First Parish Unitarian Universalist“Dear Mom”: A Reading on Mother’s Day 2005
May 8, 2005
Reverend Diane Teichert
First Parish Unitarian Universalist - Canton MA
Reading and Homily
Dear Mom,
On this Mother’s Day, I’m feeling grateful for your influences on me.
Of course, some of your influences I would just as soon not have! Those influences are the ones my children have been known to observe with the comment, “Mom, you’re acting just like Grandma!” and with that put a stop to my behavior, on the spot.
I wonder, though, whether your grandchildren appreciate your positive influences on me. I wonder if they see these same traits and interests in themselves and know who to thank? Not just me, or their father, but you, too?
One of them is the need to name the truth as I see it. And another is to act on those truths to make the world a better place for all.
As I child, I mainly absorbed your example in these regards. In more than one instance, though, you taught me directly. I also recall that you encouraged my budding interests along these lines. And, in teaching me how to make good looking displays on “oak tag” (now a days kids use foam core) for my elementary school projects, I also learned how to make great flyers and posters for meetings and rallies!
One of your proverbs was, “Just because everyone else does it (or has it), doesn’t make it right.” You were keen on judging the culture around us against your own moral code, and used what little power you had to influence it. You used your purchasing power. I remember when we had our first TV—my younger sisters and I were in gradeschool, it was the late fifties, early sixties—we must have clamored for some product we’d seen on TV—maybe Maypo, remember that, the hot cereal? Or Frosted Flakes, with Tony the Tiger?—and you declared (as I recall), “whatever you ask for, if it’s advertised on TV, I’m NOT buying it!”
And when that TV died—I think I was in fifth grade—you and dad didn’t replace it right away. Maybe your intent was to wean us of its influence for a while, or maybe you just didn’t have the money. I don’t know. But I do recall this: when my school assignment was to write a review of our favorite TV show, I had to write a book report instead. It wasn’t so bad. Probably the other kids didn’t know, and I felt the teacher kind of admired you for being so principled.
You expected me to be principled, too. I remember the time I changed my story about a Girl Scout camping overnight from “it was fun, Mom” to “it was so awful,” having subsequently heard the troop leaders criticize the lack of toilet facilities at the camp we’d gone to. You let me know, in no uncertain terms, that you expected me to have the courage of my convictions, even if others disagreed.
You followed political issues and always voted. When Governor Nelson Rockefeller proposed a state wide lottery to fund public education, I remember you were incensed by the idea! “Do that and we teach our children that gambling is ok! We want good schools and we should be willing to pay for them! That’s what taxes are for! It’s the people who least can afford it who buy lottery tickets, not the likes of the Rockefellers! He’s not getting my vote!” I don’t know if you ever sent your letter to the Governor. Maybe you just composed it out loud for the benefit of your kids and your need to vent, but I learned from you that citizens should think for themselves, express their views to their elected officials, and vote on Election Day accordingly.
You weren’t just against things. When President Kennedy announced the Peace Corps, you were excited. And you were proud of me and my sister and our friends Ricky and Peggy for putting on a neighborhood fundraiser for the Peace Corps on their front lawn.
It’s not that you were liberal then, really. In a lot of ways, you and dad were quite conservative. I think you had your principles because you believed them to be right not because you wanted to be cool or belong to a movement.
But, I went to my first rally with you, when I was twelve. Do you remember? It was for Open Housing, to end discrimination against blacks by real estate agents and mortgage lending institutions. My memory is that you went to the rally because the home of a new black family in town, who had joined our church, had been vandalized and you needed to do something positive with your anger about that.
For me, it was the first of many rallies, marches and actions, not a few of which I organized in later years. I thank you for taking me along that day so that I could learn an important lesson about our democracy: that sometimes change must come from outside the electoral process. .
Now my own children, your grandchildren, are young adults, setting off into their own futures, and I wonder about my influence on them. I wonder: which of my traits and interests they would just as soon not have? For which of them will they be grateful?
I hope through me they inherited your need to name the truth and to act on it to make the world a better place for all. Maybe they’ll plant tomatoes and peonies, like you and like me.
Maybe they’ll also think of me when they see a pond turtle. Maybe they’ll fondly remember the times I called their attention to a beautiful sky at sunset.
Mom, like anyone who plays a nurturing role in the lives of their own or other people’s children, you couldn’t have known which of your influences your kids would be glad to have had. So, maybe I’ll send this to you, so you’ll know.
Happy Mothers Day.
Love, Diane
“Infinite Hope”: A Homily
I’ve not been able to find its source, but there’s a quotation attributed to Martin Luther King, Jr. from which I’ve drawn my title this morning, “We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope.”
In these times, we are facing many disappointments. In so many arenas of public and even in regard to aspects of private life, our government’s intentions seem to demand a response from us if we are to protect and affirm the principles Unitarian Universalists hold dear. It’s daunting. Where to focus one’s limited time and energy? How to link with others? How to keep our hope alive, infinitely?
At First Parish right now, there is new and exciting energy in the congregation. How can we tap that energy for common good beyond our own? How can we move that energy out into the public arena?
In leadership retreats and in settings like our recent Visions and Values sessions, First Parish folks often express the desire to make a difference in the world, to be known in the local community for our liberal religious values, and to provide opportunities for education and action on public issues. In short, we want to be even more than a voice—we want to be a force.
As you may know, I recently proposed to the Parish Committee, and they endorsed, a series of “Infinite Hope Forums,” drawing the title from the Martin Luther King Jr quote. I envision these forums as well-publicized and well-attended public events here in the Sanctuary featuring a speaker of some renown and good character. The speaker would be preceded by a Chalice Lighting and the MLK quote, after which I or one of you would frame the topic from a UU values point of view, saying why it is a concern for us as people of faith. After the speaker would be Q&A, followed by a presentation on avenues for action, hopefully by First Parish members who have been active on the issue.
For example, next fall, the Constitutional Convention process will begin again around the issue of equal marriage. We could invite as our speaker one of the UU plaintiffs in the Supreme Judicial Court case. The array of other possible topics is limitless: health care, civil liberties, social security, foreign policy, energy policy, education, violence in media, environmental protection, nuclear arms, international trade, the war in Iraq, taxation, social security, and so on. Sometimes the Infinite Hope Forum could be two or three speakers, to provide a range of views on the topic.
I would like to form a working group soon to plan and lead the series for next year. It would need a budget at least for publicity costs, maybe for speakers’ fees. Maybe a collection would be taken up at the event, or maybe there would be an admission charge? Maybe it would take place on Sunday afternoons or evenings, or weeknights? Do we provide child care? Refreshments? What topics? These and other questions will need to be answered by that group.
Right now, though, I’d like to step back from these details and even the proposal itself to poke around the question “why?” “Why should we do this?” “Why should we do this?”
Clearly something similar could be done by a secular community group, say the League of Women Voters. Let us look at what might make what we would do different than what they would do.
Does it matter if our congregation takes up its work for justice as a religious community or is it enough to work for justice without explicitly drawing on our spiritual resources, UU values and religious heritage? Does it matter that our sources of strength include the spiritual?
In addition to resources such as intelligence, energy and the power of numbers that are available to any group working on public issues, we say that we draw on spiritual resources. However we acknowledge a power larger than but within ourselves--whether as God, the Goddess, the spirit of life, the power of love to create life anew, or whatever—we are both open to and seek out its influence, doing so should create a difference in how we work together for justice. What would this difference be?
I want to propose three ways in which our work may be different.
The first way is that we would include a role for reflection-- for a thoughtful, soulful drawing on that which we hold most dear as we consider what and how to do what we will do. This interplay between contemplation and action that many call “praxis” is described by the religious educator Thomas Groome as “purposeful, intentional and reflectively chosen ethical action.” [ Christian Religious Education (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1980), p. 152].
That’s why we would hold these Infinite Hope Forums here in the Sanctuary and start with lighting the Chalice, and reading the quote by MLK… to symbolically remind the gathered of who they really are, what they truly hope for, what we feel gratitude for, our failings and our triumphs, our sorrows and joys--a way to open our minds and hearts to each other and to a larger spirit within and without.
A second way our work may be different because of our spiritual resources may be in the way the discussion is conducted. As in our internal meetings for which we adopted a set of Guidelines for Meetings a couple years ago, we would model and expect behaviors at our Forums that embody our Principles and Purposes, that respect both the inherent worth and dignity of every person and our interconnected-ness as well. For example, one would be expected to speak for oneself not the many purported to share one’s view, to speak informatively of one’s own view rather than in criticism of another’s point of view, to engage the discussion in a spirit of discovery and learning not with an edge of argumentation, and to regard differences with respect knowing that there is that of the sacred in those with whom we may disagree, too.
The third way that way our work for justice may be different because of our spiritual resources is in our openness, even our expectation, that we shall be changed in the process. Being open to the spirit of life, to the transforming power of love or to that of God in everyone helps us welcome transformations in ourselves, even those that do not come easy. We might be inspired or called to take a risk, to try something new, to change our mind!
I have yet to make great sacrifices for the work of love and justice in the world, but to the extent that I have given time, energy or money to it, I have been wonderfully rewarded. Among these blessings have been new and mutual relationships, longtime friendships, deep satisfaction because of progress made and hope renewed, and the humbling awareness that I contributed both my strengths and my weaknesses to the effort.
These rewards ward off discouragement. They promote new energy. In short, because of them the disappointments are finite. And hope is infinite. Thus, we are able, in King’s words, “. . . [to] accept finite disappointment, [and] never lose infinite hope.”