I was asked, as part of the Caring Committee, at my Unitarian Universalist Church (Unitarian Universalist Friendship Fellowship in Rockledge, Florida) to help create a service to introduce the committee and the idea of interdependence. To bring them to the idea and they were not alone, that asistance was available, and we were here to help. Needed, for a bunch of stalwart headstrong intellectials. I said yes, of course.

We planned. And planned. We even planned an exercise where toe whole congreagation formed a web with two skeins of beautiful yarn I purchased, which would then be made into art to hang in the fellowship hall.

One by one, folks dropped out. Weren’t going to be in attendance. Had an autistic meltdown. Visiting family.

I’ve experienced autistic meltdowns. But when do I get to just take two weeks to get oneself back together, to rest. While I have nothing but sympathy, really, I also wonder where the grit has gone. “Ok, I got this.,” I said, the irony not being lost on me.

Let me know if you need help or want me to do a part, someone else said. No, that’s ok. I want to know that, when that Sunday comes, there are no loose ends. No suprises. No hiccups caused by someone who can’t show up for whatever reason. I was the one you wanted for a group project in school. I was not the one who ever wanted to do a group project.

I chose the readings. I chose the music. I’m in the choir as well, and chose songs that felt right for the subject, but also we’d enjoy singing. Two we could even play alonng with, opening with “Somos El Barco,” with two of us on ukuleles and our choir director picking on his guitar.

And here is the result, minus the, readings, houskeeping items, announcments, Joys and Concerns, and offertory,”You’ve Got A Friend,” and hymms, “Lean On Me,” and “The Oneness Of Everything.”

Welcome: Welcome, one and all. Whoever you are, however you are, whatever brings you here, welcome. If you have come in despair, welcome. If you have come in joy, welcome, if you have come in confusion or understanding, sadness or delight, welcome. If you have come with a hand to lend, welcome. If you have come with a hand in need, welcome. Welcome to all.

Let’s call up the children, if they would, to join us and light our chalice. The chalice is a symbol of peace and acceptance. And of safety. It is a symbol of acceptance and communion for those who are like us, and those who are unlike us. It is a symbol of light that calls to those who are in need, in want, in pain, and in danger. At one time or another, then, it calls to each of us.  

Chalice Lighting: “In the light of truth and in the warmth of love, we gather to seek, to sustain and to share.”

Opening words

Today’s service is brought to you by the letter I. I, for Interdependence. If you buy into the whole American mythos, you’d think it was only for the word Independent: The myth of rugged independence. And by the letter C. C is for Committee, which which we are replete, and C is for Caring. And, best of all, for Caring Committee. Could we have the folks in the Caring Committee stand up please. Would the chair of the committee raise their hand, please? 

What have others said about rugged independence? Joseph Campbell told us “The giant of self-achieved independence is the world’s messenger of disaster…” 

“The whole idea of compassion, Thomas Merton teaches us, is based on a keen awareness of the interdependence of all these living beings, which are all part of one another, and all involved in one another.” 

Only two weeks ago, many of us sat in the very room and listened to the nuns of Blue Cliff Monastery talk to us about what they called Interbeing. And our own seventh principle reminds us to “respect the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.”

When I was but in 8th grade, this is what I learned from Alan Watts, “We are not just a skin-encapsulated ego, a soul encased in flesh. We are each other and together we are the world.”

We often feel alone in this world. “We’re born alone, and we die alone,” We hear this, and we hear this a lot. And many of us have taken this, unfortunately, to heart.  But are we alone, really? We have an epidemic of loneliness in America. 

The surgeon general has raised alarms about this with a new study showing nearly 38 million Americans live alone and are subject to higher incidence of depression because they have no social networks. And, make no mistake, the epidemic is deadly. Not just suicide. No one who will know when our memory is failing, or to help us when we fall from a stepstool we should not have been on. No one to ask the doctor a question the patient may have been too overwrought to think of. Too overwhelmed to remember. No one to look forward to seeing, sharing time with, seeing a movie with, sharing a meal, walking alongside.

The myth of independence is forced into us with our milk. The myth of do it yourself, be your own person, no one is going to do it for you, pick yourself up by your own bootstraps. 

Alissa Quart discusses this very idea in her book Bootstrapped: Liberating Ourselves from the American Dream. 

Pick yourself up by your own bootstraps… was a joke. An absurdity. It’s a metaphor that refers to a task that is impossible to do. The phrase is believed to come from the German author Rudolf Erich Raspe, who wrote about a character who extracted himself from being mired in a swamp by pulling himself up by his own hair.

There was a fellow named Nimrod Murphree who, in 1834, claimed he was a fully self-made man. He also claimed to have invented perpetual motion. And he was being mocked thoroughly for saying so. “Probably Mr. Murphree has succeeded in handing himself over the Cumberland river, or a barnyard fence, by the straps of his boots,” wrote a newspaper column of the day. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the phrase was used to describe an impossible task. In the Racine Advocate, some ten years later, they said the governor must be trying to pull himself up by the bootstraps. Again, making fun of him, because you can’t really pull yourself up by your bootstraps. 

It was even used as sort of metaphysical joke with a psychologist in the 1860s writing that the attempt of the mind to analyze itself is analogous to the one who would lift himself up by his own bootstraps.

But today, we use the term to suggest that someone should handle their own problems, fix themselves, by themselves, for themselves.

Do it on your own, be that self-made person who handed themselves over the Cumberland with his perpetual motion machine. It has, unfortunately, ceased being a joke. 

Orson Wells reiterated “We’re born alone, we live alone, we die alone.” But he added, “Only through our love and friendship can we create the illusion for the moment that we’re not alone.” But Wells got it wrong. It is independence that is the illusion. No. one. goes. it. alone. No one can lift themselves up 

by their hair. No one. Not. one. of. us. 

Instead, we are the quaking aspen, which appear as individual trees, but are really one, joined by the roots. We are mushrooms, which pop up here and there, some solitary, some in groups, but all joined by the great mycelium network. None of us are alone. We do not come into this life, we come from life itself and are always part of life. We come from the earth and go back to it. As the apple tree apples, the earth peoples. Ant the earth, too, part of the whole. We are all in this together.

And that is what we are here for today. We are all, every thing, part of Indira’s net, which extends out infinitely, in all directions, all things a part of the net, all stones, all trees, apples, people, all beings. All that we believe is alive. All that we believe is not alive. Not one of us moves that it does not, in some way, affect all who live in the net. And, at each joint in the net, a glittering jewel which reflects the light from all the others. Your face, my face, the faces of those you love, and those you do not love. We are recursive images of all existence. We breathe in and out each other’s lives and we are built of those who came before us and what we leave will build those who come after. We are infinity.

How do we carry this into our everyday lives? How do we carry this into our congregation? Ask Thoreau, ask Emerson, ask Whitman. 

Ask the physicist, the botanist, the biologist. Ask the Buddhist. Hindu, shaman, witch. 

First, Interdependence poses a challenge to the idea of one-sided individualism, the belief that the individual is of primary importance and invites us to see that the whole, the community, our congregation, as equally important as the individual. Because the whole is contained within each of us. Because of compassion. And because it makes sense. “Logic clearly dictates the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.” Spock said that to Kirk in The Wrath of Kahn, as he sacrificed himself for his crew. Yes, I managed to quote Star Trek. To be fair, of course, it was Gene Roddenberry who wrote that, but that leaves it making no less sense.

And, as we are a part of the whole, interdependence is balance. Our own needs taken into account as we serve our greater community. 

Resting when we need, so we can keep going, so we can be there for others, in times of joy and in times of need. As a part of the whole, it is important we keep ourselves well, so we may help the whole survive and thrive. 

Interdependence allows us to see that we are not separate entities! Our well-being is mutual. Our present and future is shared. We truly are all in this together. 

And what do we gain by this? Greater compassion, yes. The feelings of awe, wonder, and profound gratitude, yes. But we also can enjoy a deeper sense of meaning and understanding. And it makes it easier to give. Easier to receive. Though many of us have quite a hard time receiving.

But those who receive also give. There is a gift in need, giving others the opportunity for service. Many long for an opportunity to be of service to others, but do not know what to do. Your need may, paradoxically, be a gift to others. 

Never underestimate the power of service, the interdependent nature of community, and the gifts that it can bring to that community. The growth, binding, strengthening it gives us the opportunity for. Ask. Ask for what you need. Your desire to self-reliance at all costs may be robbing others of chances to grow. Ask. Ask, and do not deny others the chance to help. Do not deny others the chance to help. 

Ask for assistance. Tell us your needs. It doesn’t mean you don’t know what you are doing. It doesn’t make you less. And, despite how you may feel, it doesn’t make you a fraud as an adult.  Amanda Palmer, in her book The Art of Asking, assures us  “The Fraud Police are the imaginary, terrifying force (for many) ‘real’ grown-ups believe – at some subconscious level – will use asking for help as real evidence that they have failed as a grown-up. But nothing could be further from the truth.” Asking means you know what your powers are, and are not. So, when in need, stand up and say, “I need help.”  Ask. 

And when we ask for help with gratitude to our community, it gives the community the opportunity to give with gratitude.  Do not deny that of others. 

Years ago, In my late 40’s, I was in need. I assure you it was not the first time. 

But it was the first time in my life I was alone. Or thought I was. The first time I faced an empty house IN MY ENTIRE LIFE. I ceased to function. Apart from letting out my dog, I barely moved. I needed help, but didn’t even know what to ask for. I barely spoke. A friend told me though, that she saw what the need was, and acted. And help came. Some I needed, some I didn’t quite, as I could not say WHAT I needed at that time, but even the “unneeded” giving gave me something I DID need -the knowledge that people loved me. People I didn’t even know. That love, from friends, from strangers, that service, kept me here, kept me from being destroyed. And kept me from destroying myself. 

Some two months later I cooked a meal for myself. I hadn’t done so in many months, though I certainly knew how. And I shared it with a friend, telling her I had no idea what my life would look like now, but was going to return to volunteering. Why, she asked? I said, without thinking, that when we don’t know how to help ourselves, the best thing we can do is help other people. If we all did that, no one would be in need. I rarely listen to my own advice, this this, I have stuck with and it has often gotten me through. When I do not know what to do for yourself, help somebody else. 

I think back now: What would not have gotten done if I had not been open to receiving help. Who would I not be here for now? Who would not be receiving now. Who can I help because I was given the help I needed when it was most desperate. Because people listened when I could not even speak. Because we are all in this together. 

This is the mutuality of real community. Meaning and purpose follow in its wake. The magic of interdependence. 

Never second guess yourself. We do not know what act of service will bear the most fruit, the sweetest, or most meaningful. It could be small, it could be large, but we do not know how large it may grow, or the beauty it may grow into. Do not wonder later if you could have helped. Do it. Service in itself is beautiful, no matter the size. It is never not good enough, never too small. The Buddhist author, monk and psychologist Jack Kornfield tells us to never say no to an impulse to service. 

We too often think them too small, or of too little consequence, or what we have to give is too little, but it is never the case. It is the nature of interdependence that all actions matter, reflect in all the glory that is our world, ripple and grow. 

Many of us here have gone without, done without, have been in need, and have been quiet. Many here have had a hand to offer, but none to take it. Many have needed a hand, but have never let anyone know. Pride, arrogance, the desire to “pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps,” perhaps. Or, maybe, we have swallowed the American myth of individual worth coming only from individual effort. From only the value of what we have produced.

What I ask you, today, is that you remember, we are here for each other, to serve, delight in, help, and protect, befriend, feed, listen to, and walk along with when our paths converge, wherever those paths lead. To speak up when you are in need, say something, write a note. To stand up when you know there IS a need, a challenge, a misfortune – yours, someone else’s, that we, as a congregation can address, assist with, diminish. 

We can share each other’s joys, and we can relieve each other’s sufferings. But only if we speak. Only if we know. 

And only if we stop seeing ourselves as a collection of individuals and, instead, as the connected, loving community we are. This, if anything, is the covenant we should pledge. 

Extinguish the Chalice

The Chalice is now extinguished, but may its light live on in the minds and hearts and souls of each of us. May you carry that flame with you as you leave this place and share it with those you know, with those you love, and most especially, with those you have yet to meet. So may it be.