#the difference between miles and Miguel is that miles sacrifices himself and Miguel sacrifices others

[bruciemilf]

What everyone should understand from spider verse is that Miguel is right about Spider-Man, but he’s completely wrong about Miles.

[aloevhello]

The Lonely Spider vs. The Spider Who Is Loved

While Miles and Miguel act as narrative foils to one another, the greatest difference between them is their relationship to their Spider and familial communities and how it affects the balance between their Spider and personal identities.

Miles and Miguel’s connection to Spiderpeople differ based on how these communities influence their Spider and personal identities. Starting off with Miles and his Spider Squad in ITSV, since this is the film that shows Miles’s coming into his own, Miles was lucky enough to instantly gain a Spider community who could empathize with him about their shared Spider identity and the tragic canon events (eg. Uncle Aaron’s death) that only they understand. However, Miles is not accepted due to his inexperience, which leads to Peter B advising Miles to embrace his personal identity to become his Spider-Man. From this exchange, Miles is instilled with the self-confidence needed to take a leap of faith and embrace these two parts of himself, allowing him to get accepted by the Spiders and become his own Spiderperson. For post-ITSV, Miguel seeks out Spiderpeople across the multiverse to recruit to his strike force, essentially forming his own community. But in ATSV, Miguel is closed off from the other Spiders due to his guilt over the destruction of the alternate dimension and Gabriella, although there might be more to it. Miguel differs from the other Spiders as seen in his power sets, personality, and origin story and he likely realized this when creating his Canon Events Theory that streamlines these Spiders’ narrative threads and creates a collective Spider identity based on responsibility and sacrifice, which goes against Peter B’s advice that Spider-Man is based on the individual and Miguel’s own identity considering his deviations. From this revelation, Miguel leans towards his Spiderpersona at the expense of his personal identity, as he abandons his civilian life to focus on his multiverse responsibilities, in order to prove that he belongs to this community and this collective Spider identity. While Miles is influenced by his Spider community to embrace his personal identity to become Spider-Man, Miguel conforms to the expectations set by the other Spiders and thus forgoes his personal identity.

Miles and Miguel’s familial communities also affect their sense of self based on how they help these Spiders bridge their personal and Spider identities. For Miles, his family is his everything as he grew up around good people who love openly and provide unconditional support for Miles as seen. This is exemplified when Jefferson tells Miles that he will support Miles’s use of his inner spark for whatever ventures he aspires towards. Despite having zero knowledge of Miles’s Spider identity, Jefferson’s love for his son transcends that boundary as Miles is moved by his dad’s positive regard for his civilian identity and uses it to further instill his Spider-Man identity, a running theme seen for Miles’s other family members. The fact that Miles is so family-oriented is significant, as most Spiderpeople come from dysfunctional families, showing how his family distinguishes Miles as his own Spider-Man. This gets explored in ATSV where Miles’s Spider identity is challenged after learning that his father is destined to die because by losing Jefferson, he loses the spark that inspired him to become Spider-Man. There’s also how Miles was never supposed to be Spider-Man, enhancing his feelings of being an outcast. However, it’s by taking the lesson Miles learned from his communities, that he must embrace his own individuality, that’s when his self-confidence transpires into hopefulness as he’s determined to not be defined by tragedy and save his family, something most Spiders never believe they could do. Meanwhile, Miguel grew up in an abusive household, with his parents’ love being conditional to his position in an Alchemax-run dystopia. This presents how unlike Miles’s strong family unit that allowed him to cultivate his own identity, Miguel never got to due to his unstable family environment. What best exemplifies how Miguel’s family affected his personal and Spider identities is when he tries to reveal to his mom, Conchata, that he's Spider-Man and she doesn’t believe he can be a good person, which increases his resolve to be Spider-Man. Similar to Miles and Jefferson’s exchange, Conchata’s words bridge Miguel’s two identities, despite not knowing he’s Spider-Man. But, unlike Miles and Jefferson’s exchange where Jefferson addresses Miles with respect, Conchata looks down on Miguel by using Spider-Man as an ideal he can never achieve, which likely lays the groundwork for Miguel enforcing the collective identity of this title in ATSV as he believes this ideal is the only way to be a good guy. There’s also how at the end of his comic run and likely his current state, Miguel has no familial community as all his loved ones are either dead or left him. Believing there’s no one Miguel can go back to, he zeroes in on more abstract idea of community like the Spider Society and the billions of lives he must protect. Miles embracing his personal identity at the end of ATSV and contributing to his hopefulness contrasts Miguel’s position as he fully taps in his Spider identity and almost loses his humanity considering how brutal his actions were at the end of the film, leaving his jadedness in its wake.

If Miles is the Spider who is loved, Miguel is the lonely Spider. And Miles has the potential to follow this path as well, as seen in the beginning of ATSV where he can’t connect with his Spider friends or tell his parents his secret identity, leading them to grow distant. If the Spiders are potential versions of each other, then Miguel acts as this grown-up, jaded Spider-Man that Miles could become if he didn’t have access to a strong support system and gave into his isolation. Miles would increase his theory of mind once he sees the struggles Miles G in Earth-42 faces, since he lost his father and doesn’t have a community in his dystopian society that he can connect his vigilante identity with other than his uncle. For some parting predictions for BTSV, I hope Miles and Miguel reconcile, which allows them to go back to their home dimensions and to a community of people worth fighting for. In doing so, Miles regains confidence in his Spider identity and Miguel becomes confident in his personal identity, which leads to a balance between the Spider and Man side of their titles. Most importantly, I hope that Miles, Miguel, the Spiders, and the audience learns that the lonely Spider doesn’t have to be lonely and that they will always be loved.

[bunnyramen]

Tw/Death/Talk of Self Sacrifice

Despite all he’d done, fighting himself, fighting the spot, jumping from dimension to dimension, they still couldn’t save his dad in time.

The kicker was that an hour before him, Rio had come in contact with a patient that had a venom symbiote. While police were shooting to kill the alien that was destroying the hospital, a bullet ricocheted and hit his mother.

It severed an artery in her arm, and she bled out before anyone could get to her.

When he came back, he was met with family members and police telling him the news.

He was never ok with losing his Dad and he never will be ok with it. But losing his mom on the same day, it was too much for him.

So, as Miles watched both of his parents lowered into the earth, no tears could come out.

Flowers upon flowers were laid on both of their graves by Rio’s side of the family, candles, and favors peppered the recently laid dirt.

Everybody was waiting for the other shoe to drop as they watched Miles watch his parents be laid to rest.

Miguel couldn’t say anything to him, and if Miles could think, he’d tell him to never show his face to him ever again.

He doesn’t know why he bothered to show up.

His friends set their versions of objects on their graves, which Miles half appreciated.

Peter B brought a Puerto Rican flag for Rio and a pair of sunglasses for Jefferson.

Peni laid out a mechanical piece shaped like a heart.

Spider Noir had a bouquet of gray roses while SpiderHam brought goofy gag glasses.

(His universe didn’t have much that wasn’t hilarious since people don’t die traditionally)

Hobie, who had worn different color shoelaces out of respect for Miles, put down a candle with one of his lucky guitar strings wrapped around.

Pav brought a small statue that sat between their graves.

Gwen gave them one of her favorite drumsticks and a picture of Miles she had taken.

Margo couldn’t bring anything since she wasn’t there, but she did give him a side hug.

Ganke bowed twice to his mother and father, and once to him.

People tried talking to him, sobbing family and friends from all over the city and even further comforting him, his comrades trying to give their best condolences, but he really couldn’t care less about all that right now.

He tore off the tie he had hastily knotted and failed at doing so because he couldn’t quite remember the way Dad showed him because he was.. numb.

His fingers were numb as threw his tie on the ground.

His head was numb to thoughts that weren’t his parents.

Maybe a glitch will come and undo all this as if it had never happened.

But the multiverse was fixed for the most part.

The probability of things like that happening...

..Zero to none.

He wanted to scream.

What hurt most than being an orphan in just one hour, was that he never got the chance to say he loved them one last time.

He touches his freckled cheeks, the ones his mother gave him, as he breathed a heavy sigh through the lips he got from his father.

Miles plopped down between their two graves, being careful of the stuff people had laid down.

“I never got to tell you guys the biggest secret of them all.” He whispered, “I’m Spider-Man.”

At first, something bubbled in his gut. A warm feeling of.. laughter.

It started as a scoff that led to a chuckle, then a full-bodied laugh came over as he fell backward in tears.

“The biggest fucking thing I was worried about was you abandoning me because of that, and I guess it came true!” Hot globs of anguish flowed down his cheeks, as his laugh grew manic and loud.

He didn’t stop until someone stood over him.

“Miles, you’re hysterical. You need to take a deep breath.” Miguel reached a hand out to try and pick him up, but Miles grabbed his wrist.

With all his Spider-Man strength, he squeezed it and as he looked up into the eyes devoid of much emotion, he had a single thought as his mouth abruptly clamped shut to end his howls.

“It should’ve been you.” He didn’t dare voice it even if at that moment, he wish it would happen just for a second.

He didn’t voice that very real expression of anger, but he did say something a little less harsh.

“I’m allowed to be whatever the fuck I want to be right now.” He lets go of Miguel’s wrist, letting his hand fall limp on the grass.

He didn’t even feel like laughing anymore, just laying there lax, his eyes taking in the oddly clear blue day. If he thought hard enough, this is what it would feel like to be dead.

But there’s no light in a deadman’s eyes, only darkness.

So he closed his own.

He briefly wondered what his Uncle saw right before he died.

If anyone tried to save his mom as she felt her organs shut down from the lack of blood.

What his dad thought about right before that fatal shot to the head.

After a few moments, someone picked him up as they sat on the grass near his body, putting his head in their lap.

He could smell who it was before he opened his eyes, Tía Daniela always smelled like fresh-cut roses.

It didn’t help that she looked so similar to her big sister, just a little more soft and huggable. Even with that, he could still see his mom.

“Let it out, mi amol.” She put a warm hand on his chest, his heart thudding against his sternum, trying to get out from whatever he was keeping in.

He took a sharp, stuttering breath as he sobbed loudly into her skirt, gripping the fabric between his sticky hands. She cradled him against her as if shielding him away from everything.

He didn’t care if all of Brooklyn heard him, he didn’t give a single, solitary shit.

He hoped he was loud enough to wake the dead.

Miles cried until his chest felt it would cave in, something sitting heavy in his chest that wouldn’t get up no matter how much he begged.

“I want.. I want them back. I’d give up my own life just for that to be.”

Daniela cupped his cheek with one manicured hand, “Don’t you dare say that, boy. You know your parents would say the same if you took their place.”

Even in the face of her grief, losing one of her big sisters, here she was comforting Miles.

She appreciated her so much, more than he could voice at the moment.

“We’re gonna take care of you, I promise you that. You’re one of our babies.” She smiled down at him with tears in her eyes, “Oh, I wish I could take this pain away from you.”

Somewhere in between her saying that, and some other family members coming over, he must’ve fallen asleep.

That must’ve been what happened or else he wouldn’t have woken up.. wherever he is.

He’s sure as hell not home or with family, no matter how cozy the bed feels or how comforting the decor is, he doesn’t know where he’s been taken.

His wrists were empty of his webs.

And he wasn’t wearing the suit from the funeral.

Shit.

Hearing voices downstairs, he decided to start there. Miles turned on his invisible, planning to get the jump on whoever it was that kidnapped him.

Who the hell kidnaps a kid at their parent's funeral anyways?

They’ve gotta be sick.

His shoeless feet allowed him to walk on the wall of the stairs, stepping over what looked like family photos.

The voices became clearer as he was in clear view of the living room next to the stairs.

“Don’t you think someone should’ve stayed with him so he doesn’t freak out?”

That was Hobie’s voice.

“Why would he freak out?”

Miguel. (He was still feeling conflicted about talking to him.)

“Oh I don’t know, imagine waking up in a house you’ve never been in, undressed by unknown people plus finding that his webs are stolen.”

“I should go check on him.”

Tía Daniela is here too? But.. that would mean...

He stood on the stairs, looking over the railing, everyone sitting on homey-looking couches. He looked back at the photos he stepped over, they were mostly of Mayday.

Must be Peter and MJ’s house.

Speaking of which, the little girl seemingly looked up at him and pointed. Everybody brought their gaze to where she was giggling and staring, and Miles decided there was no point in hiding.

He uncloaked himself, everybody gained that same pitied look people gave him when his Uncle Aaron had passed.

Except for Hobie, but he didn’t mind. He just had a natural resting bitch face.

“Miles, hey buddy..” Peter was beckoning him to come down with a few swings of his hand.

“Are you feeling hungry?” Mj asked as she made a space on the couch between Daniela and herself for him.

Miles shook his head, “How’d I even get here? What did you tell my Tía?”

“I carried you here through a portal.” Daniela explained, “Peter told me.. everything. He trusted me with such a secret and I’m very grateful. I’m able to better understand what’s going on, even if I don’t quite get what it means to be Spider-Man or ‘canon events’.”

“We brought you here because bringing you to your actual apartment would’ve been too much. Were we wrong about that?” Peni asked, Miles nodded wordlessly.

“Sorry that your folks answered the last roll call, kid. “ Spider-Noir’s wording for their death nearly made him chuckle.

Miles shrugged, not having a clue what to say.

“I know you must not know what to do now, man.” Ganke adjusted his glasses, “My parents would be happy to have you as their kid.”

Miles half smiled, “Thanks, dude.”

“You could come live with one of us. You know any of your family members would be more than happy to take you, Papi.” Daniela wrapped an arm around his shoulder, kissing his forehead.

He was filled with gratitude that everyone was opening their homes up to him, however.. he wished so badly that he could go home to his parents.

Make his dad stand still for a sketch or help Mami with cooking.

But that wasn’t possible now, not in this lifetime at least.

“Actually, and smack me if this crazy-“ Peter felt a tiny smack from Mayday, who he playfully pouted at, “-you could always stay here with us. This is just a suggestion. You’d be able to still go to school, and of course, visit family and friends in Brooklyn anytime. I know you’re in a tough position, and I’d never ask you to make a choice now but-“

“I’ll have to think about it. I’m still pretty.. tired and it just feels.. so strange.”

“Of course, Miles. You got all the time in the world.” Daniela hugged him close.

—-

I only wrote this much but I’m conflicted on who he should stay with. Any ideas?

[revlyncox]

Superhero Values (2021)

Whether we have great powers or simply great responsibilities, we return to our values to guide our actions. This talk was revised and expanded for the Washington Ethical Society, February 21, 2021. 

Earlier, you gave some advice to “Human Person” (a fictional superhero who “visited” earlier in the Platform) about compassion, understanding, and commitment, which are easier words to say than to practice. It helps to have role models, even if their stories didn’t happen exactly in the way they are told. It seems to me that mythology, fiction, and maybe even history can supply us with examples of values we can agree on. Stories that have captured our imaginations in the past may remind us of the people we hope to become.

When I was a kid, Batman was the lead character in some of those stories. He showed up in comic books and Pez dispensers, but the most influential form of Batman from my childhood was the Adam West character on television. When I was six or seven years old, the other kids who went to my babysitter and I used to run around the yard chasing super villains, pretending the basement steps were the Bat Cave, and generally doing our part for the good of Gotham City. We all traded roles as the heroes, heroines, and the various arch-nemeses.

I learned a couple of things from the Bat-team. I learned that superheroes have origin stories, events that changed the direction of their lives. You might not be able to tell from looking at them, especially in their secret identities, but every superhero has a past. The Bat-team also taught me that superheroes struggle with power. Whether the super skills come from hard work, cool gadgets, or another planet, heroes have to figure out the most effective and responsible way to use those skills. Finally, I learned that superheroes form coalitions. Batman and Robin and Batgirl worked together, not to mention Commissioner Gordon and Chief O’Hara. Even an independent vigilante needs other people for the toughest problems.

Come to think of it, those same things are true for all of us. Each of us has to decide how to respond to the past. Individually and as a group, we are faced with questions of power and responsibility. Teaming up with other people is a source of strength, in spite of and perhaps because of our differences. I think these characteristics of superheroes call attention to WES’s future as a community.

Heroes Have Origins

First, superheroes have origin stories. Some event from the past sparked the character’s discovery of talents and passions, leading to a new sense of identity and purpose. Those events might be associated with death or separation from a loved one, or with the loss of the character’s pre-heroic dreams.

Superman’s powers come from his extra-planetary birth, but his ideas about truth, justice, and the American way come from Martha and Jonathan Kent. There is some speculation that Superman’s creators (Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster) modeled him after Moses, a baby whose people faced destruction, and was carried in a small vessel to a land where his birth identity had to be concealed.

There is a category of stories in which the characters have qualities that were typical in their place of origin, but something called them to help people in a world similar to our own, where their profound difference turned out to be a gift. Wonder Woman, Black Panther, AquaMan, and Valkyrie fall into this category.

On the other hand, some superheroes start off with an event of pain or trauma, like Peter Parker’s radioactive spider bite to become Spiderman. Batman’s path is a response to trauma. In the Watchmen mini-series on HBO, one of the characters’ commitment to justice came from being a survivor of the 1921 white supremacist attack on Tulsa, Oklahoma. Ms. Marvel’s Kamala Khan is mainly in this category, having gained her powers during an unusual event.

Whatever the story, most extra-human comic book characters have faced a life-changing event that seems to isolate them from important people in their lives. Often, the character will acquire or discover or place new value on a gift or a talent they have during that experience. Picking up these pieces of loss, loneliness, and strength, the character eventually forges a new sense of purpose.

Michael Servetus (Miguel Serveto) is someone from history whose story follows this pattern a bit. He wasn’t always brave, and he wasn’t known for being kind, but he did set himself apart and commit his life to the truth as he saw it. I wouldn’t necessarily call him a Humanist, but he was a free thinker in that he defied the orthodoxy of his time, and his sacrifices made it possible for the people who came after him to do even more questioning of creeds, dogmas, and oppressive religious organizations.

When Servetus read the Bible for himself for the first time as a young student in the 1520s, he was shocked to discover no evidence for the doctrine of the Trinity. In 1531, he published a tract, De Trinitatis Erroribus (On the Errors of the Trinity), seemingly convinced that people would see it his way if only they would listen. That’s not what happened. He was run out of town, his books were confiscated, and the Supreme Council of the Inquisition started looking for him.

This is where the secret identity comes in. Servetus fled to Paris and assumed the name of Michel de Villeneuve. He had a varied career as de Villeneuve, first as an editor and publisher, then as a doctor. He worked on a seven-volume edition of the Bible, adding insightful footnotes. He was the first European to publish about the link between the pulmonary and respiratory systems.

During his time as the personal physician for the Archbishop of Vienne, he secretly worked on his next theological treatise, Christianismi Restitutio (The Restoration of Christianity). He also struck up a correspondence with his old classmate, John Calvin. Servetus was not diplomatic in his criticisms of Calvin’s writing, and Calvin broke off correspondence. Servetus seemed to think that their exchange was illuminating, because he included copies of the letters when he sent an advance copy of the Restitutio to Geneva.  

The publication of the Restitutio in 1553 marked the end of Servetus’ secret identity. Both Protestant and Catholic authorities pursued him as a dangerous heretic. He was burned at the stake on October 27, 1553, by the order of The Council of Geneva. Reportedly, he maintained his beliefs until the end, shouting heretical prayers from the flames. The Catholic Inquisition in France burned Servetus in effigy a few months later. There were a lot of people who didn’t want his ideas to be heard. Luckily for us, a few copies of his books were preserved, and went on to generate new ideas among religious reformers for over 450 years.

Now, I’m not saying Michael Servetus was a superhero. It might be hard to identify with him in some ways. Though he had ideas that were called Unitarian at the time, Unitarian Universalists oday would disagree with most of what he wrote, as would most Ethical Culturists. His creeds don’t match most of our beliefs; though some of his deeds, such as challenging authority and being a medical provider, might resonate. Nevertheless, we can see how a turning point in someone’s life can bring isolation, energy, purpose, abilities, and vulnerabilities, all at the same time. His origins were more like Spiderman than Superman: Being in the right place at the right time, Servetus was bitten by the free thinking bug. He had to adopt an alter ego, but the bug also afforded him the drive and the insight to make great contributions to scholarship and religious freedom.

How often is it the same for those of us who are regular folks? The events that make us who we are may bring a sense of loss or loneliness. These same events may bring a chance for us to develop new talents, or personal connection to the work we aspire to do. Passion and vulnerability can come from a single point in time.

The thing that sets a superhero origin story apart from a villain origin story is how the character translates their past into a future of meaning and purpose. Most of us are not consistently villains or heroes; we have to choose in every moment how to draw from our past to make choices in the present. We can’t control the historical facts of our origin stories. Even if our own choices led to the turning points in our lives, they are in the past now. What we can do is bring our values to the way we understand those turning points, and to our decisions about what to do with the gifts we have now. Let’s do our best to choose to use our origins well.

Heroes Form Coalitions

The very first appearance of Spiderman (in Amazing Fantasy #15 in 1962) saw the teenage Peter Parker misusing his new powers, only to have his negligence contribute to the death of his Uncle Ben, one of his adoptive parents. Peter’s understanding of Ben’s teaching that “With great power there must also come—great responsibility!” shaped his character from then on. The spider counterparts from other universes, heroes like Gwen Stacy and Miles Morales, also have turning points on that theme.

Superhero characters struggling with power and responsibility would have benefitted from reading about James Luther Adams, who was a professor at Harvard during the 1950s and 1960s. Adams had a great deal to say about power and what that meant for the responsibilities of movements for liberation.

Between 1927 and the late 1930s, Adams made several trips to Germany, a country that was renowned for philosophical scholarship. He spoke with religious and academic leaders, was detained for questioning by the Gestapo, and developed a sense of urgency about the political, cultural, moral, and spiritual crisis that went along with the rise of the Nazi party. While Adams developed great respect for the anti-Nazi Confessing Church movement, he noticed that Germany’s churches as a whole were not pushing back against the crisis.

Adams said that individual and organized philosophy should be “examined.” There must be a path for critique, self-correction, and development. Adams wrote, “the achievement of freedom in community requires the power of organization and the organization of power.”

In that same period when Adams was noticing trends of power, organization, and responsibility in Germany, Humanists in the United States were also teaming up. The roots of some of these relationships went back to the Free Religious Association, which was the group where Felix Adler hung around with Ralph Waldo Emerson and the other Transcendentalists. The FRA led to another trend called the “Ethical Basis” group within Unitarianism.

I’m drawing here from The Humanist Way: An Introduction to Ethical Humanist Religion, a book by former WES Senior Leader Ed Ericson. Ericson writes that, by the end of the nineteenth century, the Ethical Basis bloc had successfully advocated that inclusion as either a member or a clergy person in Unitarian congregations be purely on an ethical basis rather than having any doctrinal basis. Ericson continues:

They resisted all attempts to impose any theological requirement, however broadly such a test might be construed. Like Felix Adler’s Ethical Culture, the Ethical Basis Unitarians regarded the dedicated ethical life to be inherently religious without any necessary underpinning of theological belief. This concurrence of views resulted in a close working relationship between the leaders of the Ethical Societies of Chicago and St. Louis and their ministerial counterparts in the Western Unitarian Conference.

(Ericson, The Humanist Way, p. 46-47)

Ericson goes on to say that, while this cohort was concentrated in the midwest, Octavius Brooks Frothingham in New York also largely shared Adler’s philosophy. Ericson also points out that the Ethical Basis cohort provided “a seedbed where organized religious Humanism, under that name, would first put down roots in American soil,” making this development of interest to Ethical Humanism. So, already at the turn of the century, there is some superhero teaming up going on. It gets better!

In 1913, the Unitarian minister John H. Dietrich began using the term “Humanism” to identify his non-theistic philosophy of religion. Dietrich said that he first encountered the term as a religious designation in the text of a lecture delivered to the London Ethical Society (Ericson, p. 61). Ericson writes that “the Ethical Union in Britain had described their movement by the turn of the century.” Ethical Culture in the United States started identifying more closely as a unique expression within the broader Humanist movement a little later, not until after Adler’s death in 1933. At that point, they found a whole league’s worth of Humanists to team up with.

But back to Dietrich, who discovered that his colleague Curtis Reese in Chicago was writing about the same kind of philosophy. Having found each other, they attracted others to the growing Humanist movement. By 1927, they had connected with scientists, philosophers, and journalists, who collectively were turning out what Ericson describes as “a torrent of books, articles, sermons and lectures” (p. 67) that established Humanism as a significant force in American society. In 1933, thirty-four of these prominent figures signed on to The Humanist Manifesto.

Later groups wrote the Humanist Manifesto II of 1973 and the Humanist Manifesto III of 2003. The original 1933 document set a historic precedent, bringing together people from a variety of perspectives and settings. Unitarian and Universalist ministers were well represented, along with V.T. Thayer, Director of the Ethical Culture Schools of New York, plus A. Eustace Haydon and Lester Mondale, who later became Ethical leaders (Ericson, p. 70).

I would suggest that the Washington Ethical Society, by affiliating with both the Unitarian Universalist Association and the American Ethical Union, is living out the spirit of cooperation that has powered the Humanist movement in the United States from its inception. Ethical Humanism is a unique expression and tradition within the larger Humanist movement, and yet that larger movement remains important for understanding who we are and what we are here to do. We come to a deeper understanding of identity and mission when we team up.

In fiction, superheroes seem to gravitate to one another. From the X-Men to the Avengers to the Teen Titans, collections of lead characters become ensembles. They have very different abilities and outlooks. Teaming up isn’t always easy, and it can be risky. Household squabbles may become epic battles if super abilities get out of hand. However, when they combine their gifts in the same direction, they can tackle complex problems that none of them would be able to handle alone.

This is why we form coalitions, too. WES is a community of people who have many differences in your individual lives. Diversity in creed and unity in deed, WES members are able to learn together, make music together, serve the community, and witness for justice, without worrying too much about who is an atheist or an agnostic or a theist or a polytheist. Whether among members, or in coalition with our neighbors across religious or geographic lines, we are able to put differences aside as we work for the benefit of our shared community. It does happen, though, that human beings forget, or retreat into what we think is a bubble of sameness, or narrow our scope of what seems possible.

Let’s build on what is already going well as we resist the shrinking of our horizons. There may be partners in our community that we have yet to meet. There may be institutes for exceptional heroes, or halls of justice, that we have to overcome our internalized hurdles of classism and racism before we can join.

At the very least, we can ensure that we’re making the most of our super team here at WES. Like the superheroes, we can do more and support each other when we come together.

Conclusion

There is a lot that WES has in common with an assembly of superheroes. Each one of us has an origin story, a set of events that shaped our talents, passions, and vulnerabilities. Each one of us has the opportunity to shape that story into a life of meaning and purpose. Like superheroes, it is incumbent on us to come to terms with power. Our collective abilities and assets make us a force to be reckoned with, and it is up to us to do the moral discernment to make sure we’re doing a good job wielding that power. Our honesty with each other and practicing all of our shared values and commitments will help. Like the best superheroes, we form alliances. Within the WES community, we share our specialized powers and support one another to accomplish goals none of us could handle alone. In our coalitions with other groups, we build bridges that support compassion. May all that has been divided be made whole.

May it be so.