Spirit-led Voting ~

Body spiritual ~ Body Political

A sermon offered at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Marblehead on Nov 4, 2012

Who here is sick to death of this election season?  Who has found the ads, the never-ending rhetoric soul sucking?  The negativity is so demoralizing.  I worry what it says about who We are.  I worry about good people turning away from a life of service because they look at this process and say NO WAY.  NO WAY for themselves.  NO WAY for their families.  For me I think the tipping point was the analysis of the analysis of the debates.  It seemed to go on for days.  I wonder if it ultimately received more coverage than the storm.  I hope not.  There was a moment I was actually moved to say STOP!  I know that sounds dramatic and all I really did was reach for the remote control and push off – but I did it really quickly!  And, I did utter the words ‘STOP’ and shook my head in disbelief!  It was when they started analyzing the body language of the presidential candidates’ wives pre- and post-debate, saying ‘How she did this with her mouth’ or ‘this with her arms' --- well  that, said it all.  I turned off the television quickly because I was afraid they would start to analyze the children and grandchildren.  Whether they were there or not and what that meant.  What they wore and what that meant.  What their body language said about the performance of their father or grandfather.  For me, it was finally too much.

And yet, here I am bringing it right into this sanctuary.  But before you race to turn off this form of media.  Please hear me out!  Even were it permitted, and it is not, today’s morning message will not include an endorsement of any candidate or a smearing of another.  It’s about our bodies and souls.  The body spiritual and the body political.

People have argued that politics and religion don’t mix.  World history tells us something different about that, doesn’t it?  And current history as well.  Politics and religion have always been entwined.  Battles, wars, marriages, the trinity itself – all tied up in politics.  And today, fights over BGLTQ rights, birth control, prayer in schools, money – all tied up in politics.    But how about spirituality and politics.  That is a different conversation.  Where there is an institution, power, money, sometimes land and silver is at stake when politics and religion mix.  There are prizes to be won.  But isn’t the equation quite different when we step inside of ourselves and look at our individual spirits and then ask ‘Where now resides politics?’

For many I think the answer is a loud ‘NOT HERE!’  I think I understand why.  I think there are many who seek deeper spirituality as a place of purity, of quiet, of contemplation and perhaps revelation.   I, however,  come to a different conclusion.  For me the answer is “RIGHT HERE.”  And for the same reasons – because it is a place of purity, of quiet, of contemplation and perhaps revelation. 

We are complex beings – we humans.  As we grow we mature in so many different ways.  We mature physically, intellectually, socially, sexually, financially, ethically, spiritually and politically. As I matured physically I was able to reach more things, lift heavier objects and as I continue to mature physically, I understand those two processes will reverse!  But I also learned what pieces of the earth make my heart sing.  I learned the best use of my body is in a swimming pool teaching others.  I learned that being in a room with charcoal, an eraser, sketch pad and a model allows my body to create beautiful lines.  I have watched similar awakenings in each of the other strands of maturations I listed.  

It should not be a surprise that I’m drawn to the spiritual thread!  My vocation calls me to focus most on spiritual maturity, my own and inviting others into furthering their own.  What I know is that I mature as a spiritually being I am less and less able to act in any portion of my day in a manner that is not in keeping with my values.  It took me a year, but I’m now using recyclable K-cups in the coffee maker because it bothered my spirit to  keep creating more plastic waste.  When I last car shopped efficiency was key as I sought to reduce my carbon footprint.   I continue to train on my bicycle with a goal of eliminating some car travel all together.  I was called to put my body on the line for human rights in Arizona.   I have far to go before my body spiritual is in complete charge and life as a human being on this treasured planet is in complete synch with what creation intended or what is a very best outcome, but I do find with each year, my body spiritual is  more often than not, leading the way.   And so, when the political season arrives, many months before any election as it is wont to do, there it is more often than not, right in the center.   That place of purity, of quiet, of contemplation and perhaps revelation, grounding me in who I really am, how I am connected to the world and what matters most.  

I was once invited to participate in an exercise that I have never forgotten.  It altered my relationship with money.  It didn’t get me any more money but it changed how I saw money and how I chose to use money.  I was at a training run by UU lay leader Dr. Helen Bishop and she had us all sit in a circle.  She then asked us to get out our wallets, checkbooks or a piece of paper we could use to write an IOU.  She said something like “In a few minutes, we are all going to put some money in the circle.  After that, we will decide as a group what to do with the money.  We can decide anything other than return it to ourselves.  What you are tasked with doing right now, is deciding how much money you need to put in in order to care about the outcome.” Differently put we had to figure out how much of our money made it worth caring about where it went.

I don’t remember how much I put in.  What I do remember was that it was not a time in my life that I had much discretionary income so it really made me think. But the amount was certainly more than it would have been had it simply been a call to donate to X, Y or Z and perhaps most importantly, having been through the exercise, my participation in the conversation about the decision what to do with that money changed.  And that was the point.  By setting the scene just as she did, Helen, required that we get in touch first with our values, not knowing an outcome, only that if our values were attached to our contribution, we would care more, be more thoughtful, show up more fully than if that were not the case.   And perhaps follow-through.

So it is with the intersection of the body spiritual and the body political.  I invite us all to engage in a similar exercise.  To sit quietly in that place of purity, quiet, contemplation and revelation.  To be in touch with our values, our body spiritual.  The place inside that knows what we hold dear above all things, and what we hold dear after that and after that and after that.  And then consider each of our votes and then, most importantly – cast them.  Cast them proudly and strongly knowing that what is attached to each is our most core, spiritual self.  We won’t all agree. 

On Thursday night, my dear colleague Rabbi David Meyer and I presented our views about Question #2, Death With Dignity.  We did so in a room where we knew we would vote differently but we agreed to share our hearts ---  our body spiritual and how each of us knew it would guide our body political.  What mattered in that room was not that either of us swayed others to vote as we would vote.  It was to invite others into their own deep reflection on what it was they held most dear and to let that guide them in their decision.

That is my great hope, as the spiritual leader of this congregation.  That each and every one of us, participate on Tuesday, but that we sit quietly first, body spiritual and body political fully engaged and then go cast our votes.  Knowing our votes represent the very best of who we are and hope to be ~

Affirming Life (Why My Vote is 'YES' to MA Question #2 - Death With Dignity

*As part of our commitment to promote civil discourse on complex issues, the Marblehead Ministerial Association held a panel presentation on A Question #2, Death With Dignity. Member, Rev. Susan Morrison moderated.  Panelists included Rabbi David Meyer, Dr. Kerry Pound, Dr. Suzana Makowski and me.  What follows are my comments.

For me, this isn’t a question about death.  It’s a question about life.  How is it we want to spend the last minutes of living, who gets to choose and what our options might be.  Having sat with so many people during their last days of living I have enormous respect for the wish to be able to choose how one spends those last days.  While science and medicine have made enormous strides in pain management, some people endure hideous endings.  Certainly, for some, a wish to live as long as possible and to die 'naturally' is a cognizant choice.  I have watched people go to extraordinary lengths to live longer and dip into stores of unimaginable strength to bear pain.  I have admiration for those people.  It was their choice.

I have also watched people give up on life with what seemed to me, too little fight.  People who said no to drugs, to treatment, to what some might say was life.  It took more work for me to find admiration for those people, but I did, because it was their choice. 

And I have watched people all along the spectrum.  Those who tried one more thing so they could live to see a grandchild’s wedding.  Those who survived rounds of chemotheraphy to the benefit of their health but who told me privately “I will never do that again.  It wasn’t worth it.  If I had known, I would have opted out.”  I had and have admiration for each because it was their choice.

We live in a complex world, made more complex by science.  We are faced with scientific capacities at times ahead of our ethical, moral and spiritual capacities.  We have living wills, Do not resuscitate orders, and hospice care.  But what we have always had is choice.  Whether it was legal or not, people have been choosing all along.  In conversation with a relative I just found out an uncle dying of lung cancer had a stash of pills under his mattress – almost 30 years ago.  The Hemlock Society formerly began in 1980 seeking to provide information to people and supporting physician-assisted suicide.  The opportunity we have today is to stop seeing this choice as criminal or morally less-than whole or cowardly.  Our current system is cited as protective but it, in fact, criminalizes a path many already take to alleviate horrific suffering.  This places an unnecessary pain upon family members and friends. It often requires the loved person at the center to hide pain, hide pills and ultimately, hide their death.  All this at a time when, in the healthiest of circumstances, we are surrounded by those we love, supported in all we wish to do and held as we complete our living.  To have our last living marred by a denial of a valid choice is not life affirming.

I’d like us to stop even seeing it as suicide.

Dying is a part of our living.  It comes in many forms.  We see murder as a horrific assault to life.  Suicide as a sad ending.  Accidents as tradgedies.  Each are different endings and invoke different emotions.  Dying as we approach an inevitable ending is its own kind of ending and one that uniquely invites our cognizant and informed involvement – should we so choose.  For those whose final days, weeks and month include great suffering, that involvement can be life affirming.

I will tell you that I had some serious questions as I approached this vote.  I have had close ties with the special needs community all of my life.  I spend 6 hours in a pool with children with special needs each week, coach children, youth and adults on a special Olympics swim team and lead an interfaith worship group specifically designed  for people of all ages with special needs, their families and friends.  I worry about the existing abuses in this community and know it to be an historically marginalized at-risk community.  The questions I took to this question, question #2, was where are the protections?  Does passage increase the risk to this population?  Does the benefit extend to this population?  My conclusions are that we need continued vigilance in our entire society toward the protection of marginalized communities, we need to root out current abuses in elder homes, homes for those with disabilities and in medical facilities and schools.  This bill neither solves those problems nor increases them.  It is my hope that it encourages greater levels of attention in that larger system.

And now, I want to speak as a daughter.  My father struggled with Multiple Sclerosis for over a decade.  He died just four years ago.  I say struggled because it was a struggle.  Emotionally, physically and spiritually.  I watched him lose things each year.  We all did.  We watched a man who skied, sailed, walked to the beach with his grandchildren, danced beautifully, walked, traveled, carved wooden ducks, filled his many birdfeeders, go out to lunch with his friends, the Romeos (Retired Old Men Eating Out) lose these things and mourn each one.  With each loss came some sadness, some depression, some adjustment and then he would live on.   As is the case in many families, we each played different roles.  My mother, his beloved, still danced alongside him, as beloveds do, focusing on what he could do, how to support him best, even learning to administer shots and other medications.  Me – he chose me to talk about pain.  In quiet moments when it was just the two of us, he would say ‘the worst thing, the very worst thing is the pain.’ It could be hideous. He told me once that he had a stash of pills.  All I did was listen.   I think his doctor knew.  They may have even discussed it.  He never used those pills.  But it meant something to know he could.  That if the pain became too great, he could choose to complete his living, on his terms.

This was a man who had the very best medical care.  Team Ted was grand.  He had pain management.  He had an integrated team who spoke to each other across hospitals.  He had a close and loving family able to provide anything he needed for comfort.  He was strong.   And he wanted to have the choice to say the pain is too great.  I’m done.

Was he depressed?  Who wouldn’t be.  And that depression was treated during his illness.  This bill invites a close look at depression.  But I also want to speak about our rights to our feelings.  Depression from a loss of the ability to travel or the loss of the ability to ski is something to seek help in getting over.  I think we all can see that.  Depression from the loss of driving, the loss of dancing with your beloved.  That’s harder but surely, help getting past that sadness is welcome.  I think we can probably agree on that as well.  Depression from losing the use of your legs or being able to speak.  Now we’re in tricky territory.  That’s pretty depressing even to say.  I think folks in that territory have some heavy lifting to do and I hope they want help doing it, but I can’t say you ought to get past that.  But I am clear that when it comes to depression because I’m about to die.  I support feeling the depth of that emotion.  It’s real, it is depressing.  It’s sad.  It’s full of I’m leaving all this beauty.  I cannot find anything to be ‘fixed’ or gotten over.  For me, the worry that someone’s depression at that point will cloud their decision is one thing, but the answer isn’t to change the depression, it’s to be sure they are clear on their wishes as they move forward.  The assumption should not be they are choosing to end their living because they are sad.

A couple of weeks before my dad died, I watched him in agony at the hospital.  He then slipped off into a nonresponsive state.  After some time, Hospice was engaged and we were preparing to have him moved.  Suddenly he popped back into our lives.  He lived for a bit more.  Did we take advantage of those moments?  Of course we did just as we treasured each and every moment leading to his death.  But had he chosen to use his pills two weeks earlier who would have been robbed?  Us, for not having those final goodbyes?  Us, left wondering what if a discovery were made that next week that would help cure MS?  Me, because I wanted my Dad to live forever? 

For me, the spiritual question is not how can it be okay for any one of us to decide when to end our lives.  Rather it is how can we find the generosity of spirit and the strength to affirm when a loved one says ‘it’s time to end my suffering.  Please tell me you love me and then show me by letting me go.”

Who are the Unitarian Universalists?

 A Sermon Delivered on Sept 23, 2012

Aliza:       Why did the Unitarian-Universalist cross the road?*
Wendy:   To support the chicken on its own journey

*this and the following jokes assembled and at times adapted from a variety of online sources

Wendy:   What do you get when you cross a UU with a Jehovah’s Witness?

Aliza:        Someone who knocks on your door and doesn’t know what to say.

Aliza:       Why can’t UUs sing very well in choirs?

Wendy:   Because they’re always reading ahead to see if they agree with the next verse.

Wendy:     How does a UU walk on water?              

Aliza         She waits until winter.

Aliza:       What do you get when you cross a televangelist with a Unitarian Universalist?

Wendy:     A television show that demands money from you for no particular reason.

Aliza:        Have you seen the new UU bumper sticker?   “Honk If You’re Not Sure.”

Wendy:     have you heard the one that says a Unitarian is just a Quaker with Attention Deficit Disorder?

Aliza:         how about the sign at the Unitarian church that said: Bible study at 7:00. Bring your Bible and a pair of scissors.

Wendy:               Didja hear the one about the UU monastery. All are welcome, but to allow for peaceful contemplation, you must take a vow of silence -- unless you think of something REALLY good!

Aliza:         How about the two roadsigns on the way to heaven?  One says, “This way to heaven.”  The other says, “This way to a discussion about heaven.”  UUs always pick the second way

Wendy:     How many Unitarian Universalists does it take to change a light bulb?”  

Aliza:         Does the light bulb really want to change?

Wendy:     Yes

Aliza:         “Well then, We choose not to make a statement either in favor of or against the need for a light bulb.  However, if in your own journey you have found that a light bulb works for you, that is fine.  You are invited to write a poem or compose a modern dance about your personal relationship to your light bulb and present it next month at our annual light bulb Sunday service.  We explore a number or light bulb traditions including incandescent, fluorescent, three-way, long-life and tinted; all of which are equally valid paths to spiritual luminescence.”

Wendy:               Did you know they even joke about us on radio -this one is from Garrison Keillor: There are the folks in Lake Woebegon who have a big satellite dish and get 500 channels on their TV – including the surgery channel, the fishing channel, and the Unitarian Channel, which is what the fishing channel would be like if they didn’t actually put the fish hooks and lines in the water, but just sat around and discussed whether or not there really are fish.

Aliza:        Yeah – on TV too!  On the Simpsons, at a church Ice-cream social –

Lisa: “What flavors do you have?”
Rev. Lovejoy: “Well, chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, and our new Unitarian flavor ice cream.”
Lisa: “I’ll have that” (Rev hands her an empty bowl)
Lisa: “But there’s nothing in there.”
Rev: “Eeeexactly.”

Wendy & Aliza    And of course there’s the top ten, you know you are a Unitarian Universalist when

You may be a Unitarian Universalist if:

* you think socks are too formal for a Summer service.
* you know at least 5 ways to say “Happy holidays!”
* your idea of a guy’s night out is going to a N.O.W. rally.
* you think the Holy Trinity is “reduce, reuse and recycle.”.
* the only time “Jesus” is mentioned at church is when someone trips or stubs a toe.
* the name of your church is longer than your arm.
* you find yourself rewriting a church survey, rather than taking it.
* you study the “ten suggestions” instead of the “Ten Commandments.”
* to explain your personal theology, you have to use interpretive dance.
* you take your day planner to church instead of the Bible. 

I have to tell you that while I am not a big fan of UU jokes, they don’t really bother me.  At least they don’t bother me in the same way one comment often attributed to our faith does.  That line?

Aliza:           Oh you don’t have to believe anything!

Wendy:       Or

Aliza:           you can believe whatever you want! 

ARGHHHHH!  On a clinical level, I suppose that is true – BUT --- argggg it makes us sound like belief isn’t important at all.  That it’s an easy faith.  Oh – anything you want!

MORE ARGHHHHH

And yet, well meaning people say it every day.  You may have said it – perhaps I’ve even said it ---- I don’t think I really have, but many, many people I know and love and respect have!

I think it’s said so often because it’s easy and it’s mostly true and it doesn’t take much of ourselves to offer that line up.  Which is good because as a group, we are generally pretty busy! Who are the UUs?  Oh, anyone really!  What do they believe?  Oh, anything they want!  It’s such an easy answer, and mostly true.  And yet, too easy and not entirely true.  And may I just say ‘lackluster and unsatisfactory and bordering on dismissive and even dangerous!”   I may be overstating just a tad on the dangerous, but I think I’m on safe ground with the dismissive!

And so, Today as we welcome new members into our community I’d like to offer up some different language to the question of who are the Unitarian Universalists?

Before you get worried let me assure you that this won’t be a history lesson!

Sure, it would be interesting to some – you know, to hear about our King over in Transylvania who in the 16 century became the 1^st and only UU king after hosting a panel on the question of religion.  About how he, and his mom, Queen Isabella, chose Unitarianism after listing to the choices but more importantly issued the Edict of Torda – insisting on religious tolerance.  And Michael Servetus, our forebear who was burned at the stake for writing on the errors of the trinity – and how Universalist John Murray landed right here in New England, well got stuck actually on a low tide and in a sort-of build-it and they will come story, ended up preaching in the church that was just waiting for his message of a loving God.  That way you’d know that yes, we are old – very old – not to be confused with the Moonies – and yes, emerged from Christianity but no, aren’t mostly self-identified as Christian now.  And if I really got going we could name names, leaders, and authors, and poets, and presidents even – were we to name drop, you’d probably hear about the Adams – as in John and John Quincy.

And, were I to be dwelling on such things, it might even be helpful to offer up some theological background – you know, that Unitarianism was a heresy to the trinity – that God was one rather than three, and that Universalism was also a heresy – inviting followers to believe God was a loving God who would let all creation’s children into heaven.

But if I did that, I’d probably have to go only to add our transcendentalists like Theodore Parker, Thoreau and Emerson – those who said ‘we don’t need anyone in between ourselves and the divine.  And then I’d have to tell you about the humanists and how our faith grew to include many understandings of God,  which is different, I think, than saying ‘oh – it doesn’t matter what you believe!’

And actually, were I going on about all of this, I’d likely be saying over and over again --- these people were believers – with a capital B.  It mattered that they believed and it mattered WHAT they believed and then it mattered what they DID.  What they were carving out was a way of being in religious community with an expansive understanding that each of us could hold pieces of truth, even if they were in opposition to one another ... and that a gem of our faith was in talking about those differences – dare I say even celebrating them.

And === gosh, just when you began to worry about how this was all about theology, I’d probably feel like I had to explain how justice seeking was embedded in that faith from the start and I’d probably talk about some of our heroines and heroes.  People who lived our faith out loud and large and proud BELIEVING that to be a person of religion one had to live a faithful life.  Perhaps informed by differing beliefs but formed together as a people who could, should and would make our world better for all creation’s children.  And maybe, just as I was about to go on a whole riff of how we were on the leading edge of justice seeking work, well, I know, were I on such a trajectory, I’d feel compelled, called even, to say it’s not just about who we were and are, it’s about who we are not

That we can be just as fundamental as other faiths.  That although we were birthed in beliefs that no one person or religion or lack of religion holds the truth, we lose sight of our best selves, often and live with an intolerant edge to those we assume are not like us.  That although we were weaned on justice-seeking events – we cannot call our work complete.  That it’s not enough that we were in Selma, we are a people who practice racism too.  It’s not enough that we worked for fair labor practices, educational reform, the right for women to vote and marriage equality, we oppress people too.  At times through our silence and inaction, but more importantly through our lives of privilege in systems built upon oppressing and exploiting others.  I’d get serious at that point, because I’d really want to be heard and too often when we travel to difficult places in our own identities – we get defensive and shut down.  And so, were I speaking to you of such things, I’d talk gently and say ‘it’s not about blame – that’s not who we are,’ but it is about seeing the truth, about embracing solidarity even when we’ve a price to pay and it’s so, so, so rich and so central to who we are.  And we have much to celebrate, as we continue to move forward, widening our circle across borders of all kinds.  And in that space, I’d remind us that sometimes in the celebration of who we are, we forget that we are best in relationship with other faiths and secular communities rather than in believing we are something better.  I’d stay in that gentle space once more to remind us that the something better is ín relationship’ with all other people who are something other than who we are. Maybe I’d start in on examples of when we do that really well --- and who are leaders in such efforts have been --- and then,  I hope I would catch myself and say --- you know who they were isn’t the point either.

And I’d take a breath and say, you see, who the Unitarian Universalists are, well, look around it’s you.  It’s you and me and all that formed us before we arrived, all that binds us now as a group, and please hear --- it’s all that we might be – should we so choose to believe. 

Who are the Unitarian Universalists?  It’s really quite simple, so I don’t know why I’d ever go on and on about it!

We are the Unitarian Universalists. 

Those who are here Today, choosing religious community

Believing that Together we are more

Moving toward a better tomorrow, for ourselves, for our communities, for our planet, our world for all creation’s children

We ARE the Unitarian Universalists, today, together, toward a better tomorrow!

May it be so.

The truth about beauty ~

The Truth about Beauty ~

(also known as why you should take your child/youth/self to Sunday school!)

A sermon preached at UU Marblehead, MA Sept 16, 2012

There is a YouTube video I wanted to use as a reading this morning but it seemed to me a tad too jarring for a Sunday morning worship experience.   It begins with an image of a young girl. Perhaps second or third grade.  She has a beautiful fresh face, and reddish hair, She is bright eyed and alive.  She seems to be looking into the camera with a curiosity. 

Next, you see the word ‘onslaught’ and then the song begins.  “Here it comes, here it comes, here it comes!!!!!

AND THEN images fly one after another in a frenzy of color, skin and makeup.  Images of scantily clad model-thin, heavily made up women.  The images are highly sexualized.  As these images fly by, selling undergarments, perfume, diet aids, clothing and food substitutes, words appear --- thin, diet, transform, skin, better, smooth away.  “you’ll look younger, smaller, lighter, tighter, softer, thinner”.

Next a young woman in underwear on a scale in a time lapse series that has her body grow and shrink and grow and shrink.  Images of a bulimic episode fade off to a woman getting breast implants followed by images of cosmetic surgery, markers drawing on bodies and faces followed by removals of some pieces, additions of others, changing a body into something it was not, has never been, somehow longs to be.

A lone sentence appears on the screen – “Talk to your daughter before the beauty industry does.”  You see the little girl once more.  Now walking with classmates.  Her hair bouncing just so, her mouth sporting lipstick, her gaze somehow different – as if for an audience rather than for herself.  No longer with curious eyes looking out to see, rather waiting to be seen, judged, affirmed.

The whole thing takes 1 minute and twenty seconds.

This short is part of a wonderful series by Dove – you know, the soap people.  You may recall an earlier short, called Evolution.  Using time-lapse photography it showed a woman being made-up, hair styled and “beautified.” Then showed how her already beautiful image was altered using a computer program.  Her eyes and mouth made larger, eyebrows raised higher, neck stretched longer and pieces on each side cut away to make it thinner. The results appeared on a billboard.  Essentially an unachievable beauty being portrayed as ideal and true.

These films and others are part of a program Dove has to reclaim and rebuild self-esteem in girls.  One short shows images of young girls with words suggesting what is on their minds:  She wishes she didn’t have freckles, she wishes she wasn’t fat, she wishes she had blond hair

            Another film shows girls in gymnastics, ballet and swimming, along with the captions – “will skip gymnastics” “will drop out of ballet” “will stop swimming lessons.” And the fact that of 302 girls aged 10-17, half dropped out of physical activities like these because they felt bad about how they looked.

Another includes a young girl telling how her waist isn’t thin enough, another how she isn’t pretty so people don’t talk to her at school, another recalling the first time she was told she was ugly and then a young woman, now mother, telling of how she came back to school one fall terribly thin and people started talking to her and she felt popular.  That same year she was hospitalized from anorexia.

            The focus is on girls in these series but it wouldn’t be hard to image what they would look like if they were made for boys - Images of muscles, square jaws, sculpted arms, business suits, weights, sports equipment, words like earn more, wealth, power. Then the thoughts --- I hope I won’t lose my hair.  I hope I don’t look gay.  I wish I were taller, stronger, hairier, less hairy, better, better, better.

            And what would we imagine for our transgender youth – even here in this liberal, progressive slice of our comparatively liberal progressive country, the majority message is clear – abnormal.    And our gay, lesbian and bisexual youngsters?  Our differently abled children?  Our Muslim children?  Our Atheist children?

            To be sure --- not all the messaging out there is negative – In the music industry, we have Pink’s song – pretty, pretty please – don’t you ever feel like you less than, less than perfect  and Lady Gaga’s  – Born this Way -  I’m beautiful in my way – I was born this way.

            And there are champions trying to change the media industry –champions like 14 year old Julia Bluhm, from Waterville, Me., who started an online petition to get Seventeen Magazine to print at least one unaltered picture a month. She was frustrated that fellow ballet students were complaining they were fat.  Her online petition drew over 80,000 signers within days, altered how Seventeen uses their photos and helped birth Seventeen’s Body Peace Treaty.   A document that calls teens to seventeen different promises, including ‘know that I am already beautiful just the way I am.’

            But it’s not the mission of Seventeen, nor the music industry or even those who sell soap, unless they choose it to be.  With gratitude to Dove, for their exceptional work,  I invite you to consider the power and consistency and strength of the message our young people are fed every day.  The jarring part of that Dove video was that the rapid-fire imaging is true.  It’s everywhere!  Even the most protective parents aren’t able to shield their children. 

            In a world so well equipped to ‘speak’ to our children and to ‘teach’ our children what is good and what is beautiful, what is worthy, the need to be grounded by the truth has never been more important.  The truth that each and every one of them is worthy, is good, is beautiful.  Each and every one of them.    That message needs to be written in permanent ink on every soul as an inoculation to the whirlwind media messaging of our world.  Further we need to place a heart on each of those innocent souls reminding them they are loved.  Not because of the clothes they wear, the way they look, the things they do.  Loved, because they deserve to be loved.  And they deserve to be children.  And after we’ve written that message on their soul and etched that heart, we  need to point to the golden thread that connects each soul together and remind them that they are part of the human family – brothers, sisters, siblings all and that the message within telling them they are worthy and good and beautiful, well that is written inside of their world siblings too --- the child on the playground they aren’t too fond of, the boy who wears the too-short pants and the new student who sorta looks like a girl and sorta looks like a boy – that student has the heart and messages too.  And we need to check to be sure the message and the heart never, ever get written over or laser-beamed off.  Because what we know is that they will need those when they are 14 and 18 and 22 and 29 and 30 and when they are each of our ages too.   How many here, I wonder, look into a mirror and see beauty?  How many of us are immune from the years of images, pounded at our doors?  Our intellect may tell us something different, but I know I still react to what is portrayed, and has always been portrayed as the beauty ideal.

            The messages that tell us we need more, should eat less, weigh less, drink this, do that, be that all so we can be better-off, better-liked, better-whatever ------ it’s aimed at us too. 

            Have we forgotten the message once written on our souls?   That we are worthy, good and beautiful.  And the little heart to remind us we were loved-just as we are.  And the golden thread reminding us we were all connected.  Or was it ever written at all?

            I know mine was.  I was lucky.  I was raised in a Sunday school just like this one, went to Sunday services and youth group and continued wherever I lived.  I recall with clarity and fondness explaining to a summer friend that at school I had my jock friends, my smart friends, my wild friends and my church youth group friends.  I was as clear then as now what connected us.  Jock friends - Sports, smart friends - AP classes, wild friends - smoking pot in the cemetery, youth group friends - being accepted and accepting for exactly who we were, together.  It’s remarkable when I gaze back at who was in that group.  Not a one overlapped with my other friends.  But I knew what it was that connected us and I treasure it still.

I know what I learned each of those groups.  Teamwork and good sportsmanship with the jock group.  Study habits, writing, analysis and debate skills in that academic group. Being outraegeous – and things I won’t list from my wild group.  Being accepted just as I am and accepting others from my church group.  Not from a minister, though there is one I adored, not from a religious educator, though our children’s minister was one of the UU pioneers, not even a youth group leader, though they were great too – it was something larger than any one piece.  It was the lived faith evident when I was there, in worship or class or play or youth group --- and in how I witnessed those same people out in the community. The something larger wasn’t a deity, for me, but it was as grand, perhaps more grand.  It was a call to a truer, better self that started with this baseline understanding that you were worthy, beautiful and loved.  And that so was the person to your left, to your right, regardless of what they believed, wore or drove.

            And that’s when and where the message was written on my soul.  And the little heart was etched, telling me I was loved – not just by my family, but by an entire community of people who agreed that it was how it should be.  And that’s when I learned about that golden thread that couldn’t be broken.  That no matter what happened in my world, I was connected.  That I would be cared about --- but that I had to care too. 

            Those three things have served me all of my life.  They anchor me.  They inform me in all things.  And when I am lost, as can happen to any of us on our journeys, they save me.  They and the community that holds them dear.

            I don’t imagine anyone is surprised by the onslaught of images I shared today.  I think we’ve become pretty accustomed to the world of messaging and perhaps even believe ourselves immune.  But the costs we pay in our children’s souls is hefty and it’s growing.  It’s not just about beauty; it’s about consumerism and success and what defines being a good person, leading a good life.   Those aren’t things I want defined by business.

            Here we offer something to counter that messaging.  Something to save our children when they get lost.  Something to supplement the messaging in the family home and help children see it’s not just their parents.

Here is where you’ll hear how beautiful and worthy you are.  Here you will feel loved and accepted.  Here you will learn about that golden thread.  You’ll learn how to tug it when you need help and how to respond when you feel tugged.  

            Here is where a child can learn that the stone washed jeans she wants impact the health of another girl her age or that the bag she absolutely has to have was made by children who must labor if their family is to eat.  Where a child can learn that no one person holds the truth to the largest questions in life and that his own experience with awe, wonder and wondering is just as important as mine.  Where a child can learn that adults are flawed, and funny, and ... when they are their best selves ---- pretty interesting conversation partners.

            Where a child can hear and sing the hymn “How could anyone ever tell you, you were anything less than beautiful?  How could anyone ever tell you, you were less than whole?  How could anyone fail to notice that your loving is a miracle?  How deeply you’re connected to my soul.”          Where a child can go with their entire self, broken or whole or somewhere in between and be loved by a community who really, really, really believes that they are treasured, just as they are....... not by one minister or one religious educator but by an entire community who believes such things to be true.

            No child, or adult, will escape the messaging the world offers – My prayer this morning, is that each of them finds a place like this to tell them it’s just not true. Then hug them, love them and offer them something far better.

Dove YouTube links =  Beauty Pressure         http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ei6JvK0W60I

                                    Evolution                    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYhCn0jf46U

                                    Girl’s Self Esteem       http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oS8OmSQpb9A

                                    Growing Up                http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElKFK6rRHNY

Libby Roderick’s song “How Could Anyone” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKQ5pwstX-4

Seventeen’s Body Peace Treaty                  http://www.seventeen.com/health/tips/body-peace-pledge

Physical Therapy for the Soul ~

     I am a believer in the power of physical therapy.  Thirty some-odd years ago, a well recommended orthopedic doctor in Boston, took a look at my x-rays and offered this “Why do you have the knees of a sixty-year old?”  Finding his offering less-than-helpful, I hurried back to my primary care doc and said ‘please, who else do you know??’ Within a week I was happily doing some funky leg lifts with a physical therapist who noted that although I had very strong quadriceps, the inner head of the muscle wasn’t nearly as developed as the outer head.  Many leg lifts later I was no longer doomed to pain management & multiple knee replacements.   You still wouldn’t want my legs, but committing to a practice of exercising an easily ignored muscle made all the difference.  And that difference kept my world open to experiences that would not have been possible otherwise.  That difference kept my world open to service that would not have been possible otherwise.  That difference changed me for the better and in doing so altered our world for the better as well.

         Just as we can alter our bodies for the good with physical therapy, I’m a believer that we can work out our soul-habits for the good with similar disciplines.  As minister of the week at our UU Camp & Conference Center at Ferry Beach for a week this summer I invited 80+ youth and adults into a daily practice of looking around at each other before meals then bowing their head and silently naming three things for which they were grateful.  “Whatever comes to mind, I told them.” For me it had been daisies, peace and purple.  It has been love, my children and the feel of sand between my toes.  It has been humor, sidewalks and raspberries.  It has been my partner, Gini, lighthouses and clouds.  It has been justice workers, my vocation and sea turtles.  “Don’t try to control it, just let it flow,” I told them, “And trust me, it will begin to flow easily.”  

    I testified that it would alter their lives and in doing so, better our world.  We then began naming gratitudes and importantly, we named things for which we ended up being grateful even if they were difficult.  Times people offered us honest but difficult feedback.  Hardships that allowed us to discover new strengths.  Even loss.   It was a wonderful week as each age group led this special grace at mealtime.  I enjoyed hearing stories of gratitude throughout the week.   

    Just as focusing on that one muscle changed my legs and therefore my life forever, if we hone our ‘gratitude’ muscle, our ‘thank you’ muscle, we become better selves and if we become better selves surely the world becomes better too.

     What came as a surprise that week was how this proof of this practice landed squarely in my own lap.  I was sitting at lunch with several of the adults.  One was talking about how he used to practice law for a firm that specialized in defending drunk drivers.  He was telling us how he worked hard to avoid taking those cases.  Another at the table shared how she had been involved in accidents involving alcohol.  Yet another chimed in on how they had intersected with drunk driving.  I tried to stay but found I couldn’t.  I stood up, meal unfinished, and said ‘My niece was killed by a drunk driver.  I need to leave this conversation.” What they couldn’t have known is that on Dec 14, 2000 my 24 year old niece was struck and killed by a drunk driver.  Her father, had died six weeks earlier from Lupus.  He was 49.  She had been an angel in caring for him.  On the day she was killed, she was on her way to her job at a local hospital, wearing the engagement ring she had received that day.  Instead of looking forward to a wedding, we all returned to the same funeral home in which we had viewed her dad,  less than two months earlier and then listened to the same minister at the same church memorialize this angel.  They couldn’t have known.  But I had to leave.

     I don’t remember bussing my dishes or even making the decision to go to the beach.  My body seemed to know just what I needed.  Minutes later I was calf deep in water, my feet sinking into the sand, my body swaying gently with each wave. Tears flowed freely down my face, salt water drops rolling off my face and joining their siblings in the sea, my heart broken all over again.  The pain of losing her so violently.  The pain of experiencing too much loss in one family.  The pain of having to share the news with the rest of the family and of seeing the anguish on their faces while feeling it on my own.  

     And then something happened.  As the sprawl of the ocean witnessed my pain and her waters caressed my legs, an inner wave of gratitude moved through my body and images of her alive and laughing and joking and smiling and playing streamed through my mind’s eye.  Still I stood in the water, still the tears rolled, but my heart swelled with love and joy.  Not joy for HAVING known her but true joy for having these images in my head and heart.  It was if in that moment, someone was treating me to the best multi-media show EVER.  Images of her alive, engaged, loving and loved.  Images of her playing on the beach with my children who just adored her.  Images of her joking with her father, engaged with her mother, laughing with her sisters.  Sounds of her laugh,  HER voice with its distinct cadence and tone.  The way she would roll her eyes at something her father said and at the same time smile.  As the images ran through my mind I was truly awash in gratitude.  Not a ‘Oh Wendy be glad for the time you had with her.’  Not a ‘Oh how lucky she lived that long,’ or “Be glad that her Dad didn’t experience her death.”  Not even the analysis that says better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.  This was simply gratitude – and happiness.  My smile was a soul smile and as real as the heartbreak and pain that just ten minutes earlier dragged me to the sea.

     The gift of this beautiful girl now fully present in my head and heart, I reveled at her beauty, her impish personality and my heart moved from smile to soar.  She made me smile.  And from that happy place I realized I was grateful for the interaction at lunch, painful as it seemed at the time.  I am certain, had I not been actively “working out” my gratitude muscle, I would have only felt the pain.

     This experience did not make her less dead.  It did not make her loss less horrific.  It did not teach me to ‘do grief’ differently or to see death differently.  But it did alter me and for the better.  I don’t ever want to stop feeling pain about loss.  I don’t believe in putting up brave fronts or pretending that bad stuff doesn’t happen. I’ve lived there too.  I’m not a fan.  Living gratitude isn’t that.  It isn’t about being allllll rosy or even, all outward and about other people.  It’s not about shutting out the bad, the ugly, the sad or horrific ....it’s about developing a new muscle.  About making possible,  things that would not, could not,  have happened before.   Living gratitude makes room for things never scheduled to arrive, given our bodily and soul makeup. 

     Rumi tells us that with each morning, a new arrival – a joy, a depression, a meanness --- unexpected visitors all ....welcome them, let them in ...

     I tell you today, prepare the largest room for gratitude.  Leave the door open wide.  Work your thank-you muscle so well that gratitude visits each and every day and many times each day.   The others will find their way – joy, depression,  grief.  But make gratitude the most welcome of all.  Know it and welcome it so well it thinks it is at home.

   And I promise you, as I promised these young people in July, you will change.  And THAT friends, is our pathway to a better tomorrow  - one of our making.  Some call that heaven.  Others beloved community.  I call it ------------- possible. I call it - ------ ours to build.  and I implore you to join me on the way.

on Solidarity ~

Solidarity - as shared in a Worship Service with the GA Accountability Group at GA 2012

Come to Arizona, we need your solidarity!

Boycott Arizona, we need your solidarity!


Two calls, fueled from hearts and souls of good people needing like minded people of faith to live that faith boldly.  Each call seeming simple, but arriving with as much complexity as passion.   Responses also at odds ..


You have my solidarity.  I'll carry my passport too, offered some, not understanding how their words wounded and took their place in an arc of history full of such wounds. 


My solidarity is with the boycott, offered others, not understanding how their words wounded, feeling like abandonment and a turning away.


Solidarity .  A compelling word.  For allies, the word stirs in our hearts and comes off of our tongues easily.  Yes, we will stand with you.  We will sit with you.  We will walk and roll with you.  We believe in you.  We want to ‘help.’  YES, you have our solidarity! The moment of offering solidarity is perhaps one of the most comfortable moments we experience in this justice-seeking faith, yet, delivering solidarity can be one of the least comfortable.  Solidarity is not about ‘where’ we place ourselves.  It’s about what we are willing to do once there.  Solidarity  doesn’t simply ask “Will you come over here, and be with us?”  It comes with more complex questions.  It asks “Will you come over here, and be with us and with our pain?  Can you be with our pain and hear that you play a role in creating it?  Can you move past that knowledge and hear what we need you to do – and pledge help even when we don’t yet know what help will be?  And when the time comes, will you stay with us, with the pain and the privilege bought with that pain, listen to what we need you to do and assess whether or not you can deliver?  Really assess?  Honestly and realistically assess?  (Because, please don’t offer what you don’t have to give.  We have enough to carry without adding your own angst to our load.)  And if you can be with us, can you follow?  Truly?  Can you let go of your own needs to lead and your own majority-culture-grown solutions and follow?”


And then, solidarity asks two things more.

Will you stay with us, even if it means giving up pieces of your own privilege? 

And, will you go away from us, take our message and use your power?  Are you willing and able  to use the system that gives you a voice and gives you power at the expense of ours?

Solidarity.  A compelling word.

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