Unitarian Universalist Meeting of South Berkshire

January 22, 2006

“Margaret Fuller, Transcendentalist”

Rev. Kathy Duhon

READING

When she was 21, on Thanksgiving Day in 1831, Margaret Fuller had a foundational mystical experience. She was feeling hopeless on a bleak day. The past seemed worthless, the future seemed hopeless. In church everyone else seemed happy, and so she escaped to the fields. She wrote that she walked "till anguish was wearied out, and I returned in a state of prayer....I saw there was no self, that selfishness was all folly, and the result of circumstance; that it was only because I thought self real that I suffered; that I had only to live in the idea of the all, and all was mine. This truth came to me, and I received it unhesitatingly; so that I was for that hour taken up into God."

Margaret Fuller, Transcendentalist

Margaret Fuller is one of my favorite Unitarians, and I am delighted to share with you the life of this amazing 19^th century woman. Margaret would never want us to just describe her life and theology, though, so I want to bring her experiences, especially her religious life as a Transcendentalist, forward, and see what they have to say to us today for our lives.

I begin at the ending, at sea, in July, 1850. For local history buffs, you’ll notice that’s a month before the famous hike up Monument Mountain here by Unitarians Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and others. All of them were probably friends of Margaret’s. I wonder if, besides talking about that ‘big whale’ of a story, Moby Dicky, they might have spoken of her tragic maritime death. She was very good friends with Unitarians Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau and Elizabeth Peabody, and one of them may have gotten the news out from Boston to the Berkshires by the time of the hike.

Margaret was forty years old when she and her new Italian husband and infant son were steaming toward America from Italy; escaping, really. They had been very involved in the revolution, champions of freedom, but the seeming victory was now squashed, with the Pope back in control in Rome.

They sailed in May, and not long after setting sail, the ship’s captain died of smallpox. Their little Angelo caught the disease too, but recovered. The inexperienced mate who took command of the ship was not sure where they were and did not notice a hurricane until it was beating down upon them. Nevertheless, when they were in sight of New York’s Fire Island, they went to sleep believing they would disembark the next day. Instead, during the stormy night, they struck a sandbar. The ship was badly damaged and began breaking up. In the harsh weather they could not launch a lifeboat, so, although some crew members swam to shore, the Fuller/Ossoli family, with shore in sight, drowned on July 19, 1850.

When she perished, Margaret was only 40, just a year older than Martin Luther King, Jr. had been when he died, and she had almost as much impact on the rights issue of her time – women’s rights – as he had on civil rights. Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton wrote that Margaret Fuller "possessed more influence on the thought of American women than any woman previous to her time." She is considered the “Mother of the Feminist Movement” and worked tirelessly for the freedom of women.

The first lesson to take from Margaret Fuller’s life is that we need to be committed to justice, and find some way to work for the rights and freedoms that are threatened in our time. Maybe we go off to a foreign country to fight for freedom, as she did at the end of her life, but probably, we use our skills to do what we can here and now – talking, writing, studying, organizing as Margaret did all her life – every little bit counts in the work for justice and peace. In this congregation, we have many opportunities to join in with the work of justice, especially through our Social Justice Committee and Community Outreach Committee – to write letters, sign petitions, build or fix up homes for those in need, attend lectures, feed the hungry, clothe those who have lost everything to a hurricane or other personal disaster, and much more. We are a justice seeking people, in the footsteps of Margaret Fuller.

Back to the story – I wonder if Margaret had realized the incompetence of the new captain and gone to bed feeling fretful. She herself was such a genius, so competent in so many areas, which was extremely unusual for a woman of her day. I bet that in those last days Margaret Fuller wished she had studied astronomy and the navigation of ships. Previously, she had famously, controversially, and, in the end, ironically, written about what women were able to do: “But if you ask me what office they may fill, I reply – any. I do not care what case you put; let them be sea-captains, if you will.”

Margaret was brilliant, educated by her father at home, and she continued to study throughout her life. She was sometimes put off by the lesser abilities of the men around her. There is even a story about the time that her good buddy, Waldo Emerson, visited her famous “Conversations” – a kind of a class/discussion group – and one of the attendees, Elizabeth Peabody, remarked (she is the woman who founded the American kindergarten movement), “She [Margaret] distances all who talk with her. Mr. E. [Emerson] only served to display her powers.” Emerson said the same thing essentially, not about his own lackluster performance, but that she seemed “encumbered, or interrupted, by the headiness or incapacity of the men.” Actually, it would be wrong to leave the impression that the Conversations had the feeling of distance and differences – the reports are full of the feeling that those gatherings were great gifts to all who attended. People felt enriched by the spirit of Margaret Fuller, whenever they spoke to her. Waldo Emerson wrote of conversations with Margaret: "They interested me in every manner; -- talent, memory, wit, stern introspection, poetic play, religion, the finest personal feeling, the aspects of the future, each followed each in full activity, and left me, I remember, enriched, and sometimes astonished by the gifts of my guest."

These “Conversations” brings up a second legacy and lesson of Margaret Fuller and the Transcendentalists – they believed it was important to have deep conversations with each other. Folks always visited at Emerson’s home, or Bronson Alcott’s, or even Thoreau’s cabin in the woods by Walden Pond, and were amazed at the theological and philosophical discussions they enjoyed. This congregation has always created opportunities for spiritual friendships and meaningful conversations. In our classes and spirituality groups, we have all grown in sharing wisdom with each other. Next month, I will begin a monthly meeting called “Conversations”, and I hope that you will come join in, following this Transcendentalist tradition. (You needn’t be as brilliant as Emerson or Fuller.) In March, we will also begin a nature book study class on the Sand County Almanac. What amazing conversations of depth we will be sharing here this Spring as this congregation gives us the opportunity to explore what is meaningful and true together.

Now that I have mentioned Transcendentalism, I’d like to define it a little more, which is difficult. Partly, it’s because the Transcendentalists themselves did not define their movement – they just kept moving and exploring. Transcendentalists were early 19^th century Unitarians who believed in the essential unity of all creation, the innate goodness of humanity, and the importance of intuition in the revelation of deep truths, and they reveled in nature – all of which sounds normal to us, but was fairly rebellious to the established order of their day. Barry Andrews has written that the Transcendentalists had five spiritual practices, ways in which they were cultivating the soul: 1)sauntering, which was a very aware nature walk, and excursions, which were more adventurous; 2) contemplation; 3) reading; 4) journal writing; and 5) conversations of depth. Andrews says we can be like the Transcendentalists and use these simple practices in our lives.

Back to Margaret Fuller – after the shipwreck, a distraught Ralph Waldo Emerson asked Henry David Thoreau to travel to the site of the wreckage and search for any remains. Henry found nothing of the people or their belongings. He was especially looking for Fuller's much anticipated manuscript on the Italian revolution, gone forever to history.
When Margaret Fuller went to Italy, three or four years before, in her late thirties, it sounded almost like the resolution of a midlife crisis. She had long been the brilliant writer, critic, editor, translator, teacher, journalist and conversationalist, but she wanted to be more of a doer. She had been a mystic and an advocate for religion, a drum major for the Infinite, but she wanted to help lead society to a more free and more fulfilled way of being. She was a feminist who had not married in her youth, but rather supported herself and her family of origin financially, but she wanted to have her own family and to free men, as well as women, from the burdens which inequality between the sexes placed upon them.

She plunged into the work in Italy, as a reporter and historian, but also as a nurse and activist for the cause, and as the wife of a revolutionary soldier. This revolution was for the working class and for women’s rights, and she toiled for it, believing that this was good for the soul of Rome, and good for the soul of the world. Margaret knew that wherever freedom truly reigns, there is room for the spirit.

Do we, like Margaret, sometimes find our otherwise perfectly good lives to no longer fit us so well? Do we long for something more? Something to do of consequence, or at least something to do that gives us deeper meaning? Margaret Fuller was never afraid to follow where her spirit took her, to take on new challenges, whether as the first editor and co-founder of the Transcendentalist magazine, The Dial, or by moving to New York City to become the hottest literary critic of her time, or by sailing across the world to fulfill a dream cut short earlier. You see, she had planned to go to Europe much earlier, but in a twist of fate, like that in the film, “It’s a Wonderful Life”, her father had died and she had to stay home to take care of the family, emotionally and financially. Margaret was responsible, but also open to change and growth. That is the third lesson I want to take from her life – when the old way isn’t fitting in our lives and we feel that something is missing, we are called to explore new ways of being. As Joseph Campbell famously said, “Follow Your Bliss”. This congregation has given us so much joy that we want to share it as a vehicle for the journey forward, for in this beloved community you are free to explore new ways of being, and we will be here to bless, and to cheer each other on.
The final lesson I want to take from Margaret Fuller is her experience of the divinity, which is Transcendentalist and universal in its nature. I believe it can speak to us, modern skeptics that we tend to be. Margaret Fuller found inspiration in nature and valued her own intuition, two important aspects of Transcendentalism. She studied religion, but she also felt her religious experiences in such strong, revelatory ways, that it changed her understanding of the universe. In that spiritual experience of hers which I began with, Margaret Fuller described, in a very Buddhist/Eastern religion sounding way, “I saw there was no self, that selfishness was all folly, and the result of circumstance; that it was only because I thought self real that I suffered; that I had only to live in the idea of the all, and all was mine.”

“The idea of the all” is what current Unitarian Universalists call “the interdependent web of all existence, of which we are a part.” The holy, all in all, oneness is powerful and real, and bigger than the usual notion of self that keeps us small. For theists among us, this is another way to understand God; for atheists among us, this is another way to understand the universe. Margaret Fuller at one point exulted joyfully, “I accept the universe”. She proclaimed this amazing idea to the world, and the world responded caustically, “The universe ought to be greatly obliged to her”, said one, and Carlyle wrote, "Gad, she'd better."

Of course, Margaret’s point was that she found the universe a boundlessly good place to be, including the truth of its painful side. Similar to Dame Julian of Norwich, who said, “All will be well and all will be well and all manner of thing will be well” or to the famous contemporary wisdom, “Don’t worry, be happy” of Bobby Mcferrin, “I accept the universe” is a way of acknowledging the all in all as ultimately good. No longer bogged down by trying to control or direct the universe, it is freeing to feel that level of acceptance. As one woman who knew Margaret Fuller wrote about this wisdom, “I was no longer the limitation of myself, but I felt the whole wealth of the universe was open to me. It was this consciousness of the illimitable ego, the divinity in the soul, which was so real to Margaret herself, and what she meant in her great saying, ‘I accept the universe’.”

We are challenged by the wisdom of Margaret Fuller to accept the universe, to savor it, while also saving it through work for justice and peace. We are inspired to have conversations in which we speak deeply with each other, and to explore new ways of being. And we are accompanied on this journey of truth and hope by a vibrant, loving congregation, steeped in our Transcendentalist roots, and borne forward on the wings of love. Amen.