The barriers to love

I am proud of Unitarianism/Unitarian Universalism.  The faith to which I have committed myself has been an activist, justice seeking movement. It has been at the forefront of the struggle for GLBT rights. We have seen our male-dominated ministry turn into a majority female one. We continue to struggle mightily to combat the causes of racism and are prepared to do the hardest work of all - to look within for the persistent seeds of that poisonous tree.

But, as the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) President Peter Morales describes as reported in the UUA World, the growing diversity of the leadership of even this remarkably open and accepting faith masks a deeper barrier to true diversity

When we look more closely at the change in our professional ministry, we see that the vast majority of women, gays, and lesbians admitted were middle class, well-educated people of European descent.

The barriers of race and sexual orientation, while challenging, are as nothing compared to the fortress-like walls presented by interconnected differences of culture, education, and social class.

The UUA can be justifiably proud that its two most recent leaders are not from white Anglo backgrounds. Morales is of Mexican descent. His predecessor, Bill Sinkford, is black. But these steps forward hide the fact that class and culture barriers remain intact. Morales again:

We have seen this in our nation with the election of Barack Obama and in our UU movement with the election of the Rev. William G. Sinkford and myself to the presidency. Each of us is less threatening to the dominant culture because we are the products of elite educations and have spent our lives in the dominant culture. If Barack Obama sounded like a poor urban African American he could not have been elected. If I sounded like San Antonio’s West Side barrio, I would not [be] president of our Association.

The barriers of race, gender, and sexual orientation are challenging - make no mistake about it. These differences activate strong hard-wired fears of difference. Those who look or love differently from us make us fearful and wary. But, with honest and courageous effort, we can enter into open dialogue. We begin to understand that they are like us - we have so much in common beneath the superficial differences.

But this moment of conversion happens because more basic, more essential, facilitators of dialogue are present - they are based on other similarities. If class and culture match, we have the tools we need to cut through other differences. Yet we have not connected simply on the basis of being human. We have connected because we share similar struggles, like similar writing, speak in similar vernacular, and have similar goals. We have a common 'language' to allow us to see beyond our differences.

It is when cultural and educational differences between people directly frustrates attempts and deep communication - when  common ground can not be found because we approach life with different stories, with deeply different perspectives based on educational background, and deeply different interests - that we fail to connect.

This is the continuing problem of our world. The divide between rich and poor grows larger in Britain and elsewhere and the divides are not necessarily around skin color, gender, or sexual orientation. The divides are based on class and culture which translate into the presence or absence of opportunity. This is a justice issue - perhaps the single greatest justice issue of the developed nations. As long as class and cultural differences continue to define who we can understand and who has a chance to get ahead, there will not be true equality.

But as Peter Morales adds, this is not so much a practical or political issue, but rather a deeper question of who we choose to be as human beings and to what vision we are dedicated:

This great challenge of culture and class is ultimately a religious, moral, and spiritual issue rather than a social justice issue. Perhaps the great challenge for us [...] is whether we can learn to understand, accept, include, and ultimately love our neighbors who are different from us.

The work is enormous and may never be completed. That is no reason not to begin it. The first step - as always - is the vision. Can we imagine a society where class advantages disappear? Can we imagine a society where our cultural background does not define our opportunities? I hope that we can commit to that kind of a future and begin the work today of trying to understand across the great barriers that would divide the human family.

Teach your children well

Those of us old enough might remember the song 'Teach your children' written by Graham Nash and recorded by Crosby, Stills and Nash. "Feed them on your dreams" they sang, and wistfully, I wonder what happened to our dreams of a peaceful, loving, and just world.

How do we teach our children and feed them on these dreams?  These days, it seems our children are presented with more and more to learn. Not only are they expected to develop in all the academic ways, but there is also the extra 'enrichment': an instrument or two, a few sports, perhaps dance and art? Maybe an extra language?

Amid this very thick academic soup, I have been pondering what a liberal religious community should teach its children. What is it that they might not learn anywhere else that they'll need to know in order to be a good and whole person? How can we help them become part of the movement toward peace, understanding, justice, and love?

I believe that a liberal religious community's purpose is to aid us in our growth toward wholeness, to create and sustain caring healing community, and to inspire us to do our part in making a better world.

We don't need our teaching to duplicate what kids are getting in school, of course. In fact, what we need to be is the antidote to all the negative messages that kids (and all of us) receive every day from the media and from our popular culture. There is a lot of evil around us and, not surprisingly, I don't mean evil in the sense that the right-wingers do. In fact, when I look at the people who are out there decrying what they see as evil, they are usually the ones perpetrating the true evils. You know them: the crazy 'God hates fags' people, the right wing anythings, the anti birth control orthodoxy, the book-burning crazies in America...  you know...

But the evils that really drag us down are more insidious. They are the evils that create tremendous wealth inequalities. They are the evils that make us think that happiness comes from having more stuff. They are the evils that give us the idea that our bodies are not good enough. They are the evils that make us selfish and fiercely independent, despite the fact that true happiness comes from interdependence. They are the evils that make us think that suffering and injustice are someone else's problem - not ours. And they are the evils that make us fear and mistrust anyone who is different.

Liberal religious community needs to be the antidote. It needs to be the voice that counters all that materialistic, atomistic, shallow nonsense. As I am a completely non-traditional guy I thought it would be good to put this into very traditional form. Thusly and herewith are the '10 commandments' I'd like to teach our kids:

1. Accept, respect, and love yourself
2. Strive to understand and have compassion for everyone else. There is always more than meets the eye.
3. Recognize that you are interconnected with all living things
4. Accept that different is not the same as bad
5. Share and give of what you have
6. Try new things, even if you're afraid
7. Accept that you have a responsibility to our planet
8. Strive to be awestruck by beauty
9. Work for justice, understanding, and peace
10. Be as grateful as you can for everything that comes your way

They didn't come down from a mountain on a stone tablet, but things written in stone have a tendency to sit around unchanged for too long in any case.  As always, I'm eager to hear what you think.