Sermon delivered Sunday, June 28, 2009 at Our House of Worship.
This morning, I want to talk about love: the love we choose, and the love that chooses us.
A few weeks ago, I found myself trying to explain the California court decision upholding Proposition 8—that was the ballot initiative that outlawed marriage between people of the same gender—to my six year old.
“In CA they decided that girl-girl and boy-boy marriages were OK, and then they changed the rule and decided that they weren’t OK,” I explained. Then I asked the question I’ve been waiting for someone to ask the Prop 8 proponants.
“Do you think that it stops two people from loving each other, just because they’re not allowed to get married?”
“Mama.” Alice has this way of calling my name when she’s about to say something really important. “Mama. No one can stop two people from loving each other but themselves.”
With more reflection she added, “It would probably make them sad. But it wouldn’t make them stop loving each other.”
It is not my usual response to laugh at those who hold an opposing political opinion to me. And yet: the proponants of Proposition 8 make me laugh. I think they are foolish. I think they are emperors with no clothes. I think they already defeated.
It is not that they don’t have, in the words of Adrienne Rich, “forces ranged against us.” It is not a small thing to deny people equal rights under the law. Couples who cannot marry lose security for their families. They lose access to one another under the most painful circumstances—one cannot be at her dying lover’s bedside; another faces deportation and forced separation from her American partner and children. These tragedies can and do occur.
But the most common penalty assessed to loving couples who cannot marry is an economic penalty. We pay more for health insurance when we can’t be covered by our lovers’ policies. We pay more in federal taxes. We are less secure in our retirements because we cannot access our partners’ social security benefits, and face inheritance tax on what would be considered jointly held property for straight couples.
Annoying, costly, inconvenient, disrespectful, undignified, dishonoring—not having equal marriage rights is all of those things. So why do my opponants make me laugh? Because that’s all they’ve got. They’ve got economic discrimination on their side, and on our side? We’ve got LOVE.
I know that many Prop 8 folks have deep religious beliefs that tell them that homosexuality is a sinful abomination. I feel so lucky not to have this belief—not to ever have had this belief. And I feel lucky to live in a country where we have a diversity of beliefs on this and other subjects. But what strikes me so strange about the opponants of gay marriage is that they don’t work harder for my salvation. I don’t experience them trying to convince me of my sin or bring me closer to their idea of God. Instead, they are tirelessly working to institutionalize discrimination against me.
There’s something so fundamentally un-American about this strategy: if you can’t beat them, make them pay more taxes. It’s as if somewhere they know what Alice knows—“No one can stop two people from loving each other but themselves.” They’ve given up on trying to win us over to their belief system, and are settling for costing us a lot of cash, anxiety and irritation.
As if love weren’t worth a little money and effort. As if love could “subordinate itself to cause or consequence.”
Did you see the video put out by those who are working to repeal Proposition 8? It features the Tom Petty song “Won’t Back Down,” which Leah so beautifully rendered for us as our prelude. The video not seem to portray the losing side of anything. The clip shows people from all over the country holding signs that represent their state and their support for equal marriage rights: “Standing with you in Alaska.” “Nevada’s on your side.” “Massachusetts won’t back down.” Nearly everyone is smiling in a way that just beams love and hope and compassion and faith— faith that we can hold one another through this struggle. The love in these faces is so tangible, it feels physically nourishing and sustaining to me. It says to me, “We are down, but we’re not out. We’re not even that far down, because we love each other, and we are not alone.”
My faith tradition honors my marriage, independent of law. The novelist Marilynne Robinson put these words into the voice of her character the Reverend John Ames,
"I might seem to be comparing something great and holy with a minor and ordinary thing, that is, love of God with mortal love. But I just don’t see them as separate things at all. If we can be divinely fed with a morsel and divinely blessed with a touch, then the terrible pleasure we find in a particular face can certainly instruct us in the nature of the very grandest love."
I am not a Deist, but I am incredibly moved by this vision. I think it holds inspiration whether one believes in a literal or metaphorical divine love. It is powerful—empowering, in fact—to consider that the love of our lives is larger than our own experience, that what we feel for one another is but a small reflection of the greater love which is available to us all.
I want to turn now to the love that we choose. It might seem risky, as a lesbian, to talk about choosing love. It is, after all, one of the arguments used by the forces that “range against us” –that we choose a sinful lifestyle and should not receive sanction in it. But I am not talking about who we choose to love. As Adrienne Rich says, “The accidents happen…they happen in our lives like car crashes, books that change us, neighborhoods we move into and come to love.”
I’m talking instead about how we love who we love. A few years ago I picked up a book that shook my world. It was not the kind of book I would ordinarily pick up and I’m embarrased now to tell you the title: Why Talking Is Not Enough: Eight Loving Actions that Will Transform Your Marriage. It was hot pink. You almost want to hide your face walking out of the library with a book like that.
But it was a classic case of “do not judge a book by its cover.” Because in this book author Susan Page, a Protestant minister—lays out her vision and advice for Spiritual Partnership and Loving Action within couples.
Page’s work is complex and I recommend that you take a look at it. At the risk of grossly oversimplifying her paradigm, I’m going to share my take-away—an insight that for me was as simple as it was profound. When I have conflict with my partner, I have a choice: I can stand up for myself—and I must—if the conflict violates some make-or-break principle of mine. But short of this, I have a second choice: I can act as if loving my partner is more important than the outcome of the conflict.
Page suggests Loving Actions—eight of them!—to support this challenge. I wish I could tell you that I’ve committed all eight to memory and employ them regularly to great success, and we are now living happily ever after. But Liz would rat me out in a minute. I do not employ Loving Actions successfully in even fifty percent of our conflicts; I’d be surprised if I remember as much as ten percent of the time.
But each time I do remember to take a breath and think—“What would this be like if I acted like I love her?”—I get to experience a moment of conflict transformed into a moment of love. It almost doesn’t matter if Liz notices a difference—maybe we fight less, maybe she wins more, maybe I seem like a cream-puff. But instead of a mundane argument, I get to touch what Robinson’s John Ames calls “a glimpse or parable of an embracing, incomprehensible reality.” If that’s not dross into gold, I don’t know what is.
HYMN: There is More Love Somewhere
Now I want to tell you about some girls I know. And choose to love.
I wish that you could meet these girls, but you will have to take my word that they are beautiful—as beautiful as their names: Mercedes, Sujeil, Leslie, LaQuanda, LaTigre, Diana, Karacelys, MaryLinda, Rashe, Chiara, Anushka, Ashley, Maracelys, Eveline, Christina, Betsy, Wanda, Shayla.
Can you see them? Can you see a room full of gorgeous young women, tossing their hair, laughing, teasing each other, checking themselves in a wall full of mirrors?
I have to stop before the picture becomes too romantic, wipe the vaseline off the lens. Because these are the worst kind of teenager there is: these are teenagers being forced to do something they don’t want to do.
Let me back up a moment. For seven years, I have had the honor of teaching self defense to young mothers enrolled at The CARE Center, a GED program in Holyoke. For most of the girls—at least at first—participation in my class is not entirely of their own free will. And they are not shy to express their reluctance to be there.
The preacher John Ames was told by his father:
"When you encounter another person, when you have dealings with anyone at all, it is as if a question is being put to you. So you must think, What is the Lord asking of me in this moment, in this situation? If you confront insult or antagonism, your first impulse will be to respond in kind. But if you think, as it were, This is an emissary sent from the Lord, and some benefit is intended for me, first of all the occasion to demonstrate my faithfulness, the chance to show that I do in some small degree participate in the grace that saved me, you are free to act otherwise than as circumstances would seem to dictate. You are free to act by your own lights. You are freed at the same time of the impulse to hate or resent that person. He would probably laugh at the thought that the Lord sent him to you for your benefit (and his), but that is the perfection of the disguise, his own ignorance of it."
There is a wisdom conventional to the martial arts that mirrors this story, that tells us that each student teaches the teacher. So I try to see the challenge of teaching resistant teenagers— frequently offering insulting or antagonizing behavior—as an opportunity to rise to my best self. I do not believe in “the Lord” or “saving grace,” but I do believe that I am “free to act by [my] own lights,” that I can choose my response to what my students offer me.
A few weeks ago I got an especially rough group. Four greeted me and entered our training space; the rest hung back in the vestibule, cutting their flat eyes at me. I know the room is odd to them, with its bare wood floor and prohibition against street shoes, its broken down sofa, Chinese gong and double altar. I can’t imagine how much courage it takes for them to trust a strange, short-haired, blunt-spoken, middle-aged white woman and enter a weird and unfamiliar place. I know that much of their experience—much of their safety—is dependent upon saving face, not ever showing fear or ignorance or inability.
But how do you learn something new if you have to act tough all the time? How can you be open to learning things if you have to act like you have it all together every second? I know these things, but I still lose patience when ten girls decide to sit in the dark, in the coat closet, losing credit for the afternoon’s school attendance, instead of coming into my class. So I take a deep breath and turn to the students who will participate.
On the day in question, these four girls dug deep to follow my lesson. Through it all, the rumble of negativity carried from the hall into our sacred training space. I moved our circle further from the door and called group huddles to give feedback. I noticed a few bright eyes that strayed from the closet floor to peek around the door frame and see what we were up to, but I didn’t pay them any mind. We practiced strikes and blocks, wrist grabs and releases. The four girls practiced, asked questions, and learned. They resisted the siren song of malaise and defeat and refusal rising up from the antechamber. And with twenty minutes before the end of class, I made a choice.
I taught one final technique—hammer fist—and we worked it over and over to striking pads until I felt confident in each woman’s power and technique. Then I settled my four students against the bank of windows. I cleared the brochures and flyers from the card table and placed it square in the middle of the floor. And I brusquely climbed over the bodies in the closet to pull out my last four breaking boards from the supply shelf.
Both rooms got quiet when I set up the first board on the sturdy wooden supports. There was wild disbelief—“We’re gonna break those?” and surging confidence—“We’re gonna break those!”
As I approached the group to give my final instructions, I heard the one girl I knew telling the others, “She’s OK, I don’t know why they don’t just try it—if you do the class, she treats you right.” I turned to bow to her, one of the most heartfelt bows of my twenty-one years of practice.
I get so much wrong in this class, and fall short so often of what I want to offer. But I honor these women, I try to give my best possible teaching and when everything else fails, I just try to love them. Here in my favorite, most sacred space with these poor, scared, angry, victimized, violent, brave, belligerent, smart, silly, vilified young women—Puerto Rican teen moms, high school drop-outs, welfare recipients—I see the brokenness of the world. I see how small I am against it, and how hard it is to correct injustice or even just reach out across our differences. How hard it is to trust and know one another. I offer the teaching that I know best, in the hopes that the next time a man puts his hand around one of these girl’s throats, she’ll know how to kick his knees and break the choke hold. In hopes that the next time a girl with a razor in her hair starts talking trash to one of these young women, my student will have the presence of mind to walk away instead of stirring it up and getting slashed.
I asked my four students to love each other that day. I didn’t say that out loud; there is no way I’d get away with sappy nonsense like that. Whatever else their lives have handed them, they are teenagers first and foremost—caustic, mocking, irreverent. But I asked them to support each other as they stood before the group to break their boards and they did it. They stood up for one another.
“You can do it!” someone called. “Just picture your baby-daddy!”
And they did.
There are times when I wonder, what if it’s my student with the razor? Or, will she ever stop going back to the man who chokes her? Will she ever expect more of this world than violence against her or at her own hand? There are times when they are so angry, or so scared, or so tired of being powerless in their own lives, that their behavior soars past antagonistic and insulting, and it boils my blood.
So I take another deep breath. And in that breath, I just try to love them, these beautiful girl moms with the odds stacked against them. I think: what would this be like if I loved them? It feels radical sometimes—I’m not supposed to love these girls—I’m not supposed to even know girls like this, I’m supposed to stay on the white, middle class side of the line and let them live out their circumstances on the other side of the mountain, down in the ‘hood, out of sight. And other times it doesn’t feel radical at all—it just feels horribly inadequate, a finger in the dyke against an ocean of racism and sexism and classism, imperialism and injustice and oppression.
I did not know that I would love these girls when I took the call seven years ago asking if I wanted to teach self defense to teen moms who were “high school drop outs,” “drug- and gang-affiliated.” I did not know that I would love them as I discovered that those descriptors didn’t really mean anything, that my students are girls I will get to know one by one by one. I didn’t know that love would serve me as I struggled with my useless, stupid English in a room full of solely Spanish-speaking students. I did not know that I would love them the first time a student gave me the finger in class, or walked away to check her makeup in the middle of an exercise, loudly dismissed me as ignorant and irrelevent, or chose to sit on the sofa in liui of class, reading letters from her man in jail.
I knew that I would hear heartbreaking stories of violence against them—I hear these stories every time I teach self defense—but I did not know that it would be my heart breaking open to them. I knew that two decades of training would give me a lot to offer towards reducing their risk of violence, and I knew that it would it would not be enough. But I did not know that love would be my most important teaching strategy.
Because if I keep loving them, then I’ll keep trying.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Mind Body Mama: Honest Scrap
My writing teacher Kate Hopper has done me a tremendous honor by passing on the Honest Scrap Award. According to Kate, “The Honest Scrap Award is given to blogs that are found brilliant in content or design.” Thank you, Kate, for my very first blog award!
All you mama-writers out there—yes, I mean you Liesl and you too, Sarahvision—I recommend that you invest in yourself and take a chance on Kate’s amazing online writing class. Bookmark her site and keep an eye out for the next session.
Now, to pass on the Honest Scrap award.
If Kate hadn’t done it first, I would bestow this award on Carrie Pomeroy’s Play School. Carrie is an interesting person leading a spiritual life—just what I aspire to be! And she writes about it beautifully. Her blog is ostensibly about homeschooling but I think it is, above all, a meditation on mindful parenting.
Erin White of Hatched by Two Chicks claims we’ve met, but I must beg her indulgence at not remembering: I was pregnant at the time. On her blog, she chronicles life as a lesbian mama in one of our local hill towns. Her prose is delicate and breathtaking.
I’ve wanted to throw an award at Kara of Mama Sweat since created the term Kegel Fartlek. This woman has four kids under five and she blogs about her fitness routine. In my experience, most mamas of little ones struggle to have a fitness routine, let alone inspire others. Kara is also a terrific writer. Her interview with prenatal fitness expert Catherine Cram (written the week her son was born, I believe) and her childbirth workout post are must reads for any expectant mama.
Honest Scrap carries a meme requirement (or request, depending upon how you see it)—recipients must share ten true things about themselves. I like to think I don’t need to be cajoled into honesty on this blog (I did tell you all about my underwear a few weeks ago) but I like to follow rules. So here’s my ten:
1. I grew up in a blue collar family in one of the wealthiest counties in the nation.
2. My father is one of the smartest people I have ever met.
3. I am constantly surprised that I live with anyone, let alone a lover, a child, and an evil cat.
4. A good way to make me very, very angry is to throw a ball anywhere near me and expect me to catch or retrieve it.
5. I have many skills and strengths but have had difficulty spinning them into employment for which I am fairly remunerated.
6. Knitting makes me tense.
7. I love box-bottom folders, Pierce Brothers coffee, and mystery novels.
8. I once registered for a poetry workshop with the writer Katha Pollitt and she annoyed me so much on the first day that I switched into someone else’s workshop. The someone else turned out not to be nearly so famous or memorable. Now when I read Pollitt’s smart, progressive, important essays I wonder: was she really that annoying, or was I just 19 and crazy?
9. I have a passion for radio. As a child I listened to Mystery Theater in bed at night and I have stronger memories of the Star Wars radio program than the movies. I listened to them with my father.
10. I am a good, plain cook.
All you mama-writers out there—yes, I mean you Liesl and you too, Sarahvision—I recommend that you invest in yourself and take a chance on Kate’s amazing online writing class. Bookmark her site and keep an eye out for the next session.
Now, to pass on the Honest Scrap award.
If Kate hadn’t done it first, I would bestow this award on Carrie Pomeroy’s Play School. Carrie is an interesting person leading a spiritual life—just what I aspire to be! And she writes about it beautifully. Her blog is ostensibly about homeschooling but I think it is, above all, a meditation on mindful parenting.
Erin White of Hatched by Two Chicks claims we’ve met, but I must beg her indulgence at not remembering: I was pregnant at the time. On her blog, she chronicles life as a lesbian mama in one of our local hill towns. Her prose is delicate and breathtaking.
I’ve wanted to throw an award at Kara of Mama Sweat since created the term Kegel Fartlek. This woman has four kids under five and she blogs about her fitness routine. In my experience, most mamas of little ones struggle to have a fitness routine, let alone inspire others. Kara is also a terrific writer. Her interview with prenatal fitness expert Catherine Cram (written the week her son was born, I believe) and her childbirth workout post are must reads for any expectant mama.
Honest Scrap carries a meme requirement (or request, depending upon how you see it)—recipients must share ten true things about themselves. I like to think I don’t need to be cajoled into honesty on this blog (I did tell you all about my underwear a few weeks ago) but I like to follow rules. So here’s my ten:
1. I grew up in a blue collar family in one of the wealthiest counties in the nation.
2. My father is one of the smartest people I have ever met.
3. I am constantly surprised that I live with anyone, let alone a lover, a child, and an evil cat.
4. A good way to make me very, very angry is to throw a ball anywhere near me and expect me to catch or retrieve it.
5. I have many skills and strengths but have had difficulty spinning them into employment for which I am fairly remunerated.
6. Knitting makes me tense.
7. I love box-bottom folders, Pierce Brothers coffee, and mystery novels.
8. I once registered for a poetry workshop with the writer Katha Pollitt and she annoyed me so much on the first day that I switched into someone else’s workshop. The someone else turned out not to be nearly so famous or memorable. Now when I read Pollitt’s smart, progressive, important essays I wonder: was she really that annoying, or was I just 19 and crazy?
9. I have a passion for radio. As a child I listened to Mystery Theater in bed at night and I have stronger memories of the Star Wars radio program than the movies. I listened to them with my father.
10. I am a good, plain cook.
Friday, June 19, 2009
Publications: You Can't Yell At a Flower to Grow
My monthly column in the Springfield Republican's Girls Just Wanna Have Fun magazine. Mad props to Sue Sensei for the title and inspiration for this article.
Mind Body Mama: Waiting for Grace
Anne Lamott reminds us that grace is “the help you receive when you have no bright ideas left, when you are empty and desperate and have discovered that your best thinking and most charming charm have failed you.” These days of low pressure weather and high pressure life are putting my faith in grace to the test, but I am hoping to receive it—or more likely, hoping that I have the sense to recognize it where it already resides.
It has been relentlessly raining in our little Valley for all of June. While the cool and dark did not bother me as much as I might have expected—I’m far too busy to be gallivanting outside anyway—the plummeting barometric pressure is wreaking havoc on my family. Without the atmosphere pushing against my cranial blood vessels they burst forth into a migraine of magnificent proportion. Without a counterpoint to the swelling within her arthritic joints, Sweetie’s knees have ballooned and stiffened. We are a limping, blinded, whiney pair which has left us few resources to address the emotional maelstrom which is the end of kindergarten.
I am particularly shrewish and irritable. (Cut me some slack here—if the barometer falls any further my brain will start bleeding through my scalp.) I’m supposed to be preparing a sermon and worship service on the topic of “love,” and I’m right on schedule by hating on everyone I encounter. I prepared for my last big service, which addressed the lofty ideas as grief and compassion, by yelling at my family at the top of my lungs. So I’d have to say things are coming along nicely.
I ought to be freaking out right now, but the underwater weather is pushing me into a sort of a trance. I’m facing far too much work in far too little time, multiple deadlines that, if I thought about them, would reveal themselves to be, in fact, impossible to meet. The solution seems to be to slow down.
I spend an entire evening folding underpants and voila, a blog post (such as it is) reveals itself to me in the morning. I move through the grocery store as if on tranquilizers and find myself home in less than an hour without even forgetting anything. The more slowly I move, the more the available time expands and reshapes itself to accommodate what needs doing.
I hope this bizarre weather-related time shifting continues to hold. I’m giving over half of my writing time this morning to a massage with Mimi. I’ve got some terrific complaints, way beyond the child’s play of “constant tingling in my right hand.” I’m going to throw her some good stuff like, “when I crouch and run at the same time, my right iliopsoas seizes up and I fall down,” and “if I sneeze without pressing both hands against my chest, a rib pops out and stabs me from the inside.” Mimi’s a genius but I like to think I keep her on her toes.
Who knows what could happen once I enter the deep relaxation that follows a massage? I could finish off the whole sermon this afternoon—or end up napping under my desk. I’m going to try to trust that whatever happens will be for the best. It is really unlikely that I’ll end up standing before the entire congregation without anything to say—isn’t it? Or arrive at my martial arts conference next month without any class plans? Or miss the deadline for my next fitness column? Or forget where my kid is supposed to go when her childcare plans change suddenly next week?
Taking a deep breath now.
Source: Anne Lamott, “Grace,” in Travelling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith.
It has been relentlessly raining in our little Valley for all of June. While the cool and dark did not bother me as much as I might have expected—I’m far too busy to be gallivanting outside anyway—the plummeting barometric pressure is wreaking havoc on my family. Without the atmosphere pushing against my cranial blood vessels they burst forth into a migraine of magnificent proportion. Without a counterpoint to the swelling within her arthritic joints, Sweetie’s knees have ballooned and stiffened. We are a limping, blinded, whiney pair which has left us few resources to address the emotional maelstrom which is the end of kindergarten.
I am particularly shrewish and irritable. (Cut me some slack here—if the barometer falls any further my brain will start bleeding through my scalp.) I’m supposed to be preparing a sermon and worship service on the topic of “love,” and I’m right on schedule by hating on everyone I encounter. I prepared for my last big service, which addressed the lofty ideas as grief and compassion, by yelling at my family at the top of my lungs. So I’d have to say things are coming along nicely.
I ought to be freaking out right now, but the underwater weather is pushing me into a sort of a trance. I’m facing far too much work in far too little time, multiple deadlines that, if I thought about them, would reveal themselves to be, in fact, impossible to meet. The solution seems to be to slow down.
I spend an entire evening folding underpants and voila, a blog post (such as it is) reveals itself to me in the morning. I move through the grocery store as if on tranquilizers and find myself home in less than an hour without even forgetting anything. The more slowly I move, the more the available time expands and reshapes itself to accommodate what needs doing.
I hope this bizarre weather-related time shifting continues to hold. I’m giving over half of my writing time this morning to a massage with Mimi. I’ve got some terrific complaints, way beyond the child’s play of “constant tingling in my right hand.” I’m going to throw her some good stuff like, “when I crouch and run at the same time, my right iliopsoas seizes up and I fall down,” and “if I sneeze without pressing both hands against my chest, a rib pops out and stabs me from the inside.” Mimi’s a genius but I like to think I keep her on her toes.
Who knows what could happen once I enter the deep relaxation that follows a massage? I could finish off the whole sermon this afternoon—or end up napping under my desk. I’m going to try to trust that whatever happens will be for the best. It is really unlikely that I’ll end up standing before the entire congregation without anything to say—isn’t it? Or arrive at my martial arts conference next month without any class plans? Or miss the deadline for my next fitness column? Or forget where my kid is supposed to go when her childcare plans change suddenly next week?
Taking a deep breath now.
Source: Anne Lamott, “Grace,” in Travelling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith.
Friday, June 12, 2009
Mind Body Mama: Arrogance, Innocence
My child’s arrogance is breathtaking and it pushes all my buttons. At her recent physical, she told the doctor she plans to be Ruler of the Universe when she grows up. When Dr. Elizabeth suggested that she start with something smaller, like Mayor, and work her way up, Small balked. She’s starting at the top.
At Dr. I’s birthday party yesterday, a friend recounted Small telling her,
“I’m in Kindergarten, but I should be in second grade.”
“Why is that?” Kate wanted to know. “Were you homeschooled or something?”
“No,” said Small. “I’m just smart.”
It’s not untrue: she is really smart, and she could do most of the second grade work. But announcing it in public? I cringe. According to Small, she’s number one at any potential competition: karate, reading, taking eye tests. It’s relentless and it goes against all my good blue-collar Yankee upbringing of modesty and humility.
If I had time to read child development books I’m sure I’d be reminded that narcissism is an important stage of development leading to a strong sense of self or something equally heady and valuable. But day to day, I find the out placed arrogance of six really hard to stomach.
I try hard not to squash it, having been raised by a family who responded to any self-praise with snark like, “Don’t break your arm patting yourself on the back.” I try to avoid undermining sarcasm in general because I want my girl to wear her self confidence well. So when Small walked directly into a sign-post on the way to karate last week, I did not roll my eyes at her and mutter under my breath, “They tell me this is a gifted child,” as my parents might have.
At least, I did not do that within her earshot.
I try to accept Small’s unwarranted assurance in her own abilities—her belief that she is the fastest, smartest, and most magical child who ever lived—as her way of discovering her strengths and her place in the order of things.
It is nothing if not genuine, Small’s overwhelming love of herself and all things like her. That doesn’t make it any less stomach-churning for her mama.
Case in point: Back in the day when Hillary and Barack started running for the democratic nomination, Sweetiebabyhoneylicious and I had lots of conversations about which candidate we would support. It seems hard to believe now, having drunk the Obama kool-aid with tremendous enthusiasm, but at the beginning of that campaign he was almost completely unknown to me, while Hillary Clinton was someone I felt I knew and respected. This was long before we all knew the names of Obama’s daughters, dog, mother-in-law, and wife’s biceps.
Even before I made my decision of which candidate to support, I was profoundly moved by the fact that I would be voting for either a female or African-American as a major party candidate for President of the United States. Independent of the particulars, it felt like a privilege to participate in this historic vote. I tried to explain the portent to Small at breakfast one morning.
“In the whole history of our country, we’ve never had a president who was not a man with skin the same color as ours. That is really unfair, because so many Americans are women and people who have dark skin. That’s why it’s so exciting that Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton might be the next president. What do you think of that?”
Small’s determination was swift. “I want Hillary Clinton to be president because I think someone with skin like ours should be president.”
It is fortunate that the primary aspect of my spiritual practice is breathing because that means I get to practice it a lot. Sometimes I even remember to do it when it would be most helpful. So I did not shout at my child, “What a horribly racist thing to say! Don’t ever let anyone hear you saying something like that ever again!”
Because that’s what immediately jumped into my mind: shame. I felt ashamed that my perfect, beautiful child could harbor such a hateful and prejudicial preference. I felt embarrassed that she did not know better, that I had failed to school her in anti-racism. Or that I had not shamed her into knowing that she could not say things like that, even if she thought them.
That last brought me a second wave of shame. Of course our goal should not be the suppression of racist utterings but the eradication of racist outlooks. In that split second I was knocked back a generation; appearance outpaced substance in my order of priorities. If Small’s tactless pride in her academic prowess makes me cringe, her xenophobic preference for her own kind left me horrified.
But I took a deep breath first. That breath gave me a moment to remember the other things Small liked about Hillary Clinton at the time—the number of mellifluous “el” sounds in her name, and the fact that she was female—like Small herself, and both her parents. I remembered that liking one’s own white skin is not the problem; expecting the spoils of white skin privilege and discounting the value of those with other skin colors is.
I remembered that arrogance is Small’s stock-in-trade this year. Her preference for a pale skinned, golden haired female might be just another instance of her belief that she herself is the best thing since sliced bread. I didn’t have to let this attitude stand unchallenged, but I didn’t have to shame it out of her either.
Sweetie was there at the breakfast table and we cobbled together a response to cover the issue, something along the lines of this:
“We don’t think it’s right to choose who’s best based on their skin color, or because they are like us. People with light skin have been doing that for a long time, and that’s how they make sure that people with other skin colors don’t get a fair chance at things. We don’t agree with that in our house.”
“Mmm-hmmm.” Here’s a thing about Small I really appreciate. She is an unpredictable six-year-old wacko, it is true. But when I get serious and attempt to explain something important to her, she usually attends to it with a very deep focus.
We talked about our values around race and how it can be challenging to understand people who are different from ourselves but how we believe it is very important. Small took in our little teaching with wide eyes, great thoughtfulness, and few comments.
Only a few short months later—months during which the media’s relentless sexism, covert racism, and Sarah Palin pageantry caused my brain to bleed on a daily basis—we walked to school singing Will I. Am’s Obama Song. Small voted for Obama in the Kindergarten election and Sweetie and I voted at the high school, and in January we all packed into our local restored 1890s opera house with the rest of our little valley to see Barack Obama, our 44th President and the first of African descent, sworn into office.
This whole episode came to mind this week as I read Lisa Belkin’s recap at The Motherlode of the online kerfuffle over white mother Jackie Morgan MacDougall’s 2008 momlogic post entitled "Mommy, Why Is Her Face Brown?" I can’t possibly recap the whole discussion here, but I encourage you to follow the links and check it out.
Suffice it to say that Jackie did not meet the original question with her best self. What got in the way of her better instincts? Shame, embarrassment, and valuing appearance over substance. Her deep breath came after the blogosphere discovered this post this month—better late than never, I guess—and pilloried her for it.
I’m glad that Jackie—and I—transcended our initial lame responses and committed to doing better in teaching our children about white skin privilege and racism. It’s really the very least that we could do. That said, I wish folks had been a little less awful to her about her initial misstep. I know I risk pillory in making any parallels between racism and homophobia, which is not my intent, but I would like to note that, as a queer, I know something about the phenomenon of allies. In my experience, some of the things that come out of the mouths of supposedly supportive straight people are truly cringe-worthy. The snarky family saying that comes to mind here is, “With friends like these, who needs enemies?”
But that’s not true. I’d rather have a fumbling friend than a hostile adversary any day. Someone who makes a well meaning gaffe can be taken aside quietly—or publically humiliated on the internet—and corrected, and she’ll do better next time. It took a lot of well meaning people making a lot of stupid mistakes for our country to get to the point where we could handle the essential fairness of considering—and electing—someone who’s not a white man for president. I wish that wasn’t the case, but good change moves at glacial speed.
It’s possible that I’m about to learn about my own blind spots when I make this post and the comments start coming in. Maybe I’m in for a smack-down of my own, one that will take a lot of deep breaths and soul searching to get through. That’s OK. I don’t want to be so afraid of getting it wrong that I stop trying to get it right in teaching my kid about her own privilege and responsibility as a white person. I don’t want GLBT allies to be so afraid of getting it wrong that they stop fighting for my rights.
We’re tripping over ourselves here. We’re hampered by our individual and collective histories of injustice and psychology; we’re about the least efficient army of change that could possibly be imagined. But we’re heading in the right direction. The spirit of the Obama campaign is not over: We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. It is still time to step up; it is always time to step up. We can change ourselves, and we can change the world.
At Dr. I’s birthday party yesterday, a friend recounted Small telling her,
“I’m in Kindergarten, but I should be in second grade.”
“Why is that?” Kate wanted to know. “Were you homeschooled or something?”
“No,” said Small. “I’m just smart.”
It’s not untrue: she is really smart, and she could do most of the second grade work. But announcing it in public? I cringe. According to Small, she’s number one at any potential competition: karate, reading, taking eye tests. It’s relentless and it goes against all my good blue-collar Yankee upbringing of modesty and humility.
If I had time to read child development books I’m sure I’d be reminded that narcissism is an important stage of development leading to a strong sense of self or something equally heady and valuable. But day to day, I find the out placed arrogance of six really hard to stomach.
I try hard not to squash it, having been raised by a family who responded to any self-praise with snark like, “Don’t break your arm patting yourself on the back.” I try to avoid undermining sarcasm in general because I want my girl to wear her self confidence well. So when Small walked directly into a sign-post on the way to karate last week, I did not roll my eyes at her and mutter under my breath, “They tell me this is a gifted child,” as my parents might have.
At least, I did not do that within her earshot.
I try to accept Small’s unwarranted assurance in her own abilities—her belief that she is the fastest, smartest, and most magical child who ever lived—as her way of discovering her strengths and her place in the order of things.
It is nothing if not genuine, Small’s overwhelming love of herself and all things like her. That doesn’t make it any less stomach-churning for her mama.
Case in point: Back in the day when Hillary and Barack started running for the democratic nomination, Sweetiebabyhoneylicious and I had lots of conversations about which candidate we would support. It seems hard to believe now, having drunk the Obama kool-aid with tremendous enthusiasm, but at the beginning of that campaign he was almost completely unknown to me, while Hillary Clinton was someone I felt I knew and respected. This was long before we all knew the names of Obama’s daughters, dog, mother-in-law, and wife’s biceps.
Even before I made my decision of which candidate to support, I was profoundly moved by the fact that I would be voting for either a female or African-American as a major party candidate for President of the United States. Independent of the particulars, it felt like a privilege to participate in this historic vote. I tried to explain the portent to Small at breakfast one morning.
“In the whole history of our country, we’ve never had a president who was not a man with skin the same color as ours. That is really unfair, because so many Americans are women and people who have dark skin. That’s why it’s so exciting that Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton might be the next president. What do you think of that?”
Small’s determination was swift. “I want Hillary Clinton to be president because I think someone with skin like ours should be president.”
It is fortunate that the primary aspect of my spiritual practice is breathing because that means I get to practice it a lot. Sometimes I even remember to do it when it would be most helpful. So I did not shout at my child, “What a horribly racist thing to say! Don’t ever let anyone hear you saying something like that ever again!”
Because that’s what immediately jumped into my mind: shame. I felt ashamed that my perfect, beautiful child could harbor such a hateful and prejudicial preference. I felt embarrassed that she did not know better, that I had failed to school her in anti-racism. Or that I had not shamed her into knowing that she could not say things like that, even if she thought them.
That last brought me a second wave of shame. Of course our goal should not be the suppression of racist utterings but the eradication of racist outlooks. In that split second I was knocked back a generation; appearance outpaced substance in my order of priorities. If Small’s tactless pride in her academic prowess makes me cringe, her xenophobic preference for her own kind left me horrified.
But I took a deep breath first. That breath gave me a moment to remember the other things Small liked about Hillary Clinton at the time—the number of mellifluous “el” sounds in her name, and the fact that she was female—like Small herself, and both her parents. I remembered that liking one’s own white skin is not the problem; expecting the spoils of white skin privilege and discounting the value of those with other skin colors is.
I remembered that arrogance is Small’s stock-in-trade this year. Her preference for a pale skinned, golden haired female might be just another instance of her belief that she herself is the best thing since sliced bread. I didn’t have to let this attitude stand unchallenged, but I didn’t have to shame it out of her either.
Sweetie was there at the breakfast table and we cobbled together a response to cover the issue, something along the lines of this:
“We don’t think it’s right to choose who’s best based on their skin color, or because they are like us. People with light skin have been doing that for a long time, and that’s how they make sure that people with other skin colors don’t get a fair chance at things. We don’t agree with that in our house.”
“Mmm-hmmm.” Here’s a thing about Small I really appreciate. She is an unpredictable six-year-old wacko, it is true. But when I get serious and attempt to explain something important to her, she usually attends to it with a very deep focus.
We talked about our values around race and how it can be challenging to understand people who are different from ourselves but how we believe it is very important. Small took in our little teaching with wide eyes, great thoughtfulness, and few comments.
Only a few short months later—months during which the media’s relentless sexism, covert racism, and Sarah Palin pageantry caused my brain to bleed on a daily basis—we walked to school singing Will I. Am’s Obama Song. Small voted for Obama in the Kindergarten election and Sweetie and I voted at the high school, and in January we all packed into our local restored 1890s opera house with the rest of our little valley to see Barack Obama, our 44th President and the first of African descent, sworn into office.
This whole episode came to mind this week as I read Lisa Belkin’s recap at The Motherlode of the online kerfuffle over white mother Jackie Morgan MacDougall’s 2008 momlogic post entitled "Mommy, Why Is Her Face Brown?" I can’t possibly recap the whole discussion here, but I encourage you to follow the links and check it out.
Suffice it to say that Jackie did not meet the original question with her best self. What got in the way of her better instincts? Shame, embarrassment, and valuing appearance over substance. Her deep breath came after the blogosphere discovered this post this month—better late than never, I guess—and pilloried her for it.
I’m glad that Jackie—and I—transcended our initial lame responses and committed to doing better in teaching our children about white skin privilege and racism. It’s really the very least that we could do. That said, I wish folks had been a little less awful to her about her initial misstep. I know I risk pillory in making any parallels between racism and homophobia, which is not my intent, but I would like to note that, as a queer, I know something about the phenomenon of allies. In my experience, some of the things that come out of the mouths of supposedly supportive straight people are truly cringe-worthy. The snarky family saying that comes to mind here is, “With friends like these, who needs enemies?”
But that’s not true. I’d rather have a fumbling friend than a hostile adversary any day. Someone who makes a well meaning gaffe can be taken aside quietly—or publically humiliated on the internet—and corrected, and she’ll do better next time. It took a lot of well meaning people making a lot of stupid mistakes for our country to get to the point where we could handle the essential fairness of considering—and electing—someone who’s not a white man for president. I wish that wasn’t the case, but good change moves at glacial speed.
It’s possible that I’m about to learn about my own blind spots when I make this post and the comments start coming in. Maybe I’m in for a smack-down of my own, one that will take a lot of deep breaths and soul searching to get through. That’s OK. I don’t want to be so afraid of getting it wrong that I stop trying to get it right in teaching my kid about her own privilege and responsibility as a white person. I don’t want GLBT allies to be so afraid of getting it wrong that they stop fighting for my rights.
We’re tripping over ourselves here. We’re hampered by our individual and collective histories of injustice and psychology; we’re about the least efficient army of change that could possibly be imagined. But we’re heading in the right direction. The spirit of the Obama campaign is not over: We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. It is still time to step up; it is always time to step up. We can change ourselves, and we can change the world.
Monday, June 8, 2009
Mind Body Mama: Mama Makes Mistakes
Remember when I wrote about how much I enjoy practicing beginner's mind by making mistakes? Well, I'm just delighted about having an opportunity to deepen my practice. It's made all the more swell by messing up a reference to a local artist who I quite enjoy.
A few weeks ago I wrote about my issues with underpants and referenced a favorite song of Small's. I said the original was written by Denis Caraher. Wrong, wrong, wrong. The underpants song was written and performed by Mr. Richard on his album, Might As Well Sing.
Small pointed this out to me, but not before I posted the blog. That would have been too helpful. I've been fairly overwhelmed of late, so the error sat on the blog until Dennis contacted me himself. Now that's embarrassing.
But I'm fixing it now and it prompted me to give more credit to his albums, Bow Wow Wow and the new one, I Miss the Mud. I especially like the song "I Love My Mom" and was delighted to hear it featured on our local public radio station with a terrific local kid singer, Emma Henderson. I was so delighted that I wanted to share the link with you all, but of course I didn't follow through on that either. (Now I am searching for that you shut up box.) Time to practice a little compassion, forgiveness and behavior modification.
A few weeks ago I wrote about my issues with underpants and referenced a favorite song of Small's. I said the original was written by Denis Caraher. Wrong, wrong, wrong. The underpants song was written and performed by Mr. Richard on his album, Might As Well Sing.
Small pointed this out to me, but not before I posted the blog. That would have been too helpful. I've been fairly overwhelmed of late, so the error sat on the blog until Dennis contacted me himself. Now that's embarrassing.
But I'm fixing it now and it prompted me to give more credit to his albums, Bow Wow Wow and the new one, I Miss the Mud. I especially like the song "I Love My Mom" and was delighted to hear it featured on our local public radio station with a terrific local kid singer, Emma Henderson. I was so delighted that I wanted to share the link with you all, but of course I didn't follow through on that either. (Now I am searching for that you shut up box.) Time to practice a little compassion, forgiveness and behavior modification.
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Worship: Inbetween Times: Who We Are For Each Other
On May 31 I had the privilege of sharing the pulpit at our Unitarian Society with SpecK and the War Ship to deliver a service on the topic of Inbetween Times: Who We Are For Each Other. I encourage you to check out SpecK's homily and the readings from the service.
I contributed these Reflections:
These reflections began as a personal thank you note to our Ministerial Search Committee. Not for the obvious thing—the application of their gifts of intellect and empathy to the task of selecting our next settled minister. Not for the domestic tasks that went neglected in their several households as they sat in endless meetings; nor the days they went to their jobs tired from working late into the night; nor the recreation they missed with their spouses and children. Not even a thank you for the incredible result of their work: a minister whose selection brings excitement and hope to an overwhelming number of our congregation, from our children to our elders.
No, I found myself driving to meet Karen Johnston to discuss this service one morning and composing, in my head, a thank you note to the committee for allowing me the honor of cooking for them. As you may know, each of the three final candidates came to Northampton for a clandestine weekend of interviews. Clandestine because—as a personnel process—the anonymity of the candidates had to be preserved. During the Saturday night of each weekend a member of the Search Committee hosted a dinner for the candidate and the entire committee. Last summer, Cathy Lilly and Janet Spongberg asked me to head up the “hospitality” team to prepare these meals, in order to take a single, discrete task from the heavily burdened committee.
I had some awesome helpers from the congregation, but in the end, I did an enormous amount of cooking: the equivalent of preparing two or three holiday feasts in a short number of weeks. In truth, if they had been holiday feasts, and I had been feeding my extended family, I might have felt stressed out by the task. Cooking for these sacred, secret dinners felt different. It felt exciting and fun, and a little sneaky. But most of all, it felt like a privilege, like a gift.
Wherein lay the difference? How and why did this task feel so special to me, like an opportunity rather than an obligation?
The answer is complicated. I have been a long time lonely in this Great Hall; a long time inspired and moved by the elements of our collective worship yet longing for the deep and comfortable personal connections I see among other members. There were times when I wondered if I would ever have a friendly dailiness with any but a tiny few members; when I wondered if I would ever be known well by others in the pews.
Cooking these few dinners brought me into intimacy with people I didn’t know very well. I talked to them on the telephone; I entered their homes. As I pondered menus and recipes, I found myself wondering which meals would be most nurturing, most sustaining, as they shouldered their task. I found myself opening my heart to the job of caring for these folks, whether or not I knew them well. And then a funny thing happened—something that often does when you open your heart: I became known to them. My loving action caused me to feel seen and loved. The gift of service became a gift received rather than one given.
To cite just one example of how this roll-your-sleeves up, practical task of making casseroles transformed my experience, I think of a committee member I knew only from a very formal distance: her beautiful voice gracing our choir, her thoughtful and reasoned comments at our annual meetings. Now I know that she delights in homemade soup; is charmed by my precocious daughter; and—I know this because Alice charmed her into a self-guided house tour when we were delivering one of those dinners—I know that someone in her household collects DVDs of my all time favorite television show. (OK, I’ll tell you: it’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer.)
This experience softened me. It reminded me that I have cares in common with people throughout this congregation, whether or not I know it. It opened my heart and my eyes to the quiet ways we minister to one another all the time, the ways that we extend ourselves to one another to create a loving community.
Over coffee that morning, Karen and I talked about the many small ways we experience our common ministry. We thought of the ways parents and non-parents both take responsibility to teach in the Religious Education program, and also of other ways that adults commit to our youth. Like remembering their names. This makes it possible to greet a young person in passing—or to share the joke when they trade name tags with their friends and siblings before the community greeting. We thought of OWL teachers who offer to be a safe place for young people, not just on those eight Sundays when they teach, but for always, whenever they are needed. And of a grownup who offered a dignified, heart-felt apology—handwritten and delivered during the service—when a well intentioned Great Hall greeting inexplicably hurt a small child’s feelings.
We thought of the generosity of Gail and John Gaustad, who agreed to babysit so I could attend a Worship Committee meeting. It wasn’t simply the logistical support often necessary for the parent of a young child to be able to be of service, when being of service means attending a meeting late into a weekday evening. It was also the abundant relief that my partner Liz and I felt knowing we could aim Alice’s persistent cosmic inquiries—“How big is the Universe? What’s outside the end of the Universe? Where did the Universe come from?”—at John—a real live astronomer!—at least for one night. The answers we’d been giving all began, “Science says…” and “Some people believe….” We heard a different gravitas in John’s academic voice when he started to address the topic as we slipped out the back door. We hoped it would give Alice a lesson in action of how our Society holds many different types of wisdom and belief to speak to someone so certain, so informed, so knowledgeable. Or maybe it would just give us a night off.
When I was lonely, having trouble finding my place here, I did not know the moments of ministry were not just the warm embraces I saw between old friends. They are also present in the quiet of the pews, as when two seated near each other are inspired by the same sermon to start some private scribbling. One writes in the margins of a Thomas Hobbes paperback, the other in a precious poetry notebook. Though one identifies as an “anti-supernaturalist who cannot get past all the if’s” and the other “a spiritualist who suspends disbelief in order to engage the power of as many of those ‘ifs’ as she can handle,” in this place they can share a common delight, a sacred moment.
I did not know that I was already being ministered to in those days when the older woman who sat alone in the pew in front of us began greeting me and Liz on Sunday mornings – began noticing if we were absent a week – and, when I became visibly pregnant, began chiding Liz to make me a hot cooked breakfast before service. She recommended scrambled eggs. Over time we learned that her name was Ruth, but it was not until the very end of her life that we found out that she was the mother of a dear friend we knew outside of this place – and we learned that almost by accident. Ruth did not reach out to us in the pews because we were known to her; she reached out because we were connected by the moments we shared in this sacred space.
I think of a similar moment a few years ago, when I was really wavering in my faith that this was the right congregational home for me. I knew I was being ministered to one morning when a lay-led sermon spoke directly to my heart and resonated with the spiritual practices that I choose. But it was the moment of ministry that followed that sermon, as I sat weeping in a rear pew, wondering how I would know to stay or to go from this place, that held me here. Someone I knew really only because we had disagreed at recent meetings came to me and said—in what exact words, I can’t ever remember—I care for you. I see that you are hurting. I hope that things get better. That was when I knew that I was home.
It is my hope for myself, and for all of us that these moments become even more abundant in the coming year. I hope that there are two people in the hall today who will find a new connection—whether through practical assistance, kindness, a brief shared moment, or some common laughter. I hope that you come to a summer services and hear a lay preacher speak to your most cherished beliefs. And I hope you come to another service where your most cherished beliefs are challenged, or expanded, or enriched by contrasting experience. I hope that we remember as we start to walk with our new minister that she is joining us on the path, that we are already walking together.
I contributed these Reflections:
These reflections began as a personal thank you note to our Ministerial Search Committee. Not for the obvious thing—the application of their gifts of intellect and empathy to the task of selecting our next settled minister. Not for the domestic tasks that went neglected in their several households as they sat in endless meetings; nor the days they went to their jobs tired from working late into the night; nor the recreation they missed with their spouses and children. Not even a thank you for the incredible result of their work: a minister whose selection brings excitement and hope to an overwhelming number of our congregation, from our children to our elders.
No, I found myself driving to meet Karen Johnston to discuss this service one morning and composing, in my head, a thank you note to the committee for allowing me the honor of cooking for them. As you may know, each of the three final candidates came to Northampton for a clandestine weekend of interviews. Clandestine because—as a personnel process—the anonymity of the candidates had to be preserved. During the Saturday night of each weekend a member of the Search Committee hosted a dinner for the candidate and the entire committee. Last summer, Cathy Lilly and Janet Spongberg asked me to head up the “hospitality” team to prepare these meals, in order to take a single, discrete task from the heavily burdened committee.
I had some awesome helpers from the congregation, but in the end, I did an enormous amount of cooking: the equivalent of preparing two or three holiday feasts in a short number of weeks. In truth, if they had been holiday feasts, and I had been feeding my extended family, I might have felt stressed out by the task. Cooking for these sacred, secret dinners felt different. It felt exciting and fun, and a little sneaky. But most of all, it felt like a privilege, like a gift.
Wherein lay the difference? How and why did this task feel so special to me, like an opportunity rather than an obligation?
The answer is complicated. I have been a long time lonely in this Great Hall; a long time inspired and moved by the elements of our collective worship yet longing for the deep and comfortable personal connections I see among other members. There were times when I wondered if I would ever have a friendly dailiness with any but a tiny few members; when I wondered if I would ever be known well by others in the pews.
Cooking these few dinners brought me into intimacy with people I didn’t know very well. I talked to them on the telephone; I entered their homes. As I pondered menus and recipes, I found myself wondering which meals would be most nurturing, most sustaining, as they shouldered their task. I found myself opening my heart to the job of caring for these folks, whether or not I knew them well. And then a funny thing happened—something that often does when you open your heart: I became known to them. My loving action caused me to feel seen and loved. The gift of service became a gift received rather than one given.
To cite just one example of how this roll-your-sleeves up, practical task of making casseroles transformed my experience, I think of a committee member I knew only from a very formal distance: her beautiful voice gracing our choir, her thoughtful and reasoned comments at our annual meetings. Now I know that she delights in homemade soup; is charmed by my precocious daughter; and—I know this because Alice charmed her into a self-guided house tour when we were delivering one of those dinners—I know that someone in her household collects DVDs of my all time favorite television show. (OK, I’ll tell you: it’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer.)
This experience softened me. It reminded me that I have cares in common with people throughout this congregation, whether or not I know it. It opened my heart and my eyes to the quiet ways we minister to one another all the time, the ways that we extend ourselves to one another to create a loving community.
Over coffee that morning, Karen and I talked about the many small ways we experience our common ministry. We thought of the ways parents and non-parents both take responsibility to teach in the Religious Education program, and also of other ways that adults commit to our youth. Like remembering their names. This makes it possible to greet a young person in passing—or to share the joke when they trade name tags with their friends and siblings before the community greeting. We thought of OWL teachers who offer to be a safe place for young people, not just on those eight Sundays when they teach, but for always, whenever they are needed. And of a grownup who offered a dignified, heart-felt apology—handwritten and delivered during the service—when a well intentioned Great Hall greeting inexplicably hurt a small child’s feelings.
We thought of the generosity of Gail and John Gaustad, who agreed to babysit so I could attend a Worship Committee meeting. It wasn’t simply the logistical support often necessary for the parent of a young child to be able to be of service, when being of service means attending a meeting late into a weekday evening. It was also the abundant relief that my partner Liz and I felt knowing we could aim Alice’s persistent cosmic inquiries—“How big is the Universe? What’s outside the end of the Universe? Where did the Universe come from?”—at John—a real live astronomer!—at least for one night. The answers we’d been giving all began, “Science says…” and “Some people believe….” We heard a different gravitas in John’s academic voice when he started to address the topic as we slipped out the back door. We hoped it would give Alice a lesson in action of how our Society holds many different types of wisdom and belief to speak to someone so certain, so informed, so knowledgeable. Or maybe it would just give us a night off.
When I was lonely, having trouble finding my place here, I did not know the moments of ministry were not just the warm embraces I saw between old friends. They are also present in the quiet of the pews, as when two seated near each other are inspired by the same sermon to start some private scribbling. One writes in the margins of a Thomas Hobbes paperback, the other in a precious poetry notebook. Though one identifies as an “anti-supernaturalist who cannot get past all the if’s” and the other “a spiritualist who suspends disbelief in order to engage the power of as many of those ‘ifs’ as she can handle,” in this place they can share a common delight, a sacred moment.
I did not know that I was already being ministered to in those days when the older woman who sat alone in the pew in front of us began greeting me and Liz on Sunday mornings – began noticing if we were absent a week – and, when I became visibly pregnant, began chiding Liz to make me a hot cooked breakfast before service. She recommended scrambled eggs. Over time we learned that her name was Ruth, but it was not until the very end of her life that we found out that she was the mother of a dear friend we knew outside of this place – and we learned that almost by accident. Ruth did not reach out to us in the pews because we were known to her; she reached out because we were connected by the moments we shared in this sacred space.
I think of a similar moment a few years ago, when I was really wavering in my faith that this was the right congregational home for me. I knew I was being ministered to one morning when a lay-led sermon spoke directly to my heart and resonated with the spiritual practices that I choose. But it was the moment of ministry that followed that sermon, as I sat weeping in a rear pew, wondering how I would know to stay or to go from this place, that held me here. Someone I knew really only because we had disagreed at recent meetings came to me and said—in what exact words, I can’t ever remember—I care for you. I see that you are hurting. I hope that things get better. That was when I knew that I was home.
It is my hope for myself, and for all of us that these moments become even more abundant in the coming year. I hope that there are two people in the hall today who will find a new connection—whether through practical assistance, kindness, a brief shared moment, or some common laughter. I hope that you come to a summer services and hear a lay preacher speak to your most cherished beliefs. And I hope you come to another service where your most cherished beliefs are challenged, or expanded, or enriched by contrasting experience. I hope that we remember as we start to walk with our new minister that she is joining us on the path, that we are already walking together.
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