There was once an ashram where ‘most everyone’ got along well. The members worked in relative harmony. Daily services were filled with meditation and powerful chanting. The gardens were cared for and the food was nourishing.
However, there was one member few seemed to get along with. His name was Fachnan. Squabbles, quarrels and dissension seemed to follow him. People said that Fachnan was malicious & mean spirited, that he lied, cheated, was cantankerous and vengeful.
One day he flew into a rage. He started yelling and throwing things. He stormed out, grabbed his belongings and left the ashram. Word spread quickly. People shook their heads. They sneered, they snickered, and there was much relief.
When word reached the guru, she let out a gut-wrenching moan. “Oh no!” She too left the ashram hoping to catch up with Fachnan. Weeks passed. People were happy, although concerned by their guru’s absence.
The guru returned and so did Fachnan. Knowing that Guru had gone to trouble to get Fachnan to return, people politely welcomed Fachnan back.
Alone with the Guru, a disciple asked: “Master, why did you bring him back? It seems he is nothing but trouble.” The guru confided, “I’ll tell you a secret. I paid him to come back. The community needs him. Meditation, chanting, and even the bliss of the ashram is not enough for enlightenment. What accomplishment is it to enjoy people with whom you agree? This ashram needs a bit of the world if it is to have relevance to the world.”
Before I go further let me admit that I am playing guru today. I will speak as if I have the truth. I’m a white guy and a minister. As Rev. David Bumbaugh once said, “I’ve learned to speak authoritatively on matters I know very little about.” That I have less than absolute truth is a given here. I don’t expect you to believe everything I say. I ask only that you consider my words, that you try to see it my way, not because I’m right but because by looking at things from a different perspective, reflecting, discussing and most importantly taking new actions, we will learn and grow together.
Now buckle up dear ones. Put on your crash helmets, because we are going to ride down into the belly of the beast in order to come out on the other side with eyes set on freedom.
About that opening story: Am I the only one who thinks the Guru was crazy for going after Fachnan? Anyone else think that there is something not quite right about that story? And then again, (sigh) it does sort of make sense. No?
The first of the 7 principles and purposes adopted by the UUA in 1986 says that our congregations exist for the purpose of promoting the inherent worth and dignity of every person. Inherent worth seems to many of us such a lovely and appealing idea. And then we think about people we might call despicable, and we’re not so sure anymore about inherent worth. Or, even if it’s true in some otherworldly, spiritual way, it doesn’t seem practical. Singing church songs and being comforted on Sunday that we are all children of the most high, hasn’t stop the mass shootings, the calculated and well-funded campaigns against liberal education, libraries, reproductive and voting rights, redistricting, voter suppression, strategic moves to undermine confidence in democracy, basically setting the stage for a dictator or enabling the super rich to grab more more more.
How do we consider inherent worth amidst all that?
UUs are big on reason and logic, and I will give some practical reasons for attempting this seemingly insane woo woo philosophy and practice of affirming and promoting the inherent worth of every person. However, my mind, intellect and logic don’t get me all the way there. And I have a feeling I’m not alone. So, I will suggest that to get to the land of inherent worth we might just need to lose our mind. By that half joking phrase I mean that we might need to transcend our collective mindset of accumulated prejudices, limitations and ego. BTW I think the land of inherent worth goes by other names: the beloved community, nirvana, heaven, enlightenment, a peace that passes understanding.
And yet there are reasons that inherent worth makes sense to us despite our conditioning. It makes sense to us, even if we can’t explain it.
The first reason I’ll offer for setting our course for this crazy promised land is that the worth, the valuing that we have learned in this world, the conditioning and orientation of this world has us destroying Earth, ever ready to kill our kin, or sacrifice humans and countless species in order to capture a little do re me, me, me.
Our system for assigning worth has turned everything and everybody into commodity, material to be mined, exploited, raped, rented, traded, sold and purchased. Ego has left us a low low lone, (alone), isolated, restless and discontent. In this system, it’s impossible to know our true worth. With the materialistic society embedded in our worldview, there is a block to knowing our worth. We are torn and tattered, bruised to the soul. You think that suicide is a leading cause of death because our society fosters love of life, self-appreciation and knowledge of the inherent worth of life?
Our families, our schools, our economic system and our culture send us millions of messages about who or what is valuable. Trigger warning: none of these messages are true. These false and harmful messages say: “you are too old, too young, too short, too tall, too fat, too thin, not smart enough, not tough enough, too selfish, not humble enough, not rich enough, not accomplished enough. Hey Rev. Phillip, you can stop any time now!
In truth, our marketplace culture does not value humans, only the profit that can be made from us. Advertising and sales industries figured out that people made insecure desperately want relief and can more easily be persuaded to make purchases. They want us to believe that if we buy their product, we will like ourselves better.
Consumer society relies on people being addicted to extrinsic rewards. Psychologist Marshal Rosenberg suggested society trains us to ignore our feelings, the energy inside us. Instead of paying intention to our gut, we learned to pay attention to what authorities call good, bad, wrong and evil. We learned an orientation that seeks outside approval. According to Rosenberg society taught us to ignore human feelings and needs in order to proliferate an economic system dependent on slavery.
You have heard me use the term the life force, speaking of it with reverence. You may have heard it as an alternative to the word G*d. What it is, is the only game in town! If we don’t have that energy, we don’t have it going on. Not at all! I want us to realize that life force is in us, and connects us all to each other. I have found that by revering life force, I frequently experience awe and wonder.
In order for oppression to continue, we must be made to forget the sacred nature of the life force that moves in us and connects us to each other. We lose this awareness when see people being mistreated and we turn away. We learn to justify and acquiesce practices which crush. “Those people” deserve it. When violence becomes entertainment, humans lose touch with their souls.
The conditions and practices of this world are not what any of us would have chosen, and yet it is what we have created collectively. At one time we did our best to speak up when people were mistreated. We tried to stand up to power, and then were made the next target. Eventually we came to believe that we were powerless to stop most injustice. We learned to ignore it. In time, there was much that we no longer even noticed.
We learned that if we wanted to be seen and treated as one of the worthy ones, we needed to conform. We needed to get good grades, be good girls and boys. Or maybe we learned that winning is all that matters. Maybe we learned that God helps those who help themselves. Maybe we learned the golden rule as: “He who gets the gold, rules.”
Maybe you are thinking that I am laying on too thick. It’s not that bad. There is cruelty and callous domination in this world. There is a tendency for might to justify wrong. That’s not the whole story though, right?
True. And thank goodness that is not the whole story. I am laying it on thick because I believe our conditioning and ego harms us all. It would have us see a world of kill or be killed, eat or be eaten. Looking out for #1 has its place, but fear takes its toll. Ego enslaves us. Ego has us forget our soul. Fear constricts us.
We find no lasting fulfillment in ego, in materialism. No matter how much privilege we garner or are given, eventually we will lose that game. We won’t find fulfillment in an identity based on disconnection. If we run the rat race, we become more like rats. I mean that we can forget our humanity. When inherent worth loses out to the lust for money or power our humanity, our heart and our joy shrivel.
Fortunately, this is not the end of the story. We have survived because we have been loved by an unending love. It shows up in our lives sometimes. Maybe it came to us from grandparents, parents, teachers, friends. I don’t mean to deny or minimize the trauma and oppression that has harmed us. Still, I say that if you made it here today, somebody somewhere loved you. Somebody prayed for you. Somebody sang to you. Somebody worked hard to try to give you opportunities. All of us are bolstered, lifted and gifted by so much labor, efforts made so that we can live, and thrive, and blossom and know the value of being alive.
Love is the force that teaches us the value of life. Although we may forget inherent worth, it is indelibly stamped in our heart. We never completely forget love.
Deep in our heart we know about inherent worth. Nothing completely erases this knowledge. Nothing can crush it. Not the bullies, the despots, and not systems that are ready, willing and able to trash us without blinking an eye. They could not change or erase the truth written inside of us. There is a river flowing in our soul, and it’s telling us that we are somebody, (sings) somebody to love. Yes, I did just switch from the teal hymnal to Freddie Mercury. Love directs us to the land of inherent worth.
But what about the dirty rotten scoundrels? What about our enemies? Are we to believe that our enemies have inherent worth?
Maybe three times a week, I can say yes. Far more often I long for a way to get rid of them.
I feel desperate and urgent. “We must stop ‘them’ from selling their plan to continue slavery. We need to intervene and interrupt the police serial murder of Black mothers’ sons and daughters, the disappearance of Native American women. We need to thwart efforts to create more Muslim bans, separate families and put children in cages. “
Can we do this and value the lives of our “enemies”? Can we value the life of someone who does not value life?
If we could accept the idea that God chooses only a few for eternal reward and punishes the others to an eternity of suffering, then maybe we could believe some people’s lives are of no value. Maybe then we would think it’s okay for 1% of the population to take most of the generated wealth while creating unfathomable suffering for billions.
However, we inherited a different faith tradition. It is one that says that divine love is greater than human failings. Our tradition said every last soul would make it to heaven, embraced by divine love for eternity. Today we have a gospel that says people with different theological beliefs and worldviews can come together to reach the beloved community. We are part of a denomination that says Black lives matter, and we are crying, “Stop the killing!” We have a faith tradition that asks us to love our enemies and promote awareness of inherent worth.
We reject the messages which dehumanize and ask us to see “us and them.” We are them. We are those people!
If we embark on this journey, it will serve life and ourselves well. If we want to remember and reclaim our inherent worth, we must break from the behaviors and consciousness of a system that justifies crushing people. We can recognize ourselves as one human race and break away from a system that values profit over people, and over life.
We can forgive ourselves for not being who we wanted to be, if we forgive others for their not being who we wanted them to be. To free our minds, we divest from a system that still requires slavery. To reclaim the wisdom of inherent worth, we must realize that worth is not determined by genetics or by achievement. We can get there by affirming the sacredness of the life force that unites us all.
If we forget a thousand times, we can remember 1001. If we fall back into the materialistic worldview enforced by caste, we will not lose our inherent worth, only temporarily forget it. If we can remember inherent worth three times a week, we will awaken. If we seek connection, affirm connection, promote connection, we will create beloved community. And we are on our way!
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