Illumination

Homily offered at LRE conference on Star Island. July 16, 2017 

My ten year old came in and sat on my bed this morning as I was looking out the window toward sailboats in the harbor, thinking about tonight’s worship. He asked me why I had my computer out on my lap and when I told him what I was working on, he asked to hear the poem transcribed onto my screen.

I share poems with him often, we both love them, and smile at each other when we come to the last words. But this morning, he was also a welcome test subject, as I wondered if, in listening, it was likely for an audience to catch some of the important details in the poem. So I read it without introduction, and when my suspicion was confirmed that it might not be clear to everyone what the author was describing, I read it through again, explaining first to him, that in the poem, Natasha Trethewey was writing about her experience reading a second hand book, with penciled-in notes in it’s margins. 

Illumination    by, Natasha Trethewey

Always    there is something more to know

    what lingers    at the edge of thought

awaiting illumination         as in 

    this second-hand book    full 

of annotations        daring the margins in pencil

a light stroke as if                    

    the writer of these small replies

meant not to leave them     forever    

    meant to erase

evidence of this private interaction        

    Here     a passage underlined    there 

a single star on the page

    as in a night sky    cloud-swept and hazy

where only the brightest appears

    a tiny spark        I follow 

its coded message    try to read in it 

the direction of the solitary mind 

        that thought to pencil in 

a jagged arrow         It 

    is a bolt of lightning

where it strikes

    I read the line over and over 

as if I might discern 

    the little fires set

the flames of an idea     licking the page

how knowledge burns     Beyond

    the exclamation point

its thin agreement     angle of surprise

there are questions        the word why 

So much is left    
        untold         Between 

the printed words     and the self-conscious scrawl

    between     what is said and not

white space framing the story

    the way the past     unwritten

eludes us    So much 

    is implication         the afterimage 

of measured syntax        always there

    ghosting the margins that words

their black-lined authority

    do not cross          Even 

as they rise up         to meet us

    the white page hovers beneath

silent      incendiary    waiting 

I finished reading it through a second time and smiled down at my son, soaking up the spark in his eyes-- his smile. And we talked about the author’s words and I told him what I was thinking I might want to say tonight— and that also, I might want to use a different poem, and we read that too--

Eve, Oh Eve

By Taslima Nasrin

Why wouldn’t Eve have eaten of the fruit?

Didn’t she have a hand to reach out with,

Fingers with which to make a fist?

Didn’t Eve have a stomach for feeling hunger,

A tongue for feeling thirst,

A heart with which to love?

Well, then, why wouldn’t Eve have eaten of the fruit?

Why would she merely have suppressed her wishes,

Regulated her steps,

Subdued her thirst?

Why would she have been so compelled

To keep Adam moving around in the Garden of Eden all their lives?

Because Eve did eat of the fruit,

There is sky and earth

Because she has eaten,

There are moon, sun, rivers, seas,

Because she has eaten, trees, plans and vines.

Because Eve has eaten of the fruit

there is joy, because she has eaten there is joy.

Joy, joy-

Eating of the fruit, Eve made a heaven of the earth.

Eve, if you get hold of the fruit

don’t ever refrain from eating.

---

And my son looked at me, and asked

Who is Eve?

---

And then I was reading from the bible. Genesis, the story of Adam and Eve and the serpent and God.

And then I was explaining to him, how the bible isn’t necessarily meant to be interpreted as fact so much as stories that we might learn from- metaphors for the world around us.

And that in the poem, Taslima is giving a different interpretation of that bible story, that perhaps it is the very choice Eve made to eat the apple, which represents our liberation. That before they ate from the tree of knowledge, they were not so much happy as they were unaware. She is saying that the Joy we know in this world was just as out of reach as the suffering until that moment. 

YES.

It’s all of it, and I know this isn’t a new idea, but it’s so important for us to keep remembering that we cannot hide from the work without giving away our rest. We cannot hide from mistakes without giving away forgiveness. We cannot forget that our understanding of history is only as complete as the wholeness of it’s telling.

And so, as I put down Genesis, my son and I started talking about who gets to tell the stories of our history. This question is so important, who gets to tell our stories? Are we asking who’s story is being told when we learn a new story, are we making note of who is doing the telling? Are we careful to leave space for more truth, even when we are the storyteller?

At the theme talk this morning, Reverend Renee Ruchotzke began by sharing some of the ideas that are driving her work in this moment, other people’s ideas, in which she has found her own understanding. She made a point of saying that she doesn’t see her task this week as a presentation of her own work so much as a threading together of several other people’s ideas. She continued on to describe her presence here as a part of her process in seeking understanding, she spoke about co-creation, and posed the question: What would it look like for our faith to be built around an ethos of mutual creativity, and I wanted to say AMEN. (but I didn’t, because our rooms are still so quiet, and I wasn’t feeling brave enough to break that proper silence)

And, also, aren’t we? At least amongst religious educators, aren’t we living an ethos of mutual creativity, or moving in that direction? Because I witnessed this spring, a collaboration unlike anything I have ever seen with the white supremacy teach-in. I witnessed leaders among us, Kenny Wiley, and Aisha Hauser, and Christina Rivera, (and so many others) recognize that in the midst of conflict there was an opportunity for us to grow as a faith. They saw (like so many of us educators) that magic moment where discordance pulls peoples attention toward one another, and those moments are scary, because they can end badly, but they also hold a potential for shift that is hard to manufacture. And when a teacher sees that opportunity, and has the wisdom to approach it with intention, great things can happen. That is what I saw this spring. Kenny, Aisha, and Christina came together with the support of many other colleagues, and they decided on a plan, and then they came to our wider network of religious educators through email and facebook, and they put out a call, and – this is an important detail—then they put a significant amount of time and thought into creating support materials for religious educators to use in their congregations if they were willing to join in the call for the #whitesupremacyteach-in.

And congregations joined- in droves. More than 800 congregations representing every state as well as Canada and overseas, and over a period of two Sundays, this action shifted the lexicon of our entire faith.

It did not obliterate White Supremacy culture, and it did not place conversations about White supremacy culture into an entirely safe space for marginalized people in our faith communities, but it shifted our language. I know this, because at GA this year, I heard the term White Supremacy culture countless times, and almost no one batted an eye. Everyone (seemingly) understood what was being said, in stark contrast to the reactions I witnessed to that same term in March and early April this year.

That doesn’t mean were done, it doesn’t mean there is not still a significant journey ahead of us if we are serious about transforming our UU culture, but it does mean that we can talk about the elephant in the room, that we are more likely to see who has been telling the story for too long at the expense of other experiences and perspectives.

Making that teach-in happen was co-creation. It was giving of your gifts to the best of your ability for the benefit of all, not for individual gain. It was putting aside other work, collaborating, reading, researching.

And I see that all the time.

Religious educators and RE volunteers, finding something that resonates with their students or stumbling on an idea, and sharing it out to the rest of us who are doing this ministry, because of course, we want to help carry each other along.  

This is a wildly complicated time. There are huge challenges in front of us, strong forces working to move our world in the wrong direction, and we have a long neglected history for which we must make amends so we can start to heal. But we are not working in isolation, and we are not spinning our wheels. I see deep intention in our faith right now, clarity of vision. I am hopeful and grateful and inspired.

In ‘The Fire Next Time’, James Baldwin wrote

“Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word "love" here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace - not in the infantile American sense of being made happy but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.”

Listen for stories from fresh voices. Look for signs in the margins.

Blessed be.