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Fantastic UU quotes resource

By: Yewtree
Rev Naomi King has started a tumblr blog with quotes from Unitarian, Universalist, Unitarian Universalist and Brahmo Samaj sources. It's a great place to find pithy quotes for your sermon or address.
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Sermons and addresses

By: Yewtree
Unitarian churches have a free pulpit and free pews:
There are two time honored institutions in Unitarian Universalist churches that are, or should be, guarded by clergy and laity as if they were the Holy Grail. They are the free pulpit and the free pew. Succinctly stated, the free pulpit means that when a congregation lends its pulpit to a minister by calling that minister as its spiritual leader, the congregation pledges complete and unencumbered freedom of speech to say anything from that pulpit that he or she believes to be true. But that freedom is not something the preacher is born with, but originates in the bond of affection, the covenant established between the congregation and the minister. The free pew means that when a Unitarian Universalist congregation is gathered by a bond of affection, a covenant that makes it into a spiritual community, the most sacred agreement made is that no theological test will be given for membership in that congregation.
A number of churches and ministers put their sermons and addresses online - it's a fantastic spiritual resource and a way to understand Unitarianism better.
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Spread Like the Squash Plant

By: Cynthia L. Landrum
What follows is the text of a sermon I delivered on Sunday, January 19, 2014 at the First Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Ann Arbor, MI January 19, 2014.  I gave a very similar sermon at the Universalist Unitarian Church of East Liberty on January 12, 2014.  They were each tailored to those specific audiences, and the text for Jackson included how Jackson is now being seen as part of the Ann Arbor region, and was a longer version than this.  Earlier versions (without the Marge Piercy metaphor, and with several other substantial differences) were given at the Universalist Unitarian Church of East Liberty in January of 2013, at as the winner of the Heartland Unitarian Universalist Ministers Association sermon prize at the Heartland District Assembly on April 13, 2013 just prior to our vote to become part of the MidAmerica Region, and the next day at the Northwest Unitarian Universalist Church in Southfield, MI on April 14, 2013. 

Good morning!  As Gail said, I am the minister of the Unitarian Universalist Church of East Liberty, which is about 45 minutes due west of here in the Jackson area, where I have been serving for ten years in a small, historically Universalist congregation that is 158 years old.  The view from Jackson of our faith is a little different, perhaps, than it is from here, and so I wanted to share with you some of what I’m seeing about the future of Unitarian Universalism from out there in the country, and from my perspective as one of your board members on the MidAmerica Region Board.  

In December, an older member of my congregation, a member of one of our founding families actually, asked me, at a holiday luncheon, “Cindy, do you see anyone in the younger families in this church who will do what we did?” No, I said, no one will do what you did.  The volunteerism in younger generations looks very different now, and what they want out of church is different.  But the church can continue on, if it learns to adapt and change.  The answer I think is in the Marge Piercy poem we shared as a responsive reading:

Spread like the squash plant that overruns the garden…
Weave real connections, create real nodes, build real houses.
Live a life you can endure: make love that is loving.
Keep tangling and interweaving and taking more in, a thicket and bramble wilderness to the outside but to us it is interconnected with rabbit runs and burrows and lairs.[1]
You see, this is not at all how we’ve been looking at growth, and change, in our churches and association.  But what Marge Piercy expresses organically is, I think, the same as something that I’ve been talking about in ways that are organizational, theological and missional.  So let me explain.

First, we begin with the fact that as a denomination, we are not growing.[2]  We’re stagnant at best, but shrinking by some measurements.  And, overall, this is true for other progressive religions, as well.[3]  And we’ve got to figure out how to, as a movement and as individual churches, stop this slide.  I’m cutting out a lot of the data that proves this and the anecdotes that illustrate it, in order to spend more time with the solution than the problem, so you’ll just have to believe me, or check my footnotes later.[4]  Churches are on the decline, the liberal protestant ones particularly so.[5]  My little church is at best stagnant – it’s been under 100 for 158 years.  Despite all the emphasis and talk about growth in our movement, and we’ve done that plenty in our church, the number of churches that ever do grow is relatively small. 

In America, there’s a shift going on in regards to religious participation.  A Pew Research study a couple of years ago showed that among Millennials, younger adults in their 20s and early 30s, a smaller percentage are involved in church life than preceding generations were at the same point in their lives.[6]  It’s not just that they’re waiting until they have children—they come less then, too.  It’s not because of a lack of faith—almost as many Millennials believe in God as did Gen Xers at their age.  It’s because more of them have been raised without religion, and they don’t see the purpose for it.  Their generational identity is one where they’re not focused on building and maintaining institutions.  They’re interested in mission – in being out there in the world and changing it. 

One way to understand this shift is using the concept of horizontal versus vertical identity, something explored by Andrew Solomon in his book Far From the Tree.  Vertical identities are those identity elements that you get from your parents—race, ethnicity, usually language, and a lot of our culture.  I think of this as growing like the tree—a family tree, a Michigan maple. 

Not every piece of our identity, however, is something which we share with our parent.  Gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender children are quite often born to heterosexual cisgendered parents.  This is horizontal identity, because we find our identity group among our peers.  This is growing like the squash plant, instead of the maple.  We search outside our family for connection around something that is core and important to us.

Religion in America, I would argue, used to be largely vertical.  Religion was something you inherited from your parents.  We still see some of that vertical identity of religion over in my little church—families who have been here for generations.  We’ve grown like the family tree trusting this would maintain, at least, our family church.  But it hasn’t in the last couple of generations.  Of the children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren of our eldest members in the area, only a small percentage come.  I understand that you have a few multi-generational families here, as well.  And that’s wonderful where it’s still occurring, but not the norm for most churches anymore.  Along those lines, I heard a joke that the Presbyterian Church USA has adopted a new slogan: Shrink Less Rapidly: “work in great unity and joy to lose only five percent.”[7] 

Growing generationally, vertically, like the tree no longer works.  It’s time to grow like the squash plant, grow horizontally, grow like a chat group, grow like a meme.  This is what we need to do, but aren’t doing yet.  Horizontal communities are proliferating, but their availability has weakened the perceived need for church to be one of them, and so we have the rise of the “Nones,” those who don’t attend any church.  It’s much easier today to build your community in other ways.  Andrew Solomon writes:
[T]he ability of everyone with access to a computer to find like-minded people has meant that no one need be excluded from social kinship. …. If you can figure out who you are, you can find other people who are the same.[8]

This reality is what our UUA President, Peter Morales, was responding to when he wrote in a working paper in 2012 titled “Congregations and Beyond”:
Congregations as local parishes arose in a different era. They arose in a time of limited mobility and communication..... When Unitarianism and Universalism were in their infancy, no one would think of belonging to a congregation ten miles away. Churches were the centers of community life in a largely agricultural society…. To be limited to a traditional parish form of organization in the 21st century is like limiting ourselves to technology that does not require electricity.[9]
The Rev. Phil Lund, who is one of our regional staff members, echoed this on his blog, saying that if we’re afraid to make changes we are “like the lieutenant in that opening scene of The Matrix…. as Agent Smith might say, ‘No reverend, your church is already dead.’”[10]

So if the old model of church is dead or declining, what is successful?  What can we look to?  Here’s where we talk about change, and get to the squash plant.   In this environment where churches are struggling to survive, there are things that are thriving.  Horizontal communities are proliferating, and are flexible, and are popping up everywhere in response to need.  For example, in March of 2012 there was a rally on the Mall in Washington, D.C. that was the largest ever known gathering of atheists.  Atheism is starting all sorts of groups and movements and conferences across America right now.  Did you hear the recent report on NPR about the Sunday Assembly?  They’re starting a movement of things that sound a lot like churches that do something a lot like worship, and it’s growing like a weed.  It’s growing like a squash plant.  Why is it that they can get 8-10 thousand people to gather for a rally?  And can build dozens of new congregations?  They’re creating horizontal community, and they’re tapping into the changing and shifting cultural needs and they’re doing it well.  We have so much of the structure and knowledge in place to tap into this, but we have to recognize that we’ve got some outmoded ideas, too, and some structures that aren’t serving us. 

Millennials have many attitudes that are in concert with us, like not taking scriptures literally, thinking that here could be more than one path to God, or increased acceptance of homosexuality and evolution.  The Pew Research studies have also shown that the majority of Americans overall believe that there are multiple paths to Heaven, even the majority of Christians.[11]  Between the Pew Research Study on Millennials and the Faith Formation 2020 study, we know that people, particularly younger adults are calling themselves “spiritual but not religious.”  We also know our society is growing in diversity.  So the community of people who are like-minded is growing.  We just need to build the church of the future, the church that they might be interested in joining.  And it needs to be a church that is accessible to people who may work retail, as many young adults do, who may be starting their families later, and who are looking more to tapping into their community than to maintaining a beautiful building.[12]

Reaching the Millennials is not going to come from growing like a tree, or doing more of what we’ve always done.  But the good news is that we’re on the brink of a new great awakening, as many religious leaders are seeing it.  Here’s some of what they’re seeing this new awakening will mean.  At last year’s UU minister’s institute, the Rev. Susan Ritchie pointed to our tradition of radical laicism.[13]  We believe in the prophetic power of our lay people.  Amen to that.  That’s a unique part of our tradition.  And it makes us flexible and powerful.  Millennials aren’t attracted to hierarchy.  They’re starting things like Occupy, where ever person gets a voice—not unlike here.  Occupy has a General Assembly every day.  Also at the UUMA Institute, the Rev. Scott Tayler, who is the new director of congregational life at the UUA, talked about how our future is in realizing that now, with so much at our fingertips, the idea that every church had to be able to do everything, and that ministers had to be the great generalists, is an old model.  He said:
I would say our calling… is to just end the ridiculous habits and structures that we have and the culture we have of isolated ministers working in isolated churches.  And we have a calling to work in partnership.  And right at this moment I’ll take any bet… in twenty years our movement will be characterized by staff teams, staff teams of three to five people who all know their special gifts serving three to four congregations.  We will either see that in twenty years or we’ll be dead as a movement.[14]
 Structurally, you see, we’ve been a forest of Michigan maples, each growing trying to reach the sky and spread our branches as much as possible to cover each our own area.  Over in the small church, we’re seeing the unsustainability of our model right now.  But by the time the bigger churches see it, with their relative health and strength, we may be dead, as Agent Smith said.  We need to awaken to this now, and start building the church of the future.  We need to stop being churches in silos, and work together in clusters of churches, and allow our clergy to provide for each of our churches in our squash garden what they do best.  I may have a weakness in, well, bad example, because I’m great at everything, right?  But seriously, another minister may have a great knowledge of classical music or jazz and renaissance art, while I possess a knowledge of, well, 80s music, sci-fi, and comic books. 

This is why we moved from district to region in Unitarian Universalism, as well.  We’re allowing our district staff to stop being generalists and start focusing in the areas of their excellence, be it religious education or fundraising.  And the result for us will be strength.  If we’re going to build this church of the future, we need to get outside of our trees, our silos and steeples, and be something interconnected with rabbit runs. 

This is where I think this might not be as obvious in the healthier parts of our movement, which is the larger congregations, the liberal centers like Ann Arbor.  But from Jackson in a rural congregation it seems clear that the old models, for us, are dying, and we need to create new ways.  Over in East Liberty, for 158 years, we’ve been an isolated congregation with our little steeple pointed to the sky.  We’ve been our church in a silo, one minister, one congregation, working largely by ourselves.  Small churches form the vast majority of our churches – 15 of the 27 UU congregations in our state are under one hundred and 20 of them are under a hundred and fifty – because it’s easier to build and sustain a small group initially, but the idea that we can have lots of independent small groups but sustaining staff and buildings and programming and institutions isn’t sustainable.  We need to bring our small groups into clusters and regions and provide services across a wider area.  We need to spread like the squash plant that overruns the garden to weave real connections and create real nodes, to keep tangling and interweaving and taking more in.  And what I’m asking you to think about, here in Ann Arbor, is your role as a major hub for your region, surrounded by smaller congregations.  I’m telling you today that I think you have a mission, and a purpose, and a role to play that is uniquely yours, in our movement and in our future.  You’re the biggest squash in our patch.  You’re the Great Pumpkin.

The organization level has to do with interconnection, hubs and nodes, but what about at the level of mission and theology?  In the book Church 3.0, author Neil Cole says overall, we have to move from being an organization dedicated to protecting what we have—a building, a community, a way of being here—to an organization that is focused outside our four walls, focused on changing what’s wrong out there.[15]  This is what young adults are saying when they’re saying that they’re “spiritual but not religious,” I think.  We can have too much focus on building the institution, and not enough focus on building the movement for love and justice. 

The Rev. James Forbes of Riverside Church of New York, which is UCC and American Baptist, has said that the Unitarian Universalists have already been called by God (or I would add universe or our broken Earth) for a specific purpose.[16]  And that purpose has something to do with our excellence in interfaith cooperation, which is necessary for overcoming our systems of militarism and capitalism and building the beloved community. 

Scott Tayler puts this as we have to offer healing spiritual disconnection to the world, and we do this through three things: reconnecting with your deepest self, opening to life’s gifts, and serving needs greater than our own.[17]  Michael Piazza, a UCC minister of the Cathedral of Hope in Dallas says we need to focus our ministries on the emerging cultural values such as Religious and cultural pluralism, Environmental concern, Care for one another, and Compassionate capitalism.[18]  And he also says we need to root up our beautiful flower beds in the dying progressive church and plant vegetable gardens addressing our real needs.  To a Christian audience he says this: “We can either give birth to new congregations in our old churches or resign ourselves to being glorified funeral homes. Our best advice is to plant a vegetable patch of liberal, active, passionate adults who might just believe that the church of Jesus Christ can change the world.”[19]

So I say, plant that vegetable patch, because Unitarian Universalism can change the world.  Unitarian Universalism is uniquely poised to be the religious community of the future, but we have to take the mission of attracting the next generation seriously.  We have to realize that, frankly, a lot of people aren’t looking for somewhere they can join a committee.  They’re not looking for somewhere to give away their money to.  They’re not looking to spend their time maintaining a building.  They’re not even looking for somewhere to ask them to get up on a Sunday morning and go out.  What they might be looking for is someplace full of energy, that celebrates diversity and multiculturalism, or that tries new and interesting spiritual practices.  They might be looking for a community of like-minded folks, and they might be looking for a larger sense of mission.  They might be looking to engage in their community through organizing for social change.  They might be looking for a democratically-run organization.  They might be looking for someplace with spiritual freedom and lack of dogma.  They might be looking for a faith community that sees sexuality between two loving consenting adults as not only not shameful, but sacred and even spiritual.  They might be looking for a church where we can say things like “vagina” in a state where you can’t say it in your state house.[20]  They might be looking for a place where even with their relative youth, and lay person status, they’re understood to have prophetic witness.  They might be looking for something that Unitarian Universalism has the potential to be, and is, already, in its heart and soul.  They are looking for what we can be if we weave real connections, create real nodes, build real houses, live a life we can endure, and make love that is loving. 

When you put that all together, you see that we have a calling to use our amazing prophetic laity and our excellence in working with the interfaith community, and I would add our strong history of religious liberalism and anti-oppression witness and action, and we need to harness these things, deepen our spirituality, and take our mission out into the world, serving needs greater than our own, and building the beloved community, and standing on the side of love.  What an amazing world this can be when we truly take up that call from Lake Michigan and Benton Harbor to Detroit, from Ann Arbor and Jackson to the Keweenaw peninsula.  So I’m asking you now, rise and join me.  I mean this literally!  Rise and join me in singing!  Because this day is coming.  It’s arriving soon, and I want you to go with me to that land.  Please join in singing #146. 


[1] Marge Piercy, “Connections Are Made Slowly (The Seven of Pentacles),” in Singing the Living Tradition (Boston, Beacon Press: 1993) 568.
[2] Christopher L. Walton, “UUA Membership Declines for Fourth Year,” in UU World Magazine (Boston, Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations: Fall 2012), http://www.uuworld.org/life/articles/229854.shtml.

[3] See: John Dart, “UCC Has Been Progressive Pacesetter,” in The Christian Century (July 18, 2013), http://www.christiancentury.org/article/2013-07/ucc-has-been-progressive-pacesetter.

[4] See: See: Ross, Douthat, “Is Liberal Christianity Actually the Future?” in The New York Times (July 25, 2012), http://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/25/is-liberal-christianity-actually-the-future/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0.

[5] See: Connor Wood, “Why Is Liberal Protestantism Dying, Anyway?” in Patheos (July 26, 2013), http://www.patheos.com/blogs/scienceonreligion/2013/07/why-is-liberal-protestantism-dying-anyway/.

[6] “Religion Among Millennials: Less Religiously Active Than Older Americans, but Fairly Traditional in Other Ways,” Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life (Washington, D.C., Pew Forum: 2010), http://pewforum.org/uploadedFiles/Topics/Demographics/Age/millennials-report.pdf, 1.

[7] “Presb. Church USA Launches Ambitious Plan to Lose Only 5% of Members,” Lark News, http://www.larknews.com/archives/556.

[8] Andrew Solomon, Far From the Tree (New York, Simon & Schuster, Inc: 2012), Kindle Edition, 20.

[9] Peter Morales, “Congregations and Beyond,” (Boston: Unitarian Universalist Association, 2012), http://www.uua.org/documents/moralespeter/120115_congs_beyond.pdf.

[10] Phillip Lund, “Your Congregation Is Already Dead,” Phil’s Little Blog on the Prairie (October 17, 2011), http://philontheprairie.wordpress.com/2011/10/17/your-congregation-is-already-dead/.

[11] “Many Americans Say Other Faiths Can Lead to Eternal Life” Pew Research: Religion & Public Life Project (Washington, D.C., Pew Forum: December 18, 2008), http://www.pewforum.org/2008/12/18/many-americans-say-other-faiths-can-lead-to-eternal-life/.

[12] John Roberto, Faith Formation 2020: Designing the Future of Faith Formation, (Naugatuck, CT, LifelongFaith Associates: 2912). Kindle Edition, Locations 773-786.

[13] Susan Ritchie, “Friday Closing Panel,” (Presented at UUMA Center for Excellence in Ministry, St. Pete’s Beach, January 2013), http://www.uuma.org/?page=2013InstituteFriday2.

[14] Scott Tayler, “Friday Closing Panel” (Presented at UUMA Center for Excellence in Ministry, St. Pete’s Beach, January 2013), http://www.uuma.org/?page=2013InstituteFriday2

[15] Neil Cole, Church 3.0: Upgrades for the Future of the Church (San Francisco, Jossey-Bass , 2010), Kindle Edition, 9.

[16] James Forbes, “Friday Worship” (Presented at UUMA Center for Excellence in Ministry, St. Pete’s Beach, January 2013), http://www.uuma.org/?page=2013InstituteFriday1.

[17] Scott Tayler, “Friday Closing Panel” (Presented at UUMA Center for Excellence in Ministry, St. Pete’s Beach, January 2013), http://www.uuma.org/?page=2013InstituteFriday2

[18] Michael S. Piazza and Cameron B. Trimble, Liberating Hope!: Daring to Renew the Mainline Church (Cleveland: Pilgrim Press/United Church Press, 2011), Kindle Edition, Locations 242-248.

[19] Michael S. Piazza and Cameron B. Trimble, Liberating Hope!: Daring to Renew the Mainline Church (Cleveland: Pilgrim Press/United Church Press, 2011), Kindle Edition, Locations 620-622.

[20] See: Eyder Peralta, “Michigan State Rep Barred From Speaking After ‘Vagina’ Comments,” National Public Radio (June 14, 2012), http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2012/06/14/155059849/michigan-state-rep-barred-from-speaking-after-vagina-comments.
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Guns Part 4: The Sermon

By: Cynthia L. Landrum

This is probably the longest sermon I've ever preached, and it's way too long for a blog post, but I'm posting it all as one anyway.  The members of my congregation that I quoted gave me permission to use their names in the service, but I didn't ask them about the web, so I'm using their initials to give them a small degree of anonymity.  Those who know our congregation will know who they are, and that is okay, since those people could have easily been in attendance, as well.  I've tried to represent their views honestly and fairly, but of course everything is filtered through my understanding, so my apologies if I've represented anybody incorrectly.

I also had some last-minute additions to the service, as members came in and talked with me.  I've tried to recreate those additions and ad-libs in this version, but they may be slightly different.

Lastly, the church was really full of energy this Sunday, and I think it was generated by knowing that this was the sermon topic.  We didn't have time for a congregational response time because of the length of my sermon, but I'm hoping that given how interested in talking about things people were that we will continue to find ways to discuss this issue. 

Guns & Violence: Reflections & Hopes

 I've preached about many controversial things over the last eight and a half years in this church.  I've spoken about abortion and gay rights and said words like "condoms" and "masturbation" from this pulpit.  But I think I've never given a sermon that was as controversial in this church as the one I'm about to give today.  I hope it will be received with love and understanding knowing that my goal here today is to build bridges between us so that me might further the dialogue on this issue.  We come together here with many different viewpoints, but as one covenanted community, dedicated to coming together in our diversity and worshiping together, and dedicated to love and justice.

When I was in Florida the other week, I opened up the newspaper looking for, well, the news. As I opened to the national news pages, I found myself on a page where every article had something to do with gun violence.  Today I turned on the radio on the way to church to hear the story of Hadiya Pendleton’s funeral—a fifteen-year-old girl who died from a shooting.  The mass shootings get our nation’s attention the most often, but violence happens all too regularly on the streets of our nation’s cities – a fact we are finally awakening to.

But the mass shootings are important, because they show us in starker, more graphic realities something of the deepening problem in our society.  And while overall violence may not be on the rise, the mass shootings are.

When I was in high school, for those four years, there were no mass shootings in schools.  Those kind of shootings didn’t happen often.  The most recent one had been a decade earlier, with seven people killed at California State University.  There were a few during my college years – the University of Iowa, where one of my friends was in graduate school, so that was notable to me, where six people were killed.  Columbine didn’t happen until I was in seminary (1999), and Virginia tech (in 2007) was after I entered the ministry.  Schools were considered pretty safe places when I was growing up –probably true for most of you, as well.  Both Columbine and Virginia Tech had an impact on me, though.  Virginia Tech I related to as a professor, since I had been teaching English at JCC.  In fact, I had two students who wrote essays about imagining themselves as shooters, picking off students from the campus rooftops.  My students learned that you can’t have this kind of imaginative writing in a post-Columbine world.  The shooting in the Knoxville Unitarian Church in 2008 hit home in a stronger way – this can happen in a Unitarian Universalist church, that a shooter enters wanting to kill you, because of who you are—religious liberals—and all that represents.  And the shooting in Tucson in 2011 where Gabrielle Giffords was shot and six people were killed.  That one hit home for me, too, partly because of little nine-year-old Christina Taylor Green, who reminded me of my own daughter, who I have taken to numerous political events, and who has stood with me on many a street corner while I talked to my elected representatives.

But my reaction to all of these wasn’t anything like my reaction to the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary in December.  After Sandy Hook, I felt like I was crying for days.  And I was—every time I opened the computer, or turned on the television, or the radio, or thought about those beautiful little first graders, as their names were slowly released over the next couple of days.  I was wrung out, distraught, destroyed inside at the thought of it.  And I’m sure my reaction was so intense because they were so close in age to my old child, and the thought of an adult choosing to target elementary school children is so vile and abhorrent.  Columbine was teenagers killing teenagers.  Virginia Tech was a college student killing college students and adults.  But this was one of our deadliest school shootings ever, and the victims were some of the youngest ever.

I didn’t jump to thinking our laws had to change after any of the others.  But this, this was different.  This was a sign that our country was broken somehow to me.  And I sensed our president felt the same way, as a father of two young girls.  I understand, and I feel deeply, the need to do something—anything—in response to this tragedy, even if it isn’t effective.  The idea of twenty six- and seven-year-old children dying at school and our country not responding by doing anything just seems unthinkable to me.

Of course, it’s not that simple, and our emotional and intuitive reaction isn’t always the best one.  And as we, as a country, muddle through the quagmire of data and emotion, the right path isn’t entirely clear.

Like many people, in the weeks since the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary, I’ve read dozens of editorials about guns and gun violence.  I’ve read magazine articles from Time and Mother Jones and all sorts of sources.  I’ve watched videos about guns from avid hunters and second-amendment hawks.  I’ve exchanged Facebook messages on the subject with friends ranging from social workers to policemen.  I’ve talked with my family members, which includes peaceniks and gun owners.  And I’ve talked with members of this congregation, who run from liberal to conservative, and from gun enthusiasts to gun abolitionists.

And the more I thought about it, the more I realized that this church is the perfect place for us to be having a conversation about this issue.  We have a real diversity in this congregation, particularly on issues like this, that often break down along political lines and class lines.  We have a diversity of beliefs and experiences about guns here, and we’re a congregation where we come together and worship together, and share a common faith.  Our faith can keep us grounded, keep us connected, keep us covenanted together in love as we explore the issues that are dividing our country.

I figure I’m probably seen as pretty far to the left in general.  I think this whole county has me pegged as an extreme liberal at this point.  And so it might be assumed that I’m extremely liberal on gun control issues, to the point of wanting to ban all firearms.  I have liberal friends who say that they won’t enter a house if they know there are guns there.  And ones who say that they don’t particularly believe in the second amendment, or don’t think that it really is about private gun ownership in their view.  But my views are not what some might assume them to be.  I grew up with guns in my house, and with a parent, my father, who had been raised on a farm with folks who went hunting and enjoyed it for sport and for food.  He talked often about inheriting his father’s double-barreled muzzle-loader, and how his father still had possession of it, but that it was to come to him one day.  He taught us that guns were to be respected, and not to be touched by children.  I respect hunters, in particular, as I’m not a vegetarian, and I think hunting and killing your own food is more ethical than my own meat-eating, which includes a lot of factory-farmed beef and poultry.  I don’t actually think we should do anything that would ban hunters from hunting the way that they do currently.  I also don’t think that my father should have to give up his grandfather’s hunting rifle or my ancestor’s civil war rifle, although that may already be in a cousin’s possession.

So I start from the opinion that there’s a compromise position here between the two extremes, and that this is where I stand, and that this is also where the majority of Americans stand.  Most of them don’t believe in a complete ban on guns.  Most of them do believe in some restrictions.  I also believe that in this congregation, there’s a lot of hope for setting an example, since we have the diversity we have of opinions and beliefs.  I felt like, if I can find people in this congregation who are at different places than me about gun ownership and find places where we agree, then that’s a hopeful sign for our society at large, as well as being a good example of where this country needs to come to.  We may be on the liberal end of the spectrum in terms of political and religious beliefs, as a whole, but we are not typical liberals in terms of our percentage of gun owners.  We have some people with a lot of knowledge and experience with guns, and who carry or use them on a regular basis, and a lot of gun owners in general.  And so, since I am on the liberal end of the spectrum, I talked with two of our more avid gun owners in the congregation to see where our common ground is.  The people I talked with are G.B., who works in the state prison, G.H., a hunter and member of the Jackson Outdoor club where he has been involved with many things, including teaching people to shoot, and a little with D.M., a gun collector and hunter, before the service today.

G.B. and G.H.  own more than 30 guns between the two of them.  Their guns are mostly for hunting and personal protection.  They own hunting rifles and hand guns.  G.B., like my father, owns some family heirloom-type pieces that are probably not safe to shoot.  When G.H. inherited one that wasn’t safe to shoot, on the other hand, being a machinist, he fixed it.  G.H. says he doesn’t really see the point in owning something like an AR-15.  He sees that those guns are meant for killing people, and not really for anything else.  He tells me they’re not fun to shoot, to him, and they’re also not cheap to shoot.

I started with the position of believing it’s reasonable to ban assault rifles like the AR-15.  What I found is that neither G.H. nor G.B. seems completely opposed to such a ban.  But they both are not convinced that it would make much difference.  D.M. doesn’t think it would make a difference, either, saying that you can kill people quickly with buckshot, as well.  G.H. says that if all guns were banned, for example, people would just make their own.  D.M. agrees with this.  He knows how to make a gun, and says it’s fairly simple.  As I researched this sermon, I found that the most deadly school attack in our country’s history was here in Michigan, and was the bombing of a school in Bath.  38 elementary school children died in Bath in the bombing in 1927.  Columbine was a deadly school shooting, but it was intended to be a bombing, too, but the bombs didn’t go off.  The bombs in both these cases were home-made.  I have no doubt that G.H. is right—if there weren’t guns available, people would make their own guns, or they would kill another way.  The man who bombed the school in bath killed his wife before the bombing.  He apparently hit her on the head with a rock or some other blunt object.

But despite the fact that people can kill other ways, and most shootings in America are with handguns, not the semi-automatic assault rifles preferred by our mass murderers, I still think that anything that might slow down an assailant has to be a good thing, and there’s no real reason for these weapons like the Bushmaster used by Adam Lanza, except for killing people.  G.H. agrees that this weapon is really made for this one thing.  I have no problem limiting the sale of these kinds of guns –it doesn’t affect family heirlooms; it doesn’t affect the ability of people to protect themselves; it doesn’t limit their ability to hunt.  I say do it.

The other common proposal is limiting the magazine sizes.  My friend who is a policeman says there’s no point to this—three tens equal a thirty.  G.B. seems to think it wouldn’t make much difference, too.  If he could see that it would make a difference, he might agree to it, I think.  G.H., on the other hand, doesn’t think people need to have those large magazine sizes, and would be willing to limit them, although he concurs that a magazine change is extremely fast, and doesn’t slow down a shooter much.  My opinion here is that many shooters have been stopped because an unarmed bystander tackled them.  This is what stopped the shooter in the Tucson, Arizona shooting.  In the Knoxville UU church, Greg McKendry, an ushers blocked the shooter and was killed, and then the shooter was brought down by other members tackling him.

About registrations and concealed carry licenses and gun show loopholes and things like that, our church members here spent some time informing me of what is already in place.  G.H. says that if I walked into a gun show here in Jackson without any documentation showing I had a concealed carry permit or had gone through a background check, that no dealer here would just sell me a gun.

Another area we talked about was arming teachers or having armed guards in schools.  Here both G.B. and G.H. were cautious—both weren’t wholesale for arming teachers, but might allow it if the teachers went through some rigorous training first.  G.B. compares it to the training that pilots get, and suggests that teachers would have to become certified police reservists first.  G.H. says it would be important that they never put down the gun, because once that happens, it’s only a matter of time before it gets in the hands of a child.  I’m reminded of Jackson resident Dani Meier who wrote an article in the Huffington Post, in which he said this:
I am what the NRA might call a "good guy with a gun."

But as someone who has worked in K-12 schools and colleges for a quarter century, let me suggest a few reasons why bringing my gun to school is not the answer to gun violence in America.

First, as microcosms of society, schools will always have some students, parents, and teachers with anger problems, mental illness, or poor self-control. As educators, we regularly try to model peaceful conflict-resolution, 99.9 percent of which we successfully deescalate despite significant volatility. And when we don't succeed, weapons are not needed. Introducing guns in those scenarios, in fact, invites other kinds of nightmares. And tragedies.[i] 
I have great qualms about armed teachers, because of the potential for accident or a child getting his or her hands on the weapon, but I personally was, for a while, leaving the door open a crack for armed guards at schools.  I know as I sent my child back to school after Sandy Hook, I was scared.  I think I would’ve been less scared if I knew her school had an armed guard.  However, when I was at a discussion group in Detroit about the New Jim Crow recently, an official in an EEOC-type position said something that made me think twice.  She said that she believes, based on what she’s seen, that when there are cops at schools, that children’s behavior that might otherwise have been dealt with by the school becomes criminalized.  And I think we’ve already established which kids are likely to be seen as bad seeds, and which ones are likely to be seen as good kids who just did something stupid.  When thinking about that, I started to think that there might be unintended consequences of armed guards at schools, at that I would have to see some more data on this before I was comfortable.  Interestingly, both G.B. and G.H. also balked at the idea of armed guards or police officers at schools.

What all this showed me is that most of the people in this country are like me and G.H. and G.B.—we’re in the middle, willing to try different things, wanting to do what will be effective, although we may differ sometimes on our judgment of what we think the data is in about and what we’re still assessing.

But all this led me to also realize that there’s a way in which those who jump quickly to the “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” argument have a point.  The bombing of an elementary school in Bath happened largely without guns, although there were some guns involved.  People have been killing people since Cain killed Abel, if you believe your Bible stories.  And we’re no closer to understanding why, it seems, than we were at the dawn of time.  I wish I could just say that it’s mental illness, that it’s a sickness.  But I don’t think that after all this time we know that.  Adam Lanza seems to have only been diagnosed with aspberger’s.  Plenty of people have aspberger’s syndrome and live lives that are not violent or murderous.  It’s not associated with things like this.  Dylan Klebold, one of the Columbine shooters, had depression.  Thousands upon thousands of people have depression but never think of killing another human being.  I think there is a mental illness component in these killings, yes.  You only have to look at Jared Loughner or James Holmes to see that something strange is going on with them.  And with the two of them, from Tucson and Arizona, we have a couple who are still alive who we can learn from, unlike Dylan and Eric from Columbine or Seung-Hui Cho from Virgina Tech, or now Adam Lanza.

Mental illness is certainly a piece of the puzzle, but there is something more, something that has to do with a culture that cheapens life and people who don’t believe that life and love have value and meaning and importance.  Most shootings aren’t like Adam Lanza.  While the Sandy Hooks are the ones that capture our attention and tug at our heart strings, most shootings in American are individual, common, and go without a national response.  They’re one person with one pistol shooting another person over something trivial—something much more trivial than life.  2012 was the deadliest year in decades in Detroit.  Detroit’s mayor said, “We’ve just lost respect for each other; we’ve lost respect for life…  I don’t want to say that you can forget about this generation or the generation before us, but if we’re going to solve the problem, we’ve got to get into the heads and the minds and the hearts of our young people, and it’s going to take all of us to do that.”[ii]

G.B. said to me:
The governing principle in human relationships is the principle of love, which always seeks the welfare of others and never seeks to hurt or destroy…  Any thinking person who subscribes to that principle and also has a firearm - I have no fear being in their company. How do you get a person with a mental health issue to understand this principle - I don’t know. How do you get a teenager with no economic hope and a belief that they have only a very few years left to live to understand this principle - I do not know.

 This whole discussion is chasing the wrong ghost. I see no difference between a firearm, a knife, a baseball bat, a car or a really big rock. All of them are perfectly useful tools when operated by a thinking person. All are tools which can have terrible consequences when used incorrectly or used with out care. We only talk about the ownership of a tool and not the condition of our hearts and minds. 
How do we get from here to there - I do not know.
I think G.B. is really on to something here.  It’s worth remembering that when the church shooting happened in Knoxville, the church responded by talking about love.  The UUA put out a full-paged ad in the Boston Globe about Love.  They started the Standing on the Side of Love campaign.  You know all my sermons come back to love.

The problem is that somewhere, love is broken, and that has to be what is happening here that allows people to commit these horrific crimes.

I think as a religious community, we are called to do two things.  We are called to teach love, and, also, we are called to teach non-violence.  And the two things go together.  For where there is perfect love, there is no violence.  Jesus taught us to love our neighbors, and he taught us to turn the other cheek.  His response to a violent state that wanted to kill him, was to go to his death.  Not all of us may be entirely able to embrace a path of non-violence, even in the face of even person harm.  I know I would probably embrace a violent solution if I felt my life were at stake.  And I can’t blame anybody who chooses self-preservation and self-protection.  But we jump too quickly to those thoughts as a country, to the point where non-violence isn’t even held up as a viable alternative in these discussions, much less as a model.  Mahatma Ghandhi talked about the path of nonviolence being the path of love, nonviolence as a love-force, or soul-force -- satyagraha.  He said, “Non-violence is a weapon of the strong. With the weak, it might easily be hypocrisy. Fear and love are contradictory terms. Love is reckless in giving away, oblivious as to what it gets in return.  Love wrestles with the world as with itself, and ultimately gains a mastery over all other feelings. My daily experience, as of those who are working with me, is that every problem lends itself to solution if we are determined to make the Law of Truth and Non-violence the Law of Life. For, Truth and Non-violence are to me faces of the same coin.”[iii]  Another example – at one point, Martin Luther King, Jr. had armed guards.  Eventually, he chose the path of non-violence, and he got rid of his guns and his armed guards.  And, of course, he also died, a victim of gun violence.  And that is certainly one possible outcome of an embrace of non-violence, and one that makes this a hard path to choose.  Yet here are King’s words:
And so I say to you today that I still stand for nonviolence. And I am still convinced that it is the most potent weapon available to the Negro in his struggle for justice in this country. And the other thing that I am concerned about is a better world. I’m concerned about justice. I’m concerned about brotherhood. I’m concerned about truth. And when one is concerned about these, he can never advocate violence. For through violence you may murder a murderer, but you can’t murder murder. Through violence you may murder a liar, but you can’t establish truth. Through violence you may murder a hater, but you can’t murder hate. Darkness cannot put out violence. Only light can do that. And so I say to you, I have also decided to stick to love. For I know that love is ultimately the only answer to mankind’s problems. And I am going to talk about it everywhere I go. I know it isn’t popular to talk about it in some circles today.  I’m not talking about emotional bosh when I talk about love. I’m talking about a strong, demanding love. And I have seen too much hate. I’ve seen too much hate on the faces of sheriffs in the South. I’ve seen hate on the faces of too many Klansmen and too many White Citizens Councilors in the South to want hate myself, because every time I see it, I know that it does something to their faces and their personalities and I say to myself that hate is too great a burden to bear. I have decided to love. If you are seeking the highest good, I think you can find it through love. And the beautiful thing is that we are moving against wrong when we do it, because John was right, God is love. He who hates does not know God, but he who has love has the key that unlocks the door to the meaning of ultimate reality.
Martin Luther King, Jr. did choose the path of love and non-violence it knowing where the path might lead—people around him were killed along the way, and he certainly knew that it was a possible, and perhaps even likely, outcome for himself, as well.  Jesus chose it, too, knowing where the path would lead.

Somehow, however, if we are to change this broken society, we have to embrace ahimsa, the principle of not hurting other living things.  We have to embrace the path of love.  For Gandhi, love and non-violence were inextricably linked.  And I think it’s just possible he was right.

This is not a problem that legislation can solve, in the end.  In the end, it’s a problem only theology and the human heart can solve.  And when we look to the world’s religions, we see the same answer over and over again.  Thich Naht Hanh said, “All violence is injustice. Responding to violence with violence is injustice, not only to the other person but also to oneself. Responding to violence with violence resolves nothing; it only escalates violence, anger and hatred. It is only with compassion that we can embrace and disintegrate violence. This is true in relationships between individuals as well as in relationships between nations.”  In the Old Testament book of Micah it says, “He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”  In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus says, “But I say to you that hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. To him who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from him who takes away your cloak do not withhold your coat as well. Give to everyone who begs from you; and of him who takes away your goods do not ask them again. Do to others as you would have them do to you.”  From as long ago as the Hebrew prophets and the Christian teacher of Jesus to as modern as the Buddhist, Hindu, and Christian leaders of today, we get the message.  Churches across this country are taking up the call.  Peace, love, the siblinghood of all humanity.

We may have individual fears about our security and the security of our children.  We may have individual passions for hunting or a need professionally to carry a gun on a job.  We may believe passionately in the second amendment.  But as a religion, as a faith, and as individual people as well, we must start taking seriously a discussion about non-violence and a discussion about love.  We have to hold up our principle that every life is sacred, and every person has inherent worth and dignity.  We need to feel deeply in our bones that we are all related.  We need to proclaim a love so deep and profound that it cannot tolerate the taking of a human life.  And then we need to live our religion, as much as we are able, each and every day, until the whole world is living this profound love as well.

May it be so.


[i] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dani-meier/school-shootings-guns_b_2411441.html
[ii] http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/01/04/16352612-weve-lost-respect-for-life-detroit-records-deadliest-year-in-decades?lite
[iii] http://sfr-21.org/sources/lawoflove.html
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I Speak for the Trees - Earth Day Sermon

By: Cynthia L. Landrum
Several people asked me if I would post my sermon from this past Sunday online.  I post it with some reluctance, because I think it won't hold up on paper as well.  It's a performance piece -- part of what made it so well received, I believe, came from the surprise of it, and the novelty of having the entire sermon in verse.  Once you have a chance to think about the fact that rhymed "lightbulbs" with "entitled" -- a rhyme so slanted it falls over -- you might think twice about my poetic ability.  And the meter is certainly a bit forced in multiple locations.  Actually, it's just completely uneven throughout.  But it was great fun to do, and something I've been wanting to try for a long time.  It's hard work to write an entire sermon in verse, because it is such a long piece when written that way.  I found that I had to write much more than I usually write in prose, because the rhyme and meter keep me reading it at a pretty good clip.  What I'm pleased with, in the end, is that I managed to keep the structure of sermon clear in this poem.  It has a very clear structure if you look at it -- opening, thesis, supporting facts about climate change, bringing in the Lorax theme, personal actions people can take, societal actions, bringing it back to Unitarian Universalism, and conclusion.  I might have written something very similar on the subject in prose. 

“I Speak for the Trees” ~ Rev. Dr. Cynthia L. Landrum

If you ask me what I’m passionate about
There’s a lot of topics, of that there’s no doubt.
There’s immigration, feminism, and gay rights
Dozens of issues on which I’ve fought fights
And while you’re thinking, you might say, "English grammar,"
And all the other topics on which I have hammered.
You could list science fiction and evolution
Each of you could make a contribution
This list of worthwhile subjects might go on forever:
Who knows what I’ll preach on?  It could be whatever!
Some critics might say, "Well, she once preached on the Force
From Star Wars, Monty Python, and Facebook.  Of course,
Who could forget zombies? I’m sure that sometime soon
It’ll be Hunger Games, or the video game Doom."

"But Earth Day," they say, "we don’t get every year,
Despite the fact our planet is decidedly dear.
Hey, for some UUs it’s a high Holy Day
And for some of us, if we got our way,
It’d be the topic for each season, each week!
More talk of environment, that’s what we seek.
Our planet is dying, while we guzzle up oil
For big SUVs, while the earth’s loamy soil
Is poisoned with lead, and the state of our seas
Is no home for the fish, and, if you please,
Consider the cutting down of our trees!
Deforestation to make palm oil for our food
Is no treat for the wildlife, beyond being rude.
Their habitats are dwindling, our list could go on
Of everything we’re doing to the earth that is wrong."

We’ll you’re right, gentle people, it’s quite sensible
That I speak more on our seventh principle.
The interdependent web of life needs attention.
And it’s very important, too, that I mention
This issue right now, for Earth Day,
And our forum raised issues that won’t go away
About recycling in Jackson, and about why
We still don’t have curbside (I say with a sigh).
And meanwhile the incinerator keeps on burning--
Burning our trash--and it keeps on churning
carcinogens, I’m sure, in our atmosphere
Affecting our health, possibly, we fear.

I know in the past that I’ve said nature I hate.
I know I’ve said that, but listen now--wait!
It’s allergies and asthma that are really the problem,
The springtime with pollen that drips from the blossom.
And unfortunately mosquitoes in summer quite love me,
And for that I still give no apology.
But I’ve nothing against winter; in fact I quite love it!
So I hope you won’t see this me as a hypocrite
When I speak for the trees, for the trees are important
And you think so to, or so I would warrant.
Our lack of green energy is warming our climate,
And for those who are not very short-sighted,
We can see that our winters will only get warmer.
Hey, I moved to the north, so I’m in this corner
Of wanting to halt global warming today,
So our wintery wonderland will continue to stay.

Do you want more details?  Well, here’s a go:
They say that on Mt. Kilimanjaro the snow
(That's Hemingway’s famous white peak)
Will soon be green.  Yes, I know it’s bleak.
The glaciers are thinning, the researchers have found.
There’s not much longer that they’ll be around.

More data?  More facts?  Is it still not clear?
I’m not saying the end of the world is near.
But I am saying there are some facts we need know.
Have you noticed that we don’t get as much snow?

Well, here’s just one more sign
That could be the canary in the coal mine
And when sea ice melts, the poor polar bears
Well, they are all caught unawares.
Because moms and their cubs swim out to hunt.
And let me now be perfectly blunt:
They now swim eight or nine miles to the ice.
Their future is grim; it’s really not nice.
The retreating ice and rougher seas
Are the warnings that science now foresees,
And believe me, they have the expertise
To know just how much ice will freeze
As our planet gets warmer.  So for poor polar bears,
Right now, let’s hold them in our prayers.

And so the message of a children’s book
Deserves us taking another look.
The Lorax was written in 1971.
To some it seemed like childish fun.
But Dr. Seuss, it was clear, had other another reason
(Though to many industries it seemed like treason).
His children’s books often had meanings--
War, political issues, and more gleanings.
The Sneetches tells of discrimination and race.
But the Cat and the Hat?  Well, on the face
Of that work there’s nothing deep to be found.
But then the Lorax, it came ‘round,
And this one really was quite new
More overt, more direct, for children who
Loved the truffula trees, and the little bears
And could easily see the that, really, who cares
About thneeds, and the smog was so clearly wrong
When it drowned out the beautiful bird’s sweet song.

Can you believe it’s been 41 years since first told?
The children who first heard it now have grown old.
I’m telling it now to my own little tot,
But yet the situation it's not gotten better--it’s not!

So we have to take action, it’s become very clear.
And it needs to be soon, because we do fear
That the time is coming when it will be too late
To turn back climate change, and then our fate
Will be a world that has become so warm
That ice caps will melt.  And then the swarm
of the Biblical plagues will seem like a treat,
When we live in a world with nothing to eat.

One concrete thing I can propose,
If I can be so bold, I suppose,
Is that we look into green sanctuary
(A UU program – no need to be wary)
Or a local effort to make ourselves green
Called Waste Watchers, which is more that it seems.
We can work on our own certification.
And hope that we see multiplication
On the local scene as our efforts grow,
And then we’ll really have something to show,
Some ground to stand on when we lobby
Our politicians to make this their hobby.

Personal actions are really quite helpful. 
And most of the things are really not dreadful
To do in your home, like change all your lightbulbs
Or just change your notion of what you’re entitled.
Compost your waste, and find ways to recycle.
Most of the actions are only a trifle,
And most won’t take you out of your way.
Once you have started you really can say
That you feel better about your consumption.
So start right away, if you have the gumption.

The problem here, though, is that we need a combination
Of personal action, and laws in our nation
Which prohibit industries from those greenhouse gasses.
But to make this take place, we must remove rosy glasses
From politicians who believe that the world is a garden
Given by God, and so their thoughts harden
Against science and facts that combat this worldview.
And also we need to convince persons who,
For reasons I cannot personally understand,
Believe pseudo-science which ought to be banned
For the falsehoods it tells which deny the real truth
Meanwhile people are saying, “I need more proof,”
When proofs have been given; scientists all agree
(Except perhaps one, or at most maybe three.
And they have motivation I question.
If you don’t mind me making that suggestion).

The other thing, it has to be said,
Which really does make me see red
Is the way we embrace the capitalist doctrine.
It really is quite a severe problem.
Corporations are not people, my friends,
And treating them so has brought us bad ends.
When we care more about their ability to make money
Than our health or our planet, it’s really not funny.
We need to be able to hold them accountable,
And I really don’t know if this problem’s surmountable,
Unless we really face the harsh reality
That our politicians are less concerned with morality
Than they are with their own financial status--
Something I tell you with great sadness.

Do you know which candidate believes in climate change?
Once you find out, you might want to arrange
To vote for that man, or even to campaign,
And if he wins, then toast with champagne!
Recent works have told us that the conservative brain,
Is not changed with facts, and I know that’s a strain,
To believe when the facts are really so clear.
But it’s the truth, and so as the time’s drawing near.
It’s important to know who stands there and who here--
Who’s grounded in science, and who’s grounded in fear.
(And not fear for our planet, but fearful of change.
"When it’s time to change, you’ve got to rearrange."
To quote the Brady Bunch, though you might wish I wouldn’t.
There are better quotes, but rhyme them I couldn’t.)

Anyway, my point is that the lines have been drawn.
And, to some politicians, we are nothing but pawns.
They don’t care how many are dying of cancer.
They don’t care if they have the wrong answer.
They don’t care if islands are going underwater,
As long as they have money for their daughter
And son to live on high ground, though it’s silly.
This is their planet too.  Yes it is, really.

At the end of this sermon, I hope something’s clear:
A poet I’m not, but the meaning is here:
That in Unitarian Universalism, we believe
The web of life is the gift we receive.
We are one strand, and it’s our responsibility
To do whatever we can, to our ability,
To preserve this earth for future generations,
Through our own actions, and lobbying our nation.

Dr. Seuss told us that the trees have no voice,
And so please raise yours –there’s really no choice.
We have only one earth, and it is all of our home,
And so raise your voice, whatever the tone,
And call for some changes nationally to be made.
This is more important than even Medicaid.
(Or how much you or I are underpaid.)
Before it’s too late we must stop this charade.

If you think my poetry is painful,
I invite you not to be disdainful,
But take that pain and create action!
If we can change our course just a fraction,
And provide over the earth’s wounds a suture,
Then there’s hope for the children’s future.

And so I end these words from me,
As I often do: So may it be.

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09/16/11 - The Stone of Hope

By: Cynthia L. Landrum
I've been rereading what I wrote in those days after September 11th, 2001.  Here's what I said at our water communion service on September 16th, 2001:

          Like many of you, I have been inundated with the thoughts of millions this week.  I hear speaker after speaker on television and radio, I read comment after comment in the papers and on e-mail.  They blur together--the President, a minister, a fireman, a friend, a teacher, a rabbi, a senator, an imam...  I marvel at their coherence sometimes, their ability to capture the depth of tragedy in a soundbite.  I found myself unable to put pen to paper all week, still soaking it all in, still trying to make sense out of chaos.  What follows here, therefore, is one person’s thoughts--still mutable, still very much in turmoil. 
          My first thoughts, of course, are for the victims and their families of this week’s horrible events.  I hear phrases like “an end to innocence” and “our world will never be the same,” being exchanged, and they resonate within me.  Certainly, it feels like a tragedy the likes of which we have not known in this country during my life time.  And I applaud the efforts of those who have rushed to help.  The way people can come together and set aside differences to work side by side and do what needs to be done is only a small solace, given the extent of tragedy, but it does warm my heart.  It is in this that I find hope, and comfort.
          As I gather my thoughts as to what the next steps in this country will be, I have two warring sides within me.  They are both crying out to be heard.  The first is the one we’ve been hearing the most of.  Part of me cries out that justice must be done, that war is needed.  This part of me suddenly finds myself crying at the words, “God Bless America” plastered on billboards all up and down the road.  I want national unity, a feeling of togetherness, of solidarity in this cause. 
          But inside myself, I find no unity.  The other side of me, too, cries for the victims.  It too, mourns endless tears for the people who got up and went to work, only to never come home.  But this side of me is critical of some of the rhetoric I’ve been hearing.  I stay with my earlier beliefs: that if there is a god or goddess or gods, he/she/they, if they are in the business of blessing at all, would certainly bless all people.  I fall back on Universalism, which says that all are loved by God, that whatever is ultimate in this world, we are equally blessed and embraced, and will all be treated equally in death.  This side of me, too, worries at a nation which seems to feel right now that they would give up endless civil liberties for a larger measure of safety.  It worries that rhetoric of war too quickly gets acted on in our own back yards against people, our Muslim and Arab-American neighbors, who are just as innocent as the victims of the plane crashes, and just as innocent as you and me.
          In such a confusing time, what solace does a religion of questions offer?  When we want answers so badly, how can we live with this ambiguity?  I want so badly at a time like this to have a certain God, a personal God, whom I can turn to, instead of my endless agnosticism, a field of only more and more questions. 
          But as events unfold, I know that there are numerous lights that our religion must hold up.  In an increasingly conservative world, in a country on the brink of an indefinable war, religious liberalism is needed more than ever.  There is a particular role to be filled by us, and only we can do it.
          One thing we must do, is stand with our Muslim brothers and sisters.  Stand up for them, ally with them, help protect him.  What we deplore is fanaticism and fundamentalism, and any disregard for life, not the religion of Islam itself.  Muslim organizations throughout this country have publicized their statements decrying the actions of the terrorists who struck on Tuesday.  Yet throughout this country, Muslims, Arabs, middle-easterners, anyone racially resembling an Arab, have found themselves targets of hate crimes.
          The Houston Chronicle reported in a small article this week that Arab-Americans have faced “backlash.”  They tell that six shots were fired at an Islamic center in a suburb of Dallas.  An Islamic bookstore in the suburbs of Washington had bricks thrown through it’s windows.  A sign announcing an Islamic community center in Dallas was defaced.  In Sterling, Virginia members of an Islamic community center found their buses defaced when they gathered to go together to donate blood.[1]  In Detroit, which has one of the largest Arab populations in this country, my mother asked her Lebanese co-worker about his personal experiences this week.  She said, “He seemed to be so relieved that someone would actually give him a chance to speak about them. He, too, has been attacked verbally many times already, and even “shunned” by one of our own staff members with whom he has worked for ten years!” 
          As religious liberals, the first thing we need to do is be the person who actually speaks to our Arab and Muslim neighbors.  We have to be better neighbors than ever before, because so many would dehumanize them, treat them as “other,” and not as ourselves. 
          Another thing we must do is stand up against other forms of hate, for they are also taking place.  Televangelist Jerry Falwell, who would have you believe that he is a man of God, has blamed the tragedy on all sorts of liberal groups, from gays and lesbians to Pagans to ACLU members to pro-choice individuals.  I think he covered, in his list, just about everybody I know, and much of what I hold dear.  Other liberals have found themselves attacked by friends and co-workers for being a voice of dissent, for being unwilling to jump on the bandwagon and immediately cry “War!”  Many are moving quickly from the passion of the moment to an unwillingness to allow for multiple voices in this country, an anger which is so deep from the horrible tragedy that has taken place gets quickly unleashed at the closest source they find. 
          I’m unwilling and unable to say yet, because of the deep confusion and divide in myself, that we must assume an attitude of war.  I’m also not about to say, “We brought this upon ourselves.”  I truly believe that these acts were in no way justified.  What I am willing to say is that the strength of our nation, like the strength of our liberal religion, is in our diversity.  Our strength is in being able to hear opinions we differ with and not resorting to name-calling and hatred ourselves, whether that cry is against those to the left or to the right of us.  Our strength is in respecting all of the world’s religions, and in trying to understand them better, to work with them to find common ground, rather than resorting to a rhetoric of a God who blesses only our country, or only our religion, or only those who believe exactly as we do.
          The strength of this country is not found in the quick answers of flag or anthems, it is found in the more difficult, onerous work of voting and of free presses, and of dissent.  Similarly, the strength of our faith is not that we have an absolute God to fall back on, that we can say will go to war against evil with us, but that we have freedom of belief, and that we embrace our diversity.  Our unity must be found in diversity, in knowing that we are a Muslim nation, and a Christian nation, and a Buddhist nation and an Atheist nation and a Pagan nation and a Jewish nation, and so on.  Our unity must be found through acts of reason, not passion.  Now is a time for deep consideration, as we forge a national identity, that it be one which doesn’t ignore these differences but rather embraces them and holds them up as a model for the world.  If we cannot avoid fighting against ourselves, against Muslim Americans, against Arab-Americans, against any who disagree with our views, if we cannot avoid terrorist actions against our next-door neighbors, we cannot, with integrity, proclaim this to be a great nation. 
          Within our own four walls, I hope that we model in our church the best of what this country is, and the best of ourselves.  This is the time which will test our faiths most, and the time in which we must not falter.  This week has been a time of much hate, but also much love.  May we embody the best of it, the pulling together, the helping and volunteering, even as we guard more vigilantly against the hatred which comes so easily.  May we live up to our values now, for now is the time when our values are needed in the world.
          I close with these words from Martin Luther King, Jr.:
          We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.  Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.  There are some things in our social system to which all of us ought to be maladjusted.  Hatred and bitterness can never cure the disease of fear, only love can do that.  We must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression, and retaliation.  The foundation of such a method is love.  Before it is too late, we must narrow the gaping chasm between our proclamations of peace and our lowly deeds which precipitate and perpetuate war.  One day we must come to see that peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek but a means by which we arrive at that goal.  We must pursue peaceful ends through peaceful means.  We shall hew out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope.[2]


[1] “Arab-Americans quickly faced backlash” by Hanna Rosin (Washington Post), The Houston Chronicle, Friday, Sept. 14, 2001, p.44A.
[2] #584, Singing the Living Tradition.
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