PROFILES IN COURAGE

INTRODUCTION: The first time I recorded an Oprah Winfrey Show to watch when I was home later at night, I was struck by one thing: the ordinariness of the topic, and the extraordinariness of how she related it to her audience. In fact, the program that I watched was on “rudeness.” She had two guests who had written books – one on civility and the other on how to treat wait staff in restaurants. These were not earth shaking topics, but I was totally impressed. For example:

n “We are all trustees of one another’s happiness and well-being in life.”

It was a superb program and she was very good. But she’s more than that, evidently.

Business Week reports that Ms Winfrey personally donates more of her own money to charity than any other show-business celebrity in America. And she’s in the top 50 most generous philanthropists of any kind in America.

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Oprah asked for donations and raised more than $11 million. Then she personally matched her viewers' donations. She has also put 250 African-American men through college.

But she’s been willing to do more than charity. She’s been willing to lose viewers if the issue is critical. For example:

n In February 2003 – the month before America’s boondoggle attack on Iraq – she did an entire series, featuring people from around the world, begging America not to go to war.

o The response of our government was for President Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell to hold a press conference in support of the war at the exact same time as her program. That resulted in her show of people worldwide begging America not to go to war, being preempted nationwide so Bush and Powell could present a case for a war in which two million Iraqis have died and more than 4,000 American soldiers.

n And for the first time ever, last year she came out publicly during a primary presidential campaign, for a political candidate, Senator Barack Obama.

o She held a fundraiser for him at her home in California, and then accompanied him for a series of rallies in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina. The latter event drew nearly 30,000 people, the largest for any political event of 2007. Analysts concluded that her endorsement alone translated into more than a million extra votes for Obama and was especially important in caucus states like Iowa.

TRANSITION: This month we’re exploring the lives of others as a way of learning lessons on how to live in difficult times. So what lessons come from observing the life of:

Isn’t it ironic to think that a woman born in gross poverty in Mississippi would have any thing to say to us…especially, if she were reared so dirt poor she had no shoes, no running water, nor a flushing toilet? And even though she was supposed to be named after Orpah, a woman cited in the biblical book of Ruth, the midwife misspelled it on her birth certificate, and she’s been Oprah ever since. (In fact when she began to work in television in Baltimore, the station executives tried to get her to change her name to “Suzie.”) But there’s more to suggest that she would never have a chance to do anything exemplary.

Oprah Winfrey was born out of wedlock in 1954, unwanted by either of her parents. Her mother left her with her grandmother in rural Mississippi and went North. For several years, Oprah had no contact with her mother, and did not know who her father was. She sometimes had to wear dresses made out of potato sacks, and seldom had shoes. But because of the love and care of her grandmother – a maid to White people – Oprah learned to read at home by age three, skipped kindergarten to go directly into first grade, and then skipped second grade.

At age six, she went to live with her mother in an apartment in Milwaukee, but her mother was busy with work, a new daughter, and a boyfriend. That led to Oprah moving to Nashville to live with her father, but after less then a year, she moved back to Milwaukee to live with her mother again.

That year, she was raped by an older cousin, and for several years, she was sexually abused by several other male relatives and friends of her mother, but as happens so often in such cases, she remained silent. Not surprisingly, at age 14, she had a baby who died in infancy.

Oprah became so rebellious that her mother couldn’t handle her anymore. (Her grandmother had died when she was nine.) So she was sent to Nashville once again to live with her father, and with her stepmother. They became a very positive influence on her, and with their strict parenting helped provide needed structure for her life. As a result of Oprah's outstanding schoolwork, one of her teachers sent her to a more challenging school.

Once there, she flourished in speech, drama and English. By age 17, she enrolled at Tennessee State University, and began working as a reporter for a local radio station. At 18, she won the Miss Black Tennessee beauty pageant. By age 19, she was anchoring a television newscast on Nashville's WTVF. She moved up to co-anchoring the nightly newscast for eight years at WJZ-TV in Baltimore. Management decided she was too emotional to do the news, so they demoted her to a hardly watched morning news-talk show so as to finish out her contract and let her go. They also told her she was too big and too Black.

The news program format showcased her genuine talent like nothing else had. The show took off and she was shortly hired away to co-host A.M. Chicago. Within one year it was the most popular morning show on the air in Chicago, and was renamed The Oprah Winfrey Show.

Once there, she syndicated her program in 1986 – which simply means that it was sold individually to markets all over America, rather than being shown on a network exclusively. It became the top daytime show almost immediately. During this time, she drew national attention for her role in the movie, The Color Purple, for which she received an Oscar-nomination as best supporting actress.

Her television program has undergone several reincarnations, but it has never lost its top ranking, nor her appeal and power with the estimated 22 million who watch her, or those who watch in more than 100 foreign countries.

On these shows, one of the things that stands out, is the willingness of Oprah to disclose her personal vulnerabilities to a television audience of millions, in hopes that viewers will learn from them. On many occasions, she has shared the details of her past abuses, her former drug problem, and even her weight fluctuations.

Since more than 80% of her audience is women, she continually preaches self-empowerment, especially to women. She demonstrated it in her own life by advancing up the rungs up the ladder of broadcasting very quickly, even though very few African American women are a major factor in the media. She has inspired millions of people to read the books she discusses, and has given a tremendous boost to book readership in America.

But one of the things that makes Oprah especially appropriate for a religious service is her unique interest and concern about things spiritual. And when we say, “spiritual,” we mean that a person has a feeling of unity with the Universe, or in religious language, has made a connection to God. That feeling – that “spiritual” feeling – has made a difference for the better in their lives.

Resulting in what Oprah calls “go there” moments. She says, “Take five minutes every day in the morning to hear the inner voice directing your life – ‘Go there!’ –. Connect your head with your heart. Feel your way to the reason you are here. The voices of the world will drown out the voice of God. Be silent enough to hear the voice. Be quiet. Part of your responsibility is to honor the quiet inside yourself so you can hear its call to your life." It’s what she calls “finding our inner global positioning system.”

n “Every time we suppress some part of ourselves or allow others to play us small, we are in essence ignoring the owner's manual our Creator gave us and destroying our design.

n “Breathe. Let go. And remind ourselves that this very moment is the only one we know we have for sure.

n “The best way to succeed is to discover what we love and then find a way to offer it to others in the form of service, working hard, and also allowing the energy of the universe to lead us.”

n “What I have learned in my life and work is that the more I am able to be myself, the more it enables other people to be themselves.

n “If we're angry, be angry and deal with it. Don't go eat a bag of potato chips.

n “You know the old cliché, ‘A good man is hard to find.’ Well, it's true. And the smarter you get, the harder they are to find.

n “My philosophy is that not only are we responsible for our lives, but doing the best at this moment puts us in the best place for the next moment.”

So how does all of this figure into living? What application does it have to live and living? Fundamental lesson: It is not enough that we merely survive. We need to feel that our experiences form part of a meaningful life…that there is a point to life.

Regret makes that difficult. The reason we have trouble with the mistakes of our past is that they broke up the story line of our lives. Life doesn’t fit together now. That mistake or failure keeps hanging on and dragging us down and we can’t seem to let it go. When we enter into a spiritual understanding of existence though, according to Oprah, we have the possibility of breaking that cycle.

Let me stop here for a moment: Liberal religious people of many persuasions are critical of “getting saved.” I include myself in that number in the past, despite the fact that there was a time in my life, when as a General Evangelist in the Pentecostal Holiness Church, I had to make monthly reports on how many had “been saved” in the revivals I conducted.

But let’s look at it in the context of regret. Let’s agree that we all have done things we regret…for sure, I have. I look back and think, “Why in the world did I do that?” It gave a whole new definition to the word “stupid.” Yet, I did it. I imagine it’s true for you as well. Even though it may have happened a long time ago, it still bugs and bothers us occasionally, and the reason it does is because we can’t fit it in to any overarching sense of purpose or meaningfulness – our life’s story.

Two ways: one, of course has been pioneered by Alcoholics Anonymous – we confess and admit them to a person who matters, and where appropriate and feasible we make restitution.

Secondly, we also seek a way to find spiritual forgiveness…to connect to the Universe…to relate to God, or in Christian evangelical language, to “be saved.” And even though we don’t use that language in exploring the meaning of spirituality, the intended outcome is the same: a feeling of unity with transcendence…the Universe…the Whole of which we’re apart: God. In other words, it’s a way to address the haunting regret we may have…to find a place for it in our psyche that doesn’t permit it to destroy our lives as a whole.

The reason that is important is because the goal of spirituality is always to unify our lives, and give them meaning. It’s another way to say in the words of Nietzsche, “Yes to life.”

Spirituality seizes life, seeks it out and forges it. But it needs feedback and encouragement, which is one of the reasons for our being part of a religious community.

Oprah gave the commencement address at Stanford University some time back. She described the lives of Jane and Leland Stanford. (I did not know that Stanford’s official name is Leland Stanford Junior University.) Jane and Leland Stanford founded the university in memory of their only child, who died of typhoid at the age of 15. They didn’t let their grief cut them off from life. Instead they used their daughter’s memory as a motivation to reach out and help others. And that, for Oprah, is the secret of dealing with setbacks, disappointments and grief. It’s even the secret of happiness: “Don’t live for ourselves alone…to be happy, we have to give something back.”

We will pause for 7½ minutes of brief questions as a part of our Conversation Café. The Service and Support Council will provide microphones for you to speak into.

[1] A sermon presented October 19, 2008, as the second in a sermon series entitled, “PROFILES IN COURAGE: What the Lives of Others Teach Us About Living in Difficult Times,” followed by the Conversation Café of All Faiths Unitarian Congregation, meeting at the Crestwell School, 1904 Park Meadows, Ft. Myers, FL, with the Rev. Dr. Wayne Robinson, minister.

[2] Much of what follows is informed by Stan van Hooft’s work, Caring about health.