Where were you on the morning of August 7, 1974?

Were you getting ready for work?

Were you having breakfast with the family?

Were you playing outside in the sun?

Were you on the telephone laughing or crying with a friend?

Were you worrying about Nixon and the fate of this country?

Were you on a road trip…cruising across this vast land?

Where were you, on the morning of August 7, 1974?

Were you one among the many who gathered to watch.

Gathered in amazement, your face turned up

Your neck, arched back…eyes wide open with disbelief

Were you one among the many…staring at the dancer

The small figure dressed in black, dancing lightly

His feet lifting and falling with sweet grace…

Were you there on that day?

Did you see him? Did you see him dancing on that cable…

That steel cable strung between the 130 feet that separated the Twin Towers.

Were you there

When he dared to lose his footing,

Dared to dance, to lie, to bounce, to move across the void with ease

And playfulness.

Were you there?

Were you there when Philippe Petit, after dedicating himself to this task,

Dreaming, preparing, planning – let go of two buildings, two poles

Once anchored into the earth…he let go, and decided to dance across the sky.

Dance and bounce in the middle space, over the void with glee.

So many live on and want nothing.

What you love to see are faces that do work and feel thirst.

Fear not, I am with you, I will strengthen you

I will uphold you. Let your hands be strong. I am in your midst.

Full of life, the joy of being upheld, strong in his sense of being

Prepared

He danced between two poles…the two towers linked for the first time…

Philippe Petit gave himself to the space between.

What an image,

What courage,

To pursue this calling, for he believed those towers called to him,

to pursue this wild adventure with such passion

to let go and come face to face with an unknown entity…

“a bird gliding back and forth between the canyon’s rims”

So many live on and want nothing…

Want only to hold to this pole or that,

Want only to hold fast to one position or another

Want to avoid stepping out into the void

Full of fear…but you see, I want a lot.

Perhaps I want everything:

The darkness that comes with every infinite fall

And the shivering blaze of every step up.

And oh, what courage it takes to look into that darkness

To journey through the fire, the shivering blaze, and trust…

What courage it takes to let go of deeply held positions and beliefs

And dance in the middle…

On the steel cable that can unite, link…

I’ve been thinking about poles lately, about positions

About being liberal or conservative

About believing in God or not believing in God

About being good or evil

About Us or Them

About choosing paper or plastic (why not bring your own canvass bag)

About being Pro-Choice or Pro-Life

Thinking about the ways in which we split the world into a

Contentious dichotomy

If there is right, there must be wrong.

And if my position is right, and yours is different…well, it must be wrong.

And, I’ve been thinking about this

This positioning, and dancing in the middle with reference to the

Abortion debate.

Oh yes I have…stay with me…

‘Cause I know this is not an easy conversation.

But we gotta have courage, right?

I mean, I was thinking about Philippe Petit and his courage…

To dream, and plan, and dare…and I was thinking about my own

Feelings on abortion and decided I needed to have some courage

…do a little daring

And I know 2008 is a little ways away, but you and I both know

They’ll bring it back,

This conversation – this emotional conversation

This make or break conversation…either you’re for life or you’re not,

Either you’re for choice or you’re not…

Pick a position, and pick a candidate based on that position

But is it that simple? Is it?

And in our midst, in our midst as a – dare I say: liberal community of faith,

If you’re not pro-choice, then something must be wrong with you.

But I tell you what,

I have had some struggles.

It’s a little like coming out of the closet…talking about this

with you…a little like sharing a secret.

But that’s what happens right, it becomes a secret…

A secret that affects our lives…we never really talk about it…

We talk about it at election time, or when there’s a bill to be defeated

Or a protest to stop…

But we never really talk about abortion.

I want to tell you that I believe in a woman’s right to choose.

And I believe that “…in our pluralistic society,

politicians must not be allowed to impose laws about childbearing

based on any particular belief about when life begins.¹

I believe that…and I believe in the sanctity of life.

I believe that life – that thing, that moment of conception

Can be sacred. Can be Holy.

I am in a dilemma.

Middle, I am in the middle…and “fear not” comes the wise counsel

For as I pass through these rivers they will not overwhelm me…

Gotta tell you though, they almost did.

I was 19, the first time I had to consider what abortion meant.

My niece, beautiful…wasn’t yet a year old.

And there we were, one baby in the household…my sister,

Pregnant again

And we called a family council, they didn’t invite me, I

Walked in on it…

There was hollering and crying and reasoning

And trying to understand

There were the uncles, the boyfriend, my mom, the aunts…everybody

Crammed into our tiny living room.

What to do…that was the big question of the night:

Lord, what to do.

Somewhere in my mid-twenties, I got a call from an old friend.

She was pregnant again. Living on her own in New York City

Working as a nanny. Her second pregnancy.

And for the second time, I gave her money to terminate that

Pregnancy…and for the first time, I had “the talk” with her.

You know, the “birds and the bees” talk…the use contraceptives talk

The “you can’t keep doing this it’s hard on your body talk”

I helped her pay for her third abortion – knowing that

There was no way she could love or support a child…not right then.

Deep in my soul – I was sad, and lost, and confused

I felt alone with all of this…

The opening song this morning…a motherless child, far from

Home…separated, alienated…no one to sort any of this out with //

It’s not an easy decision to make

It’s not an easy place to be

It’s not a pain free choice

And though we were separated by many states, I found myself saying to this friend:

Fear not, do not let your heart be faint

I am with you

I will help you

I am in your midst

Even though I am afraid, even though I struggle, I love you

And together we will dive into our increasing depths

And figure this out.

Today, she’s a happy mom…and the past?

We both carry it; we never talk about it.

I think about the silence surrounding my sister’s decision

Once it was made.

We both carry it….

I want everything:

The darkness that comes with every infinite fall

And the shivering blaze of every step up.

The fullness – everything.

And for me, that means life cannot be arranged into a neat dichotomy of

Positions…it simply cannot.

But for anything else occur,

For there to be dancing across the void…

There must be courage to walk through the fire, there must the promise:

I am with you, I will strengthen you, I will uphold you…

There must be room within a community to talk together about

Dancing in the middle.

Positions and poles…

The majority of women seeking an abortion in the U.S. are

Unmarried

The majority of women seeking an abortion in the U.S. fall in to

The low income bracket

The majority of women seeking an abortion in the

United States are between the ages of 15 – 24.

And, if you are from low income class bracket,

the Hyde Amendment does not allow Medicaid to cover

the cost abortions and those costs must be covered by the woman:

often single, young, and poor – as an out of pocket expense.

And so the question then becomes:

What are we doing to ensure that single, young, and poor women

Do not become pregnant when they don’t want to be?

And that is the conversation in the middle.

It’s a conversation about family planning,

Including both contraception and abortion as a human right

It’s a conversation about the social realities of poverty, lack of education,

Sexism/racism, and the lack of respect for the gift of sexuality.²

It’s a conversation about refusing absolutes on the subject and

Working with the people who are affected to prevent unwanted pregnancies…

It’s not enough to claim pro-life, and promote abstinence only

Education – it fails…

It’s not enough to claim pro-choice and not attend to the factors of

Economics, access to education, and the function of sexism/racism

In the politics of reproduction.

As people of faith, as people of this Unitarian Universalist faith

We are being called to dance on the wire

To “recognize that…unless women of all strata

of society have access to a wide range of safe and affordable

reproductive services which honor a woman's inherent dignity,

the right to choose remains an abstract and meaningless right.

A "choice" which cannot be exercised in a safe, accessible,

supportive and affordable manner is no choice at all.³

Let your hands be strong to dive into your increasing depths

And

Let go of secure poles…asking: how can we end poverty?

How can we ensure that every woman and every man (after all, as far we

We know, Mary – the mother of Jesus was the only woman to experience

An immaculate conception – and as UUs we question that),

How can we ensure that every woman and every man

Regardless of race/class receives informed sex education and has access to

resources? How can we ensure that in a sexist society, we continue

to validate all women…

Theologian Daniel Maguire writes:

It would be difficult to deny that sexism causes unwanted pregnancies.

To the question: “how do you make love to an inferior?” the answer would

Seem to be “carelessly.⁴

In any conversation about reproductive rights

We need to stay focused on economic justice

On education and schools, and on dismantling sexism, confronting systemic

Racism…

We need to stay focused on how we, a community of faith, offer

Spiritual and emotional and financial support to women facing difficult

Decisions...

We need courage for this journey,

This dancing…we need courage to examine our

Deeply held beliefs

We need courage to open up and hear what the other has to say

We need to courage to examine our own daily choices and see how they

May impact the lives and choices of others

Where do we find it – this courage.

Where does it come from?

Rilke says: dive into your increasing depths

And the reading from the Hebrew and Christian scriptures

Says take heart…

There is good news

Take heart

There is good news

It doesn’t have to be “us” against “them”

Good versus evil

Says Maguire:

The supreme talent of homo sapiens is conversation,

The ability to commune at the levels of ideas, ideals, and valuations.

Our supreme talent is conversation

The ability to commune at the level of ideas

This is good news that is relevant to just about any situation

This is good news that says through conversation

Conversation – the act of speaking and listening carefully & in good faith

We might be able to meet in the middle,

Find common ground…and address the issue

Whatever that issue may be – rather than holding on to our

Individual notions of what is right, and what is wrong.

Through opening…through wanting a lot

Through fearing not…

We may be able to walk through the fire of

Tough places, hard subjects, conflicting ideas together

And not be consumed.

It takes courage and

The courage it takes…is the courage of heart…

The courage of – in the words of Soren Kierkegaard – daring to lose one’s footing

Momentarily. [for] to not dare is to lose oneself.

Philippe Petit dreamed, he planned, he listened…

He studied and opened himself up to daring,

Opened himself up to dancing on the wire…never having actually

Done it before.

He was called.

We are called. Called to respond:

we will help you

we will strengthen you

we will uphold you

we will love you…

Even if we are afraid. Even if we struggle – our hands must be strong…

And if the right to choose is to mean something

It has to mean something to all women.

we are called…we are called to ensure that it is so…to ensure that

In public debates about abortion, about issues of morality – the voices

Of the poor, less informed – are heard, are represented…are uplifted.

I spoke to my sister briefly last week…our silence around

Her abortion has now been broken, our conversation journey has begun

In the last month, I made the decision to dare

To open my heart, to be open with people I trust about my own struggles around

Abortion,

To explore with them in conversation – what it means…

To release the pull to be pro-life, the push to be pro-choice

And to study who is most affected, are there alternatives, who is not being heard,

Who faces the most risk…why?

What is a faithful response? Journeying in conversation: held…not consumed

by the willingness to dare.

This is courage we can all use in any situation.

Where do we need to listen more?

Step back and study the issue that seems to be

causing conflict from a different angle?

Ask: what are the alternatives? Who is not being heard?

What is a faithful response?

So many live on and want nothing…

Want only to hold to this pole or that,

Want only to hold fast to one position or another

Want to avoid stepping out into the void

Full of fear…but you see, I want a lot.

Perhaps I want everything:

The darkness that comes with every infinite fall

And the shivering blaze of every step up.

And oh, what courage it takes to look into that darkness

To journey through the fire, the shivering blaze, and trust…

What courage it takes to let go of deeply held positions and beliefs

And dance in the middle…

On the steel cable that can unite, link…

dare to lose your footing momentarily.

dare to lose your footing

[for] to not dare is to lose yourself.

____________________________________________________________________

¹The Biblical Basis for Being Pro-Choice by Marjorie Brahms-Singer

²Religion and Reproductive Policy by Daniel Maguire, pg. 190-192.

³From the Unitarian Universalist Statement on Reproductive Freedom

by Rev. Dr. Rebecca Edmiston-Lange.

⁴Ibid., 192.