First Parish Unitarian UniversalistPrayer for a Just Peace
A sermon preached by the Reverend Diane Teichert
First Parish Unitarian Universalist - Canton, MA
March 23, 2003
This is a sermon in three parts. You might find a connecting thread, but I didn’t, not quite. So, just to warn you, the transitions are not seamless. Furthermore, the three parts don’t fit very well with the sermon title, Prayer for a Just Peace. Though, I do really pray for a just peace, like you I am sure. Not just in Iraq, but in the United States as well, and indeed everywhere, even in our own hearts. But, that’s not what the sermon is going to be about.
First, I want to revisit last week’s sermon. Second, I want to tell you about a troubling incident here in Canton. And third, some humor, please!
First part: Sermon Revisited
A week ago today, the war had not yet started, but it was looming. We were struggling to live with the not-knowing. Today, the agony of waiting is over. The war began. Now we must live with knowing.
As citizens of the invading country, I believe we have a responsibility to know what our troops are doing. Especially because we expect to see no military action here, we should follow what happens there. Especially because relatively few Americans will be touched by the death of a loved one in military service, we should know how many Iraqis and Kuwaitis, Britons, and others are killed in this war. Indeed, precisely because most Americans will sacrifice relatively little, we should at least pay the price of knowing.
But, how much of a price shall we pay for the knowing about this war? Have you seen the cartoon by David Sipress? Two people are walking on a city street sidewalk and one says to the other, “My desire to be well-informed is currently at odds with my desire to remain sane.” (Funny Times, April 2003, p. 2).
Last week, I talked in my sermon about staying sane in these troubled times by making hope. I could only tell you what I know myself, but I suggested five ways to make hope. Now that war is underway, there is more to say, but I still think the five are relevant suggestions.
One: Make hope--Take control of your news. Take control of the news by avoiding the most anxiety-producing news sources, and by seeking out alternative information sources. Now that the news is so violent, with war underway, I would add to the advice of last week that we should be intentional about when we watch television—don’t have the tv on in the background, don’t turn it on just before bedtime, and especially with children in the house, make a point of watching with them so that they are neither sheltered from, nor overwhelmed by, the reality of the world in which we live.
Two: Make hope--Enjoy the arts. Enjoy music, visual arts, drama, or literature whether as spectator or creator.
Three: Make hope--Nourish your spirit. Nourish your spirit by cultivating opportunities for awe and gratitude, especially in nature. Today, you might join Lyn, the Director of Religious Education, and me on the Spring Equinox Seasonal Walk after Coffee Hour and some soup. It’s a beautiful day.
Four: Make hope--Give of yourself through work and service, to keep society and yourself going, and to offset the horror of war with the goodness of helping. Today, for example, a driver is needed to take fresh bread from here to Mainspring House in Brockton, a shelter for the homeless—speak to Lyn about that. And this week the Friday Night Supper for the Hungry and Homeless at the Arlington Street UU Church in Boston is expecting some of us to show up and serve food—speak to Gisele about that.
Five: Make hope--Attend to love. Have fun with those you love, laugh (I’m going to return to laughter in a moment), share a meal and your real feelings about the war with those you love, especially with your children if you have children.
If you don’t listen to them, who will? Attempts to hide reality from children only serve to increase, and suppress, their fear of it. Today, our Director of Religious Education has provided a pamphlet for parents on how to speak with children about war; you should have received one when you entered. If not, please find one in the vestibule before you leave.
A friend told me over the weekend about how she and her very outgoing nine-year-old daughter led the singing at one of the world-wide vigils last Sunday night at 7 p.m. So, it was important but hard, on Tuesday morning, for my friend to tell her daughter that, despite the hope and energy and goodwill at the vigil and the letters they’d sent to President Bush and the phone calls and emails and whatever else the family had done in recent months, the war was starting. The little girl’s face fell. “It is?” she queried disbelievingly. “But, Mommy, what will happen to the cats?”
I said to my friend, I didn’t know you had any cats. No, she said, she means the cats in Iraq!
Children need, just like adults, to express their true feelings, however oddly they may be trying to process what is happening, and be reassured of the love that surrounds them, even if that love cannot protect them from harm any more than love alone can protect Iraqi children from harm—or cats.
But, now I have a sixth suggestion, an omission one of you, one of our physically fit elders, rightfully pointed out to me after the service last week. Six: make hope by taking good care of your body. Eat balanced and healthy food, get some exercise, make love, and get hugs whenever you can. If your body runs down and out of energy, hope will be hard to find! Perhaps if I was as regular at the gym as Joan is, I’d have thought to mention this very basic of ways to make hope! Even I know how my spirits are lifted by just a half hour of exercise or a vigorous walk. So, please add number six: make hope--take good care of your body.
Second part of the sermon: Speaking of understanding our children’s feelings… A Troubling Incident
It’s been a couple weeks ago now, but in early March a website photograph of the superintendent of schools was defaced. She experienced the defacement very personally, and involved the police in investigating what they took to be a hate crime. The guilty student was identified, a seventeen year old male. Before any dialogue between the accused and the victim could take place, the police appeared at the boy’s house. They said they had an unsigned search warrant and that it would be best if the parents cooperated. So, they allowed the police to confiscate their son’s computer. The youngster was been suspended for five days, not for rude, hurtful and obnoxious behavior, but for an act of “religious hatred” and the parents have appealed; the matter is now in the courts.
On March 11th, clergy in Canton were invited by the Canton Police to a meeting also attended by some school personnel, to discuss a community response to this, termed by the police as a “heinous act.” At the meeting, the defacement was described, as was the dialogue on a student “chat line” that apparently prompted the student to alter the photo. Since that meeting, I have seen the defaced photograph myself, and learned that even the Anti-Defamation League agreed with the DA’s office that, though it is obnoxious and hurtful, it does not qualify as a “hate crime.”
What happened, as I understand it is this. The on-line chat conversation was about how unfair it was that, with all the snow this winter, there hadn’t been a single snow day. Since it is the school superintendent who calls snow days, the students berated her, and some used foul language. That led to the posting of her photograph, altered, with a swastika on her arm, horns on her head, Osama bin Laden on one side, a Mardi gras devil on the other, and Stalin in the background. The on-line chat conversation continued after the photo was posted, about snow days and the superintendent, with no mention of her religion (she is Jewish) or any anti-Semitic remarks. But, the superintendent was greatly hurt and offended by these symbols of anti-Jewish hatred electronically affixed to her photo, and took it as anti-Semitism. The student insists he did not know she is Jewish.
Now, I’ve been hearing that bitter complaint about no snow days from my own seventeen year old son, too. I don’t believe he has defaced any school website photographs, but he has told us that the school superintendent is “stupid” more than once, and possibly used other adjectives with his friends, maybe even on-line via email or instant messaging. I don’t know.
These days, computer technology allows a person to lift images from other websites and from collections of clip art, to be arranged creatively in a new way. Many high school kids, especially boys, know how to do this, and more. They spend many hours at their computers, creating websites and communicating electronically with each other. Maybe they ought not to be, but they do. They have time for on-line mischief.
Way back in my day, a similar thing could well have happened. Admit it, some of you would have done it yourself. Snow on the ground from Christmas Day to St. Patrick’s Day, and not one single snow day? You would have torn a page of lined paper from your notebook and drawn the superintendent to look like a vicious autocrat—Hitler, maybe Stalin—and put horns on his head (no women superintendents, way back then!). Maybe you’d surround him with piles and piles of snow, and then you would have passed it around class when the teacher wasn’t looking. Everybody would have had a good laugh—I mean it was tough back then to be a teenager at the mercy of teachers, the principal and school superintendent day in and day out for four whole years. A little comic relief was needed. If the drawing got into the teacher’s hands and you’d been caught, what would have happened? Detention? A reprimand? An apology to the principal in front of your parents?
What is it about the climate of these times that the Canton Police confiscated the boy’s computer without a signed search warrant? That the superintendent’s personal hurt reaction, however understandable, determined school action on this case? That the effect of the photo was not considered to be possibly different from its intent? That no effort was made to discover the boy’s intent? That the student and the superintendent were not brought together by a third party in a mediating role so that the boy could hear first-hand the hurt his prank had caused and offer a sincere apology? That some punishment fitting the crime, such as a research paper on freedom in totalitarian states or the power of religious hatred, be assigned. One day suspension.
Surely, as one of my clergy colleagues said, when you choose to express hateful things as publicly as on a website, the consequences ought to be more serious than if it’s a private note between friends. But, I believe that town officials have made more of this incident than it warrants, and in so doing, have now made it more difficult to tackle real incidents of inter-religious hatred when they occur. As someone from the ADL explained, if every instance of obnoxious speech is deemed to be “anti-Semitic,” the phrase will soon lose all meaning.
Part Three: Some Humor, please! Speaking of needing comic relief….
These times require a good sense of humor. I love the humorist Steve Bhaerman, writing under the pseudonym Swami Beyondananda. In his recent “2003 State of the Universe Address” [Funny Times, April 2003, pp. 3, 5) he said,
“Do you know what the leading cause of terrorism is? It’s seriousness. I’m serious. Think about it. Those people have no sense of humor. Otherwise, how could they believe they will get to heaven by putting other people through hell?”
“Last year,” he says, “We launched a bliss-krieg and declared an ‘all out peace.’ I’m happy to report it is already working. More people are letting their inner peace out, and these outbreaks of peace are actually causing esteem to rise! And we all know that rising esteem is good for the atmosphere. As esteem rises, more people on the planet will be able to be all that they can be—without joining the army. And when more of us put our energy into love and laughter instead of criticizing and condemning, we will have Uncritical Mass…and we will bring about Nonjudgement Day, and along with it, Disarmaggedon. Now you might be wondering, what will Nonjudgement Day look like? Let me tell you [my] vision, “ the good Swami Beyondananda offers.
“I have been to the heights of levity, and I have seen people all over the world dancing together in the universal dance of fool realization…the Hokey Pokey. I want you to hold this vision with me: all of the world leaders…beginning their [negotiation] sessions with the Hokey Pokey. What if Ariel Sharon and Yasser Arafat put their whole selves in? That would be commitment. And then pulled their whole selves out. That is detachment. Then they turn themselves around, which is transformation. And that, my friends, is what it is all about!
So, how can you help raise the laugh force on the planet enough to bring about Nonjudgement Day? First you take a vow of levity, and laugh more… Next, you can support everyone’s right to laugh by joining the Right to Laugh Party…’one big party, everyone is invited. All for fun, and fun for all.’”
Declares Swami Beyondananda, “Commit random acts of comedy. Practice Fun Shi and leave the world a funnier place. Anything to elicit a moment of fool-realization with a spark of laughter. Because only when we lovingly laugh at our foolishness, can we seriously change things for the better.
May you wake up laughing and leave laughter in your wake…and may the Farce be with you!”
Thus he ends his 2003 State of the Universe Address, and so I end this sermon at the end of the first week of the second gulf war, praying for a just peace there, here and everywhere. War is certainly nothing to laugh at, but as the good swami says,
“When we emerge from our fearful hiding places and see from the cosmic comic perspective, we realize that beneath all the stress and distress and sadness in life there is a deep well of joy. Each time we let laughter bubble up from the well, we experience deep wellness.”
And, I say, in that deep wellness is the beginning of peace.
Amen.