Commitment:
Yoke or Liberation?
Chris
Lilley
July
16, 2006
Commitment….
Let’s please take a moment and
look around the room and see yourselves through my lens. I see a tremendously
committed group of people whose collective service to this church and our
community is inspirational. I also see some individuals who astound me with their
level of commitment to others. You’re involved in multiple church committees,
you help with the homeless, you work on
local performing arts organizations, you work on social justice issues, you
fight for a living wage, you raise your children, the list goes on and on
…..pretty amazing.
Thank you.
Just about every morning I
start my day with a short meditative chant that I found in Jack Kornfield’s
book, A Path With Heart:
In 1989, I met David Oliver
who helped me walk through a pretty significant crisis in my life. Once we were through the initial crises and
we were in the process of rebuilding my life, David gave me hope, by
introducing a simple concept – that we can be better than well. Better than well required a spiritual
awakening and for me to begin to rely on something other than myself.
I also have a small admission
that we should get out of the way. This sermon and the entire service, for that
matter, were inspired by a quote that was printed on the side of a Starbucks
cup. I was enjoying a coffee one morning and there it was printed right on the
side of the cup. I happen to have a cup right here and would like to read it to
you.
- The irony of commitment is
that it’s deeply liberating - in work, in play, in love. The act frees you from
the tyranny of your internal critic, from the fear that likes to dress itself up
and parade around as rational hesitation. To commit is to remove your head as
the barrier to your life. As I See It #76, Anne Morris, Starbucks
customer from
Anne’s basic premise, that
commitment is liberating, is particularly relevant when one makes a commitment
to the individuals that make up the organization as opposed to simply
committing to the organization. The personalization of the commitment can
kick-start a spiritual connection which is the catalyst for real liberation
Better than well is a gift. Much like patience and tolerance it’s a
by-product of living with active love and kindness. What our Quaker friends
describe as “letting your life speak.” Our actions and words open us up to that
which sustains us and allow us to receive those gifts.
So,
What can we do? What actions can we take?
Refine and deepen our commitment to an organization by
focusing our commitment on each other, the individuals that make up the
organization. Focus on the way we interact with others as much as we focus on
the task at hand.
We can
simply break down the actions into four categories
1) Kindness
Every day I find myself
surrounded by Human Beings within the context of one organization or another.
My family, the company I work for, the baseball team I help coach, the Worship
associates group, the human race. I have an opportunity many times every day to
add the use of a kind voice and a smile to just about every situation. I admit,
I don’t always do it.
The
Roman Philosopher Seneca is reported to have said …
“Wherever
there is a Human Being, there is an opportunity for kindness.”
I can be fully committed to my
family by going to work and taking out the trash and helping to transport kids
at the same time my commitment to Karen and Connor and Kirstena and Blake
wavers as I grouse and complain and nit pick my way through the day. Believe it
or not…it happens. On those days that my commitment is anchored by a kind
approach it’s easy to accept and enjoy Karen and embrace my love for her and
our life. It’s easy to accept and enjoy the kids and their shenanigans. We can be better than well
2) Civility
At the Shrine of the Little
Flower High School in
“Every
action done in company, ought to be with some sign of respect to those that are
present .””
Civility requires varying
degrees of respect, tolerance, restraint and understanding. It speaks clearly
to the concept of commitment to another human through action. The art of
restraint may seem to be in decline, while it continues to be a wonderfully simple act with the power
to soften even the toughest of situations and to smooth even the most ruffled
of feathers.. Misinterpreted sarcasm is a pitfall I find myself, my friends and
co-workers in the middle of from time to time.
Practice the restraint of tongue and pen.
We can
be better than well
3 & 4) The other two suggestions are Inclusion and Compassion
Inclusion of others
(especially when we know what’s best for the organization) is also an active
form of our commitment. In my job, it would be simple for me to lay down an
edict by creating a policy to regulate or change the behavior of our sales
team. It’s a little more complex and extremely more effective when we enlist
the thoughts and opinions of our Sales Advisors and managers in an effort to
collaborate on a course of action. A congregational meeting is a great example
of our church’s commitment to each of us.
Now they are not always simple affairs, sensitive nerves can be touched,
things can get a little sticky AND it’s worth every minute. Having a voice and
being heard draw us together even when they seem to create division.
Brian Muldoon is one of the
pioneers of the professional mediation movement. He worked in
“A willingness to accept is
needed if we are to practice listening, which is the external form of
compassion. It is hard to listen if we reject the truth in what we hear. Hard-
heartedness is often just a defense to having to face a reality that we do not
like. If we have the courage to accept reality, then we can truly listen to
others.”
I love his description of
listening as the external form of compassion.
Compassion in the form of action……..Commitment in action.
Psychologist
Carl Rogers says it another way…
“If you really understand
another person… if you are willing to enter their private world and see the way
that life appears to them without any attempt to make evaluative judgments, you
run the risk of being changed yourself. You might see it their way; you might
find yourself influenced in your attitudes or your personality This risk of
being changed is one of the most frightening prospects many of us can face.”
Kindness, Civility, Inclusion and
compassion ……Commitment in action… better
than well
When I was a kid, my Mother
always had a number of plaques and other wall hangings in the house. Some
inspirational, some funny, some prayers.
My favorite was a simple piece of hand-painted wood that hung in the
kitchen. It had a picture of a wide mouth bass (with that mouth wide open) about to bite down on a baited hook with a
hand painted message hat read “Even a fish could stay out of trouble if it
just kept it’s big mouth shut!”
One of the hangings was a
printed version of a prayer attributed to Saint Francis of
…Grant
that I may seek rather to comfort than to be comforted
-to
understand than to be understood
-to
love than to be loved
For it
is by self forgetting that one finds
It is
by forgiving that one is forgiven
Think about your source of
strength, whatever that happens to be …… nature, the teachings of the Buddha,
or Jesus or Mohammed, the Spirit of Life, the collective wisdom of the church,
for me that indescribable entity.……
True commitment to each other,
defined by our actions and words open us up to and allow us to commune with
that which sustains us .
Better than
well is possible when we open ourselves up to that power greater than ourselves
that sustains us
So as
it turns out, it all comes back to Simple Human Kindness …..as it always does.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
wrote:
Kind hearts are the gardens,
Kind thoughts are the roots,
Kind words are the flowers,
Kind deeds are the fruits.
Take care of your garden
And keep out the weeds,
Fill it with sunshine
Kind words and kind deeds.
Take
the leap …
….to truly commit through acts of kindness,
compassion, civility, and inclusion, and through those acts, deepen your
commitment to any organization by focusing your commitment on each other, the
individuals that make up the organization
Granted, it’s risky. We will
become vulnerable, the process will be messier, we will probably learn
something about ourselves… heck … we might even change a little bit.
Accepting the risk and
committing to each other bonds us to the spirit of life through our actions….
Go ahead and try…..what could
it hurt?
I
encourage you to go for it.
Thank
you.