Speaker:- Maria Hayward
Worship Leader:- Rachel Mackintosh
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Maria Hayward © 13 April 2025
Our values and the language of reverence
I’d like to start with the UU value of transformation or change. Language changes or transforms. We invent new words all the time, or we use words differently. A simple example of a word used differently is the word ‘cool’, which mostly doesn’t have anything to do with temperature. ‘Cool’ has stayed in fashion for a long time, but apparently even this word now is dated, and teenagers instead might use: ‘slay’, ‘rizz’ (short for charisma), and there’s the kiwi ‘chur’ which means something like: ok or thank you. Society, too, changes: our understandings may grow – as Unitarians they should, with our continuous search for truth and transformation. As part of this growth process, changes in attitudes occur and language that might once have been acceptable – might become unacceptable.
About 50 years ago, feminism changed language; and so did increasing social diversity in its many forms – but especially with respect to ethnicity and gender identity or orientation. In the 1990’s, this new language was labelled politically correct, or PC, then that was criticised (“PC gone mad” became the catchphrase of people not wanting to be PC). Later, we became ‘woke’, then suddenly it was “too woke to give sushi to kids for school lunches” (as the Hon David Seymour said). And now, Winston Peters – like Donald Trump, is fighting a “war on woke”. Actually, being PC or being woke – and let’s be absolutely clear about this – both were just about being respectful. Woke comes from the African American: “be awake to social injustice, racism and bigotry”. And being politically correct or being woke is being respectful in our thinking and speaking about and to minority or marginalised groups in particular, although obviously not exclusively so. Language can include or exclude people; it can be affirming or hurtful. We choose our words.
Last year, I undertook the online Unitarian course on theology and one of the lectures was entitled the “Language of Reverence”. I’m a linguist and was captivated by this concept which was described by Petr Samojsky as: “listening and talking to others in a way that fully respects and honours them. It is the language of empathy, compassion and respect”. And it’s about our UU values too.
Ted (Zorn) gave us a wonderful talk about reverence last year. He discussed in depth the awe and spiritualism of reverence.
In this talk, I’m going to take a pragmatic perspective and focus on the actual language that we choose and how we might translate our values into behaviours, thoughts and especially words. So, what might my words or actions look like if they were to show respect, compassion and empathy towards others. Our choice of words in any interaction matters and shows the level of respect we have for the listener.
Petr Samojsky said, respecting the person – feeling respect for them, comes first (before our choice of words), and I agree. No matter what words we use, if respect is not present in our hearts, our words will come across either as fake or as tokenism. Actually, tokenism can lead to respect, so it’s not totally bad – but oftentimes it is just that – tokenism. So, attached to the language adopted, I think there does have to also be a genuine feeling of respect. I often feel an easy way to check that your language and feelings are empathetic, is to put your own name or that of a loved family member, or put your cultural background, into the sentence. See how you feel. An example for me might be: “Dutch people are all bad drivers”. Putting my own ethnicity into the phrase, reminds me 1) that not all Dutch people are the same, 2) that actual facts or statistics might not be known – how many bad drivers of one ethnicity does research tell us there are? And finally, 3) is someone trying to denigrate, put down my whole ethnicity?
Let’s think about the UU values of Pluralism and Equity
Most people agree, that minority or marginalised groups are more vulnerable and that’s why particular care needs to be taken when speaking about or to them. Minority groups might include: indigenous people (especially in colonised nations), migrants and refugees, neurodiverse or individuals with mental health issues, the queer (gender diverse) community, disabled persons, the homeless community etc, as well as whoever might be a minority group in a particular environment – eg women, in certain contexts, such as senior management in an engineering firm, could constitute a minority group.
I’d like to comment on some of these contexts where language marginalises, hurts or disadvantages people.
And I’ll begin ‘at home’ with Te Reo.
Using Te Reo could be considered a language of reverence towards New Zealand Māori. A month or so ago, the Honourable Winston Peters objected to the use of the word Aotearoa in Parliament. He said there is “no such country”. He was later corrected by the Speaker. Peters’ statement in my opinion, was intentionally provocative, disparaging and totally lacking in reverence, or respect for the tangata whenua who named this land (his own ancestors, in fact). But, as Aaron Smale, who writes for the Listener, said: “after an initial period in politics supporting Māori land rights, Winston soon learned that there was more of a political career in appealing to Pakeha fears of Māori”– and that is certainly the path he follows now.
The use of an indigenous language acknowledges and affirms first peoples. So, an act of reverence for all of us might be: to speak Te Reo whenever we can. I love the way this church embraces Te Reo – albeit sometimes with an American accent (that’s cool too – or should I say riz!). One might also try pronouncing the suburb you live in correctly, even if only sometimes: (Orakei, Maungawhau, Otaahuhu – and try what everyone calls: Patumāhoe). A second act of reverence would obviously also be to call out racism or stand up against racism whenever possible. It’s hard, we actually have to almost plan ahead so we feel confident when the occasion arises.
Ok, moving on: Sexist language
You will all be aware of what sexist language looks like, so for today I’ll focus on the consequences of the linguistic transformations introduced by feminists of the 1960’s and 70’s, who, amongst other things, fought to take sexism out of job titles. This simple linguistic transformation resulted in increased pay rates for women. Air hostesses used to be paid substantially less than their male counterparts (who were called air stewards). After the name change and gender-neutral job description, female flight attendants received a significant pay rise (Air NZ wasn’t going to reduce the pay of air stewards, so the women’s pay had to go up! Yay!) Other changes in job titles often resulted in more women in better paid jobs or senior positions: there were lots of language changes that took the male gender out of professional roles, for example: chairperson, police officer, firefighter, and other job titles lost the connotation of superiority or inferiority. Secretaries or receptionists became administrators – a title that carries more kudos and can be male or female, school principal became the common term (instead of headmaster/headmistress – a master is so different from a mistress, isn’t it!), we dropped the terms: male nurse or female doctor – these only existed because they were so rare. Reverend practice for us may be to: never say a female engineer or a male early childhood worker – leave the gender out of these job names (and remind others …). Just refer to an engineer or early childhood worker. We don’t need to know the gender or the ethnicity, for that matter.
New areas of reverence towards women may need to now apply to honorifics and pronouns. Honorifics are titles like Mr, Miss, Dr, and so on. Many women use Ms as an honorific (that’s old hat now), but some women choose the less common honorific, Mx, pronounced Mix or occasionally Max (which stands for, or is in support of non-binary persons. It doesn’t identify gender and says: my gender is not important, I am!). Maybe we could show support, reverence for minority groups by all using this honorific (male and female). Unlikely, I suspect, but at least we can support people who choose an alternative title, or even none at all, and we could also support the choice to use they/them pronouns. This is a nice segue into:-
Queer language
Perhaps the first respectful/reverend behaviour is to learn the correct terms – what do the letters in LGBTQI+ stand for, and mean, and then of course, to use them correctly. You are probably completely au fait with this, so I’ll just share a couple of things I’ve learnt from my personal experience about reverence towards the most marginalised in the queer community. A transgender member of our family has taught us, firstly, of the importance of us loving her as the same person she was before transition – the same, but better now, but the feeling of love (another UU value) is paramount, as is the importance of remembering and respecting the person first.
Use of the correct pronouns is obviously also important. If a person has transitioned, ask what pronouns they now use – and make the effort to use them all the time. If you slip up, correct yourself – I’m sure you’ll be forgiven.
Also, and this might be hard for us, use they/them pronouns – especially for non-binary individuals, if these are the person’s choice – your effort, your mahi, matters! By the way, some alternative ways to refer to being transgender include:
- Trans
- Non-cisgender
- Gender diverse
- Genderqueer
- Gender nonconforming
It’s essential to respect individuals’ preferences regarding all the language used to describe their gender identity.
Secondly, in terms of the language of reverence, it is important for most transgender people, to not ‘dead-name’ them (using or asking about previous names – I’ve made that mistake! I wish someone had told me beforehand). For many, the deadname represents the incorrect gender assigned at birth and all the years of suffering they experienced living a lie – or not being welcomed or included for who they are. So, in reverence, I never deadname. Although I know some trans people don’tmind – but it is their right to make that choice, not mine.
Belonging to a gender or sexuality minority, and perhaps not having binary presentation is difficult due to societal bigotry and narrow-mindedness. The UU value of generosity might come in here – give our ‘efforts, our attempts, our mahi’ as a gift a kōha showing reverence to all in the queer community. Open our hearts, especially to the most marginalised within this cohort.
Intersex individuals are a group less well-known, yet there are as many intersex people in the world as there are redheads. This may be a group to become better informed about. An intersex friend informed me that even if individuals present as a specific binary (clearly male or female) gender, they might, in fact, prefer different pronouns. Some intersex people, like her, are non-binary – that is they are both genders equally and they feel they are both. So, their pronoun preference and our use of it is important. As is an understanding of what intersex means and entails – and how many variations there are in intersex presentation (there are 30, by the way).
Ok, I’m going to stop here.
There is a part 2 of this talk which will cover examples of respectful language for refugee, multi-ethnic, disability, and neuro-diverse contexts. Also, a consideration of language in its wider interpretation – non-spoken language and ‘othering’ language.
But to conclude, and in the interests of someone who once said that “an audience can only retain 3 things, 3 ideas from a talk”. The 3 takeaways for today might be:
- Learn about minority groups – become informed, do the mahi, familiarise yourself with facts and accurate information. From knowledge, comes empathy and authentic reverence.
- The final overriding UU value: love. Practise feeling empathy, putting yourself in the shoes of any person in a marginalised group. Show aroha in your language and interactions.
- Practice new language – affirming, reverend language. Be woke and proud!
Kua mutu taku whaikōrero, no reira, tenā rā koutou katoa.
Meditation / Conversation starter
- What other examples of reverent language can you think of where an individual or marginalised group will be affirmed by a considered choice of words?
Links
Chalice Lighting:- “I Breathe” by Craig Rowland
Reading:- “Sonnet 29: When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes” by William Shakespeare
Closing Words:- from “If I can stop one Heart from breaking” by Emily Dickinson