Unitarian Universalism – Page 31 – Dan Harper

Teach Our Children Well

This sermon was preached by Rev. Dan Harper at First Unitarian Church in New Bedford. As usual, the sermon below is a reading text. The actual sermon as preached contained ad libs, interjections, and other improvisation. Sermon copyright (c) 2006 Daniel Harper.

Readings

The first reading this morning is from a poem titled “Toys” by Coventry Patmore, an English poet who lived in the middle of the 19th C.

My little Son, who look’d from thoughtful eyes
And moved and spoke in quiet grown-up wise
Having my law the seventh time disobeyed,
I struck him, and dismiss’d
With hard words and unkiss’d,
— His Mother, who was patient, being dead.
Then, fearing lest his grief should hinder sleep
I visited his bed,
But found him slumbering deep,
With darken’d eyelids, and their lashes yet
From his late sobbing wet.
And I, with moan,
Kissing away his tears, left others of my own;
For, on a table drawn beside his head,
He had put, within his reach,
A box of counters and a red-vein’d stone
A piece of glass abraded by the beach.
And six or seven shells,
A bottle with bluebells,
And two French copper coins, ranged there with careful art,
To comfort his sad heart….

The second reading this morning is from the book 25 Beacon Street, a memoir written by Dana MacLean Greeley, Unitarian Universalist minister and long-time president of the Unitarian Universalist Association. He writes:

“I dream every once in a while that I am still faced with taking high school graduation examinations, or that I haven’t completed by work. I did complete it and was graduated, but I had devoted myself probably too much to church work, and to athletics, and to being president of my high school class, and never was as brilliant in my studies as my brothers and sisters. One of our daughters once wrote in an autobiographical sketch for college admission (we didn’t see it until it came back) that her grades in school were not as good as they might have been because always when she was going to study her father said that there was a young people’s meeting at church, and that that was just as important. This seems to have been the theory in my own youth.”

SERMON — “Teach Our Children Well”

Let me begin with the first reading today, the excerpt from the poem by Coventry Patmore. The poet is sitting at his desk trying to write a poem — now I’m imagining this, and this is not exactly what the poem says — but there’s the poet doing important grown-up things, not wanting to be bothered his son. But his son does bother him, a little boy whom I imagine to be about seven or eight years old, “who look’d from thoughtful eyes /And moved and spoke in quiet grown-up wise.” I imagine that the boy asks his father a question, like, “Daddy, why are sea-shells smooth inside?” His father says, “Son, don’t bother me now. Daddy’s trying to work.”

I imagine the boy is silent for what seems to his seven-year-old self to be an impossibly long time — say, about five minutes. Even though his father said, “Don’t bother me now”, “now” must be long past. The boy says, “Daddy, why are sea-shells smooth inside?”

His father snaps back at him, “Can’t you see that I’m busy? Not now.” I imagine that this exchange goes back and forth between father and son until the father spanks the boy and sends him to bed without any supper, and without a good night kiss. Now of course back in the 19th C. when Coventry Patmore wrote this poem, spanking your child was still socially acceptable; whereas today, spanking is no longer something you’d put in a poem; first of all because you know spanking doesn’t accomplish anything, and second of all because it is believed that spanking generally does more harm than good. If this poem had been written today, the poet would have said,

Having my law the seventh time disobeyed,
I took away his video game and dismiss’d
Him to bed early, with hard words, and unkiss’d…

After which the poem continues,

— His Mother, who was patient, being dead.

Perhaps the boy’s now-dead mother would have been more patient; perhaps the father is still grieving his wife’s death. Whatever the case may be, the father sends his son off to find comfort in a red-veined stone, a piece of beach glass, and sea shells. All these are worthy objects of a child’s wonder; but how much more could that little boy have found in those objects of wonder if his poet-father had taken the time to look at them with him.

A century and a half later after this poem was written, we claim that we have a much more enlightened attitude towards children. Now we know all about the developmental stages of children, we know that children cannot act like little adults. Those old Victorians believed children should be seen and not heard, but now we encourage children’s questions, and encourage their interaction with the adult world.

Yet for all that we think we are enlightened when it comes to children, our society has become quite good at keeping children out of sight and out of mind. We do not allow children to accompany their parents to the workplace; even though we know that for the first two centuries of European settlements here in New England, when our forebears farmed, and kept shops, and fished the inshore waters, children were always a part of adult life. We have created a society where the norm is to place children together in schools, places where only a few adults come into contact with them. By putting children in schools, the rest of us don’t have to deal with children for a significant portion of each day. Furthermore, in the past decade we have created more and more after-school programs where again we can keep children out of the mainstream of society. We still keep children out of sight and out of mind.

Today’s attitude towards children is a change from a hundred years ago. A hundred years ago, religious liberals, along with allies like the philosopher John Dewey, created what they called “progressive education.” Progressive education meant educating children for democracy, getting children out of the schools and into the real world, in a controlled manner, so they could begin to understand and address the deep-rooted social ills of our society. Progressive education means telling children that this world could be better than it is now; that we can improve the world and make “progress onwards and upwards forever.”

“Progress onwards and upwards forever” — that phrase is part of an old Unitarian affirmation of faith that was used in North Unitarian church in New Bedford’s North End, before North Unitarian merged into this church. “Progress onwards and upwards forever” is a religious concept: it represents our Unitarian belief that we should not wait until some afterlife to experience heavenly bliss; that we cannot wait until some hypothetical second coming; that we should try to institute heaven here on earth, and now in our lifetimes, to the extent that we are able.

A very different religious understanding now colors our understanding of schools and schooling: namely, that heaven and heavenly bliss must wait until after we are dead; that we will have to wait until some second coming for things to get better; and that humanity does not have it in its power to do much to change the world here and now; except, perhaps, to anticipate the Second Coming. These days, there is a push to educate children to conform to authority; instead of pushing them to think for themselves, to better themselves, to better the world.

Which brings us to the second reading. In our second reading this morning, we heard how Dana Greeley, a prominent Unitarian Universalist minister and a president of the Unitarian Universalist Association, was brought up. Dana Greeley’s parents believed in the best kind of progressive education:– progressive education that aimed to nurture full, well-rounded human beings. His parents supported academic schooling; but they felt it was equally important that Dana Greeley participate in church. His parents saw that going to church would give the young Dana Greeley high ideals that he would live up to; would nurture his sense of wonder at the universe; that going to church would give their son a framework of high morality for him to live up to; and, more pragmatically, church would give their son with lots of opportunities for leadership development. In short, going to church would help turn their son into a well-rounded human being.

Here at First Unitarian, we can still offer these four things to children and teenagers. We have high ideals: when they are young we tell children that Unitarian Universalists have minds that think, hearts that love, and hands that are ready to serve; and as they get older, we help them deepen their thinking about their high ideals, challenging them to live out those ideals. We nurture a sense of wonder at the universe; whether our kids choose to call that wonder “God” or by some other name is less important than that they realize that we should all be struck with awe by the wonder of a new birth or the mystery of death, or the complex beauty that results from biological evolution. We still give young people a framework of high morality, steeping them in the knowledge that the world is imperfect and that each of us must do our part to make the world a better place; and that we as individuals are also imperfect but perfectible. Finally, we have leadership opportunities for young people, particularly teenagers: we allow them to become members of this congregation; and though, sadly, we still don’t allow them a full vote at congregational meetings, we allow them to serve on committees, and to have at least some voice in the governance of this congregation.

Let me give you an example:– When a child or teenager comes to First Unitarian, they come to one of the few places in our society that offers a deep and holistic sense of what it means to cherish the earth. A young person might feel deeply about ecological issues. A young person might learn all kinds of facts about global climate change. But here in our church, we unify the emotional and the intellectual into a spiritual whole. We have high ideals, that we are able to, and have the moral duty to halt environmental disaster. To this we add a sense of awe and wonder, we see the world as sacred, an expression of God if you prefer, just as Ralph Waldo Emerson and the other Unitarian Transcendentalists did. Then we give kids a framework for high morality, a sense of duty and self-discipline that allows them to work to better an imperfect world. Finally, we give them manageable and age-appropriate leadership development opportunities, so that they can actually do something with their high ideals and morality and sense of awe and wonder.

While the MCAS, our state’s standardized test, may serve its purpose, it cannot do for young people what our church can do. If we insist that our children attend school so that they may pass the MCAS and get their high school diplomas, we must also insist that our children attend church so that they may learn what it means to be a good person, and learn how to make the world a better place.

Well over a century ago, Unitarian and Universalist churches figured out that if you really want to effect social change, then go teach high ideals to children. You can fix one social justice problem, but it’s like sticking your finger in a leaking dike, and another hole is sure to open up somewhere else in the dike. We have to teach our children to build a whole new dike, one that won’t crack and leak at all. And we have been doing this kind of religious education for over a century.

I’ll put this in fancier language. As Unitarian Universalists, we hold a deep and unshaken belief in the possibility of progress onwards and upwards forever; we hold a deep belief that we can institute heaven here on earth, now during our lifetimes. And we know that education is central to human progress. Therefore, our programs for young people must be at the very center of our Unitarian Universalist churches; and historically, that has been true for us Unitarian Universalists. It is no accident that our religious education programs are well-known outside of Unitarian Universalist circles; even though we are a tiny denomination, comprising less than one percent of the United States population, other denominations have looked to us for ideas and inspiration for their own religious education programs.

Yet as a movement, we have drifted away from our high ideals for religious education. The past ten years marked a time of decline in our historic commitment to religious education. Salaries for religious educators in our churches have been dropping in terms of constant dollars. Worse yet, it is harder to find volunteers who take joy in teaching children and youth.

It would be easy for us here at First Unitarian to fall prey to this wider trend. For example, seeing that we only have a few children, we could have slashed the Director of Religious Education position. But that didn’t happen. This fiscal year, I recommended a modest increase in salary for the Director of Religious Education position, but your elected Board of Trustees overrode my recommendation and provided for an even bigger increase in hours and salary. Then the congregational meeting approved that bigger increase, and furthermore, members and friends of this congregation increased their pledges on average ten percent over last year to help pay for that increase (I myself increased my pledge to over five percent of my gross income to help meet the budget).

We have the money — although we still need volunteers who will take joy in teaching our children….

*****

That’s about where I was planning to end this sermon when I sketched it out a week ago. Then I got a telephone call from our brand-new, enthusiastic Director of Religious Education, Erin Dunn. Erin said she was in the hospital again, that they didn’t know what was wrong with her heart, but that she was not allowed to continue working. She had been in the hospital four times in the past month. So Erin resigned before she could recruit teachers for our Sunday school, before she could organize the schedule for our youth advisors, before she could get the Religious Education Committee up and running.

We have a great Sunday school program all ready to go, but we don’t have the people to make it happen. We need to figure out a way to support a religious education program to help our church’s children — Sophia and Amanda and Peter and Kyle and all the others — grow up to save the world. I can help in this effort, but I’m finding I cannot do it alone. We all have to pull together to keep our programs for young people going — not just parents (I’m not a parent!), but all of us.

Nor is such an effort entirely altruistic on our part, because a truly excellent religious education program will bring us all a deep satisfaction, if for no other reason than we are hard-wired genetically to strive constantly for the continuation and improvement of the human species. We need good organizers to serve on the Religious Education Committee, we need Sunday school teachers to carry out a teaching ministry with kids, and yes we could use some more pledge increases because the budget is still going to fall a little short. But what I am really calling on us to do is to align our personal attitudes with our deepest religious beliefs and longings. Of course we won’t speak harshly to children and send them off to their rooms alone, as the father in the poem did. But we can’t ignore our young people, either. Let us learn how to treat all children the way Dana Greeley’s parents and his church did: seeing in our children the best hope for our future, nurturing and caring for our children as a deeply-satisfying religious and spiritual discipline.

To raise up children to be good people, knowing they an bring about a heaven here on earth, is one of the chief religious wonders and joys we can experience as a community. For us to do so will only lead to greater joy for each of us personally — joy, though not necessarily greater comfort — but definitely the joy and spiritual satisfaction that comes in knowing we are living out our deepest beliefs.

Ingathering water ceremony, 2006

This water ingathering service was led by Rev. Dan Harper. As usual, the text below is a reading text. The actual worship service deviated from the text due to ad libs, interjections, and other improvisation. Copyright (c) 2006 Daniel Harper.

Introduction to the Water Ingathering Ceremony

Those of us who live near the ocean know well that the sea gathers people from all over the world, brining vastly different cultures in contact with each other. In the book Two Years Before the Mast, Richard Henry Dana tells how he shipped as a common sailor, before the mast, in 1834, to engage in trade along the then-wild coast of California. Dana spent several months of that two years curing hides on the beach near the mission of San Diego, where a truly international group had gathered on the beach:

“We were sitting at dinner in our little room, when we heard the cry of ‘Sail ho!’ … and there, sure enough, were two sails coming round the point, and leaning over from the strong north-west wind, which blows down the coast every afternoon. The headmost was a ship, and the other, a brig. … As they drew nearer, we soon discovered the high poop and top-gallant forecastle, and other marks of the Italian ship Rosa, and the brig proved to be the Catalina, which we saw at Santa Barbara, just arrived from Valparaiso. They came to anchor, moored ship, and commenced discharging hides and tallow. … and the beach, for several days, was all alive. The Catalina had several Kanakas [or Polynesians] on board, who were immediately besieged by the others, and carried up to the oven, where they had a long pow-wow, and a smoke. Two Frenchmen, who belonged to the Rosa’s crew, came in, every evening. … Several of the Italians slept on shore at their hide-house; and there, and at the tent in which the Fazio’s crew lived, we had some very good singing almost every evening. The Italians sang a variety of songs-barcarollas, provincial airs, etc.; in several of which I recognized parts of our favorite operas and sentimental songs. … One young man, in particular, had a falsetto as clear as a clarionet.
“The greater part of the crews of the vessel’s came ashore every evening, and we passed the time in going about from one house to another, and listening to all manner of languages. The Spanish was the common ground upon which we all met; for every one knew more or less of that. We had now, out of forty or fifty, representatives from almost every nation under the sun: two Englishmen, three Yankees, two Scotchmen, two Welshmen, one Irishman, three Frenchmen (two of whom were Normans, and the third from Gascony,) one Dutchman, one Austrian, two or three Spaniards, (from old Spain,) half a dozen Spanish-Americans and half-breeds, two native Indians from Chili and the Island of Chiloe, one Negro, one Mulatto, about twenty Italians, from all parts of Italy, as many more Sandwich Islanders, one Otaheitan, and one Kanaka from the Marquesas Islands.

“The night before the vessels were ready to sail, all the Europeans united and had an entertainment at the Rosa’s hide-house, and we had songs of every nation and tongue. A German gave us ‘Och! mein lieber Augustin!’ the three Frenchmen roared through the Marseilles Hymn; the English and Scotchmen gave us ‘Rule Britannia,’ and ‘Wha’ll be King but Charlie?’ the Italians and Spaniards screamed through some national affairs, for which I was none the wiser; and we three Yankees made an attempt at the “Star-spangled Banner.” After these national tributes had been paid, the Austrian gave us a very pretty little love-song, and the Frenchmen sang a spirited thing called “Sentinelle! O prenez garde a vous!” and then followed the melange which might have been expected. When I left them, … they were all singing and talking at once, and their peculiar national oaths were getting as plenty as pronouns.”

So writes Richard Henry Dana. Here in our church, in the port city of New Bedford, we gather together as people descended from many different lands, from many different peoples. We are Yankees and Irish and Italian and Portuguese, we are descended from the peoples of Africa and the native peoples of North America, our families spoke Spanish and English and Portuguese. Let us take two minutes, 60 seconds, and hear from each other: If you are moved to do so, say out loud your ethnic identity or identities: where your people come from, whom you consider yourself to be. Don’t wait for others to finish before you speak, just speak as soon as the spirit moves you. Let us begin now.

[People speak as moved]

Rain is what lets the cool green hills of earth stay green; rain falling from dark rain clouds; clouds made up of evaporated water from lakes and oceans; lakes and oceans fed by networks of rivers and streams and brooks that we call watersheds; watersheds wherein grow the plants and herbs and trees and shrubs that make up the cool green hills of earth. That is one part of the vast cycle of water; and we too are part of the cycle of water, water we drink and wash in and depend upon to grow our food; everything living thing is part of the cycle of water. So it is that we linked by water to the blue-green hills of earth and to every living thing; so it is that we are all linked to each other by our dependence on water.

When we gather here to begin a new church year together, we participate in a ritual gathering of the waters. If you get the church newsletter, you were invited to bring a small amount of water that somehow represents your summer: some of the water you used to water your garden, perhaps; or water from one of the city or town beaches that you visited this summer; or water from a place you visited; or water from a stream or river nearby that is important to you. If you didn’t get the church newsletter, or if you forgot, don’t worry: we have cups of water here for you to use; when your turn comes, you can pour one of these little cups of water into the communal bowl and tell us what it represents from your summer.

Here is how we will do this: Please line up here, to my right and your left. When your turn comes, step up onto the platform. Speak clearly into the microphone, say your name, and tell us in one or two sentences what your water represents. Please be aware that there are lots of people who will want to speak, and that we usually try to end our worship services no later than five after noon, and limit your remarks accordingly. Tell us just enough to make us curious, so that people will want to approach you during social hour and ask you about your summer.

I’ll start us off. My name is Dan Harper. This summer my partner Carol and I spent the summer taking care of a cat in Cambridge, and this is Cambridge tap water.

[PEOPLE ADD THEIR WATER]

We have all added our water to this common bowl, as a symbol that we have gathered together again in community. We can no longer separate this water back out into its constituent parts; I can not remove my Cambridge tapwater from this bowl; and this a symbol, too, a symbol that our covenant with each other will keep us together in the face of adversity.

It’s Never Too Late

Readings

The first reading comes from the closing chapter of The Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett. The story takes place in the late 19th C., and the narrator of the book has spent the summer in the coastal Maine village; but now it’s time for the narrator to bid good-bye to her friend and landlady, Mrs. Todd, and return to Boston and her job as a writer….

“At last it was the time of late summer, when the house was cool and damp in the morning, and all the light seemed to come through greeen leaves; but at the first step out of doors the sunshines always laid a warm hand on my shoulder, and the clear, high sky seemed to lift quickly as I looked at it….

“I was to take the small unpunctual steamer that went down the bay in the afternoon, and I sat for a while by my window looking out on the green herb garden, with regret for company. Mrs. Todd had hardly spoken all day except in the briefest and most disapproving way; it was as if we were on the edge of a quarrel. It seemed impossible to take my departure with anything like composure. At last I heard a footstep, and looked up to find that Mrs. Todd was standing at the door.

” ‘I’ve seen to everything now,” she told me in an unusually loud and business-like voice. ‘Your trunks are on the w’arf by this time. Cap’n Bowden he come and took ’em down himself an’ is going to see that they’re safe aboard. Yes, I’ve seen to all your ‘rangements,’ she repeated in a gentler tone. ‘These things I’ve left on the kitchen table you’ll want to carry by hand; the basket needn’t be returned. I guess I shall walk over towards the Port now an’ inquire how old Mis’ Edward Caplin is.’

“I glanced at my friend’s face, and saw a look that touched me to the heart. I had been sorry enough before to go away.

” ‘I guess you’ll excuse me if I ain’t down there to stand round on the w’arf and see you go,’ she said, still trying to be gruff. ‘Yes, I ought to go over and inquire for Mis’ Edward Caplin; it’s her third shock, and if mother gets in on Sunday she’ll want to know just how the old lady is.’ With this last word Mrs. Todd turned and left me as if with sudden thought of something she had forgotten, so that I felt sure she was coming back, but presently I heard her go out of the kitchen door and walk down the path toward the gate. I could not part so; I ran after her to say good-by, but she shook her head and waved her hand without looking back when she heard my hurrying steps, and so went away down the street.

“When I went in again the little house had suddenly grown lonely, and my room looked empty as it had the day I came. I and all my belongings had died out of it, and I knew how it would seem when Mrs. Todd came back and found her lodger gone. So we die before our own eyes; so we see some chapters of our lives come to their natural end.” [pp. 115-116]

The second reading is from Treatise on Atonement by Rev. Hosea Ballou, the great Universalist minister whose preaching here in New Bedford in the 1820’s led to the formation of First Universalist of New Bedford, which merged with this church in 1930:

“Let us pass to the prophecies of Isaiah; see chap. xxv. 6, 7, 8. “And in this mountain shall the Lord of hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined. And he will destroy in this mountain the face of the covering cast over all people, and the veil that is spread over all the nations. He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the rebuke of his people shall be taken from off all the earth: for the Lord hath spoken it.” No one will doubt that the provisions here spoken of are those which are provided in the gospel of salvation.

“In the first place, then, observe it is made for all people; this proves that it was the intention of him who made the feast that all people should share in its divine benefits.

“Secondly. It is testified that the veil of darkness which was over all people shall finally be taken away.

“Thirdly. That death is to be swallowed up in victory, and tears wiped away from off all faces….”

SERMON — “Never Too Late”

In the reading this morning, we heard how it is that New England Yankees say good-by. Sarah Orne Jewett writes: “I ran after Mrs. Todd to say good-by, but she shook her head and waved her hand without looking back when she heard my hurrying steps, and so went away down the street.” As a New England Yankee born and bred, that was certainly the primary way I learned to say good-by: You don’t go down to the wharf to wave good-by to a good friend as she heads off on the unpunctual steamer that goes down the bay; instead, you invent some good errand that will require you to be elsewhere so that you really don’t have to say good-by at all; and if your good friend runs after you to say good-by, wave your hand at her without looking back.

Modern psychologists would probably tell us that this is not a healthy way to say good-by. I respectfully disagree. It is a culturally appropriate way to say good-by. Living in the place we do, with the climate we have, we New Englanders have faced an quite a bit of loss over the centuries. Half the people who came over on the Mayflower died in the first winter; don’t forget that 90% of the Native Americans in New England had died from disease a few years before the Mayflower arrived. There wasn’t much good soil for farming here, many New Englanders turned to the sea to earn a living, and of course many ships went down, leaving widows on shore. We turned to manufacturing textiles, which went pretty well for a while, but now that’s gone too, and, with the exception of Boston, most of New England still struggles to base its economy on something other than tourism. Nor can we forget the Red Sox, who finally won another World Series in 2004, but now seem to have gone back to their old losing ways, dropping three straight games to the hated Yankees.

Perhaps the most poignant loss of all here in New England comes with the changing seasons. Just when we get used to the heat of summer, with its long lazy days that seem to stretch on forever — just when we get used to summer, we start noticing that the birds are forming flocks and getting ready to fly south, and the days are quickly getting shorter and shorter, and then comes a cool night when we have to dig out the blankets we put away last spring. What makes it worse is that in our short New England summers, you generally don’t get to do all the things you had hoped and planned to do; here we are in the last weeks of summer, and as usual half of my plans never materialized.

Of course when fall comes, with gloriously-colored leaves on the trees, it doesn’t last long. The leaves are incredibly beautiful for about two weeks, and then they fall off. Along comes winter which, in spite of the sublime beauty of the bare trees, and the gray ocean, and the storms that roar through, is unpleasant at best. And just when you get used to winter, everything turns to mud and muck. Spring mostly seems vastly overrated, until at last spring is in full flower, and you want it to last forever; but spring too ends all too quickly.

Nor do the seasons end neatly and cleanly. If you say good-by to summer now, you’ll be saying good-by too soon, because we will have at least one more heat wave before we’re done with it. I imagine this is what the whaling captain’s wife fel, albeit on a grander scale: she said good-by when her husband got on the boat, but was she saying good-by for good, or just for a while? Was she saying good-by for one short year, or for five long years? No one could say. Her good-bys had no certainty in them.

Our religious traditions cannot be entirely separated from our New England climate and culture. The earliest European settlers brought some religious beliefs that fir in with the New England climate. The Puritans brought both the belief that most people were going to eternal damnation after death, and a strong sense that they could create a good society against all adversity, a society that would stand as a beacon for all humanity.

This second belief, that we can overcome adversity, and the climate, and the poor soil, and the fact that ships go down at sea, has become an integral part of New England culture. We are quite convinced that we can create a better world. We have often done so. When the whaling industry started to fade out, the good old New Englanders of New Bedford started manufacturing textiles; that served this city well for many decades. Now we are trying to figure out how this city can fit into the new post-industrial economy, and I have no doubt that we will solve that problem, eventually. The Red Sox constantly lose (except for that one year), but every spring we are certain that this will be the year when they win again. Deep within us is the certainty that the world can, and will, be better by and by.

We are quite convinced that we can create a better world, and this legacy of the early Puritans has turned New England into a land of reformers. We are always trying to reform the world, to make it better. We New Englanders have been ardent Abolitionists, we have advocated for universal education, we have fought for religious liberty, we supported the Civil Rights movement, some of us supported women’s rights from very early on. Today we are at the forefront of supporting equal marriage rights, and it is no accident that Massachusetts is the first state to legalize marriage for same sex couples. The fight for justice is part of our belief system. We truly want a world where all people are treated equally well.

Given all this — given the adversity of the climate, given the fact that New England has presented its human inhabitants with quite a bit of loss, given our deeply-held sense that the world can and will be made a better place, perhaps it is not surprising that Universalism flourished here in New England. Even though the old Puritan belief that most of humanity will be damned to eternal torment upon death remains strong in some circles, New England has also nurtured a strong belief in universal salvation, the belief that all persons will get to go to heaven upon death.

Now you personally may or may not believe in heaven, or in any kind of life after death. But even if that is true for you, I’m sure you can see how there is that in the New England spirit that would support the idea of universal salvation. Think about it this way: If there is a heaven, it must be a place where true justice, and true equality reigns supreme. We could not imagine heaven as a place where injustice is possible. Given that, those of us who are true New England reformers know that all persons must be given equal access to heaven; just as we know that all persons deserve equal access to education; just as we know that women and men must be equal; just as we know that we cannot tolerate racism. If we cannot tolerate racism, how can we tolerate heaven as a place that refuses to admit some people? From our vantage point as imperfect human beings, all we can see is how flawed other people are; a hundred years ago, white people thought it was a fatal flaw to have dark skin; a hundred years ago, men thought it was a fatal flaw to be a woman; today, there are too many people who still believe it is a fatal flaw to love someone of the same gender as yourself. But if we were able to take the vantage point of God, we would see that all human beings are examples of perfection. Not to say that human beings don’t do evil things; we can do evil, we can even be evil. But there is something within us, some irreducible core, that retains something of perfection.

Similarly, if the Bible is correct and there is a God, then logically speaking that God must be a God of love. Logically speaking, the God of the Bible, whom the Bible asserts is a God of love, would not ever damn someone to eternal torment; for, logically speaking, such damnation would not be what we could call in any sense loving. Human beings may be imperfect; human beings may indulge in sin; but an infinitely good an loving God would not therefore damn those human beings to eternal torment.

I go on at some length about this topic because belief in hell is making a comeback. So while you might not use the word “heaven” yourself, and while you might not use the word “God” yourself, you know perfectly well that many of our neighbors and friends talk about God and heaven and hell. And if need be, we Unitarian Universalists can still use traditional religious language to pass on what the old New England Universalists said. They said that God is so great that God can love each and every human being. They said that because God is a manifestation of perfect love, everyone gets to go to heaven. There will be universal salvation, because you and I are worthy of being saved. We may do evil, but God’s love is powerful enough to redeem us all.

You can also see how such a belief would be attractive to the New England character. The idea that most of humanity will be damned to eternal torment doesn’t sit well with the typical New Englander. We already have to put up with New England winters. We already have to put up with high unemployment, and a difficult transition to a post-industrial economy. We already have to put up with the Red Sox, who even as I speak are going through their usual late-summer breakdown, who as usual have no depth in the pitching staff and no real team leaders. Don’t tell me that I have to suffer through years of watching the Red Sox lose late-summer games, and then be denied admittance to heaven because I didn’t measure up to some impossibly high standard of behavior. A belief in eternal damnation is just a little too much for the average New Englander to have to bear.

This brings us at last to the second reading, by the great New England preacher, Hosea Ballou. Hosea Ballou is from a different era than ours: his language may now sound dated; his extreme reliance on the King James version of the Bible, without any reference to all the Biblical scholarship we now have, may now seem quaint; his propensity for interspersing his writing with too many Bible quotes may now sound annoying. But underneath that, underneath his awkward prose, there is a deeper poetical meaning, a non-literal meaning, that sounds surprisingly contemporary. Back in 1805, Ballou wrote: “It was the intention of him who made the feast that all people should share in its divine benefits”; today we would say that all persons have an inherent worth and dignity and therefore all persons should have equal access to all that is good in life. Ballou wrote “that the veil of darkness which was over all people shall finally be taken away”; today we are still working to help remove that veil of darkness over people. On some days we fell as if we’re making some progress.

I would like to go further. When Ballou says: “That death is to be swallowed up in victory, and tears wiped away from off all faces,” I would like to be able to agree with him. I would like to think that my life has been lived to some purpose, that I have not lived in vain. I would like to think that death doesn’t bring complete annihilation, any more than I wish to think that after death some vindictive God is going to send me to eternal torment for being a heretic or worse.

Maybe it’s wishful thinking, but I think not. None of us lives in vain. If you have wiped the tears away from one face, other than your own, you have not lived in vain. If you have brought joy to one other person at any time in your life, you have not lived in vain. If you really want death to be swallowed up in victory, go and do more of that: wipe away some more tears from other’s faces; recognize the inherent worth and dignity of all persons; set a feast before those who need it; bring joy to someone else.

I would say: Heaven isn’t just about some life after this life; it’s about creating justice and love here and now. For some of you, this will not be enough; some of you will want to know what happens after death. If you are one of those people, take heed of Hosea Ballou’s proclamation of universal salvation: everyone gets to go to heaven. Take heed, and take comfort. And now take heed of what I have to tell you: it’s not enough to wait passively until you die, and then go to heaven. The underlying meaning of Ballou’s words tells us that. It’s not enough to wait passively for someone else to set a feast in front of you; you must be ready to wipe away the tears from someone else’s eyes when that is needed. If you truly want your eventual death to be swallowed up in victory, start working on it now: love other people, bring justice to the world in however small a way, proclaim that life is joy.

In this time of late summer, when the days are getting shorter quickly, it’s easy to look back with regret on all the things you meant to do all summer long, but never quite got around to doing. In your life, it’s easy to look back with regret on all the lost opportunities, on all the things that you did wrong. It can be all too easy to look forward to death as a release and a comfort, and to live passively towards that end. But it’s never too late to change. It’s never too late to turn around when you hear those hurrying steps behind you, and to meet a good friend face to face, and to say that you love them. It’s never too late to express your love, to partake of the feast of life, to swallow up death in victory. You can transform your life into one of love and joy. It’s never too late to begin.