ACCEPTANCE, FORGIVENESS, AND CELEBRATION

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1 ACCEPTANCE, FORGIVENESS, AND CELEBRATION Mother s Day May 12, 2013 Rev. Bruce Southworth, Senior Minister The Community Church of New York Unitarian Universalist Last week in New Jersey at the Annual Meeting of the 50+ UU congregations in the Metro New York District, my eyes began to leak. Truth be told, the tears were something of a deluge at moments. The President of the District Ted Fetter was speaking about the Civil Rights Living Legacy Pilgrimage developed in recent years by the Unitarian Universalist Association. (And I would add that key leadership has come from our congregation from Janice Marie Johnson and the Rev. Hope Johnson, along with others.) The weeklong bus tour visits sites such as Birmingham, Selma, Pettus Bridge, Oxford, Mississippi, and Memphis with meetings with activists of the era. Ted Fetter outlined the widespread involvement of Unitarian Universalists in the early 1960s: the sit-ins, the marches, the beatings, the deaths. The witness offered by so many of different faiths and races, which among other things led to the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act. With revealing honesty, he a white man wondered aloud for all of us, whether he would have had the courage to challenge the laws of the land to participate in protests, to risk whatever their prestige or place or position in the dominant white culture. How did all those, black and white, have that courage? As he learned about so many, Dr. King for sure, but so many others, he reported being humbled by those that joined that struggle. I found myself thinking about my mother, and the tears followed. She had been a participant in the lunch counter sit-ins in Knoxville, Tennessee in 1960; she enrolled my brother and me in an inter-racial day camp that was closed down because of threats of violence from the KKK closed after the first day of camp. (Later she was to be arrested with more than a dozen of us from Community Church in the anti-apartheid protests of the mid 1980s, some 20+ years after her joining her fellow church members at the sit-ins.) What was she thinking? Why did she step up and sit-down? She certainly enjoyed white privilege and as a doctor s wife, but none of her friends in that circle joined her. With graduate degrees in psychology, she was earnestly looking for work, even a teaching position at the University of Tennessee that was hard to come by 1

2 because of explicit age discrimination and perhaps a share of gender discrimination; a position which she did finally achieve. As a young adult, I asked her what motivated her. What was she thinking? It seems to me that she was not thinking that much at all. Her answer, It was the right thing. It was being a good Unitarian. No paralysis by analysis. That sense of justice, trying to do the right thing she gave me a great gift and challenge, and last week I gushed a bit in gratitude and awe. Not all of us receive such blessings. In thinking about mothers and Mother s Day, I often think about the comments of the playwright Larry Kramer. In an interview some years ago, he offered some thoughts about his life and work. He was talking about the numerous rejections he had for a new play and reports, almost more than talent you need tenacity and an infinite capacity for rejection if you are to succeed. He concludes, The little boy in me still believes everything is possible. Mom, you taught me this. And you lied. But so does art and so does hope. Life is hard and painful at times, and in truth, not everything is possible. But the equally powerful truth, the more powerful truth is that you and I truly were made for joy for shouts and laughters, for silent contemplations. (Carl Sandburg) The parental messages that we receive, and those most particularly from our mothers, have huge impacts on our lives, at least according to a wide variety of developmental psychologists and researchers on faith development. The blessings and wounds we receive often shape our life s work in growing our souls shape the issues that last a lifetime, or open or shut doors, or free us. This morning in returning to Larry Kramer, what is most salient is the imprint that his mother made upon him. She gave him tenacity and confidence. He knows that his mother lied to him, yet she empowered him. She gave him a faith in himself and evernew possibilities, even though he knows and we all know that it is not exactly true that everything is possible. I understand that message, and I resonate with it deeply because it was one of the messages that my own mother imparted to me. So many of us carry messages from our mothers, from many persons whom we encounter our fathers, or friends, or mentors, or authors so many, but a mother s message has a special power. My mother said things like: Try it! You might like it. 2

3 Or, Try to help others. Actually, I do not think she said, Try." Just Help others. She said, You can do anything you want. And, what did I know? I believed her, and it has been a blessing. It feels so much like Larry Kramer s mother who said anything is possible. While growing up, during adolescence with all the uncertainties about selfidentity, about vocation, about dating, about finding a life s work that makes sense, it is powerfully reassuring and empowering to be told that I could do anything that I wanted. And as literally untrue as it is amidst the limitations that the world imposes, I still believe it. How good it is to have an encouraging word! It is these various messages, encounters and experiences that I want to ponder this morning messages perhaps from those who are no longer here my mother now deceased ten years; my mother-in-law not quite thirty years ago; my father 42 years ago. And for many, you have those still close at hand, or a phone call away. In terms of our spiritual growth, my theology, my reasoned, reasonable faith, affirms that whether we are wounded or blessed by these messages, we can be now or become bold, gentle, loving people. One of my favorite authors is Anne Tyler, and in my thinking about motherhood, Anne Tyler offers a wide variety of views on the role and the relationships. And not all are as affirming as my own or Larry Kramer s. In her novel, Breathing Lessons, Maggie is the hero, the protagonist, and for her, things seem a little blurry at times. She is kind-hearted, well intentioned, but sometimes overbearing and totally clueless about how others respond to her, especially her children. Nor is she fully appreciated by her children. At one point, her daughter asks her a stunning question. Anne Tyler leads up to it with Maggie and her husband Ira sitting at a kitchen table with her friend Mabel. They are talking about their children, and Mabel, who has had only boys, declares that she wishes she had a daughter. Maggie responds: Well, daughters have their drawbacks too For instance, daughters have more secrets. I mean you think they re talking to you, but it s small talk. Daisy (referring to her daughter,) Daisy, for instance: She s always been so quiet and obedient. Then up she pops up with this scheme to go away to school; I had no idea she was plotting that! I said, Daisy? Aren t you happy here at home? I mean of course, I knew she was planning on college, but I notice University of Maryland is good enough for other people s children. What s wrong with closer to Baltimore? I asked 3

4 her, but she said, Oh, Mom, you knew all along I was aiming for someplace Ivy League. I knew no such thing! I had no idea! And since she got that scholarship, why she s changed past recognition. Isn t that so, Ira? Ira says she s just growing up. He says it s just growing pains that make her so picky and critical, and only a fool would take it to heart so. But it s difficult! It s so difficult! It s like all at once, every little thing we do is wrong; like she s hunting up good reasons not to miss us when she goes. My hair s too curly and I talk too much and I eat too many fried foods. And Ira s suit is cut poorly and he doesn t know how to do business. Mabel was nodding, all sympathy You know what she told me the other day? she asked Mabel. I was testing out this tuna casserole. I served it up for supper and I said, Isn t it delicious? Tell me honestly what you think. And Daisy said Tears pricked her eyelids. She took a deep breath. Daisy just sat there and studied me for the longest time with this kind of fascinated expression on her face, and then she said, Mom? Was there a certain conscious point in your life when you decided to settle for being ordinary? With tears. Maggie goes on, I mean, to me I m not ordinary. (30-31) And, of course, in truth, even in making ordinary choices, each of us remains unique and precious, and no one is an empty vessel. Maggie does have some wonderful qualities. Tyler writes, She saw now that there was a single theme to every decision she had made as a parent: The mere fact that her children were children, condemned for years to feel so powerless and bewildered and confined, filled her with such pity that to add any further hardship to their lives seem unthinkable. She could excuse anything in them, forgive them everything. With painful awareness of the need to set limits, which she seldom if ever did, Maggie blames herself for some of her children s issues. As Tyler reports, Maggie would have made a better mother, perhaps, if she hadn t remembered so well how it felt to be a child. (228) A mixed blessing, to be sure sympathy, empathy is a blessing; and elsewhere her husband Ira blames her for believing that people she loves are better than they really are. Not such a terrible failing, is it? Yet, we know children, each of us needs boundaries. Tyler, in a wonderful passage from A Patchwork Planet depicts the son who has caused such grief to his parents. Barnaby notes, Poor Mom! It hadn t been much fun loving someone as thorny as me, I bet. And some of us are thorny. 4

5 People can and do change and by novel s end, Barnaby has changed, known for his caring heart more at home in the world. We are capable of and made for change and growth. That is part of the sacred spark within each one of us. If you have read Toni Morrison s novel Beloved, you know the power of a mother s love. Sethe grieves over her dead daughter, saying, She was my best thing referring to the lost child. Paul D gently redirects her thinking: He leans over and takes her hand. With the other, he touches her face. You your best thing Sethe. You are. His holding fingers are holding hers. Me? She asks. Me? Companions of the spirit help us to recover our best selves, when the wounds of life or the initial messages are overwhelming. As the poet Galway Kinnell says, we sometimes have to recover our own beauty and bloom again from self-blessing. The love of others helps us in that. Mary Oliver reports on her painful childhood and offers a lesson: After a cruel childhood, one must reinvent oneself. Then reimagine the world. Novelist Amy Tan had a different experience with her mother, albeit a difficult childhood too. She writes about the most hateful words that she had ever spoken. When sixteen, she told her mother that she hated her and wished she were dead. To which her mother responded, Ok. Maybe I die, too. Then I no longer be your mother. For a long time, they exchanged their lightning and their thunderbolts. Her mother would taunt, and criticize her and humiliate her in front of others, and Amy Tan vowed never to forget these injustices. I would store them, harden my heart, make myself as impenetrable as she was. She recalls, however, a few of years ago, when she was age 46, and a fiction writer, when the phone rang, even as she was writing a story about a girl and her mother. It was my mother, and this surprised me. Had someone helped her make the call? For three years, she had been losing her mind through Alzheimer s disease. Early on, she forgot to lock her door. Then she forgot where she lived. She forgot who many people were and what they 5

6 had meant to her. Lately she could no longer remember many of her worries and sorrows. Amy-a, she said, and she began to speak quickly in Chinese. Something is wrong with my mind. I think I m going crazy. I caught my breath. Usually she could barely speak more than two words at a time. Don t worry, I started to say. It s true, she went on. I feel like I can t remember many things. I can t remember what I did yesterday. I can t remember what happened a long time ago, what I did to you She spoke as a person might if she were drowning and had bobbed to the surface with the force of will to live, only to see how far she had already drifted, how impossibly far she was from the shore. She spoke frantically: I know I did something to hurt you. You didn t, I said, Really, don t worry. I did terrible things. But now I can t remember what.... and I just want to tell you I hope you can forget just as I ve forgotten. I tried to laugh so she would not notice the cracks in my voice. Really, don t worry. Okay, I just wanted you to know. Amy Tan concludes, After we hung up, I cried, both happy and sad. I was again the same sixteen-year-old, but the storm in my chest was gone. My mother died six months later. By then she had bequeathed me her most healing words, those that are as open and eternal as a clear blue sky. Together we knew in our hearts what we should remember, what we can forget. (THE RIGHT WORDS AT THE RIGHT TIME, Marlo Thomas and Friends) Accepting, forgiving, knowing in our hearts what we should remember and what we can forget. If, like me, you have felt watered, you are pretty lucky. Give abundant thanks and know that Life s way, God s way is a life of new possibilities with new challenges. 6

7 If there are hurtful spots, wounded places, deep griefs and unresolved pain, you remain free. Everybody is free. Free to reach out and seek and give of yourself, and even if not reciprocated, to let go of the pain. It surely not easy, but necessary if we are to grow our souls and celebrate Life most fully. In that spirit, another child a daughter whose wisdom blesses: Martin Seligman, who explores Positive Psychology, offers the following about his daughter Nikki. When she was five years old, he reports that he was on his hands and knees weeding his garden. "I have to confess that even though I have written a book and many articles about children, I'm actually not very good with them. I am goal-oriented and timeurgent, and when I'm weeding in the garden, I'm weeding. Nikki, however, was throwing weeds into the air and dancing and singing. Since she was distracting me, I yelled at her, and she walked away. Within a few minutes, she was back, saying, "Daddy, I want to talk to you." "Yes, Nikki." "Daddy, do you remember before my fifth birthday? From when I was three until I was five, I was a whiner. I whined every day. On my fifth birthday, I decided I wasn't going to whine anymore. "That was the hardest thing I've ever done. And if I can stop whining, you can stop being such a grouch." Seligman acknowledged that he had an epiphany. His daughter was right. "In that moment, I resolved to change." He says her precocious strength, her virtue, and insight, gave him a mission and changed his life so that his work now focuses on the positive, creative emotions within all of us. A parent thanking his child for the privilege of being her father. Just maybe we can to that to our parents, in person, over the phone, or in our hearts. To thank them to offer our acceptance, forgiveness, our joy, our love our blessing to celebrate the gift of Life they give us. It is not always easy, but Acceptance, Forgiveness, Celebration: Try it. You can do anything. 7