“Heart Speaking to Heart… So Great A Cloud of Witnesses” January 8, 2012 Rev. Bruce Southworth, Senior Minister The Community Church of New York Unitarian Universalist Reading Rev. John Taylor, ordained as a Methodist in 1958, had served as Assistant to Howard Thurman at Boston University’s Marsh Chapel. He became a Unitarian Minister in 1960. His distinguished service included 25 years at the First Unitarian Society in Ithaca. He died last July at age 79. From his writings: It is an act of courage to live when the days and nights of illness have beaten upon the door of sanity until a kind of haze covers the hours, and we wonder if it is worth it. It is an act of courage to live when a spouse of so many years is gone, and all which gave meaning and purpose and enjoyment to our days is no longer available. It is an act of courage to live when the job which defined a place in the work-a-day world has been eliminated, and the opportunities which were believed to be there have suddenly disappeared. It is an act of courage to live when one is suddenly alone and no one seems to care. It is an act of courage to watch the children grow up and ignore careful teachings and destroy tenderly guarded hopes. It is an act of courage to live in a world which seems to care nothing for the past and which is irresponsible towards the future. Courage is not as rare as warriors and survivors would have us believe. It is as close as breathing. It is as close as the question: “Why me?” It is as close as the single word “Why?” One would need to be a separated soul protected from life, or one residing innocently in a world of dreams, to live without courage. There are days in all our lives when simply to get out of bed is a great act of courage. Are we courageous? You bet we are. This morning I am lifting up some of those witnesses to Life who died in the past year. Many musicians and composers are on that large list, and among them is Barry Llewellyn, a founder of the Jamaican trio the Heptones, who died at age 63. Esther Gordy Edwards was one of the significant contributors to 1 © 2012 Bruce Southworth Motown Records, founded by her brother Berry Gordy. She died this past August at 91. It turns out that Lee Pockriss, who died last November at age 87, not only co-wrote “Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weenie Yellow Pocket Dot Bikini” in 1960 (giving a boost to bikini swim suits), but also gave us other pop hits such as “Johnny Angel”, scores for Broadway musicals and films, and “My Polliwog Ways” for Kermit on Sesame Street. A Brooklyn College graduate and musicology student at NYU, he was cryptographer for the Air Force during World War II. And then there is Jerry Leiber, who died at age 78 last August. Leiber was part of the team with Mike Stoller who wrote “Nothing But a Hound Dog”; the Drifters’ “On Broadway”; “Yakety Yak”; “Stand by Me”; “Fools Fall in Love”; “Love Potion #9”; “Chapel of Love”; “Leader of the Pack” and so many more songs, still offering their charms, such that my twenty-something year old son and daughter seem to be familiar with these. The song we hear next, “Is That All There Is”, was made popular by Peggy Lee and co-written by Leiber. … Are we courageous? You bet we are! “Heart Speaking to Heart… So Great A Cloud of Witnesses” “Facundo Cabral, 74, Singer of Conscience” was the headline for his obituary. An Argentinean, novelist, non-fiction author, and activist, Facundo Cabral was foremost a wildly popular singer. He died on July 9 from gunshot wounds while he was on tour in Guatemala. The car in which he was riding was ambushed by unidentified gunmen from three cars while he was on his way to the airport to return to Buenos Aires. Guatemalan officials indicated that the target of the attack was most likely another passenger in the car, a Nicaraguan nightclub owner. But it was also reported, “Rigoberta Menchú, the Guatemalan Indian leader who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1992, seemed to contradict this view when she said…, ‘I can’t help but think he was assassinated for his ideals.’” (NY Times, 7/11/11) 2 © 2012 Bruce Southworth Facundo Cabral, beginning in the 1970s, had protested against military dictatorships throughout Latin America. From a poor family, he had moved from Buenos Aires to Tierra del Fuego as a child, and there he embraced traditional folk music. His songs blended a mystical spirituality with protest and social justice messages, and his music so challenged the new military dictatorship, which took over in 1976, that he fled to Mexico until 1984. He recorded more than 2 dozen albums and performed at sold-out concerts throughout Latin America, adding reflections upon philosophy and religion, including Gandhi, Walt Whitman, Mother Teresa and Jorge Luis Borges. In 1996, at age 59, the United Nations designated him “a worldwide messenger of peace.” His upbringing was filled with challenges, and in interviews he often remarked, “I was without a voice until I was 9, illiterate until I was 14, became a widower at 40 and only met my father when I was 46.” His life and witness to justice through his music caught my attention when I read about his death last summer, and he was known for his aphorisms that have become commonplace sayings. For example, “Never allow yourself to be confused by a handful of killers, because good predominates,” he once said, and then added, “A bomb makes more noise than a caress, but for each bomb that destroys, there are millions of caresses that nourish life.” “Millions of caresses that nourish life”…. This morning I lift up Rodolpho Enrique Facundo Cabral among the many witnesses to Life who died in 2011. So great a cloud of witnesses surround us throughout our days… kindred spirits, strangers, partners, antagonists are few I pray, who like us are curious, and wonderfully created, only slightly lower than the angels according to some… Each of us pilgrims on this journey between our birth day and our death day… This morning in turning to some of the heroes of the human spirit, I turn also to a text in traditional Christian scripture, [from Hebrews 12:1] that reads, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside any mistake that weighs upon us, and let us [too] run with perseverance the race that is set before us.” Thanks in abundance to all those who surround us – care for us – and inspire us in our peculiar and difficult times, who in voice and deed showed fidelity to deep values and who just may give you strength and courage in your own choices. 3 © 2012 Bruce Southworth The list of the well-known, and less well-known, this year as every year, goes on and on: those who in ordinary ways made choices… who were like you and me, characters in a story of hope… who like you and me make a difference by the stories we write…. The lives we create…. The small sample this morning is among the many who caught my attention, either along the way, or as I reviewed the past year – each rather different. At a far distance in geography and circumstance from Cabral was Betty Ford, who for much of her life was no doubt first of all noted as being the wife of Gerald Ford: Michigan Congressman, Speaker of the House, Vice President and then United States President Gerald Ford, who died five years ago at age 93. Betty Ford died last July also at age 93. They had delayed their marriage in 1948, until shortly before an election, as she reported in an interview, because, "Jerry was running for Congress and wasn't sure how voters might feel about his marrying a divorced ex-dancer." Betty Ford had been a fashion model and member of one of the Martha Graham companies in New York before returning home to Grand Rapids, as well as having been divorced 1947 after a five-year marriage that ended on the grounds of “excessive cruelty” by her first husband, an abusive alcoholic. Betty Ford turned out to be the most outspoken and candid First Lady since Eleanor Roosevelt, or perhaps ever, and confounded Republican Party conservatives. In a “60 Minutes” interview in 1975, she said that she would not necessarily be upset if her 18-year-old unmarried daughter had an affair, and shortly after that in a McCall’s interview reported that she had sex with her husband “as often as possible.” (“Betty Ford, Pioneer,” Rick Perlstein, NY Times, 7/12/11) “[Betty] Ford was noted for raising breast cancer awareness following her 1974 mastectomy and was a passionate supporter of, and activist for, the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). [She was] Pro-choice on abortion and a leader in the Women's Movement.” “She also raised awareness of addiction when she announced her long-running battle with alcoholism in the 1970s”, as well as disclosing her addiction to prescription drugs. Following her White House years, she continued to lobby for the ERA and remained active in the feminist movement.” (Wikipedia) And she supported gay rights. Perhaps because of her own struggles with her own self-esteem and self- worth, she was able to teach others, and even the nation, about dealing with insecurities and shame and how to confront unwarranted social stigma, and then 4 © 2012 Bruce Southworth … to risk, to grow, to change.