February 21, 2021 - First Sunday in Lent - RE:alize - The Facts of Life

Pastor Sara Gross Samuelson presided today. She is the pastor at Storyline and will be leading a series that Creator will be following during Lent called me and white supremacy. She began today preaching on the topic and began with a poem by Pádraig Ó Tuama. I remember him quoting a favorite author of mine at a TED talk.

  “We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are.” 

Anaïs Nin

By starting with this poem and what Pastor Sara preached today, this was a heartfelt introduction to this reckoning with racism that has been on my mind a great deal recently.  It is too easy to get lost in past injustice and our reactions to our history. The Facts of Life root us in some spiritual truths we can easily, but must not, forget.

Pastor Sara talked about the tensions in the poem and that, in Lent, we are all beginning a wilderness journey of repentance. Repentance isn't a one time and your done declaration. She and Creator as a congregation, Storyline, Oak Grove and other communities are committing to the process of repentance.

The first part of this repentance process is to "RE:alize". To realize means we need to be fully aware of something as fact The poem is articulate about the tension between facts and perception. This is an era where we are all seeking facts over perceptions when perceptions are often presented as facts. Facts are complicated and, in this time where information is widely distributed and shared, our desire is to simplify things to what we see are simple facts. Perceptions are often demoted when compared to facts but how is what is fact arbitrated? She quotes the author who asks "if someone says I haven't slept a wink since my husband was murdered thirty years ago." are you going to argues with them on the basis of facts?

What are the facts of our lives? 

The Facts of Life

By Pádraig Ó Tuama

That you were born
and you will die.

That you will sometimes love enough
and sometimes not.

That you will lie
if only to yourself.

That you will get tired.

That you will learn most from the situations
you did not choose.

That there will be some things that move you
more than you can say.

That you will live
that you must be loved.

That you will avoid questions most urgently in need of
your attention.

That you began as the fusion of a sperm and an egg
of two people who once were strangers
and may well still be.

That life isn’t fair.
That life is sometimes good
and sometimes better than good.

That life is often not so good.

That life is real
and if you can survive it, well,
survive it well
with love
and art
and meaning given
where meaning’s scarce.

That you will learn to live with regret.
That you will learn to live with respect.

That the structures that constrict you
may not be permanently constraining.

That you will probably be okay.

That you must accept change
before you die
but you will die anyway.

So you might as well live
and you might as well love.
You might as well love.
You might as well love.