by Jennifer Schnayer, Intern Minister

A sermon given February 18, 2001

First Unitarian Church

Portland, Oregon

CALL TO WORSHIP

Good Morning! We gather this morning in the spirit of hope. Hope for what our world can be. Hope for the possibilities of life. Hope in the midst of pain. And hope that this day will be one of joy and one of peace. Come, let us worship together.

Violence pervades our society. My grandmother might have disagreed with this statement--she thought it was only the TV news that was all about pain and violence, and was convinced that plenty of good and important things happened every day that simply went unreported. And while I may agree with her on that last point, I also recognize that there is a tremendous amount of violence in our world. All across the globe, from Bosnia and the Middle East to our own neighborhoods, we are confronted with it everyday.

And if the reality of violence isn't enough to satisfy us, we can entertain ourselves with it as well. Sports, movies, computer games, music, and books all are happy to provide us with plenty of violence to satisfy our imaginations and help us escape the real world.

The movie Gladiator is up for a number of Academy Awards this year. I didn't see it, but evidently it is a movie that was so violent that it broke new ground with sophisticated computer effects to capture on-screen for us all the gory details of brutality.

The reality of violence is something we all have to deal with--either by accepting it, tuning it out, or trying to change it. But if we don't recognize its presence, we are in danger of becoming desensitized to the real pain that is experienced by people all around us. Keeping ourselves open and empathetic to the pain of violence is essential to our ability to bring love and peace to bear on our world in any way at all.

Having said this, I think it is important to uplift the fact that violence is part of the human condition. Anger and fear are emotions that we all have and violence is one of our responses to those emotions. I can even think of a couple of ways that violence can be considered normal. First of all, the capacity for violence, like evil, occurs in every person. Each of us, without fail, is capable of violence. And second, violence is statistically common; some statistics report that more than 50% of families experience some kind of violence in their midst and 70% of children experience sibling violence. While violence is not healthy for anyone, it is normal in at least these ways.

It is our task as religious people to confront these aspects of human nature with love and creativity and work to transform these natural responses into healthier ones, ones that are communicative, productive and healing.

I know a woman who is an activist for battered women and children. I'll call her Mary. Mary is a counselor and a member of one of our churches. She works for an agency that advocates for battered women and children. She often accompanies the women who come to the agency to court in order to help them obtain restraining orders. She has trained law enforcement about the cycle of family violence, and speaks all over town about this issue.

Mary had never been in a violent relationship herself. And then, while she was doing all this advocacy work, she started dating someone new. It was wonderful in the beginning. Then he started to get very possessive and she began to see more and more of his temper. She talked with him about anger management. She still wasn't concerned about how this might effect her, but eventually his anger did erupt toward her. After a time, she stopped seeing him. But he followed her. Threatened her. Sabotaged her car. Broke into her home. She was paralyzed with fear and felt totally alone. She was working for the agency that could help her. But did she turn to her colleagues? No. All her knowledge about domestic violence and years of experience had not prepared her for what to do when she herself was the victim. She not only was afraid--she felt ashamed. She thought, "This can't be happening to me. I work to help people like this. I should know better." Finally, Mary asked one of her law enforcement friends to help her. She got a restraining order and took steps to protect herself. She knows intimately now that violence is not something that happens out there. And she has helped her church learn that lesson too. She has shared her story publicly at church and in doing so sent a powerful message about where violence can be found. Violence is not something that happens in someone else's neighborhood, in other people's homes. It happens everywhere. Even here.

So how do we respond as religious people? How can the church help us with the problem of violence either in our own life or in the world?

Well, as you may know, this can be a little complicated because the church, and even scripture, is a bit confused with its message. The church has not historically stood for peace. On the contrary, many wars have been fought in the name of religion and God. Christianity expressed itself violently with the brutality of the Spanish Inquisition and in this country during the Salem Witch Trials, to name just two. The church is a human institution and therefore has to contend with the same threat of violence that each of us must face.

Scripture also brings a message of violence. Remember the Old Testament God? This is a God that sends plagues, destroys towns and smites those who disobey. This is a God who asked Abraham to sacrifice his own son to prove his obedience to God. These are not peace-loving practices.

Yet the Bible also shows that God can be loving and deeply forgiving as well. This tension can be confusing, but I think it is this confusion that can actually help us to understand our own human experience. We ourselves are people of both love and anger, of care and violence. But we are also a people who have developed a religious understanding to help us to lead a moral life. Despite our real struggle with anger and fear, or perhaps because of it, a set of religious values has arisen to support us in our quest for the good. The fact that religion exists at all suggests to me that we need help in this endeavor! We can cultivate peace despite violence. But all of this is not easy.

I know, because I myself have a temper. It is something I have had to learn how to control, manage and channel in healthy ways during my life. I know intimately what the phrase "it makes my blood boil" means. That is the best way I can describe the physiological response my body has to anger. My blood boils. And I struggle to keep my heart and mind working in order to manage my anger. When your blood boils, you can feel pretty powerful. All the adrenaline pumping through your system--it is a very heady experience. That level of emotion is almost intoxicating. People really can feel blinded by rage.

But I still am responsible for the actions I take. I am responsible for how my personal feelings are expressed in the world. Being angry or in a fit of rage does not get me off the hook. I need to harness those kinds of feelings and channel them in productive ways.

So beyond our human fear and anger, what are the factors that contribute to violence? A 1997 study published in Science magazine undertook to discover what might predict the level of violence in a neighborhood. Race did not impact the level of violence. Socio-economic status did not impact the level of violence. So what did predict the level of violence in the neighborhood? The study found that the level of violence in a neighborhood corresponded with how the people in the neighborhood cared for and valued their children. Neighborhoods where everyone in the community exhibited a sense of responsibility for the care and raising of all the children who lived there were places with the least occurrence of violence. Insular neighborhoods, where people were concerned mostly with their own families and their own needs, had the highest rate of violence.

This study points to a sense of family that reaches far beyond its own door. It also reminds me of some of the changes that have taken place in our society.

No longer do we organize ourselves with our large and extended families living near us and with us. For some of us, this may be a blessing. Some of our homes were stifling places to grow up, some of our families were violent themselves, and the opportunity to leave gave us a chance to live a better life. But, being so far from our families does change the way a family is able to support itself.

We are no longer even rooted in one place for a lifetime, so that a neighborhood could act as a surrogate family. But we still ask families to do all the things families have always done: care for their elders, raise their children, be responsible citizens, keep the house, tend to their partners. And work a lot. I think the family is too fragile and has been stretched too far to be able to do all that it is asked. Families need the support of a community, and church communities and neighbors can offer this kind of support network to families. But do we do this? Are we set up to be able to do this?

I think it is especially important for Unitarian Universalist churches to be affirming of our children and take responsibility for how our kids are raised because our children have different beliefs than many of their friends. Being different is hard, and we can help by being present to and concerned about our children.

There are some other steps we can take to turn the tide of violence. We can take the time to consider our own behavior. We can try and discern how we hope to live and what kind of world we want to work to create. Tomas Firle, one of the men in our San Diego congregation, wrote a reflection that explored all the things he was capable of, and where he hoped the source of his actions would come from. He writes:

"Hands reach out in friendship, to an acquaintance or a stranger. Yet, when I am angry or afraid, my hands can act out my shadow side. My hands can inflict frightful misery. My hands can kill. My hands can make a fist, they can threaten. Slap a face, dislocate an arm and rip off someone's clothing. My hands can choke or strangle, stab with a knife, pull a trigger and kill. Whom have I done this to? To my enemies? Or those I called my loved ones--my spouse, my children, partner or lover?"

His reflection continues:

"I have a choice. You have a choice. My hands can be utilitatian: weigh an object, peel an orange, button a shirt. My hands can talk in signs, give directions, write a letter, even a poem. My hands can throw a ball or play catch with you. Wave hello or goodbye. Touch a friend, cradle someone in need, caress a loved one. My hands were not made to hit or hurt another person. My hands are made to create, to caress. And that shall be the expression of myself."

Tomas has struggled with his own rage in life. He has hurt the people most dear to him, and has worked hard to find a new way. His hands can create and caress--he has identified what he values and discovered how he can bring that to life.

Living from our values is a deeply religious act, especially with respect to our Unitarian Universalist faith. Imagine the world you hope for and then try to live in ways that embody that world. Channeling the anger you have to shape the world you hope for is a powerful and creative way to live with anger.

But, in our society, violence is found not just in human action. Violence also infuses the ways we entertain ourselves. Now, I am not here to tell you what kind of movies to see or which sports to follow, but I do think it is important to recognize that what we consume reflects our values as well. If we play violent video games, watch violent movies, read violent books, we are consumers of violence. This affects us in a number of ways; over time, I think we become desensitized to the reality of violence in our midst. We lose some of our ability to be empathetic, because we have to turn that part of us off when we entertain ourselves with violence. Consuming violence also feeds that particular industry. The more we consume, the more that gets made.

I read a magazine story about a woman who quit boxing after she won an amateur title. She took up boxing so she could feel comfortable protecting herself in an increasingly violent world. But instead of putting her at ease, she found that boxing pumped her up--she was more combative. Moving toward violence came more easily for her. She would blow up and assert herself aggressively more often. She became a fighter. But it didn't turn off when she left the ring. She'd get on the subway that way. She'd be that way with her husband. She became what she consumed, even though she took up boxing to deal with the violence that was around her in the first place. Whatever you spend your time doing reflects who you are and what your life means in the world.

A religious life is something that has supported me as I work to embody what I value. Ours is a lived faith. We do not have to reconcile a literal interpretation of scripture. But as a lived faith, our story is the one that we bring to life. Each of us and the stories of our religious forbears make us the religious story of Unitarian Universalism. Some parts of our history have been brighter than others. The same will be true of our own lives. There will be times that we live more peacefully, that we more fully embody our moral convictions than others. One of the tools we have to help us as we discern what it is we value is our spiritual practices. Taking time to connect with the transcendent aspect of life, whether it is through meditation or prayer or singing, provides a space for us to discover how it is we want to live and what it is that we truly value. As religious seekers, may we continue to try to re-focus ourselves on the world we hope can be and then try to live in ways that can turn that hope into reality. May it be so. Amen.

Let us join our hearts and minds in the spirit of prayer.

PRAYER

Spirit of Life, we come to you asking for your presence to be with us as we search our hearts to discover the best of what is there. Help us to be gentle with ourselves as we struggle with the tensions our emotions create in our lives. We ask for the spirit of peace to prevail. We ask for wisdom and courage in the choices that we make. Help us to use our anger for the good. And to live a life that brings to the world what we value most deeply. Amen.

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Copyright 2001, Jennifer Schnayer.  All rights reserved.