HUU Community Cafe

A sermon preached at Harrisonburg UUA, August 19, 2007
by Rev. John Irvine

A perched hawk can often be seen cocking its head and looking up at the sky with one eye.

It may be estimating the catchability of a bird that could serve as its lunch. More likely, it is cautiously watching another hawk flying over that might dive on it and make it lunch. When I have looked up to see what the hawk is watching, I have often been unable to spot anything up there. Yet the hawk keeps following it across the sky regardless, until the opportunity, or the danger, has passed.

That’s an obvious reminder that much goes on around me beyond my range of vision, that my eye does not have the capacity to see. With the cone cells in their retinas packed together far more thickly than ours, hawks can see about 3 times as far as we can. A bald eagle was once observed making an abrupt right turn, then gliding in a straight line for 3 miles to a lake, where it picked a large fish off the surface. Could you see anything even the size of a large fish at 3 miles? No wonder “eagle-eyed” is a compliment when ascribed to a human!

Physical vision is one thing, but “vision” is also a spiritual term. Spiritually speaking, does your vision’s reach embrace enough? Does mine? My attention was captured recently while reading a book by a theology professor, Douglas Ottati. (Douglas F. Ottati, Reforming Protestantism:Christian Commitment in Today’s World. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1995, p. 58.) Describing a person whose spiritual vision had been enlarged by developing a religious belief system and practices, he used the phrase “the capacious eye.” That unusual phrase struck me as a worthy subject for this sermon. Continue Reading »

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Annie’ s Run…that is what I call this little creek that runs next to my house and where this odd mix of a terrier played among the dragon flies and imaginary playmates at the water’s edge. I had this wonderful friend for almost 20 years. In the winter of 1999, while vacationing in a warmer climate to escape the mountain cold, I received a call from my house mate telling me that Annie had wandered off a few days earlier and that she and the neighbors had been unable to locate her. She probably had walked along the forest path that lead into the National Forest and being almost blind and deaf, she had lost her way. Annie was never found and for weeks, I had reoccurring dreams where she would be coming toward me but would disappear into a dense fog. Then one night, I dreamed of her. However, this time she was in a park somewhere in Brooklyn, NY (I have never even been to Brooklyn) playing in a green grassy area with a small boy. They ran, tumbled and ran some more. Annie was so happy ! And,I was at peace. I am blessed that I did not have to wait long for her to return to bring again so much love. Continue Reading »

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