As a minister, I have had the privilege of leading many memorial services for people of every age – the very young through the very old. In the end, one thing that clearly matters in a life well lived is the answer to the question: Do we have the courage to be ourselves? (while we are alive and as soon as possible)
In a year, where we are focused on being rooted in relationship, this is about being in right relationship with ourselves. The courage to be ourselves predicates and predicts our ability to be in right relationship with others.
Now, it is also one of the hardest things to do. There is something deeply vulnerable about showing the world who you are. What if the world doesn’t appreciate you or rejects you?
As human beings, we are wired for relationship, for belonging and connection. So, it can be particularly painful and sometimes wounding when someone in our circle, or our community, or the wider world judges us negatively, or casts us out when we have taken the risk of showing up as our true selves.
If there are any writers here who have ever written something on the internet and read the comments, you might know what I mean…
There are layers and levels to this risk of showing up as ourselves.
If I am new at something, and I want to try it out – say tap dance – I may look foolish when I try at first. What if I stumble? What if it turns out I’m not good at it. Here the vulnerability is about being someone who likes to try new things and having the courage to find out if I could be good at the new thing with practice and the courage to move past my own judgement and others’ judgement.
For me, a greater risk, was when I felt called to pursue the ministry. At the time, I thought I was headed towards medical school. However, I was the youth director in my church and founder of a young adult ministry that had 250 people involved in it. The senior minister came to me one day and asked if I had thought about ministry. He said that I was really functioning like an Assistant Minister in the church. He said, he heard me speaking about medicine, but really moving towards ministry. Indeed, it was a growing call in me to serve our faith, but I was already doing that. Could I let go of what felt like a more certain path and leap towards what was tugging on my heart, but felt far more uncertain? What if it didn’t work out? I found that in order to be faithful to myself, I had to go for it.
But, a far greater risk, is pursuing something to be true to yourself, your gifts, and your passions, when the world tells you No! Not because you don’t possess the talent or passion, but simply because of who you are. Thinking back to my dancing example, I reflect on the stories shared about Janet Collins 20 years ago at the time of her death in 2003. Janet Collins was the first African American prima ballerina in this country.[1] She was born in 1917 and by the age of 15, she was encouraged and ready for a professional ballet company. She auditioned and was accepted by Lèonide Massine and the De Basil Ballet Russe Company. However, Janet Collins was told that she would need special roles or to dance in white face to disguise her blackness. She declined. She left in tears and vowed to continue perfecting her art so that race wouldn’t be an issue.
She certainly did that. In 1951, she broke barriers when she was named the principal dancer for the show Aida to acclaim. Following that triumph, she was named the first African American prima ballerina of the Metropolitan Opera in New York in 1952. Of course, we know the truth of her story is that despite her continued honing of her craft, race remained a persistent issue. When she traveled to the south because of laws in certain cities, her understudies had to perform her parts. Nevertheless, she persisted and went on to become a teacher at the prestigious School of American Ballet. Sometimes having the courage to be yourself can include trauma and wounds, but it is also the source of joy and connection. One of her students said, “she reveled in the movement… She was the embodiment of that when she danced.” Janet Collins moved through life as a dancer, and she didn’t let anyone stop her from being true to herself and living that life.
The courage to show the world your authentic self isn’t always easy, but it is always necessary to move towards to experience the life that is yours and yours alone to lead.
Storyteller and researcher Author Brené Brown writes and speaks a lot on the topic of the courage and the vulnerability required to show up as yourself in the world. She gives examples such as the following: It isn’t easy to be the first to say “I love you,” even if it is your truth, especially when the person says back, “That’s awesome.”[2]
Brené Brown shares that people’s experiences of being shamed and fear about things not working out hold them back from going for it – whatever “it” is – a career, a love, a dance class, and so on.
Brené Brown shares, “Connection is why we’re here. It’s what gives purpose and meaning to our lives. Connection is neurobiologically why we’re here.”
If pursuing a passion, means losing connection, we may choose self-protection over vulnerability. We also carry the stories of the times we risked and lost, and those stories can be self-perpetuating.
When Brené Brown interviews people about their experience of love, they will share stories of heartbreak. When she interviews people about belonging, they tell about times of exclusion. When she asks about connection, they tell her about disconnection.
I experience that. Sometimes newcomers will come here yearning to connect and belong, and they will carry with them the story of another place from which they disconnected… where they were told or felt they didn’t belong.
The challenge is that if we don’t show up and allow ourselves to really be seen for who we are, then we don’t have real connections… the ones we long for… the ones that bring our lives meaning and purpose.
According to Brené Brown’s research, it turns out that the people who are able to take the risks of vulnerability and failure over and over, are the ones who have a strong internal sense of worthiness, love, and belonging. They also extend that sense of worthiness, love, and belonging to everyone they meet. I would say they are Universalists at heart. This gives them the courage to tell their whole story, including the times when they mess up. When they aren’t good at something, they have compassion for the ways they are imperfect, and the ways others are imperfect too. They experience connection as a result of their authenticity – of showing up in the world as they are in the moment and not just who they think they should be or you think they should be.
This courage, compassion, and connection is also a source of creativity and joy.
If you can offer yourself and others permission to go big, to try something new, to risk failure –
You can try for something harder and more meaningful
You can be very creative
You can mess up and start again
You can be uncomfortable
You can say you’re sorry
You can grow connections and belonging
You can experience gratitude for what goes well
And gratitude for all you learn from what doesn’t go well.
You can experience joy in the process, in the failure, in the trying again,
And, of course, in the success.
If we can’t be vulnerable, if we must control and predict all of the outcomes, if we have to be certain we’ll be right, then we are living a smaller life than might be possible.
I think in these times of upheaval in society and constant change, we tell ourselves a story that we crave certainty. (A lot of us have expressed this as we emerge from the pandemic… we don’t want another change.) But, life is uncertain and change is a constant.
What if instead, we focused on the true story that human beings have achieved and innovated in spite of and because of imperfection. Imagine how many inventions exist because of happenstance. Human beings have survived and thrived in spite of and because of uncertainty and change.
When we add that essential wisdom that we are all worthy of love and belonging – something our Universalist forebears knew long before there were social scientists like Brené Brown researching variables like shame and vulnerability – Then, we can fulfill our individual calling to live an authentic life, and our collective calling to build the beloved community where this possibility is extended to all and the gifts of connection and creativity, compassion and joy multiply and magnify love.
I want to end by sharing a story that exemplifies courage and vulnerability and faithfulness to yourself and others. It is a story connected to today which is known as Four Chaplains Sunday, which happened 80 years ago.[3] It involves a rabbi, a priest, and two protestant ministers… and this is not the set-up of a joke.
It happened aboard the US Army Transport ship, the USAT Dorchester, a 5649-ton vessel that was crowded to capacity with 902 servicemen, merchant seamen, and civilian workers. They were moving across the icy waters of Newfoundland towards a base in Greenland. On the evening of February 2nd, 1943, the ship’s captain warned the men to go to sleep fully clothed and with lifejackets on because he knew they were moving through dangerous waters. He was right. Soon they received word that German U boats were in those waters.
But, they were only 150 miles from their destination, so they could taste arrival in their bones. Some men started to feel safe, and it was uncomfortable to sleep in those jackets, especially for those closest to the heat of the powerful engines. Many men took off their jackets despite the warnings, and some even took off their clothes.
In the middle of the night on February 3rd a periscope from a nearby German submarine spotted the Dorchester, and the orders were given to fire three torpedoes. One of the hits was decisive. It ripped the starboard side, “lights went out, steam pipes split, and bunks collapsed.” The ship was sinking fast. It would sink in 20 minutes.
Their communication equipment was down, so they couldn’t signal to the coastguard ships escorting them. It was total mayhem. People were beginning to jump overboard in a panic, and they were falling out of life rafts. Then out of the chaos came four preachers’ voices calling people to be calm, calling people to compassion, and calling them to cling to hope amidst despair – some of them would make it out alive.
It was Lieutenant George Fox a Methodist minister, Lieutenant Alexander Goode a Jewish rabbi, Lieutenant John Washington a Roman Catholic priest, and Reverend Lieutenant Clark Poling a Dutch Reform pastor.
Survivors testify that their voices and their actions led to greater calm and capacity for organizing. One survivor William Bednarik said this, “I could hear men crying, pleading, praying. I could also hear the chaplains preaching courage.” He testified that their voices were the only thing that kept him going.
A sailor from that ship tells the following story: He was running back towards his room to grab a pair of gloves and Rabbi Goode was in his path. The Rabbi said, “Never mind, I have two pairs of gloves. Here, take mine.” It was only later that the sailor realized that Rabbi Goode didn’t intend to make it off the ship, but rather to help as many others escape as possible.
The four chaplains stationed themselves by the life jackets. They were trying to hand them out in an orderly fashion. When there were no more life jackets left, they removed their own and gave them to four frightened young men.
They did not ask of those four men before they gave them their life jackets, “what is your religion?”
They did not ask, “what is your social standing?”
They did not ask, “are you called to do something important, and ready to achieve it?”
No, they just recognized in their eyes both fear and possibility… the possibility of a life well lived through making a difference.
The chaplains knew the difference they wanted to make that day, and so they gave away their life jackets.
Survivors shared that the last thing they saw when that ship was listing and tilting were the four chaplains linked arm and arm, praying and singing and preaching about courage and hope. 230 people survived, 672 perished.
We are called to be like those chaplains… We Unitarian Universalists, but also the larger ‘WE’ – we Protestants, Jews, Catholics, Hindus, Muslims, we who identify as secular and we people of goodwill. We are called to recognize that we are one human family on one boat, and we are called to pay attention to the fact that some of our siblings are sinking down.
And guess what? We don’t even have to give up our life jackets!
That is what this community is about, and it is what our 8th Principle implementation team is about. We recognize in all people fear and possibility, a longing for connection even amidst the experiences of disconnection. We are working to create a world where more and more people can be and become authentic, brave, and compassionate so that at the end of our days people will testify that the way we lived proved worth dying for. For we gave and received love. We said “I love you” in word and deed every chance we had.
So may it be and Amen.
[1] https://sab.org/scenes/ballet-history-trailblazer-janet-collins/
[2] “Call to Courage,” documentary by Brené Brown
[3] https://armyhistory.org/no-greater-glory-the-four-chaplains-and-the-sinking-of-the-usat-dorchester/
Topics: Courage