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JUST WHEN WE THINK IT’S IMPOSSIBLE.1
INTRODUCTION: Off and on for the past three weeks, I’ve been going to the storage unit I’m
leasing, and going through some 25 boxes of books that were deposited there by movers, when I
had carotid artery surgery in the midst of a move three years ago this May.
In the process of opening the boxes and determining which ones were going and which
were staying, I came upon The Diary of a Young Girl. As you may remember, it’s Anne Frank’s
incredible recounting of her two years in hiding from the Nazi’s in her homeland in Amsterdam,
Holland.
As you know, Anne was a young Jewish girl caught in the horror of the Nazi obsession to
eradicate Jews from the face of the earth. Her diary began shortly before 1942, at the time her
only sister, Margot, age 16, received a notice from the German invaders of Holland that she was
to report to the German SS – which was synonymous with a death sentence to the concentration
camps.
Rather than allow Margot to go, her entire family activated a plan they had designed for
such an emergency: They would all move in to a secret annex in the warehouse of the business in
which Mr. Frank was a partner. So at age 13, Anne, her sister Margot, their mother and father,
and another Jewish family of four, moved in.
Anne lived there hidden, seeing no one but her family and the other family with them,
from the summer of 1942, until the summer of 1944. Then, some unknown person disclosed their
hideaway to the Nazi’s. Anne and her family were arrested and taken to the concentration camps
– Anne to Auschwitz and then to Bergen-Belsen.
Though the exact date of her death is not known, it was most probably in the winter of
1945. It’s known that a typhus infection swept through Bergen-Belsen at that time. We do know
that due to the horrendous hygienic conditions, thousands were left dead. Anne was most
probably among them.
But the legacy that Anne left us in her diary has been an incredible gift. It revealed a
miraculous insight to life for someone of her tender years. Though she was not aware that she
and her family’s arrest were imminent, here are some of the last words she wrote only 2½ weeks
before her arrest:
It’s difficult in times like these: ideals, dreams and cherished hopes rise within us, only to be
crushed by grim reality. It’s a wonder I haven’t abandoned all my ideals, they seem so
absurd and impractical. Yet I cling to them because I still believe, in spite of everything, that
people are truly good at heart….
…When I look up at the sky, I somehow feel that everything will change for the better,
that this cruelty too shall end, that peace and tranquility will return once more. In the
meantime, I must hold on to my ideals. Perhaps the day will come when I’ll be able to
realize them (Anne Frank, July 15, 1944).
Anne Frank’s statements revealed such a maturity of expression that many have questioned how
someone so young could have made statements of such phenomenal depth. These were not
Pollyanna statements, for the Diary clearly reveals her awareness of the horror of Hitler and his
henchmen. Also, people had escaped from the camps and brought back reports of what was truly
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Presented March 10, 2013; adapted and rewritten from a sermon given at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Ft.
Myers, FL, March 21, 1999 by the Rev. Dr. Wayne A. Robinson, minister.
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happening there, which Anne included in her Diary. Further, Anne’s family, though hidden, did
have a radio and were privy to news of the war. Yet with that knowledge she wrote:
I still believe in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart….When I look up at
the sky, I somehow feel that everything will change for the better.
So, is that true for us today? Do we believe that people are truly good at heart? When we look up
at the sky, do we believe that everything will change for the better? Are we able truly to think
that just when we think things are all going into hell in a hand basket, the impossible happens?
I. WE ARE ALL ADDRESSED BY SUCH QUESTIONS.
Think for a moment of these three questions?
(1). First, are we truly connected to all that is?
When our umbilical cord was cut at birth from our mother, did that end our connection to others?
Or was that cord a symbol that we all are connected one to the other and that our navels are
living proof? But not only to other humans, but to all of Planet Earth’s residents? Further, are we
connected to all that is, both here and beyond? And if so, what does that mean?
Here’s another question:
(2). Second, is this really a “friendly” Universe?
Is there that in our world that echoes what is truest and most real, and in so doing calls us to that
which is our best and brightest? Again, the question: Is this a friendly Universe?
Here’s another question:
(3). Thirdly, are our lives somehow witnessed?
So that nothing we do goes unnoticed?...So that no good deed is not known?...So that no vital
effort for right and truth is ignored? As Rabbi Harold Kushner writes, are all of our actions and
deeds stored in the mind of God never to be forgotten?
Those are at least three of the questions posed by Anne Frank’s diary. I submit that:
II. THE ISSUE IS NOT THE ANSWERS WE GIVE, BUT OUR RESPONSES?
The problem we may have with those questions is not the questions themselves. For in another
way, they are really at the heart of much scientific research and discovery. Darwin’s Origin of
Species was a scientific way of positing our connectedness. Yes, it states, we are connected.
As to this being a friendly Universe, Einstein himself asked that question. In answer I
would say that I believe as Jorge Santayana declared some 100 or so years ago, that most of us
live out of a sense of confidence in the created order, i.e., that this is indeed a friendly Universe.
Our lives reflect that confidence. And the more we learn about the world, the more confident we
become in that sense of self.
As to whether our lives are witnessed, the search for life on other planets is in part a
search to know the answer to that question. But the enormity of the distances, even in our own
galaxy, make that search have only the faintest of possible realizations.
No, the challenge we face in responding to these questions is not the answers we give, but
in how we respond. How reverent are we in addressing that which is ultimate in life. The
challenge is always: Can we transcend responding with the answers of the past? Can we break
out of “in-the-box thinking?”
Let me give you an example of “out-of-the-box” thinking from the life and difficulties of
Albert Einstein, whose work fundamentally changed the way in which we understand the
universe.2
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Einstein: a Life, by Dennis Brian (John A. Wiley: New York, 1996).
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I think most of us imagine Einstein’s accomplishments to have created a firestorm when
he first proposed his special theories of relativity to the scientific community in 1905. The reality
was quite different. It happened like this:
Einstein, in economic desperation, even though a Ph.D. in physics, had taken a low
ranking job in the Swiss Patent Office in Bern, Switzerland in June, 1902. Interestingly, not too
far away, in Prussia, the Patent Office had already closed in the belief that there were no more
important inventions to be discovered.
Einstein enjoyed his work in the patent office and on the side, did his scientific writing.
In June, 1905 – three years after beginning work in the patent office – Einstein mailed his paper
on special relativity to the prestigious scientific journal, Annalen der Physic. He sat back waiting
for the world’s reaction.
For three months, nothing happened: nada. Then the article appeared in that publication
on September 26, 1905. Again, he waited for a response from the scientific community. No one
seemed even mildly curious about his extraordinary new view of the universe. Only months later,
did the great Max Planck write a brief letter asking for some clarification of an obscure point, but
that was it. That seemed to be the end of anyone’s interest.
His sister, Maja, recalled that Einstein had imagined his publication would draw
immediate attention. He relished the prospect of sharp opposition and the severest of criticism.
Nothing.
He was deeply disappointed. He had proposed a whole new way of understanding the
universe. And the scientists who were supposedly interested in that issue had ignored everything
he’d said.
Desperate for some way to connect with the scientific community, he applied for an open
position of Privatdozent at the local university in Bern – Privatdozent meant an unsalaried
lecturer. Can you believe? He was turned down flat and the chair of the physics department
labeled his relativity paper, “incomprehensible.”
Two years later, he applied again and this time was finally accepted. But still: It was an
unsalaried lecturing position. At his first lecture, three persons showed up – all of whom were his
personal friends.
Finally, he decided to apply for a position in the physics department at the University of
Zurich. But there was a major obstacle of another kind: He was a Jew. Though we may like to
believe that Hitler was an aberration of the Germans, 30 years before he came to power in
Germany, anti-Semitism was an established practice even in academic circles in Europe, and
especially in Germany, (and, I might add, as it was in America).
However, a good friend of his wrote a recommendation on his behalf that basically said
that even though Einstein was Jewish, he didn’t act like a Jew. With that caveat, he was
accepted.
He resigned from the Patent Office on July 6, 1909, four years after writing the paper that
would revolutionize the world’s understanding of the universe. But it was not until 1921 –
deferred until 1922 – that he won the Nobel Prize and it was not for his work on relativity, but
his 17 page paper on the generation and conversion of light, one application of which allows us
to open and close garage doors by remote control.
From this vantage point, it’s hard to believe but the community whose work Einstein
most impacted, initially ignored him. It took 25 years for his famous E=mc2 to be verified by
others.
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III. WHAT DO WE DO?
But that is what happens when any of us falls into the box of “been there and done that” kind of
thinking.
Nietzsche said, Sail your ship into unknown harbors. Build your mansion in the shadow
of Vesuvius. Melville said, Write with the condor’s quill.
So how do we do that? Eric Maisel, author and psychotherapist, has made a career out of
helping artists, musicians, dancers, and writers cope with the unique traumas and troubles of
creative persons…those attempting to do something new and something different. In his book,
Fearless Creating, he describes a technique which he uses called, “hushing” – as in “Hush!”
According to Maisel, “hushing” is what happens when we become quiet both inside and
out. It occurs when we go into a museum and sit before a painting for 15 minutes. It happens
when we watch the waves hit the beach, and become entranced by the ebb and flow. It’s a
quieting…an opening…a way to stop the mind. He says, “Hush your thoughts, just as if you
were comforting a baby.”
And when we do, the task is to hear the call of the Universe about our possibilities as a
part of this Universe. Like the astrophysicists listening for the echo of the Big Bang, so can we
listen for that echo in our hearts.
When I do my morning affirmations, the view is just magnificent: the rising sun, the
water, the trees, the clouds and the sky. The same is true many evenings. So many times, I’ve
rushed outside to take a snapshot of the beauty of the setting sun. But it’s not just of the morning
or evening’s view.
Have you ever gone to one of the many waterside restaurants that we’re so blessed with?
While waiting for a table have you taken a short walk on the beach? Have you seen the moon
shining brightly overhead, heard and seen the water gently lapping up on the shore, along with a
very gentle breeze blowing?
I can remember time and again thinking to myself, how easy it has become to take for
granted such beauty, such wonder, here in SW Florida.
A gorgeous heron will fly by and we think nothing of it. We see the rich vegetation all
around us, and the flowing rivers, with hardly a notice. We forget that the sun is shining. The
birds are singing. The green grass is growing. The trees are alive. Hush. Listen. The Universe is
calling.
CONCLUSION.
The great Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore has so poetically expressed it, “The same stream of
life that runs through my veins night and day runs through the world and dances in rhythmic
measures.” Did we hear that? “It is the same life that shoots in joy through the dust of the earth
in numberless blades of grass and breaks into tumultuous waves of leaves and flowers.” Are we
aware? “It is the same life that is rocked in the ocean cradle of birth and death, in ebb and in
flow….It is the life-throb of the ages dancing in my blood this moment.”
Shalom. Salaam Aleichem. Namaste. Amen. Blessed be.