Giving Thanks: Ancestors Past and Future, by Rev. Dr. Linda Olson Peebles, Oct. 30, 2011

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“Giving Thanks: Ancestors Past and Future”

Giving Thanks: Ancestors Past and Future

     When finally I could stop myself from the screaming, when the gunman had been caught by passers-by out on the street, when I regained a sense of myself and what had happened, I looked at the wall above where this had happened – and I saw the picture of my grandmommy Betty. And I suddenly thought, “Her spirit was here!” Her spirit protected me – maybe even filled me without my knowing – and said: “I will NOT let my granddaughter and great-granddaughter be killed! Not in my home!”

     Now, more than 30 years later, I cannot say that it was Betty's spirit who saved me that day. But I have ever since given thanks for the ancestors, and have had great respect for the power of the ancestors, which dwells with us whether or not we know it. And I have ever since that moment held that sense of the ancestors watching, which has made me committed to making use of this life which has been given me, a life which carries forward the wisdom from my inheritance, committed to sharing love and justice in my own brief time in this endless chain of being. And I have ever since that day been aware of the truth that I too will be an ancestor soon.

     All around the globe, throughout history, in so many varied cultures, as the autumn moves towards winter, there is a sense of this time of year that is shared universally: a sense that the boundaries are very thin – between this physical world and the spiritual one; between the here and now of this time and place, and the eternity of all time and all space; between this consciousness and the great mystery. Our various holidays offer up a chance to acknowledge that the spirits of the ancestors are with us, somehow, no matter what our beliefs are about death.

       Ancestors – That is a big group! It's astonishing really. “Assuming that a generation averages 30 years, if you follow your ancestral lines through time to the 13th generation, around the founding of Jamestown, Va., in 1607, you will have as many as 4,096 ancestors in that one generation alone. The total number of your ancestors back to that time is an astounding 8,190 people!” (Ancestors, by Jim and Terry Willard, 1997) And those are just the ones we are related to! Think of all those who were important influences – teachers and friends, making up the community which has held your family. Ancestors, too.

      Ancestors definitely affect our lives. Among those we actually have lived with, if they were loving and nurturing, the memory of them can empower us. If they were not a positive presence, the memory of them can be an unfriendly ghost, a dark cloud that we are trying to be freed of. And there are so many ancestors we do not know, but whose spirits still affect us, with blessings and curses: privileges we inherit, like proclivity to good health, inherited wealth, a positive attitude of can-do-it-ness; challenges that are with us, like a genetic tendency to an illness, or a pattern of shame or lovelessness, or a lack of wealth or other endowments.

     And collectively, as a society, our ancestors have left us with many blessings, and also an inheritance filled with the scars and the wounds of evils – addictions, slavery, war, hatred, sexism, injustice, imperialism and colonialism. Those ghosts live with us still and can harm us still, especially if we are unconscious of them, and have not been able to confront and reconcile ourselves to that inheritance.

     There are very few among us who have only saints in our family tree. Somewhere among the kind and courageous and loving folks, there is the hateful drunk, the narrow-minded bigot, or the well-meaning relatives long ago who joined political parties or wars that today fill us with dismay.

     Those of us who call ourselves Unitarian Universalists need to know the wholeness of the ancestory of our faith, so that we can act with compassionate hearts today. Yes, we have ancestors to be proud of, the women and men who were prophets and visionaries for freedom and tolerance. But there's more.

     Many of us have taken part in the Occupy Wall Street movement, donating food or showing up, to lend our support to the 99% crying out for equity and justice. But let us not forget, when Unitarianism began in this nation, specifically in Boston in the 18th and 19th centuries, Unitarians were the 1%! Our early churches were for the leaders, the rich businessmen, the mill owners (who purchased the cotton from the slave-dependent southern economy), and the professional elite. Yes, Unitarians had a social conscience and cared about the poor and the disenfranchised. Some of them supported abolition, suffrage, and public education for all. But in the pews, they were the 1%. And we are the inheritors, the beneficiaries of those ancestors.

     Today, in this room which is our sanctuary, we welcome the 1%, not just because we are a church for all souls. We also welcome the 1% because that might include some of us, and so many more of us are connected in some way to the 1%. It is important that we acknowledge our intricate inter-relationships, the complex totality of our inheritance. It is important that we resist the temptation to separate ourselves from one another or from the ancestors, to either idolize or demonize one another or those who came before us.

     The Buddha taught that we are all a part of an endless chain of pain and suffering in this existence, and that we make no spiritual progress by simply blaming others or living in ignorance. We can awaken to our connection to the pain, we can become mindful of the complexity of what it means to be a frail human, and we can choose to discover another part of the chain of being - the chain of loving-kindness. It has always existed, has been carried and passed on by our ancestors – the Hebrew prophets, Jesus, the Buddha and Ghandi and Martin Luther King, Sojourner Truth and Mother Theresa, that wonderful teacher you had in 2nd grade, that great-aunt who always offered you support and compassion. Recall those ancestors who passed along loving-kindness, and pick it up that strand of your inheritance!

     Cornel West has said that “justice is what love looks like in public.” How do we bring love to the OWS movement? Especially when our UU ancestry is being part of the 1%? Show up downtown with a yellow Standing on the Side of Love shirt or banner. Remember our Unitarian ancestors who have marched for justice. Join the on-line SSL discussion group where UU 's join to figure out how we bring love to this all. Or show up with Virginians Organized for Interfaith Community Engagement. VOICE has empowered the people of Prince William County to go to the 1% - to rise up and say to the banks, to Senator Mark Warner: Give the people justice, renegotiate their unfair mortgages, so that they can have their homes.

     We may have the 1% in our ancestry, but we can be in solidarity with those who are in pain now.

     When members from our church were in Guatemala last year on the Day of the Dead, they were moved by the sight of the large, colorful kites being flown. This is part of the native Mayan tradition for the festival – flying kites to reach up to the ancestors, to invite them to come down to earth to join their descendants for a while. And they were especially touched by another sight: The children stood on tombs of people who had been murdered in the war there; the tombstones were the pedestals which lifted the children higher, to fly their kites into the sky– symbolizing a hope for the future out of the sacrifice of the past.

     Among some of the Mayans, after the Dead of the Dead celebration, after the kites have flown to reach out to the ancestors, the kites are burned so the dead may quietly return to their world. It is thought that if the kites are not burned, the souls won't know how to return home and they will stay, perhaps keeping their descendants from living their own lives, perhaps causing damage to those very children who celebrate and mourn them. The kites are burned to set the ancestors free, to let them leave us and go to their eternal peace, knowing that their descendants honor them, but also can carry on.

     The greatest homage we can pay to our ancestors is this:

     Treasure the ancestors, learn from their mistakes, be inspired by their accomplishments, and then live. We need to recall that the ancestors have given us life and breath for us to use. Don’t let the ghosts weigh you down; let them free so that they can be honored and we can live fully and well.

     “We are surrounded by so great a cloud of witness, … let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.” Let us run the race that has been given to us from those who came before us. And then, when we become ancestor to those who come after us, may the descendants give thanks to us, their mothers, their fathers, forgiving us for our frailties and honoring us for our love! Giving us thanks, holding us close, and letting us go free.