First Parish of Watertown

Sermon – Just Shy

By Mark Caggiano

January 21, 2007

I am here before you today to share a strange and personal secret. This is of course a shameless attempt to keep you interested in the sermon, but I am not above such techniques. And here is that secret -- when I was a boy, I was very shy. Those of you who have gotten to know me a bit, or who have spoken with me for five or more minutes, may find the idea of me as shy to be quite ridiculous. I assure you that it is quite true.

This is not merely an exercise in personal introduction or revelation. To understand how we will live and grow in the future, it is important to learn from the past. When we gather together in church, some of us are looking for lessons to live by, rules to follow, or at least points to ponder. But those lessons are not always out of a book, in the classroom, or from the pulpit. In fact, the best lessons sometimes sneak up on us in songs or stories or in everyday acts of kindness. If we pay close attention, we might learn much about this world of ours.

I am the youngest of four children. My sister was born nine months to the day after my parents were married. I was born two days before their fourth wedding anniversary – yes, that means my mother had one child per year for four years. My siblings and I were essentially in a constant state of warfare, so my mother was essentially in a constant state of disarray. Over the years, we sorted ourselves out into domestic roles. My only sister was the eldest and had many responsibilities helping my mother. Although we all did chores, my sister was saddled with a greater proportion of the domestic ones because she was a girl. My oldest brother was the more dramatic one – not into sports and very interested in music and the theatre. He announced in college that he was gay, and this was tumultuous for the family, but also not a huge surprise in hindsight. The middle brother was the trouble maker. He was an avid hockey player and that sensibility seemed to apply to all aspects of his life. And then there was me. The quiet child -- an advisable survival strategy if you consider my three siblings. Besides simply surviving in a loud and boisterous household, being the quiet one is often very educational. When you are quiet, you are more capable of listening. When you are quiet, you are more open to learning. Most importantly, when you are quiet, people are less likely to notice you are there listening and learning.

There are set times in your life when people try to teach you. We send our children to school to learn the basics, such as reading and writing. Some go to college, ostensibly to train ourselves for the real world. Some even go on to obtain professional degrees of higher distinction. But as we sit in the classrooms listening to lectures, the real lessons of life are often not quite so obvious at first glance. I had a professor in law school who was notoriously hard. He was a strict Socratic Method teacher, which means he would ask students questions rather than sit by waiting for one or two prepared students to participate. To this day, I remember many of the specifics of his course. When you are expected to be prepared, you try to be prepared. I had another teacher who was popular because he was funny and did not expect too much of his students. We laughed together and he would jokingly lecture at us about the material. When the final exam came, we were stunned when the material presented had little to do with the material that was taught in class. The professor had covered a mere fraction of it but it was in the course so we were expected to know it. When you are not expected to be prepared, apparently you still need to be prepared.

Like the proverbial grasshopper who did not prepare for the winter, while his ant neighbors busily put away food for times of scarcity, so too are people expected to be prepared regardless of what preparations were made beforehand. We save money for a rainy day, chop firewood for the depths of winter and can jellies and preserves for when the harvests are a mere memory. But when do were learn how to live a life? What is the schoolhouse for the skills needed to deal with our peers, negotiate through hard times or survive the twists and turns of uncertain fate? Fortunately, and unfortunately, we live everyday in the class room of life. We may not be aware of it, but the lessons of life unfold around us regardless of whether we are paying attention to them. My hard law school professor riveted us to his lessons because we knew we could be tested at any time. The path of our lives may be uncertain, but we can be sure that life will test us at every turn.

Our reading for today was from the writings of Angus McLean, a Universalist minister, academic and teacher. The quote was from a piece entitled the Message is the Method. The message we convey is inextricably embedded in the manner in which it is delivered. This may be completely different from the message we intend to convey. I was acutely aware of this difference growing up. The quiet child has a greater opportunity to observe and to listen to those around him or her. We see the teachers giving their lessons with joy or impatience. We notice when certain children are treated differently. We witness the uneven hand that guides our lessons.

As a child, I helped my father with his volunteer work at our church. He was very busy, and rarely around, so this was the best way to have a greater part in his life. I was also the quiet, dutiful child and would always help my father. When my father helped out in church as an usher, I would go with him to count the collection plate. There was an ancient, cast iron machine that counted the coins and seemed to run by steam engine and the power of prayer. The coins fell into paper rolls and I would pull out and roll up the full ones. Each coin seemed to me a good wish from the parishioners, each one representing a hope that the church would do some act of charity with it. My father did all sorts of things and I would help him whenever I was allowed. I loved him and my church and I thought that neither one could do anything wrong.

Once, during my first year of parochial school, I was called out of the classroom to speak with one of the teachers. The teacher was a nun who was infamous for being harsh to her students. I met her in the empty school cafeteria and she immediately accused me a calling her names behind her back. This was preposterous because I had never even met the woman. More importantly, the expletive laden insults were far beyond my first grade vocabulary. I denied that I had said anything. This nun, this bride of Christ dedicated to the service of others, picked me up by the shirt and slammed me against a concrete support column. At the time, I noticed the column was checkered in dark and light little tiles. Perhaps there was a theological message about the church in that checkering of my experience.

This nun would supposedly teach children about the meaning of the life of Jesus of Nazareth and would personally guide students to church and weekly confession of sins. This seemingly well trained religious educator would then turn around and blindly lash out at a six year old boy, when every lesson she had studied as a nun and as a lifelong Catholic should have told her that this was wrong. Even with an endless stream of cherished religious words pelting us in the pews, and in the convents, it is clear that we might not be learning if we do not listen.

I never told my parents about the incident with the nun. I did not want them to think I had gotten into trouble. I was the good child, the quiet one who listened and was never punished. And this was not the first time. The prior year, in kindergarten, I had been crossing the street outside my uncle’s house and was hit by a car. I had been trying to get some candy I had left in my mother’s station wagon. I did not have permission to cross the street. The man who hit me was lost, and was fortunately driving slowly for that reason. He had been going the wrong way down a one way street. The driver stopped and checked to see if I was okay. I said I was fine and ran back into the house. I was more scared than hurt. But, I did not cry and I did not tell my parents. I did not want to get into trouble for crossing the street.

The years went by. I went to high school and to college. The time was fast approaching when I would actually need to do something with my life. My sister was out of school and worked various jobs, none of which seemed to please my parents. My brother, the dramatic one freshly out of the closet, was still finding himself. He worked in a retail store with a college degree, much to the worry of my mother and father. My troublemaker brother decided to go into the family business. My parents were very pleased.

We oftentimes make decisions in our lives based upon the expectations and needs of others. My parents of course said aloud that I should do what I wanted, what would make me happy. By I knew they did not mean it. They had said the same things to my siblings, but only one brother had met with approval. I was deciding what to do and was choosing between law school and graduate school in psychology, my major. Being a psychologist is not the same as being a doctor, which means it is not as good for a parent to tell at cocktail parties. Besides, the idea of spending the rest of my life sending rats through mazes and fighting for tenure did not appeal to me. I ultimately chose to go to law school. My parents were very proud.

Law school is a fascinating place. The primary goal is not to memorize laws or obscure Latin phrases. Law students are trained to think in a certain way. We mentally dissect whatever is around us. Some look at a box of breakfast cereal and see something to eat. I notice the trademark on the label, the routing information used to track inventory and the warning label suggesting that cereal should not be inserted into one’s ear or dire consequences will certainly follow. But the law is a good and noble profession. Parents are proud as peacocks to tell their friends and relatives about their son or daughter, the lawyer.

Parents notwithstanding, people have mixed feelings about lawyers. There are of course many, many jokes about lawyers. Here is one of my favorites:

A lawyer dies and enters the pearly gates of heaven. He meets Saint Peter who shows him around the hereafter. St. Peter guides the lawyer to his final residence. They pass by house after house and St. Peter mentions the occupants.

“Mother Teresa lives in that little cottage over there, and Gandhi is there in that duplex with Martin Luther King. The apostles are all together over there in that ring of twelve bungalows. Oh, and here is your house.”

The lawyer looked and saw that his house was truly a mansion, with Greek columns, marbles stairs and a solid gold doorway.

The lawyer said to St. Peter, “There must be some mistake. How can I possibly live here while the apostles spend eternity in little bungalows?”

St. Peter responded, “There is a good reason for that. You see, we have twelve apostles, but you are our first lawyer.”

Lawyers often see us at our worst or when we are most vulnerable. We deal with lawyers when we are in trouble or when we are in the midst of a dispute. We are in a car accident, divorcing a spouse, firing an employee, or trying to stay out of jail. Sometimes we go to lawyers to avoid problems, such as when buying a house or renting an apartment, but then we are faced with some uncomfortable truths about those around us. Sellers lie to us. Landlords seem greedy. Lawyers are a means to an end and sometimes those means are not pleasant.

Now, a quiet and shy lawyer is not usually a successful one. During high school, college and even law school, I continued being a quiet observer of the world around me. I learned much about how people interact. Very few people listen to others, they are so busy trying to get a word in edgewise. The conversation becomes more about winning than participation. And the quiet and shy people rarely get anywhere in the conversation, let alone enter it.

I decided, specifically and consciously, that I had been on the sidelines of life for too long. I had sat back observing and thinking, listening and analyzing. I knew much and had done little. As Angus MacLean once said, “Knowledge in and of itself never changed character.” I would make the change through sheer effort. I began to speak up in law school. I would argue points of law. I realized that all that listening and analyzing came in handy when the time came to speak up. The idea that I would end up speaking in public for a living is somewhat like expecting someone with a fear of spiders to take up tarantula juggling. But here I am.

The message of one’s life is the method by which we live it. Good intentions alone are stillborn action. I had spent most of my life as a theoretical person, living in the shadows like an anthropologist studying the culture around me but not participating. A perceptive teacher once chided me for having low expectations about the commitments of other people to making a difference in the world. She told me for example that I was strident about social action and social service, but I seemed to expect that others would not live up to my expectations. As I was writing this sermon, I came to understand that my eagerness to serve and my sometimes pushiness to get things done comes from having spent so much time on the sidelines. I do not have low expectations as much as I know what it means to stand by and watch the world pass by. It is easy to do and it is impossible to go back.

I also have come to understand why I have sought to move away from practicing law. Lawyers are instruments of action, but in the hands of others. We prepare the plan of battle and go off to war for our clients, but the cause is not our own. We are helping others achieve their ends and these goals are often directly opposed to the wishes of others. My day-to-day job as a lawyer is legitimate and lawful but it is not always pleasant or even good. As I have mentioned, the message is the method, but what happens when the method makes you uncomfortable? What happens when a client asks you to evict a single mother the week of Thanksgiving? What happens when a client explains to you that the result of your work will be the firing of dozens of unskilled workers unlikely to find new jobs? What happens when you know you can win, even when you shouldn’t? If the message is the method, even someone else’s message, you can feel like a jerk.

So I decided to go to Divinity School to become a minister. My poor Catholic father may not understand, but his example made me want to do it. The Catholic Church has a few centuries of problems to sort through, but rank and file Catholics are generally good people and many volunteer to help their fellow human beings. That is a good message and a great method. As those coins filled up the rolls on the counting machine in the church office, I was filled with a sense of progress. Each coin was an act of kindness and charity to bring to the world. A handful of coins cannot change the world, but the desire to give those coins certainly can.

When you assess a person, you should examine what he or she does and then perhaps consider what he or she says. I am at a loss to explain how you assess a person that says and does nothing. I decided to become more outgoing in the world to be a part of it. I decided to go to Divinity School because it was time for my internal hopes and desires, or my silent message, to be lived out in the world through the method of my life. My years as a shy and quiet boy gave me the skill to watch the world and the sensitivity to understand the changes around me. But I came to understand that I was a mere spectator in my life. People were around me acting on their impulses and desires, for good and for ill. The shy and the quiet can tell us much about the world, if only they would speak. Once again, I did not want to get into trouble. Rather than tell my parents about other people’s wrongdoing, I kept silent. Rather than cause friction with clients, I quietly did my work evicting and firing and being a jerk.

My personal example is an unusual case of a quiet and shy person overcoming discomfort to engage more fully with the world. When we let life pass us by out of fear of trouble or a desire not to get involved, we will reap the obvious reward – nothing begets nothing. We also live in a world were there are many things going wrong. I could rattle off a depressing litany of tragedies and troubles. Some of these problems arise in places far away and involve forces beyond the resources of most women and men. Some are closer to home and can be addressed by regular people living regular lives. Even the big picture could use a little fine tuning by dedicated persons willing to raise a ruckus. However, many sit by shyly and quietly as the globe warms, the Middle East burns and our nation’s economy buckles under the weight of foolish decisions past and present. We may not think about it as being shy and quiet, but it looks the same.

As a denomination, Unitarian Universalists are generally people of action. We do more things than we dwell on things. We reach more than we recoil. But even we are a bit too shy about it all. In my home community, I know that when a town or regional problem comes up, my fellows UUs will be there organizing. And I know they are UUs, but many do not. I know they are committed to the principles of Unitarian Universalism, but most do not. I know that there is a community of active people working to give life the shape of justice, but others do not.

One church member brought up the idea of advertising our good works within the wider community – we all got stuck on the word “advertising” before we got to the end of his sentence. Long-time UUs were horrified at the idea of advertising. It smacked of bragging, of showing off, or God forbid, of proselytizing. I must admit that such words stick in my throat. However, being a shy person by nature, I understand that just because words are not naturally forthcoming does not make them wrong. The good thing about such reluctance is that UUs are sensitive to the issue. Like a shy person, we are good listeners. We analyze and reflect, but then we roll up our sleeves. Our message of social justice is embedded in our method of outreach into the world. We are just shy about sharing the message of these good works. Like the shy person, we need to understand that a muted message limits our ability to have an effect on the wider world. I would never suggest that we show off, but I think it may be time for us to invest in a larger soap box.

Some UUs will be reluctant to pursue a more public path. This will make waves. This will mark us as trouble makers. This will place a strain on peaceful community relations. We might be shy about raising our voices a bit too loudly. But if we do not act, who will? How will we teach our children, our members or our neighbors if we are too shy to make ourselves and our ways know? If our message is to bring about change, what other method makes sense? Angus McLean once said that the Kingdom of love arrives in the act of love, the reign of justice in the act of justice, the joy of freedom in the exercise of freedom. These actions cause the gifts of love, justice and freedom to exist in the world. The words alone are mere faint echoes. Love is not solitary, justice is not automatic and freedom is not cheap. Each requires us to be out among our fellow life travelers. Each may make us uncomfortable or even get us into trouble.

Not everyone will appreciate who we love, but we must love them notwithstanding the disapproval and prejudices of those that might stop us. Love has a way of making itself know, and love denied has a way of making us miserable. Not everyone desires justice in the world, for why would the haves readily give to the have-nots? They worked hard for what they have, not that inheritance, racial disparities, class stratification or centuries of accumulated wealth have any painfully obvious bearing upon the matter. And not everyone wants us to be free, for if we are free, we will ask annoying questions about their bad policies, bad decisions and bad actions. Better to distract us with color coded emergencies and nightmares from far away lands.

I spent the large part of a life watching this all transpire without uttering a word in protest or lifting a hand to make a difference. I spent some of those years unconsciously but actively making things worse. When I call upon others to rise up and act, please know that it is not a sign of moral superiority but an act of contrition. I have lost too much time in this life to observation and reflection. Both are good, but neither is enough. I think back to the coins clinking in the machine, building up and up even in their small amounts. Each act of kindness, each good word spoken, each open hand raised in friendship builds and builds in our communities, in our families and in our hearts. At some point we will be filled with this positive energy and will go forth to make use of it in the world. We need only overcome our shyness and break the deafening silence. This is not showing off, it is showing up. Please come join me in making some noise.

Amen.


Just Shy
By Mark Caggiano

Sitting alone at the margins
Watching other people talk and laugh
Live and love
Following their stories
Dreaming their lives
A white river rages past
And me?
Alone on the bank, dry and untried
Living a life by the eyedropper
An almost life

When to get up and run?
Later
When to tell a joke or break a sweat?
Later
When to risk, when to rise, when to roam
Later, later, later
Later bleeds us like leeches
Later leaves us lonely
Later for later
Now for now.

Time to eat a peach
Time to climb the tree
Time to swing from the branches
Time to howl at the moon
Time to be

“Telling the Truth” Mark W. Harris

First Parish of Watertown - January 14, 2007

Opening Words - from “Walking” by Henry David Thoreau

I have met with but one or two persons in the course of my life who understood the art of Walking, that is of taking walks, -- who had a genius, so to speak for sauntering, which word is beautifully derived “from the people who roved about the country, in the Middle Ages, and asked charity under the pretense of going a la Sainte Terre, to the Holy Land . . . The children, exclaimed, “There goes a “Sainte-Terrer,” a saunterer, a Holy Lander. Some would derive the word from sans terre, without land or a home, which means having no particular home but equally at home everywhere. For this is the secret of successful sauntering. The saunterer, in the good sense, is no more vagrant than the meandering river, which is all the while seeking the shortest course to the sea. But I prefer the first meaning, which is the most probable. For every walk is a sort of crusade, preached by some Peter the Hermit in us, to go forth and reconquer this Holy Land from the hands of the Infidels.

Reading - from The Places in Between by Rory Stewart  

I watched two men enter the lobby of the Hotel Mowafaq.  
           Most Afghans seemed to glide up the center of the lobby staircase with their shawls trailing behind them like Venetian cloaks. But these men wore Western jackets, walked quietly, and stayed close to the banister. I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was the hotel manager.
 
           “Follow them.” He had never spoken to me before.
 
           “I’m sorry, no,” I said. “I am busy.”
 
           “Now. They are from the government.”
 
           I followed him to a room on a floor I didn’t know existed and he told me to take off my shoes and enter alone in my socks. The two men were seated on a heavy blackwood sofa, beside an aluminum spittoon. They were still wearing their shoes. I smiled. They did not. The lace curtains were drawn and there was no electricity in the city; the room was dark.
             “Chi kar mikonid?” (What are you doing?) asked the man in the black suit and collarless Iranian shirt. I expected him to stand and, in the normal way, shake hands and wish me peace. He remained seated.
             “Salaam aleikum” (Peace be with you), I said, and sat down.
 
           “Waleikum a - salaam. Chi kar mikonid?” he repeated quietly, leaning back and running his fat manicured hand along the purple velveteen arm of the sofa. His bouffant hair and goatee were neatly trimmed. I was conscious of not having shaved in eight weeks.
 
           “I have explained what I am doing many times to His Excellency, Yuzufi, in the Foreign Ministry,” I said. “I was told to meet him again now. I am late.”
 
           A pulse was beating strongly in my neck. I tried to breathe slowly. Neither of us spoke. After a little while, I looked away.
 
           The thinner man drew out a small new radio, said something into it, and straightened his stiff jacket over his traditional shirt. I didn’t need to see the shoulder holster. I had already guessed they were members of the Security Service. They did not care what I said or what I thought of them. They had watched people through hidden cameras in bedrooms, in torture cells, and on execution grounds. They knew that, however I presented myself, I could be reduced. But why had they decided to question me? In the silence, I heard a car reversing in the courtyard and then the first notes of the call to prayer.
 
           “Let’s go,” said the man in the black suit. He told me to walk in front. On the stairs, I passed a waiter to whom I had spoken. He turned away. I was led to a small Japanese car parked on the dirt forecourt. The car’s paint job was new and it had been washed recently. They told me to sit in the back. There was nothing in the pockets or on the floorboards. It looked as though the car had just come from the factory. Without saying anything, they turned onto the main boulevard.

             It was January 2002. The American - led coalition was ending its bombardment of the Tora Bora complex; Osama Bin Laden and Mullah Mohammed Omar had escaped; operations in Gardez were beginning. The new government taking over from the Taliban had been in place for two weeks. The laws banning television and female education had been dropped; political prisoners had been released; refugees were returning home; some women were coming out without veils. The UN and the U.S. military were running the basic infrastructure and food supplies. There was no frontier guard and I had entered the country without a visa. The Afghan government seemed to me hardly to exist. Yet these men were apparently well established.

             The car turned into the Foreign Ministry, and the gate guards saluted and stood back. As I climbed the stairs, I felt that I was moving unnaturally quickly and that the men had noticed this. A secretary showed us into Mr. Yuzufi’s office without knocking. For a moment Yuzufi stared at us from behind his desk. Then he stood, straightened his baggy pin - striped jacket, and showed the men to the most senior position in the room. They walked slowly on the linoleum flooring, looking at the furniture Yuzufi had managed to assemble since he had inherited an empty office: the splintered desk, the four mismatched filing cabinets in different shades of olive green, and the stove, which made the room smell strongly of gasoline.
 
           The week I had known Yuzufi comprised half his career in the Foreign Ministry. A fortnight earlier he had been in Pakistan. The day before he had given me tea and a boiled sweet, told me he admired my journey, laughed at a photograph of my father in a kilt, and discussed Persian poetry. This time he did not greet me but instead sat in a chair facing me and asked, “What has happened?”
 
           Before I could reply, the man with the goatee cut in. “What is this foreigner doing here?”
 
           “These men are from the Security Service,” said Yuzufi.
 
           I nodded. I noticed that Yuzufi had clasped his hands together and that his hands, like mine, were trembling slightly.
 
           “I will translate to make sure you understand what they are asking,” continued Yuzufi. “Tell them your intentions. Exactly as you told ˇme.”
 
           I looked into the eyes of the man on my left. “I am planning to walk across Afghanistan. From Herat to Kabul. On foot.” I was not breathing deeply enough to complete my phrases. I was surprised they didn’t interrupt. “I am following in the footsteps of Babur, the first emperor of Mughal India. I want to get away from the roads. Journalists, aid workers, and tourists mostly travel by car, but I—”
 
           “There are no tourists,” said the man in the stiff jacket, who had not yet spoken. “You are the first tourist in Afghanistan. It is midˇwinter—there are three meters of snow on the high passes, there are wolves, and this is a war. You will die, I can guarantee. Do you want to ˇdie?”
 
           “Thank you very much for your advice. I note those three points.” I guessed from his tone that such advice was intended as an order. “But I have spoken to the Cabinet,” I said, misrepresenting a brief meeting with the young secretary to the Minister of Social Welfare. “I must do this journey.”

     
Sermon


Some weeks ago my entire family walked to the mall. It is in reality not a very far walk, and does not take all that long to get there. But who walks to the mall? It is, for one, not a very attractive thoroughfare if you go sauntering down Arsenal Street. Second, out of habit and convenience, we almost always drive there. For good or ill, my boys make a lot of requests to visit the mall. There are stores that sell two of their favorites items - video games and Yu-gi-oh cards. The trade off this particular day was that in exchange for the privilege of spending their saved up funds, they had to get some exercise. After some protesting we proceeded to take a somewhat circuitous route to the mall. We try to walk as much as we can, as the size of this community, in our minds, promotes walking. We walk to church, to the library, the Comic Stop, the park and to school, and I try to walk on the Charles River Walkway as often as I can, but usually not often enough. What was enlightening about the walk to the mall is that, because, we usually drive this route rather than walk it, we usually do not notice so much of our surroundings. When you walk, rather than speed by to your destination, you see houses and gardens, litter and neglect, faces and, sometimes even hear a friendly hello. You get to know a place and its people better by walking through it, by seeing and experiencing everything- sites, sounds and smells
The power of walking through a place is evident in the book, The Places in Between by Rory Stewart. Stewart, a Scotsman, decided to walk across Afghanistan in 2002 only a few months after the Taliban were deposed. It was the last leg of a two year journey across Asia. Attempting to follow in the footsteps of a 15th century Mughal emperor, Babur, Stewart helps us see the country in all its detail - a country torn by the effects of years of war, isolated and forgotten, an observation true of both the people and the landscape. This kind of walk allows us to see how the powers of close observation provide the truth about an experience like no other, when you are slowly walking through it. So he treks through snow covered mountain passes, villages sacked and burned by the Taliban, and shares meals with villagers and sleeps on their floors. The reading reminds us of the simple truths he wishes to unearth by the experience of walking the country. He is met with suspicion and fear, and told he will die. He can only conclude, “I must do this journey.” Stewart undertakes this journey without fear, simply to see the truth about the land, and he comes to understand much more of its traditions and people by walking into their lives, rather than passing their lives by, as a typical tourist might do in a car.
The relationship between walking and seeing or living the truth is evident in the celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day tomorrow. When we take part in a march to protest an injustice, we walk through a town, and say to all the residents, “this is what I believe is the truth about this issue.” With Dr. King we may recall the March from Selma to Montgomery, the March on Washington, or even his final days in Memphis when he was bearing witness to the truth that there were economic injustices in the lives of garbage collectors. He marched; he walked to tell people the truth. We must look at these things he would say. We must see the truth of past harms - see the effects of history. We must see the truth and recognize it, before a wrong can righted, or we experience reconciliation with someone who has caused us harm.
Many of you know that I am an avid baseball fan. This year I had what was for was me something like an epiphany, but it may seem self-evident to you. Baseball, as you probably remember existed with two separate professional leagues until 1947. There were the Major Leagues (American and National) where white players played, and the Negro leagues, where African -Americans participated. In 1947, Branch Rickey, an executive with the Brooklyn Dodgers, signed Jackie Robinson to become baseball’s first black player. This event has been celebrated ever since as a major historical achievement whereby the color line in America’s pastime was broken, and a measure of equality was achieved, when black players were signed to play on an equal footing with whites. What we sometimes fail to recognize about this achievement is that it occurred a full seven years before Brown vs. Board of Education. In many ways it could be argued that the appearance of Jackie Robinson on a major league field prefigured and helped pave the way for the work of Dr. King to battle the racial injustices in our society. He made civil rights a popular issue.
The epiphany has to do, not with what was gained by Robinson donning the Dodgers uniform, but by what was lost. The truth that I saw for the first time was that signing Robinson to play in the Majors signaled the beginning of the end for the Negro Leagues. We might say that it was wonderful that this vestige of racial hatred and prejudice no longer would exist. Black players would no longer be subject to such humiliating policies as separate teams or facilities. But, in practice, that was hardly true. Curt Flood was traded from Cincinnati so that their entire outfield would not be black players. He also experienced this hatred when his uniform was thrown in with the dirty uniforms of his white teammates, and the horrified trainer removed it with a stick. The bigotry of players and fans and sportscasters alike was seen and still can be seen today. So the black players could play with the whites, but the black owned, black managed, black empowered Negro leagues was no more. Integration of baseball meant that black players could now play for white owners, under white managers, and before white fans who increasingly paid more and more, so that today especially it no longer represents the kind of game a working person can afford to go to. We only know structures which sustain whiteness, and therefore our understanding of the world becomes normative. Now that baseball operates with such material greed and profit, and players are no longer thought of as moral exemplars, perhaps the meaning there is lost on us.
This is not to discredit the tremendous importance of giving black players an equal opportunity to play on equal terms with whites. Justice demanded it, but we also need to see the truth in what was lost in power and control. It is why black people might not want to jon white churches. Equality comes on our terms. That truth should not be lost on us. The other truth about the integration of baseball is that Robinson was a believer in civil disobedience. When Robinson met with Branch Rickey, Rickey had him read about Christian nonresistance, prompting Robinson to remark, “I’ve got two cheeks. That’s It?” He learned he could respond to violence in three ways. He could seek revenge, he could run away, or he could stay and turn the other cheek. One could make the cycle of violence worse, the second would make the attacker even bolder, and the third says, I will stand against you with the truth of my life. I will not be beaten by your lies and prejudice. The walk, as you know, is a crucial part of the game of baseball. Sometimes a player walks to first after four intentional balls because the opposing pitcher is afraid to pitch to you. But a walk can be seen, as I learned as a kid, to be as good as a hit. Robinson walked against the cycle of violence, and said with his life, I deserve to be here.
Living the truth made him an agent of social change.
Robinson taught us the truth that everyone deserves an equal chance in his/her life, for career and educational opportunities. What will happen to this equality of opportunity now that affirmative action has fallen? Long before Jackie Robinson and Brown vs. Board of Education there was a group of free blacks in Boston who struggled to give an equal education opportunity to an African American girl named Sarah Roberts, and her story is told in the book Sarah’s Long Walk by Steve Kendrick, the minister of First Church Boston, and his son Paul. This was America’s first school desegregation case in pre-Civil War America, and it was based on a long walk that Sarah had to take every day. She had to walk from her home near the docks in Boston’s North End to Beacon Hill, then the Black neighborhood, past five white schools to attend a poor and densely crowded black school. She had been denied admission to all of these white schools, and this moved her father to sue the city on her behalf. The long walk Sarah had to take replicated a walk her father remembered from his childhood. He remembered how the schools were segregated then as well. He had to go to a different school from his white peers. Like Sarah, he recalled passing several white schools, and the students at those schools looked upon him as unworthy of being instructed with them. They were he recalled, “inferiors and outcasts.”. His daughter was seen as inferior in her day, too. Every day on their walks father and daughter could see the truth of prejudice and bigotry. The truth was there to be seen, and can still be seen in Boston’s segregated schools.
Seeing the truth of their lives did not change things. They lost the case, and in fact, the court judge created the idea of separate but equal for the first time. Sarah’s father had tried numerous times to place her in one of those white schools, which were closer to their home, but the school committee was determined to maintain the system of segregation, and they either refused to give her the required admission ticket, or, when she did gain admission, she was removed by a police officer. But her father continued to fight. At one point their lawyer, Robert Morris initiated a boycott of the Smith School, and said that was the way, they should always act. Finally, the Fugitive Slave Law moved him to speak that they would gather in mass, hundreds strong, where the slave was held, and not let him be taken away. “Let us be bold,” he said, “and they’ll have to yield to us.” From the Sarah Roberts case to Jackie Robinson, people spoke the truth about justice, and refused to let society hide from the truth. The long walk with its daily reminders of prejudice and inequality of opportunity, helped them and us all to see the need to stand up for the truth, that we might be bold in defending it.
The cover story of the Atlantic this month is, “Why Presidents Lie.” There is a World War II history lesson in the retelling of the lie that was perpetrated when FDR was fatally ill, but in the interest of national security, it was made to appear that he was perfectly healthy. Presidential lying to protect national security is not a new thing. Churchill underscored this when he said that in wartime, “truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.” The article says the people have to judge whether the President is lying now for his own good or that of the country. Many people believe that George Bush deliberately lied about Iraq in order to plunge us into war. Perhaps the more pertinent question is whether he was able then or now to discern the truth. Can he tell what the truth actually is?
Many of us have this problem of telling what the truth is. Do we lie to ourselves because we are in denial, and cannot face up to the truth? If a job or a relationship is in jeopardy, the pain of admitting the truth about its failings may be more than we can bear. We may say , this can’t be happening, and we go on believing that it will just go away. When Bush was campaigning, he told the American public that we needed someone in office who would tell the truth. Do you suppose he deliberately lied about weapons, and is he lying now when he states that 21,000 more troops will turn the tide? More likely these instances are simply wishful thinking. He wants them to be true, and has convinced himself that they are true. One writer who has written about Bush’s lies tells us that even if he were presented with the facts which are at odds with his reality, he would still pass a polygraph test. People who are good liars are scary because they can come up with an alternative truth in a flash, and seem convinced that their truth, which upholds their position, is reality. Bob Woodward has written that Bush is in a state of denial. Bush apparently has come to believe that what he hopes is true . . . is true. This is the time when you need to face the truth, and also know how hard it is to do so. Of course substituting wishful thinking for the reality of the truth makes it impossible for you to face the truth. Whether it is the president in denial about his policies, or one of us unable to face a failing job or relationship, we need to realize that we all have truths to discover and to tell.
The failure to see the truth in Iraq means we have a President who is lying to himself. We must see the truth in our lives, and act to live out that truth. Whatever the issue that keeps our conscience up at night, we must face the truth of its grim injustice or pain or lie, and do something about facing the truth Like the old saying, we must learn to walk the walk, not just talk the talk. How often do we complain about an issue, but fail to actually address it as a problem to be solved? Instead of complaining to our friends, what if we spoke the truth to the offending parties? Yes, we say, “I know that’s true, but I just can’t get up the courage to do or say anything about it” So we may ignore or shelve the problem and not really face it. When we face the truth, we decide in our hearts that we are actually going to do something about it. Last week I spoke about the number of issues that were not discussed in this town. The Food Pantry operates for instance, out of the Council on Aging budget. The facts seems to be that we are prepared to help older people in need, but there is a state of denial when it comes to acknowledging that anyone under sixty might need assistance. We don’t talk about them, and therefore they do not exist. Telling the truth is the only way we will come to understand a problem or face an injustice. This is the lesson of Dr. King.
This past week there was an article in the Globe about people living with Asperger’s syndrome. Asperger’s is on the autism spectrum, and usually effects a person by making it difficult for them to have social relations; they experience sensory problems, and have trouble distinguishing global issues from minor ones. It often takes parents a long time to admit the truth that they have children with these kinds of needs. The article tells of a young woman who has difficulty functioning in society. As a result she walks mile after mile to calm her mind and body. She says it is a way of becoming herself again. On these walks she focuses on small things, such as tree bark, and she can relax and separate herself from an overwhelming world. Her walking helps her become herself again. I feel this way, too. When I walk I truly see the truths of the world. Denying the truth, or hiding from it, means we occupy the land of what Thoreau called, the infidels. Walking the pathway of truth allows us to take the land of truth, the holy land, back. We all need to walk without fear, and face up to the truths we may deny in our lives. We reach the point where we don’t want to do something anymore, or we know that something needs to change. In his poem, “The Waking,” Theodore Roethke wrote that he learns by going where he has to go. The truths that we deny must come out. Roethke says, “I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.” The truth is a fearful thing, but walking together we can face it together, and learn to live into it. May we be steady walkers and searchers for truth.



Closing Words - “The Waking” by Theodore Roethke

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.

We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.

Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me; so take the lively air,
And lovely, learn by going where to go.

This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and taking my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.

Sermon - “The Universalist Balm” Mark W. Harris

First Parish of Watertown - January 7, 2007


Opening Words - from Nothing Personal by James Baldwin

For nothing is fixed, forever and forever and forever, it is not fixed; the
earth is always shifting, the light is always changing, the sea does not
cease to grind down rock. Generations do not cease to be born, and we are
responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have. The sea
rises, the light falls, lovers cling to each other, and children cling to
us. The moment we cease to hold each other, the moment we break faith with
one another, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out.

Sermon - “The Universalist Balm”

Once upon a time in a small village in Poland, there lived a very
wise rabbi. He was well loved and everyone in the village came to see him
to tell him their problems. Each one would claim that they were much worse
off than their neighbors. They were always asking, “Why do I have to suffer
so? Why doesn’t she have the lazy husband or the aching bones? Why don’t
their grown children come home to live with them, or why don’t I have as
much money as them? Finally, the rabbi got tired of hearing how bad they
all had it compared to their neighbors. One day he declared, “There will be
a brand new holiday celebrated. I want all of you to bring all your
troubles and sorrows to the village square. Please clearly write down what
those troubles are, and put them in a bag with your name on it. We will hang
the bags from the tree in the center of the square. Everyone will then be
allowed to exchange troubles and go home with those of your neighbor rather
than your own.” Thus the “Tree of Troubles” was created.
The people became very excited. Imagine how much easier their lives
would be from now on. They all thought they had it so bad. When the day for
the new holiday arrived, they all gathered under the tree with their bags in
their hands. They tied them loosely to the low branches of the tree so that
everyone could inspect others. “Now,” said the rabbi, “please move about
inspecting the bags. You may choose someone else’s troubles to take them
home, and thus, you will be free of your problems.” So the people rushed to
the tree and began to peer into the bags - around and around they went.
They began to see what others lives were really like. What do you suppose
they saw? (fighting with brothers all the time, bad back) Do I want that?
Finally after going around, the people felt both foolish and wiser. They
found their own bags, and walked home. The rabbi smiled. It was just as he
had hoped. The villagers saw the true troubles and sorrows of others, and
decided to keep their own. Even if their life seemed tough sometimes, it
was their life, and they were familiar with it.
I thought of this story from the Jewish tradition the other day when
I was speaking with our state representative Rachel Kaprelian. I had not
watched much of the inaugural festivities for Deval Patrick, but Rachel was
there in person, and she commented on the rabbi who gave the benediction
for the proceedings. Apparently he gave a long litany of struggles that
various people have endured. I remember Rachel specifying two: mental
illness and gay and lesbian issues, but the list from any street in
Watertown, from this church, from a row of people at the inaugural would be
our own version of the tree of troubles. For the two issues she mentioned,
there are political ramifications like funding for mental health programs or
the campaign to ensure that marriage equality remains the law in the
Commonwealth. There are personal ramifications, too, like struggling with
stigmas and judgments by people, or rejection by family members. And these
are only two of countless situations that any one of us will find ourselves
in during the course of our lifetimes. It might include tragic illness or
accident or bad timing or choices. Many of us feel the hardship of seeing
a parent suffer from a fall. We worry about our own health as we deal with
a chronic pain. Or our anxiety level is heightened by our fears over our
child’s developmental delays. Many serious, personal concerns fill our
days. I suspect the point the rabbi was making was that we are all, in one
way or another, sooner or later, touched by some human tragedy or trauma.
The realization that we are all touched by tragedy should be a
universal feeling that we deserve, each of us, more compassion and
understanding from our fellow travelers on this planet. But we have also
lived through a time where it feels like many of these tragedies have not
been acknowledged or named for the personal trauma that they have caused.
The loss of life from the streets of Baghdad to the streets of Boston makes
us feel hopeless and helpless. I have observed an undercurrent of despair
here at church at times during joys and sorrows, or in readings you have
shared. What words can we use to describe what we feel in response to these
tragedies? How can we support one another to understand what has happened,
and how might we begin to repair some of the wounds in the human fabric? We
have to name our fear that marriage equality might be taken away. We have
to name that fear that mental illness is present, and that it is not the
fault of the person who has it. In a discussion the other night at the
World in Watertown meeting, it became clear that those who suffer from
economic crises, or who have fallen through the cracks, are not seen or
named by many who could respond to their plight. Sometimes it is because we
are afraid to name that a problem or issue exists here in this town, or in
our family.
I have found some parallels to our own times in the historical saga
of a woman who was born Eunice Richardson. Eunice was a real person whose
story has been brought to life by historian Martha Hodes in the book The Sea
Captain's Wife. What I found especially moving about this book was that it
is about a regular person, a historical figure who is not famous. Beyond
that is the amazing life of tragedy and courage that she lived, and the
Universalist faith which helped her persevere and find hope. The bare
outlines of the story are incredibly tragic. In her star crossed life she
was witness to war, as she lived during the Civil War. After moving from
Manchester, New Hampshire to Mobile, Alabama, to find work, she and her
husband found themselves residents of a seceding state, and once hostilities
broke out, he joined the Confederate army. In the meantime, back North, two
of her brothers enlisted, sporting new uniforms of Union blue, while her
husband wore enemy gray. Rather than live in a alien society during the
war, she moved back north with her two children, a boy and a girl. During
the conflict she learned that her husband had been killed, as well as one of
her brothers.
After the war, she was witness to prejudice. At some point, a
successful black sea captain had met her, either when she lived in Mobile,
which was a frequent port-of-call, or perhaps in the North. After the war
their romance blossomed, and she married him, and returned to the Grand
Cayman Islands, where eventually he built a large plantation type house for
the family. This was the one time in her life where she experienced
happiness. She reported in her letters back home to her mother and others
that her new husband, “does everything for me a man can do.” What you are
most anxious about, she told her mother, I must be most particular in
speaking of, ie. my happiness. Eunice was torn because the cord of
affection and love she felt for her husband Smiley Connolly, and the family
she had left at home. The result was that she would never see the family
again, and moreover, often did not hear from them. This was especially true
of the brother who survived the war, and disowned her because she married a
black man. Eventually it was the loss of communication that caused her
mental distress. She did not hear from those she left behind. She went on
to say that not hearing from them meant she “did not know how they were
feeling toward me and mine.” This feeling of loss of her family was
exacerbated by her son’s Clarence depression over being so far from home.
She wrote, “He has got to get used to disappointments in life if he lives.”
Tragically, he did not live, since he succumbed to smallpox in 1872. Then,
even worse, the entire family was killed when a ship they were sailing on
was engulfed by a hurricane.
One of the tragic things for Eunice was how she was frequently
separated from those she loved. Part of the reason for this was that for
nearly her entire life, she had fallen victim to economic and social
devastation and isolation. When she was a teenager her father had deserted
the family, and so she married young, and then went to work in the Amoskeag
mills. The family barely scrapped by, and that was the motivating factor
for moving south. Once she moved back north as a single parent, she was
often so poor that she had to board her children with family members or
others, and then as our reading showed, she suffered from mental illness, as
a result of a complete breakdown from grief and isolation, poverty and loss.
The response to every situation included the rejoinder, “and if I live.” Her
work often consisted of poorly paying and socially menial jobs such as
sewing or washing clothes for people. All of these multiple tragedies and
traumas afflicted her in one way or another throughout her life. With
Eunice and the extreme examples of tragedy, we can easily grasp the kind of
comfort or healing we sometimes try to gain by comparing our own tragedy
with that of another, such as the feeling that my trauma is not as bad as
hers, and therefore I can survive. We take our bag from the tree of
troubles and are happy to claim it, as being better than this other mess.
Comfort by comparison though, may not draw us any closer to the other person
or an understanding of our own difficulty, if we just want to say, Thank
God, that is not me. What we really want is a way to finding enduring
comfort for the issues we must deal with, a balm that begins a healing of
the wounds.
During this tragic sojourn one of the most difficult things for Eunice
to give up when she first went South was the Universalist church community
she had joined in Manchester. What was it about our liberal faith that
helped her endure these multiple tragic events in her life? What was the
balm in her Gilead? The Biblical balm of Gilead was that special resin that
came from a tree that grew in the Transjordan region where Gilead was
located. This was the place you went to find the famous medicinal salve,
and caravan routes passed through to procure it. What was this one thing
that could cure? I am sure Eunice Richardson asked this same question, as
hope after hope of finding a regular income, creating a home, not losing
those she loved, and not being isolated were all dashed again and again.
What was it about Universalism that gave her this balm?
Usually we would not associate liberal religion with offering a healing
salve from pain. for one thing it may not seem to promise traditional
comforts. The God of Universalism does not give you special protection
against the tragedies of life. This God of love, even in Eunice’s day
wanted people to be happy, but did not reward certain special people with
happiness and the avoidance of tragedy. Tragic events as Eunice came to
realize were not a result of bad choices she had made, but rather
combinations of unfortunate occurrences that even today we would classify as
biological or circumstantial rather than determined by willful choice.
Somehow Eunice knew that this God did not prevent tragedy, but what this God
did do was teach her not to live in fear.
In its earliest days Universalism taught that fearing God and the evil
God could do to you if you did not fear him, destroyed your ability to live
with hope that things could be better, or that you could make courageous
decisions in your life to stand up for yourself or what you believed. Your
difficulties do not mean that God is punishing you. As founder John Murray
proclaimed, “Give them not hell, but hope and courage.” And so having a
faith that meant she did not live in fear allowed Eunice to do two things.
Even as she was destroyed economically, lost a husband, and foundered in the
melancholy of depression, she still believed she could find the man she
would love with all her heart, and create the home she had always dreamed
of. This hope, in her case, proved true. Here was the love of her life.
Salvation is waiting for all because love is available to all.
This hope also gave her the courage to go after decisions that would
change her life for the better. Her willingness to go South, go back North,
and finally marry a man from a completely different culture, knowing she
might be shunned, showed that her faith asked her to live with both hope and
courage always, and not in fear of being judged or in fear of making a
decision that others would criticize. Her faith gave her the balm to live
with hope and courage. If Universalism gave her the hope that she would
know God’s love in the end, it was also clear that this was a faith where
you did not wait for God to help you. If God wants you to be happy, and
wants everyone to be happy, then you must act to find this. And so Eunice
gained the courage from her faith to keep believing that she would find
love. There is comfort to be found in the universe. When she found this
love, her courage enabled her to defy the conventions of her society, even
the shunning of her family whom she loved, so that she was willing to marry
a black man. Her Universalism which taught that God loves all, and condemns
none means you should be free to love whom you love, no matter who they are.
All are equal in the eyes of God, and so the balm is that your faith teaches
you that it does not matter who society’s conventions or family says you can
love, they are speaking from fear, they are condemning out of fear, and not
from love.
That is why there was hope in the state this week. We heard a message
which told us we are not going to live in this culture of fear anymore.
There are also these people who others want to name as second class
citizens, or not name at all or neglect or reject, and we are not going to
allow that anymore, and this is especially true for us, because our faith
does not allow it. It says we will not be ruled by fear. We will be ruled by
love and justice and equality. This past week, Globe Columnist Donald Murray
died. He was the one wo wrote about issues on aging, and I often loved his
column. In his final column he spoke of the support her had received from
friends, and the power that had given him to go on. This is what Eunice
yearned for in her life, and the lack of those friends often led to despair
and isolation when she was away from her church community, or those she
loved. We began today with a story about a tree of troubles. The story
taught us that everyone has a tree of troubles. Perhaps we imagine that
those people went back to their homes being thankful that they didn’t have
the troubles of others, but I prefer to believe that they did not live in
that kind of isolation. I think that tree showed them that we share in a
common sea of troubles, and it can be overwhelming for us , like Eunice, if
we do not find solace in each other’s pain, in each other’s trials. Too
often we think someone else will speak up about the issue, and it is buried.
Many of us have known the isolation of feeling alone in our lives, of
rejection in our lives, of fighting an issue that no one wants to
acknowledge or talk about. Hopefully the tree of troubles helps remind us
of the universality of our human frailty and the need for the affirmation of
those who are part of our community or family, and the capacity we have to
give it.
Many years ago I did a grave rubbing, of the first minister of my home
town of New Salem. The rubbing has hung in every home I have had ever
since, more than 30 years. At the bottom of the stone, too low for my
crayon is this epitaph, “Equal in dust we all must lie, and no distinction
we can make.” I don’t take it as a warning that death approaches, but that
because death approaches, we might use our time more fruitfully in life with
less battling over making distinctions, less use of fear mongering about
those who are different in whatever way. Universalism said, equal in life,
we are, one and all, and we must find the heart to reach out to those who
share the tree of troubles with us. When Eunice was in Manchester she heard
preacher after preacher condemn Universalism because it promised salvation
to all, and giving this promise to weak humans would enable them to be
liars, adulterers, drunkards and thieves. They needed a little fear to snap
them into shape. The brother who rejected her husband, had earlier
rejected her religion, and later lied about his past because he could not
face the pain of having a father who deserted the family. Her brother’s
biography said the father died. What pain led him to be unable to talk
about his tree of troubles? He created a false life to balm his pain, but
Eunice’s faith would not allow this. When Eunice read the Universalist
magazine of her day, she was reminded that love, not fear, was the soul of
religion. That was the Universalist balm then and now. In the life she had
been given, and in the love she could express with her heart, there was no
end. In the life of relationships and of nature, even in the wake of
tragedy, Eunice could affirm her love for the world in each raindrop, and in
each blade of grass. Whatever the tree of troubles brought - there was
still hope for new life, new home, new relationships, new happiness because
that is what life calls forth from each and every one of us - in this
community, in our homes, in our state and in our nation. No more fear, only
the change we can bring about with our love.


Closing Words - from Anne Frank

The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely, or unhappy is to go
outside, somewhere where they can be quite alone with the heavens, nature,
and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be and
that God wishes to see people happy, amidst the simple beauty of nature. As
long as this exists, and it certainly always will, I know that there will
always be comfort for every sorrow, whatever the circumstances may be. And
I firmly believe that nature brings solace in all troubles.

“Finding Forgiveness” Mark W. Harris

First Parish of Watertown - December 31, 2006


Opening Words - from Henry Ward Beecher.

I can forgive, but I cannot forget, is only another way of saying, I will not forgive. Forgiveness ought to be like a canceled note - torn in two, and burned up, so that it never can be shown against one.

Sermon -

The only United States President I have ever seen in the flesh was Gerald Ford. His administration occurred during some of the American Revolution Bicentennial Events, and there was a special parade and commemorative event on the morning of April 19, 1975 in Concord, Massachusetts. I had gotten up before the crack of dawn to stand by the roadside as hundreds of people dressed up like colonials paraded by; muskets, fifes and drums in hand. I remember seeing President Ford from a distance, as he gave a short speech, of which I recall not a word. Now that President Ford has died, many of us are brought back to that era, with all of the national trauma we endured, as a President resigned, and was replaced by the only non-elected President in our history. The other day in one of the many articles recalling President Ford’s life, I read how his popularity rating plummeted after he pardoned Richard Nixon. Many people hoped that Nixon would be prosecuted for his crimes, but Ford felt that the nation would be better served by pardoning him. Ford wanted what he called “our national nightmare” to be over. At the time he said, “As I rejected amnesty, so I reject revenge. I ask all Americans who ever asked for goodness and mercy in their lives, who ever sought forgiveness for their trespasses, to join in rehabilitating all the casualties of the tragic conflict of the past.”
Did Richard Nixon deserve to be pardoned? Had he repented for his wrongdoing? What about paying for his crimes? Was there no justice to be served? In this context these are all legitimate questions, but Ford made the decision that the question of whether he deserved to be forgiven or not was irrelevant. Ford was doing this, not because Nixon deserved to be pardoned, but because he believed the nation needed it for its own health and well-being. He said, we can now move on. We must now be free of this person who has hurt the office and our country. This sermon is not meant to debate the pros and cons of the Nixon pardon, but I use the example as one year closes and another begins to reflect upon what painful events we live with from our past that we might either forgive others or ourselves for, so that we might move on.
The theme of forgiveness has been on my mind for months. It is not because of some lingering personal grudge I hold, but due to a particularly violent event that was responded to with astounding acts of forgiveness. You may recall that in October a man named Charlie Roberts entered an Amish school in Pennsylvania and murdered five girls, and wounded five others. While we usually feel the immense tragedy and pain in such a horrible crime, and wonder why the perpetrator did it, we often do not hear about such forgiving victim’s families or communities. More often than not the families seek some kind of retribution beyond seeing the killer brought to justice, to pay for his/her crimes. Sometimes it even seems as though the primary response to the tragedy is more often the anger and hatred the victim’s families feel toward the perpetrator, rather than in the grief and anguish they suffer over the loss.
With the Amish it was certainly a far cry from revenge. One of the grandfather’s of the murdered girls said, “We must not think evil of this man.” One of the members of the community said, “I don’t think there’s anybody here that wants to do anything but forgive and not only reach out to those who have suffered a loss in that way but to reach out to the family of the man who committed these acts.” In fact, Amish neighbors reached out to the Roberts family to comfort them, and extend forgiveness. Many columnists acted in horror at such a forgiving response, and called it undeserved. While I understand the concern that we not condone such terrible acts by giving a quick reprieve, I think there is something useful for us to think about in the context of the condition of our own hearts, and how much we hurt ourselves by being unwilling to forgive. It reminds me of the primary reason I am against capital punishment. A murder is a horrible crime against another, but beyond time in prison, ways to recompense the family, and avowals of wrong doing, acts of further violence against the perpetrator, no matter how angry we are, only make us like them. We embrace the evil by becoming killers ourselves, so rather than healing the heart of its pain, we only tear it apart more.
One of the central questions with forgiveness then is timing. It is certainly true that the quick forgiveness in the Amish case seems astounding. Sometimes an act is so recent and raw that the idea of forgiving the other is inconceivable. The person or institution that is hurting us or our families may be unwilling to acknowledge their act or admit their culpability in it. Here it does not help to forgive them too quickly, for it may enable them to continue to hurt you or others and thus they never take responsibility for their lies or incompetence. Here then we seek justice by trying to find ways, informational or legal, to make them see what they are doing to us, and failing that we remove ourselves from the damaging situation. This brings us back to the question of whether they deserve to be forgiven. When they fail to see their own wrong doing, they do not deserve forgiveness. But what happens to you if you continually battle them to try to make them see? Eventually you may become like them, using their methods to make them see how wrong they are. In the end, you may win, but do you lose your own heart and soul in the battle?
It sometimes occurs to me that there are certain grudges that I continue to harbor in my heart even when I feel as though I have forgotten about them. There may suddenly be a person that we see or an event that happens and we are reminded of a person or event out of our past, and quickly we feel some quick , hot anger. For example there is a book of mine that I expected the Unitarian Universalist Association to publish, and I have never quite forgiven them for not doing so, since there was an expectation that they would. I often said afterwards that I was better off publishing it elsewhere because I had more control, and so there was a quick forgiveness. No big deal, I said Yet sometimes we forgive quickly in order to avoid the pain, anger or rejection. In thinking we are protecting ourselves from the pain, we are only driving a stake deeper into our hearts. It may surface again when I use the book, or hear someone make a comment about it. Then there are feelings of not being cared for or respected. We feel we are being given a raw deal. Sometimes we forgive quickly because we think that we will get some other kind of payback like fame or fortune, or a best seller!. But what if that does not materialize? It seems to me that when we have been wronged or wounded, we should give ourselves time and space before we forgive, and not do so too quickly. Over time we are able to move on to other things, and we no longer harbor such resentments, and then we can forgive. As we come to the end of the year, when some of us take stock, we also realize that it is best not to wait too long, because then the resentment does seem to take permanent root in us. What failing to ever forgive does to us is why all of us need to find the right time to forgive.
In the reading from Traveling Mercies, Anne Lamott tells us that for the longest time she was not interested in forgiveness. But she began to see what this was doing to her. This was painful for her. Rather than beginning with those who had hurt her the most, she starts her regimen of forgiveness with what she calls an Enemy Lite. This is another mother who Lamott sees as critical of her, and better than her, at every step. She finally understood what failing to forgive was doing to her when she was at this woman’s house, and she looked at the shoe size of the woman’s son to compare one more thing to her own son. In Lamott’s case, she seems to have made up all these debilitating grudges that made her so incredibly resentful. Much of the pain was caused by her own judgment of herself as an inadequate mother, indeed an inadequate human being. The other woman was just trying to be helpful and friendly. Lamott needed to forgive herself. She writes, “Families are definitely the training ground for forgiveness. At some point you pardon the people in your family for being stuck together in all their weirdness, and when you can do that, you can learn to pardon anyone. Even yourself, eventually. It’s like learning to drive an old car with a tricky transmission: if you can master shifting gears on that, you can learn to drive anything.”
The resentments we hold do debilitate us whether the person we cannot forgive is the evil perpetrator we have imagined them to be or not. So the crucial question becomes what are we going to do for our own health and spiritual well-being? Forgiveness means that we are going to let go of these resentments because we want to honor and care for ourselves, without inflicting further damage by holding on to them. How much power are we going to give to this person or issue and how long will we keep it alive? Many of us have former partners or jobs that continue to haunt us, and we continue to harbor resentful feelings that hurt us not them. Forgiveness means a decision to stop reacting to the past in ways that control the present. Forgiveness means you are freeing yourself to start all over again, as in the new year. It is a cleaning up of things that are controlling you. This points to why forgiveness plays such a central role in the Christian faith, and why Jesus preached forgiveness and love of enemies. He knew that love of enemies is not condoning what they do, but rather love of enemies means you will not let them control you, or make you like them. You will not live with hate or vengeance on your mind, but rather you will live with love and compassion. Too often we may end up stooping to their level. If a person makes you want to live with hate, and you cannot change him or her with your love, then you do whatever you can to free yourself from this toxin that is hurting you. Like the Amish we may want to live as forgiving people who show others that there is another way to behave when we speak or act kindly. Part of forgiveness is understanding that when we see the other we know the truth in the adage, “there but for the grace of God go I,” We are thankful we are not them. We don’t let hurtful people infect our hearts and minds. Of course forgiveness is rooted in the other person wanting to repent for their action or behavior. If they hurt you before, year after year, Christmas after Christmas, then you may find a way to forgive them, if the behavior can change. Otherwise, we must forgive ourselves by letting go of the anger and pain, and finally, move on.
More often than not I have found that forgiveness is a problem that we all face internally.
I know when people are facing their final days of life, they often want to feel forgiveness for the many ways they fell short of being the perfect parent, partner or worker. They want to hear that they did the best they could have. My own parents were curious about how they had failed as parents. Of course when I presented myself as the product of their parenting, they quickly realized there were no failures. More seriously, many of us struggle with issues of comparison and competition, and how much we have accomplished with our lives. We can be very self-critical, and even when others hurt us we sometimes wonder what we have done to deserve this, or wonder if we have invited it somehow. We should never minimize the harmful effects of someone who has violated our trust.
We began today’s service with the words of Henry Ward Beecher. “I can forgive, but I cannot forget, is only another way of saying, I will not forgive. Forgiveness ought to be like a canceled note - torn in two, and burned up, so that it never can be shown against one.” It is curious to be quoting Beecher in the context of forgiveness because he was probably given it too quickly by his wife in the wake of his scandalous affair with another woman. Beecher was one of the most famous preachers and celebrities of the nineteenth century, known especially for the Beecher’s Bibles or rifles he sent to abolitionists in Kansas. He tested this fame and his preaching against free love, when he was accused of adultery and eventually brought to trial (it was a criminal offense in those days). His wife stood by him, and eventually he was acquitted. His case reminds us of the hurt caused, and the number who escape with easy forgiveness because they are famous or important or have the connections.
Notice that Beecher wants to forgive and forget, but we can indeed forgive, but not forget? In fact we don’t want to forget that something happened, we just want to prevent it from continuing to control us or hurt us. So it is important to acknowledge hurtful acts done to us regardless of the perpetrator. Earl Thompson of Andover Newton Theological School asks, “What physical, emotional and spiritual price are we paying for our refusal to forgive? A sobering exercise is to make an honest list of all people, living and dead, toward whom we are still resentful and harbor the desire to retaliate in some way. Forgiveness means rather than harboring resentment towards the other and keeping that locked inside, we make a conscious decision to free ourselves of the resentment, and eventually can offer compassion or understanding instead. Lamott was entangled in judging herself and the other with claims of moral superiority, and so could never get beyond resentment to forgiveness.
Forgiveness becomes a question of freedom. How do we free ourselves of this burden we feel, this resentment we carry. It may be a long process, a slow change of mind and heart, which enables us to be free of the hurt we carry. Who do we want to forgive? Is it one instance or many? A one time thing or a lifetime process, or even a way of living in the world? Christianity would tells that there is a relationship between who God or the holy is, and our ability to forgive ourselves and others. It is all connected. For us it may be letting go of anger and distrust. It may lead to fostering new relationships and a new purpose in life. It is also a question of justice. Those who hurt others in violent and deceitful ways should be held accountable for their actions. We should only forgive when we have assurances that steps towards justice and compassion are being taken. Unitarian Universalists often speak of the inherent worth and dignity of every person, but actions of certain violent individuals calls this into question. Can the person do better in the future? If not, then we need to move on, and the forgiveness must be for ourselves. We leave knowing we have done our best to achieve reconciliation, and know it is not possible with this person, this relationship. Ultimately forgiveness must be about forging a new future. It is relevant to the new year because it is about times in our lives when we must look forward, and not backward. This is not easy to do. Many of us are scared of feelings about the past, and confronting the people or events is hard. How can we do this where we feel loved and cared for? Reinhold Niebuhr once said that forgiveness is the final form of love. One can see this with parent and child where the pains and resentments cut both ways. Often the failures and the hopes are forgiven in the depth of the love that is felt. This loving forgiveness far outweighs all the expectations that were never met, or the promises not fulfilled, because we are ultimately redeemed in the sweet, enduring power of the relationship, an eternal bond of care and compassion. I suspect this is why Jesus imaged God as compassionate parent. It was the kind of relationship forged in love, where resentments and regrets are voiced, and moved beyond . May we still imagine that love as an example of what our relationships might be as we let expectations and judgments go, and meet one another with open and forgiving hearts. Then forgiveness can be a way of living in the world, and we can like Anne Lamott, speak more sweetly to others in the New Year.



Closing Words - “Goodnight, Willie Lee, I’ll See You in the Morning” by Alice Walker

Looking down into my father’s
dead face
for the last time
my mother said without
tears, without smiles
without regrets
but with civility
“Good night, Willie Lee. I’ll see you
in the morning.”
And it was then I knew that the healing
of all our wounds
is forgiveness
that permits a promise
of our return
at the end.