The story tells us that this baby was born in the evening, too. On December 25, 1821, in a farmhouse in Oxford, Massachusetts, a growing family celebrated a new life beginning.

Clarissa Harlowe Barton was the fifth child of Stephen and Sarah Stone Barton, fully ten years younger than the youngest of her brothers and sisters. The baby of the family, she later wrote: “I had no playmates, but in effect six fathers and mothers. They were a family of schoolteachers. All took charge of me, all educated me, each according to personal taste.” [quoted in Clara Barton (1821-1912), p.26 in People Like Us: Stories About Unitarian Universalists by Elizabeth Gillis. 1988].

Clara, as she was called, learned how to read and write, and how to ride. She learned to cook and to repair things. She learned to be self-sufficient and curious. She loved outdoor activities, and was apparently quite a good ball player. She brought to all her learning a seriousness and a dedication – some say “compulsion” – that propelled her beyond the proprieties of her day and time. As a child, she was thought to be “quite brave ‘for a girl’” [Clara Barton pp. 17-19 in Profiles of Historical Unitarian Universalists. 1984. Unitarian Universalist Association.]. As a woman, she ventured into territory where many women could not – or would not – go. As an adult, she commented on this particular streak of bravery, saying “I must have been born believing in the full right of women to all the privileges and positions which nature accorded her in common with other human beings. Perfectly equal rights – human rights. There was never an question in my mind in regard to this.” [Profiles of Historical Unitarian Universalists, pp 17-18.].

Perhaps she was not, in fact born believing in the universality of human rights. Perhaps this belief is, instead, a reflection of her Universalist upbringing. Clara’s parents were founding members of the Universalist Church in Oxford, and as a child she attended services there faithfully, rarely missing a Sunday. There she learned of a kind and loving God and a Jesus who was divine but in an inclusive, not an exclusive, way. In her own words, written in her 90th year: “I was born to liberal views, and have lived a liberal creed. I firmly believe in the divinity of Jesus of Nazareth – but it would be difficult for me to stop there and believe this spark of divinity was accorded to none other of God’s creation, who, like the Master, took on the living form, and, like him, lived the human life.” Clara Barton in Credo: Unitarians and Universalists of Yesteryear Talk About Their Lives and Motivations. 2001. Donald W. McEvoy. p. 56]. This Universalist conviction of the dignity and value of every human life appears as a theme that inspires much of Clara Barton’s life and work.

And there is another defining trait that shaped Clara Barton’s life and work; we may call it compassion. Doubtless also cultivated in her earliest upbringing, we see compassion in full flower by the tender age of eleven. Clara’s older brother David, then 24, was badly injured in a fall from a barn rafter, and lay near death in his bed in the farmhouse. Clara resolved to take care of him: feed him, give him his medicine, change his bed, and do all the things he needed. For two years, she was his nurse and constant companion. “I almost forgot that there was an outside of the house,” she said. When he recovered, she and the family rejoiced. And yet, the two years had taken their toll on young Clara. In all those months, she had not grown at all, and had gained only one pound. Having lived so closely, so vicariously, through her beloved older brother, she was not prepared to live her own life, and we are told that she became increasingly shy and cautious. Play was a waste of time – at thirteen, she was no longer a child – but she did not feel like an adult. [Profiles of Historical Unitarian Universalists, p 17.].

So, in this family of schoolteachers, she studied. At the age of 17, she received her teacher’s certificate, and began teaching in the school in North Oxford, near her home. Never more than five feet tall, she was dwarfed by some of her students. But by a combination of determination and sportsmanship (remember what a good ball player she was!) Clara asserted and maintained her leadership, and was a very successful teacher throughout her late teens and twenties. People Like Us: Stories About Unitarian Universalists, p. 26]. By 1850, though, she aspired to more education, and enrolled at the Universalists’ Liberal Institute in Clinton New York. There she thrived and made friends, although her diaries reveal a continuing internal struggle against sadness, melancholy, and lack of confidence. [Profiles of Historical Unitarian Universalists, p 17.].

Upon graduation from the Institute, Clara went to visit a classmate in Bordentown, New Jersey. There she was appalled to see a number of children idly playing in the streets when she thought they should have been in school. Asking around, she learned that contrary to state law, the town had no free schools for poor children. Clara approached the school board, proposing to start such a school, offering to teach without pay if the town would furnish a building. Skeptically the school board agreed, warning Clara that these children were unteachable, delinquents, more fit for jail than for school. With her Universalist dander up, Clara began teaching with six students. Within two months, the school had 200 students, and Clara was recruiting her friends from the Clinton Institute to help; by the end of the year there were 600 students, and Clara and her assistants were being paid for their work. By 1853, Bordentown had built a fine new school and hired a principal to administer it: a young man who would be Clara’s supervisor, because a woman could not handle the responsibility of administration. Clara resigned in anger and frustration. She might be willing to teach for nothing, but, she said, “if paid, I shall never do a man’s work for less than a man’s pay.” The experience caused Clara to lose her voice, a problem that would recur throughout her life in times of great stress or frustration.

Leaving Bordentown, she went to Washington, DC, where she found work in the United States’ Patent Office, copying secret documents. We are told that “her fine copperplate handwriting, her integrity, and her ability to keep secrets allowed her to overcome male prejudice and saved her from being dismissed just because she was a woman.” [Janet Bowering. 2000. Biographical Sketch of Clara Barton in Standing Before Us: Unitarian Universalist Women and Social Reform 1776-1936. Dorothy May Emerson, editor, p. 388.] We can infer that she also learned something about the inner workings of governmental bureaucracy in those years, though I doubt she knew how well that expertise would serve her, and her work, in later years.

But by 1861, wounded soldiers from Civil War battles in the South began arriving in Washington, some of them to lie unprotected on docks and railroad platforms awaiting medical care or hospital beds. There were no medical supplies or nurses at the front lines, and young men – valuable, precious human beings – were dying needlessly. Compassion compelled Clara to do what she could. She began by collecting supplies to send to the battlefronts. Beginning with Universalist churches, she appealed for bandages, clothing, towels, medicines, food, money. Word spread and donations poured in. She rented a warehouse and devised an inventory system, sorting, directing, and shipping supplies efficiently to meet the growing need. Drawing on the experience of nursing her brother David, she began working with the wounded in the Washington area, offering food and first aid, writing letters. But even this was not enough for Clara. Months shy of her fortieth birthday, she declared: I’m well and strong and young – young enough to go to the front. If I can’t be a soldier, I’ll help soldiers.” [quoted in Janet Bowering. 2000. Biographical Sketch of Clara Barton in Standing Before Us: Unitarian Universalist Women and Social Reform 1776-1936. Dorothy May Emerson, editor, p. 388.]

In spite –or perhaps because – of official opposition to the idea of respectable women on the battlefield, Clara persisted. She unraveled layers of bureaucratic red tape, finally obtaining a pass from the Surgeon General that allowed her to travel to the front lines, to minister to the wounded she found there. She wrote about the work she did there: “…the work must be accomplished, and no wounded men given into our hands must be left…Oh, sometimes I feel I cannot continue, there is so much suffering, so much privation, so much discouragement, but, my loved ones, the one thought which keeps me constant to my job is this – UNDER ALL LIES THE LIFE OF A NATION.” [quoted in Profiles of Historical Unitarian Universalists, p 18.] And under the life of the nation lay the sacred lives of young men, fighting against each other, fighting for different causes, but equally in need of her care. Shyness receded in the face of such a calling, and Clara continued her work, joined by an ever-growing company. In 1864, she was appointed Superintendent of the Department of Nurses for the Army of the James, supervising a staff of 1500. By war’s end her name was known all over the country.

President Lincoln appointed Clara Barton to search for Union soldiers missing in action. One account tells us that she located 12,800 Union and 400 Confederate soldiers and gave them a proper burial. [Stephen Kendrick. 1988. A Faith People Make. p. 83.] Another source claims she identified 144,000 nameless graves of Union soldiers [Profiles of Historical Unitarian Universalists, p 19.] To help defray the cost of helping thousands of families to lay their loved ones to rest [“Clara Barton, the Shy Girl Who Learned to Be Brave.” Margaret K. Gooding. 1989. A Stepping Stone Year. p. 91], Clara embarked on a lecture tour of the country. But speaking to groups was a far different undertaking than nursing individuals. We are told that Clara spoke eloquently and forcefully, despite being terrified inside. Nonetheless, this work took a familiar toll on her, and in 1868, in Portland Maine, she once again lost her voice. She sailed to Europe for rest and recuperation.

But the work that had so shaped Clara’s life could not really be left behind. In Switzerland, she learned of the International Convention of Geneva and its dedication to the fair treatment and relief of all soldiers in wartime. She observed first-hand their field workers in the International Society of the Red Cross. Before long, she was working side-by-side with them nursing soldiers and refugees in the Franco-Prussian War. She returned to the United States in 1873, and took up what has been described as “the major challenge of her life.” Determined that the United States should adopt the Geneva Convention and become a part of the Red Cross, she campaigned for ten years in the face of “a disinterested government, a nation bent on material gains, and a number of rival relief organizations.” [Janet Bowering. 2000. Biographical Sketch of Clara Barton in Standing Before Us: Unitarian Universalist Women and Social Reform 1776-1936. Dorothy May Emerson, editor, p. 389.] She encountered objections that the United States was no longer at war, and had no need for such guidelines. She responded with her vision of an American Red Cross that would provide help not only in wartime but in peacetime disasters: floods and famines, fires and hurricanes. Drawing again on her experience with governmental bureaucracies, she lobbied seven presidents and ultimately swayed the United States Congress. In 1882, she rejoiced, writing, “We are today…not only in full accord with the International Treaty of Geneva, but are considered one of the strongest pledging nations within it.” [Janet Bowering. 2000. Biographical Sketch of Clara Barton in Standing Before Us: Unitarian Universalist Women and Social Reform 1776-1936. Dorothy May Emerson, editor, p. 389.] Clara Barton became the first president of the American Red Cross, serving until her retirement in 1904, at the age of 83.

We can celebrate the accomplishments of Clara Barton’s life, standing in admiration, even awe, of her dedication and her selflessness. When she died, on Good Friday in the year 1912, the Boston Herald wrote of her: “In war and peace, wherever there had been a battle or a great calamity of any kind in the past half-century, the sufferers have had occasion to bless her name. To her far-sighted work for humanity she brought not only the resources of a great heart, but also an exceptional capacity for organization and administration.” [Profiles of Historical Unitarian Universalists, p 17.]

We can give thanks for her life, and the ways in which it touched our own. The good work of the American Red Cross has likely touched each of us in some way, as recipients or providers of disaster relief, donated blood, or water safety. The agreements of the Geneva Convention still shape the rules of engagement in combat and in the treatment of prisoners of war – including those held in US facilities at Guantanamo Bay and Abhu Ghraib. For these humanitarian resources we can be grateful.

We can celebrate our “family connection” to Clara Barton, considering ourselves heirs to her own deeply-held Universalist beliefs in the sacred value of every human life, and in the power of individual human beings to change the world.

And we can go one step further, this day and every day, with the story of Clara Barton as our inspiration. As we hold such values in our own lives, as we teach them to our children and carry them into the world, as we witness to the power of love to change lives, we are the living vessels of that Universalist tradition. Each time we witness suffering and are moved to take compassionate action, we, like Clara Barton, make the spirit of Love manifest among human beings. Each time we witness injustice and are moved to speak up, to act out, in support of the infinite worth of every human life, we, like Clara Barton, bring the spirit of Life to life.

And each time we find ourselves silenced, as Clara Barton so often found herself without a voice, we can use that time to examine our own hearts, our own convictions, our own spirits. In silence, we can prepare ourselves, as that Christmas baby Clara Barton did, for what Howard Thurman called the work of Christmas. In silence, we can ready ourselves to hear, and to respond to all that calls us into the service of humanity.

Let us take time now, in silence, for that self-examination. For one silent minute, let us listen deeply for those truths that lie deepest within us, those actions that call us out of ourselves, and into our true spirits.

The bell will lead us into silence, and music will lead us out.

Bell
Silence
Meditation music

Amen.

Top of Page