To Be of Use

Here we are,
all of us wanting to be of use,
wanting our lives not to take from
but to give to the well-being of the planet.

This is United Nations Sunday,
a day celebrating the vision of everybody making peace,
everyone having a right to a safe home with good food,
education, health care and a say in what’s going on.

No one going without, no one living in fear.

We see the big gap between the dream and reality.

There so much that needs to be done.
It’s easy to feel overwhelmed.

It’s easy too to feel intimidated by those who do so much,
who risk their lives for justice and freedom,
like the Burmese monks protesting the military government,
while guns are fired over their heads.
They seem to have so much courage and strength.

It takes so much just to get through our routine days.
It’s easy to feel empty, with nothing to give.

Our Board of Trustees begin their meetings with check-in.
Recently one trustee celebrated her daughter’s part in a play.
Another shared her daughter’s recovery from serious illness.
One said he and his son were driving in Richmond
and witnessed the shooting of a teenager his own son’s age.
Trustee Kim Duir said the county health center in Richmond,
where she is a doctor,
had been locked down by the security officers
because 70 rounds of gun fire had been shot outside.
All the staff were locked in while their patients were locked out
on the streets where the guns were being fired.

Another board member offered a prayer
that something during the meeting
would touch those weary from violence and lift their spirits.

Later I asked Kim to tell me more.

The Richmond Police and County Sheriff’s log
shows that right around the neighborhood of the Health Center,
There are repeated gun firings, drive by shooters, injuries, and deaths-
right there where a pregnant woman is showing up for prenatal care,
where a mom brings children for immunization
for polio, measles, and mumps,
where an elder comes by for a flu shot. Right there.

Gun firings, drive by shootings right there in the same block of the clinic,
where there’s a children’s day care center and housing for seniors.

On some of the worst days, the police records show shootings minutes apart.
Usually the log indicates: No witnesses. No suspects.

9:30 one evening a few weeks ago
an 18 year old was shot three times in the legs
and drove himself to the Kaiser Emergency Room

The next night at 8:00
the sheriff received reports of shots fired in the neighborhood.
When the deputy arrived, there was no victim.
He had been taken by friends to Kaiser where he was pronounced dead.

Early the next morning a Homeless Hispanic man was shot and killed
on the train tracks near the clinic.

Our church member, board trustee, and physician at the clinic,
Dr. Kim Duir wrote of all the gun violence,
“All of this happened about five miles from UUCB.
Chances are you had no idea.
If I did not work at the Health Center in Richmond,
I would have no idea either.”

Because of continued gun violence,
the administration closed the clinic for several days.

When the police met with the administrators,
they were careful to say this level of shooting is not unusual,
that many of the people shot were engaged in at-risk behavior,
like being homeless and carrying their possessions,
including money, with them.

Seeing this every day means that you have to normalize it,
whether you are the police, or the people who live in Richmond.

What does closing the clinic do?

Closing abandons the neighborhood to its worst forces,
leaving behind the majority of its residents
who are doing everything they can to survive,
be healthy, and have a life in what can feel like a war zone.
Closing is not a solution.

Clinic staff say they can’t sleep at night
because of seeing shattered bones and bullet fragments on adolescent x-rays,
and hearing women weeping for the loss of sons, brothers, cousins, granddaughters.

A kind of numbness comes over some and shields them
and makes it possible to keep coming back.

Dr. Kim says after the days of repeated gun violence,
her shield shattered.

Kim says, “I have been torn daily between competing desires
to become an avenging angel superhero
and someone who wants to run away and not see any of this anymore.”

It’s humbling to me that someone
who sees so much human hardship every day
also has energy and commitment to serve on our Board of Trustees.

I trust this congregation makes a difference to Kim
and supports her in some way.

It could be the community of all of you, the music, the spoken words
or all of this.
It could be that something happens just by showing up on Sunday.
By taking time from her regular daily routine,
thoughts come she wouldn’t have time for otherwise.

This could be true for you too.

Kim says, “Two weeks ago I came to church
and was sitting with the usual impossibilities
chasing around endlessly inside my head,
when suddenly I had a vision
that allowed me to exhale for the first time in a month.

The vision was this: our clinic in North Richmond,
surrounded by smiling groups of people,
some from our church, some from the community,
sitting in lawn chairs, leaning on walkers,
chatting, greeting patients as they entered the building,
exuding a benign loving presence,
and the phrase floated into my head, ‘witnesses for peace.’”

Last Saturday a group of us from this congregation joined
with other faith communities to walk
through the neighborhoods of Richmond
in support of the Greater Richmond Interfaith Program (GRIP’s)
work of feeding the hungry.
Many of you sponsored our walking with your gifts.

We were a mix of ages, races, cultures and faiths
walking along Cutting Boulevard scene of so much violence.

Cutting Boulevard is named after Francis Cutting
who in the late 1880s considered abandoning his prosperous business career,
here in the Bay Area, to preach Unitarianism.

But, he said, Nature had not given him the talents for ministry
so he used his means to found a school in which not one but many
might be prepared to grow liberal ministry in this region.
That school is now Starr King School for the Ministry, my alma mater,
which has been preparing Unitarian Universalist ministers for over 100 years.

Cutting’s vision was for liberal religious values to shape civic life.

In Kim’s vision Unitarian Universalists today
would have a watchful awareness on Cutting Boulevard.
We would witness on the streets of North Richmond for non-violence and peace.

Some of you live and work in North Richmond.
Some read weekly to students in the schools through the Read Aloud Program.
Some prepare food and serve monthly at the Greater Richmond Interfaith Program.

Others of you serve in other local and global ministries.

Next month all of us have the opportunity to stock the shelves
of the Richmond Emergency Food Pantry
when we have our Bring Your Weight in Food drive.

This is good.

All of us wonder what more we as a community can do.

How can we exude a benign loving presence,
and “witnesses for peace” on the streets just five miles from this sanctuary?

Can the dove of peace fly on Cutting Blvd.?
Can a chorus of voices raise hope?
Can the clasping of hands bring good tidings?

This afternoon at 2:00 there will be a meeting in North Richmond
of people who live in and work there.
Perhaps some new community action will be created.  
Two of our members will attend and more are welcome.
We will see how our congregation might be a supportive presence.

[The meeting is at Bright Morning Star Church at 1707 Truman
(at Truman and Silver in North Richmond). 
It is a forum convened by front line providers:
social workers, doctors, teachers…]
 
Kim says, “My heart has felt desiccated and useless
in the face of all that I cannot do.
I have thrashed and cried and yelled and still felt dead inside,
especially when I was hearing one more story of human suffering.
I would try to look as if I were listening,
when inside I felt nothing
and my brain whirred uselessly
trying to think of something I could DO,
something I could fix.”

Kim’s boss sent her to a workshop called “Finding the Heart of Medicine,”
given by physician and author Rachel Naomi Remen.

Participants were asked to bring an object
that represented for them the meaning of service.

The night before the workshop,
Kim raced around her house trying to find an object.
Nothing felt right.
She looked at something, held it in her hand,
rejected it, and picked up the next thing.
At one point, having discarded another object,
she was caught by the image of her empty hand.

“I’ll just bring my hands,” she thought.

After all, she walks into the exam room empty handed,
feeling she has nothing but her hands to offer.

She thinks of the blessing
of the laying on of hands.

She looks for excuses to touch people.

Wherever you go, whatever you do,
all any of us do
is show up, and be empty-handed, open-handed.

What can you do with a closed hand, with a fist?
Basically one thing — harm.

Empty hands, open hands can
comfort,
hold a book,
offer a sandwich,
stack food,
raise protest signs.

Be empty-handed, open-handed witnesses for peace.

Empty hands, open hands can
wave,
embrace,
give,
receive,
reach out.

Be empty-handed, open-handed witnesses for love and kindness.

In the work of peace and justice,
letting the spirit of life and love move through you,
your empty hands,
your open hands
are enough.  ♦