Every beginning starts with an ending
Second sermon in series entitled: Transitions
Preached Sunday, April 13, 2008
Rev. David Tinney
Text:  1 Kings 19:1-10
Theme:  Every new thing we do begins with the ending of something we used to do.

    Did you listen carefully to the story this morning and the description of a major change in Elijah’s 
life?  The old crotchety prophet just delivered a crushing blow to King Ahab and his army of prophets 
of Baal and he and God are victorious.  One phase of the prophet’s life has just been completed and 
he should have been celebrating under a huge banner reading “Mission Accomplished.”  Instead his 
moment of glory is cut short.  
    A messenger arrives from his archenemy Queen Jezebel.  Upon receiving the news that her 
prophets have been consumed by a holy fire, the matriarch of meanness is consumed by an unholy 
rage and promises to hunt Elijah down and kill him.  The man who stood against hundreds now tucks 
his tail and runs for the wilderness.  One day into the journey he cries out to God, “It is enough now, 
Lord take my life.”  Can you relate to Elijah?  Oh I am sure that none of you have participated in a 
celebrity cookoff involving 450 opposing prophets but there are days when it certainly feels like we 
have.  Am I right?
    There are days when we think all is going well and suddenly we are blindsided by the unexpected.  
We are crushed by change and we yell to God, “Enough, enough already.  I just want this to end.”  Am 
I the only one in this room that has felt this way or am I joined by others? (Slowly look around the 
room)  Just as I thought, I am in good company.  To steal a phrase from a current advertisement “Life 
comes at us fast” and we are surrounded by change.
    Last week’s sermon caught me by surprise.  When I preach a good sermon I can usually bank on 
one or two people meeting me at the door and saying, “When you wrote that sermon were you 
thinking about me?”  Well after last week’s sermon nearly every one of you said that.  Then in every 
meeting or in every gathering throughout the week people talked about the changes happening in 
their lives and how the sermon opened their eyes to seeing change in a new way.  Some talked to me 
about the extent of change and how describing those five areas of change made them aware of how 
pervasive it was in every part of their lives.  
    Others talked to me about the depth of change in their lives.  Many of you talked about major 
changes in health, marital status, careers, and visions of the future.  A couple of you talked about how 
change today seems to be more dangerous than in the past generations.  In this age of instant 
communication many of us are expected to make changes and respond to changes without having the 
time to process it properly and so change is perceived as more dangerous.
    I loved a couple of you who said, “I love change – as long as I am the one generating it.”  But let’s 
face it that is not how most change comes.  Most of us are like Elijah caught off guard by change and 
yelling “Enough, already!”  
    Today I am going to preach on the first step of the three-step process of transition developed by 
William Bridges many years ago.  According to Bridges all transition begins with an ending.  T.S. Eliot 
once wrote, “What we call the beginning is often the end.  And to make an end is to make a beginning.  
The end is where we start from.” 
    So this morning we are going to start from the end. 
    Endings are confusing, messy, and often emotional.  Most of us do not do well with endings and 
we want to skip right through them to the new beginnings because they seem to be devoid of 
meaning and look a lot like death.  Think of some of our phrases, “What’s done is done,” “Let bygones 
be bygones,” or “Don’t cry over spilt milk.”  All of them reflect our attitude towards endings.  
    There is an old story about two monks who were traveling through the countryside during the 
rainy season.  Rounding the bend in the path, they found a muddy stream blocking their way.  Beside it 
stood a lovely woman dressed in flowing robes.  “Here,” one of the monks said to the woman, “let me 
carry you across the water.”  And with that he picked her up and carried her across.  Setting her down 
on the further bank, he went along in silence with his fellow monk to the abbey on the hill.
    Later that evening the other monk suddenly said, “I think you made an error, picking up the 
woman back on our journey today.  You know we are not supposed to have anything to do with 
women, and you held that one so close to you!  You should not have done that.”
    “How strange,” remarked the other.  “I carried her only across the water.  You are still carrying her 
still.” 
    What are we still carrying from the past that we don’t recognize?  If we want to move on, if we 
want new life to begin, if we want new growth to take root we need to clear the soil of what is old.  
We need to recognize our endings so we can begin what is new.
    In some cultures there are formal rituals marking the ending of one phase of life and the 
beginning of another.  We call them rites of passage.  I remember when I was a young boy watching a 
National Geographic film of a primitive tribe located somewhere in the islands off Indonesia.  The 
young boys of the tribe had to go through a long and formal process to move from adolescence into 
manhood.  First they needed to make their own bow and arrow and then kill their first animal without 
the assistance of an adult.  Then they were put out in the jungle for an entire week with nothing but 
that same bow and arrow to fend for themselves.  Many never returned.
    Then came the hardest test and the one that made this video stick in my mind.  The elders of the 
tribe found a hornets’ nest and smoked the bees so they were temporarily knocked out.  Then they 
put the hornets in a crude screen so that they all faced the same way.  Do you get the image?  Can you 
imagine dozens upon dozens of hornets wedged in a screen, unable to fly, and mad as – well mad as a 
hornet.  Then the boys had to stand still and have the screen placed against their chests.  The hornets 
stung them on the one end and then they flipped it over and bit them on the other side.  If the boys 
flinched they were not ready for manhood.
    Barbaric you say and you would be right.  Can you imagine how far that would get you today in our 
politically correct world?  What we fail to grasp as we gasp in disbelief is that these ancient rituals 
contained a prerational magic  that actually helped the boys navigate the transition process into 
manhood.  Believe me I am not advocating this kind of torture, especially with how I would swell up 
and not make it to breakfast, let alone manhood, but these ancient rites of passages contained 
wisdom that the most sophisticated counselors today say we need to use in order to properly navigate 
life’s phases.
    These old rites of passage created clear points of separation between the past and the future, 
between the person and his/her community so they could unlearn what was necessary and learn a 
new relationship, and provided a point of re-entry and a new beginning.
    We don’t have a lot of formalized rites of passage but as I was writing this sermon I was aware 
that Ginny Truscott was with her son Nicholas who was graduating from the Marine’s boot camp at 
Parris Island on Thursday.  He had just gone through a 54-hour exercise of physical and mental 
endurance known as The Crucible and when it was done for the first time he could be called a Marine.  
It was indeed a rite of passage that disengaged him from his normal life, tested him, reoriented him, 
and sent him out a new person with a new identity.
    It formalized an ending as a recruit so he could begin the next stage of his life as Marine.  Most of 
us will never have to endure The Crucible – thank God.  But we can learn from it especially when it 
comes to dealing with our endings in a more healthy way.  William Bridges in his book “Transitions: 
Making Sense of Life’s Changes” suggests there are four aspects of dealing with our endings that 
would help us all.  He calls them his four D’s of ending – disengagement, disidentification, 
disenchantment, and disorientation.  
    What takes him an entire chapter to explain I am going to try to brush through in a few paragraphs 
and then try to relate it to the story of Elijah and to each of our stories of change.  Disengagement 
simply stated is the process where we move away from the old situation to have time and space to 
properly reflect on what it is that is ending or changing.  When change comes or loss catches us by 
surprise we all need time to let it register, to think and reflect, and to be alone.  When my son was 
younger and was going through a crisis I would often find him sitting on the top of the tallest tree in 
our yard or on the roof of the church.  When I would ask him what he was doing his simple answer 
would be, “Dad I need my space.”  
    Bridges writes, “Divorces, deaths, job changes, moves, illnesses, and many lesser events 
disengage us from the contexts in which we have always known ourselves.  They break the old cue-
system which served to reinforce our roles and to pattern our behavior.”   Loss disengages us from our 
old secure order.  Change dislodges us from the old patterns and we start seeking a new place to 
anchor.  
    The second “D” is disidentification, which is a word that sent my spell checker into 
disengagement.  Bridges writes that often times when we go through periods of loss or change we 
lose our ways of identifying ourselves.  Disidentification is the inner side of the disengagement process 
where we struggle to find our identifying labels.  I remember one of these times in my life when I 
went from being the graphics editor of the newspaper to being a student in seminary.  When I 
introduced myself for the first time I felt lost.  I was so used to identifying myself with a title that when 
I didn’t have one I struggled.  
    Many of us in this room know what that is like.  When a mother sends her children off to college 
and there is no one left in the house she often struggles with her identity and role.  When men and 
women who have worked all our lives in careers finally bring that career to an end we struggle with 
who am I now?  When those of us who are married and are used to being defined by the other, lose 
their spouse we not only mourn the loss of our loved one but we also mourn the loss of who we once 
were.  
    This is a tough time for some but when we find our way through we discover that there is a new 
identity awaiting us that can be exciting, joyful, and fulfilling.
    The third “D” stands for disenchantment which can be a dangerous phase if it is not handled 
properly.   It is where loss or change tears us out of our old reality that we once accepted 
unthinkingly.   This is where we are separated from our old identity and our old reality and we are 
suspended in an uncomfortable limbo between what was and what will be.  This is where we question 
the truth about the “way things were” to see how much was fictionalized and how much was really 
true.   
    It sounds more complicated than it really is so let me give you an example.  When the perfect 
marriage comes to an unexpected end often the survivor goes into a time of discernment and really 
examines the “perfect moments” and starts to see the flaws and the warning signs.  When a person is 
fired from a job that they really loved, they often enter a time of limbo where they reflect back to 
conversations that were loaded with hints about impending doom.  Nearly every situation of major 
change or loss pushes us into this time of disenchantment where if we are surrounded by people who 
can help us discern then we see the past for what it really was – flaws and all.  
    As I said before this can be a dangerous stage because if we are not surrounded by wise and 
caring friends then we can end up like Elijah shouting in despair, “Enough already, take my life right 
now.”  In times of change we need to share our stories, we need to find wise and caring people to give 
us direction, and we need to be honest.  
    Disenchantment is part of life.  It is woven into the process of change and loss.  But it provides us 
a platform where we can see the world as it really is.  “Reality has many layers, each appropriate to the 
phase of intellectual and spiritual development”  we are capable of handling at that moment.  As we 
mature our understanding of things like the Tooth Fairy, Easter Bunny, and Santa Claus change.  A 
person moving through disenchantment recognizes the old view was sufficient at that moment but is 
no longer so.  The person who doesn’t recognize gets stuck in disillusionment, depression, and 
sometimes despair.
    Finally we move to disorientation or more correctly “reorientation” where we are open to a new 
vision, a new reality, or a new direction in life.  This is where we discover the new direction that God 
wants to take us.  Let me illustrate how this all works as quickly as possible in the remaining minutes of 
this sermon by going back to the story of Elijah.  Our crotchety old prophet almost got stuck in the 
disenchantment.  His idea of reality was that once he got rid of the prophets and scored a victory over 
Ahab he would be leading a carefree life.  But Jezebel spoiled that view and just as he was about to be 
stuck in a disenchantment and angel commands him to eat, drink, and get moving.  So off he travels 
for forty days in the wilderness and when he finally arrives at a cave in the side of Mount Horeb he 
waits for God to speak.  
    When God speaks Elijah is still angry.  He complains to God about his disenchantment with the 
way things are being handled.  Then he sits and waits for a response.  Have you ever done that with 
God?  Have you ever complained about life and been bold enough to say “God now do something 
about this!  Make it right!”
    So the story goes that he waited and there was a terrible wind storm, followed by an earthquake, 
followed by a fire.  Surely the Almighty, all-correcting God would speak through one of these mighty 
forces of nature and make things right.  But God was not there.  Then there was silence – unexpected, 
surprising disorienting silence – and Elijah knew God was there.  So he says the same words as before 
but without the attitude and God responds not by making things right, but by providing a new 
direction.  He decommissions his greatest prophet and tells him what his new future will entail.  
    Often this is our story.  Change or loss rocks our world and we don’t know what to do.  We run 
away to hide and in the process run into God who reminds us if you that your reality might be too 
limited, your range of possibilities too narrow, your ideas about the future too small.  As we run, or 
busy ourselves, or numb ourselves with self pity, God waits for us to be quiet enough to hear and 
willing enough to listen.  Then God speaks about a new world, a new vision, a new possibility. 
    Let us be in prayer…
  T.S. Eliot, “Little Gidding” found as a quote in William Bridges’ book “Transitions”
  From a Zen story adapted by Paul Reps in Zen Flesh, Zen Bones (New York: Anchor Books, n.d.) p18.
  Bridges, William “The Way of Transition,” Da Capo Press, Cambridge, MA, 2001. P8
  Bridges, William, “Transitions: Making sense of Life’s Changes” Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Reading, MA 
1980. p95
  Bridges, “The Way of Transition” p63
  Bridges, “Transitions” p98
  Bridges, “Transitions” p101
 
 
 
 
Transitions: Every beginning starts with an ending

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