Looking Back, Looking Forward: Should Auld Acquaintance Be Forgot?

My father taught me to drive. Now, he wasn’t a patient man, and I had dreaded the lessons. It turned out it was the one thing he taught me where he didn’t lose his patience—neither when I was fifteen and had my learner’s permit nor a few years later when he taught me to drive a stick.

Dad was born in 1914, and the first car he ever saw had a crank. As a young man, he and his fellow police academy students made a rapid exit from Poland at the outset of World War II. He wound up in Falkirk, Scotland, a Sergeant Major in the Allied Forces whose main task was to teach British soldiers to drive.

So, as nervous as I was—he’d seen it all before. Even today, while I’m driving, I remember his tips—how you line up the groove on the driver’s side of the hood with the yellow line to find the sweet spot in your lane, and how driving too slow in traffic is as dangerous as driving too fast.

Yes, other folks have GPS units that talk to them. I hear the echo of Dad’s Polish accent saying “Let him pass, let him pass.”

I’m a good driver, but I can’t say that I enjoy driving. There are times I enjoy it, on long drives when there’s no traffic—then I can get some serious thinking done. But add in other drivers, and my stress level rises as their numbers increase. Driving at night? Forget it. My hands literally cramp up because I am clutching the steering wheel so tightly.

It’s something I need to work on.

It’s just that I feel vulnerable behind the wheel.

When you’re driving, not only are you dependent on what you do—but you’re also completely dependent on other people doing the right thing. Personal driving styles vary based on expectations of other drivers.

Okay. There are some people who don’t seem to even notice that there are other drivers on the road—they are travelling their own personal Autobahn. Let them pass.

Everyone else seems to be somewhere on the road from believing every other driver is going to do the right thing to assuming everyone is, well, out to get me.

I’ve been the passenger, when as we’re getting cut off, the driver refuses to take evasive action because “the other driver just can’t do that.” Then there’s me. I know how distracted I can get, so I just assume that “the other guy” isn’t paying attention—and now that cars have become mobile offices, I’m drinking a lot of Tension Tamer tea.

How like life?  

If you go through life confident that everyone else is going to treat you and yours right, there’s a good chance you’re going to get hurt. Assume that everyone is going to do you wrong, and you won’t be disappointed.

Just like when driving, the only person whose actions and reactions you can control is you.

Personally I’m looking forward to automated travel. They are developing cars that will link together, like a train, that know where you’re going—and get you there. No thinking necessary. Then we’ll be able to text to our hearts’ content.

You can subscribe to philosophies and dogma that do approximately the same thing—you can check your brain and free will at the door. Sounds safe, but it all depends on whose conducting the train—you could wind up in a Jonestown.

As Unitarian Universalists we’ve decided to stay in control, but how to stay on the right road? There are driving tips—the seven principles.

We covenant to affirm and promote:

• The inherent worth and dignity of every person;
• Justice, equity and compassion in human relations;
• Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations;
• A free and responsible search for truth and meaning;
• The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large;
• The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all;
• Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.

But it’s going to happen. You’re going to get cut off, rear ended, sideswiped, and yes, there’ll be some head-on collisions.

You’ll have to choose: road rage, or just let them pass.

This is the time of year when we’re all doing a lot of looking in our rearview mirrors, and it can be overwhelming. 

“In the rear-view mirror suddenly

I saw the bulk of the Beauvais Cathedral;

great things dwell in small ones

for a moment.” [by Adam Zagajewski]

It’s tempting to just step on the gas and drive on.

Should old acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind? I don’t know about you, but I’ve tried. After the end of the most devastating relationship of my life, I spent about twenty years trying to believe it never happened. But as Ovid writes: “Suppressed grief suffocates, it rages within the breast, and is forced to multiply its strength.”

I kept getting lost on the same road. I needed to go back, to remember, to learn the lessons—difficult as they were—otherwise there was no way to move forward. It’s something I still need to work on.

And then sometimes I held onto the past so tightly that I couldn’t find my way out of the parking lot.

So as we climb into our 2013 driver’s seats, we need to take a long look in the rearview mirror—it may need some adjusting. And check out those side mirrors as well. Then, with those seven driving tips echoing—drive on.

“We’ll take a cup of kindness yet.”

It’s true we all have blind spots—that’s where love will guide us. [Follow with “Love Will Guide Us by Sally Rogers.]

Justice, Equity and Compassion—A Story

Once there were three sisters named Justice, Equity and Compassion.  Aside from the difficulties they had growing up with the names—Justice, Equity and Compassion—their parents, well, let’s just say they were never nominated for any parent of the year awards. They played favorites, then treated everyone equally; they lost their tempers, then showered the girls with love; they could be very cruel and tremendously kind.

 Each girl grew into the embodiment of her name. Justice closed her eyes and let the scale judge. Equity kept her eyes open and tried to balance the scale. Compassion’s eyes filled with tears, and she swept the scale away. They were at odds a lot.

When they were already young women, their parents had another child, and they had to learn to deal with a little brother—who their parents treated best of all.

One day, when they were walking, he threw rocks at them—wounding each. An Elder asked the girls what should be done.

 Justice puffed herself up and said, “Give us some rocks and we’ll show him what it feels like.”

 Equity sighed and said, “Each of us was only hit once—hitting him with three rocks wouldn’t be fair. Compassion took it the hardest. She should throw one rock.”

 Compassion’s eyes filled with tears when she saw her brother frightened and cringing. Still, she picked up a rock and took aim. She tossed it, but it fell far short.

 Still, the boy never again threw rocks at anyone—and the Elder took notice.

 When Justice, Equity, and Compassion grew to be Elders themselves, they were chosen to be the judges whenever someone transgressed. The sisters lived together, but they worked alone.

 A robber brought before Justice, landed in jail. Brought before Equity, worked to make restitution. Brought before Compassion, danced the happy dance.

 The other Elders were not pleased, and went to see the brother.

 He invited each sister to their parents’ home. The parents were quite old and far from well. Justice, Equity and Compassion were surprised to find themselves together, and demanded to know the reason.

 “It’s like this,” said the brother. “They are about to lose their house. As their family, it’s been left to us to decide what to do.”

 “That’s an easy one,” huffed Justice. “They treated you better than me, were always shouting, and terribly cruel. Some things can’t be forgiven. They’re on their own.”

 Equity sighed, “Sometimes they treated you the best, sometimes they were very loving, and sometimes they were kind. It will be a long time before I can forgive. But couldn’t we all just pitch in and help pay the bills? Compassion suffered the most, let her decide.”

 Compassion looked at her sisters and at her parents, and her eyes filled with tears. To Justice she said, “I understand our side, but I can’t just walk away.” To Equity she said, “I suppose that’s fair, but look at them, they need more than money, they need care.” “For myself,” I’d say, “I forgive you. Come and live with us.” Then she looked at her brother, whose name was Love, and asked “What do you think?”

 Love smiled, “There are no easy answers, but I think it’s time we all worked together.”

————

 To affirm and promote justice, equity and compassion in human relations—another principle that rolls off the tongue. But not only can each of these concepts seem separate from one another, they mean different things to different people at different times and in different situations.

 There are no easy answers. We live our lives and our principles on a day by day, case by case basis. In some situations, turning the other cheek is the right thing to do. Sometimes you need to walk away. And yes, there are times when one needs to stand and fight.

 Then ten years later you can look back and think—Geez, I can’t believe I did that.

 Each of us, and everyone else, is a work in progress. And it’s the work we do that’s important, whether it is working to embody the Golden Rule or to live by our principles, the key is to work through events and relationships with love as the guide.

Homily-ette:

Reflections on Unitarian Universalism’s First Principle

(This was a prompt to suggest a starting point for at least a part of my local UU community to a talk. But I think, I hope, all may relate, even if just a bit.)

We covenant to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person.

I think some of us fear that we end up saying the principles—reciting them like a rote prayer—chanting the words but never the doing the deeds.

That’s one of the main arguments against memorized prayer, against prayer—it becomes meaningless recitation.

We covenant to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person.

There is a meditative quality to reciting prayers or words over and over again. But the trick is to not lose the meaning. Somewhere in my early religious training, my take away was that you need to focus on the words every single time you say or think them. I took that very literally, and I worked hard to not slip out of “the presence” of the words.

I think it’s why I listen so hard to lyrics, every time I hear a song, and if I don’t like the lyrics, no matter how much I like the music, I can’t listen.

Our carefully crafted seven principles are as open to interpretation as scripture, and the first is a perfect example. It’s rather ambiguous for a principle really…to affirm and promote…there’s nothing about how to act. It’s a bit like stripping the guts out of the golden rule; or is it an invitation to rethink the golden rule? “Inherent worth and dignity.”

In a poem titled “The Same Inside,” Anna Swir writes:

 Walking to your place for a love fest
I saw at a street corner
an old beggar woman.
I took her hand,
kissed her delicate cheek,
we talked, she was
the same inside as I am,
from the same kind,
I sensed this instantly
as a dog knows by scent
another dog.
I gave her money,
I could not part from her.
After all, one needs
someone who is close.
And then I no longer knew
why I was walking to your place.

When I want to think about the first principle, I always start with Anna Swir. She’s not a very well-known poet here because there are only a few of her poetry collections that have been translated from Polish to English. I think of her as a people’s poet—from blunt “erotics” to combating ageism.

Yes, she writes about growing old and still being alive.

But what I most appreciate about Swir’s work is that every one of her subjects is imbued with dignity, with one exception… .

She was a radical feminist, and I definitely see her connecting with the “old beggar woman” as a woman.

But she would also have connected with the woman’s poverty. Swir’s mother, a budding singer from a wealthy family, was cut off from that family for marrying beneath her station—for marrying a penniless, occasionally mad artist. The three of them were often hungry, and they moved around Warsaw a lot—usually in the dead of night.

She was a nurse in the resistance during World War II, and her war poetry is among the best and most brutally honest that I’ve ever read.

She was captured once, put in a cell, and told she was going to be shot in the morning. Morning came, and they just let her go.

I said there was one exception. That was Swir herself. Although she celebrates the self in some poems, others reveal a deeply painful soul searching. She writes:

“I envy you. Every moment. You can leave me. I cannot leave myself.”  

It’s true. You are the one person you can never get away from.  It’s another way of saying wherever you go, there you are.

Is that where we need to start the discussion? Do we affirm and promote our own inherent worth and dignity? If we are indeed “the same inside,” and I believe we are—how can we affirm and promote for someone else if we don’t do it for ourselves.

Conversations about relationships often turn to how the traits we dislike in others are the ones we dislike most in ourselves. It’s eerily true, if you take the time think about it.

The great teacher Pema Chodron tells a wonderful story about being at a retreat. She was heading toward the kitchen after a long meditation session, but rather than being at peace she was fuming over one of the other retreatants who she thought was insincere. As she approaches the kitchen, she can see that someone has left their dirty bowls in the sink—when everyone is required to clean up after themselves. She worked up a pretty good lather by the time she got in the kitchen and looked at the name on the bowls to confirm her anger—it’s her own name she sees.

But. Do we ever think about whether we like people because they display the traits we like in ourselves or aspire to in ourselves? What do we like about ourselves?

There are some mornings when by the time I’ve counted up all the woulda’s, coulda’s, and shoulda’s, I’ve dug a hole so deep that I need to tunnel my way to work.

What do we like about ourselves? And what kind of shoes do we want to walk in?

I had my “same inside” moment in a chapel at the Frankfort airport. I was alone, and kind of uncomfortable.  Unable to settle. The door opened and a man walked in…a big man, late thirties maybe, he wore workers overalls but was obviously traveling. He sat down, dwarfing the diminutive chapel seat, put his head in his hands, and began to sob. It was heart rending—his grief was so intense I forgot myself, my shyness, my unworthiness. I walked over stood beside him for a moment, then I put my hand on the stranger’s shoulder. Our eyes met once, and he sobbed a bit longer and a bit harder with my hand on his shoulder. We did not have language in common, only spirit. It was a powerful moment, possibly the most powerful in my lifetime.

That’s who I want to be, someone able to connect spirit to spirit.

And to achieve that, in addition to seeing my own shadow in actions I dislike, I need, we need, to affirm our own inherent worth and dignity, and promote those whom we would like to emulate.

And that’s what we’re doing here—drawn from many paths and each speaking for him or herself.

I covenant to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person, including myself.

If you agree, would you repeat that last with me?

I covenant to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person, including myself.

Worship isn’t about any particular ritual or voice, it’s not about this rule or that rule, his right or her wrong, it’s about coming together in community to improve ourselves and our community. It’s a celebration of moving forward by expressing ourselves in words and in deeds—of choosing to do our best to live according to our principles…knowing each of us will fail from time to time…but each of us is determined to keep on trying…and to help one another along the way. Worship is a sharing of the spirit, it’s a discussion…

What does convenanting “to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person” mean to you?