A New Paradigm

Recently I listened to an interview on my favorite public radio show, On Being.  Krista Tippett interviewed Christian Wiman, a poet, essayist, and editor of Poetry Magazine. Wiman grew up in West Texas in a Southern Baptist family. Like many young people, he left the church and religion when he left home, but several years later he returned to religion, to God. I was so engaged by the program, I listened to the unedited ninety-minute interview, then watched his interview with Bill Moyers. What captivated me most was this exchange with Krista Tippett who asks:

[If] you think about yourself in church all those years ago in west Texas, the church you grew up in, which was just given to you like the air you breathed and then when you're in church now, what's going on that's different? How is that experience different?

Mr Wiman: Well, it's utterly different. I think it's a weaker experience now. I mean, I'm just too conscious. I wish I were able to let myself go in ways that those people did in my childhood and still do. When I go to my mother's church now, it's one of those big mega-churches. You know, I don't agree with their theology and I don't like a lot of the ways that they commercialize their services, but it is an incredibly diverse church and the people are intensely involved. They're treating it as if their whole life were at stake. The churches I go to, liberal Protestant churches, it seems pretty casual. I wish there were some credible middle ground. I wish there was some way of harnessing that — the intensity that I felt in my childhood in more sophisticated ways.

You know how I talk about my inner-tent-revivalist? Well this is the tent I’ve been talking about and it’s going up now. Somebody left that barn door open and my inner-revivalist is coming out. Seriously, there is a deep and vast hunger to marry the intensity of a tent revival with a sophisticated understanding of spirit, and we, brothers and sisters, can officiate. But first we must recognize the power of treating church as if our whole life were at stake.

Now it’s easy to dismiss this part; we don’t labor under the threat of eternal damnation. But we live in a state of perpetual disconnection that causes this hunger. Our daily lives are filled with a thousand choices that either connect or disconnect us from the ground of our being—choices that don’t even feel like choices anymore. None of us wants to purchase products made by exploited workers but we figure what’s our choice? So we buy the smart phone or the cheap underwear, or anything else we can find at the big-box store, the discount chain or online, and it tears a little each time we do because even if we rationalize with our minds, the heart center, that core part of our being where knowing, not just thinking, resides, sighs. We know even if we ignore it that there’s no clean way to extract oil or natural gas. Fossil fuels are dirty even if the ads for them are sanitized. Literally everywhere we turn, we feel trapped by what feels like an inevitable, inescapable path paved with the bricks of individualism, competition, and fear. Our political discourse bounces between ridiculous and rancorous; we let the free market—not our core values—decide and then shrug our shoulders with a combination of resignation and powerlessness. We don’t know what to tell or teach our children about yet another fatal shooting in school; and we don’t know what to say to those same children for whom bullying is a fact of life and video war games are staple entertainment.

Daily we spiral deeper into disconnect and the evidence is ubiquitous. Addiction, asthma, autism, depression, PTSD, chronic fatigue, poverty, income disparity—all on the rise. We all experience the disconnect whether or not we name it, see it, or believe it. Our bodies, the heart-center in each of us knows it. Our lives are at stake.

And yet we see an Easter headline like this one from the Fitchburg Sentinel and Enterprise: “Worshippers Waning: Local ministers say fewer of the faithful attend Easter Services.” And why are people not coming to church the way they did in the past? Because the old paradigm isn’t working.

Last month I read Thomas Bandy’s book, Kicking Habits: Welcome Relief for Addicted Churches. According to Bandy, twentieth-century folks went to church to belong to an institution, to secure status among the right social set, because neighbors and coworkers asked, “What church do you attend?” People joined to belong, and then the church set about to inform them of its structure, both implicit and explicit. Folks got nominated to committees and boards. They were groomed to maintain the church as an institution and train the next generation. Though they began as members, writes Bandy, they ended up as guardians: keepers of the institution. But in this millennium, he contends, people come to church, if they come at all, seeking something else. Not institutional belonging, not doctrine, not hierarchy, not committee meetings. People today seek deeper meaning, a greater sense of relevance and purpose. Bandy is not the only one reporting this. Every commentator or researcher I read says the same thing. People hunger to reconnect with the ground of being. For some that is God, for others, it is just that, the ground of all being, including theirs.

Bandy distinguishes between declining churches and thriving churches. Congregations, he asserts, must cross-examine themselves. Ask not what is important to many but truly essential to all?

In the newspaper article the minister of our sister congregation in Leominster says, “she tries to make religion and church life relevant for people in the post-modern age.” But even where there’s a parking lot, attendance is down on Easter. Why? Because it’s not enough to pepper our sermons with contemporary cultural references or sing folk songs. We have to act as if our lives are at stake. We have to address the deep disquieting discomforting disconnect that truncates our lives, that induces amnesia so that we forget and worse, deny our inter-being, the interdependency of the web. People come here seeking concrete ways to re-connect, to mend the torn fabric of creation, to engage in tikkun olam, not simply to do for others, but to relearn compassion for ourselves because we can’t give away what we don’t have.

People come to church not just to find relevance but to be relevant, which is to say related. Religion—from the Latin word for refasten. So how do we refasten ourselves? How do we re-member, re-attach that cleaved part that longs to be made whole?

We begin by re-connecting as Unitarian Universalists to a distinct tradition fraught with dissent that arose out of an insistence that we unite the intensity of religious fervor with our capacity for critical and compassionate thought. We recall the early martyrs of our movement who dared to speak against the religious hierarchies and edicts of their day, where their lives were literally at stake—being burned there. We teach our children and they more likely teach us what it means to take a stand—to stand with those who would otherwise go unprotected, unrepresented, whose dignity even the state would flagrantly defile.

In the nineteenth century, many Unitarian congregations split over slavery. Wealthy New England industrialists and mill owners defended it. Nothing is more profitable than slave labor. No doubt some of our churches have endowments built on those welted backs. The abolitionists who spoke up often got run out but they did not go silently because long before a gentle Vietnamese Buddhist monk named Thich Nhat Hanh taught two generations of westerners the term “inter-are,” abolitionists knew about the interconnectedness of being. And that knowing propelled them to speak against the willful ignorance of those who cherry-picked the Bible in defense of an economy based on defilement.

A century later, when Jim Crow still wielded the lash, a Unitarian minister in Boston named James Reeb heeded Martin Luther King’s call to join marchers in Selma. Jim Reeb died at thirty-eight leaving behind his wife and four children when white men gusseted by fear beat him for the courage of his convictions, probably because to them, pardon the phrase, he looked like a nigger-lover. He died by the hand of segregationists and for that he is remembered in Unitarian Universalist circles, but it was not his death that embodied his sense of connection; it was his years of ministry working to integrate neighborhoods and churches, and most importantly, the human heart. Jim Reeb did not duck controversy or dodge danger by eschewing the divisive. He understood the fearfulness that grips us and how quickly it transmogrifies into rage.

A decade ago, before any states had passed marriage equality laws, the church where I had interned, a church that had welcomed and affirmed me, that loved the music director and his male partner of near twenty years, fractured around the full impact of what it meant to be a welcoming congregation. The suggestion to fly a large rainbow flag met with resistance. What if people in town think we only welcome gays and not other minorities? What if people reduce us to being “the gay church”? And with equal urgency others in the congregation countered, but we are the only church that welcomes gay and transgender people. Religious institutions have rejected, vilified queer folk for centuries. Consider what it means for people to be welcomed not shunned? We have the power to do that, they pled.

A while back, during social hour, I overheard Dick mention people picketing in front of Planned Parenthood so I made an appointment a couple of weeks ago to meet the outreach coordinator there. The director of the clinic let me in. I had to ring a buzzer so the director could check the live video feed to make sure she didn’t let in someone with a weapon. If I might speak to the women for just a moment, do you remember your first pelvic exam? I was terrified. The thought of it was creepy and invasive. I cannot imagine overlaying that late adolescent self-consciousness and fear with having to be buzzed into a building because someone might burst in and shoot the doctor. It doesn’t matter that no abortions are performed in Fitchburg. To the people who carry signs equating abortion with murder, they are content to willfully ignore the statistics: that nationally, 97% of the health services Planned Parenthood provides are not related to an abortion—or that abortion is still legal. It is not that the protesters are evil or even hateful though it probably feels that way to the young woman terrified because she has missed a period, or the young man afraid he has contracted or spread an STD, who have finally summoned the courage to get tested—as they walk through the gauntlet of stares, signs and disparaging remarks.

As I said before, we live in a world that perpetually disconnects us. Each day every one of us without wanting to, or meaning to, or even thinking that we are, engage in processes that diminish life. The World Health Organization estimates that somewhere between 30-40,000 children die every day of preventable conditions, namely the lack of clean water and adequate nutrition. Right this minute there are thousands of children languishing in foster homes. And thousands more abducted, sold into sexual slavery, splayed on pornographic websites. You don’t need me to list all the ways we defile the inherent worth and dignity of so many beings. It’s easier to fixate on abortion as the single most egregious form of defilement than to reckon with all the forms in which we are complicit.

And yes, I could tell you the story of my great aunt, or really my father telling me about her, the way she came to him late in her life, when he became president of the local Planned Parenthood, and revealed to him what it had been like in the 1920s for her to climb the stairs of the tenement abortionist when she could not face bringing a third child into an apartment ravaged by an abusive alcoholic. It was not something she could discuss with her rabbi or seek solace for from her congregation.

But if one’s religious community is not a safe place to seek counsel or support or even companionship what does that say about the nature of religious community—a community intended to bind us together?

At the annual meeting I am asking that the congregation consider displaying a banner of support that reads: Love Responsibly. Support Planned Parenthood.

Why opt for something so divisive you might ask? Or seemingly political? For the same reason abolitionists objected to slavery when the biggest church donors profited from it. For the same reason Jim Reeb went down to Selma. For the same reason churches fly rainbow flags or banners supporting marriage equality.

To be relevant to the people of this congregation and community, that is to say related. To claim our connection with the heretical roots of our denomination, the branch that declared errors in the Trinity, and the branch that declared universal salvation, when both assertions sometimes resulted in death. Our denomination has been forged out of the courage to not only withstand the fires of condemnation and misunderstandding, but to champion conscience, reason, compassion and direct experience when no one else will.

We have the opportunity, as the church where I interned had years before, to publicly declare our support for people historically shunned by religious institutions: to affirm the inherent worth and dignity of the people a few blocks from here who seek medical services or work in a health clinic with surveillance cameras because our society hasn’t found a way to counter the deadliness of fear and ignorance yet.

And yes, if we hang a banner some people will say, “that’s the abortion church.”  But you know that just gives us the chance to say, “It’s not as simple as that.” Why not help shape a more thoughtful, compassionate and sophisticated dialogue? Why not re-connect with our own heretical roots? The etymological root of heresy, by the way, is choice.

Amid the overwhelming forces of disconnection, we hunger to reconnect. To restore wholeness cleaved a thousand times a day. Sisters and brothers, our lives are at stake. May we make of them a tent. Amen.

The Cost of Indifference

Some of you may have read this recently in the New York Times:

Dec. 17, 1933, in The Canton Repository newspaper, a donor using the pseudonym B. Virdot offered modest cash gifts to families in need. His only request: Letters from the struggling people describing their financial troubles and how they hoped to spend the money. The donor promised to keep letter writers’ identities secret “until the very end.”

What captivates me about this story is that in the midst of the Depression, an economic plague of such enormity it has become the definitive event against which to measure all other economic crises, one man responded in a profound and personal way. He did not gaze into that roiling sea of need, shake his head despairing over the fact he could not rescue everyone. He placed one ad in one paper in the place where history had set him—and he asked people to tell him their story, to name their specific need. Now this may sound a bit patronizing: a bit like Santa asking children to line up, but I read it differently. I see a man who took the time to listen to individual stories, who took on the responsibility to witness and hear firsthand the effects of the Depression on strangers. Stories he could have easily overlooked.

He could have simply mailed a check to a charity, but instead he engaged. He remained anonymous through a pseudonym and though he promised the letter writers he would not disclose their identities, he didn’t consign them to the kind of anonymity that leaves people to suffer unnoticed. “At a time when accepting charity was seen as a moral failure, [his] promise of anonymity shielded the letter writers from shame.” But before he ever mailed a check, he lifted them out of the silence of their despair. The people who penned letters were no longer the faceless masses flattened by the Great Depression. “J. L. White, father of seven children, wrote in his thank-you note … he was considering suicide just before he received the gift.…In many cases these were individuals with their backs against the wall, watching their children go hungry every night.”

B. Virdot turned out to be Samuel Stone, a Romanian Jewish immigrant who prospered in United States by opening a chain of clothing stores. The children and grandchildren of his beneficiaries laud not just the financial value of his gift, but his attention: the fact that he cared. [note: I refer below to a congregant’s testimonial about the bank foreclosing on the house he lives in and his housemate’s fall down the stairs in an unlit hallway.]

When the bank foreclosed on the house at 41 Arlington Street in Fitchburg, people didn’t lose their home: Fred and Stevie did. All across this country banks have foreclosed on houses. A few weeks ago, Sarah shared a testimonial about the foreclosure on her brother’s house. Maybe we hear or read so many accounts the details begin to blur; the numbers are enough to make our eyes glaze over.
But as Fred so eloquently asked, if love is the doctrine of this church, and indifference is the opposite of love, how can we as a congregation dismantle the indifference that enervates love? What is required of us to “stand on the side of love,” as Unitarian Universalists now have a campaign to do? Admittedly, the campaign with that name, “Standing on the Side of Love” began as a vocal movement to support marriage equality. But this morning I invite us to re-conceive it in broader terms. To stand on the side of love as opposed to lining up with indifference. Does standing on the side of love mean we find out whose house is being foreclosed upon and show up in solidarity to bear witness, to offer condolence and support? Does it mean we take these Guest At Our Table Boxes and put quarters or dollar bills in and return them in a few weeks? Or does it entail a bit more? Does dismantling indifference mean more than writing a check? Does it ask of us something else?
If you go to the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee website, you will find a list that enumerates what a donation in varying amounts will buy. For instance:
$40 buys materials for a woman in Northern Uganda to make her own groundnut sheller[which] helps to reduce … workload and generate needed income for families, as residents return home after more than 20 years of war.

$65 pays for a small business loan for a displaced woman in Kenya. Which woman, I wonder? What does it feel like to be the anonymous woman who receives help from anonymous strangers? Perhaps there is still a stigma attached to receiving aid, though it strikes me as odd the recipients would feel ashamed instead of the ones responsible for such stark inequity. As much as the woman appreciates the nut sheller or the loan, would it mean more to be known, to have one’s specific reality witnessed. Would it make a difference for a congregation donating money to buy a sheller or underwrite a micro-loan, to learn together about the civil war in Uganda and the post-election violence in Kenya, to understand more fully the impact on individual lives?

What happens when we lose touch with the folks we wish to help? When their reality seems so distant from our own?

I am compelled by the story of Samuel Stone precisely because he acted in a relatively small way in the face of almost inconceivable need. He sent a hundred and fifty checks, most no more than five dollars. A nanospeck in the barrel, and yet, according to The Times, “at a reunion for families of recipients [a]bout 400 people attended. For the older people, it was a chance to remember the hard times. For relatives of the letter writers, it was a time to hear how the small gifts, in the bleakest winter of the Depression, meant more than money. They buoyed the spirits of an entire city that was beginning to lose hope.”

Small gifts that meant more than money—envelopes that contained the powerful message that someone cared about their plight. A person unmet but not unknown. What a powerful way to combat indifference.

Fred spoke of contacting politicians, officials elected to represent constituents, mostly unresponsive to his pleas. We can all make excuses for how busy people are, for the vast responsibilities, personal and professional, that fill their schedules, but I think back to George W. Bush’s unwillingness in 2005 to meet with Cindy Sheehan who wanted to understand the reasoning behind the Iraq war that claimed her son. Sure, the President was busy man and some might argue, entitled to vacations at his Crawford, Texas ranch without interruption from a grieving mother. I haven’t listened much to the former President’s current book tour interviews but I did hear the clip where he identified “one of the most disgusting moments” of his presidency as Kanye West’s accusation that he didn’t care about black people. Mr. Bush resented being called a racist. When Matt Lauer asked Mr. Bush if he accepted Kanye West’s recent apology, the former Present replied, “Yes. I’m not a hater.”
The question is not whether the forty-third President, or any of us here are “haters,” but are we lovers? Do we stand on the side of love or cross the road and duck inside?

None of us here can respond to the enormity of need. We can’t attend every foreclosure or contribute to every good cause. We simply can’t afford it. But neither can we afford to turn our backs, to not notice the cries of those we cannot help. I’m not suggesting we bum ourselves out to the point of immobilization by inundating ourselves with endless stories of suffering three times a day; but I am asking what it means to stand on the side of love. When can we be present? Where? How?

Last year I noticed a man in my home town standing on the side of the road holding a cardboard sign with too much lettering to read as I drove by. I passed him three or four times before I finally stopped, hearing a voice in my head that said you don’t have to care for the stranger but you do need to care about him.
He wasn’t asking for money. He was asking to be heard.

On Thursday, I attended a performance of a new play called “Turning the Tide.” Imagine “An Inconvenient Truth” crossed with modern dance and fable. The message: we can’t afford indifference to the stark realities of climate change, specifically our human complicity. The play did its job. I left thinking I am far too indifferent to the impact of my choices. Sure,I have a moment in the grocery when I buy anything packaged in plastic especially the kind I can’t recycle, but usually I buy it anyway. I shop from the perspective of the boy in the story Marcia read, pretending the ants don’t feel the squish, the oceans don’t choke on the plastic, and ecosystems don’t die from the oil spill. But they do.

When Fred emailed me his story about Stevie’s death and the darkened hallway, the city and state officials who did not respond, I thought about a newsclip I watched a few months ago filmed in Miami where a neighborhood full of people intervened when the sheriff came to evict a family. Where are they going to sleep when you throw them out? The crowd wanted to know? What good will it do the city or the bank to have another homeless family? The neighbors, like the residents, were African American. The sheriff and bank guy, white. With the television news camera rolling the sheriff huffed and puffed. He was not in the mood for resistance but neither was he up for a showdown and miraculously, he backed off. He shrugged and muttered and got back in his car. The family stayed.

How would it change any of our stories if we were to stand on the side of love? If we were to ask ourselves, what will we do today to dismantle indifference?
A light in a darkened stairwell might keep another eulogy from being written.
This holiday season we can fill not only our own bellies, but a little cardboard box that sits on the table in hopes the change we reach for isn’t just coinage, but care. Who are the people pictured on the little cardboard box? What are their names? What do they long for? And how does the fulfillment of our wants intersect with their need?

Like Samuel Stone, we too, live in dire times. We may not notice the leak if we’re standing on the top deck, but everyone down below in steerage knows there’s a problem. The unnamed woman in Kenya shelling groundnuts by hand. The good folks lining the streets of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. The people stricken with cholera in Haiti and the other 1.3 million still displaced know there’s a problem.
In 1933, in Canton, Ohio, one man with a chain of clothing stores knew he couldn’t restore economic solvency. But he could put an ad in the paper and stand on the side of love.

So can we.

Amen.

Let us change the world with our love; let our love affirm each other’s meaning; let it not only guide us to the place we stand; may it be the direction in which we move.

Come Dancing!

You're all invited to a Halloween dance at the Unitarian church in Fitchburg, 7-10 p.m., Sat. Oct. 30. It's a free, family-friendly, non-alcoholic, event. Costumes optional.