In the early 90’s a young British woman in a bad and possibly abusive marriage filed for divorce. She was now a single mother with a baby and no job. Her mother had recently died and she was alienated from her father. She and her daughter were living on welfare. They were in danger of becoming homeless. She sank into depression. At times she became suicidal. She felt, in her words, like the biggest failure she knew.
Today her story is one that motivational speakers love to tell. Because during those bitter and scary days, between job-hunting excursions and while her baby was napping, she would go to her typewriter – yes, typewriter – and work on a novel. The idea for the story had been bouncing around her head for years. It was about a young wizard who discovers his magical heritage and goes to a special school for witchcraft and wizardry. Within five years, J.K. Rowling was a multi-millionaire.
The problem with motivational speeches that tell stories like this is that they tend to ignore the hidden privileges that such people generally have that help them along the way. They make it seem like anybody, no matter what their circumstances, if they really tried, could write best-selling novels and become multi-millionaires. And we know that’s not true. In J.K. Rowling’s case, although she really didn’t have financial resources, she was educated and white; the being educated part helped her write well and the being white part helped her to be taken seriously by publishers.
But many of us with those same privileges, in her same shoes, might have said, “Sure I have this idea for a novel, but this is clearly not the right time. I’m not ready yet. Let me get back on my feet first. Let me get a job first. Let me get through my depression first. Let me find another partner first. Let me wait until my daughter is a little older so she doesn’t need as much care. I’m not ready yet.” But Rowling didn’t do that. Instead, she used her dire situation to enable her to be ready. She used it as a catalyst.
We learned about the concept of catalyst from Waciuma’s homily. I love this concept. A catalyst isn’t – as we normally think – something that pushes you, prompts you, yells at you like a personal trainer to get you start doing something. No, all a catalyst does is lower the energy it takes to move from one state to another. It doesn’t scream at you to jump over the hurtle, it lowers the hurtle. If you doubt that this really can work, try this simple experiment. If you want your spouse or roommate to do some housework, don’t harangue them, put out the vacuum cleaner. Unwind the cord and plug it into the wall so it’s all set to go. Lower the energy required for them to move from the state of not vacuuming to the state of vacuuming. It’s wizardry, really. That’s a mundane example, but seriously, you can be a catalyst for all kinds of good in the world by simply making it easier for yourself and others to do the right thing.
In Rowling’s case, maybe counterintuitively, lowering the hurtle to her writing her novel entailed losing almost everything she had. She explains this in a commencement address at Harvard that she gave in 2008. She said, “Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one area where I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had been realized, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter, and a big idea. And so rock bottom became a solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.” For Rowling to be ready, she had to let go of the image of herself as someone with a husband, a job, and the markers of social respectability. Letting go of that normative image was her catalyst to become something else. It plugged her into the outlet and let her energy flow.
Catalysts come in many different shapes and sizes and they allow us to become ready for something for which we previously didn’t feel ready. What worked for Rowling might not work for you or me and vice versa. Sometimes, as in her situation, the catalyst comes from outside – unchosen and unwanted. We might call this a “hostile catalyst.” It can work, but it’s not much fun. Sometimes, however, when we don’t feel ready to do something that we have to do or want to do, we can create our own catalyst. A “benevolent catalyst.” There’s an art to this, I think, in which we first have to ask ourselves, “What’s getting in my way? Why does it feel like it would take so much energy to move from the state I’m in to the state I want to be in?” We need to figure out the answer to that question first before we can know what we’d need to do to lower that energy requirement. Successful artists and athletes and activists and businesspeople get really good at figuring this out. It’s part of what makes them so successful. They learn how to catalyze their own action.
There’s an underlying assumption to this approach that’s really beautiful and, I believe, profoundly Unitarian Universalist. It’s an assumption that says, “I may not feel ready, but actually in the deepest sense, I am ready. I was born ready. I am here on this earth with unique gifts and resources and dignity and the world needs me to do what I’m here to do. My deepest truth is, I was born ready. But something is in my way. So let me figure out what that something is so I can try to lower the hurtle. Then my energy will be free to flow where it’s called to flow.” It’s also a practice of faith in the goodness and power of others to assume the same about them. To say to another, “You, too, were born ready. You too are here on this earth with unique gifts and resources and dignity and the world needs you to do what you’re here to do. If you’re stuck, it’s not because you don’t have enough inside. It’s because something is in your way. Let me help you, not by giving you something that you don’t already have, but by helping lower the hurtle.” We can intentionally and faithfully serve as benevolent catalysts for ourselves and others.
Sometimes, as Waciuma taught us, our catalyst can be the realization that we don’t have to go it alone – that whatever contribution we don’t feel ready to make is only one of many iterative contributions. Sometimes our catalyst can be just information – as simple as where to vote or who to talk to about a job possibility.Sometimes, when we’re feeling really anxious about something, the best catalyst of all can be one that simply takes the pressure off. Because when all else fails, it’s always good to remember that whatever the thing is that we don’t feel ready to do – that feels like such a big deal to us – in the grand scheme of things really probably isn’t that big a deal after all. J.K. Rowling used this particular catalyst for herself when she was nervously getting ready to deliver the commencement address at Harvard. Despite all her success, she didn’t feel ready to speak in front of so many people in such a prestigious setting. But from her life experience, she knew a trick for becoming ready to give the powerful, moving speech that she ended up giving.
Here’s how she kicked it off: “Delivering a commencement address is a great responsibility; or so I thought until I cast my mind back to my own graduation. The commencement speaker that day was the distinguished British philosopher Baroness Mary Warnock. Reflecting on her speech has helped me enormously in writing this one, because it turns out that I can’t remember a single word she said. This liberating discovery enables me to proceed without any fear that I might inadvertently influence you to abandon promising careers in business, the law or politics for the giddy delights of becoming a gay wizard.” (It’s a similar catalyst for my sermon writing to know that you will all probably forget everything I’ve said by next week if not by this afternoon. So, thank you for that.)
So for especially for those of you who have just joined the congregation this morning – Ellen and Geddis, Alexis and Michelle, may First Unitarian serve as a catalyst for you. May we help lower your hurtles, take some pressure off and put some pressure on, give you tools and information and inspiration. May we help you feel more ready to become the fullest expressions of yourselves. None of us can afford to wait until the perfect set of circumstances conspire, and we’re perfectly prepared, and we’ve worked out every possible contingency. Sometimes, we just have to do get up and do whatever it is we need to do. But it’s good to know that here, we don’t have to do it alone and that when one of us stumbles, there will be others to help ease the way.