Sermon: You Can't Tell It By Looking at Me by Rev. Audette Fulbright April 14, 2013 I remember it like it was yesterday. I had just suffered a terrible heartbreak in seminary, and some friends were taking me on a hike. They'd been essentially babysitting me for a few days, and one nice thing about it all was that there was a new friend in the mix. A young woman named Jennifer was in town to visit a friend of a friend. Over these few days, we'd really hit it off, and now here we were, hiking up the mountain together, the rest of the group a little way ahead. Jennifer was telling me about the high school she would be attending in the fall, as a junior. She had gotten a scholarship, she said, but she wasn't feeling completely sure about the whole thing, because she'd be the only woman of color at the school. Otherwise, it was an all-white school. I paused in my progress, because my brain was running so slowly it apparently needed the energy from my feet. But you're not Black, I said, idiotically. To her credit, Jennifer just looked at me and said, Yeah, I am. My dad's black, and kept walking. But me? I was still back there, tripped up and trapped by all my assumptions. You know, that one comment wasn't even the real problem it was problem enough, mind you. In that comment, I had verbally assaulted a new friend, shown her that I didn't have any idea who she was but that I had assumed I did. Revealed my own place of blind privilege and let her know that I wasn't able to follow her journey without being a part of the struggle she faced every day. The problem was that I was living in my bubble, and making assumptions that trapped me more than anyone else I might be encountering.
I have been on the other side of that divide. There are so many things we can't know by looking at each other. If I didn't tell you, you might also assume I'm white, you might not know I've survived cancer, going through surgery and chemo and radiation and drug therapy. How could you know that I have survived sexual assault or that I am not neurotypical? You can't know those things by looking at me. We have to know one another before they come up. A kindergärtner was asked to do a homework assignment. Draw a picture of your parent at their job, the teacher had asked. Here's the picture one child drew: So, what do you think this child's mother did for a living? Here's the note the mother sent to the teacher: Dear Mrs. Jones, I wish to clarify that I am not now, nor have I ever been, an exotic dancer. I work at Home Depot and I told my daughter how hectic it was last week before the blizzard hit. I told her we sold out every single shovel we had, and then I found one more in the back room, and that several
people were fighting over who would get it. Her picture doesn't show me dancing around a pole. It's supposed to depict me selling the last snow shovel we had at Home Depot. From now on I will remember to check her homework more thoroughly before she turns it in. Sincerely, Mrs. Smith It's a cute story, though it's not a true one just an Internet meme. Still, it underscores a simple truth we make assumptions all the time. We look at people, situations, things, and believe we know enough about them to make judgments. Take a look at these people. (show images of people) As we look at each of these, our brains and habits have been sorting them. We have a natural tendency to label Black, white, Latino, male, female, educated... But in fact, we really can't know much just by looking at them. Some of these are cismales and cisfemales a term which means a person whose gender expression matches the gender they were assigned at birth, the prefix cis means on the same side some were trans*people. Some were over 50, some not. We can't tell people's ethnic background by looking at them, but even more important to keep in mind is that we can't tell their cultural background by looking, either. And we can't tell if they are suffering from depression, or early-onset MS, or bipolar disorder from glancing at their faces. There is just so much we can't tell just by looking at someone. So what is the religious or spiritual implication of this simple truth? It begins in patience and humility, I believe. If we can create a space in our interactions that allows us to adopt an attitude of curiosity rather than one built on assuming common experience and language, our interactions are opened up, and we begin to live in a world of learning and
open-heartedness. We can more easily see that the areas where we disagree or haven't yet found consensus come not from bad faith, but from experiences we haven't had. Almost always, our decisions and actions are built on some underlying value. Sometimes, we may discover that the root of our misunderstanding or disagreement lies in the hidden conflict between differing values we are acting on. I may be acting the way I am because I want to build relationships, while you are acting the way you are because you want to see justice done. If we're on a team, trying to choose one action, we may come into conflict because we are not aware of acting from differing values. But if we take the time to be curious about one another - What would you like to do? Why do you see that as being the best action? we may discover those values, and then we are better equipped to develop a strategy that either incorporates both...pursuing justice by building stronger relationships...or agreeing that our action should be one or the other. I think what may be most healing in making a practice of remembering that there's so much we cannot know by looking at other people, is that we create a place in the world for people to be fully themselves. We give them the opportunity, space, and time to define for themselves who they are, what they should be called, and we honor their experience. Imagine what a world like that would feel like! Many of you were here on one of my early Sundays, when we did a little exercise. I invited people to write down five identities they embody. So, for example, I might write down ciswoman, mother, Minister, partner, dancer. Then I told people not asked, told to cross one identity off. Then another, and another. In the end, people were allowed to have one identity in that exercise. It's like cutting off fingers, allowing someone only one finger, and then telling them to go out into the world and do. We don't live in only one identity. Our experience is intersectionality expressed. We meet the world as gay men and as sons and as laborers and parents...we meet the world as sisters and women of color and childless by choice and doctors. We are retired and readers or avid hikers or spiritually seeking. We have
autism or we are orphaned or we are struggling to make ends meet. All of these experiences create us, and they inform our engagement with the world. They make us laugh at one thing and take umbrage at another. And there is no way to know who someone else is, or what their experience is, unless we seek first to understand. That's the interesting thing about communities of choice, like a Unitarian Universalist church. To define us as a congregation is to say, in essence, that there is something about us that is the same. We are UUs. So what does that mean? One thing may be that the term Unitarian Universalist is one that most of us here have taken for ourselves. It is a self-definition, and one we share with others in this place though not all. Not everyone who attends or visits considers themselves UU; some choose not to self-define in this way. But even for those who do choose for themselves the identity of Unitarian Universalist it does not mean the same to everyone. Some may say, my Unitarian Universalism is built primarily on my love of our first Principle the worth and dignity of every individual. Others may say, I am a UU because we stand on the side of love. Some may believe that a just world is one that demands an eye for an eye, and therefore, they affirm capital punishment. Others may believe that an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind, and that a commitment to the inherent worth and dignity of every individual precludes the taking of life. How will we know what someone else's Unitarian Universalism means unless we take the time to find out? We have no creed to hide behind, and none by which to exclude people, either. The prominent UU minister, Richard Gilbert, said, Life is inconvenient, no doubt about it. It's messy. It is mystery wrapped in an enigma and surrounded by a quandary, all in the shape of a question mark. It is often more question than answer,
more doubt than faith. It is defined by contradiction, paradox, ambivalence and oxymoron. That is why human beings invented religion to figure it all out. That's what we're supposed to be doing here; coming together to figure it all out. This task is made much more difficult when we assume we know the answers to many things we do not, especially about one another and therefore about what and who make up our community. One of my former parishioners was very fond of saying, I know you think you understand what you believe I said, but I don't know if you know that what you heard is not what I meant. Which was just a fun way of saying, are you sure you understand what's going on here between us? We all have been on the receiving end of being misunderstood. Ministers in particular love to recount stories of times when, after the service, parishioners come up and tell them that they loved, or perhaps very much did not love, something that was not, in fact, said in the sermon at all. We each bring so much of ourselves to each conversation and interaction that sometimes we see and hear things that come only from within us. In psychology, we haves names for interactions such as this transference, projection. As people in religious community together, what can make a difference is just to remember all we cannot know by looking; all we do not know unless we approach one another with the assumption of good will and a curiosity about the experience of our friend. What if, on that long-ago hike, I had just not made any assumptions about Jennifer? And when she told me her worry, about being the only woman of color at her new prep high
school, I could have asked, what's that like for you? Or what would make you feel more comfortable about going? I could have been a person who created the space for Jennifer to tell me who she was, to define her own place as a young, biracial, lesbian woman whose experience of the world included economic privilege that also set her apart as it often placed her in settings that were not just predominantly white culture, but also heteronormative and assumed background and experience that were different from what she lived. But I did not. I was just one more person in the world who assumed I saw her, assumed I knew things about her, when I did not. There's very little that's useful that you can tell about a person just by looking at them. You can't tell if they were born in the gender they present to you. You can't tell if they've eaten that day. You can't tell if their parents hit them when they were young, or if someone loves them now. You can't tell if they love to learn or love to be active outside or if they just got a terminal diagnoses or lost a baby. You can't see by looking at someone that they have had a transcendent experience or that they just fell in love. What if your spiritual practice was curiosity? Are we the kind of people who can create true sanctuary for others, by allowing each person who enters these walls to just be who they are, and we let them define themselves? We let each person here know that, whatever our age, it's OK to be changing, to grow, to maybe even not know the answers? That alone would make a religious radicals. It would make this place a house of peace and laughter and make possibility understanding and creativity that surpasses almost every norm. All it takes is for us to set aside our assumptions, and take the time to be curious, to assume goodwill and be willing to meet people where they are.
Before I close, let me share another story. This one is shared by the mother of a young child who had had a stroke, which had damaged parts of her brain, and from which the child was still recovering although there were no visible signs of the brain injury. One afternoon, Annie got off the bus and crumbled into my arms, sobbing. Apparently she had gotten into trouble after recess because she ended up in the wrong line. As a consequence, she had to sit on the piano bench in front of her peers while they were enjoying a treat. When I asked why she was in the wrong line, she tearfully told me that she had seen a friend she d met at Safety Town, and remembered that they d lined up together. She got confused and then followed that group rather than her own. I wasn t surprised when I heard this explanation. Annie s ability to manage directions, especially in a setting like a playground (sensory overload!), had been greatly compromised when she d had her stroke six months earlier. We were constantly working on this at home and with the occupational therapist. Clearly, I hadn t communicated this issue with the teacher, and knew I had to fill her in quickly. When I called the school, I asked what had happened, telling the teacher that we wanted to be sure that we understood the issue and follow through at home by reinforcing the school rules. I was surprised when the teacher told me that Annie was being disobedient, choosing to do what she pleased rather than follow directions. I tried to explain that Annie s brain injury caused extreme disorganization in her ability to manage such situations, and that, while not an excuse for her behavior, was a contributing reason for the incident. The teacher s response cut me to the core: You know, Mrs. Wetherbee, you ve probably bent the rules for Annie since she was in the hospital. She just needs to learn that she needs to do what she s told. That was a painful conversation. We eventually straightened things out (but not without a lot of tears and anger.) It was difficult, once the teacher had made her assumptions
about our family, to pull her back to a solution-oriented path. It took several meetings, and finally, the involvement of our child s doctors, to help the school understand brain injury. (http://katiewetherbee.wordpress.com/2011/03/04/effective-communication-part-2-avoiding-assumptio ns/) May we remember all we cannot just can't tell by looking at someone, and remembering, become the people who create a new world. Amen.