This week I went down to our history room in the basement, to learn more about the ghosts who haunt and float through our history. I was hitting on the headliners, our famous folk, and instead a sideliner mesmerized me.
Rowena Morse Mann was the wife of our second minister–Newton Mann. Her great claim to fame–indeed by association OUR great claim to fame–was that Rowena was the first woman ever to receive a Ph.D. in the entire world!! In 1900 she was told by Harvard University that they would consider making an exception to their no women admitted policy but only if she sat behind a screen to listen to the lectures. This screen would hide her from the apparently sensitive and easily distractible male student body. But this wasn't even letting her into the Ph.D. program; they were only agreeing to let her listen in. So she sought out other opportunities.
She went to Germany, and petitioned to be admitted to the University of Jena, but she tacked on to her own application the ability for any woman to enter as a Ph.D. candidate. She not only had to petition the university but also ended up having to present her case to the Ministry of Education of the German Empire to ultimately decide upon her request.
Soon enough she was admitted as a candidate for a Ph.D. with a certain provisional qualification. They would agree to her study if she became the test case. If she could show an "incontestable philosophical ability, and if the thesis were able and authoritative" then the university would be open to all women who qualified for entrance. However, her exams would be most thorough, covering four or five days and her thesis would be read by the entire department. But Rowena responded to the pressure and took up the challenge. After three years she took her oral examination, and here is how she explained the event:
"I entered the room and found 60 instructors and officials seated around a big table, with nothing to do but watch me, while four men gave the tests. On the table was a large bottle of wine and one glass. A professor asked if I would not like a little wine before starting, I replied, 'I thank you–no–I am an American and do not drink wine.' They looked surprised and a little amused, then one said politely, 'I will give you twenty minutes in which you may discuss as you please the various methods by which philosophical problems may be approached.'" The test lasted five hours.
She passed the exam summa cum laude, opening the university to women and earned her Ph.D.
So Rowena's story certainly grabbed me, but I've been wrestling with why? Why did it hook me so? And I've come to the conclusion that I think it has to do with her battle with culture. And the powerful way in which her story screams out that we are capable of being so much more than our culture allows or wants us to believe. Her life hits on that popular quote you've likely heard before but bears repeating by Mary Anne Williamson, that Nelson Mandela used in his inaugural speech.
"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us most. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and famous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that people won't feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in all of us. And when we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."
Yet as I hear that quote again, I'm not so sure we are afraid of our light, but that it is hard to actualize our power on our own. We talk each week about living and loving boldly here, and we say that boldness has genius and power and magic in it, yet what we don't always stress I think is that the magic ingredient that enables boldness –is community. And so I realized that I'm not just grateful for how this community calls me to live and love boldly but how it makes it possible. Possible by lifting up values, messages and aspirations that are so darn different than what our culture puts out there for us.
And here is where those headliners come back into the picture, because they remind us of and embody those counter-cultural values that haunt this community.
So I'll start with our most famous ghost. Susan B Anthony.
She was not a minister, or prophet or on the board of trustees, she was a parishioner here for almost 40 years. Now I know you know most of the stories of her about trying to get the vote for women, but the one that captivates me the most is her efforts to get the University of Rochester to admit women.
In 1900 Rochester didn't have a university open to women, though with Miss Anthony's constant nudging they were beginning to yield to her determined efforts. Pretty much they said, "Well you want women here, you're gonna have to raise the money to prove not only that there are others think it is a good idea, but honestly it will cost of a lot more to take on female students, so you've got to raise 100,000 dollars, we'll give you 2 years. If you can do that, back to the board and we'll talk about this seriously." Now it wasn't Miss Anthony herself who was charged with this but a group of women who said they could pull off the charge, and they set about the task. Ms. Anthony was trying to keep herself out of it as she saw herself as being too controversial, too political. Turns out a few day or so before the 100,000 was due, the women had only raised about 40,000 and had already gone back to the board asking for an extension. No extension they said, but we'll drop it to $50,000. Miss Anthony was just back in town and in finding out that they were $10,000 or so short, she was devastated. And thus, in one day very early she set out to gather about $8,000 in funds on a day that folks describe as having been a "hellishly hot day of frantic fundraising." She met with her acquaintances, her friends, and her minister here at the church, William Gannett, and her fellow parishioners obtaining pledges. Now remember, this woman was in her 80's by this time, being driven around in a buggy in 80 plus degree heat, with a stiff corset chaining her body to her clothes. This was not a fun filled day. Obviously, there was a certain amount of passion and drive behind her efforts.
By the end of the day, she had raised the requisite $8,000 to fulfill the board's request and went to meet with the board. They tried of course to derail her efforts, by looking at one of the pledges for income and saying it was quite clear that this one particular donor might not be able to pay. Thus "Miss Anthony, you are $2,000 short." To which she met their challenge full on, undoubtedly wiping the sweat from her brow with an embroidered hanky, and offered up her own $2,000 life insurance policy in the pledge's stead.
It is said that all through the next day Sunday, she knew something was going wrong, and indeed she was feeling sleepy. So sleepy that she was not able to connect her tongue to her thoughts. Then Monday morning arrived and she was determined to make it to the university to meet with the secretary of the board who would confirm whether or not the pledges had stood their legal examination. She got herself to the meeting and home, and wrote in her diary that day. "They let the girls in. He said there was no alternative."
The next day her sister found her unconscious. And she experienced a continuation of a series of small strokes from there on out and was never the same after that. [The quote and much of the text is from Harper, The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony, v.3, 1221-1226.]
So often Miss Anthony is seen as the symbol of women's equality, and as great as that is, it doesn't really get to what she's one of the most powerful symbols of–passion. She gave her life over to something. She found something she was so passionate about that she literally gave her life to it. I sometimes wonder if that's still an aspiration for us, to care so much about something, so much that you want to give your life over to it. Yet that is what her life beckons us to reveal and impart–it is her persistent haunting question. Her life's presence in our own, her phantom question is–What moves you so much that you are willing to give your life over to it?
Then there is the ghost of Newton Mann–Rowena's husband. Newton Mann served this church from 1870-1888. He came here after the civil war, having run the Western Sanitary commission–the equivalent of the Red Cross. Newton Mann was the first minister in the continental United States to embrace the theory of evolution as not being over and against religious truth or faith. He was an ardent and vehement lover of truth. This was a big deal, and one in which the first congregation he served in Kenosha Wis. was not really ready to hear, so he went to Troy, NY and then here. While he was here he found a community willing to bear witness to his "evolutionary" truth. Is it likely though that even here, he got hate mail for his outspoken nature? Yes. Was he invited to the local ecumenical gatherings with a lot of jeering or hushed whispers behind his back, I would guess so. But he kept speaking his hard truth because he had this community.
Which gets me to his phantom message and reminder. When you do pursue counter cultural messages, there are costs associated with them. If you follow the truth of your sexuality, or the truth of your religious beliefs, or the pain of letting go, most of us, won't do it unless we find another place, another community to catch us. Because often when you tell your truth, the cost is you must leave a community, or family unit. It is hard to say if Mann had been basically shut out of one Unitarian church after another, if he would have kept speaking the truth about religion and science being compatible, but somehow I doubt it. I think he would have felt worn down. MLK Jr. once said, that his voice was made possible by those few who wanted to listen to what he had to say. That highlights how singular iconic voices don't exist on their own, they need a community. Mann and King remind us that we can't do it alone, on a smaller level in our own personal lives, we too need a new community to expose our truth to, one that will embrace it, and realize the costs involved. Newton Mann knew this, he had experienced the costs, indeed his own family was seriously flummoxed by his message, so this church holding and embracing his message was critical to his outspoken truth. And if that is true for you, know deep in your being that the ghosts of this place are whispering to you, this is home, your home, here you will be welcomed, and heard.
The final ghost is more contemporary, and still living, so his presence among us is more a ghost of a past voice. If you took all the words that were spoken in this church, challenging hard words that ministers have dared to ask people to hear, Bob West easily for me, hands down spoke the hardest and perhaps the most important to hear. West was the minister here for four years in the mid 60's.
I found the words in a canvass sermon. In it, he didn't talk about money or pledge amounts or to tell people to dig deep in their pocket book, instead he asked everyone in the room–Do you want to be great? And then he went on and said (paraphrasing here) "I've heard people say this church is a great church. But they are saying that based on the past, on the ghosts here. On our laurels. And I'm saying to you, we don't get to use that language unless we are great, now in the present. Unless we earn it, with our service, with our dedication, with our caring, with our thinking, with our loving, with our truth telling. You have to earn it." he said.
Just 3 week ago, I have a son, who ran a 5:30 minute mile. Which is fast. But then I went to a meet of his and he ran like it was a day in the park, he waved at us, and joked during the meet and generally was having a good time but his time was, well let's just say, average. On one hand it is what I love about him running, he enjoys it, but I was taken aback later that night when he said, "Didn't I do great mom? Wasn't that wonderful?" And I found myself in a dilemma. I know that positive feedback from parents is what our children seek, they want our affirmation, but I gave instead, to this beautiful son of mine–The Mr. Conn speech. Mr. Conn was a piano teacher I had as a kid who was always telling me: "You can do such much better than what you are showing me Kaaren. So I'm not going to tell you that was excellent, unless I see excellent work. You've got it, so dig it up and show it!"
So last week, much to my sons' chagrin that was the speech he got. Basically I told him that I didn't really care if he ran cross-country for the fun of it. He was certainly entitled, and could do it just for the love of it, I would be perfectly happy with that. But if you decide that is more than that, when you have greatness in you, like a 5:30 mile, then I'm not going to tell you that you were great with an 8:00 mile at a meet. You can do the sport and I'll support you a hundred percent as a hobby, or you can live up to your greatness and I'll tell you with all my heart that you were wonderful. I'll tell you I'm proud of you. Then you've earned the greatness title. Given that you are capable of more–why not go for it? What a great ride it will be, what an amazing thing. Most people can't ever run like that, and you have that in you, why not actualize it, put the effort into it, and earn it. He sulked for a good half hour, and then came back and said, "Your right, I can do better, so I will." And you know what, he has.
It occurred to me while reading West's words that he was giving the Mr. Conn speech to the congregation. He was reminding us, of whom we could become.
It is often said that we must know our history in order to know who we are. But I think it is more than that, I think knowing our history also helps us see what we can become. History, especially our church history, expands not only our knowledge but also our imagination.
And maybe something else too. Scott and I watched this movie the other night, a surreal film with a couple of ghosts in it. One was a ghost new on the job, the other an old-timer ghost. The young one sat down beside the old ghost and said, "So we're about to go scaring right?" "Not scaring son, them people out there are asleep, even when they are walking around they are asleep, our job is to wake them up."
I've been thinking about that line all week while reading the history files in the basement. History is notorious for putting people to sleep. This week I found myself so grateful to be in a church whose history without question wakes me up. Wakes me up to not only what needs to be done and what can be done, but also to what we are doing. To set these ghost's hopes and challenges next to everything you all are doing, as a church is to make me realize that these ghosts of our past, would be awfully proud! You all, we all, are doing so much that I wonder sometimes if we are aware, if we are awake to it all of it. And how much it matters. It's no small thing to haunt the world, with the vision of another way. But that's our task. And I don't mean that in a cocky or condescending way, mostly it is a lot of work. As Anthony showed a lot of sacrifice, as Mann showed involves cost, as Rowena showed involves perseverance, and as West showed, a lot of striving. So yes, a lot of work, but also my friends a great privilege, a great privilege.
Amen.
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