The man who ate a car

Rev. Meg Barnhouse

February 12, 2012

Our fifth Principle talks about liberty and justice for all, with a goal of world community. How are we supposed to get this done?

How would you sit down to eat a car? Knife and fork? Hacksaw? Ketchup? Hot sauce? Would you circle the vehicle a couple of times, figuring out where to start? Would you drink a nice lemonade with the upholstery? What about the more metallic meals? White or red wine? That would probably depend on whether it was a meaty truck like a Dodge Ram or a fishier Plymouth Barracuda. Eating a car is something that would take commitment, time, planning. It would take a special mind to think of doing it.

Our sixth principle is like that. It says that we, as UUs, agree to affirm (say yes to,) and promote (try to get more people to say yes to) the goal of world community with peace, liberty and justice for all. That’s really big. It makes a person think the framers of the principles were getting tired at the end there, and that they just wrote one that was the equivalent of “well, we want the whole world to be okay, everything else plus that big freezer in the garage.” What do you do with a principle that large and unwieldy?

There is a funny short film on youtube with the title “The Man Who Ate a Car,” and it opens with him talking in his kitchen.

“A car is just the sum of its parts, and a lot of the parts aren’t that big, just a couple of inches across. 75% of the parts of an automobile are a couple of inches across and half an inch deep. That’s the size of an Oreo cookie. And the ones that are too big, you just machine down, smooth out.”

Most of us don’t have time, in the biggest part of our lifespan, to do much for the world. We are busy making a living, raising children, maintaining the relationships we choose, taking care of our health and strength or adjusting to its loss. It’s hard to find time and energy for leaving the world a better place. Ralph Waldo Emerson said a successful life was to leave the world ” a little bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know that even one life has breathed easier because you live…” Many of us do that. I am beginning to know some of the stories of a good number of people in this room and I can tell you there are many people here who will leave the world a little better than they found it. Lives have breathed easier because you have lived. What will you be known for when you are gone?

Unitarians and Universalists have thrown their life energies in with the forces of change over the centuries. Many Unitarians and Universalists worked in the Abolitionist Movement to overthrow slavery. Many have worked in the Civil Rights struggle. Unitarian Horace Mann organized the public school system Universalist Clara Barton founded the Red Cross. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes was led by his liberal faith to a much more inclusive interpretation of the law. Thomas Starr King (after whom one of the UU seminaries, the one in Berkley, is named) was inspired to fight the California legislature for continued land rights of Mexicans. Jane Hull founded Hull House in Chicago, and began to professionalize social workers; moving caring for the poor from religious institutions that often pressured you to convert to get care, to non-religiously affiliated professionals. Roger Baldwin was led to establish the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). May Sarton wrote poetry inspiring her readers with truth and beauty.

Social action, politics and art are some ways we can make the world a better place. Most of us, in the ordinary course of our lives, are doing it by being loving family members, teaching our children strong values of usefulness, tolerance, open minded curiosity, kindness, knowledge, wisdom, and love. We teach the children in the church, we care for our grandchildren, we cook for people and visit them when they need company. We make the world a better place by being good friends, by trying to behave correctly and do the right things. Do those actions bring about world community with peace, liberty and justice for all? We can barely make justice within our own church, our own families. How can we heal the whole world?

This principle is over-large, and it sits there, parked in the driveway of every UU who is resolving to live the faith.

“This is a long term activity,” says the man who ate the car. “Look, it took five years. I ate my first two lug nuts on Dec 30, 1990 — finished the last piece of the clutch housing on Feb 14 1995.” Compared to a task with no beginning, no middle and no end, eating a car sounds almost easy.

World community, with peace, liberty and justice for all is too big a goal. When my goals are that big, I get overwhelmed. When a person is overwhelmed, they are stressed, crabby, emotionally less stable and sleepy. The principles certainly aren’t supposed to do that to us. When a rule is too hard to follow, it’s just begging to be ignored. When a goal is too big, it’s just begging to slide down the priority list behind every other thing in the world that can be accomplished.

Overwhelm burns us out. When we can’t get anywhere, when the things we do accomplish seem so insignificant compared to what we are supposed to be accomplishing that we feel they are nothing. We don’t want the sixth principle to make us feel that all our small efforts are insignificant. What I learned about setting goals is that you are supposed to make a goal from something you can control. Instead of saying “I’m going to be a catalyst for change like Barbara Jordan was!” you might say “I’m going to change one thing ——about myself—- this week.” That you can do, usually. Instead of saying, “My goal is to be a millionaire,” you make a goal of saving a certain amount of your income, or of living within your means day by day, or just or writing down what you spend. Goals should be measurable. Did I do it or not? They should be attainable. We can say that we have a goal to do some action every day to make the world a better place. Most of us, just by living the principles and trying to be good people, are doing that. We can take the red heart from our bulletin and write a kind and loving note to someone who wants to get married and can’t do it in TX yet. The notes will be delivered on Valentines Day to the people who are going to the office on Airport Rd. to ask for licenses. Or you can get some food after church and take it to the Pecan Area of Zilker park where the Occupy folks have invited us and others for a picnic.

One good purpose that can be served by an extra-large, unattainable goal, though, is that it is a measuring stick we can hold up to the various situations and decisions we face as we move through our lives. “Is this going to be more or less like world community?” You might ask yourself. “Will this make more peace, more liberty, more justice, or less?” A good large measuring stick can help as choices come up.

Let’s take that sixth principle little by little, and let’s take our time. Take a big important stand or do something small every day, or both. Just keep it in mind. Look at your home, your work, your church through its windshield. Machine those pieces down until they are the size of an Oreo cookie. Then make them part of supper.