Making the Connection

Mark Steinwinter

April 6, 2008

Good morning, I’m Mark Steinwinter, Director of Information Technology Services at the UUA in Boston. Kay Montgomery was scheduled to address you today, but she injured her back and sends her regrets, her warm regards, and me.

I am delighted to be here today to worship with you, and honored that you would entrust me with such a serious responsibility.

As the manager of computer services at the UUA, I love my work in large measure because it's all about helping people connect and share with one another. The computer networks and the data that move over them are only a means, of course. The end has to do with sharing ideas, wisdom, support, and inspiration in service to making the world a better place for all people. In other words, our work enables deep and active human connections on many levels so we can, in the words of your mission statement, "..minister to each other through service, education, artistic and spiritual nourishment, and the strengthening of our relationships."

Like many Unitarian Universalists, I believe each of us is imbued with a divine spirit or soul, or as the Quakers say, that of God in every person. Further, I believe that we are all joined at the soul, and that love flows into and out of us through our spirit forming a sacred bond with all life.

The love coursing along that vast network of connections is one way I am able to think about God.

The central message, I think, is that all active human connection leads to, and is in fact essential for, spiritual vitality and fulfillment. When we actively connect with a human spirit, our own or others, our spirit is automatically nourished regardless of our intent.

What exactly is connection? It's intentionally opening our loving heart and putting ourselves with another in a loving way. We may connect by physically coming together, like we do when we gather to worship. But whether physical or otherwise, the idea is to act to create some kind of closeness.

So if we're all automatically joined at the soul, we're already connected and in loving relationship, right? Not exactly. The existence of this network of spiritual connections is like the telephone network. Its real value lies in its active use. If you never pick up the phone and talk to anybody, what good is it?

Unlike the telephone network, a delightful characteristic of spiritual connection is that it can happen spontaneously, with no conscious effort on our part. That happens when an infant gazes into its mother's face, or a friend's tears compel us to reach out and comfort them, or strangers passing on the street find themselves exchanging warm smiles. Sometimes, love just happens.

I've found three important occasions to consciously make a connection. One is inward to seek strength. Another is outward to seek and offer support. And another is to simply love for love's sake.

Inward Connection

Inward connection is the act of intentionally joining one's mind, heart and spirit in dialog. For me, this is the act of prayer, and I often use it to make space for loving thoughts of others.

A central element of my daily prayers is to slowly recite the name of every person I hold most dear, take a moment to fix their image in my mind's eye, and hold them in the light of my heart, just loving them. Sort of a grown-up riff on "God bless Mommy, God bless Daddy."

Prayer, mindfully connecting with one's own spirit, is the only way I know to tap into the richest source of spiritual strength available. My personal experience teaches that deep within me, within the spirit of my spirit, the most profound courage and peace are to be found.

Over twenty years ago I was given medical news, which eventually turned out to be incorrect, that my life was in imminent danger. My wife and young children and I were vacationing at the beach, but I was anxiously awaiting test results. One morning I excused myself and called the clinician from a payphone on the boardwalk. The news was stunningly bad.

Slowly hanging up the phone, I literally felt the warmth of life slipping away and being replaced with a cold terror growing in my chest. I stumbled back to my family and moved like a zombie through the day. The terrible fear cut me off completely, deafening me to my children's voices and blinding me to the sight of their faces. The children, of course, knew nothing, and my wife wasn't able to offer comfort or love. Desperately alone, the greatest horror was not that life would be over, but that my capacity to feel love and joy was suddenly destroyed. I had never experienced such despair and hopelessness.

That night we all bunked down in the rented efficiency apartment. The kids slept on air mattresses on the floor. Laying awake and alone in the dark, I felt the fear closing even more tightly around my heart. Unable to be still, I slid from the bed and lay down next to my kids' slumbering silhouettes. Silently, I prayed for just one more opportunity to feel close to my children; for just one more chance to experience their pure love. Silently, I pleaded over and over and over until sleep settled over me.

When the dawn light roused me, for a moment I forgot the bad news. Then I remembered, and I braced myself for the wave of fear to surge over me, but it didn’t come. Slowly I opened my eyes and saw the golden light of the early sun. I heard the sound of the surf, and the moist air smelled of salt.

Gingerly, I allowed my heart to feel just a tiny bit, afraid that too much joy, too much love, would awaken the beast. But it did not. The beast was still right there inside me and I was afraid, but miraculously the fear was no longer in control. My desperate prayerful search for courage had succeeded. And what a wonderful and loving day that turned out to be. I was still beset by a terrible problem but free again to be present, to love and feel love in return. Thus armed, I was ready to face my trial.

Outward Connection

There are times when we need to deal with things that require more of us than we can muster on our own, no matter how strong our connection to our own spirit may be. This is the idea about connecting with others to seek and offer support.

Personally, I'm somewhat inclined to take an intellectual and inward approach to living. I tend to rely on my mind to make meaning of life and to solve problems, so I emphasize physical and intellectual health. Only in the last few decades have I come to understand the role and importance of spiritual health. And I've learned that for my spirit to flourish I have to remember to reach out to others and to ask for and offer support.

This discovery has changed my life. Sometimes, when I struggle with tough human problems, be they personal, family, or professional, I remember to reach out and connect with others. And the miracle is that the simple act of trying has always produced healthy results.

Reaching out can be the hardest thing imaginable when we're not feeling strong inside ourselves. Somehow we independent Westerners got the idea that we have to be strong as individuals in order to lend strength to others. But personal strength and shared support are two sides of the same coin. Nurturing one increases the other.

Sometimes, life goes terribly wrong, people get hurt and worse. There are Katrinas, there is disease, and broken people sometimes wreak terrible violence. Because we're joined at the soul, we're all affected by these events. But when we're in community with those most directly involved, we literally share in the trauma. We may be so shocked, or so confused or angry, that our natural individual response is to defend ourselves against painful or frightening feelings by pulling back.

It's at those times, when struggling, that seeking connection with others can be so healing. The power of shared support, of loving as a group or community, can be astonishing. We've all experienced how caring for another brings us comfort, even if our own circumstances are uncomfortable and we thought we had nothing to give.

Connecting for the Sake of Love

Finally, re-energizing a spiritual connection with one important person can be profoundly rewarding. My dad and I were family but for decades we allowed the connection between us to lie fallow. He was a strong and good man, but a man of few words and not given to physical or emotional closeness, at least with me. As I grew into manhood, my experience of him moved from wonder to puzzlement, then to dismissal and eventually to a dutiful civility. It's sad and embarrassing to confess I did not know how to love my distant and silent father, and I long held it against him that I didn’t feel loved by him. Mutual misunderstanding was perhaps the best we could manage.

Then, 17 years ago last month he died. In the few weeks leading up to that premature event, a miracle happened: Dad and I energized our connection at last. My indomitable father held my hand and said, "I'm scared, Markie." The man whose only touch I can recall was a formal handshake at bedtime now melted into my embrace. The first time my fingers stroked his temple I felt I was touching something holy. We spoke from our hearts and connected, and love flowed through and over us.

The last night of his life, I lay with him in his bed. The cancer was hurting him in spite of the medications and he awoke groaning. I sang quietly to him and rubbed his shoulders, exactly as I had done with my precious children when they were infants. And exactly like my kids, my precious dad would slowly be calmed and drift into sleep, until the pain stabbed at him again, and we'd start the dance over.

I didn’t notice when the sun rose in the sky and the day started. Mom opened the window and sweet smelling spring scent filled the room. I quickly dressed and rejoined Dad, sitting by his side on the edge of the bed. Our connection and love found an even greater depth then, and I slipped into a strange trance-like place with him, chanting mantras of courage and awe, of walking bravely toward the light, of promised support and care for his wife, of encouragement and permission to let go, to let go, to let go.

When he did, I called to my Mom and we held him in our arms and cried our goodbyes and told him again and again with all our hearts that we truly loved him. Then as God is my witness, a little bird perched on the window ledge took flight, arcing high into the sky and disappearing into the light.

That experience vitalized my spirit. What a gift, having an opportunity to breathe life into a connection with the man who gave me life -- at the very moment when he needed help to step beyond it. Wow.

Thank you, Great Spirit.

It's no coincidence that since that experience with my dad the connection between me and my other family members has grown ten-fold, and between me and the rest of my family. It's no coincidence because loving spiritual connection begets more of the same.

I'm in Florida this weekend to celebrate my mom's birthday with her, my sister, and nieces. The opportunity to connect and share with you today is my great good fortune. Thank you for your gracious support. Thank you for loving and supporting one another. Thank you, Great Spirit. Thank you, thank you, and thank you.