Preach-In on Global Warming

Preach-In on Global Warming

Aiken Unitarian Universalist Church

February 10 2013

Are you ready to tell your children they were born a generation too late? That there is nothing you can do to fight the destruction of the earth’s climate?





This is the way Javier Sierra begins his article “Were Your Children Born a Generation Too Late?”…and I must admit, it is a startling thought. Only…it is something that has crossed my mind before, and I have even said aloud to my oldest granddaughter, “When you get older, maybe you and your sisters and your cousin should consider not having any children.” She was shocked and asked me why I would say such a thing. And I replied, “because the world is going to be in such bad shape, it would be unfair to subject your children to that.”

And I do believe that, and how can I keep quiet when my grandchildren - as parents - would be subjecting their children to living in a world where global warming has destroyed much of the ecosystem that we happily enjoy now?

Yet, how can I not be aware that I am asking them to forego reproducing, to make that kind of sacrifice? Having children is one of the most beautiful, fulfilling things we as humans can do. It is something I struggle with as I assess the century to come.

To recognize that children born ten or twenty years from now will as adults have a much harder life – and maybe a very much poorer quality of life – may lead some people to make exactly that choice.

And we do – in the West – have that choice, but many people in poorer countries, whose high child mortality rates and whose need for enough willing workers to contribute to a family’s basic living, may not be so lucky.

Tim Flannery, author of The Weather Makers (New York: Grove Press, 2005), says

“we are the generation fated to live in the most interesting of times, for we are now the weather makers, and the future of biodiversity and civilization hangs on our actions.” (P306)

What a heavy responsibility weighing on our shoulders! It may well be that we humans only have a few years left in which to turn things around, so that our planet will remain habitable for our grandchildren’s children.

Climate change is a pressing matter that is also an ethical, moral, and spiritual issue for each of us to consider today. Because today across this country, ministers are holding a Preach-in for Global Warming, sponsored by Interfaith Power and Light, an organization that provides environmental justice resources to congregations in 40 states. I first became acquainted with this group’s Georgia chapter when Al Gore’s documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” was released in 2007, and Interfaith Power and Light sponsored congregational film screenings and discussions. You may recall that Al Gore won a Nobel Peace prize for his work, although his book and subsequent film were criticized by the right-wing, and his statistics and claims of a global warming crisis were condemned.

Diverting the urgent need to act by attacking the messenger – the logical fallacy called ad hominem – has no doubt had an effect on America’s failure to create a coherent and effective environmental policy. And religious leaders – even Richard Cizik, of the National Association of Evangelicals – have been urging the government to act. This morning, I want to ask you to remain hopeful, even in the face of denial and inaction by those who have the power to turn around the crisis that awaits should we do nothing.

I. global warming facts

So, let me give you four basic facts as offered by the Environmental Defense Fund’s website:

1.   There is scientific consensus on the basic facts of global warming. The most respected scientific bodies have stated unequivocally that global warming is occurring, and that people are causing it.

2.   Scientists are certain that the Earth is warming, and has been for 100 years.

3.   Human activity is causing the Earth to get warmer. Only CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions from human activities can explain the observed warming now taking place on Earth.

4.   The effects of warming can be seen today, through disappearing habitat, shrinking arctic sea ice, and extreme weather.

(www.edf.org/climate/global-warming-facts)

II. Storm Nemo

It’s ironic that many ministers in the northeast US who were planning a Preach-In like this one have had to cancel their services because of Storm Nemo this weekend! On Friday night a message went out from Interfaith Power and Light, that their prayers go out to all of those along the path of the storm, many of whom are still recovering from the effects of Superstorm Sandy; this morning we join our prayers to theirs. But it also pointed out that this is a teaching moment for us all:

“Nemo was a massive, possibly historic storm, or to use the Weather Channel’s language ‘epic.’ It dumped more three feet of snow in New England, underscoring the amplification effect of climate change. Forecasts warn of significant, widespread damage throughout the region, parts of which are still coping with the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy.”  (http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/article.html)

The email mentioned the “somewhat counter-intuitive nature of the public’s understanding of the relationship between extreme winter weather and global warming”, and asked that we be prepared to explain the links between this storm and global climate change.

So here goes:

“The past few years have been marked by unusually severe extreme weather characteristic of climate change. Global warming puts more energy into storms. Storm surge now rides on sea levels that have risen over the last century due to global warming. This amplifies flooding losses if and when a surge strikes. Storm surge now rides on sea levels that have risen over the last century due to global warming.

Nemo is part of the larger trend. In the last century, we have witnessed a 20 percent increase in the amount of precipitation falling in the heaviest rain and snow events, directly tied to climate disruption. The Northeast has been particularly vulnerable, experiencing a dramatic increase in one-day precipitation extremes during the October to March cold season.

Coastal flooding has also become more common as climate change drives sea levels higher. Off-shore water temperatures are higher than normal right now, adding to the potential for heavy precipitation by feeding Nemo with additional moisture.” (IPL email 2/8/2013)

And that ends the weather segment of the sermon!

III. WCC

A statement from a meeting in Doha of the World Council of Churches (www.oikoumene.org) two months ago starts with this exclamation: “The world cannot wait – climate change is happening!”

It’s worth reading a segment of this statement to get a sense of the urgency felt by this worldwide fellowship of churches, because it brings up another potentially life-threatening effect of climate change:

“As people of faith concerned for our sisters and brothers, we come to Doha extremely worried about food security as the severe shortages in crops face us with the prospect of horrific humanitarian crises that should be avoided. The present situation at world food markets, exemplified by sharp increases in wheat, soybean and corn prices compels leaders to act urgently to be sure that these outstanding high prices do not drive into an appalling scenario, harming tens of millions.”

The statement goes on to acknowledge that there is only a handful of nations who are large producers of staple food commodities – and this past year’s severe drought in two of them, the US and Russia, sent grain prices skyrocketing.

“Time has arrived,” the WCC says, “to promote more sustainable and climate resilient food production to urgently make more food available to sustain the human family especially in the most vulnerable societies, ill prepared to deal with food scarcity. Moreover, diversion of food stock for non-food purposes and financial speculation are unethical and immoral.”

We’ve seen how oil prices and the housing market have been manipulated for financial gain in the recent past – none of us would be surprised to see market speculation and other immoral tactics if food becomes another commodity of great value.

The WCC calls attention in this document to the ‘Principle of Intergenerational Equity’ that declares "the Parties should protect the climate system for the benefit of present and future generations of humankind."

(http://www.oikoumene.org/en/resources/documents/wcc-programmes/justice-diakonia-and-responsibility-for-creation/climate-change-water/statement-to-cop18-un-climate-change-conference-doha.html?print=1_%5C%5C%5C%5C%5C%5C%5C%22%20onfocus%3D%5C%5C%5C%5C%5C%5C%5C%22blurLink%28this%29%3B%2Fprint%3D1_%5C%5C%5C%5C%5C%5C%5C%22%20onfocus%3D%5C%5C%5C%5C%5C%5C%5C%22blurLink%28this%29%3B%2F)

Back to the idea that we hold the future for our children and their children, and “that our generation is probably the very last generation having it in our hands to still limit global warming to less than 2ºC while future generations won’t have this freedom of choice but will have to adapt to climate patterns we have left to them.”

“The World Council of Churches believes that the whole Earth community deserves to benefit from the bounties of creation. Faith communities are addressing climate change because it is a spiritual and ethical issue of justice, equity, solidarity, sufficiency and sustainability.”

V. Rebecca Parker – loving our neighbor

And not only that…it’s an issue of love. In this month associated with love, and a month when we in the Aiken UU church stand on the side of love, we emphasize the love we have for our congregation and our wider community through our acts of justice and equality – Grace Kitchen, the Black History Parade, the Welcoming Congregation service.

Rebecca Parker, in her book Blessing the World: What Can Save Us Now (Skinner House, 2006), says that what we are doing here in this church is what the world needs to do – have a ”spiritual and practical revolution that embodies love for neighbor and the world through sustaining structures of care and responsibility” (145).

How can we afford to wait until we face an emergency in dealing with climate change, instead of beginning now to prevent the worst of it? As ‘weather makers,’ to use the words of Tim Flannery, we can turn to each other for the solution. 

The Rev. Roger Bertschausen urges us to consider a ‘spiritual approach to global warming’ and says that maybe “part of the answer to the profound challenge of global warming is community. Maybe we need to figure out how in this world crowded with six billion people we can truly connect with other people. Maybe we need to turn to the people around us and get to know them. Maybe we need to realize we’re in this together.

And not just the people right around us we’ve turned to, but even the people way on the other side of the world. Experiencing connectedness with those around us is only significant if we also understand that the connectedness goes far beyond our small circle. Maybe with a deeper sense of community we’ll realize that we have enough.

We don’t need more cars, more electronic gadgets, more this, more that to be happy—especially when we realize that all too often our “more” is the direct result of other people’s “less.” (https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:TXwwxIX7xCwJ:www.fvuuf.org/index2.php?option%3Dcom_docman%26task%3Ddoc_view%26gid%3D26%26Itemid%3D208+global+warming+and+spirituality&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESh5dRnXHYuMsDG8fAiXk393M4K_XqeNqBxINfWMkhWl_JR_Cj3zA27x6MQ0UMKoUitwQlKVMzPxjgkMy-V9D1V3aFf43Ci-8_z8KhRRYkAg9aauoxZr6GuVaNPNN1dTfrzH37mU&sig=AHIEtbTXeE-5yhcPz2TM9Xn412P8zz4bJw )

Rebecca Parker reminds us that reverence is a form of love, and describes it as “a response to life that falls on its knees before the rising sun and bows down before the mountains” (146).

We can start to be reverent by living our first and seventh principles, to affirm and promote the worth and dignity of each person, and the interdependent web of all existence, of which we are a part. We see those principles written around us in this sanctuary, in our hymnals… and it is too easy to say ‘of course we believe those things’. Living them is a much harder thing to do!

We can begin by lessening our carbon footprints in the ways our children were looking at doing in the Time for All Ages. We can begin by telling the leaders of this city, this state, this country, that we want more, faster action to save our planet.

VI. Spiritual approach to GW

A spiritual approach to global warming, then, takes on urgency, but also meaning, as an act of reverence. This sanctuary for us is one place where we contemplate the reverence that we pay to those things, beliefs, and values we hold dear. But it’s out there where we – with our children and grandchildren - need to make a difference, because, as Mark Belletini’s “Communion Circle” meditation reading makes clear, “everything, for good or ill, is part of the shared whole.”

May we be the ones who make it so, Blessed Be, Amen.

Gaye Ortiz

2/10/2013

The Common Elements of Oppression

The Common Elements of Oppression

Aiken Unitarian Universalist Church

January 27 2013

Groucho Marx once said, “I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member.”

Two years ago, in 2011, the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations Commission on Appraisal published a report called Belonging: The Meaning of Membership. In it, the authors addressed a real disparity between the ideal of pluralism vs. the reality of UU congregations.

Mark Harris, in his book A Faith for a Few, described the problem: “While our principles affirm that we would welcome someone who is very different from us, many members feel we should recruit among those who match the demographic characteristics of our current membership. New members should fit in or be like us in order for us to grow, and therefore there is little challenge to confront change”(Mark Harris, http://www.harvardsquarelibrary.org/hsr/A-Faith-For-A-Few.php ). So obviously Groucho never met a UU congregation!

Unitarians of the 1950s and 60s saw the need for diversity, and in theory their faith was open to all, a religion for one world, to quote Kenneth Patton. But Harris observes that “the one world they promoted looked very much like a replication of themselves, and what is most striking in our desire to be diverse today is that our multiracial and multicultural populations are usually the adopted children in our church schools, or the few adults among us who have the same education, income and values that everyone else does. Our yearning for diversity does not touch differences of class.”

Many of us UUs are familiar with the slightly paternalistic assumption that people of different classes, cultural groups and ethnic backgrounds would not be attracted by our rational, liberal faith. The consequence, Harris says, is that “our public expression of a democratic faith open to all, does not find practical application among us, and therefore ‘does not always match the Principles we espouse’.” (http://www.harvardsquarelibrary.org/hsr/A-Faith-For-A-Few.php )

Are we UUs deceiving ourselves when we say we want to appeal to a variety of people, not just the white professional demographic? More seriously, are we UUs responsible in part for the oppression of any number of marginal peoples in our world today, even as we affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of each person?

Are we accountable to them because of our failings as people of faith? UU minister Wayne Arnason once addressed the UUA board on the issue of accountability, calling it a big theological issue. He spoke about a number of world faiths, including Christianity, that reject the idea of being accountable to anyone or anything but God – not secular authorities, only an authority which transcends this world.

He pointed out that Unitarian Universalism “does not require or covenant around a transcendent source of authority’…but “instead, as a covenantal religious community, we locate our accountability in this world, in our community of congregations, and in the values, principles, and traditions they represent.” (James Cone, “Theology’s Great Sin,” in Marjorie Bowens-Wheatley, Nancy Palmer Jones, SoulWork, 16) And so when we acknowledge our failings, we do so by being accountable to each other.

Thus, Arnason recalls, “over and over throughout our history we have seen the struggles that have ensued when we called ourselves to account based on values we said that we held but denied in practice” (16). He is recalling our UU heritage of working for social justice in areas like emancipation and suffrage, while finding that our own faith movement was complicit in those forms of oppression.

Wayne Arnason took part in a landmark UU debate on racism, which was initiated by a 3-day conference in 2001 attended by scholars, educators, ministers, theologians, and activists. The book Soul Work came out of that conference, and its authors tried to explore why there had been such resistance to seeing racism as a profound problem for religion.

Now you may be ready to say, Hold on, I have not been complicit in oppressing people of a different class or ethnicity or gender or sexuality. I don’t need to be involved in this Welcoming Congregation program, because I have no issue with LGBT people coming to our church, or becoming members.

The continuum from hatred to hostility to tolerance to acceptance to love is a broad one, and the point of the Welcoming Congregation program, like the point of that anti-racism conference 11 years ago, is to say, tolerance is not enough; even acceptance is not enough. If we as Unitarian Universalists say that love is the doctrine of this church, then we have to continue to work until that is the reality.

Oppression in the United States is alive and well, and the author Suzanne Pharr has given us a picture of how oppression is systematic and organized so as to keep power in the hands of a dominant few (from Homophobia: a Weapon of Sexism, 1988). The ‘isms’ of oppression that she identifies – sexism, racism, classism, ageism, to name a few – originate in the ‘defined norm’ of our American society.

What is the image of the defined norm? Basically, male, Caucasian, heterosexual, Christian, able-bodied, youthful, wealthy and well-resourced. Pharr is not saying that this is a majority of Americans, only that this is the type of person in our society who has the ability to assert control over others.

Pharr says that the way the defined norms are kept in place is through: the power of institutions, economic power, and the threat of violence from either individuals or institutions.

Just two examples of institutional status quo are the government – the lack of representation from minorities such as women – and the penal system – the excess of representation of minorities in the prison population.

As far as economic power goes, Pharr refers us to the ‘myth of scarcity,’ which pits us against each other because we are scared of losing the few resources we have or have control over – for instance, the poor use too much of our already limited resources. Just think about the myth of scarcity as it operates in the immigration issue: immigrants take our jobs, lower the standards of our schools, destroy our neighborhoods and lower our property value.

And then think about how economic oppression keeps most of us from becoming involved in the democratic process – should we wish to run for office, the cost is prohibitive, except for wealthy citizens.

Pharr claims that, in order to maintain the status quo, the tools of oppression wielded by those in power include the following three tactics:

First, the threat of violence – historically a very effective tool! Remember the decimation of Native Americans in the westward expansion of this country?

Closer to our own contemporary experience of patriarchy and heterosexual dominance, two examples are domestic violence, which statistics show continues to occur to unacceptable levels; and the terrible epidemic of sexual assaults on female members of the US military. And the gay population has had its share of martyrs, from Harvey Milk to Matthew Shepard, whose threat to the dominant norms of sexuality was dealt with through tragic acts of murder.

The second tool of oppression is the use of labels of exclusion, like ‘the Other’ – those who in someway are lacking in comparison to the norm; those who are seen as abnormal, deviant, inferior, and those who are not seen or invisible. ‘A Day without a Mexican’ is a film I show to my class in Intercultural Communication – it was made in 2004 as a satire. What would happen to California if all the Mexicans – who do all the invisible work of building houses, picking crops, caring for children – were to vanish suddenly? The film ends with the collective confession by the Anglo population that they had indeed treated Mexicans as invisible.

And a third tool of oppression is tokenism…those minority members who are ‘on show’ as a refutation of discrimination, and who find themselves in a double bind, as in the 1950s, when blacks in authority positions in government and law enforcement had to face hostility and isolation from both their cultural community and the Caucasian majority in which they worked.

These and other tactics of oppression divide and conquer – they focus on individual achievement, and thus keep groups from effectively organizing.

And so, because we have joined together and exist as an organization within a structural status quo, we cannot help but be affected by our perceptions, assumptions, and expectations of the defined norm - remember that Mark Harris described our desire to be diverse, sitting awkwardly alongside our preference for people who will ‘fit in’ with our membership demographics.

How will we revitalize our commitment to diversity? We need to stop cooperating with the perpetuation of oppression and instead witness to a larger good. We are called by our covenant with each other to live up to the seven principles that we affirm and promote so as to make this a better and more just world. We are challenged to stand on the side of love.

We here at AUUC are on the journey to becoming a Welcoming Congregation. Just being aware of the pervasive nature of structural oppression is another step we can take on that journey. But once we are aware, what do we do? Theologian Rebecca Parker also took part in the anti-racism discussion described in the book SoulWork. She suggests that we express our feelings. Yes, that suggestion may send chills down the intellectualized UU – and we are legion!

But Parker points out that we may become anesthetized and numbed to our feelings about the various oppressions that we are immersed in. The status quo, the social structures in which we live, may cause us to suppress our feelings without really knowing it; Parker calls this the “social construction of heartlessness”. Feelings, Parker says, are as important as thinking about racism and its consequences, sexism and its consequences, classism, ageism and all the other isms.

That is why I close today by asking you to reflect on the two short quotations I’ve used in this service: the first, from the Letter of Paul to the Romans, is written at the top of the Order of Service. It echoes Rebecca Parker’s desire for us to feel: “Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor.”

The second, the meditation from Rumi’s poem “Say Yes Quickly,” recalls the responsibility each of us has, through our bond of covenant, to be faithful to each other:

“If you are here unfaithfully with us,


you’re causing terrible damage.


If you’ve opened your loving to God’s love,


you’re helping people you don’t know


and have never seen.”

May we be the ones who make it so, Blessed be, Amen.

Gaye W. Ortiz

January 2013

Jingle Bells and Harps of Gold

Jingle Bells and Harps of Gold

Aiken UU Church

December 23 2012

Did Unitarians invent Christmas? Well, maybe the answer is a surprising one…we could say, at the very least, that Unitarians have influenced the way we Americans celebrate it. Because of four remarkable American Unitarians that we’ll hear about this morning, our holidays will be merry and bright, if not white!

Four years ago Doug Muder wrote an article called “The ghosts of Unitarian Christmas” in UU World; in it, he claimed that Unitarians reinvented Christmas:

“Unitarians didn’t just inherit Christmas from the orthodox Christian sects… To a large extent we invented it, or reinvented it. For years the orthodox didn’t know what to do with Christmas. Easter was the big religious holiday. In England, Christmas looked more like Saturnalia than anything Christian.

The actual caroling tradition was more like trick-or-treating than the way we picture it now. Rowdy mobs of the poor would stand outside the houses of the rich and intimidate them into offering food and drink. The Puritans hated the whole idea so much that the Massachusetts Bay Colony would fine you for celebrating Christmas.”

http://www.uuworld.org/life/articles/124481.shtml

There was in fact a ban on Christmas that existed as law for 22 years, from 1659 until it was revoked in 1681 by an English-appointed governor, Sir Edmund Andros, who also revoked a Puritan ban against festivities on Saturday night. But even after the ban was lifted, the majority of colonists still shunned celebrations. Samuel Sewell, whose diary of life in Massachusetts Bay Colony was later published, made a habit of watching the holiday—specifically how it was observed—each year:

 "Carts came to town and Shops open as is usual. Some, somehow, observe the day; but are vexed, I believe, that the Body of the People profane it, and, blessed be God! no Authority yet to compell them to keep it," Sewell wrote in 1685.

“The Puritans who immigrated to Massachusetts to build a new life had several reasons for disliking Christmas. First of all, it reminded them of the Church of England and the old-world customs, which they were trying to escape. Second, they didn't consider the holiday a truly religious day. December 25th wasn't selected as the birth date of Christ until several centuries after his death.”

http://masstraveljournal.com/places/boston-cambridge/when-christmas-was-banned-boston

 Charles Follen

Doug Muder says that the first change in American celebrations of Christmas came in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1832, in the home of Charles Follen, the Unitarian minister and abolitionist. He went on to found a congregation in Lexington that’s named after him today. Why is he famous? For bringing a tradition from his native Germany to America in 1832 - the first Christmas tree in New England. Now no home would be complete in its Christmas decorations without this ancient pagan symbol, and the White House lighting of the national tree by the president is just as much an American custom as pardoning the Thanksgiving turkey.

Maria Child

The next Unitarian to contribute to the American celebration of Christmas is a woman named Lydia Maria Child. In 1844 she wrote the poem "A Boy's Thanksgiving Day", which became better known as “Over the River and through the Woods.” It celebrates her childhood memories of visiting her Grandfather's House.

 It’s sometimes sung with lines about Christmas replacing Thanksgiving, so that the line "Hurrah for Thanksgiving Day!" becomes "Hurrah for Christmas Day!" The song reflects wintertime in New England in the early 19th century, which at that time “was enduring the Little Ice Age, a colder era with earlier winters.” The picture that she paints of a family Christmas has become the iconic image that we all to this day aim to recreate, as we endure travel miseries to gather from across the country to share the holidays with our families.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Over_the_River_and_Through_the_Wood

Edmund Sears

The third Unitarian who changed the face of Christmas for America was a minister who wrote lyrics that paint a beautiful picture of a midnight scene in Bethlehem. “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear” was written by Edmund Hamilton Sears in 1849, and we aren’t sure if the carol was first sung at his home by members of his congregation in Wayland, Massachusetts, or in the Sunday school of the Quincy Massachusetts Unitarian church.

 But the tune we sing it by now was written a year after the lyrics by an organist from New York named Richard Storrs Willis.

James Pierpont

The final Unitarian whose music also impacted our Christmas tradition was based further south than Massachusetts – James Lord Pierpont, whose brother John in 1853 became the last minister before the Civil War to serve the Unitarian church in Savannah. In 1857 James wrote a song called “One Horse Open Sleigh” – and in 1859 he reissued it under a new name: “Jingle Bells.” Sleighing was a popular activity of the time, and it’s suggested that while in Savannah as music director of his brother’s Unitarian church, Pierpont was homesick and wrote the song about his younger days in New England.

Like many other important American songwriters, Pierpont didn’t get rich from "Jingle Bells" at the time, but later, "In the period of 1890 through 1954,“Jingle Bells” was in the top 25 most recorded songs in history."

The recognition of his composition came posthumously when Pierpont was elected into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970. And more locally, in 1997, Armstrong Atlantic State University in Savannah, Georgia established a James Lord Pierpont Music Scholarship Fund.

Looking deeper

Charles Follen, Maria Child, Edmund Sears, and James Pierpont – we as UUs should be justly proud of these 4 Unitarians as we celebrate Christmas. Even though there is one other Unitarian whose contribution to Christmas is hugely important – Charles Dickens - they have made the holiday uniquely American.

But just as Dickens in “A Christmas Carol” promoted the brotherhood and sisterhood of all people, and universal values like compassion, friendship, and family, the contributions of Follen, Child, Sears, and Pierpont also come to us undergirded by equally strong convictions and a desire to create a world of peace and justice.

Let’s look a little more deeply into the stories of these four.

Unitarianism in the America of the early 19th century stressed the importance of rational thinking, and a personal, direct relationship with God. By 1825, Unitarian ministers had formed a denomination called the American Unitarian Association. Its members were outspoken on issues such as education reform, prison reform, moderation in temperance, ministry to the poor, and the abolition of slavery.

The Reverend Lucinda Duncan, minister of the Follen Community Church in East Lexington Massachusetts, founded by Charles Follen in 1839, said of him: “Follen has left us a legacy of social action based on the principle of freedom.” Charles Follen was born in Germany in 1796, where aristocratic rule was reinstated following the end of the Napoleonic Wars and French domination. He was a student who joined in the revolutionary movement for reform, and a few years later as a professor he left for America, where he became Harvard’s first German teacher in 1825. 

Follen was influenced by Boston Unitarians like William Ellery Channing and began to study for the ministry. He married in 1828, became an American citizen and a father in 1830. In December 1832, wanting to recreate the beauty of a decorated tree from his childhood years in Germany, Follen went out into the woods and cut down a small fir tree. He then set it in a tub and hung from its branches small dolls, gilded eggshells, and paper cornucopias filled with fruit, and set candles in it. Harriet Martineau, an English Unitarian and journalist who was visiting Boston, described what happened next:

"It really looked beautiful; the room seemed in a blaze, and the ornaments were so well hung on that no accident happened, except that one doll's petticoat caught fire. There was a sponge tied to the end of a stick to put out any… blaze, and no harm ensued. I mounted the steps behind the tree to see the effect of opening the doors. It was delightful. The children poured in, but in a moment every voice was hushed. Their faces were upturned to the blaze, all eyes wide open, all lips parted, all steps arrested."

This was not the first Christmas tree in America, but after he set the example in New England of decorating it, it became a widespread popular custom. And the Follen Community Church commemorates this by lighting a tree every Christmas on the church lawn…but it also works hard “to remain true to Follen's example as a social activist.” Here’s the untold story: “As an American, Follen took up the fight against slavery with the same spirit the younger Follen protested the injustices in his native country.

His uncompromising abolitionist principles once lost him a job as pastor of All Souls Church in New York City; he was outspoken in his stand against slavery at a time when abolition was still highly controversial, even in Massachusetts. Harvard did not renew his professorship in 1835, and his wife later said that it was his outspoken views that cost him his Harvard position.” http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/1996/12.12/ProfessorBrough.html

Taking a position as minister for the small congregation of East Lexington, Massachusetts, he designed the octagonal church which still stands, laid out so that the minister would not be elevated above his parishioners.

Except that tragically, Follen did not live to preach in that church. He was killed in 1840 at the age of 44 in a fire on board the steamship Lexington while crossing Long Island Sound.

Maria Child was another Unitarian abolitionist, and also became a Unitarian as a young adult; she chose the new name Maria to go by at this transformative stage of her life. She became an advocate of women’s suffrage, but her work as an author brought her fame at a young age: she wrote several controversial books, the first being a novel about racial intermarriage at the age of 22. When she was 31 she published “An Appeal in Favor of That Class of Americans Called Africans,” which became the most influential anti-slavery non-fiction book ever written.

She turned her attention in later years to Native American advocacy, working ceaselessly for the rights of native people to have good education, to speak native languages, and practice their own religions. She passionately opposed the American government's policy to forcibly drive the Cherokee people from their tribal lands. When she was 66, she wrote “An Appeal for the Indians,” a controversial call for government officials and religious leaders to bring justice to American Indians. She inspired other advocates with her writing, which also led to the founding of the U.S. Board of Indian Commissioners and the creation of the Peace Policy during the presidency of Ulysses S. Grant, although nothing came of that policy.

So when we remember Maria Child for writing the poem “Over the River and through the Woods,” it is such a small part of her impressive lifetime of achievement and advocacy.

Someone whose song lyrics are seen as prophetic is Edmund Sears, who wrote “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear” in 1849. Unlike the first verse with its recreation of the scene in Bethlehem when Jesus was born, the final verse focuses on the hope that peace on earth will prevail:

“Yet with the woes of sin and strife

         the world has suffered long;

Beneath the angel strain have rolled

         two thousand years of wrong;

And man, at war with man, hears not

         the love song which they bring;

O hush the noise, ye men of strife

         and hear the angels sing.”

The Reverend Edmund Sears served a small congregation in Wayland, Massachusetts in the 1830s, but when he moved to a larger congregation he suffered a breakdown after 7 years. He then moved back to Wayland, where he wrote the carol. Sears was also a fervent abolitionist during the Civil War, but it is thought that the song refers to the hope of peace following the Mexican-American War, which had just ended in 1849.

As adventurous as Sears was fragile, James Pierpont was the son of a Unitarian minister, and could trace his family lineage back to Charlemagne and beyond to England under William the Conqueror. He was sent to boarding school when a young boy, and a few years later ran away to sea for a short time. As an adult, he had a "Gold Rush" adventure, leaving his wife and children in Massachusetts. He returned to Massachusetts but soon joined his brother in Savannah, giving organ and voice lessons to support himself while organist and music director of the Unitarian church. A year after his first wife died of tuberculosis, he married the daughter of Savannah’s mayor.

In 1859, after publishing the song “One Horse Open Sleigh” and re-releasing it as “Jingle Bells” the following year – neither time a hit – Pierpont saw the Unitarian church close due to its position on abolition. But while his brother returned north, James Pierpont stayed in Savannah with his wife and, remarkably, joined the First Georgia Cavalry when war broke out. He even wrote music for the confederacy, but maybe the soldiers on both sides sang “Jingle Bells” on cold December nights while they were camped out before a battle.

 His father, in contrast, served as a chaplain with the Union army in Washington DC. After the war James Pierpont moved to Valdosta and then to Florida, where he died in 1893. His family has one more connection of note – his nephew was the financier J. Pierpont Morgan, said to have more money than the U.S. Treasury.

The Unitarian Church in Savannah still calls itself the “Jingle Bells” Church, but since the roots of the song trace to both Massachusetts and Georgia, there are historical markers in both states. This, Martha Boltz writes in an article on the Civil War, means that the song represents the War Between the States in a very literal way.

But here’s a real achievement for Pierpont: “Jingle Bells” was the first song — and the first Christmas carol — performed in outer space, when astronauts Wally Schirra and Tom Stafford sang it on December 16, 1965, during the flight of Gemini 6.

The Civil War: “Jingle Bells,” sung by the North and the South at Christmas http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/civil-war/2012/dec/12/civil-war-jingle-bells-sung-north-and-south-christ/

So “Jingle Bells” may not be the most profound song – it may not have the nostalgic picture of family warmth and happiness at Christmas that Maria Child’s song does, and it may not be a prophetic call for world peace like Sears’ carol is – and its author may not have been the most noble of advocates for peace and justice - but along with the Christmas tree of Charles Follen, it may be the most popular symbol of Christmas in this country.

And so that’s why we can say that Unitarians invented Christmas…and merry Christmas to all of you.

Gaye Ortiz

December 23 2012

Images:

http://www.wildernesswife.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/wassailing.jpg

http://www.harvardsquarelibrary.org/UIA%20Online/images/follen1.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/74/Lydia_Maria_Child.jpg

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEireNh9qukHWeYHM-VoOhjkaUp4h5zSenH_LNYNPmb8oNOQ78N_Blp1-LobOlJwE2JpCLHsdA9DghXApjjFmbgbHNLf7C81PDZnBRwnK6AqDYX7w3BbLlPyif-J6I3fK5uuup_BYo1t1m0/s1600/Edmund+Hamilton+Sears.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/81/Pierpont_Jingle_Bells_Savannah.jpg/350px-Pierpont_Jingle_Bells_Savannah.jpg