Welcome to the First Unitarian
Unversalist Church
of New Orleans Archive of Sermons
by Rev. Melanie Morel-Ensminger
TRANSFORMATIONAL
ABUNDANCE:
BLESSINGS OVERFLOWING
A Sermon on Stewardship by the Rev.
Melanie Morel-Ensminger
First Unitarian Universalist Church in New Orleans
Sunday, October 21, 2007
As my colleague Tim Kutzmark
points out in this morning’s Reading, we Americans live
in a culture that constantly preaches the bad news of scarcity,
that every day tell us that there isn’t enough of almost
everything. Advertising informs us we’re defective, not
good enough, that we’re all lacking in something that
it just so happens we could buy to get a little better. Taking
all this in, you could end up believing that we’re falling
behind and that everything everywhere is getting worse. You
just might be justified in concluding that there’s no
hope to be found.
The immediate aftermath of the
storms 2 years ago reinforced this way of thinking for people
in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, and, at the time, it was the
right way to think. No one could be or should be blamed for feeling
like things kept getting worse, that we truly were falling behind,
and hope was indeed a scarce commodity.
But there is a tide in New Orleans
tradition that is older and stronger than the American culture’s
myth of scarcity, and stronger still than the pessimism engendered
by the hurricanes’ destruction and our leaders’ malfeasance.
The Crescent City preaches a different gospel, good news for
those of us sick of the message of “not enough.” That
message is, “Mo’ better” or “Have some
mo’” – as when your waitress urges you to have
a second dessert, or when the band plays yet another “last
set,” or when you walk into a neighborhood bar, and there’s
free red beans and rice, just help yourself, or when you go to
hear Kermit Ruffins play, and he serves you barbeque from the
back of his Escalade. The culture of New Orleans says that more
is better, and that there is always more to be had.
As most of you know, over the
past week New Orleans non-profit radio station WWOZ has been
conducting its fall membership drive. What impressed me was how
upbeat all the DJs were in their appeals to the audience. They
said things like, “If you like what we do, and want us
to keep on doin’ it, pledge now,” and “This
is what we do, and nothing is gonna stop us from doin’ it,
but it sure would help if all you listeners made a pledge.” Another
DJ said, “We’re all volunteers here, doin’ this
out of love, and we’re asking y’all to show some
love.” Yet another said, “Not everyone can pledge
a thousand or 5 thousand or 10 thousand dollars, we know that – but
we want you to know that we appreciate every single $40 pledge
we get, and we don’t love you any less than we love our
big donors.”
They
did not say, “Pledge or the station will have to
close.” They did not say, “We know everyone’s
hurt from dealing with the storm, so we know you really can’t
pledge.” They did not poor-mouth or guilt-trip or harangue.
They played the best music they could, featured live interviews
with some of New Orleans’ finest musicians, and reminded
all of us listeners that all of this was possible because of
love for ‘OZ. They put their trust in the abundant good
feelings that the listeners have for what ‘OZ does, and
took for granted that those positive emotions would translate
into monetary support.
We embark today on our 2 nd
stewardship campaign since the storm, and this year, we will
be taking a page out of the WWOZ playbook. We will not poor-mouth
or guilt-trip or harangue. We will not tell you that we will
close if you don’t pledge. We will not whinge and cry, “Poor
us!” We have put our trust in the abundant good feelings
that our church’s members and friends have for what this
church does and what this church means, and we are taking for
granted that these positive emotions will translate not only
into monetary support, but also into willing hands for the work
that lies ahead. And like ‘OZ, we promise that we receive
every pledge, from the lowest to the highest, with the same love.
The storm is past, both literally
and figuratively, and it is time to move ahead with both faith
and hope. In the immediate aftermath of the storm, we needed
courage just hang in there. But now different virtues are called
for. It is time for us to recognize and utilize the overflowing
blessings we already have. We are blessed with an abundance of
commitment, an abundance of talent, an abundance of dedication.
We are blessed with an abundance of volunteers from around the
country, witnesses to the relationship and connection we have
with churches across the country, not just our fellow UUs but
people of every faith and no faith. We are blessed with an abundance
of visitors, people apparently not put off by our unfinished
building and our lack of luxurious amenities, but perhaps drawn
by our very challenges, as well as by the spirit with which we
face those challenges. We are even blessed with an abundance
of money. You don’t believe me? Try this:
Raise your hand right now if
you have at least $2.00 with you (not counting whatever you are
planning to generously give in the Offering later in the service)?
Keep your hand up, and those of you who don’t have it with
you, but who have at least $2.00 at home or in a checking or
savings account, or under your mattress, raise your hand. Look
around you. Do you realize how incredibly wealthy we are? Three
billion people in the world live on less than $2.00 a day, while
another 1.3 billion get by on less than $1.00 per day. (adapted
from a sermon by Rev. Nicholas Brie, pastor of Trinity Evangelical
Lutheran Church in Maryland, found on the Internet)
We may not live on Audubon Place,
but we’re all rich, richer than over 4 billion people in
the world! (However, if you do live on Audubon Place, please
talk to me after the service about your pledge.)
Many churches operate from a
scarcity mentality, and not just those in Louisiana and the Gulf
Coast in the aftermath of the storms. But all over our denomination,
congregations are discovering something wonderful – that
the spirit of abundance is self-replicating, that giving away
money attracts money, that being generous generates generosity.
UU churches have found that if they regularly dedicate their
offertory to an outside cause, the overall offering goes up.
In other words, the more they give away, the more they get.
Some things are automatically
self-fulfilling. If you tell a child she is a liar, the child
will lie. If you tell a teenager he’s nobody, he will be
hate-filled. If you tell a congregation they can’t do something,
then they can’t. But self-fulfillment works in the other
direction just as well. An average person constantly told they’re
beautiful will blossom. Underachieving students told they can,
will. A congregation assured of abundance will have abundance,
and have it abundantly.
In the intertwined history of
this church and this city, we have an example of abundance begetting
abundance. In the generation before the Civil War, there were
2 businessmen who had grown wealthy through their industry and
intelligence. One was Judah Touro, a Jewish man from Rhode Island,
the other was John McDonough, from Baltimore. They had several
things in common. Both were unmarried – Touro due to an
unhappy youthful love affair with a first cousin; McDonough is
thought to have been gay. Both started out penniless; both were
later among the city’s business elite.
But there the similarities ended.
During their lifetime, Touro was renowned for his philanthropy
(including notable donations to this church), while McDonough
was thought a little tight with a dollar. Touro’s example
might have been a spur to McDonough, for on the latter’s
death in 1850, to the surprise of his contemporaries, McDonough’s
vast estate was left to the poor of both New Orleans and Baltimore,
from whence we get the McDonough schools. After years of generosity,
when Touro died 4 years later, his will also left a fortune,
endowing both Touro Infirmary and Touro Synagogue here, as well
as Touro Cemetery and Touro Synagogue in his native Newport,
Rhode Island, and libraries and parks in other cities. Generosity
inspires generosity – it always does.
I have every faith that we will
have a great stewardship campaign this year, partly because I
already know we had a great campaign last year, even in the wake
of the storm. But I also have faith in this congregation and
in its future, and I know one thing: Living and giving abundantly
can transform your thinking and your life – and our church. So
might this be! AMEN – ASHE – SHALOM – SALAAM – NAMASTE – BLESSED
BE!
 BACK
TO THE TOP
WHICH
SIDE ARE YOU ON?
A Sermon by the Rev. Melanie Morel-Ensminger
To Introduce the Test of the New UUA Curricula Building The World We Dream
About
First Unitarian Universalist Church of New Orleans
Sunday, September 30, 2007
I was raised on a steady
diet of protest songs. The Morel family would while away the
hours on long car trips with all the old songs of free-dom
that my father, a CIO organizer, had learned at Highlander
Folk School in Tennesee in 1940, songs like “Union Maid,” “We Shall Not Be Moved,” “Solidarity
Forever,” “Joe Hill” and of course, “We
Shall Overcome.” My sermon title comes from an old favorite
of my dad’s, a song written by a Kentucky coal miner’s
wife in 1931. The lyrics question whether the lis-tener is on
the side of the striking miners and their hungry families or
on the side of the rich owners, declaring,
They say in Harlan
County, there are no neutrals there; You'll either be a
union man or a thug for J. H. Blair.
The original chorus resounds, “Which
side are you on, boys? Which side are you on?” As
years passed and issues grew, the song was given new momentum
and additional lyrics by folks in the Civil Rights Movement,
the farm workers’ union, the peace movement, and many
others. Which side are you on? Seventy-six years after the
song was first written, the question still haunts us. Which
side are you on?
As we prepare to begin
a series of workshops to test the new curric-ula on race and
ethnicity being developed by the Unitarian Universalist Association,
it is good to ask, “Which
side are you on?” Is it possible for anyone in America
to be neutral about racism and ethnic discrimination, or in a
way, do we all live in Harlan County, Kentucky? When it comes
to race and ethnicity, which side are we on, as white people,
as New Orleanians, as Unitarian Universalists?
I know, I know, none of
y’all is going
to raise your hand right now and say, “Oh yeah, count me
in, I’m on the side of racism and ethnic cleansing.” But
what does it mean when we say we’re on the right side?
What are we willing to do? What are we willing to change? To
paraphrase an old question about Unitarian Universalism, if it
were against the law to oppose discrimination and inequality
based on race, class, and ethnicity, would there be enough evidence
to convict us?
Perhaps we in New Orleans
are like the proverbial canaries in the coal mine. (Back in
the day, coal miners brought caged canaries down into the mine
with them; this was not for entertainment, but for safety – the little bird would be
the first to be visibly affected by poison gas or a lack of oxygen,
and the miners would know to evacuate a dangerous situation.)
Race, class, and ethnicity affect all of America, but there’s
almost never a good media illustration of how this plays out – but
Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath changed all that.
In September 2005, nearly
everyone in our country with a working television witnessed
a graphic, on-going example of how race, class, and ethnicity
make a difference in people’s
lives. We saw that race, class, and ethnicity could put a person
in danger in a catastrophe; we saw that race, class, and ethnicity
could add to a person’s burdens during a time of crisis.
We saw that race, class, and ethnicity could affect a person
and family’s ability to rebound and recover from a disaster.
Now, the real fact is, people in oppressed racial, class, ands
ethnic groups in our country already knew this – as the
New Orleans expression goes, “They been knowing
it” – just as they been knowing that race, class,
and ethnicity add to a person’s burdens every single day,
even when there isn’t a catas-trophe – but
for comfortable privileged Americans all across the country,
the Katrina survivors on their TV sets were like dying canaries
in a mine: clear illustrations of a dangerous, poisonous situation
that invisibly and insidiously affects each and every one of
us, every day, but that many of us hardly notice.
The purpose of this morning’s sermon
is not to accuse or blame or elicit guilt. These feelings are
useless in fighting oppression; they are numb-ing and deadening
and self-defeating. They result only in denial and paralysis
and inaction. As long as those of us who are privileged and comfort-able,
those of us who are white or middle-class, get mired down in
accusation, blame, and guilt, we are unable to work to effect
permanent change. The best that “liberal guilt” can
do for people being adversely affected by race, class, and ethnicity
is exactly that – “do for.” “Do for” is
a nice way of saying “noblesse oblige;” it is good
works done as charity from a standpoint of privilege. While I
am not here to condemn anyone for getting involved in charitable
good deeds for those in need, I do say unequivocally that such
work, however noble and well-intentioned, does not change anything.
As Unitarian Universalists, we ought to be about the business
of changing systems and structures – real, systemic change
that alters the paradigm of haves and have-nots, of justice and
injustice, equality and inequality.
There is an alternative
to accusation, blame, and guilt. We can learn and develop ways
of being true allies in the struggle for justice and equality.
We can start to offer our hands horizontally in friendship
instead of downward in hand-outs. We can stand with people
in need instead of standing over them. We can place ourselves
squarely where our Unitarian Universalist principles say we’ll be – on
the side of justice, equity, and compassion; on the side of
the inherent worth and dignity of every person, on the side
of the democratic process. In short, we can transform ourselves
from passive complicity with an unjust system into active anti-oppression
allies, working to dismantle racism, classism, ethnic distrust,
and all other oppressions.
But the very first step
in that direction is often painfully difficult. The first step
requires that we UUs acknowledge that we are not already “saved.” (In
general, UUs dislike traditional religious language, but this
is an example where we UUs rely on the old religious language
to extricate ourselves from an uncomfortable secular position.)
We Unitarian Universalists want to believe that we are already on
the right side, that we are the good guys by virtue of being
UU, that we are “saved” from the All-American sins
of racism, classism, and ethnic discrimination. Most UU congregations
insist they don’t need to do anti-racism workshops or Welcoming
Congregation programs, because of course we’re not racist
or classist or homophobic or discriminatory in any way.
We like to point to our
denomination’s
racial history: our support for abolition, the activism on behalf
of the franchise to male former slaves, and our activism in the
civil rights movement of the 1960s. We honor our UU martyrs,
Jim Reeb and Viola Liuzza, killed in 1965, and the untold number
of Unitarian Universalist ministers and lay people who answered
Martin Luther King Jr.’s call to Selma. We may be hazier
on the less savory aspects of our denomination's record on race,
but we are sure that we UUs have more to celebrate than to regret.
We look back with pride
on the UUA’s
record on rights for gays and lesbians, on being the first American
denomination to ordain an openly gay person, the votes at General
Assembly supporting same-sex marriage rights long before it was
fashionable. Again, we may prefer not to know about the times
and ways that UUism supported the status quo on BGLTI rights,
but on the whole, we’re pretty sure it’s a record
to boast of – and boast we often do.
I can hardly wait for
the next issue of the UU World magazine, for there is sure
to be a barrage of defensive letters about this month’s cover story about classism in
Unitarian Universalist theology. Good religious liberals that
we are, we are positive that “isms” are someone else’s
problem, that we are not implicated in racism or classism or
ethnic discrimination, since we are good people who do not feel
or practice bigotry or hatred towards anyone.
I understand that reaction,
because it’s
exactly how I felt the first time I participated in an antiracism
workshop with the People’s Institute of Survival and Beyond.
When I think back on it, I’m mortified by my insufferable
smugness; I don’t know how my old friend Ron Chisom put
up with me. “I’m just here to help out,” I
thought to myself at the start of the 3-day workshop, mentally
patting myself on the back, “Racism certainly has nothing
to do with me – my parents were civil rights activists
who worked for integration; I’m one of the good guys.” I
wanted to continue to believe in my own innocence; I wanted to
be “good” – and not only that, I wanted my
purity and goodness validated by people of color and poor people.
But I have to come to know, slowly and painfully, that when it
comes to oppressions in our country, none of us is innocent,
none of us is neutral, none of us is uninvolved. All of us are
implicated in an unjust sys-tem that is part of the very fabric
of our lives.
The system we’re enmeshed in is not only
unjust, it’s complicated. A gradated set of privileges
and comforts are doled out, carefully calibrated by gender, race,
class, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and culture. A single person
can straddle different discriminatory categories – one
can be a black or Latino middle-class woman, or a poor white
gay man, or an Asian-American adopted into a white family or
a formerly working class Italian man now identifying as a white
professional. But however mixed (or mixed-up!) our category,
it’s clear that being against oppression is not about the
good people identifying the bad people and then fighting them.
That would be easy. It’s really about recognizing where
we ourselves and the institutions we love are caught up in the
unjust system, and then committing to working to make things
systemically better, no matter how long it takes and no matter
how much it hurts.
One way to get started
with what might turn out to be a life-long process of learning
and growing would be to register for and attend the sessions
of “Building The
World We Dream About,” the brand-new UUA curricula being
developed for adult programs in UU congregations. It is an honor
that our congregation was one of the churches selected as a test
location for this important new course, and it is more than likely
due, at least in part, to the scenes of post-Katrina apocalypse
that UUA officials viewed from 2 years ago. Your participation
in this course will help to shape it, as it in turn helps to
shape your new perceptions and perspective on race and ethnicity;
you will be in on the ground floor of some-thing very important
for Unitarian Universalism as well as for this church and this
city.
Classes will be held on
the first and third Thursdays of the month. The first session
will be held this Thursday, October 4, from 7 to 9 pm; participants
are asked to make as strong a commitment as possible to attend
at least 75% of the total sessions for maximum impact and group
cohesion. There will be a minimal registration fee assessed
to cover copies and mat-erials, which can be waived in case
of hardship. Flyers are available on the Greeters’ Table,
and our course facilitators, Howard and Tina Mielke and Esther
Scott, will be able to answer questions about the course during
Coffeehour. I am excited to be a participant, and I hope to
see many of you there too.
The words used for our
Chalice Lighting came from an essay entitled “Family Values” in
the UU World magazine several years ago; in it, Dr. Ronald
O. Valdiserri of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
warned us all:
…Our world is defined by the people
who live in it. People who aren’t all the same, who differ
in color and sexual orientation and social circumstance, are
part of our human race. If we refuse to listen to them, if
we refuse to share societal resources to meet their ex-pressed…needs,
we will pay a price. We will lose something of what it means
to be human. [UUW, Jan./Feb. 1995]
Our city, our country,
our world, is made up of many different people – white,
black, brown, red, and yellow; rich, poor, middle-class; professional
and blue collar; Northern and Southern European, African, Creole,
Hispanic, Native American, Pacific Islander, Asian; straight,
gay, lesbian, bisexual, intersexed, trans, and queer. The many
ways we can be categorized can be sources of enrichment or
they be used as bases for discrimination. There can be no neutrality.
We are either working for justice and equity and diversity,
or we are passively accepting the sad world as it is now.
Which will we choose?
Which side are we on? The right decision will change our lives
forever. So
might this be, for ourselves and for our children!
AMEN – ASHE – SHALOM – SALAAM – NAMASTE – BLESSED
BE!
BACK
TO THE TOP LAYING
OUR BURDENS DOWN: A Homily for Yom Kippur
by the Rev. Melanie Morel-Ensminger
First Unitarian Universalist Church of New Orleans
Sunday, September 16, 2007 This
past Thursday, our Jewish sisters and brothers marked the start of
a new year with the celebration of Rosh Hashanah; this coming Saturday,
the High Holy Days of the Jewish liturgical calendar culminate in Yom
Kippur, the Day of Atonement. On Yom Kippur, practicing Jews look inward,
acknowledge where they have fallen short of ideal, things done
and things undone, and recognize the burdens they’ve
been carrying of unhealthy and unresolved feelings and emotions.
As a liberal congregation, we take this opportunity between
the Days of Awe to make our own internal assessment, and to
lay our burdens down, symbolized by those small stones. In Hebrew, the act of letting go, casting
away, our misdeeds and inactions and unhealthy emotions is
called tashlich. Rachel Stark, a member of Unitarian Universalists
for Jewish Awareness (UUJA), writes:
I imagine the ritual of tashlich as a physical
act into which we can put our disappointments and frustrations,
a means to cast away all the ways in which we acted as we
wish we had not, all the ways we failed to act as we wish
we had. In striving to be kind and strong and moral and thoughtful
and friendly and brave, we all fall short. Tashlich gives
us a chance to try again to be our very best selves.
No
matter your theology or spirituality, tashlich is important,
even vital. There is a line commonly heard in many UU memorial
services: “Tears unshed are
like stones upon the heart.” But it is not only unshed
tears that can be like a burden of stones on the heart and
the mind – all unresolved emotions are like that. Carrying
around – lugging around – feelings we haven’t
dealt with, emotions we haven’t expressed, tangled unresolved
issues, all end up as an invisible backpack of boulders, weighing
us down, preventing us from experiencing joy and being truly
happy. New
Orleanians have a lot of burdens right now – dealing with losses of property and people and
pets and even precious landmarks, we are burdened by our memories,
our grief, our survivor’s guilt, and our resentment and
rage at what happened to us and continues to happen to us 2
years after the storm. We are burdened with bills, with formaldehyde
fumes in our FEMA trailers, with bureaucratic red tape, with
recalcitrant insurance companies, with governmental indifference,
corruption, and incompetence. The rest of the country and our
federal government don’t always seem to understand us,
and sometimes seem to blame us for our predicament. Most of
the time, we feel too busy, too caught up in our lives, too
burdened, to deal with our knotted-up emotions and feelings – taking
time for ourselves in that way seems like a shameful indulgence.
I am not naïve enough to think that one congregational
ritual in a Sun-day service will magically take care of all
the burdens being carried by the members and friends of this
church. Two,
three, four rituals wouldn’t do
it, although personally I think it might help. Working through
all that happened and all that is still going on will take
months and even years of conscious, intentional work. (Many
mental health experts say that many of the symptoms of post-traumatic
stress do not even surface until at least 2 years have passed
because people are too occupied with coping.) As your minister,
I want to help you with that working through – I am here
for you, and I want you to know that you can call me, make
an appointment to come talk to me, and ask me for referrals. For
this year. I am your minister, and I want to help to ease
your burdens in every way I can. What happened to us, to
New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, during and after Hurricanes
Katrina and Rita, was not our fault. Nothing we did caused
what happened or drew it to us. We are not in any way responsible.
But Yom Kippur teaches us an important lesson: we are not
always at fault for events that occur in our lives, we
are not always responsible for the things that happen to
us – but we are totally and completely responsible for
how we respond. (In fact, “responsible” literally
means “able to respond.”) We can make positive
changes in our lives and in our behavior, we can alter course,
turn around, make a new start – which is the real, literal
meaning of “atonement.” Maybe the hand we’ve
been dealt is a lousy hand, maybe life has been unfair to us,
but that’s the way the levee crumbles. As your mama probably
said to you more than once– I know mine did – “Life
is unfair.” All that matters is how we act now. This
is the deal: by destiny, we have been placed here in this
city, at this time in history, with our particular skin
color, family constellation, brain power, gender identity,
and social situation. You could change what city you live
in, but pretty much nothing else about that list can be
changed. This is the hand we’ve been dealt, or that
we have chosen. How we will live, how we will act, how we will
cope, how we will move forward from here, whether we will deal
in a healthy productive way with our emotions or not, all that
is entirely up to us. Let us take this to heart, and make the
right choice. Let us choose life. AMEN – ASHE – SHALOM – SALAAM – NAMASTE –BLESSED
BE!
BACK
TO THE TOP COMING FULL CIRCLE,
COMING HOME
Introductory Sermon by the Rev. Melanie Morel-Ensminger
First Unitarian Universalist Church of New Orleans
Sunday, September 2, 2007 This
morning I want to introduce myself to you, to tell you about myself, and
to explain why my being here is both coming full circle and coming home.
By birth, I am a New Orleanian, 5 th generation Creole/Irish on
my father’s side. My father was a union organizer; my
mother, a union secretary. In addition to union work, they
were also in-volved in civil rights; to protect us, my parents
raised us Catholic even though neither of them were. I
don’t know how to communicate this
so it is intelligible, but early on, I felt “called.” My
father was on the committee to desegregate Orleans public schools,
and I watched TV as Ruby Bridges, only a year younger than
I, walked into Franz School amid the violent protests by angry
whites. An inner voice said, You need to help her. At
this same time, I had feelings during Mass that I did not understand. You
should be doing that, I thought as I watched the priest.
It wasn’t that I wanted to be a priest, I felt like I
ought to be, that I needed to be. I learned the hard way to
keep these feelings to myself. (It wasn’t until much
later that I recognized that stuffing down spiritual yearnings
is not a good way to deal with them, any more than stuffing
any emotion is a good idea.) After
8 th grade, I joined a Catholic group called a “community” – an innovation allowed
by Vatican II. The Community of Christ Our Hope, met in Xavier
University’s chapel, and gave me a glimpse of a new kind
of religion. Lay people helped create the Mass, with folk and
rock and jazz music and secular readings. The Community was,
in effect, nearly a Catholic UU congregation; while Catholic
doctrine was still present, it was almost ignored – so
you won’t be surprised that eventually the bishop cracked
down. When the end came, I felt betrayed and disillusioned.
I left the Catholic Church or, as I like to say, it left me. I
put my sense of call into politics and justice work, which
became my “church” for the
next decade. That work – against the war, for women’s
and gay rights, in support of farm workers, against nuclear
power, for healthcare accessibility for poor people of color,
for the election of the first black mayor of New Orleans – made
me feel like I was on the side of the angels, and the friendships
I made were powerful reminders of how community should be.
There were moments during those years when I felt part of something
large and important, but there was always something missing
I could not name. In
1982 I got married and had a baby. That’s
easy to say, but my spiritual long-ings turned it into a ritual.
With a midwife, I planned a homebirth with all the fervor of
the newly converted. When my son was born, I felt connected
with all women throughout history who had ever given birth. The
new baby brought back all the old questions. We decided
to find a church, one that would give our son answers we
didn’t disagree with too much, and where we wouldn’t
feel too much like hypocrites. The trouble was, neither of
us knew of such a church. We went to the Times-Picayune religion
page and prepared for a systematic search for a church home.
One caught our attention, where Stephen’s dad had once
heard Ashley Montague speak, and where I had arranged a forum
during the mayoral campaign. (I had a family connection with
that church I did not then remember – years before, my
older sister had been married by Rev. Albert D’Orlando.) The next week, we showed up at 1800 Jefferson,
too early and way over-dressed. It was August 1983; Rev. Mike
McGee was on summer leave. The lay-led service, on William
James, was interesting, and folks at Coffeehour were friendly.
We took home a ton of pamphlets, and the systematic church
search ended. Two
years later, I was diagnosed with cancer, underwent surgery – and spiraled into depression. I could
not have more children; I had given up a job I ought to have
loved, and I was afraid. My life had no larger purpose. Was
there nothing sacred I could commit to? 1 st Church gave me
hope and strength and connection, and when a search began for
an administrator to prepare for the minister’s sabbatical,
I thought, having recently resigned as manager of the Laura
Ashley at Canal Place, If I can run a store with a million-dollar
budget, I can handle a church with a budget only 1/10 that. I
was hired, and I confess: I over-functioned. After a while,
in addition to my reg-ular duties, Mike McGee relied on
me to pick readings and hymns for his sermons, and I led
a service or 2 when he was out of the pulpit. Soon he was
half-jokingly calling me the “assistant minister.” I
thought it a shame I had not found UUism before I married and
had a child; maybe I could have been a minister. In
early 1986, “Cakes for the Queen
of Heaven” was published and 1 st church was among the
first to get it. In the course, I learned that many of the
rituals and holidays I loved were pagan in origin, and I saw
how the pervasive voodoo influence on New Orleans could be
incorporated into my new UU spirituality. I became an enthusiastic
UU pagan. I joined the Covenant of UU Pagans, and later served
on the CUUPS board. I also attended the first WomenSpirit weekend
at The Mountain, the UU camp and conference center in North
Carolina. It was transformative. When I arrived at the airport,
my hus-band asked how it went, and I could only blurt out, “I
want to be a UU minister!” To his eternal credit, he
replied, “What a wonderful idea!” I
tried out my idea on everyone, waiting for someone to say
it was stupid; to my surprise, no one did. Mike McGee smiled
and said, “I was waiting for you to
figure it out.” Folks at 1 st Church supported me, and
my political friends were also affirming – if a little
confused. My family was positive, and at my 20 th high school
reunion, even old schoolmates said good things. But
UU seminary was expensive and far away. The alternative
was a local seminary, and with the encouragement of 1 st
Church’s new minister, Rev. Suzanne Meyer, I
chose Loyola Institute for Ministry, and in 1989, my spiritual
search made its first circle as I entered a Catholic institution
to become a UU minister. Being part of LIM was one of the happiest
times in my life. Christianity
had reentered my life at my first General Assembly, when
I heard UU Christian ministers preach. I saw how liberal
Christianity was not just part of UU history, but a living
presence; I also saw it was radically different from my
childhood Catholicism. I realized I could be Unitarian
Universalist, pagan – and Christian too.
I joined the UU Christian Fellowship, and later served on the
UUCF board and as president. In
a devastating blow, in May of ‘91,
my dad died. That summer, I completed a chaplaincy at Baptist
Hospital and was chosen as intern at Cedar Lane, one of our
largest churches, in suburban Washington, DC. At the end of
December, I left home and family to do 6 months away as an
intern minister. In
mid-January, my mother collapsed and died of cancer in
just a few days. The Cedar Lane congregation and my supervisors
there were a great comfort to me, as were my colleagues
at Wesley Seminary, Rev. Suzanne and my 1 st Church friends.
Then, seem-ingly out of the blue (but not if I had been
paying attention), Stephen’s father asked for a
divorce. Losing in rapid succession, my father, my mother,
and my marriage, I relied for sanity on my faith and my UU
community. I will always be grateful to 1 st Church for the
love and care I received at that painful time. My
internship over, I came home in July of ‘92.
I finished my last semester, graduated with honors, received
fellowship from the Ministerial Fellowship Committee, and got
divorced. In January, I began a part-time ministry with Our
Home Universalist Unitarian Church in Ellisville, Mississippi,
and that fall I threw myself a “New Life” party
to celebrate graduating, starting ministry, becoming single – and
turning 40. In
February 1993, First Church celebrated its 160 th anniversary
and my ordination in a ceremony that included denominational
officials, my internship mentor, professors and friends
from LIM, Revs. Suzanne and Mike, and all my family and
friends. I was then called to the UU Church of Chattanooga;
y’all sent me off with a jazz party. During my 9 years
at Chattanooga, the church became more theologically diverse,
retired a long-standing debt, 2 former presidents discerned
a call to ministry (both now serve UU con-gregations), and
we joined regularly with an African-American CME church for
service projects and worship. Also during that ministry, I
served on the Black Concerns Work-ing Group, later the Jubilee
Working Group, leading anti-racism workshops for UUs around
the country. In
2002, I was called to the UU Church in Cherry Hill, New
Jersey, a Philadelphia suburb. The church had just built
a fabulous new building after fire destroyed their cramped
sanctuary 6 years before, and their beloved minister had
died. It was too much change for a church to absorb in
a too-short period, and the ministry was at times difficult,
though much was accomplished. (Ask me sometime about why I
was interviewed by Al Jazeera!) One of the best things about
my move there was that I met and married a wonderful man, and
now we are grandparents. I’ve asked Eric to introduce
himself by sharing a special song this morning. (“Where
were you when the water came through?” Pt. 1) Where
were you when the water came through? I know where I was.
As Labor Day 2005 approached, I was glued to the TV, watching
the reports of the hurricane in the Gulf. Urgent phone
calls were made to family and friends, and tears were shed
in worry well before landfall. In the panicked and chaotic
evacuation of the city, 2 of my sisters had to drive hundreds
of miles east to get west, and Eric and I stayed online
and on the phone, trying to find them motels that were not
already full of displaced New Orleanians. When Katrina hit,
I thought, as I guess most of you did, that we had dodged a
bullet. When the news came of the water in the streets, I wept
bitter tears for my hometown, my family, and my home church,
all beloved to me. The 504 area code was useless, and there
were frantic attempts to find loved ones. (“Where were
you?” Pt. 2) I
eventually found my sisters and brother and the friends
I searched for – they were in Houston,
Austin, Lafayette, Baton Rouge, Atlanta, Arkansas, Oregon,
and California. I watched helplessly as New Orleans and the
Gulf Coast drowned. In Cherry Hill, well-meaning folks advised
me not to watch it, that it was too upsetting. But since I
could not come home, all I could offer was my witness. And
so, despite the pain, I watched and witnessed and wept, and
every night, I dreamt of New Orleans, and you. You
know all that; you lived through it and it was worse for
you than it was for me. But here’s something
you don’t know: I am somewhat known in the UUA, for my
anti-racism work, teaching Leadership School, speaking at SUUSI,
Ferry Beach, The Mountain, and GA, known even for my hats and
especially for being from New Orleans. As you suffered your
diaspora and were disconnected from your homes and work and
each other, the Cherry Hill church was flooded with calls,
with UUs I knew and UUs I didn’t know, calling, saying, “Aren’t
you that minister from New Or-leans who wears hats? Do you
know how your family is, do you know how the church is? What
can we do to help?” The outpouring of love and care was
tremendous. With the opening of the Volunteer Center, you experienced
that love and care firsthand. But before they could reach you,
they reached me. (“Where were you?” Pt. 3) When I was here for Jazz Fest, I read in
the Times-Picayune a quote from one of their staff photographers,
Elliot Kamentz, that struck me like a lightening bolt. He said, The fact of the matter is, everything I believe,
how I view the world, everything I have accomplished through
my work and how I live my life, I owe to New Orleans. To turn
my back on her now, like she was nothing more than a one-night
stand, would be criminal. Without New Orleans and without this church,
I would not be who I am. I know whose I am, and I know a debt
is owed. Through all my sojourns, this city and this church
have ever been in my heart. However far from you I was physically,
I was always close to you spiritually, treasuring my experiences
here, and lifting up what I knew of you as an example to other
UU churches and cities (something not always appreciated!). You see this? It might look like a simple
music stand, but in reality it is the his-toric pulpit of Rev.
Theodore Clapp, who eloquently preached the liberal gospel
to the people of New Orleans in good times and bad for over
35 years. In the nearly 15 years since my ordination by this
church, I have always considered being in this pulpit to be
among the greatest privileges of UU ministry. To stand here
now is one of the crowning moments of my life and ministry.
My gratitude to you knows no bounds. In love and joy and hope,
I have once again come full circle, and I have come home. AMEN – ASHE – SHALOM – SALAAM – NAMASTE – BLESSED
BE!
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