April 22, 2019
For Sunday service, First Unitarian Church of San Jose, April 28, 2019
In 1962, just months before I became a Unitarian youth here at this church, I first saw " To Kill a Mockingbird." A little girl named Scout and her brother Jem were fascinated by a reclusive neighbor about whom horrible stories were told. He was scary and mysterious, and his name was Boo! They played games with him, trying to see if they could see him or bring him out. But surprisingly, he hid gifts for them outside in a tree.
After I saw the movie, I read the book and loved it even more. Both were always my favorites, and I was glad when the book was recently chosen in a poll conducted by a PBS special program as the #1 Greatest American Read. In Jr. high school, the popular kids scolded me because I had not read Huckleberry Finn yet. So I was not hip enough. I forgot to ask them if they had read To Kill A Mockingbird, which has similar themes, and whose main characters have a similar name. Now, MY favorite book is #1, and strangely enough, THEIRS didn’t even make the Top 100 list! So who was "hip," then, really? Later of course I read Finn too, and loved it too.
There may be more to the symbolism of the title "To Kill a Mockingbird" than I thought, or even the author knew. In a small, segregated southern town in the 1930s, hunting was a favorite sport. Atticus Finch, Scout’s Dad, whose last name is also a bird, taught Scout to shoot. But he told her never to kill a mockingbird because all they do is make beautiful music for us. I can attest to that, since they sing for me at my house too. I know how creative they are.
Atticus Finch was a lawyer who thought it was his duty to defend an innocent black man accused of raping a white woman. That was an enormous crime in this white supremacist world. Actually, it was the woman’s own father, Bob Ewell, who raped her, but he forced her to blame Tom Robinson, the black man who did chores for her. Atticus made the case well, but the white jury convicted Tom anyway, and later the police shot him while he was escaping.
The book links these three stories and three great causes to the symbol of killing a mockingbird. When a community destroys justice by convicting innocent people, or when police shoot them down, then Justice does not exist and we are all at risk. As JFK said in 1963, who would want to have the color of his skin changed?
And Nature is our life. Music is our life. If we destroy innocent life for no reason other than for the sport of it, we are shooting ourselves!
Just like the Mockingbird symbol represents all who are dis-empowered, it links justice in our community with justice and respect for Nature, just as our concept of intersectionality links together racial and environmental causes.1 And intersectionality helps us see the various ways that both Nature and disempowered people are vulnerable to the forces of unjust power and supposed supremacy.
In 1962, Rachel Carson started the environmental movement by explaining how pesticides were killing the birds and the music they made. At the same time, the civil rights movement was explaining how we are all the same under the skin and have the same rights. These remain two great causes of our time.
In the story, Bob Ewell attacked Scout and Jem out of revenge, so Boo Radley defended the kids and killed Mr. Ewell. Scout said it would be like killing a mockingbird to turn Boo in. He had come out of hiding to save their lives. They were innocent mockingbirds too. Boo was not guilty of what people said about him. The town had misunderstood him. They also didn’t understand black folks, or justice, or the dangers of guns, and they didn’t understand the beauty of Nature and the rights and value of little birds.
Now we all need to come out, like Boo did, and be ourselves. That is the third great cause. We need not believe the stories told about us; that we aren’t hip enough, or that we are too strange. We need to know that, like Boo, we are more mysterious, more heroic, more creative than we think, or that people say we are whose views are too limited and who don’t understand the Infinite Spirit of life and its value, or who don’t understand those who are different from them.
As Kathleen McTigue says in Justice on Earth, work in the outer world is "made more powerful and effective when joined to the inner work accomplished by spiritual discipline."2 Quieting the incessant chatter of our minds opens our awareness, widens our understanding, grounds us in something bigger, and empowers us to save the mockingbirds.
To Kill a Mockingbird is still relevant-- and still playing! These 3 causes are one cause. We need to be heroes now, like Boo was, to save our lives. Our world is at risk from pollution and climate change. Here in California we have made great progress in alternative energy, but our cars are still powered by gas instead of electricity or hydrogen. This is our greatest remaining pollutant and carbon footprint. We also need to elect a government that makes the even greater changes needed to save life and bring justice in this country. We need to stop killing the mockingbirds! We need to bring justice to all on Earth and in the Sky, to keep the wind and waters pure and clear, and we need to keep our music flowing.
(chirp chirp!)
1. Mishra-Marzetti and Nordstrom, ed., Justice On Earth, p.2-3
2. Ibid, pp.68-69
Justice on Earth, UUA common read for 2018-19
UU Ministry for Earth
Create Climate Justice Net
Interfaith Power and Light
Sparknotes To Kill A Mockingbird
A story for our time, CBS
Doug McConnell gives eloquent defense of Coyote Valley on his Open Road program for April 19, 2019 (broadcast on the evening of April 28). The following segments describe how Santa Clara Valley Open Space Authority helps people enjoy and work with Nature despite challenges of age, class, etc., and makes the case for action on climate change. This video may require a fast modem. Personal note: I wore my Protect Coyote Valley T-shirt as I gave my talk.
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