White Bear Unitarian Universalist Church Inheriting Our Mother’s Gardens The Reverend Luke Stevens-­‐Royer Sunday, May 11th, 2014 White Bear Unitarian Universalist Church “Grow Your Soul & Serve the World” 328 Maple Street | Mahtomedi, Minnesota | 55115 651.426.2369 | www.wbuuc.org READINGS
The first reading is an excerpt from In Search of Our Mother’s Gardens by Alice Walker.
A definition: WOMANIST
1. From womanish. (Opp. of “girlish,” i.e. frivolous, irresponsible, not serious.) A black
feminist or feminist of color. From the black folk expression of mothers to female children, “you
acting womanish,” i.e., like a woman. Usually referring to outrageous, audacious, courageous or
willful behavior. Wanting to know more and in greater depth than is considered “good” for
one. Interested in grown up doings. Acting grown up. Being grown up. Interchangeable with
another black folk expression: “You trying to be grown.” Responsible. In charge. Serious.
2. Also: A woman who loves other women, sexually and/or nonsexually. Appreciates and
prefers women’s culture, women’s emotional flexibility (values tears as natural counterbalance
of laughter), and women’s strength. Sometimes loves individual men, sexually and/or
nonsexually. Committed to survival and wholeness of entire people, male and female. Not a
separatist, except periodically, for health. Traditionally a universalist, as in: “Mama, why are we
brown, pink, and yellow, and our cousins are white, beige and black?” Ans. “Well, you know the
colored race is just like a flower garden, with every color flower represented.” Traditionally
capable, as in: “Mama, I’m walking to Canada and I’m taking you and a bunch of other slaves
with me.” Reply: “It wouldn’t be the first time.”
3. Loves music. Loves dance. Loves the moon. Loves the Spirit. Loves love and food and
roundness. Loves struggle. Loves the Folk. Loves herself. Regardless.
4. Womanist is to feminist as purple is to lavender.
The second reading is by Starhawk, entitled Earth Mother, Star Mother
Earth Mother, Star Mother
You are called by a thousand names,
May all remember we are cells in your body
and dance together.
You are the grain and the loaf that sustains us each day.
And as you are patient with our struggles to learn
So shall we be patient with ourselves and each other.
We are radiant light and sacred dark,
— the balance –
You are the embrace that heartens,
And the freedom beyond fear.
Within you we are born,
we grow, live and die You bring us around the circle
to rebirth,
Within us you dance
Forever
2 SERMON
These words come from Sojourner Truth, an African American former slave who was technically
illiterate her entire life – these are her words from a speech in 1851:
“I think that 'twixt the negroes of the South and the women at the North, all talking about rights,
the white men will be in a fix pretty soon.
That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches,
and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mudpuddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman?
Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man
could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man - when I
could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and
seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus
heard me! And ain't I a woman?
Then that little man in black there, he says women can't have as much rights as men, 'cause
Christ wasn't a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from?
From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him.
If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone,
these women together ought to be able to turn it back , and get it right side up again! And now
they is asking to do it, the men better let them.
Obliged to you for hearing me, and now old Sojourner ain't got nothing more to say.”
A prophetic voice, especially given her social context and experience. A powerful, courageous,
statement challenging conventional wisdom about gender – a wisdom that still impacts life
today. Long before Sojourner spoke these words, and long after, race, class, and gender have
become a pre-text to one’s character. The framework which defines people based on
demographic context has become so rigid it has stifled creativity, imprisoned freedom, and
desecrated our common humanity.
We all know that the rigidity of gender, the stereotypes and assumptions based off of arbitrary
standards and classifications have created, and continue to create, inequitable social realities and
discriminatory treatment based on race, class, and gender. The epitome of privilege is white,
straight, male, and at least, middle class. Hello, my name is Luke, and I represent the epitome of
privilege. And so, one might wonder – why would a straight, white male be credible, or dumb
enough, to talk about feminism, even more so womanism, the feminist perspective from women
of color, especially on mother’s day.
But it reminds me of a story from the civil rights movement. A white pastor from the north, in a
exclusively white suburban area in an exclusively white church, asked Rev. Dr. King how we
could help – do you want me to go down south, do you need me in Birmingham or Memphis –
tell me where you need me, I’ll go. And Rev. Dr. King replied – I need you right where you are.
What better place to speak of civil rights than an exclusively white suburban church.
3 This story speaks of modern racial justice work, reminding us of two things: the need for
partnership with communities of color where people of color are in leadership positions, but also
a larger point: racism is a white person’s problem which adversely affects people of color.
Similarly, in the work to eliminate sexism and gender oppression, sexism is a man’s problem
which adversely affects women. If we, as a community, are to address injustice of any kind, we
need all of us, and perhaps especially those with the most privilege, to attack that privilege from
the inside to dismantle the frameworks of oppression from within.
So I enter this work, humbly, knowing that my own experience is not that of any oppressed
people, and yet the liberation of some means the liberation of all. Whether I am aware of it or
not, whether people of privilege are aware of it or not, judgment and classification based on sex
and race and class and on and on, diminished my humanity by the very fact it is happening to my
own kindred. This is not metaphor or symbolism – there is something so core to a human person
that what happens to one, in some biological cosmic global way, happens to the well-being, and
the future, of all of us. So yes, I am a white straight male. And I am a feminist.
That is a title I have not always embraced. Early in my college years a classmate came to me,
asking as part of a class survey assignment – “do you consider yourself a feminist?” And always
be on guard, I replied, “I think so – how do you define it.” And she replied, “You’re missing the
point, Luke – the point is that people define it differently and do you consider yourself one based
on your own definition.” And I said, “Well, sure.”
So, with a half-hearted answer at the time, I claimed an identity – feminist.
There is a bumper sticker I’ve read that says: feminism is the radical notion that women are
people. Well, sign me up then.
And calling myself a feminist is a choice of privilege – I have the ability to claim that identity. I
am not forced by social context or oppressive experience to choose it. It doesn’t define me, and I
can’t claim it in the same way, as any woman – as one who has experienced directly the adverse
effects of sexism. And yet I can choose to see the effects and to work against them.
I have the ability to choose – and it makes choosing that title, feminist, an ever-important
decision that needs to be re-committed to consciously and constantly – to lift up the lenses of
marginalized people, and be part of a wider vision beyond my own privileged, safe, life. One of
our hymns reminds us, take not for granted a privileged place. It is essentially important,
knowing that well-being for any one of us is bounded up with everyone, in this single garment of
destiny, that men become feminists, that white people don’t ignore racism, that we look beyond
our own self-interest, knowing that our own well-being is tied to the well-being of all.
It can be easy to drop that lens, the lens of feminism or any other justice-related lens in our field
of vision, by seeing the seemingly strong progress around us, especially in our own religious
tradition.
We are proud of our feminist history in Unitarian Universalism – the first denomination to ordain
a female into ministry – Olympia Brown in 1863, about 100 years before the other “liberal”
traditions, and who knows how long before the “non-liberal” traditions – I’m not holding my
4 breath. Today, more than half of my colleagues – more than half of Unitarian Universalist
ministers, are women. I am in the minority in that circle.
It was similar in my seminary experience. I was of the smallest contingent of students
demographically at United Seminary, a multi-faith seminary in New Brighton – I was one of few
white, straight, males studying for ministry. A refreshing experience and perspective to have.
Now, that of course is not the case in many seminaries, but at this seminary, studying with
various denomination, United Methodist, Lutheran, Presbyterian, United Church of Christ – it is
a hopeful sign.
But we know other realities. Traditional gender roles are still socialized on young children and
girls, setting up a path that can be difficult to break out of. We still live with wage inequality in
the United States, with women making $0.77 on the dollar for equal work of that of men – a
disparity that has been stagnant for years. That is a moral outrage.
And we need not look far in the news to hear about lack of access to education throughout our
world, especially highlighted by the 276 schoolgirls kidnapped in Nigeria. Kidnapped because
they were going to school – learning, and because they were female. I know many in this room
and beyond, including me, for whom this is infuriating – and yet we feel helpless.
Malala [you-sof-zee] spoke about the kidnappings recently. She is an education activist from
Pakistan, and survived an assassination attempt where she was shot in the head for her support of
education for girls and women. She is sixteen, and speaks all over the world – you can easily
find her speaking online or on news programs often. She is inspirational for her courage and
support, and when learning of the recent kidnapping, she said, “as soon as I heard it, I thought –
my sisters are in prison.”
She immediately went to a family sense of connection – these are my sisters.
Is that not a reminder to us all. These kidnapped girls are our girls – our daughters, our sisters –
we are all brothers and sisters one to another. You may have seen a photo shared from First
Lady Michelle Obama this week for the kidnapped young women – “bring back our girls.” It is
our girls. If anyone is imprisoned or oppressed – then we all are in spirit, for it speaks to a wider
humanity – our own spirits are harmed when another’s spirit, or body, is harmed. We are
connected. What happens to one directly, happens to all indirectly. I join the outcry across the
world for the international community to use every resource necessary to bring them home. And
in the meantime, we, like the Hebrew story of Rachel, weeping for all the suffering children of
Israel in slavery, we, like her, weep with the families and the grieving mothers, and refuse to be
consoled.
Alice Walker, in her foundational book In Search of our Mother’s Gardens, speaks of the
complexity of claiming the “we” sentiment – of identifying with our wider humanity across any
difference. She writes about our identity, our heritage, our inheritance. A group of authors who
wrote about Walker’s book in a collection entitled Inheriting our Mother’s Gardens lays out the
complexity in this way:
5 Many of us do not want to accept our inheritance, either because it represents privilege in
background because of race or class…or because it represents [a] kind of suffering and
oppression…it is a mixed bouquet with flowers but also with weeds. We would venture this is
true for all of us. We all have an inheritance, whether we claimed it or not, and all of us
probably have a mixed inheritance from which we must make critical choices in regard to our
own journeys. (Inheriting Our Mother’s Gardens, 13.)
About her own heritage, Walker wrote in the 1970s:
[I do not] intend to romanticize the Southern black country life... The hard work in the fields,
the shabby houses, the evil greedy men who worked my father to death and almost broke the
courage of that strong woman, my mother. No, I am simply saying that Southern black
writers…have a heritage of love and hate, but that they also have enormous richness and beauty
to draw from… a compassion for the earth, a trust in humanity beyond our knowledge of evil,
and an abiding love of justice. We inherit a great responsibility as well, for we must give voice
to centuries not only of silent bitterness and hate but also of neighborly kindness and sustaining
love. (In Search of our Mothers’ Gardens, 21.)
Walker lifts up throughout her book the importance of balance – of claiming ALL of your
history, in appropriate ways, knowing that we each have a history and a heritage that is varied
and complex. She wrote about first reading Flannery O’Connor, a white southern woman, before
ever knowing about black women writers – and while at first lamenting that, later finding the
importance in reading both white and black authors, male and female – to embrace the
complexity of humanity. She said she couldn’t live with segregated literature.
One author reflection on Walker’s work, Letty Russell, puts it this way:
…the point in all of this is not that we need one sort of table or even one set of gifts inherited
from our gardens. What we do need is one another! We need one another’s stories, pain,
honesty, and laughter if we are to discern the power and the pain of our mothers’ gardens in a
way that bears fruit for the work of new creation. (Inheriting our Mothers’ Gardens, 155.)
To create – to bring forth new creation. That’s a task for a holistic community, of a mothering
spirit. This month’s theme, Vocation, relates to mothering, of course – a way of being, of
nurturing, as one chooses to do so. But that sense of calling, of mothering, is often forced or
assumed of people. Alice Walker speaks of vocation and calling more widely, lamenting the
histories of oppression and uplifting the importance of freedom – lest one’s calling becomes
stifled. To enter into the work of feminism, as a male, I find it centrally and most important to
listen first – to the experience and perspective of women.
Much of my sermon today has been the words of women – who have lived experience, and
whose stories I am called to listen to reverently and mindfully to. When deciding what to share,
I kept saying as I read Walker’s words – “oh, this is good – this too, and this!” I was struck back
in my chair over and over by the power of her story and her writing. I went home and told Jenna
“Alice Walker is awesome!” And she said, “I know.” I guess I should know that more women
will know of the power of Walker’s work than men. So I will leave you today with an extended
excerpt [woven together from pages 238-243 of “In Search of our Mother’s Gardens”] from
Alice Walker – about the complexity, brokenness, and ultimately the beauty, of inheritance, and
the legacy of mothers and grandmothers.
6 Walker writes,
“Who were these Saints? These crazy, loony, pitiful women? Some of them, without a doubt,
were our mothers and grandmothers. Exquisite butterflies trapped in evil honey in the postreconstruction south, toiling away their lives in an era, a century, that did not acknowledge
them, except as “the mule of the world.” They dreamed dreams that no one knew – not even
themselves, in any coherent fashion – and saw visions no one could understand…They forced
their minds to desert their bodies and their striving spirits sought to rise, like frail whirlwinds
from the hard red clay. Our mothers and grandmothers, some of them: moving to music not yet
written. And they waited…For they were going nowhere immediate, and the future was not yet
within their grasp.
For these grandmothers and mothers of ours were not Saints, but Artists; driven to a numb and
bleeding madness by the springs of creativity in them for which there was no release. They were
Creators, who lived lives of spiritual waste, because they were so rich in spirituality – which is
the basis of Art – that the strain of enduring their unused and unwanted talent drove them
insane; throwing away their spirituality in an attempt to lighten the soul of a work-worn abused
body. What did it mean to be an artist in our grandmother’s time? In our great-grandmother’s
day? It is a question with an answer cruel enough to stop the blood.
Did you have a great-great grandmother who died under some ignorant and depraved white
overseer’s lash? Or was she required to bake biscuits when she cried out in her soul to paint
watercolors of sunsets, or the rain falling on peaceful pasturelands? Or was her body broken
and forced to bear children that would more often than not be sold away from her – when her
one joy was the thought of modeling heroic figures of rebellion, in stone or clay? How was the
creativity kept alive, year after year, century after century, when for most of the years black
people have been in America, it was a punishable crime for a black person to read or write?
And the freedom to paint, to sculpt, to expand the mind with action did not exist. Consider, if
you can bear to imagine it, what might have been the result if singing, too, were forbidden by
law. Listen to the voices of Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday, Nina Simone, Roberta Flack, and
Aretha Franklin, among others, and imagine those voices muzzled for life.
The agony of the lives of women who might have been Poets, Novelists, Essayists, and ShortStory writers who died with their real gifts stifled within them. And, if this were the end of the
story, we would have cause to cry out in the great poem – For our mother, the creator of the
stool is lost, and all the young women have perished in the wilderness.
But this is not the end of the story, for all the young women – our mothers and grandmothers,
ourselves – have not perished in the wilderness…To be an artist and a black woman, even today,
lowers our status in many respects, rather than raises it: and yet, artists we will be.
Therefore we must fearlessly pull out of ourselves and look at and identify with our lives the
living creativity some of our great-grandmothers were not allowed to know – some, because the
majority of our grandmothers knew, even without knowing it, the reality of their spirituality. And
so our mother and grandmothers have, more often than not anonymously, handed on the creative
7 spark, the seed of the flower they themselves never hoped to see: or like a sealed letter they could
not plainly read. My mother adorned with flowers whatever shabby house we were forced to live
in. She planted ambitious gardens with over fifty different varieties of plants that bloom
profusely. Because of her creativity of flowers, even my memories of poverty are seen through a
screen of blooms – sunflowers, petunias, roses, dahlias, and on and on.
I notice that it is only when my mother is working in her flowers that she is radiant – almost to
the point of being invisible – except as Creator – hand and eye. She is involved in the work her
soul must have. Ordering the universe in the image of her personal conception of Beauty…
Guided by my heritage of a love of beauty and a respect for strength – in search of my mother’s
garden, I found my own.
Let us share silence for a few moments.
This closing poem is Alice Walker, written to her mother:
They were women then
My mama’s generation
Husky of voice – Stout of Step
With fists as well as hands
How they battered down doors
And ironed starched white shirts
How they led armies, headragged generals
Across mined fields
Booby-trapped kitchens
To discover books
Desks
A place for us
How they knew what we must know
Without knowing a page of it themselves.
For the resilience, the strength, the courage, of Alice Walker, of Sojourner Truth, of every
mother and great grandmother and great-great grandmother, from generation to generation, we
sing in gratitude.
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