Tearing Down Walls

Skip Freidhof

Date: 02.11.05

(MEDITATION)

One Wish.

If you had but one wish,

What would it be?

Take your time thinking about it.

So much is at stake –

An end to all suffering,

A stop to all violence,

A solution to poverty and all of its ills

Would you wish for love?

For forgiveness or for healing?

Would you wish the world joy?

Or the wisdom to change?

Would you wish to understand everything?

Or to know less than you do?

Take your time thinking about it

So much is at stake

For a wish is a thought,

And a thought is an idea

An idea leads to commitment,

And a commitment cries out for action

A wish can be a dangerous thing,

Something daring

And it need not be witnessed by the stars

To come true

Let us be glad that we are not given just one wish in our lives,

But many

Let us be grateful not for wishful thinking,

But for the discipline of the thoughtful wishing

That can lead to change.

What would your wish be?

Around the time of the last election I had a confrontation with my sister-in-law. It started with a non-partisan ‘Don’t forget to Vote’ email. After the election I received a somewhat partisan – “Go Bush” – response. Well, this response kind of irritated me and I replied with a most certainly partisan ‘Too Bad for Democracy and Freedom’ response. Ok, so you might be able to see where this is going, these simple one line retorts were enough to form the building blocks of a wall that was about to go up. The next thing I know we are in a week long email debate regarding our individual beliefs. Right wing versus left wing, liberal versus conservative, on and on it went, and with each day it seemed to get more attacking. Now, at this point I’ve got to tell you that this is someone who I have known and gotten along with for over 25 years, someone who we go on vacations with, and visit as often as possible, but none of that seemed to matter. We are both very opinionated, and as the week went on it seemed to become more and more important to each of us to defend our beliefs and prove the other wrong. We finally did defuse the situation when I called for a truce, mainly because I was getting tired of waking up angry every morning and couldn’t see any amicable end in site without a cease fire.

Well, this experience made me realize how things can escalate in our dealings with each other. They can turn pretty ugly in a hurry when we have strong beliefs and are not willing to concede our viewpoints. Where this gets pretty interesting is when we try to imagine this type of behavior in a global situation, that’s where it gets truly scary.

There’s not always a right and a wrong, things aren’t always black and white. It’s the shades of colors that provide us with the opportunity and ability to get along with each other and gain appreciation for the world in which we live.

This brings me to a key ingredient of my sermon ...

... That is, the arc that is on the wall above the front of this stage.

That arc has captured my attention since the first day that I walked into this building, which actually, wasn’t very long ago. The idea that all of these different religious beliefs from different cultures, locations, and historical times could be recognized in one church has been pretty amazing to me. Now, I grew up in a family where there was only one set of religious beliefs and you didn’t really question those beliefs. A lot of religious organizations seem to based on the premise that it is their responsibility to convert others and make believers out of all non-believers – non-believers, of course, being anyone who doesn’t believe in their particular deity. But to walk into a building where the first thing that I saw was an arc containing symbols representing a multitude of differing viewpoints, that just kind of floored me.

It seemed to send out a message that here is a place that accepts different philosophical views of the world and welcomes people without trying to mold them into a particular belief. Some would probably say ‘how could they possibly do that’. Instead, I found myself saying ‘this is exactly what I have been looking for throughout most of my life.

Now, when I mentioned in our sermon class that my concept for this sermon was going to be the arc of symbols, several people started to identify all of the different symbols and mention what each one represented. Buddism, Taoism, Judaism, Paganism, Islam, Native Americans, etc. It seemed to me that they thought that I would be talking about the doctrinal beliefs that made each of these symbols unique.

Well, it’s not the UNIQUE attributes of each of these religions that really interest’s me. I’m much more interested in looking into the UNIFYING attributes that enable them to share the space that makes up this arc. In other words, my curiosity about these symbols, centers around the fact that each of these beliefs have their own perspective on the life experiences that confront us as human beings. Some of them seem to focus their attention on issues of how people relate to other people, others are more interested in how we treat the earth, still others focus on intellectual endeavors centered around the concept of a supreme being, and many concentrate on issues of ethics and morality.

My fascination with looking at them as a group centers around the idea of taking the various insights offered by each and starting to combine them into a unified belief system that I can then apply to my daily life. And I think that approach to religious belief is what Unitarian Universalism is all about, which may be one of the reasons why they are in the center of the arc.

You can see this same approach reinforced in other materials that are used by our denomination, for instance, the songbook that we use for our services. Quite frequently, when I come to service I pick a passage or two from the back of the songbook and read it. I always seem to find a certain amount of inspiration or a degree of solace in these passages. The variety of writings that are available, and the diversity of subject matter, create an opportunity for me to explore things from different perspectives. To me that openness to explore my spiritual beliefs is a unique attribute of Unitarian Universalism.

So, what does this have to do with my original story. Well, this is actually where the sermon has changed over time, when I first wrote this I thought that I had diffused the situation between myself and my sister-in-law and so I planned on the sermon being about something like a Rodney King type ‘why can’t we all just get along’ message. In that context we could see the arc as a unifying symbol that emphasizes the idea that we all need to get along with everybody else regardless of their religious, or dare I say political, beliefs. Granted, I think this is a pretty good interpretation of the arc and one that, if taken to heart, might be very useful in helping to prevent a lot of the conflict that exists in our world.

But, as time has gone on from that first writing, my story line has continued to develop. Let me bring you up to date,

I haven’t talked to my sister-in-law that much since airing our differences of opinion. On Christmas I received a package from her and my brother. I thought it would be something from the kids, since we always exchange gifts with them. Well, when I opened the package I couldn’t believe what they had sent – it was a tee shirt that read “Bush Country 2004 – My America” and had one of those red states, blue states maps on it.”

I think she sent it as a joke but I still became infuriated that she would be so bold and so willing to re-visit this rather sensitive subject.

It’s at this point that I began to explore my ‘why can’t we all just get along’ sermon. I didn’t want to get along, I didn’t want to talk to my brother or sister-in-law, and I most certainly didn’t want to turn the other cheek, family or not. So, how could I stand up here and talk about how we must all learn to get along.

Well as I thought about this I realized that this is one of those areas where I have always felt a sort of disconnect with religion. It’s great to talk-the-talk but when it comes to walking-the-walk it never quite added up for me. What I mean is that it’s one thing for someone to tell you how to believe and how to act, but it is another thing entirely, to really believe and base your actions on those beliefs.

It is one thing to have your own strong opinion, it’s another thing entirely, to accept the fact that others have opinions that are completely 360 degrees different than yours.

And that’s what brings me back to the arc. This arc seems to be a symbol that represents the idea that it is okay to have different beliefs. A symbol that emphasizes the fact that no one set of beliefs is entirely right or wrong. Differing beliefs can compliment each other and work together in ways that help us to establish our own personal views.

This is a place that is open to different philosophies and views these different religions as parts of one unified whole.

Each of these religions brings its own perspective to the table, The idea of taking important concepts from them combining those into our lives might offer us an opportunity to make more of a connection with the world around us and open the doors to connect with each other in a more humane fashion.

In other words, looking at the various icons that make up this arc can enable me, or you, to create, or at least clarify, our own personal belief systems. In doing this, we can identify specific elements within all of these religions that are important to us, things like how to pay more attention to taking care of the earth, how to treat the elderly with respect, how to become more aware of the relationship between mental and physical well-being, and we can take these concepts and apply them to our daily lives.

I feel that this is especially important in today’s world where it seems to be so easy to build walls but so difficult to tear them down and there seems to be a desperate need to try to figure out how to unify people rather than dividing them.

What it comes down to is that when I walk into this building and see the arc on the wall I feel that I am among accepting people who respect each other for who they are and for what they believe in, regardless of whether or not those beliefs are identical.

Personally, I don’t know what that means for my future relationship with my sister-in-law. We may not be able to sit down and discuss either religious or political issues for some time to come. I may not immediately know how to take down the wall that’s been created between us, but coming to this place and being among the people here gives me hope that I will be able to figure it out.

That’s pretty much what this arc means to me. It’s a symbol of the sense of belonging and acceptance that this congregation provides and the fact that it provides that acceptance to all, regardless of personal beliefs. It’s also a reminder to us that we are not isolated beings, but connected to the universe, to this community and to each other.