The Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Salem, Oregon

Publications

Pass It On

by Kate Lore

UUCS February 25, 2007

During his most recent State of the Union address, President Bush singled out Wesley Autrey. You may remember hearing about Autrey; he was the 50-year-old construction worker who was standing on a subway platform in Harlem when a first-year film student suffered a seizure.  The student began convulsing so hard that he fell off of the platform and onto the subway tracks just as a train was coming. In an instant, Autrey jumped down onto the tracks and held the student down as the train rumbled just inches above them. Both men emerged from the episode with little more than bruises. Autrey also emerged a star.

When Autrey was later asked to reflect on the experience, he said: “Maybe I was in the right place at the right time, and good things happen for good people.” Then, he added, “All New Yorkers! If you see somebody in distress, go for it.”

Part of why this story has gotten so much news coverage is the fact that it’s such a stark contrast to the image we have of our cities, and especially New York : mind your own business, take care of yourself, and don’t worry about the other guy. But this story provides a different view of New Yorkers. 

Most acts of kindness, of course, are not rewarded with an acknowledgement from the leaders of our country. Yet sometimes a story is so extraordinary that we all take note of it.  And when events like this happen, one can’t help but wonder what we would have done in similar circumstances. Would we jump down and shelter another’s body with our own?  Or would we cover our eyes and turn away?  When Newsday decided to ask people this very question, they found that 54 percent of respondents said that they would not jump on the tracks to save someone and 46 percent said they would.  And yet it’s hard to tell until such moments present themselves to us.

Personally, I suspect that Wesley Autry would not have saved the other man’s life if he—at some point in his life--had not been the recipient of some similarly unexpected and kind gesture.  So the more interesting question to me is who inspired Autry to act in this way?  Sadly, no one seems to have asked him this question.

Have you ever benefited from a random act of kindness or generosity?  I bet you have.  I know that I have on many occasions.  There is one particular incident that I want to share with you today because it stands out above all the others.  It took place in 1983 when my husband and I were newlyweds on a long road trip.  We were young and poor back then and not terribly practical.  In search for a new place to start our married life, we had decided to quit our jobs, and drive wherever our hearts led us.  We knew we no longer wanted to live in the overdeveloped and overly expensive state of California , and since we did not yet have careers or children, the sky was the limit.  Thus we took off on a journey, camping along the way to stretch the few funds we had managed to save. 

Did I mention that we were driving a very funky pick-up truck?  It was our first vehicle and had cost only $600, making it affordable . . .  but it had definitely seen better days.  The passenger door didn’t even open anymore because it had been totally squashed in an accident involving the prior owner.  And the transmission wasn’t so good either.  It was one of those Three-on-a-Tree types of manual transmissions and I can still recall

the awful grating sound it made whenever it randomly popped out of third gear while we were driving down the highway.

So perhaps it won’t be any surprise to you that this very truck broke down on us while we driving through the middle of Saskatchewan , Canada .  There we were: in a foreign country with a broken-down vehicle and not nearly enough money to pay for repairs.  Nor did we have any credit cards. (You can tell that this is an old story because now days, every young couple has a credit card or two--but that wasn’t the case back then).

 To make matters worse, there was no one to bail us out.  My mom was too poor—so poor she hadn’t ever even owned a car of her own—so we couldn’t ask her.  And we knew Roger’s parents would want us to sweat this one out on our own.  You know: learn from our mistake of being so foolhardy and impractical.    Plus, we knew that even if Roger’s folks did consent to bailing us out, we would never hear the end of it.  And since we were young and hadn’t yet cultivated a practice of humility, we decided we would rather carve out a new life in Saskatchewan , Canada , than to have to hear them berating us about it for the next 10 years. 

So there we were: on the side of a road thousands of miles from home with a big problem.  What were we going to do?  As luck would have it, some friendly Canadians eventually came upon us and directed us to a particular man:  “the only honest mechanic in town,” they called him.   Given our lack of options at that time, we decided “why not?” and somehow we managed to get our popping and wheezing truck into the driveway of the honest mechanic’s shop. 

We must have been quite a sight!  Picture two young and poor hippies who’ve been camping for weeks and were probably more in need of a hot shower than we’d like to admit.  Yet this conservative-looking gentleman showed us nothing but kindness and respect.  He agreed to take a look at our truck and told us to return in a couple of hours while he came up with an estimate for repair. 

Imagine our delight when 2 hours later we returned to discover that this man had gone ahead and fixed the truck for no charge.  As we stood there with our mouths gaping open in surprise, he simply handed us the keys and told us to be on our way.

“What?!” I exclaimed.  “You mean you’re letting us go for free?!  Why would you ever be so kind to people you don’t even know?  We aren’t even Canadian. How in the world can we ever repay you ?!” 

“I am a man of faith,” he told us, “and I am just practicing my religion: I’m doing what I think Jesus would want me to do.  If you really want to pay me back, simply agree to pass on my kindness to whomever you meet who could use a little help.  That’s it: just pass it on, and I will take great satisfaction in knowing that my act of kindness is having a ripple effect in the world.”

I was absolutely stunned by this man’s generosity and by his faith.  It was one of those “time out of time” moments when I KNEW I needed to pay attention because I was being given a great lesson.  I was witnessing something incredibly important—holy even. I had just encountered a 20^th century Good Samaritan, so to speak.  And although many of us loved the Good Samaritan story when we were young, most of us don’t take the story very seriously anymore.  I mean, if you live in this country long enough, this particular teaching may seem a little unrealistic, maybe even naïve or dangerous.  

That’s right: as a people, Americans are becoming jaded.  We’ve learned the hard way that the world does not reward kindness.  In the midst of war, in the midst of hatred and separateness, in the midst of partisanship, we learn that so much is divided, so much is broken and that meanness is what ends up getting rewarded. There is plenty of meanness all around us, after all.  It might come from our leaders; it might come from how we treat other countries; it might come from the judges on a TV show; it might come from how we treat the person behind the counter or working next to us.  It might come from the little voice inside that says, “Look out for number one, lest you get suckered.” But still, most of us who gather here on Sundays know that this is not how we want to live.  We take inspiration from people like Wesley Autry and we, too, want to be agents of goodness in our world.

I raise this issue this morning because I believe that if we can live mindfully about how kindness and generosity might flow from us to others and from others to ourselves, we might come to see the world in a different way – even in these crazy and polarized days. We might come to see our random acts of kindness and generosity as acts of resistance to the individualism and violence so often exalted in our society. We might even feel a renewed sense of possibility, aware that we are part of creation, and that that creation is brimming with goodness.  

I have repaid the Canadian mechanic’s kindness many times over in the twenty-some-odd years that have passed since then.  At first I did it to repay my debt, to fulfill an obligation to create a ripple effect the mechanic had described.  But over time, I’ve found that the pleasure and satisfaction I feel engaging in these random acts is so tremendous that I’ve become rather addicted to it.  I realize now that my spirit thrives when I’m generous, that I am happiest when I am the most kind to others.  I need to feel that I am part of a web that perpetuates goodness.  I like this spiritual practice; it just feels so hopeful and energizing and positive! 

Does that mean that I say “yes” whenever anybody asks something of me?  Heavens no. But I do what I can, when I can--even when it stretches me a bit.  And I can’t tell you what a thrill it is to evoke that same stunned look in other people’s faces that I had when the Canadian fixed our truck for free.  Yes, those ripples go on and on as I, too, ask folks to simply “pass it on.” 

I often wonder if that Canadian mechanic is still alive and if so, whether or not he has any idea how much he has changed my life and the lives of others by his original gift to Roger and me? And, as with Wesley Autry, I also find myself wondering who taught this man the lesson; and who taught his teacher the lesson and so forth until I picture this delightful web of connections that have been changing the world generation by generation, one random act of kindness at a time.  

Yes, at its best, spreading kindness and generosity can become a source of mindfulness and hope in our lives. It creates an orientation to look beyond our individuality and to see ourselves as part of something much larger. It is an orientation to put our own struggles into perspective, to see that when someone else is hurt or in need, so are we.

When I stop and think about it, congregations are really one of the few places left—at least in this culture--where we ever consider the benefits of this line of thinking.  Every other cultural institution seems to tell us that buying things for ourselves is the route to happiness.  Through innumerable mediums we are told that we are not thin or rich or good-looking enough, that we won’t be truly satisfied until we drive a certain car, take a tropical vacation every winter, have a certain look and surround ourselves with the most up-to-date gadgets. Yet our fellow Unitarian Universalists remind us that we are not defined by our appearance or by how much money we have.  We are reminded that there are more pressing issues to consider and a different set of criteria by which to judge ourselves.  Thank goodness for church!

So what is it about church communities that they can provide such unique experiences for people like you and me? Sociologists and theologians alike tell us that communities of faith perform a unique function in society.  We have what some might call an “alternative imagination.”  That is, we have the ability to posit a future different from, and better than, the present world in which we live.  We imagine the world as it ought to be, rather than merely as it is.

So while lobbyists around our country are working to undermine our social service safety net, our church still envisions a world in which all children are fed, housed and given a good education.  And despite the efforts of many to undermine affirmative action, restrict gay marriage, and teach creationism in school, we continue to work for a world in which all people are free from oppression, science is respected, and all people are afforded the opportunity to thrive, love and reach their potential.

I ask you: where else but in our congregations do we come together in one body to grapple with the more meaningful matters of justice, death, the nature of humanity, even the existence of God?  We come together on Sunday mornings, not just to heal our own souls, but also to offer healing outward in the world.  The time we spend together is meant to rouse us to goodness and then to pass it on to others.

As UU theologian James Luther Adams said: We need church because goodness must be institutionalized if it is to have any effect upon the world.  And the only way to build those institutions is to give our resources of time, energy and money. 

So at this time in history, when our world seems over run with divisiveness and greed, our church is a voice of sanity and mercy.  Today I invite you to institutionalize the goodness that is found here by pledging as much as you can to our annual fund drive.  Not only will this allow you to experience the deep joy of giving generously, you will also help ensure that this sacred institution --that you have worked so hard to create --will be well poised to “pass it on” to future generations.   And I mean pass all of it on: the love and acceptance, the beauty, the sense of community, the extraordinary religious education, and our vision of a better world.  

What we have built together is precious.  Our commitment to better ourselves and our world is an act of loving resistance to everything currently taught to us by our materialistic culture.  Let’s celebrate our collective act of resistance by giving everything we can to sustain the beloved community that is created here.  May it be so.  Amen.

Will you pray with me?

Holy One, God who is beyond all names, we come before you today as one strong body committed to creating more goodness in our world.  Help us see our place in the work of justice and kindness and generosity.  We ask for courage and fortitude, for strength of vision and clarity of purpose.  And we give thanks this day for the faces and voices of our companions, gathered around us here.  We know that our numbers will be our strength, and our sustenance.

For this church, for this day, and for all beings we give thanks.