Borderlines

Opening Words[i]:

The Torah tells us: “The strangers who sojourn with you shall be to you as the natives among you, and you shall love them as yourself; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Leviticus 19: 33-34).

In the Christian New Testament, Jesus tells us to welcome the stranger for “What you do to the least of my brothers and sisters you do unto me” (Mathew 25:40).

The Qur’an tells us that we should “serve God…and do good to…orphans, those in need, neighbors who are near, neighbors who are strangers, the companion by your side, the wayfarer that you meet, and those who have nothing.” (4:36)

The Hindu scripture Taitiriya Upanishad tells us: “The guest is a representative of God.”

And in the Unitarian Universalist tradition that teaches that sacred text can be written and spoken by people of all times and places; Martin Luther King Jr tells us: “Love is the only cement that can hold this broken community together. When I am commanded to love, I am commanded to restore community, to resist injustice, and to meet the needs of my siblings.”

Borderlines

What does borderline mean?  Merriam-Webster Dictionary online offers several definitions of the word. There are two definitions that I want to lift up today.

1. 1.      c : characterized by psychological instability in several areas (as interpersonal relations, behavior, and identity) but only with brief or no psychotic episodes <a borderline personality disorder>
2. 2.      : situated at or near a border <a borderline town>

There are other forms of borders or boundaries that help to establish the identity of an object.  Our skin is a border of sorts.  It functions to keep that which is us, our internal organs safe from dirt and invading organisms.  It also aids in providing distinguishing markers that help identify us from someone else.  A mole below the eye or a tattoo on the shoulder or calf can aid in identifying who we are.  We sometimes come to conclusions, sometimes accurate, sometimes not accurate by looking at the person.  For example, we can tell if they are healthy or ill. Or sometimes we gather something of their personality by the way they adorn their skin.  Multiple body piercings or tattoos may suggest something about their character; again it may be an accurate or inaccurate read of the person.  The kind of clothes a person wears may also establish a boundary.

So what identifies us as a nation through the tangible and non-tangible aspects of our national borders? What message are we sending to our global neighbors?  When I went to the Mexican border I was struck by the ease in crossing the US border into Mexico.  I went twice into Mexico, once by van and once on foot.  Both times we simply entered into Mexican space.  There was no guard to check our papers. No surveillance cameras videoing our passage across.  We simply drove or walked as freely as we drive or walk along the streets and sidewalks outside of our homes to work or church.  There was no question to our right to be there.

Upon return we had to prove our right to enter into the United States.  Driving back across, the guard merely collected our passports, verified them and handed them back.  He did not look to see if we were hiding someone in the van.  He simply waived us on after returning the passports.  On walking back into the States we were asked more questions. Not all of us, only some of us were asked questions.  Most of the questions were about purchases.  However, one member of our party, a citizen of the USA for over 20 years was detained.  He was questioned about our activities.  Why were we only in Mexico for a few hours.  We were volunteering at the Comedore, the soup kitchen and at the Women’s shelter both run by Kino Border Initiative.  He was then taken inside the building to a room where the same questions were asked repeatedly, first by the same person, then by another person.  He sat there.  And sat there. Waiting to be released. They told him this was just a random check but his nationality suggests otherwise.  He was born in Iran.  His passport shows that he has traveled extensively to other countries.  We waited for him to be released.  We were not allowed to find out what was happening to him.  We were not allowed to wait at the border we were told we must leave the area.  Eventually, he was told he could go but was not told how to exit the building.  So he asked, the agent dismissively asked another to take him.  This agent speaks to him in Spanish and he responds that he does not speak Spanish.  The agent says, “Oh, you speak English!” and then says nothing more to him, not even translating what was originally said to him.   In telling this most recent episode, our friend shares he is frequently stopped when re-entering the country.  Random checks that become the expected experience are no longer random.

One of our guides for the week was Tito, a Presbyterian minister who lives in Mexico and works for No More Death’ s sister organization, HEPAC  abbreviated for the translation House of Peace and Hope in Nogales, Sonora.  His work takes him across the border almost daily.  So he has a frequent crosser card that has biometric data on him. It is to speed up the process for crossing.  However, that card does not always help him cross.   Recently he tried to cross so he could attend a church meeting in Nogales, AZ.  The guard looks at him, checks out his card and asks him multiple questions.  He is told by the guard that he looks like a bad man.  Tito, tells him he is clergy and shows him his clergy identification card—a card by the way that I have never been required to show or need to have, even when I am not wearing clerical collar people believe me when I say I am clergy—the guard however does not believe him. His belongings are searched. The guard tells him he is not allowed to cross today.  Reason?  The guard says he has a hunch he is a bad man and says to him come back tomorrow, today you cannot cross.  Tito had to cancel his meeting because of an arbitrary whim of the guard at the border. Tito reports this sort of harassment at the border happens regularly to him.    The point of a specialized border crossing card is to prevent the need for such scrutinizing behavior by USA agents.

What does this say about the character of the USA that freely can walk into another country without so much as a bat of an eye but then scrutinizes its own citizens and guests?

This experience contrasted with my entering into Canada a year before where I was questioned as to my business in the Province of Quebec and receiving the same questioning when I was re-entering the USA.  There is a level of respect for Canada that does not seem to exist for Mexico.  There exists a putrid air of USA privilege in our ease of walking into Mexico.

The border wall is about 30 feet high. At the base of the USA side is slanted concrete with jagged rocks so if the people should jump the fence they will break their ankles or legs upon landing.  It is deliberately built to cause harm to those who cross. The wall comes in from the east and from the west and both ends stop at the beginnings of the Sonora Desert.  The desert was thought to be a deterrent all onto itself and the federal government did not expect people to actually attempt to cross there.  Since the walls have been built more than 6,000 human remains have been recovered from the desert.  There are believed to be thousands more that will probably never be recovered because the bodies disintegrate within weeks after death and because of the untold number who cross into the  Tohono O’odham Indian Reservation northwest of Sasabe, Sonora, Mexico.

Some history of the wall is needed.  Militarization of the US/Mexican border began shortly after the passage of the NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement. The wall was first built in 1994 dividing the city of Nogales, a city divided circa 1850 when the USA annexed a part of Mexico so that a railroad would not have to cross into Mexico.  Prior to 1994, the city enjoyed the free movement of people back and forth the border.  They visited family and friends; they enjoyed their common cultural heritage together as any city on a border should.

For example here in Alabama, Phenix City is on the border of Columbus, GA.   Because so many people living in Phenix City work in Columbus and at Fort Benning, Phenix City chooses to be in the Eastern Time Zone, even though officially all of Alabama is within the Central Time Zone.  This is what border cities do. They share common interests.  They engage in healthy dialog. They have a shared identity.

Now imagine the message sent if Georgia suddenly decided to place a wall between Phenix City and Columbus, Georgia.  Imagine if, the people of Phenix City were told they had to apply for guest worker visas to now work in Columbus, GA because they were not citizens of GA.  That now they would have to seek permission from Georgia before they could enter Columbus, GA. If they had family in Georgia and they were caught being with their family without proper papers in hand, they would be deported and denied further access.  But Georgians could freely enter Phenix City without question.

That is what happened in the city of Nogales.  People from the USA have the privilege of entering Nogales, Sonora, Mexico with not a care in the world. Why? Because they are Americans… true blue.  But entering the USA, even being a true blue American is not enough, we have to question you and detain you.

This is paranoid behavior.  This is fearful behavior.  This may even qualify for the borderline personality definition given earlier—“characterized by psychological instability in several areas.”

But before we jump to this conclusion let’s look deeper into the border.  Since 1994, the USA has increased the militarization of the border with sophisticated military tactical and highly skilled marksmen, marksmen that are only bested by the Secret Service and Navy Seal.  They recruit soldiers coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan, two wars that have resulted in the highest number of military suicides[ii] and post-traumatic stress disorder of any military campaign ever undertaken by the USA, including the Civil War.

During my visit to the Women’s shelter run by the Kino Border Initiative, I heard stories of women who were carried out of the desert because they could no longer walk only to have the Border patrol agents dump them off their stretchers onto the ground and handcuff and shackle them.  Women who were shoved and corralled into cages on trucks[iii] like they were cattle sent to the slaughter.  Derogatory language used by the border patrol to address the women.  These stories of abuse towards immigrants at the border not to mention the increasing number of Mexican civilians on the Mexican side of the wall being killed by border patrol agents lead me to wonder if there are links to undiagnosed Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)[iv] from service in Iraq and Afghanistan, where many border patrol personnel are recruited.  A study of the mental health screening for PTSD at twelve law enforcement agencies including border patrol revealed only two do a minimal screening specific to PTSD.   The border patrol application process does not indicate any psychological testing or specific screening[v] for PTSD but with 10-20% of returning veterans having some level of PTSD and up to 65% returning veterans stating it would be considered a sign of weakness to seek treatment for PTSD, it is likely that a small percentage of Border Patrol Agents are indeed suffering from this disorder before they are hired.

The border is lined with surveillance cameras that are not currently in use.  They were built at a cost of millions but were deemed unnecessary by the border patrol.  Their mere presence however gives an intimidating feel of a George Orwell novel of Big Brother watching.   The use of surveillance drones flying overhead has increased, adding to the Orwellian milieu. The fact that our government is using drones in the 100 mile zone of the border should cause us much alarm.

The recent leaks revealing that the NSA has been collecting data on American Citizens phone and internet contacts makes the use of drones on the border suspect of other activities.  President Obama’s admission that civil liberties must be compromised for the sake of 100% security is not a reassuring statement into defining the character of who we are as a nation.  This behavior of spying on our own strengthens the borderline paranoia diagnosis.

My visit to the border of Nogales, AZ and Mexico has reaffirmed one thing for me.  What we do in the United States of America is not done in a vacuum.  Yes, we need Immigration law reform but it would be extremely naïve to think that this legislation, regardless of the content of this bill, will fix our immigration system. We cannot fix our immigration laws in a vacuum and assume everything else is working fine.  The reasons why 11 million immigrants chose to enter the USA without inspection, the civil offense they committed are multi-faceted and based in the policies we created—NAFTA destroyed the Mexican farmer and coerced the sale of their lands to US corporations.  School of the Americas trained the military that staged wars and coups, most recently the Honduras coup cascading thousands of refugees from that country seeking safety for their lives.  The Mexican cartel that now controls the Mexican side of the border was trained at the School of the Americas in Fort Benning.  We, the taxpayer are accomplices to the violence that is occurring along the border as desperate people seek to reunite with their families in the USA.  According to a legal dictionary, “In Criminal Law[vi], [an accomplice is] contributing to or aiding in the commission of a crime. One who, without being present at the commission of an offense, becomes guilty of such offense, not as a chief actor, but as a participant, as by command, advice, instigation, or concealment; either before or after the fact or commission.”  

While we the taxpayer could claim no knowledge of this, much like the citizens of Germany claimed no knowledge of the atrocities their government committed against the Jews, yet just as the Germans before us, by our electing and authorizing leaders who do have full knowledge and assent to these actions makes us participants in the continual slaughter and inhumane treatment of innocent people.

The ultimate question becomes who are we as a nation—are we a nation that arrogantly does whatever it wants to people in other nations?  Or are we a nation that with humility is in relationship with its neighbors? Will we recognize that what we portend as being in our best interests may have a profound debilitating negative impact on other nations and therefore  is ultimately not in our best interest.  The School of the Americas, NAFTA, and CAFTA are not ultimately in the best interests of our nation because they have caused and continue to cause untold suffering in the nations implemented.  As one refugee from the recent coup by SOA trained militia in Honduras stated, “If I am going to die in Honduras of hunger then I would rather die struggling to live.”

West Cosgrove of Kino Border Initiative put it more eloquently when he said, “[vii]I believe profoundly that the conversation, the debate about immigrants and immigration law is NOT ultimately about the immigrants, IT IS ABOUT US. It is about what kind of people we will be, will we be a welcoming, kind, accepting culture, people, country or will we continue to leave out the poor, the needy, the ones that walk with God.  Will we continue to harden our hearts and exclude anyone that we believe is not one of us, or will we live up to the best of our faith and national traditions and ‘welcome the stranger’?”

The policies we have enacted over the last 100 years as a nation have led to our national desire to place a wall between us and all we have created.  We do not want to be reminded of what we have done to our neighbors to the south.  These policies have created a severe personality of paranoia and fear.   The immigration reform bill in the Senate will reinforce this paranoia by increasing the militarization of the border threefold against an enemy that is only in our collective mind.

Is this an accurate portrayal of who we are as a nation?  And if it is, is this who we want to continue to be?  I believe in our potential to be better than what fear and paranoia tells us.  It is time to tell our elected government and our unelected government (the corporations):  ¡Basta! Enough!

We do not want to be accomplices to the human rights violations of separating families, any longer.  We do not want to be accomplices to the violence and deaths by the SOA trained Mexican Cartel, any longer. We do not want to be accomplices to the human rights violations occurring in the for-profit Prison industry, any longer. Nor held accountable to their maintaining a 90% capacity rate by rounding up in the name of national security, soccer moms whose only crime is that they refused to wait 20 years for permission to enter this country and begin a better and safer life for them and their family.   We do not want to be accomplices the devastating impacts of US farm subsidies on Mexican farmers, any longer.  We do not want to be accomplices to military coups, any longer.

How about being accomplices to creating a nation that lives up to its highest creed:  Where equality, liberty and justice for all people is the borderline that defines who we are.  Justo Gonzales[viii] once said, “A true border, a true place of encounter, is by nature, permeable.  It is not like medieval armor, but rather like skin.  While our skin does set a limit to where our bodies begin and where it ends, if we ever close up our skin, we die.”

 Borderlines sermon delivered by Rev. Fred L Hammond   9 June 2013 ©  to the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Tuscaloosa

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[i] Adapted From http://www.ucc.org/justice/immigration/worship/worship-service.html

[ii] The current rate of military suicides is 2 to 3 times higher than the rate of suicides by military personnel in the Civil War.  http://nation.time.com/2012/08/06/new-study-u-s-military-suicide-rate-now-likely-double-or-triple-civil-wars/

[iii] I thought I heard this during my visit but thought I surely misunderstood.  I heard recently (June 7 2013) testimony at a meeting with Congress representatives Sewell and Gutierrez; a former veteran who was deployed to the border who stated that people were rounded up like cattle and placed in cages on a truck confirming what I heard was indeed true.

[iv] It is unknown if Border Patrol agents are screened for PTSD before hiring for duty. It is not a requirement in their application criteria to be free from any mental disability that may result in erratic or irrational behavior. http://www.pdhealth.mil/clinicians/downloads/PTSD_COCS.pdf

[v] http://www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/careers/customs_careers/border_careers/application_process/basic_requirements_for_bp.xml

[vi] http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/accessory

[vii] West Cosgrove email to the SOA Watch Delegation Monday June 3 2013

[viii] From a power point presentation by West Cosgrove, Education Director at Kino Border Initiative, Nogales, Arizona.  Contact:  wcosgrove@kinoborderinitiative.org

Lies My Government Told Me About Immigration

Last week I was part of a delegation with the School of the America’s Watch, the non-profit group that is seeking to close down the School of the Americas Military training camp at Fort Benning, GA.  SOAWatch has added to their mission to understand the effects of militarization within Latin American countries and along the border of the USA.  Their hope is this additional understanding will aid in their goal of shutting down the camp at Fort Benning and aid in the goal for humane immigration reform.

So among the many delegations SOAWatch planned this year, one of them was to visit the Arizona/ Mexico border at Nogales.  Nogales is a city divided by the annexation of land in the 1850’s to enable a railroad to not cross the border into Mexico.  Prior to 1994, this was a city where its people crossed the border daily to be with family, to work, to enjoy the mingling of two cultures.

The United States of America has had a schizophrenic approach to immigrants from Mexico and Latin America.  In 1910 we encouraged Mexicans to cross the US border to aid in harvesting crops.  The nation had a distain for Chinese immigrants so the nation passed a head tax on immigrant workers.  However, employers who hired Mexican immigrants were given a waiver on this tax to encourage the hiring of more people from south of our borders. Many of these workers came up seasonally, would follow the harvest north and then when the harvest was done, return to Mexico.  Then when the depression hit, we deported many immigrants back to Mexico but ten years later we were at war and the need for labor to harvest our crops and to build railroads was once again in demand.  Many came across only to be deported at the end of the war with the promise that their final pay would be soon forthcoming. There are still survivors of the Bracero Program living in Mexico still waiting for the USA to make good on their promise of payment.

In the 1950’s we passed two pieces of federal legislation, federal codes 1325 and 1326.  When we talk about the undocumented having illegal presence here, we are referring to code 1325. This code referred specifically to entry without inspection.  It refers to entering our country without going through a specific port of entry.  It is a civil offense, not a criminal offense. Part of the argument that the US Supreme court has with Legislation such as Alabama’s HB 56 is that the State sought to change this civil offense to a criminal offense.

Federal Code 1326 refers to re-entry without inspection after deportation. For those who have no violent criminal records this includes up to a two year sentence, if the person while here in this country also has committed violent crimes, the sentence can be up to ten years.

Along the border six of the 9 sectors are prosecuting individuals who are guilty of 1326, meaning they have been deported at least once before. It is considered a felony.  Operation Streamline, a misnomer because none of the courts are doing this in the same manner, will sentence and convict en mass a number of people charged with violating 1325 and 1326.  In Tucson, up to 70 people are sentenced per day in a court hearing that can take anywhere from 45 minutes to two and a half hours depending on the thoroughness of the judge.  The defendants are encouraged to plead guilty to the civil offense of entry without inspection to waive the felony charge of re-entry. We have heard reports of being coerced or simply not having the charges explained and told to simply sign to waive their rights. Prior to Operation Streamline, a person would simply be deported, but now they are given an arbitrary sentence between 30 and 180 days in prison.

The federal court in Tucson since the advent of Operation Streamline in July of 2008, now devotes 60% of their time on deportation cases and no longer focus on violent criminals such as murderers and drug dealers. Of the 31 public defenders hired by the Tucson based Federal court, three are made available per day for these individuals. But to assist in processing such a large number, the federal government contracts attorneys at $125 an hour.  Each person is seen for about ten minutes before the mass hearing in the afternoon.  There is nothing the lawyers can do for their clients other than move them through the system.  Justice is not being served here, only a crass form of cattle ranching the accused.

Congress has told us that the federal government has no money and must sequester costs.  Beginning July 1^st instead of rotating in three public defenders once a week to see defendants, the 31 public Defenders in Tucson will be rotating twice a year to see defendants. Because these defendants have the constitutional right to legal representation albeit brief and perfunctory, the contract attorneys will be given additional hours.  All at taxpayers cost.  The immigration bill before congress seeks to increase Operation Streamline to all nine sectors along the border and increase the number sentenced and deported in Tucson from 70 per day to 210 per day.  The court case we witnessed in Tucson carried a price tag just shy of one million dollars, this includes the cost of their prison sentence.  This amount of money is spent every day the court is in session in Tucson.   We are told this is a necessary move to secure our borders. It seems doubtful that removing gardeners and maids is insuring national security. The truth is this is a necessary move to ensure the 90% capacity contractual obligations to Corrections Corporation of America.    Our government is lying to us about the need for sequester when cost is of no concern when of utmost importance is the deportation of non-violent offenders for crossing the border.

In 1994 two events took place.  One was the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement, aka NAFTA and the other was the building of the wall between the two cities of Nogales. One can only speculate if these two events were connected to each other.  It seems twenty years later the answer to that question is yes.

President Clinton in signing NAFTA into law, said:  “… we have made a decision now that will permit us to create an economic order in the world that will promote more growth, more equality, better preservation of the environment, and a greater possibility of world peace. … through robust commerce …that protects our middle class and gives other nations a chance to grow one, that lifts workers and the environment up without dragging people down, that seeks to ensure that our policies reflect our values.[i] ” None of these outcomes are true.

NAFTA may have created an economic order but it did not promote more growth, more equality, better preservation of the environment or even promote the slightest possibility of world peace. Where ever NAFTA has been implemented there have been massive job loss, displaced people, an increase in criminal networks and cartels, and a growing disparity between the rich and the poor. Also in its wake has been violence and civil unrest as people struggle to maintain what little they have and with fear of losing it all.

NAFTA has several components that were detrimental to the people of Mexico and it is one of the factors that led to a great migration towards the north.  The passage of NAFTA required that the Mexican government repeal Article 27 of their constitution.  Article 27 was the heart and soul of the Mexican Revolution in 1917.  This was the article that promised land to the people in perpetuity. The land was held in communal trust; it could not be sold or traded.  It could be farmed and harvested to feed the people and offer an income.  NAFTA required this be removed, the farmers became owners of the land but the real intention was so US Corporations could purchase the land out from under them.  This was to have devastating results on the Mexican economy which was already fragile after its 1994 financial crisis.

The other piece that NAFTA required was the removal of Mexican farm subsidies to their farmers.  The US farmers however would continue to receive US subsidies and they still do today.  The amount of corn flooding the Mexican market went from 2 million tons in 1992 to 10.3 million tons in 2008. The small farmer could not even grow the corn for the price the US was selling it. Without being able to sell their crops, the Mexicans were unable to pay their taxes and they were forced to sell their land to the US corporations who were eager to purchase it.  The poverty rate in Mexico grew from 35% in 1992 to 55% in 2008.  Over 6 million Mexicans lost employment to the implementation of NAFTA.  President Clinton promised NAFTA would create 200K jobs, a mere drop in the bucket to the number of jobs lost here in the USA and in Mexico.  The wall between our two countries began to take on a new meaning and purpose.

Along the borders of the USA on the Mexican side sprung up Maquiladoras, factories.  Nogales in Sonora Mexico has dozens of factories that are USA owned and ship their products through the Nogales border port of Mariposa.  One would think with all these factories that the people of Mexico are experiencing the development of a middle class in Mexico just as Clinton predicted.  Sadly, this is not the case.  The average days wage for a factory worker is $8 a day.  A pair of shoes made in Mexico and sold in the USA for $100 only yields 4 cents of that $100 to pay the wages of the Mexican worker. The retailer makes $50 the shoe company makes $33 on that pair of shoes.  If that worker was paid a living wage of $15 an hour, and all other costs remained the same, the cost of that pair of shoes would only go up by 60 cents.  It is a lie that cheap labor elsewhere makes for less expensive goods in the USA.   The truth is cheap labor elsewhere increases profits for the retailor and the manufacturer.

NAFTA has not uplifted the people of the Latin American countries.  The only people NAFTA has uplifted are the rich.

After 9/11 there was a rapid increase in the militarization of the border.  The goal stated was to keep the border safe from terrorists entering the nation.  Since militarization of the border with highly skilled marksmen, the number of terrorists that have been apprehended at the border is zero.  We have built surveillance towers that are not used, drones that fly 12 feet off the ground, biometric technology on our own citizens who cross the border daily and not one terrorist has been apprehended, however lots of gardeners and maids have been captured, deported, and sometimes randomly shot and killed. The wall is not protecting the USA from terrorists it is instead an intentional attempt to keep the oppressed from finding freedom and fulfilling their dreams. The ground on the USA side of the wall is deliberately angled and jagged to cause the breaking of ankles and legs of those jumping the wall.

Humanity is a migratory species.  We have always migrated to find new hunting grounds, to find new places to raise crops, and to find new opportunities.  This is part of our evolutionary make up that makes the human beast very adaptable to its environment. How many here today have lived in this town since birth?  Very few.  The human species is a migratory animal and when situations become intolerable in one location, humans will migrate to another location with the hopes that that new land will offer new opportunities to thrive.  Life in Mexico and in other Latin American countries continues to be intolerable with the exception of Venezuela.

That socialist government demonized by the USA has provided during Hugo Chavez’s life improved housing and education for its people. Those living in one room shacks with no running water now are in three bedroom condos with 1.5 baths.  The buildings include a community center where educational programs are provided. Their standard of living has risen where the standard of living in every other country of Latin America and in the United States has declined.  People are not seeking to leave Venezuela because life is livable, dreams are being fulfilled. Our Government has lied about Chavez in part because he fulfilled what he promised to do and the people of Venezuela are uplifted from the extreme poverty that plagued that country.  There are no mass numbers of migrants coming out of Venezuela because there is no need to flee a country that treats its citizens humanely.

Just as the USA border has become more militarized, the Mexican border has become increasingly dangerous with the Mexican Mafia and cartels.  A person can no longer cross the border on their own, to do so is to risk being tortured and possibly killed by the mafia. When I was in Nogales, Sonora, Mexico, I heard a heart wrenching tale of two young men who had not heard that they must pay the cartel in order to cross the border. In their attempt to cross over the wall they were approached by a person who appeared to be someone willing to help them.  The person calls on his radio and soon a truck arrives.  The Men in the truck question the two migrants.  They are told they are not allowed to cross without paying the cartel. Who did they pay?  They are the ones that control this territory and they were not paid, so who did they pay? No one they replied. The men over powered them, taped their eyes and mouth shut, taped their wrists and ankles and threw them in the truck.  They drove some distance to a house.  The two men do not know where they are but they can hear chickens and sheep in the back ground. The men interrogate them asking them who they paid to cross the border.  Then the men beat them, place a pistol to their heads and pull the trigger but the gun is empty. This was just for psychological terror.  After a few days of this, a car comes with the head person, who also interrogates them.  He also beats them.  The man wanted to know if they were carrying drugs for another cartel. He eventually states that the men must be lying and that they escaped from a coyote.  So the coyotes who work for this man are brought in and asked if they know these men. If they did, the men were told they would be killed.  But none of the coyotes did so the men were released and told again they must pay to cross.  They wander and see police, they try to get help but the police ignore them.  Then a stranger takes pity on them and convinces the police to help them and they are taken to Nogales hospital.  They learn that the police are sometimes in league with the mafia cartel.

It is important to note who are the mafia leadership. All of the captains of the mafia are members of a Mexican Special Force that defected from the Army called Los Zetas.  “ About 200 of these former Mexican Special Forces … were trained by U.S. Army Special Forces at the School of the Americas at Fort Benning, Ga., in the early 1990s.[ii]”  We, the taxpayer, are the accomplices in this violence on the border.

While the Mexican and USA government make public statements that decry the atrocities committed on both sides of the border, neither government has made any move to address the situation.  There are US border patrol agents and Mexican government officials who are allies with the Mafia. The Mexican government does not interfere in part because it supports the doctrine of deterrence that the United States has taken towards immigration from Latin America. This doctrine has been implemented in Arizona and in Alabama; the notion of enforcement through attrition making the environment so horrendous that undocumented individuals will choose to self-deport. Their logic follows that if the process to cross the border becomes easier, then more people would cross but if it becomes increasingly a dance with death, then less people will attempt the passage.

But as one Honduran refugee stated after fleeing the recent coup conducted by School of the Americas’ graduates, “If I am going to die in Honduras of hunger, then I would rather die struggling to live.”   Such is the determination of a people who are desperate.

One woman I met told her story.  She and her family had lived in NYC for about 13 years.  Her husband’s mother and brother had become ill so they returned to Mexico to take care of them. Their children, one of whom born in NYC and the other only having lived less than a year in Mexico before crossing did not know Mexico, they do not speak Spanish.  They missed their friends in New York and they did not understand Mexican Culture. So after a year they decided to cross back into the US.  The son who was born in the USA purchased airfare and was flown back.  The father was able to cross the desert with no problems.  She and her other son attempted to cross the desert and were caught by the border patrol agents.  They were treated horribly by the agents, pushed and shoved.  They were deported to Nogales.  The mother was able to secure for her son car transportation across the border to New York.  She paid $3800 to do this. While we were there speaking with her, she received a phone call stating her son was now in transit towards NYC, he made it through the desert.  She is relieved. She stated she is determined to join them in the near future.  There is no question in her mind that she will be reunited with her family.  She will not stop until it is so or she is shot and killed.

A friend of mine wrote a song with lyrics of being like a mother bear that will do anything to defend her cubs.   This is the determination of the families who are being deported, separated from their families.  There is no law, no 30 foot high wall, no desert terrain no matter how dangerous can or will deter families from being with their loved ones.

The US government and the media call these people criminals.  How can something as inherent in our evolutionary development as love be criminal?  This is the ultimate lie that my government tells me about people who are immigrants.  May we continue to choose to stand on the side love.

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[i] http://millercenter.org/president/speeches/detail/3927

[ii] http://www.tedpoe.com/newsarticle.php?article=128

 

This was presented under the title of “The Cost of Privilege: Lies My Government Told Me About Immigration” to the Unitarian Universalist Church of Huntsville in Alabama on 2 June 2013 (c)

The Moral Argument

A few weeks back Utah state senator Stuart Reid defended his vote against the anti-discrimination act protecting employment and housing rights of people of gender and sexual diversities.  He stated he did so because he believes homosexuality to be immoral.  In summary his argument was as follows and I quote: “When society, through its government, identifies something to be immoral, it is by definition discriminating against that thing, act or behavior by setting it apart as harmful to society. Under Utah law, something identified as moral receives preferential treatment and something identified as immoral receives discriminatory treatment. … In short, if homosexual activity is not immoral, then end discrimination in all its forms against it. If it is immoral, then government should protect against its harm to society and does not provide special rights in support of it[i].”

Now, as a gay man, I have to protest his claim that I am immoral based on the inherent state of who I am.  But I have to say there is coherence in his argument that I have not seen in recent history of conservative politics.  Frankly, he is making a solid point in how we as a society have operated.

He is correct in stating as a society we have legislated / discriminated against that which was deemed *immoral*.  And as he stated in his response, we either did nothing about the immoral behavior or we sanctioned it without enforcement, or we punished it.  We promoted what society thought was moral and discriminated against that which we considered immoral. Slavery and polygamy were accepted as moral behaviors until the majority deemed it immoral. The reverse is also true in this country. Integration and interracial marriages were considered unacceptable and immoral until the majority deemed them moral.

And we as a country are still undecided regarding the morality of marriage between first cousins.  It is allowed in sixteen states, banned in 25 states, and carries a criminal offense in the remaining states.  Is it moral?  Sixteen states say yes and for the record the majority of New England states and southern states are in agreement in this regard.

The reason given for its being immoral is the possibility of deformed children being born to these unions. Some states require sterilization before such marriages can be allowed. However, these 16 states recognize that the threat of birth defects is only marginally higher between first cousins than between second or third cousins or in non-related spouses.

However, Texas, which instituted their ban against marriage between first cousins in 2005, makes it a felony charge with possible prison up to 20 years.  Conviction of having sex with your first cousin, regardless of marital status, results in registration of being a sex offender.   Being designated a sex offender carries with it an emotionally charged reaction from the society at large as this designation is often used to warn against pedophiles.   Marrying your first cousin is not the same as violating a child, yet the stigma is applied making marrying your first cousin as severe a crime as pedophilia.  Is it therefore immoral behavior?  For us living in a country where the rule of law is held as a moral compass, we have conflated law-abiding with morality.

Conflating the two, however, is troublesome.  What is legal does not automatically equate with what is moral.   It was perfectly legal to have whites’ only entrances and toilets in the early half of the 20^th century. It was perfectly legal to have children under the age of 15 work in dangerous factories in the 19^th century. It was perfectly legal to outlaw Jews in Nazi Germany and send them to their deaths. And it is currently perfectly legal to define marriage as one man one woman. Are any of these legalities moral?

Just because something is legal or illegal does not make that thing also moral or immoral.  The stronger reason why slavery, polygamy, pedophilia, racist segregation, child labor is considered immoral not because it is illegal but because of the imbalance of power and potentiality of emotional, physical, psychological and spiritual abuse in the relationships. Not only for the one who has no power in these relationships but also for the one in the dominant role.  Consensual marriage with your first cousin does not automatically mean an unequal power dynamic.

And the moral argument is also raised when it comes to a woman’s right to choose.  Society has said, albeit with exceptions, that killing another human is immoral.  The exceptions seem to be acts of war, self defense, and the death penalty.  Even these exceptions have been questioned.  So we now have the dilemma of the unwanted pregnancy.  When does life begin?  When is the fetus a human baby and therefore immoral to terminate?

It is an issue that will probably never ever be fully settled because even within the same dominant religious tradition within this country there are two definitions of when life begins.  The first is the belief that life begins at first breath.  This is referenced several times in the Hebrew Scriptures in Genesis and elsewhere.  The second is the belief that life began before birth with the Hebrew Psalms declaring that one’s destiny was written even while within the womb.

The first supports a theology that humans have agency, free will, the ability to choose and that agency/ that choice began with the infant drawing its first breath.  The second develops a theology that humans do not have agency, that their lives are pre-determined, pre-destined by a god who has already decided who is to destined for salvation and who is destined for eternal damnation.

The first supports that the woman also has agency, free will, the ability to choose and create her destiny.  The second supports that the woman does not have agency. She is only a vessel for her offspring, the continuation of the species and any greatness she may achieve is through the fruit of her womb.   There are sacred and poetic texts extolling the womb of Mary, the mother of Jesus.  Her value is only in the fact that she gave birth to a long awaited heir to the throne of David, a messiah, a king.

The followers of the theology that people have agency would say that the woman needs to enter pregnancy willingly and knowingly of the consequences of nurturing a child.  Therefore if she becomes pregnant against her will or does not for her own reasons believe she can accept or support the consequences of pregnancy she has several options to choose.  She may opt to support the pregnancy and raise the child or offer the child into adoption, or to terminate the pregnancy.  The fetus inside her is not a human being until it can draw its first breath or other wise be viable outside of the womb.   And should she choose to have an abortion; the theology declares no shame in that decision.

The followers of the second theology would declare the rights of the fetus supersede the rights of the vessel that carries it.  To end the pregnancy they argue would be in violation of one of the Ten Commandments, thou shalt not kill.  Murder we have already stated has an exceptions clause but this apparently is not one of them. Those advocating Personhood rights at conception state that terminating a fertilized ovum would be murder punishable, at the very least, by a long prison sentence and depending on how the laws are written possibly by capital punishment-the death penalty.  Those who protest against abortion tend to add the stigma of shame into the equation for those women who made a choice to do what nature does over 75% of the time[ii] with all conceptions.   I would argue that personhood bills create an unfair power dynamic over the woman, restricting her ability to have agency in her life just as slavery, polygamy, pedophilia, racist segregation, and child labor restrict the ability of agency for those trapped in such situations.

There is one more piece of the puzzle regarding determining what is moral.   Does morality come from within or is it imposed by some outside force, say a deity or a government?

Those who argue for an end for a woman’s right to choose also tend to argue that morality is imposed by an outside force, namely a deity.  The belief again is that humanity has no agency to determine its path.  Therefore, without the presence of an all judging god, humanity will of its own chaos reduce itself to immoral behavior as normative.  The argument therefore states that Humanity / society must therefore be constrained by outside forces be it governmental or be it a deity.

Unitarian Universalists have long argued that within each person is the agency to choose the best path.  Given the options, the pros and the cons, the parameters in which they find themselves a person will be able to make the best decision specific to their circumstances.  Making decisions that are morally sound are not easy tasks.

Is morality universal or is it relational?  Or is it a combination of the two?   I suggest that morality is indeed both universal and relational.  All of our world religions have some form of the Golden Rule, which implies some universality to what may define moral behavior.  I would love for people to treat me with shrimp and caviar so in my desire to be so treated I decide to treat others with shrimp and caviar; yet there are people that if I offer them shrimp and caviar it is as if I am offering them death because they are allergic.  So the universal does not always work in the specific.  It would be better if I who love shrimp and caviar offer an assortment of foods that can be chosen freely by others.   There are no absolutes in the specifics of living day to day.

I would question my friends who had to have their god observe absolutes.  My friends would state that abortion was always the wrong choice, no matter what.  I would ask them a question. Is god a loving, compassionate, god?  Yes, they would answer.  What if in god’s loving compassion towards a young woman who was so wounded from living in a sexually abusive home that to have a child at this time would only ensure that the child would be equally wounded.  Would that god allow an abortion as being more merciful to the young woman than to have her endure a pregnancy and have a child that she in her wounded state does not have the skills to raise?  They were never able to see god being merciful in such a manner.  They were never able to see god being gentle with this young woman and grace her with a chance to heal the scars of spiritual and physical violence before becoming a mother.  In short, they could not accept that even god might show mercy when they could not.

If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even criminals love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even criminals do the same. And if you lend to those from whom you hope to receive back, what credit is that to you? For even criminals lend to criminals to receive as much back. (Luke 6 Fred’s paraphrase)

Blessed Be.

 

The Moral Argument by Rev. Fred L Hammond delivered on  14 April 2013 © to the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Tuscaloosa

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[i] http://www.deseretnews.com/article/765624386/With-SB262-Utah-is-at-a-crossroads.html?pg=all

[ii] http://miscarriage.about.com/od/riskfactors/a/miscarriage-statistics.htm

Justice as a Spiritual Practice

This past week was a difficult one for me. Watching the state house accepting lies as facts in their passing HB 57 shutting down a women’s ability to have dominion over the fate of her body by restricting access to clinics was difficult to bear. It was also difficult to learn the Accountability Act has the negative impact of reinforcing and securing segregation once again of our schools. Alabama Senate also passed the open carry gun law allowing people to carry guns anywhere even at places of employment against the employer’s policies. This on top of the ongoing draconian actions taken against migrant and immigrant families and the Governor’s refusal of accepting an expansion of Medicaid that would potentially save the lives of 550 people annually. An expansion that would be paid in full by the Federal government the first 3 years and then gradually increase Alabama’s share to cover a mere 10% of the cost by 2020. These actions by our state will increase the suffering our citizens experience.

But our state wasn’t the only state considering and passing laws that were void of any sense of justice. Tennessee sought to specifically create their voucher program for private schools to exclude benefiting Moslem parochial schools and to deny welfare benefits to families whose children are doing poorly in school. The voucher program was killed in session but the welfare benefits in exchange for good school grades passed the TN house on Wednesday.

Then there is the town of Nelson, Georgia that passed an ordinance requiring every head of household, unless a felon or mentally ill, to own a gun and ammo . It isn’t the first town in Georgia to have such an ordinance; the town of Kennesaw has had such an ordinance, albeit unenforced, since 1982.

Our country claims to have a moral compass but I am having difficulty finding true north on this compass. It only seems to point at those things that seem expedient, that seem to support pharisaical righteous indignation and not anything resembling the core teachings of our major religions.

At the same time, our denomination seems to be very active in a variety of social justice issues. Last week there was a very strong presence in Washington DC for the Supreme Court hearings on marriage equality. And Unitarian Universalists are preparing to join thousands this coming week for the Immigration march on Washington to push for humane immigration reform. Unitarian Universalists have joined the protests against the building of the Keystone Pipeline—some even pledging to participate in civil disobedience. At the School of Americas Watch protest every fall, Unitarian Universalists join in seeking closure of this international military training camp that has resulted in millions of lives lost and displaced in Latin America.
These are in my mind important issues but how does one keep from being swallowed up in the search for justice for all. How does one keep from becoming bitter and sardonic in the face of so much pain and suffering these injustices cause?

There are three people who I believe can provide some insight into how Justice can be a spiritual practice. These three people are Gandhi, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Bishop Desmond Tutu.

But first we need a working definition of what defines a spiritual practice. Venerable Deo Kwun gave a dharma talk to Unitarian Universalists in Grand Rapid Michigan. He was looking for a definition of Unitarian Universalist spiritual practice and came to understand spiritual practice for us as being: a repeated action coupled with clear intention to connect with all things in a way that rests in wisdom, love, kindness, compassion, and joy.

Leave it to a non-Unitarian Universalist to come up with a viable working definition of what we do as a spiritual practice. That is another sermon topic.

I am going to use this definition to present some ideas regarding creating Justice as a spiritual practice. I begin with Bishop Desmond Tutu.
For those who may not know Desmond Tutu. He is the first black Anglican archbishop from Capetown, South Africa. He fought for the end of apartheid. He insisted not to become bitter in the face of his adversaries. Bitterness, one might think, would be a justified reaction given the pain and suffering he and his people have endured under apartheid. He chose not to go there.

In order to do the work for freedom and justice he followed this daily routine: He sought to think positive. He would remember all the positive and loving actions he experienced from others and think about those actions. He would seek to recognize present moments of positive and loving actions in his day to day life. These memories and present encounters would motivate and provide direction for his life. He awoke each morning with quiet time, a walk, and prayerful reflection. Now his prayerful reflection because he is Christian included reading and reflecting on the Hebrew and Christian scriptures as a parallel to what was happening in his life. And because he is Christian, he sought to hear his god’s voice in the midst of all that was happening around him to aid him in guiding his journey.

Reflection is important in doing Justice work. I believe that it is essential regardless of the faith doctrine one hangs their hat. Without it, creating justice becomes another exterior action that has no central conviction behind it. Creating justice should be expanding the realm of freedom and liberation and not forging steel bars of anger, resentment, and bitterness exchanging one prison cell for anther one.

Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. followed a practice of ‘Satya-graha’ or soul force. Soul force was created by Gandhi from his study of many religions. He took the Hindu concepts of Ahimsa—non-violence and Anaskati- detachment, the Christian concept of loving your neighbors as yourself and redemptive suffering and Jainism’s anekantavada—the many-sidedness of truth to create this notion of Soulforce.  Martin Luther King adapted Soulforce for his non-violent resistance through out the 1950’s and 60’s.

Gandhi and King had their followers in various marches sign pledges of Soulforce action. For both Gandhi and King, Soulforce was not just a tactic in order to win victory but rather a way of life that transforms first the individual engaged in it and secondarily the world around them. For them the goal was not victory but justice and reconciliation. To achieve justice, it was important to live justly. Both men sought this level of commitment in the people who marched with them.

There is a quote in the Movie Gandhi that has him saying something along the lines of “when the British leave India we want to see them off as friends.” And this attitude of reconciliation was at the heart of his message and his commitment.

Many years ago now, I joined Rev. Mel White in a similar venture for justice. He is the founder of Soulforce, an organization that seeks justice and reconciliation within the conservative faiths regarding gender and sexual diversities. We engaged in a 17 week course of reflection on being gay and oppressed in the context of Soulforce with the goal that we would sit down to dinner with the Rev. Jerry Falwell.

We too had to sign a pledge similar to the pledge that Gandhi’s and King’s followers were asked to sign. We also were asked to take five vows as life long commitments. Some of them are harder to keep than others.
The vows were the following :

Five Soulforce Vows or Promises
1. Vow to Truth
I promise to seek the truth, to live by the truth, and to confront untruth wherever I find it.
2. Vow to Love
I promise to reject violence (of the fist, tongue, or heart) and to use only the methods of nonviolence in my search for truth or in my confrontation with untruth.
3. Vow to volunteer suffering
I promise to take on myself without complaint any suffering that might result from my confrontation with untruth and to do all in my power to help my adversary avoid all suffering, especially that suffering that may result from our confrontation.
4. Vow to control passions
I promise to control my appetite for food, sex, intoxicants, entertainment, position, power that my best self might be free to join with my Creator in doing justice (making things fair for all).
5. Vow to limit possessions
I promise to limit my possessions to those things I really need to survive and to see myself as a trustee over all my other possessions, using them exclusively to help make things fair for those who suffer.

The first vow was based in the notion that we all fall victim to untruth. Jerry Falwell was not my enemy, even though he said hateful things about my character as a gay man, he was instead a victim to untruth just as I had been a victim of the same untruth. The interactions we had with him were not so much as to reach a victory as it was to find reconciliation and end the sharing of untruth about us.

The second vow to love was to refrain from all forms of violence; of the fist, tongue, or heart. I served as a peacekeeper for the celebration of Lynchburg Virginia’s first gay pride event. We were told that the protesters  including some of Westboro Baptist folks, were to be on the opposite side of the road from where the event was taking place. I and other peace keepers created a human shield between them and the festivities. The police did not keep their word to keep the group on that side of the road and soon they were up against our backs, saying all sorts of vile things in our ears hoping to get a rise out of us. They were leaning into our bodies hoping for us to make a move in which all hell would break loose. We remained steadfast in our restraint. We said no words, we used no fist, and I hope I was keeping a calm heart as well.

The Vow to voluntary suffering means acceptance of any consequences that may arise from my keeping the first two vows. There is a powerful scene in the Movie Gandhi where there is an attempt to shut down the salt mines. Row after row of men lined up to move in and the police and guards hit them hard to keep them from advancing forward. The sheer volume of men coming forward to insist on closing down the mines is overwhelming. Vince Walker, in reporting this scene says: Whatever moral ascendancy the West once held was lost here today. India is free, for she has taken all that steel and cruelty can give and she has neither cringed nor retreated.
They accepted the consequences of their actions. To work for justice means to be willing accept the consequences in the process, not to complain about the consequences but to accept them and to take the next step forward. The forces of untruth are often virulent in their desire to maintain prominence in a culture.

One only needs to see the virulence of untruth as it swirls around the reality that we have a black president. It has struck with a vengeance and so many people in the US today are being forced to reckon with the idea that their prejudices and racist beliefs about others are false. A reelection to office has not tempered the vile untruths being spouted. But Soulforce would ask us to have compassion on those who are so trapped in the prison cells of untruth because they are victims just as much as those who suffer from their racially charged laws and judgments.

It could be argued that the first three vows are specific to causes of justice and the last two are more life style choices; to control passions and to limit possessions. But consider that if passions are allowed to run free how might that impact on the justice we seek to create? How many people in religious or political settings have been destroyed because they have allowed their passions to control them instead of them their passions? Trying to live up to these two vows as Mel White suggests is a personal decision. They cannot be standardized or quantified. Therefore, how I might live these would be vastly different from how you might choose to live them.

Here in the south we see all too frequently what happens when a group of people attempts to quantify or set up a behavioral standard as to what these might look like in our lives. It results in imposing one’s will or one’s doctrine onto another person or group. That attitude results in suffering and oppression instead of reducing suffering.

So to take on these last two vows is to commit to the hard work of discerning the parameters of passion and the parameters of living simply. It is hard work. And Gandhi and King were no saints in this regard, far from it. They each have stories circulating around them where these two vows were clearly broken. But that fact does not undo the justice they attempted to create in the world. It does keep them human and hopefully away from the iconic images of saints being above reproach.

To live with Justice as a spiritual practice is to allow oneself to be transformed in order to change the world. Rep. John Lewis in an interview stated: “… hate is too heavy a burden to bear. And if you accept nonviolence as a way of life, as a way of living, then you must be true, you must be consistent. Because if you only accept nonviolence as a technique or as a tactic, it becomes like a faucet. You can turn it on and turn it off. You have to go around deciding who you’re going to hate and who you’re going to love today, who you’re going to like or dislike, and I can truly say that I don’t have any ill feeling or malice or hatred toward anyone that attacked me or had me arrested or jailed during that period. I saw the men and women that engaged in the violence and the mob, whether it was a Bull Connor in Birmingham or a Sheriff Clark in Selma, as victims. We all were victims.”

Justice as a spiritual practice is not like faucets that can be turned on or off, you have to decide that this work is important to who you are in the world. It means extending love to all we meet. Even those who are adamantly oppositional to us, we are called to love with justice. May we begin again in love. Blessed be.

“Justice as a Spiritual Practice” by
Rev. Fred L Hammond  was offered on 7 April 2013 ©  to the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Tuscaloosa

[1] http://thecontributor.com/medicaid-expansion-could-save-over-500-lives-year-alabama

[1] http://thinkprogress.org/education/2013/04/03/1815461/tennessee-may-deliberately-exclude-muslim-schools-from-new-voucher-program/

[1] http://www.tennessean.com/article/20130404/NEWS0201/304040068/TN-bill-linking-welfare-benefits-grades-passes-House-committee

[1] http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/04/02/17567999-georgia-town-passes-law-requiring-citizens-to-own-guns-and-ammo?lite

[1] http://grzen.org/talks/What_is_Spiritual_Practice.pdf

[1] http://www.archives.soulforce.org/1998/01/01/take-the-five-soulforce-vows-or-promises/

[1] http://paceebene.org/nvns/nonviolence-news-service-archive/hate-too-heavy-burden-bear-interview-rep-john-lewis-0

Green Blade Rises

The hymn Now the Green Blade Riseth sung beautifully this morning loosely refers to the Christian texts in Mark 4: The earth beareth fruit of herself; first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. And also the verse in John 12: I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.

The hymn written by minister John Crum in the 1920’s takes these verses and weaves a wonderful metaphor not only referring to the Christian doctrine of the resurrection of Jesus but also to the resurrection / rebirth of love in a heart wounded and grieving. It is this second metaphor that I want to explore on this day of celebrating resurrection, this day of celebrating spring’s rising to new life.

We need that assurance that love not only can but will prevail ultimately. As Rob Bell writes, Love Wins. Love wins. And it wins even when all signs point to the opposite. The green blade riseth from the buried grain/ wheat that in dark earth many days has lain/ Love lives again, that with the dead has been/ love comes again like wheat that springeth green.

I officiated at an outdoor wedding last week and on the property were these 200 year old oaks whose branches were covered with small ferns—called the resurrection fern. In times of drought the fronds of this fern are dry, apparently dead/lifeless. But when the rain comes, these fronds become healthy and supple, vibrant with life. It had been raining and these fronds were full of life.

But there is another plant that is even more amazing called the Ibervillea Sonorae. This desert plant of the gourd family can appear as a piece of drift wood for years. When the rains come, it will burst forth in magnificent full bloom and produce gourds and then die off and wait again. NY Botanical Garden reportedly had one; they purposefully kept it from water to see how long it would live in its drift wood state. Each year it would tentatively send out green tendrils looking for a source of water. If there was none to be found, it would shrivel back and return to its drift wood state. For seven years the plant waited for the moment of rebirth before it died.

I found that number of years to be meaningful. Without delving too much into numerology, the number seven is a significant number metaphorically in the Hebrew Scriptures. The Genesis story has god resting on the seventh day of creation. A Hebrew slave is to be released in the seventh year. Hebrews insisted a field be fallow every seven years; and of course the notion that the seventh day of the week is the Sabbath, a day of rest. Jesus was once asked how many times to forgive someone for the same offense, seven times? No, Jesus replied, seventy times seven. So seven years for a desert plant to wait for resurrection seems theologically significant. It suggests that we are not to give up on love. Even after waiting a time period numbering seventy times seven and the appearance of anything different still seems dead impossible—we are not to give up on love. Seven seems to be the number of the Sabbath, the rest needed to bring about rejuvenation/ new life/ or new starts can begin. But it also seems to imply that just when by all appearances everything seems to be forever in the dead of night, the moment of dawn occurs and a bright new day begins.

A blog post on this amazing plant asks the questions: How dead does something have to appear before it is dead? How dry and lifeless and alone and fruitless does something have to be before it is actually, and finally, beyond hope? *

For the Ibervillea apparently a very long time. When our hearts are wintry, grieving or in pain, Love’s touch can call us back to life again, fields of our hearts that dead and bare have been: Love is come again like wheat that springeth green.

That is often the fear, isn’t it, that our hearts once bereft will be kept in an eternal wintry mess and spring’s warm caress of new life will never come or never come in time? So how do we wait patiently like the Ibervillea day after day, week after week? It isn’t easy.

I believe the point of Jesus’ message is not in his death and resurrection. At least not in the way the orthodox theology has established it. The point is that Jesus kept saying the kingdom of god / the beloved community was within us, the realm of heaven is indeed within us. He stated this before his death and resurrection. It was not a condition contingent on his crucifixion; it was already according to Jesus a reality. Christianity has placed the emPHASis on the wrong sylLAHble. Just as the Ibervillea has everything ready within it to burst forth with new vines of flowers and gourds, we too have everything within us we need to burst forth with love to transform our society from the dried piece of drift wood it seems to be to a lush garden of life.

This beloved community with in us is the green blade that riseth in the hearts of people who seek to live according to the universal truth that we are all one people/ one family. What we do to one person we do to all. I’ve said this before and I truly am convinced that Jesus’ core message is found in what he considers to be the greatest commandments of the Tanakh, the scriptures of Jesus’ day: “To love god / Life with all one’s heart, with all one’s soul, and with all one’s mind” and to “love your neighbor as yourself.” Everything else falls under these two commands.

I have come to believe that to focus on the crucifixion and resurrection is a form of cheap grace. There is no need for personal growth and health when this becomes the central piece of salvation. Even history’s worst villains of the western world claimed to be Christian because they believed in the death and resurrection of Jesus. Say the sinner’s prayer and be on your way—nothing more to be seen here. But when the person seeks to fulfill the great command—whether it is stated in the words of Jesus or the Dalai Lama or Karen Armstrong or Thich Nhat Hanh then the person becomes engaged and their lives are transformed in ways that are mysterious and wonderful. The rest, as the Rabbi Hillel said, is commentary.

So reach out to the person who is grieving or in pain with compassion, with love as you would want someone to reach out to you in love and become that life saving water that encourages the green blade to rise again. Love is come again like wheat that springeth green.

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Green Blade Rises
Rev Fred L Hammond 31 March 2013 ©
Presented at Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Tuscaloosa

* As found on March 29 2013 at http://shelovesmagazine.com/2013/never-dead-enough/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+shelovesmagazine%2FgZoz+%28SheLoves+Magazine%29

What’s Your Pie?

I came across a post that my friend Kat Liu wrote on Facebook.  She writes: “The other day I read Huffington Post quoting someone as saying, ‘I go to church for pie.’ To be fair, I did not read the rest of the article so maybe there was more to it than that. But the reason why I didn’t read past the teaser is because I had the same reaction that I did many years ago when Unitarian Universalism was first described to me as ‘you can believe anything you want.’ I thought, ‘That’s nice, but why would I join a group for that? I can believe anything I want by myself.’ And I can get pie pretty much anywhere; why would I go to church for it? If that’s the only thing at church that’s drawing people, [then] that’s not enough of a draw. And if pie is not the thing that’s really drawing people, then why aren’t we talking about that instead of pie?”

So the question is:  “What’s your pie?”  What is it about this congregation, about Unitarian Universalism that gets you up out of bed on a Sunday morning to come here?  And please don’t say the fair trade coffee we serve, I already know it’s good to the last drop.  I know this because I am often the one getting that last drop (smile).   But certainly that can not be why you come on Sunday mornings or any other time of the week.

It can’t simply be because of the pie or the coffee or the freedom of not being told what to believe.  These things are not very compelling.

Now you may be surprised to hear that this question is also being asked in congregations of other faiths as well.  I stumbled across a recent blog on Friday asking the exact same question.

This Christian minister listed 13 reasons[i] as to why someone would go to church.  I looked through the list and said to myself;  no, not that one, not that one either, no, that isn’t it, no,  hmm maybe, need to ponder that a bit, no not that one.  And on I went through the list.  I will come back to this list in a moment.

I found another Christian post that also answered this question.  And I found these answers interesting.  This was in the context of churches growing and churches struggling to grow.

This blogger[ii] wrote: “When I visit congregations that are struggling to grow, I hear these types of answers, ‘I grew up in the church.’ ‘I get filled up for the week?’ ‘I was baptized in the church.’ ‘My family has always gone here.’ ‘I love the music and the preacher.’ …

“When I ask the question in churches that are growing, the answers are very different. People say, ‘The worship service and sermon have helped me grow ….’ ‘The Sunday School class I attend challenges me to grow and learn more about what it means to be a Christian.’ ‘Our church is making a difference with our mission team, and we can see the difference we are making in the lives of people we reach out to.’  ‘Most people and churches turned their back on me, but this church accepted me and helped me understand … grace and love …  They were never judgmental.’ “

Now these comments are from a Christian point of view but the difference between the two sets of answers are in my mind profound.

It was a comment on a Unitarian Universalist blogger’s[iii] post on the obverse side of this question that brought this difference home for me.   The Unitarian Universalist blog listed reasons why the person no longer attends a Unitarian Universalist congregation.   Two of the reasons she gave for not going to church were:

“I don’t actually think church is important for me right now” 

“My needs don’t seem to matter much in church “

The comment in response was the following[iv]:

“My two boys (30’s) also have a problem attending church for similar reasons……maybe not put the same way. It always goes back to one basic reason with many different facets……I, ME, MYSELF
(1) The church isn’t meeting MY needs
(2) I’m only going to church to get something for myself
(3) It’s inconvenient for ME
(4) It interferes with things I want to do

“Consider this approach: Can I plug into the church to use my gifts to help others? Can I give of myself to God and others through the church to help others? Go to church to praise and thank God for my blessings. All the good things you have come from God, including your time.”

Now some translation work might be needed here because many of us may not believe in god.   I find if I substitute the word Life that this comes close to the experience this writer is suggesting.  How can I give myself to Life and others through the church?  Can I offer thanks for Life’s blessings?  How can I show gratitude for all things come from Life, including my time?

And this was the difference between the one congregation that was stagnant and the one that was vibrant.  The vibrant congregation’s members felt their presence at church mattered. They had something to receive and they had something to offer towards the mission of the congregation as well.

Now in the three congregations that I have served in my time as a Unitarian Universalist minister, I have heard similar sentiments from people who have left the church.  They have told me that they think they have grown beyond what Unitarian Universalism can offer them.  They liked the people, they liked what Unitarian Universalism stood for, and they even liked the social justice issues we focused on as a congregation and as a denomination.  But for one reason or another they believed they had grown beyond Unitarian Universalism.    They may, like the Unitarian Universalist blogger, still identify as Unitarian Universalist just as a person who no longer attends Roman Catholic mass might still identify as Catholic.  Or they may have pursued a different faith path and claim a different identity.  Or they may have joined the ranks of the un-churched.

I admit I do not understand how someone can grow beyond Unitarian Universalism.  I hear the words but I don’t comprehend how that can be that someone grows beyond being Unitarian Universalist. Our faith is one of the more challenging faiths that I am aware of because we ask people to “work out your own salvation[v]” as Paul of Tarsus commands the Philippians.  You can’t get more biblical than that but it is one of our principles of our faith which states:  A free and responsible search for truth and meaning.  This means working out your own salvation.  It is finding out what saves you from your self and being transformed into a person who is more loving/ more forgiving/ more mindful in living.  It is finding out what saves you from the coldness of heart that is endemic in our society.

But if you are coming here for the pie or for a social club or even for a refuge then you will be disappointed in time because the pie here will cease to satisfy your hunger, the social club milieu will become boring, and the refuge you sought will be undone by meeting people who believe the very things you disdain and their presence here will scandalize you.

Our faith is creedless and therefore we do not ask people to check their brains at the door nor do we ask them to check their god at the door. We covenant to be together as a people engaged in the network of mutuality which is our humanity.  What affects one affects us all. And together we can learn not only to be better people because of this network of mutuality but also in the hopes, in the trust, in the creative interchange that occurs whenever two or more people gather to create a better world filled with justice, love and equality. We do it first here and then out there in the world.

This to me is the draw of our faith.  This for me is my pie.  And frankly, I can’t do this on my own and neither can you.  I am not like the Buddha who was able to withdraw under the Bodhi Tree and receive enlightenment.  I have my moments of with drawing for meditation or retreat but I must have community in order to practice and integrate what I profess to believe.

James Luther Adams once said that church was the place where we get to practice being human.  What makes this congregation different from all other congregations in Tuscaloosa, guaranteed, is that here when you have a problem you are facing you will not hear a platitude.  You will not hear an easy answer like ‘pray more’ or ‘God doesn’t give you anything more than you can handle.’ Or ‘believe this doctrine and all will be well.’

Instead what hopefully happens is you will find people who will listen, hold you fully present in their lives, and if you so desire talk with you about the situation you are facing and assist you to handle this burden in your life. We do this in community, not alone.

And this was one of the reasons the Christian minister mentioned that made me take pause and say hmm, he wrote we go to church “because we need help to face the issues of life and faith…”  I come to church to hear and learn how I might be able to handle the issues that I am concerned about. Whether that learning takes place in the worship service or in an adult class after the service or even in the conversations we have together.

As minister, I come to be of service to each of you.  Yes, that is my professional role, but it is a role that is not exclusively mine to offer.  Each of you has this role for one another.  I know you have this role because you often minister to me in this place and you minister to each other as well. It is sometimes as simple as a smile or a hug or as profound as an insight shared in a conversation.  Sometimes this is the only place where people receive hugs during their week.  This role is multi-generational.  The children have ministered to me just as surely as the person twice my age though the latter is mighty hard to find in this congregation. (I am 56, who here is 112?)

And the other reason this Christian minister suggested people come to church and I have paraphrased it considerably, “Because we need an alternative to the constant messages of a culture [engulfed in false piety].”

We live in a culture here in the south, though it is also prevalent elsewhere, where false piety is insipid in daily conversations. From our elected leaders to the workplace, false piety is expressed with all the haughtiness of righteousness but with none of the convictions in their character. They wag their tongues in hateful disdain of others and claim they are showing the love taught by their faith tradition.  Their own messiah had this to say about them: Woe to you … , pretenders, who are like white tombs, which from the outside appear lovely, but from within are full of the bones of the dead and all corruption! So also you from the outside appear to the children of men as righteous, and from within are filled with evil and hypocrisy[vi].

Some people come to church to seek sanctuary from this kind of verbal onslaught.  But we offer no comforting balm if all we offer is refuge and not healing.  We do no good if all we do is allow our spiritually wounded to vent about this incessant verbiage that wears down the spirit.  We need to be teaching how we can love our neighbor even when they attack our values of equality.  We need to be teaching how to forgive those who hold us and others in disdain because they, too, are a victim of untruth.   And the spirit of untruth is a poisonous venom that slowly petrifies the society in which we live.  It will take a community of faith to be the antidote of such venom but this only works if the community of faith is inoculated by coming together on a regular basis and lifting up the values we seek to emulate in our lives.

I believe this faith has the antidote to this toxin. I believe this faith works best when done within community.  I believe this is a community that is worthy of committing support through membership.

You may initially come for the pie or the socialization of similar minded folk.  I hope you will stay for the community that can strengthen your spirit and your character throughout your lifetime.

I close with a story.

Once upon a time there was a family that was moving in search of a new community.  On their travels they saw a woman selling fruits and vegetables along the road.  They decided to stop and purchase some for their travel.  They asked the woman about the community they were coming up to and what sort of people lived there.  The woman asked, “Well what sort of community did you leave?” “Oh,” they replied “we left the community because they were filled with deceit and lies.  They were vicious and hurtful to one another.  The community was filled with people who were only out for themselves.”  The woman listened and replied; “Well you won’t like this community then, because it is far worse here.  You be best to go on to the next community.”  The family thanked the woman for her honesty and went on their way enjoying their fruit.

A few hours later another family who was also searching for a new community came upon the same woman and fruit and vegetable stand. They too decided to purchase some for their travels.  And in their shopping they began asking what type of community were they approaching.  The woman asked what sort of community they had left.  “Oh,” the family responded, “We came from a wonderful community.  Everyone was very helpful to one another.  If there was a need, others came forward to assist in filling it. They were people who loved their neighbors dearly and were always making sure that others were doing well.”  The woman responded, “Well, you are in luck for in this community we also seek to love one another and help out in times of need.  You will find this community much to your liking.” The family decided to make their home in this community and the community was exactly as the woman had said. May it be so and Blessed Be.

What’s Your Pie? by Rev. Fred L Hammond delivered to the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Tuscaloosa on 10 Feb 2013 ©

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[i] http://www.dailywordofgodgroup.com/why-go-to-church.htm#.URVCdPJQCSo

[ii] http://www.kansaseast.org/blogs/detail/253

[iii] http://survivingtheworkday.com/category/workplace-spirituality/

[iv] http://survivingtheworkday.com/2008/02/27/why-i-dont-go-to-church/#comment-9202

[v] http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Philippians+2%3A12&version=KJV

[vi] http://aramaic-plain-english.scripturetext.com/matthew/23.htm

Violence in America

Reading: “All this is simply to say that all life is interrelated. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality; tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. As long as there is poverty in the world, no man can be totally rich even if he has a billion dollars. As long as diseases are rampant and millions of people cannot expect to live more than twenty or thirty years, no man can be totally healthy, even if he just got a clean bill of health from the finest clinic in America. Strangely enough, I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. This is the way the world is made. I didn’t make it that way, but this is the interrelated structure of reality. John Donne caught it a few centuries ago and could cry out, ‘No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main… any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.’ If we are to realize the American Dream we must cultivate this world perspective. – From The American Dream 6 June 1961

Violence in America

When I was a child in the late 1950’s early 1960’s, I remember having these emergency drills in school.   My town was roughly 90 miles from Manhattan.  If Manhattan was hit by a nuclear bomb, what would we do?  So every so often we would move all of our desks against the inside wall away from the windows and we would all get underneath them.  Poor Peter, in first grade he was too tall to fit under his desk so he had to go into the teacher’s closet.  We did this drill on regular basis knowing full well if Manhattan was indeed a target of a nuclear bomb, we might survive the initial blast but the radiation would kill us within a few days[i].

During this same time period, there were momentous changes happening in America.  The civil rights movement was occurring and from my living room in rural New York State I watched in horror as German shepherds was set to attack black Americans in the south.  I saw on my television churches and synagogues being firebombed through out the country.

And across the oceans I watched Walter Cronkite report the news in Viet Nam and saw again in black and white horror children running in the streets while Napalm flames consumed their bodies. These are the images of my childhood that are seared in my brain of life in America, home of the brave and land of the free.

And so I grew up understanding that America was under a threat. There was the threat of nuclear war the Cuban Missile crisis, the fear of race riots, and the fear of the Domino effect of communism that would cause Southeast Asia to fall.  And the only way to combat these threats was with violence or the threat of violence.

And now within the last few months in the aftermath of some of the most horrid massacres, the number one threat that is perceived is that the Second Amendment, the right to bear arms, might be curtailed or worse denied.  The fact that there are people having access to assault weapons that have one purpose and one purpose only was not the fear but that we might have guns pried out of our hands.  Here is where America is drawing the line.

In Northport, AL, this past week, hundreds of people showed up at a meeting with State Legislators demanding that gun legislation already in place be repealed. They were demanding that they have the constitutional right to carry guns where ever they pleased.

Now, there really shouldn’t be any surprise at this reaction from “gun enthusiasts” as the local paper called them. After all, this nation has been at war 216 years of its 237 year existence.  There has not been one full decade where America was not in some armed battle somewhere in the world.   The longest period of peace this nation experienced is for 5 years during the Great Depression.

From our earliest days we have been at battle.  The largest and longest campaign of ethnic cleansing in humanity’s history was here in this nation.  More than half of our existence as a nation has been in the ethnic cleansing of Native Americans.  We don’t like to talk about it in such terms but what the Monroe Doctrine and Manifest Destiny policies were about in practice was the systemic elimination of the native peoples. How can this multi-generational genocidal act not shape the American ethos?

Our nation is founded on the justification of violence.   Howard Zinn in his book, A People’s History of the United States writes, “To state the facts, however, and then to bury them in a mass of other information is to say to the reader with a certain infectious calm: yes, mass murder took place, but it’s not that important—it should weigh very little in our final judgments; it should affect very little what we do in the world.”

Our history books are written from the standpoint that violence committed was a justifiable means to get what we thought we deserved. While we deplore the violence in an elementary school and in a movie theater and what happens daily in the ghettos of America we shrug our shoulders and say, “yes, mass murder took place, but it’s not that important.”—but what is important is my right, my constitutional right to have multiple guns to defend my self from the possibility of a government takeover by socialists.

This is not what makes a society free. This is what makes a society enslaved—to fear—to hatred of the other—to a survival mentality of get-them-before-they-get-us culture.

So how do we change a society where violence is as much a part of living as breathing?  A recent op-ed piece by Faith Leaders for Peace, a San Diego based coalition that I helped form 8 years ago, “issue[d] this moral call for persons to reconsider gun possession and to fully appreciate the spiritual peril that ensues from the decision to kill another human being.”

The spiritual peril was never quite spelled out but I imagine such peril might have been described by Martin Luther King, Jr. He said, “Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction.[ii]”

My first career was working as a clinical specialist with developmentally disabled adults, many of whom had maladjusted coping behaviors.  So in my day to day work, I would be called in by staff who were having difficulties with client behavior.  They would want me to change the behavior of the client that very often had taken a lifetime to form.  No one has the ability to change another’s behavior.  But I promised to observe the environment in which the person lived or worked. I would try to figure out what happened that would result in the client behaving in such a negative manner.  Then I would suggest the staff member to change their behavior in how they interacted with the client and if they followed my suggestions, low and behold the client responded differently and their behavior changed. We cannot force someone to change their behavior but we can and we must change out own.  This means we need to begin being proactive and not reactive in our own behaviors regarding violence.

It is nearly impossible to legislate the kind of change needed to curb violence in America.  We can make some legislation changes like requiring all gun owners to become licensed in gun safety much like a driver needs to become licensed in car driving.  Or allowing doctors access to know if their patients own guns when they consider them to be a mental health risk and just as doctors can have drivers licenses revoked and keys taken away have gun licenses revoked and removed. This access by doctors is currently against the law in the State of Florida.

But opponents are quick to tell us that if we outlaw guns only outlaws will have guns. It is true legislation will not stop gun violence 100%.  But even if the reduction was as low as 25% of annual gun deaths by legislation, this is still roughly 7,500 lives saved.  Aren’t these lives saved worth legislation to increase gun safety?

Given the conservative hold on the house, such legislation will only occur with major concessions to the gun lobby who fears their business will be adversely affected by it.  Such legislation is a start but it is not the entire answer to creating a nation that seeks to turn its weapons into plowshares.

We have an opportunity as a religious body to change our own behaviors towards violence. We must begin with ourselves. It will do no good to tell our politicians to pass legislation and consider the issue fixed.  It also will do no good to scape goat the mentally ill or criminals for the violence we experience in society.  As long as we point our fingers elsewhere we are all perpetrators of violence.

As I stated violence in American culture has its roots dating back to the 1600’s with the first colony massacring the native peoples and the first boat of Africans to serve as slaves.  Violence in America is not just physical; it is also emotional, psychological, and spiritual.

As a religious community we need to be teaching ourselves how to implement the principles we profess to covenant to uphold.  Justice, equity, and compassion in human relations are not just nice words on the page but a command to teach the skills in how to develop this in our relations, not only with one another but with the world at large.

How do we handle domestic disputes within our families?  We must teach our sons and daughters that violence against women is never appropriate in any form.  Violent speech must be taught to be as inappropriate as violent behavior.  But simply stating it is inappropriate is not good enough.  We must teach our children and our adults how to choose a different way of speaking when in conflict.

There are many curricula out there that teach non-violent communication.  A good non-violent communication curriculum would also teach how to de-escalate a potentially violent scenario.  It does work; I have used this many times when I worked with clients who were volatile.  A recent shooting in a school was kept from getting worse by a teacher who had the skills to talk a student down.  Yes, it is risky, and yes it could have ended with more lives lost.  But non-violent communication is the way to go.  How much better would it have gone if this was already an integrated method to handle conflicts in that school?  Would the student have chosen to use a gun to address his pain?  Or would he have had another skill in his tool bag to use to have addressed the issue.  I would bet on the latter.

In addition to non-violent communication skills we need to ensure that we teach our congregations about the various isms in society that are also rooted in violence.  Racism, Classism, Heterosexism, sexism, ageism, able-ism all have roots in violence.  Not only do they contribute to physical violence, but also emotional and spiritual violence are pervasive in these institutionalized isms in our society.  It is important that our congregations are places where these isms are not enforced and supported.

We need to teach our congregations about micro-aggressions.  “Micro-aggressions are the brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioral, and environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative racial, gender, sexual orientation, and religious slights and insults to the target person or group.[iii]”  This is a relatively new way of looking at the effects of isms in our daily communications with one another and how they accumulate and harm a person’s life experience over time.

As a covenantal faith, we can in the words of Rev. Alice Blair Wesley,“ pledge to walk together in the ways of truth and affection as best we know them now or may learn them in days to come That we and our children may be fulfilled and that we may speak to the world with words and actions of peace and goodwill.”

It is true that our faith is a relatively small percentage of the population of America.  But that should not discourage us from beginning this work.   There is an old adage that states a little yeast leavens the whole dough.  And so it could be for us.  We could be the yeast that leavens the society to change and transform into a nation of peace loving people.  Blessed be.

Violence in America

Rev. Fred L Hammond

Oxford Unitarian Universalist Fellowship

January 27 2013 ©

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[i] http://www.nationalterroralert.com/nuclear/   This is based on the results of a 1 megaton bomb fallout at  a Distance: 90 miles A lethal dose of radiation. Death occurs from two to fourteen days.  Todays .

[ii] –Martin Luther King, Jr., “Loving Your Enemies,” in Strength to Love 

[iii] Derald Wing Sue, Microaggressions in Daily Life: Race, Gender, and Sexual Orientation.

Counting the Cost: A Retelling of the Three Little Pigs

Once upon a time, a long, long time ago when pigs were able to speak there lived three little pigs who dreamed of having a home of their own.

The first little pig went to his parents and said, “I think it is time that I make my own way in the world. So I would like to borrow some money so that I can begin. “

“Well, how much money do you think you need Son?” asked the father pig.

The little pig replied, “Oh, I hadn’t thought about that.”

“Well,” said the mother pig, “Here’s some money that your father and I can give you.”

So the little pig said “That looks like enough money to build my house and live for a few months while I look for work.”

So the parents loaned their Little Pig the money.  And he went off to build his house.

He went to the contractor builder and said, “I want to build a house made of bricks.  Here is the money I have.”

The contractor builder snickered and replied, “That doesn’t even cover the cost of materials.  I can, however, build you a house made of straw.”

The little pig was disappointed but thought the house of straw would be warm in the winter.  So that is what he did.   He told his parents of his decisions and his parents were floored.

“A house made of straw? Don’t you remember what happened to Uncle Cecil?   A big bad wolf came and blew that house down and ate him.  Oh Son,” they exclaimed, “this will not do.  People will laugh at your foolishness and weep when the wolf eats you.”

The second little pig went to her parents and said, “I think it is time that I make my own way in the world. So I would like to borrow some money so that I can begin.”

“Well, how much money do you think you need daughter?” asked the father pig.

The pig replied, “Oh, I hadn’t thought about that.”

“Well,” said the mother pig, “Here’s some money that your father and I can give you.”

So the little pig said “That looks like enough money to build my house and live for a few months while I look for work.”

So the parents loaned their little pig the money.  And she went off to build her house.

She went to the contractor builder and said, “I want to build a house made of bricks.  Here is the money I have.”

And the contractor builder snickered and said, “A house made of bricks?  Why that amount of money barely covers the labor costs. I could build you a nice home made of sticks.”

The little pig was disappointed but thought a house built of sticks would be a good starter home. So that is what she did.

She told her parents and they were floored.  “Oh Daughter,” they exclaimed, “We wish you had consulted with us. A house made of sticks?  Don’t you remember what happened to your Uncle Jeremy?  The wolf came and blew his house of sticks down and ate him.  The villagers will all laugh at your foolishness and weep when you are eaten up by the big bad wolf.”

The third little pig went to his parents and said, “I think it is time that I make my own way in the world. So I would like to borrow some money so that I can begin.”

“Well, how much money do you think you need,” asked the parents.

“Well,” said the little pig.  “I spoke to the contractor/builder and was told how much a house made of bricks would cost.   I found employment and have been saving money. I have money in savings and created a budget of my expenses to my income. So if I could borrow this amount of money, I will be able to build my house of bricks and cover any additional costs that may arise. ”

“Oh, this is wonderful!” exclaimed the parents. “Very wise choice indeed and you figured out how to make this all happen ahead of time. You remember your Aunt Charlotte?  She built her house of bricks and lived a happy life.  That old wolf got asthma trying to blow her house down!”

Unfortunately, the little pig in the house made of straw and the little pig in the house made of sticks became BBQ for the wolf but the little pig in the house of bricks lived happily ever after.

Rev. Fred L Hammond (c) January 20 2013

Hindsight is 20/20

I have never had a moment when I hit my head and exclaim, “I could’ve had a V-8.”  But I have had moments when I think, ‘O I wish I had done something different than act the fool.’  The wise ones are quoted as saying ‘Hind sight is 20/20 vision’ but like most things it only can be so, if we are willing to look back at where we have been and examine what is found.

And if my human nature tendency is anything like the rest of ours, then I would bet we prefer to let the sleeping dogs and hornets’ nests in our past to remain there undisturbed and hope they do not awaken or leave their nests to bite us.  Sometimes however, it is good to look back at the path we have traveled and even perhaps consider the sleeping dogs and hornets’ nests so we can learn from these experiences.  It is good to learn how to repeat those experiences that served us well and learn how to avoid those events that have not served us well.

So let’s consider our past year together and for a compass let us use our mission statement as a guide to measure whether our past year activities as a community has served us well.  There may be events in our community, or in our larger sphere that is asking for a response in this coming year.

Our current mission statement reads ‘We are an open, nurturing community of Unitarian Universalists made visible by our actions to create a better world.’

Now mission statements do not mean that we have arrived or even come close to being what we profess to want to be.  And some of us might be better at some parts of this mission statement and not so good in other parts.  And there may be aspects of this mission statement that no longer quite fits us.  By that I mean we might have developed more clarity as to what we desire to be as a church community. Do we have more clarity in what it means for us to create a better world?  Does the person who has never met us know what we mean when we say a better world? They may be wondering according to what standards or according to whose values?

The NRA would have us believe that having armed guards or teachers in our schools would create a better world.  Is this what we mean when we say this phrase?   I might be wrong in this assumption, but I don’t think this is what we [this congregation] would call a better world. So in the past year have there been actions that we as a congregation performed that point towards defining what we mean by this phrase… ‘actions to create a better world?’

There were several events and activities this year that points to what we believe might be a better world.  This past year our congregation has opened its building and its worship space to Somos Tuskaloosa, the Latino advocacy group that is seeking to repeal the anti-immigrant laws HB 56 and HB 658.  In so doing we began breaking down some barriers between our two communities.  We had this past year two bi-lingual services—or at least we attempted in being bi-lingual and the attempt was deeply appreciated.

Our work with the immigrant community did not stop there. Some of us went to anti-HB 56 rallies in Birmingham and Montgomery.  I participated in civil disobedience at the State House in an attempt to stop the legislators from voting to strengthen HB 56.

And in the summer many members of our community opened our homes and our hearts to members of the Undocubus, undocumented individuals from across the country who were making a very public stand against the immigration laws in this nation, both on the state and federal levels.  This was perhaps the most powerful event that we as a congregation participated in this past year and perhaps in many years.

The better world these actions point to, at least from my perspective, is one where diversity is honored and celebrated.  Where our common experiences as humans is placed as the bridge over the things that divide us.  This was indeed a two way street over this bridge because we got to know more about a segment of our larger community and this segment of the community got to know more about us. We practiced living out several of our principles during the week the folks from the Undocubus were here.  In the process we created new friendships and isn’t the world better with more friends than with less friends?

But this wasn’t the only bridge into the community that we made this year. We decided as a congregation to affiliate with Caring Days in a more formal manner.  This organization provides services to people with memory deficiencies.   Some of our members have benefited from the services this organization offers so we knew first hand their offerings in the world. Again we made a new partnership to assist them in their services and this is a good thing because in the process of us getting to know what they offer and how we might help them; they also learn more about us and our values.  Who knows when we might need their services?  Wouldn’t it be a better world for agencies like Caring Days that are offering loving care to know first hand the diversity of faith in their community?  These are but a few of the aspects of creating a better world that I believe we have done this past year.

What about the open and nurturing community aspects?   Again, it is a matter of how do we define these terms?  What does it mean to be open?  What does it mean to be nurturing?

Here is how I define being open.  I am being open when I am most present in the moment, when I am most able to go with the flow of life instead of insisting on my own way. When I am the most gentle with another who may be struggling with something, I am being open.  When I am willing to hear new ideas, new perspectives and suspend my personal filters through which I have grown accustomed to seeing and hearing the world; then I am being open. It means listening how a person uses a word and their nuances of that word and not immediately applying my meaning or even my experience of that word.

We have had glimmers of being open this past year. I say glimmers because I think it is a growing edge for us.  Meeting the people from the Undocubus was a moment of us being open.  We came in contact with a group of people whose experience in this country was vastly different from our experience.  It meant we had to listen to understand what they experienced. It meant we had to suspend our understanding of the world in order to fully hear their understanding.  It was a moment of disrupting our way of thinking for many of us.  And it was a transformative experience because we grew in our appreciation of the other.  Our hearts were open to what the experience might offer us.

Nurturing is a harder concept for us.  I interpret nurturing as being encouraging, supportive in each other’s growth towards their potential—be that intellectual, emotional, or spiritual maturity.

How do we know if we are being nurturing or if we are being nurtured spiritually?

One of my mentors, Rev. Arvid Straube[i] shared what meditation teacher Shinzen Young had to say about spiritual growth progress.

1.You have less suffering. You are less plagued by resentment, self-pity, negative judgment of self and others and envy. You are able to take the bumps and hardships of life with greater calm and equanimity.
2. You have more fulfillment. You experience gratitude for your life and the many joys and gifts that you have been given. You enjoy your loved ones, your friends, your community, your activities and your material goods. Nature nurtures you. You feel your life matters.
3. You have more insights. You see more and more the interconnections between your own existence and the world at large. You intuitively sense the right action to take more often.
4. You have more positive behaviors and fewer negative behaviors. You find yourself being kinder and more patient with others. You are less judgmental. You may find yourself having an easier time letting go of unproductive habits. You may find it is easier to take good care of yourself.
5. You have a natural tendency to act more compassionately and to serve others.

If we are nurturing one another, it is in a manner that encourages these traits to occur within us as well as within others. It is one of our principles where we seek to practice “acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations.”

It is sometimes thought that acceptance of one another means allowing another’s behavior to be acceptable even when it is self-destructive or destructive to the health of the whole congregation.   Accepting other’s poor behaviors in order to be practicing acceptance is not what this principle is about.  There are ways to accept the person without accepting the poor behavior.  A parent loves their child regardless whether that child displays poor behaviors or not.  The parent will correct the poor behavior in the child in a loving and nurturing manner.  I am not saying to treat the person with poor behaviors as a child but  rather to encourage the person towards better behaviors.

It is poor behavior to use joys and sorrows as a confessional.  Anyone who needs to know can ask privately after the service.  It is poor behavior to dress as if this were a nightclub and not a church. I am not saying dress as if this was 1913 instead of 2013, but respect your self to have some modesty.   It is poor behavior to make biting and rude comments. It is poor behavior to expect others will tend after your children.  And it is poor behavior to tell a first time or second time or even the 15^th time visitor what should remain your private business and no one elses’, let alone telling them someone elses’ private business.   Being open does not mean we spill our guts onto anyone we can corner.

Why are these poor behaviors? Because these are gatekeeper behaviors to screen out those who might judge the behavior; those who do not judge the behavior are welcomed and those who do are not welcomed.  I have wondered long and hard why we have some visitors who come not just once, not just twice but for several months and then stop coming.  Disappear.

Every congregation has within it a system that keeps it at a certain size and works to prevent it from growing to the next size.  The poor behaviors that I am describing and have witnessed this past year in this congregation are part of the system here that keeps the congregation as a family size church.  These act as forces in the system that resist change and will apply pressure to keep things from changing.  This is known as homeostasis.

This is essential to life as well. Homeostasis in a body ensures the body is functioning well between all its organs. Homeostasis ensures the heart is beating at the right rate to ensure the blood is carrying the right amount of nutrients to the muscles; the liver and kidney are filtering out the right amount of toxins and waste from the body to ensure proper functioning.  These are examples of a homeostatic state and it maintains the body at a certain level.   When the heart is not beating properly or the liver is no longer able to remove toxins and wastes from the blood then that balance is lost and the system becomes dysfunctional.

We find homeostasis in other systems as well including the system that we label the congregation.  When a congregation has made the decision to grow, then the homeostasis of that congregation needs to make adjustments in order to maintain that new level of functioning.  If the homeostasis remains functioning at a previous level, then the congregation, despite its best efforts to attract new members, will revert back to the previous size the congregation was at before the decision was made.   The display and acceptance of poor behaviors is a homeostatic behavior to keep our congregation a family sized church.

I have heard repeatedly that this congregation wants to grow.  I have heard members here state that we still want to build more religious education classrooms and a formal sanctuary.  We need to grow in size not just to a pastoral size church but a program size congregation for us to sustain a larger campus.

To do that means we need to break through this homeostasis state and we need to gently nurture our members away from poor behaviors.  It will be healthier for these members individually and healthier for us as a congregation if we can find our way to shift towards holding each other accountable to one another as we covenant to do at every new member ceremony.

We know how to nurture one another. Our congregation this past year unfortunately suffered several deaths.  We responded well to these crises in our members’ lives in ways that were very moving and supportive. I have been impressed by the love this congregation shows each other in times of great loss.  It is time to show great love towards each other in gently holding us accountable to spiritual maturity.  May this be the year that we strive ever closer to our mission of an open, nurturing community of Unitarian Universalists made visible by our actions to create a better world.

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[i] http://www.firstuusandiego.org/5-signs-that-you-are-making-spiritual-progressHind

Here Comes the Sun

OPENING WORDS    From Joanna Macy from the book “Dharma Rain’:  “Is it my imagination to think that we have been chosen [to live] at a time when the stakes are really high, at a time when everything we’ve ever learned about interconnectedness, about trust, about courage, can be put to the test. Each one of us is a gift…the earth is giving to itself. Every anguish, betrayal, disappointment can help prepare us for the work of healing…If the world is to be healed through human efforts, I am convinced it will be by ordinary people, people whose love for this life is greater than their fear, people who can open to the web of life that called us into being…” Come into this place of interconnectedness and find healing through the work of ordinary people loving life with extraordinary passion and reverence.

…

I light candles in memory of
Phyllis Ward, a member of this congregation
George Karatheodoris, a son of a member
Greg Vaughn, a nephew of a member
Betty Mego, a member of this congregation
Richard C. Brown, a member of this congregation
William Walden Booth, a father of a member
Joseph Self, a father, grandfather and great grandfather of members of this congregation.

In the last four months, our congregation has been directly affected by the loss of these individuals from our lives.  These losses make it hard for us to gather in celebration this year.

This was to be the focus of my sermon today… how to find hope when hope is hard to find especially in the light of the loss of these loved ones—with so many words unsaid, with so many things left unforgiven, with so many things left unresolved.

My father also died in the fall and in the December of that year, many years ago now,  I wrote this poem entitled Grief.

The Christmas presents
are all wrapped neat
and stacked in their
organized or
unorganized
way                 beneath the
evergreen tree.

This year, this Christmas
wrapping paper,
bows, gift boxes,
are not enough
to contain the
memories,
we thought resolved;
now found undone.

And so this was going to be the focus of today’s sermon; how to handle our grief and finding hope when hope is hard to find.

And then, what made these, our losses, seem like thunder in the distance we heard word on December 11^th that three people were killed by a gunman in Clackamas, OR.

And the thunder rolled closer to a deafening silence on Friday, when 28 people were killed, 20 of whom were young children in Sandy Hook, CT; a rural New England town next door to where I made my home in Danbury, CT.  I knew this community.  I did work in this community.

My heart stopped by the sound of the children silenced forever…  what hope can I offer when we live in a society where we re-enact the biblical slaughter of the innocents.  A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping. Rachel is weeping for her children; she refuses to be comforted for her children, because they are no more. ~ Jeremiah 31:15

What hope indeed  … I like many are filled with unbearable grief… and when the grief thunder clouds part, they part only for lightening flashes of anger.  I found myself wanting to huddle all of our children in a safe house and never let them out again—if only that would keep them safe—if only that action would not cause harm of a different nature. Sheltering our children even with the best of intentions can cause harm in their ability to survive in our world.   I wanted to confiscate all weapons and destroy them if that would mean this would never ever happen again.  If it meant that our children would be safe and would grow up into adults to have their chance with the world—unfortunately the world I am leaving them is this one… broken and fearful.  So my anger, my desire to protect our children was reduced again into grief and hopelessness.

Grief has a way of demanding unrealistic what ifs.  What if I never left Danbury?  What if I continued my work in Newtown Schools? Of course, there is nothing I could have done.  But grief is a narcissistic savior that loves to sap energy from forward movement and it does so with perseverative obsessive thinking.

A quote has appeared in the last 24 hours (perhaps some of you have seen it)  by Fred Rogers of Mr. Rogers Neighborhood television show fame?  He said, “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.” To this day, especially in times of disaster, I remember my mother’s words and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers? So many caring people in this world.”

We know these are true words.  We know this from our own experiences, not only from our own personal losses within the past few months but also in our collective losses in the days following the Tornado.  The world came to our doors and assisted us in our own grief.  There were many, many good helpers in the hours and days and weeks following our tornado.

And there are many, many good people in the Sandy Hook region who are responding there as well.  Some of them were the teachers, like Kaitlin Roig, a teacher who hid with the children in the bathroom and lived to tell the tale. Some of them were the police who escorted the children out of the school and as they passed the areas of mayhem, told the children to shut their eyes and hold on to the person ahead of them to lead them out of the school.

And the agency where our offering will be going today is also filled with good helpers.  Newtown Youth and Family Services is especially equipped to handle trauma.  I have witnessed their work in the community through projects I was involved with and I am confident that they will be one of many excellent good helpers that will provide the support to help heal a grieving and broken community.

But surely good helpers are not all there is to this story?  As touching and moving the stories of people’s compassionate and selfless acts are; is that all there is?  Is that the extent of the comfort we can expect from such horror?  That a few people maybe more than a few people will step forward to help?

I may have told you that my Great Grandfather after losing a daughter to diphtheria, his grief resulted in his finding a way to prevent other children from dying from this disease.  He revolutionized the sanitation of the dairy industry from the care of the cow to the delivery of milk.  His actions dramatically reduced child mortality rates from milk transmitted diseases.  Good came from his grief.  And all of us today are beneficiaries of such men and women who changed the dairy industry to be healthier in their practices.

We need to shift our grief from being paralyzed by what ifs to being active in finding a way to prevent this horror from ever happening again. The political fervor is calling for renewing the assault weapon ban and requiring stricter registration of guns.  These, while they may be of some good, do not prevent what happened in Sandy Hook on Friday.  The hand guns used were registered by the mother of the shooter, whom he shot and killed before going to the school.  Yes, there was a semi-automatic rifle in the car but he did not use it in this shooting. It, too, was legally owned by his mother. So these calls for gun control are not preventing another possible Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting.  [ There seems to be conflicting stories regarding weapons used, after I gave this sermon, word came out from the press that the shooter did indeed use an assault rifle in the shootings previously stated to have been left in the car but this does not alter my statement regarding the specific call for legislation and this event.]  The problem of violence in America is far more complex than will be handled by passing a few laws restricting access to guns or requiring more stringent background checks.

Martin Luther King, Jr. in his eulogy for the martyred children of the 16^th Street Baptist Church Bombing in Birmingham in 1963, said, “We must be concerned not merely about who murdered them, but about the system, the way of life, the philosophy which produced the murderers.”

These words are as true today as they were 50 years ago.  Violence in America lives in a system that is held and nurtured like any thing else that thrives.  It is like a fire that burns because oxygen is abundant.  Remove the oxygen and the fire goes out.  We need to discover what the oxygen of violence is in America if we want to prevent this event from happening again.

Quick fixes are not going to work.   In the United Kingdom after they suffered a similar horror in the Dunblane Primary School[i] massacre of 1996, they passed two firearm acts that effectively banned private ownership of handguns.  The deaths by firearms reduced dramatically to 39 in 2008, given the size of population of the UK to the US that is an equivalent of 195[ii] as compared to 9,528 in the US the same year. And these are just murders.  If you add other reasons for deaths by gun violence, such as accidental deaths and suicides, that number soars to over 30K annually in the US.   Now just because it worked in the UK does not mean it will work in the US but this is also the country where the police are only armed with bobby sticks. So understand there is a very different take on violence that is Oh, I don’t know, civilized. 

There is a myth that gun owner ship means safety.  But that is simply not true.  It is a delusion.  The fact is that gun ownership increases the likelihood that there will be a death by gun violence, not less.  The marketing tagline of the Glock, one of the handguns used in the shooting, is “The Confidence to live your Life.[iii]”  This is a lie.   Handguns do not provide confidence; they deceive the owners into a false sense of safety that does not exist when guns are part of the landscape.

Our video games are violence based.  What is the primary action of the player?  To go and shoot, blow up, maim, and kill all that stands in ones way in order to get to the next level.  And they are not just shooting aliens from another planet, but people whose animation is continually improving to lifelike proportions.  How can this be healthy behavior for our children; or our adults for that matter?  How many of you engage in violent video games?  Don’t answer that, I do not want to begin weeping again.  Just sit with the question and ponder if it is helpful in your pursuit of personal moral and ethical development.

And while I am not saying there is a correlation between violent video games and mass shootings, it is another symptom of a culture that normalizes violence.  John Lennon said “We live in a world where we have to hide to make love, while violence is practiced in broad daylight.”  Love making is taboo.  Violence is acceptable behavior.  What is wrong with this picture? 

Our nation is deeply pathological. We have become dulled by its violence.  United Church of Christ Minister, Michael Denton, prays for “strength to change this kind of Ferocious Normality.[iv]” And that is what violence in America has become a ferocious normality.

We have become socially adjusted to violence in America.  And not just violence of gun and fist but violence in word as well.  Our reality shows like the Kardashians, Jersey Shore, and Bridezilla glorify the immature violent behavior of these people as if this was something worthy of emulating. These are not appropriate behaviors.  Nothing in these shows is a display of appropriate behavior; from their drama queen fights to their oversharing of their own painful hearts is a continual onslaught of overstepping boundaries.   This is a violence that is normalized in this country.

So where is the hope?  Where is the sun that is to reappear on the 22^nd and grow in casting its light on the world?   I wish there was an incantation I could pronounce or a wave of my hands that would take your grief and mine away and suddenly everything would be crystal clear again with hope.  I would love to be able to tell you there is some mysterious plan that is unfolding that we simply cannot see from our mere mortal perspective but if we had the perspective of eternity we would see that all is unfolding as it should.  Alas, I have no such perspective, nor do I have any great insight into how to intervene to disrupt a violent culture in order to change it.

Instead, I can only say this with any surety.  Our grief is better handled when we allow others in, than when we keep others out. It dissolves better when it is recognized and embraced than when it is resisted and denied.

I also know that part of the answer is located right here.  Each one of us has the potential to grow in love and compassion. We can choose to reduce our violent tongue and choose to increase practicing non-violence in word and deed.  These are not easy tasks.

But I do believe that we can increase in our love for our neighbor.  Not only our neighbor in Sandy Hook, CT  but also our neighbor right here in Tuscaloosa County.  It will take spiritual discipline to achieve the compassionate life with any consistency.  May we begin today to recognize the sun that shines bright and warm on our faces and shoulders and cast that warmth to each other. Blessed Be.

Closing words: by Rev. Meg Riley as part of her response to Friday  (slightly adapted) :  “I pray that I myself will remember love, that I will remember that even now there is so much love.  There is love in all of those who responded, in all of the school officials and police officers.  In all who weep now together.  Love that ripples out as the loss does, across the community and state and nation and world.  … May you feel my love, and the love of this warm and caring community.  May we carry the flame.”

Here Comes the Sun  Rev. Fred L Hammond presented at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation Tuscaloosa on 16 December 2012 ©

[i] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunblane_school_massacre

[ii] http://www.juancole.com/2011/01/over-9000-murders-by-gun-in-us-39-in-uk.html

[iii] http://us.glock.com/

[iv] http://amistaducc.org/wordpress/2012/12/15/prayer-by-rev-mike-denton/