Let us hope Gustav dies on a mountain on its way to New Orleans.
August 2008 Archives
Recently on an anti racism list serve, a contributor attacked the idea of identity group caucusing, and argued that the idea of
white privilege was divisive and we should just all get together and talk about our "racism free" world to be. Many others responded, this was my contribution.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
The purpose of identity caucuses has to do with the soul work of transformation. Native American Indians in the UUA have found that some questions of internalized oppression and the face of racism can best be discussed and ministered to by people who have similar experiences. The experience of doing anti racism work has shown that identity based caucuses are the best support for people as they ask and process questions relative to this work.
So the idea that caucusing is way to minimize offending people is mistaken. It is a way to help us all learn to talk without defensiveness about how racism oppresses us (it oppresses whites by internalizing habits of domination, which alienates them from their brothers and sisters of color.)
I will continue to caucus with Native American Indians even after the arrogant preaching of some on this list, because decades of experience has shown me that this is the most effective way to work so that Native Americans are equipped to struggle and flourish in the UUA. Caucuses of People of Color are also necessary to do similar work, and build unity and we have found these work to promote empowerment. Those who object, do not seem to object on the basis of experience in the work, rather they make pronouncements like "we can never have unity if people meet separately." This is ex cathedra, not based on experience. It comes out of someone's head (ideology) and not out of practice (praxis.)
Those who pronounce that anti-racism work that recognizes relative privilege, designed blindness, and works to unite people with different experiences relative to domination and oppression by forming alliances based on their common interest in overcoming racism is "primarily divisive" and does "great harm." But decades of praxis belie this declaration. What experience can be cited to back up his ideological assertion? I can point to thousands of individuals who have found their voice and become effective workers in our common effort. Every year we see hundreds more.
To my white allies, I am your Indian ally.. While we do get together and talk about our common work, I have work to do that must be done with American Indians and People of Color and I support my white allies efforts to get together and do the work that only they can do. Caucuses do not prevent people from getting together, caucuses empower people with understanding of themselves and the work that they must do, so that when we get together, we can be mutually productive in creating beloved community.
The Journey Toward Wholeness, the UUA's anti racism effort did teach tens of thousands of Unitarian Universalists about why it is necessary to struggle to overcome white privilege and did encourage people to recognize that this is a struggle and we must form alliances to overcome racism. But the UUA doesn't have a doctrine, rather this was an analysis based on the best practice of effective anti racist trainers.
We learned a lot in our work and we made modifications and updated our analysis and improved our training. This is so different from ideologues who have doctrines to teach. This is praxis in struggle, we are a learning community.
In a speech by Richard Trumka to the Virginia State Labor Convention, the top ranking labor leader lays it on the line about how racism is harmful to white workers, and that there is no reason not to vote for Barack Obama. He tells the story of a woman who is under the influence of racism. For a major labor leader to directly confront racism among white workers in this fashion is a breakthrough.
Paul Rasor in his essay "Liberal Theology and the Challenge of Racism" which is his contribution to Soul Work; anti-racist theologies in dialogue argues that deep in liberal theory there is an antipathy toward community. Community is seen as restricting the individual and their must be an articulation of rights of the individual, in order to protect the individual from the mob of community. Rasor argues that in order to advance our work of deconstructing racism and other forms of oppression we must renew liberalism to recognize that we are primarily social beings, and it is in supportive community that individuals are able to realize their selves.
"Our efforts to become genuinely anti-racist are hampered by another liberal ambivalence that history helps to make clear.This ambivalence surfaces as we begin to learn the importance of of community in anti racist work. Liberals want to create a strong and inclusive community, but we often want to do it without giving up anything, with letting down the barriers we erect around ourselves in the name of individual autonomy. We wade into te waters of community up to our knees, but we're afraid to let go of the dock and plunge in with our whole bodies. . .
"Our deep seated fear of community, when combined with our tendency toward formalism and abstraction, leads to a deep fear of otherness that we have barely begun to recognize and address. Fear of the other manifests itself in such liberal ideals as autonomy, self-reliance, and the like and prevents us from seeing we are truelly social selves.
"Liberal political and social theory, too often echoed in liberal religion, tends to protect the individual from the community, from true engagement with the other. This kind of negative freedom tends to produce a constricted sense of self. But a love-based understanding of the community would extend the individual and expand the self outward toward the other. This sort of re-conception of community seems essential if we are serious about our anti racism work."
Unitarian Universalists love to claim that they emerged from the Puritan tradition, and have a long history as liberal Christians. Understanding Christianity then would seem to me to be a necessary part of understanding Unitarianism and Universalism. Our religious forebears were participated in the conquest of North America, and sent missionaries among Native American Indians. We should know something of this history lest we become participants in the denial that characterizes dominant culture response to the American genocide.
George Tinker is an ordained Lutheran minister and on the faculty at Iliff School of Theology in Denver, but he no considers himself a Christian. He found that he could no longer associate himself with a Church that was so involved in the colonial enterprise of conquest of the Native American Indian peoplles. Tinker states that 'perhaps the most fearful aspect of the church's complicity in the conquest of the native peoples in the latter sense is that it always happened with the best of intentions.'
Missionary Conquest; the Gospel and Native American Cultural Genocide is Tinker's full length treatment of the role of Christian missionaries in the destruction of America's indigenous peoples. He studeies four missionaries; John Eliot, Junipero Serra, Pierre-Jean De Smet, and Henry Benjamin Whipple. These men are held up to this day as cultural heros for white America. But the results speak for a different interpretation, what they did was destructive for communities they impacted, what ever the sentiments they proclaimed.
Tinker examines the policies and the results of those policies and shows how the Christian Church contributed to genocide.
John Eliot, a prominent Puritan, was a full of colonial arrogance, viewing the indigenous culture as inferior to his own, and seeing the Natives as under the influence of the Devil. Junipero Serra's California missions were in an integral part with the oppressive Spanish colonial efforts to enrich Spain. The French man Pierre-Jean De Smet, a Jesuit, who was so self involved in his rational, Catholic theology that he thought nothing of mocking the rituals and practices of the indigenous people who he encountered. . Henry Benjamin Whipple, the first Episcopal bishop of Minnesota, worked to take the land from the Indians in the northern plains so that they would be forced to adopt the European way of life.
The Unitarian Universalists have named Ethical Eating: Food and Environmental Justice as the Congregational Study and Action Issue for 2008-2012. As an old sceptic of General Assembly Resolutions I find the Study and Action process to be much more productive than simply passing resolutions, congregations are able to dig into the issue and try to both understand the issue and find ways to address it. Given the gathering world crisis in food production and distribution, coupled with the destruction that chemical agriculture is doing to top soils and ground water taking action on "Ethical Eating" is critical.
Here is a resource for Ethical Eating that I will be distributing to members of my congregation during our discussion of the implications of food, and how we eat it for the world we long to live in.
It is often said that becoming an anti racist involves transformation. In this series of excerpts from her Soul Work essay "A Struggle To Inhabit By Country" Rebecca Parker applies the theological concept of conversion through engaged action to point to the nature of anti racist transformation. "A person of faith, seeking out of love and desire for life to inhabit his or her country, needs to be engaged in incarnational social action. Activism returns one to the actual world as participatory citizen and agent of history. Through activism, compliant absence is transformed into engaged presence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . "This is my country. Love calls me beyond denial and disassociation. It is not enough to think of racism as a problem of "human relations" to be cured by me and others like me treating everyone fairly, with respect and without prejudice. Racism is more. It is a problem of segregated knowledge, mystification of facts, anesthetization of feeling, exploitation of people and violence against the communion/community of our humanity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . "The habit of living somewhere else rather than here in a constructed "reality" that minimizes my country's history of both violence and beauty and ignores the present facts, keeps me from effectively engaging in the actual world. I have the sensation of being a disembodied spectator as structures of racism are recreated before my eyes. But involvement in the steps of conversion -- theological reflection, remedial education, soul work, and engaged action -- moves me from enclosure to openness."
Many of the world's people have stories about a great flood that destroyed the worlds people save for one family. Here is one told among the Cherokee. This story does not have any overt theological message or moral lesson. It seems to be a night time ghost story.
_____________________________________________________
A long time ago a man had a dog, which began to go down to the river every day and look at the water and howl. At last the man was angry and scolded the dog, which then spoke to him and said: "Very soon there is going to be a great freshet and the water will come so high that everybody will be drowned; but if you will make a raft to get upon when the rain comes you can be saved, but you must first throw me into the water." The man did not believe it, and the dog said, "If you want a sign that I speak the truth, look at the back of my neck." He looked and saw that the dog's neck had the skin worn off so that the bones stuck out.
Then he believed the dog, and began to build a raft. Soon the rain came and he took his family, with plenty of provisions and they all got upon it. It rained for a long time, and the water rose until the mountains were covered and all the people in the world were drowned. Then the rain stopped and the waters went down again, until at last it was safe to come off the raft. Now there was no one alive but the man and his family, but one day they heard a sound of dancing and shouting on the other side of the ridge. The man climbed to the top and looked over; everything was still, but all along the valley he saw great piles of bones of the people who had been drowned, and then he knew that the ghosts had been dancing.
James Moody, Myths and Legends of the Cherokee
One of the most divisive battles in our country has been the debate between Evolution and Creationism. Most often this debate is posed between two extreme positions, fundamentalist Christianity versus fundamentalist scientism. The fundamentalist Christian argues that life on earth and all of the species were created all at once as part by a transcendent anthropomorphic God in a seven day creation miracle. The fundamentalist science story argues that life emerged by blind chance for dead matter and that evolution was a violent process of random mutations and natural selection. If I argue and I do: that intelligence and creativity were and are involved in the ongoing process of creation. the fundamentalist scientist will assume that you are trying to sneak in a transcendent designer, and see this view as theism by another name. And the fundamentalist Christian will assume that I am just a godless Darwinist who is fancying up my heathen evolutionism with a little New Age spirituality. Yet I would argue that most religious people and most scientists are not fundamentalists and take a position that embraces both divine creativity and evolution. The view that the cosmos is self conscious, creative and self organizing was a common belief among the indigenous people of this hemisphere and the bed rock understanding of process theology.
I believe that Unitarian Universalists can play a positive role in the divisive Evolution versus Creationism debate. We can show that religious communities are not all stubborn fundamentalists that deny the that life forms evolved over time, and we can show that Unitarian Universalists have theological and spiritual understandings of cosmic significance.
In 2004 Micheal Zimmerman initiated The Clergy Letter Project to reach out to clergy and urge them to support the teaching of science. So far over 14000 clergy have signed the letter. And in subsequent years congregations have held worship services on the same Sunday to show their support for Evolution within the religious community. At first, many Unitarian Universalists hesitated to sign because it was "Christian clergy" letter, although many of us signed and wrote Micheal Zimmerman to expand the work to include all clergy. As a result there was a Jewish Letter, and today the Evolution Sunday projects are inclusive and interfaith. I urge all Unitarian Universalist congregations to consider standing with others in the faith community in this important initiative.
Today there are front page articles in the nation's major newspapers, and on the cable news about the census bureaus report that in a few short decades the white majority will no longer be a majority. Latino/as, African Americans, American Indians, Asian Americans and other so called minorities will together constitute the majority, and America will then be a nation of racialized ethnic groups each of which is a minority. By the middle of this century the white population will be older than the population as a whole, and the United States will have 400 million people (it is a little over 300 million today.)
The Los Angeles Times puts it this way "[t]he white population is older and very much centered around the aging baby boomers who are well past their high fertility years," said William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank. "The future of America is epitomized by the young people today. They are basically the melting pot we are going to see in the future."
Historically Unitarian was a religion of the white elite, and after the merger the spirit of Unitarianism prevailed over the more inclusive and generous Universalist way of being religiously liberal. While there have been people of color in Unitarian and Universalist congregations in every stage of our history, those "pioneers in a white denomination" were exceptions to the rule, and did not motivate any concerted effort to reach out and seek to become more ethnically diverse.
In the late 1960s, because of the work of Unitarian Universalists in the civil rights movement there was an influx of African Americans into our congregations. These Unitarian Universalists while they saw the promise of religious liberalism also experienced the elitism and complacency of the white majority, and there arose a movement of African Americans and their allies to build Unitarian Universalism in African American communities. While this movement had wide support, it became divided relative to tactics, and the defenders of the status quo were able to turn back the effort.
Many Unitarian Universalists left the movement and the leadership settled back into self congratulation and complacency.
Again in the 1980s African Americans began to organize and came to the conclusion that it was "internalized racism" that was the main obstacle to Unitarian Universalism becoming more diverse. In the 1990s Unitarian Universalists resolved at General Assemblies to become more diverse and recognized that they must overcome their own cooperation with systemic racism to accomplish that task. While much has been done, and the African American initiatives provided an opening for other people of color to find their voice, we still have much work to do before our congregations reflects the ethnic and racial make up of the nation as a whole
Given my experience with working with congregations (currently Throop Unitarian Universalist Church in Pasadena, California), I believe that most Unitarian Universalists would support the work to become an anti racist, anti oppressive and multi cultural community if they were given leadership by their minister(s) and lay leadership. This leadership in turn will need support from the Unitarian Universalist Association providing excellence in programs such as Building The World We Dream About, and Now is the Time! Leading Congregations Into a Multiracial, Multicultural Future.
Most of us have been brought up to believe in that United States was a democratic nation, with government of laws. "of the people, for the people, by the people." But if that is so, why, when most of the people believe that global warming poses a danger to planet, and that global warming is caused by human activity does our government and our economic institutions persist in activities that are leading us to catastrophe?
David Korten author of The Great Turning; From Empire to Earth Community asks and answers that question in the following remarks:
" [T]he governing institutions to which we give the power to set our priorities and our collective course. We might wonder how such reckless injustice could happen in a world governed by democratically elected governments.
The answer is both simple and alarming. Our world is not governed by democratically elected governments. It is ruled by global financial institutions in the service of financial speculators who exchange trillions of dollars each day in search of instant unearned profits to increase the fortunes -- and the power-- of the richest people on the planet. Global financial institutions bring down governments that displease them, and buy and sell the largest corporations like commodities. By design and law the defining priority and obligation of these governing institutions is to generate financial profits to make rich people richer, in short to increase inequality in a world in desperate need of greater equity. To this end, the corporations that rise or fall at the pleasure of the speculators, assault our eyes and ears with advertising messages intended to get those of us who already have more stuff than we need -- to buy more stuff.
That is the big picture. In summary, we must:
1. Bring human consumption into balance with Earth's natural systems by eliminating unproductive consumption and by restoring and even enhancing Earth's natural regenerative processes.
2. We must bring our human relationships into balance with one another by sharing resources and knowledge equitably and turning from a culture of competition and private accumulation to a culture of cooperation and sharing.
3. We must create a system of radically democratic life-serving governing institutions that support balanced relationships with one another and Earth, give voice to every person, and nurture the higher order potentials of the human consciousness."
A friend saw me one day when my hair was not tied up, it was free and flowing. Most days I wear it put up in a tail. Someday, soon, I intend to braid it. Braiding ones hair has spiritual significance, braiding shows one is tied to the earth and to all of ones relatives (all creatures of the earth and sky.) Braiding is not done simply for a fashion statement. It is as the catholics would say "a sign of inner and outer spiritual reality."
The way it was told to me hair is sacred. Hair represents our thoughts and how we wear it is an expression of our souls. When we wear hair free and flowing, we are flowing with the wind and with the spirit.
Before they were conquered, Cherokee men shaved their heads as young men, and did not grow it long again until they became elders. Only God makes one an an elder. Becoming an elder was a spiritual transformation, not chronological progression. Sometimes, the elders would have to tell a man that he was ready, if he was one of those that did not hear God. Women did not cut their hair except on special occasions. Women are holy. Elders are holy. Hair is holy.
But today many have adopted the practice of other American Indians of only cutting their hair at the time of a significant life transition. After the death of a love one, the hair is cut, and then it is allowed to grow free. Many consider cutting the hair an act of submission, thus wearing the hair long is saying "No" to colonialism.
Sweet grass is considered to be the hair of our Mother the earth. Sweet grass dried and burned as incense permits us to inhale the holiness of earth. Sweet grass can be braided, and tied with ribbons to symbolize a persons intentions and goals.
Five thousand years ago the indigenous people of Southern Mexico first domesticated corn, from a inedible progenitor teosinte. Thus began the agricultural revolution in North America enabling Native peoples of America to grow a surplus that would take through the winters. The land was now able to support a larger population of people, and the arts were able to be developed. A similar development had begun in Tigris and Euphrates Valley enabling Europe, African, and Asia to begin the journey toward civilizations. According to the Mayans. people are descended from corn.
Today the Mexican people derive at least 60 percent of their calories from corn, eaten as tortillas, tomales, and according to Wendy Call corn is fashioned in Oaxaca province into "baked totopos. A large, round cracker that stays fresh for months, the totopo represents local culture as much as maize represents Mexican culture. Baking totopos is a special skill, passed from mother to daughter to granddaughter." Oaxaca may be home to the widest diversity of corn varieties in the world, but Call reports that the indigenous farmers in Oaxaca are having increased difficulty finding a market for their corn. They are being undercut by the relatively cheap corn imported from the United States under the so called agreement called the North American Free Trade Agreement. While corn is being processed in the United States into biofuels, and the price of processed foods and fresh corn in the super market is making increasingly difficult for working people to pay their bills, corn grown in the United States is being used to undermine Oaxaca's farmers and the provinces economy.
All over Mexico trade policies are displacing people from agriculture who then become part of the Mexico's surplus labor force. Many of these people join the migration north to become America's undocumented work force. Read Wendy Call's article in Yes magazine on indigenous rights organizing and cooperatives for how Oaxaca's people are fighting back.
Our species has evolved on this planet supported nutritive conditions, and abundant resources. Homo sapiens working together in communities have been able to create cultures that can remember the lessons that we have learned and apply those lessons to finding solutions. Within those cultures we have erected institutions, complex sets of human relations that continue over time that facillate needed social functions in the areas of governance, production, finance, medicine, education, security, and religion. But, it is those very institutions that concentrate our collective power that have endanger us today.
In the last three centuries, beginning in a few countries in the so called industrial revolution, and now embracing the whole world in a global economy based on domination over both people and nature by corporations we are depleting the resources of our planet; most critically its deep, rich agricultural soils, it groundwater stored during from the time of the ice ages and its biodiversity.
If we continue along this road the world's economic and social structures will collapse. The leaders of the key institutions of the major nations of this earth appear to be under the illusion that no fundamental change in direction is required, that we can find technological solutions that will allow the corporations to continue business as usual.
In the past grass roots movements have discovered ways to make changes in the direction of major institutions. We think of the rise of organized labor, the consumer rights movement, the civil rights movement, the women's movement, and the environmental movement of the past. While we have seen more and more grass roots movement toward more sustainable economics and agriculture, there is much more to do.
In the words of the Earth Charter (2000)
We stand at a critical moment in Earth's history, a time when humanity must choose its future. As the world becomes increasingly interdependent and fragile, the future at once holds great peril and great promise. To move forward we must recognize that in the midst of a magnificent diversity of cultures and life forms we are one human family and one Earth community with a common destiny. We must join together to bring forth a sustainable global society founded on respect for nature, universal human rights, economic justice, and a culture of peace.
Because of the urgency of this task, I will be developing sermons and themes during the coming year on the Great Turning, the effort to make the turn away from catastrophe and toward earth community.
This was my column for the coming month in Throop Unitarian Universalist Church's newsletter Tidings.
This is sermon by Marjorie Bowens-Wheatley (1949-2006)
When I was studying for the ministry, one of the expectations was that each week, the entire community would attend chapel (the worship service). Although I had been a Unitarian Universalist for more than a decade, I was still healing from the pain of my fundamentalist past, and I had not yet mustered the courage to attend chapel in this United Methodist seminary. But with the support of three Unitarian Universalist friends, one Friday toward the end of the first semester, I dragged myself to worship.
I wasn't sure what kind of message I would hear, but it was a week before exams, and I hoped for a place where I could center myself, and find some internal spiritual resources for the days ahead. To my surprise, there was no sermon. It was early December, and the entire liturgy focused on Advent, ending with a celebration of the Eucharist. Now I had not attended a Christian communion for over 20 years, but I tried to approach it with an open mind.
The prayer, offered by Dr. Mark Burrows, began with these words: "We, who are the children of Abraham and Sarah. . ." I don't recall the rest of the sentence, because in a split second, my mind went blank. It simply refused to be present to this experience that was sacred for most others in attendance. I began to weep-quietly at first-but a whimper soon turned to tears, then uncontrollable tears. My friends sat beside me trying to be supportive, but didn't have a clue what was so upsetting about that simple phrase: "We, who are the children of Abraham and Sarah?" I had no harsh feelings toward Dr. Burrows, but the moment I heard those words suggesting that I was a descendent of Abraham and Sarah, I felt the pain of exclusion.
My rational mind told me that the I should not take it literally; that the statement was merely a symbolic reference to our Jewish and Christian heritage. But that rationale didn't help. I simply could not get beyond the complex dynamics of race and class and gender in the biblical story. I knew the story of Abraham and Sarah in the book of Genesis, but I also knew the story of Abraham and Hagar, an Egyptian woman whose ethnicity and social standing made her an outcast in ancient Israel, a stranger in a strange land.
As a woman of African heritage, I identified myself as one of Hagar's children, and I wondered why she had not been mentioned in the prayer. Was she not worthy of mention because she was a slave?
According to the story, when Hagar's son Ishmael was about 14 years old, Sarah became jealous. Hagar had sacrificed her body and her beauty. She had postponed her life in order to give this elderly couple the gift of a child. And yet, Sarah was jealous. Here were two brothers, Ishmael and Isaac, whose childhood play was, no doubt, innocent of any social or economic distinctions. And yet, Sarah's worry about inheritance spawned her jealously, which led to a crisis in the household. In the end, Sarah threw Hagar and Ishmael out of the house-banished them to the wilderness, with no food and only a half gallon of water.
A woman and her son alone-out in the wilderness, homeless. No crisis hot line. No overnight shelter. No abuse counselor. She needed someone to hear her story, someone to help her figure things out-where she was going to live, how she was going to feed herself and her son. But there was no pastor, no prophet, no priest, no lay minister to help her figure it all out. According to the story, in the depths of her despair, an angel appeared at Hagar's side, and asked: Where are you coming from, and where are you going?
That, my friends, is a question we need to ask ourselves.
Where are you coming from, and where are you going?
Some say that the angel appearing at Hagar's side
was the voice of God.
Others say that it was the 'still small voice' within.
I like to think of it as Love's call, asking her to reflect not only on her dilemma, but on who she was and what she was doing with her life.
Love calls out to us as well, asking us to remember who we are -that we are beings connected to all being, connected to a process larger and more fundamental than our beliefs about the world
The first source speaks of the transcendent mystery and wonder of the universe asks us to call into existence that which has been forgotten: that we are not here to act as if we are brothers and sisters, but to remember that we really are brothers and sisters whose very reason for being is to love and care for one another.
This is the purpose of the church.
This is the work of the soul. Soul work is hard work, but it must be done if we are to be fully alive. One thing that makes it difficult is that it is transcendent-we must move beyond ourselves, to the place of empathy and compassion; to the place of hospitality-hospitality of the human spirit. This is what counters alienation, nihilism, and brokenness in the human family. Soul work. Compassion. Hospitality. It is the work of the church. It is our salvation. It is what ministry is-to save souls through hospitality of the human spirit. So may it be.
Last year the U.N. General Assembly adopted the Declaration on the Rights of the Indigenous Peoples, both the U.S. and Canada voted against it. While it is significant that the international community (supported by the majority of the worlds peoples) have come to understand indigenous peoples' right to protect their lands and preserve their traditional lifestyles, most of the world's 370 million indigenous peoples continue to face destructive policies at the hands of corporations and the governments that they own
Ben Powless, a Mohawk Indian from the United States who works with the Indigenous Environment Network thinks U.S. and Canadian governments will continue to be hostile to indigenous rights unless a majority of their citizens are informed enough to hold those accountable who play a powerful role in shaping public policy.
"The wider public must understand indigenous peoples' rights and concerns," he said. "They must act to protect them because as the most marginalised group in this world, it spells out how the rest of us will be treated, and is also the surest way to protect our last remaining ecosystems."
Halder Rizvi agrees with Powless and she points out:
"Many climate change scientists share this view. They think the indigenous peoples can play a vital role in preserving biodiversity and the planet's resources because they live in close proximity with nature."
In the late 1950s, a young African American minister applied for Unitarian ministerial fellowship. He was ordained a Methodist but his theology was Unitarian. He wished to transfer to the American Unitarian Association. David Eaton sat in the office of Dana Greeley, the President of the A.U.A., and Greeley said "you seem like a wonderful minister, but there isn't a single Unitarian pulpit that would want you as there minister.
Seven years later Rev. David Eaton became the Senior Minister of All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church in Washington, DC when that church decided that its commitment to civil rights could only become real in a majority Black city, if it called a Black minister. Without any help from their denomination, they went out and found David Eaton and he was called to All Souls.
The Montgomery Bus Boycott began in 1957, and the next ten years can be called the era of the civil rights movement. Because Unitarian Universalists were active in the civil rights struggles, and because we were strived to be accepting of all peoples, large numbers of African Americans began joining Unitarian congregations
Many of our urban congregations such as Philadelphia, New York, Washington DC, Chicago, Detroit, Cincinnati, Baltimore, saw significant increases in membership, and became genuinely diverse institutions, this in an age when Jim Crow's walls were falling. At the same time many of our congregations in urban communities surrounded by People of Color were not engaged in the civil rights movement, and those congregations grew smaller.
The African American Unitarian Universalists started talking to one another, and comparing notes. They came up with a program. They had discovered that Unitarian Universalists congregations had sold their properties in the inner city and moved out to suburban campuses, thus joining into the great white flight after World War Two. How could we build Unitarian Universalism among African Americans they asked, if Unitarian Universalists run from the Black community, run away to the suburbs, sell the property and take the money with them.
In 1968 and just two months after King was assassinated the Black Caucus presented their program to the General Assembly. They wanted funds to rebuild Unitarian Universalism in the inner city. They wanted African Americans to be included on the committees of the UUA. And while the General Assembly passed the resolution, and instructed the administration to support these demands, the President and the Board were adamantly opposed, they worked hard to overturn the resolve of the General Assembly.
To make a long story short, the next two years were very contentious, Unitarian Universalists wanted to respond to racial justice, but the UUA administration derailed the process. We saw General Assemblies with delegates walking out, congregations making resolutions condemning the UUA President and Board, and a determined contingent of our youth staging a sit down in the UUA headquarters.
But in the end the defeated Black Caucus gave up, and as many as a thousand African Americans, people of color, and youthful white supporters left our movement. The Black Empowerment controversy as it has been called, was a major set back for Unitarian Universalism. It resulted in losses in membership throughout the country, it resulted in demoralization of Unitarian Universalists about being involved in questions of racial justice and it resulted in fear, that working again against racism would just mean more conflict and division.
But the problems that the Black Affairs Council identified were real, and a solid core of African American and white Unitarian Universalists were determined to do something about it. Over the years much progress has been made people of color have formed organizations to address questions of racial and cultural identity, today we have DRUUM, the Diverse and Revolutionary Unitarian Universalist Ministries which coordinates meetings of the Asian and Pacific Caucus, the African descent caucus,
the Native American Indian caucus and we have La Familia Global, the Latino/Latina Unitarian Universalist caucus with DRUUMM
We have increased the number of ministers of color to several score, that number was four in 1990. and we have over 60 students of color preparing for Unitarian Universalist ministry.
The forty years since the beginning of the Black Affairs Council in 1967 have been difficult years for Unitarian Universalists who have been striving to transform this liberal religious community from a white denomination full of self satisfaction about what it has done for colored folk, to one that genuinely seeks to overcome the legacy of racism so that we might include the cultures and concerns of people of color.
In the words of the Rev. Marjorie Bowens-Wheatley;
In most of our congregations that I have been a part of or worked with, structures that create and sustain whiteness are normative.
There is presumption from some clergy and some laity that the cannons of music, and literature, and art, and language, and social discourse, rooted in the European experience, are normative.
Euro-centrism is seen as logical and rational, and those who express a need for a spirited form of worship or those who use a different language set are somehow made to feel less educated, less than worthy.
These presumptions make it extremely difficult for culturally oppressed groups to find a place in our congregations.
Speaking personally, while I enjoy and appreciate
a wide variety of cultural traditions,
when I cannot find myself in a worshipping community,
it drains the life of the spirit out of me, and I must go elsewhere to nurture my soul.
If I and other colleagues who are rooted in cultures
outside Europe are to be nurtured in our movement,
then I must keep the faith that things can be different.
Being open to and supporting new possibilities in ministry, different cultural forms in worship, new ways of seeing--these too are important to keeping the faith, to nurturing the spirit.
If you will stand with me in solidarity in an expanding circle of culture so that it includes all of us, you too will be keeping the faith.
This call for a more inclusive culture in Unitarian Universalism has been made again and again. And while we see progress, there is so much to do,
Many Unitarian Universalists are so comfortable in their middle class Euro-centric world view, that sometimes it seems the task is insurmountable.
But this is a spiritual struggle for the soul of Unitarian Universalism, this is soul work.
Wisdom is not like knowledge. One can read all sorts of books, and take many examinations that test one's aptitude for doing tests, and get degrees from the best Universities and have no wisdom. Wisdom is acquired by practicing balance in a tipsy topsy world and sanity in the face of insanity. Wise people seek justice when confronted by inequities and outrages, and become peacemakers in the midst of conflict and violence.
Wisdom is learned by people who take their life work seriously, not because it will look good on a resume, and allow them to be noticed by the movers and shakers, but because this is the work that they have been given, and honest work is an expression of an honest person.
Thoreau said he went to the woods because he wanted to learn what the woods could teach him about living. But it is important to note, that he went back to society, he re-engaged in the world. And when the time came to choose between conformity to an unwise war, or to wisely stand on principle--Thoreau choose to take a stand. We judge the wise one not by the seeking but by the doing.
Wisdom not knowledge is what we need in our leaders. I am less interested in how many facts the leader can conjure up, I am more interested in the leaders ability to laugh at themselves. We have seen the consequences of unwise leaders in recent years. The present incumbent of the oval office has a degree from Yale, and another one from Harvard. He got good enough grades for all that matters. He is clearly an accomplished school goer. Yet, we hesitate to call him wise. We have unwise leaders in abundance, so I can don't have to pick on one party.
Wise leaders do not introduce rapid and violent change into another a society and then seem dumfounded when that society resists their well intended invasion. Wise leaders do not lie, and manipulate their constituents, and then become disappointed when their supporters turn away. Wise leaders do not demonize their opponents and then wonder why the public thinks that they will do anything to win.
Wisdom is acquired not from experience, not tenure of doing the same thing over and over. there are many so called experienced functionaries who continue to be fools, or unthinking bureaucrats. No wisdom arises not from longevity of activity , but from the awareness brought to practice.
Wisdom is a set of spiritual quality and a spiritual practice, and like all spiritualities it is acquired by conscious practice, such as holding oneself accountable to standards, by doing honest work for the sake of honest work, by caring for the earth and her creatures because the earth and other creatures have cared for you. Wisdom is recognizing that if we would have change in the world,that we must be the change we seek.
Today is Marjorie Bowen-Wheatley's birthday. Earlier today I published a section of Marjorie's "Not by ourselves alone" in which she describes the event on the streets of Washington, D.C. that changed her life path toward ministry. Most of the words Marjorie wrote several weeks before her death, Marjorie was thinking of others even as she prepared for her great passing over.
________________________________________________
A bit of a late bloomer, Marjorie began her college career at Temple University at the age of 25, double majoring in Radio, Television & Film and Pan-African Studies. She continued graduate studies at the American University where she earned a Master of Arts degree in International Development and Visual Media.
Marjorie's career in public television began with a production internship with a weekly program, "Black Perspective on the News," and continued with a nightly news and issue analysis program, "Evening Exchange." In addition to being nominated for an Emmy Award for a program she produced with writer Maya Angelou, Marjorie received the World Hunger Media Award for her hour-long documentary, "After the Rains," which explored drought and environmental decay across the Sahara desert.
After seven years in the media, and after joining All Souls Church in Washington, D.C., Marjorie felt a calling to work full time in a way that expressed her religious values. She moved to Boston to work as Director of Public Affairs for the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee. A year later she accepted a position as program officer for the Veatch Program at what is now the Unitarian Universalist Society in Shelter Rock in Manhasset, Long Island. During her three-year tenure there, she was responsible for recommending approximately one million dollars per year to fund organizations working for progressive social change.
Her work at the Service Committee and at the Veatch Program, accompanied by independent study on the theology and ministry of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Howard Thurman, ultimately led Marjorie to understand her own calling to ministry. In the fall of 1991, she entered Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington DC and in 1994, she was awarded a Master of Divinity degree (cum laude), and was ordained in Washington, DC, in December 1994 at her home congregation, All Souls Church Unitarian.
Marjorie became Affiliate, then Associate, Minister at the Community Church of New York City in 1994 and also served as District Extension Minister for the Metro New York District and Field Consultant for the UUA Department of Faith in Action. These assignments continued until she accepted a position as Co-Interim Minister of the First Unitarian Universalist Church in Austin Texas in 1999, which she served along with her husband, the Reverend Clyde Grubbs.
In 2000, Marjorie Bowens-Wheatley joined the UUA staff as Adult Programs Director in the Religious Education department. In 2003, she accepted the call to the UU Church of Tampa, Florida, which she served through 2006. She had accepted a call to serve as Associate Minister of First Unitarian Church of San Diego, California, but withdrew because of illness.
Marjorie Bowens-Wheatley's impact on Unitarian Universalism continues in significant ways, she was an activist and participant in efforts to build a Peoples of Color community in Unitarian Universalism.
Following a 12 month struggle with gallbladder cancer, Marjorie died quietly at her sister's home in Vineland, NJ, on Dec. 10, 2006, with her daughter, husband and a close friend by her side.
Marjorie Bowens-Wheatley was born August 6, 1949. In her memory today I publish what Marjorie considered her call narrative delivered as part of the Unitarian Universalist Ministers Convocation in Birmingham, Alabama.
Not by Ourselves Alone
March 8, 2002
In the late 1970's through the mid-1980's, I was living in Washington, D.C. working as a journalist and public television producer. I had chosen a profession in the news media because I wanted people to have the option of a different spin on the news of the corporate monopolies. I wanted to do stories so compelling that people might not only be inspired, but might actually feel compelled to act.