First Parish Cohasset

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.

Thought for Contemplation: “How rare it is, how lovely, this fellowship of those who meet together.” - Psalm 133

“An Antidote to Loneliness”
The Rev. Dr. Anita Farber-Robertson
First Parish in Cohasset
February 5, 2012

Readings attached at end: Psalm 139:1-15
Psalm 40:4-10

I had a salesman come to my house to demonstrate an an appliance. It was unusual- in fact the last time I can remember my having someone in for a sales demonstration was in 1976. But I had the time and a mild interest, so I let him come.
He was a nice young man, well-groomed and polite, who knew his product, explaining it clearly and carefully. He was enthusiastic about it, his presentation patter well-rehearsed. I found it mildly interesting. What I found more interesting was the side-patter. In the course of his efforts to establish rapport, he asked me what I did. I told him I was a minister.
Well, that opened the flood-gates for him. He was, it seemed, suddenly more interested in taking about his religion that he was in taking about his product. I listened.
He was an Orthodox Christian; he told me…an assertion he repeated often- an Orthodox Christian. But he didn’t go to church. He has a friend who is a Presbyterian who is always trying to get him to go with him to his church, but our friend the salesman had no interest in that. He thought that churches were a waste of time.
I looked puzzled and curious. “What does that mean then, to you,” I asked. “To be an Orthodox Christian?”
He was thrilled by the question and he told me. He believes in the bible. He studies the bible. He has an on-line pastor who is in Texas. This pastor, he assured me, was extremely well educated. He could understand several languages, including biblical Hebrew, biblical Greek, and Aramaic. Since he could read the whole bible in its original languages, and he was so scholarly and well-informed, this pastor really understood what the original meanings of the bible were, what they meant when they were written, and he could explain that in these on-line bible study classes.
“Oh,” I said, “So with the help of this on-line pastor and his bible study you are able to understand and practice what it means to be a Christian?”
“Absolutely.”
“So there is no need for you to participate in a church of any kind?”
“That’s right. I get everything I need on-line through these bible studies.”
“Well,” I said, “I know that everyone reads things differently in the bible…”
He interrupted me to tell me that that was why this scholar-pastor as so important- because he read it correctly.
I continued. “It seems to me, from my reading of the bible, that the very first thing God did after delivering the people Israel out of bondage was to call them together into a congregation. He didn’t talk to them separately. He talked to them as a congregation.”
The man looked puzzled.
“You see,” I said, “All through the bible, God calls people into congregations. That is how God wants people to be.–in community. All the apostles went out into the world to gather people into churches, where they shared, they learned, they ate together, they worshipped.
The entire story of God and God’s people happens in the context of congregational life. I don’t know how you can read the bible and not know that you need to become a part of a congregation.”
I might as well have been speaking another language. He was not getting my point. He was not understanding that I was challenging his claim to being a biblically observant Christian.
So, since he wanted to stay in rapport with me, as any good salesman would, he changed the subject- slightly. He told me that he was working hard, and earning an income because he was saving up and going back to school. He wants to become a minister.
“Really?” I said. He had recaptured my interest. “And where are you going? To what seminary?”
He named a school of which I had never heard. I said so, and asked about it.
“Oh,” he explained, “It is an on-line school.”
“You are going to learn to be a minister by going to an on-line school?” I asked to make sure that I had understood.
He smiled and nodded. I gave up. I smiled and nodded my encouragement, urged him to get on with the demonstration, and realized that there was no way I would be able to convey to this young man that ministry, faith formation, authentic religious practice require more than a virtual community. That essential to my understanding of faith, was the component of relationship, authentic relationship not only with one’s higher power, but with one’s human co-habitants of this earth and its life. It is one of the reasons I was so drawn to the bible. It is the story of a people, not a person, the story of God’s love, anger, joy and frustration with the whole of humankind, and the intense longing for love to prevail, and relationships be made right.
Clearly the salesman and I had a different faith. We read and interpreted our shared sources very differently. I was troubled for him. And I realized how central the Unitarian Universalist principles are to my understanding of best faith practices, for all of them have something to say about what it means to be a person in right relationship to one another and to our environment. There is something solid about the wisdom of our Unitarian Universalist history and tradition embodied in our principles that insists that being human and being human religiously, is a matter of being human in community.
We came to that understanding initially through our grounding the bible. After all, our forebears, heretics though they be, understood theirs as a biblical faith. They read the book, and came up with truths they perceived to be universal. Among them, that human beings were created to live together in community. The bible teaches it both explicitly and implicitly, since all of the stories are in one way or another, about community life.
Studies have been done on Americans and their relationships. The General Social Survey performed in 1985 found that the average number of confidants Americans had was about 3. These were people with whom the respondent could discuss personal issues or matters of importance to them. In 2004, when the survey was repeated, the average number of confidants Americans reported was down to 2. Twenty five percent of Americans reported that they had no one with whom they could talk about personal matters or matters of importance to them. Let me repeat that. 25% of Americans in 2004 reported that they had zero confidants. And that was back in 2004- following the trend, we can confidently predict that the numbers of people with few or no confidants in 2012 is larger still.
The study further examined the nature of the confidants that people do have. They discovered that the circle of available confidants is closing in on us as a people. In 1985, 57% of the people reported that the only people they could talk to about important matters were within the family. So, of their three named confidants, for 57% of the people, none of them were friends. By 2004 the number of people who could only talk to family members about important matters was up to 80% 80%!
Eighty percent of Americans in 2004 had no friends with whom they could discuss matters of importance to them. And we can see the trend. By 2012 it is likely to be much higher still.
With all of the electronic communications systems we have at our disposal, with cell phones, smart phones, Facebook, Twitter, e-mail, texting, instant messaging, we have communication – of things that are not important. When I was asking someone about this curiosity she said, “Why would you tell someone something important or personal, when it could easily end up splashed all over the internet?” Sobering. I had not thought of that. My kids are grown. I don’t splash things all over the internet. But her kids are still in school, where the internet is a live wire sending out all kinds of material that quickly goes viral.
“Why would you tell someone something important or personal, when it could easily end up splashed all over the internet?” Sobering. We are so busy “connecting” spending minutes or hours each day on some form of communication device, and still we, as Americans, are profoundly lonely. We are a lonely people. And the tools we are offered cannot address the deep hurt the isolation inflicts. There is a reason why in those deeply moving emotional psalms the speaker says to God:
O Lord you have searched and known me,
You know when I sit down and rise up:
You discern my thoughts from far away.
You search out my path and my lying down.
And are acquainted with all my ways. (Psalm 139:1-3)
We want to be known-long for it-always have. We have been writing of the pain of loneliness and the longing to be known for thousands of years.
We dwell in a land and a culture steeped in loneliness, in isolation, in separation. Desperate for connection, for meaning, for the experience of knowing others and being known, people turn to that which cannot nourish them, the electronic communications and quick and easy surface conversation that looks like relationship but does not feed or serve us. We are left alone when the need for a friend is great; bereft, we are alone with our stories. Or so it could be, if we do not extend the effort and accept the risk that comes with becoming part of a community.
The Psalmist calls out joy and pain, angst and gratitude in the context of the great congregation, teaching us: this is a way to manage, this is a way to survive..
My friends, you, here, have taken that risk. You are the antidote to the lonesomeness epidemic. You have created community. Religious community. You have a faith that understands in its core that human beings were not created to be alone, but rather, we were created to share our lives, our joys and sorrows, our gifts and needs. This is the meaning and purpose of religious community.-to help us be fully human in the presence of life, embracing the Great Wonder of which we are a part.
Congregational life can do this. Where else can we gather across generations, interests, affinities, gender, education, class and physical capacities, and be together, not defined by the groups to which we belong, or the positions we have achieved, but accepted as we are, as we have come, without excuse or conditions. You are part of this community because you have shown up and chosen to participate. To the extent that you do so, your loneliness will be ameliorated, the days of your life will be enhanced and you will know what it means to be blessed.
And I wonder about all of those people who are not here, who are not gathered in any house of worship. What are they doing? How will they be sustained? Will they become part of the legions of the lonely?
My friends, you are the antidote to the lonesomeness epidemic. You hold the treasure that need not be secret, and that multiplies when shared. Your light, of hope and faith, of authentic community in which joys and sorrows are shared, your light of acceptance and welcome, is the beacon of salvation, healing the broken and lonely world. It is too precious to hide under a bushel. In these days when there is so much we have been given we need to do more than offer thanks – there is role for us- to offer hospitality to a hurting lonely world.
May there be the peace of safe havens. May there be hope that authentic communities can be forged. May there be love, and an open heart, and may it begin with us.
Amen.
—————-

Reading: Psalm 139:1-15 (New International Version)
You have searched me, LORD,
and you know me.
You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
Before a word is on my tongue
you, LORD, know it completely.
You hem me in behind and before,
and you lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.
Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,”
even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.

Psalm 40:4-10

Happy are those who make
the Lord their trust,
who do not turn to the proud,
to those who go astray after false gods.
You have multiplied, O Lord my God,
your wondrous deeds and your thoughts towards us;
none can compare with you.
Were I to proclaim and tell of them,
they would be more than can be counted.

Sacrifice and offering you do not desire,
but you have given me an open ear.
Burnt-offering and sin-offering
you have not required.
Then I said, ‘Here I am;
in the scroll of the book it is written of me.*
I delight to do your will, O my God;
your law is within my heart.’

I have told the glad news of deliverance
in the great congregation;
see, I have not restrained my lips,
as you know, O Lord.
0 I have not hidden your saving help within my heart,
I have spoken of your faithfulness and your salvation;
I have not concealed your steadfast love and your faithfulness
from the great congregation.

Thought for Contemplation- “A sermon can be foolishly spoken and wisely heard” -Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The Truth Comes Knocking”
The Rev. Dr. Anita Farber-Robertson
First Parish in Cohasset
January 22, 2012
Readings attached at end:
Matthew 15:21-28
Fault Line by Robert Walsh
the light that came to lucille clifton, by lucille clifton

Come with me to that hot and dusty place, long, long ago. Very different from where we live now, how we live now.
Come with me to that place where there is a young man preaching and teaching a better way to live. A man who is going from town to town, gathering to gathering helping anxious people find a way to manage their lives and even to be happy in difficult and stressful times, times when they do not feel like they have a lot of control over what is happening to them.
Oh, so maybe it is not that different from where we live now, how we live now. His people, a people within a nation, are in trouble. He thinks they need to get back to basics, not back to the law, but back to the reasons why the law was written, back to the moral and ethical principles from which the law was created. He runs into resistance all along the way. The leaders are protectors of the tradition, the tradition as they value, remember and preserve it, even when it seems the tradition is no longer relevant nor is it serving its intended purpose.
The young man is earnest, indefatigable. Goal driven. He is going to wake up his people and get them to claim their power. And his friends, like any good team, support him by doing some of the up-front preparation work, and by protecting him from distractions. As they travel, he and they want to “keep on message.”
Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is demon-possessed and suffering terribly.”

Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.”

They are doing their job, his disciples, keeping the entourage moving, on track, on time, focused. Jesus is right with them.
He answered (the woman), “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.”

Jesus is clear. He knows what he is there for. He is staying on message.
The woman came and knelt before him. “Lord, help me!” she said.

This woman is clear too. She is desperate.

He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.”

Jesus persists. Disciplined. Clear. Staying on goal, on message. He knows what he is about. It may sound a little harsh, but he’s got to get out of there. Even Jesus, human Jesus, can get irritated and he does. Unfortunately, or fortunately, the cameras were running.
“Yes it is, Lord,” she said. “Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.”
………
the light that came to lucille clifton
came in a shift of knowing
when even her fondest sureties
faded away. …
“you might as well answer the door, my child.
the truth is furiously knocking.”

Then Jesus said to her, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.”

My friends, this is my most favorite of all the stories about Jesus, one of my most favorite stories in the bible. It captures the moment when Jesus “gets it,” when Jesus’ whole world is broken open, when his perceived mission is exposed as too small, when his perceived objectives too limited. “Oh My God!” he surely must have said to himself, if not out loud, when he grasped it, and its implications. “Oh My God!” You don’t want me to just teach peace and justice and good honest governance to my folks here; you want me to tell the world. You want me to heal not only my broken people in my little corner, you want me to offer hope and peace and power to everyone, to the Canaanites and the Samaritans, and to anyone who comes in search.
In that split moment Jesus hears the woman, hears her plea and her challenge and must make a decision.
“you might as well answer the door, my child.
the truth is furiously knocking.”

And he does. He answers the door at which the truth is knocking.
Then Jesus said to her, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed at that moment.

Never again could Jesus dismiss or disregard the issues of those who were not part of his people, Israel. No longer could he turn a blind eye to the suffering of those outside. Jesus’ whole sense of mission and purpose came undone and needed to be reconstructed. Could he do that? Could he become not only a prophet to Israel, but to the world? How wide could he open his door?
It was at this deciding moment that Jesus gave up tribalism and nationalism and understood that God’s compassion, God’s love; God’s yearning for justice was for all of the people, not just Israel. It must have been painful for him when he “got it.”

I find it reassuring to know that I am not the only one who sometimes finds my world view challenged, and my very self cracks open.

Did you ever think there might be a fault line
passing underneath your living room:
A place in which your life is lived in meeting
and in separating, wondering
and telling, unaware that just beneath
you is the unseen seam of great plates
that strain through time? And that your life, already
spilling over the brim, could be invaded,
sent off in a new direction, turned
aside by forces you were warned about
but not prepared for? Shelves could be spilled out,
the level floor set at an angle in
some second’s shaking. You would have to take
your losses, do whatever must be done
next.

What could make that happen? Make the plates beneath your life shift? What could do that? Almost anything. The betrayal by a trusted friend, loss of a job or a spouse, or a child.
What could do that? Almost anything. Hitting the lottery, falling in love, being offered an opportunity.
What could do that? Almost anything. Joining AA or Al-Anon, volunteering for something you’ve never done or thought to do before, taking up a spiritual practice.
What could do that? Almost anything. Having someone you love diagnosed with a dreadful illness, being faced with foreclosure, parenthood, grandparenthood, retirement.
What could do that? Almost anything. I can’t name them all, and neither can you, because the essence of the shifting of the plates that under gird our lives, is that it happens. We didn’t know the plates were there, or that they could shift. We thought we were on solid ground, or at least stable ground.
When I felt the call to ministry it was both exhilarating and terrifying. And it wreaked havoc on my life. The rewards are unceasing. The cost was high. I needed to re- craft my identity and my vision of my future and my place in the world. The people I knew would laugh at me. That was my fear. But the truth was furiously knocking. I would fail. The responsibility was too great, the expectations too high. I would fail. But the truth was furiously knocking. It was a weird thing to choose to do. I would lose my friends and my comfortable relationships. But the truth was furiously knocking.
Maybe you have heard it knocking on your door, whatever your truth is. Maybe you have answered it, or maybe you have tried to nail the door shut and cover it with padding to dull the knocking. But in my experience when such truth knocks and you answer, you will find what you need, you will survive, in-tact in your new self; you will thrive; your soul will grow and flourish. And there will be people to help you.
The fault line is scary, but it is not the end.

When the great plates slip
and the earth shivers and the flaw is seen
to lie in what you trusted most, look not
to more solidity, to weighty slabs
of concrete poured or strength of cantilevered
beam to save the fractured order. Trust
more the tensile strands of love that bend
and stretch to hold you in the web of life
that’s often torn but always healing. There’s
your strength. The shifting plates, the restive earth,
your room, your precious life, they all proceed
from love, the ground on which we walk together.

Those words are true. You can trust them. For just as surely as we live on fault lines, we live in community. For just as surely as unsettling truths knock on our doors, the universe holds us in its unshakable embrace. For as long as we walk on the road of life there are others sharing the journey, feeling the tremors, opening the scary doors, proceeding, ever proceeding from love, the ground we walk upon together.
Have courage my friends. You do not do the walk alone.

“Fault Line”

Did you ever think there might be a fault line
passing underneath your living room:
A place in which your life is lived in meeting
and in separating, wondering
and telling, unaware that just beneath
you is the unseen seam of great plates
that strain through time? And that your life, already
spilling over the brim, could be invaded,
sent off in a new direction, turned
aside by forces you were warned about
but not prepared for? Shelves could be spilled out,
the level floor set at an angle in
some second’s shaking. You would have to take
your losses, do whatever must be done
next.

When the great plates slip
and the earth shivers and the flaw is seen
to lie in what you trusted most, look not
to more solidity, to weighty slabs
of concrete poured or strength of cantilevered
beam to save the fractured order. Trust
more the tensile strands of love that bend
and stretch to hold you in the web of life
that’s often torn but always healing. There’s
your strength. The shifting plates, the restive earth,
your room, your precious life, they all proceed
from love, the ground on which we walk together.
Rev. Robert Walsh In “Noisy Stones”
…………………
the light that came to lucille clifton
came in a shift of knowing
when even her fondest sureties
faded away. it was the summer
she understood that she had not understood
and was not mistress even
of her own off eye. then
the man escaped throwing away his tie and
the children grew legs and started walking and
she could see the peril of an
unexamined life.
she closed her eyes, afraid to look for her
authenticity
but the light insists on itself in the world;
a voice from the nondead past started talking,
she closed her ears and its spelled out in her hand
“you might as well answer the door, my child.
the truth is furiously knocking.”
……….

Matthew 15:21-28
New International Version (NIV)
The Faith of a Canaanite Woman
Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is demon-possessed and suffering terribly.”
Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.”
He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.”
The woman came and knelt before him. “Lord, help me!” she said.
He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.”
“Yes it is, Lord,” she said. “Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.”
Then Jesus said to her, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed at that moment.

Thought for Contemplation- ““What kind of a story heals? A story that is loving and true. True because nothing is left out, neither the pain nor the joy. Loving because everyone in the story – narrator, protagonist and characters alike, is seen with compassionate eyes.”

Margaret Bullitt-Jonas Holy Hunger

“A Story That Heals”
The Rev. Dr. Anita Farber-Robertson
First Parish in Cohasset
January 15, 2012
Reading: from Forgetting is Key to A Healthy Mind, by Ingrid Wickelgren
Attached at end

The Bible was not written for children.
It has lessons from which we all, children and adults alike, can benefit, but the Bible was not written for children.
That means that we chose how we exposure the children to it, the way we tell the stories and the messages we craft for them to remember. Developmental psychology tells us that children cannot take in meanings or messages beyond their capacities. Their developing brains screen out what does not make sense to them. Of course, they can always hear stories, biblical and otherwise that evoke confusion, disquiet or alarm. So we craft our biblical and other story telling to children in such a way as to help them hear the stories, the messages and the questions that are appropriate for them.
That is well and good.
But they grow up. If they have not been invited to re-engage the stories, all they know is what was offered to and received by them as children. The complexities; the nuances; the deep emotional challenges are missing, either because we did not tell them, or because at the age they were they could not hear them. And if the last time that we who sit here as adults heard those stories was when we were children, we are not working with the full deck. We left our biblical education at a certain developmental stage and have only that age view of the bible stories, maybe literal, maybe historical, maybe metaphorical, but certainly less complex and nuanced than we could perceive today with a world of life experience under our belts.
It had been awhile since I went back and read the full story of Jacob and Esau and I was shocked. Shocked by what I didn’t remember. Shocked by the kind of internal and emotional work I needed to do in order to engage the story in ways meaningful, respectful and profound.
In some ways it read like a bad soap opera. And I knew that characterizing it that way was not going to help me learn from it, and neither would it help me to help you.
Margaret Bullitt-Jonas offers exactly the right challenge.
“What kind of a story heals? A story that is loving and true. True because nothing is left out, neither the pain nor the joy. Loving because everyone in the story – narrator, protagonist and characters alike, is seen with compassionate eyes.”

Can we read the story, hear the story in that way? With compassionate eyes?
Isaac and Rebekah had two sons, fraternal twins, Esau the first born and Jacob, the second. Isaac loved Esau and Rebekah loved Jacob.
Esau grows up to be a hunter and Jacob a quiet man, who stays home in the tent. One day Esau comes back from hunting, tired and famished. Jacob is cooking lentil stew. Esau asks for some, saying that he is famished. Jacob offers to give him something to eat in exchange for Esau’s birth right. Esau, painfully hunger and tired says” “I am about to die; of what use is a birthright to me?” And he agrees to the deal.
There is a famine in the land. They move to Gerar. Because Rebekah is very beautiful, Isaac worries that they might kill him to take Rebekah. So he says that Rebekah is his sister. He is seen fondling Rebekah and is confronted about such behavior with a sister. He confesses that she is his wife. The King, Abimelech takes pity on him and promises him protection.
Isaac prospers- generating envy. Fast as he digs wells for his flocks, they fill them up with earth. Finally he gives up and they move to Beer-sheba. Isaac grows old and blind. Perceiving death’s coming, he asks Esau to go hunt game for him, prepare a savory meal and bring it to his old father. He will then enjoy the food Isaac had caught and prepared and will in turn bestow his blessing on his son.
Rebekah, who loves Jacob best, overhears this and runs to tell Jacob to kill two choice kids. She will prepare the savory meal just as Isaac likes it. She tells Jacob to put on Esau’s clothes so that he will smell like Esau to the blind father, and she puts animal skins on his hands and arms and neck to disguise his smooth skin, so that Isaac will feel it, and knowing that Esau is a hairy man, think it is Esau.
Jacob does all this. When his father asks who it is that is bringing him this meal, he says it is Esau. Isaac is suspicious, aware that the voice sounds like that of Jacob, so Jacob lets him feel his hairy hand and smell him. Finally convinced, he gives Jacob his blessing, believing he is blessing Esau. When Esau returns with the game, prepares the meal and bring it to his father it is too late. ‘If this is you, Esau. Who was that to whom I gave my blessing?’ It was Jacob; but he tells Esau he cannot undo it.
Esau, after crying out in anguish swears revenge. When his father is dead, he will kill Jacob. Rebekah hears this and warns Jacob to leave, to go live with her brother Laban in another land, which he does.
So the two brothers each go off to seek their fortune and create their own life- Jacob with the inheritance and blessing out of which he has swindled Esau, and Esau, starting out from scratch.
There is so much about this story that is troubling. It is filled with deceit, manipulation and self-serving behaviors. It is hardly what we thought we‘d encounter from our esteemed forebears.
And the challenge of Margaret Bullitt-Jonas rings clear:
“What kind of a story heals? A story that is loving and true. True because nothing is left out, neither the pain nor the joy. Loving because everyone in the story – narrator, protagonist and characters alike, is seen with compassionate eyes.”

I realize she is right. The narrator of this story is dispassionate. The whole truth is told, the joy and the pain, the love and the hurt. None of the characters are judged, but rather told from their own point of view, compassionate. Could we do that?
My first response was to feel compassion for Esau, even if he was foolish enough to sell his birthright for a bowl of lentils. And compassion for Isaac who was tricked.
But we know that Isaac sometimes felt justified in deception himself, saying Rebekah was his sister. And we know that he was as responsible as was Rebekah for that dysfunctional family dynamic. Ahhh, every character has faults.
This then is a family story of betrayals and selfishness. Why are we reading it? Why should we know it?
The answer came to me almost as soon as the question. Because it is true. Historically factual? I have no idea. But I know it is true. Because we are each victims of deceit and betrayal. Because we are each at some times deceivers or betrayers. I don’t like it. I don’t like to be pushed to find compassion in my heart for deceivers and betrayers. I don’t like it because when I really open up and emotionally embrace them with compassion, I realize that it is my own self I am embracing, the self I deny, ignore, forget. The self that lied, manipulated, finagled to get what I wanted, or believed that I need. The frightened child who fears the loss of parental love and abandonment and holds a sibling responsible. The frightened adult who lives with the haunting fear that they are not accepted or acceptable, who will do anything, or almost anything to discredit one who might have the power to shut us out.
Sibling rivalry. It is as old as humanity. As deep as any terror about survival. We struggle with it in our families. And we struggle with it amongst the nations and within our nation.

Monday is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. The civil rights movement was a recap of the liberating journey stories, not only the Exodus, but this earlier story. Our nation was started by white folks who believed that they were God’s chosen, their kind had received the blessing. Race, white or not-white, was an indicator to them of God’s blessing or disfavor.
But there are biblical stories that challenge that. In the Genesis stories of Adam and Eve, and of Noah, we are presented again and again with the biblical assertion that we are all descended from the same gene pool. Five thousand years later we have DNA evidence that this is factually true as well as existentially true.
The resistance to knowing this runs deep. It is easier to divide the world into good guys and bad guys, them and us.
Racism is a toxic legacy we have inherited from the self-serving mis-understandings of our biblical heritage.

It is the depth of the anguish of sibling rivalry and the fear of being shut out or left out, that is often the existential anxiety that motivates all kinds of aggression, from bullying in the playground, to manipulations by Wall Street…the fear that ultimately there will not be enough resources to go around, and the only way to assure survival is to hog and hoard them.
It is why I am a Universalist. Any other world is too scary for me. Presses me into attitudes and behaviors I find not only painful, but abhorrent. I need to believe that everyone who is born into this world belongs here. That no one needs to justify their right to exist. That there is enough love in the universe to hold everyone, everyone, even you…even me.
So Jacob and Esau each made their own lives and discovered that their well being does not need to be predicated on the other’s demise. They learn; they develop their own identity, their own relationship with God. And they begin to feel the weight of the loss of one another. Instead of anger, they feel longing, longing for healing, for reconciliation, for repair of the bond they once knew as brothers. They long to feel the love of family cleansed of the toxic jealousies.
…Esau ran to meet Jacob and embraced him; he threw his arms around his neck and kissed him. And they wept. Then Esau looked up and saw the women and children. “Who are these with you?” he asked.
Jacob answered, “They are the children God has graciously given your servant.”…
Esau asked, “What’s the meaning of all these flocks and herds I met?”
“To find favor in your eyes, my lord,” he said.
But Esau said, “I already have plenty, my brother. Keep what you have for yourself.”
“No, please!” said Jacob. “If I have found favor in your eyes, accept this gift from me. For to see your face is like seeing the face of God, now that you have received me favorably. Please accept the present that was brought to you, for God has been gracious to me and I have all I need.” And because Jacob insisted, Esau accepted it.
Then Esau said, “Let us be on our way; I’ll accompany you.”

Studies tell us that there is such a thing as healthy forgetting. That people who are resilient, who are able to live in the present with a hopeful eye to the future know what is worth remembering, and what to forget. Forgiveness comes easier. Their burdens are less. What is the point of holding on to that which cannot be changed? Why step back from the joy of love, because once it was lost?
This family’s journey took them through difficult times. They came through in tact, the rupture repaired, their hearts healed. We can too.
We can forgive others and we can forgive ourselves. When we let go and forget, we are free to risk and to love. Finding peace, peace at last, we offer it to others and begin to heal our world. Amen.

Forgetting is Key to a Healthy Mind
By Ingrid Wickelgren | Friday, December 23, 2011, Scientific American | Excerpted
…. (According to)
cognitive neuroscientist Benjamin J. Levy . “The problem with our memories is not that nothing comes to mind—but that irrelevant stuff comes to mind.”

The act of forgetting crafts and hones data in the brain…. It enables us to make sense of the world by clearing a path to the thoughts that are truly valuable. It also aids emotional recovery. “You want to forget embarrassing things,… “Or if you argue with your partner, you want to move on.”…
In recent years researchers have amassed evidence for our ability to willfully forget. They have sketched out a neural circuit underlying this skill…

The emerging data provide the first scientific support for Sigmund Freud’s controversial theory of repression, by which unwanted memories are shoved into the subconscious. The new evidence suggests that the ability to repress is quite useful. Those who cannot do this well tend to let thoughts stick in their mind. They ruminate, which can pave a path to depression. Weak restraints on memory may similarly impede the emotional recovery of trauma victims. …
The ability to forget, however, is not immutable. If you practice applying your mental brakes, unwanted memories tend to fade.
…
For most people, the concept of forgetting conjures up lost car keys, missed appointments and poor scores on exams. Worse, it augurs dementia. Psychologists traditionally shared this view, and most of them studied memory with an eye toward closing the cracks through which knowledge can slip…. In the early 1900s Freud proposed that people tend to block out negative recollections as a defense mechanism…. individuals need to revisit these memories to promote psychological recovery.

An early challenge to that downbeat view of forgetting emerged in 1970, when psychologist Robert A. Bjork, …reported that instructions to forget some learned items could enhance memory for others. Forgetting is therefore not a sign of an inferior intellect—but quite the opposite. The purpose of forgetting, he wrote, is to prevent thoughts no longer needed from interfering with the handling of current information—akin to ridding your home of extraneous objects so that you can find what you need. “When people voice complaints about their memory, they invariably assume that the problem is one of insufficient retention of information,” Bjork wrote. “In a very real sense, however, the problem may be at least partly a matter of insufficient or inefficient forgetting.”

…For the average person, the ability to forget goes up and down over the years just as executive function does. … memory suppression improves between age eight and 12, when it approaches the level … in young adults. At the end of life, forgetting again becomes more difficult. In a study published in 2011 …elderly adults had more trouble than those aged 18 to 25 keeping an experience out of consciousness when reminded of it. “Kids and older adults have a hard time getting rid of this stuff,” …As a result… both age groups may have particular problems recovering from unpleasantness in life.

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