Category: Uncategorized

Million White Man March

.Reading time 11 minutes.

Obama_WhiteHouseConfederateFlagAs I watch the current state of the US Government, it is difficult to regard it without also taking in the national climate surrounding what is going on.  Mass shootings, chronic homelessness, rabid religiosity and total religious apathy, education in decline, greater wealth gap, gender and gender identity wars, the complete meltdown of information systems and above all the total and absolute disintegration of cultural trust.  Houston we have a problem.

To me, this whole thing reminds me, sadly, of D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation.  I’ve referenced this movie before.  In it, the director portrays a world that is thrown into chaos when black people are liberated, particularly when a black man is in leadership (at least that’s how this black man sees the movie.)  That was 1915.  What is happening right now in 2013 is exactly the same thing; we have a black man in leadership and the cornerstone of everything American is falling to pieces.  Simple, right?

No, not so simple. This is what I believe, our dear conservative tea party Bible beating white male friends would like to have us believe: that because a black man is in the white house, mayhem ensues.  He (Obama) doesn’t have the capacity to lead; he is polarizing; he is inept; he has no authority.  This story line is exactly what D.W. Griffith was preaching.  But my dears, that was a movie, made by one white man 98 years ago. This is real life.  Or is it?  Could it be that our Tea Party friends aren’t quite as simple and bumpkinish as some of us high flying, over educated Liberals want to believe?  Remember, the Tea Party created Sarah Palin.  She is a complete and ignorant nobody, yet she is in our NATIONAL media and consciousness.  She is the ultimate creation of the “gotcha media” that she so scorns.  Like the bride of Frankenstein, SHE LIVES…and it would seem that she is carrying the torch for a completely fabricated movement to make President Obama the scapegoat and to reaffirm the bedrock of what American culture was originally built upon: oppressive white male colonial power.

Now why would someone do this?  Why would anyone wish to play out the storyline of a movie like Birth of a Nation?  Well, if you are attached to the security you felt when your world wasn’t challenged by someone else’s culture, or gender expression or wealth priorities or look or smell, you might just want things to go back to 1861.  But in this modern era, we live in an increasingly unstable and erratic world.  Most specifically, from November, 22 1963, as a nation, the United States was suddenly living in a world where “if it could happen…it would.”  The President of the United States was shot and killed and unlike the Lincoln murder that took not only days but sometimes weeks for people to become aware of, the entire nation experienced the loss of John F. Kennedy in real time.  The unthinkable of losing someone who’s image we had seen repeatedly and who’s voice we had known, happened and was transferred globally within minutes.

And that was just the beginning.  Footage of race riot brutality, Viet Nam, Martin Luther King, Jr., Robert Kennedy.  We spent the 1960’s being emotionally raped by a serial sickness of “if it can happen…it will.”  We emerged assuming that if a public figure was out in the open, they would be shot; if world finance was on the rise, sooner or later it would come crashing down; if there was a conflict between nations somewhere in the world, it would escalate into a convoluted political quagmire with unthinkable loss of human life.  And then, just as we were starting to show a few signs of emotional healing…September 11, 2001.  The attack on the World Trade Center in New York, more than the 50, 100, 200 years of tragedy leading up to it, sent us nationally over the edge.  Regardless of the political motivations of the attackers, or their connections to international networks or global terrorism, 9/11 meant that we were locked in the cycle of abuse once again.  If it could happen it would.

Suddenly we have Homeland Security, border control, language like “Islamist Extremism,” “freedom fries,” and cries of U-S-A, U-S-A, U-S-A! We entered an age of chronic national post traumatic stress disorder.  Our first thought is fear.  Our world is shaped by laws that, despite the language of law (innocent until proven guilty) assumes the worst.  We put people in prison for assumption; we have insurance we don’t need nor could ever use; metaphorically, we are shuttered away in our minds and our attitudes so that even if it is good for us to be in the sun, we don’t want any part of it because we might develop cancer.  Our reaction to learning of the abuses in the Catholic church is a classic example.  We assume now that everyone who interacts with children is predatory and thus we’ve created boundaries and walls and assumed guilt and an environment of suspicion. There now little Johnny, you’ll be safe!  Of course you won’t know what to do with yourself when you need comfort and you won’t think you could ever trust an adult, and you will develop attitudes that present no sense of community or interdependence on your peers or cultural identity and you will develop into someone who is more likely to perpetrate a mass shooting because of your disconnectedness and mistrust of others…but you’ll be safe! 

The current state of affairs is not just about the assumption of privilege by white men.  It is about the assumption of privilege being played out in a culture of trauma.  The million white man march of the tea party is reactionary; it is a symptom, it is not the problem.  Certainly, we need to fix the symptoms: racism, homophobia, classism, sexism, ageism, etc., but we need to go to the root of a national consciousness that is in deep and excruciating pain.

I am frequently asked about God and religion.  This is a constant for anyone who is in seminary.  I always reply with “I” statements, because I deeply believe that faith is entirely personal and that although we can unite as people who experience faith, the expression of that faith is as variable as the people involved, even within faith traditions.  For me, I believe that that breaking the cycle of trauma is dependent upon faith, for the sake of a better word.  My “faith” is rooted in my interpretation of Christian teachings and Unitarian Universalist principles. For others, it may be in Islam, or Judaism, or Humanism or Hinduism.  It may be a “faith” that is not god centered at all.  But trauma, any trauma, can only be healed by the distinct belief that one is unconditionally safe and loved, where the cycle of anticipating harm or loss is broken and put to rest.

The Tea Party and the Million White Man March are not the enemy. Instead, it is very clear that in a changing world on shifting ground they do not believe that they will be safe and cared for as they had been in the mythical pre-Birth of a Nation past.  As a result, they are trying to create this safety just as they created Sarah Palin and Ted Cruz by elaborately and deliberately fabricating a world where Obama will ultimately be a scapegoat and everything will magically return to the “way things were.”

And he said to them, ‘Why are you afraid, you of little faith?’ Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a dead calm. (Matthew 8:26 – NRSV)

I see you Tea Party; I see who you are and I will not let your fear bring us all down.  I will acknowledge your pain, for we all share in the trauma; but I will call you out on your crap.  Just remember that ultimately I will love you all the same, as I ask you to love me, because ultimately that is the only way this cycle will end.

We Are Here

.Reading time 10 minutes.

Chalice FlameWe are here.  We are here as friends, as strangers, as teachers and students.  We are here, united in one word…seminarian.  A word that speaks of the “seed” of life.  We are the seeds of life of our united Unitarian Universalist movement.  We come from all over the country, all over the map theologically, culturally, economically.  Yes, we are here.

But remember, we won’t always be here.  There will come a time when we will no longer be able to call ourselves “seedlings” but rather we will bud as flowers, trees, shrubs, forests…our ideas and our efforts will have taken root, even in small ways and we will carry the direction of our shared faith as leaders, ministers, chaplains, counselors, activists.  We will not always be here.

So for as long as this lasts, as long as we are germinating and stewing in the process of formation, and as long as we are together in this shared space over these few days, let us give thanks and presence to the fact that we ARE here and able to grow side by side in the rich soil of community, that holds the nutrients of mentors, and educators, funders, family and friends…a seedbed embrace that drinks deeply of the fountain of love. 
– Call to worship for CGUUS 2013

“What was that?” I find myself asking. The first Continental Gathering of Unitarian Universalist Seminarians (CGUUS) over the weekend of October 11 – 13 was a group of about 50 people ranging in ages, races, orientations and social locations that descended like a tsunami on Harvard Divinity School and First Church Boston where we shared and learned and taught and explored many of the various sides of where we are headed as future Unitarian Universalist ministers.  Then just as quickly, we all left…headed back to our individual and unique paths.  I am writing this on a crack of dawn flight back to San Francisco where I will spend the rest of my day at work and then attempt to make my 7:30pm pastoral care class, because that’s what we do.  We left in our wake a trail of upended archetypes, broken barriers and the fragments of the ‘old school.‘  If this tiny but mighty storm of energy is truly representative of the body of nationwide Unitarian Universalist seminarians, it is clear that we see ourselves and our faith evolving into something completely unlike its past and different from how it looks even today.  In fact, a vision for change may be one of the strongest uniting factors we have.  For unlike other faiths where tradition and the ‘institution’ may require that one must be ‘called’ by the diocese or display encyclopedic amounts of Biblical reference knowledge or practice extreme self sacrificing piety or possess a family pedigree in the church, the only thing that Unitarian Universalism seems to ask of its future clergy is that we be completely different from one another and have thoroughly contrasting needs and goals.  That, and a bottomless pit of love in our hearts for people, the world everywhere and the work of ministry.

The weekend blew by.  We delighted in a spirited world cafe kickoff, workshops with UU theologian Rev. Thandeka and newly installed minister of First Parish in Malden, MA,  Rev. Christian Schmidt, discussions about the purpose, shape and direction of the Unitarian Universalist movement and the next CGUUS gathering.  This was all woven together with exquisite and moving worship and carefully and lovingly planned meals which meant that Friday evening until Sunday morning was very full and fast paced.  Maybe too full.  This was a first for all of us where we had the opportunity to intentionally meet and exchange face to face with people from other schools and other parts of the country and experience our differences first hand specifically as seminarians.  I have lived on the West Coast and in the South for much of my adult life but I grew up in the Boston area surrounded by Unitarian churches.  Yet, I was still unprepared for how different from “Bay Area UU-ism” “Boston Unitarianism” looks and sounds from the student perspective.  There were lifelong UUs, recent converts, ‘Evangelical’ UUs, Pagan UUs, Christian UUs…I heard conversation about the depth of the commitment to Humanism that permeates some of the midwest and learned that Canadian UUs regardless of their school affiliations are proudly united as Canadians above all, which was a great lesson in American-centric UU regionalism.  There was so much to experience with each other and we all wanted more time together to learn and explore.

But there was also specific work to be done.  Originally, the Reverend Thandeka had been invited to lead a weekend workshop at Harvard Unitarian Universalist Ministry for Students (HUUMS.)  The focus of the event grew and evolved into a broader vision that ultimately became CGUUS, but Thandeka was always intended to be a crucial part of the experience.  She brought a grounding and a connection to those who are already established leaders in our field and a sense of mentorship that gave the weekend an important context as it looked to the future of our faith.  Her work and perspective, which can be deeply inspiring for some and challenging for others, was a reminder that we come from an expansive history of exploration and deep thought around liberal and/or progressive religion.  She was the perfect reminder that although we have innovation and change on the brain we must take time to pause…for many reasons, if not to actively engage the powerful visionaries who have come before us.  You can’t really go anywhere if you don’t know where you’ve been.

This was just a beginning.  There have been other UU seminarian led efforts in the past (Zero, Aspire) and we come from a tradition of placing importance on the education of seminarians.  It was fitting that we started this at Harvard where some of the luminaries of our tradition began their journeys.  Still, the transitory nature of our status as seminarians presents challenges.  But today, we are uniquely positioned through the combination of how our faith looks in the modern era and our access to many, many modes of communication and interaction to build on what we’ve begun.  The best example is how the planning committee for CGUUS 2013 was spread across the continent including Canada the West Coast, East Coast and Mid-West (and yes we looked to include the South, Southwest and even the Caribbean to no avail…next time!)  Yet, we managed to communicate through Google Hangouts and email and telephone calls.  We coordinated logistics, website registration, financial arrangements and even some pastoral care for one another, without ever being face to face as a group.  Truly, when we did realize that we were all in the room together for the first time, it was more like a reunion than anything else.  This thing has both living and digital legs.

So here we are now, looking at next steps.  All of the participants are on fire with the potential that has been unleashed.  Whether this continues as just a stand alone event, or whether it blossoms into regional gatherings; whether we emphasize education or networking or if we simply become a foundation for support and collegiality; or if we become all of the above, the Continental Gathering of Unitarian Universalist Seminarians is now a reality.  We are here.