Broken Records, Scratched Cds and Other Things That Repeat

Broken Records, Scratched CDs, Houseflies and Other Things that Repeat.

By Daniel Gregoire

In my most recent sermon, Vanishing Vantage Points some readers will recall that I frequently  referred to the “repeating parallel lines” or the patterns in one’s life, those recurring significant events, that seem to happen over and over again and point us in some direction. I illustrated the point with the story of my grandmother, and the prominent role that religion has played in my life, my whole life.

One could say, and I did, that there was a preponderance of religion in my life’s story, seemingly pointing to the very vocational path that I am on today. In the narrative I presented those “repeating parallel lines” as having a deterministic, free-will subverting quality to them. In other words I could not help but be a minister even if I desperately wanted to be a housewife or a housefly (buzz…..).

But the repeating patterns are not necessarily the things that happen to us, arising from forces beyond our control. They are also the things we cause to happen, the actions we choose or avoid.

One of my dearest friends in Brockton, Marion O’Donnell once told me the story of a young Unitarian minister to illustrate the quality of repetition I want to explore.

There once was a minister invited to apply as a interview candidate to serve a prominent congregation, somewhere in Massachusetts. The minister met with members of the search committee and he really impressed them. The most impressive thing about this minister was his preaching and he delivered a rousing sermon to the committee on the day of the interview.

So, of course he was invited to deliver a sermon to the entire congregation at the committee’s recommendation one Sunday morning. The candidate minister delivered a rousing sermon to much applause that Sunday morning. It just so happen to be the same sermon he delivered to the search committee only weeks earlier. The committee members in attendance that Sunday morning thought that it was rather odd to preach the same sermon, but didn’t give the minister’s sermon choice much thought afterwards.

 Later the congregation voted to call that candidate to be their spiritual leader. And, at his installation service, the newly installed minister delivered to the august persons in attendance and the congregation the same sermon he preached to the search committee and his first Sunday at the church. On subsequent Sundays, it was the same sermon too. Finally, a member of the search committee asked, “hey, what’s gives?  You preached the same exact sermon every Sunday”. To this the minister replied, calmly “when you follow what the sermon says, I’ll do another one.”

I think life works this way, when you’ve learned the lesson, then, and only then can you move on to something else. Until that time, we will have to review, review, and review.

I often need to review the lesson of compassion, with twice daily prayer, reciting an English translation of the Buddhist prayer of the Four Immeasurable Minds (or thoughts).

It starts with “Through the working of great compassion in their hearts, may all being have happiness and causes of happiness…” I would recommend this prayer to you.

Now talk about repetition; reciting the Four Immeasurable Minds, twice day, every day, that must be a million times a year, right?! Sometimes I tell myself it is just too early to pray, or I am too tired, or I am running late for a meeting, or this chapter of Foucault just got understandable, or there is a movie to watch that’s really cool, or I’ve just repeated the same words a billion times already, and I get it, “compassion”, “happiness” are good and I like them.

So I might skip prayer in the morning, make it up later that night, if Colbert isn’t on, maybe? Just when I find myself busy congratulating myself for being awesome and above the need to review my daily lesson in compassion, I run into a brick wall.

It might take a day or two or three and then I remember. I’ll have an argument with someone and forget myself, forgetting compassion for self and others. I’ll be impatient with myself and others. I’ll cling to a thought long pass it useful life.  And then it hits me, my prayer practice has been out of whack. Might that have something to do with it? Maybe?

We have to be our own broken records, our own skipping CDs or our own housefly, coming around and again to same ideas and values that give sustenance to our souls. For me that sustenance comes from prayers of compassion. Your sustenance might come from a different source. I hope that whatever  gives you hope, whatever reminds you of life’s beauty, that calls you to a sense of interconnectedness, is a place that you revisit regularly, going there again and again until you get it.