Sermon by Rev. Len DeRoche

The Times They are a Changing

In my story [A Descent into the Maelström by Edgar Allan Poe] for the children today we heard about a maelström, a powerful whirlpool or the currents off the NW coast of Norway. But this word maelström, has another meaning - a tumultuous state of affairs. Well, that's what I am going to talk about today, being in the maelström,, in crisis, at life's point of changing or transition. But since I know this topic is not of interest to everyone, I will excuse anyone early to go for coffee, whose life has never been a maelström.

This is anyone who has not nor expects to have a major debilitating accident or life threatening disease, or a problem with a relationship, a divorce, a friend or relative with an addiction to alcohol or drugs, the loss of a job, or a death of a loved one, or had a friend or relative with a devastating mental disorder like dementia or depression or schizophrenia. You can leave now... Go ahead this is your get out of church free card. You notice there are not many leaving. To have a time of crisis in our lives is part of the human condition. As many times as I have seen people in crisis, I am still in amazed how some people get through of their massive problems. It certainly takes courage, lots of community, and family resources and the ability to change to manage the transition.

One explanation of the process that I like was presented by the anthropologist Victor Turner. Turner calls that transition period liminality and the period before the crisis, preliminal and time after the crisis has passed is called post-liminal. It is like our story of the maelström,. The brothers entering the whirlpool have been a little fool-hearty, but they are just coasting through life. Then they have their time in chaos and the brother that escapes is then changed for the rest of his life. Being in personal chaos will always make a lasting impression on a person and in most cases change must occur in order to escape from the state of liminality. Something very significant occurs at these times.

Think of your memories of when you were in liminality and remember (and if you were really in transition), you will remember what happened. Crisis, liminality, periods in the maelström, are times of increased awareness, you notice everything. Your senses and your mind are working in overdrive.

If we look at the Exodus story we see that Moses led the Israelites for forty years in the desert. They met many obstacles before they found the promised land. They had to find out exactly who they were as a people before they were allowed to leave desert. The Israelites had to develop their covenant with Yahweh and accept his laws. Personal crisis is like that. Community crisis is like that.

Whenever we enter a state of liminality we will have one of two basic reactions. The first is that we really don't have a problem, this is not as serious as everyone is making it out to be. In the movie the Blair Witch project, the characters were not admitting they were lost. They kept going on as if everything was just normal. 

One of the reasons that movie was such a success was that we viewers knew we would have behaved just like these characters but we see their dilemmas and feel helpless to affect the outcome. Our problem as viewers is similar to when we watch our friends in Chaos. We feel helpless to effect a change, to help our friends get out of chaos. Watching a friend with an addiction can be such an example. 

A second reaction that is common when a person enter a liminal state is to do nothing during a crisis short of waiting out the problem. Many people take this approach when they find themselves in their desert. Do you know that when oysters are moved to different beds will still move to the tides from the old place. It is the same with people when we experience change we want to stay in the old rhythm. When I was in the air force I was the production supervisor of an aircraft electronics squadron. One of the sections that worked for me was an analysis section. Here they monitored the records of all the aircraft electronic components which we repaired and recorded events like average time between failures for different components. Well as you can guess, this department helped me isolate which repair procedures might not be working the best. 

In this section there was a Technical Sergeant who was very smart. He could pick up on the problems before anyone suspected there was a problem. However his lifestyle contained too many parties. While I never saw him drinking at work I had to push him really hard work at his best or up to his potential. He would let things go until the last moment. He was always operating at just good enough. It was aggravating since he was so capable. 

Finally I confronted him on his drinking and his work habits. He told me that he would still be in the squadron when I was long gone. He was right. He saw me as his problem and I moved on, so he never had to really face his own demon or his potential.

My Sergeant illustrates another phenomena of crisis. Some people never get out of their desert. They never change so they never cross the desert to get to their promised land. We have all met people who have had a life crisis like a divorce that they can never let go of and it dominates the rest of their lives, like spending forty years in the desert. The brother who saw the barrel as salvation and was prepared to leave the safety of the boat survived, but the brother who clung onto the stability of the familiar died.

My previous job as a chaplain had me helping lots of people who were in their maelström,. I learned that there was usually not a lot I brought to a patient. What we as Chaplains tried to do was put people in touch with their own strengths, their manna in the desert, their axis mundi, the center of their world. We cannot always see our strengths when we are obsessed with our problems or failures. 

For some people this strength was their faith, or their family or their community and for others it was just their stubbornness that they did not want this crisis to beat them. No matter what it was this was, what they had to get in touch with to make the transition to the post-liminal state. Another fact about being in crisis is that you have to let go of the illusion of control and be open to the possibilities of the process. In the Blair Witch Project the characters never let go of the illusion that they were in control by not admitting being lost.

One of my own crisis was similar and occurred in November 1985 when I was a commander of a maintenance squadron in Northern Maine. This was a job that I earned and one of these jobs I would rush to work just to be there and would have to force myself to leave at the end of the day. This job was the type of job where no matter how much I could accomplish there was still more I would have liked to achieve. After doing this job for a two years, I really thought I knew what I was doing. 

Then an inspection team descended on the base and found the entire organization I belonged to to be deficient and judged that my unit had its share of problems. Well, in these unfortunate cases, some heads must roll and mine was ripe, so they fired me. Now philosophically, I was responsible, I had to take responsibility for the bad as well as the good. I knew this in my head, but I could not accept it in my heart. For months after this inspection I was in crisis. In fact when I look back I was probably clinical depressed about the situation. I rationalized my actions. I kept going over what I could have done differently. I thought of possible ways I could have identified the problem. 

I had let down the many people in my organization who depended on me. I had let down my bosses who depended on me to solve my unit’s problems. I should have been able to see the problems, but I didn’t. I should have known, or seen, or done something to have precluded my fate. Finally I accepted that I had done my best and whatever happened I had worth, I was still valuable . I had given myself the grace to not be perfect, to be human and to be able to make mistakes. 

It was only after I gave myself this chance was I able to let go and go out there and look for another job. My pre-liminal state was one of expecting perfection of myself, but when the gods proved me wrong and put me into chaos I needed to admit my limitations to pass beyond this state of chaos that rescued me from the maelström,. Admitting my limitations was my barrel.

This past year and a half you have all been in your maelström,, in your desert and in your transition from settled minister to settled minister. What you have done is to have found your community and personal strengths to have made some significant changes. Look around at each other and you will see more surety then you had in September 1998. You have come a long way toward finding your axis mundi. 

Now you have entrusted a strong team as your search committee to find a good minister for you. You have entrusted a good parish committee to lead you through these maelström, years. You are now on the trapeze with Sam Keen, you have done everything you thought to do, and you have let go of the bar and it is now time to trust that the catcher will be waiting to catch you. This is having faith in yourself and each other and in the system. 

In an ever evolving and never ending world. Amen.

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