People Like Us

Can Unitarian Universalism become the Danny Street that the world needs?

Just before General Assembly this year I started watching Doom Patrol, a TV series set in the DC Universe. A group of misfits who have suffered deep trauma come together in the story, trying to make sense of life and their place in it. Along the way they encounter a place that is a person. Danny Street, described as a "sentient, genderqueer, teleporting street," hops around the world to avoid the Federal Bureau of Normalcy, picking up outcasts along the way. One of the foremost of these is a drag queen who came to the street as a federal agent, meant to take the town down. Instead, they found the freedom to be whoever they wanted to be.

To blow off steam after general sessions and class during GA I watched an episode here and there. It was during this time that I first saw Danny Street and learned what they are all about. A variation of a popular song entitled 'People Like Us' featured prominently and appropriately. Here are some of the words:

We come into this world unknown

But know that we are not alone

They try and knock us down

But change is coming, it's our time now

Hey everybody loses it

Everybody wants to throw it all away sometimes

And hey, yeah I know what you're going through

Don't let it get the best of you, you'll make it out alive

Oh, people like us we've gotta stick together

Keep your head up, nothing lasts forever

Here's to the damned to the lost and forgotten

It's hard to get high when you're living on the bottom

This song rang in my ears and echoed in my mind as GA discussed what it means to be anti-racist, inclusive, and affirming. A vision of what we were, where we are, and how we need to be was called into being. We've been a predominantly white, humanistic denomination through the decades, and our ancestor denominations were far from diverse as well. Our structures, customs, traditions, language, and worship reflect who we were, not all that we can be. 

It's never made any sense to me that people try to keep some things going just for their own sake. I grew up in a rural county in Missouri that dropped from a population of around 18,000 in the late 1800s to fewer than 4000 today. We had a lot of empty buildings and no shortage of space. One of our towns, having just around 200 residents, ran a brief campaign in the 90s attempting to attract business and residents. 'Come Grow With Us' what the theme. I couldn't understand why it mattered, and still don't. The town doesn't need to be inhabited. The residents do just fine shopping for groceries one town over, only 20 minutes away by car, and the public utilities are all operated by large regional concerns. 

Another example would be the countless tiny churches spread across North America. When I was in college I did some supply preaching, and at times visited congregations of no more than 6-10 people, all elderly. At times even these entertained some notion of a miracle happening with a couple of families with young children coming to the church out of nowhere and seeding a revival of church life. This, rather than accept that demographics had changed, people had moved away, and other churches in urban areas were growing. Better to close with dignity, I think, that hang on for dear life when the handwriting is clearly on the wall.

Unitarian Universalism doesn't deserve to continue to exist because of its history, due to any noble acts or noteworthy members, or because we have some unique ceremonies and practices. As a faith it must either seek to live out and live up to its radical promise of inclusion and affirmation, or stumble aimlessly into the future. It can either be a balm for the broken hearted and a help to the lonely, or it can be an irrelevant legal entity seeking to exist solely for the sake of existing. 

Our youth, as I discussed in one of these essays, experience a taste of what we could be in their youth programming. Inclusion, courage, safety, and care are all part of that, when we are at our best. Our expectation can no longer be that all seeking to minister must follow a path marked out for young white men with time and resources to study and work nearly for free. Our principles can't be written in stone and limited for all time. Our assemblies must be accessible to all, somewhere that our individual and collective voices can be heard. Our association needs the wisdom of age and the ongoing courage and energy of youth and young adulthood. 

Unitarian Universalism, if it is to be meaningful and transformative, must be for people like us. All of us. Especially the damned, the lost, and forgotten. Then we'll be living on Danny Street.