Immigration is a very complicated onion to peel.  There are many facets and nuances to the issue that it is easy to see how people can become conflicted and emotionally bound in the issue.  No one solution is going to be the umbrella solution that solves every problem that immigration causes us in the United States.  It may take several smaller components that when layered together will form the onion.

Arizona last month passed not one but three bills into law that reflected a dramatic shift in their approach to immigration.  We need to look at all three laws together to see the potential motivation and the impact of these laws on the citizens of Arizona and those who are living there with out documentation of legal status. Included in this mix is also the response that other states have made in reaction to these laws.  As I am writing this there are seven states that are considering similar or even more draconian laws than Arizona’s.

Arizona’s governor claims that her state is under siege by immigrants crossing the border and bringing with them a host of problems; including drug and human sex trafficking, violent crimes,  and child prostitution.  All of these are serious problems and need to be addressed with effective laws.  The question is what effective laws will address them?  Arizona’s argument is that since the Federal government has not acted and these issues appear to be growing–despite documented evidence of a marked decrease in these particular crimes since the 1990’s (http://articles.latimes.com/2010/may/03/nation/la-na-arizona-crime-20100503) — and endangering the welfare of Arizona’s citizens then they must act.

I was under the impression that police could already ask for identification papers on people they are investigating for criminal activity.  A friend of mine that works in law enforcement told  me that was not the case only INS enforcers could ask for identification papers. This law gives police the ability to ask those who are already suspected of other criminal activity their citizenship status. My friend insisted the law is intended towards people who are already under investigation of other criminal activity and not just someone walking down the street. Perhaps, but I have my doubts…

But if racism and racial profiling is not being promoted by Arizona’s laws, then what pray tell, is the purpose behind the second law that Arizona passed that same week—banning ethnic studies from public schools and banning teachers who speak with an accent from teaching English?    The reason given for banning the courses is because they “promote the overthrow of the U.S. government, promote resentment of a particular race or class of people, are designed primarily for students of a particular ethnic group or advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals.”

Do they really? This country was founded on the principle of overthrowing an oppressive government; it is written into our Declaration of Independence.  We generally have done this by getting rid of oppressive laws such as the Jim Crow Laws of the south, rather than by overthrowing the entire government.   But it is a people’s right to change the government that is oppressive to the liberties that are fundamentally endowed to us.

Ethnic solidarity over individualism is a cultural moré of many Latino cultures therefore to ban a course that might emphasize community is a direct attack on a people’s heritage.  One of the stages towards genocide (according to Genocide Watch) includes discouraging any attempts of creating sympathy or simpatico with the ostracized group and to break the family and ethnic bonds that hold that group together.

The teachers who teach English but speak with accents–allegedly any accent but a Spanish accent is the target– many of them were initially hired as part of Arizona’s bi-lingual education program which ended in 2000.  Since they could not get rid of the teachers they transferred them to teach English and now the law to ban teachers who speak with accents. Sure there is a need to ensure that English teachers have a proficiency in English grammar but there are other ways to ensure this without targeting teachers with ‘accents.’  It is a discriminatory way to remove Latino diversity from the public schools and increase hostility towards a specific population.

Arizona also passed a law, which was immediately repealed, to require presidential candidates to produce a birth certificate proving birth in the United States in order to be eligible to be placed on the ballot in Arizona. In and of itself this law would be no big deal, but in the context of the birther movement that still insists that President Obama was not born in the State of Hawaii and yet does not seem to care that Arizona’s own Senator McCain who ran against Obama, was born in Panama to American parents stationed there.  If this law were in place in 2008, McCain could not run for President in his own state as an American citizen born on foreign soil. This law, albeit repealed immediately, is a racially motivated law.

These three laws combined seem to me to be a reaction to the fact that a specific population is becoming the majority and the way to stop their growing power is to profile them in negative lights through police harassment, through removal of their educational influence, and by denying the ability to honor their ethnic and cultural diversity. This is a state that is shifting ever closer to seeking extraordinary means in order to retain white supremacy / power in the state.  Arizona is not the only state that is making this shift.  There are at least seven states that are making similar overtures.

And it is this shift in attitude towards people who are different from Anglo America that is the alarm that many feel as they witness Arizona pass draconian legislation that potentially could result in racial profiling.  These three laws combined signal the potential of actions that we will regret in the not so distant future.

Immigrants are not taking jobs away from us.  This is a myth.  Immigrants generally find employment in fields that we Americans do not want such as migrant workers, or domestic help, or unskilled laborers.  We tend to look at these positions with disdain and yet they are vital to our economy.  This is work that needs to be done in order for our high standard of living to thrive but that we deemed undignified.

“So often we overlook the work and the significance of those who are not in professional jobs, of those who are not in the so-called big jobs. But … whenever you are engaged in work that serves humanity and is for the building of humanity, it has dignity and it has worth.” –Martin Luther King, Jr.   But this is work that our society has deemed unworthy and it is this work that our immigrants, those here legally and those here illegally have sought as employment.

Whatever the solution for illegal immigration, the one that needs to be found is one that will honor and respect the individuals who come here.  We can seal our borders.  We can strengthen our employment laws.  We can enhance our legal immigration system so that those who enter through legal channels are welcomed with open arms and are protected by the laws that seek to protect all of us.

The laws that Arizona passed will not do this for those who are here legally.  The laws that Arizona passed will create hardship and injustice for them.  Arizona is creating an atmosphere that will be hostile to anyone who is non-white, specifically the Hispanic, Latino, and the Native American.  This is not what we hold dear about America.  We can still fulfill our American Creed.

This onion called immigration is a multi-layered and complex issue.  It touches on issues that we do not want to admit exists and yet we must confess and deal with them.  Issues that were never so clearly revealed than in Arizona this past month.  Blessings,

CLARIFICATION: One of the three bills has been signed into law and that is the law allowing police to request citizenship status. The bill that bans ethnic studies and bans teachers who speak with an accent from teaching English is on the governor’s desk awaiting her signature or veto. The bill dubbed the “Birther Bill” that would require presidential candidates to produce their birth certificate to prove their birth in United States passed the state’s house but was not forwarded to the senate because it is believed there is not enough support for it.

A dear friend and mentor of mine, Donald Stuart Marsh, died this past month.  I have been thinking about his legacy, his impact on my life and on the life of the community he called home for forty years.  Don was the director of arts of the First Presbyterian Church in Port Jervis, NY.   A ministry he shared with his life partner, the Rev. Richard K. Avery, who served as minister of this congregation. Don had a unique gift of being able to see the gifts that a person carried within them.  He saw the spark of who they were and intuitively was able to fan that spark so that it would be a fire of vitality.

I first met Don when I was about 12 years old. My junior high experience was fairly traumatic with bullying by my class mates. So when my older sister invited me to attend an actor’s workshop of the Presby Players, I felt my life was shifting towards something remarkable.

Presby Players was the acting troupe that Don founded and directed for forty years, bringing quality theatre to a country town with discussion of contemporary issues to the fore. He is considered to be the longest running director of a church arts program of its kind in the country.  I was privileged to have been able to work behind the scenes as well as on stage in several productions.  I had parts in “The Trojan Women,” “The House of Blue Leaves,” and “The Devil’s Disciple.”

Don outside his home in Santa Fe in 2006

These opportunities were a life saver for me.  I also participated in the church’s choir where we sang a variety of anthems and full choral pieces with orchestration like Ralph Vaughn Williams’ Hodie. For a number of years, the church would put on a version of the passion play on Good Friday.  I enjoyed participating in all of these events as they would sustain me through my week.

But Don and Dick were music composers in their own right, collaborating on more than 150 compositions that have been enjoyed in congregations across the country as well as several being translated into several languages including Swahili.   I was often invited to participate in worship workshops where they introduced creative ways to not only perform traditional music but also their own songs.  When I turned 14, Dick and Don offered me a position to assist in their publishing house, Proclamation Productions.  All of these activities were like a safe haven for me from the day to day school life of being bullied for being gay.  He offered me and so many others like me a life line and then taught us how to offer that life line to others.

I am not the only person whose life was forever transformed and enriched by the life of Don Marsh. There are hundreds of people, not only in the city of Port Jervis, NY but across the country that were moved by the light that was Don.  The comments that are left in the online guest book are filled with similar stories.  I shall be forever grateful for his life being such an integral part of my story.

After I came out of the closet, I was fortunate to have an opportunity to tell Don how important his life intersecting mine was and how vital a role he played in my growing up. I hope that my life will be at least half as important to those around me. If there are people in your life that have intersected with your life making you the better for their presence, tell them.

To quote one of Dick and Don’s songs, “Love them now. Don’t wait till they’re gone away.  Love them now, while they’re around. Touch them, hold them, laugh and cry with them. Show them, tell them, don’t deny with them.  Honor them, give birth and die with them now.  Love them now before they’re just a guilty mem’ry.  Love them now.  Love them now.” (Love Them Now © 1970 by Richard K. Avery and Donald S. Marsh)  Blessings abound, Fred

Cottonwood thrives in the white sands of New Mexico.  It is a rather remarkable feat.  When I visited the largest white gypsum sand deposit in the world I came across these small groupings of shrubs growing in the sand dunes.

Cottonwood growing at the White Sands National Monument, New Mexico

What I didn’t realize was that these were not shrubs but rather the tops of 30-50 foot high trees that were buried by the shifting dunes.  The trees strive to keep branches above the sand and as long as they are able to that the tree thrives.  At the bottom of the shifting sand dune, the cotton wood has dug it’s roots 3 feet deep to the water table.

This to me is a metaphor for faith.  The shifting sands, circumstances in our life could indeed bury us but as long as two things are operating we will thrive.  First we need to have our beings rooted firmly in what nourishes us.  So when the winds are shifting / disrupting everything we were once confident in, if we are firmly grounded in what sustains us we will be able to stand.  We might be shaken horribly by what is blown away but these things are not what sustain us.

Second we need to keep our interactions with the world, vibrant, responsive, green.  In other words offering / sharing our hope, our love, our life with others.  Remain engaged in the world.  It might at first seem sense-able to hunker down and allow the storm to bury us / entomb us until it has passed but this is not the way of faith.  Surrendering to the sand storm will mean our spiritual death.   The cottonwood by sending its green branches high above the sands offers shelter, solace, even water to the animals that calls this desolate place  home.  We are called to do the same and even more so when the sands of harsh circumstances blow across the ground of our being.

And when the sands of life have shifted again, we remain as testaments to an enduring faith offering wisdom and hope to another generation. Blessings,

Cottonwood that survived the shifting dunes that once covered it

Today in Alabama and in Mississippi and in several other southern states is the commemoration of the Confederate War Heroes known as Confederate Memorial Day.  This year is especially singled out as this year marks the 150th anniversary of the Civil War.   It is on this date in 1865 when General Joseph Johnston surrendered to Union General William Sherman.

As  a Yankee,  I admit I do not fully understand, when our nation has Memorial Day to honor and remember all of America’s war dead, why there is a  need to differentiate this war from the rest. The history of the origins of Memorial Day and Confederate Memorial Day may give some clues.   Memorial Day was developed to honor the war dead of both the Union and Confederate Armies.  It was first celebrated on May 30, 1868.   The south did not choose to honor their war dead on this date but instead chose another day, April 26th.  Some southern states celebrate Confederate Memorial Day on a different date. It was not until 1971  did the South recognize this holiday in May when Congress declared the last Monday in May to be a nationally recognized day of memorial to commemorate all war dead.  But there some differences in how this particular war is perceived by the losers and winners that I believe is the reason or perhaps the real motivation behind this southern holiday.

If I was to ask what this war between the states was about, those who side with the victors would say this was a war about slavery.  Those who side with the losers would state this was a war about state rights and sovereignty.  Both answers are partially correct.  As my grandmother would say “There are three sides to every story; your side, my side, and the truth.”

The issue between which has predominance, state rights or federal rights continues to be waged in the political arena.  This holiday as it is celebrated today is a grim reminder of the concern of federal sovereignty over states rights. It is the battle cry of the Tea partiers who want less federal government.  The Tea partiers do not necessarily want less government paid service–as they shout to keep hands off social security and medicare–but they want the states  and not the federal government to have more control over their social programs.   State rights have come to the fore over same-sex marriage.  And it is surely to be on the front burner after the passage of  Arizona’s new controversial immigration law.

Do states have the right to determine who they provide services to, who they marry, who can live within their boundaries?  Do states have the right to pass discriminatory laws that fly in the face of the federal constitution?  What interstate agreements  do states have in honoring other states who declare other laws to be legal for their citizens?  Confederate Memorial Day is a painful reminder of the wounds that still remain in this country from a war that tore this country in two 150 years ago.   Its wounds still fester in the racism expressed in this country under the new guise of fear against socialism, equal rights for sexual minorities,  and immigration reform.

From the chair that I sit in, Confederate Memorial Day is a longing to return to the day when states could ensure that white privilege was codified as was the case in the Alabama State Constitution last ratified in 1901 and still on the books though no longer enforceable because of  Federal law.

Mother Earth Rev. Fred L Hammond April 18 2010 © Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Tuscaloosa

Earth.  There are very different perspectives towards this orb that is whirling through space with the Milky Way Galaxy.

Western civilization has taken a dominion perspective based on one of the two creation stories found in the Hebrew Scriptures.  “God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.’”  This is such a powerful command of domination over the earth that it is integral to the American way of life for 200 hundred plus years.

We, mostly for the pure sport of it, wiped out in a single generation the passenger pigeon. This beautiful bird had flocks in the billions that would darken the skies for days as they traveled north in their annual migration.  The last bird in the wild died at the hands of a young boy who saw the bird sitting on a fence in his yard and asked his mother for the shot gun.  But there was a time when newspaper’s boasted the number of birds killed with a single blast.   These birds were a hazard to progress.  They would land on telegraph poles and their collective weight would bring down the lines.  And so the corporations that ran the electric and telegraph lines sought out to destroy this bird once and for all. [1]

Fill the earth and subdue it.  Whether they are indeed the words of a god almighty or a words of a people who found that they are adaptable to the wiles of nature’s wrath; we have been seeking to tame the earth ever since these words were recorded.

In the last forty years there has begun a shift in our collective understanding of life on this planet earth.  This collective understanding is not new to us; humans around the world have held this understanding before.  But in the last forty years, this understanding has in western culture grown in strength.

We know this understanding as our seventh principle, “Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.”  Our western culture is ever so slowly beginning to grasp that when a species goes into extinction, the impact of that extinction ripples out across all of creation.

The passenger pigeon was not simply hunted to extinction.  This magnificent bird would not be around today even if steps were taken to protect it.  Its primary source of food was the American Chestnut and Oak.   These trees were once predominant in our forests.   The American Chestnut was prized for its lumber and was preferred for its endurance over the Oak.  However, a fungal blight was introduced through the import of an Asian Chestnut in the early 1900’s and by the 1940’s most of the American Chestnut was wiped out.   The bird would not have been able to withstand the loss of its primary food source.  But what if there was some other interconnection between this bird and the trees it used for food and nesting?   What if there was some sort of mutual benefit between the two species that when one was gone, the other subsequently suffered?

There is for instance the relationship between the sea otter, sea urchins, and kelp.   The sea otter uses the kelp forests as a hiding area from its predators.  In return for this protection, the sea otter eats sea urchins whose source of food is kelp.  Remove any one of these three and the other will suffer.  This was the case when the Southern Sea Otter was nearly hunted to extinction in the early 1900’s.  The sea urchins in turn decimated the kelp forest. [2]

Another example of interdependence between species was discovered regarding the number of coyotes and the diversity of song birds.  It was discovered that the diversity of song birds diminished when coyotes were hunted out of the canyons in southern California to make them safer for housing developments.[3] The reason for this is that coyotes acted as a control on the predators such as cats, fox, and rodents that ate the birds.

Caroline Fraser in her text, Rewilding the World: Dispatches from the Conservation Revolution writes: “Why do species matter? Why worry if some go missing? Part of the answer lies in the relationships coming to light between creatures like the canyon coyotes and the chaparral birds. After the nineteenth century’s great age of biological collecting, when collectors filled museums to bursting with stuffed birds and pinned beetles, the twentieth and twenty-first centuries have proved to be an age of connecting. Biologists have begun to understand that nature is a chain of dominoes: If you pull one piece out, the whole thing falls down. Lose the animals, lose the ecosystems. Lose the ecosystems, game over.”[4]

What is beginning to be understood is that the earth is more intertwined together than a collection of individual independent parts.  The rainforest of the Amazon is a vital key to the amount of rainfall that other areas of the globe receive. This heavily dense forest holds moisture close to the surface so that it can be released easily back into the atmosphere preventing the formation of deserts.  Not to mention the vast number of life forms that will disappear forever as the forest is replaced with agricultural crops.    Life forms that may contain secrets to our very health.

A vast number of pharmaceuticals have been derived from plants, animals, and microbes.  What most of us might consider as creatures of insignificance could be the key to cures of cancer or HIV/AIDS.  The cone snail, for example, injects a toxin into its prey numbing and paralyzing it.  This toxin is being investigated as a possible pain reduction substitute for opiates.   The Horseshoe crab has within its blood antimicrobials that destroy bacteria.  This finding could be vital in developing a new anti-bacterial medication for the now pandemic resistant strains of bacteria.

We are all connected to this planet in a myriad ways.  If we truly ponder this interconnection it could prove to be mind boggling.  Thomas Starr King, Unitarian Minister wrote to a friend Randolph Ryer about a lecture he heard Emerson give in 1849: “Emerson gave us last Monday evening the most brilliant lecture I ever listened to from any mortal. It was on the identity of the laws of the mind with the laws of nature. He proved conclusively that man is only a higher kind of corn, that he is a squirrel gone up into the first class, that he is a liberated oyster fully educated, that he is a spiritualized pumpkin, a thinking squash, a graduated sun-flower, and inspired turnip. Such imagery, such wit, such quaint things said in a tone solemn and sublime! I have the most profound respect henceforth for every melon-vine as my ancestor (melancholic thought). I look upon every turtle as of kin. Tonight he lectures again. I fear I may lose it.” **

I fear I may lose it.  The reality is we may indeed lose it all, if we humans do not begin to claim our rightful place in fellowship with our companions on this wonderful mother of us all, called Earth.

So what can we do?  We heard this morning a challenge being presented to us by our social Justice chair.  To celebrate Earth Day’s fortieth anniversary we are being asked to do forty things over forty days.  These forty things taken one day at a time can be the beginning of making a difference in our treatment of Mother Earth.

Some examples might be to fast from fast food for 40 days.  This means for the next forty days no McDonalds, no Taco Casa, No Wendy’s, No Quiznos, No Subway, No Cici’s, no KFC, no… well you get the point.  Or maybe you start a vegetable garden which you tend to for the next 40 days and beyond reaping a harvest of fresh tomatoes, squash, etc.  Or maybe you decide to shop at local farmers markets.  Purchase fair trade products where by the middle person is taken out of the equation enabling farmers to make a living.  We could even begin to sell fair trade products here to our members and friends-we already serve fair trade coffee on Sundays.  Say no to water in plastic bottles for 40 days saving our landfills from plastic that does not decompose.  Reduce packaging by purchasing your rice, grains, and cereals in bulk.  Have a book discussion on ethical eating or environmental issues.  Decide to eat lower on the food chain by eating more vegetables x number of times a week.  Eat as you always do but keep and measure the volume of packaging used and document and share your findings with the congregation and with the UUA’s blog on 40/40/40.[5] Meet with other members and friends and discuss your discoveries as you proceed in doing 40 things over the next 40 days.

These seemingly small gestures of choosing foods that are not processed beyond recognition or are packaged in biodegradable containers will ripple out to make a larger change in the environment.  We are connected in more ways than we might imagine.  We share common strands of DNA with all life on this planet.  It is not humans vs nature… We humans are a part of nature.  We are interdependent with the vast array of life on this planet.  We depend on the diversity of plants and animals to survive.  If any one species become extinct it ripples out and causes other species to become extinct.  Eventually, humanity will face the consequences of its indiscriminate treatment of the planet which gave it life.   Be good to your mother.

Blessed Be.

[2] http://www.1hope.org/intdpndt.htm

[3] REWILDING THE WORLD: Dispatches from the Conservation Revolution by Caroline Fraser. Copyright (c) 2009 by Caroline Fraser.  Published: January 21, 2010  New York Times

[4] Adapted from the book REWILDING THE WORLD: Dispatches from the Conservation Revolution by Caroline Fraser. Copyright (c) 2009 by Caroline Fraser.  Published: January 21, 2010  New York Times

**Found the archives of the Graduate Theological Union’s library in Berkeley, CA

[5] ideas found at http://www.uua.org/socialjustice/issues/environmentaljustice/159611.shtml

Yom HaSho’ah by Rev. Fred L Hammond delivered to the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Tuscaloosa in Alabama on 11 April 2010 (c)

Yom HaSho’ah was presented as a day of remembrance for Jews and it has been embraced by other faith traditions so that we will never forget the millions of lives nor the horrors that occurred. It is in the hope that we will learn its lessons to never allow it to happen again.   Unfortunately, this day of remembrance in recent years has also included remembrance of holocausts that have occurred since this time period.  The genocides in Cambodia, in Bosnia, in Rwanda, and in Darfur have been incorporated in honoring all the lives lost.   New countries are being added to the list of atrocities by the non-profit organization called Genocide Watch.   There are things that we can do to help prevent the conditions that allow genocide to occur.

Anne Frank, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Norbert Capek, Solomon Perel, Elie Weisel, Bruno Bettelheim, Rena and Danka Kornreich, Corrie tenBoom, Martha and Waitstill Sharp, and Oscar Schindler.  These are only a few of the names of people who died, who survived, and who helped rescue a few of the lives caught up in the web of the Holocaust in Nazi Germany.  Here are some of their stories.

Danka and Rena Kornreich were sisters and the youngest of the Kornreich family in Tylicz, Poland.  There was a small Jewish community there and the Jews and Gentiles lived in relative peace together.  There was a young gentile by the name of Andrzej Garbera who had a crush on Rena… it was a crush that was mutual albeit forbidden by Jewish custom. Theirs was a secret affair kept afar.  He wanted to marry Rena but Rena turned him down because to do so would have broken her parents’ heart.  When the Germans invaded Poland, it was Andrzej who assisted in Rena’s escape to the border into Slovakia.  He assisted many Jews to escape to the border.  One night on his return from the border there was a search by the SS with dogs. He hid in a tree for the night; nearly frozen he fell out of the tree.  The next day some of the villagers found him and brought him home but he contracted pneumonia and died a few weeks later.

Rena in an effort to protect those who gave her shelter in Slovakia decided to turn herself in and enlist for the German Work Camps.  She is taken to Auschwitz where she is tattooed with the number 1716.  The huge sign at the gates, declares “Work will make you free.”  And everyone entering Auschwitz with Rena that day believes the sign.  “‘We are young,’ we remind ourselves. ‘We will work hard and be set free. We will see what happens.’ But on the outside we are walking as if we are doomed.  It is raining, chilled like March rain. We are lost in thought but it is too cold to do much thinking.  Everywhere is gray.  My heart is turning gray. “

“There are men along the barbed-wire fences, in striped jackets, caps, and pants, watching us. Their eyes reflect nothing.  I think to myself, This must be an insane asylum, but why would they make the mentally ill work?  That’s not fair.” [1]

A few months later, she is reunited with her younger sister, Danka.  Danka is frail of health and Rena worries about her surviving the harsh conditions of the coming winter.  Rena is selected by Dr. Mengele for a “special” work detail.  Rena thinks this might be an indoor job as he has done in the past and arranges for Danka to join her.   They are sent to a room where they fed more than their daily ration of slice of bread and broth.  They think that perhaps this is a good thing for all concerned. After a few days they are told to remove their uniforms–Uniforms that once belonged to Russian prisoners of war who were shot –and to wear dresses with aprons.   Rena notices that they are not asked to place their numbers by which they are known on the outfits.  She sees one of the elites remove a young woman from the line up.  She notices the woman did this with an air of authority. And decides she and Danka must get out of this group.  With bravery, with a feeling of self-importance they return back to where their uniforms were.  The uniforms are all piled up and together, if they can get their uniforms back on they might be able to be in time for roll call.  Frantically, they find their numbers and change back into their uniforms. They run back outside where the roll call is still taking place, they are in time and they are counted.

A few days later, Rena hears that the special work detail was for sterilization and shock treatments.  All of the women either died from the shock treatments or from the infection that set in from the sterilization procedure.   Rena tells in her narrative, “There is a pressure screaming for release against my eyes, I don’t cry.  It takes time to cry and there is no time.  I fight to find a reason, but there is no reason in this place.  What did they do when they discovered there were three numbers missing in the experiment detail?  Did the woman who snuck her cousin or sister out of line just place somebody else in her place?  Why didn’t they search us out?—they had our numbers written on a list.  Why are we alive and the other girls we were selected with not?   Will there ever come a time when we can thank God for being alive today before we have to ask the same privilege tomorrow, and the next day?  Is life a privilege or a curse?”[2]

Bruno Bettelheim, a survivor of the Dachau and Buchenwald concentration camps writes in The Informed Heart: Autonomy in a Mass Age, “to have some small token experiences of being active and passive, each on one’s own, and in mind as well as body—this, much more than the utility of any one such activity, was what enabled me and others like me to survive.  By contrast, it was the senseless tasks, the lack of almost any time to oneself, the inability to plan ahead because of sudden changes in camp policies, that was so deeply destructive.  By destroying man’s ability to act on his own or to predict the outcome of his actions, they destroyed the feeling that his actions had any purpose, so many prisoners stopped acting. But when they stopped acting they soon stopped living.”  [3]

Danka and Rena Kornreich are among the survivors of the Holocaust.  Their actions enabled them to survive.  When one sister despaired of life, it was the other sister that acted on both of their behalves.  Of course not all people who took on small actions of deliberate choice in the holocaust survived to see the liberation of the camps by the allied forces.   But if Bettelheim is correct, it is these small acts, no matter how insignificant in our eyes, that enabled the survivors to retain some level of integrity.

PAUSE

Solomon Perel’s story is a remarkable and unbelievable true story of courage and wit.  The Perel family were shoemakers in Germany and were persecuted by continual vandalism.  In 1935, they relocated in Poland.  When the Germans invaded Poland, Solomon and his brother Isaak attempted to escape to Soviet-occupied Poland.  The brothers were separated and Solomon, lived in a Soviet orphanage.   When the orphanage was taken over by the Germans, because of Solomon’s perfect German, he was able to convince them that he was a German living outside of Germany.  He adopts the name of Josef Perjell. The German soldiers took him in as a German-Russian interpreter.  He played a key role in the capture of Stalin’s son, an officer in the Soviet Army.  This made him a hero in the eyes of the Germans.   However, he had to continually hide his true identity and being circumcised was made all the more difficult.

Because he was a minor, he was sent to a Hitler youth school in Germany.  He did what he had to do in order to survive. He “does confess later on that it was difficult to play the role he did where he had to pretend to be German. He writes in his autobiography, ‘I gradually suppressed my true self. Sometimes I even ‘forgot’ that I was a Jew.’”[4] Yet, he pledges that the essence of who he is would never be exterminated.   Solomon survives the war, learns of the fate of his family, learns for the first time of the horrors of the concentration camps and is reunited with his brothers David and Isaak.  Solomon moves to Israel in 1948.

It is only before a critical open-heart surgery that he decides to tell his story.  Part of his delay in telling this incredible story was because in his words, “What would those who had survived the death camps think of me?” (Perel, p. 196) “I constantly found myself comparing their bitter fate with what I had endured, and I realized how much life had spared me.” (Perel, p.200-201.)[5] While this story seems too incredible, it is estimated by researcher Bryan Riggs, that several hundred Jews masquerade as German soldiers in order to survive Nazi Germany.   Survivor guilt is strong in the people who lived to see the end of the war and the end of the holocaust.

PAUSE

“Rev. Waitstill and Martha Sharp were American Unitarians who visited Norbert Capek’s Unitarian congregation in Prague, Czechoslovakia throughout the 1920’s and 30’s.  When Czechoslovakia fell to the Nazis in 1938, the American Unitarian Association chose to send ‘commissioners’ to assess the needs of the refugees and the Prague church.  Rev. Waitstill and Martha Sharp were distraught over what was happening in Europe.  ‘These were our friends’, Waitstill would state later and something needed to be done.[6] While reluctant to leave their two young children, the Sharps arrived in Prague in 1939, the very day that the Nazis marched in.  Their work enabled many to escape to the U.S. and gave rise to the establishment of the Unitarian Service Committee, still in existence today as the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee.  The Sharp’s barely escaped arrest and detention.  They returned to Europe in 1940, where Martha Sharp arranged for 29 children and 10 adults to leave Nazi-occupied Europe.   The Sharp’s work combined with the founding of the Unitarian Service Committee ensured the rescue of 3500 families from Nazi controlled Europe.[7] The Sharp’s became known as the ‘Guardian Angels of European children.’

“Martha Sharp was said to have asked her daughter-in-law, ‘What important work are you going to do for the world?’ This is a statement of strong conviction that with our lives intricately connected to the world around us we carry a responsibility to that connection.”[8]

What important work are you going to do for the world?  It may seem impossible for us to prevent the atrocities in another country say Uganda, where legislation is proposed to eliminate the HIV/AIDS and homosexual threat by executing those who are living with this disease or who are homosexual in orientation.

Will this legislation if enacted result in Genocide?  First we need to understand the definition of Genocide.  It is important to know because many deny genocide based on a misunderstanding of what constitutes genocide.   According to international law: genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

The phrase “in whole or in part” is where many people trip up.  Genocide does not need to be the whole population; it can be a part of the population that is being harmed.  While sexual orientation or disease is not stated explicitly in the definition; the rest of the definition would classify such action as genocide.

There are distinct stages that a country progresses through en-route to committing genocide.  The first two stages are common to our human nature.  There are examples here in the United States and it does not mean that genocide will occur.  But it is clear from all the holocausts this world has experienced in the last 100 years, every single one, Armenia, Germany, Rwanda, Bosnia, Cambodia, and Darfur all began with these two stages that escalated to the third stage.

First stage:  Classification.  What divides us from them?  Is it race? Ethnicity? Religion? Nationality?  Sexual orientation?  There is a preventative in the form of education of tolerance, acceptance, and understanding.  The President of Genocide Watch, George Stanton states, “Th[e] search for common ground is vital to early prevention of genocide.”  Part of the important work that we can do for the world is to educate others about who the other is.  The other is just like us in more ways than we may even currently acknowledge. It is vital that we speak up when we hear hate speech or derogatory statements that dehumanize the other.

Stage two: Symbolization.  These are names or other symbols we give to those we classified as other.   From our own history, this would be the derogatory terms used to describe people of color or sexual minorities or political conservatives or political progressives.

These first two stages are not necessarily going to result in genocide unless they lead to the next stage; dehumanization.   Hate speech and hate symbols can increase the likelihood of advancing to the next stage.  The key is to remove the power behind the symbolization.  The act of setting up a donation table to solicit funds for organizations that support HIV/AIDS treatment or Gay civil rights where ever Fred Phelps’ church calls for the death of homosexuals is one way of removing the power his symbols might carry.

Stage 3: Dehumanization.  The humanity of the other is denied by equating them to vermin, animals, and diseases.  We have heard this dehumanization increasing in our country in the past few years.  Television talk show hosts have been accused of hate speech that dehumanizes or degrades the opposing political opinion.   Words such as “being the cancer of America” and to reload and take aim at those politicians who have supported allegedly the wrong bill have been heard.  This is dehumanization.    These are hate speeches aimed at dehumanizing the other.   Genocide Watch suggests “Local and international leaders should condemn the use of hate speech and make it culturally unacceptable. Hate radio stations should be shut down, and hate propaganda banned. Hate crimes and atrocities should be promptly punished.”

Stage four: Organization.  There is always organization behind genocide.  It is usually supported by the government where the genocide is taking place but organized through militias so the government can deny responsibility. This is the case in Darfur.

Stage five: Polarization.  Hate propaganda is broadcasted informing this is for the best interests of the country, further polarizing those who might act to stop it. Laws are passed outlawing behaviors associated with group, such as gathering for worship on Friday evenings for Sabbath.  Laws forbidding social interaction may also be passed. It became illegal in Germany to shop at a store owned by Jews.

Stage six: Preparation:  Groups are separated out from the general population.  They are forced into ghettos, concentration camps or regions with no or limited resources for survival.  Our own history revealed this being done to the Native Americans who were forced off their land and into desert regions we called reservations.  Symbols are also used to designate these people and these are forced on the people.   In Germany it was the yellow star or various colors of triangles.  In Cambodia it was a blue scarf.

Stage seven: Extermination.  Mass killings begin and this is called genocide.  Those doing the killing do not believe their targets are human.  Rapid international armed intervention must be given in order to stop the genocide.  Safe zones that are protected by international forces must be developed for refugees.  Unsafe, safe zones are worse than no safe zones because they become targets as was the case in Darfur, where the international armed forces abandoned the safe zones allowing for Janjaweed, an African Arab tribal militia, to enter and massacre the refugees.

Stage eight: Denial.  Actions are taken by the government to deny the genocide took place.  Obstructions to investigations occur.  A label of civil war may be used to cover up the genocide, such as in Darfur and Bosnia. It is important that an international council is set up to investigate and bring the proponents of genocide to justice.[9]

Survivor of the Bosnian genocide, Kemal Pervanic, stated at the first annual Holocaust Memorial Day conference in the United Kingdom: “Most Bosnians learned to regard all Serbs as murderers, killers: they believed something was wrong with them. I don’t think like that.  It’s OK to be different. We are all different, but on the other hand we are all the same, with the same rights to life, love, dignity. Lots of people aren’t prepared to share these values with others who are less fortunate than them.”[10]

Through out the eight stages of genocide there is a drive to destroy, to drive out, to reduce to sameness, to kill the human spirit that creates us as all unique.  Yet, as these few stories point out and in every story of survival of genocide I have ever heard, the human spirit has never been able to be fully crushed.  There is always some spark, some insignificant moment or choice made that restores a sense of dignity, of integrity, even if for that one brief moment that beckons the will to live another day. There is always a creative way for the human spirit to seemingly instinctively change course as Rena and Danka did with mysterious surging bravado, or to be a chameleon in the midst of enemies in order to survive like Solomon Perel did or causes Waitstill and Martha Sharp to reach out a hand to save a few from falling into harm’s way.   The human spirit cannot be fully crushed.  It can be repressed.  It can be oppressed. It can be held down and shackled.  But its spark can never be fully snuffed out. There will always be something of the human spirit that will declare its existence, its shout of I AM.

Anne Frank who lost her life in the Holocaust wrote in her diary “… in spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can’t build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery, and death. I see the world gradually being turned into a wilderness, I hear the ever approaching thunder, which will destroy us too, I can feel the sufferings of millions and yet, if I look up into the heavens, I think that it will all come right, that this cruelty too will end, and that peace and tranquility will return again.” [11]

May it be so in our life times.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Bruno Bettelheim, The Informed Heart  © The Free Press 1960  pg 148

[4] http://www.history.ucsb.edu/faculty/marcuse/classes/33d/projects/jewishlife/JewishPerelRuth.htm

[5] ibid

[6] Roots and Visions: The First 50 years of the UU Service Committee, page 15

[7] http://www.brownalumnimagazine.com/storydetail.cfm?ID=2628

[8] Originally from the sermon, “How to be A Hero” by Rev. Fred L Hammond  © February 26 2006

[9] As found at http://www.genocidewatch.org/aboutgenocide/8stagesofgenocide.html © 1998 Gregory H. Stanton. Originally presented as a briefing paper at the US State Department in 1996.   (The eight stages presented here is adapted from this work of Gregory Stanton.  The comparisons of some of the stages to the political scene,  past and present,  in the US is my commentary and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of  Genocide Watch.

[10] As found at http://www.hmd.org.uk/news/item/holocaust-memorial-day-trust-1st-annual-conference

[11] as found at http://www.buzzle.com/articles/holocaust-quotes.html

(This first appeared as the message for Our Home Universalist Unitarian Church Newsletter for April.  I thought it might be of interest.)

I have been enjoying American Idol this season.  All of the contestants are really, really good.   It has been years, O alright decades, since I had voice lessons but I am impressed with the maturity of the voices I am hearing.   Simon Cowell made a comment tonight that was really quite profound.  He told one of the contestants, one of my personal favorites, to not allow the process of the competition lead her away from who she is.  She tried something new. It was a risk.  It was a good risk.  I thought it worked for her.  But Simon’s comments were important not only for the contestants but for all of us as well.

There are a few singers who have learned early on that if they do a certain thing, the audience is going to love them for it.  It is great to know that the singers have those skills but when those skills become the standard to the performance it not only grows stale, it becomes false to who they are.

If Simon were to offer his advice as a piece of spiritual wisdom, he might have said, “Do not let the process of living lead you away from who you are.” These are important words and hard to follow because we are always in relationship with our environment.  Peer pressure is the best example I can come up with that exemplifies what I mean.  We want to be liked by others.  We want their approval.  Nothing wrong in these two desires but the way peer pressure works; we sometimes surrender who we are in order to be liked by the in-crowd or to win approval from that in-crowd.  And it is in the doing of things that we know in our heart of hearts is not true to our center that we find ourselves being led away from authenticity.

But it is not only peer pressure that is part and parcel to the process of living.  It could be disappointments that we faced.  It could be emotional woundedness that we never quite were able to resolve to satisfaction.  The process of living can result in residual habitual behaviors that tamp down the joy that life has to offer.

The first Sunday of April is Easter; a day where Christians celebrate the resurrection of Jesus. Taken just from its metaphorical meanings, it signals that even the most insurmountable defeats do not need to be so.  New life, new possibilities, new opportunities to be our authentic selves abound even in the face of insurmountable defeats.  And so it is with Simon’s advice to the young performer. To follow the leadings of the process that the institution of the performing arts demands can be a process that leads to the tomb or if kept true to her integrity can be one of exhilarating resurrection.  The process of living does not need to wear us down.  If we remain true to who we are, maintain our integrity of self, we might find our very souls being lifted up.

What do we do with Easter?

Rev. Fred L Hammond

Our Home Universalist Unitarian Church

4 April 2010 ©

Easter was always a holiday of great joy growing up.  There were dyed eggs, chocolates and gifts hidden, and new clothes. And of course there would be the wonderment of the Easter Bunny—the cousin of Santa Claus—who would scatter his candy everywhere.

In my childhood home of New York State, Easter would be the true herald of spring because it was only by Easter that the first tulips or daffodils would begin to bloom.  And maybe, if it was a particularly a warm spring, the forsythia at my home would begin to yellow.   Frost was still a possibility and there were times when a late spring snow storm would blanket the new blooms.

Easter was the few days of the year that my family would have dinner rather than supper.  Now in my family supper was served around 7 PM and dinner was served around 4:30PM.  Dinner on Easter was always fancier than supper.  We could have Mrs. Paul’s fish sticks for supper but dinner might include a roast of some sort.

The church would be filled with Easter lilies given in memory of loved ones.  These would sometimes be read aloud as part of a litany of remembrance.  I would always scan the insert to see if my grandmother’s and later my grandfather’s name would be listed.

When I was a teen, I was asked to play the part of Jesus for the Sunday School classes for a re-enactment of the last week of Jesus’ life leading up to Easter.  On Palm Sunday, we did the triumphant entry, the turning over of the money changers tables and the crucifixion.   I was laid in a tomb which was a small unused storage space under the front porch of the church.  The entrance to this area was from the first floor of the church.  There was a rock foundation and stone floor. It looked tomb like. A bench had been placed there for me to be ‘entombed.’

Now there was a Jewish couple who had been coming to the church because they enjoyed the minister’s liberal sermons.  Their daughter was about 5 years old and began attending Sunday school.  She watched attentively as I was placed in the tomb.  The following week, Easter morning, the classes gathered around the tomb only to find linen on the bench and an angel standing there saying he is not here he is risen.  The little girl turned and saw me, no longer in the role of Jesus, and exclaims, “There he is!  Jesus is alive!”

She apparently enthusiastically told her parents that Jesus was alive because that was the last time this family attended the congregation. They did not believe this part of the Christian story and did not want their child to accept something that they did not believe. I heard this child, years later was a college student studying abroad and flew back to the US aboard the ill-fated plane that crashed over Lockerbie Scotland.

When you do not believe in the resurrection, it can feel a bit awkward to celebrate Easter.   We don’t really know what to do with it.  We feel an obligation to acknowledge the day because it is part of our heritage.  But we don’t feel comfortable in proclaiming the resurrection of Jesus.  We instead would rather celebrate the metaphor of resurrection through the rebirth of spring.  The rebirth of spring has close ties with the pagan celebrations of new life and fertility that occurred around the spring equinox.   Many UU congregations across the south and southwest have conflated the Flower Communion with Easter celebration.  It is a way to nicely avoid the subject of the Christian belief of the resurrection.

Flower Communion was a ritual developed by Norbert Čapek as a ritual specifically for Unitarians.  He chose to celebrate the diversity of humanity through flowers as no two flowers are exactly alike.  The first Flower communion was held in June of 1923 in Prague just before the summer holidays. According to his wife, Maja Čapek, the ritual was to be more secular in its associations so as to be the most inclusive of all people, regardless of creed.   An important aspect that would grow over time as their neighboring country of Germany grew in power and intolerance of Jews and those of political differences grew deeper.  She stated in a letter[1] that conflating it with Easter would probably not have met Norbert’s approval and an alternative date to June could be to commemorate the last Sunday that he preached which was March 23 before being arrested and subsequently killed by the Nazis in Dachau concentration camp.  These meanings of diversity and acceptance found in the Flower Communion have nothing to do with Easter. I believe the two should be kept separate so that the fullness of each message can be contemplated.

So this leads back to what do we do with Easter?  How do we proclaim the resurrection when some of us might believe it to be an improbable event at best?

Paul of Tarsus, who spread the message of Christianity in the first  century of the Common Era, declared that if the resurrection did not happen, then all of the Christian faith is folly.  In his letter to the Corinthians he states, “If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.”  (1 Corinthians 19)  I know many Unitarian Universalists who would say this is probably the first thing Paul ever said in which they can full heartedly agree.

So if Paul is correct, then we Unitarian Universalists have no reason to celebrate Easter since our hope, our salvation is indeed based in this one glorious life.  But I do not believe Paul is correct.

I think on this point, Paul got it wrong.  Sebastian Castellio after the martyrdom of Michael Servetus by burning at the stake in 1553, stated “to kill a man is not to protect a doctrine; it is but to kill a man.”[2] The same can be said of Jesus, who many call the Christ.  And just what doctrine or doctrines were sought to be protected by his death?   The doctrine that declares justice only exists for those in power.  The doctrine that declares ‘might makes right.’   The doctrine that declares that survival is only possible by looking out for number one.  The doctrine that declares grab what you can, when you can.  The doctrine that declares trust no one.

The seditious doctrine of loving your neighbor as yourself and doing unto others as you would have them do unto you is the leavening that not only lived on after the life of Jesus but multiplied and expanded throughout western civilization.  In spite of the horrible tragedies that took place in the name of the Christian church through out its 2,000 year history, tragedies that continue to occur even to this present day, these two thoughts have revolutionized the world.

Yes there is much that the Christian church has allowed to occur in its name. Actions that were more representative of evil than of godliness have occurred in every era.  But the revolutionary idea that humanity can improve and create a more just world continues to live on two thousand years later.

We can celebrate Easter not because we believe in the resurrection of Jesus.  We can celebrate Easter because we seek to adhere to the ideals of Jesus’ message of love for the other.

I attended a Good Friday service at the University Presbyterian Church in Tuscaloosa.  One of the parts of the service that I found personally powerful was in a section entitled, Solemn Reproaches of the Cross.   This was a litany of ills or sins.  The final one was adapted from the Gospel of Matthew: “‘For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’  For this you nailed me to a cross.”

We seek to do justice in the world.  We seek to not only feed the hungry but to figure out ways to prevent hunger and famine from occurring.  We seek to not only give water to the thirsty but to also find new ways and resources for clean water to be available.  We seek to not only offer shelter to the homeless but to find ways to prevent homelessness.  We seek to find ways to reduce the racism and the oppression that results in inequity in our justice system.

Nailing to the cross is the refusal to act / to help.  It is a despair that says there is nothing we can do in this life.  It echoes one of my favorite scenes from the Color Purple where Sophie confronts Ceelie on Mister’s abuse.  Ceelie says, “This side last a lil while, heaven last always.”   Ceelie is nailing her life’s situation to the cross, it is a cross of despair, a cross of helplessness, a cross of surrender to the injustices of this world in the hope of a heaven forever.  Sophie responds with, “you betta bash mister’s head open and think bout heaven later.[3]”   While I am not condoning the action Sophie recommends, the actions that we do take to create justice are in the here and now, in this lifetime.   Waiting to go to heaven to have justice is too little, too late.

Whether or not we believe in the resurrection of Jesus, we can celebrate Easter with joy because the ideals that Jesus taught continue to live on.  They are resurrected every time we seek to liberate the poor and down trodden.  Every time we seek to create a safe environment for all of our children in schools we resurrect the ideal that all have inherent worth and dignity.  Every time we seek to find ways to provide health care to all, we resurrect the ideal that all people should be able to live as healthfully as possible. Every time we tell our elected officials that blood for oil is not how we want our country to solve its problems, we resurrect the ideal that a lasting peace is a possibility.

The Standing on the Side of Love campaign that the UUA is sponsoring is lifting up the ideal that love is stronger than greed, that love is stronger than racism, that love is stronger than any ism that is swirling around in this country today.  We resurrect that notion of freedom for all.  This for me is the meaning of Easter.

It is more meaningful than the new clothes or finding hidden eggs filled with candy and trinkets.  These are nice things and I will always remember fondly the Easters of my childhood and the joy a child experienced when she thought she spied the resurrected Jesus in her midst.

In some ways she was right.  She did see Jesus alive.  And her joy in seeing Jesus resurrected is an experience we can all experience when ever we see another person seeking to live out the message of Jesus’ life to love our neighbor as we love ourselves.  Whether it is a simple kindness like a smile and a hug or working tirelessly to right an age old injustice, there the spirit of Jesus is found.  There the Buddha is revealed.  There Gandhi-ji is honored.  There the Dali Lama is emulated. There Rosa Parks is sitting for justice again.  There Mother Theresa is loving the poor.   There the alleluias are being sung!

[2] as found 2 April 2010 at http://www25.uua.org/uuhs/duub/articles/michaelservetus.html

[3] http://www.moviequotes.com/repository.cgi?pg=3&tt=77439

A story for all ages that I wrote to complement the sermon I gave on James Luther Adams’ fourth stone of liberal religion: no immaculate conception of virtue and the necessity of social incarnation.  It was delivered to the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Tuscaloosa on 14 March 2010 (c).  This is based on the parable from Matthew 21: 28-32.

Once upon a time, there was a family that was known through out the town for their goodness. This family was held in high esteem by everyone. If there was ever a dispute between neighbors, this family was able to find a solution that worked for both parties. If there was ever a need in the community, this family was able to support the filling of that need. This was a good family. They believed that actions that resulted in the expansion of good were important in order to have a wonderful and loving community.

Now there were two sons in this family of roughly the same age. Wherever they went, they met people who told them what a good family they came from. Hearing these things made them feel good.

In school, the teachers would tell them, “Jason and Bryan, you come from such a good family. We know your grandfather, what a good man he is. He has been so very helpful to the community. If it weren’t for him, we wouldn’t have clean water here because he found a way to purify the wells that were contaminated.” Their grandfather was head of the city health department and made sure that the city had clean water.

The school’s foot ball coach would say, “Bryan and Jason, I know your father. He is such a good man. Why if it weren’t for him, we wouldn’t have a decent volunteer firehouse with a Hook and Ladder truck.” Their father was a volunteer firefighter and helped organize the community to raise the money for the truck to ensure they were ready in case the taller buildings had a major fire. One such fire happened and because they had a Hook and Ladder truck they were able to prevent a tall building from burning to the ground. More importantly the fire fighters were able to save a family that was trapped on the upper floors.

There was another time when a complete stranger came up to them and said, “Aren’t you Elizabeth’s sons?” They shook their heads, yes. “Well, your mom is one of the finest women in town. She helped my children have access to the town library because it wasn’t wheelchair accessible. You see, my two children were born with physical disabilities and they are unable to walk. But your mom worked with the library and the city to find the money to put in ramps to enable my children and other children like mine to use the library. I am so glad to have met you fine young men.”

Everywhere Bryan and Jason went there were accolades given to their family about all the good things their family did for others. The stories of how their family made the community better for others continued to be told. And in time Bryan and Jason came to believe that they were good simply because they came from a good family.

Then one day something happened at school. Bryan and Jason told their parents about it. There were two girls who wanted to go to the school dance as a couple and were told that they could not go; only boy/girl couples could go. Their parents asked them if it was fair that a girl couple be denied to attend the dance. After some discussion, their parents asked Jason and Bryan if they would be willing to start a petition to give to the school board requesting these girls to be allowed to go to their dance. Jason said he would not because he didn’t want to be made fun of by his football team. Bryan said he would do it. But Bryan did not start the petition. He decided he didn’t care if two girls could go to the prom or not after all it didn’t affect him any.

Jason begin to think of his grandfather’s work with getting clean water, his father’s work on having a fire truck, his mother’s work on having wheelchair ramps at the library. He remembered all these good things that his family did to help others and so he changed his mind and began the petition after all. Jason reasoned that if the school could tell two girls they couldn’t go to the school prom, what else would they do to keep people from being themselves? On Saint Patrick’s Day would they keep him from wearing the green plaid kilt his aunt bought him in Ireland to honor his Irish heritage?

So Jason circulated the petition. Teachers, students, and community members signed it. He received so many signatures that the school board decided to allow the girls to go to the dance as a couple.

Now sometimes, Bryan gets asked if Jason is his brother. When he tells them yes, he is told, “Jason is a fine young man. He stood up to fight an injustice in the school. If he hadn’t done that, then girl couples and boy couples who wanted to go to the dance would not be allowed. He is a good man just like his parents and grandparents.”

Bryan tells them that he initially wanted to help with the petition and that Jason did not. They reply, “But did you act on your good intention?” No, Bryan would shake his head. They would sigh and say, “Good intentions mean nothing; it is good actions that make a difference.”

This is a variation on the age-old question of when does life begin–at conception or at birth?  There was a recent bill passed in Utah that criminalizes  miscarriages as homicide if the woman engages in “intentional, knowing, or reckless act” that results in a miscarriage.   Potentially this means if the woman does not wear a seatbelt, or she drinks alcohol, smokes, falls down stairs, or remains in an abusive relationship and then miscarries she could be charged with homicide.   This bill had passed both houses of the state legislature and was sent to the Governor for signing.   The Governor wisely, after an uproar nationwide, sent the bill back for removal of the most offensive language, the word reckless.   It is expected that some miscarriages will still be considered homicide and carry a felony.

There is another bill , an amendment actually that will redefine for Mississippi what is the legal definition of personhood.  Personhood Mississippi is seeking to define personhood as beginning at conception.  The wording of the amendment is as follows:  Be it Enacted by the People of the State of Mississippi: SECTION 1. Article III of the constitution of the state of Mississippi is hearby amended BY THE ADDITION OF A NEW SECTION TO READ: Section 33. Person defined. As used in this Article III of the state constitution, “The term ‘person’ or ‘persons’ shall include every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning or the functional equivalent thereof.”  The organization has received wide support and exceeded the number of signatures needed to place this on the 2011 ballot.   There are similar petitions being submitted in Florida, California, Montana, and Missouri. 

Obviously if this personhood amendment were to be pass it would strike down the women’s right to control her own body should she become pregnant even if that pregnancy were to threaten her life.  If she aborts the fetus because of the risk to her health, under this redefinition she could be charged with infanticide but if the birth of the child resulted in the death of the mother, does the newborn then get charged with matricide since the fetus is a person with rights and responsibilities?  A whole other question for debate. 

These are two bills that would alter how we define personhood. These bills are based in a theological and doctrinal belief that conception is the start of personhood or the start of life.  There are doctrinal beliefs that state that birth is the beginning of the person’s life. 

Two very popular verses in the Hebrew Scriptures are quoted to support the doctrine that life begins at conception:  Jeremiah 1:5 states, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”  and Psalm 139: 13, 16 reads “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb . . . your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.”   These verses point to more than simply when life begins but also suggests the doctrine of pre-destination. 

There are verses in the Hebrew Scriptures that support the doctrine that life begins at birth when the baby draws its first breath.  Genesis 2:7,   He “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and it was then that the man became a living being”.   Although the man was fully formed by God in all respects, he was not a living being until after taking his first breath. In Job 33:4, it states:   “The spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life.” Again, to quote Ezekiel 37:5;6,   “Thus says the Lord God to these bones:   Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live.   And I will lay sinews upon you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live;   and you shall know that I am the Lord.”  [as found at http://joeschwartz.net/life.htm] 

These two very different and opposing doctrines are based in the Bible. These are doctrines held by various denominations of the Christian and Jewish faith.  So whose doctrine is correct?  And whose doctrine should reign supreme in a democracy that claims freedom of religion? 

To add to the confusion, science has its own varied theories of when human life begins.  Does it begin at fertilization?  Does it begin at gastrulation–the point at which the embryo can no longer subdivide and create twins or triplets.  Or  is it when an EEG can be discerned?  It is a definition of death, when the brain flatlines and an EEG no longer registers.  Or is it when the fetus has potential viability, or when there is lung function somewhere between weeks 25 and 28 of gestation.   Or is it when the cord is cut and the first breath has been drawn?   Science according to which area of speciality has multiple answers to when human life begins.  As Dr. Gilbert states in his lecture given in 2007 (see link here)  there is no one coherent view and no consensus in the answer.

The answer is not one that will be found easily.  And if we are going to pass laws based on a doctrinal belief rather than based on the unfolding science then the debate becomes whose religious doctrine is supreme.  That is a road towards theocracy.  A road that this democracy needs to ensure that humanity never travels down again as it thwarts the fullness of humanity in all of its creativity and expression.    Blessings,

Comfortability is a word I coined several years ago when in a dialog about racism.  It is the skill of being able to be fully present / comfortable in an uncomfortable situation.  It is a skill that I believe we need to develop if we are to thrive in a pluralist society.

The school board in Itawamba County, Mississippi decided that a student could not attend her prom in a tuxedo and bring her girlfriend, also a student at the school, because it might be uncomfortable for the other students.  This is not the lesson that should be taught.  It teaches  that segregation and hiding our truth is acceptable behavior because integration of our differences and being honest might make someone else uncomfortable.  The lesson that needs to be taught is to embrace our differences be it racial, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation or gender expression.   We live in a pluralist society.  This is the reality of our nation.  We are going to meet someone and most likely several someones in our life time who are not just like us.  Doesn’t it make more sense to teach our children how to live in that reality rather than teaching them to be fearful of the other?  Being uncomfortable is a form of fear and it is no way to live.

There is a wonderful song in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical South Pacific that was very controversial when the musical came out entitled, “You’ve got be carefully taught.”   The chorus is

“You’ve got to be taught to hate and fear
You’ve got to be taught from year to year
It’s got to be drummed in your dear little ear
You’ve got to be carefully taught”

And so it is taught to this very day in school districts like Itawamba County, MS and in churches like Westboro Baptist Church.  Fred Phelps’ Westboro church is an example of blatant hate teachings but the fear of the diversity of humanity is also taught subtly and quietly in other church communities, liberal and conservative alike.   There are reasons why Sunday morning is the most segregated time in the country. Not having the skill of comfortability is one of these reasons.

I hear the lack of comfortability in Unitarian Universalist congregations when I hear comments that lash out at those who believe in God or Jesus.  The people who make such comments are uncomfortable with the notion of God and Jesus as savior or even as a teacher. Being comfortable in the face of diversity is an important skill set to develop. Comfortability means to be able to be accepting of the other, honoring their inherent worth and dignity.  It does not mean subscribing to the other’s way of thinking but it does mean being able to listen or be in the presence of the other without feeling threatened, with the calm assurance of being oneself.  

Fred Phelps feels threatened by homosexuality.  Itawamba County School District feels threatened by homosexuality.  Unitarian Universalists who lash out at UU Christians, theists, and deists  feel threatened by them.  If this were not true, then their behavior would be vastly different. It might be hard to hear being compared to Fred Phelps if one’s anti-Christian comments are no where near extreme as Fred Phelps anti-gay behaviors.  However, the root cause to all three examples given is fear and being uncomfortable of the other.  We need not be this way.   

If we are going to thrive in this nation we need to begin developing this skill.  We need to begin teaching comfortability in our schools and in our congregations.  The message is ripe for the picking.  There is a lot of fear being propagated in the nation right now and it needs diffusing.   

I believe Unitarian Universalism is the faith being prepared to bring such a message today.  We are not fully skilled yet in our comfortability as seen by the example I gave above.  Yet, our covenantal faith has been priming us to being more open to theological plurality and over all we do a fairly decent job at this.  We can do better.  But our developing comfortability in theological diversity is only a step towards developing comfortability in a pluralist society filled with many ideologies,  many races, many ethnicities, and many cultures.  

Harmony only occurs when there are multiple notes being sung.  May we sing the song of comfortability and heal our nation.  Blessings,

This is part three of reflecting further on my sermon, “Creating the Future that We Want.”  Previously I wrote about having a clear mission and having a firm footing.   In creating the future that we want we need to realize that what happens in Vegas goes everywhere, it does not stay in Vegas. 

“Our seventh principle talks about the interconnected web of which we are all apart.  We generally think of this as specifically referring  to the greater world beyond our doors, the environment, the planet on which we live, the stars from which science now points to as the origin of all life.  “We are stardust” is not just some nice poetic words by Joni Mitchell but a literal fact at the molecular level.   But this principle also pertains to how we operate as a congregation.  What happens in the children’s religious education classroom impacts on what happens in the worship service, impacts on what happens in hospitality, impacts what happens in membership and the reverse is also true.  

“I received a phone call the other day by someone looking for help and she asked for the donation department.  I did not know at first what she meant but I had to explain to her the church does not have departments.  We are more interconnected than that.   Yet sometimes we act as if we are separate departments and what we do in one area does not impact the other.  It certainly does impact and in often times subtle and profound ways.  

“A recent example.  A guest commented to me that he had heard of us through the blog I post online.  He would sometimes come to the area on business and was hoping that his travels here would coincide with a weekend.  He commented that his experience of the congregation fit what he sensed might be true by reading the blog.  He was warmly welcomed by several people in the congregation.  He thought the paintings on the wall added to the warmth of the people.  He commented on how the postlude with the children coming back in to join in playing with the percussion instruments felt good to him.   He said he was looking forward to returning the next time his business brought him here.  Several independent factors tied in together for this person’s overall experience.  Individually they aren’t much, but because these were all combined together in his experience they added up to something much, much more.  This is typical of how things work, not one thing but several things combined give an impression of who we are as a congregation.  How we behave and the things we do in this place is interconnected towards developing that first impression for every person who walks through our doors.  Needless to say, it warmed my heart that his experience of us was consistent with our stated mission.” [from the sermon “Creating the Future that We Want”  by  Rev. Fred L Hammond delivered February 21 2010 at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Tuscaloosa]

Nothing that happened in Children’s Religious Education, in Worship, in hospitality, in membership stayed there.   The attitudes engendered;  the successes or weaknesses of these committees or programs spreads out into the rest of the congregation for good or for ill.

In creating the future that we want in a congregation, the entire congregation has to be working together as an interconnected entity.  No committee from the board to the building and grounds committee can be working in a vacuum as if the other does not exist. All of the goals and objectives that are developed for the congregation need to be working in sync with each other towards the overarching goal which is ultimately the mission of the congregation.  If they do not then there are conflicted objectives and the congregation will not grow towards the future that is desired. 

Patrick Lencioni in his book, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable discusses the importance for the team to have trust in one another, to have healthy and engaged conflict around ideas, to commit to decisions and plans, to hold each other accountable in executing those plans, and focus on the accomplishment of the communal results.  Each of these areas are interelated to the other and if they are dysfunctioning will cause the team, read congregation,  to not succeed in its stated mission.   Each committee needs to be able to operate in this manner towards the fulfillment of the mission.  Each committee chair needs to be working with the other committee chairs in this manner so that each committee goal is lined up and in sync with the over all goal of the congregation. 

The committees of a congregation are not separate entities but are an intrical part of the whole.  Paul of Tarsus discusses this when he compares the church to that of a human body.  1 Corinthians 12 : “The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body.”  The various committees together make up the many parts of the congregation and need to be working together in ensuring the health of the congregation.   There is no place for ambition, for ego strokes, or being a savior in this setting.  If this is a person or a committee of people their self-serving actions will impact the rest of the congregation and thwart the mission of the congregation. 

And just as an infection in a foot might lead to limping and throw out a back and disable the person so can an infection, read dysfunction,  in a committee cause an entire congregation to be disabled and unable to reach its goals.  A dysfunction in a committee does not stay in that committee but will spread to other committees if not addressed with the needed medical intervention. 

Ultimately, this means that the congregation needs to be in covenant with one another to always be striving towards creating  in every activity that the church is engaged in that which we hold utmost value.  Each committee, each program is woven together to make a tapestry that speaks to that value held individually and collectively in the congregation.  If there is any committee  that is not revealing this communally held value through its activities, then this tapestry will appear moth ridden with glaring holes and frayed edges.  

The experiences the business traveler had is the kind of first impression that could be happening consistently every Sunday with as many visitors as possible.   Everything came together that day for him because all of the players who were involved in his experience were gearing their outcome towards the mission of the congregation.  Each played their part and the result was an open and nurturing congregation, our mission statement.  May our congregation and all congregations grow consistently towards their mission statements every Sunday and every day of the week.  Blessings,

This is part two of reflecting further on my sermon, “Creating the Future that We Want.” The previous post I wrote about having a clear mission statement.  Where do we go from there?  What else do we need to have in place? 

“I like many of you have been watching the Olympics.  I happen to enjoy the skating competitions.  I noticed that the speed skaters before they began their race to fulfill their personal best positioned themselves with a firm footing.  This was essential to their performance.  The skaters that did not have a firm footing on the ice simply were not able to cast off with the speed that was needed.  It is the same with us.  We need to have a firm footing on which we can cast off.  We need to prepare the conditions of our moving forward first so we will be off to a good start. 

To switch metaphors a bit, any architect will tell you that a solid building needs to have firm footings in order to support the roof.  Without such a firm footing, the building will not stand but collapse upon itself.  So what things do we need as our firm footing in building our community that will enable us to make a difference for the better in the world?” [from “Creating the Future that We Want” sermon delivered by Fred L Hammond on February 21 2010 (c)]  

Whatever a congregation decides to do it must ensure that it has firm footings in order to support the outcome desired.  Our congregation in Tuscaloosa wants to grow its membership in order to sustain a viable presence in Tuscaloosa County as a liberal alternative to the conservative religious voice that surrounds us.  In order to do that it must, absolutely must, be consistent in fulfilling its mission across the entire congregation.  There is that mission word again that I stated I refer to a lot.  How are we fulfilling our mission to be an open and nurturing community?  What activities would indicate that we are headed in that direction?  These are the firm footings in the congregation. If you liked the skating metaphor, these are the activities that help us cast off with the right speed and form.  If you liked the architect metaphor, these are the activities that ensure the roof doesn’t collapse around us.   

Children’s religious education (CRE) is the first firm footing that needs to be ensured.  There needs to be sufficient funding not only to support this program but also to grow this program.  If CRE is dynamic, approaches learning from as many learning modalities as possible; meaning auditory, visual, and kinesthetic modalities, then the children in attendance are going to want to be there every Sunday. If the children want to be there, then the parents will be there as well.  In order to have all of these learning modalities covered the director of religious education needs to be putting in the hours in preparatory time before Sunday morning to come up with the various lessons to cover these areas. 

Many of our congregations in Alabama and Mississippi, the two states I serve in, are small congregations.  The UUA defines small as under 150 members.  I define small as under 60 members.  Having a fully staffed religious education program is difficult to say the least because the numbers of families with children just aren’t there.  But for congregations that do seek to have a paid religious education program then they need to be ensured as a firm footing for growth and not status quo.  That means ensuring that there is money in the budget to enable the Director of Religious Education to plan, prepare, and to teach the lessons to the volunteer teachers.  

If the congregation does not have sufficient numbers of families to have a consistent religious education program then there are still footings that need to be in place to get the congregation ready for such a program.  The worship service can be developed in such a way that engages all ages in the service.  Learning modalities are still operative even in a worship service. 

I remember as a child sitting with my grandparents during a worship service, singing the hymns, doing origami with the Order of Service, and more importantly perhaps, learning how to behave in a worship service.  Some of my most favorite hymns are those that I learned as a child because in part of the warmth of the worship experience with my grandparents.  Not only was the church providing a firm footing for their own meeting of their mission but a firm footing was being developed in me that has lasted a life time. 

Engaging the children in the worship service is vital.  In Tuscaloosa, after the offering plates have been passed around the children bring up the offering plates to the worship leader.  The age limit to do this is three years old.  They love doing it. It is an important function that needs to be done and the children do it with such joy.  The children could also be involved in lighting the chalice, offering a reading,  playing an instrumental piece, and the possibilities are endless.   All of these examples would be enjoyed by the entire congregation. 

Other firm footings include how the congregation integrates new members.  What activities are being supported in the congregation that new members and guests can participate in?  How the congregation supports hospitality, congregational care, adult religious education are all very important in creating the future desired.  Yes, it may be true that many of our adults do not want adult religious education, but some may and if it is offered others may join in.  Resources need to be set aside for these activities.  There is nothing more discouraging than to have a member or several members come forward to support a needed service and then find out that they cannot do it because the money in the budget is not there.  Or to find out that the previous chair donated out of their pocket to have this activity done and it got assumed that this was the way it was to be done.  Who wants to volunteer for a committee and find out that they also have to fund that committee too?  This becomes a recipe for burn out, discouragement, and going someplace else to serve. 

Firm footings means that the pieces are in place to do the work of the church in the direction that the church wants to go in.  If increased membership is one such direction, then the church needs to support wholeheartedly (in spirit and in behavior) those areas that will enable membership growth to occur.    Blessings

This past Sunday, I delivered the annual stewardship sermon to kick off our pledge campaign.  The sermon was entitled:  Creating the Future that We Want.   I have in the past posted sermons here but I decided to do something different.  I am going to expand on some of the points that I made in the sermon into a series of posts discussing what we need to do in order to create our future as Unitarian Universalist congregations.   I begin with having a clear mission statement.

The mission statement of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Tuscaloosa is succinct and clear.  We are an open and nurturing community of Unitarian Universalists made visible by our actions for a better world.   I mention our mission statement every opportunity that I get, not because I think people have forgotten it but because I believe that we must always have our mission before us.  All of our actions need to be consistent with our mission and embody it.  Every person needs to be able to either recognize the mission statement from the activities or be able to quote it.   Every person, from the most veteran member to the person who walks through our doors for the first time, should be able to tell another person what the mission statement is. 

“Antoine de Saint-Exupery, the author of the Little Prince, is quoted as saying “Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction.”  It is the same with a community that seeks to make a difference in the world; we must be looking outward together in the same direction.  This does not mean that we all see the same things in the horizon nor does it mean that we understand everything at the same time or in the same manner. It certainly does not mean that we will always agree with one another.  It does means that our intention for what is best for the community is headed in the same direction.   One way of ensuring our intention is to remind ourselves daily of what we have stated our mission to be here in this time and place.  The intention of this congregation could change, but for now, in this time and place, our mission is to be an open and nurturing community.  Everything that we do from greeting people at the door to our sermon topics, from the artwork we display on our walls to the religious education we teach our children, from the leaders we elect to the landscaping outside need to be reflecting this mission statement.  Together, we gaze our eyes in the same outward direction.” [From the sermon Creating the Future We Want by Rev. Fred L Hammond, given February 21, 2010 (c)]

So many congregations have mission statements that are too long, too convoluted, too verbose for any one to really take the congregation seriously.  They read like they were trying not to offend anyone and in the end become unable to offer direction to the congregation.  Mission statements are not about stroking anyone’s egos or intellect.  They are about purpose.  The best mission statements are succinct and many of these are under twenty-five words.  The best mission statements are easily memorable.   

The guide then to any action that is proposed by the congregation is the question: How does this fit the mission statement?  How does this action that we are proposing advance our mission statement or purpose?   Here are some mission statements from corporations.  Some are good,  some are very revealing.

Citigroups mission statement reads: “Our goal for Citigroup is to be the most respected global financial services company. Like any other public company, we’re obligated to deliver profits and growth to our shareholders. Of equal importance is to deliver those profits and generate growth responsibly. “  I think this a very telling mission statement.  It states clearly that the shareholders and not the investors come first.  It explains why Citigroup could agree to bad decisions that resulted in their investors defaulting and eventually their bankruptcy.  Profit for their shareholders was their primary aim and ultimately their downfall.  Yes, I am revealing a personal bias here.

Compare this with HEW Federal Credit Union’s mission statement:   “Exceed our members’ expectations in our commitment to their financial success.”  Enough said. 

Darden Restaurants,  which include Olive Garden and Red Lobster, is “to nourish and delight everyone we serve.”  This is a mission statement that every employee can participate in.

These mission statements point to who is the primary focus of the mission statement.  To whom does the congregation belong?  Is it the board of directors?  Is it the matriarchs or patriarchs of the congregation?  Is it the shareholders or the investors–metaphorically speaking?  Is it everyone in the congregation? 

A good mission statement for a congregation should empower every member to participate in the fulfilling of that mission.  The most senior  to the youngest person should be able to participate in the mission statement being acheived.  If this is not true, if there are areas in the congregation where the mission cannot be fulfilled then this is the area that the congregation has work to do.  The mission statement can point out where the growing edges within the congregation lie. 

Alice Blair Wesley in her 2000-01 Minns Lectures entitled Our Covenant, summarizes the classes she took with James Luther Adams thus:  “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.”

A mission statement should be able to point towards those loyalities.  Everyone should be able to articulate this clearly and with conviction.  Where our loyalities lie will also indicate where our energy is going to be for the growth or status quo of the congregation.  Having a clear mission statement is a step towards being able to grow a congregation.  Blessings,

“Born To Be Good” By Fred L Hammond Delibvered to the Our Home Universalist Unitarian Church in Ellisville, MS on February 7 2010 ©  in participation with The Clergy Letter Project  for Evolution Weekend. 

We preach it every Sunday.  We sing it in our songs.  We write covenants around it.  And we have even been willing to die for its ideals.    

In our weekly affirmation we state that 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. 

We even have the audacity to proclaim the inherent worth and dignity of all people and many of us are even beginning to expand that proclamation to all living creatures.   This claim goes against the orthodox doctrine that we are born in sin, that the heart is more deceitful above all else; a claim that is widely accepted in this nation but one I believe is a falsehood that is not serving us very well.   

The notion that we are loving people who seek to serve human need that will eventually result in humanity’s harmony with the divine is no longer just a fanciful pipe dream made up by religion. There is actually something hard-wired into our genetic code that elicits these actions on behalf of others.  

It is important for us to continue to foster these genetic codes within us not only for the betterment of humanity, a lofty ideal hardwired within us, but also for the over all general well-being and happiness of each of our lives.  A sort of salvation, if you will allow me to use that conservative religious phrase, that will if we nurture it within us, transform our lives into better human beings with a higher ratio of having a fulfilled life.  

Dacher Keltner in his book: Born to Be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life outlines how evolution, that ol’ survival of the fittest notion, has hardwired our humanity with the drive towards compassion, towards love, towards awe in our relationships with each other and with the universe.  We are in short, born to be good, born with inherent worth and dignity, born without sin and born with the capacity to be loving, nurturing, compassionate, happy individuals.   

There is a relatively new science that is looking into the effects of positive emotions.  Some of those emotions studied are compassion, love, and awe.  If we are a species that evolved on this planet, as opposed to being placed on this planet, then what benefits did these emotions have in our survival as a species that would encourage our species to develop them?  And are there ways to increase the presence of these emotions and the subsequent actions they induce?  

This new science, Keltner tells us is Jen Science, named in honor of Confucius concept of the same name.  He defines “Jen [as] the central idea in the teachings of Confucius, and refers to a complex mixture of kindness, humanity, and respect that transpires between people.”   He adds, “a person of Jen ‘brings the good things of others to completion and does not bring the bad things of others to completion.’ Jen is felt in that deeply satisfying moment when you bring out the goodness in others.” 

So I would assume we all have had that jen moment when we did something for another person, not because we were told to do it, but because we wanted to do it, and felt upon completion of that task, a feeling of well-being flood over us.  It might have been something simple like bringing some fresh cut flowers to someone who has been ill or just because and their surprise and joy fills you with jen—a feeling of well-being.  Or perhaps you decided to run a marathon and raise money for cancer research.  The feeling you have in completing the marathon and more importantly the moment you give the money to the organization, you feel a moment of jen—a warm feeling of satisfaction.  

Jen science looks at the study of emotions such as compassion, gratitude, awe, embarrassment, and amusement and how they bring to completion a positive transaction between people.  The studiers of this new science have come up with a formula to determine the one’s sense of a meaningful life through what they call a jen ratio.  It is a fraction with all the positive interactions in the numerator position of the fraction and all the negative interactions in the denominator position.  The resulting number is a jen ratio.  

So you add up all the negative events that happened recently.  A driver cut you off in traffic, a person shoves you while waiting in line, hurtful comments from a friend.  Then add up all the positive events that happened recently.  A group of kids offered to rake your lawn, a stranger picks up a package you dropped, a delightful phone call from an old friend who had moved away, a friend picks up the tab of your lunch.  The three negative things go into your denominator or bottom position of the fraction and the four positive things go into the numerator or top position of the fraction and you reduce that down to a number which is 1.33.  That is your jen number and the higher it is, the likelihood of a rich and meaningful life.  

This has been used to gain a perspective on the health of marriages, of communities, and even of nations.   Healthier societies have higher jen scores. A study in 1996, after accounting for appropriate variables, such as economic development, revealed that for every 15 percent increase in trust of a nation’s citizens, their economic fortunes rose by $430.  Would it surprise you to note that the US has lost trust in its fellow citizens by 15% over the last 15 years according to Keltner?  Just look at the recent financial scandals of greed and people’s anger regarding these events.   

However, what makes us happy is not money and material gain but rather “the quality of our romantic bonds, the health of our families, the time we spend with good friends, the connections we feel to communities.  When our jen ratios are high in our close relations, so are we.” 

There is a reason behind this statement.  At one point in time, our very survival as a species depended on these factors.  It may still today.   While in our pursuit for happiness we have sought to have the niceties of life, what we are missing, Keltner suggests “is the language and practice of emotions like compassion, gratitude, amusement, and wonder.” Increase these and our enjoyment of life will also increase immeasurably.  

How do we do that?  What in our genetic make-up pre-disposes us to experience these emotions?  Like our distant cousins, the primates and even other mammals, when we offer care to our children a chemical in our bodies increase, known as oxytocin.  This chemical is a pleasure producing chemical.  It was vital in our survival as a species to care for our children in a communal setting. This chemical is important to our emotional and mental health.  When it is present, our moods are elevated.  When it is not, our moods are depressed.  

Imagine what is happening in our society where more and more people are having fewer interactions with one another because we are sitting behind the computer, or Xbox, or TV and not in the company of people, where we can laugh, hug, play with one another. 

Keltner writes, “The emotions that promote the meaningful life are organized to an interest in the welfare of others.  Compassion shifts the mind in ways that increase the likelihood of taking pleasure in the improved welfare of others. Awe shifts the very contents of our self-definition, away from the emphasis of personal desires and preferences and toward that which connects us to others.  Neurochemicals (oxytocin) and regions of the nervous system related to these emotions promote trust and long-term devotion.  We have been designed to care about things other than the gratification of desire and the maximizing of self-interest.” 

What triggers these neurochemicals to aid in the development of trust and other positive emotions?  Research has shown that when a person smiles a warm smile, a region of the frontal lobes, that is also the center for processing rewards and goal directed action is activated.  It feels good to smile and it feels good to be smiled at.  

When receiving a smile, our heart rate lowers, our blood pressure lowers, and people receiving smiles are more likely to smile back.  These smiles trigger the release of another chemical, dopamine, another pleasure producing chemical in the brain.  Smiles elicit approach behaviors between people; they invite warmth, calmness, and intimacy.  People who receive and give smiles evoke a sense of trust and social well-being. 

Don’t believe me?  Let’s see what happens as you turn to the person sitting next to you and you give them a warm smile. 

Did I hear some laughter?  Laughter is an older behavior than language.  It is seen in our distant primate relatives.  The chimps and gorillas laugh when they play and tickle each other but humans laugh not only in play and tickling but in situations that need resolutions. Laughter in humans creates opportunities to see what is possible or what is absurd.  

It is another piece in our genetic make-up that enables us to be good with one another.  Laughter signals the brain to experience mirth and amusement.  It rewards mutual exchanges of collaborations.  It signals appreciation and understanding.  Each of us have our own unique laugh and therefore when laughter is evoked in the other, it is a building of trust.  Keltner suggests that laughter early in a business deal allows for mutual bargaining.  Co-workers use laughter to defuse tense work situations.  Friendships enjoy a sense of closeness when laughter occurs.  

Keltner discusses about his experience in participating in a panel that included seeing His Holiness the Dalai Lama.  He writes the following:  “I was the last panelist for His Holiness the Dalai Lama to approach.  From eighteen inches away I came into contact with His Holiness the Dalai Lama.  Partially stooped in a bow, he made eye contact with me and clasped my hands.  His eyebrows were raised.  His eyes gleamed. His modest smile was poised near a laugh.  Emerging out of the bow and clasped hands, he embraced my shoulders and shook them slightly with warm hands.  As he turned to the audience, I had a … spiritual experience.  Goose bumps spread across my back like wind on water, starting at the base of my spine and rolling up to my scalp.  A flush of humility moved up my face from my cheeks to my forehead and dissipated near the crown of my head. Tears welled up, along with a smile.  I recalled a saying of His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s:  ‘At the most fundamental level our nature is compassionate, and that cooperation, not conflict, lies at the heart of the basic principles that govern our human existence.’” 

What exactly was Keltner describing?  His Holiness the Dalai Lama had found a way through the use of touch to raise the jen ratio of Keltner’s experience.  The use of touch, good touch, triggers the release of another pleasure chemical, serotonin and endorphins.   Serotonin reduces the stress hormone cortisol—which is why massages feel so very good to us.  And endorphins reduce the sensation of pain and increase the sensation of pleasure. 

Through touch, through laughter, through smiling, people tend to become more cooperative in achieving group goals that benefit the group as a whole.  They tend to become reciprocal in generosity towards others, in sharing resources, in sharing parental care of children.  These are contagious behaviors that tend to get repeated with others again and again. His Holiness the Dalai Lama is a master in being able to engender these behaviors and feelings in others.  

It is well documented that infants thrive when touched.  One of the families I served when I did AIDS ministry was a mother who wanted to adopt an infant born addicted to crack and with several AIDS defining diseases at birth.   The doctors told her not to because he said the child would not live to see his first birthday.  Last I knew the child was 16 years old, living without any active immune deficiency diseases.  I am convinced he lived because his adoptive mother was willing to touch him, hold him, caress him, coo with him, laugh with him. Touch enhances the body’s ability to reduce stress.  

Touch is an important aspect to our daily lives.  Pats on the back, handshakes, hands resting on the shoulders, all impact on our nervous system and increase the good chemicals that we need flowing in our bodies. Touch as studies with chimpanzees and humans reveal, encourages sharing and generosity over hoarding. 

Touching, Keltner states, increases trust and one of the reasons why over the centuries all cultures have developed a ritualized greeting; it might be a handshake, or a chest to chest embrace or a kiss on the cheeks.  But in all these rituals eventually touching is involved.    

Now if I haven’t convinced you yet, of the evolutionary wiring of our beings to be good.  Let me tell you of one more piece of evolutionary wiring in a very literal sense.  Our bodies have what is known as the vagus nerve.  Now this nerve is the longest cranial nerve in our bodies and it controls our autonomic functions such as heart, breathing, and digestion. It also is vital in the functions of facial muscles, vocalizations, hearing, etc.  But recent research seems to indicate that the vagus nerve also has another role to play in making us wired to be good. 

It has been noticed by researchers that when we listen to people describing suffering, we tend to sigh which slows down our heart rate and elicits within us compassion and trust for the speaker. The vagus nerve in addition to its autonomic functions enables the person to shift their care from self to others by transporting oxytocin, dopamine, and serotonin through the body.  

It was found that images geared to elicit compassion triggered the vagus nerve by slowing down the heart rate.  People reported feeling increased care towards the people in the images.   

Philosopher Peter Singer wrote, “evolution has bequeathed humans with a sense of empathy—an ability to treat other people’s interest as comparable to one’s own.  Unfortunately, by default we apply it only to a very narrow circle of friends and family. People outside that circle were treated as subhuman and can be exploited with impunity.  But over history the circle has been expanded… from village to the clan to the tribe to the nation to other races to other sexes… and other species.” 

It is this belief that we recite every week in our covenant.   We echo the teachings of Jesus and the Buddha to love our neighbor as ourselves and to live with each other in loving kindness.   

One more study found that Tibetan monks’ brains after years of meditation on loving kindness had phenomenal activation in the left frontal lobes of their brains where compassion is thought to be supported.  Two researchers sought to have software engineers trained in meditative practices of mindfully focusing on loving kindness towards others.  After six weeks of practice, their brain scans showed an increase in activity in their left frontal lobes and an increased immune function.  Increased immune function apparently a side benefit.  

Compassion, trust, love towards others can be learned and developed.  It is developed in families where “parents are responsive, play and touch their children.”  I dare say it is developed in congregations where people enjoy each others company and come together to sing, to laugh, to hug, to dance, to share the fullness of our lives.  

The Dalai Lama is quoted as saying, “If you want to be happy, practice compassion; if you want others to be happy; practice compassion.”   Blessed Be.

All quotes are from Born to be Good by Dacher Keltner.

“Five Smooth Stones: A Just and Loving Community” By Rev. Fred L Hammond  14 February 2010 © Delivered at Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Tuscaloosa, AL

Over the last several months we have examined Unitarian Universalist Theologian James Luther Adams Five Smooth Stones of Liberal Religion.  We looked at the first two stones;  Revelation is Continuous—the idea that new understandings of the mystery of life are always unfolding; and Mutual Consent –the idea that relations between people ought to be free of coercion and rest instead on the mutual, free consent of each person.   Today we will explore the third smooth stone: A Just and Loving Community.  

James Luther Adams suggests that there is a “moral obligation to direct ones efforts towards the establishment of a just and loving community.”  He suggests that the meaning of life is found when one participates in the “processes that give body and form to universal justice.”   And Adams suggests that this universal justice is none other than what Jesus proclaimed as the reign of god, which can also be called the reign of love.  As Adams describes it, it is a “sustaining, commanding, transforming reality… a love that that fulfills and goes beyond justice, a love that cares for the fullest personal good of all.” 

He also states that it cannot be achieved through “exclusive devotion to rituals, or by devotion to blood and soil, or by self-serving piety.”  We see all these forms today.  

Devotion to blood and soil perhaps was most widely known as the ideology put into practice within Nazi Germany where there was an emphasis on one’s ethnicity / blood and homeland / soil.  The ideology celebrated a people’s relationship to the territory they occupied and the virtues of rural living.   We see this ideology surfacing in conservative political and religious circles when ever there is a statement along the lines of America for Americans first, or that cities are today’s Sodom and Gomorrah, or that disasters are god’s way of cleansing the evil from a region—think of the statements made about New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina or Haiti after the earthquakes.  

So we have in our society today the rise of devotion to blood and soil in how certain groups want to handle immigration reform.  These groups believe that our nation would preserve its freedom, would save the economy and their jobs, would preserve the English language, if all immigrants were rounded up like vermin and deported, if they were denied basic medical care and housing.  The phrase “I am not my brother’s keeper” is sometimes heard from members of these groups who believe that immigrants should not only be stopped but shot at the border.  

Ironically, this phrase is from the Genesis story where God has heard the spirit of Abel groaning from the earth where his body has been killed by Cain.  God asks Cain, “where is your brother Abel?”  And Cain responds by saying, “Am I my brother’s keeper?”   The answer to that question was an implied yes and Cain was banished from the land.  

The Jews who wrote this text had a law in Leviticus that went further than just being their brother’s keeper. The law declared that foreigners living in their land would be treated with decency and respect as if the person were them.  “The alien who resides with you shall be as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself; for you were aliens in the land of Egypt…” (Leviticus 19:34)   Not every idea in Leviticus is irrelevant for today’s society.     

This particular passage points to the just and loving community and is referred to by Jesus in his teaching of loving your neighbor as yourself.  It points to a greater understanding of what is our moral obligation. Devotion to blood and soil states moral obligation is only that which serves a nation’s ethnic purity and in America’s case I would highlight its white heritage purity.  The rage against immigrants, particularly those immigrants from Central and South American countries, is racial rage.    

Exclusive devotion to rituals is referring to the shell of religious life.  I use the term religious in its broadest most generic sense.  The practices in and of themselves in a routinized fashion is not what gives life meaning.  It is not the measuring out of our lives with coffee spoons.  Rituals may give life structure and form but they do not give life meaning.  There are many people however that have given over their lives to the routines or the outward appearance of a particular lifestyle and believe that this alone will save them or preserve them as good people. Rituals may point to something greater than ourselves but ritual is not the something greater in and of itself.       

Self-serving piety would be holding a form of devotion in order to be perceived in better lights than others while not living out the basic values that piety belies.  We see it in TV evangelicals who have swindled millions of dollars from common folk by being placed on a pedestal of moral living and then crash with a scandalous affair.   We see it in politicians that proclaim and portray themselves as tough on crime and then are caught in embezzlement or some other illegal activity.  

This is the piety of the Pharisees and Sadducees in the time of Jesus.  Perhaps the best example is in the story of the Good Samaritan where the Pharisee and Sadducee crossed to the other side of the road so as not to be defiled by the wounded man left for dead.  Samaritans, as you may recall, were people who were born on the wrong side of the tracks. They were considered to be less than human in Jesus’ day.  To place this story in context it was told as an answer to the question, who is my neighbor?

All of these positions; the blood and soil, exclusive use of ritual, or self-serving piety, neither deliver a meaningful life nor assist in the establishment of a just and loving community.  So what would a just and loving community look like in the 21^st century of the Common Era?  

We live in a nation where the white hegemony that has ruled this nation since its founding is coming to an end.  It is not ending willingly.  The force of institutional racism through partnership with its closely related cousin known as classism has in recent history done much to ensure its survival but it is and surely will be coming to an end.  In less than 25 years, European-Americans will be a minority population in this country. 

We live in a nation that has an increasing pluralism of ethnicities, languages, religions, and cultures.  It was a misnomer to call this nation a melting pot, if anything we have become a buffet table of a wide assortment of experiences.  And we tend to choose from that buffet table what we are most comfortable with rather than tasting the full range of delights.  Yet, if we are to survive as a nation of the people, for the people and by the people, we need to become comfortable with our neighbors.   We need to begin to see our neighbors as our selves.  

Ensuring that the freedoms, the privileges that white heterosexual males have in this country are extended to everyone becomes an imperative.  It means that the work that civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., that feminist activist Gloria Steinem, that gay activist Harvey Milk, that worker rights activist César Chávez began in the last century; this work must continue to expand the recognition of rights and equality for all people in this century.  

James Fowler in the late 1970’s proposed a series of stages of faith much akin to Piaget’s theory of cognitve development or Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs or Kohlberg’s stages of moral development.  It is important to look briefly at Fowler’s stages of faith as it pertains to the establishment of a just and loving community.  

Fowler posits that there are seven stages of faith that begin at birth and develop through out our lifetimes.  These stages begin with Stage zero or primal stage, and move through the Intuitive-projective stage, Mythic-literal stage, Conventional stage, Individual Reflective, Conjunctive, and finally stage 6 or Universalizing stage.    

The majority of adults appear to be somewhere between the Mythic-Literal and Conventional stages of faith.  These are the stages where literal interpretations and conformity are valued.  The person or group in these stages believe that their story is the true story. There is a desire to have others conform to their story. A transition to the conventional stage is where the conflict of the creation story and theory of evolution begins.  Throughout this country we have seen a legislative battle over whether or not to teach creationism in schools as a legitimate scientific theory.  I use this example as one indication of where many people are in their faith development.    

Stage Four: Individual Reflective is the stage where many but not all Unitarian Universalists may find themselves.   It is the stage where individuals begin to take responsibility for their own “commitments, lifestyle, beliefs and attitudes.”[1]  The notion of individuality is strong. The recognition of one part of our congregational polity is understood in this stage and that is ‘you are not the boss of me.’ The other part of congregational polity may not yet be understood and that is the covenantal relationship with other congregations and with each other.   This stage contains a strength in critical reflection on individual identity and the world outlook but this can also be its weakness with an overconfidence in the mind and critical thought.  

Because many of our members are what we have called come-outers, meaning that they have come out of another faith tradition and found Unitarian Universalism, those Unitarian Universalists in this stage may also experience a disillusionment of symbolism that once held meaning and purpose.  

Stage five: Conjunctive Faith is the beginning of a re-integration and reworking of one’s past.  “Ready for closeness to that which is different and threatening to self and outlook (including new depths of experience in spirituality and religious revelation), this stage’s commitment to justice is freed from the confines of tribe, class, religious community or nation.”[2]

And finally, Stage 6:  Universalizing is rarely realized.  “The persons best described by it have generated faith compositions in which their felt sense of an ultimate environment is inclusive of all being. They have become incarnators and actualizers of the spirit of an inclusive and fulfilled human community.”[3]  Many of these people are killed for their universalizing faith, such as Martin Luther King, Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, or are honored and revered more after their deaths, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Theodore Parker, and Mother Theresa.  These individuals may be described as simple and lucid in their presentation but also seemingly more alive, more human than the rest of us; Thich Nhat Hahn and His Holiness Dalai Lama. 

So what do Fowler’s stages of faith development have to inform us about the just and loving community?  First let me state that these stages can and have been experienced in any faith tradition.  But it seems to me that if Unitarian Universalists as liberal religious folk are going to seek to fulfill their unifying principles, including “the goal of world community with peace, liberty and justice for all,” then we need to willingly allow our development of faith to be stretched to our growing edges to enable more of us to enter Stage 5: Conjunctive Faith.

How can this happen?  I stated earlier that “we live in a nation that has an increasing pluralism of ethnicities, languages, religions, and cultures.”  I also stated that in less than 25 years the white hegemony that has ruled this nation will no longer be the dominant culture in this nation.  As a nation, we have been in transition for the last 50 years with the emergence of many leaders advancing many causes for equality and justice.  It has not been easy work. Our denomination has been on the side of love with each of these causes for freedom and equality and we can be proud of our denominations stance on these pluralistic issues.   But it is important and vital work that each one of us must undertake if we are going to not only survive but thrive in this major transition in culture.   

There is going to be, and I am making a prediction here, many, many people who have been in the second and third stages of faith development who are going to find their stage of faith no longer working in the coming paradigm shift.  Where will they go?  Will they simply drop out?  Will they come through our doors and find a place where they are accepted with their questions, their differing cultures, and their differing ways of speaking their truth? 

My hunch is that many will come through our doors.  Will we be ready to receive them?  Jacqueline Lewis in her ground breaking work, “The Power of Stories: A guide for leading multiracial multicultural congregations” suggests that congregations need “to have in common some aspects of indentity, social and psychological factors, which make them resistant to the dominant culture’s views on openess and diversity.  They are able to be empathic, to fully welcome the other, to hold together cultural diversity to manage the conflict and change issues that often accompany difference, and to help others do the same.”[4] 

This means that we need to be able to speak to their cultural backgrounds;  have a “holding environment,” an embracing space for them to explore their faith and transition to another stage of faith development.  Jacqueline Lewis suggests that our faith communities / congregations can become places where our stories are told and re-told in light of the relations we develop with one another.  We shape each other with our stories. 

As of now, we are not predominantly a multi-cultural multi-racial congregation.  We need to begin to listen to others’  journeys of faith.   So one way for us to be ready for this increasing pluralistic society is to listen to each other’s stories.   We need to take seriously our denomination’s call to become a faith that is firmly committed to being a racially equitable, societally liberating, and  and multi-cultural faith.  We still have some barriers in our congregation’ s and denomination’s makeup that hinder this potential reality.   We have some Adult exploration of these issues to be done. 

One of the reasons why I am excited about our friendship with University Presbyterian Church is because it gives us a chance to practice in listening to their stories of faith and for us to tell ours in a relatively non-threatening environment.  We are both liberal religious congregations so there is already some common ground inherent in our make-up.  We are both designated as congregations that are welcoming and affirming of sexual minorities.  Yet, we have a diversity in how we make sense of our world.  It is vital for us to be able to listen to others that we may disagree with doctrinally but can whole-heartedly respect their integrity and expression of their faith. It is important for us to create a space for them here in this place.  This is a universalizing message. 

Can we welcome and embrace the family that arrives from a different faith tradition and perhaps even a minority culture and listen to their story and affirm where they are at in their faith journey?  I want to say yes. 

I want to be able to say that we have embraced the idea that the creating of a just and loving community begins with us here in this place, with one another.  It is our moral obligation as members of a liberal religious faith.  It is what makes us Unitarian Universalists.  Creating the just and loving community is part of our saving message to the world.   Blessed Be. 

[1] From Joann Wolski Conn (ed.), Women’s Spirituality: Resources for Christian Development. (Paulist, 1986), pp. 226-232

[2] From Joann Wolski Conn (ed.), Women’s Spirituality: Resources for Christian Development. (Paulist, 1986), pp. 226-232. 

[3] Ibid.

[4] Jacqueline Lewis, “The Power of Stories: A guide for leading multiracial multicultural congregations” locations 36-42 on Kindle

“Keeping The Dream Alive”  delivered to the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Tuscaloosa on 17 January 2010 © Rev. Fred L Hammond

 “I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed—we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal… I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, that one day, right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today!” (Martin Luther King, Jr. I Have a Dream)

These words of Martin Luther King, Jr. resounded loud across the mall from the Lincoln Memorial and they still echo today, I have a dream. I would love to be able to stand before you some forty plus years after King’s words were shouted from the roof tops of injustice and tell you that the dream has been fulfilled. But fulfilling the dream is not simply declaring through legislation that all people are created equal or by having little black boys and black girls joining hands with little white boys and white girls. Nor is it in electing the nation’s first African American as President. Nor is it by marching tomorrow in the annual Unity March that honors the life of this great man, a prophet for our times.

No, these are only the symbolic and surface acts that either mirror what is within our hearts or act as a deflector away from what is in our hearts. We have learned the hard way that racism is more complicated and more insidious than the behaviors that are displayed publicly.

Towards the final days of King’s life, he too was beginning to realize that racism in America is more than just black and white relations. He was beginning to talk about racism as it is tied into economic justice and war. King in his famous speech, “Where Do We Go From Here?” stated “it means ultimately coming to see that the problem of racism, the problem of economic exploitation, and the problem of war are all tied together. These are the triple evils that are interrelated.” I want to tell you today that even this realization of King’s is too simplified regarding racism in America.

Over the last forty years our denomination has also learned that racism is more than just the symbolic act of marching. We learned that the hard way. Our History in relation to the Civil Rights movement in the early 1960’s is a proud one. We joined King in the fight for voting rights, for desegregation, for employment opportunities. We marched with him in Selma and we even lost lives there. We thought we understood racism fairly well.

But after the marching was done, after the civil rights act was signed, riots broke out across this land, and we as a denomination sought to respond to this crisis and found ourselves to be complicit in racism. The consequent Empowerment Controversy of the late 1960’s and 70’s became a painful moment in our history that few want to revisit. To define the Empowerment Controversy with all its complexities and nuances simplistically, the question being asked was, were African American UU’s on an equal and level playing field with white UU’s for projects to address the justice issues in the Black communities? Whites, privileged with power and in control of the money sought to define what power, what self-differentiation African American UU’s could or should have within the denomination. Dr. Norma Poinsett, a former member of the Black Concerns Working Committee, a group that was formed in the 1980’s said at the 2001 General Assembly, “…We argued that black people should take charge of affairs affecting black people. We argued that only we could determine what our values should be and what was good for our communities. We were experts on our chaotic condition, we contended, because we faced racism daily both north and south.” (P12 The Arc of the Universe is Long [TAUL]) The answer that appeared to arise resulted in disaster. We are talking painful, gut wrenching disaster that nearly ended our faith. The UUA backed away from its commitments, African Americans left the denomination en mass. It was a painful time in our history. A moment in our history that made us realize that as a faith group we had our work cut out for ourselves.

After many years of licking our wounds, we started again to address the issue of diversity and race within our congregations. We began to revisit the issues with an Institutional Race Audit in 1980-81. This audit gave 31 recommendations to the UUA. Included in the audit was a cultural phenomenon they called the Liberal Syndrome. An example noted “while talking about racism, many UU’s assumed the liberal church to be enlightened and therefore, not needing to do anymore in the way of action.” (p 20 TAUL) The UUA board adopted to implement 25 of the audit’s recommendations yet the UUA was slow to act.

In 1983, the Commission on Appraisal released its report, Empowerment: One Denomination’s quest for Racial Justice 1967-1982. It took a hard look at the controversy that nearly destroyed the denomination. The result of this appraisal was a task force on racism. The task force recommended the establishment of the Black Concerns Working Group with the charge “to eliminate racism within the Unitarian Universalist Association” and gave the working group a budget of $5,000 to do so. This was a high expectation and scant resources to meet it. It seemed as if the true expectation to be put in place was failure.

The work that this group began would continue over the ensuing years to evolve and morph into other models and groups for dialog. The work would suffer push back. The work would engender anger within the denomination. The work to change the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations into an anti-racist multi-cultural institution has proved to be long and hard. We made mistakes. We learned some things as well along the way.

One of the lessons learned was the mistake of taking on an anti-racist program steeped in Lutheran Christian theology and applying carte blanche to UU’s. The program in its first incarnation known as Journey Towards Wholeness contained in its theology an approach of guilt. Jacqui James, religious educator stated that the message was, “You’re guilty, you’re racist… the whole approach of guilt. We didn’t spend much time helping people think about their identity and that’s important. Racism affects all people of color but our histories are different and it took us a while to understand that.” (p 379 TAUL )

The current programs and trainings on anti-racism focus more on listening where people are at, sitting with them attentively as they discuss how racism impacted their lives growing up. We have all been impacted by racism because our societal structures were created with one group of people in power over and above all others. Whether we are viewed by others as being a member of a certain race or we identify as being a member of a certain race, we are all impacted by racism. Therefore the current programs on anti-racism include learning how to recognize and let go of the behaviors that are unconsciously ingrained into our repertoire.

We learned that racism is not just a black / white issue, it was also a Latino/a, a Pacific Islander, a Native American issue. And each area and region of the country had slightly different concerns that impacted on how racism was experienced.

For Latino/as culture and language come into play. Rev. Patricia Jimenez writes about how this might affect a congregation. She says, “from my own culture [what] informs my ideas of an ideal religious community … include: a respect for elders; a profound sense of the importance of family and community; the inclusion of children in all activities; and of the need for celebration which includes the joys of both culture and language.” (p 290 TAUL)

Becoming an anti-racist institution requires listening from the heart. And it requires a re-introduction of anti-racist multi-cultural concepts every time the group changes dynamics. Gini Coulter, moderator of the UUA, discovered this when she first served on the board of the UUA, that just when the board agreed to be an anti-racist board—the new people would come to serve new terms. A whole new dynamic with new stories and histories being consciously and unconsciously presented at the table meant starting over again to agree to be an anti-racist board.

And so it is in most congregations where the turnover rate is about 10-15% per year. New people come in who may not be as savvy on internalized racism or homophobia. The work needs to be refreshed and people welcomed in.

What is being learned as the association slowly continues this work to root out racism from the denomination is that we need to learn new skills to live in a pluralist society. And if our congregations are going to mirror that pluralist society, then we have to learn these new skills here as well.

One of these skills I believe is a skill in comfortability. It is a word I coined a few years back at an anti-racist audit for Meadville Lombard Theological School. Comfortability is the skill in being able to sit in our discomfort when topics such as racism begin to hit too close to home. Discussion of racism inevitably if we are honest with ourselves, regardless of our racial identity, will cause a bit of discomfort. It will stir up memories of experiences that we have had that may still be raw in our emotional psyches and may have nothing to do with what the person or persons are discussing specifically. It is hard to look at how our behavior, even those committed unconsciously, affects another person of a different perspective or different ethnicity. If we are not able to tolerate that discomfort then we tend to shut down, tend to stop listening, and tend to become angry. We may even lash out at the speaker without meaning to cause harm because of our unresolved experience or memory. Developing the skill of comfortability allows for us to stay at the table even if what we are hearing is painfully true about our own behavior or painful in the memories it stirs up or simply painful to hear in general.

The work towards racial equity and justice is not easy work. It is not something we can symbolically do once a year and expect to suddenly be inclusive of all people. It is not a check off on a list of things to do in life like passing 4th grade and exclaiming now that is done, I never have to revisit the 4th grade again. This work is relational.

This work is one on one relational and it is also relational in a group setting because we each bring to the table our own histories, our own woundedness, our own successes and regrets. And each group is different from the last because the make up of the group changes the dynamics each time it comes together.

So let’s bring this home for us today. Tomorrow we will be walking with the Unity March to honor Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. It is important that we are there because our faith ancestors marched with King in Selma and in other communities for racial equality. It is important that we honor this history that our faith ancestors had a part in creating with their sweat, tears and with their lives.

But what will we do come Tuesday? Will we say to ourselves that is another check off on our list of things to accomplish in 2010? If it is then we will be fooling no one but ourselves.

I don’t know if any of you saw the paper on Friday where there was a story about an event celebrating King’s birthday at the Hargrove Memorial United Methodist Church. The minister there said the event was aimed at promoting racial reconciliation. I am sorry that I didn’t know about it in advance as I would have enjoyed being there. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we were able to sit down at a potluck with members of his congregation and talk about racial reconciliation?

We have already been successful in sitting down with our friends at University Presbyterian Church. To my knowledge nobody died from that experience. We have done some joint programs with UPC and some new joint programs are coming up in the near future.

What if we reached out to Hargrove Methodist Church to get to know them, enter in a dialog to learn from them their experiences of living in Alabama in the 21st century? Share a meal together. And then who knows what might happen. Perhaps there are social justice issues that we can collaborate on with them. Perhaps we already are and don’t even know it.

Imagine what could occur from such a meeting? Imagine the friendships that we could develop. Imagine the difference we could make in Tuscaloosa if our two congregations were able to have this happen.

I imagine that members of this church may be marching tomorrow. I would like to challenge you to begin conversations with the people we meet tomorrow. And if any of you meet people from this church I would like you to ask them if they were at the event their church held on Friday night. Ask them to tell you about it. And just listen to their story and allow things to unfold. Then later, talk to each other about your experiences at this march. The people you met and their stories and more importantly share your experiences in marching. Listen to one another attentively as we tell our stories of the day.

Martin Luther King, Jr. had a dream. It is a dream that is unfolding if we keep it alive in our own hearts as each day passes with each person we meet. Blessed Be.

Perhaps  you have seen the commercial.  Bank of America asks “What is 720,000,000, 000 ?” ” A good start.”  I find the commercial offensive.  For me it reminds me of the anti-lawyer joke, what do you call 100 lawyers at the bottom of the ocean.  A good start.  

The commercial implies that Bank of America wants to receive more bail out money.  The banking industry with its deregulations and greed have caused the deepest recession this country has ever faced.   I am still not convinced that bailing the big banks out was in the country’s best interest.    We are the nation of free markets after all.  This is our mantra that here the free market reigns and if there is a market for something it will do well, if the market cannot support it,  it will fail.  Well, the market did not support the hedge funds, the quasi pyramid schemes, the credit default swaps, the soft mortgages and those banks that pushed these quick money schemes should assume the consequences of such irresponsible actions.  Instead, Bush and Obama following suit, gave billions of dollars to bail out these guys instead of allowing the market to correct itself or instead of bailing out the deceived who signed onto soft mortgages.   The victims of these shoddy business deals are still being held responsible when they were coerced more times than not to do something that every business person knew was not sustainable. 

Now that the economy is now beginning to rebound the banks are fighting against the regulations that are needed to prevent this sort of mass greed from happening again.   They do not want to be reigned in on their shoddy business practices and extravagant bonuses rewarding bad and unethical behavior.  

There is a way that the message that never again will big banks be allowed to squander our money can be heard.  And it is with our money that they have squandered.  Everytime a deposit is made to a bank we are giving the bank carte blanche approval to invest that money in however they see fit.  It might be in a hedge fund.  Or it might be in developing a coal processing plant in a foreign country endangering the livelihood of the local people and ruining the environment. 

However, what if people decided to invest their money in community banks?  Banks that invest the depositers money to support the local economy.  There is a movement that is beginning to take notice to move your money from the big banks like Bank of America that squandered our money recklessly and created the largest financial crisis in our history and place them into community banks. 

Community banks and some of these are also non-profit banks invest the money into local economies supporting building construction, local non-profit organizations with grants, and job creation with small business loans. It makes sense to support the local economy.  It also sends the message to the big banks that they can no longer rough ride over investors money with greed and unethical business practices.  

It will take some research to find the right community bank that reflects your values.     Paul Raushenbush writes, “Like the terms ecology and ecumenism, the word economy has the root oikos, which is a Greek word that translates as family or house. Any economy should be judged on its ability to provide for the needs of the entire human family it is meant to serve. Banks are an important part of our economy. As part of our economy they should be judged on how well they are serving our community and national family.”

You may get more information on how to move your money at this site.  Blessings,

“The Family: America’s Taliban” is a sermon delivered to the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Tuscaloosa, AL  on 10 January 2010 © by Rev. Fred L Hammond

Sinclair Lewis’s novel, It Can’t Happen Here published in 1935 tells the story of an American President who systematically strips the constitution of its democratic powers and becomes a fascist dictator. The belief that it can’t happen here is as much an icon of American mythology as the American Dream.

But there is another icon that is also steeped in the American mythos and is actively at work to ensure that it can indeed happen here even while proclaiming that it cannot. Jeff Sharlet, author of the controversial book: The Family: the Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power tells of a religious cult that is at once all American and also a dangerous religious movement that will, if allowed to prosper, dismantle what we have called American Democracy and replace it with a theocracy more powerful and perhaps even more regressive than the Taliban, the repressive Islamic cult that has ruled in Afghanistan.

The word Taliban in the United States has taken on iconic proportions as representing what can happen when a fundamentalist version of a religion takes control of a nation. In this regard, I am using the word Taliban as metaphor when I discuss the religious cult that has achieved today such power in the United States as an elite fundamentalist group.

Jeff Sharlet was invited to live at Ivanwald, a communal house run by the Family for young men who show promise of leadership. It is a boot camp of sorts where residents are indoctrinated into a faith with Jesus, who is as all American as apple pie. He writes, “Ivanwald is one house among many, clustered like mushrooms, nearly two dozen households devoted, like these men, to the service of a personal Jesus, a Christ who directs their every action.” 

 The Family which has also been known as The Fellowship has its roots in American Politics going back seventy years. Abram Vereide was a minister, a protégé of evangelist Billy Sunday in the 1920’s. His ministry was in the Pacific Northwest. He was a struggling minister. He received what he believed was a message from God to go to minister those who were the “up and out,” those in power who did not know Jesus. The vision was for God to use the powerful to restore the world to first century Christianity and establish the kingdom of God on earth. Above all else, God’s law was to be obeyed and the way to do this was by using those whom God had placed into power. “Every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord” is not just a bible verse but a prophetic vision of what literally is meant to occur.

Abram under the command of his God, moves to Washington, DC and begins to meet people who knew people in places of power. He begins to pray with them and establishes the Fellowship around 1935 partly in response to FDR’s New Deal. Abram Vereide taught “that the poor, with their demands for government services—which he understood as a failure to trust that God would provide—were “the adversaries of the church.” 

This is the doctrine behind today’s fundamentalist’s adamant abhorrence to Health Care Reform, Welfare, Medicaid and other services to the poor. Trust God to provide, to seek support from the government means that ones faith in God is non-existent. It contradicts The Family’s belief that governments are God’s authority established on earth but sobeit.

His theology blends the theology of Puritan John Winthrop who wrote, “We shall be as a City upon a Hill, the eyes of all people are upon us.” This was a belief that America would be the seat of the New Jerusalem where the new kingdom of heaven would arise. The doctrine of Manifest Destiny that America had the divine right to claim the continent of North America for her self is part of this new Christian doctrine of America’s faith. It was further expanded in the Monroe Doctrine which declared that the Western Hemisphere was no longer available for European colonization and now under the growing influence of the United States. All we had to do was to claim our rightful place and the New Jerusalem would be established and usher in the Kingdom of Heaven.

Abram’s theology rooted in these doctrinal stances with a literal reading of the Old and New Testaments led him to establish a secretive, inner circle of believers. Abram claimed Jesus had done the same with the levels of teachings that he gave the multitudes versus those he gave to his disciples and those he only gave to Peter and John. The inner circle was much like the small groups that Hitler, Lenin, and Stalin used in wielding power; these would barter back room deals with politicians away from public spheres. It would allow for invisibility.

The theology that Abram Vereide and later his successor Doug Coe would embrace was one of dominionism. Blended with its own American brand of puritan envisioning, Manifest Destiny and Monroe Doctrine, this dominionism relied on the Bible to guide every decision from whom to marry to what tie to wear in the morning. Sharlet writes, “Unlike neo-evangelicals, who concern themselves chiefly with getting good with Jesus, dominionists want to reconstruct early Christian society, which they believe was ruled by God alone. They view themselves as the new chosen and claim a Christian doctrine of covenantalism, meaning covenants not only between God and humanity but at every level of society, replacing the rule of law and its secular contracts. Since these covenants are signed, as it were, in the Blood of the Lamb, they are written in ink invisible to nonbelievers.” 

The members of the family believe they are indeed chosen by God. This explains how South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, a member of the Family, could so brazenly quote the King David story, quoted in our reading from Sharlet’s text today, as the reason why he would not step down as governor after his deceitful trips to cover up an extra-marital-affair. He is God’s chosen and therefore exempt from the ungodly laws of the land.

 Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) is another member of the Family who travels twice a year to Uganda to promote that country’s conversion to Jesus. He once boasted that because of his office he can meet with any leader in the world to preach about Jesus.  He has met with and presumably prayed with Family associate President Museveni. President Museveni since his rise to power in 1986 and his association with the Family has increasingly moved Uganda towards dictatorship and away from democracy. “Democracy”, Jeff Sharlet was told when he lived with the family at the Ivanwald house, was a form of “rebelliousness” against God. 

Uganda made the news recently, when Ugandan Family member proposed legislation that would execute people with HIV/AIDS and/or Gays and imprison those who harbor them. It is no secret that Senator Inhofe is against civil rights for sexual minorities. His rhetoric has been quite emphatic against homosexuals in this country. Only under increasing pressure did Inhofe publicly state he was against the proposed legislation but he has not taken any steps to actively advocate against this genocide proposal given his influence in Uganda.

His original response was much like Pastor Rick Warren’s, founder of the Saddleback Church and while not a member of the Family, Warren is also a frequent visitor to Uganda. Both stated that their role is not to get involved in the political struggles of a nation. Rick Warren has after receiving pressure did a video message to Uganda’s people condemning the proposed legislation as un-Christian. When your goal is to create God centered governments then you are involved in the political struggles of a nation. There is the added responsibility to be held accountable to one’s interference in another culture. “The Family renounces public accountability.” 

Uganda, since 1991, has held a National Prayer Breakfast modeled after the Family’s sponsored National Prayer Breakfast here in Washington. The US National Prayer Breakfast has been an annual event since President Eisenhower was elected to office. As a thank you to the evangelicals who helped get him elected he endorsed the first prayer breakfast created by Abram Vereide, the founder of the Family then called the International Christian Leadership.

The prayer breakfast is not simply a morning prayer with coffee and danish, it is a week long event with workshops on Christianity and government. The powerful from around the globe come in the hopes of meeting with the powerful in Washington. By praying together they form a bond, a doorway, that allows them access to meet unofficially, in the back rooms, with the elite chosen by god.  All leaders of countries are chosen by God according to Romans 13:1 “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities; for there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God.”

This belief is held as literal fact by the members of the Family. Imagine what this belief would do to someone who is Governor of a state, a Senator or Congress person, or even President of the country. Imagine what this belief would do if you believe that the President of the country was not submitted to the will of God.

This year, it is expected that the sponsors of this heinous Uganda legislation will be at the US National Prayer Breakfast in February. The speaker this year will be President Obama. What will he say and more importantly what will he leave unsaid?

Now I try not to be an alarmist about things. I try to see the more positive side of things and I admit sometimes that causes me to stretch quite far in order to do this. But I am alarmed by the Family. I am alarmed when I read how deeply they have infiltrated the offices of government, not only here in the States but abroad. I am alarmed when I read that this is the goal of the Family.

Jeff Sharlet writes about a program of the Family known as “Youth Corps, whose programs are often centered around Ivanwald-style houses, prepares the best of its recruits for positions of power in business and government abroad. Its programs are in operation in Russia, Ukraine, Romania, India, Pakistan, Uganda, Nepal, Bhutan, Ecuador, Honduras, Peru, and other countries. The goal: ‘Two hundred national and international world leaders bound together relationally by a mutual love for God and the family.’” 

These recruits are then sent to these countries and while they may be working on legitimate tasks to benefit the country they are also seeking key volunteers to develop cell groups, we might call them covenant groups. These core groups become the cells that indoctrinate the individuals to lay down their lives to Jesus and to each other. They are taught to submit their wills to Jesus. Each member of the cell is committed to the other, and each member could veto the direction another life was going in if it was determined to be against the will of Jesus.

But they are not just being sent to other countries. They are being sent here as well. Gov. Mark Sanford, Senator James Inhofe, Representative Joseph Pitts, Representative Bart Stupak, Representative Mike Doyle, Senator Sam Brownback are all members of the Family. There are others. You might recognize the names of Stupak and Pitts. They are the bipartisan sponsors of the amendment to the Health Care reform act that limits insurance payments of abortions. 

 The Family is seeking to legislate their understanding of Biblical mandates into how our nation operates. It isn’t just happening now, it has been happening since the beginning of the Family when it was known as International Christian Leadership or the Fellowship.

Sharlet writes: “ ‘Under God’ was added to the Pledge of Allegiance, an initiative sponsored in the Senate by Homer Ferguson, a Republican I C L board member, and financed by ICLer Clement Stone, and ‘In God We Trust’ was added to the nation’s currency by a bill sponsored by a Dixiecrat congressman named Charles E. Bennett, also a member of the Fellowship’s inner circle.”

Our involvement in the atrocities that have taken place in Costa Rica, in Haiti, in Guatemala, in El Salvado, in Somalia, in Indonesia, in Rwanda, in Uganda are all with Family connections. Key people were sent there by the Family to set up prayer cells with the leaders in the hopes of swaying these countries towards being god-led governments. It did not matter that these countries were not democratic or honored human rights of their citizens, what mattered is that they obeyed the teachings of the Family brought to them by Family members who were in positions of power in the US. In exchange these governments received US financial aid and in some instances support for the genocides that took place there. “Jesus must rule every nation through the vessel of American power,” Sharlet writes regarding the Family’s goals.

It is the conviction of these politicians, Sharlet writes, “that more of God’s mandates and the teachings of the Nazarene must be written into current legislation.” 

Sharlet writes “One day, [Doug] Coe [leader of the Family] believes—not yet—America (and Old Europe, too, the Germans and French and Italians who drifted from Christ once their prosperity was assured) will wake up and find itself surrounded by a hundred tiny God-led governments: Fiji, a “model for the nations” under a theocratic regime after 2001, … and Uganda, made over as an experiment in faith-based initiatives by the Family’s favorite African brother, the dictator Yoweri Museveni; and Mongolia, where Coe traveled in the late 1980s to plant the seeds for that country’s post-communist laissez-faire regime. Nobody notices; nobody cares what happens in small places. This is what George H. W. Bush praised in 1992 as Coe’s ‘quiet diplomacy’”. 

 And this is how it can happen here, quietly, far from the lime light; far from the eyes of a press slowly growing cataracts blinding them to really see what is happening. Small groups of politicians meet for prayer and Bible study. They share the stresses of their positions, their infidelities, their pains, as well as their hopes and dreams. Here they are forgiven and embraced as the new chosen people of God. They work to pass bills into laws that reflect their interpretation of God’s laws. They believe they have been given the charge to create the New Jerusalem, a city upon a hill, a beacon to the world, the kingdom of heaven where Jesus can rule the world. Yet, in the process create a repressive regime that slips ever more closely to a theocratic fascism.

Sharlet compares Martin Luther King Jr. with Doug Coe. He writes: “King was a Christian like Coe. Like Coe, he believed in the “beloved community,” the Kingdom of God realized here on Earth, and like Coe, he was willing to work with those who didn’t share his beliefs. But that is where the similarities end. Coe preaches a personal, private submission; King fought and died in public for collective liberation. Coe believes Jesus has a special message for the powerful; King believed God has a special message for everyone. Most important, in 1968, as Coe was constricting the already narrow vision of the Fellowship, King was doing as he had done his whole life: broadening his dream. King died just as he was raising his voice to speak out not only for racial justice but also for economic justice. He would pursue it not through private prayer cells but through public solidarity.” 

If the true spirit and essence of the American experiment is to be fulfilled, it is here in the public arena where it will shine forth. The dream described in the Declaration of Independence was that all people are endowed with inalienable rights including the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. May we shout loud and long in the public sphere that history’s long arc will always bend towards justice and liberty for all people, not just those in power, but for those oppressed.

I am reminded of Mahatma Gandhi’s words, “When I despair, I remember that all through history the ways of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants, and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall. Think of it–always.” May these words offer us hope. Blessed Be.

Quotes unless biblical or otherwise stated are from Jeff Sharlet’s book The Family.

Resources:  Jeff Sharlet,  The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power  Harper Collins e-books

NPR story “A Different perspective on ‘the Family’ and Uganda” aired December 22, 2009

Las Vegas Sun as found at http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2009/jul/19/behind-closed-doors-c-street/

Pensito Review as found at http://www.pensitoreview.com/2009/11/25/the-family-c-street-group-tied-to-uganda-death-penalty-for-gays/

 http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Mahatma_Gandhi/)

Opening Words: “But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart.” Come let us ponder the wonder of this birth that has changed the life course of many.  Come let us ponder the wonder of our own nativity and what our lives may mean in relationship with one another.  

It’s a Boy! By Rev. Fred L Hammond

Delivered to the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Tuscaloosa in Alabama.   24 December 2009 ©

When Jonathon Tucker Jones (not his real name) was born this past August, I pondered on what the world would be like because of his presence in it. Would he grow up to be tall and broad shouldered like his dad? Would he have his mother’s wit? What would he choose to do for a living?

What societal issues will he be facing as an adult? Would he be among those addressing those issues? Is he the one we have been waiting for that will bring true reform to our healthcare? Is he the one that will develop an economic policy that makes our border fences unnecessary? Is he the one that will find a way to make solar and geothermic energy cost efficient enough to mass market? Is he the one who will write the symphony that defines the 21st century? Is he the one we have been waiting for?

I pondered these things and grew amazed at the sharpness of his eyes and his easy smile at the world as it unfolded before him. Perhaps… perhaps there will be another.

Each new life that is received into this world is a life of endless possibilities. If there is anything that 2009 has taught us it is this. We can no longer assume that our station at birth is equivalent to our destiny. The Christian hymn, “What Child is This,” is a universal question of every birth.

He was born in Hawai’i to an interracial couple at a time when interracial marriages were illegal in many states across the US. He was raised by his grandparents. He did well in school enabling him to graduate from Columbia University in NYC. He used his degree in political science to assist in community organizing in Chicago’s south side, a depressed region of Chicago. He decided to go into law and attended Harvard Law School where he became the first African American to head the school’s prestigious law journal. We now know him as President of the United States and his destiny is still unfolding.

She was born in Brooklyn just three days before the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. She was raised in a Unitarian household and learned values of equality and justice. She had to fight for her education since girls weren’t supposed to be educated in the ways of the world. Her education taught her how to analyze social conditions and her style of analysis became the foundation of modern sociology. She became increasingly alarmed at the treatment of African Americans in society. She went on to become the founder and the driving force behind the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People for its first four decades. We know her as Mary White Ovington.

He was born to middle class black family in Atlanta, GA which protected him from the harsher realities of the south. Yet, when he was five years old, his best friend was no longer allowed to play with him because his friend was white and was entering a segregated school. Because of his family’s class privilege he was able to go to college and planned to follow his father and grandfather into the ministry. He spent one summer in Connecticut to work in the Tobacco Farms and was amazed at how different race relations were there versus in the south. He learned about Gandhi’s work in India and wondered how it could be of use in America. He returned to the south to become a minister of a Baptist church in Montgomery and then a boycott against the bus company began. He was asked to speak which elevated him to be the leader of the Civil Rights movements. We know him as Martin Luther King, Jr.

Born in the Ukraine at the close of the 19th century, her family escaped the pogroms against the Jews by migrating to Wisconsin. Her parents thought girls only role in life was to get married; not to have a profession. Over their objections, she went to a teacher’s college and she also married. She and her partner moved to Palestine to work towards building a Jewish state. She organized illegal immigration of Jews to Palestine before and during Hitler’s Third Reich. When Britain arrested the leaders of the Jewish Agency, she became acting head of it and ultimately became one of the signers of Israel’s Declaration of Independence in 1948. She continued to serve the developing country and became Prime Minister in 1969. We know her as Golda Meir.

He was born in a borrowed cave used to shelter animals. His father was a carpenter. His mother pious. He had no provisions to ensure an education. Yet, this person was gifted with a sense of compassion that was extraordinary for his day. He spoke of this compassion that all could develop. He called it loving one’s neighbor as one self. For this message he was arrested and executed. His message, however, has lived on and went to transform the entire world. We call this man, Jesus of Nazareth. Some call him Lord and Savior; others call him a Great Teacher. By what ever name we honor his birth this night.

These stories of men and women reveal one common theme. Regardless of the actions they took as adults, they all had a common and somewhat obscure birth. No one knows how a life will develop and how that life will impact a society.

I think it is important giving this common theme to all births, that we treat each child as having the potential of shaping our future towards peace. What does that mean? It simply means to seek to honor the inherent worth and dignity in each child we interact with because we do not know who this child will be in the service of the universe.

So as I pondered Jonathon Tucker’s birth back in August, I thought there might be some small role that I, that we, might play in his becoming the person he potentially could be. And for that matter, what role do we play in the shaping of all of our lives this Christmas and every day? Perhaps the season is a reminder that there is the potential Christ child in each of us. Blessed Be.

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.