Reverend Thomas Disrud

First Unitarian Church
Portland, Oregon

September 21, 1997

Images of generations coming and going are constant. This weekend, the Clintons accompanying Chelsea to college in California. They will return to the empty nest of the White House.

A couple weeks ago, as the world mourned the death of Princess Diana, images of her grieving sons were especially poignant. Amid criticism of the formality of the Royal family, Diana’s sons were seen as the hope for the future.

And there are images closer to home. Landmarks at school as children move more and more into the world. You meet a child you taught in Sunday School years ago and see how much they have grown and have that strange sense that they were supposed to stay exactly like they were when you taught them.

It comes hearing about a parent no longer able to live alone, moving to another state to live with a son or daughter. More of the caretaking now comes from the children.

And it comes walking down the street. We see teenagers with purple or green hair and wonder what is happening to kids nowadays. We wonder what is happening to the world. It may be at the time, or perhaps later, that we’re reminded that we, too, were once younger and probably looked at by elders in similar ways. But it is also clear that generations are by nature, different.

In her column yesterday, Ellen Goodman described it as the great American balancing act between independence and connection. Between the expectation that we raise our children to lead their own lives whereever that takes them—and the unavoidable hope that it won’t take them truly away.

And, she says, at the end of a long process, if it goes well, parents and children are adults connected by choice as well as history.

This process takes a great deal of living. And, we hope it goes well.

But it always doesn’t. Our interconnections with other generations can be both bitter and sweet. Sometimes circumstances mean there is little or no connection, which is a choice that at times is inevitable.

They are relationships that are inevitably shifting and evolving. There is celebration and grieving. Our expectations may not be fulfilled, and we adjust to this. There are ups and downs. We see the future in process, and we see our own role in all of it changing. We find ourselves wanting to say “Wait until you’re a parent.”

In a “Calvin and Hobbes” comic strip, Calvin’s mom asks him to take out the trash. Calvin, the inquiring 6-year-old, of course, wants to know why he should do it, what he will get in return. He mother’s answer: “We will feed clothe, shelter, and educate you throughout your entire youth.” Calvin, scowling and taking out the trash says, “I really hate having things put in perspective.”

But of course our perspectives constantly change.

For years I put as much distance between my family and myself as possible. There is a large age gap between my siblings and me. Our interests seem different. We are at different places in life. There seemed to be little in common. And our lives are different. I’m a gay, thirty-something Unitarian Universalist minister living on the West Coast. They are all still straight Lutherans in their 50s living in the Midwest.

But it seems that a funny thing has happened on the way to adulthood. As I have found my niche, they have become closer. At a distance, it seems that I’m better able to see the gifts as well as the things I would just as soon leave behind. I’m better able to see the attributes of our parents in all of us. I’m better able to appreciate the family stories and how we are connected.

And the process has not always been easy. Part of that has come by looking back in time. My parents had me late in life so I didn’t know any of my grandparents. That has always been a sadness in my life.

One day when I was young, I came across some photos of my grandfather Wyttenbach—my mother’s father—when he was a young man. He was easy to pick out, he looks like my older brother.

Grandpa was apparently considered a little eccentric by his family.

When he was young, I expect, he was just restless. It was the turn of the century and he and my grandmother were newly married. Grandpa didn’t want to stay in Switzerland like generations of his family before him. So off he and by granmother went to Russia to carry on the family business of making cheese. Grandma, by the way, doesn’t look as happy about the move in the photos.

Life was not easy there, but they got by and had several children.

In my home I have a favorite photo of him, he is this strapping young man, chest out and proud. He is surrounded by serious looking men in big fur hats. They look like pretty serious folks. Life there, I can imagine, was pretty difficult.

My grandparents were there for several years before the Russian Revolution broke out and foreigners were kicked out. The family spent time in quarantine and lost a child while they were there. When they returned to Switzerland, some of the family essentially said “we told you so” to my grandfather.

But he was not done exploring. It was not long before the family saved up money and came to America. It was in the 1920s, and the next years would not be easy. But they settled here and raised a family.

When I feel like the family outsider, I think of my grandfather. Hearing bits and pieces of stories about him from my siblings, I’m able to imagine what he was like.

The connection is very important. It is a bridge. He has helped me find my place in the family.

Whatever the particulars of our family dynamics, we are all part of a generation, and between generations, there are gaps. And sometimes the gaps can be wide.

Flannery O’Connor said: “Knowing who you are is good for one generation only.”

I have to admit some generational envy of people who grew up in the Sixties. This summer I spoke with a person, who, like many who came of age during that time, lamented why things can’t be more like the sixties. They certainly had the music, the idealism, the firm belief that they could get things done.

I entered college about the time Ronald Reagan entered the White House. The group to be a part of was the Young Republicans. Vietnam and Watergate were defining events in my childhood years. It is probably not surprising that the drive to make as much money as you could was a chief goal or that cynicism is a strong force.

It seems that no matter which generations we are a part of, we find fault with the generations before and after us. With the giant baby boom group in the middle of things today, their influence is enormous and the tensions can seem especially strong.

The tensions are real, they have been happening throughout time. In the midst of generational conflict, it is easy to want to cut ourselves off at the roots. Why, after all, do we need to worry about what has gone before, we can just do it ourselves.

It is often easier to see ourselves as part of a generation that feels like we have no connection to those who have gone before. We are stirred by the words of Walt Whitman calling us to travel on the open road, leaving everything behind or Emerson’s belief that we can start from scratch, that the world is there for us to discover for ourselves, without the help of those who have gone before.

These words inspire, and we do each need to find our way. But we also must know where we come from.

I think this is especially easy for us as Unitarian Universalists to want to cut ourselves off from our roots. Many of us come to this church from other backgrounds, not having been raised in this tradition. Sometimes the wounds can be painful, and it is hard to look back. We instead simply want to look forward, focused on the freedom and the promise of the future.

But this can have its drawbacks. If we don’t know our history, we don’t know ourselves, because we don’t know were we come from. The writer Charles Olson says: “Whatever you have to say, leave the roots on, let them dangle, and the dirt, just to make clear where they come from.”

When we are able to look back and claim that which has been lost, we are able to move into the future with more clarity and less baggage. As Unitarian Universalists we are called to be present to the world and not close our eyes. This is not an easy task, but it is also what gives us power and brings us to wholeness.

We are called to be people of our times, to try to discern what has to be done and then to work to do it. We are called to do things in our lives, even things we may not plan or expect to do, and this is as it should be.

History has much to tell us about people who are called to do things at certain times in history and how their lives did not follow the plan they expected.

The life of Hildegard of Bingen is an example. She came into the world during an especially violent time. She was born in 1098, in Germany, when the first great Western crusade was taking place. Armies were moving to conquer and win control of the holy places of Jerusalem and to convert people to Christianity. Anything that got in their way was to be stopped. It was during the second crusade a few years later when Hildegard was coming of age. She was 40 when she started to write down her visions.

This was a time when women rarely had a public role. A woman writing at this time was pretty uncommon. Hildegard did not have a formal education. That did not happen for women at the time.

Given that Christianity in her day had drifted far from the embracing themes of love and peace of Jesus, she was moved to have a more public voice. She was a crusader in her own right, calling for reforms in the church. Because the leaders were failing at the time, she was called to do the work herself. She was in many ways a paradox, because she also wrote about the weakness and inferiority of women. She was, in that respect, a product of her times. But she also managed to transcend this weakness to call herself a mouthpiece of God and to proclaim what she heard. It would have been more usual to be quiet and contemplative, but the times called her to be something more.

And today, several hundred years later, her words have seen a Renaissance, and continue to inspire.

I have grown in my appreciation of generations being in this church. When I go down the hall and look at the pictures of ministers who have served here, I feel a great sense of honor and responsibility and gratitude.

It is perhaps fitting that on this day we have our annual fire drill. When I first was in this church and heard that every September for the past few years we have had a fire drill where everyone in the church—children, adult worshippers, everyone—leaves the building—it seemed a little strange.

But we do this and there’s a reason. Twice in the life of the church, fires have seriously damaged the building. The first one happened in 1891, when the church was only 25 years old and in its second sanctuary. That building was partially destroyed by fire.

And then there is the more recent fire of 1965, when most of the Salmon Street Sanctuary was destroyed.

It was a year when the church was preparing for its 100^th anniversary in 1966. Its longtime beloved minister, Dr. Steiner, was preparing to retire after more than 30 years in the pulpit here. It was an important time in the life of the church. On a July night, the church was set on fire by an arsonist. Seeing pictures of the space reveal the extent of the damage. The ceiling was partially gone.

The leaders of that time came together. As they grieved the loss, they also had to find alternate space and make decisions about the future. And they did just that. The church decided to stay here downtown, and not to move to the suburbs. They found temporary locations for worship and religious education. The church survived. Because of that work, we are here today.

As we face challenges and grapple with issues of growth and change, it is good to remind ourselves that we are not the first ones who have done this. Generations have gone before us.

We have foundations under us, and they are there to support and guide us.

In finding our way, our task is perhaps a combination of listening, and hearing and questioning and moving forward. All in the right balance. All of this done together, in community.

Each of us, like each generation, has a call. It is up to us to discern that call and to live it out.

In the process, we leave a foundation for those who will follow us from generation to generation. Amen.

Copyright © 2000, Reverend Thomas Disrud. All rights reserved.