Rev. Dr. Marilyn Sewell

First Unitarian Church
Portland, Oregon

February 22, 1998

“. . . the end of our control—our ideologies, our plans, our competence, our expertise, our professionalism, our power—is the beginning of God’s reign. It asks us to believe that only the good remains, at the end, and directs us toward carefully tending it here and now. We will sing a new song. Singing and praise will be all that remains.”

--from The Cloister Walk, by Kathleen Norris

Turning points. The really big ones, we have little say about: birth and death, I mean. “Trailing clouds of glory” (Wordsworth) we come, perhaps with some vague sense of the complete wholeness that we long for, perhaps for the rest of our lives. We come with no choice of birthplace or time or parents or cultural context. We are asked before we are ready to take on the tasks of living, the demands of work, of child-rearing, of citizenship. And yet here we are, having to go forth each day, making choices, trying to live with some modicum of integrity, wondering at the same time if we can really make much difference in this broken world.

As we travel through our lives, we all find turning points. These may be thrust upon us by fate or we may seek them out with great intentionality. But as we look back, we know these are the times that have made all the difference. They have made us who we are, for good or for ill. Mostly our days fall into routines: our morning showers, our meals, our driving to and from our places of work, our tasks of labor, our sleep. But then one day, things are not the same. There are moments that shatter the peace of ordinary days, that bring us new ways of seeing, that throw us precipitously into foreign realms of being. We learn anew who we are.

Turning points. The child is called by her father. He says, “We’re going away now, on a long journey. Make yourself ready.” The child is only nine, she doesn’t know what to say, only that she must trust this man who is her father. Mother isn’t home. The child sees her clothes and those of her little brother and sister poured quickly out of the chest of drawers and into a sheet and tied up. Big Papa is there, and Uncle Gene, from down South. The sheet full of clothes is stuffed in the back end of Big Papa’s Studebaker. The child wants to take her new puppy. What about her bride doll? No, just the clothes, Daddy says, and they leave, driving fast, out of Cincinnati, out into the countryside, across the river on a small railroad bridge with no rails, on across the state line into Kentucky, on towards Louisiana. The child has left a room of her own and her own bed with patten leather shoes tucked neatly under. She has left her box of “secrets” in its hiding place. She doesn’t see her mother again until she is 18.

The child was me, of course. And that event gave me the theme for my life: who will love me? who will take care of me? Can I ever love another, trust another? I’ve had to learn through long years that I can love, that I can trust, that I can take care of myself, and that I can let others care for me. It’s been a long lesson in learning, and I still struggle with it at times. As a leader, I’ve had to learn to do what I think is right, whether or not other people are pleased. I’ve had to learn as a minister to love those people who, for whatever reason, can’t love me. That’s the most difficult spiritual discipline of all. Simon Weil said, “All sin is an attempt to fill a void.” The void of mother loss in my life turned into endless longing, and I have found at last—after looking for love in all the wrong places--that all longing is longing for the Holy One. Mother, father, friend, lover—at their best these relationships show us a spark of the Divine Light.

We do not always have the control we would like over events, whether as children or as adults. But we do have control over our response to the realities that intrude upon us. To understand this principle is to understand everything: there are choices that we do not have, but more important there are choices that we do have. What we do with those invitations from the universe, so to speak, determines who we become, determines our character. And that is the essence: what kind of person are you shaping, are you creating, as your life presents you with various opportunities and challenges? What are you saying to others with that life, what legacy will you leave, by the shape of your person?

Sven Robinson, a member of Parliament from Canada, chose life when he could have allowed death. Courage shapes the person that he is, and love. I heard his story when he spoke at the Pacific Northwest District meeting of Unitarian Universalists in Vancouver, B.C., recently. Hobbling in on crutches, he recounted the moving story of an accident that occurred last December—he fell from a cliff while hiking alone. He was unconscious for some time, and when he awakened, he realized that he was badly injured: he had broken bones in his foot and had broken ribs, a broken jaw, and serious lacerations. He was hurting badly, but he knew that his only recourse was to go for help. So he found a large stick that he could use as a crutch and pulled himself to his feet and hobbled slowly along. He went some distance in agonizing pain, and then the stick broke and he fell into the roots of an upended tree. He thought the end had come. “This is it,” he said to himself. “This is where I will die.” And then another thought came to Sven, who is a gay man. He thought of his partner waiting for him back at the lodge. How worried his partner would be! How terrible it would be for Sven to never again see the man he loved. And so with that love giving him courage, he extricated himself somehow from the roots that might have become his tomb and crawled down the mountainside until he found help. Sven had a choice, and he chose life. He has been telling his story, little by little as he is able. He tells how his partner nursed him through the weeks of rehabilitation, how his partner would be there by his side when he woke in the night with pain. Some people said to Sven, “I didn’t know gays could love like that.” Well, now they know. Sven has been an outstanding and much loved member of Parliament for 18 years, and now he has become a witness, a witness to love and the difference it can make. A witness to the humanity of those who love differently from the majority.

Turning points. Candy Lightner kept the family photographs stuffed in a drawer for years. She couldn’t bear to look at them, except for one. It was a snapshot of her daughter Cari playing softball, taken the day she was killed by a drunk driver as she walked to a school carnival in Sacramento. The highway patrol officer told her he doubted if the driver would spend any time in jail. That’s just the way the system worked. She was furious. Four days later at a restaurant with friends she founded an organization to fight back: Mothers Against Drunk Driving, or MADD. That was in 1980. By 1990 she had built MADD into an organization with 377 chapters world wide. When MADD began, teenage drivers were involved in one out of every five fatal accidents, and so Lightner lobbied members of Congress to pass the so-called “21” amendment which penalizes states who refuse to raise the drinking age to 21 by denying them federal highway funds. MADD’s public education efforts have changed our consciousness about drunk driving. Commonly, there is now the “designated driver” who takes people safely home from the party. Laws are enforced more strictly. Lives are saved. Because one woman decided to make a difference. Out of her pain came the saving grace of transformation and healing.

Candy Lightner’s personal healing continues. She realized that she put her grief aside while she threw her energy into MADD. She got herself a therapist and began to do the emotional work she had never done. She grieved for her mother. A divorced woman, she grieved for the family she had when she was married. And she grieved for MADD--because of internal conflict in the organization, she is no longer with them. Now she is more at peace, she says. The photographs in the drawer are back up, and they include the ones of her daughter Cari and Cari’s twin, Serena. “I’m able to look at those pictures without being angry anymore,” Lightner says. “They brought a lot of sadness, but also some really pleasant memories—that doesn’t mean I don’t miss <Cari>. I do and will probably miss her for the rest of my life.” But the deep wrenching pain and anger are gone. Turning points.

Just as there are turning points for individuals, there are also turning points for institutions: times when an institution has to decide which direction to move in, or perhaps whether or not even to exist. I’d like to focus on our church for a few minutes now, and share with you some of the turning points in our long history. How have we done at these times of crisis? What has given us the courage to go on? For there have been times that tried the souls of this great church. Incidentally, the book I am drawing from in citing this history is by one of our own church members Evadne Hilands in collaboration with our second minister, the scholar Earl Morse Wilbur. The book is entitled A Time to Build, and if you’re interested in reading a copy talk to Ted Hollingsworth, who has had a number of copies rebound. Also, I want to mention that Ted has an interesting display out in the hall illustrating some of the turning points of our church, so you are invited to stop by and have a look.

I want to begin with the founding of our church. Some of you have heard this story, but it is such a wonderful story that it bears retelling. Back in 1865, when there were scarcely 5,000 to 10,000 people in Portland, there were the usual churches: Methodist, Presbyterian, Baptist, Episcopal, and so forth. In the town were a number of people from back East, including some of wealth and influence, who considered themselves liberal Christians, and though they attended these other churches, they longed for a church of their own. One Sunday morning for lack of a better subject, one of the local ministers launched into a ferocious attack upon the Unitarian faith, which he continued for several Sundays. You would think with all the vices of a frontier town to contend with, he might be inclined towards preaching against other, more onerous sins, but there you have it. In December of 1865 a small group of women met “for the purpose of organizing a Society for the promotion of the Cause.” With an average weekly attendance of seven, they sewed and organized socials and festivals, by which they raised money. Lest anyone doubt their purpose, with the first $30 they earned, they sent off to our mother church in San Francisco for a sterling silver communion service, the same one we will use for our Maundy Thursday service this year. The Rev. Horatio Stebbins came up from San Francisco and helped organize the new church. He asked for and received hefty pledges from the men. Two years from the time of the founding of the Sewing Society, on December 29, 1867, our first minister, Thomas Lamb Eliot, dedicated the new church building. This building dedication was a grand moment for liberal religion on the West Coast. But the real turning point was when a small group of women—relatively powerless in that day and age, one would think—these few women met together and spoke of their deep desire to practice their chosen faith and then picked up their needles and began to sew. We start with dreams, and keeping our eyes on the vision, we move to make it happen.

I want to tell you now about an incident that occurred in 1874. The YMCA admitted as active members only those who belonged to Evangelical churches. Thomas Lamb Eliot had been allowed in as an “associate member,” and it was purposed at this time that the word “Evangelical” be dropped from the constitution so that liberal Christians might be admitted with full privileges. But as it turned out, there was great opposition, and the motion was lost. No unkindness was intended, but the distinction between the liberal and orthodox faiths was clarified and strengthened. Thomas Lamb Eliot preached a sermon a Sunday or two after that defining the fundamental differences between the two. Some harsh words were spoken and some unkind things written in the papers against Thomas Lamb Eliot (at least the papers in those days cared about what was said in the churches) but our church became clearer about our mission in the community. No, we were not then, nor are we now, just like the other churches. There are very significant distinctions, the chief of these being freedom of conscience about matters of faith. And hand in hand with this principle of freedom comes tolerance for difference. This was a turning point for our congregation: to understand that we represent an alternative to orthodoxy and to hold that as a positive value in a sea of conformity. We have a special mission.

Then I want to tell you about the Panic of 1893 and its effect on our church. From that year on through the next several years our financial situation went steadily downhill. Though attendance at the annual meeting in January 1896 was the largest in the history of the church, unpaid pledges were mounting. At the 1897 meeting, the trustees reported a debt of about $500. In 1898 Rev. Earl Morse Wilbur resigned as minister, and William Rogers Lord accepted the call. The Board had to borrow money for his traveling expenses, and later financial problems caused the church to cancel his contract. At the annual meeting in 1901, there was a dramatic scene. The trustees voted beforehand to recommend that the church be closed until it was freed from its indebtedness. I’m not sure how closing the church would free up the debt, but as it turns out, that plan was not accepted by the congregation. Ralph W. Wilbur, brother of Earl Morse Wilbur, rose to read a resolution that included the following statement: “Therefore it is hereby resolved that this Society recommends retrenchment in every direction possible, consistent with maintaining services, and the life of the society.” That’s called leadership. It was a turning point. Think about it--the church could have closed! Instead, they took a faith step. By the annual meeting the following year, the church was debt free.

Another turning point that I must mention is the fire which occurred in our present Salmon Street sanctuary in July of 1965. The pictures from that time are devastating: windows smashed, the roof caving in. The congregation decided to worship temporarily in the Seventh Day Adventist Tabernacle while they thought about their decision to rebuild the sanctuary or to move out of the city and build elsewhere. There was strong feeling on both sides, but in November of that same year, the membership voted 140 to 62 to stay on site. Florence Lehman, who is still with us, was the moderator at that time of crisis. And here we remain, in the midst of the city, with troubled youth and street people and drugs and smashed car windows. We’re an urban church, and we’re slowly becoming more diverse, and doing more and more justice work, direct service as well as advocacy. We’re here and we’re big and we’re visible. I wouldn’t be surprised if a quarter or a third of the people at this demonstration on Monday were Unitarian Universalists. I’d be proud if that were the case.

We are now at another turning point in the life of this institution. We have completely outgrown our facility, and everything about it works against community. Our growth is being artificially held down because of lack of space for worship, for R.E., for study and for socializing. Many of you have seen the drawings and the model for the new buildings. This is where we need to go, my friends. The task is difficult, yes, and it may take longer than we ever dreamed, but there is little alternative if we are going to fulfill our mission as a large liberal urban church. History has turned to us and is saying, “Well, now it’s your turn. Will you carry on the work we have started? Will you show others what a powerful free church can do?” It is indeed a daunting task. But great people need a great work to challenge them, and I believe with all my heart you are a great people. I will be here with you as we move into the future, not always knowing what the next step will be, but offering ourselves to the good, as we see it calling to us. Yes, we have been born in interesting times. Let us be thankful for that. Let us move ahead in faith.
So be it. Amen.

Copyright © 2000, Reverend Dr. Marilyn Sewell. All rights reserved.