BROOKFIELD UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST CHURCH
"Love in action" by alyssa Lee, delivered January 28, 2024
A year or so ago, my husband and I took our then six-year old son to the American Heritage Museum, which is a military museum just outside of Hudson, where we live. They have military memorabilia from World War I to the current day. We thought he would love seeing all the tanks and big trucks, but instead, as many parents can I’m sure relate, he had the exact opposite reaction of what we were expecting – he was terrified.
He clung to his Dad and asked to leave. I realized that we had never told him about war, and he didn’t know about the Holocaust or September 11th. He didn’t understand what these big tanks were used for or why people would do with them what we know they do. His life had been perfectly sheltered from so many of the terrors growing up in this world can bring, and I struggled with how to explain it all, especially as the reality of almost a hundred years of human suffering was there on display for him.
This experience left me wondering: how do we explain to the children in our lives that though there is great love in this world, there is also suffering? That people can forget the humanity of others and sometimes themselves? And what do we do about that?
After September 11th, Fred Rogers, better known as Mr. Rogers, briefly came out of retirement to speak to the children and parents of the world and reassure them. But even Mr. Rogers had no idea what to say in a moment of communal anguish such as this. He reportedly responded to his producer, “I just don’t know what good these are gonna do.”
He ultimately recorded four videos that aired on the one-year anniversary of the attacks and in one he reminded people that we are all called to be “Tikkun Olam,” which is a concept in Judaism that stands for “repairers of creation.”
Whenever there is a major tragedy, many people make reference to Mr. Roger’s famous advice to children, he said, “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.” But this advice was for children, not for adults. While it can be of great comfort for children to look to the helpers so that they can see that the world is still made up of people who will care for them and keep them safe, adults are called to something more. We are called to be the helpers. To look in the face of great tragedy and find the space to love people through the hurt. To let the lives we lead be a reflection of our internal values and to act from an ethic of love.
In her book, “all about love” author bell hooks, talks about living with this ethic of love. She stresses the importance of understanding love, not just as a feeling we have, but as a call to action. She harkens back to that idea of being repairers of creation. But, we are repairing not only the world but ourselves and it is through this ethic of love that we will find healing.
When faced with moments that we can’t understand or when we look into the face of senseless tragedy and can’t recognize ourselves or where to turn, it can be difficult to find hope, to understand where the love could be and how we can make sense of a world that contains such heartbreak.
Quite a few people have told me they feel hopeless right now. They look at climate change, senseless gun violence, the upcoming national elections, and the oppression of people of color and trans members of our communities and they feel overwhelmed and without any sense of what to do. In these moments, perhaps a turn to action, a recognition of our role as helpers, can be the guiding light for many of us.
For awhile I was a legislative liaison, which is basically a lobbyist, for government agencies at the state Capitol in Oklahoma City. I represented a human service agency whose mission was to keep children and other vulnerable populations safe. As one an guess, we were not always the most popular people to darken some of the very conservative legislators’ doors. It was difficult work and my day was often filled with choosing to speak to the people who were either openly hostile to me or would be kind to my face and then stab me in the back, or, the people who were ostensibly on my side, but undermined me at every turn.
I sat through hours of committee meetings and watched legislators work to undermine the rights of women, LGBTQIA members of my community, and take actions that I thought would make the world less safe or education less accessible for the children in my community. One might presume this was soul sucking work that left me depleted and empty at the end of the legislative session, but that would be wrong.
Though it was hard, and I had to swallow many of my feelings, but someone needed to stand in the breech and try to find ways to work within the system to care for the vulnerable populations in my state. So, why couldn’t it be me? Having a purpose made a difference—somehow made it all easier.
I am sure there are many amongst you, teachers, medical professionals, social workers, and numerous other caregivers for the most vulnerable in our communities who recognize this feeling. That the world is hard, but maybe I can work to make my little corner of the universe a little less difficult.
When I became a Unitarian Universalist, what was remarkable to me, most of all, was that there was less talk about shoring up our treasures in heaven as had been much of the religious teachings of my youth, but rather, conversations around what are we doing with our time here on earth, right now. How are both our individual and collective actions affecting the world we are currently living in?
bell hooks has said,
“To begin by always thinking of love as an action rather than a feeling is one way in which anyone using the word in this manner automatically assumes accountability and responsibility. We are often taught we have no control over our ‘feelings.’ Yet most of us accept that we choose our actions, that intention and will inform what we do.”
That to me is the core of how we take care of the most vulnerable in our society as well as what we are called to teach the children amongst us. We teach them that love is an action that we choose to take, rather than always a feeling. We can choose to see the inherent worth and dignity in others and we can choose how we manifest that sense of understanding into being.
I believe there are three fundamental facets of putting that love into action. First, is to identify our empathy, and with that, recognize the humanity in everyone we encounter. Second, it is to do the internal work necessary to ensure we have the proper vision before acting. And, of course, third, the action itself.
As we embark upon a new year of a national election season, many of us are likely already exhausted by the news coverage—I know I am! I know it can be hard to find empathy for the people we feel are threatening the safety of the marginalized voices in our communities. But, I can tell you that being from Oklahoma it was difficult to read comments online made by people in more progressive states saying we basically brought it on ourselves with who we were electing. We were feeling the deepest sting of what was happening where we live and many of us were working every day to fight it, and we felt abandoned, or at the very last misunderstood, by many people in the rest of the country.
Additionally, I think many of us can recognize that there are often larger systemic issues at play that create systems in which people may vote against what we feel is their own interest. Either way, I have never heard of anyone changing their position when they are being harshly judged or dismissed. But, the empathy often isn’t for them anyway, it is for ourselves.
Those of us who are watching the news everyday and feeling the pit in our stomachs.
There is a quote that is often misattributed to the Buddha which basically says that anger is like drinking poison and expecting someone else to die. There is a reason this quote has been misattributed to a number of speakers throughout the ages, because it often rings true for many of us. Our anger, our bitterness, they hurt us, and often because we are blinded by that anger and sometimes unwilling to compromise or find empathy because of it, we can hurt the very people we are trying to help. Perhaps living within an ethic of love and leading with empathy in our interactions with others, can be an antidote to that poison?
The second piece of love in action is contemplation – to be thoughtful, to have a plan before you act. Of course, this notion of contemplation before action can be difficult for many of us. I don’t know about you, but my immediate response is always to want to jump in and get involved, and I often get frustrated when I feel people are spending too much time talking and not enough time doing.
However, I was moved by a section in a biography of Rev. Howard Thurman, in which author Paul Harvey recounts a story in which the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was stabbed and almost killed at one of his book signings in 1958. Rev. Thurman visited Dr. King in the hospital and encouraged him, as he encouraged many people, to look at this as an opportunity to take a brief step away from the everyday, focus on his life and meditate on its purpose, and then move forward.
This was at the core of Thurman’s teachings – to take time to contemplate your inner life so that you may commune with God and later act with purpose. But it is also worth noting that Rev. Thurman recognized people have a duty to step back into life, pursue community, and take responsibility for the nature of the social order. Recognizing the powerful wisdom of Rev. Thurman, I still worry about an excessive amount of navel gazing without action, particularly within our UU movement.
In the book Radical Dharma, the Rev. angel Kydo williams speaks to this idea that sometimes our spiritual paths in the Western world can get bogged down by focusing on the internal work of “me” without also realizing there is a community piece as well. She stresses that internal liberation goes hand in hand with external liberation. It is important to find the balance between doing this work of internal liberation but not losing sight of the ultimate reason for that work.
In addition to being ready externally, there is also an internal resilience that we need to manifest. A wise friend recently told me something her spiritual teacher told her, “You have to hold a gallon to give a cup.” In other words, you have to care for yourself and do the internal work necessary to ensure you are able to put love into action.
Again, this is going to be difficult year for many of us, we will want to act, we will want to take part, but if our cup is dry and there are no reserves to refill it, then we will have nothing to give. Because, giving, helping, especially when times are tough can be a spiritual practice as much as any.
What we do in our community and how we act toward others shapes our inner lives more than we sometimes believe or even recognize. How many times have you volunteered somewhere and came away from it learning more than you likely taught others? Have you gone to a community event or helped someone in need and felt a tiny piece of your soul was liberated in the process? I know I have.
When we live our lives with a focus on fierce love in action that we can share with our families, friends, and communities, we de-center ourselves and our hang-ups and fears and inch ever closer to the beloved community that Dr. King spoke about so many decades ago.
But this notion of living in love rather than fear, is a difficult one. Personally, I am living with a lot of fear right now. I think many of us are. Certainly, many people of color, trans people, and other members of our communities living with marginalized identities are living with a fear that I cannot possibly understand.
So, when this fear threatens to overtake us, what can we do? The role we have to play in our communities is unique and personal to every individual, but we can rest assured that it is needed. That we as UU’s, collectively, are needed. And reminding ourselves and others that we are on the side of love is needed.
Amen and May it be so.
© ALYSSA LEE
He clung to his Dad and asked to leave. I realized that we had never told him about war, and he didn’t know about the Holocaust or September 11th. He didn’t understand what these big tanks were used for or why people would do with them what we know they do. His life had been perfectly sheltered from so many of the terrors growing up in this world can bring, and I struggled with how to explain it all, especially as the reality of almost a hundred years of human suffering was there on display for him.
This experience left me wondering: how do we explain to the children in our lives that though there is great love in this world, there is also suffering? That people can forget the humanity of others and sometimes themselves? And what do we do about that?
After September 11th, Fred Rogers, better known as Mr. Rogers, briefly came out of retirement to speak to the children and parents of the world and reassure them. But even Mr. Rogers had no idea what to say in a moment of communal anguish such as this. He reportedly responded to his producer, “I just don’t know what good these are gonna do.”
He ultimately recorded four videos that aired on the one-year anniversary of the attacks and in one he reminded people that we are all called to be “Tikkun Olam,” which is a concept in Judaism that stands for “repairers of creation.”
Whenever there is a major tragedy, many people make reference to Mr. Roger’s famous advice to children, he said, “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.” But this advice was for children, not for adults. While it can be of great comfort for children to look to the helpers so that they can see that the world is still made up of people who will care for them and keep them safe, adults are called to something more. We are called to be the helpers. To look in the face of great tragedy and find the space to love people through the hurt. To let the lives we lead be a reflection of our internal values and to act from an ethic of love.
In her book, “all about love” author bell hooks, talks about living with this ethic of love. She stresses the importance of understanding love, not just as a feeling we have, but as a call to action. She harkens back to that idea of being repairers of creation. But, we are repairing not only the world but ourselves and it is through this ethic of love that we will find healing.
When faced with moments that we can’t understand or when we look into the face of senseless tragedy and can’t recognize ourselves or where to turn, it can be difficult to find hope, to understand where the love could be and how we can make sense of a world that contains such heartbreak.
Quite a few people have told me they feel hopeless right now. They look at climate change, senseless gun violence, the upcoming national elections, and the oppression of people of color and trans members of our communities and they feel overwhelmed and without any sense of what to do. In these moments, perhaps a turn to action, a recognition of our role as helpers, can be the guiding light for many of us.
For awhile I was a legislative liaison, which is basically a lobbyist, for government agencies at the state Capitol in Oklahoma City. I represented a human service agency whose mission was to keep children and other vulnerable populations safe. As one an guess, we were not always the most popular people to darken some of the very conservative legislators’ doors. It was difficult work and my day was often filled with choosing to speak to the people who were either openly hostile to me or would be kind to my face and then stab me in the back, or, the people who were ostensibly on my side, but undermined me at every turn.
I sat through hours of committee meetings and watched legislators work to undermine the rights of women, LGBTQIA members of my community, and take actions that I thought would make the world less safe or education less accessible for the children in my community. One might presume this was soul sucking work that left me depleted and empty at the end of the legislative session, but that would be wrong.
Though it was hard, and I had to swallow many of my feelings, but someone needed to stand in the breech and try to find ways to work within the system to care for the vulnerable populations in my state. So, why couldn’t it be me? Having a purpose made a difference—somehow made it all easier.
I am sure there are many amongst you, teachers, medical professionals, social workers, and numerous other caregivers for the most vulnerable in our communities who recognize this feeling. That the world is hard, but maybe I can work to make my little corner of the universe a little less difficult.
When I became a Unitarian Universalist, what was remarkable to me, most of all, was that there was less talk about shoring up our treasures in heaven as had been much of the religious teachings of my youth, but rather, conversations around what are we doing with our time here on earth, right now. How are both our individual and collective actions affecting the world we are currently living in?
bell hooks has said,
“To begin by always thinking of love as an action rather than a feeling is one way in which anyone using the word in this manner automatically assumes accountability and responsibility. We are often taught we have no control over our ‘feelings.’ Yet most of us accept that we choose our actions, that intention and will inform what we do.”
That to me is the core of how we take care of the most vulnerable in our society as well as what we are called to teach the children amongst us. We teach them that love is an action that we choose to take, rather than always a feeling. We can choose to see the inherent worth and dignity in others and we can choose how we manifest that sense of understanding into being.
I believe there are three fundamental facets of putting that love into action. First, is to identify our empathy, and with that, recognize the humanity in everyone we encounter. Second, it is to do the internal work necessary to ensure we have the proper vision before acting. And, of course, third, the action itself.
As we embark upon a new year of a national election season, many of us are likely already exhausted by the news coverage—I know I am! I know it can be hard to find empathy for the people we feel are threatening the safety of the marginalized voices in our communities. But, I can tell you that being from Oklahoma it was difficult to read comments online made by people in more progressive states saying we basically brought it on ourselves with who we were electing. We were feeling the deepest sting of what was happening where we live and many of us were working every day to fight it, and we felt abandoned, or at the very last misunderstood, by many people in the rest of the country.
Additionally, I think many of us can recognize that there are often larger systemic issues at play that create systems in which people may vote against what we feel is their own interest. Either way, I have never heard of anyone changing their position when they are being harshly judged or dismissed. But, the empathy often isn’t for them anyway, it is for ourselves.
Those of us who are watching the news everyday and feeling the pit in our stomachs.
There is a quote that is often misattributed to the Buddha which basically says that anger is like drinking poison and expecting someone else to die. There is a reason this quote has been misattributed to a number of speakers throughout the ages, because it often rings true for many of us. Our anger, our bitterness, they hurt us, and often because we are blinded by that anger and sometimes unwilling to compromise or find empathy because of it, we can hurt the very people we are trying to help. Perhaps living within an ethic of love and leading with empathy in our interactions with others, can be an antidote to that poison?
The second piece of love in action is contemplation – to be thoughtful, to have a plan before you act. Of course, this notion of contemplation before action can be difficult for many of us. I don’t know about you, but my immediate response is always to want to jump in and get involved, and I often get frustrated when I feel people are spending too much time talking and not enough time doing.
However, I was moved by a section in a biography of Rev. Howard Thurman, in which author Paul Harvey recounts a story in which the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was stabbed and almost killed at one of his book signings in 1958. Rev. Thurman visited Dr. King in the hospital and encouraged him, as he encouraged many people, to look at this as an opportunity to take a brief step away from the everyday, focus on his life and meditate on its purpose, and then move forward.
This was at the core of Thurman’s teachings – to take time to contemplate your inner life so that you may commune with God and later act with purpose. But it is also worth noting that Rev. Thurman recognized people have a duty to step back into life, pursue community, and take responsibility for the nature of the social order. Recognizing the powerful wisdom of Rev. Thurman, I still worry about an excessive amount of navel gazing without action, particularly within our UU movement.
In the book Radical Dharma, the Rev. angel Kydo williams speaks to this idea that sometimes our spiritual paths in the Western world can get bogged down by focusing on the internal work of “me” without also realizing there is a community piece as well. She stresses that internal liberation goes hand in hand with external liberation. It is important to find the balance between doing this work of internal liberation but not losing sight of the ultimate reason for that work.
In addition to being ready externally, there is also an internal resilience that we need to manifest. A wise friend recently told me something her spiritual teacher told her, “You have to hold a gallon to give a cup.” In other words, you have to care for yourself and do the internal work necessary to ensure you are able to put love into action.
Again, this is going to be difficult year for many of us, we will want to act, we will want to take part, but if our cup is dry and there are no reserves to refill it, then we will have nothing to give. Because, giving, helping, especially when times are tough can be a spiritual practice as much as any.
What we do in our community and how we act toward others shapes our inner lives more than we sometimes believe or even recognize. How many times have you volunteered somewhere and came away from it learning more than you likely taught others? Have you gone to a community event or helped someone in need and felt a tiny piece of your soul was liberated in the process? I know I have.
When we live our lives with a focus on fierce love in action that we can share with our families, friends, and communities, we de-center ourselves and our hang-ups and fears and inch ever closer to the beloved community that Dr. King spoke about so many decades ago.
But this notion of living in love rather than fear, is a difficult one. Personally, I am living with a lot of fear right now. I think many of us are. Certainly, many people of color, trans people, and other members of our communities living with marginalized identities are living with a fear that I cannot possibly understand.
So, when this fear threatens to overtake us, what can we do? The role we have to play in our communities is unique and personal to every individual, but we can rest assured that it is needed. That we as UU’s, collectively, are needed. And reminding ourselves and others that we are on the side of love is needed.
Amen and May it be so.
© ALYSSA LEE
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