Given at GNUUC 8/18/19
“The most exemplary nature is that of
the topsoil. It is very Christ-like in its passivity and beneficence, and in
the penetrating energy that issues out of its peaceableness. It increases by
experience, by the passage of seasons over it, growth rising out of it and
returning to it, not by ambition or aggressiveness. It is enriched by all
things that die and enter into it. It keeps the past, not as history or as
memory, but as richness, new possibility. Its fertility is always building up
out of death into promise. Death is the bridge or the tunnel by which its past
enters its future.”
Has anyone ever tried to
evangelize you?
When I was in seminary,
long, long ago, there was a young, earnest man named Stacy who wore a very
large cross and carried a BIG Bible. He was as out of place in the progressive,
UCC seminary as we UUs were in the Bible and Theology classes. Matter of fact,
he seemed to derive an inordinate amount of joy from praying for UUs,
especially, it would seem, me.
I just recall a few of
our interchanges, but what I do remember is that the more he assumed Unitarian
women were fallen Jezebels, the more annoyingly outrageous I was tempted to act
(which, in seminary, isn’t very). I probably wore shorter skirts, laughed
louder, and made more off-color comments.
And once, when he was telling me he’d pray for me, I said, Stacy by
all means pray for me. But enlighten me: Why do you have to TELL me you are
praying for me?
If he changed me, it was
just to make me dig in even harder. I think those of us who are
liberal/progressive in religion or politics can be a thick-headed as the people
we like to complain about.
Have you ever tried to change the mind of a Trump fan?
My dentist, Dr. Flowers,
which first of all, poor guy… right? His name is DON FLOWERS…. Is a raging
conservative. Actually, he’s not much different than the majority of folks in
Washington County. The big difference is that he starts talking about it while
my mouth is full and I can’t reply. (If he only knew how many times I was
tempted to bite his fingers!) I’ve reminded him numerous times that I’m a
liberal. I did once ask him not to disparage President Obama. If he said
anything racist or homophobic, I’d gently correct him again.
Last week, he was
replacing a crown a few days after the
mass shootings. Ignoring the evidence that the Walmart shooter was clearly
racist and clearly indoctrinated by Trumpish rhetoric, he started talking about
the Dayton incident by announcing that he’d been in the very same shopping
center earlier that day with his son who is living in Dayton. At least they
can’t blame that on Trump, he proffered. The guy was a Warren/Sanders
supporter and involved in Antifa. But you won’t hear THAT in the mainstream
media.
You may wonder why I
don’t find another dentist. Well, first of all, he’s a very good dentist, he’s
extraordinarily kind and considerate, very gentle, asks me if I’m ok so many
times that I get tired of it, and second, he’s one of two dentists in our small
community, and the other wasn’t taking new patients.
Last time I was there, he
mentioned that he, like Seth, had been in marching band, and all of the geeks
and less-popular kids were there too, and how much it had meant to him. He was
very concerned about how Seth was doing. I won’t say he changed any of my
beliefs, or my politics, but he helped me see that he was a complex and unique
human.
I’d like to make a few
suggestions about change.
I do not agree with the
old saw, The only thing you can change is yourself.
I understand its purpose.
Trying to willfully and forcefully change others is pretty fruitless. It is
sometimes our way of avoiding the truth that what we detest in the other is
very present in us. It may be only a smidgen present. But it’s there, and we don’t
like it. We want to get rid of it. For example, there’s a part of me that is
self-righteous, indignant, and obnoxious when it comes to injustice. Very
similar to Dr. Flowers and his right wing rants. That, I learned by studying
Jung, is my shadow.
Second, trying to change
others forcefully does not work. My husband’s brother is an ardent Trump
fan, gun person, pro-lifer, born again Christian who has goaded and taunted my
husband for years (thankfully this happens less than once a year since he’s in
CA). But last time Eric went out there, when his dad was dying last fall, he
stayed with this brother and things got very heated. It ended with Eric leaving
and staying at a hotel, and with his brother calling him a snowflake. I realize
this is happening in families, churches and workplaces all over this land.
It's as if we are all
reading from scripts and making the same useless arguments! Are they or we
changed? Rarely. What seems to happen is that we dig in our heels., becoming
even more polarized.
We, as Unitarian
Universalists, we represent this faith tradition. We can all do better. I know
I can.
At General Assembly this
summer in Spokane, a ruckus broke out over something called The Gadfly
Papers. It’s self-published broadside by the Spokane minister, Dr. Todd
Ekloff. Subtitled Three Inconvenient essays by one pesky minister, it’s
described as a critique of the “emerging culture of political correctness,
Safetyism, and Identitarianism” and their negative effect on “America’s most
liberal religion.”
Ekloff starts by
discussing this culture in public life outside of religion, for example on
college campuses, which has been well-documented. Then he moves to detailing
some events and issues that have come to pass in our denomination. I won’t go into the book in detail, because you can
either read it or read about it online. There are parts I agree with, and parts
I do not. What I struggle with almost 2 months later is that about 500 of my
colleagues signed a letter of condemnation and disavowal of The Gadfly
Papers. Many acknowledged they hadn’t read it when they signed. But that
didn’t matter, they said, because POC and other marginalized people had said it
was harmful.
The challenge for me is
that I know Todd Ekloff. He was serving a congregation in Louisville during the
14 years I served in Lexington. Among other things, he lost a good job with a
state agency because he took a public stand on same sex marriages. He refused
to perform any marriages until same sex marriage was legal. He and his family
suffered economically for years. I know he’s not racist, homophobic,
transphobic, or any of the other labels that have been hurled at him. Or, no more so than I or you.
Here’s the point: not
only are the people from the left or right not succeeding in changing others
for the better, they (in this case) actually provided a real life example of
what he was talking about in his essays, and, they made
things way, way worse.
Scott Alexander: You
don’t change anyone by “should” ing all over them.
Rev. Dr. Eklof will be
fine. But I sincerely wonder whether Unitarian Universalism will be. We are
shrinking, albeit more slowly, in our numbers and in our influence in the
public square. “This is how the left is eating its own,” is a phrase I read in
one article, and something I see happening in our institutions and our politics
far beyond this denomination.
As Wendell wrote in our
meditation about topsoil,
It increases by experience, by the passage
of seasons over it, growth rising out of it and returning to it, not by ambition
or aggressiveness.
We
are changed by life and by living with open, questing hearts and minds. We do
change one another, the same way we garden, fertilize, plow and tend the soil.
Gently, thoughtfully, aware of all that makes us human and that connects us. We
change and are changed by Love.
And
that is why we return to community, again and again, with curiosity, humility,
and receptiveness. So
may it be.
