The Whale Upstairs

The Whale Upstairs:
Moby Dick, Woundedness, and Letting Go

a sermon by Nathan Mesnikoff

We mold clay into a pot,
but it is the emptiness inside
that makes the vessel useful.

We fashion wood for a house,
but it is the emptiness inside
that makes it livable.

We work with the substantial,
but the emptiness is what we use.

---from the Tao The Ching

We bought a new house not long ago over on the west side, a beautiful place for us to call home. Built in 1899, the house wears its age well, but time has made its weight known here and there. The most obvious place is at the top of the stairs. On the second floor is a small area—not really a hallway, it doesn't go anywhere, but just an empty space into which the bedrooms, the bathroom and a closet open up.

Many homes have such spaces, but what makes this one special to me is that here, in this place that is in the physical center of the home, the floor is very, very bowed. The house must have settled over the main beam and just kind of slumps down to either side—our very own continental divide. Just to be clear, this is not just a little slope like the other rooms have; this is enough that you can feel yourself walk up one side and down the other.

Somehow I didn't notice this very noticeable defect when we bought the house. It wasn't until we had moved in that I noticed the hump. At first it bothered me a bit. All right, a lot. I like symmetry and I like houses that are regular and neat. This hump began to offend me, to itch at me, a reminder of all that wasn't perfect with the house. Okay, I can admit to being a bit obsessive—ideas and annoyances can get lodged in my head. I began to wonder how expensive it would be to tear up the floor, to somehow be rid of this reminder of the home's imperfection. And so this lump, this floor that I traversed every morning and night bugged me. Or at least it did until I thought about Moby Dick.

In that vast ocean of a novel, Herman Melville (a Unitarian I might add) places Captain Ahab, master of the sailing vessel the Pequod. The narrator of the story, Ishmael, tells his tale of going to sea on a whaling voyage. Soon enough the ill-fated ship sets sail and Ishmael meets Captain Ahab. Having lost a leg to the infamous white whale, Moby Dick, Ahab is determined to hunt down the great beast and kill him.

Melville describes Ahab's hatred of the whale and what it had come to represent:

“Small reason was there to doubt, then, that ever since that almost fatal encounter, Ahab had cherished a wild vindictiveness against the whale, [and] in his frantic morbidness he at last came to identify with him, not only all his bodily woes, but all his intellectual and spiritual exasperations. The White Whale swam before [Ahab] as the …incarnation of all those malicious agencies which some feel eating in them... All that most maddens and torments;…all evil, to crazy Ahab, were visibly personified, and made practically assailable in Moby Dick. He piled upon the whale's white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down; and then, as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart's shell upon it” Moby Dick, chapter 41 (adapted)

Ahab, crippled by the whale has invested all the frustration and anger he has ever felt on this animal—and spends the rest of his life looking for revenge. His quest ends not only with his death, but also the death of all but one of his crew. He seems to feel that could he exact some revenge, his life might be made right. He might, in some sense, be made whole again. He could return to his beloved wife and son; he could be satisfied if he could just find and kill the beast that randomly struck out and crippled him.

Poor Ahab never realizes his error, never sees that he is throwing his life away for an illusion. But Ahab's tragic flaw is ours, mine, too often. What do we look for in our lives thinking that, if we only had it, our problems would be solved—money, love, power, health, god? What is it that we are missing that we chase after, wounded deep inside for whatever reason? What is it that we feel at some deep level: if only this one thing were right my life would come together? What injuries do we hold close, forever picking at the scabs, never allowing them to heal, somehow psychically preferring to hold on to the pain that has become part of how we live our lives?

This sense is, of course, an illusion. There will always be more to want. Something else to hunt down. And wounds don't get healed by breaking the knife that cut us or bulldozing the scene of the injury. As the Tao Te Ching tells us, "We work with the substantial, but the emptiness is what we use." That is if we are wise. We focus on the substantial but ignore the emptiness that helps define us, that reminds us of our flawed nature. I'm not talking here about Original Sin or any such theological nonsense. I'm talking about acknowledging that we are all broken in some way: dysfunctional families, disease, spiritual assaults, physical and emotional violence. I once spent several hours with a Buddhist master talking about AIDS and the Buddhist response to the disease. While incredibly compassionate, he thought it strange to focus my research on a particular illness. He admitted how terrible it was, but went on to note that there is "an endless catalogue of human suffering." He was right; we all suffer in some way. We are limited beings. That is not the question. The question is, given our limitations, what are we going to do? Are we going to be Ahabs, chasing after that which offends us, or are we going to seek healing in love and spirituality and family, and yes, in our brokenness. (Oh, and if you happen to be one of the 16 people on the planet without any pain or problems, sit back, read the hymnal and wait for coffee hour.)

To me, Moby Dick carries a deeply spiritual message and I want to specifically talk about the injuries to our souls that we carry around. Most of us here grew up in other religious traditions, coming to UU later in life. Many of us bear scars on our spirit —some as deeply wounded as Ahab, a part of ourselves lost to an angry God or at least those claiming to do the bidding of such a deity. I grew up in an orthodox Jewish setting, and neither Judaism or classical theism ever really worked for me. I never felt comfortable in the synagogue.

I've listened to a number of you recount stories of rejection, confusion, even outright abuse in the religious settings in which you grew up. Many if not most of us bear these wounds. Just last week we listened to a member of our church family recount some of the horrible isolation and pain she felt because of her sexual orientation. I was inspired listening to Amanda speak of, not just the pain, but of the peace of coming through the injuries to a place of deeply spiritual calm. It reminded me of Ishmael when he says, "Even…amid the tornadoed Atlantic of my being, do I myself still for ever centrally disport in mute calm; and while ponderous planets of woe revolved round me, deep down and deep inland there I still bathe me in eternal mildness of joy."

Ishmael, like Amanda and others like her, found a place of peace beyond the hate and the hurt. And, it is important to note, Ishmael with his sense of inner calm and acceptance of the mystery of life, is the only one to survive.

Many of us do not find our way out of this "dark night of the soul." The fact that these injuries exist is a tragedy, but what worries me is the way that we seem to hold onto them. If you want a sense of the spiritual state of the individuals in this church, teach classes in adult religious education and listen to the equal parts anger and anguish that so many have in their hearts. The spiritual diversity we enjoy here at All Souls not only speaks to our core values of tolerance and individualism but is also a testimony to the number of places our members didn’t find spiritual homes. UU congregations are always complaining about lack of space, but I’m no longer sure if that is for RE or for all the spiritual and emotional baggage.

I certainly include myself among the wounded. How long have I hunted the white whale of God? Having been offended and injured I sought to kill the beast with a steady onslaught made of equal parts rage and rationality. I am tired of the hunt.

I am not, please hear me carefully, I am not saying that healing is easy. I am saying that progress is difficult without it—both as individuals and as a spiritual community. I am not saying “get over it” I am saying look at it, embrace it, and continue on the path toward being whole even in your brokenness.

I think there are few better examples of this problem than the fact that I have repeatedly heard people say, in this and other congregations that they felt unwelcome and uncomfortable professing anything resembling a traditional theistic and especially Christian faith. Now, as many of you know, I am not much of a theist, and I am not arguing for a return to the much stronger Christian flavor of our forebears, but I am pointing out how deep our pain goes if it is fine to be Buddhist, Pagan, mystical humanist, or out and out atheist in this spiritual community, but not Christian. Yes, yes Christianity has been the primary force of patriarchal oppression for centuries, eradicated indigenous traditions, resisted all sorts of progressive thought, and been behind countless deaths. I take the history seriously. Still the Christian faith inspired and sustained our forbears admirably, focusing as they did on the religion of Jesus, rather than the religion about Jesus. The elements we so often despise—sexism, original sin, anti-intellectualism, damnation, rigid dogma were not really part of Unitarian or Universalist history. The cool reception Christians often receive in our congregations has less to do with Christian history than with the painful memories many of us still hold close. We’re tilting at windmills that appear to us as giants.

You know I often wonder if the way modern UU's approach religion effectively creates a space for spiritual growth or if in our focus on the individual we overlook a central element of religion. But that is a sermon for another day—August 14^th to be exact, mark it in your calendars.

So how do we emulate Ishmael who survives tragedy and not Ahab who turns it into a career. Being here is a start, I know many people who will never set foot in anything resembling a church again. As with so much, admitting the problem is often the hardest part, acknowledging how deeply the pain goes is a central to the healing process. We must also, of course, forgive ourselves. While serving as a chaplain I’ve met so many people who are worried if god can forgive them for all they’ve done. I always encourage them to forgive themselves first and then worry about the response of that which they hold holy. The intertwined practices of prayer and meditation have shown their worth through thousands of years. Both spiritual disciplines call me to remember that I have rarely had a problem that did not hold learning in its arms. As the philosopher Nietzsche once wrote “That which does not destroy us makes us stronger” and I reluctantly agree if not with the attitude than with the sentiment that challenge can often bring positive change. Certainly essential is the universal solvent, guaranteed to dissolve most problems—love: love of others, love of self, love of the holy. But most of all, what separates the healing from the hunter is choice. Our free will allows us to turn away from less healthy paths, to choose a different way, to ask for and accept help.

Moby Dick is often said to be about the quest for knowledge—a common theme in literature of the time. But while other authors of that era proclaimed humanity's ability to understand and decipher the mystery around us, Melville rejected the idea. Ahab insists on knowing, refuses to live with the mystery and the pain. But we can never fully unlock the mystery, know why our lives unfold as they do. What we do know is that we have a choice—do we turn and focus bitterly on the mystery and the apparently cruel turns life holds, or do we accept our limitations—physical, emotional, spiritual and sail on. I am not suggesting we do not try to learn or understand, Melville values the quest for understanding, our hero Ishmael is constantly relating all he has learned, but he also has a deep abiding appreciation for that which will remain unknowable and that ability to distinguish the subtle line between seeking understanding and obsessing over fate often makes the difference between a deeply spiritual life and an embittered one.

Finally, and being true to the theme of abundance I was asked to preach on, these white whales we continue to hunt sap us, not surprisingly our energy—spiritual, emotional, physical. They keep us on the high seas, sometimes for years, often preventing our coming fully to rest in the love of family, friends, and community. We chase our personal Moby Dick's, often forgetting those we leave on shore. Life is full of gifts, gifts of abundance and joy and yet the simpler more pedestrian moments are often overlooked as we rush by focused on the hunt. I know that I have been blessed with many gifts in this life, and yet it is too common for me to spend 80% of my time focused on the 20% that isn’t going as I want. I suspect many of us do the same. What forms of spiritual abundance do we turn away from because we continue to hold close the injuries of years past? What relationships, with people, with the divine, do let wither because of our fear of reopening those wounds?

And so, each day, week in, week out, I scale this massive hump in our upstairs floor. It still bugs me some, I hope someday I can learn to bless the pain and challenges in my life with more enthusiasm. For now, we've framed a quotation from Melville and hung it on the wall—a reminder to me of the glorious imperfections of life, the mysteries that will remain unsolvable, the itches unscratchable and calling me into a deeper relationship with the gaps in my life, the failures and regrets that can now be allowed to swim away, sounding depths I was never meant to know completely. May we all find ways of turning our ships around, letting go of the pain, and finding peace and healing for our wounds. Amen and Blessed be.