Rev. Richard D. Leonard assisted by Sarah Flynn, of the Junior High Affirmation Class
The reading this morning is taken from my April 19th Credo, entitled "Grown-up Lessons for a Not-yet Grown-up Person."
Reader: Sarah Flynn
Thinking back on my experience, I don't think I knew what I was geffing into. I don't think I knew what I was taking on, or how much I was going to suffer. I stood up for what I knew was right even though it made my life miserable for a while. It caused so many complications and for a long period of time I had to stand on my own, with no one who could relate to me.
Kids, especially 12-year-old girls, can be terribly crueL And of the six o£ us, I was the one who first realized how badly we were hurting people. Somehow or another, my small tight group of friends and I got the idea it would be fun to ruin a few peoples' lives. I had no idea at the time that I would be one of them. We did this by singling a person out and deliberately putting them down. However, I don't think any of us really knew how cruel we were being.
I took part in being mean to my friend the first time, but the second time we tried to do it, I realized we were doing something wrong. I stood up for my friend and said, despite harsh looks, that I was friends with her and wasn't going to stop being her friend. But as fate would have it, we switched places. I was the cork, the loser, the odd man out, and for the first time I began to understand how much it hurt.
I think for the first part, I denied it. I wouldn't admit what was happening to me. I didn't want to see myself that way.Every time I tried to be me, they stepped on me. They used every opportunity they had to put me down. So finally, I began to believe all the things they said. Everything I did was to try to please them. My self-esteem dropped so that I only had an ounce left, and I hated them for that. I hated them for hurting me over and over, and I hated them for not liking me. But at the same time all I wanted was to be their friend. It's only now, a whole year after that I'm beginning to understand ali the lessons I learned from this experience.
I think the whole experience must have been really confusing, upsetting, and so mind-blowing that I didn't understand. We all had this fear of not being a part of the group. And when we were kicked out of the group, we jumped at the thought of being friends with them again. I think it's because everyone wants to belong, to be a part of something, everyone likes to feel needed. It's so hard sitting alone watching others laugh and have a good time, and not being a part of that makes you want it even more.
After all this, I feel like the Golden Rule is a saying we should all live by. It makes so much sense, I understand it intellectually, and now, emotionally. But it took me until they turned the tables on me, until I was the victim, for me to understand.
At this point in my life, the thing I always have to keep in my mind is: nobody's opinion of me should be more important than my opinion of myself.
I need to know that. I need to be comfortable with myself, And even if I have to remind myself of that over and over, I will, because I know who I am, and I like myself.
On April 19 past, our Junior Highers led both of our Sunday morning services, as a culmination of their Affirmation Class this year, in which they were asked to write a short, and admittedly transitional, "Credo," of what their most important personal beliefs were at this time in their lives.
A large part of each service was given to their delivery of their "Credos." Because there were so many of them, 19 in all, they had to be divided up between the 10AM and the 11:15 services.
Polly and I attended both services. I must tell you, we were almost spellbound by the experience. We wished that every person with even the faintest interest in All Souls could have been present to get an idea of what our 12-14 year old youngsters are thinking.
These were young people seriously wresding with ideas about God, about a possible afterlife, reincarnation, good and evil, the relationship of dhe moral life to one's religious life.
Let me just give you an idea of dhe subjects that were soughed on that morning: there were references to Voltaire, Greek mythology, mathematical certainty vs. religious certainty, the meaning of the holocaust, stereotyping, whether it's possible to live widhout intolerance in a society riddled widh intolerance, what it means to belong to a religion, why we feel a pany of remorse when we pass a beggar even when we don't put a quarter in his or ha cup, and why we cry in a movie like "Shindler's List" -even why Christmas has to be spelled with a "T" - why couldn't it be with just one or two "S's"? There were a lot of issues taken up.
Without taking anything away from our Senior Highs, who gave us a similarly remarkable three weeks later, hearing our Junior Highs on April 19 rocked me back to the realization that young people of their age are almost fully-formed adults, with dheir basic ideas and attitudes in place chat will guide dhem the rest of dheir lives.
I know from my experience with young people, particularly in three schools in New York City, that all we have to do is blink our eyes three times and say "Where did the time go, anyway?" and dhese same young people will be moving into positions of leadership in our society, appearing in dhe newspapers, finding cures for ancient diseases, even preaching in our pulpits.
As I sat in the pew that morning, I had three inspirations, in rapid-fire order:
A) To use this morning's service, to which I was already committed, as an opportunity to respond to our 19 Junior Highs,
B) To have one of our Junior Highs assist in the service today, reading a part of her statement of April 19, hence Sarah's appearance here this morning, and
C) Put a focus on dhe theme "Insider-Outsider", which I decided could be the basis of a sermon.
It struck me that while every participant was ready and willing to talk about "God," a few giving definitions, many more admitting to confusion, and a few readily admitting that they would probably be confused on the subject of God the rest of their lives, there was an underlying theme in all of their presentations that wasn't expressed openly, except by Sarah, who talked about what it feels like to be a Junior High, wanting to fit into society, while at the same time maintaining one's growing independence and individuality.
It's the sense of sometimes being on the inside, where the whole world is your oyster, you're accepted just as you are, the sky's the limit --- and sometimes being on the outside, where you sense that nobody really understands you, or will go to bat for you when the chips are down, or perhaps even be there in some disaster or at the end of your life when you've outlived everybody you care a lot about.
Hearing them took me back to my junior high days. It might be surprising to some of the junior highs here to know that a geezer 70 years old was once a junior high. Let me tell you what it was like for me to be a Junior High.
One day, around dhe age of 12, I rode my bike further dhan I had ever ridden it, by far, out Northwestern Highway in Detroit, about 7 miles I figured, until I was really in the country. I pulled off into a field with very tall grass, and first sat down, then lay down and listened to the sounds.
I remember hearing the traffic on the highway a quarter mile away, and I remember the gende swishing of the tall grass as the warm breeze blew through it. Bst I remember, even more, one bird singing, for a long time. I dhought it might be a Meadowlark. But what did I know about birds?!
But I did know something. There was not a happier sound on dhe planet that day dhan day at one bird singing. I knew that I wouldn't leave while the bird continued to sing. And when he finally left I continued Iying in dhe warm sun feeling chat I had entered a new stage of my life. I hadn't yet heard of the philosopher Rene Descartes, who said "I think, therefore I am," but I had my own version of his dictum: "I feel, therefore I am, I am one, I am one person, completely separated from every other person who was, is, or ever will be; I am one - with a Universe, which contains many ones, including a bird which may have been contemplating its oneness even as I contemplated mine.
That's a Junior High dhought. Younger children don't dunk dhe same way, they are too wrapped up in what their crowd is doing to want to lie in a field for an hour. But it comes to dhem too in time.
Let nobody chink, if the memory of dheir youth is so blurred, chat Junior High isn't a very, very tough experience. It's tough with parents, it's tough with teachers, it's tough with their contemporaries. And all dhe time they have to be sorting out just what dhey want to do at the next stage, where high school looks like a dark ominous cloud moving toward them.
I was in 7th Grade in Bagley School in Detroit one afternoon at 2 o'clock when our class changed teachers. That is, dhe class remained fixed in dheir seats, while Miss Helen Cannon left and Mrs. Josephine Strauss came in. They met in the doorway. The class happened to be very quiet at the moment. Miss Cannon said to Mrs. Strauss, "Are you as sick and tired of chat Dick Leonard as I am?" Mrs. Strauss replied without a~moment's hesitation, "I certainly am""'
I was absolutely thunderstruck, not to say chagrined in front of the whole class. I guess it had never occurred to me that anybody could be sick and tired of me. And here were two people wishing apparently that I'd find another planet.
Did it hurt? You bet it did. It still hurts, or I wouldn't remember today even the tones of their voices or how they looked standing in the doorway.
Did it change me? Yep. I think it did. Up to that point I had thought of myself as a sort of classroom clown, trying to make everybody laugh. For the first time I saw myself as an irritant, easily done without. I quietly resolved that I would try harder to see things from the teachers' and parents' point of view.
Junior High can be cruel in terms of one's relationships to school buddies, and especially to those of the opposite sex. I've told our "Stories With Soul" group several times about the rage and complete humiliation I felt when I saw my then girlfriend laughing away with a new boyfriend, playing ping pong, not knowing I happened to be observing them. Up to that point ping pony had been our game, and I had supposed only we were able to enjoy it that much. I was so angry at being displaced that I actually had trouble speaking for 24 hours.
Incidentally, it's that kind of anger, set in a culture where weapons are readily available to adults and children alike, that worries our educators and our parents.
As Sarah captured in her Credo, one day you're on the "inside," the next day you may be on the "outside." It is a mind-blowing experience to be on the outside when you want to be inside. If it's any consolation, young people, any adult here will tell you that it is an experience one doesn't outgrow.It happens to us adults probably as frequency as it does to you.
There was another event in my elementary school days that I've thought about often over the years and I find it relates exactly to this morning's theme, "Insider-Outsider."
One day a new student altogether showed up in our class. She was not much on looks. The teacher said, " I want to introduce you all to Iloo Frieberg." I didn't know what an appropriate response would be, sitting in my chair. Then, in the quiet, at least a half dozen of dhe students responded by "booing."
I was probably not the only student who almost went through the floor, first with amazement, then with embarrassment for the poor young woman, who must at chat moment have felt she stood completely alone and defenseless, in a very hostile world.
You see, until then, living in a very homogenous Anglo-Saxon community, I didn't know what racial or religious bigotry was. I probably couldn't have defined the word "prejudice" if my life depended on it.
But some of the students knew. They knew that Iloo was different from the rest of us in several ways:she was new, she dressed differently from us, and she was Jewish. They saw a chance to put themselves on the inside, and someone else on the outside.
I've often wondered what happened to Iloo. Was she able to live out the rest of her life in reasonable happiness? Or did that experience of feeling completely rejected by her new schoolmates linger and embitter her and possibly even greatly shorten her life? I wish, 55 years later, that I could offer a formal apology to Iloo on behalf of those of us who sat on our hands that day while others "booed" a complete stranger.
I want to do a little test now on the congregation, the whole congregation, not just the junior highs who happen to be here. This is for everybody.
How many of you know what the letters "DWI" stand for? If so, just put up your hands. Look at that. Apparendy everybody knows "DWI". Okay, tell me, what do the letters stand for?
Say it. Response: "Driving while intoxicated."
Okay, now again, just putting up your hands but not saying anything, how many of you know what the letter "DWB" stand for? Don't say it. I see four hands. Those of you who know it, say it. What does "DWB" stand for?
Response: "Driving while black."
Did you all hear it? Driving while black. You ever hear chat? You never heard chat? It's a phrase that blacks know. It's been in the newspapers quite a bit lately. I don't remember hearing it on TV, but I hope it's been there too.
It refers to the fact that black drivers are much more apt to be pulled over to the side of the road by police than white drivers. And heaven forbid you are black and start to reach into your back pocket for identification - your chances of being shot at that moment are much higher than when I reach into my back pocket for identification.
I cannot talk about the subject of "Insider-Outsider" without talking about racism, because racism is out there. And it's in here, in every one of us, in varying degrees, in whites, in blacks, in Asians, in Latinos, in all of us. There are some places in the world where race doesn't matter, but the United States is not one of them.
The Unitarian Universalist Association has wrestled with this problem long before I joined its ranks in 1959. It has had to wrestle with the problem, because for all its espousal of democratic ideals and support of social action causes, the WA membership nationwide remains today more than 95% white. We are somehow "turning off" many of the same people who could benefit us by makmg us more diverse in our points of view and experience.
Because we don't know why we turn off people whose insights we need, or blame them for not being enough like us, we reveal our own racism, our own smugness, our own willingness to play the 'iinsider" to complete strangers on the outside.
The UUA's President's Council, which happens to include John Reidy, Polly and myself from this congregation, gave a lon~ weekend in March to a training session in anti-racism. Blacks and whites led it, blacks and whites participated vigorously in it, and it was a cathardic experience for the 50 or so persons present. So much so that they unanimously passed a strong resolution recommending that every church and fellowship subject itself to a similar kind of training session.
It's a tough exercise, make no mistake about it, helping everyone in a group to share their strongest feelings about race and the role it plays unconsciously most of the time in our actions. But it is worth it. John, Polly and I recommend it strongly for All Souls, hopefully sooner rather than later.
I had been in an anti-racism workshop before. And, as most of you know, I have given a four share of my ministry to the civil rights struggle.
But one always learns a lot in free and open discussion, and I learned a lot in our President's Council workshop. I learned in a new way from people of another color how easy it is for me to walk the streets of New York and go about my business while only being reminded a few times in the day, if at all, that my skin, by accident of birth, happens to be white - while my black brother or sister, perhaps my ministerial colleague, perhaps my artistic superior, is reminded all day long of his color by dhe constraints that a predominancy white culture places on that person.
My final words this morning are directed back to our Junior Highs.
Yes, the tensions of feeling yourself sometimes on the inside and sometimes on dhe outside are going to continue, right through dhe rest of your life. Sometimes you will find yourself a part of dhe team, and dhe team will win the game, and vou will make dhe crucial score, and the whole world will be behind you, indeed~will love you.
And sometimes you will find yourself where you do not feel particularly wanted, or you will find out how very, very hostile, even life-threatening, the world can be, and you will feel at that moment that you are absolutely alone, no one will help you.
Part of growing up is slowly realizing that things are neither that good, nor that bad. When your team wins, another team is perhaps desolate. Take time to put your arm around a loser's shoulder and cry a little bit with that person.
And when you are a loser (and we've all been there), remember that you are part of a community many of whom have been where you are, many care, some will even be helpful, and you will not always be alone.
The "Best", I have learned painfully, is always ahead. We keep coming out of cocoons into a newer undreamed of life. I guess that's my version of reincarnation, which so many of you talked about.
Finally, it is our religious faith, our own individualized, patchwork, not quite coherent but nevertheless meaningful, religious faith that makes the difference and holds us together in tough times.
We adults wish our Junior Highs the best. We very openly admire and envy your youth.
And we thank all of our young people for enriching All Souls Church. Copyright AllSouls 1998.