Vivian Paley is a retired kindergarten teacher who writes about teaching. Paley tells of visiting a classroom where Teddy joins the class in his wheelchair on Fridays. Sometimes Teddy is in a car-like vehicle that he can maneuver around the classroom - but not today. Teddy is passive and withdrawn. He doesn't speak but he does communicate and the children in the class know it. Paley writes:
"Several children have dictated stories which they are about to dramatize with classmates.... Teddy's eyes open wide and his body begins to tremble. Pleading wordlessly, he reaches ... toward his teacher.
The child whose story is next tells the teacher Teddy needs his 'car' - 'Teddy wants to be in my story. Your little boy could be the puppy.' The adult says, 'It's too late, the little car is packed away.'
Teddy retreats into his wheelchair but other children are now crowded around. 'He wants to move by himself. We could bring in the car.' A look of astonishment spreads over Teddy's face. Can a boy in a padded helmet and wheelchair really have friends who need him in their stories? A girl takes Teddy's hand. 'Pretend you're the puppy and you didn't learn to walk yet.' So Teddy is in the story.
"To give someone a role to play, like a puppy who hasn't learned to walk, is akin to offering new life to a wandering soul." In the telling and retelling, we make WITNESS to these spiritual moments.
Leaving the classroom, a curious notion entered her mind. When God promised Abraham not to destroy the wicked cities of Sodom and Gomorrah if even ten righteous people could be found, how differently the biblical tale might have ended had Abraham searched in this classroom.
Two weeks later Mrs. Paley is in a California 4th grade class, and she tells them about Teddy. From the moment she begins to describe him, a silence descends. When they hear the teacher wouldn't bring in the car, the whole class registers disappointment.
"Those are nice kids," someone says and Manuel whispers, "I love Teddy." Then, in a louder voice, "If I was in that school, I'd get Teddy his car, even before anyone could stop me." "Me, too," says Luis, but alters the course. "Sometimes people isn't that nice."
Lucy calls out. "You don't act that way! Everyone remembers, huh? When I came last year and didn't know English? Luis told me everything the teacher said, everything!" Paley reports she couldn't mask her own excitement: 'This is what happened to my mother almost 90 years ago!'" That her mother spoke no English when she came to the U.S. from Russia but another girl translated everything into Yiddish for her and then back into English.
Then Luis asks the question that shifts the conversation more deeply. "Don't you tell mean stories too? Because lots of times we're mean." A girl nods, "Sure, around here is mostly mean. ....But anyway, I like good stories better, like Teddy and your mother. Carmelita! Tell her about Jimmy, okay? About your knee." Jimmy has been sitting in the back, not been participating, humming to himself and getting up and down to look out of the window.
Carmelita raises her voice, making sure Jimmy can hear. '"See, one time he was running around yelling, he does that sometimes, and he pushed me down." Jimmy looks up from the back to watch. "So then Jimmy started really crying and he took me to the teacher and he kept saying he was sorry and when it was lunch he gave me his Twinkie." Carmelita beams at Jimmy. "I'm telling about a good thing you did."
Luis is waving his hand. "Don't you know any bad stories?" and Harry pops into Paley's mind. She tells the 4th graders a story about Harry. In her mind she remembers the moment more graphically: grabbing and pushing for the blocks he coveted, hot tears steaming up his glasses, his epithets left her shaking. 'Leave this be, you f...ing idiots! I can do it for my own self.'" "But that isn't all about Harry," she goes on with the class. "He did make us happy. He'd draw pictures of animals running so fast they seemed to fly."
Jimmy (the boy who has been sitting in the back) is suddenly at Paley's side, tugging her sleeve. "Is that the little kid - the one that fights - said that?" She nods and he careens toward his seat, bumping into two chairs as he goes. Paley stares after him, startled by the gift he has given her, the gift of listening to her story and responding to it.
"Jimmy, wait! One more thing about Harry. You'll want to hear this." Jimmy reverses himself in mid-stride. One day, as usual, I was furious with him. He'd been racing down the hall and I was yelling at him to come back, even though I'd promised myself never to do that anymore. Suddenly, he stops in front of a boy sitting on a bench near a classroom. It is Martin, someone Harry fights with all the time. Fourth-grader Jimmy stands before Mrs. Paley, stock-still, concentrating on her story. Harry asked Martin why he was sitting there but Martin wouldn't answer.
"That kid was punished," one fourth-grader says and Jimmy seems alarmed. Paley wonders if she has chosen the wrong story but it is too late to stop. "Yes, I'm sure he was, but I thought Harry might punch him for not answering so I grabbed his hand, criticizing him all the way back to the room." Harry waited for me to finish, then asked, "Why is Martin on that bench?" I told him Martin must have done something to make his teacher really angry. Harry snapped his head up at me, his eyes huge and frightened. "So he has to sit alone in the hall? You do that?"
Then he did something remarkable. He ran to the snack table, snatched up his share, two oatmeal raisin cookies, and was down the hall before I could say, "Don't run!" A few minutes later he was back, without the cookies, laughing and punching the air. "Hey, guess what Martin said?' 'Hey, man!' That's what he said, and Harry was laughing like anything. 'Hey, man!' That's what he told me!"
Here is a victory for goodness, Paley writes, for connectedness to other people. "We gain a new perspective on the struggle to overcome loneliness and fear."
PRESS RELEASE: Heaven has confirmed that its mainframes, used to tally sins, are not Y2K compliant. And December 31, 1999 is Judgment Day. Most souls will actually be judged and processed on January 1, 2000. Currently, Heaven's computers will interpret that as January 1, 1900.
"This could create serious complications." reports Saint Peter. "Our systems will think that people have died and ascended BEFORE they were even born. It will be impossible to determine their state of grace."
This is not the first time Heaven has let an important deadline slip. The Apocalypse was originally scheduled for the end of the previous millennium. Millions of people huddled in fear in churches, but the event had to be scrapped completely. Parchment and quill accounting methods proved inadequate. "We had hoped that computer technology would, pardon the pun, be our saving grace this time around," stated Saint Peter. The Y2K conversion has been a painstakingly slow process. One angel (who requested anonymity) commented, "There is just no way we can pull this whole Judgment Day thing off."
Universalists and Unitarians may be winning the race to Judgment Day, but I doubt it will happen in any way similar to the scenario just described.
Author of the book The Kindness of Children, Vivian Gussin Paley, Jewish by heritage, Kindergarten teacher by calling, also believes in the possibility of winning the race to Judgment. She long acted on this belief in the classroom, particularly by helping children write, tell and act out their stories. Now, she teaches teachers how to do this work and, in this book, teaches us all how to make sense of the deeper power and meaning of stories and their telling--and re-telling. It is a quite Universalist point-of-view. Stories, she believes, have the power to help us recognize wholeness and kindness in ourselves, in others and in the world.
Beyond that, I believe such stories of how we treat one another help us know how to teach, preach and live out our wholeness. Salvation, as our Universalist tradition understands it. Salvation understood as coming into wholeness and belonging to everyone.
Remarkably, nineteenth century Universalist affirmation of the human person as inherently loved by God grew over the last two hundred years in nearly every Christian denomination. Emphasis on God's wrath waned. What does Universalism have to offer now? -- To keep saying it and living it.
One UU minister tells a story of coaching her daughters' softball teams. Over a family meal just this last spring, her young-adult daughters recalled a game when their team was losing by a thousand runs, at least and a kid on the 'other' team made a truly great hit. The daughters remembered that 'their' team cheered in response. And, they remembered that after the game, their coach (their mother) told the girls she had never been prouder of any team than when they cheered for the others. They showed they understood that it is wonderful when anyone achieves something good, even if it doesn't help 'our' team, and that it is perfectly okay to lose. One of the daughters said this was one of her best memories. She wondered if the gunmen in Littleton, Colorado had ever heard it was okay to lose.
I wonder if other Littleton, Colorado students, teachers and administrators ever heard that it is acceptable when any one of us lives out our vision of ourselves, even when it doesn't fit 'our' team's expectations?
Since the killings in Littleton, Colorado, after a year and more of such violence in other schools, and a decade or more before that of violence in urban schools -- invisible to too many in this country -- we have endured, we have grieved, we have raged and blamed. We have blamed so many quarters of our culture and we have blamed Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, most of all. Responsible as they are, to be brought before judgment in what ways are left to us, I find I cannot condemn either of these young men who have broken so many hearts, believing that I can do no less than what is sacred to do. In the days after the Littleton tragedy, a fourteen-year-old posted a note on a UU chat saying what I couldn't yet articulate:
April 21, 1999 Alexis, age 14, Dallas, Oregon
I don't know exactly what I'm driving at, or what I want us to accomplish, but I think that over all it's all going to come down to tolerance, acceptance, and understanding -- with parents, teachers, co-workers, fellow students, the government, the girl next door, and that scary kid in black. "For after all, we are they."
What does it mean to know that? "For after all, we are they?" Does it mean there is no moral responsibility? - no meaning to evil? - no boundaries, accountability, no meaningful love of one's neighbors? Some of us have been concerned about such questions. My answer is that it is BECAUSE we are called to do what is sacred, our part to keep the web whole -- including those who commit evil -- that moral responsibility, evil, judgment, boundaries, accountability and the love of one's neighbors has lasting and whole meaning.
The web's wholeness demands we acknowledge that "we are they" and daily mend and tend the web. This is our unique Universalist task and call toward salvation, toward wholeness available and known by all. It is here in the complicated effort of sustaining and reweaving, holding a place...in the web even for those who do evil, responding to the mean stories Luis knew in his own life -- holding a place for all among the threads that make the web -- wherein lies the real salvific work of our Universalist tradition. Complex as it is to work out the "how," I know it is here where wholeness -- where salvation -- is possible at all. Universalism proclaims that each thread in the web has inherent worth and dignity, is integral to the web's integrity and wholeness.
But many in our culture are not so sure anymore. Universalist ideas that have so suffused our culture in the last hundred years are being turned back by some, perhaps out of anger and fear; certainly, from my point of view, mistakenly. More states have re-instated capital punishment and are using it more often. Prison sentences are longer and more often immutable. Schools have instituted zero-tolerance policies that leave no room at all for circumstance and hope.
With this kind of thinking, would Harry or Jimmy or Martin have had a chance at all? What these children did in the stories they told to Mrs. Paley, how they healed one another, is what 14-year-old Alexis said is true. For after all, "we are they." It is what Universalism offers. A recognition that in the "we-are-they" approach -- we see ourselves in others and they in us.
First Unitarian Church lives out that reality powerfully in its commitment to schools in Rochester: the books, the mittens, the tutoring, the laughter, the playground - in every Task Force at work. For after all, "we are they." All of us are in this web. We are called to receive and take on our moral responsibility - 'response-ability' to all children. And it requires challenging, never-ending effort.
I want to do something different in the sermon at this point. I want us to spend a minute holding ourselves open to the possibilities in Universalist salvific power, the difficulty in doing this work and the emotional intelligence we need to know we can. I want you to listen for the beating of your heart. When you find yourself distracted, draw yourself back, resist mentally, kicking yourself for being distracted, for not listening perfectly. So, if you'll close your eyes for a few seconds, listen for the beating of your heart. When you wander off, go to yourself and gently, even playfully, draw yourself back to listening to your heart. Envision yourself the loving, patient, caring, playful person who draws you back. Listen to your heart.....................THANK YOU
Vivian Paley writes of a time when she felt the pain of having failed her calling, to listen deeply to people's stories and respond. A time when she was distracted from her heart and from the wholeness she knows in the beating of every human heart. She writes of disclosing that failed moment to her mother, who listened deeply. Her mother was suddenly excited and said she must find a passage in the Torah. "Make some coffee, Vivian, this may take a while." It is a passage from Deuteronomy for which she searches.
"For this commandment which I command this day, it is not too hard for you, neither is it far off. It is not in heaven that you should say, 'Who shall go up to heaven, and bring it to us, and make us to hear it, that we may do it?'..... But the word is very near to you, in your mouth, and in your heart, that you may do it." (Deut. 30: 11-14)
Vivian's mother is a Universalist! She sees her daughter distracted from her heart. She doesn't chastise her for it. Through the Torah text she quietly draws Vivian back to her heart. There are Rabbinic commentaries in her mother's Torah and Vivian reads there that what we are called to do is not somewhere outside the world we know and have right here. It is found and lived, the commentary says, in "the sphere of ordinary life...." Vivian makes a cardboard sign for her desk that says, "IT IS NOT IN HEAVEN."
Teddy's story reminds us, young children know this --- IT IS HERE. We too often teach our children, out of their 'response-ability,' to be kind to themselves and to others. It is not in heaven; it is here in the ordinary sphere of life, in the cradle of the interdependent web. It is here where we will find salvation -- wholeness, "For after all, we are they," the threads of the web, in the ordinary sphere of life.
Our Universalist heritage itself draws us back when we are distracted by so many things of life, by feeling bad about not doing it right, about not doing enough or well enough. Our Universalist heritage says there is 'response-ability' and that it is here where we are to work it out. Calling ourselves back to our hearts, out of our distractions in love can only call us back to attention in good humor ready to recognize and respond to the beating of other hearts. Like Luis did for Lucy, and Masha did for Vivian's mother 90 years ago; or Harry for Martin, and Jimmy for Carmelita, and she in return.
Ghandi said, "Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it."...When we are distracted from our work, when we distract ourselves when the work is hard, and we are tired and dispirited because what we know we can do will be insignificant. When we wish to wish the work we have to do away, may we remember to call ourselves back gently and patiently to our hearts. It is not in heaven on some other day; it is here, right now. For after all "we are they," balanced and woven into the web--the ordinary sphere of life--each with inherent worth and dignity, stories to tell and 'response-abilities' to give to others.
Recognizing our connection to every other, knowing that what is good and right and true is here, then living in that direction, is the way to salvation, to WHOLENESS. May we go forward from this day in hope, believing it so and living it to the rhythm of the beating of our hearts.
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