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.
