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Raising World Citizens
A Sermon Given
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Morning in America |
Children pass the night |
"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be bright, talented and fabulous.
Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God.
Your playing small doesn’t serve the World.
There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."
What a fall we have had! I have heard from you that it is a relief, a lifting of a weight from our beings, to have caught, hopefully, the snipers. Even so, I suspect that many of us continue to suffer from violence fatigue. Beyond our immediate community, we hear the voices of war fever, reports of killings, of hate, from a variety of places around our precious earth. In the midst of all that, this morning I invite us to find hope, hope in the generation that is to come, a generation which can be opened to the possibility of peace and justice.
Let me begin with a memory.
It was an adult religious education group, gathered on a Monday night, ten people sitting in a circle talking about what in life gives us meaning. You know the kind! This particular group was discussing what in life moved them, what aspirations they held, and what were the sources of their deepest satisfactions.
We were about around the circle in our sharing when one woman, in her early thirties, talked about her hopes; but whatever she said seemed always to come out in a hope that was not only for her, but also for her work; work, both professional and volunteer, in depressed neighborhoods, with community agencies, schools, networks of support for that community.
One of the other people in the group—it happened to be a forty-eight year old man, seemed at first to be a bit uneasy with what she was saying, and then, more than uneasy, increasingly agitated, until he could contain himself no more.
"Guilt!" he exploded. "Your dreams are from guilt!" Then, perhaps thinking further that he might be the source of her liberation he then explained that she need not be bound by external "oughts," but she could indeed find a deeper sense of life’s bounty, of personal satisfaction, without this complicity in "saving the world."
The silence after this explosion was indeed stunning.
The woman sat quietly, reflecting on what had been said. Finally she spoke. It was clear from what she said that she did not understand her work to be in any way motivated by guilt. She did not understand herself to be an extraordinarily "good" person. But she did understand that in the core of her being, she felt "called" to the work that she was doing, and that, when she engaged with this work, she felt a deep sense of satisfaction in that core of her being. She tried to explain it.
She called our attention to one of the more concrete of our Unitarian Universalist images— the interdependent web of all existence. Her life, she said, was a point on that web, and when some other point on it got pulled too tautly, she felt dis-ease, she felt a desire to bring the web into greater balance.
Today it is this kind of person, like the woman in the sharing circle, that I want to talk about. A person—not famous, not lifted to sainthood or acclamation, but a person who sees one’s life tied inextricably to something much larger than one’s self— much larger — but never separate from self. A person who does "good" work not out of any abstract sense of obligation, but because one’s "heart is set" towards the work (IN SANSKRIT, THE WORD FOR FAITH ALSO TRANSLATES AS "SETTING THE HEART"). I want to talk about a person who, building on the words of theologian Frederick Buechner, feels a call to an intersection in his or her life, a place where one’s deep gladness, the soul’s deep gladness, AND the world’s deepest hungers meet.
This woman and the many others, some here in this room, are the kinds of people described in a book by Sharon Parks and other colleagues, a book called: COMMON FIRE: LEADING LIVES OF COMMITMENT IN A COMPLEX WORLD. Perhaps some of you have read it.
The research reported in this book points to the ways that support people, grow people, who put living lives of commitment at the center of their being. The researchers had particular criteria to use as they looked for these kinds of people. One criterion was evidence that they see their work as serving the wellbeing of society. Another was evidence of perseverance and resilience— doing work for a better world for a minimum of seven years without burning out, and having some sense of how to work without burning out. The researcher looked to see if there seemed to be an ethical congruence between life and work. And they looked in each person studied for a level of engagement with diversity and complexity— awareness that what they were doing was within the context of global complexity.
The roots of commitment, the researchers concluded, for most in the study went back to childhood. The research further helped to uncover what particular common elements in growing up were present in those people who live their lives with a strong commitment to the larger welfare.
Religion was two areas analyzed.
As you might guess this area grabbed my attention and it is out of that conversation that I would like to lift up just a few of the gifts toward developing satisfying lives of commitment that we, in UU communities of faith, can give to our children. These are some of the gifts that seem to have been given to those adults in the study who apparently live with both joy and concern simultaneously in their lives.
I don’t lift these because I think we or any other of our communities of faith are not providing them. Indeed, I feel very grateful to be part of a congregation that so loves its children. But, I lift them up because I believe that these ought not to be by-products of our being together, but, rather, ought to be intentionally and repeatedly assessed as to how our children are receiving them, to help us to imagine how else in concrete and deliberate ways, we can maximize these kinds of gifts we give to our kids.
First, the gift of TRUST.
This gift is the backdrop, the container of all else that we give our kids.
Human developmentalists might use words "holding environment" for a trustworthy place, a place of dependable continuity, love and care. It is a center of belonging; and it is what we must provide for our kids from the time they are babes in arms.
We see concrete evidence of how this trust is growing as we look at what our kids are experiencing, from the littlest babes being cradled in rocking chairs to the comfort with which our older ones ask questions, participate in worship experiences, come into RE classes. How safe and how welcomed do they feel? The dangers in life are real. How can we help our kids grow with a basic sense of trust?
Building that in church requires the same things as it does at home. We must repeat our love for them in words and actions, over and over again. We must be present to them . . . inhabiting their world, time and space. That trust grows also from being part of a community that does things about danger in the world, that takes action.
Another piece, of course, is how we help them to cultivate that sense of wonder and joy already in them, letting them share with us, letting us be the witnesses to, their truly miraculous discoveries and the joy that accompanies them. This helps them to find and keep a deep sense of joy, that, like the joy Buechner lifted up for us, fuels a wish to respond to the world’s great needs. Joy is closely connected with trust. It gives us the energy to go on when things are tough.
Trust is lived out in many ways in our religious education classes for children.
In the institution of religious community I on this morning would lift up the many stories of our gay/lesbian/bisexual youth who find in our religious communities what for many are the only safe places in their lives. We know that about 1/3 of teenage suicides are kids struggling with balancing their sexual identity and finding their place in the
world. We cannot and for the most part, do not allow that to happen to our kids. They are not put to one side, but stand here in the center of life with the rest of us.
And, we reflect the presence of trust to our kids through the ways we establish trust with one another as adults. I think for instance about a group of UU women in which the level of trust became so deep that those participating could find voices within themselves that they had not known were there. They weren’t satisfied to stop there but looked for a way to invite their preadolescent daughters into the circle to further explore what it means to be a woman and to be a woman in this culture. This was the kind of experience that those girls will keep with them all of their lives. Exceptional sense of trust was the prerequisite.
In data from the research study, this much was clear, that those schools and other educational environments— like Sunday schools and religious communities— which stood out as memorable— to people judged to be living lives of commitment—were those which created a pervasive "ethos of mutual respect, caring, and productive learning, which set them apart from a wider environment less attentive to the practices needed for positive human becoming." Attentive to the practices needed for positive human becoming! We are wise to re-imagine those practices, from time to time, to name them, and keep track of how we are doing with them. Our power to enable this kind of safety is immense; it is the kind of power Nelson Mandela counseled us not to underestimate.
In addition to this community of trust, a second gift we UUs can give to our kids is the gift of what developmentalists call "agency." We know from this research, but also certainly from our own experiences with kids. It is important that children engage in activities in which they experience the power of their own actions, in which they understand themselves as contributors to the greater good, contributors to change, as able individuals who can set and attain goals. What a wonderful laboratory, what a wonderful world microcosm our religious communities can provide for them in that regard. Here they can be included in work that is real and in which their contribution can make a difference. Here they can have the experience of being loved AND the opportunity to care about others.
Here they can learn the power of working with others to make a difference. Here they can engage in serious real conversation. Here there is opportunity to participate in decision-making within a community. Here, a child can understand that, "I count, what I think counts, what I do counts."
In the research project, in the story of one man’s childhood, he recalled that whenever he spun out a dream about what he would like to do, he was asked: "And how would you do that?" That simple repeated question helped to form his life: "And how would you do that?" He heard in that short question, every expectation that he could do what was necessary to follow his dreams.
Encouraging children and youth to participate in the work and worship and decision-making: That is how we empower them. That is how they begin to understand that they can make a difference. It is worth the time in all congregations to continually reassess how that is going in our communities of faith and how we can from time to time reinvigorate our planning for the empowerment of our younger ones for each of those areas— work, worship, and decision-making.
And, finally, although there are others from the research that we could talk about, I would add to the gift of TRUST, and to the gift of a sense of one’s own AGENCY, and the gift of the cultivation of the HABITS OF THE MIND.
Because we UUs have no need to train children to come up with correct responses, we have an especially fertile possibility to raise children with powerful and fine tuned abilities for critical thought. We have an opportunity in our classrooms to extend the kind of open-ended thinking that I suspect they also experience more generally among us when adults and children inhabit the same place. (By the way, a LARGE number of folks described in the study remember listening to just such adult conversations through heating vents, at the top of the stairs, or even sitting quietly UNDER the dinner table) But our classrooms also can—in age specific ways—encourage dynamic thinking. I will share one conversation I overheard in the hallway among some second graders in another congregation:
Henry was hanging up his jacket just outside his classroom when another young classmate came up to him, peering in the door where apparently two substitute teachers were greeting children. Henry’s friend turned to Henry, pointed at one of the teachers and asked: "Who is that?" Henry nonchalantly said, "That is Karen’s mother." The came the second question, pointing to the second teacher: "Who is that?" Henry answered easily, "Why, that is Karen’s mother." His friend in astonishment said, "You can’t have two mothers!" Henry without another thought responded, "Karen does!" He was applying reason and his experience to the situation. He was at the very beginnings of what would later be much more sophisticated critical thought in relation to world events and problem solving.
His growing ability was practiced both in inclusive family conversations at home and in rich dialog at church. Good conversation weaving itself into wider worlds.
Our children have opportunities for a wideness in their thinking that will serve them well.
I think of wonderful heated debates in adult forums in which the disagreements on issues do not lead to a sense of personal hostility but rather enable people to have the intellectual joy of trying on ideas other than the ones they bring, knowing at deep level that they do not need to prove themselves to be right, do not need to win the debate, in order to walk away with a sense of satisfaction. The participants in such activities are indeed helpmates to one another in their own intellectual and ethical becoming. And our children learn from being in the midst of these conversations.
I would like to tell one last story about some UU children in their community of faith which shows in my mind a group of children
1)with a profound sense of trust,
2) which understood that it had power to change both the world and the congregations: agency, and
3) who were able to begin the wonderfully satisfying experience of critical dialogue: good habits of the mind.
The teachers of our fifth and sixth graders asked one Sunday if the class, on the following Sunday could place a sign about something they cared passionately about out in the wayside pulpit, by the road. I said yes and then did not give it another thought.
During that week the first Gulf War erupted. On Sunday the class, studying firebrand preacher, Theodore Parker, in subgroups made posters, inspired by the will to action of that nineteenth century forbear. One group went out to hang their poster.
After church a man in the congregation angrily stormed my office, exclaiming that the poster in front of the church was offensive and inappropriate! The poster read "Bring ‘Em Back, From Iraq!" The man explained that he was a member of the church and that was not what he believed we should do. And . . . if we put anything out there, it ought to at least be accurate! Our troops were not in Iraq but Kuwait!
I said I would look into it, and in the meantime replaced the poster with another one from the class: "Save the Rainforest!"
On the following Sunday I visited with the class and explained the dilemma. "But one of our Principles tells us to work for peace!" Yes, that was true. I asked them to look at the Principles on the wall and pointed to the one about democratic process. Yes, they believed in that one, too. So what do we do when two things we believe in contradict each other? We had a great conversation, learned that we could change our minds during it—even several times perhaps—, and then decided that having the sign in the wayside pulpit was not appropriate. But they continued, saying that there ought to be some place where they could put their opinion! So . . . they asked me to take a request to the Board for them. They asked for some place in the church where they and others could post their opinions. I did, and the Board agreed.
All three gifts had been given to those children:
TRUST – They had to have that for this conversation to have ever taken place;
AGENCY: These children believed that they the right and the ability to change the world;
HABITS OF THE MIND: They had to opportunity to examine not only what is right and good, but also to have the experience of having to make a choice— not between right and wrong—but rather between two principles which the believed were both right and good. Critical thinking at its most is challenging!
Trust, agency, habits of the mind: Powerful gifts to give our children; powerful children to give to the world.
"We are called to the place where our deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet."
May we each meet justice boldly. May we each greet the stranger gently. May we each celebrate the gifts in our lives.
Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist
Church |
