A priest, a minister and a rabbit walk into a bar. The priest orders a glass of wine. The minister does the same. Then the rabbit says “I’m only here because of autocorrect.”
How’s that for dignity?
Today I am hoping we can take a deep dive into the value and quality of dignity. The first purpose and principle of UU congregations is to affirm the inherent worth and dignity of every person. My last sermon explored Inherent Worth. I distinguished between how we have learned to ascribe value and the concept of worth that comes not from accomplishment or bestowed upon a person because of their status. I said that capitalism and our market place culture doesn’t value people, only the profit that can be made off of people. Affirming and promoting the worth of all people and all life is UU spiritual practice.
I aimed to encourage us to put that land in our sights. Today I hope to share more ideas on how to get there.
Dignity and inherent worth are companions on this journey. I’m very excited about today’s service. I have never heard a sermon dedicated explicitly to dignity. It’s not listed in the index of readings or topics in the back of the hymnal. It’s one of the words we all have some sense of, and maybe haven’t tried to define.
I was surprised to realize that academics presenting about dignity frequently use the phrase inherent worth. There is a lot of overlap. Mike Burkett said that I could just read my last sermon again.
Although there is overlap of the subjects, dignity is worthy of our reflection, worthy of this service. This is not a lecture. My goal is not for you to be able to acquire an academic definition or be able to answer a question on a test. If we were to use an academic model, a better goal would be essays on the theme. Better still would be if we could develop a relationship with the dignity muse to be able to create art, write songs, stories, plays or do the art of living in a way that expresses dignity. What we have here is the religious life of UUs, a learning community, not as academics, but in the art of living in covenant. Our spiritual discipline has us learning to accept one another while encouraging spiritual growth. It has us develop faith, values, meaning, and purpose WHILE contributing to efforts toward justice.
Deciding to delve into dignity, I feel like a child who was playing in a field and discovered a gem. “Dignity, oh wow, what have we found here?!”
I feel no pressure to try to capture and present dignity comprehensively. I am the lucky guy who gets to put this gem in your hands, trusting that all of us will add meaning and richness to the gift.
I wish that I had many small smooth stones enough to give each of you one. The stone would have the word dignity written or carved into it. I imagine each of us carrying our dignity stone, feeling it, looking at it. Imagining this brings me great joy! And I know that if we were carrying these stones, dignity would rise into our consciousness. Each, in our own, would deepen our concept and appreciation of dignity. To varying extents, each of us would bring dignity into our lives and into the world.
Pretty awesome right? I haven’t even begun presenting my specific ideas on dignity or how to promote it. And I am already celebrating because I have faith in you, in us, to bring fruit from this seed now shared. This is the beauty and power of our UU way. I find it more fun and more effective than a top-down approach. And we are only at the starting point. We will continue. We will go out from here, work in parallel, come back together, share our struggles and victories, be met with celebration, questions and challenges, and we will grow together.
What will lead to greater transformation than anything I say today, will be what you say to yourselves when the service has ended. I hope you will ask questions like “How do we promote dignity, and what is one thing I can do to fulfill this?
Now to the question “what is dignity?.”
The word dignity comes from the latin dignitas meaning worthiness or value. In all the lectures and what I read about dignity, I heard two different uses. The larger and prevailing thought tied dignity to inherent worth. The other way dignity gets used refers to societal ascriptions of worth.
Not surprisingly, I was more impressed with thoughts and articulations when dignity was grounded in inherent worth. Megan Saxelby from “Cultures of Dignity” defines dignity as the belief that all humans matter the same amount no matter what.” According to Saxelby, children with this belief want to learn about themselves and others. They gain social emotional learning that helps them thrive and succeed in so many areas of life.
Culture of Dignity is an organization dedicated to promoting and enhancing dignity in schools. They call dignity the essential tool needed to achieve student engagement. They link dignity to student happiness, social connection, and hope for the future.
I was pleased to find that much of their advice and their recommended strategies express values and practices that we also espouse in our religious liberal tradition and that I’ve learned participating in other progressive organizations. Cultures of dignity grow from a few questions. “How would most of us like to be treated?” “How would we treat people if we assumed that all human beings have inherent worth?” How would structures need to change to foster conditions where everyone gets treated as if they have worth and value?
I trust that you see parallels with our UU tradition, the value of questioning, method of questioning, and dialogue as means of having influence rather than domination. Our UU approach to religion is designed to support ethical and spiritual development as well as progressive social change.
A leader in this field is Dr. Donna Hicks of Harvard’s Weatherhead Center or International Affairs. Hicks is the author of “Dignity: The Essential Role it Plays in Resolving Conflict.” For more than 20 years she has worked with groups across the globe experiencing conflict. She says that people generally point to political and ideological differences as the cause of conflict. However, she claims that conflicts are always about dignity. She speaks of “an inextricable link between conflict and trust.” She says that the groups’ conflicts and the loss of trust that gave rise to conflict consistently grew from what she calls “the 10 elements of Dignity.” They are 1) acceptance of identities, 2) recognition of unique qualities and way of life, 3) acknowledgment, 4) inclusion; belonging and being a part of, 5) fairness, 6) physical and emotional safety (humiliation and shame destroying emotional safety), 7) independence /freedom, 8) understanding, 9) being given the benefit of doubt, and 10) accountability
I imagine that some of you want to write down or be given this list. What I want to emphasize and suggest is that all we need to do is ask ourselves questions like “what can I do to promote dignity?” Or ask questions like “how does dignity get taken from people?” Our answers will take us to those same ten elements.
Dignity is the quality that arises in each of the other 7 UU Principles. Dignity’s unspoken presence in each UU purpose, demonstrates the interdependence and integrity of the work that our tradition calls us to do.
Promoting dignity is a religious task. In our tradition promoting dignity means removing our support of oppression. It means shifting from extrinsic to intrinsic reward orientation. We are called to affirm inherent worth and dignity. We are called to educate ourselves to history and the continuation of a caste system that requires us to devalue people. We are called to learn how classism has distorted our concepts of dignity.
Classism teaches us to associate dignity with class. It says that poor people have less or no dignity. The dignity of poor people is denied, ignored and discounted. We must rescue dignity from classism. Unless dignity belongs to every human, society will dehumanize us and dignity will get lost. Therefore, we UUs must remember and advocate for the dignity of every human being.
Oppression squelches awareness of dignity. I once heard a master story teller from Dallas, Dorothy Ellis, explain how sexism is instilled. She says that “nobody needs to tell you that girls are less valuable or less important than boys. It is expressed and written into every beam of the structure of our society.” She also said that the quickest way to educate a man about sexism is to give him a gifted athlete as a daughter.” He will realize that if his daughter was a gifted male athlete, she would be granted great privileges. She would get scholarships, fame, and incredible opportunities if she had been born a male. The lack of equity teaches us who matters and who is valuable. It teaches us that dignity belongs to some and not others.
There is a reason that our first purpose and principle is to promote the dignity of every person.
Although this quickly gets political, it is fundamentally a religious and spiritual matter. Working for social justice, and to prevention of dignity in society, these are essentially religious matters.
Donna Hicks said that “there is an explicable link between conflict and trust.” She suggested that conflict inevitably turns out to be about dignity. As I see it, trust is the fraternal twin of faith. Increased trust is the means and the result of spiritual growth. Healing, salvation, redemption, reconciliation always address loss of trust. Loss of trust grows from violations of integrity, violations of the wholeness of community, and the recognition of sacredness in the life force that unites us all.
There is gold in them thar hills, the hills of dignity. If we are now ready to go digging for the gold of dignity in the hills, let us remember to look in the valleys as well. If we climb to the top of the mountain to meet the guru or the savior, she will likely direct us to go home to our heart, home to our soul. That is the place dignity is found.
We won’t see clearly the dignity in another without making peace with ourselves. If we persist in banishing from our consciousness, the ways we despise ourselves, or supposed evidence of our unworthiness, then we will project despicable and unworthiness upon others. We see them as a problem to be eliminated.
That’s enough pumped-up complex thought. Let’s learn to KISS; keep it simple spirituality. We don’t have to be perfect or enlightened to walk the dignity path. We can decide to get closer to dignity. We can unite in efforts to cultivate cultures of dignity. We will find answers inside ourselves. We will learn from our companions and from our adversaries.
During “Congregation Responds” I’d like to hear where in the service did you discover dignity?! What did you learn or remember about dignity during the simulated thunderstorm, the hymns, the readings, or the Namaste practice?
If dignity is a light in our soul, how shall we lift it up? What bushels do we need to remove so that the light of dignity can shine brightly? What does dignity call us to do?
May I recommend a dignity practice? At the end of each day, ask yourself where did dignity shine today? When was I treated with dignity? When did I treat another person with dignity? When did I blow it? Be gentle with yourself. You might benefit from writing it down. Lastly how can we as a congregation promote dignity in every person? Try this for 30 days.
Let’s end by giving thanks for treasures received, remembered, and those that our faith tells us are on their way to us.
Whether it’s doing anti-oppression work, learning more dignity skills, waging peace, can we pause each day to remember dignity? Placing our hands on our hearts, breathing in, mmm dignity, how sweet it is!
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