To Choose is to Create

Readings: Micah 6:6-8, Mark 12:28-34, The New Jerusalem and its Heavenly Teachings #124 (see below)
See also on Youtube

Hopefully many of you were able to enjoy the Be Love event from the Helen Keller Spiritual Life Collaborative this past week, an event celebrating what Helen called her spiritual birthday, the day she met her beloved teacher Anne Sullivan.

Helen Keller’s story has inspired generations, and while many of us might be most familiar with the earlier aspects of her story, her entire life’s work, one of advocating for the vulnerable all over the world, is equally inspiring.

Helen was born in 1880 and at the age of 18 months suffered an illness that robbed her of her sight and her hearing. For years, she existed in a state of isolation, without a sense of language that would allow her to communicate with others around her. 

When she was 6 years old, she was introduced to a person who would change everything for her: Anne Sullivan. In a famous moment, one day as Helen was feeling water from a pump run over her hand, while Annie signed the letters for “water”, Helen suddenly understood what language was and the world opened up for her.

Helen would go on to attend college, write multiple books, and become a social reformer and a world famous speaker, who advocated for disability rights, women’s rights, civil rights, economic equality, and world peace. She was a founding member of the American Civil Liberties Union, or the ACLU.

And, a lesser known fact about Helen is that she was a follower of the teachings of Emanuel Swedenborg, who she credits as giving her a foundational theology for her life. She was introduced to his works by her dear friend, John Hitz, and immediately found them to align with her innate sense of spirituality.

Helen has described Anne Sullivan coming into her life as a mental awakening, and the theology of Emanuel Swedenborg as her spiritual awakening. She wrote of this experience in a book, now titled Light in My Darkness, and characterized her feelings to a friend thus:

Swedenborg's message has meant so much to me! It has given color and reality and unity to my thought of the life to come; it has exalted my ideas of love, truth, and usefulness; it has been my strongest incitement to overcome limitations.(1)

Now, I had already planned to preach a sermon on Helen Keller today before I had remembered that it would be the first Sunday in Lent. And at first, it seemed like it might an poor fit. Lent is a time when we intentionally make a sacrifice, give up something in our life, or take on a new spiritual discipline or practice, in order to reveal new insights about ourselves. We intentionally deepen our reflections and welcome knowledge about how our lives and habits might need to change in order to more fully connect with God and with others. This is a necessary inward journey, and conversely it seems like Helen’s journey was often one of reaching outward, of helping others. So, we might wonder how exactly her life’s journey should speak to our Lenten journey today?

Helen was so good at both articulating and modeling what a faithful life calls us to, and so I believe that Helen can give us the why of Lent. She writes:

Sick or well, blind or seeing, bound or free, we are here for a purpose, and however we are situated, we please God better with useful deeds than with many prayers or pious resignation. The temple or church is empty unless the good of life fills it. It is not the stone walls that make it small or large, but the brave souls' light shining around and in it. The altar is holy only when it represents the altar of our heart upon which we offer the only sacrifices ever commanded—the love that is stronger than hate and the faith that overcomes doubt.
Lent is the time when we, with courage and faith, look upon the altar of our heart and see it both for what it is, and what it could be. If there is to be prayer and piety during Lent, it is only for this purpose: to reveal to us more fully how we can be useful, to reveal to us how to become those brave souls shining with light. To reveal to us how we must act.

Our moment feels like a dark time, my friends. It is a dark time for our nation. Principles of democracy, transparency, accountability, honesty that we thought we could rely upon are no longer a given at the highest levels of our government. It is deeply distressing to see something we love fall apart, especially without knowing what exactly we can do to fix it. It is almost enough to consider dispensing with Lent altogether this year, as it is so difficult to genuinely reflect from a place of instability. 

And then, I think of Helen and I wonder what she would say. What would she tell us in this Lenten season? She, who from a place of darkness and silence still managed to conjure a love so deep and wide that we still speak of it today. What would she say to us? As I pondered this question, I came to her writings which I will now quote at length. I hope they will minister to you as they have to me.

“We should never surrender to misfortune or circumstances or even to our faults hopelessly or passively—as if we were but carved images with our hands hanging down, waiting for God’s grace to put us into motion. We should not succumb to spiritual slavery. We should take the initiative, look into ourselves fearlessly, and search out new ideas of what to do and ways to develop our will power. Then God will give us enough light and love for all our needs(2) 

Now, limitations of all kinds are forms of chastening to encourage self-development and true freedom. They are tools put into our hands to hew away the stone and flint that keep hidden our higher gifts. They tear away the blindfold of indfference from our eyes, and we behold the burdens others are carrying, learning to help them by yielding to the compassionate dictates of our hearts.(3) 

We need limitations and temptations to open our inner selves, dispel our ignorance, tear off our disguises, throw down old idols, and destroy false standards. Only by such rude awakenings can we be led to a place where we are less cramped, less hindered by the ever-insistent external world. Only then do we discover a new capacity and appreciation of goodness and beauty and truth.(4) 

The constant service of Swedenborg lies in thoughts such as these. He shows us that, in every event and every limitation, we have a choice, and that to choose is to create. We can decide to let our trials crush us, or we can convert them to new forces of good. We can drift along with general opinion and tradition, or we can throw ourselves upon the guidance of the soul within and steer courageously toward truth.(5) 

Truly I have looked into the very heart of darkness and refused to yield to its paralyzing influence, but in spirit I am one of those who walk the the morning. What if all dark, discouraging moods of the human mind come across my way as thick as the dry leaves of autumn? Other feet have travelled that road before me, and I know the desert leads to God as surely as the green, refreshing fields and fruitful orchards.

I, too, have been profoundly humiliated and brought to realize my smallness amid the immensity of creation. The  more I learn, the less I think I know; and the more I understand of my sense-experience, the more I perceive its short comings and its inadequacy as a basis of life. Sometimes the points of view of the optimist and the pessimist seem so well-balanced to me that it is only by sheer force of spirit that I can keep my hold upon a practical, livable philosophy of life. But I use my will, choose life, and reject its opposite, nothingness.(6) 

This Lenten season, let us remember Helen’s words, that to choose is to create. What do we wish to create in this moment we are in? I hope we will work to create sanctuary, connection, inclusion. I hope we will create care and concern for the suffering. I hope we will create a love for truth, and a desire to learn. I hope we will create a mighty resolve to see each other fully with love, and to create a world where there is dignity and thriving for all.

Each moment we choose each of these things, we create them. No one can ever take that away from us. As we create them, they will exist as an embodiment of and a testament to the divine love that created the universe, and created us. This ability to partner with God in the exerise of our free will, to co-create the reality of heaven on earth, is a gift. And there are times when that gift may feel too heavy, or that we don’t know what to do with it, or that anything that we do with it will always be too small to matter. 

But the truth is, every spark of creation that brings love to life in service of others is a true act of worship. Every spark exists and every spark matters. Let us consider this Lenten season as a time when we are guarding the flame, when we are holding safe and growing holy sparks that may light in someone else’s darkness. In honor of Helen, may we choose to create a world where we take care of each other. Amen.

1. Helen Keller. Letter to Rev. Paul Sperry. 10 October 1926
   
2. Helen Keller, Light in My Darkness, p135
3. Ibid
4. Ibid 137
5. Ibid 138
6. Ibid 139

Readings:

Micah 6:6-8
6 With what shall I come before the LORDand bow down before the exalted God? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old?
7 Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousand rivers of olive oil? Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
8 He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

Mark 12:28-34
28 One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”
29 “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.
30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’
31 The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”
32 “Well said, teacher,” the man replied. “You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him.
33 To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”
34 When Jesus saw that he had answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” And from then on no one dared ask him any more questions.

The New Jerusalem and its Heavenly Teachings #124

A life of caring, though, consists of having goodwill toward our neighbors and doing good things for them; basing all of our actions on justice and equity, and on what is good and true; and applying the same principles in all our responsibilities. In a word, a life of caring consists of being useful. This kind of life is the primary way to worship God; a life of piety is only secondary. This means that if we separate the one from the other, if we lead a pious life but not a caring life at the same time, we are not in fact worshiping God. We may be thinking about God, but this comes from ourselves and not from God, because we are constantly thinking about ourselves and not at all about our neighbor. If we do think about our neighbors, we regard them as worthless if they are not like us. Further, we are thinking of heaven as our reward, so our mind is preoccupied with self-love and taking credit. Being actively useful is something we either neglect or regard with contempt; and that is also how we treat our neighbors. Yet at the same time we believe there is nothing wrong with us. This shows that a pious life apart from a caring life is not the spiritual life that is needed within our worship of God.