A World of Risk and Loveliness
Next Monday it will be six years since Judge Robert Docherty of the 5th Judicial Court in Minnesota declared my daughter and me a legal family. For almost two years before that Lucia had been in and out of my home in foster care and respite care. These eight years, from age nine to seventeen, have been marked by a series of lettings-go. From having Lucia physically with me almost every minute she wasn’t at school or camp, to allowing her to spend a few hours home alone in the parsonage. From sitting at the skating rink for two hours as she enjoyed Rock on Ice to dropping her off and driving away to our home 15 miles across the prairie until it was time to pick her up again. From allowing her to ride her bike around the small city where she went to school to allowing her to get her driver's license and drive to school on her own. And of course, last fall, the biggest letting-go yet, letting her move back to Minnesota to live semi-independently. Each time it felt like relinquishing too much of my control, placing too much trust in her, in the fates, in God, in the goodness and care of neighbors, friends’ parents, small town community instead of in myself.
The life of a parent is filled with moments like these and dozens more, scores more, as many of you know. Boundaries and curfews established, enforced, expanded, and finally abandoned. First days of daycare, school, summer camp, college or military service. Transitions from holding hands to crossing the street alone to riding a bike to driving a car. Decisions to be made about acceptable friends and activities. Children moving into their own homes, and choosing their own life partners, and raising their own children their own way. The task of parenting is one of continually balancing the instinct and desire to protect one’s child from harm with the desire to allow and encourage the child to grow into an independent, confident individual, capable of making sound decisions for themself. It is not an easy balance to achieve or maintain.
While parents may be particularly challenged by the task of navigating life in what Unitarian Universalist minister Charles Stephen once described as a world of risk and loveliness, no one is exempt from that challenge. We all live in that world of risk and loveliness. A world of drugs and drug dealers, of drive-by shootings and suicide bombings, of volcanoes and hurricanes, blizzards and typhoons, of traffic accidents and house fires, of jobs and tasks that might reveal our shortcomings and failures, of unscrupulous people who might cheat us, of well-intentioned people who might nevertheless break our hearts, of illness and disease and ever-advancing age. We all live in a world filled with more risk than I can list, more even than we collectively could imagine.
And we live in a world of generous people demonstrate kindness to strangers and faithfulness to those they love; a world of beauty, of sunlight and starlight and rainbows; of great literature, music and art; of phone calls and video chats and letters and texts from old friends and family in far away places; of hugs and kisses from those we love, of majestic waterfalls and sunny meadows and infinite oceans, of libraries and hospitals, schools and churches. We live in a world filled with more loveliness than I can list, more even than we collectively could imagine.
And in this world of risk and loveliness, we live daily (consciously or subconsciously) with the question, “Shall I trust the loveliness or guard against the risk?”
There is much to be said for guarding against the risk. Smoke detectors, bike helmets, seat belts, vaccinations, situational awareness, Doppler radar, care in choosing life partners, food inspections, checking references, life-jackets, regular medical and dental check-ups, adequately funded and well designed social safety nets, and thousands of other safety devices, procedures and systems can reduce the risk of living in this world. The problem is, while such precautions can never keep us or those we love perfectly safe, they can, if overused or misused, trap us. Make us fearful and unnecessarily cautious, prevent us from living full lives, stunt our growth or the growth of those we want to protect. They can mute or even hide the loveliness that surrounds us. Both sides of this double-edged sword were sharp before COVID, and our experience of the pandemic only sharpened them more–as safeguarding our physical health began to endanger our mental health.
Trusting the loveliness may be a more attractive alternative than being on constant guard against risk, but it is deceptively complex. It is one thing to recognize and even celebrate the loveliness of the world. It is another thing to trust that loveliness to last, and to treat us well; to trust that the world is a benign place for ourselves and those we love. We may start out giving people and institutions the benefit of the doubt, and expecting honesty, loyalty, integrity and kindness in return. We may begin by viewing the earth as a benevolent lifesource who will care for us if only we care for it. But each time we watch a loved one get sick and die, each time we are betrayed by a friend, disappointed by someone we respect, each time a hurricane blows through or by our city, each time we read or hear another story of murder or abuse, each time we lose a job or don’t get it in the first place, each time the humanity of beloved or neighbor or friend or stranger is denied, each time a natural or human-made disaster leaves hundreds or thousands dead or homeless somewhere in the world, with each new armed conflict that breaks out, we find it a little bit harder to trust ourselves and those we love to the loveliness of the world.
So the best answer to the daily question, how am I going to live in this world of risk and loveliness, may come from Netta Gillespie’s poem. Not, “I will guard against the risk of the world.” Not, “I will trust in the loveliness of the world.” But, “I will hurl myself, my children, my siblings, my partner, my friends into the universe and pray.”
"I hurl you into the universe and pray."
To hurl oneself or one’s loved ones into the universe might sound reckless, and prayer is a concept many Unitarian Universalists struggle with. Here’s my interpretation. To hurl oneself or one’s loved one into the universe means simply to live, to embrace life, despite the risk, and without the expectation that the loveliness can be trusted. And to pray, in this context and many others, means to let go of control. Praying isn’t the same as trusting that everything is going to be ok because this is a fine and lovely and safe world. Rather, it is a means of honoring the fact that some things are beyond our control–wishing, hoping, praying that things will be ok,but giving up the illusion that we can make it so.
When I was about ten years old my grandparents sold their nursing home and retired to a farm outside their small town. That farm was a wonderful place for children. I could spend the next hour describing the natural and grandparent-purchased features that made it so, but I’ll just highlight one.
Years ago one of my cousins wrote a fictional account of the seven grandchildren deciding to explore the mostly empty and unused barn. In that story the Lisa character has one line: “don’t go in there; it’s terribly dirty!” Well, she got me partly right. If we had all decided to explore the barn, I might have protested, but not because of the dirt. I like a good mess as much as the next person and more than many. I would more likely have cautioned against an expedition to the barn out of fear.
After all, to reach it we would have had to walk in with the cows and the ponies. The barn itself was dark and unknown. And once we got inside someone–or probably all of my siblings and cousins–would want to go up in to the hayloft. And that would be mean both ladders and heights–two of my least favorite things. And of course once we got up in the hay loft there was an open doorway and the possibility of a long fall to the ground. Yes, in my eyes the barn was definitely fraught with danger and risk.
And yet, and yet, there were kittens hidden in the barn, and the occasional run away chicken, and stalls to explore, and treasure to discover–interesting abandoned tools and equipment left over from Grandpa’s days as a baker and cafe owner. And there was a terrific view of the house and farmyard from that open hayloft door. And a sense of adventure in being out there with my cousins and siblings, away from parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles. It was a microcosm of a world of risk and loveliness.
In the past forty-some years the landscape of the world of risk and loveliness has changed for me. New and unknown schools, jobs, cities, and states have taken the place of the dark and unexplored barn. The constant state of fear while my brother was in the first Gulf War, having joined the Navy against my better judgment, replaced my concern that the cows and ponies might not like us invading their space. And in turn the ever-evolving fears of parenting replaced my fears for my brother’s safety. Fear of heights and ladders have been eclipsed by fears of making poor decisions about and in my ministries. The risks involved in taking a stand on important issues of the day have overshadowed the risk of falling out of a hayloft.
As the landscape of risk has changed for me, so too has the landscape of loveliness. Like the barn, the whole wide world has proven to be a treasure of loveliness and delight to discover. Schools that challenged and shaped me. Cities and states that have beauty and attractions that the Twin Cities and Minnesota don’t have. Friendships and intimate relationships that have nurtured me and brought me joy and encouraged me to grow. The realization that whether I liked it or not, the Navy was the best thing that ever happened to my brother. A profession that every day demands my heart and soul and intellect, and offers the gift of people’s lives and stories and hearts and trust in return. Foster parenting and parenting that have revealed to me the resilience and exquisiteness of the human spirit anew with each child and teen who came into my home and my life, and especially my daughter who reveals the loveliness (and the risk) of the world to me all over again every single day.
In the excerpt from The Hobbit I read this morning, Bilbo Baggins wanted to protect himself from the world of risk. But he soon chose adventure over protecting himself–with Gandalf encouraging, even manipulating, that choice.
At the end of The Hobbit we learn that upon his return from that year long adventure
"… Bilbo found…he had lost his reputation. It is true that forever after he remained an elf-friend, and had the honour of dwarves, wizards, and all such folk as ever passed that way; but he was no longer quite respectable. He was in fact held by all the hobbits of the neighbourhood to be ‘queer’--except by his nephews and nieces on the Took side, but even they were not encouraged in their friendship by their elders.
I am sorry to say he did not mind. He was quite content; and the sound of the kettle on his hearth was ever after more musical than it had been even in the quiet days before the Unexpected Party….
He took to writing poetry and visiting the elves; and though many shook their heads and touched their foreheads and said, “Poor old Baggins!” and though few believed any of his tales, he remained very happy to the end of his days, and those were extraordinarily long."
I like to think that making ourselves vulnerable to some of the risks of life, in pursuit of more fully encountering the loveliness, has much the same result. Not a loss of reputation, but rather, increased danger, perhaps, and a few scares and even scars, but happiness, on the balance, and days that, if not extraordinarily long, are, at least, extraordinarily abundant in love, purpose, wonder, creativity, and contentment.
Hurling oneself and those one loves into the universe and praying offers no guarantee of safety or freedom from pain, suffering, or disappointment, only, the very real possibility, that in the end the loveliness of a life lived fully, and open to all the universe has to offer will outweigh the risk. That in suffering and surviving the risks of life, we will discover happiness and days in which kettles sing musically and poetry blooms within us (or music or dance or works of justice and kindness and creativity, all of which are poetry of a sort). May it be so–for you, for all whom you love.
Amen.