…at the UUWorld’s Interdependent Web!

I’ve been observing Passover (Pesach) for about the last four years, and while there is a lot about the related traditions that I don’t know, each year I have the chance to learn a little more. Shai and I celebrated last night at a local shul, the same one we attended last year.

What particularly stood out to me this year is the emphasis that the haggadah puts on children and their active participation in learning about and recreating the Pesach seder traditions. Last night there were a significant number of children at the seder, and they took an active role. Of course, there was the asking of the four questions, in which children recite the four ritual questions about the observance of Pesach. This part of the seder is standard; I’ve been to seders with adults where there were no children to read the questions, but they were still asked (by adults) as part of the ceremony.

But I also noticed last night how at various points in the ceremony, the rabbi would stop and ask all of us participants different questions about Pesach and related Jewish traditions. And the children participated just as actively as adults. At one point the rabbi asked us, “If you were a slave in Egypt, what would it take for you to risk everything and venture into the unknown? What if you were told you would lose your children, would that be enough to make you take the risk?” and a child piped up “But some of us are children!” The rabbi responded with “Well, what if you were told you would lose your parents?”

The children also answered questions such as “Why is the charoset (which represents the brick-making of slavery days) so sweet?” Rather than direct specific questions to children and others to adults, the rabbi kept all of us in the same conversation, challenging children as well as adults to grapple with the difficult issues inherent in Pesach.

It seems to be that there is a lesson here that is relevant to Unitarian Universalism (UU) as well. As a practicing UU, I’ve been to many worship services where the children’s only role in worship is to come forward for “A Time for All Ages,” which is often awkwardly delivered, and during which the children’s contributions are frequently chuckled at. It was refreshing to hear at a conference on children’s worship several years ago from religious educators who disagree with this practice because it puts children on display, and fails to lift up their gifts as worship participants and leaders.

Children’s potential for theological insight and worship leadership is often underestimated. The result is that children and adults in intergenerational religious communities miss out on opportunities to more deeply learn from one another.

…covers different responses from UU bloggers to the new UUA ad, points to Hafidha Sofia’s wonderful reflection on spending time with her grandmother, and highlights other notable posts from the UU blogosphere.

In the wake of Barack Obama’s “bitter” comment, there’s been a related and more interesting discussion about how the candidates express empathy for the struggles of Americans who backgrounds differ from themselves. In particular the focus seems to be on empathizing with Americans who are low-income and rural.

Stephen Colbert of “The Colbert Report” had a funny video about this several nights ago, in which he lampooned the candidates for “pretending” to enjoy such activities as bowling (Obama) and drinking shots at the local bar (Clinton). You can watch the video at the end of this post.

Essentially what Colbert picks up on is the performance of empathy by both candidates. In these displays, empathy isn’t the candidates actually listening to other people, while acknowledging the differences between themselves and the people with whom they are empathizing. Instead, empathy is actually trying to be another person, by acting out their presumed mannerisms or hobbies.

This is not empathy. Empathy comes from a place of authenticity and self-awareness. It’s the delicate balance of being authentic and self-aware enough to try to step out of one’s self and understand the feeling and experiences of another person, without pretending to actually be the other person.

This lesson doesn’t just apply to candidates: it applies to all of us. I’m reminded of two discussions I had, both about four years ago, with two people preparing to be Unitarian Universalist ministers.

One conversation was with a woman who suggested to me that in order to reach out to low-income people, Unitarian Universalist (UU) preachers needed to talk differently. Not talk about different issues, but use simpler words and constructions. Of course there were two wrong untrue assumptions there: 1. that low-income people can’t use and understand “big words” and complex sentence structures. 2. that in order for UU preachers who were not from low-income backgrounds to connect with low-income people, we needed to fake it.

The other conversation was with a man in his mid-twenties and close to completing the ministerial credentialing process to become a parish minister. I asked him, “How are you going to minister to people so much older than you? They will have gone through all this stuff that you haven’t gone through.” He answered, “Well, in a church there are always going to be people different from me. Do I have to be married to minister to married people? Do I have to have children to minister to people with children?”

If each of us could only empathize with people who have the same experiences we have, our ability to form connections with others would be very limited. I do believe empathy is possible across lines of income, race, sexual orientation, nationality, and many other divisions in experience and social status. That doesn’t mean empathy is easy, or that most of us will ever 100% understand another person’s feelings and perspective.

But in order for there to be genuine empathy, there has to be an acknowledgment of difference. We need to acknowledge that someone else has had a different experience from our own in order to be fully open to understanding their feelings and perspective.

I have a small confession: during this church year, I have not been regularly attending services at my home congregation. I’ve dropped in a handful of times during the year. I’ve been visiting other congregations, both in Boston and in other places when I travel. And some mornings I’ve just plain skipped.

The main reason for this is that I found the Sunday morning services didn’t speak to the issues in my life and reflected a theological orientation I couldn’t relate to. The congregation has been in a ministerial transition (meaning our former ministers retired, and we’ve been searching for a new permanent minister), so there have been many changes, and we’ve been waiting to see what form worship (and many other aspects of congregational life) will take in the longterm.

I’ve been embarassed to admit my service skipping because I value my congregation and I’m proud to be a part of it. I feel deeply connected to my fellow congregants. And I have very warm feelings of respect and gratitude towards our ministerial staff, and to our worship committee members (I served on worship committee for years, including several years as chair).

I’ve also been sad because regular attendance had been an important spiritual practice for me for about five years. It has been upsetting to let it go, even if only for a year.

Some night last week I had a dream. I was with my husband, Shai, and we were going to a UU church for worship. But it wasn’t on a Sunday morning, it was on a Wednesday night! And when we got there, it wasn’t in an old New England building, but in a big, modern looking room. And there were all these cool, modern looking signs welcoming us. There were hundreds of people there. And there were lots of young adults. And when the music started playing, we were trembling with emotion. And I felt so glad to be there.

Maybe it was more of premonition. This Sunday was my congregation’s first day of “candidating week,” in which the “candidate” our search committee is recommending as our new permanent minister spends a week with us. The week kicks off with the candidate minister leading a worship service.

When I arrived on Sunday morning and stepped into our old New England sanctuary, I was stunned. There were hundreds of people! I ended up in a pew with five people (including two good friends), and I saw there was barely an empty seat around us. There were lots of young people, but also children, youth, middle-aged people and older folks. There were familiar faces I hadn’t seen in a longtime, as if we had all come out of hibernation. A sense of excitement and relief filled the air.

Of course our candidate did an amazing job with the worship. He gave a sermon that was deeply grounded in real-life issues, and framed with a theological approach that I could find a place in. And when he, a former musician, led us in hand-holding song at the end of worship, I was choking back tears.

But as terrific as our ministerial candidate is, for me the star of the morning was our COMMUNITY. We wouldn’t have ended up with such a wonderful ministerial candidate if our search committee hadn’t been so dedicated and discerning. And he wouldn’t be interested in serving us if we hadn’t created an attractive and functional church community. And while the final song was moving, there wouldn’t be anyone to sing it if hundreds of us hadn’t come back to express support for and excitement about this community.