“Sundays, I Take the Bus”
a sermon by Erin Margit Dajka
October 10, 2010
First Unitarian Society of Minneapolis
I drive a tiny, yet sporty, two-door silver Saturn. It’s putting on a few years, but it’s mileage is still reasonable. A child in the congregation named Margit is particularly fond of seeing my car parked in front of the church when I am here during the week. My license plate reads “MARGIT 3” because I am so proud of my middle name, which I pronounce Margit. Margit’s mother wishes they could have met me earlier so they might have gotten a picture of her with my car when she was still three. “Margit 3.” A picture might have to happen, anyway.
I drive my car to meetings here at the Society, to the YWCA, and to my classes at United Theological Seminary in New Brighton. - On Sundays, though, I take the bus.
I started riding the bus in Minneapolis for General Assembly back in June. It seemed silly to drive and pay downtown parking rates when the Convention Center was only about three miles from my home. My solution was to ride the bus, and the experience was illuminating.
The most memorable evening busing home from General Assembly was the night that it rained. Maybe you remember that night at the end of June when a huge thunderstorm ripped through the Cities around seven o’clock – dropping inches upon inches of rain and flooding streets? Well, I left the Convention Center just as it began to rain.
It was me with my tiny purple umbrella, fighting through the pounding rain on Nicollet Ave. One block, two – slogging, and keeping going. Just after I had given up to the solace of the doorway of a shop, a bus came by. I rushed over to it, relieved to be able to get out of the rain - and then I was surprised. The driver invited everyone onto the bus stating that it was, at that moment, a free ride. Four stops later, and I stepped off the bus to cross the street onto the light rail platform. My little purple umbrella served as my only protection from the hail, which had joined in with the rain, plummeting down to earth. It was a particularly bad storm, and the light rail platform flashed a message suggesting that passengers seek shelter due to a severe thunderstorm warning.
But, where could I go? Was I in danger? Where do you go when you are caught out in such weather? My pattern of thinking changed in that moment. Before that day, I had casually wondered what people without homes or places to be might do during a severe storm. Now, I was in the middle of a severe storm without any place to go besides this light rail platform, where I could not escape the rain that blew in and was being told by a recording to seek shelter.
I was not the only one there that evening. A woman came up and similarly stood, huddled against the wind and the rain, staring in disbelief at just how much water was falling from the sky. After about five minutes, we began a conversation about the weather and downtown and General Assembly as my reason for being there. Then we discussed religion and faith and how she felt that church was not necessary for her to be faithful and to do good in the world. Eventually, the train came, we wished each other a good night, and the next step of my journey home began.
The light rail car was not crowded, and its passengers kept to themselves until suddenly a young man with headphones exclaimed that the radio reported whitecaps on Lyndale Avenue. Really? Whitecaps on Lyndale? Someone else chimed in about how long it had taken her to get downtown because I-494 had flooded. A few people speculated about when the last time it had rained so hard might have been.
My adventure continued at the Franklin Avenue station where I got off. The rain had pretty much stopped, but I decided to be lazy and take the elevator down to street level. When the doors opened, there was about half an inch of water on the floor, streaming off the edge and falling down to the bottom of the shaft. As it descended, the water rose from underneath into the elevator, filling it up past my ankles.
On the street, I encountered two girls who were probably in high school. As I came with a rush of water out of the elevator, I commented to them that at least my shoes had already been soaked. Our conversation turned to the storm and their experience of traveling in it. The three of us got onto the next bus and sat near the back, but not together. We drove past a building where I saw water gushing in streams six inches in diameter out of drains in its side. I said, “girls – check it out!” and they were just as impressed and amazed by it as I had been. Suddenly, another woman sitting a little in front of us turned and said that she’d seen water spurting out of a man-hole cover a full six feet into the air. “Really?” we asked. “Yeah, I took a picture with my phone. Want to see it?” So, there we huddled, the girls I’d met on the street, a couple of other passengers, and me, around this woman’s cell phone to see a geyser of water erupting from a man-hole cover.
Then, the bus crossed a street that was flooded with more than two feet of water. A couple of cars had stalled out, and as the bus made its way through, the rush of water against its front almost reached the windshield. We made it to my stop, though, and I got off with yet another woman onto a curb upon which the flooding encroached. She looked at me as if to ask, “How do we cross?” “It doesn’t look like we have a choice – we’ll just have to go through it.” So, we crossed that moving stream of water six inches deep in the gutters of the road. She shrieked with delight as the water rushed through her sandals. “Feels good, doesn’t it?” “Yes,” she responded coyly. “Have a good night – safe travels home!” “You too!”
This is a long story, but every piece of it is important to me. The one piece I have left out, however, is that in all of these conversations, I was the only white participant. The bus driver who let everyone ride free and the woman on the light rail platform were African American. The girls waiting for the bus were Latina. The group huddled around the cell-phone picture also included an Asian woman and a Native American. And the young woman who so enjoyed getting her feet wet? She’d needed to lift her long skirt to cross and had her head covered by a scarf. She was a Muslim Somali immigrant.
These conversations, moments of meeting each other as human beings, unfortunately would never have happened under other circumstances. Cultural barriers are difficult to break. However, even if all of us had shared a similar ethnic and cultural background, these conversations still probably would not have happened. This is a wonderful story, but the one thing that makes it so wonderful is a sad critique of our society.
Each of us journeys alone most of the time. We do not make the effort to meet our traveling companions. Somehow, to do so feels largely taboo. It takes one of the heaviest rainfalls in years for the wonder of the world to break into our shells and boundaries, forcing us to take notice of it, and to share that wonder with those around us. I feel blessed to have had this experience.
We have so much to learn by journeying together.
We have so much we can share.
Later this summer, I rode the bus again – this time to the Capitol in Saint Paul to participate in the OutFront Minnesota counter-rally to the National Organization for Marriage’s presence on the Capitol building’s steps. Both rallies were peaceful, and I was proud of my fellow demonstrators poignantly expressing our support for marriage equality. And it was a long bus ride home. It was the final leg of my journey when a man sitting in the very back corner of the bus made a comment to me about the weather, and we began a conversation. He asked me if I was on my way home, and I explained that I had been at the rally in support of gay marriage. A few moments passed and he turned to me again, “I don’t want to . . . well . . . I’m not trying to be . . . but, are you a . . . lesbian?” “Actually, I’m straight. I have a boyfriend.” “Oh.” Another pause. “But, . . . why do you support a cause you don’t believe in?” And so began our lengthy conversation about why I support marriage equality. What I said did not fit into what he knew of family or marriage, so he asked questions, partially trying to catch me in a logical flaw, partially trying to get his head around my position. I may not have changed his mind on the issue, but I am confident that he left the conversation thinking about the issue differently. My social justice work that day was complete – I had shared my voice politically, and I was able to do the same on a personal level. All because a 34 year old African American man chose to include me in his journey that day.
We have so much to learn by journeying together.
We have so much we can share.
Surprisingly enough, I had trouble finding readings that I wanted to share with you this morning. Our culture is filled with stories of journeys, but in our tales and books and poems and myths, the focus of the journey is consistently about the quest of a single individual. That hero usually gets help and guidance along the way, but, ultimately, he must face the quest alone. This image, which we encounter day after day, is of the individual, up against all odds, making it to the final destination. How often do we hear, “He pulled himself up by his bootstraps.” Or we might say, “She overcame all odds.” Consider how we encourage our children to be able to claim, “I did it all by myself.” We see this as the pinnacle of success. The focus is on the individual’s achievement. The individual’s path. The individual’s journey.
And, as we journey alone, we are alone.
Many of you were also fortunate enough to attend the Sunday morning service at General Assembly this past June. You may remember how Peter Morales, the president of the Unitarian Universalist Association, spoke about how startlingly alone most of the people in this country are. He cited surveys taken first in 1985 and then repeated in 2004. The key question, measuring intimacy, was “How many people do you know with whom you can share personal information?” In 1985, the most common answer, provided by about 25% of the respondents, was three. 10% reported zero. Fast-forward through the information highway of time to 2004, and the people who felt they had no one with whom they could share personal information increased to 25%, and another 25% reported only one other person. Hearing this shocked me. Do a quarter of Americans truly believe that they are alone? Do half of us have fewer than two people to whom we can reach out – with whom we can share our experience of the journey?
It is easy to journey alone. One place to the next – jobs, meetings, exercise classes, errands, tele-conferences, e-mails, home, and off again. Including others mucks up the works – the waiting, changes of plans, multiple stops. It is just easier to get where you are going all by yourself.
But, you miss so much. There are conversations and friendships possible along the way. If you can only take the moment to reach out, you may find so much more through those traveling along side you. These are the people you meet on the street along with your closest friends, colleagues, and family. The journey is so much greater than getting from one place to the next – it is all that you are – journeying through life.
Just as you need the guidance, support, companionship, and stories of those who journey with you, there are others who yet need someone to journey with them. Who do you choose not to see? Who could use your guidance, support, companionship and stories as they journey through life?
On my journey home through the storm, I was faced with the questions of how people who have no where to go manage in torrential downpours – and by extension, how do they manage at all? Who journeys with them? While there are many ways to reach out, consider literally journeying with someone without a home on December 13 as they make their way through the confusing array of services offered at Project Homeless Connect. Hear her stories. Find out where his path is taking him. Offer your support.
We have so much to learn by journeying together.
We have so much we can share.
Our attention has recently been turned to the tragedies of young people seeing no hope in having to face what seems like a lifetime of being alone because of their sexual orientation. These young people desperately need company on their journeys, to see that they truly are not alone. They need to hear your stories of getting through times without hope. They have to have your support. Tomorrow is National Coming Out Day, a day set aside to encourage people of all ages to take a huge step on their journeys, finally sharing with the world who they truly are – Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian, Transgender, Queer, Questioning, Ally. Don’t let them take this huge step alone. Be on that road with them.
We have so much to learn by journeying together.
We have so much we can share.
I ride the bus on Sunday mornings. Yes, this is in part to leave one more parking place for you. But, I made up my mind that I wanted to take the bus even before I knew of the parking situation. Riding the bus gives me the opportunity to travel with others. It is my reminder before we gather in this beautiful assembly hall of the absolute need to journey with those around me, especially those in need.
When I catch the #2 bus at 9:11 on Sunday morning, I encounter a man for whom sharing the journey is an utter joy. This bus driver greets each of his passengers with a smile and a how are you? The first time I asked the question back to him, he said that he was just dancing that day. He is so filled with joy sharing the journey that he happily announces each street that we cross and to which lines you might transfer at the next stop. I believe that I could learn something from him. We all could. Sometimes, sharing the journey is as simple as a smile.
The innkeeper in the Canterbury Tales offers his idea of everyone telling stories on the journey as a sport, but it is so much more than that. Their stories bind them on their journey as each is on equal ground. This morning, I challenge all of us to find ways to share the journey.
We have so much to learn by journeying together.
We have so much we can share.
October 10, 2010
First Unitarian Society of Minneapolis
I drive a tiny, yet sporty, two-door silver Saturn. It’s putting on a few years, but it’s mileage is still reasonable. A child in the congregation named Margit is particularly fond of seeing my car parked in front of the church when I am here during the week. My license plate reads “MARGIT 3” because I am so proud of my middle name, which I pronounce Margit. Margit’s mother wishes they could have met me earlier so they might have gotten a picture of her with my car when she was still three. “Margit 3.” A picture might have to happen, anyway.
I drive my car to meetings here at the Society, to the YWCA, and to my classes at United Theological Seminary in New Brighton. - On Sundays, though, I take the bus.
I started riding the bus in Minneapolis for General Assembly back in June. It seemed silly to drive and pay downtown parking rates when the Convention Center was only about three miles from my home. My solution was to ride the bus, and the experience was illuminating.
The most memorable evening busing home from General Assembly was the night that it rained. Maybe you remember that night at the end of June when a huge thunderstorm ripped through the Cities around seven o’clock – dropping inches upon inches of rain and flooding streets? Well, I left the Convention Center just as it began to rain.
It was me with my tiny purple umbrella, fighting through the pounding rain on Nicollet Ave. One block, two – slogging, and keeping going. Just after I had given up to the solace of the doorway of a shop, a bus came by. I rushed over to it, relieved to be able to get out of the rain - and then I was surprised. The driver invited everyone onto the bus stating that it was, at that moment, a free ride. Four stops later, and I stepped off the bus to cross the street onto the light rail platform. My little purple umbrella served as my only protection from the hail, which had joined in with the rain, plummeting down to earth. It was a particularly bad storm, and the light rail platform flashed a message suggesting that passengers seek shelter due to a severe thunderstorm warning.
But, where could I go? Was I in danger? Where do you go when you are caught out in such weather? My pattern of thinking changed in that moment. Before that day, I had casually wondered what people without homes or places to be might do during a severe storm. Now, I was in the middle of a severe storm without any place to go besides this light rail platform, where I could not escape the rain that blew in and was being told by a recording to seek shelter.
I was not the only one there that evening. A woman came up and similarly stood, huddled against the wind and the rain, staring in disbelief at just how much water was falling from the sky. After about five minutes, we began a conversation about the weather and downtown and General Assembly as my reason for being there. Then we discussed religion and faith and how she felt that church was not necessary for her to be faithful and to do good in the world. Eventually, the train came, we wished each other a good night, and the next step of my journey home began.
The light rail car was not crowded, and its passengers kept to themselves until suddenly a young man with headphones exclaimed that the radio reported whitecaps on Lyndale Avenue. Really? Whitecaps on Lyndale? Someone else chimed in about how long it had taken her to get downtown because I-494 had flooded. A few people speculated about when the last time it had rained so hard might have been.
My adventure continued at the Franklin Avenue station where I got off. The rain had pretty much stopped, but I decided to be lazy and take the elevator down to street level. When the doors opened, there was about half an inch of water on the floor, streaming off the edge and falling down to the bottom of the shaft. As it descended, the water rose from underneath into the elevator, filling it up past my ankles.
On the street, I encountered two girls who were probably in high school. As I came with a rush of water out of the elevator, I commented to them that at least my shoes had already been soaked. Our conversation turned to the storm and their experience of traveling in it. The three of us got onto the next bus and sat near the back, but not together. We drove past a building where I saw water gushing in streams six inches in diameter out of drains in its side. I said, “girls – check it out!” and they were just as impressed and amazed by it as I had been. Suddenly, another woman sitting a little in front of us turned and said that she’d seen water spurting out of a man-hole cover a full six feet into the air. “Really?” we asked. “Yeah, I took a picture with my phone. Want to see it?” So, there we huddled, the girls I’d met on the street, a couple of other passengers, and me, around this woman’s cell phone to see a geyser of water erupting from a man-hole cover.
Then, the bus crossed a street that was flooded with more than two feet of water. A couple of cars had stalled out, and as the bus made its way through, the rush of water against its front almost reached the windshield. We made it to my stop, though, and I got off with yet another woman onto a curb upon which the flooding encroached. She looked at me as if to ask, “How do we cross?” “It doesn’t look like we have a choice – we’ll just have to go through it.” So, we crossed that moving stream of water six inches deep in the gutters of the road. She shrieked with delight as the water rushed through her sandals. “Feels good, doesn’t it?” “Yes,” she responded coyly. “Have a good night – safe travels home!” “You too!”
This is a long story, but every piece of it is important to me. The one piece I have left out, however, is that in all of these conversations, I was the only white participant. The bus driver who let everyone ride free and the woman on the light rail platform were African American. The girls waiting for the bus were Latina. The group huddled around the cell-phone picture also included an Asian woman and a Native American. And the young woman who so enjoyed getting her feet wet? She’d needed to lift her long skirt to cross and had her head covered by a scarf. She was a Muslim Somali immigrant.
These conversations, moments of meeting each other as human beings, unfortunately would never have happened under other circumstances. Cultural barriers are difficult to break. However, even if all of us had shared a similar ethnic and cultural background, these conversations still probably would not have happened. This is a wonderful story, but the one thing that makes it so wonderful is a sad critique of our society.
Each of us journeys alone most of the time. We do not make the effort to meet our traveling companions. Somehow, to do so feels largely taboo. It takes one of the heaviest rainfalls in years for the wonder of the world to break into our shells and boundaries, forcing us to take notice of it, and to share that wonder with those around us. I feel blessed to have had this experience.
We have so much to learn by journeying together.
We have so much we can share.
Later this summer, I rode the bus again – this time to the Capitol in Saint Paul to participate in the OutFront Minnesota counter-rally to the National Organization for Marriage’s presence on the Capitol building’s steps. Both rallies were peaceful, and I was proud of my fellow demonstrators poignantly expressing our support for marriage equality. And it was a long bus ride home. It was the final leg of my journey when a man sitting in the very back corner of the bus made a comment to me about the weather, and we began a conversation. He asked me if I was on my way home, and I explained that I had been at the rally in support of gay marriage. A few moments passed and he turned to me again, “I don’t want to . . . well . . . I’m not trying to be . . . but, are you a . . . lesbian?” “Actually, I’m straight. I have a boyfriend.” “Oh.” Another pause. “But, . . . why do you support a cause you don’t believe in?” And so began our lengthy conversation about why I support marriage equality. What I said did not fit into what he knew of family or marriage, so he asked questions, partially trying to catch me in a logical flaw, partially trying to get his head around my position. I may not have changed his mind on the issue, but I am confident that he left the conversation thinking about the issue differently. My social justice work that day was complete – I had shared my voice politically, and I was able to do the same on a personal level. All because a 34 year old African American man chose to include me in his journey that day.
We have so much to learn by journeying together.
We have so much we can share.
Surprisingly enough, I had trouble finding readings that I wanted to share with you this morning. Our culture is filled with stories of journeys, but in our tales and books and poems and myths, the focus of the journey is consistently about the quest of a single individual. That hero usually gets help and guidance along the way, but, ultimately, he must face the quest alone. This image, which we encounter day after day, is of the individual, up against all odds, making it to the final destination. How often do we hear, “He pulled himself up by his bootstraps.” Or we might say, “She overcame all odds.” Consider how we encourage our children to be able to claim, “I did it all by myself.” We see this as the pinnacle of success. The focus is on the individual’s achievement. The individual’s path. The individual’s journey.
And, as we journey alone, we are alone.
Many of you were also fortunate enough to attend the Sunday morning service at General Assembly this past June. You may remember how Peter Morales, the president of the Unitarian Universalist Association, spoke about how startlingly alone most of the people in this country are. He cited surveys taken first in 1985 and then repeated in 2004. The key question, measuring intimacy, was “How many people do you know with whom you can share personal information?” In 1985, the most common answer, provided by about 25% of the respondents, was three. 10% reported zero. Fast-forward through the information highway of time to 2004, and the people who felt they had no one with whom they could share personal information increased to 25%, and another 25% reported only one other person. Hearing this shocked me. Do a quarter of Americans truly believe that they are alone? Do half of us have fewer than two people to whom we can reach out – with whom we can share our experience of the journey?
It is easy to journey alone. One place to the next – jobs, meetings, exercise classes, errands, tele-conferences, e-mails, home, and off again. Including others mucks up the works – the waiting, changes of plans, multiple stops. It is just easier to get where you are going all by yourself.
But, you miss so much. There are conversations and friendships possible along the way. If you can only take the moment to reach out, you may find so much more through those traveling along side you. These are the people you meet on the street along with your closest friends, colleagues, and family. The journey is so much greater than getting from one place to the next – it is all that you are – journeying through life.
Just as you need the guidance, support, companionship, and stories of those who journey with you, there are others who yet need someone to journey with them. Who do you choose not to see? Who could use your guidance, support, companionship and stories as they journey through life?
On my journey home through the storm, I was faced with the questions of how people who have no where to go manage in torrential downpours – and by extension, how do they manage at all? Who journeys with them? While there are many ways to reach out, consider literally journeying with someone without a home on December 13 as they make their way through the confusing array of services offered at Project Homeless Connect. Hear her stories. Find out where his path is taking him. Offer your support.
We have so much to learn by journeying together.
We have so much we can share.
Our attention has recently been turned to the tragedies of young people seeing no hope in having to face what seems like a lifetime of being alone because of their sexual orientation. These young people desperately need company on their journeys, to see that they truly are not alone. They need to hear your stories of getting through times without hope. They have to have your support. Tomorrow is National Coming Out Day, a day set aside to encourage people of all ages to take a huge step on their journeys, finally sharing with the world who they truly are – Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian, Transgender, Queer, Questioning, Ally. Don’t let them take this huge step alone. Be on that road with them.
We have so much to learn by journeying together.
We have so much we can share.
I ride the bus on Sunday mornings. Yes, this is in part to leave one more parking place for you. But, I made up my mind that I wanted to take the bus even before I knew of the parking situation. Riding the bus gives me the opportunity to travel with others. It is my reminder before we gather in this beautiful assembly hall of the absolute need to journey with those around me, especially those in need.
When I catch the #2 bus at 9:11 on Sunday morning, I encounter a man for whom sharing the journey is an utter joy. This bus driver greets each of his passengers with a smile and a how are you? The first time I asked the question back to him, he said that he was just dancing that day. He is so filled with joy sharing the journey that he happily announces each street that we cross and to which lines you might transfer at the next stop. I believe that I could learn something from him. We all could. Sometimes, sharing the journey is as simple as a smile.
The innkeeper in the Canterbury Tales offers his idea of everyone telling stories on the journey as a sport, but it is so much more than that. Their stories bind them on their journey as each is on equal ground. This morning, I challenge all of us to find ways to share the journey.
We have so much to learn by journeying together.
We have so much we can share.
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