by the Rev. David Rankin, Moscow, Idaho
When I was eight years old, he hit me in the face with a pork chop for talking back to his wife. But he was the most gentle man I have ever known.
When I was nine years old, he encouraged me to learn to defend myself on the streets. But he could always wrestle me to the ground with one arm.
When I was ten years old, I informed him that I was going to run away from home. He offered to buy me a bus ticket, and told me to take a winter jacket.
When I was eleven years old, he announced it was time I went to work for a living. Over the years, I worked as a golf ball retriever, a bathhouse boy, a garbage man, a laborer, and a toy salesman. But he never recommended a particular career.
When I was twelve years old, he said we were going to Santiago, Chile, where he had been offered a position in a new steel mill. But I lived in the same house for over twenty years, and never left the state of Pennsylvania.
When I was fifteen years old, he presented the first and only lecture on sex education. It consisted of one brief sentence, somewhat muffled, unspeakably graphic, and forever useful.
When I was eighteen years old, he shook my hand and sent me off to college. I was thereafter known as one of those “God damn college kids!”
When I was twenty years old, he told me I could own my own car—if I bought it with my own money, paid all the bills, and promised not to cruise around.
When I was twenty-one years old, he took me to his favorite tavern and bought me a beer. We talked about baseball and politics, but never returned.
When I was twenty-two years old, he fell in love with my bride, slipped me five hundred dollars, and warned me to be kind.
When I was twenty-three years old, he wrote me a letter on the presidential election. It was one of the few times he ever asked me a real question—or sought my advice.
A few months later he died.
I never knew him well, but he was my father.
In response to a child’s curiosity, my father always replied that his ancestors “were a bunch of horse thieves, who disappeared with the invention of the automobiles.” And while I desperately tried to connect our family heritage to Representative Rankin in Montana, or to Senator Rankin in Mississippi, or to John Rankin, the famous abolitionist preacher in Ohio, he always claimed there were more Rankins in any Boot Hill than in the Hall of Fame. It was a peculiar kind of pride.
Of course, behind the humor was tragedy. My father was born in the year 1900 in the Tenth Ward of McKeesport, Pennsylvania. It was known as “Shackton” at the time, because the homes were flimsy structures used by those who were employed by the railroad or steel mill. They were much like the homes of migrant farm workers in the West today.
His mother’s name was Rose, a patient, long-suffering woman who would die of exhaustion and disease at an early age. His father’s name was seldom mentioned in our home, and it would be many years before I learned that he had been an active alcoholic who had mistreated his wife and children, squandered an inheritance, and was constantly in debt. It was broadly rumored that on one cold, wintry evening he was run over by a train while sleeping on the track. I have often heard conflicting stories, though none are noble.
In any event, my father was sixteen years old when he dropped out of school to support his mother and sister. He began as a water boy for the United States Steel Corporation, where he remained for the final forty-four years of his life. They gave him a watch “For 40 years of loyal and faithful service.” I wear it today as a token of esteem for him—and as a token of dislike for them.
Over the years, there was a remarkable marriage to a remarkable woman and three boisterous sons. There were wars and depressions. There were union battles, strikes, and lock-outs. But mostly, it was 12 daily hours of grinding labor: lifting steel by hand in the rolling mill, choking on the gas at the soaking pit, and living amidst the awful dirt, the deafening noise, and the constant danger of America’s greatest industry.
So if he did not fully develop the social graces, it was because his life had been cruelly interrupted by the simple necessity of survival.
If he did not display the normal outward affection toward his children, it was because he, himself, had never known such a father.
If he never attended church on Sunday mornings, it was because the clergy did not relate to his own personal anguish and daily concern.
If he did not respect intellectuals (and he despised them with a passion), it was because they looked upon him as a mere number, a statistic, an abstraction.
If he did not trust the new-style leaders of the union, it was because they were then wearing the white shirts, ties, and business suits of the old enemy.
If he did not quite believe in the American Dream, it was because he detected that the success of others was always at his expense.
And, if he liked to sit at home on the porch at night, lost in the silence of his own private world—it was because it was his home, and his porch, and his world.
But I never knew him well.
In the year of my sixteenth birthday, I was told to report to the United States Steel Corporation for summer employment. I worked there for the next four summers, as a sweeper, a laborer, and a driller—long enough to learn that breaking a book is easier than breaking a back—a lesson arranged for just that purpose!
The mill was an education. One of the assumptions about the working class, accentuated by the popularity of TV’s Archie Bunker, is that blue-collar workers represent everything that is backward and reprehensible in American society. It is an assumption of the intellectual sons and daughters of the middle class, a latent prejudice of liberals and radicals. It has little to do with reality.
My father was a workingman who never uttered an unkind word against people different from himself. He jeopardized his own personal promotions through supporting the rights of minorities to management positions. He was a prime mover for the hiring of the first black foreman in the mill. He consistently encouraged the Puerto Ricans in their struggle with both union and company.
My father was a workingman who was devoid of male chauvinism. He shopped for the food on Saturday afternoon and always cooked the Sunday dinner. He cleared the table, washed the dishes, and cleaned the kitchen. Not once did he ever speak down to women, or treat them with anything other than respect.
And yet my father was a workingman who was tough and hard. When a slightly retarded laborer was verbally assaulted by a superintendent, he entered the argument, pinned the executive against the wall, and threatened to relocate several of his vital organs. I watched him one day, during my lunch hour, push a union official through a door and off a loading platform. He described it later as “exercise.”
To be sure, I could never fully understand all of the conflicting passions, the contradictory expressions, or the paradoxical behavior, but then again—I never knew him well.
The last time I had an extended conversation with my father was a year before his death. He asked me if I had learned anything after studying political science for four years. And even though I knew that his questions were never questions (but veiled threats for the purpose of opening a spirited argument), I took the bait. I replied that I had learned a great deal about the political system, and that I intended to try to change it. He responded with: “BLANK-blank”—with just that emphasis.
He went on to say: “People out there (pointing vaguely into the dark) won’t give a damn about your theories.
“They want you to be reliable. They want you to be honest. They want you to be fair. They may even want you to be brave.
“You’re a smart boy, Dave, but you’re dumb as hell.”
I admit, it was not much for a final memory. But it was typical of the man. I never won an argument. I never even finished an argument!
It was a subtle relationship, our life together. We never went skiing, sailing, or to a fancy French restaurant. Yet I was never deprived. His love was conveyed in a thousand ways:
A blanket covering my chest at night— A heavy hand on the back of my head— A favorite meal prepared— A certain look in his eyes— A silent pride— A trusting glance.
Of course, I never knew him well.
adapted from So Great a Cloud of Witnesses, Strawberry Hill Press, 1978.
by Lynn Ungar, minister for lifespan learning, Church of the Larger Fellowship
I dance with my dog.
I don’t just bop around the living room while she wags her tail, or pick up her paws and scoot her around the floor. No, when I say I dance with my dog I’m talking fully choreographed numbers, with spins and jumps and weaves and kicks. And costumes. You may think that the sight of a smallish woman and a largish dog prancing across the floor to the strains of “Put on a Happy Face” sounds absurd. You would, of course, be absolutely right. It’s ludicrous, preposterous, verging on loony. That’s why I love it so much.
In a world that seems more and more dominated by the profit/loss, bang-for-your-buck, bottom line, it pleases me more than I can say to do something that has no commercial value. In a world that seems more and more shaped by marketing gurus and political spin doctors telling us what to want and what to believe, I take joy in having something that no one could predict I would have wanted. In a world of conventional business suits and inevitable lawsuits and the pursuit of commodified happiness, it suits me fine to do something that is just plain odd. As far as I’m concerned, the world could do with a few more peculiar pleasures.
As the poet/farmer Wendell Berry puts it in his poem “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front”:
Love the quick profit, the annual raise, vacation with pay. Want more of everything ready-made… And you will have a window in your head. Not even your future will be a mystery any more. Your mind will be punched in a card and shut away in a little drawer. When they want you to buy something they will call you. When they want you to die for profit they will let you know. So friends, every day do something that won’t compute.
Doggy dancing just doesn’t compute. It isn’t sexy. Neither my dog nor I look anything like Britney Spears or Madonna when we dance (although, in her large, sweet, black way, the dog does bear a certain resemblance to Ruben Studdard, of American Idol fame). We are clearly not on our way to fame and fortune. We just look like a couple of goofs in black tails having a good time. I have come to see this as a profoundly political and spiritual statement.
No, really. After all, what does religion teach but the need to come at the world with fresh eyes? Buddhist meditation is all about shifting perspective, including moving out of the usual realm of thought through meditation on a koan, a puzzle which cannot be solved logically, but only by releasing the mind into a more enlightened state. Jesus taught through such paradoxical statements as “the last shall be first and the first shall be last,” and “whoever would save his life must lose it.” Sufi dervishes seek enlightenment by spinning around and around in circles. Spirituality throughout the world pushes at the boundaries of the conventional, the expected, following the spirit, which “bloweth where it listeth.” Every time we do something that “won’t compute” we become a little more free, a little more open to the tuggings of the spirit. Every time my dog and I go for a spin around the floor I know I am a little bit out of my mind—and a little bit further into my body and my heart.
Of course, doggy dancing is not for everyone—nor would I want it to be. What delights me is the never-ending variety of ways that people go gently off their rockers, developing passions for things that Madison Avenue never thought to sell. When I was in high school I dated a guy who showed miniature daffodils. Who could resist a dude who was happy to join his parents in packing up a car-full of tiny flowers to spend the day in a drafty exhibit hall with a bunch of other daffodil nuts? I looked him up on the Web the other day. Turns out he did his Masters thesis in computer science on cataloging the taxonomy of wild mushrooms. A tide of long-lost affection came flooding over me when I read that.
The other day I met a woman who was about to quit her job at the post office, where she’d worked for 37 years, so that she could start a business renting out hats. “Formal top hats?” I asked, “Or cowboy hats, or what kind of hats?” “Church lady hats,” she replied. Turns out this woman has a passion for hats, and owns some 250 fancy church-going hats. “The good Lord woke me up one night,” she said, “and put the whole idea into my head, name and everything. I’m going to call it The Hat Library.” Minister May, as she introduced herself, was clear that she wasn’t looking to get rich. “I just want any woman who needs a fancy hat to be able to wear one. It’s a ministry for me.”
My own father managed his mid-life crisis by quitting his corporate job and buying a bassoon. He’s had a checkered career history ever since, but the bassoon has remained constant, cheerfully honking and tooting through endless hours of chamber music and symphonic music and exercises and scales. My dad is the only senior citizen I know who goes off every summer to music camp.
But trading in a job for a bassoon is nothing compared with the all-out zaniness of John Freyer, who catalogued and sold nearly everything that he owned, from his kitchen cutlery to his personal hygiene products, his Star Wars sheets to his taco shells, on eBay. To date, he has sold more than 600 items including his false teeth, a full size office copier, personal photographs, and his winter coat (in the middle of the winter). People don’t usually go this far with Jesus’ advice to sell all that you have, but the story gets better. When the auction had ended, he sent the high bidders a brief history of the object they had purchased. Freyer then requested updates from all bidders on their new objects, tracking the personal life of each item as it went on its merry way. Finally, he embarked on a journey to visit the various places where his stuff had ended up, following his belongings as little ambassadors into new relationships all over the country.
“As soon as the generals and the politicos / can predict the motions of your mind, / lose it,” writes Berry. “Leave it as a sign / to mark the false trail, the way / you didn’t go.” In a perverse but incontrovertible kind of logic, I have come to believe that the only way we can change the world is by doing things differently. In the words of Audre Lorde, “The master’s tools will not dismantle the master’s house.” The people of Israel and Palestine are locked in violent conflict through retaliatory strike after retaliatory strike, car bomb after suicide bomb, in a relentless and predictable cycle. The president believes that we can make the world safe from terrorism by going out and bombing some more people—who, it seems, will probably then feel fully entitled to come bomb us again. It’s hard not to be discouraged as we watch hundreds and thousands of lives being lost, hundreds of billions of dollars being spent on another torturous go-round of the same brutal story.
And yet, all across the world, people are finding different ways to respond, ways that are just nutty enough to set a few more people onto a different track. As the buildup to the war in Iraq began, I joined a group of folks who went every couple of weeks to sing peace songs at train stations. We didn’t stop the war, but we stopped a few busy travelers who couldn’t resist the chance to belt out “Gonna lay down my sword and shield, down by the riverside.” The children with us, who handed out paper cranes as people came through the turnstiles, stopped more than a few folks in their tracks with a smile and a handmade gift. And, for a couple of hours at a time, I stopped feeling grim, and took heart from the singing of strangers.
Others, of course, have gone a whole lot further off the beaten track than I have in the search for a different way. Jaggi Singh became, for a time, Canada’s most famous activist, after he was arrested for his association with a medieval-style wooden catapult used to fling teddy bears and other stuffed cuddlies over the barricade designed to keep protesters out at the WTO protests in Québec. The police responded to this playful protest with violence, and globalization continues apace. And yet, and yet, some of us are left with the image of a stuffed pink dragon merrily sailing through a cloud of tear gas, and the strange conviction that it might, somehow, still be possible to fly.
You’ve probably heard of Peace Pilgrim, the silver haired woman who, from 1953 to 1981 walked more than 25,000 miles on a personal pilgrimage for peace. She vowed to “remain a wanderer until [we have] learned the way of peace, walking until given shelter and fasting until given food.” And so she did, walking and talking and living peace, simply because it seemed to her the thing to do. John Robbins, in an article entitled “Reflections on Peace Pilgrim’s Life,” writes: “The level of violence in our world is so great that sometimes it takes somebody who is really radical, somebody who really challenges all the assumptions of the culture, someone who steps outside of the typical ways of dressing and behaving and talking and conforming, and who just grabs the situation by the throat, and says, ‘I’m going to be different! I’m going to live a life that is so peaceful, and so happy, and so joyful—that I’m going to do my part. I’m going to find inner peace, and I’m going to share it, and that’s what I’m going to do!’”
Peace Pilgrim did her part through finding inner peace and sharing it on her journey. Your part may not be to walk around the world (twice—literally—if you figure by distance), praying for peace. You might not care to go on a mission to follow your former belongings around the country or to catapult stuffed animals across the barricades. You may not even care to publicly embarrass yourself by waltzing around a local park with a dog and a cane. But there may be—dare I say, there is—some small, surprising, thing you can do that is so filled with revolutionary joy that the world moves a tiny step in some new direction.
So, friends, every day do something that won’t compute. Love the Lord. Love the world. Work for nothing.... Love someone who does not deserve it. Denounce the government and embrace the flag. Hope to live in that free republic for which it stands.... Ask the questions that have no answers.... Expect the end of the world. Laugh. Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful though you have considered all the facts.... Practice resurrection.
[Wendell Berry]
We are delighted to announce that the CLF Board of Directors has approved a memorandum of agreement that will create a collaboration between the CLF and a group of young adults who will call themselves the Church of the Younger Fellowship (CYF).The CYF will be an online spiritual community created by and for young adults. CYF pioneers hope to create a spiritual home for young adults everywhere who may feel disconnected from their faith community and to create opportunities for young adult voices to be heard in the UU movement. You can join CYF online at http://uucyf.org or contact the CLF office to learn more about this exciting project.
by Linda Berez, ministerial intern, Church of the Larger Fellowship
Frank Wells is the newest member of the CLF board of directors. He’s a young adult who consults with nonprofits about fundraising through a project called BraveNew.org. He also serves as music director for the Unitarian Universalists of Clearwater, Florida, where on any given Sunday you might find the sounds of music as diverse as Bach, Broadway, bluegrass or bongos. Frank says that initially he resisted becoming involved in a Unitarian Universalist church after he left the Southern Baptists in his early 20s, because he felt too open-minded for any set of beliefs. But that was three years ago, and since that time he has joined the CLF, played music for a worship service at General Assembly, become involved in the International Association for Religious Freedom (IARF), and begun serving on the steering committee of the Continental UU Young Adult Network (www.uuyan.org).
At GA in Boston his tight budget led him to stay in young adult housing, and Frank fell in love with the strong connections, camaraderie, and the array of bright, interesting, creative, and unique people. When he went back to Florida, he called the district office to find out what other young adults from his area might be attending the continental young adult conferences. By the end of the phone call he was appointed as representative from his district to two continental young adult conferences in Toronto called Opus and ConCentric. It was also at ConCentric where initial conversations and momentum began to develop for a new idea called the Church of the Younger Fellowship. The young adults at these gatherings began exploring additional ways in which their spiritual needs could be filled and their voices could be heard within Unitarian Universalist institutional life. When, last fall, these discussions began to turn toward developing a relationship between young adults and the CLF, Frank was one of a number of people who helped create the bridge between young adults and the board and staff of the Church of the Larger Fellowship. Frank’s commitment and energy have been key to helping craft language, facilitate conference calls, keep young adult and staff involvement in line and lead the marketing piece of the venture as the CYF is launched at General Assembly in Fort Worth, Texas this month.
Frank says that he believes passionately in the value of young adult involvement in the Church of the Larger Fellowship and is very excited to see it moving forward. The CLF and CYF are certainly grateful.
by Mary Ann Somervill, CLF Member and Director Elect of Southeast Winter Institute Miami
Some 30 plus years ago in Miami, Florida, I experienced that exciting “click” of finding Unitarian Universalism and knowing that I’d been a UU unawares throughout most of my life. During the time my family lived in Miami, Florida the UU church was central to our lives. As circumstances would have it, we moved several years later to an area where distance prohibited church involvement. I was delighted to learn about the Church of the Larger Fellowship and joined immediately. My CLF membership is important to me.
But I also have ways of maintaining contact with UUs face to face. There are two UU institutes that have become vital parts of my life. Each summer and winter I connect with friends old and new in an environment dedicated to learning, worshiping and playing with other UUs of all ages. In July I attend SUUSI, Southeast UU Summer Institute, in Blacksburg, Virginia. Six months later I’m off to SWIM, Southeast Winter Institute Miami, in sunny south Florida.
Summer in the mountains, winter in Florida! What could be better? And the best part is that the conferences provide continuing ties to my chosen religion. My children grew up at these institutes and still have close friends from their early UU experiences. I, too, have close friends based on the common bond of UUism and nearly 30 years of being together for two important weeks. Both conferences provide workshops and outdoor adventures; theme talks and worship services; programming for youth, teens and young adults; and an amazing assortment of fascinating UUs with whom to interact. For me SUUSI and SWIM are both grounding and growth experiences.
But this is not just my story. It could easily be your story, too. The institutes that are a part of my life are only representative of the many UU camps and conferences throughout this country and Canada. There is a coordinating body known as CU2C2, Council of UU Camps and Conferences, which can provide you with links to camps/conferences near you. I hope you will check out CU2C2 at members.aol.com/JlagerCU2/uucamps.htm and find a camp or conference to attend. Perhaps I will meet you at one.
by Jane Rzepka, senior minister, Church of the Larger Fellowship
We can wear stripes with plaids now, and socks with open-toed shoes. I know, because I read it in a magazine. “Break the rules,” it said. “It’s time.”
I hate to say it, but rule breaking just might be right up our alley. Maybe it’s not the positive tone we try to strike in describing our religion, but I’m going to say right out loud that Unitarian Universalists don’t believe in a lot of the rules that our religious neighbors take for granted. I’ve listed nine rules to break regarding religion, just as the magazine did regarding fashion. I’ll leave it to you to send in the tenth rule for possible publication later.
Religious Rule Number 1:
You have to sign on to a list of beliefs.
How UUs break the rule:
We don’t have a list of beliefs—no creed; no dogma.
Ultimately, you need to do the work of creating your religious beliefs yourself. You can grow them. You can change them. You can doubt your beliefs, talk about them, try others on for size. Each of us has a unique spirituality, and Unitarian Universalists have a long history of thinking differently as we walk together.
Religious Rule Number 2:
Obey the hierarchy.
We ourselves are the powers that be; there is no hierarchy.
Unitarian Universalism is a democratic religion. The members of the congregation are the boss. You can vote to hold services on Thursday at the zoo instead of Sunday in the regular place; you can criticize the minister—heck—you can fire the minister; you can donate the entire congregational budget to...well, the mind boggles. Lay people are powerful, and where the buck stops.
Religious Rule Number 3:
You must perform the rituals.
We have no prescribed rituals.
Some Unitarian Universalists appreciate ritual, some do not. It’s as simple as that. You decide. If you want to welcome your baby into the world with a service, that’s great. If you always take a moment for gratitude before eating, or begin each day with music, a poem, or tea and the Times, you may feel the better for it. If a regular practice enlivens you and urges you toward the good, you have found your ritual.
Religious Rule Number 4:
You have to believe in God to be religious.
No, you don’t.
We all know people who think that a person cannot be religious—or even behave—without believing in a god or gods. Unitarian Universalists are free to live their experience of both heart and mind, welcoming the atheists, humanists, agnostics, and those beyond categorizing among us, as well as those who find meaning in a personal or impersonal god.
Religious Rule Number 5:
Your religious beliefs should be based on faith.
Our religious beliefs are based on reason and experience. Faith is optional.
If you’re inclined toward the empirical and experiential, Unitarian Universalism will work fine for you. If faith provides you with a spiritual strategy, and it doesn’t contradict what you know to be true, then faith is yours. There’s room for us all.
Religious Rule Number 6:
Some objects, spaces, and events are inherently sacred.
Nothing—or everything—is inherently sacred.
Surely we feel grateful, respectful, appreciative, even wowed at times, but we aren’t accustomed by history or tradition to set spaces, objects, or events apart from our ordinary lives. We’d rather they were close at hand.
Religious Rule Number 7:
Heresy is bad.
Heresy can be heroic.
Throughout our history, we have often identified with theological heresies. Are human beings depraved at birth? Unitarian Universalists say no. Are events predetermined? We say no. Do people go to hell? No. Is Jesus God? Again, no. Are scriptures infallible? We say no.
I have heard that when the late Dana McLean Greeley, then President of the Unitarian Universalist Association, met with Pope John XXIII at the Vatican II Council, the Pope said, with a twinkle in his eye, “You made a religion of all our heresies.” The Pope was right.
Religious Rule Number 8:
Religion is not fun.
Religion runs the gamut, and for us the gamut includes fundamental joy, bemusement, and the frequent hearty laugh.
We live a positive religion that embraces what is good in the world, including simple pleasures that remind us how wonderful it can be to be alive. We find no particular merit in the stuffy. To chuckle over a good-natured story during a memorial service, to emerge from meditation with a smile, to erupt with happiness at news of a new baby, to glory in the fun of a job well done—all that’s religious.
Religious Rule Number 9:
Religion is stifling.
Well, we rock.
If I do say so myself. In our diversity, we embrace more diversity still. We stand for freedom. We nourish one another. We look forward to scientific breakthroughs; creative social justice initiatives; new ways of peace, both inner and outer; and the adventures and styles and contributions of those who are younger. We try, anyway. Revelation is not sealed.
by Susan Conrad, CLF PR and grants coordinator and Iris Hardin, CLF membership administrator
Alligators and sweet corn may not be what we first think of when we imagine curriculum materials for Unitarian Universalist teenagers, but in at least one case, the vegetable and the reptiles played a part. Though this column is usually oriented to children, we thought you’d like to see “a snapshot” of one week in the life of a UU “Coming of Age” program for youth.
Susan Conrad co-leads the Coming of Age (COA) class from First Parish (UU) in Cambridge, MA. Iris Hardin recently sat down with Susan to talk about the trip Susan and the COA class took over their February school break. For most youths, this was not a typical winter vacation....
Iris: We’ve missed you around here, Susan. Tell me about your trip.
Susan: It was an eye-opener. Another Coming of Age leader and I took eleven 13 and 14-year olds to South Florida for six days. Our COA curriculum theme for the year has been economic justice, so we planned a trip focusing on this theme.
Iris: Wow—this sounds like quite an undertaking! What did you do and learn?
Susan: After some time at the UU Congregation of Miami, where we connected with the religious educator and youth group, we headed for West Palm Beach. It was there that we met with Christians Reaching Out to Society (CROS) Ministries and the United Way of Palm Beach County. These groups organize volunteers in efforts to glean the fields, i.e., pick the produce that has been left behind by the farmers and would otherwise go to waste.
Iris: Did your youth group pick much?
Susan: We picked a total of 3,279 pounds of sweet corn, which was donated to the local Daily Bread Food Bank, in one of the poorest areas of Florida. Surprisingly, many of our urban youth enjoyed this field work, although they were admittedly glad they weren’t picking sloppy tomatoes! And, of course, they appreciated the fact that they were gleaning only for one morning.
Iris: So what came next on the agenda? Disney World?
Susan: Not exactly! Next we traveled to the town of Immokalee, a town in South Central Florida, where migrant farmworkers have been organizing for their rights to fair treatment and just wages. The Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), with reportedly 3000 members, has also been exposing incidents of slave labor. I encourage you to learn more about the CIW and its role in the discovery, investigation, and prosecution of modern-day slavery cases at www.ciw-online.org/slavery.html.
Iris: How did the youth engage with the CIW? This doesn’t sound like the hands-on gleaning experience.
Susan: True, but it was powerful nonetheless. About halfway through their presentation, staff from CIW showed us something quite disturbing and sobering—a button-down shirt spattered all over with dried blood. The shirt had been brought by a worker to the CIW office to show how a supervisor had beaten him, and this incident galvanized workers to organize to support one another. One of the leaders we met with told us “consciousness + commitment = change.” That really struck us as a great description of the work CIW is doing.
After the presentation, the youth were given a tour of migrant farmworker living conditions—which frequently mean 15 people living in one small trailer.
We also got a tour of a packing plant that processes and packs tomatoes for shipment around the country. Most of the plant workers are Haitian women. It was hot, stuffy, and very noisy. While we were there, an ambulance arrived to tend to a worker who had fainted and hit her chin on some machinery. We learned that many people there have respiratory difficulties due to lack of air conditioning. Definitely not Disney World.
Iris: How did the youth group react to the trip?
Susan: On our last night, we held a worship service on a moonlit beach. We all shared what we had learned from the experience. Many of the youth remarked that visiting Immokalee especially made them reflect on the privilege they had as middle-class Americans. One youth commented that it made him think about the difference between what we need and what we want. And the notion of slavery still existing certainly stuck with everyone. Also, we did try to balance the hard work of social justice with more light-hearted experiences, like getting close (but not too close) to alligators in the wild!
Iris: It sounds like a great winter vacation—one the youth won’t soon forget.
Coming of Age helps youth discern for themselves what it means to be a Unitarian Universalist. CLF has a new COA program with activities and online resources for individual youth working with a parent or adult mentor, or for small groups. Check it out at www.clfuu.org/re/coa.
by Eric Cherry, minister, Unity Church, North Easton, Massachusetts
So here’s to the Dads. Those to whom fatherhood comes easy, and those who struggle; those who always know the right things to say, and those who never do. Here’s to you. Here’s to the fisherman, the lawn-mower man, the baseball fan man, the diaper-changer-on-the-run man, the barbeque grill man, the dog-walker man. Here’s to the strong comforter; the everything’s-going-to-be-all-right guy; the driver; the tuck-you-in-for-bed, sleep-tight-don’t-let-the-bed-bugs-bite guy; and the storyteller. Here’s to you and your strong hands, or soft hands, or gentle hands. Here’s to you and how you knew how to listen. Here’s to you, Dads, who get so many conflicting signals about fatherhood, and are doing a great job anyway. Here’s to you, Dads, those who are with us and those who have died; we love you very much.
...that the CLF has UUA meditation manuals available for loan? They’re great summer reading. At www.clfuu.org click on Resources, then Library, or get a copy of our library catalog from the office.
Last updated June 12, 2005
Church of the Larger Fellowship (CLF), 25 Beacon Street, Boston, MA 02108-2823 Phone: (617) 948-6166 · Fax: (617) 523-4123 · E-mail: clf@clfuu.org
