Keeping the Dream Alive

 How shall we keep the dream alive? This is not a rhetorical question. In the warm months of 2020, we were in the streets witnessing the need for change in our criminal justice system. We created marched and kept vigil, studied and discussed, we called on our political leaders for specific legislative change. We felt a wave growing so large that change seemed inevitable.

Right now, we face the most contagious wave of the pandemic, legislatures who are passing more laws to take away voting rights than to create a more just world, and the change we called for in 2020 to our justice system has been grudging and incremental where it has come at all.

In his famous “I Have a Dream"  speech at the march on Washington, that he gave on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to that massive gathering in support of civil rights, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. reminded us of the passage in the Jewish scriptures [Amos 5:24]: “we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.“. Back in the spring of 2020 we could feel the growing power of that stream, the momentum. Today it feels like a trickle.

How shall we keep the dream alive? Because it’s an important dream- it’s a beautiful dream. As a people who affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person, it is our dream. And that dream needs our steady attention and support both when the realization seems close at hand, and when progress is slow, when we can’t see the way forward. We must keep that dream alive in our hearts until it is finally realized.

How shall we keep the dream alive? We honor the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. this week for his heroism and inspiring words, but we also honor all those thousands who worked and sacrificed in service to that dream, through thousands of acts, large and small. One key, I think, to keeping the dream alive is not to imagine that there is one heroic act that we could do, as individuals, as a congregation, that will finally bring racism to an end. We must be willing to do all the humble invisible things that are part of great social change.

Racism is part of our collective shadow, it is bigger than any one of us. When we face our collective shadow as a nation, as a civilization, it can be overwhelming. My teacher Br. Don Bisson gave us this advice, at the first meeting of our class on the collective shadow: to be careful of inflation and deflation. Inflation is whenever we think that we ourselves can single-handedly defeat something in our collective shadow, like racism. That we can swoop in like a super hero, and slay the evil in a single great battle. Racism is real, and tenacious, and bigger than any one of us, that is why it persists. He also warned us not to deflate ourselves, not to see the size of the shadow, and give in to despair, thinking there is nothing we can do. Despair, he said, is what the shadow wants from us. As Margaret Mead is in our hymnal “never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committee citizens can change the world, indeed it’s the only thing that ever has.” Let that water of justice trickle through our own hearts, through our little community, trusting that like the creeks and tributaries all over this land that feed the great rivers, Susquehanna and Chemung the Chenango, our small acts, our small lives feed that great river of justice.

King got involved in leadership in the civil rights movement back in 1955, with the bus boycotts. He was a young minister in his 20s at his first church. During that movement his house was bombed, he spent his first nights in jail, but real change was won, as the courts ruled bus segregation unconstitutional. In 1961 King was involved in the movement that lead to the desegregation of lunch counters. But 1962, 60 years ago from this year, was actually a difficult time in the civil rights moment. People made many sacrifices, but saw no concrete change that year. Perhaps it’s helpful to remember that even during the great Civil Rights era, there were years like 1962 when the flow of justice slowed to a trickle. The following year, 1963, was the year of the great march on Washington, where King gave that famous" I Have a Dream" speech.

It wasn’t until the march on Selma in 1965 that the Unitarian Universalists really got involved in number. When those UU ministers and white folks showed up, we were able to offer the kid of support to the movement that made a difference. It was a proud day for our UU Faith, and our public stance drew in a wave of black members who were moved by our actions. In 1967 the momentum swelled in our denomination, and we made a significant commitment of funding and action in 1968, but almost immediately that mighty swell receded.

By 1970 the UUA board voted for a reduction in funding due to a financial crisis and some factions pushed for a leadership structure that would make sure there was white oversight of how the funds earmarked for black empowerment would be used. There was a great controversy and many black members and other folks committed to anti racism and black empowerment left our churches. Our work on anti-racism slowed to a trickle.

We, as a denomination, have that in our collective shadow. We must learn from our history, and keep the dream of an anti-racist, anti-oppressive faith alive. In recent years the momentum, the commitment for anti-racism swelled again, and we have to ask ourselves, are we a denomination who shows up for anti-racism when momentum is at high tide? Or are we a denomination who has taken the calling to work for anti racism into our identity, who shows up day after day to do the steady work of change? That is where we are now- can we keep our steady attention and support on this dream?

We are called to keep this dream alive- not only that beautiful dream MLK shared in his speech, the dream of all those who fought for civil rights in the60s, but our UU dream of truly being an anti-racist, anti-oppressive organization. To do that, the people most impacted by the work must be making decisions, must give input, must be in leadership. UU is making progress with this. We have the report from the commission on institutional change that we called for during the swelling of passion for justice in our movement, but can we commit to the steady and often invisible work of implementing their suggestions in every part of our lives together?

We Unitarian Universalists are not called only when the streets are full of protestors, not only when anti-racism is in the news each day. We are called to do the slow work of justice, day after day. We are called to keep learning and growing our capacity. To show up and keep showing up.

How can we keep the dream alive when we are weary? When we are stuck at home? There are few marches in the streets this weekend, because Omicron is at high tide. As a denomination we have made choices to protect the most vulnerable by social distancing, by masking, by following CDC guidance. Our commitment to stay home this morning, to have this very worship online was informed by our commitment to protect the most vulnerable, knowing that people of color are disproportionately impacted by this pandemic.

In times like this, when we are dealing with illness and grief and weariness, the way we keep the dream alive will look different than it did in the summer of 2020, or 1963. If you are full of energy for justice right now, and looking for new places to roll up your sleeves, here are some wonderful places to get start today: 

• Showing up for Racial Justice
• The BLUU Housing Initiative
• Criminal Justice Reform 
• Black Lives Matter
• Protect Voting Rights  

...let us know what you learn and we will do everything we can to support you. 

But if you are weary, if you are overwhelmed, I invite you to simply keep the dream before you in the things you are already doing. Racism is truly in all the aspects of our shared life, and so our attention is needed in all those small tidepools of life as well.

A few years ago I gave a sermon encouraging folks to find ways to listen for voices they don’t normally hear. I suggested that if we love poetry, we can seek out poetry in voices different than our own. That if we love science fiction, we might check out afro-futurism, that if we love movies, we could support movies with black directors and writers, that if we love classical music we could see out black and brown performers and composers. I received feedback from one white person who said “is this really the most important thing we could be doing to end racism?” No, of course not. But how many days of the year do we get the opportunity to do that one heroic act? We may never get a chance to make history, like Rosa Parks, or Dorothy Cotton or James Reeb. On days when we don’t have the opportunity to do the most important thing, we can do something. Like a musician who practices every day so they are ready for the big concert, I encourage us to practice anti-racism everyday, perhaps when the moments come when we can do the hard thing, we can recognize it, and be ready to act skillfully.

How can we keep the dream alive? The thing we keep learning about racism, is how it is woven into almost every aspect of our lives together. It is not only in the criminal justice system, but in housing, in our schools, in our churches, in the arts. I stumbled upon an article this week explaining that black hair in video games is terrible (I had no idea), and that game design companies never seem to have the resources or motivation to fix the problem, so some enterprising folks are creating an Open Source Afro Hair Library of black hair styles that are beautiful, that encourage pride for all those touched by the gaming industry.

Or…Since the pandemic I’ve spent a lot of time watching birds. My interest in poetry and birds and anti-racism lead me to this wonderful poet: J Drew Lanham who introduced me to the black birder movement, - I had been completely ignorant of the challenges and dangers for black people who love watching birds like I do.

On all the ordinary days of the year, days when we are stuck at home, or weary, there are still opportunities to weave that vision of a world free of racism into our lives. We can support the dreams not only for our justice system, where things are among the most terrible, but also all the dreams that make up a complex and rich life- in our colleges, in our symphonies, in our video games, in our children’s libraries. In our parenting, and grandparenting and aunting and uncling, in our workplaces and football stadiums.

If you don’t know where to begin, type something you love, something you do every day into your favorite search engine with the word “racism in” before it. Or the word “black” or “native American” before it. Begin to learn how racism has been, still is part of the fabric of our daily lives, begin to learn the gifts and contributions and dreams of black people and other marginalized people to the things you care about. Don’t let the big things beyond our control keep you from doing the things you can do, touching the lives you can touch.

If you are the praying type, bring this to prayer, Ask for guidance about how your life can be part of that mighty stream:

“Spirit of life, weary and discouraged as I am today, help me find my own way to keep the dream alive.”

If you are not one who prays, follow your conscience, and see where it leads you.

Remember that board of directors of the Nashville public library who quietly voted to integrate all their facilities in the 1950s, and what a big difference it made to author Patricia McKissack, and many untold others.

In the words of 3D artist Jovan Wilson who contributed some really cool looks to the Open Source Afro Hair Library “I hear a lot of people say, ‘Why does it matter?’ Because it means a lot, you know? You want to see yourself. I’ve seen so many kids faces just light up when they see dolls and characters that look like them. It means something,” Wilson said. “So seeing this project for the first time was like time for me to heal my inner child.”[ii]

When we do the small things we can do, we may never know the difference we make, but we can help keep that dream alive, Let us protect that dream like a precious family heirloom, until it is finally realized.

---

[i] https://www.gilderlehrman.org/sites/default/files/inline-pdfs/Abridged%20MLK%20Dream%20Speech_0.pdf

[ii] https://www.vice.com/en/article/5dgdwz/black-hair-in-video-games?

Who We Are and Who We Are Becoming

The poet Mary Oliver writes:

“’We are what we are, you
are what you are, love us if you can.’"

This is the core of what I want to share with you today. What would it be like to arrive at a place where you know what you are, and love it?

I’ve spent a lot of my life trying to be what I’m not, to address my weaknesses. As a child I got extra tutoring in areas where I was struggling, like hand eye coordination and spelling and memorization. I’m conflict averse, so I spent a lot of energy going into situations that I was afraid of and saying hard things that needed to be said.

But something magical happened when I turned 50- Magical and hard. I realized that my memory was definitely not going to get better, that as a Highly sensitive person I was never going to enjoy conflict management, that even in an area like yoga where I do pretty well, I was never going to get into some of the pretzels because I just wasn’t built the right way.

When I was a kid, I had a whole bunch of visions of who I might become and other visions I had when I was a young adult, when I was a seminary student, many of which I can see now are never going to come into being.

I am never going to become a ballet dancer

I am never goign to be a brain surgeon

I am never going to be the first woman president

I am never going to become a professional singer

I think this is part of what the poet
David Whyte means when he writes:

“Give up all the other worlds
except the one to which you belong.”

I did, in fact, become a minister. I used to think I wanted to be Rev. Lindi Ramsden- the fearless and tireless Unitarian Universalist minister who worked 80 hour wees to create the UU Justice ministry of CA, creating a model that we is used all around the country. I tried to be like Rev. Rob Eller-Isaacs or Rev. David Keyes who don’t take any nonsense from anyone, who act boldly fearless of the conflict that may follow. It was something of a relief, as I celebrated 20 years in the ministry, to realize that I would never be Lindi, or Rob or Dave, that I could only, in fact be me.

At first this letting go was just grief, an unexpected sadness for all those possibilities which, it was time to admit, were no longer possible.

But then I began to ask myself, what if I treated these imperfections not like bugs in a computer program, but like features? What if God was calling me not to be someone else, but exactly who I am? I began imagine that grief about all I would never be was like a cleansing rain, rinsing away the debris of who I never was, washing away who I used to be, and revealing the bones of who I really am.

Here’s one example- I am a slow reader. I sit down to read the 500 page book assigned for a class and 2 pages later I need a break. My whole life I thought this was due to lack of will, or laziness. My hero bell hooks said she made herself read a whole nonfiction book in the morning before she would let herself read fun fiction in the afternoon. I’m lucky if I get through a handful of non-fiction books a year. Recently I attended a workshop on “spiritual reading” that gave exactly this instruction: read just a few pages at a time, until you reached something that strikes you, that speaks to you, and then to just sit with that insight and let it soak in. It’s a great way to read poetry, or scripture, or anything really if you want to really touch layers of deeper meaning and integration. Oh! I realized with a shock of recognition- that’s the way I read naturally. In that moment I decided to stop being embarrassed by reading slowly, that’s just who I am.

Part of the journey in the second half of life is about owning who we have been, who we are not, and who we are right now. What things do I want to grieve and release- the things we wanted to be, hoped to be, felt we should be?

Are there things about yourself that maybe you were embarrassed about or sad about that you have come to peace with? Take a moment to consider  ...

A crucial element to the journey of discovery in the second half of life is asking: What do we really know about who we are right now? Consider all those thousands of things you know just from being alive in your mind and body all these years- from the foods that give you indigestion to how you respond in a conflict, to what has brought you joy. I often share Walter Burghardt's definition of contemplation “a long loving look at the real” and it applies here, in our contemplation of our own selves. We take our gaze off of all that we are not (and everyone, no matter how accomplished, has things that they are not – that’s part of being human) And invite your loving attention to who you actually are- right now. You don’t have to like the fact that cheese gives you health troubles, you may even need to grieve that loss, but can you gaze on your whole self, cheese problems and all, with love?

As Rev. Theresa Soto encouraged us: “The thing you must be is yourself.”

This kind of reflection and integration takes years, a lifetime even. Insight matters, but also intuition, preferences, feelings. In this kind of inventory it is less important what you scored on your SAT or your elementary school teacher told you about your bad spelling, and more important to notice, as the poet says:

“anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive
is too small for you.”

What brings you alive? What do you love, right now at this time in your life? Or simply prefer, if it’s too early in the morning to really get excited about things.

I Know that I love really dark chocolate,
I love reading sci-fi fantasy novels
I love when birds land at my feeder
I love lingering over my coffee in the morning.
I prefer having a regular schedule and getting enough sleep most nights.
I’ve recently developed a fondness for this particular shade of orange

How about you- what do you love at this moment in your life? Take a moment to consider ...

I used to think I wanted to be a brave warrior minister, going into the heart of conflict, but really what I love is peace. I love being part of peaceful congregations full of kind people who support each other and manifest love in the world. How lucky I am to get to do that. And if we have a conflict, I screw up my courage and use all my years of ministry experience with past conflicts to help us navigate it, but I know myself, I know that I love peace, and that’s a feature, not a bug.

Once we have begun this inventory, this loving reflection on who we are now, it enables us to move into the future in a choice-ful way.

A few years back a preacher at the UU minister’s institute from the Pentecostal tradition (Rev. James Forbes) reassured us that if God wants you to do something, God will provide a way. I’m an agnostic about things like that, but I decided to try it on. What a relief this idea has been. Last year I had a lot of theological questions about the hard things going on in our world. I realized that I had gotten to the end of where my theological understanding could take me- this new world we were in requires a new map, a new vision. I longed for a teacher, a mentor- I kept having dreams of going back to school. I had dreamed one day of getting a doctorate, but friends told me about the stacks and stacks of reading- 5 books a week in some programs. I decided that I can’t read fast enough for a doctorate, then probably the work God is calling me to do does not require a doctorate. It turns out that the kind of reading I do naturally is better suited contemplation than academics, so I signed up for a year-long program that has only 8 required reading books, and encourages deep contemplation, and already the insight I’ve gained from the course have helped me make sense of this life, and helped support me in my ministry to you.

By accepting who I am I was able to choose a path forward that feels like a good fit for me. The calling I feel matches precisely who I am and who I am becoming.

We Unitarian Universalists are a diverse group theologically. We are Theists and Atheists and Agnostics. So whether you believe in the providential hand of God active in your life, or the power of intention, or aren't sure what to believe, we UUs all affirm the inherent worth and dignity of every person. That’s an unconditional worth- based on who you really are, not who you should be or an ideal standard you might someday achieve.

At the start of this new year, I invite you into this reflection, this long loving look, at who you are, right now. I invite you to release what you are ready to release, to love the parts of yourself that feel unloved, to follow the sparks of aliveness that come from your true self, and to move choiceful-ly into this next part of your life with faith that each of us can best serve this hurting and beautiful world by becoming more and more who we are.

“’We are what we are, you
are what you are, love us if you can.’"

Waiting

 Waiting is hard. If you celebrated Christmas as a child, perhaps you remember the agonizing wait for Christmas morning. I remember having trouble going to sleep the night before and waking throughout the night wondering “is it here yet?”. When my son was little we used to have a pact about what was the earliest he could wake us up Christmas morning.

Now that we are adults our Christmas celebration is more subdued. We still honor our Christmas morning tradition, but it’s often light out by the time we get up, we make coffee, start the cinnamon rolls, and then begin the discussion about when we should wake our 20 year old son.

We made a decision a few years back, when my son had grown too old for the intense Christmas magic of early childhood, to scale back, to do less for the holidays. It was a relief to let go of many of the stressful expectations and preparations. The first year I tried doing less in the build up for Christmas I noticed that feeling of “getting ready,” of nervous anticipation was still there. I realized that the feeling came not from the ambitious deadlines I set myself, the stressful preparations of gifts and cooking and cleaning and preparing worship, but that there was a feeling waiting that was just there, even once the preparations were done. It occurred to me that maybe the waiting I felt is instinctive,. As they say in the fictional world of Game of Thrones: “Winter is coming”

I feel like this “waiting” aspect of advent resonates with the larger cultural moment we are in, waiting and waiting and, waiting for an end to the pandemic. Perhaps the advent tradition has some wisdom to offer about how to navigate this less joyful waiting we have been doing.

What is waiting anyway? Really, if you had to explain it to someone, how would you explain it? There are so many kinds of waiting, Jan Richardson listed many of them in her beautiful Blessing for Waiting. Clearly the quality of waiting for Christmas morning is quite different from, for example, waiting for test results.

Part of what makes waiting so uncomfortable is that it splits our attention. We can’t keep our attention fully in the present moment, because there is something in the future we need to pay attention to. If I’m waiting for cookies to come out of the oven, I need to pay attention to the timer or I might have burned cookies. If I’m waiting for a bus, I need to pay attention or I might miss it.

Waiting also implies that some part of what I’m waiting for is out of my hands. Once the cookies are in the oven there’s nothing I can do except wait. If we are waiting for a child to be born, if we are waiting for the return of the sun, we don’t control the timetable, So waiting is kind of a “yin” activity, a passive, receptive activity which is hard for us active busy folks.

But we do have choices we can make while we are waiting. Generally I deal with the discomfort of waiting by filling up my time with work. My husband uses the other technique, getting everything ready early and then setting everything down to wait. What’s your technique? How do you manage the waiting process?

If you are the kind of person who likes to fill waiting time with activity, you can choose to stay busy to help the time pass. Some folks prefer a more contemplative approach- if the cookies are important, you might wait in attentive stillness- you don’t want to get distracted with other tasks and miss the perfect moment to take them out. Part of the reason my husband is never late for anything is that he doesn’t fill the waiting time with distracting activity, and is always ready by the door with his shoes and coat on well before it is time to leave.

The advent tradition encourages us to use the waiting time to prepare our spirits for the coming of Christmas, to prepare our hearts for new life. Father Bob, from the Eastern Point Retreat House I often visit, sent this Advent reflection:

“What we may want to pay attention to on this Advent journey, is the interior movement of the Spirit within; that desires to bring us closer to God as we go about our “busyness.”. We may also want to pay attention to the interior movements of the Spirit that may surprise us with joy in the midst of the pain and suffering that we see all around us.” - Robert Vereecke, SJ

In the Catholic tradition, advent is a time of contemplative preparation, taking time to notice those “movements of the spirit.” Just as a baker who is carefully watching the cookies in their transformation is likely to notice when they are at precisely the right done-ness, if we take time to notice the interior movements of spirit, Advent will be a more spirit-centered season. This quiet approach to preparation is different from just “doing nothing” because of that intention, attention and awareness. As Father Bob says Advent is “the invitation to be “awake, vigilant, attentive” to God’s working in the world?”

Another way we can prepare is more active, more exterior. I know in my own life that when I am anxious, doing something physical like cooking or washing dishes can really help ground me. Preparing for Christmas by decorating and baking and connecting with friends and families will not make it come any faster, but it definitely increases the odds that there will be cookies, and lights, and a feeling of connection when it finally comes. This more embodied approach to preparation also benefits from our attention and intention. I suspect all of us have experienced a “too busy” advent season, in which the acts of preparation, the expectations of having certain things in place so overwhelm that we just end up agitated with burnt cookies or a burned out spirit. If we choose to engage in those active, external acts of preparation, we might do them with the clear intention of creating a holiday celebration more in line with our values, in line with what our hearts need this year.

But of course, part of what makes waiting hard is that there are no guarantees about what will happen. My friend found out this past Thanksgiving after her turkey had been in the oven 2 hours already that her oven was broken. The thanksgiving dinner they were waiting for turned out very different than they had anticipated.

Back in March of 2020 I imagined our lives would be constrained by Covid for just a few weeks. But we waited as the virus spread and spread. This summer I was sure we were through the other side, I celebrated this summer with hugs of relief; my friends and I were vaccinated and the Covid numbers were the lowest they had been and I wanted to celebrate the milestone. And then Delta, and now Omacron, and the heartbreaking losses we have felt. How all this will turn out no one knows. It’s so much harder to wait when you don’t know how much longer the wait will be, or even what you are waiting for.

Maybe there are better times ahead, maybe worse, probably some of each. This is called a liminal” or “interstitial” place- an in-between place like being in the waiting room at the hospital, the bus stop as the scheduled time passes and there is no bus in sight.

For Christians observing advent, the tradition focuses on the coming of the savior foretold in the books of the prophets. One of the readings in the lectionary this past week was from the book of Isiah,

The desert and the parched land will exult;
the steppe will rejoice and bloom.
They will bloom with abundant flowers,
and rejoice with joyful song. …

Strengthen the hands that are feeble,
make firm the knees that are weak,
Say to those whose hearts are frightened:
Be strong, fear not! …

Streams will burst forth in the desert,
and rivers in the steppe.
The burning sands will become pools,
and the thirsty ground, springs of water;
sorrow and mourning will flee. [from I Is 35]

Each day in advent, the lectionary is full of scripture reminding Christians about the promise that is fulfilled on Christmas.

This season offers a promise for all of us, Christian or not, in the Nativity story. Mary the pregnant mother waiting for new life. Telling the story of that miraculous birth reminds us that life finds a way. That even in these discouraging times, life finds a way, and new life emerges. Mary and Joseph set out to Bethlehem as the gospel of Luke says “being great with child” or the more modern translations “soon to give birth.” Advent is a gestational time, waiting for something new to be born. Even now expectant parents are getting ready to welcome new life into the world, new, miraculous, utterly unique persons, babies of untold potential.

Waiting for even the most planned for, most anticipated baby has complexity to it. Even if everything goes perfectly, at the end of the process the new parents’ life will be changed forever as they welcome a new being into the world. Even if everything goes exactly according to plan, there will be pain and hard work and sleepless nights.

And we all know, and try not to think too hard about, that it doesn’t always go perfectly, some pregnancies end in loss and sadness. But life itself continues, entering the world again and again. Even in this time of loss and grief and uncertainty, new life makes its way into the world every day.

There’s a lot we can’t control, so much that is out of our hands, but we do have choices about how we use this time. Think about it- advent takes a whole month, and depending on how fast kids unwrap the presents, the Christmas morning present ritual kids pine for can be over in 15 minutes. How can we best inhabit this in-between-time? How can we use this liminal time to prepare ourselves for whatever is coming? Whether that is quieting ourselves so we can watch those subtle inner movements of the spirit, or doing the embodied work of putting our values in action, of preparing the things that we want to have ready when the future finally arrives?

Consider that all this time we have been “waiting to go back to church” we have never stopped going to church, and in fact we have created something new we could never have imagined. Whatever the future may hold, we now have the tools to gather in a meaningful way even if we can’t be in the same space. We have new friends, and all the relationships we have strengthened during this time. We have losses too, and part of the preparation for whatever is coming is that we must grieve those losses, so that when good times come again, our hearts are ready.

What does your heart need in this time of waiting- this month of advent as the nights grow longer and longer and we wait for the promised light to return, as we wait for the Christmas miracle of birth? What does your heart need in this longer time of waiting-- waiting for Covid to pass, waiting for heaviness of grief and loss to pass, waiting for the promise of new life to be fulfilled?

Last year as I was decorating for Christmas I pulled out literally every decoration I had and put them up until our dining room looked like a shop window, and any remaining decorations I donated to families who needed a little Christmas. This year as I was decorating for Christmas, I left whole tubs of the decorations in the closet. A sprig or 2 of holly from my garden on a plane wreath felt uniquely right to honor this unique year. What feels just right to you as you prepare your home, your hearts your spirits? What old or new rituals or practices would you like to include?

My spiritual director, Janet Corso, says that Advent is “a time of deepening interiority, awaiting birth - a time of active waiting, simplicity, nesting, preparing, quiet expectation, surrendering in preparation for receiving.” Together we wait, and prepare, open to new life in all its forms. Trusting in the promise of life always giving birth to life.

 

 

Why Dreidels?

 Each year as we approach the winter holiday season, Unitarian Universalists have their own ritual, which is asking ourselves “What do we celebrate and why do we celebrate it?” How do we authentically live out our common UU tradition, and our diversity of heritage and belief? Over many years of this annual reflection, we in the Athens congregation came to the conclusion that we wanted to find a way to honor Hanukkah for a few reasons.

First, because members of our congregation are Jewish, and asked us to. The simple act of lighting a menorah and telling a story in our shared worship has served as a reminder that who we are in this congregation and who we are as UUs includes those of us who are Jewish.

One year as we discussed this question, Marcia asked us specifically to honor Hanukkah in our morning worship, despite the fact that usually the Hanukkah candles are only lit at night, because one of her own neighbors had said he didn’t think anyone Jewish lived in the valley, where the Athens congregation is located. So we honor Hanukkah to proudly embody our religious diversity here in our congregations and in our larger communities.

We remember Hanukkah to remind ourselves of the relationship of UU and Judaism.  In 1980 a group called Unitarian Universalists for Jewish Awareness (UUJA)  was founded, committed to supporting Unitarian Universalist Jewish multi-religiosity. They offer resources to: “those who have come to Unitarian Universalism from Judaism” UUs like Rev. Joanna Lubkin who offered our Hanukkah blessing this morning, and Rev. Lynn Ungar whose beautiful poetry inspired us today and on many other occasions, who are living out what it means to be both UU and Jewish.[i] Our UU community is committed to supporting “interfaith/multi-religious individuals and families.” I know that many of you have shared with us that you were raised in another tradition, be it Jewish or Catholic, Buddhist, Methodist or Hindu. Some of us choose to leave behind those other traditions, but some of us authentically feel those formative traditions are still part of who we are. We strive to make our UU communities a place where such “multireligiousity” can be supported and explored.

It is because we are a multireligious community that we find ourselves asking year after year “what do we celebrate and why do we celebrate it?” A touchstone phrase I find helpful in this inquiry is “not about us without us.” Not being Jewish myself, as I prepared this service, I went to visit the UUJA site, and I checked in again with our Jewish members and friends, and asked if they had any concerns, preferences, or guidance they were willing to offer for this service today. Marcia wrote back and offered this reminder: “Chanukah is so not an important holiday. It is barely celebrated in Israel. Of course, there is the lighting of the menorah. Chanukah is only celebrated as it is in this country because of its proximity to Christmas. Jewish kids need something special this time of year. It is almost like a secular Jewish tradition, instead of a real Jewish holiday.”

Jeff offered this reflection: “The story of Hanukah appears in the Book of Maccabees, which is not in the Old Testament. Nor the New Testament. It's in the apocrypha. This was considered a minor holiday, and not really the big deal that modern times have made it out to be. It was illegal to be Jewish during the reign of the Greeks in Israel. So when folks gathered to study the Torah, they would have someone on lookout and when the cops came by, he would warn the scholars. They would put their Torah away, and take out the dreidel… The scholars would act like they were gambling -- small change ("gelt"), nuts, anything one could use as "chips". That is why gifts are given for the eight days. But these gifts are supposed to be (if we were following the tradition) something small that can be gambled - coins, nuts, M&Ms, etc. Giving a video game console is NOT in the spirit of Hanukah (or some other expensive gift) The idea of giving expensive gifts, I believe, was co-opted by Christians, to "include" Jews in the Christmas holiday.”

Indeed, many of my Jewish friends and family over the years have expressed frustration with the way their Christian and UU neighbors conflate Hanukkah and Christmas as if they are equivalent, and our society promotes that idea in many subtle and not so subtle ways. So one reason we mark Hanukkah today is to promote religious literacy, to give us a slightly deeper understanding of the holiday, including misunderstandings about it. It’s a reminder, for those of us who are not Jewish, to be respectful about what this season means to those of us who are Jewish. So, for example, making a big deal out of Hanukkah if you are not Jewish can be a micro-aggression, since traditionally it is a minor holiday. If we are not Jewish, we de-center ourselves, let our Jewish friends and neighbors take the lead, and respect their wishes. If your Jewish friends have a different take on the holiday, listen to that too. It’s not about getting it “right” and doing it one way forever, it’s about relationship. Jewish UUs have all kinds of ideas and feelings about this holiday, and about their relationship of Judaism and UU, So as part of our UU practice we listen with open minds and hearts, and learn, and grow.

Marcia sent me an article by Rabbi David Golinkin which told me something surprising about the dreidel tradition:

“The dreidel game originally had nothing to do with Hanukkah; it has been played by various people in various languages for many centuries.
In England and Ireland there is a game called totum or teetotum that is especially popular at Christmastime. In English, this game is first mentioned as “totum” ca. 1500-1520. The name comes from the Latin “totum,” which means “all.” By 1720, the game was called T- totum or teetotum, and by 1801 the four letters already represented four words in English: T = Take all; H = Half; P = Put down; and N = Nothing.
Our Eastern European game of dreidel (including the letters nun, gimmel, hey, shin) is directly based on the German equivalent of the totum game... In German, the spinning top was called a “torrel” or “trundl,” and in Yiddish it was called a “dreidel,” …
Thus the dreidel game represents an irony of Jewish history. In order to celebrate the holiday of Hanukkah, which celebrates our victory over cultural assimilation, we play the dreidel game, which is an excellent example of cultural assimilation!”[ii]

So this year for us the dreidel can be a symbol of that cultural mixing that happens whenever we live in community together, and that tension of loyalty to our heritage and that natural sharing and growing that happens in community.

Finally, we honor Hanukkah because Judaism is one of the sources of wisdom for our UU faith. Without appropriating the holiday if we are not Jewish, we can still see the important religious values and symbols in the story of this holiday. The holiday, and the traditions and stories which surround it can have many meanings, but this year I am drawn to the importance of Hanukkah as a story of religious freedom. Of the courage it takes to practice your own faith when you are a minority, when you are encountering oppression. The story of Hanukkah reminds us to be grateful that we are able to practice our UU faith openly today, and reminds us of our commitment to fight for religious freedom for everyone so that our children and their children can practice their faith. As John Sigismund, the Unitarian King of Transylvania, wrote in his edict of tolerance back in 1586, if people are not free to practice their own faith “no one shall compel them for their souls would not be satisfied”… “ for faith is the gift of God, this comes from hearing, which hearing is by the word of God.” — Edict of Torda

Today I want to encourage those of us who have always been able to worship freely, have always had the freedom to claim our religious identity and heritage to notice that privilege, and imagine what it would be like to live without it. There are many interpretations and stories about the origin of the dreidel, but this year I am resonating with that 19th-century rabbinic story “that Jews played with the dreidel in order to fool the Greeks if they were caught studying Torah, which had been outlawed”[iii].

Let the dreidel from your goodie bag be a touchstone for these ideas- for religious freedom, for respect and gratitude for the ancient faith tradition that is Judaism, for the way our traditions transform us and are transformed by us in community, and (for those of us who are not Jewish) for navigating how we respectfully engage with one another’s traditions. To quote Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, Jewish philosopher and theologian “We need, in the 21st century, a global Chanukah: a festival of freedom for all the world’s faiths. For though my faith is not yours and your faith is not mine, if we are each free to light our own flame, together we can banish some of the darkness of the world.”[iv]


Notes:

Even the spelling of  "Hanukah" is different from source to source, since it is a transliteration of a Hebrew word. I have included here whatever original spelling was used in my source material. 

 [i] Another moving testimony about being multi faith is here: https://www.uuworld.org/articles/orthodox-jewish-wisdom-religious-liberals

[ii] "The Surprising Origin of the Dreidel The well-known Hanukkah symbol has Christmastime roots."
By Rabbi David Golinkin https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/the-origin-of-the-dreidel/

[iii] https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/the-origin-of-the-dreidel/

[iv] https://rabbisacks.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/CandC-Chanukah-5.pdf
"Why Chanukah is the Perfect Festival for Religious Freedom", The Washington Post
(7 December 2015).

Serving Lovingly

When we imagine “growing spiritually” it is easy to think of that Instagram kind of spirituality- yoga, meditation, hot tea, massage -- There is a whole industry out there that wants us to believe that spiritual growth is about each individual seeker feeling peaceful and healthy and actualized. I confess, as someone who does yoga and meditates, this is an easy temptation to fall into. And while I do think I’m a better mom and a better minister and a better friend when I am calm and mindful and healthy, the past year has proven to me that my own happiness and health are not the best guideposts for our spiritual journey - no human I know is happy and healthy all the time. And more importantly, if my goal is only my own actualization, I am constrained by the smallness of my own life. What is the use of growing spiritually? Why does it matter?

Love is the doctrine of this church,
The quest of truth is our sacrament,
and service is our prayer.
To dwell together in peace,
To seek knowledge in freedom,
To serve others in community,
To the end that all souls shall grow
Into harmony with creation,
Thus we do covenant with one another.

This is one version of a covenant read by many Unitarian Universalist churches all over the country. Notice that it says “Service is our prayer.” I think this is more than poetic, I think service really can be a form of spiritual practice.

Way back in the 1500s, Spanish Carmelite Nun, mystic and teacher Theresa of Avilla wrote lots of advice for her nuns, and though she lived in a very different time, the advice she gave them can still help us today on our modern spiritual journey:

“11. When I see people very anxious to know what sort of prayer they practise, covering their faces and afraid to move or think lest they should lose any slight tenderness and devotion they feel, I know how little they understand how to attain union with God since they think it consists in such things as these. No, sisters, no; our Lord expects works from us. If you see a sick sister whom you can relieve, never fear losing your devotion; compassionate her; if she is in pain, feel for it as if it were your own and, when there is need, fast so that she may eat, not so much for her sake as because you know your Lord asks it of you. This is the true union of our will with the will of God.”[From "Interior Castle]

In other words, if you are not able to attain a certain spiritual feeling in your practices, that’s okay. Those feelings are not the goal of the spiritual journey. Better to focus on compassion for others than achieving spiritual bliss. Even if your compassion for others brings up feelings that make you feel less than holy. Throughout the preceding passage she counsels us that the best way to be sure of our love of God is through our love of neighbor. And the best way to ground that love, to practice that love is through works of service and charity for others. In works of compassion, we unite our will with the will of the divine.

For the Atheists and agnostics in the group today, don’t worry -- science leads us to the same conclusion as the mystics. Research has shown that acts of helping others improve our own mental health and the good of society. For what do we grow spiritually? So that we can better serve, and we serve so that we can grow.

Part of what makes service so helpful on both the spiritual and ethical journeys, is that it encourages us to de-center ourselves. As my friend said, while we exchanged story after story about her own goals and needs constantly interrupted by the demands of her preschool daughter- “It’s not all about me.” I was also parenting a young child and I laughed with the shock of recognition, because while logically I had always known that was true, there’s nothing like showing up to work with tiny handprints on your shirt after a sleepless night, only to leave work early when the daycare calls to say your child has a fever, to really teach you in a deeper way that “it’s not all about me.”

It’s easy to do our work in a way that is, actually, all about me. We think we know what’s best for someone else, how to fix them, and if we “succeed” in fixing them it strengthens our ego- it makes us feel good about our image of ourselves. Unfortunately, building up the ego is not actually good for our spiritual growth, and in fact it’s often not good for the person we are trying to help. Your board has been studying “aspects of white supremacy culture” and one of them is paternalism- where privileged people enter a situation with persons of less privilege and give folks what we think they need, sometimes including strict rules or requirements. Our history is full of terrible examples of this, think Native boardinghouses, think colonialism.

The antidote to this is decentering ourselves. As we enter a situation where we see suffering, because we are moved and want to serve, we ask the folks right there “what do you need?”- trusting that the people who are most effected know better than anyone what they need in their own lives. We are not there to lead, but to support, to amplify, to serve. Our UUSC uses this model- we have grassroots partners around the world, and we trust their wisdom of their local situation, and their network of connections, and we go in with money and technical support for their grassroots work.

We are a congregation committed to anti-racism work, and decentering is critical here. When we reached out to Mothers helping Mothers in Elmira, we didn’t say “here’s a program we want to offer in your community” we said “please tell us what you are doing and how we can help” If we want to work to end anti-black racism, we have to center the ideas and needs of black people who are directly experiencing that racism, rooted in their direct experience and knowing and network. If we want to support disability rights, we center folks who are disabled by our environment, and ask what they need to participate fully. When we serve others, we are not the star of the story; our goal is not to be like Sandra Bullock in “the Blind Side;”  in decentering ourselves we become a supporting character.

When we take on an attitude of service, decentering ourselves, it not only makes us better allies, better at supporting others, but it is also an important part of growing spiritually. Jung says that the journey in the second half of life is about loosening the grasp of ego, realizing that it’s not all about us, and that we are deeply connected to one another and to something greater than ourselves.

Now there is a paradox here that I have been struggling with recently. As a white cis middle-class woman, I know that my work for justice needs to involve decentering myself. But, I also know that women over 50 are often invisibilized in our society. Consider the stereotypical mom, who selflessly gives up her own agenda for her children’s success- whether or not we have ever parented, this is an archetype we all have to deal with. In our youth obsessed culture, it’s easy for the experiences of older folks to be overlooked. It’s easy for people who do the quiet supportive work of service and care to be overlooked. It occurred to me that if we don’t center ourselves no one else will. So this is a challenge of serving lovingly- How do we decenter ourselves and advocate for ourselves at the same time? How do we be of service knowing that no matter how much we pour out our own personal life essence, there will still be hunger, and racism, and suffering?

The spiritual traditions offer us 2 pieces of wisdom about that. First, non-attachment to outcome. The practice of Karma Yoga in the Hindu tradition is about service, yes, about doing our work that makes the world go, yes, but it is about doing that work in a way that is not attached to outcome. Last fall I spent an evening in parking lot of the United Methodist Church where a community group  was handing out dinners, the food pantry was giving out food staples, and Project Grow was giving out tomato seedlings to anyone who wanted to grow their own fresh organic tomatoes. We ran out of dinners early, but because we had been rationing our seedlings too tightly, we did not give away as many tomato plants as we had hoped. Non-attachment to outcome looks like this- letting go, with some sadness, of the fact that other hungry people could were not fed, and let go, with hope and trust, of what happens to all those seedlings, adopted or not, once they left our hands. I do my part and let go- it’s not all about me.

The other wisdom of so many spiritual traditions is that we are not alone. Today’s message is not a call to do more; many of you have told us how you feel exhausted and burnt out, how you feel you have no more to give. I feed the person in front of me, I work to disrupt racism in the spaces where I live. I listen to the troubles of a friend, I serve as I am able, and trust that other people are doing the same, and that we are all woven together in a web of connection that holds us when we rest, and when we ourselves are in need. This is the moral of “Chickens to the Rescue” – the wisdom the chickens know - that the need is endless, and so they take their day of rest, hoping, trusting, that the other farm animals, and of course the farm family, will take their turn to serve.

“Live ethically, serve lovingly and grow spiritually.” The more I think about these 3 ideas the more I see that they balance each other like the 3 legs of a stool. Growing Spiritually help us become our best selves, and grow in connection to that which is greater than us. Living ethically helps us understand and discern who and what we serve, and helps us develop the integrity that is an important part of spiritual growth. Service embodies and grounds our ethics and our spiritual growth. It is where the rubber meets the road. Let us serve in a way that reminds us “it’s not all about us” – when we are serving we are not the hero of the story, we are the supporting characters helping the stars to shine. Service doesn’t have to be big Nobel prize winning acts, because it is the “small acts of great kindness” that support us in our ordinary lives, day in and day out. Let us serve in a way that is not attached to outcomes- a practice that helps our souls learn that we are not in control, and that we are part of something bigger. And let our practice include laying down our work whenever it is time to rest and renew and grow. We serve so that we can live and grow, and we grow and live so that we can serve.

 

Living Ethically

Events of the past 2 years have caused me to feel… adrift. Things I thought I could count on, things I didn’t even know could change have changed. What does it all mean? What can we believe in? What matters? One particularly challenging day I was asking myself those questions and I realized- living ethically seems to matter. What a relief it is to hear about the actions of ethical people on the news, to deal with people living ethically in my own life, and to use ethical principles to guide my own actions in this quixotic world. Over the course of my life my views about whether or not there is a god and other metaphysical questions have changed, but In the Unitarian Universalist church I grew up in, it was clear that no matter what else you believe, what we humans choose to do… matters.

We see what happens when folks abandon ethics and instead seek only personal power, wealth or comfort. Acting from an ethical core seems to matter. It matters to me- I know I feel like I am standing on solid ground when I try to live ethically. And I believe that it makes a difference in society that there are people who deal ethically with one another, even on days when it feels like we are the only ones. No matter how lost we feel, we can, in the words of Anna from Frozen 2, “do the next right thing.” In case you don’t have small children in your life, this song comes at a low and desperate time for our heroine who decides to:

“Just do the next right thing
Take a step, step again
It is all that I can to do
The next right thing

I won't look too far ahead
It's too much for me to take
But break it down to this next breath
This next step
This next choice is one that I can make”

A lot of folks have found themselves feeling hopeless and desperate, and this children’s song has resonated with this moment we are living in now. It’s increasingly clear that we are not going to wake up one day and find ourselves in the world we were living in February of 2020. Some things are lost, and some are irrevocably changed. Still, we can do “the next right thing.” By living ethically we reduce our footprint, our harm in the world, and also shape the society we are building together in our rapidly changing world. If we want a society where people tell the truth, and deal honestly and fairly and compassionately with one another, the best we can do is live ethically ourselves, to “be the change you want to see in the world.” Living Ethically is part of our mission as a congregation, because we believe that our ethical action matters, it matters to our own sense of integrity, and it matters to community.

The trouble is that our choices are very rarely perfect, and we have all had to make many imperfect choices since Covid spread to our communities. I was looking for an example that we could all relate to, and I thought about our choice to mostly be online since March of 2020. We made the choice originally, (can you remember back that far?) because we wanted to slow the spread, to “flatten the curve” as we said then. To make sure that everyone who needed hospital care could have it. In spring of 2020 the UUA recommended that we worship online until May of 2021 to protect the most vulnerable- the folks who are immune compromised, those without access to medical care, those essential workers who were exposed daily. That was not an easy choice. We love being together in person. We miss hugs, we miss ordinary conversation over a cup of coffee. We miss singing loudly together. We know that some of our members don’t have good computer or internet access, and we know that some folks have such zoom fatigue that our online services are draining. Month after month your board of trustees agonizes over this choice- knowing that there were people who had been vital members of our congregation whom we are no longer able to support with worship or fellowship. We know how lonely this time has been for many- and wonder what ministry we can offer to people who need us in this lonely difficult time? So we did other things like our phone tree calls, and small outdoor gatherings, and gift bags, and we started putting a letter in the mail each month so folks would know we were thinking of them. But any choice we made involved giving up hard things, and risk and loss. There was no perfect choice, only hard compromise with reality.

But, as Lynn Ungar says in her poem:

… you have to choose.
It’s all we have—that little rudder
that we employ in the midst
of all the eddies and rapids,
the current that pulls us
inexorably toward the sea. 

The fact that you are swept along
by the river is no excuse.
Watch where you are going.
Lean in toward what you love.
When in doubt, tell the truth.

Ethics are “that little rudder” – the choices we make even when there is no good choice. The boards of both churches revisit their decisions every month, and were working hard toward a hybrid worship, and were beginning to gather in person when the delta variant set us back. We knew many of us were vaccinated and that the risk to ourselves had gone down, but what about our children? Delta had much more serious consequences for children than previous variants. At the same time we heard the frustration and longing of folks who wanted to come back together in person. Your boards talked and wrestled and struggled, and finally decided that the UU thing to do was to protect the most vulnerable and to involve data and science in our decisions- that is why we use the “covid act now” website each week to decide. We saw communities across the country decided they were “done with Covid” before Covid was done with them. So we decided to use the data instead of community social pressure to decide.

This week in Bradford County (where the Athens Sanctuary is) the ICU is 94% full, in the “critical” range, the most full hospitals have ever been in our county. And cases are as high as they’ve been all year, as high as last spring, and so here we are on Zoom, our sanctuaries empty again this week. We could have done otherwise- there was no one right choice here, it was a choice among hard things. Other people, other churches have made other choices. 2 ethical people using conscience as their guide can make 2 different choices.

In his book “The Righteous Mind” Jonathan Haidt lays out research that shows that as much as we think we make our decisions based on data or reasoning, our decisions are actually based on a kind of moral intuition, which I suppose is the same as a conscience. Intuition is a form of cognition that helps us make the million decisions we must make every day as quickly as we need to make them. Haidt tested folks of different economic classes from different parts of the world and found that our consciences do not tell us all the same thing. Even within our UU congregations, different people are making different choices about when and where to mask, whether to get vaccinated or get boosters and when, whether to worship indoors and when. Haidt shows that even when we are all following our conscience closely, we come to different decisions.

In my experience the folks, like you, who show up at worship week after week are already committed to an ethical life. I trust that each of us is doing the best we can to follow our conscience and make ethical choices. My job as your minister is not to convince you to follow your conscience and live an ethical life, I suspect you are doing a pretty good job of that already. Our job here as a community already committed to ethical living is to support and encourage one another in making those impossible decisions in confusing times. To grow as ethical beings we don’t need to become more perfect, more strict in our ethics, I believe we need to become more humble, more compassionate, and we practice living our humble compassionate ethics all our lives. As the story "Birdsnest" taught us this morning- “The 3-year-old knows it, but the 80 year old still finds it very difficult to do.”

To live ethically requires humility, knowing that there is almost never a perfect choice, and yet choosing what we feel to be right, nevertheless. Humility is our antidote for judgementalism. I think when we look at the news, when we see angry people storming school-board meetings to share their views about mask mandates with that righteous judgementalism, we can see the harm that kind of righteous anger does to our communities, to our families, to our society. Such scenes teach us the importance of not letting the ethics that are guiding our own boat become rigid, become judgements on others. As the Christian scriptures advise “Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s[a] eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? “ [Matthew 7:3]

We are imperfect, all of us. Most of our lives we live in morally grey territory- all beings eat other beings to live. All of us who walk step on other beings. Every time we speak, we risk saying something that will later turn out to have been untrue, or hurtful. Living ethically as Unitarian Universalists is not about once and for all adopting a moral code and resting into the righteousness of that code, Living ethically requires humility and empathy for others.

Humility is also an antidote for identifying too strongly with our surface goodness, “I recycle so I’m good”. If I believe that I must be perfectly good, I put myself in an impossible position. How could I admit to myself that I ever made imperfect choices? How could I grow if I couldn’t be present with the reality of my own imperfection? How could I do the hard inner work of, for example, addressing my role in systemic racism, without first being humble, without first admitting that there was room for me to grow?

Knowing that we are imperfect, can we hold that imperfection with compassion? To go back to our example, we know our choice not to worship in person is imperfect, we know people are lonely, we know humans need to be together in person for their mental health. And if we hold our own imperfect selves with compassion, can we extend that compassion and empathy to others? Yes, other churches are meeting in person right now, in the same towns where we are on zoom. I bet their leaders also agonized with their decisions. My Facebook feed is filled with ministers agonizing about their congregation’s decisions about whether and how they come together in person. We may disagree with their decision, but we are all different, our consciences tell us different things.

Let us not fall into the habit, as have so many religious groups, of believing that part of living ethically is policing others. This creates a rigidity and combativeness that has become destructive in our time. As Haidt says in his book ‘The Righteous Mind”

“No matter how good our logic, it’s not going to change the minds of our opponents if they are in combat mode too. If you really want to change someone’s mind on moral or political matter, you’ll need to see things from that person’s angle as well as your own. And if you do truly see it the other person’s way – deeply and intuitively – you might even find your own mind opening in response. Empathy is an antidote to righteousness, although it’s very difficult to empathize across a moral divide”. [Haidt p. 58]

In Sunday school we used to say as we lit the chalice “we are UU, people with Open minds, helping hands and loving hearts.” As we commit ourselves and recommit ourselves to living ethically, let us do so with open minds and loving hearts, with Humility, empathy, and compassion, our own UU way. In this time of hard choices, we know that striving to live ethically helps ground us in our own spiritual journey and shapes the future we are all growing into together. Living Ethically means being present with the reality of what is and doing the "next right thing"

Remembrance

I grew up in a Humanist congregation, and though I saw that many cultures have traditions of relating to those who have died, I thought you had to be form a certain religious tradition or culture to have such a relationship, and didn't think that included humanists, or agnostics. It dawned on me recently that no matter what we believe, no matter what we do or don’t do, we all have a relationship with those who have died. Whether we bring flowers to their graveside and tell them about our lives, or stoically release the things that remind us of them, whether we believe their spirits are hovering about, or their molecules are repurposed into new life and only memories of them remain. When someone we love dies our relationship with their dear physical presence ends, but our relationship to their memories, their absence, their spirit (if you are so inclined), is something that changes and grows, and is as unique and evolving as our relationship to their living embodied presence had been.

my grandmother, Marie Simon

Our culture, our family traditions, inform how we think about and conduct these relationships. Perhaps in your family you were taught not to speak of the dead, lest it disturb and sadden people. My mother-in-law takes flowers once a year to all the beloved dead in the cemeteries near her. Some traditions teach that the dead can still hear and counsel and comfort us. Others believe that our relationship with the departed is like a phone call once one caller has been disconnected- when we speak with them we are really just speaking with ourselves.

I once went to hear the great teacher Ram Dass speak, and he told us that though his guru had died he spoke with him often. “But that’s all in your imagination” someone responded “yes” replied Ram Dass., as if to say that our imagination is a perfectly valid realm in with to connect to those who have departed.

Unitarian Universalism is agnostic about what happens when we die. Our beliefs are diverse and highly individual. But we all experience loss, we all experience the death of beings who are important to us, and the gift of those relationships, the power of that caring, that love, does not end with their death. I encourage you to notice how you are relating to those loved ones who have died, and allow yourself the space and creativity to shape that relationship as you need. Though we believe many different things about death and what comes after, we offer one another a space today to honor those relationships, to feel whatever feelings emerge, whatever memories in the compassionate embrace of community.

I offer these questions for your reflection:

• Who are the loved ones you are remembering today?
• How do those beloved dead continue to be a presence in your life?
• Are there any ways you would like to be more intentional about your relationship to those who have died?