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Prophetic
Humanhood “All
endings imply a beginning. All
accomplishment suggests preparation.”—Rev. Eleanor Gordon[1] Call to Gather With
the changing colors of autumn all around us With
the ever-present possibility of a more just world before us We
begin our sacred hour together with the words of the late 19th
century liberal minister and suffragist Rev. Ada C. Bowles: Rise up! Rise up! Oh women, The banner of thy freedom, Be ready for the morning, Up, ignorance and bondage And
hail the coming right.[2] Reflection “Honoring our Heritage” Bob Glass When
I went to that Unity Circle meeting three or four years ago, I didn’t know what
I was getting into. If you are a member,
you know how it is. You go to the
meetings, often less for the program than for just getting together with the
good people in the group. Some of you
may not know that Unity Circle is a group that has been affiliated with the
church for well over a hundred years.
Over most of its life, the group was a women’s group. Only in recent
times did it include men when two church groups merged and became Unity
Circle/Alliance. The
purpose of the group, which has always been independent of the First Unitarian
Church, though affiliated with it, was to provide discussion of literary and
social issues and as a vehicle for social action and as a source of friendship
for women. The
program that day a few years ago was to be presented by Dwight Saunders with
some assistance from Frances Craig.
Dwight and Frances were longtime and stalwart members of both the church
and Unity Circle and were considered pillars of both. They each passed away earlier this year. The program was on the history of Unity
Circle - the same group I was sitting
with. In the program, Dwight gave a lot
of information that was new to me and that I quickly forgot. But he also mentioned that in 1908, several
Unity Circle members marched in a suffrage parade in Boone, Iowa that was
likely the first such parade in the nation.
In addition, the parade was instigated by an associate pastor of the
First Unitarian Church, Rev. Eleanor Gordon, the life-long friend of Mary
Safford. Eleanor was here helping her
friend who had health problems. You may
remember that when Eleanor and Mary were children together, they played church
on Sundays, one of them being the minister and the other being the
congregation. Well,
I was stunned by that part of Dwight’s report.
That people from our church, in the organization I was sitting with,
would have been involved in something so pioneering in a movement culminating
in such a massively important piece of American history like that just about
took my breath away. It was almost like
finding out that one of my great-great ancestors had saddled the horse that
Paul Revere rode into history that fateful night in 1775. To me, short of the Emancipation
Proclamation, there was hardly anything more important to the development of
democracy as we know it today than the 19th Amendment. And to find that this little group of, now
older people who meet in the daytime to avoid night-time driving, was at the
heart of it just stunned me. Somehow
it all seemed like a secret since it wasn’t emblazoned on the walls of the
state capitol nor in the pages of all the public school history books. Nor even on the portals of this
building. If it was a secret, it was a
proud one as far as I was concerned. Well,
time passed but I didn’t forget what Dwight had said. Toward the end of the next year, it occurred
to me that it would be more than a missed opportunity if there wasn’t something
to recognize that piece of Unity Circle’s heritage and what those women did in
1908. Not to mention, that it is a
little known but proud moment for the entire state. If the 100th anniversary of that
parade passed without recognition of what our Unity Circle members and Eleanor
Gordon did that day to campaign for the right of both men and women to
vote in this democracy, it would almost be as if it never happened or at least
was of little importance in the scheme of things. As if standing up for equity and justice are
not worth recognizing or maybe even doing.
Dwight
had long been a strong advocate for the disenfranchised and the exploited and
had given much of his life to supporting many forms of social justice, so he
shared the idea that some recognition was important. We
knew that a recognition in 2008 would a lot of hard work and cooperation among
many and that any such recognition should be a joint effort with people in
Boone. We contacted a friend in Boone,
who then put us in touch with the Boone County Historical Society and we found
that they too, had been thinking of a recognition in the form of a re-enactment
of the parade. We met with two people
from the Boone County Historical Society, agreed to work together on the
project and began a series of regular meetings. Now
Eleanor Gordon’s role in the parade event was due to the fact that she was the
president that year of the statewide Iowa Equal Suffrage Association and it was
her responsibility to put together the organization’s annual convention. She decided that after so many years of so
little progress on getting woman suffrage, the cause needed something more
dramatic. She had heard of parades done
in England by suffragists there and decided that maybe that was the thing to
get more attention for the cause here.
With the support of many others in the organization, she proposed to
include a parade as part of the annual convention which would be held in Boone. As it turns out, that organization
dissolved itself in 1919 and reconstituted into the Iowa
League of Women Voters. So it seemed to
us natural to include the League of Women Voters in the planning of the
re-enactment as the institutional descendants of the 1908 group. We also included WILPF, the Women’s
International League for Peace and Freedom and other women’s
organizations. Meanwhile,
in the First Unitarian and Unity Circle, as news spread of our involvement in
the planning to honor our heritage with the re-enactment, more
and more people supported the plan and offered their help. Long story short, the re-enactment of the
Oct. 29, 1908 event will take place next Saturday, Oct. 25. The
culmination of the work to recognize those amazing women in 1908 will soon be
resolved next Saturday in a re-enactment parade. But the lessons of almost two years of my own
involvement in the project do not have to wait until then. I can say now that even without the finale a
week from now, this project has been worth all the effort that has gone into
it. My academic training was in the
field of American History, and this project has reminded me of many things I
was only beginning to learn years ago.
Not about simply facts and dates, but the complexity of social issues
that might seem simple on the surface.
That what may seem like an issue of reason or principal, also has strong
emotional and interpersonal components and has many facets. I was reminded of the many levels that operate
on issues, beginning or ending at the level of the family. I
learned too that both lines of our church’s heritage connect in the 1908
parade. The convention in 1908 was held
in the Boone Universalist church and I learned that Universalism and liberal
religion were very strong in the late 19th and early 20th
centuries in Iowa and strong for women’s suffrage . But
more satisfying was becoming aware of who the real heroes are behind historical
events. For example, that the events of
the past wouldn’t even exist for us today or for the future without people like
Dwight and others that he worked with who have done so much to preserve the
records of the past. The journalists who
create contemporary records of the events, like Besse Crary who wrote much of
the record that we have of the parade in the Boone News Republican. And ultimately, I’ve learned that events
like the 1908 parade were made possible by ordinary people who stood together
for something important to them all. I
came to see Eleanor Gordon and the suffragists of Unity Circle as both amazing
and ordinary at the same time. I
loved seeing the re-enactment project progress because of others who also saw
the event of 1908 as worthy of special effort and had their own pride in our
heritage. And how they chose their own
individual ways to contribute to the final product. Each person put their own unique stamp on the
project that gave the whole a wonderful completeness. The project took on a
life of its own with an enthusiasm and excitement that seemed to me to parallel
the energies of the women being commemorated.
I admit it was surprising and relieving to find the church members,
mostly women among you and many of whom will march next Saturday, taking so
much ownership of the planning and work to make the parade happen. I have felt that those women of 1908, and some
men, have been reincarnated and I am seeing the same spirit, commitment, and
sense of justice and equity. It
now seems to me that the difference between historic heroes and ordinary people
is a false distinction or at best, a hair‘s breadth apart. That I don’t have to look elsewhere in either
time or space to see the kind of remarkable people who make history. I have learned to better appreciate the
significance of the present for its potential to become meaningful in a way
that someone someday may look back and see how we struggled with social,
intellectual, theological and institutional issues such that we laid the ground
work for the future and shaped the future in ways perhaps not unlike the
suffragists of 1908. And I have learned
to see those around me as potential heroes or at least people worthy of
honoring by a future generation for their contribution to a slightly more
perfect world. The
courage of the supporters of woman suffrage, both women and men, continues
today in others ways. The 19th
Amendment certainly did not put an end to the struggle for social justice. After 88 more years, there is still much
work to be done for gender equity, not to mention many other issues of social
justice. While
I have my own sense of the need for social justice, I am still indebted to
Dwight for his own unassuming example of perseverance. I also consider myself lucky to be a part of
both Unity Circle and the UU tradition for their history and heritage. That also means that I feel lucky to have been
able to have witnessed so many of you in the act of honoring and respecting
your predecessors, reflecting your own sense of justice, and your dedication to
working together for a common purpose - in other words, bearing such a striking
resemblance to historical heroes. Uus
were there in 1908 and will be again 100 years later. If those of you who have not had an active
role in preparing for this event think you might want to see some of your
church members in period costume in that parade next Saturday, pick up one of
these flyers on you way out or on the greeter table. There is also information on a web site that
Jane Swanson developed, called Celebratesuffrage2008.org. She has also put much of the history of the
1908 event on our own church web site.
Saturday will be a family event and an opportunity to share in honoring
Iowa and Unity Circle women and men who worked for equity and social
justice. Hear some of the people you see
here on Sunday speak about life as a suffragist in 1908. Don’t wait for the movie to come out. See it in person. Words about Commemorative
Statue by Ron Bowerman For more than a year, we
have been involved in the planning and preparation for the reenactment of the
Boone parade. As we learned more and
more about the parade and the part played in it by the members of Unity Circle,
we began to realize that as current members, we are walking in the footsteps of
some very remarkable and courageous people who helped change the world. During that time, Eileen
and I also lost several people who meant a lot to us, including both our
mothers. This caused us to reflect on
the tremendous contributions made by past leaders, to this church and to the
larger community. In particular, the
contributions of Dwight and Beth Saunders, as professionals, as community
activists, as church and Unity Circle members, and as historians, influenced
us. We thought the church needed a
permanent memorial to honor the brave women and men of the 1908 Unity Circle,
as well as current and future members, and perhaps more importantly, to educate
other church members and the community regarding their contributions and the
ongoing struggle for women’s and other minority rights. To that end, we made a proposal to the Board
to commission a sculpture for the church grounds; and the Board accepted our
proposal. Initially, we had hoped to
have the sculpture in place by the time of the reenactment next weekend; but,
for various reasons, that wasn’t possible. In April, with the help of
church member, John Hicks, we opened a region-wide competition for artists
through the Iowa Arts Council. A
committee consisting of Kent Newman, Lynn Fox, Jan Svec, Pat Peterson, Dave
Witke, Jane Rider, and Eileen, unanimously chose the winning proposal. The artist is Beth Nybeck, a senior art
student at the University of Northern Iowa, an exceptional artist who already
has a commissioned work on prominent display in the Business and Community
Services building at the university. The design of our proposed
sculpture is abstract and, we think, striking.
It will be done in aluminum. The
site has yet to be determined; but, it will probably be somewhere near the
northwest corner of the church, perhaps visible from the Mary Safford
Room. Construction of the sculpture will
begin in June, with final installation by September 1, 2009. Our hope is that the
sculpture will be an inspiration for church members and friends for years to
come, as well as an educational tool for the community at large. Sermon “Prophetic
Humanhood” by Rev. Mark Stringer Last weekend, as around 80 members and friends of
our church gathered for the social justice empowerment weekend activities, we
spent a lot of time talking about the contemporary issues around which we could
educate ourselves and become more active as a congregation. Part of the process of the workshop was that
we consider a broad review of our congregation’s social justice history, which,
in large part, began with work on behalf of women’s suffrage. Led by our minister at the time, Rev. Mary Safford,
for whom the back of this auditorium is named, and her assistant Rev. Eleanor
Gordon, members of the First Unitarian Church of Des Moines were some of the
most active participants in the early 20th century women’s suffrage movement. But our former ministers were not the only
ones leading this charge. They had
Unitarian and Universalist sisters also involved. As Unitarianism and Universalism (two separate
though similar religious movements which did not officially merge until 1961),
spread West from their New England roots into the then-frontier of Iowa, male
ministers were harder to come by and less interested in serving these new
congregations, risky enterprises compared to the more established churches in
the East. As a result, around twenty
women ended up serving liberal religious congregations in Iowa. Informed by their experiences as women in a
society that was unwilling to grant them equal status to their male
counterparts, these women transformed the ministry in significant ways and, in
turn, the communities in which they served.
These vibrant women were a tight-knit bunch who leaned upon each other
for support and encouragement. They were
described in detail by Cynthia Grant Tucker in her book Prophetic Sisterhood: Liberal Women Ministers of the Frontier,
1880-1930, which you can purchase at our own church bookstore [note that
our own Evelyn Glazebrook is thanked in the opening Acknowledgements!]. The Iowa Sisterhood was inspired in large part by
the social gospel approaches to ministry, which sought to apply Christian
ethics to social problems. Our own Eleanor Gordon and Mary Safford, childhood
friends who served together not only here in Des Moines, but also in Sioux City
and later in Orlando, Florida, were especially motivated even as young women by
the writings of the recently deceased Unitarian minister and firebrand Theodore
Parker, who had been well-known for taking principled positions on issues of
social responsibility, no matter how unpopular.
Parker was perceived as theologically and politically radical, fitting
in among the Transcendentalists of his day, those who believed that the ideal
spiritual state was something that grows out of individual intuition and
personal experience rather than a strict adherence to established doctrine. Parker was also inspired by an understanding
of God as the effort of “collective humanity”, and, through his writing,
convinced both Safford and Gordon alike that religious communities should be
less focused on prayer, and more centered in ethical action.[3] Social reform, therefore, was a key element of
Safford and Gordon’s ministries, as it was for all of the Iowa Sisterhood, who
preached of humanity’s inevitable progress, of a universe that was “alive,
fluid, flexible,” and animated by a “germ of expanding life” containing “all
sorts of possibilities.”[4] Gordon, in particular, described all of
humanity as reformers in a changing universe, as daily collaborators with God
towards natural progress.[5] Despite their strong leadership and organizational
skills, many of the Iowa Sisterhood eventually ended up in ministries outside
of the institutional church, in part because congregation-based prophetic
ministry centered in the ultimate Christian values of caring for the least of
those among us was not typically well-received nor heeded. Even in Unitarian
and Universalist congregations, homes for the very religious traditions that
had been more open to women ministers relative to other denominations, men
eventually replaced women ministers. In
the end, the early twentieth century turned out to be a tiny, though
instructive and inspiring, chapter of women’s empowerment compared to the
larger book of male dominance of religious institutions. Indeed, a survey of
our own congregation’s history will show that after Safford and Gordon retired
from our church in 1910, it took nearly 85 years for the congregation to call
another woman minister to its pulpit, the Rev. Thea Nietfeld in 1994. As women left or were pushed out of their
congregations, secular service became the home for many of their ministries,
including work in settlement houses, municipal improvement efforts and, perhaps
most importantly for what we have been talking about today, the women’s
suffrage crusade, work that many had begun even before they left their
congregations. These women would not
have considered their more secular service and political activism as attempts
to abandon their ministries, because they believed that to be religious was not
to be dependent on a particular doctrinal identity or position within the
church, but rather to nurture a
“fundamental reverence for life”, a reverence for life that sees the
plight of any one of us as the responsibility of the collective whole of
humanity, or as one Unitarian suffragist called it, the “blessed neighborliness
of service.”[6] Even as their congregations might have been
unsettled by their activism, the women leading these congregations were seen by
those on the front lines of the women’s suffrage movement as having particular
talent and authority. One observer noted
that once the women Unitarian ministers joined the suffrage effort, these same
Unitarian women who had been shunned as heretics for their religious views were
soon embraced and looked to for leadership, with the more religiously orthodox
seeing that these women “did have religion” after all.[7] Which, as a side note,
reminds me of some of the reactions I encountered when I began attending AMOS
meetings [our local congregation-based community organization working for
social justice here in central Iowa] several years ago. I don’t think some of the more orthodox
clergy to whom I was then being introduced believed that UUs would really want
to be involved in an effort gathered, in large part, around religious
constructs, namely the prophetic imperative as expressed by the Hebrew
prophets. Certainly one retired Methodist minister in particular seemed to
mutter under his breath whenever I participated in the rounds of introductions
and declared myself a Unitarian Universalist. Maybe this skepticism came from
his past experience. Maybe it came from
a misunderstanding about what UUs have historically stood for. Maybe I was just being sensitive. Whatever the source of his reactions to my
presence, before long, he had reason to change his tune. For once our church
officially joined, and our vibrant group of members started not only
participating but leading in AMOS, respect for Unitarian Universalism
rapidly grew, as if the greater metro had begun to see what many of us have
always known: Unitarian Universalists do indeed have religion after all,
especially when we think of religion as the foundation for our efforts to build
a better world, regardless the differences of our individual belief
systems…when, as another of our former ministers Curtis Reese put it, we move
“away from religion conceived as one of [humanity’s] concerns, and toward
religion conceived as [humanity’s] one concern.”[8] The Iowa Sisterhood
understood the importance of social engagement to the health and vibrancy of
religious community and the world it inhabits, even if they may have been
preaching a gospel that many in their congregations were not fully ready to
hear. As I have learned more
about the efforts of these vibrant, talented women, particularly the courageous
work they did on behalf of women’s suffrage during a time when such public
stances were a rarity, I have been humbled to think of my own relative
complicity in the injustices of our time and the need for my own ministry, both
inside and outside of this congregation, to expand even more beyond the
pastoral and into the prophetic. But mostly their stories
give me hope. I can see by their example
that justice is not something that is achieved overnight, or even over many
years. I can see that ministry is not
just what we do in and through our churches, but what we do every day of our
lives, in our immediate families and in the greater family that is all
humankind. I can see that the goal most
worth working toward is not equality for just one group or justice on behalf of
just one cause, but the never-completed development of a mindset—an
expectation, really—informed by our liberal religious heritage and the
prophetic imperative it represents, that every human not only has inherent
worth and dignity, but the right to demand equality and justice. This is the prophetic humanhood to which we are all
called, the prophetic humanhood that can take us out of our little lives and
into the greater life that we all share, the abundant life for each and
every one of us upon which any religion worthy of its name should be focused. So let us be about the work of carrying on the
legacies of our religious foremothers and forefathers. Let us be inspired by the social justice
heritage of this congregation to reignite a passion around being a liberal
religious presence in central Iowa proclaiming through our actions that every
step we can take toward a better world is a step worth taking. Let us strive toward being a shining example
of what is possible in human community, not to make ourselves look good, but so
that we might feel good, that we might embrace the very freedom that
under girds our religious perspectives to see that we do, in fact, have the
power to create positive change in our own lives and in the lives of those who
share our world. I return to the words of
Ada C. Bowles with which we began today’s service. This time adapted to what befits our calling
as a liberal religious community, a calling that asks us to be present to all
our sisters and brothers, and therefore ourselves. Rise up! Rise up! Oh women [and men], The banner of thy freedom, Be ready for the morning, Up, ignorance and bondage And hail the coming right. [1] Cynthia Grant Tucker, Prophetic Sisterhood: Liberal Women Ministers of the Frontier, 1880-1930, (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994), p. 13. [2]Ibid., p. 11. [3] Ibid., pp. 19-20. [4] Ibid., p. 162. [5] Ibid., p. 163. [6] Ibid., p. 175. [7] Ibid., p. 198. [8] Mason Olds, American Religious Humanism, revised edition (Minneapolis: Fellowship of Religious Humanists, 1996), p. 121.
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