Breaking the Cycle
Rev. Douglas Taylor
9-20-26
Sermon Video: https://youtu.be/I_c87tdRZPk

Breaking a harmful cycle is not simple. One of the tricks life can play on us is when we grow up or move away or in some way leave a situation that has been harmful, we too often carry the patterns with us unwittingly. We may have gotten away from whatever was going on that we didn’t like, that was causing harm … but too often people fall back into an old pattern even when we don’t want to. Breaking a cycle is not simple.

This topic can get us thinking about therapy or healing or how we can help people get out of bad relationships. But today, I’ve gone down the path of leadership. I am thinking more systemically than personally. I want to build a better world. I want to be a leader who helps people build that better world together. And … sometimes we unwittingly carry patterns – patterns of how to be a leader, for example – that continue to be harmful. The models of leadership that are celebrated in society are not always models I want to follow.

This summer I attended a workshop about the “Transforming Hearts Collective.” https://www.transformingheartscollective.org/ This is a faith-based organization that support queer and trans people (particularly those with multiple marginalized identities) to survive and thrive. Offering workshops and classes, they work to bring liberation, healing justice, and radical welcome. The workshop I attended was led by two of the three collective co-leaders, Rev. Mykel Slack and Alex Kapitan.

Throughout the workshop, these two leaders shared about the work they’ve done and the impact their organization has had. They also talked about the ‘behind-the-scenes’ aspect of being leaders creating the organization. Later, during the open questions time of the workshop, someone asked them the question that prompted this sermon for me. Someone asked them to talk about how to be a leader without perpetuating harm, without re-inscribing the patterns of patriarchal power that run counter to the goals or healing and liberation expressed in the mission of their organization.

So many of us only have experience with the basic patriarchal version of leadership. It is tangled up with authoritative decisiveness and dominance, commanding a sense of loyalty and obedience from others. This basic patriarchal model of leadership (which most of us have witnessed and experienced) comes with the leader’s ego calling the shots, in which they wield their authority to gain control over other people. In which they use their position to cause harm. Many of us have experiences of bosses or teachers, politicians or parents who use authoritarian tactics to enforce compliance, to control those they are leading.

These queer, trans leaders hosting this workshop I attended were leading in a different way. And they acknowledged that it is not always easy to break out of the patterns we grew up in, to break the cycle of “the way things are done,” especially if no one has offered us an alternative way.

How did they do it? How did they break the cycle. To paraphrase Audre Lorde: what tools did they use, if not the master’s tools, when they dismantled the master’s house? https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/audre-lorde-the-master-s-tools-will-never-dismantle-the-master-s-house

For Audre Lorde, back in 1979, she was suggesting better tool such as the experiences and wisdom of marginalized people. She was suggesting the tools of intersectionality and the power of a collective community built across our differences – specifically our racial and sexual differences. This is not the first time I’ve circled around this conversation. What are the better tools we need to build the world we long for? What are the characteristics of an alternative leadership style?

I came into the ministry at a time when Unitarian Universalism was a decade or two in to the influx of women in ministry and the influence of feminism on our collective leadership expectations. I remember an elder male colleague reflecting back on his ministry saying if not for that influence on our UU ministry, he would not have been able to be a minister among us. And that made perfect sense to me, too.

He referred to the shift away from a competitiveness among ministers toward more supportive collegiality. He talked about our ministry becoming more relational and storied, less dry and academic. I’m sure there were male ministers who were supportive storytellers throughout the ages, and certainly there have been women ministers who were dry and academic. But this colleague was talking about a general shift in the culture among UU ministers, a shift influenced by the feminism of the 80’s and 90’s.

When I heard this elder colleague talk about this shift and how it allowed an opening for him, I resonated with that. I too feel my ministry, my leadership style, is relational and supportive and storied. And I just thought it was normal. And I now recognize it was the culture around me as I came into leadership.

You know the movie “9 to 5” starting Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, and Dolly Parton? That came out in 1980. It showed an innovative workplace at the climax of the movie that “including an in-office daycare center, equal pay for everyone, flexible hours, and a job-sharing program allowing employees to work part-time.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9_to_5_(film) And at the time it was not an outlandish fantasy – those innovations were real possibilities. They seemed not only possible, the ideas seemed smart. And yet we have regressed over the past 45 years. Granted, those innovations in the movie were less about dismantling systemic oppression and more about allowing women to be more equally oppressed in the workforce. But still. Even that is less attainable today.

And that is an example of the models I saw for how to be a leader when I was growing up. How has it been for you? Are you now, or have you at times been, a leader? Or perhaps you are reflecting on this from the perspective of someone on the receiving end of these leadership styles. I want the world to be a better place, and part of how that is going to happen is for us to get better leaders, to have leaders who are responsive and relational; who don’t just want control and power, but want healing and empowerment for people.

And here is an exciting point I’ve stumbled into while thinking about this and reading about this and talking with people about this. There are so many alternatives around us to draw from.

The recent death of Wendell Berry drew me back to his work, his poems and his perspective. And I consider the wisdom of a farmer as a model for leadership. Wendell Berry called for us to slow down. The farmer calls us to invest in the ground and trust that the yield will sustain us. A farmer’s model of leadership is about sustainability. Not the agribusiness model, but the model of an actual farmer working the actual earth. Leadership focused on sustainability through the years is counter-cultural to our mainstream understanding of leadership.

Or consider the leadership lessons from the Tao Te Ching that talk about not meddling and instead allowing the people to rise to their work. The Tao Te Ching talks about not forcing or coercing. Reading the Tao Te Ching gave me insight into my spiritual yearning as a young adult, but it also offered me a model of leadership that shaped my perspective.

There are many ways to be a leader that do not involve force or exerting control. Of course, one trick is to still be effective. There is a frail model of leadership that riddle with conflict avoidance leading to nothing getting happening, nothing much getting accomplished. And such ineffectiveness is seen as reason enough to cause harm, an excuse to be cruel – to make an omelette you have to break a few eggs. But human beings are not eggs and perhaps breaking people does not make you a good leader.

What makes someone a good leader? Can you name some of the qualities? Can you break out of the cycle that assumes there is only one way to be an effective leader and that includes some casualties?

I listened during that workshop about the Transforming Hearts Collective and wondered about what these trans and queer leaders are doing that I could learn from. They offered leadership that was relational and collaborative, as I had learned to be through the feminist lens of leadership.

But they also had an emphasis on healing and liberation. The empathy they drew on to bring their leadership to the people and communities they were serving caught my attention. These trans leaders knew what their communities needed and it wasn’t just about being in relationship and being treated with equity. The folks they served also needed healing. I suspect a lot of us could benefit by a space to heal. I suspect many people who consider themselves leaders could learn more about leading from trans and queer leaders. I have been learning.

Perhaps we can break the cycle and build a better sense of what a good leader does, how a good leader is with people. Perhaps our best leaders are also healers.

In a world without end,

May it be so.