My wife and I live in the Portland, Oregon area. We enjoy living in a beautiful region, surrounded by trees, parks, and at the same time close to a thriving urban center. Once the pandemic passes, we hope to open our home again to transgender persons seeking a place to stay while in the area for surgery and postoperative care.
Showing posts with label Unitarian Universalist. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Unitarian Universalist. Show all posts
A Call to Worship for the Transgender Day of Visibility
Welcome! I am Michelle Paquette, and my pronouns are she/her/hers.
In our Unitarian Universalist faith we teach that we may each participate in a in free and responsible search for truth and meaning.
Many of us have been engaged in a search for our personal truths, a personal voyage of discovery. This search may lead us to uncover deep truths about ourselves, and bring those truths to the surface.
As we find and live our truths, we may change how we identify ourselves, how we present ourselves to others in appearance, role, and identity. This is a deeply personal act, in which we reveal these deep truths to others, and render ourselves vulnerable to them as part of trying to live our authentic lives.
We ask of others that they also do something in response to our revelation. We ask that they honor our worth and dignity, and accept us as we accept them.
This isn’t always an easy thing to do.
Something I have stumbled over quite a bit in my life is a tendency to commit what I call “acts of assumption.” My mind tries to match what I perceive at first glance against cultural templates I’ve been taught over my life, to try and produce conclusions about a person I see before me.
I unconsciously commit these acts of assumption with every person I meet. If that person then reveals something to me that conflicts with my assumptions about them, there is a bit of an internal conflict. Which is correct, my assumptions or their revealed truths?
It’s not easy to reveal a deep truth about ourselves, only to have it rejected out of hand with a gesture, a remark, or a misgendering pronoun.
It’s not easy to realize that our assumptions are wrong, that the person we see before us is not who we thought they were, that we have perhaps made an unconscious error. Still, it is easy to recover from this, learn, reset our assumptions, and move on. It’s not so easy to have deep truths about ourselves casually rejected, authenticity denied.
In our Unitarian Universalist faith we strive to see the worth and dignity of every person, accept one another, and engage in a in free and responsible search for truth and meaning. I love this about our faith, and I love the experience that this provides me. I love being able to enter into a space where I know I can express my deep truths, be my authentic self, and know that I am in the company of others who honor my worth and dignity, and who accept me as I accept them. Thank you for your gift.
This week, on March 31, we celebrate the Transgender Day of Visibility.
We celebrate the Transgender Day of Visibility in today’s service, which affirms the truth in each of us. As a community, we support each other through each of life’s transformations. Later in the service, we will hold the Ceremony of Renaming for members of the community who are claiming their identities by living with a new name.
Let’s celebrate our revealed truths today, as we worship together.
Hello, I am Michelle Paquette, and my pronouns are she/her/hers.
In 1975, I stood before others, right hand raised, and swore an oath:
I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.
Millions of others have sworn that or very similar oaths, marking the beginning of their military service. We each have our own reasons for going into military service, whether for patriotism, a drive to be of service to our society, for self-improvement, or simply to learn work skills.
In taking that oath, we are dedicating ourselves, our lives to something greater than ourselves, the Constitution that bound our country together and serves as a guiding set of principles for our land and those who live here. We agree to defend these principles against all enemies, foreign and domestic, who might seek to deny or subvert them, and to carry out our duties in this greater task faithfully.
I undertook these tasks, like so many others have. The work was often hard, but the support we gave one another as a team working for a common cause was remarkable and uplifting. I have fond memories of that time, including my years as an instructor, and my time on board the USS Parche, a fast attack submarine which at decommissioning was the most highly decorated vessel in US Naval history, with nine Presidential Unit Citations, ten Navy Unit Commendations, and thirteen Navy Expeditionary Medals.
I eventually completed my military obligations and returned to civilian life, older and perhaps wiser. Not everyone who enters military service has that privilege.
Tomorrow, the last Monday in May, is Memorial Day, a day set aside for honoring and mourning the military personnel who had died while serving in the United States Armed Forces. These people took an oath, dedicating their lives to something greater then themselves, and lost their lives in that service. Whether they died from hostile action, or something as prosaic as a vehicle accident doesn’t really matter. They never had a chance to complete their obligations and return to civilian life, but lost their life in service to our country.
For some, Memorial Day is a day of picnics, perhaps holiday sales next year, or a Monday off of work. For others, this is a day of tears and mourning, for friends or family we will never see again.
We may differ as to whether or not their service was the right choice, or whether the tasks they were assigned were just or worthy. They swore an oath to carry out their duties, without any mental reservation or evasion, and they died while carrying out those duties. They each were being faithful to something greater than themselves, and they lost their lives in doing so.
Please keep them in mind today and tomorrow, as we worship together.
Written for the April 26th service of Mt. Diablo Unitarian Universalist Church
Welcome! I am Michelle Paquette, and my pronouns are she/her/hers.
Laurie and I have been effectively on lockdown since March 10, about 7 weeks now. Yes, we got a bit of a head start on most of you.
We had thought a few months ago that we would be heading off on a road trip this May, traveling across the country to the East Coast, visiting folks from Florida to Nova Scotia, and traveling back home via Pennsylvania and Missouri. That isn’t happening. Instead, we’ve become homebodies.
We are older, and between us have medical conditions that put us at risk should we contract COVID-19. As a result, we shelter in place, order groceries online, and venture out as little as possible. It’s a strange way for me to live, as I tend to be somewhat social and enjoy face-to-face interactions with people. Talking to little rectangles on a Zoom display doesn’t come naturally to me, but that is the only outside contact many of us have these days.
We’ve had to change some of our habits. We can’t run out to the grocery at the last minute to pick up a few things for dinner. There are no more leisurely late lunches at cafes, no outings to museums or urban treks. Our lives are very different now.
While I’d like to say “I’m so over it!”, head outside, and just go back to my daily life, that isn’t really practical or at all reasonable behavior. There are real risks right now, to myself, my partner, and everyone else in the community. Instead, my partner and I have to persist a while longer.
Persistence is defined as firm or obstinate continuance in a course of action in spite of difficulty or opposition. Now, I don’t think that our persistence is obstinate, and the only opposition we have is within ourselves. I find that my internal opposition is largely a function of my old habits. I can’t do this things I used to do, and a little part of me is upset that things just aren’t they way they used to be.
I find that I have to stop and remind that little part of me that this is something we are all doing as part of a greater cause, that others, people I may not have met, are relying on me and many others that they perhaps have not met, to follow these new behaviors, slow the spread of this virus, and make sure that the facilities they need are available for them should they need them.
I try to replace my old habits with new ones. I read more. I prepare more complex dishes in the kitchen, and I stretch my cooking and baking skills. I write more. I’m trying to get past some anxieties I have over communications and reach out to others who may be in need of support.
We can all find new habits to replace the old ones that are now out of reach. MDUUC provides a number of new, virtual activities from online Community Circles to virtual lunch meetups, Vespers, classes, and even our Coffee & Connections Hour after today’s service. (It’s pretty neat, by the way! Give it a try.)
We each may have something tucked away, a relaxing or engaging activity perhaps, something we can use to quiet that little part of each of us that is upset by these recent changes and help us stay in the moment. Let’s discover what inner resources we might have as we worship together.
Welcome! I am Michelle Paquette, and my pronouns are she/her/hers.
I want to tell you a story from my youth, a tale of sacrifice and support. To understand this tale, I need to disclose a few things about myself. I was born in 1953, and reached my teenage years in the late 1960s here in the Bay Area. I am also a person who transcends cultural gender boundaries, that is, I am a transgender person. In my case, as in many others, when I was born the regions of the brain that mediate perception of my body didn’t match the sex assigned to my body. That is, my body didn’t fit my gender identity.
This mismatch occurs about as often as natural redheads do, a normal if infrequent expression of biological diversity.
When I reached my teens, the changes that started to happen in my body were seen as incorrect by the brain’s perceptual network, triggering a strong and persistent sense that something was wrong. The medical folks call this gender dysphoria. Normally, if something was wrong or really bothering me I would have talked to my Mom or our parish priest for guidance, but observation and experience told me that this would be a really bad idea. I had to sacrifice any expression of my authentic self, and hide beside a false front to avoid conflict at home.
Instead, I experimented. I found that growing my hair out helped. If I could dress in a more feminine style, that helped a bit. I was discovering that shifting my gender presentation could be a coping mechanism, but it really wasn’t enough. I couldn’t talk to anyone.
I did read the paper, though. Eventually I read that something radical was happening over in San Francisco. For an extra dime, the bus would take me over to the city.
I put on my flared jeans, my platform shoes (oh, yay 1960s!), and packed a rather BoHo top in my bag. When I got to the TransBay Terminal, I ducked into a restroom, changed my shirt for the top, brushed my hair out, and took off into the city, just another 14 year old hippie chick. I would repeat this trip many times in the next few years.
I found my way to the Tenderloin, and discovered others like me. There were groups that gathered at Glide Memorial, and over on Van Ness at the “Center for Special Problems”. Older women gave me the “Dutch Auntie” treatment, showing me where it was safe to go, where I could rest or eat, and how to avoid being arrested.
The other teens were amazing. I made friends, actual friends! Some were living on their own, or in ‘group homes’ with a half dozen living together in a Tenderloin hotel room. We talked, sharing and caring for one another. We listened to one another. We helped and protected one another.
As the group dynamics shifted, we shifted our preferred hangout over to the Golden Gate Park panhandle and the growing community of nonconformists in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood. There, nobody seemed to care about our nature. We could fold and stuff copies of a local paper for food or a place to crash. Amazing music was everywhere. And best of all, I got to just be myself, with others like me. These were the best days of my youth.
That gave me the strength to get through all the days I had to stay hidden, so my existence wouldn’t upset everyone around me at home and school.
I don’t have to hide any more. The days of sacrificing my own existence to avoid upsets are behind me. I am part of a community where we can support and spiritually refuel one another.
Let’s look at how we do this today, as we worship together.
Recently, I saw a hillside in the forest that had just endured a windstorm. The direction the wind had blown was obvious, from how the mighty trees that once dotted the hillside now lay. Even though strong, that strength failed in the gusts of wind that they had to endure, and these giants had fallen.
At the same time, I noticed that the open spaces on the hillside were covered with tall grasses, now gently waving in the wind and brushing against one another, supported by one another as they continued to stand, taking in the sunlight, the air and water, and continuing to grow. It didn’t seem fair somehow, that those beautiful trees had fallen, yet the grasses remained. At the same time, I was grateful that the winds had not been able to strip the hillside of life, that the grasses would persist, holding the soil so that other life could continue or re-establish itself.
I’d have to describe that biological community of the hillside as being resilient, even if some of the trees were lost. We individual humans can also be resilient, learning how to move about in spite of strong prevailing winds, learning strategies to maintain ourselves even as time and experience bring wear and tear.
We also find this resilience in communities. Studies of the responses of communities to natural disasters show this in action. We can see how our communities respond with civil engineering such as flood control, better bridges, improved communications, and adapting new practices to improve how the next disaster can be handled.
There are also spiritual and psychological components. The fortunate community will also develop stronger neighborhood ties, built from elements such as sidewalk chats, corner coffee shops, and other elements of the social infrastructure. That social infrastructure can be every bit as important as the physical one.
We each have our innate resilience as human beings. We each have some degree of social competence, problem-solving skills, autonomy, and a sense of purpose or belief in a future. These are not some magical properties gifted to only a few, but traits we all have in common to varying degrees, with varying levels of skill in wielding them.
We may not be aware of these skill and abilities, of course. We might have been raised in environments that did not let us exercise all of these traits, or even discouraged them. We may have been raised to encourage one or more of these traits, or in our life experience wandered into environments that encouraged us to stretch and develop these traits further.
That development may have been what’s called ‘stress-hardiness’, developing resilient traits in response to an adverse environment. A benign or supportive environment can also encourage resilient traits, through various challenges raised to individuals to encourage them to ‘stretch’ a bit, discover new capabilities and operate at the edges of their comfort zone.
Resilience in individuals seems to arise from the interactions of individuals with their community, whether adverse, supportive, or a mixture of both.
Longer ago than I care to think, I was in the military service. Recruit training was a classic example of an adverse environment, tailored to break down old behaviors and habits, and build new ones that would be supportive of the community of fellow service members. It was definitely a shock to my system, but I learned I had far more capacity for resilience in the face of adversity than I had ever conceived of prior to my service.
While assigned to a training command in Idaho, I happened to have a long weekend, almost 5 days, turn up in my schedule. It seemed like a great opportunity to return to the Bay Area to visit family. My partner and I hopped into our mighty AMC Hornet, and taking turns driving, took on the 13 hour journey. We made it, enjoyed our visits, and then were back in the car for the return trip.
Somewhere about 30 miles west of Elko, Nevada, billowing white clouds started appearing behind the car. Warning lights popped on the dashboard, and the engine temperature gauge (remember those?) pegged high. None of these were good signs.
We pulled over, and I got out and flagged down a truck to get a lift into Elko. (This was before cellphones.) We found a shop and got the vehicle towed. After a new water pump, several hundred dollars, and several hours, we were on the road again. Well... For a little while.
The Hornet’s engine is a delicate thing. It turns out that it does not respond well to overheating. About 20 miles east of Elko, the engine started running rough, and those billowing white clouds were back. Another thumbed ride, another tow, and the vehicle was back in Elko, parked on a side street besides the now closed garage.
My resilience was clearly being tested. I was an inch from breaking down in tears when I called my command from a pay phone to explain that I was not going to be present in time for my shift. They were surprisingly understanding, and found a volunteer to take over my class. Even more surprising, an instructor took their day off to drive to Elko, pick us and our luggage up, and take us back to Pocatello. A week later, on my next days off, another instructor asked about the vehicle, and suggested that we take his truck to Elko, and tow the Hornet back to my place!
I hadn’t recognized it at the time, but I was not a lone individual, but part of a fairly tight-knit community of folks who looked out for each other, supported one another, and exercised their problem-solving skills, autonomy, and sense of purpose for the benefit of all in the community, bound together by our common oath. That was a remarkably eye-opening experience for me. Even though my resilience was taxed, the community, with an abundance of resilience, took the difficulties in stride, and supported me, lifted me up, and quite literally got me on the road again.
Oh, and I also became far too familiar with that car’s engine, although I did get it running again.
Here at Mount Diablo Unitarian Universalist Church, we have a community, holding common interests in faith, in our desire for social justice, and in many ways, by the support we give one another, and bound by our covenant. While we are not living our lives under one roof, or forming a commune, I still have a strong feeling of being part of an intentional community here.
Many of the same elements of resilience I mentioned earlier are present within this community. Within the membership and our committees, we have teams that demonstrate and teach social competence, problem-solving skills, autonomy, and a sense of purpose or belief in a future. We have a benign and supportive environment that encourages us to stretch a bit, knowing that others may catch us should we fall.
We have the shared wisdom of our “Doctors of Durability”, our elders with their collected life experience. We have caregivers, tending to our needs both physical and spiritual. We have the energy and enthusiasm of our youth. We have friends.
This is a remarkable place. I think I am prone to taking this for granted far too often, and considering the impact that this community has had on my ability to rebound from adverse circumstances, my resilience, I have to pause and thank you all.
Carol Sue Cain recently wrote something that resonates with me:
Humans are wired for connection and it takes intention and awareness to prevent the effortless connections with people "like" me, from hindering or harming the more difficult connections I need to create with the people not "like" me.
The hope of those more difficult connections, not with people like me, but with people like those I had admired in my past who happened to be Unitarian Universalists, with people who have different insights into life, is what drew me here, and what keeps me here.
Well, what do I find, but that I have managed to become part of another community of folks who look out for each other, support one another, and exercise their problem-solving skills, autonomy, and sense of purpose for the benefit of all in the community. I’ve found myself in community, with a found family and a band of generous and amazing people.
It is these more difficult connections, with people not like ourselves, but sharing common goals and community that give us our resilience as a community. There are many people gathered here, many backgrounds, many paths through life, many unique sets of skills, many beliefs, yet bound together by our common covenant.
Daniel Lerch of the Post Carbon Institute says the key to resilience is understanding that every life and every community is comprised of a system of relationships and the resilience of any one system is influenced by the resilience of every system around it.
Key to our system of relationships is our covenant, which governs how we interact with one another, and defines how the right relationships that tie us together should function.
“We, the members of the Mt. Diablo Unitarian Universalist Church, covenant with one another to act in the following ways in our interactions and in all forms of communication:
We speak and write directly, openly, and respectfully with each other.
We support and encourage diversity within our congregation.
We trust each other’s best intentions.
We respect healthy boundaries.
We honor community decisions.”
Our covenant is our social ‘glue’, defining the ways we interact, and encouraging flexibility, adaptability, and trust over rigid, brittle structure. This covenant eases our making connections with those different from ourselves, which I need in developing my own resilience.
It is through these connections that I am able to explore different viewpoints, different approaches to living life and coping with things I have not been able to do on my own.
I know that when I am near my limits, that often all it takes to bounce back is to chat with a friend, catch a kind smile or complement, an offer to share a burden, somehow touching that web of connections, and I may feel renewed.
That mutual respect and trust weaves us together. It is this web of connection that provides us with resilience, both individually and as a community. This is something we may all practice, and with this, gain resilience for both ourselves and our community.
Remember that hillside. Rather than stand alone against the wind, hoping that we won’t be broken like those fallen trees, let us be more like the grasses waving in the breeze, touching and supporting one another and rebounding as the storm passes.
Rev. Sammons will explore the adventure of getting older, both as a minister now retired and as a person who wants to remember the poets adage: “Birth and death are the landmarks but it’s the field between that’s important.” Rev. David Sammons is the Minister Emeritus at MDUUC.
Rev. Sammons is building his sermon on an excerpt from “The Fountain of Age” by Betty Friedan.
Welcome! I am Michelle Paquette, pronouns she/her/hers.
“Birth and death are the landmarks but it’s the field between that’s important.” OK, where was this advice 50 years ago when I needed it most?
It was impressed on me at an early age that I had a duty of self-sacrifice, a duty to live my life for others, and that actions for myself were selfish. I spent much of my life doing this, living the way others demanded. I essentially marked time, rusting away, soul corroding, waiting for death to ring down the curtain on this performance.
Betty Friedan made the point in “The Fountain of Age” that wearing out is far preferable to rusting out.
Several years ago, I had a crisis of sorts that forced me to re-examine the way I lived my life. I acted. Rather than rust out, I was going to live, live MY life, and see if I could wear it out instead.
Well, so far, so good! I’m definitely alive, definitely enjoying life, and while I may wear out I’m definitely not rusting out.
Oh, the dress!
This is something special just for today. These colors come from a flag designed by Monica Helms, the Transgender Pride flag. I’ve learned that 70% of folks think they have never met a transgender person. Now, none of you are in that 70%! I wear these colors proudly as a transgender person today.
This is the Transgender Day of Visibility, a day to show your support for the trans community. It aims to bring attention to the accomplishments of trans people around the globe while fighting fear and prejudice, by spreading knowledge of the trans community. This is not a day for mourning: this is a day of empowerment and recognition.
This year, we need allies more than ever. No, what we need are co-conspirators! Come and join us at 4 this afternoon in Civic Park, downtown Walnut Creek!
For the transgender communities, today is a day to celebrate our lives, our successes of the past year.
For my trans siblings, we who transcend gender have looked beneath the surface, and have seen depths that most do not realize even exist. We know these depths within ourselves, these places that most may never encounter. We know the strength, the resilience, and the wisdom we hold deep within us.
Now, let us all, together, explore the adventure of getting older, and perhaps find ways to wear out rather than rust out, as we worship together.
"First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate.
I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.”
Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.”
- MLK Jr
Reverend King’s words still ring true, and apply even today to the struggle of all marginalized people to be treated as equals and to dispel the hierarchy of privilege imposed by Western Colonialist culture.
I hear these words, “Not now. It’s not your time. Wait for a ‘more convenient season’, as we have other priorities.” This saddens me.
Within the path of my own life, I see all too clearly the intersectional nature of the same forces that hold back people of color, the differently abled, the queer community, and transgender people. None of us quite fit the Western Colonialist culture. We are all seen as somehow living life improperly, due to factors beyond our control. There’s that taint of the broken concept of ‘original sin’, with our differences seen as somehow being more sinful, thus placing us lower on the hierarchy of privilege.
I think that even those of us involved with a faith that has no room for the concept of original sin have, by being raised and living within a Western Colonialist culture, incorporated the cultural concept into our patterns of thought and action. There is a subtle tendency to place obligation on those whom we see as somehow less worthy, less privileged or more damaged, even when our intentions are good.
We see this placing of obligation in patterns of speech, those little conversation starters and commentary that some see as harmless, but place obligations on the less privileged. These often carry demands that others justify their presence, or even their existence, demands that are simply not present between privileged peers. They may serve to put others in their place on a perceived hierarchy of privilege.
“No, where are you REALLY from?”
“Oh, did you see the dress he is wearing?”
“What are you?”
“You don’t act like a normal black person, ya know?”
“I just don’t understand why you’d want to mutilate your body.”
“No, you’re white.”
“You look just like a real woman.”
“No, I don’t do pronouns.”
We call these microaggressions, although there really is nothing “micro” about them to the person on the receiving end. Impact is rather different than intention, and whether a person is marginalized by nationality, race, orientation, ability, or gender identity, it hurts to be reminded of having less privilege. It hurts to be put in what others believe is our place.
It hurts to be told that it is not yet our time. It hurt when I was 15 years old, and it still hurts to hear this at age 65. I wonder if I will live long enough to see our time come.
I long for the day when I will not be viewed as being wrong for simply existing. I hope for the day when simply living as our authentic selves will be accepted by the world, rather than seen as proof of our unworthiness, our sin, our mental illness, or other codewords for hatred.
Is it possible to look to common cause, the intersectional source of much of the poor behaviors that we see as white supremacy culture, as homophobia, transphobia, and the other manifestations that come from Western Colonial culture’s assumption that there is only one right set of beliefs, appearances, and ways to live? Is it possible to move the conversation towards accepting diversity, not only in race, but in nationality, in ability, in gender, in sexuality and identity?
Or, are we advised to wait for “a more convenient season?”
“Letter From a Birmingham Jail”, King, Martin Luther, Jr. (Southern Christian Leadership Conference), April 16, 1963
“TRUUsT Releases Report on the Experiences of Trans Unitarian Universalists" https://transuu.org/2019/01/21/truust-releases-report/ "BORN BAD: Original Sin and the Making of the Western World”, James Boyce, Counterpoint, 2015
Persistence is incredibly important. Persistence proves to the person you're trying to reach that you're passionate about something, that you really want something.
I recall that as a child, I could be annoyingly persistent about some things. My parents had a way of dealing with this, of course. “Just ignore it, and maybe they will get tired of it or forget about it.” This didn’t work for everything. I did finally get that bicycle, after a few years!
As adults, we may have somewhat loftier goals than that bicycle.
Rabbi Tarfon said:
Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.
Persistence in doing what is needed is important. I feel that I need to be mindful of the scope of the work, and what my capacity may be. It is not OK for me to push myself to exhaustion. While some may treat that exhaustion as a status symbol, I find that this is not a great idea, as it may lead to despair and abandoning the work I attempted.
It is OK to rest, to take a break. Doing this before we are exhausted means that when rested, strength renewed, we may go forward with our works once more, rather than abandon them from exhaustion. While others may hope that “maybe they will get tired of it or forget about it”, we know that we will soon return, much to their despair!
Even as we rest, recover, and gain strength from each other here, today, we may consider how we shall further our works as we worship together.
Call to Worship for January 13, 2019, at Mt. Diablo Unitarian Universalist Church
Welcome.
Change. It’s something that we do all our lives. I’ve come to believe there are two different sorts of change. There is change that we engage in for self-improvement, to try and make ourselves or the world around us all better. Then there is the sort of change that doesn’t really help ourselves, but changes us to meet the expectations of others.
When I was a little girl I sometimes would do or say things that made others uncomfortable with me. The sort of friends that I had, the things I liked to play with, the other girls who were my friends, even the way I moved bothered other people. Others wanted to change me, make me into something that I simply wasn’t.
You see, as a little girl I happened to have some male anatomy. This sort of mismatch makes me what is now called a transgender person.
Eventually, pressure from my parents, my peers, and our religious leaders forced me to change. They wanted me to be a boy, a young man, something that was far outside of what I could be. I learned instead how to hide myself, and pretend to be a young man, suppressing parts of my expression and emotional life, exaggerating other bits, to become an unpleasant, emotionally distant, and angry person. These changes were good enough, and I was declared to be a proper young man, cured.
This was that bad sort of change, changing myself into something I wasn’t. It let me live, sort of. I was in fear of slipping, of being discovered hiding behind that persona. It turns out that over time, living in hiding, failing to live as ones authentic self, will corrode one’s soul.
After a half century, I cracked, then shattered. That finally let the light in.
I’ve spent the past three years going through another change. This was a change I wanted and needed to do. It was change for myself, to improve myself and truly cure what had ailed me, a good sort of change.
I picked up the pieces. I discarded the bits that didn’t fit, and rediscovered my emotionally complete self. I let my core personality out to grow, and flourish. I kept other, useful bits from that old persona. I’m a woman who is not afraid to use this (shows tool), or work with this (shows equations). I filled in the cracks with gold.
With this change, I feel that I have done something positive for myself. I feel vastly better for this.
When we are faced with a need to change ourselves, we have to ask ourselves why. Do we need to change to fulfill someone else’s needs or wants? Or is this change something that we need to do, for ourselves? Would we be changing to be accepted by others, or by ourselves?
The First Principle: The inherent worth and dignity of every person.
That’s truly a wonderful thing.
We don’t have to change for others here to see our inherent worth and dignity as we gather today to worship together.
One of the hats I wear in life is being a Worship Associate at Mt. Diablo Unitarian Universalist Church. The Worship Associate for a service handles some technical stuff, and also writes a few pieces for each service. Here is the Welcome I wrote for October 21. Our subject was Glancing Encounters: How we are touched by our small and random brushes with truths small and large, led by Rev.Takahashi.
Welcome
Welcome. I am Michelle Paquette, pronouns she, her, hers.
Small and random brushes with truths large and small seems to describe much of our mental life beyond the clockwork of simply getting through the day.
There are the truths of simple physics. Some things can be done, and some cannot. Objects may be easily moved, or too heavy to lift. Doors may be locked, or open. There are the truths of everyday life. It’s safer to cross the street at a crosswalk. Your car may vanish if you leave it in a ‘No Parking’ zone.
Then, there are the truths other people present to us, and the truths we respond with. These are what fascinate me.
We have evolved with certain survival traits, including trying to recognize threats to ourselves. When we see other people, we look at their faces, and we proceed to overgeneralize from our evolved mechanism to spot emotional states in others. We see a kernel of truth in others, and we proceed to layer assumptions and judgements atop this, based on cultural conditioning and life experience.
We are going to have expressions on our face as well. That expression may very well reflect the assumptions and judgements we have made about someone we have just seen. Others will see this expression, and, well...
That expression we see on someone’s face may reflect what assumptions and judgements they have made about us, or it may reflect internal issues with that curry they had for lunch.
We really don’t know what truth they may be expressing. We do see it and commit acts of assumption and judgement, even if invalid.
Maya Angelou wrote: “If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.”
I like that.
Our First Principle is “the inherent worth and dignity of every person.” Our reverence and respect for human nature is at the core of our faith. We carry the potential to do good, the capacity for observation and reason, and the ability to appreciate all that is around us. We use our gifts in the service of love, justice, healing, and our search for joy.
Our Second Principle seeks justice, equity and compassion in human relations, and our Third Principle asks for acceptance of one another and encouragement of spiritual growth.
We can apply these principles to the hard work of examining our assumptions and judgements, and finding ways to improve how we perceive the truths others offer us. We can identify our overgeneralizations, break down our poor assumptions, and remove inappropriate judgements, all of which interfere with our perceiving and exchanging personal truths with each other.
“The thing to do, it seems to me, is to prepare yourself so you can be a rainbow in somebody else's cloud. Somebody who may not look like you. May not call God the same name you call God - if they call God at all. I may not dance your dances or speak your language. But be a blessing to somebody. That's what I think.”
- Maya Angelou
Again. There’s wisdom there.
Let’s start this work. Let’s prepare ourselves to be a rainbow in someone else’s cloud, as we worship together.
Sunday, July 8, 2018
Embracing the Unexpected
July 8, 2018 Sermon at Mt Diablo Unitarian Universalist Church
Michelle Paquette
“It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings
Tolkein’s advice to a hobbit is humorous, and more than a little bit true.
It’s summer, a big holiday week full of travel, family vacation, and some glorious fireworks.
I remember those big family vacation trips growing up, luggage stacked high on the car, the seats all filled with my siblings, Mom and Dad up front, and traveling across the country guided by one of those TripTik sets of maps. We knew how many pages of those maps we could drive across in a day, and Dad had called ahead to make hotel reservations for each night.
Then the unexpected happened. There wasn’t a page for Utah. In adding up the mileage for the next day’s drive, the time to our next stop was underestimated, by about one state’s worth. It was going to take far longer than we planned to reach our day’s goal.
Naturally, we were upset at spending so much time strapped into our seats in the car. We were children, impatient and not given to understanding the unexpected complications life can throw at us. We were impatient as we drove past Echo Lake. We didn’t notice when we drove by Mt Aire and Grandeur Peak. We barely paid attention to Salt Lake City, and driving along the shore of the Great Salt Lake and across the Bonneville Salt Flats meant nothing to us. We were focused only on that destination, a nondescript hotel in the middle of Nevada.
Our trip was planned out in detail, and this unexpected turn of events was not going to derail our plans. Through sheer brute force and endurance we ignored all that we passed that wasn’t on our predetermined agenda, and, arriving at the hotel exhausted and hungry, we were once again on schedule, where the plan called for us to be that day, precisely in the middle of nowhere. We kept our feet, and were not swept off…
In retrospect, sticking to our plan, in spite of everything, might not have been the best move. By pushing on, we ignored an opportunity to see and explore places we had never been, and were unlikely to return to for years, if ever.
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There’s an old Yiddish adage that translates as “Man Plans, and God Laughs”. Despite our most careful planning, the Universe has a way of tripping us up, defeating our finest strategies with unexpected new vistas to explore and unforeseen roadblocks, sometimes in the same package.
Oh, we try our best to minimize the chance of bad stuff happening. We plan and plan some more to make sure we keep our schedules, reach our preplanned destinations, and avoid upsetting surprises. Yet, in spite of this effort, well, “Hello, Universe! I see you’ve left your calling card in my carefully crafted plan again!”
As with all things, though, this too shall pass. We may be upset, or have some terrible feelings, but we can gather our thoughts, bring our strengths to bear, and overcome our obstacles. We may adjust our plans, tinker with our schedules, and perhaps recognize new opportunities within this disruption that we can gather, turning those feelings to joy.
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There is a term in physics that describes how well a material can absorb energy by deforming, and then release that energy by returning to its original form. This is called resilience. This is different than strength, a measure of ability to withstand an applied stress without failure.
Resilience is also a measure of how well we can deal with and recover from adverse or unexpected events in our lives. Jamais (Ja May) Cascio, a local author and futurist, writes “Resilience is all about being able to overcome the unexpected. Sustainability is about survival. The goal of resilience is to thrive.”
Resiliency isn’t just survival, or stubborn persistence. Resiliency asks us to look at what is troubling us, and that we respond, a sort of feedback process. Resiliency lets us continue living and thriving in the midst of adversity, taking that disruption, figuring out what it means to us, and processing it in a way that lets us grow. In strength without resilience, there’s no feedback process, no growth. Exceed the limits of strength and failure results. Pure strength is not adaptive.
Facing reality and finding meaning in it is at the core of building resilience. We can find the courage and flexibility to deal with risk and adversity, only if we face reality with some appropriate tools.
A wonderful book on all this is titled “Resilience: Why Things Bounce Back”, by Andrew Zolli and Ann Marie Healy. The authors define resilience as the capacity of a system, enterprise or person to maintain its core purpose and integrity in the face of dramatically changed circumstances.
The most resilient systems, according to the authors, can reconfigure themselves continuously and fluidly to adapt to ever-changing circumstances, while continuing to fulfill their purpose. A resilient system senses its circumstances continuously and feeds this information back to control it’s actions, what is called a ‘tight feedback system’. A resilient system is diversified, with multiple sources of required supplies and modular structure that allows quick reconfiguration or adaptation.
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A dear friend of mine embraces the unexpected. She doesn’t care to plan, but often takes off on extended road trips, with just a direction in mind. She takes whatever roads look interesting, and stops wherever she feels the need. She generally heads in the direction of friends or acquaintances she feels like visiting, and is quite happy to sleep on a couch, or even in her truck pulled into a safe driveway.
Roads in the right general direction are easily found, and sleeping accommodations, whether a car seat, a couch, or a guest room, are readily adjusted for in her plans. Her approach to these road trips shows remarkable resilience, and she comes through these travels refreshed, happier, and more energized than when she left. Oh, she may be physically exhausted at the end of her travels, but her state of mind seems better than ever to me.
When she was first here for a visit with me, she invited me to join her on the road. I thought about appointments I had, meetings coming up, and various other tasks, and I declined the offer. It was unexpected. It would be disruptive to my life.
I was being stubborn, strong in that rugged individualist sense, and refusing to even consider altering my preset plans. I was not particularly resilient.
Afterwards, I mentioned this to a few friends, and they unanimously said that I should have gotten in the truck with her when she left. I can learn to be flexible. I can learn to adjust plans and schedules. I can learn to be more resilient.
Should I get in the truck with her the next time she leaves? Yes, of course I should.
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This resilience isn’t just a property of individuals. Resilience can be found and cultivated in groups. Resilience in a family or community relies on trust and cooperation, and the ability to collaborate between people to handle those unexpected obstacles or opportunities. People build networks of collaboration, cooperative approaches that are more resilient.
Developing this trust and cooperation is a change of mindset for many of us. Isn’t it nice, then, that we have such flexible minds, that can learn new patterns of thought and new ways to work together?
Regularly introducing diversity plays a part in this. A more diverse membership here, for example, provides a more diverse range of life experiences, perspectives, and wisdom. Adding more of all kinds of diversity improves the resilience and so the health of our community.
We can see that human resilience has several characteristics:
Tight feedback loops that let us alter our actions when confronted with obstacles or opportunities
Diversified sources, to keep us going
New habits of mind, open to trust, cooperation, and collaboration
Increasing diversity to provide a wider range of life experience, perspectives, and wisdom
Ours is a faith of hope, of questions, of diversity of beliefs and perspectives. We are focused on the journey and not the destination. We welcome change, are open to new learnings and insights, and we share authority and find wisdom. Ours is a faith of resilience!
None of this comes easily or automatically, though. I’ll leave you with the final paragraphs from Zolli’s book on resilience:
“Resilience must continuously be refreshed and recommitted to. Every effort at resilience buys us not certainty, but another day, another chance.
