American Contradictions: Lonesomeness & Community
Rev. Eugene N. Nelson, Jr.
The Community Church of Sebastopol
July 27, 2008
I John 4: 16-21
Vietnamese Zen monk, Thieh Nhat Hanh, speaks of our world, our universe, as a vast web of "inter-being." All of us are connected. Think of something as common as a piece of bread, for example. It does not only exist in and for itself. It is part of this web, this inter-being connection. In a single piece of bread are people - farmers, bakers, truck drivers and their families. In a small piece of bread are seeds, sunshine, rain, the waters as they flow from the mountains into the valleys, the bees as they work the flowers, the chickens and the eggs, the cows and the milk, even the tiny yeast that give the bread its lightness. So many interconnections, so much inter-being, in a single piece of bread. This is the on-going connection and communion that is life in this world.
I am reminded of some words spoken by Fred Craddock, one of the two Fred's mentioned by Bobbie Johanson a couple of weeks ago: "I've always lived my life in the red, a debtor to others who have given me so much. A self-made man is a man built by unskilled labor."
It all sounds so good, this interconnectedness of creation, this inter-being, but do we believe it? Do we really even accept it? For it flies in the face of the great American myth of the rugged individual, making it on his own, without need or ties to others, going where he wants when he wants and beholden to no one; the Davey Crockets out there, pretty much on their own, conquering the wilderness or conquering the world of business. The self-sufficient, independent, the ‘I have all I need’ American. And a lot of our music over the years, in particular country music, has given voice to that myth. Listen to Hank Williams singing about himself as a "Ramblin' Man." (play song) "But when that open road starts to callin' me, there's something o'er the hill that I got to see, I love you baby, but you gotta understand, that when the Lord made me, he made me a ramblin' man." And so Merle Haggard could sing of "White Line Fever," and Johnny Cash could tell us, "I've been everywhere." This celebration of mobility, liberty, freedom - the freedom to move on and escape a dead place, dead job, dead relationship. Again, the self-made, self-reliant American, not about to allow anyone or anything to fence him or her in. It is such an important part of our cultural identity.
And this is by no means a bad thing. At our home, what was once our dining room is now the office for my wife, Betty's, payroll business. Several years ago, an opportunity came along, she determined she could do it, and using our house as collateral, a business was purchased. She might never have done that without a large measure of that independent, I can do this, I can make my way, American spirit. You could say that for her, there was something over that hill she just had to see. Sure that is true for many of you. How wonderful to have the freedom to pursue our dreams, to make our own way, to not be tied to what has gone before. It has provided so much energy, so much creativity. But is this freedom to pursue my own way, unfettered and unbound, all there is? Could there be something missing from this picture?
Those of you with some familiarity with music may have noticed that Hank Williams’ "Ramblin' Man" is sung in a minor key. The song proclaiming his freedom really doesn't sound all that happy. And here we meet that great American contradiction that Williams understood. There is another, darker side to individualistic liberty, going your way, living life on your own terms...and that is lonesomeness. I once read that our national mythology of individualism and self-sufficiency has produced a people - us - who may be the most lonely people in history.
And boy do you find a lot of lonesomeness in classic country music. It really is amazing to hear some of the tough, stoical, freedom-loving men of country music let go with unmitigated lament in song, more often than not, lament about being alone. In "Big River" Johnny Cash's jilted lover sings of teaching "the weeping willow how to cry." But no one expressed lonesomeness better than Hank Williams in this classic song, "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry." (play song) Speaking of this song, Rodney Clap in his book about country music and the great American contradictions, writes, "The midnight train, the moon hiding its face behind the clouds, the lone star falling across a purple sky, the mournful whippoorwill, and the fading robin: all these images simply and briefly convey a lonesomeness so vast that it overwhelms the entire landscape and even the cosmos." Tex Sample, seminary professor an story teller, says that when he thinks of music in heaven, he imagines Pavarotti singing and Hank Williams writing the songs. The loneliness of the free, unfettered, "rambling" man. In another song, Williams sings "Everybody's lonesome for somebody else, but nobody's lonesome for me."
The great American contradiction -- the moment when I finally achieve the unbounded freedom I have wanted, I am my own person not obligated to anything or anyone, I find myself facing an intolerable aloneness. I think it is a huge issue for 21st century Americans. The other "Fred" – Buechner - writes, "Perhaps the stakes are nowhere higher than in the war we all wage within ourselves -- the battles we fight against loneliness, boredom, despair, self-doubt, the battles against fear, against the great dark."
Many years ago, Vaclav Havel, the last President of Czechoslovakia and the first President of the Czech Republic, reflected on the dark days behind the iron curtain, with these words: "We learned not to believe in anything, to ignore each other and to care only about ourselves. Concepts such as love, friendship, compassion, humility or forgiveness lost their depth and dimension. Man was reduced to a tool of production, nuts and bolts of some monstrously huge, noisy and stinking machine whose real meaning was not clear to anyone." His critique of communism is a critique of all soulless, materialistic systems. For so long now we have worshipped at the altar of essentially unrestrained markets with their individualistic, get as much as you can as fast as you can theology and mentality. But in our frantic quest of a better bottom line, our urgent desire to consume and accumulate and take care of number one, what have we lost along the way...what have we lost in terms of family, neighborhood, workplace, spirit, community? You might say that we all need someplace where everybody knows our name. And without that, "I'm so lonesome I could cry."
Am I wrong about this? I don't think I'm wrong about this human need for connection, for community, even in the midst of a culture which celebrates the almighty individual. "Those who say, 'I love God' and hate their brother or sister are liars. (John tells it like it is!) For those who do not love a brother or sister they have seen cannot love God whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from God is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also." Just two weeks ago, we heard Paul tell the Ephesians, "Be generous to one another, as Christ is generous to you. Live in love as Christ loved you." And even Jesus talked about community and connection. Don't tell me you can worship God just as well alone on a mountain top or a golf course (or a trout stream)...because "wherever two or three are gathered together, there am I in the midst of them." We regard each other as persons of worth because we have been so regarded, we dare to love each other because we have been loved, we join in community with each other because we have been joined to Christ.
It's an old story. A young man who had just been "dumped" by his girlfriend, sounding much like a Hank Williams's song, cried out, "Who is there to love me now? Who is there to hold my hand." To which his friend replied, "O you'll be all right. God loves you and you can sit on your hands." But that is a pretty lonely and forlorn exercise. More is needed. God may indeed love us, but how will we ever know it for sure unless some other human person holds our hand in his or hers, generously, tenderly, forgivingly. Yes, we may extol the rugged individual, but the Biblical word knows, as indeed Hank and others know, that love - and that would be true of God's love - takes community, a community - hopefully like the Community Church - where person meets person and hand reaches out to hand in a great network of caring - a community where we love as God in Christ has loved us. Or, as Johnny Cash might say, finally, when it comes to loving each other, we just have to "Walk the Line." (play song)