“Truth in Labeling”  

My teaser for this sermon in last Sunday’s Bulletin went like this:

“Truth in Labeling”

You receive this notice: “Thank you for your recent purchase of__(Intern Minister)_. This product may contain other ingredients.”   Like what, you might ask?  Preservatives? Contaminants within acceptable proportion?  Buffers? Inert substances?  What does your label claim about you?

 

Is everyone wearing their labels today?  I see a lot of name tags.  Are there a lot of roles being played out in this sanctuary today as well?  Hmm, let’s see.  Is there a Rebel?  A Teacher?  An Adult Child of an Alcoholic?  Someone with Attention Deficit Syndrome? A Poet?  An Activist?  A Parent?  A Child?  A Minister?  We have so many names and roles.  But as wonderful and as challenging as they are, they really say precious little, to others and to ourselves, about who we are as whole individuals.  The product label, so to speak, overlooks the particulars in naming the whole.

 Here’s my UU Church of Annapolis label:

Name—Margaret Haynes (“Margie”) Allen. 

Role—Intern Minister

Ingredients—(and here I paraphrase and in some cases embellish an excerpt from my first Newsletter column):  ministry student; Bryn Mawr ’78 Greek major; open-heart critical care nurse; Leo; Myers-Briggs ENTJ; older sister and aunt; orphan by death; companion to Keeper the Tibetan Terrier and “Pucci” the Ocicat; lesbian woman in love with an Irish Catholic former nun; Roanoker; Cape Codder; 6th Source UU; bicyclist and swimmer; organic vegetable gardener; bread baker and cook; folkie; dyed-in-the-wool liberal Democrat; coffee addict; …and Preacher…

Defects and contaminants—my labels hide what the FDA, were I subject to their regulations, might call my defects.  Shall I tell you what the hidden bits are, list them, so that you, like the children in the Entomology class, can discover their merits when they carefully collected, arranged, and prepared?  Hmm.  Perhaps not…  Yet, it is the awareness of these defects and contaminants, I believe, that causes the discomfort and shame Gurdjieff talks about.  In between roles, when we are for a moment “ourselves,” and see the whole of who we are, we see, in our expanded view, not only our brightest potential and all our options, but also what we might call the insect parts, weevils, eggs & maggots of our seemingly less-savory selves.  Because we fear the latter, we shut awareness of the former off from ourselves and others. Yet in the expanded view, mixed in with the full richness of who we are, perhaps these unsavories might seem less problematic, proportionately.  Certainly, when we actually see them, we have the opportunity to address the ingredients we usually do not dignify with a name, which in their anonymity hold power over us.  And at the same time, we have an equal opportunity to name and empower some of the gifts and qualities we have not up to that time recognized as valuable, as palatable and useful.

Here is a multi-part story about the fear and bliss and God that comes up in that place between identities. You may already be aware that on a recent trip to Chicago, I left my book bag in an alley by accident and a thief quickly took advantage of my oversight.  In this bag was my official UU Church of Annapolis nametag, but also more vital pieces of my identity: my wallet, cards and IDs; my planner and address book; my journal, my checkbook.  Many of you to whom this kind of thing has happened may be familiar with the feeling of personal erasure and helplessness that such a loss generates. And in the void all kinds of doubts and horrors arise.  All the illusion of being in control of who we are and what will happen just evaporates, and everything, for a time, seems irrevocable and impossible.  I spent an hour in bed crying, the covers pulled up over my head, pretending, as best I was able, that none of this had actually occurred.  I made a fairly quick recovery, though, and returned after a while to Annapolis in time to enjoy the second Full Circle pagan sun-cycle celebration on the Sunday after Halloween.  This is part two of the story. 

In preparing my little altar to my ancestors, in the tradition of the Mexican “Day of the Dead,” I stepped on and crushed a gourd rattle I had made for my fortieth birthday the summer before my mother died.  I had taken Mom to our family place on Cape Cod for what we all knew would be her last summer by the bay.  So I stepped on this beautiful thing I had made and still treasured for those memories.  What an awful shock it was—the sound it made as the handle snapped and the feel of something crisp yielding under my heel.  I turned away from the scene with my hand over my mouth, the universal sign for deep dismay—but strangely enough, I found myself calm and thinking “Oh, OK, I get it.  This is a signal loss in the series.  Another tether to who I think I am, to who I have been, another attachment to my past, has been released.  A teacher of mine told me later that the breaking of a rattle is in some Native American traditions the opening of a “spirit egg,” a birthing. This is how it is right now.  I am in the middle of a period of redefinition and liberation.  I am here to remind you this morning that this happens to human beings.  It has happened to you and I’m betting it will again. 

Those among you who have heard this third piece of the story once or twice already bear with me.  This is about the very first wedding ceremony I performed (ever).  I did this about a month ago now, on October 12th.  At that time I had been here in Annapolis, in this internship, for a tiny bit over a month.  I arrived at the wedding venue for the wedding rehearsal on a Friday afternoon.  I see the big reception tent ahead of me and a few people milling about.  Let me just say that I was more scared about the rehearsal than I was about the wedding itself!  I had been to one rehearsal in my life and that one nearly twenty years ago.  And I knew this one I had to run!  “How could I, I know nothing, I am afraid, get me out of here,” etc, etc.  Anyway, I approached one of the “milling about persons” and stuck my hand out.  The woman grasped it and said “Hi, I am Jan, the mother of the bride.”  And I responded, “Glad to meet you, I’m Margie Allen.”  And she said (and these words are still ringing in my head) “Oh, you’re the Minister!”  “Yes,” I said, matter-of-factly. 

But inside my head, it seemed as if the universe sprang open like a drop-down box on a computer tool-bar and all of who I had been and all of who I could be was suddenly hanging there, exposed, available to point and click into this new identity: Minister!  I have been reading about traditions of the native peoples of the Pacific Northwest.  The theme of change and transformation is a strong one among the Kwakiutl, for instance, and their ritual masks reflect their understanding that transformation reveals another, a different face.  A wooden mask splits open to expose another behind it.  That is how I felt—as if my new face had been revealed.  On the way home in the car, pounding the steering wheel, smiling to myself, I say out loud, “I’m the Minister!  Get home to Keeper, my little dog.  “Keeper,” I say, “I’m the Minister!”  And Keeper—wise creature that he is—responded “Your job, MOM, is to grow to BE MINISTER without becoming trapped in the role, so that you are able to continue the work of growing which asks you to dwell more and more often in that place between your designations.”  I knew what he meant.  I am challenged to dwell in the power of who I am as a whole and not in the power of my name or station.  Good Boy!

The loss of my bag and my rattle a few weeks later seemed in retrospect a confirmation of the power of that moment in which I was nailed by the mother of the bride.  Being minister is a process of accepting a new arrangement of my parts, a new identity, and in this shifting-place I enter a new relationship with the discomfort, awkwardness, and tension that comes with seeing all the ingredients—savory and not-so-savory—that my most fundamental label proclaims.  I am Human.  I believe that as a human being, I have opportunities to glimpse occasionally and hopefully more and more frequently as I grow, the whole picture, the massive potential of human life and the generosity of creation, our context.  Here in this internship I am learning that it is possible for me to accept fearlessly this terribly uncomfortable gift of daring to shift roles until, at some point, the need for roles shifts right out of my purpose, out of our vision of community.  I believe that this state of rolelessness, or alternatively, all-roleness, is the nature of an underlying orderliness I would be so bold as to call God.  It is an orderliness we humans might not recognize as orderly, but creation runs in accordance with it and it works to sustain the richness of life.  It is the web we name in our seventh principle: the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.” Being a “sixth-source Unitarian Universalist” means that this is how I characterize the concept of Unity and the Universal Salvation our tradition names as core religious tenets.  Salvation is the process of coming to know, to really know, that all is one. 

[And now I am moved parenthetically to do a little explicit teaching bit here, to remind you all about the Sources.  Most of us are very familiar with our seven principles.  Many of us are not as familiar with the six sources.  The sixth was added last.  “Our living tradition draws from many sources,” we say, including the sixth “spiritual teachings of Earth-centered traditions which celebrate the sacred circle of life and instruct us to live in harmony with the rhythms of nature.”  Sources one through five include: direct experience, the words and deeds of prophetic men and women, wisdom from the world’s religions, Jewish and Christian teachings, and the teachings of Humanism.  There.]

At the Halloween ritual, we walked a huge canvas labyrinth.  The painted canvas covered nearly this whole space.  We walked it surrounded by candle-lit pictures of our ancestors, in the shadow of the evening.  We walked it silently and each alone, contemplating what it was this year we were each ready to release.  When I reached the center, I took one of the small black stones from the basket and began the walk out.  Susan Still made a huge puppet this year which will be present for each of the eight holidays of the Celtic calendar.  For Halloween, the puppet came dressed out as a Crone of Endings and Beginnings—the Greek goddess of the Crossways Hecate or Cer’ridwen, the triple goddess of Welsh tradition in her Crone aspect.  I put my stone, the stone of my losses and endings, in the great black cauldron at her feet and from her other hand I took a card she offered in exchange.  The picture on the card turned out to be a jigsaw puzzle of a human face.  A hand was setting the final piece into place on the forehead between the eyes.  The card was called “Completion.” 

My knowing hand has found a new way to see myself as whole and useful.  Your knowing hands have reflected this completed portrait back to me.  Intern Minister.  Truth in Labeling.  All my ingredients.  Chaos and bliss.  Service and learning.  And now, it never being too early for Thanksgiving, a little paean of gratitude to you all. Thank you

  • for welcoming my whole self;
  • for the warmth you showed my girlfriend Aoife when she visited;
  • for feeding Pucci and patting Keeper, even when she yells and he barks;
  • for finding me doctors;
  • for showing me all the second-hand shops in town;
  • for dinners and boat trips, and lunches and coffees;
  • for the bread at my door and a certificate for more;
  • for picking up my newspapers when I leave and forget to call to stop them;
  • for putting my mail on the stairs;
  • for introducing me to all the important people;
  • for every single smile and touch;
  • for tutoring in office skills;
  • for making a beautiful flyer for the Heritage Harbour lunch;
  • for being curious about who I am and for cheering me on;
  • for giving me power;
  • for calling just to check on me;
  • for introducing me to your favorite neighbors and friends;
  • for offering to find another renter for my condo in Chicago;
  • for the welcome banner in the apartment;
  • for calling me to tell me the teen OWL group would be having an overnight on the other side of my bedroom wall on the night before I preached my first sermon, so that I could, if I wanted, make arrangements to sleep elsewhere!
  • for all this and for so much more.  I am honored to serve and learn from you. 

I expect that I will be thanking you again, sometime ages and ages hence at the end of next summer, in my very last sermon as I just have in my very first.  In the meantime, let us dwell with one another from time to time in the spaces between categories and particulars, in the Tao in which the All is undivided and unlabeled, where God, Wholeness, Spirit dwells, where all the stuff circulates—chaos and creativity, cheek to jowl.

©Margie Allen, Intern Minister
November 11, 2002

 

READINGS              

 1.  This first of two readings is from a curriculum for children I found on the University of Kentucky Department of Entomology website.  The curriculum is called: “Bugfood II:  Insects as Food” written by Stephanie Bailey, entomology extension specialist.  She writes in “Are Bugs A Part of Your Diet?”:

“Many foods we eat have insects or insect parts in them that we don't see. The Department of Health and Human Services has set a standard called the Food Defect Action Levels, which (to quote a publication) "are set on the basis of no hazard to health... These levels are set because it is not possible, and never has been possible, to grow in open fields, harvest and process crops that are totally free of natural defects….  Defect action levels do not represent an average of the defects that occur in any of the food categories (averages are much lower). They are the limit at or above which FDA will take legal action against the product and remove it from the market."

Her source is The Food Defect Action Levels: Current Levels for Natural or Unavoidable Defects for Human Use that Present No Health Hazard. Department of Health & Human Services 1989.  Here are some examples of Food Defect Action Levels:

  • Apple butter 5 insects per 100g
  • Berries 4 larvae per 500g OR 10 whole insects per 500g
  • Chocolate 80 microscopic insect fragments per 100g
  • Canned sweet corn 2 3mm-length larvae, cast skins or fragments
  • Cornmeal 1 insect per 50g
  • Canned mushrooms 20 maggots per 100g
  • Peanut butter 60 fragments per 100g (136 per lb)
  • Tomato paste, pizza, and other sauces 30 eggs per 100g OR 2 maggots per 100g 

            In another section of the curriculum, Stephanie has the children consider a passage from another publication called Entertaining with Insects, in which what the FDA considers defects and contaminants become the featured menu item.  Here’s a piece:

CLEANING AND PREPARING THE INSECTS:

“Insects, like lobster, are best if cooked while alive or fresh frozen. In contrast to beef, lamb, and poultry, postmortem changes rapidly render insects unpalatable. To facilitate meal planning, many species of insects may be kept alive for several days in the refrigerator. In fact, refrigeration before cooking is advised for the more active forms because it slows down their movements and facilitates handling.

Mealworms and crickets are easy to obtain from bait and tackle shops, or from distributors. If mealworms come packed in newspaper, they need to be changed to bran meal or corn meal or starved for 24 hours, to purge their guts. To separate mealworms from any attached food, waste material, or other debris, place a handful of them in a colander and gently toss. Remove any dead worms, and wash the remaining live insects under cool water. Place the worms on paper towels and pat dry. The mealworms are ready to be cooked or frozen for later use.

Crickets should be placed in a refrigerator before attempting to wash them, to slow them down. You may want to remove the legs, wings, and ovipositor of crickets after dry roasting them.”

 

2.  My second reading is a quotation from the Armenian spiritual leader G.I. Gurdjieff who was writing in the first half of the twentieth century.  I found this passage in the Summer 1981 issue of the journal Parabola.  I have had to edit it heavily for non-inclusive language.  Gurdjieff wrote:

“You must realize that each [one of us] has a definite repertoire of roles which [we] play in ordinary circumstances…. [We] have a role for every kind of circumstance in which [we] ordinarily find [ourselves] in life; but put [us] into even only slightly different circumstances and [we] are unable to find a suitable role and for a short time [we] become [ourselves].  The study of the roles a [person] plays represents a very necessary part of self knowledge.  The repertoire [of each one of us] is very limited.  And if a man [for instance] simply says “I” and “Ivan Ivanich,” he will not see the whole of himself because “Ivan Ivanich” also is not one; a man has at least five or six of them.  One or two for his family, one or two, at his office…, one for friends in a restaurant, and perhaps one who is interested in exalted ideas and likes intellectual conversation.  And at different times the man is fully identified with one of them and is unable to separate himself from it.

 To see the roles, to know one’s repertoire, particularly to know its limitedness, is to know a great deal.  But the point is that, outside his or her repertoire, a [person] feels very uncomfortable should something push [her, for instance] if only temporarily out of her rut, and [she tries her] hardest to return to any one of [her] usual roles.  [The moment she] falls back into the rut everything at once goes smoothly again and the feeling of awkwardness and tension disappears. 

That is how it is in life; but in the work, in order to observe [myself, I] must become reconciled to this awkwardness and tension and to the feeling of discomfort and helplessness.  Only by experiencing this discomfort can [I] really observe [myself]. And it is clear why this is so.  When [I am] not playing any of [my] usual roles…[I] feel [I am] undressed.  [I am] cold and ashamed and want to run away from everybody.  But the question arises:  What [do I] want?  A quiet life or to work on [myself]?  If [I want] a quiet life, [I] must certainly first of all never move out of [my] repertoire.  In [my] usual [role I] feel comfortable and at peace.  But if [I want] to work on [myself], [I] must destroy [my] peace.  To have them both together is in no way possible.”

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