Roots Hold Us Close, Wings Set Us Free! by Rev Linda Olson Peebles, March 21, 2010

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Roots Hold Us Close, Wings Set Us Free,

by Rev. Linda Olson Peebles, March, 21, 2010

        We are one. These words shall be forever within our hearts,

        And we will teach them to our children and remember them in our lives.

        Talk about Heaven on Earth! That would be heaven. “We are one.” Not “we are all the same” but “we are all interconnected;” and we know it in our hearts and we live it in our lives and we teach it to our children. That is a dream worth having, and something worth sharing. Especially in these days of troubling expressions of hatred and incivility in our public discourse around our nation’s future.

        Our liberal religious tradition has for centuries been a story of freedom: Freedom for the individual, along with the principle of allowing for the freedom of others and the use of reason in discerning truth. Freedom is a good thing, and thing I am very glad that our faith tries to offer.

        But I have a question. When we offer people freedom – is that enough? Does our faith offer more? Or is our post-modern version of “freedom” a kind of emptiness – like Janis Joplin said – “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose”? Is the kind of freedom we offer in some way an admission that we possess nothing too compelling, and that is what keeps us free? I worry about that sometimes.

        Let me suggest two scenarios. In the first, you go to someone’s home, and they welcome you and then say, “You are free to come and go as you please, and feel free to make yourself your meals from anything you might find in the shelves; or better yet, feel free to bring your own groceries and use the kitchen. There are a bunch of different grocery stores in this neighborhood.”

        In the second scenario, you go to someone’s home, and they welcome you and then say, “You are free to come and go as you please. But we do want to let you know that tonight we have food prepared that was grown here in our garden. It is flavorful, and very nutritious, and will satisfy your hunger. The fruit grew from trees planted by our ancestors. The vegetables grew in soil made rich by loving care over the decades. If you have brought something from other gardens to share, that would be wonderful! Let us all eat, and be nourished.”

        Both are hospitable. But which really gives something?

        For many years, our notion of spiritual freedom has caused us to emphasize the importance and centrality of honoring each person’s search – a search for truth and meaning. It is a valuable thing we offer. But we must not forget to offer to one another the real essence of our inheritance, the secrets and the dreams which have been discovered and revealed by those before us.

        Sociologists who study religious groups who are growing – regardless of their faith tradition – report that they are notable for having these two characteristics in common:

• They expect and receive the highest amount of financial offerings and offerings of time and talent from their members and
• They give real nurturance to their members, and to the world. They believe that who they are, what they stand for, is substantial and is something of worth.

        This church - UUCA - is the inheritor of a great number of gifts from the past, from great teachers and prophets and martyrs even. Some of them are well known; others are known to only scholars of our history; and some unknown to all. We are a house filled with treasures!

        To honor this inheritance, we need to be able to claim it as ours first, and then as a sign that we have become spiritually mature enough to receive the gift, we must make it a practice to pass it along – to people here now, and to people who will come later. And to let the world know what it is that liberal religion has to offer to our world!

        Roots

        Part of the inheritance is undestanding what this faith – Unitian Universalism – has meant in the real lives of people, in society. Even a brief listing indicates how much there is to be gained from our history.

        UUism and women

        A litany of names would include Abigail Adams, Louise May Alcott, Susan B Anthony; and we must mention that we were the first religion to ordain women, in the mid-1800s, and have steadily made progress in our commitment to women and to including among our numbers outstanding women.

        UUism and education

        In this year when a State School Board member in Texas is having text books rewritten to reflect his own personal religiously narrow view of science and history, UU s need to speak out with a different perspective on religion and commitment to public education beholden to no one sectarian world view. Part of our inheritance of UUism and public education includes many leaders like Unitarian Horace Mann early 1800s, who is often considered "the father of American public education"; and Elizabeth Peabody, Unitarian Transcendalist author and woman’s rights advocate, who helped establish kindergarten as an accepted institution in American education.

        UUism and Racial Justice

        Last week, 7th grade coming of agers and I were touring Arlington’s mother church - All Souls in DC, with the senior minister there as our guide. One of the favorite parts of the trip – besides climbing up the very high steeple and ringing the bell – is the visit to the basketball court. Back in 1942, that court was the only place in DC where black and white children could play basketball together. The Unitarian Church was the only institution in DC that insisted on rejecting the norms of segregation. Our own church received that inheritance from its mother, and in its early years, was a powerful public witness and advocate to the integration of Arlington public schools.

        UUism and Gay Rights

        This faith has been far out front of others in advocating for the full acknowledgment of the human worth and dignity of people of all sexual orientations and gender identities. It was no accident that the city government chose to have the DC Marriage rights bill signed at All Souls Unitarian earlier this winter!

        UUism and Justice

        UU s come out consistently, in numbers widely greater than our proportion of the population to march and advocate for people whose rights have been denied. We join in interfaith coalitions and we believe in showing up! There is so much about UUism that is a gift that gives us Roots, to nourish us and make us strong. We must stay connected to those roots! We need to claim that inheritance, and then pass it on.

        Wings

        We also offer wings, a spiritual gift. And not wings that let people just fly away, and do their own thing apart from the nourishment of this faith. No. We offer wings of spiritual power, spiritual liberation that comes from The Dream that is the spiritual truth of existence, the secret of our real inheritance, our spiritual wealth, that reveals to us that we are not alone, that we are intricately connected to the entirety of the creation, and that WE have a role in keeping the ongoing creation alive.

        Twentieth Century Unitarian theologian James Luther Adams wrote – and this is a core principle of liberal religion – “Revelation is not sealed.” It is ongoing. We are constantly learning and relearning, and in this realizing and discovering anew the meaning of the inheritance of life, we continue to participate in shaping the world. Human beings are agents of the spirit of life. And when we become conscious of that role, we become both inheritors of the secret of the dream, but also accountable for sharing it and passing it on. Religious Eduction theologian Mark Hicks has said, “Unitarian Universalists have always been strong believers in the power of education. Yet, the boldness of our theology suggests that education is more than simply adding fancy new nuggets of information into the mix; it is to literally shift the mental and spiritual models we use to make meaning of our social world.” We’re talking transformation, ongoing creation. A core ministry of a congregation is to empower shifting paradigms, that help each generation to bring dreams, the eternal and the new, to life. Hicks asks us to consider “How do we educate the emerging soul?”

        I acknowledge and am grateful for the privilege to be able to receive the gifts of stories from cultures, other than my own, which have been marginalized by more dominant cultures. Here is an Australian Aboriginal tale – as told by Jim Poulter – that gives me great strength. It was one of the last things shared with me by one of my elder teachers shortly before he died this winter.

         In the mind of the Spirit of Life … a Dreaming began.         

         In the empty darkness there was a dreaming of fire.       

         And the color of Fire burned brightly in the Mind of the Great Spirit.

         Then in the stillness there came a Dreaming of Wind, and the fire  

               danced and swirled in the mind of the Spirit of Life.

         Then in the drought there came a Dreaming of Rain. …

         Fire Wind Rain … So the Dreaming continued.

         Then came a Dreaming of Earth and Sky and of Land and Sea.  

         The Great Spirit wanted the Dream to continue,

         So Life was sent into the Dream to make it real.

         The Secret of Dreaming was sent into the world. …..

         So each creature dreamed, of what it knew and loved, and also of what

                  it did not understand; and then passed the secret of Dreaming

                 onto the spirit of Human.

         And Human walked across the land and saw all the works of creation

                  …and began to dream.

         Human dreamed of sharing the music of dawnbirds, the dance of the

                 emu and the red ochre of sunset.

         And Human dreamed also of the laughter of children and understood

                 the dream.

         So Human continued to dream of all the things that had been dreamed

                 before –

         The deep still water, the waves and wet sand, the rocks and open sky,

                 the trees and the night sky, the plains of yellow grass.

         And Human knew through the Dreaming, that all creatures were spirit

                 cousins .. and that Human must protect their Dreaming.

         And Human dreamed of how these secrets would be told to the children

                 who were not yet born.

         Then the Great Spirit knew at last

                 that the Secret of Dreaming was safe,

                 and the Spirit of Life entered the land to rest. 

        Now, when the spirits of all creatures become tired,

                 they join the Spirit of Life in the Land.

                 which is why the Land is sacred and we must be its Caretaker,

                 and pass on the Dream. 

        What is it that a church community like ours has to offer? The deepest truths – the secrets of life, the power of creation, the strivings of all who came before us and now are gone back to the land - these live on in us. That is our inheritance which we must not just receive, but we must also pass it along – so that the Dream will continue!

        This congregation and a world in need challenges us to grow hearts big enough to live up to this inheritance of faith. I suggest to you that a first step to growing a heart is to take the time to learn about our faith - the roots and the wings - and to be willing to pass it on. Join the learning ministry of this church. Pass along the Dream. Our faith, our history, is the congregations’ – the whole congregation, not just the parents of our children – to discover, to claim, and to pass along.

        Join the dreaming! Keep the dream alive so we can pass along the inheritance to the future which is a part of this congregation as much as we are!

        We grow stronger by connecting to our roots. And we find our own wings when we engage in the spiritual practice of exploring the secrets of our dreams with one another and understand true freedom that comes from connecting to the ultimate freedom – the freedom of the Dream.

        Unitarian Universalist Ysaye Barnwell, of the singing group Sweet Honey in the Rock, wrote in a song - “We are our grandmothers’ prayers and we are our grandfathers’ dreams.” May we live our lives and share our dreams in such a way that our grandchildren and theirs will sing that of us as well. Because they are the ones who will carry on in the Dreams to come. May it be so. Amen. 

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