Welcome To This Broken World, Sweetheart (2013)
photo by Jenna Starr
Amid the commotion of our family’s ordinary daily lives, I do pay some attention to the news. The violence in Egypt this week is particularly heartbreaking to observe. The rows of bodies — mostly young men — waiting and waiting in the Cairo heat for a proper burial…that image, along with the one of an elderly woman trying to stop a bulldozer from plowing over an injured young man…those images have lingered in my mind all day today. Meanwhile, there are a thousand tasks to attend to, toys and crumbs and, who-am-I-kidding, whole meals to pick up off the floor as we scurry about just trying to keep up with laundry and dishes and stay thirty seconds ahead of our energetic, feisty toddler.
It’s been a while since I’ve had a chance to think carefully, at length and without interruption, about the whole big decision to bring a child into this broken world, but I do still think about it now-and-then. What is this place where there are simultaneously so many countless joys and delights and equally countless ways to be hurt and to hurt each other? Someday before too too long, she will start noticing things, she will start asking questions. There is so much pain in this world, so many ways that people are brutal to each other, often right in front of our eyes.
At one of our regular museum play areas this week, I spent some time observing the way the kids a few years older than our Little Bean interacted with her. I noticed that most of them, regardless of race or age, seemed threatened by her, this baby who they assumed was going to “knock down [their] tower,” “get in [my] way,” or “play with [my(!)] toy.” One little girl, probably 4 years old or so, kept moving to sit in the little chair that our Bean was clearly interested in sitting in, and then occupying it for as long as Bean was in the vicinity. I could only surmise that something about power was going on here. Here was a baby that either reminded some of these kids of a younger sibling who’d bothered them in the past, or who was clearly a less powerful being that they could exert their power over (or both). It was disconcerting to watch. Is this how we instinctively are with each other? I’ve noticed that older kids — 9, 10, 11 years old and older — seem to “get over” this competition-with-the-baby thing and are interested in playing with her at her level, so I’m relieved to see that. But I continue to mull on what it means to be a Little Person in this world, and what we are letting our children experience when we don’t pay attention.
There was a piece back in July on The Kojo Nnamdi Show that I happened to hear most of while I was in the car running errands, and it has stayed with me; it’s worth a reading of the transcript, particularly if you have more than one young child at home. One of the insights expressed on the show by Dr. Joseph Wright was that “There is a great deal of evidence to suggest that risk for depression, suicidal ideation are linked to the unattended impact of behavioral aggression in young children.” Watching the kids at the museum this week reminded me of this radio discussion so much I wanted to share it with some of the other parents who were there…but all the parents that afternoon looked so dazed and exhausted, spacing out on their smartphones while their kids romped and sometimes screamed at each other…well, it’s hard to exactly know when to make an issue of something. I am learning to observe, to gently explain to our Little Bean what I see going on if she seems confused, and otherwise, to let her play, while she enjoys just playing. She doesn’t seem to take it at all personally yet when a kid runs in the other direction rather than playing with her, or doesn’t play particularly nicely; she still has so, so much to learn and experience about how all people, of all ages, are. She gravitates towards the ones who smile at her, usually adults who look like her Grandma R. And for right now, that’s just fine. That’s all she needs to focus on for now — who is kind to her, who will help her get what she needs and wants, who will listen to her and help her as she struggles and strives to communicate. Some people do, and some people don’t. For now, I’m standing by, watching, learning from the kids a few years older about what our Bean will someday be experiencing and expressing herself, and pondering how to guide our beloved child into this world where so much more love, healing, attention and understanding are needed.
Naming the Ultimate, Part One
I suspect that we think about the ultimate because we can’t manage to see ourselves as ultimate. Or infinite. Or eternal. Or all-knowing. And that hurts! It hurts to be a too, too solid, limited, fragile creature.
So, we think about the Spirit of Life. God. The gods. The Ultimate Concern.
Search the internet for the names of God. Besides the ninety-nine that Sufis chant, just start with “A” and work through time and geography. Or read Neil Gaiman’s novel American Gods. I’ll bet you don’t know them all! Furthermore, you probably only believe in one or two or five at the most.
Always, human beings have pinned names on the absolute.
We call those who do not believe in the gods not a word of their own choosing but “a-theist.” Everyone is defined by the naming of the ultimate. We human beings take this quite seriously.
Alan Watts called this ultimate thing, “the which of which there is no whicher.” That about sums up the idea, doesn’t it?
Inevitably, with the naming comes the assignment of attributes: “Omnipotent.” “Omnipresent.” “Omniscient.” I learned to chant these long, hard words as a child in Sunday school. It’s what God was— Everything. Everywhere. All the time . . .
Walking to school? Yes! In the bathroom? Yes! Watching dad working at the factory? Yes!
The thought was reassuring. And frightening. And threatening. This was the Big Guy in the Sky, who had walloped the world in a flood and made Noah a sailor. The Big Guy who waxed the Egyptian kids and drowned—again with the drowning!—hard-hearted Pharaoh’s army.
This was the Big Guy who would wipe out the world with fire next time. And He really, really didn’t like human nature.
“But wait!” I said. “What about . . .” And so it went, ‘round and ‘round in my little primate brain. I was wrestling with the which of which . . .
Naming the ultimate. Assigning attributes to the absolute.
“The which of which there is no whicher.”
Always this ultimate was about what we—poor farmers in the Midwestern United States—weren’t. And this exhausts at least one avenue of inquiry: we limited creatures want some “whicher” out there that keeps an eye on the (clearly dangerous) machinery of the universe.
But then my little primate brain realized just how blatant a case of wish-fulfillment this was. And so off I went, searching for another “which.” About that . . . next week.
UU Verbs
I had the honor of spending this week with a dozen youth who chose to spend the first week of August in New Orleans. So you already know that they are brave. You should also know that they are leaders and followers, conveners and collaborators, organizers and educators. But this isn’t a note about nouns. This is a note about verbs. Unitarian Universalist Verbs.
My colleague, Rev. Paul, showed up (consistently, faithfully) this week wearing these verbs around his neck:
CARE
SHARE
GROW
LEARN
HEAR
HOPE
LOVE
I want to take a moment and affirm the National Youth Justice Training UU youth for embodying these verbs with courage and kindness beyond measure. Let us join Jessica, Emma, Emily, Emily, Meiling, Alex, Ellie, Ian, Sam, Sam, Anais, and Leah in transforming the injustices of this world into Beloved Community that both is and is becoming.
May it ever be so, beloveds.
Weathering
When the storm comes in
a bird sits on a limb in the
suddenly solidly still
humid air. I watch
weather radar, listening
to a child scream nearby–
is it joy or fear?
I raise a glass of ale
brought to me
all the way from London.
I read the storm
warnings with interest,
large hail; damaging winds . . .
Is this another storm
that I will weather?
Sometimes yes;
sometimes no;
prognosis: probable.
I raise a glass of ale
all the way from London.
It’s always storming somewhere.
There’s always a glass
of ale somewhere.
And the screaming.
And the screaming.
Forty Seven Weddings and a Funeral
It’s been almost a week now, but I’m still internalizing the seismic change taking place in Minnesota. Love is the Law! It all began at midnight on August 1…
Minneapolis Mayor RT Rybak presided over forty six weddings at City Hall in the wee hours of Thursday, August 1, beginning at 12:01 AM. By turns laughing and crying, he said over and over that these couples were now lawfully married. Watching those weddings of total strangers, I cried several times myself, and laughed a good bit too.
I didn’t burst into tears (as I feared I would) at the legalization of a longstanding partnership that I officiated on August 2, but I did later, driving on a suburban street, when I remembered the moment. What joy to look out at the faces of two women who have stood by each other for a quarter of a century and say, “I now pronounce you legally wed.” What joy in the faces of their relatives and friends gathered by the banks of the beautiful Mississippi in a small informal ceremony in Red Wing, Minnesota. (Here’s a short video piece of that moment, excerpted from a longer video of the wedding by Helen’s brother, Chaunce Stanton:)
Of course, it’s never that simple. Every wedding brings with it the ghosts of those who are not there, whether they are deceased or simply absent. For Nia and Helen, there were large gaps in the family fabric, perhaps not surprising considering that Helen’s stepsister is the aggressively homophobic Rep. Michelle Bachmann. This made the wedding planning both joyful and sorrowful. In our preparatory meetings, as with the other lesbian couples I’m working with on weddings this month, we talked about invitations sadly not issued, or refusals sadly received.
As Helen’s brother Mike said in a toast, Nia and Helen have been models of restraint and respect through this entire battle for equality in Minnesota. It was out of respect for Helen that wedding guests at my table did not lift up a loud toast to Michelle, stating that without her we never would have reached this day.
And yet, that’s pretty accurate. Before heading off for the nation’s capitol, Minnesota State Rep. Michelle Bachmann repeatedly spearheaded the addition of a constitutional amendment defining marriage as solely between a man and a woman. The amendment never got on the ballot when the DFL was the majority, but as soon as Republicans controlled the legislature, after Michelle had moved on to bigger things, they moved forward quickly with it. And, while previously the DFL had held both houses, they were always hesitant and nervous when approached by GLBT advocates to move much of anything forward that was supportive of domestic partnership. Marriage equality would have been out of the question.
Then came the 18 month campaign, based in honest conversations with 27,000 regular Minnesotans involved. Minnesotans defeated the Constitutional amendment, and brought the DFL back into leadership of both houses. After that, DFL leaders were willing to move ahead with marriage equality. Eventually, a few brave Republicans crossed over, and both houses voted yes. And now, here we are, one of the 13 states where folks like Nia and Helen can quit worrying about caring for each other in their old age, and having access for hospital visits, and creating wills that try to assert that they are in fact related. Folks can get on with life! Hopefully we can move on with progressive movement in other arenas—jobs , housing, good education for all.
Which brings me to the one funeral I attended last week, also on August 1. It was for Ron McKinley, a prominent Native American philanthropist, educator, and activist. Hundreds of people of every conceivable culture, race, religion, age, ability, gender, and sexual orientation gazed out over Como Lake Thursday morning, some of us bleary eyed from watching weddings in the wee hours of the morn. I knew Ron only tangentially but know and love some of his family well. We heard testimonies and stories of joy, love, commitment, and wisdom in a life cut tragically short in a motorcycle accident. Several of the speakers commented on how much Ron would have loved the event, and how much the gathered crowd was in fact his legacy. It was an awe-inspiring legacy to me.
If weddings cause all present to re-examine our own relationships, funerals prod those of us outside the most intense sphere of grief to reflect on how well we are living out our life’s purpose. Ron’s memorial service certainly did that for me. As much as the weddings celebrate love and commitment, so I hope do our lives beyond that intimate partner.
So here is my toast: May marriage equality be one more step on our path towards a world where every person, no matter what, is equally valued, supported, and loved, until death do us part.
Red Light, Green Light, Slow Year, Fast Year
At 7:44am, one year ago today, our Little Bean finally came out into the world, with what felt distinctly like a “plop!”
From that moment on, things have felt like they are both, at one-and-the-same-time, in slow motion, and speeding by.
The first six months sometimes included what felt like the longest days I have ever known. I remember watching the clock, breaking up the hours in my mind into half hour segments until my partner and co-Mama would get home, and only allowing myself to think about getting through the next half hour. The baby would fall asleep in my lap and would wake up if I moved, so I didn’t move, sometimes for 2 hours or more. I remember being hungry, famished actually, and just being still and waiting. I remember having to go to the bathroom but not strategically being able to figure out a way to do that that would be safe for the baby. Our Little Bean was colicky and probably also reacting to our cross-country move when she was six weeks old—who can blame her for being fussy-pants? And, still, there were days that felt absolutely interminable, nights when she was crying at 2 a.m. or 4 a.m., or both, when I literally thought “how are we going to keep doing this?” At times I felt incredibly angry that no one had sat me down and really spelled out how incredibly hard those first six months can be, how absolutely soul-draining.
And I understand, as a wise grandmother said to me recently, that when someone shares the news that they’re expecting a child, “it’s hard to know what to say.” So we say “Congratulations,” and we send gifts and make meals, and we hope they’ll be okay. That they’ll make it through those first rough weeks and months.
And then, at some point between five and six months, things eased. Some combination of the following had occurred: we’d adjusted to our new reality, Little Bean was becoming more and more delightful, and we started having a babysitter come help for a few hours a few times a week. Now, finally a year later, there are a whole host of things I have a new appreciation for. One is just the combined set of feelings a parent can have about a child’s birthday that, before becoming a parent, I had no awareness of. I feel this sense of relief, gratitude, accomplishment and celebration, all mixed up together. We got her through the first year, the year of not yet eating “regular” food, the year of moving across country, this first year with its particular first-year-worries like SIDS and initial reactions to vaccines and solid foods and basic growth-and-development stuff and all of that.
I also feel truly amazed at what occurs in a human child in one year. In 365 days, she goes from being a “plop” to being a little person with a feisty spark and touching gentleness about whom another mom at the National Building Museum today observed: “she has such a sweet personality.” She most definitely knows who her Mamas are, she knows that as much as she’d like to, there are a great many things she should not put in her mouth so she looks at us first to check, she knows that she loves drumming and she knows how to press “play” on the CD player (over-and-over again; she’s still learning to press “play” once and then step back and enjoy the music). She knows that she loves bananas and avocados and she is eager to try whatever it is we are eating. She knows how to fall asleep on her own and most of the time she knows how to scootch on-and-off the bed safely. She knows the baby signs for “more,” “all done,” and “swimming” and she loves to wave “bye-bye” and “hello” to just about anyone and everyone especially if we don’t tell or ask her to, first. She knows when she’s at home. She knows her name.
There are so many things that have happened in this first year that I understand now why people say “it flies by.” It’s truly astonishing how much changes just from week-to-week and month-to-month. I’ve taken probably thousands of pictures and I probably haven’t taken enough, because there is so much that is uncapturable. She is growing up so quickly. In fifteen years now, she can get a learner’s permit — or, wait, fourteen years? That can’t be right.
But perhaps it is. Right. Right that our children would grow up just fast enough to take our breath away and make us want to pay close attention to them, every day. And right that those first six months don’t go on forever. As my partner and co-Mama says now: “what’s five months of hell?” I understand now why people say “it’s worth it.” I understand why people say that when you have a baby “everything changes.” Yep, and yep, and…wow.
Free Will, Fate, and Destiny: A Humanist Perspective
Human religions have always been built upon foundations of the best available science of the time. Sometimes that science said that the middle earth sat in a large tree. Sometimes science said the earth sat on a turtle’s back. Ezekiel knew that the earth had four corners and was held up by pillars–heavens above, Sheol below. Upon these foundations, human beings built views of how the world worked.
An important reason that I became a Unitarian Universalist many years ago was the movement’s tradition of incorporating reason and science into religious understanding. When science finds that the earth moves, Unitarian Universalists don’t have to deny science. We say, “Hmmm. That’s interesting!” That’s why I’m a humanist and religious naturalist, standing in awe inside the great cosmic show.
Nowadays we know that our fate lies within the unfolding of the Big Bang. We still don’t know whether that fate lies in a universe that will expand forever, eventually succumbing to heat death, or if there might be a Big Crunch in our future, one that might even lead to another Big Bang. Whichever way the future may pan out, our ultimate fate is sealed in forces considerably larger than primate consciousness.
Similarly, carbon-based creatures have a predictable trajectory, from our constituent elements created in the explosion of stars, to the momentary cohesion that we call life, to our decomposition, and, eventually, that aforesaid fate at the end of the Big Bang.
So, what of this consciousness we experience now, in this fleeting moment we call human life? What better way to spend those brief moments than in awe and gratitude?
Is there free will or fate? Whether or not there’s a deity that has the hairs of our heads numbered, bad things keep happening to very good people. Observation indicates that a lot of chance is involved. After all, for each of us, our genetic material has more immediate and local origins than that birth in the explosions of stars. We arise as individuals in hemispheres, nations, regions, tribes, genders, and economic situations, all at specific times, all with measures of power within us and over us.
For example, a recent study shows that where I was born, in the Southern United States, only four percent of people become professionals. Four out of one hundred. That’s fate . . . Created not by the gods, but by very human decisions. (Don’t get me started on the sequester!)
Is there free will? Yes–it’s all up to us. Except when it’s not. A fact of our realities is that the fate of each of us belongs not only to you or me, but ALL of us. All of us.
That’s why I’m a humanist. In this very human world, it’s all up to us. We create problems; we can solve them, if we work at it. That’s the beauty . . . and the challenge . . . of how it is, according to science and reason.
It’s just how it goes in the backwash of that really Big Bang . . .
Keep the Faith!
art by Kristi of Barn Owl Primitives
In his story of a man with a sneering wife, Sufi master Rumi begins:
A special guest was coming to visit and the man worked 200 days to earn the price for the quality lamb kabob he wished to serve this guest. On the appointed day, the man bought the meat and brought it home for his wife to cook and then went to fetch the guest.
While he was gone, the wife cooked the kabob and
ate
every
bite
of
it.
When the man returned with the special guest, she greeted them at the door, saying “the cat has eaten the kabob. You’ll have to buy more, if you have any more money.”
The husband asks a servant to bring the scales and the cat. The cat weighed three pounds. “The meat was 3 pounds and one once. If this is the cat, where is the meat?” “If this is the meat, where is the cat?” Start looking for one or the other!
Sometimes truth can be found on a scale. Usually, it is a more complex endeavor for us human beings. The recent trial of George Zimmerman for the death of teenager Trayvon Martin revealed a plethora of truths in the lived experiences of the people of United States. Some have an expectation of justice within the justice system. Others have no expectation of justice within what they consider a criminal system – one that actively perpetuates crimes against humanity.
What you look like, where you grew up, who you live with – all of these are complex predictors of how you experience truth and what truth you experience.
Walking away from the Justice for Trayvon Vigil in New Orleans last week, I met up with a history professor from Tulane University. She brought up the Jena Six, which some of you may remember as a time when the criminal justice system in Jena, Louisiana revealed to the nation its deep roots in the Reconstruction Era, built after the abolition of slavery to maintain control over black bodies. In 2007, a nationwide protest against the mockery of justice there descended upon the town of Jena, population 2,500, with an estimated 50,000 protesters.
There were so many people – and so few white people. The professor I was walking with said, “if you took all the Unitarians out of the crowd, I could have put the white people present in my car.”
Author activist Jordan Flaherty, in his book Floodlines: Community and Resistance from Katrina to the Jena Six reports that “perhaps one to three percent of the crowd was white, in what amounted to a disturbing silence from the white Left and liberals.”
I would call it a disturbing silence from white people, regardless of their political stance. When children of color are demonized by a criminal justice system created for and by white people, we cannot be silent. We cannot be absent.
What was faithful was the profession of divine living by the white Unitarian Universalists who showed up, were called out as allies, people living into the truth of beloved community with their bodies, their whole and holy beings.
What was faithful was the profession of divine living by the Unitarian Universalists of color who walk in this faith with trust that we are going to live into our collective covenant with more and more anti-oppressive skill, more and more respect for the inherent worth and dignity of each person, more and more beloved community.
When we show up as our whole and holy selves, lives are transformed, systems are changed, beloved community becomes possible. Keep the faith, beloveds. Keep showing up on the side of love in this world.
_________________
References:
The Essential Rumi, 1995 (translated by Coleman Barks).
Flaherty, Jordan. Floodlines: Community and Resistance from Katrina to the Jena Six, 2010.
America’s God (a lullaby)
“It was all God’s plan.” George Zimmerman
In the United States, God
loves white and violent, it
seems; loves what’s inhuman,
it looks. Look at His plan
working as it does. In the
US, God loves those laws
that fill the jails, that fill
the pockets of the rich,
it appears. Just look. He–
yes, must be a He–gives
a vindictive wink and nod
to the violent, as long as
it’s Christian.
In the United States, God
likes the way Florida does it.
Loves the way Texas does
people in. Likes his women
on a short leash; his people
poor; likes violence and guns
a lot. In the United States, God
loves his guys white. Just look.
See how things are in the plan.
In the United States, God likes
many of his children murdered.
Some in prison. Most poor. Just
look at the justice. It’s some
God’s plan.
Embodied Justice, Embodied Speech
Beloveds, let us have a common vocabulary. In the midst of the conversation on race prompted by the verdict of the Zimmerman trial, allow me to point us toward the 4 I’s of Oppression, spelled out clearly here by YouthBuild USA: – https://youthbuild.org/sites/youthbuild.org/files/Four%20Is.pdf Ideological, Institutional, Interpersonal, and Internalize Oppression. Recognize that racism operates on many levels in this country. If you do not know this, please take the time to learn about it before joining loudly in the conversation. This matters.
Let us hear truth when it is spoken to power. Let us keep the dialogue grounded in the realities of oppression. And if you are white, keep showing up in solidarity with all who call for Justice for Trayvon. It is beyond time for more than a handful of white people to stand on the side of love in this country.
Dear ones, let us live into the possibility of Beloved Community with courage and grace.
