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January 5, 2003 Sermon

Rev. Nancy D. Dean

January 5, 2003

Enlightened Masters; the Sikh Guru Founders

As many of you know, it is my practice to preach at least two sermons a year on other religions of the world, for I believe we have a great deal to learn about our own spiritual lives by learning how other people in other religions come to believe and behave as they do. One such religion, Sikhism, has become much more visible since the events of last September 11th. A great error of knowledge, that is, ignorance, and a great error of human conduct, that is, sinning has led too many people to make assumptions about the men of the Sikh religion especially, and all because they may have dark skin, wear turbans and have beards. One Sikh man in Arizona was killed by a fanatic who believed that he was an Arab, and therefore connected in some abstract way to the terrorism of 9/11.

The terrible irony is that Sikhs are mostly a peaceful, kind, charitable people, and are not Arabic. I thought this would be a good religion for us to explore and try to understand, and to be as we always hope to be as good Unitarian Universalists, an ethical people who try to live by our Seven Principles.

When I heard that Sikhs were being persecuted following 9/11, often by a certain misguided kind of religious zealots, I remembered a story I once heard about a little girl who was saying her prayers at bedtime, her parents who were standing there listening and waiting to kiss her goodnight heard her say something rather profound. She prayed: “Dear God, please make the bad people good, and the good people nice.”

So it is often just the sort of people who view themselves as good who are apt to do the cruel, ignorant kinds of acts that characterize the worst aspects of most of the world’s religions. And, should any of us fail in remember our own need to be humble, acting out of righteousness often characterizes the worst aspects of our own way being human beings, too.

Adlai Stevenson, a Unitarian by the way, once said: “There is nothing more horrifying than stupidity in action.” That is no doubt part of why President Bush made a point of speaking out in support of the Sikh community, to help counter the tide of anger being directed toward them. To help stem such ignorance is an important role for any president, any good leader.

The Sikh history is just about as old as the Unitarianism is, and like is like all religions, which devolve from the religions of the place and time where they begin. Most religions become associated with a founder, or early group, and this is also true for the Sikhs, who relate primarily to a group of enlightened teachers, or gurus-the term guru is the equivalent of rabbi, or spiritual teacher. There are ten gurus who are viewed as the foundation and source of the writings and teachings that have come to constitute the Sikh faith. And the place of that founding was in the area of modern India in the north and Pakistan called the Punjab. The term Sikh means disciple.

The Sikh founders had been reared in what we call Hinduism, which needs some explaining as well, for what most western peoples think of as one religion is really a great body of faith traditions, with many similarities, but with many significant differences. The English found it simpler to term all these Hindu, which is a secular term and came down from Persian Muslims who called the people living in the region of the Indian subcontinent as Hindustanis to distinguish them from the foreign Muslims.

So the generality of religious beliefs and practices we still call Hindu is the source of the Sikh religion.

Now, like many religions, the founding of Sikhism had to do with reform of practices that were no longer acceptable to many people. Just as Jesus was a Jew who was rebelling against much of the system of his religion, and every Protestant denomination has a disagreement with the rest of Christianity as to belief and practice, so too with the Sikh guru founders. They also incorporated some of the Muslim teachings from their immediate neighbors, and often enemies, to the north in what is now Afghanistan.

Aharon Daniel, a scholar of world religions writes of Sikhs:

          About 2% of India's population are Sikhs. Even so they because of their unique appearance, sometimes stand for India. Traditionally the men keep their hair [uncut] and do not shave their beard or moustache. They gather their head hair in a turban. Sikhism is comparatively a new religion in India. This religion was established by Guru Nanak. Guru Nanak was born in 1469 in the Punjab region of north India. Guru Nanak was a Hindu and he loved to travel and learn. He developed a new religion and included in it what he thought were the good beliefs of the two dominant religions in the Punjab region, Hinduism and Islam. And Sikhism indeed has beliefs from these two religions. From Islam it adopted the belief in the existence of one invisible God. From Hinduism it adopted the belief in Karma and reincarnation, meaning your actions in this life will decide your fate in the next incarnation. The Sikhs also cremate their dead ones as is done in Hinduism.

And:

          The creators of Sikhism tried to abolish some of the Indian customs such as the caste system and Sati - burning of the widow. In Sikhism everyone has equal rights irrespective of caste, creed, color, race, sex or religion. Sikhism rejects pilgrimage, fasting, superstitions and other such rituals. Sikhism does not have a clergy class as it considers this as a gateway to corruption. However they have readers and singers in their temples.

           

The distinctive appearance of the Sikhs has been the primary cause for their problems in the west and the mistaken assumptions that because they wear turbans, they must be Arabs. So, a lesson on turbans here.

According to Dr. Rachel Pannebacher:

      A Turban is a headdress worn by men in Muslim and Hindu countries. The name comes from a Persian word that means a long scarf wound around the head or around a small hat. Princes of India wore colorful silk and gold turbans.

For the Sikhs the turban, or Dastar as they call it, is a symbol of honor and self-respect. As noted by Shah Muhammad, a great Punjabi poet and historian:

          The Sikhs . . . distinguished themselves as soldiers during the British Raj, and later. The Sikh soldiers refused to wear helmets during World War I and World War II. They fought with turbans on their heads. A Sikh (Khalsa [one who is pure]) is supposed to be fearless. Wearing a helmet is admitting fear of death. Many Sikhs received Victoria Cross, which is one of the most prestigious gallantry awards in the British army.

          Many Sikhs refused to remove turban even in jails. Bhai Randhir Singh, a widely respected Sikh preacher, scholar and a freedom fighter had to undergo a fast to win his right to wear turban in the prison.

           

Back to the founding, the city of Lahore is considered the place of the founding; this Punjab city is now the second largest city in Pakistan. Lahore was the capital of the Sikh Empire before the British took it over, and the city has many historic Sikh shrines.

          The founder was Nanak, a guru (religious teacher) who lived in the late 1400's and early 1500's. Sikhs pride themselves on their bravery and do not believe in caste. As a mark of equality, many Sikh men use the same last name, Singh, which means lion. Most Sikhs are farmers and traders. They also make up a large part of the Indian army.

          Nanak (1469-1539) was the first guru (teacher) of the Indian religious sect known as the Sikhs. He was born in a village called Talwandi, later named Nankana, west of Lahore (now in Pakistan). Stories of his life were later collected by the Sikhs in books [called janamsakhis].

          About the year 1500, Nanak experienced what he claimed was a revelation from God. This led him to declare that "There is no Hindu, there is no Muslim." The revelation and declaration marked the start of his mission and eventually resulted in the founding of the new religion of Sikhism. Nanak traveled widely for many years. During his travels, he met holy men and preached his message. Later, he founded the first community of Sikhs (disciples).

          Nanak composed 974 hymns in a mixture of Old Punjabi and Old Hindi. The hymns were later collected in the Sikh holy book, the Adi Granth (First Book). His most famous hymn is the Japji, which Sikhs recite at dawn each day. The hymn praises the power and majesty of the one God and teaches how the people of the world can be saved by being open to His grace. Nanak declared that neither Hinduism nor Islam could guarantee salvation. The only way to be saved was by worshiping God both privately and by listening to hymns in the temple. In addition, true believers should carry out their normal work honestly, give what they could to those in need, and live clean and upright lives. These teachings are summed up in the famous threefold formula of nam dan kirt karma, meaning "the Name, giving, honest living."

           

Successive guru leaders carried on the religion, adding to it, and the last of the ten who are noted as the religions founders, was Gobind Singh (1666-1708). He founded the order called the Khalsa (pure) in 1699.

          Gobind Singh was born in Patna, Bihar, India. His father, Tegh Bahadur, was the ninth Sikh guru. In 1675, Tegh Bahadur was executed by order of the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb. Gobind Singh became the new guru. To help Sikhs defend themselves against Mughal [Afghanis] persecution, Gobind Singh founded the Khalsa as a military community. Members observe a code of conduct that includes the visible symbols called the "five k's": kes (uncut hair), kangha (a comb), kirpan (a dagger), kara (a steel bangle), and kachh (a pair of shorts).

          It was from this last guru’s influence that the association with the Sikhs and military came. Those of us who grew up watching movies about the British in India saw the Sikh soldiers with their beards and turbans, and that became a primary association many Americans made with Indians for much of the 20th Century.

As with all other religions, Sikhism has continued to grow and to change. Sikhs have emigrated around the world from Singapore to Canada and the United States. In fact, the Sikhs represent the largest Indian population in Canada.

So today, even here in Delaware, we will see Sikhs in their traditional beards and turbans, though more and more of the younger Sikhs are foregoing these traditional elements of their religion.

We Americans are often noted for our insularity, our thinking everyone is just like us, but how that happens is something of a mystery to me. We are now the most pluralistic of any nation, and if we are to have a peaceful, contented country, we must be willing to look around and recognize that we have a great and wonderful diversity. And that it is something to celebrate. But I fear that as we continue to fight an ongoing war against terrorism, many people along with those of the Sikh community will begin to feel excluded and have suspicion cast on their loyalty to the U.S.

I am reminded of a joke about the founder of Judaism. The writer said:

      I feel sorry for Moses. He spent forty years wandering in the desert, eating nothing by manna off the ground and the occasional bird, and every day a million people would come up to him and ask, “Are we there yet?”

When it comes to real acceptance of the different faiths, different practices, different national origins that are part of this country, I am afraid we are not there yet.

As UUs, we want to be defenders of the freedoms that distinguish our country. Freedom of religion and freedom of speech are two that we can never let get muddied.

Just as the Sikhs have been singled out since 9/11, so too can other religions, even our own be singled out for persecution. Lest anyone forget, our Unitarian Universalist Association was subject to harassment, not the least was bugging our UUA headquarters, because our Beacon Press published the Pentagon Papers. You and I are only as free to speak and practice our religions, as others are also free.

Our UU Principles call on us to respect others, to act within the democratic processes we all value for ourselves.

We have a lot in common with the Sikhs, who believe in God as one, and the equality of all. I hope each time we see a Sikh we will be reminded of that first, and any difference second.

So be it.

 

January 12, 2003 Sermon

Rev. Nancy D. Dean

January 12, 2003

Psychology and the Religious Impulse

This is an auction sermon purchased last year by Ann Davis, who selected this topic. Just think of all the times you have wanted to know something, but did not feel like doing all the research and writing involved. You get a chance at the annual Service Auction to get me to do it for you. I talked to a writer I know who calculated that the cost of such an endeavor is roughly worth $400-$1000, so it’s a good deal.

I want to begin by saying that I believe in the discipline of psychology even as I also believe in the discipline of spirituality. Discipline as in study and learning, and discipline as self-knowledge and self-control. I have grown to believe since my days at the Divinity School at Harvard, that Socrates stated most clearly for me the greatest spiritual statement that could be uttered, which is: Know thyself. To know oneself is also the greatest psychological purpose. We can go about these in different ways, but the ultimate results are probably equally valuable.

When you think about how little we typically understand about other people, even our family members, it seems a very odd goal to want to know God who is all, or first source, or ultimate reality as theologian Paul Tillich called it. How can we have any meaningful sense of the great ultimate reality, God, if we cannot or do not have a sense of our own selves. That is putting the cart before the horse, it seems to me-especially if you believe that God is within.

The Pythagorean philosopher Empedocles, in a wonderful blending of the science of geometry and religion, said: God is a circle whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.

Religion or spirituality, as many people understand it, seeks to know God, but we are bound by the circumference of our own skins, our brains, and we ask a great deal of ourselves to know more, to go beyond that boundary of skin. We do it, though, because we learn in that realm beyond our own skin, from other boundaried humans. We know this intuitively. We say, nobody knows everything. (Though some people want us to think they do.) Yet, we have a deep desire to believe that we are not boundaried, or that we will not always have such a boundary as our own brain or our own bodies. So we have a natural antipathy toward our very being, which we often seek to challenge or correct through the spirit. Even the Raelians, currently in the news, who claim a desire to live forever through cloning themselves and continuing education and knowledge beyond our normal bounds.

Jungian psychologist John Costello writes:

          I once had with a friend who now lives in in [sic] Japan. Christianity was brought to Japan some four hundred years ago and many people were converted to Christianity. Yet these very people are still dreaming of the Buddha. On one level it can be said that they are Christian in attitude: that would be the conscious level. At the unconscious level they were still Buddhists. Even after four hundred years their inner images of the Buddha have not vanished completely. Yet somehow, for these individuals, there was not a conflict between the two levels. It is like saying that consciousness needs to bring light to the unconscious and the unconscious needs to bring light to consciousness.

          This is the manner in which I see analytical psychology and spirituality overlapping. They are like two doors to the unconscious. Spirituality has a very long tradition; analytical psychology has a very brief one by comparison. Both have a lot to learn from each other, neither one needs to be in conflict with the other.

           

As a minister, one whose life is devoted to the study and promotion of the life of the spirit, I believe that our spirit is, in every significant way, our real lives. Just consider that we can lose or not be born with many of our body parts, legs, gall bladders, arms, eyes, even multiple body parts, yet we are still a person, a spirit, with all the consideration for what gives meaning to life as any physically whole person. Yet, the most physically perfect person who undergoes what we think of as brain death, or even a vegetative state, becomes a body that seems devoid of spirit. Now, there is certainly a lot of debate around this in religious and medical circles, but few of us can appreciate the spirituality in such a condition, while we can find the deepest levels of it in almost anyone else however physically challenged.

Yet, we still have a conflict in this culture between what constitutes spirituality or religiousness (either term usually focuses on the life of the spirit), and the realm of psychology, which is the study of the mind.

I am always encouraging people to see a psychologist when they are struggling with life problems. People certainly come to me for pastoral counseling, and have since I was an intern minister, feeling a bit safer I think, which can be a good thing for a short term issue, but for deeper more serious problems which many of us struggle with, I am not the right kind of counselor for that. A good psychologist can do wonders to help a person deal with such problems, but I hasten to add that not every minister is a good pastoral counselor, nor is every psychologist right for any given person. I have visited/interviewed as many as four before settling with one I felt that simpatico feeling. You are not likely to have a good experience if you do not feel simpatico with your pastoral counselor or psychologist. It just makes good sense, when you consider the depth of private feelings that are shared in such counseling situations. I have heard people say that they tried seeing a counselor, but it did not work. Well, try again. If you take you care to one repair shop and it doesn’t get fixed, you go to another.

As Costello points out, the spiritual or religious impulse has been around a lot longer than the discipline and science of the mind we call psychology. Primitive peoples tried to explain their human highs and lows in a wide variety of ways that had mostly to do with their environments and the spirits that they believed inhabited the sky, air, plants, animals, places, and so forth. The refinement of those spiritual explanations have come down to us through the various religions we know about in our culture, and I suspect they will continue to refine throughout the human future. Yet, more of what once was believed to be demon possession or failure of the spirit, such as Job was accused of in the Hebrew scriptures/Old Testament, are now known to be caused by disorders, bacteria and viruses, and other physical ailments that are quite curable nowadays. Being born left-handed is no longer considered a spiritual malignancy as is was for hundreds of years. My mother, who is almost eighty was one in the last generation in this country to have their left hands bound, or tied to the side of their bodies, or desk as hers was, to try to change her to right-handedness. Being left-handed is just one of hundreds of differences that science has come to understand as normal variability in humans, that once had a religious understanding or misunderstanding. So, we are reminded yet again, that we need both the spiritual and the scientific to understand life in toto. And, both have limitations in ever understanding all that makes us tick.

The one thing that makes both these disciplines necessary is the pace of human life, any one human life, and the history of human life. If you and I are lucky, eat right, exercise, pray and mediate, we can expect to live seventy to a hundred years. That is not a very long time to learn not only about ourselves, but those around us, and God or whatever else lies beyond this world, too. The world as most of us know it, is moving at pace that takes the breath away. In a little over two hundred years, most of the science that we have now came into being and practice. Medicine in 1900 was primitive compared to the medicine of today. The whole realm of computers really did not take shape until the middle of the 1900s. And in practically every aspect of our lives the push of science has changed what and how we do things. The world around us is moving forward too fast for most of us. We evolved slowly, we like change to happen slowly, but we are being dragged along whether we like it-as many of us do, or not-as many of us don’t.

I have considered on many occasions, that many if not most of the religious figures of history would most likely be put in treatment nowadays. St. Jerome running around naked all the time. The anorexia of many nuns and monks of the middle ages, who would eat only the host. The visions of countless Bernadettes. The religious pronouncements of generations of the early church mystics that made up much of church history. This is true across religions as well. Nowadays, if one of our family members starts calling himself or herself the incarnation of God, we get them help. And, I am fascinated by stories of religious paranoia that any clinical psychologist can tell you about. Or, read the works of Oliver Sacks. Religious paranoia is well represented in psychiatric wards in every country.

Yet, the answers to the longings of the human soul are not all to be found in science, be it medical or psychological. We are, each of us, walking through life poorly equipped to defend ourselves against the speeding of the world, the speeding of relationships, the speeding of aging. We do not have an external radar detector to tell us to slow down. I bought both my children radar detectors in the hope that they would be more cautious as they drove, and it seems to have helped, but what I really wish is that I could have bought one for their emotional lives. All I could do for them, is what I try to do for you, and that is to suggest different ways to learn more about who we are and what is truly important in life. Humor is one of those ways. This story also suggests how we can misuse our agents of help.

      George Burns, straight man and husband of great patience, to his wife Gracie Allen, who played the scatterbrained wife, in their comedy team. One such story she told to end their weekly TV show was this:

      “George, did I tell you I called the repairman to fix the electric clock in the kitchen?”

      “Oh, really, what did he do?” asked George.

      “He said there was nothing wrong with the clock. He told me, ‘Lady, you didn’t have it plugged in.’”

      George said: “What did you say?” Gracie replied:

      “Well, I told him I don’t want to waste electricity, so I only plug it in when I want to know what time it is.”

Many of us are like Gracie when it comes to our emotional or spiritual lives. We may have the most up-to-date computers, automobiles, homes with every convenience for our physical lives, but we try to get by with no help for the inner life. Some of us would think little about spending thousands of dollars for some aid to work or play, but cringe at spending a hundred dollars to visit a doctor, dentist, or psychologist.

I would not be too far off to say that there are many of us who are living daily in the 21st Century in our material lives, but in the 15th Century or earlier in our spiritual/emotional lives. No wonder we need counseling.

I am on the board of PFLAG-Delaware, Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, and it is common in our meetings to have a young person come and share that s/he has been kicked out of the home by their parents who think they just decided to be gay. Or, to have parents come who love their gay children, but worry that they will go to hell if they don’t change. Counseling is a first line recommendation, as well as educating themselves.

My mother having her left hand tied to the side of the desk at school always comes to mind. I wonder what impact that had on her. I do know that she is, for a very quiet and timid person, rebelliously left handed, and my brothers and I, all right handed, grew up learning to do everything left-handed to the point we have many learned ambidextrous traits. I wonder what impact that had on us? Psychology can help provide answers to such questions.

What you know or don’t know can help or hurt you, I believe that wholeheartedly, and we each approach that learning in different ways. Witness this story:

      There was a liberal arts class at the university that was attended by majors in several different subjects or disciplines. The professor walked into the room and began on the first day with a simple: “Good morning.”

      The meteorology student looked out the window and thought, “It is true. It is a good morning.”

      The education major looked from the professor to his notebook and wrote it down.

      The psychology major pondered deeply, wondering to himself, “Now, what did he mean by that?”

Psychology is a systematic approach to understanding human behavior, while the religious impulse or spirituality is the emotional, and occasionally systematic, approach to understanding why we do what we do.

One of the problems with any understanding of the realms of psychology and that of religion is that there is a great mistrust between the two.

Nowadays many more clergy and religious men and women are becoming trained as psychologists and psychiatrists, and the chasm is narrowing between the two. Still, as Costello, the Jungian writes:

      Why do the majority of the clergy still stay clear of analytical psychology? The problem is complex. Firstly, whether it pleases us or not Jung's psychology is a challenge to the established beliefs of religion. Whether these are imaginary or real does not matter because everybody recognizes that this is both a psychological and theological minefield. There is no doubt that the insights of analytical psychology can enhance and enrich the individual's personal beliefs and spirituality.

John O’Donahue, a Catholic scholar in Ireland, writes that both realms can be problematic: We become addicted to the methods and programs of psychology and religion. We become so desperate to learn how to be, that our lives pass, and we neglect the practice of being.

Thomas More, whose book The Care of the Soul became a best seller a few years ago, spent twelve years as a monk, then left for the secular life, trained and got a doctorate in, and taught, psychology. He sees perhaps with greater clarity than most, that we need both the secular and the religious/spiritual approach to life.

In an interview about his book, he was asked if psychology was “saying that we can be fixed and we can be perfect beings?”

More responded:

      I think the idea that we can be perfect or that we can be fixed, repaired and improved is certainly implied in most psychology. That is a problem because I don't think that we can pursue perfection and take care of the soul at the same time.

And, a bit later talking about learning to accept our human imperfections:

      I think that's just human life, and anything else is an attempt to be superhuman, it's an attempt to be angels and not to be living a human life.

The goal, I believe, is to have the best of both disciplines, that we do not want one without the other. We need both psychology and the religious impulse that calls for care of the soul. We need science and religion to affirm the validity of both psychology and spirituality without subordinating one to the other.

Let us remember, as psychology professor Andrew Kille wrote, that:

      Psychology itself began as a sub-discipline of theology; the term psychology was coined in the sixteenth century to describe, along with natural theology and angelography and demonology, the three branches of pneumatology or the doctrine of spirits.

As far as I am concerned, life is only secular and religious in a political or governmental sense. I am all for separation of church and state. But, for us as individuals, all our lives are colored by our spiritual lives, all our lives are truly spiritual. Whether we are ethical, and believe it is right or wrong to do or proclaim certain things. Whether we attempt to live in harmony or discord with our neighbors. Whether we find beauty or sordidness in our relationships. Whether we want to reach out to make the world a better place, or only reach out to control it. All that you and I do is a living testament to our spiritual lives--or neglect thereof.

We can grow that part of our lives we call spiritual, and often with the help of psychology. As Thomas More wrote, making it clear there was no one best way to do this:

      We have to live that spiritual life which is ours -- somehow find some way to contemplate, to pray, perhaps, to find some imagery, poetry, paintings, sculptures, or some architecture that takes you to a place that is so much beyond yourself that it is part of your spiritual life.

My best experience with a psychologist came when I was studying for the ministry, juggling far too many things in my life, troubled about much of what was going on with me. I have always been a pretty independent, I-can-do-it-by-myself kind of person-rather typically Unitarian, so I should be able to solve my problems, I thought. And, I said as much to him, almost guilty that I was seeking help. He said something that I initially wanted to argue with, but have come to believe completely: Nancy, if you knew how to solve your own problems, you would have already done so. And, he was absolutely right. All the problems I could solve, I had solved. Sometimes we need another perspective. He helped me to fully appreciate just how much we need each other. And, how much a good psychologist can help us.

The fact that we are boundaried by our skins means that to some extent we are as an island (to contradict Donne slightly). Our growth and understanding depends upon what we learn by observation and teach. We need each other throughout our lives. We need help in learning to be all that we possibly can be, collectively, as fully developed people, and individually, as fully developed souls. We need each other, and we need the realm of science, and the truth of our spirits that comes from the realm of religion impulse we call spirituality. May the bridge between the two continue to widen and be strengthened, which will be a blessing to us all.

So be it.

 

January 19, 2003 Sermon

Rev. Nancy D. Dean

January 19, 2003

Journey Toward Wholeness: Our UU Response to Racism

Since even the News Journal has made football a front-page story for the last month, I know I am fighting a losing battle for some sanity around this successor sport to the gladiators. There was even a heated debate about the teams in my ministry group last week!

I have story that illustrates this football madness told by John Naster:

          In our area, there are a lot of football addicts. I was seated next to one guy at a football game not too long ago. There was an empty seat beside him. I asked about it.

          "It was my brother's, but he died," he explained.

              "Oh, I'm sorry," I said. Then as an afterthought I asked, "Isn't there someone else in the family who could use the ticket?"

          "No," he replied, "They're all at the funeral."

The subject of my sermon today is not so far a field from football, for if there is one area where race seems not to matter as much, it is in the realm of sports. All those coaches care about is who can run, pass, block, and whatever else they do, the best. So we have seen over the last thirty or forty years a steady increase in the numbers of non-white athletes in sports. I was rather surprised to learn that one of the leading young athletes in basketball is from China. Of course, racial justice issues are far from absent in sports, but at least access to play seems to have made drastic improvement.

Monday is the day when our country honors a true American hero, Martin Luther King, Jr., who fought with a passion for the rights of “the other”, not just Black Americans, but for civil rights for all. Rights you and I in this room pretty much take for granted. It is, though, the tendency to take things for granted that can often be the greatest barrier to wholeness, both for ourselves and for the world beyond our own homes.

Today I want to share with you our Unitarian Universalist response to the wide issues of racial justice. What we are trying to do to further the cause of educating ourselves about the few obvious problems, but far greater number of less obvious problems that keep race a capital P Problem in this country, and around the world.

From my former colleague, the Rev. Gary Smith in Concord, MA, as good a test as any professional could construct to gauge our own personal stance on social and racial justice:

          What is your attitude toward the stranger, toward one who is different from you, different in any manner of ways: skin color is theme of this three day weekend, but there is also class, age, gender, sexual orientation, the mentally ill, however it is that you are defined and ten being afraid of the one your are not.

Many of you long time UUs know that our UU community was at the forefront of support for the Civil Rights movement. Many Unitarians and Universalists in the 1950s, prior to our merger into the UUA, and in the years following, leading up to the 1964 Civil Rights Amendment, many people within our movement stepped out to take part in marches, organizing efforts, joining with our African-American brothers and sisters in a show of solidarity. UU minister James Reeb died in Selma, in 1965, marching with other UU ministers and others from other denominations, who came to support that cause and march with Dr. King.

Does that mean we were all ready to step out for these issues? Not surprisingly, No. And, now thirty-nine years after the Civil Rights Amendment, are we all in the same place, or even general neighborhood, of social justice thinking and behaving? Not surprisingly, No.

No, we still have a long way to go toward being on the same page around racial and social justice concerns. It is rather like being a parent: just because you get them grown up, through school, out of the house, does not mean you can quit worrying about them. It is a life’s work.

Some history, then, about where our Unitarian Universalist Association, the UUA, that is you and me, and all the other UUs who bother to participate, where we have gone as a faith community.

Despite the real work many UUs contributed to bringing the Civil Rights Amendment into being, not all UUs were then interested in that cause, and not all UUs today are interested in furthering civil rights. We are not all alike. In fact, as the civil rights movement turned towards the mid-60s “black power” movement, with increasingly rancorous debates about integration and ways to achieve a leg up for the long oppressed minority Black population, things began to get testier for many within our UUA. So much so, that some blacks and whites left the fold.

Over the next fifteen years, our UUA struggled to find a way to confront the new problems that surfaced following the Civil Rights Amendment. How to heal and how to grow spiritually around these issues, both became central to our UU leadership, and they still are. While we have also elected the first black UUA president, the only black president of any predominately white religious body, we still are working through the, any many ways, harder issues that were sure to arise following the achieving the Civil Rights Amendment.

On such move came in 1981, when the UUA Board of Trustees adopted the following anti-racism stance, reaffirming it in 1989:

          Recognizing the fact that institutional racism is embedded in American society in 1981, the Unitarian Universalist Association shall seek to eliminate racism in all its institutional structures, policies, practices, and patterns of behavior so it will become a racially equitable institution and can make an effective contribution toward achieving a similarly equitable society.

           

A number of initiatives came out of that call to action, one was to be intentional toward having a racial diverse staff at the UUA headquarters in Boston, another was a new staff position, created in 1987, to focus on racial and urban concerns, and the program begun at the General Assembly in 1992 in Calgary, called A Journey Toward Wholeness.

Jim Ryun once said of running a race:

          If you are not afraid to just go out and compete, then you will run your best race. But if you go out with a fear of something, even against yourself or against the clock, then you have lost the race before you start.

Not being afraid to just go at it, whatever it is, to be willing to tackle the tough stuff of life, is one virtue in our UU camp. It may not be comfortable, it may seem hopeless sometimes, but in large measure, we UUs are not afraid to talk about and act on the tough stuff. That is why not every person is well suited to being a UU, for it goes far beyond the freedom we encourage to explore one’s own personal spiritual understanding; in a UU congregation you will be challenged to go further.

I have said to a few people that about two-thirds of my sermons are written for myself, about the things, issues, problems that give me a rash on my conscience. It is so easy to get complacent, get comfortable, and forget the troubles of others. It is a very human problem.

Bill Cosby, who has probably achieved as much with comedy as many achieve with noble efforts said of parents: Parents are not interested in justice. They want quiet.

Well, isn’t that the case for most of us about anything that might stir up the calm waters of our souls. We just want quiet. We do not want any trouble. Live and let live, is what we say. Yet, what we forget is that our living will impact on another person’s living. We do not live our lives without consequences for other people with whom we come into contact every day, in one way or another. Or, whom we affect by our decisions in the voting booth, and in our houses of religion. Whether we speak to voice opposition to those things that might help the less fortunate, or do nothing to help, we are always doing something.

          There was once a golf match between an eminent Supreme Court Justice and an equally distinguished Virginia bishop. The bishop missed four straight short putts without saying a single word. The Justice watched him with growing amusement and remarked, "Bishop, that is the most profane silence I have ever heard."

About five years ago, Allan Cairncross and I presented a film that comes with the Journey Toward Wholeness program and curriculum. We had a positive reaction, with good attendance for the film. Allan and some other members of this congregation have gone on to work with a program developed by a Unitarian to bring people of diverse backgrounds, faiths, and races together in discussion groups called Study Circles. Most of these only last a few weeks, but Allan’s circle has continued on now for more than three years. That is the goal, that even as a program touches even one person, it spreads out into the community in such positive ways.

We have not done as much as I would have liked in the last few years, but one great hope I have, when we finally have a place to call our own, is that we can have a much more involved racial and social justice program than we have been able to before.

As the Journey Toward Wholeness anti-racism program literature states:

          This opportunity to dismantle racism and oppression will help to move all of us closer to the wholeness we yearn for. The Journey Toward Wholeness is a way of being and a way of working for change. It holds the possibility for new religious authenticity, transformative spirituality, justice seeking, advocacy, and action.

However we choose in this congregation to grow in the years to come, my hope is that we center that growth in a truly transformative spirituality. It is never enough to be cozy and comfortable in our own little sphere if others are suffering. And, we know quite clearly since 9/11/01, that we are talking about racial justice issues that go beyond our black brothers and sisters, to include many other minority groups in this country.

I remember this story as a case in contrast:

          Two buddies, Gary and Leland, took a safari vacation in the African backcountry. One day, they took a rest, removed their packs, and leaned their rifles against a tree. They were startled when a large, hungry-looking lion emerged from the jungle and began eyeing them with anticipation.

          It was clear that the two fellows’ rifles were too far away to do them any good. Gary began to remove his shoes, and Leland asked him why he was doing that.

          Gary replied, "Because I can run faster without them."

          Leland declared, "I don't care how fast you can run. You'll never out race that lion."

          The now barefoot Gary told him, "I don't have to outrun the lion. I just have to outrun you."

If our approach to the problems of people in the world is simply to outrun them, then we will have souls that are pretty barren. H. G. Wells, a very far thinking man, once said: Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.

Education is truly what will prevent catastrophe, and it is to educate ourselves in a way that expands our spirits that we UUs gather in large measure. Just think about our last and current UU presidents going to Iraq to learn more about the people, their condition, and so forth. The biggest lesson for them is that while Saddam Hussein is a tyrant, a dictator who cares little for his own people, the people of Iraq are not the tyrant. They are mostly ordinary citizens like you and me, wanting freedom, justice, and the pursuit of happiness.

The Journey Toward Wholeness is about that last word, wholeness. As my friend Rev. Gary Smith, in a similar sermon, quotes one of his teachers, Brother David Stiendl-Rast: Wholeness is not truly whole until it is all-inclusive.

Or, as our former UUA Moderator, Denni Davidoff has said: We have to learn to love the questions.

The big questions of do we care about racial diversity here and in the workplace and in the community? Do we value people of color? Do we believe that a Eurocentric expression of who we are and how we behave does not have an effect in the wider community?

And, Dennie finally asks: Can we get beyond our need to fix everything quickly, to begin a process that we will not likely complete in our lifetime?

We are sitting this morning in a building owned and operated by the Chinese American Community Center. We are grateful for their allowing us to use this space for the last eleven years. We have been using this space, but we have had very little contact with our Chinese friends of this center.

We live in a state that has had some brutal moments of racial violence. Our state has a sizeable African-American population, but we have minimal contact with black people out here in the suburbs.

We live in a country growing more racial diverse every day, but many still think of this as a white country.

We have a lot of questions to ask ourselves about why these things are true. We have a long journey toward wholeness ahead of us. We have a rather short road we call our life path in which to achieve much. How we mesh the two will mean a great deal to those who come after us.

I believe that all of life is spiritual, but only as positively spiritual as we decide to make it. And we make our lives more deeply and meaningfully spiritual by not being afraid to ask the big questions of ourselves and others.

So be it.

 

January 26, 2003 Sermon

Rev. Nancy D. Dean

January 26, 2003

The Face of UU: It is Good that We are Not All Like You

Before I can consider beginning my sermon, I have to acknowledge that this afternoon is the Super Bowl; and, despite the Eagles not being there, excitement is still high even here in Eagles’ country.

My spouse, a big fan who gets way too excited about the course of a football game had to agree with this definition of a football fan that I shared with him:

          A football fan is a person who will yell at the quarterback for not spotting an open receiver forty-five yards away, then head for the parking lot and not be able to find his own car.

And, a reminder about how rough this game is, comes from Floyd Little who was an All-American running back at Syracuse University, then played for the Denver Broncos, and he told this story:

          Dick Butkus of the Chicago Bears was one of the hardest hitting linebackers in football history. As a running back, you could never let the opposing team know they hurt you with a hard hit. One time I got hit harder by Mr. Butkus than I can ever remember. He hit me so hard I don't think there was any fluid left in my body.

          I didn't want to let him know how bad he shook me up, so I got up and said, "Is that all you got? Was that your best hit?"

          Butkus just looked at me and said, "You all right, Little?"

          I answered, "I thought you were a hard hitter, man." Again he asked me if I was OK. So I said, "Why do you keep asking me that, man?"

          Butkus looked at me with a smirk and said, "Because, Floyd, you're in the wrong huddle."

Religious life is occasionally like a football game with its huddles and plays, which somebody once defined as committee meetings, with chaos or violence in between.

One of the hardest things about being human is recognizing that while we share many traits in common with our parents, brothers, sisters, other relatives, and we even share many traits with other people to whom we are not related by blood ties, each one of us is a different person with thoughts and ideas that are unique to us alone. The reason this is hard for us, is that we find it amazing on some level that others have their own approach to any given idea or problem, though part of the strength of the human community comes from our ability to teach others our own points of view. This is how education developed, all learning in fact. We learn from each other. That is the front side, the back side of this human trait is that we want to convince people that our ideas are really the best, or the ideas of people we like and trust are the best-sometimes, even the only ones worth having.

Like some of you, I grew up in a religion that said there was only one way to be a good and faithful person, and that was to be Christian. But, it did not stop there. Furthermore, there was only one way to be a good and faithful Christian, and that was to be a Protestant Christian. But, it did not stop there; in addition, the only way to be a good and faithful, Protestant Christian, was to be baptized in a particular way, or to be born again. And so on. Along the way towards the development of this particular religious group, the ways of defining the group as the “right” kind of Christian group extended so as to point out the differences and to emphasize which were the “right” people and which were the “wrong” people.

I found this very troubling from my childhood onward, because it seemed to me that the emphasis ought to be on the “good” people versus the “bad” people.

But, either way, the idea, the notion, of one group of people or set of ideas is always being lifted up as superior to another. While I believe there are many people and ideas that are superior to others, the crucial test for me, as a Unitarian, is to be willing to live with the fact that not everybody in this room or in this wider faith movement agrees with me. It is not always easy to remember that.

Of course, lots of things in life are not easy. One thing that is definitely not all that easy is translating one language to another. I have a whole book of mistranslations like this one that was found in a Bucharest hotel lobby:

          The lift is being fixed for the next day. During that time we regret that you will be unbearable.

Well, perhaps all this matter of tolerance and acceptance has to do with what we find bearable or un-bearable.

My personal beliefs and your personal beliefs may sometimes, even often, overlap, that is always nice, but it is a great mistake for us as UUs to forget that we are also different in ways that truly challenge our understanding of this thing we call diversity.

UUs are people of all colors, different genders and sexual orientations, of different political persuasions, different origins, different theologies, and certainly unique perceptions. We are not all like you or me, and you do not have to be like any of the others of us.

It is one thing to agree with this in principle, and to the scope of this understanding is all there in our Seven Principles; but, it is another thing altogether to agree with this in practice.

Generally, people join any given group in part because of the similarities, or shared views, which is most often what brings us here together in our various groups. Strife develops when we find to our dismay that not everyone in our group shares our thoughts and feelings in other areas that are also dear to us.

One way that this comes home to me is encapsulated in a phrase I will hear from disgruntled members that goes something like this: Well, I believe in liberal religion, free faith, and so on, but this Christian UU stuff is “over the top.” Or this ne-opagan stuff, or God stuff, or Gay stuff, or Buddhist stuff-whatever stuff it is that they don’t like.

When I talk to new members, I always point out that in this congregation, and in all UUism, there are many different spiritual expressions. Some people draw mostly from their Unitarian or Universalist backgrounds (prior to the 1961 merger, we were two different religious bodies), others relate strongly to their Christian upbringing, others to Buddhism, Hinduism, neoPaganism, Transcendentalism, and so on. Some have rejected it all, and find spirituality in their living, and not in any well-known tradition. And, with no exception to date, I always hear that this is a good thing.

So what happens between this ideological agreement, this faith in the value of such real diversity, and our actual practice? As a reminder, we will have discussion following this sermon, and I ask you: What do you think happens that causes this breakdown between what we say and what we practice?

Some might say that it is plain old, unadulterated hypocrisy. Others might say that this stems from the disconnect between real knowledge and experience. Whatever the cause, all groups, and especially religious groups that express the free faith movement, are always dealing with this breakdown in human communication and action. This is usually the reason for conflict in groups, even groups of two we call marriages or relationships, because often what we want to believe we can do, we often are unable to actually do. and I try to make this point when I counsel young couples prior to unions or weddings.

When we are in love, especially young and in love, we think we can overcome all potential problems, but it is quite clear from the divorce statistics that we cannot. Religion is often one such area of conflict. For example, the young man may say, “I don’t care what religion she wants to raise our children.” Then, when the actual situation comes up, strife and stress ensue.

I knew a couple in West Newton where I did my internship for ministry, who came to the Unitarian church because of this problem. He had been raised a fundamentalist Methodist, she a Catholic, and both were rather “lapsed” in theirs faiths, and he thought it didn’t matter all that much. You know, Sunday School is Sunday School, but of course, they are not all alike, and he became increasingly distressed by what the children would tell him of their CCD (Catholic Christian Development) classes.

The real problem was that he did not bother to investigate further in those early days, and leaped to an unfortunate conclusion. My role in this was to remind them that to become a Unitarian Universalist is equally challenging, for the chances are always high, that they would not agree with or like everything they would learn about in this faith either.

I told them, as I continue to tell those new to our UU faith: We are not all like you. And, you do not have to be like any of the rest of us. We are truly diverse in our spiritual beliefs and practices.

Perhaps you suppose that as a Unitarian Universalist minister I like everything about our UU religion. If so, you are wrong. Ever since I first became a practicing Unitarian in 1984, I have had to learn to accept, first one thing, then another, of issues and ideas with which I was not all that comfortable. In the early days, I would worry a little bit, for fear that my struggle with some issue meant that I was not loyal enough, not faithful enough. Remember, that was my particular past experience coming through, that one accepted one’s religion hook, line, and sinker, or one would risk damnation.

I am reminded of a story that could have come from my home church:

          In the midst of a sermon, a man jumped up. "Brethren!" he shouted. "I have been a miserable, contemptible sinner for years, and never knew it before tonight!"

          A man in the nearby pew replied, "Sit down, Brother. The rest of us knew it all the time."

Despite my own personal “baggage,” and we all have such baggage, within a few years, I found that rather than get frustrated or upset by these experiences, I was actually participating in the best of what I found in this UU faith: real acceptance, true diversity, real life.

Over time, this struggle with our faith differences has become far less of an issue for me, but I am quite sure that another expression that is new or strange to me could pull me down to that earlier place. This need to keep growing and struggling with such life problems is a challenge for all of us.

My response now to such a situation would be if that happened to go back to the Principles. I would have to ask myself, as I ask you to do, to examine this difference or uncomfortable religious (or even personal expression) of being in the light of our Seven Principles.

Does this difference--regardless of whether one likes it or not-- does this difference hurt anyone else, respect others, honor the democratic process, fall under realm of the “free and responsible search for truth,” or the “right of conscience”? If the only problem that you or I have with some body else’s way of being religious is that we just don’t like it, then, the fact is, we are the ones who need to learn and grow.

This Unitarian Universalist faith will never be all things to all people. Nor will we ever be everything to any one person. The first results in no direction, the later in dogma.

Politicians often struggle with the problem of how to be principled, and accepting. One story tells about how back in the 1950s, then Senator Lyndon Johnson tried to get his fellow Democrats to put away their regional differences. But then he added:

          "Of course, I do not want to go as far as the Georgia politician who shouted from the stump in the heat of debate, 'My fellow citizens, I know no North, I know no South, I know no East, I know no West.'

          "To which a barefooted, freckle-faced boy shouted from the audience, 'Well, you better go back and study some geography!'"

That is good advice for us as UUs: we need to study the landscape of our free faith. It reminds me of when I went to live in Texas, just north of Dallas, in a university town with lots of people from all over the U.S., in fact, all over the world. This was in the 1980s when the Sunbelt was drawing hordes of people from the north and northeast in particular where the economies were very depressed. One would hear regularly some northerner belittling the traditions, the geography, the food, the accent of the Texans. It was not surprising that amidst this flocking of outsiders to their fair lands for good jobs, many Texans became resentful, and many sported bumper stickers on their vehicles that said, in effect, you were welcome to leave more than you were welcome to stay.

If nothing else, it was just plain bad manners to belittle the place that was giving you a living. The gripe I heard mostly, was, if boiled down to it’s essence: This is different from what I know and this is different from what want to know.

Perhaps it is because I spent many years studying and teaching English, but I love the language, especially all the different dialects or accents. As a study, dialect is an incredible look at history, and migration. This study taught me to be glad that we all do not sound like me with my bland, vanilla Idaho accent, even though it has been decorated over the years by the south, New England, and now the mid-Atlantic. I love, for example, the lilt of and the beauty of the speech of the deep south, which, by the way, is actually the closer to the accent the Mayflower arrivals would have spoken. The closest being that spoken by the folk of remote Appalachian villages--that is, until radio and television came into those areas.

How dull the world would be if we were all carbon copies of any one person. Variety, difference, is truly the spice of life. To know that our creation meant for this diversity. Yet, there is a paradox: that our long biological struggle for survival has set us up to want conformity, but to need diversity.

We are not all like you, and that is good, but what is better is that you need not be like me or the rest of us. Our goal is to try to find common ground; but, remember, a piece of common ground can be a colorful garden with many different flowers and plants.

This is my challenge for you, for us all: when something bothers you about a different spiritual path, ask yourself, Why does it matter? Is there any harm? Are my values truly superior to the other’s values? And the biggest two questions of all: Why should they be like me? Then ask: How does love figure in all of this?

Love begs for acceptance, for understanding, for a willingness to learn and grow beyond our own narrow selves. Love challenges us to be more. And, Love is the only doctrine of this community. Love, agape, and the acceptance of our differences great and small.

So be it.

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