First Parish Cohasset

Thought for Contemplation:
The very least you can do in your life is to figure out what you hope for.
And the most you can do is live inside that hope.
Not admire it from a distance, but live right in its roof.

Barbara Kingsolver, Animal Dreams

“Is It Always Like This?”
The Rev. Dr. Anita Farber-Robertson
First Parish in Cohasset
March 18, 2012

Reading: “Attitude” author unknown (included in body of sermon
Austan Goolsbee who stepped down last summer as the Chair of the Council of Economic Advisors, the top advisor to the President on economic matters
tells the story of a flight he once took that got caught in a towering thunderstorm. The plane was gripped in the turbulence.

The jet pitched and dove. Drinks flew. Lights went out. No reassuring announcement came from the cockpit. In front of Goolsbee, an older woman seated next to a teenager began screaming: “We’re gonna die! We’re gonna die!”
“Wow,” Goolsbee remarked to the teenager after a hard landing. “That was some flight.”

The teen was stunned. “This was my first time on an airplane,” he said. “Is it always like this?”

I enjoy this story for many reasons. I enjoy it because I imagine that the teenager who was a novice flyer experienced the whole thing as exciting. I might have experienced it as annoying, intruding on my ability to read or sleep during the flight. Or I might have been irritated as I worried about making my connecting flight or getting to my destination on time. Possibly I might have been frightened like the woman who yelled “We’re gonna die! We’re gonna die!”
But the youth, new to flying took it all in stride. Without an expectation of what it was going to be like, or supposed to be like, he just let it all in, embracing the experience- the fabulous lightshow provided by the thunder storm, the wakefulness generated by the tipping and twisting that was tossing cups and objects back and forth, the excitement, curiosity and maybe even horror at the frightened woman next to him yelling, “We’re gonna die! We’re gonna die!”
Goolsbee, an old hand at flying noted that “That was some flight!” He was marking that it was note- worthily unusual.
For the teen, it was terrific. He was ready to have things however they came to him, and enjoy them for what they offered. I imagine he was hoping that the answer to his question:
“Is it always like this?” Would be ‘yes.’
But maybe I am a dreamer, or a romantic, or an adolescent at heart. Somewhere inside of me, is the lover of adventure. It does not dominate. It co-exists with the lover of familiarity and the lover of tradition, but it holds its place in my life and story. Were it not so, I would be unable to practice interim ministry, a calling in which every two years I am faced with adventure- the adventure of not knowing if I have a job, and the adventure of meeting a new congregation, learning their dreams and their struggles, their loves and their foibles. Interim ministry, I think it is safe to say, is structured adventure. Like the flight that captured Goolsbee and his teenage traveling companion, it has the capacity to scare and the capacity to dazzle. It does for me, and I think, it probably has had that capacity for you.
Goolsbee was talking about a plane flight, regularly scheduled, sent up and out along a known route. A known, familiar route in which surprising things happened. Doesn’t just sound like a plane flight, does it? It sounds like life.
Maybe you grew up expecting to live a life much as your parents did, only to find that the world had changed and with it the opportunities and the attractions. Maybe you left home determined to live a life that was nothing like the life of your parents, only to find, the older you get and the more honest and insightful, that in fact in many ways you are very much like your parents. Ouch! That was a bumpy one, wasn’t it?
Maybe you thought you were going to have two kids and ended up with six; or thought you would have six and ended up with one, or none. Maybe you thought you’d raise your kids and be married for your lifetime, but death or divorce intervened. Your personal plane pitched and dove. Lights went out. Things flew. Eventually you landed- maybe not even in the place you had intended, but landed nevertheless. Terra firma. Feel the ground.
“That was some flight,” you might say now. You had been challenged.
Maybe you loved your job and thought you’d work until you were 70 or more but your health gave out, or the job disappeared and you’ve had to figure out something else to do with your life. You might have felt like screaming like the woman, “We‘re gonna die! We‘re gonna die!” or, with a grip on your self and a longer view of the world, you might say now, “That was some flight”. You had been challenged.
Maybe you are tired of your job, haven’t cared about it or wanted to do it for some time. You’d been looking forward to retirement. But your company went belly-up along with your pension or your retirement savings have disappeared, or you don’t have the financial security you would need to retire. So you are going to work and work well beyond the years or your planning intended you to do so. You could fume with rage. You could make yourself sick with negative energy, and drive away friends who are tired of hearing you complain. Or …
“That was some flight,” you might say now. You had been challenged.
But it isn’t always like that.
It isn’t.
Smooth flights are more common than turbulent ones. We go through all kinds of weather but storms, while part of the picture are not the norm. We remember them more. They have an impact. And often they have powerful effects- we learn, we grow, we deepen in response to them. We need them in our lives. They wake us up and can dazzle us. But they are generally not our every day fare.
What is every day fare, is the ordinary, and unavoidable daily challenges- maybe like our plane flight on a smaller scale. They say, “If you want to make God laugh, tell God your plans.” For life rarely delivers at our doorstep exactly what we ordered or even what we expected.
A wise sage once said that “Expectations are disappointments waiting to happen.” Wise because it is an observation of how life generally works. It is a description, not a prediction. It should not be taken to mean that we should give up the excitement of anticipation or the hope of expectation. It only reminds us that life is a bumpy, unpredictable ride. We need to be prepared for outcomes that are different from what we had wanted or expected. ‘Yes, young man, in some ways it is always this way.’ And it is your choice to engage it as adventure or with fear. For always, it is about attitude.

There once was a woman who woke up one morning, looked in the mirror, and noticed she had only three hairs on her head.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘I think I’ll braid my hair today.’
So she did and she had a wonderful day.
The next day she woke up,
looked in the mirror
and saw that she had only two hairs on her head.
‘H-M-M,’ she said,
‘I think I’ll part my hair down the middle today.’
So she did and she had a grand day.
The next day she woke up,
Looked in the mirror and noticed
that she had only one hair on her head.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘today I’m going
to wear my hair in a pony tail.’
So she did, and she had a fun, fun day.
The next day she woke up,
looked in the mirror and noticed
that there wasn’t a single hair on her head.
‘YEAH!’ she exclaimed.
‘I don’t have to fix my hair today!’

Attitude is everything.

Attitude is everything.
And so my friends,

This day,

Remember that the world is beautiful
To one who is willing that it be so

May you be such a one who knows the world is beautiful. May it be so for you. Amen. Blessed Be.

Thought for Contemplation: Give them not Hell
But hope and courage
Preach kindness
And everlasting love. The Rev. John Murray

“How Could Anyone?”
A reflection on belonging
The Rev. Dr. Anita Farber-Robertson
First Parish in Cohasset
Union Sunday
March 11, 2012
Hymn as Reading: “How Could Anyone”
They say every preacher has one sermon to preach and preaches it over and over in different variations. So when Ken Read-Brown asked each of us cluster colleagues to name our favorite hymn, what came out of my mouth without even thinking was a hymn that captured my 35 years of preaching. It is my Good News. And the Good News I cherish and spread as best as I am able is that “You belong here.” Whoever you are, however you came to be, no matter your story, you belong in this world. Your birth was your passport- your guarantee.
I am a Unitarian Universalist. That is our full name as an association and a tradition that has wended and weaved and braided itself through history. I am a Unitarian Universalist.
But with the poet David Whyte who writes in his poem Self-Portrait:

It doesn’t interest me if there is one God
Or many gods.
I want to know if you belong — or feel abandoned;
If you know despair
Or can see it in others.
I want to know
If you are prepared to live in the world
With its harsh need to change you;
If you can look back with firm eyes
Saying “this is where I stand.”#

When you know that you do not need to justify your life, your right to breathe, or to be or to be happy, you know liberation. You know that you are free to be your whole and true self and that in the words of scripture, nothing, but nothing can separate you from the love of God.
I choose the hymn How Could Anyone? because the depth of sorrow for those who have been hurt by a dismissing or discounting of their value is profound. I feel it like a weighted sack in my chest. We are called to heal that sorrow and lift the weight of pain and regret from the heart and soul of human kind, from the heart and soul that is our own.
I choose the hymn “How Could Anyone?” because I need the reminder to keep my mind clear, my soul free and my heart open.
I need to remember every day that I do not need to earn my value, and that neither do you. I do not need to justify my existence, and neither do you. I cannot always love my enemies, and neither can you, but we are called to recognize that they too are creatures created in the Spirit of light and love. They too belong here, and they too, in the eyes of the Eternal are beautiful. Ouch! Ouch. But it is true.
When my son was two years old and it was obvious that he was not going to be the perfect child and I was not going to be the perfect mother I recognized that I had two choices. I could beat myself up for my failures and imperfection, or I could accept those truths, and be prepared to forgive myself all along the way.
The path of forgiveness seemed the right path. I wanted to enjoy my son. But I realized there was a price to pay. If I was going to forgive myself for all my mistakes and failures as a mother, then the first thing I had to do was forgive my mother her mistakes and failures. Deep breath. Deep breath. And that is what I did. I picked up the phone, called my mother and told her what happened, what I thought about it, and that I was sorry, I was sorry for all of the hard times I had given her. I was sorry for the kind of nasty teenager I had been. I was sorry -for being so difficult, and I loved her.
She laughed. And then she laughed again. “Oh Anita, she said. “You weren’t that bad.”
And we both grinned, I could tell, just by the sound of it. We were okay. She was okay, accepted and acceptable just as she was, and I was too.
Isn’t that good news? It is for me. I hope it is for you.
So I am inviting you to not only sing the hymn with me, but I invite you to enter into a spiritual practice while you are singing it.
The first time through I want you to sing the song to someone you cherish. Bring them to mind, and sing it with your heart.
The second time you sing it I would like you to look around and choose a face of someone you don’t know. You don’t have to look at them when you are singing. You can close your eyes or not, but keep their face in your mind’s eye. Sing it to them-sing it to them so that you know you are singing truth.
And the last time you sing it through, you probably guessed it- I want you to think of someone who you perceive of as an adversary, or as your enemy, or as a villain. I want you to reach down deep, into the deepest place of your expanding loving heart, the place so deep and maybe so tender you hardly ever go there. And from there I ask you to sing this song one more time. As you sing, and as you listen to all the voices around you, feel the love, the tenderness, the forgiveness surrounding you and holding you, because now you know that truly you are beautiful and you are whole. Amen and Blessed Be.

Thought for Contemplation: “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good (people) to d o nothing.” Edmund Burke 1729-1797

“Still Standing on the Side of Love”
The Rev. Dr. Anita Farber-Robertson
First Parish in Cohasset
February 26, 2012

Readings(attached at end):
Gospel according to John 8:1-11
Spirit of the Pioneer by Melvin Hoover

There are stories in which evil triumphs. And there are stories in which good is triumphant. But in real life, history is made up of the stories of real people. In that it is like us- not all good and not all evil, but a composite where sometimes one is ascending and sometimes the other is triumphant. Such is the story of Duluth, Minnesota, as disturbing, complex and encouraging as any told of a people.
I share it as I first heard it told by Victoria Safford, minister of the White Bear Unitarian Universalist Church in Mahtomedi, Minnesota.

…in the center of the city, there is a statue of three young men, college-aged, strong and hopeful, looking out of the stone toward the world. On a summer night in 1920, not so very long ago, these three – Isaac McGhie, Elias Clayton, and Elmer Jackson- were lynched there by a mob that may have numbered as many as ten thousand people. The three were road workers for a traveling circus, arrested days before on charges of raping a white woman. The crowd broke into the jail and dragged them to a lamppost. It did not take very long for these thousands of citizens to gather themselves around a murderous idea. Not even the circus would have brought out ten thousand people without notice.
Evil was easily organized, as it so often is, from the fragments of possibility that lie around ever ready, the tiny sharp shards of potential, the fertile seeds that exist inside each one of us. Of the ten thousand, a few were masterminds and most were “merely” spectators, carrying no weapons, no coils of premeditated rope. But how to draw lines? …

Eighty-three years later a different crowd gathered in that same street, some of them descendents of those present the first time. This patchwork of humanity was smaller, and no doubt more difficult to organize than the first, but this one was lovely and intentional, healing and brave. The people of Duluth-African Americans and white Americans and others-came together to tell this story out loud, publicly to claim shared ownership of this history which for decades had been hidden like a festering family secret. Onto the monument they dedicated are carved the words of Edmund Burke:

“An event has happened upon which it is difficult to speak and impossible to remain silent.”

My friends, it was more than 200 years ago that Edmund Burke uttered those words. Unspeakable behavior has happened before. Some of it has been sanctioned by the powers that be, and some of it has taken place in the hands of vigilantes. Human history is both a sad and proud story of evil and of good.
When Jesus comes upon a crowd about to engage in vigilante justice he listens to their complaint, acknowledges their accusation and even accepts that it might be valid. Maybe the woman is an adulteress. Maybe she did commit the crime. He isn’t asking those questions. He engages the crowd, the angry, self-righteous crowd.
“Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”

The first line of accountability Jesus puts forth is to the ones who would administer the punishment. Check in with yourself first, he says; have you too not erred at some point? Have you too not violated a relationship at some point? It may not be adultery, but maybe you lied, or distorted the truth, maybe you were disloyal to another who trusted you, or failed to fulfill your responsibilities. Maybe you broke their heart, or spent their money, or let others take advantage of them. Have you not hurt another?
“Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”

No one likes to hear that. We all have times we just want to throw stones.
On Thursday, February 16, a week and a half ago, in Bridgewater State University’s parking lot right after 6 p.m., Destinie Mogg-Barklalow was approached by a couple, a man and a woman while walking.

Such encounters happen all the time. The Bridgewater campus is lovely, spread out with buildings separated by broad lawns and connected with a network of gently curving pathways. People are walking all around, strolling, talking, getting to classes or meetings, or at that time of day, dinner. The young woman was walking from an office through the parking lot. I do not know her intended destination. It no longer matters.

Destinie was a writer/reporter for the college’s student newspaper. She had written an article supporting gay marriage which had appeared in the paper. In the parking lot, the approaching couple asked her if she was the one who had written the pro-gay marriage article and she acknowledged that “yes” indeed she was. The woman hauled back, punching Destinie squarely in the face.
Thursday, Feb. 16, a week and a half ago this happened. 2012, in our cultivated, enlightened Massachusetts.
Destinie was dumbfounded. In a daze she made her way back to the office from which she had just come. When she arrived, the shocked staff immediately called for help.

Destinie was not the only person in shock. The school was reeling, traumatized as a body by the incident, that such a thing could happen there, that the respect for free speech and the value of free and open dialog had been violated, and what had once felt like a safe place in which to live and learn, suddenly seemed otherwise. It was not only ideas that were attacked, but a person.
Sometime Monday, President’s Day, I received an e-mail from Bill Zelazny, our District Executive. Ed Hardy, minister of the Unitarian Universalist church in Bridgewater was participating in the University’s efforts to pull together an event in support of Destinie, and in repudiation of such violent behavior. The district ministers were informed that the next day, Tuesday, there would be a march and rally on the campus of Bridgewater State. We were invited to gather at the parking lot of the UU church at 10:00 AM from where we would walk together to the gathering place on campus and then march with the students to the area where the speeches were to be made at 11:30.

It was not a lot of notice. Monday was a holiday. Many of the colleagues never opened their e-mails until the event had already happened, or was about to happen. But when I got there, to Bridgewater on Tuesday morning there were five UU clergy gathered in the church parking lot, quite a few lay people, and the large yellow Standing on the Side of Love banner was unfurled, with folks from the UU church in Duxbury proudly carrying it forward. I was impressed, and very proud.

“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good (people) to do nothing.” Edmund Burke

Surely the incident at Bridgewater State pales in comparison to the incident in Duluth. Nobody died in Bridgewater. And the response of the community was immediate and clear. This behavior is not to be tolerated. And that is good- very good. For surely evil will continuously surface, and as long as there are people who will respond clearly and forcefully to repudiate such attacks, it is less likely that evil will triumph.
But I believe that the charge to religious community is more basic than simply responding to evil when it occurs, of repudiating acts of hate as important as it is to do so. I am talking about a culture war. I am talking about eliminating the hateful talk as well as the hateful behavior. I am talking about creating a culture in which hate by categories, be it race or gender, education or income, abilities or orientation, is an aberration. That should such prejudice and bigotry rear its ugly head we will have finely attuned antennas to pick it up and address it before it spreads or hurts any further.
I am talking about standing up for love, about saying no to hate speech by our candidates and politicians. I am talking about demanding a standard of civil discourse. And it begins here, at home.
It is about how we speak to and about each other, here in our congregation, and in our community. How we speak about our teachers and our public servants, our elected officials and our volunteers. It is how we conduct ourselves at town meeting and in the supermarket, on the road, and in line at deli.
Many years ago shortly after I moved to Hudson, Massachusetts, I went to a meeting of the historical society. The talk was very interesting. The people were engrossed and engaged. “Oh,” I said to myself. “I think I am going to like this town.”
We broke for coffee and tea and light refreshments. Folks were standing around in little groups talking. I joined one of the groups. The people there were talking about a particular immigrant population that was growing in Hudson. One man was talking. The name he used for these people was not the name of their country of origin. It was a slur. And everyone listened and no one flinched. I felt the heat rise in the back of my neck. I was new in town. I did not feel empowered to say anything. I waited desperately for someone to tap him on the arm and say “Sam, they are …… and remind him of the right name for those immigrants. But nobody did. Nobody did. Not even me. I went home that night feeling disappointed- because my new town was not going to be the happy safe haven I’d hoped, and ashamed. Ashamed because I had stood there, and said nothing.
“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good (people) to do nothing.” Edmund Burke
We may not engage in public lynching any more. But we do see folks get caught up in the discourse of hate and blame and scapegoating. We have lost our way and forgotten civil discourse. The inflammatory language used by many lawmakers and candidates about our immigrant populations is the language of evil, and it needs good people to do something. The assaults against women and women’s health that are disguised as protection of religious freedom need to be named and confronted. Good people need to do something.
When the civil right to choose one’s spouse is put up to a vote through referenda and propositions we need to say “No!.” Civil rights are never appropriately put up to a vote. And when one young woman stands up and is assaulted for saying so, we need to stand too- not only for her, but for every person who is the target of hate or disempowerment, on the personal scale of a punch in the face, or the grand scale of legalizing practices based in hate.
Good people, my good people, there is no time for rest.
“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good (people) to do nothing.”
Good people, we know what to do. Emboldened by faith, we must dare to proclaim that we are still standing on the side of love. May we be so brave. May we ever do so. Amen.
Readings:
John 8:1-11

while Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him and he sat down and began to teach them. The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery; and making her stand before all of them, they said to him, ‘Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?’ They said this to test him, so that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, ‘Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.’ And once again he bent down and wrote on the ground. When they heard it, they went away, one by one, beginning with the elders; and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. Jesus straightened up and said to her, ‘Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?’ She said, ‘No one, sir.’ And Jesus said, ‘Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again.’]]

The New Revised Standard Version (Anglicized Edition), copyright 1989, 1995 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

——————————————————————————–

Spirit of the Pioneer
We can’t change the past, but we canlearnf romit and build on it.
We can’t control the future, but we can shape it and enhance the possibilities for our children and our grandchildren.
We can’t discern in the present the fullness of our actions and their impact, but we can be pioneers in our time, exploring fully the crevices and cracks where knowledge and new insights can be found.
We can explore our spectrum of relationships and confront our complacency and certainty about the way things are.
We can dare to face ourselves in our entirety
To understand our pain
To feel the tears
To listen o our frustration and confusion and
To discover new capacities and capabilities that will empower and transform us.
Melvin Hoover, In Been In the Storm So Long,
ed. Mark Morrison-Reed and Jacqui James.

This is the link to the photo of the monument:

http://www.hmdb.org/PhotoFullSize.asp?PhotoID=171440

Thought for Contemplation: “Our history in regard to racial justice is brave enough to make you proud, tragic enough to make you cry, and inept to make you laugh, once the anger passes.” The Rev. Mark Morrison-Reed
“Reflections on Black History”
The Rev. Dr. Anita Farber-Robertson
First Parish in Cohasset
February 19, 2012

Readings: All of our readings this morning are by African American Unitarian Universalists and are in the 1991 Meditation Manual, Been in the Storm So Long, edited by Mark Morrison-Reed and Jacqui James.
They are attached at the end of this document.
What We’ve Started by Betty Bobvo Seiden
Dream It by Henry Hampton
I See Her From Time to Time by Rewv. David Eaton
It’s Hard Work by Rosemary Bray McNatt
The Church Must Decide by Whitney Young, Jr.
Sin Brought Me Back by Betty Bobo Seiden
Must Jesus Bear the Cross Alone? By Rev/ Yvonne Seon
Love Is All by Lewis Latimer
Reflection #1
Betty Bobo Seiden member of the Oakland, CA Unitarian Universalist congregation, says that “we want our religious journey to include more than one holy land , more than one vision, more than one scripture.”

She knows what she wants, what she thinks the others who share our faith want. “…more than one holy land, more than one vision, more than one scripture,” is what she wants; it is not fully what we have right now.
Henry Hampton says “When you dream of something, you can begin to take it upon yourself, make it yours, change it. But you have to dream it first….I don’t mean wish it. I mean dream it. And sometimes I think Unitarian Univeralists wish more than they dream.”

So today I am asking us to press into the dreams, the dreams we have had for our Unitarian Universalism, and the dreams others have had, others who have had to struggle to hold onto their dreams while a part of us.

They push us to ask, “What is Unitarian Universalism? Who are we? What do we dream? What does it tell us about ourselves and our future? Who do we include? Who are we?”

February is Black History month. Often in Unitarian Universalist churches there is some effort to acknowledge Black history. I think that is important. Too little is known and acknowledged of the contributions of African Americans to our common life and common story. But I decided to do something different this year- something I think we need; something I have never done before.

I thought that it would be helpful for us to leave aside the famous names we already know in American history and look closer to home, to our spiritual home. I asked “What do we know of African American history within the Unitarian Universalist Association? What roles have African Americans played in shaping who we are and what we have become? Do we know them? Claim them? Celebrate them.

There is, in your order of service, a list of significant African American players and race-related milestones within the UUA. I culled it from a longer list of ways in which Unitarians and Universalists have been in the struggle for racial justice. While UU’s have been involved in the racial justice struggle for a long time it is time to hear the voices of African Americans, their concerns, their disappointments and their delights. I want us to feel their humanity with all its angst and wonder, to feel their love and their yearning as Unitarian Universalists, as us.

Reflection #2

In preparation for this Sunday I looked at a lot of material I have accumulated over the years… books about race, books about Unitarian Universalism, books about race and the UUA. I was looking for the words and experiences of African Americans within our UUA. There is not that much on record.

I didn’t want to use the words of white folks to tell the story of black folks. And although I thought I knew a lot about the dynamics of race in me and in the UUA, I was once again surprised. I was surprised at how hard it was to find the words of black folks, not only because the information was hard to surface, but because I kept wanting to talk about what white folks had done- how we’d helped or hindered. It is hard to take the big white ego and ask it to take a rest. At least it is hard for me.

So I am going to tell you two stories of African Americans in the UUA- stories to enhance our pride in our faith, and our humility as we try to make it live in our daily lives.

Whitney Young was known to me, and maybe you, as President the Urban League in the thick of the civil rights movement.
Having graduated as valedictorian, he served in the Army in an all-black regiment under a white captain. Invariably there were racial tensions and Young found that he could be very effective in diffusing them. He said
“It was my army experience that decided me on getting into the race relations field after the war. Not just because I saw the problems, but because I saw the potentials too. I grew up with a basic belief in the inherent decency of human beings.”

In 1954 Young became Dean of the Atlanta School of Social Work, moved to Atlanta and joined the Atlanta Unitarian Church.
“The summer after he joined, the church had planned its annual picnic, and it would take place in a park that did not accommodate blacks. Young was surprised that the white church members had never thought about the possible offense in utilizing such a venue and he protested. The church agreed that beginning with the next picnic, a different place would be used. Despite the bittersweet victory, Young would remain a UU.”

Later, in an article in the New York Times Magazine he said:
“For more than three hundred years white America has received special consideration or “preferential treatment” …over the Negro. What we ask now is that for a brief period there be a deliberate and massive effort to include the Negro citizen in the mainstream of American life.”
Whitney Young’s grounding in his Unitarian Universalist faith and his commitment to the inherent worth and dignity of every person empowered him to keep with the struggle.
There were others who carried on.
It was the fall of 1992. The newly appointed Racial and Cultural Diversity Task Force for the UUA was were gathered at the Walker Center in Auburndale, Massachusetts. Our charge was to make the UUA reflective of the global village in which we lived. In other words, to become racially and culturally diverse. It was to be a three day workshop led by two organizations that had been doing anti-racism work for years. Along with members of our task force were members of the UUA’s Black Concerns Working Group. We went around the room, each saying who we were, in what capacity we had been invited to this training event, and why we cared about this at all.

About halfway around the circle we got to Norma Pointsett. I did not know her, although she had been a member of the UUA Board of Trustees. And she was the chair of the Black Concerns Working Group. She was an older woman, and as she spoke, her passion came through. She told us more than what the initial questions posed requested, and we listened.

Norma said she had been part of the initial Black Concerns Working Group, created by denominational leaders in 1985 and charged with eliminating racism within the UUA. They gave the group a few thousand dollars to do it. She stopped and looked at us, one by one around the room. We wriggled and laughed uncomfortably. She repeated. “They gave us a few thousand dollars and told us to go off and eliminate racism in the UUA.” More silence. “And now they have asked you. Good-luck.”

Happily the Black Concerns Working Group, which had created Jubilee World, a program for congregations, did not just drop the ball in our lap and leave. They kept on keeping on, creating Jubilee World II. Norma and I developed a warm respect for one another. I look forward to seeing her each year at General Assembly and hearing what she has been up to. Age doesn’t keep her down. Why should it? Race never did!

Every year Norma reminds me that with all we have done, we still have not eliminated racism in the UUA. But if we maintain the fire of our commitment, we will keep getting closer. Bless you Norma. You keep me honest, you keep me accountable, you keep me faithful to my faith.
Readings:

What We’ve started
By Betty Bobo Seiden

We are here today because we want our religious journey to include more than one holy land, more than one vision, more than one scripture…
We sing praises in many styles and in many languages. We make a joyful noise unto whomever nourishes and sustains all life.
When we look around us here today we see the beauty of diversity-people of various sizes and shapes, heads of different colors and textures. We see an age span of several generations. WE are aware of personality differences, of differences in perspective, of ancestors who represent every continent of our world.

Come let us celebrate our diversity.
Come let us worship together.

Dream It
By Henry Hampton

I am given to talking about dreams because dreaming separates us from other animals, other forms. I have a favorite line from a play I read years ago, a Chaucerian drama. The line goes: “In dreams begins responsibility.” And indeed it’s true. When you dream of something, you can begin to take it upon yourself, make it yours, change it. But you have to dream it first. And the Unitarian Universalists don’t dream. …You have to think of the world as you would really have it. I don’t mean wish it. I mean dream it. And sometimes I think Unitarian Universalists wish more than they dream.

I See Her From Time to Time by Rev. David Eaton

Many people left the church, and some for legitimate reasons. A lot left because they could not stand what I am talking to you about this morning.

Something wonderful and beautiful happened in the midst of it all. A woman 62 years old, came to my office. She was crying and I went over and held her in many arms.
She said, “I’ve got to leave the church.”
I asked, “Why?”She said, “I’m just not comfortable anymore. It was all right before, with ministers who were white. There were a few blacks, but not there are too many joining the church. I’m not comfortable anymore. I feel ashamed of myself.”
She said, “I’m liberal, and I never thought that I could have racist feelings, but I do.” I said, “Well, you can try to change.”
She said, “No, I’m too old for that. I can’t change. When I go to church I want to be comfortable. But I’ll send you money every now and then to help the church out.” And she left.
I see her from time to time. She is out in one of the suburban churches. I see her through the corner of my eye. And if she sees me before I see her, she vanishes quickly. And I let her. But if I see her first, she smiles and we hug each other. She asks me how things are and we quickly part. But I appreciate her honesty.

The Church Must Decide

Instead of an asset, religion has been a liability in the struggle for social reform. The Church, until recently, anesthetized one of the major forces of social change: the American conscience. It provided people with a place where they could congregate regularly in a beautiful setting to hear pious platitudes and mouth meaningless cliché’s.
Then it turned them loose to discriminate against their fellow (humans) the other six and nine-tenths days of the week. Eleven to twelve a.m. on Sundays has been the most segregated hour in America, and it has been easier to integrate the chorus line of a burlesque show than to integrate a choir in most of our churches.

The Church must decide what it is going to do and what it is going to be. It is a physical plant or is it a social institution? Is the ministry a profession where practitioners are more concerned with the facial expressions of their largest contributors than with helping their congregations to live up to the tcachings to Scriptures? Will ministers only reflect the congregation, will they merely mirror the prejudices of the congregation, or will they mold and lead their congregations?

Whitney M. Young, Jr.

Sin Brought Me Back
By Betty Bobo Seiden

Sin is what caused me to leave the church and give up religion, and sin is what brought me back.

In my grandmother’s house, sin was associated with pleasure. All those things that I thought were fun were of the world, and therefore sinful. Dancing, playing cards, going to the movies all condemned me to Hell-which made it sound like a pretty interesting place. In my father’s house, sin was associated with form and ritual. Eating meat on Friday, coming into church with the head uncovered-these were mis-deeds to confess. But I couldn’t feel guilty about them.

Years later my three-year old son came running to the house to tell me that a neighbor’s boy had just told him that God would kill him if he told a lie. I decided that it Ws tine we found a religious community that would sustain and encourage our beliefs:
That we are a part of a universe of diversity and interdependence,
That the diversity of our world suggests that truth and beauty take many forms,
That God is concerned with the enhancement of life, that evil is life-destroying,
That sin is associated with self-absorption, and that salvation lies in selflessness and service.

A religious community is in the world and concerned with the world.

Must Jesus Bear the Cross Alone?
By Yvonne Seon

Some of you have heard me say, “Don’t take Jesus away from me!” You may have thought this strange coming from a Unitarian Universalist minister. But, when I say that, I don’t mean Jesus, a Being whose perfection removes him from most of us in this realm. I mean Jesus, the human person, like me; Jesus, capable of divine inspiration, insight and response, like me; Jesus, responsible, like me, for creating change, here and now! In liberation theology, Jesus bears the cross as a powerful; symbol that e can each have the capacity to transcend the pain of our crosses to achieve a higher life of meaning. “Must Jesus bear the cross alone, and all the wo4rld go free? No, there’s a cross for everyone, and there’s a cross for you and me”. Amen

Love Is All
By Lewis H. Latimer
What is there in this world, beside our loves,
To keep us here?
Ambition’s course is paved with hopes deferred,
With doubt and fear.
Wealth brings n joy,
And brazen-throated fame
Leaves us at last
Nought but an empty name.
Oh soul, receive the truth,
E-’er heaven sends thy recall:
Nought here deserves our though but love,
For love is all.

Thought for Contemplation: “In the love of truth and the spirit of Jesus we unite for the worship of God and the service of man. “the Ames Covenant, 1880, once recited weekly here at First Parish in Cohasset

“In the Love of Truth”
The Rev. Dr. Anita Farber-Robertson
First Parish in Cohasset
Evolution Sunday
February 12, 2012
Readings: What’s A Man? in The Economist, February 4, 2012
attached

When I was young, about eight years old, I was given a Cinderella watch. I loved it. Cinderella’s arms went round and round telling the time- and I now knew how to read it. It had a pretty baby blue leather wrist band and every night before bedtime I took it off and laid it tenderly on the table by my bed. It was a precious treasure…and a compelling mystery. How did it do that? I wondered. How did those arms go round and round? How did it know what time it was?
The compelling mystery won out. One afternoon I took my beautiful watch off and laid it face down on the broad window sill. I had managed to locate a teeny tiny screwdriver and with that screwdriver lifted off the back cover of the watch. The workings were amazing. I watched them for a long time, tiny wheels and tiny parts all working together, round and round. Amazing. I wanted to get closer, to understand more how all of this happened. Slowly and carefully I began to take it apart. Piece by piece I took apart the watch. Hundreds of pieces it seemed I laid out in a neat and tidy row, all along the window sill, in the order in which I had removed them.
When I was finished and it was all apart I breathed deeply, the deep pleasurable breath of satisfaction. I had done it. There was the watch, all laid out, its truth exposed, I knew of what it had been made. Pretty good for an eight year old.
And then, when I was finished with my admiring gaze of all the tiny pieces and the cleverness with which they had been put together to create a working watch, I knew it was time for me to reconstruct my watch. I had my little fingers and my tiny screwdriver but no matter how carefully I worked, and despite my great care to have laid the pieces out in the order in which I had removed them, it was clear I was never going to get them all to fit back into that little case, let alone get them working. I knew that it would never work again, and I imagined that the grownups would say that I had ruined my watch. I did not feel like I had ruined it. I had only taken it apart, and learned of what it was made. Theoretically it could be put back together. Theoretically someone with the know-how could make it work again. It was not ruined. It was simply apart.
I scooped up all of the amazing, magical tiny pieces, the screws and wheels, and put them in a little plastic bag. I kept that bag of wonders, and loved it. The magic and the mystery were there in all their glory, liberated from the watch case, available to behold. I suspect Ben Franklin and even Thomas Jefferson, our religious forebears, would have understood.
The Ames Covenant of 1880 was one of the most popular covenants in Unitarian churches for many years. Traditionally in most of the Free Church tradition, new hymnals are compiled once a generation. This has been true in Unitarian Universalist churches, part of that tradition. Before we had the grey hymn “Singing the Living Tradition” we had the blue hymnal “Hymns for the Celebration of Life, published in 1964 and before that the red hymnal, “Hymns of the Spirit.” Some of you will remember that hymnal. I have some remaining copies of it in the minister’s office.
Inside the front cover of the hymnal is pasted the Order of Worship. No need to hand out newly printed ones each week, which worked well since photocopy machines had not yet made their way into church offices. While the topics might change, the form of the service was standard. And part of that form was the repetition of the Ames Covenant every Sunday which you called your Bond of Union.
“In the love of truth and the spirit of Jesus we unite for the worship of God and the service of man.”

While the language is old fashioned, not gender inclusive or theologically as broad as we have become, it conveys something that is still important about us. We unite in the love of truth. The love of truth in is a very high value. It comes first. We want to worship that which is of worth, of ultimate value, and we want to be of service. But all that it rests on our commitment to seeking truth freely, unfettered by cultural taboos or mental cowardice. It is a covenant which Galileo would have been able to embrace. It is a covenant that our martyred Unitarian Michael Servetus would have embraced. It is a covenant King John Sigismund, King of Transylvania embodied in1568 when he invited Unitarian heretic Francis David to engage in a debate with the Trinitarians before his court and then affirmed the decree of tolerance. A year later he determined that he believed David to be correct and John Sigismund became our first and only Unitarian monarch. With that he reaffirmed the decree of tolerance and his commitment to freely seek the truth.
We cherish that commitment. Today in our Unitarian Universalist principles we covenant to affirm and promote a free and responsible search for truth and meaning.
Ours is a long tradition of valuing learning- not just academic learning, although we do seem to love that, but any kind of learning. We celebrate it. Encourage curiosity in our children and ourselves.
Why? The old covenant suggests that we do it for the worship of God and the service of humankind, and I believe that is true. In our interest in science, in how things work, what makes them tick, how things are put together, we are admiring the divine, the wonder of a world we did not create, life we can enhance and enjoy, but which came to us as a gift, unbidden. And sometimes what we learn can be put to use – can serve humankind to improve the quality of life. Sometimes, but not always.
The interesting information that is being gathered about early humans, Neanderthals and us, about how we are the same and how we are different from chimps is interesting- and of no use. At least not now. Yet it is essential that we continue to engage in purposeless learning, for the sake of understanding ourselves and our most magnificent world, and because who knows, some day it may indeed turn out to be useful to someone somehow.
When Charles Darwin, whose birth we celebrate today, conceived the Origin of the Species and the principles of evolution, they had no application. Their only function it seemed at the time was to rile people up, challenging their sense of the world and their place in it…much as Galileo did when he asserted that the earth circled around the sun and not the other way around. We now can create vaccines to prevent disease, and screen for possible birth defects- sometimes able to correct them in-utero because of Darwin’s daring. We can fly people to the moon, and bounce telecommunications off of satellites because of Galileo’s perceptiveness and willingness to share it. But that is the secondary gain. Darwin and Galileo were curious, learning for learning’s sake, in the love of truth… and they paid dearly for it. Most religions at the time did not hold learning as one of their highest values along with the desire for truth. We, the tiny minority have held on to that banner, and sometimes it has been hard even for us.
We too do not like to change our world views. But we have.
We, along with society and emerging sciences thought that autism was caused by inferior parenting, that homosexuality was a disease to be treated, that mental illness was a moral deficiency, that people of color were less intelligent than white people. Some of those ideas have been difficult to give up, even though they have been proven untrue. We have made it a part of our religious discipline to work through those prejudices once forged from false information. We struggle still. It is not easy. But because of our love of truth and our commitment to search for it, we stay with the struggle.
We must struggle within ourselves to stay open to the truth. And we must struggle within our country, to insure that seeking the truth in freedom is preserved- that the pure sciences are supported and protected. And we must insure that what our children are taught in our public schools as science is true science and not wishful thinking. There is no place in the science class for “creationism,” or theories of “intelligent design.” Those can be taught in comparative religion classes, or in schools of religion, but they are not science. We confuse them and our children are in peril.
Where will we be with a generation of children raised unable to tell the difference between religion and science? To what bright minds in what nations will we look for knowledge, innovation, and scientific break-throughs if we have abandoned our love of truth and the commitment to seek and teach it? We are at risk of outsourcing our own brilliance and creativity, shackling the minds of our young and relinquishing some of our most precious contributions to humanity- contributions discovered and nurtured in the context of our passionate love of truth and the unflinching courage to seek it, no matter the threat to our own sense of the world, how it is and where we fit in.
The Clergy Letter Project began in December of 2004 as part of an effort to insist that the Wisconsin State Board of Education include evolution in its science curriculum. Since then it has served as a vehicle for liberal, truth seeking people, clergy and laity, to be a voice for reason and science in the education of our children. Through letter writing, petition signing, and testifying we have struggled to keep evolution in the science curriculum and creationism and theories of intelligent design out. The battle is not won. The stakes are very high. We must be vigilant to protect the free and responsible search for truth which has been foundational in the shape of our nation. With King John Sigismund we must live the love of that truth. For surely it is that courage which will keep us free.
The stakes are very high my friends. May we continue to be wise, and may we continue to be brave. Amen

“What’s a Man, excerpted from The Economist, February 4-10th 2012

The problem with understanding human uniqueness is precisely that it is unique. Though the proper study of (hu)mankind may be (hu)mans, that study will yield little if there is no reference point to compare (humans) with.
That, at least, is the philosophy of Svante Paabo of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, in Liepzig. Dr. Paabo, whose work on fossil DNA was the inspiration for “Jurassic Park,” has since become interested in human evolution. To this end he and his colleagues have sequences the DNA of both Neanderthals and an Asian species of prehistoric human, the Denisovians….

Now he has turned his attention to modern Homo Sapiens. In collaboration with a team from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Dr. Paabo and his colleague Philipp Khaitovich have compared genetic activity over the course of a lifetime in the brains of humans, chimpanzees and rhesus monkeys. They have then matched what they found with what is known of Neanderthals, and think they have thus discovered at least part of the genetic difference between Homo sapiens and the others that creates human uniqueness.
….
To summarise, human beings have suites of genes that probably cause their brains to be “plastic” and thus receptive to change far longer (to the age of about five) than is true for chimps or monkeys (whose brains are plastic for less than a year after birth). Moreover, Dr. Khaitovich was able to work out how the expression of these modules of genes was coordinated by looking at the switches, known as transcription factors, that turn them on and off.

Indeed by comparing modern genomes with their discoveries about Neanderthals Dr. Paabo’s group has found that the regulatory process for one of the modules came into existence after the modern human and Neanderthal lines separated from one anther, about 300,000 years ago.