The San Francisco Chronicle of 14th December 2005 carried on its front page the following story. While migrating a humpbacked whale became entangled in crab trap lines. The whale was 45 – 50 feet in length and weighed about 50 tons. The crab trap lines consisted of ropes with weights attached at regular intervals; the ropes were wrapped around the animal’s tail, flippers and mouth. The weights were dragging down the whale preventing it from breathing causing it to become distressed and disorientated; it’s death seemed inevitable. Four local divers decided to attempt to cut the whale free; this was at considerable risk to themselves. As it happened the whale remained passive and allowed them to complete their task. When the whale was freed the divers were very surprised; the whale swam around in circles and then came to each diver and gently nudged them before swimming away into the sunset. That piece was forwarded to me by Bill Parfrey and he had added a prayer to the end. “May you, and all those you love, be so blessed and fortunate in the New year- to be surrounded by people who will help untangle you from the things that are binding you”.
It is a lovely thought that someone will come to untangle our lives; but if they do attempt this they would be undertaking an even more risky venture than the one undertaken by those divers who cut the whale free; it would almost certainly be a waste of their time and effort and most likely to signal the end of a good friendship. To begin humans are very bad at recognising when our own lives have become a tangled mess, or when we have lost our sense of direction. We are very quick to recognise when this happens to those we know and we are eager and ready to provide a solution. We know all that is needed to sort the matter is some common sense. Renee Decartes said “Good sense is the most evenly shared thing in the world, for each of us thinks he is so well endowed with common sense that even those who are the hardest to please in all other respects are not in the habit of wanting more than they have” We all believe that we have just the correct amount of common sense and that it is something that is to be found lacking only in other people. But I am afraid that the idea of being surrounded by people who are going to succeed in untangling us is a non runner. Untangling our lives is a task that we must undertake for ourselves; it is our life’s work; it is a task that needs constant attention it is what we must do if we are to achieve our full potential.
What is tangling up our lives? what weights are we carrying around with us? Some of the ties that figure in our lives are our greatest blessings; the ties of family, friends and community are our greatest support and comfort. As well as these positive supports we all carry baggage that weighs us down, saps our energy and takes the joy from our living.
The negative weights that we carry with us are the result of events that have occurred in our past and we carry them around with us rather as a child carries a security blanket. I am not trivialising the events they are very real and very hurtful and possibly damaging to us, but they are in the past. Yet they leave us harbouring feelings of Anger, resentment of how we were treated, a belief that life has been unfair to us. It is difficult to let these things go, and wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could go to someone who could untangle it all out for us. But life is not that easy, even a professional psychotherapist can only allow us the space and time to find our own solution. If we hold onto bitter feelings they will continue to damage us, to sap our vitality and to draw us down. Often it is very difficult to stop picking at the old wound, is takes persistent effort to forget the hurt; to let go to forgive and forget. Each time we pray the prayer of Jesus we say forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us, forgiving others is one of the most difficult things in life. To say I forgive is difficult- to say it and to really mean it usually comes with persistence we may need to keep on repeating it until forgiveness and acceptance become a reality in our lives. If we fail to do this we are adding bitterness and resentment to the original hurt. We lose on the double.
Something I believe that ties us down is our attachment to small details of our lives. We hold on to the security of our job, our house and possessions, the nuts and bolts of everyday living. We like to live out our lives in a nice comfortable rut. The rut may be comfortable but by living in the rut are we as Thoreau said “living lives of quiet desperation” The rut gives us a feeling of security, we feel in control but the feeling that we are in control of our lives is an illusion. All the spiritual teachings tell us that life calls us to take risks; that to grow that we must move out of our comfort zone. It is only by doing this that we will develop that we will get to know ourselves and to appreciate not only the baggage that we are carrying but to discover the unique talents and the abilities that we possess.
I am a repeat student with Bill’s Wednesday Bible study group. It is a wonderful experience to approach Old Testament as a series of stories about humanity rather than wondering if something did or did not really happen. These stories are true because they describe the human condition. Three thousand years ago people wrote about the same fears and problems that confront us to-day. From Genesis right through to the New Testament we read that humans are required to leave the old comfortable routine Adam & Eve had to leave the Garden of Eden, Abraham was told by God to leave his home, his family and his country; he was to leave and then God would show him where to settle. God didn’t give him a map with a nice farm circled in red with directions for how to get there with a credit card to help him get settled. Abraham had to step into the unknown, to take the risk. For me the comforting part of these stories is that when God called these people to take the risk that they were just as reluctant to leave their comfort zone as I am to leave my comfortable rut.
For the Jews the feast of Passover is their most important festival. The Passover remembers and celebrates the Israelites leaving land of Egypt and their bonds of slavery in the belief that they would live in a land of milk and honey. We know how God called Moses from the burning bush and told him to go to Pharaoh and demand that the people of Israel should go free. Moses was not one to rush to take up this challenge. Moses tried to avoid the task with a list of excuses “I’m not important enough to go the Pharaoh” “The People will not believe me” “I’m not a good public speaker” “Ask my brother Aaron” it got to the stage that God was losing his patience with Moses.
Also the person God chose to lead the people to freedom was not a glamorous, charismatic go getting type; nor was he a squeaky clean pillar of the community. Moses was in hiding from the Egyptian authorities because he had murdered someone, he looked after the flocks of his father in law and by his own admission he “was slow of speech and of a slow tongue” When we feel that we are not talented enough to undertake a new challenge perhaps if we remember that sometimes we may surprise ourselves; that we have talents that we are unaware of and that when we are challenged we can surprise ourselves. These characters from the old testament scriptures were just like us imperfect, flawed average people but when they had confidence in their mission they achieved what many call miracles.
When the Israelites did follow their destined path and leave Egypt events conspired make their passage easy; even the Red Sea was no obstacle. But nothing in life will ever be plain sailing and the people of Israel did look back with longing at what they had left behind. “We should have stayed in Israel where at least our bellies were full” they moaned During their wilderness years the people developed their laws and their system of government they became a nation. If we move from our comfortable rut there will be times when it will seem that we have made a big mistake, we will have our wilderness years. This is when we will discover that we have resources and talents within ourselves that we never imagined. It is in situations like these that true friendships are formed and we will have learned something of value.
It is obvious that the feast of Passover should be held in the springtime. A time of growth and new beginnings; when the earth if full of promise and all things seem possible. It is the time when we instinctively feel the need to Spring clean. To get rid of the rubbish that we have accumulated in our lives to set things to rights again.
Taking the first steps at letting go is the most difficult but with practice it will become much easier. No matter how difficult it is make a start no matter how small. To encourage you to make a start let us take a long term look at life; take a few moments to visualise yourself at about 98 years of age, you are on your zimmer frame the old heart beat is a bit irregular and talking to your or someone else’s great grand children; at 98 you know that you are near the end of your life. The person that you see what sort of person are they? Do you want the person to be someone who is bitter and unforgiving someone still holding on to old grudges and hurts? – someone filled by regrets that they lived life never having taken a risk? Will you regret that you did not live to the full this one precious life that you have been given? The type of person that we become will not be as a result of one single decision. The choices that we make day by day moment by moment will determine the type of person we will eventually be. Each day we are born again to start our life anew, what we do this day this moment is what matters. Look well therefore to this day.
Amen

Rev.Bridget Spain
Dublin Unitarian Church, April 2006