Death, like birth, is an event which brings us up against the edges of our knowledge, up against one of life’s most profound mysteries. We wonder why people must die at all; we wonder what happens after we die. Is death a total ending or are we transformed in some way into another life? Death is the most ultimate experience we face and, as such, it is intimately connected to God or whatever it is that we call ultimate reality. Awareness of death causes people to turn back to face life with a totally different perspective. Concerns about death are an important factor in the development of religions.

The earliest humans buried their dead, often with something which might indicate that they believed the spirits of the dead would live on in some way. Cultures, such as ancient Egypt, placed a large amount of the energy and skills of their people into preparations for life after death, at least for royalty and the wealthy. In Christianity and Islam life is lived with the expectation of a lift after death. What kind of life that will be, whether a paradise or a hell, is determined by the quality of one’s life on earth. Eastern religions assume that one will have many lives though this is not necessarily positive. The goal of Eastern religions, such as Hinduism and Buddhism, is to eventually end the chain of reincarnations and ultimately unite with God in something like Nirvana or union with Brahman. All religions have ceremonies in connection with burial or cremation in which beliefs about life and death are expressed and the dead are memorialized.

Unitarian Universalists hold diverse views about what happens after death, from reincarnation, to some other form of transformation, to a belief that death is the end of any form of consciousness. But we generally have similar attitudes about the nature of death, as we can know it during life, and its rites. We have been in the forefront in changing society’s views about death toward a more natural acceptance, toward sensitive care for those who are dying, and toward simpler ceremonies which focus on the value of the life of the person who died.

Children have as intense an interest in death as they do in birth. Often their first experience is the death of a pet. Sometimes it is an older person, such as a grandparent or other relative, who is at at the end of a long life who dies. Occasionally their first experience with death is with other tragedies which are harder to explain.

Very young children may play "bang bang-you’re dead" or other such games without really knowing what it means, but true awareness of what death actually is can be a traumatic experience for young children. One primary age child, on learning what death really meant could hardly eat for several days. Some children deal with such concerns about death by role-playing dying; others make jokes. It is helpful for children to have adults who will openly and comfortably help them to talk about their concerns and who will answer them honestly and reassuringly. The story in this session aims to give the children a gentle introduction to death by placing it in the context of a person’s long and happy life. It also aims to connect death to the mystery and wonder that is God.

Connecting death with God is supported by our Unitarian Universalist principles which urge us to affirm the worth and dignity of every person, the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part, and by the source of our own experience of transcending mystery and wonder.

Goal:
To learn the importance in both Judaism and Christianity of a day of rest and worship.

Materials:
Find a copy of the book The Creation, by Steven Mitchell
Gather materials for making a mural: long paper, markers, colored pencils, crayons etc. Label the section of the mural paper as follows:
First day: light and darknes/day and night
Second day: sky and earth and seas
Third day: all kinds of plants
Fourth day: sun, moon, and stars
Fifth day: living creatures of sky and seas
Sixth day: living creatures of earth

Activities:
Read Background

Introduce the story by saying something like:
“The Sabbath is a very old Jewish celebration. Long, long ago, when the Jewish people worked hard for many hours every day planting in the fields and caring from their farm animals, the seventh day of the week was set aside so they could rest from their work and worship their god. For the Jews, the seventh day was their day of worship and they called it Shabbat. The Jewish Shabbat began at sundown on Friday and ended at sundown on Saturday. Today Jews celebrate Shabbat in many different ways. Some customs include setting the Friday evening Shabbat table in the home with the best dishes, with wine, with sweet braided bread called challot and with candlesticks. A blessing, or special words, is spoken to mark this time as holy before the meal is eaten. On Shabbat morning, the family attends services in the synagogue. On Saturday evening a special blessing is said thanking God for the Sabbath and a new week has started.

But others observe Sunday as their Sabbath, their day to rest and worship their god. Who are these people? What is their religion called? Making the seventh day of the week a day of rest and worship comes from an old, old story of how the world was made. We think that when this story says ‘day,’ it is really talking about a long period of time—maybe even thousands and thousands of years!

Read The Creation by Steven Mitchell

Discuss: Why do you think things happened in that order?
Why do you think people were created last?
Why do you think God rested? Why should people stop work and rest?

Make a mural of the story—a long picture that tells the story from beginning to end.

The first five books of the Hebrew Bible include many laws and ordinances, often freely mixed with narrative passages that give the context or reason for the particular law. The Decalogue, or Ten Commandments, probably existed as an independent document before the E writer placed it in his story of Moses. Another almost identical version can be found in Deuteronomy 5, although in Deuteronomy the Sabbath is observed as a re- minder of Israel’s bondage in Egypt, that the slaves of the Israelites "may rest as you do," whereas in Exodus the Sabbath is observed because God rested after six days of the labor of creation.

The form of the Ten Commandments used here is common to most Protestant churches. Unitarian Universalists from other religious traditions may be more familiar with other forms.

The first four commandments refer to the relationship of the Israelites with their god, YHWH. The next six refer to relationships among people. Breaking any of the commandments was a breach in the covenant relationship–the two-way agreement that bound YHWH and Israel together-but the Israelites were told, "If you listen to these laws and are careful to observe them, then the Lord your God will observe the sworn covenant he made with your forefathers and will keep faith with you. He will love you, bless you and cause you to increase" (Deuteronomy 7:12-13a).

The golden calf mentioned in the story is believed by many to have been the central focus of Canaanite worship of this period. An excavation in Israel in the summer of 1990 uncovered the first "golden calf" archaeologists have ever found. Much smaller than the calf described in the story of Moses, it is slightly larger than four inches tall and weighs about a pound. Made of several metals and burnished to provide a golden sheen, the calf is thought to date from about 1550 B.C.E. (Cleveland Plain Dealer, July 25, 1990).

AFTER THE HEBREWS LEFT EGYPT, they traveled in the wilderness. It was a very hard trip, and they were hungry and discouraged by the time they camped, three months later, at the foot of Mount Sinai. Mountains were considered holy places then. So Moses went up on Mount Sinai to talk to God. God told Moses that the children of Israel would become a holy nation. When Moses reported to the people what God said, they replied, "Everything that the Lord has spoken we will do,"

The next time Moses went up on the mountain, God told him to have the people devote themselves to goodness for two days. On the third day Moses was to come back on the mountain and God would appear.

On the third day there were thunder and lightning and a thick cloud on the mountain, God had come down to the mountaintop in fire and smoke, and the mountain shook violently. God called Moses to come to the top of the mountain, saying, "Come up to me on the mountain, and wait there; and I will give you the tablets of stone with the law and the commandments, which I have written for their instruction." Moses set out with his assistant, Joshua, while the people waited at the foot of the mountain. Moses was on the cloud-covered mountain for six days before he heard from God. Moses remained with God for another forty days and forty nights. When God finished speaking with Moses on Mount Sinai, God gave him the two tablets of commandments, two tablets of stone, written with the finger of God.

While Moses was away, the people complained that they didn’t know what had happened to him. They wanted Aaron,Moses’ brother, to make a god they could worship. Aaron took all the gold in the camp and made a statue of a golden calf. When Moses returned, after forty-seven days, with the two stone tablets, he found the people dancing and worshiping the golden calf. Moses was so angry he threw the stone tablets from his hand and broke them at the foot of the mountain. This broke the covenant between the people and God. Then Moses took the calf they had made, burnt it with fire, ground it to powder, scattered it on the water, and made the people drink it.

Some time later, after the people had shown that they repented, God forgave them. God said to Moses, "Cut two tablets of stone like the former ones, and I will write on the tablets the words that were on the former tablets, which you broke." God was willing to renew the covenant because the people were now willing to follow God’s commandments. This is what the ten commandments said:

I. I am the Lord your God. You shall have no other gods before me.
2 You shall not make for yourself an idol to worship.
3. You shall not make wrongful use of the name of God.
4. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.
5. Honor your father and mother.
6. You shall not kill.
7. You shall not commit adultery.
8. You shall not steal.
9. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
10. You shall not covet anything that is your neighbor’s.

Links to Sections in this page:
Samuel Joseph May
Elizabeth Blackwell
Whitney Young
Amos Peck Seaman

Samuel Joseph May (1797-1871)
by Patricia Hoertdoerfer

"What crime have these men committed?" Samuel May asked the other stagecoach passengers as he looked out on 30 black men, who were handcuffed and fastened along a heavy chain that was attached to a wagon.

The man next to May turned and said, "They are only slaves some planter has purchased and he’s taking them home."

May thought about his situation and said, "I never fully realized before how great a privilege it is to live where human beings cannot be treated in this manned."

Samuel May was hardly ever away from his hometown of Boston, but when he took this trip South, it changed his life. He decided to dedicate his life to helping people gain their human rights.He studied and became a Unitarian minister, preaching the message of love toward all people.His religion was practical and active, making him work everyday to relieve the suffering and to free the oppressed. What concerned him most was the loss of human rights. He spoke out against slavery and demanded freedom for black people.

May led Unitarians and people from Syracuse, New York, to help black people reach freedom. They helped slaves escape from the southern part of the United States where people were allowed to own slaves and head north to Canada where slavery was forbidden. Samuel May’s home became a stop for many slaves along the road to freedom. The act of helping slaves escape to the North was called the Under-ground Railroad, and May was a good conductor on the Underground Railroad.

Samuel May worked most of his life to rid our country of its worst form of human oppression–slavery. It was not an easy goal for him, and it sometimes meant violent struggle to reach freedom. As he said, "May the sad experience of the past prompt and impel us to do all that righteousness demands at our hands–all that righteousness demands at our hands. Today people are still suffering and many black people are not treated equally. Yet many liberties have been gained and many people have been helped because of people like Samuel May and other Unitarian leaders who acted with dedication and courage.

Elizabeth Blackwell (1821-1910)
by Elizabeth Gillis

"Elizabeth, it’s of no use trying. Thee cannot gain admission to these schools. Thee must go to Paris and don masculine attire to gain the necessary knowledge.

That is what Elizabeth Blackwell was told by a Quaker friend who tried to help her get into medical school. It was in the 1840s and young ladies did not go to medical school!

But Elizabeth did not go to Paris or dress up like a man. She thought she had the right to study medicine like any man. She applied to many schools and was rejected by all of them. Finally,she was accepted by a medical school in Geneva, New York. The faculty had presented her request to the students. If one student failed to agree, they said, she would not be admitted.They thought it was a great joke and voted to have her enter the medical school.

She completed her studies and graduated.Elizabeth described her graduation day:

"After the degree had been conferred on the others, I was called up alone to the platform. The president, in full academic costume, rose as I came on the stage and going through the usual formula of a short Latin address, presented my diploma. I said, ‘Sir, I thank you; it shall be the effort of my life, with the help of the Most High,to shed honour on my diploma.’ The graduates applauded. As I came down, I was much touched by the graduates making room for me, and insisting that I should sit with them for the remainder of the exercises.

What had begun as a joke to many ended in respect for the young woman who was so deter-mined to be a doctor. However, the medical school was censured for doing such a daring thing.

Dr. Blackwell, a Unitarian for much of her life, had a long career after becoming the first American woman to obtain a degree in medicine.

Whitney Young (1921-1971)
by Denise Tracy

"Where are you going!" his mother asked.

"I’m running away," said the child.

"Where will you go?"

The boy was silent. His suitcase was half full.He had put in some clothes. Now he was putting in the important stuff. His favorite books and a toy or two. He was leaving a lot behind. But where he was going he wouldn’t need much. You see, he was going to start a new world where everything was fair and equal.

"Where will you go? " asked his mother again.

"Somewhere where the color of my skin won’t matter replied the boy with a quiver in his voice.

"What happened?" the mother asked quietly.

"I was walking down the street and two white boys called me a ‘nigger.’ Then they made me get off the sidewalk so they could pass. I hate them."By now he was crying. "I wish I had never been born and I wish 1 had never been born black."

"Whitney, your color is beautiful. It’s lust that some people don’t see it that way. Do you know that when I was your age I wanted to run away from home thinking I could find a place where the color of my skin wouldn’t matter?"

"You did!" The boy was surprised by how well his mother knew him. Sometimes he thought she could even read his mind.

"Yes, I did. I thought I’d go start all over again in a new place."

"What happened?" asked Whitney.

"Well, my momma saw me packing my bag and said she’d tried to run away and that her momma had caught her and her momma’d remembered the time she’d packed her suitcase,too. All of us have had decisions to make about how to deal with the unfairness of the world."

"Why did you and your momma and your momma’s momma decide not to go?"

"Well, my momma’s momma told her and momma told me and now I’m telling you, we Youngs don’t run from evil, we face it unafraid, and we change it."

"How do you change evil?"

"Well, your momma’s momma, my momma, and me all understood that if you believe what some whites want you to–that our color is the problem–then hatred grows. It festers inside you and you grow up bitter. Your momma’s momma, my momma, and me all give you a heritage of pride. Those boys on the street feel small inside–that’s why they pick on you so they will feel bigger. If you know that their behavior comes from their own ignorance and smallness nothing they can say can hurt you. But let me tell you something else. For three generations our family has been watching the world change and we’ve been helping it along. It’s your turn to change evil."

"But what do I do?"

"You’ll know when the time comes."

Whitney Young began to unpack his bag. He’d live in this world and he’d change evil. He came from a long line of people who chose not to run away, not to hate but to change. He felt proud.

When Whitney Young grew up he became the dean of a small college and the director of the National Urban League. As the director of the National Urban League, he allied himself with other black•and white people who believed in equality. He started job programs to deal with the evil of unemployment. He wrote grants to train black people to be executives. He founded schools to help black youths who had dropped out of school to get their diplomas so they could find good jobs.

Whitney Young was a Unitarian Universalist. He worked at changing evil wherever he saw it- not by hating it, but by tackling it, understanding it, and changing it.

Amos Peck Seaman (1788-1864)
by Mary Hamilton

Amos Peck Seaman was called the "King" of Minudie, Nova Scotia, in Canada. From very humble beginnings he became a successful business man and generous Universalist leader.

Amos was born in a tiny hut in the small parish of Sackville in eastern Canada on a very cold January day. As Amos grew, he spent many evenings sitting beside his mother as she darned and re-darned their few clothes. Here he learned to read from the Bible, and to count sticks of wood for the fire. In later years, as he sat each evening to write in his daily journal, he would remember quiet hours with his mother.

By the time he was 8, Amos knew he must leave his parents’ home. He was an extra mouth to feed and there was nothing he could do in Sackville to bring extra food into the home. He found an old birch bark canoe, and he crossed the Bay of Fundy, arriving in Minudie, Nova Scotia, with no shoes on his feet and only the clothes on his back.

Perhaps it was his name that led Amos Seaman to the sea. He spent these early years working around the docks and shipyards and out sailing on the many ships. By the time he was 22 he was, indeed, a man of the sea. With his brother Job as a business partner, he began trading with the Boston merchants, and soon he was carrying goods between Nova Scotia, New England, and the West Indies in ships built in his own shipyards.

On May 12, 1814, Amos Seaman and Jane Metcalfe were married. With Jane’s help, Amos was able to attend school to further his education. Amos seemed to have a magic touch. He succeeded with whatever business he tried. In 1834 he purchased the 7,000 acre Minudie estate. He gradually enlarged it, even reclaiming some land from the sea, until it was the largest estate in Nova Scotia. The many sandstone deposits on the estate were excellent for the production of grindstones. Soon, thousands of high-priced grindstones were being shipped to American markets.

There was little in the town of Minudie that wasn’t touched by Amos Seaman. His businesses included the first steam-powered grist mill, a steam sawmill, and a coal mine. Along with all of this, he kept a fatherly eye on the people of Minudie, doing what he could to improve their lives. Of course, he liked to have things done his way, and soon became known as "King" of Minudie.

Because he never had an education until he grew up, he knew how important it was for his 11 children (seven boys and four girls) and their friends to go to school, even if they thought it might be more fun to play! He gave the town the lumber to build a fine schoolhouse.

On one side of the school, he built a very special church. He was a Universalist, and he believed that everyone could come and worship in his church, even if they didn’t believe as he did.Some of the people were happy to join him, but many of the others weren’t happy there. When he learned this, he made the town another gift — a Catholic church which was built on the other side of the school house.

Amos "King" Seaman lived a long time ago,but all three of the buildings — the school, the Universalist church, and the Catholic church — still stand today in Minudie, Nova Scotia. Amos Seaman was an important Universalist leader who believed that every person has the right to worship as she or he sees fit.