Being Morally Accountable-1-18-09
I was fortunate to have had the chance to celebrate the New Year with friends in Albuquerque. During our time there we took a ride on the largest tram in the world to the top of the Sandia Mountains at eleven thousand feet. There was about three feet of snow at the summit and we took a walk on the ridgeline enjoying impressive views of the valley below. On our return trip as we docked into the platform we watched the next riders pressed up against the large plate glass window. I noticed a young girl who was all decked out in a pink jacket, pink hat, pink scarf and pink gloves. I pointed out to my spouse Patty how cute she was. Then I saw another older girl looking through the window and I remarked how much she looked like our next-door neighbor’s daughter, Riley. And then I saw their mother, father and other sister and I realized that they were indeed our next door neighbors. I was flabbergasted! What were the chances of us meeting so far from San Jose—at that exact time and place so that we ran into each other? It made me stop and reflect. What was the universe trying to tell me? I asked myself: “Have I been a good neighbor?” “Perhaps it was time to invite them over for that long delayed meal.”
And then it hit me how close we are to each other. You know—just six degrees of separation from anyone anywhere. Our lines of connection are drawn to each other stronger and clearer then anyone could imagine. That’s why it makes a difference to us what is happening in Gaza. It is more than disturbing news we quickly change, because we don’t want to take in all that sorrow, pain and destruction when we think there is nothing we can do about it. We may be separated by an ocean but as human beings we are not that far apart. And if we tease out the thread you know that we would be astounded to find someone we know who has a connection to that war plagued land when we thought we were so far removed from it.
Then again it might even be closer to home. How could we not feel hurt and injustice over the death of 21-year-old Oscar Grant, who was shot in the back and killed on New Year’s day by a Bart police officer. It didn’t take much imagination to understand what Oakland and Gaza have in common as people watched helplessly while Oakland erupted in violence with the pent-up frustration of a community that once again sees delayed justice for another young African American man.
And how many of us have lost money in our retirement accounts due to the likes of Bernie Madoff—who made off with many people’s futures. It is unbelievable that we gave billions of dollars to the financial institutions that have depleted our savings—without so much as an accountant keeping the books. Who is accountable? We cry to the high heavens. Who will take responsibility? Where does the buck stop?
Accountability seems like a hot potato no one wants to hold onto for too long less they get burned. But accountability is how we live. It is how we function as a society. It keeps the water flowing in our pipes. It picks up the trash from our streets each week. It keeps our children safe at school. It demands that crimes should be punished—reparations made—reconciliation attempted. We cannot escape accountability. Our very health depends on how we care for ourselves. What medicines we must take. How often we see our doctors.
As Unitarian Universalists we are morally accountable to life—the life that is beating in our breasts, in our cantankerous neighbors across the street, in the rock throwing Palestinian youth in Gaza, and in the starving polar bears in the Arctic—because we are connected to each other in a grand web of interdependence. As Martin Luther King Jr. said “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.”
On this Martin Luther King Jr. weekend and on the eve of the inauguration of our first African American President it is a good time to ask ourselves: to what have we dedicated our lives? How deeply do we carry this dedication? And is it time to rededicate ourselves?
I have dedicated as of this year 20 years to the Unitarian Universalist ministry. As those who have been with me for the past 15 of them here at the First Unitarian Church of San Jose can testify I have gotten a lot more wrinkled and white haired than that young sprout that you can still see on the donor wall downstairs inside The Third Street Community Center entrance. I have done much good work for this community and Unitarian Universalism. And I have made my share of blunders over the years but I hope I have learned from my mistakes. I have been blessed with a congregation that has nurtured and guided me in my ministry. You have told it to me straight and you have encouraged me to put my whole self into our common work. I came back from sabbatical last July and rededicated myself to helping our congregation to be a healthy and effective institution for all of us—children and adults alike.
Where do you need to put your heart? What will make you come alive? What is your sacred intention that will bring the light of love into the world?
As Unitarian Universalists we are blessed with many options to find and make meaning as is so beautifully displayed in the gold tablets arrayed behind me. The one that I would like to raise up today is the last gold tablet to your left that signifies the wisdom of the world’s religions. One of the symbols depicted on that tablet is a lotus flower representing Buddhism.
Mary in today’s reading from Jack Kornfield said that if someone wants to become a follower of Buddhism all that person has to do is recite, “I take refuge in the Buddha, I take refuge in the dharma [the teachings], I take refuge in the sangha [the community of practioners.] There is nothing to join, nothing to become—simply this turning of the heart.” There is of course culture, tradition and ritual that has been layered over these simple vows through the eons but Buddhism at its core is a practice more than it is a religion. And that is why Unitarian Universalists find so much inspiration in Buddhism.
I believe that there are great parallels between Buddhism and Unitarian Universalism.
We too take refuge.
A Sufi story in Jack Kornfield’s book illustrates a refuge Unitarian Universalists take.
“ A man who had studied much in the schools of wisdom finally died in the fullness of time and found himself at the Gates of Eternity. An angel of light approached him and said, ‘Go no further, o mortal, until you have proven to me your worthiness to enter into Paradise! But the man answered, ‘Just a minute now—first of all, can you prove to me this is the real Heaven and not just the wishful fantasy of my disordered mind undergoing death?’ Before the angel could reply, a voice from inside the gates shouted, ‘Let him in—he is one of us!’”
As Unitarian Universalists we take refuge in our heretical history—which exemplifies the wisdom of great questioning. We agree with Socrates that an unexamined life is not worth living. We want to be fully engaged with our lives and not accept something simply because an authority says it is so. Of course it has gotten many of our forbears into trouble when they stood up for their beliefs. It cost them their reputations and even their lives. But our ancestors also asked themselves: how can society be better? How can the marginalized be served? How can the unrepresented get their fair share? We carry forth their legacy today in the way we honor each person’s journey of faith and how we take an active role in the betterment of our communities by not shying away from asking the hard questions no matter how unpopular they may be.
Our Coming of Age Youth will hopefully be experiencing that lived history next weekend at the Unitarian Universalist Church of San Francisco when they join with seven bay area congregations for a Social Justice Retreat. The heart of the weekend experience will be a daylong retreat into the Tenderloin section of the city with the Faithful Fools Street Ministry. Our youth will see homeless people on the streets who find refuge in each other’s company and in the daily meals at St. Anthony’s and Glide Memorial Churches. They will see hard living people who find refuge in drugs and alcohol to deaden the pain and misery of a life of daily survival. It will be difficult to view such suffering but if they look closely enough they will also see hope and community. For often the most generous and caring people are those who have nothing or next to nothing. The Tenderloin is a place where our youth will see the human drama played out in all its agony and ecstasy. We hope that the experience will open them up to discover the places of their own refuge and what it means to live a justice filled life. We hope that they will see people’s humanity and not define them by their circumstances or their addictions.
May I take this moment to praise our Coming of Age youth, their mentors and this congregation for the over one thousand dollars we raised for Second Harvest Food Bank at last year’s Empty Bowls Luncheon in November. You know that money is going to make a difference to the many people in our valley who are having a difficult time even finding enough food to eat.
Unitarian Universalists along with our Buddhist brothers and sisters also take refuge in the sangha, the community. Simply put, we need each other. We need each other when we mourn. We need each other when we celebrate. We need each other to help our children grow and learn. We need each other when we are alone and in need of care. We need each other to marshal our resources and energy to do the good work of our lives. Desmond Tutu puts it simply, “In Africa when you ask someone ‘How are you?’ the reply you get is in the plural even when you are speaking to one person. A man would say, ‘We are well’ or ‘We are not well.’ He himself may be quite well, but his grandmother is not well and so he is not well either…The solitary isolated human being is really a contradiction in terms.”
Where are the places you find refuge from the weary storms of life? Who and what gives you the strength to carry on in your life?
Buddhism’s and Unitarian Universalism’s last refuge is the dharma (the teachings, the truth). 2009 is the 150th anniversary of the publication of Unitarian Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species and the 200th anniversary of Darwin’s birth . Unitarian Universalists and people around the world will be making a re-commitment to the scientific veracity of evolution.
Our faith is also evolving and dynamic because it is the nature of life. We must test our hypotheses. Call into question our assumptions. Do they hold up to the facts? Is what we believe true? During my sabbatical last year I confronted my own belief in God by asking myself “is this belief true?” Of course based on empirical evidence I would say it is not. I rested in that place of doubt for a long time until I had a personal experience of Spirit. Was it God? I don’t know but I filled in that blank gold tablet up there with my own experience of the transcending mystery and wonder of creation that it represents. I believe in a Spirit that moves in our lives and in the world.
As Unitarian Universalists we take refuge in the truth as we come to understand it. This truth is not fixed—for we live in a reality of constant change. I once again draw from Jack Kornfield’s wonderful book on Buddhist Psychology, The Wise Heart to illustrate that point. He tells of his favorite cartoon—a Bedouin family travelling across the vast desert landscape. The father is first, on the largest camel, followed next by the mother and then the three children, each on slightly smaller camels. The father has turned his head to respond to the smallest child: Stop asking if we’re almost there yet. We’re nomads for crying out loud!” And so are we Unitarian Universalists. We are nomads, pilgrims, in search of truth that will guide our lives and make our communities justice filled. As Martin Luther King Jr. said, “I still believe that standing up for unarmed truth is the greatest thing in the world.”
The dharma, the truth, that I take refuge in, is the fact that I am a white man of privilege who is accountable to people of color, and marginalized communities. I am called to speak up against racism and discrimination in whatever forms they rear their ugly heads. I must reach out from by bubble of false security, the obliviousness of privilege that keeps the reality and the story of people’s lives away from my consciousness so I don’t have to deal with it. The Dean of Students and Community Life at Andover Theological School in her Baccalaureate sermon last May related a story when she attended a small Christian college in the middle of Indiana and had an African American roommate named Rhonda.
“Rhonda was the first African American person I ever got to know well. As we grew closer she shared with me that each year every new African American student at the school received a letter from the Indiana Ku Klux Klan letting them know that the Klan knew who they were and where they lived.”
I vow not to be oblivious any more. I vow to educate myself about racism in all its forms, including the racist enculturation that still influences me today.
It never dawned on me that the term minority would be offensive until I read Keenan Freeman’s essay on the election of Barack Obama. It makes perfect sense, doesn’t it? If we call someone a minority we are classifying him or her as the “other.” I never thought of myself as the other because I have rested comfortably in the majority—but with demographic changes happening in this country that will not be true for long.
So we can say that as Unitarian Universalists we take refuge in our heretical history—which exemplifies the wisdom of great questioning through the ages. Our questions lead us to solutions for the betterment of our lives and society’s welfare.
We take refuge in the sangha, in the community. We need each other to be all that we can be in the fullness of our humanity.
And we take refuge in the dharma, the truth. We find it in our principles; in the sources of wisdom we draw from and most importantly from each other when we open our hearts in fellowship and friendship.
As Unitarian Universalists we are morally accountable to life—the life that is beating in our breasts, in our cantankerous neighbors across the street, in the rock throwing Palestinian youth in Gaza, and in the starving polar bears in the Arctic—because we are connected to each other in a grand web of interdependence. As Martin Luther King Jr. said “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.”
Like E. B. White we might find ourselves caught between the tendency to savor or save life. Do we need to chose? No. We need to do both. We need to go to the wild places and see the kingfishers, folding up their wings, and making spectacular dives into Bodega Bay to catch their dinner. We need to go the sanctuaries and see the Great Blue Herons standing in trees near their nests—looking so majestic and awkward with their tall lanky bodies.
We need to stand with our eyes closed and feel the warm sunlight on our faces until our whole body smiles in contentment.
We need to love one another even when it is messy and inconvenient. Because when we put ourselves out there just beyond our comfort zones we find the true refuge of an open and compassionate heart—and we receive in the bargain a most wonderful gift—we feel good about ourselves.
Amen
Blessed Be
Shalom
Salaam