Full Grown!

 There was a sit com a few years back called Suburgatory which no one watched except us. One of the supporting characters, Dallas Royce, whose life has been embodying the perfect wife, mom, and PTA chair, finally gets fed up with her husband and tells him to move out. And while she is sad and confused and angry, she has some sort of inner reorientation; she is shaken awake, she becomes conscious of her own needs, her own gifts even when those are not what her husband, her daughter, her community assume. Standing in that shaky new place of self knowledge, she declares- “I am a full grown woman. Full grown!” Eric and I thought that this was, first of all, hilarious, and also perfectly summed up some inner knowing of who you are, and what you need and what you desire, even when it is out of alignment with the expectations of the folks around you. This is a knowing that comes with the weight of decades of life experience behind it. We use this all the time at my house nowadays, when we make a decision that comes from our own inner authority, our own inner knowing. “full grown!” one of us will declare.

When I was getting ready to turn 50, I asked a lot of people what they thought were important gifts of the 50s, and the answer often was “you know yourself better.” One friend said “gravitas.” 

When we are little, experts tell us it’s important to use the body and mind in lots of ways while they are still flexible, to give yourself a wide range of possibilities when you grow up. Our schools are set up so that 30 totally different children in a classroom get the exact same lesson, then sit down to take the same test, as if each of these totally unique beings have the same capacities and gifts and challenges. We are told that our low scores tell us “where we need to work harder” or “where we need to improve.” “You’ll need this when you are older” they say. Well, now I’m older. A young yoga teacher told me recently “stick with it, it will come eventually” and I thought, no-- I’ve been doing yoga for 20 years, my body is 50, that ship has sailed. I am no longer a clump of clay that can be formed into anything, I’m this, I’m me. I’m full grown. As John Wellwod wrote:

Forget about enlightenment...
Open your heart to who you are, right now,
Not who you would like to be,
Not the saint you are striving to become,
But the being right here before you, inside you, around you.

There has to be a time in our lives when we are no longer waiting for someone’s approval, we are not waiting for someone to certify and sign off that we are finally and completely ready to begin. Perhaps this is the initiation to being fully grown. No one else can tell you that you are full grown, we have to see it, we have to claim it for ourselves. Perhaps we make our own graduation cap to fit, and write our own diploma, and claim who we are right now as “good enough.”

I was trying to explain this to my sister and she said “so does that mean you are done changing?” It was a good clarifying question. "Heavens no" I thought. Life is growth and change. But I’m done waiting for and working for some full final form when I will finally be perfect, when I will finally be someone else. I am full grown.

Jung called it individuation, the journey to know who you are, even when it is different than what the people or society around you expect. It’s okay to have a different opinion than others in your community. It’s okay to have different needs. My husband likes to watch almost every game of his beloved Oakland A’s. I like to sit on the porch and watch the squirrels and maybe read a book, even when it’s cold or rainy. I don’t need him to love the outdoors, he doesn’t need me to love baseball. Sometimes I choose to sit and read my book on the sofa during the game because I love him and it’s companionable and it sounds like you are at an outdoor party even if you don’t follow the game. But I know that I am choosing to do it not because I feel I SHOULD like baseball, or because he won’t love me if I don’t, but I am making a choice knowing fully who I am. Sometimes he joins me on the porch if the day is lovely. He even noticed that the trees were that exact shade of spring green I love. Then he heads back inside. “I think I’ll stay out here” I say “full grown!” he replies. Whenever we realize that Eric and I want something different I’ll say “would you mind if I…” or “I don’t think I want to…” and he’ll say “full grown” “full grown!” I reply.

Individuation means we can be in community without sacrificing, or repressing our true self. Healthy communities are made up of people who know who they are or are discovering who they are. A healthy community encourages people to figure that out. When someone leaves this church community because they realize “actually, I need different ritual, I need to connect to the divine in a different way” I know we are doing our job. I am sad to see them go, it’s okay for me to feel sad, and proud that their time with us helped them discern that truth about themselves.

Our 3rd UU principle is “Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregation.” We delight as each of us grows into ourselves. We ask clarifying questions, we hear each other’s journeys. Our listening circle has been meeting for years, and the longer we meet, the more we notice the shape of our individual journeys, how we are different, where our paths are similar. We notice how each of us is growing and changing. We witness that, and honor that. Breyn Marr, in her piece “second dancer” offers these words, written specifically toward women, but believe crosses all gender:

Women, when you sense another woman approaching the edge of jus the “right kind of madness,” gearing up to say or do something that could change her life forever …
Women. When you see that look in her eyes, and she swallows hard – the moment when she digs, one more time. Digs. Way. Down. Deep inside. Reaching some primal reserve of wild courage she didn’t yet know was there… and you are there when she ACTS on that wild courage, by SPEAKING her truth. .., yes, I’m talking to YOU, for Goddess’ sake, BACK HER.

That is one way “encourage one another to spiritual growth;” When we come to the scary edge of speaking or acting our own deep truth, you know your community has your back, even if your truth is not ours, we honor your truth anyway.

This claiming of who we are right now in the present moment is psychological, it is personal, it is communal, and it is also spiritual. If what we seek is enlightenment, it can’t be found out there in some Holy Grail it can only be found in the moment we are living. As meditation teacher Dorothy Hunt writes in her book Ending The Search "The spiritual search is a call to remember who or what you essentially are. What ends the search is actually present from the very beginning, beckoning you to come Home. In truth, you are what you seek, yet you must make the discovery for yourself."

If what we seek is the divine, the holy, that too can be reached only in this present moment. I believe that God is available to all of us in every moment, even when we have not become that “saint we are striving to become”. When the scripture says “the kingdom of God is at hand” mystics interpret this to mean that the most sacred is already here, right now in this moment, not after some final apocalypse.

If what you seek is actualization as a human, it will not be found following the whims of fashion, the requirements of society, which seem to change month to month. Being fully who we are starts with you, where you are in this very moment. With all your wrinkles and lumps, your inability to catch a softball or your passion for quilting. Those are not the things keeping you from being your true self, because you are already full grown.

And if what we seek is community, bringing your true, authentic, full grown self, and encouraging others to do the same is critical. Because the great end of this exploration is not our own happiness, our own actualization, but a better world for everyone. By being who we fully, finally are, not someday but now, we are of greater use to one another and to the divine. As Clarissa Pinkola Estes Writes:

“One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul. Soul on deck shines like gold in dark times. The light of the soul throws sparks, can send up flares, builds signal fires, causes proper matters to catch fire. To display the lantern of soul in shadowy times like these -- to be fierce and to show mercy toward others; both are acts of immense bravery and greatest necessity. Struggling souls catch light from other souls who are fully lit and willing to show it. If you would help to calm the tumult, this is one of the strongest things you can do.”

Your soul can only shine through you- your gifts, your struggles, your knowing. Your unique experiences, both fruitful and disappointing, beautiful and strange, these have formed you into exactly who you are in this moment, with a unique perspective and a unique voice the world needs. Full grown!

 

What Mothers Really Want

Most people are unaware that the founder of Mother’s Day was a Unitarian[i]. Julia Ward Howe, mother of 6, was an abolitionist, co-founder the American Woman Suffrage Association, and peace activist. During the Civil War, she nursed and tended the wounded and worked with the widows and orphans of soldiers on both sides of the war. She saw first-hand the devastating impact on the bodies of soldiers on the battlefield, and on their families[ii]. In 1870, when the Franco-Prussian war was raging in Europe, she was disturbed by “"the cruel and unnecessary character of the contest. . .. a return to barbarism, the issue having been one which might easily have been settled without bloodshed" And invited “mothers of all nationalities to band together to promote the “amicable settlement of international questions, the great and general interests of peace.”[iii] in the Mother’s day proclamation Susan read for us. She encouraged folks to come together one day each year dedicated to the work of peace.

She wrote 30 years later in a speech she gave called “The development of the peace ideal”:

“I bethought me of the sacred right vested in the women of civilized communities to keep the bond of Peace and to protect the lives bought by their bitter pain, and fashioned by their endless labor.”[iv]

In her time, of course, it was common to conflate women and mothers, but let’s set aside the gender binary, and focus on her conviction that those who had labored to bring each child into the world, and those who labored to raise them, would have a special motivation to keep them safe, to protect them from the violence of war.

In Boston, where she lived, she initiated a Mothers' Peace Day observance on the second Sunday in June and held a Mother’s Day meeting for a number of years. For the rest of her long life she lectured widely, particularly for the Unitarian Church, founding clubs wherever she went.”[v]

The Peace Alliance tells us that “As the call for a Mother’s Day carried on, it gained new momentum and finally became a national holiday in the early 1900’s with the lead of Anna Jarvis, who had been inspired by her mother, also named Anna Jarvis, who had worked with Julia Ward Howe in earlier efforts for a Mother’s Day.”[vi]

Activism for peace is deep in the roots of Unitarian Universalism, like abolition, like women’s suffrage. Not every Unitarian of Julia Ward Howe’s time was convinced -- her ideas were often considered ahead of her time, and her calls for peace were often dismissed, just as such calls are often dismissed in modern times.

This year at Mother’s day, I invite us to take up the challenge she issued back in 1870, and see how we feel called today. Her challenge that "The sword of murder is not the balance of justice! Blood does not wipe out dishonor, nor violence indicate possession.” In 2021 I see her challenge in our militarized police system.

Howe stood up against the use of violence and bloodshed to resolve conflict, creates neither justice nor peace. I would argue that what we are protecting with all our military, and police forces should be peace. But the way we use our military, our police force seems to be in service of defending territory, defending property, rather than peace. Violence creates violence, Violence creates trauma not peace. And when folks return from war, we see that the ripples of that trauma take generations to be healed. We see those same ripples of violence and trauma in the policing of communities of color. Protecting peace is not the same as defending territory.

Howe calls us to turn our attention to the “means Whereby the great human family can live in peace.” Peace is not merely the absence of war, but a proactive way of being that holds space for healing and growing and creativity. Peace must be cultivated, nurtured so that it can to spread and establish peaceful spaces. Not spaces that avoid conflict, but “braver spaces” where we have the courage to speak truthfully and compassionately to one another about those things which concern us most. Cultivating peace is not about avoiding conflict. It requires that we teach and practice non-violent conflict resolution. It is about finding ways to hold the forces which deny and oppress life accountable in a way that avoids adding to the harm being done.

I think Su’s thoughtful reflection today "Being True to UU Ideals" is a challenge to practice peace, particularly at this time when our country is so divided. Lao Tzu, (Chinese Philosopher, author of the Toa Te Ching wrote:

If there is to be peace in the world,
There must be peace in the nations.
If there is to be peace in the nations,
There must be peace in the cities.
If there is to be peace in the cities,
There must be peace between neighbors.
If there is to be peace between neighbors,
There must be peace in the home.

If there is to be peace in the home,
There must be peace in the heart.

These words are encouraging to me when I feel too small to make a difference in national or global politics. It reminds me that cultivating peace in my own city, in my own home, in my own heart is important. Perhaps you have been in a room with someone whose peaceful presence has affected your own heart? I have seen people leading with peace turn an embattled situation into one where solutions are possible in all kinds of situations, large and small. Imagine cultivating peace on social media!

Cultivating peace, embodying peace is not easy. It requires intention and practice and courage. We become angry, we are imperfect. We may never live up to the example of great peace activists we admire, but we can challenge ourselves by asking: how can we cultivate a more peaceful response as we move through our days, enjoying with appreciation the life giving things we encounter, and naming with clarity, and working to change the things that diminish or oppress life? How can we restore peace where it has been interrupted with violence?

There is an important critique of those who call for peace; peace is easy to confuse with quietism, it is easy to mistake with conflict avoidance. It is not true peace when we endure injustice, or encourage others who bear the brunt of injustice or violence to endure it peacefully without resistance, to avoid upsetting the status quo. Consider Colin Kaepernick, the first to take a knee on the football field to protest police violence. His quiet peaceful action disturbed many people. Calling for justice is by its nature disturbing, because we must first see the injustice, and that should disturb us. The chant we hear in many protests is “no justice no peace” – and this is important. Our work for justice is part of our work for peace.

Photo from NBC News

One mother who is in my heart today, who embodies the ideals of that original Mother’s day proclamation is Gwen Carr. After her son, Eric Garner, was killed by police, she has worked for years to make sure that the men who killed her son, the system that killed her son would be held accountable. She said in an MSNBC interview: 

"We have to go further, as mothers, as families, we have to go further. And that's the only way that we are going to push them to do the right thing."

At the same time Carr is also reaching out to other mothers who lost their children to police violence to support them in their grief. Gwen Carr embodies those words spoken by Julia Ward Howe 150 years ago:

“Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead. Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means Whereby the great human family can live in peace,”

Gwen Carr is my mother’s day hero this year, a modern role model of a mother’s wisdom and compassion, and the urgency of her call for peace. She embodies for me what Howe called: “the sacred right vested in the women of civilized communities to keep the bond of Peace and to protect the lives bought by their bitter pain, and fashioned by their endless labor.”

This Mother’s Day I propose that what those who mother really want, is to know that their children will live in peace, will be safe from violence. That they will see their children grow to be adults. This year at Mother’s Day we recommit ourselves, each in our own way, to work for peace, whether that means an end to foreign wars, or a demilitarizing of our police here at home, calling for accountability when sons and daughters are killed by police, working towards nonviolent resolution in the everyday conflicts and disagreements, or cultivating peace in our own hearts.

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[i] Later she wrote, "I studied my way out of all the mental agonies which Calvinism can engender and became a Unitarian." https://uudb.org/articles/juliawardhowe.html

[ii] https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/julia-ward-howe

[iii] https://peacealliance.org/history-of-mothers-day-as-a-day-of-peace-julia-ward-howe/

[iv] https://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2021/04/19/julia-ward-howe-the-development-of-the-peace-ideal/

[v] https://uudb.org/articles/juliawardhowe.html

[vi] https://peacealliance.org/history-of-mothers-day-as-a-day-of-peace-julia-ward-howe/

Blessing the seeds

The 6th source of our UU tradition is “Spiritual teachings of earth-centered traditions which celebrate the sacred circle of life and instruct us to live in harmony with the rhythms of nature”. For those of us who grew up in Jewish or Christian traditions, we were taught that you can take your religion with you, like a book, wherever you go. But earth centered traditions are, by definition, tied to a specific place. We learn not from ideas about earth, but from the earth herself.

Long before my family and I arrived in this region, this land was cared for by the Haudenosaunee confederacy of first nations peoples. The Haudenosaunee are still providing guidance and leadership today for those who would listen. They are still doing ceremonies which grow out of the wisdom of the earth herself, and this ecosystem we share.

The Haudenosaunee have 13 ceremonies representing the 13 moons throughout the year in rhythm with seasonal changes. The Haudenosaunee Confederacy website tells us that “Most ceremonies are a way of expressing thanks to the people, the natural world, the spirit world and the creator. It is hoped that this will help to maintain the health and prosperity of the nations.”

This time of year is marked by the Seed Ceremony in the middle of May. The first peoples of this land have long known what your neighbors who garden know, that where we live right about now is the time for planting many things. That these seeds we plant will feed ourselves and many in our ecosystems for the coming year. We are beholden to these seeds and to the mature plants they become for our lives.

Donna tells me that “Chief Bill Lazore of Eel Clan Haudenosaunee would come down to Towanda in early Spring and Summer and Fall to collect medicines. We were taught when coming upon a plant (all are medicines) whether for humans, animals or the earth we never gather the 1st or 2nd but start with the 3rd plant. Gather in respect and with a good heart. Before starting on the path we gave tobacco as an offering of thanks and that we would be mindful of the gifts given. We were told that was ceremony. Each person planting seeds may choose to hold their own ceremony in a way that shows their respect and love for where the seeds began. The soil, the rain, the sun all connected to us - as we began as a seed also. The circle is unending.”

So today we take time for or own Unitarian Universalist seed blessing, each in our own way with respect and love. With gratitude to the first nations peoples for their wisdom, we remember the importance of approaching life with respect and with a good heart.

I invite you to take your seeds in your hand right now, or just imagine a seed if you don’t have one. We begin by cultivating a good heart. Gently bring your attention, your presence inside your own body, gather your attention into your own chest, where your physical heart resides. Remember the basic, ordinary goodness of life, the goodness of breathing in and breathing out. Of food, of shelter, of a community to gather. If you are having a hard morning, allow yourself to soften in compassion towards yourself, and those around you - the kind of compassion you would offer a new being at the start of life.

Now bring your attention to the seed in your hand.
Consider the miracle that this small, hard seed can grow into a plant hundreds of times its size. And that our plant siblings not only feed us, and feed non-human animals, but produce the very oxygen we breathe. Feel the texture of the seed in your hand, and honor the amazing intelligence of nature that could store everything an adult plant needs to unfurl into life in this sturdy beginning.

Offer now, in this spirit of love and respect a blessing for these particular seeds in your own spirit, in your own way

Now we expand our blessing to all those seeds that are being planted at this season, all that new green life we all depend on. Bless these in your own way

Consider now what seeds need to grow and flourish- clean water, living fertile soil, space and time to grow undisturbed.

All the other plants and animals and fungus necessary for the complex web of life. Offer a blessing to the whole ecosystem, and your commitment to support and protect your ecosystem.

Finally we pause to ask our inner wisdom “is there anything in myself that I would like to plant this season?”

Blessed Be.