Space and Time

I was feeling nostalgic last month, as we celebrated LGBTQIA month. I remembered a lunch I had with an old friend awhile back. Cherl and I have been friends for 39 years. We met not long after I had come out as a lesbian at the age of 16. I’d heard about a group called TLC--Topeka Lesbian Community. They met weekly and I would often drive by, longing to go inside, but I was a minor. The week I turned 18, I showed up and attended every meeting until I joined the USAF.

Cherl and I talked about those days; what a special time it was to be lesbian in the late 1970s in Topeka, KS. We wore flannel shirts and jeans; most had short-cropped hair.

There was a sense of radicalism; alternative insemination was virtually unheard of, marriage not even on the radar. There were no social networks outside of the TLC and The Lambda (the one gay bar in town: seedy, run-down with exotic drag shows on Friday nights). Feminism, women's rights, pro-choice were front and center, and we members of TLC did our part.

There were no vehicles with rainbow bumper stickers, no "out" singers or entertainers. Women's music was shared with the lesbian community via a small record company called Olivia. Singers like Cris Williamson, Meg Christian, Tret Fure, Deirdre McCalla, Teresa Trull and the Berkeley Women's Music Collective would travel across the country playing on college campuses and in small venues. 

AIDS was a gathering storm of which we were ignorant.

Everyone smoked.
It was a magical time, and a historic time, too, I think. We felt we were on the verge of something big, and yet we were also a small enclave of women creating community. I remember those days like a crisp autumn: the air brisk , the colors vibrant; both life and death crackling in the trees of possibilities. It made me reflect on my life's journey since then, the autumns I've lived through, the lives and deaths I've experienced, the many changes I've undergone.
In some ways I'm much different than that 16, 17, 18 year old young woman I was back then and yet, in other ways, I am still her; she is still me: radical and bold, timid and tentative, longing to change the world and striving to find her place in it.

I feel a little sorry for those coming out as queer today, having achieved the right to marry, considering children in their future as a right, not as battle to be won. Don't get me wrong: I'm glad for youth support services and for laws protecting queer employees. I'm glad Melissa came out, and the Indigo Girls, and Greg Louganis.

I had none of that when I came out at 16, in 1978. But I gained something in those lean years when the only affirmation we had was given by one another, when the only role models were the ones we were creating. It was a sisterhood, a family, it truly was a community of TLC-- tender, loving care.
As we left the restaurant, Cherl hugged me, and said, a little sheepishly, "I don't know if I ever told you, but I had the biggest crush on you in those days." I laughed, remembering how much in awe I was of the women of TLC when I first joined. They were all at least 9 years older than me and I had thought them so wise and powerful and wonderful.

"That's funny," I replied, smiling. "I had crushes on all of you."

Faith Calls Us to Action.

Last Monday, I stood in the sweltering heat of El Paso, TX, wearing a heavy clerical stole that made the heat radiate even deeper into my shoulders. I was with several hundred other faith leaders who had answered the call of Rev. Dr. William Barber leader of Repairers of the Breach. We were at the borders protesting the gross mistreatment of immigrants seeking asylum, after literally running for their lives from countries where violence and hunger are rife, only to be treated inhumanely and unjustly.

What’s happening at our borders is a travesty of justice, a trampling of the 14^th Amendment to our US Constition which declares “nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

Not only is this detention of immigrants seeking asylum illegal according to our own constitution, the UN Human Rights Office’s presences in Mexico and Central America have documented numerous human rights violations and abuses against migrants and refugees in transit, including the excessive use of force, arbitrary deprivation of liberty, family separation, denial of access to services, refoulement, and arbitrary expulsions.

This isn’t a debate, but a debacle; not an issue, but an international crisis, not a political power-play but people, real live people being irreparably harmed by this administration’s policy, children being separated from their parents and forced to sleep on concrete floors without access to adequate food, showers, toothbrushes. The youngest of these is five months old.

I was there with faith leaders because we cannot sit idly by and pretend this is normal or somehow ok. We were there because our faith traditions demand it of us.

Leviticus 19:33-34: “When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not wrong them. The stranger who sojourns with you shall be to you as your citizens; you shall love the stranger as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Eternal your God.”

Matthew 25:35: “For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me.”

Qur’an 4:99-100:  “... as for the helpless men, women and children who have neither the strength nor the means to escape, God will pardon them. Surely God pardons and forgives. Those who migrate for the sake of God shall find many places for refuge in the land in great abundance”

Humanism tells us we can do better than this. That our heartbeats and the inhale and exhale of our breath is a level playing ground; that inherent in our very humanity is a call to care for one another, for all people.

And my own Unitarian Universalist tradition states belief in the inherent worth and dignity of every human, regardless of where they were born, what color their skin is, how much money is in their bank account.

No matter what our faith, we are called to action, to stand up for the oppressed, to protest the criminalization of people based on their skin color or their poverty or their fear.

We heard inspiring speakers share how we’re called to look out for the poorest of the poor, we marched to the gates of a detention center to demand, among other things, an end to child detention, that all refugees seeking asylum be granted the due process to do so, the preservation of human rights, and an end to family separation. We asked for our rights as faith leaders to minister to those detained. We were denied; the gates were locked.

We will return. Our faith requires it; our Constitution calls us to.

Driving out of El Paso, headed for home, I saw a flashing highway sign that said: It is dangerous for children and pets to be in locked cars. If you see that, get help.

It’s also dangerous for children to be kept in locked, crowded prison cells. It’s time to get help. It’s our moral obligation.

The Real Meaning of Mother's Day

This is the month we celebrate Mother’s Day --probably not much as Hallmark, but still, we celebrate. Most of us who are moms will get something from our kids: flowers, candy, presents; I’ll accept them all, don’t get me wrong! But unfortunately, we’ve gotten Mother’s Day wrong. Mother’s Day was begun in 1870 after much lobbying by women (who, didn’t have the vote, but made their presence felt). It wasn’t created because mothers felt overwhelmed with raising children, running the household and still finding time to foment rebellion.; it wasn’t begun as an economic stimulus program hoping that flowers, candy, and presents would boost retail sales. Mother’s Day was founded by mothers who were tired of having their sons (at the time) sent home in boxes from one war zone or another. Julia Ward Howe, a Unitarian rabble-rouser and leader of the movement to create Mother’s Day, wrote in her Mother’s Day Proclamation in 1870: As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil at the summons of war, let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel. Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead. Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means whereby the great human family can live in peace...in the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask that a general congress of women without limit of nationality, may be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient and the earliest period consistent with its objects, to promote the alliance of the different nationalities, the amicable settlement of international questions, the great and general interests of peace. This was never meant to be a day to honor mothers; it was a day to honor our children. Beginning with those who have come home in flag-draped caskets from war zones. And there have been so many war zones haven’t there? Not just Iraq and Afghanistan, but Bosnia, Vietnam, Korea, World War II, World War I– all wars begun after Mother’s Day was established as an effort for peace. And we have met together, women and men, whether parents or not, to bewail and commemorate the dead. The roll call list of dead, from just recent years is long: the victims of 9/11, the bombings in Paris, and, most recently, the horrific shootings of Muslims in New Zealand who had gathered peacefully for prayer, and the bombings of Christian churches on Easter Sunday in Sri Lanka that left over 200 dead. Maybe it’s time to change the meaning of this day from being an exclusive party for women who change diapers back to its original meaning as a day to seek peace, to realize mothers (and fathers) of all nationalities love their children and wish to see them live long, happy lives. Maybe, if we who are mothers can receive our gifts and determine to take back the original sense of Mother’s Day, and if we are joined by fathers, uncles, aunts, siblings, and lovers we can reclaim Julia Ward Howes’s vision; we can create a movement of justice globally. As a mother, I find this vision of Mother’s Day more appealing to me than the sappy sentiments offered in the pink aisle of the greeting card selections. So today, I issue a call to all mothers and to all people, whether parents or not, to renew to a commitment to peace in our homes, communities, country, and world; to recognize the inherent worth and dignity of every child of every human; to make every day Mother’s Day.

We Need a Bridge, Not a Wall

Recently, the United States government came to a standstill for 35 days over an unrealistic campaign promise made by the man who holds the highest position of power. He tried to strong arm Congress into passing a budget that would include roughly five billion dollars to build a wall on the southern border of our nation.

This was something he pledged to do throughout his campaign, although he also asserted that Mexico would pay for the wall. After two years of doing nothing more than continuing to spew the rhetoric of fear regarding our kin to the south, ignoring the fact that illegal border crossings are at a 30 year low and disregarding the truth that most undocumented citizens came here legally but overstayed their visas--those details don’t paint as dramatic a picture as the idea of a wall—he decided it was time to take a stand.

It was a ridiculous campaign promise to make, and impossible to keep. Yet for 35 days, federal workers suffered the consequences of being furloughed without pay or, as in the case of “essential personnel” such as TSA workers or Air Traffic Controllers, being forced to work without pay.

Ironically, federal workers are forbidden to go on strike and the one time when Air Traffic Controllers did so, in 1981, President Reagan fired 11,000 of them within days and issued a lifetime ban on them ever being able to work for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) again. What a travesty of justice that our government can not pay these dedicated workers who still have to punch the clock every day.

Over a wall. A wall that would not keep our borders safe and would only serve to shore up racist, uninformed beliefs and fears.

As a Unitarian Universalist, I believe first and foremost in the inherent worth and dignity of every human; no human is illegal. In every major world religion hospitality and compassion for the stranger and refugee are major tenets.

That any person of faith should support a wall of division is untenable. We should be building bridges of compassion. Unfortunately, it seems we’ve become a nation of hoarders: folks who hoard money, folks who hoard the promise of a better life, folks who hoard privilege. This is dysfunctional at best and dishonors our faith traditions’ most sacred teachings.

But frankly, it doesn’t matter what the faith traditions say. As a Unitarian Universalist I am bound to a higher law: the first of our seven guiding principles that says every human has inherent worth and dignity.

I am bound by the founding documents of this nation that says we are a nation of the people, by the people, and for the people; that holds that all humans are created equal and are endowed with certain inalienable rights such as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

The government has re-opened for now. We have three weeks to figure out how to stop using our federal workers as pawns in an overblown, ego-induced chess game; we have three weeks to determine to see the humanity of our kin from the south; we have three weeks to make America great again, in the truest sense of the phrase which means inclusion not exclusion, love not hate, compassion not criminalizing those in need.