LEADERSHIP by Billie Barbara Masten who will give message to Billie Barbara Delivered at the Unitarian Universalist Leadership Conference — Denton, Texas. September 10, 2001 “We don’t grow old. When we stop growing We Become old.” A young man asked me where was God in all my growth? What part had HE played? Grey steel rain cuts the sky The arm with the hammer Attacks the house. Her moans break me loose from dreams Beside me he sleeps. I am alone with my fear I want to go back to sleep But I am awake now. Like Jacob with the unknown man “I wrestle till dawn” With my old ways of thinking, Old worn out words that teach sexism Racism, ageism...... war Excluding me. Pinned down — disparate for new Expressions to tell in everyday language How I feel What I value And about the person I wish to become I release much rage into this revolution. Jacob won his fight But the angel wounded his hip Pinched his sciatic muscle ‘Til he limped Wound me faithfully I must evolve. I wonder if the Women’s Movement Will become evolution Or just another revolving door. +++ THE SUMMONS by Robert Francis Keep me from going to sleep too soon Or if I go to sleep too soon Come wake me up. Come any hour of night. Come whistling up the road Stamp on the porch. Bang on the door. Make me get out of bed And let you in and light a light. Tell me the Northern Lights are on And make me look. Or tell me Clouds are doing something to the moon That they never did before And show me. See that I see. Talk to me till I’m half as wide awake as you And start to dress wondering Why I ever went to bed at all. Tell me the walking is superb. Not only tell me but persuade me. You know I’m not too hard persuaded. +++ INTRODUCTION Who am I? When my neighbor Bill heard we were coming to this Unitarian Universalist gathering he telephoned me a quote, said he knew I would like it. It was from Barbara Kingsolver’s novel The Prodigal Summer. In her character Oda Black’s opinion; “Unitarian Universalist women refuse to wear proper foundation garments and dabble in witchcraft.” I am the Hag-Crone Billie Barbara! I’ve always known I was a witch. Ever since I saw the movie the Wizard of Oz. — I call myself the good witch. A witch is a woman with wits to know. I have also transvalued the words hag and crone. Transvalue means to value on a different basis, and especially one that repudiates convention or excepted standards. Hag is a “solid piece of ground in a marshy bog.” If I’m not solid now, when will I be? Crone means “old woman” — she can be ugly, beautiful, sweet, mean, smart, stupid — simply means an old woman. Maiden, fertile female, crone — the three faces of woman. I want my third face. “Without vision the people perish” DAY DREAM Look down mountains Through thick sweet pinks blooming See the ocean gold with sun spangles In the orchard attending the saints I squat watering Tiny black deer flies Try again and again to enter my eyes I tuck my head down under an arm winglike A creature, new carved from dreams Yet old as totems, rests here Part woman Part bird I stir, a Native American princess come to life Put a feather, blue black Into my hair Natural, Serene, Ooooh I like it here The afternoon solitude The empty house In between earth and sky Able to see and dream I notice tiny moons — seed pods, all hairy Stick to my sweater I know their expectation, I too want more life I want my third face An old woman becomes my guide She calls me crone — she calls me elder Valuable resource — wise woman She tells me my white hair will become my crown My heart will become fully human And that my life is the one wild and precious gift “Isn’t it?” *** We UU women dabble in witchcraft and worship the Goddess seeking equity. If god is a person, it must be androgenous. Mary Daly, radical feminist... it was her leading that inspired me to transvalue words. (Radical means root and extreme change). “Radical feminists are in search of the roots of subordination and devaluing of women under the oppressive system. Patriarchy.” According to Mary Daly, “a hag is a witch, fury harpy, who haunts the hedges, boundaries of patriarchy, frightening fools and summoning weird wandering women into the wild.” Webster’s First New Intergalastic Wickedary of the English Language. Conjured up by Mary Daly in cahoots with Jane Coputi. I didn’t agree with radical feminists because of their language. They use words which sounded like “man hate”, that you had to hate all men to be a feminist. We now have the Gender Knot, written by Alan Johnson. Yes, a man! He tells us that the problem is not individual men or women, rather that both are caught under the oppressive system — Patriarchy! MATURITY: A Solid Place With a View Every morning I walk the country road behind El Aqulia (the eagle), my mountain home. Our dog runs up ahead. I walk for my health. An immobilized broken wrist leading to a frozen shoulder — unable to do back exercises, I must walk an hour a day. I start out begrudging every single step. I’m sorry for myself. All that precious time — I hardly can find enough time to get up to North Dakota — My “room of one’s own.” The dream shack and art studio Ric built for me. I walk, I cry, I walk, I cry. Then Zee Zee, my little dog, catches my eye. She wants to play. I throw the ball - she brings it back, I throw it again — she brings it back. I pause and look down the redwood canyon to the ocean. I pray to our mother and father of perpetual help. If God is a person I think, it must be androgenous. I was raised in a church that said God is a spirit. He is neither male nor female. No wonder I’m confused. Moving on, I recite the names of my ancestors — to honor them. I lift my eyes from the dirt of the road. I look out and find the horizon. Insect and bird sounds fill my ears. I breathe all this in. I breathe out the stressful thoughts that hurt. I never thought I had a choice. Life was for suffering -— for our sins and transgressions. Suddenly I’m singing wonder of wonders!. A wave of ecstacy — I am where I want to be, I am getting what I wanted. I leap into my bliss. My imagination unleashed — the manna falls. I rush home to sew a purse with a long string on it to wear around my neck. Next morning, wearing the purse, filled with pencil and paper — my manna catcher — exuberant — walking fast — I expect to pick up the manna, Gathering ideas while they are still fresh. IDEAS AND THE LANGUAGE Ideas — Something thought about something and the language to sell it with. A few years ago in Monmouth, New Jersy. I accepted the challenge and privilege to lecture on the subject — The Impact of Women on Religion. My title “Fast Women and the Sisters of Certainty.” My intent was to pull out of anonymity some of these fast women. — trail blazers, pioneers, leaders from the 1800s. Stop treating them as though absent — invisible — like society does to the elderly. I wished to grant these women their equal rights to immortality by nameing their names and deeds. My remuneration, my payoff was that these fast women all had a long croneology. Living well into their 70s, 80s, 90s and 100s. My daughter April Masten was working on her Ph.D. at Rutgers. She pointed out to me that after the Civil War, from 1861 to 1865, the climate became favorable to the education of women. They found a voice adapting the language of the abolitionists — equality under the Constitution. It was an intellectual and moral language; a language of democracy and republicanism. Democracy: Equality of rights, of opportunity and treatment. Rule of majority. Republicanism: The power is in the people who have the power to vote. INTERVIEWS AND LEADER WORDS The UU Church has challenged me three times now to lecture. The first topic was “The Impact of Women on Religion.” The 2nd was, “Aging and Spirituality.” Now my topic is “Leadership.” I like to interview to see how words have changed and to get the ideas of what most people think. I ask the question, what do you want in a leader? WORDS: SHAPER — COACH -— CHANNEL — FUNNEL — DIRECTOR — CONDUCTOR — COMPETENT -— STABIL — RESILIENT — VISIONARY — EXAMPLE SETTER — MORAL — PEOPLE SKILLS —RESPONSIBLE — ATTRACTS FOLLOWERS — HAS VALUES — IDEAS — VISION — PLAN — GIVES INFORMATION — INSPIRES — ENTHUSIASM — ARDOR— IMAGINATION — SELF KNOWLEDGE — One man said: “THROWS COLD WATER ON ME AND WAKES ME UP!” Definitions — My neighbor Brian said, “A leader needs to look and see who is following.” “Leadership centers in spirit. Leading is so dependent on spirit that the essence of it will never be capsuled or codified. Part of that essence lies beyond the barrier that separates mystery from what we call reality.” Robert Greenleaf Spirit — The animating force in living beings is value free. Hitler had it, He was a great, if demonic leader. Putting value into the mix makes it religious. The root word “religio” means to bind or to rebind. Values — the work of civilization, the work that makes us human. The work that is central and important in terms of creativity and output. What distinguishes a leader as religious is the quality of the consequences of leadership. Does it have a healing or civilizing influence? Does it nurture the servant motive in people, favor their growth as persons and help them distinguish those who serve from those who destroy. The leader speaks with her heart and throat on fire. She knows how to create conditions where followers can talk freely to each other about what they value. This is creative interchange. When my sponsor heard I was preparing this paper she sent me the Tao Te Ching — the words of Lao-tzu, spiritual teacher and leader (551 to 479 BC) She especially liked number 17. “When the master governs, the people are hardly aware that he exists. Next best is a leader who is loved. Next — one who is feared. The worst is one who is despised. If you don’t trust the people, you make them untrustworthy. The master doesn’t talk — he acts. When his work is done the people say: “Amazing: we did it all by ourselves.” This translation was by Stephen Mitchell. I liked Mitchell’s notes for Chapter One. “Describing the indescribable, teaching the unteachable, pointing the way to the Way.” What does Lao-tzu think he is doing here? It can’t be done. No way. Hence PO CHU-I, poet and stand up comedian wrote he who talks doesn’t know. He who knows doesn’t talk. That is what Lao-tzu told us, in a book of 5000 words. If he was the one who knew, how could he have been such a blabbermouth? That’s the problem with spiritual teachers. They have to be blabbermouths. But their words are (in the traditional Buddhist metaphor) Fingers pointing at the moon; if you watch the finger you can’t see the moon. How meticulous the great masters had to be. ETHICS — FAITH STANCE “What do you believe?” I was asked. “I believe in situational ethics,” I replied. “That implies you have some, What are they?” Ethics is the study of right and wrong dealing with moral conduct — duty and judgement. In my 50s I gave up alcohol and stopped smoking cigars. I gave up rage in my 60s because of a class I took, Women’s Alternatives to Violent Behavior. I learned that rage was manipulation. To bring about change we need gentle persistent persuasion. Because of John Wolman’s gentle persuasion, by 1770 nearly 100 years before the Civil War — no Quakers held slaves. This is the opposite of manipulation — gentle persistent persuasion. “And it was the mothers who bound their feet that had had their’s bound.” Tillie Olsen I GOT YOU, BABE or A Mother at 62 The monster to his maker, Dr. Frankenstein. “You gave me all these feelings But didn’t teach me how to use them. You gave me life Then told me I had to die.” I didn’t choose to be your mother. I am your Grandmother. You deserve a mother who adores you Like a son of God. Not an old woman who attends a class on Women’s Alternatives to Violent Behavior. It took me over a year To accept what life hands me, A son and daughter-in-law on drugs. Winding up in the street. Aunt Jerri knowing I couldn’t make it With all three of you boys Took your two older brothers in And I got you, babe. You who wet the bed Can’t keep a friend — behind in school. You have been with me One year and three months now. Eager and happy To be catching up to yourself. I had you for six months When you were five years old The first time your mother ran off Coming home pregnant You boys and your dad My prodigal son took her back in. Last week I pinched your arm An act of violence I talked loud and angry. I was intimidating and hurtful. I am learning to take time out. I have guilt and shame. I have the “want to” toward change. I have hope Because I got you babe. I promise not to be violent, intimidating or hurtful. I promise not to let others do this to me. +++ THE WAR “Even old pacifists call this a different war. The war against terrorists is on my mind. Because of my faith-stance against war, I believe in world peace. Hence I am challenged by others to find another way. How do we do this? We need visionaries — “outside the box” ideas for change. A new language of change. I would like to call attention here to our new president Bill Sinkford’s words, “Don’t confuse vengeance with justice.” Remember we are pluralistic and respect each others right to speak their mind, even if we don’t agree. Bill challenges us to reclaim the gentle spirit. I must remember our country came into being as an experiment, built on vision and imagination.” I now know why I kept this essay by Robert Huges all these years. It was just for this occasion! “America is a construction of mind, not of inherited class, or ancestral territory. It is a creed — born of immigration, of the jostling of scores of tribes that became America to the extent to which they can negotiate accommodations with one another.” “But American mutuality lives in recognition of difference. The fact remains that America is a collective active imagination whose making never ends.” Desmond Tutu, Archbishop of South Africa, 12/30/97, said, “I have two lasting impressions: The horror of what we are able to do to each other and almost exhilaration of the nobility of the human spirit that so many demonstrate. Without memory there is no healing. And without repentance and change there is no future.” CHANGE “It is risky to promote change. You risk being seen as odd, of being excluded, or punished for asking questions and setting examples that make people feel uncomfortable or threaten privilege. We have all adapted in one way or an other to life and Patriarchy, whether as men who depend on and integrate gender privilege into their identity or as women we find ways to manipulate and exploit the system to get what they want. Paths of least resistance may perpetuate oppression, but they have the advantage of being familiar and predictable and therefore can seem preferable to untried alternatives and the unknown. There are inner risks of feeling lost, confused and scared — along with outer risks of being rejected. Obviously then, serious change work isn’t a path of least resistance which raises the question of why we should follow Gandi’s advice and do it anyway.” Alan Johnson — The Gender Knot. Silence can’t save me I must stand up and be counted Lest some silence collide With injustice. RESOURCES Movie The Contender (Portrait of a noble politician. BB) Books The Servant as Religious Leader — Robert K. Greenleaf Thorndike-Barnhart American Dictionary The Gender Knot - Alan G. Johnson. (Good because of language. Not about guilt and blame. BB) The Tao Te Ching — the words of Lao-tzu. Translation by Stephen Mitchell Essays and papers: Rosemary Matson, p. 6 Robert Kimball -his word Faith-stance. p 11, 13.