Sermon: Love Will Guide Us

Sermon delivered Sunday, June 28, 2009 at Our House of Worship.

This morning, I want to talk about love: the love we choose, and the love that chooses us.

A few weeks ago, I found myself trying to explain the California court decision upholding Proposition 8—that was the ballot initiative that outlawed marriage between people of the same gender—to my six year old.

“In CA they decided that girl-girl and boy-boy marriages were OK, and then they changed the rule and decided that they weren’t OK,” I explained. Then I asked the question I’ve been waiting for someone to ask the Prop 8 proponants.

“Do you think that it stops two people from loving each other, just because they’re not allowed to get married?”

“Mama.” Alice has this way of calling my name when she’s about to say something really important. “Mama. No one can stop two people from loving each other but themselves.”

With more reflection she added, “It would probably make them sad. But it wouldn’t make them stop loving each other.”

It is not my usual response to laugh at those who hold an opposing political opinion to me. And yet: the proponants of Proposition 8 make me laugh. I think they are foolish. I think they are emperors with no clothes. I think they already defeated.

It is not that they don’t have, in the words of Adrienne Rich, “forces ranged against us.” It is not a small thing to deny people equal rights under the law. Couples who cannot marry lose security for their families. They lose access to one another under the most painful circumstances—one cannot be at her dying lover’s bedside; another faces deportation and forced separation from her American partner and children. These tragedies can and do occur.

But the most common penalty assessed to loving couples who cannot marry is an economic penalty. We pay more for health insurance when we can’t be covered by our lovers’ policies. We pay more in federal taxes. We are less secure in our retirements because we cannot access our partners’ social security benefits, and face inheritance tax on what would be considered jointly held property for straight couples.

Annoying, costly, inconvenient, disrespectful, undignified, dishonoring—not having equal marriage rights is all of those things. So why do my opponants make me laugh? Because that’s all they’ve got. They’ve got economic discrimination on their side, and on our side? We’ve got LOVE.

I know that many Prop 8 folks have deep religious beliefs that tell them that homosexuality is a sinful abomination. I feel so lucky not to have this belief—not to ever have had this belief. And I feel lucky to live in a country where we have a diversity of beliefs on this and other subjects. But what strikes me so strange about the opponants of gay marriage is that they don’t work harder for my salvation. I don’t experience them trying to convince me of my sin or bring me closer to their idea of God. Instead, they are tirelessly working to institutionalize discrimination against me.

There’s something so fundamentally un-American about this strategy: if you can’t beat them, make them pay more taxes. It’s as if somewhere they know what Alice knows—“No one can stop two people from loving each other but themselves.” They’ve given up on trying to win us over to their belief system, and are settling for costing us a lot of cash, anxiety and irritation.

As if love weren’t worth a little money and effort. As if love could “subordinate itself to cause or consequence.”

Did you see the video put out by those who are working to repeal Proposition 8? It features the Tom Petty song “Won’t Back Down,” which Leah so beautifully rendered for us as our prelude. The video not seem to portray the losing side of anything. The clip shows people from all over the country holding signs that represent their state and their support for equal marriage rights: “Standing with you in Alaska.” “Nevada’s on your side.” “Massachusetts won’t back down.” Nearly everyone is smiling in a way that just beams love and hope and compassion and faith— faith that we can hold one another through this struggle. The love in these faces is so tangible, it feels physically nourishing and sustaining to me. It says to me, “We are down, but we’re not out. We’re not even that far down, because we love each other, and we are not alone.”

My faith tradition honors my marriage, independent of law. The novelist Marilynne Robinson put these words into the voice of her character the Reverend John Ames,

"I might seem to be comparing something great and holy with a minor and ordinary thing, that is, love of God with mortal love. But I just don’t see them as separate things at all. If we can be divinely fed with a morsel and divinely blessed with a touch, then the terrible pleasure we find in a particular face can certainly instruct us in the nature of the very grandest love."

I am not a Deist, but I am incredibly moved by this vision. I think it holds inspiration whether one believes in a literal or metaphorical divine love. It is powerful—empowering, in fact—to consider that the love of our lives is larger than our own experience, that what we feel for one another is but a small reflection of the greater love which is available to us all.

I want to turn now to the love that we choose. It might seem risky, as a lesbian, to talk about choosing love. It is, after all, one of the arguments used by the forces that “range against us” –that we choose a sinful lifestyle and should not receive sanction in it. But I am not talking about who we choose to love. As Adrienne Rich says, “The accidents happen…they happen in our lives like car crashes, books that change us, neighborhoods we move into and come to love.”

I’m talking instead about how we love who we love. A few years ago I picked up a book that shook my world. It was not the kind of book I would ordinarily pick up and I’m embarrased now to tell you the title: Why Talking Is Not Enough: Eight Loving Actions that Will Transform Your Marriage. It was hot pink. You almost want to hide your face walking out of the library with a book like that.

But it was a classic case of “do not judge a book by its cover.” Because in this book author Susan Page, a Protestant minister—lays out her vision and advice for Spiritual Partnership and Loving Action within couples.

Page’s work is complex and I recommend that you take a look at it. At the risk of grossly oversimplifying her paradigm, I’m going to share my take-away—an insight that for me was as simple as it was profound. When I have conflict with my partner, I have a choice: I can stand up for myself—and I must—if the conflict violates some make-or-break principle of mine. But short of this, I have a second choice: I can act as if loving my partner is more important than the outcome of the conflict.

Page suggests Loving Actions—eight of them!—to support this challenge. I wish I could tell you that I’ve committed all eight to memory and employ them regularly to great success, and we are now living happily ever after. But Liz would rat me out in a minute. I do not employ Loving Actions successfully in even fifty percent of our conflicts; I’d be surprised if I remember as much as ten percent of the time.

But each time I do remember to take a breath and think—“What would this be like if I acted like I love her?”—I get to experience a moment of conflict transformed into a moment of love. It almost doesn’t matter if Liz notices a difference—maybe we fight less, maybe she wins more, maybe I seem like a cream-puff. But instead of a mundane argument, I get to touch what Robinson’s John Ames calls “a glimpse or parable of an embracing, incomprehensible reality.” If that’s not dross into gold, I don’t know what is.

HYMN: There is More Love Somewhere


Now I want to tell you about some girls I know. And choose to love.

I wish that you could meet these girls, but you will have to take my word that they are beautiful—as beautiful as their names: Mercedes, Sujeil, Leslie, LaQuanda, LaTigre, Diana, Karacelys, MaryLinda, Rashe, Chiara, Anushka, Ashley, Maracelys, Eveline, Christina, Betsy, Wanda, Shayla.

Can you see them? Can you see a room full of gorgeous young women, tossing their hair, laughing, teasing each other, checking themselves in a wall full of mirrors?

I have to stop before the picture becomes too romantic, wipe the vaseline off the lens. Because these are the worst kind of teenager there is: these are teenagers being forced to do something they don’t want to do.

Let me back up a moment. For seven years, I have had the honor of teaching self defense to young mothers enrolled at The CARE Center, a GED program in Holyoke. For most of the girls—at least at first—participation in my class is not entirely of their own free will. And they are not shy to express their reluctance to be there.

The preacher John Ames was told by his father:

"When you encounter another person, when you have dealings with anyone at all, it is as if a question is being put to you. So you must think, What is the Lord asking of me in this moment, in this situation? If you confront insult or antagonism, your first impulse will be to respond in kind. But if you think, as it were, This is an emissary sent from the Lord, and some benefit is intended for me, first of all the occasion to demonstrate my faithfulness, the chance to show that I do in some small degree participate in the grace that saved me, you are free to act otherwise than as circumstances would seem to dictate. You are free to act by your own lights. You are freed at the same time of the impulse to hate or resent that person. He would probably laugh at the thought that the Lord sent him to you for your benefit (and his), but that is the perfection of the disguise, his own ignorance of it."

There is a wisdom conventional to the martial arts that mirrors this story, that tells us that each student teaches the teacher. So I try to see the challenge of teaching resistant teenagers— frequently offering insulting or antagonizing behavior—as an opportunity to rise to my best self. I do not believe in “the Lord” or “saving grace,” but I do believe that I am “free to act by [my] own lights,” that I can choose my response to what my students offer me.

A few weeks ago I got an especially rough group. Four greeted me and entered our training space; the rest hung back in the vestibule, cutting their flat eyes at me. I know the room is odd to them, with its bare wood floor and prohibition against street shoes, its broken down sofa, Chinese gong and double altar. I can’t imagine how much courage it takes for them to trust a strange, short-haired, blunt-spoken, middle-aged white woman and enter a weird and unfamiliar place. I know that much of their experience—much of their safety—is dependent upon saving face, not ever showing fear or ignorance or inability.

But how do you learn something new if you have to act tough all the time? How can you be open to learning things if you have to act like you have it all together every second? I know these things, but I still lose patience when ten girls decide to sit in the dark, in the coat closet, losing credit for the afternoon’s school attendance, instead of coming into my class. So I take a deep breath and turn to the students who will participate.

On the day in question, these four girls dug deep to follow my lesson. Through it all, the rumble of negativity carried from the hall into our sacred training space. I moved our circle further from the door and called group huddles to give feedback. I noticed a few bright eyes that strayed from the closet floor to peek around the door frame and see what we were up to, but I didn’t pay them any mind. We practiced strikes and blocks, wrist grabs and releases. The four girls practiced, asked questions, and learned. They resisted the siren song of malaise and defeat and refusal rising up from the antechamber. And with twenty minutes before the end of class, I made a choice.

I taught one final technique—hammer fist—and we worked it over and over to striking pads until I felt confident in each woman’s power and technique. Then I settled my four students against the bank of windows. I cleared the brochures and flyers from the card table and placed it square in the middle of the floor. And I brusquely climbed over the bodies in the closet to pull out my last four breaking boards from the supply shelf.

Both rooms got quiet when I set up the first board on the sturdy wooden supports. There was wild disbelief—“We’re gonna break those?” and surging confidence—“We’re gonna break those!”

As I approached the group to give my final instructions, I heard the one girl I knew telling the others, “She’s OK, I don’t know why they don’t just try it—if you do the class, she treats you right.” I turned to bow to her, one of the most heartfelt bows of my twenty-one years of practice.

I get so much wrong in this class, and fall short so often of what I want to offer. But I honor these women, I try to give my best possible teaching and when everything else fails, I just try to love them. Here in my favorite, most sacred space with these poor, scared, angry, victimized, violent, brave, belligerent, smart, silly, vilified young women—Puerto Rican teen moms, high school drop-outs, welfare recipients—I see the brokenness of the world. I see how small I am against it, and how hard it is to correct injustice or even just reach out across our differences. How hard it is to trust and know one another. I offer the teaching that I know best, in the hopes that the next time a man puts his hand around one of these girl’s throats, she’ll know how to kick his knees and break the choke hold. In hopes that the next time a girl with a razor in her hair starts talking trash to one of these young women, my student will have the presence of mind to walk away instead of stirring it up and getting slashed.

I asked my four students to love each other that day. I didn’t say that out loud; there is no way I’d get away with sappy nonsense like that. Whatever else their lives have handed them, they are teenagers first and foremost—caustic, mocking, irreverent. But I asked them to support each other as they stood before the group to break their boards and they did it. They stood up for one another.

“You can do it!” someone called. “Just picture your baby-daddy!”

And they did.

There are times when I wonder, what if it’s my student with the razor? Or, will she ever stop going back to the man who chokes her? Will she ever expect more of this world than violence against her or at her own hand? There are times when they are so angry, or so scared, or so tired of being powerless in their own lives, that their behavior soars past antagonistic and insulting, and it boils my blood.

So I take another deep breath. And in that breath, I just try to love them, these beautiful girl moms with the odds stacked against them. I think: what would this be like if I loved them? It feels radical sometimes—I’m not supposed to love these girls—I’m not supposed to even know girls like this, I’m supposed to stay on the white, middle class side of the line and let them live out their circumstances on the other side of the mountain, down in the ‘hood, out of sight. And other times it doesn’t feel radical at all—it just feels horribly inadequate, a finger in the dyke against an ocean of racism and sexism and classism, imperialism and injustice and oppression.

I did not know that I would love these girls when I took the call seven years ago asking if I wanted to teach self defense to teen moms who were “high school drop outs,” “drug- and gang-affiliated.” I did not know that I would love them as I discovered that those descriptors didn’t really mean anything, that my students are girls I will get to know one by one by one. I didn’t know that love would serve me as I struggled with my useless, stupid English in a room full of solely Spanish-speaking students. I did not know that I would love them the first time a student gave me the finger in class, or walked away to check her makeup in the middle of an exercise, loudly dismissed me as ignorant and irrelevent, or chose to sit on the sofa in liui of class, reading letters from her man in jail.

I knew that I would hear heartbreaking stories of violence against them—I hear these stories every time I teach self defense—but I did not know that it would be my heart breaking open to them. I knew that two decades of training would give me a lot to offer towards reducing their risk of violence, and I knew that it would it would not be enough. But I did not know that love would be my most important teaching strategy.

Because if I keep loving them, then I’ll keep trying.

Worship: Inbetween Times: Who We Are For Each Other

On May 31 I had the privilege of sharing the pulpit at our Unitarian Society with SpecK and the War Ship to deliver a service on the topic of Inbetween Times: Who We Are For Each Other. I encourage you to check out SpecK's homily and the readings from the service.

I contributed these Reflections:

These reflections began as a personal thank you note to our Ministerial Search Committee. Not for the obvious thing—the application of their gifts of intellect and empathy to the task of selecting our next settled minister. Not for the domestic tasks that went neglected in their several households as they sat in endless meetings; nor the days they went to their jobs tired from working late into the night; nor the recreation they missed with their spouses and children. Not even a thank you for the incredible result of their work: a minister whose selection brings excitement and hope to an overwhelming number of our congregation, from our children to our elders.

No, I found myself driving to meet Karen Johnston to discuss this service one morning and composing, in my head, a thank you note to the committee for allowing me the honor of cooking for them. As you may know, each of the three final candidates came to Northampton for a clandestine weekend of interviews. Clandestine because—as a personnel process—the anonymity of the candidates had to be preserved. During the Saturday night of each weekend a member of the Search Committee hosted a dinner for the candidate and the entire committee. Last summer, Cathy Lilly and Janet Spongberg asked me to head up the “hospitality” team to prepare these meals, in order to take a single, discrete task from the heavily burdened committee.

I had some awesome helpers from the congregation, but in the end, I did an enormous amount of cooking: the equivalent of preparing two or three holiday feasts in a short number of weeks. In truth, if they had been holiday feasts, and I had been feeding my extended family, I might have felt stressed out by the task. Cooking for these sacred, secret dinners felt different. It felt exciting and fun, and a little sneaky. But most of all, it felt like a privilege, like a gift.

Wherein lay the difference? How and why did this task feel so special to me, like an opportunity rather than an obligation?

The answer is complicated. I have been a long time lonely in this Great Hall; a long time inspired and moved by the elements of our collective worship yet longing for the deep and comfortable personal connections I see among other members. There were times when I wondered if I would ever have a friendly dailiness with any but a tiny few members; when I wondered if I would ever be known well by others in the pews.

Cooking these few dinners brought me into intimacy with people I didn’t know very well. I talked to them on the telephone; I entered their homes. As I pondered menus and recipes, I found myself wondering which meals would be most nurturing, most sustaining, as they shouldered their task. I found myself opening my heart to the job of caring for these folks, whether or not I knew them well. And then a funny thing happened—something that often does when you open your heart: I became known to them. My loving action caused me to feel seen and loved. The gift of service became a gift received rather than one given.

To cite just one example of how this roll-your-sleeves up, practical task of making casseroles transformed my experience, I think of a committee member I knew only from a very formal distance: her beautiful voice gracing our choir, her thoughtful and reasoned comments at our annual meetings. Now I know that she delights in homemade soup; is charmed by my precocious daughter; and—I know this because Alice charmed her into a self-guided house tour when we were delivering one of those dinners—I know that someone in her household collects DVDs of my all time favorite television show. (OK, I’ll tell you: it’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer.)

This experience softened me. It reminded me that I have cares in common with people throughout this congregation, whether or not I know it. It opened my heart and my eyes to the quiet ways we minister to one another all the time, the ways that we extend ourselves to one another to create a loving community.

Over coffee that morning, Karen and I talked about the many small ways we experience our common ministry. We thought of the ways parents and non-parents both take responsibility to teach in the Religious Education program, and also of other ways that adults commit to our youth. Like remembering their names. This makes it possible to greet a young person in passing—or to share the joke when they trade name tags with their friends and siblings before the community greeting. We thought of OWL teachers who offer to be a safe place for young people, not just on those eight Sundays when they teach, but for always, whenever they are needed. And of a grownup who offered a dignified, heart-felt apology—handwritten and delivered during the service—when a well intentioned Great Hall greeting inexplicably hurt a small child’s feelings.

We thought of the generosity of Gail and John Gaustad, who agreed to babysit so I could attend a Worship Committee meeting. It wasn’t simply the logistical support often necessary for the parent of a young child to be able to be of service, when being of service means attending a meeting late into a weekday evening. It was also the abundant relief that my partner Liz and I felt knowing we could aim Alice’s persistent cosmic inquiries—“How big is the Universe? What’s outside the end of the Universe? Where did the Universe come from?”—at John—a real live astronomer!—at least for one night. The answers we’d been giving all began, “Science says…” and “Some people believe….” We heard a different gravitas in John’s academic voice when he started to address the topic as we slipped out the back door. We hoped it would give Alice a lesson in action of how our Society holds many different types of wisdom and belief to speak to someone so certain, so informed, so knowledgeable. Or maybe it would just give us a night off.

When I was lonely, having trouble finding my place here, I did not know the moments of ministry were not just the warm embraces I saw between old friends. They are also present in the quiet of the pews, as when two seated near each other are inspired by the same sermon to start some private scribbling. One writes in the margins of a Thomas Hobbes paperback, the other in a precious poetry notebook. Though one identifies as an “anti-supernaturalist who cannot get past all the if’s” and the other “a spiritualist who suspends disbelief in order to engage the power of as many of those ‘ifs’ as she can handle,” in this place they can share a common delight, a sacred moment.

I did not know that I was already being ministered to in those days when the older woman who sat alone in the pew in front of us began greeting me and Liz on Sunday mornings – began noticing if we were absent a week – and, when I became visibly pregnant, began chiding Liz to make me a hot cooked breakfast before service. She recommended scrambled eggs. Over time we learned that her name was Ruth, but it was not until the very end of her life that we found out that she was the mother of a dear friend we knew outside of this place – and we learned that almost by accident. Ruth did not reach out to us in the pews because we were known to her; she reached out because we were connected by the moments we shared in this sacred space.

I think of a similar moment a few years ago, when I was really wavering in my faith that this was the right congregational home for me. I knew I was being ministered to one morning when a lay-led sermon spoke directly to my heart and resonated with the spiritual practices that I choose. But it was the moment of ministry that followed that sermon, as I sat weeping in a rear pew, wondering how I would know to stay or to go from this place, that held me here. Someone I knew really only because we had disagreed at recent meetings came to me and said—in what exact words, I can’t ever remember—I care for you. I see that you are hurting. I hope that things get better. That was when I knew that I was home.

It is my hope for myself, and for all of us that these moments become even more abundant in the coming year. I hope that there are two people in the hall today who will find a new connection—whether through practical assistance, kindness, a brief shared moment, or some common laughter. I hope that you come to a summer services and hear a lay preacher speak to your most cherished beliefs. And I hope you come to another service where your most cherished beliefs are challenged, or expanded, or enriched by contrasting experience. I hope that we remember as we start to walk with our new minister that she is joining us on the path, that we are already walking together.

Mind Body Mama: Practice

The other night, I ran Small a shallow bath so she could soak some of the filth off quickly before bed. I had my back turned to her when she asked, “Mama, can I have a meditation now?” I was taken aback, but I said, “Of course, Small, you can mediate any time you want.”

Small drew her thin legs up under herself criss-cross applesauce style. She bowed her head, and I was surprised to see how long her supple spine is now as it curled forward over the Buddha belly of childhood that she still carries. Six is such a tender mix of baby and girl: Small’s length and grace hint at the teenager, even the woman, that she will soon become, while her sticky hair, round cheeks and pudgy belly echo the sweet baby she was such a short time ago. Her left hand rested in her lap, palm up; her right hand nested in it and her thumbs touched gently, as we practice. As soon as she closed her eyes her breathing slowed and the room felt charged by her sudden, steady focus.

I’ll admit I was mesmerized. I had been walking out of the room to fold laundry when she caught me by this pose and I stood in the door, staring.

Small opened her eyes and looked up at me. “It’s easier to meditate when you’re not looking at me,” she said pointedly. I apologized and made to leave but she said, “No, it’s OK, I was done.” I asked her what made her think to mediate just then, and she said it was the warm water, it felt so good. “I don’t like to mediate at the dojo,” she said distastefully. “The floor is too hard!” And then, the bath, with all its silliness and ritual.

I’ve so long wondered if I was at all succeeding in showing Small the spiritual heart of my life. It is true that she gestated at the karate school, kicking me from the inside as my classmates kicked me on the outside. She was born in November and at Solstice I wore her on my chest as we punched a thousand times in the candle-lit darkness. We kept a Boppy at the dojo and I would lay her into it as if it were a throne so she could lay back and watch me prepare for my brown belt test. She was so small, to nestle into that pillow, and she gazed up at me with such enormous eyes. This year she became a Power Girl and began studying the art herself, with a lot of playfulness and exuberance and affection for her teachers.

But how could I know if she saw the heart of the practice, the stillness and compassion and peace that lies at the center of the work? How could I know if she would share the strength that I’ve drawn from sitting on that hard floor, or others like it, for twenty one years? We are not Christian. We do not pray. We do not name our practice as being connected to some movement bigger than ourselves—Buddhism, Islam, Judaism. We just breathe, and love each other, and hope that will be enough. And in the hardest times—birth, death—the practice of presence proves itself.

But I am a worrier, so I worried that I would not know how to convey the experience of calm and inner resources that comes from having a personal spiritual practice. Most of all I worried that Small’s daily life with me would be such an anti-thesis of mindfulness—To do lists! Timers! Schedules! Plans!— that she’d never know to go to that simple present breath to find peace.

Small is so much wiser than I am. I worry no more.

Mind Body Mama: Launching the War Ship

Last Friday I hosted my Gratitude and Abundance coffee klatch. Karen and I got together just before the party to discuss a homily she’s writing. When Birth Pie arrived it was clear we had been discussing church business.

“What is this committee you two are on?” asked Birth Pie suspiciously.

“It’s the Worship Committee” Karen told her.

“What do you do?”

“Well, it used to be called the Religious Services Committee, but that seemed too non-profity and administrative, so we changed the name,” my honey-haired Buddhist friend earnestly explained. “We are responsible for creating the experience of worship.”

“Oh, ‘worship’!” exclaimed Birth Pie. (Her father is a UCC minister, after all.) “I thought you said ‘War Ship.’”

Considering the gruesome torture aspects of the Easter myth perhaps War Ship isn’t too far off. And sometimes I do think our progressive, intellectual faith could benefit from a little more military discipline and a little less kumbaya. I feel certain the pot lucks at West Point are better organized than ours.

Our family’s Easter tradition is to host Dusty and Hyacinth for a mid-day egg hunt and festive repast. As it is also our tradition to attend Easter Sunday worship, the morning is fairly full. Recent Easters have been enhanced by Small projectile-vomiting and Sweetiebabyhoneylicious being confined to bed by her Rheumatoid Arthritis. So I had high hopes this year when it looked like no one would be ill or incapacitated.

The three of us bounded out of bed at 6am in full-on attack mode. Our mission, and we were going to accept it: to prepare a complete Easter brunch and beat the downstairs of the house into some semblance of clean in time to get Small to choir practice by 9:15 am.

I took on the roles of Commander, Chef and Cheerleader. “We’re going to cook! We’re going to clean! Let’s go Team Easter!”

“What’s the name of the other team?” asked Small, eyeing her Spider magazine longingly.

“There is no other team!” I intoned in the voice of authority.

A bleary-eyed Sweetiebabyhoneylicious settled herself in front of the computer.

“She’s not on Team Easter,” noted Small. “She’s on Team Facebook.”

Somehow we pulled it together. We made hash. We made sticky buns. We made Bloody Marys, and I didn’t even drink any. We tidied, we decorated, we washed dishes, we ate breakfast. And then suddenly it was fifteen-minutes-to-go time and we were all still dirty and in our pajamas.

Which is how we ended up in the bathroom enjoying one another’s company through our morning ablutions.

Having Small join me for my bathroom rituals is not my favorite thing. The previous morning she had this to say about my makeup routine:

“What is that stuff? It’s smeary.”

I told her it was to cover the circles under my eyes.

“It makes it less purple under your eyes,” she agreed. “Not a lot less purple, but a little less purple.”

Despite the 40 degree weather and horrifically cold wind, I was determined to wear a spring dress to church. Unfortunately that necessitated shaving my legs in the company of my family. As I pushed the shower curtain aside to lather up my right leg, Small lost all focus on oral hygiene.

“What are you doing?”

Sweetiebabyhoneylicious attempted to maintain protocol: “Don’t worry about what Mama’s doing, worry about what you’re doing.”

A dismal thought occurred to me. It is entirely possible that I have not shaved my legs in over six years. Time gets away from you when you have a small child.

“Mama’s shaving her legs” explained Sweetiebabyhoneylicious, trying to get back to the task at hand.

“What is shaving?” asked Small.

“Removing the hair on her legs.”

“Why would you do that?”

“Good question,” said Sweetiebabyhoneylicious, waving the neglected toothbrush.

“Fashion,” said Mama with grim determination.

With seven minutes to go the whole family stumbled out of the bathroom and into the master bedroom. Small has taken lessons from the cat to employ when we’re running late. Like the VISA card, she’s every where I want to be. She weaves in front of me as I walk. She intuits telepathically where I’m about to head next and gets there first. With brilliant athletic instincts she’s able to step into my path wherever I turn.

As closely guarded as any WNBA champion, I dug in the bottom of the closet for the pantyhose collection last accessed in 2001. With her breath hot upon me I tunneled through the laundry to locate clean panties. As I charged for the mirror like Lisa Leslie, my three-foot nemesis drew the foul. When she made her move I straight-armed her back across the room.

“You pushed me!” came the indignant cry.

My denial was shameless, if undermined by giggles. “No I didn’t. Pushing is rude. Mamas don’t push their kids.”

“You’ve pushed me before!” Small countered, although she was already falling into my laughter. “You’ve even pushed me today!”

The ref, aka Sweetiebabyhoneylicious, broke up the scuffle. Sweaters, earrings and mary janes were found. Dress coats were donned and dress up purses were filled. We fell into the car with time to spare. War Ship indeed.

Worship: Readings to Accompany Fear and Grace

My family lit the chalice for this service, and Alice recited the chalice-lighting words from memory, because she is an odd and fabulous little kid. They are from the Sufi mystic poet Jelalludin Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks:

Today, like every other day, we wake up empty
and frightened. Don’t open the door to the study
and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument.

Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

For the opening words (read responsively) I chose a excerpt from the Reverend Victoria Safford’s meditation Map of the Journey in Progress, from her book Walking Towards Morning:

Here is where I found my voice and chose to be brave.

This is the place where I said NO, more loudly than I’d ever thought I could, and everybody stared, but I said NO loudly anyway, because I knew it must be said, and those staring settled down into harmless, ineffective grumbling, and over me they had no power anymore.

Here’s a time, and here’s another, when I laid down my fear and walked right on into it, right up to my neck into that roiling water.

Here’s a place, a murky puddle, where I have stumbled more than once and fallen. I don’t know yet what to learn there.

On this site I was outraged and the rage sustains me still, it clarifies my seeing.

Here is where I began to look with my own eyes and listen with my own ears and sing my own song, shakey as it is.

The first of the two readings was a story from the Buddhist writer Pema Chodron from her book When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times.

Once there was a young warrior. Her teacher told her that she had to do battle with Fear. She didn’t want to do that. It seemed too aggressive; it was scary; it seemed unfriendly. But the teacher said she had to do it and gave her instructions for the battle. The day arrived. The student warrior stood on one side, and Fear stood on the other. The warrior was feeling very small, and Fear was looking big and wrathful. They both had their weapons. The young warrior roused herself and went toward Fear, bowed three times, and asked, “May I have permission to go into battle with you?” Fear said, “Thank you for showing me so much respect that you ask permission.” Then the young warrior said, “How can I defeat you?” Fear replied, “My weapons are that I talk fast, and I get very close to your face. Then you get completely unnerved, and you do whatever I say. If you don’t do what I tell you, I have no power. You can listen to me, and you can have respect for me. You can even be convinced by me. But if you don’t do what I say, I have no power.” In that way the student warrior learned how to act, not controlled by Fear, but with an understanding of Fear that leads to greater respect and compassion for oneself and others.

The second was a definition of grace from Christian author Anne Lamott found in her book Travelling Mercies:

…grace in the theological sense… [is] the force that infuses our lives and keeps letting us off the hook. It is unearned love—the love that goes before, that greets us on the way. It’s the help you receive when you have no bright ideas left, when you are empty and desperate and have discovered that your best thinking and most charming charm have failed you. Grace is the light or electricity or juice or breeze that takes you from that isolated place and puts you with others who are as startled and embarrassed and eventually grateful as you are to be there.

For the closing words, I used a meditation written by Alice:

Courage Instructions

Make the wisdom of your hope.
Don’t be afraid.
Help yourself to whatever you must do.
Help the world and do your best.

Worship: Readings to Accompany Lessons from a Hamster (Real and Imagined)

One of the most fun parts of putting together a church service is selecting the readings. Since my early twenties I've considered poetry my preferred form of prayer. I love the opportunity to share my favorite inspirational writings with the congregation. The hard part is recalling, finding and selecting the most appropriate readings.

Here are the readings I actually used to accompany my sermon on January 11.

For the opening words, a selection from the thirteenth-century Sufi poet Jelulludin Rumi (Coleman Barks' translation, of course):

We are the mirror as well as the face in it.
We are tasting the taste this minute
of eternity. We are pain
and what cures pain, both. We are
the sweet cold water and the jar that pours.

The story for the children was The Old Woman Who Named Things by Cynthia Rylant. I know the adults enjoyed it; I hope the kids did too. Alice said, "Good job reading the story without crying, Mama!" It's a tear-jerker.

The first reading was a favorite poem by Ellen Bass. I had a strong internal debate about whether or not to use this piece, but I decided it would help to set the theme of parenting mindfully.

There are times in life
when one does the right thing

the thing one will not regret,
when the child wakes crying “mama”, late
as you are about to close your book and sleep
and she will not be comforted back to her crib,
she points you out of her room, into yours,
you tell her, “I was just reading here in bed,”
she says, “read a book,” you explain it’s not a children’s book
but you sit with her anyway, she lays her head on your breast,
one-handed, you hold your small book, silently read,
resting it on the bed to turn pages
and she, thumb in mouth, closes her eyes, drifts,
not asleep—when you look down at her, her lids open,
and once you try to carry her back
but she cries, so you return to your bed again and book,
and the way a warmer air will replace a cooler with a slight
shift of wind, or swimming, entering a mild current, you
enter this pleasure, the quiet book, your daughter in your lap,
an articulate person now, able to converse, yet still
her cry is for you, her comfort in you,
it is your breast she lays her head upon,
you are lovers, asking nothing but this bodily presence.
She hovers between sleep, you read your book,
you give yourself this hour, sweet and quiet beyond flowers
beyond lilies of the valley and lilacs even, the smell of her breath,
the warm damp between her head and your breast. Past midnight
she blinks her eyes, wiggles toward a familiar position,
utters one word, “sleeping.” You carry her swiftly into her crib,
cover her, close the door halfway, and it is this sense of rightness,
that something has been healed, something
you will never know, will never have to know.

The second reading was two more contemporary poems--a short one by W.S. Merwin and a longer piece by Mary Oliver. I first read the Mary Oliver poem in the Unitarian Universalist Association publication The World. I'm not sure if it is collected in any of Oliver's books.

Separation
W.S. Merwin

Your absence has gone through me
Like thread through a needle.
Everything I do is stitched with its color.


Starlings in Winter
Mary Oliver

Chunky and noisy,
But with stars in their black feathers,
They spring from the telephone wire
and instantly

they are acrobats
in the freezing wind.
And now, in the theater of air,
They swing over buildings,

dipping and rising;
they float like one stippled star
that opens,
becomes for a moment fragmented,

then closes again;
and you watch
and you try
but you simply can’t imagine

how they do it
with no articulated instruction, no pause,
only the silent confirmation
that they are this notable thing,

this wheel of many parts, that can rise and spin
over and over again,
full of gorgeous life.
Ah, world, what lessons you prepare for us,

even in the leafless winter,
even in the ashy city.
I am thinking now
of grief, and of getting past it;

I feel my boots
trying to leave the ground,
I feel my heart
pumping hard. I want

to think again of dangerous and noble things.
I want to be light and frolicsome.
I want to be improbably beautiful and afraid of nothing,
as though I had wings.

For my closing words, I used a wonderful little piece I found among the readings in Singing the Living Tradition, the UUA hymnal:

Hold on to what is good
even if it is
a handful of earth.

Hold on to what you believe
even if it is
a tree which stands by itself.

Hold on to what you must do
even if it is
a long way from here.

Hold on to my hand even when
I have gone away from you.

I believe the author is Nancy Wood.

Now for the writings that didn't make it into the service. My friend Karen reviewed the sermon and was reminded of one of my absolute favorite lines from the poet Adrienne Rich. I've used this as a mantra for years; there is no explanation for why it did not come to my mind as I prepared this service: "There must be those among whom we can sit down and weep, and still be counted as warriors." If that does not describe my sangha, which has been affectionately known as "the crybaby karate school," nothing does.

I did not want to rely too heavily on Mary Oliver, although I do believe her canon may form a Book of Common Prayer for many of us these days. From her collection Thirst, memorializing her partner of forty years:

A Pretty Song

From the complications of loving you
I think there is no end or return.
No answer, no coming out of it.

Which is the only way to live, isn't it?
This isn't a playground, this is
earth, our heaven, for a while.

Therefore I have given precedence
to all my sudden, sullen, dark moods
that hold you in the center of my world.

And I say to my body: grow thinner still.
And I say to my fingers: type me a pretty song.
And I say to my heart: rave on.

And finally, though I loved the closing words I chose, I wish I had remembered this quote from Alice with essentially the same sentiment:

You have to let your life go on
Even when it doesn’t make you happy.
Even when it’s hard.
Even when it’s not what you expected.