Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation,
are people who want crops without plowing up the ground.
They want rain without thunder and lightning, they want
the ocean without the awful roar of its waters.
This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be both moral and
physical; but it must be a struggle.
Power concedes nothing without a demand; it never did and
it never will.
Find out what people will submit to, and you have found out
the exact amount of injustice which will be imposed upon them.
The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of
those whom they oppress.
Religion As A Way Of Living
One's religion and one's way of living can become so close together that the one is nearly indistinguishable from the other. The way we respond to the most "significant others" in our lives, to conflicts large and small, to giving and receiving help, to the endless variety in the natural world, to the multi-problems of humankind, and to the pain of the world, is our religion. It is there--in how we listen to others, in the words we speak, the things we do. Not always, of course--we are human; but it is there most of the time if we allow it to be. When we are open to all kinds of people, and can see and celebrate the beauty of diversity, "otherness" becomes a quiet precious gift. Selfhood and otherness can merge then in a deep appreciation of this marvelous gift of life.
"An Interfaith Litany for Wholeness"
written by the Rev. Kate Chipps and adapted
"Let us hold all people in our hearts.
Norman Kunc's body has been twisted with cerebral palsy. His speech, also, has been affected. So when he stood in front of 500 of us last May - as the featured speaker - and declared: "I'll bet you're all saying: - NO, that's the speaker?" he was right. And he laughed when he saw our guilty faces..."It's all right," he said, "by the middle of the morning you will forget that I am hard to understand and that I am in a body like this." And again, he was right.
He used humor to help us understand...I'd like to share two of his many stories this morning.
Norman travels all over the country - one lucky weekend he arrived at his hotel to find Billy Graham was holding a convention. There were huge banners hung from the lobby ceilings..."Come, be saved." So, Norman went to the front desk - it takes him awhile to move anywhere, but he persists - and he asked the hotel desk clerk if she would take him to the special room where he could be "cured." "Oh-Oh...I'll have to check," she said - leaving the desk hurriedly...she returned after a long wait to declare that she was afraid there was no such thing as a room to be "cured."
Norman enjoys teasing "us" abled - he knows we have no idea what his and other disabled peoples' world are like because everything is set up for those whose bodies haven't lost some function.
He wants us to know that we are all alike inside and that all anyone needs is enough respect to be asked what they need...people know what they need, they've had to figure it out. Norman's airport story illustrates how abled people often assume they know what help is needed without asking, Almost always, he says, when he arrives at an airport (as he is maneuvering his way to the ticket counter), someone will approach and ask, "Can I help you?" (The SHOUT is because if you have a twisted body, you must be deaf, too.) "Can I help you? No, thank you, I'm fine. But, do you know where you're going? Oh sure, this is the bus station, right? Really, I'll help you with your ticket".....
Norman calls these "Help Attacks."
His name is Norman Kunc and I learned so much that day with him. The Accessibility Task Force members had asked me to go to hear him - THANK YOU!
Joan...will continue our message now - it's all so simple, and yet, so hard, because we're so uneasy with our differences.
As part of the Weaving the Fabric of Diversity class, we read an article written by Rev. Victor Carpenter, a Unitarian minister who has two disabled daughters, born in the 60's. One daughter is severely retarded (the cause remains unknown), and the second is deaf and severely language- and learning-impaired due to the effects of rubella in utero.
Rev Carpenter relates that in the first 30+ years of his life, including the first five years of his ministry, he lived in the world of the "abled." He describes this world as a "comfortable, unquestioning" place, which was shattered when he received his first daughter's diagnosis. A physician counseled him and his wife to institutionalize their daughter and "get on with the rest of their lives," but they decided to raise their daughter themselves. This decision forced them to reexamine their "ableist" bias.
Rev Carpenter points to many sources of this "ableist" bias. As he states, "In our individualistic society it is almost unpardonable not to be self-sufficient." When we provide wheelchair access or aids for hearing-impaired persons, we see this as a gift we give them, not as their right. We often see people who are less self-sufficient as inferior. In a similar fashion, people who are not seen as "productive" are dismissed as unworthy. Rev. Carpenter's second daughter, in spite of being deaf, and learning- and language-impaired became a dancer and a member of the company of the prestigious San Francisco Ballet. His daughter often wondered whether, if she didn't "produce" by dancing, she would have been "shunted aside" by society as the homeless people she saw in the streets of San Francisco.
The biases that relate to the "isms," such as racism, ageism, heterosexism, and classism, are thought by Rev. Carpenter to be so damaging because, as he puts it, they "diminish the possibilities of human experience and deny the dream of all human beings to live inclusively, within an interdependent web."
There is a further point that Rev. Carpenter makes in his article that is important to consider. He suggests that disabled persons confront us with our own fears of being broken and vulnerable in an "ableist" society. And when we are confronted by our fears and biases, we are uncomfortable. He talks of moving out of the "comfort zone."
Often we are not aware that we are in a comfort zone. We do not see that we are privileged to have access to all buildings, or privileged not to worry about how people will react to our sexual preference, or privileged to move into a new neighborhood without being shunned because of the color of our skin.
We invite you as members of this congregation to explore your "comfort zone" for the different "isms" and move out, as we have tried to do through this class. This can be done by participating in the Weaving the Fabric of Diversity class when it is next offered! And there are other ways. Task forces and groups in our church provide programs to explore such topics. As an example, I am part of the Community Against Racism Task Force and know we have two stimulating panel discussions and four films coming up in the next few months. On Monday, March 10 the first panel explores "The Most Segregated Hour of the Week - Our Nation's Church Services."
At a St. Lawrence UU district conference with the theme of diversity, held here at the church, I asked Rev. Mark Morrison-Reed, one of our few UU ministers of color, what we can do in our church to make it more welcoming to persons of color. After thinking awhile, he responded that what we could do is be, as individuals, receptive and accepting of diverse persons. At first, this may not seem to be as large a cause as that fought for by Susan B. Anthony or Frederick Douglass, but when you think about it, the goal is the same. We are aiming for inclusivity. Then, as Dr. Carpenter suggests in his article, when we are asked the question, "Who is welcome here?" we can answer, "You are."
Much time was spent in our Weaving the Fabric of Diversity class discussing sensitivities to various dimensions of diversity and brainstorming barriers in ourselves and in our church to welcoming diversity. The point was made that we should examine our strengths as well, recognizing that "We Are a Lovable and Capable Congregation." We generated a list of instances demonstrating that we DO welcome and CELEBRATE diversity; that we as a congregation are "walking the talk." I'd like to share this list with you.
We have a number of Process or Program activities for welcoming individuality and diversity. Some of these are:
We have several task forces or activities such as:
One point about the hearing loop - sometimes persons with strong voices feel that they don't need a microphone. We urge all to use the microphone, however, since usefulness of the hearing loop depends on it. We feel the congregation can be proud of the steady progress made in these areas. Yet there is much still to do. We invite you to help identify and implement continuing opportunities to welcome and celebrate diversity.
Most of the activities and facility improvements that help welcome diversity were supported by the church budget, as well as by efforts of persons in the congregation. Please recognize these and other accomplishments through generous support of our Annual Church Canvass. We are growing toward the future! And, unlike attempts to define the real impact of much of our income tax payments, it's an opportunity to gain sure feedback related to the value of our contributions. We hope we've provided some of that feedback today. Thank you.
The central task of the religious community is to unveil the bonds that bind each to all. There is a connectedness, a relationship discovered amid the particulars of our own lives and the lives of others. Once felt, it inspires us to act for justice.It is the church that assures us that we are not struggling for justice on our own, but as members of a larger community. The religious community is essential, for alone our vision is too narrow to see all that must be seen, and our strength too limited to do all that must be done. Together, our vision widens and our strength is renewed.
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