Together We Can

October 21
“Together We Can”

Call to Worship

Come and enter into this sacred space of justice seeking and spirit growing

Holding each other's joys and sorrows of today

Holding each other's hopes and dreams for tomorrow

Welcome to our celebration of life

- Joan Javier-Duval

Chalice Lighting

All around the world, the light of honest thought shines, showing people the path to their own authentic faith.

All around the world, the warmth of community glows, drawing people in from loneliness and estrangement.

All around the world, the flame of justice burns, inspiring people to acts of faith-filled courage.

Here, too, may the light and warmth of this chalice be to us a beacon of truth, generosity and compassion, that we may learn the ways of faith and love.

-Rev. David Usher

Reading

How is one to live a moral and compassionate existence when one is fully aware of the blood, the horror inherent in life, when one finds darkness not only in one's culture but within oneself? If there is a stage at which an individual life becomes truly adult, it must be when one grasps the irony in its unfolding and accepts responsibility for a life lived in the midst of such paradox. One must live in the middle of contradiction, because if all contradiction were eliminated at once life would collapse. There are simply no answers to some of the great pressing questions. You continue to live them out, making your life a worthy expression of leaning into the light.
- from Arctic Dreams by Barry Lopez

Benediction

Let us go from this place with the fire of commitment in our hearts

Strengthened and renewed in our quest to build the beloved community

Let us go in peace and return again in love

- Joan Javier-Duval 

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I have been asking myself a question over the past few weeks as I've been preparing for this sermon, for this service today: WHY international justice Sunday?

The institutional answer is that this congregation has a tradition of participating in and celebrating Unitarian Universalist efforts of international human rights and global justice and today's service continues this tradition. This is certainly an important answer to the question – why?

But, I have continued to come back to this – why? Why THIS topic? Why THIS Sunday? Some of you may be asking yourselves these same questions this morning.

To be honest, it has been a lot easier for me NOT to think about this big, looming question of international justice. I have felt overwhelmed by the immensity of the global challenges we face – global warming, humanitarian crises due to war, drought and famine, the trafficking of women and children – and, I have pushed the question away.

And given the current political climate, and the talk coming from the major presidential campaigns, it is easy to forget the global scope of the challenges we face. It is easy to forget that there are more than two countries in the world: the United States and China. Let alone that we are actors on a global stage rather than just cogs in the U.S. economic machine

And, it is easy to get bogged down and honed in on our most immediate concerns. To simply get swept up in the busyness of our day to day lives. In the kid-shuttling, text-messaging, house-cleaning, bill-paying busyness.

So, why international justice Sunday? Why take the time today to explore this topic? Well, I believe that a good place to start for this answer is our spiritual theme of the month. Belonging.

Last week we talked about the importance of having a sense of belonging. And especially of striving to find and create that sense of belonging here within our religious community. This is urgent work for the caring of our souls that we all need to participate in.

Our belonging, however, doesn’t stop here. It doesn’t stop at the walls of this church. It doesn’t stop at the end of Lincoln Drive. It doesn’t stop in our neighborhoods. Or with our political party of choice. Our belonging isn’t bound by the borders, fenced or just imagined, that mark the ends of our nation.

No, we belong to a global community.

As Unitarian Universalists we know that we in fact belong to “the interdependent web of all existence” as our seventh principle so clearly states. This sentiment is also the essence of ubuntu, an African concept of what it means to be human.  Ubuntu says that each of our individual identities is formed interdependently through community. It can roughly be translated: 'I am because we are.' Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa explains it powerfully in this way: 

“A person with ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed.”[1]

Our belonging-ness binds us together. My well-being is tied to your well-being. We are part of a greater whole.

This religious community is already claiming this spirit of ubuntu. We just recently accepted the congregational mission of “building beloved community with compassion, service, and empowerment.” What a beautiful and bold mission. And “embracing the interconnectedness of life” is included as one of our core values. So, this way of seeing the world is already at work here at the Unitarian Society of Germantown.

AND at the same time, we have yet more work to do to define what “building beloved community” means and looks like for us. As members of the global community, I believe this means engaging in the work of international justice. Belonging is not just an identity. It requires action.  The words “building” and “embracing” that are in our mission and core values point to action.

As we build beloved community and embrace the interconnectedness of life we engage in the work of making our belonging-ness a lived reality of justice. In the words of author and activist Mab Segrest we “create a culture by our brave and conscious actions in which we all know we belong.”[2]

Unitarian Universalists have long felt this call to live into a sense of belonging and have been engaged on the international scene as defenders of human rights and promoters of peace. The UU-United Nations Office this year celebrates its 50^th anniversary. And today continues to fight for human rights causes, climate change policies, security and peace building for women, poverty reduction, and many other issues. The UU Service Committee has its roots in then separate responses to the atrocities of World War II as Unitarians and Universalists engaged in humanitarian relief efforts across Europe. The UUSC continues to advance human rights and social justice around the world through partnerships with organizations who, in their specific contexts, are confronting unjust power structures and challenging oppressive policies.

These are just two institutional ways that Unitarian Universalists have lived out their values on the international stage. And I know there are many members of this congregation who in your own ways take part in the global movement for social change. We have members who have served in the Peace Corps as a way of living out their faith. Others have participated in medical missions to Africa and Central America. And a delegation of youth and adults traveled to Guatemala for a service trip two years ago.

These are brave and conscious actions that are creating a culture in which we all belong.

And, how do we, those gathered here in this sanctuary on this Sunday morning, engage in similar brave and conscious actions? Where do we begin? I want to make two points that help us begin to answer this question.

First, it is important to remember that our efforts as Unitarian Universalists do not exist in isolation. All of our actions, no matter how small, are part of a much larger movement around the world. The environmentalist, Paul Hawken, takes on the task of describing this movement in his book, Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came Into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming.

He tells of his travels around the world over the past 15 years giving presentations about the environment. After each event, there would be a small group of people who would linger afterwards, asking questions of one another and exchanging business cards. As Hawken’s understanding of the issues grew deeper, the hands of those offering him these business cards grew more diverse. And, slowly, bit by bit, Hawken had accumulated thousands of business cards. He became curious about what he started to identify was a social movement outside of mainstream culture. He now estimates that there are over one and maybe over two million organizations working toward ecological stability and social justice around the world.

This burden is not ours to bear alone.

Second, issues of global justice are interconnected. Just as we acknowledge and lift up the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part, we can also lift up and acknowledge that the struggle for justice is interdependent as well. None of the issues we face exists in isolation.

Take this example.

The Unitarian Universalist Service Committee is currently engaged in a campaign to defend the human right to water. Environmental contamination and pollution threaten the supply of clean and safe drinking water around the world especially for the poor and for people of color. The privatization of water supplies prioritizes profit over public access. And so now, nearly 1 billion people lack access to safe water.

In many countries, it is women who are responsible for finding and fetching water for their families. And women spend over 200 million hours a day collecting water. Meanwhile, bottled water travels many miles from its source. This contributes to the burning of large amounts of fossil fuels and also to billions of plastic bottles ending up in our landfills.[3]

In just this one example, we see the interconnectedness of women’s rights, poverty, environmental degradation, corporate responsibility, consumerism, and racism.

And what I want to say today is that the interdependence of these issues gives us even more places to make a difference. We can make a difference at many levels of change when it comes to matters of systemic injustice.

As complicated and overwhelming as the issues at hand might feel, as Barry Lopez writes, we can make our lives a worthy expression of leaning into the light. We can choose where to enter. Any entry point that is intentional, that is made from a place of curiosity – of asking, why do thing happen the way they do, and that recognizes our interdependence is a good place to start.

You can enter into the global fight for the human right to water by opting to drink public tap water instead of bottled water. You can enter into the global fight for women's economic security by purchasing ethically sourced goods that offer workers a fair wage. You can enter into the global fight against climate change by engaging in local efforts to move our country toward clean and renewable energy sources

And, yes, you can also support the efforts of organizations like the UU-UNO and UUSC and other international organizations with your financial contributions as we have already done today.

All of these entry points are worthy expressions of leaning into the light. Of making an effort to make our sense of belonging matter in the world.

No matter what our entry point, we know we cannot take on this work alone. It is all of our efforts together that builds the beloved community. Here is where belonging matters again. We need each other’s courage.

Congressman John Lewis tells a story of leaning on one another's courage. One stormy day during his childhood in Alabama, he was outside playing in his Aunt Sevena's dirt yard with his cousins. The wind started to pick up and lightning began to flash. As the sky darkened, his aunt rushed all of them inside her one room wooden frame house. The wind whipped and howled all around them. And the planks of the floor began to bend. Then a corner of the house began to lift away from its foundation. The storm threatened to lift the entire house toward the sky. That's when his Aunt Sevena told them to join hands. To line up. And to walk towards that corner of the house. They did as they were told and kept the house from lifting away.

And as the rain beat down on the tin roof and the storm raged on they walked to the next corner of the house as it lifted ominously toward the sky. And back and forth they went, walking with the wind, and holding the house down with the weight of their small bodies.

We, too, are in a storm. A storm of injustice and suffering on a global scale. Of threats to the health and security of so many of our sisters and brothers around the world and to the sustainability of our planet.

So, let us join hands in the storm. Walking with the wind. Moving in collective action. And building a land of peace and justice

Amen.

Blessed be.

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[1] From No Future Without Forgiveness

[2] From Born to Belonging

[3] See water.org and www.stopcorporateabuse.org/about-campaign

That What It's All About

Listen to a podcast of this sermon.

Reading:

I live my life in widening circles
that reach out across the world.
I may not complete this last one
but I give myself to it.

I circle around God, around the primordial tower.
I've been circling for thousands of years
and I still don't know: am I a falcon,
a storm, or a great song?

- Rainer Maria Rilke, Book of Hours, I, 2

The last several years of my life have felt a lot like doing the hokey-pokey. I imagine you are all familiar with that beloved children's song.

You put your right foot in,
you put your right foot out.
You put your right foot in
and you shake it all about.
You do the hokey-pokey
and you turn yourself around.
That’s what it’s all about.

Most of my adult life has been like this as I’ve attempted to live into some sense of purpose. It has been a slow, at times cautious sequence of mini-steps interspersed with sudden, all-engaging action. Trying things out with different parts of myself, of my being, shaking it out, and turning myself around all in the same moment.

The process of testing the waters, of searching out our calling often starts early in our lives. We look for clues all around us as to who we are, who we might become, what we are called to do in this world.

In my senior year of high school, I received some surprising news in regards to my life’s vocation. As part of our preparation to embark upon our impending lives as young adults, we were required to take an exam that would measure our aptitudes and dispositions in order to determine what line of work we were most suited for. Many of you have probably taken a similar type of test at one point or another. At the time, I was applying for colleges and thought I might be interested in architecture or urban planning. Many of you know I am from Chicago, and I was a city girl through and through. I was very excited to see exactly what career path I had in store for me. The results of the test came back with the surprising news that I should put all my efforts into becoming: a forest ranger. Not exactly what I was expecting.

No, I didn’t end up studying environmental management or spending any summers living in a cabin in the woods. My vocational trajectory has not followed a clear, linear path to a career with the National Park Service.

But, what I recall so vividly from that day taking that test, Filling in those little bubbles with my #2 pencil, and then receiving the results was the anticipation. The yearning for a clue.

We are all looking for clues.

Indicators.

Direction.

Do I turn right or left?

Do I follow this path or another?

And this searching happens at many different points in our lives. At natural points of ending and  beginning, like moving from one city to another. Transitioning through different parts of our education. Ending a career and beginning retirement. At times we welcome these forks in the road, And at other points this change is thrust upon us and we can feel as if we’re drifting about without any real anchor.

At all these moments, we search for some guiding way forward. Often we look for a set of straightforward steps that will take us out of the murkiness and right onto that next thing.

For the most part, I have resisted any attempts at mapping out my career plans in any clear way. In a former life, I led leadership trainings. And one of the tools we used was called a “personal political leadership plan.” PPLP for short. This plan asked you to envision where you’d like to be in five years’ time and to plot out, point by point, how you would arrive at this place.

A suggestion was made that we, as staff, create our own PPLPs. That we envision where we’d be in five years and plot out our futures.

I rejected the thought of this with every fiber of my being and flat out refused to do one.

You could say I was simply afraid. Afraid of the not-knowing. Afraid of my own uncertainty and what that might say about my lack of inner direction. Afraid that my plotted course would require changes I didn’t want to make.

But, I believe my resistance held another meaning. I also had some sense that this particular process would not help me listen to my innermost voice. To my heart’s call.

It is true that sometimes the clues we grab onto lead us away from our true purpose. We can choose to walk down paths that appear to be leading in the right direction and yet end up making us feel even more lost.

Yet, these “mis-directions” are part of the journey as well. We can find opportunity and meaning in these unexpected side roads.

The educator and writer Parker Palmer tells of his time of searching at Pendle Hill, the Quaker study and retreat center over in Wallingford. Feeling lost and in need of guidance, he consulted Ruth,

an older Quaker woman in the community. In her wise manner, she said to him

“…in sixty-plus years of living, way has never opened in front of me…But a lot of way has closed behind me, and that’s had the same guiding effect.”[1]

Reflecting on that interaction, Parker writes, “there is as much guidance in what does not and cannot happen in my life as there is in what can and does.”[2]

My path to ministry involved some way closing behind me.

After a few years working in Washington, DC with that leadership training organization, I had a feeling that it was time for a change. I didn’t find as much fulfillment in my work and was growing increasingly restless. Although I had resisted the notion of plotting out my future, I still fell into the trap of letting logic reign. And, my head told me that business school was a rational next step. I could learn about systems and organizational management and effective social change. I did the research, collected information. Yet, all along something felt a bit off. I didn’t do all that well on my exams. And, in the end, I didn’t get into any of the business schools I had applied to. So, instead of pursuing the clear, point A to point B, business school would have offered, I enrolled in seminary.

No, seminary wasn’t the consolation prize in all of this. Far from it. It was in fact what I felt nudged towards but would only give partial attention. I felt nudged enough to submit applications not only to business school but to divinity schools as well. So, at the same time I had opened the door wide open to the possibility of the fast track to organizational leadership I had gently cracked a window and was peering through it at a life of deeper faith commitment.

As way opens and closes, our lives can take on many shapes.

Rainer Maria Rilke offers us another image or shape to consider in our reading today. He writes,

I live my life in widening circles that reach out across the world. I may not complete this last one but I give myself to it. 

I circle around God, around the primordial tower. I've been circling for thousands of years and I still don't know:
am I a falcon, a storm,
or a great song?

 I love this image.

For me, this circling not only liberates us from traditional notions of how we progress through life. But it also alludes to that center around which we live and move and have our being.

That central meaning and purpose.

Sometimes we only catch a glimpse of what this central meaning is. A clue falls into our laps without our even asking.

A few years after the forest ranger prediction, I was living and working on a farming collective in a fairly remote part of Nicaragua. My purpose there had little to do with environmental stewardship yet walking through forests became an almost daily activity. On one particular afternoon, I was working alongside the 14-year-old daughter of one of the women who owned a part of this farming collective. We were engaged in the somewhat tedious task of clearing land with machetes. For some weeks, I had been suffering from a deep melancholy and near depression. I felt completely lost and displaced. I deeply questioned what I was doing there and whether I had made a huge mistake. Yet, I kept at it. Nurturing relationships and throwing myself into life as a farmhand.

That afternoon, we quietly went about our work, bent low, thwacking away at the tangle of weeds that came up to our knees. It may have been stormy that day, I don’t really recall, but all of a sudden, there was a rush of wind that seemed to shake the trees from their tall leafy tops all the way down to their thick bases. I stopped what I was doing and looked straight up into the trees. In this moment of awe

I felt as if the wind had a message. As if it was beckoning me with its roar to wake up, to feel life’s call.

In the forest that day, I didn’t hear a voice calling to me. This was no Samuel moment. Samuel, the prophet from the Hebrew scriptures, who was startled awake in the depths of night by God’s calling to him.  

No, this was no Samuel moment. No direct message from the Divine instructing me in what to do next with my life.

So, what was it exactly?

I believe, as Rilke writes, that I was circling around the primordial tower and getting close enough that I could see and feel that deepest calling to life with clarity.

It has taken many more years of living for this deep calling to take its shape. Grappling with questions of how best to contribute to the vast movement for social change. My search has taken me to New Mexico motivating young people to participate in our democratic system as voters. To Massachusetts to organize nursing home workers and home health care aides for their rights in the workplace. To Washington, DC training people in a variety of roles in politics and nonprofits…

All the while, I was circling and searching.

And, I didn’t know I was looking for Unitarian Universalism. Yet, it was in Unitarian Universalist community that I was reminded of that feeling, that deep sense of call that I encountered in that forest in Nicaragua. I couldn’t shake the feeling that this is exactly where I belonged. It’s what nudged me towards seminary as resistant as I may have been.

Over time I’ve come to realize that this listening and paying attention is part of the journey as well. Listening to the hush of our souls.

We all listen in different ways. You might find that taking solitary walks is your best way of being in tune. Or, reading great literature. We may each listen in a variety of ways depending on our mood or the season of our lives.

Listening in community, in relationship with others has become an essential way that I listen for that deep call.

One of these moments happened for me while I was at a service at All Souls Church in DC.

During a child dedication one Sunday, the minister turned to the grandmother of one of the babies being dedicated that morning, and asked her the standard question during this ritual, “do you dedicate yourself to this child and her parents?” Usually, the response to this question during the ceremony is a predictable “yes.” But, in this instance, the woman turned her gaze lovingly upon her grandchild and declared: “Con toda mi vida.” With all my life.

With all my life.

Isn’t THIS what we are after? To find that to which we so gladly might dedicate our whole self.

Con toda mi vida.

What is it for you?

What is it that calls that deepest part of your heart?

If you haven’t gotten the sense yet, I don’t believe it is at all easy or straightforward to identify this central purpose.

I have arrived at some conclusions now. That I am committed to strengthening lives of faith – mine and others’. That I am called to respond with loving action to the world’s needs.

These conclusions are evolving as I imagine yours are as well.

And, no matter what shape our lives take over time – straight line, squiggly line, broad circles, mountain peaks and valleys – We put our whole selves in, Turning ourselves around, Shaking ourselves about.

Listening for the ways we can say ‘yes' 

Con toda mi vida. 

With all my life.

{delivered at Unitarian Society of Germantown, September 23, 2012}

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[1] Let Your Life Speak, 38

[2] p. 39