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Understanding Our Whole Livesby Rick Lohmeyer and Karen EckertService at UUCSS on July 23, 2000
Music for gathering Recorded, 50s love songs Welcome and Announcements
Prelude Opening WordsDebra W. Haffner, M.P.H., SIECUS past President and CEO, During the past two years, I have become a serious student and avid reader of the Bible. I started my studies believing, as many adults with whom I have worked over the years believe, that the Bible either disparaged or ignored sexuality. The Lighting of the Chalice and A Uniting StatementMay this light warm our hearts with love and caring Song of ExultationCome, Spirit come, our hearts control, Parting Song for Young Folks,
Go now in peace, go now in peace. -- UU Hymnal Offertory and Music:As You Go Through the Days of Your Life, music by Sue Ellen Page, words by Eric D. Johnson Sharing of Joys and Concerns
Now is the time in our service when we say aloud to our community Meditation with Words & with Music
Let us consider in our heart of hearts the stories of our lives, ReadingShowing positive sexual values in the Hebrew and Christian Bible, Debra W. Haffner, M.P.H. The Hebrew Bible is replete with stories that have sexual themes. Genesis itself has more than 30 stories that deal with sexual issues. Music: I am Thine, Thou art Mine, by Hans Hassler SermonUnderstanding Our Whole Livesby Rick Lohmyer As a preamble, I want to mention that we have kept explicit language to a minimum in this service, and we have used language from the program and its supporting material wherever possible. OWL teachers across the country decided to keep very close to the exact words in the curriculum to give the program a true test as we get to know it, and Karen and I acknowledge that many people have worked long and well to prepare the materials in the program. We honor them by using the words from the UUA materials in our sermon. Of course, any errors and omissions are our own. America's religious liberals have let religious and political conservatives take the high ground on sexuality, have let them define the issues and set the tone of the debate about sexual morality and gender. But we Unitarian Universalists have not been sitting silently cursing the darkness. Rather we have responded as a denomination with many resolutions at General Assemblies for three decades supporting sexuality education and the rights of women and GLBT persons. Over a course of thirty years the UUA has put a lot of time and money into creating comprehensive sexual education materials that honor our values and banish sexual pessimism and fear of sex and acknowledge the inherent worth and dignity of every person. We have been called as a denomination to do this to protect our children and ourselves in this dangerous world of increasing sexual freedom. We need to take pride as a denomination in this work, in this ministry. We have a right to be proud of the commitment we have made here at UUCSS to support sexuality education and inclusion of people of all sexual orientations. We need to sell thousands of these OWL curriculums to save our children's lives and be militant about the right to educate our children in the facts of live and love that is consistent with our values. Sexuality education, considered from the encompassing and inclusive view of the OWL program, with a focus on positive values, including a recognition and appreciation of diversity, is desperately needed in a society that is saturated with sexual display and sexual innuendo, and yet so terribly inhibited by discussions about human sexuality that it has let hundreds of thousands die painfully and totally unnecessarily over the past 15 years. Now millions of people, mostly women and infants, are facing difficult and lonely deaths because sexual ignorance and inhibition are the rule not the exception here and around the world. I am sure many of you saw the Washington Post Magazine last week, specifically the article by Liza Mundy about sexuality among teenagers in the Washington area. Her article reveals a world most adults are unaware of - a world of intense sexual pressures on many kids of thirteen and fourteen, and the observation that the double standard is in full resurgence. I recommend that article if you have not read it yet; it is available for free for another week on the Washington Post web site. I do have one quote from that article. "Our culture is to a large extent experimenting with eroticizing the child," says David Murray, an anthropologist and research director at the Statistical Assessment Service, a think tank in Washington. Look, Murray suggests, at the cult of Britney Spears, or the continued newsstand appeal of the murdered 6-year-old JonBenet Ramsey. What's going on, Murray says, is not a healthy expression of our culture's sensuality through a fond depiction of the female form. It's not some hip literary Lolita thing, not a fundamentally harmless Alice in Wonderland-type doting uncle thing. It's not a Maurice Chevalier love-those-bows-and-ruffles thing. It's not innocent. It's not affectionate. It's base. It's weird. It's commerce." "It's the commodification of the eroticization of the child," Murray adds. "We celebrate it." That article disturbed me very much and I am sure you will feel the same way if you read it. But aren't we providing sex education? Yes, but too little and too late. And even where sexual education is being attended to somewhat, as in our middle and high schools, it is too often limited to platitudes and is disrespectful of the inherent worth and dignity of many people. A study of secondary health educators found that only 46 percent teach at all about sexual orientation and that 91 percent of those devote less than two class periods to the topic; 33 percent felt that gay and lesbian rights are a threat to the American family and its values. This attitude on the part of sexuality educators is an important moral issue of our time. Homophobia in those entrusted with the sexual education of our young is sure to contribute to the epidemic of suicides in our GLBT teenagers. We have a reason to be worried about what our children watch on TV, in this we can partly agree with the religious right. A survey of 1,351 randomly selected TV shows by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation found that over the course of one week 56 percent of TV programs and 67 percent of prime-time shows contained sexual content in word or deed. Yet only one in ten such shows mentioned contraception, safe sex, or the possibility of delaying sexual activity. The Newhouse News Service put out a recent article on OWL, picked up by a good number of newspapers. In it was the quote: "The reality is a lot of teens are sexually active," said Fred Garcia, a sex ed teacher at the Community Unitarian Church of White Plains in New York. "We don't promote sexual activity, but if the kids are active, we feel it needs to be with knowledge of their bodies, their feelings, and their rights and responsibilities to their partners." As a denomination, we have nearly 30 years experience in sexuality education, and we know it works. We know that sexuality education that we provide saves lives. We know from the experience of thousands of teens in hundreds of congregations that sexuality education is a vital ministry in a troubled world. And the right wing is fighting us every step of the way. They keep howling that we are encouraging sexual wildness and early sex and the right is getting laws passed by gullible people saying that only Strict Abstinence-based courses be allowed in public schools with no mention of sexual diversity. But studies show that comprehensive sexuality education does not encourage sexual activity, according to a 1997 United Nations report that examined 22 HIV/AIDS and sexuality education programs. Instead, the U.N. study found that the programs did one or more of the following:
This is only one of many studies that have been conducted over many years and we have a lot of anecdotal information as well that has encouraged us to develop the new OWL curriculum and to extend the program for people throughout their life span. Our Whole Lives is a series of sexuality education curricula for five age groups: grades K-1, grades 4-6, grades 7-9, grades 10-12, and adults. The program and its supplements provide accurate information for children, families, parents and individuals to learn about sexuality in the affirming and supportive setting of our religious communities. A joint publication of the UUA and the United Church Board for Homeland Ministries, Our Whole Lives has been in the making since 1992 and follows on the success of AYS (About Your Sexuality) in use in our churches since 1975. Our Whole Lives is based on the philosophy of comprehensive sexuality education, which helps participants make informed and responsible decisions about their sexual health and behavior. It equips participants with accurate, age-appropriate information in six subject areas: human development, relationships, personal skills, sexual behavior, sexual health, and society and culture. Grounded in a holistic view of sexuality, comprehensive sexuality education provides not only facts about anatomy and human development, but also helps participants to clarify their values, build interpersonal skills, and understand the spiritual, emotional, social, and political aspects of sexuality as well. Our Whole Lives has been a major investment for our denomination. Developing it has cost approximately $550,000, and we'll devote $500,000 more to preparing and instructing district and at-large trainers. Hundreds of thousands of dollars of in-kind contributions of staff time and resources went into this program as well. Funding has come from the UUA, United Church of Christ Board for Homeland Ministries, individual Unitarian Universalist congregations, the Ford Foundation, the Fund for Unitarian Universalism, the Brush Foundation, the Carpenter Foundation, the Martin Foundation, Inc., the Moriah Fund and the Veatch program of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation at Shelter Rock, the Friends of the UUA, and other private UU contributors. A skeptic might ask--why? Why is it so important that sexuality education take place in our congregations and why spend so much money on it? The answer is that sexuality education is ministry. Our values are at the heart of this program, and it is through the actualization of our values that we live our faith. Consider: Our Whole Lives promotes compassion, justice, and truth-seeking. Our Whole Lives honors and celebrates sexuality as a natural and healthy part of being human. Our Whole Lives teaches self-respect and respect for others whose sexuality may be different. Our Whole Lives promotes equitable and healthy relationships and counters the injustices of heterosexism, sexual stereotyping, and sexism. Our Whole Lives welcomes participants with differing levels of knowledge and differing viewpoints. And Our Whole Lives engages participants of all ages in critical thinking, values-building, and role-playing exercises. It nurtures a trusting, respectful community in which all participants ' questions are taken seriously and many voices can be heard. Our Whole Lives truly puts our faith into action and is a ministry that has an impact that goes far beyond our own congregations. About Our Whole Lives (OWL)Now we are going to tell you more about OWL. We are going to show you how the program implements our beliefs in the essential worth and dignity of every human being, and in our other principles. And Karen and I will give you an idea about how the program actually works with kids of both sexes in the same room.Each level of Our Whole Lives offers:
Although developed by two religious organizations, Our Whole Lives contains no explicit religious reference or doctrine. It is appropriate, therefore, for use in school and community settings as well as in Unitarian Universalist, United Church of Christ, and other congregations. However, the underlying values of the program reflect the justice-oriented traditions of both denominations. The Unitarian Universalist supplements for each level of Our Whole Lives draw out the connection between Our Whole Lives's values and our religious values. By using the Sexuality and Our Faith series, your Our Whole Lives leaders can integrate Our Whole Lives lessons with worship and discussion of UU principles. When Our Whole Lives is taught in your congregation, therefore, it will be faith-based. Circles of SexualityRick and Karen introduce Circles of Sexualityusing the handouts in the Order of Service Karen reading from the curriculum, Page xxxii: It was dusk. The apartment was empty save for the two of them. As they lay entwined in warm embrace, this room this bed was the universe. Aside form the faint sounds of their tranquil breathing, they were silent. She stroked the nape of his neck. He nuzzled her erect nipple first gently with his nose, then licked it, tasted, smelled and absorbed her body odor. It was a hot and humid August day, and they had been perspiring. Slowly he caressed her one breast as he softly rolled his face over the contours of the other. He pressed his body close against her, sighed, and fully spent, closed his eyes and soon fell into a deep satisfying sleep. Ever so slowly she slipped herself out from under him, lest she disturb him, cradled him in her arms, and moved him to his crib. Having completed his 6 o'clock feeding, the four-month old had also experienced one more minute contribution to his further sexual development. Ask for reactions: Just consider these questions - You don't need to respond or raise you hands.
The Owl program, from the Kindergarten level to the adult course, invites us to broaden our thinking about sexuality and sexual experience, about love and relationship, about the values we hold dear and how they apply to our lives as sexual beings. Now Karen and I are going to discuss the Circles of Sexuality, a copy of which is in your handout, titled "Sexual Being". This is a key element of the program as it shows one key way in which OWL is a comprehensive sexuality education program. ValuesAll of the courses in OWL are based on the following values:Self-Worth Every person is entitled to dignity and self-worth, and to his or her own attitudes and beliefs about sexuality. Sexual Health Knowledge about human sexuality is helpful, not harmful. Every individual has the right to accurate information about sexuality and to have her or his questions answered. Healthy sexual relationships are:
Responsibility We are called to enrich our lives by expressing sexuality in ways that enhance human wholeness and fulfillment and express love, commitment, delight, and pleasure. Justice and Inclusivity We need to avoid double standards. People of different ages, genders, races, backgrounds, income levels, physical and mental abilities, and sexual orientations must have equal value and rights. AssumptionsEach of the five Our Whole Lives curricula makes the following Assumptions:
What Happens in an OWL ClassWe've told you what OWL program covers; now Karen will tell you about what a class is really like, what happens during a class and why its fun to be there. We will also do a couple of quick exercises from the curriculum to give you the experience of them. Parental orientation and permission slips - viewing the slides and trying out some of the exercises; all questions are answered. To preserve confidentiality and the bond between participants, the students have to choose within the first three weeks whether or not to remain in the course, and no students are admitted after the program begins. Participation in every class is strongly encouraged.
An Exercise from the OWL programThe statistics of risk are boring. To help students grasp the reality of the numbers, we put candies of two different colors in some small bags and have the students pick out a candy and hide it. When every student has a candy, we tell them that the risk of becoming pregnant in one year of unprotected intercourse is 85% and there are 85% red candies in the bags. Everyone looks at their candies. We ask for a show of hands of people holding the red (pregnant) candies. How many of you are pregnant? We then repeat the game with candies showing how many people out of a hundred would become pregnant using birth control perfectly. In the OWL class, there is a lot of discussion about the odds and what it would be like to discover that you are pregnant or have an STD. The Pregnancy Game.
Second Exercise: Values VotingOur Whole Lives is a values-based program. During each class we affirm and promote the values that are central to our faith as UUs. There are a number of exercises we do that explore our values and the expose the values in our larger culture. These exercises always generate heated discussions and, we hope, reflection about what we really believe, and why. In this exercise we are going to use the space at the side of the room where we have removed the chairs. Those of you who wish to participate will stand up and move to that side of the room. We will read a series of statements and you will agree or disagree by moving toward the front of the room which is Strongly Agree, or toward the back of the room which is Strongly Disagree. Standing right in the middle means you are ambivalent or undecided. We may ask if anyone wants to tell why he or she feels about the item. We have chosen to stick with the questions we ask the teens in the program. Again, the far front of the room is Strongly Agree, and the all the way in the back is Strongly Disagree, along a continuum.
Postlude Closing Words
Debra W. Haffner, M.P.H., SIECUS past President and CEO, Toward A New Sexual Theology Closing Music |
