Sometimes when people learn I graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point, they are impressed with that accomplishment. Some people, however, are not as impressed as they are surprised: "You graduated from West Point? I never would have imagined someone like you being there." Whether that's a good thing or bad depends on the person speaking, I'm sure, but my point is, those surprised folks are right.

Although I graduated number one in the bottom half of my class, I should not have been there. I have to come to realize in the intervening years, my decision to attend West Point was a wrong decision. It was not a bad decision, inasmuch as I learned a great deal there about the world and, most importantly, about myself. But it was wrong inasmuch as I allowed my parents, school administrator, football coach, and others to overly influence me. It was also wrong in that by being there I had to behave in ways that were not true to my particular way of being in the world.
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In his essay, "Self-Reliance," Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, "What I must do is all that concerns me, not what people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder, he wrote, "because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it." In my third and final sermon on Ralph Waldo Emerson in this year in which we commemorate the 200th anniversary of his birth, I have chosen to focus on "Self-Reliance," one of Mr. Emerson's better known essays. I intend to speak about its value to our understanding of life, as well as to speak about the way it has contributed to a misunderstanding about life.

The essay's primary inspiration is encapsulated in the phrase: "Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string." A few thousand years earlier, the Greek philosopher, Socrates, taught that in order to live lives that are true and honorable, then, we must each know ourselves. "Know thyself," he told us. We must come to know who we really are -not who we pretend to be in public or who others think we should be. If we are to live with integrity, then each of us must come to know our true nature. Ralph Waldo Emerson believed in our ability to intuit life's wisdom. He believed that in the depths of our soul, or we might say, unconscious, we know who we are. By relying on our intuition we can access our true self-understanding. By trusting ourselves we are willing to heed our inner wisdom, and we bring our self-knowing into our consciousness.

I have great admiration for Ralph Waldo Emerson as a religious thinker and as a person. As a religious thinker he serves as an important role model within our tradition. In the first half of the 1800's when Christianity framed the whole of religious thought in this country, Emerson was already incorporating concepts from the Sufis, Buddhists and Hindus. One of his younger contemporaries referred to him as "a Hindoo-Yankee- a cross between Brahma and Poor Richard." While it's true his writing style can be abstract, and some of his language is archaic to our modern ears, his understanding arose from the ground of beauty and hardship. His words did not come from insight untouched by life's messiness but from a man whose life knew the pain of chronic illness, in that he was afflicted with tuberculosis. He knew the grief of personal loss with the deaths of his first wife, first child, older and younger brothers, and he experienced the anguish of doubt and depression. In his journal at the age of 38 he wrote: "I have not yet adjusted my relations to my fellows on the planet, or to my own work. Always too young or too old, I do not satisfy myself; how can I satisfy others?" (Richardson, Mind on Fire, 371)

I believe the authoritative nature of his words were as necessary to convince himself as us. And though he struggled against such hardships, he succeeded in living with integrity, with compassion and with enthusiasm. During the years he served as Unitarian minister of Boston's Second Church, he developed a relationship with a colorful Methodist preacher, Father Taylor. Their theologies were quite different, yet at one time "when a group of ministers were clucking about Emerson's leading the youth to hell, Taylor remarked: 'It may be that Emerson is going to hell, but of one thing I am certain, he will change the climate there, and emigration will set that way.'"
(Richardson, Mind on Fire, 97)

Ralph Waldo Emerson was a person whose own humanity and whose love of humanity was evident to the many who heard him speak. "A reporter from the Boston Transcript noticed that a washerwoman always went to hear Emerson's lectures at Faneuil Hall. He asked her if she understood Mr. Emerson, 'Not a word,' she replied, 'but I love to see him standing up there thinking everyone else is just as good as he is." Ralph Waldo Emerson spoke and wrote out his love for life and for the human beings with whom he shared this life.

He introduced into our religious tradition as well as into American society religious concepts that hold the promise of broadening and deepening our self-understanding. These are the truths professed by the mystics and many religious thinkers of various traditions. We are, as is all of existence, part of the "ever-blessed One." But it's through our individuation, that is, through our living as the particular individuals we are, and seeking to insure all others can do the same, that we most faithfully gain access to life's true power and give expression to its meaning. That was the underlying message of his essay, "Self-Reliance."

Mr. Emerson wrote, "The power which resides in man is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried…We but half express ourselves and are ashamed of the divine idea which each of us represents…" Because each of us is a unique expression of life's Source, we bring into being a new power that plays its role in helping shape creation. Emerson recognized that society does all it can to subdue our power by insisting upon conformity. Society, of course, has a responsibility to educate its members, and education to some degree requires socialization. The question in the end, however, is this: Does our socialization result in developing a primary allegiance to outside authorities, such as public opinion, or does it bring us to a realization similar to Emerson's that "Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind."

The urge to conform as well as the urge to enforce conformity is powerful. Even in liberal congregations such as ours in which we affirm our fourth principle calling us to "a free and responsible search for truth and meaning," I have heard a person voice an opinion falling outside the generally accepted liberal belief-system, and by subtle and not so subtle means - "You call yourself a liberal?" - attempts are made to enforce conformity. Even in communities that recognize the intrinsic value of diversity, the urge to enforce conformity is powerful. In the end, though, according to Mr. Emerson, what is truly sacred and what should most concern you is the integrity of your own mind.

Mr. Emerson continued, "The other terror that scares us from self-trust is our consistency…A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said today." Mr. Emerson understood that in order to faithfully engage life from one day to the next with the whole of our being, we cannot allow ourselves to be limited by our previous declarations or decisions. Should some deeper understanding of life's reality arise from our unconsciousness we should not censor it, but we should give it voice though we find ourselves contradicting earlier understandings.

"'Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.'" Mr. Emerson declared, "'Is it so bad then to be misunderstood?' Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and …Copernicus…
and every pure and wise spirit that ever took to flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood…" While that may be true, we shouldn't likewise assume that to be misunderstood is to be great. If that were so, I could achieve greatness every Sunday. Throughout his essay Emerson points us toward our need to live into our individual truths. He wrote, "I must be myself. I cannot break myself any longer for you…" The word individual comes from Latin and means not divisible. I cannot break myself any longer for you…" If you can love me for what I am, we shall be the happier. If you cannot, I will still seek to deserve that you should. [But] I will not hide my tastes or aversions."

One of the misinterpretations of this essay is the understanding that Emerson places the individual above all other considerations. Some have ascribed to this essay and Emerson's understanding in general the belief that autonomy and independence are life's crucial values. Unfortunately, this misinterpretation has been used to inform the American ethic of rugged individualism. As I mentioned earlier, our need to individuate ourselves, and to become self-reliant is only part of the story. When people interpret Emerson's writings, what some forget is that he was a deeply religious man who was writing from a religious perspective.

Tucked into the middle of the essay Emerson briefly spoke about the Reality in which our individual lives exist. "This is the ultimate fact," he wrote, "which we so quickly reach on this one, as on every topic, the resolution of all into the ever-blessed ONE." If you take his words out of that context or do not understand there is a larger context, I can see how one might determine that Emerson is placing the individual above all other considerations. However, that is a misunder-standing, for he recognizes, as do so many other religious thinkers, that we do not exist as separate entities.

It may seem ironic, but ultimately it's our capacity to live with integrity and to live our lives in keeping with our true selves that opens our awareness to our interdependence, to our union. Ralph Waldo Emerson's life story indicates he understood quite clearly that we need one another. "Trust thyself," he said, but we should not infer from that that we should depend only on ourselves. While we may hold our life's wisdom within ourselves, as Mr. Emerson believed, sometimes it takes another person to reveal it to us.

Back when I was seeking admission to West Point, my brother returned from college. While the rest of my family actively encouraged my seeking admission, my brother pulled me aside to talk with me, and tell me he didn't believe I was suited for West Point. I remember feeling angry with him for saying that. Attending college in the 60's, he had become as liberal as I was conservative. Yet, when he spoke to me, I knew even then, his words did not come from any political perspective but from his love for me as his brother. Nonetheless, was only some years later that I realized my anger came from him speaking the truth I didn't want to hear. At that time in my life he knew me better than I knew myself.

Mr. Emerson's admonishment to "Trust thyself" is not a call to depend only on oneself. It is a call to heed our inner wisdom above the demands of the society around us, and it's a call to be true to ourselves. But from my perspective, and I believe Mr. Emerson's, being to true to ourselves also means knowing from whom to seek counsel. It means bringing into consciousness the awareness we are part of all that is and, as such, our inner wisdom resides not in ourselves alone but also in those loving companions who may know us as well or better than we know ourselves. Trust thyself. What a wonderful paradox. So may it be.