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Unitarian Church of Sharon
4 N. Main St.
Sharon, MA 02067
781-784-3652
E-mail UCS
Umoja! Harambee!
Sermon by Rev. Deborah Cayer
January 13, 2008
It was wonderful to watch the children’s shadow puppet story last week. It was about animals who were bumping into each other in the cold and darkness of a world without light. They saw a glimmer in the sky, and decided to send three animals to get some of it. It was a difficult journey for fly, spider and mouse who had no reason to trust each other; the three actually comprised their own little food chain. Their success was highly unlikely, but as a team they overcame obstacles when each animal performed an act of cunning bravery. They worked against their instincts and preferences and together they succeeded.
Last week I especially enjoyed the little kids’ hand puppets down in front. When they started preparing for Revels back in November, Louise had asked them, “What would happen if people lived in the dark?” They got it right away, “Everyone would bump into each other!” Crash, bang, bump, owww!!
Last week it was funny and charming to see seven and eight year olds bumping their puppets into each other on stage. However, when we find ourselves crashing around in confusion in the dark, it’s not so charming. There’s a lot going on around here right now because of the accessibility and expansion project, and we’re often finding ourselves in new and unfamiliar territory…in the darkness so to speak. We’re doing something very bold and very ambitious, and at times it’s thrilling.
However, at times we need to work together in new ways and it’s sometimes confusing to the point of overwhelming. It’s not so bad when just one or two people are beleaguered and baffled and someone is able to come along and shine a light that shows the way back to order and normalcy. But on occasion when all of us are lost and no one knows where their flashlight is, the darkness deepens very quickly. In the murky confusion big feelings come up, and they’re not the wonderful, good kind of feelings we come to church hoping to find.
There’s very good news: people here seem to be taking this change in stride, with kindness. And together we’re smart; we put information to use in good ways. This past week I’ve heard conversations at two different church meetings where someone at the table has laughed and said, “Harambee!—we need to pull together!” Last week the story told us that like the animals in the story, we too would be wise to name the common situation in which we find ourselves (umoja), identify our strengths and figure out how to trust despite the risks (imani), and pull together (harambee) for the greater good. This morning I want to think about why it would be good for us both practically and spiritually to do this.
Sometimes when you find yourself in an unfamiliar or scary situation, it’s a good thing to find a little bit of courage, pull up your socks, whistle a happy tune, and keep moving till you get to a better place. I’ve done this on occasion and sometimes it’s been exactly the right thing to do. But at other times when a situation is really confusing or scary, I think we’d actually be much better off (at least in the long run) if we stop to name the situation we find ourselves in. Not to stay stuck in it, but rather to find a good way to get ourselves out of it.
There are good ways to be in any relationship. We have to be kind to ourselves as well as others, since we can only tolerate in others that which we can accept in ourselves. And compassion, as we heard in this morning’s reading, is not about fixing, or enabling or patronizing others. It’s simply about being fully present as people figure out how to best be themselves.
Relationships don’t require perfection. They require honesty. I think this means that we have to know ourselves as fully as possible, both our bright side and our shadow, in order to be real. Real people are actually humble people who take responsibility for themselves, and respond to others with authenticity. I believe that it’s our realness that enables us to find our moral center and apologize when we’ve done something wrong. Our authenticity enables us to offer others understanding and forgiveness, even while we honor them by holding them accountable.
All relationships require communication, especially in community; it’s one of the necessary things that individuals and groups require in order to change and grow. I read a fascinating book this summer about very different plant and animal communities that evolve over time. It turns out that many systems don’t have a hierarchy with a director at the top. Ant colonies and bee colonies have what we call a queen, but she’s not in charge, she’s simply, exclusively laying eggs. The way those systems operate is that individuals who do the work constantly share facts in the form of pheromone deposits along known and traveled pathways which give other individuals information about sources of food and how to avoid hazards. That’s it. That’s all that it takes for an ant colony to grow and evolve into more complex behaviors over the course of fifteen years. When there is information that there’s enough food, ants switch from gathering to cleaning and building tasks, and vice versa.
Scientists can tell the difference between a young ant colony and a mature one by studying behaviors; older ant colonies find food and build structures differently than younger colonies; their behavior evolves and physical and social structures change. Interestingly, this amazing growth and change takes place over the course of several years, even though individual ants live only for about one year. Somehow information is deposited and responded to so that over time behaviors change and the structures become more complex.
This amazing change is the result of a feedback loop—as new information is deposited it enables individuals to make choices that shift the whole group into new behavior. It’s a very, very simple operating principle. It’s not hierarchical; it’s completely grassroots and local. Bits of information are exchanged and individuals change their behavior as they receive new information; they make decisions within the scope of their roles that improve their ability to achieve their objective. When they do this consistently the whole group matures.
I’ve been thinking about what kind of information groups such as a church community might need in order to grow and change. Obviously while humans are much more complex than ants, this research does suggest that in any kind of system there’s a need for a particular kind of communication. Which makes me think that very simple facts that are continuously shared along well traveled pathways would be key. Pathways through a congregation might be the newsletter, bulletin boards, the church website, announcements at gatherings such as church services or social events, and one on one conversations.
Also, the information that’s shared would be simple and factual. It wouldn’t be fear, illusion, speculation or assumption. The information might generate questions that open up new trails to investigate, but natural limits would be set by the original mission and objectives that individuals had agreed to. Individuals would share information about where they had been, what they had done and what they had discovered. They would stay on their own trail and do their own work, not other individual’s; they wouldn’t wander off and forget to do something, or do it and forget to leave information about it. All of this would insure that information flowed back to the larger group in ways that any individual could use.
Of course we’re not ants on a trail; we join a community because we want to be with other people. Margaret Wheatley says that listening moves us closer to one another and helps us become whole. Not listening, she says, causes fragmentation and suffering in both individuals and groups. Listening is hard work. It requires a lot of attention and energy. At times it also requires courage, because in order to truly listen and hear another person, you also have to listen to what’s going on inside yourself. It’s difficult sometimes to acknowledge what you hear in your own inner conversation. Sometimes it takes courage to make an honest response to another person, because there’s a risk. You might hurt their feelings, or offend them. It can take courage to offer them a simple “I” statement—“when you do that, I feel like this.” It can also take courage to listen to this kind of feedback about your own behavior.
I believe what helps with this are times and opportunities to connect with one another. This past month especially I’ve been feeling a need for some kind of simple community conversations—maybe after church on a Sunday or some evening. There’s so much going on I think people need to hear factual information from one another, and have a chance to offer what they know and ask questions. It might be challenging to add yet one more activity in the short run, but I think it would be extremely helpful in the long run.
Whatever a community does, I think it’s crucial to keep it as simple as possible. I also think it’s crucial to “Assume Best Possible Motives”. Until you have factual evidence to the contrary, it’s a good idea to operate from the assumption that people are doing things because they want to be helpful or kind in the best way they know how. They might need more information to achieve that goal, in which case some very simple feedback might be just the thing they need.
At times life offers us precious opportunities. Life asks us to take a stand, or stake a claim on something big and important. What do you stand for? Where will you stop to rest and plant the walking stick that has supported you this far on your journey, and put it the ground as a stake and say “here is where I will make the contribution only I can make. Here I will give of my gifts and talents, even if it costs me something, even if I have to make a sacrifice. I will devote myself to this place, this time, this cause, this group. Here I will contribute my talent, my truth, my love and my energy.”
If this were a fairy tale, this is the point where the music swells and there’s a big song or even a dance and then a quick, happy ending. But in real life what actually happens is that when we make a commitment it gets tested, just as it does in heroic myths. Myths aren’t fanciful stories about people who are perfect and never fail in their skill or resolve. On the contrary, myths offer us patterns for getting through challenges in our own lives. Mythic heroes get blown off course, sometimes for years at a time. They encounter trolls and witches, goblins, dragons— all manner of evil forces that overwhelm and over power them, leaving the heroes no option other than to look inside to discover their own inner power and goodness. In the process, mythic heroes discover what is of ultimate worth and value. When they have that, their luck changes and they find their way home.
In our religious tradition, we often locate ultimate value and meaning in our relationships with one another. And when we give our relationships the attention they deserve, they orient us toward what is ultimate and sacred. We don’t usually make the deep kind of commitments to one another that we do when we get married or partnered. But we do stake a claim here and we declare our loyalties.
Often in religious community this takes the form of the exchange of promises. When beginning work with a new group we ask each other what we need in order to be our best selves and do our best work. We ask each other for things such as paying attention to beginning and ending on time, being honest and kind, using careful communication processes, asking for help, offering support, following through. This is not just a transaction between people; it also includes the sacred, what is of ultimate worth and value to us, however we each understand it.
And then we work together in the light of our agreement. This is what holds us together when times get tough. This is what reminds us that even when we don’t know how to get out of particular places where we’re stuck, we do know how to act when we’re tied up in knots. Often when we return to that place of basic decency and goodness we begin the process of getting untangled and moving forward again.
The larger community is also the source that gives individuals particular authority. It can be scary to give individuals authority; they might use it for their own selfish goals, or take away power from others. Yet communities can’t function past a certain basic level without asking some members to do specialized jobs for the greater good. When a community carefully makes a job description and says in effect, “this is what we’re asking you to do, up to this point, no further. When you get to that point, come back and tell us how it’s going and we’ll authorize the next steps.” Communication and feedback loops are very important, as is respect and trust that an individual will do the job they’ve promised to do in the way it was carefully given to them. The whole thing can operate smoothly when there’s openness and clarity, not necessarily about the specifics of what individuals are doing every minute, but at reporting times.
We make a commitment such as the one we’ve made to accessibility and very quickly the process of deciding who needs to know, who decides, who communicates, and who is responsible gets very confusing. This is normal because so much of life isn’t crisply black and white; it’s thirty eight shades of foggy gray in which we get quickly lost and confused. It feels cold and lonely. And sometimes we just don’t know how to get out of it. But as Margaret Wheatley reminds us, “The gap between knowing and doing is only bridged by the human heart.”
I think that when we find ourselves in the dark not knowing what to do, we can still do the right thing, the ethical thing, which most of the time is very simple: we can be loving, kind, honest and compassionate. When we’re lost we can return to the promises we’ve made. I believe that when we do this we have a much better chance of discovering the shared human conditions that unite us despite our differences. When we communicate and give each other enough information about what we’re asking each other to do, and we make careful acceptances of job descriptions and task force charges, we are more easily able to trust and have faith not only in one another, but also in the ultimate source that sustains us. I believe that with this kind of unity and faith, we have the best possible chance of finding a way to pull together toward the future we envision. Harambee!
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