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Rev. Meg Barnhouse
June 16, 2019
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org
How do you walk through this world being a blessing? How do you give your blessing to your children? How do you live as a blessing to your friends and your community? How do you increase your blessing power, your soul power?
Call to Worship
Rev. Patrick T. O’Neill
It may be surprising to learn the traditional greeting passed between Masai warriors is “KASSerian UNgeh-ra?” “And how are the children?”
It acknowledges the high value the Masai always place on their children’s well-being. Even those with no children of their own give the traditional answer, “All the children are well.”
Masai society has not forgotten its reason for being, that the priorities of protecting the young, the powerless, are in place.
“All the children are well” means that the daily struggles for existence do not preclude proper caring for their young.
I wonder how it might affect our consciousness of our own children’s welfare if in our culture we took to greeting each other with this daily question:
“And how are the children?”
I wonder if we heard that question and passed it along to each other a dozen times a day, if it would begin to make a difference in the reality of how children are thought of or cared about in our own country.
I wonder if every adult among us, parent and non-parent alike, felt an equal weight for the daily care and protection of all the children in our community, our city, our state, our country …
I wonder if we could truly say without any hesitation, “The children are well, yes, all the children are welL”
What would it be like …
if the minister began every worship service by answering the question, “And how are the children?”
If every town leader had to answer the question at the beginning of every meeting:
“And how are the children? Are they all well?” Wouldn’t it be interesting to hear their answers? What would it be like?
I wonder …
Reading
Rev. Meg Barnhouse
Excuse Me, Was That a Conversation?
Sometimes I actually understand my children when we talk. Other times I don’t. Each individual word they are using is familiar, but after the whole sentence has come out, I’m lost. My dream is to have actual conversations with them, and for them to be able to converse with each other. This is where they were a few years ago, at five and eight:
“I know lots of tricks in life on how to get candy.”
“I invented them, not you.”
“Uh-uh. Einstein did.”
“How do you know that?”
“Einstein invented almost everything.”
“Oh yeah? He didn’t invent any of the good stuff. Like TV.”
“Well, he didn’t invent TV, but he invented electricity, and you can’t have TV without electricity.”
I couldn’t figure out how to join in that discussion.
Now my boys are older. They play video games. The ten-year-old plays Pokemon cards. The thirteen-year-old plays Magic cards. They say things to me like this: “Mom, see, you combine the Splinter card with the Wagon of Mortality and you can replicate any number of freezes you want to. You throw them at your opponent and unless he has Reap the Whirlwind, you can deal him fourteen damage for every artifact you have in play.”
I like it very much when they talk to me, even if. right now, it’s talking at me. I remind myself that I’m grateful they like to do it. What I don’t want is for them to turn into silent hulking teenagers grunting at me as they pass me in the hall. That will make me angry and hurt my feelings. Then I will lecture, which does not do any good.
My favorite times are when we have actual conversations, which are rare. Conversation happens when you say a brief thing to me and then I say a brief thing to you that has to do with what you just said to me. I may ask a question to clarifY for me what you said, or one that asks you to go into greater depth. I may connect what you said to something else in my experience, but I try not to jump right to my experience. We can talk about yours first.
The art of conversation is a difficult one. Many people lecture or indulge in long explanations of their ideas or blow-by-blow descriptions of their golf game last Saturday. I was raised to do the “ladylike” thing in conversation with a man. Mama called it “drawing him out.” The lady asks the man question after question so he can do all the talking. Finally I figured out that this is not conversation.
I don’t want my sons, when they are grown, to be comfortable with that kind of behavior, either from themselves or from their conversational partners.
My desire is eventually to have actual conversations with my children. Not a lecture from me, an argument about who is right and who is wrong, me “drawing them out.” or a long-winded enthusing from them about whatever sport they are playing at the moment. We practice asking questions of one another. At the dinner table I will sometimes say. “Yes, you may be excused … after you ask everyone at the table two questions.” They are getting better at it. It still feels sometimes like I’m tormenting them, but that’s okay. I’m their mom. Tormenting them is my job.
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