Sermons
Mattering and Marginality
Michael Tino
November 13, 2005 – UU Church of Greensboro
© 2005 Michael Tino
In her book Summer Snow, Trudier Harris, reflects on her experience with not feeling at home in her own congregation. Growing up in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, Harris learned that her voice was equal to everyone else’s—as long as she used it to make a joyful noise. Upon moving to Atlanta, suddenly she was judged as inadequate—and by someone just as imperfect as she was.
This story gives us a glimpse into what its like to be marginalized—even within a community we call our own—and asks us to answer that marginalization from the depths of our theology as Unitarian Universalists.
L. Lee Knefelkamp, professor of multicultural education at Columbia University, has developed an exercise that asks us to think about times we felt we mattered—and times we knew we didn’t. Each of us has some time in our lives when we were quite sure—from the words and reactions of those around us—that what we said and did mattered. And each of us has some time in our lives when the opposite was true—when we were ignored, devalued, undermined or lied to. Times we were marginalized.
This exercise, called “Mattering and Marginality,” first asks us to identify situations in which we mattered and then those in which were marginalized. It then asks us to think about the settings of those situations—who were the others involved, where did it occur? When we’ve identified these settings, she asks us to share how we knew we mattered or that we didn’t, and how that knowledge made us feel. Finally, we are asked to identify how this mattering—or marginalization—made us behave. How did we react to the actions of others?
This work is best done in small groups, where ample time to process the reactions and hear from everyone is possible, and I hope that we, as a congregation, might take the time to do it together sometime. I had the opportunity to experience it with a group of co-workers not too long ago, and I’d like to share with you some of my own experiences—maybe they’ll get you to thinking.
Mattering…
When is it in our lives that we matter? How is it that we know that what we are saying and doing is making a difference—penetrating the thoughts and experiences of those around us? How do we know that we are being taken seriously, that our experience and knowledge is valued as equal to the experience and knowledge of others? How do we know that our perception of events and our feelings about them are accepted as whole, as normal reactions to a world in need?
How do we know we matter?
For me, in the situations in which I knew I was valued, people showed me basic respect. They asked me questions, and actually answered when I responded to them. They talked to me as if they knew I was listening. Sometimes, they changed their behavior or language or opinions as a result of discussing things with me. Often, they listened when I spoke, answered questions that I asked, and shared their opinions and values with me, knowing that I would respond with compassion and honesty. All of these things have let me know that I mattered in countless situations throughout my life.
How do we feel when we matter? What are the emotional and psychological results of knowing that someone else cares about you, values your input, or respects your opinion? I can only answer this for myself. When I matter, I feel engaged, energized responsible and invested in the relationships I am building. Letting me know I matter makes me care—it makes me want to spend more time and more energy in that place and with those people.
And how do we behave when we matter? For most of us, having other people value us sends a challenge to us to behave with integrity, to behave as if we are worthy of mattering. For myself, when I know I matter, I take great care to act respectfully. I seek to draw in more people—to let others know that they, too, matter. When I know I matter, I try to make my actions transparent—to let others into my thought processes and allow them to affect them. I make myself more vulnerable, and often become more productive as a result.
Most of us matter a lot. We’re used to it. Whether because of our own hard work and choices that have led us to earn the respect of others, or because of accidents of birth or upbringing that gave us access to the dominant power structures in our society, we matter. Hopefully, this is a place where we matter more than we don’t, and that is expressed to us often and in useful ways.
Marginality…
Sometimes, despite our best efforts or our clearest logic, we are marginalized. Each of us has had the experience of knowing that what we do just doesn’t matter. What are the signals of marginality? How do we know we’re being ignored, or lied to, or circumvented or just plain disrespected? How do we know when we are being defined as “other,” as marginal, or as just not enough, be it “not good enough for the choir,” “not old enough to have had real experiences,” or “not man enough for the job.”
For some, this takes the form of having our experiences and feelings constantly questioned. What is said sounds like “that’s not the way things really work here,” “oh, you just interpreted that wrong—we didn’t mean it that way,” or “lets go back to the way things used to be.” What is heard is quite different. What is heard is “your experience is not normal,” “your perception doesn’t really matter—what matters is our intent,” or “things were so much better when we didn’t have to worry about your perspective.” For some, it takes the form of subtle—or not so subtle—messages that our input is just not needed.
For me, I know I am being marginalized when people ignore or talk past my questions, when people question my understanding of issues I’ve worked for a long time on, when people lie to me.
How does this marginalization make us feel? How do you feel when this happens to you? I will admit that I feel angry, shut out, tense and sad. I tune out of discussions when I feel that people don’t want to hear what I have to say. Letting me know I don’t matter sends me the message that I might as well not even try. I might as well not even care, and I certainly shouldn’t open myself to further hurt from those who seek to shut me out.
Marginalization also triggers certain behaviors, behaviors that are just as counter-productive as mattering behaviors are productive. Here again, I can only speak for myself. I’ve been known to, in a pique of irritation at being marginalized, actually be counter-productive to the goals of a group or meeting. There, I admit it—I’m not always able to put aside my own hurt feelings and work for the good of a group that doesn’t care about me.
I can’t be alone.
Some of us have more experience with marginality than others. For some of us, marginalization is the way we live our lives. It comes with being a member of certain groups in our society. A term that’s sometimes used these days is “historically marginalized groups.” It pretty much says it all—save, of course, for the present-day marginalization part.
People of color have been historically marginalized in this society whose power structures were set up to benefit white people. American history is rife with examples of groups being let into the definition of “white” when they had gained enough of a voice to be dangerous to those in power. My Italian-American family, labeled (of all things) “dark white” when they arrived on these shores, knows this history all too well.
Both our past and our present are full of examples of egregious discrimination—in law, in practice, and in attitudes. From the unthinkable horrors of slavery to the internment of Japanese-Americans in World War II to present-day agricultural labor laws that continue to allow for the exploitation of Latino farm workers, the marginalization of people of color is ingrained in our society. Because of this, racial divisions in American society are profound and deep, leading to economic disadvantages for people of color and everyday blatant violations of civil liberties.
Bisexual, gay, and lesbian people are marginalized in a society set up to honor heterosexuality. School curricula, television shows and family law have been designed to show that heterosexuality is the norm in our society, and that people whose attraction is to others of the same gender are outside of that norm—that we just don’t matter. In North Carolina public schools, as in many states, our state law actually mandates that high school students be taught (and here I quote from the actual law—general statute 115c-81, in case you want to look it up) that “a mutually faithful, monogamous, heterosexual relationship in the context of marriage is the best…means of avoiding” sexually transmitted diseases such as HIV. The fact that our teachers are mandated to hold up heterosexuality as the norm for living is a statutory and ongoing example of the marginalization of bisexual, gay and lesbian people.
The list goes on.
Women and transgender people are marginalized in a society that values male gender expression above theirs, in a society where men make significantly more money for doing the same job with the same experience than women do, and where transgender people can be fired from their jobs for doing no more than expressing their gender identity.
The list goes on.
Differently-abled people—including people with different ways of learning and the many many people living every day with mental illness—are marginalized—often by erecting physical barriers to their inclusion in communities of faith, time and again by creating hostile environments where people cannot express what they need to be fully present, sometimes by refusing to provide the simple services required to make our communities accessible to all.
The list goes on.
Poor and working-class people are marginalized in a society that cares more that our toilets are cleaned on time than that parents have the flexible hours necessary to participate in their children’s education. In a society structured around those with enough money to buy a car and fill it with gasoline—no matter how expensive—job opportunities are put out of the physical reach of those who depend on public transportation. Seemingly well-meaning politicians “reform” welfare by simply making people ineligible for our society’s most basic safety net, and our Federal government diverts funding to unjust wars from projects to strengthen the levees around poor, mostly Black neighborhoods in New Orleans. The result—as we have all seen in recent months—is marginalization on the most inhuman scale.
The list goes on. Think about how you feel when you are marginalized, and, if you can go there without recalling great personal pain, think about (or imagine, if you must) what it is like to feel that way all the time. Imagine how you would act if every message you got from society was that you did not matter. Now, I’ve admitted feeling angry and mentally checking out of meetings in which my questions were ignored—how am I supposed to feel when that marginalization is written into state or Federal law, how should people feel when their marginalization is engrained into the structure of our society?
The divisions in our society between who matters and who is marginalized are many. And these divisions are a matter on which our faith tradition has something strong to say.
The Rev. Dr. Rebecca Parker, in an address to a conference of religious educators about Unitarian Universalist theology, asked us to see the permanent challenge of Universalism as rejecting divisions between people. Let me explain.
Our Universalist forbears proclaimed that an all-loving God would not damn people to hell, no matter what their sins. “Give them not hell, but hope and courage,” said 18th century Universalist minister John Murray, “preach the kindness and the everlasting love of God.”
Universalism teaches us that God’s love is meant for all people and that nothing they can do makes them unworthy of that love. This message, as simple as it sounds, is still a revolutionary and life-saving message.
In the world of John Murray, it meant not dividing people arbitrarily into those who would be saved and those who would be damned, as religions continue to do to this day. Today, however, we can interpret a new Universalism—one that asks us to eliminate all arbitrary divisions between people. Divisions based on race, divisions based on ethnic origin, those based on gender or sexual orientation, physical or intellectual expressions of ability—all of these divisions need to go. Anything that divides humanity into those who matter and those who are marginalized is rejected by a theology of universal salvation.
It is no accident that the very first of the Unitarian Universalist principles and purposes asks us to affirm the inherent worth and dignity of every person. This challenge—Universalist in theology—is the key to a religion that affirms and nurtures rather than shames and scares.
And if we truly believe that all people are equal in death, we must work harder to ensure that all are equal in life as well. This means an end to economic inequality and imperialism. This means understanding our own access to institutional power in our society, and working not to force our opinions on others. This means working to change laws that encode discrimination and to create public policies to remedy years of mistreatment. This means an end to all forms of oppression rampant in our society.
We need a religious voice—a moral force—advocating for this ideal: a Universal equality of humanity. We can get this inspiration from our Universalist heritage.
In a society that continues to marginalize people because of arbitrary barriers and divisions, we need the religion of John Murray.
Universalism teaches us that all people should matter.
A minister of music told Trudier Harris that she was unworthy of expressing her love for God in the church choir because she did not have singing ability that he judged to be adequate. The same voice that was held up as inherently worthy of making a joyful noise when it was in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, became the voice of a woman marginalized when brought to church in Atlanta.
And what are the messages that people get when they come to this church? What are people told—directly or indirectly—when they pass through our doorway, join us for dinner and SHARE meeting on Wednesdays, or participate in a heated discussion on an important topic? What do people learn about this community when they stay for coffee after the service, or bring their children to church with them, or sign up for an evening class on a topic that interests them?
Whether you came here from a faith community elsewhere, or after years of seeking a religion that accepts you just as you are, how do you know here if you matter? What is the message that you got when you walked through our doors for the first time—whether that was this morning or thirty years ago? For those of you who spend most of your time in the dominant culture of our society, where you are used to mattering, how might that message have been different if you were a member a historically marginalized group—or more than one?
I first came to a Unitarian Universalist congregation some twelve years ago, and, as a gay man, and as someone whose theology is not particularly Christian (though I am learning to reclaim the power of my heritage), it took me a while before I realized that neither my sexual orientation nor my theology marginalized me in that congregation the way they did in society at large. At any point in those weeks of testing and exploring, I could have left. I would have missed so much if I had.
I’m sure there are people who come to check us out who are not as patient as I was back then. Perhaps you are one of them. Perhaps you need for someone to say to you that here, you matter. Perhaps you need for lots of people to prove it.
Together, we must create a ministry of mattering. We must ensure that no one who walks through our doors—whatever their race, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation or ability—feels that they are marginalized in this community.
To do this, we must analyze how decisions are made, how power is shared, and how voices of groups marginalized by society—people of color, youth, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people, poor and working class people, and others—are heard by our congregation and our leadership, how those voices matter to us. This is the work of anti-racism and anti-oppression: understanding how power works in an institution like our congregation. We must do this work.
We must endeavor to understand what we mean when we say that we affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person. We must endeavor to live the words that we put on our website to describe this congregation—it reads “ALL are welcome in this church. Distinctions of power, privilege, and estate that apply outside these doors do not apply within them.” And yes, our website actually says that. We must take into our hearts the exhortation of John Murray to “give them not hell, but hope and courage.”
These things should mean that here, everyone matters. Do they?