That old Carole King song resonates with me this week as I spend time hosting my dear friend Sue from Portland. Coincidentally, at Sunday's "House Church" experience when we were rained out of our open air service and sought shelter in a nearby congregant's home, the topic for the dyad conversation was "who in your life do you feel completely yourself with? nothing to hide, nothing to pretend about, able to accept and give feedback without pain?"
The person who came to my mind was Sue. She is somewhat older than I; she was my mentor when I first achieved Preliminary Fellowship and needed to jump through the Ministerial Fellowship Committee's hoops to reach Final Fellowship. She has been my supporter, adviser, mentor and, eventually, friend. She hauled me to doctor's appointments when I was getting ready for my heart surgery several years ago, she was a reference when I was in search, she has been openhearted and openhanded in her friendship with me. And she appreciates everything I do for her, in return.
When we spend time together, we are happy, whether we are just sitting and reading books or having a meal or talking. We are often roommates at professional functions and our district meetings; I help her with stuff and she helps me. Her mobility is compromised, so I lift or tug or pick up stuff for her. Together we sort through professional issues, swap stories about people we know in common (kindly, not meanly), and discuss the meaty conversational topics of our lives.
Yesterday the UU World came, with its article by Doug Muder about classism. We had only skimmed the article but we began a conversation about his points and the difficult matter of identifying our own classism. Believe me, I know I have difficulties there, having come from a family that was blue-collar educated but white-collar aspiring. (My dad had only high school and two years of Bible College for his ministerial education; my mom taught on a provisional certificate for years before she got a BA. All of us kids went to college; my sister has a PhD, I have two Masters, and my brother has a BS.) Yet I fall into the highly educated worldview camp and tend to associate primarily with folks who are similar to me.
Interestingly, my PhD sister is not comfortable in my UU church, though she is unfailingly courteous and non-argumentative. Her personal beliefs diverge significantly from mine, and it is not a matter of education. I speculate a lot about this, but I am not worried about it. I believe that different faiths attract different people. I also believe that most of us have few friends who are working-class/blue-collar folks; we mostly know "those people" because they act in a service capacity with us.
And when Doug asks if we are stating our beliefs in language that resonates with all people, not just academically educated people, I have to ask myself about my own language usage and preferences. Hard questions, Doug, hard questions. Thanks for asking. But I don't have any answers just yet.
5 comments:
I loved this post...been thinking lately (a lot) about my own social class and where I fit in, whee I used to be and am going. I still identify with a lot of working-class issues because I was there (can't get much more working class than a dancer) but also have few working-class friends now. (My truck-driver stepdad is the rare exception...maybe a few neighbors who are workign class.)
In America we're led to believe it's race, not class, and that you DO have class mobility. But I've found that the class you're born into is most likely the one you'll stay in...and that people who move up in social class "forget where they came from" after a while. And if/when they move BACK down in social class, they have a very hard time dealing with the change.
Thank you for making me think.
Interestingly, my PhD sister is not comfortable in my UU church, though she is unfailingly courteous and non-argumentative. Her personal beliefs diverge significantly from mine, and it is not a matter of education. I speculate a lot about this, but I am not worried about it. I believe that different faiths attract different people.
This is something I've noticed: that there's an assumption that there's an inverse correlation between level of education (or even intelligence) and belief in cosmic absolutes such as constitute dogmatic religion. IOW, the smarter one is, the less likely to believe in a traditional religion.
I don't see how the one necessitates the other; it's one of those unspoken things. Almost, you might say, a matter of faith.
This is an interesting discussion. I haven't had a chance to read the article in UU World yet (hopefully I'll get to it this weekend).
I think the class issue is part of what causes angst for me in the UU church. My father was the first in his family to attend college (and in fact earned 3 degrees all together: bachelor's, master's, and EdS). No one else in his family went to college. No one in my mother's family went to college. I live in a smallish town where probably 80% or more didn't go to college. I'm surrounded by working class people 6 days a week. And then I go to my UU church on Sunday and it is often like a totally different world. Things that are important to working class people seem unimportant to people at the UU church and vice versa. I'm caught in the middle. I feel I identify with both groups at different times. My husband and I both have bachelor's degrees and spend quite a lot of time living in a college town surrounded by educated folks. But we also come from working class people and still very much relate to those people. It is a source of stress for us and is often hard to reconcile. I also think it gives us some interesting perspectives in conversations with either group.
"...asks if we are stating our beliefs in language that resonates with all people, not just academically educated people...."
I don't see how you could speak in "language that resonates with all people." It would be like speaking several languages at once. Is it really possible?
and if different things concern different people, how can you talk about things that concern them all? Much as I love the UU church, there are certainly sermon topics that do not interest me. Isn't that true for all of us? If we added topics that suited other people and then others yet again and so on, wouldn't we dilute it past all recognition? I'm just puzzled -- how do people propose we meet the needs of everyone when their needs are different? there are thousands of different churches -- aren't we arrogant to think we are going to be the ones to find something that will work for everyone, when no one else could? Or, are they saying that we should change over to be a church for working class people and forget the educated ones?
I'm not arguing against it, I just don't see any way to be what everyone needs. Maybe I'm just being blind -- do you see any way?
Or, are they saying that we should change over to be a church for working class people and forget the educated ones?
Does there need to be a distinction? I've been both working-class and educated (worked my way through school in a printshop, and I've worked grunt jobs at times since then), and I don't think the change affected my spiritual needs that much. Do you see a real difference between social classes in the way they relate to God?
Post a Comment