Generations Together

Me, my little sister, Gramma & Grampa

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

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

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

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

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

Multi-Generational fun at the church picnic

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

That is what intergenerational ministry looks like now, in these strange times- both ordinary and precious.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Anthropologist Michael Meade explains that elders have a powerful role to play in times of upheaval:

“The traditional role of elders included remembering what was most important about life and how to hold ends and beginnings together when times become hard. Elders were the guardians of the mysteries of and keepers of the stories who helped people make sense of life’s inevitable struggles. Having survived the troubles of their own lives and having grown deeper and wiser they know both how to survive and how to find genuine vision where others could on see disaster. Being “old enough to know better’ they would know that life renews itself in surprising ways and that the greatest dilemmas can serve to awaken the deepest resources of the human soul.”[Why the World Doesn’t End p. 25]

Like the gramma in The Memory Cupboard who had lived through the breaking of precious treasures, and had learned to make meaning from those ruptures. She helped her granddaughter make sense of what had happened, and restore her to the web of right relationship.

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

As Antoine de Saint-Exupery Writes: 

“In a house which becomes a home,
one hands down and another takes up
the heritage of mind and heart,”

This sounds easy, but anyone who’s sat around the holiday table with relatives from other generations knows it’s a dance that must be negotiated. If the elders insist that things must always continue as they have been, without allowing younger generations the support and freedom they need to create the world to come, likewise if the younger generations do not respect the hard learned wisdom of their elders, or make time to listen, valuable knowledge and perspective will be lost.

I received an email this week form the UUA transitions office, which helps ministers and congregations find each other. They wrote:

“the Next Normal is not the pre-pandemic normal… Congregations trapped in the past are likely to shrink. ... This will be a time to redefine why people need Unitarian Universalism, where generational differences are going to have to learn to live together, and where new people coming into our congregations will be looking for communities of like-minded people, multi-theological exploration, and the desire to make a difference in the world (and likely not in the ways it’s always been done).”

And you know what? I think both our Athens and Cortland congregations are good at this. I have always been impressed by the way you are open to new ideas, new ways of doing things, new members, different generations. You give new leaders space to try things and follow their own wisdom. I bet that’s part of why we are still here, why this tradition continues to be handed on from generation to generation. And I know that sometimes when we look out at our congregation and see more olders and fewer youngers, it makes us nervous, and sometimes sad, But I believe in what we are doing, and I think if we are committed to making a difference in the world, in each other’s lives -- if we are committed to remembering and sharing that love that holds us all, and supporting growth wherever it is happening today and in the future we still have a vital role to play in guiding our rapidly changing world towards love and justice.

In Spiritual Direction we practice from a foundational belief that each of us has the capacity to discern what is true, what is holy, where the spirit is leading. We must have that faith in one another, across generations, and support each other in listening to and developing our own inner wisdom. When Nancy Pelosi announced this week that she would not seek re-election as party leader in the house, she said:

"With great confidence in our caucus, I will not seek reelection to Democratic leadership in the next Congress. For me the hour has come for a new generation to lead the Democratic caucus that I so deeply respect,…I'm grateful that so many are ready and willing to shoulder this awesome responsibility."

Reporters added that she would continue to serve in the House, and support the work of the new generation of leaders. I have such respect for that- to stay and take her place as the supportive wise elder, while expressing confidence for and amplifying the voices of those stepping into the challenge of leadership.

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

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

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

Family Chapel 2007 at UUCPA

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

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

Navigating Change

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What is Our Legacy?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Blessing of the Banners

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

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

 

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

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

I found this written in honor of the 100 year anniversary of the congregation:

“On June 9th, 1908, 33 people signed the charter of the First Unitarian Church of Flushing, Lewis Henry Latimer, a noted scientist and inventor, who was but one generation removed from the slavery his own father knew, demonstrated as one of its founders, that this particular faith tradition offered them the best hope of realizing the fondest dreams of humankind for peace, love and understanding between all people.”[i]

We thank you, for all the lives you touched, and whom your legacy will continue to touch.

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

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

Amen

---

[i] UU Congregation of Queens Receives Centennial Recognition from Queens Borough President (uumetrony.org)

Latimer, Lewis Howard (1848-1928) | Harvard Square Library

Getting Free

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

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

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

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

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

Well, I have been feeling that deep rumble in my belief system again, perhaps you too have felt it. The events of past few years have destabilized some deep foundation in what I believe. I have been roused from my own napping to notice my own privilege, to notice the way white privilege, or cis privilege or temporarily able bodied privilege is a heavy weight keeping others from being free. I have also seen the ways in which I am the giraffe- embedded in the status quo, and worried about the real dangers of an angry elephant waking up. As we observe Indigenous People’s day this week, I wonder how I can do better than the giraffe in our story-- what do I need to be doing to end the oppression of our first nations neighbors, especially the ongoing struggle with  Clint Halftown, whom the US government continues to call representative of the Gayogo̱hó:nǫ⁷ Nation to the Bureau of Indian Affairs, jeopardizing the sovereignty of the Gayogo̱hó:nǫ⁷ nation.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

Circle of the Year

As the wheel of the year turns, some things we count on every year- the chill air at night as the days grow shorter, the changing of the leaves on the trees. In these things we are connected with all the beings in our ecosystem- with the squirrels now frantically burying nuts all over my yard, the geese honking in the air, plants coming to fruition each in their own time, all preparing for what we in this northeast bio-region know will be a cold winter ahead.

Other things we can count on are peculiarly human, and link us to our human community- the bustle as families start the school year, preparing for an election in November.

The cyclical nature of the seasons give us guideposts for our journey through life, and remind us that things end and begin again. It’s normal and natural for things to grow in one season, and rest in another. It’s natural that not everything grows at once -- thank goodness, if all plants fruited at once, how would we eat the rest of the year? If all plants flowered at once, how would the bees sustain themselves?

Over hundreds and thousands of years humans have noticed these cycles, and built their lives, built their societies around them.

When we plan our year together as a congregation, we think about not only the biological cycles, but also the human ones- We know that from Thanksgiving to New Year our calendars will inevitably fill up with special activities- parties, choir concerts, shopping. We try not to plan congregational meetings during that time. So a lot of business meetings happen in October- I swear to you I was siting on the porch reading a book and some familiar fall smell made me think “almost time for TPUC.” Like the squirrels busily burying nuts, and the farmers in the busy work of fall harvest, we tend to spend this time of year preparing for the cold still months of winter when light is less and travel is unpredictable.

Faith traditions have an important role in this cycle of the year. Part of the job of a tradition is to remember. You don’t have to wait until you are driving home from work in the dark and cold anticipating the long winter ahead to plan a big community gathering, We have known for thousands of years that it was important to mark the change of seasons, and we have learned through thousands of years of trial and error what reliably feeds body and spirit in each season. The smells and sounds, the light and temperature of the seasons remind us, and all living things, what comes next in the cycle of the year as a matter of evolutionary survival. Religious traditions help us remember some practical things, like it's good to feast and share at connect with community at the beginning of winter, our traditions also remind us of the wisdom of the spirit- the seasons of the soul- of death and rebirth, struggle and hope, and our journey together as a people.

This is the pagan cycle of the year. It’s based on our solar calendar, neatly dividing the year into 8 sections based on the solstices and equinoxes, and the cross quarters between. The holidays of each quarter and cross quarter are based on the natural world around us- I see the artist who drew this saw things outside her window similar to what I see out mine around the year. The holidays notice the seasons of the earth, but also over the course of the year notice death and rebirth, growth and harvest in our own human experience, taking lessons from the natural world. You can see right now we have just crossed the Fall equinox, Mabon, this past week.


The Christian calendar also follows a regular cycle of the solar year. It’s has 2 major seasons, the season of advent, preparing for Christmas and telling the story of Jesus birth, and Lent, which prepares for Easter, telling the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection. The rest of the year is “ordinary time” you can see we are in that big swath of green right now. Because Christianity was standardized by the roman empire, there are many ways in which it borrows from and overlaps with the older pagan calendar, so that the Easter season overlaps with OESTARA in the pagan tradition- and kind of make one big springtime mashup of rebirth. Or, for example, Samhain and “All hollows eve, and all souls day” or “day of the dead all are about remembering the departed, though with different theological messages. It was Pope Gregory XVIII who standardized the Gregorian calendar, which is the calendar most governments in the world use today.


Here is the Jewish cycle of the year. It is a luni-solar calendar, it follows the cycles of the moon, so things move around a bit more, but it resets the first day of “Nisan” so that Passover always happens in spring, and the high holidays always happens in the fall. Today is the new moon, and so also the first night of Rosh Hashana, beginning the 10 days of awe, the most important holidays in the Jewish tradition, and followed by Sukkot, a weekly long harvest festival that starts on the full moon.

These cycles include the very old and the new. Consider the Holocaust memorial holiday added to the Jewish calendar in the 1950s.
 

Nations also keeps their own calendars. One way they mark the year is with official days off work. These holidays help us remember important parts of our nation’s history- Thanksgiving, Fourth of July, Memorial Day. We add or change holidays to honor new events, like the addition of MLK day in 1983,  or as a result of changes to our cultural values and priorities, like finally acknowledging Juneteenth by making it a federal holiday just last year. In 2 weeks we come to Columbus day which many celebrate as Indigenous People’s day, an active part of our struggle and effort to make our holidays align with the important things we want to remember, the story we want our calendar to tell about the history of our people and our journey together.

Much of our calendar is reinforced by consumerism- you can see when you go to the store that Independence Day is the time to buy red white and blue things, October is the time to buy candy and pumpkin spice everything, and the end of the calendar year is the time to buy EVERYTHING to boost 4th quarter profits.

We Unitarian Universalists are also a religious tradition, and have our own markers. We start our year together with our water in-gathering, and this spring we celebrate the 100th anniversary of the flower ceremony. We honor the sources of our tradition as we celebrate the longest night, and Christmas eve. We have practical and institutional things on our circle as well- and in the winter we get serious about adult RE, as we think about life’s questions in the cold contemplative season, and we have our annual meeting in June, and a break in the summer. Not every UU church does it this way, Each congregation decides for ourselves what to celebrate; we make our own circle of the year together.

 

Our UU liturgical calendar is less formal and more fluid than the predictable green and purple and white of the Christian tradition, or the ancient cycles of the Jewish tradition. This helps us be responsive what is happening in our community and in the world, but the shadow side of this power is that if we are not careful we could fall into observing only things that are easy and familiar. Because we create our liturgical calendar by planning or whim or convenience, it is also in our power to forget if we are not intentional. For example, each year during the high holidays observant Jewish people reflect on and actively practice atonement and forgiveness. Those are hard topics- and it would be easy for our congregation to go many years without practicing in these basic needs of the human spirit. In the spring our Christian siblings celebrate Easter at the end of the long season of Lent, Rebirth coming after the hardship of Good Friday.


So we come to the heart of our inquiry today- what is important for our community, rooted in your faith tradition and in our eco system, to mark over the cycle of the year? What do we need to remember and why?

I’d like to invite us all into a time of reflection now- I have provided a blank wheel for you to consider- what are important landmarks on the wheel of the year for you personally- both happy and sad, easy and hard. What do you observe most years?

Take a few moments silently to think and write…. 
Holidays you celebrated with your family as a child
Holidays you celebrate now,
Days when you remember loss
Times when you come together with your various communities
Times when you start fresh
When that feels complete, I invite you to look at your wheel, and ask, what the wheel needs for balance?

What do you hope we will observe, mark, celebrate  this year?

Finally, part of what is important as we spiral through this cycle, year after year, the changing and the stable, is that it helps us notice who we are right now, and what this very season is like. This fall will be like no other, it will have some of the same things, chill air, changing leaves, new semesters, elections. But in observing the circle of the year we notice how we are changing, and how the world is changing. Let’s take a moment now for reflection- what are you noticing about this early fall? How does it remind you of other years? And what is different and surprising?

So we create our intentions for the circle of the year, we plan and prepare, and then we noticed what it’s like to live inside that cycle. We talk about observing the holiday- and I like that way of putting it -- noticing, this season, exactly as it is, how it is for you and for your ecosystem, for your community.
I wish you all a happy fall- a fruitful harvest of our growing season.

Let us observe together this new circle of the year, deeply rooted in the past we share with our human communities and all the beings in our ecosystem. Yet each turn of the circle unique and precious.

"When love is felt, or fear is known,
When holidays and holy days and such times come,
When anniversaries arrive by calendar or consciousness,
When seasons come, as seasons do, old and known, but somehow new,
When lives are born or people die,
When something sacred’ s sensed in soil or sky,
Mark the time.
Respond with thought or prayer, or smile, or grief.
Let nothing living, life or leaf, slip between the fingers of the mind,
For all of these are holy things we will not, cannot, find again"

- Rev. Max Coots

Cherish the Time

"Look, the trees are turning their own bodies into pillars of light" - Mary Oliver

 Lately, when I make a plan, I use conditional forms: “probably we will go on vacation next spring”. “Hopefully we can come to dinner on Sunday.” And when I sent out last week’s service email I announced that we would be gathering in person in 2 sanctuaries and on zoom. But that’s not what happened- the door to the Cortland church broke as the team was arriving, and no one could enter the church. [sigh] It was not the return to “normal” we were hoping for.

Even so it was lovely to be in the Athens Sanctuary and on zoom last week with so many old and new friends. And to be with you all here in all our different places this week. And, knock wood, our multi platform services will continue. But I have certainly come to understand over these past 2 ½ years that any sense of certainty in the future was misplaced. It was always true that the future was unknown, but I feel this in a really deep way these days.

In her poem "In Blackwater Woods" Mary Oliver writes,

“To live in this world you must be able to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go, to let it go.”

Oh, we have had to do so much letting go these past years. so many parts of our lives have been disrupted or lost- businesses closed, celebrations cancelled, beloved members and friends in our congregations have died, dear friends and members of our families departed.

But on this day, this joyful day when we are finally gathered together again in this moment, in this hour, I ask us to take up the practice in Oliver’s poem that comes before letting go, the other things she suggests we must do to live in this world:

“to love what is mortal;
to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it;”

Hopefully we will have many other hours together, just like this one, but let us not take that for granted. We have been hungry for so long for things to get “back to normal” and I offer that this moment, today, is something like the normal we have been so hungry for -- the ordinary blessings we often took for granted until that strange week in March of 2020 when normal was not possible.

Hopefully part of what we have learned over these past 2 ½ years is to cherish those things we used to call normal, to cherish this time, right now, even though it’s still a bit odd and full of technical glitches, to appreciate it and cherish it just as it is.

It’s not easy, is it, to love this life, knowing it is temporary? Oliver names a fundamental paradox that I have struggled with over the years- How can we enjoy what is wonderful and beautiful knowing it will come to an end? In ordinary times It’s easy to put knowledge of our impermanence aside, to act as if there is plenty of time, as if things will always be this boring, ordinary way. On the other hand, when our impermanence is right up in our face like it has been lately, it’s easy to detach, to disengage, so that we wont’ be hurt by endings and departures. It is not easy to love what is mortal, and it is not easy to let go.

The story of the tiger and the strawberry can be found in many versions and variations over centuries and different parts of the world. It is often said that Zen teacher DT Suzuki told this story in this brief version:

“A man walking alone in the wild suddenly finds himself chased by a tiger. he starts to run but soon arrives at the edge of a cliff. with no way out, he jumps and, luckily, manages to grasp a vine. the abyss yawns under him, the tiger threatens him from above. two mice, one white, one black, appear from a crevice and start gnawing at the vine. as the vine grows thinner and thinner, the man notices a plump fresh strawberry. he plucks it. how delicious it tastes!” [i]

Like any good parable or Koan, there are many possible interpretations. Right now I am inspired to ask- can we be clear enough, brave enough, present enough, to pluck the strawberries right in front of us, despite the yawning abyss and hungry tigers? Maybe…

seizing a juniper berry

This year, instead of worrying about our future, or striving to “get back to normal” I encourage us to cherish our time together, exactly as it is. To cherish the unique beauty of each member and friend and visitor, to cherish that feeling of connection and warmth we seek when we come together. We have just welcomed brand new members into both the Athens and Cortland congregations, and they joined us not because of who we used to be, but because they found something valuable, something worth cherishing as they experienced this weird in between time with us. How can we make this a special and inspiring time for them, and honor the fresh newness of their time with us?

At the same time, I know that even now a number of our dear friends are are making plans move so they can be closer to family. Just knowing about such plans invites us into a kind of in between time, preparing in spirit and heart for the anticipated separation. Transition times are uncomfortable, and we can often race to the finish, race to the “new normal” we hope is ahead. But these past 2 years have taught me that there is no promise of normal somewhere in the future, there is only now in this very fluid, quixotic life. Can we challenge ourselves to taste this moment, this precious time together like a juicy red strawberry?

Kurt Vonnegut writes:

“… I had a good uncle, my late Uncle Alex. He was my father's kid brother, a childless graduate of Harvard who was an honest life-insurance salesman in Indianapolis. He was well- read and wise. And his principal complaint about other human beings was that they so seldom noticed it when they were happy. So when we were drinking lemonade under an apple tree in the summer, say, and talking lazily about this and that, almost buzzing like honeybees, Uncle Alex would suddenly interrupt the agreeable blather to exclaim, "If this isn't nice, I don't know what is."
So I do the same now, and so do my kids and grandkids. And I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, "if this isn't nice, I don't know what is."  [Vonnegut A Man Without a Country" p. 132]

If that story about tigers and strawberries feels a bit too high stakes, Uncle Alex’s spiritual practice feels quite achievable. I have adopted this practice myself in recent years. Just noticing and naming those ordinary moments that feel, well, nice. I remember the first time I tried it -- I was visiting my sister after a long time apart. There was the usual hubbub of traveling and arriving and the noise of our teens and preparations of dinner, and we found ourselves standing outside – just a quiet ordinary moment in the temperate night air, “If this isn’t nice, what is?” I offered and she started- “what is?” she asked. “Just this moment of finally being together- a quiet moment under the stars” She paused and looked around. That was all, no tigers, no fireworks, just a noticing and arriving in a moment we had waited for so long, and that was all too quickly over.

Who knows what the future will bring? Probably some joyful things, probably some hard things. New people will come into our lives, people we care for will depart. There is, in truth, no such thing as permanence in our mortal world, so let us cherish this time, this unique, unrepeatable time. This is a challenging spiritual practice- it is not easy to love what is mortal, it is not easy to let it go when the time comes. That is one reason we gather in community: to remember how precious life is, even and especially the ordinary moments, and to savor it together. Let us cherish the time.




[i] https://moritherapy.org/article/zen-strawberry-story/