CLF Quest Forums CLF Quest Podcast ALL of Quest Sermons From Your Minister REsources for Living Inspiration
The following links allow you to download various compilations of this month's columns, sermons and meditations without subscribing to our monthly podcast.
CLF Quest (full issue) From Your Minister (the Rev. Jane Rzepka's monthly column) Sermons in This Month's Quest REsources for Living (religious education) Inspiration
If you are using iTunes, you'll find that each compilation has a separate chapter for each segment. You may listen to different chapters after downloading by selecting from the chapter menu at the top of your iTunes window.
Did You Know... the CLF offers affordable online classes on a variety of subjects? See www.clfuu.org/learn for details.
BY KIM K. CRAWFORD HARVIE, SENIOR MINISTER, ARLINGTON STREET CHURCH, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS
Download the September Quest Sermons enhanced audio m4a file
Five years ago, police in Oakland, California, spent two hours attempting to subdue a gunman who had barricaded himself inside his home. After firing ten tear gas canisters, the officers discovered that the man was standing beside them, shouting, "Please come out and give yourself up!"
It sounded like a sermon to me.
I am deeply compelled by the possibility that we—each and every one of us—can come out of self-inflicted exile from freedom. A world of free people is a world at peace.
One of the most common and soul-deadening imprisonments is the incapacity to forgive.
Dick Pooler's daughter, Lisa, has a passion for Harley Davidson motorcycles. Lisa was out riding in New Hampshire with her longtime boyfriend, Patrick Looney, and some friends. Patrick's 11-year-old nephew, Billy, was on the back of his uncle's bike. Coming from the opposite direction, a huge Cadillac crossed the yellow line and plowed into them, narrowly missing Lisa. Patrick and his nephew were killed.
I want to thank Dick for his permission to share this more private passage of his daughter's tragic and triumphant story:
Because Lisa and Patrick were never legally married, she had no rights to any financial settlement in the case. When it came time for the sentencing, though, she was invited to be involved. Her only request was to speak to the driver of the car.
They met, lawyers in tow. It would have been Lisa's opportunity to exact some small measure of revenge, shredding the driver with her grief and rage. We can all imagine what she might have said. But that's not what she said.
She had hoped, she began, to see that the driver felt remorse for the deaths. She was assured that he did, and does; he said that he thinks about the accident every day, and often in the middle of the night, and that, in addition to losing his license to drive in New Hampshire, he voluntarily turned in his license in Massachusetts. He will never drive again.
And then Lisa told him what she most wanted to say, which was just this: It was an accident.
It's not like he saw them on the road, she said, went home and got a gun, came back to where they were picnicking, and shot them. He lost control of his car. It was an accident. Lisa Pooler wants the man who killed her lover to know that she knows the accident was an accident, and she wants him to know it, too.
Everyone wept. And after meeting the driver, Lisa felt free.
Someone very wise said, "Resentment is like drinking poison, and waiting for the other person to die." Feelings of resentment and revenge are completely natural in the wake of being wronged, but, unless they are only one stop along the long walk to freedom, we will die with them... if their poison doesn't kill us, first.
Please come out, and give yourself up.
One of my great heroes, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, chaired South Africa 's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, created in 1995 by Nelson Mandela's Government of National Unity. Its purpose was to investigate and provide a record of the effects of the violence of apartheid that unfolded between 1960 and 1994, and to provide support and reparation to victims and their families.
These are Archbishop Tutu's words:
To forgive is not just to be altruistic. It is the best form of self-interest. It is also a process that does not exclude hatred and anger. These emotions are all part of being human. You should never hate yourself for hating others who do terrible things: the depth of your love is shown by the extent of your anger. However, when I talk of forgiveness, I mean the belief that you can come out the other side a better person, a better person than the one being consumed by anger and hatred. Remaining in that state locks you in a state of victimhood, making you almost dependent on the perpetrator. If you can find it in yourself to forgive, then you are no longer chained to the perpetrator.
To forgive is not just to be altruistic. It is the best form of self-interest. It is also a process that does not exclude hatred and anger. These emotions are all part of being human. You should never hate yourself for hating others who do terrible things: the depth of your love is shown by the extent of your anger.
However, when I talk of forgiveness, I mean the belief that you can come out the other side a better person, a better person than the one being consumed by anger and hatred. Remaining in that state locks you in a state of victimhood, making you almost dependent on the perpetrator. If you can find it in yourself to forgive, then you are no longer chained to the perpetrator.
When their daughter, Victoria, was seven years old, Francis and Berthé Climbié entrusted her into the care of a relative who brought her from the Ivory Coast to England, promising to educate her. That relative tortured and killed Victoria.
These are the Climbiés' words:
Initially, when we first heard about Victoria, we could not forgive.... We were tormented by guilt, anguish, and hatred.... Even so, from the very first day..., we began praying that one day we would be able to forgive.
The mourning parents continue:
If you want to live happily and at ease in this life, you have to learn to forgive. It shouldn't matter if the person is able to ask for forgiveness or even acknowledge that they've done wrong, because forgiveness cannot be based on conditions.
The murderer, so far, is unrepentant. Nonetheless, Francis and Berthé Climbié say, "To be locked into a fixed attitude of retribution is to kill a child twice. First, the child is murdered, but if you, as the parent, then focus only on retribution, you extinguish the very spirit and memory of your child." The Cimbiés are determined not to seek the "comfort" of revenge, but to make something good come of this evil. In Victoria 's memory, they have decided to open a school on the Ivory Coast.
Years ago, I heard an interview with Sister Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking. She described going with a couple to attend the execution of the man who had murdered their daughter. The father, in particular, had long awaited this day. All his fantasies of revenge would finally be realized in one culminating moment: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a life for a life.
As planned, the murderer was murdered by the state. But as soon as it was over, the father turned away, twisted with bitter disappointment. All he would say is, "The s.o.b. died too quick."
No relief. Nothing on earth or in heaven could restore his daughter to him. There was no end in sight to his relentless suffering. There was only more violence, and more emptiness.
I have thought often, and prayed often, for that father. I think of the truth, "To understand all is to forgive all." My prayer is that, someday, he will somehow forgive, not for the sake of the perpetrator, but for himself. It's a terrible, tall order. But the alternative is worse.
I don't know how we forgive the unforgivable. I only know that, to free ourselves to live in the present, we must find a way to release the past. Together, we can find a way.
My spiritual friends, when we think of Lisa Pooler and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, of the Climbiés and all the parents of murdered children, may we open our hearts to the possibility of releasing ourselves from the prisons of our own making: prisons of the poison of resentment, and the emptiness of revenge.
Adrienne Rich writes,
My heart is moved by all I cannot save: so much has been destroyed. I have to cast my lot with those who age after age, perversely, with no extraordinary power, reconstitute the world.
My heart is moved by all I cannot save: so much has been destroyed.
I have to cast my lot with those who age after age, perversely,
with no extraordinary power, reconstitute the world.
Download the September Quest Inspirations enhanced audio m4a file
Whatever September means to you, bring it here and let it find its place in your belonging.
Those of you who dressed your child for the first day of school this week, welcome to September. You who readied the summer cottage for winter, welcome to September. You who tidied your desk, brought in the hanging plants off the porch, resealed your driveway, met a whole new class of children, welcome to September.
Those of you whose memories of summer will be smoothed onto the pages of a photograph album; those whose memories will line your forehead, or tear your heart, welcome to September. Those who carried a school bag for the first time, loved someone, said goodbye, cried some, cried a lot, welcome to September.
September has marked the best and the worst of times for me; there were new beginnings: my sister's birthday, my wedding day. But September makes me nostalgic: it's the smell of school and shyness, and the memory of a friend who died, and the way my clothes don't fit. And worry about the year ahead.
Thank you, September. Hang around awhile, give us warm autumn afternoons before we have to shake our sweaters out of their summer hiding, or mind the broken zipper on the windproof jacket.
Spirit of love, bless our house and our hours; help us to feel the possibility of joy in this place, and friendship and beginnings.
By Elizabeth Tarbox, from Evening Tide, published by Skinner House in 1998, and available through the CLF library (www.clfuu.org/library or 617-948-6150).
BY PAUL SPRECHER, MINISTER, SECOND PARISH, HINGHAM, MASSACHUSETTS
Imagine a flood in your own life. A catastrophe which strips you of your possessions, your dignity, your friends, everything you've worked so hard to gather around yourself to make a reasonable life. Imagine that you're forced to flee your home to escape an impending disaster, not knowing whether you'll return, but knowing that to save your life you must leave. Your flood might be a tidal wave, it might be 9/11, it might be a fire, it might be an addiction, it might be shame and guilt, it might be a hurricane. Your flood is that moment in your life where everything you have becomes as nothing in comparison to your desperation to save your own life.
We don't all have an immediate memory of such a flood in our lives, but many of us have witnessed what catastrophe can do. We were all witnesses to the flooding of New Orleans just a year ago. We all watched in horror and in wonder as scenes of desperation and heroism, lawlessness and integrity unfolded on our television screens. Some Unitarian Universalists, members of the Church of the Larger Fellowship and of Gulf Coast churches, lost their homes and gathering places, and in some cases were torn away from their families. The disaster became a Rorschach test onto which we projected our preferred social and religious interpretations. According to the polls, African Americans were much more convinced than white Americans that racism affected the government's response to the tragedy. Stories of looting and other criminal activity were hyped well beyond their actual, tragic reality. There were also heroes galore, willing to risk their own lives to save others in grave danger.
This was not the first flood in our collective memory. The story of a flood like the one in which Noah plays the hero's role figures in a number of traditions outside of the Hebrew Bible. The Epic of Gilgamesh from ancient Sumeria, perhaps one of the sources of the story of Noah, may well be the oldest written story in the history of the world. The biblical flood figures deep in the memory of Western Civilization and is inevitably attached to myth of God's determination to destroy the earth and all of humankind because of their great wickedness. God seems to have made a mistake in creating this earth—as the story goes in Genesis, "The Lord was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart." God determines to wipe out everything that has been created—except that there is one righteous person, Noah, whom he decides to save. You all know what follows—an ark is built, animals are found and brought into the ark, the water rises from the earth and falls from the sky for forty days, Noah sends out a dove who returns with an olive leaf, and finally after more than a year the earth is dry again. God promises never to destroy the earth by water again and gives a rainbow as a seal of his promise.
Some earth scientists have recently proposed a theory which might account for why flood stories were so widespread in the Ancient Near East. They suggest that the ending of the last Ice Age would have released enormous quantities of water from melting glaciers; this raised the level of the oceans, and then the Mediterranean and the Aegean, and finally burst at an enormous rate through the land barrier that had protected the Black Sea, moving at ten times the flow of Niagara Falls. The local farms and fisheries around the Black Sea would have been flooded almost instantly with water which appeared to arise almost from the earth itself. The refugees of this great inundation undoubtedly fled to the Tigris-Euphrates valley, among other places, and remembered this catastrophe in their various stories of the Great Flood.
Like all humans, they wanted answers not only to what had happened but also why. The idea of a vengeful or combative God who had some purpose in this event would have helped to answer their "why" questions quite neatly. We are still tempted as human beings to wonder why catastrophes such as Hurricane Katrina create the enormous havoc that they do. Conservative Christians were quick to claim a victory for their side in the culture wars. In an article on www.praize.com, authors Jody Brown and Allie Martin relate:
Rev. Bill Shanks, pastor of New Covenant Fellowship of New Orleans, … sees God's mercy in the aftermath of Katrina…. [He] says the hurricane has wiped out much of the rampant sin common to the city…. " New Orleans now is abortion free. New Orleans now is Mardi Gras free. New Orleans now is free of Southern Decadence and the sodomites, the witchcraft workers, false religion—it's free of all of those things now," Shanks says. "God simply, I believe, in His mercy purged all of that stuff out of there—and now we're going to start over again."
Another minister wrote in The Conservative Voice:
People should not be surprised when the hand of protection is removed briefly in light of their unrepentant decadence and moral decay and a hurricane such as Katrina wreaks devastation…. It is Katrina that is an example of God's shock and awe, and Americans should boast of Him, not of their own abilities.
Conservatives weren't the only ones to try to find cosmic significance and the hand of a higher power in the catastrophe. Mayor Ray Nagin opined in a Martin Luther King Day speech that "a vengeful God smote New Orleans with Hurricane Katrina because of heavenly disapproval of America's involvement in Iraq and of rampant violence within urban black communities," but he quickly apologized.The German Environmental Minister had a more mundane explanation: "The American president has closed his eyes to the economic and human damage that natural catastrophes such as Katrina—in other words, disasters caused by a lack of climate protection measures—can visit on his country." When he was accused of blaming President Bush for Katrina, he quickly retracted his words.
We struggle to explain why bad things happen to good people, or ordinary people, or people who are behaving badly, but in the end we are best served by compassion rather than condemnation. The book of Job in the Hebrew Bible is a long rumination about why bad things happened to a very good man, Job, of whom God approved in every way. When God allows Satan to test Job, his friends explain to him that of course he must have done something wrong or he wouldn't have been punished. But of course he was just being tested—he hadn't done anything wrong. Jesus said that God doesn't in fact take sides in matters of the weather; he says "[Y]our Father in heaven… makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous." I find it odd that so many conservative Christians identify with the vengeful God of the story of the flood rather than the merciful God taught by Jesus.
God's vengeance as an explanation always fails when it comes to explaining why the least among us—the poor, the infants, the elderly—suffer along with the supposed targets of wrath. This is where our Unitarian and Universalist forebears separated themselves from the conservative Christians of their times. How could it be, they reasoned, that a loving God would consign creatures made in his image to the pit of hell to suffer eternal torment?
Our faith doesn't give us easy answers about why bad things happen to us or to our families or friends or to strangers around us or far from us, but it does tell us that compassion is the way toward healing. Unitarian Universalists around the country have come to the aid of the victims of Katrina, whether through donations through the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, through physical and financial help through a variety of organizations, or through partnering with our UU churches in the area.
For instance, adults and youth from the Winchester Unitarian Society in Massachusetts have partnered with the North Shore UU Congregation in Lacombe, Louisiana, just north of New Orleans. Members of the Winchester congregation have made three trips to Lacombe to help their partner church and area community organizations. Thirty-four youth from Winchester, along with five adults and two former members of the youth group, spent their school vacation working with Common Ground/Project H.O.P.E. helping to clean up and rebuild. Here's what a few of them had to say:
I think people need to understand the extent of the damage that we saw. It wasn't just one road or neighborhood, but actually miles and miles and towns and towns of obliterated houses and lives…. You need to know that even though Katrina may not be on the front page anymore, it doesn't mean that it's anywhere near taken care of. The people in New Orleans feel forgotten above all else. Besides having no shelter and all the other losses they suffered, they feel completely abandoned by their government. I've never had such a strong purpose for my life before. This experience has given me something to think about and something to work on. As hopeless as it seems, giving up, not doing anything, is not an option for me anymore.
I think people need to understand the extent of the damage that we saw. It wasn't just one road or neighborhood, but actually miles and miles and towns and towns of obliterated houses and lives…. You need to know that even though Katrina may not be on the front page anymore, it doesn't mean that it's anywhere near taken care of.
The people in New Orleans feel forgotten above all else. Besides having no shelter and all the other losses they suffered, they feel completely abandoned by their government.
I've never had such a strong purpose for my life before. This experience has given me something to think about and something to work on. As hopeless as it seems, giving up, not doing anything, is not an option for me anymore.
As I've talked to others who have been part of groups going down to the Gulf Coast area over the past year, one theme has occurred over and over: the presence of people from other areas of the country is one of the most important ways of saying, "You are not abandoned. You are not alone. We care." The payback for those who have gone has been enormous.
We all experience the flood in our lives, the moment of desperate flight from danger to safety. Most of us are fortunate not to have suffered as have the victims of the hurricane, as has the Crescent City herself, although some members of the CLF as well as members of our Gulf Coast Unitarian Universalist bricks and mortar churches suffered significant losses. Whatever our location and circumstances, when we are lost, when we are alone, when we face abandonment, we need compassion. Those who respond to our anguish are themselves transformed, like so many who have stepped forward to do what they could in the face of this great, overwhelming disaster. If there were a message from God in this, it could only be that we are God's hands here on earth to bind up what is broken, to feed the hungry, to comfort the mourners.
We can't all go to New Orleans and work; perhaps we can't all afford to help support the congregations in the New Orleans area; but we all can find some way to take part. Together we have the means to do far more than any one of us in isolation can do. We have the means to care for each other and to extend our caring to our brothers and sisters in New Orleans. We can all dedicate ourselves to sustaining our mission of memory and hope. Even the smallest acts of compassion are acts of grace which we, each of us, can give. And through even the smallest acts of compassion we can help one another back toward home.
Download the September Quest enhanced audio m4a file
Hello to you all. My name is Kelly Weisman Asprooth-Jackson. But please, call me Kelly. With much joy, I am introducing myself as one of your two ministerial interns for September 2006 to June 2007. In those ten months, I'm looking forward to getting to know you as a congregation, and hopefully more than a few of you as individuals as well. Getting the opportunity to work with the Rev. Jane Rzepka, the CLF staff, my co-intern Barb Greve, and having the opportunity to be a part of Unitarian Universalism's largest and most distinctive congregation are also major "pros" to the job.
Originally, I'm from upstate New York, specifically Rochester (where I grew up attending the First Unitarian Church of Rochester). My partner Sara and I are coming to Boston from Oakland, California, where we've lived for three years during my time studying at Starr King School for the Ministry. We're both vegan, and practice eco-kashrut, a contemporary take on Jewish ethics of diet and consumption which emphasizes sustainability and responsible stewardship of the Earth.
Prior to coming to the CLF, much of my experience in congregations has centered on religious education. In particular, I've devoted a lot of time to working with youth. I'm very excited about the ways that the CLF's unique nature and methods are already being used to fulfill Unitarian Universalism's hunger for justice, and I look forward to searching for even more ways with you this year. The CLF is a vital institution of our treasured faith, and a network of intriguing individuals as well. It is an honor for me to be with you for the coming year.
Kelly
Good day. Please allow me to briefly introduce myself. I am (Mr.) Barb Greve, and along with Kelly Weisman Asprooth-Jackson, I will be serving as one of your two ministerial interns this year. I am delighted to have the opportunity to serve such a vibrant and diverse congregation. I am hopeful that more than a few of us will get to know one another individually.
I originally hail from Massachusetts, where I was raised as a Unitarian Universalist in the First Parish in Framingham, Massachusetts. Perhaps because my mother is a director of religious education (or perhaps not), I have been active in congregational life since as far back as I can remember. In my time in Framingham I taught Sunday school classes, was the youth advisor, and participated in several committees (including social action, Welcoming Congregation, worship and arts, and the ministerial search committee). I also served as the chair of the board of assessors.
I have spent the last four years in the East Bay of California where I have been studying at Starr King School for the Ministry. Prior to leaving the Boston area for seminary I worked in the UUA's Office of Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian, and Transgender Concerns. I have loved my time in California and am delighted to have the opportunity to return to the Boston area.
During my time serving with the CLF I hope to explore ways we can use technology to deepen our relationships to one another and bring the saving message of Unitarian Universalism to more people. I am honored to be given this opportunity to work with you and have my ministerial identity formed by all that we can do together.
Yours in faith,
Barb
This past year has been a great opportunity for me to learn the ropes of being a minister, as I made the transition from my career in computer management to full time ministry last fall. It was a year of learning by doing, trying things out, and, in particular, learning how best to be a minister when it's generally impossible to sit down face to face with people in joy, in pain, at transition points in life, and whenever life takes us back to concern with our spirits.
The most interesting interchanges were emails, phone calls and letters with members in which I began to become acquainted with some of you. There was also, of course, the CLF-L online community, which I tried to follow faithfully in the course of the year, and where I occasionally dipped my oar into ongoing conversations. I'm proudest of the work I did to create the new Discussion Forums, providing an electronic space for conversations outside of the CLF-L in which members can check into a virtual "room" at the CLF to have more intensive and focused discussions than the CLF-L list is well-suited for, given its 325+ members.
The tasks involved in working with a team to put Quest together monthly, from proposing sermons and inspirational material to helping to edit our superb worship publication, were a constant challenge and a lesson in the disciplines required to help keep any church functioning well, whether it be electronic or bricks and mortar.
Your generosity, good will, wide-ranging discussions, and willingness to help me learn have provided an important foundation for the work I'm taking up this month as minister of the Second Parish in Hingham, MA. Please come visit if you're ever in the area!
Paul
BY JANE RZEPKA, SENIOR MINISTER, CHURCH OF THE LARGER FELLOWSHIP
The email's subject line was simple: "Confession."
Confession. It's a creepy little word. You don't know what the email's going to say. Am I about to learn that the author gained access to the CLF's stock portfolio, and, well, made off with it, but would feel better telling me on the way out of town? Or am I about to learn only that the emailer ate three cupcakes, one right after the other? Maybe it's going to have something to do with the IRS. Or sex. Or how bad a fellow can feel having had the dog neutered. Confession.
Here it was, an apparent electronic confession from my old Star Island friend, Tom Stites, now the editor of the UU World. It made sense, come to think of it. We'd had a conversation about—that's right—confession. He'd observed that all religions provide for confession. He'd mentioned that, having been raised Episcopalian, he missed something in our Unitarian Universalist services that regularly acknowledges our short-comings. Of course I had responded in a sensitive, pastoral manner: "You've got to be kidding!" I said. "We're Unitarian Universalists! We don't believe in original sin. Quite the opposite—we believe in taking responsibility for our behavior. We believe that we can change for the better, that we aren't bad people—we just have some growing to do."
But of course Tom was right. I checked. Every major religion confesses, repents. The Koran, for example, says, "To those who repent …, and make amends—god is All-forgiving, All-compassionate."
The Hindu hymn to the god Varuna asks, "Loose me from sin as from a bond that binds me…. What, Varuna, hath been my chief transgression…? Tell me, unconquerable Lord, and quickly sinless will I approach thee with my homage."
The Hebrew Scriptures are clear on the topic: "When you realize your guilt..., you shall confess the sin that you have committed. The priest shall make atonement on your behalf for the sin that you have committed, and you shall be forgiven."
Finally, in the Christian Scriptures, we know that Jesus begins his ministry with a call to repentance and an acknowledgment of sin as a condition of divine forgiveness.
Well, as Unitarian Universalists, we pretty much haven't done any of that.
We've always had a different spin on sin. The Universalists believed, (and I'm quoting from the early nineteenth century leader Hosea Ballou) that "There is nothing in heaven above, nor in the earth beneath, that can do away with sin—but Love." A shocking point of view.
If God loves us as we are, so the logic went among early Unitarians and Universalists, where would confession come in?
Well, I can tell you what I think: We're not perfect yet. Personally, I'm not always so pleased with myself. The point is, I'm not satisfied. I want to do better, to be better. To contribute more, to detract less; to be more on the side of justice and less on the side of complacency; to understand more fully; to love more easily. It can be discouraging, living a life, and that's worth saying out loud.
So I read the email from my friend Tom, the message labeled "Confession." It was not about embezzlement, chocolate cupcakes, or the IRS. He said, "The following is the confession I wrote as an assignment we had in Kansas City in our "Building Your Own Theology" class at church." Here's the confession—Tom gave me permission to share it:
In this ritual of healing and cleansing, we acknowledge our imperfections and confess to ourselves, and publicly to each other, that we have fallen short in the crucial effort to live lives worth dying for. We have allowed minutiae and unimportant things to rule our lives and to claim precious hours that should be devoted to concerns that are important to us, to our families and friends, and to the communities that sustain all our lives. We have given too much power to fears and anger and pain. And in focusing too much on our own wants, we have arrogantly presumed that, despite overwhelming evidence of the vastness of the universe and the infinite sweep of time, we have special importance. Let us rejoice that in each of us is the power to improve not only ourselves but also the needy world of which we are citizens. Let us seize this moment to renew our commitments to doing the right things and the important things, to confronting our fears, and to bowing in respect to the mysteries of nature.
In this ritual of healing and cleansing, we acknowledge our imperfections and confess to ourselves, and publicly to each other, that we have fallen short in the crucial effort to live lives worth dying for.
We have allowed minutiae and unimportant things to rule our lives and to claim precious hours that should be devoted to concerns that are important to us, to our families and friends, and to the communities that sustain all our lives.
We have given too much power to fears and anger and pain.
And in focusing too much on our own wants, we have arrogantly presumed that, despite overwhelming evidence of the vastness of the universe and the infinite sweep of time, we have special importance.
Let us rejoice that in each of us is the power to improve not only ourselves but also the needy world of which we are citizens. Let us seize this moment to renew our commitments to doing the right things and the important things, to confronting our fears, and to bowing in respect to the mysteries of nature.
Catholics, having confessed, receive absolution from the priest. Jews, after much soul-searching during the High Holy Days, begin again with a fresh start. Unitarian Universalists? Well, as a group, we don't have the post-confession stage worked out. To regain a peaceful state of mind, some of us walk, or write in our journals, or talk with friends, or straighten it out in therapy, or we meditate. Others simply find that having confessed—having honestly acknowledged their own shortcomings either privately or in the presence of another person—the day comes when unexpectedly, the burden is lifted.
In the end, ours is a positive religion, with primary focus on all that is good, wondrous, and just. Yet we are not so different from everybody else in the need to confess, to feel sorry, and to begin again with hope. We leave room for that too.
BY LYNN UNGAR, MINISTER FOR LIFESPAN LEARNING, CHURCH OF THE LARGER FELLOWSHIP
"I'm gonna tell!" How many times has your friend or brother or sister yelled that in your face? More than you'd want to count, I'd bet. I think I could not go too far wrong in assuming that all of us have been tattled on, and all of us have been the tattler at one point or another. We might tell on someone to get them into trouble, or to make them do what we want, or to make them look bad. Oftentimes, tattling is a kind of lazy way out of working through problems ourselves.
But telling isn't always a bad thing. Sometimes there are problems that you really can't work out for yourself, and you need help from a grownup. Sometimes you see kids doing something that is dangerous for themselves or another person, and you need to bring in a grownup right away to make sure that nobody gets hurt. And sometimes grownups are the ones doing things they shouldn't, and it's very important to tell another grownup—kids can't be made responsible for the actions of adults.
But what if the person you were telling on was yourself? Huh? Why would you want to tell on yourself? Well, it might make you feel better not to have to carry around a secret list inside of the rotten things you've done. And it might make a big difference in your relationships if you were brave enough to go to people you've hurt and say that you're sorry.
Since much of what religion is about is improving our sense of what is good and right, and helping us to treat others well, it shouldn't be surprising that a lot of religions have something called "confession." Confession is basically a ritual for telling on yourself. It's a way to go back and fix past mistakes, to fix your relationships with other people and with your own heart and conscience. Most religions would say that when you fix your relationships with the people around you and with your own internal sense of what is good and right, you also fix your relationship with God.
Here's how the Jews handle it: The Jewish High Holy Days start this year on the evening of September 22nd and end on October 2nd. The beginning of the High Holy Days is Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. And what better way is there to start a new year off right, than by trying to clean up the mistakes you've made in the year that is ending? So between the New Year's celebration of Rosh Hashanah and the Day of Atonement that is Yom Kippur, there are ten days, called the Days of Turning, or Days of Awe. During these special days Jewish people are supposed to think about whom they might have hurt or wronged during the past year, what grudges they are holding or what relationships in their lives feel broken. Once they've figured out where the problems lie, the job during these ten days is to "tell on themselves," to go to the people they have wronged, try to work things out, and ask for forgiveness. Then at the end of the ten days comes Yom Kippur, when Jews have a special ritual in which, together, they confess to God all the things that anyone in the community might have done wrong. But the Jewish law is clear—it doesn't do any good to admit to God what you have done wrong if you haven't worked it out with the people involved first.
Even if you're not Jewish, September can feel like the beginning of the New Year as you go back to school after vacation. And even if you have year-round school, or if this is spring for you and not fall, there's no bad season for making a fresh start. What could you do if you wanted to create a special time and place for "telling on yourself"?
Well, you could start by taking some quiet time to think about things you've done that you still feel bad about. You might want to make a list, jotting down a few words about each thing that comes to mind that you feel needs to be fixed. Then give yourself a set period of time—a week to ten days—to do the job of telling on yourself. This might mean going to a friend and apologizing for saying something mean or spreading a rumor. It might mean returning something that you took from a friend or family member. It might mean going to a parent and acknowledging that you were rude to them when you were actually mad at a friend, or admitting that you try to ignore them when they ask you to sit down to do your homework and promising (but only if you really mean it!) to do better in the future.
Once you tell on yourself to the people you may have hurt, it is important to listen to what they say in response and try to find a way to work things out. You will need to be sincere in your wish to make things better, but part of these Days of Turning in the Jewish tradition is also learning to practice forgiveness. Which not only means that you try to forgive people who have hurt you, it also means that once you do your best to make things right with the people you have hurt, you can be ready to forgive yourself.
And somehow, when you forgive others and forgive yourself, you just fit more comfortably inside your own skin. Which is a good way to start the New Year (or the new month, or the new day). L'shanah tovah—have a good New Year!
Imagine this.
On the days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, every fall, every year, the people make their peace with anyone they have wronged or slighted or injured or in any way neglected in the past twelve months. The task is not to patch things up, smooth things over, reach a compromise, or sweep mistakes and uneasy memories under the rug; the task is not to feel better. The task is ownership. The goal is truth, for its own redemptive sake. I did this. I said this to you, and it was wrong. I neglected this. I botched this. I betrayed you thusly.
I demeaned you, whether you ever knew it or not.
This is the truth in which both of us are living. I ask you to forgive me.
Imagine how many deep breaths you would need to take. Imagine how many doors you'd have to knock on, how many phone calls you'd have to make, how many letters, how many lunches and coffees, how many awkward moments with your children and your parents, and with strangers (that cashier to whom you spoke so sharply). Awkward is irrelevant. The task is not about comfort, it is about truth, about wholeness and holiness. Restoration.
by Victoria Safford, minister, White Bear Unitarian Universalist Church, St. Paul, Minnesota. Excerpted from "At One" in the meditation manual Walking Toward Morning, published by Skinner House books in 2003, and available from the CLF Library (www.clfuu.org/library or 617-948-6150).
Last updated June 30, 2006
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
