WHY IS OCT. 11 AN IMPORTANT DAY?
Rev. Kit Ketcham, Oct. 11, 2015
What do you
already know about October 11? Do you
know why it’s important to a lot of people?
And why it might be important to Unitarian Universalists?
Let’s start
with the easy one first. What do we
commemorate on Oct. 11? Here’s
what I discovered by consulting Google:
In 1975, it
was the first Saturday Night Live Show and its host was the late George Carlin,
one of the forerunners of the comedy and politics shtick.
It’s also Bald
and Free Day, for those of you who wanted to know that. It’s World Egg Day and National Sausage Pizza
Day. It’s also Face Your Fears Day, and
here locally it’s the day of the Columbia Crossing and the last day for
Astoria’s Sunday Market. It’s also my
friend Sue Ayer’s 80th birthday!
But there are a few even more important reasons to observe Oct. 11 as a
special day on our calendar.
For one
thing, Oct. 11 has been designated the United Nations’ Day of the Girl Child,
to raise awareness regarding gender inequality world-wide. This special day was established in 2012 and has a different theme every year: in 2012, it was “ending child marriage”; in
2013, it was “innovating for girls’ education” and in 2014 it was “ending the
cycle of violence”.
This year’s theme is “the power of
the adolescent girl” and was selected because teenage girls are at risk all
over the world from the challenges of puberty, and their reproductive health is
in danger, as they need help in protecting themselves against rape and unwanted
pregnancies, STDs and gender-based violence.
Those of us
who have raised or are raising daughters and granddaughters can only imagine
the difficulties of raising healthy girls under some of the world’s conditions,
where kidnapping and rape in war-torn countries are commonplace and where many
young women are still being held captive by the Boko Horam in Nigeria. Can we even imagine what that must be like
for them and for their families? And we
think we’ve had it tough when our girls decide their parents are old-fashioned
and uncool!
This is one
of the three October 11th commemorations that I want to think about
with you this morning. The others are
similar in some ways, in that all of them share commonalities with our social
justice mission as Unitarian Universalists.
Some of you
may know that Oct. 11 is also National Coming Out Day. Its purpose is to
encourage lesbian, gay, transgender, bisexual, and questioning people to come out of the closet to their
friends and family members.
Over the years, so many members of
the gay/lesbian/bi/trans community have bravely revealed publicly their sexual
orientation or gender identity, and have told their stories and experiences, daring
to take that step despite the danger, and, that,
I think, has created the possibility for the many changes in our national
attitude toward sexual minorities.
The second
Monday of October which often falls on the 11th, has commonly been known as Columbus Day, the
day Christopher Columbus stumbled across the islands of the Caribbean and
thought he’d found the West Indies. That
occasion, though important in the history of the Western Hemisphere, was the
beginning of the demise of many indigenous peoples in the Americas.
Several
cities in our nation have eliminated Columbus Day celebrations and instead
recognize that genocidal period of history by instituting Indigenous Peoples
Day instead. Several states do not
recognize Columbus Day at all any more and point to the infamous papal bull
published by the Vatican in the 15th century which (and I quote):
“gave Christian
explorers the right to claim lands they "discovered" and lay claim to
those lands for their Christian Monarchs. Any land that was not inhabited by
Christians was available to be "discovered", claimed, and exploited.
If the "pagan" inhabitants could be converted, they might be spared.
If not, they could be enslaved or killed.
This statement of religious arrogance
and cruelty established a precedent which even the United States government
enshrined into law in the early years of
our nation, and which has incited a groundswell of indignation and demands to
both the church and the US government to repeal and repudiate its damning
effect on the indigenous peoples of the globe.
But I
digress a bit to express my own indignation at this heinous policy, known as the Doctrine of Discovery, which
justified the treatment of native peoples in this country as Europeans
considered themselves the true inheritors of the riches of this land and
despised the original inhabitants as subhuman.
Let’s look
at how these three issues---the treatment of teenage girls, the struggles of sexual
and gender minority persons, and the
oppression of native peoples, all of which are issues across the globe---team
up with another human rights conflict which has taken center stage in the past
few years here---the Black Lives Matter
campaign, in which UUs have been deeply involved across the nation.
Allison
spoke to us recently about this campaign and shortly after the Sunday she
spoke, I found in my own research for today a set of statements created by the
group called the “Organizing Collective
of Black Lives of Unitarian Universalism” which outlines pretty clearly how
our Seven Principles, the philosophical statements on which our faith is
founded, enable us as UUs to address the multiple threads of oppression, no
matter who are the victims, and to sort out a personal and a community approach
to the everyday struggle of those who are marginalized and oppressed.
Our own
denomination has had its less than heroic moments as we have struggled to live
out our principles in a society where institutional racism and our own non-recognition
of how our white, straight, gender privilege has often blinded us to the
despair of those we perceive as “other”---be they teenage girls in sexual
slavery, the torture and murder of transgender persons, the stealing of land
and resources from First Nations people, or the black person killed by police
policies about deadly force coupled with racism.
I haven’t
yet figured out how to fold in the atrocities of gun violence and the
difficulty of finding effective ways to reduce the misuse of guns for violent
actions against the innocent. Another
day, perhaps.
Because the
document of the 7 principles of Black Lives is so powerful, let me read from
the statement that has been published.
In a historic gathering of Black Leadership in July, the Caucus of Black
UUs codified the direct link between our 7 UU principles and the movement for
black lives, in this document which underscores the principle that Black Lives
Matter. (read document)
When the
movement “Black Lives Matter” began to gather steam, its very momentum caused
anxiety among many observers. “ALL Lives
Matter” as a slogan appeared in protests; some BLM banners were defaced and the
word BLACK replaced by the word ALL.
But the movement itself was in
response to the many incidences of black men and women and children being cut
down by police policies, some of the victims dying needlessly, dying unarmed,
dying of so-called suicides, dying for being children with water guns, thrown
on the ground or beaten for no apparent reason.
So I do not
want to come across as diluting or appropriating
the message of the 7 principles of Black Lives.
I want to take the wisdom hammered out by the Organizing Collective and
apply it to our own social justice efforts, whether we are working with
homeless people in Astoria, growing food for the food pantry, cleaning up our
roads, and just being in relationship with others in our community.
Here’s some
of what I’ve found in this manifesto that applies broadly to our work as social
activists and provides a framework for searching our own hearts and minds. We don’t want to be just do-gooder liberals,
the bleeding hearts who talk about a problem, throw money at it, but don’t
really get involved. That’s not me and I
hope it’s not you.
The First
Principle of UUism, our guiding philosophical principle, is that we “affirm and
promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person”. To me this means that all flavors of human
beings, in every or any category, matter.
All are worthy of respect and dignity, even if we are scared or repelled.
Our second
principle affirms and promotes justice, equity and compassion in human
relations. To me, this means that LOVE
is the driver of our social justice work, that we reach out in our efforts to
heal the world with a sincere desire to offer compassion, justice, and fairness
to all persons.
Our third
principle affirms and promotes acceptance and encouragement to spiritual growth
in our congregations. To me, this means
that we, in love, strive to understand and to accept those in our congregation
and in the world who are different, whose path may be different from our own,
and to open our hearts to them.
Our fourth
principle affirms and promotes a free and responsible search for truth and
meaning. How can we find the best ways
to practice our work, evaluate our progress, and examine our own motives and
efforts?
Our fifth
principle affirms and promotes our right of conscience and the use of the
democratic process in our congregations and in society. Let us not assume that we straight white
liberals of either gender know what non-straight, non-white, gender-fluid people
need. They are the experts, not us. Let their experience guide us.
Our sixth
principle affirms and promotes the goal of world community with peace, liberty,
and justice for all. What is the world
we want? For ourselves, for all other
humans, for all living creatures, for our environment? We work for transformation, that all may
thrive.
Our seventh
principle, which wraps it all up, affirms and promotes respect for the
interdependent web of all existence, of which we are a part. Let us honor the wisdom and work of our
elders, as we work to build foundations.
And let us recognize the impact of our work on future generations. It’s not just for today.
To
summarize---the words “all persons”, “compassionate love”, “equality and
justice”, “leadership, “evaluation”, “transformation” and “all existence” jump
out at me.
They create
a concept that could be our mission statement, our reason for being, our goal
to achieve, small bit by small bit, until the world around us has been
transformed in some positive way.
Giving compassionate love to all persons in the name of equality, we seek to support the cause
of justice by respecting the leadership of oppressed groups and
carefully evaluating our motives and
process, in the quest for transformation
for all existence.
Let’s pause
for a time of silent reflection and prayer.
HYMN# 170 “We are a
gentle angry people”
EXTINGUISHING THE CHALICE
BENEDICTION:
Our worship
service, our time of shaping worth together, is ended, but our service to the
world begins again as we leave this place.
Let us go in peace, ready to give compassionate love to all, committed
to equality and justice, respecting the leadership of those who are fighting
the battle of oppression, keeping our motives honest and clean, as we bring
transformation to ourselves and all existence.
Amen, Shalom, Salaam, and Blessed Be.
CLOSING CIRCLE
