Memories. Secrets. Lies. Regrets. In preparation for today, I’ve been spending lots of time lately thinking about untold stories, and my inner jury is still out — are skeletons better kept in the closet, or brought into the light of day? And where does our faith call us in regard to that question?
There’s something evocative, alluringly insidious, about secrets. I had intended today to tell you about a story from my own family, one which I didn’t learn about until I was in my twenties. But as I began writing it down, I realized that although the protagonists in this story are now either dead or so far removed from me as to offer near-complete privacy to them, there are those who loved them who might still feel tenderness, shame, mourning, or betrayal.
As I initially conceived of this sermon, I’d intended to speak about the importance of shedding light on our secrets, of pursuing the search for truth and meaning that is one of our seven principles, but in investigating this theme I have learned that that word “responsible” — the free and responsible search for truth and meaning — means that even when I am not bound to it, holding confidences is sometimes the best way to honor the inherent worth and dignity of the people I love. Though it is a story I tell to those I’m close to, perhaps it is ok for it to remain an untold story in the wider world, at least for now.
I’ve been wondering though, in that context of family secrets and untold stories, about genetic testing. In the last several years, companies have proliferated that will sequence your genome and tell you about your heritage, your likelihood of developing certain medical conditions, and preferences you are likely to have. How many of you have sent your cheek swab in to one of them? And I won’t make you say why, but were any of you surprised by the results?
Mine didn’t hold anything very scintillating or surprising, nor were the geographic markers very accurate. But I have read dozens of stories of families who all took genetic tests for say, medical reasons, only to uncover a family secret that many had assumed would stay hidden — children who were the product of affairs, who were adopted, or who were half-siblings entirely unknown by the second family. And the reaction to such revelations has been, as you can imagine, quite mixed. I recently read about a set of nine siblings conceived by artificial insemination who found one another via ancestry.com, and are now having sibling reunions regularly. There are also the stories of families that are of mixed opinion as to whether the newly-discovered family members are welcome to become part of the family or not, creating rifts in families struggling to understand what is real.
These newfound connections and familial ties are forcing individual people and, gradually, our society to redefine or invent new categories of kinship, new patterns for how we interact and support one another. These revelations are forcing families to rewrite their collective stories, which can be painful and difficult, prompting a reassessment of the perennial question “who am I?”
Similarly, as more and more pieces of our collective histories as a nation, faith, or community are revealed, we are forced to reckon with the fact that perhaps who we thought we were is not who we are. When I was a kid growing up in California, we learned state history in fourth grade, including the brutal Spanish missions which forced native Californians to assimilate and work in harsh agricultural labor. We learned about the Chinese exclusion act of the 1880s and other measures targeted at limiting the numbers of asian immigrants. We learned about the Black Panther movement and the free breakfast program in Oakland.
However, we didn’t learn about the deportation raids against Latino communities of the 1930s. Though this is a piece of history that some Latino Californians pass along in their communities, it wasn’t taught as part of our official history.
During the Great Depression, pressures from work shortages increased anti-Mexican racism and xenophobia, with white Americans blaming Mexicans for taking “their” jobs. Sound familiar? Just wait. So, Sheriffs and other county officials in Los Angeles, San Diego, and other areas began rounding up and deporting people who appeared to be Mexican, fairly randomly and indiscriminately. Hospitals regularly deported sick patients who were Mexican. In the largest single sweep, sherrifs went to a park thought to be a popular hangout for Mexicans, rounded up over 400 people at the park and unceremoniously dropped them just over the border in Mexicali. In all, it is estimated that local governments, through these so-called “repatriation drives,” deported around 1.8 million people, about 60% of whom were naturalized US citizens.
Viewing this story from the lens of today, there are of course striking similarities in the indignities, racism, and state violence endured by immigrants then and now. But what I wonder most about, is what affect it might have had on the people of today if this story had been more widely known in the past century. I firmly believe that knowing the history and stories of the world and people around us builds stronger solidarity and capacity to resist when these ideas come around again. My early exposure to the histories of Native American, Asian and Black communities in my state primed me to recognize and resist racism against them as I grew older. However, having learned mostly of how Mexicans and Spaniards were themselves colonizers, it took me much longer to see the ways that Latino people were historically and are currently disenfranchised in California.
In 2005, the state of California offered an official apology to all those who were deported through repatriation drives, and it wasn’t until 2013 that they became a required part of the California history curriculum for public school students. I know that there are similarly guarded parts of history in this state of Oregon, and I hope that in learning these less-told stories, students will be empowered to work for change and to prevent the recurrence of such atrocities.
I am also given hope by the increasing flow of untold stories that is mediated by the internet and social media. Struggles against oppression all over the world have gained attention, resources, and solidarity by sharing their messages online. Diverse movements, such as those advocating for the rights and inclusion of aneurotypical people, for healing and truthtelling through the Me Too movement, and for preventing gun violence, have emboldened individuals to tell their stories of pain, shame, and grief that previously had been taboo to share.
One of the original treasure troves of such stories, kept secret by their holders but let loose into the public under the cloak of anonymity, is the popular blog called PostSecret. I’m sure many of you are familiar with it, but for those who are not, it is an ongoing participatory project that started in 2005. The invitation from the project’s founder, Frank Warren, is as follows:
“You are invited to anonymously contribute a secret to a group art project. Your secret can be a regret, fear, betrayal, desire, confession, or childhood humiliation. Reveal anything – as long as it is true and you have never shared it with anyone before.”
Each postcard tells an untold story, something that the writer has kept secret for whatever reason. Some tell of shame, loneliness, fear. Others tell of desire, love, and redemption. Still others display a quest for autonomy and self-definition. I want to share some of them with you now, which I’ll read and describe for those who can’t see them on the screen.
Many are confessions — like this image of the popular children’s book “Clifford”, with the accompanying words, “When I was in 4th grade, my parents wouldn’t give me money for the school book fair, so I stole $5 from a mentally challenged girl in my class and bought my brother a Clifford book. When she told our teachers her money was missing, they dismissed her claims and told her she probably lost it. I can only imagine how small and belittled she felt. 30 years later, I still think about it several times a week and feel the guilt, especially when my children want to watch or read Clifford.”
Or this image of a Starbucks cup with the words “I give decaf to customers who are rude to me.”
There are PostSecrets revealing the shame felt by people based on their occupation, diagnosis, and class.
An image of handcuffs with the words “I protect and serve, but deep down I feel like the enemy.”
An anatomical image of the human torso with the words, “My diagnosis has made me feel more isolated and humiliated than I ever thought possible.
An image of a mother and son with the words, “I work at a nice hotel. When you ask “Is that a bad neighborhood?” — that’s where I live with my family.”
There are PostSecrets revealing the fear, loneliness, and regrets shared by many.
An image of red lanterns on a yellow background with the words, “I’m afraid I won’t be able to paint sober.”
An image of a world map with the words, “In the past 15 years, I have lived and worked all over the world. Everyone thinks my life is glamorous. But the truth is that every time I plan another move, I pray that someone will love me enough to ask me not to go.”
An image of a tree silhouetted by sunset with the words, “I’ll soon be 70 I never expected to have as many regrets as I do…”
A black-and white image of four young adults, with all but one face blacked out, with the words, “I tell the story of her death as though I was there… because I should have been.”
Yet there are also stories of happiness, and of asserting autonomy in the face of difficulty.
An image of a young person with her arms flung open to the sky, with the words, “I waited 43 years to get on antidepressants. I love love so much now I use its name for my computer passwords.”
An image of a beaded necklace with the words “I have a necklace I bought at the place I cheated on my husband. I wear it when he tells me I’m fat, ugly, and stupid to remind me that someone once thought I was beautiful.”
An image of a birthday card with a cake, and the words “This is the year I am divorcing my abusive husband. It is the best gift I could possibly give myself.”
The secrets that I love the most are the ones that tell the unspoken hopes, desires, and vulnerability of our compassionate hearts.
A simple postcard with the words, “Every time it rains here, I dream I will meet my future wife by offering to share my umbrella with her!”
A postcard of a Boston tour bus and the words “When I see tourists out in bad weather, I worry that they won’t love my city.”
An image of an elderly white person’s hands with hearts drawn on to the handkerchief one is holding, and the words “The secret no one tells is that you still have your breakable, yearning heart when you get old — the world just shames you into burying it.”
And of course I loved this one — an image of green hills with the words “I secretly have always wanted to become a nun. The problem? I’m not catholic, or even Christian. — I’m a Unitarian.”
To me, perhaps the most heartwarming are the confessions of secret good deeds done. LIke this image of a 1950s auto shop and the words “I bury treasures in the sand on playgrounds. I hope children continue to find my loot for years to come… long after I’m gone.”
And since it only seems fair, I’ll tell you one of my secrets I’ve not shared before, that I’ve considered making a postcard of: When I was about six I was sad that my best friend and I couldn’t play together all the time, so I stole an enamel pin with a bear and her name on it, and kept it in my jewelry box for many years afterward. At first I kept it to remind me of her, and then I kept it to remind me of the guilt I felt for stealing it.
So, if you were to make a postcard to send to PostSecret, what would you put onto it? And, I wonder, would you feel relief at unburdening yourself of such a secret?
I’m not convinced that merely revealing a secret can heal the pain and heaviness that could be associated with it, but one of the beautiful things that PostSecret has done is to reveal and normalize the feelings that many of us have. To see that others are lonely, ashamed, scared, regretful, or vulnerable in some ways give permission for each of us to be ourselves more fully.
And I believe that communities of faith can offer the same witness and safe space to reveal the tenderness of our hearts. Through prayer requests, small group ministries such as Wellspring and covenant groups, and with ministers and lay ministers, there are opportunities at church to not just reveal our untold stories, but to do so in the context of relationships that can help heal and support one another.
Our story for all ages today, “The Empty Pot”, is usually told as a moralistic tale extolling the virtues of truthtelling. Tell the truth, even when it seems pitiful or shameful, and you will be rewarded. I somewhat believe that, but of course the truth is more complicated. I wonder, what were the untold stories of the other boys? Rather than a loving and encouraging family, did each of them have parents who pushed so hard for success that the boys would rather lie and cheat than fail?
We do that to one another — how we hold each other in difficulty, mistake-making, falling short determines how each of us will act the next time. If we tell each other that our vulnerability and shortcomings are shameful, we’ll continue to hide them. But perhaps, if we can offer honesty and forgiveness, openness and understanding, we can slowly reveal our true selves to one another.
We are a community covenanted in love. We each bring our weary hearts and our yearning souls, and our quiet shame, and our secret joy into this sanctuary together each week. As we look into each others eyes, may we know that each of us holds more in our hearts than can possibly be seen or known at first glance. May we be gentle with one another, and hold our stories with grace and compassion.
Amen.
Please join me in a spirit of prayer.
Spirit of life, holy oneness of all existence, thank you for the beauty of this life and for the blessings of community. Help us to feel your presence in our times of loneliness and fear, in our moments of shame and isolation. Give us the courage to reveal what grows too heavy when it is hidden in our hearts, and the compassion to hold the stories of others in confidence. May we each speak truth and listen humbly, may we all practice love and care for ourselves and our communities. May we find forgiveness for ourselves, for those we love, for those who have hurt us, and for those who have hurt the ones we love. May we know that not one of us is truly alone, that the feelings and struggles of our lives have been faced by countless ancestors before us, and that we can approach this path of life with ever-increasing love and care. May we each be whole and connected, may each of our lives be full. May it be so. Amen.
Topics: Story