“The Masks We Wear”

  A Homily for Carnival Sunday

by the Rev. Melanie Morel-Ensminger

First Unitarian Universalist Church of New Orleans

Sunday, February 3, 2013

David Gelfand was a devoted member of this congregation and a distinguished professor of constitutional law at Tulane Law School.  Years ago, he and his wife Mary bought elaborate matching pirate costumes which they wore every Mardi Gras until David’s death during the evacuation after Katrina.  For me, it was amazing to watch David transform from his usual dignified, pedantic, professorial self into a roguish, daring pirate.

During this year's Krewe du Vieux parade, I encountered a man wearing an anonymous smirking Guy Fawkes mask, made famous in the movie “V for Vendetta.”  He and I exchanged a few words, appropriate for the occasion, and I was amazed to discover that I was talking with church member Robért Sullivan!  Imagine that -- Robért as a revolutionary!  Masks are like that – it’s hard to wear one without taking on the qualities of that mask.

Masks are part of religious ritual in many times and places and cultures:  Native American, African, Australian, Indonesian, Asian, medieval European.  Masks are used in theater to disguise and enhance performance; think of Japanese kabuki, the gorgeous theater arts of Bali, and the famous Commedia dell’Arte of Italy.  An actor in a mask is hidden from view, but emotions are still clearly visible.  At the Juilliard School of Dramatic Arts in New York, young actors in training wear masks to hide their faces while learning to convey feeling and affect through their bodies, postures, and hand gestures.

In a mysterious way, a person in a mask takes on the qualities of that mask, which of course they had all along, perhaps without realizing – like David Gelfand as a pirate and Robért Sullivan as the revolutionary Guy Fawkes.  Actor Kevin Kline has said in interviews that he feels more himself when masked in a role.  In some cultures, a religious ritual is not complete without a priest or priestess donning a mask of a deity, taking on that persona, in effect becoming that god or goddess. 

It happens all the time at Mardi Gras.  A dull boring person becomes an alien while sporting the mask of ET; a shy person roars behind a monster mask.  A sedate grandmother acts very bubbly in a Dolly Parton mask.  A wild and crazy guy who wears a mask of the pope suddenly feels like blessing the crowds.  One year at Mardi Gras, a friend of mine, in a full devil costume and mask, gave an earnest interview to the Christian Broadcasting Network.  The interviewer definitely found my friend devilish!

However, it is not necessary to wear an actual mask to be in disguise.  Sometimes we speak of someone’s facial expression being a “mask.”  All of us, everyday, in different situations, wear “masks” of one kind or another; we play different roles depending on our circumstances and situations.

Although most of us strive for an optimum level of honesty and authenticity in our lives, it is not humanly possible to be all of ourselves at every moment.  Appropriateness and timing enter into the equation, limiting our expression.  For example, there’s nothing wrong with wearing a ski mask on the street on a bitterly cold day, but wearing one inside a bank might draw the attention of the police.  In the same way, different parts of ourselves are appropriate at different times.

The masks we wear vary tremendously.  Some we don for very short periods of time; others belong to us a lot longer.  Some we put on voluntarily; others are thrust upon us.  Some are job-related; some are relationship-related; some have to do with our emotions; others have to do with our avocations and hobbies.  Being a parent, being a child of our parents, a sibling, an employee/employer, minister/lay person, Board member/committee chair, spouse/partner, friend, teacher/student, client, computer geek, curmudgeon, fake-friendly, really welcoming, bridge player, knitter, gardener, Democrat, Republican, southerner, European-American, African-American, male, female, gay, straight, Unitarian Universalist.  Everything we do; every job or responsibility we hold; every relationship we’re a part of; every group we belong to; every role we play in life requires us to wear a slightly different mask.

There’s no such thing as living without any mask at all.  In life, the best we can strive for is to take off the masks that we find limiting or false or hurtful, and to keep on the ones that help us to have more courage and hope and strength and humor.  May we choose to do that, every day.

Our children have been preparing for this season and this service by making and decorating masks, which they will wear for the parade that closes out this service.  The children will be throwing beads, so watch out for flying throws!

Guest Service: Where Do We Go from Here?

Planning the Direction of our Ministry

Valerie A Lowe, First Church Member

January 27, 2003

French poet Paul Valery wrote “The trouble with our times is that the future is not what it used to be.”  

This is true of many things – our lives, city, our church community, our families and our selves.  We may have envisioned one future, and circumstances and life situations may have altered our plan.  The truth is, we’re always at a crossroad… of looking at now and the future.  Of now and the past.  And perception of what we see in either direction – past or future … can and often does change.

Today we discuss planning the direction of our ministry – I thought you might have a few questions for me about why I am even talking about this topic today.  Why would I want to address this business topic from the pulpit?

Surely it’s not a lamp of spirituality.  But, in the context of our liberal faith, this is an address about how we can foster the requirements for a search of our truth.  By discussion of what we need and want for our ministry, we claim our spirituality and search for truth and meaning. This is a tenant of our faith.

Why am I in the pulpit today to discuss this?  Surely I am not a minister, at least I am no more a minister than you – and still, I am no less of a minister than you.  In late November or early December last year, Board members Claudia Barker and Alice Kemp approached me.  The Annual Budget Drive was nearly complete; the large pledges were made.  They realized that funds were not adequate for a full-time minister, and they knew that this would affect the congregation.  So they asked me if I would lead a series of discussion about professional ministry with members of the congregation to define what we want.  I drafted a plan to host these discussions and presented it to the Board in December.  They approved it and also suggested I offer a sermon or homily in late January about what I am doing.

Another question you may have is “What are Valerie's qualifications to lead talk about this or lead any discussion on the direction of ministry?”  A fair question.  For the past seven years, I have served as an organizational change managers for a large company of 70,000 employees.  I am certified in change management and I facilitate change through planning, communications, discussions and education.  This is what I do for a living, and I believe my skills will serve us well here, too.

So, what will I talk about today? I’ll address:

·       Why this process is challenging, providing some context on the nature of change and small church interests.

·       How we are conducting these discussions

·       Some benefits for you to participate in these discussions on ministry

·       And how I hope to engage you in these discussions

Why is this planning process challenging and important?

·       Just being in community places us in a consistent state of flux. What one person says may influence you or others, even enough to change our thoughts and behaviors.  We affect each other and we can change because of that

·       We are small church and attached to our past 

o   In a newsletter from the Lewis Center for Church Leadership, Lovett Weems addresses “Leadership and the Small Church,” stating that people in small congregations who may have experienced pastoral changes, and/or political and economic changes, view such changes negatively.  Citing Denham Grierson, Australian religious educator, Weems concludes that small churches live either in the past or the future.  I believe it is human nature to grasp what is familiar and hold it close.

·       Change is hard – we’re all challenged by this, some more than others.  The dynamics of change on a group may be even more challenging than to individuals Surely you’ve seen this in members of your family: some people may really find a change to routine extremely difficult, where another family member adapts.  Particularly as we age, we become less flexible and adaptable to change.

o   Anthony Pappas in his book Entering the World of the Small Church says “For small church people, history goes the wrong way… It goes toward the good that was or that was thought to be.” Pappas discusses how leaders in small churches often link a future vision to what it used to be.

·       Again I hear the poet Paul Valery whispering to me  “the future is not what it used to be.”

·       Unless we plan with intention, change will take its own path.  Tenable change – the kind that grabs hold and people adopt – is done with intention, not just by circumstance.  Companies like certainty and to control change.  I hold that small churches – if pushed to make changes – also like that to be predictable.

·       Social commentator Lewis Hyde defines how the individual might be able to encapsulate the thoughts of the collective group he or she lives in.  “In anthropology, there is a interesting resurrection of an old word 'dividual' So we live in a nation that values individuality, we live in a nation of individuals.  But a dividual person is one who is imagined to contain within himself or herself the community he or she lives in.”

·       If we look at the transitions we’ve been through, and collectively discuss a direction forward in our ministry – can we collectively plan a future that benefits us collectively?  Not just a future that benefits me or you individually, but one that benefits US.

·       To plan our future, we need to communicate, that means – talking, listening, reflecting, discussing. In order for this to occur, we need a comfortable environment of trust.

·       So here we are at a crossroad – with some of us struggling to see our future, some struggling to let go of an idealized past and projecting that on our future.  Some of us, like me, struggling to define the difference between an ideal spiritual and ministerial direction and what we can collectively afford.  Others among us are challenged to communicate their ideals, because of perceived and real miscommunications

·       To achieve that, I pose that we must come to these discussions with our own “individual interests” in mind, but be open to the “dividual interest” on our ministerial direction.

So, let me talk about how I hope this series of discussions on the future direction of our ministry will go

·       We’ll meet in small group gatherings

o   Covenant groups, committees – groups that exist in the congregation already

o   Attendance one time – so people who belong to a few different groups will only attend one session.

o   We will have groups of 4 – 6 people in each session – any more would make the duration of the meeting too long to assure each person is heard.

·       We will have an agenda and establish our ground rules, then begin a discussion of 8 prepared questions.

·       Afterwards, I will transcribe your comments to the questions and publish agreed summary statements.  We will define other common statements across groups that may be important to share anonymously.

·       What will we do with those outcomes?  We’ll forge another discussion on plan development

How will this discussion benefit you?

·       First, there’s benefit just in participating – your voice, your collective voice, your needs and wants will be heard.

·       Small group communications yield improved communications

·       Intentional discussions provoke us to listen to others

·       This process will help us build up our relationships and create the foundation of healing of any wounds

·       By understanding the vision of a future - Creating a collective awareness of our condition and hopes for the future:

o   We find a sense of certainty in that vision

o   We face the future with intention

o   We affirm a shared sense of hope

·       And finally, this process makes us all stronger:  you can’t forge steel without putting it to the fire.

In response to Paul Valery’s “The trouble with our times is that the future is not what it used to be. ”   My hope is that by engaging in these discussions on the direction of our ministry, our future will be whatever we intend it to be.

And so it shall be … Amen, Ashe, Shalom, Salaam, Blessed be.