Inherent Worth & Dignity ~ Even When the Majority Cries No

The Reading

Please Call Me By My True Names

by Thich Nhat Hanh

Don't say that I will depart tomorrow --
even today I am still arriving.

Look deeply: every second I am arriving
to be a bud on a Spring branch,
to be a tiny bird, with still-fragile wings,
learning to sing in my new nest,
to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,
to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.

I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,
to fear and to hope.

The rhythm of my heart is the birth and death
of all that is alive.

I am the mayfly metamorphosing
on the surface of the river.
And I am the bird
that swoops down to swallow the mayfly.

I am the frog swimming happily
in the clear water of a pond.
And I am the grass-snake
that silently feeds itself on the frog.

I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,
my legs as thin as bamboo sticks.
And I am the arms merchant,
selling deadly weapons to Uganda.

I am the twelve-year-old girl,
refugee on a small boat,
who throws herself into the ocean
after being raped by a sea pirate.
And I am the pirate,
my heart not yet capable
of seeing and loving.

I am a member of the politburo,
with plenty of power in my hands.
And I am the man who has to pay
his "debt of blood" to my people
dying slowly in a forced-labor camp.

My joy is like Spring, so warm
it makes flowers bloom all over the Earth.
My pain is like a river of tears,
so vast it fills the four oceans.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can hear all my cries and my laughter at once,
so I can see that my joy and pain are one.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can wake up,
and so the door of my heart
can be left open,
the door of compassion.

The Sermon

When Tom Fowler cashed in on his winning bid of a sermon on any topic, we hadn’t yet heard the words ‘marathon bomber.’  Tom’s request was to speak to how Unitarian Universalists reconcile our commitment to honoring the inherent worth and dignity in every human being with people who commit such hideous acts.  He gave as an example the extremist Islam jihadists and others responsible for acts of violence and ways of being that oppress others.

The answers I knew I would share have not changed with the recent turn of events.

The answers reside on a spectrum. Here at one end, the belief that all  people, regardless of belief systems, race, ethnicity, gender identity, affectional or sexual orientation, economic class, level of education, age, physical or mental abilities are worthy and welcome here in our community.  Here at the other end of the spectrum, the belief that all people, regardless of behavior are worthy at all.  Here resides the sea pirate, the religious extremist of Tom’s question the non-religious owner of violence, the oppressor extraordinaire. And all this distance in between. 

And all of us. In between.

I present to you my belief that at this end, we do pretty well, at least in thought if not always in action.  We as a community have placed a theological stake in the ground publicly that here we are clear in our belief that all people have inherent worth and dignity.  We write it in our hymnal, we proudly display it on banners, we hold posters in marches. We post it, tweet it and wear it. We seek to be in solidarity, at times righteous solidarity with all.  We take pride in our leadership in this area and, importantly, we can often be found confronting our own learning in this area that we may be as true to our claims as possible.

As we travel the spectrum, our lived commitment to that ideal is as varied as our beliefs in the divine. Like all humans we struggle with openness to ‘other’ and at times fall short, individually and institutionally. I know I do.

But for the most part, much of this distance, is active ground upon which we help each other along the journey, calling out to learn more, stretch more, reach more.  It’s almost as if the ground is shifting under our feet but we’re okay with it because we know it’s shifting and at various times we’re the ones with the rakes and shovels.  Up to a point.

For me, that point used to be the sea pirate.

Almost a decade ago, when I faced the ministerial credentialing body for entry into UU ministry, one of their questions was about the sea pirate.  I had written about him in one of the many required reflections.  I said “I still struggle with the sea pirate. But I’ve reached a place where I know I am called to see him as part of my world.”

·        Buddhism had brought me to a place where I knew in head and heart that to claim membership of the family human was to accept that our world is full of beauty and ugliness, moments of compassion beyond words and hideous acts of hatred, saints and sea pirates.  

·        Unitarian Universalism had brought me up to know in my head that each person was gifted by creation with inherent worth and dignity. 

·        As a child, youth and young adult human nature and the privilege of a mostly protected life had allowed and encouraged me to hide from dealing with the pirate at all.

·        The pathway deeper into my faith required I no longer hide.

In the  years prior to and following that meeting I sought  conversation and counsel with my mentors in life asking them the same question Tom asked of me.  One was a beloved mentor from BUSTH who had traveled to Palestine to meet with Yasar Arafat just prior to what became known as the Passover bombings. With tears in my eyes I asked him “as a religious leader, how do you make sense of evil in our world? And beyond that  what do you do, as a man of faith and as a leader?” In his response he challenged me to step into the experience and lve the answers. He then went on to say perhaps it was time to call up some of his peers (Jesse Jackson among them), get back on the plane, link arms and walk through Jerusalem knowing some of them might not return. His picture, with Arafat sits on my desk. 

I spoke with another mentor, a Unitarian Universalist minister, after the arrest of a paedophile who was on staff at a YMCA where I coached swim.  I asked her  ‘How do you minister to those who have committed violence against another human being, especially a child?”  She told me that in each case, she visualizes a heart wrapped around the person and it allows her to remain in a place of love and compassion.

These just two of my many teachers preparing me for the moment when I could, should and would meet the pirate. Each of whom knew I would have to find my own way. Each holding me to the call to do so.  Each knowing that this is the ONLY pathway to our better tomorrow and we all need to each other along the way.

And then it happened.  My sea pirate arrived here in our sacred home. In 2008 a man who had been convicted of some hideous crimes moved here to Marblehead. The neighbors were frightened and in their fear behaved in some worrisome ways. The person who had rented to this man was trying their best to help him relocate elsewhere. The situation was volatile. The man had been here on a non-Sunday but spoken of attending Sunday service. Should that happen, plans were in place to address safety concerns, particularly a way to prevent any engagement with our young people. He would be welcomed, but accompanied and following the service, invited into a covenant that would openly identify safety concerns and require agreement about participation. Further, we were in conversation about communications with our members and friends, particularly parents.

Remember the spectrum?  I would place us well up at this end, communally, as we navigated what it would mean to allow and, further welcome this person into our community.

We never needed to activate those plans. Before Sunday arrived, he showed up here one afternoon, an open bottle of vodka in a brown paper bag in hand, alcohol on his breath, tears in his eyes, an angry edge to his voice.  He was in crisis. Standing in this hallway, he shared publicly that he had been on the wagon for some years but because of the situation, the leaflets in the neighborhood, the newspaper reports, the hatred expressed directly at him, he had succumbed.   Without a whole lot of thought, I welcomed him into my office to talk. (I’ve already had the lectures about the wisdom or lack of wisdom in doing so.  One person who knows situations like this well gave me a caring and stern tour of my office pointing out each potential weapon along the way.  I don’t think she made it all the way to the deer antlers because she caught my attention with the fire poker on the hearth and the scissors on the desk.)

There we were.  I had a simple goal-that this man not leave to go home to a volatile situation with the alcohol. I believed that the opportunity existed for this one day could have a better outcome than seemed written on the wall, should the liquor leave with him. I won’t share the details of our conversation. Just as I won’t disclose any others held in the confidence of that office and this vocation.  I will only share that when he left, it was without the bottle.  And I have come to appreciate his willingness to be in that conversation with me – and to call him teacher

In the context of today’s message, however, what I want to share is the ‘thing’ that allowed me to be in the conversation at all.  My teachers were correct.  I would find my own way. Wise or not, this conversation was made possible by one belief.  The belief that we are all gifted with a preciousness at our birth.  And that we don’t become sea pirates by accident.  Something happens to us at the hands, heads and damaged hearts of others who at some point had something happen to them at the hands, heads and damaged hearts of others who at some point had something happen to them ………..but in the beginning each of us is so very precious.  So, when I looked at this man, with tears in his eyes, my phone in one hand ready to speed dial 911, and nearly doing so twice, I saw a precious child too.  A precious child failed somehow by us.  And that made all the difference.

What for me was most remarkable about that moment, in terms of my own journey, is how unremarkable it felt and yet how it altered me permanently.  It was one of those ‘once arrived, forever there’ moments in time.  In the same way that once you begin to understand white privilege and racist systems in our country, you see it everywhere.  Or how binary our society is when it comes to gender. Once I was able to see this man, who had committed hideous acts, as fully human and a child we had failed, I could be in relationship with him as fully human rather than demonic other, evil doer, enemy to the mother in me.

My heart having been cracked open once, it seems to have remained so in a way I could not have predicted.  While watching some piece of the coverage of the marathon bombings, my mind went to this question.  Has Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the young man arrested for the marathon blasts, been provided access to a chaplain? And what followed was the knowledge that were I there, it could be me and that would be fine.

That is my personal testimony, that to see the preciousness each of us received as a child and to know that our world has somehow failed the person who lands in evil acts – or the people who land in evil acts, is how I reconcile the call to see the inherent worth and dignity of every human being.  But to your fine question, Tom Fowler, I add another. Why care at all? It’s a natural question for we of the always questioning faith.

One of my favorite lines in the Bible comes from Micah chapter 6, verse 8. “He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”  Most of you know I’m not a theist but I am a believer.  A believer in making meaning of our lives, finding the timeless messages in the world’s sacred texts and using them to find and fuel our power -  for good.  This line in Micah has always spoken to me because of its simplicity – be kind, travel humbly, do justice (or in some translations love mercy). And I love it because I see it as that piece of divine messaging written upon our souls.  That this is our great collective calling, invoked and inspired by many names and none at all.  That we have the obligation and power to make good with each moment of our lives.  It is a stunning power and this spectrum is the path upon which we are called to use it.  We have the power to add kindness, compassion and a wish to understand another human being into the atmosphere each time we relate to another OR we can offer our bodies tight with anger, hatred, and a coldness that signals we are shut down to the possibility that the person before us has worth and dignity.  And I’m not just talking about the sea pirate –the doer of horrific deeds.  No, I’m talking the whole spectrum here.  Strangers and those closest to us.  Our partners, neighbors, children, fellow congregants, friends --- ourselves.

Our faith, Tom Fowler and all who will hear, calls us to understand that we are all of the people, from saint to sea pirate, and that we the people have the collective power to make things better.  But it can only be in relationship with one another. 

May we embrace our power to make it so.