The story of Joseph and his brothers [Gen. 40-46] that our Children are studying this morning speaks to me at this moment of economic uncertainty; every night on the evening news we hear about the lean years ahead. I hear about banks failing, car companies failing, homes foreclosing. I hear from my friends in Silicon Valley about the widespread layoffs that are sweeping through the tech industry on top of the crash in housing prices and stock values. At such a time as this we look at the story of Joseph and see the wisdom of his putting away 1/5 of their crops in anticipation of the tough times ahead. But it begs the question “where are we in this story?” We no longer have 7 years to store up grain for the coming hard times. In my mind the point where we enter the story is where the grain has been stored, the people are struggling, and it is up to Joseph to make wise choices about how to share the resources.
I tend to look at ancient stories like this one not from a historical critical perspective, but from the perspective of archetypes and the collective unconscious. One of the tools each person can bring to such a story comes from some schools of dream interpretation (including the Gestalt Method developed by Fritz Perls) which holds that the dreamer is each part of the dream. This same technique appears in Jerome Berryman’s approach to teaching sacred stories in religious education for children. Each person who hears the story is asked “where are you in this story today?”
Sometimes we are Joseph, who is sometimes in the dungeon, and sometimes in the seat of power, who has to make hard choices and sometimes does wisely, and sometimes is selfish and petty. Because remember, in the Hebrew Scriptures all the heroes make mistakes, all the heroes have weaknesses. It is up to us to determine whether their behavior is noble or selfish. So when we are listening to the stories from the Torah, sometimes we are the narrator, observing what happens, noticing what is fair and what is not, except we have the power to interrupt the story and say “Wait a minute Joseph, who are you to throw your brother in Jail, even if they did sell you into slavery?” So if I can imagine myself as Joseph I can see in this story the times I am blessed with foresight, the times I responsible to share resources justly and times when I am slow to forgive.
Sometimes I am like the brothers making the long journey to get the help I need, sometimes caught up in the pettiness of the distribution system. Sometimes I am like the Pharaoh who is worried about the future and needs help to make good choices. Sometimes I am like the grain, often abundant and plenty in what I offer the world, and suddenly I have nothing left to give.
I was excited to see that the story the children are talking about today has something to do with our focus on the UU Service Committee, because the UUSC is the organization that we as a whole denomination built to look out for our brothers and sisters in the world during the lean years. But unlike Joseph’s charge to mete out grain, the main concern of The UUSC is to make sure that basic human rights are shared by all our world neighbors.
Today the UUSC divides its work into 4 primary areas:
1) Defending civil liberties and access to democratic processes which is particularly focused on strengthening individual liberties and democratic processes in the Global War on Terror.
2) Advancing economic justice which means addressing the issues of globalization and privatization, with a focus on defending workers' rights and supporting living wage campaigns.
3) Promoting environmental justice : UUSC's primary focus in this area is promoting and defending the human right to water, especially in communities facing water-service privatization and resource depletion.
4) Protecting rights in humanitarian crises; UUSC responds strategically to disasters, whether natural or man-made, focusing especially on defending the rights of marginalized and oppressed populations. It is under this heading that we find the UUSC work in the aftermath of Hurricanes like the ones in New Orleans and Burma.
One these humanitarian crises is the genocide in Darfur, which has been a Major focus of the UUSC over the past 5 years. UUA president Bill Sinkford has also named this a primary focus of his work, traveling to visit the refugee camps in 2005 and lobbying his leaders. Some of you may remember the story of his arrest during a protest in 2004 at the Sudanese Embassy in Washington, DC, as part of an ongoing protest against genocide in the Darfur region of western Sudan.
The UUSC continues to work for “ development of a viable and inclusive peace process in Darfur that will lead to sustainable peace”. “At the same time”, they say in a statement about their current focus “we are deeply concerned by the protection crisis facing Darfurian women and girls, who continue to use all the resources they can find to protect themselves and their families. We believe it is imperative to find new and creative ways to protect women and girls from the violence that they face as they go about their daily lives. The protection of women and girls in Darfur cannot wait for an end to the war.”
And so the UUSC is working in practical ways with local partners and within the refugee camps to help the safety of women in and out of those camps. For example, they are helping provide ways women can make money inside camps so that they have do not have to enter dangerous territory to earn money to sustain their families. If they can find ways to reduce the need for firewood the women won’t need to leave the camps to get it. They are coordinating efforts among different agencies to improve protection for women leaving their camps to search for firewood and other resource. They are also rebuilding women's centers in the camps and provide leadership and organizational training to women so that they can make their voices heard by camp leadership. Finally they are offering human-rights and women's-rights training to people with authority in the camps so they understand the particular vulnerabilities of women and girls.
You’ll notice that “partners” are mentioned a lot in the projects of the UUSC. One of the most fundamental principles that runs like a recurring theme through the work of the Service Committee is that their role is primarily supportive to those whom are most deeply effected by that work. It would easy for an organization like UUSC, empowered to act for the common good, to assume that their own vision of how to serve that good was true and sufficient in all contexts. By asking those actually living with injustice, instead of imposing their own vision of justice, the UUSC is acting out of the Unitarian Universalist faith in the individual’s innate wisdom and dignity. They call this style of collaboration “eye-to-eye partnerships”, because they know that the grass-roots organizations with which they partner are the authorities on the communities which they service, and the UUSC honors their wisdom as we assist them through grants, technical assistance, helping them network and building advocacy skills. In this way we might think of the UUSC as the Pharaoh, the one with the grain to share, giving those resources into the care of Joseph who had spent time in servitude, spent time in prison, known first hand how cruel humans can be to one another, and who has shown wisdom and can distribute those resources fairly.
Let me tell you about our partner in Peru, where a deal with the Inter-American Development Bank to modernize water services came with a requirement to privatize water. Many were afraid that water would be come prohibitively expensive as it did in Argentina and Bolivia when water was privatized there, causing major social unrest. The UUSC paired with a local grass roots organization FENTAP, the Federation of Water and Sanitation Workers of Peru which was “decertified” once privatization began. FENTAP organized a group of grassroots coalitions called Agua y Vida including environmental groups, union members, consumers and faith communities. FENTAP held workshops on human right to water within those coalitions and with local governments and together they developed a plan for responsible modernization. One Agua y Vida Coaltion partner challenged the privatization in court and local municipalities are withdrawing from the privatization. [UUSC “Rights Now” Fall 2008, p. 7].
I believe that each of us is called to serve the cause of justice, to be Joseph who was asked to make sure resources are shared fairly. The resources we share with UUSC through our annual Guest at Your Table progrm have this kind of power. Our gifts enable just action, and the manifestation of our principles in the world. Or maybe we are like the Pharoah when we give to the UUSC, asking the Service committee to help put our gifts to good use, and to give us good council on how to act rightly. It is good to know that if the you feel called to speak out against the genocide in Darfur or the privatization of water in Peru, the UUSC is there, not only to act on your behalf, but to help you learn how to act for justice as you feel called. The UUSC is also the observer who tells the story- noticing who is being treated fairly and who needs our voice and our helping hands so that they will not be left out.
Then what about those times when we are the people of Egypt who need grain in times of famine? The UUSC helps closet to home as well. For example after the bombings of 9-11 the UUSC relief effort was directed entirely to partner grass-roots organizations in New York who work with those disenfranchised persons overlooked by other relief organizations. One such organization was the Stonewall Community Foundation Emergency Relief Fund which supported the partners of Gay and Lesbian victims of 9-11, who were ineligible for employee benefits or government aid. The UUSC also worked with partners to advocate policy change. Subsequently New York state issued a policy change declaring surviving partners of gay and lesbian victims eligible for benefits of aid programs.
Or most of us are concerned for the protection of our own civil rights, and the way they have eroded since the “war on terror” began. The UUSC takes as one of their primary goals the protection of our civil rights and to this end they work with U.S.-based program partners to defend civil liberties. For example they work with such partners as Appeal for Redress which represents active duty military personnel whose civil liberties (e.g., freedom of speech and freedom of assembly) are threatened. Most members of Appeal for Redress have served in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and are opposed to the Iraq War. UUSC supports their public education programs and public demonstrations.
The UUSC also endorses and/or opposes national legislation that threatens civil liberties, especially the Military Commissions Act, and they mobilize the members of UUSC, (us) to help defending civil liberties. The UUSC has an Action Alert network, which anyone in this congregation can join if you haven’t already. The Service Committee will let you know when a piece of crucial legislation is coming before congress and show you how you can contact your representatives to let them know how you would like them to vote.
And on this day when we celebrate the work of the UUSC , and on a day when the fate of our own economic future, and the fate of our own civil rights is uncertain, each of is the one who notices when justice is not served. Each of is the one who gives, the one who receives, the one who advises and the one who needs advice, and the one gives of oneself as if we are the stores of grain who have only ourselves to give. May it be so.
Monday, November 17, 2008
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Universalized Universalism (October 19, 2008)
When this church was founded 200 years ago, the people who gathered together as Universalists knew that they were Christian. They aligned themselves with the Universalist statement of faith put forth by the first Universalist convention in 1790:
They said they believed that the Old and New Testaments contained a revelation of God’s Will
They believed in one God who at his essence was love
They believed that there was one mediator between God and Man,
They believed in Christ Jesus, in whom God lived, and who would restore “the whole human race to happiness”
They believed in the Holy Ghost,
and they believed in good works, in “a holy, active and useful life.”
I’m guessing that if I took an informal poll of the folks in this room who identify themselves as Universalists, the only one of those 5 principles that they all would agree with is the last one, the active and useful life. And if I asked the Universalists in the room whether or not they also identify as Christian, I think we would have a varied response.
So for our Universalist Heritage Sunday I want to look beyond the stories of our founders, of Murray and Ballou and DeBenneville, to the pioneers who preached of a Religion for One World. It is a story only half a century old, from the 1940s. It is from a time when there were 4 Valley Universalist Churches, who practiced the ritual of communion 4 times a year, and who repeated each Sunday morning that avowal of Faith, passed by the Universalist convention in 1935, still found in the front of the old blue hymnals we still have over in the Sheshequin building. At this time the Sheshequin church was mourning The Rev. James D. Herrick, who died in 1944 had served the congregation longer than any other minister -- 30 years. At this time The Church of the Universal Brotherhood of Athens, then almost 100 years old, was struggling, as was the Universalist movement as a whole. The members of the Athens church found it so difficult to attract a minister and maintain the building that in 1947, this very church building was sold to the Christian Scientists for $2000.
Their story was not unusual in the Universalist movement. The great depression had left the Universalist church depleted, and the 1930s were a time of decline for both the Universalists and the Unitarians. Then when the nation headed into war, resources and attention were focused away from church life. But Universalism was struggling with something else as well. It had lost its fire of the early days. With a general religious paradigm shift away from predestination and hellfire preaching, the Universalists were not sure what made them special. This point was eloquently expressed by the minister who dedicated me at the church in which I grew up, Rev. Mason McGinness when he addressed the Massachusetts Convention in 1947:
“The truth is that, in many instances, the only thing that distinguishes the Universalist church from the neighboring Congregational, Baptist or Methodist church in some communities is the name, not the gospel that is preached, nor the program of education… If the Universalist Church has no message, no program that is different from other churches in the community, nothing that is distinctive, then let’s unite with some other church quickly… We have been drifting and disintegrating.” [Howe p. 111]
But leaders of the new generation of Universalists, like the Rev. Robert Cummins the General Superintendent, of the “Universalist Church of America” started to point in a radical new direction. When Cummins addressed the General Assembly in 1943 he said
“Universalism cannot be limited either to Protestantism or Christianity, not without denying its very name. Ours is a world fellowship, not just a Christian sect. For so long as Universalism is Universalism and not partialism, the fellowship bearing its name must succeed in making it unmistakably clear that all are welcome; theist and humanist, unitarian and Trinitarian, colored and color-less. A circumscribed Universalism is unthinkable. “ [Howe p. 107-108]
And though some of the conservative delegates grumbled, the younger generation warmly embraced this vision of Universalism.
It was around this time that the Universalists were invited to apply for membership in Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America, later to become the National Council of Churches. There was internal debate about this, but in 1942 they decided to go for it. Imagine their shock when in 1944 the executive committee of the Council voted against the Universalist Application 12 to 6. Despite this rejection, we applied again 2 years later, and were again rejected. Said Angus MacLean of the St. Lawrence Theological School, “after being turned down twice as not being good Christians, we decided we should look somewhere else.” [Howe p. 109]
Some Universalists responded to this rejection, and to our flagging membership, by dedicating themselves to strengthening our “Christian Witness” [Howe p. 111] while Universalists took a more liberal track, One of these liberal ministers, Rev. Tracy Pullman preached in 1946 a call for a new religion that is “greater than Christianity because it is an evolutionary religion, because it is universal rather than partial, because it is one with the spirit of science and is primarily interested in bringing out that which is God-like in man.”
This growing idea of “One World Religion” became the subject of an issue of the Universalist Magazine. This idea came not only from our theological struggles, but also from the “impulse toward global commonality” that 2 world wars had brought. The authors who contributed to the magazine all seemed to agree that while we should honor our Christian origins, it was time to “welcome the truths of other religions on an equal basis.” But editor Emerson Hugh Lalone, foreseeing the shadow side that echoes down into today’s Unitarian Universalism, warned that “he who believes everything ends up believing nothing…there is no easy route to world religions fellowship.” [Howe p. 112] I will come back to that warning in a moment.
A group of young clergy who called themselves the “Humiliati” took as their symbol an off-center cross signifying that within the all-embracing circle of Universalism, the cross which acknowledges our Christian Roots is off center showing that it is no longer central to our faith. I find in our own church archives an order of service from 1946 for an “All Souls Sunday which was to be a “day of rededication” to Universalism for all of the valley Universalist Churches. And on that order of service I find that new Universalist symbol, the circle and the off-center cross. So our Valley congregations were right there in this denomination tension and transition.
This growing “emergent Universalism” was very controversial, and angered the more conservative within our movement, but began to open a new way for our faith. Just a few years after the rejection by the Council of Churches, Skinner Clarence Skinner who had been a force for social Action in the Universalist Church, and Clinton Lee Scott, the only Universalist to sign the Humanist Manifesto encouraged the Massachusetts Universalist Convention to start a Universalist church in Boston. Surprisingly, though Boston was the national headquarters of Universalism, there was no Universalist church there. The Boston Unitarian Churches were quite conservative, and this new church would be created as an intentional alternative. The historic Charles Street Meeting House was purchased, and the Rev. Kenneth L Patton, who was known for his creativity in worship, was hired to be the minister of this brand new church. He was installed February 2, 1949 in a service attended by Universalists form all over Massachusetts. Writes Patton “We do not know of another instance where a religious society was set up on a distinctly experimental basis, in order to produce inventions in religious form and practice.”
The congregation took on the task of creating a church that embodied deeply this notion of a “Religion for One World.” Symbolic objects and art of all kinds were gathered and displayed with the idea that “If these objects from all the world religions can be seen together, significantly arranged, the basic unity that underlies their diversity will make itself clear.” Performing arts were integrated into worship, often with a use of film and recording to incorporate religious arts from around the world, and a dance program evolved late in the tenure of Rev. Patton.
Instead of the denomination’s hymnal, the congregation created what they called an “open hymnal” a 3-ring binder imprinted with the church’s seal, with mimeographed hymns “assembled in order for each occasion… In effect, the result was a new hymnbook for each service”
Instead of one holy book, which had for been for the first 150 years of Universalism the Bible, they had a book case, which was made by a master cabinet maker and contained the major books of the world religions. It was placed centrally on the platform at the front of the hall. It became their ritual that when a reader would have a reading from one of these sacred texts during the worship service, they would walk to the book case and take the book to the “reading desk” to read aloud, and at the end of the reading would return the book to their book case of sacred texts.
The Charles Street Meeting House wanted to find a central image to to fill the empty arch in the meeting house 25 feet tall and fifteen feet wide. A committee met on the subject for some time, and finally settled on an astronomical photograph of the Great Nebula in Andromeda. Patton writes
“We have called the arch that encloses the mural “a window into the universe,” through which we look through a screen of stars in our own galactic system out across the heavens to our nearest neighboring star system. We have called it a “symbol of the fact,” since it is simply the enlargement of a photograph, with no attempt whatever to interpret it for the viewer. We have said that the onlooker might say, “The heavens declare the glory of God, “or “the heavens declare the glory,” or simply “My heavens!” the choice is up to him. “ [Patton p. 316]
On the opposite side of the auditorium they commissioned a sculpture of the atom, to balance the image of the whole universe, with the congregation between the two ends of existence.
Finally was a quest for symbols. The Universalists had chosen the circle as the symbol of Universalism a circle including the off-center cross. But the Charles Street Meeting House chose to empty the circle. The pews were taken out and seating was arranged in a circle, which was seen to be the central symbol of the meeting house, as it is a symbol of unity. A large brass circle was installed over the reading desk. A polar projection map of the earth laid into the floor the center of the sanctuary, the one world at the center of their worship, and this image of the earth surrounded by a gold circle.
Proceeding from that central symbol, Patton reports that they “sought to find the most effective symbols of one world that were available in the world religions and to arrange them so that they would echo and re-echo one another much as several related motifs are developed in a symphony” The project of research, selection, design and fabrication lasted 5 years. The final collection was of 65 symbols and were used in varying ways during the worship services, perhaps placed in the center of the larger circle if they were to represent the topic of the service, or arranged together to show some relationship among them. With the exception of the one large circle, the symbols are “all of approximately the same size, indicating that all the religions of man are to be held in equal esteem” [Patton p. 336] All the symbols, once chosen were made by artists in the congregation of sheet brass, copper and silver.
Patton served the meeting house for 15 years. He was a naturalistic humanist, which alienated some of the more conservative Universalists, to the extent at that Massachusetts Universalist Convention (that’s right, the same one that founded the church) would not admit the Meeting House into membership, saying that the preaching was not truly Universalist. But the convention did by a narrow margin agree to continue their financial support. Clinton Lee Scott reminded the convention of the freedom of the pulpit, the congregational authority, and the lack of a central creed and eventually the Meeting House was accepted into membership.
Near the end of his time there, Patton published a book called “ A Religion for One World” in which he writes “The major argument within the Association centers on whether Unitarian Universalism shall be a world religion or the liberal wing of Protestant Christianity. The “universalists” …would declare themselves to be members of a universal and world religion which included the religious ideals and traditions of all peoples” [p. 3]
After Patton left the congregation, it slowly dwindled, and closed its doors in 1979. What remains are a wealth of worship materials, including several selections in our hymnal. Those Brass and copper symbols were donated to the Starr King School for the ministry, and on my very first day of seminary, as we sat in worship we were introduced to them, and told their history.
But the most important thing that persists from the work of Patton and his congregation is their contribution to the practice of a universal religion, “A Religion for One World” and to the idea that the Universalist faith could draw on all of the world’s traditions. 12 years after the Charles Street Meeting House was founded, the Unitarians and Universalists merged, and adopted together their statement of 7 principles and 6 sources of our tradition. The Universalists at the start of the 20th century knew that theirs was a Christian faith, but by 1961, we knew that there were many sources for our tradition, including the “Wisdom of the World’s Religions”
Today we are often at the center of interfaith work, and often the first to reach out to neighboring mosque, temple, synagogue. By widening our arms to embrace the wisdom of the world, I think we are once again on the leading edge. Where else can those who identify Jewish, Pagan, Christian and Humanist all worship together? And yet here we are together this morning. But that shadow side predicted by Lalone, that “he who believes everything ends up believing nothing” is one that requires our constant vigilance. And our defense against the threat of a religion so wide that it looses itself, is to remember our roots. In remembering our roots we will find our core. Love. Love is at the core of Universalism. A love so big that no one is left out in the cold. And Universalists have known from the beginning that our love, a universal love that knows each person has worth, calls us to work in the world until it is a perfect reflection of that love. You find these core ideas in the very first convention of Universalists in the 1790s, you find this calling in the aspirations and ideals of the “universalized Universalists” of the Charles Street Meeting House, and you find this love in our congregation today. May it always be so.
Primary Sources:
Charles A. Howe. The Larger Faith: A Short History of American Universalism. Skinner House Books, 1993.
Kenneth L. Patton. A Religion for One World. Meeting House Press, 1964.
They said they believed that the Old and New Testaments contained a revelation of God’s Will
They believed in one God who at his essence was love
They believed that there was one mediator between God and Man,
They believed in Christ Jesus, in whom God lived, and who would restore “the whole human race to happiness”
They believed in the Holy Ghost,
and they believed in good works, in “a holy, active and useful life.”
I’m guessing that if I took an informal poll of the folks in this room who identify themselves as Universalists, the only one of those 5 principles that they all would agree with is the last one, the active and useful life. And if I asked the Universalists in the room whether or not they also identify as Christian, I think we would have a varied response.
So for our Universalist Heritage Sunday I want to look beyond the stories of our founders, of Murray and Ballou and DeBenneville, to the pioneers who preached of a Religion for One World. It is a story only half a century old, from the 1940s. It is from a time when there were 4 Valley Universalist Churches, who practiced the ritual of communion 4 times a year, and who repeated each Sunday morning that avowal of Faith, passed by the Universalist convention in 1935, still found in the front of the old blue hymnals we still have over in the Sheshequin building. At this time the Sheshequin church was mourning The Rev. James D. Herrick, who died in 1944 had served the congregation longer than any other minister -- 30 years. At this time The Church of the Universal Brotherhood of Athens, then almost 100 years old, was struggling, as was the Universalist movement as a whole. The members of the Athens church found it so difficult to attract a minister and maintain the building that in 1947, this very church building was sold to the Christian Scientists for $2000.
Their story was not unusual in the Universalist movement. The great depression had left the Universalist church depleted, and the 1930s were a time of decline for both the Universalists and the Unitarians. Then when the nation headed into war, resources and attention were focused away from church life. But Universalism was struggling with something else as well. It had lost its fire of the early days. With a general religious paradigm shift away from predestination and hellfire preaching, the Universalists were not sure what made them special. This point was eloquently expressed by the minister who dedicated me at the church in which I grew up, Rev. Mason McGinness when he addressed the Massachusetts Convention in 1947:
“The truth is that, in many instances, the only thing that distinguishes the Universalist church from the neighboring Congregational, Baptist or Methodist church in some communities is the name, not the gospel that is preached, nor the program of education… If the Universalist Church has no message, no program that is different from other churches in the community, nothing that is distinctive, then let’s unite with some other church quickly… We have been drifting and disintegrating.” [Howe p. 111]
But leaders of the new generation of Universalists, like the Rev. Robert Cummins the General Superintendent, of the “Universalist Church of America” started to point in a radical new direction. When Cummins addressed the General Assembly in 1943 he said
“Universalism cannot be limited either to Protestantism or Christianity, not without denying its very name. Ours is a world fellowship, not just a Christian sect. For so long as Universalism is Universalism and not partialism, the fellowship bearing its name must succeed in making it unmistakably clear that all are welcome; theist and humanist, unitarian and Trinitarian, colored and color-less. A circumscribed Universalism is unthinkable. “ [Howe p. 107-108]
And though some of the conservative delegates grumbled, the younger generation warmly embraced this vision of Universalism.
It was around this time that the Universalists were invited to apply for membership in Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America, later to become the National Council of Churches. There was internal debate about this, but in 1942 they decided to go for it. Imagine their shock when in 1944 the executive committee of the Council voted against the Universalist Application 12 to 6. Despite this rejection, we applied again 2 years later, and were again rejected. Said Angus MacLean of the St. Lawrence Theological School, “after being turned down twice as not being good Christians, we decided we should look somewhere else.” [Howe p. 109]
Some Universalists responded to this rejection, and to our flagging membership, by dedicating themselves to strengthening our “Christian Witness” [Howe p. 111] while Universalists took a more liberal track, One of these liberal ministers, Rev. Tracy Pullman preached in 1946 a call for a new religion that is “greater than Christianity because it is an evolutionary religion, because it is universal rather than partial, because it is one with the spirit of science and is primarily interested in bringing out that which is God-like in man.”
This growing idea of “One World Religion” became the subject of an issue of the Universalist Magazine. This idea came not only from our theological struggles, but also from the “impulse toward global commonality” that 2 world wars had brought. The authors who contributed to the magazine all seemed to agree that while we should honor our Christian origins, it was time to “welcome the truths of other religions on an equal basis.” But editor Emerson Hugh Lalone, foreseeing the shadow side that echoes down into today’s Unitarian Universalism, warned that “he who believes everything ends up believing nothing…there is no easy route to world religions fellowship.” [Howe p. 112] I will come back to that warning in a moment.
A group of young clergy who called themselves the “Humiliati” took as their symbol an off-center cross signifying that within the all-embracing circle of Universalism, the cross which acknowledges our Christian Roots is off center showing that it is no longer central to our faith. I find in our own church archives an order of service from 1946 for an “All Souls Sunday which was to be a “day of rededication” to Universalism for all of the valley Universalist Churches. And on that order of service I find that new Universalist symbol, the circle and the off-center cross. So our Valley congregations were right there in this denomination tension and transition.
This growing “emergent Universalism” was very controversial, and angered the more conservative within our movement, but began to open a new way for our faith. Just a few years after the rejection by the Council of Churches, Skinner Clarence Skinner who had been a force for social Action in the Universalist Church, and Clinton Lee Scott, the only Universalist to sign the Humanist Manifesto encouraged the Massachusetts Universalist Convention to start a Universalist church in Boston. Surprisingly, though Boston was the national headquarters of Universalism, there was no Universalist church there. The Boston Unitarian Churches were quite conservative, and this new church would be created as an intentional alternative. The historic Charles Street Meeting House was purchased, and the Rev. Kenneth L Patton, who was known for his creativity in worship, was hired to be the minister of this brand new church. He was installed February 2, 1949 in a service attended by Universalists form all over Massachusetts. Writes Patton “We do not know of another instance where a religious society was set up on a distinctly experimental basis, in order to produce inventions in religious form and practice.”
The congregation took on the task of creating a church that embodied deeply this notion of a “Religion for One World.” Symbolic objects and art of all kinds were gathered and displayed with the idea that “If these objects from all the world religions can be seen together, significantly arranged, the basic unity that underlies their diversity will make itself clear.” Performing arts were integrated into worship, often with a use of film and recording to incorporate religious arts from around the world, and a dance program evolved late in the tenure of Rev. Patton.
Instead of the denomination’s hymnal, the congregation created what they called an “open hymnal” a 3-ring binder imprinted with the church’s seal, with mimeographed hymns “assembled in order for each occasion… In effect, the result was a new hymnbook for each service”
Instead of one holy book, which had for been for the first 150 years of Universalism the Bible, they had a book case, which was made by a master cabinet maker and contained the major books of the world religions. It was placed centrally on the platform at the front of the hall. It became their ritual that when a reader would have a reading from one of these sacred texts during the worship service, they would walk to the book case and take the book to the “reading desk” to read aloud, and at the end of the reading would return the book to their book case of sacred texts.
The Charles Street Meeting House wanted to find a central image to to fill the empty arch in the meeting house 25 feet tall and fifteen feet wide. A committee met on the subject for some time, and finally settled on an astronomical photograph of the Great Nebula in Andromeda. Patton writes
“We have called the arch that encloses the mural “a window into the universe,” through which we look through a screen of stars in our own galactic system out across the heavens to our nearest neighboring star system. We have called it a “symbol of the fact,” since it is simply the enlargement of a photograph, with no attempt whatever to interpret it for the viewer. We have said that the onlooker might say, “The heavens declare the glory of God, “or “the heavens declare the glory,” or simply “My heavens!” the choice is up to him. “ [Patton p. 316]
On the opposite side of the auditorium they commissioned a sculpture of the atom, to balance the image of the whole universe, with the congregation between the two ends of existence.
Finally was a quest for symbols. The Universalists had chosen the circle as the symbol of Universalism a circle including the off-center cross. But the Charles Street Meeting House chose to empty the circle. The pews were taken out and seating was arranged in a circle, which was seen to be the central symbol of the meeting house, as it is a symbol of unity. A large brass circle was installed over the reading desk. A polar projection map of the earth laid into the floor the center of the sanctuary, the one world at the center of their worship, and this image of the earth surrounded by a gold circle.
Proceeding from that central symbol, Patton reports that they “sought to find the most effective symbols of one world that were available in the world religions and to arrange them so that they would echo and re-echo one another much as several related motifs are developed in a symphony” The project of research, selection, design and fabrication lasted 5 years. The final collection was of 65 symbols and were used in varying ways during the worship services, perhaps placed in the center of the larger circle if they were to represent the topic of the service, or arranged together to show some relationship among them. With the exception of the one large circle, the symbols are “all of approximately the same size, indicating that all the religions of man are to be held in equal esteem” [Patton p. 336] All the symbols, once chosen were made by artists in the congregation of sheet brass, copper and silver.
Patton served the meeting house for 15 years. He was a naturalistic humanist, which alienated some of the more conservative Universalists, to the extent at that Massachusetts Universalist Convention (that’s right, the same one that founded the church) would not admit the Meeting House into membership, saying that the preaching was not truly Universalist. But the convention did by a narrow margin agree to continue their financial support. Clinton Lee Scott reminded the convention of the freedom of the pulpit, the congregational authority, and the lack of a central creed and eventually the Meeting House was accepted into membership.
Near the end of his time there, Patton published a book called “ A Religion for One World” in which he writes “The major argument within the Association centers on whether Unitarian Universalism shall be a world religion or the liberal wing of Protestant Christianity. The “universalists” …would declare themselves to be members of a universal and world religion which included the religious ideals and traditions of all peoples” [p. 3]
After Patton left the congregation, it slowly dwindled, and closed its doors in 1979. What remains are a wealth of worship materials, including several selections in our hymnal. Those Brass and copper symbols were donated to the Starr King School for the ministry, and on my very first day of seminary, as we sat in worship we were introduced to them, and told their history.
But the most important thing that persists from the work of Patton and his congregation is their contribution to the practice of a universal religion, “A Religion for One World” and to the idea that the Universalist faith could draw on all of the world’s traditions. 12 years after the Charles Street Meeting House was founded, the Unitarians and Universalists merged, and adopted together their statement of 7 principles and 6 sources of our tradition. The Universalists at the start of the 20th century knew that theirs was a Christian faith, but by 1961, we knew that there were many sources for our tradition, including the “Wisdom of the World’s Religions”
Today we are often at the center of interfaith work, and often the first to reach out to neighboring mosque, temple, synagogue. By widening our arms to embrace the wisdom of the world, I think we are once again on the leading edge. Where else can those who identify Jewish, Pagan, Christian and Humanist all worship together? And yet here we are together this morning. But that shadow side predicted by Lalone, that “he who believes everything ends up believing nothing” is one that requires our constant vigilance. And our defense against the threat of a religion so wide that it looses itself, is to remember our roots. In remembering our roots we will find our core. Love. Love is at the core of Universalism. A love so big that no one is left out in the cold. And Universalists have known from the beginning that our love, a universal love that knows each person has worth, calls us to work in the world until it is a perfect reflection of that love. You find these core ideas in the very first convention of Universalists in the 1790s, you find this calling in the aspirations and ideals of the “universalized Universalists” of the Charles Street Meeting House, and you find this love in our congregation today. May it always be so.
Primary Sources:
Charles A. Howe. The Larger Faith: A Short History of American Universalism. Skinner House Books, 1993.
Kenneth L. Patton. A Religion for One World. Meeting House Press, 1964.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Ends and Means (September 28, 2008)
How do you know if you are doing the right thing? Sometimes it’s not too hard to figure out. The 10 commandments from the Judeo Christian tradition give some common sense advice. No killing, no stealing, that sort of thing. The Buddhists have a similar list of 5 precepts. The Golden Rule, to do unto others what you would have them do unto you, is also a very straightforward measure for the rightness of our actions, and some version of that teaching is found in most of the worlds religious traditions. But even these clear ethical statements don’t help in all of the many and various ethical dilemmas we face each day.
Our Mission statement as a congregation (printed on the front of your order of service) is to “provide a forum for liberal religious expression in an atmosphere which encourages spiritual growth and ethical living.” And for a community of people who have already set the intention to live ethical compassionate lives, we are not beginners to ethics. And holding ourselves to a higher standard than “what can I get away with” we know that there exists plenty of ethical ambiguity as we live in the world. So how do we know if we are doing the right thing?
I have noticed that one of the most dominant paradigms in our culture has to do with score keeping. Fortune 500 companies are literally the biggest- the ones with the most money. The score is kept regarding revenue. From the time we are we are quite young our success in school is rendered in grades, and once you are out of elementary school the “e for effort” goes by the wayside. How do you decide who won a football game? Who has the most points. If you grab a player’s face mask, or horse-collar someone, there will probably be a penalty called, but as long as you can make up those yards you can still win the game.
Living life as if there your whole grade depended on your final exam, it turns out, is called “Teleological Ethics.” However you get your “A” is okay as long as the final grade is a good grade. The word Teleological comes from the Greek telos, “end” It is a theory of ethics that derives duty or moral obligation from what is good or desirable as an end to be achieved. It is opposed to deontological ethics (from the Greek deon, “duty”), which holds that the basic standards for the rightness of an action are independent of the good or evil generated by the ethics . For the example, a student acting within deontological ethics would say that it is never right to cheat, even if that means you get a C instead of an A, and so don’t get into med school. But from the standpoint of Teleological ethics, there might arise a situation when cheating in school would serve a particular end, say getting into med school so that you could devote your life to curing disease in impoverished neighborhoods, or cheating on an entrance exam for a job you needed to feed your family.
This debate between teleological ethics and deontological ethics is a really big part of the debate we are hearing right now about presidential politics. Is it okay to tell lies if it achieves the righteous end of winning a presidential election? Is it okay to hit below the belt, to take the gloves off if it achieves that end?
The problem with teleological ethics is the fact that someone has to define what the “end” is. If the written exam counts for 100% of the grade, then whether or not you ever came to class or did any of the assigned reading does not matter as long as you do well on the exam. Someone whose goal for the class is to have a competency in the subject may pursue a different path from someone whose goal for the class is to have an A on their transcript.
Whether you run a clean race or a dirty race for the white house doesn’t matter as long as you get elected. But if your goal is to restore the good name and integrity of your country, do you have to start that during the race for the presidency? Or can you put that off until after you are elected? I think this is a crucial debate for people of conscience right now. If you take the path with integrity and it keeps you out of power, has your virtue rendered you irrelevant? If you take a dirty path to power, have you already corrupted the process whose integrity you had promised to restore?
In some ways this is a false duality. Let’s go back to the final exam; by calling the “grade on the report card” the end, we are excluding many other actual ends. I think we can no longer limit our vision like this. As people who covenant to affirm and promote the web of life of which we are all a part, we know that my final exam does not exist in a vacuum. Here is a more full understanding of what the “ends” really are for a hypothetical final exam:
Grade- A
Body- undernourished, sleep deprived, immune system depleted
Knowledge of material- forgotten most of it already
Home life- roommates grumpy about mess, everyone quick to anger and overly sensitive due to lack of sleep and stress.
Environmental- Pizza boxes not recyclable, but I walked to my exam.
So until recently in my thinking I would have put “Grade” in a column under “ends” and all those other things in a column under “means” and have wanted to see that they balance out. But now I realize they are ALL ends. The victorious “A” does not wipe out the damage I may have done to my relationships or to my body, and it doesn’t guarantee that I will be able to call to mind crucial information when I need it for my career.
But deontological ethics also leave gaps in helping me live an ethical life. If you have ever tried to make the “right choice” environmentally, you know that there are always trade offs. We use mugs in the coffee hour in stead of styofoam cups, and I think that’s a great choice. I’m proud we do that. But we can’t hold up “re-usable mugs” as an ethical absolute, a pure means regardless of the ends. Because we also use water to clean the cups, and chemicals to clean the cups, and energy to heat the water to clean them. And frankly I don’t know too much about how ceramic mugs are made. Were the workers treated fairly? Are there toxic chemicals involved? How much energy does it take to heat a ceramic cup? When you tug on one part of the web the whole thing moves.
So how do we even begin to live an ethical life if we don’t always have ethical absolutes to measure it against?
First, we need a more complete scorecard. Part of the reason that we have been able to ignore the impact of our commerce on the eco-system for so long is that the way we define our ends renders the eco-system invisible. For example, the prime responsibility of a corporation is to maximize profits for their shareholders. Whether that company clear cuts a forest or dumps waste into a river does not appear on the balance sheet, only the quarterly profit. Even if the company has clear-cut their only forest, or pumped their only oil well dry, that still doesn’t appear on the balance sheet until it impacts quarterly profits. Whether your employees have health insurance or earn a living wage or work in unsafe conditions, you are not accountable for this except in the way that it effects your bottom line. This is why the idea of the “triple bottom line” emerged. What if along with the fiscal bottom line, we were also responsible to the people we impact (human capitol), and to the eco-system. (Natural capitol) Folks who advocate thinking in terms of a triple bottom line talk about "Social, Economic and Environmental" or "People, Planet, Profit".
That is to say no action can be given a final grade by looking at whether it accomplished a single end. Martin Luther King was a great man not only because he changed the dynamics of race relations in America, but because he used non-violent means to achieve that end. His ends were not only legislative, but a model used by many others since of how to achieve change without violence. The ends are not only justice, but integrity.
But in the long term, we need to move away from our current paradigm. Because if we are grounding in ourselves in religious and social paradigms that “winning” is the ultimate end of life, there will always be losers. I’m not saying the rules of football or presidential politics are going to change, but you and I, as ethical agents, as human beings, can bring a different lens to those hard decisions we have to make.
I think one reflection of this current paradigm comes in the prevalent western ideas about the afterlife, of “seeking your reward in heaven.” Of course there have been many people who have lived caring, ethical lives within that paradigm. But what is coming to consciousness for Unitarian Universalists and our spiritual neighbors is an awareness that our current ethical paradigms have not lead to justice for all, nor to the preservation of life in our biosphere.
God says to Moses and the Israelites in the Hebrew Scriptures “I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse; therefore choose life, that you and your descendants may live,.” And the God of Jewish and Christian tradition, the tradition in which our culture was born, does not say “Choose human life” God says “choose life.” As UUs, who take as one of our sources the teachings of these traditions, we can claim the wisdom of this teaching, but it also speaks to us because life itself has always been the ends for us, more than a heavenly reward. We have already affirmed together that life is more like a web than a race to the finish line. We affirm that there is something precious and even holy about our own lives which are not separable from the web of life, And from that vantage, we cannot separate ends and means.
One part of being a minister is to sit with a family who has just experienced the death of one of their own, and try to find a way to hold the whole of that life. It’s not like a report card. It’s not like the numbers that appear under the quarterback’s picture during a football game. We want to try to see a whole life. Certainly high points of your career will be mentioned, but when your grandchildren get up to speak at your memorial service, it will be about the time you took them fishing. Neighbors mention the warm greetings as you went on your morning walk. Friends remember that you made the best potatoes for potluck, or how you could fix anything. The earth will show your footprint, whether anyone remembers that you composted, or biked to work.
It’s not as efficient to see your ends as “the wholeness of life in a living community”. You may not get as far or as fast. But imagine how different our country would be if your ethical standard was not a bottom line on a spreadsheet or a grade on a report card, but a piece of whole cloth woven day in day out by each action, and our connections to all those we touch. Sometimes goals and numbers help give shape and form to your life’s weaving, but let your eyes take in the whole of it. If the whole of the cloth shimmers with life, if it shows the connections to the whole web existence of which we are a part, anyone who sees its beauty will know that it is good.
Our Mission statement as a congregation (printed on the front of your order of service) is to “provide a forum for liberal religious expression in an atmosphere which encourages spiritual growth and ethical living.” And for a community of people who have already set the intention to live ethical compassionate lives, we are not beginners to ethics. And holding ourselves to a higher standard than “what can I get away with” we know that there exists plenty of ethical ambiguity as we live in the world. So how do we know if we are doing the right thing?
I have noticed that one of the most dominant paradigms in our culture has to do with score keeping. Fortune 500 companies are literally the biggest- the ones with the most money. The score is kept regarding revenue. From the time we are we are quite young our success in school is rendered in grades, and once you are out of elementary school the “e for effort” goes by the wayside. How do you decide who won a football game? Who has the most points. If you grab a player’s face mask, or horse-collar someone, there will probably be a penalty called, but as long as you can make up those yards you can still win the game.
Living life as if there your whole grade depended on your final exam, it turns out, is called “Teleological Ethics.” However you get your “A” is okay as long as the final grade is a good grade. The word Teleological comes from the Greek telos, “end” It is a theory of ethics that derives duty or moral obligation from what is good or desirable as an end to be achieved. It is opposed to deontological ethics (from the Greek deon, “duty”), which holds that the basic standards for the rightness of an action are independent of the good or evil generated by the ethics . For the example, a student acting within deontological ethics would say that it is never right to cheat, even if that means you get a C instead of an A, and so don’t get into med school. But from the standpoint of Teleological ethics, there might arise a situation when cheating in school would serve a particular end, say getting into med school so that you could devote your life to curing disease in impoverished neighborhoods, or cheating on an entrance exam for a job you needed to feed your family.
This debate between teleological ethics and deontological ethics is a really big part of the debate we are hearing right now about presidential politics. Is it okay to tell lies if it achieves the righteous end of winning a presidential election? Is it okay to hit below the belt, to take the gloves off if it achieves that end?
The problem with teleological ethics is the fact that someone has to define what the “end” is. If the written exam counts for 100% of the grade, then whether or not you ever came to class or did any of the assigned reading does not matter as long as you do well on the exam. Someone whose goal for the class is to have a competency in the subject may pursue a different path from someone whose goal for the class is to have an A on their transcript.
Whether you run a clean race or a dirty race for the white house doesn’t matter as long as you get elected. But if your goal is to restore the good name and integrity of your country, do you have to start that during the race for the presidency? Or can you put that off until after you are elected? I think this is a crucial debate for people of conscience right now. If you take the path with integrity and it keeps you out of power, has your virtue rendered you irrelevant? If you take a dirty path to power, have you already corrupted the process whose integrity you had promised to restore?
In some ways this is a false duality. Let’s go back to the final exam; by calling the “grade on the report card” the end, we are excluding many other actual ends. I think we can no longer limit our vision like this. As people who covenant to affirm and promote the web of life of which we are all a part, we know that my final exam does not exist in a vacuum. Here is a more full understanding of what the “ends” really are for a hypothetical final exam:
Grade- A
Body- undernourished, sleep deprived, immune system depleted
Knowledge of material- forgotten most of it already
Home life- roommates grumpy about mess, everyone quick to anger and overly sensitive due to lack of sleep and stress.
Environmental- Pizza boxes not recyclable, but I walked to my exam.
So until recently in my thinking I would have put “Grade” in a column under “ends” and all those other things in a column under “means” and have wanted to see that they balance out. But now I realize they are ALL ends. The victorious “A” does not wipe out the damage I may have done to my relationships or to my body, and it doesn’t guarantee that I will be able to call to mind crucial information when I need it for my career.
But deontological ethics also leave gaps in helping me live an ethical life. If you have ever tried to make the “right choice” environmentally, you know that there are always trade offs. We use mugs in the coffee hour in stead of styofoam cups, and I think that’s a great choice. I’m proud we do that. But we can’t hold up “re-usable mugs” as an ethical absolute, a pure means regardless of the ends. Because we also use water to clean the cups, and chemicals to clean the cups, and energy to heat the water to clean them. And frankly I don’t know too much about how ceramic mugs are made. Were the workers treated fairly? Are there toxic chemicals involved? How much energy does it take to heat a ceramic cup? When you tug on one part of the web the whole thing moves.
So how do we even begin to live an ethical life if we don’t always have ethical absolutes to measure it against?
First, we need a more complete scorecard. Part of the reason that we have been able to ignore the impact of our commerce on the eco-system for so long is that the way we define our ends renders the eco-system invisible. For example, the prime responsibility of a corporation is to maximize profits for their shareholders. Whether that company clear cuts a forest or dumps waste into a river does not appear on the balance sheet, only the quarterly profit. Even if the company has clear-cut their only forest, or pumped their only oil well dry, that still doesn’t appear on the balance sheet until it impacts quarterly profits. Whether your employees have health insurance or earn a living wage or work in unsafe conditions, you are not accountable for this except in the way that it effects your bottom line. This is why the idea of the “triple bottom line” emerged. What if along with the fiscal bottom line, we were also responsible to the people we impact (human capitol), and to the eco-system. (Natural capitol) Folks who advocate thinking in terms of a triple bottom line talk about "Social, Economic and Environmental" or "People, Planet, Profit".
That is to say no action can be given a final grade by looking at whether it accomplished a single end. Martin Luther King was a great man not only because he changed the dynamics of race relations in America, but because he used non-violent means to achieve that end. His ends were not only legislative, but a model used by many others since of how to achieve change without violence. The ends are not only justice, but integrity.
But in the long term, we need to move away from our current paradigm. Because if we are grounding in ourselves in religious and social paradigms that “winning” is the ultimate end of life, there will always be losers. I’m not saying the rules of football or presidential politics are going to change, but you and I, as ethical agents, as human beings, can bring a different lens to those hard decisions we have to make.
I think one reflection of this current paradigm comes in the prevalent western ideas about the afterlife, of “seeking your reward in heaven.” Of course there have been many people who have lived caring, ethical lives within that paradigm. But what is coming to consciousness for Unitarian Universalists and our spiritual neighbors is an awareness that our current ethical paradigms have not lead to justice for all, nor to the preservation of life in our biosphere.
God says to Moses and the Israelites in the Hebrew Scriptures “I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse; therefore choose life, that you and your descendants may live,.” And the God of Jewish and Christian tradition, the tradition in which our culture was born, does not say “Choose human life” God says “choose life.” As UUs, who take as one of our sources the teachings of these traditions, we can claim the wisdom of this teaching, but it also speaks to us because life itself has always been the ends for us, more than a heavenly reward. We have already affirmed together that life is more like a web than a race to the finish line. We affirm that there is something precious and even holy about our own lives which are not separable from the web of life, And from that vantage, we cannot separate ends and means.
One part of being a minister is to sit with a family who has just experienced the death of one of their own, and try to find a way to hold the whole of that life. It’s not like a report card. It’s not like the numbers that appear under the quarterback’s picture during a football game. We want to try to see a whole life. Certainly high points of your career will be mentioned, but when your grandchildren get up to speak at your memorial service, it will be about the time you took them fishing. Neighbors mention the warm greetings as you went on your morning walk. Friends remember that you made the best potatoes for potluck, or how you could fix anything. The earth will show your footprint, whether anyone remembers that you composted, or biked to work.
It’s not as efficient to see your ends as “the wholeness of life in a living community”. You may not get as far or as fast. But imagine how different our country would be if your ethical standard was not a bottom line on a spreadsheet or a grade on a report card, but a piece of whole cloth woven day in day out by each action, and our connections to all those we touch. Sometimes goals and numbers help give shape and form to your life’s weaving, but let your eyes take in the whole of it. If the whole of the cloth shimmers with life, if it shows the connections to the whole web existence of which we are a part, anyone who sees its beauty will know that it is good.
Monday, September 15, 2008
Living in Story (September 14, 2008)
I love stories. Unless you and I have never been here on the same Sunday, you know this about me. I love them not only because they are fun, not only because they are a wonderful form of art, but because they are powerful. They have the power to give shape and meaning to our lives, the power to enhance communication, and the power to transform society. But stories have a shadow side too. Because they also have the power to keep us stuck, to maintain the status quo.
This is why our children begin today a curriculum called “Timeless Themes” in which they will spend the year looking at stories from the Judeo-Christian tradition, but looking at them with our special UU questioning way. Because these stories have power in our society, and knowing these stories, and asking questions of those stories will help us and our children to be agents of healing and change in our world.
I the children’s lesson we told this morning[The Story of the Three Kingdoms by Dean Myers], the people use storytelling to share wisdom and experience. A story can help us remember and share information like “how to move a really heavy object” or “how to catch something that flies” and telling these stories helps us make good decisions for the future. This is one of the reasons we tell stories; so that we understand the mechanics of this world, what works, what doesn’t work. Many of you know the story of Olympia Brown, the first woman ordained to the ministry in a main line church, and a speaker and activist for women’s suffrage. You have heard that she rode in the back of a wagon (without shock absorbers, mind you) over unpaved roads from town to town in Kansas speaking for women’s right to vote where she was often greeted with anger and opposition. And we know that after many decades of her dedicated work, and the work of many others, women were given the right to vote, and Kansas was one of the first states to ratify the 19th amendment. So we tell this story to learn something about the mechanics of how amending constitution works, and we learn something about the multi-generational movement to make sure that women have equal rights. But this is not a civics class. We tell this story in church because the truth I need to hear on a Sunday morning is that changing society is hard, but it is possible. When we get discouraged because the work we are doing for social change is going so slow we are worried we may never see any change, we call to mind this story, and we realize that the slow, thankless work of speaking the truth until the world listens is the unpaved Kansas road of our journey.
This is why the story of Moses and the Israelites is so powerful. Anthropologists have poked huge holes in the historical accuracy of this story, but oppressed peoples around the world have found in this story the strength they need to fight unjust political power structures. It shows us that though the struggle for liberation may be long and hard, that journey can lead to freedom. And in a world where the political and religious powers-that-be are often on the same side, this story shows us that people of faith can stand up to entrenched power. It is a story that has been told and retold by many oppressed people on the road to freedom. Said Martin Luther King in his Nobel Lecture in 1964 “Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The yearning for freedom eventually manifests itself. The Bible tells the thrilling story of how Moses stood in Pharaoh's court centuries ago and cried, "Let my people go."5 This is a kind of opening chapter in a continuing story. The present struggle in the United States is a later chapter in the same unfolding story.”
By seeing the 20th century civil rights movement in the context of a liberation story like that of Moses and the Israelites, suddenly you see the light at the end of the tunnel, and feel the power of history behind you. The story gives you hope and it give you a map of the journey. It also gives you the power to communicate that map. You can say to other people who know the Moses story “Moses stood in Pharoah’s court” and it draws a clear picture of what it looks like to speak truth to power. King didn’t feel he had to tell his audience at the Nobel lecture who Moses and Pharaoh are, because this is one of those stories that “have grown fat in the retelling” as Pratchett said in this morning's reading. [Terry Pratchett Witches Abroad p. 2-4]
But we all know that any powerful tool can be used both for good and for ill. What about the shadow side of story?
Let me tell you about a story that is not working right now-- the story of creation from the Judeo-Christian tradition. As a feminist, I have always had trouble with the story of Adam and Eve, but when I look at the state of today’s environment, I can see that God’s admonition to “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the see and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” (Gen 1:28) is no longer good advice, now that the earth has been subdued, and our multitudes are on the verge of rendering the earth unable to sustain human life.
Environmental Theorists like Thomas Berry and Brian Swimme, propose that we need a new creation story, a new cosmology a new story to change our path. Fortunately, they say, we already have one. The big bang. The story told by science about this history of our universe. In this story we find that we, like the fish, like the trees, are made of stardust. We are part of a story much much older than we are, that will go on long after humanity has left the stage. In this story we are in the middle of the 6th mass extinction that earth has seen since life began here. In this story, which is grounded in the best thinking and research our scientists have to offer, the fact that the conditions necessary to create and sustain life as we know it were met at all fills one with awe and wonder. And wonder, awe and a sense of connection to all life is what we need to move our culture to a sustainable paradigm.
But Swimme and Berry postulate that even those of us in American Society who believe that the Big Bang theory is accurate still function in a Genesis Cosmology- that humans were created to be the stars of the show, and the other living beings are created only as the backdrop for the salvation history of humanity. As long as we live our lives out of that story, even unconsciously, we will think of ourselves as separate and above the physical universe, and will not be motivated to make the changes required for the health and survival of the ecosystem that sustains us. For the survival of our eco-system, we need to change stories.
Here’s another example of being trapped by a story, this time from the Hindu tradition. “A Brahmin [or Hindu Holy man] was having his bath in the river. Then he noticed a scorpion almost drowning. So he lifted the scorpion and put it on the ground. But before he could set it down, the scorpion bit his hand. His companion said to him, ‘What have you done? You have saved him only to get bitten yourself!’. His answer was, ‘I did what I had to do according to my nature. The scorpion did what it had to do according to its nature’. This is a teaching story about non-attachment. It is a powerful and important teaching because each of us encounters things in our life we cannot change, and need to remember not to let our consciousness get stuck in those events or situations. But a western criticism of theologies of surrender is that it does not provide an opportunity for justice-making.
There’s another version of that story called “The Tiger and the Braham” (There’s a great version of it on Rabbit Ears Radio that my son Loves.) In this story, the Brahmin helps a tiger out of the cage after promises that the tiger will not eat him, but when the tiger is freed, he says “foolish Brahman, no one can come between a tiger and his dinner.” After some discussion the Brahmin is allowed to take his case to the next 3 beings he meets. The 3 beings are feeling very cynical and bound by duty, and tell him to accept his fate. But then the Brahmin meets a Jackal, who makes the Brahmin repeat the story over and over “Ah, it is no use” he says “I cannot understand it. My poor Brain! Please take me to the place where this happened so that I can understand.” There, beside the cage, he makes the tiger repeat the story over and over, and finally, in a desperate attempt to make the foolish Jackal understand, the Tiger jumps back in the cage, and the Jackal slams the door shut. The Brahmin decides not to free the tiger this time, and thanks the wise Jackal for teaching him something about the way of the world. So here is the hero in an impossible situation, doomed by fate, but the trickster shows him the side door into a story that “works” for him.
But there are a million stories out there we hear each day. A lot of them we see on TV or in the movies. For example, the story of a rock band discovered by a record label while playing in a local club. The story of the semi-ethical cop who believes the ends justify the means. The story of the wedding that must be stopped by the TRUE love of the bride. The story of the nerds’ revenge. The fantastical story of the rich pretty people who can afford a big apartment in Manhattan and only wear designer clothes and eat at fancy restaurants every night.
My point is that the story of Moses is a powerful one, but these stories from contemporary culture and media have power too. They make us think that it’s worth the risk to express your love, or that being ethical in your work is unimportant if your goal is noble, or that having a certain lifestyle is normal. Some of these are healing stories, and some lead us down dead ends. So we have to notice which stories are creating those channels in which our lives flow. We have to chose a story which allows us to be a hero, and not just an incidental player, and we have to chose a story we can be proud of Part of the reason we share stories at church, in our worship, and in our Religious Education is so that we can become aware of the stories that shape our lives, let them warm in our minds.
So remember to be nice to the animals you meet in the forest, because later they will help you save the princess, remember that even when you feel gawky and clumsy, someday the ugly duckling turns into a swan, remember the child who stood up to the wicked witch, and remember the Jackal who asks you to tell your story over and over until it changes into the one that saves your life.
This is why our children begin today a curriculum called “Timeless Themes” in which they will spend the year looking at stories from the Judeo-Christian tradition, but looking at them with our special UU questioning way. Because these stories have power in our society, and knowing these stories, and asking questions of those stories will help us and our children to be agents of healing and change in our world.
I the children’s lesson we told this morning[The Story of the Three Kingdoms by Dean Myers], the people use storytelling to share wisdom and experience. A story can help us remember and share information like “how to move a really heavy object” or “how to catch something that flies” and telling these stories helps us make good decisions for the future. This is one of the reasons we tell stories; so that we understand the mechanics of this world, what works, what doesn’t work. Many of you know the story of Olympia Brown, the first woman ordained to the ministry in a main line church, and a speaker and activist for women’s suffrage. You have heard that she rode in the back of a wagon (without shock absorbers, mind you) over unpaved roads from town to town in Kansas speaking for women’s right to vote where she was often greeted with anger and opposition. And we know that after many decades of her dedicated work, and the work of many others, women were given the right to vote, and Kansas was one of the first states to ratify the 19th amendment. So we tell this story to learn something about the mechanics of how amending constitution works, and we learn something about the multi-generational movement to make sure that women have equal rights. But this is not a civics class. We tell this story in church because the truth I need to hear on a Sunday morning is that changing society is hard, but it is possible. When we get discouraged because the work we are doing for social change is going so slow we are worried we may never see any change, we call to mind this story, and we realize that the slow, thankless work of speaking the truth until the world listens is the unpaved Kansas road of our journey.
This is why the story of Moses and the Israelites is so powerful. Anthropologists have poked huge holes in the historical accuracy of this story, but oppressed peoples around the world have found in this story the strength they need to fight unjust political power structures. It shows us that though the struggle for liberation may be long and hard, that journey can lead to freedom. And in a world where the political and religious powers-that-be are often on the same side, this story shows us that people of faith can stand up to entrenched power. It is a story that has been told and retold by many oppressed people on the road to freedom. Said Martin Luther King in his Nobel Lecture in 1964 “Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The yearning for freedom eventually manifests itself. The Bible tells the thrilling story of how Moses stood in Pharaoh's court centuries ago and cried, "Let my people go."5 This is a kind of opening chapter in a continuing story. The present struggle in the United States is a later chapter in the same unfolding story.”
By seeing the 20th century civil rights movement in the context of a liberation story like that of Moses and the Israelites, suddenly you see the light at the end of the tunnel, and feel the power of history behind you. The story gives you hope and it give you a map of the journey. It also gives you the power to communicate that map. You can say to other people who know the Moses story “Moses stood in Pharoah’s court” and it draws a clear picture of what it looks like to speak truth to power. King didn’t feel he had to tell his audience at the Nobel lecture who Moses and Pharaoh are, because this is one of those stories that “have grown fat in the retelling” as Pratchett said in this morning's reading. [Terry Pratchett Witches Abroad p. 2-4]
But we all know that any powerful tool can be used both for good and for ill. What about the shadow side of story?
Let me tell you about a story that is not working right now-- the story of creation from the Judeo-Christian tradition. As a feminist, I have always had trouble with the story of Adam and Eve, but when I look at the state of today’s environment, I can see that God’s admonition to “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the see and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” (Gen 1:28) is no longer good advice, now that the earth has been subdued, and our multitudes are on the verge of rendering the earth unable to sustain human life.
Environmental Theorists like Thomas Berry and Brian Swimme, propose that we need a new creation story, a new cosmology a new story to change our path. Fortunately, they say, we already have one. The big bang. The story told by science about this history of our universe. In this story we find that we, like the fish, like the trees, are made of stardust. We are part of a story much much older than we are, that will go on long after humanity has left the stage. In this story we are in the middle of the 6th mass extinction that earth has seen since life began here. In this story, which is grounded in the best thinking and research our scientists have to offer, the fact that the conditions necessary to create and sustain life as we know it were met at all fills one with awe and wonder. And wonder, awe and a sense of connection to all life is what we need to move our culture to a sustainable paradigm.
But Swimme and Berry postulate that even those of us in American Society who believe that the Big Bang theory is accurate still function in a Genesis Cosmology- that humans were created to be the stars of the show, and the other living beings are created only as the backdrop for the salvation history of humanity. As long as we live our lives out of that story, even unconsciously, we will think of ourselves as separate and above the physical universe, and will not be motivated to make the changes required for the health and survival of the ecosystem that sustains us. For the survival of our eco-system, we need to change stories.
Here’s another example of being trapped by a story, this time from the Hindu tradition. “A Brahmin [or Hindu Holy man] was having his bath in the river. Then he noticed a scorpion almost drowning. So he lifted the scorpion and put it on the ground. But before he could set it down, the scorpion bit his hand. His companion said to him, ‘What have you done? You have saved him only to get bitten yourself!’. His answer was, ‘I did what I had to do according to my nature. The scorpion did what it had to do according to its nature’. This is a teaching story about non-attachment. It is a powerful and important teaching because each of us encounters things in our life we cannot change, and need to remember not to let our consciousness get stuck in those events or situations. But a western criticism of theologies of surrender is that it does not provide an opportunity for justice-making.
There’s another version of that story called “The Tiger and the Braham” (There’s a great version of it on Rabbit Ears Radio that my son Loves.) In this story, the Brahmin helps a tiger out of the cage after promises that the tiger will not eat him, but when the tiger is freed, he says “foolish Brahman, no one can come between a tiger and his dinner.” After some discussion the Brahmin is allowed to take his case to the next 3 beings he meets. The 3 beings are feeling very cynical and bound by duty, and tell him to accept his fate. But then the Brahmin meets a Jackal, who makes the Brahmin repeat the story over and over “Ah, it is no use” he says “I cannot understand it. My poor Brain! Please take me to the place where this happened so that I can understand.” There, beside the cage, he makes the tiger repeat the story over and over, and finally, in a desperate attempt to make the foolish Jackal understand, the Tiger jumps back in the cage, and the Jackal slams the door shut. The Brahmin decides not to free the tiger this time, and thanks the wise Jackal for teaching him something about the way of the world. So here is the hero in an impossible situation, doomed by fate, but the trickster shows him the side door into a story that “works” for him.
But there are a million stories out there we hear each day. A lot of them we see on TV or in the movies. For example, the story of a rock band discovered by a record label while playing in a local club. The story of the semi-ethical cop who believes the ends justify the means. The story of the wedding that must be stopped by the TRUE love of the bride. The story of the nerds’ revenge. The fantastical story of the rich pretty people who can afford a big apartment in Manhattan and only wear designer clothes and eat at fancy restaurants every night.
My point is that the story of Moses is a powerful one, but these stories from contemporary culture and media have power too. They make us think that it’s worth the risk to express your love, or that being ethical in your work is unimportant if your goal is noble, or that having a certain lifestyle is normal. Some of these are healing stories, and some lead us down dead ends. So we have to notice which stories are creating those channels in which our lives flow. We have to chose a story which allows us to be a hero, and not just an incidental player, and we have to chose a story we can be proud of Part of the reason we share stories at church, in our worship, and in our Religious Education is so that we can become aware of the stories that shape our lives, let them warm in our minds.
So remember to be nice to the animals you meet in the forest, because later they will help you save the princess, remember that even when you feel gawky and clumsy, someday the ugly duckling turns into a swan, remember the child who stood up to the wicked witch, and remember the Jackal who asks you to tell your story over and over until it changes into the one that saves your life.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Our Teachers (August 17, 2008)
Our Teachers
A few years ago I read an article on Lammas, the holiday of Early August, the halfway between Summer Solstice and Fall Equinox, which suggested that this is good time of year to honor our teachers. Ever since, when Lammas comes around I think of the teachers in my life and the doors they have opened for me. I also thought it might be a good way for us to get to know one another if we each shared something of the teachers who have helped us become the people we are.
Any one of us has too many teachers to name. We learn from others long after we leave school. Just this past month I learned: how to harvest cucumbers, how many new ways one can prepare and eat cucumbers, and when to plant garlic for the following year.
So we dedicate our service today to all our teachers, great and small, in the classroom and out in the world who helped form us, and helped us form ourselves.
I want to share a few of my teachers with you, so that you can get to know me better, and so that I can express my gratitude to them, and later in the service each of you will have a chance to do the same if you choose.
Our parents are our first and primary teachers. They are teaching us every minute of the day when we are young, whether they mean to or not. Of all those things, today I am grateful to my mother who taught me to honor our family heritage and that our heritage and traditions are precious. She told me the story of the dishes in our glass cabinet that were passed on from her parents and from my dad’s parents. She told me where the recipes she made each holiday came from, and when I got my first apartment on my own, she made me a cookbook of the most crucial recipes necessary to observe the family traditions.
Of all the things my father taught me, today I am grateful that he taught me how to listen. He taught me to listen critically as I helped him choose a new saxophone; “This one or this one? How does it sound if I change the neck? The Mouthpiece?” And he taught me to listen joyfully, as we listened to our favorite soprano Renata Tebaldi on long drives together.
My Sister is also one of my oldest teachers. I remember once I received a sweater as a gift, and it had just too much fringe of flowers for my taste. I passed it on to her, knowing I would never wear it. She accepted it gratefully and then cut of the fringe and flowers to make it perfectly darling and chic. She teaches me again and again that what the universe gives can be thought of as raw material for you to use and make into something beautiful that fits your own life.
I am still learning from my Grandpa John who, though he died many years ago, continues to be a role model for being honest and big hearted. “What would Grandpa do?” we often ask ourselves when we are stuck with an ethical quandary.
I have to mention Dr. Dewsnap, my High School English Teacher, who played a notable Adelaide in the all-teacher production of Guys and Dolls. I wasn’t sure whether I should pursue a career in music and she said “you have to go for it, or you will always wonder.”
Not too long after I met Prof. Jo Ann Hackett, who taught “Women in Ancient Israel” at Indiana University, and later Prof. Gina Henz-Piazza of the Graduate Theological Union Both taught me to love the scriptures, and empowered me to look for the truth hidden there, which is often hiding out behind the stories told by the power structures of patriarchy and institutional religion.
Prof. Yielbanzie Charles Johnson taught a class in ritual while I was in seminary that turned worship from a form that must be strictly followed, into a magical kind of clay that has the power to support people through transitions, to lift our spirits, to hold us when we grieve, and sometimes to unleash the real magic of transforming ourselves and transforming our world. We learned this not only by creating beautiful ritual together, but also sometimes by creating bad ritual. And we found that bad ritual happened when we didn’t take seriously how much power we have, and how emotional it can be to ritualize something together.
My last year of seminary I finally got pulled from the waiting list to take a class called “The Meaning in Dreams and Dreaming” From UU Minister Jeremy Taylor. He helped me see that much of the self is happening outside of our conscious thought, and that dreamworld is full of power and beauty that help make us whole. He opened up a place in my imagination that lead to a spiritual awakening. And on that awakening there were so many other amazing teachers to guide me, Bob Kimball, Olga Luchakova, and my Dharma Buddies who traveled with me on my way.
Much of what I know about youth ministry I learned from my first youth group; 5 Jr. High school boys who I watched grow to be come fine young men. I’ll never forget my first meeting with them. The retiring youth advisor had gone to the other room, and left me with the group who was trying to find out whether Doritos burn by holding them in the flame of their chalice. We learned that yes, Doritos do burn, and we also learned that the metallic tray the chalice was on was not fire-proof, but actually a flammable plastic which we determined when bits of burning Doritos fell out of the chalice onto the tray below. After running the flaming tray to the nearby kitchen sink, I stated “I think we are done with fire for tonight.” When I left the group 2 years later to become the church’s intern, we held a ritual featuring a very fire-safe kettle grill. They taught me what youth empowerment is and what it is not.
Much of what I know about how to balance a budget I learned from the finance committee at UUCPA who taught me what real numbers look like, and how to tell them from pie in the sky. They taught me the value of a sustainable budget when the dot.com bubble burst around them, and the church stayed afloat without a single lay-off. I am also grateful to my dad and mother-in-law who continue to be models to me about what it means to live within your means.
In the years after birth of my son, I found a yoga teacher who helped me reclaim my physical body, and helped me fall in love with this practice that is my central practice today. Kent Bond taught basic principles of form and alignment and to “feel like a power ranger” I still hear his voice in my head “Don’t punish your knees for what your hips won’t give you” “When you reach your edge, ease up a bit, don’t hang out there” and “your breath, your body” and generally introduced me to the idea that sometimes the goal in life is not to push yourself to be the best, but to do the right action at the right time. I have also been lucky to have taken classes with many great teachers over the past 5 years, like Michelle who taught me to relax the muscles you are not using, and my new teacher Steven Valloney, who made me feel welcome into the Ithaca community and helped me loosen the grasp of ego long enough to heal an injury.
I had so many great teachers on my sabbatical at the University of Creation Spirituality, I wasn’t sure what one to name, so I realize that I want to give a shout out to Matthew Fox, who founded the school, who called those teachers together, and put in place a pedagogical paradigm that taught me as much about religious education as anything I learned in seminary. I went there because I wanted a spiritual grounding that would help me live a life more focused on our earth, and found this small graduate program in downtown Oakland that showed how awe and wonder for the earth is at the core of a sustainable life and community.
I tried to puzzle out how I learned about Social Justice. When I was growing up UU, there were plenty of stories of Susan B Anthony, and Ghandi, and MLK. In fact for a while there our preacher mentioned those 3 each time he mentioned Jesus, one of the original social activists. They are my teachers, and that church was too. I knew that if you put your life on the line for what you believe, you were probably on the right track, and you were in good company. I want to call out Rev. Kurt Kuhwald who was serving with me on September 11, 2001, and Rev. Lindy Ramsden who made the UULM of CA a model for legislative ministry around the country. They showed me how doing the work of a minister looks when making justice is your core value.
Without these teachers, I would miss much of the richness of the life I now enjoy. It was hard to choose just this dozen or so to hang my gratitude on. This list is woefully incomplete. But it shows me what I value in life, and reminds me how many gifts I have been given. I also noticed in the process of reflecting on this list, that when you list your teachers, you learn something about what you feel you KNOW. It is harder to be grateful for something you are still wrestling with. And so perhaps this is a perfect practice for this part of the year when the harvest is not yet complete. It allows us to ask: “What is your harvest? What is still growing?”
A few years ago I read an article on Lammas, the holiday of Early August, the halfway between Summer Solstice and Fall Equinox, which suggested that this is good time of year to honor our teachers. Ever since, when Lammas comes around I think of the teachers in my life and the doors they have opened for me. I also thought it might be a good way for us to get to know one another if we each shared something of the teachers who have helped us become the people we are.
Any one of us has too many teachers to name. We learn from others long after we leave school. Just this past month I learned: how to harvest cucumbers, how many new ways one can prepare and eat cucumbers, and when to plant garlic for the following year.
So we dedicate our service today to all our teachers, great and small, in the classroom and out in the world who helped form us, and helped us form ourselves.
I want to share a few of my teachers with you, so that you can get to know me better, and so that I can express my gratitude to them, and later in the service each of you will have a chance to do the same if you choose.
Our parents are our first and primary teachers. They are teaching us every minute of the day when we are young, whether they mean to or not. Of all those things, today I am grateful to my mother who taught me to honor our family heritage and that our heritage and traditions are precious. She told me the story of the dishes in our glass cabinet that were passed on from her parents and from my dad’s parents. She told me where the recipes she made each holiday came from, and when I got my first apartment on my own, she made me a cookbook of the most crucial recipes necessary to observe the family traditions.
Of all the things my father taught me, today I am grateful that he taught me how to listen. He taught me to listen critically as I helped him choose a new saxophone; “This one or this one? How does it sound if I change the neck? The Mouthpiece?” And he taught me to listen joyfully, as we listened to our favorite soprano Renata Tebaldi on long drives together.
My Sister is also one of my oldest teachers. I remember once I received a sweater as a gift, and it had just too much fringe of flowers for my taste. I passed it on to her, knowing I would never wear it. She accepted it gratefully and then cut of the fringe and flowers to make it perfectly darling and chic. She teaches me again and again that what the universe gives can be thought of as raw material for you to use and make into something beautiful that fits your own life.
I am still learning from my Grandpa John who, though he died many years ago, continues to be a role model for being honest and big hearted. “What would Grandpa do?” we often ask ourselves when we are stuck with an ethical quandary.
I have to mention Dr. Dewsnap, my High School English Teacher, who played a notable Adelaide in the all-teacher production of Guys and Dolls. I wasn’t sure whether I should pursue a career in music and she said “you have to go for it, or you will always wonder.”
Not too long after I met Prof. Jo Ann Hackett, who taught “Women in Ancient Israel” at Indiana University, and later Prof. Gina Henz-Piazza of the Graduate Theological Union Both taught me to love the scriptures, and empowered me to look for the truth hidden there, which is often hiding out behind the stories told by the power structures of patriarchy and institutional religion.
Prof. Yielbanzie Charles Johnson taught a class in ritual while I was in seminary that turned worship from a form that must be strictly followed, into a magical kind of clay that has the power to support people through transitions, to lift our spirits, to hold us when we grieve, and sometimes to unleash the real magic of transforming ourselves and transforming our world. We learned this not only by creating beautiful ritual together, but also sometimes by creating bad ritual. And we found that bad ritual happened when we didn’t take seriously how much power we have, and how emotional it can be to ritualize something together.
My last year of seminary I finally got pulled from the waiting list to take a class called “The Meaning in Dreams and Dreaming” From UU Minister Jeremy Taylor. He helped me see that much of the self is happening outside of our conscious thought, and that dreamworld is full of power and beauty that help make us whole. He opened up a place in my imagination that lead to a spiritual awakening. And on that awakening there were so many other amazing teachers to guide me, Bob Kimball, Olga Luchakova, and my Dharma Buddies who traveled with me on my way.
Much of what I know about youth ministry I learned from my first youth group; 5 Jr. High school boys who I watched grow to be come fine young men. I’ll never forget my first meeting with them. The retiring youth advisor had gone to the other room, and left me with the group who was trying to find out whether Doritos burn by holding them in the flame of their chalice. We learned that yes, Doritos do burn, and we also learned that the metallic tray the chalice was on was not fire-proof, but actually a flammable plastic which we determined when bits of burning Doritos fell out of the chalice onto the tray below. After running the flaming tray to the nearby kitchen sink, I stated “I think we are done with fire for tonight.” When I left the group 2 years later to become the church’s intern, we held a ritual featuring a very fire-safe kettle grill. They taught me what youth empowerment is and what it is not.
Much of what I know about how to balance a budget I learned from the finance committee at UUCPA who taught me what real numbers look like, and how to tell them from pie in the sky. They taught me the value of a sustainable budget when the dot.com bubble burst around them, and the church stayed afloat without a single lay-off. I am also grateful to my dad and mother-in-law who continue to be models to me about what it means to live within your means.
In the years after birth of my son, I found a yoga teacher who helped me reclaim my physical body, and helped me fall in love with this practice that is my central practice today. Kent Bond taught basic principles of form and alignment and to “feel like a power ranger” I still hear his voice in my head “Don’t punish your knees for what your hips won’t give you” “When you reach your edge, ease up a bit, don’t hang out there” and “your breath, your body” and generally introduced me to the idea that sometimes the goal in life is not to push yourself to be the best, but to do the right action at the right time. I have also been lucky to have taken classes with many great teachers over the past 5 years, like Michelle who taught me to relax the muscles you are not using, and my new teacher Steven Valloney, who made me feel welcome into the Ithaca community and helped me loosen the grasp of ego long enough to heal an injury.
I had so many great teachers on my sabbatical at the University of Creation Spirituality, I wasn’t sure what one to name, so I realize that I want to give a shout out to Matthew Fox, who founded the school, who called those teachers together, and put in place a pedagogical paradigm that taught me as much about religious education as anything I learned in seminary. I went there because I wanted a spiritual grounding that would help me live a life more focused on our earth, and found this small graduate program in downtown Oakland that showed how awe and wonder for the earth is at the core of a sustainable life and community.
I tried to puzzle out how I learned about Social Justice. When I was growing up UU, there were plenty of stories of Susan B Anthony, and Ghandi, and MLK. In fact for a while there our preacher mentioned those 3 each time he mentioned Jesus, one of the original social activists. They are my teachers, and that church was too. I knew that if you put your life on the line for what you believe, you were probably on the right track, and you were in good company. I want to call out Rev. Kurt Kuhwald who was serving with me on September 11, 2001, and Rev. Lindy Ramsden who made the UULM of CA a model for legislative ministry around the country. They showed me how doing the work of a minister looks when making justice is your core value.
Without these teachers, I would miss much of the richness of the life I now enjoy. It was hard to choose just this dozen or so to hang my gratitude on. This list is woefully incomplete. But it shows me what I value in life, and reminds me how many gifts I have been given. I also noticed in the process of reflecting on this list, that when you list your teachers, you learn something about what you feel you KNOW. It is harder to be grateful for something you are still wrestling with. And so perhaps this is a perfect practice for this part of the year when the harvest is not yet complete. It allows us to ask: “What is your harvest? What is still growing?”
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)