Wednesday, December 21, 2022

Latkes and the Foods that Connect

Latkes are such a simple food- potato, onion, a bit of egg, and oil. All ordinary ingredients from a winter pantry in our part of the world. It takes some know-how, though, to make good ones, made easier if you had a grandparent or parent who could help you get the knack of it. Loved by generations, the thought of potato pancakes sets mouths watering, and memories of years past swirling to mind.

In my husband’s family one of the key recipes is Paprikash. This perfect comfort food, a traditional Croatian soup with dumplings, is another of those
Paprikash
recipes that is simple, with ordinary ingredients, but no recipe can help you get those dumplings just right; you need to stand next to one who is practiced to get the knack of it. This soup is so evocative, that my eyes get a bit moist just thinking of times past sharing it with family.

All the great traditional foods were born out of necessity, the ingredients on hand in season, perhaps foods that can be made inexpensively in large batches for holiday gatherings of the extended family. Joaquin told the story aft er church last week about the tamales his family traditionally ate during the holidays, and the whole family put to work beforehand -- all hands on deck to form and wrap enough tamales to feed the family through the holidays. He described the holiday stew made from the only foods available to working people. The warm cinnamon chocolate drink his grandmother served with tamales when they came to see her for the Christmas holiday.

Reading a poem by Mary Wellemeyer the phrase “preparing the ceremonial dishes of my tribe” caught my imagination and has been resonating in my mind and heart. What are the ceremonial dishes of your tribe? Perhaps it is latkes, or Christmas cookies or tamales, or maybe there’s not an easy answer for that question. One of the reason the holidays can be hard is because so many of us have lost touch with our ancestral tribes. I know my grandfather was raised Jewish, but when he came to America he wanted to assimilate, as many immigrants do, and did not pass on any of his ancestral traditions. So much has been lost, or taken from us, like those of us whose ancestors were enslaved, or indigenous peoples whose culture was made illegal by their colonizers.
In her poem "The Shamash is the Tall One", Lori Rottenberg encourages us:

But even if you have no memories
of beloved elders chanting a guttural holy tongue
while holding the shamash aloft at dusk,
the menorah compels us all to consider
how centuries change stories,
how celebrations reflect as much as preserve,
and how we shape consecration of our own rituals.

So if you had no elder to pass on recipes and stories, to show you how to form the dumplings, I invite you to shape your own rituals, your own legacy. All those great traditional dishes were made first by someone, from whatever was in the pantry, for whomever needed to be fed. Think of the great sourdough starter wave of 2020 that grew out of an abundance of time at home and a shortage of yeast. I wonder if children who were little in 2020 will make sourdough for their families? Will the smell of yeast call back memories of a hard time we got through together with small comforts?

This fall our Soul Matters group spent an evening with this assignment: “The invitation is to think of a food or recipe that takes us back to a memory of deep belonging.. Most of the foods people shared were quite simple, those ordinary foods that light up the eyes of those who know and love them, kindling memories of meals past. My memory was of Gramma’s Chex mix. She used to make tins of it for Christmas, it was one of those recipes from the back of a cereal box designed to sell more product, as simple mix of 3 kinds of check, butter, Worcestershire sauce, and seasoning. I think it is the only holiday food our whole family enjoys. My mom, who makes it the classical way my gramma made, showed up one Christmas with tins of it for gifts, and was a bit deflated to see that my husband had made it as well, his own simpler and ever-evolving recipe, - “there can never be too much Chex mix!” he reassured her. Unlike the latkes and Paprikash, this recipe only goes back 3 generations, and has no special tie to the sacred stories, nor to a distant homeland, -- I’ll never know what foods Gramma Marie loved during the winter holidays when she was little, what dishes her tribe taught her. So Chex mix is what we have, and it reminds us of Gramma, and of each other—those who grew up eating gramma’s treats, those we married, and great grandchildren who never met her. Even so, that’s a story, isn’t it? It’s our story, our tribe.

That phrase “a memory of deep belonging” evokes many kinds of belonging, not just for our family of origin. Here's another story- a new one. A few years back Chalice Circle was going to be held on my Birthday. Well Lois wanted to have a little something special, and knew I don’t eat dairy. Another member of the group couldn’t eat gluten, so Lois learned a brand-new chocolate chip cookie recipe with almond meal. They were delicious, and more than that, I was so touched to be the recipient of hand made food custom made for our time together. It was, no question, a memory of deep belonging.

What are the foods that connect you to your tribe? To memories of warmth and connection? What food tastes like belonging to you?

We don’t often think of these ordinary holiday traditions as important rituals, but I believe they are important because they are so ordinary, because they involve all our senses, and are woven into the fabric of ordinary life.

Sharon Parks, writes in her Essay “The Meaning of Eating and the Home as Ritual Space” “These meals celebrate the connections among things They symbolize bonds that transcend geography and generations. They mark the affirmation of a shared way of life – shared commitments and vocation. Each affirms ongoing continuity even in the midst of discontinuity and change.” [p. 184] “ A home where people share meals together easily becomes a ritual space. A home is the context in which food, meals and feasts repeatedly order the life of our everyday and transmit the stories and expectations of our lives across generations. We do not have to reflect very long upon the power of food to begin to see why it has such symbolic ritual power and why meals, whether ordinary or special, can function as complex symbols, keys to whole patterns of relationship between ourselves and other elements of our lives- persons , things and the source of all food, the earth itself.” [p. 185] 
Mom's Pumpkin Pie

My mom’s family was for some reason cut off from their roots -- there is little knowledge of ancestors, few heirlooms or traditions or recipes past from one generation to the rest, a gap my mom felt very keenly. So one year my mom made me a binder of the recipes she used for the holidays we celebrate, an intentional legacy. What recipes would you pass on through your web of connection? What legacy would you share from the celebratory meals of your tribe, from moments of belonging? These stories are ours to share, and our gift to one another.

Perhaps this could be a spiritual practice for the coming holidays -- whether you are celebrating Hanukkah, Solstice or Christmas or just need some comfort food to get through the cold grey winter -- to remember and share the foods that feel like belonging to you. I invite you to practice weaving those threads of connection- generation to generation and heart to heart. Make the food if you can and share it, and the stories that go with it. Perhaps they remind you of the holiday miracles, like in today’s story, or perhaps the simple but no less precious miracle of people connecting and nourishing one another -- heart, body and spirit.
 
Nonnie's Nut Roll

Tuesday, December 13, 2022

How Can We Know What to Believe?*

 *This title is a callback to the UU curriculum "How Can I Know What to Believe?" by Charlene Brotman & Barbara Marshman  

When I was 13, our minister Rev. Brad Greeley, announced that he would be offering the first ever “coming of age” program in our congregation. A lot of my classmates were doing their confirmation, or their Mitzvahs, and I was glad to have something of my own. Back in those days, we didn’t have big overnight trips or games, like we have in our congregations over the past decade or so, it was just a handful of teens, and our minister, who asked us those big questions about what we believe, and handed us clean fresh mini legal pads to write down our thoughts.

It will probably not surprise you to know that I thought this was great! It felt so grown up to sit talking to the minister about important things, to be asked what I believe like it mattered. I had been the kind of kid who always thought about such things, who wanted to know “why” -- who wanted to know “is there a God? Is there a heaven? What happens after we die?” and sometimes it was really hard not having clear answers to those questions. Our minister told us, much as my mom had, that sometimes it was challenging being UU, because no one could tell you for sure what to believe, BUT, the gift was that we could learn to hone our own skill for discerning what was true. We were taught from a very young age that even if an authority figure says something is true, it’s okay to question, it’s okay to notice when what “people are saying” contradicts your lived experience. Questioning and religion go together, if you are UU. It’s part of the “Free and responsible search for truth and meaning”

One of our core understandings about this (called epistemology if you like fancy words) all the way back to the beginning of our Unitarian roots, is a trust in our inner compass in this search for truth. A place of inner wisdom, conscience and integrity exists in all of us, and this is the place in ourselves where we go to discern what is true, and what is important. For theists, this is the place where we are connected with and listening to the divine. For humanists, this is an innate human capacity. This discernment, this consulting the inner compass is at the core of our spiritual practice, and can be strengthened and habituated.

Have you ever had the experience of catching yourself not wanting to know something, or not wanting to face something internally? I sure have. Because we humans can also train ourselves not to look too closely at things that are uncomfortable, or things that might disrupt our relationships with other people. “Denial is not just a river in Egypt”, right? Coming to that place of integrity inside ourselves is not always easy, but that is the spot from which each of us can know what is true for us, the spot where we bring ourselves to discern.

Just as it takes our teens a full year to explore their beliefs in a comprehensive way, there are too many for us to consider deeply today. But I want to give us something specific to consider. I was thinking about all the angels that appear in the stories of this season, we had one in our story last week, and will undoubtedly sing about them at our candle light service. What do UUs believe about angels? It’s not something UUs talk about very much, it’s not really central to our shared theology, but it might be a helpful example as we explore this question of “how can I know what to believe?”

UUs are also big on evidence; the unitarian part of our tradition was inspired by people who bravely insisted that their beliefs must be compatible with the witness of their senses, and the learnings of science. But this means different things to different people. Some UUs take the strict stance that because angels have never been proven to exist using the scientific method, and because they themselves have never seen the angels described in the sacred texts, therefore they cannot believe in angels. When they ask their inner compass about angels, they get a hard no.

Some UUs believe the ordinary IS miraculous, and so when you ask “do you believe in angels” they might recall powerful moments of generosity and kindness they have witnessed in the midst of ordinary human relationships. Even a stranger on a bus can be an angel- providing direct evidence by their kindness.

But other UUs might offer another kind of evidence- a feeling they had one night at the sick bed of someone dear to them. A loving, comforting presence that radiated goodness. A vision, a voice. They consult that inner compass and feel the truth of that experience, the power of it to their lives, and maybe the word “angel” comes to their mind- and forever after when someone uses the word angel, it summons up that felt experience. 

Three different ways of thinking about angels, all coming out of our UU epistemology. This is because there are different kinds of truth, different kinds of knowing. For example I know that this week was the full moon because I saw it, and it was verified by all the calendars and apps in my house. I also know I love my husband, but that’s a different kind of knowing, harder to describe, harder to replicate, but true all the same. Myself, I tend to be agnostic about angels, but I do believe in the power of archetype and imagination. I know that something like angels have appeared in sacred stories and folk tales down through millennia. And I tend to believe that something which captures our collective imagination of that many generations must have some power for our psyches, whether it has any material reality.

The tricky bit for UUs is that on any given Sunday we might find someone for whom the whole idea of an angel sets off warning lights in that place of truth and integrity, might be sitting a few seats away from someone for whom angels play an important part of their spirituality, based on powerful experiences in their own lives. That is why respect is so important for us- because we don’t all have to believe the same thing, it’s okay to just listen with open mind and heart to the beliefs of each other, to notice how different our lived experience is, and the differences in how we have made meaning of our lives.

UUs try to keep our minds open to new understandings. The Dhali Lama once said “if science proves facts that conflict with Buddhist understanding, Buddhism must change accordingly. We should always adopt a view that accords with the facts.” He’s not a UU but that sure fits. Scientist Isaac Newton once said “What we know is a drop, what we don’t know is an ocean.” Who knows what we might still experience, and learn, who knows how our world might change? This is something I think all UUs would agree, that none of us can see the whole picture, and the picture is guaranteed to change over time. Perhaps that is why sometimes in our Sunday school clases we say “UUs are the people of the Open Minds, Helping Hands and Loving Hearts.”

Universliasts are people who keep that inner compass in their loving hearts heart. Our whole Universalist tradition came into being through people who believed deeply in love. When they went to their inner compass with the teachings of the church tradition of the day, way back in the 17th century, which was big on souls suffering in eternal torment, these kind hearted people couldn’t reconcile themselves to that teaching. When they talked to one another about a God who loves everyone, their inner compass said “aha”. It would be hard to find much evidence for this belief, one could easily look at the evidence of the world and say “humans are terrible, and God is punishing us” but what makes a Universalist a Universalist is because their inner compass points towards love. In my own life, there was a moment when I chose to take the leap of faith and believe in love, even though my inner compass said “where’s the proof?” I thought I’d try a little experiment- try believing in love for a while and see if that made me happier and more loving, which turned out to be the case.

Because as near as I can tell, love creates a kind of feedback loop. When we bravely open our hearts to those around us, grounded in the belief that there is a love big enough to hold everyone, bigger even than the evils of the world, love grows -- in ourselves and in our communities. If we take a skeptical approach, if we close our hearts to the love, perhaps because we’ve had our hearts broken, and can’t risk being disappointed again, this can create a feedback loop of disconnection and even despair. The early Universalists noticed that people who believed in a judgmental punishing god became themselves punishing and judgmental, and those who believed in love tended to be loving.

The great 20th century UU teacher James Luther Adams talked about a “pragmatic theory of meaning.” The most important test of our beliefs is how they cause us to act in the world; do they inspire us to make the world a kinder more just place? As Sofia Lyon Fahs wrote in our hymnal “it matters what we believe” “Some beliefs are like walled gardens. They encourage exclusiveness, and the feeling of being especially privileged. Other beliefs are expansive and lead the way into wider and deeper sympathies.”

Deeper sympathies, that’s a nice way to put it. Our compass must be attuned not only to our own wellbeing but to the whole interconnected web. That’s something that unites today’s UUs- the belief that we are accountable to one another, and to our ecosystem. That’s what we mean by a free and Responsible search for truth and meaning. When you hear someone say “UUs can believe anything they want” what’s missing from that idea is this accountability to our inner integrity, to one another, and to the web of life.

When attuning to your inner compass, it can be kind of like tuning those old radio dials. There are some frequencies that are indeed judging, and make us feel like we are no good. That’s not the one we UUs are looking for. The frequency that makes us feel like we alone have the true answer? Don’t settle there either. Keep refining your search until you begin to tune into the frequency where you are in harmony with yourself and with the wider web of life. We are looking for the frequency that helps us grow in Freedom, in awareness, in compassion, in engagement.

Back in our coming of age class, we went question by question through those big mysteries of life, and began to put into words the knowing we found inside ourselves. If I think back to what I wrote then, I can see that there have been some significant changes in my own answers, and some answers have become more subtle and nuanced as I grow in life experience. This work of discernment continues as long as we are alive and growing. I wonder sometimes if our adults wouldn’t like a time like that- to explore and re-explore what we believe, to notice how the things we used to believe are evolving along with us. So I will make this offer- if you have specific questions you’d like us to think about together, please let me know!

This is one reason why we come together, to hear one another, the deep listening that helps us know ourselves in a new way. What a relief it is sometimes to have a belief that is like an amorphous lump and hear someone put just the right language to it, or offer the image to it that helps it crystalize into clarity. When we listen deeply to one another, we might hear something that makes us say “aha! That’s it!” or we might have kind of a “negative aha” where our inner compass says, “not for me!” which can also be clarifying. There are also plenty of places for me personally where I just don’t know. My inner compass gives me a lot of “maybe” when I ask it. And as hard as it is not to know something for sure, “I don’t know” can be a good honest answer. This is our free and responsible search for truth and meaning, so glad we can be on the search together.


Open to Wonder

Several years ago and shortly after twilight our 3 1⁄2 year old
tried to gain his parents’ attention to a shining star.
The parents were busy with time and schedules, the
irritabilities of the day and other worthy pre-occupations. “Yes,
yes, we see the star – now I’m busy, don’t bother me.” On hearing
this the young one launched through the porch door, fixed us with
a fiery gaze and said, “You be glad at that star!”  -Clarke Dewey Wells

I opened my back door the other night and there, shining through the now-empty branches of the big old maple tree was a bright glowing quarter moon. It had been cloudy all day, so I hadn’t even looked for it but there it was, glowing so brightly you could pick out the craters on its surface, surrounded by a luminous halo and illuminating the fluffy clouds that drifted by. I took an intentional pause, trying to drink it in -- the glow, the beauty, the synchronicity of being in the right place at the right time to see such a sight. Perhaps these ordinary winter moments are why this season feels to me, more than any other, the season of wonder. The stars seem extra bright in the crisp winter air, the sky bigger now that that the trees have lost their leaves, the night long and dark.

When I started my sabbatical program at the University of Creation Spirituality, Matthew Fox spoke that opening night about the importance of awe and wonder as we embarked on our educational journey together. Beginning from a place of awe, he suggested, would be most fruitful for ourselves and for the larger world. Awe-based education, he called it. Consider the young child, how they naturally encounter the world. Each new thing they experience causes them to pause- their little faces and minds open, drinking in a new miracle, which to us adults seems everyday and ordinary. Toes, for example. I remember my son studying the miracle of his own toes for hours on end. Wonder is a frame of mind that allows us to open to new things. A wondering gaze is a curious gaze, open to new experiences and learning.

It is easy for those of us who have lived in this world for a while to become immune to these ordinary and wonderful miracles. That is why sometimes traveling helps us feel wonder. Our own beautiful waterfalls and lakes, our stunning green summer landscape and fall foliage can easily become ordinary, but when we travel someplace new we remember what it is to see something for the first time -- the aliveness and freshness of that new wonder.

But traveling is not necessary for awe and wonder. It can also be cultivated with intention and attention in our everyday places. That moon inspired me the other night precisely because I had taken up the practice way back in June of looking for the moon each day, tracking its changes day after day, month after month. It was precisely because I had been paying attention, search and often failing, that I could see that this moon was special, precious. This glowing winter moon just looked different, and I felt blessed to have caught it. It’s not just sky gazing that opens us to wonder, sometimes it is gazing at your lovely presence these days, those special moments between us when the connection feels alive and vital, the sharing and connection deep and rich.

Perhaps you have had such a moment, gazing deeply at something ordinary, like the moon, like the birds at your feeder, your garden, your family, and some precious unrepeatable moment finds you, and you are open to receive it. Perhaps, if you are like me, you call out to whoever is near- hey are you seeing this? Sometimes they politely look, yes I’ve seen the moon, but their hearts are not shot through with wonder as yours is in that moment. Or perhaps they do, like the dad in the story, stop and look and see with your wondering eyes.

In the Christian gospel Jesus says “until you become like a child, you will never receive the kingdom” [Matthew 18:3, Mark 10:15] Fox offered this scripture our first night as a suggestion that wonder is a doorway to the numinous, a way of looking at the world that allows us to see what is sacred, what is holy. The great scientist Albert Einstein put it this way: “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” Being open to wonder is one way of being open to the sacred, of connecting to the holy.

Wonder helps us remember our place in the family of things. It is easy for our world to get very small- easy to feel like the whole world is our work that must be done, our home, our desk, our kitchen sink, our phone, our do list. But the universe is unimaginably vast, which is, I suppose, a bit easier to see these days in the wide dark nights of winter. Trying to understand awe, a group of researchers invited one group of study participants, to draw pictures of themselves after having an awe experience. Participants “literally drew themselves smaller in size…Such an effect has been termed “unselfing.” …”[i] When we see our small self in the vastness of the universe, or of the ecosystem, or of our human community, our perspective is changed. perhaps this is why Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote that “ Awe is the beginning of wisdom.” When our perspective is changed by awe, we are able to see what is truly important.

Have you experienced this in your own life? Can you think of a time that you have been struck by awe or wonder, and it changed your perspective? Just the other night I was outside again, for some mundane reason- perhaps to let the dogs out or take out the recycling, and stood rapt for a moment gazing at the stars and listening to the sounds of the night. When I came back in my husband asked if I was still upset, and I was surprised by the question. “I guess not” I said- “Sometimes staring at the sky makes you feel better” he replied, laughing. “It’s good medicine” I agreed

An article by Summer Allen, of the greater good science center, explored recent scientific studies of awe. They summarized the findings saying “Experiencing awe often puts people in a self-transcendent state where they focus less on themselves and feel more like a part of a larger whole.”[ii] That sounds about right. What surprised me, though, was learning that “Multiple studies have found evidence that experiencing awe makes people more kind and generous. For example, people who stood among awe-inspiring eucalyptus trees picked up more pens for an experimenter who had “accidentally” dropped them than did people who stared up at a not-so-inspiring large building.” How lovely that something like the beauty and majesty of a eucalyptus tree could help us be more kind and generous.

Perhaps this is why so many of us tell stories about finding those transcendent, healing moments in beautiful places in nature. But even though most majestic trees and brightest stars can’t always work their magic on us. One year I was off on retreat, and started my first day the way I often do, walking the grounds of the retreat center. I had waited and wanted and planned for this retreat, and was looking forward to the amazing vastness of the ocean I had not seen in years. But as I walked, and looked, my mind surveyed the things I knew should fill me with wonder, but I just felt grumpy. Naturally, I also began to judge myself for being ungrateful for these precious miracles, and unappreciative of the privilege of being on retreat in this beautiful spot. Sometimes the distance from where we are to wonder seems like a long way.

Perhaps you too identify with the parents in that story “busy with time and schedules, the irritabilities of the day and other worthy pre-occupations” a frame of mind that crowds out wonder and awe. Rev. Wells, the dad in that story, suggests that in such moments “if we cannot impel ourselves into a stellar gladness, we can at least clean the dust from our lens of perception.” If wonder is something we aspire to, a state we want to invite into our lives, what might be the dust on our lens, what might we have to lay down before we are ready to see the world through wondering eyes? We cannot will ourselves to wonder, we can only open ourselves to it. For me, that winter day by the shore, there was much to lay down, from the burdens of life and ministry, the defensive awkwardness of being in a new place, a new community, and the grief of recent losses. All that, it turned out, had to be experienced and released, had to be cleansed before my own lenses were clear enough to see what had been there all along, the stunning beauty of the ocean in all her moods, the vastness of the horizon, and even the wonder of the humble shrubs and grasses that now were revealed as wondrous once my perception had changed. The poet William Blake was speaking of such a feeling:

To see the world in a grain of sand
And heaven in a wildflower
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour.
As we turn now towards the winter solstice, for some the season of Advent, I encourage you to cultivate wonder. If the world does not seem wonderful and amazing right now, be kind to yourself— there’s a lot we are carrying. But the stars themselves are inviting us to a seasonal practice of being open to awe and wonder. As with any spiritual practice, we come back to it again and again, on good days and on bad, trusting that the practice will lead us someplace worthy- to wisdom, to kindness, to wonder. Let us be open to the everyday miracles, with compassion for dusty lenses of our ordinary, possibly grumpy selves, listening for that inner child who invites us “you be glad at that star”







[i] Article - Why You Need to Protect Your Sense of Wonder https://hbr.org/2021/08/why-you-need-to-protect-your-sense-of-wonder-especially-now

[ii] https://ggsc.berkeley.edu/images/uploads/GGSC-JTF_White_Paper-Awe_FINAL.pdf citing Bai, Y., Maruskin, L. A., Chen, S., Gordon, A. M., Stellar, J. E., McNeil, G. D., ... Keltner, D. J. (2017). Awe, the diminished self, and collective engagement: Universals and cultural variations in the small self. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 113(2), 185–209. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspa0000087
Benedek, M., & K

Tuesday, November 22, 2022

Generations Together

Me, my little sister, Gramma & Grampa
For a few years when I was maybe 10 and my sister was maybe 5, my grandparents and uncle moved from their home in North Dakota into a house near us in Pennsylvania. Almost every Friday night we went over to their house to visit. When we arrived “Lawrence welk” would be on the TV, but at 8:00 “the girls” would watch Dukes of Hazard with my Uncle Don, who made the best popcorn -- soaked in butter. My parents and grandparents stayed in the kitchen playing Whist. Finally, at 9:00 it was time for Dallas, and we all gathered in their cozy living room to watch together.

Truth be told, there were times when I found that adult time boring, if adult conversation or card playing exceeded my limited patience. As I became a teenager I found my grandparents, who came from another generation and a different part of the country, hard to know, and I believe they found our ways inscrutable as well- having lived through the depression and married during WW2, the lives of suburban kids in the affluent cold war1980s seemed spoiled. But I know I learned from them values of honesty, integrity, frugality, and the importance of family.

Gramma Grampa and Uncle Don moved back to North Dakota, where the rest of our extended family lived, just as I was heading off to college, and It was hard to know them over that distance. We had no extended family nearby. But I had always gone to church, and so every week I was around people from 5 different generations, I remember how cool I thought the high school youth group was when I was a little kid, and when I was in High school, I remember the toddlers I befriended at our church camp weekend. I remember the boomer youth group advisors who made that formative experience possible for us, the minister who introduced my CoA group to theology, and seemed like a bit of a rock star to me. Even though I never thought too much about it then, I had dozens of wonderful role models of how to be an elder. I knew lots of friendly adults who knew me and my family and witnessed my growing up. I would not be who I am today without those intergenerational church experiences.

Consider the generation raising young children right now, who cared for them during the pandemic when they were cut off from their village. We ask “why are they not at church?” and the answer is “because they can’t even!” Those families are juggling work and school and are drowning in all the work of parenting. They are still overwhelmed and exhausted. We aunties, uncles and aunkles and Grandparents might have to bring church to them for a while -- a form of modern missionary work. Think of the beautiful ministry of that Gramma in today’s children’s story. What a hard lesson for that child to learn- about precious things that break, about forgiveness. That Gramma taught a more important lesson than any Sunday school class.

Rev. Evin Carville Zimmer encourages us to notice such moments of ministry as they happen in our congregations. They write:

Multi-Generational fun at the church picnic
“A few weeks ago in the little congregation I attend, toward the end of a multigenerational service, two five year-olds noticed the play room at the back of the sanctuary had three wasps. They came to me with the emergency. We found a board member who listened carefully to the kids and asked them to show him what they noticed. A little later another member found a ladder, and someone else volunteered to hold it, and two adults and three children trooped around the outside of the building to solve the mystery of how the wasps were getting in. The kids also found a dead snake which they showed everyone and we talked about. These children were taken seriously, were treated as part of the community including having responsibility for the safety of that community, and had one of those mysterious encounters with life and death. Faith formation right there, no planning needed. And then they all played a wild tag game with their new friends that none of them wanted to end.”
That is what intergenerational ministry looks like now, in these strange times- both ordinary and precious.

Now sometimes we get the impression that intergenerational means kids and adults together, but even here, today, where I don’t see a lot of kids, we have Millennials, and Gen X and Boomers, and folks from the silent generation.

Recently, I’ve watched the tensions between generations on social media. It’s the updated version of “Don’t trust anyone over 30” and “Kid’s today!” but now it’s “Millennials and their avocado toast” and “okay boomer” And my generation, Generation X grumbling about being “the forgotten middle child.”

This is not new. This generational conflict has always been a part of church life, as long as I’ve been part of it. Whether it’s arguments about what music we play, how we use technology, or what time meetings should be. Some of the most challenging areas of conflict are around our anti oppressive work. For example, long time activists who marched with Martin Luther King are shocked when we separate into caucuses by race. Younger generations feel this is a chance for white people to do their work without burdening POC with having to listen to it, and BIPOC people might want a safe space to say their truth to folks who are most likely to understand. To older activists, this is just segregation, and didn’t we work hard to end that? How sad it is when people who all long for an end to oppression let arguments about language and strategy divide them.

I think about the Gen Z teens and young adults I know. They are so earnest, and have a precocious calling to work for justice. Think of those teens leading the protests after the Parkland shootings. Thing of Greta, and Malala. Starting your adult life during a pandemic is just one reason that Gen Z are realists. We need their energy, along with the optimistic and collaborative Millennial generation, and their calls for change.

I know for myself, a middle aged Generation X, that it’s so easy to get “in the weeds” with the way the world works. Greta says “we need to stop producing fossil fuels now!” and I can’t help but think of all the slow paced bureaucracies I have worked with over the years, and wonder “how is that possible?” But young adults have this clear-eyed vision that we older adults need. As they articulate a vision of the future they want to live in, we middle aged folks can do what we do best, coordinate the carpools to the rallies, think strategically, write checks.

From where I sit in midlife, sandwiched between the older and younger generations, I can see there is a real pain point in the argument between emerging adults and older adults. On the one hand, real change needs to happen in our world, we all agree about this. But when younger adults say “let’s just throw all this out and start over” I’m now old enough to feel that as a blow- “You mean these things I just spent the last 25 years building? The ones I worked on day after day because I thought they would make a better world?”

I myself had many formative moments in my UU Sunday school, and then after seminary I spent 9 years as a religious educator, running programs for our chidrne and youth. But I need to hold that loosely to make room for the new ministry that is emerging to meet the needs of families with children right now in this new moment. It’s sad but okay if we can’t run Sunday school classes right now, but that ministry of passing on wisdom to our children must continue- though the forms may change the ministry is still crucial.

Anthropologist Michael Meade explains that elders have a powerful role to play in times of upheaval:
“The traditional role of elders included remembering what was most important about life and how to hold ends and beginnings together when times become hard. Elders were the guardians of the mysteries of and keepers of the stories who helped people make sense of life’s inevitable struggles. Having survived the troubles of their own lives and having grown deeper and wiser they know both how to survive and how to find genuine vision where others could on see disaster. Being “old enough to know better’ they would know that life renews itself in surprising ways and that the greatest dilemmas can serve to awaken the deepest resources of the human soul.”[Why the World Doesn’t End p. 25]
Like the gramma in The Memory Cupboard who had lived through the breaking of precious treasures, and had learned to make meaning from those ruptures. She helped her granddaughter make sense of what had happened, and restore her to the web of right relationship.

This wisdom is the real heirloom. I remember talking to my Dad, who was part of the silent generation that grew up during the depression, and asking “what was it like to live through the 1960s?” which I assumed must have been amazing. He said “we thought it was the end of the world.” In these days, which often feel like the end of the world, I think about what he said, and remember that we got through that, that we got through even world war 2, and the great depression. Perhaps this is no the first time we thought the world was ending. Perhaps we can get through this.

As Antoine de Saint-Exupery Writes: 
“In a house which becomes a home,
one hands down and another takes up
the heritage of mind and heart,”
This sounds easy, but anyone who’s sat around the holiday table with relatives from other generations knows it’s a dance that must be negotiated. If the elders insist that things must always continue as they have been, without allowing younger generations the support and freedom they need to create the world to come, likewise if the younger generations do not respect the hard learned wisdom of their elders, or make time to listen, valuable knowledge and perspective will be lost.

I received an email this week form the UUA transitions office, which helps ministers and congregations find each other. They wrote:
“the Next Normal is not the pre-pandemic normal… Congregations trapped in the past are likely to shrink. ... This will be a time to redefine why people need Unitarian Universalism, where generational differences are going to have to learn to live together, and where new people coming into our congregations will be looking for communities of like-minded people, multi-theological exploration, and the desire to make a difference in the world (and likely not in the ways it’s always been done).”
And you know what? I think both our Athens and Cortland congregations are good at this. I have always been impressed by the way you are open to new ideas, new ways of doing things, new members, different generations. You give new leaders space to try things and follow their own wisdom. I bet that’s part of why we are still here, why this tradition continues to be handed on from generation to generation. And I know that sometimes when we look out at our congregation and see more olders and fewer youngers, it makes us nervous, and sometimes sad, But I believe in what we are doing, and I think if we are committed to making a difference in the world, in each other’s lives -- if we are committed to remembering and sharing that love that holds us all, and supporting growth wherever it is happening today and in the future we still have a vital role to play in guiding our rapidly changing world towards love and justice.

In Spiritual Direction we practice from a foundational belief that each of us has the capacity to discern what is true, what is holy, where the spirit is leading. We must have that faith in one another, across generations, and support each other in listening to and developing our own inner wisdom. When Nancy Pelosi announced this week that she would not seek re-election as party leader in the house, she said:
"With great confidence in our caucus, I will not seek reelection to Democratic leadership in the next Congress. For me the hour has come for a new generation to lead the Democratic caucus that I so deeply respect,…I'm grateful that so many are ready and willing to shoulder this awesome responsibility."
Reporters added that she would continue to serve in the House, and support the work of the new generation of leaders. I have such respect for that- to stay and take her place as the supportive wise elder, while expressing confidence for and amplifying the voices of those stepping into the challenge of leadership.

I think about my UUMA chapter, which has always provided roll models for ministry, both older and younger than myself. Retired ministers continuing to attend and be part of community long after they are done serving in churches. Dick Gilbert, Frances Manly. I remember Martha Munson, one time when I was trying to lead an unruly group of colleagues in a business meeting, calling out above the fray “ignore them Darcey, you’re doing great”

So here’s what we need to hold this multigenerational community together, (which often falls to the older generations to do). We need our elders to keep growing in wisdom, to keep making meaning from their own lives, and keep hope for the future so we can support younger generations developing their own wisdom, can give them perspective when they flounder. We don’t have the abundant energy of youth, but we have foresight and skill and we can choose to do the things that most need doing.

We need the insights and points of view of the young as well; each generation grows up in a totally different world. Teens and young adults are just starting on their journey and with the energy of youth have their own mountains to climb. We need them to be full of new ideas and energy to solve new problems and to bring a fresh view to the old entrenched problems we olders have not been able to solve. I love the story Evin told- it holds all of this. The kids full of curiosity, out scrambling and exploring and finding the wasps and the snake, their concern for the safety of their community. The older adults who had the skill and experience to know what to do, and the wisdom to be present with death, and the generosity of spirit to listen to the kids and their concerns. And then a fun game among intergenerational friends.

Family Chapel 2007 at UUCPA
Our generational diversity is important to who we are, and in this time when generations sling barbs from their entrenched positions in social media, our congregation can be a place of healing -- a place where we listen deeply to one another.

And so for this holiday season, I invite each of you to participate in this spiritual practice of intergenerational community. Whenever generations are gathered to celebrate, we might intentionally listen to the perspectives of the other generations that are present. Start with common ground, as we know is helpful to do when there are conflicts. Listen to what others are curious about, listen to their fears, listen to what gives them hope. We need the perspective and experience of every generation to build the world we dream, and to make our own lives meaningful and whole.

Friday, November 18, 2022

Navigating Change

My friend was starting a new ministry, which is always an exciting and challenging time. New ministers and their congregations look forward to their fresh start, the possibilities of new things they can accomplish together. But that fresh start is also challenging- every congregation is totally unique, just as every minister is totally unique. It’s not actually possible for the new minister to pick up right where the old minister left off, nor is it possible for your new congregation to become like the congregation you left behind.

So my friend was in that challenging first year, navigating with his new congregation how they would sail the seas of this new shared ministry together. Towards the end of the first year one volunteer, who had been so generous of time and energy, listened some proposed changes the minister had planned for worship, became still and silent, and then said “No More Changes!”

Can I tell you lately, as we face change after change after change, I hear that voice in my head “No More Changes!”

As one of my colleagues who is about to celebrate 50 years in ministry said those first months of the pandemic “we’re all first year ministers now.”

Change is always part of life, seasonal changes, the changes of body and mind as we grow up and age, changes in technology and culture -- all growth is change. But when the changes come so quickly, one after the other, it’s hard on us humans, body mind and spirit.

This is because we build ourselves -- we build muscle, we build synapses, we make hormones and the other chemicals that run our body systems in response to our environment. Like a tree who reaches out a branch, slowly over the weeks and months and years, to capture a bit of sun on its leaves, like the tree on a windy cliff who grows slantwise, we build ourself based on what we experience, on the demands of our world. That’s why the daylight savings shift is so challenging; we have harmonized all our bodies systems to a particular schedule, and our bodies are built to keep doing what they’ve been doing.

Recently I’ve been doing PT to try to stabilize my back. I got a simple exercise to strengthen my mid back because apparently the hour after hour sitting hunched over my keyboard and phone have changed my muscles and not for the better. The PT showed me an exercise and showed me the muscles I was to use. I practiced dutifully for a week, but the more I tried the less confident I felt. Finally I went back and it turns out I was using the wrong muscles. It turns out that before I could strengthen those muscles the first thing I had to do was learn to feel where they were. It’s maddening to ask your mind to feel something you can’t feel -- you are literally building new connections.

How weird it feels to be in the middle of a transition- unsettled, you can't just relax and rest. Just as our bodies growing new muscle, brains growing new synapses, our ecosystem is adapting as quickly as it can to climate change, our culture is changing, our world is changing. Things have changed and they are not done changing. You know this, you know this in your bones, muscles, brain, gut. You feel it when you come back to church and it’s not like it was before.

Fortunately, one of the things we know how to do is change, is adapt. After a week of trying to locate my rhomboids, I found them! We know how to use zoom, if not perfectly, better than we did in 2019. Grocery stores learned how to deliver food. We learned how to wear masks. We learned how to provide better support those of us who have immune challenges. We learned that the gender binary is a construct that erases those of us who are nonbinary, or gender queer. We changed the way we use pronouns (turns out it wasn't even that hard). Those of us who are white learned to see systematic oppression and privilege in places we didn’t see it before.

So many things are in flux now, it feels sometimes like when you are standing or sitting on the sand by the ocean, feeling the warm sand under you. The waves come splashing in, and when the tide goes out it liquifies the sand and takes with it the ground that was literally under your feet. It can be very disconcerting, even if you know what’s happening.

Like the big creature our story this morning, whose world was turned upside down by the new visitor to his island, many of the discovering changes we are experiencing now were mostly externally initiated, not changes we chose. None of us chose covid or climate change, or these troubles with the economy, and when change disrupts our daily life, it reminds us how little we are in control of the universe. Like the creature in the story, it feels good when things are reliable, and we can choose a comfortable routine. I tell you I love my morning routine- and on days when it is interrupted, even if that’s because we have a dear out of town guest, I get a little out of sorts. When I start the coffee and let the dogs out, I feel like I live in an understandable world, I know my part in co-creating it, even if that’s just for me and Eric and the dogs, and you all here at church. But when I can no longer do the things that make up my ordinary days, I begin to feel uncertain about my role in the world wonder whether what we do really makes a difference. Change is happening, big changes little changes, too many changes!

This week the UUA is having feedback sessions about possible changes to Article 2, which includes our principles- the ones we just hung up on these beautiful banners last week. Our bylaws suggest we revisit Article 2 every 15 years, and last time the article 2 commission proposed its suggestions there was a giant collective yawn and nothing changed. Well, it’s time again, but this time people are riled up. Folks who attended the national gatherings tell me there are a surprising number of strong feelings. We are co-hosting a discussion with our local UU congregations, and in this week’s discussion it was clear we had touched a nerve. What would make draft bylaw revisions stir up such strong feelings? One minister suggested that it’s just so much change- change fatigue she called it. No More Change!

But then we remember, there are some changes we want. Some changes we have been working for and hoping for. We are all longing for a world where we celebrate only the gifts and resilience of Transgender persons on TDoR, and have no names to remember of those who died before their time. Aren’t we all longing for a world where systemic racism has been eradicated, a world where we “study war no more” where no child is hungry, and every person is able to develop to their full potential, where the eco systems have time to repair themselves? We do want change, and those are pretty big changes. And we certainly want our congregations, our UU denomination to be a community where historically marginalized voices are heard, where black lives matter, and sadly we are not there yet. Change is hard, change is uncomfortable, especially big change.

I think again of standing on the sandy shore of the ocean, now the big waves are coming in, maybe the waves before or after a storm, pulling the sand out from under my feet. Imagine now your own feet in the quickly disappearing sand of a shoreline. As the water rushes that sand away, your own feet are revealed. Whatever the waters of change wash away are not who you are right now. It’s not you that’s being washed away, and obvious as that may sound, it’s not always obvious in the moment. It helps to just remember who you are, alive in this moment right now. There’s very little we can do about the sand or the storm, but we can stand in the truth of who we are, now in this moment. As activist musician Bob Marley advised “Never forget who you are, and where you stand in the struggle.”

We often start a time of meditation by noticing the feet we stand on, or the part of us touching the chair that supports us. We do this because it can be exhausting and overwhelming to try to comprehend all the things around us, the water and the sand, the wind and waves. So many factors to consider and so little it in our control. We might get the impression we are like the sand that will be whisked away, but we are stronger and more cohesive than that. By our very standing we change the pattern of the water, and of the sand. Like the rock that splits the river. Ground yourself in yourself, whenever the sand is shifting beneath you.

That is the strongest, best place from which to navigate from. Then let hope be like the stars to navigate by. Times of great change are also times of great possibility. Keep your eyes on that vision of your heart’s deepest desire. Navigate by those stars.

Sometimes even the strongest rock comes loose in the changing tides. If change lifts you off your feet, and you feel adrift. when the flux is too much, remember love. Love is not landlocked; it is with us even in the churn. Love is in the wildest waves, in the strongest winds. Wherever this change is taking us, let love be our guide.

Wednesday, November 16, 2022

What is Our Legacy?



My first full time settlement was at the UU church of Palo Alto, where I served for 7 years. It was a very busy church with tons of programs, in a very busy ambitious community- home of Stanford and Facebook. I was called there as their first settled Minister of Religious Education, and to fill a new model of ministry they’d never had before- the Parish and RE ministers would be co-equals, to help create balance and connection between the families with kids and the congregants not actively parenting. When I left to move to Ithaca with my family it was a confusing time of transition. I was not sure what, if anything, of that ministry would have a lasting impact.

In 2019, when I was on the west coast for Labyrinth Summer School, I visited my old friend Amy Zucker Morgenstern who began her settlement at UUCPA while I was there, and is still the Parish Minister of UUCPA. She invited me to come into church with her on Sunday. I did this with some trepidation, as it brought up some old feelings.

While Amy prepared to lead worship, I immediately started to see friendly faces from my days as the MRE, folks who remembered me greeted me warmly. While Amy set up I gave myself a tour of campus. I went first to the site where the youth group had built a stone and sand labyrinth on the front lawn led in a day long retreat led by Amy and myself. There the old labyrinth had been replaced by a beautiful new paved one made of bricks, with a formal interpretive sign. It sat in the heart of the native plant garden, now expanded and matured with professional landscaping since that first workshop I had organized about native plants so many years ago. And there was the Madrone tree the church arborist had planted at my request in a big intergenerational ceremony. I walked the new labyrinth and my heart warmed to see how everything had grown and flourished.

“I hope you don’t feel bad that we changed it” said Dan Harper, who now served as the Religious educator, a role similar yet different from the one I had years ago. “No, I said, “you took something ephemeral and made it durable- it feels amazing to see something I helped plant transformed into a permanent part of the landscape”

I walked by the Green Sanctuary rack, with my name on it, because of the work I did with the tiny Green sanctuary team when it first began, and from there you could see the amazing solar array over the parking lot, providing not only alternative energy but shade for the cars that got so hard in summer. What an amazing project the congregation had manifest together, something I never could have conceived in a million years.

Afterwards there was a picnic, where among the sea of strangers there were families who had been in the program when I was Minister of Religious Education -- parents told me stories of their kids away at college or otherwise launched. One child who was a toddler when I started was finishing college, and remembered our children’s chapel I created and led.

The visit was so healing for me- such a blessing to see that some of the seeds my congregation and I planted together had grown and matured. Especially because, as I approached my 50th birthday and 23 years ministry I confess to you that I was wondering “does anything we do matter?” I think this is a hard but important question. In times like these when so much is changing, so much has been lost, one could be easily seduced into nihilism, into despair, but of course what we do matters. Of course we make a difference to one another. In this interconnected web of life we are because of those who came before.

Consider the legacy we have inherited as a faith community, the legacy that allows us to be here like this with one another. Consider that both the Sheshequin and Cortland buildings were first built by volunteers, consider how year after year people just like you and me made sure the boiler was repaired and the gutters were cleaned. Consider that neither building had electricity when they were built- imagine those board meetings, figuring out the when and how of electrifying a historic building, I can hear someone now asking “Do churches even need electricity? They’d survived for centuries without it…”

We don’t talk much about the financial legacy that our congregations benefit from today- but those have been invaluable in keeping us afloat during hard times. Our savings were built not only by the charitable donations left not only by generous individuals, but by congregations like those in the TPUC or NYSCU who, when they had to close their doors, left their savings as a legacy for enduring the support of those congregations and UU programs who continue.

Buildings are easy to see, but the important parts of churches are less tangible. I believe that these 2 congregations have endured for so long is their legacy of caring, their good hearts. Both are highly ethical groups with good boundaries. Both have taken stands in the community at critical moments in time. I am continuously inspired by the Cortland church’s role in the underground railroad, what a difficult and fearful path they chose. Imagine the difficult board meetings, the conflict or worry as those volunteers made that happen together? What an amazing legacy for our congregation, and for the community of Cortland.

The Athens congregation can remember back to that moment when the congregation took a stand to welcome transgender members decades ago. Sadly this was not without conflict and some members left. Today it seems natural and easy to have a membership that is beyond binary- that is a legacy too.

Some legacies are deeply personal, quiet and small yet profoundly important. So many people over the years have told me how their congregation touched their lives, saved their lives. A legacy of caring, a deeply personal and private legacy. May of these ways we touch lives we never know about, but they are just as real, just as important as the tangible legacies. For every historic marker there are hundreds of other legacies that leave their mark on the world, that build a better world.

Last year I was in a study group with Rev. Rosemarie of the Queens congregation, and so I got to hear some about her journey with the Queens congregation as they decided to close their doors as a congregation. I so admire their intentionality, their bravery for facing those hard questions, and doing so in a way that preserved relationships, and their UU values. I talked to Laura Ventrola of the Queens congregation who told me the ending was devastating but together they came to the realization that this was what needed to happen.


Just this week the Athens congregation received offers for the sale of their historic Sheshequin Meeting house, while the Cortland congregation also looks for new stewards for their Old Cobblestone church. Who will tend these legacies now that we have discerned they are ready to be passed on? Many of us are also in a time of change in our personal lives, considering moving out of our current homes, or wondering what will become of our heirlooms and treasured possessions as we are ready to set them down and move into the next chapter of our lives. This is deeply challenging spiritual work. I believe we need one another as we do this- that our faith community, our UU tradition can help us discern the meaning in these transitions, that living an ethical, spiritual life is not just about building up, but also about letting go, and passing on from one generation to the next.

What is our legacy? This is a big question, an invitation for our consideration. It’s not a question we can answer in a single hour, so I invite you to ponder this with me, in your own musings and in our conversations together. What will our legacy be as a congregation? What have we already contributed to this community, and what more do we want to do? What will your legacy be, as an individual, as you look back over your life, and make plans for this next chapter of your life?

Over the course of this year we will continue to explore this theme of “legacy” together, and to wonder “what will our legacy be?” as a congregation, as individuals. Together we will look back, to see what we want to remember, to be intentional about what needs to be passed on. Together we will look forward, to see what more we want to do for the generations that will follow us.

In our children’s story "The Forever Garden", Honey told us “This garden isn’t really mine, it belongs to everyone.” So it is with our lives and legacies; we tend the garden, we tend the grape vines others planted before us, and we plant new trees for those who follow. What a blessing that we were born into this garden, born into a legacy planted and tended by the thousands of generations that came before. What a blessing to know that that when we need to set down our work, the next generations will tend the garden, and reap the harvest to come.



Blessing of the Banners


We are so excited today to bless our new principles banners.  The banners now hung in the Athens sanctuary come to us from the UU Congregation of Queens in Flushing, NY. They hung for many years in the children’s RE rooms, made by the DRE Paula Rosenberg. But that was not the first place they hung, they came with Paula from her previous congregation. There’s another banner, which I hung upstairs in the children’s classroom, made by Susan Nykolak, their next DRE.

Then about 8 years ago there was a fire in the Queens building. In recovering from the fire everything came down, The congregation worshiped downstairs after the fire, and the banners were hung there to make it more homey. During the pandemic the congregation was worshiping on zoom, as we all were, and during that time they discerned together that something had to change, that it was time for the congregation to close their doors. Rev. RoseMarie hung the banners in sanctuary for last service. So these banners are already full of history, the spirit of children and teachers learning together and UUs of all ages worshiping together, and they were there on that sacred ending, that last worship in June.

 

Here at UUCAS, used to hold a community trivia night for years in our sanctuary, run by Mike and Judy. They wished aloud that we could have something in the sanctuary that would state clearly who we were and what we believed. So when Rosemarie asked her colleagues if they knew of a congregation who would like to inherit these banners, we jumped at the chance. Not only to fulfil Mike and Judy’s vision, but also to honor the legacy of the UU congregation of Queens.


First a thank you to Queens:
We thank you not only for these beautiful banners that were part of your history, part of your Religious Education program, cheering the classrooms of children and teachers. We thank you for all you did as a UU congregation, all the good you did for those many years, “bringing out the best in people”.

I found this written in honor of the 100 year anniversary of the congregation:
“On June 9th, 1908, 33 people signed the charter of the First Unitarian Church of Flushing, Lewis Henry Latimer, a noted scientist and inventor, who was but one generation removed from the slavery his own father knew, demonstrated as one of its founders, that this particular faith tradition offered them the best hope of realizing the fondest dreams of humankind for peace, love and understanding between all people.”[i]
We thank you, for all the lives you touched, and whom your legacy will continue to touch.

Now we bless these banners for this time they will grace our sanctuary:

Spirit of life, let these banners remind us of our principles, of our highest aspirations
May they inspire to live our lives in harmony with these ideals.
May they also remind us that we are not alone, that we gather in a communion of congregations far and wide,
And that we stand in the great river of history that flows from all those who have come before, through us in this present moment, and to those who will follow.

Amen

Friday, October 14, 2022

Getting Free

This morning’s charming story is based on the words of Archbishop Desmond Tutu “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.” He was speaking from his participation in the collective struggle against the injustice of South African apartheid. I’m sure all of our hearts went out to that little mouse this morning- I’m sure we can all think of times we felt like that mouse, trapped by some force larger than ourselves, unable to enlist the help of bystanders, - neighbors, coworkers, family who would not stick up for us. Our UU faith desires the freedom the mouse, just as our hearts were moved by the people of south Africa in their struggle for liberation.

As Rev. Dr. Sofia Betancourt says “We are the theological inheritors of teachings on universal salvation. There is no winnowing out of the supposedly unworthy that can be named sacred among us.” [Widening the Circle p. 15] That is to say, we believe in the inherent worth and dignity of every person. No one is left out, every being is sacred. This is why UUs were passionate about the abolition of slavery, why UUs preached tirelessly for women’s suffrage, and why we are continuously committed to the liberation of all from forces of oppression. The question before us now, as a people, is how does that heritage, that belief system lead the mouse to freedom today?

I grew up in a UU church that was mostly white, and it seemed most people had no trouble covering the basic costs of life. I believed that people were basically good, and honoring the inherent worth and dignity of each and every person would inevitably lead to an end to injustice and oppression.

Then my theology- the foundation of my beliefs about the world and how it worked-- started to quake. As a young feminist I learned to see systemic oppression- how there were forces bigger than the individual that kept us from being free. I remember hearing Ruth Bader Ginsberg say (quoting -Sarah Moore Grimké) “I ask no favor for my sex; all I ask of our brethren is that they take their feet off our necks.” And I could see the way that I, as a woman, was like the mouse trapped by the elephant of patriarchy.

My mind was blown when pioneers in our UU movement asked us to interrogate not only the pronouns in our hymnals (all he/him I can tell you) but also the fundamental UU theology that allowed Patriarchy to be perpetuated by our UU institutions. Whenever women are the right to vote, or to own property, or to make decisions about her own body, this is not a problem that one woman can be empowered to solve in her own life, it requires a collective solution that involves those people and institution who have that power to remove those oppressive structures. I can see that it is not enough to feel compassion for the mouse, we need the elephant to rouse itself form his comfort to roll over so the mouse can be free.

Well, I have been feeling that deep rumble in my belief system again, perhaps you too have felt it. The events of past few years have destabilized some deep foundation in what I believe. I have been roused from my own napping to notice my own privilege, to notice the way white privilege, or cis privilege or temporarily able bodied privilege is a heavy weight keeping others from being free. I have also seen the ways in which I am the giraffe- embedded in the status quo, and worried about the real dangers of an angry elephant waking up. As we observe Indigenous People’s day this week, I wonder how I can do better than the giraffe in our story-- what do I need to be doing to end the oppression of our first nations neighbors, especially the ongoing struggle with  Clint Halftown, whom the US government continues to call representative of the Gayogo̱hó:nÇ«⁷ Nation to the Bureau of Indian Affairs, jeopardizing the sovereignty of the Gayogo̱hó:nÇ«⁷ nation.

I turn to my UU faith to help me discern what is mine to do, what is ours to do. Our UU faith must be part of this foundational shift of those beliefs and ideas on which all our other beliefs and ideas are built. Unfortunately many belief systems support the status quo. Dr. Betancourt asks us not to be lulled to sleep by this definition of Universalism. She continues: “It is our very Universalism that is at stake when we turn away from the impact that our institutions have on the same communities and groups that society encourages us to dehumanize and make small” [p. 15]

Something big and deep, something foundational has to shift if we are going to move towards freedom as a society and as a world.

Here is one way our UU beliefs, our interpretation of that Universalist principle, has sometimes kept us stuck in the status quo; we hear the point of view of the gazelle who wants to remain neutral, and we remember times when we chose not to make a complaint against those more powerful than us. And we think “isn’t the gazelle worthy too?”

We can even think of the elephant, who is sleeping comfortably, who doesn’t even know he has laid on a mouse. What about the worthiness of the elephant?”

But the sacredness of each and every individual does not mean that all actions are equal, does not mean that all beliefs are equal. And we as a movement are saying that now is the time for us all to bring our attention to the one whose tail is trapped, now is the time to heed the cry of the most vulnerable, the oppressed. Ours needs to be a faith that pays attention to those historically marginalized, and notices what each of us can do to support their freedom. That doesn’t mean we don’t love elephants, but each has our own responsibility for the freedom of all.

Tom Skinner, the preacher Kendi wrote about in How to Be an Antiracist [p. 16-17], declared that much of Christian theology is the theology of the elephant. It is justification why the comfortable elephant doesn’t need to roll over, doesn’t need to disturb his sleep. As th keynote speaker at our TPUC gathering John Leeker, Director of Library and Archives at Meadville Lombard Theological School, put so concisely: “One of the insights of liberation theology is that the experience of the oppressed communities must be privileged, and the acts of resistance and liberation must be imagined on terms understood and set by those communities.”

This is going to require a change in how we define freedom. Lately when I hear the word “Freedom” it is used to mean the freedom of the individual to choose which products to buy, freedom to pursue profits, freedom to bully those who disagree with us, freedom from responsibility for the health and wellbeing of our community. Why, isn’t that elephant free to lay where he choses? Isn’t that antelope free to remain neutral? It’s time to image a new definition of freedom­ – what would this sacred freedom look like? One that prioritizes the liberation of a mouse over the freedom of the elephant to sleep? As Emma Lazarus wrote “Until we are all free, we are none of us free.”

The second shift emerging in our UU theology right now is seriously questioning what we mean by “we.” I know there are moments when our small rural congregations have felt like the UU “we” does not include us- like when our discussion guides use words we’ve never heard, or when folks assume we all have good internet, and they don’t realize that some technology just does not reach all the way out to our homes. I think all of us gathered together today would agree that any UU “we” needs to include us. Our speaker yesterday reminded us about the women, people of color, queer people, poor folks who have been erased from our UU history, erased from our collective image of ourselves, erased from our “we.” I wonder now if my childhood church was not who I thought we were, if the mirror we held up to ourselves did not really show our whole “we?” Did not privilege the voices of those of us who were Queer, Bipoc, or economically disadvantaged?[i]

As our Commission on Institutional Change reports “We rarely seek to return to the literal U or U of the 17th century except in the broadest sense. That is because the influx of other voices, including the early women ministers, Transcendentalists, humanists and feminists and people from earth-centered and other traditions have enhanced our faith. In the same way, embracing diversity, equity and inclusion and the spiritual discipline’s they require will further enrich us.” [p. 14] [ii]the report encourages us to “center the theological work of Black scholars, Indigenous scholars, and scholars of color, both professional and lay, whose knowledge is resonant for our times.”

As I have grown in my awareness of the world, I am asking more from my theology- we need our UU theology that wakes us up when we are elephants. We need a UU theology that interrupts our neutrality when we are giraffes, and most of all we need a theology for when an elephant sitting on us right now. We need a shift like the one that happened to Kendi’s parents as they could “... [stop] thinking about saving Black people and [start] thinking about liberating Black people.” Our theology must address not only those getting by with the status quo, but those who oppressed by it. We need a UU theology that says not only “You have inherent worth and dignity just as you are” yes, but also “the spirit of life is a force of liberation. God wants you to get free, life wants you to get free. Freedom is a quality of the divine, it is holy.”

And here is the good news, friends, the work has already begun. Our UU faith is already changing as we notice more carefully who we are, that we have always been a larger “we” that was expressed in the theology transmitted by white guys at Harvard. Remember Hosea Ballou, who grew up in a rural farming family, and whose grassroots Universalist preaching had a powerful influence on our faith, and on the hearts of many. His theology was only later put in books and assigned to grad students to interpret. The abolitionists and suffragists, the grassroots uprising of the civil rights movement met in houses and church basements. Let us be a universalism that believes in the wisdom that rises up through each and every one of us, and especially the wisdom that comes from other vantages than our own. Certainly, what the mouse experiences, what the giraffe experiences, and what elephant experiences are different things. And we will know we are moving in the right direction when we see one another getting free, when we see freedom from oppression growing in our communities. Particularly freedom of those most vulnerable, who Betancourt called “communities and groups that society encourages us to dehumanize and make small”

The good news is that we already know something about what it is to be an elephant, to be a gazelle, to be a mouse right here in our local communities, the context where each of us works and lives. That is the freedom of thought our ancestors died for­- that our UU theology must reflect the realities of our own lived experience, and it must result in liberation, in freedom for all, most especially those who are oppressed.

What is this new kind of freedom which liberates a larger “we” then the individual pursuit of happiness and property? And what is this new Universalism, grounded in our history and tradition, that will lead us to freedom? It is one we will make together.



Notes
[i] In 2020 the COIC asked us to listen to the voices of the [Widening the Circle p. 15]

[ii] “A renewed focus on our theological history and its actors, including the actions and teachings of the leadres of color whose voices have been largely erased can help make this clear. This clarity and the ability to see the liberatory change of our heritage shoudl be the basis of activities.” [Widening the Circle p. 15]