Teach Your Children Well

by Rev. Terry Davis

 Delivered at Northwest Unitarian Universalist

Congregation on May 12, 2013

In 1962, American photographer Diane Arbus encountered a six-year old boy in New York’s Central Park. It was a warm day, and the slender, blonde-headed child was dressed in a short-sleeved print shirt, shorts with shoulder straps, cotton socks and those Ked sneakers with the round rubber toes.

What caught the photographer’s attention was the toy grasped in the boy’s right hand . . . it was round, Army Green and plastic . . . and an exact replica of a hand grenade. As Arbus coaxed the boy to stand still for her photo shoot, he grew more and more impatient, as we can imagine a six-year old boy might be. He made faces, clenched his fingers and is reported to have finally exclaimed “Take the picture already!”^[1]

Of the black and white photos taken in those few minutes, the one that Arbus eventually published shows a frail- and angry-looking child clutching a powerful- and deadly-looking weapon. Simply entitled “Child with Toy Hand Grenade in Central Park,” the photo caught the attention of the world, including Singer/Songwriter Graham Nash.

Nash claims that it was this photograph that caused him to reflect on the societal implications of messages given to children about war and other issues . . . and was the inspiration for Teach Your Children Well, the song he wrote and the group Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young recorded in 1970.^[2] 

The times in which Nash wrote this classic song were full of strife to be sure, as opposition to U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War continued to mount in our country. It seems that every generation has its challenges . . . its own particular moral dilemmas and human tragedies.

This generation has encountered nothing less. From our prolonged involvement in the civil war in Afghanistan – now in its 12^th year – to our Congress’s failure to pass reasonable gun control laws, it seems we are a society that continues to struggle with how to turn away from violence when it seems that, by doing so, our individual or collective autonomy will be threatened.

This morning, as we honor Mother’s Day and the transition of Northwest Luke Newman from adolescent to young adult, it seems appropriate to ask what are we teaching our children? What are we teaching them about violence and peace, about oppression and justice, and about love and hate?

And, in the words of the Graham Nash we sung, what truths can those of tender years teach us? What are their dreams telling us about our own? Where do their life experiences offer us deep wisdom?

I believe we have heard some powerful words this morning that give us plenty of food for thought.

In Lissa Newman’s reflection, we heard wisdom from a mother – a mother who spots early on the strong will and life force of a young child and expects that she will be challenged and changed by it.

In our reading, we are reminded that as a faith community, we are at our best when we are both a teaching place and a safe space. By our words and our deeds, we teach a child about love and forgiveness, compassion and beauty and the priority we place on these.

And, in our ability to practice non-judgment and acceptance, we make it possible for a child to find his or her authentic voice . . . we provide a safe space to test for that child to test all he or she has learned about the values we say we hold so dear.

Luke, if this is where, as by a surgeon’s knife, your heart was opened up to the richness of our liberal faith . . . if this is where your conversion took place . . . a conversion toward becoming a young man who knows he has intrinsic value, who seeks his own truth responsibly, and knows he is always connected to everyone and everything . . . if Northwest was able to help you claim these important gifts of Unitarian Universalism . . . then perhaps as your spiritual mothers and fathers we have taught you well.

Perhaps we have taught you that being a person of loving actions trumps being a person of right thinking. Perhaps we have taught you that that every person can make a difference, and that inaction is deadly when it comes to ending oppression in this world.

And, perhaps we have taught you something of human imperfection . . . that we don’t always live up to our own ideals, but that – when we stumble – we can always begin again with humility and love.

Today, as you prepare to go forth on this next leg of your journey . . . today, while we may hope that we have taught you something of value, we know you have taught us something of value, too . . . something all of our youth and children teach us. You have taught us that dreams matter. Dreams matter because they are what keep hope alive.

You keep our hope alive, even as we may have planted its first seeds in you. Your dreams of special friendships, of joy and laughter, of beautiful places in which to live and play, of a bright future . . . these are the dreams we have nurtured in you and that you have reminded us that we need for ourselves.

Theologian, philosopher and physician Albert Schweitzer observed that, as a youth, he overhead conversations between grown-up people “through which there breathed a tone of sorrowful regret which oppressed the earth.” He wrote:

The speakers looked back at the idealism and capacity for enthusiasm of their youth as something precious to which they ought to have held fast, and yet at the same time they regarded it as almost a law of nature that no one should be able to do so.

This woke in me a dread of having ever, even once, to look back on my own past with such a feeling; I resolved never to let myself become subject to this tragic domination of mere reason, and what I thus vowed in almost boyish defiance I have tried to carry out.^[3]

May we resolve this day to keep our dreams fresh before us so that we may teach our children that it is good and well to do so.

May we go from here, inspired by Luke’s passage from adolescence to young adulthood. May we know that all we wish for him in his journey have their source in our own hopes and dreams . . . that his next chapter is ours, too.

May it be so. Amen.