Like many of us, the temptation is to help those poor wrong souls who write all those things on the internet. It's doubly important when those poor misguided souls are UUs! Horrors that we don't help them see their folly..... why they might be embarrassed by their comments when they become as smart as us....
I say sometimes the best way to stay UU is to never talk to another UU - that way you will only be offended by what you hear in the pulpit....
this is of course exaggeration for comic effect, but only slight exaggeration..
while all groups and organizations have their conflicts, they usually can agree on the foundations of the group. UUs can't do that, as we cant agree on a core....
What brings this up to day are the usual shouting matches on a couple of UU mailing lists, with the usual response by some that they will just pick their ball up and go home. A blog response by someone very upset who wants the UUs to do something (I cant really tell what - other than we dont need to criticize what they like) -
I am resisting the UU tradition and jumping in a discussing / arguing back.... by looking at the b below cartoon - a new classic --
One does have to pick and chose what is important, not just spend one's life throwing water on someone who is trying to do the same to you....
Another reason to be thinking this way is all the UU websites Ive looked at this week because of the UU discussion that the spouse and myself had over which UU congregation to visit this weekend - we will be driving near 6 congregations having services (which is pretty good for the south) - the two sermon topics I liked best are congregations that we've already visited (the spouse thinks we need to spread our greatness around to all UUs) - of the remaining 4, one service is very local oriented, one has a speaker who specializes in spirituality of wealth building and two are on paleontology! Hard to chose -
So we suspect that we will be wealthier when we come back home ---
(in all honesty, that is the speakers specialty, not what they will be speaking on).
So, how many wrong statements are in today's UU-ing? You need to write in and correct me - after all we can't have anybody wrong on the internet, can we?

ADDED LATER: The current issue (July 15th 2008) of THE CHRISTIAN CENTURY has a short editorial on "Family Squabbles" or denominational squabbles. "Sometimes we think of denominations as families"; to which the late Jack Stotts, theologian and seminary president - pointed out that the families in the Bible tended to be dysfunctional. So all as it ever was!

I got the quiz from Ms. Kitty's blog (only because I read it prior to James' Monkey Mind blog).
I just wonder what kind of mood or whatever I was in when I took this quiz... A Guardian Angel?
Maybe that is actually meant to be a type of hell? Other folks get to rest in the cool cool ground, or strum those harps - but I get to hang around earth till all my loved ones have died?
I get more responsibilities even after death?? and they say G*d doesn't have a sense of humor....

For some reasons I'm getting a fair number of hits by folks (or by one persistent folk)
looking for info on Unitarian Universalist Seminaries.
Ok, I admit to have a masters degree, but it wasnt from a seminary

you want
Meadville-Lombard
Starr-King

and while not an UU seminary, I believe Harvard now has an UU chair.
many UU seminarians go to non-UU seminaries.
You may want to check this out - lots of helpful info aboput what to do.
http://www.uua.org/leaders/leaderslibrary/ministerialcredentialing/index.shtml
including a list of acceptable non-UU schools for UU ministers.

SR, MEd

Many of the songs in the UUA hymnal are hard to sing by folks singing in the pews; so my first thought for hymnal is "can almost anyone sing it?" - then of course, I like anthem type songs.
and yes, most of these below are folks songs....

these songs ought to be in the UUA hymnal

"Turn Turn Turn" Hard to believe that we dont have this song by UU member Pete Seeger in our hymnal. this could be easily sung by all UUs....

"Lean on Me" this old -1972- standard by Bill Withers would fit most of our humanistic congregations- this or the Carole King "you've got a friend'

'Wasn't that a time" this old Lee Hayes song - Hayes knew his anthems and what got folks singing (he was a Methodist minister if memory serves me right) - this would fit the social justice crowd, wouldnt it? Or maybe his (and seeger's) "If I had a Hammer", maybe a bit cliche for folks of my generation (no idea if the younger folks would know it or not)

we like spirituals (and note some of these might be in the hymnal) - how about "Rock-a my Soul", "sinner man", "standing in the need of prayer", "walk in Jerusalem" "were you there?"
most of these have words that even those of us who read ahead would still be able to sing....
-- (note that I feel the words soul, sinner, prayer, Jerusalem and crucifixion are neutral -
I would possibly be wrong = rock-a-my-spirit, bad human, standing in the need of goodvibes,
etc)
"Give me Oil in my Lamp"

no doubt I'll think of some more later on -
please feel free to add your own (on your blog or mine) songs that ought to be in the UU Hymnal

(and yes, I know copyright laws and payment issues would keep some of these out, but
"turn turn turn", really?)

Ok, we went to the Universalist Convocation in North Oxford MA, and we vacationed there and back - a few thoughts about the trip there and back.....

we had lots of discussions about flying vs driving vs train riding. My partner doesnt feel they can do any stop overs due to inner ear problems, and the direct flights - were either early in the AM or late in the PM. We opted for the flight early in the AM, which meant staying overnight near the airport - I spent way too many hours at work that morning (was supposed to leave at 1 PM, left at 6!) -- bought a new GPS unit, but hadnt had time to learn it too well (if using it once to drive 1 mile is using it at all).
Got to the airport at 6 AM, no problem with our flight. I havent flown in 12 years, so havent experienced the new security measures. Two hour flight versus two day car or train trip, made it much more convent. The waiting at the airport and at the car rental place (we got a trainee who took forever and kept trying to upgrade us, despite our having prepaid). The rental car asessary device (or whatever they call the former cigarette lighter) wasnt working, which meant that we couldnt use the GPS! - and we got bamboozled by bad signage in Boston) -
I had dropped an email to the Gloucester UU church (that John Murray preached at) - had hoped to see the interior - but they closed early that day - (we'll be nice and say they didnt get my email - and not that it was a direct result of my threatened visit). We did have some delicious halibut in a local restaurant. We then took headed to Worcester and our hotel in Auburn. I had some not-so-nice things to say about MA drivers, but I've been corrected by MA drivers to say that what we experienced were Eastern MA drivers. My apologizes to central and western MA drivers, who did seem to be much nicer.
Thursday, we went to Walden Pond - Put a rock on the cairn on the site of the cabin, and I bought a back issue of the Journal of the Thoreau Society, and the partner got a sweatshirt and gifts for the staff at her job. I discovered that the bean field that Thoreau worked at, was white bush beans - perfect for Boston baked beans? Then on to the battlefield at Lexington and Concord. Yes, I stood at the spot where Paul Revere was captured. I admit to being impressed by all the Unitarian Universalist churches - there seemed to be one in almost every town.... living in an area where there is one for every 70 miles, this is impressive. looked at the various graves - the Alcotts, Emerson, Thoreau, etc at the Sleeepy Hollow cemetery in Concord. We had a nice meal at the WAYSIDE INN (in Sudberry?). This is where the setting of TALES OF THE WAYSIDE INN is, so the poem "the Midnight Ride of Paul Revere" is told here (by the Innkeeper). It is also where the Universalist Fraters meet annually. Ate Indian Pudding.
Friday, we went up to see the waterfalls in North Central MA, Royalston and Doane - close enough to New Hampshire, we drove up there to say we did. Friday was also the start of the Universalist convocation - held at the grounds of the Barton Center for Diabetic Education. This was a former Universalist Woman's Association and UUWF property. The UUWF sold it about ten - fifteeen years ago.
i'll forgo comments on the convocation itself for a later post.
Sunday after the convocation was over, we and the Rev Barry Whittmore went to the historic site at Lowell (where the UU connection was the Universalist semi-connected "Lowell Offering" magazine of "Mill Girl writings"), and then up to Lawrence - where they have no easily seen historic markers - but we knew some anyway. Bread and Roses. The GPS was working, after being charged on the laptop, making finding things easier.
Monday we took the train to Boston (avoiding the Eastern MA drivers) - ate Boston Baked Beans, and toured the UUA building. Met friends there, in the building! Did a walking tour, saw the Charles Street Meeting House (now businesses), Saw the outside of King's Chapel (it's closed on Monday in May), and various other historic sites.
Tuesday, took the scenic drive through the rural area of Connecticut in their "last green valley". lots of farms. The General Greene historic site in Rhode Island was closed, so we went to the highest point in RI and signed the logbook instead.
Wednesday, drove early to Logan Airport - the gas station where we were to fill up the rental car was blocked off by construction, but the GPS found us another with no problem. Returning the rental car itself was easy too. So we got to the airport way early. the flight back was very bumpy - just glad it wasnt that bad on the way north - or i would have been anxious about the return flight.
now all i have to do is catch up on my sleep.....

Ok folks, the recent UU Blog discussions are about the ex-Independent Affiliates and the de-funding of the National UU Youth programs.

Jess's Journal does a nice post on her initial feelings about the National UU Youth Program.
this sums up my own feelings so well, that I dont even have to. As I stated there, I almost wish she will turn her post around and explain why the National Cons are good for both individuals and the UU as a group. Because that's what I really would like to hear - yes, I'm a do gooder and I like to think organizations that I belong to, do good.
But all missionary work (and that's what the National UU Youth Program is) has to convince the donors that it's doing the job it was intended to. Or at least, trying hard to do the job it was intended to. And if the program is worth doing, and has lots of support, why aren't people doing fund raising right now? Saying - "if the National UUA doesnt fund it, then we will, because it is worth saving and worth doing". Why isn't this being done?

I'm a member of some of the former independent affiliates. This year, like last year, I paid my dues and looked at and bought books and nicknacks from them. If these former affiliates send a fund-raising letter to me, I would toss in a (small) check, because the work they do is important to me. Would I like it, if the UUA would restore the privileges to my favorite IAs that membership had for them? Sure. I like the UUA to fund them as well, and let me win the lottery so I dont have to work anymore, while you're at it. But each dollar spent on something means you dont have a dollar for something else. So when I support the UUHS, this means that I have to do without something else-no eating out, no good wine, no Rocky and Bullwinkle DVDs.
I personally feel that the Board was too sweeping when they removed virtually all the IAs. I know they were expecting some of them to unite in common ground, but that hasnt happened. On the other hand, the sky hasnt fallen on the ex-IAs either. Most or all still exist - even a full year after the cut. And i admit that I supported some cuts - but I know I couldnt say where to draw the line....
I dont have much vested in these issues. Or do I? I'm at least putting a little money where my loud mouth is. If these issues mean something to you, I hope you will do the same.

As mentioned below, I now have more money. and part of what I was going to do with to save - (I have just a decade before retirement!) and increase my charitable contributions. I had planned to just increase the charities I contribute to now: various Unitarian Universalist, Universalist, and Environmental groups. But I decided to start with a semi-charity Kiva. Kiva is a group that provides loans to loan groups in countries that loan to poor folks who need loans for their business.
the loaner and the loanee make money. Kiva and you (the contributor) don't - although if you are lucky you get your money back. So you can loan it to someone else.
Interest rates can be high (but my credit cards were higher than the one Im loaning to), so not a perfect plan - but seems reasonably fair. Apparently a lot cheaper than the usual loans - and a lot cheaper than the payday loans people here in the USA.
see my link to the right, or go to www.kiva.org
make sure you read their FAQs -

I have been grumpy about UU stuff on other's blogs, but not here. This is because I'm saving the nice stuff for my own blog. You can call me Mr. Knucklehead elsewhere, but here I am Mr. Sunshine.
and what is it that has made me Mr. Sunshine? ah, those of you reading the title above know the answer: I am debt free!
after being in debt for 12 years! (actually longer if you include student loans - so we'll say 22 years!), I am debt free. For the past 8 years, I have been putting aside 1/3 of my income to reduce debt load. and finally I am here ! Just in time to go on vacation !
Sometime in the early Summer, I will have to see what to do with the "extra" dough, but as of now - I see 1/3 (of the 1/3) going to help a family member reduce her debt; 1/3 going to savings, and 1/3 going to charities - it is about time to start tithing again isnt it?

(oh and folks, have a better plan for graduate school and divorce living, OK?)

I found this a very interesting take on 2008 UUA as well as the 1923 UCA.....
sr


Rev Stanley Manning was the director of the Universalist Church's Young Person's department back in 1923 , and among other things, he wrote a weekly coloumn for the weekly denominational paper, THE UNIVERSALIST HERALD. In a column in early June, he wrote that the depression in Georgia was forcing Universalist ministers to move north, as the local churches couldn't afford to pay them a living wage. He suggested that they do something about this.

++++++++++++++++++June 23, 1923
SOME OTHER SUGGESTIONS
The article published two weeks ago on this page and entitled "S.O.S" has let to some rather interesting "Comebacks."
Some have said, "That's the thing; we must help." Others have said, "This is something for the General convention to undertake." Still others, and the great majority, have said nothing.
The Director of Young People's Work has no desire to press this matter except to bring to the attention of the Church the fact that here is a problem whih our brothers and sisters in the South can not solve without our, at least temporary, help.

ARE WE CONGREGATIONALISTS OR EPISCOPAIANS?
These "Comebacks" are illustrative of two different types of mind among us. The congregational mind utilizes a denominational organization only for doing those larger taks which are beyond the possibilities of a local church. It feels perfectly free to undertake any sort of enterprise on its own responsibility, without consulting "the men higher up."
The episcopalian (or presbyterian) mind awaits the initiative of the larger organization, and then undertakes to perform the task assigned.
There are advantages in each, but success depends upon a different set of qualifications in either case.
If we are congregationalists (psychologically) we must have the daring to initiate and carry through projects that challenge us to larger tasks than we have ever undertaken heretofore. It was in the hope that some of our churches might do this to the extent of adding to their salaried workers a missionary pastor and send him to a Southern circuit, that the S.O.S. call was sent out.
The fact of the matter is that our church polity is a combination of these two: it is neither ultra-congregational, in which the local parish can do as it may please, regardless of all the rest, nor is it wholly episcopalian or presbyterian, in which the governing individuals or organizations are absolute. But if we take this fact as an excuse for "passing the buck" when an opoportunity opens or a call for help comes, so that the General Convention officials say "Our hands are tied: we can not appropriate money which the churches do not give;" and the churches say, "this is what we have a General Convention for; it is the convention's affair, and not ours" - well, long ago someone had something to say about those who were asked, "Why halt ye so long between two opinions?" We must make up our minds to be a mighty army and move like one both in our ordinary work and likewise when an emergency arises, or we muct be ready to meet cases of urgent need by special and if necessary extra-legal methods, moved by the universalism of our faith and not by what our next-door neighbors do or fail to do.
My own personal preference is for the former method; I would rather be a buck private in this army, to go or come or stay, to give or to withhold, as my commanding office might order; and I should like him to have the reserve of power necessary to meet emergencies, as does the President of the United States, for instance - only I should want the right, under proper restrictions, to prevent ill-considered or hasty action, to return this C.O. to the ranks and elevate some one else to that position.
But whether we are congregationalists or episcopalians or presbyterians, let us be univesalists, and go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

In about a month, I will be heading off to the Universalist Convocation in North Oxford, Ma.
(still not too late to join us there - see http://nmuc.org/Convo/ ).

However, I will be there a few days before and after the Convocation and am looking for things to do in central Ma (or somewhere else reachable from the North Oxford area). Since I will be busy from Friday evening to Sunday afternoon, Sunday Church visiting wont be one of the things - except for an evening service.....

any suggestions? (and yes, i am thinking of some of the typical UU tourist sites - but feel free to suggest them anyway).

sr

On Palm Sunday I gave a sermon about Easter week, stopping with the story of the arrest of Jesus- with emphasis on the redemption of Peter. Peter, as many of you recall, denied Jesus three times that evening. Our small congregation also had communion, service taken mainly from the old Red Hymnal.

I wanted to go to Church today, Easter Sunday, so we drove 100 miles up to Newberry leaving a big carbon footprint at Clayton Memorial, Lynch's Woods, and various business on the way home. We also talked religion on the long drive back. The sermon and service was excellent, very inspiring - well worth the trip to me. I just wish I could go every Sunday (hey, at least at 200 miles round trip, I have a perfectly reasonable excuse). There was communion there as well, it was Easter Sunday after all. The fellowship was also nice.

I went out and mowed the lawn on Saturday -
a perfect chore for a day between a day of sorrow and and a day of joy.
- and a good sermon point for some year in the future - what do we do on the Saturday in-between?

But today is the day of joy - the time to the do the Snoopy happy dance -
- I personally feel that the Easter story is part of the bookends to the important messages in between the covers; but never mind that today, because it's time for celebrating - I can see the dove carrying the twig in it's beak - the eternal hope, the greater hope, the knowledge that there will be a new and glorious day someday. Something to give us hope. That's part of the joy of Easter ......

Happy Easter everybody!

as I try to bring life back to a smidgen of normalcy, its therefore time to blog!
and what better place to start than by asking:

who am I?
is probably the fundamental question that we ask ourselves, the deep soul searching question for meaning and truth. Thanks to the internet, we can save a lot of time and energy and just take a quiz to find out where we stand!

Ok, I'm half joking - because using the non-Fox Belief-o-Matic, I see that I believe in the belo.
In all the years Ive taken this test, I've never scored below 95% in the UU category - Liberal Quakers and Reform Judaism are always in the top 20 percentile. Usually Neo Pagan is way down the list (wonder what i said this time), and Reform Judaism and Mahayana is sometimes in and sometimes out. Mainline Christianity is sometimes in, but out this week.

http://www.selectsmart.com/religion/
Unitarian Universalism 100%
Liberal Quakers 88%
Reform Judaism 83%
Neo Pagan 81%
Mahayana Buddhism 80%

We end up with two questions from this.
If I am usually 98-100% pure Unitarian Universalist,
can we therefore use me to help define what UU actually is??
and what do these 5-6 religious views have in common? Because by looking at the commonality, then I have good grounding at discovering what I believe; which may tell me who I am....

the old joke that it's the young folks who search for meaning in their lives, because the old folks are too busy trying to survive their lives has some element of truth. My search has no desperation, no angst, no pain - part of that may be because that I managed to deal with the pain, angst, etc many years ago, or it maybe that my life has been blessed, etc. It may even be that I'm kidding myself and that I will be dealing with an existentialist crisis at any moment - indeed thinking about it, that might be quite possible ... If I do, that will just be another piece in the question of who am I?...

As readers of my other blog might have guessed, I've been way too busy to blog coherently. So let me put the Washington Universalist Avowal down below: and how would you modernize it?

The Washington Declaration of 1935

The bond of fellowship in this Convention shall be a common purpose to do the will of God as Jesus revealed it and to co-operate in establishing the kingdom for which he lived and died.

To that end, we avow our faith in God as Eternal and All-conquering Love, in the spiritual leadership of Jesus, in the supreme worth of every human personality, in the authority of truth known or to be known, and in the power of men of good-will and sacrificial spirit to overcome evil and progressively stablish the Kingdom of God.

Neither this nor any other statement shall be imposed as a creedal test, provided that the faith thus indicated be professed.

I just read that a "process observer" watches over the UUA board and board committee meetings to make sure (among other things) that the meeting is anti-oppressive.
Wow, having somebody watching you at all times to make sure Iyoudont make a slip isn't oppressive?



- well ok, this is possibly a minor form of oppression.
And yes, I know that if everyone on the board joyfully and gratefully agrees to being monitored, then it can't be oppression.
And there may be a good reason for the Board not to trust itself to behave. No, no -Seriously!
But it sure does make for a good opportunity to be snarky, doesn't it?.

I see that the Universalist National Memorial Church, UU has finally adopted their new
Declaration of Faith - which has been under discussion for the past year.
While it's not something I would write or state as my favorite, I personally think I could live with it. Of course this brings up the question of what declaration would I write.

www.universalist.org
***********************************************************************

In faith and freedom, we are called
to bring hope and healing to the world,
so that all may rejoice in God’s grace.

I believe in
the universal love of God,
the spiritual authority and
leadership of Jesus Christ,
the trustworthiness of the Bible
as a source of divine revelation,
the need for repentance
and forgiveness of sin,
and the final harmony
of all souls with God.

A couple of days ago, my spouse asked me when I was going to add RSS to my blogs, and I told her that they've always had rss. She looked surprised and told me she would had them to her RSS reader (I think she uses bloglines - i just use the Google reader).
so this means that I now have a new fulltime reader, of course this means that everything I saw could be used against me, right?
- so watch me quickly delete old blog posts :-)

It's been rough this winter, so I havent had much desire to think about great posts for UU-ing. It's easier when i come home to just read a bit of email and do some reading.....

and I just know that you want to know what I've been reading? right?

VOGUES IN VILLAINY: Crime and Retribution in Ante-Bellum south Carolina (1959).
One of those books that just showed up in the house. This is somewhere between scholarly and popular history. Not dry enough for scholarly, and not lurid enough for current popularity. I didnt see any well known SC Universalist or Unitarian names. It does have another suggestion that the neighborhoods where the U and U churches were in Charleston, were less than savory. The book also tells us how much better that SC has gotten in fairness and crime in 100 years.


"the Shack" (c) 2007 William P. Young
an interesting book designed for (i guess) the more liberal
Evangelicals -where "God is presented as a loving and large black woman named
'Papa', Jesus as a laid back and friendly Middle Eastern man, and the Holy Spirit as a calm and cool Asian woman"
it almost made the trinity sensible (to me that is!), and it does explain why
evangelicals evengalize all the time even at the drop of a hat, (as if we didnt already know).
the book itself is about the murder of a small child , and
her depressed father going to the shack where she was murdered and
meeting the Trinity. With a plot like that, it would be easy to slip,
but I think it mostly succeeds. You might check the reviews on Amazon, to see if this would be your type of reading. I think it's a good view at this type of viewpoint.

I've read a stack of Jack Chick comics and tracts, and while this is also a good view of this type of viewpoint, it's a bit harder wading. Or is that too mild? Yes, I guess it is. You can go read a Chick tract on his website, if you havent had the experience.
For a while I was trying to figure out the range of some of the conspiracy theories: Mormon and Mason and Catholic and Muslim and Satanists and who else working together? However I figured it out fairly quickly. Everyone who disagrees with the author is engaged in a conspiracy to damn souls. It's a tough world we live in.

I always wanted a copy of the old socialist newspaper, APPEAL TO REASON, so I was delighted to pick up a copy for the price of a modern magazine - an issue from 1912, where the Appeal was almost up to 1/2 million weekly subscribers. this issue was an Teddy Roosevelt issue (not sure when Includes a space on the cover where the US post office refused to let them run a particular article on TR. Im still reading this, so not sure if this is pre-Bullmoose or not.

Lastly, I was reading one of my old posts on my history blog, where I comment about spam comments. At that time I mentioned that I would generally remove commercial spam, and that is when I put all comments to be moderated. I said I thought I wouldnt have to moderate more than that. Yes, I was young(er) and naive back then. For the record: since this blog is my house, I have the responsibility to keep it in what I think is reasonable shape. If you want to libel someone else, use your own blog, not mine. Thomas Jefferson is alleged to have said that "Freedom of the Press is owning one". Since almost anyone can do their own blog, I see no reason to let mine be hijacked by someone else.

I've gotten some Will Rogers films recently. You know, nice guy that he is, he never met a man he didnt like. It's been awhile since Ive seen one of his films (like decades), but I do have some old Will Rogers for President material that I enjoyed reading. I suspect that a good book of his old columns would be fun (maybe they would need to be annotated, but it would be fun." I see that the actual quote was about Trotsky and Rogers said about him "I bet you if I had met him and had a chat with him, I would have found him a very interesting and human fellow, for I never yet met a man that I didn't like." I can believe that, almost anyone can act likable.

Mom To the Left wrote her list for 2007, and it makes sense to fit mine here.....


List your favorites from 2007:

Book: Here If You Need Me
Movie (DVD): Popeye The Sailor Volume 1
(although Im working on Treasures from American Archives III)
TV Show: none, I watched no TV shows this year
unless you count the DVDs of the Flatt and Scruggs Show,
Song: Now Be Thankful (Richard Thompson)
Singer/Group: Alison Krause
Christmas Gift: only present was the DVD of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit (the spouse and I buy an ancestry subscription)
Dinner Food: Spinach pirogies, Porkchops with balsamic vinegar
Snack: wasabi covered anything
Ice Cream Flavor: Cherry
Drink: diet vault (can someone say caffeine....)
Color: green
Hobby/Relaxing Thing: reading
Toy: my new computer

Where did you go on vacation?
Universalist convocation in Bellville Ohio (and visited Berlin and Wooster and Ohio Amish country and my mother's family roots in Lutheran country)
ALA meeting in Washington DC (not being a member, I spent my time at the husker's room, also went to the Universalist National Memorial Church)
Also McCormick and Myrtle Beach SC for weekends

What is your proudest accomplishment this year?
Giving two sermons in North Carolina.

What will you remember this year for?
giving my first two sermons to a neutral audience.

Make 1 New Year’s Resolution!!
spend less

how about you?

Today is Christmas Eve - forecast is for more rain ---it will be a nice 64 degrees later today.

I've been quiet, making a few comments on other blogs when I have time, but not doing much here. The reason being: Ive been busy.

My mother has been in the hospital for the past three weeks, and after work I have been there. As her health care power of attorney, I had to make tough decisions about her care, this means I had to make tough decisions about her life. There turns out to be no good decisions, just tough decisions. I had the fun of having a friend of the family lambaste my decision (which was to let her leg be amputated).
I did get some reading done while in the hospital though.... the rest of us are doing fine. My mother survived a year, so she's a tough woman.....

Ive got one gift under the tree - so I guess I havent been completely bad this year.
Ive got a couple gifts I bought for myself coming, which you're going to see if you read my southern Universalist history blog (assuming I get the time to read them anytime soon).

In the New Year, we plan to go to the Universalist Convocation in North Oxford Mass in May. Hopefully I'll be less quiet by then.

Over on Dan's Yet another UU blog, the question becomes "What makes for Kick-Ass worship".
I responded, maybe not too helpfully... ok, no "maybe" about it: I responded unhelpfully with the observation that one person's good service is another person's bad service. And admitted that I cant stand youth services and large churches. Those of things that would make me stay at home. If I knew the youth or their parents, I would be more inspired. But then I dont like drum circles either.... and large churches throw way too many things that I don't care for. Say can one bring binoculars to large churches? I should mention that I dont go to large concerts either.

Shelby Meyerhoff lists several great things to make up for my post
"Music that is vibrant and accessible, Preaching that has a clear message that is relevant to listeners’ lives, Worship leaders who are warm, friendly, joyful and expressive" and a few more - which you can find at Dan's website.

As I think back to a service I provided to a group in NC last week, I wonder how sucessful I was. I can certainly see what should have been better - audience feedback certainly told me what they found interesting. And what I should have emphasized - and If I ever give this sermon again - I'll have a better understanding of what works. (My grandfather had a list of many sermons and when and where he gave them - it helps to avoid repeating it at the same place). Obviously the questions and comments that people gave, were what they found most interesting, and most inspirational....

for someone who only gives 6-8 sermons a year, Im impressed by the pros who can give 52- or more a year!

I find songs very important, both in front of the pulpit and behind it. They engage the congregation - I like loud numbers with loud singing - anthems. I like the participation, being part of things.

I have sick for the past few days -
- and have just gotten out of the sick bed to go to be with family.

-- it was rough. Nobody was in a particular pleasant mood -

not us, because we have been sick.
not nieces and nephew - just because we're their aunt and uncle.
not brother and sister and spouses - because they were trying to fix up the house
and now have to figure out what do we do with all this stuff
not my mother, because this is now a year since her stroke that led he to leaving her house to live in a nursing home and not be able to think clearly and not to live her life the way she wanted to.

"why are we here?" I was asked, and the answer is because they are family.
In a few years, we wont be able to spend thanksgiving with them anymore,
they will be hoping to have their children come to visit them on holidays then,
we're here because we share a history with them,
... oh, and because we love them, and they love us - they're family.
They're not perfect, but they're family.
And Im thankful for them....

I have a sermon to give in three hours, but instead of finishing it - Im puttering with music videos - hey, if they want a fancy sermon, we can get a professional rather than an amateur to give it. and Im thinking, I might have to do a "John Murray" and just flesh out my topic at the time I give it.

"A Heart Needs A Home" was written by Richard Thompson and song (in this video) by him and his then wife, Linda Thompson. They were devote Muslims at the time of this video,
and it is believed by some that this songs represents Richard Thompson's conversion experience. The words are vague enough that it could fit about anything with an influence on our lives, that fills that yearning. Knowing that it's really a religious song adds a different element to it.

Fast Payday Loans

OK, so this blog is written on a college level (and my history Southern Universalist blog is written on a post-graduate level), is this enough to make this a real UU blog?

sure, why not?
do you have a more surefire method?


(note that the force ad has had it's link changed to my other website - so sorry no loans there, just southern Universalist history.....)

I'm to write a sermon for next Sunday - it will be our Thanksgiving service (we won't have one the next week) -
and for some reason I keep thinking of the Dave Swarbrick and Richard Thompson song
"Now Be Thankful" -
of which you can read the words by clicking on the link, and hear the music by clicking on the video.
and before somebody asks, yes we all let our hair grow that long back in 1970. Clothes and songs were a bit Victorian romantic.
Dave Swarbrick (singer on this version) got to be fortunate enough to read his obit in the UK papers a few years back and he survived a lung transplant. Richard Thompson converted to Sufi Muslim not too long after he wrote this song; today he calls himself a liberal Muslim.
To play music in a Church, you have to have the proper music license - and we dont have one that covers this song, so I dont have to think about what the congregation would think.
And certainly that Victorian style romanticism is not for everyone -

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"Now be thankful for good things below
Now be thankful to your maker
For the rose, the red rose blooms for all to know"

The Rev. Peacebang has a blog on "I'll Pray For You"
that reminded me of a few things, which means I will talk about them now.

Five years ago, just before the death of my father - when I would visit or stay with them, I was often invited to say grace for them. We had our standard graces, and I can easily move to the one I thought they preferred, my voice would deepen and enlarge in volume, as I would start "Let us pray:" and then at the end, I would say "amen" to be followed by my mother saying a 'thank you'.

A prayer and grace can serve many purposes, and even a standard grace needs to fit the occasion and the purpose. My standard table grace would include being thankful for those who sat with us at the table and being thankful for what we were about to eat - that there were indeed those who could not sure the abundance of what we shared.

All of my standard table grace was acceptable for my parents, who grew up in the Great Depression and knew hardships and hardwork. Wordwise it included those that gave them comfort and satisfaction. These are not the same words I would use in a grace for UUs. Some UUs wouldnt feel any problems with it, but many certainly would (and I confess that my parents liked Male pronouns).

I admit that the first thing that would go would be, the words "prayer" and the words "grace".
Let's put aside what the actual words mean, I forgo "words" to focus on the purpose. Yes, it's really not a table reflection, or pre-meal thoughts - but if the purpose is to be thankful - then that is what I do: remind us to be thankful, to count our blessings.

In the example Peacebang presents: folks are angry about folks offering to pray for others. Not the "I'll pray for you to be saved, you heathen devils" prayer, but the "I will pray for you not to suffer" prayer. My initial thought is to wonder if they worry that they will get cooties if someone prays for them. As an aging southerner, this in-your-face anger puzzles me - If someone tells me something bizarre - "I'm going to the moon and eating some green cheese", then anger isnt how I would react. Since prayer is an accepted by the majority of US and World citizens - does this mean that those prone to anger at prayers are angry all the time? Isnt that a waste of anger - couldnt that anger be more productive? Aren't there worse things to be intolerant of?

My usual table graces arent as long now, as when I said them to my parents. Indeed even in my inclusive vocabulary, they might not be a table grace any more. But I do thank the cook or the preparer of the meal, I am appreciative of the reality that even simple fare is more than many others have. Even in my shyness, I have no problem when other at my table say "let us pray".
Prayer helps us focus on what is important.

Over on UUA Trustee Linda Laskowski's blog she asks some questions such as "Would we prefer more or fewer of our UU ministerial candidates to be attending non-UU schools, basically 'out-sourcing' most of the training of our ministers?"

Hard to argue with that question.
Is there anyone who would argue for outsourcing all UU ministers?

To me, the question is "why dont more of our potential ministers want to attend our schools?"

Is it distance? too expensive? or something about the school? All things can be fixed - distance learning through computers is easy - getting money less so, changing the schools even less so. But still all possible - if we know why folks aren't going. I would assume that someone has done a study on this - haven't we? What was the results? why do our potential ministers pick other schools?

I've been mostly quiet on this blog - not that's there is anything wrong with those videos, but here's what's been going on over here.

the last issue of the UU World quoted me, so I can now say "as mentioned in UU World", right?
This lead to a slightly more email - all dealing with UU history.

i did a lecture at my local UU Congregation on " Buddhism for Beginners"; a basic primer on what the Buddha said, and how folks now follow his teachings. In early December i will be upnorth in eastern North Carolina talking to the good folks at Outlaw's Bridge Universalist Church at Seven Springs. They will be hearing about D.B. Clayton. The folks in NC want a sermon and not a lecture. We will see if I can do that - a sermon is much tougher than a lecture. I will be making my notes more orderly (I could probably give an all day seminar on the topic).
and I plan to re-read the autobiography and a debate book by Clayton. I will mention the G-word when I talk - probably in quoting Clayton.

Sinus issues have left me drained and tired. you can repeat that sentence about 3 times for maximum impact.

recent books read: Benjamin Franklin by Walter Isaacson; currently reading Lost Stories by Dashiell Hammett. I should be finished reading this sometime this week. Not sure what I'll read next. Probably a children's book by Manly Wade Wellman (the only writer that my grandfather, my father and myself all three met - at separate times. Wellman did a lot of NC history books, and apparently convinced a lot of folks he was a southern writer). Or I might read a religious book - maybe I should get a pattern: reading religious books, non-fiction, and fiction in rotation.

so, what's new with you?

"On this day in 1812, Thomas Thayer was born. He became a leading theologian of Universalism, writing eloquently about the tree of life, the unity of creation, and the human race as one great family growing into harmony with God. "

so says today's "New Morning with Timberly Whitfield" inspirational email newsletter. No idea if he was mentioned on the TV show or not.

His best known books are "Theology of Universalism" and "Over the River". I own the later, and at least the first is on Google Books.

The full title of the last is "Over the River; or Pleasant Walks into the Valley of Shadows, And Beyond: A Book of Consolations for the sick, the dying, and the bereaved."

His work is typical early victorian, so a bit hard to get into; but how nice to slip Universalism into the emails of 2007.

" On the Road" is 50 this month, next year (i think) will be the 50th anniversary of "Dharma Bums". Ya know not many folks mention J.K. when they talk about folks who popularized Buddhism in the west....

this is about as off-topic as I can get....

I see on a couple of UU blogs that it's "Blog Day" - apparently you're supposed to recommend 5 blogs you've just discovered --- http://www.blogday.org/

-- well I cant do that ---
i can list some non-UU blogs I read -both religious and non religious

http://christian-universalism.blogs.com/thebeautifulheresy/
a Christian Universalist, who would have fit it wonderfully in the UCA of the 1780s-1920s.

http://blog01.kintera.com/christianalliance/
a liberal Christian political news site - "Christian alliance for Progress"

http://www.splcenter.org/blog/
Hate Watch: for those serious about watching Hate

http://www.newsfromme.com/
blog of Mark Evanier, writer of TV, comic books, animation, and articles. (so yes, a professional writer). I've mentioned in at least one of his non-fiction books..... blog is a mixture of politics, LA culture, and writing for animation, TV, and comic books.

http://billcrider.blogspot.com/
Bill's another professional writer (of crime novels), to be honest I'm not sure if I've read any of his fiction or not (we are on some of the same mailing lists). Unlike Mark, I'm sure Bill has no idea who I am. He sure can find some odd ball stuff though......

Tom Lehrer was one of the highlites of the early 60s -
for those of you who dont know him: this is satire.
To a certain extent, this particular piece is dated satire....

"Here If You Need Me: A True Story" Kate Braestrup (2007)

My Amazon review:

"Plucky Widow's Story", August 22, 2007

In the middle of the book, author Kate Braestrup speaks of a "Plucky Widow's Story" - thus providing herself with another hook for her own book. If you like an author this aware and with this ability to smile at herself, then you will probably like this book. For a book filled with tragic death, it is both fun and breezy, however she treats both death and those who died with respect. That's a hard balancing act, which she accomplishes quite well.
This is not a theological book (although you can find some theology toward the end of the book), those seeking that need to look elsewhere.
Emergency ministrial work is a hard field to be in, and many burn out quickly. I am impressed enough by this book to wonder, if she stays in that field, what she will be able to write in another ten years.

************************
Additional comments:

This book has been getting fairly good reviews. She is an recently graduated UU minister who works as a Chaplain for the Maine Game Wardens. She entered the ministry after the death of her husband, taking on the role that he had picked for himself.
I liked the book, and expect that it could serve as a good way for Christian UUs or Universalists to share with others how their faith works. She has the spirit of a new minister and the knowledge of someone who knows the lessons she has learned and how to share those lessons.

A little kid was in my office, about 5, and putting a rubber medical glove over his bare foot; and then putting his shoe back on.
I looked at his mother and grandmother and said: "You know you're old, when the thought of putting a rubber glove on your foot never even occurred to you"

I cleaned up and turned in my key to my Storage Locker earlier this week.
You know that there are only one basic reason to have a storage locker: one has too much stuff.
How one gets too much stuff is a different thing. I've known collectors all my life, and they need space to store their collections. I know someone who has his barn filled to the rafters with his collections. I recently gave a collection of magazines to a gentleman in Ohio, it went straight from my mother's closet to his brother's attic! Obviously these kinds of folks dont mind getting a storage locker - it's just another room in the house.
Another reason to get a storage locker is when you have too much stuff and literally no place to put it. One is either homeless or near homeless. Sometimes the stuff in a storage locker, if sold, is enough to make one non-homeless. There is an artist, who is presumed dead, who when the contents of his unpaid storage locker were auctioned would have been enough to pay for many years lodging (the person who ended up with it - sold it for enough to buy a small house); of course even homeless artists can be both ignorant of the value of their belongings and hopeful that they one day would be back on their feet and able to enjoy their long owned treasures.....
As for me? I was homeless...and needed a place to put most of the rest of my stuff. Furniture, dresser, desk, my grandfather's old office chair, camping gear, and way too many collectibles. My parents nicely gave up their garage and a bedroom - so no, I was not homeless in the "on the streets" style, but I could have easily been. (Besides my parents, a female friend offered me a room - in the "you stay on your side, and I'll stay on mine" roommate style, but considering our personalities that would have been Oscar and Felix for sure). Since I paid off the locker and writing this short essay, all the thoughts and feelings of that time have made this a rather bitter-sweet weekend. I am fortunate that my experience has turned out for the best, but it's more of a "There but Fortune, Go You or I" type of experience, not because of my skills or hard work.
You never know what's going to happen in your life- dreams turn sour, and things that seem impossible become miracles.
I'm still only a step or two away from homeless - I don't have parents who can put me up, that female friend is getting married this month, I've been married myself for a few happy years.
If I ever need storage space again, I also know where to go....
I still have too many collectables....

My spouse is in Washington yesterday and today - ordinarily I wouldn't hear about her day until she got home -- but this time it made the AP newswire including on Newsday -
-despite this donation, you can still give, as the fund raising continues - this is in a poor rural area.

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newyork/ny-bc-ny--clintons-donation0724jul24,0,7939242.story?coll=ny-region-apnewyork

Miracles - what do they mean?
(written in the hours in the middle between bedtime and awakening time -so not an article but a discourse)


I was reading tonight the 6th of Osamu Tezuka's 8 volume BUDDHA "graphic novel", "magna" or otherwise huge comic book. As usual when reading a fictionalized biography, I wonder how much is "true" and how much the author made up. While reading this volume of the BUDDHA, I seem to recognize some of the characters from various books on Buddha that Ive read - although a quick googling shows that much of what I read seems to be solely the work of Tezuka.

A couple of things strike me, but the parallels between Jesus and Buddha teaching, I will just point out that JESUS AND BUDDHA: THE PARALLEL SAYINGS, by Marcus J. Borg is one such source. I (and the book) make no call about any Buddhist influence on early Christianity (and I'm skeptical myself).

Part of the reason I had some difficulty in knowing if the characters and stories in BUDDHA are fictional is that my main source of the life of Buddha, are various western versions where the miracles are cut out. Sorta like the Thomas Jefferson Bible. As a rule I dont have much problem with that -- I think of the miracles in both Buddhism and Christianity as pointers to the truth. Indeed, I call the big miracle stories in the New Testament: "book jackets for the story". But tonight as I was reading about Buddha preaching to crocodiles, chopping wood with his mind, and of course healing the sick in body and mind -- it powerfully struck me that ignoring the miracles - is missing the story. Missing the story almost as badly as those who only see the miracles.
While I continue to believe that miracles in scriptures are pointers to truth, items designed to wake us up, to make us understand that their words are worth pondering; miracles are important in themselves. We need miracles. They make see that things can change, that things wil be better.
Simply put miracles are things that are rare, that isn't suppose to happen, "something wonderful". A man gathering deer as disciples is indeed something wonderful, healing the dying is indeed something wonderful. Feeding the hungry either on the side of the sea, or over the world is a miracle. Can miracles happen to us now? Yes, it can; I don't mean like winning the lottery, that's not a miracle. Winning the lottery when you only buy one ticket a year, and either need the money or give it to someone/thing that needs the money - now, That's a miracle: something wonderful. Getting a call from a long lost friend after thinking of, but not hearing from them in a long time - that's a miracle. Being able to smile and laugh after losing or suffering a loss -and mean it: that's a miracle. Helping someone without thoughts of reward or even notice, is a miracle for both.

I wont go on and on about what would happen if the earth actually did stop rotating, and the sun stopped moving, that's not really important - and misses the whole point of miracles....What's important is that if you see or feel a miracle, that you touch it, that you thank it, that you embrace it, and that you ponder it, deep in your heart.

I got a copy of the Abingdon Press Fall and Winter 2007/8 Trade Catalog ("Trade" in this case means for retailers and librarians). Abingdon is an United Methodist imprint. And they have Study Bibles, books on theology, hymnals, children's books, sunday school books (including "One Room Sunday School") books for youth - including theology, DVDs for youth, Adult Sunday School Material including DVDs,
Some of this looks very good: such as Adult studies on Hospitality, Forgiveness, Discernment, and Intimacy,and death and dying. "How to act like a Christian". Some look disappointing: The "Christianity Family Tree" mentions many of the current Christian traditions, but liberal Christians arent mentioned in the title of the sessions. There is even "Preaching Annual 2008" which sermons to print out - apparently one for every week of 2008!
Now the UUA catalog is fine, but it's small, and lacks many of these type resources and themes (hard to believe the UUA is that far behind in DVDs....) And as I was looking at these books, I wondered ... what would be right for UU or other liberal Christians?
So, I thought this would be a good starting place to ask:
What books are good for UU Christians? and by that I mean those who are mostly unitarian and universalist - who spent more time with the words in red in the middle, and less with the stuff at the begining and end....(knowing that there are UUs Christians who arent unitarian or universalist or even thiest). These books must be "in print"!

Please add or link by including the book and why, dont just say "Books by Borg" - say which ones and why.... write like you're trying to sell the book to other UUs.


Let me start by adding:
Christian Voices In Unitarian Universalism (2006) Editor: Katleen Kolenz
15 personal stories by those who heard Jesus while being UUs, and their joys and sorrows while doing so....

Books distributors like to sell books, and if they think you might buy $1000s of dollars of books from them, they will try to give you catalog's and discounts and even free books. I dont buy $1000s of books, but my wife does - (you know I was about to figure out how much $ I spend on my personal books and I dont want to go there....it may be in the 1000s range ... burr....)
Ok, I own way too many books already - but when the opportunity to get more books is here, I will do so! and with a happy face.

I do draw the line at books that I "need" for my library - or in the case of free books, might buy others from the same publisher, etc.

So I picked up history, books about pre-1950s comic strips and books, silent movie books, psychology books, and religious books.
In this blog, I will mention what religious books I got and why - I wont review them, I havent read them! I will note I saw folks from Abington, Tyndale House, and Moody - but not Beacon or Skinner House, or anyone distributing them.

FROM TYNDAL TO MADISON - Michael Farris - (2007) Advanced Reader's Edition. B& H publishing co. I see that this company descends (or is) the one of the first USA publishing Company - from Christopher Sowers 1743 press. That will almost forgive them from publishing Oliver North novels. I cant tell from their website, if they are affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention or not..... The author is the founder of Patrick Henry College, the controversial so-called Christian college best known for providing job opportunities in the George W. Bush administration. This book is due out July 1, 2007.

THE QUR'AN translated by Abdullah Yusuf Ali 1995 Tahrike Tarsile Qur'an. This is the most common translation (in English) of the Qur'an - sorta the King James version.....I dont think I have tried to read the Qur'an - so i look forward to it. Note I said "try", most scriptures arent easy going. I've read the BIBLE, many of the non-canon "gospels", an abridgment of Ramayana and Mahabrata (not quite scriptures). I didn't finish The Book of Morman, and will admit to still struggling with Ballou's. a short sermon is easier reading than many scriptures.

A HISTORY OF THE AMISH revised 2003 Steven M. Nolt, Good Books. I believe that Good Books is an independent Mennonite press, owned by the Good family. They are best known for their slow cooker cook books. but they also publish quilting and peacemaking books. I've read the earlier edition of this, so I have no doubts that it will fit well on my shelf of denominational histories.

I also got the current issue of SCIENCE AND SPIRIT - looks good, I cant say I was familiar with it before ------ but again, I havent read any of these yet --

I've been out of town for most of the past two weeks -
in Charlotte and Washington -- hope to say somethings about both.... but first....

UU Affliates
There have been around 60 UU Affiliates, but affiliate status was changed and now there are only 7 affiliates.

Council of Unitarian Universalists Camps and Conferences
Unitarian Universalist Urban Ministry.
DRUUMM
Universalist Convocations
UU Women’s Federation
UU Service Committee
UU United Nations Office

The applications for three other groups, Partner Church Council, UU Ministry for Earth, and the UU Small Group Ministry Network, were held for consideration at the next board meeting in October.

Today for memorial day, my wife went and sold poppies, and I mowed the lawn. Both standard Memorial Day activities. For lunch, we had corn on the cob, baked beans, and I had some blue fake-gateraid (not finished mowing the lawn). With the exception of my blue drink, a mostly standard memorial day lunch.
Mowing the lawn without headphones, you do some thinking.....

Memorial Day is a day for remembering those who died for us in wartime. As usual, I think of my uncle, who was killed in the south pacific - one of the first casualties from North Carolina. I never knew him, but he was only 10 months different in age from my father, and as a teenager, i was given his Eisenhower jacket and his leather flight jacket. the Eisenhower jacket is now in a museum, and the leather jacket hanging in my closet. If I could lose 50 pounds, I could fit into it again, like I could when I was his age. His age, I think of soldiers of ww2 of being in their 30s-50s, because that's how old the veterans of ww2 were when I began to think of them. But like all soldiers, they were young. My uncle would have been around 20 - 21 when he died.
All of his brothers went on to get graduate degrees, he was successful in high school, got a college scholarship - he could have had a long happy life past 1942.... but he chose to enlist in a war. I dont know his motivation, but I suspect that he wanted to do the right thing for his country - which was clearly the right thing to do for his family. His father did not serve in ww1, nor his grandfathers in any war - but he had heard the stories of wars - a great grandfather had died in the war of the 1860s, and both sides of the family were full of stories of sacrifice and hardship from that war. No 20 year old believes that they are going to die, but Im sure he knew it was a possibility. But he thought that that risk was worth it. With hindsight and bluntness and possible selfishness, he was right. The sacrifice that he and others made was worth it, The USA has and had plenty of problems - but it would have had more problems had the result of WW2 gone differently. I raise my poppy and give thanks to him and to all of those who gave their lives for me. Thanks so much.

Over on "Mom to the Left"'s blog - I left a comment about hymn singing, and I mentioned that I had intended to mention it on my blog- so let me do so.

On the way to Shelter Neck, I took a hymnal; and while my suffering spouse drove, I sang every hymn I knew. I discovered a few things about our current hymnal.

1) I dont know many of the songs. I know a few by heart, but most I dont even know by looking at the words.

2) there are a fair amount of Charles Wesley hymns in there. that being so, let me plug (unheard by me - so buyer beware) Maddy Prior's upcoming CD "Paradise Found" - a collection of Wesley tunes. Prior is famous for singing in her own band and in Steeleye Span (and for having an X-men named after her). It should be good - as Wesley knew how to write a tune.

3) we have a few old classic folk tunes (and a lot of civil war era spirituals), but some of the classic folk tunes arent there. Why not the classics like Pete Seeger's (who is an UU) - "Turn Turn Turn" or more dated "Where Have All the flowers gone". Why do we have wimp folk songs (cough cough) and not more with passion or conviction? Why not "No Man's Land" (AKA Willie McBride) or even "Last Night I had the Strangest Dream". ok, well maybe not - and probably not "Positively 4th Street" either....

4) being on a hymnal committee must be the thankless job ever.........

I assume that most folks have been to the Belief-o-Matic at Beliefnet.....

I go every couple years to see what I am "today".
Now, that's a rather UU thing to say, isnt it?
However I was an UU long before the internet -

5-10 years back, Belief-o-Matic had me as 100% UU, but I've been slipping

"today", I'm

1.	Reform Judaism (100%)
2.	Unitarian Universalism (98%)
3.	Liberal Quakers (94%)
4.	Mahayana Buddhism (81%)
5.	Sikhism (80%)
6.	Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (80%)

This is the first time that sikhism has been this high -- and as I was thinking "what has changed in me? do i listen to too much Richard Thompson music or what?" when the question to me became "is it me changing? or does Belief-o-matic keep up with changes in the religion themselves? A Baptist today is a long way away from a Baptist 40 years ago - the same for a Methodist .... and the same for an UU ----
- so not only how do we keep up with who we are, how do we B_O_M keep up with who the religions are?

I googled, looking for info on N. P. Walker for my other blog -- and I found these quotes by me...
I thought it was worth moving over here.
this from where someone who was leaving the UU for a more Christian denomination, I wrote
**********************

"it’s like a divorce - does one remain friendly or social (particuarly if there is no children) - or does one forget all the past, good as well as bad? - or then there’s the folks who try to conivence the rest of us that their joy at their new life means the rest of us are wasting our lives associating with their ex. If God wanted a hell, it would be full of folks complaining about their ex- (spouse, religion, football team, drinking habits, etc)

Seriously, we only given a short time to live our lives,so we have to do what we feel right and best. to do what’s right. To grow, to learn, to celebrate and live one’s faith to the best we can.

“Oh let me live from this day forth to sing
The prasies of earth’s victorious God and King.
Oh send me out to tell the nations of a love
That bars no soul outside that heavenly home above.”
—Rev. Athalia L.J. Irwin, portions of her poem “Heaven”, written on her day of ordination to the Universalist ministry November 1902.

In my tiny monthly UU Fellowship, I dont go for worship, as I worship everyday. Certainly the sermons that I give (when I give them) would not be fulfilling for those looking for worship. I hope they are fulfilling in other ways…even if the word Jesus and God aren't mentioned every time.
One of the good things about Universalism and Universalists, is that when someone leaves the fold - we miss them, we wish they would come back, but unlike other religious views, we don't worry about their souls….

I was scheduled to give the service, this past Easter Sunday.
I made the mistake of asking what folks wanted, and what they wanted was a traditional UU Easter service. So I asked around, I read old Hymnals, I asked around more. I got the Celebrating Spring and Easter book by Carl Seaburg.
I found the 1938 Hymnal very indicative of traditional U and U service, it contained both a very traditional Christian service and a very traditional Humanistic service. So I did readings and hymns and wrote a sermon including both the Humanists and the (UU) Christians.

I had the opportunity to try it out at an UU camp, where we were doing volunteer work that weekend. So I can now say that "I preached twice on Easter - doing a circuit of 150 miles.... just like the old Universalist preachers did....." If only the crowd at either place was big enough to be impressive..... That was fun, but what I want to mention here is that the preaching was volunteer and the work at the UUCamp was volunteer work too. I have nothing against paid preachers and paid workers - but we need more volunteers - at Church - and elsewhere. Modern life does seem to be a big time trap, making it harder and harder to volunteer to do things - but the need still is there. There are needs for little league coaches, umpires; PTA/PTO members; choir members; red cross bloodmobile workers; some of these things dont take going around 150 miles, you can go around the block; some of thse things dont have to take hours of time either - you can probably do some valuable things for society in under an hour a week (and bless those of you who spend more than that!!) - consider helping at the soup kitchen, or meals on wheels; ask your church, your council on aging, join a civic club, pick up trash on the highway --
Now how am I going to tie this in with Easter? Easily! Jesus went around volunteering his time. He didnt get paid for his curing sick people, comforting the ill and oppressed. He did it because it was the right thing to do - regardless of our theological orientation, go thou and do likewise! (gee, I wish i had had that part in my sermon!) As we celebrate Spring and the renewal of life; let us recall the ways we can let our light shine.....

I've posted some material earlier
concerning this years Universalist Convocation - first weekend in May 2007
in Bellville Ohio.

I havent yet gotten permission to distribute the forms to folks who might ask me,
but if you havent signed up and want to go, i can give you the email address to get an application form.

It should be fun - it'll be my third UC.

It you dont want to attend the whole weekend, the church service Sunday will be filled with Universalists,
might be worth going to see just to see what a church filled with Universalists looks like.

My mother is dying. It seems strange to put that in black and white, just like that. My mother is dying. The words do indeed sound odd as I mull it around in my head.
It shouldnt come as any surprise - she's really been dying for the past 4 years, ever since my dad died. Her stroke on Thanksgiving Eve and then this past weekend her recent episode where her heartbeat refused to go over 52 even with the external pacemaker were just the most recent manifestations.
Yes, Friday morning when the doctor called and asked what we, the family, wanted to do - did put the words in motion... what did we the family want to do.... As the only local child and the health care power of attorney, it was my responsibility to call my brother and sisters. What did we want to do? Could she survive surgery? My mother is dying.
And as one of the family asked "Does she have the will to live?" And bluntly the answer is "no". She's been dying for a long time, and for many reasons. She doesnt have the will, the desire to live, to see new things, to hear new songs, to laugh.

Historically, my religious faith, Universalism, has been derided by others as not "a good faith to die in". Not having died yet, I cant really say for sure; but my mother's faith (not the same as mine) doesn't seem to be a good faith to live in. At least for her. I hope it gives her some strength, but it doesn't seem to give her enough - we are not just folks born to die (although we do), what we do and say does matter (although I will grant not as much as we want) -- our life does have meaning - and my faith sustains that for me.

Bob Dylan (recently declared a false prophet - a term he might agree with) once said that "he is not busy being born, is busy dying"... our life has to stay involved, to stay active - even if the active part is the brain, even if the active part slows down ....

there are poems to write, there are songs to sing, there are birds to watch,
you can do some of those things from your bed or chair.

I expect to say sometime later this year, that my mother is dead. The body doesn't last forever... I'd like to say that like Universalists of old, she could see the joy and love of life; and the joy and love in life.........

2007 Universalist Convocation: Universalist Peace Wittness
Friday May 4
registration
welcome by Justin Lapoint
worship led by Derek Parker

Saturday May 5
Worship by Wells Behee (his sermon draws from his experience in WW2)
Break
Adress by Dr. Stephen Potthoff (Deptartment Religion and Philosophy at
Wilmington College (Willmington Ohio)
Group Photo
lunch
workshops: Musical Workshop; Supreme Worth of Every Human
Personality; Peace Wittness; Historic Tour of Bellville;
dinner at an Amish Restaurant
entertainment: Cedar Creek High School Jazz Band

Sunday May 6
Annual Buisness Meeting
Morning Worship by host pastor, Rev. John Martin
Church will provide sack lunches when we depart around noon

nearby airports
Columbus, Cleveland, and Akron (regional airport at Mansfield)

My grandfather was an United Brethren minister. For those for whom the name means something, this was not the current denomination, he was under the new constitution. The UBs were basically german methodists. Around 1946, they consolidated with the Evangelical Church to become the United Brethren, Evangelical. In the late 1960s, they merged with the Methodist Church to become United Methodist Church.
He had his doctorate from Moody. He wasn't a minister by the time I was around, but he still read religious books, still planned to write a religious book; still listened to George Beverly Shea on record... He did however think I would be a fine minister when I grew up....

So, I had least was grinning for that reason, when I stood behind the pulpit up in Fayetteville the other week. I talked about the history of the Universalist Church (the other U), trying to spotlight on local Carolina material. I ran out of time before I ran out of the 19th century...
While I'm more of a Ballou guy than a Murray guy, it's so fun to talk about Murray. His ups and downs in England, the UU miracle story - at Good Luck! Even the rock --
I mentioned the Carolina Universalists who were barred from being witnesses in court, and of course the theory (on wikipedia ) that the first Universalist Church was in South Carolina.
Fun, i could have gone on and on.

Ive given talks to my local UU group, but that was local. This was different, this was folks I didnt know in a town I could (and did) get lost in.

this post is an advance notice of the upcoming Universalist Convocation at
Bellville Ohio the first weekend in May 2007.

Bellville is just south of Mansfield and north of Columbus Ohio.

I will be attending and this will be my third convocation.

usually starts Friday evening and ends Sunday afternoon.
a nominal charge is involved (but dinner is provided)
Sunday worship service is open to everyone.

The convocation doesnt have a website - but I will be passing on official information as I receive it (Ive heard various unofficial news that sounds good). And am mentioning this early just so that those of you in Central Ohio who might consider going will mark it on your calendar.

My Christmas in 2006

My wife and I exchanged gifts - in this case it was a year
membership in Ancestry.com - (useful for hunting old ministers for my scuniversalist blog)

after breakfast - we gave the cats their gifts (a bit of
christmas catnip)
and i opened my gift from my nephew (two books right off my Amazon list)
My wife will get exchanged gift tomorrow (maybe) from my brother-in-law

at 12 we ate chicken salad sandwiches and went to the Rehab Hospital
(1 1/2 drive roundtrip) to visit my mother. We brought our gift (a
portrait of my wife and I) and gifts and cards from others to her. My
sister and her family were there (a 3 1/2 drive oneway for them),
we gave those nieces their gifts their too. My neices sang some
carols (out of the 1964 methodist hymnal) at the rehab. We watched a
bit (without sound) of Judy Garland and meet me at St. Louis.

Drove home in the rain, put on some Celtic Christmas CDs...

waiting for the pork stew to be ready for dinner....

Now, how is this Christmas? I have gifts - from the heart; I have
family, both nuclear and extended; I have music and song. I have
love. I show love. I have the hope of a better day.
That is Christmas!

best wishes

This blogsite recently received an invitation to join a Christian Blogging group.
My first thought was why UU-ing and not SCUniversalist? Isn't that blog more Christian oriented than this one? To be honest with my recent trials and tribulations I didn't give it that much thought...

But then a couple of things clicked.
First while SCUniversalist has and will talked about the paths of various ministers and churches, I don't think I mentioned the word "Christian" or the name "Jesus" there. Now, some of that should go without saying: before the 1910s, all Universalists all Universalists generally considered themselves Christians. All of them mentioned Jesus, some of them quite a bit. If they stopped considering themselves Christians, then they generally left and went to the free thinkers (like Kneeland) or Spirtualists (like Bowman to mention a southerner).
However this blog does mention the word "Christian". Back when the UUCF had no website, I had no problem running a press release (and even though they now have a website and webblog, I still have no problem). So that would be why this blog got picked! It got "Christian" clicks! (I was tempted to say Christian hits, but nevermind....)

So it this a Christian Blog? Well, clicks don't an orientation make. While I do admit that I am an Unitarian Universalist Christian, I don't think that is what the folks behind that Christian blog group were looking for. Let me put it like this; at one point the Universalist Church of America wanted to join the Federal Council of Churches - but were not allowed in as being Universalist and unitarian, they weren't considered real Christians (yes, I've simplified the story for retelling). I suspect that a more careful reading of my blog would result in some doing the same thinking. Yet, I have no doubt that John Murray, Hosea Ballou, D. B. Clayton were Christians in the truest sense of the word. I would be delighted to be in back of their group picture. and yes, I'm tired of folks who profess to be Christians who don't care what Jesus said. (One recent best selling mainstream book about Jesus, proudly asserts that most "real" Christians think that the words in red are trivial). So I'm not signing up. On the other hand, I suspect that if I lived in a community with Christian liberals (in the old fashion sense of the word), then I would be more inclined to say "sure sign me up"to be a Christian blogger.

So is this a Christian blog? Well you are entitled to your view and I'm keeping mine!

and-- I will be changing this blog, tweaking the name (probably); and moving the personal nater and religion views over here, making SCUniversalist much more of just a history website. I will probably move some of the old blogs over here (if I can figure out how).

oh, Merry Christmas, and Happy Holidays to yall!

steven r

Giving a bag of Sugar to the Charleston UU

Piggly Wiggly is a grocery chain in the south and Midwest. It was the first self-service grocery, and I think - the first Grocery Chain. Each store is independently owned, and part of an association (which makes website looking harder!)

Here in the Carolinas, the Pig (as it is affectionate known) gives out Greenbax Stamps (now Greenbax points) - We don't go to the Pig very often, so at some point earlier this year, we cruised the website to see how much points we had - and what it would buy. And we noticed it was just enough to buy a bag of sugar. And the diabetic in the household wasn't fond of that idea.

So we checked the donation page - and there we could donate that bag of Sugar (ok, the points) to the UU Church in Charleston SC. So we did. Yesterday, we bought a few items, got 3 points - which will soon be on the way to the Congregation down there.
A easy painless way to give!

"Religion Word That Move us, religion Word that Don't: I was reading the various threads that started this UUCarnival, when I opened the fifth edition of "The Universalist Manual, or book of Prayers and other religious exercises:..." (1853) - and saw this hymn "GREAT PARENT!" "Great Parent! Oh, direct our ways, Exalt our hearts, accept our praise; As children on a father dear, We humbly wait thy presence here." It reminded me that our ancestors faced the same things that we do - how do we best express the meaning of our faith. To some the old words are comfortable and warm - but to others those exact same words are cold and menacing. Do we force others to hear words of coldness or do we cut ourselves off from the warmth is never an easy choice. The writer of "Great Parent!" knew that sometimes the words lose their meaning through their very familiarity or assumed familiarity - sometimes we need to move the word around to make sure we see the word again. How about the "Church of the Divine Paternity" - that was a rather popular Universalist name of 100 years ago -- it's a name that is similar to other denominations, yet distinctive enough to wake one up....To see things with different eyes.... There are lots of words that some UUs have trouble with - indeed I've heard that if we take away all the theological terms that some UUs would be uncomfortable with, then we'd be left with only one word: Coffee. But there are ways around that uncomfortableness to increase communication. If to some theist is a word to describe a believer of a fable of an old man sitting on throne of gold - isn't there another word we can use to say what we really mean - to help someone to pay attention. The same with the other non-coffee words including humanist and pagan --- That doesn't mean I don't think we shouldn't use those fine words God, Lord, human potential; onward and upward --- sometimes those are the right words. Period. If it's the job of religion to comfort the afflicted, and to afflict the comfortable --- then one of the things we have to do is to see beyond the words to the meanings of the words....

well, yesterday and earlier today, I was getting email "news" reports from right wing groups about masked UUs attacking Christians in Jackson Missisppi. I finally googled legit news sites - and found the below, which i suspect is closer to the truth. http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060717/NEWS/607170356/1001/news

As some of you know, the UUA has to update the 7 Principals (as per the requirements when they came up with them). Jeff Wilson ran the below on "Peace Bang" blog, and I quote them without out his permission, because I like them so much. (Jeff, if you object - let me know and off it goes) http://peacebang.blogspot.com/2006/06/seven-uu-principles.html

"Knowing that no words shall ever be used as a creed among us, the member congregations of the Unitarian Universalist Association do covenant together to uphold these religious principles:

Every person is worthy of love; thus we seek that all are treated with justice, dignity, and compassion.

The religious journey is as old as humanity, as fresh as each new birth, and lasts an entire lifetime; thus we remain always open to the wisdom of one another.

Love, reason, and liberty are the lifeblood of liberal religion; thus we manage our communities by them so that we may be a light upon the hill for others.

Openness, fairness, and honesty are our guiding ideals; thus we promote them amongst ourselves and stand firm against authoritarianism in every realm.

Our love embraces all life and the whole Earth; thus we approach all living things with humility, reverence, and awareness of their worth.

Revelation is ever-flowing; we receive its grace from many sources. Gratefully we remember that our denomination was founded upon the rock of liberal Christianity, and joyfully we believe that we are each free to swim in the ocean of humanity’s spiritual richness. As interdependent congregations we freely enter into this covenant; we pledge to one another our mutual trust and support."

Everything we know is true!
Immaturity is indeed on the increase!
And scientists say there may be a reason for it!


Im sure there's a sermon topic in this!



http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2006/06/23/immature_hum.html?category=human&guid=20060623110030&dcitc=w19-502-ak-0000&clik=news_main

I found this blog thread of interest:


Esther's first UU Experience



of course, every time a new person shows up is their first experience -
and there's plenty to be said for second experience too

(please let me know if the link doesnt work - it works for me being rightclicked on Firefox)

taken from the UUCF and used caused they asked bloggers to pass it around: UUCF Presence at St. Louis GA, June 22-25.

We will have more events and presence at this year's General Assembly than ever before. Please come and celebrate with us, and if you can't make it to St. Louis please pass this information on to others in your church who will be attending. All are invited. We will surely be 'the leaven" at GA this year.

The new Skinner House book, Christian Voices in Unitarian Universalism, an anthology of contemporary writings by UU Christians edited by Rev. Kathleen Rolenz, our Good News editor (see fuller bio below), will be unveiled at this year's GA, and will be celebrated at two workshops, Friday, June 23, 4-5:15 p.m. in America's Center Room 226, and Sunday June 25, 1:45 to 3 p.m. in AC Room 260. Meet the authors, hear readings from the anthology, and more.

You can order the book online at http://www.uua.org/bookstore/product_info.php?products_id=1608 or search for it at www.uua.org/skinner. Or call 1-800-215-9076. The book is $14.

This book is a major opportunity for UUs and others to hear about the personal stories of how Jesus and the Christian tradition has touched the lives of UUs in the 21st century. Help us spread this good news.

We will offer two communion services at GA this year in AC Room 274: Friday, June 23rd from 11 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. and Saturday, June 24, 8:30 to 9:45 a.m. Friday Preacher will be the Rev. Derek Parker. Saturday preacher will be the Rev. Naomi King. See their bios below.

As exciting as our public programs this year, likewise will be our interactive booth and service projects. First, we will be creating a prayer chapel with our booth space this year, an opportunity for everyone at General Assembly to come and receive prayer and blessings not only for their lives, joys and sorrows, but also for their varied ministries and missions and plans and dreams for the UUA itself. Second, we will offer two healing ministries for GA-goers: foot-washing at the booth, and a repeat of last year's successful distribution of free bottles of water out on the hot city streets outside the convention center. We will also have free back issues of the UU Christian Journal and Good News and pamphlets, as well as for sale items. If you can volunteer an hour or two at the booth or help with our service projects in particular, please let us know at the UUCF office. [Side Note from Ron: If Jesus' life, ministry, and resurrection went "against the grain of the universe" then and now, and the church is to keep doing so in that spirit, then I think our UUCF presence at GA continues to grow against the "GA grain" :) in these ways].

Finally, our Annual Catered Banquet, Hymn Sing, Meeting, and Speaker will be held Saturday, June 24, from 6 to 8 p.m. in the beautiful Episcopal Christ Church Cathedral in downtown St. Louis just a few blocks from the convention center and hotels at 1210 Locust St. The cathedral is the oldest Episcopal church west of the Mississippi River and the building is on the National Registry of Historical Places. Our speaker is the exciting minister Rev. Thom Belote. See bio below. The catered dinner will again be a great opportunity for people to have a wonderful meal at an affordable price ($20 range) without having to wait in long lines for Saturday night in local restaurants. Please RSVP as soon as possible by notifying Rev.. Ron Robinson at RevRonRobinson@aol.com or by calling the UUCF office at 918-691-3223, and supply any special dining requests such as vegetarian or vegan. Please invite others as well. The meeting and hymn sing is also open free to UUCF members regardless of whether you eat with us or not.

Come meet us in St. Louis. Don't miss out on this watershed event.

Bios:

The Rev. Kathleen Rolenz has served on the Unitarian Universalist Christian Fellowship (UUCF) Board of Trustees since 2004. She is the editor of Good News, a newsletter of the UUCF organization and has been an active member of UUCF groups in Charlottesville, Virginia, and Cleveland, Ohio. Rolenz is parish co-minister of West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church in Cleveland, Ohio, with her husband, Wayne Arnason.

The Rev. Derek Lee Parker is a graduate of the University of Chicago (BA Geophysics) and the Earlham School of Religion (MDiv). He was ordained by Epiphany Community Church (UUA) in Fenton, Michigan. After a brief career as a paleontologist studying evolution and climate change, he has gone on to serve campus ministries, churches, and non-profit organizations affiliated with the UUA, the United Church of Christ, the Society of Friends (Quakers), and the Episcopal Church. He presently lives with his partner in Greenfield, Indiana; serves as Minister for Youth and Children at the Friends Meeting of Irvington, Indiana; and as Program Administrator for National Episcopal Health Ministries.
The Rev. Naomi King serves the Unitarian Universalist Church of Utica, in the rolling hills of central New York. Naomi also serves on the Board of Project Harvest Hope, is the liaison between the Unitarian Universalist Ministers Association and the Annual Program Fund of the UUA, and the publications taskforce of the UU Historical Society. She was granted preliminary fellowship in 2004, graduated with her M.Div. from Meadville Lombard Theological School in 2005, and was ordained by her home congregation First Universalist Church of Yarmouth, Maine in 2005. She won the UUMA-APF-LREDA Stewardship Sermon Award in 2005, for a sermon preached at her internship site, Horizon Unitarian Universalist Church of Carrollton, Texas. She lives in Kirkland, New York, with her partner, the Rev. Dr. Thandeka, where they can enjoy the creek and woods by their home and the terrific cultural, environmental, and personal blessings of the area.

The Rev. Thom Belote has served the Shawnee Mission UU Church in Overland Park, Kansas since 2003. He prepared for the ministry at Harvard Divinity School and earned an undergraduate degree in religion from Reed College. Thom grew up attending First Parish in Wayland, MA and is a life-long Unitarian Universalist. Thom is 28 years old.

"A Good Poor Man's Wife" Claudia L. Bushman (1998 edition) - I picked this up because Peggy R. mentioned that Harriet Hanson Robinson, the subject of this biography, was the sister of Rev. J.W. Hanson a rather prolific Universalist writer, who still has books in print, 100 years after his death.
Despite being named John Wesley Hanson, it seems his parents were raised Quaker and Congregational, although after the death of his father, their mother attended Universalist services. Mrs. Robinson, best known for her work on women's sufferage and rights, moved around religiously, her family being friends of Emerson. She and her daughter ended up Episcopalian, and against women's sufferage.
The book itself is very well done, based on diaries and scrapbooks -- a nice view of life for the middle class of the 1800s- early 1900s.

So what am I doing Christmas day?
dunno - for the first time in my life, got no plans
the Significant Other and I might do some driving and go to a UU church somewhere -
Im looking for something traditional, but not that traditional around here!

"Whenever you are in doubt or whenever the self becomes too much with you, apply the following test. Recall the face of the poorest or weakest woman you have seen and ask yourself if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to her. Will she gain anything by it? Will it restore her to a control over her own life and destiny? In other words, will, it lead to swaraj for the hungry and spiritually starving millions? Then you will find your own doubts and your self melting away."Mahatma Gandhi

Principles and Prejudice: How Do We Fully Apply Our Beliefs?
by Desmond Ravenstone

When asked what Unitarian Universalists believe, we often point to our Seven Principles as a guide to our shared values. These principles are also cited in how we respond to various issues and questions in our lives, both individually and collectively. Yet this can also raise the question of how we apply them in various situations. Are we consistent, or selective? Do we apply all of the principles to a given problem, or only one at a time? And do we use them to “filter” our possible preconceptions and prejudices, or to challenge them in a more active process of discernment?

In the anthology Reverend X: How Generation X Ministers Are Shaping Unitarian Universalism, the Reverend John Cullinan recalls an incident related to him through an online message board:

A woman had come to the director of religious education at a church looking to volunteer as a teacher. In the course of their conversation, she admitted that she made the bulk of her living as a dominatrix. The DRE was troubled by this and explained that he found himself with a dilemma. “Do I,” he wondered, “ignore this information and take on a willing volunteer? Or do I reject her and avoid the potential controversy, or worse?”[1]

Cullinan further elaborated how others involved in the exchange insisted that the DRE should accept her, citing the First Principle of accepting her inherent worth and dignity – and he in turn admitted how he was “astonished” that it “had been recast … as the maxim ‘don’t say no to people’” and “transformed into a tool by which the individual was absolved of the responsibility to make judgments or to be accountable to community.”[2]

While I would agree on some level with the author that our First Principle was oversimplified, two other questions crossed my mind on reading this story. First: What about our other six principles, such as a free and responsible search for meaning and truth, and acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations? Second: Why see only two possible responses – accept but ignore, or reject but avoid – neither of which seems like a constructive response?

Our principles are not merely a laundry list of good ideas. They are expressions of our core values of justice, love and discernment; and just as each of these values is linked inextricably to one another, so each of the Seven Principles relies upon one another. We cannot, for example truly accept and encourage one another to spiritual growth, or exercise the right of conscience and the use of the democratic process, without engaging together in a free and responsible search for meaning and truth. Our desire for a world community cannot be fully realized without also affirming our inherent worth and dignity, as well as our place in the interdependent web of all existence.

This in turn leads to my second question, and the challenge to look beyond the more obvious dilemma towards a more constructive solution. For one thing, the “dilemma” posed is much deeper than merely accepting or rejecting the woman’s offer to volunteer for the church’s religious education program. There is the presumption that the only way to accept her offer is to ignore the information which she disclosed; and further, that the only way to deal with any potential controversy is to avoid it through rejection of her offer. When we cling to such presumptions, rather than seek to challenge them, then we reduce our decision-making into a simplistic “filtering” of loaded options, and invite misuse of documents like our Seven Principles to pick the least uncomfortable option rather than craft alternative courses by which we may more fully put our beliefs into action.

If we believe that each of our UU principles are linked to one another, and that therefore acceptance is linked to seeking the truth, then these principles challenge us to engage in the important step of deepening our understanding of the situation before us. The DRE in this scenario could have asked the woman to explain why she chose this line of work, how she relates to her clientele, her own insights into BDSM, and how to engage others in the congregation regarding all of this information. In turn, the DRE could give the woman an idea of the makeup of the congregation, and especially those directly involved with religious education, so as to provide her with a better understanding of what she might face as a volunteer. This conversation could lead to a covenanting process, where clear guidelines are provided regarding whether and when the subject of her profession would be discussed; they could both agree that she would make no such disclosure to any children she might teach, for example, while the issue would be raised with the church’s RE committee and ministerial staff. Last and certainly not least, he should express gratitude for her honest disclosure, and the opportunity to share and learn one from another.

Such a process of discernment is necessary not only to make the right decision whether to accept or reject, or to what degree, but to do so with authenticity and integrity. One cannot truly accept any person or how they live without fully understanding them; nor are we doing justice to someone by rejecting them out of hand, or simply to “avoid controversy”. Discernment is the antidote to prejudice in all of its forms, whether it is our presumptions about certain people, or our presumptions about which choices are available to us and how we should choose between them. Where prejudice is reactive and allows only a partial exercise of our faith, discernment is proactive and thereby calls us to apply our beliefs more fully.

[1] “Digging Deep: Our Communal Responsibility to Our Principles” by Reverend John Cullinam; in Reverend X: How Generation X Ministers Are Shaping Unitarian Universalism, edited by Tamara Lebak and Bret Lortie (Jenkins Lloyd Jones Press, Tulsa OK, 2008). Page 72
[2] Ibid, pp 72-73

By Desmond Ravenstone

At the 2000 General Assembly, UUA Executive Vice-President Kay Montgomery acknowledged shortcomings on how UU leadership has dealt with sexual misconduct, and pledged a number of changes. Certainly there have been improvements, principally in prevention through education, screening prospective leaders and other proactive measures. Yet when looking at the whole picture, there are still questions which need to be addressed, the most central being how to file and pursue a complaint of sexual misconduct.

The reader will also notice that I am not limiting this discussion to ordained ministers, or even to professional leadership. Volunteer lay leaders are also entrusted with authority and access, and must be held just as accountable for their actions. And when a member or attendee of a UU congregation feels exploited or abused, to whom should they go for support, healing and justice? What can they expect in terms of process and responsive actions?

In my own research, I’ve not seen any clear answer to these questions. There is much talk about “restorative justice,” but little clarity about how that is to be achieved. The Ministerial Fellowship Committee, which oversees ordained UU ministers, does have a process for handling complaints, but even this has been criticized for falling short in terms of openness and clarity. In my opinion, the UUA needs to develop and present a clear protocol for handling sexual misconduct within congregations, and this article is my attempt at developing and presenting a model for such a protocol.

First, we need to define what we mean by sexual misconduct. This definition should be rooted in our core values of individual dignity and right relationship; it should focus on the emotional and relational context in which sexual activity takes place. Our sexuality can and should be a source of joy, pleasure and nurturing, a way of expressing intimacy and love. In contrast, sexual abuse and exploitation occur in a context of fear and intimidation. To avoid the latter, and foster the former, our sexual and relational ethics need to be based on two central principles:

a) Consent – Each person should be able to give and receive sexually with full knowledge, power and agreement. We are deprived of that power whenever there is deceit, intimidation and/or coercion.
b) Safety – Each person should be able to give and receive sexually without fear of bodily or emotional harm. While no one can assure this with absolute certainty, each person should take responsibility for minimizing the risk of harm to all concerned.

With clergy and other religious community leaders, another factor must be taken into account. Whenever someone is entrusted with leadership, they are given access to power and knowledge; and when there is an imbalance of power and knowledge, consent can be compromised. For this reason, our leaders must take great care to avoid what Reverend Marie Marshall Fortune refers to as dual relationships – maintaining two conflicting relationships with the same person at the same time, in particular a personal/sexual one (which should be equal and mutual) and a pastoral/leadership one (with its inherent power imbalance). This is not to say that a minister or leader can never have an intimate relationship with someone in their community, but that providing pastoral care or direct supervision with an intimate partner is a conflict of interest which must be avoided.

Education and pastoral guidance are essential in both preventing and recognizing sexual misconduct. But how do we respond when such breaches occur? To whom should a complaint or concern be taken, and how should they respond?

My suggestion is for the District office to appoint an impartial ombuds whenever a complaint is filed, to look into the facts and recommend the appropriate course of action. This would take pressure off the congregation’s leadership, while assuring that the process is handled by someone with direct access to all involved. The ombuds can also look beyond simply determining the respondent’s culpability, by considering what role the congregation’s policies, practices and awareness of issues played, and how these might be corrected.

There may also be cases where a formal adjudication would be necessary, in the form of a hearing before an impartial board. Once again, I would suggest that the District office appoint impartial members to the board, in consultation with all concerned. Additionally, the ombuds role would now shift to one of advocate for the complainant. The hearing itself should follow specific guidelines, and the board be required to make its decision by consensus, to assure confidence in the process. This confidence is essential, given that congregational polity makes the board’s decision advisory rather than binding. Likewise, the board would not have the power to suspend or revoke ministerial or DRE credentials, but their findings should be forwarded to the appropriate bodies for action.

Finally, while we all hope that sexual misconduct will not occur, we also have to admit the fact that it will. Even with the best preventive measures, our leaders are human and capable of error – or worse. To that end, we not only need to continue proactive education such as the Safe Congregations program, we also need to train select individuals to serve as ombuds and hearing board members. Such training can be seen in the same light as first aid and self-defense preparations – we hope never to use them, but realize their ultimate necessity and benefit.

A news story today reminded me of a problem I've had for years with the UUA- taking partisan political stances, minimally fig-leafed with a transparent religious veil.

The news story was about how the Democrats were discussing changing the Senate rule requiring a 60 vote majority for a vote of cloture- the "nuclear option". It particularly drew my attention when Senator Barney Frank said there was nothing special about that rule- God didn't create the filibuster . My mind immediately went back five years to when we were saying he did.

The time was the confirmation hearings for Justice Alito. The Democrats were filibustering, and the Republicans were considering changing the rules to allow a cloture vote on a simple majority vote. President Sinkford gave speeches about how sacred the filibuster and the supermajority requirement for cloture were, and the UUAWO sent out emergency action letters asking us to ACT NOW to save the filibuster! (I couldn't find the alert on the official site, but fortunately CC had copied it in the Chaliceblog . They insisted that this was not political; they were opposing the "nuclear option" on purely religious grounds.

Funny things is, this time I've received no urgent emails or letters calling us to act against this renewed threat to democracy. If we really were "...religious people committed to protecting the rights of the minority to speak on issues that effect all Americans,..." then, are we not today? Does "Our Unitarian Universalist faith" no longer "guide us on a path of affirmation of difference and preservation of the democratic process."? Have our PPs changed in the last couple years?

This is the problem with religious movements hitching their wagons to political movements; politicians, who often base their principles on pragmatism and effectiveness can change their positions as necessary for political advantage. People demand higher standards for their religious leaders, however- and so does the IRS. I really believe that the only reason our tax status hasn't been challenged in a lawsuit is that we're actually too ineffectual to appear on the Republican radar screen.

This was a comment from Chalicechick to the Discuss! thread, promoted to a post of its own for pertinence

A few months ago, as an experiment, I asked the UU theology mailing list if anyone had seen or experienced any atheists giving theists grief or vice versa IN THE LAST COUPLE OF YEARS. I emphasize that last bit because lots of people have stories of mistreated theists that are a decade or two old, and they always seem to tell them as if they happened yesterday. I wondered if it ever happened anymore or if we just talked about it like it did.

I got one "yes" response, and that it was an incident from several years ago and soon after, his/her church got a new minister who made it clear that this behavior wouldn't be tolerated and there hasn't been an issue since.

That one "yes" aside, literally no one had seen any anti-theism or anti-atheism in their churches on the last couple of years. But several people still announced that "theism vs. atheism" was this incredibly important divide within UUism. I really don't understand why. To me it seems like the idea of people being actually mistreated and churches being divided on "theism vs anti-theism" or "atheism vs. humanism" is a big Boogeyman that scares lots of UUs but is mostly illusory.

Do you see "the God question" as something that divides your church right now? Have you seen anyone actually treated badly because of their faith in the last couple of years? If not, are se sure it's really that big a deal anymore?

Those who remember my many forum posts and debates may well have gotten the impression that I have problems with UU. Well, it’s way past time to correct that impression. Fact is I do have problems with the UUA- but I love UU. To explain why, I must discuss what a religion is...

Click here to read more...

(Caveats: Professionally, I am a party planner. I wrote this one a one-hour lunch break while shoveling down two day old pasta salad. Be kind. )

To me, the good news of UUism is that we are a voice of integrity of the mind and spirit in a world where integrity of any sort is talked about a lot more than it is practiced. To be a UU is to live an examined life.

I said things like “I believe in the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting” for years without thinking through what those words meant...

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Scott Wells over at Boy in the Bands started a lively conversation about whether authentic Universalist and Unitarian beliefs no longer have a home within the UUA. In the course of that conversation, visitor Kim asked what it is that UU Christians want in a UU church, considering that (in her experience) many UU churches don't like to talk about theology. It's a great question that I tried to answer over there, but I'm not sure if Scott's blog host accepted my post, and in any event I think it also deserves its own stand-alone thread. Here's my answer again, slightly edited.

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Awhile ago, I surmised that it might be cool if the UU bloggers started a "blog carnival" a la the carnival of feminists. Every two weeks, a different member of the UU blogger community would collect up links to all of the most interesting posts.

Well, this is a more permanent version of that. I'd really like this to be one of the places where we send new people who find our blogs and ask about UUism. I'd like the UU bloggers to get to the point where when they write a post that they think it particularly good, they send it over here right away.

So send me some posts already!

CC