Be Still
My daughter is learning to nap. Again.
Not on a shoulder or on a lap.
But in her crib, with a stuffed wolf and a pacifier.
To fall asleep on her own;
To quiet her mind and her body and her mouth —
practicing, practicing, ready to talk;
To turn away for a few moments from the excitement of life;
To turn off the stimulation of the every day.
I am trying to help:
To set the scene, to rub her back, to gently say, again and again,
“You’re just going to sleep.”
I watch her work her way up to the edge, ready to leap into dreamland,
and then wake herself up, roll over, wriggle and jump and babble.
I’m not into letting her cry, and I’m not looking for advice.
She will get it.
And she comes by it honestly:
A mother who struggles to quiet her own mind and body (and mouth),
To turn off devices and turn away from Facebook,
To be still.
To know.
To rest.
Who Do You Listen To?
image by Erik Dungan
Who do you let in? These days we have lots of options for who and what we listen to. We can opt to experience constant input at every moment, via the television, radio, internet, cable, social media, on our phones, in our cars, even–yes, I confess, I’ve done it more than once–glancing at things online on our phone in the bathroom.
What I notice is that there is so much input that I have to tune most of it out in order to focus on my life–my kid, my work, the tasks that I need to accomplish on any given day–and then a week or two can sometimes go by and I’ll find myself wondering “what’s going on in the world?” There is so much input and channels of communication that we are initially overwhelmed, so we screen out what we take in–and then feel actually more disconnected than connected.
Have you experienced this? I am regularly trying to take myself off of e-mail lists, but I must also be adding myself to new lists that are of interest to me, because somehow I seem to be getting plenty of e-mail, and it’s not all spam. It’s still not as personal or individual as I would like it to be. Do you scan through your e-mail inbox, as I do, looking for that occasional e-mail message that’s actually individually written to me specifically, Heather, the human being, from another human being, not an automatically generated “Dear Heather” robo-email?
I wonder if it’s why more and more people are turning to texting; at least for me, the robots have not taken over my cell phone inbox yet (please, don’t spread the word about this!) My sister sends a “how are you?” text now-and-then, and I love that (see, Jenna, I do get & read them!) Texting is doable for me while standing in the grocery store aisle or hanging out at the playground with my kiddo. A little bit of texting. But what about the larger world? Our local paper here in Hartford, Connecticut, barely seems to cover national and international news, at least not in a way that really catches my sustained interest and engages in in-depth analysis. While writing this blog post I was reminded of a site I haven’t visited in ages, but would like to go to much more often: Common Dreams.org. Here I can find a little bit more of the broad view–not only what’s been happening this week, but what it means in the context of our larger human endeavor as people on a shared planet.
I genuinely have this question a lot these days: what are the forms of input that you are finding meaningful, useful, reliable, and helpful, for you, in terms of sorting through all the white noise? With so many ways to connect, which ways are the ones that enable us, as human beings, to actually be more connected?
Razor Blades and Ebola: Processing Fear
Recently we have had a front row seat to observe low-level panic and smoldering fear. The headlines have been shrill:
“Ebola Spread to the US Inevitable.”
“Why America is Not Ready for an Ebola Outbreak.”
“My Daughter’s Ebola Scare.”
Polls show that forty-percent of Americans believe there will be an Ebola outbreak in the next twelve months, and twenty-five percent believe their family is in immediate danger. (http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/08/26/3475698/americans-ebola-myths/)
Now, it’s probably a tip-off that the magazine with the vague but scary cover story “Ebola Spread to the US Inevitable” is called “Business Insider,” not “Physician Insider.” Furthermore, Ebola spreading to the US—inevitable in our interconnected world—does not mean that the scenes from Liberia will be repeated here.
But what’s a poor media source to do? It’s hard to catch our media-saturated, jaded eyes, and it’s all about “eyes on screens.” We all know “if it bleeds, it leads.” Fear sells.
Then there are the conspiracy theories, such as the emerging one that Al-Qaeda is spreading Ebola. I don’t doubt there will be—if there hasn’t already been—a headline such as “Biological Attack on US Soil Inevitable!” And I’m sure “ISIS” will be next on the conspiracy list.
I have provided a link to a great video that underlines how we misplace our fears.
The meme that toasters are much deadlier than sharks began at an aquarium in Cape Town, South Africa. The numbers are clear: 791 people killed by toasters worldwide, nine by sharks. But I suspect no one reading this will harpoon your toaster.
Fact is, far more people are killed by their toasters than by sharks. And far more Americans are crushed by their television sets than are killed by terrorists. Yet we fear sharks and terrorists. We fear Ebola but not Diabetes.
Baseless panic can change the way we live. Take, for example, Halloween. Once, Halloween was a community event. Kids ran around the neighborhood in the dark collecting homemade cookies and candy apples.
Then reports spread that people were putting razor blades in apples. Hospitals opened their doors offering to x-ray apples. Then reports went around that people were poisoning apples. And soon churches began to sponsor neighborhood Halloween parties so that kids wouldn’t have to go out in the dark.
Fact is, there has never been a single instance of a razor blade in an apple. There HAVE been two instances of poisoned apples given to kids at Halloween. In both cases it was a parent trying to kill their child and disguise the murder by pretending the poison came from Trick-or-Treating.
Fear.
Speaking of Halloween, how ‘bout those haunted houses?
Novelist Neil Gaimon says,
Fear is a wonderful thing, in small doses. You ride the ghost train into the darkness, knowing that eventually the doors will open and you will step out into the daylight once again. It’s always reassuring to know that you’re still here, still safe. That nothing strange has happened, not really. It’s good to be a child again, for a little while, and to fear—not governments, not regulations, not infidelities or accountants or distant wars, but ghosts and such things that don’t exist, and even if they do, can do nothing to hurt us.
An interesting insight from a writer who creates fear in small doses for a living. Could it be that haunted houses and scary rides function as relief valves? We don’t have to worry about terrorists when we are in a haunted house. Or looking for a ghost. (Though I’m quite sure some haunted houses will feature scary terrorists this Halloween season.)
It’s more comfortable to fear a shark than a toaster, isn’t it?
But what about Ebola? Like razor blades in Halloween apples, Ebola feels tangible, doesn’t it? Blood. Death. Something we can really sink our fear into.
As we’ve seen, it’s difficult to get a large number of people worked up about global climate change. Psychologists argue that the reason lies in how our brains picture danger. We can picture a tornado, so we are afraid of it, but when asked whether tornados or asthma kills more people, most people say tornadoes. That’s far from true.
I used to live near the Gulf coast and spent a lot of time on the beach. There are sharks out there. People do get bit. But getting an arm or leg torn off or getting swallowed just doesn’t happen. Even people who spend time in the water where sharks live are three hundred times more likely to be killed by a deer than a shark. But Jaws feels more scary than Bambi.
I like what entrepreneur Seth Godin has to say about fear: “Worry is not preparation, and anxiety doesn’t make you better . . . We dance with the Resistance, we don’t make it go away. You cannot make it go away—you cannot make the voice go away, you cannot make the fear go away, because it’s built in. What you can do is when it shows up, you say ‘Welcome! I’m glad you’re here. Let’s dance about this.’
Godin is getting at an important truth: Courage is not the opposite of fear. Courage is what you are able to do despite the fear.
Fear sells. Reason is slow and difficult. Chances are there will be frightened people attacking Liberians. It’s time for some courage and wisdom.
Ferguson: Cynicism and a Smartphone
I have to admit that the recent events in Ferguson, Missouri have triggered mostly cynicism for me. In the US we have periodic paroxysms of piety triggered by events that happen every day but occasionally “go viral” in the media. Then, the outrage subsides . . . and nothing changes.
Allow me to relate an example that went viral for a few weeks.
I was born across the river from St. Louis, on the Illinois side, the industrial side of the river where African Americans and EuroAmericans have lived since the late Nineteenth Century. The fortunes of that swath of river bank have gone up and down over the years, depending upon armament manufacture, but for the most part the region has been poor and race relations tense.
The people—black and white—who moved to the area have been mostly from rural Southern backgrounds, and the culture has long reflected that reality.
If anyone is looking for a great place to film a documentary about US poverty, I would suggest East St. Louis. But then I know that every city in the country has the scenes available there. It’s just that East St. Louis is a small town.
On July 2, 1917 an event occurred extreme even by the standards of the southern third of Illinois. As the style was at the time, the event was called the East St. Louis Riot. It was, in truth, the East St. Louis Massacre. It was a pattern replicated all over the United States—an incident occurred; whites saw the incident as a perfect excuse to teach blacks a lesson; violence ensued; outrage about the violence ensued; calls went out for change; things went back to normal; nothing changed.
But that’s my cynicism speaking, isn’t it?
This appears to be what happened: after a triggering incident, whites gathered at the edge of an area called Black Valley, the neighborhood where African Americans lived. Whites turned off the water leading into the area so that fires could not be extingushed. Then, they set fire to houses and stores.
As blacks escaped from the fire, whites shot, beat, or lynched as many people as they could.
The Illinois governor ordered the National Guard to occupy the area. When they arrived the troops aided the rioters, joining in the setting of fires and using their superior firepower to kill more blacks. (I know this bit because a member of my family was there and told the story when I was a child, in the early 1960s—I heard many such stories.)
The massacre eventually stopped because the rioters got tired and went home.
No one knows how many people died, since Black Valley was left to bury its own dead. The death toll was probably around 200.
As in the case of Ferguson, marches of solidarity with the victims spread across the US. One political cartoon from the time says it best, perhaps. A black woman is pictured imploring President Wilson—famous for his insistence upon making the world safe for democracy—”Mr. President, why not make America safe for democracy?”
Good question. And a question that echoes down the years. Why is it that we don’t make America safe for democracy?
The methods of oppression used in the East St. Louis Massacre—which continued into the 1950s—do not play well on TV, so in the television era lynchings and mass murders stopped.
Notice that when similar pictures appeared from Ferguson, Washington got busy talking about at least perhaps maybe talking about the wisdom of selling military-grade hardware to local police. (This might even change, if a sufficient number of Americans remember the images long enough to continue talking about the problem.) Remember: my forebear used his government-issued rifle to kill the people he was sent to protect.
In the television era, oppression has been for the most part more isolated—a shooting here, a Rodney-King-style beating there. Sudden, overt, isolated, and constant.
And usually not displayable on TV.
The smartphone, however, may change that. The new technology brought about the Arab Spring, and it might—it could—begin to dismantle the current US system of black oppression.
Violence against this systematic oppression is not the answer. Neither is a brief paroxysm of national outrage. The violence will stop only when we the people catch the acts and put them on television and across the web.
Racists don’t like to see themselves in action on TV. (Or, rather—they don’t like to be seen by liberals on TV.)
I can’t speak for the people across the river in Missouri, but this white guy, a descendent of Confederates and white supremacists, would like to see an end to the violence and oppression.
Marcus Garvey, commenting on the East St. Louis Massacre, perhaps said it best:
“This is no time for fine words, but a time to lift one’s voice against the savagery of a people who claim to be the dispensers of democracy.”
Eleanor Rigby’s Selfie
We learned from the Beatles that Eleanor Rigby “keeps her face in a jar by the door.” Clearly the Fab Four thought that was not a good thing to do. But what were they critiquing? Was it where Eleanor kept her face? Or that she had a “face to meet the faces that we meet” at all? Should we wear the same face all the time? Is one of our faces the “true” one?
Whether or not there’s noise when a tree falls in the forest, a more pertinent question for us is whether or not we have a face, a personality, when no one is around to experience it. This is why Eleanor Rigby’s plight haunts us still. We know she’s out there. We don’t want to become her. We fear that she is faceless. We fear that for ourselves.
Most of us wish perhaps that we were like the stone imagined by Emily Dickinson,
How happy is the little Stone
That rambles in the Road alone,
And doesn’t care about Careers
And Exigencies never fears—
Perhaps we wish to be,
. . . independent as the Sun
In our hearts, however, we know very well that we are creatures dependent upon others of our kind. And that’s scary.
Interactions Are Us
In the Nineteenth Century, US prisons adopted the practice of solitary confinement, depriving a prisoner of visual stimulation and human contact. At the time, the idea was that a prisoner with some “alone time” would reflect on his or her misdeeds and come out a better person. It was quickly noticed, however, that instead of becoming a moral paragon, prisoners in solitary confinement began to exhibit symptoms of mental illness.
After this discovery, the practice was for the most part discontinued until the late-Twentieth Century, when US prisons began to transition from a rehabilitation model to one of retribution. Now we know that being alone hurts . . . a lot. And that’s why prisons do it. (There are in the US today something on the order of 80,000 prisoners in solitary confinement at any given time.)
We people don’t like being alone for extended periods. It drives us crazy. Therefore, when we are alone, those of us not under arrest find ways to simulate human interaction—TV, social media, perhaps even writing a letter. We are social creatures. We need human interaction. We need an excuse to put our faces on.
Skip the Sermon
My father died recently, and my mother found herself alone after sixty-five years of companionship. She wonders aloud: should she give up and leave her face in the jar by the door? Is it disloyal of her not to do so? She no longer feels like Emily Dickinson’s independent little stone. She feels the full weight of dependency.
My prescription for my mother (and Eleanor Rigby) is . . . Go to church! Or bowling. Or a book club. Something. Father McKenzie’s message (or disconnected ramblings about a book) may not be much to text home about, but the coffee, wine, or potluck involved might just be the ticket.
A member of my congregation recently brought me one of those graphics called a bubble cloud, generated by a questionnaire concerning what was important to a Christian congregation near my humanist congregation. The most-used word? “Community.” And the congregation I serve would would have the same big bubble, “community.” In their case “Christ” and in our case “reason” would be tiny little bubbles compared with the true reason we gather as congregations, community.
Human interaction reminds us to pull our faces out of that jar.
Bowling with Father McKenzie
As the Beatles knew, denizens of post-industrial countries may exist in utter isolation. We often shop in anonymous supermarkets rather than bustling markets. We buy clothing off a hanger, not from the source of the craft. As Robert D. Putnam pointed out, many of us bowl alone.
I don’t think any of us has an “authentic” or “true” face. We adjust the faces we pull from the jar according to the circumstances of our interactions. We have a “going to a funeral” face. We have a “going to the theatre” face, and so on. These are constructed in the bustle of human relationships. Without the bustle, we don’t bother. And that’s not good for us.
Perhaps Eleanor—and all the lonely people—should share a selfie. Not a bad first step in getting that face out of the jar by the door and spiffed up a bit. Then? Go to church. Or temple or mosque or . . . a bowling team. Perhaps even chat with Father McKenzie. Who knows what he knows when he’s not pontificating . . .
Love is the Boss of Me
Recently an organizer asked for a meeting and I went to pull out my phone to check my calendar. “My calendar is the boss of me,” I joked. She looked at me oddly, but said nothing. And in that nothing I heard the strangeness, the madness of what I had just said.
I am not sure what she was thinking, but here is what I have been thinking since that awkward moment. A calendar serves as the representation of and reminder about the commitments I have made for and with my life energy, with my love. Just as a glance at your checkbook or credit card statement can give you insight into where you commit your financial energy, a calendar can be a window of insight into life values.
What a calendar probably should not be, and should not be thought of as, is the boss. Just as my checkbook and my credit card – while requiring true mindfulness – should not be the boss of me. I do not serve as a minister in the name of a calendar or a bank account. Those are important tools for sustaining my ministry, no doubt. They cannot be the source of my call.
I serve in the name of love. Love for the world that is and the world that can be. Love for the wonder of creation and respect of destruction. Love for a faith community that meets us where we are and doesn’t leave us there. Love for you. Love for me.
It is easy in the days of overloaded calendars and underloaded bank accounts to forget. And it absolutely matters that we remember.
In 1951, Universalist mister Albert Ziegler wrote: “It may be that we have lost sight of our mission. Primarily, the church is not for social or political pronouncements, nor for the fashioning and dissemination of erudite philosophical doctrines. It is for the generation of love. The church is the only institution in society so purposed. We strike at the heart of our very purpose for existence when we neglect that major aim.”
Clearly, it is time for me to remember that love, not a calendar, is the boss of me.
Our Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations will be gathering in Providence, Rhode Island beginning June 25th for General Assembly, the annual meeting of UUs from around the world, with the theme “Love Reaches Out,” inviting congregations to reach out beyond their walls and to engage in new ways of sharing faith.
In the free church tradition of Unitarian Universalism, “we do not just go to church, we are the church.” Beloved, this faith is called to live in the name of love. Let us commit ourselves anew to this call. In the immortal words of poet Maya Angelou, “I know for sure that love saves me and that it is here to save us all.”
Disappear or Die: Southern Black Trans-Experience
Today we bless Tela La’Raine Love as she prepares for her gender reassignment surgery. Every day, Tela blesses this world with her courage, her determination, and her clear vision of a world where transwomen of color live safe, fulfilling, and long lives. Only in her 30’s, Tela serves as an elder, a mother, and a mentor to many young transwomen of color, struggling to survive in a culture that tells them to disappear or die.
Although we hope that “it gets better,” 2012 saw the 4th highest murder rate of LGBTQ and HIV-affected people (LGBTQH) in recorded history, according to the Hate Violence Report released annually by the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP-http://www.avp.org/about-avp/coalitions-a-collaborations/82-national-coalition-of-anti-violence-programs ).
People of color, transgender people, and gender non-conforming people continue to experience disproportionately higher rates of homicide. Black and African-American people “were particularly overrepresented in the homicide rates: over half of reported hate murders had Black or African-American victims, even though Black and African American people made up only 15% of total survivors and victims of hate crimes overall.” In 2012, LGBTQH people of color represented 53% of total reported survivors and victims of all hate crimes, but 73.1% of homicide victims. Living at the intersections of racial, gender, economic, and sexual oppression, trans-women of color are told to disappear or die.
In the midst of a dominant cultural narrative of oppression and repression, Tela Love is living into her journey towards wholeness with a spirit fully grounded in her inherent worth and dignity. She is the co-founder of New Legacy Ministries (http://www.newlegacystartstoday.com/), a grassroots organization striving to raise the voices of marginalized communities, especially transgender women of color, and create a spiritually welcoming and sustaining community.
Disappear or Die: A Southern Black Trans-Experience, will be a documentary of her experience as a openly HIV Positive trans-women of color in the south undergoing gender reassignment surgery June 18,2014. In sharing this personal window into her life, she understands that she is taking a risk. Traditionally trans-women have disappeared into the constructs of a patriarchal society after their surgery, rather than remain targets for hate and fear.
Tela realizes that she is allowing herself to be a target for greater judgment and persecution than that of which she already endures. However, inspired by the wisdom of Martin Luther King Jr.’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail that “silence is betrayal,” she has determined that she can be silent no more. She cannot be silent when waking from her nightmares of another young transgender woman being murdered or dying because she’s too ashamed to follow through with her HIV treatment after being diagnosed out of fear of being further alienated. Tela cannot be silent while there are little or no job opportunities for trans-women, while there are little or no housing opportunities (unless HIV infected), while black trans-women walk the streets in order to survive.
And neither, beloveds, can we. Our silence, too, is betrayal. Let us speak into the space of fear and hatred, ignorance and oppression. Let us bless Tela and every one of her sisters with the welcoming arms of beloved community. (https://www.facebook.com/Blacktranswomenarepowerful)
Please support the creation, production, and distribution of the documentary Disappear or Die: A Southern Black Trans-Experience. Together, let’s re-write the narrative of oppression into thriving, joyful beloved community.
Donations to support the creation of this documentary can be made via PayPal or sent to the Center for Ethical Living and Social Justice Renewal marked “Designated Donation: New Legacy Ministries” 2903 Jefferson Ave, 2nd FL, New Orleans, LA 70115.)
Worthy to be Entrusted
(Today, I preached at the ordination of a new minister in my denomination, Unitarian Universalism. Her name is Rev. Lara Campbell, and I shared the pulpit with Rev. Michael Tino. Here is my half of the sermon.)
“Do not demand immediate results but rejoice that we are worthy to be entrusted with this great message,” wrote Olympia Brown, the first woman to be ordained by a denomination—the Universalists, in 1863. And we know that she did not demand immediate results, she who worked for women’s right to vote from girlhood and finally was able to cast a ballot in 1920 at age 85.
I think of Olympia Brown, loving this faith despite the widespread discouragement she had to face in order to be ordained and the challenges she faced in ministry her whole life. I think of Egbert Ethelred Brown and Lewis McGee and so many other groundbreaking ministers of color who fought, against resistance and sabotage, for the right to lead Unitarian and Universalist congregations, who stood by this faith. And I think of all the people who still struggle to be able to devote their gifts to this faith, for a variety of reasons.
We do not demand immediate results but rejoice that we are worthy to be entrusted with this great message, their lives say. Their ministries say. Their legacies say. Their legacies are very much with me tonight as I preach, for the first time, wearing a stole given to me after the death of one of my mentors, Rev. Gordon McKeeman, who died in December. Gordon, a stalwart Universalist, who devoted his life to this faith, is now here with us, lending strength and companionship, reminding me that he has entrusted me with leadership, reminding us that he entrusted his life to Universalism and ministry.
I think of these people and I think of all the bold, visionary Unitarian Universalist ministers, ordained and not ordained, right now, some of you sitting right here, who have dreams of new applications for our faith, who believe that our faith calls us to stand with those lofty ideals of equity, justice, lovingkindness, in this miraculous yet devastating world. Who imagine ministries with unusual new shapes and contexts and methods, all of which seek to bring more love into the world.
I think of ministries beginning in coffee shops—Beloved Café, envisioned by seminarians at Starr King School for the Ministry—and yoga classes—Create Meaning, out in Denver—and in the streets—Faithful Fools, which has been inventing street ministry for decades now—and AWAKE ministry in Annapolis, and the Sanctuary in Washington DC—all bold, visionary new shapes for our future. And each week, with the Church of the Larger Fellowship, we live into these new shapes as we try new ways to find each other, to care for each other, to care for our word from all across the globe.
And deep within me, I say, yes! I am so grateful that you stand by this faith! All of you! All of us! I am grateful that so many work for it and sacrifice for it! I am grateful that all of us are here today, attesting to its value, when we could be doing so many other things on a Sunday afternoon!
But then, right there with the yes, something in me whispers, but…just a little whisper that says, but.. yes, but… but I wish you, and I, didn’t have to dream our dreams alone so much of the time, wish some of our best and brightest lay and ordained ministers weren’t still fighting for support the way that Olympia Brown and others have had to fight for support. I wish each vision could be surrounded by others who supported vision and faith, that we could find ways to reach out better beyond our individual enterprises and make common cause, collaborate with one another, build something bigger than our congregations.
In this era of union-busting, I am longing for a Spiritual Union. I want spiritual collective bargaining. I love Unitarian Universalism, and I love the way that our congregations are self-determining and unique, but I believe in those old songs that I was raised on, about how “The Union makes us strong.” I take to heart those words in our hymnal from Dr. Martin Luther King, “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.” And I say, when do we realize that we are that garment, instead of behaving as if our purpose on the planet is to pull apart the threads?
What might we do if we embodied a place of spiritual union with one another? When I say we, I don’t mean only Unitarian Universalists, I mean all of us who believe that people are worthy to be entrusted with carrying and sharing love so deep it will not let us go? What if that name that’s been assigned to us when we wear bright yellow shirts that say Love on them, The Love People, was really our identity? What if we cast fear aside, if we dared to believe that humanity, collectively, is worthy to be entrusted with the message that there is power of love so big that it can’t be held by any one set of religious metaphors and beliefs?
And who might we entrust with our faith? Who might we trust as prophetic voices in our wider faith, a faith not bound by traditional buildings or denominational stakes in the ground? How might we live into spiritual union with the people whose leadership we need in order to challenge and take down the notion of the saved and the damned, the chosen and the unchosen, the deserving and the undeserving, which dominates the US and so many other countries as much now as it did when John Calvin’s concept of predestination, that some are born saved and some are born damned, was widely believed to be true?
Where might we find union and create more love with other people, of every faith and no faith, who dare to proclaim that all people have inherent worth and dignity? Where are the voices saying, YES, African American youth and other youth of color, you are worthy to be trusted! Youth of color, queer youth, youth in general—you are worthy to be trusted! You are the people we need to have as union stewards in our spiritual union.
Where are the voices insisting, YES, people on public assistance, you are worthy to be trusted! More spiritual union stewards, whose leadership we need. Where are those whose witness proclaims, YES, immigrants without all your legal documents in order, you are worthy to be trusted! We need you as leaders in our spiritual union.
What might we do? Who might we dare to be? We have seen some of this in our work for marriage equality, immigration rights, voting rights, in our anti-racism work, as we join other religions and organizations and people to work together, but what if we had real spiritual union?
Whatever configurations our ministries with one another and the world take, whatever architecture we use for buildings, whatever technologies we employ, our own sense of Unitarian Universalism’s worthiness must be a part of the structure. But the time for clinging to small identities is over. The world is far too small now, we are too closely connected to even imagine that we do not have neighbors on every side who care about what we care about.
It’s scary. It means letting go of so many structures and identities that we have confused with worthiness—structures of privilege, or comfort. It means swimming in the ocean rather than in the small pond which our relational faith can become. But love will save us, again and again, when we are afraid, when we are confused, when we make mistakes, when we can’t get our bearings.
We are worthy to be trusted, not because Unitarian Universalists are the chosen people. Worthy, instead, because we have devoted ourselves to faith in a force–call it truth or God, life or love–a force much bigger than we are ourselves—which will not let us go, and which will not be confined or defined.
We have been entrusted with a great faith, and that faith whispers, shouts and sings, You are worthy! Worthy to wear the mantle of this great faith.
Epiphany (Continues)
[More king cakes than you can imagine and only two weeks into Epiphany, I am still tugging on the promise of this season, even as I find myself tugging on clothes that seem strangely tighter…]
Kathleen Norris notes the irony that King Herod “appears in the Christian liturgical year when the gospel is read on the Epiphany, a feast of light…Because of his fear, [Herod] can only pretend to see the light that the Magi have offered him” (Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith, 1998).
Perhaps because of our fear, we can only pretend to see the light Universalism offers us. Here is our epiphany. We are loved, each and every one of us, every single atom and molecule. We are loved – not for what we do or believe, but for the divine light that shines in each of us.
We are all children of the same star dust and no distinctions we create can defile our original blessing. In a culture built on hierarchy and scarcity, it is a faithful act indeed to trust that everyone is held equitably in a compassionate heart of love. The scarcity of divine love is a dangerous myth, a tool to control and coerce.
Our work in this world, beloveds, is to proclaim the message of epiphany. We are loved, not for who we are, but because we are. We do not have to prove ourselves worthy of love any more than we should need to prove ourselves worthy of water. Just as we need water to be healthy human beings, so too do we need the knowledge that we – every single one of us, no exceptions, not even the most evil creature you can think of, every single one of us is held with compassion greater than we can imagine. It is a grace we cannot earn and we cannot lose.
Our faith has long valued acts over beliefs, and as a social justice organizer, I often celebrate this fact. But there is one belief that I pray will soak into the marrow of our bones, into our synapse and our blood. No one is left out of the mystery, no one is denied a strand of the interdependent web of all existence. We are all beloved.
May this season bring you sweetness – and the courage to live as a beloved among beloveds.
Images, Imagination, and Iconoclasts
In 1642, during the British Civil War, Protestant troops of Cromwell’s New Model Army celebrated taking the city by looting the cathedral at Winchester. Troops used the stained glass windows for target practice and showed their disdain for monarchy and Catholic saints by smashing open crypts and pitching the bones through the stained glass windows. Construction on Winchester Cathedral had begun in 1079 on a site where a Christian church had stood since the 600s.
This was the second iconoclastic spasm in England. The first, three hundred years earlier, had been under the direction of Henry VIII. At that time, medieval statues had been smashed and used for building material. Perhaps the most egregious instance occurred at Canterbury Cathedral, where the shrine to Thomas A Beckett, constructed in 1220, was smashed to dust in 1538. The shrine, destination of Chaucer’s pilgrims, had long stood for the supremacy of religion over the state. Henry was having none of that.
The Protestant iconoclastic spirit traveled to the Western Hemisphere with the Pilgrims and Puritans, who built wooden meeting houses without adornment or symbol.
Religions are funny about symbols. Hebrew law forbade graven images. Muslim art is abstract and Muslims get testy about depictions of Mohammed. The Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches split over the question of icons. Worn out Torahs are buried. Don’t burn the Koran. And Bibles? Search the web on that one. Protestants are all over the map in relation to religious symbols.
First Unitarian Society of Minneapolis, where I serve as minister, is a good example of what we might call the ultimate in Protestant protesting. There are no symbols at all in the sanctuary—called in classic humanist fashion an “assembly hall.” Built in 1951 in the International Style of the time, the walls are brick and wood and glass. Cromwell’s New Model Army would find nothing to complain about in the assembly hall. Kings and saints; icons and symbols have all gone out the window. There is even some suspicion of the one image—deliberately left ambitious in the tradition—of Unitarian Universalism, the chalice.
What’s up with religions and symbols? What is it about images and imagination?
It’s easy to forget that for most of human history there were no movies; no TV shows; no photographs. Not even “realistic” art of the sort that developed in the Renaissance. For the most part, realistic representation occurred only in sculpture, a 3D representation.
There is still debate about whether or not audiences ran in terror upon seeing the first motion picture, Lumiere’s “L’arrivee d’un train en gare de La Ciotat,” in 1896. Whatever really happened, the human mind began to change when pictures began to move. Previously, movement had occurred only in reality, dreams, or visions. Now, we see moving images everywhere. What has that done to the human mind?
The image, the symbol, is central to human understanding. The McDonald’s “M” speaks to more people than any other in the world. The Mercedes icon is one of the most often stolen objects in the world. We huddle around glowing screens to watch stories unfold.
Even atheists, in the unadorned walls of an assembly hall, imagine a symbol—even if a negative one—called “god.” John H. Dietrich, a minister at the church I serve and one of the originators of “religious humanism,” said, “The human mind invariably confuses the symbol with the thing symbolized.” The implication: mistrust symbols. Yet, oddly, it is not only the most protesting Protestant who believes this. A Byzantine hymn contains these words: “Free me from symbols, from words, that I may discover the signified.” And Hindu thinkers, in their own forest of symbols, said, neti, neti, “not this, not that.”
We may hurl bones through all the windows of stained glass, yet, somehow, as happened at Winchester Cathedral after the Civil War, the windows will be restored. The citizens of Winchester could not afford to repair the windows to their former glory, so they glued the pieces back together as a hodgepodge, a mosaic. The symbol always comes back.
