Shoes & Pudding

I read with dismay a fellow minister's blog quoting an article about how Turkish fans screamed and threw shoes at the visiting Israeli basketball team in protest of the violence in Gaza. Dismay, because Turkey and the Turkish people have a very special place in my heart. Dismay, because now that the event has reached headline and blog-mention proportions, I have no doubt that it will color the perception in the West of the Turkish people. Color them unfairly.

When I mentioned the incident to my sister, she asked, "What's with everybody throwing shoes all of a sudden? Didn't they throw shoes at Bush, too?"

I explained that in the Middle East, showing the sole of the foot is considered an insult, because the feet are dirty, hence the throwing of shoes. When I visited Turkey last summer as the guest of a generous, hospitable, and noble organization, an affiliate of the Gulen Movement, I learned that it was impolite to sit with the soles of your feet aimed at others. Still, some people in our tour group "forgot" and did this. Our guides were tolerant, and assured us that it would not be highly offensive, as we were not expected to know all of the local customs. But, I thought... why not? Westerners' refusal to extend themselves to understand and feel compassion for the mores and modes of conduct that others value is a both a symptom of and a contributor to our insularity and our xenophobia. Nothing will change, and violent conflict will not end for good, until everyone makes an effort to do this. To understand and comprehend.

Two related events occurred. On Sunday, a few members of the UK Interfaith Dialogue Organization, young men who are also affiliated with the Gulen Movement, came to our Unitarian Universalist congregation, as they have done numerous times. They had asked me beforehand whether they could pass out some "Noah's Pudding," a dish that is concocted and shared in observation of the New Year. They did so generously, and also included lovely flyers that explained the origin of the dish and the custom of sharing with neighbors. They are Muslims, and they are Turkish. These young men have taught me volumes about how to live in harmony, peace, and kindness in spite of different beliefs. I know they disagree with many of our very liberal stances on issues, but they persist in treating us with honor and friendship. This, I reflected. is true giving. No strings. No expectations. One shares because sharing and giving are the right way to live in a world community.

The next day, I was listening to a local AM station on my car radio. A caller responded to the latest Bin Laden communique by asserting that he was fed up, and that if Muslims didn't put a stop to the terrorists among them, "we" should blow Mecca, their most significant holy place, right off the map, "flatten it." He went on to express his desire to personally kill Bin Laden and bury him with pigs. The host disagreed with him, but did not say clearly enough that his words were twisted, hateful, and born of ignorance about Islam and about the Muslim people. I was dismayed, again.

Now people are going to see the images of angry fans throwing shoes and decide that all Turkish people are violent and vengeful. I guess the fact that Philadelphia fans are pretty raucous and once threw snowballs at Santa Claus means that all Americans are rude and like to shatter little kids' dreams? The quiet but persistent image of two kind young men sharing Noah's Pudding will never make international headlines, and our divisions will be widened. I pray and wait for the day when the sharing of pudding overcomes the tossing of shoes, and we start the long and very difficult journey toward love and peace.

STROKE ME, DON'T POKE ME!

"You are good."

These words of the guest speaker at our church last Sunday were met with an enthralled silence. The turnout, I noticed, had been unusually large, and there were at least fifteen visitors. I couldn't help wondering: Did it have to do with the title of her homily... "Innately Good," or was it a coincidence that some folks who almost never attend services any more showed up?

Perhaps, I mused, they came whenever they thought I was not speaking! After ten years in this congregation, and fifteen in parish ministry, I have reached two plateaus: I have an intuitive awareness of how people are responding to the message, the music, the whole Sunday event. Two, I don't take any of the slings and arrows, insults and gossip as seriously as I once did. So, it was fine with me that folks found our guest's message more appealing than mine.

She was stroking them.

Long ago, I learned that the best ministers are those who "comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable." If one is lucky, a perfect balance of these two necessary injections to the human spirit will occur at the same time, in the same Sunday service. People leave feeling both loved and challenged.

But, as our guest pointed out, some people have been afflicted so severely, usually since childhood, that they can't bear to have any more of what they perceive as "guilt" heaped on them... they want to be stroked. Part of me understands this well, and feels deep connection with it. There was a time for me, emerging from a childhood ruled by an authoritative father and a marriage with an emotionally abusive man, that I could not bear criticism. It was if I was so wounded that I had to keep a protective bubble around myself or I would die. Still, I know that staying in that vulnerable place is not spiritual progress.

Gradually, we can learn ways to be centered enough and at home enough in our own selves that what others say and do does not define us. We become, not perfect, but authentic humans, who can laugh at ourselves, acknowledge our flaws, and still feel loved and whole. We can accept the criticism that is rightly ours, and let the rest slough away. This is freedom.

Here is what one member of the congregation wrote to me after the service:

....there seemed to be something lacking about the whole thing. There was no methodology offered by which one could hope to actually put into effect what she was talking about. It is good that we all be reminded that our limitless sources of life-long acculturation have effectively buried who we really are, but she offered no way for us to peel away those layers of acculturation to discover our true identities.

I thought that was a little thin when she was talking about how love means having no fear. Good grief. As loving as she might think she is, I wonder how free of fear she would be if her husband got laid off and their only source of income was the royalties she receives on her paperback books. She would feel fear right down to the marrow of her bones.

This is kind of a pet peeve of mine too: Some people say, "God is Love," or, "We are love," and variations. What the hell does that mean? Even if you believe in a personal god, and someone walks up to you and says, "God is love," what on earth does that do? What if someone said, "God is mashed potatoes?" Just what is supposed to happen when you say that to someone? Here's another one: "God loves you." That one is usually reserved for when someone just gets told they have cancer or their wife has just walked out on him, or something like that. How does being told that change anything? What do people think they are accomplishing when they say that to someone? That stuff just drives me straight up the wall sometimes.

I don't know yet how others feel about what she said. But I did hear that most of her books, which emphasize the same theme, were sold! So I assume that her message, "You are good!" resonated with many people.

The first principle of Unitarian Universalism is: "We covenant to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person." I love it! Inherent worth is different than saying "innately good." Inherent dignity can be restored, even after many missteps. Perhaps the problem is the word "good." It plays right into the same duality that created all of this self-hatred in the first place.

I'll go on poking people, but I did have a big lesson about how much stroking they need, too. It's something to consider.

Why We Call it "Service"...

When members and friends of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Lexington travel to Biloxi, MS, we help build a house for a family whose home was lost in Hurricane Katrina. We take high school and college students and foreign exchange students each Christmas. Of course, we could take the money we raise in order to travel and send it to the agency that helps coordinate our project so that they could hire workers. Even day-laborers would be more competent and efficient than most of us! But, we go. Why?

One could be cyncical and say that we go in order to feel better about ourselves and to ease the guilt we feel in our comfortable lives. But my experience of those who are willing to travel during Christmas Holiday, and work on something they will neither complete nor be lauded for, is that they go to stretch themelves: to learn, yes... but maybe more to the point, to understand. To be deepened, even if that deepening creates discomfort. The Gulf Coast will do this for you. Even a week a year will stretch and deepen you. You will move closer to the Holy.

You'll see the glittering casinos, rebuilt immediately, rise a few blocks from still-empty lots and still-gutted bungalows waiting for repair. You'll see the gnarly live oak trees, torn from their trunks by the force of the water, carved into graceful sea creatures. You'll hear stories, like the one told by Priscilla, a mother who watched the water rise from her church balcony, and considered mercifully drowning her two year old son so that he wouldn't be orphaned. You'll see that same boy, now five, playing and laughing, "adopted" by a couple who help with his school expenses and visit him regularly. You'll taste fresh catfish and shrimp cooked by hands that are also working to restore some order into lives as ravaged as the buildings. And after a while, you'll begin to wonder.

Where is the government that is supposed to protect and "serve" its people? Why are so many people still waiting for places to live? Why does it seem the rest of the world has forgotten?

These questions are good. They lead to deepening and they open doors of thought and feeling. That reveals a simple truth: we can not serve others without serving ourselves.

We often ignore the fact that service comes from the same root as "servant." It is interwoven with Christian faith. It is also tied to the Communion meal and hence to what even Unitarian Universalists still call the Sunday service, although few practice Communion. That Sunday service should also lead to questions that stretch and deepen. Unlike charity, philanthropy, or even advocacy, service can not be done from afar, but entails the hand-to-hand transfer of goods or labor. Traditionally, one serves the Lord through service to others. One deliberately places oneself in a position of servant to another.

We gain. We learn humility, and we truly comprehend the first of our Unitarian Universalist principles: inherent worth and dignity.

And it is here, in the midst of unanswered questions, unfinished projects, and unmet expectations, that I find the Holy. For me, God is a God who refuses to offer simple explanations or easy solutions, but who grieves and mourns and questions beside humans. In the midst of chaos, the Eternal appears. That's why we serve.