FREEDOM:  THE HEART OF DEMOCRACY

Rev. Kit Ketcham

July 4, 2021

On our nation’s 245^th birthday today, before the fireworks explode over the river tonight and the hot dogs and hamburgers hit the grill, let’s celebrate that we are in a new home, at a new time of day, with some new faces and some faces we haven’t seen in person for almost a year and a half.

We’ve been deprived of certain freedoms, we’ve chafed at those restrictions, we’ve gone along because our consciences insisted that we consider the larger good.  It hasn’t been easy and we may have resented the uproar from certain quarters about FREEDOM from government interference and the stubborn refusals to comply with public health recommendations like wearing a mask, observing social distance, and other restrictions that seemed to some to compromise the American way of life---doing what you darned well please.

You would think that most of us by now would have realized that “doing what you darned well please” isn’t a healthy way to live, does not get you a significant other, or even a second date.  We can’t be oblivious to the needs of others and our society and come out smelling like a rose, in the vernacular of an older place and time.

Freedom is a messy topic.  Seems like for every freedom we prize, we have to consider the consequences of that freedom.  Freedom to disregard the warnings about COVID landed a lot of people in the hospital and many died.  

Freedom to disregard the civil rights of people of color has proved to be disastrous, as we are forced now to look at our dismal history of slavery, poverty, segregation, and other cultural punishments visited upon those whose skin color or station in life has relegated them to fewer opportunities for advancement.

Freedom to speak hatefully about those with sexual or gender diversity has resulted in the deaths of countless suicidal children and adults, psychic wounds from bullying and discriminatory practices denying the rights of transgender people to adequate health care, and a sense of fear about being one’s true self.  And don’t forget the stigma of HIV/AIDS, when thousands were dying and there was no urgency on the part of our government to offer help.

It's been instructive and astonishing to witness the freedoms many citizens are pursuing even in the face of the consequences:  freedom from truth lies at the bottom of a plethora of waystations on the way down :  freedom from health care, freedom from personal responsibility, freedom from caring about the larger whole. Freedom from science they don’t like.  Freedom from liberal values that require deeper thought than a kneejerk NOT in my town or church or family or friends.  Freedom from inconvenient requirements like masks or temperature checks or even the suggestion of vaccination.

These are so-called “freedoms” that have severe consequences, not only to the true believer but also to our precious democracy, the democracy that depends on truthful information, reason-based requirements, honesty in our public servants and elected leaders.

I did some Google work to delve into what the term freedom means---what does it allow and what does it disallow?

I read about positive liberty and negative liberty.  Philosophers like Erich Fromm and others distinguish between “freedom from” and “freedom to” and the difficult task of working that out in a democracy.

Currently, as we emerge slowly from months and months of restrictions in the service of public health, the difference between the two becomes stark and challenging.

In an essay by Ibram X. Kendi in the Atlantic recently, the long-standing difference between core notions of freedom from and freedom to,  Kendi points out that these two notions of freedom have long rubbed along uneasily side by side, but that those who demand that states open up so they may shop or visit the zoo, among other so-called free pleasures, are, as he says, revealing the tension between the two.

It's the very notion that it doesn’t matter what happens to the larger community so long as the individual has unfettered freedom to do as they please.  This value animates the gun rights movement---indicating for that group that the cost of true liberty is tens of thousands of avoidable gun deaths each year.

We have seen hundreds of gun-toting insurgents mounting the steps and climbing the walls of our national capitol, and Americans must decide whether the price we are willing to pay for the freedom of armed protests is our own health and safety.

Polls have shown that the majority of Americans are still deeply devoted to the proposition that brandishing of guns inside a Capitol building is not actually liberty, not liberty and justice for all but rather only for a small minority of those who seek to define freedom as something they will seize and threaten and even kill for.

The idea of personal freedom is a concept which has been debated for centuries.  In Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale, Aunt Lydia, an instructor for novice Handmaids, tells the women that there are two kinds of freedoms:

Freedom for the individual to do what he or she wants, which may seem desirable but can lead to anarchy, and…

Freedom from, in which rules and restrictions protect individuals from the results of amoral or anarchic behavior.

In the 20^th and 21^st centuries, evidence of both attitudes has emerged in the severe restriction of individual liberty and freedom of speech in such repressive regimes as the USSR and other authoritarian nations and the insistence by insurgents on their right to attack the US Capitol and State capitols in defense of a false belief that an election was stolen.

In early 1943, during the second world war and about the time of the Blitz in Europe, the artist Norman Rockwell painted scenes of what President Franklin D Roosevelt at the time considered “The Four Freedoms” of American life. (Frank)

The first work in this series was a family having what looks like a Thanksgiving meal together, with grandparents, adult children and their children smiling and laughing across a table laden with food and featuring a giant turkey in the center of the scene.  This painting was entitled “Freedom from Want”.

The second painting in the series portrays a man who appears to be perhaps a blue-collar worker standing and speaking to a crowd of men seated around him.  This is entitled “Freedom of Speech”

The third painting shows a man and woman at the bedside of two sleeping young boys.  The man has a folded newspaper in his hands with headlines about bombings across Europe.  This painting is entitled “Freedom from Fear”.

The fourth painting shows a grouping of people’s faces in a variety of prayer or reverie, or concentration on a speaker who is not pictured.  This painting is entitled “Freedom to Worship”.

That was 78 years ago and Rockwell’s folksy, homey paintings appeared regularly in the Saturday Evening Post, hung in galleries across America and were prized for their depiction of an American citizenry which was blessed by these four freedoms.

Nowadays, they seem, to me at least, to depict an America that never really existed, except in our ability to overlook the ways each purported freedom was a false front---romantic and charming but idealistic and unreal.

We have been challenged to look at the real America, the America that is beautiful, yes, but also hiding a dark history of oppression and greed.  

As Unitarian Universalists, we have communally decided that our religious faith is founded upon 7 principles which outline the values which form the bedrock of our faith. 

Over the years, as the issues of racism and white supremacy have come to light and the pain of marginalization has affected Unitarian Universalist congregations and associations, our leadership, guided by the strength and determination of the many people of color who are active in our congregations and in our (governance), shaken by experiences of POC that have come to light over the years, there has come a movement to add an 8^th Principle to our guiding principles.

The proposed 8^th Principle, which is making its way through the acceptance process and will likely be added to our list of Principles, is worded in this way:

“We, the member congregations of the Unitarian Universalist Association, covenant to affirm and promote journeying toward spiritual wholeness by working to build a diverse multicultural Beloved Community by our actions that accountably dismantle racism and other oppressions in ourselves and our institutions.”

Over the generations that the Unitarian Universalist Association has existed, we have prided ourselves on being “ahead of the pack” in terms of responding to social issues.  We were in the forefront of earlier social movements like marriage equality and women in the ministry, but when hiring practices in the UUA revealed great discrepancies in the hiring of equally qualified POC, our leadership realized we had a big problem to solve.

I spent some time reading more about the 8^th Principle proposition and would like to tell you more about it.  It is clearly related to the efforts this congregation’s membership has made in understanding the issues of white supremacy and the history of racism in our country.

Let me tell you what I’ve learned.  I retired about the time this was gaining prominence in UUA circles, so it’s been a new journey for me too.  But as I looked at the Norman Rockwell paintings of the Four Freedoms, I realized that there is not a single face (that I could discern anyhow) of any person of color.  

There was no indication that Black or Brown or Asian people had the same freedoms as white Americans.  So here is some of the information that is the groundwork for affirming and promoting an 8^th Principle.

WHY THE UUA (USA)?

Whiteness, and chattel slavery (structural racism) were invented in the US, at the same time that modern Unitarianism and Universalism were being created.

Unitarians originally were largely from the New England European-American elite – often did not treat Native American peoples well, benefitted from slavery, and some were leaders in the Eugenics movement (promoting birth control for people of color because they were seen as inferior.

Some Unitarian and Universalist ministers (more Universalists, since Universalism was more of a working class movement) spoke out against slavery, but we did little as a denomination.  After the Trayvon Martin verdict, many UU ministers said nothing in church

UU’s did a very good job during the Civil Rights Movement, largely at the request of Dr. King, and we deserve to be proud of that.

In the late 60’s a promising movement among Black UUs was supported by the UUA, then de-funded because of a financial crisis, leading to a terrible conflict, after which many African-Americans left the UUA.

There was a long period of silence until the late 80’s and early 90’s, then excellent progress after that for a decade or so, but we have regressed, leading to an incident in which the UUA President resigned over hiring inclusivity issues.

WHY SINGLE OUT RACISM?

At a global level, this would not necessarily make sense…but in the USA, racism stands out.  The two worst crises of the UUA (late 1960’s and now) were both related to race.  Racism in the US stems from chattel slavery, where people were uniquely legally treated as property that could be inherited, for something (skin color) they had no control over.

The UUA has done well with women becoming ministers and leaders (the 7 Principles themselves came out of the Women’s Movement within UUism).

The LGBTQIA+ community is well represented as members, ministers, RE staff, and other leadership in individual congregations and the UUA, and the Welcoming Congregation program has been very effective.  

Some congregations have done a good job of making sure they are accessible to people with disabilities, although many UU spaces are still not fully accessible.

• • WHAT IS BELOVED COMMUNITY?

Beloved Community happens when people of diverse racial, ethnic, educational, class, gender, abilities, sexual orientation backgrounds/identities come together in an interdependent relationship of love, mutual respect, and care that seeks to realize justice within the community and in the broader world.

\WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE ACCOUNTABLE?

White UUs hold themselves accountable to communities of color, to make sure whites do what they say they will do. In practice, that can mean having a People of Color Caucus within congregations, districts, etc., to discern and express needs and concerns to the rest of the community. Black UUs hold each other accountable and help each other see and dismantle signs of internalized racism. We need an effective mechanism or structure to ensure this. Similarly for other oppressions.

The UU Principles were designed to be dynamic, not a fixed creed.  It means we want to always continue to be educating ourselves, exploring truth, and raising our consciousness.  When we get to a new level of understanding and clarity, our structure makes it possible to reflect that.  

UU is the only religion that intentionally builds in that flexibility to acknowledge the importance of ongoing revealed truth.  This happened when environmental awareness reached a critical mass and got added as a 7th Principle (although it also has multicultural relationship implications).  We are approaching a similar critical mass level of awareness with the systemic nature of racism and other oppressions.

The 8th Principle is really just the beginning of action, rather than the ultimate goal.   Many people of color have been attracted by the values and potential of UUism, but their souls have been repeatedly wounded by its whiteness.  Let’s make our actions match our values.  Let’s be a UU movement that truly feeds them.  That would be spiritual wholeness.

Let’s pause for a time of silent reflection and prayer.

Benediction:  Our worship service is ended, but our service to the world begins again as we leave this place.  Let us go in peace, remembering that Freedom is a quality that depends on truth, on our rational examination of issues and making rational decisions about them, and on our commitment to our diverse community.  May we not be individuals who insist on OUR freedoms when others’ needs are at stake and may we continue to strive to bring Beloved Community to our nation and ourselves.  Amen, Shalom, Salaam, and Blessed Be.

Is PTSD part of the Q(ueer) package?

 I've been doing a lot of thinking lately about PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) and how it affects human behaviors as we strive to live with each other in community.  And since June is Pride Month, I'm particularly thinking about how it might relate to the Q community.  I'm not a therapist.  I'm more of a chaplain or counselor in my relationships with Q folks.

Almost every person I know who is part of the Queer universe (asexual, bisexual, homosexual, lesbian, gay, transgender, misgendered, intersex, or any of the other layers of sexual and gender diversity) has some strikingly common characteristics:  intelligence, creativity, talent, strong leadership skills, courage,... and hidden pain from the deep wounds of being different all their lifetimes.

I've talked with teenagers, young adults, and older adults for almost 50 years about gayness, listening to stories of bullying, physical and emotional abuse, denial of true self, fear of discovery, suicidal ideation, dangers of disease, wanting to be honest but scared of the outcome, and all these conversations have led me to understand that many, perhaps most, people in the Queer universe have been hurt badly during their lives.  

It can be hard to overcome the damage done by PTSD experiences, especially when it's buried deep in emotional receptors;  fear and mistrust of those who may inflict further pain can make interpersonal relationships hard to create and maintain.  A certain defensiveness can become a coping strategy, especially when hard work does not appear to be appreciated. Healing occurs through deliberate effort, often therapy, and deliberate behavior changes.

I've noticed that in groups of people, like a organization's board or other community agency involved in doing good work in the world,  the great creativity and leadership skills in such a group tend to produce many different takes on how things should be done.  

Hard-won, sometimes fragile self-esteem can make it hard to find common ground when ideas clash.  People take sides and a schism can emerge, damaging the effectiveness of whatever project is under consideration.  Without a way to resolve the conflict, fears and defensiveness define the way forward.

But it often isn't really forward, it's backwards, because some good ideas aren't heard or accepted and frustration with each other delays the planning of an event or making decisions.  And the work stalls, the feelings are negative, and the damage to a desirable goal is considerable, to say nothing of the scabs pulled off of old wounds.

Sometimes the best next step is to wait till feelings cool and then test the waters.  Often, though, an opportunity for all to vent feelings of anger and disappointment, as well as the fear that cherished projects will fall apart, is a better option, if there is a trusted, neutral person to listen and to reflect what they are hearing, in a safe space.

The ABC's of Q

The ABC’s of Q

There are some new letters in the Q alphabet, along with a whole lot

 of new understandings of gender identity and sexual attraction.  Most of us are probably familiar with the standard acronym LGBT and many are likely acquainted with the additional letters of Q and I (queer and intersex).  We’ve become more comfortable with the changes emerging in the language of sexual and gender diversity:  

CISgender, for example, means someone whose gender identity matches the sex they were assigned at birth and we tend to automatically think of other humans falling mostly within that definition.  So it has been really important that, as the term “homosexual” began to feel pejorative and limited, the non-CIS population of our world has expanded to include layers of sexual and gender identity that have been previously unknown except to those who inhabit those identities.

According to a recent NYT article, there’s pansexual, someone attracted to people of all gender identities; demisexual, someone who does not experience sexual attraction except to someone with whom they have a strong emotional connection; and graysexual, someone who occasionally experiences sexual attraction but usually does not, so it’s a gray area.  

We are getting more comfortable with the knowledge that many people identify neither as male nor female but see themselves outside the gender binary, and call themselves Nonbinary.  They may also use the term genderqueer, exhibiting both traditionally masculine and feminine qualities or neither.  

Gender fluid is a term used by people whose identity shifts or fluctuates.  Gender neutral describes someone who prefers “they” as their singular pronoun, not described by a specific gender.  The Pride Rainbow refracts into a beautiful panorama of color and inclusion.

There’s one more letter in the acronym and that’s A.  I’ve previously thought of it as signifying Ally and Advocate, but as I age and get ever nearer to my 80th birthday, I realize that gradually I have let go of my search for a sexual partner and I have become comfortably Asexual, a person who experiences little or no sexual attraction—to anyone.  

I am eager to give and to receive love but not sexual love.  It’s different from celibacy, which is a discipline sometimes required by religious vows; it is an understanding that I am attracted to people for nonsexual reasons, and this is both a physical and an emotional condition. 

It is also a huge relief to know that this is normal!  Yes, I have formerly lived a life as Ms. Kitty, an eager ciswoman attracted to men, but now I want friends, not lovers.

 RISE AGAIN, RISE AGAIN:  Transformation and Tragedy

Rev. Kit Ketcham

Easter, April 4, 2021

It’s been 13 months since the world, our nation, our states, our counties, our towns, our selves were forced into lockdown and isolation, fearful for our own lives and those of our families and friends.  Life turned on a dime---or was it a molecule? 

 For the past year plus, we have contended with all manner of tragedy:  not only disease but also wildfires, landslides, floods, weather events that changed the landscape and destroyed homes and forests, multiple deaths, including mass murders, unfamiliar ways of being in the world with masks, no hugging, no touching, no crowds, and an overlying dread of “what will happen next” with an unstable and cruel federal government.

At the same time, however, we have participated in ongoing resistance to cruel and inhumane treatment of our fellow citizens.  Fueled by unjust laws, occasions of police brutality, neo-nazi threats and actions, our resistance has reflected the undying thread of hope and commitment to a life that offers love and justice to all living beings, to our precious Earth, and enhances our relationships with each other and with the land.

 And here we are at Easter, with its myriad rituals of celebration and dedication.  I ran over in my mind all the various things I think of when I think about Easter:  bunnies, eggs, the vernal equinox, Passover, Holi, death, resurrection, flowers, springtime, Ramadan, Jesus.

If you were a little kid in a traditional Christian Sunday School, like me, cue the old song: “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.” 

You may have noticed that in Unitarian Universalism, we include Christianity as one of our sources but only one of several, even though many of us grew up as Christians in churches that ranged from fundamentalist to progressive, and our UU principles are remarkably similar to the teachings of Jesus.

I think of myself as a UU Christian and am glad for the gentle guidance of Sunday School teachers of my childhood and youth, though when I went to college and learned from professors who were clearly better informed than those kindly women and men, I learned that there was no one-size-fits-all Christianity and gave myself permission to find the version that fit me best.

Unitarian Universalism presented me with the opportunity to use my skills and commitment---in social justice work, in songs and stories that reflected my values rather than tired old “washed in the blood” theology, and in a way of presenting our UU faith not by proselytizing but by attraction---attraction to a religious faith that honors science and critical thinking, reaching out to a world that sought love and justice in religion, not cruel rejection of The Other, those who were different---in race, in sexual orientation, gender identity, ability, the many ways religion has historically wounded those looking for a safe place to be their real selves.

One of those gifts of UUism has been the opportunity for me to find spiritual meaning and inspiration in a wide array of stories, songs, poetry, the arts, the outpouring of creative expression of an inner life, an inner commitment to say to the world, “this is important!  Listen, watch, sing, pray in these ways.  Let yourself dream, understand, create your own spirituality and meaningful life out of your own understandings and ingenuity.”

And I believe that it is my strong Unitarian Universalist faith that has made this past year a growing time for me, because I was able to see the contrast between the corruption and failures of our harsh government’s policies and the hopeful, justice-seeking practices of a nation of people who craved leaders who valued human life more than riches, whose intent was to help, rather than to punish or to narrow opportunities for all citizens.

This faith has helped me weather the loneliness and frustration of isolation, presented opportunities to be creative in new ways, and to reach out in small ways to connect with others safely.  Though I was inactive here at PUUF for much of this past year, it has been a blessing for me to return as a member of this Fellowship and to offer support to this beloved community of friends.

But back to Easter.  One of the things that has been important to me, and perhaps to you as well, is the overriding knowledge that we have been through an oppressive and dark time, and as the clouds begin to lift, as vaccines have become available, as we stretch out our arms to each other, many of us don’t quite know what to do.  

We want to return to normal, but what, under these circumstances, is normal?  As a congregation, we are diverse in our spiritual and religious lives.  We are definitely NOT one size fits all people. And we are all affected by PTTSD==post-trumptraumatic stress disorder.

It used to be that the old Easter songs—Up From the Grave He Arose—and others of that ilk gave me a certain thrill.  It wasn’t so much the words (you have to translate pretty hard to turn that hymn into something more meaningful to a UU Christian heretic like me), but the thrilling chorus “He arose, he arose, Hallelujah” was always exciting to sing.

As a minister, I’ve dinked around on Easter with other hymns of the season, but my taste really runs more to the folk genre, the songs that challenge us to think about the injustice in the world, the plight of people who are cheated out of a good life by racism or ableism or homophobia or other subtle and not so subtle oppressions.

Listening to the music that came out of the Pete Seeger era and the stories that accompanied those songs, I found that many songs told a story of moral courage, of resurrection and rebirth, of overcoming despair and deprivation, some of them tied to words about God or Jesus but many of them simply telling a story with an outcome that was triumphant.

And isn’t that what Easter is all about?  Buried bulbs turn into daffodils and hyacinths, gnarled old trees produce abundant blossoms, the vernal equinox signals the spring season, eggs and bunnies represent the flourishing of new life.

A long time ago, probably in Denver at one of the many folk jams I attended in those days, I heard a song I really liked.  It was about a fishing boat off the shores of one of the Canadian provinces, a vessel that hit a rock and went down.  I want you to hear it, so I’ve arranged for us to listen to a song that has been meaningful to me for a long time and now even more as I think about its being an allegory for the past few years.

It’s called The Mary Ellen Carter and it has come to mean more to me than just a fishing boat that sank.  See what you think.  We can talk about it in our social time, if you wish.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uirXFig0IQ&ab_channel=AlS 

I learned this song some time ago, before the days when our nation was starting to deal with the aftereffects of governments that seemed bent on changing our system of self-governance to a system of corporate domination.  We may not have fully recognized its toxicity until 2016 when it began in earnest to poison and kill.

But a time of isolation and social deprivation and distance has made it possible to consider the stories we heard of kindness and connection, the ways people were rising and have always risen during times of crisis.   We and all our global neighbors were living through the same experience and it had quite a leveling effect.

We noticed kindness, we shouted down injustice, we read about what it has meant to be Black, to be Brown or Asian, to be disabled and mocked by a tone-deaf president, to be banned from crossing US borders, detained for minor reasons, as was our friend Ruben Perez.  

To be unprotected as a deadly virus roamed the planet, killing millions of helpless people and here in our country, killing over a half-million of our friends, our grandparents and parents, our children, our young adults, and ourselves as well as many of the health workers who came to serve the ill, risking their own wellbeing.  We have been in mourning for a long time and for a lot of reasons.

Fueled by our anger at the corruption revealed by investigations and arrests, livid that our democracy should be so attacked by those who had for a generation or more enriched the rich, oppressed the poor, and professed a variation of Christianity that had nothing to do with the teachings of the prophet Jesus and had everything to do with corruption and greed.

We resisted, we pushed back, we organized, we marched.  We learned about the Black and Brown and Asian people who were suffering under the hammer of white supremacy and we learned how we colluded with it unwittingly.  We read about Caste and the works of James Baldwin, Malcolm X, Cesar Chavez, and other writers who made clear the agony and the anger which were the product of that hammer of whiteness.

And we read and watched stories of kindness, of people reaching out to help those struggling, of triumph over loss and fear, of rising despite the obstacles we faced.  We got used to Zoom meetings, went through a lot of dry eye meds as we stared at screens, rejoiced with each other as vaccines became available and more and more of us were fully protected.

We connected with friends on email, on Facetime, on Facebook and Messenger, and some of us reconnected with friends from whom we had been estranged.  Families who lived far apart from other members checked in weekly rather than yearly.  We celebrated birthdays and holidays in new ways.  We stayed home and got creative with cooking or sewing or painting or writing.  We watched the birds.  We walked a lot.

We watched the news and rejoiced as a new federal administration took the reins of a weakened democracy and began to rebuild the damaged pillars of our national life.

We rose and we continue to rise. We celebrate Easter this year with a new sense of resurrection, even with all the deaths that have taken our loved ones away.  We rise. 

So maybe the real message of this time of year is simply this:  Rise Again, Rise again, though your heart it be broken or life about to end.

Rise Again, after four years of watching our precious democracy chopped away at by greed and corruption and the relief of finding leaders with compassion and a determination to make real democracy live again.

Rise Again, through the confusion and fear and sorrow of not knowing who you are and lifted up by kindness, finding possible joy and truth beyond the fear.

Maya Angelou closes her epic poem “Still I Rise” in this way:

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear

I rise

Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear

I rise

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,

I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

I rise

I rise

I rise.

Let’s pause for a time of silent reflection and prayer.

BENEDICTION:  Our worship service is ended, but our service to the world begins again as we leave this place.  Let us go in peace, remembering that the message of Easter is of Rising Again, and again, and again, and helping our friends and neighbors Rise with us.  May we offer always kindness instead of meanness and may our strength make others’ lives easier.   Amen, Shalom, Salaam, and Blessed Be.

 CHANGING OUR PERSPECTIVE ON RACISM

Rev. Kit Ketcham

January 17, 2021

The past couple of years have been tumultuous, not just because of the pandemic and its lockdowns, social distancing, and the politicization of national health, but because we as a global society are having to come to terms with a previously unseen and evil force:  the white supremacy which lies like a deadening blanket over our relationships with our fellow human beings of color.

Like many of you, no doubt, I have been doing a lot of reading about white fragility, white supremacy, institutional racism, and looking at myself and my own history of growing up in a world of racial privilege that I didn’t even notice, most of the time.

One of the books I read was Isabel Wilkerson’s CASTE:  the origins of our discontents.  Wilkerson’s personal experiences, her scholarship, and her knack of telling stories and making connections with our painful American history gave me a picture of an embedded poison in our heritage that has come to a head with political and social events of recent decades.

Her book starts with an analogy, one you may not have heard before.  

In the summer of 2016, in the Siberian tundra, an abnormal heat wave caused the tundra to warm up to the point where something unusual began to happen.  A strange pathogen sickened and killed hundreds of human beings and animals.  It was discovered to be the anthrax pathogen which had killed herds of reindeer decades earlier, carcasses buried in the permafrost since WWII and now surfacing unexpectedly to cause havoc as the pathogen awakened in the heat.  It seeped into the grazing lands and infected reindeer and herders who raised and relied upon those animals for sustenance.

Wilkerson writes:  “The anthrax, like the reactivation of the human pathogens of hatred and tribalism in this evolving century, had never died.  It lay in wait, sleeping, until extreme circumstances brought it to the surface and back to life.”

That same year, 2016, in the USA, two candidates vied for the office of POTUS, one a no-nonsense woman with decades of experience and highly qualified, the other an impetuous billionaire, reality TV star, prone to insulting anyone unlike himself, who had never held public office.

During the campaign, these polar opposites displayed opposite campaign tactics as well.  The billionaire boasted about his sexual assaults, mocked the disabled, encouraged violence, declared FAKE NEWS to be endemic in the media, and had his supporters shouting “Lock her up” at every rally.

On the other side of the aisle, the woman candidate could hardly get a word in edgewise when, at debates, the billionaire loomed over her as she spoke, as if threatening her from behind her podium.  And despite her obvious qualifications, she was a woman and therefore the billionaire’s target.

After the election, won by probably the least qualified candidate in US history, anger and fear for our democracy arose in large pockets of resistance across the land:  the Women’s March movement, Black Lives Matter, and several others, and we as a nation began to see how deeply divided our citizenry is.

During the past four years, my concern and disgust toward the situation which was developing as the president of the US wreaked havoc drove me to read what I could about both the person in the White House and the motives which seemed to be driving him.

We have known for a long time that systematic, institutional racism infects our culture deeply.  But what does it look like in other parts of the world?  Isabel Wilkerson’s book CASTE addressed that topic and as I read it, I could see that it was bigger than US history.  It did not start with slavery in our country but was a logical progression in a worldview which regarded certain classes of people to be less than human.

Wilkerson discusses three major caste systems throughout the book:  India, Nazi Germany, and America.  There are differences, of course, but there are many similarities.  Did you know, for example, that the Nazis actually studied America’s segregation practices and Jim Crow laws in their run-up to Jewish persecution and execution?

She describes 8 pillars of the Caste system, ancient principles upon which a caste system is constructed, beliefs that were at one time or another deep within the culture and collective subconscious of most every inhabitant.  That’s how caste develops and functions.  These foundational concepts have arisen from Wilkerson’s study of the ancient principles underlying the parallels, overlap, and commonalities of three major caste hierarchies.

As I describe them, I hope you’ll think about where you have seen or experienced these pillars at work in our American life, as well as in other societies you may be familiar with.

The first of these principles is “Divine Will and the Laws of Nature”

Religious legends have been told for centuries about how the gods or god created a hierarchy of human beings---in Hinduism, for example, the Brahmin is the head, the mouth, the philosopher, priest, the one nearest the gods;  and then downwards, level by bodily level,  according  each part of the human body to a certain social role. 

 The Brahmin is the head, and the feet are the servants which bear the burden, and they are at the bottom.  Yet not quite at the bottom, for there are the Untouchables, now called Dalits, who pollute with their very shadow, the Outcastes.

Close your eyes for a moment and imagine yourself born into a caste level that is unchangeable, controls who you may marry, causes you to fear the possibility of pollution from a lower caste person or, if you are a lower caste person, the fear of being accused and punished for offenses of pollution.  

Imagine that you are limited to certain kinds of work and education, that you are vulnerable to oppression in health care, that terror and cruelty, both psychological and physical, are used to control you.  Imagine that you are always to be part of the inherently superior caste and always to assume that members of a lower caste are stereotypically dangerous criminals or dishonest in their financial dealings.

I’m sure that most of us can see how these levels of caste appear in human life, not just in Hinduism and Nazi Germany, but in American life.

Even though here in the US, we don’t openly label the levels of hierarchy, they still shape our expectations and behavior, in some of us more than others. 

The second pillar of caste is Heritability: the mechanism by which a member of a caste can never escape that caste level.  Born a Brahmin, always a Brahmin.  Born a Rockefeller, always a Rockefeller or a Kennedy or a Roosevelt.  Born a Black, always a Black no matter how educated or talented. Even with a Harvard education, Barack Obama was still Black and, by many, considered to be lower caste.

The third pillar of caste is Control of Marriage and Mating:  that a member of the upper level must marry or mate with another member of the upper level. Certain people are not allowed to marry or mate, no matter what their level status, even if they’re white----as in same sex relationships.  Blacks and whites must not marry or mate.  I remember the reaction I got from family members when I revealed that my first serious love was a Black man whom I had met in our religious tradition, American Baptist.

The fourth pillar of caste is Purity versus Pollution:  the need to be pure of blood, not polluted by blood from a lower caste person.  Even a drop of Black blood meant a person was black.  Earlier in the 20^th century, Jews and Blacks were forbidden to use certain pools and beaches and whites would not enter water that had touched black skin.  And segregation, of course, meant exclusion of the polluting caste. Over the centuries, the dominant caste has taken extreme measures to protect its sanctity from the perceived taint of the lower castes.

The fifth pillar of caste is Occupational Hierarchy:  a division of labor depending on one’s place in the caste hierarchy.  The drudge work went to those who were considered to be of low intelligence and skill---the slave in early American history, as an example.  

A Southern politician declared this central doctrine from the floor of the US Senate in March 1858:  “In all social systems, there must be a class to do the menial duties, to perform the drudgery of life,” said Senator James Henry Hammond of South Carolina. “That is a class requiring but a low order of intellect and but little skill.  Its requisites are vigor, docility, fidelity, such a class you must have---it constitutes the very mudsill of society.”

The sixth pillar of caste is Dehumanization and Stigma:  Black people and Jewish people in history have been used for medical and social experimentation, treated cruelly deliberately because they were not considered human and couldn’t feel pain the way real people felt pain.  This treatment was documented in Nazi concentration camps and in literature that came out of the slavery days in America. Brown children in cages at the Mexican border, torn from their parents, is another more recent example.

To dehumanize another human being is not merely to declare that someone is not human, and it does not happen by accident.  It is a process, a programming.  It takes energy and reinforcement to deny what is self-evident in another member of one’s own species.

The seventh pillar of caste is Terror as Enforcement and Cruelty for Control:  violence and terror, both physical and psychological, have been used to control and prevent resistance.

A quote from p. 151 of Wilkerson’s book:  “Jews in Nazi controlled Europe, African-Americans in the antebellum and Jim Crow South, and Dalits in India were all at the mercy of people who had been fed a diet of contempt and hate for them, and had incentive to try to prove their superiority by joining in or acquiescing to cruelties against (their) fellow humans.”

Black and Brown and Jewish people live with a constant concern that they may become targets for those who have terror and cruelty to the Other embedded in themselves by this assumption.

The eighth pillar of caste is Inherent Superiority versus Inherent Inferiority:  people are forced into roles that are stereotypical of their caste level.  There is an assumption embedded in this pillar that Blacks are dangerous criminals and violent, that Jews are sly and money-grubbing, that Brown people are lazy or stupid.

One teaching technique for elementary students has been the division in the classroom by eye color, designating the blue-eyed children, for example, as less deserving and the brown eyed children as more deserving.  Privileges and treats were doled out according to eye color and after lunch, the designation was changed---blue eyed children were the deserving group and brown-eyed kids were less deserving.  

It was a dramatic way of showing the ways physical appearance can be stigmatizing and it was maybe too effective, as children reported the abuse and name-calling they experienced when they were the less-deserving kids and the more deserving children were observed relishing their opportunity to abuse and harass the others.  This technique, of course, varies in its success, depending on the skill and empathy of the teacher!

Imagine the training that Black and Brown and Jewish parents must give their kids, the warnings about staying in line, not disobeying the limitations of their caste, and at the same time, encouraging them to get education, to strive for excellence, without fear and always knowing that fear for their children is part of the equation.

What training did our parents give us?  My well-meaning parents gave me the standard lessons for girls:  don’t date certain boys, keep your knees together, keep the doors locked on the car, that sort of thing---pretty mild compared to what Black parents, for example, have to teach their children.

The world has changed, yes, and perhaps things are a bit better than they were in the 50’s and 60’s in America, but when the attempted coup by angry Trump supporters occurred 10 days ago, it became clear that we are still fighting the battle to establish in this country a multi-racial, multi-cultural democracy.

We are further realizing that this has never been successfully achieved in our history.  It is a shining goal, an ambition we may not have considered possible in the past but now see as essential, if democracy is to survive and prosper in our nation.

I read a blog weekly by an organization led by Darren Walker, its president.  On January 7, he wrote this, which I will read in closing:

I have long believed that inequality is the greatest threat to justice—and, the corollary, that white supremacy is the greatest threat to democracy. But what has become clear during recent weeks—and all the more apparent yesterday—is that the converse is also true: Democracy is the greatest threat to white supremacy.

As the inimitable, incisive Isabel Wilkerson Tweeted in real time, “we have seen caste in action.”

I, too, cannot see yesterday’s insurrection as anything other than the latest chapter in a long, dispiriting, exhausting history. And yet, from this very same history, I also—perhaps, paradoxically—draw hope.

I’m hopeful because, from our founding contradiction, we have emerged a freer, fairer nation. All too slowly, all too unevenly, all too imperfectly—and at far too high a cost—we, the people, have struggled to root out the strand of white supremacy in our country’s DNA.

Our founding aspirations were just that: aspirations. It’s been the work of generations—from Frederick Douglass and Fannie Lou Hamer to Harriet Tubman and Bayard Rustin—to realize these aspirations. And while much remains to be done, and undone, I believe we can emerge—and are emerging—a more unified, more equal, more just, more American America.

Yes, the ideal of democracy is the greatest threat to the ideology of white supremacy; neither can long endure in the presence of the other. That is why today—and every day—we must renew our commitment to protect our democratic values and institutions from all enemies, foreign and domestic, especially those falsely disguised as patriots.

Let’s pause for a time of silent reflection and prayer, followed by our closing song.

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, remembering what we have heard today and looking for the evil traces of caste in the situations we observe and read about.  May we be vigilant in eliminating those caste expectations from our lives and may we continue to do all we can to make the world a safer place for our blossoming multicultural, multiracial democracy.  Amen, Shalom, Salaam, and Blessed Be.

The Birth of Ms. Kitty

When I was married, we had an old VW bus in which we traversed Colorado and parts west and east.  My husband loved the idea of communicating with the semi drivers who plied the interstates, so he bought a CB radio for the bus and we all decided on our CB "handles". 

I think Larry was Silver Bullet, our son Mike was the Midnight Bullet (I could be wrong---maybe he'll correct me), and I, riffing on the old Gunsmoke TV show, decided I would be Ms. Kitty.  This moniker was a slight dig at my husband who once complained that the term "Ms." meant manuscript.  You might be able to tell he was an English major.

In any case, after we split up amicably, we shared the bus and the boy, and I entered a whole new stage of life.  My mother had suggested I look into joining Mensa as a way of making new friends.  I hadn't given much thought to the early years when my being a brainiac in high school had invited some of those hated nicknames, but she persisted and I took the IQ test and qualified for Mensahood.

As I got acquainted with other nerds (whose chief attraction was that they thought I was funny--not funny-looking or weird, but that they laughed at my jokes), I discovered that when they heard the nickname Ms. Kitty, they loved it! 

All these new friends immediately recognized the updating of Amanda Blake, the Miss Kitty of Gunsmoke and the apparent paramour of Sheriff Matt Dillon.  I became Ms. Kitty of Denver Mile High Mensa.  Not exactly a saloon, but we did spend a certain amount of time on bar stools after meetings and at TGIFs.

Ms. Kitty became a persona for me, over time, a persona that had to be set aside during my ministry studies and the 20 years I spent in ministry.  I was essentially celibate for those 25 years and continue with that approach to new friends, being the "A" in the sexual minority alphabet, where, in my case, it stands for both Ally and asexual.  I'm past caring about having a sexual partner.  I just want friends who laugh at my jokes.

What's in a Name?

When, in 1958, I came home from high school Baptist summer camp having decided to change my nickname from Betsy (from Elizabeth) to Kit (from nothing other than it was alliterative with my surname Ketcham) and announced this to my family, I blithely thought they had taken it in stride, a phase in the life of their eldest daughter who was beginning to show signs of flying the coop.

But the truth was that I was sick of being Betsy.  Betsy sounded so immature, a pigtailed persona with pimples.  Betsy Ketcham was too easy a name to turn into semi-insulting taunts:  Ketchup, Ketchy Belchum, Betsy Wetsy, Catgut, Ketcham and Kissum, and the like.

I had learned from my dad not to rise to the bait but to laugh off the slurs rather than to get mad or hurt.  He had learned this trick as a teenager who was 6'6", 140 pounds soaking wet, and teased unmercifully as a result.  So I coped, but when I went to college, I had made up my mind:  my family could still call me Betsy, but to everyone else, I was going to be Kit.

This transition was hard on my parents, who loved the name Elizabeth and had bestowed the nickname Betsy at birth.  They still called me Betsy, even in public where my fellow college chums could hear, and my sister was miffed because I had a lot of nicknames at my disposal, like Beth and Liza, and wasn't using them.  She didn't see what was so bad about Lizzie, but I did, and I wasn't going there either.  She had a very normal name with few nickname alternatives and she was peeved that she had very little to work with.

My brother had been given a difficult name himself, named for my father and our maternal grandfather, both of these names a mouthful and always requiring an explanation, both of their origin and how to spell them.  He has grown into his difficult name and wears it proudly these days, as far as I can tell.

Now, as an adult about to achieve my 78th birthday, I have been Kit for 61 years.  Kit, of course, has its own set of take-offs:  Kit Karson, Kitty, Kitsy, and the inevitable question arises---is your real name Kathleen?  I didn't really avoid much unnecessary attention by becoming Kit.  I still, in some circles, enjoy the moniker "Ms. Kitty", as you'll see from the name of my blog.

Missing Real Contact with Friends

It struck me this morning in the middle of my 7th week of quarantine that what is getting me down these days is the lack of real contact with friends.  Yes, there's Facebook and email and Messenger and the phone, but there's no hugging, no coffees or lunches together, no singing together, no long conversations marked by laughter or tears, no cooking for guests, none of the deep normal pleasures of friendships both longtime and new.

As an extrovert with introvert tendencies, I can attest that I love the quietness, the solitude, the time to work on projects uninterrupted, the occasional sit-down at a distance with somebody equally wary about safe distance.  All these are important parts of my quarantined life and I am grateful.

But since I retired, I've had the chance to meet new friends, friends I'm not professionally connected to, friends who bring newness into my life, friends to sing with, to let down my hair with, to allow to know me more deeply than most others, to be my real self with, not the professional persona of ministry.

These (mostly women) friends have been the greatest gifts of retirement for me and I have loved the time spent with them over a glass of wine or cup of coffee, a meal, a jam session, a walk, a conversation that frequently erupted into gales of laughter, a chance to hug and be hugged, a sense of being nourished by a friendship.  Not joined at the hip but ready to meet and replenish the wells of responsible living that are easily drained down by our obligations.

Most of my friendships seem to be online or on-phone these days and I am longing for the day when I can see friends face to face, hug them, laugh with them out loud instead of with emojis.  I'm not planning to resist the rest of the quarantine but I sure will celebrate it when it comes.

Friends are clearly a lifeline for me, especially with family members far away.  This experience has made me so aware of my friendships and how important they are.  I am grateful.

Murder on the Riverwalk?

MURDER ON THE RIVERWALK?

Kit Ketcham

August 2018

         It started out innocently enough a few months ago, I swear.  I’d been hooked on the idea of a murder since my Gearhart days, wondering if it was worth the effort, worth the expense, worth the public condemnation, worth the possible repercussions, as I’d heard warnings of all of these.

         You won’t be able to quit, they told me.  You’ll get dependent on the thrill.  You’ll spend your hard-earned pennies on setting the stage, wooing the victims, arranging the set-up and following through.  Once you set things in motion, you have to continue, mindful of the enemies you may make and the friends you may lose.  And the victim may seek revenge.

         My early attempts in Gearhart were spotty and unsatisfying.  The set-up proved to be illusory, too hard to get the target to cooperate, and once I did get a feeble effort underway, I ended up moving to Astoria and having to bunch the whole deal.

         But I moved to Alderbrook in Astoria, to a spot near enough to the Riverwalk that it might be possible to pull off a murder without attracting too much attention.  So I brooded and I watched and I listened, familiarizing myself with my new environment, its challenges and its advantages.

         There’s lots of open space in the natural area, lots of trees, plenty of cover, and, early in the morning, not too many intruders on my intended territory.  The path seemed a perfect surface—easily picked clean of other debris, easy to spot the lure of the bait from the alders and willows, where my intended prey seemed to lurk.

         So I began to set the trap.  Each morning I’d fill a baggie full of bait, stuffing it in a pocket on the other side of the doggie biscuits I always carry.  If I saw an intended target, I’d make a great show of turning around and flinging my mysterious lures in the air, making sure that my motions would be easily spotted and the bait clearly visible on the path.

         The problem was that other people like to use the Riverwalk as well, so I had to conceal my murderous impulses and often make polite conversation with runners, bikers, dog walkers, and the occasional derelict sleeping on the Lewis and Clark bench.  So efforts were again spotty, with all the interruptions, but it was so clear that there was a population hungry for opportunities to group up and take chances on a mysterious snack from my hands.

         And then suddenly my potential victims did not show up at the accustomed time.  No raucous greetings, no swish of garb, no noisy thank you’s, no chatter amongst themselves.  What had happened?  Did the weather keep them away?  Had they sensed a threat?  I did see them in the distance, nearer the water, but not a one approached me and my baggie.

         They had posed for a photo earlier in the week.  I was eager to see that enthusiastic crowd again.  Was I being shunned?  How many individuals does it take to create a murder?

         Would 15 do it?  How about 25?  You be the judge.  Was there a murder on the Riverwalk