We Can't Resist What We Refuse To Acknowledge

This week both Charlottesville and Albemarle High Schools were the target of online threats.  Parents were notified that the schools were taking precautions to keep our kids safe.  A spokeswoman for the city schools, "acknowledge[d] and condemn[ed] the fact that this threat was racially charged."  "Racially charged" does not begin to capture the truly heinous nature of the threat.

I submitted the following letter to the editor's of our local paper, The Daily Progress:

Whenever someone says, “Black Lives Matter!” you hear, “shouldn’t that be ‘all lives matter’?”  Yes … void of any context.  Yet we do not live in a world that is void of context.  This is a world where black and brown lives have regularly been, and are still, treated as mattering far less than the lives of those who identify as white.  “Race-neutral” and “color blind” ideals obscure the very real inequities still present in our so-called “post-racial” nation.  Yet simply choosing to pretend there is no monster under the bed doesn’t mean there is no monster.  It just allows me to feel safe beneath my covers, while allowing the monster unfettered freedom to do as it likes.

Parents were recently alerted to an online threat made against Charlottesville High School.  School officials wanted to assure all of us that they and the police took seriously their responsibility to keep all of our children safe.  What they did not want us all to know was that this wasn’t a threat of random violence, but violence directed specifically at children of color.  The anonymous poster was very specific, describing their intent as “ethnic cleansing,” using ugly racial slurs to describe the African American and Latinx students who would be their targets.  “If you white … you better stay home,” the post said. 

What was gained by the “whitewashing” of this pointedly racial threat?  Only the comfort of white folk in Charlottesville who want to keep saying that “all children matter,” so we can continue refusing to recognize the ugly reality that some of our children are treated as if they matter more.  Meanwhile, those African American and Latinx students and their families are left wondering if anyone really cares that they were the ones being threated, and only because of the color of their skin.  When those of us who are white refuse to affirm the racist nature of such a threat, we also refuse to affirm the importance of those who were being threatened.  That’s why we need to keep saying, “black lives matter” … until they do.

Rev. Erik Walker Wikstrom

The signs outside and inside the congregation I serve have been up for years, and I hope will remain up until they are no longer needed reminders.

P.S. -- I am pleased to report that The Daily Progress is now reporting that arrests have been made in both cases, and are noting that the threat in the Charlottesville High case described "ethnic cleansing."  I believe that the point of my letter remains valid and worth saying.

A Place of Peace

This is the text of the reflections I offered at the congregation I serve here in Charlottesville, Virginia on Sunday, July 1, 2018.  I wanted the second half to be less consciously conceptual and more a free flowing of spirit, so this is a reconstruction of what those who were here heard.

Opening Words:

The abbot of a provincial monastery was in something of a tizzy, because the abbot of his school’s main temple was coming for a visit, and he wanted everything to be just perfect.  He had set his students to polishing every bit of wood, and brass, and gold, and to seek out every single dust bunny.  He, himself, attended to the grounds.

An old monk, a recognized Zen master who had retired to this monastery watched as the young abbot spent several hours raking leaves from all of the walking trails.  The abbot wanted the woods to exude quiet, and peace, and … well … perfection.  He imagined walking these clear, unobstructed paths with his honored guest, just as he strove to lead the monks under his care over the clear, unobstructed paths of the dharma.

As I said, the old monk stood watching the abbot at his labors the whole time.  When he was finished, the abbot came to the monk, and with pride in his accomplishment the young man asked the old man what he thought.  “Well … ,” the old monk said, “I have to say, you’ve certainly worked very, very hard at this, and it’s almost right. 

The abbot replied, somewhat anxiously, “Please, tell me what I have to do to make it perfect.”  “I’d rather show you,” the old master said.  He took the rake, and spent the next hour putting the leaves back on the path.  “There,” he said when he was done. “Now it’s perfect.”

He gave the rake to the startled abbot, and walked away without another word.

Sermon:

One hour a day.  One day a week.  One week a year. 

One hour a day.  One day a week.  One week a year. 

I want you to hold on to that formula.  We’ll come back to it later.  (I’ll come back to that story about the monks and the leaves in a bit, too.)

Most Sundays I note that the heart of our sanctuary service is not the sermon, or the music, (or the offering!), it’s what we call the time of “Going Deeper.”  Our lives can be so full, and so hectic, I say (as if it would be news to any of us).  Every religious tradition I know anything about exhorts us to seek, to find, or to create spaces and places in our lives where we are not overcome by the cacophony of life; where our hearts and our minds can find respite; where our souls can be silent and calm. 

In the book of 1 Kings in the Hebrews Scriptures the story is told of the prophet Elijah who asks to see G_d.  After all manner of images pass him by – a strong wind that can destroy a mountain, an earthquake, an all-consuming fire – after all of these things pass him by, Elijah finally recognizes his G_d in what is usually translated as, “a still, small voice.”  (It is alternately rendered, “a gentle whisper,” or, my favorite, “the voice of quiet stillness.”)

We have, hopefully, each of us had our own experiences of such sacred silence, times where the world grew quiet … and so did we.  Spiritual practices such as meditation and contemplative prayer can be understood to be, at the very least, about learning to create and cultivate such peace in a world, in our lives, which are most often anything but.

We need such times.  We need such places.  We need such experiences.  Because just as we have been learning how vitally important sleep is to our bodily and mental health, so too is such peace vitally important to our spiritual health. 

The Unitarian Transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson (who, a colleague once described as, “wash[ing] out of the ministry early”) had more than a little to say about sacred space.  In his essay Nature, St. Ralph described an experience he had in nature, that has been often quoted (although here I’m going to read a little more than is usually used):

Crossing a bare common, in snow puddles, at twilight, under a clouded sky, without having in my thoughts any occurrence of special good fortune, I have enjoyed a perfect exhilaration. I am glad to the brink of fear.  In the woods, too, a [person casts off [their] years, as the snake [its] slough, and at what period soever of life is always a child.  In the woods, is perpetual youth.  Within these plantations of God, a decorum and sanctity reign, a perennial festival is dressed, and the guest sees not how [they] should tire of them in a thousand ears.  In the woods, we return to reason and faith.  There I feel that nothing can befall me in life, -- no disgrace, no calamity, (leaving me my eyes), which nature cannot repair.  Standing on the bare ground – my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space – all mean egotism vanishes.  I become a transparent eye-ball.  I am nothing.  I see all.  The currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God.

The Austrian poet René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke, better and more simply known as Rainer Maria Rilke had similar thoughts about the ocean:

"When anxious, uneasy and bad thoughts come, I go to the sea, and the sea drowns them out with its great wide sounds, cleanses me with its noise, and imposes a rhythm upon everything in me that is bewildered and confused."

How many of us have had such experiences?  How many of us – in the woods, by the ocean, at the bank of a river, on a trail, in our gardens – how many of us have found this kind of sacred space and felt its healing balm (at least some of the times)?  I have always loved the power of an incoming storm, when the temperature drops and the winds pick up, and the sky changes color and, almost, texture.  (I’ve read that the Persian poet Khalil Gibran did too – going up to the roof of his apartment in New York City whenever a really powerful storm was coming.)  Like Emerson, I experience “a perfect exhilaration […] am glad to the brink of fear,” and find my worries and woes dropping away.

All of this is why our time of “Going Deeper” is the hub, the heart of what we do here week after week.  This time we set aside is, for some of us, the only time when we can slow down long enough to have even a taste of this kind of stillness.  And for some of us – no doubt for many of us – this place is as important as this time.  We come here, to this sanctuary, as, if you will, to an in-town forest or ocean.  We come here to seek a stillness, to find a stillness, so that that stillness can carry us through the rest of our week.

The Unitarian Universalist pastor and preacher Rev. Phillip Hewett described this seeking in words that are often used as Opening Words in UU congregations (it’s #440 in the back of our hymnals):

“From the fragmented world of our everyday lives we gather together in search of wholeness.  By many cares and preoccupations, by diverse and selfish aims are we separated from one another and divided within ourselves.”

Another story.  (And I haven’t forgotten that earlier story about the monks and the leaves, nor the formula with which I began – one hour a day; one day a week; one week a year.  I hope you haven’t yet either, and if you did I’ve just reminded you.)

I’ve mentioned before that when I was in my 20s I had the wonderful opportunity to spend two months in Japan working with the Kanjiyama Mime troupe.  This was in the midst of the twenty or so year period in which I followed the Zen Buddhist path, so although my work in Japan was centered mostly in and around Tokyo, I simply had to make a side trip to Kyoto, which was the Imperial capital of Japan for over 1,000 years.  It’s also been called “the city of temples,” because of its 1,600 Buddhist temples and 400 Shinto shrines.

I visited several Buddhist temples while I was there, particularly those with the justly famed gardens of stone and raked sand.  And I have to say, when I walked onto the temple grounds – and this was true of all of the temples I visited – I was overwhelmed with a sense of peace.  It was nearly palpable, and I felt myself infused with it.  Just being there quieted my mind and stilled my soul.  It was powerful, and an experience I hope I never forget (no matter how much else I may come to forget).

And this pervasive and palpable peace was perhaps nowhere more present than in the zendo.  These beautiful, spare spaces seemed filled with the energy generated by the monks who meditated there day after day, week after week, years upon years, over centuries and centuries.  It seemed to me that these halls had been infused by the peace of its monks, just as it held the fragrance of all of the incense that had been burned there.

At one of the temples the monk who was walking me around brought me outside the back of its zendo.  The meditation hall had been built at the base of a cliff, and there was a place where a small waterfall had carved a channel in the rock.  Ice cold water from a mountain stream above still fell, as it had for centuries.  At the base of this channel there was a somewhat circular, somewhat flat rock … about the size of a meditation cushion, actually.  And the monk told me that the most advanced students would sometimes leave the zendo during the time of meditation, that they would get off their cushions and come out here.  They would leave the peace and stillness of the zendo and come out here to continue their zazen practice— here, on that rock, under that icy shower.  He invited me to touch it, and even the brief period it poured over my hand was quite literally bone chilling.  And there were monks who choose to practice here under this freezing flow, rather than in the warmth and peace of the meditation hall.

Since I posted the Black Lives Matter sign on the wall behind this pulpit, I have heard from some of you who’ve said that it disrupted, and for some even destroyed, the feeling of peace you had in this hall, and which you sought still.  For some it’s the “garish” colors, discordant with soft blue of the wall.  Some felt it to be an intrusion of the outer world into this inner space, an imposition of the political – and the divisively political at that – into this place of peace.  “I used to look up at the altar throughout the service” someone said to me, “and it would allow me to let everything go.”  This person continued, “Now I can’t.  Whenever I look toward the altar I see that sign, and I can no longer get away from anything … even for just this one hour.”

I would note that this isn’t everyone’s experience.  I have also heard from some of you who find the presence of this sign a powerfully positive thing.  Many – not all, but many – people of color, and perhaps especially those who are new to the congregation, who are checking it out, have said that seeing that sign not only outside of our building, but inside it as well, has made them feel truly welcomed and safe in a predominantly white faith community … for the first time.  “You see me,” they’ve said.  “And you care enough about me to say that explicitly, here, in this sacred space, even though it must cause some of you discomfort to do so.”  As Unitarian Universalists – particularly as Unitarian Universalists committed to the vision of true Beloved Community, that is truly multigenerational and multicultural and committed to the dismantling of racism and the systems and structures of oppression of all kinds – as Unitarian Universalists we know that having our needs met is not the ultimate measure of our success.  Rather, it’s to be a people who know that what matters most is our collective needs, the needs of our whole community, and that means sometimes setting aside my own needs for the sake of someone else’s.  This is one of my reasons for keeping the sign where it is – while some of us are discomforted by its presence, others (and not just people of color, but some of us who identify as white, as well) are more comfortable because it’s there.

I’ve also said, over the years, that if those of us who identify (or are identified as) white are really committed to the overthrow of the deeply and fundamentally racist culture that is U.S. culture, if we’re really committed to this work, then we are going to have to change.  We are going to have to be uncomfortable, because it is uncomfortable work to let of what we’ve known, and learn to see the world through new eyes.  Yesterday, at the Families Belong Together rally downtown, we were reminded by one of the speakers that as outraged as we are by the separation of immigrant families today, it’s been happening in our country to brown and black families since the founding of the nation – African families, native families, the families of anyone deemed to be “Other” have had their families split up as a deterrent .. a deterrent to even thinking about fighting back against their oppression and their oppressors.  This makes a lot of white folk really uncomfortable, as we want to believe that this kind of behavior is an aberration, and it’s tremendously disconcerting and disorienting to discover that it’s actually been a part of the fabric of our culture from the beginning.  

I’ve preached this need for those of us who identify as white to “get comfortable with being uncomfortable,” to lean into the pain that brings with it, and to realize that our assertion, our assumption, that we can and should be comfortable is a piece of privilege not shared equally.  Black and brown people – like women, those who identify as part of LGBTQI communities, Muslims, and everyone who’s been historically, and still are, marginalized – have had to get comfortable with being uncomfortable because that’s a part of their daily experience.  I’ve preached this, and this message has been greeted with applause and praise for my “courage” and willingness to “say what has to be said.”  The presence of this sign is one way to remind us of these truths.

My two Buddhist stories are another way of understanding what the presence of this sign, in this place, is all about.  It is easy to find peace in peaceful places.  It is easy to be still when there is stillness all around.  It is easy, with apologies to Kipling, for us to “keep our heads when all about us are keeping theirs.”  But try meditating under a shower of ice cold mountain water.  Try finding a clear path when it’s obscured by leaves.  Try looking at the altar and letting everything go when out of the corner of your eye you see a reminder of the pain and the struggle in our world.

I can imagine that some of you are experiencing these reflections as being more than a little … defensive.  And I can imagine that some of you are experiencing them as being dismissive … of your concerns, of your real disheartening discomfort, of your own felt needs.

I hope that I’m not being defensive; I’m hoping that I’ve been offering an explanation of why, in this regard, I am doing what I’m doing.  Agree or disagree, I hope I’m helping you to better understand. 

I am aware, though, that I have often come across as dismissive.  I acknowledge that some of you here – and no doubt many who are not – have felt dismissed, especially this year and especially since the end of February when that anonymous racist note and attack was directed at our Director of Administration and Finance, Christina Rivera, and her family.  And while I do recognize and acknowledge that for some here that has been the impact of some of what I’ve said and done, that was never my intent.

In her sermon on Sunday morning at General Assembly last week, the Rev. Susan Frederick-Gray reminded us that she had been called not just to be a leader in our movement, but also a pastor.  That really struck me.  It struck me deeply.  And it struck me deeply because I realize that – especially since February – I have not been as much of a pastor as I now realize I should have been.  Prophetic, maybe, but not all that pastoral.

I know that I have come across to some of us as if I were saying that there were one, and only one, way of being involved in the struggle for racial justice.  I recognize that I have not always said what I mean to say in ways that have been all too easy to misunderstand.  And I am aware that this has led some people to feeling blamed, or shamed, or, as I’ve said, dismissed.

The Universalist preacher Hosea Ballou said, “If we agree in love, no disagreement can do us any harm.  Yet if we don’t, no agreement can do us any good.”  I’m paraphrasing, but you see what we meant.  We don’t have to agree with each other, we don’t have to see things the same way, we don’t have to be the same amount of “woke” (as if you could measure that), we don’t have to be in the same place of understanding, or in the same place of action … if we agree in love, none of that need matter.  The Beloved Community has room for all of us.  We are all works-in-progress and, again, if we can remember to “agree in love,” we can move forward together.

This is a community of good-hearted people, and we cannot afford to risk complacency – the time is too dire and the stakes are too high.  This is a community of beautiful and loving people, and we cannot let a comfortable appearance of peace supplant our commitment to justice.  The work we have set ourselves to is hard.  Relationships are hard.  For that matter, life itself is hard.  Yet as I say to my younger son, “We can do hard things.”

And the discovery of, or the creation of, the cultivation of places and spaces of peace is something we all have to do – individually and as a community – if we want to do the hard things our faith calls us to.  Our time of “Going Deeper’ is intended to be such a time each week, as I know listening to the musical gifts of Scott and James is for many of us.  But that’s not enough.

And that’s where we come back to the formula with which I began:  one hour a day; one day a week; one week a year.”  The Unitarian Universalist preacher Carl Scovel offered this as a pattern we can use to structure our spiritual lives, to ensure that we’re feeding that sacred silence.  Take one hour a day, each day, for quiet and contemplation.  Pray, meditate, walk your dogs and enjoy the walk, sip a cup of tea … for one hour a day give yourself some space to quiet down enough to listen for that “voice of quiet stillness.”   And then give yourself one day a week.  Think of the Jewish tradition of Shabbat, the seventh day of the week on which you are to abstain from anything that might be called “work.”  I’ve heard the practice of such sabbath time as being, “don’t do anything because you feel you have to do it.”  This one-day-a-week is not the time to do the laundry and the 101 errands that have piled up.  It’s a space for space.  And so is that one week per year.  Scovel suggested that we should strive to shape our lives so that we can have one hour a day, one day a week, and one week a year during which we can set ourselves to the no-thing-ness of stillness.

When we are intentional about creating such space – even if we can’t quite meet Scovel’s recommendations – we will find ourselves in a much better place to find that love in which, and through which, we can agree, letting no disagreement tear us apart.

Closing Words:

I have another story.  In Divinity School I was especially interested in cross-cultural monastic practices, so this is another story of a monk. 

This time it’s a Christian monk who was in her room, engaged in contemplative prayer.  It was a warm day, so her window was open.  Outside, the birds were singing, the crickets were chirping, the frogs were croaking, dogs in the distance were barking, and the wind was rustling in the leaves of the trees.  The cacophonous chorus of life was going on outside of her room, and the monk found that she simply could not concentrate on her prayers.

So she rose and went to her window.  Such was her spiritual power that she did not just close the window, she leaned out and shouted, “Silence!”  And all the world grew silent.  There was no sound at all – no birds, no crickets, no frogs, no dogs, no wind.  The silence was complete and total.

The monk returned to her prayers and, at first, she was able to go deep into her contemplations.  Yet she began to notice that again she was distracted, and this time it was worse than it had been.  The silence was nearly deafening.

So once again she rose and went to the window.  And once again she leaned out.  This time, though, she spoke more softly and said, “Sing!”  All at once, the song of life resumed, and she welcomed the world back into her prayers.

Pax tecum,

RevWik

what's a person to do? (part 1)

I recently heard the idea that there is about a three to four week window of time during which the white left will be highly motivated.  Although people of color have been telling us for decades about the country we live in, Donald Trump's victory shocked and stunned a lot of people.  

The different reactions was the root of the now viral Saturday Night Live "election night" skit in which the characters Dave Chappelle and Chris Rock play laugh out loud when one of their white liberal friends says, "This is the most shameful thing America has ever done."  In his opening monologue, Chappelle put it another way:

You know, I didn’t know that Donald Trump was going to win the election. I did suspect it. It seemed like Hillary was doing well in the polls and yet — I know the whites. You guys aren’t as full of surprises as you used to be.

Stunned, shocked, surprised, sorrowful, scared -- however we may be reacting (and here, now, I'm not just limited my "we" to people who look more or less like me) we need to keep in mind that that window is closing.  It was about a week or so ago, now, that I heard about the three to four week window.

So, what can we do?  While there are lots of things that need doing, and lots of people, and groups, and efforts calling out for support, there's also a lot of running in circles.  And a lot of people feeling impotent -- what can we do?  Well ... here are some ideas.  I do not claim that this is anywhere near a comprehensive list, nor do I imagine that everything on it will appeal to everyone.  Nor can I write anything else without first noting that I'm focusing on ideas I've seen and heard from people of color.  The myth of the "white savior" is alive and well -- even if only in the subconscious -- and it must be actively resisted.

I do not know Mateo Guadalupe, who penned these words, but I do know Julica Hermann DelaFuente who posted them on her Facebook page, with an encouragement to repost.  I did so on Facebook, and I'll do so here, adding links to the groups Mr. Gudalupe highlights:

"Alright, white friends. We need to talk. I'm seeing a lot of you talking about donating to 'anti trump' causes and huge white-led orgs like aclu and planned parenthood right now. Some of you are putting a lot of money and energy into 4-fucking-day old organizations and facebook groups started by other white people feeling compelled to 'do something about trump.' 

But the thing is, there are already brilliantly strategic, robust, multi-pronged efforts being led by those most impacted by this regime of white supremacy. People of color, especially black women & queer folks, have been leading the fight to dismantle racism and white supremacy ALL ALONG. This shit might be new to you, my blue state comrades, but this has been the lived reality for a lot of people for a long long time. 

Please reconsider where you are placing your coins and energy right now. POCs already have the solutions and the strategies to win liberation. FUND THEM. INVEST IN THEM. 

Give money to Black Lives Matter. Give money to black & brown lead resistance in red states, like Southerners On New Ground and SisterSong. Give money to latinxs leading the fight against deportations like Trans Queer Pueblo and Not1MoreDeportation. Fund platforms for black brilliance & critical thought like BYP100 and Echoing Ida. Support a radical funder like Third Wave Fund. This is a time for you to LISTEN to people of color, FOLLOW our lead, and INVEST in our liberation. 

Take a seat, and open your wallets."

This is not to say -- or, at least, I do not mean to say --  that groups like ACLU, Planned Parenthood, or NOW should be repudiated.  They do good and incredibly important work -- work that is going to be needed more than ever in the days to come.  What I hear in Mr. Gudalupe's post is a reminder to white liberals (like me) that the (traditionally white-led) liberal organizations are not the only groups doing things.  There are organizations that are doing just as good, just as important work that need more visibility and more support.  

If I am really committed to the work of racial justice, I need to place myself with those who are living day-to-day under the oppressions of the racist systems I say I want to help dismantle.  My instinct, though, in this as in so many other things, is to go where it's "safe" for me, where I'm "comfortable," and where, whether I'm conscious of it or not, that "safety" and "comfort" derive at least in part because the "face" of these organizations look a whole lot like mine.

Before clicking "publish" I went to the websites of each of these groups and joined and/or made donations,  (Yes, including the ACLU, Planned Parenthood, and NOW.  I also sent an extra donation to the NAACP.)  I know that I cannot be everywhere.  No one can.  But because of the privilege of having a well paying job I am able to support those who are in places I can't be, doing things I can't do.

For some time now my closing salutation has been, "Pax tecum," which is Latin for "peace to you."  As of today it becomes, Esse confido ... fortis esse.  (Be bold ... be strong)

Esse confido ... fortis esse!

RevWik

PS -- please add in the comments any other groups you think should be joined and supported!

Why is it so hard to listen ... and hear?

Last night I attended a public forum hosted by the Blue Ribbon Commission the Charlottesville City Council called into being for the purpose of deciding what to do about the large and prominent statues of Generals "Stonewall" Jackson and Robert E. Lee.  Earlier this year a high school student started a petition to have the statue of Lee removed from Lee Park.  She wrote:

"As a younger African American resident in this city, I am often exposed to different forms of racism that are embedded in the history of the south and particularly this city. My peers and I feel strongly about the removal of the statue because it makes us feel uncomfortable and it is very offensive. I do not go to the park for that reason, and I am certain that others feel the same way."

Last night people from the community expressed their support, and opposition to, the idea of removing the statues.  Some others offered alternative suggestions.  The meeting was, to say theleast, "lively."

One moment in particular struck me.  A man who had grown up in Charlottesville spoke about how the statue of Lee was not only part of the physical landscape of Charlottesville, but the landscape of his life, as well.  He remembered walking through the park as a boy, his father stopping them at the monument to point out that the statute was considered "one of the finest equestrian statues in the world." It was clear that for him, the statue not only commemorates a Confederate General, it memorializes his childhood, his relationship with his father, and the pride he feels for the city he calls home (which, as he said, has something in it so precious as to be one of the finest in the world).

This speaker was white.  Other speakers, African Americans, spoke of other childhood memories -- memories in which they were told not to go into the park because they would not be welcome.  They spoke of the feeling they'd had that this imposing statue, so centrally situated in the city, was a clear and intimidating message to them of their place in the community.  As Zyhana Bryant, the high school student who initiated the petition said, many African Americans feel uncomfortable in the park, and many avoid it altogether.

People who say that "Black Lives Matter" is an unnecessary slogan, who say that the problem it purports to address is one more of perception than reality, who say that it is inherently anti-police and, more generally, anti-white, are missing the point.  It's not just because Black people are more likely to be stopped by police in situations where whites would not be.  It's not just because black people -- especially young black men -- are shot and killed by police disproportionately.  It's not just because the rates of incarceration are so out of balance that it is not only infuriating, it's disgusting and embarrassing as well.  It's all of that, yes, but it's also more than all that.

Last night was a case in point.  A white man said that his fond memories of the statue of Robert E. Lee ought to be -- need to be -- taken into consideration when determining their ultimate fate.  Left unsaid, though no less clearly communicated for that, was that the painful memories of people of color ought not to be considered.  His memories matter.  Their's do not.

And until white Americans are able to really hear, respect, acknowledge, and be moved and changed by the lived experiences of African American, and people of color more generally, then we need to keep repeating that Black Lives Matter.  Until the contributions of African Americans to this country are recognized as being fully as important as those of white Americans -- even when doing so displaces the historical narrative celebrated in the dominant culture -- then we need to keep repeating that Black Lives Matter.  Until we realize that if the "heroes" of white America are not "heroes" to people of color then they are not our heroes, we will need to keep repeating that Black Lives Matter.  Until we -- white Americans -- fully acknowledge (not only with our words but in the way we live) that they -- African Americans -- are not "other than" the us we claim to be as a nation, we will need to keep repeating that Black Lives Matter.

Black feelings matter.  Black memories matter.  Black history matters.  Black lives matter.

Pax tecum,

RevWik


Yesterday, on the blog of the congregation I serve, I wrote a post expressing my thoughts about the issue of what to do with these statues.

You fix this shit ...

"You fix this shit ..."

This comes from an essay Anthea Butler wrote for Religious Dispatches, in which she responds to her editor's request for a piece about the murders of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, and the five police offers who were shot and killed in Dallas.  She says, essentially, that she'd one writing for white people who are looking for a person of color to express the outrage, the power of the pain, that we white folks can't (or won't) express ourselves:

"I'm done saving you, good white folks.  You want Black people like me, who like you, to say the prophetic thing, and bail your ass out for not speaking up, for remaining quiet -- while you get your work, vacations, and scholarship done this summer."

I hear this.  At least, to be honest, I'm trying to hear this.  It's hard as a person who was raised to think of myself as white to really  hear this.  Still, I'm trying.  And I think to myself -- what the hell am I supposed to do?  Damn.  how do you change the collective consciousness -- even more the unconsciousness -- of a country?  How do you "turn" the folks who see Donald Trump as, as Ms. Butler put it, "a savior"?

We're told that in Biblical times a prophet could speak out with such conviction that even kings would put on sackcloth and ashes as a demonstration of their heartfelt mourning and desire to repent.  Mohandas Gandhi would stop eating, and the people of India -- Hindu and Muslim alike -- would change their behavior out of concern and respect for the Great Soul.

Is there -- could there be -- such a prophet today?  Who do the American people love so deeply that they would pause in mid-battle for?  I'm not holding my breath for this kind of a solution.

But what can be done?  What can I do?  I know that "show up" matters.  I believe -- deeply -- that it makes a difference, when white folks help white folks to recognize -- to really see -- the racism that is embedded in our culture in which we move unconscious as a fish glides through water.  These things make a difference.  As does working to ensure the enfranchisement of people within historically marginalized groups.  As does writing letters to politicians, and signing petitions, and attending rallies, and getting arrested, and ...

And how do you change the collective consciousness of a country?  Because it's just not enough to change laws.  The ratification of the 14th amendment changed the status of African Americans ... except that it didn't.  The Voting Rights Act of 1965 ensured that people of color would have the same access to participation in the democratic process as anyone else ... except that it didn't.  (And to further drive home the point, this issue had already supposedly been taken care of back in 1870 with the ratification of the 15th amendment!) 

Yes, we can do anti-bias training for police officers, and it's important work.  Will it really address the implicit bias that is at work in every interaction?  There are so many things that we can do, yet I keep coming back to what seems to me to be a fundamental questions -- how do you change the collective consciousness of a country? 

"You fix this shit ..."  Who are better positioned to change an inherently unjust system than the people who benefit most from that system?  And yet ... how does a fish change the water in the tank?

I truly wish I knew ....

Pax tecum,

RevWik

One Body; Many Parts; All Not (Yet) Equal

This is the sermon I offered on Sunday, April 17th, 2016 to the congregation of Ebenezer Baptist Church while their pastor, the Rev. Dr. Lehman Bates, preached from the same text at Thomas Jefferson Memorial Church - Unitarian Universalist where I serve.

Reading:  1 Corinthians 12:12-27

Sermon:

It is really wonderful to be back at what is beginning to feel like my second church home here in Charlottesville.  The last time we did this, your pastor chose the text we drew on, a story from the Gospel of Luke.  This time I got to choose, but my heart wasn’t drawn to a story.  Instead, I immediately heard in my ear words from the Apostle Paul’s first letter to the church in Corinth.  It’s the passage that begins, “There is one body, but it has many parts,” and ends, “You are the body of Christ.  Each of you is a part of it.”

This is one of those passages that even people who don’t memorize scripture seem to know.  There is one body, and each of us – all of us – are a part of it.  You, and me, and people we’ve never met, and even people we don’t particularly like are all a part of it.  One body, and we’re all included.

1^st Corinthians is more formally known as Paul’s First Epistle to the Church in Corinth, because that’s what it was.  Paul wasn’t writing a book of scripture that he expected us to be studying a couple thousand years later.  He was writing an epistle, a letter, to the church in Corinth … a church he’d planted some few years before.  He’d brought together some good hearted folks who seemed open to hearing God’s good news, and showed them how to be a church.  And then he left them to fend for themselves.

Now … maybe it’s not the same here, but I have to say that as much as I love church folk I’ve known my share who I wouldn’t want to leave in charge of making coffee, much less the whole church!  So if I left you know I’d want to keep my eye on them, just to make sure that everything was going along okay.

Well, Paul did too.  And when he heard that one of the congregations he’d helped start had begun going down a slippery slope, he’d write them a letter.  “Are you serious,” he’d write. “Hold on here … you’re doing what now?” 

That’s what the epistles are.  Reminders.  Corrections.  He apparently needed to write letters like that to the church in Rome, Ephesia, and Philippi; he wrote to a bunch of churches in Galatia; and he wrote to the Thessalonians and the Corinthians twice.

So, it seems that Paul had heard that the people in Corinth had forgotten that they were one body, that they were a single and unified community and that everyone was a part of it.  No distinctions; no exceptions.  He had to remind them:  you are one people.  You belong together.  All of you.

It’s really easy, isn’t it, to see all the ways you and I – and, maybe even more so, how those other people, over there – aren’t connected.  It’s easy to see all of the ways that we’re different, partly because we live in a culture that teaches us to look for those differences.  Our shared history shows us that no matter how much we may say that we’re all one happy family, we’re not.  If nothing else, some of us have been treated very differently, are being treated very differently.  We’ve been reminding ourselves over and over again that those differences are supposed to matter.  And we know that sometimes being aware of those differences has been – and can be still – the difference between life and death.

There were differences and distinctions back in Paul’s time too, of course, and in his letter to this particular congregation he knew and loved he was reminding them that from God’s point of view those differences don’t matter.  That, in an ultimate sense, we’re all part of one body.  The holy body of Life itself.

But he said more than this, too.  His message was a little more nuanced than that.

“There is one body,” Paul wrote, “but it has many parts. But all its many parts make up one body.”  And then he says again, “the body is not made up of just one part. It has many parts.”

See?  He’s done a friend of mine calls “complexifying.”  We are one body, yes, but we’re not all the same.  We’re not even supposed to try to be all the same.  We’re supposed to be different.  Not in the distorted way our culture and our history keeps trying to tell us that we’re different, but in the beautiful ways we just naturally are.  Remember the workshop you all did here about “temperament types?”  Differences.  Here’s Paul again:

“Suppose the foot says, “I am not a hand. So I don’t belong to the body.”  […]  And suppose the ear says, “I am not an eye. So I don’t belong to the body.”  […]  If the whole body were an eye, how could it hear? If the whole body were an ear, how could it smell?  God has placed each part in the body just as God wanted it to be.  If all the parts were the same, how could there be a body?  As it is, there are many parts. But there is only one body.”

One body.  Many parts.  Different parts.  Even though, ultimately, those differences don’t matter, we need to be aware of them and appreciate them for the gifts they are.

So maybe we could say that Paul’s telling them – and us, because this letter to them has become scripture to us – that we aren’t supposed to let the differences divide us; that we shouldn’t be blind to them, but that we’re not supposed to be blinded by them either.

But even that’s not all that Paul wanted to remind that fledgling church in Corinth, or that we still need to be reminded of today.  We’re one body – yes.  And that one body has many parts – got it.  But then there’s still one thing more.

The eye can’t say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” The head can’t say to the feet, “I don’t need you!”  In fact, it is just the opposite. The parts of the body that seem to be weaker are the ones we can’t do without.  The parts that we think are less important we treat with special honor. The private parts aren’t shown. But they are treated with special care.  The parts that can be shown don’t need special care. But God has put together all the parts of the body. And God has given more honor to the parts that didn’t have any.  In that way, the parts of the body will not take sides. All of them will take care of one another.   If one part suffers, every part suffers with it.

We’re all one body – one body, even though we’re not all the same.  And … it’s those parts of that body that are different in ways which can make them seem “less than” that need special attention.  “Blessed are the poor, those who mourn, the meek, the persecuted.”  You know the list.  Liberation theologians say that God has a “preferential option for the poor.”  Paul says that it’s the parts of the body that seem the weakest that are the ones we can’t do without.  And, he says, that all of the parts – all of the parts – need to take care of each other because if any one part suffers, every other part suffers too, the whole body suffers.  It’s Dr. King’s “inescapable network of mutuality,” that, “single garment of destiny.”

After we’re done here together this morning, I’m going back to the church I serve because we’re having a congregational meeting – the first of two to consider affirming and adopting a statement of public witness that was endorsed at our national convention this past summer.  It’s a statement of support for, and solidarity with, the Black Lives Matter movement.  It’s true, of course, as some would have us say, that “all live matter,” but after 400 years of acting as though the lives of African Americans don’t matter in this country, there’s a growing urgency to say today – often, loudly, and explicitly – that they do.  We are one body – but that truth has been violently ignored.  We are one body, with each part necessary to the whole – but some parts have acted as though they are all the body needs.  As though they are the body.  As though they can say to some other parts of the body, “You don’t belong here.”

But that’s not the way this works.  That’s not the way God works!  So today we need to remind ourselves – all of us – that for God it’s those parts that have been pushed to the margins that matter most; those parts that have received the least regard that really deserve their due; those parts that that have been treated unjustly – even brutally, inhumanely – that ought now to be treated as they should have been treated all along:  as members of the one body to which all belong, as essential as any other.  

God said it.  Paul wrote it.  Let us hear it.  The parts of the body should not take sides.  All of them must take care of one another, because if one part suffers, every part suffers with it.  The body cannot be whole, cannot be holy, if its parts are at war.

I believe that those Corinthians learned that lesson.  I hope that we, today, do too.  The health of the one body of which we are each and all parts depends on it.  May it be so, and amen.

A Christmas Homily

It’s been a while since I last offered a Christmas Eve homily.  I’ve always figured that the texts and the tunes will deliver their own message if I get out of the way.  But this year I feel compelled to reflect on what might seem to be at best an odd juxtaposition and at worst a contradictory paradox.

This is the season to talk about “peace on earth and good will toward all.”  Right?  But that’s not what’s in the air these days, is it?  At least, not if you’re paying any attention.  I don’t need to tell the stories – the names should be enough:

• Michael Brown in Ferguson;
• Eric Garner in Staten Island;
• Tamir Rice in Cleveland, OH;
• Officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu in Brooklyn;
• Sage Smith, Hannah Graham, Robin and Mani Aldridge – all right here in Charlottesville;
• “Jackie” (and too many others) at UVa and elsewhere;

I could, of course, go on.

So, given what we know about the world we live in, what are we to do with this story of a baby, born to poor parents who knew oppression all too well, yet who is said to have grown up to be a living embodiment of “peace,” “good will,” and love? This story of that silent night where rulers and wise ones bowed down before a babe, with the Star of Hope shining clear in the night sky?

We could ignore it.  We could trivialize it.  We could dismiss it, saying that it’s a story from a long time ago with no relevance to today.  We could say that it’s someone else’s story to believe if they want to.  We could say that it’s just a story and as with all fairy tales we should focus instead on the way things really are.  We could do any of that.  Some of us do all of that.

But what if we didn’t?  What if we said that, story though it is, there is truth in it … power in it?  What if we opened our hearts more than our heads and let the story in?  Let it really sink into our souls?  What might happen?

This evening we’ve heard the story as it comes down to us, in its classic form, and together we’ve sung songs that have grown out of as echoes of its truths.  Did we hear those truths, or did we just sing the words?  Mike shared with us the message of the man said to have been born on that holy night so long ago – did we hear it, really hear it, or did we just listen?

2,000 years ago or so, we’re told that a baby was born to poor parents from an oppressed people living in what has been called “the greatest Empire on earth.”  And it was, for a few.  The Pax Romana – the “Roman Peace” that was the envy of the world – was great if you were Roman.  And male.  And a property owner.  The ancient 1%. 

For everyone else, though, it was awful.  Brutal.  The news of the day was not all that unlike the news of our day.

But one of the essential things about the Christmas story is that its hero was not born at the top of the pyramid, but at its bottom.  God, we’re told, chose not simply to express what theologians call a “preferential option for the poor,” but to actually become one of the poorest of the poor.  To make the same point today God might have to incarnate as a young black man with a hoodie and a bag of skittles.

So, yes, the Christmas story is about inns, and mangers, and stars, and wise men, and shepherds, and angels, and, of course, a cute little baby.   But it’s about so more than that.  It’s about an unfair, unjust society and the promise that it won’t last forever.  It’s about the ultimate victory of the forces of life over the forces of death.  It’s about nothing less than a re-ordering of society so that those who are repeatedly told that their lives don’t matter, who are so oppressed that they feel that can’t breathe, well … they’ll have the last word.  As the Gospel of Luke remembers Jesus’ mom as saying,

God has brought down rulers from their thrones
    and lifted up the humble.

God has filled the hungry with good things
    but has sent the rich away empty.

Can you believe in such a story?  Can you believe in such a vision?  I’m not asking if you believe in God – some do, some don’t.  I’m not asking if you believe in miracles – whatever that word might mean to you.  I’m asking if you believe in Love.  I’m asking if you believe in Hope.

Let me change that.  I’m asking you to believe in Love; I’m asking you to believe in Hope.  Because this world still needs that re-ordering, and this isn’t something that’s done to us … it’s something that’s done through us.  The Christian mystic Meister Eckhart said that “we are all Mothers of God because God is always needing to be born.” 

Howard Thurman, a prominent civil rights leader and Protestant minister, wrote something about Christmas that I think about each year.  I’ll give him the final word:

When the song of the angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flock,
The work of Christmas begins:

To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry,
To release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations,
To bring peace among [people],
To make music in the heart.

Pax tecum,

RevWik