by the Rev. Melanie Morel-Ensminger
First Unitarian Universalist Church of New Orleans
Sunday, April 7, 2013
This
morning we try to look at the whole elephant. I am reminded of a famous quote from the Buddhist teacher
Suzuki roshi, which sort of sums up Buddhism and life, and the situation at
First Church, in one sentence: "Accept what is, as it is, and help it
become its very best.”
Of
course what the wise roshi did not say is that first a community of
people have to agree on “what is.”
Think of those blind folks and the elephant – they each had their point
of view, and these points of view were very different, and seemed
irreconcilable. But what if they
had gotten together and pooled their experiences, agreeing at the outset that
each of their perspectives was valid but none of them was complete all by
itself? What if they had tried to
put each of those viewpoints into a coherent whole? Wouldn’t they have eventually gotten an idea of the whole
elephant?
It’s been an exciting but sometimes painful period of time for this
church community. Since February,
and ending with the vote after today’s service, we’ve been engaged in a process
of openly sharing concerns and points of view about the future of ministry at
First Church. We found – surprise!
that there were lots of opinions and perspectives. For many if not most of us, this was a first-time experience
of working out what could have been a conflict in an open and transparent group
process.
Many of us have been trained, from our families of origin, in our
intimate relationships, and in our workplaces, to keep conflict quiet and out
of view. We were often told not to
tell things we knew to certain people – from the grade school warning, “Don’t
tell Debbie what I’m about to say” to my mother’s well-intentioned, “Don’t tell
your father, but…” Outside of a counseling context, few of us have had the
healthy experience of sitting together in one spot and openly sharing our own
feelings and experiences in front of diverse others, and then listening to their
feelings and experiences, that may have differed, even drastically, from our
own. The process that First Church
has just undergone is the kind of practice we can, and ought to, put into place
in other areas of our lives.
I am proud of us, of this congregation that I love so much. For the most part, folks have acted
with integrity and compassion, and for the most part, communications have been
open and responsible, mostly following guidelines recommended by Southern
Regional director Reverend Kenn Hurto and our group process facilitator
extraordinaire Valerie Lowe. We
can all be proud of the way the members and leaders of First Church have come
through this process. And I hope
we all show our boundless gratitude to Valerie, and to Stephanie Baus and Alice
Abel Kemp, who helped with the synthesis of all those meetings and gatherings
and all those comments. What a
gift, what a blessing, their work has been for this congregation.
During these months, we were often surprised by the differing points
of view of our fellow congregants.
People who knew each other well found themselves with radically
different perceptions and experiences and interpretations of the same events. Sometimes we left a meeting still
confirmed in our original opinions; sometimes we left having been changed by
the experience of truly listening to and accepting the viewpoint of another
person. This is not surprising,
because the interaction of individuals who may disagree but who respect and
care for each other is the foundation of Unitarian Universalist theology. After all, if we just wanted to be
confirmed in the opinions we already had, there’d be no need to join a UU
church, not just famous but notorious in some quarters for the diversity of
beliefs and viewpoints inside.
In our outside lives, away from the covenantal relationship of being
together in a Unitarian Universalist congregation, we usually feel that people
with different opinions from ours are wrong. In some cases, we kindly feel they are misinformed;
sometimes, we go so far as to judge them as dishonest or having evil motives –
in other words, we normally figure those with opposite opinions are misguided
at best or villains at worst.
In the Children’s Story earlier in this service, we learn something completely
different. Every one of the blind
men in the old story from the Jain tradition in India had experienced something
true and real. What they all
discovered was exactly what we have discovered in our church process – there
are no villains or bad guys, no one completely in the wrong, just human beings
with our different points of view, our varying experiences, our diverse
perspectives, our own emotions and feelings, each of us trying to do our best
as we see it. And we also learned
something we should never, ever forget, whether in the church or out on the
world: we can’t see the whole elephant
unless we know and share what each of us noticed in our exploration of it – we
cannot put all the pieces together unless we listen to each other.
It’s become something of a cliché in counseling to say that conflict
in a relationship is like an elephant in the room that everyone pretends not to
see. During these months, we have
all looked at and touched and talked about the elephant, and told each other
clearly and openly what we experienced.
This process shrinks the elephant a bit, since conflict often looms less
large with transparency, but it does not make the elephant disappear. Having finished the process and having
listened to each other, now we can see and deal with the whole elephant, and
not just the part we or our friends were holding.
It is both the glory and the challenge of Unitarian Universalism to be
religiously diverse. Unlike
traditions where orthodoxy, or right thinking, is the norm, we stress
orthopraxy, or right behavior.
Right behavior includes owning our true viewpoint, that is, being open
and accountable about our needs and experiences and feelings, not ascribing
them to nameless others or keeping how we feel a secret so we can act behind
the scenes. Right behavior also
means receptivity and compassion towards differing points of view; right
behavior requires respect and tolerance for those whose opinions are different
from yours. Right behavior also
means acceptance when a decision does not go your way, and not campaigning
endlessly for the majority to change a vote you don’t agree with.
Whatever happens in today’s vote, it is my hope that First Church will
move swiftly with the help and guidance of the Committee on Ministry to create
and covenant a Right Relations policy for our congregation, as our 2 sister
congregations in the Greater New Orleans UU cluster have already done, and as
the Unitarian Church in Baton Rouge has had in place for many years. An understanding of and commitment to
right behavior and right relationship can get a church community through almost
any challenge. A Right Relations
process will make First Church a better and stronger and healthier church.
The truth is, we need each other and all our differences. Despite the many times that our
diversity makes us uncomfortable or drives us crazy, we’ll never deal with the
whole elephant without hearing and knowing each other’s point of view. Like a jigsaw puzzle that’s missing
crucial pieces, we never get the whole picture without everyone’s honest
opinion and perspective being taken into consideration.
The original version of the story about the elephant and the blind men
came with a moral. Jainist
teachers assert that there is always some truth in what someone else says, and:
Sometimes we can see that truth
and sometimes not, because they may have a different perspective which we may
not agree to. So, rather than
arguing like the blind men, we should say, “You have your reasons.” This way we don’t get in arguments. In Jainism, it is explained that truth
can be stated in 7 different ways.
So, you can see how broad our religion is -- it teaches us to be
tolerant towards others for their viewpoints. This allows us to live in harmony with people of different thinking. This is known as the Syadvada Anekantvad, or the theory of
Manifold Predictions.
If the Jains can find 7 versions of the truth, it’s probably true that
Unitarian Universalists can find dozens, if not hundreds. Our Universalist ancestors believed in
forgiveness and reconciliation because they believed that God forgave everyone,
and thus they would end up having to spend eternity with people who had been
their opponents and adversaries.
We UUs today may not all believe in God or in an afterlife, but we are
all together now, here, and we may as well come together, hear each other, make
decisions that take everyone into account, and when necessary, forgive and
reconcile when the decisions are done.
Conflict
and differences of opinion over leaders and goals and directions are normal in
any human group, and perhaps especially so in congregations. People usually come to a church for the
deepest and most emotional of reasons – they feel alone or adrift, they are
lonely or afraid, they feel misunderstood or alienated, they need folks around
them who will be supportive as they enter into something new and challenging,
like a new city, a new job, a new relationship, a new child. And it is always true that when
people’s most fundamental feelings are involved there is the potential for
conflict – because the things you don’t care much about don’t have the power to
get you riled up.
Through this process we have learned
how to see the whole elephant – how to get the whole and complete picture,
including everyone willing to be included, listening with respect and care to
each other, opening ourselves to the possibility of alteration and being OK
with standing pat after taking in the other points of view. This is the way for First Church to go
forward into the future, with all meaningful decisions. Remember this process – it’s important.
Long-time members know that First
Church has been through much bigger challenges in its history, even its recent
history, and thus everyone can have confidence that the church can rise through
this one. The members and friends
of this congregation can and will pull together to help each other through
whatever feelings there may be about whatever decisions get made.
As
religious liberals, as UUs, we are called to be courageous, even as trust is
scary and the future is unknown. We
are also called to love, even as we disagree, and I know First Church will rise
to this sacred calling. Because
that is who this church is.
