At the checkout lines at the grocery, at a toll booth, visiting at the hospital, I see people with wristbands and necklaces saying WWJD?" "What would Jesus Do?" I found myself regularly thinking, "Not what you think he'd do!"
When I read feminist Christian ethicist Beverly Wildung Harrison's work, and other scholars, I see an understanding of the life and work of Jesus that would have these "WWJD?" folks overturning tables at WalMart, the NYSE and Blue Cross Blue Shield, et al. They would be looking for justice. They would not likely be focusing on pious proclamations and what happens to us after we're dead.
Every day that he was living, it seems, was important to the man Jesus, as scholar Beverly Harrison understands him -- that every day we have to stand and live, and love the people we love so they know it, and, perhaps, to see God there.
We Unitarian Universalists do well understand the promise of joy, the call to justice and the meaning of the gift of life, to love each other every day and to extend our connection beyond our own familial borders - to see God everywhere. We Unitarian Universalists seem to easily know the answer to "WWUUD?" Even though our UU Principles and Purposes are not a creed -- are not the whole story of what we are about. We see much in them of what we value and where we better hold our end of the relationship with life. Our Principles and Purposes help us because human beings need reminders at least once in awhile as to what it is we are doing here, and why. I seem to need such reminders every day.
I like, a lot, what Alta Gery says in her book The Shameless Hussy, Essays and Poetry about our work in this world, as I think it says a lot of what our Principles and Purposes mean, and what work we would mean by bracelets and necklaces reading "WWUUD?" "What would Unitarian Universalists Do?"
Gery writes, "One hesitates to bring a child into this world without fixing it up a little -- paint a special room -- stop sexism -- learn how to love -- vow to do it better than it was done when you were a baby -- vow to make, if necessary, new mistakes -- vow to be awake for the birth -- to believe in joy even in the midst of unbearable pain."
Many feelings come my way that I do not wish to feel: betrayal, loss, despair. When I feel these, I have a hard time vowing to do anything better, have a hard time being awake and "in joy even in the midst of unbearable pain."
But then there are moments when the power of possibility overcomes me. Fighting for the best that can be takes over and a great wrestling of resolution toward a better future begins. An urge begins that stirs up from my belly and grows as it rises until, in its emergence from deep in my throat, there is a mighty roar that rolls as far as sound and hope can carry. I stand trembling in that passion, and its reverberations. The roar is not enough. I must move and act and create change.
We begin with the urge and the passion. We hear the voice. Remarkable, these possibilities AND we must move and act. We must create change. "WWUUD?" Move, act, create change.
But there are the days of despair, and I am not sure, I do not know, sometimes, from where my next step will come.
Note that the bracelets that some Christians wear do not say, "WWID?" "What would I do?" rather, "What would Jesus do?" These Christians point to Jesus, not as a man doing, but as God in the world. The bracelet tells us that what the question of what I would do has no meaning in the face of what God would do. So, maybe I don't even want a bracelet that says "WWUUD?" Maybe I want a bracelet that says, "WWID?" And not meaning "What would I do?" but "What will I do?" Or maybe - "How the Hell am I going to do anything!?"
Do not doubt that we will be wounded in our efforts, when we respond to the question, "What will I do?"
Those of you familiar with the Hebrew Bible will remember the story of Jacob at the Jabbok wrestling with God all night. Jacob would not let go, would not give up. He sought a blessing, and that he received. A blessing and a new name. And his hip out of joint so that Jacob limped the rest of his days. A wound and his blessing.
We human beings tend to do a lot of talking and a lot of talk about talking. We dialogue. It is hard to get into the response: the doing. It isn't enough. We enter dialogue IN ORDER to enter the deeper arena of struggle and possibility where transformation takes place.
One of my favorite books is a conversation between two tremendous activists of the twentieth century: educator Paulo Friere of South America and Highlander School founder Myles Horton. The book is called We Make the Road By Walking. Jacob didn't just lean against a tree and chat with God. Paulo Friere and Myles Horton didn't just talk to each other through their lives. For example, Rosa Parks says that on that day in 1955 she "just wanted to go home" when she refused to give up her seat. Like her action
and the boycott and the energy of the civil rights movement that swelled in the wake of her action was an accident. But only months earlier, Rosa Parks had been at the Highlander School. She had learned about justice making and nonviolent resistance from Miles Horton.
Jesus and Jacob, Friere, Horton, Rosa Parks, and many of you here, have made the road by walking, have answered the question, "WWID?" "What will I do?" by doing, walking, shaping the world and being grittily in it.
I have loved knowing that about you and being in the midst of such commitment. The deeper arena of life occurs where passion meets fortitude and fire. Transformation occurs in engaged and active power and empowerment. Passion, a voice, ready action, participation. How do we know "WWUUD?" "WWID?"
For me, it comes together in the principle at the end of the list, that we are to engage in "Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part." The interdependent web of which I am a part, extends farther than I am easily able to go sometimes. It's a lovely statement, poetic. But it's a hard statement to live -- to walk, to "do."
There were times during that particularly horrible debacle in MY White House, that rage wanted to extend a mighty hand from me and wipe them all off the web. Don't mess in the integrity of MY web; don't mess in my White House. Sometimes, before I step out, I better consult a moral guideline. Something to help me hold the web in its wholeness.
Unitarian Jane Addams wrote, in Ethics and Democracy, in 1902:
"We are learning that a standard of social ethics is not attained by traveling a sequestered byway, but by mixing on the thronged and common road where all must turn out for one another, and at least see the size of one another's burdens. To follow the path of social morality results perforce in the temper if not the practice of the democratic spirit, for it implies that diversified human experience and resultant sympathy which are the foundation and guarantee of Democracy."
What Jane Addams proclaims will NOT let me swipe a mighty hand to wipe people off the web. Following a path of social morality implies, she says, the diversity of human experience and what she insists is a "resultant sympathy" -- these the foundation and guarantee of democracy. A rule of living, a test of faith. A necessary practice, in all of life, not just in the practice of democracy, not just in the White House, but good grief, there, too!
Her words point me to those UU Principles which read, "The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process;" and, "justice, equity, and compassion in human relations," "the inherent worth and dignity of every person," the goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all."
So the interdependent web is, alone, insufficient for me as a moral guideline.
To find the strength and courage to step out on the road I am making by my walking -- by my doing -- I find much to sustain me in our Principles and Purposes.
George Pickering University of Detroit religious ethicist, and birthright Unitarian said in 1987:
"...Cultivating the virtues and articulating the grounds necessary for a flourishing democratic community is the high calling of liberal religion. Other forms of religion may benefit from liberal democracy. Their freedom to say, think, believe and associate as they will is protected.... But liberal religion has a special calling...: to promote its virtues and not simply to take advantage of them. By its virtues, I mean the excellences that can arise from the exercise of...: reason or thinking; conscience or self-respect; self-initiation; association; consent; and political interaction; in short, the god-given rights."
Perhaps the meeting of two on a park bench, sharing cupcakes and root beer.
James Luther Adams -- twentieth century Unitarian public theologian said much the same as Pickering: "religious liberalism holds the resources for making meaningful change -- which justifies an attitude of ultimate optimism."
Ah, I needed that Dr. Adams: "religious liberalism holds the resources for making meaningful change -- which justifies an attitude of ultimate optimism." Maybe not right now in the midst of this particular mess (whatever mess at the time) or despair, but holding on to our values and hope keeping in the throng of community and work (talk and walk!) of justice-making is ultimately a source of optimism.
Adams also affirmed a cluster of principles, which those who have studied his work call, "The Five Smooth Stones of Religious Liberalism." These Five Smooth Stones take me more deeply into the meaning, the message and the consequence of really taking on "WWUUD?" or "WWID?"
Life is difficult and it's worth the trouble.
We need the challenge and call of Adams' "Five Smooth Stones". I need them. Called and offered from the deep reaches of my own passionate possibility, lived out (by talking and walking) with others and grounded in my religious heritage and hope. A religious heritage which James Luther Adams claims justifies an attitude of ultimate optimism.
A Nigerian Proverb speaks of such ultimate optimism: "Where one thing stands, another thing will always stand beside it."
May we stand together in our passion, our voices strong, our hands alive in the democracy and work of justice that can be. What would Unitarian Universalists Do? What will I do?
The words of W.E.B. Dubois:
The prayer of our souls is a petition for persistence; not for the one good deed, or single thought, but deed on deed, and thought on thought, until day calling unto day shall make a life worth living.
AMEN
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