I was furious. It was a Friday night, about a month ago. I broke a Date Night rule and fiddled with my phone on the way to the restroom. I scrolled through the news, and was horrified by what I read: travelers, refugees, even green card holders from 7 predominantly Muslim countries were immediately banned from entering the country. It seemed like our worst fears – echoes of the turning away of Holocaust refugees, of the Japanese internment – were coming true. And so I sauntered back to our table and tried to make nice conversation over a romantic dinner.

But I was a terrible date that night. Or at least, that’s what I’ve been told.

I felt angry and helpless. They were familiar feelings. I’d been feeling them pretty much since Election Night, when I told my wife that I thought that I should quit my job. That may not sound like a big deal, but for me it really was. I had dreamed since I was a teenager of being a civil rights lawyer, and that’s what I am today: I direct the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project, which means that I supervise our voting rights work around the country.

We’re not trying to help one party or another; we just believe that our democracy is best served when more people can participate in it. Between the 2012 and 2016 elections, we won 15 cases in 12 states protecting the voting rights of more than 5 million people. But despite all of our work – turnout was down in 2016. We might have undone some of the worst restrictions on voting, but whether people actually turn out and vote is not something we can control.

Taking off my ACLU hat and just speaking personally, I was angry – at people who didn’t show up to vote; at some of our family who voted for a candidate who normalized the demonization people on the basis of their religion and national origin; and mostly at myself for not doing more.

The day after the election, I stepped into an elevator full of paralegals and legal assistants, mostly in their 20’s. A colleague from our LGBT Rights Project put her arm around me and said, “thank you for everything you did.” And I broke down and started to cry. I pulled myself together and, as I stepped off of the elevator, I turned around and saw some of those 20-somethings wiping tears away from their eyes. And I thought: I let them down. I failed. Maybe it was time to hang it up.

The late civil rights lawyer and NYU law professor Derrick Bell provocatively wrote 25 years ago that “racism is an integral, permanent and indestructible component of this society.” That’s pretty radical, but oppression and systematic inequality along racial lines have always been a part of our history, since before we were even a nation. It’s always been one step forward, one step back. The gains of Emancipation and Reconstruction were wiped out by Redemption and a century of Jim Crow. The Civil Rights Movement was followed by the Era of Mass Incarceration. Why would we think that we are that much more enlightened than previous generations?

But, as you all know - the day after the Travel Ban was announced, something incredible happened. Protests materialized at airports around the country. And – I want to be clear that I had nothing to do with this – my colleagues at the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project sprang into action and, working with a number of other organizations, including the International Refugee Assistance Project (which shared offeratory last month), filed an emergency lawsuit to block the deportation of anyone subject to the Ban.

I was inspired, but I still felt helpless. I’m not an immigration or immigrants’ rights lawyer – what could I do? I was having not just a crisis of confidence in myself, but a crisis of faith. The Sixth Principle of Unitarian Universalism is “The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all.” Can I be much of a Unitarian while harboring doubt about whether such a world is even possible?

In arguing that racism is a permanent feature of American society,

The Journey Home - February 19, 2017 - First Unitarian of Brooklyn

Kevin Jagoe, Ministerial Intern

I have been looking for Home for most of my life.

I grew up in a small town in the Midwest where I was raised by my mother and grandmother. I occasionally saw my father and I had extended family of all sorts. I always had a home, as in a building where I slept and where the people who cared for me lived. We didn’t have much money, but we had enough to usually pay the bills, I didn’t go to bed hungry either. All of the material pieces of home were there. The relationship and emotional pieces of home were there too. However, I never felt like I fit into the story I was born into.

I remember being in elementary school and knowing I was different. Part of that difference was that I was in a nominally Christian family and didn’t believe in what I was told at church. I thought religiously I’d been dropped into the wrong family. Then there was the fact that I was gay. I didn’t know the words atheist or gay at that age. I knew that when people made negative remarks about people “like that” that I was in the group.

I was the brainy kid, the effeminate kid, the precocious kid. I was the weird kid that seemed to baffle everyone, including my family.

I also had an active imagination and inner life. This was fueled by books and toys and the world around me. But then I could refine that external world into what I wished for. It seemed that I was always on an adventure somewhere else. I remember making up stories about crews on space ships, bands of explorers in far-off lands, and all sorts of animals living in castles that could only exist in fairy tales.

A theme of so many of these stories was the search for something or the building of something together. I always had places for my characters to live together. Inside the spaceship, in the treetops at night while adventuring, and comfy places inside the stone walls of those castles. They were always creating and journeying towards something I didn’t really name at the time. That something could be called “Home.”

I had pieces of home, but was looking for a deeper sense of it. Perhaps I was searching for an inner sense being at home in who I was. Something that is connected to safety, comfort, joy, trust, belonging, and community. So many of the things that are found in religious community and family when they are at their best. 

What I want us to think about this morning is what is a Home? What makes up Home for you? I’ve lived in houses, apartments, dorm rooms, attics, three-season porches all sorts of spaces. When I think about Home, I do picture the first house I remember as that child sorting out who he was without the right words. As I’ve thought more and more about Home, I also picture people. It is comprised of geographies, languages, certain phrases, smells, tastes, and feelings. Home is a sensory experience and an emotion. Home is relationships and memories. A place where both gladness and sorrow can occur.1

Home is not a singular place where I receive mail. Rather, home is where those people who hold my heart are. My sense of homecoming is tied to those who have loved me into being who I am today. Paradoxically the more people I care about, the more Home I experience in the world. Like a series of roots that ground me. So perhaps the expression home is where the heart is could be rearticulated to Home is where my hearts are.

A New Yorker article last year explored a finalist for the Oxford Dictionaries’ word of the year: Hygge (Hue-gah). Hygge (Hue-gah), is a Danish word that doesn’t quite translate into English but is often compared to the word “cozy.” It is also related to the Norwegian word Hugga (Ho-gah) which means “to comfort.” This became the word “hug” in English. While Hygge (Hue-gah) has been brought to Americans attention, it is often used to describe pleasure derived from comforts like warm socks and yummy foods on cold nights.2 I think that is part of it,

All of Us, Part 1 - Kevin Jagoe, Ministerial Intern

 Rebellions are built on hope.

You have seen images of this amazing community this morning and soon you will hear from several of our members. Classes taught, youth group activities, worship services, choir performances, our spectacular building that holds so much of this. And so many images of us out in the world, putting our values into action. Proclaiming our message of hope all around Brooklyn and New York, Washington, and places around the country. We’ve walked, taken trains, marched, bussed, and flown to show up for our audacious vision of a world where love wins.

Religious communities are built on hope too. When people first step through our doors, they are hoping for something. Maybe that something cannot even be named yet. A few words that have been named are:

Connection. Family. Community. Love. Healing. Lament. Justice. Laughter. Hope.

We have a community where we do not need to name the same sources of inspiration. We do not need to have the same things guiding our inner lives. This is the product of a radical change in how those who came before us thought about religion.

What holds us together is the call to hope, to love, and to action. We Unitarian Universalists are defined by what we do as much as what we say. And we love words, but we are at our best when they move us to action.

That is what I’ve seen as I’ve joined you here at First Unitarian Society. A community that celebrates in worship on Sundays, learns together throughout the week, helps one another when called upon, and raises inspiring children and young people. And you love a good protest! You also set goals and make them happen. Time and time again.

I have been honored to hear your stories. I’ve heard so many people this fall and winter say that this place, this community, has helped make meaning out of the chaos of this election. People have been inspired to do things they didn’t think possible.

While we are literally in a Sanctuary this very moment. I think the true power of First Unitarian is to help keep us going the rest of the week. To create a sense of Sanctuary within us. For those times we need to know there are others out there who believe in the world we believe in.

It is through the connections formed here, in this place, that a sense of Sanctuary is formed. Over time, moment layered on moment. This community is the center for so many of the relationships that hold us when we need to be held the most. And over time, it is through your support that this place of hope is possible.

One way we support this place is financially. We are not about one protest, one Sunday, or one cause here. We are about the long haul and sustained action. For more than one hundred and eighty years we have passed the torch of liberal values from generation to generation. Through good times and bad, we’ve gathered together to support one another. I hope over the next six weeks of our stewardship campaign you will think about how to support First Unitarian. Now is the time to create our generation’s legacy.

Our task is to build this place, to create a hub to support living out the values we hold dear:

So that we can continue to show up to the next call for action,

And provide a sanctuary for renewal,

For each one of us today,

And to remember those who brought this place into being,

For the generations to come,

And to keep the rebellious spirit burning bright,

For All of Us. 

 

All of Us Generosity Testimonial By, Lee Pardee

My name is Lee Pardee.  I have been attending First U Brooklyn for over 30 years, and I currently serve as president of the Board of Trustees. 

I came to First U Brooklyn originally because I was having a hard time in my life.  Before I came I had a pretty bad opinion of church.  I thought it was for losers and people who were irrational.  I was pretty much an atheist, anti-church snob.  But I had heard about Unitarianism from a roommate and I walked in the door.

Real Sanctuary

Ana Levy-Lyons          

January 29th, 2017

First Unitarian, Brooklyn

 

The nausea that many of us are feeling these days is not because of the victory of one person or one political party. It is not about any one executive order or one bill in congress. It’s not only about the people who are already being harmed by acts of hate and fear today. It is, on a profound spiritual level, about the victory of an archetype that we all know deep in our gut. It’s the super-man, the monolithic white power, the deathless winner, the judge, the rapist. This archetype has manifested painfully in all of our lives in one way or another, including in the lives of the white men in this room: for some of us it’s our own father. For some it’s a boss, a relative, a bureaucrat, or a teacher. For some of us it’s a sexual assailant and for some it’s the Judeo-Christian God. It’s the voice in our head that says, “Who are you kidding? You’re never going to be able to make anything of yourself.” It’s the voice that says, “Stop sniveling. Boys don’t cry.” It’s the voice that says, “Shut up. You don’t get to talk here.”

Many of us have spent a lifetime struggling to break free from these figures in our psyches and our material lives. We have worked so hard to overcome them. We’ve carved out space for ourselves and others; we’ve tried to welcome crying and not crying. We’ve tried to love our bodies. We’ve tried to honor difference, to embrace vulnerability, and to value nurturing. We’ve struggled to gain a financial foothold. We have cultivated compassion for ourselves and others, even in weakness, and we have found great strength there. And we’ve seen tiny signs in our world that a new consciousness might be taking hold. It has been a journey – empowering and affirming. We’ve known, of course, that we still have miles to go but the unbridled power of that archetypal figure seemed to be crumbling. And now it’s back, returning like our worst nightmares, recurring in our nightmares; back from the past like kryptonite, threatening to drain all our power.

This archetype manifests over and over again throughout history because it is built into the structure of our society; it’s a structure of dominance and submission, of winners and losers, those who belong and those who don’t. It’s woven into the fabric of our lives – of sports, of school, of physical looks, of physical ability, of the military, and most certainly of capitalism itself. The scourge of hierarchy and competition afflicts everything and everyone. Everything gets rated on a scale of 1-10. It’s soul crushing. Even someone at the top of the social pecking order – a strong, white, male, straight heroic soldier is a failure if he “gets captured;” a woman beautiful enough to be crowned Miss Universe is a failure if she gains weight; a well-respected journalist is a failure from the start because of his disability. Failure looms for everyone in the world of winners and losers. And so, it’s vital to remember that as heartbreaking as it is that the perpetual winner has won again, he who won – and I’m using “he” in the archetypal sense here – he who won is he who invented winning.

I believe, when we are at our best here at First Unitarian, we are writing a different game. We’re not just focused on winning one battle, but on a global transformation of consciousness, starting with the people in this room. We are guided by faith: our Unitarianism teaches that all of us are one – that we will never find salvation by building walls and keeping people out, but that we will find salvation together. Our Universalism teaches us that love in the universe is infinite and unconditional – that no one has to lose for someone else to gain; there is enough for everyone. Our Seven Principles teach that we each have inherent worth and dignity no matter what we look like, how much money we have, what our religion is, where we come from, or what we may accomplish.

One Sunday when I was about 10 years old, a group of us piled into a van and headed out into the misty forests of Oregon’s Pacific Coast Range. This event was supposed to be the most important spiritual moment of my life. It was the day I was to be taken into the river and baptized. I grew up in the charismatic pentecostal movement, and in some ways it was a very exciting way to spend a Sunday. Our family attended a church called, The Living Word Fellowship. Every Sunday, we would enter the church, into what was the equivalent of a shabby store front, file into folding chairs and over the course of the next hour or two enter into what seemed to be- a totally transcendent reality. We were the equivalent of Jedi Knights wielding the power of the Force in epic spiritual battles between good and evil. Through vibrant music.. (and that would be rock music).. the adults around me were often elevated into ecstatic states of prayer by speaking in tongues, and members of my congregation would often practice active faith healing with the laying on of hands. Our services would culminate in the people walking up front, hands raised, and as the preacher would touch their foreheads they would fall to the ground, having been “slain in the spirit”. And this wasn’t just on special occasions, this was Every. Single. Sunday. In some ways, these experiences created within me a deep connection to a greater mystery and faith, that as a young kid growing up in a “spirit filled” community, made me feel like anything was possible, and we were all empowered to change our realities. Well. I could also go on and on about how experiencing this form of religion growing up was at times scary, and the dogmas attached to this tradition were often hurtful and at times harmful. At the same time, these experiences have informed me and made me who I am today. I have begun to uncover, just how much these spiritual roots have shaped me.. and as it turns out, in ways the authorities in my church may not have intend. That day as we traveled to the river together, I had many questions. Baptism, I was told, was an act of obedience symbolizing the burial of the old life and the resurrection of a new life and walk in Christ Jesus. So of course, I was filled with anticipation.. Remember, we all believed anything was possible- for all I knew the clouds would part, angels would descend, and Jesus himself would pat me on the head and give me some sort of light-saber. Well, as I stepped into the water; I made my way to the leaders of the church where I was prayed over and then fully immersed into rushing the waters of the Wilson River… and as I emerged.. I felt…. well, COLD. It wasn’t the exactly experience I had been hoping for, but I had faith, that in some unseen ways- I was made new. Now. A few short years later. In 1992. A measure was introduced to the Oregon State legislature that would go on to divide my home state of Oregon in historic ways. Ballot Measure 9 was a legislation in hate that’s sole purpose was to strip the civil rights of the LGBTQ community. BTW, If you haven’t heard about this measure, there’s really good documentary I’d recommend titled “Ballot Measure 9”. This measure being passed would have added the following text to the Oregon State Constitution: “All governments in Oregon may not use their monies or properties to promote, encourage or facilitate homosexuality or pedophilia. All levels of government, including public education systems, must assist in setting a standard for Oregon's youth which recognizes that these behaviors are abnormal, wrong, unnatural and perverse and they are to be discouraged and avoided.” In short, this measure would criminalize the LGBTQ community, and it’s introduction incited wide-spread violence, division and fear. Neighbors, families, and communities- were pitted against one another. Oregon descended into a very dark time in it’s history. In fact, along with a rash of vandalism,

It was a strange and historic moment one morning in 1995 when a large white truck pulled into Yellowstone National Park carrying eight Canadian wolves. This shipment of wolves had been for years the focal point of explosive political battles and the stuff of dreams for wildlife biologists. And, after many false starts and almost-dashed hopes, the day had finally arrived. Nobody knew what exactly would happen. This had never been tried before. One of the biologists’ fears was realized right away: when they released the pack, the alpha couple, a male and a female who was pregnant, immediately headed north and crossed out of the park, trying to head home to Canada. The male got shot by a rancher, illegally. But the rangers eventually found the female and the pups and returned them to the safety of the park. That couple and those pups are the ancestors of most of the wolves in Yellowstone today.

 

Wolves are the heroes of this story that Meagan told earlier – and it’s a true story. Wolves had been hunted to eradication in Yellowstone by 1930 and for almost 70 years there were no wolves in the park. During that time, the health of the ecosystem and many species had declined. The trees and bushes around waterways had gotten munched down to nothing; the beavers didn’t have good materials to make their dams and so they weren’t doing so well, numbers of fish and animals that live in the water had dropped dramatically. Birds of all kinds were struggling. Really only the elk were good with the situation. When the wolves came back, just as Meagan described, one by one plants and other animals began to bounce back as well. Even the elk increased, they just hid more in the deeper forests and didn’t hang out snacking by the lakes and rivers so much. And the rivers themselves changed shape – they became deeper and faster flowing, with more estuaries that support wildlife and more sharply defined banks because of better soil that was eroding less. The wolves brought back life to the earth.

 

This story had another hero too: the scientists. The biologists who dreamed this up had the courage and the vision and the strength of their convictions to create the possibility for this extraordinary chain of events. They tipped the first domino and nature took care of the rest. Today’s story is part of this year’s series called Six Stories of Humans and the Earth. We are exploring the relationship between humans and the earth through each of the six Unitarian Universalist sources. The source of this story is “Humanist teachings which counsel us to heed the guidance of reason and the results of science, and warn us against idolatries of the mind and spirit.” This rebirth of Yellowstone through the predation of the wolves was, above all, a triumph of science over the idolatries of the mind and spirit, idolatries in this case being superstitions and fears.

 

Biologists had long known that wolves were a vital missing link in the Yellowstone ecosystem. They had long studied the impact of losing an important predator from the food chain. And they had analyzed in other places the importance of top-level predators – a cascade of positive impacts that maintain an entire ecosystem in health and balance. So in the late 80’s and 90’s, scientists proposed the reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone with exactly this intention. The wolves were clearly the missing puzzle piece and so this was a rational plan, grounded in science. Wolves had been an important part of ecosystem of the northern hemisphere for millennia.

 

But wolves have a bad reputation. They have a larger-than-life mythic association for people as dangerous, big, bad, cunning, sly, even evil. Children’s stories and mythology are full of wolves preying on innocent kids. Take Little Red Riding Hood where the villain is a wolf and the victims are the very archetypes of innocent helplessness – a little girl and a grandmother. The wolf (a male wolf, of course) eats them both.

When the three kings from the east first laid eyes on the newborn baby Jesus, they must have been seized with a wild hope. They saw past the ordinary sight of a crying baby from a poor family and saw a kindred kingly spirit: a leader who could draw light out of darkness. They saw somebody who – maybe, just maybe – could take the very oppressiveness of their time and transform it into love and action. So they showered him with gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. They called him messiah, which means “anointed one” because they used to anoint kings with consecrated oil. It was a time in desperate need of a messiah. And in a sense, it was a time that produced a messiah.

 

Palestine was occupied by Rome. Rome had taken control of every major institution, including the temple in Jerusalem and the spirit of Judaism was slowly eroding. It was a time of great economic inequality and the Romans took full advantage. They were smart when they conquered a territory – they would make deals with the wealthy. They would align their interests with those of the ruling class. They would say, “We won’t attack you, you can stay doing just what you’re doing. Our religion will be dominant but you can still have a version of yours if you want. And you can keep your wealth – even increase your wealth. In exchange, you work for us. Keep the peasants down, make sure they keep working for next to nothing, get them to pay taxes, and stop them from gaining too much power. If any of the peasants do gain power and try to reclaim their land or their rights or their freedom, we’ll crucify them.”

 

Jesus of Nazareth grew up in that world, breathing that poisoned air of oppression, and he was exactly the kind of peasant Rome was talking about – young, dirt poor, full of rage at seeing his community beaten down. Nazareth was a small, nondescript, dusty town that was, like so many places in those days, a place without hope. A baby from there was the last person on earth you would think could grow up to change the world. And yet Jesus did. Something about the very hopelessness of that time brought out the fire in him and generations that followed him. Something about the very poison in the air produced its own antidote.

 

The true magic of the Christmas story is that when things were at their worst, a poor kid from an obscure town sparked the spiritual imagination of a generation and started an uprising. It was not just a political revolt against the occupying force – in fact, the Jews didn’t defeat the Romans at that time. It was a vision of a new spiritual and social consciousness. It was a gospel of revolution on one hand and peace on the other. Jesus not only railed against the oppression of the Roman Empire but preached an alternative vision where the powerless would become powerful, the poor would become wealthy, and where the wealthy would have to give up their wealth in order to meet God. The spiritual core of the people’s faith would be renewed and the whole social order would stand on its head. And this countercultural message was so powerful that a golden thread has carried through all the way to today.

 

Today we also live in dark times. Our air too is poisoned with oppression and injustice; violence and war. It’s a time when the abundance of the earth is being recklessly depleted. It’s a time when, just like in the Roman Empire, powerful leaders will do anything for money and fame. But I have a wild hope this season. I have a wild hope that the very darkness of our times will draw forth the light in us just as it did in Jesus; that good people everywhere will be so energized by the challenges all around us that we too will be anointed and we too will change the world. We will be the ripple in the pond that will turn into a tidal wave. We will enact the Christmas story in real time, in real life.

 

This wild hope is not really so wild because this is how life works sometimes. Sometimes when things can’t get any worse,