I Am a Professional Liar.

Yesterday, Sunday October 12th, I spoke at a worship service at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Marin where I am the Director of Religious Education. It was a beautiful service with music and over 40 visiting youth from the PCD Coming of Age retreat.

The following are some of the words I spoke in the sermon portion of the service. The readings and hymns were also chosen with care to frame the love and care we have toward our planet and our fellow humans, animals and species of life.

My oral presentations are better than my written ones, but upon request here it is:



Indigenous People’s Day
October 12, 2014
Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Marin
Jeffrey S. Melcher, M.Div.

Truth and lies
I am a liar. I always tell lies. And therein lies the rub. How could I be telling the truth about my lying if I always lie? This is often given as a logician’s example of tautological or conflicted logic. From my perspective, looking at the ethics of humanity and communication, this is as an example that some truths are lies, and some lies might be a truth

Breathing and Tapping
Before I get any farther I want to remind people that Breathing is a great way to stay present, alert and relaxed. I will occasionally say the word breathe and please just take that as an invitation. It is not a command, it is always a choice. I also want to introduce another technique for emotional resilience and integration. By some it is simply known as tapping. Some of us call it EFT short for Emotional Freedom Technique. There is a lot more to it, but one of the basic elements is to gently tap on the side of your hand like this ... an acupressure point. I will occasionally invite you to tap during this next bit of time we have together.

Truth and Consequences
My mother taught me to tell the truth. She also taught me to lie. It is a parent’s duty to teach these skills to their young civilized humans.

“Tell me what really happened with your sister.”

“Tell grandma you liked the beef tongue. Just pretend. Don’t hurt her feelings.” (And then there was the tomato bisque too.)

White lie – what makes it white? What is a colorful lie: lots of exaggerated details?
What kind of lie is this? The Koch Bros. funded Americans for Prosperity is spending huge amounts of money to publicize dis-informative science to disprove climate change. 

A lie of omission – Having information, a truth, and not sharing it.

Taking in this definition, this makes the person holding the truth and not sharing a liar.

Don’t tell John you have an ear ring. He won’t understand. I did not tell this friend of my Dad’s who was interested in me. In fact I stopped talking to him all together. I choose the earring over someone who my mother warned against even telling. Maybe he would have laughed it off, maybe not. Either way I lost a possible mentor.

“Don’t tell your aunt that my maternal grandma’s mustache cup got broken by the cat, it will make her sad.” Holding this secret became a wedge between my and my aunt’s relationship. In my subconscious it might still be.

There were clearly consequences if the truth was spoken to the wrong people. So who does the lie protect? The secret keeper or the one who does not hear the truth? Who does it harm?

So, I have now given proof that I am a liar. I have lied. As a DRE I have to make decisions every week about what information to share and which to withhold due to the “age-appropriate” nature of information; it is part of my job, condoned by parents and the RE Committee. So, I am a professional liar. Communities and parents make decisions multiple times a day about how much to share with their children, based on what we think will make them better people. I am probably going to some truth telling and some lying today as I tread through tender subject matter. I am going to rely on our 5th principle: The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large. Specifically the “right of conscious.”

As a community, we Unitarian Universalists have a history, and often see ourselves as having a duty, of speaking the truth as we know it. Here at UUCM we sing out our children every Sunday, (sung) “May the light of truth surround you, go now and shine.”  The Fourth of our UUA and this congregations covenanted principles is: A free and responsible search for truth and meaning.

We uphold truth as one of our highest goals. But we also are taught not to hurt those around us. Thus we are taught about white lies. A lie told to spare someone’s feelings. Who is responsible for the hurting if someone feels bad when truth is spoken? Am I not responsible for my own reaction? I need to have critical thought involved here. Are the words thoughtless? Are they meant to hurt? Are they meant to help? How do we decide the standards of social interaction around truth? Whose truth gets to be told? Does indeed history get written by the victors? 

School report
As reported in the NY Times: ARVADA, Colo. — A new conservative school board majority here in the Denver suburbs recently proposed a curriculum-review committee to promote patriotism, respect for authority and free enterprise and to guard against educational materials that “encourage or condone civil disorder.” In response, hundreds of students, teachers and parents gave the board their own lesson in civil disobedience.

Leighanne Grey, a senior at Arvada High School, said that after second period, a student ran through the halls yelling, “The protest is still on!” and she and scores of her classmates got up and left. She said that learning about history, strife and all, had given her a clearer understanding of the country. “As we grow up, you always hear that America’s the greatest, the land of the free and the home of the brave,” she said. “For all the good things we’ve done, we’ve done some terrible things. It’s important to learn about those things, or we’re doomed to repeat the past.”[1]

Tori Leu, a 17-year-old student who protested at Ralston Valley High School in Arvada said, "I don't think my education should be censored. We should be able to know what happened in our past."[2]

Columbus Day or Indigenous People's Day?
So, back to Christopher Columbus. I want to speak my truth. 500 years of protecting Christopher Columbus’ reputation is long enough. I think we as a community UUCM and Marin I think we owe it to ourselves and our young to lay out plainly that Christopher Columbus was a murderous rouge who manipulated kings and queens using religion and greed to gain fame and power for himself by looting torturing and killing the Tiano people of the West Indies. By kidnapping and enslaving hundreds back to Spain, he started the trans-Atlantic slave trade, leading to the infamous slave triangle of rum-slaves-goods between the West Indies, Africa, and the English colonies, ie the United States. 

Christopher Columbus represents to me the Empire mentality of “Go out to see the world conquer it and take what you can.” It is a mentality still used to support current acts of aggression by powerful nations and terrorists alike

He is NOT a good role model. He is not someone I want my child to emulate, and he should not be lifted up with a holiday any longer.

If we want our children to be proud of our U.S. History, then let’s make some history worth being proud of.

Indigenous People’s Day  http://ipdpowwow.org
The idea of replacing Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples Day was first proposed in 1977 by a delegation of Native nations to the United Nations-sponsored International Conference on Discrimination Against Indigenous Populations in the Americas, held in Geneva, which passed that resolution.

Berkeley replaced Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples Day in 1992. The inaugural year was filled with ceremonies, and each year since then the city has celebrated with a free pow wow, organized by local Native and non-Indigenous residents. Held in Civic Center Park, the Indigenous Peoples Day Pow Wow and Indian Market has become an important annual event, where the local population can interact with and learn about Native culture and the Bay Area Indian community.[3]

From the The Indigenous People’s Committee Mission Statement: “The Indigenous Peoples Committee works for social justice and human rights for Native Peoples. We promote the necessity of Indigenous wisdom for human survival in balance with the environment. ….”[4]

Two recent articles:
Columbus Day In Seattle Replaced With A New Holiday
“David Bean, a member of the Puyallup Tribal Council, told councilmembers the resolution demonstrates that the city values tribal members' history, culture, welfare and contributions to the community.”
Taking the Columbus Out of Columbus Day
“ … But there are signs of change: this year marks both Portland schools and the City of Seattle's decision to celebrate "Indigenous People's Day" on the same day as Columbus Day. They join the cities of Berkeley, Minneapolis, and other municipalities across the country who have either replaced Columbus Day altogether or introduced an alternative Indigenous People's Day. …”

Native American Teachings As the Native cultures in N. America were systematically destroyed, much was lost from Native American wisdom and ways of living cooperatively nature. Can we learn to adapt to knowledge before the western industrial culture-of-consumption consumes us? We like to believe, and possibly project onto, Native Peoples have a deeper understanding of what we Unitarian Universalist claim as our 7th principle: Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part. Can we as a planet afford not to embrace this?

Rhino and Blue Whales Bad news and good news: First the Bad - Recently in the news, biologists have announced the official extinction of the West African Black Rhino. A subspecies of Rhino. There are two more sub-species that are probably irreversibly destined for extinction.

Now the good – Blue Whales were nearly extinct and with international cooperation and a whaling bans, the numbers of Blue Whales in the Pacific seem to have come up to where they were 100 years ago. This is a fantastic success! Recovery is possible. It took 40 years to help this indicator species make a comeback. We humans can change our ways and the course of the planet.

This is really good to know because there are more challenges. And we here in the U.S., in a safe and affluent community have had the relative privilege to ignore the problem. Not so for sub Saharan Africa, Pacific Islanders, and India. These people’s very lives are threatened by climate change and rising seas. The Polynesian islands are already disappearing under the rising seas.

Scientific American Reader: Oceans Are Getting Hotter than Anybody Realized. http://google.com/newsstand/s/CBIwutO31Ro

Making a shift. The time has been here for a while.
I am very glad these youth are here today. I want everyone to look around at each other. It is these children’s lives that are going to be effected in a tremendous way. Not just simple anti-nuke demonstration, or change in one or two policies to slow down carbon emissions. A radical transformation in our lifestyles and political will is needed to hold boards of directors accountable. A couple of weeks ago Joel Gluck used as a call to worship this reading. I take it as a challenge.

It’s 3:23 in the morning
and I’m awake
because my great great grandchildren
won’t let me sleep
my great great grandchildren
ask me in dreams
what did you do while the planet was plundered?
what did you do when the earth was unraveling?
surely you did something
when the seasons started failing?
as the mammals, reptiles, birds were all dying?
did you fill the streets with protest
when democracy was stolen?
what did you do
once
you
knew?[5]               –Drew Dellinger

The truth about truth:
“The truth shall set you free. (But first it will make you miserable.)”

We do not get stuck for lack of information. We get stuck in emotional stagnation and quagmire. Our Frontal cortex can process information faster than our reptilian and mammalian brains can, unless we train them to make bigger leaps. Not faster, but bigger. Our emotional selves can be slow to change. Yet when we do, the shift can be several light years at a time. We can overcome fear of heights, reach out to others and care passionately about our world.

I would like to lift up the Patchamama Alliance which is doing this work of bridging our emotional selves with the dire needs of change. We are hosting one of their events here at UUCM this Saturday October18th. I encourage all who can to attend.

Here is one of the more difficult parts of being a Unitarian Universalist. We must find and create our own personal and collective truth.

We must individually have a practice and training to take in difficult truths. Integrating demands a practice, spiritual or scientific. We cannot do this alone.  In order to survive as a culture and species for the next two generations: NO more “survival of the fittest”. It has to be the survival of the networked. So that these youth sitting here with us can have grandchildren. It is that close, the consequences of our human folly.
Meditation, music, theater, small group ministries, prayer, art, science,
Less is more – reducing our carbon foot-print
Alternative energy technologies
Reducing our consumption of animal products, ie flesh, when our health allows it.
Building stronger inter-generational communities, including this one right here.

We KNOW what we need to do! We need to embrace the change, open to emotional growth. Breathe, love deeply, cherish life, live, love and learn.

May it be So.
Amen.
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