Sustainable Empathy
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Traveling home at the end of a really hot day, I got to Grand Central Terminal and made my way down to the 7 train like I always do. There was obviously a problem with the train because the platform was packed solid with commuters waiting, tight like sardines, sweating in the intense heat.
I could barely get onto the platform there were so many people. I asked around and nobody knew what was going on and there were no announcements forthcoming and no station agents in sight. So we all just waited uncomfortably, absorbed in our smartphones.
On the Mend: Brokenness and Healing
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A friend of mine slipped on the ice and broke her ankle one winter and was laid up for weeks and weeks. As I expressed my sympathy for her misfortune and suffering, a surprising phrase slipped out of my mouth. I said to her, “I didn’t realize you were breakable!”
But of course, we all are: our breakability comes with being human. Even the strong ones among us—the ones who, like my friend, are always there taking care of others—even the strong ones are breakable.
Vulnerability and Compassion
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The pragmatist philosopher-activist Jane Addams in her first book, Democracy and Social Ethics (1902), examined the great gap that she believed was then opening up between “old” and “new” ways of thinking about poverty.
Addams gave witness to the moral compassion within what she called “the neighborhood mind.” She attributed this compassion, in part, to the recognition among the poor of their common material precariousness.
Facing Vulnerability
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Why is it so hard to be vulnerable? Vulnerability is both necessary to create the real connections we crave as human beings, and it involves the risk of being rejected for the true and vulnerable selves that we might share with others.
In Daring Greatly author Brené Brown has an entire chapter on habits that we cultivate to avoid being vulnerable. Let me share a few of them and you can see if any of these patterns might appear in your own life.
From Your Minister
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Over ten million people have now watched online a 20-minute talk called “The Power of Vulnerability.” It’s a talk by Brené Brown, a researcher on the topic.
Brown’s book, Daring Greatly: How the Courage to be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead is also a mega-bestseller. The huge number of us clamoring to learn from her indicates that she has hit a deep vein of longing, both for reliable data and for help with an unavoidable fact that we all figure out sooner or later: despite all our efforts to deny and ignore it, we are vulnerable.
REsources for Living
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Imagine that you are standing in front of a group of colleagues, or your entire class, about to give a presentation. There are people in the room who can make decisions about your job opportunities or your grade, but more than that there are a whole bunch of folks watching who will decide in their own minds whether you are smart, whether you are entertaining, whether you are the sort of person they admire.
How do you feel?
The Transformation of Silence
Commentary on “A Veteran’s Day Confession for America”
War is toxic—tragedy, waste and profiteering are an inevitable part of even the so-called “good wars.” War is sin—as defined by theologian Paul Tillich: “a three-fold separation: separation among individuals, separation of man from himself, and separation of all men from the Ground of Being.” War is toxic and war is sin—not only for the soldier who fights the war, but also for the society who authorizes the war-making in a foreign land and then is all too often separated (geographically, intellectually, and emotionally) from the death, injury and contamination that are the tragic consequences of war.
Christians believe all of us fall into sin at one time or another and these sins directly or indirectly harm others and reduce our own integrity and spiritual strength. “If we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8). Unitarian Universalists often reject words like “sin.” Yet most Unitarian Universalists are Americans – we belong to a war-making society. War-making societies across cultures and generations have practiced rituals of purification and cleansing in order to assuage this toxicity, remedy sin, and facilitate healing and wholeness. The Christian tradition offers a ritual of purification and cleansing called confession. “If we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).
Unitarian Universalists would do well to consider Tillich’s view of “sin as separation” and reflect on how war separates us from the “Spirit of Life” and the essential principles that define our faith: the inherent worth and dignity of every person; justice, equity and compassion in human relations; the goal of world community; and respect for the interdependent web of existence of which we are all a part. To ignore or disregard the fact of sin just because we don’t like the word is unrealistic and self-deceptive because sin causes great harm to individuals and society. While some alumni of the Catholic Church may have knee-jerk reactions to confession, the ritual of confession is not foreign to Unitarian Universalism, as evidenced by the confessions found in our hymnal, Singing the Living Tradition, and the words of the 2010 Creating Peace Statement of Conscience: “our faith calls us to create peace, yet we confess we have not done all we could to prevent the spread of armed conflict throughout the world.”
As a Unitarian Universalist Minister deployed to Afghanistan as an Army chaplain, I faced the daunting challenge of being a good steward of our heritage in the combat zone and bringing the prophetic witness of our principles to bear on the military institution. As a member of the Profession of Arms in service to the Nation I also felt an obligation to provide spiritual leadership to the people of the United States, many of whom have been all too separated from the consequences of our war-making over the past decade. I wrote “A Veteran’s Day Confession for America” to address this harmful separation, facilitate purification and cleansing, restore connections, and reconcile us to right relationships. Jesus taught, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted; blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:4, 8). There is nothing I want more than for God to bless America and for God to bless our troops. My hope is that if more people will embrace confessions like this one we might actually secure these blessings.
Disclaimer: All entries to CLF/Quest Military Ministries page reflect the personal views of the contributor. The views expressed here are in no way to be construed as an individual or individuals speaking in their official capacities for the agencies, departments, or service branches they serve in. This is not an official publication of the Department of Defense, the U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Air Force, any government agency, or any other organization.
Duty and Service
My name is Dave Thut. I am an orthopaedic surgeon. I have been a member of five UU churches over the past 20 years. I am a healer, a pacifist—and a veteran. Read more →
A Veteran’s Day Confession for America
On this Veteran’s Day Let us confess our sins before God and neighbor.
Most Merciful God
we confess that we have sinned against you
in thought, word, and deed
by what we have done, and what we have left undone.
We have become people of the lie,
out to tame the frontier wilderness
while the beast within lurks hidden in shadow
paralyzing us in a perpetual state of denial.
We have made war entertainment
enjoying box seats in the carnival of death
consuming violence, turning tragedy into games
raising our children to kill without remorse.
We have morally disengaged,
outsourcing our killing to the one percent,
forgetting they follow our orders
the blood they shed is on our hands too.
We have insulated ourselves from the painful truths veterans carry.
Our bumper magnets proclaim, “Support our Troops,”
but for too many, suicide is the only panacea.
Our insulation is their isolation.
We have made our veterans into false idols,
blood sacrifice on the National Altar of War.
Parades and medals perpetuate the hero myth,
glorifying those who kill and die on our behalf.
We have betrayed the dead,
saying, “They will never be forgotten,”
yet how many among us can name
a single war casualty of the past decade?
We have sanitized killing and condoned extrajudicial assassinations:
death by remote control,
war made easy without due process,
protecting ourselves from the human cost of war.
We have deceived ourselves,
saying, “Americans do not kill civilians, terrorists do,”
denying the colossal misery our wars inflict on the innocent.
The national closet bursts with skeletons.
We have abandoned our Afghan allies,
luring them in with promises of safety and security
then failing to follow through with promises made,
using them and leaving them to an almost certain death.
Almighty God, on this Veteran’s Day
help us to turn from this wayward path.
Deliver us from indifference, callousness, and self-deception.
Fill us with compassion for all who bear the burdens of our wars.
Grant us the courage to pay attention, to stay engaged
so we may listen without judgment, restore integrity,
accept responsibility, keep promises
and give honor to whomever honor is due.
Disclaimer: All entries to CLF/Quest Military Ministries page reflect the personal views of the contributor. The views expressed here are in no way to be construed as an individual or individuals speaking in their official capacities for the agencies, departments, or service branches they serve in. This is not an official publication of the Department of Defense, the U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Air Force, any government agency, or any other organization.
