This is the text of the Reflections I offered on Sunday, February 10, 2019 to the congregation I serve in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Whether we call it “Chinese New
Year,” the “Spring Festival,” or the “Lunar Festival,” this major Chinese
celebration (which began this past Tuesday and will continue on through a week
from this coming Wednesday) is a really, really big deal. It’s celebrated by more than 20% of all the
people in the world – that’s something like 1 ½ billion people! And you know
how Lorie said that setting off firecrackers is a part of the
celebrations? More fireworks are set off
all over the world that last night than at any other time of the year …
anywhere. And do you remember how much Yuan Xiao wanted to go home to be with her
family? Well … so many people travel
home during this time that in 2015, they were selling 1,000 train tickets …
every second. Like I said, it’s a
really, really big deal.
There is usually more than one great legend tied to
any particular event, and this is true about the origin of the lantern
festival. Lorie told you one, and I’m
going to tell you another. The one I’m
going to tell you is different than the one Lorie told you in two big ways –
first, it doesn’t focus on Yuan Xiao and Dongfang Shuo, and the second is … the
monster is real. Which one is true? Probably both. (Oh, and the one I’m going to tell is a
variation of the story Rob Craighurst has told here so marvelously.)
In this version of the story, as I said, the
monster is real. Its name is Nian. Most of the time it lived out in the depths
of the sea, but each year, as the end of the lunar year drew near, it would
come out of the water and onto land, where it would proceed to kill people’s
livestock – goats, pigs, chickens, cows … you know – it would hunt the people
of the village, and would generally cause a mess. It was scary.
Since this happened every year, the people of the village knew that when
the lunar year was coming to an end, it was time to grab their things and run
for the hills. (And unlike here, when an
evacuation order is given, nobody would stay behind and “ride it out.”)
Well … one year an old woman came into town just as
the mad preparations for the exodus was taking place. She had piercing eyes, long white hair, was
dressed in rags, walked with a cane. She
stood in the center of the town, and she looked tired. A kindly grandfather saw here there and
brought her some food … and a warning.
“The sea monster Nian is coming here tonight and we’re all getting out
of here to hide in the hills, you should too.”
The old woman just smiled, tiredly. “I’m not afraid of any monster,” she
said. “I’ll tell you what. If you let me stay the night in your house so
that I can get a good night’s sleep in your bed, I will take care of old Nian
for you in return.”
The grandfather looked at her thinking that she
must not know what she was getting into, but he didn’t have any more time to
talk with her. He had to finish getting
ready. “I really suggest you come with
us to hide,” he said. “But if you’re
really intent on staying, you are certainly most welcome to spend the night in
my humble home. But whatever you do, I
implore you – keep the house dark, and don’t make any noise, and maybe Nian
won’t know that you’re there.” And with
that, he left to join the rest of the villagers.
That night, when Nian came into the village, the
monster noticed something different about the town. Usually the houses were all dark and
empty. Everything was quiet. This time, though, there was one house that
was all lit up. Nian went closer to the
house to check it out, and found that all of the windows had been covered with
red paper, and every window had a candle burning it in. This made the monster angry; whoever lived in
the house wasn’t giving it the proper respect.
Nian decided to get to the bottom of this.
But as it descended on the house, there was
suddenly a lot of crackling and popping in the courtyard. This made Nian a little nervous. And just then the front door burst open. The old woman was there, wearing all red and
laughing raucously. Nian was now kind of
scared, that someone would stand there completely unafraid. Maybe the monster had underestimated these
villagers! So it quickly beat feet and
headed back to the safety of the sea.
The next morning the villagers came back to see
that everything was just as they’d left it.
The grandfather realized that the old woman had been as good as her
word. He told everyone about it, and
they all went to his house to thank the good woman. When they got there, though, the woman was
gone. But they saw the windows all
covered in red, the burnt candles in the windows, and the exploded firecrackers
in the yard, and they understood what she had done.
So the next year, even though they were a little
nervous about it, everyone stayed in the village the night Nian was due to
come. They all covered their windows in
red paper; they all lit lights in their windows; and when the monster did show
up, they all set off firecrackers in their yards. And they all saw the monster turn tail and
run, just like they used to.
Everyone came out of their houses, and they were so
happy that they started celebrating.
People made sweet rice balls, delicious dishes of noodles (which you
would eat in one long slurp without cutting or biting it, to signify a long and
uninterrupted life), and all sorts of other special foods. And every day they would celebrate like this,
and the monster never came back.
Now … there are three lessons that I learn from
these stories.
First, sometimes monsters are real, and sometimes
they are not. I don’t believe that there
are monsters under our beds or in our closets, but sometimes there are monsters
like bullies at school, at work, in our neighborhoods, even at the highest
levels of government. There are monsters
like poverty, racial injustices, violence toward women and people in LGBTQ
communities, and the decimation of our planet.
Sometimes the monsters aren’t real, though – they’re just things we’re
expecting to see, assumptions we make, projections of our own prejudices, and
fears about “what might happen if …?” with a worst-case scenario as our
answer. It is so important to be able to
tell the difference.
The second thing I hear in this story is that
running away and hiding isn’t the best solution. Last week the reflections I offered were
called, “Fear Never Fixed Anything,” and that’s absolutely true. We can’t always be brave all the time, and
sometimes we do have step back a little, to look away, to go to our “happy
place” and pretend that there isn’t anything wrong. We just can’t stay like that forever.
And that brings me to the third thing, and maybe
most important thing. I don’t think the
real hero of the story is the old woman.
As important as she is. The ones
who really saved the village … are all the villagers themselves. If they have said to one another, “That cool,
smart, brave old woman scared the monster away and we never have to worry about
it again,” that next year would have turned out very differently, and probably
a lot worse. The fact that they all faced down Nian that second year is
what changed things. It was them banding
together, working together, being brave together, supporting each other, that
made the difference. Alone, there are things
we just can’t handle. There are problems
that are too big, too scary, too dangerous.
Together, though, there’s nothing we can’t handle.
One more thing.
About that old woman. The story
doesn’t say so, but I think that she was a dragon in disguise. These
reflections are called, “Rice Balls, Noodles, Lanterns, and Dragons,” and I’ve
only talked about the first three. So ..
about dragons.
In every Chinese legend I have ever heard, when
there’s an old person, a stranger, with piercing eyes, long white hair, dressed
in rags, and walking with a cane, it’s a dragon. One of my favorite books is Everyone KnowsWhat a Dragon Looks Like. In that story,
it’s an old man who comes to a village to help the people there face The Scary
Thing that’s threatening them.
That’s the old man.
And in one of my parts of the story, the old man:
“sprang up into the air and his form changed. He grew taller than the tallest tree, taller
than the tallest tower. He was the color
of sunset shining through the rain.
Scales covered him, scattering light.
His claws and teeth glittered like diamonds. His eyes were noble like those of a proud
horse. He was more beautiful and more
frightening than [anyone] had ever seen.”
In the west, dragons are something to be
feared. In the east, not only do they
look really different, but they’re considered symbols of power and wisdom. In fact, it’s not uncommon to hear someone
say to a parent, “May your child grow up to be a dragon.”
Each of us can “grow up to be a dragon.” And there’s nothing we dragons can’t do …
together.
Pax tecum,
RevWik
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