"The Nature of the Scorpion" - the Reverend Alison Hyder

September 8, 2002 - the Unitarian Universalist Meeting House of Provincetown

Nothing is right
that does not work.
We have believed it all:
improvement, progress,
bigger, better, immediate,
fast.
The whole junk.

It was our essence that
never worked.
We hasten to eradicate
our selves.

Consider the years
of rage and wrench and
mug.
What was it kept
the eyes alive?
Declined to outmode
the
hug?

MEDITATION by Joanne Greenberg “In Praise of Another Year”

In heaven and on earth,
In a clap of thunder, in a whisper of the soul,
In praise on yellowed parchment in an ancient tongue,
In the yearning of the heart, in the blessing of a child,
Blessed be the Holy.

Taste of tears and wine, sight of starry skies,
Old men’s voice warping the chant, children singing,
All the web of creation shining in bright sunlight…
Scientist asking, artists proclaiming,
Blessed be the Holy.

Grant us another year in the book of Life,
With its peril, injustice,
And the good daylight.
Blessed be the Holy. Amen and Amen.

READING: This is from the book Another America, by Barbara Kingsolver. The novelist and essayist wrote this during the first Bush Presidency, on the eve of the bombing of Iraq. It is called “January 15, 1991”

The night before war begins, and you are still here.
You can stand in a breathless cold
ocean of candles, a thousand issues of your same face
rubbed white from below by clear waxed light.
A vigil. You are wondering what it is
you can hold a candle to.

You have a daughter. Her cheeks curve
like aspects of the Mohammed's perfect pear.
She is three. Too young for candles but
you are here, this is war.
Flames covet the gold-sparked ends of her hair,
her nylon parka laughing in color,
inflammable. It has taken your whole self
to bring her undamaged to this moment,
and waiting in the desert at this moment
is a bomb that flings gasoline in a liquid sheet,
a laundress's snap overhead, wide as the ancient Tigris,
and ignites as it descends.

The polls have sung their opera of assent: the land
wants war. But here is another America,
candle-throated, sure as tide.
Whoever you are, you are also this granite anger.
In history you will be the vigilant dead
who stood in front of every war with old hearts
in your pockets, stood on the carcass of hope
listening for the thunder of its feathers.

The desert is diamond ice and only stars above us here
and elsewhere, a thousand issues of a clear waxed star,
a holocaust of heaven
and somewhere, a way out.

SERMON: “The Nature of the Scorpion” - Rev. Alison Hyder

One year ago this week I was on vacation in Washington state, visiting an old friend and celebrating her daughter’s Bat Mitzvah. It was wonderful to see this child taking on the role of a young woman with such seriousness and grace, and to hear the ancient Hebrew words read so sweetly. It had been her choice to join the synagogue and to study for this ritual, her decision to acknowledge and nurture her Jewish heritage and make it meaningful and real, a part of her identity and perspective. I was really proud of her. Being a Unitarian Universalist minister has allowed me to explore my own Judaism in theological as well as cultural terms and so to deepen my Jewish identity. Jewish theology and spirituality is so rich and complex and so finely nuanced and wise; it is both practical and mystical. It is full of beautiful rituals and quirky stories with heroes who answer in riddles and questions. I love it. So I know there is not any way on earth that I could possibly be a Jew. That is to say, a full-time, practicing, observant Jew. I just don’t have it in me.

According to Jewish law, I am Jewish. My mother is Jewish, and her mother, and that’s what counts. And that’s all that mattered to the Nazis, too. Not custom, not belief, but blood. It’s kind of hard to ignore an argument like that. But my mom got to this country and she married a very nice goy. I was raised Unitarian Universalist. It’s who I am. It’s part of my innate identity and approach, my nature. It encompasses my Judaism, but supercedes it.

But I am grateful for practicing Jews. I’m glad - relieved, in fact - that there are people who are observing and enhancing Judaism, writing and living and hoping out of this tradition. And never more so than at this time of year when the world ripens and life begins again.

Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, began on Friday. It is a time of hope and renewal. But more importantly, it is a time of assessment and introspection. Before the harvest is in, before the celebration of Hanukah faith, come the High Holy Days, the time when God inscribes our names in the Book of Life and records our deeds and failings. For ten days, between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, we are given time to review our lives, our intentions, our values, our flaws and customs and goals; to assess our commitments and decide what vows to renew, and what habits to mend. How have I treated other people? What could I do differently? How have I disappointed myself? In the crisp clean air of the changing season, we are offered a chance of restoration and rebirth. Before the Book of Life is closed and our fate is sealed, immutably, for all time, we can begin again.

The paradox of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur is that they inscribe our fate, forever and finally - until the next year, when God reopens the Book of Life once again, and again we make the choice between despair and promise, between pride and compassion; decide whether to forgive, to withdraw, to overcome our weaknesses and fears. In their wisdom, these Jewish High Holy Days not only sanctify change, but they remind us that repentance is a communal act. Our actions and assumptions don’t just affect ourselves, but those around us. We are responsible to each other, and to our communities. So this assessment is a way to recommit to our communities and the pursuit of social justice. We must state our intentions toward the world we desire.

Isn’t that a scary thought? We can’t just write out a list of resolutions (“exercise every Wednesday. Be more generous. Learn Spanish.”), or give up cigarettes or meat. No, we have to assess our every relationship and make plans and promises. We have to hold our congregations and communities to account for their policies and shortcomings. We have to change the world. Starting today.

I don’t know about you, but I’d really rather not have the responsibility, especially not now, when the threat of violence and suffering is chronic, as diffuse and disturbing as fog, and just as hard to control. Ever since last year, when those three planes smashed into our lives, we have seen strains of righteousness and vengeance permeate the culture. Of course, they were always there. It’s part of the American psyche, that messianic paranoia that produced both John Wilkes Booth and John F. Kennedy, both High Noon and Independence Day. But now we are talking about an undeclared war with no clear plan, no focus, no truth. I’m not even sure we have a good motive. Can we really expect to eliminate the threat of attack with bombs and missiles? Wouldn’t we just be proving how uncontrollable and immoral we are, and how justified others are in hating us so? Why buy into an endless spiral of vengeance and death?

I fully fear that the President is primed to act. Whatever his reasons – and some may in fact be justifiable – I doubt that he’ll listen long to the debate. And yet, whatever my own personal convictions, whether I agree with it or not, the government acts in my name as an American citizen. So I can’t just sit back and act helpless or smug. I have to act, maybe counteract, to create justice and peace in a troubled and angry world.

To do that, I have to start with myself. I don’t mean work on my own growth or find inner peace, because frankly, I don’t think we have that much time. I can never make myself whole. What I can do, however, is clarify my values and ethics and decide exactly what I can do to promote them in the world. How far am I willing to go to live out my convictions? What are my principles worth? What would I hold a candle to?

The prayer reading for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur (adapted) says: “Atonement is nothing less than one’s reconciliation from inner contradictions. Atonement is no mere act of grace, or miracle of salvation that befalls the chosen. It demands the free, ethical choice of every human being. We are granted nothing unconditionally. Each of us has rather to decide, unconditionally, for something. The first step in atonement is the return of the self. “

There’s a story set in India, about an old man who sat down in the shade of an ancient banyan tree. Its roots stretched far away into a swamp. Soon he realized there was a small commotion just where the roots entered the water. Concentrating his attention, he saw that a scorpion had become helplessly entangled in the roots. Pulling himself to his feet, he made his way carefully along the tops of the roots until he came to the place where the scorpion was trapped. He reached down to extricate it. But each time he touched the scorpion, it would lash him with its tail, stinging him painfully. Finally, his hand was so swollen he could no longer close his fingers. So he withdrew to the shade of the tree to wait for the swelling to go down. When he got there, he saw a young man laughing at him. “You’re a fool,” said the young man, “wasting your time trying to help a scorpion that can only do you harm.” The old man smiled and replied, “Simply because it is in the nature of the scorpion to sting, should I give up my nature, which is to save?” [retold by Rev. Bruce Southworth in the Community News of the Community Church UU of NYC].

The heroes of September 11th - the firemen and rescue workers and police - didn’t ask how much money people made or whether they had faith or were racist jerks. They ran into those buildings. They faced danger and psychic trauma because that’s what they were called to do. It was who they were.

If we have learned anything since September 11th, it is the importance of remaining true to our own nature, to our own vision of peace or charity or courage. We have seen the result of fanaticism. We must not be perverted by evil or swept along on a tide of blind vengeance or zeal, no matter what the justification. “Nothing is right,” says Alice Walker, “that does not work,” that does not make the world more just and humane and equitable. Not progress, not patriotism, not even bliss. This is what it means to be American right now, to live in this country: we have an obligation, not just as individuals, but as a republic, to live up to our privileges of freedom, and tolerance, and public debate. To show that there is still “another America, candle-throated, sure as tide.”

In the next week or two, let the lessons of these High Holy Days sink into your heart. Take the time to reflect and to pray and to assess your values and commitments, your visions and plans. This is not a time for complacency, but for personal scrutiny and clarity. Because we are reshaping the world. With our habits, our words, our indifference, our hugs, our pride. Our candles and our bombs and our votes. We are going to have to live with the results in our hearts - and just as importantly, in our daily lives - for a long, long time. We have to be very, very sure what we are, and why.

Wilfred Owen was a soldier in World War I. He started out in the trenches and wrote poems about heroes of mud and glory. Shortly before he was killed in the last week of the war he wrote this poem: (“The Parable of the Young Men and the Old.”)

So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went,
And took the fire with him, and a knife.
And as they sojourned both of them together,
Isaac, the first-born spake and said, “My Father,
Behold the preparations, fire and iron,
But where the lamb for this burnt offering?”
And Abram bound the youth with belts and straps,
And builded parapets and trenches there,
And stretched forth the knife to slay his son.
When lo! An angel called to him out of heaven,
Saying, Lay not thy hand upon the lad,
Neither do anything to him. Behold,
A ram, caught in a thicket by its horns:
Offer the Ram of Pride instead of him.
But the old man would not so, but slew his son,
And half the seed of Europe, one by one.

CLOSING WORDS: by Rev. Mark Belletini

We are here
To turn as the season turns, each leaf capturing fire,
And to look into the mirror of this day,
Seeing ourselves in the light of all that has come before
And all that yet shall be.
May we be more tender, more at one with each other
On this day than on any previous day,
That the word peace may be spoken no more
Save that it is articulate in the living of our lives.

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