The lips of a king speak as an oracle,
and his mouth should not betray justice.
Prelude
Sounding of the Bell
Call to Worship
By Laura Wallace
Determined Seed
As frozen earth holds the determined seed,
this sacred space holds our weariness, our worry,
our laughter and our celebration.
Let us bring seed and soul into the light
of thought, the warmth of community,
and the hope of love.
Let us see together, hear together,
love together. Let us worship.
And let us join voices together and
sing...
Hymn
Here We Have Gathered * #360
Welcome
We gather together today in spiritual community.
Whoever you are, wherever you come from,
you are welcome here.
May all who hunger for inspiration be filled.
May all in need of friendship be comforted.
Let us leave this hour together refreshed anew,
And carry our shared vision into the
wider world.
Choral Anthem
Building a New Way
The Community of Welcoming Congregations
is a Portland based organization that seeks equality for gay, lesbian,
bi-sexual and transgendered people within religious communities. Their
mission is very close to the hearts of those of us at Wy'east and
so it is with great joy that we give our offering today to the Community
of Welcoming Congregations.
Offering & Community Life
In our still hearts the spirit grows;
And from our hands love's beauty flows.
May peace surround and be our guide;
May faith grow strong and hope abide.
* Please rise in body or in spirit
Worship For All Ages
We
Shall Overcome #169
Martin Luther King, Jr. was born
on January 15, 1929 in Atlanta Georgia.
"M.L.," as he was called,
lived with his parents, his sister and brother and was taught - to treat
all people with respect.
M.L.'s best friend as a child
was a white boy and as children they played happily together. But when
they reached school age the friends found that even though they lived
in the same neighborhood, they could not go to the same school or drink
from the same water fountains or go into the same restroom. M.L.'s friend
would go to a school for white children only and M.L. was sent to a
school for "black" children. After the first day of school
M.L. and his friend were never allowed to play together again
When M.L. was ready for college
he decided to follow his father and become a minister. He learned about
Mahatma Gandhi, who had struggled to free the people of India from British
rule by "peaceful revolution."
M.L. was also inspired by the
work of Henry David Thoreau, particularly his essay called "Civil
Disobedience." It stated that if enough people would follow their
conscience and disobey unjust laws, they could bring about a peaceful
revolution.
In 1954 M.L. received his PhD.
and accepted the job of pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in
Montgomery, Alabama .
Martin Luther King, Jr. would
now be addressed as "Dr. King"
Dr. King's involvement with the
civil rights movement began with the arrest of Mrs. Rosa Parks on December
1st , 1955. Mrs. Parks, a African-American seamstress on her way home
from work, was arrested for not giving a white bus rider her seat.
Dr. King and the other African-American
community leaders felt a protest was needed. The African-American residents
of the city were asked to boycott the bus company by walking and driving
instead. The United States Supreme Court would end the boycott, which
lasted 381 days, by declaring that Alabama's state and local laws requiring
segregation on buses were illegal. The boycott was a success and Dr.
King had showed that peaceful mass action could bring about change.
On August 28, 1963 200,000 people
gathered in the front to the Lincoln Memorial to hear Dr. King deliver
his famous "I have a dream" speech.
1964 Dr. King was nominated for
the Nobel Peace Prize.
In the winter of 1965 Dr. King
led a march from Selma, Alabama to the state capital in Montgomery to
demand voting reforms. 600 marchers would begin the march but after
6 blocks the marchers were met by a wall of state troupers. When the
troopers with clubs, whips and tear gas advanced on the marchers it
was described "as a battle zone." The marchers were driven
back while on the sidewalks whites cheered. 2 ministers, 1 white and
1 African-American, were killed and over 70 were injured with 17 hospitalized.
It was the most violent confrontation Dr. King had experienced. James
Reeb.
A court order overturning the
injunction against the march was issued and the marchers were allowed
to proceed. When they arrived in Montgomery the marchers were greeted
by 25,000 supporters singing 'We Shall Overcome." On August 6,
1965 a voting rights bill was passed allowing African-Americans to vote.
He traveled across America to
support and speak out against the Vietnam War, about civil rights and
the rights of the underprivileged.
In April 1968 Dr. King went to
Memphis, Tennessee to help the sanitation workers who were on strike.
On April 3rd Dr. King would give what would be his last speech:
"We've got some difficult
days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I have been to
the mountaintop. And I don't mind.
Like anybody, I would like to
live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about
that now.
I just want to do God's will.
And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over.
And I've seen the promised land.
I may not get there with you.
But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people will get to the
promised land. And I'm not fearing any man.
Mine eyes have seen the glory
of the coming of the Lord"
The following day, April 4 1968,
as he was leaving his motel room Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot
and killed. He has been dead for almost 40 years now, but the ideas
he worked for have certainly lived on, as more and more people accept
that we are all neighbors, and all deserve to be treated with respect.
(adapted from http://www.holidays.net/mlk
I want to teach you the song
"We Shall Overcome". I teach you this song, not just to remember
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., but to teach you a song that can give you
strength when you face injustice in your life.
We Shall Overcome
We'll Walk Hand in Hand
We shall all be free
We shall live in peace
Children's Recessional *
As you go may joy surround you,
as you go, go in peace.
Know our love is with you always,
as you go, as you go.
Readings
From the Unitarian Universalist Sources (of which there are six):
Words and deeds of prophetic
women and men which challenge us to confront powers and structures of
evil with justice, compassion, and the transforming power of love
The Four Quartets
by T.S. Eliot
(conclusion of Little Gidding)
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, remembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always -
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.
Meditation
Interlude
Reflections
By Rev. Susan Maginn
I went to Europe by myself when I was
19. Part of the reason why I wanted to go to Europe was because I acted
a lot as a kid and I got to play the part of Anne Frank in two productions
and I was eager to see Amsterdam, the town that she grew up in and the
attic where she and her family hid during the war. I also wanted to
see a concentration camp museum. I went to Dachau, not to Bergen Belsen
where she died. When I was on the tour bus driving through the town
of Dachau, it hit me that I was looking at houses that were very old,
older than the war. What were these people doing during the war? Did
they know what was happening at the camp just blocks away from their
house? How could they not know? What did they do with what they knew?
When I got to the concentration camp, I took pictures. This is what
I had been doing in Amsterdam and in Berlin was taking dozens of pictures.
But when I was at the camp with my camera, I felt this strong message
saying, 'Put the camera down. See what you see. Feel what you feel.
Don't let the camera protect you.' The funny thing is, I've
always been uneasy about using a camera since that experience.
But it can be paralyzing to feel so much
when we look into the face of the world without a lens to protect us
and see so much suffering and such colossal problems. How do you feel
so much sadness and still cook the food everyday and clean the house?
How do you feel so much disappointment and still hope enough to think
that your voice matters in the world?
I don't think I always feel it.
In fact I was surprised when I went on retreat in the woods earlier
this month, by the sadness I felt about the direction our country has
taken. When I was away from the daily rhythm of my life, I had the space
and time to reflect and I was so sad. Not at all what I expected from
my retreat, to grieve over my country, but there it was.
Grieving that the creative spirit within
this country does not extend into politics, that we are all too often
a country that dampens hope in the world, not inspires it. That we focus
on how we are competing with other countries in jobs, instead of putting
the competition aside and find real solutions, life affirming solutions
- not fear mongering solutions. Not just creating a protected world
but also an inspired world, where we are able to look to our most creative
and innovative ideas and look at how they can become real.
I brought a couple books into the woods
with me and one of them was "The End of America". Naomi Wolf is
a cultural critic and her latest book is the result of research into
the early years of fascist states of the 20th century. What
I mean by the early years is, how did the transition from democracy
to fascism happen. She has come up with 10 steps to how fascism developed
in these countries and describes how each step has happened or is happening
in our country today.
Examples from "The End of America"
and from The Guardian article "Fascist America, in 10 easy steps"
April, 2007.
Develop a thug caste, or an independent
militia like Blackwater and like those 'supervising' the Florida
vote in 2000.
Set up an internal surveillance system,
reading citizens' email, tapping phone lines, tracking financial transactions.
Harass citizens' groups. For example
when a minister in Pasadena preached that Jesus was anti-war, soon afterward
that congregation went through a thorough IRS audit. The American Civil
Liberties Union reports that thousands of ordinary American anti-war,
environmental and other groups have been infiltrated by agents: a secret
Pentagon database includes more than four dozen peaceful anti-war meetings,
rallies or marches by American citizens in its category of 1,500 "suspicious
incidents". The definition of "terrorist" is slowly expanding
to include the political opposition.
Engage in arbitrary detention and release
The Transportation Security Administration
has a 'Terrorist Watch List' of people who will be subject to security
searches or even denied the right to get on their scheduled flight.
Many of the people on the list are there simply because they have publicly
criticized the Bush administration or even attended a peace rally.
Target key individuals... such as
civil servants, artists and academics. For example, the administration
has threatened legal firms willing to do pro bono work for detainees
by calling for the lawyers' major corporate clients to boycott the
law firm.
Control the press
In modern America, we don't have a
government controlled media but we do have a torrent of lies coming
from the White House at such a rate that people are accountable for
discerning lies from real news and after a while, people give up on
this most demanding task.
Dissent equals treason
Suspend the rule of law
The concepts of magna carta and habeas
corpus keep us from being convicted without a trial and imprisoned for
no reason. These concepts are at the foundation of the liberty within
this country and yet they are being distorted to the extent that in
2006 Congress signed the Military Commissions Act.
This law gives the executive branch (without
any congressional oversight) the ability to designate US citizens as
'enemy combatants' and these people like all other 'enemy combatants'
are subject to detention and even torture and given no right to a trial
or legal representation.
Let's take a deep breath.
This is a disturbing book, explaining
a disturbing reality. When I was in the woods, I got spooked pretty
easily, like any good city-girl would. The day I was reading this book,
it got later and later in the day and I knew I had to put the book down
- otherwise I would be so scared, I would never fall asleep!
As disturbing as the parallels are between
what America is doing and what fascist states of the 20th
century have done, they are not what struck me most about this book.
Of all the horrifying things that Wolf describes, at the foundation
of it all, is the understanding about how powerful the constitution
is as a founding document, especially considering the context in which
it was created. And how this document (and implicitly the sacrifices
of the founders) is being, to put it mildly, disrespected.
Many of those who came here from England
were seen as the 'enemy combatants' of their day by King George.
Many were imprisoned, tortured and saw others killed for congregating
in worship or publishing dissenting pamphlets critical of King George.
Many Unitarians and Universalists were persecuted. For example,.
Many of the founders had similar experiences
and their highest priority was to create a government that would be
full of checks and balances, to keep power from landing on one person's
hands. In the creation of the founding documents, their greatest commitment
was to prevent the rise to power of an American despot.
As they created the constitution, the
founders knew that the price of liberty is eternal vigilance.
T.S. Eliot said...
Quick now, here, now, always -
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.
Let the fire that Eliot speaks of, be
not the fire that consumes us from the outside, but rather the fire
of commitment from within, consuming our fears, our disappointments
and our resignation that nothing can be done.
We need to risk that we can save this
world, to risk that salvation is possible but not guaranteed.
That is the good news: That the spirit
of hope and creativity and love could overcome fear and intimidation.
Our path to salvation lies in that people who are living by hope, creativity
and love can bring people together - unlike minded people. Unlike
minded people are the people we need to be bringing to the table. We
don't need to turn our back on talking with leaders that we don't
agree with. We are grown ups. Don't just pick up your toys and go
home. Put down your toys and talk!
Find out what you have in common, get
to know one another, share a meal with those in the 'axis of evil',
take a walk with those 'enemy combatants' - all the while holding
on to your principles. Don't give up on what you believe in but find
out what you have in common. Listen and be willing to be changed by
what you hear. We all want happiness and safety and peace. Picking
up our toys and going home is not going to save this planet. We have
seen the ways of this administration and we have seen how this divisiveness
is leading us to the brink of destruction under the guise of security.
Unfortunately we cannot be certain that
these problems are going to go away with George Bush leaving the White
House. We need a president who will be willing to repeal the amount
of power that has been given to the executive branch, and we need a
public that will support such action and not call it being 'soft on
security'.
Jesus would have been labeled as an 'enemy
combatant' by the Romans. He was someone who was accused by a phenomenally
powerful state, convicted without a trial and tortured to death. In
the last six years, we have become such a state. We are convicting people
without a trial and we are torturing people.
Martin Luther King and all of those thousands
who worked with him, knew that by strategically disobeying laws and
by peacefully organizing in such a way that would dramatize the injustice,
they were placing themselves in the path of the government's persecution.
They were placing themselves in the path of violence and they went to
that path without weapons of defense. But they did not go alone. They
went with the faith that the spirit of God moves in the ways of peace
and justice. They went with the faith that what they were standing for
was worth the price.
How did they do this? They had to envision
something greater than themselves and they had to envision something
that was greater than the reality that they felt so oppressed by. They
had to imagine beyond the reality that was in their face, beyond the
lines of armed soldiers. They had to hope beyond the fear that was pounding
in their heart. They said, "We are not now, but we shall be. We shall.
Someday, we shall."
And through the centuries of time, people
have done this, people whose names have been edited from the history
books. Through every culture and every corner of the earth, these words
can be heard echoing through the intimidation, "We Shall Overcome..."
sing for them with me, echoing through the years of anger and the sadness,
sing for those who hoped in the face of fear, sing for our country.
We Shall Overcome, we shall overcome,
we shall overcome someday! Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe. We shall
overcome someday.
We'll walk hand in hand. We'll walk
hand in hand. We'll walk hand in hand someday! Oh, deep in my heart,
I do believe. We'll walk hand in hand someday.
We shall all be free. We shall all be
free. We shall all be free someday! Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe.
We shall all be free someday.
We shall live in peace. We shall live
in peace. We shall live in peace someday! Oh, deep in my heart, I do
believe. We shall live in peace someday.
Hymn *
Spirit of Life #123
Benediction
Let us go from this place
with a vision of the world yet to be
and the restlessness to make it so.