Worship

"The Secret Hidden in Plain Sight"
Marta Valentin, December 2, 2001

2002 Award-winning Intergenerational Sermon
Awarded by The Unitarian Sunday School Society

Hymn #124 Be That Guide

Reading - bell hooks
(Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom)

Paulo Freire and the Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh are two of the "teachers" who have touched me deeply with their work...Early on, it was Freire's insistence that education could be the practice of freedom that encouraged me to create strategies for what he called "conscientization" in the classroom. Translating that term to critical awareness and engagement, I entered the classrooms with the conviction that it was crucial for me and every other student to be an active participant, not a passive consumer... Freire's work affirmed that education can only be liberatory when everyone claims knowledge as a field in which we all labor. That notion of mutual labor was affirmed by Thich Nhat Hanh's philosophy of engaged Buddhism, the focus on practice in conjunction with contemplation. His philosophy was similar to Freire's emphasis on "praxis" - action and reflection upon the world in order to change it...In his work Thich Nhat Hanh always speaks of the teacher as a healer.

My sermon this morning will begin with a guided meditation and I invite those of you who would like to, to feel free to close your eyes. Others perhaps could focus on one point, preferably not me. Get comfortable, place your feet firmly on the floor, your hands if you are so moved face up on your thighs. Take a deep breath, slowly filling up your lungs with all the love that is in this sacred space and slowly exhaling blessing everyone around you as you do. Take another deep breath and say quietly to yourself, "I breathe in God's love" (Goddess/Great Spirit) however you define the Mystery that is greater than us but of whom we are a part - and as you exhale say, "I breathe out and bless the world." Take in another breath and repeat the phrases. And continue. As we continue breathing in and out together, imagine yourself walking down a path. What does the path look like? Is it a winding road? Cobblestones? Dirt? Was it the day like? Is the sun beaming down on your face? Is it windy? Cold? Brisk? Whatever climate you find yourself in, trust that you are dressed appropriately. That is not a concern right now for you are on your way to meet someone although you do not know who this person is. You are on a mission. That is all you know. As you continue to walk you are aware of the environment around you as you approach a bridge. What does this bridge look like? What is it going over? What is it connecting? As you cross over the bridge you see a house up ahead and you instinctively know that it is your destination. You begin to anticipate the encounter you are about to have and you can sense its importance. You are pleased that you will be arriving soon and are filled with anticipation. As you approach the house you hear music in the air greeting you as you get nearer. Quietly you walk up the path leading to the entrance of the house and find the door ajar. You call out, but no one answers. You knock and there is no reply. Slowly you push the door open wider and see the person you have come to see. Respectfully you enter and silently sit next to the person. You are aware that this person will tell you a great secret in either one word or one sentence and you have traveled a long way to hear it. It is exactly what you need to hear at this point in your life. When this person has sensed that you have arrived and are ready, the word or sentence is spoken. After a moment you write it down. When you are ready, you thank the person, rise, bow in gratitude and begin the trek back home.

As you slowly make your way back into the sanctuary take a few moments if you have not done so already to write down the word or sentence. If you did not hear a word or sentence, don't worry about it, let it go. You may find something emerges later, everything happens in its own time.

Hit the singing bowls several times

There is an old adage that says: "We teach what we need to learn." There is another that says: "Those who can't, teach." These so-called pearls of wisdom are very troubling to me, mostly because sometimes they ring too true. How many of us have sat in a class or a workshop or seminar and felt that you could do a better job than the teacher? Or you felt that the teacher had no idea what he or she was doing in spite of the fact that usually it takes earning at least a Master's degree in order to teach?

Many of you have been wondering where have I been since I hadn't been in worship much lately. I've been "teaching what I need to learn" with the 5th and 6th graders in the Religious Education program. Mostly, I've been racking my brains out trying to remember what it was like when I was ten and eleven years old. Wondering, what was I interested in? When I was eleven and attending St. Francis de Sales school in Harlem, Sr. Anthony Margaret opened up a whole new world for me when she leaned over and whispered into my ear during Spelling class: "Would you be interested in playing basketball?" The rest was history as I continued to play straight through to college. If only the WNBA had been around then I might be dribbling a ball right now as I give this sermon. Sr. Anthony Margaret uncovered a part of me that I didn't even know existed and for this I have been grateful all my life. And I treasure the memory of seeing her in her black habit and sneakers shooting hoops with us, the rosary flopping around as it hung from her waist although Jesus was safely tucked away in her pocket.

We are not talking about Jesus in our RE class, at least not yet. But then we are not talking about Moses, Buddha, Mohammed, or Kuan Yin either. We are doing the curriculum, "You the Creator" and we are exploring being creative and the arts. The curriculum helps them identify, at least for themselves, what are creative dreams. And it begins by asserting that we are all creative beings and while that doesn't remind me of Jesus it certainly reminds me of God: Great Original Designer. And if God is a designer than there is an implication that we have been shown something, taught something, if you will. That God is a teacher, but one who is teaching what WE need to learn (not what God needs to learn).

But this sermon isn't about Jesus, or any of the others or even God really, depending on who God is or isn't for you. It's about you and me. We are the teachers, with or without a Master's. And I tell you there are some four or five-year-olds walking around with Ph.D's, they know so much. They know what we seem to forget as we get older, or what we are untaught as we enter school and learn the tools for earthly survival. And this is important, I am not knocking it. But what of the tools for spiritual survival or meaning making survival? Where do we learn those? Is it possible to learn all we need to know in one hour a week of Religious Education? Of course not. And it is unfair to assume that we do. It is also unfair to assume that one hour of worship a week is all she wrote. No, there is a reason that we are all teachers, and that is that every moment is a teaching moment. This right now is a teaching moment. How am I doing? You don't have to answer that, there'll be a quiz at the end for you to mail back.

Every moment is a teaching moment. There is an implication that every act is a teaching moment. Think about that in relationship to the acts of September 11th. Who would have thought that terrorists could be teachers? That is not to say that they acted to 'teach us a lesson,' no, no. But I'm sure if we engaged in dialogue right now we could easily come up with an array of things we've learned, positive and negative, since that day, about that day, the events, the people, our capacities, our limits…Is it fair to say that when we have been re-minded of something, that we have been taught something as well? Don't we learn lessons over and over again and sometimes it feels like we are learning it for the very first time?

Noted writer and traveling teacher Parker Palmer wrote a book called The Courage to Teach and his book is where I borrowed the title for this sermon: The Secret Hidden in Plain Sight. Living in the competitive society that we live in there is what we usually affectionately refer to as the "best" teachers. We have often commented to each other who were or are our best teachers and often the reasons are not always the same for each teacher. Yet we have an idea of what constitutes the best teacher. Oprah highlighted our nations best teachers on her show recently. One of the stories was of a young white man from the south. "Paul" is in his home in Georgia, let's say and he sees a program on TV about all the black and Latino/a kids in NYC's Harlem who are basically not getting an education in spite of the fact that they are in school everyday. Paul decides he can help, literally quits his job (this is in July) packs up his stuff and heads to Harlem. Once he arrives he starts looking around at schools trying to find the one that he belongs in. Upon entering a school a fight is going on and he steps in and breaks it up. Then he proceeds to talk with the young men respectfully listening to them. When one of them suddenly tells him that he would not be fighting in school if more teachers treated him like Paul did, Paul knows he has found his school. Prior to school starting he visits every family. During school he uses any means necessary to teach his lessons, dancing, comedy, you name it, Paul uses it. With one troubled black girl he makes the effort to get to know her as a person and vice versa thinking that this is the only way to gain her trust. It was a very touching scene to hear this young girl, crying, eloquently say, "Everybody else ignored me because of my behavior but not Mr. Right, he got to know me as a person and he just touched my heart." Paul broke all the rules of how to properly teach fourth graders (or any grade), but gained the hearts of all his students who ultimately soaked up his lessons like wilted flowers set in the sun for the first time. It was a wonder to behold and I believe Paul did all that he did because at the core he knew who he was. I never got the sense from the story that he felt he was a savior, only that he believed he could help those children and he wanted to try. The fact that he had never been to Harlem and that he was a young, privileged white southern boy didn't stop him. Those characteristics are external, inside he knew he was a teacher.

Parker Palmer says that good teaching requires self-knowledge, this, he says is the secret hidden in plain sight. His book talks about the fact that if teachers don't know who they are, they really can't teach. Or rather that we are drawn to teach certain subjects and that itself reflects who we are. Palmer believes that we teach who we are. This who is a very important point because often we want to know what to teach, how to teach, even why we teach what we teach yet seldom do we go deeper to ask as Palmer asks, "Who is the self that teaches?" And, he goes on to say that the one trait that "good" teachers share is a strong sense of personal identity that infuses their work. Flip through the file cabinet in your mind of all your best teachers, do you find his statement to be true? Do you think this is at the root of why we often want to be like our role models, "teacher" or not?

So Parker claims that "the 'best' teachers are those who know themselves" and I would add to that "and encourage or open the way for students to do the same." I think this is the point where teachers run into trouble because teaching is a daily exercise in vulnerability the way that Palmer describes it. To be a good teacher means being 'real' with the students who can tell a mile away when a teacher is not. And if a teacher is to engage the student they must enter the student's life just like our southern friend Paul did to reach his troubled student. Teachers who fear this consequently disconnect from students, from subjects and ultimately themselves.

Jesus, knew who he was, even if to this day we can't quite figure it out. Gandhi, Mother Teresa, the firemen, policemen and one sole chaplain who ran into the World Trade Center without the blink of a eye, knew who they were. We all have a long list of people, famous or not who fit this description. And I am not belittling this honorable profession when I assert that we are all teachers. And more, it is so important that we realize we are all teachers. As Unitarian Universalists this can get a little sticky. Traditional teaching tells us this, thus, and so. Unitarian Universalists like to promote the fourth principle that states the free and responsible search for truth and meaning. We are proud that we are so theologically diverse and lift up the fact that as a religion we encourage one another to search out for one's self what is true and meaningful. But how do we teach that to our children? How do we teach our Principles and Purposes without sounding dogmatic or creedal?

This is one of the challenges our wonderful teachers here at First Parish face who give of their time so generously to be with and teach our children. bell hooks offers us a clue with her idea of education as a practice of freedom and adds that that is the joy of this kind of teaching for it allows the students to assume responsibility for their choices. As I wrestle with how to teach the fifth and sixth graders about creativity I am thanking my lucky stars that we are not dealing with the deeper theological issues. And I am praying for my brothers and sisters who are. There is a role for each of us, in and outside of these church walls. As we go about our worlds mindful of what our actions are teaching others, may we remember that if we give from our true selves the rest will take care of itself. The one lesson we all need to perfect, that we will never earn a degree in as we continue to grow and change is: Know thyself. I have heard Christians say: Know who and whose you are. What will the Unitarian Universalists say? Especially given our Christian roots and the fact that many of our Unitarian and Universalist brothers and sisters are Christian? If we are truly to be "saved" it will be by knowing, helping and teaching each other that the answers lie within each of our hearts. And when you go looking for this internal teacher he or she might just look like the one you saw today in the meditation. For you are your own best teacher which is really the secret hidden in plain sight. And when you know that to be true - you will be free. And you will become as Thich Nhat Hanh has said of teachers - a healer.

© All rights reserved.

Hymn #151 I Wish I Knew How