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Movin' the Rock
A Sermon for Prairie Crossing Unitarian Universalist Congregation
Sunday, March 4, 2007
Bruce Moon

Sermon:

(Sermon begins with moving the rock from one place to another)

This is a bit frightening, moving that rock back and forth with no explanation. Maybe you're wondering what that's all about. I wonder, what will you think of me when this service is over? I have given keynote speeches and made professional presentations about art therapy at colleges and conferences throughout the United States, but this is different. You are a little like family… and Cathy and I have chosen this as our community of faith, so the stakes are higher. If you don't like what I have to say and how I say it, or if you end up thinking I am nuts, movin' this rock back and forth, well then what? Oh well, let's take a leap of faith, here goes.

I want to revisit some of the words we've heard this morning.

In the prelude we heard - Love me like a rock. We listened to the story of Sisyphus, pushing his rock up the hill, time after time. Imagine all that work, only to have it roll back to the bottom, waiting for him to push again. And, from the confessional lyric by James McMurtry, "and that's how it is, that's what we got, if the President wants to admit it or not. You can read it in the paper, read it on the wall, hear it on the wind if you're listening at all." And Mark and Jim sang these words from Paul Simon, "I don't know a soul who's not been battered, I don't have a friend who feels at ease. I don't know a dream that's not been shattered, or driven to its knees." And from the gospel of Matthew, "do not resist one who is evil, but if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also." Finally, from Viktor Frankl's writing about his experiences in the concentration camp Auschwitz, "…everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.

(move the rock)

These are hard words. What do they have to do with one another?

I volunteered to give this homily way back in October of last year and for three or four months I played around with rough ideas about what I wanted to say. I was pretty sure I wanted it to be a sort of scathing attack on the way the world is, filled with self-righteous indignation and condemnation of the way our government seems to be behaving these days. (I so like being indignant and self-righteous!) I'd decided the title would be Hope and Despair, and I'd gotten pretty clear about what I thought the message of the homily would be. Ahh, the best laid plans of mice and men.

In late January, Cathy and I had tickets to see Butch Hancock in concert at the Old Town School of Folk Music. Butch is a singer-songwriter from South Texas who has been around for quite a while. Politically he is a little to the left of Jane Fonda and George McGovern, and he had just released a new CD titled War and Peace. Listen to this stanza from one of his songs: "Desert storms…call to arms…call it what you will. One nation out from under God with justice standin' still. Noriega, North, and Nixon now, like father and like son, one steps aside one steps right in, to carry on… the damage done." Talk about righteous indignation! Needless to say, I was looking forward to an evening of listening to Butch rail against the evils of military industrial complex.

As it happened, the evening began with Robbie Foulks, the MC host, sitting on stage interviewing Butch. At one point in the interview Foulks asked Butch a question about all the anger that was on display in his new CD. I sat forward in anticipation, listening hard, not wanting to miss any invectives launched toward the Bush administration. To my surprise, Butch denied being angry. In fact, he said, "There's already enough anger in the world. I think what we need is forgiveness." He went on to say that it's obvious that you can't fight war with war…and that he is trying to forgive George W. and his cronies.

Later that week, Cathy and I were talking about our reactions to the concert and I mentioned that I was a little skeptical about what Butch had said about forgiveness. I even accused him of being in denial of his own anger. I mean, after all, listen to this stanza from his song about whom he'd like to send to hell… "I'm gonna send some liars, I'm gonna send some thieves, gonna send some dope fiends and their dope, I've gotta send the president, I've gotta send some kings, and you can bet your ass I'm gonna send the pope." Doesn't that sound a little angry? Then Cathy said something about it being possible to be angry and still forgive.

The notion that one can forgive and still be angry has stuck with me. And it ruined my idea about this homily.

(move the rock)

I don't know if Sisyphus got angry at the gods or at his boulder. I can't imagine that he didn't, and yet, he continued to push the rock anyway.

I wonder how Paul Simon can, in one breath, say "I don't know a soul who's not been battered" and in the next say, "But I'm alright, I'm alright." And you have to question Jesus' sanity in this turn the other cheek stuff. And how could Viktor Frankl, in the midst of the most horrible circumstance imaginable say that, "one occasionally found a decent fellow among the camp guards."

I think that Sisyphus, and Paul, and Jesus, and Viktor, and Butch share a common trait…the will to forgive. I am afraid that I don't have this trait. Where does such forgiveness come from?

(move the rock)

The Forgiveness Project

The Forgiveness Project is an arts organization working with grassroots projects in the fields of conflict resolution, reconciliation, and victim support, through performance, exhibition and on-line advocacy.

At a time when scenes of atrocity, conflict and crime fill our TV screens and newspapers, when tit-for-tat killings, attacks and counter-attacks seem to grab all the headlines, The Forgiveness Project aims to tell the quieter, less publicized stories of reconciliation. The stories of people who have discovered that the only way to move on in life, is to lay aside hatred and blame.

A small team of artists, technicians, and activists working purely independently with no religious, governmental, or other organizational affiliation created the Forgiveness Project. The Forgiveness Project can be accessed at www.theforgivenessproject.com and the touring exhibition, titled The F Word is an evolving collection of narratives. I'd like to share with you one of The F Word stories created by two women, Phyllis Rodriguez & Aicha el-Wafi.

On September 11th 2001 Phyllis Rodriguez's son Greg was killed along with 3000 others when the World Trade Centre collapsed. The following year she met Aicha el-Wafi whose son Zacarias Moussaoui had been charged with conspiracy in connection with the attacks. Aicha had travelled from France to New York for a private meeting with families who had lost loved ones in the terrorist attacks. From that first meeting a strong friendship has developed between the two women. In 2006 Moussaoui received a life sentence for his role in the September 11th terror attacks.

Phyllis says:

I was listening to a telephone message from Greg saying there had been a terrible accident at the World Trade Center. I didn't know which tower he worked in, but when I saw on television the second plane crash into the second tower, I knew it was no accident. I rang family and friends and said: 'He called, he's OK'. I couldn't take it in until it was officially announced the following evening that he had perished along with 3000 others.

My husband, our family and I were devastated and what made it all so much worse was knowing that the US government would use our son's name to take military action abroad. Before Greg died I'd felt a distant empathy for all those parents in the world who had lost children, but now there was deep understanding. We were the same.

The day that I met Aicha was the day that changed my life because it changed my direction emotionally. It was the beginning of my learning that someone like Aicha, who has suffered so much, could still be emotionally generous. It brought out the generosity in me and I felt better for it. Since then I've learnt that one way to heal is to bridge the gap between ourselves and the 'other'. A Moroccan Muslim woman living in France and a secular Jewish woman living in the US are no different because our hearts are joined. It was an accident of history that brought us together and it is an accident of history that Zacarias is now in prison and my son died in the World Trade Center. It could have been the reverse.

When Greg was killed I thought, I will never forgive the people who murdered my son, but I have come to see forgiveness as more than a word; it's a context, a process. I don't forgive the act, but trying to understand why someone has acted in the way he has is part of the process of forgiving. Forgiveness is being able to accept another person for being human and fallible.

Knowing Aicha has given me strength and taken away my anger and bitterness. It has also helped me forgive myself because a mother always feels guilty when things don't go right for her children.

(move the rock)

I'm an art therapist and art therapy educator by trade. Art therapy is about helping people express feelings, desires and ideas that sometimes cannot be put into words. For 22 years I worked in a small psychiatric hospital in Columbus, Ohio. For the last ten of those years I worked primarily with children and adolescents who had been abused in some way. The little kids didn't have words to describe what had happened to them, and the adolescents were so angry, they were not about to discuss their feelings with an adult male. But in both instances these kids had feelings of hurt, betrayal, anger, and pain that they desperately needed to express.

I'm a full time professor now, but one afternoon a week I provide pro bono art therapy to adolescents at a residential treatment center that specializes in boys who have committed a sexual offense of some kind. As you might expect, a good number of those boys are themselves victims of abuse. It's really a vicious cycle. Let me tell you about one boy, whom I will call Jamal.

There are shadows through the window
Washed in sullen light
I paint…Jamal paints
crimes from a past he will not speak
brushes form the mystery
umbrage caught in history

And I wonder at his life
The perversion, shame, and betrayal that brought him here…all
tainted scenes of home that haunt his memory
           words he did not hear
           roles twisted and unclear
           cast in shades and echoed
           reverberations making their way
           aching to be let go
           the rumbling and grumbling of an appetite
           never satisfied

They told me when I came here
These kids will surely lie
Do not turn your back, they said
But they did not tell me why

He pushes colors oozing
Images confusing
recounting corruption,
he seldom speaks
so little he could say

I look at this man/boy and wonder
Why'd they do what they did to you
Why'd they do what they did to you

Jamal looks at me
Then turns the other way
Dust and light through the window
He turns his eyes away

Inside my head the Who sing
          I can't reach you
          With arms outstretched I can't reach you
          I crane my neck I can't reach you

Still, we paint, each Thursday
From 3:30 to 4:30, week after week
We paint

One day I see an attendant walking across the parking lot
She waves, asks, what are you doing with Jamal
          I wonder why
She says, he's always ready to go on Thursday afternoon
Stands by the door waiting to be taken to you
Usually we have to push him …almost drag him
But not on Thursday afternoons
         Hmmm, wha'd'ya know

He begins…he always begins by
Staring at the canvas
Just sitting, staring
And then, at some secret inner signal
paint begins to flow

Blue - black - red - yellow
feelings he keeps hidden
shades that gush and splatter in a rushing river
Of pain and passion
My words cannot tell you
Of the violence and loss
and the unspoken cost

Jamal, why'd they do what they did to you

He paints a forest and a river and
a tent and a campfire… no people
I am watching…I paint two people by the fire
He looks at me, smiles
I ask, what color should your shirt be … I ask,
Red… he tells me

He paints a city at night and fishing pier
I am watching…I paint a colorful fish
And when the attendant comes to take Jamal
Back to the unit, Jamal points to the pier
Points to the fish
Says to the attendant, "Look."

And as months pass he talks a little more
we paint love, guilt, sadness, fear, happiness
Loneliness, contentment, shame, hurt, reverence, loss,
Confusion, rage, desperation, hesitation, fascination,
And redemption

This is not a nice place
This place where Jamal and I meet
No, I cannot pretend it is,
This is not a nice place
It is not home.
Jamal did not ask to come here…

We tear off calendar pages
Crumple and toss them like three pointers
He always wins this game, but still
This is not a nice place

We are talking about his discharge
He tells me he'd like to paint a gift to this place
I ask him why
He says, they can put it in the lobby
And some new kid will come
Kid will ask who did that painting
And they will tell him that a former patient gave it to the place
New kid will think, maybe this place ain't so bad

So many sessions…so many feelings
Shadows in the window
Guilt, and rage, and letting go
Unspoken feelings driven
Jamal forgives and is forgiven
Jamal forgives and is forgiven

(move the rock)


The story is told of Viktor Frankl's darkest hour in the concentration camp; when sick, malnourished and overworked he lay too tired to sleep on his cot. He began to sink into hopelessness and despair as he surveyed all the misery and suffering that surrounded him. It was just then that he saw a pebble on the dirt floor beside him. He reached out, picked up the pebble and moved it several inches away, and said underneath his breath, "I choose to move this stone." And then he did it again… "I choose to move this stone." From that moment on he knew that although he could not escape the horrific influences of the camp, he could choose how he would respond to those influences. In Man's Search For Meaning, Frankl says:

And there were always choices to make. Every day, every hour, offered the opportunity to make a decision, a decision which determined whether you would or would not submit to those powers which threatened to rob you of your very self, your inner freedom….

What if Sisyphus was not really condemned by the gods to eternally push the boulder up the hill? Perhaps he chooses to do so because he knows that this is the way life is.

Let us be alert.

We have all seen the Vietnam Vet with his cardboard sign, and the empty pallets, rusty tracks and boarded up storefronts in our hometowns. We know about Wal-Mart, outsourcing, and sweatshops. Ever since Auschwitz and MeLi and Abugraeb, and the stories we hear and read about kids like Jamal... we know about the damage people can do. There is only one nation on this planet that has ever been mad enough to drop atomic bombs, and ever since Hiroshima we know the stakes are frighteningly high.

(move the rock)

And Jesus said, "turn the other cheek." I'd like to say I do that, but most of the time I'd be lying. Butch Hammond said, "We can't fight war with war. What we really need is forgiveness." I confess I'm not too good at forgiving. I think of all the pains Jamal has suffered in his life, and all the pain he has caused, and I hear Viktor Frankl encourage us to choose how we will respond to life.

Paul Simon told the truth:

I don't know a soul that's not been battered
I don't have a friend who feels at ease
I don't know a dream that's not been shattered
Or driven to its knees
But I'm all right, I'm all right…

I wish I could always turn the other cheek. I wish I always found it easy to forgive. I wish I always made good choices. But none of these wishes are true.

Still, in the names of Jesus, Paul, Viktor, Phyllis, Aicha, and Jamal, I promise to choose to try, and if you too make such choices… well, maybe that's where hope lives.