The long and winding road that leads from tolerance to acceptance...or something like it

This sermon was presented on Sunday, 15 March, 2015, by Laurie Ruiz

 When you struggle against this moment, you’re actually struggling
against the entire universe. Instead, you can make the decision that
today you will not struggle against the whole universe by struggling
against this moment. This means that your acceptance of this moment is
total and complete. You accept things as they are, not as you wish they
were in this moment. This is important to understand. You can wish for
things in the future to be different, but in this moment you have to
accept things as they are.

-Deepak Chopra

We are, each of us, on a road, long and winding, that has taken us from the person we used to be to the person we are now. On this perilous journey our direction has been influenced by people, events, and the places we have been. Think of the number of people who have crossed your path in just the last 12 months. Reflect for a moment on the things you have read or encountered that have given you pause, things that have either filled you a sense of wonder or bewilderment, maybe disappointment. The manner in which we deal with these feelings is paramount to our levels of tolerance and or acceptance.

Let’s look at tolerance for a minute. The definition from the Merriam/Webster Dictionary: Full Definition of  TOLERANCE . 1: capacity to endure pain or hardship: endurance, fortitude, stamina. 2: sympathy or indulgence for beliefs or practices differing from or conflicting with one's own.

So, living in Deep South Texas I have become tolerant of hot summers. I am smart enough to know that there isn’t much I can do to keep that mercury from trying to kiss the top of the thermometer, so I have developed a tolerance. Actually that tolerance keeps me from having to deal with my distaste day after day. I may not like it, I find it somewhat distasteful, but I deal with it. I find ways to best avoid the offending heat - run errands early in the morning or in evening. This definitely fits with the first section of the definition - capacity to endure pain or hardship - endurance, fortitude, stamina. But what about when my tolerance refers to an attribute of another person, a physical fact over which they have no control? Take age for example. Is it tolerance, possibly barely masked, I am exhibiting when I maneuver around an older driver driving below the speed limit? Tolerance would dictate that I at least show sympathy or indulgence for their belief that 45 mph is a safer speed for them at that particular time. I checked the law - 40 mph is minimal limit - so they are within the law. Am I actually being tolerant - or just impatient? Since we’re talking about age - what about teenagers? Ah, let me list the ways I that I might dig deep to show tolerance - music, dress, language, the umbilical cord to electronics… Have I ever said - Oh, that’s just how they are. Age is something over which they have no control. Is my “tolerance” actually about being positive toward our differences or am I patting myself on the back for holding myself above that fine line between tolerance and contempt for those who are not quite like me. What about skin color, sexual orientation, physical handicaps? Do I ever generalize, verbally or in my mind, about a group? Is it fueled by fear...ignorance?

What about tolerance with reference to practices differing or conflicting with mine - another aspect of the definition of tolerance. OK, religion. I know that I cannot wrap my mind around the ideas of God shared by many of my friends and family. It just doesn’t work for me. Does my tolerance of their beliefs diminish my value of them as a person? This is where I see that mere tolerance can be, in general, a negative thing. It’s fine to say I tolerate the heat, but if I tolerate my neighbor it’s not exactly a glowing endorsement. If I tolerate someone or their ideas in sympathy or indulgence for my own different beliefs it implies that there is something wrong or bad about them. If someone believes differently than me, the complete opposite from me - both of us strong in our beliefs - does tolerating those ideas allow me to treat them or even think of them as wrong?

This is where I find it necessary turn down the road - away from tolerance toward acceptance. Let’s again start with the definition of acceptance from Merriam/Webster: the act of accepting : the fact of being accepted : approval . My research here showed that putting it into practice is not an easy road. In an article on Acceptance vs Tolerance Matt Kailey warns us of the potholes in the journey toward acceptance. He writes:

Acceptance still has its unspoken baggage — “I
accept you — in spite of your sexual orientation, gender identity, ethnic
background, religion, pathetic bank account, unimpressive job, really
bad hair.” Acceptance can also comes with a disclaimer. Not only that,
but the whole idea of acceptance can often be accompanied by a notion
of generosity and do-goodliness on the part of the acceptor, who can
walk away feeling very self-satisfied that he or she was able to put
prejudices aside and accept you for who you are.
This still leaves you in the subordinate position — the position of being
the one who is accepted. And for this, you are supposed to be grateful.

The difficulty here is that while I may not be able to agree with the beliefs that others hold, I need to accept - approve - of their belief in them. I need to understand and accept that these beliefs are are part of who they are. During my research for my sermon on the third UU principle, ACCEPTANCE OF ONE ANOTHER AND ENCOURAGEMENT TO SPIRITUAL GROWTH IN OUR CONGREGATIONS, I really started to look at accepting people and beliefs differently. I did more research and, go figure, there is not an easy way to become an accepting person. Do I accept, approve of the person, yet reject their beliefs. There were articles that gave that as the answer. Jason Sharp describes acceptance in this way: Acceptance involves understanding and togetherness; it celebrates differences and allows people of different places and lifestyles to live together and help each other. Accepting someone means that you let them completely into your heart regardless of their lifestyle or way of thinking. You connect yourself to them and openly share yourself with them and them with you. There are no boundaries, just different ways of approaching the same problems.Different ways of approaching the same problems not a right and a wrong way. Of course this brought me around to the sermon Emily gave a few months back on the different ways that liberals and conservative process information. It makes sense to me that before I accept the person but disregard the idea I owe it to both of us to at least try to understand why they feel as they do. An article in Time Magazine reported on a new study published in the journal PLOS ONE, a group of political scientists and neuroscientists have found that conservatives and liberals use different parts of their mind when making risky decisions, and that these differences in brain function can be used to predict party affiliation. While these differences do not mean that ideas cannot be changed through information and education, it does indicate that if we don’t try to understand why others beliefs differ so much from our own we will never be able to really accept each other or meet on common ground.

Again from Jason Sharpe: I use “acceptance” all the time, and until there is a better word — one that really signifies an equal balance between various individuals or groups — I will probably keep using it. This research has actually been life changing in the way I look at ideas, situations, and people. I hope that as I continue on my journey, long and winding and full of potholes, that I move consciously forward in my destination of being a truly accepting person.

‘Cause in the words of Lewis Caroll - " If you don't know where you 're
going , any road'll take you there" .
 

The Other Side of the Fence-Is the Grass Greener?

This sermon was presented on 25 January, 2015 by the Reverend Dr. Ruth Gnagey.

An emu hatches

Reading 1:
Written by Ruth Mackenszie, a UU minister.

For a baby chick, hatching is not graceful.  In the moments before birth, the small hatchling has eaten all its food, and its growing body presses against every contour and curve of the shell.  There is no more room.  There is no more food.  The chick hatches because its body is painfully cramped inside the world of the egg, and it is starving.

I think most of us can name a time when where we were, what we were doing, how we were being, was so uncomfortable, so constraining, that there was nothing to be done but peck a way into whatever was on the other side of the egg we had relied on, whatever was on the other side of safety.  Whether we like it or not, discomfort –feeling cramped, feeling soul-hungry – is the seed of transformation.

It is discomfort that drives the chick to risk everything, to go beyond its worldview.  This is transformation.

Reading 2:

The Emu
by Dr. Bill Gnagey

About a mile outside Rockport, Texas where we went birding every day last winter, a strange sight appeared.  There, in a field with a few cows stood an emu, a middle-sized member of the ostrich family.  Like the ostrich, emus are flightless.

As we passed him day after day we noticed that he was never in the middle of the field grazing like the cattle, but always right along the fence.  He would travel back and forth, back and forth near that same fence.  It appeared that he was constantly looking for a way to get on the other side.

One day, he was gone.  We looked for him for several days as we passed by but he never reappeared.  The house where his owners lived was empty.  We wondered if they had finally taken him to a greener field.

Sermon: The Other Side of the Fence--Is the Grass Greener?
by Rev. Dr. Ruth Gnagey

I feel that there should be a law against death by platitudes.   These are the times when a discussion is actually fruitful and headed in a problem solving direction and someone tosses a platitude into the mix like a tear gas bomb to squelch any protest.  If someone doesn’t rise up and take the platituder on, it could be the end to what might have been an interesting exchange.  One of the platitudes that really raises my hackles is, “Well, the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.”  In other words, quit complaining, coveting or showing your dissatisfaction with your life, your job, your husband, etc.  Suck it up.  Good people persevere, or to layer platitude on platitude, “you made your bed, now lie in it.”

   Bill and I were talking about the concept of grass being greener after our daily experience with the emu.  Not surprisingly, our thoughts turned to this concept as it is expressed in theological terms.  Hoping to have an opportunity to preach here, I began working on the sermon.  When I googled the idea, I found it was an actual syndrome in therapy.  Three thousand eighty two hits just on the GIGS – so popular as a counseling tool that I could spend days reading relationship advice before I found some spiritual nuggets.  Isn’t it interesting that often when you think you have a unique idea, you find the field flooded with the blogs of others who got there before you?

Most of the blogs were single nuggets or personal experiences, but there was also a moralistic tone, a thread of judgment that ran through those I reviewed.    This thread reminded me of voices from my childhood when my parents wanted me to be content with what I had, appreciative of the meals set in front of me and obedient to the 10^th commandment not to covet.

Like the emu in Bill’s story, I was warned that wishing for what I couldn’t have would poison my appreciation for my own circumstance.  I was reminded of the dog in the manger and the fox and the grapes and again, more platitudes than I can count.    Shame and guilt were rather effective tools to quiet my yearning for greener pastures.  I remember that my mother was quite sure that the grass wasn’t really greener, it only seemed so because it was unobtainable.  I believe she was protecting herself from wishing beyond her hopes and wanting to save me the same sorrow.

Imagine if there were such a voice to keep the chick inside the safe shell – to die!  Extreme example, perhaps, but easy to imagine.

Beyond being used as a tool to keep children in their place in the past century, this particular platitude suggests that one’s decisions should be like steel traps, securing one to a chosen pasture.  As a veteran of a failed marriage, I am grateful beyond measure that I did not have to forever live with my mistake like the warning over the entrance to hell in Dante’s Inferno: “All hope abandon ye who enter here.”  That message is surely a big stop sign!!

The greener grass is just that: Hope.  Without wishing for a different job, house, career, hair color, or automobile, how can we brighten our lives, stay alive emotionally and progress?  Without entertaining novel notions, our spiritual lives cannot grow and change and we find ourselves living a repetition reminding us of the Ground Hog’s Day movie where each day repeated the last.  As we garner new experiences, insights and, yes, wisdom, our spiritual lives should reflect that new color and interest.  Greener pastures?  I should hope so!  The opportunity to find out if that is so or not? Definitely!

Marriage being forever is not necessarily the best pasture to stay in, either.  Abuse and cruelty are real, and the dictum to stay with such a relationship is a logical outcome of this restrictive philosophy.  The grass is sometimes greener.

So I believe the grass is greener platitude is an echo from the past, trying to encourage gratitude and stability and contentment….however fine these traits may be, in place of growth and curiosity and hope.   

In spiritual terms, the GIG syndrome might suggest that we were led to the truth when we walked into whatever church we found comfortable.  I’m here to tell you that comfort is highly over rated as a spiritual goal.  That kind of stagnation is too much like a stop sign.  Stop thinking.  Stop questioning.  Stop trying out a new philosophy.

Over sixty years ago, I heard a sermon that I shall never forget.   It was at a summer church camp where our church leaders hoped we teenagers would commit our lives and careers to our evangelical doctrine.  A quadruple amputee was the speaker, and he forcefully built a challenge into a sermon he called No Stop Signs. He envisioned himself on life’s journey and realized the temptation to stop and rest, or to stop and let someone else travel his journey.  No stop signs for him, he said.  While he could not avoid the fact of his disability, he claimed that his attitude of service would keep him alive and active.   He energetically shared a philosophy of life that encouraged us believe in ourselves.   For me, the effect was the opposite of the goal of our pastors.  In that theology, we were supposed to hold fast to the notion that without God we were useless, cut adrift from the strength and direction we needed to lead a good Christian life.  This fellow was encouraging personal courage and determination.  I can’t speak for other young people at this youth conference, but I found a kernel of energy to branch out and not accept a dependent religion for myself.  It took many years, but by the time I was thirty, I found out that the grass really was greener on the other side of the fence.  The fence was a dogmatic and unchanging belief in the literal promises in the New Testament of a heaven for those who put their complete and total trust in Jesus as Son of God.  

Let’s take a careful look at the fence.  I believe that the fence in my parents’ warning was the limits of their own abilities to provide for us, not a guide for our life’s journey.  The implication that the fence was permanent, too high to climb and probably for my own good is from another age.  In today’s world, in our healthy land, it is only sensible to analyze the fence that separates us from a greener pasture.  In spiritual terms, the threat of hell and damnation has kept a fence sturdy and higher than we could surmount.  What a blessing to be free of that!  Living in such a free thinking society, it is hard for me to remember that there are folks whose spiritual lives are so circumscribed as to be cast in stone.  In fact, many folks feel that to question, to be skeptical about religious notions is sinful.  Without a skeptical attitude, where would we find ourselves?  Alone in this church, I think!

We as Unitarian Universalists might not recognize the constraints that dogmatic fences put on people’s souls, but if you are willing to listen to evangelical rants on the radio for just a short time, you might become enlightened.  Fear of eternal damnation still does restrain many people from even considering the greener pastures.  Is this the green pasture from the 23^rd Psalm?

I understand that a life of envy and dissatisfaction with one’s own lot does not generally lead to a productive life.  How foolish one is to not appreciate the fruits of their labor or their parents’ efforts to give them a start in a positive direction.   But in your heart of hearts, in that private and oh, so personal life of the spirit, satisfaction and comfort are lethal.   Our spirits only live when they are restless.  Show me a spirit that does not question and seek and discard and continue seeking and I will show you a stagnant spirit.

Perhaps you know someone who is not satisfied with their situation, but – for whatever reason – decides to do nothing about it except pine for the greener grass across the fence.  I can remember having to bide my time and stay in the safety zone, while wishing for the freedom of jumping the fence.  In one instance, I had used my mother’s disappointment as the reason not to make a change in my spiritual direction.  Looking back, I realize that I really was using her supposed disappointment, as an excuse to put off taking the risk myself.  It was a risk.  I had grown up with the assurance of eternal life and being with my loved ones in heaven, and that was a big deal to give up by declaring the reality of my own doubts.  Once accomplished, I found a freedom and joy in adventure that had never been a part of my spiritual life.  The grass really was greener, and it sustained me as I followed my skeptical self to the UU church in Toledo, Ohio in 1967.

So, how is it with your spirit?  Comfortable?   Someone’s exhortation to take your mind out and dance on it comes to my mind.  Try it.  It’s risky, but a responsible skepticism is often the gateway to a very rewarding journey of the spirit.   Only you know if your spirit is stagnant and in need of a good dance, and only you know if you are up to the challenge.   But do not  dance alone.  Here is your living, breathing church community, ready to dance and travel with you.  In fact, if I were writing the description of this spiritual dance, I would demand a dancing partner or a beloved community to dance with.  So, let’s mix some metaphors.  Is it a dance we do?  May I have this dance with you?

May it ever be so!

Moving Toward the 6th Principle in Light of Ferguson

This sermon was given on 30 November, 2014, by Rachel Udow. We had an excellent group discussion afterwards, just between the sermon and the final hymn.

 

 Reading 1:

“The sixth Principle seems extravagant in its hopefulness and improbable in its prospects. Can we continue to say we want ‘world community’? ‘Peace, liberty, and justice for all’? The world is full of genocide, abuse, terror, and war. What have we gotten ourselves into?

“As naïve or impossible as the sixth Principle may seem, I’m not willing to give up on it. In the face of our culture’s apathy and fear, I want to imagine and help create a powerful vision of peace by peaceful means, liberty by liberatory means, justice by just means. I want us to believe—and to live as if we believe—that a world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all is possible. There is no guarantee that we will succeed, but I can assure you that we will improve ourselves and improve the world by trying.”

—Rev. Sean Parker Dennison, Tree of Life Congregation, McHenry, IL

Reading 2:
(This excerpt is from the most recent issue of UU World and predates the grand jury’s decision on Ferguson)

“As we tentatively enter the aftermath of this summer’s events in Ferguson, we are all choosing to whom we will listen, deciding which accounts we will believe. Such times of not knowing can be transformative, when something new has happened, or something old has been seen in a new way, and the official story hasn’t yet been written.

Times of not knowing aren’t my favorite. I like to feel well-informed and smart, and it is unsettling to realize how deep my unknowing goes. Right now a lot of white people are saying, “Let’s just wait for the experts to tell us what really happened. I recognize the impulse: to find someone impartial and fair, who knows the truth, so that we can know what ‘really’ happened.

Pew Research statistics show that 76 percent of black people don’t expect official investigations into Michael Brown’s killing to be of any help, while most whites think they will help. How do we move forward, in a nation with statistics like that?”

-       The Rev. Meg Riley, Church of the Larger Fellowship


 Sermon: Moving Toward the 6th Principle by Rachel Udow

This is a different sermon than the one I was planning to give a week ago: “A Grant Writer’s Guide to the Sixth Principle.” Fortunately, I tend to work best under pressure – which is a nice way of saying that I tend to procrastinate – and so I hadn’t gotten very far with my original concept before the grand jury’s decision on Ferguson impelled me to change course.

Our first reading, from the Rev. Sean Parker, begins: “The sixth principle seems extravagant in its hopefulness and improbable in its prospects…What have we gotten ourselves into?” I’m feeling this as acutely as ever after this week’s verdict and ensuing events.

Regardless of where individuals throughout the United States stand on the verdict, I don’t think there’s a person in this country who would argue that the events surrounding Michael Brown’s death and the aftermath have been reflective of a “world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all.”

In the face of the myriad ways one could unpack the relationship between Ferguson and the 6^th principle, I’d like to focus on one: the rallying cry “Black Lives Matter.” Black Lives Matter…I’ve been turning this over and over in my mind. To say Black Lives Matter implies that there is a need to say it – implies that we have a situation of Black Lives Not Mattering.  

In last week’s sermon, Emily referenced postcolonial and feminist theorist Chandra Mohanty, who said that “privilege nurtures blindness to those without the same privileges.” In my 29 years, it has never occurred to me to, first of all, think of myself as a “life” attached to one facet of my identity, and, second of all, state out loud that I matter as one of these lives. Let me unpack those two points.

The first point was that I’ve never thought of myself as a life attached to a facet of my identity. I have many “identity markers,” as we all do: White, Female, Daughter, Dog Mother, Friend, Musician, Employee, and Small Business Owner are some examples. Still, I think of myself primarily as “Rachel” and the unique configuration of identity markers that is me; I don’t think of myself as a “White Life” or any other kind of “Life.” Privilege is at work here; none of my identity markers has ever caused me so much trouble as to become particularly defining. As far as I know, nobody reads the visual manifestations of my identity – my skin color, for example – and feels threatened to the point of needing to kill me in order to feel safe.

The second thing that has never occurred to me is that my life does not matter. Of course it matters. Why wouldn’t it? I’m pretty sure this is what Mohanty was talking about when she said that privilege nurtures blindness to those without the same privileges. The statement “Black Lives Matter” is impactful to me because of my unfailing confidence in my own life mattering. While I’m painfully aware that injustice and inequality are rampant, I’m still able to be startled by the need to assert that the very lives of a whole race of people do, in fact, matter.

Yesterday morning, Melissa Harris Perry – writer, professor, television host, and political commentator – asked a diverse group of experts on her show to weigh in on the question, “Do black lives matter?”

Salamishah Tillet, Associate Professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania, responded: “What does it mean to be part of a country that was predicated on black lives not mattering? Or mattering only in the service of property or service of maintaining the power of white, slave-holding society? It’s a founding principle, the fact that black people have been denied humanity as a part of the democratic experience. It’s not just shocking, it’s true, but now we’re at another moment where that same principle is just resurfacing, and we have to deal with it as a nation.”

Another response came from Khalil Gibran Muhammad, Director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture: “There’s a fascinating statement circulating on Facebook right now that says, ‘How interesting that we've moved from Black Power to Black Lives Matter.’ The diminishment of a social movement that helped to transform and make possible a black president has become about, ‘How do we save people?’”

We’re trying to make sense of and activate our 6^th principle, a world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all, and our nation is trying to figure out how to save black lives because black children are dying.  This makes me feel the way that Shirley, in one of her recent sermons, described feeling about climate change – despondent, depressed, overwhelmed.  I was steeped in these emotions, feeling both self-indulgent and absolutely stuck, when I opened the most recent issue of UU World and came across the Rev. Meg Riley’s commentary on Ferguson, “Up to Our Necks.” She writes:

As a nation of diverse races striving to be one people, we are buried up to our necks in a history of violence and brutality against people of color. Where do we look for safety, for help, as we try to excavate ourselves from this sinkhole? For a long time I have been one of the mostly silent, but increasingly alarmed, white folks struggling to discern how to be part of the solution instead of part of the problem. But standing silently, trying to figure things out may be a life-threatening course of action when you and your neighbors are buried up to your neck. So I’m looking on the local level for practical actions I can take. And I refuse to be silent or still anymore.

Without stating it explicitly, Rev. Riley is essentially saying that, even though we’re all buried up to our necks in a history of violence and brutality against people of color, she’s not giving up on the 6^th principle. Giving up would be, quite literally, a life-threatening course of action. So she acknowledges her starting place, holds the end vision in her heart and mind, and resolves to act.

I’m right there with her – and now I’m looking for practical actions. Fortunately, so are many, many others, and more fortunately still, there are people with far more experience and sophistication than I have regarding antiracism whose thoughts I have shared and will continue to share with you this morning. The following is taken directly from an article by commentator Janee Wood titled “12 Things WhitePeople Can Do Now Because of Ferguson.” For the sake of time, I’ve chosen to focus on ten of Woods’ twelve points. Also, for the purpose of today’s sermon, I’d suggest thinking about the following ten points as “Ten Ways to Move Toward the 6^th Principle in Light of Ferguson.” 

One: Learn about the racialized history of Ferguson and how it reflects the racialized history of America.  Michael Brown’s murder is not a social anomaly or statistical outlier. It is the direct product of deadly tensions born from decades of housing discrimination, white flight, intergenerational poverty and racial profiling. The militarized police response to peaceful assembly by the people mirrors what happened in the 1960s during the Civil Rights Movement.

Two: Reject the “He Was a Good Kid” narrative and lift up the “Black Lives Matter” narrative. Michael Brown was a good kid, by accounts of those who knew him during his short life. But that’s not why his death is tragic. His death isn’t tragic because he was a sweet kid on his way to college next week.  His death is tragic because he was a human being and his life mattered. The Good Kid narrative might provoke some sympathy but what it really does is support the lie that as a rule black people, black men in particular, have a norm of violence or criminal behavior. The Good Kid narrative says that this kid didn’t deserve to die because his goodness was the exception to the rule. This is wrong. This kid didn’t deserve to die because he was a human being and black lives matter.

Three: Use words that speak the truth about the disempowerment, oppression, disinvestment and racism that are rampant in our communities.  Be mindful, political and socially aware with your language. Notice how the mainstream news outlets are using words like riot and looting to describe the uprising in Ferguson.  What’s happening is not a riot. The people are protesting and engaging in a justified rebellion. They have a righteous anger and are revolting against the police who have terrorized them for years.

Four: Understand the modern forms of race oppression and slavery and how they are intertwined with policing, the courts and the prison industrial complex.  We don’t enslave black people on the plantation cotton fields anymore. Now we lock them up in for profit prisons at disproportionate rates and for longer sentences for the same crimes than white people. And when they are released, they are second class citizens stripped of voting rights and denied access to housing, employment and education.  Mass incarceration is The New Jim Crow.

Five: Examine the interplay between poverty and racial equity. The twin pillar of racism is economic injustice but do not use class issues to trump race issues and avoid the racism conversation. While racism and class oppression are tangled together in this country, the fact remains that the number one predictor of prosperity and access to opportunity is race.

Six: Diversify your media. Be intentional about looking for and paying close attention to diverse voices of color on the tv, on the internet and on the radio to help shape your awareness, understanding and thinking about political, economic and social issues. Check out Colorlines, The Root or This Week in Blackness to get started.

Seven: Adhere to the philosophy of nonviolence as you resist racism and oppression. Dr. Martin Luther King advocated for nonviolent conflict reconciliation as the primary strategy of the Civil Rights Movement and the charge of His Final Marching Orders.   East Point Peace Academy offers online resources and in person training on nonviolence that is accessible to all people regardless of ability to pay.

Eight: If you are a person of faith, look to your scriptures or holy texts for guidance. Seek out faith based organizations like Sojourners and follow faith leaders that incorporate social justice into their ministry. Ask your clergy person to address antiracism in their sermons and teachings. If you are not a person of faith, learn how the world’s religions view social justice issues so that when you have opportunity to invite people of faith to also become allies, you can talk with them meaningfully about why being a white ally is supported by their spiritual beliefs.

Nine: Be proactive in your own community. We are not limited to being reactionary and only rising up to stand on the side of justice when black people are being subjected to violence very visibly and publicly. Moments of crisis do not need to be the catalyst because taking action against systemic racism is always appropriate because systemic racism permeates nearly every institution and community in this country. Some ideas for action: organize  a community conversation about the state of police-community relations* in your neighborhood, support leaders of color by donating your time or money to their campaigns or causes, ask the local library to host a showing and discussion group about the documentary RACE: The Power of an Illusion, attend workshops to learn how to transform conflict into opportunity for dialogue. Gather together diverse allies that represent the diversity of backgrounds in your community. Antiracism is not a liberals only cause. Antiracism is a movement for all people, whether they be conservative, progressive, rich, poor, urban or rural.

Ten: Don’t give up. We’re 400 years into this racist system and it’s going to take a long, long, long time to dismantle these atrocities. The antiracism movement is a struggle for generations, not simply the hot button issue of the moment. Transformation of a broken system doesn’t happen quickly or easily. You may not see or feel the positive impact of your white allyship in the next month, the next year, the next decade or even your lifetime. But don’t ever stop. Being a white ally matters because your thoughts, deeds and actions will be part of what turns the tide someday. Change starts with the individual.

In closing, I’ll return to our first reading, a reflection on the 6^th principle by the Rev. Sean Parker Dennison. He wrote: “As naïve or impossible as the sixth Principle may seem, I’m not willing to give up on it. In the face of our culture’s apathy and fear, I want to imagine and help create a powerful vision of peace by peaceful means, liberty by liberatory means, justice by just means. I want us to believe—and to live as if we believe—that a world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all is possible. There is no guarantee that we will succeed, but I can assure you that we will improve ourselves and improve the world by trying.”

If we truly believe in the ideal of a world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all, let us leave here today and show, by our words and by our actions, that Black Lives Matter – and let us work for a world in which this sentiment is so innate that it no longer makes sense as a rallying cry.

CAUTION: Road Paved with Good Intentions

This sermon was presented on 7 September, 2014 by Ashley Hummel. Ashley is a Criminal Justice major at the University of Texas Pan-American.

Reading 1: 
In Les Miserables, the convict Jean Valjean spent a night at a bishop’s house. The bishop treated Valjean kindly, but in desperation, in the middle of the night, Valjean stole some silver plates and fled. Suspicious of his behavior, some police arrested him on the road and brought him back to the bishop.

The bishop, however, saw that the real crime was not Valjean’s…

The following is from Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables:

“Ah, there you are!” said he, looking toward Jean Valjean. “I am glad to see you. But I gave you the candlesticks also, which are silver like the rest, and would bring two hundred francs. Why did you not take them along with your plates?”
Jean Valjean opened his eyes and looked at the bishop with an expression which no human tongue could describe.
“Monseigneur,” said the brigadier, “Then what this man said was true? We met him. He was going like a man who was running away, and we arrested him in order to see. He had this silver.”
“And he told you,” interrupted the bishop, with a smile, “that it had been given him by a good old priest with whom he had passed the night. I see it all. And you brought him back here? It is all a mistake.”
“If that is so,” said the brigadier, “we can let him go.”
“Certainly,” replied the bishop.
The gendarmes released Jean Valjean, who shrank back.
“Is it true that they let me go?” he said in a voice almost inarticulate, as if he were speaking in his sleep.
“Yes! You can go. Do you not understand?” said a gendarme.
“My friend,” said the bishop, “before you go away, here are your candlesticks; take them.”
He went to the mantelpiece, took the two candlesticks, and brought them to Jean Valjean…
Jean Valjean was trembling in every limb. He took the two candlesticks mechanically, and with a wild appearance.
“Now,” said the bishop, “go in peace.”
Then, turning to the gendarmes, he said:
“Messieurs, you can retire.” The gendarmes withdrew.
Jean Valjean felt like a man who is just about to faint.
The bishop approached him, and said, in a low voice:
“Forget not, never forget that you promised me to use this silver to become an honest man.”
Jean Valjean, who had no recollection of this promise, stood confounded. The bishop had laid much stress upon these words as he uttered them. He continued, solemnly:
“Jean Valjean, my brother, you belong no longer to evil, but to good. It is your soul I am buying for you. I withdraw it from dark thoughts and from the spirit of perdition, and I give it to God!”

Reading 2:
"It is said that the real reason Justice wears a blindfold is so she doesn't have to see everything that she stands for get pissed on."
-From the HBO series, Dexter

Sermon: CAUTION: Road Paved with Good Intentions

My parents were terrible at explaining things. When I was a child, they warned me, “If you ever see anyone wearing all white, don’t talk to them, and if they try to talk to you or come near you, run away.” You can imagine that made me uncomfortable at weddings. What they should have said is, “We live really close to a prison and sometimes dangerous people escape. They wear all white jump-suits and may try to get into the house to hide.” I learned this years later, when an inmate was found changing clothes in my friend’s laundry room. It really sunk in when I started driving, and passed fields of cotton, with  white-clad working men being guarded by other men with shot-guns and dogs. Before that, prison wasn’t a thing in my awareness. I suppose, as a child, I knew that police got the bad guys, but I didn’t put much thought into what was done with them afterwards.

When I learned about the legal system in school, it was mostly in a context that fit my childhood perception: the police got the bad guys, the bad guys went to jail. Great! My overdeveloped teenage perception of justice was OK with that narrative. And now?

*SIGH*

I began writing this sermon many times. Every time, it broke me. What to say? I started to tell you about the issues, but you know the issues, at least in a general sense. I started to tell you about my own experience with the justice system, why I began to study it, and how everything I learned opened my eyes a little wider, a little wider, until it felt like all that was left of me were two giant, gaping eyeballs, with no head or body at all. I began to tell you how I was horrified, how I struggled with my opinions, with what to do, with how to fix things. How do you fix something so terribly broken? How can we fix this without tearing it down? How can I convince you that a patch here and there does nothing?
I’ve thrown away at least four sermons on this topic.

Then it hit me: most of us, well, maybe not us here, but most of our society seems to accept the good cop/bad criminal narrative. They accept it because the powers-that-be do just what my parents did: they tell us something about what is happening, but it isn’t really what they mean. We accept that good cop/bad criminal has always been the way. We think kings locked bad men in dungeons, and police lock bad men in cells that are much better than dungeons. We think that when this happens, we are safe.  

So I want to tell you a different story. I want to tell you a history—how we came to be here and how good our intentions were.

Of course you know dungeons were mostly a place for political enemies. When the lower classes committed crime, dungeons or jails were just places to hold them until they were punished. Punishment was public and usually humiliating, sometimes painful, sometimes lethal. Sometimes, the punishments didn’t fit the crime. Today we consider most of the old punishments barbaric. In some ways, the severity and swiftness of these punishments was useful. Humiliation is a proven method of affecting behavior, even if it eventually does more harm than good, and a swift punishment which leaves someone alive meant peasants could return to work. If everyone was locked up forever, the feudal lord or colonial municipality would have to feed a person who was not contributing to society, and there would be one less person helping to bring in the harvest or put out a fire. Though barbarically flawed, this system acknowledged that all human beings are members of a community, even after they commit crimes.

The modern prison system is largely influenced by the ideas of 17^th century Quakers , who were appalled by the brutal punishments of the time and, stop me when this sounds familiar, “Believed a part of God’s nature lived within every person.”

In 1682 the Quaker rulers of Pennsylvania passed “The Great Law” which required that crimes be punished by confinement in a so-called house of corrections. In 1718 the English government overrode the Great Law because they thought it was too weak and would lead to a culture of lawlessness. Is it me, or does that sound like those “tough on crime” policies we hear so much about from politicians? Anyway, upon independence, Pennsylvania went back to their Quaker methods because it was believed that orderliness and not brutality would make people morally better. 

Penitentiaries were secular, but spiritual in intent. The idea was to give criminals the space and solitude that was necessary to bring about a spiritual awakening and change of lifestyle. It was to make them penitent. Reformers had a monastic lifestyle in mind and modeled penitentiaries with individual cells, like a cloister, only much more secure. In the first penitentiaries, silence was strictly enforced. Inmates were not allowed to speak to guards or the person who brought their meals. They were brought into the facility with a hood on, so they couldn’t even see anyone. Attempts to communicate resulted in punishment—a common one was dumping ice water on the inmate, even in the middle of winter. Another punishment was being gagged with uncomfortable metal devices; one of which was like a clamp over the tongue.  Aside from these horrifying things, the penitentiary was supposed to be sanitary and peaceful—a contrast to existing lockups, which were just communal cells with a hole in the floor or a bucket to relieve yourself in.

There are some key beliefs that lead to this system:

1.  People who commit crimes will only stop committing crimes if you succeed in making them feel remorse 
2.  Isolation is necessary for remorse because it will block on the negative external influences that lead people to commit crimes
3. The external influences leading people to crime have more to do with their nature or social group than oppressive and inequitable structures in the larger society

Once they (those in power) realized how psychologically damaging complete isolation was, they decided that men could eat and work together, but silence was strictly enforced. They (the powers) quickly realized this method was much more economical, and to my mind, this is the beginning of the prison as an industry. Soon, inmates were being lent out to work. This was great for the prisons, but not so much for the inmates. Since the law only required that they be fed, many prison workers were worked to death.  It didn’t matter, because there were always more prisoners to replace the ones who died. Of course, this has been reformed, and now prison industry is optional, and many inmates can earn eleven whole cents an hour. 

Nothing existed in the way of women’s prisons until the late 1800’s. Prior to this, correctional houses were primarily for the reform of white male criminals. It was believed that women and minorities lacked the moral ability to be reformed by the penitentiary model. They were disregarded and left in the old-style communal cells. Between 1788-1852, about 24,000 women were transported to the colonies, usually for prostitution. They were sold into indentured servitude to pay for their passage or housed in communal dungeons. In order to survive in the dungeon, many of these women resorted to prostitution as a way to bribe the guards. In both the American and Australian colonies, those sold into servitude were often forced into the sex trade. Sometimes women were housed above male penitentiaries, which left them vulnerable to sexual assault from both inmates and guards, as well as unwanted pregnancies and unsanitary birthing conditions, which only added to the psychological devastation of imprisonment.

In 1816 the reformatory movement began—this was well after the penitentiary movement had proven “successful” (which probably means economical). A reformatory was a women’s version of the penitentiary, which taught domestic arts and attempted to reform the criminally minded woman into a suitable housewife or domestic servant. The women were allowed to do needlework and such, but they worked in cubicles that prevented them from seeing or interacting with the other women. This movement lasted until the 1930’s, but some reformatories were in use as late as the 1990’s, and the vocational training programs in women’s prisons today still reflect gender stereotypes, with few exceptions. The biggest difference between a reformatory and the modern women’s prison facility is that we’ve stop caring about whether or not they get better. The women’s prison system today is run the same as the men’s, and nobody cares about why they’re really there, or what they’ll do when they get out. 

It’s worth taking a minute to examine why women typically end up in prison. The majority of offenses women commit are non-violent drug offenses or property crimes. When women commit property crimes, usually petty theft, it is often directly related to family poverty and the need to care for children. And, as you may know, poverty disproportionately affects single mothers. Furthermore, the number of traumatic experiences in a woman’s childhood is directly correlated to their lifetime number of arrests (I believe this to be causal), and traumatic experience, most often child molestation or rape, are most frequently cited by female drug offenders as the reason they began using drugs. All of this is the result of a dysfunctional society, not individuals with a proclivity for sin. So, what are we doing to these women, most of whom have been traumatized by abuse or sexual violence? We’re taking away their autonomy, body autonomy included. We’re strip searching them, controlling all their movements, when they eat, sleep, go outside, see their children. Wow. That sounds a LOT like domestic abuse, and it sounds like no one could ever come out of it “reformed.” What happens in most, if not all cases, is women are re-traumatized by their prison experience.

-----Some things that are wrong: our present system (just like the penitentiary movement) assumes that criminals don’t feel remorse. I would guess that many feel remorse for many things, some of which may not even be crimes. This approach fails to recognize why crimes are committed, and that any one of us could, under the right conditions, commit a crime. We also assume, or we did, that remorse can be forced on someone through a certain set of harsh conditions.  Today, we don’t seem at all concerned with remorse or any sort of moral improvement. So what is our concern? What is our justification for this dehumanizing sort of justice? How can we reasonable expect any improvement on the part of the inmate, when we don’t put forth any effort to help their condition? We can correct income disparity. We can provide mental health care. We can stop contributing to cultures of violence and racism. We can show compassion. We can forgive.

So what do we want from the Justice system, and do we really believe that prisons will get us what we want? Like most revelations, mine happened in the middle of the night. Laying awake and thinking about the recent killing by police, like so many killings before, about this sermon, about how to express to you what I, a survivor of violent crime, want from the system. What I want, what I think we all want, is accountability. When tragedy happens we have to heal, and we can’t heal without accountability. Somebody has to say, “I did this.” Then what? Then we lock them away? Great that you admitted you did that horrible thing, but we don’t care, and we totally hate you now, k-bye. Locking someone up, dehumanizing and forgetting about him, does not heal that person. It does not heal me and it does not heal the community. What’s more, you cannot legislate accountability. It has to come from within. For that to happen, we have to create a culture in which it is ok to confess a mistake. 

I want to do a little exercise here, and it requires us to trust each other. I'm putting a Vegas bubble around the sanctuary: what we find out here stays here. Raise your hand if you have ever broken the law. Keep them raised if you have broken the law not including traffic violations. Keep them raised if you have broken the law not including drug violations. Keep your hand raised if you have committed a felony. (my hand is still up at this time).

*take a moment to sink in*
 
 Let’s face it, we all fall short of moral perfection, and many of us in this room fall short of moral certitude. 
 
In my head, I imagine it like this: the transgressor says, “I did this,” the victim says, “I’m angry with you,” and society says, “How are we going to heal?” I know that’s not enough punishment for people. I know it sounds unrealistic. To quote a friend of mine, “It sounds like a bunch of New Testament hippie shit.” Yeah, it does. But it’s also something we can do. I’m not asking that we turn the other cheek over and over and over again. I’m asking that we activate compassion in our lives and challenge our perception of what is right and what feels right at the time. We need to challenge our perception of what people deserve.

 
To me, our current system is nothing more than institutionalized revenge.  Now, take a moment to think about that, and about everything you already know is wrong with the system, and reflect on the words of Confucius: before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves. We are hurting ourselves. We are hurting our community. We need to stop.