An Unimportant Sermon
This format is a little different from our usual sermons ; Akkarin & I feel compelled to talk with you together. Compelled because we are Councillors and Pastors, but not to talk to you as Councillors and Pastors … Just compelled to talk, together, with you, as us. With all of us.
We are truly sorry that some of you have felt neglected, dismissed and/or not listened to. Please believe us when we say that was never our intention …
For however it may appear, we are pretty sensitive to our own egos and try to keep one another in check against any power-trips. Why do we keep an eye out for one another with regard to our egos ? Because none of us are immune to the inflating and deflating of our ego …
It isn't going to be enough for us to say “everyone is important”. Everyone has to “feel” it. We all need to feel that others give validation to our thoughts, feelings and dreams. Listening is indeed a grand part of that, but just like saying “everyone is important”, Listening is not going to be enough …
There needs to be Dialogue. There needs to be real, effective, interpersonal communicating. Dialogue as an exchange of Listening. And not just between the membership and the Council, but among members – whatever one's “rank” – via PM or whatever channel … Please don’t be intimidated by rank, or reputation, all of us are the Temple, all of us feel the loss when things go wrong, all of us are here for each other.
Exchange is where a relationship harmonises. All members have to feel as though they are valuable, that their contributions matter … Perhaps we are not able to do as everyone would have us do, or put to use everyone's ideas (even good ones). But then, what would it look like if we tried to ? Nothing could be stable enough to build upon – it would be a constantly shifting bed of quicksand that could not support any of us.
Yet, there is another analogy that can illustrate our dilemma : that of getting out from under the pressure that we all wish to be free from. The Temple can indeed be a sanctuary from the stresses of Everyday Life (consider the cathedral/sacred space of which J. Campbell spoke). Why does our rank motif in the Temple exact a considerable degree of study, practice and patience ? You have often heard us use the metaphor for the Force as being water. It is an apt metaphor, for not only does water run it also lies deep and mysterious … Yet, our natural environment is the “normal pressure” at its surface.
The pressures we feel are not all about how we feel in the TotJO. Throughout our lives we sink deeper and deeper into the pool of social pressures : we have work pressures, peer pressures, family pressures, partnership pressures, financial pressures … and so forth. This is the stress equivalent to being many metres below sea level during just about all of our waking (and perhaps many of our dreaming) hours.
In the last several years, scuba-diving has become particularly refined, in terms of equipment and training, enabling people to dive to ever deeper than before. However, the most dangerous, life-threatening part of any dive is the return to the surface. Whereas too much “pressure” is, without a doubt, uncomfortably stressful – too rapid relief of that pressure can be deadly.
It is wise to relieve “pressures” slowly so as not to burst under them. When diving our bodies adapt to pressure, but so also our psyches adapt to the pressures upon us. As there is equipment used in diving – mask and aqualungs – , we need also to be equipped with external validations, to be valued by others to withstand the pressures upon us. We need to be able to feel that our Thoughts and Feelings, our Hope and Opinions matter in just the same way as we need to be able to Breathe while being squeezed from all sides … Those validations are vital. But, is this environment that society has created – this pressure-bound depth of multiple, split identities – our natural, comfortable habitat?
As with scuba-diving, the true source of this vital breath is self-contained. As Jedi we understand it is through consoling others that we are consoled, and in the same way it is through validating others that we are validated. The spirit of validation comes from within us – not from outside. All we truly have to worry about is coming up out from under pressure too quickly.
This is why we work toward rank – and why we do not rush it. It is not that a Knight is “more important” than a Novice, but that the Knight has taken the time and training to acclimate to a different depth. That does not mean that Knights are out of the water, we've just decompressed enough to get a little closer to the surface without popping like an over-ripe melon … (that doesn't mean we don't get some pretty nasty aches though).
Thus, here are two of the reasons why this topic has been so important to us all : we need to be in better communication with one another : listening and being listened to, and taking our time to acclimate to the “stress-free” environment that we would like to enjoy in the TotJO. We need to come up slowly and rely less on outside “life-support” and more on our natural breathing apparatus : the passion, love and integrity that we all pursue in the depths …
We all understand, intellectually at least, that this over-pressurised environment is not our natural one, that we need to come back up to the surface where we belong ... However understanding that, or intellectually grasping that – is very different from feeling that sentiment and living that way naturally.
We have been in the depths almost all of our lives and have adapted to the unbearable pressures in a plethora of different ways. But that adaptation cannot be undone quickly and it may be that an instant ascent 'back' to the surface is too much to bear. The potential injuries from such a change – too great. We need to care for ourselves, as we care for each other, and make our ways carefully and patiently back to the surface – like an expert diver. As we do this we will inevitably feel the need for external validation, but let us feel that validation by validating others. Let us Listen through Dialogue.
For those who care to, please join us in the recitation of our Creed . . .
