Homily: Why I’m Here, By Samira Kawash

2015 October 25
by First U Bklyn

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This time of year, one of my favorite things to do is head up to the Hudson Valley for a good tramp in the woods. Any other hikers out there? There’s a custom out on the trail that when you pass someone going the other direction, you say hello. An experienced mountaineer explained the reason to me: Out on the trail, no one can afford to be a stranger. You never know what disaster or injury may befall you around the next bend. A little “hi” or “good morning” is not only polite, it might just save your life.

I grew up in California, so this habit of greeting everyone I pass comes easy. Here in New York, though, it’s considered odd. After I moved to Manhattan in 1994, I shopped in the same East Village grocery for ten years, and for all those years the clerks insisted on acting like they’d never seen me before.

 

 

 

These days I live on a friendly block in a friendly neighborhood. And yet, when I round the corner from street to avenue, my two-doors down neighbor looks right through me. I quickly shift my eyes away and wipe the expectant, and now foolish, smile off my face. Message received: We’re New Yorkers. We’re cool.

But can we really afford to be so cool? Maybe some can. Myself, I can’t. I’m one of a family of three. Extended family is all far away, geographically and other ways as well. That means I’m just two people away from complete isolation. It is, to be sure, two people more than many others can count on. But in my dark moments, I ponder the fact that without my husband and daughter, I’d have no one. This occurs to me most distressingly when physical danger sets my heart pounding in fear. Like when a car swerves too close in the cross walk. When I slip on the stairs. When I feel a twitch or a lump or a scratch and wonder if this is the thing I’ve been dreading, finally catching up with me.

 

 

Back in the 90s, when I lived in Manhattan, there was a woman on First Avenue who I’d pass several times a day. She was always wearing the same filthy jacket, sun or snow. Every day, all day, she’d shuffle up and down the sidewalk in front of the pizza parlor, muttering angrily and chain smoking. She looked poor, and sick, and miserable. I knew she needed help, but I was young and way out of my depth. I did offer to buy her pizza once—she yelled at me. That woman fascinated and terrified me. She was everything I feared—not that she scared me, but that I was, and still am, afraid that someday I will be her. Friendless, alone, desperate.

 

 

 

Preposterous, right? I have a beautiful, healthy family. We have a comfortable life, luxurious by most standards. I have everything I need and more. And yet I can’t shake that terror that one day, it could all disappear, blown up in some unimaginable catastrophe of loss. Perhaps my apocalyptic fantasies are overblown. But the fear of devastating loss—not just of material comfort but of human companionship—that fear of loss is real.

Maybe I worry about this more than many of you, but I suspect such fears are pretty common. Is there any one among us who doesn’t fear loneliness? Who doesn’t fear the dull ache of having no one notice our existence, no one care what befalls us? Maybe some of you are the lucky ones, who have the love and support of a tight-knit tribe. For me, my best hope is here, in this community, in this congregation.

 

 

 

There is so much to cherish here at First U, from the inspiring sermons and uplifting music that nurture our spirit to the congregation’s commitment to justice and love that heals the world. I come for these things. But I also come because I want to belong. That’s why I show up every week, even on days like today when the clouds thicken with rain and the coffee pot conspires with the Sunday Times to lure me back under the covers. That’s why I wear my nametag and go to annual meetings and scrub baseboards in the Francis White room and make caramels for Unifair. I do these things, and many others, because I want to be known here. I want to have a place where people will see me and acknowledge my existence, a place where people will affirm that I’m alive and that I matter. I want to be a face of welcome and a helping hand for others in need, and I want to know that when I fall down, there will be hundreds of hands to lift me up again. I want to belong to a community that sustains me—now, and through the ups and downs of the rest of my life.

 

 

 

If that’s what you’re looking for, you’ve come to the right place. This is a community of people who want to welcome you, who want to know you, who want to wrap you up in a big fuzzy blanket of UU love. That’s the good news. But—and here’s the tricky part—it’s not just an automatic benefit you get in the mail after you sign the membership book. Belonging to this community, and building a community that is strong enough to sustain you and me and all of us, that actually requires work. Sometimes joyful, silly, fun work like the Halloween party over in the Chapel today. Sometimes awful, disgusting work, like cleaning out the Unifair mystery closet. Sometimes boring work like sitting through another budget meeting. But that work is the alchemy that transforms a group of strangers into a real community.

 

 

 

So show up. Make yourself known. Wear a nametag. Linger. Talk to people, or if you’re feeling shy, just lurk. Volunteer to help. Find ways to help, even when no one asks. Invest your time in this community, and your investment will be returned, with infinite interest. We’re all hiking on the trail of life, and we’re sure to run into dangerous terrain ahead. Alone, we’re in serious trouble. But here, in this community, we know that on the day we call for help, there will be someone to hear us. As the choir put it so beautifully, we’ll never walk alone.  

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