Story: “What the Turtle Taught Theodore” By Gary Kowalski
Theodore Parker was born 1810 and
died in 1860. In his autobiography,
Theodore Parker relates that as a child, four or five years old, living on a
farm in West Roxbury, Massachusetts he was walking through the fields one day
absent-mindedly swinging a stick through the tall grass. This was many years
ago, in the days before the Civil War. It was summertime. He stopped to watch
the water bubble along a creek. Then he noticed a turtle sunning itself on a
rock.
He’d seen other boys use their
sticks to hit turtles and other animals. It was part of what children thought
was fun, just as some children still like to bully and hit those who are weaker
than themselves. Often children, and grown-ups too, are copycats — mimicking
the behavior of others who seem bigger or stronger than themselves. Young
Theodore wanted to be like the other, older boys he’d seen, so he raised his
stick into the air, taking aim and preparing to knock the turtle into the
water.
Then something stopped him.
Something seemed wrong about the situation. He looked again at the turtle,
quiet, peaceful, enjoying the summer day just as he liked to feel the warmth
and light of the sun. Had the turtle ever done him any harm? Was the turtle so
different than himself? Slowly he lowered his stick and walked home, thinking
about what had happened.
When he arrived home, his mother was there to greet him, and
he told her about the incident. She listened carefully to Theodore, and
listened especially carefully when he related how some strange force inside had
stopped him from hitting the little animal. “Theodore,” she said, “that force
inside you was the voice of conscience. Always pay attention to it. Always
follow what your conscience tells you. It’s your moral compass that points you
in the right direction. And if you honor your conscience, you’ll never go wrong
in this world.”
Theodore Parker grew up to become a
Unitarian minister, in fact one of the greatest leaders our faith has ever
known. He became a champion of the defenseless who needed defending. He was a
hero in the fight to end slavery in our country. He prayed to “Father and
Mother God” and fought for women’s equality and their right to vote. He and his
wife never had children of their own — but he felt a sense of kinship with the
whole family of creation, people of all genders and races who had been made in
the image of the holy. And it all started one summer day when he was just a
child — a child who saw a turtle and decided to do what was right.
For those young and young at heart,
we have crayons and a picture of a turtle for you to color, in order to
remember young Theodore by.
Sermon
I didn’t want to forget that
Valentine’s Day just passed us by. So I
was looking for some Valentine’s Day cards that might be meaningful to
Unitarian Universalists. Here's one I came across: "Will you join the committee of my heart?"
And on
NPR--all Unitarian Universalists listen to NPR right--I heard about this
Islamic woman, Taz Ahmed, who is making Valentine cards for Millennials. Here are some of hers. “Cupid dropped an airstrike on my
heart.” “I’d never Muslim ban you from
my heart.” “Wanna roleplay TSA.” And my favorite, “Call your
representative…then call me.”
Let’s get
back to compassion and resilience. To
refresh our memory of the definition that we’re working with: resilience is
being able to spring back emotionally after suffering through difficult and
stressful times in one's life. And
compassion is the how we show others that we wish them to be free of suffering.
When I was
a chaplain in a Houston area hospital, I learned more about compassion and
resilience than I could have ever imagined.
I was on-call late one night and received a page, yes we still had
pagers, to go up to the cardiac unit.
When I arrived I went straight to the nurse’s station to find out who
was in need. The nurse told me that an
African American woman was coding over and over again—her heart stopping—and
the staff was required to bring her back to life over and over again. The nurse was quite distressed. She said the family demanded that the staff
bring the woman back to life each time she coded. At that moment, I heard another code go off
and watched the staff run to the woman’s room, beat on her chest—I learned
later breaking some of her ribs—then providing a shock to the heart. I heard the family say something like, “She
can’t die. She can’t die. Don’t let her
die.”
After this
chaos settled down, the nurse told me that the family didn’t trust the doctors
and nurses to adequately treat their mother, this woman, because she was poor
and black. They were convinced that she
was not getting the best treatment and that is why she was dying. The staff asked me to talk to the family—five
adults, three teenagers, and one toddler.
The five adults were her children, the teenagers and toddler her
grandchildren.
I
hesitantly went over and asked if I could talk to them. I felt I was in over my
head. What could I—a newbie chaplain on
my first overnight on-call-- offer this family?
So I simply started by asking them their names and their mother’s
name. As we introduced ourselves, I
guided them to a room down the hall. I
let them talk, tell me about their distrust of the doctors and hospitals, then
they talked about believing it was not their mother’s time to die. Soon they were telling me that they didn’t
know how they would live without her. I
asked them to tell me stories about her.
And each had wonderful stories, we talked for about an hour, about how
she had kept them safe from the gangs, helped them get a good education, took
care of the grandchildren. She was the
only parent they knew. She was only
person in their lives who showed them unconditional love—those are my words,
not theirs, but I could tell that is what they were saying through their
stories. And amazingly enough, the
mother didn’t code during that time.
After they
started to wind down, I asked them what they wanted to do. It seems no-one had asked them before. All the staff had been doing was telling them
what was happening and that the family needed to stop making the staff revive
her and let her go. I don’t think poorly
of the staff; they too were under great stress, with the family accusing them
of not taking adequate care of their mother.
I realized that the staff would also need some time with a chaplain
after the family had some closure.
The
interesting thing was after I asked them what they wanted, they asked me what I
thought they should do? Well, I said I
couldn’t tell them, but I wondered what they wanted to say to their mother,
what they needed to tell her, and if they wanted to pray with their
mother. There was a sense of relief that
came over the family as I said this, as well as tears. Not hysterical tears like the ones that had
been flowing before, but tears of relief, of release.
They
thought about it and said yes they had some things to say and did want to pray
with their mother. So together we went
into their mother’s room. I turned down
the lights. I lit a candle. I guided the family around the bed, circling
their mother. I started with telling
their mother that the family was with her and they wanted to talk. One by one, they hesitantly did. When the talking ended, I began a prayer and
let each family member add to it in their own way. Then I asked if the family was ready to say
goodbye. A rush of tears and then they
all nodded their heads yes.
A few
minutes after the family left, the woman passed away peacefully.
This
experience has stayed with me all these years.
How a little compassion and empathy can go a long way to help someone
experience the path to resilience. I did
nothing miraculous. Mostly what they
needed was someone to listen, feel their pain, and encourage them to find a
path forward for themselves.
Compassion
given made an impact on this family, left me with an experience that still
guides my actions, and also helped the staff feel some relief as well. The staff did not want to continue prolonging
this woman’s life, when they knew they were just lengthening her
suffering.
In this
faith community, one of the Principles we affirm is justice, equity, and
compassion in human relations. So often
we focus on the justice and equity part of that Principle, wanting others to be
treated justly or equitably. But
sometimes that doesn’t happen and, my friends, suffering is not something that
is just or equitable. Suffering comes to
us all. And compassion and empathy,
which I believe are connected, are qualities we can cultivate to lessen the impact
of suffering not only on others, but on ourselves as well.
Think back
on the story of Theodore Parker and the turtle.
Parker by stopping himself from the destructive behavior he saw
exhibited by others, and then reflecting with his own conscience on his
relationship with the turtle, another living thing, felt within himself empathy
for this little creature and treated the turtle with compassion, or at the very
least did not hurt the turtle. Sometimes
that’s what compassion looks like in young children. If you can help at least don’t hurt. Parker wrote about this event in his life and
wrote that it was foundational to his life, future, his work in the world, his
prayers and his preaching. He
experienced from that moment on a sense of kinship with the whole family of
creation, including people of all genders and races all who were made in the
image of the holy.
Parker is
one of my favorite forebears. His life
and his writings teach me each time I read them. They remind me to treat all people and
creatures as if they are a spark of the divine.
They remind me to have empathy and compassion for all that exists on
this planet and this planet itself. For
me, thinking of all creation as a spark of the divine helps me stop, as Parker
did before using that stick, and reflect on the best way to treat those around
me, and to treat them all with respect, dignity, worth, empathy, and
compassion.
Let me share a part of one of
Parker’s prayers: O Thou Infinite Power,
whom [humans] call by varying names, but whose grandeur and whose love no name
expresses and no words can tell… [yet
whose being is] in every star that flowers above and every flower that flames
beneath…We thank thee for the primal virtues which shine aloft as stars, and
not less for the charities which heal and soothe and bless, and are scattered
at [our] living feet as flowers. We
bless thee for the great truths which have come down to us on the sounding way
through the ages, encouraging and strengthening men [and women]. We thank thee for the poets and prophets and mighty men [and women] of
thought and piety, who spoke as they were moved… and brought truth to
hu[mankind]; we thank thee that in our own day, not less, thy spirit still
works with the children [of humanity]… May we learn what is right and…with all
the strength that is in us…love our brothers [and sisters] as we love
ourselves, and grow [in this]constantly… May we grow wiser and more just, be
filled with more loving-kindness to our brother men [and sister women], and
have a heartier and holier love…May no success in this world’s affairs ever
harden our hearts, but make us more noble and more generous, and may the
world’s sorrow and sickness and grief and disappointment and loss only rouse up
the better soul that is in us ...”
Let that sink in.
Each time I read this, I find things I need to remember to do in my
life, and I experience new awarenesses.
I am reminded of my ministerial aspirations. I remember to stop and notice the beauty all
around me and recall again my interconnectedness with all creation. And I remember to treat all creation as
holy. Treating creation as holy, to me,
means that I need to practice compassion and empathy every day with all
creation.
Compassion and resilience aren’t
just gifts that you give to others. It
is important to offer compassion and love to yourself as a regular spiritual
practice. This builds resilience and
reinforces our ability to be compassionate to others. Psychotherapist Linda Graham, MFT ( Mental
Health.net--Compassion is Healing — Empathy is "Perspective Taking")
wrote: “Compassion is one of a dozen positive, pro-social emotions that have
been studied by behavioral scientists as well as neuroscientists for the last
20 years, along with gratitude, kindness, generosity, joy, awe, delight, and
love. Self-compassion is especially potent because it activates the care-giving
system [within us] and moves us to act, care, and protect [others].” She went on:
“Resilience is a direct outcome of the practice [of compassion]. More
compassion leads to more resilience.”
We affirm
that every person is important, of worth and dignity and I would say sacred.
Accepting this, let us renew our pledge to live out those sacred and humane
teachings that draw us toward compassion and love in ever-widening circles of
care. But first let’s start with
ourselves. So my friends I leave you
with a meditation of love, compassion, and peace. I have been using this
meditation each night for the past year and a half. It is simply breathing in as I say to myself
“I breathe in love and compassion” and when I breathe out, saying to myself, “I
breathe out peace.”
