Sermon

Button

The sun was shining through the mist as I started my trip to my grandfather’s home. A gentle breeze pulsed up the hill bringing periodic bird songs and insect whirling sounds. Looking to my left there was a rabbit lying quietly in a mound of grass. Then right in front of me, I saw a button. It was ceramic colored in different shades of white, gray, and tan. The old phrase came to mind, “Button, Button, Whose Got the Button?” But no one had the button. It was not holding up someone’s pants or closing a coat. It did not need to be owned or possessed to have a purpose. It had its self. The purpose was to be where it was. My seeing it did not give it a purpose, and if I put it to some use, that would be my purpose, not of concern to the button. The button did not care (could not care) about my trip. It would have been very odd if it did care.

Humans are such interesting creatures. We attribute meaning to things that may not have meaning. There are people that would have seen that button and said it was placed there by spirits or leprechauns to distract me. It was there for the purpose of slowing my trip to save me from a landslide or tree falling on my head. They would give it powerful meaning that would endow it with a brain, planning, and will. As I softly touched a button on my shirt, it occurred such a meaning would be very strange. It that button had such powerful meaning, why did not the button between my fingers jump up and yell at me? There were no words or even telepathic visions from either button to explain the potential mystery.

We are organisms that spend much of our time recognizing patterns. Our continued existence depends on such ability. If we only saw lights, color, and movement without recognizing meaningful patterns, a truck would run over our heads. We attribute meaning to the patterns we see.

Sometimes we see more than is there, and there are some people that spend their lives seeing beyond what exists. Humility protects us from the debilitating impact of see too much of what is not there. Grandfather had taught me years ago that paranoia requires grandiosity. You must be very important if you believe people are trying to get you. The planes flying overhead are just people traveling from place to place until you think they are government officials spying on you. The cars driving by are just travelers unless you think are people chasing you.

Understanding that much of what happens is just a collection of events that have nothing to do with you buffers the desire to be crazy. Be humble in thought and action. Respect the existence of the earth and the rights of people. Believing the patterns you see all around you or that you have some divine right to have more that others only makes you one day closer to a secure facility.

This is difficult to accept. We are told that we must be humble so we will be exalted and have power after we die. Are we supposed to be compassionate and caring so we can be tyrants in some undefined spirit realm? It is such a paradox to believe we should accept injustice and abuse while alive so we can dish out pain and torture to others when dead.

In truth, we are humans. We are cooperative by nature; because without cooperation, we will destroy ourselves. We do not respect others because of some accounting system that expects to gain profit in the future. We respect others because humans are respectful. If we are greedy, insulting, rude, and disrespectful, we are just not being human.

The button has not message for me. It is highly unlikely it has a purpose of its own. It is just there, like most of that which is seen and unseen is just there. I will make meaning out of events that make my life richer, not out of wacky things that make people want to institutionalize me.

Wah Doh