What About Scorpions?

Photo credit Chris Parker

Story 1   - Zen traditional
As two monks were washing their bowls by the river, one monk reached into the river to save a drowning scorpion. Just as he placed it on land, the scorpion stung him and fell back into the river. The monk once again scooped the scorpion out, and the scorpion again stung the monk and fell back into the river. As the monk saved the scorpion a third time, the second monk cried out, "Why are you saving that scorpion when you get every time?" The second monk replied, "It is the nature of a scorpion to sting; it is the nature of a monk to be compassionate."

Story 2 - Aesop’s Fables
A Farmer walked through his field one cold winter morning. On the ground lay a Snake, stiff and frozen with the cold. The Farmer knew how deadly the Snake could be, and yet he picked it up and put it in his bosom to warm it back to life.
The Snake soon revived, and when it had enough strength, bit the man who had been so kind to it. The bite was deadly and the Farmer felt that he must die. As he drew his last breath, he said to those standing around:
Learn from my fate not to take pity on a scoundrel.


Reflection - What About Scorpions?
There is a paradox in our Universalist heritage and values. The word universalist comes from the idea of universal salvation -- that God loves everyone, and all return to the divine source when they die. It was a refreshing point of view at the time of the birth of our faith tradition, a time when many preachers spent all their time preaching hellfire and damnation.

Modern Unitarian Universalists don’t tend to worry much about the salvation of our souls after we die, we tend to focus more on how to live a good life while we are still alive, a life that spreads our arms wide to include all people. You can see this in the new UU value statement: “Equity: We declare that every person is inherently worthy and has the right to flourish with dignity, love, and compassion.” You can hear this is not too different from the UU principle “The inherent worth and dignity of every person.” 

Last week I preached about how each and every one of us belongs, just as we are. Each and every one of us is connected to the holy right now.

But what about scorpions, for example? What about all the different kinds of living beings that don’t have our best interests at heart? What about the corona virus? What about people who do harm to us or to others? The idea that each and every person is inherently worthy and has the right to flourish with dignity, love, and compassion seems a bit naïve when we think about some of the things going on in the world today. If this faith is going to serve our spirits and our communities in times like these, we need a faith that acknowledges that not everyone has our best interest at heart.

We’d better start with Evil. What do we believe about evil? UUs tend to believe, by looking at the news, by looking back at history, that humans are capable of evil acts. What makes an act evil? [pause] The point of our scorpion story is that the scorpion was not being cruel to the monk, he was just being a scorpion. I wouldn’t call that evil. But when we think about the great Rwandan genocide, when we try to fathom the holocaust the word “evil” seems like a clear eyed naming of those terrible and terrifying events. Evil acts were committed by individuals, and by the collective. My theology professor, Rebecca Parker, suggested that maybe UUs believe this; we don’t believe that some people are evil and others good, we believe that both systems and individuals are capable of evil, and as ethical people we must resist, both the potential within ourselves and in the larger world. Think of the systemic racism that the civil rights movement rose up to oppose, and which we still struggle with today. We’ve talked a lot about racism in this congregation, because we long to live in a world free from racism, and we have noticed that even with our best intentions, we sometimes accidentally do racist things, because it is baked into our culture and our history, not because we ourselves are evil.

I believe most of the obstacles we face in our lives are not due to evil. Consider for example the guy taking up too much space in the grocery story aisle. That’s not evil, that’s just annoying, perhaps thoughtless. When I began studying Buddhism in seminary, our teacher encouraged us to notice the stories we tell ourselves about what is happening in our daily life. Did that car cut me off in traffic because he’s a jerk? Or maybe he’s late to pick his daughter up at daycare, or just didn’t see me and come to think of it, I have also cut people off in traffic for similar reasons.

Consider bees. If you’ve ever been stung by a bee, you know it’s no fun, especially if you are allergic. You might also have noticed that some stings hurt a lot more than others. There’s a meme going around dividing pollinators into friends and enemies. This led to a wonderful discussion and backlash series of memes like this one: [meme shows the image of 3 yellow and black striped pollinators. The first caption says"Friend who make wax and lots of hone. The second says "friend who is extra fuzzy and really loves flowers" the third says "Friend who pollinates and eats pests but needs more personal space"] I think this is important- a wasp is not our enemy, it is a friend to the environment, if not to us personally, who will sting you if you get in their business.

So I’m not trying to say you have to love wasps, or hang out with them, but we can acknowledge the complexity that they both help with pest control in a way we actually really like and need, and they do have a weapon that we are right to watch out for.

Consider scorpions. Everyone agrees their sting, while not deadly to humans, is painful. But scorpions have their role to play too- they eat insects and other pests, and feed cute animals that make us say “aw” like meerkats, mongooses and owls. Again, you don’t have to like scorpions, and if you pick one up you probably will get stung like that Monk, (so be smart) but they do have their job to play in the ecosystem.

In the book of Matthew 10:16 from the Christian Scriptures, Jesus says to his disciples: “See, I am sending you out like sheep into the midst of wolves; so be wise (or cunning) as serpents and innocent as doves.” Jesus councils Wisdom- I think this is good advice. I like that analogy of sheep and wolves. He doesn’t say “slay the wolves” or “the wolves are your enemy” he just notices this is the kind of relationship where one must pay attention, be careful. Be cunning. Be wise.

But then, and this is important too; be innocent (or harmless) as doves. This reminds me of the non-violent approach of Ghandi, of the American civil rights movement. The fact that those movements were able to make real changes shows the wisdom, shows the cunning. But that they were able to achieve it without resorting to violence reminds me of the doves- those people, those movements could retain their integrity, their values while in the struggle. That they didn’t let the struggle change them.

There was a study recently about the effectiveness of nonviolent protests.[i] One study said “53% of major nonviolent campaigns were successful as opposed to only 26% of violent campaigns being successful” and while there has been some debate about these numbers among researchers, it does seem clear that non-violent moments are more likely to lead to non-violent outcomes. That makes sense. “non-violent resistance is approximately 10 times more likely to lead to democratization than violent resistance.” As Martin Luther King preached in his sermon “Loving Your Enemies” -- “Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

This new value statement is a challenging one: “Equity: We declare that every person is inherently worthy and has the right to flourish with dignity, love, and compassion.” That seems pretty easy we think about the people in this room, but the challenge begins when faced with the person cutting us off in traffic, or taking our parking place … when their flourishing and our flourishing require the same parking space? This value encourages us to turn the temperature down by remembering there is a good chance that the person blocking the shopping aisle is not evil, but just a tired person, like us, trying to get home. A lot of disagreements are just part of what it is to be a community, balancing different people with different needs.

When we divide the world into enemies and friends, good and evil, we do great damage not only to individuals, but to our society. Remember, wolves were considered enemies because they occasionally took a sheep or other livestock from a farm, and so were completely eradicated from many eco-systems, which turned out to be profoundly damaging to those communities.

That’s enough of a challenge on a good day, but what about those who abuse others? Those who are cruel? What about people making executive orders right now that directly threaten our lives, our flourishing? What about those who take more resources than they need, leaving others in poverty? This is where we must be wise as serpents. It’s sweet that the farmer in the story wanted to save that snake, but he was not very wise, and it cost him his life.

It would be easy to say “everyone who doesn’t go to this church, everyone who doesn’t believe like we do is evil” but a lot of us have been on the other side of that, been judged for being different, for being liberal, or queer, or trans, or neurodivergent. At the heart of our Universalist heritage and faith, we challenge ourselves to draw the circle wide, even though we know there are folks out there who are not committed to our flourishing.

When facing scorpions, snakes, wolves, it’s important to have boundaries. Effective boundaries. When we faced the Covid Pandemic, we had to make some new boundaries fast. We used distance and quarantine, and we learned that the N-95 mask is a really good boundary against respiratory viruses. A family counselor explained in a video about interpersonal boundaries “you need to be nice to me” is not a boundary. That’s a request. A boundary is “if you can’t speak kindly to me I’m leaving the room” and then you do it. Think of the boundaries the Civil rights movement set up- that bus boycott for example. They set up a clear line of what they thought was fair, and what they were willing to do if the unfairness continued.

Hate is not an effective boundary. In fact, hate riles up our amygdala and actually reduces how cunning we can be, how wise we can be. Instead of declaring we hate scorpions, we could do a bit of research and learn that if you pick them up with tweezers or forceps right behind their bulb, their tail can’t reach us to sting us. One Youtuber I watched uses a carry cup to move her scorpions. A carry cup is a more effective boundary than hate. We have a waiting room on zoom worship because it’s an effective boundary against zoom bombers. We have a safe congregations policy that we share with all newcomers, because that helps us keep a boundary about sexual misconduct, because we know the sad truth that in the past churches have not had good enough boundaries about that and people have been deeply harmed. DEI is a boundary against institutional racism and bias. The Environmental protection agency defends boundaries for our environment. It is a scary time to see these boundaries being threatened, being dismantled.

What we have in the country right is too much hate and not enough effective boundaries. This is why we feel so unsafe. This is why Unitarian Universalism focuses so much on social justice- because we see with our own eyes, feel with our own bodies the impacts of injustice. Love without justice perpetuates a world where only some can flourish. In this time of broken covenants, broken laws, broken boundaries, we are called to be part of the resisting, the turning towards what is life giving for our communities and our world.

Each value in our new UU value statement has a covenant, what are we going to do about it? Our covenant around Equity says: We covenant to use our time, wisdom, attention, and money to build and sustain fully accessible and inclusive communities.

Buddhist Activist Joanna Macy says[ii] there are 3 kinds of activism that help with this turning. The first is “Holding actions in defense of life on earth. These activities may be the most visible dimension of the great turning. They include all the political, legislative, and legal work required to slow down the destruction, as well as direct actions – blockades, boycotts, civil disobedience and other forms of refusal.” The second is analysis of structural causes and creation of alternative institutions” – this is part of the wiliness. We need to figure out -- what is really happening here? (no easy task these days) We need folks to pay attention and think it through. And then we build the world we want to see.

The third, says Macy is “shift in perceptions of reality, both cognitively and spiritually.” This is why we gather on Sunday to remind each other of our values, and to figure out, together, how on earth we are going to live those values in this chaotic time. I saw this wonderful meme the other day from Ilya Prigogine, Nobel Prize willing chemist “when a complex system is far from equilibrium, small islands of coherence in a sea of chaos have the capacity to shift the entire system to a higher order.” Let’s be one of those small islands of coherence. This is a kind of boundary, not from the outside, but from within. Our strength of intention, of remembering what is important, what we value, who we are… is a protection from the forces of chaos who would wash us off our moorings.

I know I’d like to live in a world where all of us can “flourish with dignity, love, and compassion.” But I know we have a diversity of ideas about how to live out this value. Some of you have told me you are (justifiably) wary that this value could allow those who would be cruel to flourish at the expense of others. You are right to be concerned- we must be wily as serpents. Universalism must be a grown up faith that acknowledges cruelty, evil and harm, and defends the flourishing of the most vulnerable. The challenge of Universalism, is to co-creates a loving world. I practice standing in the truth of love not only because I want to live in a loving world, but because I want to be a loving person. That’s something worth defending, with our integrity, with our actions. To defend our right to love and be loving, let us be "smart as serpents." We need to learn the difference between a bee and a wasp, We may want to learn how to pick up a scorpion safely, and when to let a snake lay. We need to learn what makes an effective boundary to protect us from those who would do us harm. And as we grow in wisdom, we get to choose how we respond with integrity from our own core values, because as Universalists, it is in our nature to care.

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[i] https://ls.wisc.edu/news/the-enduring-power-of-nonviolent-protest

https://www.visionofhumanity.org/the-power-of-peaceful-protests/

[ii] in Coming Back to Life” practice to reconnect our lives, our word p. 17-19

Loving Our Own Bones

from Loving Our Own Bones: Disability Wisdom and the Spiritual Subversiveness of Knowing Ourselves Whole  by Julia Watts Belser

"I was born with cerebral palsy, and When I walked as a child, my heel used to strike ground in its own distinctive rhythm. My gait was subject to scrutiny and no small disapproval.

Everyone wanted to fix it. I was a very compliant child: I tried to “walk right.”. I stretched the stiff anchor of my heel cord. I practiced over and over the motion of heel before toe. But as I did my exercises night after night, I also remember this : I remember listening to the off-beat of my limp and loving the sound of my own step. The way my foot struck ground, the distinctive rhythm of my walk? They were my signature, something that was purely my own.

This was the first spiritual insight I trace to disability experience, this decision to cherish something about myself that other people didn’t value. Maybe you know this insight too. Maybe you know what it’s like to say yes to yourself, even in the face of disapproval or disdain. As a kid who couldn’t walk right, now as a woman who rolls through the world, as someone whose heart never learned to conform—I trace my own truest sense of self to the decision to embrace those quirky qualities of soul that some folks wished to eradicate, to do everything I could to make sure they survived." [p. 3]

I wonder if you have ever said “yes” to yourself like that. Have you ever loved some part of you that others were trying to change? Have you ever loved a part of yourself that other people looked at with scrutiny and disapproval? 

I love that tender image of young Julia enjoying the sound of her own steps. It seems like a kind of grace, how she felt that authentic love arising from her own deepest wisest self, when everyone around her was asking her to change. I can think of several times in my life when I have been wrestling with some part of myself that was different from other people, and what a relief when I learned to love it anyway. As I have grown older, I came to believe this is one of our major tasks, to gradually understand and love who we are.

As a little girl I got made fun of a lot for being the smallest person in my class. I remember tearful bedside conversations where my parents really encouraged me to love being short, to be proud of it, and I have.

Some things are harder to love. Julia Watts Belser says “Sometimes my disability is painful. Sometimes it frustrates me. But there are also parts of disability that fill my heart with joy. There are wonderful things about being disabled, little secret things that non-disabled people never know. If you want to know who I am, you’ve got to know my disability. It is a core part of who I am.”

Could we love those parts of ourselves that are painful? That are frustrating? Could we really love our whole self?

This month we’ve joined with Rev. Aileen’s congregation in Virginia to discuss the book “Loving Our Own bones: Disability wisdom and the spiritual subversiveness of knowing ourselves whole.” by Julia Watts Belser, who is a rabbi, and a professor of both Jewish studies and Disability studies at Georgetown University. When we were discussing this passage, one participant said “the world is always trying to fix you. You are always trying to explain you can’t be fixed.”

This seems really important to me … how can we be present with the person before us, just as they are, without needing them to be different, be fixed?

For example, I know a lot of folks who struggle with depression. And because I have struggled with depression myself, I know how frustrating it is when as soon as folks learn you are depressed, they jump right away to fix it- “have you tried this? have you tried that?” “Yes, and about 100 other things you’ve never even heard of.” I bet anyone who has a chronic illness or disability has experienced this. Yet I know I have also been on the other end of that conversation at some time – when a friend is struggling, we want to help! We live in a culture with so many medical miracles, surely we are all one doctor’s visit and a pill away from being pain free, right? But the message our good hearted suggestion gives is “come back when you are fixed” as if the actual hurting, unique human person we are is only the shadow of some better, more productive, more pain free person we might become. All of us deserve to be loved now, all of us deserve to be seen now. All life is holy, now.

In seminary prof Parker used to say “we are all broken” and I think by this she meant; it is normal to be broken, it is normal not to be perfect.

Rabbi Belser talks about the idea of the normal person our society is built around. I’d like to call him Norm. He is (to quote Erving Goffman) “a young, married, white, urban, northern, heterosexual Protestant father of college education, fully employed of good complexion, weight and height, and a recent record in sports”

I would add- someone who has never had their heart broken, doesn’t know what it is to be excluded, can sit at a desk for 8 hours without pain, remembers words, can read the tiniest print, understand conversations in a crowded room, easily makes transitions form one space to another, and never needs help. He definitely never struggles with depression or anxiety. He is, in short, a myth. But a myth we’ve built our culture around. A myth that impacts how we see ourselves, and how the world does or does not make space for us. We call this Ableism.

Belser writes: “What defines the good body, the proper mind? It’s capacity to produce. Ableism operates, in part, by turning our ability to work into an assessment of our worth. It sets up accomplishment as a litmus test for human value.” I’m sure you’ve felt this – that how fast we go, how much we do is how we are judged, how we judge ourselves. But why? I was watching a discouraging video about what happens to all the stuff we return to online shopping. There were just giant piles of unwanted things headed, in large part, for landfill. Why are we pushing ourselves to work so hard to make more things than we need, to be delivered faster than we can use them up? Why do we put this strain on our bodies and minds and our earth?

What if we started from a different orientation, noticing and following the pace our bodies set, our earth sets.

Perhaps, like me, you learned something about this when we were locked down for the pandemic. Do you remember those early days? How our hearts and minds were so overwhelmed that everything seemed to slow down? When the ministers gathered, we all noticed how tired we were, how we just couldn’t keep up the pace we expected from ourselves. We noticed that doing new things takes more energy, being overwhelmed takes energy, grief takes energy. Being anxious is exhausting. Simple things just took longer. As a church we did less, and less again as we tried to match our activities to the capacity of our bodies. Many of us slowed down because our bodies insisted it be so.

Some of that has stuck with me, I’m glad to say, but I am blessed with the kind of job where I get to make choices about what I do, when I do it, and how fast I do it. I notice I am kinder, stronger, more peaceful, and make better decisions when I match the pace my body sets. When did we decided there was some other standard all bodies should meet? That we should all be able to keep up with this mythical Norm guy?

Belser continues: “This logic hits hardest against disabled folks who cannot press their body-minds into the narrow confines of the capitalist workday or hustle their way through the gig economy. Let me be clear: some of us could work, if we could bust through ablest stigma and get a callback or land an interview, or secure the right accommodations, or find an employer who’s willing to be flexible. But some of our bodies and minds aren’t built for work, aren’t made to labor. Some of us need to rest; some of us contend with pain; some of us know that all the support in the world isn’t going to put a paycheck within reach. Ableist assumption turn those realties into a referendum on our worth….In a world that fetishizes productivity, disabled people get scapegoated as shirkers and scroungers, as lazy and worthless, as people who fail because we can’t or won’t work. But it isn’t just disabled folks who face judgement if we’re not working hard enough. Ableism doesn’t demand a diagnosis or ask for a doctor’s note. It’s ready to sweep up any body that seems to be faltering, any mind that might not measure up. ..[ p. 52]

Ableism effects us all, by assuming there is one way all bodies should be. Unitarian Universalists reject this idea. We are living into the idea that all bodies are worthy, lovable, just as they are. We challenge ourselves to cherish our diverse minds too! Norm is definitely neurotypical, but we are coming to understand and appreciate Neurodivergence, in ourselves and others.

And so we try to build a world, we try to build communities that welcome all bodies, all minds. This is why we have large print hymnals, and we try to remember to speak into the microphone. This is why we meet on zoom and we meet in person. This is why the Athens church turned the mail room into a wheelchair accessible bathroom, this is why the Cortland church is applying for grants to help with a building constructed before the ADA was even an idea. The work of making a community that truly welcomes everyone will never end- that ongoing process, that aspiration will always be part of who we are.

I’ve joked before that UUs believe “If there is a God, They love everyone” and I mean, now. Right now! No matter how discouraged you are today, how grumpy, brokenhearted, on a waiting list for an appointment for the specialist who is finally going to help with that part of you that is hurting or weak.

You are not a problem to be solved. And though there are real problems in the world that we strive to solve, as individuals and as a community, our faith encourages us to notice the presence of the sacred right now, in this imperfect moment, with these imperfect people. I believe that every life, every moment is connected to the sacred, is woven into the divine fabric that is life. Even when we are having trouble being grateful for our lives, even when we are having trouble loving ourselves.

I think this is one of the most challenging and most important parts of our faith tradition. To love ourselves whole, and to extend that love to all the bodies, and all the minds in their great diversity.

A Transforming Force

2011 PICO rally in New Orleans- Sen. Landrieu speaks

Tomorrow is both Martin Luther King Jr. day and Inauguration day. It is a day set aside to honor the great Civil rights leader, and the work he did to help our country bend towards justice. Tomorrow is also the inauguration of a president who had promised to curtail the rights of many of our siblings here in America. I believe that much of what King taught and practiced in his time have power for us today in our time.

King Said, back in 1968 “it is not enough for people to be angry—the supreme task is to organize and unite people so that their anger becomes a transforming force.”[i]

The supreme task is to organize. The Civil Rights movement was all about community organizing. Think of those famous pictures of the Greensboro sit in, with the brave black students sitting at the segregated lunch counter. This was planned carefully and carried out with great courage by 4 students, supported by a mentor who had been part of the freedom rides, and a businessman who supported the NAACP[ii]. Remember images of the children’s crusade in Birmingham, where thousands of students marched, were sprayed with fire hoses, went to jail… One of the heroes of the civil rights movement, Dorothy Cotton, told Professor Jason Miller about all the organizing that went into it. He writes:

“We know the story of Birmingham, right? And we imagine and remember a person stepping up to the podium and speaking. Or of those May 7, 1963 photographs of the fire hoses and police dogs set on children. Well, that moment could only have happened because Dorothy Cotton was sitting in Kelly Ingram Park for weeks working with first eight to 10 children, then 20 to 50. And eventually hundreds who said: We want to be involved. Those children in those photographs were only there because Dorothy was teaching them.”[iii]

We know that “grassroots organizing” was key to the civil rights movement, but we don’t often notice these iconic moments were part of a concerted effort involving thousands of people over years. Organizing is about getting people to show up for a march or an action, yes, but it’s also about getting everyone on the same page. How amazing that all those civil rights protests stayed nonviolent and that’s because of organizing, educating, unifying. As King Said “the supreme task is to organize and unite people so that their anger becomes a transforming force” that’s the work of community organizing.

Janos Martin, organizer for the ACLU writes “In King’s campaigns, mass mobilization was an occasional tactic, but more essential was developing a cadre of core volunteers steeped and trained in the philosophy of non-violence and deeply committed to the movement. The 1963 Birmingham desegregation campaign, for example, launched with only 65 people — but each had pledged to serve up to five days in jail.”[iv] It’s hopeful to remember that a movement starts with small groups of committed people, 4 college freshmen here, 10 high school students there. Small groups of people, if they organize and unite, can make a real difference.

The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), which Cotton and MLK helped lead was an organizer of organizations- they brought together all those black churches[v] who had their own systems of organizing and educating coordinating their actions so together they could make a difference. This is hopeful to me- we here in this community right now, already have structures in place that can help larger movements for change. Just having a newsletter, a gathering place, a web of relationships, helps us activate ourselves when we see what needs doing. Think how quickly the Athens congregation came together after the flood to feed people. How the Cortland church opened our space to the Worker’s center to help farm workers sign up for their Covid relief grants. How this year’s

Transgender Day of Remembrance and Resilience at our Athens church had over 60 people in person, and more online. How the Cortland church held the first ever pride worship in Cortland in 2019. All those examples happened because we mobilized our own people and resources, and also worked in partnership, with the Worker’s Center with the Cortland community clergy, with the Endless Mountains pride.

To quote one of this generation's thought leading activist's adrienne maree brown “critical connections are more important in a long-term transformation process than critical mass. Relationships are everything”

This is my most important message for today- that our relationships are central in building the world we long for.

When I was a minister in Palo Alto CA, our congregation was part of the PICO network of community organizing. One of the organizers knocked on my office door one day and asked if we could talk for a bit. She told me about herself and her organization, and asked me what I cared about, what I was worried about. Then she invited me to be part of an upcoming clergy gathering. I was part of the PICO network until I left California, and experience really stuck with me.

The organizing strategies I learned during those PICO years are simple and important. Their helpful “Organizing essentials” says:

“At the core of organizing practice is relationship building; the central organizing principle is ‘power rests in relationships’. To build relationships is to build power. Organizers seek to build relationships with a shared purpose... By building relationships, we do not mean expanding one’s circle of personal friends. We mean expanding the circle of those who have come together out of common values to build power and to act together for justice.

This consistent focus on relationship building enables a group to sustain an organizing effort over time. This practice enables us to win long-term campaigns and helps avoid the common pitfall of short-lived action/protest in which people act together for a brief period, usually in response to a crisis, but then do not sustain the activity.”[vi]

One of the basic building blocks of this style of organizing is the one to one conversation. This is what I experienced when the organizer came to my office to get to know me. The basic form of a one to one is:

The organizer shares something of their own story,
They ask the person some questions about their values and what is important to them:

• How long have you lived in this community? How have you seen it change?
• How are you and your family doing? What are some of the pressures you face?
• What concerns do you have? Do others in your community share those concerns?
• What does your faith say about the world we should live in?
• How have you seen racism, discrimination, disinvestment and predatory practices affect your community?

Then the organizer reflects back what they heard, And makes an invitation of some kind.

This is kind of radical, actually- to start a relationship by asking other people about their concerns, to get to know the weight they carry on their heart, and to help people come together around the concerns that emerge from those conversations.

The common theme among all those conversations back in California was affordable housing. So after months of meeting and planning and organizing, there we were, standing room only in this big theater. Each congregation, each group was asked how many people we could commit to bringing with us, it was no accident the theater was full that day. (I gave a prayer with little Nick on my hip) And there were our elected decision makers (who had also been organized), seated on the stage being asked for their commitments, and because of that action a million dollars was committed to provide affordable housing, signed into law.

If you get discouraged with what is going on in National politics, remember what MLK said “it is not enough for people to be angry—the supreme task is to organize and unite people so that their anger becomes a transforming force.”[vii]

Remember that the power of change that starts in the local community,

Remember that relationships are everything. We as congregations already are part of a wonderful web of relationships, we are embedded in community and partnership. In our small congregations, we have deep, lasting relationships. Even with the new folks who’ve just come in the door- you can’t stay a stranger for long in a small congregation. We know each other’s values, we know what’s on our hearts, whether we are playing pickle-ball, strumming with the uke group, or sharing from the heart in Soul Matters small group, these are all parts of growing our web of relationships.

A lot of promises were made about things that might happen this week in Washington, and wherever I go I hear people worrying about what might be about to happen. If you are worried, I encourage you to think local- what might the impacts be on the local community? On your neighbors? Who might you want to have a conversation with? This is a form of low-key community organizing. Check in with your old steadfast allies and friends, your main partners in the work. Think about who might be emerging leaders, folks who “could step up if given the right opportunity and support” and check in with new folks, with folks we think might share our values and might turn up for an issue that is important to them, if we took the time to get to know exactly what it is that they care about, what moves them. And always take time to check in with “people who are the closest to the pain.” If you are worried what might happen to the rights of our trans siblings, take time to ask “What concerns do you have? Do others in your community share those concerns?” If you are worried about mass deportations, reach out to a friend or neighbor who is an immigrant and ask “How are you and your family doing? What are some of the pressures you face?”

Now that sounds like a ton of work. It would be a great idea to call every person who came to the Athens transgender day of remembrance, everyone who comes to the Cortland coffee house, but frankly we don’t have enough extroverts for all that.

So I return to adrienne maree brown’s idea that “If the goal was to increase the love, rather than winning or dominating a constant opponent, I think we could actually imagine liberation from constant oppression. We would suddenly be seeing everything we do, everyone we meet, not through the tactical eyes of war, but through eyes of love.”

Brown is part of a new generation of activists looking at how transformation happens with fresh eyes, wondering not only how we can connect with one another, but with the earth. Wondering what new strategies will emerge from these people and this moment. But still at the core of her work is the belief that “Relationships are everything” [viii]

The civil rights movement started in the black churches, powered by the web of connections there. We already know something about how to do this- how to build relationships, how to talk about our values, and what worries us. We know how to invite people in, and how to grow love. That great civil rights movement was made up of churches large and small, like ours. It was made of the relationships between people a lot like us.

So as you wonder how to face this week, both the celebration of the life and work of MLK, and the inauguration of a new president, I invite you to start with your web of relationships. Have conversations about what people value, what they are afraid of. Really listen. Not all of us are big talkers, but actions speak too. If you help dig your neighbor’s car out of the snow, you are growing the web of love and connection. Like the Oak tree, like the dandelion, let us spread our roots, our connections in this challenging time. This is what we mean by grass roots. This is where change begins.

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[i]—“Honoring Dr. Du Bois” (1968)

[ii] https://northcarolinahistory.org/encyclopedia/greensboro-sit-in/

[iii] https://www.wunc.org/show/the-state-of-things/2019-07-02/bringing-ncs-dorothy-cotton-out-from-behind-mlks-shadow

[iv] https://www.aclu.org/news/racial-justice/remembering-martin-luther-king-jr-organizer

[v] https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/southern-christian-leadership-conference-sclc

[vi] https://s43774.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/Organizing-Essentials-1-Relationships.pdf

[vii] —“Honoring Dr. Du Bois” (1968)

[viii] Brown was greatly inspired by Margaret Wheatly’s idea  this is brown’s paraphrase in Emergent Strategy p. 28

Service is Our Prayer

The Crew from UUCAS helps with the community meal.

I was walking on a trail along the shore of a beautiful pond one winter’s day, relishing the sounds of the birds, the peace of the calm water, and began to notice a bottle cap here, a bit of broken plastic there. It seemed only right to do something to protect the beauty of this space this eco-system that had filled me with wonder and peace. I filled the pockets of my coat, and resolved to come back for a couple of cans that wouldn’t fit in my pockets. The next day I was happily picking up cans and bottles as I walked, until I rounded a corner and saw the pile of trash that had accumulated along the bank in the winter storms. It made the full bag of trash I was feeling so good about seem puny by comparison.

I decided two things in that moment- first, that I had hit my limit. My bag was full, I was tired. I was not up to tackling that oversized mess entangled in the steep bank. Second, I remembered that I am not alone. There were other folks in this community that I was visiting, I had to trust that others who cared about this beautiful place would also lend a hand as they were able.

There’s a wonderful group on social media called “the Glorious Trash Birds” who organize cleanups, and take photos of what they pick up while they walk. They have a tradition called “one piece Wednesday” where they encourage everyone, trash birds or not, to pick up a piece of trash on Wednesday, something easy and achievable. This encourages me when I get down on my small efforts. But still… There’s a lot of trash, much that is beyond my control. I can’t even get all the trash I see on my morning dog walks. Does it matter when I pick up a few loose bits? This was when I remembered the words we shared for our chalice lighting “service is our prayer” The act of bending down and picking up the plastic bag drifting across the sidewalk is like a body prayer saying “I love this place and want to protect it. I worry about the plastics in the ocean, and pray for a solution. The solution is bigger than me, but it is my heart’s desire. I pray for a day when the creeks and lakes and oceans are clean again.”

There is a great theological debate that has been argued along the centuries: “faith vs. works” – which is more important to our salvation, what we believe or what we do? [i]

It says in the book of James in the Christian scriptures:

What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill’, and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead. [2:14–17]

Whereas Paul says “a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ” so there’s a strong belief in some protestant traditions in “faith alone”

I bet if you’ve spent any time at a UU church you have figured out that we put a lot of stock in good works. We like to roll up our sleeves and as my seminary buddy used to say “build the kin-dom of God on earth”

Faith is where we can struggle. In prosperous, peaceful times, we see our little acts make a real difference. We work hard and the work pays off. But sometimes, in times of struggle, we see our work scattered and broken. We know clearly that the work of our hands alone cannot repair the world.

The history of the Ladies’ aid society of the Cortland UU church, begins this way: “The Aid society in the beginning no doubt grew out of groups of women who met together during the Civil War to sew for the Army.” I can only imagine what it was like to live through that time of the Civil war, here in Cortland. Far from the front, but worried for family members who were away fighting, dying. Here at home there were food shortages, and economic hardship. With a whole generation of fighters away at war, the women sewing those bandages most likely had additional responsibilities and burdens. There was much work to be done and not enough hands to do it.

Still thousands of people all over the country sewed for the soldiers. Imagine a time when the US army could not even supply it’s wounded soldiers with enough bandages, much less proper uniforms. It reminds me a bit of those first months of covid when there were not enough masks, how quickly industrious people set to making them for the folks near and far who needed them. It helped to be doing something when so much was out of our control. I know I was sure grateful for the beautiful handmade masks neighbors and friends made for me. The bandages made by the ladies’ aid society could not staunch the great would of the civil war, or bring their loved ones home safe, but I am certain that each and every bandage was a help and support to the nurses struggling in impossible conditions, and the people whose lives they helped save. And I’m sure it helped those women too, to come together in someone’s living room with tender anxious hearts to do the thing they could do. [ii]

I know when I knit a prayer shawl for someone in specific, they come to mind often as I knit. It really does help me hold that person in my heart, each time I pick up my knitting. This is what I think of when I hear those words “service is our prayer”

Now a hug shawl is not nearly so practical as bandages, but both require work and faith. The work of doing what things we can do, and the faith of knowing that it is not by our efforts alone that the war will be ended, that the wounds will be healed, that hearts will be made whole.

There are many ways to serve. Tasks of all shapes and sizes. What’s interesting to me about that word “serve” is that it is a transitive verb – we serve someone or something. So it is important to ask who or what am I serving? It is a humble word -- it puts the needs of others before ourselves. Humility is important here because we often think we know what someone else needs. Harms have been done over the centuries by people of faith deciding they knew what another needed; think of the Indian boarding schools, the great harms that were perpetrated there in the name of saving souls. Paternalism is a word that comes from a root that means “father” to help someone like a father would. Which means treating the person being helped like a child. It’s a characteristics of white supremacy culture.

This is something we were very aware of when the Athens congregation wanted to do something to support the black community. When we reached out to a group called “Mother’s Helping Mothers” to ask what they needed, the leaders told us that we were the only organization to ask what they needed, Most called to tell them what we wanted to do for them.

Here's another example, I was part of the project grow board as we chose exotic heirloom tomatoes to grow, excited about increasing the diversity of food species and keeping heirloom varieties going. We held an open meeting of our members and heard back from the community that people don’t know what to do with a green tomato, and could we just please provide some ordinary red tomatoes that was what they truly wanted, that trying to grow your own food and eat more healthy vegetables was already a lot for most families. Serving with humility means asking those we serve what it is they most want and need.

The Athens congregation takes as its mission “To live ethically, grow spiritually and serve lovingly” I think that’s important- that we serve lovingly. The love we put into the doing is important. There’s a line from the Hobbit movie, Gandalf the great wizard says to the homebody hobbit Bilbo, who is not sure how he can be of use in the epic fight of good and evil that is unfolding around him. Gandalf says:

“Some believe it is only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I have found. It is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love.”

These are challenging times in which we find ourselves. It’s hard to know what we can do to ease the suffering of neighbors and friends, much less those far away whose stories break our hearts. But like the women who sewed bandages during the Civil war, we can make service our prayer. Spirit of life, May each stitch we sew, peace of trash we pick up, ride we give to a friend, hand we hold in the hospital, raised bed garden we build, tomato we harvest for the foodbank, may the work and the faith of our small acts of kindness and love be part of the healing of our world.

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[i] Here’s a deep dive if you are curious https://rsc.byu.edu/vol-13-no-3-2012/paul-james-faith-works and an overview of the divide from a catholic perspective https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/faith-and-works-0

[ii] http://civilwarrx.blogspot.com/2013/02/civil-war-bandages.html Here’s a lovely piece about “lint” for wounds https://civilwartalk.com/threads/the-lint-societies-what-women-did-and-why.156511/ One about what women sewed for themselves and the soldiers: http://www.lovetosewstudio.com/sewing-womans-clothing-during-the-civil-war-times/

The Wisdom of Traditional Meals

'Tis the season for traditional meals. Some we are looking forward to, some we are dreading, some we are skipping this year. Is there a meal in your family where you can count on the menu being pretty much the same year after year? For the purpose of this reflection, I'm thinking about all kinds of families, including both the ones we were assigned to and the ones we chose. I invite you to call to mind the meals that worked, the meals where you felt welcome, where it seemed like generally everybody found something to eat, no one went away hungry.

A lot of us have just celebrated Thanksgiving, and I remember growing up Thanksgiving was exactly the same every year. Was it like that in your family? Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes made by Gramma, cranberry sauce made by the youngest cook in the family, Waldorf Salad and pumpkin pie with real whipped cream.

When I met my partner Eric, he was a little confused by the homemade cranberry sauce, (his was a canned cranberry family) but totally grossed out by the Waldorf salad- which is- anyone else have this for thanksgiving? It’s cubed apples, celery and mayonnaise. Eric had never had it before, and he thought it was pretty gross. That’s fair. I like it, but that’s fair.

But here’s the one that shocked me- he didn’t like Pumpkin pie. Can you imagine! In fact, his family didn’t have a traditional thanksgiving dessert! I didn’t realize how different family traditions could be when it was just us and the grandparents when I was growing up. I just thought that was Thanksgiving.

As I grew up my parents got divorced and moved out of our family home, now Thanksgiving was different every year. While I was in Seminary we often had thanksgiving with our Vegetarian friends, and stuffed acorn squash was a staple for a while. One thanksgiving I was introduced to a sweet potato casserole I actually liked- and thought “Where have you been all my life?!”

It wasn’t until I became interested in local seasonal food, that I noticed the traditional dishes for thanksgiving matched so well with what was growing at the farm. Potatoes, brussels sprouts, cranberries, pumpkins, apples- these are what is available in the fall if you live around here, where those traditions originated. Even though we now get almost any food we want at the grocery store any time of the year, the thanksgiving meal still has its roots in the wisdom of place and season- if you live in the north east that is.

It wasn’t until I was cooking for a family of my own, that I began to understand another wisdom. Those meals where everyone feels satisfied don’t just happen. It takes a lot of thought to have something for everyone- the niece that doesn’t eat meat and hates squash, the half of the family that loves giblet gravy, the others who find that gross. When I had to give up dairy, that might have meant giving up mashed potatoes, but we came to a new tradition -- the bowl scooped out for Darcey before the milk and butter go in. Well I thought it was a new tradition, but I just learned recently that PapPap also didn’t eat dairy, so this was not a new tradition, but an old one put into use again. When people eat together regularly, they begin to know what meals will satisfy them all.

Even when there were only 3 of us in our household, there was a tension between my dietary preferences and needs for a low-fat diet with whole grains and lots of diverse vegetables, and my son’s preference for more mainstream American comfort foods. Through years of trial and error we came up with a cannon of foods we all could enjoy. (And when I go out of town they make a giant tray of mac and cheese the first night I’m gone). Over a couple of decades eating with my partner’s family, I began to wonder about how those mealtime habits and traditions came to be. I thought of how our traditional family meals might be some combination of the foods that were available near our ancestors, and the unique genetic heritage of body and health in our shared genes. My husband’s family comes from Estonia on his father’s side, with a short growing season and cold winters, where it makes perfect sense they would be a meat and potatoes family, and live to a ripe old age eating the traditional foods of their people.

Over years of eating together, that core set of dishes- that can be made with local ingredients, and work with the dietary needs and preferences of those who share a table become the spread we see at the traditional meals.

This is the nature of tradition- like the holiday meal, they are honed over time, year after year as people use them. The wisdom of all those people, who cooked and ate, who shaped the meal, as the meal shaped them. In good times and in bad the tradition grounds us, connects us to those who came before, to the wisdom of our ancestors. And like all things, traditions change… need to change as the world evolves and grows.

One of the things we are working hard on, in our Unitarian Universalist tradition, is to notice who is not fed by the meal we are preparing. I bet most of you know what it is to show up for a meal with a new group, a new side of the family, and stare uncertainly at an unfamiliar spread. If you have a dietary restriction, you know that sinking feeling- there is nothing I can eat here. I’ll always remember my friends rehearsal dinner at a traditional and fancy Chinese restaurant- course after course of beautiful platters came out, but at our table most of our dining companions were vegetarian or vegan, and they sat with empty plates. Finally on the 4th course, the pork came with a shredded cabbage garnish, and my friends took their first bites of the night. The next day at he wedding the catering was all vegan, and I imagine different people were fed and bewildered.

The church potluck is a wonderful example of this process. We start to notice whose plate is empty, and talk about what would make us nourished and satisfied. As new folks come and go we realize the vegan soup is not gluten free, or that the beautiful vegan gluten free dish contains nightshades, which we didn’t realize made it dangerous for one of our friends.

But sometimes, if we pay attention, if we listen, if we say what we need, and contribute what we can, people go away fed. This is a wonderful metaphor for community. When we come together, week after week, we start to know one another’s needs, restrictions, desires. We learn a new recipe with almond flower when the birthday girl is gluten free. We put cheese on the side when we think of Bob, we make the special cake Elizabeth said she loved. I have seen you notice, and care. In a small congregation like Cortland, I know some of you actually have a running list in your mind of what each member can eat.

Once we’ve found a pattern that works, and settled in, it becomes easy. This past thanksgiving my partner made gravy, as he always does, I made my families’ cranberry sauce recipe, as I always do, and some extra vegetables for the table because I like extra vegetables. And Nonie made the mashed potatoes, and took some out for me before she adds the butter, like she always does. We don’t have to think too hard about it.

But when new folks join us, we have to add a new layer of consciousness to what we do. This can become a tradition too. My friend Suzanne who is an excellent hostess, always asks “is there anything you need, or anything you aren’t eating right now?” before I come to visit. I remember the first potluck I took my vegetarian friend to at my seminary. I was so worried there would be nothing for her to eat, but in fact there was no meat on the table at all, except one casserole that had a little tag sticking out of it “warning, bacon!” We can’t possibly expect to know everyone’s needs and preferences, so in the process of getting to know one another, of finding that just right meal that has a bit of something for everyone, we talk about it until we get just the right mix. When we are learning new traditions, or whenw e are including new people into old traditions, communication helps.

Then maybe it will take some learning- we have a chance to grow our knowledge and understanding. What is gluten anyway? And did you know some vegan hot dogs contain gluten? When we first started using the word “woke” what we meant was that we had woken up to the needs and experiences of others that we had been asleep to, that we had not been conscious of, particularly around race and racism. But another way to think of it is just old fashioned politeness, being a good host. At a good meal, everyone goes away with a full belly. And when know what’s in the food we are serving, and whether that is nourishing or toxic to the folks at our table, that is true hospitality, the kind we aspire to in this congregation.

We love when new people come to visit or to stay in this community, but when they do what’s on the table may change from “the usual” It usually takes time to find a new equilibrium. Eventually it is the tradition that at our holiday gathering, cookies baked with almond flour; we may not even remember that we first did this to make sure Betty had something sweet to end her meal.

In this community, though we love to eat together, we are really here to feed one another’s heart’s and spirits. On any given Sunday, maybe there is something on the table you can’t eat, but hopefully there is something you can.

ON our metaphorical table there are things like worship, or pickle-ball, or that book group coming up. In this congregation we have theists and atheists, folks who want more God talk, and folks who want less. Folks who want to run back and forth on a pickle-ball court, and folks who need to just sit. Folks who want worship to lift up the crucial social justice issues, and folks who feel worship should be a refuge from events of the day. Not every dish will be right for you, and that can be disappointing at times, but that’s the challenge and gift of community- to hold our diversity in mutuality and love. Please tell us what you like and need, think of others, make space for their needs too. And be sure to bring your favorite dish (real or metaphorical) just because we’ve never had it before, doesn’t mean it won’t become our new favorite.

As you move through this season full of traditions, I encourage you to get curious about where your own traditions come from, and who is fed by them. I encourage you to notice whose plate is empty, and ask what would nourish them, I encourage you to try new things, experiment and explore,

May this be a place where our tradition grounds us, connects us to the wisdom of all who have come before, and always makes space at the table for new people, new sources of nourishment and joy.

Sacred Places

Photo of Oak Flat by Sacred Land Film Project

In the mountains of Arizona, there is a place called Oak Flats, a sacred site used for ceremony by the Apache people. The Apache Stronghold describes it as “a place to pray, collect water and medicinal plants, gather acorns, honor the people who are buried there, and perform sacred religious ceremonies. Oak Flat is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as a Traditional Cultural Property“[i] But this sacred place is located over a great triangle of copper, one of the biggest copper reserves in the country. And though it was protected from mining since 1955 by an executive order by President Eisenhower, in last minute addition to the 2015 national defense authorization act, a rider was added to swap this sacred space for some other land owned by the mining company. The save Apache Stronghold has been fighting a legal battle to save this land, and the Supreme court is scheduled to decide if it will take up the case on December 6.

I heard Wendsler Noise talk about this place when he came to speak at SUNY Geneseo. He told us that this is one of those places that tradition tells us must be protected to help the world start again when pollution and destruction have wounded our natural places. In November (2019) Noise went to visit the U S Forest Service officials, and, to quote Noise “ I … told them that I am vacating San Carlos reservation and I’m going back to Oak Flat (Chi’chil Bildagoteel), a sacred place that our people were forcefully removed from under the United States. I denounced all their negligence and the pending land transfer to the mining company, Resolution Copper.”

Then, says Noise “I left the reservation, I walked back the way they had brought in my family, forcefully, on foot, and I moved back to my ancestral homeland of Oak Flat. That’s where I reside today.”

When he spoke to us at Geneseo, he told the story of a woman who visited, a white woman, protestant. The place touched her, she said she could feel the power of the place, she felt connected with Spirit there. In this David and Golith court battle with the powerful mining company, they were collecting amicus briefs, and this woman’s story was included. But when Noise went through the final filing, her story wasn’t there. He asked his lawyer, but the lawyer said that, from a legal standpoint, land can’t be sacred to white people, because we are people of the book.

Having a sacred book you can carry seems like a survival adaptation of people who have left their sacred places. Perhaps your family is like mine- my family left another land and came to this. A grandfather fled antisemitism in Austria, a great grandfather came to farm. Others… we don’t even know what countries many branches of my family come from. I have never stepped foot on the continent of my ancestors birth.

This is normal for many people who live in this country. In our culture every place becomes a bedroom community for your job, or a resource to be turned into products and profit.

But we in this congregation have talked a lot about coming to know the places we live, to challenge the place doesn’t matter, and I know I feel a change in my own heart and mind gradually dawning.

I think how my heart would break if they cut down the honey locust trees across the street where the squirrel nests are.

I remember how we stood at Greenspring in a circle around the burial mound for our friend and member Jeff Singer, as we threw our rose petals on his grave, how the soil is our ancestors. That old phrase “dust to dust” – reminds us that the dirt beneath our feet is a sacred legacy of generations of beings, ready to become new life. Oak flats is such a place, where the ancestors reside.

Have you ever been to a place that felt sacred? I know when the Cortland congregation was talking about selling that building, we sat there in the social hall talking about all the memories, about the generations of people, of history that passed through there. We talked of the feeling of being there. It feels like a sacred space. And this space we hold so dear has only been loved by us for a couple hundred years old, not the thousands of years of Oak Flats.

More and more I believe that place matters. Places are not interchangeable, different places have different feelings, different stories to tell, different wisdom.

View from my favorite spot on Lake Ontario

Perhaps you have a special place where just being there changes something in you, nourishes your heart or spirit like no other place?  I think about a spot on Lake Ontario where my partner and I return year after year, how something lifts and lightens as we round the bend and catch sight of the lake. I think about a retreat center where my heart and spirit have been transformed beyond what I thought possible. The director says with a chuckle that it is the place itself that does the work, and I believe him.

The key to the case now before the supreme court is religious freedom. Whether or not you believe that a place can be sacred, it is a deeply held belief of indigenous peoples that place can be sacred, that certain places hold wisdom, connect us to our ancestors, help us be closer to Spirit. This is not just a theoretical belief, but a “direct experience of divine mystery and wonder” That different places have different wisdom to offer- one cannot simply pick a place and declare it sacred, the way we might find a new site to build a church.

When we understand that land is sacred, one is inclined to follow practices that do less damage, that are more harmonious with the community of beings who live in your place. I’m sure you heard in the news about the big Biodiversity report:

“Three-quarters of the land-based environment and about 66% of the marine environment have been significantly altered by human actions. On average these trends have been less severe or avoided in areas held or managed by Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities.”[ii]

Siham Drissi who works at the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) says:

“When land is owned, managed or occupied in a traditional way, the word “traditional” refers to a knowledge that stems from centuries-old observation and interaction with nature. This knowledge is often embedded in a cosmology that reveres the one-ness of life, considers nature as sacred and acknowledges humanity as a part of it. And it encompasses practical ways to ensure the balance of the environment in which they live, so it may continue to provide services such as water, fertile soil, food, shelter and medicines.”[iii]
"UNEP also engages with religious leaders and communities to work with Indigenous Peoples. A focus of our work is the mutual recognition of the sanctity of life and nature, and the equality among the beliefs of the world’s religions and the traditional spiritualities of Indigenous Peoples. In doing so, we hope to contribute to the safeguarding traditional knowledge, while healing our planet by facilitating the reconciliation of historical conflicts between religions and Indigenous Peoples."

What can we do, so far away from the mountains of Arizona, so far from the halls of power in Washington DC? In the short term we can send donations, we can sign petitions, call our lawmakers. But starting now, and for a long time, we must first listen to  “the original keepers of the lands, those who obey natural law and are in the service of the lands on which you stand.”[Joy Harjo] [iv] When someone like Noise who was raised in the traditional ways and served as former Chairman and Councilman of the San Carlos Apache Tribe, chooses to give up his life in his home, to live for years in an encampment to protect one single sacred place, can we listen deeply? can we learn something about a radically different way of being in a place, of knowing a place, of protecting and living in reciprocity with a place?

Second, we can come to know our own places, even if we live, as I do, on a downtown street with the noise of heavy traffic competing with the twitter of birds. Even sitting on the porch watching the squirrels, scampering across the branches of the honey locust trees, noticing the patches where the soil looks healthy and happy, and the places where living things struggle, is a spiritual practice. It brings me joy and grounding, but also the intimate knowledge of the family of beings. The more we pay attention, the more we listen as if place can be a teacher, can be a guide, a wise elder, the more we will understand the importance of that relationship. The more we will see ourselves as relatives. We begin to look out for our tree neighbors, our bird neighbors the same as we look out for our human neighbors.

As Noise said in his talk with the Poor People's Campaign: “we really needed to come back and to re-strengthen the connection that we have with Mother Earth, and with ourselves, before we can go anywhere or impact anything. It really started from there.”

Our new Unitarian Universalist statement of values says:

“We honor the interdependent web of all existence. With reverence for the great web of life and with humility, we acknowledge our place in it. We covenant to protect Earth and all beings from exploitation. We will create and nurture sustainable relationships of care and respect, mutuality and justice. We will work to repair harm and damaged relationships.”

This practice is good for our spirits and hearts, but it is also good for the world, human and non-human alike. The more we know the land, the more we listen and love the land, the better protectors we will be. Let us listen to those known this land intimately for generations, and follow practices that nurture and protect these sacred places. And let us listen the earth herself, the spirit of life who are part of this healing. They will support us in this healing as they have always held and supported us. We, UUs, renew our commitment to listen and participate in restoration and healing as each of us is called in our own unique ways.

 

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[i] http://www.apache-stronghold.com/take-action.html 

Another helpful article about the Oak Flat campaign https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/oak-flat-exchange-arizona-sacred-site-mining-company

 [ii] Intergovernmental Science-Policy  study on Biodivserity https://www.ipbes.net/news/Media-Release-Global-Assessment

[iii]  The United Nations: [Siham Drissi is a Programme Management officer at the Ecosystems division at the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)]

08 Jun 2020 Story Nature Action

Indigenous Peoples and the nature they protect

https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/indigenous-peoples-and-nature-they-protect

[iv]  [Joy Harjo “For those who would govern” p. 74. ]