"Impulse for Community"

Rev. Cassie Howe
July 11, 2010

“Come live with me!” wrote 200,000 people on hurricane housing.org in the wake of Katrina. Come live with me! Such a joyful proclamation of human connection.  In the midst of disaster, we find beloved community… with nothing to hold onto, we touch an outstretched hand.
In her book, A Paradise Built In Hell, Rebecca Solnit chronicles five major disasters- starting in 1906 with the San Francisco earthquake and ending with Hurricane Katrina. She says that disasters present a unique opportunity to learn about human nature. In a disaster, everything we know, everything we are used to, is gone. In these times, how do we respond? Contrary to popular belief of a human core that is selfish and greedy, we have an impulse for community. Through countless stories of impromptu soup kitchens and efforts by many risking their lives to save another, she concludes that our overwhelming response is of altruism and mutual aid.
The hard truth is that while thousands of people got into their boats- some coming from as far away as Texas- and rescued people stranded on rooftops and highway overpasses, thousands more died because of the opposite affection. Believing that the people of New Orleans were fundamentally dangerous, police and other officials prevented the evacuation of the many left behind.
Beliefs matter. In this case, what you believed could end up in another life saved or lost. What you believed marked the difference of walking around with a gun or an open hand. Beliefs impact what we do, they shape who we are. We become what we believe.

We become what we believe. In Emerson’s words, we become what we worship. Our Universalist ancestors believed this- they knew that how we viewed God was how we saw ourselves. Their decision to worship a loving God was pragmatic as well as genuine. Believe in a loving God, become a loving people.
I grew up attending Wallingford United Methodist Church- a liberal, reconciling congregation in Seattle. In the UMC, to be reconciling means you are publicly affirming and welcoming to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people. Social justice, especially around GLBTQ rights, was a big part of the church’s identity. I have memories of marching in Seattle’s pride parade behind church banners and watching my ministers speak at conferences urging the denomination to change its discriminatory policies. We believed that God’s love escapes no one- but we didn’t just believe it, we tried very hard to be it. We practiced it in how we treated each other and how we lived our daily lives.
A belief doesn’t have power unless it is practiced. Rebecca Solnit writes of religion as practice.  She writes, “there is another sense of religion not as community or belief, but as practice, as a craft of refining the self into something more adequate to the circumstances we face, more able to respond with grace and generosity, to achieve less temporary liberation.” (115 Solnit).
Practice makes permanent. We become what we believe, we become what we practice.

When I started at Starr King School for the Ministry, one of my classes was the foundations seminar, required for entering students. One of the first things we did was create a spoken meditation that we all committed to saying on our own, every day. In it we named each of the twenty-five people in the class, and followed each name with the words, “in this love.” There were two results from this practice- one was personal- as someone who tends to go go go all the time, I found stopping for five minutes every day helped me to focus. The second was communal. We really bonded as a class. Several friends who had entered before me said we were more bonded than other classes who had not committed to such a practice.

James Luther Adams, a leading prophetic voice for liberal religion writes, “It is not reason alone, but reason inspired by “raised affections” that is necessary for salvation.” (55 Adams) There’s that sticky word- I like to think of salvation in its root form, salve. A salve is something you put on an open wound to help it to heal. In this sense, salvation is a form of healing. Adams says that if we want to contribute to the healing of society, reason alone doesn’t cut it. We need each other too. We need one another to practice our care, to raise our affections.

I remember a story the Rev. Rob Hardies shared during a talk at General Assembly a few years back. The story took place in a New England city and started with a middle-aged man who, with his life in shambles, was planning his suicide. On a cold winter morning, he was walking to the subway tracks- the place he had chosen to end his life. Through his scarf and hat covering his ears, a little voice interrupted his hurried pace. “Welcome!” the voice said. He looked up and there were open doors and a person was standing there, assuming he was entering the building. Not wanting to embarrass the speaker, the man decided to enter. It turned out he had entered a UU church on a Sunday morning- just in time for worship. In that hour surrounded by people and song, something shifted in this man. He never did go to the tracks.

Even the simple practice of opening a door and speaking a “welcome” makes a big difference. This is the exception in a culture that places the individual over and against community. These acts save lives and bring us closer to what it means to be alive.

Greeting is one of the ways congregations practice what they preach. There have been many days where I have stepped through the front doors of a church with a heavy heart. Not knowing a thing about me, the greeters smile and say “welcome.” Their simple gesture of kindness lightens my burdens and brings me back to the present moment. After I leave, I try to carry that high regard and enthusiasm to the grocery store, to fellow pedestrians, and to myself.

Adams writes about raising our affections. What does that mean? I imagine raising our awareness, opening our responses. Adams describes it as a vitality that breaks down old forms of behavior to create new patterns of community (55-56 Adams). It is vital, core to life.
When we go to the doctors, what do they do to see if we are healthy? First they check our vital signs and our responses. With a hammer, they tap on our knee. With a flashlight, they observe if our pupils dilate. A person who is not responding is thought to be dead. To respond is what it is to be alive, to be human.
In a society so concerned about health and safety, we sure spend a lot of effort cutting off the very things that give us health. In Katrina, police prevented people from going out to save others. Western culture puts a stigma on extended families that live together. Freedom has become synonymous with extreme independence- free from obligation or commitment. But all these things deny part of our human need to respond.

When I reflect on the times I’ve been happiest- it’s when I’m responding to the needs around me. When I was doing Americorps in Skagit County in Western Washington, there was heavy rain and the Skagit River was flooding. The Americorps team called off our normal workday and went down to Mt. Vernonm the town where people were sandbagging the riverbank. We worked the whole day- taking breaks to eat pizza donated by local restaurants. Sweat and constant effort didn’t exhaust me as much as it energized me. I remember the feeling of connection with people I never did learn their names. Everyone was jumping in the backs of trucks of strangers- There was a freedom in focusing on the here and now- present to something larger than my single life.

In disaster, our need for community, for a sense of belonging, becomes urgent. Helping another is more a way to know we exist than any sense of sacrifice. As a practice, religious community shapes this sense of responsiveness not just during a disaster, but in our daily lives.

In talking with Tom about this service, one of the things he brought up was the covenanting process Northern Hills has done this last year. Through potluck suppers and more formal meetings, you’ve explored the ways you want to be in relationship with each other. He shared the covenant with me. I love your first statement: “We, the members of Northern Hills Fellowship, covenant to create a Beloved Community in which the following statements are a reality.” You are creating- not just thinking about or discussing, but making real what you hold as worthy- right here and now.
At its core, a covenant is not a verbal agreement, but a practice. This is even stated in the very document that our UU congregational structure is based from- the Cambridge Platform of 1648. In defining the principles of a covenantal church life, it says, “[through] agreement and consent, they do express by their constant practice…” (80 Hardies).
In that same decade, a puritan by the name of Richard Mather adds an emphasis on the communal quality of covenant- He describes a living covenant as “constant and frequent acts of communion” (81 Hardies). By practicing community, we become a more responsive people.

It is this mutuality that is so inspiring in Solnit’s book. Story after story she spoke of the joy, not the drudge, of responding to what is around us. While lined with hope, she has a challenging message. Normally, our economy operates from an idea of human selfishness and greed. Aside from disasters and some forms of religion, practices of affection and community are deemed inessential, unimportant, minor.
Adams writes that reason inspired by raised affections is necessary for salvation. He continues, “But the raising of affections is a much harder thing to accomplish than the education of the mind. It is especially difficult among those who think they have found security.”
Adams speaks to me. How has my sense of security dulled my commitment to community? There are lots of times when I have used church more as a personal comfort than for healing and change. As a white woman from an upper-middle class background, I have not had to fight for my basic survival. At the same time, I know working for peace and justice is important to me. But why? Is it to feel good? To surround myself with friends?
I will struggle with this question my whole life. For now, my answer is this: Sometimes we don’t know why we do things. But we do them anyway because we know it’s right. We know that what we love deserves attention. What we practice, we become.
 
When the people of New Orleans grabbed life jackets and food and got into their boats to seek out stranded souls, they were attentive to the needs around them. When people from all over the US got on their computers and offered hurricane survivors a place to live, they were responding to an impulse for community.
Thankfully, we do not experience natural disasters on a daily basis. But there are opportunities for the same kind of response every day of our lives. Religious community helps us practice. Just like we practice the ABC’s to become literate, we practice community to become human. As we listen and as we speak, we practice. In acting for peace and justice, we practice. In committee meetings and in worship, we practice. We open our senses. We raise our affections.
Let us respond to the beauty and the tragedy around us. Let us bring these things in. Brokenness and wholeness are welcome here. May we sanctify these things with our love, and bring this care and responsibility back to the daily rhythm of our lives.

Works Cited:

1. Adams, James Luther. On Being Human Religiously. Boston: Beacon Press, 1976.
2. Hardies, Robert, ed. Blessing the World: What Can Save Us Now? Boston:

Skinner House Books, 2006.

3. Solnit, Rebecca. A Paradise Built in Hell. New York: Viking, 2009.