Taking Heart in the Heartland

A sermon offered at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Lafayette, Indiana
June 9, 2002
By Rev. Hilary Landau Krivchenia

Reading

From Small Wonder by Barbara Kingsolver

I can clear the brush from a neglected part of the garden, working slowly until it comes to me that here is one small place I can make right for my family.  I can plant something as an act of faith in time itself, a vow that we will, sure enough, have a fall and a winter this year, to be followed again by spring. This is not an end in itself, but a beginning.  I work until my mind can run a little further on its tether, tugging at this central pole of my sadness, for a minute or two while pondering a school meeting next week, the watershed conservation project our neighborhood has undertaken, the farmer's market it organized last year: the good that becomes possible when a small group of thoughtful citizens commit themselves to it. And indeed, as Margaret Mead, said it is the only thing that ever really does add up to change. Small change, small wonders-these are the currency of my endurance and ultimately of my life. It's a workable economy.

Political emergencies come and go, but it's a fair enough vocation to light one match after another against the dark isolation, when arrogance rules the day and tries to force hope into hiding.  It seems to me that there is still so much to say that I had better raise up a yell across the wall.  I have stories of things I believe in: a persistent river, a forest on the edge of night, the religion inside a seed, the startle of wingbeats when a spark of red life flies against all reason out of the darkness.  I speak of small wonders, and the possibility of taking heart.

Today is Cole Porter’s birthday – he was born in 1891.  Four weeks ago my family went on a sort of pilgrimage to Peru, Indiana.  We’d just learned that Cole Porter had been born there – only an hour or so from Lafayette.  Urbane, witty, cosmopolitan – Porter is a family favorite – the composer of some of our favorite songs – I Get a Kick Out of You, Anything Goes, All Through the Night, You’re the Tops, Brush up Your Shakespeare.  In spite of threatening weather, with the fervor of devotees, we piled into the car, hauled the kids with us, and played Ella Fitzgerald singing Porter’s hits.  Once in Peru we stopped at a gas station, filled the tank, and I went in to ask for Porter pointers for tourists.  One clerk – a young woman of about 19 – had, “like, sort of heard about him, but, like, had never seen anything or anything”.  Still, the other young clerk knew where the grave site and house were and, pointed on by a small plastic sign – one you might put up for a yard sale – we found our way to the Cole Family Plot, where Cole Porter is buried.  We took pictures, sang songs, and spread out a lunch at the cemetery.  After lunch, we went to find the house where the star of Peru had grown up.  It was evident that Peru had fallen on hard times.  On the main street were exquisite buildings with classic architecture of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century – most looking worn and forlorn, with small businesses trying to survive in large-windowed, once-shining, and noble storefronts.  The Wabash River runs through town and the waterfront holds the remains of small businesses and old industries.  On some of the side streets vintage homes, reclaimed and renovated, were scattered amongst a majority of homes long neglected.  I’ll admit it was the sort of town that could make a young man or woman strive to get away – to travel to New York, Paris, London, to the East or West Coast – all the places Cole Porter explored in his own ever traveling life.  It was the kind of town that could make a kid want to run away and join the circus – but the Hagenbeck and Wallace Circus is the town’s other claim to fame.  I wondered if the streets had become home to generations of Hoosiers who ran away to Peru.

            We made our way to the house at Huntington and Third – a marker on the corner confirmed, despite our disbelief, that this was the childhood home of Cole Porter.  Once a lovely home, this building was split into apartments, and it was appallingly run down.  My father and I were dismayed and disheartened.

On our way back through town, we stopped at the local museum and historical society.  I asked about the Porter home and the women there shared their frustrations, too.  Much had been tried.  Much failed.  I wanted to write a letter, send in the “This Old House” Cavalry – I wanted to do something.  They gave me the address of the Mayor.  Still, I thought about the relative insignificance of the old house of some celebrity.  True he’d taken generous care of all his surviving relations, true he’d had a revolutionary impact on the genre of American Musicals, and he’d written some of the most enduring songs – but his house couldn’t compare in urgency and scope to the truly horrifying events in the global news.  It was circus peanuts compared even to the struggles of the living residents of Peru today.  Yet, I was fired up.  I wrote to the mayor, Richard Blair, among other things: “I do not know all of the intricacies of the attempts that you may have made to reclaim this home – but it should be open to the public, restored, and a place of pride for the city of Peru and the state of Indiana.  Few songwriters have been as creative and renowned as Cole Porter.  He is a national treasure.  I write to ask that you make the restoration of his home on Third Street a civic priority.”

            From there I went on.  The Mayor is a gentleman and only a couple of days later I received this letter in return, detailing the efforts that the city had made to recover this building from slum landlords.  The Honorable Mayor thanked me for my concern and sent me a Cole Porter commemorative stamp cancelled in Peru, on Porter’s birthday, by the postmaster general of the United States in 1991 – one hundred years after Porter’s birth.  I still felt foolish at caring about this old house in the face of world crises.  Yet, reading the Mayor’s letter, I felt more hopeful about the future of that town – that it might deepen its civic pride, its sense of culture, history, and its role in the arts – so important to the development of the human heart.  I wish Peru luck – like so many places – they have obstacles to surmount. 

            I can become enthralled – like a gaper on the road – with the desolate state of things.  I find myself and watch others stymied, feeling helpless to create any change.  To take even a small step feels good – like stepping free of some immense fly-paper.  I feel alive, purposeful, connected.  Growing up on the big struggles when it all seemed so clear – racism: bad, War: bad, sexism: bad, non-union: bad, it’s possible to find the challenges of our present time daunting and yet – there is a path -- both simple and powerful – there is a path and it begins – as it must – locally.  It is locally that we are taught our values, learn empathy, creative thought, learn to move beyond what we are sold.  Barbara Kingsolver writes: we see so much, understand so little and are told so much, by pollsters and advertisers, about “What We Think” that it begins to feel like an enormous effort to listen at all to our hearts.”  Just so -- It is wherever we truly are, wherever we are -- that we can move toward our hearts and know who we might truly be.  Though we sometimes go far from home, it is locally that we learn the language, if we can, of a politics of meaning.  A politics of meaning says that our values and our social decisions are connected, our principles and our social programs must be aligned, that greed will consume and generosity will create bounty, that hate will beget hate, that love will beget love – even if it takes generations, and that people behave from their hearts – from their hopes and loves and fears.  Despite or in despair – we are meaning-driven creatures – our actions speak our meanings – our deep values.

It is locally that we first learn about power.  Locally we learn about relationship and, as Frances Moore Lappé wrote in The Quickening of America, “Power is always relational.”  Remember Clarisse in Fahrenheit 451(Lafayette’s One Great Read Program Book)?  It is the wild and unpredictable connection, though brief and shrouded in shadow, that Montag finds with her – her gentle words that open his mind and begin to free his heart.  Locally we learn to care about the consequences of our relationships and of power and powerlessness.

            If we learn these consequences well locally, we can understand what choices we face when we encounter others globally.  It is, as Kingsolver said, not an end by itself – the world is too much hurting for that – but it is surely a beginning.  It is that first act of faith that begins to teach us about all other possible acts – of creativity and faith, of social action and work for justice and peace – all those subsequent acts of faith.

            As we work locally we flex our change muscles – and we set the conditions for a society of creativity, discourse, caring, democracy, and change.  As this Sunday approached, I realized that what I needed to hearten me for this time of work and study coming up were your insights and the insight of this land, Indiana.  I needed my global views to be made keener by local eyes – to find heart in this Heartland.  Not to sound like a sampler – but home is where the heart is -- more – it is where the heart is shaped – and emerges – not to travel the world for fame but to work for the shared good.

            I haven’t needed to look further than this congregation to find acts of faith, courage, vision, and generosity.  Summer has scattered many of our folk -- so some I mention are away today.  And there are many outside our congregation who also bring me hope.  Local leaders willing to risk to make a human rights a local policy.  Religious leaders willing to come together and honor the shining truths in one another’s religions.  Educators who gave our children time to reflect on the events of last fall without reverting to thoughtless temporizing or sloganizing.  Against a background of manic consumption and a culture of selfishness there are countless acts holding forth a generous beacon to light a new path.

            When Mark, my husband, moved down here – he got involved in the Earth-craft farm collective.  This cooperative brings labor help to an organic farmer and loads of fine organic produce to the members.  It sets people free of the grocery store chain for some of our food needs and gives the soil and our bodies a rest from the well meant work of the food engineers and scientists.  It keeps our dollars local, connects families with one another, and helps people find new friends and cohorts.  It is local but it ripples outward to touch the world. 

            On our way back from Peru, Mark stopped in Delphi to check out the Canal Park.  I learned that Beverly Seese – a person in our church community has been active in the Park system of Delphi.  Delphi’s parks are remarkable – it’s a small town but has five great parks and is on the Erie-Wabash Canal.  Beverly was chair of the Park Board for six years.  She got into that trouble this way: soon after the Seese’s moved to Delphi from California to be near Carl’s family, Bev was caring alone during the day for a small, active baby boy.  In contrast to California, where children could play in the park year round, Bev was shocked to discover that in the winter here it is not a good idea to take your baby out to play as they may freeze.  Finding a gym underused, Bev went to the mayor and suggested that a play space be opened for children during the day while the junior high school was not using the facility.  She initiated it and many parents began to bring their children to play there – it was like an indoor park – there were floor and wall mats from the wrestling team – it was perfect for small running children.  Parents brought toys.  Meetings started up in the rooms around the gym and groups of older citizens began to use the periphery of the gym for midwinter walking, circling as the children played in the center.  After that, Bev was roped in as Park Board Chair, superintending the parks as a volunteer -- a more than full time task.  Finally, she brought the city council to her house, arranged her Park Papers in organized piles in her living room and took the Council on a tour of the work she was doing.  Soon the town created a paid position for a park superintendent.  This summer, Sharon McKnight our gifted, resident folk musician, inspired by the accomplishments of the Canal Association and the Delphi Parks has organized a series of concerts to keep the parks lively.

Locally, I found the footprints of Lee and Marguerite Trachtman, both long time activists who have made a difference in the greater Lafayette area for many years – and managed to pull many other people along for hard work and a more tolerant and liberal County.

            I’ll see Della Willman and John Wilms at our General Assembly.  They, together, formed the Partners in Probation program that helps people on probation to find support and the means to stay out of jail and offers meaningful service opportunities to so many people.

            I could go on and on – I won’t -- but I can’t resist mentioning Gale Kvam – our civically agile black belt.  This week she spent two evenings, past midnight, learning about school law. Gale serves on the West Lafayette School Board and is one of a number of people in our congregation who have worked on the Vision 20/20 project.  She said that we’ll see in the upcoming years fruits of that dialogue – that included people from both sides of the Wabash, from business, the arts, and the university; invited them to share their visions, hear one another out, and that the best outcome of the Vision 20/20 process was all the connection and communication it produced among diverse people.  In school Board work, too, she advocates strong communication -- between districts, for programs that address the whole child, and create our hope for the future because our hope sits in our schools every day.  I hope that they’re learning, not how to take tests but how to thrive in the test of life, how to change the conditions of life, be creative, feel connected to diverse people, understand their place in the long unfolding of history, and learn both responsibility as citizens and the accountability of business and government to the citizens.  Gale is a voice for living education and citizen empowerment. 

            These are small wonders but they are meaningful in our lives – good produce and small farmers, better education, more open government, fewer people returning to the hopelessness of prison, a restored park, an intergenerational play space – they are local steps but they begin the process of changing the world.  Once you’ve walked into the mayor’s office it is easier to walk into the next office and the next – easier to understand and support someone else on a mission of justice or hope.  Once you’ve made something new and positive happen in your community you hearten people in communities far and near – our Earth-craft Collective is part of a national – no – an international movement of “Slow Food.”

Michael Lerner wrote: “Much of human history has been the history of smaller groups beginning to see common interests and ties to larger groups, first as clans, then as tribes, then as peoples, then as nations.”  We must grow a sense of humanity beyond borders – in the face of differences, in spite of – and because of histories -- to see over or even dismantle our walls.  Robert Frost, the poet wrote: “Something there is that does not love a wall.”  Barbara Kingsolver responds – “we who are alive in this moment did not build these walls, nor did we ignite the fury that has smoldered for generations and hurls itself at us now as a burning question.  But we have inherited the urgency of answering it. Somewhere there must be a door through.  The alternative is to construct higher walls and they higher they grow the harder they fall.”

            I hesitate -- but I am reminded of Ralph W. Emerson’s phrase, “In every wall there is a door.”  The present cries out that, in every wall of despair, we must make a door – and here is where we begin.  This is the meaning of our faith -- that between all religions and people there are doors -- walls too, but real doors of understanding, of wisdom, and of the radical healing of our world.  Our Unitarian Universalism calls us to make and find those doors – beginning in our congregations and opening out onto the world.  This is the core meaning of our religious heritage – not a new wall – but a new foundation and new doors.  We have inherited the urgency of opening the doors in those rising walls.  Or in causing the ground to heave up with the vitality of our meaning-making, springing like flowers from once frozen earth – to cause the walls to crumble – as the poet hoped.  As Hoosiers, you know by now that if Cole Porter can spring out of the plain and fertile soil of this Heartland anything can.  He was a wild prairie blossom.  Thich Nhat Hanh says as a greeting – “A lotus for you – a Buddha to be” – meaning that each of us can grow to love and work for the healing of the world. 

            Rabbi Tarfon of the 2^nd Century of the Common Era, said: “It is not upon you to finish the task but neither is it upon you to ignore it.”  Soak up the commitment in these walls – not walls of division but of support – soak in the commitment in these leaders, the strength of character in these stories and know that you can begin anywhere – but you must begin.  You can begin at anytime – but you must begin in your heart.  You can begin anyway – but let us continue together – Blossoming like flowers and taking heart in the heartland.