This Week's Prayer

Dear Beauty and Wholeness,

You surround us. May we know it and show it.

In the sounds of night, in the noises and smells of early morning traffic, in the clatter of human interaction, in the calls, cries, songs, and scuffles of animals, beauty and wholeness surround us. May we see it and be it.

Wherever we may be, in city, town, or field, in woods, desert, or upon the ocean, struggling with a diet of too many calories or too few, sitting in meditation or screaming in violent combat, beauty and wholeness surround us.

War and rumor of wars beset our time, as they have all times so far -- even as beauty and wholeness surround us.

In Syria and Iraq, in Somalia and South Sudan, in the West Bank and Egypt, in Ukraine and Afghanistan; our siblings suffer amidst the fighting. Our children are coopted and deceived to participate in violence, subverting their native impulse to love, peace and compassion. Beauty and wholeness surround us. May we take it and make it.

Courageous love breaks in and reaches out all around our world. Young people and old, rich people and poor, women and men, in ways humble or heroic, celebrated or unsung, manifest lives of love and care, peace and connection. Through their humane skill, they enable others around them to survive, to develop, to come at last into their own.

Thank you for the blessing and the revelation of their lives and their love. Thank you for every act, small or large, fleeting or enduring, by others or by ourselves, that came from you, Beauty and Wholeness.

May our hearts join in a tide of lovingkindness that reaches to every corner. May we let in and shine forth the beauty and wholeness that surrounds us.

Amen.

Photo by Meredith Garmon

Remembering Rorty: Father Earth 4

The other Father Earth of mine I want to tell you about today was Richard Rorty. Rorty is actually famous, as fame goes in academic circles. He was a philosophy professor at Princeton, then the University of Virginia, then Stanford. His 1979 book, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature was something of a sensation among philosophers. I encountered Rorty's work while at Baylor, and I went to the University of Virginia, where he then held the distinguished chair of Kenan Professor of Humanities, to study with him.

He was something of a renegade figure, which I liked. He said things that appalled the other philosophy professors. Which I also kinda liked. They would characterize him as claiming that there is no such thing as truth. That’s not what he said or meant. He did say that “true” is merely an empty compliment that we pay to beliefs we happen to share.

He wrote philosophy in a style I found fun to read. I can see now in his arguments for anti-essentialism that he laid the foundation for me for the Buddhist teaching that all phenomena are empty. Empty of what? Empty, as I understand the Buddhist sutras, of just the sort of essence that Rorty taught me things don’t have.

I became, for a while, an almost personal assistant of Rorty's. I prepared the indexes for three of his books. I spent hours assembling a five-fat-volumes of kinko’s packets of his collected essays.

And I read them all.

In one piece he was addressing the situation of education. He said, we have actual professors in our universities – instead of just mimeographed lecture notes, videotaped lectures, and exams proctored and graded by graduate students. The reason for having live professors, he said, is so students can see freedom enacted before their eyes.

And I did see him enact freedom.

I had read every essay of his, thousands of pages, knew every nuance of his position, even as it had evolved over the 30 years he’d been publishing, yet he’d still surprise me in class.

One time another student asked a question, and I sat there confidently expecting he would recite what I knew to be the Rorty line on that subject. Instead, he stood there feeling his way, as if grappling with the question for the very first time. The next day, I went to see him in his office. I asked about that question from the day before. I said, “I would have expected you to say" thus and such.”

He shrugged: “Yeah, I would have expected me to say that too.”

He had poured years of hard intellectual labor into working out what to say on complicated philosophical questions – but when a student asked a question, he was capable of setting aside that substantial body of accomplishment and tackling the issue fresh. Rorty never showed the slightest interest in Eastern philosophy or Buddhism or Zen, but he showed me what Zen mind, Beginner’s mind was.

Rorty later left the University of Virginia and took a professorship at Stanford. He died in California in 2007. Here’s to you, Richard Rorty. Thanks, Prof.

Under a number of guides, I worked at reasoning and arguing things out: becoming an architect for a city of words in which order would reign. Yet the enduring legacy of the Father Earth figures that helped ground me are the examples that they were of vulnerability, of laughter, of caring warmth, and honest freedom.

Who were your mentors? Take a few moments today to tell somebody about at least one of them. In holding those memories, we empower both ourselves and the person with whom we share them to build, not merely a city of words, but a land of relationship and connection; not merely knowledge, but wisdom.

Sarcasm, Ludicrity, and Angst: Father Earth, 3

By the end of 9th grade, when we talked to Coach Blackwood about the losses, it was a little different. After asking what the other team argued and how we responded, instead of telling us a better way to respond, he'd just nod and remind us: “What you think you said, and what the judge heard you say aren’t always the same thing. You’re thinking along the right lines, but you’re not getting it across clearly.”

And we didn’t know how to be clearer – so we tried saying it louder. So we’d be in these debates, yelling at the judge. Paul’s voice still hadn’t changed, but mine was now changing. So you can imagine me yelling my arguments punctuated by random high-pitched cracks.

Coach Blackwood would periodically remind us: You guys are going to be good. And then he’d tell us a story about his debating days, in which he or another member of his squad performed some outlandish antic, or brilliant maneuver, or incredible blunder in a debate round. It made us feel that our screw-ups had potential in them. That it wasn’t just a matter of fixing the mistake and thereby attaining to a mistake-free but bland competence. Something more exciting: the idea that in the very screw-up itself lay a better way of doing things than anybody else could do – at least, a better way for me to be. My screw-ups had transcendent potential. My personal and unique style of debating was beginning to emerge.

There was a heavy layer of cynicism and sarcasm in my style back then. I was, after all, a teenager. I would say things like: “The very ludicrity of my opponent’s argument is beyond the capacity of the human mind to comprehend.” More than one judge informed me that there is no such word as ludicrity. Yet underneath that sarcasm was a faith in the basic worth and dignity of every human life. I always argued from a fundamental assumption that one starving Somalian or Bangladeshi was every bit as bad as one starving American. Sure, I was teenager. I was also a Unitarian Universalist.

I was creatively trying out argument strategies for what resonated with me. Paul was -- reasonably -- thinking more about what would resonate with the judge. We would get to squabbling sometimes, and Coach Blackwood would tell us how much our different styles complemented each other. “Your differences are what makes you two such a good team.”

By eleventh-grade, Paul and I and the other teams on the Central High debate squad met during the week with Coach Blackwood for general strategy sessions and practice rounds. But on the week-end, when the tournament itself started, he didn’t have anything more to advise us on specific arguments for specific rounds. Before each round, he’d just clap our shoulders and say, “be tough.” And off we’d go to our next round.

We were winning a lot now. And, frustrating as those years of losing records had been, when winning came, I found myself with niggling doubts about the whole zero-sum competition thing. It was a lot more fun to be sarcastic to my opponents when I usually lost to them. Now that I was usually winning, I began to feel some sympathy for their efforts.

It all came to a head at the state championship tournament: a grueling week-end where the 8 best teams in the state debated each other round-robin: seven rounds, every one of them hard fought. After those seven rounds, the two teams with the best records would face each other again in a final round with the Georgia State Championship – and a trip to the national debate tournament – on the line.

Paul and I made into that championship round. Before the round, Paul and I were waiting for the seven judges to arrive and get settled. Suddenly, I had a moment of existential angst about the very nature of competition. I turned to Paul and said, “I don’t know why those guys, the other team, shouldn’t go to Nationals. Do I want to keep them from something they want?”

Paul just stared at me, and then, without a word, left the room. He went to get Coach Blackwood, who came in to talk sense into me.

“What’s up?” he asked me.

I told him I thought the other team deserved to go to Nationals. "They want to go. Why don’t we let them?”

Blackwood looked thoughtful for a moment, then he said. “I want to go to Nationals. I think you’d have a really good time, too, but if you don’t think that counts, do it for me.”

I said, “Oh. OK.”

Two hours later the round was over and the judges had submitted their ballots and Paul and I had squeaked out a 4 to 3 win. And we did have a great time at Nationals.

Actually, what I remember best about Michael Blackwood is the sound of his laugh. Funny how that’s often the thing we do remember best about people long gone from our lives: their laugh. It might do for us to remember that we ourselves will be remembered for that – and laugh heartily and often.

Here’s to you, Michael Blackwood. Thanks, Coach.

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This is 4 of 5 of "Father Earth"
Previous: Father Earth 2: Coach
Beginning: A Prayer for the Fathers

This Week's Prayer

Dearest One,

We must be in touch with the world’s pain, hold it ever in awareness, never grow callous or oblivious.

On June 9, at 3:00 in the morning in Albuquerque, New Mexico, a pickup truck appeared to intentionally swerve to run over a group of four homeless people sleeping on the sidewalk, then took off. One woman died; the driver has not been caught.

A few days later, in Paris, France, a mob attacked a teenage Roma boy, leaving him badly injured.

We must be in touch with the world’s pain, hold it ever in awareness, never grow callous or oblivious. We must confront afresh every day the question:

“What is mine to do in this world? Human hearts, including mine, are susceptible to hardening. How shall I be in this world an agent of gentle love? How shall I be an agent of gentle love where I am? Hardened hearts are all around me – and sometimes there is one within me. Am I prepared to respond in compassion?”

Every day that question presents itself.

Iraq descends into civil war. Congo and Rwanda have both sent extra troops to their shared border after gunfire broke out, ending months of relative calm. Hundreds of Pakistani families have fled from a surge of fighting between Pakistani government forces and militants into neighboring Afghanistan.

How shall we agents of love?

For there is also in this hard and hurting world a tide of hope.

Our ancestors 10,000 and 1,000 years ago lived and died amid greater levels of violence. Only since World War II has the international community generally accepted the concept of war crimes. Last week in London was a Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict – the first ever such summit in human history.

Thank you for women and men of conscience who help awaken our own. Thank you for the capacity to be uncomfortable and face the difficult questions. Thank you for the yearnings within us for peace to all beings. Thank you for this green and beautiful world.

Amen.

Coach: Father Earth, 2

Connecting with our Fathers is, for many of us, a deep longing. Every family is different, of course. Still, the more common story is that Dad was – a little or a lot – more distant. If one parent was too close and the relationship felt smothering, in our society that’s more often a mother. It’s possible for a Dad to err in that direction, but more common for them to err in the opposite direction: too distant -- leaving their kids longing for connection.

We need grounding in Father Earth. We honor our Fathers or we honor our memory of them. Some of us grew up with live-in Fathers, who were part of our home life and through daily contact from the day we were born until adulthood raised us, taught us, guided us, gave us that solid grounding. Some of us didn’t have that sort of fathering. Whether we had a father at home or not, we had father figures: male mentors who may have played a brief but crucial role at one stage of our development. These father figures showed us with their lives new possibilities of living we would not have imagined without them – and in this way contributed essentially to the people we became. They were soil in which our roots could grow and spread.

In this series about Father figures and the grounding they give us, The Liberal Pulpit will share very brief sketches of two men other than my actual father who shaped my life: Father Earth figures that grounded and rooted me. My invitation to you is to do likewise: find some one to talk to – a youth or a child, perhaps, or another adult -- and take a few minutes to be uninterrupted. Tell them about a hero or a mentor you had, and what that person meant to you. Honor the memory of one such mentor by telling another human being about him.

I remember my high school debate coach, Michael Blackwood. I joined the debate team at his instigation as an 8th-grader, along with Paul, a fellow 8th-grader. The experience of being a sub-freshman is time spent as the lowliest of the low. Michael Blackwood saw something in Paul and me. He said, "You guys are going to be good."

We were 13 years old. Our voices hadn’t changed yet. We were thrown up against opponents 17- or even 18-years-old, with 4 years of experience at debating. Even when these opponents were female, they had deeper voices than we did. And we were slaughtered.

We did not own suits. I remember that I had this awful bronze-colored paisley clip-on tie that I wore to debate tournaments.

Coach Blackwood would say, “Here’s what you say.” And we would write it down. And then we'd stand up and say it when it was our turn. We’d say it out of context. We’d say it not knowing what the words meant. And we were slaughtered some more.

And yet, judges, after the round was over, and they had filled out their ballot voting against us, would look over at us before they left the room, and say, "What grade are you guys in? Eighth grade? You guys are going to be good." And that was the mite of consolation that fed us, kept us going. That, and the fact that when we got back home, to walk the halls and classrooms of Central High School, though we be lowly subfreshmen, we had a place. We were on the debate team representing the whole school.

Ninth grade came. We were still losing. Coach Blackwood would say, "Well, why’d you lose?"

And the words would pour out of us, Paul and I talking on top of each other. "We said this, and they said that, and then we said that."

And out of the jumble Coach Blackwood would discern some clues about what really happened in the debate. “Wait a minute. They argued that? And what did you say?”

And we’d tell him what we said.

And he’d say, "Next time trying saying this instead."

And we still kept losing. But not every round. Typically, our freshmen year, we’d finish a 5-round tournament with a record of 2 wins, 3 losses.

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This is part 3 of 5 of "Father Earth"
Next: Father Earth 3: Sarcasm, Ludicrity, and Angst
Previous: Father Earth 1: In Case of Rain
Beginning: A Prayer for the Fathers

Photo by Meredith Garmon

In Case of Rain: Father Earth, 1

Back in the days when there was such a thing as "calling collect," in this country, Father’s Day was the day that more collect calls were made than any other day. We'd call Mom on Mother’s Day and call Dad on Father’s day – but we’re more likely to let dad foot the bill.

When you got your learner’s permit, was it your Dad who took you out for the driving lessons? And did he hop in the back seat, saying, “ah, now it’s my turn to kick the back of the seat while you’re trying to drive”?

We are believers is equality, and we don’t want to pander to stereotypes of male incompetence. We know there are a lot of new fathers who are as adept at changing a diaper as any mother. We also know the reality that some new fathers know a lot more about baseball than about diapers. For them, here’s how you do it:

• Spread the diaper in the position of the diamond with you at bat.
• Then, fold second base down to home and set the baby on the pitcher's mound.
• Put first base and third together, bring up home plate and pin the three together.
• Of course, in case of rain, you gotta call the game and start all over again.

In our culture, the father is a figure regarded with some ambivalence and tension. There is often something unresolved there – something still in need of working out. Fathers sometimes, somehow, go wrong, and, speaking as one, we do so many different ways. A poem by Dick Laurie was quoted in the movie “Smoke Signals” asks:

"How do we forgive our fathers?
Maybe in a dream.
Do we forgive our fathers for leaving us too often, or forever, when we were little?
Maybe for scaring us with unexpected rage, or making us nervous because there never seemed to be any rage there at all?
Do we forgive our fathers for marrying, or not marrying, our mothers?
Or divorcing, or not divorcing, our mothers?
And shall we forgive them for their excesses of warmth or coldness?
Shall we forgive them for pushing, or leaning?
For shutting doors or speaking through walls?
For never speaking, or never being silent?
Do we forgive our fathers in our age, or in theirs?
Or in their deaths, saying it to them or not saying it.
If we forgive our fathers, what is left?”

On Father's Day we recognize and celebrate today: Fathers. Father's Day is also the final Sunday of spring, so we're highlighting the last of the sources of the living tradition we share:

“Spiritual teachings of earth-centered traditions which celebrate the sacred circle of life and instruct us to live in harmony with the rhythms of nature.”

At the intersection of Earth-centered traditions and Fathers, would be the figure, "Father Earth."

Of course, the more common association is Mother Earth and Father Sky. In culture after culture, around the globe and through the eons, we find the idea that the Earth is like a mother and the sky is like a father. This way of dividing up the earth and sky has a natural logic to it: The Earth gives birth. The sky rains down, inseminating Earth, allowing her to give birth.

Interestingly, ancient Egypt was a rare exception to the general association of Earth with mother and sky with father. The ancient Egyptians tended toward Father images and gods for the Earth and Mother images and goddesses for the sky. This is probably because the livelihood of the Egyptians depended on the annual flooding of the Nile River. For them, the waters that made fertility possible came up from the Earth – and the hot sky incubated life as a mother.

So the concept of Father Earth is not entirely without precedent. In this series on Fathers, The Liberal Pulpit will invite consideration of Father Earth -- the ways that fathers, father figures, and mentors give us grounding.

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This is part 2 of 5 of "Father Earth."
Next: Father Earth 2: Coach
Previous: A Prayer for the Fathers

Photo by Mondocain, http://www.vloggerheads.com/profiles/blogs/father-earth

A Prayer for the Fathers

(Adapted from Rev. Christine Robinson)

God bless all the fathers who drive kids to games,
Who help with science projects
Who fix breakfasts, or dinners,
Who explain how babies are made
and baseball’s dropped-third-strike rule,
who read Goodnight Moon, or Dr. Seuss, or Captain Underpants, over and over and over again.

We pray for the fathers serving in their country’s military, for the sake of their children’s safety,
and for the fathers who work a second job, for the sake of their children’s needs,
and for the fathers who manage the accounts and balance the household books while their families sleep.

We pray for beleaguered fathers and happy fathers,
Rich fathers and poor fathers,
Healthy fathers and challenged fathers.

Bless the fathers who made homes for the babies they fathered,
who married and stay married for the children's sake,
and bless those who stay in their kids’ lives in spite of divorce.

Bless also the fathers who are excluded from their kids’ lives,
and the fathers who did not want to be fathers but never forget,
and for those fathers whose longed deeply for children and finally got them and cherish them –
and whose children are their greatest joy.

Let us pray for grandfathers who watch the kids while parents work,
who tell their grandkids about the old days, when telephones were only for talking to people,
and who teach them how to use a saw, make a kite out of newspaper, and make an ice cream soda,
and try again to explain baseball’s dropped-third-strike rule.

And let us pray also for boyfriends, step-fathers, foster fathers, and adoptive fathers, who do the same.

We pray blessings upon the fathering men who faithfully, appropriately, and, sometimes fearfully, lead scout troops, coach teams, and teach Religious Education classes

We also hold in prayer the men who wanted to be fathers and never were.

Our prayers are with the fathers who bite their lip and clamp their mouths shut when their 14-year-olds dye their hair green or pierce their who-knows-what.
We pray for the fathers whose children have lost their way and won't call home,
whose kids can't hear their wisdom
or their love
or their anguish.

We pray for the fathers who could never find the words to say how proud they were of their kids who did OK,
and we pray for the fathers who did find those words, and said them.

God bless the fathers who teach their sons to cook and vacuum
and their daughters to sink a jump shot and change a tire
who cheer as much for Megan Rapinoe and Serena Williams
as for Steph Curry and Tiger Woods
and who teach their sons to respect women
and their daughters that they can expect to be respected by men.

God bless the young fathers stumbling through diaper changes and sleep deprivation.
The mature fathers learning to let go.
Gay fathers and straight fathers.
Fathering men, and men who support fathers –
The single fathers going it alone
And the partnered fathers who support their partners – who know when to help, and how, and when not to; when to acquiesce and when not to.
And God bless the women who support fathers – who know when to help and when to let Dad figure it out, when to acquiesce and when not to.

God bless all of you.
Hang in there.
Life is beautiful and difficult, and this world needs you.
God bless all the fathers for making this a more civil, caring and safe place for the Earth’s precious children.
May they know, on this day and always, how much they matter.

Amen.

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This is part 1 of 5 of "Father Earth"
Next: Father Earth 1: In Case of Rain

Picture by Yesenia603, Wikimedia Commons