Spiritually Grounded
Year Delivered or Published: 2007
Author: Carol Howard Merritt
Author's Faith: Christianity
Date Submitted to Inspiration and Issues: April 9, 2007
Topic: Spirituality
Citation: Psalm 1:1-6
It’s early in the morning and I’m alone in the living room, lying down, trying to think about my breath moving in and out, watching my belly move up and down. I have Langston Hughes running through my mind, his substantial voice is saying to me, “My soul has grown deep like the rivers.”
We have him reading his poem on our ipod, and when we last put it on shuffle, his voice was mixed in with the music. Even with the eclectic musical tastes in our home, it was startling. The words stuck with me.
I’ve known rivers:
I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the
flow of human blood in human veins.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln
went down to New Orleans, and I’ve seen its muddy
bosom turn all golden in the sunset
I’ve known rivers:
Ancient, dusky rivers.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
My voice does no justice to the poems. I know that. That’s why I’m on my back, because I’ve always gotten complaints about my voice. It started when I was seventeen, in a drama club, where people teased me enough that I got rid of my Southern accent. I didn’t drop it consciously. It was just that I found out that some words have only one syllable. O-one. Not two-o.
Then, when I was in seminary, I was on the staff of this really large church, and I got multiple complaints that my voice was too nasally, so I went to my preaching professor, and he told me, “Don’t worry. People got used to Truman Capote’s voice, they can get used to yours.”
I felt better, until I realized the he had just compared my voice to Truman Capote’s.
The Head of Staff said I needed to take voice lessons.
As a pastor at a new congregation, after my first Sunday, one of my parishioners suggested to the worship committee that they cut off my mic while I preached, because she just couldn’t stand my screechy voice.
Um. We didn’t do that.
When I became a pastor in Washington, DC, I figured that it would be a good place to look for a voice coach. People seem to make a lot of speeches there, and surely some of them were like me, needing a bit of help. I found one. I’ve been going to her for a couple of weeks now. But before I can learn how to talk, I’m learning how I breathe. In and out.
I’m learning that I rarely use my whole belly. After all of those years of trying to suck in my stomach to look thinner, I actually do it, and cut off a lot of my capacity. But when I’m on my back, I allow my stomach to grow big, and I feel my breath traveling deeper, like rivers that have been damned for many years.
As I enjoy the stillness of the living room, I remember that mindful breathing is a spiritual exercise. Thich Nhat Hahn, the Buddhist monk, encourages new students to breathe on their backs, so they can be more aware of where their breath is traveling. This isn’t a discipline that I practice much. I usually practice walking meditation, except when I’m anxious. When something important is about to happen, and I don’t feel prepared or adequate enough for the occasion, there is something about breathing that calms me.
My breath moves in and out, in a very individual, personal way. I feel it moving deeper inside of me; I even seem to feel it in my hips, maybe in my thighs. Yet, as the air travels to new depths within me, I am, at the same time, more aware of my dependence on the world around me. I’m part of an ecosystem, something much larger than myself. I rely on trees for oxygen and other humans to keep the air clean. I’m attached to this environment, dependent on it. Even in the air that I breathe, what I do affects you; what you do affects me.
In Hebrew, the original language of the Old Testament Scriptures, there is a word, ruah, which means wind, breath or spirit. When we translate the Hebrew into English, we have to make the choice of which of these three words to use. In our myths of creation, ruah blows over the earth bringing the watery chaos into order. And God forms us from the dust of the ground, and breathes ruah into us. We are animated with God’s wind/breath/spirit.
I grew up in the evangelical movement, which had a strong emphasis on individual decisions. Christianity was often presented to me as an autonomous choice: I needed to make a decision whether I was going to heaven or going to hell. No one could make it for me. I had to decide whether to invite Jesus into my heart. Then I needed to convince others to make that personal decision, or they would be going to hell.
As I’ve grown older, I’ve realized that my spiritual life is not as individual as all of that. I’m relieved, because I’m not a black and white thinker. My belief in God is a series of fits and starts.
I get angry with God. Sometimes, when I see devastation, when I see how war affects children, or disease can ravish a population, or a hurricane can wipe out a community, I wonder if God exists.
In truth, I have to amend that statement. Sometimes I get angry when atrocities occur and affect the most innocent and vulnerable. When there’s no one to blame, I blame God for not being powerful enough, or not caring enough to stop it from happening. Then I withhold my belief from God, like a bitter spouse withholding her affections.
In seminary, as I prepared to become a pastor, professors cautioned us that the R-E-V in front of a name did not guarantee that we would believe in God everyday. We would have the same doubts, and maybe even some more, after we became ministers. They were right, and very wise for warning us about this. And so I’ve learned that the spiritual life is not a decision that I make, it’s more like breathing.
We have been created to breathe, this ruah moves through us. It can be intentional, but usually it’s automatic. It’s both an individual practice, and it’s also dependent on community.
The Psalmist has a different image of this.
“Happy are those who delight in the law of God.
They are like trees planted by streams of water
which yield their fruit in season
their leaves do not wither
and in all that they do, they prosper.”
I love to walk along the streams near my home and see the trees. The stream makes a gorge, and cuts through the land. I never get tired of looking at the roots growing down, around the rocks. In their search for moisture, they’re so tenacious, so resilient. I have seen trees growing up, when the soil has completely disappeared from half of its base, somehow the roots still anchor it. I don’t know how they stay upright, but they do.
It’s the same way for me and for you. On a given day, when you cannot will yourself to believe, when the nourishing soil is gone from beneath you, when despair overcomes you, so that you can’t imagine a loving God, you can know that you’re rooted in the faith of this community. If you can’t get past your cynicism that will not allow you to do something as foolish as believe in a loving Creator, or if you just can’t get over the sexism or the homophobia that churches often encourage, you can rest here. If you just can’t trust in a loving God, after what you’ve endured as a child, at the hands of people who were supposed to take care of you, it’s okay. You’re here. Your roots are growing deeper.
And we’ll be here, week after week. We’ll keep praying the prayers, singing the hymns, reading the Scriptures, sharing communion, and celebrating baptisms. We are a part of a two thousand year tradition, a river of life that pulses with faith. People have come before us, and they will come after us.
Your very breath is connected with the spirit of God. You don’t have to make yourself believe, any more than you have to make yourself breathe. There’s a certain peace that can come from faith, but if you can’t bring yourself to believe anything this morning, it’s alright. You are here, that’s what’s important. Your faith is deeper than you realize, because it grows within this community. God will still be there at the end of the struggle that you’re going through.
Our souls grow deep even during seasons of disbelief. There’s a part of ourselves that reaches down for something to explain the world, and we can begin to realize that we’re a part of something much bigger. And as this intricate system grows, as we become more connected with a spiritual community, we become grounded. So even during seasons of drought or when we cannot stand on our own, our leaves will not wither. We’re surrounded by imperfect people who can support us in our spiritual lives.
I think that’s what Langston Hughes was explaining in his poetry, and his writings. He was a part of the Harlem Renaissance, and when he spoke of his soul, he did not speak of only his personal experience, but something that was much deeper than that. He spoke of his connection with the Euphrates, the Congo, the Nile, the Mississippi. Hughes was full of pride to be African American, and realized that his soul grew deep with the connection to a history and a movement of a people.
And so let us grow deep this morning, rooted in this wise and ancient faith, may we understand that our relationship with God does not depend on the frailty of our own decisions, but it’s grounded in the depths of a community.
