Written on the Wall

April 2, 1967
Plainfield

Written on the Wall (Belshazzar’s Graffiti and Ours)

"Coming events cast their shadow before" is an old cliche. It is a cliche because it is true frequently enough to have become a proverb. "The handwriting on the wall" is another phrase which for two thousand years or more has referred to accurate forecasts of impending events. I would like to speak today of words written on walls, not only because graffiti is "in," but also because there is wisdom born of long centuries of human experience which we should embrace.

"The ancient art of wallwriting," as the N.Y.Times defines Graffiti, is one of the literary and profane enjoyments of our time, just as it was in ancient Rome and Pompeii. The unknown authors of graffiti have had some influence on literary style, have tickled our risibilities, and now and again touched sensitive nerves of fear and guilt. Many fetching examples of graffiti are too earthy for pulpit review. But some graffiti may touch off responses among us as they have among others,

Edward Albee copied his famous title, "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" from the wall of a bathroom in the Village. Anthony Newly found the title for his popular musical show in a similar place, "Stop the World, I Want to Get Off." Another author, Robert Saffron found the title for his book, "Is the United States Ready for Self-Government" scrawled on a subway wall. "Kilroy was here," and "Yankee go home," have become classics.

Some of the graffiti are penetrating, some are teasingly under-stated, others grotesquely over-drawn. But in many instances the under-statement or the exaggeration contain enough seeds of truth that should make us to think. Example, "Death is nature's way of telling you to slow down,"

Or, the one a serviceman wrote on a roadside shelter in Saigon, "I can't relate to this environment."

When some well-meaning author in the Dept. of Sanitation tried to encourage people not to litter, he had this exhortation printed on a poster, "Did YOU make New York dirty today?" An embittered New Yorker scrawled a rebuttal, "New York makes ME dirty every day."

Or consider that ominous prediction which may come true, "Tomorrow is called off. God."

In a slightly different religious commentary, following the evangelical slogan, "Jesus saves," many commentators will add, "plaid stamps," or equally irreverent phrase.

When a pantheistic believer wrote, "I am God, Thou art God, God is in each of us," a critical theological commentator appended, "so, why brag?"

Graffiti authors many times create absurd associations to bring out formidable political critiques. "Make love, not war," is the most frequent example today, although "draft beer not men" is gaining popularity. Our hang-up on psychological conflicts receives considerable attention from those who scrawl graffiti. Examples,

"Reality is a crutch."
"Iris is not very happy."

And one which is sort of baffling to find on a wall, "I think people who write on walls are immature and troubled and need psychological treatment."

Many Graffiti deal with aspects of morality although very few of the observations can be quoted here. One intriguing line read, "Love thy neighbor, but don't get caught."

The New York Times article reported that two California professors had spent five months searching the walls of Los Angeles coffee houses, restaurants, bus stations, in order to report, "What the Walls Say Today." The scholars propose that much of what persons living today really believe and feel can be discovered in the anonymous, surreptitious commentaries called Graffiti.

Another meaning for Graffiti with somewhat different emphasis refers to a variety of decoration for ceramic pottery which scratches through superficial layers to achieve a method of deep decoration.

The ancient biblical story of the handwriting on the wall is not only representative of the ancient as well as modern art of graffiti, but also the story of Daniel is one of those enduring religious reminders of the importance of breaking through that which is superficial to get at authentic priorities when choosing between the trivial and the important.

In the old scripture, the story of King Belshazzar and Daniel is a legend of magic Graffiti, a legend suggesting considerable truth about the human condition.

The book of Daniel probably took literary form about 168-165 BCE in a time of patriotic resurgence when the Maccabeans were leading that heroic fight for freedom. Daniel was a legendary hero whose great deeds were told again and again to a people who needed such inspiration to carry on their struggle against great odds. The story is set several centuries before, when the Hebrews were in exile in Babylon, and Belshazzar, son of the cruel conqueror, Nebuchadnezzar, is king. [READ DANIEL, 5th Chapter, 1-30]

You’ve heard the English Christmas carol about "seven lords a-leapin," - well, King Belshazzar's party was a real swinger with one thousand lords a-leapin. But as the old hero-tale has it, King Belshazzar did not know that his destiny was sealed. The handwriting on the wall proclaimed that the days of Belshazzar's kingdom had been numbered and the end was near, that he had been weighed in the balance, found wanting, and that his kingdom had been divided and given to others. The old story records Belshazzar's death the very night of the party. Even if Belshazzar had wanted to do something about it, it was too late, the handwriting on the wall inscribed events which were the unalterable consequences of previous events.

Is what is written on the wall a graffito for belief in determinism – that all events are fore-ordained, that each step in human events inevitably fixes the place of the next step? I shall comment later on why I do not accept a philosophical or theological determinism about human events. But acts and attitudes have consequences. Throw a stone in the pool and ripples will move out to lap all edges. What we say and what we do will influence the course of events, no matter how quiet one's voice may seem amid the din; no matter how weak may seem one's effort.

A. E. Housman (quoted Christian Science Monitor, 3/21/67) once wrote,

"This learned I from the shadow of
a tree
Which to and fro did sway
upon a wall:
Our shadow-selves, our influence
may fall
Where we can never be."

With an Annual Meeting of this Society approaching next Friday evening, we have writings on the wall. In the actual sense, on the wall we have the names of those proposed for leadership and those who will choose leaders. In a more figurative sense, there are other writings on the wall. Our Fund Drive Committee reported that pledges received were far short of expectations and hopes. Thus we are numbered, in that while the membership need not accept the recommended budget of the Board, any changes are limited re-arrangements of allocations. The results are in. The total is written on the wall.

Now our anticipated income is pegged at a certain total. This is a forecast on which responsible officers, trustees and Finance Committee must rely. But what is not limited is the spirit and way in which we will perform the tasks that members mutually take upon themselves to do. It would seem that there would be but one wide, deep foundation which justifies our organization. That is, that among the bright possibilities for our common effort is that religion is of vital importance – of more significance that some varieties of support would suppose it to be. From our strong, liberal traditions, from the fine traditions of the world's better religions, there can be healthy force applied to the individual and social problems of the day. We gather together because from this combined humanitarian heritage, we have something valuable to contribute to human experience today.

Our past is numbered and weighed: Reports will be submitted; appraisals made; reviews of praise, reviews of criticism; words of self-congratulation may be vulnerable to incisive critiques; suggestions for the future of program and leadership will be offered. Ballots will be marked and tallied. But such writing on the wall will not determine the future as simplistically as Daniel read off Belshazzar’s doom.

There is always that which is imponderable in human events. The imponderable and unpredictable are the attitudes which will prevail as we attempt to put into form and substance the ideas of Unitarian Universalist religion and the methods of Unitarian Universalist organization. Will we deal with problems or personalities? In a difficult age such as this, will we attempt to establish proper congregational decisions or will we try to get one-up on persons? Alan Watts once quoted an old Chinese proverb, "Do not swat a fly upon your friend's head with a hatchet."

Such words in no way deny that members hold differing ideas about what a Unitarian Church should be and what a Unitarian Church should do and for what a Unitarian Church should be known. Such are pivotal areas for continuing discussion and clarification in order to obtain some working and tolerable consensus. There is a story about a sculptor who was commissioned to do a sculpture for a medical center and encountered controversy about design. One official urged, "make it non-objective so that nobody be offended." What such a proposal overlooks is that non-objectivity in art or religion is in itself controversial.

There is a variety of psychological theory, which, although I am not professional in that field, certainly appeals to me and squares with my observations of human experience, Called the "field theory," it generally proposes that life-situations are far more complicated than a linear chain of cause and effect events. What may be written on the wall, up to now, does not necessarily determine fully the “now,” even though the influence of all past experience has considerable weight.

The prevailing climate, the presence of tension supplanting the warmth of fellowship, the overcoming of a lesser attitude by a better attitude, the magnetic power of finer goals – all these exert pressure on the Now.

The chain of the past need not handcuff the present and future. Need not, although it may.

There is a legend that in 1781, when Cornwallis surrendered to Washington at Yorktown, the British commander ordered his troops to case the colors and march out with the drums beating and the fifes sounding the tune called, "The world turned upside down." (see article T.H. Hughes, "Foreign Affairs"). The tensions that plague us individually and collectively in this world make the tune appropriate still.

All the more reason then to resist being dominated by experiences that are past in order to deal with problems of the present and future. I like what Marshall Dimock, first moderator of the U.U.A. wrote in his book, A GOOD RELIGION. "The role of religion is to produce people whose spirit have a universal appeal, who become angry at injustice and the slow progress of mankind, and who also are compassionate and understanding in their dealings with their fellows. The test of a religious man is humility as contrasted with arrogance, is wisdom as contrasted with knowledge, is reverence for life as contrasted with a self-destroying egotism....

"A good religion achieves maximum results in inspiring its members to improve themselves toward the ideal in spirit, mind and body..." (p.11).

Social change creates personal crises; and our age is one of accelerated, dizzying change. Those who may have fended off personal crises still have to deal with identity in such an age as this – Who am I? Those who have found themselves and their reason for being must also ask themselves, Who is the other person? [What] do I do for him? [What] do I do to him? Anxieties are rampant, even beneath the assured facades of many. Uncertainty, anxiety, crisis are the graffiti on the wall of our inner self. What do we do? Strike out? Fade away? Make too-easy judgments? Take it out on the wife or husband or clerk or fellow-member?

I would not be where I stand now if I did not believe thoroughly that institutionalized religion can contribute to the achievement of community – where persons are persons and problems are problems and the prevailing spirit as well as the by-laws make the distinction between problems and persons. Our religion is both personal and communal. That solitary and precious internal experience most function externally with others. That is the interlocked, inseparable, dual nature of any religion deserving the name or worth the game.

As the Pilgrims were crossing to the New World, John Winthrop spoke to the occasion. It would be pretentious to assert that if we fail, all else fails. But it would be appropriate for us to take seriously the attitude expressed and the fears and hopes that are intermingled in this and any other religious enterprise. 347 years ago, John Winthrop said,

"So I hope that we may all take most seriously the remarkable opportunity that has been given us. If the ideas on which this experiment are based are sound ones our responsibility is especially heavy.

"We presume to constitute a community, and that of course is the true meaning of the discipline we impose on ourselves.... I think it unlikely if we fail that any one will soon again try such a plan."