Volver: To Return

Delivered to the First Unitarian Society of Chicago,
November 07, 2010.

Volver is a Spanish verb that means to return to a place. Return and place are sort of my topics this morning.

For those of you who do not know me, Hi, I’m Joe. This has been my home church since 1996. I’m now sort of a wandering member, though, and so you may not have seen me before. But no matter how far my travels take me, this place is never far from my heart. Gathered here every Sunday are many people I love.

The ancient Jewish people believed that G-d, Jaweh, the Holy, was a god of place. The first temple, sometimes known as Solomon’s temple, was built in about 957 BC, and destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BC. The second great temple was begun in 528BC, and was eventually destroyed in 70 AD by the Romans. Some believe there will be a third great temple built on that same site.

For the ancient Jews, this is G-d’s place.

I’m not explaining this to ridicule the ancient Jews. This, to me, is not a silly idea of people from a time long ago. It’s actually quite amazing.

Think of all the temporary things we have in our lives. What, in fact, is permanent?

Nothing.

Nothing.

And yet, there is a spot on this earth, where for centuries, people have believed that this space is G-d’s space.

To their cousins, the Muslims, since the 7th century, this has been where the Dome of the Rock has stood. For almost three thousand years of recorded history, this place, where Solomon’s temple stood, has been a place to engage that which is most Holy.

Our sanctuary is not so old, few man-made things in North American are that old. But even so, it is a place where we come to engage with that which is most Holy.

And this is the place where I came, week after week, for a dozen years, to find people that mattered to me, people for whom I mattered.

I can think of perhaps no place that is more Holy to me.

Relationships are what make this sanctuary Holy. It is the friends who are no longer with us, our friends downstairs whose ashes are in our crypt, our friends who are here with us now, and the people we have yet to meet and with whom we will discover a kinship. These relationships are an expression of the Divine.

I have been away on my internship. Vancouver is a lovely city, though a bit pricey! It’s Canada’s most expensive city! I moved from Detroit to Chicago, and my cost of living went up. I moved from Chicago to Vancouver, and my cost of living went up. If this trend continues I’m going to have to either move to Hong Kong or London.

Vancouver is a lovely city. And the congregation that I am serving has been very welcoming and embracing. I gave my first sermon there in September, and I got many positive responses to it. I am happy where I am.

So why am I speaking this morning about Volver, returning?

Because more than my physical return to Hyde Park, which has been so very nice, my heart returns here often.

You can’t see it from where you are, probably, but the wallpaper on my cellphone is a picture of our Rose window. So literally, every time I pick up my phone, to answer a call, to check email or to add another appointment in my calendar, I am transported back home for an instant.

Except, really, you can’t return completely, can you?

Life is a flowing stream, and as the popular saying goes, you can’t step into the same river twice. Part of the flavor of volver is the sadness and longing that knows this. Part of it is the joy of recognizing this and still having so much anticipation about seeing the familiar.


Have you ever had the experience of returning someplace you haven’t been for a long time? Have you ever gone back to your elementary or high school, and had a good look at it?

It’s not quite as big as you remember, is it? You don’t feel quite as small there as you once may have.

Even if you are the exact same height you were when you graduated from those places.

Where is a place that you long to return?


In Pedro Almodovar’s film Volver, from which I shamelessly borrowed the title of today’s sermon, two sisters leave the coastal town of their birth and move to Madrid. They are called back to the town after the death of their beloved Aunt, Paula. It’s a lovely film, and I recommend it highly. Penelope Cruse is perhaps the world’s most beautiful crier.

The sisters are caught between their lives in Madrid where they work and have children, and their ancestral home, where they still feel some responsibilities, and of course, the emotional pull of the familiar.


Maybe you can relate to this idea. Even if you have never moved away from the home you were born into, you’ve changed and grown. You’ve built for yourself a life in a new place.


While I was in a second-hand store in Vancouver, I checked out a globe, and I am farther away from home that London is from Istanbul. A more accurate distance is that between Paris and Cairo.

I will tell you that when I discovered that I got to feeling very homesick. Not just for Chicago, but also my family, another 380 miles further away.

I’d like to ask you to settle in and get comfortable for a moment. If you feel comfortable, please close your eyes. I’d like to take you on a little guided meditation. When you hear the sounds of the bell, please open your eyes.

Take a deep, relaxed breath.

In your mind, think of all the places that mean something important to you.

Don’t forget things like swing-sets from your childhood.

Or your first school dance.

The place where you had your first kiss.

The place where you first told someone you loved them and they said they loved you back.

Your first day of your very first job.

The place where you had to say a difficult good bye.

The place where you find rest.

Of all these places, which is the most cherished?

(end meditation.)

Later today, or maybe tomorrow, revisit some of the places that came to your mind. Picture them in your mind and ask what they mean to your soul.

Human beings are meaning makers. We connect dots that aren’t even there. Human pattern recognition is part of our software. It’s how we are able to see a complete circle when there isn’t one. It’s why we see shapes in clouds that aren’t really there.

Recently, I was at a UU Men’s retreat at Lake Sasamet in British Columbia. I got up very early one morning, as is my habit, and I went down to the Lake to watch the sunrise. Except since I was in the middle of big hills, not the mountains, and there was no giant lake to the east, I mostly saw the sky getting lighter, but not really a sunrise.

Next to the lake there is this giant rock. And I mean giant. Most of it is submerged below the soil and still the area you can stand directly on is about as big as the apse in this church. I had to look that word up, by the way. It’s spelled A P S E, and it’s the place between these steps and where the empty niche is.

So I’m on this giant rock, and it’s a bit chilly, and not quite light out. And then this idea strikes me. For thousands of years, men have stood on this rock. They came from Africa through Asia, the Bering Straight and into Canada, and they have stood here, watching the sunrise just as I am doing right now. In deference to this idea, I took off my socks and shoes, to join the women and men who’ve stood at this rock, overlooking this lake.

And as I stood there, feet admittedly cold, I saw a miracle. Not a super-natural miracle, but an ordinary, every day one.

Across the surface of the lake, I watched moisture gather from the surrounding land. Over and over, it kept just falling from the land, which is at a higher point than the lake, into the lake, but the little bits of fog did not fall completely into the lake. Instead these wisps of fog skimmed along the surface of the lake, eventually coming together and then forming a large column that reached up into the sky.

It was breath-taking.

And these wisps of fog, to my brain, looked often like people, walking. Now I k-n-o-w that this is just my brain’s pattern recognition software kicking in. But I let it kick in, and I stood there, in the slowly brightening morning, watching these “people” gathering, wave after wave.

I saw a little girl with a bicycle. I saw an older, heftier couple dancing a waltz together. I saw individuals taking hands, I saw some who walked alone. I even saw one woman walking her dog.

And for the first time in my life, in seeing this, I know why people describe ghosts the way that they do.

And the thing that made me cry on that beautifully warm autumn morning was that these people, whether they were young or old, alone or in pairs, all came together as one. That whichever part of the lake they came from, whichever side they were on…it didn’t matter. In the end, they came together and together they rose into the heavens.

Theologically, I am a Universalist. Which means that I believe that God, the God we cannot wholly know or wholly name, is Love. That eventually we return together to gather in a place of Love. That all will be reunited there, that love is our final destination.
And on that Sunday morning, so very early, I had a vision of what that might look like.

We humans are meaning makers. So go forth from this place, and make meaning in and of your lives. Visit the holy places of your life, if only in your heart, often.

And of course, come to church often!


May each of us develop the courage to live our life emboldened by Love. May we be strengthened by that Love so that we may share our Love with the world through acts of friendship, generosity and kinship with the friends we have yet to make.

May it be ever so.

Amen.