As this year’s strident political debates have swirled around
us, I have often wondered –why is it that liberals and conservatives have come
to such different conclusions about what is important? Moral psychologist
Jonathan Haidt has surveyed tens of thousands of persons and found a reliable
difference in which values were more important to folks who identified as
liberals, and which were most important to those who self identified as
conservatives. Of 5 foundational moral values the values of Compassion and fairness were
considered most important by liberals, while conservatives felt that the other
three values -- respect for authority, loyalty and purity were just as
important.[i] I
was fascinated when I saw Haidt interviewed by Bill Moyers recently, because
his research gives a valuable insight into why liberals and conservatives have
so much trouble understanding one another, so much trouble seeing the world
through one another’s eyes.
As a self-identified liberal, it didn’t rock my sense of who
I am too much to see compassion and fairness elevated over respect for
authority and purity. But seeing Loyalty there as conservative value and not a
liberal one… that bothered me. It made me wonder… could we Unitarian
Universalists, both liberal and conservative, get behind loyalty as a value?
The psychologists who designed the test describe the value this way “Loyalty/betrayal:
This foundation is related to our long history as tribal creatures able to form
shifting coalitions. It underlies virtues of patriotism and self-sacrifice for
the group. It is active anytime people feel that it's ‘one for all, and all for
one’."
This week the citizens of 3 states,
gay marriage in Maine, Maryland
and Washington
state. , voted to recognize same-sex marriage. UUs have long been leaders in
this movement through the Standing ont eh Side of Love campaign and efforts since
1984 when the General Assembly passed a Business Resolution
affirming the practice of UUA clergy
performing Services of Union between same-gender couples, and requesting
that the Department of Ministerial and Congregational Services develop and
distribute supporting materials.[ii]
And in 1996 we passed
Resolution of Immediate Witness in Support of the
Right to Marry for Same-Sex Couples. Which reads in part: “BE IT finally
resolved that the 1996 General Assembly of the Unitarian Universalist
Association urges the member congregations to proclaim the worth of marriage
between any two committed persons and to make this position known in their home
communities.”[iii]
When Unitarian Universalism comes out year after year as a very
public voice for marriage equality, I think most folks look at their message
first and foremost as a pro-equality movement, but I also want to lift up that
this is a pro-marriage movement, a pro-loyalty movement. If we didn’t believe
in marriage, why would we embrace this particular inequality? Ours is not a
religious tradition that says everyone must be married, but I do think it is
important to name loyalty as a religious value, and to stand on the side of
commitment and loyalty.
The 2009 Census showed
marriages are now at an all time low.
Only 52 percent of adults 18 and over reported themselves as married, compared
with 57 percent in 2000.[iv] This reduction in marriages is both folks who
have never been married and folks who are divorced or widowed.
Initially when divorce became more possible in our culture, I
know there were some women and men for whom this was literally life saving. Folks trapped in abusive or
oppressive relationships could see no way out. The option of never marrying is
a blessing for new generations of men and women who would have been forced into
un-wanted marriage out of social convention. But I propose that the pendulum
has now swung too far to the other direction. Today the media often portrays
marriage and romance much like any other consumer activity, shopping around for
the best sweater or TV set, and relying on the return policy if the sweater no
longer fits, or if the TV needs un upgrade.
I know that in this room there are folks who don’t buy into
that cultural image of marriage as one more consumer good for sale in the
marketplace. There are folks here who have been married for decades, who live
loyalty day by day, who have stood by their partners through mental or physical
illness, through disputes over the dishes, through conflicting career aspirations,
through nights with colicky babies, or arguments about whether to have
children.My premarital counseling professor once told us that some of
his couples wanted to promise to stay together “for as long as we both shall
love” instead of “for as long as we both shall live.” He would refuse – “That’s
not really a marriage” he said. Because there is something about knowing that a
union is a forever promise, that it doesn’t come with a gift receipt so you can
return your partner if they don’t do their share of the dishes, or if a newer
fancier model comes along later. Such a promise changes fundamentally the
nature of the relationship-- to covenant “for richer for poorer, for better or
for worse, in sickness and in health.” Such a promise is a foundation you can
build your lives on.
I think as a denomination, we have been reluctant to speak too
strongly about the value of marriage in particular, because we know there are
folks who build their lives on a different foundation. They chose not to be in
a life partnership, and instead have strong bonds with friends, with parents or
siblings, with extended family. There are folks for whom heartbreak has
crumbled those very foundations they used to depend on, and those whose lives
are more solitary. But I think it is the job of your beloved community to value
connection, and to stand by those connections.
The biblical story of Ruth and Naomi is a wonderful illustration
of how loyalty can take unexpected forms. Some of you will remember that in
this story Naomi’s husband dies, and not long after her two adult sons. She
says to her two recently widowed daughters-in-law
8 “Go, return
each of you to her mother’s house. May the Lord deal kindly with you as you have dealt with the dead
and with me. 9 May the Lord
grant that you may find rest, each in the house of her husband.” Then she kissed
them, and they lifted up their voices and wept.
One daughter in law, Oprah, chooses
to go back to her mother’s household, (remember this was a matriarchal lineage)
but the other, Ruth says to her
16 “Do not
urge me to leave you or turn back from following you; for where you go,
I will go, and where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my
people, and your God, my God. 17 Where you die,
I will die, and there I will be buried. Thus may the Lord do to me, and worse, if anything but death parts you
and me.” 18 When she saw that
she was determined to go with her, she said no more to her.
Ruth is elevated throughout the Judeo-Christian tradition as
a standard-bearer for Loyalty. Legally,
she owed nothing to her Mother in law, but she made this vow of loyalty, and as
the story reveals, is true to her vow.
Certainly loyalty has a shadow side, which is betrayal and
abuse. For years religious leaders have told women or men trapped in abusive
relationships that this is their cross to bear. That they must remain true to
their promises and “try to work things out.” Untold damage and harm has been
done with such admonitions. I attended a clergy training about domestic abuse
over at the Guthrie medical center, and one of my evangelical colleagues stood to
respond to this traditional dialogue and said “A woman who leaves an abusive
relationship is not breaking her covenant. The man broke the covenant when he
abused her.” The shadow side of loyalty is that it sometimes compels us into
staying in an abusive situation past the time when the covenant is broken.
Sometimes the most loyal thing we can do is name the truth, is uphold the
boundaries of our covenant. If we are in an abusive marriage, it is not un-loyal to leave. If we see
democracy erode in our great democratic nation, it is not un-loyal to speak up
and say “we can be better than this, I know we can.”
I went to the website “yourmorals.org” and took the survey,
and one of the questions stuck out to me: “should you give help to a member of
your family even if they do something wrong?” I like to think that I would. I
believe that there must be some network, some community looking out for each
and every person, even those who commit grievous errors. Now, let’s be clear
that one must also put up boundaries. This is not disloyal. One should think
carefully about giving money to a cousin you know is a heroine addict. We must
keep our children protected from relatives or friends who have transgressed
sexual boundaries. Keeping those boundaries is part of loyalty.
Here’s a question that often pits liberals against conservatives:
“should you be loyal to your country even if you think it has done something
wrong?” Remember the old rallying cry: “America: love it or leave it?” I
want to challenge that old chestnut and say that this is not really loyalty. I
think real loyalty sounds more like “America: love it… or work to make
it a great country for all.” I want folks who think critically about government
to reclaim the word “loyal.” Do you believe that those folks out shivering in
the cold in an Occupy tent city are disloyal? I don’t believe they are. I think
it takes a tremendous amount of loyalty to speak truth. And I have to say the
same thing about those standing on tired cold feet at Tea Party protests. To me
it is more loyal to stage a protest than to just give up on the democratic
process and stop voting, stop paying attention, stop caring. To me political
loyalty is not a passive thing, but an active one. We show our loyalty by showing
up, by paying attention, and by hanging in there on good days and on bad.
After I realized that I was never going to be a professional
opera singer and before I knew that I wanted to be a minister, I went to work
for a company called Clendenin Brothers Inc. They made non-ferrous fasteners,
and had been doing so since the 1865, because a port town like Baltimore needs rivets for ship-building and
repair. Almost everyone in the front office had started in one of two jobs- the
switchboard operator (my job) was the entry level job in the accounting
department, and from there folks
advanced to biller, then to accounts receivable, then payables. The
Sales intern usually became a sales person, and in fact the head of sales had
been the sales intern almost 50 years back. I didn’t understand the politics as
well in the factory, which was right there in the same building, but I knew
that many of those who worked in the factory had been with the company for a
long time. The company was loyal to its employees. If you were hired at
Clendenin Brothers and worked hard, you could spend your life there, and each
year the boss would stand in the loading dock handing out Christmas Turkeys and
Hams.
When I spilled soda on the switchboard, a mistake that cost
the company over $1000, I wasn’t fired, I got a very serious talking to by my
boss, the comptroller. I confess I made a number of mistakes on that job, and
each time, quietly, patiently, my boss and I talked about what changes I could
make so that those mistakes wouldn’t happen again. Hardly anyone ever got
fired, and hardly anyone ever quit.
One of my jobs as the switchboard operator was to interface
with the vending machine guy. Being the kind of entrepreneurial young woman I
was, when we received a proposal for a new vending machine contract, I
presented it to my boss. I had heard enough complaints at the front desk about
moldy food in the machines that I thought it was time to make a change. My boss
said, “We have to think really carefully about this. We never leave a vendor
lightly. Try to work it out with the current guy first, then we’ll talk about
it.” This was a company that was loyal to its employees, to its vendors and to
its customers. And I know that at least the employees in the front office were
very loyal in return.
Is loyalty a Unitarian Universalist value? And if it is, do
we believe that Unitarian Universalism is something we could trust with our
loyalty? This, I think, is a question we struggle with mightily. Because so
many of us grew up in other faith traditions, we often speak most loudly about
the importance of “Our chosen faith” …of choosing. We value so highly the
wisdom of diverse religious traditions that in my Athens Congregation we just
spent 18 months teaching our teens about those neighboring faiths, and visiting
those traditions as they gather in worship. But we have to be careful not to
let loyalty to this faith become the null curriculum, that is, what we teach by
what we leave out. Instead, let us fearlessly say to our children, if it is our
truth, this is a good faith, and one that will walk with you all your life as
you search for meaning and try to live lives that are compassionate and just.
Let us not forget to tell our children that if they choose to
commit to this Unitarian Universalist tradition, it will be there for them in
good times and in bad, in sickness and in health. When we speak of “our chosen faith”, I
encourage us to think of choosing in the same way that we may choose to enter
into a marriage, rather than the way we choose a new TV at the electronics
store. Because when you new get your TV home that first day and you’ve figured
out the remote, that is about the best that relationship is ever going to be.
But when you enter into relationship with a faith tradition, with a particular
beloved community, that relationship has the potential to get deeper and richer
and closer year after year as life itself changes and grows. Perhaps loyalty is
like putting down roots- which takes time. The deeper the roots, the more the
tree is able to weather storm and drought, the more channels of communication
and sharing are open between and among the trees and other life forms in a
grove.
As Olympia Brown, the first Ordained woman preacher in America, preached to her Racine congregation in 1920:
“Stand by this faith. Work for it and
sacrifice for it. There is nothing in all the world so important as to be loyal
to this faith which has placed before us the loftiest ideals, which has
comforted us in sorrow, strengthened us for noble duty and made the world beautiful.”
Loyalty takes many forms: loyalty to country, to a partner,
to friends, to family, to employer or employee. Loyalty sometimes runs in the
face of the cultural patterning that we
should always crave something better, something more, as if the next friend,
the next partner, the next job will be better than what we have now. When we
claim Loyalty as an important value we are remembering that some things grow
slowly with time and commitment, and that these things are of profound and
satisfying value, even when they are hard, even when exciting new things
sparkle in the distance. Loyalty is about giving relationships time to put down
roots, to spread their branches, and to blossom and bear fruit
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