available online here<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\nSermon: \u201cNew Year Wishes\u201d<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Even though the end of the calendar is a somewhat arbitrary moment, nevertheless for many of us the end of the year prompts us to reflect on what we\u2019ve done in the past year, and what we might do in the year to come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Admittedly, I\u2019ve never been a fan of reflecting on the past year. If I start reflecting on the past year, I tend to focus on the things that have gone wrong, and the things I\u2019ve done wrong, all of which always makes a long list. Maybe you\u2019re one of those people who can reflect productively on the past year, and if that\u2019s the case, this would be a worthwhile activity. Since I\u2019m not that kind of person, in this sermon I\u2019m going to avoid any reflection on the past year\u2019s events.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But I do find it helpful to think ahead to the new year; to reflect on what the new year might hold for me. I\u2019m not talking about the stereotypical New Year\u2019s resolutions. I have a poor track record with New Year\u2019s resolutions: I make them, and within a week I forget them. Instead, I\u2019m talking about something that is perhaps less mundane. Rather than coming up with resolutions that I know I\u2019ll forget, what I\u2019d like to reflect on with you are these two questions:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
— What might we hope for in the new year?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
— What wishes and dreams might inspire us?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You do have to be careful with these questions. It\u2019s easy to become hopelessly impractical. For example, as I reflect on the coming year, I might wish to be a better person than I actually am. I frequently wish that I were smarter, and more talented, and richer. But the reality is that I\u2019m not going to get any smarter; it\u2019s highly unlikely that I\u2019m going to discover any previously unknown talents; and I have no rich uncle who is going to die and leave me billions of dollars. (That\u2019s billions and not millions; if I\u2019m going to have a fantasy about getting rich, I want to be really rich.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
These sorts of fantasies don\u2019t make for good wishes, nor for good dreams. I am who I am, and you are who you are. We don\u2019t have to wish that we\u2019re different people than we are. The real point is to make better use of what wisdom, talents, and wealth we actually have. That is, it makes more sense to wish that we could make better use of what we actually have. Such an attitude might lead to more modest, and therefore more achievable wishes. I might wish that I could use what wisdom and talents I have to be a better friend and family member. Or, in another example, looking farther afield, I might wish that I could use what talents and skills I have to be a better citizen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Even then it\u2019s important to remain pragmatic. So, one of the things I really wish for, given the current state of the world, is peace; I wish for peace everywhere in the world. But that\u2019s a really big wish, and honestly it\u2019s pretty unrealistic. Probably everyone here has similar big wishes that you\u2019re really passionate about: slowing global climate change; ending poverty and homelessness; finally establishing equality for all genders and all racial groups; and solutions for other major worldwide problems. These kinds of New Year\u2019s wishes are so huge that I prefer to call them dreams. It is helpful to distinguish between what I\u2019m calling dreams and wishes. A wish is more modest, something that can be achieved by one person, something that pertains mostly to a single person or family. A dream is much grander in scope, and might pertain to all of humankind, or even to all living beings on Earth. So it is that I might wish for enough money that my spouse and I can retire someday; but I dream of a world where no one has to worry about poverty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I would add that a dream is something worth pursuing no matter how unrealistic it might sound at first. Thus, Martin Luther King, Jr., famously had a dream that there would be full racial equality in the United States. Although we have made progress towards racial equality in this country since King\u2019s death, we still have a long way to go. Yet even though it remains difficult to achieve the dream of full racial equality, it continues to be a dream well worth pursuing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
King\u2019s example brings up an important point. Dreams are usually so vast that one single individual can\u2019t make them come true. But this doesn\u2019t imply that one individual can\u2019t help turn the dream into reality. Martin Luther King, though he was just one individual, was able to do something to make his dream of racial equality come true. King had the talents and the abilities of leadership; he was able to motivate and to mobilize other people. But he did not work on his own. He used his talents and abilities to work with many other people; he was merely one person in a mass movement working for racial justice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Admittedly, we have to think honestly about the talents we each have. We have to be honest with ourselves about how we each can best use our talents to make some big dream come true. I dream of a world where ecological collapse isn\u2019t going to be as dire as some say. Stated like that, this dream doesn\u2019t sound especially realistic. It just sounds huge and amorphous. But huge and amorphous dreams aren\u2019t very helpful; I want to be able to do something to make dreams come true.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Henry Thoreau gave some good advice on this subject: \u201cIf you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.\u201d When we have big dreams, we have to figure out how to put foundations under them. Consider case of impending ecological disaster. How might we put foundations under this castle in the air? First, we can begin by breaking down the problem of ecological disaster into some component parts: there\u2019s global climate change, there\u2019s deforestation and land use change, there\u2019s toxication and pollution, there are invasive species, there\u2019s human overpopulation, and so on. Knowing that there are many people who share our dream of mitigating ecological disaster, we know that we don\u2019t have to do everything; we can pick one of these component parts to focus our efforts on. Then we can further focus our efforts by choosing tasks where we have the talents and abilities to make a difference. To help identify those tasks where we can make a difference, we have to be honest about what talents and abilities we actually have. I\u2019ll give you an example relating to the dream of stopping ecological disaster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I have friends who are very committed to stopping global climate change, and who are also good at engaging in civil disobedience. These are people who focus their efforts on developing and participating in innovative protest efforts to catch the attention of policy makers, and to convince those policy makers to come up with strategies to end global climate change. These friends of mine tell me about the protest efforts they have participated in; they compare notes about the times they got arrested; and they tally up the slow but steady progress they\u2019ve made towards influencing key policy makers. But if I\u2019m honest with myself, the things they are doing are not in my skill set. I would have no idea how to judge which protest efforts were going to be effective. I have no talent, and little ability, to participate in this kind of effort.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If I look at myself honestly, I have a quarter of a century of experience as an educator — not a classroom educator, but a non-traditional educator. While I have no skill at planning demonstrations that influence policy makers, I do have a reasonably large skillset for doing education with small groups. My modest talents and abilities aren\u2019t as interesting and charismatic as those of my friends who demonstrate against global climate change. But if I\u2019m honest with myself, I have to admit that if I\u2019m going to work towards the dream of stopping ecological disaster, it should be in the realm of education, not demonstration. So rather than demonstrating against climate change, I focus my efforts on addressing human overpopulation by providing high quality comprehensive sexuality education classes to early and middle adolescents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That kind of low-profile effort does not have the cachet of going to demonstrations, but it is nonetheless effective and worthwhile. I know many of you in this congregation are engaged in those kinds of low-profile (yet critically important) efforts. People in this congregation support the local food pantry; raise money to purchase medical supplies for Ukraine\u2019s defense efforts; sponsor a Guatemalan child\u2019s education; and so on. Our efforts may not be news-worthy, but they are important and effective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I also have to say that there are times in everyone\u2019s life when we don\u2019t have the the energy to do much of anything to make those big dreams come true. This happened to me seven or eight years ago, when I had one of those health crises in which I could just about get through a day at work, but I had no energy for doing anything else except sleep. I simply wasn\u2019t able to do anything to make any of the big dreams come true. Nevertheless, I could still do something. I didn\u2019t have any energy to do anything myself, but I could be supportive and encouraging to people who were working on those big dreams. Providing encouragement and support helps keep dreams alive in others. It may not seem like much, but it is actually quite important.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So as we think about New Year\u2019s dreams, let\u2019s go ahead and build castles in the air. If we\u2019re going to dream, let\u2019s dream big. And then we can put foundations under those castles in the air — by being honest with ourselves, being honest with what we can actually do, honest about our individual skills and abilities; that is, by being honest about both our strengths, and our limitations. No matter what our limitations, though, we can still dream the big dreams. We can all dream together about ending poverty, instituting full racial or gender justice, stopping ecological disaster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We just need to remember that dreams of truth and goodness are never out of reach. Emily Dickinson wrote:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee,
One clover, and a bee.
And revery.
The revery alone will do,
If bees are few.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
All it takes is one clover, one bee, and a dream of a prairie. In the absence of bees, dreaming alone will do. It may take less than we think to make dreams come true. It is a semi-magical process. Sometimes revery alone will do, though mostly it requires others who share our dream. But share your dreams for a better world, and they may come true.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sermon copyright (c) 2024 Dan Harper. As delivered to First Parish in Cohasset. The sermon as delivered contained substantial improvisation. The text below may have typographical errors, missing words, etc., because I didn’t have time to make any corrections. Readings The first reading was an excerpt from the poem \u201cThe Loneliness of the Military Historian\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[365],"class_list":["post-1796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-issues","tag-new-years-day"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1796"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1796\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1810,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1796\/revisions\/1810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}