Unitarian Universalist Metro Atlanta North

Let's start out this morning by doing some visualizations.

I want you to take a few moments and remember the last time you were morally outraged. When was the last time you felt like something you saw or heard about was morally reprehensible? Now remember a time in the past when you felt that something was incredibly unfair. If you have small children, you probably can think of many occasions when you heard your child tell you about some injustice at school, daycare or on the playground. If you're anything like my mother, you rushed to your child's defense in a valiant attempt to right the wrong, because there is nothing like the look on a child's face when she has experienced something that is "just not fair." Maybe you were reading the newspaper and read about murder, rape, child abuse or some other form of horrible crime. Perhaps you learned of an employee getting fired because she admitted to being a lesbian. How did this make you feel? What did you want to do about it?

Now think back to when you were a child. Perhaps you were in a classroom; perhaps you were at a friend's house; maybe you were at camp; maybe you were in your own back yard. But somebody falsely accused you of cheating. Or you got in trouble for what your brother did and they wouldn't listen to your explanation of what really happened. Maybe your memories are even more poignant and painful than that. Maybe you were ostracized or called bad names just because of your nationality, race, religion, physical traits or sex. Do you remember the feeling of powerlessness? Do you remember the intense anger of realizing that sometimes life is not fair? What did you want to do about it? What did you do about it?

One more visualization: I want you to remember a time when you were a child or teenager and you witnessed somebody being picked on. Maybe it was because they did not physically conform to the norm. Maybe it was because they were poorly dressed or lived in the wrong neighborhood. Maybe you heard kids call somebody a fag or a nigger. And you saw the child cry. How did you feel? What did you want to do about it? What did you do about it?

These are unpleasant feelings, aren't they? I was talking with Jeanne Holford last week about this presentation, updating her on what I expected to talk about today and she told me a story about her own childhood. Jeanne was a little girl during World War II -- or was she just a very precocious infant -- or maybe she just heard about these things in school and wasn't even yet born during World War II -- but that's not the point of the story. Jeanne told me that she remembers hearing about the horrors of the Holocaust and feeling certain that God would make it all right. God would certainly not let that many million people be tortured and killed for absolutely no reason. But God did let it happen. Apparently, it was this realization that helped Jeanne decide to become a social worker.

If God could save Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego when they were cast into the fiery furnace, why couldn't or wouldn't he save the Jews and other innocent victims of the Holocaust from their own deaths in the fiery furnaces. Isn't there somebody out there who is in charge? Isn't God the one who makes sure that these kinds of injustices do not go unpunished? Maybe so. Maybe not.

I certainly do not know what your personal theology is about this, but I will tell you that it has become abundantly clear to me during my 35 years that if injustice is going to be corrected, it's going to have to be us doing the correcting. Since Unitarian Universalism is a creedless religion, our deeds speak louder than our words. It may be easier to understand our role in this living faith by noting what the famous Unitarian suffragette, Lucy Stone, told her daughter Alice on her death bed "Make the world better." That is a call to ethical people everywhere and in every time. It is a call we cannot ignore. As the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. eloquently bade us: "There are some things in our social system to which all of us ought to be maladjusted... Before it is too late, we must narrow the gaping chasm between our proclamations of peace and our lowly deeds which precipitate and perpetuate war."

The prophet Isaiah said in Chapter 58, verses 6-8: "Is not this the way that I choose? To loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share thy bread with the hungry, and bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? When you see the naked, cover him... Then shall the light break forth like the morning and your healing shall spring up quickly." Funny; Isaiah does not talk about how the Lord will make all these things come true. It is for us to do.

The call to social action begins with the moral lessons learned as a child and hopefully continues into your adult life. You know, I have had my share of moral conundrums in my lifetime. Sometimes I did the right thing; sometimes I was too chicken. I had a friend in high school named Karen. Karen moved to Buford from Kentucky in tenth grade and didn't make friends quickly. I befriended her. She and I were flute players and we competed for first chair in the high school band for three years. She had a fantastic solo voice. I had a mediocre choral voice. But I was a better writer and a slightly better student. It was an interesting relationship. During eleventh grade, Karen decided that she was going to be valedictorian of our class. She had two strategies. 1. She would refuse to take tough classes like calculus and physics and instead concentrate on shorthand, band and typing - - classes where she would be assured an "A." Her second strategy consisted of systematically changing her grades. She would turn 93's into 98's. 94's became 99's. 91's became 94's. Grades were kept on 3x5 cards at that time, so this was done with pen.

I went along with this and even found it kinda fun. I broke into the counselor's office with her twice so she could effect her changes. I also witnessed her intercepting the counselor's aide as she brought the grades to the homeroom teacher, so she could change them at that point. I had no problem with this behavior at that time. The following fall, however, was when I faced the demon. We were seniors. The principal came over the public address system one morning and announced that Karen was valedictorian. Two boys were tied for salutatorian. These boys had taken all the high math and science classes that our school offered. They had actually put forth effort for their grades. It just wasn't fair. Suddenly, I was stricken with what I had to do.

I went home and talked to my parents about this. "Stay out of it", they said. Just leave well enough alone. Don't stir anything up. "But it's just not right," I protested. "Bobby and Chip earned the honor and Karen did not." I told on her.

There were hearings. It was Karen's word against mine. There were no backup records. Nobody could prove anything. I looked like a bitter, jealous girl with an axe to grind. Karen kept her role as valedictorian and went on to deliver a speech at graduation.

Eighteen years later, we have had three class reunions. Karen hasn't come to any of them. I have been at all of them. People still talk about it. They all believed me, but were afraid to come to my aide. They were even more chicken than I was. So what did I learn? What was the moral of the story?

I learned that making the right moral choice doesn't always change the situation, but it did change me. I have never regretted what I did by turning Karen in. If I had it to do over, however, I would have not been an accessory to her crimes. I would have acted a year earlier and kept this confrontation from occurring. But this is all part of learning to be a responsible and ethical adult. All of you have a story like this, a time when you made the decision to do something difficult that you knew was right. And the decisions to act on our convictions become more and more difficult.

And if you're like me, you also have passed on many opportunities to do something about your convictions. It's easy to talk about the horrific disasters and injustices that surround us every day. It is easy to shake our heads in moral indignation, shocked that there are so many people suffering. It is easy to "feel sorry" for people. It is just very hard to do something about it. But as I'm sure you all have read in much of our literature, Unitarian Universalists seek to act as a moral force in the world, believing that ethical living is the supreme witness of religion. The here and now and the effects our actions will have on future generations deeply concern us. We know that our relationships with one another, with other peoples, races and nations, should be governed by justice, equity and compassion. So does ethical living follow compassion or does one acquire compassion as a result of making the right moral choices. I tend to think it's probably a combination.

Love is active, not passive. Everyone in this room has been in love before. You know that loving involves doing. I love my mother so I am driving her to Cape Kennedy next weekend. I love this community so I give a lot of my free time here. But what about those people I don't know. Our Unitarian Universalist principles call us to have compassion, and to recognize our own interdependence. I believe that although love is used mostly as a noun in our culture, it is mostly a verb. To say that you love humanity implies a commitment. And from acting on our commitments we find true compassion. So how do we do this?

Right now there are numerous predominantly black churches that have become targets for arson attacks and fire bombings. Unitarian Universalists, including some of our own, are working with these folks to rebuild. There are children in poverty in this neighborhood. There are children in this community who are victims of abuse and neglect. There are women in this community who feel trapped in abusive relationships. UUMAN is working with North Fulton Community Charities and Habitat for Humanity, making a difference one can of food at a time -- one 2X4 at a time. UUMAN is working with a homeless shelter in Marietta, doing something -- one bologna sandwich at a time.

There are homosexuals in Atlanta and yes, even in Roswell and Alpharetta, who are afraid to come out at their jobs for fear of getting fired. There are no laws in this country to protect gay people from discrimination. And it even goes farther than that. A homosexual may be in a committed relationship for years, but when he or she becomes critically ill, their partner has no say-so in what kind of treatment they receive. A gay person can be fired because she is gay. There is no recourse for this kind of discriminatory action. Equal rights should not be denied to anyone. We must not only believe that, but we must become so incensed at the inequities we encounter that we are forced to take action. We must not rest until we do our part. It is a moral imperative.

If homosexuals can be discriminated against - - if African Americans can be discriminated against - - so can you. I'll even go a step further. As a member of the human family, none of us are fully free until we all are. It's not about them. It's about us. We are truly interdependent. In a real sense, what happens to one of us happens to us all. Even in small ways, one person's pain and suffering affects others.

The following true story was told to the League of Women Voters by Don Sweeney, urban planner and professor of architecture at Texas A&M:

A man and his two young children boarded a train and he sat staring out the window. Meanwhile, his children ran up and down the aisle, bumped into people, wrestled with one another, and generally made a nuisance of themselves. Other people in the car became more and more irritated, while the man seemed oblivious to the disturbance. Finally resentment boiled into anger. A passenger went to the man, grabbed him by the shoulder and said, "Mister, get control of your kids. They're running wild." Startled, the man turned and said, "I'm so sorry. My wife died two hours ago and I guess we aren't handling it very well."

Imagine the instant change in attitude among all the passengers. That could be them in such pain. It could happen to any of us. Their anger turned to compassion and their personal self-interest into kindness. We depend on the kindness of strangers as well as friends.

We are all part of the human family. You and I may not form nationwide groups to change discriminatory laws like Unitarian Alice Stone Blackwell did in 1890 when she founded the national American Woman Suffrage Association. We may not have the opportunity to rescue fugitive slaves like Unitarian Samuel Gridley How, M.D. and his wife Julia Ward Howe did during the Civil War. And hopefully we will not be called upon to lay down our lives for something so basic as civil rights for African Americans, like The Unitarian Minister Rev. James Reeb did in 1965 during the march through Alabama.

But we can humbly follow in the footsteps of these more famous Unitarian Universalists, and do what we can to make a difference as our conscience dictates. I don't know if there is a heaven. I don't know if there will be a great white throne of judgment. I am just not sure whether there is somebody "in charge" out there, who is going to be responsible for the eventual rightings of the wrongs. Maybe so. Maybe not. All I do know is that I am right here, right now. Today I have the ability to make a difference. Tomorrow I may not. What choice do we have? We must reach out.

There is a social responsibility bulletin board in the back of this sanctuary. Check it out. Betsy Malone, Sheri Sather and Mike Liebergesell are here to put you to work. They have a project that will accent your particular gifts, no matter what they are. Do you like to write letters? Write your legislator and ask him to pass laws that promote fairness and equality for all regardless of sexual identity, race, sex, etc. Become a member of the Georgia Equality Project. Join Straight But Not Narrow. Write letters to the editor. Words change minds, folks. And if you like the outdoors and are environmentally conscious, we've got a lot of environmental projects and building projects that would suit you just fine.

I know you are busy; most of you are busier than I. You are at soccer practice, softball games, dance recitals, chorus concerts. And this is all after you have come home from work. The idea is not to become a martyr to your cause. The idea is to brighten one tiny corner. You'll be surprised how it will brighten your life to do so. Remember, you cannot do everything but you can do something.

The irony of this entire presentation is that I am truly "preaching to the choir." I've never seen such an involved group of volunteers. Just consider this message a reminder call to you and even more so to me that love is the doctrine of this church. We need each other.

I will close with a quote from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. This quote is from his letter from a Birmingham Jail in 1963. "We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people."

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