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Credo Sunday - Jack Allen
2005
Read at Westwood by Charles Allen - Jack's grandson
I was born in Wayne, Alberta in 1923. Wayne, until 1935, had six major coal mines and in winter had, at its peak, 6000 residents. Coal was king, much as oil is in Alberta today. Had there been road signs like the ones we have now, the sign for Wayne would have said "All Services". It's now a ghost town with about fifty residents and I go there every summer. I want to be reminded of what life in that town taught me.
Wayne was a village where I had the freedom from a very early age to explore, and explore I did. At the same time, everyone in town kept an eye out for me and my friends, for all the kids. I was born into a place and time where when you saw the need for help, you gave it. That is still an important part of who I am. It's one of my values. It led me into school counselling, it led me to teaching people in prisons and it led me to the "builds" in Central America for the last five years.
I grew up believing that, "Strangers are friends you haven't met yet" and I still believe it. My friendship with Elaine Roberts began in 1972, shortly after she and her husband, George, had split. I was a teacher at Edmonton's Victoria Composite and George had been a student in the school. I didn't know Elaine, even though we all attended the Unitarian church. When I heard that they were ending their marriage, I was concerned about the pain that their separation might cause to either or both of them. Next time I saw Elaine, in the coffee hour at church, I told her I was sorry to hear of her separation and asked her how she was doing. Much later, she told me I was the only one at the church who broached that sensitive subject. The recent service that Reinie Heydemann and Elaine did about "Ministry is what we do" rang a bell for me. When I asked Elaine that question many years ago, I certainly didn't think I was doing ministry. But I was acting out of concern and I had learned to ask the right hard questions and listen carefully to the answers. It became a hallmark of my communication style - asking the hard questions that no one else would ask and it led to more than one friendship. Sometimes, of course, I was rebuffed but ...oh well.
When we moved to Calgary in 1941, Mom and I attended the Anglican Cathedral. I had been confirmed in the Anglican Church when I was 11. Dad didn't come with us. To my queries about his belief system he would reply, "Never do on Sunday what you wouldn't do any other day of the week". About the time I turned 18, I told my mother I could no longer attend services with her because I was required to say things I didn't believe. When Mom became upset I reassured her that it wasn't wrong to believe as she did, but since I didn't believe what I was saying, I would be a hypocrite to continue. After all, Mom had taught me to think for myself and then accept the consequences of my actions - "Set your own course" she said. For years after that, when a form had a space for "Church Affiliation", I would carefully write, "No church affiliation."
In 1943, at 19, and just before joining the Canadian navy, I married my high school sweetheart, Charmian. It was war time; we grew up fast then. We married before I joined up because afterwards I would have had to seek the captain's permission to marry. However, in Alberta, at 19, I had to have my parents' permission to marry and by then they were in Esquimalt, BC where my father was building ships. I got around that problem by lying about my age!! Is that what Mom meant when she taught me to think for myself and accept the consequences?? Is that what she meant when she encouraged me to "Set your own course"? Probably not, but it's the way I've lived most of my life. For example: ·
When I was completing basic training in HMCS Tecumseh in Calgary, the ship's Training Officer identified me as a potential officer. Choosing to become an officer was a serious error for me because as a Sub-Lieutenant I had to learn the double standard which permeated the Royal Canadian Navy. I was required to behave in ways that were foreign to my belief in egalitarianism. To meet the behaviour required of a commissioned officer I found myself smuggling my older brother (whom I hadn't seen for four and a half years) on board ship when we happened to be in Halifax at the same time. Months before, I had had a stern lecture from our captain for going ashore with an old friend from Wayne who was "only" a leading stoker, not an officer. The captain had ended his lecture on my transgression by shouting at me, "I don't care if he's your brother!" ... I knew I was in the wrong stall.
A double standard doesn't fit for me, doesn't fit with my values of equality and justice, nor my belief in the worth of every person. I wouldn't have used those words in the 1940s, neither would I have used them in the 1970s when I became an ardent feminist but the sentiments were the same, the same feelings were operating.
By the time we were 23, Charmian and I had two sons. Neither of them ever expressed an interest in going to Sunday school. Then, when the boys were 12 and 10, we had a daughter, Judy, and that was when we learned how different daughters are.
When she was about 4, Judy wanted to go to Sunday school with Lynn, an older friend and neighbour. The Sunday she came home from Baptist Sunday School asking me to make an ark so she could put all the animals in, I knew I was in trouble! Something had to change. I knew then that I didn't want to spend years telling Judy what I didn't believe. A friend suggested the Unitarian Church.
Years before Judy's birth, I had invented "The Over the Hill Hockey League". We played on Sunday mornings at the University Rink. To fulfil my commitment to Judy's religious education, I had to give up playing hockey. One of my hockey acquaintances confided to a friend in surprise, "Did you hear? Jack got religion!", and on that note my hockey career ended.
Judy died at 22 so her membership as a Unitarian was brief. Her presence in my life meant, among other things, that I discovered Unitarianism and all it stands for.
I've long dreamed of a heaven here on earth, a Utopia, one that would offer the same privileges I have enjoyed throughout my life. I've known from an early age that I was privileged. It started with my parents. Our language at home, English, prepared me for school. Many of the other kids in school were not so fortunate. Their first language was Italian, or Ukrainian, or Hungarian, or German. And some of their parents were not literate, even in their first language. Also, school was easy for me. As I watched some of my school mates struggle, I came to regard my easy ability to learn as a privilege. My dad was the pit boss of the Rose Deer mine, one of the largest and most successful of all the mines in the Drumheller region. My grandfather was manager of that same mine and one of my uncles was a fireboss there. So we were among the more affluent families in Wayne, a fact not lost on me. As a boy, I knew we lived in one of the best houses in town because my Dad was paid by the month, not by the ton. It all seemed so unfair.
Growing up in Wayne during the Great Depression started me on the road to my belief in socialism. Miners and unions are interconnected in my mind. Like now, the biggest fight for unions then was to try to get compensation for the men injured in the mine or their widows. The Socialist movement was alive and well in the Drumheller valley then and I also had friends whose fathers were active in the Communist Party of Canada. In high school I read John Steinbeck's novel, "The Grapes of Wrath " and I was confirmed in my belief that a combination of socialism and capitalism would produce the Utopian World I dreamed about. So in that time and place I was confirmed in my socialist beliefs. And I'm still there.
In Grade 10, a new teacher came to Wayne, Mac Hearst. It is because of him I became a teacher. He inspired me and a lot of other kids to do their best and I loved him. The most important lesson Mac taught me was teamwork. When the war ended and the opportunity was given to veterans, I entered the Faculty of Education at the U of A. In those days, teaching was held in low esteem and paid accordingly. My union background compelled me, after graduation, to work with other teachers to improve the bargaining power of the Alberta Teacher's Association. And teachers have never looked back!
My religious beliefs have evolved over many years. I used to answer, when asked, that I was Agnostic. Today I would answer that I am an Atheist. I am one of that group that feel that humans can create a world where all humans can enjoy the quality of life that I have enjoyed for most of my eighty one years. I know that world will not come about in my lifetime but I know that some of you have the same dream.
So now that you've heard my stories - here's a summary of the values and beliefs that underpin and drive my life now:
And above all, our first principle speaks to me: · the inherent worth and dignity of every person, for if this was absent, none of the others would stand alone.
Why do I do what I do? Because each of us, each person on this planet, is worth it.
Jack Allen
Postscript - Please see the sermon & other links: Jack's Legacy
We believe that everyone has the right to seek truth and meaning for themselves. The fundamental tools for doing this are your own life experience, your reflection upon it, your intuitive understanding and the promptings of your own conscience.