Things are not always going to turn out the way we want. There are things we can’t control. And there will come a time when each of us faces something we wish we’d done differently. We’ll feel like a fool or a failure. To flourish, you’ll need to keep going. Your life is worth it. You’ve got more inside you than you ever dared to dream.
In this second sermon in a three week series, I explore what it means to 1. Show up for your life, 2. Brave up when it gets tough, and 3. when you fall or fail, get back up. It’s a meditation on Luke 12.32-34 and a quote from Letters to a Young Poet: “Think of the world you carry within you. Attend to what rises within you and prize it above all that you perceive around you. What happens most deeply inside you is worthy of your whole love.” —Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926)
Find the text version of the sermon below; there is no audio recording of the sermon (October 27, 2019 was the day of massive wind and fire in Northern California; the congregation worshipped in the old way—without lights, power, and therefore no recording).
1.
Between 1902 and 1908, Ranier Maria Rilke, the Bohemian-Austrian poet, wrote a series of ten letters to Franz Kappus. Kappus was a 19-year old officer cadet at the Theresian Military Academy in Wiener Neustadt. The younger man was an aspiring poet who found himself wanting to be an artist, while being required to be an army officer.
Rilke’s letters, full of perennial wisdom, were finally published in 1929 under the title, “Letters to a Young Poet.” Many of you have probably heard of them; some of you have read them. The slim book has become one of the most influential books ever on the artistic process, on being true to oneself, on vulnerability, without which there can be no real creativity (for to be creative means we must take risks); the slim book has become one of the most enduring witnesses to what it means to dare to live a life of feeling, love, and the pursuit of truthfulness in a world that would sooner squeeze us into its mold and distract us from the goodness, beauty, and power of our soulfulness. Soulfulness, living authentically and in alignment with our true selves, is the key to our flourishing.
In the first letter, Kappus, the aspiring young poet asks Rilke, already published and famous, to read his poems and advise him on how to be an artist. Rilke refuses. "Nobody can advise you and help you, nobody. There is only one way. Go into yourself.”
“Go into yourself.” That is, practice deep self-inquiry; that was the theme of last week’s talk. “Go into yourself.” Find out who you really are, not the caricature of your true identity, not the facade you might project to the world, not the masks you may wear to please others or to protect yourself, but who you are in all your God-breathed wonder and value and beauty. Go there, but to go there you’ll need that which is the theme of this week’s message: you’ll need vulnerability
2.
“Think of the world you carry within you,” wrote Rilke to the young poet and officer.
Jesus himself once said something like this; perhaps Rilke got it from Jesus. If not, I think it’s safe to say that Jesus gave it to Rilke whether Rilke was aware of the gift or not.
“The Kin-dom of God is within you,” said Jesus. “God has not only put the Kin-dom there, but God is there. And in your heart shines the eternal beauty and sacredness of your soul. Prize it above everything else. In fact, you’d be wise to rid yourself of everything you possess that lures you away from this inner gold, all that competes with this inner genius and guide. Your soul is everything. If you lose what’s inside you, nothing outside you will be of any real use to you.”
With echoes of this divine wisdom, Ranier Maria Rilke wrote, Herr Kappus, “what happens most deeply inside you is worthy of your whole love.”
And that’s true for you too . . . and you and you and you . . . all of us.
“Think of the world you carry within you.”
“The beauty and sacredness of your soul.”
“Prize it above everything else.”
“If you lose what’s inside you, nothing outside you will be of any real use to you.”
3.
This is the second of three talks around the theme, “Flourish: How to Bring Out the Best in Yourself.” Last week we explored the “roar of awakening.”
The “roar of awakening” happens when we discover that we are more than we’ve thought we are. The “roar of awakening” happens when we discover that who we’ve become (or allowed ourselves to think we are) is not, in fact, who we truly are. The “roar of awakening” happens when something often painful, frightening, and unwelcome happens to us, and through our suffering we awaken to the truth that we’re not yet living from our true identity, the depth of our soul’s goodness, beauty, and power.
It’s likely that there’s no real awakening, no real roar rising from our souls without some kind of suffering, which is why Jesus begins the wisdom saying we’ve read today with the words, “Do not be afraid.”
One of the reasons we don’t awaken is because waking up can be so damn scary. Waking up, changing course, choosing a new path puts us in a vulnerable place, we enter a moment or season of uncertainty, risk, emotional, and sometimes physical exposure. When we’re vulnerable we can’t control the outcome. To be vulnerable, to open ourselves to what we cannot control, we need courage, we’ve got to be brave.
4.
I was a competitive swimmer from age nine to age sixteen. My best race was the 100 meter breast-stroke. At fourteen, I won third place at the Colorado state championships, touched out of first by a fraction of a second. I did so well that year, that the next year, I decided to try something different.
I was an accomplished breast-stroker. But I had always wanted to swim the 100 meter butterfly. If you’re a swimmer or if you know anything about competitive swimming, you know that while the butterfly is beautiful, it’s terribly difficult. The breast-stroke, back-stroke, and crawl-stoke all require you to knife through the water in the most efficient ways. Those who swim the butterfly throw themselves over the water; they fly. It’s a stroke that requires enormous muscle and extraordinary stamina not only to pull yourself through the water but to fight against gravity while you do it.
Part way through that next summer season, I appealed to my coach to let me swim the 100 meter butterfly. To me, it was the elite race.
She looked at me and said, “You think you’re up to it?”
“I am,” I said. Inwardly, I was afraid. Physically, the race would be the hardest thing I’d ever done.
At the half way mark, I was leading the race. I felt great. My technique was perfect. I was soaring. But after I made the turn and took the first few stokes toward the finish, I felt like something hit me—like a ton of bricks had dropped from the sky and landed on my back.
I’d failed to pace myself. Eager and naive, I’d put everything I had into the race from the beginning. Half way through I was done. I had nothing left.
I essentially bobbed the remaining 50 meters, barely able to lift my arms out of the water. It wasn’t pretty. And by the time I touched the wall, all the other swimmers were out of the water, the next race was waiting on the blocks. Exhausted and ashamed, I could hardly pull myself from the water. My coach was there to pull me out. She put a towel around me, her arm around my humiliated shoulders. She found a place out of the way and sat me down.
“The hundred fly is as hard a race as there is. You rocked the first fifty meters. The last fifty, well, you sucked.”
Tears filled my eyes. I knew I’d sucked. I knew everybody around the pool that day knew I’d sucked.
Then she shocked me.
“I’m proud of you, Chris. You were all in. You held nothing back. And you could have quit. I suppose you could have just floated to the side of the pool and slipped out and slinked away. But you didn’t. You were all in. That last fifty meters was the longest fifty meters I’ve ever had to watch. It hurt. But it wasn’t nearly as long or painful for me as it was for you. Today you were brave. I’m proud of you. You’ve got more inside you than you ever dared to dream.”
At the end of the year team banquet, the coaching staff gave out awards. I got the courage award. When my coach called me up, I was angry. People clapped. Some of them, not my friends, whistled tauntingly. She handed me the award, smiled at me, and let me sit down. My face was hot with shame. And then she said:
“There are a lot of important awards tonight. You’ve all worked hard. But this award is probably the most important, I want you to remember it, I want you to remember Chris—for there’s a life-lesson in it, in what he did, a lesson you’ll all need some time in the future if you’re going to be all you can be. Things are not always going to turn out the way you want. There are things you can’t control. There will come a time when each of you faces something you wish you’d done differently. You’ll feel like a fool or a failure. You’ll need to dig deep into yourself to keep going. But keep going, don’t ever, ever stop . . . because life, your life, is worth it. Take three things with you from tonight: 1. Show up for your life, 2. When it gets tough, brave up, and 3. when you fall or fail, get back up. Show up. Brave up. Get back up. You’ve got more inside you than you ever dared to dream. Dig deep and find it . . . because life, your life, is worth it.”
Show up for your life
When it gets tough, brave up, and
when you fall or fail, get back up
These three things are part of what it means to practice vulnerability, and without vulnerability there can be no creativity, no freedom, no real fullness to your life.
There will come a time when each of us must face something we don’t want to face, something we wish we’d not done or tried or had done differently. We’ll feel afraid or like a fool or a failure. We’ll have entered a moment or season of uncertainty, risk, emotional, and sometimes physical exposure. We will be vulnerable. But vulnerability is not weakness. Vulnerability walks hand in hand with courage. And only by becoming vulnerable will we find the courage to discover the beauty, goodness, and power of our souls.
Show up
Brave up
Get back up
You’ve got more inside you than you ever dared to dream. Find it . . . because life, your life, is worth it.
5.
I started with a poet; I end with a poet.
For poetry is what our lives can be if we will risk our vulnerability. And poetry has always pointed the human race toward the artistry of soulfulness, the fullness of our flourishing.
And a poem can say in a minute or two what a twenty-page paper or a twenty minute sermon has tried to say.
I’ve performed this one by Maya Angelou before. I don’t think we can hear it enough. We ought to hear it over and over until it gets inside us, liberates us, and moves us. In its crisp and memorable way it urges us to show up, brave up, and get back up—to live, love, and flourish.
We, unaccustomed to courage,
exiles from delight,
live coiled in shells of loneliness
until love leaves its high holy temple
and comes into our sight
to liberate us into life.
Love arrives
and in its train come ecstasies
old memories of pleasure
ancient histories of pain.
Yet if we are bold,
love strikes away the chains of fear
from our souls.
We are weaned from our timidity
In the flush of love's light
we dare be brave
And suddenly we see
that love costs all we are
and will ever be.
Yet it is only love
which sets us free.