"Lessons from Shoes"
Message by Rev. Laurie Bushbaum
June 1, 2008
Opening Words:
In beauty may I walk. All day long may I walk.
Through the returning season may I walk
With beauty before me, may I walk.
With beauty behind me, may I walk.
With beauty above me, may I walk.
With beauty all around me and within me, may I walk.
In old age, wandering on a trail of beauty, lively may I walk.
It is finished in beauty. It is finished in beauty.
- Navajo Indian Prayer
First Reading: from A Small Heaven by Jane Rzepka
I bought a pair of shoes the other day. The clerk put them in a box and then in a bag and said, "Enjoy them."
I haven't the faintest idea how to enjoy shoes. I have a history of not feeling one way or another about my shoes. Certainly I've missed out on enjoying them.
Frankly, I feel a little naive. I always wondered why traffic was so bad on Friday afternoons~no doubt offices empty out early and people go home and enjoy their shoes. Malls are packed on weekends with what I now know to be people enjoying their shoes. Children scamper around the neighborhood, adults appear to be walking their dogs, runners pound the pavement, all, it now seems, for the pleasure of enjoying their shoes.
It's a good time of year for new and simple pleasures. Plant something new. Invent a fantastic ice cream concoction. Go to a ball game for a change. Set up the hammock and use it this time. Buy a different kind of book. Spend an extra ten minutes with a person you love. Feel the breeze. Wear some weird color. Turn the music up. And the lights down… Go ahead and do all that. Me, I’m going to enjoy my shoes.
Second Reading: Exodus 3: 1-12
Moses was looking after the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law… He led his flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God .• There the angel of Yahwehe appeared to him in the shape of a flame of fire, coming from the middle of a bush. Moses looked; there was the bush blazing but it was not being burnt up . “I must go and look at this strange sight,” Moses said “and see why the bush is not burnt.” Now Yahweh saw him go forward to look. God called to him from the middle of the bush. “Moses, Moses!' he said. “Here I am,”' he answered. “Come no nearer,” God said. “Take off your shoes, for the place on which you stand is holy ground. “
Do you identify at all with Moses, when God commands him to take off his shoes? ” How often do you think that you are standing on Holy Ground? Have you had moments when you feel profound clarity about your life, deep connection to great power?
When I read this Biblical text again this week, I noticed that this story in the Book of Exodus, comes right after a portion in which God looks down on the people of Israel and notices that they are enslaved and unhappy. God has heard their prayers, their cries for help. She remembers her covenant with them and knows that she will act on their behalf.
And it is just after this that we hear the story about Moses seeing the burning bush. God says to him, “Take off your shoes for you are standing on Holy Ground.” And then, just after this portion God lets it be known to Moses that he will intervene and help them escape their life of slavery in Egypt. God then mentions, “Oh, and by the way, Moses, you are going to be the one to lead the people out of their slavery.” Moses, whines and whimpers a bit, saying he isn’t qualified for the job. His protestations fall deaf on God’s ears. And as the story goes, Moses leads the people out of Egypt.
I think it is fascinating to notice in the story that first God tells Moses, to take off his shoes. God doesn’t say, “Hey, Moses, I got a really big job for you so put on your toughest shoes and lace them tight.” That is not how the story goes. God first tells Moses to take off his shoes - to notice that the ground he stands on his Holy.
So, have you ever faced a task by preparing yourself? We often talk in this culture, about the need to get “grounded.” What if every day we noticed we were, in fact, standing on Holy Ground - the Holy Ground of this day, this moment, The Holy Ground of this task or experience- whatever it is? Perhaps this is where we begin, by taking off our shoes, going to the bare essentials, to our grounding? And only then do we put on our shoes…
Now the rest of this sermon could be about this notion of taking off our shoes and learning to stand on Holy Ground. But it isn’t. The rest of the sermon is mostly about shoes.
Several years ago, a congregant gave me this exquisite pair of moccasins. Jo and I knew each other quite well after working very hard together on a major committee that tackled lots of challenges, moving slowly and deliberately through many obstacles, and then led the church into some very exciting, new ways of thinking. And in the midst of this intense work that took about 3 years, Jo lost both of her parents in a short time. She was very close to her parents and described them as loving, patient, and deeply committed to peace and respectful relationships. They were engaged in the work of consensus building and living out the blessings of diversity in their own communities. No wonder I had witnessed these gifts in Jo, too.
These moccasins belonged to Jo’s mother and I was deeply moved by such a personal, and precious gift. Jo told me that the moccasins were originally gift from her brother to her mother. They were a memento of a very special time they all spent together in Alaska. They are beautifully handmade, of course. And they embody for me, the mindfulness of Native traditions and attitudes: a reverent connection to that life which sustains us all and being grounded in a daily practice of gratitude and humility.
My former parishioner, Jo, is a deeply kind and compassionate person. She is a skilled and gentle listener. She seeks to know, as much as possible, the perspective of the other. I’m a person who can be more inclined to talking than listening, so Jo taught me a great deal. I hold these moccasins as a reminder to be a good listener, to take time to hear the perspective of another. I seek to remember to “walk a mile in my neighbor’s moccasins” before I judge him or her. These beautiful shoes are a tangible reminder of the spiritual practice of listening, taking notice, and living in gratitude.
It is also a spiritual practice to “pass on the gift.” True to Native tradition, the makers of the moccasins would have thanked the animals whose lives are stitched into the moccasins. I’m sure Jo’s mother thanked her son for the moccasins. I thanked Jo for them and for what she has taught me. They inspired this sermon, and so the gift keeps moving.
Here is another story about shoes, this one from my childhood. I am five, and about to start kindergarten and I am getting my very first pair of saddle shoes. And here is the amazing thing. They will be new. As the youngest of 7 children, I usually got the hand-me-downs. But on this day, I was getting my very own new, shiny, black- and- white saddle shoes.
I remember very distinctly, when the salesman put the shoes on my feet and asked me to walk up on the bridge. The bridge was a platform with stairs on either end. I marched up the stairs; he reached forward to poke and prod my toes, turned to my mother and pronounced them a good fit. I smiled.
I loved those shoes. I loved that they were mine, all mine, I loved them because no one had worn them before. They would adapt to my shape. And in them I was just me, not my older sisters. Just me. I wore them to kindergarten where I had new friends and did new things, where I was finally big enough to go to school. Those shoes were a rite-of-passage, a step into my independence. I still had to follow six sisters and brothers, but I had my own pair of shoes.
Everyone needs their own pair of shoes, symbolically speaking. Each of us needs to feel that we can find our own way, set off to explore, walk our own journey, make choices… There is so much in our society that teaches us to conform, how do we keep alive a sense of our uniqueness? How do we respond to our kids when they come home and “have to” have this or that because everyone else has one? All I can say is this, make sure that you have a pair of shoes in your soul that are all yours. On the outside they can look like saddle shoes, or wingtips, the latest ballet flats or Michael Jordan tennis shoes. But on the inside, deep in your soul, know what your own shoes really look like. And let them lead.
Rachel Naomi Remen physician and spiritual teacher to many, shared this story about a pair of shoes:
“A woman who I have never actually met sent me a letter about a story I had told during a talk that had touched her very personally. It was the story of a man who could not take care of himself because he saw taking his medication as tantamount to surrendering to the authority of his cancer. He had seen his cancer as a black hole that was constantly trying to pull him in. It took all his strength to resist this pull. When he imagined himself letting go and being drawn into this hole, in its darkness he found a profound healing.
As soon as she heard this, she realized that there was just such a hole in the middle of her own life. This surprised her greatly, but it was unquestionably true. Many of her behaviors and ways that had seemed merely eccentric now made a new kind of sense. Her own cancer had been successfully treated almost a decade ago. She had thought it a part of her past. But she realized now that this was not entirely the case.
For many years she had not bought a really good pair of shoes, the kind that last, as if perhaps she might not get to wear them out and they would be wasted. She made vacation plans with her family a year in advance but always bought her clothes at the very last minute as if it was not until then that she could be sure that she might actually take the trip. And she had put off having expensive dental work done many times for no good reason at all. She had never really looked at any of this before.
Now that she had noticed it, she felt a sort of undertow, a pull to the past that had kept her from fully living her life. "Enough is enough:' she thought and so, closing her eyes in the middle of the lecture, she imagined the hole and allowed it to pull her in.
At first she experienced being in endless darkness. It seemed to her that she was falling, but before she could become frightened she realized that this was not true. In this total darkness there was no "up" or "down," and she was simply floating in a vast, softly dark space. Tentatively at first, she did a cartwheel to her right. And then another. And then one or two to the left. Something new began to grow in her, and she allowed it to send her into a series of somersaults head over heels. She felt a sudden rush of freedom and began to laugh softy to herself. As she continued to dance weightless in the darkness, this sense of freedom grew until she kicked down hard with both her feet. It seemed to her, this sent her upward, faster and faster, a great joy growing in her until suddenly she was gone, exploding into a million bright sparks of joy that fell, like a rain, into the hearts of people everywhere. Slowly she opened her eyes. She felt totally at peace.
"I do not know what all this means," she wrote, "but things seem a little different. Perhaps it is just fanciful. All I can say is this week I bought a pair of Italian shoes. They were very expensive. I have them on now. I just wanted you to know."’
I wonder if buying a good pair of shoes was this woman’s way of standing on Holy Ground. Maybe this was her way of finally trusting life enough to get really grounded, to accept that she had survived her cancer and could fully live. You see, shoes are full of profundity.
The woman in the story above didn’t seem to be a risk-taker. That has never been my problem. Most of the time I think life is a blast, rich and full, even in the hard times. So I was being true to character when I snapped up a pair of roller blades at a garage sale. Heck, I live half a block from one of Minneapolis’ lakes which has a smooth biking path around it. I usually run the lake, but I figured, why not add a little variety to my exercise regime? And I was quite the roller-skater in jr. high. Yep, I took those roller blades home, went back and forth to the end of the block a few times, and realized I hadn’t forgotten a thing. I was right at home on those roller blades. So I turned the corner to head to the lake. Well, in about 10 seconds I was on my side, with a bloody elbow, a bloody knee, sore all over and utterly stunned. How did this happen? You see, it just hadn’t occurred to me that when I was a roller skating queen, the roller rink was all flat but I had to go down a big hill to get to the path around the lake. And I had no idea just how fast I would go.
So let this be a lesson: use the knowledge and wisdom you gained in the shoes of your childhood and youth, but remember to update it. Because when you wipe out at age 50, it seems to hurt a lot more that it does at 15. I have brokered a deal between my 15 year old self and the 50 year old self: I carry my rollerblades down to the lake. When I get them buckled, then my 15 year old roller skating diva can come out to play.
I’m not out of shoe stories yet. This next one takes place four years ago. One morning I got the kids off to school, cleaned up the kitchen and was heading out to church. I reached for my favorite clogs in the shoe rack. They weren’t there. I looked again. I dug through the overflow pile by the back door. I looked in my closet. I looked everywhere. My favorite clogs were nowhere to be seen. I finally settled for a less favorite pair of shoes and went about my day. At 4:00 that afternoon, right on schedule, my son walked in the door from school.
I looked from his face, to his feet, back to his face, and he suddenly said, “Oh yeah, I love your shoes, Mom.” He was wearing my shoes. They fit him. And he liked them. Turns out he couldn’t find his shoes that morning so he tried mine and walked out the door.
I was a little miffed that he had walked off with my shoes without asking. But I was also delighted. My 12 year old son and I were walking in the same shoes. And he liked my shoes. How cool was that! The two of us have always been close; we share a lot more in common than a pair of shoes. But the moment he arrived home wearing my shoes, was a stark, visible reminder that, yes, indeed, most of the time, what we are doing as parents is teaching our children how to walk through life. They will borrow our shoes, our beliefs, our habits, our attitudes and mannerisms good and bad alike. But eventually, they will outgrow our shoes, As Kahlil Gibran puts it, “Our sons and daughters are life’s longing for itself.” They are their own people, and eventually need to find their own inner soul shoes. That is our other job, to help them walk their own path, and how to first stand on Holy Ground.
Not surprisingly, my daughter and I now have the same sized feet. But she wouldn’t dream of being caught in public wearing a pair of my shoes. She was fine tuning her own unique pair of soul shoes by the time she was two. But I do have a poignant tale about buying her a pair of plain black shoes for her first orchestra concert. I won’t go into the details of buying the shoes. But the concert… There they were, all these fourth and fifth graders, all dressed up in their black and whites. The conductor walked out. He raised his arm. They raised their instruments on cue, and started to play.
I proceeded to cry. I never played an instrument in band or orchestra. But there was my daughter, looking competent and focused and oh, so beautiful playing her cello - making this amazing music. She was wearing shoes I never wore. Black orchestra shoes. And that is how it is... She is my daughter, yet there are secret gifts and magical places in her that I will never fully know. Each human being has so much in common with every other. And there are also differences. And that is why it all goes back to the moccasins: to listening, to learning, to being respectful of another’s perspective. It all goes back to Moses, and learning to recognize when we, or another, are standing on Holy Ground.
Now, a shoe can be just a shoe. But sometimes a shoe is so much more. I wonder, what kinds of shoes do you have in your closet and what stories would they tell? What shoes do you remember from your past? What do they tell you about your soul?
And what happens when you take off your shoes? Do you know when you are standing on Holy Ground? Do you feel connected to the Spirit of Life, to God, to the still small voice within?
Here is what I believe; we can wear any kind of shoes we want as long as we can still hear the call to stand on Holy Ground. If you can’t hear, or see, or feel that call, then the shoes just don’t matter. And if that is the case, take off your shoes. And I dare say, even take off your socks. Bare your soul and l listen. Listen to the voice of the sacred. Let it seep in quietly or come in with the full-blown sound of an orchestra. When it comes, stand firmly and humbly, Then put on your shoes and enjoy the heck out of them.
Blessed be.
All Souls Church — PO Box 400 — Sioux Falls, SD 57101
605-338-8652 — www.sfuu.org
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