April 25, 2004
One Sunday not long ago, in the story for all ages, I spoke of Richard Gilbert’s “Doctrine of the Unitarian Universalist Church,” in which he places worship in the center “circle within a circle” that is the church. Worship, he says, is “the celebration of the value experiences of life. Out of this spiritual center grows what we think and do as individuals and as a community. Our connectedness with the cosmos, with history, with the world, with each other, is confirmed and celebrated here.” In the outer ring of the circle, you may recall, he places learning, caring and “moral discourse and action,” making “a prophetic community.”
At
the same workshop where he articulated this doctrine, Roberta Nelson, another
colleague and friend, said: “Most of our church school teachers do not see
themselves as activists and [may] not see the subtle kind of role they play in
being able to help our children become justice seekers.” That was twenty years
ago, and at that time Nelson said “These are difficult times. We live in a
world that is constantly changing. We are bombarded …with fear, pessimism,
despair. Our young people feel and hear it. We, as adults, have something very special
to offer our children—hope. Children cannot grow hope in a community that feels
hopeless.”
A
faithful practice of justice making in our daily lives, nourished by the
worshipping community, will provide hope for our children, and for us, as well.
Small acts of justice making will make our lives more fulfilling even as we
seek to create change on a larger scale, if we are mindful and reflective in
all that we do. Being mindful—demonstrating balanced awareness and
attention—requires centeredness and grounding achieved through worship and
reflection, the practice of looking inward and being strengthened. This for the
individual, but what of the community?
In
1983 the Unitarian Universalist Association Commission on Appraisal reported on
their study of the Black Empowerment controversy of the 1960s. The report contains these words:
These
words are still true today. The thesis I want to explore with you, however, is
that there is a consensus among us that the desire to create justice
in the world is part and parcel of who we are. Of course, the fact that many justice
issues are complex and not readily understood makes agreement on some of them
hard to come by. Still we have done some good work through the years.
Perhaps we have done best in this religious movement (so far) in our efforts toward gender justice and equal rights for gay-lesbian-bisexual and transgendered persons. The UUA is among many organizations promoting the March for Women’s Lives in Washington today and many Unitarian Universalists are among those marching, some from our own congregation. And of course we have differing opinions about the issues involved.
The Women and Religion movement which brought about the revised purposes and principles gave our faith community an awareness of language that may be seen in our hymnal, in our services, our religious education curriculum and our classrooms. We are truly mindful when it comes to language and gender. The rights of all persons regardless of sexual orientation has been on our radar screen for a long time. The idea of gay marriage, causing uproar of tsunami proportions in some religious bodies, has caused hardly a ripple in ours. The Association actively promotes gay marriage, although (as ever) individuals are free to entertain their own opinions.
The
rights of children have been perhaps less realized in our congregations and in
the causes we have come to near unanimity on. Justice for children means
changing many institutions (including some of our congregations, although I
think not this one!) Family violence, unequal educational opportunities, lack
of adequate childcare facilities for working parents, and other rights for
children have been addressed by our movement but not been so universally seen
as critical.
Environmental
justice is dear to the hearts of most UUs and many congregations have worked hard in this arena. It is kept before us in many ways: by the
Seventh Principle Project, religious education curriculum, discussion and
publications. We are on the side of angels on this issue, assuming the angels
are part of the “interdependent web of all existence, of which we are a part.”
Our Unitarian Universalist record in the struggle for racial justice is checkered. The results have been mixed at best. Even most of our Abolitionist forebears spoke of the slaves they wanted to free in a dismissive way that makes us cringe to read it. Large numbers of Unitarian Universalists were active in the Civil Rights struggle, and at least two—clergyman James Reeb and lay person Viola Liuzzo--were martyred to that cause. In the late 1960s and early Seventies the Association and our religious movement were wracked by what became known as the BAC-BAWA controversy*, when differing views of Black Empowerment and the role that black Unitarian Universalists should play in the Association, caused a rift that has not entirely healed. It has been addressed through various programs and projects on anti-racism and diversity. As Mark Morrison-Reed, African-American UU minister, now a Canadian citizen, put it in the Journey to Wholeness materials, published in the 1990s: “Our history in regard to racial justice is brave enough to make you proud, tragic enough to make you cry, and inept enough to make you laugh, once the anger passes.” Few of our churches have much racial diversity even today, reflecting the separateness that exists in our society yet. Our work for racial justice is far from done.
Economic justice may be the hardest kind for Unitarian Universalists to grapple with. No matter how much money one makes, or has, there is always someone richer. Even Bill Gates learned that, when it was announced that he is no longer the richest man in the world. We have more economic diversity in our movement than we usually acknowledge; some of us are among the working poor, others are middle and upper middle income. We don’t feel rich (in the monetary sense), although many of us are rich beyond belief compared to the poor of this world. Influenced by the materialism of the society in which we live, it is hard to feel that we should give up anything we possess, or claim as a right. Unitarian Universalists are not alone in this—as part of the dominant culture we are akin to other Americans. Jonathon Kozol wrote in Savage Inequalities that “There is a deep-seated reverence for fair play in the United States, and in many areas of life we see the consequences in a genuine distaste for loaded dice; but this is not the case in education, health care, or inheritance of wealth. In those elemental areas we want the game to be unfair and we have made it so, and it will likely remain.” These words written in 1991 may not be quite so true today; particularly in the area of health care there is a public outcry, as more people see their own situations changing for the worse.
We live in a society that has imprisoned large numbers of its people, some appropriately, some for questionable reasons, and—as we continue to learn—some by mistake. Prison reform keeps coming up in our General Assembly resolutions process and as a study item for our congregations. It is a hard one to tackle and—perhaps understandably—we are reluctant to tackle it.
Terrorism and war represent the greatest of all injustices, the belief of groups and nations that they have the right to kill and terrorize others in the name of their causes, always felt and seen as just to those who hold them. We are not a peace church. Many of us are opposed to all war, many believe that some wars are necessary. Even those of us who are inclined toward pacifism want to use force in self defense. But who is not horrified at the daily death and destruction taking place in Iraq? Informed participation in the political process is necessary for all of us to bring about change in the way nations and groups relate to one another. That is a long, difficult process, I fear, and it is hard for a religious body to find a firm position with a voluntary consensus.
Yet there are things we can do. We can speak out on the issues as we see them. We can and should encourage that our children, and all children, be taught to respect one another, to be cooperative, to learn skills for conflict management, and to use their words instead of their fists, one of the first lessons of preschool.
“Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me.”
I
believe that Unitarian Universalists are called to make justice in the world.
We are called by our principles; most of the seven suggest such a calling, and
four of them make it explicit. As we affirm and promote the free and
responsible search for truth and meaning, may we find within ourselves many
ways to answer that call.
We
are called by the many resolutions our General Assembly delegates have cranked
out over the years, using “the right of conscience and the democratic process.”
We
are called by our UU Service Committee with its strong history and its current
strength. Some years ago, when others were wearing buttons reading “Stop the
World! I want to get off” the UUSC sold us buttons saying, “Change the World! I
want to stay on.”
We
are called by our institutional history of at least having good intentions, to
do better in the future.
We
are called by our own higher selves and/or the great mystery at the core of the
universe which some identify as god and by our “acceptance of one another and
encouragement to spiritual growth” to make justice wherever we may be.
We
are called by our common humanity to honor “the inherent worth and dignity of
every person.” Our stated “goal of
world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all” stands unrealized.
We
are called by our connection with all there is. Our congregations “affirm and
promote respect for the interdependent
web of all existence of which we are a part.”
May our public worship and private reflection fit us to (as Thich Nat Tanh has it) “be the change we want to see in the world” and live toward a more just future for our children’s children and all those yet to come.
O all
ye things of tenderness and grace!
Bless ye our minds and lift us up forever.
O all ye works of strength!
Bless ye our hands and lift us up forever.
O all ye memories of love!
Bless ye our hearts and lift us up forever.
Adapted from Harry Youlden