Yesterday was one of those days where my work as a professional religious educator just all caught up with me and my heart was just breaking. Now this is not entirely surprising. It is June, a time when we transition from the full church year calendar to the summer schedule and, at the same time, planning for September begins. By this point in the year religious professionals are tired, counting the days until vacation and study leave begin. For others who are transitioning it is even more exhausting as they are saying goodbye, packing and getting ready to begin somewhere new.
For me yesterday the heart break came because it feels so hard to get Unitarian Universalists, particularly those who are not parents, to see our ministry with our children and youth as important, as critical to our congregational lives. As UU's most of our congregations send our children out to separate space during worship, bringing us together in multi-generational community only occasionally. When we gather a workshop or gathering that relates to faith development (religious education) many see that as something only for the parents. Recruiting volunteers to teach is the hardest job and requires a tough skin to be told no or more commonly just ignored. One is ignored both by parents and by the adults without young children. Sometimes I feel like I am apologizing for asking at all instead of inviting them to the great privilege of spending time with our children and youth.
While things are definitely shifting in many places within Unitarian Universalism, the old cultural model of a 1950's Sunday School where parents teach, children are rarely seen and whether or not our children remain UU throughout their lives is not seen as very important, continue to hold on. Adults with grown children often feel like they did their part, they taught when their children were young and today's parents should do the same. There is a continued attitude that children don't need to be or belong in worship and therefore they are sent out sometimes after a few minutes in the worship service or sometimes they are not in worship at all. This attitude is not just among those without young children at home, many parents don't want their children in worship either. Maybe this is the one hour a week they can devote any time to their spiritual lives and the pressure to keep children quiet and well-behaved is just too much. Even today the question of whether part of the task of our faith communities is to raise life-long Unitarian Universalists is on the table. While among religious professionals this has shifted it is still a somewhat radical thing to say when we want our children and youth (and our adults) to be life-long UU's. It is certainly radical to talk about creating multi-generational communities that worship and learn together.
My heart breaks because I love our children and youth - and I know others do as well. I know the people in my congregation who love teaching - those with and without children. I loved having one of our high school youth this year who embraced fully the task of teaching and did it with joy. Those are the days of hope and joy in the work.
And when I can't get people to say yes, when the teaching schedule goes unfilled and the workshop unattended, I just want to cry. It is easy to go to a place of thinking that UU's just don't care about their children and youth.
I know people care, I know our congregations care and I know that if I asked them that question they would say they care. On one level we all know faith development is important. I know also that telling a story that people don't care is neither helpful nor true. Yet it is also dangerous to fall into the story that people care and that there are good reasons why people don't volunteer, don't show up etc. At some point our care has to translate into action. It has to translate into people showing up. So yes we as UU's do care about our children and youth and the question maybe is do we care enough to change? To give our time? To find new ways that work for this new world in which we find ourselves?
Connie Goodbread a UU District professional says "Faith Development is all we do, Unitarian Universalism is all we teach, and the congregation is the curriculum." What would our faith communities look like if we lived that out? Would my long-held dream of a line of people outside my door ready to volunteer to teach our children, youth and adults appear? Would we place faith development at the center - not just a program to keep our children and youth occupied while the adults worship? Would we take seriously the nurturing and fostering of each person's soul - to grow a soul as William Ellery Channing said? Would we risk failing if it meant trying something new, something bold? Could we learn from what didn't work (not just say well we will never do THAT again) and be willing to try something bold again?
Today I begin again. I remind myself why I love this ministry and why it is so important. Yet I know my heart will break again. There will be other days when the work is lonely and hard and I wonder why I keep doing it.
So I close with these words from Wayne Arnason:
Take courage friends
The way is often hard, the path is never clear,
and the stakes are very high.
Take courage,
For deep down, there is another truth:
you are not alone.
Thursday, June 14, 2012
Saturday, May 19, 2012
Celebrating Our Choices
I preached this sermon last Sunday, May 13, 2012 on Mother's Day.
The text for the sermon is Marge Piercy's poem "Sabbath of Mutual Respect"
“Praise our choices Sisters!” There is not a lot of praise going on these days around the questions of women and choice. In fact choice is pitted against life – you are either pro-choice or pro-life – one cannot be both. Yet to live is to make choices every day, every day we choose whether to bless the world or not.
This year in particular much debate has been ranging about women and motherhood – not just about abortion but also contraception, working mothers versus stay at home mothers. Women who have spoken up for reproductive freedom have been vilified as sluts, as selfish and unnatural. We have seen “personhood bills” seeking to give full rights of “personhood” to fetuses while ignoring the personhood of the women whose bodies carry them.
Marge Piercy’s poem calls us into the sacredness of our choices – those lives we have chosen and those we have not. She calls on us to remember the lineage of women who have literally put their bodies on the line so that others would not have to. Yet generation after generation seems to have to rise up again, speak up again.
As I reflected on this sermon and what I wanted to say, I have to say I continue to be shocked that in 2012 we are still arguing about such basic things like contraception, the right of people to decide the size of their families or whether to have children at all. As a former Roman Catholic , I continue to just be so deeply saddened that the litmus test for being a good Catholic is not about bringing a message of God’s love to the world, feeding the hungry, making the world a more just place, but rather an obsession on whether or not one is using contraception, same sex couples getting married, abortion and women’s rights. It sadness me because that is not the best of what the Catholic church taught me – the best of what it taught me is that God longs for loving relationship with each of us, that the measure of our lives is how much of that love we manifest in the world. I was taught that there was nothing Jesus did that I could not do and that God needed my hands and feet in the world. Yet the measure of being a “good Catholic” is whether or not you agree with the Vatican’s teachings on birth control, abortion and sexuality. No matter how much a group or an individual may embrace the Church’s social justice teachings – on war, poverty, labor, the death penalty - if a group or leader is not speaking out on these narrow issues than they are not good Catholics.
What disturbs me most deeply is that the Catholic church and other conservative Christian churches seem to have staked the moral, religious voice on these issues. Once again, those are who are pro-choice, pro LGBTQ rights, do not seem to have a religious voice in the public square. The case is made on a rights basis – not on holy sacred ground. Yet I want to say with Marge Piercy – our choices are sacred. She writes “To bear children or not to bear by choice is holy.” It is holy...just sit with that for a moment.
How might our public debate change if we, who support women and their choices, spoke out that our choices are sacred, are holy. Imagine just for a moment that we saw choice making as a sacred, holy act and in our public square said that our laws, must support the holiness and sacredness of choice.
As Piercy points out that the freedom to choose is not just about laws and policies. It is also about a freedom from poverty, fear or hunger. I wonder how many women today are truly choosing from a place of freedom and abundance. How many cannot prevent pregnancy because they cannot afford or do not have access to contraception? What about those who are living in fear of a partner or spouse who does not want them to use contraception – who takes away the freedom of choice as part of their power over their partner? What about those women who choose to end a pregnancy because they know they cannot afford to bring a child into the world? Is this truly choice?
Piercy also reminds us that our diversity choices is a good and sacred thing. She reminds us to praise the lives we did not choose. In our public discourse it is said one is either pro-life or pro-choice. I reject that. I am both pro-choice and pro-life. I have been blessed in my life to be able to choose to bring an amazing daughter into this world – Donna and I made that choice and that choice was a choice for life. Yet there are those who have said that I should not have that choice; that my beautiful daughter should not be here because her parents are two moms. My cousin chose not to have any children and there are those that would either pity her or condemn her as selfish. Natalie shared with us this morning about the choice to have a third child. Do any of these choices diminish the others? Do we need everyone to make the same choices we have made in order to validate us, to assure us that we did or are doing the right thing?
This debate over choice extends then to how children should be raised. Once again we see the debates pitting one over the other. So either we are practicing attachment parenting or free range. Each camp has its strident adherents – condemning those who do not practice their way of parenting. At the heart of parenting, one might say the heart of living, is doing one’s best to make the best choices one can in the day to day. All of us will do so imperfectly. At our best we learn from our mistakes and begin again. As Natalie shared parenting is hard work and messy and some days we will do it better than others.
Of course our ability to choose is not absolute. As James Luther Adams reminds we are both fated and free. Our ability to choose is shaped not just by our own desire and reason, it is shaped by time, place and others around us. We are not simply rational individuals making choices in a vacuum. We are connected people shaped by the past and present, by our connections and relationships. It is also true that no matter how much we may want or choose a particular thing, we may not be able to achieve it. The myth of America of course is that with enough hard work, each of us can do anything. This weekend at commencement addresses all over the country, young people will be told that they can achieve anything they set their minds too. This is simply not the case.
In talking about women and choices, we must also remember all those who women who long to be pregnant, to raise a child and cannot. They cannot for any number of reasons – they are infertile, they cannot afford it, they are not mentally or physically capable of raising a child, they are incarcerated. We remember women who have suffered a miscarriage or still birth. We remember women both in our own country and around the world, who die in childbirth. In 2012 it is still the fact that 350,000 women and girls die every year as a result of preventable pregnancy and childbirth complications. It seems to me that these lives are lost in the midst of our debates. They are the silent victims – lost amidst the arguments.
Today we honor and celebrate our mothers, those who at their best are “the ones that love us best of all” as Max says in Where the Wild Things Are. The ones who get mad and call their children “wild things”; who send their children to bed without dinner and then bring it in and “it is still hot.” In the midst of our celebrating – whether we are going to brunch, video calling, or grieving our mothers and grandmothers who have passed – let us honor their choices. Let us honor mothers today with a pledge to make create a world where “Habondia, the real abundance, the power to say yes and to say no, to open and to close, to take or to leave” exists for every person. May we work for a world where each child comes into this world to find a home filled with love – whether that home is with a mother and father, or two mothers or two fathers or a single parent; whether that child finds a home with the one who gave birth or one who adopts. Let us celebrate the women who choose not to be mothers – who nurture the next generation by being fabulous aunts, mentors, coaches and friends. Let us honor all the ways of parenting – knowing that at the heart of the role of parent is to love – fiercely and tenderly. May we rise up and praise our choices!
The text for the sermon is Marge Piercy's poem "Sabbath of Mutual Respect"
“Praise our choices Sisters!” There is not a lot of praise going on these days around the questions of women and choice. In fact choice is pitted against life – you are either pro-choice or pro-life – one cannot be both. Yet to live is to make choices every day, every day we choose whether to bless the world or not.
This year in particular much debate has been ranging about women and motherhood – not just about abortion but also contraception, working mothers versus stay at home mothers. Women who have spoken up for reproductive freedom have been vilified as sluts, as selfish and unnatural. We have seen “personhood bills” seeking to give full rights of “personhood” to fetuses while ignoring the personhood of the women whose bodies carry them.
Marge Piercy’s poem calls us into the sacredness of our choices – those lives we have chosen and those we have not. She calls on us to remember the lineage of women who have literally put their bodies on the line so that others would not have to. Yet generation after generation seems to have to rise up again, speak up again.
As I reflected on this sermon and what I wanted to say, I have to say I continue to be shocked that in 2012 we are still arguing about such basic things like contraception, the right of people to decide the size of their families or whether to have children at all. As a former Roman Catholic , I continue to just be so deeply saddened that the litmus test for being a good Catholic is not about bringing a message of God’s love to the world, feeding the hungry, making the world a more just place, but rather an obsession on whether or not one is using contraception, same sex couples getting married, abortion and women’s rights. It sadness me because that is not the best of what the Catholic church taught me – the best of what it taught me is that God longs for loving relationship with each of us, that the measure of our lives is how much of that love we manifest in the world. I was taught that there was nothing Jesus did that I could not do and that God needed my hands and feet in the world. Yet the measure of being a “good Catholic” is whether or not you agree with the Vatican’s teachings on birth control, abortion and sexuality. No matter how much a group or an individual may embrace the Church’s social justice teachings – on war, poverty, labor, the death penalty - if a group or leader is not speaking out on these narrow issues than they are not good Catholics.
What disturbs me most deeply is that the Catholic church and other conservative Christian churches seem to have staked the moral, religious voice on these issues. Once again, those are who are pro-choice, pro LGBTQ rights, do not seem to have a religious voice in the public square. The case is made on a rights basis – not on holy sacred ground. Yet I want to say with Marge Piercy – our choices are sacred. She writes “To bear children or not to bear by choice is holy.” It is holy...just sit with that for a moment.
How might our public debate change if we, who support women and their choices, spoke out that our choices are sacred, are holy. Imagine just for a moment that we saw choice making as a sacred, holy act and in our public square said that our laws, must support the holiness and sacredness of choice.
As Piercy points out that the freedom to choose is not just about laws and policies. It is also about a freedom from poverty, fear or hunger. I wonder how many women today are truly choosing from a place of freedom and abundance. How many cannot prevent pregnancy because they cannot afford or do not have access to contraception? What about those who are living in fear of a partner or spouse who does not want them to use contraception – who takes away the freedom of choice as part of their power over their partner? What about those women who choose to end a pregnancy because they know they cannot afford to bring a child into the world? Is this truly choice?
Piercy also reminds us that our diversity choices is a good and sacred thing. She reminds us to praise the lives we did not choose. In our public discourse it is said one is either pro-life or pro-choice. I reject that. I am both pro-choice and pro-life. I have been blessed in my life to be able to choose to bring an amazing daughter into this world – Donna and I made that choice and that choice was a choice for life. Yet there are those who have said that I should not have that choice; that my beautiful daughter should not be here because her parents are two moms. My cousin chose not to have any children and there are those that would either pity her or condemn her as selfish. Natalie shared with us this morning about the choice to have a third child. Do any of these choices diminish the others? Do we need everyone to make the same choices we have made in order to validate us, to assure us that we did or are doing the right thing?
This debate over choice extends then to how children should be raised. Once again we see the debates pitting one over the other. So either we are practicing attachment parenting or free range. Each camp has its strident adherents – condemning those who do not practice their way of parenting. At the heart of parenting, one might say the heart of living, is doing one’s best to make the best choices one can in the day to day. All of us will do so imperfectly. At our best we learn from our mistakes and begin again. As Natalie shared parenting is hard work and messy and some days we will do it better than others.
Of course our ability to choose is not absolute. As James Luther Adams reminds we are both fated and free. Our ability to choose is shaped not just by our own desire and reason, it is shaped by time, place and others around us. We are not simply rational individuals making choices in a vacuum. We are connected people shaped by the past and present, by our connections and relationships. It is also true that no matter how much we may want or choose a particular thing, we may not be able to achieve it. The myth of America of course is that with enough hard work, each of us can do anything. This weekend at commencement addresses all over the country, young people will be told that they can achieve anything they set their minds too. This is simply not the case.
In talking about women and choices, we must also remember all those who women who long to be pregnant, to raise a child and cannot. They cannot for any number of reasons – they are infertile, they cannot afford it, they are not mentally or physically capable of raising a child, they are incarcerated. We remember women who have suffered a miscarriage or still birth. We remember women both in our own country and around the world, who die in childbirth. In 2012 it is still the fact that 350,000 women and girls die every year as a result of preventable pregnancy and childbirth complications. It seems to me that these lives are lost in the midst of our debates. They are the silent victims – lost amidst the arguments.
Today we honor and celebrate our mothers, those who at their best are “the ones that love us best of all” as Max says in Where the Wild Things Are. The ones who get mad and call their children “wild things”; who send their children to bed without dinner and then bring it in and “it is still hot.” In the midst of our celebrating – whether we are going to brunch, video calling, or grieving our mothers and grandmothers who have passed – let us honor their choices. Let us honor mothers today with a pledge to make create a world where “Habondia, the real abundance, the power to say yes and to say no, to open and to close, to take or to leave” exists for every person. May we work for a world where each child comes into this world to find a home filled with love – whether that home is with a mother and father, or two mothers or two fathers or a single parent; whether that child finds a home with the one who gave birth or one who adopts. Let us celebrate the women who choose not to be mothers – who nurture the next generation by being fabulous aunts, mentors, coaches and friends. Let us honor all the ways of parenting – knowing that at the heart of the role of parent is to love – fiercely and tenderly. May we rise up and praise our choices!
Monday, March 5, 2012
Sweet Darkness
The text for this sermon is the poet "Sweet Darkness" by David Whyte. Here is a link to the text:
http://www.youbelongin.com/poetry.html.
This sermon was preached on February 26, 2012 at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of the Rappahannock in White Stone, VA.
This poem by David Whyte has been one of my favorites for many years now. It has been sitting with me through these winter months. It was the text that would not leave me as I was asked to provide a description for my sermon this morning.
The poet calls us into the dark, not as a place of death and decay but rather a place of renewal and re-birth. This runs counter to the messages of our culture. We fill our homes with artificial light and we even adjust our clocks to give us “daylight savings” rather than just flowing with the natural rhythms of the season. Now don’t get me wrong, I love electricity and was totally miserable following Hurricane Irene when we were without power for 5 days. Yet in our quest to avoid the darkness, we miss out on the gifts it has to give.
Our culture’s desire to avoid darkness is not just being without light as in nighttime and short daylight hours in the winter here in North America, it also refers to our avoiding the dark and painful times and places in our lives. After all we are fed a steady diet that says if we just had this product or service, or this job or the right whatever it is…we would always be happy and satisfied.
Yet darkness is as part of life just a night follows day and winter follows fall and summer. We will have dark times in our lives. Times of grief and uncertainty, times when our vision has gone and no part of the world can find us. What are the gifts of darkness and what might it have to teach us, if we surrendered to it rather than fought it?
Some in this room I know have faced deep darkness in their lives; maybe even battled deep clinical depression so a word of caution here. There are some who fall into the darkness of depression and cannot find their way out. They seek help and despite all the therapy and medications, they cannot find their way out of the dark. This kind of depression should not be dismissed or simply chalked up to a phase. Parker J. Palmer, author of Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation and many other books, speaks eloquently of his battles with clinical depression and from which he has found deep spiritual meaning, warns us that what works for some will not work for others. For some seeing a deep spiritual journey will be helpful and for some it will not. Palmer when asked by another person battling with depression why some recover and others do not; he answered honestly “I do not know.” We do not know and while we can accompany others on their journey, we cannot truly know what another is experiencing.
Palmer tells us that he shares his story of depression in part to let the young know that darkness and pain are a part of life. I think Palmer is right when he tells us that we disservice the young when we do not talk about the hard times of our lives; about loneliness, loss of vision, uncertainty. We need to speak that it is a part of the human experience to have periods of darkness and that that are part of the cycle of life. It may not make the challenging times easier but maybe at least less shocking when they come.
What can this loss of vision look like? Thankfully most of us will be spared the pain of deep clinical depression. The kind of despair that does not allow one to get out of bed in the morning or that prevents us from enjoying the beauty of a sunny day. Yet we have had those times when maybe we have said how “stressed out” we are, or things that once brought joy and meaning are no longer the same. Maybe the bleakness comes as a result of a loss … loss of a person, a job, a dream. Sometimes we know exactly why we are now in a period of darkness and other times it can catch us unaware and off guard.
This fall and winter, the darkness came as I was so immersed in the doing. Rev. Jennifer Ryu, Williamsburg Unitarian Universalists minister, who I work with, was on sabbatical and it was incredibly busy fall. As so often happens when things get busy, two things happened, I stopped taking care of myself and I tried to do everything myself. In being so busy, I fell out of touch with me. I stopped paying attention and being aware – I kept doing and didn’t take much time to just be. For me I experienced that first line of the poem “When your vision has gone.” The busier I was with the details of all that needed to be done, the more I lost sight of the bigger picture. If you will … all I could see were the trees and no forest. I didn’t feel like I could take the time to stop, to step back, to breathe. I needed the ‘sweet darkness’ that David Whyte speaks of.
So what does sweet darkness look like? The darkness for me truly was this desire to enter into a place that would hold me, nurture me and remind of who I am. I knew that I needed to step back even as I kept doing. So as the fall fell into more of rhythm and Jennifer returned in December I acknowledged how tired I truly was. I was more gentle with myself. I reached out to friends and while I was still busy, I had a heightened sense of awareness that I needed to be gentle with myself. Did I do this perfectly? Absolutely not.
I am grateful for the time I took off between Christmas and New Year’s. I had hoped for a time to focus on the house and getting things done there or maybe even to do some reading … expecting once again that doing more would be the remedy. Entering and embracing the dark as renewing force is not easy; surrender is not an easy thing to do. Yet for the first week, all I wanted to do was nothing. I needed to do nothing. I slept; I hung out with my family and did a lot of nothing. This time allowed me to relax into the darkness and recognize a need to taste its sweetness.
So, once I returned to work after vacation, I made plans for my silent retreat. Silent retreats are amazing and have been a place for me to return to myself. I have done numerous group silent retreats, the first time when I was a senior in college. A different type of community is formed when as a group you consciously chose to enter silence. I have always done directed retreats, meaning that I have met daily with a spiritual director. In meeting with a director, I get a listening ear, sometimes a practice to try or a text to reflect on. It is important for me to get that feedback so I don’t just stay stuck in my own head. In this retreating and deep relating I begin to taste the sweetness of the deep.
I just came off three days of silent retreat at Richmond Hill. It is a little different when you are in silence and others are not. Yet it is just as powerful. I spent my days in prayer, participating in the daily prayer life of Richmond Hill, walking the labyrinth and reading. In stepping away from e-mail, phone, work and even home, I was able to get quiet and listen.
Part of the retreat, was to intentionally step into the darkness, to embrace the horizon that one can only see in the dark. For me that meant spending a lot of hours alone, in prayer and in reading; I paid attention to what drew me, so the library at Richmond Hill had Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L’Engle and I re-read it along with the two sequel novels. I also re-read Palmer’s Let Your Life Speak. On the one hand it was incredibly renewing and restful and yet I was also struck as I came home that I had done a lot of work. I had gone deep into myself. I kept my journal with me constantly, writing in it multiple times a day. It truly was a journey deep within.
Palmer writes of this downward, inward journey. He is not alone, there is also Thomas Merton, the mystics like Theresa of Avila and John of the Cross and many others. Poets, artists, theologians of all traditions, speak of this journey deep within. For Palmer this downward, inward journey is necessary for an authentic spiritual life. The spiritual life is not all about beautiful sunsets and walks on the beach; it is also about death and dying for we live knowing that we will die. It is about dealing authentically with evil. The spiritual life is about embracing all of life – its joy, sorrow, good, bad, the most holy and the most profane. It is the world that tries to sell life without death, joy without sorrow, and an endless string of satisfaction and happiness. Embracing this journey, we can gain clarity around what we need to let go of in order to make room for something else.
The downward, inward journey will require us to be real with ourselves, to confront our gifts and blessings, as well as our faults and failings. It is becoming our whole self. Florida Scott Maxwell puts it this way, “You need only claim the events of your life to make yourself yours. When you truly possess all you have been and done…you are fierce with reality.” You are fierce with reality. This downward, inward journey is not an escape from ourselves and the world, it is a journey to reality, a journey to become fierce with reality.
The poet says it another way, this journey into the dark, will remind you that the world is meant to be free in and to give up the world in which we don’t belong. What might some of these worlds be? Again, Palmer provides insight. On the journey to the authentic self and authentic vocation, there are those in our lives who will tell us who we are and who we are meant to be. Often we spend much of our lives living up to these expectations of others. Maybe these expectations come from family or friends or the culture at large that seeks to tell us what will make us happy, fulfilled, and successful. Often however these signs of success are based on external things like status, income and wealth. After all we privilege certain kinds of work over others – like the work of the mind over the work of the hands. Isn’t this at the heart of the “mid-life” crisis? This crisis of identity, the “Is this all there is?”
The poet calls us to give up all these other worlds, to only be in the one in which we belong, the one in which we can be our authentic selves. Sometimes the only way to find that place is to enter into darkness, into silence, into solitude where we find “the sweet confinement of our aloneness.”
The poet ends leaves us with the injunction to give up anything or anyone that does not bring you alive. This is a tough injunction. In essence the poet calls us to live authentically and to release ourselves from the expectations of those things and those people who want us to live their lives, their dreams, their expectations rather than a life of the authentic self. In discussing his depression, Palmer speaks of those who were most helpful to him. Those who were most helpful did not try to “fix” his depression, did not offer advice, they sat with him often in silence – silently witnessing to his pain. One man came every day and with Palmer’s permission, removed his shoes and socks, and massaged his feet. He witnessed and stayed with him in the pain. So often when we see another’s suffering we want to rush in with advice and the desire to fix it. Sometimes, all that is needed, and what is most hard to give, is to simply stay present, in the moment, bearing witness to another’s pain and suffering. Palmer quotes poet Rainer Maria Rilke “love … consists in this, that two solitudes protect and border and salute each other.” To say it another way, Palmer writes, “By standing respectfully and faithfully at the borders of another’s solitude, we may mediate the love of God to a person who needs something deeper than any human being can give.”
The darkness is not an easy place to journey, this journey downward and inward. It can feel like avoidance and denial are much better alternatives. Yet without the darkness, how are we to know the light? Without pain, how can we truly know joy? Without tears, laughter? In Wrinkle in Time, the children travel to another planet completely shadowed in darkness, completely controlled by a singular entity that does all its thinking for it. This is not the sweet darkness of the downward, inward journey but rather the darkness of those powers that would seek to annihilate the authentic life. IT, a huge brain controls the entire planet and it has imprisoned Mr. Murray and will not let him go. IT promises peace, freedom from thought, no pain, no sickness, no suffering. Everyone on the planet operates on the same schedule every day, every week through the year. The children bounce their balls and jump rope in the same rhythm…no diversity, no need for independent decision making. There may be no suffering on this planet, but there is no joy either. The people are not truly alive.
To be truly alive is to know pain and darkness. It is also to know love and joy. To become fully human, fully alive is to become fierce with reality. To become fierce with reality we must embrace the totality of who we have been and who we are.
Palmer ends Let Your Life Speak with a meditation on the seasons. For the journey to the authentic self is not a linear journey that one takes once and then is done. It is more like the labyrinth, the spiral. As many of you know, when one walks a labyrinth, one walks around sometimes drawing close to the center and other times walking on the edge. To reach the center, you must circle around and around, in and out until you arrive and then you take the same journey out. It is a powerful metaphor for the spiritual life. We spiral around, sometimes close to the center and sometimes way out on the edge. It is an endless cycle like the seasons of the year. Palmer writes, “Our lives participate in the myth of eternal return: we circle around and spiral down, never finally answering the questions Who am I? and Whose am I?” In his reflection on winter he writes, “Until we enter boldly into the fears we most want to avoid, those fears will dominate our lives.”
So I invite you to embrace this journey. I invite you to explore the gifts darkness can offer, gifts of vision and insight. I invite you to accompany others by standing next to them, witnessing their journey, without the need to fix, to offer advice and without turning away. I invite you into the sweet confinement of your aloneness. Blessed Be.
Saturday, December 3, 2011
Gratitude and Giving Back
I preached this sermon on Sunday Nov. 27. It was an all ages service and our start for Guest at Your Table to benefit the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee. The sermon was preached in two parts.
Gratitude
Gratitude, to give thanks, an attitude of gratitude. There is no shortage of discussion about gratitude, counting our blessings, particularly during November. It is a foundational spiritual practice to first be aware of the blessings of our lives and then to take the time to give thanks for them.
Throughout the month of November a number of friends on Facebook posted things they were grateful for. Some missed a few days and then would catch up. Each day I have read posts of gratitude – for family, work, friends, colleagues. For many it was a spiritual discipline, each day reflecting on their blessings and posting them on-line. It is not as easy a spiritual discipline as one might think, once one has given thanks for family, friends, food etc. After a few days, it requires digging deeper, reflecting longer and getting creative. Yesterday one person posted “thankful for the practice of patience.”
Harder still is giving thanks for things that are hard, illness, death, loss. Finding blessings in the midst of loss maintains hope, hope that not all is lost, that the wheel will turn again, that life truly does go on. In the midst of despair, giving thanks can keep hope alive. Giving thanks for the illness, loss, suffering takes time, self-reflection and an acceptance that loss and grief are parts of life. That loss and suffering are not strange, alien states that one should seek to avoid at all costs but rather that loss is woven into the very fabric of life.
Martin Luther King Jr. knew about loss and suffering. He was born at home because his mother refused to have her children born in a segregated hospital. He lived in a segregated neighborhood. He attended segregated schools. He knew the pain of racism.
This is not to promote a “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life,” superficial coating over suffering. Rather, it is seeing hope in the midst of despair, the small speck of light in the darkness, cultivating the trust that whatever it is that we are enduring now is a part of life and that life will endure.
The practice of gratitude, particularly if we are to practice gratitude even when we are hurting, when there is loss and grief, will require discipline. It is easy to stop the practice of gratitude when things get busy, when things get hard. So begin a year-round practice of gratitude. If you do not already have a practice of grace or blessing before meals, begin one. Take the practice of going around the table to say what we are grateful and make it a daily practice.
In fact let us begin right now. Please take just a moment to reflect on one thing that you are grateful for … we will pause for just one moment of silence. Then when I ring the bell, please turn to one person and tell that person what you are thankful for in this moment.
Let us begin….
Gratitude
Gratitude, to give thanks, an attitude of gratitude. There is no shortage of discussion about gratitude, counting our blessings, particularly during November. It is a foundational spiritual practice to first be aware of the blessings of our lives and then to take the time to give thanks for them.
Throughout the month of November a number of friends on Facebook posted things they were grateful for. Some missed a few days and then would catch up. Each day I have read posts of gratitude – for family, work, friends, colleagues. For many it was a spiritual discipline, each day reflecting on their blessings and posting them on-line. It is not as easy a spiritual discipline as one might think, once one has given thanks for family, friends, food etc. After a few days, it requires digging deeper, reflecting longer and getting creative. Yesterday one person posted “thankful for the practice of patience.”
Harder still is giving thanks for things that are hard, illness, death, loss. Finding blessings in the midst of loss maintains hope, hope that not all is lost, that the wheel will turn again, that life truly does go on. In the midst of despair, giving thanks can keep hope alive. Giving thanks for the illness, loss, suffering takes time, self-reflection and an acceptance that loss and grief are parts of life. That loss and suffering are not strange, alien states that one should seek to avoid at all costs but rather that loss is woven into the very fabric of life.
Martin Luther King Jr. knew about loss and suffering. He was born at home because his mother refused to have her children born in a segregated hospital. He lived in a segregated neighborhood. He attended segregated schools. He knew the pain of racism.
This is not to promote a “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life,” superficial coating over suffering. Rather, it is seeing hope in the midst of despair, the small speck of light in the darkness, cultivating the trust that whatever it is that we are enduring now is a part of life and that life will endure.
The practice of gratitude, particularly if we are to practice gratitude even when we are hurting, when there is loss and grief, will require discipline. It is easy to stop the practice of gratitude when things get busy, when things get hard. So begin a year-round practice of gratitude. If you do not already have a practice of grace or blessing before meals, begin one. Take the practice of going around the table to say what we are grateful and make it a daily practice.
In fact let us begin right now. Please take just a moment to reflect on one thing that you are grateful for … we will pause for just one moment of silence. Then when I ring the bell, please turn to one person and tell that person what you are thankful for in this moment.
Let us begin….
Giving Back
Beginning a regular practice of gratitude is a core spiritual practice. Reflecting on what we have been given, sustains hope and faith through hard times and loss. Yet stopping with being grateful without giving back is insufficient. Sometimes it takes an encounter with scarcity to appreciate what we have. Yet if all we do is say, “I am so glad that is not me and I am so grateful for all I have” and the suffering of others does not move us to act then it is empty and insufficient. It is just a platitude.
Gratitude is the first step to moving beyond ourselves and living life with the knowledge that our lives are bound up together. Gratitude for what we have that we did not earn, that we did not make, that we could not have imagined – like sunsets, the colors of leaves in fall, like our very bodies and the air we breathe. All of these things we have been given … they are gifts freely given.
As Unitarian Universalists we begin by affirming that each has inherent and worth and dignity and end by recognizing that we are bound together in creation. What affects one of us, affects all of us.
In the midst of suffering, loss, gross inequality, hunger, war, poverty, it is not enough to say “thank you for my blessings.” Our gratitude must be the starting point for service.
Martin Luther King Jr. says it this way “Everybody can be great. Because anybody can serve. … You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.”
You only need a heart full of grace to serve. Each of us can serve and each of us can make a difference in the lives of others. Each of us, young, old, child, adult can serve. Each of us has gifts to share. We serve each other by offering a smile, a hug or simply asking the question “how are you” and really stopping to hear the answer. Serving each other is not just about serving those people out there somewhere. Serving each other begins with the care we give each other.
We as a faith community practice service. Each week the FISH wagon sits in the entry way of this building and each week we are invited to bring food for our neighbors in need. In addition to our collecting food for FISH, one month each year, members give their time sorting and repairing clothes. Each December we collect socks and underwear. As a community we serve together. FISH is just one example of how this faith community seeks to make a difference and there are many ways we can give back, to serve, to make the world a better place.
There is another way that we as a faith community, reach out in giving to others. Each year, we here at WUU and many other Unitarian Universalist congregations participate in Guest at Your Table. Nan and I are going to tell you about Guest at Your Table
Nan: What is Guest at Your Table?
Margaret: Hold up the box
Nan: That is a box not a guest.
Margaret: Yes this is the Guest at Your Table box. I invite each family, to take the box home. I invite you to put the box at a place where you will see it every day – like your dining room table. When you eat at the table you can look at the pictures and learn about the people on the box.
Nan: Where do I find the stories of the people?
Margaret: I also invite you to take this book home, called Stories of Hope. The stories go with the pictures on the box. I invite you to the practice of reading a story from the book and putting some money in the box.
Nan: Money in the box? Why do I put money in the box?
Margaret: The money in the box will be used to help the people on the box and others in their communities.
Nan: How?
Margaret: The money will go to the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee. They work in our country and all around the world helping people have clean water, good food. They help people who have had a terrible disaster where they live – like an earthquake or flood and the Service Committee helps those communities recover. They also work on things like a right to clean water, dignified work, education, shelter.
Nan: So how is the money going to get from the box on my table to the Service Committee?
Margaret: You will bring the box back to WUU on January 8. We will collect everyone’s boxes. Then all the money will be counted and sent to the UU Service Committee. Our money will be combined with the money from all the other UU Congregations to help around the world.
Nan: So let me make sure I get this. I take the box home. I put it on my table. I learn about the people on the box. I put my money in the box. Then I bring the box back here on January 8. Then all the money from all of us goes to the Service Committee.
Margaret: Exactly. And that is another way that each of us can give back. We can give what we have and that gets combined with what others give and we can make the world a more just place.
"Everybody can be great. Because anybody can serve. You only need a heart full of grace.”
Beginning a regular practice of gratitude is a core spiritual practice. Reflecting on what we have been given, sustains hope and faith through hard times and loss. Yet stopping with being grateful without giving back is insufficient. Sometimes it takes an encounter with scarcity to appreciate what we have. Yet if all we do is say, “I am so glad that is not me and I am so grateful for all I have” and the suffering of others does not move us to act then it is empty and insufficient. It is just a platitude.
Gratitude is the first step to moving beyond ourselves and living life with the knowledge that our lives are bound up together. Gratitude for what we have that we did not earn, that we did not make, that we could not have imagined – like sunsets, the colors of leaves in fall, like our very bodies and the air we breathe. All of these things we have been given … they are gifts freely given.
As Unitarian Universalists we begin by affirming that each has inherent and worth and dignity and end by recognizing that we are bound together in creation. What affects one of us, affects all of us.
In the midst of suffering, loss, gross inequality, hunger, war, poverty, it is not enough to say “thank you for my blessings.” Our gratitude must be the starting point for service.
Martin Luther King Jr. says it this way “Everybody can be great. Because anybody can serve. … You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.”
You only need a heart full of grace to serve. Each of us can serve and each of us can make a difference in the lives of others. Each of us, young, old, child, adult can serve. Each of us has gifts to share. We serve each other by offering a smile, a hug or simply asking the question “how are you” and really stopping to hear the answer. Serving each other is not just about serving those people out there somewhere. Serving each other begins with the care we give each other.
We as a faith community practice service. Each week the FISH wagon sits in the entry way of this building and each week we are invited to bring food for our neighbors in need. In addition to our collecting food for FISH, one month each year, members give their time sorting and repairing clothes. Each December we collect socks and underwear. As a community we serve together. FISH is just one example of how this faith community seeks to make a difference and there are many ways we can give back, to serve, to make the world a better place.
There is another way that we as a faith community, reach out in giving to others. Each year, we here at WUU and many other Unitarian Universalist congregations participate in Guest at Your Table. Nan and I are going to tell you about Guest at Your Table
Nan: What is Guest at Your Table?
Margaret: Hold up the box
Nan: That is a box not a guest.
Margaret: Yes this is the Guest at Your Table box. I invite each family, to take the box home. I invite you to put the box at a place where you will see it every day – like your dining room table. When you eat at the table you can look at the pictures and learn about the people on the box.
Nan: Where do I find the stories of the people?
Margaret: I also invite you to take this book home, called Stories of Hope. The stories go with the pictures on the box. I invite you to the practice of reading a story from the book and putting some money in the box.
Nan: Money in the box? Why do I put money in the box?
Margaret: The money in the box will be used to help the people on the box and others in their communities.
Nan: How?
Margaret: The money will go to the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee. They work in our country and all around the world helping people have clean water, good food. They help people who have had a terrible disaster where they live – like an earthquake or flood and the Service Committee helps those communities recover. They also work on things like a right to clean water, dignified work, education, shelter.
Nan: So how is the money going to get from the box on my table to the Service Committee?
Margaret: You will bring the box back to WUU on January 8. We will collect everyone’s boxes. Then all the money will be counted and sent to the UU Service Committee. Our money will be combined with the money from all the other UU Congregations to help around the world.
Nan: So let me make sure I get this. I take the box home. I put it on my table. I learn about the people on the box. I put my money in the box. Then I bring the box back here on January 8. Then all the money from all of us goes to the Service Committee.
Margaret: Exactly. And that is another way that each of us can give back. We can give what we have and that gets combined with what others give and we can make the world a more just place.
"Everybody can be great. Because anybody can serve. You only need a heart full of grace.”
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
An Encounter with Martin Luther King Jr.
This was the story for all ages I shared this past Sunday, Nov. 27 in a service called Gratitude and Giving Back.
This summer my family and I traveled to Atlanta and while we were there we went to the King Center. The King Center includes the Ebenezer Baptist Church and the childhood home of Martin and his siblings.
The house is a 2-story house in a neighbor that was all African-American. It included families that were middle-class like the King family and families that were working class. It is the home that Martin Luther King’s grandparents lived in and raised their children. Martin, his sister and brother were all born in this home. Martin’s grandmother lived with them.
As you tour the home you realize that Martin Luther King Jr. was not some superhuman person. He, just like each of us he had gifts and failings. He and his brother used to terrorize their sister and they destroyed all her dolls. Martin would hide out when it was his turn to the do the dishes – he didn’t think boys should have to do the dishes.
Yet what also struck me was the daily practices in the King family. At a time when children were to be “seen and not heard,” in the King family you were to come to the dinner table with 2 things. One was you were to have memorized a Bible verse that you could recite at the table. The second is that each child was expected to have read the news and know something about current events. Over dinner, the family would talk about current events and the children were expected to be part of the conversation.
Martin Luther King Jr. had much to be grateful for - a loving family, a roof over his head and food on the table. He had a family that expected him and his brother and sister to be full participants in family meals. At each meal they gave thanks for their blessings, and then each member of that family, not just Martin, lived in service to the world. Out of their blessings, they gave of themselves in service – striving to make things better for others.
Going through the house, hearing stories about Martin Luther King Jr.’s family gave me a deeper sense of appreciation of this man who gave so much to all of us. He, failings and all, is an example of a life lived in service to others, sustained by a deep faith and the love of family. He had a deep sense of gratitude for life and out of that, he devoted his life to serving others.
This summer my family and I traveled to Atlanta and while we were there we went to the King Center. The King Center includes the Ebenezer Baptist Church and the childhood home of Martin and his siblings.
The house is a 2-story house in a neighbor that was all African-American. It included families that were middle-class like the King family and families that were working class. It is the home that Martin Luther King’s grandparents lived in and raised their children. Martin, his sister and brother were all born in this home. Martin’s grandmother lived with them.
As you tour the home you realize that Martin Luther King Jr. was not some superhuman person. He, just like each of us he had gifts and failings. He and his brother used to terrorize their sister and they destroyed all her dolls. Martin would hide out when it was his turn to the do the dishes – he didn’t think boys should have to do the dishes.
Yet what also struck me was the daily practices in the King family. At a time when children were to be “seen and not heard,” in the King family you were to come to the dinner table with 2 things. One was you were to have memorized a Bible verse that you could recite at the table. The second is that each child was expected to have read the news and know something about current events. Over dinner, the family would talk about current events and the children were expected to be part of the conversation.
Martin Luther King Jr. had much to be grateful for - a loving family, a roof over his head and food on the table. He had a family that expected him and his brother and sister to be full participants in family meals. At each meal they gave thanks for their blessings, and then each member of that family, not just Martin, lived in service to the world. Out of their blessings, they gave of themselves in service – striving to make things better for others.
Going through the house, hearing stories about Martin Luther King Jr.’s family gave me a deeper sense of appreciation of this man who gave so much to all of us. He, failings and all, is an example of a life lived in service to others, sustained by a deep faith and the love of family. He had a deep sense of gratitude for life and out of that, he devoted his life to serving others.
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Transgender Day of Remembrance 2011
Here are my closing words to last Sunday's Transgender Day of Remembrance service at the College of William and Mary.
It would be easy now to be overwhelmed and helpless; so many lives and so many young lives taken far too soon, taken because of misunderstanding and hate. Lives taken because they were different, viewed as outside the mainstream, challenging binary notions of gender and challenging heterosexist assumptions. Not all who were killed necessarily identified themselves as transgender, some were killed because assumptions were made based on appearance.
Yet this is not the time to be helpless or hopeless. It does not honor these lives that were lost for us to get lost in our own hopelessness. In the words of Dorothy Day, “No one has a right to sit down and feel hopeless. There’s too much work to do.”
Yes too much work to do. Work to break down stereotypes and rigid assumptions about gender. We need to work toward a time when everyone is free to be who they are, to express their gender identity without fear of violence, losing their jobs or being treated less than. Each of us can do this work by first living our own lives with as much authenticity as possible. Each of us can do this work by challenging rigid notions of gender and expression.
Each of us can work for the day when we will gather together for one final Transgender Day of Remembrance Service and there will be no new names to read. The day when we will gather one final time to say “We remember, we never forgot;” a day to celebrate a time when no one need live in fear of violence, a day when we can all be just who we are.
May it be so.
It would be easy now to be overwhelmed and helpless; so many lives and so many young lives taken far too soon, taken because of misunderstanding and hate. Lives taken because they were different, viewed as outside the mainstream, challenging binary notions of gender and challenging heterosexist assumptions. Not all who were killed necessarily identified themselves as transgender, some were killed because assumptions were made based on appearance.
Yet this is not the time to be helpless or hopeless. It does not honor these lives that were lost for us to get lost in our own hopelessness. In the words of Dorothy Day, “No one has a right to sit down and feel hopeless. There’s too much work to do.”
Yes too much work to do. Work to break down stereotypes and rigid assumptions about gender. We need to work toward a time when everyone is free to be who they are, to express their gender identity without fear of violence, losing their jobs or being treated less than. Each of us can do this work by first living our own lives with as much authenticity as possible. Each of us can do this work by challenging rigid notions of gender and expression.
Each of us can work for the day when we will gather together for one final Transgender Day of Remembrance Service and there will be no new names to read. The day when we will gather one final time to say “We remember, we never forgot;” a day to celebrate a time when no one need live in fear of violence, a day when we can all be just who we are.
May it be so.
Thursday, November 3, 2011
99% Rally at William and Mary
Today I spoke at a 99% Rally at the College of William and Mary.
Here is what I said.
Good afternoon I am Margaret Sequeira and I am grateful that I was asked to speak here today. While I hold many roles and relationships within Williamsburg and the College, I want to be clear that I speak today only for myself and not for any organization or group. I begin there because so much of the Occupy movement has been about individuals coming together in community to speak up. If you read the mainstream press about the Occupy movement it is driving them crazy that there is no single leader, there is no spokesperson – no one who speaks for the whole.
This is not comfortable for us – we who long for clear leadership and clear lines of authority are confused by this.
Yet I stand before you not just a person by herself, I stand before you intimately and intrinsically intertwined in a complex web of relationships. I think the Occupy movement calls each of us to live into the paradox that we are both individuals, with individual needs and abilities and that we are not just individuals – that our lives are tied up with others.
I am a Unitarian Universalist and in my faith tradition we are bound in covenant by 7 principles (don’t worry I am not going into all 7 – just 2). The first is to affirm the inherent worth and dignity of the individual and the 7th is to affirm the interdependent web of creation of which we are all a part. This captures well this paradox – the paradox of being an individual and that we are part of complex web of relationship and creation. One of my favorite signs from the Occupy Movement is one that read “My wellbeing is tied up with yours.”
The Occupy Movement has been critiqued for not being focused enough, clear enough with concrete demands and policy changes. It is critiqued because it is out of step with our usual political organizing with leaders and talking points. It is trying to capture a diversity – that yes it is about the economy and how the greed of a very few controls both our economy and our government and it is also about racism, sexism, and heterosexism. It is about how if one is not wealthy, not white, not male, not straight, not able bodied, not able to pull oneself up by one’s boot straps – then one deserves whatever less than status one may find oneself in.
You see the Occupy movement is so threatening because it seeks to tell the truth to expose one big lie – the lie is that here in America anyone can be anything they chose to be – with enough hard work, if you play by the rules, if you do what is expected than you can succeed – you might even be president one day. We love our stories of quote unquote self-made individuals who pulled themselves up and made an immensely successful life for themselves. This myth of America – that anyone can be anything is very powerful and for that story/that myth to be challenged in anyway is a profound threat to way we see ourselves as a nation.
Yet many know for a fact that this story of America is a false one. That too often people are too dark skinned, have too much of an accent, are too poor, are the wrong gender, are too queer – and no there will not be success there. Part of the lie is that those who are successful do it on their own – they don’t need a handout or help for anyone. “They are self-made.” Yet none of us is self-made. Human beings are communal beings – we thrive only in the midst of our relationships. And if you listen closely enough to our quote unquote self made people – there are numerous people who helped them along the way, gave them a chance, opened a door.
The Occupy movement is speaking the truth loudly – the truth that a very few control most of the wealth and income, that playing by rules does not mean that one will thrive, that one can do it on ones own, that the 1% earned their wealth on their own and not through inheritance, government programs that have benefited certain people and not others, economic policies and programs are set up for the benefit of the few and not the many. Speaking the truth is a risky business – one only need look to many of our religious and spiritual leaders to see that rarely do people want to hear the truth – Ghandi, Martin Luther King Jr., Jesus, Oscar Romero to name a very few. Speaking the truth means to risk violence, to risk outcast, to risk death. Speaking the truth, whether it is our own personal truth or speaking a social truth is to be daring. Occupy invites each of us to speak our own truth, to speak truth to power.
“If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together” was spoken by Lilla Watson an Indigenous Australian or Murri visual artist, activist and academic working in the field of Women’s issues and Aboriginal epistemology. Occupy is not asking anyone to help them..they are speaking the truth that our individual liberation, our well-being is bound up together. We are not just individuals who thrive or fail on our own … we are connected individuals whose wellbeing, whose liberation is woven together.
May this movement encourage us all to re-engage as public citizens. Citizens that speak our own truth and risk speaking truth to power and thus transforming our country to be a more just, more thriving place for all.
Here is what I said.
Good afternoon I am Margaret Sequeira and I am grateful that I was asked to speak here today. While I hold many roles and relationships within Williamsburg and the College, I want to be clear that I speak today only for myself and not for any organization or group. I begin there because so much of the Occupy movement has been about individuals coming together in community to speak up. If you read the mainstream press about the Occupy movement it is driving them crazy that there is no single leader, there is no spokesperson – no one who speaks for the whole.
This is not comfortable for us – we who long for clear leadership and clear lines of authority are confused by this.
Yet I stand before you not just a person by herself, I stand before you intimately and intrinsically intertwined in a complex web of relationships. I think the Occupy movement calls each of us to live into the paradox that we are both individuals, with individual needs and abilities and that we are not just individuals – that our lives are tied up with others.
I am a Unitarian Universalist and in my faith tradition we are bound in covenant by 7 principles (don’t worry I am not going into all 7 – just 2). The first is to affirm the inherent worth and dignity of the individual and the 7th is to affirm the interdependent web of creation of which we are all a part. This captures well this paradox – the paradox of being an individual and that we are part of complex web of relationship and creation. One of my favorite signs from the Occupy Movement is one that read “My wellbeing is tied up with yours.”
The Occupy Movement has been critiqued for not being focused enough, clear enough with concrete demands and policy changes. It is critiqued because it is out of step with our usual political organizing with leaders and talking points. It is trying to capture a diversity – that yes it is about the economy and how the greed of a very few controls both our economy and our government and it is also about racism, sexism, and heterosexism. It is about how if one is not wealthy, not white, not male, not straight, not able bodied, not able to pull oneself up by one’s boot straps – then one deserves whatever less than status one may find oneself in.
You see the Occupy movement is so threatening because it seeks to tell the truth to expose one big lie – the lie is that here in America anyone can be anything they chose to be – with enough hard work, if you play by the rules, if you do what is expected than you can succeed – you might even be president one day. We love our stories of quote unquote self-made individuals who pulled themselves up and made an immensely successful life for themselves. This myth of America – that anyone can be anything is very powerful and for that story/that myth to be challenged in anyway is a profound threat to way we see ourselves as a nation.
Yet many know for a fact that this story of America is a false one. That too often people are too dark skinned, have too much of an accent, are too poor, are the wrong gender, are too queer – and no there will not be success there. Part of the lie is that those who are successful do it on their own – they don’t need a handout or help for anyone. “They are self-made.” Yet none of us is self-made. Human beings are communal beings – we thrive only in the midst of our relationships. And if you listen closely enough to our quote unquote self made people – there are numerous people who helped them along the way, gave them a chance, opened a door.
The Occupy movement is speaking the truth loudly – the truth that a very few control most of the wealth and income, that playing by rules does not mean that one will thrive, that one can do it on ones own, that the 1% earned their wealth on their own and not through inheritance, government programs that have benefited certain people and not others, economic policies and programs are set up for the benefit of the few and not the many. Speaking the truth is a risky business – one only need look to many of our religious and spiritual leaders to see that rarely do people want to hear the truth – Ghandi, Martin Luther King Jr., Jesus, Oscar Romero to name a very few. Speaking the truth means to risk violence, to risk outcast, to risk death. Speaking the truth, whether it is our own personal truth or speaking a social truth is to be daring. Occupy invites each of us to speak our own truth, to speak truth to power.
“If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together” was spoken by Lilla Watson an Indigenous Australian or Murri visual artist, activist and academic working in the field of Women’s issues and Aboriginal epistemology. Occupy is not asking anyone to help them..they are speaking the truth that our individual liberation, our well-being is bound up together. We are not just individuals who thrive or fail on our own … we are connected individuals whose wellbeing, whose liberation is woven together.
May this movement encourage us all to re-engage as public citizens. Citizens that speak our own truth and risk speaking truth to power and thus transforming our country to be a more just, more thriving place for all.
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