Wanted: Evangelical UU's

Late in September, I was the guest speaker at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Tamworth. I called on my fellow UU’s to fight back against the inflammatory racist and xenophobic rhetoric that are a part of our current national dialogue. Since the shootings in San Bernardino, the hate speech is ratcheting up – and that comes with consequences. This week a sixth grade girl in NY City was beaten up by a bunch of boys who hit her and tried to pull off her hijab while calling her, “Isis.”

A friend in the congregation suggested I publish my sermon as a column. With some adaptation, this is what I said on September 27. At a time when we hear so much angry religious rhetoric perhaps we can all try to be more UU.

After the accident last year, I spent two months in the hospital. I met women who worked there, women from all over the world. Many came here as refugees. There were women from Haiti, who told stories of political unrest and having to move their families to safety. There were women who were bringing up their grandchildren because their children had become addicts. They bathed me and cared for my broken body. They were so kind to me. We humans are capable of such kindness and compassion.

For months I was in an isolated bubble where I didn’t pay that much attention to what was going on in the world. It was my job to heal. It was my job to learn how to stand, and how to walk. As the months went by, little by little I moved back into the world. Then I went back to work, and I was immersed in reality again.

And then along came Donald Trump. He was something of a breaking point.

Racism, bigotry, homophobia, misogyny; all of these things are increasingly tolerated by our society. Throw in some science denial and rewriting of history, and this is a scary time. In an effort to show leadership skills, presidential candidates are trying to outdo one another with racist rhetoric or loathing for the poor. 

It’s time to stop tacitly accepting this. UU’s have a long history of action when it comes to all social justice issues. We also have a reputation for being quiet and relatively unobtrusive in our approach.

We don’t cause scenes or make a mess. We aren’t a big visible presence on the word stage. We don’t have mega churches or a values voter summit, like the Christian right does.

We ought to. Our values include justice, compassion, and love. Inclusion and not exclusion.  At a time where there is so much hate, violence, and ugly rhetoric, it’s time for us to vocalize and apply our UU principles loudly, proudly, and zealously.

As UU’s we are not bound by scripture or dogma. We have our seven principles, the first being our belief in the inherent worth and dignity of every person. We need to try hard to love our neighbors, even the most difficult and bigoted. Love them loudly and proudly. When hate comes to town, we must counter it in the way that Dr. King suggested: “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

Our planet is suffering. There is no part of it that isn’t being affected by climate change. Here in the US a particularly virulent form of denial exists, the kind where non-scientists deny science. We need to get out there and preach about that interdependent web. We can’t live without our planet.

Our principles call for justice, equity, and compassion in human relations. That, too, is hard to argue with, but it is not the way that human interaction works these days. The right of conscience. The goal of world community, with peace, liberty, and justice for all. These aren’t feel good phrases. These are values, and they are values that need to be spread around with evangelical zeal.

There are so many angry people in our country, our state, and in our municipalities. You probably have one shouty uncle who rants on your Facebook page or at holiday dinners. You know, the one who thinks the president is a homosexual Muslim communist from Kenya.

It’s easy to ignore the angry. You can unfriend Uncle Al on Facebook. You can’t do is argue with them and have any kind of a reasonable discussion. What we can do is be kind to them. Talk to them – and really listen. Try to understand their fears. It’s harder to hate people when you’re talking to them face to face.

I realize this all sounds kind of humorous, especially coming from me. I am deadly serious. We’re in a mess, people, and love is the only way out.

We UU’s are uniquely qualified to take a greater role. Some of the greatest names in our nation’s history were UUs – names like Emerson, Thoreau, Vonnegut, Seeger, Anthony, Stone, Adams, Cummings, Bradbury, Darwin, and Nightingale. UU’s have been visionaries and activists. We still are. We’re just modest about it. I am suggesting that we need to speak up when there is injustice and hateful rhetoric on the national, state, and local level.

We need to get zealous. We need to become fundamentalist Unitarian Universalists, ready to preach the inherent worth and dignity of every person. Ready to preach about loving our planet. Wendell Berry said, “Whether we and our politicians know it or not, Nature is party to all our deals and decisions, and she has more votes, a longer memory, and a sterner sense of justice than we do.”

People, the planet, equality and justice. These are the biggest things we face. They are all things we UUs have been talking about for years. Who better to lead the way in our communities than us?

We’ve been working quietly in the background for a long time. What’s next will make us uncomfortable – and that is true whether we do anything or not. We’re going to be just as uncomfortable if we stay in the background, so we might as well make some noise.

Unitarian Universalist 7 Principles:

1. The inherent worth and dignity of every person;

2. Justice, equity and compassion in human relations;

3. Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations;

4. A free and responsible search for truth and meaning;

5. The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large;

6. The goal of world community with peace, liberty and justice for all;

7. Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.

This was published as an op-ed in the December 11 edition of the Conway Daily Sun newspaper 

Peace for the Annoyed, Frustrated, Angry, Irate, Miffed, and Peeved

 I had the great honor of serving as the lay speaker at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of the Eastern Slopes (UUFES) on Sunday, August 25. This is my sermon from that service. 

One night I was walking down Park St. in Concord, on my way to a NH Peace Action board meeting. Along the way, I ran into a fellow board member and we chatted as we walked. We began discussing some  politician who had said/done something stupid and I said, “I could just slap the snot out of that guy.” We looked at each other and quickly I said, “Now there’s a fine sentiment for a peace activist.” We laughed ruefully. But there you have it. How do we work for peace in an increasingly angry world?

Every day brings more reason to be aggravated – and that’s compounded by the knowledge that we don’t even hear half of the stories we should be hearing.

Peace activists are generally kindly, often spiritual people. Some are genuine peacemakers; able to bring disparate groups together and reach agreements. Some are peacekeepers; able to keep the peace at events where emotions are high and can get out of control. Naturally there are many UU’s who fall into these categories. They read spiritual texts, they meditate, they post Rumi quotes on their Facebook pages. As for me:  I have all of the spiritual depth of a Dixie cup. I wince at what appear to me to be platitudes. I’m cynical, sometimes bitter, and frequently angry. And I am not alone. As a friend says, "I say what I mean, I mean what I say, but sometimes I say it mean."

There is so much to be angry about. Prisoners are still being tortured at Guantanamo Bay. Still. Over half the federal discretionary budget goes to the Pentagon, while we’re told we have to cut food stamps and Social Security. That same Pentagon can’t pass an audit and can’t account for over a trillion dollars. That’s just a crumb from the table of outrage. There is so much more.

In general people seem angrier than they used to, although maybe that's just because people's opinions are more widely known than they used to be because of the internet and the ability to anonymously comment on news sites and blogs. The day that Bradley Manning came out as Chelsea, one of the first stories I saw advised, "Avoid all comment sections today." It was good advice. Too late, but good advice that hopefully others heeded.

Recently the Concord Police Dept. applied for a grant to the Dept. of Homeland Security to purchase an armored vehicle called a BearCat. My first reaction was predictable outrage. This was Pentagon/ defense contractor pork! This was the militarization of police departments! I went to a public hearing, and listened to the police chief. And against my will, I was swayed. I still disagree strongly with the sweetheart defense contractor deals and Pentagon pork – but I understand why the chief wants this vehicle. I’m very uncomfortable with how I feel right now. Why didn’t anyone tell me that I’d spend my whole life growing up? This thinking through stuff is painful. Knee jerk responses are so much easier and more comfortable!

Thinking can lead to anger. And fortunately, thinking can lead us out.

 A fellow NHPA board member loaned me his copy of William Sloane Coffin’s book Credo, saying that he reads it to feel good. “He was such an optimist,” Frank told me. Other members of the board have devoted a lifetime to peace activism, and have achieved a level of calm and acceptance that I admire and hope to one day claim for myself. John helped Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin attempt to levitate the Pentagon in 1967. He’s involved in the ongoing work to close down the School for the Americas, in Georgia – a US school that trains military leaders and future dictators of Latin America. Frank and John are smart, kind, and peaceful men who just keep going about the work that they have chosen to do. They’ve chosen their area of interest to work on, and they just keep plugging away.

Ruth McKay was a lifelong peace activist who died in 2005. She became a counselor to conscientious objectors in the 1960’s. She was active in the Civil Rights movement. After she married, she and her husband chose to live below the poverty level, to avoid paying taxes that went to fund war. I met Ruth and her husband Ralph in the 1980’s, while demonstrating at the nuclear power plant in Seabrook. We were arrested together a few times.  For decades Ruth had an ongoing vigil in front of the weapons manufacturer Sanders Lockheed in Nashua, which is now known as BAE Systems. Ruth called her actions dissent, saying that the word “protest” sounded “too angry.” Her form of principled, peaceful dissent resulted in numerous arrests for civil disobedience, where she won the admiration of police and judges for her calm demeanor, her principles, and her joyous personality. Ruth was a religious and spiritual person. Is there hope for those of us who are not?

How do we press forward in the face of outrage? How do we continue to believe in the inherent worth and dignity of every person, when some persons might be found not just wanting, but perilously close to worthless?

Only with the greatest conscious effort. This is the real work of peace. It begins within. And with that work comes a level of acceptance of who and what we are, right here right now. I can continue to strive to be someone who posts Rumi quotes, but right now I am not.

Acceptance means accepting the excruciatingly slow pace of change.

Musician Greg Brown’s lyrics to the song “The Poet’s Game” echo my frustration:

I watched my country turn into

a coast-to-coast strip mall

and I cried out in a song:

if we could do all that in thirty years,

then please tell me you all -

why does good change take so long?

Martin Luther King assures us that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

I hate to get pushy about all this, but, I’m not getting any younger here, Positive Change. Could you pick up the pace a bit?

In this increasingly angry world, it's hard to know what to have faith in. So many of the institutions we were brought up to believe in are in disarray. The very rocks and trees are in peril as a result of our failures to take threats to them seriously. And because some of us are so intransigent, how do we have faith in our fellow humans? How do we have any faith in a positive future?

A union organizer I know says that given the correct information, most people will do the right thing. I'm not sure I share her optimism, but it seems to me that we have little choice. We have to have that faith. Without it, how can we go on?

Sloane Coffin writes:

Socrates had it wrong; it is not the unexamined but finally the uncommitted life that is not worth living. Descartes too was mistaken; "Cogito ergo sum - I think therefore I am?" Nonsense. "Amo ergo sum" - "I love therefore I am." Or, as with unconscious elegance St. Paul wrote, "Now abide faith, hope, love, these three; and the greatest of these is love." I believe that. I believe it is better not to live than not to love.

In the end there aren't many choices. We can detach from the frenzy and refuse to participate. We can keep on swimming upstream, like salmon, battered occasionally against the rocks but powerless to resist the pull of nature, instinct - or the internet. We can strive for balance - find the work that calls to us and do it, setting limits and making sure to take time to enjoy all aspects of our lives.

What is increasingly clear to me though, is that I must/we must all keep trying to work for a peaceful world. In that, there is no other choice. When we fail at the high standards we set for ourselves, we must return to the wise words of Robert Eller- Isaacs in his Litany of Atonement (number 637 in the back of the hymnal)

For remaining silent when a single voice would have made a difference

We forgive ourselves and each other; we begin again in love

For each time that our fears have made us rigid and inaccessible

We forgive ourselves and each other; we begin again in love

For each time that we have struck out in anger without just cause

we forgive ourselves and each other; we begin again in love

For each time that our greed has blinded us to the needs of others

we forgive ourselves and each other; we begin again in love

For the selfishness that sets us apart and alone

we forgive ourselves and each other; we begin again in love

For falling short of the admonitions of the spirit

we forgive ourselves and each other; we begin again in love

For losing sight of our unity

We forgive ourselves and each other;

we begin again in love

For those and so for so many acts both evident and subtle which have fueled the illusion of separateness

we forgive ourselves and each other;

we begin again in love.

Over and over. Forgiveness. Love. Swords into plowshares. Over and over till we get it right.