"The View From Here"
by the Rev. Krista Taves
May 13, 2007
Reading
Reflections on a Window by Charles Lewis
From the first Sunday I stepped foot in the sanctuary of Emerson Chapel, I've been struck by the large round window at the far end of the room behind the speaker's lectern. On a sunny day that window beams like a beacon in the night compared to the normal lighting of the room. Even now, almost two years later, that window grabs my eye every time I enter the sanctuary.
That first Sunday, what struck me about the window was that it seemed bare; it was lacking something important – a cross. While the details aren't pertinent here, I was raised in a Christian tradition that made me a connoisseur of jello molds and bundt cake by the time I was ten years old, and Garrison Keillor speaks to a part of my soul like no other humorist alive. For quite a while, every time I came to Emerson, my mind put the "missing" cross in that window.
Then one Sunday, while a guest speaker went off on a tangent not particularly interesting to me, I began to really look at the window, and more importantly, through the window. At that point, the missing cross was no longer an issue and I delved deeper into what the window showed.
I saw sky. Sometimes blue sky, sometimes gray sky, but sky nonetheless, with clouds scattered around like toys on a toddler's playroom floor. Continuing on, I saw trees; leafy trees and evergreens contending for the same piece of sky in a jumble of green leaf and brown limb. Through the branches power lines weaved, carrying that most essential of commodities, electricity, to the homes and businesses nearby.
So what? I can see those things outside of most any window. What is so special about such mundane items that can be seen from many windows, not just that glorious round window in the sanctuary of Emerson Chapel?
The difference? Location, location, location. Like many religious spaces, Emerson Chapel has the advantage of an atmosphere that encourages and supports reflection and consideration. I'm afraid the same can't be said for the windows at work. And even at home, who has time to just sit and think?
So over time, I continued to look, really look, through that window. Sunday after Sunday would find me enraptured by the view, and I began to make connections among the elements I perceived.
I can see sky from my vantage point here on the ground. Much like I strive for the Spiritual while remaining grounded in Reality. Across that sky clouds can often be seen in passing, sometimes wispy, sometimes gray and threatening, much like the distractions we all encounter in our lives.
Those trees represent Life and the Natural World that surrounds us, supports us, and nurtures us. Contrast those trees with the power lines, which some feel ruin the view. Those power lines show the influence of Humanity and our constant struggle to balance our needs with those of Nature. For all that can be accomplished with electricity, which those power lines transmit wherever it is needed, the search for more power to generate that electricity threatens the very world we live in.
In winter, the trees take on additional meaning, as the leafy deciduous trees go dormant and appear dead, while the evergreens continue on. Life is just like that. Everything dies at some point, but Life continues on in the never-ending rhythm of change and growth.
Windows, and this window in particular, are often over-looked. But in addition to telling us whether we should grab that umbrella on the way out the door, they can also serve as lenses, focusing our attention on what is on the other side.
It's a big world out there, and it's easy to get lost. Like a magnifying glass used to read a cluttered map to find a route through the obstacles in our way, a window can allow us to focus on what we really need to see.
Peering through the window of a hospital nursery, does a new father see the natural outcome of the Love shared between himself and his wife? Or does he see the future made flesh, and the vessel that will carry his hopes and dreams beyond his lifetime?
In the waiting room at the mechanic, does a woman see her car up on the lift through the glass of the shop door? Or does she see the means by which she gets to the job that makes the money that feeds and clothes and shelters her family?
Like so many things, what we value depends on perception, and our perceptions can become unfocused if we're not careful. Windows help us to regain that focus, especially the windows not made of glass.
Message
Two years ago Tom Kibby and Devry Becker, members of this congregation brought me to see the Chapel before the Search Committee interviewed me. The first thing I noticed was the front window, but my reaction was quite different from Charles'. I quickly realized that window was the kiss of death to a boring sermon and I'd have no way of knowing it! Most sanctuaries only have side windows and a distracted turn of the head lets any perceptive minister know they're falling flat! This window allows one to mask boredom, and I wonder sometimes if the architects planned it that way!
I'm sure they didn't, but the emptiness of that window is no accident. Charles is not the first person to walk into a Unitarian Univeralist sanctuary and feel like there's something missing. Many have been taken aback by the absence of explicit religious symbols. Some people never get used to it. Some love it immediately. Others grow into it.
Our walls haven't always been as devoid of religious symbols as they are now. Both Unitarianism and Universalism started as exclusively Christian religions and crosses were prominent in our churches, still are in some. But even in their early years, both Unitarianism and Universalism provided more spiritual and intellectual room than was found in other Christian churches.
For instance, Universalism had a statement of belief explaining the nature of God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit, but its last line, called the Liberty Clause, gave each individual the right to have their own understanding of the nature of God. Unitarianism had a great deal of room for different opinions as well. From the beginning, you were encouraged to think critically about matters of faith and belief and to ask questions.
The inherent openness of both Unitarianism and Universalism let in more and differing ideas. Unitarian thinker Ralph Waldo Emerson was the first to question whether one needed the Bible to approach God. God could be experienced by each of us directly. Universalists were quick to question whether Christianity held the only truth about God and by the turn of the 20th century had affirmed the truth of all religions. Ironically, as Unitarians and Universalists let more and more into their religions, they also became emptier. Emptier of absolute certainty, emptier of simple answers. And so this religion grew roomier, and its sanctuaries became emptier of traditional religious symbols that could be seen as exclusive.
The symbolic emptiness of many Unitarian Universalist sanctuaries is but one layer of a much larger reality about Unitarian Universalist theology. Because it is a creedless religion, that emptiness is a theological commitment. Like the window at the front of this sanctuary, Unitarian Universalist theology has a certain emptiness because to fill it too much would take away the room to gaze fully through the glass of life and see for ourselves what that window frames. Our religious practice is about gazing through an unimpeded window and being radically welcoming of what we see.
This emptiness and openness confuses many who think that emptiness means absence of meaning, absence of truth, absence of structure. But this is a misunderstanding. For look at what happened with this empty window today. What Charles shared with us this morning has filled that frame with beauty, gentleness, a deep reverence for life and the many ways we engage it. That could not have happened if the window had been filled for him. What he filled it with was a piece of himself, in the form of a story – a story first of emptiness and then a story of a gradual filling. This is what Unitarian Universalist theology does. In its apparent emptiness, it is filled with stories of meaning, truth and wisdom, and not just any stories, our stories, because one of the things that happened when Unitarian Universalism withdrew from exclusive forms of religion is that we expanded what could be sacred.
We humans are story making creatures and what that means is that we are constantly creating the sacred in the way that we make sense of the world around us. We use stories to explain who we are and why we do the things we do. We think in stories, breathe in stories, live in stories. Imagine going to a barber shop or hair salon and not telling or hearing a story. Imagine opening a newspaper with no stories. It would be empty! Imagine flipping through an old photo album and not remembering stories. Stories shape who we are and how we understand our world and our place in it. How do people get to know who you are? You tell them your story. How do you know when a significant relationship has reached another level? Two stories begin to blend into a third story. What makes a memorial service so powerful? Hearing the story of one who has left us. Why do so many adoptees go in search of their birth families? To learn their story. If you have been in therapy or a 12 step program, you know how powerful and deeply sacred our stories are. Some stories empower us, others indoctrinate us and confine us. Some stories take us deeper into our lives. Some stories obscure and misdirect. Some stories intentionally omit things we don't want to realize. Because our stories are so sacred, they have the power to heal and the power to harm.
I want to tell you a story this morning about a man who discovered that he needed to rewrite his story. Not only did he have to rewrite the facts of his story, he had to rethink who he was and who he wanted to be in light of a story he learned about his family. This is a story about a man who watched his empty window fill with something he never expected or wanted.
David Pettee had always been proud of his mother's seven generation Unitarian heritage and his own lifelong commitment to Unitarian Universalism. He says, "I was proud that my people had been part of the solution for so many years." The solution David is likely referring to is Unitarian Univeralism's strong history of standing against oppression. Unitarians and Universalists, and then Unitarian Universalists have engaged issues around racial justice, women's rights, peace, environmentalism, human rights, gay rights, and poverty, to mention just a few. This religious tradition has played an important role in building and sustaining the kinder aspects of this nation. Through his lineage, David is part of that history, through faith and through blood.
Then David decided to learn more about his father's side of the family. In an online search, he entered a paternal ancestor's name into the 1774 Rhode Island Census, and what he discovered shook him to his roots, literally to his family roots. What he learned is that his ancestor, John Robinson, owned four African slaves. In the pages of colonial court records he discovered more. John Robinson had not only been a slave owner, but also a slave trader.
This discovery shook him deeply. You see, whereas his mother's lineage aligned him with the good guys, with the solution, his father's lineage aligned him with the bad guys, with the problem, with the ones who did all that human desecration that still haunts and burdens this country. Like many white Unitarian Universalists, David has no doubt struggled to reconcile his belief in racial equality with his experience of white privilege. Most of us who are white know on some level that we are part of the problem. We know that intellectually, but it's much harder to feel its truth deep in our bones. For David, any sense of separation from that history was now more difficult. This was in his backyard, in his blood. His family, and by extension he, had benefited economically from the trade of human beings.
So there he was, standing before what had been an empty window filled with a story that he wished he was not seeing. I imagine it would have been tempting to turn from that story. He could have said, "That's not really part of who I am. I am not a racist. I treat all people equally. This is in the past and I'm not part of that." Oddly enough, this reminds me of the electric wires which cross that front window. Some of us would rather they not be there because they mar the serenity of the view.
But that's not what life is about, is it? Life is about standing before the window, being radically open to what you see, and embracing it for the truth it holds. And that is what David did. "Even though two and a half centuries had passed," he writes, "I felt determined to learn as much as I could about this unwanted legacy. My faith had taught me that only an uncensored encounter with the truth might point the way forward. It wasn't long before I began to realize that to make a fuller reckoning, I would need to return to the scene of the original crime." David and his wife Mindy traveled to Ghana, Africa, to the fortress John Robinson visited in the mid-18th century. They stood in the room where Robinson traded rum for slaves. They descended into the dark cramped dungeons where the captured waited to be transferred to the ships. Before he and Mindy left, David took a vial of water from home and poured it onto the coast. He writes: "Feeling the liminal presence of my own ancestors, I prayed that this water would be received into the sea, ever moving, ever merging with other bodies of water, with the spirit of humility and repentance that represented my deepest apology and sorrow."
When David returned home, he wasn't done. He knew he could never live the same way again. David has gone back to the genealogical records and found descendants of one of those slaves owned by Robinson and has offered an invitation to meet.*
David's particular story shows us a man standing before a truth that is difficult to reconcile. It is a truth that stands like a shadow and it is a pretty big and dramatic truth. But he did not turn his back on it. His life may have become more difficult for a while. He experienced feelings of anger, guilt, and helplessness. And this is not something he can ever completely resolve. It didn't end with his visit to Ghana, it won't end when he meets those descendants. He has entered into a lifelong journey, and his life has become richer and will become richer beyond measure.
I wonder what windows you are standing before, and I wonder what would happen if you fully opened yourself and embraced what you saw there. How would you change if, like David, you extended an invitation through that window.
I think of the woman who sits at an Al Anon meeting and says, "I always thought my alcoholic husband was the problem, but I'm as addicted to control as he is to alcohol." The man who turns 65 and realizes that it's time to focus less on work and more on family. The young adult, anxious about leaving for college, trying to put that anxiety on the shelf and enjoy those last months at home. The battered woman trying to escape the paralysis of victimhood and make strong choices for herself and her children. One trying to accept a failed relationship, reworking who they are at the deepest level, and feeling both pain and joy in new and powerful ways. The adult who learns of terminal illness in an elderly parent reshapes their whole life to be with their loved one for those last precious months. The new parent standing before a nursery glass thrilled as anything and absolutely terrified. The man or woman who begins having memories of times that have been long forgotten, and for good reason. The parent struggling with a strong-willed child, wanting desperately to do the right thing. One who is preparing to move to a new life and is saying good-bye to places and people that have become dear. The artist standing before an empty canvass, applying that first brush of color.
In this emptied theology, emptied of certainty, emptied of absolutes, these stories, our stories can take their full form. You can take your full form. The emptiness of our theology is an invitation to walk into a fullness greater than anything we can imagine. Ironically, the more empty we become, the more ready we are to be filled with stories that matter, that make sense, that really help us see what we can be. We don't have to be imprisoned by stories that don't work anymore. We can let them go. That's what the empty window is for. Let them go and be ready to welcome in something new. I welcome you into that pregnant emptiness. May fill it with all that you are so that in our individual and collective journeys, we may all be free.
Amen and blessed be.
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Send Questions or Comments to Rev. Taves: Minister@EmersonUUChapel.org
Updated: 06/25/07