“Different Stories”
Rev. Megan Lloyd Joiner
Unitarian Society of New Haven
January 27, 2019
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood…[i]
How often, it seems, that in our lives, we stand at the crossroads between two paths. And feel, perhaps, the desire to travel them both. But knowing we are only one traveler, we must discern which path we will take –
knowing that both have merit and value and lessons to teach, knowing that whichever path we choose will intersect with others along the way, and, no matter what, our story will be written one step at a time, and we cannot know how it will end.
Our lives, like stories, like paths, twist and turn and take us in directions we would never have expected.
I’ve always thought Robert Frost’s poem (that the choir so beautifully sang this morning) was about choosing the road less traveled and having that choice “make all the difference.”
That’s what’s on all the refrigerator magnets and mugs, after all.
And that is how the poem ends:
I shall be telling this with a sigh, the poet writes,
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
But when I revisited the poem in preparation for today’s service, I discovered something I’d never noticed before. The traveler stands at the crossroads and looks down one path as far as they can, until it bends,
and then chooses the other, though the traveler is honest that both are equally worn, equally fair, and they are sorry they cannot travel both.
Years from now, this traveler imagines, they will tell the story of that day at the crossroads
and a new narrative will emerge: “I took the [path] less traveled by,” they will say, “and that has made all the difference.”
But we know the truth, that both paths called the traveler, both would have made a fine choice, and there is no way of knowing what each path would have held.
We choose our paths in life, and we tell our stories as we go. And as we look back, the narrative changes, fills in, around the choices we have made.
My husband’s family is fond of the adage: “Everything happens for a reason.”
And I, having seen people struggle as well-meaning folks bat that phrase around, thinking it will help at the hardest times, cringe every time I hear it.
But we are meaning-makers, we human beings, and we fill in the gaps in our stories with reasons and providence. What is random, we make intentional. What is coincidence, we make deliberate.
I think it feels sometimes like we must do this – because the alternative (that everything in our lives is random)
is just too scary.
And so we become the traveler. Unable to travel both paths, we choose one and construct a narrative about why
and say that that was the difference between one life story and another.
~
We find ourselves now at a crossroads. Our paths, which have met and merged and rambled along together these past four years, will soon diverge.
I will go one way, and you will go another.
And, as I said in the letter that you received in your email in-box on Thursday, I truly believe that I was meant to be your minister and you my congregation during this time. Random or not, fate or providence, we have served each other well, I believe.
It has been a blessing to minister to and with you, alongside you.
Because you are a blessing, a very special blessing.
You are a blessing to me.
And to my family.
And each one of you is a blessing to this congregation.
You have blessed the ministry we have shared with your dedication and your compassion, with your love of this place and of each other, with your devotion to social justice and a better world.
We have been walking a path, writing a story, together – one of learning and growing and deepening.
And I only hope that my dedication and my compassion, my love of this place and of you, and my devotion to creating a more just world has met yours in some small measure.
Now, why am I announcing my departure five months before it will happen? Because, I want to be sure that we have time to be together in the months ahead, time to process our grief and share with each other whatever
we need to share before the time comes to say a final goodbye. As we have said, I will be available in coming months to visit with you, listen to you, sit in silence with you, whatever you feel you need.
And what you need during this time will vary, just as what you feel about this news does.
Some of you are deeply sad. Others of you are angry. Still others might be scared of what comes next.
Some of you might feel joy – that’s possible too. It may sound too early to say that, but there are some of you
who might be feeling excited about what is on the horizon for this community, what will be possible with a new story.
That is normal and natural and right on track.
It’s also normal to feel all of these things at once, or in succession – or to range back and forth between them.
Our work over the next few months is to be present with whatever feelings emerge, to acknowledge and process them, and to be honest with each other about where we are.
There will not be a single, simple story about our time together, nor its conclusion. It would be wrong to try to fit everything into a neat, tied-up-in-a-bow narrative. And so, let us be true to ourselves and each other, honest and open. Let us offer each other that final gift over the next few months.
I will be honest with you that there have been moments when I thought that my ministry here at USNH was the hardest thing I had ever done. My work here with you has been challenging and rewarding and life changing. You have taught me more than you can know: about ministry, about the special relationship one builds with a congregation, about myself. I will carry all of that in my heart as I move into my next chapter.
And the path I need to choose now is clear to me because of what I have learned about my call to ministry during my time here. There have been moments in my office, in your homes, at your bedsides when you have invited me to share the hardest times in your lives, when you have brought your pain to me and we have sat with it together, times that I have literally felt a “YES!” run through my body. As in “YES! This is what I am meant to be doing!”
I have tamped down that “yes” to make space for all the other responsibilities one has as a parish minister, but I have finally discerned that I need to find a way to do ministry like that all the time. As I have told you, I plan to work in chaplaincy, as a hospice or a hospital chaplain. This will be a new story for me, but it involves returning to a path I looked down many years ago and thought I had left behind. The call surprised me when it first came, but it now feels impossible to ignore.
That’s how new stories are written, is it not? And new paths forged.
There’s a call, a lure that becomes too strong to move away from, and one must follow it to see what unfolds.
For some, this is the work of a divine force. Unitarian theologian James Luther Adams wrote that “the human being is not driven but rather is lured by the divine persuasion.”
I love that idea of God as a beckoner, a gust of wind that blows us onto a different route, something along the path that draws us in a new direction, or a hand that appears out of nowhere with a finger saying: “Come this way…”
Admittedly, that last metaphor is a bit creepy.
But forging new paths requires paying attention to the signs along the way and not being afraid to follow them.
A few weeks ago, my daughter, Arden, and I were exploring in the Vermont woods near the house where we spent New Year’s. We forged a half-frozen stream and discovered logs cased in inches of ice. Then, we made our way up a hill and stumbled along some deer tracks. We knelt down to look at them and saw that there were more a little further on. Arden was off. The deer tracks led us to more evidence of the deer’s journey
through the woods – broken branches and, let’s just say, scatological evidence that was super exciting to a five-year-old.
We made our way through the woods with our imaginary “poop-goggles” on, following an unknown number of deer who had walked this way before us. We followed their trail as it twisted and turned until we came to an open field, and it suddenly dawned on me … that it was hunting season.
Fearing that someone might mistake us for the animals we were tracking, I calmly told Arden that it was time we turned back, and we hightailed it home along a different path.
Now we could have been in mortal danger, it’s true. But the point of the story is that my daughter learned –
at the most basic level – a little bit about tracking and a lot about setting off into the woods
without knowing where you might end up.
Setting off into the unknown takes courage. And, as we know, courage is being afraid and doing it anyway.
“Where’s the brave,” a friend asked me recently, “if there is no fear?”
And so, we stand at this crossroads, and we prepare to let go of each other’s hands and walk our own way,
not knowing what comes next.
You will not walk alone. Your leaders will be in close touch with the Unitarian Universalist Association’s national and New England Regional staff who are prepared to support USNH through this transition.
And our immediate next step is just that, something called a “Next Steps Weekend” that will happen February 22nd-24th. We have been preparing programming in conjunction with a Unitarian Universalist congregational consultant from the organization Stewardship for Us. Liz Coit is already studying documents and having conversations with key leaders to determine the best course of action for USNH to ensure that this congregation will be here “steady and hale” for many years to come.
I am not worried about that, for a minute. I know you are brave and you are strong and you – all of you, newcomers and long-timers alike – are long-haul people who love each other and this place with a fierce love that is powerful beyond measure. I know your story will continue long after I am gone. I know you will walk boldly along a new path – a different one than you may have expected – but one that holds great things in store.
Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie speaks in her TED talk about the danger of a single story.
She talks about how important it is for us to understand the multiplicity of a place and its people, how when we do not, stereotypes are perpetuated and people are robbed of their humanity.[ii] We have seen this happen again and again with reference to Africa and the many countries that make up that continent, and, in this country, with immigrants, their individual stories literally erased in soundbites and propaganda.
But there is also danger in thinking there is a single story for any of our lives. And there is danger in rewriting the narrative of the crossroads. Our stories are written one step at a time, and there is no knowing what comes next, or how they will end.
Our stories intersect and change and twist and turn, and, whether it is fate or divine persuasion, we are lured in new directions. Our work is to be open to the signs along the trail, open to the possibilities the paths may hold,
honest with each other along the way, and ready to let go when the time comes to take a different path.
That is what will make the difference. That is what we will do.
I love you.
Amen and Blessed Be.
[i] https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44272/the-road-not-taken
[ii] https://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story?language=en