The Science Fiction of Social Justice

This past Sunday, during the first service, I realized that I needed to trim my reflections before going in to the second.  The proverbial "cutting room floor" is often home to passages that, for one reason or another, were important or intriguing enough to include yet, ultimately, are not enough of either of those things to remain in the final draft.  Thus it always is for writers.

I remember once, early in my preaching career, emailing a sermon to a friend for her opinion.  Something just wasn't right about it, but I really couldn't tell what.  After reading through it she wrote back, "Erik, that's two of the best sermons I've ever read."  One of them ended up on that floor.

Still, that second sermon found its way off the floor and into the pulpit at some point, and today I want to expand on one of the things I didn't get too on Sunday.

This summer I read a fascinating book –  Octavia’s Brood: science fiction stories from social justice movements.  

Octavia E. Butler was a science fiction author -- the first science fiction author to be awarded the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship.  She was also something of a rarity in the world of science fiction literature for another reason:  there haven't been a lot of African American science fiction writers.  Her Wikipedia article notes that,

"Butler began reading science fiction at a young age, but quickly became disenchanted by the genre's unimaginative portrayal of ethnicity and class as well as by its lack of noteworthy female protagonists.  She then set to correct those gaps by, as De Witt Douglas Kilgore and Ranu Samantrai point out, "choosing to write self-consciously as an African-American woman marked by a particular history"—what Butler termed as "writing myself in".  Butler's stories, therefore, are usually written from the perspective of a marginalized black woman whose difference from the dominant agents increases her potential for reconfiguring the future of her society."

The editors of Octavia's Brood -- Sheree Renée Thomas and Walidah Imarisha -- dedicate their anthology to Butler:

"To Octavia E. Butler, who serves as a north star for so many of us.  She told us what would happen -- "all that you touch you change"--and then she touched us, fearlessly, brave enough to change us.  We dedicate this collection to her, coming out with our own fierce longing to have our writing change everyone and everything we touch."

The 23 contributors are, as Thomas describes them in her Introduction, “artists who in their other lives work tirelessly as community activists, educators, and organizers.” Imarisha notes in her Introduction that one of the things that makes this project so fascinating and exciting is that, "many of the contributors [...] had never written fiction before, much less science fiction."  She writes,

"When we approached folks, most were hesitant to commit, feeling like they weren't qualified.  But overwhelmingly, they all came back a few weeks later, enthusiastically, with incredible ideas and some with dozens of pages already written.  Because all organizing is science fiction, we are dreaming new worlds every time we think about the changes we want to make in the world."

That idea is what intrigued me and led me to include a reference to this in my last reflections.  I realized, though, that I could make the point I was trying to make without this reference and that, actually, this deserved more room than I could have given it there.

"All organizing is science fiction."  Think about that for a minute; let it sink in.  Whenever anyone works for justice, whenever anyone strives to help transform the world from what it is now into what we know it can be, we're essentially painting a picture of a world that does not (yet) exist.  That's the work of science fiction -- to show us alternatives to the reality we know.  Imarisha says,

“Whenever we try to envision a world without war, without violence, without prisons, without capitalism, we are engaging in speculative fiction.  All organizing is science fiction.  Organizers and activists dedicate themselves to creating and envision another world. […]”

J.R.R. Tolkien wrote a great deal more about Middle Earth than showed up in The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings.  One of the reasons the world he created feels so rich, so full, so real, is because he knew more about it than what he needed to tell us for his stories.  And you can sense it.  You can feel it.

He even wrote his own creation story for this world.  The Ainulindalë is a really beautiful and profound myth; it's actually my own favorite of all the creation myths I've ever encountered.  It is the one that feels most "true."  Simply put,  Eru Ilúvatar, the One, creates the universe and all that's in it through music.  

"The story begins with a description of the Ainur as "children of Ilúvatar's thought". They are taught the art of music, which becomes the subject of their immortal lives. The Ainur sing alone or in small groups about themes given to each of them by Ilúvatar, who proposes a "great" plan for them all: a collaborative symphony where they would sing together in harmony."  (Wikipedia)

There are a number of important details, meaningful nuances, that I would hate to rush past.  I encourage you to get a copy of The Silmarillion, which collects much of this "backstory," or Google around until you find a copy of the text online somewhere.  

The reason I bring all of this up is the way the story ends.  After the "collaborative symphony" is complete, Ilúvatar invites the Ainur to look at what they'd created together.  They do, and it is beautiful.  It is good.  And then everything vanishes.  Void.  Emptiness.  And then Ilúvatar tells the Ainur to go into that emptiness and bring into being all that they saw.

I get shivers -- The Ainur are shown not just the blueprint, but the total, finished reality of all creation, and then they're tasked with actually making it real.

When I read Thomas' and Imarisha's words about organizers and activists being engaged in science fiction I immediately thought of Tolkien's myth.  Those who work for justice are those Ainur who have seen this not-yet world right here in the midst of the world as-it-is, and they have set upon the work of bringing into being what they've seen.  In another way they are Ilúvatar, showing their vision to anyone "with eyes to see" (as Jesus is remembered as putting it), and engaging them in the work of world building.

Perhaps all this talk about myths and science fiction seems trivializing of the real life-and-death struggle that is this world for far, far too many.  We don't need pretty stories.  We need action!  That later part is right, but the former misses an important truth.  Walidah Imarisha explains in her Introduction the importance of engaging the imagination in the work for societal transformation:

“[T[he decolonization of the imagination is the most dangerous and subversive form there is:  for it is where all other forms of decolonization are born.  Once the imagination is unshackled, liberation is limitless.”

Sheree Renée Thomas adds one fascinating thought:

"[T]hose of us from communities with historic collective trauma, we must understand that each of us is already science fiction walking around on two legs.  Our ancestors dreamed us up and then bent reality to create us."

As someone from a historically centralized position, this reminds me that I have to listen not so much to the dreams of my ancestors, to the science fiction that comes out of my history.  Why?  Because that's the world we're living in.  The world that was imagined, the vision that was dreamed and worked for by straight, white, cis-male folks with good educations and incomes has already been brought into being.  It's the world that's so in need of transformation into something new.

This doesn't mean that my ancestors have nothing of value to offer, that their vision offers no beauty or strength.  It does mean, though, that if we're serious about bringing a new world into being then the movers and shakers of this world need to start listening to new stories, new dreams.  Or, rather, new to me.  These stories, these dreams, this visions have always been here; they've just been largely displaced by those that brought us to where we are.  Reading the stories collected in Octavia's Brook opened for me a library the existence of which, I confess, I was only faintly aware.  There is so much more to read, and it pains me that I'm only discovering it at 56.  (At least I'm not first discovering it at 57!)


Pax tecum,

RevWik

Resisting Injustice

This is the sermon I preached at the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Church - Unitarian Universalist in Charlottesville, Virginia on January 17, 2016.  As always, you can listen to it if you prefer.

You’ve probably never heard the name Ephraim Nute.  (But it is a pretty cool name, isn’t it?)  You’ve also probably never heard about the 2011 book that Skinner House published about him:  The Incredible Story of Ephraim Nute: Scandal, Bloodshed, and Unitarianism on the American Frontier.  (And how’s that for a title?)  I was on the Editorial Board of Skinner House when the manuscript for The Incredible Story was nearly passed over, and I was one of the people who argued – somewhat passionately, as I remember – that we simply had to publish this book.

Ephraim Nute was a Boston-born Unitarian, ordained to the ministry in 1845 at the age of 26.  He served congregations in Massachusetts for about a decade before feeling the need for a new adventure.  He followed that urge by volunteering to go to Kansas to start a new church there.  The year was 1854, Kansas was still a territory, and it was the year that Congress passed the now infamous Kansas-Nebraska Act which said that as these territories were admitted as new states in the Union the settlers would decide for themselves whether or not to legalize slavery.  As you may remember from a U.S. History class, these disputed territories were one of the matches that ignited the Civil War.  In Kansas, in 1854, the struggle between anti-slavery activists and pro-slavery proponents was so fierce that this period is referred to as, “bleeding Kansas.”   Starting a congregation in that context is the “adventure” Ephraim Nute signed on for.  When he left, one of the gifts given to him to help with his new ministry was a revolver.

The story of “scandal, bloodshed, and Unitarianism on the American frontier” is a pretty exciting one.  If anyone knows a screenwriter looking for a project, I’ll happily loan them my copy.  It’s that amazing.  An example:  There’s a chapter in the book titled, “Bibles and Breechloaders.”  When Nute would go back East to visit family, and friends, and the office of the American Unitarian Association, he would return with his wagon loaded with cases of books for his community.  Only … the cases were actually filled with the Sharps breech loading rifles. 

These were the rifles some called, “Beecher’s Bibles,” because of something the famous New England clergyman Henry Ward Beecher was reported to have said (and I’m quoting here from an 1856 article in the New Your Tribune):

"He (Henry W. Beecher) believed that the Sharps Rifle was a truly moral agency, and that there was more moral power in one of those instruments, so far as the slaveholders of Kansas were concerned, than in a hundred Bibles. You might just as well. . . read the Bible to Buffaloes as to those fellows who [support slavery]; but they have a supreme respect for the logic that is embodied in Sharp's rifle."

The Incredible Story of Ephraim Nute recounts his harrowing journeys with those crates of “books” in his wagon, as well as all of the times he was beaten, shot at, arrested, imprisoned, nearly lynched …  All I can say is that the parish ministry has certainly changed some since then!  That, and that there’s no question that this was a preacher who put his faith into action.

And he wasn’t alone.  Among our Unitarian and Universalist ancestors are people who risked much in their support of the cause of abolition.  In fact, at least one historian of religion suggests that one of the reasons we see such slow growth in Unitarianism in and around this period is because of the number of radical Unitarian preachers who were so public in their opposition to slavery.   Not every one of our forebears would make us proud, of course – the President who   signed the Fugitive Slave Act into law, Millard Fillmore, was a Unitarian, for instance.  Yet in 1845, 170 Unitarian clergyman published an anti-slavery declaration in William Lloyd Garrison’s magazine The Liberator, and a list of some of the most active and well-known abolitionists would include quite a number of Unitarians and Universalists.  And our ancestors were involved in less public ways as well:

• The belfry of our congregation in Olmsted, Ohio was a station on the Underground Railroad.
• Our congregation in West Roxbury, Massachusetts gave sanctuary in their building to several escaped slaves and Freedmen.  Their Pastor, the Rev. Theodore Parker, kept a pistol in the pulpit, letting it be known that he would shoot anyone who tried to forcibly remove them.  He kept a sword by his writing desk as well, because his home was a sanctuary also.
• Frances Ellen Watkins Harper was an African American woman who drew huge crowds of New Englanders to her lectures on the anti-slavery circuit.  Some say she was the most popular of all the abolitionist speakers of her day.  She was also a Unitarian.
• The Rev. Samuel Joseph May, who served our congregation in Syracuse, New York, was known to take up collections during the Sunday service explicitly for the purpose of aiding fugitive slaves.  (He also encouraged the Free Blacks in his congregation to sit up front rather than in the segregated back.  But that’s another story.)
• In Pennsylvania, our congregations in Meadville and Philadelphia, along with a seminary the Unitarians established in Meadville, were all known stations on the Underground Railroad, as were the Universalist congregations in Indiana County and Girard.

I could keep going, of course, but this could easily turn into a history lesson.  (If it hasn’t already done so for some of you!)  In my research I did come across a history paper written in 2002 for a course at Starr King School for the Ministry.  It’s called, “Unitarian and Universalist Denominational and Individual Involvement in the Anti-Slavery Movement Prior to the U.S. Civil War.”  Not quite as catchy as Scandal, Bloodshed and Unitarianism on the American Frontier, but it’s quite an interesting paper nonetheless (even though the author doesn’t even mention our dear Ephraim Nute even once!). [For those who are interested I’ve printed out some copies that you can find in the Church Office, and I’ll make sure that there’s a link to it when this sermon is published online.]  As I said earlier, a list of those most active in the cause of abolition would include a number of Unitarians and Universalists.

This is true of the women’s suffrage movement as well.  Judith Sargent Murray?  One of ours.  Elizabeth Cady Stanton?  Susan B. Anthony?  Yep.  Them too.  Jane Addams?  Lucy Stone? Olympia Brown?  Mary Rice Livermore?  Julia Ward Howe?  Yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes.  In fact if you look at both the leaders and the rank and file of pretty much all of the movements for justice in U.S. history you’ll find Unitarians, Universalists, and Unitarian Universalists well represented.  Resisting injustice is not something new for us; we’ve been at it for a long, long time.

That’s actually the reason I advocated for Skinner to publish Bobbie Groth’s book about her great-great-grandfather, Ephraim Nute.  I saw it as providing proof, if proof were needed, that our modern movement’s strong anti-racism, anti-oppression emphasis is not new but has roots that go deep.  I remember saying that the “incredible story of … scandal, bloodshed, and Unitarianism on the American frontier” offered an explanation of why we 21^st century Unitarian Universalists see this work as so important.  Simply – it’s part of the makeup of who we are; it’s part of the truth of who we’ve been. 

Yet even though realizing that resisting injustice is part of our faith tradition’s genome may point toward an explanation of why we are engaged in such work today, I am not sure it says all that much about why we are, and have been, engaged in such resistance.  We’ve been there, we’ve been doing it, but why have we been there doing it?

This week I stumbled upon a pretty cool resource, a rather long page on the website of our congregation in Albion, NY that contains … well … I lost count of how many pithy quotes from Unitarian Universalists it has.  One that sprang out at me is by the Rev. Forrest Church,

“Unitarianism proclaims that we spring from a common source; Universalism, that we share a common destiny.”

This is part of the answer to that why.  From their beginnings, the theologies of the movements that merged into us emphasized the unity of our human family and the universality of human experience.  You know the saying, “until all of us are free, none of us is free”?  That sense of interconnectedness, of mutual responsibility, has been a part of our theological understanding since the beginning.

Fundamentally, Unitarian Universalism is, and always has been, a humanist faith.  By this I don’t mean that we are atheists at heart, although, of course, some of us are.  Humanism has taken many forms – from a religious Christian humanism to a secular transhumanism.  So, saying that a person, or a faith tradition, is “humanist” doesn’t really tell you all that much about their understanding of, “the sacred and the holy.”  Well, actually, that’s not completely true.  All forms of humanism stress that here – this place, this world, this universe, this “sphere of human experience,” if you will – is in-and-of-itself both sacred and holy, needing nothing out there to bless all that is right here.  There’s a great line in a litany about what our faith does, and doesn’t, affirm – “it is more important to get heaven into people now, than to get people into heaven later.”  Whatever may or may not come next, this world is where the action is.  That’s humanism, and that’s foundational to our movement.

And it’s because our faith tradition teaches that “this world is where the action is” that we, as a people, have always been drawn to the work of resisting injustice.  We look around us and see all the work there is to do.  To paraphrase the words of the poet Adrienne Rich (that you can find in the back of our hymnal at #463):

[Our hearts are] moved by all [we] cannot save:so much has been destroyed
[we] have to cast [our] lot with thosewho age after age, perversely,with no extraordinary power
reconstitute the world.

So much has been destroyed – so much is being destroyed – and looking around ourselves we and our forebears have seen this and are compelled to act.  And we are compelled to act because of one other aspect of our faith tradition’s teachings – that Love is our foundation, our “ground of being.”

So when we look around us at all that we cannot save, all that has been destroyed and is being destroyed, we do so through eyes of Love and we are compelled by Love to do something.  We are compelled to resist the injustices we see – it’s what we’ve always done and what we’re doing now, and what I fully expect Unitarian Universalists will keep doing as long as we last.

Now … there are those who say that every sermon should end on an uplifting note, or a charge to action, or, as Arthur likes to put it, a “so what?”.  I guess I’d have to say that this sermon is going to end on an “I thought you ought to know.”  I thought you ought to know that our Unitarian Universalist tradition has a long and storied history, an incredible story of a people who can inspire and make us proud.  I thought you ought to know that we are part of something, friends, that’s larger than any of us, larger even than TJMC.  This community is part of something larger than itself – a community that stretches far into the past and will extend far into the future.  And that community has always been on the frontlines, always been resisting injustice, always been striving to create a world of freedom and justice for everyone without exception.  We are a part of that.  We are a part of that.

Pax tecum,

RevWik

Praying for Guidance

There is a classic film called The Bishop's Wife.  It stars David Niven as a Bishop who very much wants to build a grand new cathedral, Lorretta Young as his far too neglected wife, and Cary Grant, as the angel named Dudley who comes to help sort things out.  (If you've never seen it, go and watch it at once.  This post will be here when you get back.)

In an effort to raise the needed funds, the Bishop courts a wealthy widow, but she will only give her money with certain stipulations -- that it include a large stained glass window of St. George the Dragon Slayer, with her late husband's face.  Eventually the Bishop caves to her demands.

But things don't end there, because Dudley didn't come to help the Bishop build his cathedral.  In a fantastic exchange the Bishop challenges Dudley and says, "But I prayed for a cathedral."  "No," Dudley replies, "you prayed for guidance, and guidance has been given you."  The Bishop realizes that he was on the verge of losing his wife because his priorities had gotten skewed, and that he was no longer even really serving the God he claimed to be wanting to honor.

Dudley gave guidance elsewhere, too.  He visited the widow and convinces her not to give her money to the building project.  I'm paraphrasing here, but he says to her, "For the cost of that one big roof, I wonder how many little roofs you could build."  Why would God want a grand cathedral when there are people who need homes?

I think about this scene whenever I hear something like I did the other day.  Hillary Clinton's campaign aims to raise $2 billion.  $2 billion.  That's more than was spent in the entire 2008 election!  Think of all the good that could be done with that money -- the teachers who could be more fairly compensated, the people who are struggling with addictions who could receive treatment, the unhoused who could find homes.

Why in the name of all that is Holy do we have to drag out our campaigns for so long and spend so much money on them?  People have been informally positioning themselves for the run since before the 2008 election was over.  In England they have had elections that lasted no more than one month.  As Gerald D. Skoning wrote in his 2010 op ed in the Chicago Tribune,

How long does it take for candidates to communicate their positions on issues? How long does it take for the electorate to get to know the candidates, their qualifications and their election platform? Are voters from the U.K. that much smarter than Americans that they need so little time? Are the candidates in the U.K. so succinct and articulate in the expression of their position that they need only one month to run an effective campaign? Do the Brits go to the polls with inferior information? Are we better informed voters?
Obviously no.

There are millions billions that are spent on political campaigns (so that an electorate that has largely already solidified its opinions can watch their candidate extol the failings of the other candidates).  There are millions that are spent on holiday decorations at the White House.  There is so much money that is spent on the equivalent of "one big roof."  If only Dudley would return ...

Pax tecum,

RevWik

Making an IMPACT

This is the text of the sermons given at the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Church -- Unitarian Universalist on Sunday, April 12, 2015.  The service was created collaboratively by Adam Slate and myself.  If you'd like to listen, the podcast will be available here.

IMPACT Opening Words

TJMC is part of a CBCO.  (Don’t you love acronyms?)  What I mean is that our congregation – Thomas Jefferson Memorial Church – is part of a congregation based community organizing effort:  IMPACT.  IMPACT’s name serves dual purposes.  On the one hand, it describes what we aim to do – make an impact.  But it’s also another one of those wonderful acronyms – Interfaith Movement Promoting Action by Congregations Together.  And for the past nine years, under the auspices of IMPACT, 27 faith communities have worked together to create action for justice in the greater Charlottesville Area.

In the fall each of these congregations hold a series of listening circles (house meetings) in which participants are asked to identify needs they see in our community, and every contribution is recorded.  These lists are then given to IMPACT’s staff who sift through them all, looking for themes and commonalities.  This consolidated list is then presented to a gathering of representatives of the congregations (a gathering we’re all encouraged to attend), and a prioritizing exercise brings one issue to the top.  That will be IMPACT’s focus for the coming year.

Research teams are formed – and, again, anyone can participate—and the issue is explored:  how can the need be most clearly defined; what are possible workable solutions; who might have the resources to put those solutions into effect.  Those people are met with – often repeatedly – and collaboration ensues.  At the end of this year-long process a proposal is presented at a large meeting and those “power people” (for want of a better term) are asked publically if they intend to commit to making things happen.  This last meeting is the Nehemiah Action, the thing we’ve been encouraging you to attend, the meeting that happens on Thursday, April 30^th, at 6:30, at the John Paul Jones Arena.

In past years issues tackled have included: transportation, dental care, pre-K education, language access/translation services for folks in the criminal justice system, mental health services for children and youth, affordable housing, and youth unemployment.

This year some 350 people participated in those listening circle/ house meetings in the fall.  Again and again people shared stories about friends and family who have become entangled in a web of addiction, crime, and abuse. It was decided that crime and drugs should be this year’s focus.  During the research process we learned that 70% of Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail inmates, about 3,150 people, need substance abuse treatment each year. A majority of inmates who are women are also survivors of sexual assault or domestic violence.  And when these women and men are released from jail there are virtually no treatment options available that can address all of these interrelated issues.  This year IMPACT’s goal is to get commitments for the creation of a plan to develop residential treatment facilities right here, close to home, to help these members of our human family who so desperately need help.  (As of now there are no residential treatment facilities for women, and the men’s facility can serve only ten people at a time.  There are more options for people with means – as there always are – and people can go to Richmond or even further afield, but there is a real need right here.)

The annual Nehemiah Action is the time when people with the power to make things happen come face to face with people whose power is their numbers and their will.  People representing 27 diverse faith communities – Muslims, Jews, Catholics, Quakers, Evangelicals, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Methodists, Seventh Day Adventists, and even us Unitarian Universalists – all gather together to speak with one voice in the name of justice.  It’s a powerful thing to behold.  It’s a powerful thing to be a part of.

At this time I’d like to invite anyone who has ever been to a Nehemiah Action in the past nine years, as well as those who are already committed to attending this year, to come to the front of the sanctuary.

Making an IMPACT (Adam Slate)

Part 1

In a service intended to highlight IMPACT, it might seem odd to start the sermon talking about eliminating programs that help people. However Erik posted an article recently about a church that’s doing just that—getting rid of programs like their food pantry and clothing ministry that help people in need, in order to begin thinking about those constituencies as potential resources of the church, rather than people needing assistance.

Reverend Mike Mather of the Broadway United Methodist Church in Indianapolis has said, “The church… has done a lot of work where we have treated the people around us as if, at worst, they are a different species and, at best, as if they are people to be pitied and helped by us.”

Instead, the church has been hiring staff to be “listeners” in its neighborhood, to learn who people are, what their talents might be, and how the church can be a good neighbor. I pictured us here at Thomas Jefferson Memorial Church doing that. I pictured us going out into the communities we traditionally help and getting to know those constituencies as partners rather than beneficiaries of our generosity. I suspect some of you who read the article might have imagined the same thing.

But Broadway United Methodist didn’t seek out or hand pick the neighborhoods where its listeners were assigned. It went into its own neighborhood, where its church physically resides. Remember that their goal wasn’t to help people, it was to be better partners with those in their immediate community.

Our church is located here at the corner of Rugby Road and Edgewood Lane, yet I didn’t envision us going out into these neighborhoods around us, nor do I have any recollection of any significant efforts to do so in the 20 years I’ve been a member here. Why? I don’t really think there’s a reason. Reaching out to fairly affluent, primarily white people just hasn’t been high on our list of priorities. Even with our own neighbors.

Why is this the case? Like the church in Erik’s article, our social justice work may be distorting our perspective a little. Our Seventh Principle tells us to respect our connectedness to everyone. But while the message may have started as “Love everyone, with special attention to those who need our help,” the emphasis seemed to have shifted more exclusively toward those groups that are in need. We have become helpers. We’re advocates for the underdog. And while that’s an important aim, and something many of us value immensely about our church, we should be mindful not to make it our sole focus. It’s too easy to hand pick who we let into our community. It doesn’t fully honor the interdependent web. And just between us, it’s not going to save the world.

The Reverend Barbara Prose of All Souls Unitarian Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma said recently that "if we don’t change direction, meaning if we continue to insist we can favor some and ignore others, we may end up exactly where we’re heading: toward a more violent world.”

Dr. Martin Luther King warned that we must all learn to live together, or perish together as fools.

Part 2

But we were talking about IMPACT.

When Erik and I got together to talk about this service, we were struck by two things right off the bat. First, IMPACT has accomplished remarkable, transformative, wonderful things. Dental care for the uninsured, affordable low-income housing, more public transportation, pre-kindergarten education, training for law enforcement officers to deal with people who have limited English language proficiency, and transitional mental health services for ex-offenders.

The other thing that stood out was how often people in our church mention that IMPACT events typically include religious language about a personal God that’s not consistent with their own spiritual views. In spite of being part of a church that calls us to respect everyone’s religious path, many of us take pause at this aspect of IMPACT, and treat it as something that must be tolerated in order to be part of the cause.

IMPACT is, by definition, an interfaith initiative. It currently consists of 27 member congregations, 22 of which are Christian-oriented denominations, 2 are Jewish, one is Quaker, one is Muslim, and one is UU. Assuming a rotating assignment of invocations and benedictions at the annual Nehemiah Action event, and an assumption that religious leaders will pray according to their own faith tradition, 80% of prayers will be Christian, and 96% will be in a form different from what we typically see in our own sanctuary here at TJMC.

Let me suggest that this diversity of religious expression isn’t something we can think of as separate from IMPACT. Rather it’s a fundamental aspect of it, and one to be celebrated. The intent of the program is for people of all faiths to come together to solve a problem here in Charlottesville. In fact, it's likely that this broad diversity of belief is what allows the Nehemiah Action event to work. When a Muslim leader does the opening prayer and invokes the name of Allah, or a Christian leader prays in the name of Jesus, or Reverend Wik offers more inclusive language invoking the Spirit of Life... that’s part of what’s so powerful about IMPACT. That IS IMPACT. And if we’re committed to what IMPACT is about, we should love the diversity of religious expression we encounter. It has moved mountains. It continues to move mountains.

So often we get involved in fighting for our causes--abortion rights, marriage equality, even poverty--mainly with people who are like us. We have a good sense of the beliefs of the people with whom we’re aligning before we organize with them. Think about whether this was true for you at the most recent thing you volunteered for, or the last rally you attended.

The IMPACT Nehemiah Action has us join together with other area congregations without making that kind of judgment. So when differences between you and another religious group become evident through their prayer, think of it not as something to tolerate, but an opportunity to do better, to find more love to accept other people. We don’t have--we don’t create--many opportunities like this for ourselves. And this acceptance, this love, is ultimately the only glue that will hold us all together.

When you hear a prayer at the Nehemiah Action that’s outside your faith tradition, say “Amen,” because this is likely the largest truly interfaith event most of us will ever be involved with. And if there’s hope for our world, if there's something that's going to address the misunderstanding, and intolerance, and anger that exists among us... IMPACT is a snapshot of what it’s going to look like.

If there is a shortcoming to the Nehemiah Action, it's not that we have to listen to each other's prayers. It's that even after years of successful collaboration, we still listen to them each sitting safely in our own church's section rather than mixing and blending in the arena to the point that we can't tell one congregation from another. That’s where I’d like to see us end up someday.

Part 3

There’s a movement out there, perpetuated mostly by the Millennial generation, called the Free Hugs Movement, where people advertising with signs in public places offer hugs to strangers. There’s a YouTube video about the movement and its founder that’s gotten 77 million views, and I hope some of you are among those 77 million. I love this movement, because it represents a gesture of acceptance not tied to what someone may or may not believe.

When you’re hugging a stranger, you do it without knowing what they think about God, what kind of family they come from, where they stand on Ferguson, or the environment. You don’t know the extent to which they may struggle with feelings of anti-semitism or homophobia. It acknowledges that we’re all part of an interdependent web that we’re called to honor.

This is what IMPACT is about. So often our support and our energy is directed to specific target groups. But the message of Ghandi, and Jesus, and Dr. King is that love doesn’t work that way. We cannot “continue to insist we can favor some and ignore others.” We have to love before we apply a litmus test to what someone believes, or whether their needs allow us to satisfy our need to be helpful. We must love everybody. And I understand that there are those out there who want to harm people because of their beliefs. But while that is true, this message is also true. We must find more love to encompass everyone. Reverend Prose of All Souls Tulsa didn’t mince words when she said: “We must love each other or perish… We must love each other no matter what is said ... or done.”

I have a friend who recently sent around a picture that someone she knows posted on Facebook. She had let the poster know she thought it was racist, and he disagreed, so to make sure she wasn’t just having a super-liberal knee-jerk reaction, she asked her Facebook friends for their opinion. I won’t describe the picture, but I found it to be terribly racist. It set off a string of tirades against the person who originally posted it, and against everyone who thinks like him. It went exactly the way you’d expect socially-minded people to react. But when someone made the assumption that my friend had unfriended the guy, she indicated she hadn’t. “I am hoping,” she said, “that my acceptance of him will help him understand the folly of his ways.”

I used to think the world would be saved by those who could elegantly argue for what’s right. But now I realize it’ll be saved by people who can teach us how not to. We have to accept each other without first evaluating each other’s ideologies. It’s the only way we’ll ever be one community. And as UUs--we’ve already committed to pray, to work side by side, to seek better mutual understanding, with Christians, and Muslims, and Jews, and athiests, and everyone we meet on their search for truth and meaning. Let’s honor our tradition of embracing diverse beliefs, and be the ones to model that acceptance, with the hope that others will follow our example.

Making an IMPACT (Erik Wikstrom)

Adam’s reflection reminds me of something said by the Venerable Thich Nhat Hanh.  Thich Nhat Hanh is a Vietnamese Buddhist monk, poet, and peace activist who, as a young man, during the Vietnam War, visited the United States asking for our help in finding a peaceful solution to the conflict in his country.  When asked what he thought of the U.S. peace movement, he replied that we were very good at writing protest letters but that peace would not be achieved until we had learned to write love letters. That’s still a lesson we need to be learn, and not just in the peace movement.

A few years back the Honorable Louis Farrakhan called for a “million man march” on Washington, DC, and a whole lot of people showed up.  And some of those people who showed up, who participated publically, got a lot of grief for it because not everyone agrees that the Honorable Louis Farrakhan is, to put it bluntly, all that honorable.  I remember, though … I remember one speaker … I don’t any longer remember who … but one of the speakers talked about the grief he’d gotten when he announced that he was going to participate and then said, “but when the house is on fire I don’t care who’s next to me with a bucket.  And friends, our house is on fire.”  When the house is on fire I don’t care who is next to me with a bucket.

During newcomer orientations I say that one of the things that makes Unitarian Universalism unique in the religious landscape is that our first question isn’t, “What do you believe?”  Rather, we ask first, “What kind of world do you want to see?”  And if we see that we’re standing together on that line, fighting the same fire, we recognize each other as kin.

Of course, we know that there are people who are out there starting fires, or fanning their flames.  Not everyone is trying to put them out, and that makes this whole “inherent worth and dignity” thing, and this “love everybody” thing really, really hard.  (But that’s a different sermon.)

For us, at our best, it’s only after we’ve seen that we’re standing on that line together trying to put out the fire that we ask, out of curiosity, in an effort to get to know one another better, only then do we ask about belief.  And some will say that it’s their belief that we are all children of a loving God that puts them on the line.  For others it’s their belief in our shared Buddha-nature.  Still others would say that they believe that there is nothing beyond the world that we can see, taste, and touch, and so if anybody’s going to put the fire out it’s going to have to be us.  So many different beliefs can inspire people to be part of that bucket brigade.  And when the house is on fire – and would anyone disagree that our house is on fire? – when the house is on fire we shouldn’t care all that much about who is next to us with a bucket.

The beauty of IMPACT is that it is, in a sense, such an incredibly Unitarian Universalist thing.  There’s often a critique, as Adam said, that it’s an overly Christian thing, but I think everyone’s been missing the point.  IMPACT is Unitarian Universalist to its core!  See … people aren’t asked their beliefs about vicarious atonement, or transubstantiation, or whether infant or adult baptism is more efficacious.  People are only asked, “Do you want to see real improvement in the lives of real people?”  “Do you want to see inequities addressed?”  “Do you want to see justice increased?”  If so … show up to the Action; with your body, make your voice heard.  We can talk about our differing beliefs while we’re cleaning up after the fire’s out.

I know, many of us have a cause that’s particularly important to us—combating climate change, for instance, or addressing racism, or the ever needed encouragement toward peace between nations.  There is hunger, there is homelessness, there are a thousand and one things that need our attention, a thousand and one fires burning in our home.

So why IMPACT?  For one thing, it’s practical.  Adam and I have already lifted up some of IMPACT;s successes.  As IMPACT’s Lead Organizer said to me once, “There are people in this community – in politics, in business – who could address these problems if it were a priority for them.  IMPACT’s job is to make it a priority.”  And we have.  And I say “we” because IMPACT is nothing but us, and all those other congregations joined together.

We may still feel a little segregated at the Action, as Adam said, each congregation sitting separately in its own section.  But I can tell you that that’s not what the people on the stage see.  They see the representatives of 27 diverse faith communities in one place, and for each person in a seat they know that there are probably ten more people in a pew who are also urging action.  That’s powerful.  That’s power.

Would it be great if we could mix it up and truly be an intertwined and interconnected sea of people where you couldn’t tell who belonged to what congregation because, in truth, we all belonged together?  Absolutely.  But that’s not IMPACT’s job.  That’s our job.  IMPACT’s job is to mobilize communities of faith to act to make a real … well … impact for justice in our community.  And they do that.

Our job is to take advantage of this opportunity to make community, to build on this first step, and to find and make meaningful connections.  Because working together is not only helpful when there’s a fire to put out.  It helps when bridges need to be made.  And we’re in need of a whole lot more bridges in this world.

Adam’s right.  Diversity – of whatever kind – is “not something to tolerate, but an opportunity to do better, to find more love to accept other people.”  As Rev. Prose of All Souls said: “We must love each other or perish.”  We must learn to stop writing protest letters to one another because of our differences but, instead, write love letters celebrating our common humanity.

On Thursday, April 30^th, at the Nehemiah Action at the John Paul Jones Arena, we have the opportunity to join with thousands of other folk from all across the Charlottesville area to demonstrate solidarity of purpose.  We need residential treatment facilities here, in Charlottesville, to help women and men who are struggling with addictions and co-existing conditions.  Our community needs this – we need this – and together we can make this a priority for those who have the power to make it a reality.

Yet on April 30^th we also have the opportunity to more fully live into our Unitarian Universalist faith and to practice the writing of love letters – love letters to all of those people whose faiths are as important to them as ours are to us; love letters to those who make sense of the world through their own lived experiences just as we do ours; love letters to those who, for whatever reasons, have also put themselves on the line, not caring who’s next to them with a bucket.    Or the blueprints for a bridge.