“O TO BE A DRAGON…”
Or, Why the Wyrm is a Most UUseful Symbol
for the Lives and Labors of UUs

In two previous pre-Halloween pulpit-appropriating presentations, I’ve contemplated how we UUs are—among other entities—mutants and dreamers. Today, let’s combine those two and become “muti-ful (and dutiful) screamers:” DRAGONS!

“I desired dragons with a profound desire,” wrote J.R.R. Tolkien in his classic essay On Fairy Stories, “but though I searched diligently all through my childhood, I never found so much as the footprint of a wyrm.” It’s scarcely to be wondered at that this ardent dragon-seeker—(and it must be remembered that “ardent” means “fiery”)--went on to create one of the most memorable wyrms in literature: Smaug the Magnificent in The Hobbit. Another dragon in one of his poems, we are told, “knew the place of the least ring / Beneath the shadow of his black wing.” Such treasure-keepers were the original hoarders, aware of all the wealth they had amassed but utterly unable to use it to benefit either themselves or others— with one exception, also from Tolkien: Chrysophylax the Rich, of his hilarious sendup of the heroic saga: Farmer Giles of Ham.

That wyrm, when confronted by the shrewd rustic of the story’s title, buys his life by allowing the farmer to take a portion of his hoard but leave enough behind “to keep him respectable.” The dragon even accompanies the guileful Giles back to his village and takes up residence there to guard his gifts. In the same way, wealthy UUs may bequeath their fortunes for the good of the “global village”—perhaps we should call them not Questing Beasts but Be-Questing Beasts!

When we consider the dragons of the East, particularly those of China, we are dealing with creatures who give us—and help us to give—riches more precious than gold: wisdom for our fellow mortals and protection for the environment. According to noted dragonologist Ernest Drake (who bears a most perfect name, “drake” being an old synonym for wyrm), it was to a courageous Chinese gentleman from the third millennium B.C.E. named Fu Hsi that a great lung, or water dragon (an early AquaLung?) gave the gift of writing. Fu Hsi used this new learning to teach his people many sciences and arts—in short, “how to become civilized.”
“It is interesting [continues Drake] to note that, while legends of Western dragons portrayed them as vicious, bloodthirsty monsters, Eastern dragons are for the most part seen as benevolent helpmeets to mankind. In the East, such creatures are granted a proper respect.” Chinese wyrms live not only in water but also in earth, air, and fire, and they can be called upon to help humans maintain the health of all four elements. Indeed, the concept of the dragon may well have been an early attempt by pre-scientific societies to explain the power of those natural forces. Children who admire our dragon-headed wand at Wynott’s, which stands for all four elements (and their elementals) are told that, if they’re even picking up after themselves at home, they’re going to be putting a grin on the wand’s scaly chin because that’s doing a kid’s part to clean the planet! We as UUs know how vital it is to help children learn to be good stewards of our beautiful world, and a dragon tale may help them to, um, “wand” to.

Visionary poet Vachel Lindsay, who wrote not only of “dragons great, merry and mad and friendly and bold,” such as we met in our first reading, but also of gigantic bookworms: actual vermicular creatures who keep the wisdom of the ages in their bodies. It was the wise Confucius, says the poet, living in an era in which “right principles had disappeared and perverse discourses and oppressive deeds were waxen rife” (does this sound familiar?) who “was frightened at what he saw and undertook the work of reformation.” The ancient sage did this by putting off his scholar’s gown and becoming one of the lowly. In so doing, he freed the bookworms from their dwellings in library walls to come out into the streets and find the “beggars and clowns” who, unlike the learned, were ready to hear their message. Those dragonlike spirits stung the poor and voiceless to “rebel in might until they’d fight.” How often in history has it been proven that, if a courageous and compassionate teacher dares to bring the good news of equality to a currently-oppressed people, that sets the flint to the tinder for a rebellion that can “shake the towers and counsels of the great.” Since in this era no such charismatic speaker has yet come forward to urge our fellow humans to claim—no, reclaim!—their rights, then we UUs must be not only wisdom-wyrms but Shrek-like dragon/donkey hybrids to inspire them—and we’d better not be “dragon” our “asses” to get out the word! Many of us came to Unitarian Universalism from oppressive—or at least repressive— religious or cultural traditions that denied us the right to think and act for ourselves, perhaps even causing us to regard entire groups of our fellow beings as misguided or malevolent. In that case, the creatures we resemble are those of How to Train Your Dragon, in which the wyrms of that world are controlled by an entity that causes them to regard humans as enemies deserving of destruction. When that mind-power is broken, the dragons accept the young warriors being forced to fight them as bondmates for life, like the great fire-lizards and their riders of the planet Pern.

In the words of Sam Gamgee, then, let us “Take dragons, now” as our motto--and mojo--as we rise on wings of passion for the good of humanity and breathe the fire of liberation from a rule by bigotry and ignorance. Happy Halloween, blessed Witches’ New Year, and--most of all—a soaring, saurian UU Year!