Ligaments and Yokes

Ligaments and Yokes

The Rev. Dr. Mark A. Ehman

Anyone reading my sermon title might think that I was a physician or a farmer—or both. Actually, in a previous incarnation I was a farmer and knew a little about yoking cattle and harnessing horses. On the other hand, I make no claim to ever having been a physician. Nevertheless, I sometimes consult my daughter, Barbara, who is a nurse or my son-in-law, William, who is a pediatrician about medical questions. A few Christmases ago, when William was a fellow at Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, he and Barbara gave our family the Mayo medical guide as a Christmas present. As I scanned the book (all 1259 pages of it) I ran across a small section on “ligaments.” I wondered: Why so small? I had learned from my friends in sports medicine that 1) ligaments performed a very important function and 2) they were often torn or damaged. So I wondered: What is a ligament anyway? The Mayo glossary defines it thusly: a strong, fibrous connective tissue resembling a band or sheet that connects bone to bone or muscle to bone. It is a connector--something that binds various parts of the body together. When those parts become unhinged or the tissue becomes torn, it must be repaired, reconnected—either by allowing natural healing to take its course or, in extreme cases with surgery. In short, the tissue needs to be “religged.”

Now think about that word—religged. It is the Latin term from which “religion” comes. Indeed, it is the word used by the Romans—long before the empire, long before the republic—to indicate the functions of their cultic and sacramental activities. Religion was a “binding back,” a “reconnecting,” a “religging” of parts of the community that had been torn asunder. Historians dispute over what exactly needed to be reconnected. Perhaps it was a re-binding of the human community with the divine pantheon; perhaps it was the restoration of order in an ever violent tribal society. One fascinating myth tells the story of how the Tiber River (which was also a god) became angry with human beings for attempting to build a bridge over the rushing waters. The river became a raging stream and destroyed the bridge; however, the Latins, undisturbed by the course of events reconnected the two sides of their growing village by building another bridge over the river. The “bridge-builders” were known as pontifices (pontifexes or priests). No matter what the Romans thought had become disconnected in their lives, they believed that “re-connection” was the essence of religion. The ligament which had bound their community together had been torn, and it was the duty of religion to see that it was reattached.

But what about yokes? The image that comes to mind immediately is of a heavy wooden bar with hoops on the bottom for the heads of cattle or oxen. Further, the image calls to mind drawings or descriptions of families moving westward on the American frontier with yoked animals pulling the heavily laden carts or the Conestoga wagons. A yoke implies that the animals are tied together, and that they must work together if the goal is to be achieved. But there is an additional meaning to the word “yoke.” The English word is a direct descendant from the Sanskrit term “yoga.” We in the west are accustomed to think of yoga as some sort of physical exercise (and that it is). However, its initial meanings are far more inclusive than what is understood by the popular mind. The Bhagavad Gita (from which I read this morning) is often called the “bible of Hinduism.” In a short eighteen chapters the Gita outlines three kinds of yoga—the yoga of knowledge, the yoga of action and the yoga of devotion. These yogas constitute the very essence of religion and religious life for many Hindus. Religion is “doing yoga.”

There are three yogas, according to the Gita, because each individual person is different. Different personalities require different forms of religion. For those who are disposed to the intellect and who love to study about the deeper questions of human existence, there is the yoga of knowledge. For those who are oriented toward an active life and seek to effect creative change in the world, there is the yoga of action. And for those who encounter the universe as personal and who feel the warmth of its love, the fullness of its bounty, and the comfort of its protection, there is the yoga of devotion. The Gita makes it clear that no one yoga is “best” for everyone. One cannot announce to the world that “my yoga is better than yours; my religion is better than your religion.” All yogas are designed to accomplish the ultimate purpose. All yogas are legitimate forms of practice.

So yoga is religion! What is it that the Hindus wanted to “yoke?” What did they want to “connect?” First of all, they wanted to unite their external world of experience with their internal world of conscience. They knew that conscience influenced experience and that experience shaped conscience. But they also knew that only when these worlds were held together, “yoked,” that human activity was enhanced and that human life was fulfilled. Second, they wanted to unite their individual self with the individual selves of their brothers and sisters. They realized that they did not exist alone in the world. They realized that a village, a town, a city was not a community unless it was “yoked;” unless there were strong ties established between one person and another. Otherwise it was simply a collection of people. (What a lesson for us as Americans! What a lesson for this congregation of Unitarian Universalists! Are we a collection of people or are we a yoked community?) Third, and finally, the Hindus wanted to “yoke” their individual selves with the cosmos. They recognized that the universe was larger than their little village. They marveled at the stars, trembled at the mighty power of the rivers and realized their smallness in the face of the majestic snow-capped mountains. But they were convinced—perhaps only through intuition—that all of this was One. The cosmos was the whole, the truth, the ultimate reality. And if the cosmos was the whole, they wanted to be “yoked” to it. And so throughout their lives—or their tens of thousands of lives—they engaged in this “yoking process” in order, in the end, to experience the highest reality possible—the reality of peace.

It seems to me that in both of these instances—the ancient Roman and the ancient Hindu—there are profound lessons for our contemporary times. Both of these traditions start from the assumption that there is some kind of disruption in human life. Things are not the way they ought to be. Certainly, we have no greater illustration of this than the events of the last week and a half. Things have become disconnected, unyoked. We can all debate over “why” they have become this way, but that misses the point. A person who accidentally sits on a tack does not concern himself/herself with “why” the tack was there or “why” the tack produces discomfort. He/she is only concerned with removing the tack and easing the pain. Our present disconnectedness may have many causes—some of which we may never know. But for religious persons these causes are not the point. The religious question for our time is “How may we reconnect, relig, reyoke, and heal the wound that hurts so deeply in our human soul? How may we restore ourselves to wholeness, truth and community in our world?”

Before hazarding some direct answers to this question I must interject some observations made by two contemporary writers. The first observation comes from Elizabeth Lerner, UU minister in Silver Spring, Maryland. Writing in Quest, the monthly “communicator” of the Church of the Larger Fellowship, Ms. Lerner asks: Does religion have a future? This may seem to be a strange question for a minister to ask (but then, she’s a UU minister, and they ask anything). She recounts her experience in watching the television series “Star Trek: The Next Generation.” It was much advanced over the original “Star Trek” with up-to-date technology and futuristic personnel. And, she observes, “there was a ship’s counselor with the handy ability to read thoughts and emotions. There were trauma, death, miracles, transformation, celebration, loss, and renewal. What the crew didn’t have was a chaplain to help with any of this—no minister, rabbi, imam or priest. And I remember my surprise and interest when that lack was mentioned and explained by the captain . . . He said that in recent centuries humanity had outgrown religion. We had evolved beyond it.” Suffice it to say, Ms. Lerner does not agree with the captain. She is convinced that religion does have a future, and that it offers us the possibility (if we will accept the challenge) of addressing the “great human questions” in an unique and creative way.

My second author is Huston Smith, sometime professor of religion at Washington University, MIT, Syracuse and University of California at Berkeley. In addition, Smith’s immortality is guaranteed because he is one of those favored few who has been interviewed by Bill Moyers. (I must confess that I am a bit envious, and am continuing to seek my own immortality by trying to contact Bill and see if he will interview me. Alas, I don’t hold out much hope.) Smith has just written a new book entitled: Why Religion Matters. The subtitle is equally intriguing: The Fate of the Human Spirit in an Age of Disbelief. (I believe that the librarians have ordered this book. You should read it.) Smith’s subtitle implies a point that I have been making throughout this sermon—that our present world is disconnected, out of sync, or as Hamlet said, out of joint. And I am sure that Smith did not realize just how prophetic he was in view of the events of September 11. If “black Tuesday” did nothing more than lead us to a shocking awareness that there is a monumental rift within the community of humankind, it has taught us a sobering lesson. Yes, we cry for the victims; yes, we mourn with the families; yes, we feel anger toward those who would sponsor and commit such an act. But let us not lose focus. The act is a symptom that something is dreadfully wrong in the family of six billion, and we are faced with the task of setting it right.

Huston Smith is an optimist. He, like Elizabeth Lerner, believes that religion may offer us a key to our dilemma—not religion that is co-opted by some for self-serving ends, not religion that is denominationally restricted, not religion that is so concerned with the next world that it chooses to ignore the problems of this world—but a religion that commits itself to accomplishing what its name suggests—rebinding, reconnecting, religging, reyoking. Smith outlines four reasons why he concludes that religion does matter and why it may offer us direction in all arenas of our life. First, he says, that religion asks the “great” questions, the ultimate questions of human life—What is the meaning of existence? Why do pain and death occur? Why is life worth living? The ability to raise these questions is what defines our humanity. Second, he notes, that there is an enormous distance between the questions we ask and the answers we seek. This observation should remind us of the humanness, our “all-too-humanness,” of our humanity. We may learn to ask the right question, but we soon come to realize that the answer lies far beyond our grasp. But Smith is an optimist, and so he asserts that our questions have answers, and thus we keep on asking. He states: “Though final answers are unattainable, we can advance toward them as we advance toward horizons that recede with our every step. In our faltering steps toward the horizon we need all the help we can get, so we school ourselves to the myriad of seekers who have pondered the ultimate questions before us.” Finally, religion presupposes a community, a congregation, a tribe, a nation, a world in which our search for answers takes place. We are not alone. We’re all in this together. And to ignore or ostracize one segment of the community, to pit one faction of the tribe against another, is to lose the dignity and glory of what it means to be human.

And now I return to my earlier question: How may we reconnect and heal the wound that hurts so deeply in our soul? Please indulge me in making some negative comments first. We don’t do it by making war on our brothers and sisters. We don’t do it by threatening any segment of our community with reprisal, sanction or annihilation. We don’t do it by engaging in rhetoric that only serves to further separate, rather than reconnect. We don’t do it by turning our backs upon the very liberties which we believe define us as Americans—and as human beings. We don’t do it by the profiling of others—either mentally or actually—saying privately to ourselves: “That person has an accent, that person wears a turban, that person looks like a foreigner, that person carries a dagger, therefore they are the targets of our mistrust and our wrath.” And finally we don’t do it by tolerating religious responses by so-called religious leaders that fan the flames of prejudice and create further animosity.

So what about the positive comments? What concrete steps may we take to reconnect, to be religious men and women in the face of increasing and threatening dangers? It seems to me that Unitarian Universalists are uniquely positioned to take the lead in answering this question. If we believe that “reason” is a defining mark of human beings, then we should employ all means within our power to apply it. I am not suggesting that we can reason with Osama bin Laden. The time is past for that. But have we tried to sit down with Muhammad Omar or the Muslim clerics and listen to them, as we would hope that they would listen us? Have we asked the Russians why they failed in Afghanistan? Have we any clue as to what religion means and how it works in a Muslim society? (I’m as guilty as anyone on this score. My knowledge of Islam is exceedingly superficial. I can only guess why America appears so offensive to some of them.) It seems to me that reason provides us with a tool to reconnect. Moreover, reason is the means whereby those who have stepped beyond the boundaries of human propriety are brought to justice. The International Court and other tribunals are settings in which offenders are tried, using the principles which Americans and UUs cherish so deeply—due process, innocent until proven guilty, justice rather than revenge, a profound respect for all humanity and the environment in which it exists.

This leads to a second suggestion: Think globally and act globally, as well as locally. Our world has become too small for us to remain isolated from one another. I believe that our religious roots—particularly our UU roots—offer us the basis for a new way of thinking—an holistic way, rather than a fragmented way. So write your representatives in Congress, write the President, write the Secretary General of the United Nations, write Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists around the world (the internet makes it easy enough to do this) and call upon them to join with you and me to renounce terrorism and aid in reconnecting the human community.

Finally, think peace, rather than war. It is amazing what a change of mind and a change of direction will do to heal the brokenness of our world. And if we “think peace,” we must commit ourselves to “act peaceably”—if for no other reason than for our children. What must they think when they hear us rattling sabers and beating drums? They should be proud of their country—as they have been over these past several days—flying flags, singing songs, grieving over the fallen. But we must never let them forget that there is a larger picture--that boys and girls around the world share the same experiences as they do. A girl in China or a boy in Pakistan wrestles with the same fears, has the same needs and longs for the same fulfillment as our children. So, for their sakes, let us vow to “turn our swords into plowshares and our spears into pruning hooks.”

To the end of fostering peace and serving as a beacon for our young, I am proposing that within the next three weeks the Unitarian Universalist Church of Ft. Myers sponsor a community-wide “Program for Peace”—a time of gathering in which the representatives of Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, the Chinese traditions, Sikhism, Roman Catholicism, Protestantism, evangelical Christianity, Unitarian Universalism, paganism and humanism make brief statements on what peace means in each tradition and how we may bring it to fruition in our disconnected world. I would hope we would begin now to make this program a reality.

The hard question faces us today: Will we become “ligaments” and “yokes,” or will we turn our backs on our suffering world? The choice is ours; the challenge is ours.

Peace, Pax, Pace, Friede, Salaam, Shalom, Wen, Heiwa. Om. Shanti, Shanti, Shanti!!!