When Dreams Become Reality

Nov. 9 2008

By Rev. Barbara Threet

 In the words of our president–elect, Barak Obama:

This victory alone is not the change we seek. It is only a chance for us to make that change. And that cannot happen if we go back to the way things were. The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or evening one term. But, America, I promise you I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there!

There is a new sense of hope, for many people. The San Francisco Chronicle said, “By radiating hope and resonating competence, Obama has shattered the status quo!” Many of Obama’s policies are in stark contrast to those which have been in place for the past eight years. He has energized and engaged young voters and voters of color in unprecedented numbers. He has broken a color barrier which has kept all but a very few from holding any high elected office in our country – and he’s just been elected to the highest elected position in our country! The red and blue political map has been redrawn in ways that seemed impossible to imagine just a few months ago. Our new president brings the awareness of being a racial minority in this country, a memory of living in poverty as a child, the experience of having lived both in a state that’s markedly different from the Continental United States, and in a country with a very different culture altogether. For many Americans, it feels like issues such as straightening out our financial mess, providing adequate health care, healing the environment, ending the war in Iraq, and improving access to a good education for all might finally be addressed productively.

There are amazing comments from average Americans: “It’s a new day not just for American, but for the world!” “Now I can tell my grandchildren that as black children, they have a chance to be President!” Adrian Walker began his column in the Globe with, “My father … was drafted into World War II as a college freshman, and returned home four years later to a state in which he could not register to vote”, and ends that column with, “All great revolutions start from within, from a wildly irrational sense of heightened possibility. Tuesday we saw that same kind of imagination at work. Black Americans have not always has that sense of hope, and they have not been alone in despair. But hopelessness was routed Teusday, and I wish my parents had been around to see it!”  And a friend said to me, “There are moments in our history that you always remember: you know exactly where you were when you learned Kennedy was shot, or heard about the Twin Towers, or first saw footage of Katrina. Now we have a moment that will stick in our minds that way that’s incredibly positive: we’ll remember where we were when we learned Obama was elected our president!”

Hopes are high beyond our borders too. Nelson Mandela said, “[Obama’s] victory has demonstrated that no person anywhere in the world should not dare to dream of wanting to change the world for a better place.” A German newspaper declared, “America has been resurrected! The election of Barack Obama was an act of liberation; indeed, a cleansing of America!” In France, a junior minister for human rights said “This is the fall of the Berlin Wall – times 10!” And the Prime Minister of India wrote to our President-elect, “Your extraordinary jump to the White House will inspire people not only in your country but also around the world!” A picture in the Globe showed a poster in Italy with the words “Il Mondo Cambia” – “The World Changes” - superimposed above Obama’s picture. And in Kenya, the birthplace of Obama’s father, a national holiday was declared on Thursday in celebration! Douglas Brinkley, a history professor at Rice, summed it up well when he said, “No president of a country as powerful as the United States has ever been seen as such a unifying figure. Most of the world sees Barack Obama as their leader…it’s giant burden on his shoulders.”

And that’s the down side of this election. Hopes are SO high, so deep, and so broad. So high – that Obama will lead us to energy independence, fiscal stability at home and abroad, full employment, universal health care, and a repaired infrastructure. So deep – that we will be able to address and heal very, very old wounds – racism, classism, immigration. Hopes are so broad – that America will end the war in Iraq, effectively tackle global warming and arms reduction, and be restored to a position of respect and integrity in the eyes of the world. And we want to do all these things while we lowering taxes for most people, keeping a high standard of living, and maintaining civil discourse!

I found myself thinking in the past few days about the process of falling in love. Somebody catches your eye. You have a conversation – and then another. You discover the things you have in common and begin to spend more time together. You become a couple; you meet each other’s families – and somewhere along the way, you realize you’ve fallen in love. And with any luck, the other person has the same realization, and you begin to plan a life together. Sometimes this happens very quickly and sometimes it takes quite a while. Sometimes you even loved someone else first – her name might have been Hilary, or even John – and it takes time for your affections to switch. But you love with this amazing person, the one who’s the answer to all your hopes and dreams.

And then reality sets in. That person who accompanied you to a Celtics game so happily, or to the opera – admits they just wanted to be with you, and they don’t much want to go back. That person who was so willing ditched work to head for a long weekend away – is a workaholic who rarely gets home until 9. You may well discover positive qualities you hadn’t realized, and plenty of things that do go as you imagined. He or she may remain your beloved for decades: you may have the great good fortune to look back on the day you met that person as the most important and most positive day in your life. But rarely does the person you get match the person you create in your mind at first blush.

It’s quite likely, especially given the current harsh economic situation, that we will experience some of that disappointment, especially given the impossibly high expectations placed on this man. President Obama, even with more Democrats in the House and Senate, even if he can affect the make-up of the Supreme Court, even with all the best intentions in the world – will not be able to solve every problem immediately, will not lead us to the land of bliss, will not have all the answers. In Obama’s words “we may not get there in a year, or even in one term”. We will need to “summon a new spirit of patriotism, of responsibility, where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves but each other. In this country, we rise or fall as one nation, as one people.” We will need to work together, all of us, to bring about the changes that our country and the world so desperately need. Obama’s strategy has been to move deliberately, to build consensus, to listen carefully before acting. This often results in a slower pace, although the resulting actions are often more widely supported. One of the challenges for us liberals will be to be patient: to keep working, keep pushing, but to do so patiently.

In fact, we already know some things will take longer to change than we’d hoped. Since Obama’s election, the Bush administration has rushed to relax several regulations which can be changed in the next administration only through a lengthy and cumbersome process. These changes lift restrictions on commercial ocean fishing, ease controls on power plant emissions, relax drinking water standards, and loosen restrictions on dumping mine wastes. Every president inherits the remnants of the pervious administration, and Obama will be no different – except many would say that he inherits a country badly damaged by incompetence, flat-out arrogance, ill will and terrifying disregard for what many hold to be our most basic rights. This is where he starts – and setting that right alone will take a great deal of time and talent. 

And as we know, many of these solutions will require money. One of the questions that both candidates often sidestepped during the debates was what proposals and initiatives would be funded and which would have to wait, or even be cut, given the current economic situation. That is a very, very hard question. It will be hard at all levels – local and state as well as federal, and tough choices will need to be made, some of which we will not agree with, and most of which will have a human cost.

An example: the probable closing at the end of this month of the Louis D. Brown Peace Institute in Dorchester. For 14 years, it’s helped the families of those who have died by violence. On an annual budget of under $200,000, it’s done remarkable work. The Peace Institute offers support and counseling to bereaved families. It’s created curriculum to help children who have lost someone to violence, helps in planning funerals and memorials, and offers assistance in guiding families through the court system. There were 66 homicides in the city of Boston last year: families or friends of 62 of them received help from the Peace Institute. But with a $1.4 billion dollar shortfall in our state, about half of its budget has been cut, and unless some other funding can be found, it will close – and the city of Boston will be the poorer.

Given the current budget situation, there will be thousands of such stories all across our land at every level. Health clinics, services for the disabled or homeless, maintaining our national parks – all have a cost. Adequate mental health care for returning troops and protective gear for those who fight, exploration into alternative energy sources, fixing roads and bridges, domestic violence prevention – all have a cost. Even in the best of times, choices have to be made, and in this climate, these choices will be even harder. And they won’t please everyone: I’d guarantee that even among you present here today, if each of us listed the three programs that it is most important to leave intact, we’d get a wide variety of answers. So we will need to be prepared to be disappointed at times, even frustrated when the things we find most valuable aren’t the ones that are being funded.

And we’ll need to be prepared to make changes ourselves, difficult changes. I’ve been reading Thomas Friedman’s Hot, Flat and Crowded. Friedman is discussing the need to be more ecologically conscious, and he talks about a cover story in a magazine entitled “205 Easy Ways to Save the Earth”. He was so struck by the title that he Googled that topic. He lists almost thirty examples that showed up: “The 10 Easiest Ways to Green Your Home”, “Simple Ways to Save the Earth”, ‘Five Easy Ways to Save the World”, and the like. But a few paragraphs later, Friedman writes:

You’ll pardon me…if I’ve become a bit cynical about all of this. I have read or heard so many people saying, “We’re having a green revolution.” Of course, there is certainly a lot of green buzz out there. But whenever I hear that “we’re having a green revolution” line I can’t help firing back: ‘Really? Really? A green revolution? Have you ever seen a revolution where no one got hurt? That’s the green revolution we’re having.” In the green revolution we’re having, everyone’s a winner, nobody has to give up anything, and the adjective that most often modifies ‘green revolution’ is ‘easy’. That’s not a revolution. That’s a party We’re having a green party.  And… it’s a lot of fun…But in America, at least, it is mostly a costume party. It’s all about looking green – and everyone’s a winner.”

He goes on to list some of the ‘winners’. Farmers who growing corn to turn into ethanol and getting huge subsidies, even though it’s not effective in reducing CO₂. Exxon and General Motors are suddenly going green: they proudly tell us so in their TV ads! Coal companies are green: they’re touting ‘clean coal’, although though the technology to create clean coal doesn’t exist – and coal is still a fossil fuel, an obviously limited resource. He speaks about deciding to install two solar arrays at his home, in a community that has made a real effort at recycling – and he was told they were illegal: they were deemed too unsightly. I recall two amazing articles in the Globe last summer. One was about someone who was being sued by his homeowner’s association because he had planted a vegetable garden on his front lawn: such things not allowed! The other was about the many communities where it is illegal to hang one’s laundry outside. Now, growing food is pretty essential, even though a vegetable garden may not look as pretty as a flower bed. And drying clothes on a line certainly saves energy. But both were deemed not quite appropriate for urban people: vegetables belong on farms in the country, apparently, and laundry flaps from porches in tenement slums.

If we are to make many of the changes that our society will require, we will need to be uncomfortable. Maybe really uncomfortable. Change will need to happen on all levels. I could start with my kitchen counter, which holds oranges, avocadoes, and bananas. None of them grow in New England, not even in the summer. It takes fossil fuels to get them to me, and I know that’s not a wise use of fuel: I know my bananas are very tiny but very real part of why our country uses so much more than its share of energy. But I don’t want to give up avocadoes and bananas, even though I know they come to New England by damaging our world, and that’s inconsistent with what I say I value.  Even that much change is uncomfortable, and I don’t like it.

But if we are to change our society, it will take more than money and programs. We will probably have to be uncomfortable, We will probably be inconvenienced. And that will be difficult. Last summer, with gas around four and a half dollars a gallon, many of us changed our driving habits. But now that gas is back down towards two dollars – almost none of the changes have stuck. They were too inconvenient, too unfamiliar.

There have been attempts at change before. From 1975 to 1985, we went from an average of 13.5 miles per gallon up to over 27 mpg, and then-President Carter actually had solar panels installed on the White House. The panels are long since gone, and fuel efficiency requirements were relaxed. It was only last year that Congress enacted a requirement to improve to an average of 35 miles per gallon – by the year 2020! And who is really to blame for this regression? Not just President Reagan (who took the solar panels off and encouraged relaxing the fuel efficiency standards). Not Congress alone. Not even the oil companies. But us – all of us, who didn’t change, or didn’t insist loudly enough that it mattered. We will need to be willing to use less, to change how we live, to find middle roads on many issues, and to look at life differently. We’ll have to examine what we’re really entitled to – and as the entitled middle class in a country that historically has believed itself tremendously entitled, that will be hard.

We could explore many areas and find a similar picture. In order to make change, there must be – change. Take race: 32% of white adults hold a bachelor’s degree, but only 19% of blacks and 13% of Latinos. A third of all Afro-American children live below the poverty line and 29% of Native American children do, but under 10% of white children live at that level. Infant mortality is twice as high for blacks as it is for whites. The reasons for these statistics are very complicated, and deeply woven into our society. It will not be easy to change any of these things. Especially when there are such economic stresses, deciding what programs will be supported with money or time will be challenging: the reality is that usually, it’s the voices that are educated, and organized, and non-threatening that get heard. But if that remains the case, then nothing will change: an increasingly small group of people with education and white skin will remain on top, with a vast and growing underclass.

At General Assembly last June, the keynote speaker was Van Jones, who presented some fascinating possibilities for how we might address both the ecological crisis and the deep problems of racism in this country. I’ve been excited to see mention of the possibility of the resurrection of FDR’s public works programs as a way to address both the environment and our growing unemployment: I heartily recommend to you (and to Obama!) the video of Van Jones’ talk which we’ll be showing next Sunday after service, and his book “The Green-Collar Economy”. This is the sort of radical, and logical thinking that can help us move forward – but as Jones points out – it will take all of us,    

As the LA Times pointed out, if Obama’s too ambitious, he risks alienating potential allies, and increases the chance of conservative opposition, which increases the chance that his changes will be just another swing of the pendulum. The more rapidly changes are instituted, the more resistance there will be and the likelier they are to fail. The surest way to sustained change involves intentional consensus-building, thoughtful actions, and careful consideration of  all the consequences – and these take time. 

But there is a new opportunity now. There is a possibility that our government could once again become a force for justice and equity in the world. We could become a model of the best that a country can be, of one that increases access for all its citizens and cares for its environment and makes decisions thoughtfully. There is a chance to demand and support changes even when they inconvenience us, or when they don’t affect us directly. 

We close with the words that closed President-Elect Obama’s acceptance speech this past Tuesday:

Becoming the Establishment

October 28, 2008

By Rev. Barbara Threet

            George had had a miserable day. H’ed felt inept and uninformed. Outdated, actually – almost downright useless. Now, George is basically a good guy. He’s in his late 70s and long since retired. In his thirties he was a college history professor, one of those who opposed the war and marched on Washington and led teach-ins – remember teach-ins? Then he began mentoring high school students and decided to enter the public school system. He taught for several years and then became a high school principal: he was instrumental in turning around two inner-city high schools. He’s really skilled a mediating and motivating, and finding resources where there don’t seem to be any, and the lives of many young people were radically changed due to his positive influence and constant support. In his retirement, he continues to mentor at-risk youth, and to advise teachers who work in inner-city schools.

            But one day George had a conversation with one of his great-grandchildren. She’d just finished a science report on water, and she was mightily upset! She told him all about pollution in the local water, and how often the beaches were closed because the water was unsafe, and how much water was wasted. it was wasting water that started her lecture actually: she discovered a leaky faucet in George’s house, which she informed him was Wasting Water – didn’t he know that thousands of gallons were wasted due to leaky faucets every day just in their city? She’d gone on and on, and he felt guilty – and then he saw a flyer.

It was in a local store, and it said that an area college was organizing buses to go to the state capitol for a day to attend hearings on water usage. People would participate in a sidewalk protest and meet with state representatives and senators. They’d attend some of the hearings and some informational talks. His schedule would be all set out – all he had to do was Show Up and Make a Difference! So he signed up.

George was excited about the trip. He hadn’t done anything like this in decades - and to tell the truth, his great granddaughter was REALLY impressed, and that felt good too. But when he showed up for the bus, well before daybreak, he found himself surrounded by people who were mostly really young, mostly college aged. They were loud, and they used language that he’d fought to keep out of his school halls. George had on a suit and tie: he was going to meet with public officials after all. They wore jeans and T-shirts, leggings and short skirts, baggy pants and boots. Some had purple hair or dredlocks, piercings or tattoos. half of them had earphones on, and many were texting on their cell phones, or talking. He was pretty uncomfortable – and they hadn’t even left yet! George contemplated whether he felt a cold coming on, or an attack of sciatica – anything that would be a legitimate excuse to change his mind - but instead, he climbed on the bus.

George introduced himself to his seatmate, and said he was really looking forward to one of the speakers. His seatmate enthusiastically informed him that he’d taken a class with ‘that dude’ last semester, and began to go on about how much he’d learned, and how excellent his books were. George hadn’t read any of his books, and he felt pretty uninformed – and then a young woman sitting behind him leaned up. She’d had lunch with ‘that dude’ at some other environmental a month or two earlier, it turned out. When she mentioned the event, the people in the seat in front of George turned around – ‘Wow, were you there too? That was amazing!” – and in a matter of minutes, George was invisible. He told me he felt like the epitome of a middle-class Establishment man, pretty much an old, stodgy, uninformed, irrelevant middle-class man. The conversation swirled around him for the three-hour ride, facts and people and protests, classes and authors and legislative bills. The more they talked, the less informed he felt. And such energy! George was sleepy and his knees hurt from the long bus ride, but these young people were just buzzing with enthusiasm and information. They were passionate, and engaged, and knowledgeable.

George’s group was scheduled to meet with a senator first thing, but he said absolutely nothing, awed by how much these young people who were with him knew – and he was the only one over 30 in his little group. Next his group was assigned to walk on the protest line. George picked up a sign. He chose a big one: maybe it would make up for all he didn’t’ know. He’d forgotten how heavy they were: first his arms ached, and then they trembled. After along time of walking – like 12 or 15 minutes – he realized the only things worse than how sore his arms were was how sore his feet were: he’d worn dress shoes, after all. Then his back kicked up. And that was all he could think about. Water rights? Pollution? He forgot all that. His back, and his aching feet, demanded his entire attention. One of the organizers came over to him and spoke compassionately – in that slightly condescending tone that gets used in talking to a really old person. she’d noticed he “seemed to be lagging”, and she asked if he’d like to sit down for a bit. He nodded, and she motioned to an area next to a fence. There was a space – on the ground. George thought about what it would take to get down there, and then he thought about how awkward and ancient he’d look when he tried to get up. “I think I’ll just stand over there with my sign,” George said.

The entire day went like that. He felt old, and while the others were kind, he suspected they saw him as some kind of dinosaur. he overheard a conversation at lunch about how hard it was to change ‘older generations”, or even to “wake them up”, and he heard the young passionate voices talking about how much there was to learn and how much there was to do, how critical the issues were, and how little time there was. And he felt ancient.

Toward the end of the day, the group broke into clusters over dinner for ‘processing’. Their leader asked several questions, and George stayed silent. Then the leader said, “One final question: why did you come here today? why do you each do this work?” They started around the table. The first person talked about the effects of pollution on ocean life, since he was studying coral reef death for his doctoral thesis. The second talked about her interest in migrant farmers, and her anger at the pollutants they were exposed to. The next talked about America’s ethical obligation to stop using more resources than our share. George could see his turn coming, and he wanted to crawl under the table. He didn’t know facts like they did, he wasn’t involved in any impressive research project or political action, hadn’t taken any classes. But eventually the guy next to him did stop talking, so George started.

“I’m nowhere near as well informed as any of you,” he said, looking down at his old, tired hands. I care about these issues, and I pay attention to things like my trash and what I plant in my lawn, but I guess I‘m to old to see things in the big picture that you all see.” He stopped and drew a breath, clenched and unclenched his fingers, which were still sore. “But I can tell you why I came today. I have a great grand-daughter who cares a lot about water: she’ll probably be one of you in a few years. And I came today because I want her to be able to get a glass of water from my tap and have it be safe to drink. I want her to be able to play at the beach any day she wants to. I even want there to be enough water so that I can turn on the sprinkler in the yard for a few minutes on a really hot day – not all day long, but enough so the kids can cool off and play like I did when I was a kid. I guess I came because I care so much about her. I expect she’ll care for her own great grandchildren someday, and she’ll want them to have the same things I want for her. I came for my great granddaughter, and for her great-grandkids who I’ll never know. That’s why I’m here.”

And when he stopped and looked up, he saw something amazing. The side conversations had stopped, Nobody had interrupted him to correct a fact or share a similar experience. Nobody was even moving – expect to wipe their eyes. “That’s what’s been missing today, “ the leader finally said, gently. “We come to this work with all the passion in the world, all the facts, all the reasons. We take classes, we read books, we attend lectures, and we get all worked up about how important this is. We try to make major changes, and our planet needs those changes and it needs us.

‘But the changes take time. Most of you are students now. In a few years, most of you will have full-time jobs and mortgages and kids. Most of you will not be doing this work so actively. Your time and your minds will be filled with other things. You’ll probably recycle, and you’ll conserve. But you probably won’t be full-time activists.

“You’re most likely to remember to live the things you’re talking now if your hearts are involved. Your concern for coral reefs or immigrants or economic fairness – these are great. But if you do this work just for philosophical reasons, you’ll probably burn out. Do this work for people that matter to you, do it from your heart. If you care with your heart as well as your head, you’re more likely to stay involved, even if it’s at a different level.”

I was deeply moved when George told me this story. And yes, he’s done such things again. He’s learned a lot more current facts, read a lot of books, gone to more events, and now he can hold his own in discussions with those young folk very well.

Most of us are much more in the ‘George’ camp now than the ‘young college radical’ camp. We’ve become part of the Establishment: those People over Thirty who we weren’t ever going to trust – they’re us! Some of you in this congregation, and in others, have told me about feeling guilty that you don’t’ do enough social justice work. You aren’t alone. I sense that feeling is pretty common among UUs – how can we make a difference to the War in Iraq, and global warming and the plight of migrant farmers, and the need for better schools? How can we affect local lending policies or the use of the Fells, or the number of homeless, or drug use by our teens? There are so many issues that need attention, and so little time: it’s hard to even keep informed, let alone get active. Who should we let into our country and what service should we offer them? We want good schools for all children, but we also want to be sure that the one our child goes to is the best it can possibly be. It does waste water to wash your car – but if you don’t keep the salt washed off in winter, the car rusts and needs replacing sooner: where’s the balance point? Disposal diapers or cloth? Should we have military forces in Afghanistan? In Darfur? So many issues that seemed cut and dried when we were younger – aren’t.

Middle age also places strong demands on us, with a lot less time left for some of the things we did when we were younger. Our idealism often meets realities of life and gets tempered, and it’s pretty likely we’re not as prone to be marching in the streets, or arguing passionately, or pouring all our energies into the one cause that stirs us most. We have to get up for work the next day, have to spend time with our kids. We’ve become the Establishment, even if it is the liberal establishment. And sometimes it can seem like maybe we should leave the activism to those who are younger and bolder, more emotional and less encumbered. It’s easy to throw up our hands and leave the Big Causes to the young, or to feel that our small efforts don’t rally make much difference.

We Establishment adults still have a lot to offer, though. We bring several very important attributes to public discussions and policy-making, perspectives that actually can only be brought by those who’ve lived a bit more of life. All the passion of youth, all the enthusiasm, all the idealism – these are tremendous. But there are many things that one can only learn by years of living, things we older folks can offer – and they’re pretty valuable too.

Perspective, for example. It’s evident in the current economic crisis: some voices are panicked, and for good reason. But there are also voices which remind us that our country, and others as well, have gone through economic melt-downs before. They remind us to look at the lessons of previous struggles, to remember that while life may well need to change, it will also go on. These voices offer steadiness in uncertain times. Sometimes our older voices can urge so much caution that they impede action, but often older voices can remind us of the complexity of situations, of progress that actually has been made, and of the need to consider the implications of our actions before just rushing in willy nilly.

With age, we learn a degree of patience. We learn that most real changes don’t; happen overnight, and that often, wise actions require a good deal of careful reflection. While immediate action may be necessary, we can be the voice that reminds us all that long-term consequences must also be considered, and that long-time solutions must also be sought. I still remember a physical anthropology professor when I was getting my undergraduate degree who illustrated this well. he spoke of a mid-African country which had been hit by a terrible drought, resulting in massive starvation. There had been a huge outpouring of aid, which he certainly supported. But he pointed out that there was another problem brewing  that most helpful organizations seemed to be ignoring. The starvation levels had been so severe that the birth rate had dropped substantially: women’s body fat levels had gotten so low that many had stopped being fertile. He cautioned whtat with the influx of food, fertility rates were likely to go up, and more babies would probably result, which could worsen the situation again. But contraceptives were controversial, both within the culture itself and in the political situations of the countries providing aid. Changing cultural beliefs around issues like birth control take a long time, and one can certainly question who should initiate such changes. And the need for food was clearly immediate, and dire, and had to be addressed. “It’s not that we shouldn’t’ give aid,” he said. “It’s that we should think about the consequences and consider them too. Instead, we solve eh immediate problem and quite likely contribute to another wave of the same problem. Life being what it is, another crisis will no doubt arise in a year or two, and human nature being what it is, we’ll rush to help there too. Then when the birth rate begins to rise, we’ll be occupied elsewhere, and we probably won’t be so quick to act in the same place a seconds time. We might even blame them for having more babies. Actually we should consider the long-term consequences in the first place, and offered assistance with sustainable crops, family planning education, or a commitment to continue the aid. Instead, we just rush in and help because it feels good, and don’t’ even consider the long term problems or the consequences or a more permanent solution.”

We may be seeing a bit of this playing out in the current discussion about corn and ethanol. It seemed like a good idea to substitute ethanol for a portion of gasoline, and we rushed to pass legislation. Now we realize it’s more complicated. It takes a good deal of energy to convert corn to ethanol, and it uses up corn that could have been food. Was it a wise decision or not? Careful. patient consideration of all the factors before rushing off would yield wiser choices, even if slowed down the process of reaching those decisions. And such patience is not a trait of youth: it’s a trait that usually comes – with age.

Public policies and actions benefit from an awareness of the impact on people – lots of people. HT eolder we get, the wider our circles are likely to be – our children and grandchildren bring an awareness of future generations, and a series of neighbors and co-workers increase the chances that we know people whose politics or religions or families are very different from ours. The older we are, the more likely it is that we’ve had the opportunity to come into contact with ideas and beliefs that are different, through travel and books, expanding social circles, or simple curiosity. We do tend to associate with people like ourselves in class and race and politics and religion, but the older we are, the more likely it is that we’ve been forced by circumstance to deal with people who are very different. And if we’re lucky, these encounters have enlarged our world and our vision. I’ve strongly supported abortion rights for forty years, and I can remember a time when everyone I hung out with held about the same position. In hindsight, my views were pretty simplistic  though, pretty easy. My position is a lot more nuanced now that I know people I respect who oppose abortion, or who have raised questions I hadn’t considered. Our broader exposure, as older folks, offers us the opportunity to consider issues more carefully and examine more angles – and that usually results in wiser actions.

It’s important that we Establishment types engage in social justice work because we know something about possibilities. We know that small changes matter: the meals that Bread of Life serves make a difference, along with public actions to raise awareness about homelessness. or initiatives to provide housing for the chronically homeless. We may or may not have the time or energy to travel to protest the School of the Americas, but we can pay attention to hoe police relate to the citizens and especially the youth in our own towns. Often when we’re young, we wan tot take on huge systems, and sometimes we get discouraged when rapid changes don’t happen. With age, we realize that small changes matter too – and many even coalesce into systemic changes.

Finally, with age we can more easily approach conflicts and frustrations with what I’d call a prayerful attitude, more calmly, more softly. I’m often struck by the images of screaming youth at WTO, or in protest of the war in Iraq. I’m glad they’re there” their passion is heartening, and their engagement is encouraging. Such energy matters. It raises awareness and it engages people. But I think also of the Women in Black, who have been protesting war for years – silently, simply, making a strong statement just by their presence. I think of the quiet conversations as we walked through the streets of Melrose last Sunday with hundreds of other people to raise awareness about domestic violence. Karen Hrynyszyn and Sandra Henry and I  were walking along West Foster when a young woman came off her porch and crossed the road to ask what we were all doing and why we were walking, and she listened carefully to our answer. It didn’t’ sound like she’d heard of MAAV before, but our peaceful presence invited her to ask questions – and I’ll bet we see her in the march next year. There is a place for stridency and passion and vehemence – and there’s a place for patience and perspective, for softer engagement and reasoned conversation. And it’s often us, the older establishment-types, who bring that larger view and that willingness to look deeper.

So yes, we’ve become the Establishment, we middle-class, middle-aged UUs. And we still matter, We may not yell as much as some of us did twenty or thirty or even forty years ago. We may creak and move more slowly, and our political actions may take place more often around a table than on a street corner. And they matter. They make a difference, and they’re worth our time.

We have met the Establishment, and we’re it. And our work matters. Dorothy Day wrote, “People say, what is the sense of our small effort? They cannot see that we must lay one brick at a time, take one step at a time. A pebble cast upon a pond causes ripples that spread out in all directions. Each one of our thoughts, words and deeds is like that. No one has the right to sit down and feel helpless: there’s too much work to do!”  May we, creakingly and patiently, thoughtfully and whole-heartedly, engage in that work.        

What's Possible?

Sermon by Reverend Barbara Threet

May 11, 2008

A year ago, on the second Sunday in May, I stood trembling in this pulpit. I hope you didn’t see me trembling: you certainly weren’t supposed to see me trembling! But it was the last Sunday of Candidating Week and I knew that after coffee hour, I’d leave the building and you’d all come back into the Sanctuary to decide whether to call me as your minister. I was very impressed with what I’d seen that week. Your Search Committee had considered many candidates, and I’d considered many churches, but for several months, the one I was most interested in had been this church – and the week I’d just spent with you had really confirmed that opinion. So I went for a walk in the woods across from the Stone Zoo, and waited for my cell phone to ring. And I really was trembling inside: the decision to accept a call is a huge one for a minister, and thanks to your Search Committee’s honesty and your own candor, I had a good idea of the complexities of the situation I was hoping to step into. And while a congregation does a minister a real honor by calling him or her, it also hands a minister an astonishing responsibility and a significant amount of power. That’s very affirming, but it’s also very humbling and at times, almost overwhelming. And so I trembled.

            My cell phone did ring, and Maryellen told me that you’d just voted to call me as your next minister. And  I wept with joy. I phoned my daughters, who are used to me getting weepy when my heart is very full, and I suspect my eyes were still damp when I met the Search Committee for lunch. What I had hoped for so much, and what you had waited for so long and worked for so hard – became possible: you had a minister you believed would serve you well, and I had a church I believed was the kind of church I’d been longing to serve.

            It’s been a year of learning, for all of you, for me, and for Mary and Michael who were both hired not long after you called me to be your minister. We’ve spent a lot of time learning names and policies, patterns and habits. (I can’t tell you how many conversations have started, “There’s this woman, about this size with hair of that color about so long, maybe this old – do you have any idea what her name is?”) You’ve spent a lot of time figuring out who we are, how we work, what our quirks are and what we bring to you. Its been a very good year, a year of settling in and relaxing. There have been some exciting things this year: the Choir usually has at least a dozen people, often even 15 or 18, and they’re dressed in matching robes! After the “Articulating Your UU Faith” class ended last Wednesday, the discussion continued on for at least another 20 minutes, on evil and class, privilege and diversity, and it’s a joy to have such discussion. The new “Giving Beyond Our Walls” program, where half of the non-pledge money in the plate goes to an organization outside the congregation, has allowed us to impact our community in a significant way, locally and globally. These things have all become possible this year, and we’re all the richer for them.

            And now, we begin to look forward toward next year. Dates are beginning to fill up on the church calendar for next fall, Michael’s planning for RE next year, and I’m working on next year’s sermon schedule. The budget includes more hours for Patti, and money to purchase more choir music. Repairs and maintenance for the building are being planned, including painting over the summer. So what’s possible for us next year as a congregation?

            Increasing engagement with our larger community, first of all. Our local food pantries and MAAV and the Melrose Emergency Fund have felt o our presence in new ways. This Wednesday, the Melrose Human Rights Council, on which I serve as a liaison from the Melrose Clergy, will host a conversation about the increasing diversity within Melrose, and how welcoming we are or aren’t to newcomers. It will be held in the Middle School: I urge you to attend. And we will participate in the Community Summer Services this year, along with four other churches who have held them for years. Each of us will host two services, and each of the clergy will preach twice. The schedule will be in the June Lightbearer – I’ll preach here at MUUC on July 27 and the Rev. Peggy O’Connell, from Highlands Congregational, will preach here on August 3. Then on August 17, I’ll preach at First Congregational on Foster Street.

            Melrose UU already participates in the wider community in several other ways – the booth at the Victorian Fair, our presence at the Melrose Alliance Against Violence walk, and our Harvest and Alternative Fairs. Our increasing support of local organizations; the enthusiasm, warmth, and vibrancy of our congregation; my participation as your  minister in the community; and our hosting worship as well as social and fundraising activities – all of these can only increase our visibility, and it’s possible that it will attract more people to our doors.

            That’s already happening, actually. Last week we welcomed six new members and their children. Several others who attended here for the first time this year have become active friends who see membership down the road, and some of them bring children too. It’s entirely possible that next year we will continue to grow. Most every week there are at least a few visitors, and over a dozen who attended for the first time this year have become regulars – I’d say growth is a very strong possibility. So I want to talk about that for a bit.

            Churches usually say they want to grow, and we are not different. We each find in this place something of deep value, ideas which we believe matter in the world, and a sense of community that sustains and supports us. I’ve heard many of you say that this is a home for you, a cornerstone in your life. And newcomers use that language too: “I walked in, and I felt at home”, or “The more I’m here, the more certain I am that this is where I belong”. We are a welcoming church – not only by being open and embracing of gays and lesbians and their families, but also by welcoming all who come through our doors into this warm church community that encourages and supports one another.

            When we say we are welcoming, we mean it. We do want to share our community with others: we want others to find what we’ve found. But it’s more complicated than just having someone walk in and simply become part of us. Think about the impact of adding a new child to your family, or of your child moving into a different phase of life – entering pre-school, or getting a driver’s license. Your schedule has to adjust, first of all. Your budget may be impacted. There are new freedoms, new people involved, new realities to consider when making decisions, new worries. Your six-year-old finally knows how to tie her own shoes, so mornings go a bit more smoothly – but she’s also learning to make her own snacks which can leave behind a huge mess! Or your partner accepts a new job that you’re both excited about – but suddenly you both have to learn a whole new set of names and acronyms, renegotiate who picks up the kids and the dry cleaning, and reschedule your vacation plans. Change, even wanted and celebrated change, brings about – well, change!

            An influx of new people into a church brings change too. The more rapidly it happens, the more unsettling it is, and a dozen new ‘regulars’ is almost a 10% increase! Some of it is very visible. Most members of a church informally decide which is “their” pew: after a minister has served a church for a while, we could draw a map of who sits where. The Blacklocks sit there, Jean Tai and the Caten family sit there, the Grometsteins sit there and the Bissex family used to but seems to have recently moved to there, the Griscoms and McLeods usually sit about there, and the Foleys sit there. We’re creatures of habit: we usually go to the same place. Except that you don’t always, several times recently, it’s been because when you come in, someone else is already sitting in “your” seat! I haven’t heard one single complaint: this really is a warm and civil congregation. But it is a change. When the population was pretty static, you could come in every Sunday and go straight to “your” seat. And now you have to look.

            And that brings up a significant issue. Often, those who come in after the beginning of the service really do have to LOOK. Our seats are getting very full on many Sundays. And that’s a good thing in terms of attendance and growth. But if you’re a newcomer to a church, you’re probably already way out of your comfort zone. You walk in, and you don’t know what hymns you might be singing, you don’t know what the minister is going to preach about, you may not know anyone else in the congregation. If you have to search for a place to sit, it just adds to the discomfort. One way to help the situation might be to leave the very back pews closest to the door empty, so that newcomers and families with small children can immediately find a place to sit, and that might be something to try next year. We might try to change our seating patterns: in most churches, people tend to sit down near the end of the pews. Maybe it’s some unconscious self-protection to sit near the aisles – in case of fire, you can run out quickly? if the minister’s sermon is really awful, you can get out easily? Whatever the reason, if we could change and sit toward the middle of the pews, it would leave more space available for those coming later, and would open up more seating.

            But even that might not fully address the issue. What if another dozen people find us next year? With their children, plus visitors. And another dozen the year after that? Then we just plain couldn’t fit. And then we’d need a dialogue of a whole different magnitude about how we could accommodate more people. That may or may not happen: churches often plateau once they get a few dozen more people than we currently have, and growth often slows dramatically. In fact, they plateau and stop growing at around 150 members much more often than they continue to grow. Which brings up another discussion of what’s possible.

            The population here has been pretty stable for a few years. Last year, three new people joined, and the year before, about the same. And each year we lose some members: two died this year, and people do move, or just drift away. The last time there was a real burst in growth was several years ago, and most of those people are pretty deeply involved in our community now. They teach in RE, they sing in the choir, and they serve on committees. They’re integrated into that part of church life where we know and care about each other’s struggles, support one another through illnesses and losses and griefs, and celebrate with one another over joys and successes. And we are that kind of a church. Most of you know each other’s children, and you’ve visited each other’s houses. We share many experiences here: putting the handprints on the Supper Room walls, Men’s and Women’s Retreats, dealing with the awful floods a few years ago. For many of us, shared memories go further back: the sadness you felt when Phyllis announced her resignation seven years ago, or what it was like when we bought copies of our current hymn book and weaned ourselves off from the old ones. We have a shared culture, with rhythms and expectations and history.

            We have certain ways of doing things. The Alternative Fair is on the first Saturday in December, and it’s held in the Parish Hall. The Christmas Eve tableau includes the youngest baby in the congregation as the baby in the manger. We sing “May the Long-Time Sun” each Sunday after the Benediction. And our children sit, reasonably quietly, through the first part of the service, until they come up for their story, and then they leave for their classrooms. We know which committees do what, and where things are, and most importantly, we know each other.

            All of that may stay the same forever. But with more newcomers, at the very least, we’ll have to explain some of these things. Some people will come from other churches, even others UU churches, and they’ll have questions about why this happens, or why that is done the way it is. They may even suggest changes, or a shift in our population or our numbers may demand changes. Sometimes they’ll be easy, like when I introduced “our worship is ended: our service continues” at the end of the Benediction, or the Memorial Candle when a member of our church dies. But some changes are harder – a suggestion to change how we format our RE classes, for example, or a significant change in the Order of Worship. What’s possible for next year, and the year after that, is that we may have the opportunity to examine more new ideas, and that is often complicated. Some churches choose to dismiss new ideas out of hand, with the result that newcomers or innovators feel unwelcome. Others rush to adapt every new thing, with the result that the old-timers feel unvalued and pushed aside. It’s possible to strike a balance, to create a place for new ideas and energy, to address changing needs, to make thoughtful changes, to risk a few unsuccessful experiments, and to grow in depth and trust in the process.

            I want to give you a head-up on a few changes that we’ll try next year during our worship service. Some of them will probably turn out to be successes, and other will reaffirm that the old way worked better. We’ll use a different song to sing our children out next fall out of respect for the wishes of the person whose lyrics we have changed without permission. We’ll arrange the candles for Joys and Concerns differently so that they light better, and are less likely to set anyone’s sleeves on fire. We’ve already made one significant change this year: many of you wanted to hear the Postlude each week, and many of you wanted to leave directly after service for coffee hour. It would certainly seem impossible that a congregation can both leave immediately and also remain seated in silence. But, we learned that it’s possible – to do both! Some of us leave immediately after the Congregational Response, and then the Sanctuary is relatively quiet for those who want to sit and listen.

            It would be good if we could find a similar balance with the Prelude. I’m going to be pretty blunt here: we currently treat the Prelude like background music, something we vaguely hear as we enter and chat with our neighbors. Several of you, I know, wish you could actually hear that music. I suspect that for a musician who’s spent time preparing the Prelude, it must be frustrating when it can’t actually be heard. In many churches the Prelude,in a quiet Sanctuary, offers a time of centering before the service. But it would be a cultural shift here, to keep our pre-service conversations all the way in the Parish Hall – conversations in the entry way drift into the Sanctuary almost in full force. It’s a change I’d like to see us make: I believe it would enrich our worship. To help create a more worshipful space, we’ll be posting more announcements in the Parish Hall. We’ll provide a place for people to write late-breaking announcements in a very visible way, and the lighting over the bulletin boards will be enhanced so that they’re more readable. The intent is to have the Welcome and Announcements serve to draw us into a space that’s already calm and worshipful.

            That may mean a change on my part too. Mary and I, often with Michael and sometimes with the lay leader, spend a few minutes in silence each Sunday in my office just before the service, ending with a brief prayer of blessing for that day. We usually come in toward the end of the Prelude because of that. For me, such centering time is essential, but I suspect we need to start earlier, so that we’re here for all of the Prelude rather than interrupting it with our entry. Or maybe we get really bold and risk a time of silence and then a blessing prayer in the Sanctuary, jus t before the Prelude starts? I’m not sure: it will become clear, and your comments are welcome.

            It’s possible that we’ll need to pay even more attention to hospitality next year, if we continue to grow. Newcomers to our church are increasingly coming in “unchurched”, or from very different faiths – they don’t’ know the rhythm of our worship, often not of any active church life. Sometimes they bring awkward questions – why do we do This? what does That mean? And their kids didn’t grow up here, don’t know our practices. We’re pretty tolerant of occasional restlessness in our own children during a service, but the restlessness of an unknown child often raises allkinds of fears. They rustle papers: they whisper, they kick the seats, the fidget. It’s easy to find ourselves fearing the Those Children – Those Children who are not yet our own) – my become do disruptive that all we’re hear is whispering and rustling, kicking and fidgeting. But part of being welcoming is to welcome people as they are, to show them how we are, and to trust that all of us can continue to live together. it may affect us in other ways too: a newcomer may wish to hear more stories about Jesus, or be vehemently opposed to any mention of God. They may want more church suppers or less social events, or a more structured way of learning what we believe – almost a UU catechism class. We can’t bend to every wish, but we need to be willing to listen, to expand. If we’re serious about sharing what Unitarian Universalism has meant to us, and if we really believe its values can benefit our world, we will need to risk being uncomfortable.

            We will need to learn to trust new people. One of the real strengths of this congregation is that while the certainly are clusters of people who have friendships outside the church and groups of people with a particular interest  in common, we each tend to chat with any one of us rest of us during coffee hour. At social events, it’s difficult to predict exactly which people will be sitting together. We greet and welcome each other well. Many newcomers have mentioned how welcoming we are: those who visit our church are likely to be greeted warmly and invited into our community. But even with a few dozen more people, we’ll begin to see more faces that are unfamiliar. We’ll see unknown faces in the choir, in RE, in the pews, and eventually, in important church roles, and that can be unsettling. Most of you know the people in RE who are teaching your children. It’s a bit harder to entrust your child to someone you haven’t had time to get to know.

There is a transition point in church growth that we are approaching where the primary challenge is to learn to trust those you don’t yet know, to trust the judgment of others, and to be willing to be part of a rich church life where not every face is familiar. That’s uncomfortable, for a while. It even feels less intimate, for a while. And as we grow, we’ll need to develop new ways to encourage intimacy and connection between our members. The adult ed classed this spring are one way. Small groups (what you called Chalice Circles a few years ago) are another. There are many other possibilities too, and we’ll explore them together. It’s also possible to find it too uncomfortable and to pull inward, consciously or not, so that growth stalls. I hope we choose the uncomfortable way, the way that shares what we have with more and more people, the way that widens our community – even though it is challenging.

What’s possible for neat year? Song and story and conversations, meetings and classes, fairs and sermons and discussions as we continue to create together this, our beloved community. And I can’t wait to see what happens!

Tenderness

February 10, 2008 - Sermon by Reverend Barbara Threet

Love, according to Webster, is ‘a passionate affection for another person’, ‘a profoundly tender feeling’. It’s ‘a warm personal attachment’, ‘affectionate concern for the well-being of another’, ‘a strong predilection or enthusiasm toward another’, or even ‘reverent affection’. Love, as Webster defines it and as we experience it, is a powerful emotion. Love draws us to romantic partners and eventually toward our life mate. Love makes us willing to commit to raising a child we have never met and know nothing about for 18 years and bonds us to that child. Love lets us see beyond temporary frustrations or irritations to a deeper connection, and it can even move us to great sacrifices of time and energy, or to act with immense courage and tenacity.

For all its power and intensity, love does include a ‘tender feeling’. But tenderness, according to Webster, has quite a different quality. Tenderness is ‘being easily moved to sympathy’, ‘being weak or delicate in constitution’, ‘easily distracted’, ‘requiring careful handling’. Love is quite a contrast, with all its passion and intensity and power. Love lasts forever, at lest in songs. Love never dies; love overcomes all odds; love is the most important thing; love makes the world go around. There’s nothing ‘weak or delicate’ about that, nothing ‘needing careful handling’. Love is simply tremendously powerful and permanent!

Except all those absolutes about love are not always true. Divorces do happen and romances do end. There are adult siblings who don’t speak for decades and even the closest of friendships may fade over time. and sadly, there are parents and children who wind up deeply estranged, and communities that are ripped apart over controversies. Love isn’t always strong enough, doesn’t always endure. I wonder if one of the reasons for this is our culture’s emphasis on that ‘passionate affection’ part of love, whether it’s between lovers or parents and children, dear friends, or members of an organization – focusing on the aspect of ‘passion’ rather than ‘tenderness’? ‘Passionate affection’ sounds strong, and healthy, and adult. And that’s what we are, we grown-ups” we have educations and responsible careers and mortgages. We make decisions and have opinions. We take action, we get to the point, we take control and move toward logical, reasonable goals.

The need for tenderness, I suggest, reminds us of all the ways in which we don’t have control, of all the places that are not logical or predictable in the lives of those we love or in our own lives. Treating situations tenderly, treating people tenderly means recognizing how fragile we all are, how different we each are. Treating each other tenderly acknowledges how easily we are hurt, how many scars each of us carries, and how much we are shaped by deeply irrational fears and dreams that seem impossible, by our hopes and histories. And acknowledging that we want to be treated tenderly ourselves accepts that we too are vulnerable and fragile and in need of care. Acting with tenderness means intentionally considering the whims and wounds of another, as we decide how to act.

I think of an adult walking down the street with a little child on a warm spring afternoon  – a child of 18 months, 2 years, young enough so that this is the first spring that’s really registered. They stop at every clump of yellow daffodils, of course, but also at every tiny white flower that pokes its head up between the sidewalk blocks, and every little yellow flower growing next to the sidewalk. They stop at the tiny puddle where water has gathered and if it’s big enough so something is floating in it, they may stop for quite some time!) They stop to pick up a shiny gum wrapper, and to watch a little beetle crawl by, and they pave to pet every single clump of fresh green moss. When they come to a tree, they separate: the adult goes around on the road side, and the toddle somewhat tentatively and very proudly goes around the other side by herself, while the adult looks on cautiously. They tough every fire hydrant and notice every window that has a cat in it. This is not just a walk: it’s an adventure. It’s a tender experience, with the adult taking the time to consider the world from the vantage point of a very young child who’s just discovering the world.

Treating tenderly is like that. It’s usually slower. It includes noticing things we often overlook, and being willing to see them through the eyes of another. When we’re being tender, we even seek out the reasons why the other person might be acting as they are. We look for the factors that aren’t immediately obvious, ponder what the effect of our actions might be. We try to see a broader picture, not just rush to decisions and action.

When my daughters were little, there was one glorious summer when they were out of state visiting their father while I was moving. I was packing their toys, and sorting as I packed, and I was ruthless! That hideous clown doll that looked like something out of a nightmare – gone! Those stupid little wooden beads that were supposed to click together into a necklace but mostly seemed to end up under my feet when I got up in the night – straight to the trash! Several perfectly good stuffed animals that they didn’t play with any more, and a few they’d never played with at all – into the recycle bin, so someone else could enjoy them. And the dust-covered Fisher-Price Farm – passed onto a younger cousin. All the dolls with their hair cut off disappeared (and my girls were very good at cutting off their dolls’ hair), the pull-cricket that made the horrid squawking sound, the books I really didn’t like – all gone. It was wonderful, all that cleaning and clearing out.

The girls were NOT impressed, when they got home. I’d thrown out toys they liked, and they were sad. There were toys they’d outgrown, or toys they’d never played with, that I’d given to other kids, and they were OK with that actually, but they informed me they would have liked to have chosen which toys to give away themselves, and said good-bye to their toys. They’d have liked to see their cousin’s face when she inherited a toy they’d really enjoyed. My way was efficient, it was logical – but it was not tender.

A colleague and her family have an amazing ritual, part of their dedication to continually give away, to reduce the amount of excess ‘stuff’. A few times a year, she and her partner and their two children each fill one box to give away. They each include some clothes. Hers includes books and extra knitting materials as well. Her partner includes art supplies she bought but dint’ use in her box, and extra tools. Their kids usually do find some actual toys to part with, and some CDs, some sports equipment, a mishmash. Their ritual is to fill at least one box each, and as they do, they often reflect on where this book came from, what that article of clothing was worn to, what this gadget meant when it was purchased. They still fill their commitment to cut down on the amount of clutter, but they do so tenderly, recognizing what things mean, consciously making choices, and learning more about each other in the process. In sharing these stories, and clearing out together, they release them more easily and they strengthen their family. It’s a tender ritual, one I wish I’d thought of years ago.

Treating things tenderly takes time. Treating others tenderly takes time too, risks getting it wrong. Tenderness recognizes how complicated life is, and how little we truly know about others, or even about ourselves.

One of my favorite British comedy series is “As Time Goes By”: I think I’ve watched the entire series half a dozen times. The two main characters, Lionel and Jean, had a passionate and brief affair nearly 40 years earlier, the first significant love for both of them, and then they lost touch when Lionel went off to war. Both of them eventually married, and when we first meet them, both are approaching retirement age. Jean has been widowed for several years, and Lionel’s marriage has long since ended. They run into each other quite by accident, and both are very adamant that there are no feelings left: it was a LONG time ago. But it’s clear that as much as they wish it wasn’t true, as much as they try to pretend even to themselves that it isn’t true, both are still hurt despite the years. jean wonders why Lionel never wrote like he promised he would, and Lionel wonders why Jean never responded to his first letter, the first love letter he ever wrote, and he felt so rejected he never risked writing her again.

They meet for an impromptu cup of tea, and they spat a bit, both affirming it was a mistake even to agree to this much contact, and they agree that they’ll go their own ways after this brief chat. But in their spatting they discover the truth about the Lost Letter, and it’s clear they both are saddened by this discovery – Jean says, “So it’s as simple as that? We wound up in a Lost Letter bin somewhere?” but things are still painfully awkward. Then the waitress comes, and Lionel orders a drink for himself, and with a brief smile that he tries to conceal, he orders a cup of cider for Jean. He’s clearly pleased that he remembered that she liked cider, and so he’s baffled when she says, “But I don’t like cider!” He’s caught off-guard for a second, and then he says, rather gruffly, “Well, you used to!” and she responds, “Did I? I suppose I did – but that was nearly forty years ago.” Lionel is crestfallen. He’s tried to show her that he remembered a little detail from their past, that he wants to please her. Jean’s clearly muddled too: her first reaction was a bit harsh, asserting how she is now, and she’ trying to backpedal to include being touched by his remembering. It’s a tender, and painful, moment.

Tenderness is often like that. Messy. We have to act in this world, have to make decisions and choices over and over every day. If we stopped to analyze every situation to determine who might get hurt and what all the factors are that we could possibly consider, we’d never get anything done. Yet every interaction includes countless ghosts from the past, assumptions on all sides, minefields of emotion, as well as all the realities of this day. Each moment has its tender side.

Treating tenderly means keeping in mind that there is always more than meets the eye, more than the immediate facts. That snappy teenager at the dinner table, the one whose attitude can send you right up the wall – it might be just hormones, or a fight with a friend or a lack of sleep. It’s just as likely that she’s not doing well in biology, say, or French, whatever that means: getting an A- instead of an A, failing completely, struggling to understand a concept that everybody else seems to grasp easily. She’s afraid you’ll be disappointed, and she can’t even let you know that matters as she struggles to establish her independence. And so she pushes you away, she’s surly or silent or sarcastic, holding you at a distance. Can she tell you what’s going on? Probably not – she probably doesn’t understand it herself. To admit to herself, let alone to you, how much she wants your approval is to act against her drive for independence and self-definition, and that’s about the most important work she’s doing now. Do you have to put up with her surliness? You probably can’t change a whole lot, and if you try to analyze the situation to her, it probably won’t help. But if you can remember in your own heart that there’s probably a lot more going on and treat the situation with tenderness, then maybe at least you won’t feed into it by being surly back. Maybe you can even risk acknowledging that her words hurt, that they leave you feeling spurned and shut out, and that while you respect her need to express herself and to establish herself, you hope she can include you sometimes too.

And that’s the other side of tenderness, acknowledging our own vulnerable places. It’s not something we have to struggle to do, to be tender and fragile: the truth is, we all are. We’re all imperfect beings, with scars from life and frustrations at things we haven’t mastered or don’t do well. We’ve all had experiences that have left vulnerable spots. That art teacher who told you in third grade that you really couldn’t draw leaves you terribly sensitive about even sketching a poster. The time you missed that game-wining punt in high school still leaves you feeling inadequate, when you let yourself remember.

We each hold secret dreams, private failures, worries we don’t quite admit, and skills we’re still trying to master and aren’t quite sure of. And all of us have these soft places, places of vulnerability.

 
And that’s hard. We’re grown-ups, after all, We’re not supposed to be swamped with petty jealousies or slights. Part of growing into adulthood is precisely learning to let some things just wash over us, not taking everything so personally We learn as adults that the focus will not always be on us, that we won’t have all the answers, and that our needs will not always be met. We learn to move forward and get things done. Sometimes the adult walking down the street with the two-year-old really is in a hurry, and simply can’t stop and dawdle! Often action is called for, decisive action, without all the facts.

 
And yet, we need tenderness. We need to be card for and considered. In order to get that, we probably have to risk letting ourselves be a bit less certain, a bit less hardened. It amazes me how many times I hear adults talk about how good it feels to help someone else, how willing they are to provide a ride or a meal or a listening ear. Yet these same people are quick to say, “I don’t want to be a bother”, or “It’s really hard for me to ask for help”. OK, so if most people actually enjoy being helpful but few of us dare to ask for help, then how is anyone going to have the joy of helping? We need to let go of the illusion of our own absolute independence and acknowledge our tender places. Treating tenderly includes treating ourselves tenderly, not demanding perfection in every moment, not expecting absolute consistency in how we feel, not pretending that we are beyond hurts or confusions or sadnesses or doubts.

Sermon from January 13, 2008

So What’s “Polity”?

by Rev. Barbara Threet

There are moments in history that have consequences far beyond what was expected. When the Buddha sat down beneath that bo tree, when a little baby named Jesus was born, when Muhammed received the first teachings: the consequences of these events have influenced human history far beyond what anyone could have predicted.

            There are plenty of more recent changes within religions that have resulted in unanticipated changes too. When Martin Luther tacked those Ninety-Five Theses onto the cathedral door some 490 years ago, he had no intention of starting a new religion. or of breaking from the established Church of Rome. Luther was staunch supporter of the church, but he believed the church had strayed from being as pure as he thought it should be, and he hoped his protests would lead to a stronger church. Instead, within a few decades, his actions and those of many others had splintered the church and formed several Protestant denominations – “Protest-ant”, for those who protested the Catholic Church to the point that they left!

            This morning I want to tell you about a few such simple actions which have had profound impact on Unitarian Universalists today, and on our polity. “Polity” means how a church and a denomination are organized: how its congregations are governed, how its clergy are ordained and placed, how different churches within the denomination relate to each other. UUs often say that we practice ‘congregational polity”, and that’s true. But often, that phrase is used just as an emphatic declaration that each of our congregations is entirely independent in how it governs itself. Being emphatically independent isn’t the only thing that ‘congregational polity’ means, nor is it true that we each govern ourselves differently. I want to tell you three stories which illustrate where some of our common practices come from, and what they mean for us today.

            The first happened just a few miles away in Boston, in King’s Chapel right in the heart of downtown. King’s Chapel was organized in 1686, the first Episcopalian church in America. During what we call the American Revolution, its minister actually supported the British, and he accompanied their troops in 1776. Around that time, a member named James Freeman became a reader at the church, rather like our Liturgists or Worship Associates. In 1782, since the church had been without a minister for a while, they asked him to become a salaried lay leader, effectively functioning as their minister. As time went by, two things happened to Freeman: First, he decided he really wanted to be a minister. And second, his theology began to change – he gradually became a Unitarian, believing that there was only one God, rather than a Trinitarian, believing in the Trinity. Eventually he found he could no longer support Trinitarianism in any way: he went from believing that Jesus was divine but not quite equal with God (which was called Arianism) to believing that Jesus was a simply a very remarkable but very human person (which was called Socinianism). Further, Freeman came to believe that no priest or minister could grant absolution from sins, and he changed the part of the service which involved absolution into a simple prayer. He began to suspect that he needed to resign, as his theology changed, but a friend suggested that he talk to his congregation openly about these changes. He did- and to his surprise, over 80% of them wanted him to stay on!

            So he did. he changed the prayer book to become Unitarian, and the great majority of members openly ascribed to Unitarianism as well. But Freeman still was not ordained. Ordination is a public ceremony setting a person apart for service to the church, confirming certain rights and responsibilities on that individual, and charging them with a particular kind of religious leadership. Freeman was not ordained, although he was obviously a very committed lay person. But, could he properly perform the sacraments – baptism, communion, marriages, last rites? So Freeman made application to an Episcopal bishop in Connecticut for ordination. But in order for this to be granted, he needed to subscribe to the established prayer book exactly as it was written, in its entirety. He found that he couldn’t, so he was turned down. He tried the bishop in New York: same result. Eventually, King’s Chapel took the very radical step of simply ordaining him themselves without sanction from any denomination, giving him the distinction of being the first person ordained by an individual church in America – and an openly Unitarian church at that!

            Our churches still retain that power. Our Association of churches maintains a credentialing process for its ministers, and sets rigorous criteria for ministers who are ‘in fellowship; with the Association – ministers it will recommend to its member churches. But only individual churches ordain. We’ll have that privilege this June when we ordain Jay Libby, whose path to ministry included many years as an active member here. We’ll vouch for him when we do this: we’ll say that be believe he’ll serve our churches well, we trust his judgment and experience, we have confidence in him as a minister – and that’s a serious, and joyous, responsibility.

            And our individual churches choose their own ministers, as you did last year. A bit about the process, for those of you who are newer – it’s a mutual selection process. A church establishes a Search Committee to select the one best candidate for the ministry of their church, and they prepare a detailed church profile using a standardized form. Ministers in search prepare profiles too. All these UU churches and ministers post their profiles on a secure web site, accessible only by ministers in good standing. Search Committees keep the identity of the applicants highly confidential throughout this process, and ministers are urged to treat the list of where they’ve applied in the same way. Search committees read the files of all the applicants and invite those of particular interest to exchange much larger packets, with much more information.

            After exchanging packets, a church initiates in-depth conversations with several of the most likely applicants. Churches and ministers are both gradually narrowing their searches: a church or minister can pull out of the process with any other minister or church at any time. At each step, though, it’s up to the church to make the next move: we ministers just sit and wait. Eventually the Search Committee settles on a few of the most likely prospects and invites each to a separate weekend of mutual exploration. From the minister’s perspective, it feels like each word, each gesture, each action, is being analyzed – and it is. And that’s as it should be: the Search Committee wants to know these prospects well so it can choose wisely. And the minister – we’re sizing them up to. We notice what they ask, how they interact, what their priorities are, and we measure whether we think we’d be a fit. After a weekend of many long conversations, the minister preaches on Sunday in what we call a Neutral Pulpit – NOT the one of the church in search – so the Search Committee can observe the minister “in action”. We’ll provide such a Neutral Pulpit in a few weeks, when a minister who’s being considered by another UU church will preach here.

I want to say a few things about that: first, if you notice there are several people here all from another UU church, don’t ask them about their search, or how they liked the minister. They can’t talk about that with anyone but themselves. Second, don’t reveal to another minister who this candidate is, or what church is considering them: a major reason for our process is that by having the Search Committee do the narrowing down to one candidate, the chances of the church splitting over competing candidates is hugely reduced. Be aware that we’re being entrusted to be part of a sacred process: the calling of a new minister by a sister UU church. And we’re being entrusted with confidential information as we offer our church as a Neutral pulpit.

And third: be proud. We’re taking part in a unique process, the process of an individual Unitarian Universalist church finding its own minister, trusting its own members to undertake this crucial task.

Usually after the Search Committee has completed all its weekends with all of its prospects, it selects one to present to the congregation. The candidate come to the church and preaches for two consecutive Sundays, meeting with every possible committee, Board, and individual during the intervening week. After the minister has preached the second Sunday, the church members vote on whether to call that minister as their minister. That’s it. Each church chooses its own minister: each minister chooses to serve, or not, in a church.

And when a minister leaves, it’s the result of a decision reached by some combination of the church and the minister, not by any outside agency or organization. No diocese or synod or presbytery sends or appoints a minister, or tells them it’s time to go, and no outside body opens or closes our churches either. We do that. And while the UUA sets criteria for the ministers it recommends, only individual churches convey ordination. All this – from those Episcopalians-turned-Unitarians who decided to ordain James Freeman themselves!

The second story has to do with money, and property. In Freeman’s times, most churches in Massachusetts (and several other states) were publicly funded. That’s why there are so many First Parish Churches in Massachusetts – there are over 60 that are Unitarian, and many more that are Congregationalist. when towns incorporated, they had to establish a Parish Church, and the minister, who was paid for by taxes from the town, was responsible for preaching, for maintaining public morality, and often for teaching. Towns had to erect a Parish Church and maintain it. Most of these parish churches were loosely Congregational, usually with a Calvinistic theology. this system of government-mandated, publicly-funded, local churches was known as the “Standing Order”.

But there was a problem. A parish was a geographical area, and all the qualified voters in that area could vote for the minister. But not every resident in the Parish went to church regularly. Churches tended to be comprised of the more devout people, who often wanted strict, conservative clergy. Those voting parish members who didn’t attend church regularly wanted more generous, liberal ministers in the churches. On several occasions, the Parish selected a minister that the Church thought was too liberal: there was a large shift among clergy in the late 1700s and early 1800s from believing that all people are born sinful to believing that people had potential for both good and evil (called Arminianism). Sometimes the theology of the church membership shifted with a new minister, and eventually he and some portion of the church would leave to form a new church. Sometimes, small groups of people in the parish had different theological views (Baptists, for example), and they wanted to form their own church with a minister who believed like them. All of these people attending churches other than the Parish Church objected strongly to having to pay taxes to support the Parish Church when they attended their own church. So, over time, the laws changed. By 1720, Baptists, Quakers, and Anglicans in Massachusetts could get exemptions, paying taxes to their own worship communities rather than to the Parish Church. It wasn’t until 1833 that the Massachusetts Constitution was amended so that tax dollars no longer supported the Parish Churches. Incidentally, the old practice of selling the pews of the church, even deeding them to one’s heirs, arose after this time, as one way to fill the funding gap when tax income stopped.

The impact today? Each of our churches is entirely self-supporting financially. Especially in this area of the country, which is so heavily Catholic, this can come as a shock. The ‘polity’ of many other denominations means there’s a lot of outside support – most commonly, from the Catholic diocese in this area. But with our governance, our polity, each UU church is entirely self-supporting. We pay dues to the District and to the UUA, and we get curricula for our children, public advocacy, resources for church development, and many other services. But no money comes directly back to us: no one helps maintain our buildings or pay the salaries of our ministers or staff. We rely on the pledges of members and friends, and to some extent, on endowments. We don’t’ require that members tithe, although some choose to do so as a spiritual practice. We don’t have a membership fee. But we do require that members make an annual monetary pledge. How much? That’s for each individual to decide, based on your own income and expenses, your own circumstances, your valuation of this church, and how much you wish to participate. These pledges are very important: they’re how we heat our Sanctuary and pay our staff, buy curricula for our children and pay the insurance on our building.

It’s not only money that was influenced by this change, though. Two hundred years ago, ministers were often charged with the education of the children of the town, especially in rural areas. They were paid by local taxes, so this demand could be made. Once churches weren’t funded by taxes, the town no longer had control over clergy, and this was one of many factors in moving toward state-funded public education. Churches no longer automatically served as town halls, as had often been the case, so separate town halls had to be built. In some cases, the cemeteries belonged to the church, and public cemeteries had to be created. And the churches could no longer rely on the towns to maintain their buildings or their grounds. Each was on its own.

We rely on ourselves for the work of the church too. That’s one of our on-going challenges: we need people to teach our children, to serve on the Board and make policy decisions, to organize events and staff committees – and we also want to provide a place for people who simply need to rest and be nourished. This sense of being a needed place of refreshment and restoration is a very important function of a church, and one we seek to honor. So, while most everyone will have periods when they need this ‘down’ time, there is an expectation that over the years, members will find ways to contribute their time and energy. We need one another: we are, each of us, the individuals who create and sustain a vibrant church for all of us.

The third area I want to explore, very briefly, is much more recent: it’s the Fellowship movement. Traditionally, churches have been founded in several ways. As you heard earlier, some were originally government-mandated. Often a denomination would send out missionaries – Baptist or Catholic or Methodist – to start churches in growing communities. Sometimes a circuit -riding preacher – a Universalist, perhaps – would come into town and gather a group of followers. Sometimes new churches were the result of an older church splitting over theology or politics. But in the 1950s the Unitarian Association developed a new way: the Fellowship program. Most, though not all, of these were through the Midwest and out to the West coast. Small groups of lay people who gathered regularly, often with similar political views or similar hopes for their children, were granted status as Unitarian churches, although few of them had ministers or owned their own buildings. Some were deeply religious, but most were more inclined toward intellectual debate and discussion, most were strongly humanistic, and some were staunchly atheistic. Most were involved in social justice work. they did meet regularly, many did worship, and they did gain tax-exempt status. Many of these eventually developed into more church-like organizations, with their own buildings, settled clergy, and the usual church programs.

This movement influenced us in several ways. It brought more members in who did not consider themselves Christian, but who did want to be part of an organized group of individuals who sought to have their beliefs reflected in how they lived, people who stressed ethical living over correct doctrine. The fellowship movement strengthened our commitment to developing strong lay leaders, including lay participation in services. It contributed heavily to our commitment to teaching our children about many of the world’s religions, and about social justice issues. I believe the Fellowship movement was important in encouraging congregational ownership in decision-making within our congregations. It certainly revitalized our involvement in social justice issues: many of the Fellowships were originally groups of people focused on issues around peace, or civil rights, the environment, or local political issues. Their buildings tended to emphasize social space and kitchens, classrooms and places for their children rather than grand Sanctuaries. The Fellowship movement had some down sides too: some groups developed a strong anti-clerical stance, and a few devolved into very insular, even antagonistic debating societies. But many fellowships sparked new churches, brought new energy, broadened our theology, encouraged involvement in the larger community, and set in motion a model of strong involvement by lay people in the affairs of the church.

So there are three stories from years ago of unexpected consequences which affect our polity in this time. King’s Chapel simply wanted to choose their own minister, and be sure he could administer the sacraments. From that, we get our practice of ordaining and selecting our own ministers. A bit later, Massachusetts voters just wanted to choose which churches got their financial support. This sparked not only our current financial reliance on ourselves, but was an important step toward the separation of church and state. Still later, the Unitarian Association wanted to expand by actively encouraging groups of individuals to form their own lay led churches, from which we get our current structures with strong leadership, diverse theologies and a renewed commitment to social justice. Each of these simple actions affects who we are now, and how we and other Unitarian Universalists organize and govern our churches.

There are many, many other stories too. Later this morning, some of you who are curious about us, or considering membership, or are relatively new members who’d like to know more about our faith, will meet to learn more. For now, though, well explore a bit more of our history through singing together a VERY optimistic old Universalist hymn, written in the late 1800. I for one sure wish that what they assumed would happen had actually come to pass. Parts of it have, and the rest – reminds us that there’s still work to be done!

[Note: copies of the song One Hundred Years Hence can be obtained in the MUUC office.]