I don’t remember when I stopped being afraid of the dark.  Maybe it was when I realized that frightening things could happen in the light of day as well.  Perhaps it was when I moved to more urban areas where there is plenty of light pollution so the dark of night is no longer so dark.  But at some point I began to realize that the darkness was not something to be afraid of so much as to be embraced as apart of the cycle of things and perhaps even as a metaphor of life’s journey itself.  

Our ability to see ahead of us only goes as far as knowing what lies outside of the shadows. Any further into the shadows and it can be pretty scary.  For our ancestors, it was a matter of life and death regarding what lurked in the dark shadows; where nocturnal animals roaming the woods looking for prey was a real concern.  So when the days began to grow shorter, it meant an increase in the danger of the night.  

To counter-act that fear, our ancestors, especially those in the northern climes would light huge fires.  They believed that the sun-god had died and they were calling forth for the birth of a new sun-god.  So these huge bonfires would be built and cuttings from evergreen trees, hollies, mistletoe would be placed in their homes to protect them from a variety of ills and to remind them of life continuing.  

With the darkest day of the year behind them, they would dance and make merry for the thirteen days of Yule. They would drink hearty ales, ciders and brandies. It would lessen their fear of the dark as they began to see the sun rising a little bit higher in the sky each morning.   It is thought that the word Yule is from the Norse word meaning wheel.  The winter solstice is a time to honor the coming round of the wheel to its beginning again.   

So this is how our ancestors made peace with the darkness.  And we carry on this tradition with our winter holidays.  The celebration of being together yet another year is something we rejoice in.  And while most of us no longer apply the superstitions of keeping some of the ashes of the Yule log in the house to ward off ill health or to adorn the house in greens to ensure health and fertility, we do get together to make merry.  The fires in our hearths and greens on our window sills bring a bit of that warmth and decorations to the season which can be so dreary for many.  

The words of the hymn Dark of Winter[1] offer an important message.   Let’s take a closer look at these words and see what they might tell us about making peace with the darkness. 

“Dark of winter, soft and still, your quiet calm surrounds me.”  

As a child living in rural New York, I used to enjoy watching the snow fall.  There was this stillness, this silence in the snow gliding down to earth.  Everything was quiet.  There were no birds chirping.  There were no cars on the road except for the occasional plow truck.  Everything was calm.  And even though it was dark and grey outside there was a peace that transcended the cold.  As night would fall the only way to see the snow was from whatever light escaped the windows.  And so only the small area where the light shone would be illumined.  The white flakes would almost glow as they softly blanketed the earth.  

“Let my thoughts go where they will, ease my mind profoundly”

It may sound like a strange companion to embrace the darkness.  Yet there is restfulness in the darkness as well.  In the dark we tend to bundle up and get cozy.  There is something nurturing in sitting before a fireplace on a dark and cold winter’s night with some friends and some hot cocoa.  It is a time of reflection, perhaps even of holding no thought in the mind at all except the image of the roaring fire.  

Like the snow falling gently, thoughts can also fall gently where they will.  There is an easiness that can be found when we allow our minds to roam free while watching darkness and snow descending. It is in this listening, this quiet listening to thoughts flowing freely that we can be nurtured.  

“And then my soul will sing a song, a blessed song of love eternal.” 

What songs does your soul sing when all is quiet and dark?  As a child looking out at the snow falling, there would be this sense of awe, this sense of wonder.  If I was at my grandmother’s when the snow was falling, I might spy a deer in the back field bobbing at the last few apples still clinging on the tree.  Even in the cold dark winter, there was still the quietness of nature thriving around my home.  The song my soul sang at such moments was one of gratitude of life.  There is a sense of eternity as snow falls on a windless day.  As far as the eye can see upwards, there is snow falling. As far as the eye can see outward there is snow falling.  And love abounds in such experiences of infinity.  

“Gentle darkness, soft and still, bring your quiet to me.” 

With all the hubbub of the season, the rushing to and fro to get holiday preparations ready, to have a moment of gentle darkness is a gift.  Where there are no glaring lights and holiday musak blasting over the air waves at the stores, a moment of non stimulation. Even the multitude of holiday parties can be a bit of an overload. Just to be still in the darkness can feel so very good.  

“Darkness, soothe my weary eyes, that I may see more clearly.” 

Eyes that are tired from the glare, eyes that are up late searching out the window for loved ones to come home safe,  eyes that in mourning. These are eyes that are exhausted and blurry from trying to see other things, perhaps distracting things. These are eyes that have been filled with tears over aches of the heart.   Sometimes just to rest in the darkness with a warm washcloth over the eyes was the perfect thing to soothe them.  

“When my heart with sorrow cries, comfort and caress me.”

For some this season of making merry has become a painful memory of loved ones gone.  It is hard to celebrate when the pain of loss is still so close to our hearts.  To make peace with this form of darkness is hard.  It means allowing the heart to cry so that moments of comfort can appear.  I think many of us have experienced the crying to the point of exhaustion that we fall asleep.  Darkness is the comfort in those moments. It wraps around us and holds us.  

Within my own family, my father’s youngest brother took his life a year ago this month.  The questions left unanswered.  The unnoticed signs that something was brewing under that quick smile and jovial laugh.  Making peace with the darkness becomes about living with regret of unforgiven moments.   To allow darkness to be a comfort means forgiving ourselves for those now lost opportunities with our loved ones.  To still be able to speak ‘I am sorry’ even into the darkness is an important step towards our own welcoming of the rising sun of spring.   

I have discovered that our relationships do not end with the death of a loved one.  The relationship only transforms into a different kind of relationship, one not embodying the physical plane but instead embodies some emotional, mental, and spiritual plane. Making peace with the darkness; that void of no longer having this person located in time and space is still a relationship with that person.  Darkness can indeed “comfort and caress me” in such moments. 

“And then my soul may hear a voice, a still, small voice of love eternal.” 

While, I still have questions about the finality of death, I have found the memories of my uncle most comforting are those of love shared.  It is these memories that enable me to honor my uncle and enable me to forgive myself for those lost opportunities of forgiveness shared.  It is this still small voice that I hear when I think of my uncle.  The memories of time spent during childhood. Love eternal does not allow itself to be overthrown by the darkness.  It is still there, underlying everything, gathering strength like a seed pod in the dark soil, awaiting the day when it can blossom in full glory.  These moments of darkness does engender in me the desire to seize other opportunities to heal relational wounds. 

“Darkness, when my fears arise, let your peace flow through me.” 

As I began, I am no longer afraid of the dark.  It is a part of the life cycle.  Even though I do not like the shorter days; even though the darkness makes me tire easily, I am no longer afraid of it.  

My fears take on the form of what ifs… a wondering of the future that remains, as far as I know, unformed and unwritten. The future is unknown with myriad of converging factors that will unfold its course.  I can either be passive about the future or I can actively pursue it with the hope that my actions will have some impact on how that future unfolds. So here the darkness becomes a resting stop, a place to regroup, to regenerate my life’s goals.  I can use the darkness as a means to take stock of my life.   And in so doing, allow the peace of this time to flow through me towards a new beginning. 

I am aware that this too is a part of the wheel that our ancestors honored as Yule.   They did this as a community.  They took whatever actions they thought would inspire a good year to unfold.  And so can we, perhaps not with the superstitious actions like preparing and eating hoppin John on New Years for a good year of health and wealth.  But with over arching goals that will help enliven our community to achieve the things we believe will bring our mission to life. 

There is within us such a wealth of support for one another that any darkness that we travel through can be traveled with peace knowing that we do not do it alone.  We have a community that we can gather together to share the joys and the sorrows.  We can dance around the Yule log as in days of old, calling forth the sun god to be born anew.  Recognizing the light of love shines bright in each one of us and empowers us to be at peace.  Blessings,

The congregation I serve in Mississippi  had a guest minister (whose theology is Universalist Christian) come and preach on November 29th.  He asked the church to have an Advent wreath with candles to light.  The congregation decided to keep the Advent wreath for the remainder of the season up to the Christmas Eve service.

Advent isn’t something that Unitarian Universalists note every year any more.   Some congregations will have a service about the season of Advent but I bet these congregations are in the minority.   Advent is from the Latin word meaning coming.  It refers both to the coming of the birth of Jesus at Christmas as well as the second coming of Jesus at the end of the age.  It is a time of preparation, of expectant hope, of waiting for the Messiah to come. 

It is most likely because of our ambivalence to Jesus as being Messiah or in his second return that we Unitarian Universalists have not made much about the season of Advent.  So what would we as Unitarian Universalist be waiting or preparing for? 

In searching for some ideas to develop some Advent wreath lighting words;  I first came across EveryDay Unitarian’s blog about her reflecting on Advent.  And she referred to an interesting new blog entitled Twenty Six Days of Advent written by a Christian who is reflecting on Advent in her life.  In one of her posts she talks about our not choosing to be born in this specific time; in this specific place.  She compares this to the Christian teaching that Jesus was chosen to be born in a specific time and specific place.    She then states, “A specific time, a specific place. We were not chosen to be those who walked with Jesus in Palestine. We were chosen to be here. And what am I blessed to see and hear? What will prophets and kings desire to have seen and heard from what I have experienced? Is there anything in my life wondrous, noteworthy, mysterious? Living in the blank page, our response time to the coming of Jesus, all I can think is “there had better be.” There had better be something worthy left behind when I am gone. And I had better get to it.”

And this is where Unitarian Universalists can celebrate Advent.  It is in preparing our lives to be an example of something wondrous, noteworthy, and yes,  even mysterious.  As  Mary Oliver states, “Tell me, what is it you plan to do With your one wild and precious life?” 

Advent for Unitarian Universalists can be a time of planning, of preparing the way, of welcoming the coming;  if not of the Christ then of the arrival of another life [ours] lived in compassion towards our neighbors seen in the activities to rid the world of oppression and injustice. Such a life demands spiritual fortitude and spiritual practice to re-weave us when the cloth of compassion wears thin. Advent can be that season where we re-fortify our selves for the work we have chosen for this specific time and this specific place.  And we had better get to it. We had better get to it.  Blessings,

I linked my previous post “Peace on Earth, Good Will Toward Men” on my Facebook page where it seems the title caused a couple of my friends to chastise me for not using inclusive language.  There is a difference I believe when using traditional  language versus using inclusive language.

In writing this title, I thought I was quoting a famous quote.   It turns out that I blended two quotes together from traditional sources.   The first is the King James biblical text of Luke 2: 14 “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.” The second is from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s post civil war hymn I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day, which reads “Of peace on earth, good will to men.” It turns out that my title was a blending of these two quotes. These are traditional words and words written during a particular era when the language had different meanings and understandings.

It was a deliberate move on my part to allude to the traditional language.  Not because it is sexist but because the traditional language is part of our cultural milieu  and therefore is familiar to most people.  I am also writing in the South where traditional religious (specifically Christian)  language is commonly used.  To have changed the wording of the title to not allude  directly to the scripture would have been, in my view,  haughty and condescending.    But this begs the question, is it ever appropriate to change language written in an earlier age just so it appeals to modern readers?

I do not believe it is appropriate to change words from an era long gone just because the language usage is harsh to our ears.  I find that disrespectful of the author and a lack of appreciation of the era in which he or she lived.  And frankly it is arrogant for us to assume that we are the enlightened ones in word usage.   In a hundred years time, our language will have changed again and the words we have written today will appear archaic and perhaps exclusive of someone.   There will probably be papers written about our attempts to be inclusive and that we did not go far enough in that direction.  How foolish and unenlightened we were compared with the sophisticated reader of the 23rd century!

There is a joke about UU’s that can also be considered a truism.  The joke goes like this:  Why are UU’s horrible at singing hymns?  Because they are too busy reading ahead to see if they agree with the words.    We have a propensity of changing words that we do not like to sing to fit our thinking of how it should be.  It really is arrogant on our part to do so.  It shows our ignorance in appreciating the literary era in which such words were written.

And yet,  we think nothing of changing the word “wretch” for “soul” in John Newton’s Amazing Grace.   A song about his realization that being a slave trader was a dehumanizing and evil act.  The word “soul” may soothe our delicate ears but the word “wretch” is more accurate to how he felt.  It also emphasizes the grace he felt as being amazing, the word soul misses that mark.   We are being arrogant when we fail to appreciate the words originally used simply because we don’t believe anyone can be a wretch.  If we were honest with ourselves, there were probably times when we  have done some action that only a wretch would commit.  Let’s own up to our times of being a wretch so we can sing this hymn with the heart felt passion in which it was written.

Natalie Sleeth a music composer from the late 20th century wrote a song that many UU’s absolutely love.  It is called Go Now in Peace. The editors of the  Singing the Living Tradition sought to get permission to change one three-letter word in the song.   Ms. Sleeth said absolutely not.  Yet, hundreds of UU’s sing this song incorrectly every week, changing the three-letter word to a four-letter word.  What was the word that offended our sensibilities so very much?  “God.”  We felt that to sing the word “love” instead would be inclusive for our diverse theological  congregations.  Perhaps.  But that is not the word she used.  She wrote “May the love of God surround you”  and not “May the spirit of love surround you”.  For us to really appreciate her words, we need to sing the song as she wrote it. It does not mean we have to agree theologically but we can appreciate the sentiment she was seeking to convey.

It is the same with inclusive language.   Longfellow was not being exclusive when he was writing his famous poem that we sing every Christmas.  Nor was King James or rather the translators who translated the biblical text into English under his reign in the 1600’s.  They were reflections of their day and culture.  We can quote them and appreciate their writings in the context they were written.  We can quote them for the poetry of their words.  It is known as respect. It is known as honoring their integrity even as we recognize that words have changed in their meaning.

May we honor our forebears words even when the words they chose seem harsh or foreign to our ears.  May we read looking for the spirit of the words written and not the logos of the words used.  And May all our words lend themselves to a greater and more lasting peace on earth and good will toward all people.   Blessings,

Peace on Earth; Good Will Toward Men was originally published in the Our Home Universalist Unitarian monthly newsletter for December 2009.   

Another year is coming to a close and our thoughts begin to drift to the holidays of gift giving, parties, and celebrating each other’s company.  These are all good things to do; especially as our economy still struggles to rise from the ashes of mortgage and banking schemes of greed that backfired on millions of people. So what does this season of joy mean to us in the face of such struggle?  Is there true hope that shines over a manger in Bethlehem?    I believe there is. 

Conservative Christians see the birth of Jesus as a fulfillment of the promise of God to redeem the world from sin. To participate in this redemption a person has to confess with their mouth that they have asked for forgiveness of their sins and accept Jesus into their hearts. To quote Joel Osteen; to say this prayer transforms one into a Christian.  

Unitarian Universalists tend not to believe that a simple confession of the mouth will save or transform anyone.  It is not words alone that save us.  If there is a contention between liberal and conservative religion, perhaps it is whether repeating a prayer will save a person from anything let alone from judgment day.  This is not the hope that shines bright each December.  

No, the hope that shines bright is the belief that we can indeed fulfill the promise of “Peace on earth, Good will toward men.”  The purpose of Christmas is not eternal salvation as Rick Warren’s popular book of the same name claims but rather to instill the hope that humanity can evolve to the point where violence—physical, emotional, psychological, spiritual violence—towards one another no longer needs to be the norm.  This sort of transformation does not happen over night, it takes diligence.  It takes discipline, rigorous discipline of the every day kind for that sort of transformation.  

I spent over 20 years of my life as a Charismatic Christian. I have seen many things that I cannot explain.  But the one thing I can explain is why individuals who claimed to be instantaneously freed from addictions (defined as broadly as possible) did not remain in their sobriety of that addiction.  It did not last when the holy chills of the moment wore off unless they committed themselves to the work of one day at a time.   Jesus’ command to “go and sin no more” was not just an idle saying.  As anyone in alcoholics anonymous can tell you it takes a recommitment every day and sometimes every hour, every minute to fulfill Jesus’ word of “go and sin no more.” 

It is the same for all of us.  The spiritual journey is not a blanket that is wrapped around us on a cool evening but a diligent stoking of the fires of warmth and generosity.  It is not a check off list— complete laundry; buy groceries; accept Jesus into my heart—that’s now done, where’s the party? The teaching of Jesus’ to love our neighbor as our self takes the kind of discipline that a person in AA takes to remain sober. Unitarian Universalists believe this is the way towards the Christmas promise.   Whether you claim to be a Christian, a Unitarian Universalist, a Jew, a Muslim, a Buddhist, a Mormon; by whatever stripe you are healed, work out your salvation not just in words but in your commitment to actions that bring peace on earth, good will towards all.  Blessings,

A congregant came to me today stating they were experiencing a crisis of faith.  A good conversation followed.  Without going into to the details one of the comments in the conversation referred to the various doctrines that are out there.  Who is right?  Who is wrong?  Each claim to have the correct doctrine.  What is one to believe?  What if they are right and we are wrong? 

Unitarian Universalism is a creedless faith.  We do not claim that one doctrine is the correct one above all else.  Instead we covenant to support one another in the living of the question, to support each other in their quest for meaning and truth.   The question will always be asked.  It might be a different question that arises but a question will always be asked.  A crisis in faith will always occur at some point in our lives.

Jesus was once asked the question what was the greatest commandment.  He answered according to the Christian scriptures, 

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.  This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it: Love your neighbour as yourself.” (Matthew 22: 37-39 NIV)

The rest as another wise rabbi once stated is commentary.  Now Unitarian Universalists may have a hard time with the phrase “the Lord your God.”  But if we consider what is being stated with this phrase is not just a divine entity who rules over all of creation with a firm and heavy hand but rather that which is ultimate, that which is the greatest good, that which is worthy of our devotion, that which is honorable, that which is just; then the phrase “the Lord your God” takes on a different connotation.   To live our lives with that level of passion in what we do is a transformative act.  It will shape everything we do with our lives in the here and now.  

The rest indeed becomes commentary.  It no longer matters if I believe that Jesus was born of a virgin, died on the cross for my sins, or even if he rose again from the dead.  Nor does it matter if I believe that God is One or if God is three in one or if there are many Gods.  Nor does it matter if I believe in reincarnation or if this is the only life I live.  The doctrines becomes commentary. 

The essence of all religions using slightly different words perhaps boil down to these two commandments.  For the Buddhist, for example,  it is to be mindful in all things; to be awake to this present moment.  When we are awake in the Buddhist sense then we are engaging our whole heart, mind, and soul. 

How one goes about living their life in this manner is open for debate.  For some it may be by embracing Christianity.  For another it may be in embracing Buddhism or Islam, or Hinduism, or Wicca.  But to do so with passion, with ones whole being is to love the Lord your God with ones whole self.  To express this love to others is the second part of this mystery. 

I told this person a bit of my own travel through crises of faith.  When I was still a conservative Christian and still in the closet, I worked with people living with AIDS.  There was one man who I would visit and bring dinners to him almost every night.  He had been excommunicated from his church and from his family, except two of his 13 siblings, because he had HIV/AIDS .  The church believed that this meant he wasn’t sincere in his repentance because if he had been, then he would not experience this dreadful disease. 

Our doctrines sometimes narrows our lives rather than expand them.  Our doctrines should expand our understandings of love and not narrow them. 

Anyway, I would visit this man who had become bed bound.  This was in the days when hospices would not accept HIV/AIDS patients and he was not so sick that he needed hospitalization.  So he only had these two siblings who would visit and several volunteers.   This one night, I brought dinner over.  He was asleep.  So I decided to stay and sit with him and pray.   As I was praying, I looked over at him and in the dim light of the room, I saw in that bed not Jesse (name changed)  but rather Jesus lying there.  Or what I would have thought Jesus would look like lying there.  

I was entering a crisis of faith as I was beginning to wrestle with my identity as a gay man.  Here before me was another gay man who appeared to me as  Jesus to me at that particular moment.  How do I love someone who is gay and the antithesis of the doctrines I embraced?  How do I love myself enough to be able to love another?  How do I reconcile the doctrine with my experiences?   The answer in that moment seemed so simple. 

To see everyone as worthy of  devotion, worthy of love, worthy of service, worthy of life.  It was shortly there after and a few more eye-opening experiences that I came out of the closet.  And entered another crisis of faith with my Christian community regarding what I was finding true and what they taught as true.  

There will probably always be a crisis of faith that will release new questions and new wonderings about the nature of this world.  But I believe if I hold to the standard of  loving the utmost highest good with my whole heart, mind, and soul then the rest will be commentary.

(This is the second of a series of sermons at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Tuscaloosa reflecting on James Luther Adams’ Five Smooth Stones of Liberal Relgion.  8 November 2009 (c) )

Reading: Good Fences Make Good Neighbors by James Luther Adams (From a sermon he presented at Appleton Chapel in Harvard University’s Memorial Church, Cambridge, MA in 1984.) 

In the old days at Harvard, earlier in this [20^th] century, the former Appleton Chapel was located on this spot where we are at this moment.  At the worship services that much larger chapel was filled with hundreds of students.  The reason for this is simple. Attendance was required.

In those days the doors were locked when the bells stopped ringing.  No late students could enter the chapel.  The monitors then stood in their several places to record the absentees. 

On the occasion when required attendance was formally abolished at the instigation of the university preacher, Professor Francis Greenwood Peabody, he said in his address that he had been studying compulsory attendance at chapel in various parts of the commonwealth, including the state penitentiary in Concord.  The only difference he could find, he said, between chapel services at Harvard and those at the Concord penitentiary was that in Concord the monitors carried guns, an appropriate symbol for coercion.  For some years the Yale Chapel retained the practice of required attendance.  I recall that Dean Willard Sperry of Harvard Divinity School reported that when he was guest preacher at Yale he could not from the pulpit see the faces of the students.  In protest against compulsory attendance they hid themselves behind their newspapers, and the preacher could see only an expansive patchwork quilt of unfolded newspapers.  Subsequently, Yale Chapel also abolished the practice.  We may say that the abolition of required attendance means that religion and compulsion are by nature incompatible.

Five Smooth Stones: Mutual Consent

We last left our hero, James Luther Adams, a prominent 20^th century liberal theologian with the first stone of liberal religion. To recap, Adams speaks of five components that are essential to liberal religion. 

“These five components were titled the Five Smooth Stones of Liberal Religion based on the biblical story of young David who single-handedly slew the opposing giant and enemy of the country with five smooth stones and a slingshot.    These stones are the following:  1) Continuous revelation, 2) Mutual consent and not coercion need to be the basis of all human relations 3) Moral obligation towards the establishment of a just and loving community 4) Denial of the immaculate conception of virtue and affirm the necessity of social incarnation and 5) the resources (divine and human) that are available for the achievement of meaningful change justify an attitude of ultimate optimism.”[1] 

The second stone of liberal religion is “Mutual consent and not coercion need to be the basis of all human relations.”  Now it may seem like common sense to us that this indeed needs to be the case.  It is part of our heritage as religious liberals.  But recent events reveal to us that mutual consent is not the experience of all human relations. 

It has even been argued that there are times when mutual consent is not even the best way to behave in some human relations.  We saw this argument being played out in the defense of using torture to interrogate known and alleged terrorists. 

Former President Bush in defending the use of torture (as defined by the 1984 Convention Against Torture which was signed by President Reagan and ratified by the US Senate in 1994) said in a radio address explaining his veto against a congressional bill against water-boarding and other abusive interrogation techniques: “This is no time for Congress to abandon practices that have a proven track record of keeping America safe. …We created alternative procedures to question the most dangerous al-Qaeda operatives, particularly those who might have knowledge of attacks planned on our homeland.” Bush said. “If we were to shut down this program and restrict the CIA to methods in the [Army] field manual, we could lose vital information from senior al-Qaeda terrorists, and that could cost American lives.” [2]

 My point here is not to debate whether a former president did or did not violate an international agreement on torture; nor whether he was correct in his statements that torture yielded accurate and vital information regarding terrorist activities to attack the US.  My point is that the use of torture in any format is an extreme use of coercion in human relations and therefore violates one of the principal cornerstones of liberal religion.

So where did this notion of mutual consent in human relations originate and become part of the liberal branch of religion?   Adams argues that just like chickens that establish a pecking order, “Liberalism, in its social articulation, might be defined as a protest against ‘pecking orders’” in favor of mutual consent.  Mutual consent has its roots in the Hebrew Scriptures and in the gospel records of Jesus’ teachings.  It resurfaced in the Reformation with the teachings of Martin Luther declaring the priesthood of all believers.   It found its way into the foundations of the early congregations in New England with the Cambridge Platform, a covenant honoring the mutual consent of autonomy between congregations.  This protest continues today and is most noted in the vote against the prescribed pecking order of this society with the overwhelming election of America’s first African American as president.   

Adams states, “This protest often found its sanction in the basic theological assertion that all are children of one God, by which is meant that all persons by nature potentially share in the deepest meanings of existence, all have the capacity for discovering or responding to ‘saving truth,’ and all are responsible for selecting and putting into action the right means and ends of cooperation for the fulfillment of human destiny.”[3]

It is from this theological basis that free inquiry is essential to liberal religions as well as liberal societies and governments.  If a person is seeking infallible guidance, Adams states, “they are not going to find it in liberal religion.”  The refusal to submit to divine authority –be it a pope, scriptures, or doctrine has been stated as our mortal sin from the true path of orthodoxy.  Adams answers this charge by stating it is pretentious pride for anyone thinking “capable of recognizing infallibility, for they must themselves claim to be infallible in order to identify the infallible.”[4]

Yet, the process against the pecking order towards mutual consent is found in the free inquiry and study of “the words of the prophets, in the deeds of saintly men and women, and in the growing knowledge” of human nature and the universe through the sciences “that evoke the free loyalty and conviction of people exposed to them in open discourse.”

To evoke the free loyalty and conviction of people through open discourse is perhaps the biggest challenge that we face today in this country.  There are those from conservative religious circles that want to coerce society to resemble their ideals, their theology, their hardened rules and protocols denying the words of the prophets, denying the saintly deeds of men and women, denying growing body of knowledge on human nature and sciences that contradict the doctrines that they claim as divine truth.

These conservative religious bodies seek to pre-empt open discourse by using platitudes and rhetoric that no longer have any authoritative weight except within their circles of faith.  To engage openly and honestly without resorting to doctrines and rhetoric would perhaps cause their own faith to begin to question their prized doctrines and see the bondage in which they have trapped themselves.  Yet if they were to enter into open dialogical debate without resorting to two thousand year old texts; they would find their faith come alive in amazing transforming ways converting them to honor the ever more inclusive spirit of love. 

I speak from my own spiritual journey of conservative Christianity to liberal Unitarian Universalism.  It was with openness to mutual consent, a covenant of being, that I entered into this dialogue and found the waters there liberating me to love justice in new and profound ways.

I mentioned torture as being an extreme form of coercion.  Tactics used to coerce information do only one thing; they rape the individual of their dignity of being human.  Tactics that deny the bodies of knowledge from the psychological and sociological sciences that detail the harm done to the person.   These tactics of coercion reduce the person to an object, a thing and in doing so reduce the abuser to an object as well. 

But there are other forms of coercion occurring today that requires noting.  One is the long standing battle to have prayer in the public schools. This resurfaces every couple of years since it was removed from schools in 1962 as being unconstitutional.   It is a form of coercion of the conservative religious to insist that a public prayer be said.  The question remains as to whose prayer would be said?  A Christian Prayer complete with “In the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, we pray?”  Or a Muslim prayer?  A Hindi prayer?  A Buddhist Metta?  A Wiccan chant?  And who decides? 

Several years ago now, the UU congregation in Danbury, CT sought to place an advertisement in the local paper.  It was an ad developed by the denomination.  It showed a photograph of two women with the headline: God does not have to be male, straight and white.  The newspaper refused to publish it as they felt it did not match the moral standards of the community.   It is argued by prayer in school proponents that the moral standards of the community would be the measure in which to choose the public prayers in school.   And when they state moral standards they mean their particular brand of moral standard. 

Our reading this morning by James Luther Adams highlights the incompatibility of compulsion and religion.  But the incompatibility is far more sinister than that.  Adams discusses Reagan’s argument for a constitutional amendment for public prayer in schools.  Reagan harkened back to the ancient civilizations of Rome and Greece falling because they had abandoned their gods.  He believed the alleged decline of morality in this country is the result of our doing the same.  Adams states Reagan’s defense calls “for the revival of a compulsory feature of the authoritarian government of the Roman Emperor Constantine in the fourth century.” It was the practice of the magistrate to enforce the faith of the church and to “wield the secular arm on behalf of God and country.” [5]  It is this practice that the conservative religious wish to impose on the rest of the country with the public prayer in school debate. 

President James Madison in summarizing the First Amendment said, “Congress should not establish a religion and enforce the legal observation of it by law, nor compel men to worship God in any manner contrary to their conscience, or that one sect might obtain a pre-eminence, or two combined together, and establish a religion to which they would compel others to conform.”[6]  It is this compelling others to conform that liberal religion opposes.  

We find this coercion to conform in the continuing battle to overturn Roe v Wade.  There is a doctrinal belief of those seeking to define the rights of a woman over her own body as being equivalent to murder and seeking equal rights protection for the unborn.  The problem is not that a religious doctrine exists for members of a specific religious group regarding prohibiting abortion.  The problem is compelling others who do not belong to their religious group to abide by their doctrines.     

There is also the coercion of conservative religious regarding the equal marriage amendment that failed by a mere five percent difference in Maine this past week.  Those wanting equal marriage rights argued for the right to define what is a loving marriage and family and for those definitions to be honored by the state.  Those not wanting same gender marriages to be recognized used coercive tactics of fear to compel the voters in Maine to vote down the amendment which would have ratified the legislative vote of the previous session.  Their doctrine that marriage is defined by one man one woman is based solely on a selective reading and interpretation of texts from a culture we can never fully understand.  They have declared their doctrine to be the only correct one and are attempting to compel other religious and non-religious groups to adhere to that doctrine.  It is a coercive act to place inalienable rights of whom one can enter into a covenanted relationship with, such as marriage, to the vote of the majority.   There is a powerful commercial where a young man goes door to door, from village to village, asking if he may have the hand of his love in marriage.  The covenant of marriage is a local covenant; to have to seek federal or state approval is a sign of the coercive powers of oppression. 

Many in Maine and in California believe that the denial of recognizing same gender marriage under the law means they are in the right.  However, time will prove that where people are free to govern their own bodies, to form with love and respect their own relationships and have these decisions be honored by the governments in which they live is a more dignified way to live. 

Liberal religions, Unitarian Universalists as one example, are often criticized for allowing diverse opinions to being shared within the realm of the congregation.  It is the erroneous thought that we stand for nothing or that we can believe whatever because we allow and even encourage the expression of diverse opinions. On the contrary it is with deeply held convictions that we seek to allow our individual voices to be heard. 

We have come to understand that revelation is continuous and therefore may arise out of any sector of our congregation and from any sector of our society.  Therefore we seek to ensure that all are free to live their lives to their fullest potential.  We seek to remove the impediments of oppression where ever they may be found.  

James Luther Adams wrote:  “I call that church free which in charity promotes freedom in fellowship, seeking unity in diversity. This unity is a potential gift, sought through devotion to the transforming power of creative interchange in generous dialogue.  But it will remain unity in diversity.”

The path towards mutual consent is a path fraught with rocks of incomplete understandings.  It is therefore a continuous evolution of new insights and understandings that can only be discovered in an open dialogue.   It means that not everyone will be on the same page at the same time.  It means that some will have the same information and interpret it with slightly different nuances but if those people are able to remain open to those who have come to slightly different interpretations; then a more complete understanding may prevail.  Liberal religion seeks to be the place where these discussions can take place. 

We liberal religious folks tend to shy away from being evangelical regarding our faith, yet it is important that our message is heard in the market place of ideas.  Not in a coercive manner compelling others to believe as we do but in a consensual manner where all voices are respected and heard. In doing so, liberal religion seeks to be the yeast that leavens the whole of society towards justice and equality for all. 

[2] as found at  http://pubrecord.org/torture/160/bushs-torture-quote-undercuts-denial/

[3] Adams, Five Smooth Stones of Liberalism as found in The Guiding Principles for a Free Faith.

[4] IBID

[5] Adams, Good Fences Make Good Neighbors  The Prophethood of All Believers, ed. by George K. Beach

[6] Annals of Congress, Sat Aug 15th, 1789 pages 730 – 731  as found at http://candst.tripod.com/tnppage/qmadison.htm

Sermon delivered at Our Home Universalist Unitarian Church on 1 November 2009. 

Love is the Doctrine by Rev. Fred L Hammond 

We say this covenant every week.  “Love is the doctrine of this church, the quest of truth is its sacrament and service is its prayer.”  What does this mean to us as we close out the first decade of the 21^st century?   What does this mean to us as we close out the first year of a new presidency?  What does this mean to us as we debate and argue over health care reform, equal rights for gays, the escalating war in Afghanistan, bailouts for the oligarchic financial system, and the dismantling of agencies that successfully advocate for the poor and the oppressed?  

What does this mean—indeed?   I read a lecture by one of the pillars of our faith, Alice Blair Wesley, and these two sentences popped out at me, “What ought the lay members of a liberal free church understand our kind of church to be about, now, in our time?” She answers, “Strong, effective lively liberal churches, sometimes capable of altering positively the direction of their whole society, will be those liberal churches whose lay members can say clearly, individually and collectively, what are their own most important loyalties, as church members.”[1] 

Their most important loyalties.  It is difficult to articulate this as church members.  We have so many different loyalties, even within a congregation of our number, our loyalties are varied.   And to then place it on a denominational level, what are our loyalties then?  It is hard to encompass the scope of it all.  And harder still to understand how we could be on opposite sides of an issue.  

Yet, we do not dictate or demand uniformity of belief in our congregations.  We do not say to a potential member, if you are not in 100% agreement with us on this or that issue, this or that doctrine, then you cannot be a member here.    We strive, sometimes successfully, to let those differences fade into the background as we seek to live our covenant. And that brings us back to the question, what are our loyalties as a church?  What do we serve when we come together on Sunday mornings?  To what ends are we serving when we go back to our weekly schedules?  

“Love is the Doctrine of this Church, the quest of truth is its sacrament and service is its prayer.   To dwell together in peace, to seek knowledge in freedom, to serve human need, to the end that all souls shall grow into harmony with the Divine—Thus do we covenant with each other and with God.” 

If this covenant is indeed where our loyalties lie individually and collectively as a church, then how does this play out in our daily lives?   According to Random House Dictionary a sacrament is “a visible sign of an inward grace; something regarded as possessing a sacred character or mysterious significance; an oath; a solemn pledge.”   So when we state that the quest of truth is its sacrament, it means that we visibly, solemnly seek truth as an act of love.  We recognize that this love has a mysterious significance to us, that truth might remain elusive to us or that we might only see glimpses of an unfolding reality.   But to seek truth as an act of love opens us up to the possibilities of transforming our ideas, our bigotries, and our biases for something more inclusive, something more embracing in the other.  

To love our neighbor as we love ourselves is not an easy task to do.  We do not always love ourselves in the fullness that love has to offer us.  We sometimes carry within our beings the scars of abuse; either familial or societal, or the scars of oppression; either internal or external phobias that hold us down from our potential.  And so it is hard to sometimes love someone else when we do not love ourselves very much.  And as we vow to seek truth as a sacrament of that love, it is sometimes difficult for us know how that love should manifest in our midst.  But that is what we seek to do as we honor and uphold Love as our doctrine. 

Service is its prayer; service is love’s prayer.  How are we in service to one another?  How is that a prayer?  Here prayer takes on a much larger meaning than just a desire for something to happen.  For example, it is more than just asking the powers of the universe to restore to health a friend who is ill.  It is asking and acting together.  It is thought and action combined.  Service is action.  Prayer is the desire for the difference to be made in love.  It is doing what is needed to help that friend recover their health, and what that may be is myriad of possibilities.  Service is relational.  It is transactional.  It is transformational.   

It is one thing to ask for equal rights for sexual minorities.  It is another to ask and to combine it with service.  Opening the doors of the church so that PFLAG can meet here to offer support to families of gay children is service as a prayer.  Opening the doors of the church so teens have a safe place to gather and express themselves in discussion, music, and poetry is service as a prayer.  The prayer is that gays would find acceptance in our community.  The prayer is that our teens will find avenues where they can develop into their full potential as loving compassionate adults. The answers to these prayers begin with the opening of our doors.  

The common goals of this questing for sacramental truth and service as prayer are to dwell in peace, to seek knowledge in freedom, to serve human need.  To dwell in peace does not mean silence.  Peace does not necessarily mean tranquility.  Peace is a state of being that is assured that all is well even when the earth is quaking beneath us. To dwell in peace is an assurance that regardless of what you or someone else is going through that you are not alone but in covenanted community.  

When the Unitarian Universalist congregations in New Orleans and the Mississippi coast were destroyed by the effects of Katrina, as devastating and heartbreaking as that was for them personally, there was peace that held them knowing that they were not abandoned by their denomination.  People from across the country came into their communities to help them rebuild and are continuing to help them rebuild is the proof of that assurance.  There is peace that they will survive. 

When the news of the Knoxville shooting at the Unitarian Universalist congregation occurred, as painful and heart wrenching as that event was, there was a peace that assured them they were not alone in their grief.  The community congregations regardless of doctrinal differences poured out their hearts to the members of this congregation.  And so did members of Unitarian Universalist congregations across the country, some by offering their skills in trauma counseling and others in their cards and notes and money for the surviving families.  

And here in Laurel when ICE agents raided Howard Industries and arrested 600 plus workers on suspect that they may have been undocumented. Some of them were some of them weren’t.  There was an assurance of peace to those families by members of this congregation by dropping off food supplies to the families that suddenly lost their income. And there was an offer of peace when I stood with them in prayerful vigil, the only local clergy person, when they sought for their personal affects and final paychecks.  I was moved at how grateful these families were that someone, who represented to them a loving presence of the church, was there to stand in witness of their plight. To dwell in peace does not always mean tranquility but it does mean assurance of a supporting presence.  

To seek knowledge in freedom.  It may seem to be an odd thing to have this as a goal of this covenant but it is essential, for without it we have coercion, manipulation and propaganda.   This is perhaps more important for us today.  We have in this country a movement that seeks to shape the knowledge that is available.  It will take congregations like ours to recommit to this ideal that knowledge needs to be sought in freedom to ensure that our nation remains free.  

There is a resurgence of McCarthyism in our nation. This is being defined as “the reckless, unsubstantiated accusations, as well as demagogic attacks on the character or patriotism of political adversaries”.  We are seeing it through the irresponsible journalism of the Fox network.  It is one thing for a newspaper or television to have a conservative slant but it is another when the newspaper or television begins to use their resources to create the news they wish to cover. When I was studying journalism in my undergraduate work, the number one rule in journalism was to report the news, not become the news.  Fox News has in its manipulation of information restricted the freedom needed to find knowledge and their efforts have made them the news. 

Fox news is a source and one of the primary sponsors for the tea party protests that have occurred this past year.  These protests are based in falsehoods and misinformation propagated by Fox News.  They have grossly overcovered these events to give the appearance that they were larger than they really were.  For example, they gave on site coverage for a protest that no one was still in attendance.  And when another protest march was taking place in Washington, the National Equality March, a group that Fox news does not support, Fox did not cover it themselves and downplayed the attendance to a mere 70K which was the number allegedly in attendance at their teaparty protest the week before. Every other news network reported that upwards  to over 200K people being in attendance.   

But in case I be accused of mud-slinging with bias, let me add that the other news networks are not innocent in their manipulation of the news or their hindering of conveying knowledge.  They have taken a back seat when misinformation is spouted on their networks.  They do not do the fact checking that is needed when someone with an agenda, be it liberal or conservative, spouts unsubstantiated figures as if they are factual.  All of the news networks have failed their mission in reporting accurate news and instead are reporting opinions about the news.  Opinons that have one purpose and one purpose only and that is to divert attention away from an open and honest debate to one that is simply divisive.  The health care reform debate is just one example where the news networks have failed in informing the American public the facts of what true reform will mean to the average American.  

These words in our covenant are not simply nice words to say.  They have meaning in today’s climate of retrograde politics.  And these words could potentially mean risking our freedoms to support them like they did in the McCarthy era. 

To serve the human need.  James Luther Adams once said the purpose of church was to practice being human.  Church should be a place where our humanity is held in the safety of the sheltering arms of the congregation.  It is also a place where we can begin to serve the human need.  In our congregations regardless of size there is someone who is in need of a hug, a listening ear, or a word of encouragement.   There is someone in our congregations that need to be seen for who they are and not who they are forced to be in the world outside these doors. 

Yes, the human need exists beyond these doors and we have already mentioned how we have made a difference and are going to be making difference in these lives.  But for this one moment, take a look around you and see who is here in this room right now.  This is where we begin to serve the human need.  Right here, right now.  

To the end that all souls shall grow into harmony with the Divine—

We affirm in our principles that we are all part of the interconnected web.  Many have come to believe that this means all of creation, not just humanity.  And so all souls has an expanded meaning of all creation growing into harmony with the Divine.  The Divine can be seen as not just a godforce but also as a lifeforce, a creative force that when we are in harmony with it  allows creation to fulfill its fullest potential.  

Thus do we covenant with each other and with God.  Thus do we promise, pledge, vow, to be our highest loyalty as individuals and collectively as members.  And when we fail, as surely we will, we will revisit these words and begin again to love, to seek truth as love’s sacrament, and service as love’s prayer.   Blessed Be.

(This is the first of a series of sermons at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Tuscaloosa reflecting on James Luther Adams’ Five Smooth Stones of Liberal Relgion. 25 October 2009 (c) )

Reading: The Five Smooth Stones of Liberalism by James Luther Adams 

Whatever the destiny of the planet or the individual life, a sustaining meaning is discernable and commanding in the here and now.  Anyone who denies this denies that there is anything worth taking seriously or even worth talking about. Every blade of grass, every work of art, every scientific endeavor, every striving for righteousness bears witness to this meaning.  Indeed, every frustration or perversion of truth, beauty, or goodness also bears this witness, as the shadow points round to the sun.

One way of characterizing this meaning is to say that through it God is active or is in the process of self-fulfillment in nature and history.  To be sure, the word “God” is so heavily laden with unacceptable connotations that it is for many people scarcely usable without confusion.  It is therefore well for us to indicate briefly what the word signifies here.  In considering this definition, however, the reader should remember that among liberals, no formulation is definitive and mandatory.  Indeed, the word “God” may in the present context be replaced by the phrase “that which ultimately concerns humanity” or “that in which we should place our confidence.” 

God (or that in which we may have faith) is the inescapable, commanding reality that sustains and transforms all meaningful existence.  It is inescapable, for no one can live without somehow coming to terms with it.  It is commanding, for it provides the structure or the process through which existence is maintained and by which any meaningful achievement is realized.  Indeed, every meaning in life is related to this commanding meaning, which no one can manipulate and which stands beyond every merely personal preference or whim. It is transforming, for it breaks through any given achievement, it invades any mind or heart open to it, luring it on to richer or more relevant achievement; it is a surpassing reality.  God is the reality that works upon us and through us and in accord with which we can discern truth, beauty or goodness.  It is that reality which works in nature, history, and thought and under certain conditions creates human good in human community.  Where these conditions are not met, human good, as sure as night follows the day, will be frustrated or perverted. True freedom and individual or social health will be impaired.

 Five Smooth Stones: Continuous Revelation

I had two dreams recently that I found to be quite interesting to me because they had to do with previous eras of my life.  Both are periods of my life that in contrast to where I am today are foreign to me.  

In the first dream, I am in a charismatic prayer meeting.  I didn’t recognize the place but I had a friend of mine from seminary at this meeting.  And I am much younger in this dream; I am the age I was when I would attend such meetings.  And if this dream were truly accurate in its time span, that would have meant my seminarian friend would have been a young teen since he is about fifteen years my junior but he is not, he is the age I first met him making us roughly the same age.   In the dream, John is seized in the spirit and begins to sing a song, two verses.  He finishes and then I am seized in the spirit and sing the final verse of the song.  The people in the meeting tell us that we must write the song down in order to preserve this song and we begin a search for pen and paper.  Which cannot be found.  So I am singing my verse over and over again so that I would not forget the words that had moved the congregation so very much…

(sings) “Praise god in the morning, praise god in the evening, praise god every day, that’s what I do.” 

Catchy tune right?  Time passes and I am still searching for pen and paper. I travel to distant lands and cultures looking for pen and paper and still I cannot find them.  Finally I stop at a fish market and there is yesterday’s NY Daily News.  The newspaper used to wrap the fish in.  And I tear off the front page and grab the wax crayon and write down the song.  End of dream. 

The second dream I am at some point in the not too distant future and sent back in time to the late 1980’s.  It is the height of the AIDS pandemic in terms of fear.  Remember the time period of the 1980’s in relation to AIDS. There is no true understanding of how this virus is working.  There are no effective medications.  AZT the first anti-retroviral drug to be used on people with AIDS is still in clinical trials.  People who are diagnosed with AIDS are told to get their affairs in order because they have less than a year to live.  The gaunt eyes, the skin draped skeletal figures of those with AIDS is a haunting image that appear in this dream and are in my memory of this period.   People with AIDS are still quarantined in hospitals and nurses and doctors alike will refuse to treat them for fear of contracting the disease.  

Here I am, from the future, knowing that this present condition regarding AIDS will not last.  In fact, it is at a close because in a few years there will be not just one medication to attack the virus that causes AIDS but several kinds of medications that combined will cause what the medical world called the Lazarus effect.  People will rise up from their death beds and regain health and live with the virus for perhaps their normal life span. 

 In my dream I am trying to tell these people with AIDS what I know to be true.  But I not only knew what was in their immediate future in terms of medical breakthroughs with medications, I knew that a vaccine was created that acted similar to the anti-retroviral cocktails that attacked the virus from different angles.  The vaccine released a variety of anti-bodies doing the same kind of multiple front attacks, thereby keeping the virus from being able to get a foothold in the body in the first place.  I knew this because I was coming to them from a future that was even further in the distance than the present day.   

Stating these future events to these people was like telling them some piece of fiction.  It could not be comprehended.  They did not know, could not know, if they would be among those who would live long enough to receive the multiple drug cocktail that would shrink the specter of AIDS to an aggressively managed chronic disease let alone live long enough to see a vaccine that would effectively place HIV on the shelf like smallpox.  The dream ends with these people looking at me with blank faces of total dismay at my words of what will be true. 

I have an interesting dreamscape.  Place these dream stories on hold for a moment. 

 James Luther Adams, the most prominent of Unitarian Universalist theologians in the 20^th century talked about five components that made liberal religion vital for this day and age.   These five components were crucial not only to liberal religion but crucial to the history of humanity because it is liberal religion that has influenced the course of history towards the reign of heaven.   If these five components are to fade away from liberal religion then what we are left with is a return to theocracy, a hierarchal authoritarian rule both in religion and in the state.  

These five components were titled the Five Smooth Stones of Liberal Religion based on the biblical story of young David who single-handedly slew the opposing giant and enemy of the country with five smooth stones and a slingshot.    These stones are the following:  1) Continuous revelation, 2) Mutual consent and not coercion need to be the basis of all human relations 3) Moral obligation towards the establishment of a just and loving community 4) Denial of the immaculate conception of virtue and affirm the necessity of social incarnation and 5) the resources (divine and human) that are available for the achievement of meaningful change justify an attitude of ultimate optimism. 

These smooth stones Adams suggests arose out of the reformation in the 1500’s and 1600’s.  James Luther Adams writes: 

“We of the Free Church tradition should never forget, or permit our contemporaries to forget, that the decisive resistance to authoritarianism in both church and state, and the beginning of the modern democracy, appeared first in the church and not in the political order.  The churches of the left wing of the Reformation held that the churches of the right wing had effected only half a reformation.  They gave to Pentecost a new and extended meaning.  They demanded a church in which every member, under the power of the Spirit, would have the privilege and the responsibility of interpreting the Gospel and also of assisting to determine the policy of the church. The new church was to make way for a radical laicism—that is, for the priesthood and the prophethood of all believers.  ‘The Spirit blows where it wills.’

 “Out of this rediscovery of the doctrine of the Spirit came the principles of Independency: local autonomy, free discussion, the rejection of coercion and of the ideal of uniformity, the protection of minorities, the separation of church and state.”[1] 

It was out of this movement of liberal religion that our democracy was born and has its being. It was liberal religion that influenced the core concepts of the Declaration of Independence, the preamble to our constitution and the Bill of Rights.  The revelation that began to occur in the reformation and dare I say had its roots in the primitive church of Christianity but was thwarted by the conservative branch of the church; continued to grow and blossomed into the life we now enjoy and take for granted.  

James Luther Adams first smooth stone is that revelation is continuous. There is always something new to be revealed. There is always something new to be uncovered. 

And therefore, as our morning quote for reflection  of Adams states, because revelation is continuous then “Nothing is complete and thus nothing is exempt from criticism.” 

Let’s take apart this notion of revelation.  What is it?  In a strictly mystical sense, revelation is something that is transcendental.  It transcends the current state of affairs with information that was previously unknown.  Our myth stories are filled with oracles and prophets who have an uncanny supernatural ability to see and hear what no one else can and therefore are able to grant wisdom to the listener or seeker of such wisdom.  That is one kind of revelation. 

But revelation has another meaning as well.  It is the by-product of reason.  It is the reviewing of current evidence in a manner that sheds new insights into problems or situations that benefit others.  We see this in the sciences where scientists looking at the evidence begin to conjecture theories and then seek to prove or disprove those theories.   Copernicus looking at the stars, the moon, and the sun had a revelation that perhaps it is the earth that revolves around the sun and not the sun around the earth.  That was a revelation.  It altered the way humanity looked at itself.  But that revelation hasn’t ended, we now know that we are part of a galaxy and that our solar system revolves around the center of our galaxy.  There are clusters of stars that also revolve around our galaxy.  And the galaxy is also moving in space and is revolving around something.  As our technology increases to reveal new things in the universe, our revelation about this universe will also unfold.  Revelation is continuous. 

It has been about 18 years since I last attended a charismatic prayer meeting.  I was excommunicated from the group because of my own personal revelation. It was a revelation they were not able to comprehend.  And since that time my understanding of who or what god is has changed.  

What made my dream regarding attending the charismatic prayer meeting and having this moment of ecstasy where I sang my song interesting is that it is yesterday’s moment.  In my dream I sought to hang on to the moment as I searched for means to write it down.  Writing it down became all important as if that would somehow preserve the moment of transcendence. I forgot what the words were that my friend John had sung.  And the words I wrote down were nothing profound.  Not profound as they were in the moment they were first uttered anyway.  

In the almost two decades since I could have sung such a song of praise to god, my definition and experience of god has changed.  Then it was a loving entity that cared for her children, today it is all that is and all that is not, the amorphous je ne sais quois that has no sentient quality unto itself but yet continually is creating expressions of life and expressions of beauty.  Today my praise and thanksgiving is to life itself, to love eternal, to the creative interchange as the theologian Wieman would describe it.  And that is today, tomorrow my understanding may expand again.  

Conservative faiths regardless of their doctrines attempt to capture the revelation in its initial revealing and hold it in its place.  How does one catch the wind that blows where it will?  Conservative faiths attempt to freeze the event and the meaning of that event.  But in the process of attempting to preserve it, they lose the spirit of what inspired the moment.  The spirit has already blown to somewhere else.   Conservative faiths insist that the entire world has to abide by that meaning and that understanding of the event.  I suppose it is comforting to know that something is the same today as it was yesterday but that something is nothing more than an aging portrait of Dorian Grey.  It will distort in time and become an evil that seeks to control and manipulate its followers instead of offering liberty and release as it once did. 

What is ironic is that the arc of history as Martin Luther King, Jr., stated is always bending towards justice.  Even conservative faiths will release their revelations that no longer serve them well.  Evidence of this is found here in American history, where it was once believed that slavery was ordained, that women have no role in the society, and that to use the belt in disciplining children was god’s way.  Many conservative faiths are abandoning these revelations as no longer being reflective of the love of god.  Those that have not are finding themselves at sometimes perverse and angry odds with society around them.  

The revelation once uttered is already being transformed into new revelation in its interactions with people.  To deny that process of continuing revelation is to deny the transforming power of ever inclusive love, yea, even life itself.   

There is another edge to this sword of revelation being continuous.  And that brings me to the second dream that I had recently. Revelation, be it transcendent or through thoughtful reason, can only be heard by people who are ready to hear them. Unless the people are ready to hear, then it will not be heard. 

In my second dream, the people living with AIDS could not receive any comfort in the promise of a vaccine that was 30 years plus in the future. In their present condition of multiple potentially deadly infections, the idea that they would live 30 years was not a viable reality.  It was also a bit of a stretch that they would survive a few more years when the new medications would be released into the public sphere.  They had this blank look like I was speaking incomprehensible gibber.   

The dream would have had a different outcome if I had as a person from the future with knowledge of the outcome of the HIV/AIDS pandemic began to apply the knowledge based on where those people were at that moment in time.  Perhaps there would have been some basic steps that could have been done so that they would have had a better chance of surviving til the new medications came out.  We now know so much that this pandemic has taught us about nutrition and disease progression that could have been applied in my dream.  

My grandfather’s farm had a hand water pump.  In order for water to come up out of that pump you had to prime the pump by pouring some water down into the pipes.  It is the same with receiving revelation.   The pump has to be primed.  People have to be brought up to speed in order to grasp what the new revelation is—otherwise it is too fantastic to comprehend.  

A few years ago, I was working with a congregation and I presented them with a vision of where they could be as a congregation.  It was a vision of a congregation serving the community by working closely with the minority community in their revitalization programs.  A vision that included affordable housing through increased involvement with Habitat for Humanity, advocacy on the city council to support locally run minority businesses, and increased food access for the poor.  The congregation looked at me like deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming car.   These vacant translucent eyes shining back at me as if my words were describing a complex mathematical equation on string theory.  It was too huge of a leap for the congregation to see themselves doing this kind of outreach.  They could not see where to begin such a grand vision.  

And so it is with revelation.  A few people may grasp the fuller picture but for many it is the smaller more immediate components that are necessary to begin developing.  The reformation that resulted in a new experiment of democracy in the Americas did not happen over night.  Religious tolerance was not a widespread event in Europe when the idea was first suggested.  It happened first in discussions.  Then tentatively in pockets like Transylvania in the kingdom of John Sigismund. Sometimes these were short lived pockets of tolerance.   People were burned at the stake for these ideas. Wars were fought over these ideas.  Such was the hold of the old revelation, the old way of seeing and being.  But gradually and over time the vision of a land where these ideals could be experienced first hand came to be.   America and other countries in the world are still unfolding that revelation of tolerance of the other.  It still is resisted even in the land of the free and the home of the brave. 

Revelation is continuous.  Revelation is an evolution of thought that spirals outward embracing more and more in its wake.  What are the revelations that are expanding here in this congregation about who we are as a people?  What new insights will we have that can influence the community to be more open; more accepting of others are to be revealed in the days and weeks ahead?  Revelation is continuous.  May we be open to receive it and act upon it in our journey as a people.  Blessed Be.

There is a commercial airing these past few weeks on local TV that starts off with all the scary things happening in the world—Halloween, war, teen age pregnancies, divorce are some of the examples given. Yes, Halloween is in the commercial with these others as being scary.  They proclaim the solution to this fear is in placing trust in Jesus Christ.  It is a concrete, one size fits all answer.  For some people this may indeed be the answer they desire. 

 How would Unitarian Universalists answer these frightful and painful events?   Unitarian Universalists tend not to think that a belief in a creed or a doctrine can heal our hearts.  We may believe in the power of prayer or meditation.  We may even believe in the teachings of a spiritual leader such as Jesus or Mohammed or Buddha or contemporary spiritual leaders like the Dalai Lama or Thich Nhat Hahn or Maryanne Williamson. But it is not the teachings or the prayers themselves that heal painful events but rather how we integrate those teachings and prayers in our active responses to the event that heals. 

We covenant to be together and to support one another in each of our spiritual journeys, which are as unique as our fingerprints.  We covenant to listen to one other.  We covenant to be present to one another; to be present with a full heart of compassion and empathy.  We choose not to see each other as broken and fallen but rather as having inherent worth and dignity. It is that inherent worth and dignity that we call forth with our actions when we see another in pain and in suffering.  We recognize the ambiguity, the murkiness, and the messiness of the situations that afflict us in our day-to-day. And we declare that ambiguity to be okay even as we seek to have clearer answers for our lives. 

We seek to live our lives with justice, equity, and compassion in all of our relations.  To live our lives in such a manner is a spiritual quest that demands our daily attention.  Sometimes that will mean that we march and protest against those forces that oppress and inflict injustice and sometimes it will mean that we will be silent witnesses holding the other close to our hearts.  Sometimes it may mean that we seek forgiveness from others when we fall short of our desired intention.  But we believe that to seek to live our lives in such a manner can and will have a profound impact on the world around us. 

In looking at our history either just back to our merger of Unitarians and Universalists in 1961 or further back to the American formation of these religious expressions; Unitarian Universalists have had a profound impact on society.  It was these principles being lived out that influenced the writing of the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights and the formation of our democratic government.  It was these principles that encouraged abolitionists and suffragists to seek freedom and the right to vote.  It is these principles that are being lived out in the seeking of equality for sexual minorities today.  This is our good news.  Blessings,

“This struggle [for congregational polity in the 16 /1700’s] was a revolutionary institutional struggle, a struggle against the cage of centralized power in church and state and economic order. … But during the past century our society has been moving in the opposite direction, in the direction of a new centralization of power in mammoth bureaucratic government and industry, the fragmentation of responsibility, retreat into privatized religion–all of this in a world of massive poverty and hunger. …A major question today in a world of multinational corporations is how to achieve a separation of powers and consent of the governed, a self-governing society in the midst of corporate structures that are rapidly becoming a new cage. So we have moved from cage to cage.” —  James Luther Adams in “From Cage to Covenant” as found in the text The Prophethood of All Believers.

These words spoken by James Luther Adams in 1975, 34 years ago this month,  ring even truer today than they did then.  A lot has transpired in the past 34 years that make these words of Adams eerily prophetic in the tradition of the great prophets of the Hebrew writings. 

Adams argues that in order to survive this new cage that we need  to develop new covenants that consider “communal responsibility in the economic sphere.”  He details five components of a covenant that he believes is essential for this age.   He posits that (1) humans “become human by making commitment, by making promises. ”   Realizing that this process includes the breaking of these promises with a renewal of making new promises.  He posits  (2) that “the covenant is a covenant of being.”   We covenant with that which is transforming in whatever way we might interpret the transforming.    (3) “The covenant is for the individual as well as for the collective.”  He states that “we are responsible not only for individual behavior but also for the character of the society…”   How we are known in the world is each of our responsibilities.   Perhaps the best way to describe this is to quote Vice President Hubert Humphrey’s famous quote, “It was once said that the moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped.”  This displays the moral character of a nation. 

What is our character  if we are the country where a three month old child can be denied health insurance for being in the 95 percentile of weight for that age of a child?    Or where a person can lose health insurance coverage because the required treatment  is considered by the health company as too costly.  Or where the number one cause of bankruptcies  is due to medical costs.  This is an example of the  “centralization of power in mammoth bureaucratic government and industry.”

Adams posits that (4) the “covenant responsiblity is especially directed toward the deprived.”  Who falls into the gap between the covenant and the system?  This is where our work lies to close the gap so that no one falls “from neglect or injustice.” And (5) the covenant follows a rule of law that is founded in faithfulness and love.  “What holds the world together, according to this dual covenant then, is trustworthiness, eros, love.  Ultimately the ground of faithfulness is the divine or human love that will not let us go.”   

We have our work cut out for ourselves since we did not act to stop the cage from being developed in 1975 to today.  We allowed government to deregulate the protections that have been linked to the financial collapse and resultant recession. The gaps between the working classes and the wealthy are wider than ever before in my lifetime.  The corporate giants of finance,  healthcare, oil, and industry have more of ahold on our lives than ever before stripping us of our endowed rights to have life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. 

This is where our congregations can be relevant to an age of individualism and capitalism gone awry.   We can be offering a different message than one that is found in the prosperity gospel driven congregations of our day.   Jesus may indeed want you rich but the richness is in how we relate to one another not in how much money we each have.   If there is a judgment day, it is the day when we are asked whether we have loved our neighbor as ourselves.  It is the day when we are asked if we truly were our brothers and sisters keeper.  How do you fare in this regard?  What are you willing to do differently to honor a new covenant of being?  Blessings,

This spoof of Rockwell’s famous self-portrait is going around the internet as an attempt to be a pejorative statement.  There have been conservative pundits who believe there is a messiah message being sent about President Obama by the liberal left. 

But from an Universalist Christian theology perspective the message is far from pejorative and is in fact a very positive one.  We are all made in the image of God and therefore something of God is revealed in our lives.  And for Christians who believe that Jesus lives within our hearts then when we look at one another we should see the God who lives within shining out of them to us.   Jesus for many Christians represents not only the messiah who saves humanity from sin but also the ideal, the best of humanity, the best of who we can be. 

There is an old story about an old monastery that was dying. There was no longer any life or zest in the monks who worked and prayed there.   The Abbott of that monastery was friends with the Rabbi.  So one day the Abbott goes off to speak with his friend the Rabbi about his concerns for the monastery.  The Rabbi had no words of wisdom as his synagogue was also dying.  And so the two old men cried together with their grief.  And as they cried and prayed together the Rabbi comes across a passage about the Messiah coming.  The Rabbi’s face begins to glow and he says that he believes the messiah is already come and is living at the Monastery. 

And so it was time for the Abbott to return to the Monastery.  And the monks ask him if there was any special wisdom that the Rabbi shared with the Abbott.  The Abbott shook his head sadly, no; just some nonsense that the Messiah is here living among us at the Monastery. 

The monks heard these words and wondered, who could it be?  As they pondered the words of the messiah living among them, they began to wonder if it was one of them.  And has they thought of each of them, they remembered how awful they treated each other.  If Brother Mathias was the messiah, why he must think I am the dregs of the world for how I have piled on him the work I did not want to do.  If Brother Sebastian was the messiah why he must think I am just the worst as I am always scolding him about being late for prayers.  And on and one the wondering went, each examining their own behavior towards the messiah living among them.

And so in time the brothers began to change their behavior to the other brothers of the monastery, not wanting to do anything that would offend the messiah.  The monastery began to change.  It was somehow more inviting to the villagers and they would come up and partake in the noonday meal.  And the monks would go into the village more and share their farm grown goods with the poor.   The synagogue also began to show some new life with children coming to learn from the Rabbi the teachings of the Torah.  The messiah was indeed living among them.  The messiah was in each of them. 

For all of humanity’s faults,  for all the human failings that we carry, there still lies within  each of us, a spark of something transformative, of something divine that beckons us to be all that we can be.   This painting reveals not a president with a messiah complex but rather a human being who sees beyond the frailties of humanity towards a more compassionate and loving reality.  We all should be able to look into the mirror and see our best potential peering back out at us. And then find the strength to live it. May it be so.  Blessings,

“I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be.” – Martin Luther King, Jr

I am seeing this quote popping up a lot lately in many different circles.  It is used as a stand alone quote.   I don’t think it works as such.  In the context in which Martin Luther King, Jr. said this, it refers to the power of racism and how that hurts all of us.  Racism keeps the oppressor as well as the oppressed from being their full authentic selves.  And so in this context, until the oppressor begins to see the sin of racism and how it has scarred, wounded, and held back the oppressor from their full potential then the oppressed can never be their full potentials.  That is the context for this quote but rarely is the quote given in context any more.  The hearer needs to be literate to the context of racism to grasp what this quote is about.

As a stand alone quote it is a bit circular and self-defeating. Some one has to start the process of reaching full potential and since the only person I can change is myself, then it must begin with me.  Quoting this statement is just an excuse for not being any different from what I currently am.  It says, if only you were different then I would be different but since you aren’t different, this is who I am.  Don’t blame me for my actions, my personality, my behaviors;  these are your fault for not being at your full potential of who you ought to be.   This quote removes responsibility from me and places my behavior as a result of who you are. 

Martin Luther King did not wait until the oppressor realized his sins and changed his ways before living the life of a free black man.  He began by stating that he was already free of the oppressor’s yolk and living accordingly.  He began the process to being what he ought to be. He did not wait for the voting rights legislation to be passed before encouraging the vote.  No, he began by casting ballots first as a full citizen of this country.  Rosa Parks did not wait for the Montgomery Bus Company to change its seating policy, she began by taking her seat. 

The quote as a stand alone is an excuse for being the same ol same.  There is no empowerment in it.  There is no life in it.  Just excuse after excuse of why things remain the same.  If only such and such were true then life would be better.  If only that person would see what I can do then my life would be better.  If only that group of people would just stop what they are doing then my life would be better. 

I like Gandhi’s quote,  “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” It places responsibility back on me.  And if I be the change I wish to see, and you be the change that you wish to see, and we be the change that we wish to see in the world, well low and behold… a whole lot of people begin to be what they ought to be.   Blessings,

MLK National Historic Site in Atlanta, GA

” ‘A man bears beliefs, ‘ said Emerson, ‘as a tree bears apples.’ He bears beliefs about himself, about his fellows, about his work and his play, about his past, about his future, about human destiny. What he loves, what he serves, what he sacrifices for, what he tolerates, what he fights against–these signify his faith. They show what he places his confidence in.” James Luther Adams  wrote these words in 1946 in his essay A Faith for the Free. 

I found these words to resonate a chord with in me as I read and watch the news about events in our country.  I only have questions at this point.  And there are many.  What is our faith if we deny health care to 47 million uninsured americans and millions more with pre-existing conditions?  What is our faith if we feel justified in yelling, “You Lie!” to the President of the United States?   What is our faith if we continue to support business practices that are clearly not in our best self-interest?   What is our faith if we feel comfortable in fighting against others receiving something (government sponsored– taxpayer paid  health care)  that we ourselves benefit from (Our elected officials in Congress) ?  What is our faith if we insist that schools only teach concepts we are in agreement (creationism, euro-centric american history) ?  What is our faith if we teach that some humans (sexual minorities) are abominations?  What is our faith if we insist on citizens being able to own weapons of automated destruction?   What do these things tell us about us as a people? 

If we were to honestly attempt to answer these questions, I think we would find that we are not the religious people who we claim to be.  Our faith seems to be made up of beliefs that are not found in any religious heritage.   We have missed the mark and need to repent of our short comings. 

Perhaps the day will come where we can measure up to the ideals stated by Vice President Hubert Humphrey:  “It was once said that the moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped.”    We seem to be having trouble with how that government even treats those in the fullness of life.  We can be better.   Blessings,

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence [sic], promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

I was having a friendly debate the other day on facebook about a quote by Ayn Rand and indirectly about the health care debate that is raging in this country.  One of the participants placed this quote from the preamble of the US Constitution into the conversation.   I suddenly realized that the current polarization that is occuring in this country is when stripped of its emotionalism of fear is based on how we interpret this preamble.  

I personally believe that healthcare needs to be a right or privilege  given to the citizens of this country as one of the benefits of being a citizen.   It is part of the process of establishing justice, insuring domestic tranquilty, of promoting the general welfare, and securing the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity.  For me this seems clear cut and a logical extension of  these principles that this country was founded on.  From my perspective providing health care as a right given as a benefit of citizenship will reduce many of the domestic problems we have;  reduce bankruptcy, reduce crime (Think the story of Les Miserables), reduce infant mortality, increase life expectancies, increase quality of life across the board.

My friend in this debate believes that government should not interfere with the lives of people in any way, benevolent or otherwise.  His perspective claims that there would be a loss of self-sufficiency if the government was given the power to dole out health care provisions.  He bases this on the dependency he sees in generational recipients of welfare assistance.  How it seems that once a person is on welfare not only do they remain but their children and grandchildren remain on welfare.  His perspective points out the need for reform in many arenas not just healthcare.  In short his perspective emphasizes what he sees as the primary goal of government which is to provide for the common defense of the nation.  Period.   If this is done, he believes that the rest is assured or made possible by the ingenuity of private enterprise.  

I now have a better understanding of his position.  However, I still disagree and for this reason.   President Reagan proposed what became known as trickle down economics.  The notion that if the government de-regulated various industries and reduced government taxation on corporations that the money earned by these industries and corporations would trickle down to the working class.  President Reagan believed that government should be smaller and less involved in the daily operations of corporations.   It is an argument that has been debated repeatedly and it presumably is the main difference between two political parties.   Whether the answer to various problems lies in government intervention or in no government intervention is the core debate.  

Well, Reagan’s theory of trickle down economics was an interesting one but unfortunately nothing trickled down.  The top 1% got richer and the bottom got poorer faster than ever before.  The  middle class shrunk and continued to shrink as the policies instituted by Reagan’s administration were emulated by the administrations that followed.   In fact, the current recession / quasi depression is the result of policies begun in the Reagan trickle down econmic era.   

To be fair to President Reagan, I need to add that the current health care debacle is based on policies instituted not by Reagan but by President Nixon.  President Nixon allowed for deregulation of health care insurance companies allowing them to become predominantly for profit industries.  This was when the shift from the doctor making the decision with the patient on a particular plan of action to the health maintenance organization making the decision took place.  It was supposed to cut costs and not allow doctors to perform unnecessary treatments.  The HMO’s however were formed to be in it for profit and so denying a treatment saved them money and increased their profit margins.  

The question remains how do we form a more perfect union? Is it through private enterprise and if so how do we ensure that private enterprise serves the best interest of the people and not their own coffers?  Or is it through government regulation and offering a public option of health care and the risk of making a people who are ultra dependent on a government? 

I believe the debate is anchored in this preamble.  There in lies the question of who we are as Americans and how we see ourselves as citizens not only of this country but also as citizens of this world.  Blessings,

I  am on vacation visiting friends and relatives in the northeast.  I have found myself longing for some of things that I cannot get in Alabama or in Mississippi.   When I was in the town of my birth in New York State, I found myself longing for a pizza from Len & Jo’s.   My memories of childhood of my parents bringing home a pizza late at night, waking me up to have some, which I must admit sometimes I ate in my sleep and then yelled at my parents for not waking me up as promised, led me to wanting to eat some of the pizza flavor I had in my youth.  Wanting an honest to goodness bagel that is made the official way of boiling the dough first before baking is another taste of home that I am finding myself yearning to find. 

Is it these things, these comfort foods of our childhood that make home, home?  Or is it something else, the memories of family and friends sharing these food items together?   I suppose it is a blend of both and my own quest to be at home where ever I am located. 

Being home is the feeling of being able to be truly oneself with no defense barriers up to shield the tender parts of our hearts.  These foods remind me of those times, those moments of familiarity, when one can relax fully into the moment and drink it all in…  all the sensations of this present moment which also includes past memories and thoughts as sights and smells trigger those thoughts to come up to the surface. 

The  Buddha teaches us to be mindful of this moment, this one moment.  So when the thoughts of yesteryear float into our awareness to acknowledge them and to let them go.  Not wanting to relive the past moment in a manner that hinders the fullness of the now but not wanting to deny its existence either.  Simply let it be.  

Being home as an active verb is a bit like  that.  It is an awareness of this moment and all of the sensations that fill it.  It is the skill to have a comfort-ability where ever we find ourselves.  The ability to being comfortable  in the here and now even if the here and now finds us thousands of miles away from the day to day surroundings we are use to experiencing. 

And here I am on vacation far from the place I currently call home.  Yet, in a place where I called home for 30 years.   There is a sense of difference about the region and yet there still stands the bagel shop just down the road which reminds me of being home.  I think I will go have that  bagel with a shmear now.   May all the places you travel give you a sense of being home.  Blessings.

The Heart Nebula

 16 August 2009

UUCTuscaloosa

Rev. Fred L Hammond

I thought it would be fun to hear what people in the congregation are thinking about regarding living their Unitarian Universalism. Were there any questions that were being unsaid or not being answered in a clear manner? The questions fell into a theme for the service and I am always amazed when that happens. I don’t think it is important to identify who asked the questions. These are questions that almost anyone in the congregation could have asked and you may resonate with the questions yourself. So let us begin with a history question.

 At one time, both Unitarians and Universalists believed in a Christian God. That’s no longer part of the Purposes and Principles, though. When did an explicit belief in God get phased out—and how did that happen?

Unitarian Theology as it was developed in the United States in the early 1800’s was a belief in One God. This was the God of the Jews. It was a return to the monotheistic belief that was held at the beginning of the Christian era. What we consider the Christian God didn’t become orthodoxy until the Nicene Creed in the 4th century, when the concept of a Triune God, three personas in one was established. This is the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, the Trinity of Christian doctrine. God for the Unitarians was still a father figure, still a personal god. Jesus was the son of god, but so was all of humanity, all were the children of god. Jesus was fully human.

Unitarians in William Channing’s famous sermon on Unitarian Christianity did not believe that Jesus was crucified as recompense for humanities sins. Channing pointed out that no loving parent would punish a stronger child to atone for the sins or wrong doings of a weaker child. So while Unitarians believed that Jesus died on the cross and was resurrected from the dead, it was more of an unfortunate consequence of people not heeding his message. Unitarians believed that salvation was through the following of Jesus’ teachings to develop moral character.

Universalists started out as trinitarian but they soon shifted to a Unitarian concept of God as well. Universalists believed that all of humanity would be saved because the death of Jesus on the crucifix paid the price for all of humanities sins; past, present, and future. There was no ever-lasting torment in hell because God was too good, too loving to condemn people to everlasting hell.

Rev. Thomas Starr King who was an ordained Universalist minister and then became a Unitarian Minister is quoted as saying the only difference between Unitarians and Universalists is that the Universalists believed God was too good to condemn people to hell and the Unitarians believed they were too good for god to condemn them to hell.

By the mid-1800’s Emerson, Parker and others were espousing transcendentalism. This was the belief that revelation was available through intuition that transcends the physical and empirical. Personal experience had to be accounted for in one’s exploration of faith. The Bible was not the only source for revelation- Emerson had said no one book could contain all the revelations of god. Emerson and others found some translations of the Vedic texts of Hindu teachings. These were badly done translations so there were misconceptions but the impact of these writings was profound on American thought and the development of transcendentalism.

Parker in his famous sermon, The Transient and the Permanent, announced that if Jesus had never lived there would still be a Christian religion because the values and concepts that Jesus taught were readily available to everyone. There were some aspects in Christianity that were transient and others that were permanent. He suggested stripping away the transient in order to find that which was permanent.

The civil war had a devastating effect on the heart of America. This country had never seen such a bloody war of this magnitude on its shores before. Abraham Lincoln revived the national fast day where people were to fast from food and repent for national sins and return to God’s ways.

There was in the Unitarian Church a move to list in their preamble that they followed the Lord Jesus Christ in their convention in 1865. This caused heated debate. Unitarians already had a strong non-creedal tradition and this was seen as developing a creed, a doctrine that people had to agree on. Two years after the civil war ended, there was a split in the Unitarian Church with the founding of the Free Religious Association. This group rejected the notion of a personal god. And the Free Religious Association leaned heavily on the teachings of science and the implications of the Origin of Species.

Someone asked a question regarding the Ethical Culture Society and Unitarian Universalism. As a side bar, the Free Religious Association while it later reconciled with the Unitarian Church and rejoined, one of its members was Felix Adler, a reform Jew in NYC. Felix Adler was the founder of the Ethical Culture Society in the mid 1870’s after the Free Religious Association dissolved and rejoined the Unitarians. They have four principles to our seven and these four principles are similar in concept to ours. So in genealogical terms, the Ethical Culture Society would be cousins to Unitarian Universalists. There is one ethical cultural society that has joined the UUA in recent years. This is the society in the Washington, DC region.

When the Free Religious Association disbanded and rejoined the Unitarians, the Unitarians had shifted in their thinking closer to the notion that god was not a personal god. There was an emphasis once again of their non-creedal heritage. By the late 1800’s the Christian world was no longer calling Unitarians a Christian faith. Unitarians still called themselves Christian but the rest of the Christian world did not recognize Unitarians as such. The Universalists were right behind the Unitarians in their evolution away from Christianity as their core identity.

At the turn of the 20th century there was the first world war which again profoundly impacted Unitarian thought. The rise of the social sciences led to the hope that humanity could perhaps evolve beyond violence. In the 1930’s there was the Humanist Manifesto, signed by many Unitarian clergy. And by World War Two, the Unitarian Church no longer declared itself to be a Christian denomination and the belief in a god, personal or otherwise was no longer assumed. There are other evolutionary factors that occurred along the way.

Why are UU’s not considered a denomination? Follow-up with are we a denomination or something else—a school of thought, a movement, a unique religion?

This notion of Unitarian Universalism being a denomination, a school of thought, a movement, a unique religion is still being debated. There are many among us who still see us as a denomination of the Christian religion. Remember the term denomination refers to being a sub-set of a larger whole. The World Council of Churches, which prides itself as being the most inclusive ecumenical organization of all of Christendom does not recognize us as a denomination since we as an association of congregations do not proclaim Jesus as Lord and Savior.

Our heritage came up through the reformation of the 1500’s and then through the puritans in the American Colonies. Congregationalism is the governance that we adopted as opposed to an Episcopal or presbytery format. This had to do with the fear of any one person or body having control over another group as experienced in England in the late 1500’s and 1600’s. So while our governance structure is similar to other Congregationalist faiths, like Baptists and United Church of Christ we are not a Christian denomination.

I suppose one could argue that we are denomination of the free church which would include The Ethical Culture Society, Unity, and Science of Mind, all cousins to Unitarian Universalists and descendents of the thoughts and teachings of Ralph Waldo Emerson.

The next two questions I am going to read together because they are essentially the same question from two different poles.

“What is the role of atheism and religious skepticism in a Unitarian Universalist congregation? I ask because I’m occasionally uncomfortable with references to God, Jesus, heaven, and even spirituality in our sermons or music. Are UUs really welcoming in this regard, or welcoming only in hopes that that skeptics will “come to religion (lite)”?”

 “If it is okay for members to follow their own path, then if a member wants to follow the path of Christianity (and actually talk about it) why are UUs sensitive and touchy about that? If somebody wants to follow the path of, say, Hindu. That’s fine. If you say you’re a Christian, many (sometimes angrily) want to know ‘what are you doing here?’”

It is a challenge, isn’t it to be a non-creedal group and be willing to be together in covenant regarding a set of principles? Remaining in covenant with one another is hard work. Yet that is what we are called to do. We have a purpose in the greater society to show the world that a diverse group of people can indeed be in community with one another. We can honor one another’s view points and conclusions as being valid even when they seemingly are contrary to everything we have processed in our lives to date. As congregations we have covenanted together to affirm and promote a set of principles and to draw upon a living tradition that derives from many sources.

There are two principles that address this polarity directly. Our third principle states “Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations.” Our fourth principle states “a free and responsible search for truth and meaning.” Can we be accepting of one another here, even when the person in the pew next to you has not come to the same conclusions you have regarding the ultimate questions?

Last April we affirmed as our mission statement that we saw ourselves as being “an open and nurturing Unitarian Universalist community made visible by our actions to make a better world.” In order to show ourselves as open and nurturing out the world we need to be open and nurturing in here.

To me that means I choose to be in covenant with you to listen to your journey with my heart, accepting your words as your best expression at this moment in time AND you in covenant with me, choose to listen to my journey with your heart, accepting my words as my best expression at this moment in time. Together, we may learn some new piece of wisdom that can only be revealed when these two expressions come together.

I recently heard of a story of a rabbi who met a person who had a Jewish surname. The rabbi said “your surname is Jewish yes? but I don’t recall ever seeing you attending Shabbat.” The person answered, “yes, rabbi, my surname is indeed Jewish but I am an atheist so I do not attend Shabbat.” The rabbi answered, “What does being atheist have to do with being Jewish?”

Actually, everything. The Jewish faith is founded on a covenant with God / the ultimate other. Remove the ultimate other from the covenant and you are left being alone. Even if one is using God in the metaphorical sense of the cosmic unknown, if that is removed then there is nothing.

One could argue I suppose that the community is metaphorically god and that is where the covenant lies but the metaphor as presented in the Abrahamic text breaks down with that notion. Abraham was alone when he made his covenant with god; there was no community present. And that paradoxically becomes the strongest argument for the atheist who is also Jewish. His covenant is first and foremost with himself. The Jewish community invites him to expand that covenant to be inclusive of others. Our UU congregations could be said to do the same. We invite you to expand your covenant to be inclusive of others.

The role of the atheist in our congregations is a prophetic role. As we ponder on the mysteries of the universe, we humans have an amazing ability to develop matrixes with things that simply are not there. Seeing Jesus in a water stain on a wall is one such example. Our minds are always searching to make meaning out of everything we see. The devout catholic might in response set up an altar with candles. The atheist is there reminding us to use our sources which include “humanist teachings which counsel us to heed the guidance of reason and the results of science…” to say “nope just a water stain, nothing miraculous to see here folks, move along now.”

The covenant that we seek with one another is not based on a doctrine or belief. So as time evolves, the pendulum between the two poles of atheism and theism within our congregations are allowed to swing. There is a need for both in our communities. The one that says nothing miraculous to see here folks, move along now and the one who sees the face of Jesus in the water stain and from this regains the hope and vision to rebuild a disintegrating community. This is the wonder of the possibility. Both have a role in our congregations. Both can help us find the transcendent reality.

It is true that this congregation was founded predominantly by secular humanists over fifty years ago. But we are no longer a collection of secular humanists; we are of many different beliefs, of many different paths. The question these two questions are really posing is this: Can we be in covenant with one another today given that we are as diverse theologically as the spectrum of humanity?

This seems to be our growing edge as a beloved community. Some of us are uncomfortable with the language of religion in our midst. Some of us are uncomfortable at the lack of spirituality in our midst.

I wonder if you would be willing to identify where you resonate theologically so that others will know that they are not alone here. You may resonate on several areas so as I mention different spiritual paths would you raise your hands? And be free to look around, you may realize for the first time that there are people you have more in common with than you thought. Now these words are all complex and there are multi-layers as to how we define them. And I will talk about that in a minute, so with the broadest of brush strokes that these words might encompass…

With a show of hands, how many here resonate with being atheist? How many here resonate with being agnostic? How many here resonate with being Buddhist? How many here resonate being Bahá’i? How many here resonate with being Christian? …with being Hindu? … with being Jewish? … with being Muslim? … with being Mormon? … with being Pagan? … with being Pentecostal? … with a Native American religion? … with being New Age? How many here resonate with some other spiritual path?

We are a diverse group. We should all feel free to discuss our beliefs here with out worry of ridicule and scorn. Unfortunately, I know that is not the case here. If we have felt uncomfortable with words and ideas being expressed here, can we examine where we sit with our third and fourth principles? Do we truly honor these principles in our lives?

I guarantee that if you were to move to another community and sought out a Unitarian Universalist congregation there, you would find a different configuration of spiritual paths. You might not be comfortable attending King’s Chapel in Boston with its common book of prayer revised when that congregation left the Anglican faith and became Unitarian in the 1700’s. You might not be comfortable attending All Souls in Tulsa, OK where Bishop Carlton Pearson’s former congregation has now joined as members and meets with them every Sunday with hands in the air. ( Bishop Pearson, you might recall had one of the largest mega Pentecostal churches in Tulsa and then he discovered the message of universalism and his congregation was reduced to a fraction of its size.)  You might not be comfortable in a Unitarian church in Transylvania where they serve communion to honor and renew the covenant they believe Jesus was making with his disciples. You might not feel comfortable in First Unitarian in Chicago with its dominant humanist message. These are the varieties of expression of Unitarian Universalism.

However, if you believe that the principles in which we covenant to uphold is a useful guide then all these expressions in the final analysis should not matter because all of our paths can enrich our lives and be made better for them. I am enriched by the presence of Christians here. I am enriched by the presence of Atheists. I am enriched by the presence of our diverse theology. Each offers a gift that will enable my faith to grow, and I believe that for you as well.

Theologian James Luther Adams said, “An unexamined faith is not worth having, for it can be true only by accident. A faith worth having is a faith worth discussing and testing.” This statement is true for all of us regardless of our path.

+++++ Let’s look for a minute at the multiplicity of the words here. Someone identifies as an atheist here what does that mean? It may mean they do not believe in a personal God as defined by Christianity. Or It may mean that they do not believe there is any divine or otherwise force that created the universe. That definition of atheist is different from the first.

Someone identifies as being Christian. What does that mean? It may mean that they believe that Jesus is the son of god, both divine and human and that Jesus came to take away the sins of the world. And that he will return again to judge the quick and the dead. Or it may mean that they try to follow the teachings and example of Jesus as a great human teacher. They may not believe the other aspects of the orthodox faith. Or it may mean that they identify as a Christian as a cultural identification. They grew up in the Bible belt and therefore they recognize the cultural aspects of Christianity as their own but they adhere to the specific teachings only to the extent that these have influenced the culture in which they live.

So when someone wears a Cross and attends a UU congregation what does that mean? Can we assume it means they are bible thumping evangelicals who believe that Jesus is the only way, radically pro-life, and they are anxiously awaiting the rapture to whisk them away so they will avoid the demonic forces of the Great Tribulation? Please don’t.

If this thought washes across your mind, please keep it to yourself because we have a mission that we are seeking to fulfill. We want to be an open, nurturing Unitarian Universalist community and by questioning someone that they don’t belong here because they wear a cross or that they pray to Jesus when they feel in need is not open nor nurturing and it is certainly not Unitarian Universalist. See principles 1, 2, 3, and 4 and read our sources again, where we state that we draw from the Jewish and Christian teachings which call us to respond to God’s love by loving our neighbors as ourselves. God’s love could be interpreted as the warmth of community, feel free to translate as needed to increase comfort level. I say that not to be facetious but in the honest truth that we sometimes, in order to understand within our personal contexts, need to translate.

What do you (meaning I) make of the G** word?

I thought it only fair to answer this question. Even though I have had a long history of being a charismatic Christian, I do not identify as a Christian in the orthodox meaning of that word. I do not believe in a personal god. I do not believe that there is a god who is watching over my shoulder to see if I am living according to HIS plan. Gender use is deliberate. I do not believe in an omniscient omnipresent god. So in this regard I would be an atheist.

For me, the concept of god is all that is and all that is not. It is the expanse of everything known and unknown. And I think there is quite a bit that is unknown. But this is a conceptual god not an actual entity or stream of reality.

I recognize the legitimacy for those who believe in a personal god. And I can accept their language to express their experiences of this personal god because the experiences they are describing are universal. The interpretation of what those experiences mean may not be. I don’t have to agree with the interpretation of their experiences but I can find affinity with the experience.

Who has not experienced a love so rich and deep that it was transcendent? Now to a Pentecostal that might be described as being blessed by the Spirit (with a capital S) to an atheist it might be the increase of oxytocin in their brains. The experience is the same. If you or I were to experience this, it would be up to you and me to define its meaning.

Because of personal experiences that I have found no reasonable or rational explanation, I consider myself a metaphysical mystic. This is the best way to date that I have been able to reconcile my charismatic Christian experiences and the paranormal experiences I have had in my life. I no longer seek to define them within a context of religion because those answers are simply too dualistic for me. I have grown comfortable in the mystery and wonder of life and so I let those experiences be and am amazed when they occur. May we all be comfortable in the mystery and the questions of life. Blessed Be.

I am trying to wrap my head around the fear that is being sounded across America and in Alabama about healthcare reform and socialism.  There have been town hall discussions on health care reform and people are shouting angrily not so much about health care reform but about socialism.  People have said their number one fear is not about health care reform but because they are afraid of Obama because he is a socialist.  WHAT? 

What is this about?  This doesn’t even make sense.   First off, Obama is not a socialist, not even close.  His health care reform is not a single payer system which is what socialist countries have.   And just what is so bad about socialism?  The countries that are socialist democracies last I knew were our strongest allies and friends in the world.  These countries tend to defend our most outrageous decisions like invading Iraq.   I mean they are our staunchest friends not enemies.  Friends can learn from friends.  Perhaps we could learn from them about how to better care for our citizens. 

These socialist countries  have better life expectancies than we do and lower infant mortality rates than we do.  Better than we do, the self-proclaimed greatest country in the world.   We are 50th in the world for life expectancy with an average of 78.1  Some country I haven’t even heard of, Macau, is number one with 84.36.  Singapore has the best infant mortality rate of 2.31 per 1,000 births.  We are 45 nations behind Singapore with 6.29 per 1,000 births.  Cuba has a better infant mortality rate than us. 

Why?  Maybe because all of their citizens regardless of income or station in life have access to health care.  Our current system of a free market health care system is not, I repeat, is not in our best interest.   It is in the best interest of the insurance, pharmaceutical, and medical industries.   We have missed the mark  on this one.  We have placed these industries on a higher value pedestal than the lives of our children and grandparents, even above our own lives.   That to me screams of idolatry. 

We have people being denied health insurance because of pre-existing conditions, conditions that in order to live a full and productive life needs medical treatment.  They cannot afford the treatments and therefore are not treated and then they die an early death because of it. We have people with life threatening conditions being denied hospital care because they do not have insurance being sent to hospitals hours away that will take them. If we are to be afraid, be afraid of a country that allows, no wills its citizens to die than remain healthy and productive.  How screwed up is this thinking?   

We need health care reform.  I personally believe that the best answer to ensure that all Americans  regardless of income regardless of medical conditions need to have access to a single payer system.  It is the only system that I have seen that has resulted in increased longevity of people, decreased the infant mortality rate, and contained health care costs across the board.   But that is not what  Obama’s administration is advocating for.  He is advocating for a middle ground between what we currently have a free market system that has run amok and is crushing the backs of the American people and a single payer system.    Will it work? 

I don’t know.  But it is not something to fear.  It is something to get behind and work towards a solution.. so that our lives, the lives of our children and children’s children can be healthier and more productive. 

To quote FDR, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”  Fear is irrational and is usually based in rumors and innuendos and not in facts or reasonable thoughts. 

Wouldn’t we rather live in a country where we do not have to worry about how to pay to treat our diabetes or high blood pressure ? Or worry that our new employment site’s benefit package is not going to deny coverage for our pre-existing condition of high blood pressure?   Wouldn’t we rather know that doctors are going to be guiding our treatment plans rather than some insurance company that doesn’t know us and is more concerned with its bottom line of profit than our well -being?     

Isn’t this the country that we fought hard to protect so that we are free to live out our inalienable rights to  life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?  Shouldn’t these values be expressed consistently and equally across the board in how we govern and work in this country?   Blessings,

SUULE attendees 2009

The third week of July, I was at the Mountain Retreat and Learning Center in Highlands, NC serving as faculty for what was called Southland UU Leadership Experience (SUULE).  This was a four district collaboration.  Southwest Conference, Mid-South, Thomas Jefferson, and Florida districts came together to develop this revamped version of leadership school for congregations in the Mid-South, TJ and Florida districts.  

What made this truly an experience was the immersing of the participants into a case study congregation about the same size of congregation that they currently belong.   Each congregational group had to name their congregation, develop a mission statement, and define for themselves the values of the congregation.  

There were lectures presenting the history of congregationalism in this country.   This history was not just a dry reading of events but a delving into the values  of our founders as found in the Cambridge Platform of 1648.    There were presentations on Systems theory as it pertains to congregations.   There were presentations on worship theory.  Four avenues were available in which to process all of this information.  These were congregational groups, student led worship services, chalice circles, and an optional spiritual practice group.  Woven through all of this was James Luther Adams five smooth stones of religious liberalism along with what became a mantra for us, SUULE leader Connie Goodbread’s  “Faith Development is all we do.  Unitarian Universalism is all we teach.  The congregation is the curriculum.”

All of this information was synthesized in examining the case studies of the various sized congregations where the ‘members’ of the congregation were asked to identify triangulation, homeostasis forces, roles and other factors being played out in the system of the congregation.   None of the scenarios were far fetched as the case studies were compilations of congregations across our faith tradition. 

It was indeed a leadership experience to allow these participants an opportunity to step back and look at a congregational system functioning  given the skills and mindsets in the scenarios.  The real learning will take place when these individuals return to their own congregations and begin noticing the same tendencies at work.  How will they respond differently now that they know and can recognize self -defeating behavior.   

I strongly recommend congregations to find the money to be able to send two or three people from the congregation to this event next year.  Having a team from the congregation attend will ensure the possibility of transforming our congregations into healthier systems.  All congregations regardless of size or health will benefit from such an infusion of wisdom and skills.  This is money spent as an investment in the future of the congregation.  It will be held again next year  August 8-12 2010.

At the bottom of the SUULE web-page is this quote by Rev. Frank Thomas:

“Leadership is the spiritual process of discerning what one believes (clarity), acting on that belief in the public arena (decisiveness), and standing behind that action (responsibility) despite the varied responses of people (courage).”

SUULE certainly began that process of leadership development for its participants this year.   At this moment, if I am asked to serve again as faculty at SUULE, my answer will be a resounding YES.  Blessings,

The city of Birmingham was built seemingly overnight on the iron and steel industry.  It was a boom town for employment.  Part of the reason for this rapid growth early on was the presence of iron ore, coal, and limestone all within close proximity.  These are essential in the making of steel.  Birmingham was called the “The Pittsburgh of the South.” 

Steel production is no longer the prominent industry in Birmingham but steel is still made.  Three of the major steel producers have strong presences in Birmingham and there are talks of major expansion in the next several years of their facilities.   One of the reasons behind these plans is the reinvestment of the Rosa Coal Mine Project by MCoal Corp. based in Vancouver, British Columbia,  Canada. 

There has been increased interest again in coal as an alternate energy source since the invasion of Iraq seven years ago.   And so companies like MCoal have been looking at coal deposits that have not been fully tapped such as the coal that is in the Rosa Mine.   This particular coal field had been stripped mined in the late 1960’s and 1970’s but the main coal fields have not been.   Resulting in a coal field that is ideally suited according to MCoal for augur type mining.  They believe Rosa Coal Mine will be able to produce 1 million tons of coal  per year within the next 5 to 7 years for a total of 5 million tons of coal to be  recovered. 

 This all sounds wonderful at a time when Alabama, along with the rest of country, is facing its most critical economic crisis in over 80 years.  The project is expected to provide about 25 local jobs for the next 3-5 years. However there is a damper on all this expansion talk.  What is the impact of augur mining on the people who live in and around Rosa Coal Mine, including the city of Birmingham?  

The mine is located within 100 feet of the Locust Fork of the Black Warrior River, a primary source of water for the city of Birmingham.  Augur mining results in toxic water sludge that will be dumped into the river and enter into the aquifers underground. 

Locust Fork at Black Warrior River

A study done by West Virginia University on the effects of coal mining on the health of the community found there was a 70 percent increase in kidney disease, a 64 percent increase for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) such as emphysema, and a 30 percent increase in hypertension.  The study compensated for the likelihood of increased chronic illnesses because of lack of health care and increased tobacco smoking in these communities. The study noted that COPD increased by 1 percent for every 1,462 tons of coal mined.    The study concludes “The human cost of the Appalachian coal economy outweighs its economic benefit.” 

At what price do we state the monetary gains are worth the loss of human life?  What is an acceptable loss?   A three percent increase in COPD and kidney disease?  A ten percent increase?  A 70 percent increase?  If my math is correct and I won’t vouch that it is … but with the statistics given above,   1 million tons of coal divided by 1,462 tons would yield a 683 percent increase in COPD and that is just over the course of one year’s projection.   Of course such mathematics can’t possibly be accurate to reality but even if these statistics were only 10 percent right,  this is still an increase of 68 percent. Is 5 million tons of coal worth the risk of increasing COPD in a given population–for the creation of only 25 local jobs? 

We already have a broken health care system in this nation.   Costs are out of reach for most people and that is for people who have health insurance.   Insurance companies know these statistics and base their costs on regional projections.  Guaranteed health insurance costs will rise in the northwest  corner of Alabama because of this renewed mining effort. 

This connection seems to be lost on MCoal.  Or perhaps they were aware of it since the permit announcements that require public hearings did not get public notice in the press until it was time for the hearings to take place.   The first permit was filed May 5 2009 with the newspapers  picking up the story on July 1.  The public comment period ends on August 1 2009.   There is a petition that can be signed today located at  this site. 

There has got to be a better way than destroying human life to make a buck.

In a land where billboards abound proclaiming “Jesus is Lord” and “Jesus: Is HE in you?”; this billboard placed near Pell City in Alabama is raising quite a stir.

The organization Alabama Freethought Association who paid for the billboard  was turned down by Lamar Advertising stating that its sentiments were offensive.   Is it any more offensive than the other billboards that dot the highways of Alabama proclaiming Hell to non-believers or showing larger than life aborted fetuses?   

The right to free speech is a quirky right.  It means that dissenting minority opinions have the right to be expressed.  It does not mean that everyone must agree with the message being presented.  It’s quirky because speech when given free reign is bound to offend even when it is given as an invitation to debate. 

No believer of any faith should be so fearful of a billboard that suggests to imagine no religion or fire and brimstone.  To fear a message that one does not agree with says more about the person’s depth of faith than it does about the message.   A faith that is only sustained by the contingent of only one voice being heard is not faith but a manipulative evil. 

Unitarian Universalists stress the importance of reason in the faith development of the free church.  The ability to think, to ponder, to question, to wonder about the mysteries of life is an important aspect of our humanity.   To determine the answers are much harder to come by as there seems to be such a diversity of possibilities in the universe that are unprovable at this time.  

What would the world look like if there was indeed no religion?  Given that most of our human history has been fought in the name of a religion, would we be a more peaceful people?  Given that most of our moral and value development has been based in religion would we be a colder, more callous people?  Probably not to both of these questions. 

But the ability to ask questions is the soil from which religions sprouted.  The ability to dissent from the majority is what has enabled humanity to move forward in its development as a species.   The Imagine No Religion billboard is along this line of thought.   Those who oppose it and want its removal would do better to explore the thought in light of their faith. The answers they find may deepen their convictions than their fear of weakening it.   Blessings,

It might seem counter-intuitive to even begin talking about the need for a living wage for Americans in the face of our current economic crisis.   But if we are going to fix our economy, then what better time than to do so by ensuring that all Americans are paid incomes that enable them to be above the poverty line.  

With the cost of food, fuel, and health care rising at alarming rates and efforts to fix these concerns being derailed by the industries that control them, the alternative to ensure that this nation continues to live out its most valiant of creeds of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all is to raise the minimum wage to $10 an hour by 2010.   

Consider this fact, the last time the federal minimum wage was able to meet the basic costs of Americans with food, shelter, and health care was in 1968.   The year that Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated was the last year that a job could actually help a person get out of poverty rather than keep her in it. The minimum wage in 1968 had the purchasing power of just under $10 of today’s purchasing power.  

In the forty one years that passed, the gap between the the poor and the wealthy has grown beyond a gap into an unfathomable chasm.  Consider that one man in this country has more wealth than the combined wealth of 45% of America.   That man is Bill Gates.   Nothing wrong in the success of this one man, but the contrast illustrates that America is no longer the land of flowing milk and honey.   Our American Dream has become in the 21st century a psychotic nightmare. 

Maybe we wouldn’t need to consider this option if America would adopt a single payer system of health care.  But that option has been scrubbed off the table by Democrats caving in to the lobbyists of the Health Care Industry.   And by fears that having a single payer system would be a step towards socialism when we already have used socialized solutions with great success in the last 80 years, i.e. social security, medicare/medicaid, veterans benefits and now government take overs of practically whole industries like banking and auto industries.   The fears are unfounded, socialism does not equate with communism.  And Socialist Democracies do not equate with reduced freedoms.   Several of our greatest allies are socialist democracies; Britain, Germany, and the Scandinavian countries to name a few with higher living standards than the US. 

So here are some additional facts as to why it is important to raise the floor of our economy in order to support the cathedral ceiling.   As of January 2009, most of the 27 states that had a minimum wage higher than the federal minimum wage had lower unemployment rates.  I don’t know if that has held true as the recession deepened these past 6 months–I will investigate.   Five states have no established minimum wage including Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana–states with the highest rates of poverty anywhere in the country.  Correlation?  I don’t know.

However, the Fiscal Policy Institute reports that states with the higher minimum wage resulted in the fastest job growth across all sectors, including retail which has a disproportionate number of minimum wage earners.  The fear that it would result in job loss is unfounded.

The third phase of the minimum wage act passed three years ago will go into affect July 24, raising the federal minimum wage to $7.25.  However the buying power of this rate still falls short of the buying power of the  $5.15 minimum wage set in 1997 by twenty cents.  It is better but it still is not a living wage it merely is a dog nipping at its own tail. 

“A job should keep you out of poverty, not keep you in it,” said Holly Sklar, senior policy adviser for Let Justice Roll and co-author of A Just Minimum Wage: Good for Workers, Business and Our Future. “The minimum wage sets the wage floor, and we cannot build a strong economy on downwardly mobile wages and rising poverty, inequality and insecurity.  As President Roosevelt understood, we have to raise the floor to lift the economy.”

Amen.  Blessings,

On the Monday that I flew out to Salt Lake City, Utah for the 48th General Assembly of the Unitarian Universalists,  I found my plane delayed in Birmingham several times, leaving over 5 hours after the scheduled time.  Needless to say I was a bit aggravated and impatient.  I finally made it to Dallas-Forth Worth for my connection flight that was now two hours after I arrived there.  As I got on board the plane and found my seat, my row companion looked up at me and asked, “Are you one of my colleagues?” 

Serendipitously, I was sitting next to Rev. Dr. Daniel Kanter of the First Unitarian Church of Dallas.  It turned out that he had missed his earlier flight.  Okay, so maybe there is a god, I thought to myself wondering what this meeting would bring.  We had a wonderful conversation that only two UUministers could have and we turned to serious matters.   Daniel asked me why were gay activists so impatient with Obama.  Didn’t we understand that Obama has to play politics in order for the right moment to repeal DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act)  and DADT (Don’t Ask Don’t Tell) ? I gave some answers that I thought were pertinent.  He then said, “Why don’t you blog about this conversation?”

Here is my further reflection on why we can’t wait for civil rights.   First a recap of the answer I gave on the plane.  Yes, I think gay activists are savvy enough to know political maneuvering when we see it.   But the DOMA brief that was written by Obama staff  did more than just defend the current law, it attacked our dignity and  integrity.  The brief  compared same sex marriage to court rulings banning pedophilia coupling and incestual coupling.   Consensual same sex coupling is clearly not in the same category as the manipulative pedophilia relationship nor does it result in the potential  biological damages in offspring as incestual relationships.  President Bush’s brief on DOMA did not even broach these relationships in its argument to uphold DOMA. 

DADT does not need to have congress to repeal it.  When President Harry S Truman integrated the armed services he did so with an executive order.  President Obama could do the same.  He chooses not to.   The arguments against allowing sexual minorities into the military no longer carries any weight with Canada, Britain, France, and Israel all having openly gay military serving in their forces.    These militaries are considered to be among the greatest armed forces in the world.   They have not been compromised with gay personnel and nor will our armed services if sexual minorities are allowed to serve openly with honor and dignity. 

These were the reasons I gave but it does not answer the question as to why we cannot wait.  The answer came to me as I was listening to the talk given by Rev. Kim Crawford Harvie, minister of the Arlington Street Church in Boston, during our honoring of those ministers who were celebrating 25 years of ministry.   She included remembrances of  her services to people living with HIV/AIDS. 

This year is the 40th anniversary of Stonewall, the riots that occurred when police raided a gay bar in the Greenwich Village region of New York City.   Police were known to raid the gay bars from time to time, haul people into jail.  Occasionally a well known figure would be arrested and have his career destroyed.  On the night of the riots, however, the patrons, many of them drag queens, said enough is enough and fought back.  They were joined by others.   The riots continued for several days.    The beginnings of a re-energized gay civil rights campaign began.  This was 1969. 

There was progress towards rights in the ten years that followed and then in 1979 gay men began to get ill with mysterious diseases.  It did not capture the attention of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC)  until mid 1981.   There was no funding to study this new outbreak.  There was little need to be concerned because after all these were gay men.  It was called gay cancer and in some hospitals;  medical staff called it WOGS (Wrath of God Syndrome). 

There was a sense in America that some how these people deserved this disease.  It was a death sentence.  Once diagnosed with PCP or KS or Toxo, a person had weeks, rarely months to live.  The immune system so compromised to allow these rare illnesses to ravage the body there was little hope of living.   Hundreds became thousands of young gay men dying. 

We were dispensable.  We had no rights.  We could be evicted from our homes on suspect of being gay.  We could be fired on appearances alone.    Nursing staff, doctors could refuse to serve a person with HIV/AIDS.  We were denied visiting rights of our partners as they lay dying in the hospital.  When our partners died, family members who wrote them off years before would swoop in and simply take the body of our loved ones. They would evict us from our homes if the house was in our partner’s name.  And they would legally contest the wills as blood relatives and win.  

We had to fight for research monies to find life extending medications.     So many of us lost health insurance because of an AIDS diagnosis.  We had to fight for monies to provide housing for those living with HIV/AIDS. We were denied Social Security Disability because AIDS was not seen as a qualifying disability–thereby a person with AIDS lost all means for an income and medical assistance.   We organized and succeeded to have drugs developed that extended life, not only by months but by years, restoring many to be able to lead productive lives again.  It was a hard fight.   But it is a fight we still have to contend with. 

Governor Jodi Rell of Connecticut decided to cut to zero what she considered to be non-essential services for the budget that begins today.  All AIDS funding was cut which will resort in people with HIV/AIDS to once again face medical crisis as they find services no longer available to them.  For contrast park and recreational services were deemed essential services.

Alabama rejected Federal Ryan White funds which amounted to a total of $10 million in medical treatment for people with HIV/AIDS and rejected an additional $700K in funding for support services.    These two examples are being repeated across the nation. 

Why can’t we wait?  We are tired of being expendable under the law.  We are tired of being deemed second class citizens that do not have partnership medical benefits, or employment rights, or housing rights, or marriage rights, or survivorship benefits.  Our lives can be trampled on by survivors who refused to acknowledge our existence while alive but want every piece of us when we are dead.  This demeans our integrity and sense of worth. 

To continue to live with the lies that the far right is spreading regarding the hate crimes bill and the employment non-discrimination Act (ENDA) is degrading and immoral. 

We have paid for our rights as full citizens with our lives.   We have paid dearly.   For us to have supported a President who campaigned hard and long on a promise of equality winning our votes, to now tell us to have patience after the thousands of lives that have been lost to HIV/AIDS is unconscionable. Telling us to have patience after the thousands of deaths as a result of  homophobic violence in our schools, in our communities, in our families that continue to this very day is cruel. Now is not the time for patience.  Now is the time for fulfilling promises made that helped place this president and his party into office.

photo by Scott G. Winterton

While I was in Salt Lake City for the UUA annual assembly, I took advantage of being in the center of Latter Day Saints country. I went across the street from the convention hall to hear the organ recital at the Salt Lake Tabernacle. The building has amazing acoustics. The organist demonstrated this by ripping a newspaper and by dropping three pins. And yes, you could hear the pin drop from several hundred feet away.

It so happened that a new temple had been built in South Jordan, Utah, just south of Salt Lake City. It was currently open to the public prior to its consecration ceremony in August when it will be closed to the public. The Oquirrh Mountain Utah Temple faces the majestic mountains. 

I had never been inside a Mormon Temple before so I was curious as to what it looked like, how it differed from what I know about temples in general. I was surprised as it did not meet any of my expectations. What I did not expect was the intimacy of the space. The rooms are for individual and family sessions with their god. There are no large sanctuaries within the Temple.

There are small chapels but these are also intimate spaces. There are changing rooms for women and men to exchange their every day clothes for clothing that has been set aside for creating covenants. These covenants are with each other, such as committed in a marriage, and with their god. A pamphlet on the Oquirrh Temple states, “In [these temples], faithful Church members receive instruction, make covenants, and draw closer to the Lord.”

This temple once consecrated will be considered sacred space. This is a place where the holy of holies will dwell. It is for the Mormons the house of the Lord. I began to wonder what constitutes sacred spaces in our lives.

Our Unitarian Universalist tradition does not consecrate sacred spaces in the manner that this other American born religion does. Is there something that we as Unitarian Universalists hold sacred?

We encourage our youth to go on a field trip to Boston, MA where Unitarianism and Universalism had its roots. So there is this Mecca to a historical site not only to the beginnings of our religion but also to the beginnings of our democracy. But this is not the same.

What is held sacred? What is considered by Unitarian Universalists to be holy-remove your shoes-ground? I think there is room in our faith to open the door for such a sacred space to be created. A place where we can experience the transcendent moments that such sacred spaces engenders. What we label these transcendent moments will differ between us but to have an opportunity to experience them is important in our search for truth and meaning. Search out the sacred spaces in our lives and allow them to speak what they will to us. Blessings,

I Thee Wed:  The Battle for Equal Marriage Rights
Rev. Fred L Hammond
7 June 2009 ©
Our Home Universalist Unitarian Church
14 June 2009 ©
Unitarian Universalist Congregation Tuscaloosa

Reading    From “The Irrational Season” by Madeleine L’Engle

Ultimately, there comes a time when a decision must be made.  Ultimately two people who love each other must ask themselves how much they hope for as their love grows and deepens, and how much risk they are willing to take. It is indeed a fearful gamble.  Because it is the nature of love to create, a marriage itself is something which has to be created.  To marry is the biggest risk in human relations that a person can take.  If we commit ourselves to one person for life, that is not, as many people think, a rejection of freedom; rather it demands courage to move into all the risks of freedom, and the risk of love which is permanent; into that love which is not possession, but participation.  It takes a lifetime to learn another person.  When love is not possession, but participation, then it is part of that co-creation which is our human calling.

I recently officiated at two weddings.  Both couples wanted a service that would reflect their theology and not the theology of their home congregation.  One couple was not comfortable with the notion of God and therefore wanted a service that would limit the presence of God in their service.  The other couple did not want a Christian service but rather one that embraced a God that would appeal to all people.   I was happy to do whatever service they wanted.  It was after all their wedding day and it needed to be meaningful to them as the couple began their lives as one. 

I was therefore a bit surprised when the couples insisted on some very traditional language.  The first wanted the ring ceremony to include the phrase, “with this ring I thee wed.”   It rarely is used any longer.  All of the wedding scripts I have seen in the recent years do not include this phrase.    The bride told me since she was a little girl, it was this phrase that stuck with her as being the pivotal moment in the wedding.  So yes, we included it. 

The second couple inserted this line, “If any of you can show just cause why they may not lawfully be married, speak now; or else forever hold your peace.”  Again, a line that rarely appears any longer in wedding services except for those TV dramas but for this couple, if there was any doubt they were not to be married, this line would ensure that would be erased.  

I was fascinated by what each couple needed to have in their wedding ceremony in order for their marriage to be a real marriage.   The dreams held since youth of being married are romanticized.  I think we all have fantasized at some point what our wedding would be like when we found that certain someone to cherish and hold all the days of our lives.  We each have idealized what would constitute the perfect wedding ceremony for us. 

Parents also fantasize about their children’s weddings.  Fathers’ walking their daughter down the aisle is a rite of passage as much for the father as it is for the daughter.  It is an important moment—a vital moment in the life of the family, in the order of things. 

This is how when we were children were told it would be. We would grow up and marry, have kids of our own, raise them, and then walk them down the aisle to marry another… and the cycle continues. 

 If I had sound effects for this sermon this is where the needle would scratch across the recording in a loud halting stop. 

We all like the notion of having a traditional wedding ceremony.  Regardless of religious connotations, the wedding ceremony is a tradition that is held in honor.   It wasn’t always a tradition.  In fact, marriages were not always just between one man and one woman.  Former President Bush is quoted as saying, “Marriage is the most fundamental institution of civilization.”[1]   I wonder what type of marriage and which civilization he was referring to here. 

The earliest records of marriage include those in the Hebrew Scriptures.  See if you recognize these as traditional marriages:  Abraham marries his half sister Sarah. (Genesis 20:11-13).  Isaac marries Rebekah, his first cousin. (Genesis 24:14-16)   Jacob married his cousins, first Leah and then her sister Rachel and then takes Rachel’s maidservant Bilhah as a wife, and then Leah’s maidservant Zilpah as a wife.  (Genesis 29)   Ashhur had two wives, Helah and Naarah. (1 Chronicles 4) King Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines. 

These forms of marriages are considered taboo in today’s society.  We are not to marry our siblings or our first cousins, this is considered incest.  We are not to have more than one wife, this is considered polygamy.   

Marriage is an evolving institution.  How one marries has changed as much as who one marries.  In the marriages described in Hebrew history, one of two things happened.  The man looking for a wife asked the father for the bride or the father looking for a husband for his daughter, offered her hand in marriage.   The woman had little say in the matter because the woman was considered property and property could be bartered.  In the case of Jacob, he bartered for the hand of Rachel by working for her father seven years and when the seven years was up the father gave him Leah instead and then had Jacob work another seven years for Rachel’s hand. 

The line my couple wanted in their service: “If any of you can show just cause why they may not lawfully be married, speak now; or else forever hold your peace.”  This line was to make sure there were no marriage impediments preventing the marriage in the eyes of the church.   One such impediment in the mid-15 century might have been being related to each other to the 6^th degree.[2]  Since the belief that the two would be made one, a person marrying into a family would prevent anyone else from marrying into that family as well.   Divorce was not permitted so the only way to get out of a marriage was to then prove that there was an unknown or overlooked marriage impediment to then have the marriage annulled.   How many of you know your 5^th and 6^th cousin?  Or know that your 4^th cousin married your partner’s 3^rd cousin thereby preventing you and your partner to marry?

How is marriage defined in this country?  In the 1690’s love between spouses was discouraged because it was thought it would weaken the man’s authority over the woman[3].   Most marriages were declared by the couple declaring it so; churches and government were not involved.  This form of common-law marriages[4] is still recognized in eleven states. Many states removed common-law marriages from being recognized in the 1970’s[5].

Prior to Queen Victoria, women were often considered the lustier sex.  Queen Victoria’s elevation of chastity[6] changed the perception of women to be seen as chaste and pure in and out of the marriage.  Prostitution increased as a result.   Also prior to Queen Victoria, it was customary for the newly weds to do a bridal tour, visiting relatives that were unable to attend the wedding.  By the mid-19^th century, the honeymoon began to replace this traditional event but it was still not what we consider to be honeymoons today.  The bride brought her girlfriends with her[7]. 

In the mid- 1800’s there were experiments[8] in how one defined marriage.  The Oneida Community in upstate New York had what they called group marriage.  Each person was married to each other adult in the group.  The community would decide by matching characteristics which male and female would procreate.  The Mormons allowed polygamy within their religious circle.  When Utah applied to become a state of the union, the only way it would be admitted was if the state would outlaw polygamy.   It did so. 

Before the Civil War, slaves[9] were not allowed to marry as they were seen as property.  Ceremonies might have occurred between partners but they were not honored by the slave owners.  Inter-racial marriages were banned in 16 states until Loving v Virginia decision of the US Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional in 1967[10].   In the early 1900’s, there was a national law stating that if a woman married an Asian;  even a US born Asian, she would lose her citizenship[11].  This ban was also lifted in 1967. 

The law now recognizes the marriage partnership is made up of equals. Previously the law stated that the male was the legal head of household or rightful owner of property.  

So when people state that marriage has always been a certain way, they are speaking from ignorance because marriage is evolving.  Marriage today isn’t even what marriage was 50 years ago.  So the request of gays and lesbians to have marriage rights is not without historical precedent.

According to John Boswell, church historian, the relationship of David and Jonathan in the Hebrew Scriptures was a marriage.   Boswell writes, “ [A]ccording to 1 Samuel 18:1, ‘it came to pass… the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul.’ The two made a ‘covenant’ together—the text employs the word used for a marriage covenant elsewhere in Hebrew Scripture –and David and Jonathan lived together in Saul’s house, even though Jonathan had children. David was still unmarried.  He later took Jonathan’s surviving heir into his household to eat at his table, which he did ‘for Jonathan’s sake’.  After Jonathan was killed, David lamented publicly, ‘I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan: very pleasant hast thou been unto me: thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of a woman.’ ( p 137 Same Sex Unions in Premodern Europe)

 It seems that David and Jonathan had a covenanted relationship that was akin to a marriage.  David cared for Jonathan’s children after Jonathan was killed.  Much like a spouse would do for his or her partner’s children even if there was a previous partner involved.

Currently six states have same sex marriage.  One state has civil unions and three states have domestic partnerships.  Three additional states recognize same sex marriages performed in other states but do not offer same sex marriages to their citizens.   

In the Defense of Marriage Act brief (aka DOMA) released on the 42^nd anniversary of Loving v Virginia, which by the way, made the marriage of President Obama’s parents legal in every state, the federal government is claiming neutrality on the issue of state sovereignty regarding same gender marriage.  The federal government is not a neutral party. 

One of the rights afforded to heterosexual couples is the right to grant citizenship to the foreign partner through marriage.  No state, not even the six states that currently grant same sex marriage rights can offer this right.  Only the federal government can grant citizenship. The federal government cannot be neutral when it has a vested interest in this matter.  And I haven’t even mentioned the other 1,048 rights and benefits the federal government bestows on heterosexual marriages. 

But neutrality over state sovereignty is not the half of what this particular DOMA brief claims.   This brief dares to argue that laws prohibiting same sex marriage are as valid as laws prohibiting incest and pedastry.  It further states that comparing same sex marriage rights to arguments presented by Loving v Virginia are invalid.

In my blog I wrote,  “Loving V Virginia declared the laws prohibiting inter-racial marriages as unconstitutional and “designed to maintain White Supremacy.”  In referring to the Loving V Virginia case, the Obama Administration argues that with DOMA there is  ‘No comparable purpose is present here, however, for DOMA does not seek in any way to advance the ’supremacy’ of men over women, or women over men. Thus DOMA cannot be ‘traced to a … purpose’ to discriminate against either men or women.  In upholding the traditional definition of a marriage, numerous courts have rejected an alleged analogy to Loving.’

Sexual orientation is not a recognized suspect class needing protection.  If it were then the analogy would be clearer to the courts, because what DOMA does is assert heterosexual supremacy over homosexuality.  DOMA places the heterosexual orientation above all other orientations of sexuality as supreme and therefore entitled to rights and privileges.”[12]

President Obama, when he was a candidate for office, in addition to vowing to repeal DOMA, advanced an argument to offer civil unions to gays and lesbians while maintaining marriage as between one man and one woman.   Let’s look at this argument a bit further.  Why would it be important to offer civil unions to gay and lesbian couples?  It will allow for hospital visiting rights of the partner when one of them is ill or dying.  It will place inheritance rights to the partner above the deceased’s immediate family. 

This last one is important.  I remember a couple that lived together for over 20 years and one of them was dying with AIDS.  The couple had built a life together.  They were not able to have joint property rights because they were not married so the house was in the partner’s name.  The partner who was dying did leave a will in which he left everything to his partner.  The will was contested and the family won as being the closest blood relative.  And when the partner died, the family swooped in; removed the body to be buried in their home state, removed items from the house and had the partner evicted and eventually sold the house.  Everything they had built together was taken from them.  A family that had no contact with their son since he came out of the closet had legal claim to everything he had built with his partner.   Yes, a civil union might have prevented this from happening if the state where the family was from also recognized civil unions. 

Civil unions and domestic partnerships are about death and illness protection.   Marriage is about life.  Marriage is about the building of a life together.  Yes there are similar protections in a marriage.   But marriage also has federal benefits; 1,049 benefits.   Yes many of these have to do with death and illness but they also include; joint parenting, joint adoption, joint custody rights,  immigration and residency for partners from other countries, veterans’ discounts on medical care, education, and home loans; joint filing of tax returns, and many, many more.   These are about building a life together. 

There is the fear that by allowing gays and lesbians to marry that it would somehow force conservative religious entities to performing marriages against their doctrinal beliefs.  This is such a palpable fear that Governor Lynch of New Hampshire stated he would not sign any same sex marriage legislation unless there was a provision stating that religious groups would not be forced to perform same sex weddings.     I can assure you as a minister, I am free to refuse to marry anyone that I want for whatever reason.  I am not under any obligation to marry anyone regardless of who they are.  I did a wedding last year for a couple whose minister refused to marry them because minister’s belief required him to only marry born again Christians.   That right is within the minister’s or priest’s jurisdiction.  It is a fear that is found-less and completely false. 

There is a fear that somehow by allowing same sex marriages it would diminish or invalidate opposite marriages.  The Roman Catholic Church believes that it diminishes the true purpose of marriage which according to their church teaching is procreation[13].  The difficulty I have with this doctrine is that the Roman Catholic Church does not refuse to marry couples who are past their child bearing age or couples where the woman had medically life saving surgery that resulted in an inability to have children.  If procreation was the sole purpose of marriage then these other couples should not be allowed to marry because the purpose can no longer be fulfilled. 

 There is, I believe a higher purpose for couples to marry than procreation.   In Christian theology, marriage is often seen as being symbolic of the love god has for humanity.  The devotion that the couple is to show each other is similar to the devotion that god would show them.  

There are many examples in the Abrahamic Scriptures of God making covenants with his people.  David Myers and Letha Scanzoni point out in their book[14], What God Has Joined Together? “that the Hebrew prophet Hosea has God liken his covenant with Israel to a betrothal: “I will betroth you to me for ever. … I will betroth you to me in faithfulness” (Hos. 2:19-20).

“Perhaps,” Myers and Scanzoni write, “rather than thinking in terms of gender, we might instead consider the characteristics of that covenant …. justice, fairness, love, kindness, faithfulness and a revelation of God’s personhood. … If these characteristics define an ideal marriage, might two homosexual persons likewise form such a union? … If we can think in those terms, might we … accept these (same sex) covenantal relationships as indeed a joining of two persons by God?” 

To join together in a covenanted relationship to emulate these characteristics of justice, fairness, love, faithfulness, isn’t this a modeling of behaviors that is needed to be seen in this world?  

Isn’t it these values that the two couples had to have in their wedding in order for it to be a real marriage ceremony?  The words are different, but listen for these values in the vows the couples made to each other: “To have and to hold, From this day forward, For better, for worse, For richer, for poorer, In sickness and in health, In sorrow or in joy, To love and to cherish As long as we both shall live.”

Why would anyone want to prevent that kind of commitment to love from being made?   Why indeed.  
 

[2] as found at  http://www2.hu-berlin.de/sexology/ATLAS_EN/html/history_of_marriage_in_western.html

[3] as found at  http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/pto-20050506-000006.html

[4] as found at  http://www2.hu-berlin.de/sexology/ATLAS_EN/html/history_of_marriage_in_western.html

[5] as found at http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=20040329&slug=marriagehistory29m

 [6] as found at  http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/pto-20050506-000006.html

[7] IBID

[8] as found at  http://www2.hu-berlin.de/sexology/ATLAS_EN/html/history_of_marriage_in_western.html

[9] as found at http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=20040329&slug=marriagehistory29m

[10] as found at http://www.ameasite.org/loving.asp

[11] as found at http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=20040329&slug=marriagehistory29m

[12] Fred L Hammond, Heterosexual Supremacy essay at Unitarian Universalist in the South as found at http://www.serenityhome.wordpress.com

[13] The Threat of Same Sex Marriage as found at http://www.americamagazine.org/content/article.cfm?article_id=3627

[14] I have lost the source for this section.  Ultimately it is from the book, but this section was a quote from the book for a review of the book.

The Obama Administration has released on the anniversary of Loving V Virginia (June 12 1967) a Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) Brief.   The brief released yesterday not only defends the federal law of marriage as between one man and one woman but also argues that laws prohibiting same-sex marriage are akin and as valid to laws prohibiting incest and pedastry. 

Loving V Virginia declared the laws prohibiting inter-racial marriages as unconstitutional and “designed to maintain White Supremacy.”  In referring to the Loving V Virginia case, the Obama Administration argues that with DOMA there is  “No comparable purpose is present here, however, for DOMA does not seek in any way to advance the ‘supremacy’ of men over women, or women over men. Thus DOMA cannot be ‘traced to a … purpose’ to discriminate against either men or women.  In upholding the traditional definition of a marriage, numerous courts have rejected an alleged analogy to Loving. “

Sexual orientation is not a recognized suspect class needing protection.  If it were then the analogy would be clearer to the courts, because what DOMA does is assert heterosexual supremacy over homosexuality.  DOMA places the heterosexual orientation above all other orientations of sexuality as supreme and therefore entitled to rights and privileges.

The administration further argues that the federal government must remain neutral in not extending federal benefits to same sex couples legally married in the six states  where same gendered marriage is legal.   In a joint reaction statement from Gay and Lesbian advocacy groups, they state:  “There is nothing “neutral” about the federal government’s discriminatory denial of fair treatment to married same-sex couples: DOMA wrongly bars the federal government from providing any of the over one thousand federal protections to the many thousands of couples who marry in six states. This notion of “neutrality” ignores the fact that while married same-sex couples pay their full share of income and social security taxes, they are prevented by DOMA from receiving the corresponding same benefits that married heterosexual taxpayers receive. It is the married same-sex couples, not heterosexuals in other parts of the country, who are financially and personally damaged in significant ways by DOMA. For the Obama administration to suggest otherwise simply departs from both mathematical and legal reality.

Heterosexual supremacy is the obverse to homophobia.   It is the extreme of heterosexual privilege which not only exists but is codified into our laws.  We have as a nation dismantled most of the laws that enforce white supremacy.  We have a harder course of action to dismantle white privilege.   The same is true for heterosexual supremacy.  The laws are in place to uphold and enforce it.  DOMA is one of those laws. 

In Obama’s run for the White House, he stated he believed that DOMA was wrong and promised its repeal.  Yesterday, this brief is evidence of the Obama administration betraying the people who voted for him based on this promise.   Yes, it is true that the Senior Trial Counsel member who  helped write  this brief, W. Scott Simpson, is a Bush Adminstration hold-over and a conservative Mormon.  That is no excuse.  This brief was more than just upholding the current law, it was a blatant heterosexual supremacist political statement to tell those who seek equal marriage rights to stop and desist.     

The Justice train stops for no one until it reaches its destination.

There are several people that come to mind when I think of people I would classify as spiritual people.    Perhaps these are obvious or not so obvious choices but I would place the following into this category:   The Dalai Lama,  Thich Nhat Hanh, Thomas Merton, Maya Angelou, Mother Teresa, Bishop Desmond Tutu, and Ma Jaya Sati Bhagavati (nee Joyce Green).

There are reasons for each of these people to be in my list of spiritual people.   The first and foremost reason is that I do not get a sense of judgment from these people when I hear them speak, or read their words, or observe their actions  in relation to other people’s sense of spirituality.  This is not to say that these individuals have not made judgments about what is true spirituality versus  a veneer of spirituality.  But I do not get a sense that these individuals have shown arrogance towards another’s spiritual path, in short placing their spiritual path above the rest as the true path. 

That for me is the defining marker for a mature spirituality.  To be so comfortable in our own spiritual (perhaps could be also be called faith) development that we are not threatened by another’s journey. It is perhaps the rare individual that starts their spiritual journey with such an awareness of equity between each other’s spirituality. 

So where does a person start in beginning a spirituality?  One begins with one self.   I remember being aware of being loved for who I was.  I was taught as a child that God loved each of us, totally, wholely for the wonderous unique creation we were.    But not everyone even begins there.  Someone else might become aware of being part of something greater than themselves… maybe as the True Blood character Amy states, being aware of being one with Gaia, being one organism with the earth.  This beginning awareness is also a bit self-centered, as it is an awareness that I am one with  Gaia, the universe, all that is. 

Sometimes when we first accept a new idea or new insight into our developing spirituality, we become a bit fanatic about our find.   We want to share it with everyone.  And we are a bit surprised when not everyone shares our enthusiasm for our discovery.  This can have a variety of responses.  We can re-examine our new insight and see if it indeed holds the truth we thought it did.  We can reject our new insight as a passing thought of fancy.  Or we can latch onto it with an arrogance of I know better than thou. 

If we move towards the arrogance side of things then there remains this tinge of doubt that perhaps we are not right that we fight against.  Our spirituality isn’t yet a  grounded spirituality.  Arrogance, I believe,  is an expression of being  threatened by another’s spirituality that is not understood.  If we are grounded in our spirituality then another’s path is not a threat to what we believe to be true. 

I remember coming home from an interfaith retreat for people who cared for people with HIV/AIDS and telling the religious leader of my christian charismatic community about the wisdom I heard from a Lakota Native American.  I was told right off the bat it was satanic.  The conversation was over before it even begun.   He was not open to even hear what I had learned that made so much sense to me. It was the beginning of my pulling away from this christian group.  I no longer understood why I should be afraid of  listening to another’s spiritual  journey.

Unitarian Universalists are just as prone to this fear of others as anyone else.  I hear congregants turn in disgust to another person’s interest in the supernatural, or new thought, or pagan, or orthodox christian views.  I hear my colleagues criticize derisively spiritualities that are heart based and not intellectually grounded.  I hear all sorts of joking about other’s spiritual experiences as if they alone had the true knowledge, the true insight into all Truth.   We have, I believe, placed our sometimes flawed reasoning abilities above all other tools for discerning.  Sometimes we need to listen with the heart and not the critical mind.  

One of our principles is the following:  A free and responsible search for truth and meaning.  It is listed right after this principle, Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations. 

Now I understand that a free and responsible search is a scary proposition.  It essentially means that I am responsible for my spirituality, my faith development.  It means that I am not being told what to believe or not believe by some outside authority; be it minister, sacred text, guru,  pope or god(s).    I take this principle seriously.  When I converse with people on what they believe,  it is with an open ear and open heart.  Perhaps there is something in their experiences that will inform me in my journey. 

The “Acceptance of one another…” is another biggy for me. It means to me that I cannot judge your experiences as false.  I cannot joke about people reading  “Conversations with God” or “The Secret” or “The Tibetan Book of the Dead”  or “The Course in Miracles” or even “The King James Bible red letter edition”.  These books may do nothing for me.  But if I am being true to this principle then I accept each person’s  free and responsible search.  I listen deeply to your understanding of these books and how they inform your path.   We may dialog together about how these ideas inform your life as a spiritual being.  But I do not have the right to dismiss as nonsense what you found for your path . 

I believe it is these principles that attract so many people to Unitarian Universalism.  I also believe it is these same principles that are not being modeled in our congregations that turn these people away, sadly from our doors. 

We need to develop our spiritualities.  I think the people I mentioned above are role models of mature spirituality.  You may disagree with their teachings.  You may have heard of disputes involving these people.  They are human after all and suffer the same frailities as we all do.   But as spiritual teachers I believe they have a slice of the ultimate truth and they try to live that slice as best as they can. 

We need to strive to live our slice as best we can with reverence, with forebearance, with humility, with compassion, and with love for where we are in our journeys. These are the some of the markers of a mature spirituality.  Blessings,

The shooting todayat the Holocaust Memorial Museum by a “known” white supremacist is disturbing on many fronts.    As I read this news,  my mind flashed back to Dr. Tiller’s assassination a few weeks ago at his church.  Dr. Tiller was a doctor who specialized in late-term abortions.   My mind flashed back to the Knoxville UU shooting last July.  

What do all three events have in common?   They were all committed by people who were on the ultra-extreme right of the political spectrum.   Many people in the public reported feeling that Dr. Tiller’s death was justified.  There is a sense of the vigilante in the response. 

MSNBC Commentator Keith Olberman holds Fox news culpable.  Certainly Fox news commentators Glenn Beck and Bill O’Reilly do have a histrionic style of presenting the news.  It borders in my mind of yellow journalism. Rational people see through the histrionics as entertainment–albeit twisted and perverse. Histrionics makes the news no longer news but a side show.   But these three individuals, if Olberman is correct and Fox News is to be held culpable, might not see it as histrionics but rather as sincerely felt emotions of a moral character crying out for justice. 

Ultra-extremists, regardless whether of the right or left, are narrow focused individuals.  They have become blind to other possibilities;  other points of views.  They see only in high contrast of black and white.  So the question becomes, not how do we get rid of them, for that answer results in the same sort of blind ultra-extreme response.  Rather the question is how do we create an environment that allows for greater acceptance of the pluralism.  How do we ease the trauma that people feel when they see their world moving away from the contrast of black and white to the colors of the rainbow?

Many people turn to religion to find answers but the answer is not clinging to the dogmatism of one’s faith.  That answer is to slide towards one of the poles of the extremes.  It is to grow rigid when life demands the fluidity of a river to remain clean and life giving.  Instead religion should aid people in being able to be flexible, to seek out the gifts of forgiveness and compassion.  Religion should aid people in expanding their experience of life not in narrowing it. 

The beloved community is not about everyone being exactly like me and thinking exactly like me but rather being their own unique flower in the bouquet of humanity. I don’t have the answers to how to expand the conversation so that those opposed to liberal notions are heard and understood and those opposed to conservative notions are heard and understood.  To honor and respect each other is a life long task. 

That cry seems to be coming into sharper focus these days.  May we find our way soon before the pain that is being felt is more acute in our society.  BLessings,

I have begun a new blog which will be a bit of an experiment for me.  One of my dreams that I want to fulfill is to write fiction.  So this blog will be completely fictional including the author of the pieces, a character by the name of Avery Van Dien.   There will be short stories and hopefully a continuing storyline or two that will be developed as well as the story of Avery Van Dien as well.  It is my intention that this blog will be a form of spiritual practice for me.  And we will see where it takes me.   You may see this blog if interested at averyvandien.wordpress.com

I will continue to post here my 6-9 times a month on various issues affecting Unitarian Universalism.  Blessings,

Thanks Scott.

Former Vice President Dick  Cheney stated, perhaps for the first time, his personal belief that people ought to form whatever unions they desire.  “Freedom means freedom for all” he said.   Then he couched the quest for equal marriage rights not as a human rights issue but as a State sovereignty issue.   

Do states have the right to define what constitutes civil human rights?  And is it just to then have some states deny what other states declare as fundamental? 

This is where this country has historically gotten itself into turmoil in the past.   Slavery was considered a State sovereignty issue and it led us to civil war.  And marriage has also traditionally been a State sovereignty issue and has also been settled on a federal level.  Not as violently as civil war but on a federal level nonetheless.

On June 12, 1967, Loving V. Virginia, the Supreme Court ruled that banning interracial marriages was unconstitutional.  Mr. Loving and his bride went to the District of Columbia to be married and returned to Virginia to live. At the time of the court’s decision there were 16 states that banned and punished interracial marriages within their state.  Virginia in  its case as to the consitutionality of their denying Mr. and Mrs. Loving their marriage “reasoned that marriage has traditionally been subject to state regulation without federal intervention, and, consequently, the regulation of marriage should be left to exclusive state control by the Tenth Amendment.” 

The U.S. Supreme Court in deciding Loving V Virginia did not deny the state’s right to regulate marriage.  It did however state the following: 

“The freedom to marry has long been recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men. Marriage is one of the “basic civil rights of man,” fundamental to our very existence and survival. To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State’s citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discriminations. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State.”

I would argue the same holds true for same gendered couples.  The freedom to marry, or not marry a person of the same gender resides with the individual.  There are no sound reasons beyond religious doctrines (which in a pluralistic society cannot be made into the rule of law over another who does not accept nor abide with those doctrines)  to deny marriage between same gendered individuals.

State rights of sovereignty do not in my opinion trump civil human rights.  It is instead the other way around.

Loaves and Fishes

By Rev. Fred L Hammond

This is an edited version of a sermon I gave regarding a generosity challenge to the congregation in Tuscaloosa, AL.

Of all the miracle stories told in the gospels, the story of feeding the five thousand seems to be the most probable. The story isn’t about yet another miracle, even though on first reading it could be and has been interpreted as such. It is instead a lesson on generosity.

Jesus’ disciples assume that the five thousand men, not including the women and children present would have nothing with them to eat. They urge Jesus to send them away so they may find something to eat in the villages. Jesus’ response is you feed them. You give them something to eat. The disciples only had enough for themselves, five loaves of bread and two fish. You can almost hear his disciples whine as they tell Jesus this fact.

If this story of Jesus multiplying the fish and loaves is in any way an historical account, then I believe that something other than the miraculous occurred. I believe it was his modeling generosity that multiplied the loaves and fish. In that crowd of people others also brought food. There is no way that the disciples were able to survey the entire crowd of 5,000 plus people to know that only 5 loaves of bread and two fish was the only food. Perhaps they were hoarding it and not letting others know they had some food. But when Jesus blessed the food he did have and began giving it away, this act was enough for others to follow Jesus’ lead in sharing the food they had brought. There was enough. In fact, they were able to fill 12 basketfuls with the leftovers. This wasn’t a miracle; it was instead how generosity works. …

The sharing of what we have does go further than when we hoard it for ourselves. Every time. And it seems to be enough. Every time.

I have noticed in my own life, perhaps you have noticed it in yours as well, that when I share of the bounty I have I am more open to the possibility of receiving… I know I have said this before, but I truly believe that money is nothing more than a symbol of the energy flow of life. It is always flowing. Sometimes it is a monsoon and sometimes it is the evaporating morning dew. And both ends of that pole are filled with challenges. I have known both ends of that pole, and when I am in the monsoon end, I have the ability to share and willingly do so from my abundance. I feel good being able to do so.

And I have known the feeling that what I have is evaporating like the morning dew and I want to cling on to every last penny. The difficulty I find with myself is that even in my clinging to the morning dew; I always seem to have enough for that movie, large soda and popcorn at the Cobb theater and I always seem to have enough for that Starbucks cinnamon dulce venti coffee but nope, nada for the church, nope nada for the food pantry, nope nada for Breast cancer research.

There is a quote I came across that states, “Don’t tell me where your values are. Show me where you spend your money and I’ll tell you what they are.” And it is at those times when I seem to have the money for Starbucks, which is not a necessity, and no money to support the micro loan program that aids the economic development of women in third world countries or the Big Brother/Big Sister mentoring program that my values, my shamefully self-centered-what-about-me-values begin to surface. Because truth is, even when I am feeling I have no ability to share my financial resources, I still find the money to purchase that bottle of wine or bag of chips or MacCafé or popcorn at the refreshment stand.

Now don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with purchasing these things. But if you are like me and feeling like money is evaporating like the morning dew, perhaps it is time to re-evaluate how necessary to the enjoyment of life are these extra non-essential items.

People in the 1% of the wealth of this country are not any happier or more fulfilled than those at the bottom 1% of wealth in this country. I know the Sophie Tucker quote, “I’ve been rich, I’ve been poor. Rich is better.” But the key to enjoying life and having happiness seems to be not the amount of money we have but the richness of our relationships with others. It is the values that we live out in our daily lives that will add to our happiness quotient.

I enjoy treating others. I am grateful that I have the income to enable me to pay my obligations and to have some money to set aside for later expenses, money set aside for causes that I find important and to be able to treat my friends every so often. I don’t live extravagantly. I am not trying to keep up with the Joneses by getting the latest iphone or wii gaming box. But I have enough. Enough to do the things that I feel are important, essential to my living my values, of how I want to be in the world.

How do you want to be in the world? I want to challenge this notion that we cannot be more generous than we are because of… name the reason. This simply is not true. We, regardless of the life challenges we are facing right now, can all be more generous than we were yesterday.

So last fall, I introduced a challenge to this congregation. I took $500 from the minister’s professional expense account and broke it into ten amounts. Four people received $25, four people received $50 dollars and two people received $100. The challenge was this: To find a way to grow this money into more money and then to give that money to a charity of one’s choosing.

How to grow the money was entirely up to the person. They could simply choose to match the money and give it to their charitable cause. They could use the money as an entrance fee to a walkathon for one of their causes. They could make something to sell and the profits could then go towards their cause. There was no restriction on how they were to do this. I gave them six months to do this. I did not keep track of who received the envelopes and I had shuffled the envelopes so I did not know who received what amount. The only thing that they had to do was to then report back to me in April with a report of what they did with the money. How they came up with the process of growing the money. What was the amount they began with and ended with, and something about the charity they gave the money to.

There were some interesting lessons learned along the way. Three of the projects are still incomplete and the reasons for the incompletion are interesting. They required the work, the generosity to be done by others. Generosity, it turns out, cannot be delegated. Even if it seems to be in the best interest of the other, generosity has be initiated by the self. One person realized after waiting several months for a group he was involved with to implement his idea, began to grow the money by himself and was able to increase the funds that he is giving to Breast Cancer Research. This project at last report is still ongoing. We will wait and see if the other projects will be completed.

One family did something interesting. The daughter took one of her art projects for school, a yarn picture of a butterfly and made this into note cards. Then she sold these cards. They turned their $50 dollars into $260. The daughter learned about the international women’s organization, the Soroptimist, which helps women to rise out of poverty and abusive situations. She is also very committed in the beautification project here at the church. So the money is being divided between two organizations, one being the church. The other is FINCA.

The family writes, “For some time we had been considering donating to a charity that does micro-loans to promising entrepreneurs in developing areas. We learned about FINCA, which supports women’s small growing businesses. When the loan is repaid, and some of the profits are saved, the entrepreneur has the possibility to apply for a second and larger loan. In this way a donation to FINCA can actually be used over and over again, helping to provide food, housing, schooling, and other basic support.”

The donation this family is making to FINCA will continue to grow with each new micro loan that is made to a woman in a developing country. This international charity has consistently for the past seven years received 4 stars for excellence as being one the best run charities in the world and in achieving its desired goals.

There are Unitarian Universalist congregations that have as a congregation chosen to help FINCA establish and support new micro loan banks in new communities in third world countries. This is something we too could do as a congregation.

It is no secret that [Name removed]  loves to shop for clothes and shoes. You may be wondering what her secret is to her wonderful and attractive ensembles that she wears. Well, she shops at the various charitable consignment and thrift stores in the region. So she is already supporting the services that many in our region need to receive. Yet, with this challenge, she took this to another level.

She writes, “I made a deal with myself that whenever I wanted to buy clothes or shoes I would instead put that amount in the envelope or, if I bought something, I would have to match the amount and put it in the envelope. I came upon this idea because I’m a woman who likes clothes (or should I say “one of those women”) and have more than I need, and don’t need anymore. So, deflecting that desire to spend on clothes into a fund for charity seemed like a good lesson for me.”

This became a spiritual practice of generosity. Her practice grew her $25 into $320 and she decided to give this money to our congregation as a gift.

Another lesson that was learned is sometimes life gets in the way of our good intentions. Frequent business travels, family concerns, and the ever ubiquitous procrastination can derail our best efforts. But even with these barriers generosity can rise to the fore.

Two years ago, a couple visited their daughter in Mexico. She was working as an encargada or caregiver at Nuestros Pequeños Hermanos orphanage in Miacatlán Mexico. They were very impressed, not only with the service their daughter was providing but with the orphanage as well. This organization, started by a priest in the 1950’s, has grown into an international organization that has served close to 16,000 orphans. The initial $25 was used towards paying for the initial month of support to one person. They write, “[We] will contribute an additional $30 per month until the student graduates, providing funding for the purchase of clothing, school supplies and personal items. We have recently been given the name of our “godchild,” who has just celebrated her 15th birthday. We will support this student until she graduates in approximately three years. In addition to the monetary contribution, we will be corresponding with the young person and can visit the home in Mexico.” The $25 will have yielded approximately $1,080 in generous support. …

The generosity challenge was, in my opinion, a wonderful success. Lessons were learned. New experiences are unfolding. And the grand total of money raised for charitable causes from the $500 to date is $2,575. Margaret Mead stated, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” Blessed Be.

Alabama’s state constitution has not been seriously reviewed since it was implemented in 1901.   Yes, that’s right 1901.  Now changing constitutions are not something that one should enter into lightly.  Yet, there comes a time when constitutions no longer serve the best interests of the people.  However, this constitution was never written to serve the best interests of the people of Alabama only a few select white people of Alabama.  So the constitution was flawed from day one.

John Knox president of the 1901  constitution convention stated in the record it was the intention of the convention to “establish white supremacy in this state.”  This constitution deliberately institutionalized racism.   And the constitution as written has ensured that people of color be cast down by deliberate oppression. 

One of the ways this is done is by the  constitution keeping all of the decision making out of local control.  No municipality, no county can decide for itself zoning issues or even mundane decisions like rodent control or burying dead farm animals unless so amended in the constitution.   According to Alabama Citizens  for Constitutional Reform, 50% of state legislators time is spent debating local issues that should be decided by the people affected by these issues.  70% of all amendments  made to the constitution apply to a single municipality.  This makes the state constitution the longest on record.   It also limits the autonomy of municipalities to make decisions and the ability to make said decisions are unequal per amendments to the constitution. 

The constitution has locked in unfair tax codes penalizing the poor to pay a disproportionate amount of income and sales tax.   The wealthiest in the state pay about 4%  while the poorest pay 11% and begin paying income tax after $12K.  Even Mississippi, which Alabama is oft to cry “Thank God for Mississippi” when comparing its ratings in the nation, has a starting thresh hold of $19K  for a family to begin paying state income tax.

The money raised in Alabama has little flexibility as to how it can be spent.  According to the Alabama Citizens for Constitution reform, most states earmark only 22% of their budget allowing the governor and finance officers to develop a budget allocating funds to the areas of greatest need.  Alabama constitution requires that 90% of the budget be earmarked limiting that flexibility and causing huge problems.  The education budget has been pro-rated eight times in the past 17 years.   Pro-ration is when the budget which must be balanced is reduced by the percentage of the deficit.  Meaning that if the deficit is 10% then the education budget must be pro-rated back 10% as well. 

It is due time that Alabama streamlines the 799 amendment constitution by surrendering democratic control to the municipalities and counties to allow them to determine what to do with their dead farm animals and where to build their firehouses.  State legislators have larger and more important issues to deal with than waste their time and our money on such localized problems.   This constitution is the epitome of micro-management gone wild.

There are now two bills in the legislature. But they are facing a tough fight.  HJR 91 was briefly discussed on May 6, 2009 but was tabled to some undetermined time.  It is important that our state representatives hear from us to not allow this racist and archaic and convoluted constitution to continue to guide us in the muck  of red tape.   We deserve better treatment and respect from our state government than this.  Blessings,

“In every age the present is merely the shifting point at which past and future meet, and we can have no quarrel with either.  There can be no world without traditions; neither can there be any life without movement. There is never a moment when the new dawn is not breaking over the earth, and never a moment when the sunset ceases to die… 

In the moral world we are ourselves the light bearers, and the cosmic process is in us made flesh. For a brief space it is granted to us, if we will, to enlighten the darkness that surrounds our path. As in ancient torch-races, which seemed to Lucretius to be the symbol of all life, we press forward torch in hand along the course.  Soon from behind comes the runner who will outpace us. All our skill lies in giving into that hand the living torch, bright and unflickering, as we ourselves disappear in the darkness.” 

Havelock Ellis as quoted in Ronald Knapp’s  reflection at the UUMA Convocation on Ministry 1995.

I came across this quote this evening while preparing for tomorrow’s sermon on the Prophetic Sisterhood.  I found it quite profound in contrast to these amazing women of the late 19th and early 20th century in our Unitarian movement.   There were several torches that they passed on to us.  Some were more directly passed to us from their hands  like the right for women to vote as many if not all of these women were active in the suffragette movement.  A few lived long enough to be able to cast their ballot.

But one torch seemingly skipped a generation or two.  When these women clergy were forced out of their ministries by the Unitarian desire to masculinize the movement [indeed there was a nationwide desire to masculinize all of America during this time], very few women were ordained from the 1920’s until the 1970’s.  It became the rare woman who was able to fill a pulpit during that period, less than 2% of women were clergy in our movement.

It wasn’t until the women’s movement of the mid-60’s and 70’s that women in numbers once again began seeking ordination as ministers.  That 2% ember had once again flared as the beacon torch it once was in the Western Conference of the late 1800’s.  Today Unitarian Universalist women ministers comprise over 50% of our clergy. 

But the present as shifting point is a shaky precipice. It can tip backwards or tip forward into the rising dawn.  It seems to me that it is important for us as the carriers of the flame, that we decide here and now how this flame will burn in the next moments of our lives even as our sunset blazes behind the horizon.   Blessings,

I was introduced to Susan Werner’s song, “Help Somebody” at the MidSouth District Annual Assembly by Sarah Dan Jones who performed this song with choir at one of the services.  It is a powerful song. Thank you Sarah Dan!

At Mid-South District’s Annual Assembly in Nashville this past weekend, our UUA Trustee Lyn Conley shared with those present at the meeting the proposed UUA end statement and it caused some concern for me and several of my ministerial colleagues who were present. 

The end statement that was originally presented to the UUA Board  meeting in April 2009 stated the following: “Grounded in our covenantal tradition, the UUA will inspire people to lead lives of humility and purpose, connection and service, thereby transforming themselves and the world.” 

By the end of the Board meeting, the proposed end statement that passed and that Lyn Conley read to the District was the following: 

“Grounded in our covenantal tradition, the member congregations of the Unitarian Universalist Association will inspire people to lead lives of humility and purpose, connection and service, thereby transforming themselves and the world.”

There is a vast difference between stating “The Unitarian Universalist Association will inspire people to”… versus “The member congregations of the UUA will inspire people to… ”    

The first wording is an appropriate end statement for the Unitarian Universalist Association, the second is not.  Perhaps it is a subtle difference.  But in my experience of doing policy governance work, I do not believe so. 

Policy Governance is a model for how a board works in achieving its ends as a board and as an entity.  It is a helpful tool in guiding CEOs in fulfilling the mission of the agency. The UUA is an agency set up to serve the member congregations.

The second statement is a directive to the member congregations and the subset ends that follow contain possible criteria for enforcing that directive. If we had a presbyterian form of polity then the directive would also be appropriate but we do not have a presbyterian polity, not yet anyway, and therefore in order for the second wording to succeed it would require that each and every congregation in the association to buy into / or covenant with this end statement as their own in order for it to be implemented and aspired to by the congregations. 

The difficulty with this as an end statement for the UUA is that it is really an end statement for congregations that are supposed to be able to determine their own destiny through congregational polity. It is instead akin to parents developing an end statement for their child’s future: ‘Grounded in our family values, Mary child of Tom and Wilbur will major in medicine to become a doctor.’  While the goal of the end statement is laudable and perhaps very desirable by many congregations, to state that “member congregations … will inspire” is not within the UUA’s decision or even within their perview to decide. That decision of whether the congregation will inspire rests in the congregation.

The original wording is the UUA’s end statement. The revised and adopted end statement is the member congregations’ end statement, which is not in the UUA’s authority to develop. 

How will the UUA inspire congregations to be places of transformation?  What will the UUA do to assist that to happen?  All appropriate questions that the UUA will need to discuss and develop policies and parameters for the next President to then follow in fully answering these questions. As currently worded, however, the UUA is saying that the congregations will do this and that is not in the UUA’s control and once it is out of the UUA’s control it can no longer be the UUA’s end statement.  Nor is it in the parent’s control on how their child will decide to unfold her life. 

I do not question the laudable vision of inspiring people to living lives of humility and purpose, etc…. But I do question who will take responsibility and accountability for it happening… Placing it on the member congregations is the UUA abdicating its role in serving the congregations.  And while the UUA ‘s membership is made up of congregations, it is still an entity separate from the member congregations.  End statements are for the board of an agency to implement through its staff and not its member constituents.

Let me see if I can put this another way… I was the executive director of an AIDS Ministry for over 10 years.  My board developed end statements for me to work towards.  It was not the responsibility of the people with AIDS  who we served to implement these end statements, it was my responsibility and the staff I supervised to implement these end statements.  Hopefully by working towards these end statements it meant that the people with AIDS were living healthier lives because of them.   

It is the same with whatever end statement that the UUA Board develops.  It is the President and the staff of the UUA who will and ought to be responsible for working towards these end statements.  Hopefully, by working towards these end statements the member congregations will indeed be places where transformations happen.   The UUA can inspire us to be these places of transformation with their resources, their services to the congregations, their advocacy work for justice in our nation’s capital and in their holding the member congregations accountable to our covenant with one another.   Blessings,

A recent Pew Research Center survey found that 54% of those who attend church regularly said that torture used against suspected terrorists is “often” or sometimes “justified.”  The survey only included white Evangelical, white non-Hispanic Catholics, and white mainline Protestants.  Those individuals who did not attend church regularly or were unaffiliated religiously were more likely to respond that torture was rarely or never justified. 

I find this curious as it contradicts the very basics of Christian teachings of Jesus.   Jesus, himself, was considered a terrorist of his day and received torture by his captors.   But Jesus never condoned torture in his teachings.  “Turn the other cheek” and “Love your enemies” and “forgive each other not just 7 times but 70 x 70 times” and “He who lives by the sword will die by the sword”  and other phrases appear over and over again through out the gospels of the Christian scriptures.  These are not the tenets of someone who sees torture as justified. 

What is it about 21st century Christianity that rejects the very premise of Jesus’ teachings?  Could it be that those who call themselves Christians have rejected the Jesus of the scriptures for an apocalyptic Christ?  An image of a  Christ that is full of vengeance and hatred against a world that rejects him? 

The popular Left Behind novel series by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins proclaims an apocalyptic vision of the end times that is filled with terror for the unbelieving.  This is a Christ that prepares a Hell for those who refuse to accept Christ’s message.  It is geared towards using torture as a means to bring about salvation, albeit salvation under duress.  Not the ‘love your enemies’ Christ of the Christian scriptures but the wrathful twisted apocalyptic Christ of the 21st century.  The apocalyptic Christ accepts torture as a means for the victims of torture to then possibly receive Christ’s message of love.   It is a twisted and disturbed interpretation of the gospels.

Someone needs to proclaim the message regarding torture that is in alignment with the message of the world’s sages; Buddha, Jesus, Rumi, Gandhi, and King.  

The National Religious Coalition Against Torture is proclaiming June as Torture Awareness Month.  The UUA’s Mid-South District  has received a grant to enable  MSD congregations to participate spreading the word that Torture is morally wrong and is never ever justified.  If your congregation would like to be part of the proclamation that Jesus meant it when he said “Love your enemies,”  contact the National Religious Coalition Against Torture for ideas and resources.  If your congregation is part of the UUA’s Mid South District contact the district for more information on the availability of  grant monies to assist you in proclaiming your prophetic voice. 

Let us  join with Rev. John Murray who said, “Give them not Hell, but hope and courage; preach the kindness and everlasting love of God. ”

Our Home Universalist Unitarian Church, Ellisville, MS

I wrote this prayer to be offered at the Mid-south District Assembly in Nashville, TN this evening at the “Service of the Lively Tradition”.

Spirit of Life that binds all of creation together, May our thoughts focus on this connection that weaves between us here in this gathering and with those at our home congregations, and even with those lives we may not even be aware of in distant lands.  Yet, we are all of one fabric.

Let us learn the lesson of the new patch on old fabric.  Like a new patch, if we are without wisdom, without compassion, without empathy for the threads that connect us, then we tear at the very fabric that makes us whole.  May we today find ways to recommit ourselves anew to peacemaking within our lives, within our congregations, within our country, within our global community. May we recognize the power that we as single threads have in binding our hearts and minds together towards this fabric of common cause. 

Spirit of Life lead the arc of Justice ever forward in all of our actions.  May our community grow ever firm in its convictions for a world of equitable justice, equitable economies, equitable relations.  May the beloved community be more than just an ideal to strive for but one that manifests in our midst by our daily actions in thought and deed. 

Spirit of Life that binds all creation together may we honor you in caring for that creation.  May we be caring for the creation sitting next to us in these pews, and caring for the creation beyond these walls whose very existence adds life and enjoyment to this planet.  May this be so.  Let the people offer a resounding, Yes Indeed.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) have yet another indictment to make against factory farming;  Swine Flu or H1N1 virus.

PETA will be posting a billboard: Meat Kills: Go Vegetarianin San Antonio, TX and then listing the number of diseases related to eating the American Diet, which is high in meat. In their billboard they will be including the Swine Flu which is being investigated as possibly linked to a Smithfield Factory Hog Farm in La Gloria, Mexico where the now pandemic Swine Flu originated.  

Swine Flu is not spread through eating pork but is spread like other flus; through sneezing, coughing, and handshaking with contaminated hands.  Covering one’s mouth with a tissue or handkerchief when sneezing and coughing and frequent soap hand washing is recommended.  

Mexican Health Authorities are investigating the possibility that the factory farm in La Gloria could be the source of the outbreak.  Residents have been complaining of a high incidence of respiratory illnesses since February from inhaling the fecal dust from the factory farm.  

This would not be the first time that Factory Hog Farm has been found to be the source of a Swine Flu outbreak and even an outbreak with the triple virus hybrid of swine, avian, and human virus.   In 1998, a North Carolina Factory Farm was the epicenter for an outbreak of Swine Flu.  That year, the hog population hit ten million and there were fewer hog farms in the state than there were six years before.  The overcrowding conditions made flu ripe for epidemic. 

It is interesting that Obama stopped using the word Swine Flu and began using the technical term, H1Ni virus.  It seems that the Pork lobbyists felt that using the word swine would reduce the consumption of their product.   Several countries have banned the import of Pork from the US for allegedly this fear.    Regardless if we call it Swine Flu or H1N1, we need to begin looking at the larger ramifications of factory farming not only for the ethical treatment of the animals that we confine there, but also for the ramifications on the environment and as possible vectors for disease.   There are better options out there that have worked well not only for the animals but for the global environment as well.  It’s time we begin to investigate how to honor the bounty of our earth in healthful ways. Blessings,

USA Today announced that a Transsexual was awarded $500,000 in back pay and damages for having job offer rescinded after announcing her transition from a man to a woman.   Diane Schroer applied for and offered a position as a terrorism analyst at the Library of Congress while she was still David Schroer.  When she announced to a Library official that she was undergoing gender reassignment surgery the offer of the position was pulled.

The Library of Congress and the Justice Department attempted to argue that discrimination of transsexuality was not illegal sex discrimination under the civil rights act.  They lost their argument.

Discrimination in any form is wrong.  One’s ability to perform a job does not change because one’s sex is re-assigned or one comes out of the closet as gay or lesbian or intersexed.  

My grandmother taught me about diversity when I was a child.  She was a botanist by training and would take me out on walks into the woods on  her land.  SHe would name for me all the different ferns and flowers that grew on the property.  I remember her saying to me that even though I knew what a New York Fern looked like it didn’t mean I knew all there was to know about New York Ferns.  There are natural variations that occur in the ferns fronds and to look and admire these differences.  She would point out the frond that ended in two or three points instead of just one.  Or she would point out how some of the fronds leaves going up to the point would also have two or more points on them.  Each fern had this diversity in them and diversity was part of the natural order of things. 

We see it in the human species as well… this child born with undistinguished genitalia, this other child born with webbed feet.  This child born gay, this one bi-sexual, and this other child a chimera; born with two different DNA patterns in her body.  Transgender is just another aspect of the diversity in the human species.  All of it is to be celebrated.  All of it shows something of the magnificance of creation. 

Discrimination against our diversity as a human species is at some level giving god the proverbial finger; by creating diversity god  messed up big time.  Who are we to question creation?  Each creation is a gift to all of us, no matter how long that creation is here among us.  Let’s celebrate the differences and honor each other’s worth and dignity.  Blessings,

This quote is from Arthur C. Clark’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. Last night as I walked back to my room, I looked up at the night sky and the stars I saw were amazing.   I am at the Mountain Retreat andLearning Center in Highlands, NC for a SouthEast Unitarian Universalist Minister’s Association meeting. 

Where I live in Alabama, the light pollution is so great that I do not have the vista of the heavens that I remember as a child in rural New York State.  

As a child, I could see very distinctively the milky way wave across the night sky but even from The Mountain where light pollution is less, the milky way was not as bright as I remember.   There is a sense of wonder at all of the universe that has always captured the human spirit since the dawn of human history.  That sense of wonder is being diminished by the light pollution and the dullness of our senses to the natural world around us.  

We are made up of the dust of stars.  Every part of our being has its origins in the stars above us.  It is a testament to the evolving wonder of life.  The expanse of it does not diminish the significance of life on this planet… on the contrary it calls forth the awe and majesty of life and creation expressing itself.  It is wonderous!

We are in a new age.   Yesterday, I received reports that Amazon the online bookseller mogul had deranked thousands of books across a variety of categories that had one common theme; positive gay images.  Amazon stated it was a glitch in their software programming.  People across the nation begin to use Twitter to decry this event. Gay authors brought forward official communiques from Amazon stating their works were deranked because of an alleged “new” Amazon policy to derank adult books.  This did not make sense when many of these books were written for children, were health related or simply had nothing to do with adult content.  Something was a foot.  After my checking with Amazon’s releases on the subject, checking various claims that gay authors were making on various blogs, finding some of the titles re-ranked again, I called it a hate crime. 

Amazon still claims it to be a computer program glitch.  Yesterday afternoon, a well known Hacker by the pseudonym of Weev, is claiming credit for the debacle.   He claims to have done it as revenge against the  gay community in San Francisco for allegedly targeting his Craigs List ads looking for women who want to shoot up with him.  One of his tactics he claims was to target Amazon’s feedback program of stating a particular book as inappropriate–meaning adult content.   Amazon is still claiming that the de-ranking of 50K+ titles of gay related themes was a glitch, yet this feedback program that customers could target items as inappropriate is no longer available.  

Yesterday, I received cautionary advice from a colleague, Christine Robinson about jumping quickly on the news that sails on the tsunamis known as Twitter.  It is good advice.  I did what I thought was due diligence in checking the claims before I wrote my post.   My sensitivity to homophobia as a gay male is acutely heightened and so it is a button if pushed, I respond.  

I still find it hard to believe this was a programming glitch.  Unless that is what hacker’s do; find programming glitches to exploit with their computer terrorism.  In which case, Amazon can deny the hacker’s success, save themselves from the apparent embarrassment of being hacked, and place into the software the safeguards needed to avoid the glitch from being exploited again.

These are the new days in which we live.  Computers are now the threads that bind our lives together.  Hackers are the new proponents of hate crimes.   Twitter is both the new rumor mill and a power to contend with for corporations–for good or ill.  And the Truth, well, it is still out there waiting for the light of day. Blessings,

Amazon.com apparently has made a policy decision that will determine what the primary point of view will be of books you will find when you search on certain subjects.  They have chosen to de-rank what they are calling “adult” books, regardless of the sales figures for these books.  They responded to one author’s complaint with this response: “In consideration of our entire customer base, we exclude “adult” material from appearing in some searches and best seller lists. Since these lists are generated using sales ranks, adult materials must also be excluded from that feature.”   I just checked on the ranking of this author’s book, The Filly and it has returned to the list of rankings.  However, This book does not belong in the category of  Literary Criticism.  This is another complaint by author’s regarding their works, that they are being placed in irrelevant categories to make them harder to find. 

However, obvious adult content with titles like Girls Gone Wild: Girls on Girls have not been deranked.  Now Amazon.com claims this is a ‘glitch’ that just happened to target GLBT  books and authors.  There seems to be a double standard at what is adult content and what is not.

Authors most hit are those that are pro-gay, pro-feminist, pro-disability.   Do a search on the subject of Homosexuality and six out of the top ten books are aimed at the prevention of homosexuality. When I did this search the number one book that comes up is A Parent’s Guide to Preventing Homosexuality.   It appears the policy is not whether it has adult content but whether it matches their point of view.

Author Heather Corinna, writes in her blog [which happens to be on Amazon.com about this deranking and policy]: ” My book is intended for young adults, and is GLBT-inclusive, and penned by me, a queer author.  It is not salacious, it is not pornography: it is a sexuality, sexual health and relationships reference book. Heather Has Two Mommies is a supportive and classic children’s book about gay families.  Hello, Cruel World is a suicide prevention book (which just happens to be written by a transgender author).  That’s a short list, but the point is, many of the books that have been deranked are not adult books at all, nor adult or salacious material, but what nearly all of them, so far, do seem to be are tagged or labeled in some way as GLBT, or as books addressing sexuality in a non-heteronormative or gendernormative way.”

Here in the south where bookstores try to cater to the customers in the region, online buying becomes a godsend to sexual minority folks looking for information on a topic that is closeted in the community.  Having these topics amazon ranked (see definition here) amounts to being a hate crime.

Theology grows out of the practice of the people and not the other way around.  People began honoring the date of Jesus’ crucifixion and then developed the theology of why they do this. Remembering the anniversary of a loved ones’ death was not an unheard of practice but it was generally reserved for those who knew the deceased.  

There was a need in the early church to explain this commemoration long after anyone alive remembered Jesus personally.  There was a need in the early church to explain how a loving God could allow the death of Jesus by crucifixion.  The early Christians scoured the scriptures [these would be the Hebrew writings, both canon and apochrophal]  to find anything that might be a prophetic fulfillment of Jesus’ life.  As they did they found references of the sacrificial lamb and the scape goat that would atone for sins.  They applied these references to explain the events of the crucifixion and made remembrance of his death a holy day.  However, it is a disservice to make the focus of an entire life on the last fleeting hours.  [Mel Gibson are you listening?] It is also a bit of a paradox to call the day commemorating a crucifixion as good. 

People often quote John 3:16, “For God so loved the world so much that he gave his only begotten son so that whosever believeth in him shall not perish but have everlasting life.”   Many read this verse then go directly (in their minds at least) to the crucifixion of Jesus as what it means to give up an only son.

However, this does not logically work for me.  If Jesus is indeed the only son of God, then it was not at the crucifixion that God gave Jesus to save the world but rather at his birth.   Jesus lived a life that was a profound example of how all people could live their lives.   His death did not seal the deal, it was just a result of the many things that happen to all prophets who are not welcomed in their land.   Socrates, Servetus, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Norbet Capek are just a few of the prophets that have graced our land who were not welcomed and like Jesus were killed.  There are also those who lived out their natural days; Buddha, Dorothy Day, Mother Teresa, and Thomas Merton.  Jesus could have easily ended his life on earth with an ascension like Enoch in the Hebrew Scriptures. [Luke’s gospel thought this reference was important and added it to the Christian texts to take place 40 days after his death and resurrection.]  His life did not need to end in crucifixion in order to make his message more profound. 

It does not make sense that God as a parent would ask his stronger well behaved and obedient son to accept the punishment for the wrong doing that a weaker perhaps infirmed son had committed. Wouldn’t it show more of God’s love and grace to offer forgiveness to the weaker perhaps infirmed child?  And be an example to the stronger son of what comprises true compassion? (I believe I am paraphrasing Rev. William Channing in his “Unitarian Christianity” sermon of 1819)

The gift that God bestowed to the earth then was not the death and resurrection of Jesus but rather the life of one who so embodies the principles which we hold dear.  The inherent worth and dignity of every person.  Justice, equity, and compassion in human relations.  Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth.  These first three principles of our Unitarian Universalist faith are based, not solely, but certainly primarily on the life of Jesus.   It is the life of Jesus that is the extraordinary gift and the focus of those who wish to follow in his footsteps and be called Christians.  The impact on the world would be great indeed if more people heeded the call of Jesus’ life and spent less time on the ramifications of believing or not the doctrine of the death and resurrection of Jesus. Blessings,

Be Your Note

Remember the lips where wind-breath
originated, and let your note be clear.

Don’t try to end it.
Be your note.

I’ll show you how it’s enough.
Go up on the roof at night
in this city of the soul.

Let everyone climb on their roofs
and sing their notes.

Sing Loud!

The Nightingale’s Way

A bird delegation comes to Solomon
complaining. Why is it
you never criticise the nightingale?

Because my way, the nightingale explains
for Solomon, is different.
Mid-march to mid-June I sing.

The other nine months,
while you continue chirping,
I am silent.

I found these two poems by Rumi, The Sufi  mystic from the 13th century to be an interesting contrast to each other. Yet, each complimenting each other as well.  The first poem is a call to be authentically oneself from the core of one’s being.   A remembrance of “where wind-breath originated” is a remembering of the first breath of Ruah, the breath of God that indwells life.   This is a declarative statement of I am.  

The second poem contrasts this by realizing that if we are shouting who we are constantly like all of the birds do then it is a cacophony of noise. No more than a noisy din with no pleasure to the beholder.  There is a time to shout ‘I am’ to the universe and a time to be still and listen.  The nightingale seems to realize this and therefore receives no complaint from Solomon. 

There is a time to honor the uniqueness of each personality.  A time to relish in the joy of all that makes us individuals and shout that to the world.   There is also a time to remain silent in order to hear the wonderous response to our declarations.  A time to honor the community symphony in which we live and breathe and have our being.  When we do so, we begin to find our place in that symphony.  We begin to differentiate between our unique note and the notes of all else.  We learn where our note can add to the music and harmony of the world.  Or even learn when our note is the right discordant voice needed to be heard to introduce a change the direction of the mood  and tempo towards justice and equality. 

But we cannot do this, if we are onlyshouting our notes and not listening in return.  There is a time to be silent, perhaps with a pregnant pause, waiting for the right moment when our note can be heard by one as wise as Solomon.  Blessings

I rarely do two posts in one day but this deserves a wider audience.  Thankyou to colleague and friend Sean Dennison for posting this at his blog.

The recent tornadoes that swept through Magee, MS were a gruesome reminder of our vulnerability to the ravages of weather related tragedies. There has been talk in our congregation and across the Mid-south district about what we can do to be prepared should tragedy strike our communities.

I went to Knoxville, TN to receive certification in Critical Incident Stress Management enabling me to respond to the psychological aftermath of such tragedies. It was an important training in many ways. While no one wants to experience the destruction of a home or church to tornado, flood, hurricane, or fire; these things do happen and do take their toll. And last August we became painfully aware of the human element of destruction when a gunman opened fire at the TVUUC in Knoxville. This certification will assist in preventing the long term effects of post traumatic stress and aid in the healing process of those witnesses of such events.  

The training received is a bit more comprehensive than the American Red Cross’ Psychological First AID only because the ARC program is geared more towards natural disasters rather than specific human made events.  This certification program offered through the International Critical Incident Stress Foundation, Inc. can be used after any stressful event, including but not exclusively, suicide, violence, natural disaster, medical emergency.   While there were other clergy at the training I attended, the participants came from all walks of life; professional therapists to sextons.   It seems wise to have as many people as can be trained to be able to assist in such an event.

But are there things we could do to help minimize the impact of tragedy on our lives?

I believe there is a pre-response. The congregation I serve in Mississippi participated in surveying our neighbors for pre-disaster assessment for the Red Cross. This was an important task that we did. This information will aid firefighters and rescue workers in knowing where to begin sending medical aid immediately.   For instance, some medical conditions require refrigeration of medications.   Knowing who in the community needs sort of aid in advance will get them the help they need sooner.

But I now realize that we did not do the same pre-assessment for our members. Should disaster strike our community, how would we get in touch with our members to ensure their safety? I began to wonder how many of us are certified in CPR and First Aid. Would we know exactly what to do if someone had a medical incident at church? Do we have relevant medical histories on our members in case of a medical incident? Do we have next of kin contact information on file? Not only in a computer database but also in hard-copy in case of power outage.  Who would call 911? What is the location of the first aid kit and is it up-to-date in its supplies? Who knows what to do in case of choking? Do we have emergency supplies? What would we do in case of fire or tornado while we were at church?

It is not just having a plan written down but knowing the plan well enough to execute it. Being prepared is not jinxing our future for these events to occur, but rather enables us to be able to respond in a timely manner and reduce the impact of the tragedy. Some of the steps to take in developing a preparedness strategy is located at the Mid-South District website—Msduua.org. It helps us to create resiliency so we can pass through the storms of our lives with some ability of hope for our future. No one wants to anticipate disasters but they do happen. It would be wise to know how to respond in advance. Blessings, Fred

Pope Benedict XVI is in a bit of a bind regarding HIV/AIDS.  He is trying to make the current pandemic fit a world view that no longer exists in the 21st century.  It makes the dogma of the Roman Catholic Church seem totally out of touch with what the people are experiencing.

” ‘You can’t resolve it with the distribution of condoms,” the pope told reporters aboard the Alitalia plane heading to Yaounde. “On the contrary, it increases the problem.’  The pope said a responsible and moral attitude toward sex would help fight the disease, as he answered questions submitted in advance by reporters traveling on the plane. His response was presumably also prepared in advance. The Catholic Church rejects the use of condoms as part of its overall teaching against artificial contraception. Senior Vatican officials have advocated fidelity in marriage and abstinence from premarital sex as key weapons in the fight against AIDS.”

The difficulty of orthopraxis (right actions)  is that it is created during a specific time and place, it addresses specific needs of that time and it does not always transcend societal trends and circumstances.  The Catholic church’s view on sexuality is that it has one purpose and one purpose only and that is procreation of the species.  There is no other purpose of the behaviors that we call sexual. 

This is the reason why the Catholic Church is against latex barriers/ condom usage because they would inhibit the primary reason to have sexual intercourse.   According to a text written by Jonathan Ned Katz, entitled The Invention of Heterosexuality the term Heterosexual was used in 1892 “associating them with nonprocreative perversion.”  This seems to be the mindset view of the Roman Catholic Church.  This explains why the church is against condom use, defining marriage beyond that of one man and one woman, masturbation and homosexuality. 

There was a time when these praxi could possibly be justified.  The Jewish people in the days of the Hebrew scriptures were a minority population.  Having children was important, not only to carry on their culture but also to increase their chances of survival.  The ordinance  against spilling one’s seed on the ground instead of placing it in the belly of a whore, is therefore an important ordinance.  More important than the adultery of sleeping with a known whore.  Homosexual behaviors also reduced the possibility of increasing one’s tribe. Masturbation did the same.  And polygamy defined marriage for the same reason, it increased the possibility of passing on strong genes to as many children as possible.

The prohibitions of homosexuality in the Hebrew Scriptures had another reason that had little to do with the act of homosexuality itself as it did with abandoning the God of Abraham and participating in the religious cults of the native people whose land the Jews were to possess.   Participating in these religious cults was more of a threat to the identity of the Jewish people. 

The Pope advocates for a moral and responsible attitude towards sex as a means to reduce the spread of HIV.   I agree with the statement however, I do not agree with the mindset that produced such a statement.  In today’s world where the purpose of sexual activity is primarily for pleasure and procreation only as desired calls for a very moral and responsible attitude.  It calls for a healthy respect for the human body.  It calls for a mutuality of love between partners where the partners respect and honor their partners body and boundaries.  And it calls for pre-planning in pregnancy when the world is fast approaching 8 billion people in a world that has difficulty finding the resources to sustain 7 billion. 

Having children in today’s world can potentially be the most irresponsible thing a couple can do when the resources to support that child’s life simply isn’t available for the couple.  I do not believe that if god created sex to be as pleasurable as it is, that she would forbid two people from expressing symbolically the love of god in their sexuality because they chose to use a condom.  That symbol of the love of god made manifest in the sacred union is at the heart of every wedding vow in the Christian tradition. 

The Pope is in a bind because the nature of this pandemic requires absolutely requires from a moral and ethical point of view to reconsider the orthopraxi of the 19th century and earlier and find every possible means to reduce the spread of HIV.  Yes, abstinence before marriage is one possible means.  But it does not remove the threat from the partners of the child who contracted HIV from his or her mother and now is an adult thanks to life saving drugs.  For this person, abstinence before marriage only postpones the potential of spreading the virus. 

Latex barriers are going to be essential after marriage to reduce the possibility of infecting his or her partner.  Wouldn’t it be better for the child to learn a healthy respect for his or her sexual body while growing up so they can be responsible in their expression of sexuality as young adults.  The Pope’s condemnation of condoms also condemns this person for wanting to live a healthy and productive life with a sexual partner.    This is simply an immoral and irresponsible view point given the nature of this pandemic.

I was doing some research for a sermon I am writing and came across the following quote,

” It is significant that the new capacity for freedom related to movement is actualized as a form of art. Human beings dance–ballet and folk and jazz and ballroom and T’ai Chi–as an expression of aesthetic possibilities.  Each art form is developed as a ritual to express one’s exhilaration and freedom. ‘To us,’ writes Alan Oken in the Age of Aquarius, ‘rock music represents freedom… the freedom to feel, to be one with a higher collective force, to move together in one cosmic rhythm.’  One ‘dances for joy,’  or to express sexuality or religious feelings, as in the whirling of Muslim Dervishes, or to ‘drum’ up emotion for battle, like the war dances of the Native Americans.  Movement and theexpansion of freedom are symbolic expressions of the individual’s career from birth to death.’   From Rollo May’s Freedom and Destiny

I wondered as I read this passage, if this then is the importance of ritual in worship?  The ability to connect with one’s sense of freedom.  There seems to be a resurgence in the need for ritual in Unitarian Universalist circles and perhaps this is the reason–a desire to tap into this sense of freedom.

Rituals serve many purposes.  There is a body kinesthetic– a comfortable body memory–of walking silently, hands folded prayerfully in front of the chest to receive the eucharist from the priest or to walk up to the altar and kneel with hands open to receive the eucharist.  The body is symbolically reflecting a humble submissive receptive form before the holy.  

Now Unitarians Universalists generally do not perform this specific ritual but some congregations in our movement do celebrate communion.  One such communion ritual is that of breaking bread and passing the cup at Thanksgiving time.  The bread might be corn bread and the cup might be apple cider both representing the harvest of a good year and harkening back to the first Thanksgivings celebrated in this country.  This ritual of breaking bread also connects to May’s statement about freedom.  We freely choose to be in communion / in covenant with one another and the ritual honors and reaffirms that covenant symbolically. 

There is also what we have come to call the Flower Communion.  This ritual developed by Norbert Capek, is celebrated annually in many of our congregations.  The ritual is a simple act of bringing a flower and then exchanging it with another flower.  The flowers represent the diversity of our community and how each of us together form a wondeful bouquet of gifts, talents, and personalities.  It too honors the covenant that we have freely entered into with one another.

The most powerful ritual I have witnessed was performed by Rev. Barbara Pescan, currently serving our Evanston, IL congregation.  At the time she was the minister of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation in the Danbury region.  She was also co-founder with me of the Interfaith AIDS Ministry of Greater Danbury.   We held a monthly interfaith prayer service and invited clergy from various traditions to come and offer a homily.  She graciously came and presented a story about a person she knew with HIV/AIDS in the final days of his life.  She told aspects of his life and of his hospitality even as he lay dying.  On the nightstand near his bed was an Angelfood cake that was made for him.  He offered a piece to Barbara and she graciously ate.  It was a profound moment for her.  And then she brought out an Angelfood cake for us to share  with each other.  As the cake was passed from person to person. With tears in our eyes we each broke a piece off and ate.  We felt not only a connection to her friend with HIV/AIDS but also a sense of grace in the presence of death.  That in our dying we can choose to be free to love those in our presence.   

Rituals in whatever form they take can be a powerful expression of the many aspects of the human condition.  They can help us to connect those aspects of ourselves that we are unable to express fully with words but can express those connections through movement or rhythmic sounds.  There is a sense of freedom in the rituals that transcends the imprisonment of this moment. 

Perhaps in our current world of compartmentalized living that erects barriers between home and business, between partners, between parents and children, between neighbors the craving for rituals in our denomination is a cry to break free of those barriers and to reconnect once again to each other and to our most inner selves.  Blessings,

A recent comment on one of my posts has led me to reflect more the matter.  I love when that happens.

The argument the commentator made, if I am understanding correctly, is that human rights are not inherent but rather bestowed by the ruling government and in our case by the democratic process of a referendum.   There is certainly many governments, including the USA, that are listed as being in Human Rights violation for not recognizing legally those inherent rights or for trampling on the human rights of others.

That’s a pretty strong statement that reinforces my argument that if California’s Supreme Court upholds this constitutional ban, and it is a ban regardless of semantics used, that other groups of people could be told that their existence is also not “valid or recognized in California.”

What impact does it have to be told that you are not valid or recognized? What impact does it have on people to have something (domestic partnership) that sort of is like a thing that a certain class of people have but is not that thing (marriage)?

Have you ever been told that you are not valid or recognized by a government? Have you ever experienced that level of discrimination against your being? If you have then you might understand why it would be important to have one’s existence validated and recognized by the state and country in which they live.

We are talking about the inherent right to love who you love. It is inherent/unalienable–it is not bestowed. Love cannot be made illegal because it will exist regardless of what laws are passed. However, laws can be passed to recognize its existence and to honor its diversity. Laws do have a power that validates people. Laws can equalize the “legal rights” people in a state experience. And Human Rights, those rights that are inherent by simply being human, in a free society such as ours should be legalized as a matter of honoring our American ideals as found in the Declaration of Independence–the unalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

If insisting on fulfilling our founding ideals is “intolerant” of me then sobeit. If it is “unethical” for me to state that love is inherent in humanity and should be honored in all its diversity legally, then I will continue to stand on the side of love and be “unethical.”

Prop 8 the constitutional ban of same gender marriage in California is being reviewed by California’s State Supreme Court.  The question that is being debated is who determines what is a right?  —The majority of the people or some other authority like inherent human rights.    The ban was voted in by 52% of the voting population making null and void 18,000 marriages that were committed when the Supreme Court ruled that the legislative ban against same gender marriage was unconstitutional. 

It’s an interesting question and one that could have dire consequences across the country.  Could there be a constitutional amendment in a state that wants to ban say immigrants from working and residing in their state? I am talking about immigrants that have visas.   There is such a groundswell of anti-immigrant fever in Mississippi and Alabama that such a change in the constitution could be voted in by a simple majority of the voting population.  It sounds preposterous.  But that is the argument being made in California, the majority decides what is a right. 

Bigotry should never be considered constitutional.  Nor should racism.  Yet that is the argument in California because 52% of the people voted with their bigotry.   They voted against the the religious rights of those faiths, including Unitarian Universalists,  who believe that all marriages are to be honored and blessed regardless of gender. 

A majority vote does not make it ethically right.  It just means that bigotry is alive and well.  If California’s State Supreme Court rules in favor of this constitutional ammendment then it will be the first time that equality rights were rescinded in America.   I know that there are states that have passed constitutional ammendments against same gender marriage but those states never recognized the human right to love whomever in the first place.  So, the states weren’t rescinding they were simply adding more barriers to codify their bigotry.   What other rights will be rescinded by majority vote?

When I was a kid, I never ever wanted to remove a band aid.  It hurt.  It would tear the hair follicles from their roots and hurt.  My father after watching me for half an hour gently working the ends of the adhesive would call me over an in one fell swoop pull the band-aid off.  I would cry.  He would tell me I would get over it and soon forget about the 2 second pain I felt.  He was right of course but I am grateful for the modern day adhesives they use on bandaids which are so much easier to remove. 

As most of Americans, I am concerned about the current economic crisis.  I am watching and observing as Wall Street continues to fall after Jack and Jill down the hill.   I am witnessing the government trying to transfuse life blood back into failing banking and insurance companies and the bleeding does not stop with these band aids. 

I laughed sardonically when the person screamed about the error of giving financial help to home owners who are in danger of foreclosing with the argument that they made their mistakes so why should I enable them with my taxpayer dollar.   Yet, that is exactly what we are doing with the failed banks, failed insurance companies, and auto industries.   They made major mistakes.  They wanted and got de-regulation that removed the safe guards on their industry which in turn resulted in this collapse.   And they cried that they needed taxpayer money to cover their financial foolery.

Comedian Jon Stewart has suggested that home-owners should receive the bail out money with the caveat that it be used to pay off their bad defaulted mortgages, which in turn would go to the banks that are failing, which in turn would mean that AIG and other insurance companies would no longer be responsible to pay out payments that they do not have to pay, which in turn might encourage banks to begin lending again.   What does he know, he is just a comic.  Many a profound statement has come from the jester.  His suggestion does make simple sense and perhaps that is why it is so argued against because common sense is something we cannot have in America. 

NPR recently aired a commentary that stated that never in the history of economic theory has a theory been so severely tested and found to be false.  They were talking about Reaganomics, the infamous trickle down theory.   Reagan proposed and all of America jumped for joy, that if tax incentives were given to the wealthiest of Americans and to industries along with deregulations then the money saved would then create new jobs, and income would trickle down to the poorest of Americans.  When this was proposed 1% of Americans had 9% of the wealth.  Today, 1% of Americans have 22% of the wealth.  The theory failed to trickle down and the result is the current economic crisis. 

I hear the argument for a Free Market on many issues–mostly from conservatives but the piece of the Free Market that is not being allowed to happen are the consequences when major mistakes are made.   Perhaps we need to allow this theory of Free Market to also be fully tested and allow the companies that have allowed their greed and gluttony to rule their wallets to feel the full weight of the consequences.  Let the de-regulated industries fall. 

Let’s take the pain it will produce and with the spirit of American ingenuity rebuild a better system.  Let’s learn from these mistakes and stop trying to prop up these zombie banks with our Life’s blood that is gushing out faster than we can tranfuse it.  It isn’t working and the suffering it is engendering is worse than if it was over and done with so the true healing can begin. 

If we allow these mismanaged industries to fail, yes, it will cause pain but we at least will know what we have to work with that is working.  We at least would be able to focus our energy on creating industries that could create jobs for a new America.   We could be putting our energy towards the needs of the people impacted by the failures caused by the CEO’s and boards of these industries; universal health care, new vocational education programs, extended unemployment benefits, food resources, infrastracture rebuilding.  Perhaps create an America that lives up to its ideals of liberty and justice for all.  We might even turn away from our hyper-individualistic greed and build a nation that sees the common good as supreme.  

The lesson that I see in all of this is that we learned that extreme Communism does not work hence the fall of the Soviet Union and its puppet states in Europe.   Extreme Capitalism also does not work hence the current collapse we are attempting to forestall here in America and in Europe.   Now perhaps there is another form economic system that has not yet been developed, but if these are the only polarities then what is in the middle?  Socialism?  We already know it too has problems.   There has to be a better way and perhaps pulling the band-aid is the start towards that way.  Blessings,

I recently responded to a post entry at Transient and Permanent’s blog  entitled “How would you feel about a layperson as UUA President?” which led him to write a new blog, “Do Unitarian Universalist Ministers Have a Calling?”

I wrote in response to the first post after stating that I did not see it as incongruous for a lay person to be president the following:  ” …perhaps the greatest advantage that a minister has is the knowledge of how different running a religious organization is from running a corporation. And it would most likely be from the corporate model that a lay leader would arise to run for president of the UUA. It is this clash that many of our corporately trained boardmembers have with their ministers currently, namely the reference point or grounding of their leadership orientation. To risk stereotyping, these individuals tend to see ministers as hired personnel and not as individuals who are following a calling. Few people outside of the ministry, understand what a calling is and how it shapes our individual ministries. It is this understanding that, in my mind, would be essential for a lay person to become president of the UUA.”

There is a difference between being called to the ministry and being hired to the ministry.   In recent years this confusion has been surfacing not only in our denomination but in religious bodies of all stripes. 

Years ago, a Rabbi friend of mine was having a difficult time within his congregation. He blurted out, they don’t want a Rabbi they want a corporate Chief Executive Officer who will simply do the board’s bidding.   The board, all good intentioned people, had confused the difference between called and hired.  

To them the Rabbi was hired to fulfill a set of expectations and duties that they were in control of designing and developing.  He was not to challenge them on these expectations, nor to place expectations on the congregation unless the expectations were set by the board.  He was not to challenge their spiritual and moral development but to work within the parameters he was given.  He was given concrete goals with hard and fast deadlines to meet.   If these were not fulfilled he was to be replaced with someone who would.   

This is the corporate model that many of our lay people are familiar with because they are in the corporate world, many with positions of leadership.  And within the corporate world where a product is produced to market, it is a model that is important.  There could be debates on whether the corporate model is functioning as it should in today’s world but that is another topic. 

The Rabbi, however had an understanding of being called.  For him, there was a higher standard he needed to follow in order to serve this congregation as their Rabbi.  It included not only doing various day to day executive tasks but also being a prophetic voice for justice within the congregation and in the community.  That meant for him being willing / able to challenge the leadership of the congregation when they veered away from their religious principles in favor of expediencey or maintaining prejudices or biases.  It meant developing a relationship with the congregation that was intimate and personal.  It meant voicing visionary leadership of who this congregation could be; not only for themselves but for the community at large.   And it meant recognizing that this congregation was made up of people who are fallible and will fail but with whom to covenant with to begin again. 

I purposely used my memory of my Rabbi friend’s experience  to illustrate this because I wanted to take it out of the Christian construct which my friend at T & P suggests comes from within our movement.  I could easily have used a Buddhist example of calling, tho my friend and Buddhist Abbot might not use that language, but as I watched his formation from lay Buddhist status to Buddhist Monk to being a Buddhist Priest and now Abbot of a sangha in CT, calling is all I can use to compare his passion for his charge.  It is supreme in his life. 

I am currently “hired” at the congregations I serve in MS and AL.   I have a one year contract which could be renewed or allowed to end at the end of my year.  As such I am at the whim of the board.  Fortunately for me these two congregations have a sense of what calling is for a minister.  So while I am “hired” and not “called” to be their minister, they respect that I am called to the ministry.  It allows me the freedom to be their minister in the same manner that my friend wanted to be rabbi for his congregation.  Being called sets a level of standard and accountability that is higher than the entity that simply hires.

Who or what that accountability is may vary between our ministers.  Matt Tittle, at his blog, answers it is God.  For others it might be the integrity of the prophetic tradition.  But the accountability of the called minister is indeed higher than the entity of where she or he works.  Blessings,

I finally was able to see the Oscar winning and movie of the year, Slumdog Millionaire.  It truly is deserving of its Oscars.  Amazing Movie! 

The movie did get me to ponder this notion of destiny in our lives.  The premise of the movie is that this uneducated poverty stricken young man gets a chance to be on the Indian version of “Who Wants to be a Millionaire”  and succeeds in answering the questions.  He knows the answers not because of any book learning he has had or formal education but rather because of the oft times traumatic twists and turns in his life that happened to him that are coincidently the topic of the questions.   Or are they coincidental? 

Is there some purpose in our lives that we are meant to play out?    Has our destiny  been written in advance of our living it?   If so, where then does free will come into play if our lives have already been mapped out by some unknown hand?  These questions are ancient ones.

Could Mohandas Gandhi,  Martin Luther King, Jr., or Dorothy Day have lived out their life any differently than they did?  For that matter could the doorman, the taxi cab driver, the janitor, the housewife have lived out their lives any differently? 

There is another movie this reminds me of by the title of Sliding Doors, starring Gwyneth Paltrow.    She plays a career woman who gets fired from her job and on her way home the story line splits into two directions by the happenstance of  the sliding doors of a subway train.  In the first scenario she missed the sliding doors and her life continues pretty much as is.  In the second scenario, she catches the sliding doors and arrives home to discover her partner in bed with another woman.  Both scenarios are plausible.  This movie suggests that it really doesn’t matter which scenario plays out in the middle of life because the ending is what ultimately matters and the ending is the same.  

In some ways Sliding Doors hints at Calvin’s predestinationthat the outcomes are already written; destined for salvation or for reprobation.  

We seem to cheer more for the taxi cab driver who somehow beats the odds of making it big.  Some mysterious lining up of the stars perhaps, that places him or her in the path of the movie director or model agency who is looking for that certain look.  Or perhaps it is a hard working legal clerk named Erin Brockovich who happens to put a case together against Pacific Gas and Electric Company.  These are the people we cheer because in part, they resemble our own everyday ordinary lives and in the process of their ordinary days they accomplish extraordinary events. 

This is not to belittle the achievements of a Gandhi or a King, or even of a  Day but in the course of time or perhaps the telling of their stories does place some distance between our lives and theirs.  While we honor their accomplishments, their personage becomes elevated to something higher perhaps even destined to have played out as it did and we cannot see ourselves doing what they did.   

I look back on my life and sometimes I get a sense that it makes perfect sense that I am where I am today.  The opportunities that are presented to me seem to be perfect in building on what came before.  Perhaps I would also be saying this if I had pursued some of my other options more fully… for a time I majored in theater.  Where would that path have taken me?  Would it, like in Sliding Doors lead me to exactly where I am today?  I also pursued writing, specifically fiction and  poetry.  Would this path have led me here?  I have an unfinished manuscript where the main character in the story goes off to seminary.  I had to stopped writing as I had no clue what seminary was like.  At the time, my actually attending seminary was not in the works.  Ten years later attending seminary happened.  So was it my destiny?  Was I tapping into what was already written about my life?

These are questions that I will probably continue to ponder for the rest of my days.  In the meantime, I intend to be open to the possibilities and see what options open before me.    Blessings,

In 2008, the UUA’s general assembly adopted for congregational study/action the issue of ethical eating: food and environmental justice.   This three year study will hopefully result in a position paper called a Statement of Conscience and will result in a final year of study and implementation by the 2012 General Assembly.

My initial review of this congregational study was that ethical eating was an issue facing only the privileged elite classes.   They are the ones that can most afford to purchase meat from grass fed animals at high costs per pound.  They are the ones that could make choices in their dietary consumption.  They are the ones with the most mobility to purchase foods from other markets beyond their local region.  

One of the pieces of information in the study guide is the treatment of factory farmed animals.  Whether they are caged or free range and the costs involved that are passed onto the consumer seemed to me to be a concern that only the affluent could afford to choose.   Again, if you are poor, you may not like to know that chickens are de-beaked in factory farms to keep from pecking other chickens to death in their cramped quarters but in order to afford chicken as a part of having diversity in your diet, there may not be an alternate solution that is within your means.  In other words, being poor in this country oppresses and suppresses your options for food sources.  Live with it or go without is the message from these farmers and the policy makers.

The authors of the study resource for congregations, write:
The point of this Guide is not to propose a dietary code or insist on adherence to a particular set of rituals or religious beliefs. It aims instead help you feel confident in making easy, tasty, nutritious food choices that fit with your individual ethical and spiritual values, and thus. Imagine that!

However, as I have begun reading on the issue of food in our country.  Changing our dietary code is exactly what this guide should be recommending.  For more than a generation, we have seen the health of Americans deteriorate with rising cases of diet related chronic illnesses.   The culprit is the Western Diet.  This  is no longer a speculation. This is a fact.  Where ever the Western Diet is adopted the following illnesses rise dramatically:  Coronary Heart Disease, Obesity, Metabolic Syndrome, Diabetes Type II, Stroke, and Cancers.   We have gotten better in reducing deaths from these illnesses through advances in medical treatment but we have not been able to reverse the rising number of cases. 

Aborigines in Australia who had moved off the land and into the city revealed they had all developed these diseases.  Were these diseases reversable?  These people had retained the ways of their ancestors and so they participated in a seven week study in which they returned to the Outback and lived off the land as their ancestors had.  In every case, these individuals returned to health.  The diseases they had developed on a Western Diet disappeared.   The suggestion from this study is not that an Aboriginal diet is the best but rather adds to the knowledge of the many cultures over the course of history developed a diet that was diverse in its offerings to provide the essentials needed for a healthy life.  

The Western Diet and the ideology of nutritionism that feeds it, has the arrogance to believe that because science is behind it, that it therefore must be the best.  Yet, what we are finding is that healthy diets are greater than the sum of their parts and no one component can lead to healthier lives.  What we are learning albeit at a snails pace is that food scientists cannot use reductionist science to find single causes for diet related diseases.   Real Food is synergistic in its abilities to nourish. 

What this guide does not include is the relationship of our food industry and the growing health care crisis that is enveloping this country.  Health care costs for these chronic diet related illnesses is in the billions.  I realize billions of dollars no longer seems like a lot of money these days, compared with the trillions of dollars being allocated to avert our economic crisis.   But if we could see ourselves clear from the Western Diet of refined carbohydrates, reconstituted fats and proteins that we pass off as food but are in fact poor imitations of the original, we could find the health care crisis as solvable.  

That will take work.  It will mean a radical shift in how we purchase food.  It will mean supporting farmer’s markets and local farms selling locally grown and fresher fruits and vegetables.  It will mean advocating for a change in how our major farms operate by insisting that they move away from fossil fuels and use more earth friendly farming techniques that are being used successfully in Argentina and other countries.  It will mean advocating food stamps to have double value at farmers markets and Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) boxes  to encourage poor families to purchase fresh whole foods instead of imitation foods that boast health claims.  

There is much that can be done.  The study guide only grazes the surface of the issue of food sovereignty and sometimes comes across as elitist in its attempt.   But it is a study that we must endeavor in so we can collectively add our voice for justice in acquiring food.  Blessings,

I just received an email regarding an infant by the name of Laith Joshua Dougherty in Portland, OR.  He has a congenital heart defect that cannot be repaired and unless he has a heart transplant, he will die.   The hospitals equipt with the ability to perform such a surgery have stated that unless the health insurance company can assure coverage of the costs est. at 1.5 million, they would not perform the surgery.  The health insurance company that the Dougherty family has denied the claim because it is beyond what the family has available for coverage. 

They checked out other facilities and were told the same thing.   The father writes on the website linked above, ” All of these facilities seem willing to accept the consequences of him not having this much needed surgery than to be responsible for any of the cost of treating him. It breaks my heart looking at him to realize that if money is more important than saving a life than our healthcare system is broken and needs to be fixed.” 

It certainly is broken.  It has been broken for quite some time. 

The family is using the internet to try to find people willing to donate to help pay for this vital heart transplant.  If you are able and willing to donate, please click on the link above and do so.  However, this only solves the dilemma for one family that found itself woefully underinsured.  How many other Laith’s are there out there that do not have the resources of the internet to make their plea?  The costs of this surgery would indeed bankrupt this family and any other family causing untold other problems. 

So while the hospitals did not do what the mortgage companies did and say yes to the surgery knowing it would have dire financial consequences, they are still playing God in this situation.   Were they right to do so?  Should they have said yes, knowing the family could not pay and how many times could they/ should they do that before they themselves risk  the collapse that the mortgage companies and the banking industry now faces? 

Sometimes broken things can no longer be repaired.  Sometimes broken things need to be replaced.  This system of health care with insurance companies calling the decisions of who receives medical care and who does not dates back to the Nixon Presidency, when he authorized the creation of the  Health Management Organizations to operate at a profit.  Our health care quality has been deteriorating ever since.  Our nation is currently 37th in quality health care.   It needs replacing not repairing. 

While Universal Health care has its flaws, the dilemma the Dougherty family is facing would not be occuring.  Their child would receive the operation.  The doctors would be guarenteed their salary. Hospitals are paid for their services.   Imagine that.    Here is a clip from Michael Moore’s documentary SICKO on hospital bills. 

I recently was at a congregation that was investigating what their next steps might be.  In discussing what their resources were and what the perceived needs might be in the community;  it arose in the conversation that they have been composting for years.  Thereby   creating a nutrient rich soil that is not being used. 

What about using the compost to grow a vegetable garden on their property and give the produce grown to the local food pantry. If regulations prohibit them from doing that, then sell the produce and donate the proceeds to enable the food pantry to purchase additional foods.   

It was noted that with the increasing number of families struggling to make ends meet in the current economic crisis that acquiring sufficient quality food will be difficult.  This would be one way of aiding the food pantry in town to provide additional quality food to those who are needing it.

The idea grew.  They had been contemplating having their Children’s Religious Education program this spring focus on the interdependent web of life and ecology.  The children could assist  in applying what they have learned by helping to grow the garden.  The parents and adults could also learn what the children have been learning by working alongside the children.  

It becomes an event that the entire congregation can participate in as a community.   It will aid in all of the members getting to know each other better in doing this service for others.  Beloved memories of this will live on in the history of the congregation. 

The compost which had been simply added to weekly would become a focal point in how the earth recycles itself to create soil.  It suddenly would become useful beyond just being there as home to earthworms.  Supplying it with food scraps and other vegetative matter suddenly becomes meaningful and useful instead of some concept idea that someone in the past convinced the congregation to do.

This simple resource already available to this congregation became a means to not only learn about values that Unitarian Universalists have but also how we apply those values to help better our world.   It became a possible means to help feed the hungry and aid them to survive the current economic crisis with hope.  It became a means to learn about ecology and recycling in practical ways.  It became a means to learning about food and its value to life.   It became a means for this small congregation to do some social action beyond their walls into the community in which they live.

I am excited about the possibilities this opens up for this congregation.  And I believe its goals are replicable for other congregations to also do in a simple yet profound way.   Blessings

Yesterday, I was assisting Mid-South District’s Eunice Benton to rendezvous with the Civil Rights Tour, that Rev. Gordon Gibson and Meadville Lombard Theological School has sponsored the past several years.  The tour travels to various key sites in the deep south where historical civil rights events took place. 

We were reflecting on the congregations in the deep south and the effect that the era of the civil rights movement had on their development.  The Fellowship Movement era occurred concurrently with the civil rights movement. 

In Rabbi Friedman’s work on systems theory within congregations, there is a belief that events that happen within a congregation can and will continue to be played out in varying ways decades and longer after the event.  We see this in congregations that have suffered a serious ministerial breach of conduct that if never fully dealt with within the congregation, will show up in how the congregational relationship with future ministers are played out.  Sometimes without the current congregation or current minister ever fully understanding what or why this  is happening. 

There were many Unitarian fellowships that began in the 1950’s and early 1960’s in the deep south.   These fledgling congregations formed in the midst of societal turmoil.  The two fellowship era congregations that I am most familiar with, the Unitarian Universalist Church of Jackson and the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Tuscaloosa have their own intimate story of events in their early days of existence.  

In Tuscaloosa, the fellowship began in September of 1954 with a charter membership of 100 members. They met on the University of Alabama’s campus in the Hillel Building, the Jewish Student Union.  Eighteen months later, two African American women were enrolled at the school.  One of the students was expelled before even starting classes.  The other student did attend classes.   Ms Autherine Lucy was also invited to attend the new fellowship’s services, which according the the church archives she did.  However, riots broke out over her presence on campus and she barely escaped with her life.  The KKK roamed the campus in red hoods and baseball bats, stated in a conversation I had with one of the fellowship’s  founders.   Some members of the fellowship started a petition to try to keep her enrolled in the school. But she was also expelled.  The event of these early days in the life of this congregation were harsh.  Membership plummeted to 11 after an 18 month growth to 120 members.  The trauma on the fellowship has left deep scars.   When Governor Wallace stood on the steps of the university some ten years later to block the entrance of another two African American students from attending, this congregation was still struggling to maintain sustainability.

The congregation in Jackson, MS had a different kind of traumatic event.  They were the first integrated congregation in Mississippi.  And when their first extension minister, Rev. Donald Thompson arrived in 1963, things were looking up.  Under his leadership, the congregation started the first Headstart program for under privileged children in the state.  It too was integrated. Rev. Thompson was an outspoken advocate for civil rights.   His work was being noticed by the KKK.   He received death threats.  And then one night, a few months after Rev. James Reeb was killed in Selma, AL,  Rev. Thompson was shot in the back.  He survived and was resolved to remain in Jackson,which he did until death threats began to surface not against him but against his congregants if he remained.   This was the time period that congregations that spoke out against racism were being firebombed.  The title for the movie Mississippi Burning is no exaggeration.  When the fellowship decided to build their new church home, where it is today, the architecture they chose is one of a fortress.  There are no windows in the structure except for some skylights and the doorway into the church is protected by a wall.  Now, I am told this was coincidental and that many congregations were building similar type structures across the south.  My comment to this is, yes, this is how pervasive firebombings and sniper shootings were across the south, so build buildings that would be harder to attack in such manners.   A few years before this congregation was built, the Synagogue in Jackson was firebombed and razed to the ground by the KKK.  

This is the environment these fellowships were born into in the south.  Many fellowships that began in the south did not survive the civil rights era.  And my two examples is too small a sample to make any firm conclusion on the affects of trauma on fellowship congregations forming in this time period.  However, I would bet that there is this unresolved trauma in many of our southern fellowship era congregations that needs to be talked about, examined, and healed. 

I close with this observation. When the tragic events of the shooting at the Knoxville, TN congregation occurred last summer, the impact in congregations I am serving in AL and MS was visceral, almost like a body memory wafting through their being.  Perhaps this was true in other congregations in other locations of our nation.  But I wondered how do we affirm the bravery of these people who stood by their faith for justice during the civil rights era and honor and heal their wounds from the trauma they experienced.   Blessings,

No, this is not some self-grandiose statement about myself  but rather a reflection on a book entitled The Fred Factor by Mark Sanborn.   I admit that since my name is Fred, when I saw the book at Barnes & Nobles, it sought of leapt out at me.   Rarely is my name used in a positive manner in our culture.

Mark Sanborn is an international speaker on motivation and leadership development.  He speaks to corporations on how to improve customer service.  This book was inspired by Mr. Sanborn’s postal carrier, named Fred.   He begins telling the story of how he met Fred.  Fred introduced himself and asked a bit about Mr. Sanborn.  When Fred learned that he was away on speaking engagements, he offered to bundle the mail and hold it on those days he was going to be away.  Fred was offering a service that was beyond the ordinary scope of a postal carrier.  Other postal carriers and we have all had them, stuff the mailbox till it is over flowing alerting any would be burglars that we are not at home.  It was this type of service that endeared Mr. Sanborn to Fred.

Mr. Sanborn describes what he calls the Fred Principles.  They are simply stated:

1. Everyone makes a difference
2. Success is based on relationships
3. You must continually create value for others
4. You can reinvent yourself regularly.

I began wondering if we could apply the Fred Factor to our congregations.  Rev. Michael McGee in a sermon delivered to the Unitarian Universalist Church of Arlington,  told a story about a UUA consultant who was speaking with a Mormon Official.   “[The] Mormon official ended the conversation by saying if Unitarian Universalism could retain even half of the visitors who come to us we could become the most dangerous church in America!”  

What would the Fred Factor look like in our congregations?  How do we show (not tell) that everyone makes a difference.  We show this  in how we greet others. We show this in how receptive we are to hearing their story and withholding our opinions unless asked.  We show this by focusing on them and their needs and not pushing our church agenda on them. 

How do we build relationships?   People come to church to fulfill some need.  Maybe it’s because they are new in town and want to meet new friends.  A church should be a safe place for them to this and feel welcomed. 

How do we create value for others?  People join congregations for lots of different reasons but one of them has to be that there is some value that is being offered to the person joining.   Mr. Sanborn offers these tidbits to adding value:

1. Tell the truth  (seems simple enough but if inviting a visitor to a midweek adult religious education class, make sure it is still meeting)
2. Practice personality power  (be genuine with others, say ‘We ‘re glad you’re here!’ and mean it whole heartedly)
3. Attract through artistry (Care for your building. Is it clean or cluttered? Is it in need of repair? What do the grounds look like? Nurtured or neglected?)
4. Meet needs in advance (Anticipate the needs of the visitor in advance and have them ready.  I visited a church once in a rainstorm and the greeter came out to my car with an umbrella.  He anticipated my needs.)
5. Add good stuff  (Make the experience enjoyable.   Good singing. Good music.  Enthusiasm and humor in conversations.)
6. Subtract bad stuff (Don’t make them wait for the service to start. If the service is scheduled for 10:30 then start at 10:30.  Be there in advance of starting time.  Have everything ready, flowers in place at the altar before the prelude begins.)
7. Simplify (Make the process for joining easy to follow.  Make it meaningful but don’t make them jump through unnecessary hoops.)
8. Improve ( reflect on how the congregation is doing and do it even better.)
9. Surprise others (A thoughtful gesture that is unexpected.  I was surprised at the greeter meeting me a the car door with an umbrella.  It was unexpected and thoroughly welcoming.)

Recreating ourselves regularly.  This is not asking us to be different than who we are but rather to strive to be the best of who we are.  When we miss the mark we can begin again.  Reflect on how well we are doing and learn from the mistakes that were made.  Reward others when we get it right.

Blessings,

Alabama has been attempting for the past several years to pass what is being called the “Academic Freedom Act.”  I love how pleasant sounding names adorn dangerous and destructive bills.  It should be the first sign to run away from this proposed bill. 

Rep. Grimes has proposed this bill for the past several years.  He has proposed the bill again this year just in time to celebrate Charles Darwin’s 200th birthday.  If the past few years is any indication, may it die once again in committee. 

What this bill does is allow teachers from elementary through college to teach the pseudo-sciences of intelligent design and creationism along side evolution.   I say pseudo-science because what proponents of of ID and Creationism do is take the Abrahamic stories of Genesis as their foundation and then try to prove how the world came to be using these stories as the reference points.  For example, how did the Grand Canyon form?  Well, when the flood waters receded after the great flood that covered the earth, the rush of the waters carved the canyon.  So how old is the grand canyon?  Only a few thousand years.

I kid you not.  There is a book that can be purchased at the Grand Canyon National Park that tells this story of how the world’s greatest canyon came to be from this creationist point of view.   And this is the information that Rep. Grimes wants teachers to be able to teach in the classrooms of Alabama.

One of the arguments attempting to be made is that evolution is a theory and therefore may not be true. So why not present other theories that are more aligned with biblical beliefs?  Well, first off there are several definitions of the word theory. 

Most scientific theories are operating under this definition:

1. A set of statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena, especially one that has been repeatedly tested or is widely accepted and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena.

While Creationists and Intelligent Design proponents operate under this definition to argue for their curricula to be presented:

1. An assumption based on limited information or knowledge; a conjecture.

(“theory.” The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. 12 Feb. 2009. <Dictionary.com http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/theory>.)

And because this definition of theory is being used, it is argued that creationism and intelligent design theories (second definition) should be taught in school.   Proponents argue that because the theory of evolution is only atheory, a conjecture (second definition),  then their theory is just as valid to be taught in academic schools.  However, the theory of Evolution is not a conjecture but rather a principle that has been tested and proven to be predictive about natural phenomena.   The theories of creationism and intelligent design cannot be tested and proven to be predictive, they are conjectures. 

They also argue that education should reflect the values and beliefs of their religious community.   This opens the door for other creation stories to be taught as plausible science theories since other religions in addition to the Abrahamic religions are present in our communities. 

Schools are not meant to support or validate the religious belief systems of a community.  They are meant to be institutions that challenge and develop critical thinking skills of its students by using evidence found in the natural world.  It is by this means that advances are made in all fields of research. 

But when religious beliefs begin to dictate where education and knowledge are to advance then we do not advance into the light of day but rather recede into the depths of ignorance and darkness.  

This proposed bill does exactly this.  It needs to once again die in committee.

Overall I would say that I have had a good life.  There is one experience, however, that I wish was made available to me as a teen or even as a college student.  That experience is that of being a foreign exchange student.   I have met students from other countries and their experiences are always enriched by living in a different culture, meeting new people, experiencing new ideas of how things could be done resulting in the same positive outcome.   It enables the development of tolerance for the different in our humanity.  It broadens understandings between peoples.

I have been pleased to learn of my niece’s experiences of her studying abroad in several countries.  Even when she ran into anti-American sentiment in a country, I thought this was a good experience to have.  Hearing opinions that vastly differ from our world-view  is an important experience to have. 

I recently was approached by an organization that arranges for students from other countries to come here to study.  The coordinator for Mississippi said, ” …I have a hard time getting families that will be accepting to the Muslim students from the Middle East or Buddhist from Asia.”    What a missed opportunity for a family to reject a student from these regions of the world.  She was hoping based on what she has heard about our faith, that Unitarian Universalists would be welcoming of these students.

What a gift it would be for a student from the Middle East to live in a country where religious freedom is the value here.   What a gift it would be for a student from Asia.  What a gift it would be for the family to welcome a student from another country and learn that the values this student has learned from their country are the same values we teach our children. 

Our world, I’ve heard it said, is shrinking into a smaller and smaller neighborhood.  Here is an opportunity to get to know our neighbors, one person at a time, perhaps, but O what a wonderful gift it would be.  For more information on sponsoring an exchange student contact AYUSA.

Blessings,

Many people watched the opening inaugural concert on HBO and may not have realized that the openly gay Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson gave the invocation.  There are lots of rumors about why it was not also aired with the concert.  So for those of you who have HBO and did not hear this moving prayer, and for those of you who may not have access to this channel, here is text of the prayer given. 

Opening Inaugural Event

Lincoln Memorial, Washington, DC

January 18, 2009

Delivered by the Right Reverend V. Gene Robinson:

“Welcome to Washington! The fun is about to begin, but first, please join me in pausing for a moment, to ask God’s blessing upon our nation and our next president.

O God of our many understandings, we pray that you will…

Bless us with tears – for a world in which over a billion people exist on less than a dollar a day, where young women from many lands are beaten and raped for wanting an education, and thousands die daily from malnutrition, malaria, and AIDS.

Bless us with anger – at discrimination, at home and abroad, against refugees and immigrants, women, people of color, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

Bless us with discomfort – at the easy, simplistic “answers” we’ve preferred to hear from our politicians, instead of the truth, about ourselves and our world, which we need to face if we are going to rise to the challenges of the future.

Bless us with patience – and the knowledge that none of what ails us will be “fixed” anytime soon, and the understanding that our new president is a human being, not a messiah.

Bless us with humility – open to understanding that our own needs as a nation must always be balanced with those of the world.

Bless us with freedom from mere tolerance – replacing it with a genuine respect and warm embrace of our differences.

Bless us with compassion and generosity – remembering that every religion’s God judges us by the way we care for the most vulnerable.

And God, we give you thanks for your child Barack, as he assumes the office of President of the United States.

Give him wisdom beyond his years, and inspire him with Lincoln’s reconciling leadership style, President Kennedy’s ability to enlist our best efforts, and Dr. King’s dream of a nation for ALL the people.

Give him a quiet heart, for our Ship of State needs a steady, calm captain in these times.

Give him stirring words, for we will need to be inspired and motivated to make the personal and common sacrifices necessary to facing the challenges ahead.

Make him color-blind, reminding him of his own words that under his leadership, there will be neither red nor blue states, but the United States.

Help him remember his own oppression as a minority, drawing on that experience of discrimination, that he might seek to change the lives of those who are still its victims.

Give him the strength to find family time and privacy, and help him remember that even though he is president, a father only gets one shot at his daughters’ childhoods.

And please, God, keep him safe. We know we ask too much of our presidents, and we’re asking FAR too much of this one. We know the risk he and his wife are taking for all of us, and we implore you, O good and great God, to keep him safe. Hold him in the palm of your hand – that he might do the work we have called him to do, that he might find joy in this impossible calling, and that in the end, he might lead us as a nation to a place of integrity, prosperity and peace.

AMEN.”

You may also watch it here: 

This past Sunday, a person introduced themselves to me as a Lapsed Unitarian Universalist.  We didn’t get a chance to discuss this concept so I do not know what the person fully meant by this statement.  They might have simply been referring to their attendance.  The Lapsed Catholics, Lapsed Baptists I have met in the South and elsewhere tend to have moved away from some piece of the doctrine that those Christian sects teaches.  Sowhen you are a member of a creed-less faith, what have you lapsed into if your faith lapses?  

I don’t know the answer to the question entirely.  But perhaps it lies in another phrase I recently heard by a colleague of mine:  Essential Faith versus Discretionary Faith.   An essential faith as my colleague defined it is one that is held so dear that one would sacrifice for its existence.  A discretionary faith is one that can be disposed of if personal time and money is demanded elsewhere.

A recent poll indicated that there are about 675,000 people in the USA who identify as Unitarian Universalist.   Our official numbers as of 2006 indicate that we have about 158,000 members in the US and Canada.    So are all these other people lapsed Unitarian Universalists with a discretionary faith? 

I found my faith as an Unitarian Universalist to be essential to who I am.  It is part of how I identify myself to the world.  It speaks to the values that I hold dear and want to emulate into our society. 

I gave a talk on Sunday about Judith Sargent Murray based on the excellent biography by Sheila Skemp.  Judith Sargent Murray (1751-1820) was a woman who enjoyed the privilege her family’s prestige and social status gave her.  When she and her family embraced Universalism she lost that prestige and social status in the community.   They lost the ability to do business with people in Gloucester.  People they considered through the generations as family friends no longer associated with them.  Her faith in Universalism became a hardship for her.  Yet, this faith was an essential faith to her.  It enabled her to find her voice regarding the rights of women.   It gave her a basis from which she could discuss the financial independence and full citizenship she thought all women should have. 

Her faith was not discretionary, it was essential to her living her values.  She received support for the developing and sustaining of her values from her church community.   I doubt she could have journeyed this path alone.  

And perhaps that is the key to defining a discretionary faith.  Are you walking alone in your journey or are you somehow connected to a community of people who share your values and support your attempts to live those values in society?  

Unitarian Universalists value the independent spirit American society has fostered over the generations.  Yet, it is a value that has its corollary in community.  Without the two values, juxtaposed and in a dynamic tension likened to that tension that a belt on a pulley has in play in order for the pulley to work, the faith cannot sustain itself and grow; either for the individual or for the community. 

Here in the rural south, it is quite possible that the nearest Unitarian Universalist congregation is several hours away.  Yet, a person who believes their Unitarian Universalism is an essential faith can find a community of resources to help them stay connected and to be sustained by their faith.  The Church of the Larger Fellowship is a resource for these individuals and small groups of people who find themselves isolated. 

Have a faith that is essential to living your values in the day to day.  Find a community who will support you in doing so.  You may find as Judith Sargent Murray did that having a faith that is supported by a community empowers you to live your values in society.  Blessings,

The US. Department of Justice wants to close Ville Platte Highschool in Lousianna and bus the 400 high schoolers to Pine Prairie, 30 minutes plus away [per google maps via car, school buses would almost certainly double that time].   On the surface this might seem like an economical thing to do, perhaps even the right thing to do. 

However this is a racist move.  Why do I state this?  Consider these demographics.  Ville Platte is a community of over 8,000 people.  Pine Prairie just over 1,000.  Ville Platte is 63.5% black.  Pine Prairie is 87.51% white.   Does this still make sense to make the larger community to be bussed to the smaller white community?  No.  If integration of the schools was the goal then the smaller school should be bussed to the larger school–not the other way around.  This is a matter of racism because integration would be done at the convenience of the smaller white population.

Over 50% of Ville Platte lives in poverty.  Those parents who want to support their students school events will not be able to do so because they have no transportation means to get there. 

The school has been fully renovated to meet the needs of the community.  New science labs, new library, new computers, new gym, new roof have all been done to ensure the students have the best opportunities.   Watch the video. Then decide your next move as a concerned citizen of America.  Blessings,

In preparing for the upcoming sermon, I have found my thoughts swinging towards notions of magical thinking.  Is Magical Thinking something that we can avoid or is it something that is hardwired into our species? 

I have come to believe that it is something that is hardwired into our species.   In our development, magical thinking may have served as a means to survival.  The ancient Druids who burned yule logs to summon the return of the sun god during the winter solstice is an example of magical thinking as a tool for survival.  Having hope that warmer days are coming soon is a strong tool towards survival.  The notion that they had some part of  the sun’s returning gave them a sense of control over their lives.  Having a sense of control seems to be important to our basic ability to thrive as a species.  So while we can reduce magical thinkings prevalence in our lives, we are not going to be able to eliminate it entirely. 

I found two definitions online that I thought were good definitions with one being better than the other.   

The first definition was one posited by Tim Boucher with his nod to Psychologist James Alcock, Magical thinking is “the interpreting of two closely occurring events as though one caused the other.”    It is as Mr. Boucher points out the same definition we use for Cause and Effect.  The difference seems to be that the latter is provable through scientific method, the former is not. 

The second definition that I found was also located in a blog by a Buddhist:  The conviction of the individual that his or her thoughts, words, and actions, may in some manner cause or prevent outcomes in a way that defies the normal laws of cause and effect. 

He was stating that in the 1980’s he was with the Nichiren Shoshu and was taught to chant of Nam-myo-renge-kyo.   He was taught that chanting this phrase would not only bring him to enlightenment but it would also change his Karma in this lifetime so that he could receive material things.  He came to see in time that there were other benefits to this chanting and that they were the ultimate goal of the chanting not the receiving of material gains. 

Many religions of all configurations have some form of magical thinking embedded into their make up.   And some folk have explanations as to why their faith construct is not magical thinking but everyone else’s is.  Todd Strandberg has a whole page devoted to what is and isn’t magical thinking and then states The Bible is the final authority and if it is in the Bible then it is trustworthy and true.  Moses raising the staff to part the Red Sea, not magical thinking nor coincidental hurricane force winds blowing across a shallow part of the sea to create momentary dry land.  Jesus commanding the demons to come out of a person.  Not magical thinking.  These he says are matters of faith. 

Matters of faith are not magical thinking?  If it is magical thinking for the voodoo priestess to cast out demons, why wouldn’t the same action by the pentecostal minister not be magical thinking?  Add that to the mysteries of faith, I suppose.

I am presenting a sermon on Sunday based on the book by Jinny Ditzler entitled, “Your Best Year Yet!”  In it she discusses changing our dominant paradigm of thought about ourselves. 

I write in the sermon regarding changing ones paradigm and magical thinking, “So the person who crosses their fingers to protect them from an unwanted outcome is practicing magical thinking.  A person who repeats a chant over and over again because that would result in their receiving a Porsche is practicing magical thinking.

A person who states they are undeserving of money because that is their lot in life is also practicing magical thinking. Their thought that having money will never be their lot in life defies the normal laws of cause and effect. What is not magical thinking is someone who states “Money is abundant and flows spontaneously in my life” and then begins to look for opportunities, those next logical steps that would allow money to flow towards them. I am not talking about her re-arranging the furniture according to energy flow patterns or burning sage that will supposedly attract money. Those actions are magical thinking actions. I am talking about actions that he or she takes as those next logical steps that do not defy the normal laws of cause and effect. Maybe she begins sending out resumes. Maybe she takes some courses to improve her marketable skills. Maybe she remembers that she has a talent that she could turn into a profitable business and begins taking steps towards that endeavor. Each of these steps could result in money being more abundant.

A person who truly believes that he is not worth earning more money will not be a person who will be looking for new opportunities to earn more money. He will have shut those windows and doors of opportunities to himself long before they could even appear on his radar.

Ms. Ditzler is challenging us to shift how we perceive our world and our opportunities. Shifting the dominant paradigm in what we believe to be true about ourselves is an important key to being able to reach for accomplishments that until now were outside our reach. The fact is what we believe about ourselves is only a perception that has been rehearsed over and over again by those around us and eventually by ourselves so many times that we feel there is no other truth about who we are.

The famous story of Pygmalion written by George Bernard Shaw based on the Greek Myth of the same name tells the tale of an English Gentlemen who seeks to transform a poor woman of the streets into a sophisticated lady of means. You might recognize the story as My Fair Lady, the musical and movie with Rex Harrison and Audrey Hepburn. It is the story of shifting the paradigm of personal belief.

When we meet Eliza Doolittle, she is destined to remain the class and education level she was born into. She has accepted her lot and believes she not deserve any better fare. Professor Higgins takes on a bet that he can pass her off as a learned lady of stature and class. The transformation does not happen until, Eliza herself begins to see herself as this lady.

Was it magical thinking? No. It was changing the story one tells themselves and then taking actions inspired by the new story, the new paradigm. Had Eliza been born into a family of means, this story would already have been told to her since childhood; that paradigm would already have been in place. Her actions chosen by herself and her family would have matched that paradigm.”

Affirmations, another popular tool used by many, would be magical thinking if all the person ever did was repeat the affirmation and thougth by merely stating the affirmation that his life was going to change direction or receive what he wanted.  If the person actually believed the words being said and began making decisions and actions that were in conjunction with those affirmations, then it no longer is magical thinking.  The affirmations are then only a tool towards shifting the paradigm of belief the person was originally living and acting from. 

Here is Audrey Hepburn in her own voice not the dubbed version singing “Wouldn’t it be Loverly.”  Some dreaming and perhaps some magical thinking too…  Blessings,

Thanks Alice.

When I first moved to Mississippi and Alabama, I noticed after the leaves had fallen from the oak and other trees, these round balls of green in the trees.  I had never seen this in trees in Chicago or in New England so it seemed strange to me.  I knew this was not a form of lichen or Spanish moss that is associated with the south.   When I mentioned this to others, I would sometimes get a nonchalant answer.  It was obvious that my new southern neighbors paid this strange sight no mind.  And they couldn’t understand why I thought this was so unusual.

The balls of green were the American Mistletoe.  One of two varieties that grow in North America. The Dwarf Mistletoe grows along the pacific west and southwest.  There are over 1300 species worldwide.  This is a hemi-parasitic plant which means that it is not entirely self-sufficient.  Once it has matured it no longer produces the sugars it needs through photosynthesis  and embeds itself into the bark of the host tree.  When looking at mistletoe in a tree, it looks like it is a natural branch of the tree only that its leaves are evergreen and it produces a whitish sticky berry. 

While long thought of as a parasite that eventually destroys its host, it turns out this plant is actually mutually beneficial to its host and the diversity of the ecology of the forests.  The Mistletoe provides shelter for nesting birds and small animals.  And several bird species feed on the seeds to survive the harsh winters.  There are also three species of Butterflies known as Hairstreaks that are totally dependent on the mistletoe for their existence.   The one pictured here is the Great Purple Hairstreak and the American Mistletoe is its feeding ground.

Most of us know the role that mistletoe plays in our Winter holidays.  It is prominent in Winter Solstice celebrations and Christmas celebrations.   But I had no idea it was so prominent a species in the American south.  And it is vital to a healthy forest ecology.

Back in 1999, I participated in the 17 step journey into Soulforce.  It was a spiritual journey of readings, reflections, and preparation for joining Rev. Mel White and 200 delegates to meet with the late Rev. Jerry Falwell and 200 of his congregants.  The hope was the meeting would help convince Falwell that his anti-gay rhetoric was bringing increased suffering to families across the country.  It was the inauguration of SoulForce.  The event made news. 

Many of my friends scoffed at my going  to meet Falwell.  What good will it do?  I was also told that I was being played the fool in thinking that a person like Falwell could change his bigoted opinions.  Well, I knew that Falwell could change.  He had already changed over the years from a strict segregationist to successfully integrating his congregation on Thomas Road.  That change happened through a life long friendship with a person of color.  It was the relationship that Falwell had with this person that led to his letting go of prejudice and racism.  And that was the hope in beginning this dialog with the members of Thomas Road Baptist Church and with Rev. Falwell to develop friendships.   I had kept in contact with a few of the students I met from Liberty University for a year or so after meeting them.  So from my point of view the visit with Jerry Falwell was a success even if Jerry Falwell’s rhetoric against gays did not abate.   

About the time we arrived at Lynchburg, VA to meet with Falwell.  There was a news report claiming that Falwell had said one of the cartoonish Tinkie Winkie characters was gay and promoting homosexuality.   Soon Falwell was derided by every gay joke on TV and in the press.  It turned out however that Falwell never said this comment.  One of his staff made the comment and the association of this staff member to Falwell meant to the press that Falwell said it.  It was an untruth. 

One of the pledges I took in following the journey towards Soulforce was to uncover and name every untruth about my adversary.  Only truthful comments would be used to dialog with my adversary.  Untruthful comments would only help maintain the barriers to the truth between me and my adversary and so, I need to know what is true and what is untrue about my adversary.   The Tinkie Winkie comment was untrue about Falwell and so I could not use that comment in dialog.  

Sexual minorities are facing increased hostility in this nation.  There is pain over Obama’s selection of Rev. Rick Warren, a known supporter of Prop 8 and whose church will not allow gays to be members and will excommunicate them if found.  There is distortion and hyberbole in the media regarding Pope Benedict XVI’s annual address to the Curia denouncing gender theory causing more pain and hurt, especially in the Roman Catholic Dignity community. 

Our language can either be inclusive or it can be exclusive.  It can invite people into dialog or it can oust people from dialog.  It is one of the lessons I learned from participating in the Soulforce delegation to Lynchburg.  It is a lesson we all need to learn if we are going to mend our nation from its polar extremes. 

Rev. Jerry Falwell and his anti-gay rhetoric is now amongst the pages of history.  But I have hope that the seeds planted in meeting the 200 delegates from his congregation will one day sprout into compassion and acceptance of all people.  That’s the beauty of seeds, they can remain viable for years after they have been planted.  Waiting for the right moment, the right conditions for them to sprout and grow into maturity.   

Here is a song sponsored by Soulforce.   Blessings,

Got your attention?  Sounds implausible that Pope Benedict XVI would ever say this, right?  Well, The following headlines were found in the Daily Telegraph, a British Newspaper, when reporting on the Pope’s annual Curia:  “Pope Says Humanity needs ‘saving’ from homosexuality:  The Pope has said that “saving” humanity from homosexual or transsexual behaviour is just as important as saving the rain forests.”  

“[The church] must defend not only the earth, water and air as gifts of creation that belong to all. It must also defend the human person against its own destruction. What’s needed is something like a ‘human ecology,’ understood in the right sense. It’s not simply an outdated metaphysics if the church speaks of the nature of the human person as man and woman, and asks that this order of creation be respected.

“Here it’s a question of faith in creation, in listening to the language of creation, disregard of which would mean self-destruction of the human person and hence destruction of the very work of God. That which is often expressed and understood by the term ‘gender’ in the end amounts to the self-emancipation of the human person from creation and from the Creator. Human beings want to do everything by themselves, and to control exclusively everything that regards them. But in this way, the human person lives against the truth, against the Creator Spirit. Yes, the tropical forests merit our protection, but the human being as a creature merits no less protection – a creature in which a message is written which does not imply a contradiction of our liberty, but the condition for it.”

Now, yes, implicitly one could infer the Pope is talking about homosexuality. He does later affirm the church’s position of marriage as a sacrament between one man and one woman.  But is he really saying what the British Tabloids stated?  Couldn’t he also be speaking about violence that we perpetrate on each other through wars and domestic violence?  Couldn’t he also be talking about various addictions that destroy the human persona?  These could also be implicit in his talk about developing ‘a human ecology’.

At the very least it is a distortion of the Pope’s intent.  The Pope and the Roman Catholic church has said and taught many things that are contrary to Protestants and others’ sensibilities, we do not need to be adding words to him that are not there.  To do so only increases the suffering of the people within the Roman Catholic Church who are sexual minorities.

Now I can argue about his use of the word ‘gender.’  Science is revealing to us that gender is not merely male and female.  One in every 1000 births are born as inter-sex beings.  Their chromosomes are not strictly XX or XY but some other combination resulting sometimes in undefined genitalia at birth or missing aspects of genitalia such as no ovaries or no testes.   Gender is no longer an either / or  male and female.  The Creator Spirit, as the Pope refers to god, made sure of that for some mysterious reason.    To purposely limit our understanding of gender is also to “live against the truth, against the Creator Spirit.” 

In October 1962, The Cuban Missile Crisis brought the world to the brink of Nuclear War.   As a child, I remember pushing our desks to the inside wall and squat under them.  Poor Peter who was too tall in second grade to fit under his desk had to go stand in the teacher’s closet.  We were told that missiles could hit New York City and if they did, we ninety miles away were in the heat blast zone.  No amount of squatting under a desk or hiding in a wooden closet would save us but we pretended as if it would. 

It was during this month that Unitarian Noel Regney (he was a member of the Westport CT congregation, do not know if he was a member in 1962) was walking along a NYC street and saw some babies being strolled by their mothers.  He decided to write a poem as a prayer for their future.  He asked his wife, Gloria Shayne, to write the music.  They had collaborated on other songs, but with Gloria usually writing the words.   The song was first released by Thanksgiving 1962 and became an instant hit.  People hearing it for the first time on the radio would pull over to listen to its lyrics.  Such was the power and poignancy of this song.  The following year, Bing Crosby recorded its quintessential recording.  The popularity of the song has soared ever since.  [The source of this information is found here]  Here is another version of the song.  It remains for me a powerful prayer in song for peace.  May it be so. 

December 18 is International Day of the Migrant.  First established in 1990 by the United Nations to call to awareness the human rights violations of migrant laborers who travel far from their native homes to find employment.  Every year since, United States has been called to account of how it treats its immigrants working here legally and illegally.  We are not the worstoffender in the world by far, but we have certainly lost any moral high-ground when it comes to immigration policy and immigrant workers here in our country. 

Following the devestation by Hurricane Katrina legal migrants from India were brought to the Gulf Coast of Mississippi  by Signal International to be welders.  They were promised an hourly wage of $18.50, green cards, and permanent residency in exchange for a $20,000 fee.  Instead they got a 10 month work visa which barely covers the fee.  Signal tried to reduce their hourly wage to $9.50 an hour but were told by attorneys that $13.50 was the entry level wage for a welder.  They were  rented housing by Signal  which deducted living expenses at $35 a day from their wages.  Their housing is a small windowless bunker with two toilets and 5 showers for 24 men per bunker.   The workers were denied the opportunity to find their own housing off site and were threatened with deportation if they tried.   

This is how we have treated legal immigrants.  Undocumented immigrants have been subjected to fear with ICE agents storming restaurants with guns brandishing.  Following the ICE raid on Howard Industries where 600 workers were arrested on suspected illegal status, 491 workers were detained without charge for three weeks in Jena, LA, an unaccredited minimum/medium security prison.   They were 250 people in a room.  Meals consisted of boiled peas or corn and a bottle of water.  They were forced to share a toothbrush with 60 other people.   To date Howard Industries still has not surrendered 210 paychecks to workers nor have they returned personal effects of wallets, purses, cash, native countries passports and ID cards.   There have been reports of Latino employees being harassed at Howard Industries and scrutinized for their legal status post employment and post E-verify, the faulty system required by employers to screen legal status.  

On December 18, 2009,  Mississippi Immigrants Rights Alliance will recognize International Day of  the Migrant with a candle light vigil to bring public awareneness  to Howard Industries refusal to surrender paychecks and personal effects.    I intend to be there to stand witness to this injustice, to offer a prayer for justice with other clergy of conscience, and to grieve with God over our corporate greed.

Twilight: The Nature of Good and Evil
Rev. Fred L Hammond
A sermon given at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Tuscaloosa

“One should see the world, and see himself as a scale with an equal balance of good and evil. When he does one good deed the scale is tipped to the good – he and the world is saved. When he does one evil deed the scale is tipped to the bad – he and the world is destroyed.” Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon

Every few years an event happens that becomes a major pop culture phenomenon.  In the music world we had Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, and the Beatles.   I remember watching the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show and seeing the audience practically leaping onto the stage or fainting from trying.  In the late 1970’s we had the movie Star Wars.  I saw this movie some 10 times in the movie theaters and that was nowhere near the number my friends saw the movie.  I didn’t want to be a fanatic and there were only so many hours I wanted to spend waiting in line for a movie I had already seen.  And wait in line I did.

Pop Culture tends to reflect something of the prevailing mood of the culture.  There is something in the personality of the singer, or the movie that beckons the audience to want more.  It meets some basic need in the audience.

In the late 1970’s, America was still reeling from the disillusionment of the Viet Nam War and President Nixon’s resignation from office.  Star Wars with its supernatural “Trust the Force, Luke,” where good always triumphs, its futuristic special effects, and its military action of blowing up the very obvious bad guys resonated with America’s need to lick its wounds of the previous several years.

Stephanie Meyer’s book, The Twilight Saga; four books already out and a fifth to be released in the near future appear to be one of these pop culture phenomenons. The movie of the same name was just recently released.  Teens across the country waited hours to get tickets to the premiere midnight showing. And in full disclosure, I have now seen the movie twice and have read all four of the books in the saga. The first book I have already read three times in preparation for this sermon.   I happen to love vampire genre books and movies and Stephanie Meyers tells the story well.

For me the notion of having to live a secret life resonates with my years of living in the closet as a gay man.  Wanting to come out and tell the world, yet recognizing the possible dire consequences in doing so.  And while I could use the text of these books to bring to light what living a double life does to closeted gay men and women, that concept was not what drew me in to the storyline of these novels.

Instead what drew me was this notion of good and evil.  Is what we call evil, truly evil or is it only in the eyes of the beholder?  Could individuals who are on opposite poles of each other in viewpoints embrace as brothers and sisters?  Could a group that society calls evil rise above evil and be seen as good by society?  Could we honor the decision of another even if it goes against what we believe to truly be in the best interest of all?  And when the consequence of that decision finally plays out to its conclusion, can we embrace it as being good.

These are the questions being discussed in the course of the story by Stephanie Meyer.  And it reflects the current of what is happening in our polarized society of blue and red states, fundamentalist and liberal faiths, gay and straight people.  As I read these novels I found myself being very hopeful for our young people’s destinies because if these novels resonate with them, then they are considering very deep issues on some level in their lives.  Of course it is possible to read these novels as simply a modern day Romeo and Juliet romance and Ms. Meyer does not fail to point out the similarities.  There are further references to the romance in Wuthering Heights and that comparison also is made clear.

But even with the appeal of forbidden love for young adult readers, the saga resonates on a much deeper level of a belief in a singular world suddenly revealing itself as pluralistic with humans, vampires, and werewolves.  How does a person navigate such a world and is it possible to find a bridge across the polarization that exists between these groups?

A brief synopsis of the Twilight Saga.   This is the story of a 17 year old, Bella Swan, who moves to a small northwest community.  She is intrigued by a family who attends the school, most particularly with Edward Cullen, who seems dark and moody.  The family keeps to themselves.  The family is kept at a distance from the Quileute Indian reservation where another teen, Jacob Black, expresses his infatuation with Bella.

Edward is both repulsed and attracted to Bella.  This attraction causes him grave concerns because as we discover, Edward and his family are vampires.   They have sworn off human blood and only hunt animals for their blood source.  Edward has the rare gift of being able to read minds but for some reason is unable to read Bella’s.  This adds to his attraction to Bella, an attraction that he finds to be dangerous.

The Quileute Indians, after being convinced, that the Cullen family is not like other vampires, sets up a treaty with the family.  The Quileutes are shape shifters and their ability to become werewolves occurs when vampires are in the vicinity.  The werewolves are there to protect the people of the tribe.   The tenuous treaty states that if the Cullen family remains on their lands and do not seek to harm humans, then their secret of being vampires will remain safe.  But the werewolves and the Vampires are bitter enemies; each seeing the other as an evil threat to their way of life.

Edward Cullen loathes his existence as a vampire.  Jacob Black loathes his existence as a werewolf.  And Bella Swan is caught in between these two worlds.

She is growing ever more in love with Edward Cullen even though in an instant he could lose control of his self restraint and take her life for the blood that pulses within her.   At one point, Edward Cullen states after being questioned on his super human speed and strength in stopping a van from crashing into Bella, “What if I’m not a superhero? What if I’m the bad guy?”

After Bella learns the truth of Edward Cullen being a vampire, he tries to tell her how dangerous it is for him to be around her.  He states, “ ‘I’m the world’s best predator, aren’t I?  Everything about me invites you in—my voice, my face, even my smell.  As if I need any of that!’  …   ‘As if you could out run me’ … As if you could fight me off’ ”

He compares being driven to drink human blood as an addict driven to shoot up heroin.   “To me, it was like you were some kind of demon, summoned straight from my own personal hell to ruin me.  The fragrance coming off your skin… I thought it would make me deranged that first day.  In that one hour, I thought of a hundred different ways to lure you from the room with me, to get you alone. And I fought them each back, thinking of my family, what I could do to them.  I had to run out, to get away before I could speak the words that would make you follow me…”

Somehow Edward resists the evil intent and in resisting finds the strength to fall in love with Bella.  “ ‘And so the lion fell in love with the lamb…’ he murmured.  … “What a stupid lamb,’ [Bella] sighed.  ‘What a sick, masochistic lion.’ ” Edward answered.

The nature of good and evil has been debated since time immemorial.  In recent years, especially in fundamentalist Christian circles there is a resurgence of the belief that there is a war in the cosmos being waged between the forces of good a.k.a. God, Jesus, and the angelic hosts and the forces of evil a.k.a. Satan and his demonic minions.   This is a dualistic viewpoint.

Edward Cullen sees himself in this light.  He is a monster that should be avoided at all costs he tells Bella. This cosmological concept of Good and Evil states that Satan and his dominions seek to steal the souls of all humans.  Edward believes that his soul has already been lost when he became one of the undead.  Once a soul is lost, this theology states it is now in full control of the forces of evil to tempt the elect.

The difference between Edward Cullen and the cosmological view of good and evil is this; for Edward he has internalized the war to be waged within himself versus the view of the war being waged outside of ourselves with us as the victims.  This theology states salvation from this war can only come from external intervention. Only by the grace of God could humans be saved from the onslaught of this spiritual war between good and evil.

Jacob Black, the Quiluete Indian also shape-shifter werewolf also falls into this dualistic view of good and evil.  While he loathes what he has become, he sees himself on the side of absolute good.  His people are the protectors.  Vampires are evil and are to be destroyed.  He is skeptical of the Cullen family being able to forever hold on to their side of the treaty.  And when they break it, he and his wolf pack will be there to destroy them.

There is, however, a problem with this scenario of the Wolves being the absolute good guys.   Wolves operate as a pack with an Alpha dog to lead them.  The alpha cannot be questioned.  The alpha must be obeyed.  When Jacob Black is in his werewolf form, he looses his ability to have free will, to choosing his destiny.  The only way he can claim his destiny in wolf form is to challenge the Alpha’s authority which could have dire consequences.  Therefore when he and his family have phased into being wolves, they operate as a pack.  They are in sync with each other’s thoughts and act as one unit.   All their vulnerabilities, all their secrets become known to the other wolves.  The pack will follow the alpha dog.  Whether right or wrong; the alpha dog will always be declared to be right and good.

History has told us that when we are in a hierarchical setting like the military but not exclusively military, when ordered to do so we will commit evil acts.  We saw this in Nazi Germany and we saw this in Abu Ghraib, Iraq. The only counter to this is the ability to question and if that has been taken away then the safe guard is gone.

Bella’s response to both is a humanist approach to good and evil.  A humanist approach to evil states that evil is not a force in the cosmos seeking to destroy or steal our souls but rather evil has a human cause to it.

Bella Swan has taken the humanist approach; it is not who you are, but rather what you do that creates evil or good. Jewish Theologian Maimonides from the 12th century stated there are three types of evil—one is natural and two are moral.

1) “Natural evils occur because we are made of matter, of flesh and bones, and we are subject to coming into being and passing away.  We die and make room for others of our species.
“2) Human beings inflict evil upon one another by tyrannical domination and wars.  These evils are more numerous than natural evils. This kind of evil afflicts many people in wars, yet they are not the majority of events if we consider the world as a whole.

“The children thought about it for a minute and then one child asked his grandfather, ‘Which wolf will win?’

“The old Cherokee simply replied, ‘The one you feed.’ ”
Blessed Be.

 The 20th observation of World AIDS Day was on December 1st.    I attended the local observance of this event organized by West Alabama AIDS Outreach (WAAO).   It is now five days later and I am still reflecting on what I heard. 

AIDS is no foreign entity to me.  Those of you who know me, know that I co-founded an AIDS ministry in my hometown of Danbury, CT and then ran that organization in various positions for 15 years.   I witnessed a change of attitude in Danbury over that time period within the interfaith religious community.   Congregations that were homophobic lessened their fear in its relationship with AIDS and began to talk about HIV/AIDS prevention from the pulpit.   They were less afraid to admit that there were members in their congregations with the disease.   Clergy of all religious cloth began to respond to those with HIV/AIDS with compassion. This is not to say that conservative faith groups suddenly embraced everyone  impacted by this disease but there was a decrease in the stigma of having HIV/AIDS.    I like to think this change of heart was in some small part due to the presence of the non-profit organization I ran.  I know that it was because of a much broader community effort to educate ourselves on this disease. 

West Alabama is still steeped in ignorance when it comes to how HIV/AIDS is or isn’t transmitted.   WAAO is still trying, 30 years into this pandemic,  to separate the stigma of sexuality, primarily homosexuality from the disease.   It’s not who you are but rather what you do that puts you at risk for this disease.

So as I sat and listened to the speakers at the podium talk about HIV/AIDS in Alabama, I felt I was transported back in time to when I first was personally confronted with the specter of AIDS.   It suddenly made sense to me why Alabama and other southern states are seeing a resurgence in HIV transmission.     These are states that are afraid. 

Fear is a great paralyzer.  It causes us to behave in irrational ways.  It causes us to believe falsehoods because the falsehoods reinforce the fear.   In West Alabama, fear keeps people from being empowered to choose healthful decisions about their bodies.   The only antidote I know to fear is education. 

It will require the schools in Alabama to discard the failed Abstinence based approach to sexuality and to choose comprehensive sexuality education.  This is the only approach I have seen to reduce the spread of HIV/AIDS, reduce unwanted teen pregnancy, reduce the spread of other sexual transmitted infections and diseases.  It is also the only approach I know that reduces the fear that grips this region.

A conversation after church a few Sundays ago encouraged someone to say, “Well, add that to your Christmas wish.”    It is indeed a time of when we begin to wonder about what to offer our loved ones for Christmas.  And we begin wondering what we also want this time of year when hoping seems so magical

I remember the song, “All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth.”  Sometimes it is the simple things that suffice our deepest cravings.  Two front teeth, to be surrounded by family and friends, to sit in front of a roaring fireplace with music gently playing in the background, these are all simple things.  Sometimes it is the more ethereal things that will comfort us.   The song “Do You Hear What I Hear?” written in 1962 by Noel Regney and Gloria Shayne, was in response to the Cuban Missile Crisis. It is a powerful plea for peace in the world and one that still echoes its call in today’s world.   What is it that you want for Christmas?

Here are a few things that I would want for Christmas this year. Perhaps these could be suggestions to offer your friends and family about gifts you would want instead of receiving another tie or knick-knack. It is a means to giving the gift of hope to others.  I want a village in Africa to have safe clean drinking water through the efforts of Ryan’s Well Foundation. Click Here   I want families to receive assistance in learning how to create a sovereign food supply through Heifer International Click Here  or through the Hunger Project Click Here.    I want the indigenous people of the Rain Forests to be able to take active participation in saving their lands from deforestation efforts through the Pachamama Alliance Click Here.  I want Native American teens to be able to be to attend college and advance their contributions to their world through The Northern Arizona Native American Foundation  Click Here .  I want research done to help those impacted by spinal cord injuries Click Here , HIV/AIDS Click Here, and Breast Cancer  Click Here 

There are other efforts being done to promote racial equity, economic justice, and civil rights. I guess I am still like that little kid who wants the toy store for Christmas but in the manner that will change lives.  Happy Holidays everyone
Blessings, Fred

I am in preparing to leave for my Thanksgiving vacation.  This year instead of my traditional route of traveling north or south on the eastern coast where my Mom’s family are gathered, I am going to have Thanksgiving with a dear colleague from seminary in Indiana.  I am most grateful to have this connection continue to grow after seminary. 

I think that is what Thanksgiving has come to represent for me and perhaps the reason why it has become my most important Holiday.   Connections to friends and family are what sustain us in healthy ways.  It is an opportunity for us to celebrate these connections.  To honor those whose lives have intersected with ours in significant ways. 

Even if there is pain in those connections and woundedness, those connections help shape us into who we are.  At some point in our lives, the woundedness needs to be transformed from that which hinders us to that which empowers us to make a different choice. 

On the Our Home Universalist Church grounds there is a Magnolia tree that was planted there several years ago in memory of one of the members of that congregation.   Last year a major windstorm came through the region and a huge thick branch of an oak tree crashed into the Magnolia, cutting off its lead point and stripping many of its branches from its trunk.  It was not known if the Magnolia would fully recover.  Less than a year later, the Magnolia is fuller than ever and it even provided the much needed cover for a bird’s nest to be built there.   As painful as the event was at the time, new growth and vitality came forth from it.  So too could that be our lives when painful things happen.  We can be grateful, perhaps not for the event itself happening, but for the positive responses to the event that follow.   

It is the intersections of all of these events in the form of people, places, and things that add to our life story as it unfolds mysteriously to a conclusion.  For that I feel the deepest of gratitude.

May we offer thanks and gratitude for all our days, the good and the not so good because all can lead us to a fuller experience of life.  Blessings,

Jimmie Lee Jackson, whose untimely death in 1965 in Marion, AL during a protest march over the arrest of Civil Rights and Voter Registration activist James Orange, still has not found justice.  It was his death that led to the March on Selma which resulted in Bloody Sunday and the deaths of Unitarian Universalists Rev. James Reeb and Viola Liuzzo.  And ultimately to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

James Bonard Fowler, the state trooper who states he only shot Jimmie Lee in self-defense was indicted in 2007.  Interestingly this incident and another death of an African American male a year later in Fowler’s custody never show up in his personell records.   The trial which was supposed to begin on October 20, 2008 was postponed pending an appeal filed by the prosecution.  It is unknown when the appeal will be settled.

It is hard to have a murder trial 40 years after the event.  Memories are always distorted.  Truth is tarnished with each passing day.  The real question is after so many years can Justice finally have its day in court?

Blessing as a Spiritual Practice a sermon given by Rev. Fred L Hammond November 9 2008 at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Tuscaloosa, AL

As I picked up my package and began turning to leave the store, I heard the sales assistant say “Have a blest day.” I looked at her and saw her face smiling brightly, she meant what she said. This was not just a polite phrase her momma taught her. I hear this phrase a lot in the south, “Have a blest day.” It is not something I heard often in other parts of the country.

There is a difference between the phrases “Have a good day” and “Have a blest day.” Having a Blest day implies something more than just good. It signifies to me a day that is filled with grace, a day where love is shared freely, where all the traffic lights are green as you approach them and you soar to your destination unhindered.

These are days when I feel confident in who I am from the very core of my being. These are days that regardless of what events occur I can rest assured that the integrity of me is in tact and cannot be undermined in any way. But where does this come from this assuredness of integrity; this self confidence of my being. It is more than just someone in a store saying “Have a Blest day.”

This morning we celebrated a Blessing ceremony for one of our youngest members. You heard from Tyler’s parents and sister their blessings, their best hopes and dreams for him. You heard from family friends offering their blessings on Tyler as well. And then we as a congregation chimed in with our blessings.

This blessing ceremony was done in a style used in pagan circles. Where the energy of the individuals and the group focus their best thoughts and wishes on the one they wish to bless. The blessing according to pagan beliefs then acts as a spiritual shield for the child. It becomes a grounding point for the parents to remember and reflect on when parenting may stretch their skills. And it becomes a touchstone for Tyler to always know that he was born into a home of love and care for his best unlimited potential.

The blessing does not originate in a vacuum but is grounded in the ongoing relationship of the person being blessed and the person or persons offering the blessing. The fruition of the blessing may not be seen in the near future but may take decades to unfold as Tyler’s life twists and turns with the wide variety of experiences to be had. There may along his path be apparent defeats that might crush a blow if it was not for the grounding his parents and this congregation offered him today to hold fast to the promise of a fulfilling life of purpose and meaning.

Matthew Fox, theologian, speaks of what he calls Original Blessing. Before there could be any fall from grace, there was first and foremost an Original Blessing. Fox tells us that blessing is found in the metaphorical creation story. After each day, God “Looked at what he had done, and it was good… all of it was very good!”

Matthew Fox states that the creative energy that created the heavens and the earth, call it god, call it source, call it by what ever name, continues to create and invites creation to participate in its creating. There is a relationship in the bestowing of the blessing. Fox further states, “Blessing involves relationship: one does not bless without investing something of oneself into the receiver of one’s blessing. And one does not receive blessing oblivious of its gracious giver. A blessing spirituality is a relating spirituality. And if it is true that all of creation flows from a single, loving source, then all of creation is blessed and is a blessing, …” (Original Blessing p 44)

In this creation story is the investment of the creator in bringing about the creator’s best wishes for creation. The story tells us that the intention of creation is to be something of worth, to be something good. And if Matthew Fox is correct in his theorem, then ongoing creation is also something of worth, something good.

According to the Abraham myth found in Genesis, God said to Abraham, “…I will bless you and make your descendants into a great nation. You will … be a blessing… Everyone on earth will be blessed because of you.”

This was done in the context of a covenant established between god and Abraham. Covenants are relational contracts between people. They convey how a people is to be in relation with one another. Covenants when followed convey how the people will be perceived by others. For the Children of Abraham, the covenant they made with God was to be a blessing to others, even if the others did not embrace their way of life.

From this covenant and from the stories of a people of faith in the Hebrew Scriptures, we have modern concepts of justice between people. It took the evolutionary journey of these ancient people to develop these notions of equitable justice but we do find them rooted in this tradition. Concepts such as those found in Leviticus, that book of law that is oft quoted by those seeking to repress others also has some of the most liberating verses on justice. Such as this one in Leviticus 19:34: “But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt: ….”

Elsewhere in Deuteronomy (10:18) talks about showing justice to the orphan and the widow through providing food and shelter. The prophet Micah reminds the people of his day that God had already showed them how to know what is right…It is to love mercy, to act justly, and walk humbly with your god.

These are acts of blessing bestowed on another. It is through the ongoing covenant, the ongoing relationship of these people that blessing is bestowed. This is a daily process with a promise woven into the fabric. How that fabric is later to be used may still be unknown but its cloth will be a blessing to others.

Sometimes it is in the keeping the covenant to work towards justice that future blessings are finally realized. It is in the laying down of the groundwork that future blessings are able to sprout to their fruition.

There is the story of an elderly man who decided to plant fruit trees on his property. His neighbors chided him for doing this because it was evident that he would never live long enough to be able to benefit from his labors in planting these young saplings. The elderly man responded and said that he planted the trees not for himself but for those who would come after him and be blessed by the bountiful fruit these trees would offer. He was bestowing blessings into his future. He saw a vision of what could be and wanted his life to be a blessing towards that future.

Forty-three years ago, a young African American by the name of Jimmie Lee Jackson, ordained a deacon by his church, sought for four years to register to vote. He was denied. He knew that voting was his right as a citizen and he knew that it was a right for every citizen. He was determined to work towards voting rights.

When another young man, James Orange was arrested for assisting and recruiting potential voter registrants, Jimmie Lee marched in Marion, AL with hundreds of others in protest of the arrest. The police began to beat up the protesters and chased Jimmie Lee, his mother and his 82 year old grandfather into a café. The grandfather was beaten and when his mother attempted to get the police off of him, she too was beaten. Then when Jimmie Lee came to her aid, he was shot at point blank range by a State Trooper. It was Jimmie Lee’s death that provoked the march on Selma. Jimmie Lee’s belief that all people deserve the right to vote was a blessing that laid the foundations for what was to come. His untimely death was not in vain towards that goal.

In March of that year hundreds of ministers joined Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. in the march on Selma to again protest not only the inequity of the voting laws that kept African Americans from voting but also the extreme measures used to enforce this injustice. One Unitarian minister by the name of James Reeb was struck down while walking on a street. He went to Selma with the conviction that all people have inherent worth and dignity and therefore should be afforded equal rights.

Forty-three years ago, a young mother from Detroit Michigan, came down to Alabama to assist in voter registration efforts of African Americans. She knew that the promise of this country was that all of its citizens were created equal and had a voice in how this nation should be governed. She came and bestowed her blessing of knowing what was right and just for America. She had covenanted to work along side those who did not have the vote.

African Americans were given complicated and sometimes inane literacy tests geared for their failure. Unitarian Viola Liuzzo offered the blessing of standing along side people of color in their quest for the vote.

Forty-three years ago she was shot by four KKK members while driving an African American home after the march in Selma. The police and the FBI conducted a smear campaign to discredit her character enabling her murderers to be acquitted. Three of KKK were later convicted on violating her civil rights. Her family was subjected to all sorts of shame by the government in order to reduce her murder to that of an unfortunate woman who associated with people who did her wrong.

It was the events of these three deaths that resulted in the swift passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. If you ever get a chance to visit the Unitarian Universalist Association’s Headquarters in Boston, you will see a plaque commemorating the lives of these three people and their efforts to bestow the blessing of freedom and justice for all people.

Rev. Martin Luther King had a dream. He said, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

Martin Luther King’s dream was bestowing a blessing on this nation. Jimmie Lee Jackson, James Reeb, and Viola Liuzzo were also part of the planting of that orchard of which they would never benefit of its fruit. Some blessings don’t always germinate and manifest as fast as we would like them. But blessings do go forth.

This past Tuesday, this nation elected a man based on the content of his character and not on the color of his skin. Now you may not have liked his politics and you may have voted for his opponent, that’s okay. The right to vote is the right to choose what our destiny is in moving forward. This election result could not have happened if the convictions of the promise of this nation were not held fast by these men and women in the civil rights movement.

Their efforts and the blessings they offered us were not forgotten by our denomination. After the election results came in, the UUA sent bouquets of yellow roses to Marie Reeb Maher, the widow of James Reeb, and to the daughters of Viola Liuzzo. Rev. Clark Olsen, who was with James Reeb when he was fatally attacked, helped orchestrate the honoring of their lives and their sacrifice that enabled this day to be possible.

Sally Liuzzo had this to say in response to receiving the roses, (quoted with permission from Ms. Liuzzo) “We have a policy at my job not to talk politics. All that was thrown out the window yesterday. My boss encouraged me to tell anyone that asked my mom’s story, when they questioned why I received yellow roses. …

“I cannot begin to explain the sense of pride I have right now for my mother and all the civil rights activists of that time. I feel like everything they have fought for, has now been realized. Black children will no longer feel like they are ‘less than’ and they will now know….they can be ANYTHING they set their minds out to be, Here I am crying again.

“Thank you from my sisters and [me], for never forgetting our mother. The three of us were totally overcome with emotion. I feel like mom’s sacrifice has now been worthwhile. Yes……she made a huge difference. I am so proud of America for getting past the limitations of race, and vote for what is best for our country.

“….Actually we feel like mom reached out…through the UU church…to send those flowers. The yellow roses told us that she had a hand in it. She has a mighty strong spirit….that is alive and well. …”

We may never know the impact our lives may have on another person nor how our actions for justice today will empower the people who come after us no matter what the immediate consequences of those actions may have been. But if we want to have blessing as a spiritual practice then I believe we must do several things.

The person offering blessings holds fast to the best possible potential for the lives of others. The person joins in a covenant which holds each other accountable towards these highest ideals. When the blessing being offered is to right an injustice, the perpetrators of injustice may not believe they are doing anything wrong, therefore the relationship needs to be one gently revealing the untruth they have bought into. It means to be willing to listen respectively and willing to state respectively where the error is found. The person stands firm in their convictions of the vision they see possible even when disappointment and failures happen.

In October 2002, I was asked to join the members of Soulforce to provide support to Lynchburg VA’s first pride celebration. We were also there to follow-up on a meeting we had with the late Rev. Jerry Falwell and his congregation a few years before. I had joined Soulforce to meet with Rev. Falwell asking him to stop his anti-gay rhetoric because it was resulting in untold pain in the gay community. He promised to stop but in the days that followed 9/11 he blamed the gay community and other groups of people for the attack on our country by Al Qaeda.

On the Saturday of my time in Lynchburg, I was to be a peacekeeper, essentially a wall between the local queer community of Lynchburg and the ultra conservative Christians who were there to taunt them. The original plan placed us on one side of the road and the protestors were to be on the other side of the road, a good 25 feet away. However, the police allowed the anti-gay group to cross the road and they were standing with their chest up against my back screaming in my ear all sorts of foul things. Words my grandmother said no good Christian would even whisper let alone shout in mixed company. My task was to stand there silently ignoring their taunts and absorbing their hatred so that it would not interfere with the joy of the hundreds of young people coming out to proclaim who they were. We did not allow these taunts to rile us even though we were emotionally drained by the end of the day. The event with the exception of the loud jeering of hell fire went peacefully.

Then on Sunday morning we lined up in single file outside Thomas Road Baptist Church for a silent vigil to sadly confront the broken promise Jerry Falwell had made to us. One of the more touching moments for me was when I was standing in front of a neighbor’s house when a young father with a three week old infant came out to stand with us. He was a teacher at the local school and said he taught in his class room that all people are to be respected for who they are. He wanted the world his newborn son grew up in to be one where people would live their lives with the same inherent integrity that his son was born with. If his son were to be gay, he would want his son to be proud and able to live life as freely and fully as anyone else.

This was the contrast of the two days. I knew I was offering a blessing to those young people at the pride festival by standing there and absorbing the hate so to shield them from those blows. I knew that this young father and infant were being a blessing to me on Sunday, affirming the essence of my being, enabling me to continue to stand tall.

My vision of the blest day that is filled with grace, a day where love is shared freely, where all the traffic lights are green as you approach them and you soar to your destination unhindered is not here yet. There are still people who are seeking justice; justice in education, justice in marriage equality, justice in employment and housing, justice in racial equity, and justice in health care. There are people who are still in pain in the face of these injustices. It is my intention to be part of the blessing that enables justice to roll down like a mighty river. There is much work to be done. Let us begin our blessing work. Blessed be.

The Mississippi based blog Cotton Mouth discusses an incident that was reported by WAPT of two junior highschool students thrown off their school bus in Pearl, MS for mentioning President Elect Obama’s name.  The Girl’s Basketball coach of the same junior high threatened to suspend any student who also invoked Obama’s name.   Allegedly the bus driver and the coach have been told their reactions were unwarranted and the children not punished. 

It has also been reported that some workplaces in Mississippi will not allow Obama’s name be spoken either.  One of my congregants stated that she saw a racist symbol about our president elect in a business establishment.  She became indignant and angry.   We all knew that racism would not be erased by simply voting into office an African American President.  Our work for racial equity remains a task uncompleted.  Let’s get to work. 

I offer this song by Jim Croce.  It seems to be an appropriate prophetic response. 

The heading is a quote from St. Francis of Assisi who forever chided his followers to not rest on their laurels.  Justice is forever unfolding and sometimes it creases over on itself and looks like it is falling backwards before the next unfolding reveals its success. 

20 months ago the thought that America would even entertain the notion of electing an African American as president seemed surreal given its long history of inbred racism.  Yet, today, this is a reality with President-elect Barack Obama.  The possibilities his presidency offers America and the world are great. 

Yet, there is also the plight of equal marriage in this country.  It looks like Proposition 8 in California will be enacted into that state’s constitution and 18,000 same-gendered couples will have their marriages declared invalid. Arizona, Arkansas, and Florida also enacted constitutional amendments barring same gendered couples equal protection under the law.  The quest for equal rights for sexual minorities remains a long journey ahead. A journey in which the religious right continue to impose their faith constructs on millions of people who do not share their beliefs in direct opposition of our nation’s creed of religious freedom. 

The election of America’s first African American President is historic but it does not mean that our quest for justice in this country is now over.  In fact it is far from over.  We have work to do in striving to form a more perfect union where all people are able to experience their “unalienable rights, that among these are life,  liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” 

The election proved that we can succeed in having our dreams become realities if we are deligent and steadfast.  But we cannot afford to bask in our victories when there is so much more to be done in living up to this nation’s promise.

Let’s get to it.

My first time experience to vote in this southern state was very different from any voting I had ever experienced in New York State, Connecticut, or in Illinois.  Voting turnout was heavy but the process used left me feeling a bit unsure of the integrity.  It took place in a small elementary school not far from home.  I entered the library which was crammed with people.  There were three tables set up to alphabetically check people in.  It seemed that everyone who lived in this community had a name that began with the letters H-Q.  There was no one checking in at the A-G or the R-Z tables.  The workers had this deer in the headlight stare as they looked at the crowd streaming in.  I got the impression they were not expecting this level of a turn out at 9:30 AM. 

Ahead of me was a young man that I had seen driving in on his motorcycle.  He was wearing a t-shirt that proudly declared his love of the confederate flag.  “Gone from our skies but still flying strong in our hearts.”  

I received my ballot and sent to sit at a table with 4 other people filling in their ballots.  So much for privacy in voting.  In all the other states I voted in, we were ushered to a private place; perhaps behind curtains, perhaps to a screened cubicle where one person and one person only pulled the levers, or punched the chads, or in the case today darkened circles to be read by an electronic machine-the type known for producing major errors. 

My table emptied and an elderly couple sat down next to me.  The gentleman looked at the ballot a little confused and his wife said, “Now mark the Republican slate here.”   

I wanted to speak up and state that no one is to tell another how to vote but I suddenly felt unsure of how I should act in this place. Was I safe here to speak up?  The elderly man looked very confused.  It was apparent to me that he was not sure of where he was or why he was there.  I did not see anyone that I could talk to about this. 

I flashed back to my days of working with developmentally disabled adults and a discussion about having the profoundly impaired adults registered to vote.  While I was a strong advocate for having these people participate as fully as possible in society, I was concerned that any voting they would do would not be from an informed position but a coerced one.   Of course there are many developmentally disabled adults who can and should be able to register to vote. These individuals who operated in the toddler range of maturation and intelligence should not register because their votes would reflect their adult care-givers opinions and not their own.  

Perhaps the elderly gentleman always and consistently voted straight Republican ticket in the years when he was able to clearly think for himself so his wife prompting him was consistent with how he had voted in the past.  But what if this year was different.  What if this year in a moment of mental clarity his opinion differed from his wife’s?  We will never know.  This year however, from my limited perception, his wife voted twice.    

I looked around and there were up against the far corner of the wall a row of screened in cubicles where people could stand and darken their oval choices in semi-privacy.  Every one of them was filled with people.  I looked at the line of people waiting to register their participation and pick up their ballots.  That line filled the small library and wound around and out the building entrance.  There were people leaning up against book cases darkening their choices.  Every table was filled with people. There was no room for a line to even be developed to wait for a screened in cubicle.  It simply did not exist.  I was not convinced that speaking up would have enabled a solution to open up that would limit the low hum of talking between voters as they filled in their choices and perhaps the choices of their neighbors.  It was too late to suggest the gymnasium as a better location for the freedom to vote one’s conscience.

I came across this quote by Thich Nhat Hanh in his book “The Art of Power”  that sums up pretty much how I have been feeling lately about life in these American States; from the economic crisis to Exxon-Mobil’s 2nd record breaking quarter in a row, from the divisive election campaigns to the ICE raids on undocumented immigrants.  This quote offers us an opportunity to finding a way out.  It’s not an easy way out, but definitely a way out.

“We are not elected to Congress to fight only for our ideas. Your idea may be superb, but it might still be improved by the ideas of other people.  Regardless of what party a person belongs to, if she has a real insight, we should practice deep listening to really hear her.  If she is fighting only for her own idea we will know it clearly, but if she has a real insight we must be open to it.  Listening in this way will help Congress become a community where there is mutual understanding, mutual sharing.  Our democracy will be safer.  The integrity of the individual and the integrity of our institutions will be saved; otherwise there is only the appearance of democracy, not real democracy.  When you are not yourself, when you are not operating on the ground of your insight, your compassion, your experience, when you have to speak and vote soley along party lines, you are not truly yourself, you are not offering your best to your nation and your people.  The aspiration to offer our best is there in each of us.  We should help each be our best, because only then can we truly serve our people and our nation.

Just as politicians need to collaborate with those in opposing political parties, businesspeople can learn to collaborate with and learn from other companies rather than competing with them.  Communication is important, not just within a company but between companies.  It is possible to replace competition with cooperation and collaboration. If the leaders of corporations get together and practice looking deeply into the situation of the world to develop the products that best serve society, they will be able to devise mutually beneficial policies and working conditions. If they become sensitive to the suffering of humankind and the suffering of other species, they’ll be able to come together without fighting.” 

May it be so.

Exxon-Mobil announces its largest profit ever in the third quarter, July- September, following its record breaking second quarter profits.  This is the same quarter that gas prices rose to over $4 a gallon forcing small businesses to raise prices or curtail scope of business, forcing airlines to reduce flight schedules and layoff employees, forcing farmers to increase food prices, and forcing some schools to go to a four day school week to save on rising fuel costs.  The impact of this energy crisis was widespread but evidently wasn’t hurting Exxon-Mobil.    

This is the second quarter in a row that Exxon-Mobil broke profit records.  In the second quarter Exxon-Mobil earned a record $11.68 Billion,  in the third quarter earned $14.83 Billion.  Is it me, or does this not seem quite right given the extraordinary hardship rising fuel costs have caused us this past summer? 

Now if Exxon-Mobil had posted a modest profit or even posted a just better than break even quarter, I would think that Exxon-Mobil had managed their affairs well during this fuel crisis of the record breaking oil costs that was daily fluctuating the costs at the pump.  But a record breaking profit???  When the rest of America was faltering towards recession?   And they are wanting a tax credit from the government because it would help bolster the economy?  What else is going on here? 

Bernice Johnson Reagon  of Sweet Honey in The Rock wrote this song entitled “Greed.”  Here are some of its words.   

I been thinking ’bout how to talk about greed
I been thinking ’bout how to talk about greed
I been wondering if I could sing about greed
Trying to find a way to talk about greed

Greed is a poison rising in this land
The soul of the people twisted in its command
It moves like a virus, seeking our anyone
Greed never stops, its work is never done
A creeping, killing, choking, invading everywhere
There really is no escaping greed’s tricky snare

Nothing seems to stop it once it enters your soul
It has you buying anything, spinning out of control
Not partial to gender, or your sexual desire
All it wants is for you to own, to possess and to buy
It rides with the culture, touching us all
Greed really isn’t picky, it’ll make anybody fall

It’s been around a long time, since way before we began
Before this was a nation, greed drove people to this land
Greed driven people created slavery,
Black men, women and children became somebody’s property
Greed is a strain of the American dream
Having more than you need is the essential theme …

When O when, will America realize that our actions of greed impact everyone.  Greed is going to be (and current events indicate is) our downfall.  Exxon-Mobil from where I sit, it seems your greed is partly responsible for the economic crisis we are facing today.  Corporations can no longer operate as if they are islands unto themselves.  We need to begin co-operating with each other in living on this planet or face peril. We need to shift our thinking of wanting more and more to wanting what is sufficient.  If that is a socialist stance, then sobeit, but cooperation is a core value that I seek to uphold.

A few years ago now, how quickly time passes, in order to become a Unitarian Universalist Minister I had to meet with the Minister Fellowship Committee (MFC).  This committee is charged with making sure that all ministers in fellowship with the Unitarian Universalist Association have met a set of criteria and standards to be a minister.  There were a variety of questions asked.  One question that I was asked was the following:  “What is the Meaning of Life for the Jew?”  I did not answer the question well. 

I have pondered this question alot since then.  The question is based on a presumption that religions answer the question, “What is the meaning of Life?”   It is a false presumption because that is not the question that religions answer.  Religions answer the question, “What is my relationship with the other?”   The other being everything from this other person sitting before me to the world around me to the concept of god.  But the question, “what is the meaning of life?” is not the question being answered by religion. 

The word religion comes from the Latin religare meaning to bind fast or to bond between.  It is a relationship that is established when one practices a certain religion.  And it is a bond that is tied fast between the person and the practice (read also God) they are upholding. 

Judaism answers the question by stating that my relationship with the other is covenantal.  Abraham established a covenant with God.  It was a promise that if his people did certain things then God would ensure that his people would continue to prosper.   The society that was developed by Abraham and his descendents is based on this covenantal relationship.  The story of the Hebrew scriptures is the story of this covenantal relationship. 

Christianity, Orthodox Christianity specifically, answers the question by stating that my relationship with the other is inherently broken.  The religion then seeks to develop ways to fix that brokenness.   The story of the New Testament, especially those books written by Paul of Tarsus,  is how a relationship with Jesus fixes that brokenness.

Universalist Christianity states my relationship with the other is separation.  It then seeks to develop ways to bring about reconciliation.  It could be argued that within the story of the gospels is found the story of reconciliation of humanity with God.

Buddhism states my relationship with the other is illusion.  It then seeks to develop ways that will bring about enlightenment, the ability to see clearly.  The story of the Buddha tells his journey towards this enlightment. 

Islam states my relationship with the Other is ultimately submission.  It then seeks to develop ways in order to be in submission with the Other (specifically Allah). 

Now through following these various ways of relating to the Other, one may discover that their life has meaning.  But this is meaning that is added to their life as a result of being in relationship with the other.  Religions can help add meaning to ones life by giving it a shape or a touchstone from which one can center their life around. 

Unitarian Universalism answers the question of what is my relationship with the other by also answering that it is covenantal.   It is a covenant that is renegotiated with every relationship I enter.   Sometimes the covenant is negotiated consciously, sometimes not.  The values that Unitarian Universalists promote do keep me grounded as I seek to live them in my daily life.  And in my seeking to live my covenant, I find that my life is filled with meaning and purpose at least from my perspective of looking out at the world and how I relate to it.  Blessings,

In the UUA’s  Mid-South District, many lay led congregations are participating in a program developed by Education Director Connie Goodbread and MSD Board member Norman Horofker called UP! (Unlimited Potential).  This program is seeking to offer skills and expertise to small congregations under 70 members to enable them to have excellence in an area enabling them to thrive as a congregation.  The recent discussion has been focusing on mission statements.  This is an area of church development that I find of great interest.   Norman presented the group with the UUA tag line  “Nurture your Spirit.  Help Heal our World.” This tag line was recently used in UUA’s advertizing campaign in Times Magazine.  It can be made into a powerful mission statement…  

IE:  We are a congregation where we nurture our spirits empowering each other to help heal the world. 

Mission Statements or Statements of Purpose need to be this powerful and this simple.  They are a concise sentence that answers these three questions:  Why do we exist?   What do we do? What is important/ essential for us as a congregation?

Mission and vision statements are sometimes confused.  A vision statement builds on the mission statement and answers these questions:  What are we going to be as a church?  Who are we going to reach?  How are we going to do this?

So using the community in which I live only as a reference point, a vision statement could be the following:

IE:  Our presence in Tuscaloosa creates a community of open minds, open hands and warm hearts through our diverse spiritual practices and by our seeking to do social justice work and community service.
 
Vision statements are to be visual.  You can see diverse spiritual practices being done.  You can see social justice work being done and you can see community services being done.  You can also see open minds, open hands and warm hearts in the interactions of the people within the congregation and as this vision begins to take hold, it will also be seen in the larger community in which the congregation lives.

Mission and vision statements then become the ground on which you build your strategic plans for the next several years.  This is the ‘how to’s’ of these words.  How do we nurture our spirits?  How do we heal our world? How do we express ourselves as having open minds?  What kinds of activities over the next several years would help us accomplish this? 

Every activity done within the congregation and in the community is linked to these statements–From the board meetings to the Children’s RE program to the worship services to community projects to developing the budget.  Everything.  

Missions are living entities that might evolve over time.  So it is good to review the mission of the congregation from time to time to see how the congregation has grown and evolved.  The community in which the congregation lives may also have changed over time requiring a different focus of interaction. 

There is the legendary story of the congregation which located itself in an affluent part of the city and over the decades the neighborhood became run down.  Homeless men would be found sleeping in the doorways and people had to step over them to enter the church.  The church decided to refocus their mission to meet the needs of the community and they established a soup kitchen and a homeless shelter.  From there they went on to develop transitional housing services to help get people back on their feet to employment and self-determination of their lives.  This story is repeated again and again as an example of a church redefining who they were going to be in the world.  It is a common story happening in many cities across our country. 

I am looking forward to seeing what these congregations come up with in redefining their mission in the rural south in which they live, breathe, and have their being. Blessings,

Many years ago there was a tv game show where a celebrity panel had to try to discern which of the three contestants was the person being described.  After each of the contestants gave their answers to a variety of questions, and the panel made their decisions public, the host of the game show would announce, “Will the Real John Doe, please stand up.”  The three would look at each other and one would always pretend to begin to stand and then the Real John Doe or Jane Doe would stand up.  It was a fun show of light hearted deception. 

In recent weeks, the election campaigns have turned mean.  Perhaps it is normal for the alleged candidate who is perceived as loosing to turn up the heat in the final weeks of the campaign.  I was too young to recall the time when patriotism  of Americans were called into question in such a mean spirited way.  I am referring to the McCarthy Era when all of America seemed to be looking for a Communist under every rock.  Thousands of people across America were blacklisted and lost their ability to earn a living in their chosen profession.  In many cases when that nightmare of facist-like history in America was over, many were left spiritually broken unable to return to the passion of their first career. 

The present day situation is sounding very similar.  We have a congresswoman in Minnesota who wants to call for an investigation of all elected officials in Washington to find out if any are Anti-Americans. She defines Anti-Americans as being Leftist Liberals.   Among her top picks are Senators Obama and Biden and Speaker of the House Pelosi.    We have a public figure in Virginia distinguishing between the area of Virginia just outside of DC and the rest of Virginia which she calls the Real Virginia.  Real Virginia by the way is conservative and Republican.  And we have a Vice Presidential candidate declaring that the Real America is found in those Pro-American pockets of small towns.   She states, it is these Americans who have fought bravely in our wars and are currently serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

John Stewart of The Daily Show stated that Osama Bin Laden must be very embarrassed to discover that he attacked Fake America when he attacked NYC and Washington, DC because these places are not part of the Real America. 

And what are those brave men and women from these large cities fighting in Iraq feeling; now that they have been called False Americans?  Do they get to come home since they are not really Americans and therefore have no claim to fighting in our wars? 

This talk of who is a Real American versus who is Anti-American, is not an innocent tv game show of light hearted deception.  This is blatant diviseness. It is a tactic used to instill fear into the hearts of the citizenry.  It is a tactic that Joe McCarthy used to engender the Red Scare.  It is a tactic that will undermine the very freedom that Americans, all Americans, cherish.  The McCarthy Era was not a proud moment in America’s history.  It was a time when the freedoms we take for granted were underseige.  If McCarthy had won in his campaign to route out every suspected Communist, and many were never to have been found to be a communist, only alleged; the democracy experiment begun in 1776 would have been over 50 plus years ago. 

If we allow our public elected officials to instill fear that there lurks within America two America’s, one real and one false; one good and one evil; one standing firm in the will of God and one opposed to the will of God; then our nation of democracy with all its freedoms will cease to be.   We have chosen the motto  “E Pluribus Unim” for a reason.  Out of many, One. 

It is our diversity of thought, our capacity to hear many opinions, that adds to our greatness as a nation.  It is because of our diversity that America has become that “beacon on the hill”. Strike any voice from being heard and America’s greatness as a nation is diminished.

In our current economic crisis, in our attempts to dis-entangle ourselves from Iraq, in our attempts to improve the domestic well being of all of America; it is time for us to honor our commitment of E Pluribus Unim.  Attempts to instill fear and mistrust in each other is not the answer to our problems.    

When the events of 9/11 reached the far corners of the world… World Leaders stated, “We are All Americans now.”  Such was the pain felt by the world in those events.  It is a message that needs to ring loud and clear within our own citizens as well.  “We are All Americans” 

Everyone of us should stand to answer the question asked, “Will the Real America, Please stand up?”  By doing so does not mean that we are in agreement with the how-tos in fixing the problems that face this country.   What it does mean is that we want what is best for her to maintain the democracy that was established so that we are a free people. 

When Election day comes, vote not because you are a Republican or a Democrat.  Vote because you are an American who has the freedom to vote for the best of America.

Up until recently, the only way I had to know if this blog was beneficial in meeting my objective of having a dialog about Unitarian Universalism  and its values in the South was through comments made to individual posts and the statistics of how many hits to entries.  The top five blog entries on this site to date are:  

1. ICE Raid in Laurel, MS. 
2. Another Wrongful Execution
3. Liberal vs Conservative Religion
4. The Theology of Mary Oliver
5. What is Truth?  

Those that received the most comments are:

1. ICE Raid in Laurel, MS
2. Liberal v Conservative Religion
3. Covenantal Faith
4. Universalism- Along a string of tension
5. What makes US immigration Laws unjust  and HIV Felony Law  (tied in 5th place)

This gives me some insight into what people are most interested in.  But it is still a bit of a guessing game as to how effective I am in having a dialog.  So here is something that may help me that the people at wordpress, who host this blog, have developed.  I look forward to reading your comments and the results of this poll.  Blessings,

I try not to take political stands regarding specific candidates for office.  As a minister, I find that to be a very fine line in our nation’s quest for separation of church and state.  A value that has come under attack by my more conservative colleagues of the cloth.  However, there is an issue that has arisen that I feel demands a response from all religious leaders regardless of theological persuasion.  That issue is the tolerance of hate speech at political rallies. 

One of McCain/Palin campaign strategies is questioning who Barack Obama really is.  It’s a fair question.  However, the responses from the audience have been threatening and hateful.  Shouts in response have included, “Terrorist!”, “Traitor”, and “Kill Him” and “Off with His Head.”   McCain and Palin do not address these comments, in fact they have encouraged them with their own speeches of tieing Obama with “domestic terrorist” William Ayers.  The problem with allowing these comments to continue is that they eventually find a willing person to carry out the deed. 

Georgian Congress representative John Lewis, stated, “As public figures with the power to influence and persuade, Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin are playing with fire, and if they are not careful, that fire will consume us all,” the statement continues. “They are playing a very dangerous game that disregards the value of the political process and cheapens our entire democracy.  We can do better.  The American people deserve better.”   Lewis compared the hateful rhetoric being engendered at McCain’s rallies akin to the hateful rhetoric of Alabama Governor George Wallace which has been indirectly connected to the bombing of a Birmingham church in 1963. 

Perhaps the analogy Rep. Lewis drew is unfair or out of proportion but tell that to gays and lesbians and other sexual minorities who are attacked and harrassed because their churches preach that homosexuality is an abomination and should be killed.  Matthew Shepard and more recently Larry King were killed because their killers heard repeatedly from the pulpit that gays did not deserve to live.   The late Rev. Jerry Falwell blamed gays and lesbians and liberals (ACLU, Feminists, abortionists)  for the 9/11 attacks.  This sort of rhetoric stirs up hatred and violence against people because it is being made by people or made in the presence of people we are supposed to be able to trust.  Senator McCain and Governor Palin are among those people we are supposed to be able to trust. 

McCain’s response to Lewis and Obama was “Barack Obama’s assault on our supporters is insulting and unsurprising. These are the same people obama [sic] called ‘bitter’ and attacked for ‘clinging to guns’ and faith. He fails to understand that people are angry at corrupt practices in Washington and Wall Street and he fails to understand that America’s working families are not ‘clinging’ to anything other than the sincere hope that Washington will be reformed from top to bottom.”  

I agree that people are angry.  But screaming out “Kill Him!”  is not an appropriate anger response to the issues.  It is scapegoating.  Justifying such hate speech by stating they are angry is also not appropriate. There are appropriate ways of expressing anger, shouting “Off with his head!” is not one of them.  Allowing such inappropriate expressions will rile a crowd to a frenzied pitch that, if not stopped, will result in actions that all of us will regret. 

McCain/Palin talk about reforming Washington politics.  If they are serious about reform then they should be helping their supporters to channel their anger towards that reform.  But it takes someone who has good anger management skills to know how to do this kind of organizing anger towards the positive.   

I was fortunate to witness this at the Free Jena 6 rallies in Jena, LA.  The crowd had been listening to a speaker who clearly was angry and was stirring the crowd towards doing something outrageous right at that moment.  Rev. Jesse Jackson was called to the stage by the organizers and I was in awe at how he effectively and quickly calmed the crowd down. I was very grateful.  Be angry yes, but channel that anger in appropriate ways.  Hate speech is never justified.   Blessings,

I tend to be the type of person who when faced with a fear will try to read up on the subject so I have  better understanding of what is happening and thereby reducing my fear levels.  I figure knowledge equals personal power and therefore can and will help me navigate whatever fearful thing I am experiencing. 

This current economic crisis has suddenly propelled me to try to understand a subject that held very little interest for me.  And, as a minister who will be pastoring people who are deeply affected by this crisis, it is important that I understand what is going on. [The fall out will affect all of us in some manner as this crisis unfolds.]  As I read about such strange banking products as credit default swaps and commercial papers I am a bit awe struck by the level of greed our capitalism has brought us. 

When I read that even the buyers and sellers of credit default swaps did not even understand how that product worked, I begin to think people are a bit crazed in their quest to make money.   Our society has given up quite a bit in our desire for more money.  The people who work in these industries work incredibly long hours sacrificing family and community relationships to enable the possibility of early retirement or retirement at a comfortable level. 

So the question how to thrive in these uncertain times is an important question.  I think we need to first come up with a broader societal definition of what determines thriving.   It is too narrow a definition to have financial worth to be the only criteria for thriving.  That is like a plant that has received too much fertilizer but not enough other supports like sun, water, and soil so it grows tall and straggly, and eventually unable to bear the weight of itself. 

There needs to be a balance.   It is this balance that I think America is in need of finding.  There is a need to find what is essential to living a fulfilling life and to seek that first. [While typing this I am reminded of a song I used to sing, “Seek Ye First the Kingdom of God” and while this might work as an interpretation of what I wrote, I would mean it only in the sense of the Beloved Community or the Realm of God that Jesus states is already within us and waiting to be lived out in our daily lives.]  While it was a TV show full of glorified nostalgia, The Waltons highlighted the means in which one family, albeit fictional, thrived during the depression era.   The show focused on family values.  A phrase that needs unpacking since it too has been glorified and idealized beyond human reckoning.  Family values, as I refer to the term, means placing emphasis on the relationships we hold dear.  It means making a commitment / a covenant to the relationships we deem valuable. 

It means developing a means in which we will be together and support one another in ways that will honor our inherent worth and integrity.  It means developing a means in which we strive to be in right relationship with one another.  It means finding ways to be with one another that does not place the family or individuals into financial harm. 

For example, while it is a wonderful family experience to go as a family to Disney World or Busch Gardens or some other amusement park, if doing so means placing that on a credit card that you will pay off over the next several years, then it is placing the family into financial harm.  Find another activity that will also be a wonderful family experience that will not negatively impact your family’s over all health. 

It also means developing community values.  Become involved in your church community  or town community by volunteering and working with other people to help improve the world in which we live.  It might mean spending a day with others cleaning the environment or serving food at the local soup kitchen or becoming a big brother or big sister to a child in need of an adult mentor.  And despite what Sarah Palin has said about Community Organizers; organizing the community around a local concern, whether it is affordable housing or developing neighborhood parks is a powerful and responsible means of displaying community values. 

More importantly these activities build on relationships.  They break down the walls that people have erected against one another because of our fear of not having enough money, enough oil, enough products, enough what have you.   This is not the time to be pointing the fingers at this political party or that political party because frankly we all created this mess.  Yes, even you and I, because we bought into the lie that having more money is what mattered most.  We bought into the lie that money solves all problems. 

So while I hope and pray that our leaders are able to find solutions in order to reduce the impact of suffering within a crisis that seems to be unraveling at the seams at an incredible pace.  We can pull together and begin to place into balance what is essential to thriving which is not money but rather fostering love and compassion in our relationships with one another.  We will need to do this if we are to thrive during what ever comes our way.

The Ad Council has teamed up with GLSEN (Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network) to present three Public Service Announcements (PSAs) regarding the use of the phrase, common with young people, “That’s so gay.”   You can see the three PSAs at this site:  Thinkb4youspeak.com   They feature Hillary Duff and Wanda Sykes.  The New York Times released a story about the Think Before You Speak campaign today.

 “ The campaign is “something I dreamed about for 10 years,” said Kevin Jennings, the founder and executive director at GLSEN, and has been in active development for two years.”If you follow hateful language, you eventually get hurtful behavior,” he added. “The chain of events begins with kids learning it’s O.K. to disrespect people.”

“The campaign is “a very bold step” on the part of the council, Mr. Jennings said, in that “this will be, by a million miles, the largest public education campaign on L.G.B.T. issues.”

Thanks to my friend Leif Mitchell for alerting me to this campaign.

There has been a debate in the blogosphere among Unitarian Universalists regarding  UUA President Bill Sinkford being part of an interfaith coalition that met with Iran’s figurehead president  Mahmoud Ahmendinejad in NYC recently.  One blogger stated that simply talking does not make one a prophet, sometimes it makes you a fool.  He states that a true prophet is one who is able to organize power behind the words spoken and therefore can be held accountable to what is spoken. He argues that Bill Sinkford’s words without any power behind them, made him a fool.   He quotes Nehemiah 5 as an example of what he calls prophecy with power.  It’s a fair argument.  Through out the Hebrew Scriptures the prophetic has been paired with power, whether that was the power of an impending doom if changes were not made or the power of miraculous events. 

Yet there is a place for the fool too as prophetic voice.  The fool is one who no one takes seriously and therefore is able to speak unvarnished truth.  The fool is the one that people scoff at and deride and then realize that they were the foolish ones with their behaviors.  We see the role of the fool as prophetic voice in Shakespeare’s plays, such as portrayed in  King Lear.  We see the prophetic fool in modern days with Stephen Colbert’s presentation at the White House Press Corp dinner in 2006.   Yet the fool also has power.  It is a power that comes with inner convictions that enables the fool to speak words of truth.  It is because the person is playing a fool that sometimes the words get heard and changes can occur. 

Some of my colleagues (read through to the comments)  thought our UUA President, Rev. Bill Sinkford, played the fool by speaking with one of the heads of state of a tyranical dictatorship.  Many thought he should have sided with the protesters outside and that stance would have been the correct prophetic stance to take.  Funny thing about prophetic stances most are not realized as such until much later, sometimes years later.   

Jonah was very concerned about playing the fool with the city Nineveh.   So he ran away.  Yet, Jonah eventually after some bizarre twists and turns, does take the prophetic stance and speaks with the King of Nineveh.  The King was a tyrant.  The king and his people had done some horrible things.  And after hearing Jonah, the King and the city of Nineveh repented and Jonah’s fear of looking like the fool is realized.  It is a risk that prophets take sometimes. 

One never knows how the spirit of love is going to move and speak through us.  Nor on what ears the message of love will fall on.  The fool can be a prophetic voice.  Perhaps we should not be so quick to judge the actions of those around us as they just may be responding to a higher conviction than we can discern with our senses.  Blessings,

One of the comments I hear from time to time is that because Unitarian Universalists have no core doctrine, no central dogma therefore Unitarian Universalism cannot be a religion, let alone foster spirituality.  While it is true that other religions have doctrines and dogmas that shape the boundaries of their practice, our covenants shape ours.  One popular covenant that is heard in our congregations is this one.

Love is the doctrine of this church, the quest for truth its sacrament and service is its prayer; to dwell together in peace, to seek knowledge in freedom, to serve human need, to the end that all souls shall grow into harmony with the divine.  Thus do we covenant with each other and with God.

These are lovely words though sometimes hard to do. In this covenant we define how we are going to be loving people. We have placed seeking truth as a sacrament, as a holy obligation, and as something that holds a sacred significance to us. Service as its prayer; meaning that in our efforts to support the church, in our supporting our justice making causes, in our compassion to serve human need, and in our seeking to dwell in peace that truth is found in these efforts empowering us to be loving people. The prayer is answered through our loving actions “…to the end that all souls shall grow into harmony with the divine.” Notice we do not state that all souls shall grow into harmony with each other but rather with the divine. There is great wisdom here. It is in the diversity of our human relationships that new desires / new thoughts / new ways of being together can develop and shine. The divine here is that quality of connecting to our best selves / our higher selves / our higher power. We state in the last sentence that we are going to hold each other accountable to each other and to God.  God being that which is ultimate in our lives; the creative interchange as Weiman states; the ground of being as Tillich states.   

This covenant is sometimes hard to live out consistently. That is okay because it also teaches us how to forgive as we connect to the promise we make. In any relationship there will be opportunities for forgiveness and a church community is no different. We can never know what filters people are wearing on any given day. People could be wearing the filters of exhaustion, filters of feeling overwhelmed with work or projects, filters of not understanding, filters of a day where everything seemingly went wrong, filters of not feeling adequate, filters of being abused, filters of not feeling well physically. The list goes on. So in the process of interacting with one another, words are also spoken and heard through these filters. Misunderstandings occur, misperceptions occur, and feelings are hurt with people withdrawing from the situation or the task at hand.

This covenant reminds us to seek forgiveness from each other, to try to listen to the other person without our own inner self chatter happening at the same time. To reflect on what is being said to us and to grow in new understanding and appreciation of the other. Through this deep attentive listening to the other we can begin again to honor our covenant of faith.

Covenants require re-commitments in order to uphold them as central to our being together.  Covenants act as a centering touch stone that we can call each other back to and help remind of the promise to higher commitments and ideals we seek to reveal in our coming together.  When we fall short of that promise to each other and/or to ourselves we can always renew that promise and begin again. 

It is in examining our covenants on a regular basis that we can discover how we are fairing as a community of faith.  Even for those faiths that have doctrines and dogmas that its adherents are asked to affirm for themselves personally, covenants are sometimes developed to aid the congregants in living the ideals those doctrines point towards.  Covenants are deeply spiritual in their very nature dating back at least to the covenant made between God and Abraham and his descendants.  This covenant was reviewed regularly and was often the topic of the prophets.   Keeping a covenant is spiritual discipline. 

Love is the doctrine of this church, the quest for truth its sacrament and service is its prayer; to dwell together in peace, to seek knowledge in freedom, to serve human need, to the end that all souls shall grow into harmony with the divine.  Thus do we covenant with each other and with God.

Blessings,

I recently heard this song by Holly Near and it seemed to be so appropriate with all that is happening in America today.   Blessings,

Soulforce, the organization seeking to have conservative Christian groups embrace their gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, transgendered, intersexed, questioning members, is sponsoring another Equality Ride.  They have been quite successful with their previous rides to Christian Colleges and Universities to discuss how they have treated sexual minority students.  This fall they will be coming in October to Heritage Christian University in Florence, AL and Mississippi College in Clinton, MS. 

Soulforce is based on Gandhi’s teachings of non-violence to create change and justice.  I was privileged to have been able to participate in Soulforce’s first event in meeting with Rev. Jerry Falwell in Lynchburg, VA.  It was a powerful event meeting face to face with 200 of Jerry Falwell’s congregation and attending his worship service.  I went back to Lynchburg a few years later and served as a peacekeeper for Lynchburg’s first Gay Pride event.  Having conservative Christians lean up against me and shout in my ear that I was attempting to sexually assault them was a most difficult moment in being silent and resilient in justice work. Being the buffer of their hatred so those who came to celebrate their humanity could do so was well worth it.  We also stood in silent vigil this time outside of Thomas Road Baptist Church on Sunday in prayerful intercession regarding Jerry’s violent accusations of Gays and Lesbians being one of the causes for 9/11. 

While in Lynchburg, I heard first hand how difficult it was to be in the closet at Falwell’s Liberty University.  The anguish the students faced, trying to please their parents by going to a Christian University; trying to discover who they were as a child of God; and knowing that being that person at that campus meant at best expulsion and worst the taking of their life.  The spiritual violence committed is atrocious.  The pain and suffering is incredible. 

The message of Jesus seems so clear to me.  Love one another.  Do unto others as you would want them to do unto you.  Love your neighbor as yourself.  

Those who heap vile hatred against others must not be able to love themselves very much and they also must want to be treated in the same manner.  How very sad.  And after 2000 years, the message of Jesus is still not heard even by those who call out ‘Lord Lord.’

Blessings,

I have been caught up in reading and listening to the various banking firms going belly up partly because of the housing crisis with Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.  There have been way too many financial institutions failing in recent months to really ignore this as just part of the capitalist survival of the fittist rules of the game.  So from my humble position of not being an economist, it seems that there is something systemic that needs to be examined and corrected. 

I am not convinced that the government implementing a department with a czar who has the broad sweeping powers to swoop in and rescue failing banks is the answer.   What the solution does is place increasing burden on the tax payer to the tune of $700 billion for this year. (What will it be next year?)  The tax payer in this case, given our current tax structure, is the shrinking middle class and the working poor. 

This strategy only postpones and amplifies the coming crash.  It is like turning tax payers into the multitude of fingers placed to stop up the holes in the dyke without draining the water behind the dyke. The dyke will burst and cause even more havoc and suffering than if the system was examined and prepared for a long term fix.   

We have been convinced that growth in the economy is always good.  It is a capitalist theorem  that growth is the favorable scenario.  What if our assumptions are not correct?  What if continous growth is not good.  What if there is a natural cycle like there is in organic cycles of birth, growth, maturation, and death?  A plant that grows too fast towards the light becomes spindly and cannot support itself.  The plant will collapse upon itself and die.    (What if Chauncey Gardener in the movie Being There is correct?)

Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac and AIG are examples of companies that grew too fast within the housing mortgage market.  They did not take the time to look at their infrastructure to ensure that they were developing good solid foundations. Times were good.  Money was flowing in like Niagra Falls.  So who could blame them for not seeing the fault lines developing in the ground beneath them?  Growth at all costs seemed to be the mantra. 

I am not convinced that the Federal government has any better means of developing infrastructure since the Federal government operates from the erroneous belief that deficit spending is a good mode of operation. Both sides of the political aisles have used this methodology over the years so I am not advocating here for one party over the other.  The Federal government believes erroneously that the taxpayer has deeper pockets.  And the Federal government has ensured that there are sufficient tax benefits and shelters for the top 5% who control the wealth in the country–those who really do have deeper pockets. 

Where am I really going with this line of argument?  I think our American priorities are misplaced.  We value money and consumerism over relationships and the welfare of people (citizens).  When 9/11 occurred Americans took a moratorium on spending and spent time with family and friends.  The Government told us healing our relationships was Un-American, shopping and spending was patriotic.  And we bowed our heads and rung up our credit cards as fast as we could because who wants to be considered unpatriotic.  The things that matter most in our spirituality as a nation was short shrifted from expression.   

Rabbi Arthur Waskow of the Shalom Center wrote the following on what he calls Sacred Economics: 

      “The basic religious economic  premise was not just about being nice to poor folks. It was about the flow of God’s abundance that must move through the whole society, not get stuck in the pockets of the rich.  When the flow gets stuck, the clumps of super-wealth become an embolus. They stop the flow of healing blood,   the arteries choke up, the heart stutters and stops   —   and society collapses. 

        “Massive  depressions are not good for societies or for the human race. I had just  been born when a major industrial nation that had lost a war, had lost its  sense of place and identity and its allies in the world, had gone through  a massive economic disaster, then responded to its own fear and anger by  choosing an addled war hero to hold power.  Faced with rising chaos,  he chose as his successor a ultra-right-wing crazy, who everybody said was  sure to calm down once he actually held power.

        “The war hero was Von Hindenburg. His successor? Look it up.

          “So it is certainly urgent to  shape our financial system so that such a collapse does not descend upon  us.  But are we simply propping up the old system – the same one that  has set up our risk of disaster? Are we turning over the process to many  of the same people who set up the disaster in the first place?    

           “Or can we address the basic issues, the ones our religious traditions teach, the ones that the hard-headed masters of disaster dismiss contemptuously?  

            “So far, the most “radical”  poultices have been that a governmental economic czar will save the financial institutions that are in trouble,  by buying and selling their assets  — and taxpayers will bear the burden and the risk. 

            “There has begun to be discussion of a slightly deeper remedy – the re-regulation of these institutions so that greed and ambition cannot so  easily pocket the abundance that must move through society.

            “But so far the whole notion of rhythmically redistributing wealth -a vision at the heart of Biblical economics – is not on the agenda. That vision is encoded partly in the redemption and redistribution of family land each fifty years — the Jubilee – and the annulment of debt each seventh year – all in the context that for the seventh day, the seventh month, the seventh year, and the year of seven cycles – seven times seven plus one -the whole society rests and reflects, along with the earth itself. Not only physical work pauses, but hierarchy pauses as well.  Boss and servant vanish, for a day, a month, a year.

           “And the redistribution is also encoded in the right of the landless to feed themselves by working, gleaning, in the fields of the landowners. No one can deny them this relationship with the means of production. No ‘unemployment.’ 

           “And no compulsory overtime. Shabbat is for  everyone.

           “Let us start to imagine how to transcribe this wisdom for a society that needs to let the earth rest from our pouring CO2 into its atmosphere, from our sucking out the water from its veins, from our injecting poisons in its body.

          “We can restore our  economy for both work and rest by building energy-efficient railroads,  windmills, solar collectors.  We can use the new governmental oversight of banks to insist on micro-lending to the poor for urban  gardens, for workplaces within walking distance of our homes, for  insulating our houses to save the heat and money that are pouring out of  our porous doors and windows.   

         “We can insist on a living wage, with livable hours.  Time to sing, to dance, to pray and  meditate, to rear the children, to care for the elders, to make love. If  the flow of abundance starts at the grass roots, it will reach everyone.  Our banking crisis and the fear that elevates a Hindenburg will vanish.”

Now perhaps it would be impossible to institute a jubilee year of equity.  But we can shift our mind-set regarding our relationship with money and consumerism.  We can begin to see that money was not meant to be the ultimate end purpose of life but rather as a means to aid in our enjoyment of life to the fullest with one another, with our families and friends, with our local communities.   It is our relationships with one another that are to come first.  Our government is to help ensure that the well-being of all of its citizens is ensured.  It should not be focusing on the well-being of things like corporations and big businesses but people, the ones that operate the things of corporations and big business.   Blessings,

I have been thinking about what the terms liberal and conservative mean in religious terms.   It is oft conflated with political leanings and the two do not always readily match up.  

WIkipedia’s definition of Liberal Religion is not entirely correct because it excludes religious perspectives that may indeed have a doctrine.  It is also not entirely correct because it is only using sources from the Unitarian Universalist tradition to define it.  Liberal Religion is a category of which Unitarian Universalism is a sub-category. The two are not synonymous words.   Yet, when I do a google search,  one would think the two are synonymous terms, excluding all others. 

Yet, when I think of Liberal Religion; I think of United Church of Christ, Unity, Religious Science of Mind, and the Union of Reformed Judaism.  I am sure there are others that would fit under a Liberal Religion category.  

The beliefs of these and of Unitarian Universalists are varied and across the spectrum.  United Church of Christ (UCC) is a mainline protestant denomination firmly rooted in the Christian Reformed tradition.  The Union of Reformed Judaism is a movement within the Jewish faith and is the largest Jewish movement in the United States. Unity and Religious Science of Mind have their roots in the 19th century following, among others,  Ralph Waldo Emerson’s philosophy ( A Unitarian Minister, making these groups distant cousins of Unitarian Universalism) but expanding it into what is known as the New Thought Movement.

But what makes them liberal in contrast to conservative?  Because our society is defined by its majority religion, Christianity, one of the definitions has to be how one would read the Hebrew and Christian texts aka the Old and New Testament.  What lense does one use in reading these texts? 

I believe it is safe to say that all of these liberal religions read the Hebrew and Christian texts as the story of a people of faith who are journeying together learning who they are in relation to their world and to their God.  These are humans who are applying what they know and sometimes they succeed and sometimes they fail.  When taking the story as a whole; for Jews it is the whole of the Torah; for Christians it is the whole of the Hebrew Scriptures and Christian Scriptures; they discover that there is an evolution in how God operates in the world which is with increasing generosity of mercy, with justice, and with loving kindness for all of creation.  So this becomes the lense through which these texts are read by liberal religious people. 

1. Revelation and truth are not closed, but constantly revealed.
2. All relations between persons ought ideally to rest on mutual, free consent and not coercion.
3. Affirmation of the moral obligation to direct one’s effort toward the establishment of a democratic (a just and loving) community.
4. Denial of the immaculate conception of virtue and affirmation of the necessity of social incarnation. Good must be consciously given form and power within history.
5. The resources (divine and human) that are available for achievement of meaningful change justify an attitude of ultimate (but not necessarily immediate) optimism. There is hope in the ultimate abundance of the Universe. 

A conservative lense reads these texts as not just as a story of a people but as the word of God.  There fore there is power in the text itself.  Revelation is closed.  There is no new revelation of the divine that could be revealed that is not already revealed in the sacred texts.  The Book of Revelation closes with a statement that anyone adds or substracts to this will receive the afflictions included in the book.  Many conservative religious read this as referring to the whole of the Bible and not just the text known as the Book of Revelation.  It is a fairly strict command.  But it exemplifies how conservative religious view their faith in a theological context.

This explains the animosity between conservative religions and science.  Science being the new revealed revelation that cannot be true because revelation is closed.  So it is difficult for conservative religions then to reconcile science’s evolution to the Genesis story of Creation.  Even tho from a liberal point of view, the Genesis creation story as an ancient metaphor fits nicely with the Big Bang theory of all that is around us. 

It explains the animosity Conservative religions have regarding societal changes towards justice for all people.  Because there are texts in the Bible that dictate other things.  A liberal reading would argue that these edicts were attempting to address specific problems in a specific societal context and therefore do not mesh with today’s societal mores.  A conservative reading states no, the word of God is unchanging and therefore if it was wrong three thousand years ago it is still wrong today.   

I believe there may be a difference in how a liberal and a conservative religious would define the phrase “a living faith.”   For a Liberal undestanding, a living faith is a faith that lives and breathes in todays context.  There are always new understandings to be found and integrated into ones view of their world.  One’s biases and prejudices are confronted with this understanding of a living faith.  For a conservative understanding, I think it refers more to becoming more like the image of people living in the bible.  To put on the mind of Christ is to embrace the characteristics of what are considered righteous living in the Bible rather than what is considered righteous living for today. 

I realize as I am writing this that I have a strong bias towards liberal religious thought.  So perhaps some of our more conservative religious readers could help us out with their understanding of how to live a conservative religion’s perspective.   Blessings,

Leviticus 19:34
“But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.”

A recent comment on what has been the most read blog entry to date on this site, ICE Raid in Laurel MS, made a statement that I was “veiling my liberal philosophy behind a facade of religious love.”   I responded to this by stating that I was not veiling my liberal philosophy and that I claimed my stance on Biblical teaching.  I then quoted the above quote.   

The person felt that undocumented people had no rights, no inalienable rights as declared by our most sacred civil documents.  They broke the law and therefore must be rounded up and deported, end of story.  Does this also mean that we are to have no compassion?  No sense of moral decency in our treatment of these people?   The families who have had their husbands and wives taken into custody, have no ability to buy food, they will not be able to maintain their shelter because their income is now gone.  Is this what it means to be an American; to turn our backs on the stranger in our lands?  Is this who we have become?  Have our hearts really grown this cold towards the face of suffering?  

The writer re-iterates an argument for the clapping that occurred as these workers were rounded up.  It was mentioned in previous comments that the clapping was done only because a law was being enforced.  I suggested clapping at that moment was a rejoicing at the misfortune of others. 

Which message was sent to those being carried away by ICE agents? Clapping because a law was upheld or clapping because these people are getting what they deserve?  I still believe the latter was sent.  It stated, ‘you are not welcome here.’  It stated, ‘what happens to you is not of my concern.’  It stated, ‘you are not a person that I identify as having human worth.’  This is the message the clapping sent.  And it goes against the commandment that is expressed in Leviticus 19. 

There is a growing trend in the south and elsewhere in the country to demonize groups of people.  I see it in our congregations when conservative religious topics are brought up.  I see it in the conservative media  reports of Bill O’Reilly, Michael Savage, and others.  We need to stop this nonsense. 

Bill Moyers did a PBS story on the events that occurred in sister congregation in Knoxville, TN.  In a letter written by Jim Adkisson, he blames the liberals for his woes and states that because he could not get to the elected liberals, he was going to target to kill those liberals who voted  for them.   Bill Moyers examines the virulent messages that are being sent out by the media that may have spurred Jim Adkisson on to commit a such violent act.  It is a disturbing report with graphic hate language against groups of people, immigrants and liberals among them.  http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/09122008/watch.html

There is a way to disagree with presenting points of view without succumbing to demonizing language that seeks to strip the humanity from a person or group of peoples.  That way is to honor the person who is speaking as being more than just the words they are saying.  To listen to what is being said behind the words to what the real message is. 

I am hearing fear.  That ubiquitous emotion that takes on a form of a ghoul and devours  a person’s heart if they are not careful.  When the heart is devoured then there is no telling what the person may end up doing.  Clapping at the arrest of co-workers seems pretty benign on the onset but it was, I believe fear that instigated the events at Howard Industries. Fear of loss of jobs.  Fear of not being able to support families.  Fear of not recognizing ones community as it becomes bi-lingual.  

Listening intently to the radical right on talk radio spew their hatred at groups of people is a more invasive fear that corrupts the heart.  Listening to the radical left do the same in return has the same result.   If one begins to believe this fear is based in a real threat, then people begin to act on these hateful words the radical right and radical left spew.  That is when fear has won the soul and spirit of a person, of a community.  We only need to look at Rwanda and Darfur for recent examples of how fear spewed from the media engendered a people to place into action a genocide.  Germany is now too distant a memory to see how they used their messages of hatred to blame the Jews for their economic problems.

And America is in trouble economically.  Another bank collapses due to faulty management practices and gas prices rocket to all time highs of over $5 a gallon; people will be looking for a scapecoat for their woes.  It is not hard to imagine where the radical right will be looking to place blame.  Yet, we are all accountable for our current economy.  As the cartoon character Pogo from the 1940’s to 1970’s said, “we have met the enemy and he is us.”  

We are our own worst enemy.  And that acknowledgement alone should engender some compassion on those who are in the minority among us.  Getting rid of them is not the answer.  It does not solve the problems that our system has institutionalized into our fabric of being.  Blaming groups of people is an immature way of solving problems.  We used it when we were kids and it didn’t work then.   So why would we think it would work now? 

One of Unitarian Universalists’ forebears, Francis David of 16th century Hungary, is quoted as saying, “We do not need to think alike to love alike.”  May we begin to emphasis the loving alike in how we live our daily lives.  Blessings,

Postscript:  In case some of my readers think that what I am writing here is just a liberal religious point of view I offer you these following links of more conservative (conservative to Unitarian Universalists) Christian faiths who are seeking to live out the commandment in Leviticus 19:34:  Disciples of Christ ;  Roman Catholic Church  and there is an excellent video on the blog site of Jim Wallis, leader of Sojourners, a conservative Christian community in Washington, DC.

Mary Oliver

Rev. Fred L Hammond
September 14 2008 ©
Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Tuscaloosa, AL

Wise Ol’ King Solomon is credited with saying there is nothing new under the sun.  Little did I know that he also included as nothing new a discussion on the Theology of Mary Oliver.   I thought this was going to be a sermon rarely done before.  And then I discovered colleague Rev. Victoria Weinstein a.k.a. blogger Peacebang did a blog entry earlier this year on Unitarian Universalist’s fascination on Mary Oliver.  Then I discovered colleague Rev. Kathleen McTigue did a sermon in 2006 entitled “God of Dirt: The Theology of Mary Oliver.”  And then I discovered her inspiration for her sermon was a text by Thomas W. Mann entitled “God of Dirt: Mary Oliver and the other Book of God.”   So my hope in the light of these esteemed colleagues and scholars is to add to the conversation on Mary Oliver’s theology.

Mary Oliver has won the hearts of many Unitarian Universalists.  Her popularity among us gained her the esteemed and prestigious place of being a Ware Lecturer in 2006 at our General Assembly. She currently has six books listed in the top 30 best sellers list of poetry as reported by the Poetry Foundation and three of these are in the top five. 

One possibility to her being, as I have heard here and elsewhere, the unofficial poet laureate of Unitarian Universalists is Mary Oliver is not afraid of the questions.  Kathleen McTigue writes regarding Oliver’s theology, “By that word [theology] I mean not only what her poems reflect of her beliefs about God, but what they reflect about a host of other religious questions: What is holy? Who are we? What are we called to do with our lives? What is death, and how do we understand it when we turn our faces toward its inevitability? These questions matter to all of us. And the answers in Mary Oliver’s poems feel so resonant and so true…”

What is it about her poetry that resonates with so many of us?  This may be a rhetorical question.  So I will try to answer the question in the personal. 

I lived across the road from my paternal grandparents.  They owned sixty some acres that had reverted with an exception of a few fields back to its natural state of pines, oaks, and maples. My grandmother was trained as a botanist.  She had taught for a few years but then focused on her love of wild life as an avocation.  Every morning just as the sun was rising she would take a walk through her property, taking notice of the animals and of the various plants that grew on her land.  She knew every one by name and it seemed as if she was in intimate contact with them.  As a child, I was convinced that they confided in her their secrets because it seemed all of the birds and animals would visit at her back stoop.  The fields behind their house had a few apple trees that would be visited by black bears, deer and raccoons.  The chickadee and chipmunk would take sunflower seeds from her hands. There is even the coveted photograph of a chickadee taking seed from her lips as if she was receiving a kiss.   She had a connection.  And she would marvel at the arrival of flowers and ferns that would return each spring to her rock garden and along her walking paths. 

One of her greatest lessons to me came directly from her observations of nature.  On a walk with her in the woods, she pointed out to me a New York Fern.   On closer inspection she stated to me that there are always variations in life; ‘see how this frond ends in one point, but this one in a double point, and this one in three? The norm is one point but every species has variations and diversities within them; each a special creation.’   Years later, as I struggled with my sexuality, it was this lesson that came back to me and gave me new insight into my being.

Mary Oliver’s poems bring back these memories of my grandmother.  So when I read her poem, entitled, “Spring” I am flooded with memories and connections.  And these connections expand into new possibilities of understanding our world.

[Spring House of Light p6]

Somewhere
a black bear
has just risen from sleep
and is staring
down the mountain.
All night
in the brisk and shallow restlessness
of early spring
I think of her,
her four black fists
flicking the gravel,
her tongue
like a red fire
touching the grass,
the cold water.
There is only one question:
how to love this world. …

She captures for me that sense of the sacred that I experienced as a child watching the black bear knocking apples off the branches to feed her cubs.  We would watch from my grandmother’s kitchen window in hushed silence the bear caring for her young.  There was this sense of awe / this sense, as Mary Oliver later states in the poem, of also being “dazzling darkness” “breathing and tasting” all of life’s glory.   There is in her poetry a sense of communing with nature in a raw earthy sensual manner that our world at our fingertips of the computer age no longer has access to experiencing.

Yet, life is to be lived to the full and Mary Oliver’s poetry hints at how this could be.  There is an attitude one is to have towards life.  Thomas Mann in his book God of Dirt, quotes this passage from her essays in Winter Hours;  “Now I think there is only one subject worth my attention and that is the recognition of the spiritual side of the world and, within this recognition, the condition of my own spiritual state. I am not talking about having faith necessarily, although one hopes to.  What I mean by spirituality is not theology, but attitude.” 

Thomas Mann then responds with, “The heart of natural spirituality is not what one thinks about God, but how one relates to the natural world as the realm of God.”  (p 11 God of Dirt: Mary Oliver and the Other Book of God)  And Mary Oliver’s poems are filled with how she relates to the realm of God.  Her poem “The Summer Day” expands this notion. 

[The Summer Day  House of Light p 60]

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean—
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes. …

She asks a universal question.  But she answers with this: “I don’t know exactly what a prayer is. / I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down / into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass, / how to be idle and blessed.”

Paying attention is her form of prayer within the realm of God called nature.  She defines prayer from this perspective in her poem entitled “Praying” [ Praying, Thirst, p 37

Just
pay attention, then patch
a few words together and don’t try
to make them elaborate, this isn’t
a contest but a doorway
into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak.

For Mary Oliver all of nature speaks to her.  In her poem, “One or Two Things” (Dream Work p 50)  She writes: 

The god of dirt
came to me many times and said
so many wise and delectable things, I lay
on the grass listening
to his dog voice,
crow voice,
frog voice; now,
he said, and now,
and never once mentioned forever…

By paying attention she is able to perceive the world around her as the voices of creation.  Each plant, beast, bird has a message, a thought that will illuminate the heavens and the life we are living here.  It is from the dirt that all of life has sprung so it is not in any derogatory sense that Mary Oliver speaks of the god of dirt. In fact it is with highest praise and recognition that she is able to commune with nature and hear the voice of the god of dirt. 

Thomas Mann in his text, states Mary Oliver is saying “to attend to what is now, rather than pine for what is forever.”  She states later in the poem that she has longed just to love her life.  It is then the butterfly that appears earlier in the poem, who answers her, “The butterfly / rose, weightless, in the wind. / “Don’t love your life / too much,”…  Thomas Mann comments on this symbolism.  The butterfly loving its life too much would refer to the butterfly’s chrysalis stage.  If it remained there, it would never become a butterfly.  He states “It would never be ‘transformed’ … the same is true for humans who long for ‘forever’.  As a contemporary proverb puts it, ‘some people long for eternal life but don’t know what to do on a Sunday afternoon.’ The longing for ‘forever’ prevents an enjoyment of the ‘now.’ ”    Mary Oliver listens to the voice of nature in her being present to it.

The concept of nature speaking is not so heretical an idea. The Psalmist wrote:  “The heavens are telling the glory of god; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.  Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night declares knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words; their voice is not heard; yet their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.” (Psalm 19 v 1—4a)

This listening to the silence of the world and hearing its voice is a common theme in many religions.  I recently saw a short video clip of an American teacher by the name of Gangaji, who follows the teachings of a Hindu Maharshi, who spoke about being in silence.  She teaches that quieting the thoughts of our mind enables us to hear the essence of our being and not our thoughts about our being.  Doing so she claims will open the door ways to our authentic self, the self that uses no words.   Gangaji claims that when we have thoughts about ourselves we are no longer experiencing our selves directly but instead objectifying our relationship with our selves into an I-it instead of an I-thou relationship.  

Oliver alludes to this in her poem The Notebook (House of Light p 44),  “The turtle / doesn’t have a word for any of it—the silky water / or the enormous blue morning, or the curious affair of his own body.”   She is caught up in her scribbling and crossing out that she almost misses the moment of when the turtle leaves. She writes, “How much can the right word do?” 

Sometimes it is the silence that reveals the spirit.  Sometimes it is silence that reveals our relationship with nature, with the realm of God.  In her poem “Spring” she states that she goes about thinking about the bear with “her white teeth / her wordlessness / her perfect love.”    But there is no harsh rebuke if she misses a moment of this level of relationship with the world, with herself.  She closes the poem “Notebook,” with “There is still time / to let the last rose of the sunrise / float down/ into my uplifted eyes.”

Where does this take her when she listens in silence, when she pays attention to the natural world around her?   Her poem Mindful [ New and Selected Poems, Vol. Two, p90] offers us clues. 

Every day
I see or I hear
something
that more or less
kills me
with delight, …
It is what I was born for—
to look, to listen,
to lose myself
inside this soft world—
to instruct myself
over and over
in joy,
and acclamation…

She goes on and states these are not the exceptional things but rather the drab every day things that she is mindful of that brings her such delight.  The world is filled with wonders and it is her life long task to find them.  She states in other poems that this is her work, “which is standing still and learning to be astonished.”  (Messenger, Thirst p 1)

It is in the realm of God, nature, that she draws comfort and strength.  After the death of her spouse, Molly Malone Cook, she writes several poems on grieving.  In After Her Death, (Thirst p 16) she writes about feeling lost.  She adds, “…The trees keep whispering / peace, peace, and the birds / in the shallows are full of the / bodies of small fish and are / content.  They open their wings/ so easily, and fly.  So. It is still / possible.” 

In the poem entitled, Gethsemane (Thirst ,p 45), it is the stars, the grass, the crickets, and the lake far away, and the wind that stays awake and waited with Jesus on that night before his arrest.  Again there is this sense that nature is in communion with all of creation, including humans especially in our time of need.  In the poem, Heavy, (Thirst p 53) she closes with these words, “How I linger / to admire, admire, admire / the things of this world / that are kind, and maybe // also troubled—/ roses in the wind, / the sea geese on the steep waves, / a love, / to which there is no reply?”   Her grief is palpable and yet she is finding a way through it in the world she sees around her. 

There is much wisdom in her poetry.  Her contemplation of the natural world around her has enabled her to garner strength when experiences are difficult to handle.  This contemplation also gives her access to joy and praise as she observes the life of the fauna and flora of her world. 

Mary Oliver has two poems that allude to a specific verse in the Christian scriptures attributed to Jesus.   The verse is Matthew 6:28 and 29 which reads: “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.”

In Another Everyday Poem (Red Bird p 12) she writes: 

Every day
I consider
the lilies—
how they are dressed—
and the ravens—
how they are fed—
and how each of these
is a miracle
of Lord-love …

In the poem Lilies (House of Light p 12) she writes

I have been thinking
about living
like the lilies
that blow in the fields.
They rise and fall
in the wedge of the wind,
and have no shelter
from the tongues of the cattle,
and have no closets or cupboards,
and have no legs.
Still I would wait all day
for the green face
of the hummingbird
to touch me.
What I mean is,
could I forget myself
even in those feathery fields? …

Both of these poems speak of the lushness of life to supply every need.  The joy of life even in such brevity is a wonder to behold. “for the lilies / in their bright dresses /cannot last / but wrinkle fast / and fall…”  (Another Everyday Poem)  She adds,  “[W]hat a puzzle it is / that such brevity—/ the lavish clothes … / makes the world / so full, so good.”   Their length of days does not detract from the joy of living.  She offers a perspective on life that few acknowledge deeply.   It does not matter how long a life is lived to enable offering joy and love to others, making the world full and good.  In doing so she flips the sorrow of loss into recognition of gratitude for life and the experiences that life offers. 

Yet there is also awareness that something still separates her from this kind of life. She later speaks in the poem, Lilies; “I think I will always be lonely / in this world, … where ravishing lilies / melt, without protest, on their tongues— / where the hummingbird, whenever there is a fuss, / just rises and floats away.”   –It is the existential quest for wholeness and purpose in life. We are not always so self-assured as this.  We are more like the people that Jesus admonishes in the Christian scriptures worrying about having our needs fulfilled or protected from harm from this day to the next. Even at the end of life, the lilies without protest melt their existence into fodder for the cattle.   Mary Oliver captures this sentiment for us, letting us know that the flora and fauna in its wordless awareness has a peace and wholeness about life that we humans have somehow lost.

She asks, “Can anyone doubt that the lion of the Serengeti / is part of the idea of God?” (Serengeti p 61 House of Light)   She describes the frightening roar and the fear this animal displays as it too lives its life as both the “flower of life and the winch of death.” This notion of what we might call good and evil seems to have no duality within her poetry.   The animal is only displaying what it is created to do; it does not have a sense of any other way. We humans tend to see things in dualities.  The lion that seeks to feed its cubs by killing us is seen as an evil; something to be feared.  The lion that seeks out the lame and infirmed animals for food is seen as good.     Yet, in nature, it is both /and not either /or.    

She does not have an easy answer for this state of being.  In The Owl Who Comes (New and Selected Poems Vol. Two p 52) she writes:  “and if I wish the owl luck, / and I do, / what am I wishing for that other / soft life, /climbing through the snow?”    She suggests that we are “to hope the world /  keeps its balance.”  Beyond that she does not know “what we are to do… /  with our hearts.”    The question is still posed, “Can anyone doubt that the lion of the Serengeti / is part of the idea of God?”  The implications of the question are ones that all people of faith continue to struggle with in living their spiritual path. 

So back to our rhetorical question of what is it about Mary Oliver’s poetry that speaks to us as Unitarian Universalists?  Is it perhaps Mary Oliver is able to speak to our deep longing to be connected to this natural world and not separate from it?   Could it be that she is offering a corrective to our Judeo/Christian myth of being created to have dominion over the world?  That instead we are to be in partnership, dare I say as co-equals, in living on this planet.  That perhaps there is indeed wisdom in the flora and fauna of this earth that is more profound, more revealing about how we are to live and breathe our days here? “My work is loving the world,” (Messenger, Thirst, p 1) she states.   It is our work, too.  Blessed Be.

Sources: 

• Mann, Thomas W.; God of Dirt: Mary Oliver and the Other Book of God; (Cambridge, MA: Cowley Publications) 2004
• McTigue, Kathleen; God of Dirt: Theology of Mary Oliver, sermon delivered on May 7 2006 at the Unitarian Universalist Society of New Haven, CT as found at http://www.unitariansocietynh.org/content/usnh/God_of_Dirt_sermonliturgy_5-7-1.pdf
• Oliver, Mary; Red Bird; (Boston: Beacon Press) 2008
• Oliver, Mary; Thirst; (Boston: Beacon Press) 2006
• Oliver, Mary; New and Selected Poems, Volume Two; (Boston: Beacon Press) 2005
• Oliver, Mary; House of Light; (Boston: Beacon Press) 1990
• Gangaji as found on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cdshiy7CrwA
• Earthbound Spirit for directing me to her favorite Mary Oliver Poems on my blog at www.serenityhome.wordpress.com