Rumi wrote: “The wound is the place where the Light enters you.” This month’s theme is “healing,” so I thought this would be an appropriate statement. The place of healing always starts with the acknowledgement there is a wound. Sometimes this is difficult to acknowledge. It’s hard for an individual; I think it’s even harder for a nation. There is a vulnerability in this kind of admission. There is an openness to admitting that there may be a need for some kind of healing.
I have found for myself that the most difficult part of this is admitting that our life may need a reorientation, a new path, or a new way of looking at what our life is really about. I know in twelve step recovery rooms there is a slogan that to heal and recover you only need to change one thing: everything. We need to change everything.
At first glance, this may seem like a tall, even impossible order. But I think it is actually easier to accept this than it is to embark on a path of healing half way. I think at first glance it may seem simpler to see healing as a kind of patch up job where we tweak a couple small things, but in practice I think this is very frustrating and disheartening. As long as the structures that hold up our life are not in service of a healing path, the longer and more frustrating I think our attempts are. A reorientation, changing everything, or at least how we relate to everything seems to be pragmatic. It makes our life more joyful and integrated.
I’ve been thinking about this on a national scale. I think we are still in the bargaining stage when many still think we can tweak a few things here and there, add a few more policies and practices, while keeping the structures that have led to this situation largely in place. We are asking ourselves now some pretty big questions. How do we reorient the way we practice policing? How do we care for the health of our people now and into the future? How do we correct inherent bias in our justice system? On a more personal note, I think our questions are also growing big and more fundamental. How do we stay connected to what is going on, without hurting all the time? How do we make space for peace and fun, while we care for ourselves and our neighbors? On a more basic level, we might be asking, what is my role during this time? What is my rightful life?
Starting with a wound may seem an unlikely place to start. Starting with a place in ourselves and in our world that is waiting for kindness and connection, may not be the most obvious place for us to begin when we ask our questions. And it may be that this is not the best place for us to begin to answer some of these fundamental questions. But regardless of where we begin, I think that our wounds contain wisdom if we have the right community support, and a way to engage them without causing ourselves or others more harm. I think when the conditions are right, our wounds can teach us something about being more alive during this time. I think there are teachings about authenticity, vulnerability, and real hope.
Weeks ago we discussed the Old English term “respair,” which is the discovery of hope after despair. I think if we are feeling hopeful, it is really important not to forget the despair. It is important to still be in touch with a reality that though may not be true for us, is still true for so many.
Lila Watson, an Aboriginal elder activist and educator has this wonderful phrase: “My life is bound up in your life.” For me, this is one of the best definitions of love. We are not the same person, you and me, but my life is bound up with yours. My wounds and my healing are bound up with your wounds and your path of healing. I think it is tempting to think of a wound and a place of healing as two solid states that are separate from one another. I think it is tempting to think of healing as an absolute state: I’m healed! This is not my understanding of healing. I think healing is an ongoing process, and it is possible to access it now, where we are. I don’t know if we completely get over our wounds, but I think we can learn to relate to our wounds and wounds of others with love, this understanding that my life is bound up with yours.
When I listened to this Leonard Cohen song recently, “Anthem,” I thought of the Liberty Bell, which has a crack in the middle. The bell was first made in England, and it was part of the State House in Philadelphia when it was still a colony. It wasn’t called the Liberty Bell until the uprising of abolitionists in the 1830’s, white and black abolitionists who organized with Harriet Tubman to facilitate an Underground Railroad to free slaves. When Lincoln was shot and killed, his body was brought and put directly under the Liberty Bell, as a symbol of his commitment to end slavery in the United States. All the while, the Liberty Bell had a crack in it. The fact is nobody knows for certain why the bell has a crack or even when it happened. During the Revolutionary War, the bell was hidden so that British troops would not destroy or take it. There is a fact about the Liberty Bell I didn’t know until I looked it up, and it gave me a newfound appreciation of this cracked bell. There is a biblical verse that is inscribed in the bell from Leviticus 25:10: “Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.” That passage is from the laws of Jubilee in the Hebrew tradition, when it was demanded that after a prescribed period of time all debts needed to be forgiven, and all slaves were to be set free. It was a rule of Sabbath, an announcement of Jubilee, that every creature, even the most vulnerable and exploited, was owed freedom – economic freedom, physical freedom, freedom from servitude and violence. All those who were considered essential to the economy were set free, and allowed to be human beings, free from harm. It’s amazing to me that this verse is inscribed in one of our symbols of liberty in this country – the Liberty Bell, with a crack in it.
Given the history of this country, you could think that these symbols of liberty, symbols of abolition, symbols of economic and spiritual freedom are hypocritical, but I think that perspective only holds up if you believe that a wound is the opposite of healing. I don’t think this is accurate. I think the wound is bound up with healing, even if it’s not obvious. The wound is the place where the light gets in, which makes a wound a place of hope, not defeat. It’s a place of potential healing if we can see the light.
In many ways this is the perfect time for all of us to reorient ourselves. In this time of limbo, suspended gatherings and restrictions, we can’t help but see our life differently. I think we are given the opportunity to let go of that which no longer serves us and our people, and announce a year of Jubilee – a year of freedom, and making things right. Giving people what they deserve. Giving an opportunity for us to see the light, the light of growing awareness of wounds that need attention and reorientation.
In many ways you could argue that Unitarian Universalism is the American faith. Freedom and liberty are at the heart of what we value – freedom of the individual, freedom of peoples, freedom of people to recognize their inherent personhood and potential. We have a wonderful saying in this faith tradition: Revelation is not sealed. This means we intentionally acknowledge a crack in everything we do, so that new revelation can be discovered in the place and time we live in.
Every generation has a moniker to describe the times they lived through. “The Greatest Generation” for example was known for their steady service and sacrifice. I think this generation will be called the Revelation Generation. We are fortunate to live during a time when so much is being revealed to us about where we’ve been, where we are, and giving us the opportunity for us to decide where we’re going to go.
Since 1964, our congregations have followed seven principles to guide our work as a community: 1. We believe that each person is important. 2. We believe that all people should be treated fairly and kindly. 3. We believe we should accept one another and keep on learning together. 4. We believe that each person must be free to search for what is true and right in life. 5. We believe that all persons should have a vote in the things that concern them. 6. We believe in working for a peaceful, fair, and free world. 7. We believe in caring for our planet Earth, the home we share with all living things.
Given the largest scale protests the world has ever seen due to police brutality, and due to a recognition of inherent bias in all major American institutions that dictate our lives, and due to recognition that institutional racism remains alive in our church institutions, including our governing bodies at the Unitarian Universalist Association, there is an 8th principle that has been introduced: journeying toward spiritual wholeness by working to build a diverse multicultural Beloved Community by our actions that accountability dismantle racism and other oppressions in ourselves and our institutions. We are fortunate to be alive at a time when we are given the power to shape not just our lives, but the lives of future generations. Unitarian Universalist churches across this nation are discussing voting and adopting this principle as part of the fabric of their church life. Right now, the churches that are on the vanguard of justice have accepted this principle, including the Akron UU church. I personally am in favor of adopting this principle. I think it is powerful to have the language of dismantling racism to be one of the guiding principles of our faith tradition, particularly in America.
But I won’t be making that decision for our congregation – you will. We practice democracy here, which means you will have an opportunity to vote in January at our Annual Meeting about the acceptance or denial of this principle. In the interim, there will be group conversations led by Lay Minister Gary Davenport to talk through how we feel and think about this. But If it’s helpful, I will offer my perspective. I think it’s pertinent we adopt this principle, especially at this moment. By naming racism, we name the wound, and in naming the wound, I believe we open ourselves to a path of healing. If we don’t adopt this principle, I think we will continue in the same way our country has continued for the last forty years – the wound, long neglected and ignored will continue to fester until it explodes like we’ve seen this year. We are given an opportunity to be proactive about our future and give our children and the children yet to be born a beacon to make their decisions. My personal hope is not that we adopt this principle, and make it an isolated practice. My hope is that we can grow to look at everything we do through a lens of how we may dismantle racism and oppression in our practices, so that we can more fully realize how my life is bound up with yours. If we do this, we would be the only faith tradition in World History that would be naming the wound of racism and seeking to do something about it as one of our guiding principles. Naming this is a huge opportunity – it opens vistas of community and love that we may have never known was possible. Adopting this principle, of course, will not be the end all, be all. But it’s a powerful beginning, a move toward a real liberty, a true Jubilee. I have shared with you a James Baldwin quote that continues to guide my understanding of ministry: “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” I believe we are given the opportunity to face something critical about who we’ve become as a people over centuries, as an American people, and we are being given the opportunity to see what might be possible to change. I look forward to facing this opportunity together, facing the wound that is at the heart of our life and the heart of this nation, and in so doing begin the path of healing.
