Pick Your Battles
The Reverend Dr. Jim Nelson
September 26, 2004

As nursing homes go, it wasn't bad. Probably fifty years old or so, the halls were a little dark, and the rooms smelled faintly of body and disinfectant. It had mostly an excellent staff, the great majority either foreign born or from a minority; it was next to a cemetery and a large Presbyterian church, and the home had about 300 residents. There was an on-staff chaplain, several physicians on call, and an adequate complement of nurses and aids, social workers and physical therapists. Hospice patients brought their own staff - social workers, nurses, a doctor and chaplain. I had as number of patients there. Some suffered with Alzheimer's and there was little to do other than to go and sit, read to them or just read in silence, then call the family and tell them I had visited.

He had a private room with TV, windows on two sides, a hospital bed, easy chair and small desk for his computer. He was watching TV - a John Wayne movie on video. He favored action movies. I knocked at the open door, standing just inside the threshold and asked 'May I come in?

He replied 'You already are.' Now I have been in the ministry for over two decades, part of that time was as a chaplain at a large federal mental hospital in Washington, DC, one of the largest psychiatric facilities in the US. I had spent just 20 years as minister of UU congregations [I always have thought that my time at St Elizabeths was wonderful preparation for the parish ministry. By then, I had met most types, and so I said to myself 'Oh, one of those.' And said to him, 'you're right. But being in, may I stay in?'

We talked for several hours about religion and the origins of faith, both historically and individually. When I left, I asked him 'Well, did I pass?' He smiled and said 'Yes.' I then said 'so did you. I'll visit again next week.'
'I'll look forward to it,' he said. Most weeks I did visit; sometimes there wasn't enough time, but when I did we would talk for at least an hour. He was dying of cancer. A month earlier he had been told that we would probably live no more than a few weeks; he survived eight months more.

He had been a social worker in NYC; his wife of 50 years had died three years earlier and he missed her terribly. Much of the home staff and many of the Hospice workers thought he was depressed; I did not. I thought he was sad, a little angry, and just ornery. His parents had been immigrants. His father was a seaman from Chile and had just jumped ship in New Orleans and found his way to New York. His mother was a nanny for a famous bullfighter from Spain. When they visited the US, she decided to disappear into the crowds and leave her job - she had been so sickened by the ship passage across the Atlantic that she vowed never to be on the ocean again.

Both ended up in Spanish Harlem, got married and had three kids. Lou was one of them. He worked with his father as a mason and stonecutter, fixing and creating reliefs and friezes high on buildings in New York City. But he was smart and restless, and went to CCNY, which in those days was free to New York City residents. He ended up as a social worker, worked the streets, got government jobs, worked for Nelson Rockefeller in Albany and finally with the federal government.

He was very smart, and like I said, ornery. He had seen both the follies of individuals and governments and still believed in both. He thought religion was a crock, but that there was something greater than what we could see or feel or touch. He was sure there was no life after death but believed he would be re-united with his wife. 'A love that good doesn't just go away and disappear because of death,' he told me.

He knew literature and we always ended up there, and always ended up with our two great loves - Melville and Cervantes. We each thought one was better than the other, and I think we were both right. He had started to read Moby Dick, and I was starting Don Quixote when he died. He wanted to die and he didn't want to die. He imagined that people in enormous pain had a right to die, but he was not in great pain and so wanting to die was, as he said 'stupid.'

We used to talk about how we should live our life. He was endlessly astonished at how much of his own life he had wasted on the trivial, and how much energy he had wasted fighting the wrong battles. He told me about his many run-ins with clients and with bureaucracies, and with himself as well.

This was one reason he loved 'the Quixote' as he called it. He told me that the common notion of Don Quixote as the fool 'tilting after windmills' was dead wrong, that Quixote was off on his quest to find out what life was, and, a s an old man, to have one last go at it.'''Is that stupid? Lou would ask [stupid was one of his favorite words] and then answer his own question by saying 'No, of course not. Experiencing life? Not giving up? Trying to figure out just what it is all about? Hell, that the thing itself. Certainly not stupid.'

No, that is the case - certainly not stupid.

I have been here three weeks now, and it feels as though I am already overflowing - with the activities here, the good will, the kindness, the challenges, the stories you are slowly beginning to tell me about yourselves, your hopes and concerns.

In that time, I seem to have run into a number of you who have two small children, often times two little girls. I have talked with parents about our children and how they are always saying good-bye to us, from those first days of crawling when the all of a sudden disappear and are off exploring, how our kids are always leaving. This morning, Kathe took Claire to the airport as she begins her 80-day wilderness adventure with the National Outdoor Leadership School in the desert southwest and on the sea of Cortez; we won't hear from her until she returns in the middle of December.

Sigh. It is a good thing I know, but leaving is also hard, and we try and send them out into the world with good advice and with the tools we think they might use for a safe journey. We send them out to tilt at windmills and find their way.

At the end of August, Kathe, Claire, Hannah and I packed up our car, watched the movers pack up our house, and we headed west to begin our life here. We visited family on the way, and then stopped in Chicago where Hannah was about to begin her college at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. We stayed with Lee and Kris and Ava Barker. It is a wonderful city and a really terrific school - we hope Hannah will be challenged and happy there.

I was leaving a day early to meet the moving truck here, and so on my last night in Chicago, Hannah and I walked around downtown together for a while, until it became time to say good-bye; we both had tears in our eyes, and Hannah told me to go ahead and cry so that she wouldn't have to. We both did, and tried to stretch out and even delay further the moment of parting.

Finally, it was time. How we know that it is time is somewhat of a mystery, but we did. Do you know the feeling - of knowing the time. Many of my hospice patients, and their families, come to this realization: It is time. You may have experienced that. Mostly, it is a wise voice and one we should listen to. And Hannah and I had come to that point: it was time. I asked 'Can I give you some advice?' My girls are very used to getting advice from me, - they are also pretty good at ignoring it, too - but Hannah said 'sure.'

I had thought about this a fair amount, and so this was it. 'I have two bits of advice for you: first is pick your battles well. Try not to focus too much on the little ones; save yourself for the important ones. And, two, whatever you do if your life, the choices you make, do them so that you are proud of yourself.'

We kissed and I walked away.

Pick your battles well. Easier said than done, right? How many times have you fought about something that was not the main thing? I have done enough counseling that I know people often will do just about anything to avoid the primary issue. You all know this I am sure. How many times have you been in a meeting - why, maybe even a church meeting - and the argument is about something really not worth it while the important issues are ignored. I know that is hard to imagine, but I understand it happens in churches now and then.

But this matters. We have only limited time and limited resources and as life is a series of choices, and changes, it makes sense to try and choose wisely.

So what was I trying to say to Hannah? It was this: know who you are and what you believe in and then pursue it. My hope is that Hannah will have a mission in life, decide on a purpose, have beliefs that would help her decide what to fight for and what to let go. So choose your battles, Hannah, first know what you believe in, and then fight for that.

This holds for each of us and for all of us. Know who we are and what we believe in, and then fight for those things that we believe in deeply.

How about us? What do we believe in here? How do we choose our battles? There is the story about two friends who felt a need to get involved in a religious community and so Sunday after Sunday, Saturday after Saturday, they went from house of faith to house of faith - to various Christian churches and a number of Jewish congregations; they went to a mosque, a Buddhist temple and a few others. One place they visited was a UU church. And at lunch they talked about it. It was pretty clear what each group believed in, until they got to the UUs. They were not quite sure. One said to the other 'I just couldn't quite get it - we've been there three times now ands it is wonderful and interesting but I am not sure what they believe in.' And her friend said, after a long pause 'Well, I think they believe in recycling!'

Is that it? That is not bad, by the way, and it suggests a rich faith behind it. But what do we believe in? What will we battle over? Each one of us will decide for ourselves, but how about us, here, this congregation gathered as Neighborhood Church. What do we believe in?

Earlier this summer, just before I arrived, the city notified the church that a complaint had been lodged regarding the banner we have displayed out by the street - the one that reads 'Neighborhood Church stands on the side of love. We support the right to marry.' As in all municipalities, there are ordinances about signs and displays. The city let the complaint go and took no action.

But just recently the complaint was re-registered. I do not know if it was by the same person, and that does not matter, nor do I want to know who complained. We are at present engaged in a conversation with the city about the sign and whether it must be removed. This is in process at present and in a few days it may be moot.

But what if we are told to remove it? Is this a battle we could choose, would we stand by this sign as we say we stand on the side of love. I would certainly hope so. If we do not stand for love, then what do we stand for? It used to be said that there was a trinity of Unitarian belief - freedom, reason and tolerance. And those are values we hold highly, but if freedom or reason or tolerance is absent love, then they are - to use the biblical phrasing - empty gongs and clashing cymbals.

We stand on the side - this is what our battle we choose should be about - increasing love. My friend in Hospice, Lou, said very much the same - his comments about his wife, his absolute passion for equal opportunity, his love of engagement and argument; he wanted to be alive until he died.

We stand on the side of love. When you pick a battle ask yourself - will this increase love? Or is it about power or ego? We stand on the side of love. I don't for a minute think this is easy or automatic or always clear - this is why we deliberate, why we use our minds, why we should be slow to anger and quick to forgive.

We stand on the side of love. Would we battle over the righ to proclaim and to act on that? We stand on the side of love.

The poem I read earlier about the trains is one of my favorites - it is by Kenneth Koch. Koch is cautioning us not to be fooled, to be wary of our first impressions, to be a little skeptical of ourselves, to be humble in our judgments. It is one I hope Hannah will read and think about and maybe learn from. It cautions us against pride. Funny, I said that last week, too, didn't it.

But maybe this is it, maybe we already know how to live and how to become better. Maybe there is no great mystery to life or great wonderment about the meaning of life. Maybe we already know and the wonder is that we let it slip from us so often and so easily.

Maybe we know that faith hope and love do exist and that love is the greatest of these. Maybe we know that if we pick our battle for that which we love that we will do OK.

Maybe we know already. What do you think?

I think we stand on the side of love.

Amen

Readings:

Summer Day Mary Oliver
I Corinthians 13
One Train Poem Kenneth Koch