If Thoreau were alive, he would shake his head that someone like me who grew up so near Concord, Massachusetts, has never actually hunted for huckleberries. I have never even seen a huckleberry pudding nor tasted a single berry. My understanding is that they are a bit like blackberries both in flavor and appearance. If by any chance you have had the good fortune to meet a huckleberry, please seek me out after the service. As Thoreau said in the scene, your experience will be far more interesting than any book on the subject.

However, I am somewhat of an expert apple picker. Before I entered the ministry, I was a preschool teacher. Every autumn as the air turned crisp, we would plan a field trip to Apple Country. As I am sure many of you know first hand, excursions with children under the age of six are always an adventure. The class that I taught was known as the Penguins. Before we headed out, we would tie a red bandana around each child's neck with the phone number of the Nursery School just in case one of them might wander off. These brightly colored scarves added to the air of excitement and a sense of being a team as we left our familiar classroom to explore the world. We would pile into a yellow school bus with the Dinosaur and Teddy Bear classes singing all the way to the orchard.

Once there, we traded the school bus for a bouncy hayride over rolling hills, through mud, and past many apple trees. When we'd reached our assigned parcel of orchard, the children hopped down from the hay with bags in hand. There is not as much skill involved in picking apples as huckleberry hunting, mind you. The branches hung down with the weight of their bountiful fruit. Where berries hide in the shade, the rosy apples shone in the October sunshine.

The character of the students was highlighted with his or her approach to this activity. Eric was a lot like Edward Emerson rushing around from tree to tree trying to be the first to fill up his bag. Beth would consider each apple, mulling over its shape and color before making her selection. Amanda always wanted the one just out of her reach while Philip was content to pick up the ones that his friends had dropped. No matter what the individual style had been in the collection, each of us returned to school with a bag full of apples we'd harvested ourselves. The flavor of those Macintosh apples was extraordinary. With each bite came the color and the fragrance of our day together in the open air and the pure joy and wonder of the harvest.

This experience is parallel to what Henry David Thoreau describes in his most well-known book Walden as follows, "If the day and the night are such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scented herbs, is more elastic, more starry, more immortal---that is your success. All nature is your congratulation, and you have cause momentarily to bless yourself. The greatest gains and values are farthest from being appreciated. We easily come to doubt if they exist. We soon forget them. They are the highest reality. Perhaps the facts most astounding and most real are never communicated by man to man. The true harvest of my daily life is somewhat as intangible and indescribable as the tints of morning or evening. It is a little stardust caught, a segment of the rainbow which I have clutched."

Thoreau is perhaps most famous for the two years (1845-47) that he lived in a small cabin that he built himself near Walden Pond. Thoreau was born in Concord, Massachusetts the son of a pencil-maker. He graduated from Harvard College without distinction and then returned to his native Concord and was employed for a time as a schoolteacher. His approach to education is what is popularly known today as child-centered learning where the curriculum is based on the natural interests and disposition of the students. The Concord School Committee did not look favorably on Thoreau's teaching given that the standard method of the time was the rote memorization of selected texts. Thoreau was often admonished by the School Committee for straying from the approved books. In the end, it was Thoreau himself who tended his resignation because he refused to whip his students which was the recommended form of discipline.

What many people do not realize is that Thoreau was not only directly inspired by the thought of Ralph Waldo Emerson he also was living on Emerson's property. Although Walden conjures up romantic images of a remote solitary existence, Thoreau's modest cabin was in the back lot of the Emerson's estate. He would often join them for meals and earned his keep by doing yard work and other menial tasks. So, although the dramatic scene that Bob and Max enacted for us is fictional, Thoreau did indeed befriend Emerson's son Edward and spend time with him under the Concord sky. Where Ralph Waldo Emerson's popularity took him on the lecture circuit far from the shores of Walden and his family, Thoreau was rooted there and formed meaningful ties with young Edward. Henry David Thoreau also remarked in his writings upon the "wholesome taste of huckleberries" when discovered "amid the bushes".

The dramatic scene touches upon some essential elements in Thoreau's philosophy of life. The first is that Nature was his classroom. When young Edward asks where they are going, Thoreau boldly replies, "Huckleberry-hunting my boy! Would you like to study composition with Mozart? Painting with Michelangelo? Study huckleberry-hunting with Thoreau, it's the same thing!" Of all the Transcendentalist thinkers of the time, Thoreau is considered the ultimate poet-naturalist. Where many in that circle drew their inspiration from books and conversation, Henry David led a contemplative life, studying the phenomena of nature, communing with her spirit, and noting his observations and thoughts in voluminous diaries.

So what are the lessons learned while huckleberry hunting with Thoreau? Henry imparts a great secret to Edward, "Huckleberries are very difficult to find. Because most people think that . . . they're over there! The best huckleberries have a sly way of being exactly where you are standing!" This is why I enjoy the writings of Henry David Thoreau, his message is one that I most need to hear. The first lesson is both the simplest and the easiest to forget: I am enough. The reward that I am seeking is much closer than I realize and it is not to be enjoyed at some distant time or in some far-off place but at this moment and right where I am standing.

The scene also demonstrates Thoreau's famous lines, "Why should we live in such a hurry and waste of life? We are determined to be starved before we are hungry." While Edward rushes around stripping whole patches, Henry savors the taste of a single berry. Edward's approach can easily be compared to our hectic lives spent sprinting from one activity to the next. The simple truth is that life is not enhanced by increasing its speed. Thoreau reminds us of the practice of simplicity.

The most precious lesson of all comes when Edward trips and falls casting the whole basket of berries to the ground. His proud accomplishment lies in ruins and his spirits are dashed. Thoreau does not say, "You stupid kid, why did you have to be so greedy? If you hadn't filled your basket so high, this never would have happened!" Instead he treats Edward with tenderness and calm. He explains how Edward has seeded a whole patch of huckleberries for generations to follow. This is part of the natural order of things. Henry says "Nature has provided that little boys gathering huckleberries should, now and then, stumble and scatter the berries." We each take part in unexpected planting. Sometimes it seems that our accomplishments have fallen short, however with time our seeds may grow and provide an abundant harvest for those that follow.

As I have been speaking of nature, harvest, and the scattering of seeds, your eyes may have alighted upon the stained glass window behind me. It is a beautiful rendition of a painting by Millet entitled "The Sower". Millet is equally well-known for his painting entitled "The Gleaners" in which three women are bent over harvesting a bounty of grain. His paintings depict the human form as an integral part of the landscape. A Visitor's Guide to this church explains, "The window in the chancel is a memorial to Dr. Channing, presented by his relatives, and is the work of Donald McDonald, of Boston. It represents the Parable of the Sower."

As I watched Max and Bob rehearse the scene, my eyes were drawn to the Sower behind them. "Why this image?" I wondered. As the window was given by Channing's family and is the central symbol of our worship space, the choice was deliberate and is connected to the spirit of the man it memorializes.

I turned to the pages of the Christian Scriptures where the Parable of the Sower is found in the Gospels of Mark, Matthew, and Luke in slightly different versions. Scholars agree that Jesus used narrative to teach. There is disagreement whether the interpretation that follows is authentic or was added later on. In the story, the seeds are sown in four different conditions with varying results. The seeds that fall on the path are eaten by birds. The seeds that fall on rocky ground spring up quickly but soon wither away because the roots are shallow. The seeds among thorns are choked by the other plants whereas the seeds sown in good soil produce a bountiful harvest.

William Ellery Channing was an inspiration to the Transcendentalists. He asserted that the seed of divinity was to be found within each individual. The function of religion was to encourage the unfolding of that seed. Worth is not to be found in outward distinctions of appearance, status or wealth, but within the character of the individual. Here is an excerpt from a passage in which Channing describes what he termed "self-culture": "To cultivate any thing, be it a plant, an animal, a mind, is to make grow. Growth, expansion, is the end. Nothing admits culture but that which has a principle of life, capable of being expanded. He, therefore, who does what he can to unfold all his powers and capacities, especially his nobler ones, so as to become a well-proportioned, vigorous, happy being, practices self-culture."

What obstacles block your growth?
What conditions need to be in place in order for you to experience abundant harvest?
How can this religious community provide the conditions and tools for self-culture?

 

 

In Walden, Thoreau writes that moral reform "is the effort to throw off sleep". I believe that I am surrounded by the Sacred but I have only glimpses of awareness. When my activities seem to sweep me along, I often go out of doors. Such an experience shows me that I am not the center of the universe. Transcendence begins when I sense what is beyond me and makes me aware of my finitude. I spent four years without stars. As you know, Berkeley, CA is constantly shrouded with fog. When I moved to Martha's Vineyard I was in awe of the pulsing stars overhead. Often I would lie on the beach staring into the heavens, feeling both dizzied and exalted as described so beautifully in the poem by Mary Oliver that Fred read for us this morning.

The Sacred is also to be found in relationship with other people. I disagree with Thoreau's assertion that "Perhaps the facts most astounding and most real are never communicated by man to man." Maybe the deepest meaning cannot be contained in words. As Oliver writes, "language keeps making its tiny noises." However, those moments when I have been most awake and alive are often with other people. Apple picking with the preschoolers is a precious example. The friendship between Henry and Edward is another.

Our closing hymn is one of my favorites. The words and music were composed by Carolyn McDade, a Unitarian Universalist. I had the pleasure of hearing her in concert once. She explained that this song was inspired by her work with female prisoners. These women touched her life deeply. In relationship with one another and through singing together, they found hope when hope was hard to find.

Here is my prayer. Even in poor conditions, when your path is rocky or weeds choke your best plantings, here at Channing Memorial Church may you join your voice with others in song, may you find someone to walk beside you, and may you be reminded of the beauty that surrounds and sustains you each moment.

Please rise as you are able to sing Hymn #346, Come Sing a Song With Me.