Story: Crossing the Finish Line Together
Based on a true story that happened at the 1976 Special Olympics in Seattle, Washington. The mission of Special Olympics is to provide year-round sports training and athletic competition in a variety of Olympic-type sports for children and adults with intellectual disabilities, giving them continuing opportunities to develop physical fitness, demonstrate courage, experience joy and participate in a sharing of gifts, skills and friendship with their families, other Special Olympics athletes and the community.
Years ago at the Seattle Special Olympics, nine contestants lined up at the starting line for the 100-yard dash. At the sound of the starting gun, they all started off in their own way, making their best effort to run down the track toward the finish line. That is, except for the one young boy who stumbled soon after his start, tumbled to the ground and began to cry. Two of the other racers, hearing the cries of the boy who fell, slowed down and looked back at him. Then without hesitation, they turned around and began running in the other direction—toward the injured boy.
While the other contestants struggled to make it to the finish line, the two who had turned around to run in the other direction reached for the boy and helped him to his feet. All three of them then linked arms and together they walked to the finish line. By the time the trio reached the end, everyone in the stands was standing and cheering, some with tears rushing down their faces. Even though by turning back and helping the boy who fell, they lost their own chance to win the race, they all had smiles on their faces because they knew they had done the right thing.
From Tapestry of Faith "Love Connects Us" curricula
Story: Hard Truths
By the Reverend David Pettee
One of the more important things that Unitarian Universalists try to do is to "seek the truth in love." This might sound easy to do. "So, what's so hard about it?" you might ask. Well, what happens when you think you know one story, but while seeking the truth about it, an entirely different story comes out? This happened to me a few years ago.
In my family, I am the person who knows more than anyone else about our ancestors. My grandfather used to be this person, as was his father before him. Over time, lots of great stories about our family were collected and passed down. I was so proud of all that my ancestors had done that I decided to keep learning as much about them as I could.
The Internet has made the search for old records so much easier! While my grandfather needed to use his vacation time to go and do research, I can sit at my computer and find these same records at my fingertips. And one day, in 2006, I found that an old record from the 1770s was searchable online. I typed in an ancestor's name, and living in his house in Rhode Island were four enslaved Africans. This was a huge surprise! I think the story made my ancestors feel embarrassed, so they had stopped talking about it, and gradually it was forgotten.
That there had been slavery in New England was also a surprise. I had thought that slavery only existed in the South. But slavery was practiced in the North for two hundred years! The more I learned about the truth, the more I wanted to know what really had happened. And after a year of researching, I learned that not only did I have several family members who enslaved Africans, I also had an ancestor who was a captain of a ship that brought slaves from Africa. This news was hard to accept at first, and made me feel ashamed about my family.
But my decision to "seek the truth in love" did not stop there. Because I came to know so much about my ancestor who was a ship's captain, I decided to go to Africa. I wanted to see with my own eyes the places that he visited. Amazingly, some of the buildings were still standing. Walking in his footsteps made the history come alive even more. The most unexpected thing was that I began to feel different inside. While the story was about bondage, I began to feel liberated from feeling so ashamed... free to talk truthfully about a story that still is so uncomfortable for so many people.
When I got back home, there was even more work to be done! I wanted to locate a person whose ancestor had been enslaved by my ancestor. I wanted to share all that I had learned, hoping that this information might help this person better understand their own family history. I felt that our two families were already joined by our common history.
Even though the life stories of African Americans were often not recorded in official public records, I learned that African Americans kept their own records. They did the best they could to leave a trail behind for others to follow. One day, looking at records of my ancestor, I found mention of an African American with the same last name! I began researching him, and gradually, his life story began to emerge. It became clear that he was one of the enslaved Africans from my ancestor's home. I found out who his descendants were, who their descendants were... and traced that family all the way to the present day.
A year and a half after I first began seeking the truth, I called Pat, who lived in New York City. I was really afraid she would be mad at me because of what my ancestor had done to her ancestor. But she wasn't mad at all. She was grateful that I had made the effort to learn as much as I could, and that I was willing to share it all. Pat knew very little about her family history. My information filled in a lot of gaps of missing information.
Pat and I have become good friends. We refer to one another as cousins. We have since met other people, those with ancestors who were enslaved and those with ancestors who enslaved others—for important and truthful conversation. While the legacy of slavery still makes a lot of people unhappy, we are learning that by being willing to face the truth together, we can build a new legacy. What started out as something so embarrassing and shameful for me now feels very hopeful, and I've made a number of great new friends!
From Tapestry of Faith "Love Connects Us" curricula
Story: The Mish-Mash Heart
Recently at a multigenerational event at a Unitarian Universalist congregation, everyone was encouraged to create a heart. They were given some construction paper and some glue and some markers to design their heart. Emily worked diligently to create the most perfect, beautiful heart she could. It even had glitter in the shape of diamonds all around the outside.
As she was helping to clean up, she noticed the heart of one woman who was around the same age as her grandmother sitting at a nearby table. It was a mish-mash mess of odd colors and had pieces which were ripped and torn glued haphazardly upon it. Parts of it were wrinkled and crinkled and there was even a little hole in it!
Thinking there was something wrong, Emily offered to help the woman fix her heart. But the woman merely smiled and explained that there was nothing wrong with her heart; it merely revealed all the things that had happened to her in her life. She said there were happy times here: the beautiful colors and designs represented when she first met her husband, their wedding and the birth of each of their three children. There were other beautiful parts, too, which stood for watching her children taking their first steps on their own, riding a bike for the first time and graduating from college.
"But what about all the rips and tears and wrinkles?" Emily asked. "Why are they there?"
These were for the sad times in her life, the woman explained. The time her best friend was stricken with measles, the time someone lied or did something to hurt her feelings and the hole was left when her husband died. "In fact, every time a person comes into my life that I care about," she explained, "they take a piece of my heart with them."
This was distressing to Emily, thinking of the woman having to give part of her heart away to others. "But what happens if you give it all away?" she asked. "You'll be left with nothing."
"No, I won't," the woman responded with a smile. "Because you see, they give me a piece of theirs as well."
Emily looked down at her beautiful, perfect heart with the glitter and the designs she worked so hard to make. Then she looked again at the woman's mish-mashed heart with the jagged colors, rips and wrinkles. Without hesitation, Emily ripped a piece off of her perfect heart and handed it to the woman.
"Thank you," the woman said as she placed it with her mish-mash heart and tore off a piece to hand to Emily.
From Tapestry of Faith "Love Connects Us" curricula
Homily:
Love is the foundation of everything. It guides us, it goes before us. It touches all that we do.
It is made real in the world through our hands and through our thoughts. We bring this heart energy into the world with our hands and our thoughts.
It is love that underlies it all. Love helps us to be compassionate -- to consider helping and caring for others, sometimes over our own need to win and to be recognized. It helps us face the reality of things that are not right.
The Beatles song, “All You Need is Love” was written specifically for the international television broadcast Our World, shown in 17 countries around the world on July 25, 1967. The idea was to create the world's first international live broadcast using then-new satellite technology. The group were approached to write and perform a new song for the live telecast; in two weeks, John Lennon came up with this song, supposedly constructed around a word every language understood: love. (Reports differ on whether the song was actually written prior to the offer, or whether Paul McCartney also attempted to create a song for the event.)
To go along with the international theme of the broadcast, it was decided within the band that several snatches of internationally recognized songs be used in the mix to represent different cultures. The orchestra played these snatches live and in the studio, in the following order: "La Marseillaise" (the national anthem of France), Bach's "2-part Invention #8" (Germany), "Greensleeves" (Britain), Glenn Miller's "In The Mood" (America), and Jeremiah Clarke's "Prince of Denmark's March" (written by a Brit in honor of Denmark).
During rehearsal, John spontaneously began singing "Yesterday" and "She Loves You" as an ironic commentary of sorts on the fadeout's montage of songs.
Our love is a mish-mash of colors and experiences. I think that it is interesting that we have attributed this emotion of love to be connection to our hearts and is symbolized by a heart. It’s fitting because just as it is our hearts, beating in our chests that brings oxygen rich blood to our cells, it is our love that is the pulse of the world.
