Tools for our time.
Tools for our lives.
Tools for our shared ministry.

 

What’s in your backpack?

 

The open road is calling.

 

Let’s get going.