Adin Ballou: Peace and Forgiveness
This month, as we think about forgiveness, we honor Universalist minister Adin Ballou (not to be confused with his earlier Universalist ancestor Hosea Ballou).
Adin Ballou came to believe that his religion called him to practice peace in all things, following the message of Jesus, who said that if someone slaps your cheek, that rather than hitting back it is better to offer your other cheek to be slapped.
Adin founded a community called Hopedale, which was based on these principles of radical peace and non-violence.
One day a man came to Hopedale, hungry and homeless. They offered him food and a place to stay the night. Later that night two young girls heard noises downstairs and went to investigate. They saw feet sticking out from the couch, and a bag full of dishes and candlesticks!
They called their parents down, and quickly determined that the feet belonged to the man they had fed and sheltered. The parents called in their community leader, Adin Ballou, who helped the man out from under the couch. The man explained that he was desperate, with no food or job, and he figured that if he was caught stealing he would be sent to jail, where at least he would be able to eat. Instead of sending the man to jail, Adin not only forgave the man, he even invited the him to join their community, and to make a home with them!
Let your anger guide you to beloved action: Join me in Ferguson
I’m angry. I’m not even sure that’s a big enough word for what I’m feeling. The rage is deep, so pervasive at times it threatens to paralyze me into inaction. I struggle against the threat of being rendered immobile by this anger every day.
This week, I braced myself for the release of another video of a heinous police shooting of an unarmed black man, this time in Cincinnati, Ohio. I must fight with every fiber of my being to stay in my body, to stay connected to my feelings and ground myself, bracing for another wave of grief and pain that feeds my deeper rage.
That’s why on August 7-10, I am responding to the call of leaders in Ferguson to show up and take collective action for racial justice on the anniversary of the Ferguson uprising. Read more →
Prayers for Chattanooga
We grieve with the families and friends of the Marines killed in Chattanooga, and we pray for the full recovery of those who were injured. We are heartsick at another incident in which gun violence took the lives of innocent victims. Read more →
The Coming WORR: A Week of Righteous Resistance July 12 – 18
Last November, I lay down with just under a hundred other people on an interstate highway in Minneapolis. Along with thousands in cities across the country, we stopped the cars, we carried signs and we chanted and sang, saying Black Lives Matter in every way that we could. My brother called me from Texas, and said, “Hey, did you shut down I-35 today?” I responded, “Well, yes, me and a few others.” He said, “It made news down here. That’s dope. My freedom fighter sister.” That was just over six months ago, it was the start of what has been a nonstop whirlwind of actions, public witness, and personal challenges for me. Read more →
Notes to a white religious leader
Notes to a white religious leader in a majority white denomination preparing to give a #BlackLivesMatter sermon:
- Nurture the hearts and souls of the congregation . . . to be able to look at the racist institutional and cultural violence that is burning all around us. To acknowledge the despair, the pain, the heartbreak, and to collectively grieve – to assume that everyone there, on some level, is grieving and to invite them into that space, rather then assume they are indifferent and uncaring, even if potentially one could assume them outwardly from their actions/inaction. We are not there to pass judgement on who we think are, but to create support for who people want to be, who we know they can be, who these times call on our people to be.
“Stars,” by Namoli Brennet
“Stars,” by Namoli Brennet
Lyrics:
Maybe we’re just one of a million tiny galaxies
Hurtling on towards some unrevealed destiny
Maybe we’re somebody’s unfinished symphony
Maybe we’re the defenders of the indefensible
Just trying to make sense of the incomprehensible
And what if we, what if we are
What if we, what if we are
Stars
Maybe we’re the victims of reincarnation
Maybe we’re the phantoms of manifestation
Maybe we’re just here to fix our mistakes again
Maybe we’re planets like Venus and Saturn
Surrounded by gases and protons and atoms
And what if we, what if we are
What if we, what if we are
Only stars
Maybe this world is just thinner than it seems
Maybe we’re all partners in the same lucid dream, yeah
Well maybe we’re vapors, and maybe we’re just steam
Maybe we’re creatures of habit and malice
That pale in the light of aurora borealis
And what if we, what if we are
What if we, what if we are
Only stars
Only stars
in the dark
just a
spark
Maybe we’re just lucky and blest to bear witness
to the flashing of this meteor, the tale of this comet
Maybe we’re cursed, and maybe we’re fortunate
Maybe we just go on our milky white way
Maybe we get to stay
And what if we, what if we are
What if we, what if we are
Stars
From the album Chrysanthemum, available here for download.
Part of the Great Story
“The Future Is Calling Us to Greatness,” a children’s story told by Connie Barlow at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Monmouth County, New Jersey, October 2013.
The Stargazer Who Discovered a Comet
From “The Stargazer Who Discovered a Comet” in The UU Kids Book by Anne Fields and Charlene Brotman (Biddeford, Maine: Brotman-Marshfield, 1989); used with permission. “Afterward” from Rooftop Astronomer: A Story about Maria Mitchell by Stephanie Sammarti
NOTE: The name, Maria, is pronounced “ma-RYE-ah.”
Maria always remembered the day she helped her father time an eclipse of the sun. She used the chronometer to count down to the exact second that the moon began to block out the sun. Her father needed to send the timing report to his astronomer friends at the big Harvard University observatory, where they were collecting eclipse information from all over.
“There will be another eclipse like this in 54 years,” said father.
“I’m twelve now, I’ll be 66 then!” exclaimed Maria. How could astronomers know so far ahead what would happen in the sky? How amazing that the stars and planets spun around in such order!
“I want to study the stars, always!” decided Maria one day. “I want to be an astronomer!”
“Father, can only men be astronomers?” she asked.
Father thought for a moment, while Maria watched his face anxiously. He knew that no matter how smart a girl was, she could not get into any college in the United States to study astronomy. Only boys were allowed to go to college in those days.
Finally he said, “There are no women astronomers in America. There are only a few in the entire world, but I do think it’s possible, Maria. I will teach thee all I know about astronomy. Cousin Walter has scientific books he might let thee read. Thee will need to study mathematics. That is as important to astronomy as the telescope. Yes, I do think it is possible thee could be an astronomer.”
“Oh, I will study, father, I will!” cried Maria joyfully, hugging her father.
True to her word, Maria spent long hours studying geometry and trigonometry in a tiny room at the foot of the attic stairs . . .
Maria still spent most evenings studying the sky with the telescope and keeping careful records on the stars. One night she saw a fuzzy spot through the telescope that she had never seen before. Quickly she checked the charts to see if a star was supposed to be in that place in the sky. No star was ever there. Could it be a new comet?
“Father, come up and look quick!” she shouted. Her father dashed up the attic stairs to the roof and peered carefully through the telescope.
“Thee’s discovered a comet above the North Star!” he exclaimed. “We must write immediately to the Harvard Observatory and tell them! A comet is named for the person who discovers it first but the discovery doesn’t count unless it is reported to an observatory.”
![By H. Dassell [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons](https://www.questformeaning.org/wp3/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Maria_Mitchell.jpg)
Maria Mitchell, by H. Dassell [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Finally one day a package arrived for Maria from the King of Denmark. It was the gold medal! Now Maria was famous. She was the first woman in the world to have a comet named after her!
Women all over America were so proud of Maria that they collected money for a new, larger telescope for her. How excited she was! Now she could learn so much more about the stars and planets!
Maria’s life changed in 1865 when a wealthy man named Matthew Vassar had the courage to start a college for women — Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York.
People called Matthew Vassar an old fool. They said girls didn’t need a college education, they just needed to know how to sew and do housework and maybe play the piano a little. College would ruin them for doing housework.
There were ministers who thundered, “It’s against the will of God for girls to go to college! It will break up families and destroy the country!”
In spite of such talk, Matthew Vassar wanted Maria to come and teach astronomy! She could have an observatory with the third largest telescope on the continent.
“Father, how can I do this?” said Maria softly, trying to keep her voice from trembling. “I’ve never even been to college myself!” She was also thinking, “If I’m not any good at it, then people will say, “This proves that women have no business teaching in colleges!”
“Thee can do it, and do it well,” said her father. “Thee should have no fears.”
He was right. Maria’s students loved her. The other professors just expected the students to sit and listen to them talk, but Maria taught her students to question everything and experiment, and to think for themselves.
Afterward
In 1986 another young woman discovered a comet. Working at Mount Palomar Observatory near San Diego, California, Christine Wilson had equipment and techniques at her disposal undreamed of in Maria’s time. At the start of her career, she had a knowledge of astronomy surpassing all that Maria learned in a lifetime of study.
But Christine Wilson’s discovery, while exciting and well publicized, did not catapult her into sudden fame as Maria’s had. New comets are not headline news. Thanks to pioneers like Maria, neither are women astronomers. Women now occupy important positions in the scientific community. Side by side with their male colleagues, they fight disease, predict the weather, design computers, and continue to discover comets. Maria Mitchell would be pleased.
From Session 2 of the Toolbox of Faith Curriculum, part of the Tapestry of Faith Curriculum offerings from the UUA. Find the complete curriculum here.
Faith in the Borderland
Podcast: Download (Duration: 13:12 — 12.1MB)
Subscribe: More
I love Abhi’s language about the “hyphenated space between perspectives.” It really speaks to me and gives me hope for a more accepting and just world. —LD
Read more →
Our Religion
Podcast: Download (11.0MB)
Subscribe: More
Read more →In this homily from the CLF worship at the UUA General Assembly in 2009, Jane writes a primer on Unitarian Universalism, with my favorite message that beauty and fun are really important to UUs. —LD
