Since hearing the news last Thursday of the passing of Nelson Mandela, our beloved Madiba, I have been longing to be able to share the experience with my friends in South Africa. Although we all knew the time would come when he would no longer be physically with us, it has been hard to absorb. He had been through so much, accomplished the seemingly impossible.

But his time has come, as it must to all of us. On Sunday he will be laid to rest with the ancestors. We are left to remember, to cry, to celebrate, to sing and to dance, to carry on his work. Watching the SABC-TV live streaming of the memorial service all day on Tuesday, I was reminded about the meaning of his life for ours. As I reflected on all the news pieces flooding in on the radio, TV and Internet, I feel a sense of gratitude for this life, and yes, a sense of sadness. The words of Maya Angelou in her tribute poem … His Day is Done, written after Mandela’s passing, says it all… The final verse reads: :
…
Nelson Mandela’s day is done.

We confess it in tearful voices
Yet we lift our own to say

Thank You.
Thank You, Our Gideon.
Thank You, Our David.
Our great courageous man

We will not forget you
We will not dishonor you
We will remember and be glad
That you lived among us

That you taught us
And
That you loved us
All!

Mandela has given the world so much; now it our turn to receive these gifts and to pass them on. Our beloved Madiba showed us the way forward when he asked that his birthday be honoured by each of us giving at least 67 minutes of service to our communities, our countries, our world in recognition of the 67 years he had devoted to the struggle for freedom and democracy in South Africa.

He gave… we received the blessing… and now that he has joined the ancestors, it is our turn to give, to pass on the blessing … to make the world a better place for all.

How will you honour Madiba’s life today? To whom and what will you give?

Thanksgiving American style. The day declared a national holiday for the purpose of giving thanks. Despite the best efforts of those of a theocratic bent, who or what to thank remains open to interpretation.

My thanks goes to the universe that just keeps cranking out good things. As the fifth chapter of the Daodejing puts it,

 

The space between

sky and earth is empty,

like a bellows, moving

 

and moving, and

out comes more.

That’s something to be thankful for. Yet problems begin when all of that “more” between earth and sky begins to get divvied up. And, Thanksgiving being a national holiday, I can’t help thinking of the portion of the universe’s “more” taken by this particular nation and how that “more” is divvied up within our borders. It its harsh realism the Daodejing says,

The universe is neither

“good” nor “evil” outside

of human standards.

 

The universe treats all things

like so many straw dogs.

 

Recent survivors of various weather-related calamities might agree with that. Then there are these next lines:

 

Earthly rulers treat people

like so many straw dogs.

Well, maybe in the China of 400 BCE rulers treated people like so many straw dogs, but here in the US . . .  Oh, wait. There was that government shutdown. There is that sequestration. There is that surveillance. Those drones. Oh, and then there’s work on Thanksgiving. And Black Friday. Rising poverty. Rising hunger. Straw dogs.

For Daoists, the answer is clear: the universe itself has no morality—it is neither good nor evil, and governments almost inevitably act in self-interest without regard to the greater good. It’s not what we learn in school, but evidence indicates another story.

I lost my childhood faith for the “big guy in the sky” when I began to suspect the moral calculus of the universe. When I began to suspect that “good” and “evil” are thoughts only in the human mind.

Does “god,” or does “god” not, decide who gets the cookies? And what is the basis for that judgement? Nation of birth? Social class? Skin tone? Religious affiliation?

Is it a moral act to thank such of deity for choosing me? Or my nation? My social class? My skin tone?

It’s not that I’m not thankful. But I’m not thankful to a deity that would put one child in Switzerland and another in Somalia. Such a deity does not deserve thanks, however mysterious “his” ways might be. And a deity that merely reflects the workings of the bellows of the universe? What’s the point?

Government? Yes, I grew up with those cardboard Pilgrims with their very white faces taped to the classroom windows. I understand what I was supposed to take away. Am I thankful to a government that protects the rapacious while ignoring the basic humanity of most of its citizens? Not so much.

Where might the thanks go? To luck? To fortune? To randomness? To that bellows that just keeps pumping?

Perhaps, finally, all we can do is watch and try as hard as we may to resist cynicism and complicity with the powers of what we human beings view as evil.

Here’s the advice to the Daoist:

Take care of what

is within yourself;

 

the outside will never

stop moving

and moving.

Thankfulness in the face of what we human beings call good and evil must serve as a reminder to think through who and what is dividing up the blessings. Yes, tornados and typhoons sweep away both the good and the bad. The universe treats us all like so many straw dogs. We find ourselves enmeshed in systems of oppression. Our choice is our work against those systems, and how we treat each other.

“We think that honesty and living in truth are better ways to live than propaganda and denial and comforting stories.” –Tom Schade, “Religious Community is Not Enough: Unitarian Universalism’s purpose is much bigger than gathering with like-minded people for mutual support,” UU World Winter 2013.

Earlier this year the Board members of the Center for Ethical Living and Social Justice Renewal voted unanimously to attend an Undoing Racism training offered by the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond. While most of the members of the Board consider themselves anti-racist, we are stretching into what it would take to intentionally shape the Center to be an anti-racist institution. A primarily interpersonal understanding of racism limits our collective ability to address institutional, internalized, and ideological racism. With support from the Unitarian Universalist Veatch Program at Shelter Rock, the entire Board registered for the November Regional Training in New Orleans.

Beloveds, it is not enough to send off one or two of a congregation’s more social justice-y members to a training and consider the work of anti-racism done. It isn’t even enough to go through a congregation-wide training – once. This system of inequity, so deeply in the bones of our country’s constitution that you can take white people out of leadership and have the system continue to provide a preferential option for whites, requires a diligent commitment to undo.

One white member of the Center’s Board was attending this training for the “umpteenth time” since beginning to attend in the 1980’s and was clear that she would keep coming back. What has been done to us as a nation is a powerful, hypnotic thing. It lets me think, as a white woman, “I worked hard for what I have” and not even begin to reflect on how hard my neighbors of color have worked to have not even half as much.

It is hard to express my gratitude to the members of the Center’s Board for showing up for the training, day after day, for an exercise in living in truth, unpacking and confronting propaganda and denial. And doing it together. While I have attended multiple-trainings as an individual, this is the first one I have attended as an intentional member of a collective – and I experienced this training profoundly differently than the ones before. Instead of getting stuck on my own abilities (and lack thereof), I was able to think about the resources and structures of the organization I was a part of – and this has sent me back into the world with energy and hope.

The strongly individualistic (white) values of this nation will not serve us in the task of undoing the structures of oppression. Dismantling systems of oppression is collective work, friends. Find your collective. It is not enough to be a lone crusader in the work of undoing racism. This position only enforces the structure of isolation, designed to prevent collective organizing. If this is your position, look around. You are not alone. All of our lives are diminished by the structures of racism.

Organize, beloveds. The work will not be done perfectly, but together, we can begin to heal that which is profoundly broken.

by Pablo Neruda

(translation by David Breeden)

Now, let’s all count to twelve,
then keep still.

For once on this earth,
let’s speak in no language.
For once let’s stop
and not move our arms so much.

That would be a fragrant moment,
without hurry,
without movement;
we would all be together
in an instantaneous . . . disquiet.

The fisherman in the cold sea
would not hurt the whales,
and the worker in the salt
would look at his broken hands.

Those who prepare garish wars–
wars of gas, wars of fire,
victories without survivors–
would don clean clothes
and walk around
with their brothers
in the shadows

doing nothing.

Don’t confuse what I want
with true inaction:
life is only what you do–

I don’t want anything to do
with death.

If we can’t be unanimous
as we move our lives so much,
maybe do nothing for once,

so that maybe a great silence could
interrupt this sadness–
this never ever understanding each other,
and threatening each other with death–

maybe then the earth
can teach us

now
when everything seems dead,

then
everything was seen as alive.

I’m counting to twelve,
and you, become
silent!

I’m leaving now.

This time of year, as we approach Halloween, The Day of the Dead, and All Saints’ Day, I am often thinking of death. Granted, I am always a little bit morbid—my astrologer sister would say it’s because I’m a Scorpio. (I regret that I was too old to go Goth in my teen years, because I suspect I might have enjoyed that.) But right now, death is often lurking just under my mind’s surface.

My garden is one of the sources of my thoughts, and it is a place where there is plenty of room for such thoughts. This lovely, non-judgmental community of green friends, lets me think about whatever I fancy. And the garden is full of death. Every day I am pulling up or lopping off plants that have given their all—the perennials having given it for this year and likely to return, the annuals having lived their whole life in this one year. Farewell, I say to the enormous squash plant, as I pull it up and hold it by its roots. Farewell, I remember when you were just a seed!

The longer I garden, the more comfort I take in the ritual of going through the entire life cycle each year. I adore picking out seeds in the fall to plant in the spring. My grow light table in the basement has gotten bigger and bigger because having those tiny green babies means so much in March and early April, when the winter here in Minnesota has just gotten so long that I may go berserk if some tiny waft of a spring breeze doesn’t blow through, some tiny green weed doesn’t poke up under the snow. Tucking those seedlings into the May earth has all of the drama of sending my kid off to kindergarten, tucking tiny invisible notes into their invisible lunch boxes as I plant them. And then cheering for them in summer’s fullness as they grow up and begin to live out their life’s purpose—as zinnias’ shiny red petals glow in the sunlight, as basil or cilantro graces my table. And then, Minnesota fall means that all growing, all producing of food or flower, will cease for another long winter.

The more years I participate in this cycle, the more I love the dramatic resurrection stories so many of my plants tell me. Some are, simply, perennials, and I know as I cut them to the ground that they’ll bounce back in the spring, shiny green and new again. Others are busy throwing their seeds around the yard, winking at me and saying I’ll be impressed by their progeny. Other annuals are simply done, with no tales of regret to whisper in my ear as I say good-bye to them. All are amazing role models in giving it all away, in surrender, in generosity.

Some people believe that we’re perennials, that after our deaths, our souls reside eternally in one place or another. Some say we’ll be back, though perhaps in a different form. Whatever is and will be, I live my life as if I’m an annual—acting as if, if some part of me is to survive, it will be in the growth of the seeds I have sown in my lifetime.

With the help of wind, and birds, the exact location of the seeds which grow is unpredictable. Similarly, I don’t know which of the seeds I’ve sown will continue to bear their own seeds and keep growing after I’m gone. Given what I’ve seen in my life so far, my only prediction is that what of me keeps growing after I’m dead will be nothing I would ever predict.

My own mother, dead eleven years, increasingly comes back in memories that make me giggle. She wasn’t excessively funny when she was alive, but the memories of her humor are the ones that keep whispering in my ear now. Silly things she said forty years ago at dinner make me laugh out loud. This time of year she has more to say, I notice, as do other beloved ghosts. The pagans say that this is the time of year when the veil is thinnest between life and death, and in the garden, I feel that thinning all around me.

I don’t believe in a heaven in the sky, where St. Peter welcomes some and turns others away. But this time of year, in my garden, as the crows shout, squirrels scurry around, and geese fly over and honk their farewells, in the sweet grief of letting go and saying goodbye, I touch a tiny bit of heaven on earth.