Unitarian Universalist Church of Palo Alto

Rev. K’s Kwerys

November 16, 2007
Rev. Kurt Kuhwald

Wednesday November 7, I facilitated the first of seven classes at UUCPA called Weaving the Fabric of Diversity (WTFOD). There were twenty-four people in attendance. That night we focused on the phenomena of oppression. As part of the opening, eight quotes of Martin Luther King, Jr. were read. Two of them stand out to me: “I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.” and “Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.”

I love the term “the unarmed truth.” I know that when I am experiencing full appreciation of my self, when I feel no need to defend what I say (if it turns out to be wrong, I can always correct it; and, if necessary, I can always apologize), when I am happy inside my skin and also open to the world, then the truths I am drawn to speak are powerful and “self-evident.”

Today in working with feelings of anxiety that came up in me when I approached leading the WTFOD class, I realized how much pressure I have put on myself, and that was put on me, over my lifetime. Not only to do “it” right (whatever “it” is in the moment), but to do it perfectly. Further, beneath that, there was a realization that failure to do so means I am somehow deficient in my very being.

Some of you may be surprised to hear this from me because I have often been told that I lead workshops in a fairly confident manner. I have worked hard on my spiritual/personal path to arrive at the place where I can relax into a true sense of confidence when in leadership. What I am sharing with you now, however, has to do with the further reaches of being “creatively maladjusted.” That is, with tapping the depths of my own (of all of our) preciousness and value.

I believe our social system is not just flawed in a few areas, such as racism and heterosexism. I believe that “woven” through it — built on several thousand years of a belief in domination rather than partnership, in violence rather than dialogue, in a fundamental belief that some people are better than others (“gooder” than others) — there is a pattern of suppressing the natural self whose ground, in the old fashioned Universalist sense, is the very goodness of … the Universe itself.

It is against that long history of oppression/distortion and abuse of power that creative maladjustment leads us. Even when the circumstances are fairly benign (facilitating a class at church), we can be triggered to feel anxious, especially when it comes to speaking truth. I believe that that impulse, to speak truth, and further, to dissent on behalf of human dignity, arises from and is what leads us to the deeper ground of goodness that truly reflects our humanness. May we all find our way through and back, over and over again.

— Blessings,
Rev. Kurt