When You Have More Than Enough

Once upon a time there was a family. Maybe this family had not quite enough to eat.  Or maybe they had just about enough. Or … perhaps they had MORE than enough.

You might not have been able to tell.  THEY might not have been able to tell. Sometimes it’s hard to tell if you have enough or not.  It’s hard not to want more or different things than you have.

In any case, this family came together one autumn day for a celebration.  A feast. A time of gratitude.

They gathered, as we have done, around a table.  There was food. There was drink. There were flowers to remind them of beauty.

And then there was a call from the gate outside their door.  

“Hello!  We’re hungry and thirsty and we see you have a feast.  May we come in?”

Well, the family didn’t know at first how to answer.

Who were these people at the gate?  Was it safe to let these people in? Did they have enough to share?  Was there room?

But they remembered.  

They remembered that most of them had come to this family, to this celebration, from someplace else.

They remembered that even they, who were there at that table, had not always been kind to each other.  There had been times when they hurt each other. There were still times when they made each other sad or angry or afraid.  There is no way to make life completely safe.

They remembered times when others had shared with them, even when the others might not have had quite enough of their own.  

They remembered when each new member of the family had been born, or come to stay, or married in.  They remembered that they had always found a way to make room.

And they remembered an old, old saying: when you have more than you need, it is better to build a longer table than to build a higher fence.

We have enough, they said.  We might have more than enough.  We are many, and strong, and we can hold a safe space here in our home for all who come.

And so they went out of their door and to the gate in the fence.  They opened the gate. They invited the people who were there in. Inside, they pulled out another table and made the space for these newcomers.  They covered it with a cloth. And the newcomers set upon it a dish full of something fragrant and delicious which was strange and wonderful to the family.  Everybody shared. And there was enough.

I want us to notice that we only heard one part of that story.  We heard the story of the people who were in the family in the house, ready to feast.  We didn’t hear the story of the people at the gate, wanting to come in. We don’t know who they are or why they are there or what they bring to the table other than the strange and wonderful food!  So when you hear other stories this Thanksgiving season, I want you to think about whose stories they are. And whose stories they aren’t. And what those other stories might have been.

Resilience and the Fire

RESILIENCE - THE FIRE

Main Line Unitarian Church began 60 years ago this year, in 1958.  But it didn’t start in its current building.

It started in a building about 3 miles away in Berwyn, which had been built by the Methodists. 

   

MLUC rented the building for a while, but then after only 2 years, they decided to buy this land, here, where we are now.

On this land was a mansion.  It had 17 rooms plus a ballroom big enough to seat 125 people.  It needed a lot of work, but within another year, the church opened its new doors.  And a few years later, when our congregation was 10 years old, they built even more space to hold their big, busy church.

But MLUC isn't in that mansion now.  The building now is only 26 years old, not 60.  Here is the story of why.

About thirty years after the congregation moved into the mansion, they decided they wanted to make their building bigger again, and fancier.  They raised lots of money and they hired a building company, and work began … and then disaster struck.

One night, a fire started.  As far as anybody could tell, it started in some old electrical wiring.  By the time anyone saw the flames, it was too late to save most of the old mansion.

The firefighters came - LOTS of them - and they sprayed and sprayed and sprayed water, but everything inside the stone walls burned.  Some of the stone walls themselves were damaged by the heat and had to be torn down later. Nobody could go into the building until the fire department said it was safe. The congregation certainly couldn’t come to worship or their religious education classes or hold meetings in the building.

Several things happened next.

One thing that happened was that MLUC was given help.  The Episcopal priest from the church just down the road came to them and said, “you can meet in our building for as long as you need to until you have recovered from this terrible fire!”

Another thing that happened was that members had to grieve what they had lost and plan what they wanted to do next.  There were lots and lots of meetings to talk about what happened and decide whether to re-build here or move somewhere else.

And finally, the congregation made a decision and moved forward to re-build.  

MLUC found out that their church was resilient.

When something is resilient it means that it can bounce back and keep growing even after something bad or damaging happens to it.

Some of us know what it’s like to be resilient, because something terrible has happened in our lives and we have gotten help, and we’ve grieved what we’ve lost, and we’ve made decisions and been able to move forward in our lives.  Some kids, some grownups.

Some of us maybe have had terrible things happen but haven’t been able to move all the way through them yet.  There is still time. Sometimes the process of becoming resilient takes a long time. But as long as you are alive, there is hope.  You can get help, you can grieve what is lost, and you can move forward, someday.

Maybe you have been really lucky, and nothing very terrible has happened to you. Sometimes resilience isn’t about dealing with one big terrible thing but just being able to keep going when little yucky or unhappy things happen.  

One symbol of being resilient is the Phoenix.  Some of you might know about the phoenix from Harry Potter, or from learning about mythology.  A Phoenix is a magical bird which is born from flame, lives its life, and then bursts into flames and turns into an egg - which hatches out a new Phoenix.

MLUC's church banner has a phoenix rising up out of the flaming chalice.  It shows that the building might have burned, but MLUC is still here and it is still a church with loving hearts, open minds, and helping hands.

Lydia Netzer's 10 Rules for Parenting Without Regrets

Blog Post: 10 Rules for Parenting Without Regrets

Choosing Books for Change (or At Least Common Decency)

Today at work I had occasion to go through a box of picture books, sorting out what to keep for our church library and what to get rid of one way or another.

Now usually, when I do this sort of thing, the 'get rid of' books go to the thrift store.

Today I found one that is not, in fact, going to the thrift store.  It's going in the trash, since it's a hardcover and I don't know that the binding would recycle particularly well.  And it's not because it's moldy or water damaged.  It's because it's horrifying.

Published in 1963, Fireflies in the Night by Judy Hawes, illustrated by Kazue Mizumura seems like a fun little old-fashioned book.



It has some neat factoids about fireflies.  It also has this illustration:

 That is a BIG NO.  People in Africa (and their descendants in the diaspora) are not bug-eyed apes and it's not okay to depict them as such.  I don't want anybody picking that book up to read at random and will certainly not be suggesting it for a story time about bugs, nature, or anything else.

Also going in the trash:  Little Hiawatha from Wall Disney Productions from 1978.

 This is full of fairly extreme and disrespectful stereotypes about Native Americans.  Also not something I want other people to come across.

There are a few books that will be going to the thrift store.  My criteria for keeping a book are:

• Must have something to do with a topic we might have a class or worship service about (that is a pretty broad range of topics.)
• If humans are shown, they must be a diverse range of humans (in terms of race, sex/gender, age, etc.) unless there is some actual reason connected to the story why not (for example, I don't demand that a story about a family necessarily include racial diversity within the family.)
• Language should be at least respectful of the people it is referring to - I don't necessarily require the most up-to-date terminology at all times.

Going to the thrift store today:

Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star and Other Favorite Bedtime Rhymes by Sanja Rescek, 2006:    This one has an all-White cast, for no apparent reason.  And I'm sure we have/there are much better, more reflective of human diversity, illustrated versions of nursery rhymes.

Spot Goes to the Beach by Eric Hill, 1985, is going to the thrift store because it's not terribly topical.  These books are fun, though, and they do make some attempt at artistic inclusion:

 Spot and his family and friends are a variety of colors, species, and have different abilities and interests.

All this made me think about really GOOD picture books and what I look for in them.

There are some books that are going all out for diversity and affirming each person for who they are, no matter what.  That's great!  An example I walked into my office and pulled off my shelf is It's Okay to Be Different by Todd Parr, 2001.  

That's not the only kind of book we want to have, though, because there are many stories in life and they are not all about being different.  Or even if they are, they don't all need to slam you upside the head with it.

There are lots of books that do a good job of showing diversity as something that just is, including Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes, 1991:

 In fact, this story is about diversity, feeling different, and feeling the same, but there are a lot of excellent books on lots of topics that set the norm that there are people of all sorts everywhere.  See how much variety there is in Chrysanthemum's classmates in how they look (white, gray, and brown fur) and who they are (different approaches to posing for a picture!)?  I have books that do a good job of this that are about construction and feelings and dance and all kinds of topics.

Finally, there are books that show one kind of person but they do that for a good reason, because the story is naturally about one type of person.  There are books about being deaf that show mostly deaf people using sign and hearing aids etc.  There are books about mommies that show mostly women (I'd love one that shows trans women as on the spectrum of normalcy, although I don't know that I have one ...).  And there are books that show people mostly or entirely of one race or ethnicity.  A good example is The Great Kapok Tree: A Tale of the Amazon Rain Forest by Lynne Cherry, 1990.  Since the vast majority of people who live in the Amazon Rain Forest have darker skin and many have mixed Native and European ancestry, I think this guy looks just right for this story: