“The Ripple Effect”

Rev. Rali Weaver

As many of you know I have spent much of my past week sitting beside Fran Grilley in the hospital. I want to thank every one of you for giving me the type of job that can afford me that kind of time—the kind of time it takes to sit beside someone as they die, to listen to their stories and hold their hand and coach them through their passing.

If you knew Frances at all you knew she was a unique and special kind of person. She described herself as “Smart but socially awkward”. I imagine if you knew her for any time at all you knew she could be cantankerous and odd and maybe even sometimes hard to get along with. But there were many things wonderful about Fran as well and she was always herself right up until that last breath she took-- speaking her mind and doing it her way.

I bring this up because all week as I was trying to focus my thoughts on the ripple effect and while focusing on what to say to you today about the tipping point- I was sitting beside Fran’s bed and holding her hand.

And as I mentioned during the announcements Fran died on Friday and I am as I said grateful that I could be there for her in her last moments- even if it means that I am a bit teary and this sermon is not as cohesive as it might have been.

Even in all her cantankerousness Fran was a blessed spirit deserving of love and I am grateful that I was able to show that to her in her last days.

As all of us will when our day comes Fran spent her last days working to make sense of her life. In her last days she would recount the abuse from her childhood and then later remark “but none of that matters now.” In the end Fran was clear that Love is all that.

This is a simple truth that I imagine we all consider to be important.

But how in the world do we make it a reality?

How could we start ripple effect of loving?

I imagine that we have all heard the platitudes of the Purpose Driven Life written by Rick Warren the pastor of the Saddleback Church in Lake Forest California. When the books Purpose Driven Life and Purpose Driven Church were first out I believed that they were just another empty marketing approach to giving life meaning. That is until I moved to California. Because when I lived in California everywhere I went I ran into people from Rick Warren’s mega church. And every experience I had with them helped me in some significantly positive way.

One dramatic example of this was that one Sunday I was supposed to preach at a Fellowship in Visalia, California. I had decided to camp at the Redwood National Park nearby the evening before and with sermon in hand I headed out from San Francisco to the woods. The only problem was that I am dyslexic and I took a wrong turn on the highway and was halfway to LA before I realized my mistake. This got me to the park much later than I had planned, long after dark but I had to go, I was stuck. I had to preach the next day and I had no place else to stay.

When I finally arrived at the park it was after midnight and the thought of setting up the camp was daunting. Then I started driving around and I could not find my reserved slot.

Every campsite looked full. As I was about to give up, and sleep in my car a man stood on the side of the road and waved to me. He asked if I was searching for an empty campsite. I said yes, and he pointed to where I should park. When I got out of the car I noticed there was an empty lot with a fire. He told me that he had a feeling that someone was coming in late and so he decided to get things ready for them. He helped me set up my tent, and get settled in and as he did we talked. I told him I was there to preach at a Unitarian Fellowship in Visalia and he told me that he was a member of Rick Warren’s Church. He told me that since going to that church he felt more loving and clearer about the importance of helping others and that is why he had started that fire and was helping me set up camp.

Before he left he had one of his children bring over a pile of wood and leave it next to my campfire. And then I got some much-needed sleep.

The only problem became that the next morning when I had to get up and go to church, I realized that I had locked my keys in my car. Frantically looking around it wasn’t long before I realized I could jimmy the lock with one of the sticks that the purpose driven man had left. I did so and was on my way to my appointment in time without feeling rushed or agitated from my detour at all but instead feeling joyful and full of love.

It is hard to describe this now but the whole experience was both ordinary and fantastic. What could have been a dreadful experience was made to be something wonderful, all because I encountered someone with a positive attitude that left me feeling that things would work out and I would be taken care of. By in large each time I met someone from the Saddleback Church my experience was the same and after a while I began to believe that if what Rick Warren was preaching was making people kinder to their neighbor and more considerate and loving-- he might have a point.

Being a Baptist of course, Rev. Warren speaks in terms of God – our purpose in life is not our own – but “God’s” purpose for us. As good Unitarians we might ascribe more to the “Greater Good” but either way it seems that our life’s purpose is greater than anything we can do ourselves and opening up to the wider mysteries of life and making connections is what seems to me to be important. This is certainly a great deal of what Frances was doing in the last days and hours of her life and I believe it made her journey on to what is next much easier by helping her to find a context for her life on this earth. A context and purpose I believe is important to all of us both individually and as an instituion.

In a church like ours where our bodily numbers are small it is easy to get caught up in worries about resources and numbers can seem to be an important a way of measuring but the number of connections we make and the good we share with others both within our community and outside of these walls seems even more important.

For Frances one of the most wonderful gifts in her too short life was to be a participating member of this church. And as she grew increasingly more ill over the past month the cards and visits from the members of this parish grew invaluable to her and lifted her spirits in innumerable ways, which in turn helped her to grow increasingly more generous and loving to the caregivers who surrounded her. I often wondered how Fran’s increased kindness helped to lift the spirits of the caregivers and how they in turn shared the spirit.

I would like to assert that these are the kinds of connections that we all need --the kinds that lift us up and help us to be better people.

While I will concede that growing our church and this Unitarian Universalism movement is important I always hope that we focus on how we grow this church not only in numbers that attend here on Sunday morning but in the connections we form when we leave here on Sunday mornings. How what we do here helps you in your week. How what happens here helps us to form deeper connections in the community. Reaching out and spreading the love that lifts others up- whether they step through the doors of this sanctuary or not.

The difference between Paul Revere and William Dawes (from our readings today) was that each door that Paul Revere knocked on to tell that the British were coming – contained a person who knocked on someone else’s door. There was a ripple effect that made he news spread quickly.

This simply didn’t happen for William Dawes.

I imagine Dawes tapping lightly at doors wanting to pass the news along but not wanting to disturb anyone at that late hour. Instead of riding and screaming in a loud rousing tone “ the British are coming” Dawes probably trod more quietly – rousing no one out of bed that that did not need to be woken at that late hour and garnering no support from bystanders to carry the message.

The ability to make the message heard was the basic difference between these too men.

And I would argue that in order to make his message heard to make the number of connections necessary to stop the British army – required Paul Revere to go beyond his comfort zone and rouse strangers in the dead of night.

I don’t think that what we need to do to grow our church and grow our movement is nearly that dramatic but it may require going outside our comfort zone to form deeper and more real connections with people who are strangers to us now.

One of the most profound things that Fran said to me in her last days was

“Isn’t this amazing that we became so close all because we just sat down and talked?’

And I said, “Yeah people should sit down and talk more.”

And Fran just responded, “yeah”.

Sitting down to talk

Going beyond our comfort ones and forming deeper connections that stretch beyond the linear landscape is what makes a true church community and a deeper more spirit filled life.

And why should we bother? Well I will tell you that when it is all said and done and we come to the end of our lives it will not be how much money any of us hold in our banks that they will matter but how much we were loved and how much we loved others.

In then end that is all that really mattered to Fran anyway

That she had finally found this church where she had made some real friends

Where people accepted her just as she was.

And where she could be herself.

I hope these are the ripples we created and the connections that we count.

Loving and being loved. “Reach out, keep reaching out, keep bringing in.” moving beyond our areas of comfort to new places where love and kindness will prevail in all of our connections and we will only be measured on the quality and amount of love that we share with the world.