Will the Net Appear?

Leap, and the net will appear. Or will it?

In just a moment I’m going to ask you to raise your hands indicating your agreement with one of three statements. When I do so, in addition to raising your hand when you hear the statement you most agree with, take a look around the room to see how many hands are raised for each statement. This is one of a series of questions we ask in our newcomer classes, an activity designed both to help participants begin to discern and articulate their core beliefs, and to show the wide range of beliefs in any group of Unitarian Universalists. I’m going to tell you the same thing I tell the newcomers: don’t worry about definitions or nuance; don’t overthink; go with your initial gut response. The three statements are: I believe the universe is friendly. I believe the universe is hostile; I believe the universe is indifferent. OK. Ready? Raise your hand if you believe the universe is friendly. Now raise your hand if you believe the universe is hostile. And now, raise your hand if you believe the universe is indifferent.

Despite urging you to answer from your gut, without agonizing over definitions or speculating about nuanced situations, I struggle with this question myself every time I ask others to answer it. Intellectually, I usually land on “indifferent,” though by that I really mean something closer to “neutral”. You see, “friendly,” “indifferent,” and “hostile” are human attributes, and it is unwise, I think, to project them onto something as vast and as non-human as the entire universe. Yet, despite my intellectual leaning toward ‘neutral,’ I believe that each of us, including me, consciously or subconsciously, lives as though the universe is either friendly or hostile.

That is to say, on the whole, each of us either trusts or doesn’t trust everything from the rising of the sun to the intentions of strangers, from the findings of science to the authenticity of gestures of kindness. We live either as though we have to be on guard against and in control of all possible eventualities, or as though sometimes we can leap and the net will appear.

Some claim that that promise is a Zen proverb. Others attribute it to the 19th century naturalist and essayist John Burroughs. Wherever and whenever it originated, it is an enticing promise. It has shown up, among other places, in the lyrics of a Jimmy Buffet song and in Julie Cameron’s bestselling book The Artist’s Way. That’s wide ranging appeal!

“Leap and the net will appear” shows up visually in the movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, in the scene where Indy steps off a cliff expecting to fall into an abyss, only to have his foot hit a solid land-bridge spanning the chasm between him and the goal of his searching. The bridge had not been visible because it is constructed of the same stone as the walls of the abyss, a sort of three dimensional optical illusion. Quitting a job, going back to school, moving to a new city, state or country, entering committed relationship, becoming a parent, joining the military, ending a relationship, changing careers–our lives are full of moments that might seem like stepping off a cliff with the real possibility, probability, even, that we’ll fall into an abyss. But often, sooner or later, we take the step anyway–not so much because we believe a net will appear–but because we desire what is on the other side of the abyss so much that taking that step isn’t optional. It is required if we are to live the life we are meant to live. Just as Indy wanted to find the chalice, a drink from which would save his father’s life, enough to risk his own life by taking that fateful step.

So we take the step, take the leap, and does the net appear? Does our foot land on solid ground?

I suppose each of us can point to times in our lives when the net did not appear. When taking that leap resulted in heartbreak or financial hardship or estrangement from family or a crisis of self doubt. When taking the step entangled us in a relationship or career or a business transaction that brought us not closer to but farther from the life we know we are meant to live.

Each of us can probably also point to times in our lives when the net did appear. When taking that leap brought us into deeper connection with our family or a community. When taking that step opened a way before us toward a meaningful career or purposeful service, toward giving to the common cause and receiving intangible blessings a hundredfold beyond what we risked.

Probably our answers, just now, about whether the universe is friendly, hostile or indifferent, were shaped by whether, in our experience, the net has appeared more often than not, on balance throughout our lives.

I told you a moment ago, that when forced to choose (and that’s only fair, since I ask others to choose), intellectually, I consider the universe indifferent or neutral. It simply is, without friendly intent or hostile intent. I just can’t get past the folly of ascribing human attributes to something so vastly non-human as the universe! But spiritually and theologically, I want to cast my lot, not so much with those who say the universe is friendly, as with those who believe the net will appear. That something–God, the nameless Mystery, Creation, the Spirit of Life, perhaps the universe, will catch us when we take bold, seemingly reckless, yet ultimately necessary, steps out over the great abysses that dot the landscapes of our lives.

I want to cast my lot with 14th century anchoress and mystic Julian Of Norwich who declared: "all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well."

And with 19th century Unitarian preacher Theodore Parker whose words from 1853 sermon inspired the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr:

"I do not pretend to understand the moral universe. The arc is a long one. My eye reaches but little ways. I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by experience of sight. I can divine it by conscience. And from what I see I am sure it bends toward justice."

When I’m not grounding myself sufficiently in prayer, silence, and contemplation, this belief that the net will appear, that all will be well, that the arc of the moral universe bends toward justice, strikes even me as naive optimism at best, hollow, disingenuous fantasy at worst. Every day’s news, not to mention all of history, after all, is filled with stories of times the net didn’t appear or wasn’t strong enough to catch and cradle to safety the ones who took necessary leaps.

Here’s the thing, I remember, however, when I do sit in prayer and silence, when I read widely among the poets and prophets and people of faith and conviction, when I am in conversation with ministerial peers and eavesdropping on the social media feeds of upcoming generations of brilliant and faithful colleagues–when I am tending my spirit, I remember that the arc of Theodore Parker’s moral universe stretches out beyond the limits of our sight. That it was through conscience, not strict observation of the political and societal realities of his time, that he believed the arc to bend toward justice. And I remember that Julian of Norwich didn’t say when all will be well, only that it will be so. Even more than that, when I am grounded in my faith, I remember that Parker didn’t promise that the arc would bend without human intervention–in fact, as a staunch abolitionist he was committed to human action as a means of achieving justice. I know less about Julian of Norwich than I do about Parker, but I choose to believe that her conviction that all will be well, even if grown from her mystical experiences of Christ, doesn’t preclude the possibility that we have a role to play in ensuring that outcome.

I recently saw a 2018 clip of Steven Colbert and Neil DeGrasse Tyson talking about supernovas and whether or not they are rare phenomena. DeGrasse Tyson said, “If you have a sample size large enough, rare things become common.” For days I've been trying to figure out if that is a comforting fact or a terrifying one. I’ve decided to be mostly comforted by it, because being only terrified by it is fatalistic, and robs me of the conviction that I, that we, have power to bend the arc of the moral universe, to tilt the scale toward all manner of things being well, to be ourselves the net that appears for kin, strangers, neighbors, communities that take bold, necessary leaps.

And I refuse to give up that conviction. I believe that we, individually and all together, in the fullness of time and in ways we may never know and certainly can’t fully comprehend, we are the hands that toss, catch and set upright again our companions on the earth, and indeed toss and catch and set upright again civilizations and the very future of all that is. I believe we are part and parcel of the God that is All-Love–created by It and creating It, day by day, through our living as though–sometimes all evidence to the contrary–living as though the universe is a vast source of blessing, as though a net will catch us when we leap faithfully into our next act of co-creation of the world we want to inhabit. May it be so. Amen.