“Learning to be Full”

A Sermon by the Rev. Melanie Morel-Ensminger
First Unitarian Universalist Church of New Orleans
Sunday, August 14, 2011

I want to start this sermon by thanking Steven for his help in putting this service together, for his testimony, and especially for his courage in being willing to be so open and vulnerable with his spiritual community; I also want to thank a couple of parishioners who helped behind the scenes with resources and ideas for this service, but who wished to remain anonymous. This is an important topic for all of us, and I appreciate the assistance I’ve received in getting this service ready for you today.

A large part of the job for any minister is pastoral counseling. And as your post-Katrina minister, it has been a somewhat larger piece of this ministry than perhaps it usually is. For almost 4 years now I have listened and tried to be of help as various parishioners have shared with me the challenges they were coping with, the difficulties they were facing. And while there was a great deal of variation in the stories I heard, there did seem to be a common thread. Whatever it was that figured as the “presenting problem” for the counseling session, nearly every person who sought counseling with me said they felt a lack, an empty place, a hole in their lives.

In addition, many of them also said they felt worthless or unworthy, as if they were a fraud in their own lives and fearful that other people might find out. Sometimes this was experienced as a voice in their head, not necessarily like a paranoid person hears voices, but just an inner voice that insisted they had no talent, were not lovable, and were incapable of getting ahead or getting better. For some it was the voice of an abusive parent or grandparent; for others it was particularly brutal teacher or a former intimate partner. Still others described it as a part of themselves that was always critical.

I know something about this, for inside of me is my own perverted version of my mother’s voice. While my mother, who died in 1992, was in her lifetime was highly critical of me at times, she never really said to me all the things I hear in my head. But that doesn’t matter, for me it’s real enough. The voice tells me I have a lot of nerve getting up to preach on Sundays, since I don’t know what I’m doing and no one wants to hear what I have to say anyway. The voice says I’m lucky to have a spouse, or friends, or family members that put up with me, because I’m not really worthy of love or respect. I have never been able to get rid of the voice, but there are times when it is fainter in my head. I know what it is like to feel like there is something missing, that I’m not completely whole. I hope that my having this experience makes me a better, more empathetic counselor and pastor. I know it makes me human.

But it’s not just me and folks in this congregation, or even survivors of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. Many, many people in our society feel this lack, and it is indeed what it is called in our reading and in Steven’s testimony – it is a spiritual emptiness, a disease of the spirit. But it is not just what you might call a passive hole, it’s a hungry, gnawing hole. It virtually demands to be filled, and folks try mighty hard to do just that, throwing drugs, alcohol, overeating, overwork, overexercise, meaningless sex, gambling, cruising the Internet, and shopping for things they won’t use that they can’t afford, and many other activities into that howling empty space. And you know what? Nothing ever works; not a single one of those things or actions can fill the void inside. In fact, the whole time you and I and other people are doing those things, we already know how useless it is, and we keep on doing it anyway. (In the rooms of AA and OA and NA, they say, “Crazy is doing the same things over and over, and thinking you will get different results.”) If addictions could be solved intellectually and rationally, by simply making a decision, they wouldn’t be addictions, and there’d be no such thing as 12-Step programs.

As any pregnant woman knows, if you’re craving chocolate, a nice tuna fish sandwich on whole wheat bread won’t work. If what you are craving is spiritual food, you will not be satisfied by any amount of eating, drinking, using drugs, gambling, shopping, or anything else. You must feed your soul what you are hungry for.

Spiritual food. You are the only person in the world who can say what that that might be for you, but it is possible to make of possible “menu” of what spiritual food could be. It would be activities that are life-affirming, life-nurturing, activities that draw a person out of their own head and into right relationship with others and with the Spirit of Life. They are things that help a person to feel ultimate life and love. These might include: meditation, reflection, prayer, appreciating nature, listening to music, dancing, reading wholesome books, journal writing, drawing/painting/creating, working for social justice, serving others, meeting with others for spiritual support, taking good care of yourself through eating and exercising in a healthy way, and getting enough sleep at night.

Let me say right now that if you feel like I’m saying you have to do ALL of these things in order to feel full and whole, then that’s your addiction, the nasty voice in your head talking. A healthy, whole person finds the two or three or so activities that work for them, and devotes themselves to those. (I say more than one because every single one of us needs to do that last one – taking good care of yourself through eating and exercising in a healthy way, and getting enough sleep at night.)

Now I’m going to play psychic, and tell you that I already know that the voice in your head is saying, as Steven shared with us, that you don’t have time for that kind of stuff. You are too busy, your plate is too full, you don’t have a free moment, to take time off to do something as useless as attend meetings, or sit and meditate, or write in a journal, or help out a food bank, or any of the other things on our list of spiritual food.

There’s an old story often used in counseling to help illustrate the things that fill the full plates of our lives. Go through it with me right now as a kind of meditation. Picture a large glass jar, and surround it with sev-eral big rocks, lots of medium-sized pebbles, and then an amount of sand. The big rocks represent the most important things in our lives; the pebbles are the sort-of important things, and the sand stands for all the normal and regular but mostly quotidian things in our lives. Now, put all the medium pebbles in the jar, and pour in all the sand that you have. If there’s any room left, put in one or two of the large rocks. If you are normal, if you fill the jar this way, you have several of your large rocks – remember, your most important, most valued, things – left outside the jar of your life.

Now pour everything out, and this time, put the big rocks in first. Next, add in the pebbles. Finally, scoop up and pour in the sand, shaking the jar a little to let things settle. This time is different, right? Lo and behold, everything, or nearly everything, fits. Best of all, the most important things in your life, went first. That’s how you have to treat your physical and spir-itual health – as one of the foundation rocks of your life. That has to go first; as Steven said, it’s what everything else in your life rests on and fits into. Now you have time.

Today we are announcing the start of a new spiritual support group in the church, called FULL, which stands for “Feeling Ultimate Life & Love.” The FULL group will be open to any person who feels spiritually empty, who senses that there is a lack in their lives, and who have had issues with any of the unhealthy behaviors and addictions that we have mentioned. The group’s first meeting will be Wednesday, September 7, beginning at 6 pm in the Large Classroom. In this first session, we will begin a process of sharing with each other, and practicing different spiritual disciplines with each other. We will also decide together what the group’s regular meeting schedule will be, and the group’s permanent or semi-permanent meeting location. I will lead the group at the start, but it is my hope that the group will eventually be self-sustaining and self-led.

Let me be clear that the FULL group is not meant to replace Over-eaters Anonymous, Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, or any other 12-Step group, but to be an added resource, a supplement, to what those groups do. The Feeling Ultimate Life & Love group is to help those of us who feel the need to experience UU-style spirituality with each other, in order for us to nurture and support each other in our quest for wholeness.

It may not be possible to completely fill the gaping hole in our souls, or completely silence the carping voice in our heads. But together we can feed on spiritual food, and help each other to feel more full and to realize we are not alone. Together we will support each other so that we’re feeling ultimate life and love, because that’s the only way we will truly feel full. So may this be! AMEN – ASHE – SHALOM – SALAAM – NAMASTE – BLESSED BE!