Oh, The Places We ll Go! Rev. Susan Frederick-Gray UU Congregation of Phoenix April 20, 2008 from Oh, The Places You Will Go! by Dr. Seuss Congratulations! Today is your day. You re off to Great Places! You re off and away! You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You re on your own. And you know what you know. And You are the [one] who ll decide where to go. Look to this day! attributed to Kalidasa (Hindu poet and dramatist) Look to this day! For it is life, the very life of life. In its brief course lie all the verities and realities of your existence: The bliss of growth, The glory of action, The splendor of beauty; For yesterday is but a dream, And tomorrow in only a vision; But today, well lived, makes every yesterday A dream of happiness And every tomorrow a vision of hope. Look well, therefore, to this day. When asked what they did not like about Dr. Seuss s Oh, The Places You ll Go!, a group of first graders, experts you understand, said they did not like the part when the boy's balloon is snagged on a tree and his fellow balloon riders sail past, deserting him. [1] There is much that I like about Dr. Seuss book. I first read it after I received it for my 18th birthday, just a month before I left for college. It remains today one of the most popular gifts for high school and college graduates. The wisdom of the book lies in the accurate portrayal of life as a complex
journey. A journey with moments of excitement and new beginnings, something we have been feeling a lot this past week. And a journey with moments of challenge and bumps, even slumps sometimes. Periods of fear and difficulty. And peppered between those moments of riding high or getting snagged, there are times of waiting, and times where we must play lonely games too. These are not the times of high drama and rarely make it into our story telling, so I appreciate Dr. Seuss s willingness to tell the whole story, the good, the bad--and well the plain ordinary--for they are all a part of life. But, for all its wisdom, there is something very important missing from the story. Our hero s journey is a lonely one. Yes, the author tells us Alone is something you will be quite a lot. But even when he is flying high--he is alone. The author tells us he passes the whole gang, and soon takes the lead and the picture shows him leaving everyone behind. And when he gets hung-up, finds himself in a slump, everyone does the same to him--they leave him behind. A problem that even first graders realize. The story begins, You re on your own, and you know what you know. This story of the individual hero a strong protagonist choosing his own way, having success and facing danger and challenges all alone is a very Western, very American story. It is s a celebration of individualism. That rugged individualism which depending on how you look at it is the pride or the myth of the United States, has nonetheless been a part of our character and story since the beginning. The philosopher who has had perhaps the greatest influence on our country, particularly in shaping the values of self-reliance and individual freedom was John Locke. For Locke, people are ontologically individual. What does this mean? It means that we are fundamentally or originally by our nature, individuals. For Locke, society or community were secondary--created by individuals for safety and the protection of property. Therefore the role of society was to protect the rights of individuals, and for Locke men had certain natural rights which he identified as life, liberty and property. Does this sound familiar? In the final version of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson only deviated slightly from Locke s language, changing property to the pursuit of happiness. This expanded the field of possibilities for individual rights--but did not change the fundamental emphasis on the individual. The U.S. s foundation in the acceptance of this idea that we are individuals first, while society is secondary, has created tremendous ingenuity, technology and material wealth and success. However, we are now beginning to see the fundamental flaws in this outlook and having to face its unintended consequences. The environmental crisis we are facing is the most direct example of the limits of ontological individualism. In a world of individuals, there is no need to think of the people living down wind or down stream. In a world of individuals, there is no need, there is no place for thinking of the generations that will follow. There is only me, only now--in this model we become self-interest maximizers. But now the earth is telling us a different story--that we are not solely individuals, nor are
we independent. Rather we are fundamentally dependent on and connected to the earth and reliant on the resources of air and water for survival. Our Unitarian Universalist faith is historically and ideologically connected to this American individualism. Ours is the faith of many of those forefathers who wrote those early documents celebrating individual rights. And our first principle, affirming the worth and dignity of each person, puts us squarely in this history. I celebrate this principle, but we must balance it with our seventh principle--affirming our interdependence with the web of creation--otherwise we run the risk of sacrificing the idea of solidarity and community in favor of the sacredness of the individual. This week, as I have been candidating to become your minister, someone asked me Why us? Why did I want to become the minister of UUCP? I told her one reason was that you all were not stuck in that waiting place. I could see that you were not waiting for a new minister to come, but were already grabbing hold of your future, embracing a master plan, moving forward with it, finding creative and new ways to welcome guests, and you are growing--already--you are on you re way. Why? Because I could, I can, see oh the places you ll go! And there is something else. In your master plan and your search packet I saw that you all had come to put community--building the beloved community--at the center and forefront of your vision. And this is exactly what our world needs. Environmental devastation, growing economic disparity and poverty, and the growing isolation that people feel are challenges that individualism cannot meet. The solutions to these problems are going to require thinking about the whole over the individual and finding a balance between them. And the science is right here to help us make this transition in our world view. Recent studies in sociology and behavioral psychology are debunking Locke s thinking that we are individuals first, social creatures second. Biologists are now finding that compassion, self-sacrifice, generosity and justice are not just concepts alive in humanity, but practiced by other higher mammals including primates, dolphins and whales. According to Dutch primatologist, Frans de Wall: If group life is based on a social contract, it is drawn up and signed not by individual parties, but by Mother Nature... Even in our species, which prides itself on free will, we may find an occasional hermit who has opted for reclusion; yet we never encounter someone who has consciously decided to become social. One cannot decide to become what one already is. (p. 170) [2] As a mother, as a parent, the truth of this claim, that we are first social creatures seems obvious. My husband Brian can recall the first time one of our good friends met our son Henry. Henry was 9 weeks old, he couldn t sit up on his own, he couldn t hold his head up well or for very long, he didn t have
any teeth, he couldn t talk--he was in the early days of life--utterly dependent on us for survival. The only things he could do on his own were eat, sleep and poop--and both of those things still required some attention from us--to make them happen, or clean them up. But what our good friend John said upon first meeting our 9-month old lump of just beginning humanity was, How do you know to look me in the eye? It is because we are ontologically, meaning first and fundamentally social creatures--born completely dependent on family, parents, social relations forsurvival. The first tools of survival--the inherent ones, the ones we are born with--are the ones that allow us to make connection--eye contact (that is the first things babies do), touch (the reflex to hold tight to the finger placed in the infant s hand) and crying--to communicate needs to another person. We only become individuals, and come to know ourselves as separate through relationships. In children, this happens as we learn to become like the people around us. For Henry, we saw his self emerging the first time we saw him care for his stuffed bear. As he wrapped the bear in his blanket, and patted him to sleep--as he became the care giver, imitating the role of parent, his understanding of self, as something separate from mom and dad began to emerge. But it emerged from this primary state of dependence and relationship. The wise words of advice from Dr. Seuss at the end of his book are fitting: You ll get mixed up, of course, as you already know. You ll get mixed up with many strange birds as you go. So be sure when you step. Step with care and great tact and remember that Life s a Great Balancing Act. Just never forget to be dexterous and deft. And never mix up your right foot with your left. So, I would like to step with care here and say clearly, that I do not think we should throw out individualism, or individual rights, but rather to suggest that what our world needs, and what our faith needs is a better balance to our thinking, so that when we look at humanity, what we see first are social beings interdependent with the web of creation. Then, when we look closer, emerging from that basic social fabric are individuals, but what is primary to us is the strength and health of that social fabric--of the community--for it is that fabric that supports the wholeness, health, justice, peace and freedom for us as individuals. Ralph Waldo Emerson writes, a person will worship something--have no doubt about that. That which dominates our thoughts will determine our lives, and character. Therefore it behooves us to be careful what we worship, for what we are worshipping, we are becoming.
In placing community--a community of love and openness--at the forefront of your vision and mission- -I see this transformation from individualism to community happening right now before our very eyes. This gives me great hope. It means we are learning to balance our worldview to see not just the individual but the community, it means we are learning to weigh our needs and wants against our responsibilities to one another and to the earth. Yes, it is a beginning--living it, sharing it and spreading it are the true tests. For we must learn to see that our lives are not merely separate journeys of individuals, but an unfolding of the story of humanity. And the success we achieve, we achieve with and because of one another, not alone. And the difficulties we face, we face together, as a congregation, as a country and as a world--not alone. It is my great hope that you and I can face these challenges, and embrace the opportunities that lie ahead together--and maybe we can write our own story--one we can call : OH, THE PLACES WE LL GO!