SERMON

Has anyone else been following this fellow named Tiger Woods? Since I follow hardly any sporting events except football and even that sporadically, I only noticed Woods after he won the Masters with a record breaking 18 under par. Woods has become an overnight sensation. Nike and Titleist have signed him with combined contracts of 60 million dollars. His magnetic charisma is drawing people to him and golf who have never even heard of the game. He has inspired inner city youth to pick up golf clubs and look for a golf course. Woods has all the makings of a sports hero. But his golf game is only part of the story. Let us look more deeply at him and explore what it means to be a real hero. Is heroism something reserved for the noble born or something we can all aspire to?

Here is how Earl Woods, Tiger's dad, described his son at a banquet in his son's honor:

"Please forgive me ...but sometimes I get very emotional ...when I talk about my son....My heart ...fills with so ...much ...joy ...when I realize ...that this young man ...is going to be able ...to help so many people....He will transcend this game ...and bring to the world ...a humanitarianism ...which has never been known before. The world will be a better place to live in ...by virtue of his existence ...and his presence....I acknowledge only a small part in that ...in that I know that I was personally selected by God himself ...to nurture this young man ...and bring him to the point where he can make his contribution to humanity....This is my treasure....Please accept it ...and use it wisely....Thank you."[1]

According to Earl, Tiger is on a mission from God. Earl's whole life has been focused on preparing the way for his son to be a world changing figure. Part of this is because Tiger is African. Part of this is because he is Asian. Part of this is because he is Native American. Part of this is because he is Caucasian. Tiger represents just the kind of mulatto person the country clubs have always hated and excluded. Golf has been one of the last bastions against integration in our society. Now they must deal with a person who is not only racially integrated, but also physically integrated and spiritually integrated as well.

Tiger is conquering the white man's game using the discipline of the West and wisdom of the East. His father has taken the intensity of his years as a Green Beret in Viet Nam to instill in Tiger a strength and a power of concentration for which he is becoming legendary. From his mother he has taken the lessons of the Buddha and integrated them into his spirit. The two are held together by a passion to excel forged from the many slights he has endured. The same slights many who carry African blood continue to endure, as they encounter the racism still pervasive in our culture.

And what can we expect of this hero? Will he surpass Martin Luther King, Gandhi, or Nelson Mandela? Listen to his father's expectations:

"Yes, because he has a larger forum than any of them. Because he's playing a sport that's international. Because he's qualified through his ethnicity to accomplish miracles. He's the bridge between the East and the West. There is no limit because he has the guidance. I don't know yet exactly what form this will take. But he is the Chosen One. He'll have the power to impact nations. Not people. Nations. The world is just getting a taste of his power."[2]

Sound a lot like a hero to you? Tiger views himself this way as well, but perhaps with a little less embellishment. He takes this messianic image seriously and has prepared his whole life to be a world figure. There is no surprise in his amazing golf accomplishments or his sudden riches. This is all part of the plan.

In Tiger we are seeing the results of a long heroic journey. He fits the definition of a mythological or legendary figure endowed with great strength or ability, favored by the gods; a man of courage and nobility admired for his achievements. There is a temptation to look at people like Tiger and see them as different from us and unusual even strange. He has a special gift and talent. He is one of the chosen few.

While Tiger may now be becoming the greatest all time golfer and a world changing figure, he is not alone. Let me now tell you about some people who I think are also heroes but I doubt if you have ever heard of them. These are people of vision and courage who are willing to stick their neck out and work toward solving problems like violence, hunger and pollution.[3] I found their stories as part of the Giraffe Project created by Ann Medlock and John Graham in the early 1980's to celebrate the people who stick their necks out for the good of others. I invite you to listen to their stories.

Catherine Sneed, a counselor at the San Francisco County Jail, was sure that her home garden had helped her survive a life-threatening illness. She thought the power of the soil might also work on her clients at the jail, mostly drug dealers and users.

Sneed convinced the sheriff to let her create an organic garden on land adjoining the jail. She got prisoners out of their cells to restore an old greenhouse and to grub brambles from the site. At first the Horticulture Project had no tools, so the prisoners yanked blackberries with their bare hands. Sneed begged tools and seeds from local merchants, but she was still short of money, gardening experience, and models for what she wanted to do. The jailers thought she was flaky, especially when she pushed the jail kitchen to serve soothing peppermint tea from the new garden. But jailer hostility receded as they saw prisoners become enthusiastic gardeners, bringing their zest back to the jailhouse at the end of the day. Some also brought spare seedlings, which they shared with guards, who became home gardeners themselves. Soon there was a waiting list of prisoners eager to join the program.

In short order, the Horticulture Project was harvesting tons of produce a year for the jail, for Project Open Hand (founded by Giraffe Ruth Brinker), and for the soup kitchens of Saint Martin de Poores. But the production of food is only a side effect of the Project. Sneed says, "We're not just making a pretty little garden here -- we're saving lives."

Sneed teaches life lessons from the garden. The prisoners with drug problems see how well the plants grow without chemicals. Many of them have lived on junk food; they see plants flourish with proper nutrients. They discover the tastes of fresh vegetables, because Sneed cooks them lunch from the garden. Small farm animals give them experience in nurturing; planning the garden shows the benefits of long-term thinking; and physical labor pays off in visible, edible results. But the most powerful lesson is that mistakes in life, like those in the garden, can be corrected.

Sneed knew that, upon release, her "students" ended up right back in the places where they first got into trouble. A bridge program was needed, so in 1990 she and some former inmates cleared a trash-filled lot near the Bayview housing projects and built the Carroll Street Community Garden. This is the home base of The Garden Project, a combination of counseling, work experience, and job training. Graduates of the jailhouse garden live in two drug-free homes at Carroll Street while they work and train in the garden, go through treatment programs, and attend school. They move on to employment on a third Sneed initiative, the Green Teams, which contract with businesses and the City to do tree-planting, gardening, and community clean-ups.

Catherine Sneed points with pride to the re-arrest record for her gardeners, which is a quarter that of other former inmates, and to the huge waiting list for her not-flaky-at-all programs. Knowing the power of the gardens to transform both individual and community, she's pushing hard to accommodate the long waiting list of prisoners, and to build community gardens in lots all over the city. "I believe in miracles," she says, "but I can't wait for them to just happen."

Let me tell you about David Levitt of Seminole, Florida. David Levitt was all of 11 years old when he decided he could do something about feeding the hungry. Like, what about all the food that wasn't served each day in the school cafeteria? He was told that several adults had tried to get the school to donate it but the response had been, "Too much red tape." Undaunted, he took the question straight to the County school board and got their agreement to donate food from all 92 schools in the county.

When his accomplishment made local papers, some classmates taunted and insulted him. David forged on, enlisting restaurant owners and the hosts of private events to donate unserved food, getting manufacturers to donate the proper containers for transporting food to shelters and soup kitchens, and taking food from a local supermarket to a feeding agency.

At David Levitt's bar mitzvah, he asked guests to bring food donations in support of his project. Over 500 pounds of food were donated, and he was presented with a Giraffe Project commendation for sticking his neck out to champion the hungry.

Now 14, Levitt hasn't let up a minute. He and his 16-year-old sister have drafted a resolution that's been introduced in the State legislature; David's lobbying for its passage. If he gets the votes, his efforts will be replicated all over Florida.

Hear the story of Pat Wright of Seattle, Washington. When the Total Experience Gospel Choir files in, you can see it's kids -mostly high school and junior high kids, but one who's only seven years old. Then they start to sing and you and everybody else in the hall, the church, the theatre find yourselves swept up by their rocking, driving, joyous sound. You're having the Total Experience.The person to thank for the music, for the joy, and for 20 years of devotion to Seattle's kids is volunteer director Pat Wright.Back in 1971, Wright was teaching Black gospel music in the public schools. She was fired. Rather than abandon the choir she had developed at the school, she simply moved it to a nearby church. The Total Experience Gospel Choir was born.Over 500 children have been in this choir. They keep changing, growing up and going off--40% of them to earn higher degrees--but Pat Wright is always there. "I am very concerned not only about the child's vocal chords but about the whole child," says Wright, who has helped choir members get shoes, clothes and regular boosts of self-esteem.Today the choir is famous, the kids have sung all over the US, in Nicaragua, Canada and the Bahamas. Still in all the years, the choir has gotten only one grant, back in 1980. Today even the scholarship coffer, which helped dozens of kids go on to higher learning, is empty. The kids, however, are full of the Total Experience spirit, thanks to Pat Wright's devotion.

While the Giraffe Project has other real heroes it celebrates and I wish I had time to tell you more of their amazing stories, I'd like to highlight one last hero I found by the name of Paul McLaughlin, founder of SCAN, Stop Child Abuse Now[4]. Paul is a survivor of child abuse who now leads the fight against it.

Paul grew up in the steel town of Donora, Pennsylvania. From 1955 to 1964 Paul was put into special classes, having been declared a slow learner. In 1965 Paul was put into regular classes at Donora Junior High and Donora Senior High School. And in 1970, Paul graduated from Donora Senior High School at the age of 21.

Paul was drafted into the army in 1970. After three attempts, Paul finally passed his written test to enter the military.

In 1971, while stationed at Fort Dix, New Jersey, Paul began to tell his story while in basic training. While telling his story, this one man told Paul "Instead of talking about it, why don't you do something about it?" Paul discovered in his military records, that as a child, Paul almost lost his life twice from severe abuse and was hospitalized for more than 90 days trying to stay alive.

After being discharged, Paul lived in Portland, Oregon and continued to tell his childhood story. In the back of his mind, Paul had not forgotten the conversation with the young man who said "instead of talking about it, why don't you do something about it?"

In 1975, at the age of 26, Paul wrote a 40-page booklet and tried to get it published. In that same year Paul began his street campaign of sign holding, "Help stop Child Abuse," in Vancouver, Washington. Paul also made a trip to Washington DC and Donora, Pennsylvania. Paul began his one-man campaign on child abuse. Many adults laughed at him.

In 1976, Paul went door to door for the Cancer Society and also passed out literature on "What to look for in Child Abuse." He worked on the street for the homeless and child abuse. During fund-raising, Paul had the opportunity to tell his story. Referring children to agencies if they were on alcohol, drugs, were homeless, or victims of child abuse.

For the last 20 years, Paul has been interviewed on radio shows, been in the newspapers and spoken in schools and public forums to bring the issue of child abuse out of the closet.

Paul speaks of himself this way:

"I was abuse with my twin sister for 20 years, older brother and sister was not abuse. I was sat on hot stove, eat my own stool, eat my own vomit, tied up and beaten with a stick and belt, enema treatments given in an awkward way. Beaten on the head with a stick, stand in corner for long hours, eat many bars of soap and black powder, drink liquid soap, stand in snow without shoes. I can go on and on.

"I made a difference in adults and childrens lives. One person can make a difference and I done it. I try not to let my slightly handicap get in my way. Many had made fun of me because of my works.

"So many herose are out there and they don't get any recognition."

Yes Tiger Woods is a hero. And so are Catherine Sneed, David Levitt, Pat Wright and Paul McLaughlin. What makes all of them heroes in my mind is their courage to face the circumstances of their lives, deal with opposition, and keep trying to make a difference. These people responded to their inner moral urge which called to them.

This is the kind of heroism to which we all have access. Many of us know of others who have risen to the challenges of their lives rather than running from them. And there are many more, unseen, we meet every day. I direct you back to the words in the responsive reading from William Ellery Channing for this morning:

Let us not disparage that nature which is common to all, for no thought can measure its grandeur.

They who possess the divine powers of the soul are great beings, let their place be what it may.

Though they make no show in the streets of a splendid city, a clear thought, a pure affection, and the resolute act of a virtuous will, have dignity of quite another kind.

You may clothe them with rags, immure them in a dungeon, or chain them to slavish tasks, but they are still great.

The solemn conflicts of reason with passion, the victories of moral and religious principle, over urgent solicitations to self-indulgence, and the hardest sacrifices of duty:

These are of course unseen; so that the true greatness of human life is almost wholly out of sight.

I believe this greatness to be most common among the multitude, whose names are never heard.

We behold it in hardship borne maturely, in unvarnished truth, in religious trust, and in that generosity which gives what the giver also needs.

Perhaps in this present the most heroic deed is done in some silent spirit: the loftiest purpose cherished, the most generous sacrifice made, and we do not suspect it.

People are great as a person, be they where or what they may: the grandeur of their nature turns to insignificance all outward distinctions.

Within each of us is this heroic greatness. It is a greatness that comes from engaging with the circumstances of our lives and having the courage to grow the inner passion into the outer world. It isn't a great golf swing that constitutes greatness. It is that willingness to say yes to making right where there is wrong; sowing love where there is hate; offering a hand where there is need.

This is the inherent worth and dignity of human nature we celebrate as a core value of Unitarian Universalism.

[1] Http://pathfinder.com/si/special/sportsman96/1996.html

[2] Http://pathfinder.com/si/special/sportsman96/1996.html

[3] These stories can be found on http://www.giraffe.com/giraffe/

[4] http://www.efn.org/~scan/