Interdependence Day

I originally preached this sermon to the good folks of the First Universalist Church in Yarmouth, Maine, on July 8, 2001.  (Roughly two months before the terrorist attacks of September that year.)  I pulled it up recently to see if there was anything in it to use in my sermon this past Sunday, yet decided that it really stands up nicely on its own.  So I decided to write new thoughts to preach and would recycle this sermon here on A Minister's Musings.  Happy Interdependence Day everyone!

The Fourth of July always conjures up very vivid images for me.  Every year, when I was a kid, my family would drive to Eisenhower State Park, watch the fireworks, and then try to get out of the parking lot through a traffic jam so bad that people actually got out of their cars and milled about while they waited to move forward.  And every year, as we came to understand anew why it’s called a parkway, the American humorist Jean Sheppard would come on the radio, and every year he told the same wonderful story.  So, for me, the Fourth is fireworks, crowds, traffic jams, Jean Sheppard and the story of Ludlow Kissle.

For some of you it might be backyard barbecues—hot dogs, hamburgers and charcoal briquettes.  Or maybe it’s a trip to the beach, or a picnic, with mountains of potato salad.  Or maybe it’s homemade ice cream.  An afternoon at Two Lights.  A trip to the Eastern Prom.  I don’t know what it is for you, but it seems that everyone has their own rituals for celebrating the Fourth.

I know of families who, at Christmastime, traditionally read the nativity story from the Gospels of Matthew and Luke.  How many of us, on the Fourth of July, even consider reading the Declaration of Independence, the nativity story of our nation?  (Or, as my father does, get up early enough to hear the good folks of NPR do it for us?)  I think that a lot of us forget that this day is more than just the last holiday until the Labor Day weekend, that this day is, in a very real sense, the birthday of our country.  And birthdays are a time for taking stock.

The Declaration is, in the preamble at least, as much a theological document as it is a political one.  Hear those words again:  “We hold these truths to be self evident:  that all men [we’d now say, “all people”] are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inherent and inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”  What are these but theological statements expressing beliefs about our place in, and relationship to, the Universe?  All human beings are made by God, having certain rights—we are born with them, and no one can separate us from them.  Among these are the right to live, the right to be free, and the right to pursue our happiness.  [Note that it doesn’t guarantee happiness, just the right to pursue it.]  That, friends, is theology.

The Declaration, of course, is also a document of political theory.  Governments, we are told, are created for the purpose of ensuring that these God-given rights are secured, for this purpose and no other, and that the only power governments have is the power given to them by the people governed.  Governments do not exist in and of themselves; they are created by people to serve people.  When Walt Whitman wrote, “Those who govern are there for you, it is not you who are there for them,” he was saying nothing that the Founders of our nation hadn’t said themselves.

And that’s just what astonishes me most when looking back over these words—how modern and radical they are.  “[W]henever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government . . .”  That’s really what the whole document is about.  The colonists looked at their government, the Monarchy of England, and declared that it no longer served them and that, therefore, it was their right and their duty to abolish it and start on a new path.

This is my next-to-last sermon for this church season, my penultimate possibility for play in this free pulpit that you so generously give me week after week.  It’s said that every preacher has, at most, a couple of sermons that she or he keeps preaching over and over again in ever-so slightly different forms.  That is certainly true of this preacher, and today’s sermon is unquestionably one of my Top Two.  You’ve heard it’s major themes before, yet I feel compelled to repeat myself.  I’ve even found a way to put the whole thing into one sentence—the Chinese proverb at the top of your Order of Service:  “if you do not change your direction, you will likely end up where you are headed.”

If Jefferson and the others in the Continental Congress were right 225 years ago, if we are “endowed by our Creator with certain inherent and inalienable rights among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” then I think we’re in serious trouble.  

Read the paper, turn on the evening news and it is painfully apparent that we live in violent times.  And, while it’s clear that the media plays up the violence and danger around us for the sake of ratings, it is also clear that you can be killed simply because you were in the wrong place at the wrong time.  There is often a randomness to the violence which defies our attempts to make sense of it.  By the age of 18 most children will have seen hundreds of killings and thousands of violent acts on TV and in the movies.  And there’s a growing chance that they’ll have seen it firsthand, as kids shoot kids in classrooms.  In the United States today our right to life does not seem so secure.

What of our right to liberty?  Well, it, too, seems to be on shaky ground.  There are more people imprisoned in the United States today than in any other country.  And what of the rest of us?  When racism still runs rampant, when a woman is more likely to be beaten or killed by a family member than by a stranger, when homosexuals are forced to hide who they are because they fear reprisals . . . how free are we?  To paraphrase the Rev. Dr. King, “Oppression anywhere is a threat to freedom everywhere.”

And as to our freedom to pursue our happiness . . . ?  For many of us life consists of going back and forth from work, work that far too often does little to feed the soul.  When we come home we turn on the television or the radio.  We settle for giving, and getting, “quality time,” as if the best we could hope for is a taste of it now and then.  Sadly, for many of us, it is.  

Let me ask you:  did you pass any flowers on your way here this morning?  What was the last thing you said to your loved ones last night?  What did you have for lunch on Friday and how did it taste?  Our fast-food, fast-lane, fax-it-to-me-yesterday lifestyle is not conducive to being present to our lives.  We’re told that we must keep moving onwards and upwards, that more is always better and new is always best.  We’re told to pursue the trappings of success, to pursue the accumulation of things, but where in all of this is our happiness?  Where is the time to really be with our children and others that we love; where is the freedom to be with them when they need us, not only when we can fit them it?  Where, in our consumer oriented society is the freedom to pursue the things which really fulfill us, which feed our souls and help us to grow deeper, more loving, more alive, more free, more joyful?

If the United States really is based on documents like the Declaration, then it is based on thoughts like this:  “Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it . . .”  I would go further to say that whenever any social structures become destructive of these ends, then it is our right and obligation to change them.

Now it’s true, Jefferson did include this caveat: “Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes . . .”  Yet I recently saw a paleontologist explain that if you plot the history of the earth on your outstretched arm, the history of humanity would begin here, at the tip of your fingernail.  If we then charted the history of human existence on our outstretched arms—expanded the fingernail if you will—our modern so-called “civilized” societies would start at about our wrists.  July 4, 1776 would be somewhere around our fingers. This particular experiment in human community is relatively new.  The course we are on is not inevitable.  We chose it.  We can change it.

The Wampanoag elder and lore keeper Medicine Story wrote in his book Return to Creation, a book I highly recommend,

“It is time for us to go beyond where we have been.

It is time for us to transform ourselves, transform our relationships, transform our communities, and transform our society and all its institutions.  It is time for us to go beyond power over and power against, and discover power with each other and all Creation. . .

It is time for us to go beyond.”

I believe that we can.  I believe that we can wake up from our deep sleep behind the wheel and change our suicide course.  I believe that we all are born equal, and that each and every one of us—here and around the globe—has the right to live a life which empowers rather than pacifies, that fulfills rather than deadens; I believe that each and every one of us has the right to be free to be who we are and to follow all of the potential within our souls; I believe that each and every one of us has the right to pursue our dreams and our destiny, to pursue that which brings joy to our hearts and through us to the world.  

What’s stopping us?  A Lie.  A Lie that tells us that we are independent of each other and separated from the world in which we live; a Lie that tells us that we are all essentially alone in the Universe and that we must struggle against one another for our very survival; a Lie that tells us that there isn’t enough to go around and that whatever someone else gets means less for me; a Lie that tells us that what I have determines who I am; a Lie that tells us that the world’s problems are too big and that we are too weak and powerless to make any real changes.

225 years ago Thomas Jefferson wrote,“All experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.”  We, today, can decide that our patriarchal consumeristic society is insufferable; we can decide that we will no longer live according to the Lie.  Once we see that the predominant culture in which we live is destructive of our “inherent and inalienable” rights, then it becomes not only our right but our duty to work toward its abolition.  

And we can.  There is within each of us infinite capacity for beauty and creativity; there is within each of us the power of all Creation.  We can declare today “Inter-dependence Day” recognizing that, contrary to the Lie, we are part of one family, and we are all in this together—what harms you, what harms a homeless woman in New York City, what harms a farmer in China harms me.  If we were to act on this belief, if we were to live our lives from trust rather than fear, if we were to believe in ourselves and our ability to make an impact, we could change the world.  We have within us and around us all that we need; we’re not alone, and we don’t have to do it all ourselves, or overnight.  But if we each took responsibility to make the part of the Universe we inhabit more joyful and loving, there is no telling what we could accomplish together.  

May it be so.

In Gassho,

RevWik

What's In A Name?

[Listen to the Sermon]

One morning a week or so ago I came to work and really noticed the front of our building – the way it echoes the Rotunda at UVA – and I was struck how, from the outside at least, this place really looks like a “Thomas Jefferson Memorial Church.”

And then I came inside, and into that marvelous foyer, with those inspiring quotes from Jefferson’s writings:

No man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship place,  or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burdened in his body or his goods, or shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or beliefs . . .

I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. . .

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal . . .

And then there was the bust of the man himself – further reminders of the legacy to which we can lay claim.

Then I came into the sanctuary and took a seat in that pew right there.  I soaked in this inspiring edifice, painted in such clean and crisp white and Jeffersonian blue.  I sat here by myself that morning, and I began to cry.

Before coming to work that day I’d been reading the story of a little boy named Peter.  He’d grown up around here living what he later remembered was a pretty idyllic life.  His father was a well-respected artisan; his mother a classically trained French chef.   Peter, himself, would eventually grow up to be a tremendously successful caterer, community leader and, eventually, an ordained minister.

Yet at the time of his childhood all three – mother Edith, father Joseph, and young Peter – were all the property of this same Thomas Jefferson.  Jefferson’s understanding of the way things were was that he owned these people.  They were his slaves.  And although Peter remembered his childhood as idyllic – he said that he had no idea that he and his family were slaves – everything changed on July 4, 1826 with Jefferson’s death.  Joseph was one of the five enslaved persons who were freed in Jefferson’s will.  But Edith, Peter (then only eleven years old), and six of his brothers and sisters were put on the auction block along with 130 other human beings and sold to help pay off Jefferson’s debt.  It took Peter twenty-three years to reunite with his family.

I’ve been reading two books for the past several weeks, both by Lucia Stanton.  One is called Slavery at Monticello and the other, Free Some Day:  TheAfrican-American Families of Monticello.  I’ve been immersing myself in this time and these stories.  Now, let me be clear – I’ve done a lot of anti-racism work; I know me some history.  I’m not new to the story of slavery in the south.  But that’s maybe the key thing, and one I hadn’t really been conscious of.  As a Northerner, it was the story of slavery-in-the-south.  Now, even though I know it’ll be several generations before y’all accept me as one of your own, I’ve already begun to see myself as a Southerner.  So this is now my story.  And it didn’t happen far, far away; it happened just down the road.  At the home of the man for whom our church is named.  What could I do but weep?

How do you wrap your mind around it?  This man who wrote that “all men are created equal” owned over 600 men, women, and children during the course of his lifetime.  He was, in fact, the second largest slave holder in Virginia in his day.  And though he strove to keep black families together – the record showed that he was opposed to selling a husband without his wife and children (and vice versa) – it is also a fact that when a child attained working age – about ten or twelve – she or he was no longer considered a child and, so, no longer entitled to that kind of familial protection.  Even more jarring, despite this noble sentiment, Jefferson did break up families whenever economic realities appeared to necessitate it.  There was always a disconnect between the ideal and the real.

As Lucia Stanton puts it:

“To protect himself from the realities of owning human beings, he needed the same psychological buffers as other well-intentioned slaveholders.  The constant tension between self-interest and humanity seems to have induced in him a gradual closing of the imagination that distanced and dehumanized the black families of Monticello.”  (Slavery, p. 33)

If the mind boggles at a reality in which a white boy could be raised with a black boy as his friend and constant companion, as Jefferson was, only to then consider that boy his property once the two reached the age of eighteen; if it’s incomprehensible that a person could “come out among [us], play the fiddle and dance half the night”, as Jefferson’s brother Randolph is known to have done, and then see that “us” as no different than the mules and the plows the next morning; if these contradictions are unfathomable to us perhaps, suggests Annette Gordon-Reed, it has something to do with most of us in this room being white.

Gordon-Reed is an associate professor of law at New York Law School and is the author of the book Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemmings:  An American Controversy.  She wrote a truly fascinating article for the website that compliments the PBS Frontline program about Jefferson and Hemmings.  In it, she said this:

“The contradictions that make Jefferson seem problematic and frustrating – a figure of mystery to some whites, make him more accessible to blacks, who find his conflicted nature a perfect reflection of the America they know:  a place where high-minded ideals clash with the reality of racial ambivalence.  As this combination daily informs black lives, Jefferson could seem no more bizarre than America itself.  He is utterly predictable and familiar – the foremost exemplar of the true American spirit and psyche.” 

What are we to do with this?  What are we – an overwhelmingly white congregation that would like to become more truly diverse with regards to race, and ethnicity, and class; a congregation that occupies the highest point in Charlottesville, Virginia,  a stone’s throw from Monticello – what are we to do with this?

I know that, in recent years, there has been here, as there has been at the District level, a conversation – or, perhaps, more accurately a collection of conversations – about addressing these contradictions by changing our name.  If, in the 1950s, the American Unitarian Association saw Thomas Jefferson as an exemplar of all things right and good in liberal America and thought it proper to build a Memorial Church in Charlottesville, then now, in 2011, we know that the truth is much more complicated.  And perhaps we think that continuing to align ourselves with this slaveholder who truly believed that blacks were inferior and “made to carry burdens,” makes us complicit.  I know that this is a simplification, but this is a large part of the reason that there is now no longer a Thomas Jefferson District in the Unitarian Universalist Association.  Our District voted just this year to change its name to the Southeast District – a name less burdened with the baggage of the past.

Our theme this month is atonement, and up until now we’ve been talking about this at a personal level:  how do I (how do you) as an individual atone for those things we’ve done in our past that have caused there to be brokenness in our relationships – with ourselves, with others, and with that deeper truth in Life.  But can we also atone for “the sins of the fathers”?  Can we?  Should we?

My thinking in this has been greatly influenced by the story of the Rev. David Pettee, my friend and colleague who occupied the office next to mine when I started at UUHQ in Boston.  Dave has long been interested in genealogy, but he never expected to discover as he researched his family line that his ancestors included slave holders and slave traders.  It was, as you might imagine, something that was never talked about at family reunions.

But David heeded the encouragement of those who suggested that it would not be enough for him to simply uncover his own family’s role in perpetuating the institution of slavery; he needed to find a way to atone.  (That might not be the language that Dave, himself, would use, but as we’ve been discussing it the past couple of Sundays I can’t think of a better way to describe what he’s been doing.)  David began focusing his research, as best he could, on uncovering the genealogy of those enslaved persons who’d been owned by his ancestors.  And despite the paucity of records, he was able to find a line, a line that led directly to the widow of a great-great-great grandson of a man one of his ancestors had once held in bondage.

David reached out to her and to her family.  And in doing so he became part of a movement – spearheaded by the project Coming to the Table, which has successfully gathered the descendants of slaves and the descendants of slaveholders for dialogue.  David’s working on a book now about these experiences, one which has involved interviewing a hundred whites and blacks who’ve taken this step.  He writes:

 [T]ruth-telling and repentance can be an antidote to the abuse of power that was institutionalized in the practice of slavery. The elements of our history that are shameful and horrific must be named and remembered. We must be willing to believe that there is a way out of the cycle of despair and hopelessness that lies at the core of this brokenness. Without the commitment to remember and be held accountable for all of our history, the apocalyptic conditions that allow for the dehumanization and genocide of other people will continue to emerge. As the philosopher and poet George Santayana reminds us, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."  (“The Ties That Bind”)

In part inspired by this phenomenal movement, and despite the decision of our District (which I happen to support), I find myself wondering whether our changing our name would not be a mistake.  After all, in this day and age, with the quality of political discourse being what it is, it would be good for someone to be a champion of Jefferson’s ideals of freedom.  His voice, his vision, would be a welcome reminder of the principles upon which this nation was founded – no matter how they have been forgotten and glossed over in the intervening years.  And as to the contradictions in the man?  I can’t help but wonder if changing our name wouldn’t be “the easy way out,” allowing us to “put all that behind us.” 

But “all that” isn’t easily put behind us, and I can’t help but feel that tremendous good could be done by even more fully embracing our connection to Jefferson and that, on his behalf and as his namesake, we might have a role to play in the work of atonement and reconciliation that is so desperately needed.

And that’s already going on.  There is the Dialog onRace, which members of our congregation have been tremendously involved with yet with which we, as a congregation, could be doing so much more. 

There’s the possibility of partnering with UVA in its University and Community Action for Racial Equity(UCARE) initiatives, that are “dedicated to helping the University of Virginia and the Charlottesville communities work together to understand the University role in slavery, racial segregation, and discrimination and to find ways to address and repair that legacy, particularly as they relate to present day disparities.” 

And as the Thomas Jefferson Foundation at Monticello collaborates with the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History to more fully explore what they’re calling “Jefferson and Slavery:  the paradox of freedom,” I can’t help but think that the only religious community in Charlottesville to bear Jefferson’s name might have some role to play.

At the very least, couldn’t we reach out to more of the African American churches in the area to develop real, ongoing relationships?  And couldn’t we add to our collection of Jeffersonian memorabilia photos (like the haunting image of Isaac Jefferson that’s on our Order of Service) and other information about the enslaved members of Jefferson’s “family” (as he called them)?  Might we not have a justifiable role to play in reaching out to the descendants of all those who lived in Monticello?

While talking with Dave about all of this he offered to introduce me to Prinny Anderson, a 4^th generation granddaughter of Thomas Jefferson, (and Unitarian Universalist in Durham, NC).  Prinny has made connections with the 4^th generation descendants of Sally Hemmings as part of her involvement with Come to the Table. 

[T]here is much good in what Jefferson wrote and said.  [. . .]  I am inordinately proud of his stand for liberty and equality.  In getting to know and love my Hemings cousins, I have also had to accept that he was very much a man of his time, *including* his support for freedom.  But he was a white patriarchal slave-owning plantation owner who held his wife, minor children, adult unmarried daughters, enslaved people, farm lands, and farm animals - ALL as chattel - as one did in his time.  He *loved* all of them, but he also *owned* all of them.  Every man did in that time, so throwing him out as an unacceptable role model means throwing out most of our Revolutionary heroes.

Keeping the Jefferson name also opens a door to becoming vastly better informed about our ancestors and their world, becoming much clearer about the real story - all the details included - of where we come from.  That insight in turn makes us much better able to really see, hear, and feel the legacies, good and bad, of the past at play in the present, allowing us to make really substantive, systemic changes for the better, for the future.  Just throwing the hero out with yesterday's paper means we forge ahead, still ignorant, without confronting the demons and ghosts of the past, and blind to how they affect us now.

This is a huge trap for UUs, in my limited experience.  Many whom I've encountered are of good hearts and good intentions, but somewhat superficial.  There is a lack of rooted connection to tough issues, lack of a sense of direct ownership and involvement with the system, with the "bad" stuff.  Without that sense of being connected to the "perpetrator" as well as to the "victim," it is hard to make sustainable change at any level, individual, community, nation or globe.”

Could this be part of our mission, our purpose, our work in the world?  Would it be scary?  Sure.  Will it be hard?  Absolutely.  But as my friend David has written,

“In my introspection prior to [my first] visit, I worried that I might represent a target for long pent-up anger and resentment. Even though Patricia had gracefully welcomed my interest in visiting her, I kept struggling with the false but deeply-held conviction that open conversation about slavery and white privilege with people of color was a dangerous threshold that should never be crossed. I knew I needed to find a way to break through the force field that perpetuated my unnecessary segregation from people of color.”  (“The Ties That Bind.”)

I believe that we do, too.  As individuals.  As a Unitarian Universalist congregation in Charlottesville, Virginia in the year 2011.  And, perhaps, most especially, as a church that was built in memorial to a man who embodied these contradictions that so desperately need to be addressed.

The Rev. Peter Fossett Calls To Me

The Rev. Peter Fossett was born to Joseph and Edith Fossett.  As an adult, his family lived in Cincinatti, Ohio, where Peter was, first, a well-known and respected caterer.  He eventually left that profession and was ordained a Baptist minister, organizing the First Baptist Church in Cumminsville, a suburb of Cincinatti.  He served that church faithfully and well for thirty years, and became a respected leader in his community.  After his death, fifteen hundred people (both black and white) attended his funeral.

Peter Fossett was born into slavery on the Monticello plantation of Thomas Jefferson.

His parents were two of the most influential of the enslaved persons living on the mountain.  Joseph was the head blacksmith; Edith was the head cook.  As a child, Peter lived a life of relative ease.  He later recalled, "I knew nothing of the horrors of slavery till our good master died, on July 4, 1826."  Upon Jefferson's death, the vast majority of those who'd been enslaved were sold at auction to pay off debts.  This included eleven year old Peter. 

His father, Joseph, was given his freedom in Jefferson's will.  Peter's mother and six of his brothers and sisters, on the other hand, were sold.  Despite Jefferson's stated desire during his lifetime that families remain together, this family -- and many others -- were broken up during this mass sale.  It took twenty three years for Peter to be reunited with his family.

During the time of his enslavement after Jefferson's death he secretly pursued his education, despite his master's declaration that he'd get a whipping if he was ever seen with a book.  Peter didn't keep his desire to learn entirely to himself, however.  He remembered, "All the time I was teaching all the people around me to read and write."

When his father, with the help help of family and neighbors both black and white, was able to secure Peter's freedom, Peter moved to Ohio where his family had resettled.  Begining as a whitewasher and waiter he and his brother William evetually started their own catering business, which was hugely successful.  Peter served on the board of directors of the segregated school board and belonged to both the National Prison Reform Congress and the University Extension Society.  It is also know that he was active in the Underground Railroad.

I'm currently reading the book Free Some Day:  The African-American Families of Monticello by Lucia Stanton.  It's powerful, painful stuff.  The Rev. Peter Fossett's story is just one story of the over six hundred women, men, and children who lived lives of enslavement as the "property" of the man who wrote the words, "All men are created equal."  (You can read more about Peter Fossett in the pages of the web site for the magnificent project -- Getting Word:  African Americans at Monticello.)

As a European American man, and now especially as the Lead Minister of a congregation in Charlottesville, VA built as a memorial to Thomas Jefferson, I find these stories weighing on me.  I walked into our lovely building today and can just barely keep myself from crying.  Especially after just recently being reminded by the movie The Help how little things really changed even after emancipation.  And the current immigration situation reminds me how much the same things still are.

The monthly theme for October here at Thomas Jefferson Memorial Church is Atonement, so I find myself asking the question:  What can I do, what can we do, to atone for our part in this history?  I'll be exploring this in the service on October 16th.  In the meantime, though, I'm sitting with this.  I thought I'd invite you to sit with it, too.

In Gassho,

RevWik