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Children and Family
Urban Ministries
1548 Eighth Street
P.O. Box 41125
Des Moines, IA 50311
(515) 282-3242
Email info@cfum.org
Carmen's Sermon from the Interfaith Children's Sabbath
This sermon was delivered by CFUM Executive Director Carmen Lampe Zeitler at the Interfaith Chiildren's Sabbath Service on Nov. 14, 2002 at First Christian Church in Des Moines.
Last summer I had the privilege of attending again the Children's Defense Fund's Institute for Child Advocacy Ministry at Haley Farm outside of Knoxville, Tennessee. One of the mainstays of the institute is Dr. Otis Moss, Jr., pastor of the Institutional Baptist Church of Cleveland, Ohio. Dr. Moss was a giant in the civil rights movement and has become also a giant in the movement fostered by the Children's Defense Fund to Leave No Child Behind. In a sermon at the institute Dr. Moss talked about his son, Otis III, now in his thirties, as his teacher, and how that teaching had begun when Otis III was a child. He remembered that Otis came to him one day when he was writing his Sunday sermon and suggested that he had something that might be useful in his father's sermon. As adults so often do Dr. Moss asked a little condescendingly, "Now, what might that be?" His son said, "Only with the heart can one see rightly. The truly important is invisible to the eyes." Dr. Moss was taken aback, and as he scrambled for a piece of paper and a pen he said, "Now, what was that again?" Turns out Otis III had been had been reading The Little Prince where that gem can be found.
Over and over again we are reminded that much we need to know, the children will teach us. A few weeks ago eight-year-old Jay called to see if I would like to get together and do something. He suggested perhaps the Des Moines Art Center. I said, "Sure, I would love to get together. The art center sounds great." Once he had me, then he pulled me in, "Well, how about bowling instead." Bowling it was.
The bowling outing was quite a learning experience. I picked Jay up at his east side home and we made our way to the bowling alley. We were traveling west on Euclid when between the buildings he glimpsed something he thought I should see: the big, colorful mural of Riverview Amusement Park painted on the side of the Hiland Park Hardware building, just around the corner at Sixth. Jay sees most everything. And he's good about sharing what he sees. Jay thought I should see the mural so we pulled into the parking lot and looked it over admiringly, then were on our way.
At the bowling alley there was more learning to be had. I haven't been in a bowling alley since I don't know when. I didn't know where the balls were that might be the right weight for me but Jay did a little exploring and somehow found the perfect bowling ball for me. I didn't know about bumpers-the little fences they put up alongside the lane to help out bowlers who are children-let me tell you the only bowling I am going to do from now on is with children and bumpers.
After bowling four games, during which Jay celebrated every strike I got as if it were his own, and mourned every missed spare in the same manner, we were on our way to McDonalds for lunch. Walking to the car he asked if he could open my car with the remote on the key ring. I said, "Sure," and handed him the keys. He pushed the "unlock" button, not once only to unlock the driver's side door, but TWICE to unlock all of the doors and the hatch. I didn't know it would do that! For nearly a year I have had that car and didn't know that there was a way to unlock all four doors and the hatch with the remote. My life was changed with that revelation!
At lunch Jay talked as he ate, I mostly listened (I didn't want to miss anything I might learn). So I finished my meal before him, which he noticed. Without a word, he generously laid out on a napkin a half dozen or so french fries and sort of pushed them toward me, not wanting me to be without while he continued to eat. Every aspect of bowling with Jay was an odyssey of learning.
The odyssey continued...over the next few days...Halen taught me that seahorses, one of the few species whose males carry the young, are becoming endangered. With that fine trait, we cannot let the seahorses become extinct. Halen came to the larger community with his concern, to ask for help, and children of The Haven after school program raised $50 to send to save the seahorses.
Thomas taught me how to think big. Thomas was in time out at The Haven for making a choice that hurt someone's feelings. I told him he needed to sit quietly and do some thinking. After about ten minutes Thomas said, "Carmen, I'm done thinking." So I asked him what he had been thinking about. He answered, "Isn't God a boy and a girl? Wasn't God pregnant with us? And isn't God every color?" As much as I might have wanted him to, Thomas didn't confine his thinking to the immediate, to himself, he let his thoughts take flight to something way beyond, something cosmic in nature and scope.
Jalesa taught me to keep at it, that there are possibilities to be grasped. During elementary school Jalesa was a participant in the Breakfast Club before school program our agency offers. She always had a project going...everything from cards for her teacher to a hamster health club for the annual Invention Convention. When asked what she wanted to be when she grew up her answer was always, "A veterinarian...or President of the United States." (I'm holding out for President.) Largely because of lack of opportunity for education and lack of decent paying jobs, her parents have had trouble making ends meet over the years, the family moved a lot (sometimes living in a camper at the fairgrounds), they split up at times, just generally struggled. Life has not been easy. Jalesa came into the Breakfast Club the other morning, which is held in a church basement, looking for a big cross for a report she was doing on Queen Isabella of Spain and Christopher Columbus. She is in the eighth grade now, a blossoming cellist, an honor student, and attending classes at Central Campus. Life is not any easier. But Jalesa continues to keep at it, to grasp the possibilities.
Look closely at the world. Share the beauty around every corner. Don't be hesitant to go find what you need, or what your friend needs. Don't be afraid to take a little help when it's offered. Recognize the success of one to be the success of all, and the pain of one the pain of all. There are ways to unlock most anything. Pay attention to the needs of others and be generous. Get the community together and save what needs saving. Don't limit or be limited in your thinking. Think big. Keep at it. Grasp the possibilities. Just a few of the life lessons learned from a few children on a few days. What might we learn if we listened to all children on all days? We would learn, I believe, all that we need to learn. And we would be transformed, as individuals, as a community, as a nation.
Heaven knows and we declare by our presence here tonight that there's a lot we need to learn, and a whole lot of transformation that needs to happen. Marian Wright Edelman, the founder and president of the Children's Defense Fund has said rightly, Children's treatment in this country is morally shameful, economically costly, and politically hypocritical.
The words of the lament that we made together tonight bear out the truth of that statement over and over and over again, in Polk County alone. We desperately need to learn, to be transformed, to open our window eyes to see all that is outside of us, to open our hearts to all that is truly important-if we are to commit ourselves to building a movement to leave no child behind in this community. No moments of silence will do, no wringing of hands will help. We must raise our voices and link our hands to begin the hard work of giving every child a healthy start, a head start, a fair start, a safe start, a moral start in life, and successful passage to adulthood with the help of caring families and communities.
The lip service we give to the well-being of children in this country is scandalous, criminal even, evil even. In the faith community we know something of evil and its power to destroy. We raise our voices against that evil tonight. We know something also of good, even the highest good, and its power to transform. We link our hands this night to join together to work for the good, the strength, the well-being of the children; to turn lip service into body and soul service.
We have the resources for such work. Some can be gathered neatly into packets like the one provided for congregations tonight. Please use those resources. There is power to be had in them. Some resources are beyond being gathered neatly. Some resources cast us wildly into the great evils of our day-they are the resources of moral imagination; spirituality that is politically committed; eyes and hearts that see clearly; ears that listen and learn from all that would teach us; voices that raise relentless questions and strenuous objections and the endless possibilities; hands that link with other hands to form the bonds of strength and hope and resolve needed to bring forth another world for our children.
Look closely at the world. Share the beauty around every corner. Don't be hesitant to go find what you need, or what your friend needs. Don't be afraid to take a little help when it's offered. Recognize the success of one to be the success of all, and the pain of one the pain of all. There are ways to unlock most anything. Pay attention to the needs of others and be generous. Get the community together and save what needs saving. Don't limit or be limited in your thinking. Think big. Stay at it. Grasp the possibilities.
May we commit ourselves to these lessons, and to the children who teach us endlessly and well. May we, together, transform our community, even our world. As an act of our commitment we are invited to move into a Circle of Commitment that we might see one another well as we sing our serious and faithful intention to raise voices and link hands to build that world, that movement to leave no child behind.