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Compliments of my younger brother (a Wall Street investment banker)

✇ WWUUD?
26 January 2008 at 21:42
By: The Eclectic Cleric
This was forwarded to me this afternoon, and is apparently making the rounds on Wall Street. Nice to know that investment bankers have a sense of irony too....

This year, both Groundhog Day and the State of the Union Address fall on the same day.

It is an ironic juxtaposition: one involves a meaningless ritual in which we look to a creature of little intelligence for prognostication.

The other involves a groundhog.

I WON THE LOTTERY!!!

✇ WWUUD?
25 January 2008 at 18:45
By: The Eclectic Cleric
OK, so it was only $10. Still, as my Dad used to say, it's better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. I first started playing the Powerball when I was still commuting to graduate school in Oregon, and was buying gas two or three times a week at various filling stations and convenience stores all along the I-5 corridor. It didn't take that much more time simply to hand the clerk an extra $5 and my play-slip, and play my numbers for another couple of weeks every few tankfulls. I figured I probably got at least that much entertainment value daydreaming as I drove along the Interstate about what I would do with the $100 million if my numbers ever actually hit. (There used to be a billboard about half-way between Portland and Eugene that displayed the predicted amount of the next jackpot, so I always knew exactly how much money I stood to win.) And besides, my Daddy also always used to tell me that "the lottery is simply a tax on the mathematically illiterate." But you know? -- I think that's probably a tax I owe....

When I moved back east in 2001, I discovered that in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts they have something called a "season ticket," where you can pay $90 at the beginning of the year and play your numbers 104 times: every Wednesday and Saturday drawing for an entire calendar year. Not only was it way more convenient, but I got a discount too! So what if the prize wasn't quite as large as the Powerball? It certainly didn't effect the quality of my daydreaming one little bit.

I don't really consider the lottery "gambling," because I don't really have anything at risk. I consider the money I pay for my ticket gone the moment it leaves my hand -- an act of public charity in support of schools and economic development and whatever other good causes those revenues are used for. And likewise, any money that may happen to come back my way is simply a windfall gift of grace. Gambling is going without adequate health insurance so you can afford food and heating oil, or creating privatized Social Security retirement accounts based on the assumption that stocks will continue to rise forever. I don't like to play cards or visit casinos, I don't bet on sporting events (except maybe for filling out an NCAA Final Four bracket every year, or an occasional "honor" bet with other clergy I know when our home-town teams are competing for a championship), I have absolutely no interest whatsoever in horse racing or dog racing or cock fighting (or dog fighting!) or any of the other various "bloodsports" which "Sporting Men" have traditionally wagered on over the years. In fact, the whole culture of gambling kinda creeps me out.

I know a lot of people play the lottery so they can dream about quitting their jobs. But most clergy I know, whether they play or not, basically daydream about what it would be like to be able to do their jobs PROPERLY without having to fret about the constant hassle of money in the first place! And I'm also amazed by the widespread cultural assumption that if by some strange twist of fate a minister does come in to "sudden money" (whether in the lottery, or on a game show, or even through their own hard work or by winning some sort of merit-based prize), that they will give away a good portion of their new-found wealth to the church and to other "good causes."

Frankly, I suspect that if I ever DID come into a significant amount of money, I would actually find the experience kind of overwhelming, and that my biggest struggle would be figuring out how best to hold on to the things about my current lifestyle that I value most now. Sure, it would be nice to be able to pay off my car loan, and my kids' student loans, and maybe even those of my brother's kids as well. I would probably start shopping a little more seriously for a house (which is something I probably ought to be doing anyway, except that I really like the apartment I'm living in now), and I would definitely travel more, and probably even buy a boat. All things I could no doubt afford to do already, if I wasn't so distracted and preoccupied by the day to day demands of earning a living by trying to do good instead of doing well. I would certainly be paying a lot more money to lawyers and accountants than I would ever dream of doing now. And yes, I would probably give away a good portion of the money to churches and other "good causes." I mean, why would I want to change what I'm trying to do already?

But the real truth is, I won the lottery the day I was born. And I've known for a long, long time now just how lucky I truly am, and how little I really deserve it, and how much of my own relative comfort and prosperity is rooted, ultimately, in the economic exploitation of less-fortunate souls whom I will in all likelihood never meet or even see unless I actively seek them out. And at the same time, I wonder how many of my own frustrations regarding the compensation practices of my previous congregation were really just rooted in my own deeply-felt sense of class privilege and entitlement, and a sort of fundamental resentment about feeling treated like a "servant" by people who are significantly more wealthy than I've chosen to be, and who feel that entitles them to certain special privileges of their own.

Anyway, saw this meme on another blog, and thought I'd fill it out...with reflections, of course.


[*From What Privileges Do You Have?, based on an exercise about class and privilege developed by Will Barratt, Meagan Cahill, Angie Carlen, Minnette Huck, Drew Lurker, Stacy Ploskonka at Illinois State University. If you participate in this blog game, they ask that you PLEASE acknowledge their copyright.]

Bold the true statements.

1. Father went to college.

2. Father finished college.

3. Mother went to college.

4. Mother finished college.

5. Have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor.

Of course, what really amazes me about question five is how "professor" has replaced "minister" on the traditional list of "learned professions." Clergy were the original professional "professors of faith," whose knowledge of ancient languages entitled them to profess doctrine as "doctors of the church." To practice Law you needed to read Latin. To practice Medicine you needed to read Latin and Greek. But to profess Theology you needed to be fluent in Greek, Latin and Hebrew...which in colonial New England towns often made the minister both the community physician and the designated "arbitrator of disputes" as well.

6. Were the same or higher class than your high school teachers.

Yes, it's true -- I attended one of those High Schools where the student parking lot contained MUCH nicer vehicles than those in the faculty parking lot. Which is why I always tried to park in the faculty lot myself....

7. Had more than 50 books in your childhood home.

8. Had more than 500 books in your childhood home.

500 books is a helluva lot of books, and I never actually counted them all up, but I suspect there were at least 500. By the time I left for college, I probably owned close to 200 books myself. And of course, now, I own considerably more than that. This question would probably make my own children laugh out loud....

9. Were read children's books by a parent.

10. Had lessons of any kind before you turned 18.

11. Had more than two kinds of lessons before you turned 18.

Swimming lessons and trumpet lessons (which came through the school). Kinda wish I'd had more. But my mom had all sorts of "advantages" pressed upon her when she was a little girl, and I suspect that she wanted to spare her own children that experience. And of course my Dad HADN'T, and probably felt they were a little over-the-top. So I never had to learn how to play the piano. Although I suppose it's never too late to start.

12. The people in the media who dress and talk like me are portrayed positively.

"Positive" is in the eye of the beholder. I would probably be a pretty strong candidate for a "Queer Eye" makeover.

13. Had a credit card with your name on it before you turned 18.

This is kind of tricky, but I'm going to say "no." I did open my own checking account when I started college at age 17, and it came with an ATM card...but not the kind of ATM/debit card you see today. I didn't get a credit card until I turned 21, and started graduate school.

14. Your parents (or a trust) paid for the majority of your college costs.

15. Your parents (or a trust) paid for all of your college costs.

These are also kind of tricky, since I went to college/graduate school for a VERY long time. My parents paid 100% of the first two years of my undergraduate education at the University of Washington (where in-state tuition in those days was $188/quarter). My final two years my tuition and books were paid by my grandmother, and I covered my own Room and Board costs by working as a Residence Hall Advisor. I also earned spending money through a variety of other summer and part-time jobs, but I never (for example) had to spend my summers working in a salmon cannery in Alaska like so many of my friends did, and as a result I was always able to make school my first priority, and never really had to worry when the term bill came due. I did, by the way, physically write all of the checks to pay those bills myself (which was why I had my own checking account); and whatever money that came from my parents was contingent upon me making continuous progress towards my degree and maintaining a certain GPA, neither of which were ever especially problematic for me. Most of my post-Graduate education was paid for through a combination of grants, loans, scholarships, fellowships, internships, teaching assistantships, and other part-time employment. After awhile, school basically became just another highly-interesting, relatively low-paying (but with great benefits) job for me. So yes, I confess: I was a "professional student." And I was really pretty good at it too.

16. Went to a private high school.

I attended Newport High School in Bellevue, Washington -- a public High School routinely rated by Newsweek magazine as one of the top twenty High Schools in the country. Which really amazes me every time I see those rankings. It sure wasn't that way when I went there. Nearly attended the Lakeside Academy (with Bill Gates and Paul Allen) my Senior year (long story for another day), but my Dad decided it would be more cost-effective simply to bribe me to work harder where I was (see below). Who knows how my life might have been different if he had chosen the other option.

17. Went to summer camp.

But not a lot. My folks didn't really believe in it. And we had this great house at the beach (which belonged to my Grandmother) that was a lot better than camp anyway. But sometimes day camp. Or Scout camp. After the end of Little League season, of course.

18. Had a private tutor before you turned 18.

19. Family vacations involved staying at hotels.

Our family vacations typically involved visiting other family members, and staying with them.

20. Your clothing was all bought new before you turned 18.

Of course, I was the oldest child, which meant there was nobody to hand clothes down to me. Except my cousins. And my mom was a fantastic seamstress. But mostly my clothes were bought new. And God how I hated to shop!

21. Your parents bought you a car that was not a hand-me-down from them.

This is a both/and answer. My first car was a hand-me-down from my mother, a 1962 Red Plymouth Valiant Station Wagon (with a push-button gear shift). But my parents also bought me a car of my own (a used Triumph sports car, no less) as a reward/bribe for improving my High School grades to a 4.0 from their dismal slacker levels my junior year.

22. There was original art in your house when you were a child.

23. You and your family lived in a single-family house.

24. Your parent(s) owned their own house or apartment before you left home.

25. You had your own room as a child.

26. You had a phone in your room before you turned 18.

Again, my parents didn't believe in private phones for kids. And I didn't really spend a lot of time on the phone as a teenager anyway.

27. Participated in a SAT/ACT prep course.

28. Had your own TV in your room in high school.

29. Owned a mutual fund or IRA in high school or college.

30. Flew anywhere on a commercial airline before you turned 16.

31. Went on a cruise with your family.

32. Went on more than one cruise with your family.

These cruise questions are also tricky -- I've NEVER been on a "cruise" per se, even as an adult, and I'm not so sure that I would ever really want to. But my parents owned a boat when I was a teenager, and we "cruised" in the San Juan Islands pretty much every summer. Does that count?

33. Your parents took you to museums and art galleries as you grew up.

34. You were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family.

Absolutely. In fact, I was pretty much unaware of ALL my family's household expenses (and income) growing up. And ironically, it was a disagreement over who was supposed to pay for the heating oil at the parsonage in my last settlement that was at the root of my eventual disillusionment with that congregation, and my decision to seek a new position at a different church instead.

Strange Bookends

✇ WWUUD?
24 January 2008 at 21:41
By: The Eclectic Cleric
Cowardice asks the question, "Is it safe?"

Expediency asks the question, "Is it politic?"

Vanity asks the question, "Is it popular?"

But, conscience asks the question, "Is it right?"

And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but one must take it because one's conscience tells one that it is right. -- Martin Luther King, Jr.

***

Never judge another man until you have walked a mile in his shoes. That way, if he takes exception to your opinion, you've got a mile-long head start, and he's barefoot.... -- Anonymous

THE STRENGTH TO LOVE

✇ WWUUD?
24 January 2008 at 14:34
By: The Eclectic Cleric
a sermon preached by the Rev. Dr. Tim W. Jensen
at the First Parish Church in Portland Maine,
Sunday January 20th, 2008

OPENING WORDS: from “A Knock at Midnight” by Martin Luther King Jr.

“Faith in the dawn arises from the faith that God is good and just. When [some]one believes this, [they] know that the contradictions of life are neither final nor ultimate. They can walk through the dark night with the radiant conviction that all things work together for the good for those that love God. Even the most starless midnight may herald the dawn of some great fulfillment.”

***

I’ve been thinking an awful lot this past week about the idea of martyrdom, especially after hearing our preacher last Sunday, Marta Valentin, paraphrase a sentiment I’ve so often heard attributed to Martin Luther King, that a person who doesn’t have something worth dying for has nothing worth living for. It sounds so logical in its grammatical structure, and yet one thing that has always bothered me about this sentiment is that it also seems such a short leap of logic (or maybe you could call it “faith”) from having something worth dying for to having something worth killing for; or at least the willingness to take the lives of other people as your sacrifice your own to whatever noble purpose you’ve chosen to die for. Personally, I’d just as soon leave the dying and killing part out all together, and reframe the question in a different way. How do we determine what things in life are truly worthy of our devoting our entire lives to them?

About fifteen minutes research on the internet and you will find that the original form of this quotation was: “A man who won’t die for something is not fit to live.” And apparently it’s something that Dr. King plagiarized from one of his most important intellectual and inspirational role models, Mohandas “Mahatma” Gandhi. Some years ago I happened to see an interview with the actor Ben Kingsley, who observed that the secret to his successful characterization of Gandhi in the renown Richard Attenbourgh film of the same name, was his realization that Gandhi was not so much a saint who "stooped" to participate in politics as he was a politician struggling to become a saint.

I've thought an awful lot about that apparently offhand remark as well since first hearing it, especially at times like this, in the midst of a prolonged and hotly-contested political campaign. Why is it that professional politicians are so universally held in such low esteem, so much so that even honest-to-God “saintly” individuals (like, say, Jimmy Carter or even Al Gore) invariably appear "compromised" in the public eye when they attempt to participate in the political process? I can’t help but be reminded of yet another story I once heard about the syndicated advice columnist Ann Landers, who was approached one evening by a member of the Senate at an Embassy Reception in Washington D.C.

"So you're Ann Landers," the Senator remarked. "Say something clever."

To which Ms Landers immediately responded "So you're a politician. Tell me a lie."

Political activity is the lifeblood of a democratic society; it is the means by which the will of the people becomes the law of the land. Yet for some reason we find it all too easy to believe that those who choose to practice politics as a vocation are motivated principally by their own personal ambition -- that they are avaricious, deceitful, with only their own personal advancement in mind, rather than motivated by a heartfelt devotion to public service and the best interests of their constituents and fellow citizens. It’s as though we believe that “true” saints must somehow be "above politics" -- unsullied by the strange bedfellows encountered in smoke-filled cloakrooms. Fools rush in where Angels fear to tread; and Saints, of course, are expected to behave like angels. Politicians on the other hand, remain free to behave like fools.

But what about that rare politician, like a Mohandas Gandhi, who struggles to become a saint -- who seeks to express through his or her political convictions the high ethical and humanitarian principles of a profound and deeply authentic religious faith? Actually, I suspect that this sort of politician is far more common than we suspect, and that our appreciation of their efforts depends considerably upon the degree to which our own political opinions are in agreement with theirs. The road to sainthood is long and arduous, and the dividing line between “saint” and “fanatic” is typically razor-thin; many are called but few are chosen; ultimately only history will decide whether or not the struggle was fruitful. Sainthood and the Aspiration to Sainthood are hardly one and the same. Indeed, so rarefied is our view of the former that often merely the appearance of the ambition to attain it is enough to taint its purity in our eyes.

Yet it would be equally misleading to assume that only those who do not seek it -- who have their greatness thrust upon them -- are somehow deserving of the mantle of our praise. The essential inner quality of sainthood is a peculiar combination of humility and arrogance: the arrogance to believe that one's deeply held principles and convictions are important enough to make a difference, and the humility to recognize that this challenge cannot be met by aspiration and personal strength of will alone.

Martin Luther King Jr. was only 26 years old when he was elected president of the Montgomery Improvement Association, an ad hoc black community group which had been organized to oversee the now famous Montgomery Bus Boycott. As best I can tell, judging from everything I have read, he probably didn't even want the job. At the time, King had been pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church for less than two years, and had only completed the final requirements for his Ph.D. at Boston University that previous spring.

Furthermore, his selection as President of the M.I.A. was an overtly political choice. As a relative newcomer to the city of Montgomery, King had yet to become too strongly identified with any particular element within the black community, and thus it was felt that perhaps he could provide precisely the kind of neutral leadership that would allow all of the rival factions within that community to come together in this one common purpose. There was a downside consideration to his nomination as well. Should the boycott fail (as many of the more experienced black community leaders believed it might), this young preacher could easily be sacrificed without endangering these more established leaders' hard-earned credibility with both the white establishment, and their own constituencies.

Knowing this side of the story, one might easily say that Martin Luther King did indeed have his greatness thrust upon him, and with the unanimous consent of older, wiser, and more politically savvy colleagues at that. But this would be only part of the tale. More importantly, there was an inner quality to this young preacher, a “seed” of saintliness if you will, which, once exposed to the light, blossomed forth into a strength which enabled him to endure receiving dozens of threatening letters and telephone calls each day; to survive slander and harassment by police and other government authorities; to have the front of his parsonage blown off by dynamite while his wife and few-month-old child huddled in the kitchen...to experience all of the doubts and fears and pressures to which the human soul is vulnerable, and still not lose sight of the larger aspiration: a goal which in its very rightness and importance dwarfed both his abilities, and his frailties, as a human being.

To be sure, in many ways Martin Luther King Jr. simply happened to be in the right place, at the right time. But the reason we honor him with a national holiday on his birthday is because he also happened to be the right PERSON to be there in Montgomery, Alabama in 1955, when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus. Yes, there was an inner quality of greatness to him. But more importantly, he did not shy from his responsibilities when the need to express that greatness presented itself before him.

From Montgomery, as we all know, King went on to face new challenges and achieve new triumphs: in Birmingham and Selma, in Washington D.C. and Oslo, Norway, where he became the youngest man ever to receive a Nobel Peace prize. Yet I've often wondered whether or not King's greatest challenge and achievement might not have been related to the conflicts which he faced within his own soul, such as the temptation to "retire" as it were from the Civil Rights movement, and accept a lucrative post somewhere in academia, or to spend more time with his wife and his children, away from the death threats and the FBI wiretaps; to grow old in the bosom of the liberal white establishment, lecturing to wide-eyed admiring freshmen about Socrates and Jesus, Gandhi and Thoreau, while writing best-selling books for Harper and Row.

And don’t kid yourselves, these options were certainly made available to him many times. And yet he chose instead to continue in the role which destiny had thrust upon him there in Montgomery in 1955; and this, to me, seems a far more telling mark of King's true "saintly greatness" than any of his other achievements or laurels. It is not merely because King achieved great things that we celebrate his birth as a National holiday. It is also the price he was willing to pay in order to achieve these things -- not for his own personal benefit, but for the benefit of an entire society.

It is difficult for those of us who lack this inner quality of saintliness, this peculiar combination of humility and arrogance, to fully understand what was at stake in Martin Luther King Jr's decision to continue along the path that destiny had chosen for him, a path which eventually led to his death on a motel balcony in Memphis. There have been those who have suggested that King was, in fact, a megalomaniac, or that he suffered from a "martyr complex;" that his ego was such that he simply could not step out of the national limelight once he had tasted the sweetness of being Time magazine's "Man of the Year."

Nothing, I think, could be further from the truth.

King himself knew better than anyone what was at stake in the drama that was being played out in his frail, mortal human existence. And he spoke of it simply in terms of "The Strength to Love:" the power of God's own overflowing, passionate, creative love for human kind manifesting itself in a single human life. Perhaps it was a form of megalomania, a delusion of grandeur of the most grandiose proportions. But it was also an ultimate act of personal surrender, a martyrdom of the self in the truest sense of that word, as witness to a creative power for justice far greater than one's own power or creativity.

In the final analysis we must recognize that it was not delusion, but vision, which animated King's career as a civil rights reformer. Commentator Garry Wills has noted that the changes which Martin Luther King Jr. brought to American society were "so large as to be almost invisible." In a few short years, King and those who worked with him swept away an entire system of American apartheid which had existed in the South for nearly a century. Men and women of my generation have had no experience of "whites only" lunch counters, restrooms, and drinking fountains; we have been educated in integrated schools, voted for and elected black politicians, patronized black-owned businesses; and, for the most part, we have done so without giving it second thought.

I think it’s even fair to say that many Americans now even understand that the whole idea of “race” itself is simply a figment of our imaginations: a social convention and shared fiction with no real basis in biological science, which we have taught ourselves to see, generation after generation after generation. Yet even though the idea of Race may have no basis in reality, the ideology and historical legacy of Racism are still very real. The Ku Klux Klan and its many imitators are still alive and kicking; access to jobs, housing, justice, and educational opportunity is still not completely color blind. In many ways racism has become much more subtle, even sophisticated, in the 21st century; it has replaced its white sheets with pinstriped suits, and is fueled as much by the ignorance of the well-intentioned, who wish that the problem would simply "go away," as it is by the malice of those few kooks who would just as soon trot Jim Crow back out of the closet, if they thought they could get away with it.

In contemporary America, skin color has in many ways become a symbolic marker of social class. Successful Americans of African heritage: Oprah Winfrey, Michael Jordan, Denzel Washington, and many others I’m sure we all could name, are perceived by dominant “mainstream” society as merely a little darker shade of white; while the essential “blackness” of the hip-hop inner-city urban youth underclass is so well-established that even a highly-respected community leader like Bill Cosby can be sharply criticized for his “political incorrectness” in suggesting that “it’s not what [white people are] doing to us. It’s what we’re NOT doing [for our own children].” And how many of your can remember the recent kerfufle over whether or not Barack Obama (with apologies to Shirley Chisholm, Jesse Jackson, Alan Keyes and Carol Moseley Braun) was really “black” enough to serve as America’s first “serious” African American Presidential candidate?

Yet underlying this ongoing and complicated societal conversation regarding skin color, social class, and competing cultural identities, Dr. King's vision of a truly pluralistic, inclusive, and democratic society, in which individuals are judged by the quality of their characters and not the color of their skins, remains a vivid beacon of our future, untarnished in the half-century which has now elapsed since the bus boycott in Montgomery first brought this amazing man to our national attention.

It’s a little known fact (and one that typically doesn’t show up on my resume), but my former wife and I spent our honeymoon in Atlanta. It’s kind of a long story: she was living in Seattle, I was living in West Texas, and our minister lived in Boston -- but it just so happened that we could all get together during the third week in June at the UUA General Assembly, so I wrote to the Fulton County clerk and got a license and we tied the knot at midnight on the longest day of the year. It was the only time either of us had ever been to that city; but while we were there we had the opportunity to visit the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Non-Violent Social Change, which is located just up the street from the Ebenezer Baptist Church, "Daddy" King's church, in the neighborhood where young M.L. King spent his childhood. It was really the only "touristy" thing we did while we were in Atlanta (we were much too busy being newlyweds to bother with such foolishness as plenary sessions or the Coca-Cola museum), but we made the most of it; we even bought each other T-shirts at the gift shop. And we were also able to spend an hour or so in the small museum there, which is filled with memorabilia of the Civil Rights Movement, and Dr. King's ministry.

The one exhibit I found most fascinating was that of Dr. King's preaching robe, a robe not so different from the one I'm wearing now. It surprised me to discover that he was actually a rather short man; I had always envisioned him as some sort of giant, yet I doubt the man whom I imagined could have ever squeezed into the tiny robe I saw hanging there in that glass case. Nor would he have had to. For I realized in that moment, standing there in awe before that tiny robe, that stature is not always a function of physical size.

Nor is the significance of a life extinguished by death, when all which that life stood for still burns within the hearts of others. There is a vitality to all that Martin Luther King Jr stood for, an immortality if you will, which still lives today beyond the grave.

It is a vitality which grows from the capacity for self-sacrifice, from the willingness to stand faithfully in the presence of evil, and surrender one’s ego to the truth of a higher principle.

It is an immortality born of our Strength to Love....


***

READING: from The Kennedy Imprisonment by Garry Wills

The 1960’s was a period obsessed with power – the power of the American system, or power to be sought by working outside it; the power of insurgency, or of counterinsurgency; the power of rhetoric and “image” and charisma and technology. The attempt to fashion power solely out of resource and will led to the celebration of power as destruction – as assassination of leaders, the sabotage of rival economies, the poising of opponent missiles.

The equation of real power with power to destroy reached its unheard refutation in the death of our charismatic leader, [John Fitzgerald Kennedy]. As children can wreck TV sets, so Oswalds can shoot Kennedys. The need to believe in some conspiracy behind the assassination is understandable in an age of charismatic pretensions. The “graced” [leader] validates [their] power by success, by luck. Oswald, by canceling the luck, struck at the very principle of government, and it was hard to admit that he was not asserting (or being used by) some alternative principle of rule. Oswald was a brutal restatement of the idea of power as the combination of resource with will. Put at its simplest, this became the combination of a [mail order] Mannlicher-Carcano [rifle] with one man’s mad assertiveness. Power as the power to conquer was totally separated, at last, from the ability to control.

Robert Kennedy’s assassination gave lesser scope to conspiracy theorists – no one knew, beforehand, his route through the kitchen. With him, the effect of sheer chaos was easier to acknowledge (though some still do not acknowledge it – they think purposive will rules everything). What was lost with Robert Kennedy was not so much a legacy of power asserted as a glimpse of a deeper understanding, the beginnings of a belief in power as surrender of the will. He died, after all, opposing the caricatures of power enacted in our wars and official violence.

But another man was killed in the 1960’s who did not offer mere promise of performance. He was even younger than the Kennedys – thirty-nine when he was shot, in the year of Robert’s death at forty-three. There were many links between the Kennedys and Martin Luther King – links admirably traced in Harris Woffords book on the three men. Together, they summed up much of the nobler purpose in American life during the 1960’s. Yet there was opposition too – Dr. King, more radical in his push for racial justice, was far more peaceful in his methods. Robert Kennedy, however reluctantly, used the police powers of John F. Kennedy’s state to spy on Dr. King, to put in official hands the instruments of slander. King was a critic of the space program and war expenditures. King, though more revolutionary in some people’s eyes, was not “charismatic” in the sense of replacing traditional and legal power with his personal will. He relied on the deep traditions of his church, on the preaching power of a Baptist minister; and he appealed to the rational order of the liberal state for peaceful adjustment of claims advanced by the wronged. His death, at tragic as Kennedy’s, did not leave so large an absence. His work has outlasted him; more than any single person he changed the way Americans lived with each other in the sixties. His power was real, because it was not mere assertion – it was a persuasive yielding of private will through nonviolent advocacy.

Since he relied less on power as mere assertiveness of will, mere assertiveness of will could not entirely erase what he accomplished. He had already surrendered his life to bring about large social changes, constructive, not destructive. He forged ties of friendship and social affection. He did not want to force change by violence or stealth, by manipulation or technological tricks. His power was the power to suffer, and his killer only increased that power.

The speeches of John F. Kennedy are studied, now, by people who trace their unintended effects in Vietnam and elsewhere. The speeches of Martin Luther King are memorized at schools as living documents – my son could recite them in high school. “Flexible response” and “counterinsurgency” are tragicomic episodes of our history. But the Gandhian nonviolence preached by Dr. King is a doctrine that still inspires Americans. My children cannot believe that I grew up in a society where blacks could not drink at public water fountains, eat in “white” restaurants, get their hair cut in white barber shops, sit in white theaters, play on white football teams. The changes King wrought are so large as to be almost invisible.

He was helped, of course – he was not a single mover of the charismatic sort. And he was helped not so much by talented aides as by his fellow martyrs, by all those who died or risked dying for their children or their fellow citizens. While Washington’s “best and brightest” worked us into Vietnam, an obscure army of virtue arose in the South and took the longer spiritual trip inside a public bathroom or toward the front of a bus. King rallied the strength of broken men [and women], transmuting an imposed squalor into the beauty of chosen suffering. No one did it for [their] followers. They did it for themselves. Yet, in helping them, he exercised real power, achieved changes that dwarf the moon shot as an American achievement. The “Kennedy era” was really the age of Dr. King.

The famous antitheses and alliterations of John Kennedy’s rhetoric sound tinny now. But King’s eloquence endures, drawn as it was from ancient sources – the Bible, the spirituals, the hymns and folks songs. He was young at his death, younger than either Kennedy; but he had traveled farther. He did fewer things; but those things last. A mule team drew his coffin in a rough cart; not the sleek military horses and the artillery caisson. He has no eternal flame – and no wonder. He is not dead.

Asian Pacific Islander UU Conference Feb 15-17

✇ WWUUD?
19 January 2008 at 14:10
By: radicalhapa

The Annual Conference for the Asian/Pacific Islander Caucus of DRUUMM is Feb 15-17, 2008 at the Neighborhood Church in Pasadena CA.  Registration information at www.apiuu.org.

A good friend and conference organizer Vivien Hao had these encouraging words to share with Asian/Pacific Islander persons in our congregations and interested in Unitarian Universalism:

Dear API UUs and friends,
If there is one out-of-town
UU event I attend each year, it’s the A/PIC annual conference! Why?
Because each time I have gone (five years straight), I have felt
inspired, nurtured, supported, blessed and reinvigorated. These
intimate gatherings of API UUs from across the continent reinforce that
I am not alone, that I am needed, and that together we are truly more
than the sum of our parts. The friends I have made are now my UU
brothers and sisters. The things I have learned have advanced my
faith journey. The feelings of goodwill and camaraderie have carried me
through many a dark day when I wondered if racism could ever
be eradicated or if I could ever feel truly at home in a white UU
world. When money was tight, I got help with a travel scholarship, and
when time was short, I was glad that I gave up something else that was
also important to be with my UU family. When I felt angry
or misunderstood, I knew that the common bond of our faith, culture,
and history of oppression would carry us through. Most of all, the
love, acceptance and understanding that I have felt looking
into the eyes of my API UU brothers and sisters is the greatest feeling
in the world. If you want that feeling, please join us this Feb. 15-17
in Pasadena!

I attended the first few years of these conferences (this is the 5th I believe), but haven’t been able to the last two years due to the birth of Miyka’ela and my internship with the UU Church of the Philippines.  I’m looking forward to attending and participating this year.

 

WHAT? Security Checks at General Assembly

✇ WWUUD?
18 January 2008 at 00:38
By: radicalhapa

Its hitting the UUwire that all GA attendees will have to undergo security checkpoints in order to participate.  Heard it from Rob Eller-Isaacs, UUMA President and Manish Mishra, DRUUMM President who both posted letters today.  (UUMA letter, DRUUMM letter).

Both are thoughtful responses to an awful situation.  In fact, as the partner of an immigrant, who has been subject to security holds before at airports because of the common name and roots in a country with a civil war, it is infuriating and damaging.

Yes a contract was signed.  I’m serious about the accountability here.  From a justice standpoint.  Were the security check points in place at the time the contract was signed?  If not, is this change in circumstance enough to get out of the contract?  Is this a case where anti-racism analysis and accountability with people of color communities in Unitarian Universalism would have revealed the oppression in this site? 

This is a situation where people of color will be disproportionately impacted.  Yet again.  It is disappointing.  Who is responsible?  What will we do to prevent this in the future?  Has the GA Planning Committee continued to engage with the anti-racism theological and spiritual work called of them and our congregations by the 1997 GA Resolution?

Is it not possible to arrange for another group to take this on? 

(total side note – this is also a great opportunity for us to move to GA to a biannual or triennial schedule.)

Wrong AND disliked....

✇ WWUUD?
11 January 2008 at 19:03
By: The Eclectic Cleric
A few months ago (inspired in large degree by a workshop I attended by Marie Fortune on working pastorally with the survivors of domestic abuse) I posted an entry on this blog describing some of my reflections and experiences about having voluntarily censored an even earlier post in which I described some of my experiences transitioning out of the congregation I had previously served in Carlisle, Massachusetts. As part of that second post, there was one paragraph in particular where I recounted in some detail the amount of money I felt accepting that call had cost me over the four years I served there, which included the statement “Finally there's the four years without a raise or a COLA, and the nearly six grand they decided to stiff me by refusing to pay me through the entire three months of the contractual 90 day severance period.”

Not long after that post appeared, I received an e-mail from UUA Settlement Director John Weston offering to help mediate my dispute with my former congregation, with the assistance of UUA Office of Church Staff Finances Director Ralph Mero and Clara Barton District Executive Lynn Thomas. Naturally, I jumped at the offer. Now this group (all of whom I respect deeply) has met, and guess what? I was wrong. Even though everything I had described in that post was factually correct (and to my knowledge, undisputed), apparently because I had already started my new ministry in Portland Maine on August 1st the panel determined that my former congregation was NOT obligated to pay me in full through the entire 90-day severance period stipulated by the Letter of Agreement, as I had thought at the time. Furthermore, my willingness to air all this dirty laundry in a public blog was felt to be manipulative, and “unworthy of our ministry.”

So. Bitter medicine. You can read the entire text of John’s e-mail below (along with the lengthy response I wrote back to him), but first here’s my more concise and less defensive reaction. I didn’t become involved in this line of work thinking it would make me rich, but I did expect to be treated honestly and fairly. Scripture tells us to turn the other cheek and to give anyone who asks for it the shirt off our back, but let’s face it (Walter Wink’s brilliant exegesis of this passage notwithstanding) going through life feeling half naked and constantly slapped around is a helluva way to make a living. Is that really what I’ve signed up for? And if so...well, maybe I really OUGHT to be thinking about finding another line of work.

At the same time, I really love my job (most days); I believe I’m good at it; I believe it has given me some small opportunity to help make the world a better place by my presence in it. I try to take my vocation seriously, and I would never intentionally do anything to bring my sacred and revered profession into disrepute. So knowing that I am perceived that way by colleagues I respect gives me pause, and has caused me to re-examine some of my fundamental assumptions about both my motives and what I am attempting to accomplish in raising these issues, and even doing this work in the first place.

Devoting one’s life to attempting “To Speak the Truth to Power” is a pretty daunting undertaking. Because after all, What is Truth? I would have confidently testified under oath to everything I posted in those earlier blog entries, but who among us really knows “the Whole Truth and Nothing But the Truth?” And there have certainly been other unpleasant consequences to my decision to speak out openly about my experience the way I did, not the least of which are the random, anonymous “poison pen” comments that filter into this blog from time to time. Generally I just delete them, in part just to save the authors the embarrassment of their own words (My favorite was one which began “Are you a morom?”), but mostly I do it because I have absolutely no desire to stir up any more bad feelings than I already have. And of course, it also always amazes me that anyone actually reads this blog at all. I guess I’m not the first blogger to fall victim to THAT little illusion.

In any event, I do feel duly chastened and humbled, if not actually humilated, by this entire experience, and will now be very grateful to be able to put it all behind me. And if you do have something you would like to comment on in this blog, please be willing to sign your real name and have something positive to contribute, rather than simply making threats and calling me vile names.

The e-mail:

Clara Barton District Executive Lynn Thomas, UUA Church Staff Finance Director Ralph Mero, and I met on Monday January 7 to consider the claims that Tim has asserted against Carlisle:

The claims as Tim presented them:

$2364.00 - 27 days cash salary (July 25-Aug 20)

$1075.00 - 16 days Parsonage Allowance (Aug 4-Aug 20)

$1239.30 - Unreimbursed Professional Expenses (basically GA)

$ 990.00 - 27 days pro-rated Pension Contribution

$ 284.20 - UU-GIP insurance premium (July 1-Aug 20)***


We take up the claims in three categories:

1. that Carlisle owed Tim for a full 90 days of salary and housing and pension contribution following his giving notice

2. that Carlisle owed Tim for costs associated with the UUA General Assembly that exceeded his professional expense budget, and

3. that Carlisle owed Tim for utilities costs for the parsonage during his service in Carlisle


1. Tim resigned on May 21, giving, 90 days notice. However, his last day of service in Carlisle cannot have been later than July 31, since he started serving Portland on August 1. According to Carlisle treasurer Mary Hult, Carlisle compensated Tim for the full month of July. She writes:

I am sorry for the confusion on Rev. Tim Jensen's pay for July, 2007. All of our monthly checks say "period ending" somewhere between the 24th and 28th of the month. Largely, that is so the check can be printed by our payroll service and received by our employees by the first of the month. For some people, this has been very important.

Tim was on salary so his annual salary was basically divided into 12 months. Tim's pay stub might have said the 24th but, like all of the checks he received from us, it was for the entire month. His monthly checks for August-June 2007 were rounded up to $2,634 so the last check, for July 2007, was rounded down to $2,626 ($8 less) in order to end with the $31,600 annual salary total.


Thus we see no valid claim for salary and housing. We did not consider the pension and insurance premium issue.


2. We are not able to accept the premise that expenditures exceeding a budgeted amount create indebtedness. The time to address a budget shortfall is before the expenditure is incurred.


3. Attachment B of the agreement between Carlisle and Tim contains the provision that the utilities costs are included in the housing allowance.

Thus we are not able to validate any of your claims, Tim.


That said, I believe that the Carlisle leadership is entitled to know, Tim, that we find your public claims against the congregation to be unworthy of our ministry. Furthermore, the discord between you and the leadership having centered on money for some months if not years, your attempt to maneuver the Transitions Office into settling old scores is similarly unworthy. Given the publicity you have brought to this issue, we believe that you owe, immediately, a post on the Money chat and on your blog withdrawing the assertion of such claims against Carlisle.



Speaking for myself, I owe notice of our take on this issue to the ministers who have indicated interest in Carlisle in this year’s search round, and have started the notification process..

John Weston


My snotty and hot-headed (not really) reply:


Dear John

Having accepted in good faith your offer to mediate this dispute for me, I now feel obligated to honor your decision, although I could not be more disappointed with the result. But having also released this concern to the Universe during our annual First Sunday of the Year "Burning Ritual," I’m also not too inclined to complain much more about it either.

As you request, at my first opportunity I will post the text of your letter with its findings to both to my public blog and the Money-CHAT. I do wish however, simply for the sake of the historical/public record, to reiterate a few of my concerns that do not seem to have been explicitly addressed by your findings.

1) I may just be incredibly thick-headed (or perhaps just the opposite, that too much time in academia has made me hypersensitive to the nuanced subtleties of close analysis), but I still fail to understand the connection between your finding that because I started work here in Portland on August 1st I could not possibly have been serving the Carlisle congregation beyond July 31st, and your decision that this somehow relieves FRS of their contractual obligation to compensate me in full through the entire 90 day severance period stipulated in the Letter of Agreement. I accept your authority to make that determination (about what was really the only issue that mattered); I just don’t understand the logic of it.

The so-called "double-dip" has long been a reality in our movement, and although I certainly don’t have access to the hard data, my anecdotal understanding is that some of the most egregious double-dippers of all are in fact Accredited Interim Ministers, who are routinely paid in full through the month of August even though they have also often at that point already started new assignments somewhere else. From your knowledge, is this true, or have I been misinformed?

And if this is true, do your findings in my situation now obligate you to insist that all those ministers who have "double-dipped" in the past now return that money to the congregations they previously served?

Or to look at it another way, would your decision have been different if I had arbitrarily set my starting date in Portland as August 21st rather than the 1st? And do you honestly believe that FRS would have then happily and willingly paid me in full for the final month of my contract with them, during which I would have ordinarily been on vacation anyway?


2) The issue I raised regarding the professional expense budget and my unreimbursed General Assembly expenses referred specifically to the question of whether or not unreimbursed professional expenses incurred in one fiscal year might be "rolled-over" into the next fiscal year, a practice which had routinely been the policy at FRS until suddenly it wasn't.

As I believe I mentioned in an earlier e-mail to you, this same practice of rolling over expenses to the next fiscal year was the principal reason the 2006-07 professional expense budget came up short in the first place, all of which goes back to the underlying problem that the budget itself never actually met the fair compensation guidelines to begin with, and (like the rest of my compensation package) had not been adjusted the entire time I served there.

But to stick to the topic at hand, this practice of "roll-over" is once again a vestige of the bad old TCM days in which congregations and their ministers typically had a gentleman's agreement to handle professional expense accounts in this manner. The Carlisle congregation has never claimed that my expenses were not legitimate; they simply asserted that since they didn't budget for them, they weren't obligated to reimburse them. Can you imagine the result if the rest of the world adhered to this logic? My argument was that they were indeed contractually obligated to reimburse me for those expenses, whether they had budgeted for them or not, and that even under the old TCM paradigm there was (or should have been) sufficient money to do so in the 2007-08 budget.

3) I honestly can't recall having ever made any formal claims regarding the cost of utilities at the parsonage, unless it was in some way related to my request to be paid in cash 20 days equivalent of the Fair Rental Value of the parsonage (based on their expressed desire that I vacate the parsonage prior to August 20th -- which I accommodated at significant inconvenience and expense to both myself and my new congregation).

I have written elsewhere about my experience regarding the way I believed (and still believe) the parsonage utilities were (mis)handled in my original contract negotiations, and about the treasurer's subsequent unilateral decision to deduct the increased cost of heating oil from my cash salary, rather than absorbing it into the general church operating budget as called for by the compensation guidelines. But I have never asked or expected to be "made whole" in this regard; I simply mentioned it as an example of one of the ways I felt I was unfairly taken advantage of financially by that congregation during my tenure there.

***
The most disappointing aspect of this entire process has come right here at the end, with the easy way you seem to dismiss my legitimate desire to achieve a fair and impartial mediation of my complaints as "an attempt to maneuver the Department of Ministry into settling old scores," and characterize my willingness to raise these concerns in the first place as "unworthy of the ministry."

I am not the one who wrote the UUMA Guidelines, or set the Fair Compensation standards; I merely had the bad manners to mention them in public. I'm not the one who refused outright to meet with the District Compensation Consultant to discuss these issues early on in my ministry in Carlisle, or who declined to raise these sensitive issues with church leaders in a timely fashion because "they aren't ready to hear it," or who initiated any of the other "non-standard" employment practices I factually and accurately described in both earlier e-mails to you, and on rare occasion referenced (in what I believed at the time was an honest and balanced way) in various other public forums. I sincerely wish that a few of my former parishioners had given me a happier tale to tell. But since when is it "unworthy of the ministry" to tell the truth?

I never asked anyone to help me settle old scores; I simply asked for your help in resolving this issue of whether or not 90 days really means 90 days, or if it actually means something else. I do agree that it is unworthy both of our ministry and our movement in general that situations like the one I experienced in Carlisle continue to exist, and that there seems to be no good way of quietly and effectively resolving these disputes absent the good will of all the parties involved. I regret deeply any way that my own growing frustration with that situation may have influenced my ability to minister effectively to the members of that congregation, most of whom I consider wonderful people who certainly deserve the very best that any minister has to give them.

And I likewise hope that my willingness to speak openly about my experience in Carlisle will not dissuade other ministers from exploring a call to serve that congregation. If anything, I hope that bringing these issues out into the open will help head off any future problems similar to the ones I experienced, thus creating a more happy situation for all concerned.

And I will also say this: this entire experience has been extremely unpleasant for me personally, both as I suffered through it in silence and relative isolation at the time, and then later as I suffered the consequences of having spoken openly and candidly about it in public. It's not an experience I would wish on anyone, and certainly not one I would ever wish to experience again myself.

In any event John, as you share your "take" on these issues with other ministers currently in search, I hope you will also see fit to share a few final words to the wise. If something really matters, get it in writing. Well-intended promises and handshake deals aren't worth the paper they're not printed on. Don’t sign anything until you've had it reviewed by an attorney. YOUR attorney. If the Guidelines and the Fair Compensation standards, for example, are important to you, have them written right into the contract; that way, if you should ever (God forbid) feel the need to litigate, they will have the force of law, and not just the moral influence of custom and tradition.

We all would like to believe that our communities of faith aspire (and adhere) to higher, and more generous and compassionate standards of behavior than are typically found in the "real" world. Unfortunately, they often don't. And for what it's worth, the integrity and credibility of our entire movement suffers as a consequence. How does the saying go? -- "injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere?" I freely admit that on the grand scale of things, the tiny injustices done to me in Carlisle are small potatoes, and that perhaps I am a small person for taking them to heart. Now they are behind us, and I have more important things to worry about, as I'm sure you do too. My apologies for having written so long a response; if I'd had more time I would have made it shorter.

In friendship,

Tim

AND A HAPPY NEW ERA

✇ WWUUD?
6 January 2008 at 12:43
By: The Eclectic Cleric
a homily delivered by the Rev. Dr. Tim W. Jensen
at the First Parish Church in Portland, Maine
Sunday January 5th, 2008

OPENING WORDS: A New Year's Prayer for 2008 by the Rev. Chuck Currie.

Loving Creator,

Long ago you brought life from cosmic chaos.

For over 4.5 billion years your creation has evolved.

Along the way humanity has stumbled as we have matured.

Yet you have never abandoned us.


A New Year has dawned.

Help us to make this the year we take our stewardship over creation seriously.

Guide us to protect your forests and oceans.

Give us the wisdom to look after all life (even the “creeping things”.)

Help us to recognize the interconnectedness we humans share with the oceans, the mountains, the forests, the deserts.

Help us to recognize the interconnectedness we humans share with other humans though we may worship differently.

Bestow on us the courage of the Prophets of old so that we may speak truth to power in your Holy name.

Another year, O God.

Another year to do justice.

Another year to love kindness.

Another year to walk humbly with you (Micah 6:8).

Praise be to God!

Amen.

***


How many of you have ever had the pleasure of discovering a really great new restaurant? Not one of those fancy, formulaic, heavily-advertised chain restaurants coming soon to a mall parking lot near you. But a quiet little neighborhood place, with great food and friendly service -- maybe you're walking by one evening and poke your nose in just to see what it’s like, then you go back again and bring a friend, and the next thing you know, you’re one of the regulars. All the servers know you by name (and probably know what you’re going to order before you can even open your mouth); you’re friends with the chef, and you’re eating there maybe two or three times a month (or if you’re like me, two or three times a week).

The only problem is, if it’s REALLY a good restaurant, other people are going to find out about it too. Then the place gets reviewed, and the next thing you know it’s hard to get a table, and the service starts to seem a little sloppy and less personal, and the food’s not quite as good as you remember it...and, of course, the prices are higher too. So maybe you stop going quite as often as you used to, because it’s just not the same as it used to be, although it’s hard not to feel happy for the owners, since after all you are a regular and they are your friends and this is exactly what they were hoping for all along. Yet as nostalgic as we may feel for the good old days, I think it’s also important to remember that every new person who discovers “our” restaurant is just as thrilled about their discovery as we were the first time we sat down and opened up the menu. Because they don’t remember how it used to be; for them the excitement is in the here and now.

Attending a new church for the first time can sometimes feel a little like discovering a new restaurant. After all, both institutions are basically in the “hospitality industry;” we're both essentially in the business of making sure that people are nourished, either physically or spiritually, we try to feed them, body and soul. And as I look out over the Meetinghouse each week from way up here in this high pulpit, I certainly sense a lot of energy and excitement in the room...lots of expectation, but lots of change too. We have a new Minister, we have a new Administrator, we now have a new Director of Religious Education, and pretty soon we’re going to have to start looking for a new Music Director too...and, of course, come this spring I suspect there’ll be lots of new members as well.

And sure, the clocks still aren’t working, and we have a leak in the roof and the ceiling is falling in...but we’re repairing those things, and remodeling the kitchen, and the bathrooms, and getting everything spiffed up again. It really does feel like the start of a Whole New Era here at First Parish: one of many that this congregation has been through in its 333 year history. And it doesn’t really matter whether you are here today for the first time this Sunday, or your family has been attending this church for generations: you are all part of it. This is your time now (if you want it to be); so seize the day, savor the moment, and enjoy the thrill and the excitement of discovering something new, and making it your own.

The beginning of a new calendar year is a natural time to be thinking about fresh starts and new beginnings. But have you ever wondered who decided to begin the new year in January? It hasn’t always been that way; and if you’ve ever studied Latin (or one of the other Romance languages) you may even have noticed that September is supposed to be the seventh month, October and November eight and nine, which of course makes December month number ten. So why is January 1st suddently one-one-whatever, when a little simple arithmetic tells us that there are actually thirteen 28 day lunar months in a 365 day solar year, with a day left over for good measure?

Apparently back in the days when human beings were first learning how to tell time from the heavens, the New Year actually began in the spring, with the first new moon following the vernal equinox, when the days at last had become longer than the nights. It was important that early farmers learn how to keep track of the time so that they would know when to plant and harvest their crops; but apparently, once they got to ten they simply stopped counting for the winter, because it didn’t really matter any more; they simply hunkered down by the fire until the food was gone, and hoped that spring would arrive before then. The Romans inherited this calendar, but of course, being civilized, they made it year-round; and with the exception of two pretty significant tweaks by Julius Caesar and Pope Gregory the XIII, it is still pretty much the same calendar we use today.

But it was also the Romans who decided to move the start of the New Year to the middle of winter, and named the month for their two-faced God Janus, who looks both forward and backward. Because the start of a new year is not just about change and transition; it is as much about retrospection as it is anticipation, a taking stock of the past before moving forward into the future. I’m sure you’ve all heard the saying that hindsight is 20/20, but let me assure you as a historian that it is simply not true. We can second-guess our past just as easily as we can second-guess the future. The only REAL difference is that we can’t really DO anything about the past, because it’s over, it’s history. The future, however, is always open to endless possibility, and limited only by the limitations of our imaginations. A Fresh Start. A New Beginning. It’s a cliché because it’s true: today really is the first day of the rest of your life. And every tomorrow gives us yet another opportunity to give ourselves a second chance, or a third chance, or however many chances we need in order to get it right, to get it just the way we want it.

But just because we have another chance to make a fresh start doesn’t mean that we have to start from scratch. The beginning of a New Year, or a New Era, also offers us an opportunity to renew ourselves and reconnect to our heritage, to build upon the solid foundations of our past, and to draw inspiration and encouragement not only from our own experience, but from the example and the experiences of those who have gone before us. But before we can ever truly be free to stand on the shoulders of giants, we must also learn to let go of those regrets from our past that hold us back, and keep us from achieving the full potential we can imagine...for ourselves, for our community, and for the world.

[introduce Burning Ritual]

Yet Another Delightful Winter's Day Overlooking the Shores of Casco Bay

✇ WWUUD?
2 January 2008 at 01:41
By: The Eclectic Cleric
Traditional Boston Chowda

OK, I think I know what you're thinking. If this is MY (mostly) Annual Holiday Circular Letter, why are there so many pictures of my dog? It's not that complicated people. The dog doesn't know how to work the camera. Besides (although I hate to admit it), she's a lot cuter than I am.

As many of you already know, this has been a somewhat bittersweet year of transition for me. The sweet part is that last spring I was called to a new ministry in Portland, Maine -- a much better situation for me personally than the one I was in previously, and a much better fit of my skills and their needs as well. The First Parish in Portland is Portland's original Faith Community, gathered in 1674 and located right in the heart of the city, overlooking the Old Port at the head of Temple Street. I feel absolutely thrilled to be here, and so far they seem pretty thrilled to have me here as well. So, so far so good.



The sad news (although I can't really say I feel "bitter" about it -- that's just a figure of speech) is that on Mother's Day, as I was preaching my very first sermon as a candidate for my new pulpit, my mother was diagnosed with a very aggressive form of metastatic breast cancer, which took her life in a matter of weeks. I've already written to many of you about this earlier this summer, but if you didn't receive that e-mail just keep scrolling down to read what I wrote last summer, and also to a link at the end of that post to the text of my mom's unpublished memoir, along with my homily and my brother Erik's eulogy from her memorial service.

In retrospect, my decision to leave my former pulpit in order to come here to Portland seems like a no brainer, but it was also the result of a fair amount of soul-searching and vocational discernment which had actually started almost from the moment I left Nantucket four and a half years ago. I accepted the call to settle in that "city in the woods" based on certain expectations and assumptions which were very quickly disappointed, and which eventually led to a great deal of disappointment all around.

With 25 years experience as an ordained UU minister and a PhD in hand, I was doubtlessly a lot more minister than they really could afford (or at least a lot more minister than they wanted to pay for). But that would have been OK with me if the situation had really been what they had represented it to be: a self-sufficient, high-functioning, hassle-free "turn-key" Pastoral-sized congregation of 100 households, where I would be expected to preach good sermons (like the one's they'd read in my portfolio), make my hospital visits, attend a few routine meetings, and still have plenty of time left over to pursue my own scholarly interests and revise my dissertation for publication.


And it's true: at first glance that church seemed like Unitopia: an idyllic little high-steepled, white clapboard Meetinghouse overlooking the town green in a highly-affluent community only a few miles "over the river and through the woods" from the site of Thoreau's cabin at Walden Pond. I mean, let's face it, it always looked great on my Christmas letters past. But once I arrived, it didn't take me too long to figure out that underneath the peeling white paint things weren't exactly how they appeared. I won't burden you with a long litany of everything that was "not right" with that congregation. It's not as if the church was broken or completely dysfunctional (which in some ways would have been a lot easier); in fact there was actually a lot more right than wrong. But the church also wasn't really hitting on all cylinders; yet as frustrated as folks were with their disappointing performance, trying to get them to change the way they did things was...well, like teaching cats to swim. In any case, I did my best to help them while I was there, and now that I'm gone it's really not my problem any more.


Still, I will say this. Rather than taking advantage of what I had to offer them professionally, they chose instead simply to take advantage of me financially: four straight years without a raise or a COLA, and all sorts of other broken promises as well, ending with their unilateral decision to abrogate the severance terms of our Letter of Agreement and stiff me out of nearly $6000 in salary and benefits. And that I AM bitter about...although I try not to think about it too often. The bright side is that the Department of Ministry has offered to try to mediate my complaint; I'm not especially optimistic that I will ever actually see any money, but console myself by hoping that perhaps my willingness to speak openly about my experience there will give the "good guys" in that congregation the leverage they need to make certain their next minister is treated better than I was.


In any event, having searched my soul and arrived the decision that I would be a lot happier somewhere else, I dusted off my portfolio, brought my resume up to date, and put myself back out on "the market" again. I know a lot of ministers really dread being in search, but I've discovered that I actually kinda like it. I've got fantastic credentials and a great portfolio, I just LOVE going into new congregations with all my "A" material and knocking their socks off, and simply pulling everything together to take it out on the road again helps me feel good about myself and all the things I've already accomplished in my career. I may feel a little uncomfortable speaking too highly of my own modest and humble credentials, but let's face it, "on paper" I look absolutely marvelous. And like any beauty contest, nothing does more to raise one's self-esteem than to be crowned with the tiara now and then.

In the meantime, The Adorable Parker (who turns 13 later this month) pretty much just took everything in stride. Here's a picture of her snapped with my cell phone camera during a delightful pre-candidating interview weekend at a lovely waterfront community on Cape Cod:



I also interviewed for a pulpit out in the Pacific Northwest, which at the time seemed like an attractive option simply because it would have brought me back home closer to my family. But when all was said and done, Portland Maine really felt like the right place for me. People keep asking me whether this is permanent, and all I can say is "as permanent as things ever are." Ministers truly do serve at the pleasure of our people. And no one can ever please all of the people all of the time.







As it turned out, General Assembly this year was in Portland Oregon, so only a few weeks after visiting Seattle to spend my mom's final days with her, The Adorable Parker and I flew back to the Pacific Northwest to spend nearly a month hanging out with family and friends, and basically trying to do as little else as possible. On my mom's birthday my aunt, my brother Kurt's family, and I all went to Safeco Field to see the Mariners beat the Red Sox; this was the first major league baseball game my aunt had attended since July 27, 1969, when she had taken her 12 year old nephew (me) to Sicks Stadium to see the expansion Seattle Pilots lose to the Red Sox in 20 innings. Apparently, that was ALMOST enough baseball to last her a lifetime! Fortunately, this time the Mariners didn't even have to come to bat in the bottom of the ninth.

Ichiro at the plate


The month I spent on Camano Island was a wonderful opportunity to reconnect with family and friends, and to celebrate my mom's life even as we mourned her loss. It was especially nice to be able to meet up with a handful of my old friends from High School for an informal cook-out on my last weekend there, and to marvel at how well those bonds formed in adolescence have endured even now that we are parents of (nearly) adult children ourselves.



In any event, now the Dogs have decreed that I should begin yet another chapter in my life, and I'm incredibly (or should I say "unbelievably") happy here. I feel like I spent my first 25 years on Earth discovering the person I was meant to be, and the next 25 years becoming the person I am now. And now I just feel poised on the threshold of what I honestly expect to be the best and most creative quarter century of my entire lifetime -- and I couldn't be more thrilled about it.



Parker loves it here in the city too, and is discovering how easy it is to make new friends when you share common interests and they live right in the neighborhood where you see them every day. She really is an urban creature at heart. Chasing chipmunks is OK if you've got nothing better to do, but compared to the attractions (and distractions) of life in the heart of the city, it's really pretty lame.



OK, so maybe I'm not exactly the God-like wunderkind I IMAGINED myself to be when I was twenty-something....

At least these days I occasionally get to rub elbows with angels, and hob-nob with the semi-famous.

Laura Hasty (daughter of former First Parish Minister Richard Hasty) and Archangel Laura Blom backstage at the 81st First Parish "Pageant of the Nativity," December 2007

And this is the mural on the wall of the small restaurant where I sometimes like to stop and have breakfast while walking in to work.



I could certainly write a lot more here if I wanted to, but having written so much already and with so much more available just a few clicks of the mouse away, I think I'll take a break and call it a day. E-mail address and cell phone number are still the same; I'm easily "Googleable," and you can always write to me care of the church. It makes my day every time I hear from one of my friends. So don't be shy! Drop me a line! Or at least leave a comment below.

Juniper Beach, Summer 2007

Longfellow Square, Christmas 2007

N. Hawthorne on Concord MA

✇ WWUUD?
28 December 2007 at 19:50
By: The Eclectic Cleric
"Never was a poor little country village invested with such a variety of queer, strangely dressed, oddly behaved mortals, most of whom took themselves to be important agents of the world's destiny, yet were simply bores of a very intense character."

Can't even remember where I originally saw this, but I jotted it down in my diary at the time, and now I share it with all of you. Enjoy!

Grey's Anatomy Star Wed by UU Minister

✇ WWUUD?
26 December 2007 at 23:23
By: radicalhapa

I love Google News.  I keep getting articles all week about how Katherine Heigl, star of Grey’s Anatomy and one of those comedies last summer, was married by Rev. Tom Goldsmith of the UU Church in Salt Lake City.  Wonder if she is UU?  Or maybe her partner?

Anyway, it brought me back to sitting in the ministers study years ago talking about campus/young adult ministry in Salt Lake, a place where I originally met Chris Walton before he became C*UUYAN Facilitator.  Chris and I actually met "online" before it was in vogue.

A NEW-FASHIONED CHRISTMAS

✇ WWUUD?
24 December 2007 at 06:21
By: The Eclectic Cleric
a sermon preached by the Rev. Dr. Tim W. Jensen
at the First Parish Church in Portland, Maine
Sunday December 23rd, 2007



I have to confess, I always cry during the final scene of Frank Capra's classic Christmas film "It's a Wonderful Life." In fact, I've done it so often now, I'm beginning to feel a little like Pavlov's Dog: Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed embrace, and tears begin to form in the corners of my eyes. It's not as if I don't know what's coming; I must have seen the movie dozens, perhaps even hundreds, of times. But it still hasn't lost its power to affect me; I still turn on the waterworks every time it airs.

For those of you who are still not familiar with the story, in the movie Jimmy Stewart plays a character named George Bailey, the good-hearted, self-sacrificing President of the Bailey Building and Loan in the sleepy little town of Bedford Falls. The only other financial institution in town is a bank owned by a greedy, unethical man named Potter, who would like nothing more than to put the Building and Loan out of business. Then one Christmas, in the excitement of season, George's absent-minded Uncle Billy misplaces an $8000 bank deposit. Potter finds it, but keeps it for himself, knowing that the Building and Loan is about to be audited. George discovers the shortfall on Christmas eve, and, anticipating scandal and ruin, contemplates suicide in the belief that his life insurance policy makes him worth more dead than alive.

So Clarence Oddbody, a rather bumbling Angel Second Class, is sent to earth to earn his wings by showing Jimmy Stewart what life would have been like in the town of "Pottersville" had George Bailey never been born. The climactic final scene, the one that always brings tears to my eyes, is when the citizens of Bedford Falls rise up in support of George, pledging their personal savings in order to make up the $8000 deficit. And maybe it is a corny story: honesty and virtue triumph over greed and opportunism, Clarence earns his wings, and everyone in Bedford Falls lives happily ever after, with the possible exception of Potter the banker. But corny or not, it still makes me cry, every time; in fact, sometimes just thinking about it is enough to start me sniffling with sentimentality.

A cynical Divinity School classmate of mine once insinuated that the real reason I always cry at the end of "It's a Wonderful Life" is because I wish that my Church Annual Budget Drives would be so serendipitously successful. I thought that rather a cheap shot, actually; there I was, all choked up, daubing my red eyes with my shirt sleeve, while my classmate sat comfortably in an overstuffed chair, swilling egg nog and impugning my sincerity. And I honestly don't know why "It's a Wonderful Life" always effects me the way it does. I often cry at the end of movies -- the first time I see them -- but I no longer weep at the end of "Terms of Endearment," and it’s all I can do now to keep from snickering out loud when Ali McGraw dies at the end of "Love Story."

But "It’s a Wonderful Life" gets me every time. So maybe it is just the corny plot. Because I want very much to believe that virtue triumphs over greed, that honesty triumphs over opportunism; that the life of one truly good-hearted, self-sacrificing individual human being really does make a difference in the world, and is appreciated by those who have benefited from that difference. And maybe I also want to become a little bit more like George Bailey myself, want to be able to look back at it all someday and say "It truly was a Wonderful Life!"

The plain fact of the matter though, is that over the years a lot of the “Joy” has started to evaporate out of Christmas for me. Oh, I'm sure the holiday will have its moments --Christmas generally surprises me that way at some point in the season-- but on the whole, to my way of thinking, the best thing about this Christmas will be December 26th, when the hassle of the holiday will finally over and there are 364 days before I have to go through it again.

My problem is not so much with the holiday itself, as it is with the expectations we set for it. Every year I start out with such good intentions, and every year it seems as though I can’t get my Christmas letter finished on time, or I'm still shopping at the very last minute, and of course I invariably end up feeling a little awkward and embarrassed about receiving presents I don't really want or need.

I generally enjoy giving gifts, but I resent trying to find something "perfect" for everyone I know; I would much rather shop thoughtfully for one or two people than worry about forgetting someone who hasn't forgotten me. I’m also not that keen on red and green; they are OK by themselves, but together they are incredibly garish colors, particularly for a necktie. Not that my personal favorites, Purple and Crimson, would look any better. But at least no one is going to be heartbroken if I decide its not the sort of thing I want to wear to church on Sunday morning.

At least I don't really fret that much any more about the "commercialization" of Christmas. Nowadays I find that sort of thing relatively easy to ignore. What I can't ignore is that nagging feeling that somehow I ought to be enjoying myself more than I am, that it's somehow all my fault if everyone around me isn't full of the holiday spirit, or that I have some sort of serious, pathological personality disorder because I'm saying "Merry Christmas" and feeling "Bah, Humbug." We do expect an awful lot out of ourselves this time of year. It's no wonder that so many of us come to feel disappointed, or even depressed, in this supposed season of Peace and Good Will.

Personally, I find far more joy in the memories of Christmas Past than I do in the anticipation of Christmas Yet to Come. Memory is thankfully a selective thing, a fact which can in itself make memory a double edged sword. Were those old fashioned Christmases really as good as we remember them to be? The more fondly we recall them, the more pressure we put upon ourselves to make this year's Christmas "the best Christmas ever" -- to out-do years of accumulated recollections in one huge orgy of holiday merriment.

Or, in some cases, to make up for them. For although it is in the nature of things to remember best the good times while gradually forgetting the bad, there are certain times that are just so terrible there's no forgetting them, no matter how hard one tries. Every one of us, I suspect, harbors memories of both kinds: the Christmas we endeavor to recreate, and the one we hope we'll never see again. And both influence our expectations of the current holiday season, the Spirit of Christmas Present.

And then, just beyond our personal holiday ghosts, lurk our cultural Christmas traditions: sleigh bells and mistletoe, stockings hung by the chimney with care, Jack Frost nipping at your nose -- things which make perfect sense if you lived here in Maine, or in rural Vermont or upstate New York a century ago, but which can be awfully confusing for a small child growing up in a condominium in Southern California. Over the Freeway and to the Beach to Grandmother's house we go? Throw another Yule log on the hibachi?

The first year I lived in Texas I received a card from my brother asking me whether I was going to decorate a cactus for Christmas. But it didn’t take me too long to appreciate the advantages of being able to draw upon Mexican Christmas traditions as well as those of Northern Europe. To my way of thinking, Piñatas filled with candy and candle-lit Luminarios lining the sidewalk beat the heck out of having to shovel a foot of snow just to get to the firewood. I love looking at pictures of a one-horse open sleigh dashing through the snow dragging a freshly-cut Christmas tree back to grandmother’s house, but it’s not really something I feel compelled to do personally.

There is, of course, a symbolic quality to tradition as well, in that tradition often points to meanings which lie beyond itself. But traditions also tend to take on meanings all their own, through repetition if nothing else, as our personal experiences intersect with it and are shaped and influenced by it. A child who has grown up with an expectation of a "White Christmas" is going to be disappointed if it doesn't snow, just as children who have always smashed a piñata won't feel as though Christmas is really Christmas unless they go home with a pocket full of candy.

But whatever traditions we chose to observe, the one thing we must never allow ourselves to forget is that this is a religious holiday we celebrate here in the shadow of the winter solstice. And the thing we celebrate is not so much the miraculous birth of a special infant some 2000 years ago, as it is the knowledge that, indeed, the life of one good-hearted, self-sacrificing, honest, virtuous, compassionate individual can make a difference, has made a difference, and still continues to make a difference, here in the here and now; and that this difference is appreciated by those of us who have benefited from it, who still believe in Peace on Earth, Goodwill to All. Call him George Bailey of Bedford Falls; call him Y'shua ben Joseph of Nazareth, the Annointed Messiah, King of Kings, the Prince of Peace, the Christ Child: call it whatever you like, It's a Wonderful Life. It's the life we celebrate at Christmas, the miracle of a new light come into the world.

A living tradition can be a bridge to our appreciation of that miracle, while empty traditions are often barriers to our ever experiencing it for ourselves. And we bring our traditions to life not through the futile attempt to resurrect the Spirit of Christmas Past, but by our openness to life in the here and now, our willingness to let honesty and virtue, good-heartedness and self-sacrifice, live within us, take vitality from our laughter, and courage from our tears.

I used to feel kind of embarrassed about always crying at the end of "It's a Wonderful Life." After all, it's not a very manly thing to do -- you'd think I was still a small child or something. Lately I find that I don't worry about that kind of thing too much, at least not among my friends. Because Christmas truly is a holiday for the child within us all. For those still young enough to believe in Santa, still naive enough to believe that the world can be saved by a child, and for all of us who want to believe in people like George Bailey, and in Clarence, an Angel Second Class, who is counting on help from the likes of us to help him earn his wings.

***

READINGS: Two Christmas poems by Ursula Askham Fanthorpe

BC : AD

This was the moment when Before
Turned into After, and the future’s
Uninvented timekeepers presented arms.

This was the moment when nothing
Happened. Only dull peace
Sprawled boringly over the earth.

This was the moment when even energetic Romans
Could find nothing better to do
Than counting heads in remote provinces.

And this was the moment
When a few farm workers and three
Members of an obscure Persian sect.
Walked haphazard by starlight straight
Into the kingdom of heaven.


What The Donkey Saw

No room in the inn, of course,
And not that much in the stable
What with the shepherds, Magi, Mary,
Joseph, the heavenly host -
Not to mention the baby
Using our manger as a cot.
You couldn’t have squeezed another cherub in
For love or money.

Still, in spite of the overcrowding,
I did my best to make them feel wanted.
I could see the baby and I
Would be going places together.

Some Early Morning Reflections on the Longest (and Darkest) Night of the Year (and Soul)

✇ WWUUD?
22 December 2007 at 07:11
By: The Eclectic Cleric
I've been thinking a bit more about some of the issues I've been ruminating over lately regarding privilege and entitlement, now that I've had a chance to sleep on them a little. Perhaps "afflicting the comfortable" really is just part of the job description of a minister, no matter how uncomfortable it may feel to all concerned. But (to quote a former parishioner) “who comforts the afflicter?” Clergy talk and talk until we are blue in the face about the importance of self-care and spiritual renewal, but when push comes to shove, who among us is truly brave enough to look to our own needs first when our people really need us?

I once believed that Ministry was a profession just like any other profession: grounded in the mastery and practice of a particular body of knowledge and set of skills. But after 25 years, I’ve come to understand that ministry is really about a set of relationships. A relationship with God (or whatever passes for “God” in your particular understanding of Universe), along with a calling to a higher purpose in service of a larger good. A relationship with an institutional organization, and to its historical traditions and values. A relationship with a community of people who have invited you to become their leader, teacher, coach and caregiver; and to individuals within that community, each of whom is continually making up their mind about whether or not they are willing to call you THEIR minister. It is a tremendous privilege to be addressed by the title "Reverend." But it's not a privilege we are entitled to by virtue of education or credential or expertise; rather, it's a title we have to earn again and again every day by being worthy of people's reverence. Which is certainly not a burden to be taken lightly.

Likewise, these relationships can be incredibly fulfilling, and profoundly rewarding in their own right. But like any relationship, they are also often destined to disappoint. Destined perhaps even to break people's hearts (including our own). It’s merely a natural consequence of the fact that nobody’s perfect. I know full well that my people aren't perfect, and that I’m not a perfect minister either. And even if I were, that still doesn’t mean that I’m going to be everyone’s cup of tea. No minister is. But that still doesn’t keep me from being a very good minister (or at least doing the best that I can)... even when I disappoint, or can’t quite live up even to my own expectations for myself.

In his book Put on Your Own Oxygen Mask First, Bill Easum talks about the dangers of a "high mercy gift." UU's are probably more comfortable talking about healthy boundaries, the dangers of co-dependence, and developing "serviceable Ministerial relationships," but I think the issues are pretty much the same. In my own mind, it's about finding the proper balance between "service" and "leadership" in the role of Servant Leader. This may just be my wise cynicism rearing its ugly head again, but I'd venture to guess that an awful lot of conflict between clergy and members of their congregations boils down to different expectations about who is going to lead and who is going to follow, and who expects to be served by whom. And I’m afraid that an awful lot of ministers I know tend to exude an aura of privilege and entitlement when they would really be much better off practicing humility and sacrifice.

But Privilege and Entitlement are not the exclusive property of ordained clergy. Not by a long shot. I’ve also seen way too often with my own two eyes how easily a minister’s willingness to sacrifice and serve humbly is subtly transformed into a kind of humiliating servitude. Not through malice or design. But by the unrealistic and unrelenting expectations of affluent, educated, “successful” people who are accustomed to getting what they want and to having things their own way. They come to church (when they aren’t doing something more important) for their weekly dose of inspiration and “intellectual stimulation,” and leave feeling good about themselves and all that they believe they stand for. But how many of them really practice what we preach? Or am I just naive to believe that this is any different than it should be?

What does it truly mean to be people of faith, serving as leaders in communities of faith, and practicing a particular faith tradition? That word “faith” is often interpreted as “belief without evidence,” but it’s so much more than that. It means confidence. It means trust. In Latin, it is “fidelity” -- a word which we have imported directly into English with nary a varied nuance. When we are unfaithful, and trust is broken, people lose confidence in us -- and it can happen in a heartbeat. Building Trust, on the other hand, often takes a great deal of time and effort and shared experience. Clergy can’t MAKE people trust them, although the role itself these days comes with both a great deal of implicit trust and a great deal of cultural suspicion built-in as standard equipment. The best we can do as individuals is to endeavor always and in all ways to be Trust-Worthy, and hope that those around us will see that for what it is.

And then comes the hardest part of the business of all: learning to trust ourselves. And funny how that phrase works both ways: learning ourselves how to trust others, and learning as well how to trust our own skills, abilities, knowledge, insights, motivations and “faithfulness.” This is where the discipline of learning how to give ourselves over to something larger than ourselves comes into play. And it isn’t easy. But who ever said that anything in life that is truly worthwhile is ever easy?

That's just the Cross-Eyed Bear...

✇ WWUUD?
21 December 2007 at 03:14
By: The Eclectic Cleric
One of the challenges I've been wrestling with recently, both in my ministry and my own spiritual practice, is moving beyond the “wise cynicism” I’ve developed in more than a quarter-century of this strange and wonderfully frustrating work, so that I might somehow reconnect with the optimism, idealism and passionate enthusiasm which originally called me to this vocation in my youth.

Over the years I’ve managed to develop a pretty thick skin, and (at times, at least) a pretty jaded attitude. I’ve learned the hard way that “no good deed goes unpunished,” and how to remain so “non-anxious” and “non-reactive,” “non-defensive” and “self-differentiated” that people sometimes wonder whether I’m even paying attention. I’ve learned how to take criticism seriously without taking it personally, and that there are lots of things, both in life and at church, that I just can’t fix no matter how hard I try, and am better off simply learning how to live with and accept. I no longer harbor a lot of illusions about the true nature of my work. And yet in the midst of this "disillusionment," I sometimes find the work itself more and more difficult to do “in good faith.”

For example, I have become SO tired of feeling like I have to harangue, cajole, browbeat or shame basically good and decent people into doing the right thing simply because they are too stubborn, lazy, self-satisfied, comfortable and content to do the right thing on their own. This was basically the problem with my last congregation, and it was unpleasant for everyone concerned. And yet, for a lot of people, this is precisely what preachers are SUPPOSED to do, which is also, I suspect, the reason so many of them stay away from church in droves -- because they find the experience “too preachy.” Let’s face it, nobody really LIKES being preached to. Much less being preached at.

Likewise, one of the most difficult conundrums facing any leader is determining how quickly to try to move people forward. No matter what pace you choose to set, there are always going to be some folks who feel you’re going too fast, and others who feel like you’re not going fast enough. Getting everyone lined up, facing in roughly the same direction, and moving along the same path at approximately the same speed (more often than not when they aren’t even looking at the same page of the guidebook) can feel like an impossible chore. Is it best to try to lead from the front, holding high your shepherd’s staff while setting a brisk pace in the hope that the others will keep up on the journey to greener pastures? Or is one better off herding from behind, barking and nipping at the heels of the stragglers while keeping a wary eye open for the wolves in sheep’s clothing?

I know it’s a stereotype, but at least more "traditional" preachers had both a big carrot and an even bigger stick. Do the right thing, and you’ll be going to heaven; do something different, and you can go somewhere else. More recently, proponants of the so-called “prosperity gospel” have added promises of worldly wealth, success, health and happiness to the menu of pie in the sky when you die. It may seem a little hard for some of us to swallow, but a lot of folks are apparently gobbling it up with a spoon. Indeed, the traditional metaphor of "the shepherd and their flock" implicitly reinforces these stereotypes. "Sheep" who are incapable of thinking for themselves need a strong and decisive Pastor to tell them what to believe.

But if anything (at least in my experience) the typical members of UU congregations more closely resemble goats: frisky, nimble, curious, aggressive, highly independent, natural escape artists, and willing to swallow just about anything they can get their mouths around if given an opportunity. Yet even a herd of highly-heretical goats occasionally requires the services of a faithful goatherd:to keep them safe from predators, and properly groomed and fed; to track them down when they get loose and become lost or hurt; and ESPECIALLY to keep them from running amok in the neighbor's garden...which is (as you will well know if you've ever kept REAL goats yourself) their absolutely favorite activity of all, but doesn't really do much to improve relations with the neighbors. And even though you're doing it for their own good, even goats generally resent being led on a leash back to the goatshed, when they could be running free.

But getting back to the subject at hand, I understand perfectly well the importance of expressing a positive attitude and creating a positive message: that you “catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar,” and how important it is to give basically good people a good reputation to live up to. I know that internal motivation is a more powerful incentive than external pressure, and that it is better to inspire than to scold. What I DON’T really understand is why I find it so difficult at times to inspire myself, and why I have come to expect so little, and yet so much, from this “divine profession” to which I have devoted my entire adult life.

In Praise of Dyslexia

✇ WWUUD?
18 December 2007 at 15:01
By: The Eclectic Cleric
A soon-to-be-published study by Cass Business School professor Julie Logan reports that 35% of successful American entrepeneurs exhibit signs of dyslexia. "The broader implication" according to the article, "is that many of the coping skills dyslexics learn in their formative years become best practices for the successful entrepreneur. Children who chronically fail standardized tests must become comfortable with failure. Slow readers learn to extract only vital information, so that they're constantly getting right to the point. Dyslexics are also forced to trust and rely on others to get things done -- an essential skill for anyone working to build a business."

If true, this is a fascinating illustration of the concept of "different abilities," as well as the notion that many so-called "disorders" are socially constructed (which is to say, that society finds certain behaviors disorderly, rather than there being anything inherently wrong with the person).

Of course, this also reminds me of all the speculation early in his administration that our President is dyslexic, which explains both his mother's interest in literacy, and his own routine butchering of the English language.

Then again, he could just be stupid. I also seem to recall him saying that the underlying problem with the French economy is that they don't even have a word for "entrepeneur."

But I think the main lesson I take away from all this is the distinction between intrinsic ability and hard work. Sure it's nice to be gifted and talented, or to possess "natural" abilities of above-average whatever. But it's persistence and hard work that always seem to make the real difference between success and failure. No matter how smart you are, there is always someone smarter...and everyone you meet knows something that you don't.

It doesn't matter how big or strong or fast or even beautiful you may be either...there is always someone bigger, and stronger, faster and more beautiful.

And luck? Everyone knows that hard workers make their own luck.

Here's another interesting article from Scientific American about the Secret to Raising Smart Kids. Guess what the secret is? Don't tell them they're smart. Tell them that effort is more important than ability, and to find confidence in their ability to weather failure rather than easily achieve success.

So next time you're feeling down and discouraged, take strength from your disappointment and remember that anything worth doing is worth doing badly...at first. But if you just stick with it, things will indeed get better. And so will you.

WHEN CHRISTMAS WAS A CRIME

✇ WWUUD?
16 December 2007 at 08:33
By: The Eclectic Cleric
a sermon preached by the Rev. Dr. Tim W. Jensen
at the First Parish in Portland, Maine
Sunday December 16th, 2007

Early before dawn on the morning of December 26th, 1776, the Continental Army under the command of General George Washington ferried across the partially frozen Delaware river and attacked a garrison of Hessian mercenaries occupying the town of Trenton, New Jersey. Surprise was complete; most of the Germans were still sleeping off the riotous Christmas celebration they had tied on the night before. One American soldier described the battle in his diary this way: "Hessian population of Trenton at eight am: 1,408 men and 39 officers; Hessian population at nine am: zero." Over 900 of the German troops were killed or captured, at the cost of only two American lives. On the body of Colonel Ralls, the German commander, the Americans found a letter from a British loyalist warning of Washington's attack. The letter was unopened. Ralls had been a victim of his own preconceptions: no "Christian" army would launch an attack on Christmas Day!

But these were not Catholics, nor Lutherans, nor even Anglicans that the German mercenaries were up against. They were, for the most part, New England Congregationalists, inheritors of that Puritan legacy in which the celebration of Christmas was seen as a "Popish superstition," a "wanton, Bacchanalian feast," and in some jursidictions here in what was then still part of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, a criminal offense punishable by a fine of five shillings and confinement in the stocks.

These New Englanders had little care for Yule logs and Mistletoe, wassail and Carols and Christmas pudding. Their's was a tradition of "pure" Christianity, stripped of the trappings of Druidic witchcraft and Roman syncretism. When they wanted to feast, they declared a Day of Thanksgiving and ate Turkey and Cranberries. There was plenty of thanks being given on the day the captured Hessian prisoners were paraded through the streets of Philadelphia. The dwindling Patriot army had finally won an important victory, and Congress voted to allow Washington to continue his command.

Although attitudes had moderated somewhat by the time of George Washington, the underlying sentiments of 17th century Puritanism were still quite influential in Revolutionary New England. Puritan religion was based on three simple precepts: a deeply abiding sense of original sin and the total depravity of human kind; a personal awareness of the regenerative power of God's grace through His predestined election of a few unworthy souls for salvation; and a compelling notion of service and religious duty in thanks for God's gift of unconditional election. They saw themselves embarked upon an errand into the wilderness, an errand to create a "City upon a Hill," a beacon to all the world which would shine as an example of the ideal Christian community, ruled and regulated according to God's Holy Ordinances as revealed in Scripture.

They took themselves and their mission seriously, yet they were also fine scholars, who were well aware of the pagan origins of most Christmas traditions, and who believed that God would turn His back upon their community should they stray from their stern covenant into the festive merriment of the Yuletide holiday. The frivolous actions of just a few might easily bring down God's wrath upon the entire colony. Thus the magistrates were empowered to arrest and punish blasphemers, Sabbath breakers, and anyone else whose ideas or actions might endanger the stability of their perfect Christian community, including those who celebrated Christmas, whether by feasting, or abstaining from labor, or in any other way marking the occasion as something special or out of the ordinary. For the Puritans, Christmas was a day like any other day; to observe otherwise was not only to risk the wrath of God, but to place oneself in danger of criminal prosecution as well.

The Puritan attitude towards Christmas may seem a bit extreme to us today. But then, the Puritans never did have much of a reputation as a fun-loving bunch. Nowadays, while we might complain about the "commercialization" of Christmas, or the emotional stress of entertaining our friends and families, few of us give much thought to the essentially pagan origins of the holiday, nor, I suspect, would we be particularly concerned about them if we did. The evolution of an obscure 4th century Turkish Bishop, St. Nicholas, into a rotund, white bearded "jolly old elf," who dresses in red, owns a herd of flying reindeer, and lives at the North Pole raises few eyebrows; nor are we troubled by the amazing coincidence that December 25th also happens to be the birthday of the Greek God Adonis, the Egyptian God Horus, and the Iranian God Mithra, all of whom were well entrenched on the winter solstice long before a virgin gave birth to a savior in Bethlehem, and laid him in a manger wrapped in swaddling clothes.

Instead, we trim our trees and adorn our homes with holly and mistletoe much as the Celts did centuries ago; we exchange cards and brightly wrapped gifts; bake pies and cookies and cakes; we sing of miracles, of peace on earth, good will to all; and hang our stockings by the chimney with care. We tell ourselves, with a wink, that "Christmas is for Children," all the time knowing that the best parts of Christmas are really for adults, and are often completely lost upon the avaricious little monsters, who scoff at movies like "It's a Wonderful Life," write letters to "Santa" that require extra postage, ransack our closets behind our backs, and just don't seem to quite understand what the whole thing's really all about. Adults tolerate children at Christmas, I think, because we remember that we were once children ourselves. Indeed, if in any sense "Christmas is for Children," it is for the inner children who live within us still, and are now finally old enough to truly understand the message of peace, hope and innocence embodied in this season.

In my household when my kids were young, we had a tradition of only celebrating Christmas every other year. This unorthodox practice dates back to my former wife’s first divorce, and an agreement she had with her ex-husband that the kids would spend every other Christmas with him. This worked out pretty well for Margie, because she had never really been that big a “Christmas person;” she associates this time of year with a couple of very unpleasant memories: the untimely death of her mother, when Margie, was only 21, and also the death of her own second-born child from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome a few years later. So she always kind of appreciated having a built-in excuse to take it kind of easy this time of year.

But after Margie, and I were married, I think the kids both assumed that, because I was a minister, I HAD to celebrate Christmas every year. So when I announced that we would continue the tradition, at first they didn't take me seriously. But after a couple of weeks, when there wasn't any tree, and there weren't any lights, and there weren't any mysterious packages from the Mall hidden in any of our closets, they began to get a little worried. I think they'd both sorta been looking forward to really cleaning up that year, on having two Christmases, with twice the usual amount of candy, and twice the usual number of presents: a real orgy of "ripping," as they so delicately described it, with all the attendant excitement and attention. And I can understand that wish, I guess; in many ways, it's every kid's dream: a Christmas that never ends.

I don't know how many of you have ever faced this situation of sharing children with a former spouse over the holidays, but it's a fairly common thing these days, and it can be kind of tricky, both logistically and emotionally. There's a real temptation to over-react, to set yourself up in competition with the other person to see who can provide the "better" Christmas, which all too often boils down to who has the deepest pockets.

Kids know this, of course, and they play it up for all its worth: not maliciously, I think, but rather because they're not really old enough to know any better. Children have very tangible minds: they like things that they can see and touch. Money is no object with children, because they don't really understand it, although this has its advantages too; the most popular Christmas gift I ever purchased for my children was a 99 cent Nerf football, which I bought one Christmas Eve as an afterthought while browsing through the local drug store on another last-minute errand.

Yet it is this very quality we find so endearing in children which convinces me that Christmas is wasted upon them. Until one develops the capacity to appreciate the intangibles of Christmas, the holiday remains merely a celebration of consumption: shallow, superficial, and ultimately disappointing. We might as well imitate the Puritans and eliminate it all together, for it adds nothing to the quality of our lives, it simply distracts us from the things that are ultimately important.

The delighted squeal of children on Christmas morning is a transitory thing; it passes away and is soon forgotten: the adults tend to remember it far longer than the kids do. The cries of hungry children who do not have enough to eat are far more persistent, yet even when we pause long enough to hear them cry, it often seems as though there is realistically very little any one of us can hope to do in order to meet that urgent need. Perhaps, if we are conscientious, we try to do our share, and hope that with the help of others, it will be enough. But it never really is enough.

Yet it is between these two contrasting extremes that the real meaning of Christmas, the real Spirit of Christmas, can be found. It is found the story of a baby born in a stable because there was no room at the inn, born far from home, on the longest night of the year, to bring a light into the world; incarnating, if you will, the very real possibility that both greed and poverty can be transcended through the simple expedient of profound human relationship, to one another and to the divine, uniting kings and shepherds, animals and angels, in common service to a sovereign mystery, to the appearance of a new star in the sky. And perhaps it never really happened; perhaps it is nothing but a myth. But the possibility still exists, in the power of the story to help us see beyond the tangible, to reach out to the things we can not touch, and hold them firmly in our hearts all the same.

Auto-blog II -- My New Focus

✇ WWUUD?
13 December 2007 at 19:13
By: The Eclectic Cleric


I notice with some amusement that my colleague from Portland OR, Marilyn Sewell, is also blogging about her new car, after her faithful old Honda was first stolen out of her driveway, and then missing for a month (during which time she replaced it with a used Volvo), only to later have the Honda recovered by the police. By that time, of course, the Honda had been stripped of anything valuable (which did not, apparently, include her CDs), and Marilyn had fallen head over heels in love with her new Swedish ride anyway, so the Japanese import was released into the custody of the Insurance company, who will no doubt find it a good home.

My story isn't nearly so dramatic as Marilyn's. Having made the decision to replace my 10-year-old Ranger pick-up with a smaller, more fuel-efficient and city-friendly (i.e. easy to park) vehicle, rather than paying $2500 to have the four-wheel-drive repaired and the rest of the vehicle brought up to where it would pass inspection, I basically only considered three options: the Escape Hybrid (because someone told me that I ought to buy a hybrid), the Subaru Outback wagon (which is a very popular car in my neighborhood, and also I've noticed among Unitarian ministers in general), and the Focus (which is the model Ford created to replace the Escort, and, as you have no doubt already inferred from the title, is the vehicle I eventually bought).

I'm not really certain how I became such a loyal Ford customer, but since this is my third one in a row now (and I've basicly driven nothing else for 15 years) I guess I qualify. Bought the original Escort wagon in part because we realized that we could buy two Escorts for the price of one Outback; and the fact that I drove it for nearly a quarter of a million miles before it finally gave up the ghost (in protest, I think, over having to leave its home in the Pacific Northwest) certainly did a lot to cement my loyalty to the product. The Ranger was not such a bad ride either, and my appreciation for that vehicle was reinforced early on by the fact that the only car dealership on Nantucket sold and serviced Fords, which pretty much gave them a Mircosoft-like competitive advantage when it came to selling to and servicing Island residents.

When I eventually moved back to "America," to an affluent little faux-rural New England town just over the river and through the woods from Walden Pond, my dirty, dented, decade-old pick-up made a nice contrast to the Escapes, Priuses, Saubs, Subarus, and BMWs I generally saw all around me...not to mention all the various SUVs and Mini-vans (of every make and model) and more Hummers per captia than anywhere else in the Commonwealth (although none, I don't think, were owned my members of the congregation). And since it was a fifteen minute drive in any direction just to get gas or groceries, I ended up spending a lot more time in that car than I would have chosen to otherwise.

But here in Portland ME it's a very different landscape. Although I live a half-mile from church (as opposed to only 40 yards in Carlisle, and maybe 40 feet on Nantucket), just about everything I could ever want or need is within easy walking distance of my apartment, and public transportation is readily available. Still, as a minister, I feel compelled to keep a car in the city, even though on some levels at least I would be delighted not to have to. My Aunt in Seattle has lived without a car in that city ever since she returned from the Peace Corps in the mid-1960's -- 40 years during which she has also traveled all over the world (including India and Pakistan, South America, and widely in Europe and Africa)using only public transportation, a bicycle, and her own two feet. She doesn't even like to RIDE in cars if she can avoid it. And I admire her independence in doing so.

But it's different being a minister. Even when gasoline and rubber were being strictly rationed during the Second World War, clergy and physicians received priority status, since society recognized that they needed those resources in order to accomplish their jobs. Nowadays MDs rarely make housecalls, the status of ministers is somewhat less exhalted, and if anything our society is more car-dependent than ever. But the importance of "auto-mobility" to the work of ministry is essentially unchanged; we travel at odd and unpredictable hours, are often needed in a hurry, even more often need to be two places at the same time, and are even at times required to provide transportation for others who cannot transport themselves.

Yet at the same time, the style of automobile a minister selects suggests an awful lot about their theology, and needs to be undertaken with great discernment. If I'm going to be making my parish visits in a Mercedes, a BMW, or a Porsche...it had better be AT LEAST a decade old, and preferably a vehicle that actually belongs to (or perhaps was bought by and handed down from) my extremely successful attorney/physician/corporate executive partner. Foreign compacts (like the Subaru or Marilyn's Honda) are generally good, while American cars (it seems to me, at least) are a little more of a mixed bag -- it's nice to buy domestic and support the jobs of unionized American Auto Workers, but is what's good for General Motors REALLY what's good for the country anymore?

Likewise, my heart may long for a little red convertible, but my brain tells me I'm a lot better off picking a sensible blue or green or white or gray sedan or compact wagon. Or maybe a small SUV or Mini-van...expecially if I have young children in the household. And if I REALLY want to make a statement, then I'll get a hybrid...assuming I can afford it. But God forbid that I should ever find myself behind the wheel of a Hummer...unless I'm accompanying a National Guard unit to the location of a natural disaster.

And so it came to pass that armed with this set of sensibilities, I set out in search of a new car to replace the Ranger. Ruled out the Hybrid Escape on grounds of cost, as well as the realization that both the Subaru and the Focus got just as good gas mileage with conventional technology. Flirted with the Subaru...and if I'd been willing to make the effort I probably could have found a good, low-mileage used Subaru wagon for only a few thousand more than I ended up paying for my Ford. But people who own these wagons tend to like them so well that they hold on to them for a long time, and besides, the Ford dealership is a lot closer to my home, and I already had a good relationship with them based on the work they'd already done on my truck. So that's where I started, and that's where I ended up...mostly because I didn't want to have to put any more time into this entire process than I absolutely had to anyway.

So I zeroed in on a Focus, and then began the even more complicated process of finding MY particular Focus out of all the possible Foci (or maybe in this case, it really is "Focuses") potentially available to me. And the reason this turned out to be more complicated than I'd thought is because I made it so. My first thought was that I would go with some sort of used "program" car -- a former rental a year or two old, which can generally be picked up for about two-thirds the price of a comparable new car. But those cars all come with automatic transmissions, and I'd decided that I really did want a standard five speed manual shift again, as well as cruise control if I could get it (since I'd also enjoyed that option on my previous two Fords, and have grown rather accustomed to it). And then (and this really was my one true concession to having turned fifty) I really wanted to have a moonroof if they could find one, just so I could still potentially open up the top and feel the wind blow through what's left of my hair on a sunny summer day once in awhile. But to compensate for that indulgence, I also insisted that there be no spoilers or flashy trim, and that the car could be any color but red.

The bad news was that there was only one vehicle with that particular configuration of equipment anywhere in New England. The good news was that it belonged to the dealership only five miles across town. Then we learned that it wouldn't arrive on the lot for another week. Then came the blizzard, which delayed things even more. By this time I was already starting to rethink my decision about buying a new car at all -- $2500 bucks to keep the Ranger on the road through another winter was looking like a pretty good idea after all. But my dad, bless his heart, came through with some very sensible fatherly advice: you tend to keep these cars a long time Tim, (he told me), and you can afford to buy the car you want -- so bite the bullet, spend the money, get the car and ENJOY IT! for a long, long time.

So that's what I did. Even so, after fifteen years without a car payment, the sticker shock was pretty intense. Doubled the cost of my insurance, and the state excise tax alone is a dollar a day. Add in the payments and the cost of off-street parking, and I'm into this alligator nearly five hundred dollars a month before I've bought a single drop of three dollar a gallon gasoline. All told, I'm estimating that the "privilege" of owning and operating my own vehicle is going to cost me about 12% of my annual gross income. Thats a helluva lot of cab rides, frankly. And if I lived in a community where flex-cars were available, I think I'd be looking awfully hard at signing up.

But then there's the clergy thing. Suburban nursing homes, evening potlucks and circle suppers, hospital visits, ministers meetings...a car may not be an absolute necessity, but it sure does make things easier and more convenient. Although let's not forget the greatest irony of all. Now that I've actually purchased this beautiful new car, I'm afraid to drive it in the snow...and so mostly I try to leave it parked in the garage, and walk everywhere I can anyway. So we'll see. Maybe by this time next year, somebody out there will get a great deal on a low-mileage, high MPG standard shift, cruise-control equipped Clerical Black Ford Focus sedan with a moonroof. Or maybe by then I will have simply gotten over all this automobile angst, and will be loving my new ride....

Auto-blog I - Remembrance of Rides Past

✇ WWUUD?
10 December 2007 at 15:00
By: The Eclectic Cleric
So it finally happened. Rather than waiting for my '97 Ranger to take things into its own hands, last week I broke down and bought myself a new vehicle. This is actually the first new car I've owned in 15 years, and only the third I've owned in my entire lifetime of driving. And while I've started to give myself permission to feel happy about owning a new car (which is, after all, supposed to be a happy occasion), I'm also feeling a little funny about it...which is really what I want to write about.

But first a little history. My very first car was a hand-me-down 1962 red Plymouth Valiant station wagon (with a push-button automatic transmission)that had belonged to my mother for a dozen years before I finally got my hands on it. Picked up three tickets and was involved in three accidents with that little beauty, the last of which finally killed it outright on a sharp curve on a steep hill on a rainy day in a suburb of Seattle about two weeks before I started college at the University of Washington.

But by that time I already had another ride: an even redder 1968 Triumph TR-250 convertible which my father had bought for me as a reward/bribe in order to get me to study a little harder so that I could get into a decent college in the first place. It's funny how quickly a basically bright but lazy kid can become a straight-A student when there's a sports car as incentive, and although my father complained miserably about that little two-seater roadster, I suspect in retrospect he would say it was the best $2,000 he's ever spent in his life.

And it did double duty; because once I actually started college my younger brother got to drive the TR, and I didn't get back behind the wheel until the start of my Junior year, when HE was a freshman living in the next dorm over, and I could finally afford to insure the thing myself. But of course he kept a duplicate set of keys, and more than once I stopped by my parking space only to discover nothing but an oilspot waiting for me. But at least he always had the decency to return it with a full tank of gas!

When I went off to HDS for graduate school (at the start of his Junior year), the TR once more came into my brother's keeping, and eventually passed from our lives on his watch. I lived quite contentedly carless in Cambridge and Boston, and remained car-free until the start of my internship back in Seattle, where I spent $300 for a 1974 lemon yellow Volkswagen Dasher. That car burned about a quart of oil for every tank of gas, but it got me everywhere I needed to go for a year an a half, before finally perishing in a snowstorm 10 days before I was scheduled to begin my first settled ministry in Midland, Texas.

It was in Midland that I purchased my first-ever new car: a 1985 Toyota Corolla. Of course, being from the Pacific Northwest, I didn't really appreciate how few and far between Toyotas were in Texas in those days; my "new" Toyota was actually delivered to me from a dealership in New Orleans, with 800 miles already on the odometer. I didn't care; I drove that car for eight years (including back and forth between Texas and Seattle three times), while my wife went through four different vehicles in that same period (a used GMC Hornet-which was her vehicle of choice before we were married; a new Ford Escort; a new Dodge Omni; and a slightly-used Dodge Shadow, which she came home with one day after taking the Omni to the dealership to have a headlight replaced, and discovering that she could actually save nearly $100/month if she simply traded it in and bought the Shadow instead).

In 1993 my wife had just finished Law School, and I was about to start back to school myself to study for a PhD. She had a good job, we had come into some money, and so we paid cash and treated ourselves to his and hers Ford Escorts: a little red coupe for her, and a forest green wagon for me. I put 237k miles on that car in the eight years I drove it, commuting back and forth between Portland, Corvallis, and Eugene...as well as all up and down the I-5 corridor from Bellingham to Roseburg preaching on the weekends (just for the record, in that same eight-year period she only put 42k miles on the coupe).

In the summer of 2001, I'd completed my PhD and was about to begin an interim ministry on Nantucket Island. What to do about a car on the island was a frequent topic of discussion among my family. At first I thought I might be able to get by without a car, but I was assured that this would not be the case -- that even on an island, a minister still needs to be able to make those parish visits out to 'Sconset; and in winter there are no buses and bicycles are a little problematic. Then I thought I might swap cars with my daughter, who was then living in Massachusetts but planning to return to Oregon in the fall. But she refused to take the Escort under any circumstances. Finally, when the folks on Nantucket also assured me that the island was an excellent place to have an old car (since when it DOES finally break down, you don't have that far to walk home), I decided to try my luck and try to drive my trusty wagon cross-country.

In retrospect, having lived so much of my life behind the wheel of that vehicle for the previous eight years, I had a lot of emotional investment in getting my CLERIC car to a nice round quarter of a million miles before allowing her to retire gracefully on Nantucket. Meanwhile, my family started a pool about how far backwards along the Oregon Trail I would make it before the car finally expired permanently. The winning bet was that I would never make it out of the state; climbing the Blue Mountains on I-84 I suddenly lost 5th gear, and so I coasted down into Baker City and within four hours had traded in my Escort for a used, 1997 white Ford Ranger X-cab 4x4 pickup.

Unpacked the Escort, repacked the Ranger, settled the dog safely into the passenger seat, and we were back on the road again. Drove that truck for two years on the Island, and another four in Carlisle...and learned to love the four-wheel drive and the big cargo space, but never really did get used to the poor gas mileage (19 mpg), or how tricky it was to park in tight places. Big blind spot too, especially trying to glance back over my right shoulder through both a tinted rear window and the canopy. Put a big dent in the passenger door my first day on the Island, trying to squeeze into my driveway past an inconveniently-located telephone pole; and over the years picked up a few more dents and dings as well...but for some reason it didn't really bother me, because, after all, isn't that what trucks are for?

That Ranger also came in awfully useful moving up here to Portland, and I'm sure I could have happily driven it for many more years, since it only had 134k miles on it and still seemed to be going strong. But I also noticed last winter that it was making funny noises when I put it into four-wheel drive, so last month when I took it into the dealership to have it serviced and winterized, I asked them to take a look. Sure enough, I needed new hubs and a U-joint, plus brake work, a new thermostat, as well as an aftermarket brakelight kit to bring the canopy into confomity with Maine law...$2500 worth of work (which the service manager quickly offered to discount 10% on account of me being clergy).

And I was almost ready to get that work done, when while driving back down to Massachusetts on the day after Thanksgiving I suddenly remembered that burnt-out headlight on the Dodge Omni. Why, I asked, should I sink another $2500 into a beat-up ten-year-old gas-guzzling clunker when I could be driving a new, compact, fuel-efficient 21st-century automobile instead? It just didn't make sense to me. Or perhaps I should say, all of a sudden I just didn't feel like nursing along my old truck from one mechanical crisis to the next, and started looking forward to owning something with a standard 3 year/36k mile bumper to bumper warranty, free road side assistance, passenger-side airbags, and all the rest.

And so the search began. To be continued in part two....

THE FLAME THAT WOULDN'T DIE

✇ WWUUD?
9 December 2007 at 17:49
By: The Eclectic Cleric
a sermon preached by the Rev. Dr. Tim W. Jensen
at the First Parish Church of Portland, Maine
Sunday December 9th, 2007

READING: 1 Maccabees 4: 34-59

***
When I was a child, growing up in a Unitarian Universalist Sunday School, I always had a lot of fun when we were given the opportunity to celebrate Hanukkah as part of our Sunday School curriculum. We lit the candles in the Menorah, we played with Dreidels, we heard the story of the lamp that burned for eight straight days, when there was only a one day supply of oil. In the predominately Catholic neighborhood where we lived, "The Feast of Lights" seemed like our Unitarian-Universalist answer to Advent — not only did it avoid a lot of problematic issues like the Virgin Birth, but it also introduced us to the whole idea of cross-cultural celebrations of the Winter Solstice: the coming of Light into the world, in the season where nights are long and darkness reigns, and it had the added advantage of eight straight days of presents. (In our house that particular tradition only lasted one year, by the way).

I always had a little trouble, though, understanding this business about the lamp that burned for eight days in the temple. After all, a one-day supply of oil is a one-day supply of oil; if the lamp burned for eight days, obviously that was an eight-day supply: someone simply must have made a mistake when they were doing the inventory. I just didn't see what all the fuss was about. Maybe there was a clever priest (or more likely, a sexton), who was somehow able to adjust the flame and stretch the supply, make the oil last longer than it should have. Or maybe they just asked around, and everybody pitched in what they had. I mean, isn’t that what people do in times of crisis?

But there was nothing particularly miraculous about that; my mom used to do that sort of thing all the time. “Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without.” You don’t have to be a native Mainer to appreciate the importance of a little old-fashioned frugality, combined with a generous helping of Yankee ingenuity. I guess I always just had a very strong humanist streak from a very early age, because it was years before I was able to understand that the flame of the Menorah was only a symbol of the real miracle. The temple had been defiled, but the faith had endured, and triumphed. This is the real miracle of the Feast of Dedication.

Let me share with you a little more of the history behind the the story of Hanukkah. In 167 BC the Selucid emperor Antiochus IV ordered the rededication of the Jewish temple in Jerusalem to the worship of Zeus. The Selucids were one of three dynasties which had emerged from the remnants of Alexander the Great's empire following his death a century and a half earlier. Based primarily in what is now Syria, the Selucids were almost constantly at war with a second post-Alexandrian dynasty, the Ptolemies, who were based in Egypt. Even in that day, there were already significant Jewish communities in both Babylonia (which was controlled by the Selucids) and Alexandria (the capital of the Ptolemies); life in the diaspora had already begun; while Judaea, the original home of the Jewish people, served as something of a strategic buffer between these two Great Powers of the ancient world, and was constantly buffeted by the ebb and flow of their political and military ambitions.

Controlled by the Ptolemies until the start of the second century BC, Judea eventually came under the hegemony of the Selucids following their decisive victory over the Ptolemies at the Battle of Banyas, which took place near the headwaters of the Jordan River. To a significant degree, this development was welcomed by many of the Jewish inhabitants of Judaea, because the Ptolemies had been great Hellenizers, which is to say they were fond of introducing Greek customs and practices into the cultures they ruled. The Jewish community in Alexandria, for example, had been deeply influenced by Greek philosophy; and it was their Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures, the Septuagint, that would eventually become a key factor in the rapid spread of Christianity among the Greek-speaking Gentiles of the Roman Empire.

Selucid rule, on the other hand, appeared to promise the practice of a more authentically Hebrew Judaism, such as existed in Babylonia. But this expectation was not to be borne out. Roman influence in the Eastern Mediterranean was growing; in order to pay for his increasingly expensive military adventures, as well as shield his empire from the threat of Rome, Antiochus IV greatly increased the level of taxation in Judaea, plundering the treasury of the temple in Jerusalem, and also cracking down on dissident Jewish groups who resented the burdens imposed by their Greek-speaking rulers, and who sought the freedom to manage their own affairs. In order to pacify the region, Antiochus IV accelerated the Hellenization of Judaea, siding with those Jews who were sympathetic to Greek ideas and culture, and doing everything within his power to eliminate the practice of Judaism as a distinctive religious faith.

This is the background of the Maccabean revolt. The Maccabees were insurgent guerrilla fighters who took to the hills in order to resist these changes. Their leader was initially a priest named Mattathias Maccabaeus, who not only refused to offer pagan sacrifice in the Jewish temple where he served, but also reportedly killed the first Jewish apostate who had attempted to do so. When Mattathias himself later died, leadership of the guerrilla army fell upon the shoulders of his oldest son, Judas Maccabaeus, who was eventually able to drive the Selucids out of the city of Jerusalem, and re-dedicate the temple there to the worship of the Hebrew God Yahweh, as we heard in the passage from the First Book of Maccabees I read earlier this morning. This is the origin of Hanukkah — the Festival of Dedication — the only major festival in Judaism not explicitly rooted in the Torah.

There are some major ironies contained within the story of Hanukkah. The Maccabean revolt was a war fought for the purpose of religious liberty — the only such revolt of its kind recorded in ancient history — yet the Maccabees themselves were hardly the religious liberals of their day. They were more akin, perhaps, to modern religious fundamentalists in their attitudes and practices; and I suppose if you were Antiochus IV, you might even have called them terrorists. Likewise, the only records of their achievements which have survived were written in Greek, most likely by members of their rival Jewish community in Alexandria. Although the Maccabees were able to defeat the Selucids at Jerusalem, their position there was anything but secure; thus, a few years later, they entered into a military alliance with the Romans — an act which was virtually to ensure the eventual subjugation of the Jewish people, and the loss of a national Jewish homeland for 2000 years. By the time of Christ, it was Rome who ruled in Judaea; in 70 AD Roman soldiers demolished the temple which Judas Maccabaeus had fought so hard to reconsecrate — only a portion of a single wall, now known as the "Wailing Wall," was left standing.

Yet the flame of the Maccabees still burns. And the ironies, tragic ironies, still continue. Deep down in my heart of hearts, I have always been something of a closet Zionist. Perhaps this stems, in part, from having had a Jewish grandfather (on my mother’s side), but whatever the source, I’ve always taken pride in the independence of the modern state of Israel, and in the contributions of Judaism in general to Western thought, culture, and civilization. The flame of the Hanukkah Menorah symbolizes the light of that contribution, as well as the persistent struggle of the Jewish people to preserve their religious faith and practice in the face of 2000 years of almost constant anti-semitic persecution and oppression. Zionism reflects the burning aspiration of Jews for a nation of their own, a place to call home.

But there is also a shadow cast by Zionism: a shadow which those of us who consider ourselves friends of Israel are sometimes reluctant to explore. Hanukkah is a celebration of Light and Hope, Joy and Compassion — in many ways it represents the very best of what religion has to offer us here in this world. Even (or perhaps especially) in the context of a “global war on terror,” there are no doubt still many Jews, many people of faith all the world over, who are deeply troubled by the Israeli government's recent history and policies regarding the Palestinians on the West Bank and in Gaza, and who continue to hope for a permanent and lasting peace based on mutual tolerance, reasonable accommodation, and sympathetic understanding. The role of Oppressor does not come naturally to the Jewish spirit; and this too, is a lingering irony of the legacy of the Maccabees, whose military victories ultimately brought ruin to their nation.

In his Hanukkah story "The Power of Light," Isaac Bashevis Singer tells of two Jewish children, David and Rebecca, hiding in the ruins of the Warsaw ghetto following its destruction by the Nazis during the Second World War. On the first night of Hanukkah, David finds some matches and a candle while foraging in the rubble, and returns to their hiding place to share his discovery. Singer writes:

...Now David pronounced the benediction over the Hanukkah candle, and Rebecca said "Amen." They had both lost their families, and they had good reason to be angry with God for sending them so many afflictions, but the light of the candle brought peace into their souls. That glimmer of light, surrounded by so many shadows, seemed to say without words: Evil has not yet taken complete dominion. A spark of hope is still left.

For some time David and Rebecca had thought about escaping from Warsaw. But how? The ghetto was watched by the Nazis day and night. Each step was dangerous. Rebecca kept delaying their departure. It would be easier in the summer, she often said, but David knew that in their predicament they had little chance of lasting until then. Somewhere in the forest there were young men and women called partisans who fought the Nazi invaders. David wanted to reach them. Now, by the light of the Hanukkah candle, Rebecca suddenly felt renewed courage. She said, "David, let's leave."

"When?" [David asked.]

"When you think it's the right time," she answered.

"The right time is now," David said. "I have a plan."

For a long time David explained the details of his plan to Rebecca. It was more than risky. The Nazis had enclosed the ghetto with barbed wire and posted guards armed with machine guns on the surrounding roofs. At night searchlights lit up all possible exits from the destroyed ghetto. But in his wanderings through the ruins, David had found an opening to a sewer which he thought might lead to the other side. David told Rebecca that their chances of remaining alive were slim. They could drown in the dirty water or freeze to death. Also, the sewers were full of hungry rats. But Rebecca agreed to take the risk; to remain in the cellar for the winter would mean certain death.

When the Hanukkah light began to sputter and flicker before going out, David and Rebecca gathered their few belongings. She packed the remaining food in a kerchief, and David took his matches and a piece of lead pipe for a weapon.

In moments of great danger people become unusually courageous. David and Rebecca were soon on their way through the ruins. They came to passages so narrow they had to crawl on hands and knees. But the food they had eaten, and the joy the Hanukkah candles had awakened in them, gave them the courage to continue. After some time David found the entrance to the sewer. Luckily, the sewage had frozen, and it seemed that the rats had left because of the extreme cold. From time to time David and Rebecca stopped to rest and to listen. After a while they crawled on, slowly and carefully. Suddenly they stopped in their tracks. From above they could hear the clanging of a trolley car. They had reached the other side of the ghetto. All they needed now was to find a way to get out of the sewer and to leave the city as quickly as possible.

Many miracles seemed to happen that Hanukkah night. Because the Nazis were afraid of enemy planes, they had ordered a complete blackout. Because of the bitter cold, there were fewer Gestapo guards. David and Rebecca managed to leave the sewer and steal out of the city without being caught. At dawn they reached a forest where they were able to rest and have a bite to eat....

After a week of hiding by day and traveling at night, David and Rebecca met up with a group of Jewish partisans hiding in the forest. It was now the final night of Hanukkah, and the children played dreidel on the stump of an oak tree while others kept watch. More and more refugees joined them, and slowly they made their way to Israel, assisted by the Haganah: an organization which worked to smuggle Jewish refugees out of Nazi-occupied Europe and into the Holy Land. They finished school, married, and found a small house with a garden in a suburb of Tel Aviv. Singer concludes his story by writing:

...I know all this because David and Rebecca told me their story on a Hanukkah evening in their house in Ramat Gan about eight years later. The Hanukkah candles were burning, and Rebecca was frying potato pancakes served with applesauce for all of us. David and I were playing dreidel with their little son, Menahem Eliezer, named after both of his grandfathers. David told me that this large wooden dreidel was the same one the partisans had played with on that Hanukkah evening in the forest in Poland. Rebecca said to me: "If it had not been for that little candle David brought to our hiding place, we wouldn't be sitting here today. That glimmer of light awakened in us a hope and strength we didn't know we possessed. We'll give the dreidel to Menahem Eliezer when he is old enough to understand what we went through and how miraculously we were saved...."

I’ve always liked to thing that this child, Menahem Eliezer, would be about my age this Hanukkah. No doubt he has long since learned the story of his parents' escape and rescue; no doubt by now he has children, and perhaps even grandchildren, of his own, with whom he has also shared the dreidal, with its four Hebrew letters: nun, gimel, he, shin -- "a great miracle happened there." And this holiday season, may we as well share in the miracle of the Flame that wouldn't die, recalling even in this season of darkness our essential connectedness to the whole of humankind, and our renewed dedication to the timeless principles which allow our faith to endure.

I Just Can't Weight!

✇ WWUUD?
9 December 2007 at 11:32
By: The Eclectic Cleric
Over at Beauty Tips for Ministers, my buddy PeaceBang is launching an "On-Line Ministry Posse" for "Ordained Compulsive Overeaters." I'm no doubt eligible for a charter membership, but having just glanced at the Harvard study about the social contagiousness of obesity, what I'm really wondering is whether I could do more good simply by placing myself in quarantine instead. Like PB, I also weight about a hundred pounds more than I did when I graduated from seminary, although in fairness, after three years of living on coffee, cigarettes, Top Ramen, tunafish, and contemplative prayer, I looked an awful lot like an internment camp survivor on the day of my ordination.

A little home-cooking and a more family-friendly lifestyle quickly cured that. Then came the occupational hazards of our vocation: wedding receptions, covered-dish dinners, coffee hour, tea and cookies during pastoral visits, not to mention the countless bags of food handed to me through drive-up windows as I rushed from one place to another. They quickly started to take their toll -- an extra 300 calories a week comes to about five pounds a year, which over the course of a 25 year ministry...well, you do the math. It's not enough just to hang a "Please Don't Feed the Minister" sign around one's neck. Frankly, I'm astonished that I'm not a lot heavier than I am!

Of course, I could always simply tell myself that being a "weighty soul" merely gives me more gravitas. But I also worry about the health risks of having a BMI over 30: diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke (not to mention all of the day to day aches and pains of simply moving around in the world)...not exactly the kind of "live fast, die young, leave a good looking corpse" death-style I'd envisioned for myself as a kid. The truth is, I've never really seen myself as "heavy" (despite my constant joking about my weight); in my mind's eye I'm still that svelte, limber, well-muscled twenty-something with a full head of hair who could play full court basketball all afternoon, shower, down a whole pizza and a pitcher of beer, and still do it three times before sleeping the sleep of the just after. And I suspect like a lot of us who saunter in these circles, I know a lot more about HOW to lose weight than I actually seem to be able to bring myself to DO. But for what it's worth, here are a dozen tips for dropping the lbs. Maybe if I write them out like this, I might actually feel inspired to practice what I preach.

1) Eat Positively, not negatively. I'm now trying to organize my eating around foods that I like and that are good for me, rather than merely what's fast, tasty, and convenient. Healthy eating is a lifestyle choice: slow food, "locovore," vegan or semi-veg, or even just a few "fast" days to go with the feast days. I want to think of it as a cuisine rather than a diet. And even more importantly, as something I enjoy rather than a source of depravation.

2) Eat a big, healthy breakfast. I'm not talking steak and eggs here folks. I mean things like oatmeal and granola, yogurt, fresh fruit, maybe ONE boiled free-range, high-Omega 3 egg. And for God's sake stay away from Starbucks or the Dunkin' Donuts! That's not breakfast; it's dessert.

3) Eat your main meal at mid-day. And eat whatever you want, within reason. If you're already following Principle #1, this should be no sweat. My nutritionist had a great rule of thumb: 1/2 the plate with vegetables, 1/4 protein, 1/4 starch. And then pay attention to the size of the plate!

4)TWO Apples a day... My nutritionist also taught me that if I planned eating around four servings of fruits and vegetable first, it makes it a lot easier to control the fats and starches. Of course, it also helps to know that one good-sized apple is TWO servings of fruit....

5) Watch what you drink. One of the most astonishing things I discovered when I first started keeping track of everything I ate was how many calories were in my beverages: fancy coffees, sodas, beer and wine, even fruit juice. Now I'm trying to keep it to black coffee, herbal tea, and plain old H2O...with maybe an occasional glass of beer or wine (as it says in scripture - 1 Tim 5:23) just to help with the digestion. I've even forsworn diet sodas, which some studies show despite their zero calorie reputation simply stimulate the appetite for other sweets. My experience was that even when I was having a hard time watching what I ate, it was relatively easy to cut back on what I drank. So put the water bottles in the fridge where the diet cokes used to be, and if you still need a little caffeine pick-me-up in the middle of the afternoon, try a good iced coffee instead.

6) No noshing after dark. This is a hard one for me...which became a lot easier when I also made the decision to stop watching TV. Of course, I wasn't able to stick to that resolution for very long either. But at least now I try to keep my pantry clear of foods beginning with "C" - cake, cookies, candy, crackers, chips, Cokes...you get the picture. And thanks to TiVo, I can watch a little of whatever I want when I get home from church, and still get to bed at a reasonable hour.

7) Shop one day at a time. This is a little more eccentric, since ideally what one would do is shop once a week with meal plans and a list, and put nothing else in the cart, and eat only what you'd planned. But since I don't have that kind of foresight or self-control, I've gone to the other extreme of trying to keep very little food around the house and food shopping every day, just like the French. It's too soon to tell how it's going to work out. But if for some reason I don't get to the store, I still have a pantry full of Top Ramen and canned tunafish!

8) Get out of the car. This is kind of ironic for me, since after six years of driving a beat-up old pickup, I finally broke down and bought a new vehicle...the first truly NEW vehicle I've owned in 15 years. And that in itself is worth its own blog entry, but the bottom line is that now that I own a new car, I don't like to drive it in the snow, so instead I tend to keep it safely parked in the garage and try to walk everywhere I can (including the small grocery store just up the block). Behind America's sedentary lifestyle and national obesity epidemic is a "trinity" of demons: TV, the automobile, and high-fructose corn syrup. Just think how much better we all would be if we could just exorcize those three things from our lives.

9) Lift weights to lose weight. OK, I admit it -- I come from a family of three boys, and sports were always a big part of our lives. But as much as I love the gym, I've always hated the weight room -- because lifting weights is WORK, not play. But the fact of the matter is, pumping a little iron does a lot of good things for a body: builds muscle, burns fat, shapes and tones...it's really miraculous. So join a gym, find a partner or hire a trainer, and just do it! As unpleasant as it can be, minute by minute and pound for pound, it's a helluva lot better than the treadmill....

10) Pay cash when dining out. OK, maybe this is a little extreme. But living all alone right in the heart of a small city known for its great restaurants, I tend to eat out a lot. And for some inexplicable reason, I always tend to eat a little less (and a little less often) when I know I'm paying cash....

11) Never clean your plate. I know, it goes against everything my mother taught me. But clergy tend to have a lot on their plates, and people keep bringing us heaping second helpings. So just make it a rule to leave those last few bites for Jesus, who God knows was a scrawny little guy who could have used a little fattening up. This works metaphorically as well as nutritionally, BTW.

12) Always talk to strangers. Do you remember your mother also telling you not to talk with your mouth full? Well, here's a thought -- talk first, and eat between ideas rather than talking between bites. Have you ever noticed how chatty Cathy always seems to send half her meal back to the kitchen, while the strong, silent types (like me) are nibbling off their plate, and nodding while we chew? It's just an observation...

And here's a final thought, to make it an even Bakers Dozen. Don't try to swallow all these things at once; they'll just make you sick to your stomach. Rather, pick one or two and nibble on them for awhile, and then add a third, and a fourth...and keep going from there. I know I put this weight on one bite at a time, over a period of 20 years. It's going to have to come off the same way...although hopefully, a little faster....

Justice Making

✇ WWUUD?
5 December 2007 at 19:11
By: The Eclectic Cleric
Now that I've come out of blogospheric hybernation, I suppose I ought to catch up with a few other loose ends. A few months ago I attended a day-long training session with Marie Fortune around the issue of working pastorally with survivors of domestic abuse. As part of that training, she spelled out a seven-step process (or perhaps paradigm is a better word) for Justice Making, which I thought was extremely insightful and relevant to a much broader set of situations and circumstances. So while it's still relatively fresh in my mind, I thought I'd flesh it out a bit and share it here.

* Truth-Telling -- Justice-Making begins by creating a safe space where people can tell the truth about their experience. Perpetrators depend upon the silence of their victims in order to hide their behavior from the scrutiny of others. Creating opportunities for people to find their voice again, and to offer their testimony, is the first step from victimization to survival.

* Acknowledgement -- Once people have found the courage to tell their truth, it is also essential that we listen to them, hear what they have to say, and acknowledge that what happened to them wasn't right or fair. Victims typically blame themselves for their misfortunes; survivors are able to distinguish between the things they had control over and the things they didn't, and need to be affirmed in their understanding that they are still OK even though what happened to them wasn't.

* A Compassionate Response -- Often the temptation when we hear a story of injustice is to want to "fix it" -- to become angry, to want to do something, to forget about the person while we focus on the problem. But the person should always come first. Compassion means literally "to suffer with." The Compassionate Response to injustice is basically that same old "ministry of presence" we were taught about in CPE: a person-to-person connection that lifts up our common humanity and holds it in relationship regardless of what may have been suffered.

* Protect the Vulnerable -- Safety for victims and potential victims is the sine qua non of authentic justice making. If injustice can not be "arrested," then attempting to establish justice in an atmosphere of uncertainty, insecurity and vulnerability becomes very difficult indeed.

* Accountability for Perpetrators -- In its essence, the call for accountability is an invitation to repentence. It asks (and insists) that the perpetrator(s) of an injustice recognize that their actions and choices do not take place in a consequence-free environment, and that they take responsibility for the consequences of their own behavior. To frame this in a religious context, without repentence their can be no atonement, and without atonement there can be no forgiveness.

* Restitution -- Domestic abuse, like any other abuse of power, is ultimately about broken covenants, the violation of boundaries, and damaged relationships. Religious professionals in particular often have a bias for attempting to repair those relationships prematurely, before first attending to the more fundamental issues of safety and accountability. Likewise, often times these relationships are broken beyond repair, at which point the work of ministry becomes one of shared grieving rather than attempted healing.

* Vindication -- OK, so maybe it does have the same root as "vindictive," but vindication is not about revenge; nor is it reconciliation, forgiveness, or even atonement. Rather, it's about being liberated from the burden of something that was not your responsibility in the first place. Or to put it another way, it is the public recognition of an injustice rather than the "acceptance" of one, which in turn releases the victim from those insidious feelings of shame and guilt regarding their own victimization, and sets them solidly on the path to healing, wholeness, and "survivorhood." It is the public affirmation of a private truth, which "justifies" the survivor and sets them free.

Right or Liked?

✇ WWUUD?
3 December 2007 at 15:00
By: The Eclectic Cleric
First snowstorm of the season last night. Forecast was for nine inches, but so far we've been disappointed in that regard. Not that I really consider it much of a disappointment. Good numbers in church yesterday for the first Sunday in Advent; nearly 200 souls (children and adults) at worship, and over 40 for the "Newcomers Luncheon" after church, where we introduced some of the church officers and talked about the next steps in the Path to Membership. Lots of energy and enthusiasm for the start of the holidays. Makes it a pleasure to get up and come into work in the morning, even when it's snowing.

Not that I harbor any illusions that anyone had actually noticed, but until Linda Laskowski discovered (and resurrected) an old post I'd written last summer describing her "Congregations Count" workshop at General Assembly, it had been several months since I'd last posted here. Part of the reason for my absence has simply been the distractions of other, more important concerns as I begin my new ministry here in Portland ME. But mostly it involved some serious soul-searching, after I violated the integrity of one of my oldest and most fundamental principles as a writer, and pulled down an earlier post about my transition experience out of the congregation I was serving before being called here, as a result of having received an angry (and, the truth be told, somewhat threatening) e-mail from one of my former parishioners, berating me for having publicly "denigrated" in this blog both that congregation and (more accurately) the affluent and privileged community where it is located.

Frankly, I didn't really see it that way myself. From my point of view, the post was honest, candid, and (to be sure) at times less than completely flattering...but it also acknowledged both some of my own shortcomings in that situation (since there's no way I could possibly have listed them all), as well as many of the positive things I learned from and enjoyed about the experience.

But since I'm not in the business of gratuitiously pissing people off (or at least I don't THINK I am), I decided to pull down that previous post anyway, at least for awhile, while I thought things through, and sorted out my own feelings and opinions on the matter. After all, from my perspective, the real "soul work" took place in the writing itself. The sharing of my thoughts on this blog was only an afterthought, so that others might potentially benefit from the wisdom of my experience. Even so, I also really hated the idea of censoring myself simply because someone else took offense at my honest opinions. It's called a "heckler's veto," and it really pisses me off -- especially when used as a weapon by powerful people who desire to silence their critics.

And the great irony, of course, is that the principal barrier to that congregation ever achieving everything it has the potential to become is its own inability (or maybe unwillingness) to see itself as it truly is (which is what made my experience there so frustrating to begin with). Which is also, of course, now entirely their problem, and no longer any real concern of mine. In fact, until I received that angry and intimidating e-mail, I felt like I had pretty much achieved closure with that situation, along with all the attendant disappointment that accompanied it, and was moving on to something far more congenial and satisfying. But afterwards, for awhile at least, I suddenly found it difficult to think about anything else!

So thanks for that little gift, former parishioner. If you were afraid that I was going to tell the truth about your smug, sanctimonious little "City in the Woods," maybe you should have treated me a little better when you had the chance.

At the end of the day, the Truth (or at least MY truth) is that, notwithstanding my former congregation's routine and habitual institutional parsimony, I actually liked (and still like) the people there quite a bit -- even the ones who sometimes made my life difficult or challenging (and believe me, UUs are very clever and intelligent folk, and can often be quite creative in this regard). But it's also true that when, after four years without a raise (or even a COLA), I finally started to complain, rather than addressing the situation responsibly, the treasurer's husband (who also, surprise, surprise, just so happens to be the same former parishioner who wrote me the nasty e-mail) took me to lunch and strongly suggested that I might actually be a lot happier working somewhere else. Which, of course, turned out to be true. Which is why I feel so grateful now that things worked out the way they did, and so delighted have been called to this pulpit here in Portland.

UU clergy are often charged to "preach the truth to power." This, or something like it, is pretty standard language in most ordination and installation services, and a responsibility which I have always tried to take to heart in my own ministry. At my installation service at that former congregation I pledged myself "with God's help, worthily to maintain the freedom of this pulpit, speaking the truth in love both publicly and privately." And yet one wonders, what does it mean to speak "with love?" Does it mean telling lies or keeping secrets, in order to prevent someone else's embarrasment or disgrace? Or is it actually more loving to tell the truth honestly yet without joy, knowing that the danger of keeping secrets is always worse that the truth plainly spoken?

Unfortunately, the challenge often gets reduced simply to a more rudimentary conflict between personal intellectual integrity and interpersonal social graces: Would your rather be Right or Liked? But this is really way too simplistic. Most folks, I think, would like to be both right AND liked. The real problem is that a lot of folks simply don't like to hear the ugly truth. And so to avoid being unpopular, we refrain from sharing it with them. Yet ultimately, the issue of "being right" has nothing to do with one's own ego-driven needs to be liked, or even the natural human desire to avoid appearing foolish (as in "I'm right and you're wrong"). Rather, it is sustained by the underlying and uncompromising conviction that Truth Really Matters, and that we should seek it even at the price of both being unpopular and at times discovering (and admitting) that we were wrong.

The REAL ethical dilemma for me always boils down to the whole Prophetic/Socratic/Cassandra issue: how long should one remain silent about something they KNOW to be wrong, simply to avoid becoming unpopular and disliked?

The word "courtesy" originally refered to a style of manners appropriate to the royal court, where it was often difficult to speak the truth to power without having one's head chopped off. Because let's face it, powerful people typically don't like hearing the unvarnished truth (much less being made to appear foolish or told they are wrong) any more than the rest of us do. Which is why it is so easy for them to grow ignorant and out of touch with the factual situation "on the ground" and "outside the bubble." When we habitually replace candor with euphemism, and...well, I don't really need to spell it all out, do I? Or maybe I do. After all, these days our leaders often aren't exactly the brightest bulbs on the marquee....

"Say what you mean. Mean what you say. Try not to BE mean when you say it." Clarity. Sincerity. Sensitivity. This is the challenge we clergy face when we lovingly attempt to speak the truth to people who have power over us. We need to embrace the values of honesty and candor, while at the same time trying as best we can to take our own egos out of the equation, and make ourselves servants of Truth itself. But keeping secrets simply to spare someone the shame of their own bad behavior is, at best, an act of co-dependent enabling, and at worst bad behavior in its own right. To put it another way, "All that is required for Evil to triumph is for Good to remain silent and do nothing." I think it was Winston Churchill who said that. Or something like it anyway.

Then there remains the delicate question of being sensitive to other people's feelings, even when you know they're wrong....

The Truth often hurts enough simply on its own. There's rarely any need to rub it in by saying "I told you so." Defensiveness and denial are difficult enough barriers to hearing and understanding Truth; we don't need to make it any worse by getting our own egos involved. By embracing an attitude of empathy and compassion, our desire to be liked, along with our willingness to care for others (whether they "agree" with us or not), can help to make "the Truth plainly spoken" a little easier to hear as well.

I calculate that my four-year sojourn with my former congregation easily cost me over $100,000 in direct compensation. And if that sounds like an awful lot of money to you, it's because it is. Of course, 80% of that was simply the difference between the low-ball offer I agreed to accept from them, and the six-figure salary I turned down at the time from another, larger congregation just down the road. Another $19k had to do with the way they chose to handle the utilities at the Parsonage: basically neglecting to inform me beforehand that they were not included in the "Fair Rental Value" they had provided in their Congregational Record, and then deducting that money from my paycheck instead. Finally there's the four years without a raise or a COLA, and the nearly six grand they decided to stiff me by refusing to pay me through the entire three months of the contractual 90 day severence period. Oh yes, and they'd also promised me equity sharing and a sabbatical after five years service (as per the Guidelines), and of course I never heard anything more about that either. But you know, as my daddy used to tell me, we pay a little tuition for every lesson that we learn. And since we generally can't afford to make ALL the mistakes ourselves, it's a blessing sometimes to be able to learn from the mistakes of others.

As for my former congregation, the truth be told, I'm honestly hoping that they will thrive under new ministerial leadership. I hope that their big anniversary celebration this year goes well, I hope that the cellular tower contracts we'd been pursuing for the past two years are at last approved by the foot-dragging town government (contributing some much-needed additional revenue to the bottom line), and I also hope that they will finally figure out that if they want to keep their next pastor happy, they need to be attentive and faithful to the UUA's Fair Compensation Guidelines, and increase their average pledge above its currently shameful level in order to make that happen. And if they can just do those few simple things, they might actually have a chance of becoming the kind of congregation they think they are, rather than continually building "castles in the air" without bothering to put the foundations under them.

Now, about that hundred thousand dollars.... Maybe once those cell phone dollars start rolling in, we could just split the difference?

HOME FOR THE HOLY DAYS

✇ WWUUD?
2 December 2007 at 22:04
By: The Eclectic Cleric
a sermon preached by the Rev. Dr. Tim W. Jensen
at the First Parish Church in Portland, Maine
Sunday December 2nd 2007

***
READING: "Feast Days," from Tickets for a Prayer Wheel by Annie Dillard

Let me mention
one or two things about Christmas.
Of course you've all heard
that the animals talk
at midnight:
a particular elk, for instance,
kneeling at night to drink,
leaning tall to pull leaves
with his soft lips,
says, alleluia.

That the soil and fresh-water lakes
also rejoice,
as do products
such as sweaters
(nor are plastics excluded
from grace),
is less well known.
Further:
the reason
for some silly-looking fishes,
for the bizarre mating
of certain adult insects,
or the sprouting, say,
in a snow tire
of a Rocky Mountain grass,
is that the universal
loves the particular,
that freedom loves to live
and live flesh full,
intricate,
and in detail.

God empties himself
into the earth like a cloud.
God takes the substance, contours
of a man, and keeps them,
dying, rising, walking,
and still walking
wherever there is motion
***

[extemporaneous introduction]

I grew up in what I suppose one might think of as a nominally Catholic neighborhood. Most of my playmates had names like Ridley, O'Hare, Callahan; and they were never available to play on Wednesday afternoons because it conflicted with their catechism classes. The smell of macaroni and cheese wafted through the air on Friday evenings; conversations were ripe with references to nuns, confession, and who had given whom their Saint Christopher medal; and the season of Lent was serious business — there was no candy or ice cream to be found anywhere on our block, except perhaps at my house, making me a pretty popular kid for the six weeks prior to Easter.

Of course, these are just the perceptions of a twelve year old child nearly four decades ago now. But to my mind then, there were a lot of advantages to being the only Unitarian-Universalist family in a neighborhood such as this. We went to the library on Wednesday afternoons, often ate steak for Friday dinner (when my dad would return home from a week of business travel), and I never had to worry about how much of my private life I ought to reveal each week to the man dressed in black in the little box, sitting behind a screen like the Wizard of Oz.

But every year as the month of December rolled around, I began to wonder whether I might be missing out on something: the Advent wreaths, with their four purple candles and the solitary white one; the Advent calendars, with those amazing little windows — one window for each day that remained in the countdown to Christmas. I was fascinated by those windows, with their tiny paper shutters; and behind each and every shutter, something different, something special, there in the window. And each window more amazing than the previous one; and oh! — what a privilege to be the child selected to open the window for the day!

I recall one year, after much urging on my part, my parents broke down brought home an Advent calendar for our family. I could hardly wait! In fact, I didn't wait: as soon as I was alone in the house I opened all of the little shutters on the very first day, and then had to try to close them up again so my parents wouldn't notice (which of course they did). But it didn't make any difference; the magic had already gone out of the thing anyway: the anticipation, the mystery, had disappeared.

I suppose that had I actually been reared a Catholic, I would have gone to confession years ago and told the priest in the box about my little indiscretion, and that would have been the end of it. Instead, I recall this memory every Advent season, and reflect upon my youthful impatience, and the priceless gift it stole from me. As Unitarian Universalist kids we studied ALL of the winter "Holy Days" in our Sunday School classes this time of year. We learned about Hanukkah, and various other winter "festivals of light" — it really wasn't all that different from being in the public schools, only better and more fun. And yet, there was a strangeness to it all as well — a feeling, almost, of being on the outside looking in. We might overhear adults complain about the "commercialization" of Christmas, but where was the "holiness" to replace the secular holiday? We went to elaborate parties, and were thoroughly "entertained," but would we have actually offered hospitality to a pregnant woman far from home? Food and football and family obligations; shopping and snowmen and time off from school — the holiday season was defined by its possibilities for sloth, avarice and gluttony, rather than by qualities of any particular religious significance.

In the secular world, the holiday season begins Thanksgiving Day, with its parades, its traditional football rivalries, and of course, “Black Friday, and the big Mall and Department store sales which begin the countdown of "shopping days" til “Xmas.” And it ends, at last, on New Year's Day, with one final blow-out party, more parades and more football games, and a plethora of unkept promises that somehow this next year will be different than the last.

But within the traditional Christian liturgical calendar, the four weeks prior to Christmas are known as the season of Advent, and harbor a far different connotation. The word "Advent" comes from the Latin adventus and means "to" or "toward [the] Coming." Interestingly enough, it's the same Latin root as our English word "adventure," which my Webster's defines as "a bold undertaking in which hazards are to be encountered and the issue staked upon unforseen events" In the traditional Christian liturgical calendar, the four weeks of Advent are a time both of joyous anticipation for the birth of the child Christ, and also of solemn preparation for the unforseen "Second Coming" at the end of time, when all the world shall be judged.

In the Medieval Church, Advent was observed with the same strict penitence as Lent, and even today Roman Catholicism prohibits the solemnization of marriage during this period. It's this mythic tension between the physical presence of the deity here in this world, in the innocent form of an infant child; and the ultimate sovereignty of Divine Creation and Judgement, which gives this season it's peculiar ethos: We look toward the Coming of we know not what, in anticipation and fear of a transformation for which we can never be fully ready or prepared....

“God empties himself
into the earth like a cloud.
God takes the substance, contours
of a man, and keeps them,
dying, rising, walking,
and still walking
wherever there is motion...”

My very favorite holiday movie of all time is still Frank Capra's "It's a Wonderful Life," in which Jimmy Stewart plays a character by the name of George Bailey, who sacrifices his ambitions of a college education and world travel in order to remain in the tiny town of Bedford Falls and manage the Bailey Building and Loan following the untimely death of his father. You’ve all seen this movie, right? I mean, none of you have been living on another planet for the past 50 years. At the critical turning point of the story, as George is about to commit suicide by leaping from a bridge, he is given an opportunity, by a rather amusing yet inept Angel Second Class named Clarence, to see what this little town would have been like had George Bailey never been born. All the lives he had touched, all the people he had helped, all of the good that he had done, suddenly become conspicuous through their absence — and George comes to see that despite the difficulties, despite the frustration, despite the disappointment and even the dispair, he really did have a wonderful life.

Not many of us are given this kind of opportunity: to open up a little window and see the effect of our lives upon the world, the multitude of ways in which that tiny spark of the divine within us all exerts its influence for the good on those around us. A little piece of God in human form, "dying, rising, walking, and still walking wherever there is motion." No doubt we see it first more easily in others than we do within ourselves. But this is the message of the Advent season: the coming of light into the world, the coming of goodness into the world, the opening of a shuttered window, which allows us a glimpse our own potential divinity, reflected in the face of an innocent child; yet which also calls us simultaneously to accountability for that gift in the instant that it is revealed to us. Will you chose a wonderful life? Or will you hide your lamp under a bushel, prefering to curse the darkness than to light a single candle?

Many Unitarian Universalists, I find, are uncomfortable with the mythic dimensions of religious meaning. We like the tangible, the pragmatic, the rational; all this heavy-handed symbolism leaves us feeling a little uneasy in the stomach. We scoff at the notion of an infant God, a virgin birth, of angels, and astrologers who left their homes and followed a star in the sky to a distant land. We prefer to speak of the coincidence between the Christmas season and the winter solstice, or to trace the evolution of the holiday and identify its cross-cultural parallels; we want to throw open all the windows at once and shine the light of reason into every nook and cranny. All too often we seem to forget that much of the meaning is in the waiting, the preparing, the anticipation — that as we allow the story to unfold at its own speed, as we participate in it in "mythic time," other levels of meaning are revealed to us which are not readily comprehensible to the analytical mind.

We're always in such a hurry! We have shopping to do and packages to wrap, cards to write, meals to cook and cookies to bake — at times it seems as though we'll never get caught up. Yet in our haste to get everything under control the real opportunities often pass us by; or rather, are quickly left behind in the whirlwind of activity to get it all done. Jesus built furniture in Nazareth for thirty years before he did anything truly worthy of remembrance! Insight in particular is not always the product of a linear process; more often our learning tends to be circular, as we return again and again to that which initially sparked our curiosity, only to discover that we understand it a little better each time. Time is meaningless when it comes to Truth. Let the story speak to you in its own voice, in its own language, on its own terms, and eventually the message, in its own good time, will become crystal-clear.

Christmas is an invitation to participate in a miracle: a miracle of change, of growth, of renewal and transformation — but mostly a miracle of possibility and hope, the promise of a thing rather than the thing itself. It's the drama of a child born in a stable to a very special destiny, and the anticipation of that destiny by those who may never live to see its fulfillment, but who nevertheless take the time to respond to the call for preparation. Is this the child who has been born king of the Jews, the Messiah, the Christ, sleeping in a feed trough in the midst of all these animals? And this is the mother, this naive teenaged girl, who swears she's never been with a man? From unlikely origins comes the King of Kings, the Prince of Peace, to preach the Good News that we, too, are God's children, inheritors of a special destiny regardless of the circumstances of our birth or background.

The story of Advent is the story of the Adventure of Life: that "bold undertaking in which hazards are to be encountered, and the issue staked upon unforseen events." It is a lesson in learning to wait upon the unknown; a lesson in the suspense of disbelief and the confidence of hope, of patient trust in the process of living between the margins of our accidental birth and our inevitable mortality. It teaches us to open the shutters one window at a time, and fully savor the vision which we find there: a promise, a potential yet to be realized, a helpless child who will someday become a most remarkable adult, and reveal to the world an authentic glimpse of the divine....

Is Unitarian Universalism a Religion? [short and to the point]

✇ WWUUD?
30 November 2007 at 14:55
By: The Eclectic Cleric
Over at another blog-site, Dr Rieux asks:
Is Unitarian Universalism a Religion? [warning; long!] Tried to post a comment there, but found the registration process so tedious that I decided to post here and link instead.

Not to make light of everything that has been written here, but you are really asking all the wrong questions. Notwithstanding Sinkford's loose-lipped efforts to keep reverence afloat, and the rather depressing fact that "Unitarian-Universalism" is now a registered trademark, it seems to me that what really matters is figuring out whether "Our Liberal Movement in Theology" is best understood as:

1) An historically liberal Protestant Christian denomination and successor organization to two other historically liberal Protestant Christian denominations;

2) A post-Christian Protestant heresy open to the wisdom and inspiration of all the world's great religious traditions;

3) Its own "New Religion," with rather grandiose aspirations of eventually supplanting all of the world's more traditional religions;

4) Secularism in "religious clothing"...or as someone once put it (maybe me), "the Progressive Wing of the Democratic Party at...if not prayer, then some superficial imitation of same."

I'm not going to weigh in with my opinion (if it isn't obvious already which way my sentiments run), mostly because I think the REAL answer is "all of the above." But I'm not so sure that's the BEST answer. And that's what really concerns me about the future of our so-called "living" faith/religious tradition....

Coming this XMAS to an XBOX near you

✇ WWUUD?
23 November 2007 at 09:05
By: The Eclectic Cleric
Compliments of the US Army, and Redstorm Entertainment. www.truesoldiersgame.com

CIDER, MAIZE, AND GRATITUDE

✇ WWUUD?
18 November 2007 at 17:20
By: The Eclectic Cleric
a homily delivered by the Rev. Dr. Tim W. Jensen
at the First Parish Church in Portland, Maine
Sunday November 18th, 2007


READING: “After Apple-Picking” by Robert Frost

***
One of the great things about being historically-minded is that it really can (and often does) give a person an entirely different perspective on just about everything in life. I know that a lot of people think of history as “boring” -- just a lot of talk about war and politics and the kind of people who are interested in that sort of thing, plus trying to memorize a bunch of meaningless dates that all sound the same after awhile, or the names of people you’ve never met and are never going to meet because they’ve gone to meet their Maker long before any of us were even born. But this is just the superficial view. History is really all about people just like you and me; in its most extensive understanding, it’s the study of everything that Human Beings have ever done or thought or felt since, well, the beginning of time. It’s about tradition and heritage, but mostly it’s about understanding why things are the way they are by learning how they used to be, and how they got to be this way.

For example, take this symbolic communion meal of cornbread and cider we’re about to celebrate. I’m sure you’ve all probably heard that “an Apple a Day Keeps the Doctor Away,” but how many of you knew that, according to historians, the apple is probably the earliest fruit actually cultivated by human beings, which is really pretty amazing when you think about it. Before there were any vineyards or olive groves, or any cultivated citrus fruits; before peaches, pears, plums, figs, dates, cherries, apricots and all the rest, there were apple orchards. So you see, there’s a reason that “A is for Apple.” And there are over 7500 different varieties or “cultivars” known today, all of which are descended from a single ancestoral variety, which can still be found growing wild in the mountains of Central Asia, in the region between the countries of Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and China.

Modern apples basically come in three different types. There are the sweet, so-called “dessert” apples (which are the kind that you can just pick and eat right off the tree, or nowadays more typically after bringing them home from the supermarket); then there are cooking or baking apples (which are generally a lot more tart than the dessert apples, but release their more subtle flavors when cooked); and finally there are cider apples -- which are far and away the majority of the cultivars, which makes a lot of sense when you stop to think about it. Because of all the beverages which have historically been available to human beings (including plain old water), cider is both one of the simplest and one of the safest...not to mention one of the tastiest.

Furthermore, thanks to what some would call the “miracle” of fermentation, cider also gets “hard,” even if you pretty much just leave it alone -- which makes it both easy to store and preserve, and also gives it all sorts of other historically desirable qualities. As those of you who may have read Michael Pollan’s excellent book The Botany of Desire already know, this is basically what the legendary “Johnny Appleseed” was doing when he planted all those apple seeds out in the Ohio territory back at the start of the 19th century. John Chapman was essentially a very eccentric, mystically-inspired Swedenborgian real estate speculator, who tried to anticipate the westward expansion of the young United States, and planted his orchards in such a manner so that by the time that the pioneer farmers caught up, there would be mature apple trees waiting for them. And although as an adult he apparently never even owned a pair of shoes, when he died he reportedly left his sisters an estate worth several million dollars.

This same intoxicating quality of apples also puts a rather interesting twist on the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. You know, I’ve never really understood the doctrine of Original Sin, at least not on a thelogical level; but maybe it was really just that Adam and Eve decided to throw a little party, drank a little too much cider, did some things that maybe they shouldn’t have and which they regreted and were ashamed of later, and the tried to cover it all up; but naturally God found out anyway, and threw them out to fend for themselves. Nothing particularly original about THAT story, is there? It’s more like the oldest mistake in the book. Which is another big advantage of being interested in history; we get to learn from the mistakes of our ancestors, rather than having to make them all again ourselves.

The Cornbread, of course, has a history all its own. Maize, or “Indian Corn” as it was known to the Europeans, is a New World crop, native to the Americas; and for the Native Americans it was one of the “Three Sisters” (along with beans and squash) that provided much of the basis for their diet. The three crops were grown together in fields of small, cultivated hills -- the cornstalk doubling as a beanpole for the beanstalk, with the squash planted around the base, and a fish head at the bottom of the hole for fertilizer. This was the agricultural technique which, according to folklore, Squanto taught to the Pilgrims at Plymouth -- and combined with plentiful fish and game, as well as other native American plants like potatoes, tomatoes, wild rice, wild onions, and of course here in this part of the world, blueberries and maple syrup, it allowed the indigenous inhabitants to eat pretty well most of the time. Cooking was easy. Often they simply combined the meat and vegetables into a thick soup called sagamite, or else steamed their food in the ground just like we would at an old-fashioned clambake today.

And sometimes they would make and eat popcorn, or grind the dried kernels into a coarse cornmeal and cook it as a quick bread, kind of like a tortilla. But it wasn’t until the arrival of the Europeans that people started to bake actual cornbread and eat it as a staple of their diet, just as they baked bread with the milled flour of more traditional cereal grains like wheat or rye: grains which, like the colonists themselves, were brought over from the old country and planted here in the Americas. But until these grains were well established in the New World, cornbread was a staple of the Pilgrim diet: a creative combination of the old and the new, of innovation and tradition which is now an important part of our own cultural heritage as well.

Which brings me to the point of all this culinary history. When we think of the traditional Christian Communion -- the Eucharist -- we think of a symbolic meal comprised of the two staple foods of the ancient world -- bread baked from wheat, and wine fermented from grapes. It is both a reenactment of a traditional Passover meal, but more importantly, a making sacred of that which is ordinary: a sacramental act to commemorate Christ’s sacrifice on the cross.

But the symbolism also works on at least two other levels as well. Communion is a celebration of community -- not just in the sense of breaking bread together, but also symbolized by the very foods themselves: think of how the grain of the fields and the fruit of the vine become as one in the bread and the wine. And then there is also the fact that these foods are alive, with yeast; which is what causes the wine to ferment, and the bread to rise (even if, for Passover, it is baked before it has the chance to rise too much, to symbolize the sudden urgency of the Exodus from Egypt). And in the New Testament, these are both metaphors for the Kingdom of God as well: the New Wine which the old wineskins cannot contain, or the leaven which was hid in a measure of flour, until the whole loaf was leavened.

The food we serve at our own symbolic meal shares these same properties. But it also reflects the heritage of THIS region of the world, and the bringing together of traditional English and Algonquin cuisines, just as they did at the celebration of the First Thanksgiving so many years ago.

And at the end of the day, it really is about Giving Thanks, and expressing our gratitude for the great gift that is life itself. We were, each of us, born into this world naked and helpless. But through the compassion and generosity of others -- beginning most commonly with our parents and immediate family, but including as well friends and neighbors, members of the extended community (including our communities of faith) and of society as a whole, we are protected and nurtured and helped to grow to maturity.

And the ONLY appropriate response to this great gift is one of Gratitude, combined with the commitment to imitate the example of our ancestors, with our own generous and compassionate service to others whose needs are often even greater than our own.

Congregations Count (Part Two)

✇ WWUUD?
12 November 2007 at 14:28
By: The Eclectic Cleric
Inspired by Linda Laskowski's discovery and comment on my earlier post summarizing her excellent GA workshop last summer, here are a few of the tools we've developed here at First Parish to assist us in our Membership Outreach process.

VISITORS LETTER: [this goes out from me personally to every first-time visitor to First Parish within 48 hours of their visit, and always concludes with a handwritten postscript. I'm not entirely satisfied with the letter itself (even though I wrote it); the tone has a little too much "sizzle," and not quite enough specific information for my taste. But since we are still evolving our other processes around Newcomers Conversations, the New UU Class and the like, it wasn't possible to be any more specific]

Name
Address
City State Zip

Dear Name:

Welcome to the First Parish in Portland! I’m so pleased that you decided to worship with us Sunday, and hope that you will find here the kind of active, liberal, free-thinking faith community you’ve been searching for. As minister of this congregation, I’m especially interested in seeing to it that your experience here is a warm and welcoming one, as you decide in your own way and at your own speed whether or not First Parish is for you. Many of us looked long and hard before we found a place we could comfortably call our spiritual home. Perhaps at First Parish, you will discover yours as well.

Some people think of a church merely as a building: a physical structure of granite and mortar, glass and plaster, standing tall in the center of the city as a visible landmark in the landscape of the larger community.

Others think of church principally as a religious institution: an organization with principles and purposes, policies and by-laws, and charged with the mission of doing God’s work in the world.

Theologians sometimes speak of “the Church” as a mystical body of believers: a spiritual community of faith, memory and hope, which transcends the boundaries of time or space.

But when I think of church, I think of people. Real people, like you and me, who inhabit the building, who embody the spirit, who are profoundly committed to doing God’s good works with their own two hands.

The First Parish in Portland is a spiritual community of real people walking together in covenantal relationship one with another, and devoted to important values and principles larger than ourselves. It takes each and every one of us working side by side to make our faith community everything it should be. If your experience of organized religion in the past hasn’t quite lived up to your expectations, I invite you to join with us in creating something worthy of your hopes and dreams and aspirations. It may well be that the only thing missing from this CH_RCH is U.

Faithfully Yours,

Tim W. Jensen, Parish Minister


***
[PATHWAY TO MEMBERSHIP - this is the "roadmap" which our Membership committee is using to help track, guide, and support newcomers through their journey to formal membership in our congregation]


The Path to Membership at First Parish

OVERVIEW: Often when churches begin discussing ways to “grow” their membership, they allow themselves to be distracted by the numbers, and forget that numbers are merely a marker for measuring how successfully we are performing our core mission, which is transforming people’s lives for the better.

Perhaps a better way to think of growth is as an expression of our “ministry of hospitality.” Our church is like a feast, a banquet, a party to which everyone is invited, and it’s our responsibility as hosts to make certain that everybody feels safe and welcome, and that they are getting fed, meeting the other guests, can find what they need, and are basically having a good time.

Research shows that first-time visitors to a church typically follow a predictable “path” to eventual membership, and that growing churches tend to be aware of that path, and take steps to help newcomers move along it smoothly as they decide for themselves whether or not a participation in the life and community of a particular congregation is going to be part of their own spiritual journey. The world may well beat a path to our door in search of a better mousetrap, but it helps if there are at least signposts pointing the way, so that they don’t accidentally become lost in the woods.

Step One: Attraction (Invitation & Recruitment) - “Come on in, the water’s fine!”

• This is typically the most difficult element to control, and the most expensive to influence significantly. But there are a variety of ways in which we can work to raise our profile and enhance our reputation in the wider community, and this goal should be pursued in an intentional manner.

• Our central location is also a valuable asset that contributes significantly to our public visibility. Small things like the Wayside Pulpit and our Reader Board can do a lot to attract people’s attention and invite them through the front door.

• Our Website is likewise a very important vehicle for encouraging “seekers” to visit our church in person. A “FAQ for Visitors” is being developed, and will be added to our homepage as soon as it is ready.

• Far and away the most effective method for attracting newcomers to our church is “word of mouth” combined with a personal invitation from someone they know. Thus much of our work in “recruitment” is actually creating the kind of environment where people feel comfortable inviting their friends, and creating the kind of institutional culture where that sort of invitation becomes normal.

Step Two: First Impressions - “Getting Your Feet Wet”

• This is VERY IMPORTANT! Although First Parish feels like a second home to many of us, visiting an unfamiliar church for the first time can be a very intimidating experience. Likewise, most first-time visitors to a church make up their minds within five minutes whether or not they will return a second time.

• Visitors and Members alike are warmly welcomed by a Greeter from the Membership Committee as they arrive in the Vestibule. Current Members are reminded to wear their name tags; visitors are invited to make a nametag, and also to sign our guest register or fill out a visitors card at the Greeters Table. The Ushers continue to distribute Orders of Service and the Sunday Bulletin (which now contains information specifically of interest to newcomers) as they have in the past.

• Visitors are explicitly welcomed to our church by the Worship Leader, and invited to coffee hour following the service. In the coffee hour, a “Newcomers/Welcome Table” containing information about First Parish and Unitarian Universalism is staffed by representatives of the Membership Committee. “Gold Cup Greeters” circulate through the coffee hour, introducing themselves to people they don’t recognize (something as simple as “Hi! I don’t think we’ve met before”), and personally welcoming them to the church.

• Follow -up postcards from the Greeters-on-duty are addressed and sent that same day to each first-time visitor. The names of these visitors are also reported to the office for inclusion in our “Prospective New Members” database.

Step Three: Returning to Explore - “Wading Right In”

• In addition to the postcard, a Welcoming Letter from the Minister is sent to each first time visitor, once again welcoming them to the church and inviting them to participate as they choose in a variety of activities designed specifically for newcomers (see below).

• If the visitor has indicated specific areas of interest on their visitors card, these are followed up separately by the appropriate volunteer in charge of that activity.

• “Permanent” nametags are made for each visitor, in order that we might more easily track those who return for a second time, and also so that each second time visitor finds something “belonging” to them waiting for them if and when they return.

• Approximately one Sunday per month there is a “Welcoming Conversation with the Minister,” where Newcomers have an opportunity to ask their questions about UU & FP in a semi-structured environment.

• As needed, a three-session “New UU” class is offered for individuals who are specifically interested in becoming members of the church.

Step Four: Commitment - “Taking the Plunge” (formally becoming an “Official” Member of First Parish).

• Following completion of the New UU class, individuals are personally invited to become members of First Parish.

• Those who wish to become members sign the membership book, and are formally welcomed into Membership at a brief ceremony during the Sunday Morning worship service

• It’s important to recognize that the decision to become a member of a church is a very personal thing, and that some individuals will choose NOT to affiliate officially with the church, but will still participate actively in many of our programs and ministries. This is OK.

• SHORT CUT FOR “EXPERIENCED” UUs. Some individuals will arrive at First Parish already familiar with Unitarian Universalism, and perhaps having already been a member of another UU congregation. These individuals will be told that they are welcome to participate in the classes if they like, but may also simply join the church by privately signing the book after a conversation with the minister.

Step Five: Discipleship - “Going Deeper” (Making Your Membership Work for You)

• As part of their New Member orientation, each new member will be encouraged to find both some sort of program, activity, or “fellowship circle” which enhances their own spiritual life, and also to find some sort of volunteer opportunity which supports the larger mission and ministry of the church (see below). “One hand for the boat, and one hand for yourself.”

• It is important that a “catalog” of potential activities be visible and accessible to new members. Potential Fellowship Circles include participation in a covenant group or other Small Group Ministry, membership in the choir, enrollment in a life-long learning class, or participation in any one of the dozens of activities which take place here every year.

• The underlying goal here is not only to deepen and enrich the quality of each new member’s faith experience. We are also attempting to integrate them into our larger community in a meaningful and fulfilling way. A good benchmark for this process is the formula “Six friends in Six months.”

Step Six: Vocation - “Being Sent” by finding Meaningful Work that supports the larger Mission and Ministry of the Church.

• Often there is a great deal of overlap between “Going Deeper” and “Being Sent.” But it would be a mistake to assume that every committee is a “fellowship circle,” or that volunteer work alone is enough to deepen someone’s faith experience in a meaningful way

• At the same time, it is important that new members (and long time members as well) recognize that their contributions large or small are important and appreciated, and that they are (to continue the nautical metaphor) valued members of the crew and not just passengers along for the ride.

• A membership/volunteer coordinator should work with the nominating committee to try to find a meaningful job for every person in the church. It can be large or small, it should be self-selected if possible, it needs to contribute in a recognizable way to the work of the church as a whole, and it needs to be recognized and publicly acknowledged as well. Simply committing to attend services regularly (and, of course, to greet the people sitting around you and sing the hymns enthusiastically) qualifies as a “meaningful job,” provided it is done in a meaningful and committed way.

***
SO, WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? [this is a little brochure which we use as literature targeted specifically at return visitors, which basically outlines the Path to Membership from the perspective of someone who is on it.]


If you’re still relatively new to First Parish, and trying to figure out how best to navigate the currents and eddys of our shared congregational life, here are a few handy tips to help you get right into the swim of things!

Get Your Feet Wet. Keep attending Sunday Services, and be sure to make time afterwards to join us for conversation and refreshments in the Parish House parlour. Fill out a Visitors Card, so that you can begin receiving and reading our monthly newsletter, “Stone Soup.” Stop by the Welcome Table in the Parish House and talk with the friendly people there. Take home some of our literature, or Google “Unitarian Universalism” on the internet. Attend a “Conversation with the Minister” (generally held right after church on the first Sunday of each month), and ask the most challenging questions you can think of. We may not have all the answers, but at least we can try to point you in the right direction!

Wade Right In. Sign up for our “Explorer Series” of Orientation Classes (starting in January), or enroll in one of our many other Lifelong Learning offerings. Participate in a Faith in Action event. Try out for the Choir. Join a Covenant Group, or one of our other Small Group Ministries. Come to a potluck, or a Circle Supper. Sign up to be a greeter, an usher, a helper in the Sunday School. Light a candle during “Joys & Sorrows.” Or just keep sitting in your favorite seat there on the aisle near the back of the Meeting House week after week until folks start to think that the pew belongs to you. Do as much or as little as you like; it’s all up to you.

Take the Plunge! Formal membership in a faith community means different things to different people. But if you should decide that you want to “sign the book” and become an official member of the Congregational Society at First Parish, we would hope that you would at least feel comfortable with all or most of the following:

• Be familiar with the basic programs and activities at First Parish, and feel at home thinking and speaking of this church as “your” church.

• Within the natural constraints of your particular lifestyle and whatever other personal obligations you may have, attend Sunday Worship as regularly as you can.

• Appropriate to your personal situation and financial means, generously support the work and ministry of this congregation.

• Find and join some sort of “Fellowship Circle,” so that you might enrich your own spiritual journey by sharing it with others, and forming durable and significant relationships of mutual accountability and support. A Fellowship Circle might be a Covenant Group, or one of our other Small Group Ministries; it could be an on-going class, a regular social group, the Choir, or even a working committee. The main thing is that your Circle consist of people you know and trust and see on a regular basis, and with whom you feel comfortable sharing your thoughts and feelings about “matters of ultimate concern.”

• Identify some sort of job, task, role or responsibility that feeds your soul and which you can think of as your “ministry.” Remember the old sailing rule, “One hand for the boat; One hand for yourself” – we want you to feel like you are one of the crew, and not just a passenger along for the ride. The ministry you choose doesn’t have to be forever. In fact, we encourage you to change and grow your particular ministry as you yourself change and grow.

• Become conversant with the basic history and principles of the Unitarian and Universalist faith traditions, and reasonably comfortable talking with others about what your experience at First Parish means to you.

• Meet six new and interesting people here at First Parish who you didn’t know before you came here, and become friends. And if you think your current friends might like what we do here as much as you do, invite them to visit us, so that we might get to know them too. This is how communities grow, one relationship at a time.

• Have Fun! It’s the sine qua non of life at First Parish. (If you’re not really sure what that means yet, don’t worry. Learning obscure stuff like this is half the fun anyway!)


***
[These are just some random thoughts I sent to my leadership team regarding our advertising/public relations strategy, and how I felt we might most effectively target those resources]

THINKING ABOUT OUTREACH




A lot of people have been expressing to me a desire to see First Parish do something more effective in the way of advertising, in order to attract more people to our congregation. But in my experience, effectively advertising a church can be a tricky business, where if you don’t know what you’re doing it is easy to spend an awful lot of money without much positive result (and in some cases, even a negative one). So here are some of my reflections on the subject, as we start to think about moving forward in this area.

• The notion that we can simply purchase more and better advertising and that more (and better) people will begin attending church on Sunday mornings as a result is deceptively naïve. We need to be very specific, targeted, focused and intentional about what we hope to accomplish in “marketing” First Parish, and how best to go about achieving those objectives in an effective and economical way.

• One specific starting place might be to examine more closely what we are already doing in the way of “static” advertising (our exterior and interior signage, our pamphlets and literature, our Yellow Pages ads, our Saturday newspaper ad, and especially our newsletter and website), in order to determine whether or not we are portraying a consistent identity (or “brand”), and how we might better use these tools to reinforce the identity we would like to portray.

• Likewise, rather than presuming that the purpose of a Public Relations campaign is simply to attract more newcomers through the front doors (who may or may not return and eventually join First Parish), we might frame our objectives in both a broader and a more nuanced manner, by asking:

--what might we specifically do to improve the image, reinforce the identity, and raise the visibility of First Parish in the larger community? [i.e. to increase our “brand recognition”]

--what can we do to promote specific events of interest to the larger community other than Sunday Services that are taking place here at First Parish? [i.e. to create and promote alternative entry points]

--what can we do to inspire our current members to become more deeply involved at First Parish, and to encourage them to invite their friends?

Finally, I just want to make it clear that advertising alone is not going to grow the church all by itself. It’s just not enough merely to get people through the front door; we also need to welcome them warmly, anticipate their needs and desires, and effectively satisfy those expectations so that they will return and bring their friends. If we FAIL to do these things, we are probably better off NOT advertising, since newcomers who are disappointed by their experience here will probably tell their friends as well….

Armistice and Remembrance

✇ WWUUD?
11 November 2007 at 18:47
By: The Eclectic Cleric
a sermon preached by the Rev. Dr. Tim W. Jensen
at the First Parish Church in Portland, Maine
Armistice Day, Sunday November 11th, 2007


***
In 1933, the members of the Oxford Union, a student debating society affiliated with England's Oxford University, voted the following proposition: "Resolved, that this House will in no circumstances fight for its King or Country." In his subsequent history of the Second World War, Winston Churchill pointed to this "shameful" resolution as an example of the "lethargy and blindness" which caused the British nation "to cower from the menace of foreign peril, frothing pious platitudes while foemen forged their arms." He added: "It was easy to laugh off such an episode in England, but in Germany, in Russia, in Italy, in Japan, the idea of a decadent, degenerate Britain took deep root and swayed many calculations."

One of the supposed lessons of the Second World War, which we have heard repeated so often in our own time to justify American military operations in foreign lands, is that the appeasement of tyrants by reasonable men and women only fuels the fires of their evil aspirations; that peace is best maintained through strength, and by constant vigilance in the defense of freedom. But the students of the Oxford Union in 1933, who as children had helplessly witnessed from afar as their fathers, their uncles, and their elder brothers perished senselessly in the mechanical slaughter of the trenches along the Western Front, had drawn from that experience very different lessons of war and peace. Their resolution reflected not their decadence, nor their degeneracy, and certainly not their cowardice (as they would so shortly have the chance to demonstrate), but rather their profound commitment that never again should the civilized world allow itself to become engulfed by warfare.

Today is Armistice Day, the anniversary of the end of the First World War. And I want to use this opportunity to talk a little about issues of war and peace in a larger context, because it seems to me that much of the original spirit of this holiday has been lost in recent times, and especially in recent days. We now celebrate "Veterans Day,” on which we honor the sacrifices of those who served in wartime; we talk about the heroes of the “Greatest Generation,” who defended freedom and democracy from the threat of Fascist totalitarianism a half-century ago, and how their legacy has now descended on to us. We talk passionately of the need to “support our troops,” regardless of how we may feel personally about the policies of our government which have put them in harm’s way. But we tend to ignore the original sense of the word "Armistice" -- literally, a setting aside of arms. And I personally would like to see a little more of that sentiment observed on this holiday.

The desire for genuine peace, it seems to me, is a universal concern among religious people of good faith, and has been for as long as human history has been recorded. "Blessed are the Peacemakers,” it tells us in Scripture, “for they shall be called God's Children." Peacemaking is more than just the elimination of the threat of war. It is also an active, dynamic, creative way of living which seeks to cultivate the seeds of true harmony and justice even as it cuts away at the roots of conflict and discord, and thus it invariably operates at two distinct levels. The first level might be thought of as one of policy -- the pragmatic things which governments or other organizations do or fail to do to in order to avoid the possibility of war. The second level is one of individual contribution and commitment -- a devotion to peace based on values and principles which are fundamentally religious in nature.

These two levels of peacemaking -- policy and personal commitment -- are quite distinct, although they are also profoundly interdependent; and both of course are subject to the "judgment of history," to which our politicians so frequently appeal. Yet the lessons both of history and of religion are by no means always clear or unambiguous. If, indeed, Churchill was correct in attributing at least some of the blame for the Second World War to the strident pacifism typified by the students of the Oxford Union, it is equally important to remember that it was the similar sentiments expressed by students and others in the 1960's which eventually brought an end to our nation's military involvement in Southeast Asia, just as it was a naive application of the opposite "lesson" which got us involved in that conflict in the first place. Familiarity with policy without the corresponding personal investment simply reduces us to the status of "armchair strategists" -- war and peace become somebody else's problem, while we stand around the sidelines and second-guess. And likewise commitment and action without a solid understanding of the lessons of history leaves open the very real possibility of becoming part of the problem rather than part of the solution -- resulting in a situation where well-intentioned acts merely serve to create the opposite effect from what was intended.

The tragic irony of our current situation in Iraq and Afghanistan is rooted in precisely this kind of “disconnect” between the pragmatic and the idealistic. I am enough of a historian to know that there are times when the use of military force is an appropriate option. There are times, in fact, when it is the only option. But the methods we use to pursue our goals must never be allowed to undermine the very values we aspire to defend. How can be claim to be champions of freedom and democracy when we so freely disregard the same democratic liberties that so many American veterans have fought and died to protect? When emotions run high, as they did in the days immediately following the 9/11 attacks, it is easy to motivate people to follow a course of action which promises to strike decisively at the heart of the problem, and then to justify those actions with the claim that desperate times call for desperate measures. But the real lesson of history is that actions, ultimately, speak louder than words; that rhetoric can only conceal reality for a limited time; and that when our deeds contradict our cherished values and principles, our values and principles become the ultimate losers, and we ourselves become our own worst enemies.

By the 11th of November, 1914, a mere three months after the outbreak of hostilities, the Great Powers of Europe found themselves locked into a stalemated war of attrition which none of them had wanted, but which national pride and rigid mobilization schedules had drawn them to like moths to a candle. After the initial German offensive was blunted by French reinforcements literally rushed to the front in Parisian taxicabs, and the bloody battles in Flanders during the "race to the sea," in which four-fifths of the original British Expeditionary Force were killed, the conflict became deadlocked in a seemingly endless routine of bombardments, raids, and "standing to," in which 5000 men might perish on a "quiet" day, and casualties soared into the hundreds of thousands during "major" offensives, which often resulted in only a few hundred yards of territory lost or gained and the "exchange [of] one wet-bottomed trench for another."

Writing in her book The Guns of August, historian Barbara Tuchman observes that: "...with the advent of winter came the slow deadly sinking into the stalemate of trench warfare. Running from Switzerland to the Channel like a gangrenous wound across French and Belgian territory, the trenches determined the war of position and attrition, the brutal, mud-filled, murderous insanity known as the Western Front." Only after both sides had succeeded in slaughtering an entire generation of young men, while at the same time bankrupting their economies and subjecting their civilian populations to various degrees of hardship and privation, did the influx of fresh troops and war materiel from across the ocean help break the stalemate and cause the German government to sue for peace.

Twenty-five years later, French and German armies once again faced each other along the Western Front, from behind the fortifications of the Maginot and Siegfried lines, in an episode which became known as the Phoney War or "Sitzkrieg." This time the French soldiers were under orders not to fire at Germans they observed moving on the other side of the no-man's land -- because, after all, it would only encourage them to fire back.

Subsequent historical analysis suggests that had the Allies acted decisively within the first few weeks or months of the war, Hitler might easily have been defeated in short order -- indeed, the officers of the German General staff, who also recalled the terrible lessons of 1914, were ready to dispose of their Fuhrer themselves and sue for peace at the first opportunity. But instead the Allies refused to act, and when the Blitzkrieg finally fell in the west, in the spring of the following year, the fortifications of the Maginot line were rapidly bypassed by the German Panzers, France fell in a matter of weeks, and only the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force in small, civilian-owned boats from Dunkirk preserved the possibility of any resistance in the west.

Perhaps no one could have foreseen the coming of a Hitler in 1918, when at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month the guns stopped firing along the Western front. Confined to a military hospital recovering from a poison gas attack, this insignificant Austrian corporal felt betrayed and disgraced by his country's surrender to the Allies; while the punitive conditions of the Treaty of Versailles created more than enough resentment among the vanquished to enable his later rise to power on a platform of cultural pride, ethnic hatred, and restored national honor.

Had the victors of the Great War agreed to a just and honorable peace, Hitler might simply have remained a failed artist and frustrated member of the lunatic fringe. It's difficult to say about these things. But the inevitable temptation to punish our enemies rather than behaving generously in victory is rarely a pattern conducive to real peace. Peacemakers everywhere might well take to heart the sentiments of Abraham Lincoln, who served as Commander in Chief during America’s bloodiest and most bitter war, that one best destroys one's enemies by making them one's friends.

That opportunity existed on Armistice Day in 1918, and in many ways it should remain a valid agenda for all peacemakers today. Woodrow Wilson's "Fourteen Points," first articulated shortly after America's entry into the Great War, provide an insightful context for the understanding of such a peace which has not lost its currency even after four generations. I know 14 points may seem like a lot -- in fact, a French diplomat at the time, Georges Clemenceau, pointed out that "The Good Lord had only ten!" -- but the essence of Wilson's vision can be summarized without the need for delving in to his specific proposals for individual nation-states.

Wilson called for an end to secret treaties and military alliances, and their replacement by "Open covenants of peace, openly arrived at" and diplomacy which "shall proceed frankly and always in the public view." He insisted on "Absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas," and "the removal, so far as possible, of all economic barriers and the establishment of an equality of trade conditions among all the nations consenting to the peace." He called for a general reduction of national armaments "to the lowest points consistent with domestic safety," and for the "free, open-minded and absolutely impartial adjustment of all [territorial] claims," with "strict observance of the principle that in determining questions of sovereignty, the interests of the populations concerned must have equal weight with the equitable claims of the government whose title is to be determined."

Above all, Wilson called for the formation of "a general association of nations...under specific covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to the great and small alike." This basic framework of international law, embodying so much of that simple schoolhouse ethic of fair play on a level field, is the legacy which the college professor and Nobel Laureate who served as our 28th President has left to posterity; and on many levels it might still serve well as a foundation for our nation's current foreign policy.

Franklin Roosevelt’s “Four Freedoms” articulated many of these same sentiments in a much more simple and straightforward manner. To the traditional American liberties of Freedom of Expression and Freedom of Belief, FDR added “Freedom from Want” and “Freedom from Fear” – two very tangible benefits of basic personal and economic security which flow from a long and lasting Peace, and perhaps define in pragmatic and palpable terms, the “blessings of Liberty” we hope to secure for ourselves and our posterity. And yet it seems to me that something is horribly wrong when we believe that our own liberty can only be secured through the violent domination of others, and at the expense of their safety and prosperity.

When it comes to the more personal, spiritual aspects of Armistice Day, the lessons are not so easy to summarize. The experience of war on almost any level frequently results in two almost entirely contradictory realizations. The first is a healthy level of cynical skepticism concerning anything which has not been adequately tested by fire; and the second an equally irrational optimistic hope that the sacrifices made by one’s self and one's comrades have not been in vain, and that beyond the unspeakable horror of the battlefield lies an equally unspeakable promise of a better way, which somehow can and will redeem the lives of those who have suffered and died on our behalf, and bring meaning to an activity which is intrinsically without meaning.

Without this optimistic belief in the redemptive power, not so much of violence, but of personal sacrifice, perhaps there would never be another war. Yet without it there could certainly be no hope of an enduring peace either -- for without a willingness to stand up for those who cannot stand up for themselves, in time the innocent would once more fall victim to the ambitious, and fear and avarice again displace the values of tolerance and compassion at the heart of our society.

And so we must continue to speak out in defense of those whose voices have been silenced, and who are no longer capable of defending themselves, in the naive expectation that somehow, someday, it will all make a difference. This skeptical hope, this cynical optimism born of suffering and sacrifice, is perhaps the most critical legacy of Armistice Day. It is a lesson we simply cannot afford to forget if we truly wish to create a safer, more prosperous, more peaceful world....

“In Flanders Fields the poppys blow, between the crosses row on row, that mark our place; and in the sky the larks, still bravely singing, fly scarce heard amid the guns below. We are the Dead. Short days ago we lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, loved and were loved, and now we lie in Flanders fields. Take up our quarrel with the foe: to you from failing hands we throw the torch; be yours to hold it high. If ye break faith with us who die we shall not sleep, though poppies grow in Flanders fields....”

In his ground-breaking work of literary and social criticism The Great War and Modern Memory, former Rutgers University professor and World War Two veteran Paul Fussell draws a sharp distinction between the somber tone of the first nine lines of John McCrae’s famous poem, and the “recruiting poster rhetoric” and "propaganda argument...against a negotiated peace....” articulated in the final six. “Words like stupid and vicious would not seem to go too far,” Fussell rages. “It is grievously out of contact with the symbolism of the first part, which the final image of poppies as sleep-inducers fatally recalls.”

And yet sometimes keeping faith with the dead is far more complicated than simply renewing old quarrels, and taking up the torch from failing hands and carrying it once more into the breach. Sometimes holding high the torch demands an entirely different set of actions and attitudes altogether....

{the following bracketed passage was dropped from the sermon preached on Sunday morning, in the interest of time}

[In a on-line essay written just this past week, military historian Lt. Col. William Astore (Ret.) describes a scenario in which “...the world's finest military launches a highly coordinated shock-and-awe attack that shows enormous initial progress. There's talk of the victorious troops being home for Christmas. But the war unexpectedly drags on. As fighting persists into a third, and then a fourth year, voices are heard calling for negotiations, even ‘peace without victory.’ Dismissing such peaceniks and critics as defeatists, a conservative and expansionist regime -- led by a figurehead who often resorts to simplistic slogans and his Machiavellian sidekick who is considered the brains behind the throne -- calls for one last surge to victory. Unbeknownst to the people on the home front, however, this duo has already prepared a seductive and self-exculpatory myth in case the surge fails....”

“The United States in 2007?” Astore asks. “No, Wilhelmine Germany in 1917 and 1918, as its military dictators, Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg and his loyal second, General Erich Ludendorff, pushed Germany toward defeat and revolution in a relentless pursuit of victory in World War I. Having failed with their surge strategy on the Western Front in 1918, they nevertheless succeeded in deploying a stab-in-the-back myth, or Dolchstoßlegende, that shifted blame for defeat from themselves and Rightist politicians to Social Democrats and others allegedly responsible for losing the war by their failure to support the troops at home.....The German Army knew it was militarily defeated in 1918. But this was an inconvenient truth for Hindenburg and the Right, so they crafted a new ‘truth:’ that the troops were ‘unvanquished in the field.’ So powerful did these words become that they would be engraved in stone on many a German war memorial....”

“Given the right post-war conditions,” Astore concludes, “the myth of the stab-in-the-back can facilitate the rise of reactionary regimes and score-settling via long knives -- just ask Germans under Hitler in 1934. It also serves to exonerate a military of its blunders and blind spots, empowering it and its commanders to launch redemptive, expansionist adventures that turn disastrous precisely because previous lessons of defeat were never faced, let alone absorbed or embraced. Thus, the German military's collapse in World War I and the Dolchstoß myth that followed enabled the even greater disaster of World War II....”]

I profoundly doubt that the nine million French, German, British, Russian, Austrian, Belgian, Italian, Turkish, and American soldiers (I could go on)...soldiers who were slaughtered in the carnage of that Great “War to End All Wars,” rested much more peacefully knowing that within a generation, another estimated seventy million soldiers and civilians would be joining them in that euphemistic “sleep” from which no one ever wakes. The danger of appeasing foreign tyrants is only half the lesson; for the other half, we must look to the Students of the Oxford Union, who understood in ways which we can never fully understand, the dangers of forgetting the unavoidable horror of war itself, and of blind obedience to authority which is out of touch with the human consequences of its commands....



READING: The "Four Freedoms"
Franklin D. Roosevelt's Address to Congress January 6, 1941

In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.

The first is freedom of speech and expression -- everywhere in the world.

The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way -- everywhere in the world.

The third is freedom from want -- which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants -- everywhere in the world.

The fourth is freedom from fear -- which, translated into world terms, means a worldwide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor-- anywhere in the world.

That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation. That kind of world is the very antithesis of the so-called new order of tyranny which the dictators seek to create with the crash of a bomb.

To that new order we oppose the greater conception -- the moral order. A good society is able to face schemes of world domination and foreign revolutions alike without fear.

Since the beginning of our American history, we have been engaged in change -- in a perpetual peaceful revolution -- a revolution which goes on steadily, quietly adjusting itself to changing conditions -- without the concentration camp or the quicklime in the ditch. The world order which we seek is the cooperation of free countries, working together in a friendly, civilized society.

This nation has placed its destiny in the hands and heads and hearts of its millions of free men and women; and its faith in freedom under the guidance of God. Freedom means the supremacy of human rights everywhere. Our support goes to those who struggle to gain those rights or keep them. Our strength is our unity of purpose.

To that high concept there can be no end save victory.

The Time of Your Life

✇ WWUUD?
4 November 2007 at 18:24
By: The Eclectic Cleric
a sermon preached by the Rev. Dr. Tim W. Jensen
at the First Parish Church in Portland, Maine
Sunday November 4, 2007 - Dia de los Muertos


PRAYER:

Some days the Spirit summons us to bow our heads in reverence, and kneel humbly before the awesome presence and power of all Creation.

Other days we are inspired to lift our eyes skyward to the horizon and toward the heavens, to cast our gaze upon the hills from whence comes our strength.

The Spirit moves where it will; we hear the sound of it, but we know not whence it comes nor whither it goes.

We feel its presence like the wind upon our faces; like a rustling breeze amidst the branches of trees.

The cold, bitter, biting winds of winter, which leave our lips numb and chilled.

The fresh, fragrant gusts of blossoming life in spring.

A cool, summer sea breeze blowing gently over the face of the water.

A breath of fresh air on a brisk autumn morning.

But whatever the season of the year,

And whatever the season of our lives,

The Spirit Calls to us....

Speaking to us out of the whirlwind,

Speaking to us out of the silence,

Calling to us to give Voice to its Truth.

Through our words,

And our deeds,

And our lives....


***
[Extemporaneous Introduction: “Emergency Back-up Sermon Generator”]

I’ve been thinking an awful lot about Time this past week, and not just in terms of this whole annual “Spring Forward, Fall Back” routine. Rather, I’ve been thinking about Time as a measure of our Lives, and of the various ways in which we, as post-modern 21st century men and women, do or do not live our lives in time to the rhythms of the Universe.

And with these reflections have come a momentary period of contemplation upon the nature of Time itself as well; and how our understanding of Time -- what it is, what it means -- has changed over the years as a result of our changing lifestyles. For example, is Time fundamentally linear or circular? Does it progress from beginning to end, or rather repeat itself seasonally for all eternity? Or maybe it’s a little of both. Or maybe it’s really neither. Maybe all the Time we will ever truly know or have is right now in this moment: and the past is just a memory, the future merely a dream. And how can we be sure from one moment to the next whether what we THINK we are experiencing is really real, and not simply some figment of our imagination, an orderly structure we impose upon our subjective experience of a fundamentally chaotic Universe?

We can come back to these abstract metaphysical speculations any time we like; they’ve been around since time immemorial, and I’m not really sure that anyone has actually figured them out yet...except maybe Stephen Hawking. But I do just want to remind everyone here once again why we observe this particular holiday: because this is once more the time of the year when the ancient, pre-Christian Northern European “pagans” -- the Germans, the Scandinavians, the Celts -- believed that the World of the Living and the World of the Dead were at their closest proximity.

And if we simply pause and take a moment to look at the world from their perspective, you’ll see that it all makes perfect sense. This is the Season when the great Circle of Life enters into its period of dark, cold, deathlike dormancy. From life to death to rebirth in the spring, the cycle repeats...yet here in the heart of Autumn is the threshold between the last lingering days of the living and the eternal night that is death. It is a liminal time, when the boundaries are indistinct, and spirits might move freely from one realm to the other.

And of course, over time, and with the coming of Christianity, All Hallows Eve became All Saints Day, and the Feast of All Souls, (and in some Latin American cultures, Dia de los Muertos -- “The Day of the Dead”). Just as the birth of Christ came to be commemorated four days following the longest night of the year; and the miracle of Easter, of course, reoccurs annually in the Spring, on the first Sunday following the first full moon following the vernal equinox. Human beings learned how to tell time in the first place from the heavens. The only real problem is that now we know that the Clockwork Universe tends to run a little slow.

Most of us probably don’t think about it that often, but the reason there are seven days in a week and four weeks to a month is that it takes 28 days for the moon to wax and wane from new to full to new again. But for some inexplicable reason, although mathematically there 360 degrees in a circle, there are actually 365 days to a year, which tends to throw a little glitch into the easy and elegant symmetry of 60 seconds to a minute and 60 minutes to a degree, all of it so neatly divisible by Pi.

And what a difference a day makes. A day, of course, is the amount of time it takes for the earth to revolve once around its axis: a period of time which, by convention, consists of twenty-four hours of daylight and darkness, give or take a few seconds. But the problem, of course, is that the earth wobbles as it spins, and it’s orbit also has a little tilt to it, which means that depending on how far north or south you may be at any given time of the year, within that same 24-hour period some “days” are noticeably longer than others...or at least that part of the day that happens in daylight.

And when does a day properly begin anyway? Does the new day dawn at sunrise, when the rooster crows and awakens all within earshot from their sleep? Or perhaps it’s more reasonable to wait until sunset, at the end of the day, which would logically mark the beginning of the next day as well. Or perhaps it’s really most logical to begin the new day at the Meridian -- high noon -- when the Sun is directly overhead, and thus equidistant in terms of time between dawn and dusk. This is the way a sundial works: one of the world’s oldest and most reliable timepieces. And it is also how sailors at sea have historically marked the time, since it is so essential to their ability to calculate their location, no matter where they may find themselves upon the globe.

But to begin a new day at midnight -- as we do these days -- seems completely arbitrary, especially since without some sort of artificial timepiece, there is really no good way of even telling when midnight is.

The time was that every local community set its clocks by the heavens; they looked up into the sky, figured out when the sun was directly overhead, set the big hand and the little hand straight up to twelve noon, and thus divided the day evenly into two equal halves: Ante-Meridian and Post-Meridian, AM and PM. It wasn’t until the development of railroads in the 19th century that the perceived need for more reliable timetables created a push for “Standard” time -- so that noon in Portland would be the same as noon in Boston or noon New York, even though the sun shines on us a lot sooner here “Down East” than it does in those other places.

And once the timekeepers learned that they could break faith with the heavens and tinker with time, all sorts of mischief was soon in the works. Farmers have always tended to work from dawn to dusk, regardless of when or where they have lived. But modern office and factory workers tend to work in eight hour shifts (typically from nine to five), forty hours a week...so as the days grow longer and the evenings more pleasant, why not simply move nine AM a little earlier in the day, so that folks can save a little more daylight for the evening after work?

And of course, the great irony is that the further we drift from living in harmony with the natural rhythms of the seasons, the more we become a civilization of clock-watchers laboring under artificial light, only to feel like there simply aren’t enough hours in the day to get everything done that we want to get done. At the end of the day, it often seems as though all that our many so-called time-saving technologies have done for us is to accelerate the pace of life itself, leaving us with less time left over for ourselves than our ancestors enjoyed even just a generation ago.

Then again, as the saying goes, we can always sleep when we’re dead....

None of us really knows for certain the measure of our days. We can consult the actuarial tables; we can look to our family medical histories; we can simply cross our fingers, close our eyes, and try not to think about it very much at all. But it’s all just speculation; a little educated guess-work. At some point each of us figures out that we probably have a lot less life left in front of us than is already behind us, but even this is simply an abstraction, because let’s face it -- the past IS history, while each new day is a new beginning. And likewise, there are many who would say that it’s not so much the time we have left to live, as it is the amount of life we squeeze out of the time we do have left...

But the real secret, it seems to me, to truly getting the most out of life in the time we have been given, is to learn how to live life fully present in each moment. And believe me, this is really hard, especially for those of us whose imaginations tend to fly off at the drop of a hat far into the distant future, while at the same time lingering nostalgically over days long past, and procrastinating shamelessly about whatever is near at hand.

But to aspire to live life fully present in the moment, taking each day as it comes while still moving forward toward some future goal, -- patiently, persistently, tenatiously...one day, one step, at a time -- still cherishing those fond memories of good times we might wish would last forever, and letting go of those bitter memories that only hold us back -- it’s a worthy ambition, even though we may never fully achieve it before we die. To live each day as if it were our first, and not just potentially our last...it’s the challenge we all face every day of our lives, no matter how many years we may have already lived.

Which brings us at long last to that age-old question, what happens to us after we die?

The short answer is easy: nobody really knows -- or at least not anybody alive today. And the Scientific answer isn’t really all that much more complicated. Our hearts stop beating, we take our final breath, the synapses in our brains fire for the last time, and the complex organic compounds that make up our bodies slowly but inexorably begin to decay, returning once more to the earth from whence they came.

But is that really the end of “us?” -- a few pounds of chemicals and an awful lot of H2O, recycled back into the system to be used in some other combination. What about our individuality, our unique personality, our “soul” -- that essential “spark” that makes us who we are, and which gives our life meaning?

And I’m sure there are some who would suggest that if this really WERE all that there is, than maybe our lives ARE meaningless....

But I know in my heart that our lives HAVE meaning. I know how much the lives of the people commemorated on this table by these pictures, and these flowers, and these candles, have meant to all of you. And so I know that there is more to life than merely living, and that are deaths are merely another moment in time.

Pray with me now, won’t you?

Loving Creator of all that is, who gives us life and gives our lives meaning... We dwell in this place for but a brief time, yet within this eyeblink on the face of eternity, so much has been given to us. And so we give thanks for this great gift of life, and for the lives of all those who have touched or own, and helped make us who we are today, in this moment. May our own lives speak as testimony to their worthiness, and may their presence among us never be forgotten....

REMEMBERING MICHAEL SERVETUS

✇ WWUUD?
28 October 2007 at 17:34
By: The Eclectic Cleric
a sermon preached by the Rev. Dr. Tim W. Jensen
at the First Parish Church in Portland, Maine
Sunday October 28, 2007


One of the great joys about my job in general, and about this job here at First Parish in particular, is that I literally get to go to work each day surrounded by history. I get to witness it, I get to be a part of it, and who knows? -- in time, working together, we may even get an opportunity to make a little of it ourselves. A few weeks ago I shared with you some words by author Lesley Poles Hartley, just at they were shared with me by one of my professors when I was beginning my doctoral studies: "The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there." And as a terminally-educated historian, I am also an avid and enthusiastic armchair tourist— I delight in exploring what the past has to show me, simply for the experience of seeing the world through different eyes.

Of course, there is also a practical side to this exploration. "Those who cannot remember the past," Harvard philosopher George Santayana once observed,"are condemned to repeat it." And Santayana himself was merely echoing the sentiments of the ancient Greek historian Thucydides, who wrote his history of the Peloponnesian War out of a belief that an exact knowledge of the past was a useful aid to the interpretation of the future. Thucydides understood the real reason that history repeats itself. Times may change, but people seldom do — the same passions, ambitions, weaknesses and appetites that motivated human behavior in the ancient world are still very much with us today. In its essence, history is simply the story of what it means to be human: how we have reacted to the challenges of the past, and how we might be expected to react to the challenges of the future.

Of course, as a Unitarian Universalist minister, I have yet another interest in a very specific of kind of history. Because for a denomination as theologically diverse and pluralistic as our own, our history — that is to say, our shared heritage and our living tradition — is one of the few things that we all have in common, and in many ways is the “glue” that binds us together as single religious movement. Our history reveals the common elements that have come together to make us what we are today. Through the lives and experiences of our spiritual forebearers, we see reflected many of the same purposes and principles Unitarian Universalists aspire to live by today. Yet we often see them in a context dramatically different from our own, which by its mere strangeness can help us to see and understand ourselves from a radically different perspective.

And when I say that I get to come to work each day literally surrounded by history, I literally mean literally. For example, when I climb these pulpit steps each week, it’s difficult not to notice the memorials here on the wall to three of my illustrious predecessors in this pulpit: Thomas Smith, Samuel Deane, and Ichabod Nichols, who collectively served and led this congregation for a total of 132 years (from 1727 to 1859), an era which included some of the most significant events in this congregation’s history, including both its gradual theological evolution from Puritan Calvinism to Unitarianism in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, as well as the construction of this Meeting House in 1825, at a total cost of slightly more than $18,000 (which, believe me, was a lot more money back in those days than it sounds like today).

But if you look closely at these memorials, you’ll notice that they all end the same way: “Died in this Ministry” followed by a date...which is a pretty morbid thought to have in mind as one enters this pulpit, until you stop to do the math. Thomas Smith was “ordained over” this congregation in 1727 at the age of 25, and “died in this ministry” 68 years later at the age of 93. Samuel Deane was called here at the age of 31 to serve as Parson Smith’s colleague in 1764 (when Smith himself was still a mere spring chicken in his 62nd year of life), and “died in this ministry” in 1814 at the age of 81, after a 50 year term of service. And Ichabod Nichols (whose openly professed Unitarianism caused such a stir in the community when he first arrived here in 1809) was ordained as Deane’s colleague one month shy of his own 25th birthday, and served this congregation a mere 40 years before dying in this ministry at the relatively young age of 74.

You can read a lot more about these ministers (as well as the many others who have served this congregation) on the First Parish Website. So far my own contribution to that history is merely one sentence, basically acknowledging that I’ve arrived; but I hope (with your help) that we can accomplish a few things more worthy of remembrance before writing the final word on my tenure in this pulpit.

And the person whose life (and death) I really want to talk about today actually comes from a very different era of our history altogether. Michael Servetus is known to historians by his literary Latin nom de plume, but he probably would have been known to his closest friends (if he’d had any) as Miguel Serveto alias Michel de Villeneuve: humanist and reformer, author and editor, physician, astrologer, heretic and martyr... it makes for an interesting business card, to say the least. He is often identified as the "founder" of Unitarianism, yet I doubt many contemporary Unitarian Universalists would find much comfort in his doctrine or even much pleasure in his company today. He was arrogant, at times even obnoxious, smug in his abundant intellectual gifts and uncompromisingly certain of his religious convictions. In a word, he was a typical 16th century reformer, filled with mystical confidence and passionate in his heady quest for the restitution of an uncorrupted Christian faith.

As best historians can tell, Migual Serveto was born in the year 1511 in the Spanish town of Villanueva. The name Servetus, as I mentioned earlier, is the Latin form of his Spanish surname, and comes to us from his books, which were, of course, written in Latin. His father, Antonio, was a minor noble and public notary; his brother Juan a Catholic priest. For centuries the Iberian peninsula had boiled with religious strife: Sephardic Jews, Moslem Moors and Castilian Catholics all inhabiting the same land, at times co-existing, at others fighting ruthlessly for political and cultural dominance. The Catholics eventually emerged on top, at about the same time Columbus sailed for the New World in 1492; and two decades later the influence of the Spanish Inquisition, which attempted to root out those remaining Jews and Moslems who refused to convert to Christianity, was still very much in evidence during Servetus's boyhood.

At the age of 14, Servetus went to work as a secretary to the Franciscan scholar Juan de Quintana, and two years later took a sabbatical from this service in order to undertake the study of Law at the University of Toulouse in France. It was doubtlessly here that he began the theological speculations that were eventually to lead him to his place in history. Servetus was evidently very much troubled by the "problem" of the Moslems and Jews in Spain. If Christianity represented a true revelation from God On High, why were the Moors and the Jews so reluctant to convert? The answer, obviously, lay in the doctrine of the Trinity, which a pious Moslem or Jew could only understand as the worship of three Gods.

At Toulouse, Servetus was exposed for the first time to the text of the Scriptures in their original Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic, as well as the writings of some of the early Church fathers, particularly Irenaeus and Tertullian, which were starting to become available through the scholarship of Renaissance humanists like Erasmus. While Servetus could find reference to "the father," "the son," and "the holy spirit," in his readings, nowhere in the Bible could he find their relationship described in the terms used by the Council of Nicea in 325 to define the limits of Christian Orthodoxy. The Greek word homousia (in Latin, consubstantial) — "one essence" or "substance" — simply does not occur anywhere in the New Testament; and for Servetus its absence from Scripture was highly significant. Was it not possible that God the Father alone was Eternal, and that Christ his Son was a created being, a manifestation of the divine Godhead but not co-equal with it? Would not this kind of theology allow Christians, Moslems and Jews to worship together, as common children of the same Creator?

We can’t be sure exactly how far Servetus had developed this line of thought while a student at Toulouse, but in 1529 he returned to the service of Quintana, whom he accompanied to the lavish Papal coronation of Charles the Fifth as Holy Roman Emperor in the spring of 1530. Servetus was evidently shocked by the corruption and affluence of the Papacy, just as many other would-be Protestant reformers had been shocked before him. That summer he slipped away from the royal court, and shortly afterwards surfaced in the Protestant town of Basel. And a year later, when Servetus was still only 20 years old, he published his first book, De Trinitatis Erroribus or "On The Errors of the Trinity," a work which was to brand him as a hunted heretic for the remainder of his life.

Servetus may have been arrogant, but he was not stupid. He knew that he had written a controversial book, and therefore arranged to have it secretly printed in Strasbourg. He honestly (or perhaps naively) hoped and believed that the truth of his ideas would be readily perceived and quickly accepted, and therefore he sent complimentary copies to all of the prominent reformers and humanists of the day. Initial response was mixed, but as the months passed the criticisms became more and more negative. Servetus had managed to come up with something to offend just about everyone: not only had he done away with the doctrine of the Trinity, but he also had taken issue with the efficacy of infant baptism, and with Luther's doctrine of Justification by Faith.

By June of 1532, only a year after its publication, sale of Servetus's book had been banned in the towns controlled by the Reformers, and a warrant for his arrest had been issued by the Catholic Inquisition as well. His own brother Juan was instructed by the Spanish authorities to travel to Germany and lure Servetus back into Catholic hands, so that justice against heretics might appropriately be carried out. Meanwhile, Servetus himself apparently even contemplated fleeing incognito to the New World in order to escape the repercussions of his writing.

But instead he fled to France, taking on the assumed name Michel de Villenueve. He eventually settled in Lyon, where he took up work as an editor for the publishers Melchior and Gaspard Trechsel. Servetus lived secretly in France for some 20 years, editing editions of Ptolemy's Geography and of the Bible itself, studying medicine for a time at the University of Paris, and lecturing on Astrology in order to support his studies, a practice which nearly lead to the discovery of his true identity.

Servetus was also evidently quite successful as a physician, and made a name for himself in the history of medicine as the first to note the aeration of blood in the lungs. He never married, possibly out of fear that he would be unable to keep his past a secret from his wife. His passion for theology never waned. When John Calvin's Institutes started to appear in publication, Servetus obtained copies and read them eagerly. He initiated a secret correspondence with Calvin (whom he may actually have met in person earlier in Paris in 1533), and they exchanged some 30 letters, which over time grew increasingly heated and abusive in tone. Both men wrote under assumed names to protect their identities: Calvin used the name Charles Despeville; while with characteristic boldness, Servetus used his own name as a pseudonym, in order to hide his identity as Michel de Villenueve. When Calvin started to refer Servetus to the Institutes for answers, instead of bothering to answer his questions directly, Servetus responded by returning pages of Calvin’s book with every paragraph marked with insulting marginal annotations. He also sent Calvin a manuscript of his own work-in-progress, The Restitution of Christianity, the Latin title of which, Christianismi Restitutio, was an obvious pun on Calvin's own Institutio. When Calvin finally broke off the correspondence, Servetus wrote again asking for the return of his manuscript; Calvin never responded, and the manuscript would eventually surface in evidence at Servetus's trial.

Having learned his lesson in 1531, Servetus took even greater precautions to insure that his new book could not be traced back to him. The presses were set up secretly in an abandoned house on the outskirts of town, the printers themselves had no knowledge of what they were printing, and the new manuscript (Calvin was still in possession of the original draft) was burned page by page as soon as it was set in type. The printing was completed on January 3rd, 1553. A few copies were sent to a sympathetic bookseller in Frankfort, and the remainder moved secretly to the home of a friend in Lyon.

A printed copy somehow came into the hands of Calvin during the month of February; perhaps it was sent by Servetus himself. By now Calvin had figured out that the Servetus with whom he had earlier corresponded was indeed the notorious heretic of two decades earlier, and he promptly conspired to deliver Servetus into the hands the Inquisitors in Lyon, having an associate write a letter in which were included the first four pages of Servetus's book.

Let me take a moment to explain the significance of this. While the various reformers often bickered among themselves, never before had they betrayed one of their own to agents of the Pope. It simply wasn't done. Moreover, when this initial evidence proved inadequate for the Inquisition's needs, Calvin forwarded parts of Servetus's earlier correspondence with him, which being in Servetus's own handwriting were not so easily denied. By this time Servetus was already under arrest, but having successfully practiced medicine in the community for some years he was not without friends, and with their help he was able to effect an escape. But the copies of his book were discovered and burned, along with an effigy of his body. So complete was the destruction that only three of that original printing of a thousand still exist today.

The final chapter of the story is perhaps the most interesting of all. On Sunday August 13th, 1553, Michael Servetus was arrested as he left church in the city of Geneva. The preacher that day was John Calvin. Servetus was accused of heresy, blasphemy, immorality and sedition, to list the major charges. He languished in a dungeon for several months, subjected to frequent "vigorous" interrogation, afflicted by vermin, denied decent food or even an occasional change of clothes, his spirit and morale gradually withering away, yet his religious convictions never faltering. He was at last formally tried and found guilty on the 26th of October, and sentenced to be burned to death at the stake the following morning, 454 years ago, yesterday, in only his 42nd year of life. It is reported that his final words were "O Jesus, Son of the Eternal God, have pity on me." More than one historian has noted that had he merely changed the position of the adjective and prayed for deliverance to "Jesus, the eternal son of God," his views would have been considered acceptable by the court.

It has also been noted that Servetus had a far greater impact on the shape of Protestant Christianity in death than he ever made during his lifetime. Never before had one Reformer been responsible for the execution of another for reason of religious belief, and John Calvin lost a great deal of respect and credibility among his peers by having become the first. Reformers who had been harsh in their condemnation of Servetus's theological opinions while he was alive now found themselves defending his right to hold them against Calvin's obvious abuse of secular power. The widespread acceptance of the ideal of religious tolerance was still centuries away — in fact, I often wonder whether it has yet to be achieved. But in the aftermath of the martyrdom of Servetus, all of Western Civilization took its first hesitant steps towards its realization.

The standard narrative histories of the life and death of Servetus routinely emphasize the importance of the latter at the expense of the former. They tend to characterize Servetus personally as a brilliant yet idealistically headstrong young heretic, and an outspoken firebrand who nevertheless maintained the courage of his convictions even unto death, and thus became a martyr to the cause of Religious Freedom. But it seems to me that this dramatic narrative needs to be read alongside those of people like Thomas Smith, and Samuel Deane, and Ichabod Nichols, who also gave their lives in the pursuit of Spiritual Truth and in defense of Religious Liberty, and whose faithful service has also made it possible for us to enjoy those same freedoms today....

Michael Servetus.
Died in this Ministry,
October 27, 1553....

51 years: 15 & 1/2 photos (equivilent to approximately 15,500 words)

✇ WWUUD?
22 October 2007 at 11:40
By: The Eclectic Cleric
[c. 1966]

Yes it's true. Today is my 51st birthday - a "prime" birthday, unlike last year's "round" one. And a lovely surprise cake in Church yesterday -- so even though I'm trying very hard to avoid foods beginning with "C" -- (Cake, Cookies, Candy, Chips and Cokes in particular), I thought I'd better make an exception. And I'm awfully glad I did. Delicious....


Also thought that rather than writing a whole bunch of words here about my reflections on growing older, I'd just post some old photos, so that folks could read my growing wisdom in my face. Or at least I HOPE that's what people will read there. One nice thing for a minister about growing older (and gaining weight) is that it immediately increases one's impression of gravitas. I sure do miss the hair though. Well, not really....

[1969] Batter UP!


[1975]


[1981]


[1984]


[1985]


[1988]

[c. 1990] (that's my mom on my right. I really missed not getting a birthday card from her this year, for the first time in my life.)

[1993]

[1995]

[1997]

[1999] (my official "Head Shot" for the Salt Lake City UUA General Assembly program.)

At my brother Erik's wedding in NYC, a few weeks before New Year's Eve, Y2K. That's my daughter in the LBD (Little Black Dress), checking out someone a little closer to her own age across a crowded room....

[2003]

[2004]

[2007] - Do you think that squinting through these new bifocals makes my eyes look a little beady?

CONFESSIONS OF A ZEN BAPTIST

✇ WWUUD?
21 October 2007 at 19:28
By: The Eclectic Cleric
a sermon preached by the Rev. Dr. Tim W. Jensen
at the First Parish Church in Portland, Maine
Sunday October 21st, 2007


OPENING WORDS: from Henry Clarke Warren,  Buddhism In Translations (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1896), 283-84

A large part of the pleasure that I have experienced in the study of Buddhism has arisen from what I may call the strangeness of the intellectual landscape. All the ideas, the modes of argument, even the postulates assumed and not argued about, have always seemed so strange, so different from anything to which I have been accustomed, that I felt all the time as though walking in Fairyland. Much of the charm that the Oriental thoughts and ideas have for me appears to be because they so seldom fit into Western categories.


***

Listening last week to Rabbi Sky tell that story about the monastery in the woods, where all the brothers treated one another with such respect, because they were told that the Messiah was living among them, reminded me of a Buddhist monastery I once heard about, located on a small island in the South Pacific, where the monks essentially lived in complete silence.

With the exception of the absolute minimum amount of non-verbal communication required for safety, the monks basically only spoke twice a day. Every morning when they came in for breakfast at the conclusion of their morning meditation, the Abbot would wait until everyone was seated, and then he would stand up at the head of the refectory and chant “Good Morning.” And all of the other monks would chant back in unison “Good Morning,” before eating their humble meal together in silence.

And then at night, at the conclusion of the evening meal, the Abbot would again stand at the head of the refectory and chant “Good Evening,” and all of the monks would answer “Good Evening,” before heading back to their cells to sleep.

Now there was one young monk, recently arrived on the island from the United States, who really struggled to fit in with this discipline. And after a few months of this routine, he was nearly at the breaking point. So one morning, when the Abbot stood up at the head of the refectory and chanted “Good Morning,” and all of the other monks chanted back “Good Morning,” this one rebellious monk chanted instead “Good Evening.”

There is silence, and then there is silence. The Abbot gazed out across the crowded room, carefully scrutinizing the face of each monk. And then he said, [singing] “Some [-one/en-]chanted evening....”

On one level, my sermon this morning deals with a very personal subject: it is essentially the story of how my own study of Buddhism when I was younger eventually helped me to better understand and appreciate my culturally Christian roots, and also helped make me into a better Unitarian Universalist minister in the process. But it also deals with topics far more wide-ranging in their scope. Nearly half a century ago, in the midst of what we have now come to think of as “the Cold War,” historian Arnold Toynbee observed that a thousand years hence, when the historians of that day sit down to write the history of ours, they will care little about this brief period of conflict between the Communist nations of Eastern Europe and those more liberal nations to the West who enjoy a somewhat freer polity. Rather, what they will really want to know is what happened to both Christianity and to Buddhism when these two great world religions encountered one another for the first time. "Buddhism has transformed every culture it has entered, and Buddhism has been transformed by its entry into that culture,” Toynbee remarked. “The coming of Buddhism to the West may well prove to be the most important event of the Twentieth Century.”

Toynbee, of course, certainly had (and has) his critics: equally brilliant intellectuals somewhat more grounded in their imagination, who essentially have dismissed Toynbee’s work as “metaphysics masquerading as history.” But we need only look back a thousand years ago to appreciate the essential insight of Toynbee's opinion. Who among us can remember who won the Hundred Years War, much less why it started, or what was at stake? Perhaps Agincourt or Joan of Arc may ring a bell; maybe we have seen a movie or two set in that period. But when we think about the legacy of Christianity's first encounter with Islam, and the reintroduction of Aristotelian science into western Europe, at the subsequent Renaissance, Reformation and Enlightenment of Christendom (not to mention those little things called “the Crusades,”) we discover that the legacy of that encounter is still very much alive and with us today. The deep currents of human history move slowly, but they carry before them the tide of all civilization.

My story, of course, is my own, but I also suspect that in many ways it is somewhat typical of those deeper cultural currents. Like many young people, I first became interested in the great questions posed by Religion during my adolescence, and turned first for answers to what I have now come to think of as the “feel good” Christianity of popular culture, the faith I saw all around me. I was fascinated by the idea of being “born again,” and with the idealism of making a lift-transforming commitment to something larger than myself, of devoting my loyalty to a transcendent being who loved me like a father loves his children, and in whose eyes all human beings are brothers and sisters. I admired the great ethical and spiritual insights I discovered in the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount and in the wisdom of the parables and the Golden Rule; I was excited by the drama of a Last Judgment, and a final showdown between good and evil.

Yet it also bothered me that the popular Cultural Christianity presented to me on television and through the efforts of evangelical student groups didn't really add up for me intellectually. I was particularly bothered by the whole idea of being “saved” and the doctrine of original sin and vicarious atonement which stood behind it. I mean, even as a teenager I knew I wasn’t perfect, but I didn’t really lie or cheat or steal (or at least not so you’d notice), and I certainly hadn’t murdered anyone (much less committed adultery). I was reasonably good about honoring my mother and father (at least for a teenager, that is), and I thought that coveting my neighbors possessions was just part of the American Way.

And I suppose I could have been a little better about not taking the Lord’s name in vain, and remembering the Sabbath and keeping it holy. But I certainly wasn’t worshipping any other Gods before him, or making any graven images. But it bothered me. How could a Just and Loving God possibly hold anyone accountable for something that supposedly happened long before they were even born, and what was something so simple and innocuous as professing faith in Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior going to do to change it?

I suppose that had I been a better algebra student, I would have realized that the two terms simply canceled one another out: that since I didn't do anything in particular to get myself into this state of sin in the first place, I shouldn't feel too compelled to do anything especially onerous to get out of it either. But by that point it had all started to seem like a giant scam: Christ the Cosmic Repo Man, who redeemed our souls from their debt to the Devil only to charge a higher rate of interest, and threaten us with the same punishment of eternal damnation if we failed to make the payments.

And while we’re at it, what was all this nonsense about the Virgin Birth? What kind of God would get a young girl pregnant out of wedlock in the first place, and without even asking her opinion on the matter, much less her consent? If God had created the World in seven days six thousand years ago, what about those dinosaurs I’d heard so much about, whose decomposed remains powered the wheels that made our entire civilization go round? Walking on the water; rising from the dead...it all started to sound like just another fairy tale intended to frighten young children into doing what their parents told them. I had more faith in astrology, and in the existence of life on other planets.

I suppose what originally attracted me to Buddhism was the fact that it seemed so different from the Christianity I saw around me - so much more pristine, honest, and contemplative: the "exotic wisdom of the orient" standing in sharp contrast to the materialism and hypocrisy of popular evangelical Christianity. Of course, I didn't really know that much about Buddhism in those days either: just what I saw on television, or read in books by popularizers like Alan Watts, Thomas Merton, and DT Suzuki. In time I would come to see that there were just as many strange Buddhist superstitions as there were silly Christian ones, and that miracles like the Buddha's building of 40,000 Stupas (or temples) across the island of Sri Lanka in a single night made little things like walking on the water look like small potatoes. But by then I was already in Divinity school, and had learned enough that it didn't bother me any more.

Within the Christian tradition, Ultimate Reality has typically been characterized as something "wholly other" from human beings: a sovereign God, Creator of the Universe by Word alone, from whom we are alienated by our sinful nature, and yet who, as sovereign, demands both our Worship and our Obedience, has been revealed to us through history as recorded in the Scripture, and ultimately, through God's Word incarnate in human flesh, Jesus Christ, the Anointed King and Son of God, the ˇperfect” human being. This basic theological paradigm, perhaps with different emphases, is shared in its essence by every Christian group known to history, and (with the exception of the “Jesus” part) by the monotheistic faiths of Judaism and Islam as well. God stands outside the world, as its Creator and its Judge; we live within the world, as creatures, waiting to be judged.

At its worst, when fundamentalist literalism rears its head, this world view often results in a rigid, fatalistic, uncompromising style of faith -- a faith based on blind Obedience rather than the fullness and fulfillment of human potential. Yet at its best, it manifests itself through a profound sense of social justice (in obedience to God's will); a sensitivity to the linear flow of history and our destiny within it, a recognition of our accountability for our choices and actions, and of our responsibility both to the generous and compassionate Spirit which created us, and to our fellow human beings.

But Buddhism, in many ways, is based on an entirely different set of assumptions. The Buddha was the "awakened one" -- the one who came to see the true Nature of our human existence. Born Siddhartha Gautama, the son of an Indian King, it was prophesied at his birth that he would become either a great king himself, a World Conqueror; or a great religious leader, a World Renouncer. His father (who naturally wished to see his son continue in the family business of conquering things) went to great lengths to insure that the young Prince gain no knowledge of the profound pain and suffering which accompany human existence, and typically provide the catalyst for our religious yearnings.

Yet destiny is not to be denied, and after a series of excursions into the countryside during which the young prince discovered the existence of poverty, disease, old age and death, the man who was destined to become the Buddha left his father's house and began a career as a wandering Ascetic, practicing all sorts of disciplines and mortifications in order to gain the wisdom he desired.

After a period of years during which he had grown no closer to his goal, he sat down one day beneath a Bo tree, vowing not to move from that spot until he achieved enlightenment. A passerby mistook him for a deity and offered him some nourishment, and that night Siddhartha discovered the Dharma, the Four Noble Truths of the Middle Way. All Existence consists of Suffering, through an endless series of deaths and rebirths; and the cause of this suffering is our human "Thirst" for the finite and transient things of this world, "conditional" things, which “come into being and pass away.”

Yet there is an escape from this destiny of endless sorrow, through the Middle Way of the Noble eight-fold path: right Views, right Intention, right Speech, right Action, right Livelihood, right Effort, right Mindfulness, and right Concentration: a balanced approach of Spiritual Wisdom, Ethical Conduct, and Mental Development leading to the detachment and liberation of our personalities from conditional reality, and the eventual extinction of our "selves" in the vast emptiness which fills the spaces between the endlessly changing web of impermanent "things."

Unlike Christianity's emphasis on the authority and revelation of an unchanging, sovereign God, Buddhism expresses itself through a deeply contemplative analysis and existential response to the human condition, and a profound sensitivity to the interrelatedness of all things in a changing, natural world.

There are exceptions to these broad generalizations of course. The various "pure land" sects of Buddhism, for instance, express a world view very similar to that of traditional Christianity; while the writings of Christian mystics such as Meister Eckhart or Julian of Norwich reveal a sensitivity to the essential emptiness of this world which would feel quite familiar to a Buddhist monk sitting in meditation. Nevertheless, on the whole the one Great Commandment to Christians remains: "Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and love thy neighbor as thyself;" while a pious Buddhist would feel far more at home with this aphorism attributed to the 13th century Zen monk Dogen: "To study the way is to study the self; to study the self is to lose the self; to lose the self is to be enlightened by all the world."

Scholars point out that already the encounter between Buddhism and Christianity here in the half century since Toynbee first make his observation has subtlety started to influence both of these two great religions. For Buddhism, it has meant a renewed interest in the importance of history, and a deeper recognition of the social justice imperatives which accompany religious conviction. For Christianity, it has meant a resurgence of interest in contemplative spirituality, and a more profound appreciation for the ecological interconnectedness of our planet.

Yet for someone who is neither (strictly speaking) a practicing Buddhist nor a confessing Christian, but rather a life-long Unitarian Universalist, who believes that all Truth (as we know it) is merely part of a much larger mystery, at once both harmonious and contradictory, and that no creed or dogma is ever safe from the inquiries and scrutiny of Reason and Experience, the dialog between these two great religious traditions is just beginning to bear fruit. And it promises to us a deeper understanding of the life of faith itself, which recognizes that the future is the result of what we do in the moment, yet appreciates the subtle web of interdependent relationships that bind us all together: a faith sensitive to the mystical unity between ourselves and Ultimate Reality, yet capable of deliberate and deeply-committed Social Action to insure that Justice and Compassion ultimately triumph over Evil.

It promises a religion in which "sin" is not so much transgression, but rather alienation from the Divine Source of Life Itself, manifested through our desire (or thirst) for things which are ultimately not important and which pass away; and where “Repentance" is not based on guilt, but rather represents a "Transformation of Mind,” a letting go of our attachment to temporary things in favor of a commitment to ethical conduct, the constant search for greater wisdom, and a deeply personal devotion to the contemplation of the mysteries of human existence.

It is a faith which recognizes that it is not enough to "see" the Divine, one must also learn to BE divine, (or perhaps more accurately, learn how to get our own egos out of the way so that The Divine may be in us); that the first shall be last and the last shall be first, and that one must first lose one's life in order to find it.

For to study the Way is to study the Self, to study the Self is to lose the Self, to lose the Self is to be Enlightened by all the World.

HEART(H)FIRE

✇ WWUUD?
7 October 2007 at 17:49
By: The Eclectic Cleric
a sermon preached by the Rev. Dr. Tim W. Jensen
at the First Parish Church in Portland, Maine
Sunday October 7, 2007


Last week I mentioned in passing that when I first met Fred Lipp last summer, he had given me some excellent advice about looking for inspiration for my sermons by going out into the streets of Portland; and this past week I actually found some.

Last Monday afternoon I was making a home hospice visit at the request of a social worker who had phoned the church, and while I was there one of the nurses (who was just completing a 24-hour shift) discovered that her car had been towed from the street outside the house. So I offered to give her a lift out to the tow yard on Warren Avenue, and on the way there we talked about all the things you might imagine two people would talk about in that situation: about how annoying it is to have your car towed, and how angry it can make you feel, which is probably why tow truck operators themselves often seem so hostile and rude, since that’s all they get day in and day out from the people whose cars they have towed....

And eventually we arrived at the tow yard, and she got out and paid her $65 tow fee (cash) and collected her car, and I drove back to the church for an evening meeting with the Membership Committee. And after that meeting broke up, a little a later than expected, I drove back home, but couldn’t find a spot to park on my street, so instead I parked just around the corner, not realizing that even though my street gets swept on Wednesday nights, that particular cross street is swept on Mondays....

You can all see where this is going, right?

Sure enough, I woke up Tuesday morning, and discovered that MY car had been towed. But fortunately I knew exactly where to go and how much cash to bring with me, and was even able to get a ride from Carl Laws (who had come into the church office to get a little work done, because HIS office was without power after the big natural gas explosion Monday over in South Portland), which led to lunch afterwards and a visit to the nearby Evergreen cemetery to see the graves of Horatio Stebbins and Quillen Shinn.

But there’s more. For the fourteen years I lived in Portland Oregon, I had the same license plate (CLERIC), and when I moved to Massachusetts I was delighted to discover that it was also available there as well. This plate has saved me a lot of tickets over the years, most of which I’m probably not even aware of. But when I arrived here in Maine (where vanity plates cost next to nothing compared to other states), I discovered that CLERIC was already taken, so I had to get this plate instead (CLERIC-2).

And at the time my car was towed, this plate (MA) was still on the bumper, while this one (ME) was in the window until I could find a screwdriver to swap them out. And because of that, the City of Portland Traffic Enforcement Officer who had my car towed in the first place actually wrote me TWO tickets: one on this plate, and one on this one -- which required yet another trip (this one, fortunately, just down the street to City Hall) to get that all sorted out and to settle my account with the government.

But it’s moments like these which make me wonder how I would have felt being a minister back in the days when churches like First Parish were supported by tax revenues, and ministers actually had the authority (if they chose to exercise it) to cite people and have them fined (or on ocassion even confined in the stocks) for failing to attend services on Sunday morning. I wonder whether folks back then, when they saw their pastor approaching them on the street, felt a little the way we do when we witness a tow-truck driver hooking up our car, and if in turn that is why those old-time Puritan preachers never seem to be smiling in their portraits, and why their theologies seem so stern and dark and grim to us today?

We’ll never really know for sure, of course, because one thing I can be certain of as a historian: no Puritan ever had their car towed for parking overnight on the wrong street, and therefore we will never find a primary source document in which they describe their experience of the church in precisely those terms. But it might have felt a little like that. For some of them, at least.

One of the things I really love about being a historian is that it does give me the opportunity from time to time to see the world through the eyes of people whose experience of it was very different from my own. It’s like travel, or (as one of my professors once put it): “The past is another country; they do things different there.” Back in colonial times, and in the early days of the Republic (when Maine was still a colony of Massachusetts), churches like First Parish really were tax-supported public institutions; not part of the government, per se, (because the Puritans believed very strongly in the separation of church and state, and especially the government should keep its nose out of the church’s business), but rather a rather interesting amalgam of several overlapping organizational entities which we would basically consider synonymous today.

Ministers, for example, basically wore two hats. On the one hand, they were elected public officials who received their salaries out of public funds -- “Public Teachers of Morality” who were responsible for educating both Children and Adults in the fundamentals of the Christian faith, and also for enforcing various ordinances prescribing a certain level of decency and piety and morality in the larger community (kind of like a dogcatcher, I like to think -- not a big office, but an important one). And on the other hand they were also the Pastor of the local church, a much more honorific position which was typically not compensated at all.

The Church itself was understood as a communion of the Mystical Body of Christ -- a community of the “saved” who worshipped and enjoyed fellowship together, and who looked to the Pastor as the shepherd of their flock. And this organization was legally distinct from the Parish (which was both a specific geographic area along with all of the people living therein, whether they were members of the church or not). And the Meeting House was a physical structure owned by the taxpayers of the Parish, but utilized both by the church and by any other public organization which need a place to meet.

And finally the Congregation was basically whoever showed up on Sunday mornings (and, in most places, also Sunday afternoons) -- a “promiscuous assembly of believers and seekers” which varied a bit from week to week, depending on who was actually sitting in the pews.

And that was the situation until 1819, when a Constitutional convention meeting on this very site pointedly decided NOT to include a tax-supported, established church in the Constitution of the newly-established State of Maine. And although I haven’t had a chance to go to the library and actually look up the details, my supposition (which is to say, my educated guess) is that shortly afterwards First Parish would have essentially been “privatized.”

A separate “Religious Society” would have been incorporated to take the place of the Parish, and the Meeting House itself converted into what amount to condominiums. Each of these pews you are sitting in would have been sold to individuals (who were collectively known as “the Proprietors”), who would have then been taxed each year for the support of the minister and the on-going maintenance of the Meetinghouse itself. Which is also why each of these pews still has a little door on it (so that the proprietor of that pew could close out any unwanted intruders), and also how we can still tell who sat where 150 years later.

Over time, the Society would have gradually come into possession of some of these pews itself, either by seizing them for non-payment of taxes, or because no one had stepped forward to buy them in the first place. Some of these pews would have essentially become “rentals,” while others (typically up in the gallery) would have been “free seats” open to anyone who wished to show up and sit in them.

Eventually, in 1908, the Proprietors of the Pews of the First Parish Church in Portland decided to give up their individual equity positions in the Meeting House, and create in its place a Trust which would hold title to the Meeting House (along with any bequests which had been received for its upkeep), and maintain it for the benefit of the congregation that worships here. The total value of that Trust in 1908 (exclusive of the value of the Meetinghouse itself) was only $1800; today it is worth about $1.8 million, so you can see that the Trustees have actually done pretty well for us over the years.

And there is actually not just one endowment fund, but three: a fund restricted specifically for the preservation and upkeep of the Building; a fund which belongs to the Society itself (and whose proceeds flow directly into our operating budget) and finally a (much smaller) fund whose proceeds are available to be used “at the Discretion of the Minister.”

But the main thing I wanted to say about all this it that the Trustees are basically responsible for seeing to it that we can keep the doors open and a roof over our heads, and they have done an admirable job of that over the years. But it’s the responsibility of the people sitting in these pews to make certain that something worthwhile is happening in here once we have all walked through those doors, and to make certain that the little doors on the pews themselves are always open, and that anyone (and everyone) who wishes to is welcome to sit down and join us.

We are the beneficiaries of a generous and visionary legacy. And it is our duty (and frankly, our privilege), to act in a manner worthy of that trust, and to hand the gift down to those who will follow us in even better shape than we received it.

And it’s in this context that I want to talk briefly about the idea of “heart(h)fire,” which is a wonderful concept that the leadership team of this congregation came up with at their annual retreat the year before I arrived here. Here’s the definition they wrote at the time: “A source of positive energy, the heart(h)fire is fed, and as it grows, we get back warmth and light that spills beyond our borders and draws in those passing by.”

It’s a wonderful image, and the thing that makes it all possible is represented by that central letter “H” within the parentheses. That “H” stands for “Hospitality” -- for the willingness to open up our circle and invite those who have been attracted by the beacon of our fire to join us around the glowing hearth, and be warmed there alongside us, as we learn to share our lives with one another, heart to heart.

Which (since this is stewardship month) brings us to the all-important topic of feeding the fire....

There are lots of different expenses involved in the day to day operation of an organization as large and complex as First Parish, but the most expensive item in any church budget of any size is almost always personnel: people and payroll. And this tends to put leaders like myself in kind of an awkward situation, because on the one hand we certainly want to model the same virtues of gratitude and generosity we proclaim from these high pulpits, and yet on the other we also struggle with all of the same challenges each of you do to put food on the table and keep a roof over our heads, pay off our student loans and put our own kids through college, and perhaps even someday being able to afford to retire.

And we typically attempt to do all this on compensation which tends to lag well behind that of other professionals with similar educational credentials and institutional responsibilities, who work in fields where vows of “poverty, chastity, and obedience” are not necessarily essential features of the historical and cultural landscape.

And don’t get me wrong, because I do have a roof over my head, and I’m clearly not hurting for things to eat, and I’ve actually already paid off all my student loans (including those for the PhD), and both of my children are likewise terminally educated. And depending upon how much longer I want (and am able) to work, I still have another 15-20 years before I really need to start worrying about how to support myself in retirement (although I’ve certainly started thinking about it well before now).

But on behalf of ministers everywhere, and especially on behalf of all of the hard-working staff here at First Parish, I want you to know that second only to your active participation and personal encouragement, the single most important thing you can do to demonstrate that you believe that the work of this church is valuable and worthwhile is to support it generously through your financial contributions.

Because (as I’m sure many of you know from your own experiences in the workplace,) the challenge these days of providing competitive compensation and adequate benefits (including health insurance and a retirement plan), or even just keeping salaries even with inflation, is often staggering.

So in effect, what I’m challenging you to do today is to commit to becoming the kind of employer you all wish you had in your own careers, rather than discounting the importance of the work we are trying to do together here by attempting to walk that narrow tightrope between traditional New England frugality and old-fashioned tightfisted parsimony, and struggling year after year to “just get by” by trying to do the things that ought to matter most to us as cheaply as we can.

I know it won’t happen overnight. But it’s a worthy goal to strive for, and one which reflects the important values of justice and equity we so frequently express in public.

For my own part, about five years ago (while I was going through my divorce), I made a promise to myself that however that all worked itself out, afterwards I was going to figure out a way to live comfortably within my means on 80% of my actual income. And with that other 20% -- half I was going to save for myself (in addition to the money I was already saving for retirement), for the proverbial rainy day, or in case (for example) I wanted to make a down payment on another house someday, or maybe just so that I could buy a sailboat and explore Down East.

So half for myself, and the other half -- 10% of my total income -- I was going to give away: 5% to my “routine” philanthropies like the church, and public broadcasting, and the many colleges and universities I attended (all of whom, of course, have their hands out constantly despite the outrageous amount of tuition they’ve collected from me already); and the other 5% to whatever I feel like at the time (including special projects at the church, or in other churches that I have served over the years).

And don’t get me wrong -- we’re not talking about a huge amount of money here; and it has taken me quite awhile to get to the place where I actually had enough control over my income and expenses to be able to do this intentionally. But it also feeds my own “heart(h)fire,” to know that I have empowered myself to distribute my own wealth in a worthwhile way that reflects my personal values. And on that note, here is my pledge card for the 2008 calendar year, and also a check for the first installment here in 2007.

And believe me, this feels a LOT better than handing over $65 in cash to the tow-truck driver on Tuesday morning, or paying my parking ticket at City Hall on Tuesday afternoon.

But don’t just take my word for it.

Like everything else we do here at First Parish, all I’m really suggesting that you try it out for awhile in your own lives, and then decide for yourselves whether or not I’m telling the truth....

A BOUNTY OF PEOPLE

✇ WWUUD?
30 September 2007 at 18:12
By: The Eclectic Cleric
a sermon preached by the Rev. Dr. Tim W. Jenen
at the First Parish Church in Portland, Maine
Sunday September 30th, 2007

READING: “A Bounty of People” by Rev. Max Coots, minister emeritus of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Canton, New York

Let us give thanks for a bounty of people.

For children who are our second planting, and though they grow like weeds and the wind too soon blows them away, may they forgive us our cultivation and fondly remember where their roots are.

Let us give thanks;

For generous friends...with hearts...and smiles as bright as their blossoms;

For feisty friends, as tart as apples;

For continuous friends, who, like scallions and cucumbers, keep reminding us that we've had them;

For crotchety friends, sour as rhubarb and as indestructible;

For handsome friends, who are as gorgeous as eggplants and as elegant as a row of corn, and the others, as plain as potatoes and so good for you;

For funny friends, who are as silly as Brussels sprouts and as amusing as Jerusalem artichokes;

And serious friends as unpretentious as cabbages, as subtle as summer squash, as persistent as parsley, as delightful as dill, as endless as zucchini and who, like parsnips, can be counted on to see you through the winter;

For old friends, nodding like sunflowers in the evening-time, and young friends coming on as fast as radishes;

For loving friends, who wind around us like tendrils and hold us, despite our blights, wilts and witherings;

And finally, for those friends now gone, like gardens past that have been harvested, but who fed us in their times that we might have life thereafter.

For all these we give thanks.

***

I was visiting the other day with Jill Saxby, who I’m sure many of you remember from the days when she was the assistant minister here a decade ago, and who is now the Executive Director of the Maine Council of Churches (so I guess she’s done alright for herself); and she was telling me about this amazing garden she’d planted at her home on Cape Elizabeth, just about the same time she started working at First Parish. That garden, she told me, “is always good for a sermon.” When she first planted it she preached about faith and seeds, and what it is like to bury something in the ground without really being sure of what (if anything) is going to come up, but trusting that something good would eventually grow from her efforts. And then later she said that she would preach about how important it is to water and cultivate a garden in order to keep it healthy and thriving, and then still later about how much harder the work became, once the garden had become a little overgrown from neglect, to go back and do all the weeding and pruning and transplanting of some plants from one part of the garden to another in order to make it all thrive again.

Meanwhile, I’m sitting there listening to this, and remembering back to all of the back-breaking labor I did as a kid in my grandmother’s garden, and I’m thinking “This is really a pretty amazing garden, that grows sermons in all seasons.” Here, I’ve been following Fred Lipp’s advice, and wandering all up and down the peninsula looking for sermons lying around out in the street, or sometimes even pulling an old one out of the big barrel of them I brought with me (and sniffing it to see whether it’s still fresh)...while Jill’s got ‘em growing (as perennials no less) right in her own back yard!

And of course, this whole metaphor of “ministry as gardening” naturally reminded me of the piece by Max Coots that I read a little earlier. We call our newsletter here at First Parish “Stone Soup” not only because we all bring what we can in order to create this shared culinary delight we think of as “church,” but also because we all bring something a little different, which is what makes it truly interesting and delightful.

My conversation with Jill also reminded me of another, similar metaphor I stumbled across while researching my doctoral dissertation, which I discovered in Harvard Divinity School professor Henry Ware Jr’s best-selling 19th century Unitarian devotional manual On the Formation of the Christian Character. Ware was addressing a concern someone had shared with him that “everything they hear from the pulpit slips from their minds, even if it have highly motivated and delighted them” at the time. “To such,” Ware responded, “it may be well to recommend the reply of John Newton to one who came to him sorrowing with the same complaint. You forget, said he, what was preached to you. So, too, you forget upon what food you dined a week or a month ago; yet you are none the less sure that your received nourishment from it: and no doubt, also, that your spiritual food nourished you, though you have forgotten in what it consisted. So long as you received it with pleasure and a healthy digestion, and it has kept you a living and growing soul, it can be of no consequence whether you can particularly remember it or not.”

This notion of worship as a form of nourishment, by which we grow and cultivate our own souls, has over the years become a very important part of my understanding of everything we are trying to do here. It harkens back to an earlier understanding of Worship as Sacrifice -- not in the narrow sense of giving something up, but rather in that broader sense I spoke of last week of “making sacred.” In the appropriate season, either in connection with a local cultural festival, or perhaps for some sort of private ceremonial devotion, the people would gather at the temple or some other sacred place, slaughter an animal -- and then, in either gratitude or atonement, offer up a token portion to the relevant God or gods. And afterwards the worshippers themselves would all hang around and partake of the rest of the feast...which (as you may have already figured out) is where the word “festival” comes from in the first place.

And of course, you can’t really appreciate a good feast without an occasional fast as well -- a period of time when the worshippers would refrain from eating, and devote themselves instead to less celebratory acts of devotion like prayer and lamentation, or perhaps even study and mediation. But congregational worship as we know it today was really pretty much a Jewish invention, which grew out of the historical importance in that faith tradition of studying the Torah. The roots of this style of worship (whose offshoots are easily recognizable right here in our worship service today) consisted of various prayers and the singing of hymns or psalms, along with a public reading from Scripture, followed by a sermon in which a “scholar” (who, since all the adult males were expected to study the Scripture daily, could basically be anyone who had done their homework...) interpreted and explained the meaning and practical applications of the sacred text. These sermons intended for everyone... women and children as well as men, and the word Rabbi so familiar to us today was originally merely an honorific title: “Teacher,” meaning somebody who was worth listening to.

Most Christian worship, beginning with the Catholic Mass, is basically just a variation on this same theme: this familiar “liturgy of the word” combined with a ritualistic meal, the Eucharist (which became for our reform-minded Puritan forebearers simply “the Lord’s Supper.”) Young Ralph Waldo Emerson (one of Henry Ware Jr’s protégés, as well as his hand-picked assistant and eventual successor at the Second Church in Boston) left the ministry ostensibly because he objected to celebrating the Lord’s Supper, although he certainly had no objection to preaching, and (like his mentor) compared the sermon to a form of sustenance. “The true preacher can be known by this,” Emerson told Harvard’s graduating class of Divinity Students in 1838 -- “that he deals out to the people his life...life passed through the fire of thought.” Not life raw and half-baked, but rather life well-done...or at the very least medium rare....

Nowadays people basically come to church for as many different reasons as there are people themselves, and there are certainly plenty of different options out there from which to chose. But in a more general sense, we all still come for the same reason: to be nourished and nurtured, to cultivate the seeds we have planted in our own lives, to tend them and water them and watch them grow (and perhaps eventually even see them bloom), and to know that our lives make a difference, and that through our living we are helping to make the world a better place.

Which brings us to a very obvious question (although perhaps not the question you immediately thought of). We already know WHY we are here (or at least here in this church); now the question that really matters is HOW. How can we make certain that OUR church lives up to everything that it promises? Or at the very least, how can you make certain that this church meets your expectations, so that you receive from your participation here at First Parish everything that you hoped to when you first walked through those red doors.

The Good News is that the answer to this question isn’t nearly as complicated as you might fear, although it does come in several parts. And the first part is “Just Show Up.” As with everything else in life, most people get out of their experience of church just about exactly what they are willing to put into it, and about 80% of that is just showing up. Because when you stop to think about it, “going to church” isn’t so much an activity as it is a relationship. And like any relationship it pretty much requires that both parties be present and involved if it’s really going to work out. We’re here every Sunday whether you are or not. But it’s only when you are here that you are able to participate fully in what we are trying to do together.

Which brings me to the second thing, and that is the importance of learning to Think of this church as your spiritual home, and think of yourself as part of the “we.” It’s just a small, psychological thing, I know, but it makes a huge difference. I was first taught this trick by a mentor of mine, who understood that by nature I am pretty much a shy, introspective bookworm, and wanted to help me overcome that sense of awkward intimidation I often (still) feel in large, unstructured social situations (like the coffee hour). “Just pretend like it’s your house and that you’re the host of the party,” he told me. “And that way you’ll never have to worry about someone tapping you on the shoulder and telling you that you don’t fit in, and that you really ought to go back home where you belong.”

And you know, it really works. I’m still not exactly a party animal. And I still feel a little awkward going to parties in homes I know I would never be able to afford in a million years (although, I must admit, once I’m there I generally have a pretty good time). But before I meander too far off the topic, I simply want to reassure each and every one of you here today that this really is your church, if you want it to be. You DO belong here. So make yourself at home.

The third thing is so obvious that it scarcely bears mentioning, and since we are going to be talking an awful lot about it anyway in the next few weeks, I’m not going to say too much now. But once you’ve decided that this really is your church, you also need to Support its Mission and its Ministry generously, in a manner appropriate to your own personal circumstances and financial means. There are lots more things we could be doing as a faith community if only we could figure out a way to pay for them. And it really does take the generous contributions of each and every one of us to make those dreams a reality.

The fourth thing you really need to do in order to get the most out of your relationship with this church is to Find yourself a “Fellowship Circle.” And this can actually be kind of tricky, because although they are everywhere around here, they aren’t really very well labeled. But to my way of thinking, the best example of a fellowship circle is the choir. As far as I can tell, nobody has more fun in a church than the choir. For starters, they all have a shared love of music, and they get together twice a week for just that reason: once to rehearse, and once to perform. They all get to know one another on a first name basis, and over time they get to know a quite a bit about one another’s lives as well. They take care of one another when one of them is having a rough time, and they also celebrate together when good things happen. The choir is an almost perfect fellowship circle. The only drawback is that in order to be a member of the choir, you really do need to know how to sing. And it is a pretty big commitment too, because the rest of the choir really is depending on you to show up pretty much every week.

But fortunately for the rest of us, the choir is only one of many potential fellowship circles in a church like First Parish. There are plenty of other opportunities where a person can find a half-dozen or so good friends who know you by name, and who you see regularly, and with whom you can talk openly and honestly about “matters of ultimate concern.”

If you’re relatively new to the church, you might try participating in one of our Small Group Ministries -- either by joining a Covenant Group, or else finding (or even starting) some sort of Affinity group based on an interest you share with others in the congregation. Or you might sign up for one (or more) of our Life Long Learning classes, or simply start attending more church pot-lucks, or signing up for the Circle Suppers. If you have children in our Religious Education program, you might want to get to know the other parents whose children also attend our Sunday School; or if you have an interest in Social Justice, maybe Faith in Action is where you belong.

And, of course, if you can carry a tune, you can always try out for the choir. You may never be able to rival Luciano Pavarotti -- but I promise you this, after a few months of rehearsing with this bunch you’ll be a much better singer than you were when you started.

This brings me to the fifth thing, which in some ways is closely related to the fourth. Because in addition to finding your “fellowship circle” here at First Parish, you also need to think about how to Find and Define your own “Ministry” here. This is something I learned from Rebecca Parker, who before she became the President of the Starr King School for Ministry in Berkeley, was a Methodist minister serving a medium-sized church in Seattle, and also just so happened to be the girlfriend of the choir director at University Unitarian (where I was the intern minister).

But one day it occurred to Rebecca that rather than constantly trying to find enough people to do all of the various volunteer jobs there are to do around a church of any size, she would turn that paradigm on its head, and try instead to find a meaningful job for every person in the church. And I can remember her saying how excited she was when one year the chair of the Nominating Committee came to her and said “I’m afraid we may not be able to come up with enough jobs this year for all the people who want one.”

Meaningful participation in a faith community is ultimately about Shared Ministry: about discovering your own particular calling for service to others, and cultivating it until it grows into something that feeds you spiritually on a daily basis. When I was in Denmark, one of the things I noticed was that in many of the churches there, especially out in the countryside, I would often see hanging in the center of the nave (just about where our cannonball is here) a small model of a square-rigged sailing ship. And when I asked about this, I was told that these model ships are basically a metaphor for the church itself: and that while we are all essentially in the same boat, some of us are merely passengers, while others are members of the crew.

Being a passenger is great when it’s all just smooth sailing. But when the weather gets rough, it’s nice to know that we can count on one another to help sail the ship, or at the very least to not cause more problems by falling overboard ourselves. When I was learning how to sail, one of the first rules I was taught is “one hand for the boat, one hand for yourself.” And of course, the more experience I gained as a sailor, the more comfortable I felt taking on additional responsibilities.

But if you just look around the room here, you’ll notice that there are all sorts of people doing all kinds of tasks that make it possible for us to hold these services every week. There are greeters and ushers and a lay worship leader, the coffee hour hosts and the people who set up the flowers, the people who run the microphones; and of course our Sunday School teachers and Sunday School assistants. And the Choir....

And that’s just Sunday morning. We also need Small Group Ministry facilitators, and Pastoral Care Associates, Faith in Action volunteers, Life Long Learning instructors, and of course volunteers to serve as part of our Leadership Team or as members of the various Program Councils. If you’re good with your hands, I’m sure the Buildings and Grounds people can find a place for you. If you’re good with words, maybe you can help with the newsletter or the website.

The point is, to find something that you like, that you are potentially really good at, and that will allow you to make a meaningful difference in other people’s lives. Frankly, that’s how I ended up way up here, simply by having the foresight to ask myself those three little questions when I was nineteen years old. But we all need to ask ourselves those same questions on a regular basis, so that our particular ministry to others might continue to change and grow as we ourselves change and grow. Because shared ministry, broadly defined, is what makes us members of the crew rather than merely passengers and bystanders, as well as one of the basic activities that gives our lives meaning and value and purpose as active participants in a community of faith.

And I want to make it clear that these don’t necessarily need to require huge commitments of time and effort in order to make a real difference. Most folks, I suspect, should be thinking about something that they can reasonably expect to accomplish in as few as three to five hours per month. Some of you, I know, work considerably more than that...perhaps even more than 3-5 hours/week. You are the people I probably already know by name. And there are even a handful of people whose ministry here at First Parish essentially amounts to an unpaid part-time job.

But I want to make it clear to everyone that ALL of your ministries, large and small, are important to the health and vitality of this congregation. And I also want to warn you that the days when congregations could pretty much rely on the commitment of a handful of “professional volunteers” to staff their programs and perform other essential work around the church are rapidly coming to an end in this era of two-career couples and single-member households.

When my mother was born, my grandmother (who had been working as a public schoolteacher), quit her job in order to stay home as a full-time mom. And then in her "spare" time, she became the volunteer Sunday School Superintendent at the Methodist Church which she attended there in the neighborhood. When she left that post to retire to Camano Island, the church had to hire...not one, not two, but three new staff members to take over the responsibilities my grandmother had handled as a volunteer.

And that was over fifty years ago now. It was a different time, and a different generation. Nowadays, especially if we hope to minister effectively to the needs of working families, it is going to take all of us doing what we can, and working together in an efficient and collaborative way. And if there are some jobs that we just can’t seem to find anyone willing to do, it generally means one of two things. Either the job has gotten too big to be done by a volunteer, and we need to either break it into smaller ones or hire additional staff to do it for us; or perhaps it’s merely a job that doesn’t NEED to be done anymore, and we should allow it to wither gracefully on the vine.

And this brings me to the final and most important thing I want to say this morning, which is that in everything we endeavor to do together here at First Parish, it is essential that we Have Fun. In my opinion, having fun is the sine qua non of our Unitarian Universalist faith tradition, a wonderful Latin phrase which means, literally, “without this, nothing.” I know that for some it might seem a little irreverent, given the gravity of our mission (especially in its justice-making aspects), that I should characterize “having fun” as the one essential element that gives our work meaning. But the truth of the matter is that without a little levity, without the ability to take ourselves lightly as well as seriously, we will never be able to get the heavy stuff off the ground. Having fun together is one of the essential ways that we feed ourselves in order to be capable of undertaking the more burdensome tasks we see all around us. And when we are able to bring that sense of joy and camaraderie to those tasks, somehow the burden becomes much easier than we first had feared.

So there you have it, an easy recipe for getting the most out of your participation in this “Community of Memory and Hope,” all spelled out in six easy steps. Show up as often as you can, and make yourself at home. Contribute as generously as you feel you can afford to supporting the work, the wonder, and the witness of this church and its ministry as a whole. Find and cultivate a circle of friends with whom you can talk openly and honestly about the things that matter most (it won’t be hard; they’re sitting all around you), and then find a job or role or task that you can do well, that you enjoy doing, and that makes a difference in the lives of other people. And above all, have fun while you do it. And if you do these six simple things, you will leave this place every Sunday feeling like you have indeed been well-nourished, and knowing that you got your money’s worth....

IS IT EVER TOO LATE TO ATONE?

✇ WWUUD?
23 September 2007 at 17:42
By: The Eclectic Cleric
a sermon preached by the Rev. Dr. Tim W. Jensen
at the First Parish Church in Portland, Maine
Sunday September 23rd, 2007


READING - “First they came...” by Pastor Martin Niemöller (1892-1984)

I want to say just a little about the reading that I’ve chosen for today. As I was researching this, I discovered at least a half-dozen different versions of this text, none of which were exactly the same. The version engraved on the New England Holocaust Memorial in Boston, for example, is a little different from the one at the National Holocaust Museum in Washington DC, which in turn varies from the most popular English version (which has been cast in the form of a poem, and frequently reproduced on posters, tee shirts, coffee mugs and the like), which is also different from the version printed by Time magazine in 1989, or the version which appeared in the Congressional Record in 1968.

When Niemöller’s words first started to become widely known in the United States back in the 1950’s, the Communists he mentioned were somehow miraculously transubstantiated into “Socialists,” since at the time Joe McCarthy and J. Edgar Hoover were busy rounding up Communists themselves right here in America. Likewise, there is a passage which frequently appears in Niemöller’s original manuscripts about the mentally ill, “the sick, the so-called incurables” which rarely is found in English translations.

And my favorite variation actually has nothing to do with Niemöller’s original speeches, but rather was inspired by allegations made by the Reverend Jerry Falwell back in 1999 regarding the ambiguous sexual identity of a character on a BBC children’s program being widely aired on PBS here in the US, because he had purple fur, a triangle on top of his head, and carried a purse (otherwise known as a “magic bag”). Within a few weeks it was all over the internet: “First they came for Tinky Winky, but I remained silent, because I wasn’t a Teletubby. Then they came for Bert and Ernie...” and on it went from there....

But the truth is, there is no “authoritative” version of Niemöller’s original words. What we are witnessing instead is an excellent example of the natural process by which “oral tradition” gradually becomes written down, and thus canonized as “Scripture.” Niemöller’s original words were part of what might be thought of as a “set piece” -- language he often repeated in sermons and other speeches throughout his career, often in a slightly different form depending upon his audience and the particular context. In time, others picked up on what he had said, cleaned it up a little and gave it a fresh coat of polish, and maybe even a little twist (today we might say “spin”) so that the text might better reflect the perspective and opinions of the editor. And before you know it, the words themselves take on an authority all their own, and the actual language of the original author becomes lost in obscurity.

And yet there is a greater principle illustrated in this process as well. We would do well to remember that something isn’t necessarily true simply because “it is written.” Rather, the reason it was written down at all is because somebody, somewhere, once thought that it was true. And whatever truth that statement may contain would still be true regardless of who originally said it, or wherever it was we may have happened to read it first ourselves.

And on that note...

Als die Nazis die Kommunisten holten,
habe ich geschwiegen;
ich war ja kein Kommunist.

Als sie die Sozialdemokraten einsperrten,
habe ich geschwiegen;
ich war ja kein Sozialdemokrat.

Als sie die Gewerkschafter holten,
habe ich nicht protestiert;
ich war ja kein Gewerkschafter.

Als sie die Juden holten,
habe ich geschwiegen;
ich war ja kein Jude.

Als sie mich holten,
gab es keinen mehr, der protestieren konnte

[When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.

When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.

When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.

When they came for the Jews,
I remained silent;
I wasn't a Jew.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.]


***

I heard a story the other day about a nine-year-old boy who prayed, faithfully, every night for six months that God would give him a bicycle for his birthday. The birthday came and went with no bike, so the little boy went to the minister of his church to find out why God hadn’t answered his prayers.

“But that’s not the way God works,” the minister explained. “God’s gift to us when we pray is that He forgives our sins. Do you understand the difference between praying for forgiveness, and praying for a bicycle?”

“I think so,” said the little boy. And on his way back home, he stole the minister’s kid's bike....


We don’t generally talk that much about “sin” here in the Unitarian church, but I do want to say a little something about it this morning, because if I don’t my main topic of “Atonement” isn’t going to make much sense. There’s a tendency in our culture, I think, to think of sins mainly as something that we do. There are big sins, the Top Ten (like Murder and Adultery, which I like to think of as “Presidential” sins); and then there are a bunch of smaller ones, like drinking and smoking, swearing, dancing, and playing cards...all of which are apparently equally offensive to God, Who in His Infinite Wisdom (or at least many of us were told this when we were children) punishes people for their sins by sending them to Hell for all Eternity.

But this explanation of sin really misses the mark on a lot of different levels. In both Hebrew and Greek, the word for “sin” means literally “to be off target” -- to be misguided or misdirected, to be aiming in the wrong direction. In the statement of faith prepared by the United Church of Christ at the time of their merger with the Evangelical and Reformed Churches in the late 1950’s, they used the word “aimlessness” to characterize the state of sin, an anomie which a faithful trust in God corrects by giving our lives their proper focus and purpose and direction again.

This is also why the 19th century Universalists could argue that there was no hell, and that sin itself was its own worst punishment, because it leads us astray from the path that leads to the fulfillment of our true potential as spiritual beings; and that ultimately All Souls shall grow into Harmony with the Divine, because God (thank God) is a whole lot better (and wiser and kinder and more patient and forgiving) than we are.

Likewise, the word “repentance” means literally “to turn around” -- and specifically to change or transform our minds: metanoia, just as “metamorphosis” means a change of shape. And the etymology of the word “atonement” is obvious on its face. “At-One-Ment” -- to be in accord, to be of one mind.

Of course, in many religious traditions this process of reconciliation often times also requires an act of Sacrifice -- a word which (again - I hope all these etymologies aren’t becoming too tedious) means literally “to make sacred” -- in effect, giving up something that is valuable to us in order to acknowledge our gratitude for something even more valuable. And within traditional Christian theology, this language of “repentance,” “sacrifice” and “atonement” eventually led to a doctrine known as the “vicarious” or Subsitutionary Atonement -- sometimes referred to simply as “the Ransom Theory.” According to this theology, God provides the atoning sacrifice himself by allowing his son to be crucified (that is, sacrificed) on our behalf. It’s a very subtle and sophisticated idea, which in the hands of televangelists has become almost incomprehensible.

But there is an earlier and even simpler doctrine known as the “Exemplary” Atonement, which basically suggests that it is the example of Jesus’s own faithfulness in the face of death, like that of Socrates (who likewise faced his unjust execution with a similar unwavering courage and confidence in the truth of his principles), which has the power to transform our minds, and turn our lives around. A very human Jesus teaches us the power of devotion, fidelity and sacrifice by both precept and example, both word and deed, inspiring others to go and do likewise...and Western Civilization has never been the same.

There’s just one more big idea I want to run by you here this morning, and this is the notion of “collective” sin, along with the question: “How can we, as individuals, atone for the sins of our culture?” Last week I suggested that a certain amount of Xenophobia has probably been hardwired by evolution right into the very architecture of our brains themselves. But as individuals, we each have the ability to resist this instinctive suspicion of (and even hostility toward) strangers, and to practice instead an ethic of tolerance and hospitality, leading eventually to greater mutual understanding and even mutual respect: a very practical and palpable form of “atonement.”

But when the primitive and collective prejudices of an entire culture are combined with the awesome, impersonal power of modern industrial technology, the result is typically a lot less benign, and often even some form of genocide. We saw this most vividly in the Nazi holocaust of the Second World War, but sadly this is only the most overwhelming and obviously evil example of an increasingly pervasive and widespread phenomenon. Our Weapons of Mass Destruction have become so powerful that even a single “loose nuke” in the hands of one of the many marginalized and fanatical groups of people who share this planet potentially makes them capable of murdering millions of souls in the blink of an eye. Meanwhile, it is increasingly obvious that the industrial civilization which created these terrifying weapons in the first place is also in danger of extinguishing itself and everything else on the planet, simply as a result of its own unrestrained excess. “This is the way the world ends,” the poet T.S. Eliot observed nearly a century ago now. “Not with a bang, but a whimper.” But more to the point, how do we now turn ourselves around from this misguided path of self-destruction? How do we “transform our minds,” and get ourselves back on target again?

Yesterday was Yom Kippur, the Jewish “Day of Atonement” which completes the eight-day period following the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah, known as the “Days of Awe” -- a time which (with the possible exception of Passover), is the most solemn and sacred season of the Jewish calendar. Yet observant Jews also understand that these eight days are simple one component of a much longer season of repentance and reconciliation, which began a month earlier, in the Jewish Lunar month of Elul, and continues on next week with the festival of Sukkoth or “booths” -- a sort of Jewish Thanksgiving when families build temporary outdoor huts in which to eat their meals, in order to remind themselves of the forty years their ancestors spent wandering in the Wilderness of Sinai; and also perform acts of charity, to express their gratitude for the blessing of a bountiful harvest.

In her commentary of the 27th Psalm (a Psalm which is often read during the month of Elul leading up to the High Holy Days themselves), Rabbi Amy Scheinerman observes that Atonement is best understood as the final stage of Repentance, during which individuals at last become reconciled to those from whom they have been estranged, at the completion of a much more extensive process of introspective self-examination and reflection.

The process begins by accepting Responsibility: by letting go of the temptation to judge and blame others for our disappointments in life, and instead looking within ourselves in order to identify possible sources of misguided thought which have led us astray. Let's face it, none of us is perfect. And we can always find someone else to point the finger at in order to explain away our failings. But what's the point of that? At least if we are willing to try to see ourselves honestly, and to take responsibility for own failures and shortcomings, we also potentially become empowered to overcome those failings, and in turn take full advantage of this magnificent opportunity we have been given by the Universe, which is the gift of life itself.

The next step is one of expressing our Regret. When I was younger, I often used to wonder which is ultimately more regrettable: the things we do and wish we hadn’t, or the things we didn’t do, and wish we had. But now that I’m older this is pretty much a no-brainer. Yes, it’s true that there are always dramatic exceptions that prove the rule, that sometimes people do truly horrible things they later regret profoundly because of the terrible impact their actions have had on their own lives and the lives of others. But human beings are also remarkably resilient creatures; while over time, the cumulative regret of the things we wish we had done but will now never get a chance to do again can begin to feel almost overwhelming. And these regrets are not just your traditional “sins of omission.” In a sense, they are a profound expression of grief over the reality of our own mortality itself, and the desire to make more of our lives than we have. Which is also why the expression of Regret also sometimes manifests itself in the resolution to have “no regrets” -- in other words, to live one’s life in the here and now as fully and courageously as possible.

The third step is one of Rejection -- which might be thought of as “repentance” in the most literal sense: to turn away from attitudes and behaviors which have led us astray in the past, and literally “transform our minds” so that we see the world from a different perspective, and can proceed in a new direction. And this brings us at last to the step of Resolution, which includes both acts of Restitution, or making amends for our past faults, and also the act of Reconciliation itself, in which we attempt to repair relationships which have been damaged or broken, and become “at one” with those from whom we were estranged.

It's in this connection that I want to talk about the Jewish concept of Tikkun Olam, a Hebrew phrase which means Repairing (or Restoring or Perfecting) the World. In the Mishnah, Tikkun Olam was often used as a justification for rules or practices which are not really part of the Torah, but which are followed because they help to avoid bad social consequences. But the concept really took on a much wider significance in the 16th century, thanks to the Kabbalistic Rabbi Isaac Luria, who taught his followers that God created the world as a sort of vessel or mirror in order to reflect His Glory...but that the emanations of this Divine Light were so brilliant and powerful that the world was catastrophically shattered into countless shards, each of which contains or reflects a small portion of the divine spark, but which together (like the pieces of a shattered mirror) reflect back only a distorted image of God's original light. And so the purpose of human life is Tikkun Olam -- to Repair the World by bringing together and mending the broken pieces which are our individual souls, so that Creation might once more accurately reflect the glorious brilliance of its Creator.

And how is this done? In all the usual ways, of course: through study, meditation, and prayer, through the doing of Mitzvoth, or goods deeds, and more specifically through the faithful practice of Peace, Justice, and Compassion, not just on an individual, but on a societal level. We repair the world by repairing our relationships with one another and with God. We allow our lives to reflect the divine spark which illuminates all creation, then join together with other enlightened individuals in order to mend the breaks, bridge the gaps, and heal the wounds that divide and estrange us.

As I mentioned earlier, this past week Jews all over the world observed their High Holy Days, which began with Rosh Hashanah, and concluded yesterday with Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement -- an all-day fast, combined with several lengthy prayer services, which actually began an hour before sunset on Friday, and ended 25 hours later with a single, long lingering note on the Shofar. Yom Kipper is specifically a day of introspection and repentance, as well as a day of reconciliation and forgiveness -- a time to make peace not only with God, but also with your neighbors, whom you have likely also sinned against over the course of the year, and from whom you should therefore also seek forgiveness. And yet as difficult (and even painful) as this may sound, the Talmud actually considers Yom Kippur a happy day, because if people have properly observed the holiday, by the time the fast ends they will feel both a great catharsis, and also a deep sense of serenity from having been restored to right relationship with both the Creator, and with everyone they know.

The task of Atonement, and the challenge of Repairing the World, are intimately connected. We begin with the optimistic enthusiasm of youth, which believes that all things are possible for those who are faithful to their vision and their values, and in the end we turn that vision on ourselves as we explore the enduring value of a single human life. There's a story told about the Hasidic master Rebbe Chaim of Tzanz, who in his old age remarked that over the course of many decades, he had first given up his youthful ambitions to change the whole world, and then later, his bold plans to transform his community and family. He was, in the end, hoping merely to better his own self somewhat before his time to leave this earth arrived. We repair the world one person at a time, beginning with our own personal efforts to heal, to be reconciled, to forgive and be forgiven.

I posed a question today in the title of my sermon: “Is It Ever Too Late to Atone?” And I hope by now it’s abundantly clear that the answer, at least in MY opinion, is “of course not.” But I’d also like to add that there’s no better time to begin than right now, in the present moment. In her Rosh Hashanah poem "Return," weblogger Rachel Barenblat, (better known as “The Velveteen Rabbi”) suggests that the only question that really matters is:

How to make it new:
each year the same missing
of the same marks,
the same petitions
and apologies.

We were impatient, unkind.
We let ego rule the day
and forgot to be thankful.
We allowed our fears
to distance us.

But every year
the ascent through Elul
does its magic,
shakes old bitterness
from our hands and hearts.

We sit awake, itemizing
ways we want to change.
We try not to mind
that this year's list
looks just like last.

The conversation gets
easier as we limber up.
Soon we can stretch farther
than we ever imagined.
We breathe deeper.

By the time we reach the top
we've forgotten
how nervous we were
that repeating the climb
wasn't worth the work.

Creation gleams before us.
The view from here matters
not because it's different
from last year
but because we are

and the way to reach God
is one breath at a time,
one step, one word,
every second a chance
to reorient, repeat, return.

At the Portland OR Jena 6 Speak Out

✇ WWUUD?
20 September 2007 at 22:13
By: radicalhapa

About 100 folks showed up at the Bethel AME Church in Northeast Portland to show support for the Jena 6.  I was there with the baby, and saw a few other folks I know from the community.  Mostly African-Americans in the audience.

We were asked to wear black.

The event was organized, as far as I could tell, by young African-Americans, the "Prospective Gents Club" was listed as the sponsors.  We heard from two folks that I look forward to connecting with – Charlene McGee, the new 20-something NAACP Portland Chapter President, and Ethan Thrower, who grew up some years Unitarian, and whom I corresponded with while he was incarcerated.  It was impressive to hear young folks, high schoolers, talk about their experiences and perspectives related to the Jena 6.

One young speaker talked about the symbolism of the tree and the Black community.  The roots of connection to ancestry, the strength of the trunk, the ability to reach out expressed by the branches, and the cycles of change and renewal in the leaves.

Another talked about the pen, the power to destroy lives with written charges, the power to support by writing a check, the ability to write a letter of support.

The media was present, tv and print folks from what I could see.  There was a nice program, and good education.  I would have liked to see some encouragement to meet one another, that may have happened during the Vigil Peace Walk scheduled after the Speak-Out.

The Most Radical Thing You Can Do

✇ WWUUD?
19 September 2007 at 22:12
By: radicalhapa

I can’t remember if I heard this somewhere, or it just bubbled up from my experiences, but a sweet birdie reminded me that I once wanted to make bumper sticker that said:

The Most Radical Thing You Can Do Is To Introduce Someone

I was reminded of this today when I was down at City Hall in the evening to show support for the VisionPDX Process, a Portland City Visioning Initiative, and for the variety of racial and cultural groups that were doing turn-out.  I met a dozen new folks, thanks to the gracious introductions of persons I know, and made a few more introductions myself.

To take the time to introduce someone, in a meaningful way, is a humble and gracious act that adds to the unity of the world.  I believe that through more intentional mutuality, comes liberation.  When we’re in relationship with our neighbors, community members, the wider world, our humanity comes to the surface more powerfully.  We make mistakes, disappoint, anger, frustrate each other more, as there are more chances to do so when in relationship, however we also listen, understand, support and risk higher successes together rather than separate.

There seems to be a general reluctance among many people I have encountered in my life to take the step of introducing strangers.  Why?  Perhaps out of protectiveness, fear that they won’t like each other, jealousy in wishing to keep or control friendships, or just tired malaise.  It is something I try my best to overcome.

Do you?

Love Oregon?

✇ WWUUD?
17 September 2007 at 11:07
By: radicalhapa

I just ordered mine!

(Hat tip: Audubon Society of Portland)

For those of you are wanting
Yes on Measure 49 lawn signs, they are coming soon.
We should have them
available here at Audubon Society of Portland (5151 N.W. Cornell Portland, OR
97210) after September 20th.

For those who can’t wait or who are
interested in a more subtle approach, West Linn resident Dave Adams has shown
tremedous iniative by independently organizing a creative guerilla lawn sign
campaign to support the passage of Measure 49.

Those who participate
agree to post a series of lawn signs in sequence that gradually communicate the
Yes on Measure 49 message.
The first sign simply says "Love Oregon?" Later
signs read "Pears of Parking Lots?", "Asphalt or Apples?," or just maybe
(coming soon?) "Clearcuts or Clean Water?"  or "Salmon or
Subdivisions?"

The campaign ends in early October when everyone
participating puts out signs with the same font and formate that read:  "Yes on
Measure 49."  The idea is to evoke people’s curiosity and thereby get their
attention about the importance of passing Measure 49 to protect he Oregon we
love.

If you are interested in participating in the "Love Oregon?" lawn
sign campaign contact Dave Adams 503-200-9877 or dave@yeson49.com.

Race and Class Grind

✇ WWUUD?
16 September 2007 at 23:17
By: radicalhapa

Been thinking about race and class recently in my encounter with a provoking Blue Oregon post by T.A. Barnhart.  Barack Obama just came to Portland, and stirred the spirits.

I was thinking about the experience of being poorer.  Not necessarily poor, or low-income.  Setting aside the complex definition of a "poor identity" (check out classmatters.org) and focusing on what existence is like when one feels, is, or acts out of a perception or reality of being poorer.

My experience with being poorer occured when my parents went into bankruptcy when I was 10.  We lived in a wealthy community, Lake Oswego (City website) , South of Portland.  I encountered talk and attention to money matters.  It wasn’t as scary as being out of college, 23, and making $8.50 an hour with nearly $20,000 in student loans, but it did instill an intense consciousness about my financial well-being.  Sometimes I feel over-anxious about money, afraid to suffer loss, and this can linger daily.  Working part-time, studying and accruing more debt.  Now planning life with a family, and moving into the workforce full-time. 

There was an intense class grind that we talked about as ministers in the Philippines.  They even used that word, grind, "hard" and I added my academic terms "subsistence" and "survival" to describe life for the mass poor.  These folks made up a super majority in the Unitarian Universalist churches.  Farmer, fisherfolk, urban working poor such as jeepney drivers, domestic helpers, buy and sell street vendors, and rarely a teacher.  The daily prayer discipline of the UU ministers, which I became very accustomed to after 6 months on the job, was more intense than being in morning prayer circle during my pastoral chaplaincy at Providence Hospital. 

Sudden death, jobs with low pay or swindling bosses, chronic health problems, long days of hard labor, loved ones working for 3-5 year tours overseas, all in extremely humble physical environment, near major highways with poor air quality, in homes cobbled together.  (UUA statement on Environmental Justice)

Within this context, we were ministering to folks who struggled in a daily, often painful grind.  Yet all was never lost.  Universalism was alive, optimistic, influenced by a belief in a powerful God of love and salvation for all, and a dedication to character so rich in the Unitarian tradition.  There are movements for justice, economic, social, racial, in the Philippines, just like in the US/Canada, which UU’s participate in.   (nice resource site from Columbia University)

Thinking about life under the class grind, from my own experience and from working "in the community", there is a certain mania, paranoia, a constant pressure that fogs vision and dampens our best selves.  Minutes become hours spent pondering, strategizing and preparing financially, does little to comfort and encourage our greatness.  It is not all worry, but the anxiety is there. (get more into the psychological aspects of oppression by checking out the Southeastern Cross-Cultural Issues in Counseling led by UU lay leader Dr. Leon Spencer).

I am struck by how similiar I’ve experienced racism, and how racism is articulated by many, many, many People of Color (DRUUMM definition), across the world.  I’ve heard stories from my extended time in Guatemala, Ireland, Philippines, India and Canada.  People of Color talk about "getting innoculated" from racism, which is slang for coming to an understanding of the power and privilege of race in the world.  Granted there are significant distinctions from place to place, but one of the common denominators is the "race grind" of living under various forms of institutional domination rooted in a history of white supremacy.

As someone who is moving up the so called economic ladder, with my ivy graduate degree and home ownership with low-interest mortgage, I don’t find myself compelled to escape the class or race grind (which I believe are inherently interconnected).  Instead, I maintain a daily prayer discipline that asks my heart and soul what I am doing to heal the suffering of the race and class grind at the root of roots, within our culture and institutions.

NEIGHBORS AND STRANGERS ALIKE

✇ WWUUD?
16 September 2007 at 18:44
By: The Eclectic Cleric
a sermon preached by the Rev. Dr. Tim W. Jensen
at the First Parish Church in Portland Maine
Sunday September 16, 2007


OPENING WORDS: “If you want to be successful, it’s just this simple. Know what you are doing. Love what you are doing. And believe in what you are doing.” -- Will Rogers

READING: Luke 10: 25-37

***
I wanted to say just a word about these banners hanging in the gallery, which really impressed me when I was here preaching as a candidate last spring. “Open the Windows + the Doors” “And Receive Whosoever is Sent.” I especially like the little envelope which provides the background for the word “sent,” because it reminds me of something my mother used to tell me when I was young, that if you really want to receive a letter, it’s not enough to just sit around watching the mailbox. Sometimes you need to write and mail one first yourself.

I also like these sentiments, because they reflect so well the theme that I’ve chosen for this year and for the start of my new ministry here at First Parish: “A Warm and Welcoming Place in the Heart of the City” -- which is actually (as you may recall from when I preached here last spring) a phrase I learned from all of you. And it also compliments something I heard Bill Dickinson say at the service he lead this past summer (the one that was so prominently featured on the religion page of the Portland Press Herald) -- that here at First Parish we are in the “gracious neighbor business.”

But most of all I like it because it reflects a principle -- a commandment, really -- which resides at the heart of all three of the so-called “Abrahamic” faiths of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam...and in many ways is the soul of that shared tradition of Western monotheism.

Christians know it as the “Great Commandment,” while in Judaism it is expressed throughout the Hebrew Bible, and especially in the shema of Deuteronomy 6:5 (which the Pharisee quotes to Jesus), where it is found alongside the instruction that “these words which I command you this day shall be upon your heart; and you shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. And you shall bind them as a sign upon your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes, and you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”

And in Islam, each and every sura of the Qu’ran, as well as all of the public prayers (or at least the ones with which I am familiar), likewise begin with a similar invocation of the one Merciful and Compassionate God, in Arabic Allah.

Yet it is the second half of this Great Commandment -- in effect a paraphrase of the Golden Rule -- which both provides the foundation of the ethical reciprocity that makes authentic community possible, and also carries with it the lawyer’s unsettling question: “Who is my Neighbor?” And notwithstanding the words of Hebrews 13:2 (which I also quoted last spring) “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained Angels unawares,” or Will Rogers more folksy aphorism that “A stranger is just a friend I haven’t met yet,” we still teach our children not to talk to strangers, not to take candy from strangers, and certainly never to get into a car with a stranger...all very sensible rules, and (unfortunately) important ones for a very good reason. A certain degree of suspicion regarding the unfamiliar and the unknown has probably been hardwired by evolution right into the structure and function our brains, and (at least until now) has been essential to our on-going survival as a species -- even if it does sometimes cause us to be suspicious even of our own neighbors as well.

And yet as I reflect back on my own experience, I’m also struck by how routinely in my life I’ve been blessed by the kindness of strangers. Not to mention my Strange Friends...and even stranger neighbors...whose quirks and idiosyncrasies, peculiar attitudes and unconventional opinions have enriched my own perceptions of the world considerably.

And I’m likewise struck by how often the fear of appearing “strange” to our neighbors functions as a powerful instrument of social control. The simple phrase “but what will the neighbors think?’ can have a very real “chilling effect” on potentially anti-social (or even marginally bizarre) behavior, or at least it did in back in my old neighborhood.

And let us not forget those “intimate strangers” -- our spouses, our children...people we think we know so well, who still remain capable of surprising us with their depth and complexity.

And finally, there is the pain of becoming estranged from those we once loved: neighbors, friends, family, often merely by some thoughtless or unintentional slight through which we give or take offense, yet which strangely leaves us stubbornly incapable of making that first essential gesture towards reconciliation.

But within the specific context of Scripture, a stranger is a foreigner -- someone from “Away” who dwells among us, yet whose ways, language, clothing, customs are strange and unfamiliar, and whose very presence somehow challenges our own comfortable, familiar, and (dare I say?) often provincial points of view. And by the same measure, there is nothing that gives us a better perspective on our own provincialism than the experience of being strangers ourselves, by visiting (or if we’re fortunate, even living for a time in) a foreign land, and another culture.

I’ve been fortunate enough to have had experiences like this three different times in my life. In 1978, when I came at the age of 21 to begin my theological studies in Boston, it was the first time in my life that I had ever been east of Spokane Washington. Life in Boston was a pretty big culture shock for me, -- I was shocked by how dirty it was, and how rude people seemed, and how nobody really spoke to one another or even made eye contact on the streets; but by the end of three years it was even more surprising how little I noticed any of that any more, and that it was my home in Seattle that seemed strange.

Then in 1984, when I was being interviewed for what would later turn out to be my first settled pulpit in Midland, Texas, I actually told the Search Committee that the very thought of moving to Texas made me feel like I would be living as an expatriate in a foreign land...which made them all laugh out loud, since in fact Texas historically has been part of not just one foreign country, but five: a colony of Spain, a provence of Mexico (and then briefly under the sovereignty of France), its own independent Republic (I don’t think they’ve ever really gotten over that), and a member of the Confederacy, as well as now a somewhat reluctant (it often seems) part of the good old USA.

So when they did eventually call me to that pulpit, I made up my mind NOT to behave like an the “Ugly Ecotopian,” but rather to try to understand that culture according to its own standards and merits...in the hope that perhaps I would come to appreciate a little more both about it and about myself as a result. And of course, now I’m very proud of the four years I spent as the “Bishop of West Texas” (the only settled Unitarian minister between Fort Worth and El Paso, Austin and Albuquerque), while New England now feels almost like a second home.

But Texas and New England are both still technically part of the United States. In the year 2000, however, I received a very generous stipend from the Danish government to spend a semester in Europe as a visiting doctoral fellow at the School for Postgraduate Interdisciplinary Research on Interculturalism and Transnationality (more commonly known by the acronym "SPIRIT"), basically doing whatever I wanted to...probably the closest thing to a MacArthur "genius" award I'll ever see.

One of the things I was naturally very curious about was religion, and in particular the odd phenomenon that in Denmark, where the "Folkekirke" or "People's Church" is supported by tax revenues, only about 2-3% of the people themselves actually attend services on any given Sunday, whereas here in the United States, where we have a voluntary church system, church attendance typically runs between 40% and 90% (and sometimes even more, depending upon what part of the country you live in, and how many different times the same people attend church each week).

But as you might imagine, I spent an awful lot of time going to church in Denmark, and really came to enjoy the experience, despite the fact that my command of the Danish language really isn't all that great. Given a little time, I could usually puzzle out the Scriptural text in the pew Bible, or follow along the words to the hymns in the Salmebog. But the sermons were generally almost completely incomprehensible to me -- which in some ways was probably a good thing, since it left me free to make up a sermon more to my liking inside my own head; and which really didn't interfere much with my appreciation of the rest of the service either (an important, if humbling, lesson for a preacher).

But as a sojourner in a foreign land, I also gained a new appreciation for simple rituals and the familiar structure of the liturgy itself. I especially learned to appreciate kneeling at the communion rail, alongside not only the handful of aging native Danes (and occasionally their grandchildren, there to receive their first communion on Palm Sunday); but also Christians from Asia and Africa who, unlike me with my blond hair and blue eyes and Danish surname, were much more obvious strangers in Denmark, yet still brothers and sisters in the Body of Christ, sharing a symbolic meal of bread and wine.

I don't know that I ever really answered my research question to my satisfaction (although I do have my theories), and I have to admit, it really wasn't much on my mind either as I rode the train from Aalborg to Copenhagen at the crack of dawn the following Sunday morning, since the day before (also as part of my cultural research) I had attended something called a "Paaske Frokost" or "Easter Brunch" -- basically a six-hour party that began at two in the afternoon and continued until no one was left standing... herring, salmon, roast lamb, (and of course, Danish ham), potato salad, pasta salad, bean salad, deviled eggs, all lubricated with liberal quantities of Aquavit -- the "water of life" -- which really goes down quite smoothly after the second or third one, and only turns deadly the following day.

But this was going to be the only chance I would have to worship at the indigenous Danish Unitarian Church, and I wasn’t about to miss it...so I got up early and made the four hour train trip across the entire length and breadth of Denmark, walked briskly across the center of historic Copenhagen from the train station to the church, found a seat on the aisle near the back; and as I sat there alone in my pew half-listening as the preacher droned on and on incomprehensibly about some obscure intellectual topic I didn’t have a prayer of understanding, I found myself admiring the fresco in the alcove behind the chancel where the high altar would ordinarily have been.

It was a representation of a scene from the story of the Good Samaritan, and I started thinking about how appropriate that particular iconography was for a Unitarian Church -- so much more appropriate than so many other stories from the Bible that might have been chosen instead. We've all known the story of the Good Samaritan since we were children. Even if we weren't raised in the Christian tradition, it's part of our cultural lexicon. A Samaritan is someone who does good deeds, who helps others in need, even if they happen to be strangers. Especially if they happen to be strangers....

It's easy for children to miss the subtext of this story, and even for adults the actual context is often obscure. A traveler is robbed, beaten, and left for dead at the side of the road. A Priest and a Levite (which is basically just another kind of priest) see him there but pass him by...not necessarily because they are bad people, nor even because they are afraid of being attacked themselves, but perhaps simply because they assume he is already dead, and touching a corpse would leave them ritually unclean and therefore incapable of performing their religious duties.

But a Samaritan -- an outsider, an outcast -- sees the body and takes the time to investigate. He's not worried about his formal religious duties interfering with his compassion for another human being, nor is he afraid to take the risk of becoming a victim himself. Or at the very least he is willing to face that fear. And all this in the context of the one Great Commandment I spoke of earlier: "Love the Lord Your God With All Your Heart (and all your Soul and all your Strength and all your Mind), and Love Your Neighbor As Yourself." The lawyers, the Pharisees, to prove their own importance, may wish to quibble about the definition of "neighbor." But the Samaritan knows that if you happen to be in the neighborhood, whoever you see is your neighbor. Even if he happens to be a stranger, and you yourself are traveling far from home.

And then suddenly the sermon -- the Danish sermon -- was over, and the preacher was telling us all to take out our Salmeboger og Åbenet det til nummer fire hundrede fem og fyrre and soon the entire congregation was singing while I was still thumbing through the pages of the Salmebog and trying to figure out where we were in the order of service. And then after the benediction (and this was unique in my experience in Denmark) the entire congregation was invited downstairs to the parish hall, where we all sat around a long table and were served more coffee and these amazing Danish pastries -- and anyone who wanted to could say what THEY thought about the sermon, and even ask the minister what seemed to me to be pretty pointed questions about his ideas. And it was at that moment that I really KNEW that I was in a Unitarian Church, even though it was all happening in a foreign language, and I was thousands of miles away from home.

About a month later, I had a very vivid reminder of that Easter morning. I was back again in Copenhagen, this time with my mom, who was visiting me for a few weeks around Mother’s Day; and we were on our way to the train station, once again very early in the morning, when we were approached by a rather frail, elderly woman who started jabbering at me in rapid, heavily accented Danish. And I was trying to tell her that I didn't understand what she was saying, but she didn't seem to understand me either; she just kept grabbing at my arm and pointing to a nearby bus shelter, so I looked up at where she was pointing and saw...

...a Body, seated on the bench, slumped over against the glass wall, a thin trickle of blood running down the side of his face....

Well, now the conversation suddenly got very interesting. I was trying to tell this woman (in a jumble of Danish, English, French, German, Greek and Latin all at once) that she needed to call the police, but she wasn't having any of it... she'd shown the body to me, and now she had to catch her bus,"Tak skal du have" ("thank you very much") and away she went.

And there I was.

This particular bus shelter was right outside a government hospital that had recently closed due to budget cuts, so naturally, being an American, I assumed that this young man had been shot in some sort of gang-related drug deal and then dumped by his buddies outside the hospital because they didn't want to risk involvement with the authorities. I tried to rouse him, but got no response, so I went inside the hospital just to see if I could find anyone there, and eventually located a caretaker, who explained to me (in English) about the hospital being closed, and then agreed to accompany me back outside to see the body for himself.

He also tried to rouse this fellow, a little more loudly and aggressively than I had, and sure enough, the body responded... and after a brief conversation between the two of them, the caretaker assured me that the gentleman in question was merely someone who had stayed out a little too late the night before, and had fallen asleep while waiting for his bus, having fallen down and banged his head against something hard earlier in the evening... but not to worry, because [wink,wink] he was feeling no pain. So I was able to explain all this to my mother, who of course had also seen the body, but basically understood nothing else of what had been going on, that everything was OK and that we could continue on our way.

And I honestly don't know to this day whether or not I would have spent as much time I did trying to help this stranger if I hadn't seen the fresco of the Good Samaritan in the Unitarian Church the month before. I do know this...having just seen that fresco, only a few blocks from that bus shelter, I would have felt like a terrible hypocrite if I had simply passed him by.

As a general rule, we Unitarian Universalists don't ordinarily put much stock in Shame as a spiritual and emotional motivator, but I suppose there's a time and a place for everything. Because yes: I was confused, and also a little afraid, far from home on unfamiliar ground, and in many ways it would have been a lot easier for me to turn my back and walk away. But how was I going to explain that behavior to my mother (who, in all honesty, would have probably just as soon walked away herself). And, more importantly, how was I going to live with myself afterwards?

"Who is my neighbor?"? the Pharisee asked Jesus. And Jesus told him a story in response, a story about a foreigner who did the right thing when his more pious neighbors would not. Nowadays we have a slightly different question we sometimes ask ourselves whenever we are tempted to step outside the customary boundaries of social conformity. We ask ourselves "but what will the neighbors think?" -- and then let the shame of that imagined response keep us from acting too "strangely."

And yet when we can teach ourselves to ignore those imaginary voices inside our heads, and listen instead to those principles of hospitality and compassion written in our hearts, we recognize that the ONLY difference between a neighbor and a stranger is our own familiarity or ignorance, and that in all the ways that truly matter, we are less different than alike.

And then realizing this very simple truth, it falls to us to take that next all-important step of opening the windows and the doors, and receiving whosoever is sent....

WHAT I DID ON MY SUMMER VACATION

✇ WWUUD?
9 September 2007 at 19:12
By: The Eclectic Cleric
a homily delivered by the Rev. Dr. Tim W. Jensen
at the First Parish Church in Portland, Maine
Ingathering Intergenerational Water Communion Service
Sunday, September 9, 2007

[extemporaneous greeting and welcome, especially to the children]

I’m just a little curious, and maybe you can show me by raising your hands, but how many of you have started back to school already? And is there anyone here still on their summer vacation? You know, this time of year always brings back a lot of memories for me, because (as you might have guessed from the number of years I continued to do it), I always kinda liked going to back to school in the fall. Not always the classroom part so much, but I really liked seeing all my friends again, and being able to go to the library on my own (without needing to get a ride from my mom); I liked recess and being able to go out on the playground (in fact, for a lot of years I used to get up early and walk to school rather than waiting at the bus stop, just so I could play basketball for an hour before the first bell). I even liked the food in the lunchroom (which you may find surprising, since my mother was actually a really good cook). But I always found the lunchroom food kind of exotic, in a bland sort of way: Sloppy Joes (which we almost never got at home), or that fluffy white bread pizza that always came in square slices, and especially the Shepherds Pie, which (unlike my mother’s, who learned how to make it from her mother, who was the daughter of an actual West Texas sheep herder), at school was always made out of hamburger, rather than real lamb.

But you know, I also always used to get a little nervous on the first day of school. My mom used to say I had “Butterflies in my Tummy,” which I thought was a rather innocuous and euphemistic manner (those are a couple of good SAT words, by the way) of describing something that made me feel so awful. That excited feeling of anticipation and expectation, but also an anxious uncertainty in the face of something on some levels familiar, yet ultimately unknown and unpredictable.

I always used to feel that way on the first day of church as well, until one year the mother of MY children asked: “What are you afraid of Tim? That the other kids won’t like you, and are going to take your milk money?” After that, it got a lot easier. I still get nervous, of course, like I do every Sunday. But like a lot of people who have to stand up in front of a lot of other people and speak in public, I’ve learned how to use that nervousness to help me concentrate -- because I also have come to understand that the day I STOP feeling nervous is probably the day I’ve run out of important things to say....

Of course, the other thing I always dreaded about those first few days back in school was having to stand up in front of the entire class and give that annual back-to-school report about “What I Did on my Summer Vacation.” And the main reason I dreaded it was not so much the speaking in public part, but rather because my family typically didn’t do ANYTHING on our summer vacation -- which was the main reason I was so happy to be going back to school in the first place.

I mean, as I kid I generally was playing some sort of organized baseball during the summer...but that was typically over by the Fourth of July, so unless we could find enough kids around the neighborhood to pull together a game, baseball was pretty much out of the question. My brothers and I all took swimming lessons (at least for part of the summer), so we went to a place called "the Aqua Dive" for those; and then once a week my mom would take us to the library. But one good rainy day (and it rains a lot in Seattle, even in the summer) and I could blow through my entire stack of books (and half of my brother’s) in a single afternoon. (In fact, my brother used to hide his library books so that I wouldn’t come into his room and take them before he had a chance to read them himself, and then he’d forget where he’d hidden them, which led to a lot of library fines which he had to pay out of his allowance...although in his mind it was really my fault and I was the one who should have had to pay).

And then, of course, when the weather was nice we rode our bikes, and played outdoors, and tried to find new and entertaining ways of getting into trouble without getting into TOO much trouble...but nothing really like the sort of things you’d want to stand up in front of an entire classroom and tell about...not even for five minutes.

Of course, it did get a little better those summers when I finally got to be old enough to go on my own to stay with my grandparents, who had retired to their one-time summer home on an island in Washington State about an hour north of Seattle. On the island I got to sail, and play on the beach, and hang out with a whole different group of kids than the ones I saw ordinarily during the regular school year...kids whose parents and grandparents had also all grown up together at the beach, and typically measured their friendships in terms of decades.

But there was a downside to staying with my grandparents too, because my grandmother was NOT a particularly good cook, although she was a relatively competent baker of cookies: toll house cookies, peanut butter cookies, and -- my personal favorite, snickerdoodles -- cookies which (and this was important for a growing boy) my grandmother baked in great quantities to make up for whatever they may have lacked in quality. But living at the beach also meant that I had to spend a few hours each day helping my grandmother in her garden: pulling up weeds, digging in the dirt, pushing the wheelbarrow -- and basically serving as her arms and legs (and in later years even her eyes) while she directed the work, and supervised to make certain it was completed to her satisfaction. And although I didn’t really appreciate it at the time, by working as my grandmother’s personal itinerant agricultural laborer, I was actually connecting with the historical roots of the “summer vacation” in a very hands-on, dirt-under-the-fingernails sort of way.

Here’s a little more preparation for the SAT. The word “vacation” comes from the same Latin root as the word “vacant,” and it means literally to be empty, or free (of content). And when I was a kid growing up, I was always told that the reason kids got a vacation from school in the summer was so they could help their parents on the farm. What I didn’t understand back then, is that I actually had it backwards: that actually, the reason kids used to go to school in the winter is that back in the “olden days,” winter was the ONLY time that children could be spared from the demanding day-to-day work of agricultural production long enough to learn how to read, and write, and count. We may idealize the family farm, but let’s face it, for most of human history working on the family farm was really pretty much a sweatshop.

Our modern idea of a summer vacation actually reflects a somewhat later time, when at first the urban wealthy, and then eventually the middle class, were able to send their families away from the hot, crowded, and all too often fatally unhealthy industrial cities to cooler, more pleasant and healthful locations for the summer -- places like the coast of Maine, for instance, where the presence of “summer people” soon began to make a significant contribution to an economy which had previously been based on fishing, farming, forestry and the various activities which support those extractive industries. And I’m told that even today this “symbiotic tension” of relative wealth and social class between Native Mainers and people “from Away” remains an important dynamic in understanding what life in the State of Maine is really all about. Before the widespread advent of summer tourism, one 19th century commentator (Edward Everett Hale) observed that the two principal exports from Maine were Granite and Ice. “But the granite is excellent hard granite,” he continued, “and the ice is very cold ice.”

Personally, over the years I’ve come to admire the British use of the word Holiday -- “Holy Day” -- rather than our American “vacation.” Not an empty time, but a time set aside and devoted to something higher and more sacred than our mundane, day to day activities. And even though sometimes it seems like what we truly worship is leisure, the opportunity to observe even just a few days of Rest and Re-Creation seems like a very worthwhile activity to me, even if it does sometimes appear to others to be mostly doing nothing.

Of course, if you were to ask me what I did this past summer on my so-called “vacation,” I would certainly have a lot to report. I flew across the country (with the dog - the first time she's ever done that) to visit my daughter and attend the Unitarian Universalist Association General Assembly in Portland, Oregon; then drove to Seattle to bury my mother, flew back to New England, quit my job, packed everything I own into boxes and moved here to Portland Maine to begin a new ministry working with all of you here at First Parish (where, you may have noticed, the roof is falling in). And I also did a little sailing, and played a little baseball, and even read a few books (which I’ll tell you about some other time). But even this extensive summary only barely scratches the surface.

For example, we didn’t really “bury” my mom. My mother’s body was actually cremated, and her ashes now sit on the bottom shelf of the nightstand in her bedroom on Camano Island, right on top of the ashes of her own mother, which have been there now for almost 20 years. (And there’s still a little room there for a few more of us, after which we’re probably going to have to come up with a more permanent solution).

I did conduct the memorial service for my mom, which turned out to be a very moving experience for me, and my entire family as well. My very first sacerdotal act (there’s another great SAT word) following my ordination in 1981 was to officiate at the wedding that summer of my brother Kurt and my sister-in-law Lynne. And now, one week shy of their 26th wedding anniversary, we were all together again...with, of course, an entire generation no longer present, and an entirely new one grown up to take its place, all of us assembled to observe a very different kind of religious ceremony.

And it was hard for me not to see these two events as linked together, perhaps like bookends, but I wasn’t really sure what it meant until my aunt came up to me after the service and said “25 years ago at Kurt’s wedding I thought, ‘What a Joke! That’s not a real minister -- that’s just my kid nephew in a costume.’ But today you really filled that robe, and I was very impressed...and proud.” And then I got it. It had only taken me half a lifetime, but I had finally (kind of like the Velveteen Rabbit) become a “real” minister, even for my own family.

And then the next day, we were all staying together back at the cabin (which I suppose out here in Maine you would call a “cottage”), and my brother and I got up with the early tide, and took the boat across the bay to pull his crab pots and collect a dozen or so fresh Dungeness Crab; and then when we got back, both my brothers went off to pick wild blackberries at a place they knew; and a few hours later my father and his sister (my other aunt) showed up with a freshly caught wild salmon (which - just for the historical record - they’d bought, not caught themselves) and some locally grown sweet corn -- and the cooking started, and I played a little baseball with my neices and nephews...and at one point in the afternoon, as we were all sitting on the deck looking out at the water, my sister-in-law said to me, with tears in her eyes, “This is such a perfect day. The only thing missing is Betty Jo.” And I said back to her “No, no Lynne -- you have it backwards. The thing is that Betty Jo can not be here, and we can STILL have perfect days like this.”

Now I know those of you who are more literal and scientifically-minded than most other folks are probably thinking “But Betty Jo WAS there...she was less than 30 feet away, stacked up on a shelf in the back bedroom.” But that’s not the point. The point is that we had taken our emptiness, and filled it with something Holy. And in doing so, we were “re-created” -- we participated in the miracle of Creation once again.

And then a few days later, we all had to go our separate ways again for awhile, and the next thing I knew I was standing up here in front of all of you, filled with the butterflies of nervous excitement and expectation, and just a little anxious in my anticipation of something on so many levels intimately familiar, yet ultimately unknown and unpredictable as well....

And I hope you’ll all like me, and please, Please, PLEASE don’t take my milk money, and I’m realy looking forward very much over the months and years to come to getting to know all of you, and to hearing your stories the much the same way as you have so kindly listened to me tell mine today.

This Meeting House is indeed a sacred place, a safe and welcoming “sanctuary” in the heart of this city, which we make Holy through our presence here, and by filling it with our warmth, and our love for one another, our hospitality to strangers, and our devotion and commitment to the values and principles of our shared Unitarian and Universalist faith traditions. We come from many different places, we travel many different paths. But in this place, we mingle our lives together like the waters of many rivers flowing to the ocean, perhaps in time rising as fog, falling as rain, even freezing as ice, but always, always flowing back once more into the sea from whence we all have come.

Follow Up on Race and Racism (hat tip to Trivium)

✇ WWUUD?
3 September 2007 at 17:06
By: radicalhapa

Trivium offers some more thinking and questioning about race and racism in response to reading a brief piece I wrote about a verbal encounter in Toronto and a longer piece Hafidha wrote about a friend’s commentary during dinner.  I appreciated being able to read (hear) the thoughts, and they brought up some more impressions.  This is not necessarily a response to Trivium, but just some more reflections.

I hear the belief that any racialized comment coming from any person is a form of racism.  Absolutely.  However this perspective I see as a red herring when we are seeking to create a race positive/racially just community.  It has a lot of truth on an individual level, and it needs to be addressed as Trivium states. 

The consciousness raising around language and attitudes needs to be complemented with a look at the roots of language and attitudes.  Simply reacting to oppressive comments is a band aid to the larger issues, at least from my experience with People of Color and Anti-Racism.  I also find powerfully damaging knee jerk liberal (and more strategic conservative) reaction of attempting to render race (and sometimes by extension culture) meaningless through a colorblind philosophy.

The power of oppressive comments is proportional to the context of people’s identity, the socio-economic history of these identities, and personal experience around the identity.  What I feel is often forgotten by the "privileged class", whatever that identity may be, is the overwhelming history and personal experience that is passed down from family members, community leaders, and more through literature and media which educates and organizes oppressed peoples.

I experienced this through my work in the Women Studies department at the University of Oregon, through some really intentionally listening to Women and Trans People, and from participating in the Welcoming Congregation program.  I think it is similar for People of Color.

ONE OF GOD'S CLUMSY INNOCENTS WHO FOUND HIS WAY AMONG THE ANGELS

✇ WWUUD?
2 September 2007 at 22:33
By: The Eclectic Cleric
A sermon preached by the Rev. Dr. Tim W. Jensen
at the First Parish Church in Portland, Maine
Sunday September 2nd, 2007


Folks frequently want to know how I come up with the inspiration for my sermons (and particularly sermons like this one, on "the world's worst poet"), and usually I'm at something of a loss to tell them. I mean, who really knows where these things come from, originally? But this morning I can tell you PRECISELY how and when and where the Muse whispered to me in a mysterious way. It was Sunday, July 5th, 1987; and I was sitting out by the swimming pool at the parsonage at my first church in Midland, Texas (whatever else you may think of Texans, they certainly know how to treat their ministers!) and I was reading (of all things) the local Hearst newspaper, the Midland Reporter-Telegram. And I noticed an article, a feature off the Associated Press wire, which turned out to be my introduction to the life and work of William Topaz McGonagall -- the man reputed to be the world's worst poet.

I knew right away that I had to preach a sermon about this man. There was something about his life which cried out to be expressed -- a certain courage and nobility of spirit deserving of our attention. One phrase in particular, a comment by a Scottish literary critic named James Cameron, captured my imagination. He described McGonagall as "one of God's clumsy innocents, who found his way among the angels." I read that phrase and I thought to myself "What better epitaph could any of us ask? What commentary speaks more profoundly to the universal human condition?"

Unfortunately, Midland Texas in the mid-1980’s was not exactly overflowing with easily accessible McGonagallia. It was not until some time later, when I happened to be in Boston and had the opportunity to stop by the Weidner Library at Harvard University that I was able to obtain the materials I was looking for: the complete works of William McGonagall, anthologized in three volumes: Poetic Gems, More Poetic Gems,and Last Poetic Gems. Moreover, I was overjoyed to discover that, as an alumnus, I was allowed to check them out and bring them back to Texas with me.

I kept the books out well past their due date (fortunately, no one at Harvard was clamoring for their quick return); and by the time I was finished with them, not only could I honestly claim to be the foremost authority on this subject in all of West Texas, but I could also state with some confidence that McGonagall's reputation as the world's worst poet is both well deserved, and not likely to be challenged in the foreseeable future. Yet it is more than the quality of one's poetry that makes a poet. William McGonagall had poetry in his soul, a poetry which burst forth with an authentic, Wordsworthian "spontaneous overflow of powerful feeling," despite his undeniable lack of skill or talent.

He was born in Edinburgh, in either 1825 or 1830 -- We don't really know for sure, and he himself reports both dates in different places; but as a child moved with his family to the city of Dundee, located in the east of Scotland on the Firth of Tay, where his father was employed as a handloom operator in a Jute-weaving mill: a trade which McGonagall himself also practiced until machinery made his vocation obsolete. It is reported that he had only 18 months of formal education, yet he was literate enough to be familiar with Shakespeare, and even performed for a time as a Shakespearean actor, where his powerful voice and striking appearance, as well as his obvious enthusiasm for his roles, made him quite popular with the rowdy and boisterous Dundonian audiences.

It was not until he was in his forties that McGonagall turned to composing and reciting his own "poetic gems." He describes that moment in one of his brief autobiographies:

**I remember how I felt when I received the spirit of poetry. It was the year of 1877, and in the month of June, when trees and flowers were in full bloom. Well, it being the holiday week in Dundee, I was sitting in my back room in Paton's Lane, Dundee, lamenting to myself because I couldn't get to the Highlands on holiday to see the beautiful scenery, when all of a sudden my body got inflamed, and instantly I was seized with a strong desire to write poetry, so strong, in fact, that in imagination I thought I heard a voice crying in my ears -- "WRITE! WRITE!" I wondered what could be the matter with me, and I began to walk backwards and forwards in a great fit of excitement, saying to myself -- "I know nothing about poetry." But still the voice kept ringing in my ears -- "Write, write," until at last, being overcome with a desire to write poetry, I found paper, pen, and ink, and in a state of frenzy, sat me down to think what would be my first subject for a poem....**

The result was "An Address to the Rev. George Gilfillan," which was published anonymously in the Dundee Weekly News. All told, McGonagall would eventually compose some 576 poems during his lifetime: poems which were uniformly, as James Cameron notes, "of a magical dreadfulness that reached the sublime." McGonagall's early reputation was established by his poem "Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay," which some believe foretold the Tay Railway bridge disaster of 1879, in which 90 lives were lost after the poorly constructed bridge collapsed during a violent storm. The verse in question reads:

**Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay!
I hope that God will protect all passengers
By night and by day,
And that no accident will befall them while crossing
The Bridge of the Silvery Tay,
For that would be most awful to be seen
Near by Dundee and the Magdalen Green.**

In 1881 he added the words "By Appointment to Her Majesty" to his calling card: "William McGonagall, Poet and Tragedian" after receiving the following letter from Queen Victoria's personal secretary:

**General Sir Henry F. Ponsonby has received the Queen's commands to thank Mr. McGonagall for sending the verses which were contained in his letter of the 10th instant, but to express Her Majesty's regret that they must be returned, as it is an invariable rule that offerings of this nature not be received by the Queen.**

McGonagall typically published his verses as broadsides, single sheets containing his latest composition, which were often printed free of charge by a local publishing house and then sold by the poet himself for a penny apiece to passers by. Needless to say, it was not a particularly profitable enterprise. Slightly more lucrative were his performances in Public Houses -- ironic, since McGonagall himself was a teetotaler; but the barmen soon discovered that the presence of "The Great McGonagall" was sure to draw a thirsty crowd. A typical performance is described in a biography by David Phillips, which draws upon a contemporary newspaper account:

**"The hall was filled by a large audience, the majority of whom were young men and lads, all evidently in a thorough mood for fun...."

Then came the recitations, received in a manner "most uproarious, altogether past description. Every now and then, and particularly when the performer was uttering some choice bit and giving it the 'sweetness long drawn out the audience would burst out with the chorus of John Brown's Body in a manner that completely 'shut up' the gifted artiste. Notwithstanding all the irreverence on the part of the audience, the bard remained perfectly calm, and seemingly not in the least disturbed by the riotous proceedings around him; and whenever the noise ceased he resumed where he had left off with the greatest nonchalance...."

"Mr McGonagall, however, had not proceeded far with his recitation when a number of the audience who were seated near the platform rose from their seats and, ascending the improvised stage, they forcibly seized hold of the 'Poet to Her Majesty' and, notwithstanding his frantic struggles, carried him shoulder high to the street...."

"A tremendous crowd thronged the street, almost all of whom seemed to be in a very frenzy of amusement. Mr. McGonagall had ultimately, owing to the great crowd, to take shelter in a shop nearby....The general impression of the audience seemed to be that they never in their lives were so thoroughly entertained as they were by the celebrated McGonagall."**

Marcus Eliason, the Associated Press writer whose article first introduced me to McGonagall, offers this summary of his career:

**...Dundee, a hard-drinking, ruffianish sort of town, turned McGonagall-baiting into a sport.

He was pelted with peas, pies, and rotten hams, shouted down by hecklers, mocked by street urchins as "Mad McGonagall," and hounded by magistrates for causing the unruliness.

A barman, incensed at McGonagall for having the nerve to recite teetotaling propaganda in his pub, stuffed a wet towel in his mouth.

Soon he was refusing to perform unless a clergyman sat on the stage....

He would recite his poem about the Battle of Bannockburn brandishing a sword with such exuberance that the front-rows had to duck....

In 1887, fed up with these riotous spectacles, Dundee's elders bought McGonagall a one-way ticket to New York....**

It's through incidents such as these that McGonagall's true character is revealed. There are thousands upon thousands of bad poets in the world, poets who aspire perhaps to achievements beyond their gifts, and who fail ingloriously, lapse into obscurity. What separates McGonagall from all the rest is his unflagging sincerity and dogged persistence, a tenacious optimism which endures beyond all sense or reason. The Times of London has called McGonagall "a real genius, for he is the only memorable truly bad poet in our language." His anthologies have sold over half a million copies, well outstripping sales of the work of his far more talented Scottish contemporary, the (Unitarian) Robert Burns. McGonagall's poetry radiates an enthusiastic reverence and passion for life which transcends the technical flaws of the verse itself -- the clumsy meter and the awkward rhyme -- to express a vitality somehow compelling despite its obvious artistic limitations.

McGonagall returned to Dundee from New York, and for a time it was business as usual. He hit upon an ingenious scheme for supplementing his income -- printing ditties such as this one on the back of his broadsheets, in exchange for a small sum:

**You can use it with great pleasure and ease
Without wasting any elbow grease;
And when washing the most dirty clothes
The sweat won't be dripping from your nose....
And I tell you once again without any joke
There's no soap can surpass Sunlight soap....**

The harassment continued however, while failing health and constant poverty likewise took their toll. In December of 1892 he composed this poem in anticipation of the coming year:

**Welcome! thrice welcome! to the year 1893,
For it is the year I intend to leave Dundee,
Owing to the treatment I receive,
Which does my heart sadly grieve.
Every morning when I go out
The ignorant rabble they do shout
'There goes Mad McGonagall'
In derisive shouts as loud as they can bawl,
And lifts stones and snowballs, throws them at me;
And such actions are shameful to be heard in the city of Dundee.
And I'm ashamed, kind Christians, to confess
That from the Magistrates I can get no redress.
Therefore I have made up my mind in the year of 1893
To leave the ancient City of Dundee,
Because the citizens and me cannot agree.
The reason why? -- because they disrespect me,
Which makes me feel rather discontent.
Therefore to leave them I am bent;
And I will make my arrangements without delay,
And leave Dundee some early day.**

This particular poem drew an editorial response from the newspaper the Scottish Leader:

**Dundee is threatened with a very serious calamity, to wit, the departure from its gates of the Poet McGonagall.
McGonagall is a very good poet for Dundee, with limitations -- such things as a lack of ideas, a trivial shakiness about spelling, and a want of familiarity with syntax, for which doubtless his parents are more to blame than himself. He is never at a loss for a rhyme, and when he discovers the full value of the circumstance that Dundee rhymes with 1893, he may be induced to reconsider his decision and stay for yet a year....**

Sure enough, it was not until 1894 that McGonagall and his wife moved to the city of Perth, where he continued to compose and to perform his poetry until his death in 1902. He lies buried there now in an unmarked, pauper's grave; his only memorials the poetry itself, and a modest plaque on a park bench near the statue of Burns in downtown Dundee. Throughout his life, William McGonagall was the object of ridicule and derision, the butt of cruel hoaxes and practical jokes. Yet the last laugh, it seems, belongs to him, for through no other merit than perseverance he has earned himself a slice of immortality. He is "one of God's clumsy innocents who found his way among the angels" -- a hope and inspiration for all of us whose gifts and talents likewise fall somewhat short of the mark, but who notwithstanding continue to aspire to high ambitions....


AN ADDRESS TO THE REV. GEORGE GILFILLAN

All hail to the Rev. George Gilfillan of Dundee,
He is the greatest preacher I did ever hear or see.
He is a man of genius bright,
And in him his congregation does delight,
Because they find him to be honest and plain,
Affable in temper, and seldom known to complain.
He preaches in a plain straightforward way,
The people flock to hear him night and day,
And hundreds from the doors are often turn'd away,
Because he is the greatest preacher of the present day.
He has written the life of Sir Walter Scott,
And while he lives he will never be forgot,
Nor when he is dead,
Because by his admirers it will be often read;
And fill their minds with wonder and delight,
And wile away the tedious hours on a cold winter night.
He has also written about the Bards of the Bible,
Which occupied nearly three years in which he was not idle,
Because when he sits down to write he does it with might and main,
And to get an interview with him it would be almost vain,
And in that he is always right,
For the Bible tells us whatever your hands findeth to do,
Do it with all your might.
Rev. George Gilfillan of Dundee, I must conclude my muse,
And to write in praise of thee my pen does not refuse,
Nor does it give me pain to tell the world fearlessly, that when
You are dead they shall not look upon your like again.



AN ADDRESS TO SHAKESPEARE

Immortal! William Shakespeare, there's none can you excel,
You have drawn out your characters remarkably well,
Which is delightful for to see enacted upon the stage--
For instance, the love-sick Romeo, or Othello, in a rage;
His writing are a treasure, which the world cannot repay,
He was the greatest poet of the past or of the present day--
Also the greatest dramatist, and is worthy of the name,
I'm afraid the world shall never look upon his like again.
His tragedy of Hamlet is moral and sublime,
And for purity of language, nothing can be more fine--
For instance, to hear the fair Ophelia making her moan,
At her father’s grave, sad and alone....
In his beautiful play, "As You Like It," one passage is very fine,
Just for instance in the forest of Arden, the language is sublime,
Where Orlando speaks of his Rosalind, most lovely and divine,
And no other poet I am sure has written anything more fine;
His language is spoken in the Church and by the Advocate at the bar,
Here and there and everywhere throughout the world afar;
His writings abound with gospel truths, moral and sublime,
And I'm sure in my opinion they are surpassing fine;
In his beautiful tragedy of Othello, one passage is very fine,
Just for instance where Cassio loses his lieutenancy
...By drinking too much wine;
And in grief he exclaims, "Oh! That men should put an
Enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains."
In his great tragedy of Richard the III, one passage is very fine
Where the Duchess of York invokes the aid of the Divine
For to protect her innocent babes from the murderer's uplifted hand,
And smite him powerless, and save her babes, I'm sure 'tis really grand.
Immortal! Bard of Avon, your writing are divine,
And will live in the memories of your admirers until the end of time;
Your plays are read in family circles with wonder and delight,
While seated around the fireside on a cold winter night.

When racism ruled (Vancouver, Canada)

✇ WWUUD?
2 September 2007 at 00:38
By: radicalhapa

There is as growing body of work related to the racial and cultural history and experiences of people of color in Canada. 

I spent a lot of time in Vancouver over the years, and many of my Canadian friends from that fine city have discussed racism and oppression in Canada with me since high school  So many things in common, even though we have different nationalized histories.

This is a nice short article from the Vancouver Sun (Canada, British Columbia)

Link: When racism ruled.

Vancouver has come a long way since the anti-Asian race riots of 1907 to multicultural oasis with an awareness of ‘when we treat others as less than human’

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Diverse Religious Practices Among APA on the Radio

✇ WWUUD?
31 August 2007 at 12:53
By: radicalhapa

Asian Pacific American Compass, a radio collective here in Portland Oregon that I have been engaged, and know many of the folks from my activism here over the years, is having its Monthly APA Compass Show on APA and Religion.

9:00 AM Pacific on September 7th, 2007 on KBOO 90.7 AM (you can listen online).

We will explore diverse religious practices among Asian and Pacific Americans by focusing on religion in th context of cultural identity, migration, and assimilation.

This has been an ongoing topic of discussion within a subset of the Unitarian Universalist Asian Pacific Islander Caucus of DRUUMM.  Particularly with a good friend from Southern California who has a strong vision for how compatible the theology and practice of our liberal religious faith is with a lot of folks in America, both immigrant, and 2nd generation and beyond.  This relates strongly to my experience of ministering in the Philippines.

Unfortunately there is no archive of the past monthly APA Compass shows yet.  The group has been producing these shows for over 2 years!

DRUUMM Annual Conference Nov 9-11, Denver

✇ WWUUD?
30 August 2007 at 09:07
By: radicalhapa

DRUUMM Annual Retreat
Friday, Nov. 9th thru Sunday, Nov. 11th, 2007
Denver, Colorado
"We Are the Ones We’ve Been Waiting For"

Mark your calendars for this year’s DRUUMM Retreat in Denver, Colorado.
Hosted by the First Unitarian Society of Denver, in the historic Capitol Hill
district, the conference promises to be a fun and engaging experience for
all.

In addition to workshops and meetings discussing important issues, attendees
will experience Denver’s multicultural activities during special After Hours
events.

Detailed registration information will be available on September 7th,
including information on hotel options and on how to apply for
scholarships.  Registration materials will be sent out on all DRUUMM
listserves and also made available on the DRUUMM web-site, www.druumm.org.

Reporter Who Did UU Piece Leaves for American

✇ WWUUD?
29 August 2007 at 21:59
By: radicalhapa

Angie Chuang, an Oregonian reporter who wrote the piece about diversity in the UUA that came out during GA, has left to take a teaching position at American University.  Local Asian/Pacific Islander elder and mentor to many in the Portland metro community Polo, writes a tribute to her in the Asian Reporter.  (hat tip to Emi in NYC)

The Missing Class - New Book By Harvard Friend

✇ WWUUD?
27 August 2007 at 18:48
By: radicalhapa

My friend Victor Chen, who is finishing up his PhD in Sociology at Harvard, announced the publication of a book he co-wrote: The Missing Class, Portraits of the Near Poor in America.  Purchases benefit his online magazine INTHEFRAY.com.  Check it out.

Victor has previously chronicled the efforts of the global justice movement, and he and I have had long conversations about race, class and social justice.  He is a wonderful guy, with excellent insights.

I hope you’re enjoying the end of the summer. I
have two pieces of news to share. One is that the book I coauthored,
"The Missing Class: Portraits of the New Poor in America," is now out! It’s about families with incomes
just above the poverty line, and the struggles they face living without
many public benefits (which are for the poor) and yet also without real
financial security. I coauthored it with Princeton sociologist
Katherine Newman. The book’s foreword is by Senator John Edwards. The book was mentioned in an article in today’s New York Times by Louis Uchitelle:

   
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/26/business/yourmoney/26maytag.html

You should be able to find it in your bookstore, and here are the links for Amazon and Powells.com:

   

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0807041394/inthefraycom

   

http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/partner?partner_id=28164&cgi=product&isbn=
0807041394

(For any books bought through the links above, a portion of the
sale price goes to INTHEFRAY Magazine, the nonprofit publication I
cofounded.)

There are also some book events and radio/TV
interview in the coming months. A schedule is below. Kathy will be
doing the interviews below, but I’ll be at the book events, and may do
some later interviews. You can check on my blog at http://politicalprose.inthefrayu003cWBR>.orgu003c/a> for updates. Please spread the word!nu003cbr>u003cbr>Mynother bit of news is that my wife Emi is pregnant! We're expecting innFebruary. You can see a recent photo of us on Emi's blog here (usernamenfoe, password welcome):nu003cbr>u003cbr>   u003ca hrefu003d”http://web.mac.com/e_chendo/iWeb/Chendos/Home/Home.html” targetu003d”_blank” onclicku003d”return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)”>http://web.mac.com/e_chendou003cWBR>/iWeb/Chendos/Home/Home.htmlu003c/a>u003cbr>u003cbr>She's the one who's pregnant — I've just been gaining some sympathy weight. ;)nu003cbr>u003cbr>I've been bad about keeping in touch because of all thisncraziness, but please drop me a line if you have a chance! Hope you'rendoing well.u003cbr>u003cbr>Take care,u003cbr>Victoru003cbr>617.669.2578u003cbr>u003cbr>u003cbr>u003cspan styleu003d”font-weight:bold”>nBOOK READINGSu003c/span>u003cbr styleu003d”font-weight:bold”>u003cbr>u003cspan styleu003d”font-family:Tahoma”>u003cspan>nu003cp styleu003d”margin:0in 0in 0pt”>u003cspan styleu003d”font-family:Tahoma”>u003cfont faceu003d”Arial”>u003cfont sizeu003d”2”>New York: u003c/font>u003c/font>u003c/span>u003c/p>nu003cp styleu003d”margin:0in 0in 0pt”>u003cspan styleu003d”font-family:Tahoma”>u003cfont faceu003d”Arial”>u003cfont sizeu003d”2”>u003cbr>nu003c/font>u003c/font>u003c/span>u003c/p>nnu003cp styleu003d”margin:0in 0in 0pt”>u003cfont faceu003d”Arial”>u003cfont sizeu003d”2”>u003cb>u003cspan styleu003d”font-family:Tahoma”>New Yorku003c/span>u003c/b>u003cb>u003cspan styleu003d”font-family:Tahoma”> Public nLibrary; December 10u003csup>thu003c/sup> at 6:30pm; u003c/span>u003c/b>u003cspan styleu003d”font-family:Tahoma”>455 Fifth nAvenueu003c/span>u003cspan styleu003d”font-family:Tahoma”>; NYC; n10016; Across the street from central research libraryu003cspan styleu003d”text-decoration:underline”>.u003c/span>u003c/span>nu003c/font>u003c/font>u003c/p>u003c/span>u003c/span>u003cbr>Boston:u003cp styleu003d”margin:0in 0in 0pt”>u003cfont faceu003d”Arial”> u003c/font>u003c/p>nu003cspan styleu003d”font-family:Tahoma”>u003cspan>nu003cp styleu003d”margin:0in 0in 0pt;text-align:left” alignu003d”left”>u003cspan styleu003d”font-size:10pt;text-decoration:none”>u003cfont faceu003d”Arial”>u003cstrong>Harvard nCoop Bookstore, Friday, Oct. 5u003csup>”,1]
);

//–>http://politicalprose.inthefray.org for updates. Please spread the word!


BOOK READINGS

New York:


New York Public
Library; December 10th at 6:30pm; 455 Fifth
Avenue; NYC;
10016; Across the street from central research library.


Boston:

 

Harvard
Coop Bookstore, Friday, Oct. 5, 7:00pm, Reading and Signingu003cspan>; u003c/span>u003c/strong>u003c/font>u003c/span>u003cspan styleu003d”font-weight:normal;font-size:10pt;text-decoration:none”>u003cfont faceu003d”Arial”>1400 nMassachusetts Avenueu003c/font>u003c/span>u003cspan styleu003d”font-weight:normal;font-size:10pt;text-decoration:none”>u003cfont faceu003d”Arial”> n; Cambridge, MA 02238.u003cspan> u003c/span>u003c/font>u003c/span>u003c/p>nu003cp styleu003d”margin:0in 0in 0pt”>u003cspan styleu003d”font-family:Tahoma”>u003cfont faceu003d”Arial”>u003cfont sizeu003d”2”> u003c/font>u003c/font>u003c/span>u003c/p>nu003cp styleu003d”margin:0in 0in 0pt”>u003cfont faceu003d”Arial”>u003cfont sizeu003d”2”>u003cb>u003cspan styleu003d”color:black;font-family:Tahoma”>Cambridge Forum;u003c/span>u003c/b>u003cspan styleu003d”color:black;font-family:Tahoma”> u003cb>Wednesday, December 5u003csup>nnthu003c/sup>; n7:00pmu003c/b>; u003c/span>u003cspan styleu003d”font-family:Tahoma”>First Parish (Unitarian nUniversalist) at 3 Church Street in Cambridge.u003c/span>u003c/font>u003c/font>u003c/p>nnu003cp styleu003d”margin:0in 0in 0pt”>u003cspan styleu003d”font-family:Tahoma”>u003cfont faceu003d”Arial”>u003cfont sizeu003d”2”>u003cbr>u003c/font>u003c/font>u003c/span>u003c/p>u003c/span>u003c/span>Washington D.C.:u003cbr>u003cbr>u003cp styleu003d”margin:0in 0in 0pt”>u003cfont faceu003d”Arial”>u003cfont sizeu003d”2”>nnu003cspan styleu003d”color:blue;font-family:Tahoma”>u003c/span>u003cb>u003cspan styleu003d”color:blue;font-family:Tahoma”>The New America Foundation/Workforce nand Family Program; u003cspan> u003c/span>Monday, Oct. n1u003csup>stu003c/sup>; 12:30 – 2:00pmu003cspan>u003c/span>u003c/span>u003c/b>u003cspan styleu003d”color:blue;font-family:Tahoma”>; 1630 Connecticut Ave, NWu003c/span>u003cspan styleu003d”font-family:Tahoma”>; u003cspan styleu003d”color:blue”>7th Floor Washington DC n2009.u003cspan> u003c/span>u003c/span>u003c/span>u003c/font>u003c/font>u003c/p>nnu003cp styleu003d”margin:0in 0in 0pt”>u003cbr>u003cspan styleu003d”font-family:Tahoma”>u003c/span>u003c/p>u003cp styleu003d”margin:0in 0in 0pt”>u003cspan styleu003d”font-family:Tahoma”>u003cfont faceu003d”Arial”>u003cfont sizeu003d”2”>u003cbr>u003c/font>u003c/font>u003c/span>u003c/p>u003cspan styleu003d”font-weight:bold”>nnRADIO/TV INTERVIEWSu003c/span> u003cbr>u003cfont faceu003d”Arial”>u003cbr>u003cspan styleu003d”font-weight:bold”>u003c/span>u003c/font>u003cp styleu003d”margin:0in 0in 0pt”>u003cspan styleu003d”font-family:Tahoma”>u003cfont faceu003d”Arial”>u003cfont sizeu003d”2”>National:u003c/font>u003c/font>nnu003c/span>u003c/p>u003cp styleu003d”margin:0in 0in 0pt”>u003cspan styleu003d”font-family:Tahoma”>”,1]
);

//–>th, 7:00pm, Reading and Signing; 1400
Massachusetts Avenue
; Cambridge, MA 02238. 

 

Cambridge Forum; Wednesday, December 5

th;
7:00pm; First Parish (Unitarian
Universalist) at 3 Church Street in Cambridge.


Washington D.C.:

The New America Foundation/Workforce
and Family Program;  Monday, Oct.
1st; 12:30 – 2:00pm; 1630 Connecticut Ave, NW; 7th Floor Washington DC
2009. 


RADIO/TV INTERVIEWS

National:

u003cfont sizeu003d”2”>u003cbr>u003c/font>u003c/font>u003c/span>u003c/p>u003cp styleu003d”margin:0in 0in 0pt”>u003cfont faceu003d”Arial”>u003cfont sizeu003d”2”>u003cb>u003cspan styleu003d”font-family:Tahoma”>nnDiane nRehm Show/WAMU Radiou003c/span>u003c/b>u003cspan styleu003d”font-family:Tahoma”> (National NPR n); Monday, October 1st; 11:00-12:00pm (Arrival 10:45am) ; live in studio with ncall-ins; u003cspan> u003c/span>(and syndicated to 100 npublic radio stations across the country).u003c/span>u003c/font>u003c/font>u003c/p>nnu003cbr>nu003cp styleu003d”margin:0in 0in 0pt”>u003cfont faceu003d”Arial”>u003cfont sizeu003d”2”>u003cb>u003cspan styleu003d”font-family:Tahoma”>To the nContrary/PBSu003c/span>u003c/b>u003cspan styleu003d”font-family:Tahoma”>; Monday, October n1u003csup>stu003c/sup>; 3:00 -3:30pm,u003c/span>u003c/font>u003cspan styleu003d”font-family:Tahoma”>u003cfont sizeu003d”2”> u003c/font>u003ca>u003cfont sizeu003d”2”>www.pbs.org/ttcu003c/font>u003c/a>u003cfont sizeu003d”2”>.u003c/font>u003c/span>u003c/font>u003c/p>nnu003cp styleu003d”margin:0in 0in 0pt”>u003cspan styleu003d”font-family:Tahoma”>u003cfont faceu003d”Arial”>u003cfont sizeu003d”2”> u003c/font>u003c/font>u003c/span>u003cbr>u003c/p>u003cp styleu003d”margin:0in 0in 0pt”>u003cspan styleu003d”font-family:Tahoma”>u003cfont faceu003d”Arial”>u003cfont sizeu003d”2”>nnLocal:u003c/font>u003c/font>u003c/span>u003c/p>u003cp styleu003d”margin:0in 0in 0pt”>u003cspan styleu003d”font-family:Tahoma”>u003cfont faceu003d”Arial”>u003cfont sizeu003d”2”> u003c/font>u003c/font>u003c/span>u003c/p>u003cfont faceu003d”Arial”>u003cfont sizeu003d”2”>u003cb>u003cspan styleu003d”font-family:Tahoma”>nnThom nHartmann Show/KPOJ Radiou003c/span>u003c/b>u003cspan styleu003d”font-family:Tahoma”> (Portland nProgressive Talk); Wednesday, August 29th; 10:00 -10:15am ET (7:00 – 7:15am nPacific).u003c/span>u003c/font>u003c/font>nu003cp styleu003d”margin:0in 0in 0pt;text-align:left” alignu003d”left”>u003cspan styleu003d”font-weight:normal;font-size:10pt;text-decoration:none”>u003c/span>u003cfont faceu003d”Arial”>u003cbr>u003c/font>u003c/p>nu003cp styleu003d”margin:0in 0in 0pt”>u003cfont faceu003d”Arial”>u003cfont sizeu003d”2”>u003cspan>u003cstrong>Nightcall with Peter Werbeu003c/strong>u003cspan>u003cstrong>u003cspan styleu003d”font-size:10pt;color:black;font-family:Arial”>WRIF-FMu003c/span>u003c/strong>u003cspan styleu003d”font-size:10pt;font-family:Tahoma”>nn nu003c/span>(Detroit); u003c/span>Wednesday, September 5th; 4:00-4:25pm; taped by phone nto air on six stations, streamed, podcasted, and archived.u003c/span>u003c/font>”,1]
);

//–>

Diane
Rehm Show/WAMU Radio (National NPR
); Monday, October 1st; 11:00-12:00pm (Arrival 10:45am) ; live in studio with
call-ins;  (and syndicated to 100
public radio stations across the country).

To the
Contrary/PBS; Monday, October
1st; 3:00 -3:30pm, http://www.pbs.org/ttc.

 

Local:

 

Thom
Hartmann Show/KPOJ Radio (Portland
Progressive Talk); Wednesday, August 29th; 10:00 -10:15am ET (7:00 – 7:15am
Pacific).


Nightcall with Peter WerbeWRIF-FM (Detroit); Wednesday, September 5th; 4:00-4:25pm; taped by phone
to air on six stations, streamed, podcasted, and archived.u003c/p>nu003cbr>u003cp styleu003d”margin:0in 0in 0pt”>u003cfont faceu003d”Arial”>u003cfont sizeu003d”2”>u003cb>u003cspan styleu003d”font-family:Tahoma”>Lenny nLopate Show/WNYC (NPR NYCu003c/span>u003c/b>u003cspan styleu003d”font-family:Tahoma”>); nTuesday, u003cspan> u003c/span>September 18th, 12:00 – n12:40pm. nu003c/span>u003c/font>u003c/font>u003c/p>nnnu003cbr>u003cp styleu003d”margin:0in 0in 0pt”>u003cfont faceu003d”Arial”>u003cfont sizeu003d”2”>u003cb>u003cspan styleu003d”font-family:Tahoma”>Joy nCardin Show/Wisconsin Public Radio; u003c/span>u003c/b>u003cspan styleu003d”font-family:Tahoma”>Wednesday, September 26u003csup>thu003c/sup>; 9:00 -10:00am nET (8:00-9:00am Pacific);u003cspan>  u003c/span>live by nphone with call-ins.u003c/span>u003cspan styleu003d”font-family:Tahoma”>u003c/span>u003c/font>u003c/font>u003c/p>nu003cp styleu003d”margin:0in 0in 0pt”>u003cspan styleu003d”font-family:Tahoma”>u003cfont faceu003d”Arial”>u003cfont sizeu003d”2”> u003c/font>u003c/font>u003c/span>u003c/p>u003cp styleu003d”margin:0in 0in 0pt”>u003cfont faceu003d”Arial”>u003cfont sizeu003d”2”>u003cb>u003cspan styleu003d”font-family:Tahoma”>nnBob nEdwards Show/XM Satellite Radio;u003c/span>u003c/b>u003cspan styleu003d”font-family:Tahoma”> nMonday, October 1st; 9:00-9:45am; taped in studiu003cspan styleu003d”text-decoration:underline”>u003cspan styleu003d”text-decoration:underline”>u003cspan styleu003d”text-decoration:underline”>o.u003c/span>u003c/span>u003c/span>u003cspan>u003cspan styleu003d”font-size:10pt;color:navy;font-family:Arial”>nnu003cspan styleu003d”text-decoration:underline”>u003cspan styleu003d”text-decoration:underline”>u003c/span>u003c/span>u003c/span>u003c/span>u003ca hrefu003d”mailto:ariana.pekary@xmradio.com” targetu003d”_blank” onclicku003d”return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)”>nnu003c/a>u003c/span>u003c/font>u003c/font>u003c/p>nu003cp styleu003d”margin:0in 0in 0pt”>u003cfont faceu003d”Arial”>u003cb>u003cspan styleu003d”font-family:Tahoma”>u003cbr>u003c/span>u003c/b>u003c/font>u003c/p>u003cp styleu003d”margin:0in 0in 0pt”>u003cspan styleu003d”font-family:Tahoma”>u003cfont faceu003d”Arial”>u003cfont sizeu003d”2”> u003c/font>nnu003c/font>u003c/span>u003c/p>u003cbr>n”,0]
);

//–>

Lenny
Lopate Show/WNYC (NPR NYC);
Tuesday,  September 18th, 12:00 –
12:40pm.

Joy
Cardin Show/Wisconsin Public Radio; Wednesday, September 26th; 9:00 -10:00am
ET (8:00-9:00am Pacific); live by
phone with call-ins.

 

Bob
Edwards Show/XM Satellite Radio;
Monday, October 1st; 9:00-9:45am; taped in studio. 

Many Hands Make Light Work

✇ WWUUD?
27 August 2007 at 17:53
By: radicalhapa

-John Heywood, 16th century playwright and poet from England

Amen!

I came across this quote, a proverb as told by Rev. Alison Miller when she preached a sermon on "Speaking with Hands".  It is nice to see the text and audio sermons available to the world through the Church of the Younger Fellowship.  It is free to join in the beginning, a chance for young adults to connect with Unitarian Universalism wherever they are.

Reading sermons has been one of my most enjoyable past-times as I’ve become a minister.  Still looking for that radical collection of sermons that speak across class and race lines from the Unitarian Universalist tradition.  Perhaps something for our generation to contribute?

Reflecting on a Racist Encounter in Toronto

✇ WWUUD?
26 August 2007 at 23:56
By: radicalhapa

I’ve often learned a lot when discussing racism in Canada with Canadian friends and even some Americans who "know" Canada.  In various settings, often with People of Colour (Canadian and American), I’ve been educated about the exploitation and relationships between settlers and First Nation people, the Japanese-Canadian concentration camps, and the various progressive and punitive immigration policies.  There is much more to learn, but one thing is for certain, there is still common-denominator racism stemming from the root of White Supremacy in Canada.  Not only have I heard it, and experienced it over the years, but last month during ConCentric/Opus, I witnessed it in ugly fashion.

I was at the grocery in the parking lot when the racial incident occurred.  It didn’t seem to start as such, really it was more of a clean streets and environmental concern.

A woman, who appeared to be of East African descent, perhaps Ethiopian, Eritrian, or Somalian, dropped her cigarette out the window of her car she was a passenger in.  She was with several other friends.

A man, who appeared to be White, with his young daughter, who I guessed to be 10, also appeared White, said something.  It came out I imagine with the original intention of wanting the woman not to litter.  But it escalated so fast I was taken aback.

The man said, "hey, pick that up."  The woman said "what?" with some attitude.  Then the man went off.  It was straight to racial epitaphs, culminating with "go back to wherever you came from nigger, go ride your camels or whatever."  He walked away with his daughter.  It was all over in 20 seconds.  I was standing there holding grocery bags, in between them, frozen.

The woman said "you can’t talk to me like that" and said some choice swear words back, and the man, looked at me, his daughter, and then walked away.  I didn’t say anything, but it did feel that my presence was an intervention of sorts.  I looked at the woman, said, "are you OK?", and then got in my car and drove off.

I’ve talked about this incident with several friends, and my reflection is this: racial prejudice, particularly from Whites, has the immediate power to escalate and become hostile.  In most settings, two things seem to be going on.  First, Whites targeting People of Color in a predominately White environment, raise all kinds of issues of safety, threat of violence, intimidation, and marginalization.  Second, the intensity with which Whites can escalate a verbal attack to draw on the arsenal of racist attack, seems to be within closer reach for Whites, with a larger, more dangerous and abusive collection of language, insinuation, and racialized verbal violence.

UU Nudges Former Mayor To Get Back Involved

✇ WWUUD?
25 August 2007 at 00:12
By: radicalhapa

Norma Heyser is a member of the West Hills UU Fellowship and on my ordination committee!  Article from the Portland Tribune.

Link: Still mayor to many.

Clark also suffered a personal tragedy. His beloved wife, Sigrid, unexpectedly died seven years ago. Although Clark still misses her, enough time has passed that he has been able to begin a new relationship with Norma Heyser, a former high school friend who lives in Lake Oswego, where she is very active in neighborhood affairs.

In fact, Heyser’s activism has helped prompt Clark to return to the political stage, although at a much lower level. Last year he joined the board of the Northwest District Association, the neighborhood association representing the part of town where he lives.

Transitions (long)

✇ WWUUD?
21 August 2007 at 10:21
By: The Eclectic Cleric
OK, it’s official: as of midnight August 20th I am no longer the settled Parish Minister of the [NAME REDACTED TO PROTECT THE INNOCENT AND CONFOUND SEARCH ENGINES], in [NAME REDACTED TO PROTECT THE INNOCENT AND CONFOUND SEARCH ENGINES], Massachusetts. And even though I’ve been out of the parsonage for several weeks now (at their request, so that they could prepare it to rent out to new tenants), living here in Portland and ramping up for the start of the new program year with my new congregation, I’m still feeling very much “in transition,” and trying to find closure on my four year ministry among the mosquitos in Thoreau’s “City in the Woods.”

But first, the Big Move. The crew of two strong, healthy young men and a rented truck was scheduled to arrive at 10 am two weeks ago Friday to help me finish packing what I thought would be “a few last things,” then load the truck for the two hour drive back to my new place here in Portland. A week earlier I’d rented both a lovely two-bedroom walk-up apartment on the second floor of an old Victorian house in the West End, and also a studio at the Eastland Park Hotel (which I’m planning to use as my study), and I thought I’d been pretty specific over the phone about everything that needed to be moved. But when the truck pulled into my driveway (at about a quarter of 11), the two strong, healthy young men took one look at the stuff I’d packed so far and said “We’re going to need a bigger truck.”

So they called their boss back in Maine, who arrived around 2 pm with yet another guy and a second truck, and between the five of us we managed to get everything packed up and loaded by around 7 pm. When we arrived back in Portland two hours later, we were met by two MORE guys, and still it took us until nearly 2 AM to get both trucks unloaded.

As they left one of the strong, healthy young men mentioned to me that there had been over 250 cartons of books alone (I’d lost count after the third trip to the store to buy more boxes), so if you figure an average of 20-25 books/box...well, you can do the math. And no, I haven’t read all of them; haven't even come close. I could probably start reading right now and do nothing else for the rest of my life, and still not finish them all before I died. So keep your eyes peeled for a “help me find my peace of mind by buying a piece of my mind” used book sale. I mean, do I REALLY need six copies of Walden? Simplify! Simplify!

I’ve also been thinking about my UUA exit interview, which for various reasons (time, distance, conflicting schedules, and intervening events like the death of my mom) I still haven’t completed. But at least I've seen the exit interviews from the previous minister and lay leaders of my present congregation, so I kind of know what I’m in for. The first two questions are “What do you see as the three most significant accomplishments during your tenure?” and “What were your frustrations and disappointments during this time?” -- and that little one-two punch alone is enough to lay me out cold. Because in many ways, my entire four year tenure in [NAME REDACTED TO PROTECT THE INNOCENT AND CONFOUND SEARCH ENGINES], was simply one long ordeal of frustration and disappointment. And even though four years is the longest I’ve ever served any single congregation, it still feels like I accomplished very little there.

The reasons for this are complicated, but one key theme I’ve identified is that most of the other congregations I’ve worked with in the past were highly motivated to change and grow, and had contracted with me specifically to facilitate that change and guide them through it. But in [NAME REDACTED TO PROTECT THE INNOCENT, AND CONFOUND SEARCH ENGINES}, as it turned out, the situation was just the opposite. This was a congregation which had pretty much done things the same way for so long (and already felt like everything was perfect and they could do no wrong), that over the years they had gradually lost touch with their growing edge in the surrounding community, as well as started to lag seriously behind their nearby neighboring UU congregations in terms of Programing, Stewardship, and Membership Growth. Many of them envied all the excitement and activity of the so-called full service "Program" churches they saw all around them, in Concord, Bedford and especially Littleton; but at the end of the day the stubborn minority didn’t really want to have to pay the price of change and growth...or for that matter, really change or grow at all.

I know it’s a cliché that New England churches are set in their ways, change-resistant and conflict-avoidant, reserved, tightfisted, and frugal to the point of parsimony, but I'd always thought that those were just stereotypes. And despite its "rurality" (a made-up word frequently used by [NAME REDACTED TO PROTECT THE INNOCENT AND CONFOUND SEARCH ENGINES] to describe the attractiveness of their idyllic "faux rural" suburban lifestyle), [NAME REDACTED TO PROTECT THE INNOCENT AND CONFOUND SEARCH ENGINES] is anything but your typical New England small town. Statistically, [NAME REDACTED TO PROTECT THE INNOCENT AND CONFOUND SEARCH ENGINES] is the third wealthiest community in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (trailing only Weston and Dover). The median household income in this affluent and privileged bedroom community of two acre minimum zoning is $144,000/year (and the average closer to a quarter-million). Housing prices start at around a half-million dollars...for a tear-down. But the average pledge at the [NAME REDACTED TO PROTECT THE INNOCENT AND CONFOUND SEARCH ENGINES], was (and, unfortunately remains) less than $1000/year -- two-thirds of what it is in both neighboring Concord and Bedford. Correspondingly, my salary was only two-thirds of what a High School teacher with similar credentials is paid at Concord/[NAME REDACTED TO PROTECT THE INNOCENT AND CONFOUND SEARCH ENGINES], High School. And, unlike those schoolteachers, I did not receive a single raise (or even a Cost Of Living Adjustment) the entire four years I worked there.

But enough of my whiney bad attitude. There were a lot of good things about my ministry in [NAME REDACTED TO PROTECT THE INNOCENT AND CONFOUND SEARCH ENGINES] too. In fairness, the faults of the congregation in many ways merely reflected the larger faults of the town itself, where taxes are high and expectations even higher, and nobody wants ANYTHING in their back yard (except maybe acres and acres of town-owned Conservation Land). The church itself was actually one of the happier and more humane landmarks on the landscape of that community, and one of the few places (apart from the Post Office, the Public Library, the little "Country Store" and the Transfer Station) where someone could actually sit down and speak with their "Neighbours & Fellow Cretures." I made a more than a few new friends there myself, did some especially effective one-on-one pastoral care, dragged the church kicking and screaming (and I do mean kicking and screaming, and at times even biting and scratching) through the Welcoming Congregation process, and was at least able to bring out into the open some of the (how should I say?) "less-than-optimal" institutional dynamics that were frustrating to everyone and holding the church back. Our All-Church "Open Space" Visioning Event last February was truly inspiring, and almost tempted me to stick around a little longer. But God was calling me to "a greater field of service," so once again this restless, peripetatic soul packed his library and migrated back to the sea.

And I guess I would have to say that this was my most important learning experience in [NAME REDACTED TO PROTECT THE INNOCENT AND CONFOUND SEARCH ENGINES. There is an awful lot of territory between perfection and catastrophic failure. Most leadership takes place somewhere in that ambiguous realm between “Sustaining Success” (and possibly even eventually “taking it to the next level”) and the painfully obvious need for a dramatic “Turnaround.” The [NAME REDACTED TO PROTECT THE INNOCENT AND CONFOUND SEARCH ENGINES], in [NAME REDACTED TO PROTECT THE INNOCENT AND CONFOUND SEARCH ENGINES] could have been a textbook example of what Harvard Business School professor Michael Watkins calls a “Realignment” situation, where the greatest institutional challenges are not so much finding new technical solutions to glaring technical problems, but rather getting people to see and recognize that there are problems to begin with, and then creating the momentum (and sense of urgency) to build upon existing strengths in order to overcome those shortcomings. It’s about navigating institutional cultural and politics rather than providing professional expertise; or, more precisely, about changing culture by introducing new “external” benchmarks, and getting complacent people to buy in to re-evaluating old standards of success and performance which are now out of touch with evolving external challenges.

Once I’d figured this out, it became my mantra for the last year and a half of my ministry there, although by that point I already had one foot out the door anyway, so I’m not really sure how effective I was. I started out as a cheerleader, but I ended up a scold.... And I never really did get a chance to be the quarterback -- that would have just been too much authority for someone who basically earns less than a schoolteacher. In fact, I couldn't even get them to look at the playbook.

On a more positive personal note, I also arrived in [NAME REDACTED TO PROTECT THE INNOCENT AND CONFOUND SEARCH ENGINES]with an undiagnosed health problem (sleep apnea) that one of my parishioners noticed (since her husband suffered from the same issue), and since being effectively treated for that my quality of life and general energy levels have improved dramatically. And I still feel like [NAME REDACTED TO PROTECT THE INNOCENT AND CONFOUND SEARCH ENGINES]was a good place for me to land after completing a very satisfying two-year interim ministry on Nantucket (which was unfortunately accompanied by the end of my 18 year marriage). And it did serve as the springboard for me being called to this pulpit in Portland, about which I could not be more thrilled. I’m sure as time passes and memories fade, the things I will recall most will be the happier times, and not the financial stinginess, the petty bickering, and (of course) the ubiquitous mosquitos. And it really is a very pretty little church. Always looked beautiful on my business card, or at the top of my Annual Christmas letter.

In any case, (and with a tip of the hat to the movie “High Fidelity”), here are the top five things I am going to miss about my ministry in [NAME REDACTED TO PROTECT THE INNOCENT AND CONFOUND SEARCH ENGINES]...

5) Concord. And not just the “historic” Concord of Ralph Waldo Emerson, the Old Manse, Little Women and Walden Pond, but the community of Concord...with its restaurants and bookstores, its active adult recreation program, its train connection into Boston, and all the other little cultural amenities which [NAME REDACTED TO PROTECT THE INNOCENT AND CONFOUND SEARCH ENGINES], lacks. I’m especially going to miss the Monday/Wednesday Over-35 pick-up basketball games at the Hunt Gym. Those guys were great fun to play with (with one or two exceptions) as those of you who have ever read my Obi-Wannabe-Kobe blog already know.

4) The Neighborhood of Boston. Harvard University. Davis Square. The North End. The Quincy Market and Fanueil Hall. The Boston Athenaeum and the Massachusetts Historical Society. Fenway Park. Beacon Hill and the Back Bay. Not to mention UUA headquarters and all my wonderful colleagues in the Mass Bay, Ballou/Channing, and Clara Barton Districts. Even though I grew up in Seattle and lived for fourteen years in Portland Oregon, Boston still seems like a second home to me. And I suspect this is true for a lot of Unitarian Universalist ministers.

3) The all-you-can-eat lunch buffet at the Bamboo Restaurant in Westford...now also served at their new location in Bedford. Fred Small (the minister in Littleton) introduced me to this place, and I’ve been eating lunch there practically once a week ever since. The Chang An in Concord has a pretty decent buffet too, but it’s nothing compared to the Buffet @ Bamboo, which features not only a fantastic assortment of both appetizers and main dishes, but also fresh Sushi and Ginger Ice Cream for dessert!

2) The Boston Sports Club in Waltham. Where the Celtics work out. One of the great things about this gym is that I was able to join in Lexington at a sharply discounted “clergy” rate, but then was allowed to upgrade to “Passport Premium” and work out at whatever club I liked (including those in Washington, Philadelphia, and New York) for just an additional $5/month. Or something like that. Frankly, it’s been so long I can’t remember. Fantastic facility. Olympic-sized pool, a wide assortment of cardio- and resistence-training equipment, a full-sized basketball court, a sauna, steam room, and Jacuzzi...plus an on-site masseuse. I just wish there were one in here in Portland (where it looks like I will be joining the “Y” instead).

And I guess this is all a little disingenuous, since NONE of the things on my list so far really have ANYTHING to do with [NAME REDACTED TO PROTECT THE INNOCENT AND CONFOUND SEARCH ENGINES per se. But perhaps these these next half-dozen small things together will add up to one big thing worthy of the final spot on the list.

1a) Kimball’s Ice Cream stand. Of course, there is a bigger Kimballs in Westford. And another one right up the road in Bedford which is generally not nearly so busy. But at least I could walk to the one here, and if I was lucky and timed it right I could also sometimes stop and watch a ball game at [NAME REDACTED TO PROTECT THE INNOCENT AND CONFOUND SEARCH ENGINES], on my way back home.

1b) Dribbling a basketball in the house whenever I wanted at any hour of the day or night without having to worry about disturbing the downstairs neighbors. Who were mostly mice, ants and silverfish anyway. With an occasional rat or roach thrown in.

1c) The Belltower. I know a lot of folks would find it annoying to live next door to a church clock which chimed the hour 24 hours a day. But I generally found it comforting to be routinely reminded of the time, except maybe on those Saturday nights when I was still up late working on my sermon, or perhaps just tossing and turning in bed trying to get to sleep.

1d) Huber Honey. Produced by local bees kept by local beekeeper and longtime choir member Ernie Huber. Available only at the annual Autumn Harvest Fair (and sometimes, if the bees have been especially busy that summer, at the Annual Christmas Greens Sale). It’s the best.

1e) The Annual Strawberry Festival. And OK, if the truth be told, also the Harvest Fair and the Greens Sale. But NOT Old Home Day (except maybe for the traditional firefighters community chicken BBQ)....

1f) ...being able to walk the dog off her leash without ever having to worry about picking up “lawn sausages” with a plastic bag....

Crucifixion Redux

✇ WWUUD?
14 August 2007 at 23:01
By: The Eclectic Cleric
PB & J — PeaceBang and Jesus. One of my all-time favorites.

My pal Vickie Weinstein (who once made me famous for 15 seconds by giving me a fashion makeover on ABC's "Nightline"), has written a thoughtful reflection on "the way we treat the J-Man in the UU Church", which she's titled "The Meaning of the Cruxificion." I commented over on her blog, and now here's a slightly expanded version of that comment here on my own.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve taken a very simple and pragmatic view of anastasis — the Teacher is Dead, but the Teaching Lives On, and that everything that Jesus ever said or did or stood for still "stands up," and is just as True Now as it was then (or ever more shall be). And back when I was young and fiesty and preaching in West Texas, I often liked to blow away my more evangelical friends by suggesting that I was seeking a Christian Faith which I could still trust and live by not only if Jesus DIDN’T rise from the dead, but even if it could be proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that he had never lived at all.

We live in a culture which, for better or worse, has been profoundly shaped by Christianity as both it and us have evolved together symbiotically over the past two millenia. It's true that nowadays we tend to see ourselves as a pluralistic society (and this "liberal/secular humanism" is itself very much a product of the Christian experience -- or perhaps I should say "the Judeo-Christian heritage"), in which values of dialogue, toleration, and respect for diversity are essential components to our self-understanding (even if they do sometimes bring us into conflict with less "enlightened" faith traditions for whom Zeal still trumps both Reason and Understanding). But unless we are also capable of understanding ourselves and how we came to BE this way, we still run the risk of falling back into the slimey swamp of sectarian self-righteousness out of which our forebearers so boldly crawled.

Our post-modern, post-Christian liberal Protestant "living tradition," which so enthusiastically embraces the Wisdom of ALL the World's "authentic" Faiths, also has a specific history and cultural context. We may like to THINK of ourselves as the most pure and perfect expression of 19th century Transcententalist minister Theodore Parker's "Absolute Religion." But we are really just a blister on the butt of the Body of Christ, where the Armour of God rubbed a little too uncomfortably around Christendom's expanding girth.

I won’t preach the whole sermon here, but if anyone wants to read more about my views (and assuming my html tags are OK), here’s a link to what a retired Methodist minister once told me was the best Easter Sermon he'd ever heard, “Easter, Again?” And a SPOILER ALERT!!! to the good people of First Parish: you're likely to this same message next Spring, when I deliver my first Easter Sermon for you.

"Congregations Count"

✇ WWUUD?
9 August 2007 at 22:54
By: The Eclectic Cleric
Thought I'd take a break from the Herculean (or is it Sisyphusian?) task of unpacking books here at my new place in Portland Maine to post something I've been carrying around on my hard drive for over a month.

These are some notes and reflections from a workshop offered at General Assembly by Linda Laskowski, who as I recall (having long ago tossed away my GA program) is or was the Membership Coordinator at our church in Berkeley CA.

This was one of the best GA workshops I've attended in a long (and I mean LONG) time, because it brought together several different things I've been interested in almost my entire career and presented them in a very thoughtful and (more importantly) useful package.

So thanks Linda! (although in fairness I really ought to mention that anything here that doesn't quite seem to make sense was probably added by me).

***

Processes are things that happen over and over again. Process Improvement Techniques can be used to evaluate and improve them.

• break down each process into its separate and discrete steps

• measure each step and convert those measurements to a ratio

• track change over time, and

• compare your ratios to external benchmarks in order to measure your performance.

Sometimes just the process of identifying your "key processes" and analyzing their constituent steps will bring noticeable improvement all by itself, since this also encourages simplification, thus helping to make things that are done routinely as “routine” as possible. Simply creating clear and coherent “Standard Operating Procedures” (SOPs) which are transparent and measurable, easy to teach, and consistently repeatable, will often improve performance dramatically.

With respect to the processes related to Outreach and Membership Growth, Linda has essentially defined steps very similar to the ones outlined by Roy Oswald in The Inviting Church. So if you're familiar with that work, this will all make even more sense.


Generating Public Awareness (Oswald's "Attraction") -- Membership Growth teams often want to start with ways to do better publicity in order to create “increased visibility.” But from the perspective of process improvement, this is both a difficult benchmark to measure, and also the trickiest to significantly influence. Based on previous studies, only approximately two-tenths of one per cent of the general population are “aware” of Unitarian Universalism in any significant way beyond the level of a punch-line on “A Prairie Home Companion.” So one should assume low public awareness from the start.

More to the point, campaigns to raise public awareness are generally very expensive and yield only marginal results in comparison to their cost, thus making it at best a step to be taken later rather than sooner, only after you have already improved the portions of the process over which you have more effective control.


First Time Visitors ("Initiation" or "Orientation") -- Make it a priority to greet and welcome ALL visitors warmly, but track the local ones who are also prospective new members. Three most frequent sources of visitors are friends, family, and the internet. How do we know? We ASK right on the visitors card. The use of “check the box” rather than “fill in the blank” (i.e. “how did you hear of us?”) significantly increases the response. Also:

• Greet people AS they arrive...first impressions are formed in the first five minutes, and will generally determine whether or not a visitor will return.

• Ask how they learned about you. Ask what they are interested in.

• Help them create a handmade name badge, and use that time to collect their contact info.

• Send e-mail or post card within the week! (preferably within 48 hours).

Benchmark: growing churches have a 1:1 ratio (or better) of annual first time visitors to actual members (so, “each one bring one” really is true); churches which are NOT growing generally can’t meet that benchmark.


Return Visitors (Oswald's "Exploration") are three times more likely to join the church than one-time visitors. So focus on creating more of them!!! Have a permanent name tag waiting for them, as well as some sort of “coupon.” (coffee with the minister?) Then ask everyone to return their badges to a central location (like a basket) so you can measure attendance that way.

Track attendance for at least six months (Linda had several good ideas for doing this, but mostly it's a matter of paying attention) -- try to measure ratio of repeat visitors to total visitors (i.e. what percentage of first time visitors return within six months).

Also attempt to track the non-returnees. Try using the anonymous “Survey Monkey” for an informal "exit interview"-- What was your experience here? Why did you decide not to return?

Benchmark: growing churches report anywhere from 20-40% of first-time visitors return for a second visit.


Formal Membership (Oswald's "Commitment"): what percentage of visitors actually eventually “sign the book” (& pledge)...

Growing Churches: 15-20%+

Declining Churches: less than 10%


Active Membership (“Going Deeper; Being Sent”) “task, role, group” -- track this carefully! The point is to encourage everyone to do one thing for themselves (i.e. a class, or participation in an on-going Fellowship Circle like a Small Group Ministry Covenant Group) and one thing for the Church/Community (some sort of volunteer or leadership position).

Often these things overlap, but don't ASSUME that they will -- actively encourage people to think of their involvement beyond Sunday Worship in both of these dimensions (which are basically just synonyms for the old-fashioned practices of "Discipleship" and "Vocation" or "Ministry").

Also remember this: NO ONE in their right mind joins a church because they want to give away their money and serve on a committee. They do those things because by doing so they contribute to something larger, more meaningful and more important to them. So make sure that they aren't disappointed!

Benchmark: 65% or more (the higher this number, the less likely they will be part of your “back door”...


Attrition Most churches typically lose between 10-12% of their membership each year. Much of this is unavoidable -- perhaps 5% move away, and another 2-3% die...leaving only about a third of this number (i.e. 3-4%) up for grabs.

***

The nice thing about tracking these numbers is that they not only allow you to measure how well you are doing, they also force you to pay attention to the process itself, and to focus in on the places where you are either doing well or falling short.

But even before you begin to target your efforts this way, here are The Five Best Membership Growth Ideas Ever (i.e. the five more effective things you can do right away to improve newcomer hospitality and increase the likelihood that first time visitors will return and eventually become active members of your congregation).

• Hire a paid, part-time Membership Coordinator. Or (if you must) find someone who has the both time and the inclination to do the work of a paid, part-time membership coordinator without pay.

• Develop a highly visible, easy-to-follow “Pathway to Membership.” Some folks like to stick their toes in the water, while others like to plunge right in. But a well-defined path can accomodate both, and still allow them to move along it at their own most comfortable speed.

• Use Roving Greeters Effectively. You can call them whatever you like -- Hospitlers, Guardian Angels, even “Pineapple People” (as they are known in Berkeley) -- but meaningful, one-to-one personal contact is essential! So assign an adequate number of “roving greeters” for every service, and give THEM the Gold Coffee Mugs! Recruit your greeters from the demographic groups you hope to attract, and make sure they are knowledgeable about the programs that newcomers are likely to be most interested in.

• The Personal Touch. Greet newcomers as they arrive at the front door, make a friendly follow-up contact within 48 hours, and make a point of personally welcoming them again (by name if you can) when they return a second time.

• Website, Website, Website!!! Back in the day, the one piece of publicity a church couldn’t live without was a good Yellow Pages ad. Before that, it was a great sign or a sidewalk readerboard. And before that, it was a tall steeple, and a loud bell. But today it is a great webpage. So don’t ignore your web presence -- it is probably the first thing about your church people are going to see and notice. Make it user-friendly and easy to navigate, fill it with friendly and inviting images (rather than a lot of dense text), and make sure it gives newcomers the kind of information they will want to know (like what time church starts, what to expect during the service, how people dress, etc. etc.). You won’t regret it.

Some Advice for Rookie Ministers

✇ WWUUD?
26 July 2007 at 12:16
By: The Eclectic Cleric
Well, I'm back now from my month-long sojourn in the Pacific Northwest; I've found an apartment in my new community of Portland Maine; I've finished Harry Potter; and the movers are scheduled to arrive next Friday. So in the meantime (in between trying to pack my books, that is) I suddenly have a moment to blog again.

Recently I responded to a request for advice and encouragement from someone who was beginning their first ministry. Since they seemed to like what I had to say, I thought I'd polish it up a little and post it here....

***
The "technical" aspects of our job are relatively easy; if you don't know something you can generally look it up, and if you don't know where to look it up, you can always ask a colleague. It's navigating the complicated cultural, political, and interpersonal dimensions of ministry that always seems to trip people up. So let people know up front and often that you like them, that you really care about them, and that while you certainly aren't perfect at the very least they can count on you to be trustworthy and reliable and sincere. Try not to make promises you can't keep, and keep the promises you make. That sort of thing.

A word of Encouragement? Easy. Ministry is a very hard job which by definition will take everything you have to give it and then ask for more, and is almost certainly guaranteed to routinely break your heart. It can be frustrating, discouraging, disappointing, and at times profoundly disillusioning...but it is also an extraordinarily rewarding job in ways that are almost impossible to measure. So don't be afraid of being the "real deal," or engaging people authentically on a deep level. That's what they're paying you to do. And that's why many of us don't really think as much about our paychecks as we should (unless we really have to), and would keep doing this work for free if we could afford it.

Anyway, if these all sound like platitudes, it's because they are. Cliches don't get to be cliches by accident. But good ministry must be more than merely platitudes and cliches. Preach the best sermons you know how, and keep working and learning how to make them even better. Make your hospital visits, return phone calls and e-mails promptly, write those thank you notes, practice a spiritual discipline, and don't let the merely urgent distract you from the truly important. And have fun. Ask the important questions rather than trying to supply all the answers, but don't be afraid to articulate the shared vision you are hearing all around you. That's also you're job: to say out loud what the community is thinking in silence.

And remember this too: you can't do it all yourself. So find the kindred spirits and the sympathetic souls and empower them to share your ministry. There's one other thing too, something I heard the other day from Wayne Clarke in one of his workshops in Portland: that before people can learn to give generously they need to be able to receive graciously. That goes for us as well. Your people really want you to succeed. So let them help you be successful, and don't worry so much about who gets the credit.

At the end of the day, and at the dawn of each new one, Ministry is about Fidelity. Faith-full-ness. Learning to Trust, and to Believe in yourself, believe in your people, believe in the values and principles that make our faith trust-worthy. If you can embody that lifestyle in humility and gratitude, generosity and service, with both wisdom and good humor, you will do well. Or at least as any of us ever does in this strange and wonderful work.

Ward Churchill Fired

✇ WWUUD?
26 July 2007 at 00:04
By: radicalhapa

I’ve heard, met, and participated in various activities with Ward over the years.  I’ve been with him at various UU churches as well (Eugene, Denver).  I’m not sure how well known he is among UU’s overall, but he is well known among young adults from what I can tell.  I heard from some UU young adults who attended the US Social Forum in Atlanta that he was there, and they were impressed (research has included addressing issues of genocide, native americans, cultural identity).

Colorado is a hotbed from my experience of American Indian activism, when I worked at Metro State College over a decade ago, Oneida Meranto and Glenn Morris were both local professors who were part of a small group of prominent native identified and conscious teachers and activists.  It was an amazing place to be connected.

It is official, Ward has been fired from UC Boulder.  But it isn’t over.

Dozens of Churchill backers, some wearing T-shirts reading "I Am Ward
Churchill," booed and cursed when the vote was announced. At a news
conference afterward, Churchill criticized the findings against him as
fraudulent and said he was staying in Boulder and fighting to regain
his position.

Portland ICE Raid Follow Up (Del Monte)

✇ WWUUD?
23 July 2007 at 23:48
By: radicalhapa

After the Immigration, Customs and Enforcement Raid on a Del Monte food factory in North Portland (near where we live), a lot of community organizing has been happening.  There are still dozens of persons in the Tacoma WA detention facility.  During the Unitarian Universalist General Assembly in Portland, I was joined downtown at the Mayor’s Office to show support for comprehensive immigration reform (along with Groundwork and DRUUMM activists).  It was in part as a counter to a fundamentalist anti-immigration group protest.

Read on for a A Call to People of Faith from Portland Jobs with Justice.

Call to the People of Faith
The ICE roundup in Portland on Tuesday, June 12, and detention of the Fresh Del Monte workers suspected of being undocumented, produced situations which compel us to respond from our witness to justice and service and commitment to human and civil rights. Families were separated, legal issues have yet to be defined, and we know that economic hardships will be more evident with each passing day.
We ask that our homilies, sermons, prayers in worship services, masses, spiritual
gatherings, congregational meetings this weekend be dedicated to the people affected by the raids. We also ask that each community of faith begin reflecting on its theological, religious, ethical, and spiritual basis to decide what we ought to care about and what should be our fitting and urgent response. To see what other communions and religious groups are saying and doing, see Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon’s website: http://www.emoregon.org
Some of the options for response that are emerging include:
1) Sanctuary congregations. Presently, several congregations have declared
themselves sanctuary churches: Augustana Lutheran Church (ELCA) in Portland.
They have made public declarations and are ready to receive families in need and
respond in a variety of ways. If you would like further information, please call
(503) 203 4276, or go to: http://www.newsancturarymovement.org
2) Material support. Specials funds can be established or mission resources to help
pay for food, shelter, childcare etc., that families may need can be coordinated
with local community agencies or send a check to projects like El Programa
Hispano-Catholic Charities, and in the memo line put "raid relief". Checks can
be mailed to: 451 NW 1st St, Gresham, OR 97030 in Gresham
3) Pastoral and chaplain services. People in detention centers, like the one in
Tacoma, WA, and other in Oregon may be visited by clergy and chaplains. Also,
women, men, youth and children affected by the round-ups are needing emotional
and spiritual support.
4) Hospitality and refuge. Our buildings may receive families, individuals, or extend
space for community meetings, pastoral counseling, legal clinics, etc.
5) Accompaniment. A well-organized group of lawyers, community leaders, church
representatives, union people, among many others, monitored and observed the
ICE roundup in Portland. Since more raids will continue to occur throughout the
state of Oregon, we need people to become part of the teams. Call VOZ for
materials and training (503) 233 6787.
6) Educational and advocacy forums, trainings about related issues on immigration
reform and labor and what can be done are being offered by such statewide and
regional groups as the Rural Organization Project (503) 543 8417 http://www.rop.org ,
the Oregon Farm Worker Ministry (503) 990 0611, the Faith and Labor
Committee of Jobs with Justice (503) 236 5573. Both OFWM and the JWJ F&L
Committee offer worship resources and pulpit supply regarding labor issues,
including the Employee Free Choice Act. Also the National Farm Worker
Ministry http://www.nfwm.org, and Interfaith Worker Justice http://www.iwj.org provide
instructional and religious resources.
7) Resources: Legal Aid Services of Oregon (503) 981 5291, and the Oregon Law
Center (503) 981 0339, are prepared to handle labor and employment issues; and
immigration issues by Catholic Charities Immigration Legal Services (503) 542
2855, as well as the Immigration Counseling Service (503) 221 1689.
These are just a sampling of what our religious communities can do at this critical time.
Please share with your communities, your outreach, mission, and social justice
committees, and be intentional about responding on an ecumenical and interfaith basis, in collaboration with community organizations, civic groups, and local government where
possible.
Sincerely,
Jobs with Justice Faith & Labor Committee

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THE MEANING OF LIFE

✇ WWUUD?
22 July 2007 at 18:44
By: The Eclectic Cleric
a sermon by the Rev. Dr. Tim W. Jensen
at the First Parish Church in Portland, Maine
Sunday July 22nd, 2007


READING: from It Was On Fire When I Lay Down On It by Robert Fulghum

“I kept the little mirror, and as I went about my growing up, I would take it out in idle moments and continue the challenge of the game. As I became a man, I grew to understand that this was not just a child’s game but a metaphor for what I might do with my life. I came to understand that I am not the light or the source of the light. But light -- truth, understanding, knowledge -- is there, and it will only shine in many dark places if I reflect it.

"I am a fragment of a mirror whose whole design and shape I do not know. Nevertheless, with what I have I can reflect light into the dark places of this world -- into the black places in the hearts of [human beings] -- and change some things in some people. Perhaps others may see and do likewise. This is what I am about. This is the meaning of my life....” -- Alexander Papaderos


***

[extemporaneous introduction]

All my life, for as long as I can remember, I have been a compulsive reader. Books, magazines, newspapers, road signs, the backs of cereal boxes...it doesn't matter -- I read them all, and have ever since I was a little boy. Even before I was capable of reading for myself, I used to climb up on my mother's lap and ask her to do the reading for me, while I looked at the pictures, and followed along in my imagination.

Indeed, in many ways, you might even say that reading is my Vocation, my "calling," my mission in life: as a writer and a scholar, as a retail bookseller, and particularly as an ordained Unitarian Universalist minister. I read; I try to understand the meaning of what I'm reading; I try to communicate that understanding to other people, in such a way that they too might find it meaningful in their lives. This is essentially what I do to make a living, although it's not quite so simple and straightforward as I've probably made it sound.

Of course, one of the great ironies of having a vocation such as mine is that now that I supposedly read for a living, I discover that I have a lot less time to actually read than I did when I was younger and read solely for the pleasure of satisfying my own curiosity. Because you see, there is also a responsibility that comes with reading for a living. Once you begin to realize that you are actually starting to understand even just a little about what it all really means, you also realize that you have an obligation to try to do something about it, to somehow translate that understanding into meaningful action.

This is the difference between being a scholar, an academic, a pure intellectual; and being a parish minister, or a person of faith. Because scholars always have the option of retreating into their Ivy Towers if they wish, of dedicating their lives solely to the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake. But parish ministers live out in the real world, sharing the joys and the sorrows, the pain, the struggles, the challenges and the aspirations of a congregation of individuals, who literally “congregate” together in places like this in the hope of finding some meaning for their own lives in what the person standing up here has to say.

In any event, I’ve been thinking an awful lot lately about just how much my reading habits have changed now that I am a “professional reader,” rather than someone who still reads solely for pleasure, like I did when I was a youngster. For example, in twelve years of public education, four years of college and my first five years of graduate school, I don't think I read a single title that might even remotely be classified as a "business" book. But once I actually had to feed a family, manage a small business, and make a payroll, I found myself reading two or three a month.

I’ve always read a lot of history, and as much fiction as I can find time for; but I also used to read a lot more popular psychology when I was younger than I would ever dream of reading now, and (for a time at least), I was fascinated by subjects which today would probably be be shelved somewhere in the “Spirituality “ or “New Age” sections, but back then were known simply as “The Occult” -- the Tarot, the I Ching, and especially Astrology, which no lesser luminary than Ralph Waldo Emerson himself is said to have once described as "Astronomy brought down to earth, and applied to the affairs of human beings."

There was a time in my life when I actually knew a great deal about astrology. I knew how to calculate sidereal time; I knew how to read an ephemeris (and how to pronounce it) -- I could plot the aspects of the planets, place them in their houses....there's really a lot more to it than you read in the newspaper.

For example, there's a popular misconception that astrology has something to do with the stars. Astrology has nothing to do with the stars; the stars are merely a convenient background against which astrologers chart the position of the planets. A horoscope is literally a map of the relative positions of the planets as they appeared in the sky at the precise moment of your birth, the theory being that where you are, in relationship to the rest of the universe, has some sort of significance with regard to how you turn out.

At the time in my youth when I was most interested in astrology, I couldn't really claim to understand the physical mechanics of how it all worked, but the theory that the planets (and particularly the Sun and the Moon) might have some sort of influence on human personality did not seem at all unreasonable to me. I didn’t really understand the physical mechanics of gravitational attraction either, but that didn’t stop me from believing in gravity; and, after all, astrologers were working with thousands of years worth of observational data in making their interpretations.

Begin a reasonably Rational soul, I even thought it might be interesting to conduct some sort of scientific experiment. Suppose someone were to take a sample of perhaps one hundred people, calculate their birthcharts, and then cross-test them with some sort of personality assessment instrument like the MMPI or the Myers-Briggs. Send the data off anonymously to the appropriate experts for interpretation, (naturally maintaining appropriate "double-blind" controls), and then see what kinds of correlations might be traced.

The psychologist Carl Jung was very interesting in research of precisely this sort; and in time I discovered (through my reading) that similar experiments to the one I imagined had actually been done. The results of these experiments were fascinating to me. Essentially, no significant correlation was found between the results of the horoscopes and the results of the psychological testing (I'll leave it up to you to decide what that says about these respective disciplines.)

What was discovered, however, was that the more familiar a subject was with the content of his or her horoscope, the more likely their personalities were to resemble it.

And this was probably the most important insight I gained from my study of astrology. Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it. Choose your enemies wisely, for you will grow to resemble them. Be selective about what you choose to read, for in time you will come to believe that it is true.

If you spend you days reading nothing but supermarket tabloids and watching Reality TV, in time your world will grow to resemble that world. If you read nothing but the Bible, listen to Rush Limbaugh during drive time and only watch Fox news and the 700 Club, both your religion and your politics will eventually begin to reflect that worldview.

And I suppose in all fairness, if your principal news sources are National Public Radio and “The Daily Show,” (as mine tend to be these days) that will no doubt influence your view of the world as well.

Now I'm not trying to suggest by this that truth is merely what we make it; that there are no absolutes, only relativism, sophistry, and propaganda. Rather, I would simply like to observe that "the Truth" ( in quotes and with a capital "T") is much larger than any one of us can ever know, and that we should be very selective in what we chose to embrace as Absolutely True.

And as for astrology?

Well, I'm keeping an open mind. But we Libras are like that, always weighing the alternatives and trying to find the balance. It used to drive the rest of my family (who are all Fire Signs and would rather make a bad decision than no decision at all) simply crazy....

This notion, however, that what we choose is what we are, is essential to an understanding of contemporary Unitarian Universalist faith. As the sociologist of religion Peter Berger has pointed out, religious life has grown much more complicated in the past one hundred years. Not only have the issues with which we must learn to deal on a religious basis grown infinitely more complicated, but the range of alternative religious beliefs from which to choose has become nearly incomprehensible.

There was a time, (indeed, for most of human history) when the question of what one believed was pretty much an accident of geography -- the result of where one happened to be born. If you were born in Italy you were a Catholic; if you were born in Denmark, you were a Lutheran; in India you'd be a Hindu, in China a Buddhist, in Arabia a Moslem.

But nowadays our culture has become so global that we have a smorgasbord of options from which to select. Not only are there millions of White Anglo-Saxon Buddhists, and Mormon Temples in Japan, but we are also free to pick and choose from a variety of different Religious traditions all at once. Berger calls this phenomenon "the Heretical Imperative" -- for not only are we free to choose as we please, we are also compelled to choose, in one fashion or another, and the choices we make (or fail to make) will determine the pattern of how we live our lives.

This is the purpose of a church like this one: to assist individuals in their efforts to make wise choices, and to support them in their attempts to translate those choices into meaningful actions in their live-a-day lives. It's a big responsibility, which is one of the reasons why, as a minister, I try to read so much. But it is also a responsibility which we all share with one another.

In my own spiritual journey, I have discovered that there are three fundamental criteria which have proven extremely useful in my personal search for a standard of religious truth by which to live my life. These are not particularly complicated or esoteric criteria, and, interestingly enough, they all begin with the letter "C" which I hope will make them easier to remember.

The first of these is How deeply does this belief truly embrace an ethic of Compassion?

In the modern world we often embrace a very superficial ethic of compassion. We associate it with sentimental feelings of sympathy and concern; we forget that the real root of compassion means "to suffer together" -- to feel another's pain as we would feel our own. We may deal with that pain in a variety of different ways: we may feel angry, we may feel grief; we may feel helpless or bewildered or overwhelmed. Or we may discover our own inner strength in the presence of another's suffering, and through our compassion, use that strength to help them discover their own, and thus begin the long pilgrimage to wholeness which will alleviate their pain.

It is at this point where we become real healers, and not merely morbid, thrill-seeking voyeuristic spectators. A deep sense of compassion lies at the center of all authentic religious faith -- "Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and love thy neighbor as thyself; Do unto others as you would have others do unto you." William Faulkner once described the human soul as "a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance." Without that spirit, there can be no religious truth -- merely the faith of the bystanders, who watch the world remotely from what they hope is a safe distance, and whose greatest prayer is that they won’t be the next to suffer.

My second criterion is How strongly does this belief truly embody the value of Community?

Community is a very difficult value to practice, mostly, I think, because folks don't really understand what it's actually all about. We think of communities as loving, nurturing places; and we overlook how they got to be that way.

True community is based not so much on love as it is on covenant: on a relationship of mutual and reciprocal obligations and responsibilities to which individuals are held accountable, and out of which authentic love and nurture can eventually grow. Obviously, individuals are loved and nurtured in community, but to the community itself the individual is always secondary -- it is the network of relationship and accountability which is ultimately important.

The real test of authentic community is not how deeply can an individual be loved, but rather how broadly is that love extended, how many people can the network include? How responsible are we willing to be for the lives of other people, and how much authority are we willing to give them over ours? Perhaps more importantly, how will we be held accountable for our behaviors, and by what standards and values will we define what is good, and true?

There are a lot of different possible answers to these questions, but it is the questions which define the parameters of the covenant, and thus define the principles upon which true community can be based.

My third criterion is How closely does this belief conform to the Wisdom of Common Sense?

The problem with common sense, of course, is that it really isn't very common at all, particularly when it comes to the subject of religion. Few other areas of human experience show such capacity to twist the facts to fit the theory, or to throw out the need for a coherent theory altogether, in exchange for an unshakable faith in a few selectively-chosen "facts."

Common sense is merely the rejection of both these two extremes. In religion, as in all of life, the explanation should conform to the reality of the experience, and somehow make sense of it all without contradicting itself or established truth. This is not to say that the explanations need be simple; theology, by its very nature, is an extremely abstract and subtle discipline, speculating, as it does, about the ultimate meaning of things. Common sense merely dictates that while your head may soar as far into the clouds as it likes, your feet had better both be firmly on the ground, walking one step after another humbly with thy God.

This is what it means to be a seeker, to be a pilgrim. Or to put it another way, the "Ground of Being" (such as it is) was here long before you or I came along to chew the fat about what in the world it may all mean, and will continue to be here long after all our words have passed away, and we ourselves have turned to dust. It will quickly prove us out as fools if we stray too far from the path of common sense.

So, Compassion, Community, and Common Sense...

I firmly believe that the truth plainly spoken, like light reflected from the shard of a broken mirror, has the power to drive out falsehood from the shadows of our lives, and lead us safely forward along the road to a more meaningful way of living. Through the depth of our Compassion, through the strength of our Community, and through the Wisdom of our Common Sense, we work together to cultivate a faith which can guide us on our way.

This is the journey which we have undertaken; the path which I first chose when I decided to become a minister, the path which we all share when we meet together to worship in a free church such as this. It's a steep and narrow path at times I know, with many obstacles and pitfalls along the way. But the view from the mountain-top is magnificent (or so I've read), and the valley cool and fertile on the other side.

We all have a long way to go, and really not much time in which to get there.

Choose your baggage wisely; my advice is travel light.

Don't be afraid to meet new people, taste new foods, try new things.

Wear sturdy, comfortable, sensible shoes.

Observe the local customs as best you can, be generous in your gratitude and patient when things don't go quite the way you'd planned, and you will discover that the traveling can be just as pleasant as the destination.

This, as I understand it, is the Meaning of Life.


Are there any questions?

Where are the FUUSER's?

✇ WWUUD?
22 July 2007 at 12:09
By: radicalhapa

I took some time to study what is happening on FUUSE.com the online media community of youth and young adults (Unitarian Universalists).  There is a rich resource of writings, commentary and announcements here stretching back several years now. 

However I noted with some wonder that there seems to be little traffic of late.  There are no new articles, comments, posts in the last 48 hours, although there are several journal entries.  Perhaps more folks are going over to UUCYF.org the Church of the Younger Fellowship (which is approaching 500 members)?  Perhaps this is just a summer anomaly?  Perhaps there is some ceiling to the number of active participants in an online community?

On a related note: At the Youth Ministry Summit in Boston last week, online services and community building were identify as a priority.

Dan Reed Network and Portland Taiko

✇ WWUUD?
22 July 2007 at 10:30
By: radicalhapa

I got a nice kick, something of a spiritual upliftment this morning.  I was looking for old Dan Reed Network music, an old Portland group that was popular here in the 1980’s.  I found their website, and was heartened to see Blake Sakamoto listed as one of their old producers.  I had no idea!  Blake worked with Portland Taiko, the Asian performing arts drumming group I was a part of for five years before going to seminary, on our first CD in 2000.  (Is it wrong to listen to "Devil Town" popularized recently by Bright Eyes on Sunday at the most segregated hour? Listen for yourself.)

Youth and Young Adults: Write a Sermon

✇ WWUUD?
20 July 2007 at 12:11
By: radicalhapa

There are two pieces of advice I’ve been giving out to young folks in the Unitarian Universalist church.  Study a second language, and if you’re in college, major it a second language.  You can still learn all the related science, liberal arts, politics, etc, in the context of another culture’s language.  Second, write a sermon at least once a year.  Sermon writing is one part theological work, that comes from your context and experience.  A healthy task for your spirituality.

Recognizing an Anti-Racism Mentor

✇ WWUUD?
20 July 2007 at 09:46
By: radicalhapa

It was wonderful to see the UUA recognize Leon Spencer at General Assembly 2007 with the Distinguished Service Award.  Christine Murphy, a UUA Faith in Action staffer years ago, connected Leon and I into an mentor relationship that has been a gift for me.  We’ve worked together on visions for anti-racism with youth, multiracial families, and congregations.  I’ve had the privilege of visiting with him in Savannah, not only with the Cross-Cultural Issues in Counseling conference he organizes (with his good friend from CUNY Bill Cross), but in various places around the country where UU People of Color have met.  Congratulations Leon!

The UUA Youth Ministry Summit Wraps Up

✇ WWUUD?
20 July 2007 at 07:31
By: radicalhapa

I’m getting ready to leave Simmons College where the weeklong Youth Summit, the culmination of the 2+ year process entitled the "Consultation on Ministry to and with Youth", is wrapping up.  It has been a week of deep introspection and a lot of listening for me.  Baby Miyka joined me for the week, and got to see some wonderful family friends.

I’ve learned a lot about process, and deepened my understandings of ownership, participation, vision, and culture change.  This is a brief post, I’ll share more later.

"One of the Most Helpful Racial Justice Pieces"

✇ WWUUD?
20 July 2007 at 06:27
By: radicalhapa

Last year I posted a paper entitled "White Supremacy Culture in Non-Profits" by Tema Okun.  I was talking to Rebecca Parker of Starr King who noted that she found it helpful in their countering oppression/Journey Towards Wholeness work.  I have raised this periodically with the groups that I work with, and most recently shared it with Groundwork: UU Youth & Young Adult Anti-Racism Program.  You can check it out here.

New UU Blogger: Tera Little of PSWD

✇ WWUUD?
20 July 2007 at 06:24
By: radicalhapa

Good friend and UUA colleague Tera Little, the Pacific Southwest District Lifespan Consultant, has started a new blog.  "Phil is my hero" she was quoted as saying when the Blog appeared.  Check it out: SourceResource.

A Cool UU World

✇ WWUUD?
19 July 2007 at 09:53
By: radicalhapa

U-Vangelism – sharing and speaking out about Unitarian Universalism.

A Fun Definition of Politics

✇ WWUUD?
19 July 2007 at 09:23
By: radicalhapa

From a friendly UUA Board ofTrustees member:

Politics is Poli, meaning many, and Tics, which are little things that bite you.

Racism Confirmed, How Many More?

✇ WWUUD?
13 July 2007 at 14:14
By: radicalhapa

Seattle Times article about the Washington State Bar investigation of racism in government affairs.  Fabulously witty and ironic caption.  Makes me think, how many more of these need to be published before a new wave of effort and resources are dedicated to anti-racism in this generation?

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TO THE EMERALD CITY AS FAST AS LIGHTNING!

✇ WWUUD?
30 June 2007 at 17:09
By: The Eclectic Cleric


Drove down to Seattle yesterday afternoon to meet PeaceBang and take her to dinner at one of my favorite Seattle restaurants overlooking the Ballard Locks. Unfortunately, it’s been 22 years since I last lived in Seattle, and that restaurant no longer exists (or, more accurately, it is now open only for catered “events”)...so instead we ate at another of my favorite Seattle restaurants overlooking Fisherman’s Terminal, and then went shopping at Archie McPhee’s for new household gods and a Jolly Roger to fly at the masthead of the eight foot El Toro I learned to sail on when I was a kid on Camano Island, and which my eldest nephew has just refurbished, repainted, and will hopefully claim as his own.

Leaving me free to buy a NEW boat, of course....

Not that a native Seattlite of Scandinavian descent really needs an excuse to acquire another boat. I once read somewhere that there are more boats per capita in Seattle than anywhere else in the world...or maybe it was just the United States...but that was a long time ago, and who knows if it was really true anyway. Although it is true that there are only three seasons in Seattle: the Rainy Season (which is also sometimes known as Ski Season), the Boating Season, and Indian Summer. Or perhaps Basketball, Baseball, and Football seasons, if your tastes run more to watching rather than doing (which is relatively rare in Seattle). The Sonics, the Mariners (formerly known as the Pilots, and before that the Rainiers in the old Pacific Coast League), and of course the Washington Huskies...who must now share a season (although thankfully no longer a stadium) with the Seattle Seahawks.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Arrived here in Seattle on Monday (which would have been my mother’s 73rd birthday), and met up with my aunt and my Seattle brother and his family at Safeco Field to watch the Mariners demolish the Red Sox 9-4. This was the first baseball game my aunt had been to since July 27, 1969, when as a 12-year-old I persuaded her to take me to Sick’s Seattle Stadium to see the Pilots play the Red Sox in what turned out to be a 20 inning marathon which the Sox finally won 5-3. I’d asked my aunt to take me to a double-header, but she said that was too much baseball for her and declined...so witnessing one of the longest games in Major League history was apparently both divine retribution and a near-lifetime supply of our national pastime for her. But devotion to her sister took her out to the ballpark one more time, and this time at least there was a more favorable outcome, that is for Seattle fans.

Spent Monday night at my aunt’s home on Capital Hill, and then Tuesday caught the ferry to Vashon Island to visit a friend of mine from the PhD program at the University of Oregon, and to meet her husband and daughter. That night the Mariners beat the Red Sox 8-7 in a back-and-forth slugfest in which the local team drew last blood...or so I read, since I didn’t hear or see any of it. But I did enjoy a fantastic meal, a fantastic view, and a fantastic conversation with a Medieval Historian turned full-time mom and her soon-to-be-retired husband. Can’t really say that I’m jealous of their idyllic island lifestyle, since it couldn’t happen to a nicer family. But I sure do envy them a bit...

Spent Wednesday morning exploring Vashon a little more, then caught the ferry back to West Seattle and listened on the radio as the Mariners got out the brooms and swept the BosSox in a 2-1 extra inning victory, with Ichiro scoring the winning run on a misplayed ball by Manny at the left field wall. So the spirit of my mother was clearly in full force, and the Red Sox slunk back home to Fenway with their tails between their legs. Of course, if anyone (other than Jason Varitek) actually WORE their Red Sox out where people could see them, maybe there would have been a different outcome.

In any event, arrived at the cabin on Camano Island late Wednesday afternoon, and have enjoyed a couple of days here just doing laundry, walking on the beach, and allowing Parker to run free off her leash. My Seattle brother and his family will arrive later today; New York brother and his family are scheduled to arrive late Sunday night. We’ll all spend the Fourth of July here together as we have for so many summers when our mother was still living; her Memorial Service will be at 2 pm Friday July 6th at the Stanwood Senior Center. If you’re in the neighborhood and knew my mom, please drop by. We’d love to see you.

People of Color LDC in New Orleans Day 1-3

✇ WWUUD?
29 June 2007 at 22:03
By: radicalhapa

We’ve finished our 3rd full day here in New Orleans.  It has been a rich, and welcoming experience for the 20 youth and young adults of color from UU congregations across the country.  We’re staying in the volunteer center on the 2nd floor of First UU New Orleans on Jefferson and Claiborne.  It is nicely suited to our group, with two sleeping rooms, a dining/meeting room, and a full kitchen.  There are new showers on the 1st floor.

The LDC (leadership development conference) has focused the first 3 days on experiential learning, visiting Plaquemines Parish where an African American community is rebuilding with UUA/UUSC help after the government abandoned their effort.  We met with Jyaphia and Viola who facilitate the Race, Class and Katrina dialogue mandatory for all groups coming to do service work in the area.  We toured the infamous 9th Ward with Ms. Mary of All Congregations Together, an interfaith social justice organization and saw the massive devastation.  Hundreds of houses totally destroyed.  At this point, most of the debris has been removed, and all that remains for blocks and blocks are empty lots with a foundation or a patio here and there.  It felt like you were in some open field with not a soul around.  To imagine that there were once hundreds of houses lined up and all ages of folks walking around was difficult, and sad.  Friday we worked with Common Ground, a People of Color led organization facilitating rebuilding efforts and volunteer coordination.  The group worked at several sites doing clean-up.  There is still a lot of clean up to do, some volunteer groups have been here five or six times.  Progress is indeed slow.

I’ve learned several things:

The 9th Ward which is predominately People of Color had a 70% home ownership rate, and has been targeted by developers including Donald Trump.  This was one of the last areas the government committed to helping rebuild.

Prevailing wages (i.e. living wages) for skilled labor are still suspended per order of the Bush Administration, and affirmative action requirements have been suspended.

Katrina the Category 5 Hurricane missed New Orleans, Katrina’s wake, a Category 1 storm is what triggered the water surge and massive flooding.  The city has withstood much more powerful storms for years.

The levy which broke (thanks in part to a huge barge that became a battering ram), was rebuilt to the same size and height, and folks are questioning why it isn’t reinforced more significantly.  It is literally a tall cement wall.

We wrap up on Tuesday July 3rd.

My Anti-Oppression/Anti-Racism Analysis (MFC Paper)

✇ WWUUD?
25 June 2007 at 14:39
By: radicalhapa

I identify, live
as, and believe I am seen as an able bodied, American, mixed race adopted
Person of Color (Chinese-Czech ethnic descent), male, heterosexual, middle
class, young adult and highly educated person. I am partnered with an immigrant Filipina with two mixed-race young
children. I have committed passionately
to intergenerational, multiracial community building, and aspire to minister in
this way. My Anti-Oppression,
Anti-Racism and Multicultural analysis originates from my personal experience
particularly as a Person of Color in the dominant White Eurocentric UUA, and
from years of education, relationship building and study.

When I was a child,
I lived in a nearly all-White environment. Race gathered energy in my life as I lived with powerful
internalizations of inferiority. I knew
by first grade that I was adopted and by fourth grade that my racial identity
opened me up to teasing. I experienced
self-loathing, stress and anger from racial encounters with White students and
even friends which were also confusing. I was highly racialized, and as I began to seek out meaning,
particularly in my UU church, I was met with denial and silence.

My early life also
intersects with homophobia and sexism. There was a running dialogue among the young men on the sports teams I
was a part of, denigrating gays and women. Sometimes I would join in their ridicule. This exposure and behavior led me to
stereotype and degrade persons, promoting my superiority. Even as I intellectually began to understand
and reject oppression, in part through realizing my own racial marginalization,
it took relationships, study, and training to counter the accumulation and move
from participatory apathy to moral action. The UU church was instrumental in my reflection and action.

By college I was
deep into anti-oppression theory and practice, and maintained a connection to
the Eugene UU Church as a Welcoming Congregation participant. This was a very significant training for me,
one that demystified Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender matters, and taught me
the value and power of collective church reflection and action. Yet the church provided no place for my
resistance to White supremacy and immersion into People of Color, particularly
Asian descent community. My inquiry
about racial diversity received responses such as “we tried that,” “they’re not
interested,”and “love sees no color”. I
was a believer in the intersections of oppression, and the linkages of identity
politics, and was living this as Co-Director of the newly formed University of
Oregon Multicultural Center. But I
perceived a level of collusion with racial supremacy in UU difficult to
endure. I sought spiritual enlightenment
and mentorship during this time in my life, and for me this included questions
of racial identity.

While Co-Director I
was targeted as a Person of Color. On
April 1st, I was among several dozen Students of Color to receive a
letter from the Administration declaring my financial aid would be eliminated
due to revised affirmative action policies. It was a prank, which happened in the same semester as swastikas being
burnt on our doors and White students urinating off rooftops onto Women of
Color. Our Center organized a press
conference, the police were involved, and attempts to inform the community and
investigate the incidents soon developed. The Administration apologized, and nominally engaged our efforts. Campus security seized several of my planning
notebooks from the Center, speculating that I may have sent the letter. Nothing came of the inquiry, and I never got
my notebooks back, even after submitting written requests.

In this snapshot
experience, I felt the privilege of my positional power, and sanctuary in the
collective of Students of Color. With my
peers, I was able to express my deepest fears and anger in a pastoral setting,
and organize, with allies, to surface these issues in a constructive
manner. I was deeply concerned about my
peers who may not have realized the hoax and could have potentially quit school. 

I realized the
incredible disparity racism perpetuates, particularly economically, and how it
is an ideology that is one of the most resilient in the face of justice
movements. One of racism’s strengths is
the physical segregation and the advocacy of racial superiority still widely
present in the public and private spheres of White American and Canadian
individual and institutional life. Anti-racism and anti-oppression have a special place in my heart and
ministry due to these experiences.

My life today is
grounded in a multiracial, multicultural community. Outside my immediate family, it is my close
peers and mentors who represent the diversity I seek to create. I have made choices about where I live, what
I buy, and who I associate with in order to promote AO/AR/MC principles. I have experience with caucusing, which I
believe is critical in sustaining transformative change. I stay in relationship with the people,
communities and ideas that labor for justice. I have chosen Unitarian Universalism as my faith community first because
of theological affirmation. I remain
passionate about our faith because I believe we have a saving message, a
healing spiritual home, and that our free pulpit is inclusive of the affairs of
People of Color.

My analysis is
inherently dynamic, and I am suspicious of any analysis that is declared
static. Context is fundamental in
oppression. In principle I am committed
to the various analyses of oppression developed by the communities of persons
who experience, reflect and resist oppression. In the UUA this comes from the Women’s Federation, Interweave, DRUUMM
and UUA Accessibilities Committee for example. I strive to know history, and know elders to share in their wisdom from
experience. I am skeptical of individual
analyses as central for social action, and believe in analysis frameworks that
are inclusive of institutional change and power dynamics.

Rigoberta Menchu’s
autobiography touched me deeply and moved me to begin my journey towards
wholeness with her story of familial suffering and resistance. The historical writings of Ronald Takaki and
Howard Zinn revealed holistic stories of communities and movements for
justice. Malcolm X’s biography as told
to Alex Haley opened up the profound internalization and psychological effects
of oppression. Training through Crossroads
Ministry, Asian American Resource Workshop and the UUA have helped develop my
analysis into action. Mentors have
sustained and deepened my action: Leon Spencer, who introduced me to racial
identity development, Josh Pawelek, who modeled institutional accountability,
Danielle DiBona, who shared a pastoral vision, James Fraser who framed the
spirituality of hope, and Marjorie Bowens-Wheatley, who encouraged my
intergenerational activism. 

 I believe justice-making work requires us to
attend to issues of understanding suffering, developing solidarity, and acting
collectively.  I believe that AR/AO/MC
work starts from our experience and profound empathy of the suffering of the
other. I believe religious community
needs to be conscious and vigorous of AO/AR/MC, particularly around issues
present in the local setting. Oppression
has roots in evil, and manifests as evil, yet dwells well masked in our North
American way of life. Evil separates us from wholeness, and seeks to privilege
a fraction of the universe. Evil is
sustained from the parts of humanity that live void of consciousness and
tolerate bigotry. I believe we are a
faith that responds to this evil and the suffering it creates in the world.

I live a ministry
that engages those on the margins, and strives to live the beloved
community. One final example is my work
with Youth and Young Adults of Color in the UUA. I have been focusing on developing leadership
for young People of Color in my volunteer and UUA capacity. This is a primary response to our historic
racial segregation, our outreach goals, and the expressed wishes of People of
Color in UUA. I advocate for People of
Color leadership in the UUA, coming from and in relationship with People of
Color communities, and that we support ministry for these groups. I resist the tokenization of marginalized
persons into leadership. In this
context, I have been organizing annual spiritual retreats for young people,
multiracial families, and the intergenerational community. One of the primary elements of these programs
is encouraging parallel programming for White anti-racist allies, and
facilitating open dialogue in the whole church setting. These have been difficult, incredible, and
frustrating, but I believe critical to our stretching into justice-centered and
holistic cultural change.

I believe AR/AO/MC
is manifested in authentic relationship. In our authenticity, we are accountable and caring. In our accountability, we are reconciled and
restored. In our caring, we nurture our
greatest gift, the power of love. I
believe true community to be intergenerational, multiracial, multicultural
community, and it is these spaces and places I seek to be and minister.

Joy and Pain in Our Identities (MFC Sermon)

✇ WWUUD?
25 June 2007 at 14:37
By: radicalhapa

We’re asked to deliver a short sermon to the UU Ministerial Fellowship Committee.  Here is the manuscript I worked from.

Chalice Lighting

Written by the youth group I
was a part of at West Hills

 

We light this chalice to greet the day,

 to bring love
and friendship,

 to all who come
our way.

 

Prayer 

God,

Walk with me

From brokenness to wholeness

From new encounters to new
understandings

From obedience to
responsibility

From oppression to liberation

From questioning to
compassion

 

May we walk as the Prophet
Micah proclaims, loving mercy, doing justice, and walking humbly with our God.

Walk with me 

Amen.

Text

There is joy and pain in the identities we claim. Identity, our chosen self, is ultimately a
spiritual matter, grounded in our deepest sense of who we are. We live in an age where we are simultaneously
called to be our deepest individualistic self, and called by the thousands of
new configurations of communities organized around specific identities. The political consciousness of the 20th
century mixed with the internet technology of the 21st century have
created an awesome new paradigm where humanity makes, and breaks, the
boundaries of identity with astonishing speed. 

Our churches are filled with people, young and old, who are
in a continuous cycle of exploring the center, out to the borders, of who they
are. Children are coming of age,
wondering about what I like to call “heart
music” – racial identity, sexuality,
gender and sexual orientation, economic and social class, physical ability,
geographic place and cultural relationships. The wonderful animation movie Happy Feet brought this idea to the silver screen earlier this
year, telling the story of the penguins and the evolution of their unique heart
song as part of their life journey. 

The heart symbolizes the essence of our life, and music the
essence of our expression in the world. Heart
music plays from cradle to grave, with traditional and innovative sounds mixing
together to create each sheet of music. I believe we are called to help all souls who come into our midst to
excel at their heart music, and I believe our liberal faith offers people a
religious experience that affirms
and empowers meaningfully a life woven of linked identities.  

Each of us raises, and are confronted with difficult
questions in our lifetime. All of them
inevitably intersect with questions of identity, “Who am I”. For me, these started as a child.

Mother, what does it mean to be adopted?

Father, what does it mean to be mixed race? 

We ask questions to seek knowledge and understanding. We ask questions to name our deepest
passions. We ask questions to be heard,
and to find love and compassion. Our
theological tradition encourages this search for truth and meaning. Revelation is not sealed. Our faith community seeks to be a welcoming,
caring community. But sometimes the
answers we receive have the opposite effect, of fostering ignorance and
indifference.

To my questions, not only from family, but from church and
school, I heard responses such as, “It doesn’t mean anything”, “We don’t talk
about that here”, “That isn’t what is important”. These answers fueled my confusion and sense
of brokenness. I felt pushed away,
ignored in my crisis of identity, indeed in my spiritual crisis. In my church context, it held the implication
that I had to conform. Blind obedience
was not part of my UU religious education!  The contradiction loosened my connection to UU
and almost broke completely if not for the powerful community of peers and a
serendipitous encounter with a minister of color. These persons listened to my pain, invited me
into community, and authentically related to my experience. I rediscovered and redefined my spiritual
home, absorbing the lessons and participating in the ministry of the church
around social justice and personal transformation. Finding space to dialogue, not only about
race, but about the fabric of identity, of understanding how I mattered, and
how I felt marginalized, ministered to my confusion and brokenness. 

Before I started seminary, I engaged my parents in dialogue
about some of these experiences. I
sought to understand why their answers about my questions of identity were like
opening a closed door to another closed door. The truth was, they were hurt at the idea that I believed myself to be
something that they were not, and they were fearful that they didn’t have
either the experience, or the empathy, to walk with me as I explored these
questions. They saw the freedoms and
privileges I had, and grumbled, “isn’t that enough?”

The great 20th century Universalist Clarence
Skinner stated in his seminal essay on the Social Implications of Universalism,
that “the fight for freedom is never won. Inherited liberty is not liberty but tradition. Each generation must win for itself the right
to emancipate itself from its own tyrannies, which are ever unprecedented and
peculiar. Therefore those who have been
reared in freedom, bear a tremendous responsibility to the world to win an ever
larger and more important liberty.” 

While Skinner was looking out at the social fabric of the
wider world, these are wise words to consider for the inner workings of our
family and church. They remind us that
the process of liberation is never a closed book, that the freedom we have
still needs to be redefined and claimed by each generation. The message here in my mind is that identity
is also equally shaped by each generation. Identity is dynamic, never static, to believe it is static is dangerous,
shocking, static electricity comes to mind. 

In my ministry in the

Philippines

I experienced the
collective challenge and opportunity of the search for identity. I observed how for many it was easier, more
profitable, and more secure to assimilate the identity most complacent, most
pleasing to the powers of their old colonial masters. At the same time their search for identity
was also a search for independence, dignity and self-determination. The freedom and tolerance of the UU church
was a place of truth telling and consciousness raising, opening doors to
people’s deepest questions.  

We have great wisdom and power in our hands as Unitarian
Universalists.

We have long been a home to the questioning spirit, and we
have the theology and the tools to be a saving faith for those seeking
understanding and companionship in their exploration of identity.  

Personally I give thanks for those that have walked with me
during my journey and mentored my exploration. Often this started with an affirmation, and with an encouragement to
continue growing in the areas that interested me. My parents, and my church, have slowly joined
me, as I have continued to engage them with purpose and compassion. My hope is that others will learn to take
sincerely and seriously the identity questions of people they encounter, and
may they be grace for them.  

Collectively, our faith does well to teach our principles of
moral living, to share our moral imagination with the world. To be an example of meaningful pluralism and
diversity, and to walk with others on the margins of society. We strive to be radically inclusive. We have set the standard time and again, but
freedom is not won forever, we must foster the effort of liberation in each
generation. Our compassion strengthens
us to be alive to the suffering in the world and in our midst. 

The church lies at the crossroads of history and possibility,
a bank of wisdom of human relations, an intergenerational, multicultural living
tradition.  

In this context, the mission I propose for us is this:

Let us see God’s holiness as wholeness not only of the
universal humanity but of the worth and dignity of each person as they evolve and
explore their heart music of identities; 

Let us make space in our families, schools, and here at
church, to ask the big questions, and recognize that affirmation is the first
step toward understanding; 

Let us welcome grace as it comes, as chance encounter, or
intentional outreach, to open ourselves to new understandings and covenants
together; 

Let us find compassion, as parents, partners, pastors and
parishioners, to bind up the broken in ourselves and in our communities.

May we walk with one another as we explore and live out these
personal and collective ways of life. May we hold each other accountable for relationships of love, spiritual
growth, and social justice.

Thanks be to all. Amen. [End]

Stumptown Sojourn part two

✇ WWUUD?
25 June 2007 at 14:25
By: The Eclectic Cleric
OK, now that I’ve described all the things I DIDN’T do at General Assembly, let me tell you some of the things I DID.

• I did manage to refrain from buying anything at the UUA bookstore, and to stay away from Powells. Ordinarily book shopping is a highlight of my GA experience, but as someone who will be returning to Massachusetts in a few weeks with the challenge of packing up everything that I own and moving it to Maine, more books are the LAST thing I need right now.

• I did spend an afternoon staffing the UU Historical Society booth in the Exhibition Hall, and also attended both UUHS workshops: one by Cindy Tucker about her new book on the Eliot women (which, I’m embarrassed to say, came at kind of an awkward time in the afternoon, and put me right to sleep), and the other by Barbara Coeyman about “Creating Congregational Histories” which was full of good ideas about preserving, interpreting, understanding and honoring our history, and actually helped wake me up. I’m relatively new to the UUHS board, and now that I’m moving down east I’m not sure how effectively I’m going to be able to perform my new duties as treasurer of this venerable organization. But I believe in its mission, and would kinda like to see UUHS become as revitalized as the UU Christian Fellowship became while I was serving on that Board.

• I also attended a handful of other very stimulating workshops: one on UU blogging featuring a panel of my favorite bloggers, one by Peter Henrickson about Church Personnel Management, an extremely thought provoking session by Linda Laskowski of the UU church in Berkeley CA about using Deming-style Process improvement techniques to understand and improve our Newcomers Hospitality and Membership Growth practices, and finally a workshop led by UUA Stewardship Director Wayne Clark about his new book, Beyond Fundraising. These last two workshops in particular generated over a dozen pages of insights, observations and reflections in my diary, and are certainly worthy of entire postings in their own right. But not today.

• I attended the First Unitarian Church of Portland Oregon’s “Breatkthough Congregation” workshop, and also their Sunday morning church service, where I heard Marilyn Sewell preach about climate change. The breakthrough congregation presentation was interesting to me because I was, of course, an arm’s length witness to that entire course of events, so I was very impressed by how accurately and succinctly Associate Minister Tom Disrud (who started his career as a journalist) was able to summarize how an unlikely combination of circumstances came together in a timely manner to create a significant growth window for that congregation, and then the struggles they had afterwards to adjust to those new dynamics, and create the thriving congregation I worshipped with Sunday.

Also enjoyed running into a few of MY old parishioners from Hillsboro who are now attending First Church, and touring the new Buchan Building which has just been completed and is awaiting a few finishing touches over the summer. Melissa Buchan had been the head of the Lay Pastoral Care team the year I worked as the summer minister at First Church, and truly both a fine person and a lovely soul. The new building is a terrific tribute to both her influence and her generous involvement with that congregation in both life and death.

I also had dinner with my former wife to celebrate what would have been our 22nd wedding anniversary, and I even let her pay. After all, she’s the trial lawyer with the (I assume, since it’s been awhile since we’ve filed a joint tax return) six-figure income and the beautiful Craftsman Bungalow just one block from our daughter’s home in Southeast Portland. And to tell the truth, I couldn’t be more proud of her success. She’s certainly worked plenty hard to achieve it.

I do regret not being able to meet up with many of my other Portland friends who were not in church on Sunday or attending the General Assembly. I’m especially disappointed that I wasn’t able to see my former Oregon State University professor Marcus Borg (who lives in Portland, and was leading a seminar at Trinity Episcopal Church with John Dominic Crosson later that same week), or the former president of the start-up Wy’East congregation near Reed College, where we started a campus ministry program that has now helped turn out four UU ministers...including one of the adult advisors! But let’s just face facts. I can’t do everything. And what I did do at GA this year was actually just enough.

Stumptown Sojourn

✇ WWUUD?
23 June 2007 at 15:07
By: The Eclectic Cleric
Don't ask me what I thought of the Opening Banner Parade. Didn't see it. Can't tell you about the Service of the Living Tradition, or the Open Space Technology, or even the Blogger's dinner either... didn't go. GA for me has been about hanging out with family, meeting up with old friends, and helping out with the Historical Society booth in the Exhibtion Hall. I lived for 14 years here in Portland OR, and served (or consulted with) eight different congregations...not including the supply preaching gigs. Did my internship and CPE here in the PNWD too. My first day here I couldn't walk ten feet without running into someone I knew. Sure makes socializing easy for an introvert.

Of course, now that even the hard-core extroverts are starting to hunker down, things are a lot calmer. And I've met my daughter's best friend from High School's toddler and seen their new home, eaten dinner at what my daughter's boyfriend's best friend tells me is the best BBQ place in Portland, and had a long conversation about the future of the Trailblazers (and who they are going to choose with their first round pick in the NBA draft) with a very knowledgable young man I met on the #4 bus heading downtown. Meeting some new UUs too -- including one of my new parishioners from Portland Maine. So no matter how old and familiar GA may seem, there always seem to be a few surprises too.

Early in my career, I used to attend General Assembly every year. I was married at the GA in Atlanta in 1985, received Final Fellowship at the Service of the Living Tradition at the GA in Palm Springs in 1988, and in 1990 drove home here to Portland from the GA in Milwaukee with two teenaged kids and only a Texaco gas card for provisions, after my wife lost her wallet in the airport and cancelled all of our joint credit cards. A legendary road trip which we still talk about today.

Nowadays I don't attend nearly so often. Before this GA, the last one I attended was in Boston four years ago. Was also in Quebec City the year before that, and even attended ministry days in Cleveland the year before that as well, simply to receive my interim ministry training. Split town before the start of the regular Assembly though. And before that? Well, it must have been Spokane. What year did we assemble in Spokane?....

It's nice to be back here in the Pacific Northwest -- the weather has been gorgeous, and I'm amazed by how much the city has changed in just the six years since I last lived here. And I even attended a few useful workshops...which maybe (if I'm inspired) I'll blog about later. But now it's time to get out of the house and back to the Convention Center. GA '07 in PDX is starting to wind down. And I want to be there to enjoy every last minute.

Immigration Rally at City Hall News Video

✇ WWUUD?
22 June 2007 at 01:24
By: radicalhapa

Miyka’ela and I went to City Hall Wednesday morning along with members of UU Groundwork (Youth & Young Adult Anti-Racism Training Program) to show support for Mayor Potter who condemned the Immigrant and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids last week at the North Lombard/North Portland Del Monte factory.  The Oregonian produced a short video clip, you can hear me towards the end.

Oregonian Article: UU Find Ranks Not Universal?

✇ WWUUD?
22 June 2007 at 01:13
By: radicalhapa

The Oregonian (oregonlive.com link) has an article on the intersection of my ministerial fellowship at issue of race and racism.  One clarification – it is I believe the 46th annual General Assembly, and the 10th anniversary of the anti-racism initiative the Journey Towards Wholeness.  Rev. Sinkford, Rev. Mishra, Groundwork members Petra Aldrich and Meggie Dennis are included in the article.

At Least 6 New Portland UU Ministers

✇ WWUUD?
22 June 2007 at 01:08
By: radicalhapa

I was suprised to learn that there were at least a half-dozen of us Unitarian Universalists receiving Preliminary Fellowship at the Service of the Living Tradition Thursday.

I knew of a few already, and very pleased to meet the other folks in the convention center as we robed.  Rev. Cecilia Kingman-Miller who I’ve known for years got us together for a photo.  Hopefully that can get passed along so I can put it online here.  We were over 10% of the new ministers recognized in 2007!  2 of us were People of Color (at least 6 including myself were recognized this year). 

Speaking of People of Color ministers, the 6 of us recognzied this year seems to be a historic high.  My research over the past 25 years shows a few years when 4 were recognized.  Bill Sinkford reported in his President’s report Thursday morning that there were 7 of us.  Hallelujiah!  I’ll be stepping down as organizing convenor of the Seminarians of Color caucus that I helped start three years ago.  We peaked at over 50 last year, seems that we’re around 40 this year. 

Reconnecting with Community

✇ WWUUD?
22 June 2007 at 01:02
By: radicalhapa

When I left for Harvard, I made a quiet promise that I would come back to Portland.

This is my home in so many ways, having grown up here (well, for the first part of my life in Lake Oswego), having gone to college in-state at Willamette, then Lane Community, then the University of Oregon, with some time off doing temp work in Portland and taking a class at PCC Sylvania, and having lived, bought a house, and worked in N/NE Portland since 1997.

Off to Harvard I went, and now I’m back, and am slowly reconnecting with community.  There are the predictable changes, increased traffic, new faces in various organizations I’ve been affiliated with, and new babies and loved ones in the lives of friends and neighbors.  And some things have stayed the same – concerns about gentrification, isolation of People of Color, a predominately White political leadership establishment, and a real struggle to build community across the growing diversity, particularly here in N/NE Portland.

I haven’t made any promises yet to community involvement, although look forward to participating more with my alma mater organization the Coalition for a Livable Future (particularly with their Equity Atlas Project), and the Environmental Justice Action Group (where I used to be on the Board).  Speaking of environmental justice, I’m looking forward to seeing friend Yolanda from the Seattle-based Community Coalition for Environmental Justice who moved to P-town, along with Kevia who is living here again after some time out-of-state and even out-of-country.  It turns out a number of us activist and neighborhood friends are moving back for work (see Western States Center new staff announcement).

It hasn’t been the easiest process to reconnect, the balancing act of parenting, ministry, and community activism have yet to reach a predictable equilibrium.  I’d like to get more involved with the Sabin PTA where our oldest is. 

"When Are You Getting Ordained" they ask/

✇ WWUUD?
22 June 2007 at 00:20
By: radicalhapa

More and more the question "When are you getting ordained", closely followed by "Where are you getting ordained" is asked of me now that I am in fellowshipped as a Unitarian Universalist minister.

On Thursday, June 21st, the summer solstice 2007, in the middle evening, I along with 50 other new UU ministers, received preliminary fellowship from the Unitarian Universalist Association…"cleared for ordination" as we sometimes say.  Now I’m in the stage of dialoguing with my home congregation of West Hills UU Fellowship in Portland Oregon about ordination. 

They have never had a minister come out of the church in their 50 year history (as far as I can tell), and have never ordained a minister.  Thus the process to receive their blessing, and congregational vote to ordain, is going to be a bit more complex and a co-learning experience I believe.  I imagine my ordination being scheduled sometime in the late Fall or Winter 2008.

At this point, I’m living in a day to day mode of continuing to catch up on America and the UUA after being with the UU Church of the Philippines for so long.  Settling back into our home in North Portland, and discerning my future path.  A sojourn this summer would be wonderful, but will probably not be in the stars.  Instead I’m looking forward to a respite in November maybe to Europe to see Aimee’s sister and some other friends of ours in the Western parts.

Changes in UUA Youth Office

✇ WWUUD?
15 June 2007 at 07:41
By: radicalhapa

From Jesse Jaeger, talking about new titles, names of offices, and new people in the office.  Good stuff.  Posted with permission.

Hello
All,

I would like to introduce you all to
some changes in the Youth Office.

New
Position:  First of all, please join us in welcoming Darrick
Jackson.  Darrick is filling the newly created position of Assistant Youth
Ministries Director.  Darrick just graduated from Andover Newton School of
Theology and will be ordained into the Unitarian Universalist ministry this
fall.  He will be taking on more of the day to day management of the Youth
Office including supervising the Youth Ministry Associates.  Darrick will also
be supervising the Office of Youth Ministry while I am on sabbatical this
fall.

New Office
Name:  The Youth Office will soon be the Office of Youth
Ministry.

New Job
Title:    You might have noticed that Darrick has the job
title “Assistant Youth Ministries Director.” My present title is changing to
Youth Ministries Director.  As an Association we have an increased awareness of
our work with youth as a ministry.  These title and name changes (including the
change from Youth Programs Specialist to Youth Ministry Associates) all
underscore this shift in understanding. [Jessica York, the new Youth Programs
Director, oversees youth curriculum development in the Curriculum Office of
Lifespan Faith Development, not the Youth Office. Hope that clears up any
confusion.]

Summary of who
will in the office next year:

Jesse Jaeger: Director of Youth
Ministry (on Sabbatical from September 14th returning January
2nd)

  • Overall management of
    the office.
  • Focus on implementation
    of recommendation from consultation on youth ministry.

Darrick Jackson: Assistant Director
of Youth Ministry

  • Overall management of
    office while Jesse is on sabbatical.
  • Supervision of Youth
    Ministry Associations

Rek Kwawer: Youth Office
Assistant

  • All the same amazing
    things she does right now.

India

McKnight: Youth Ministry Associate
(Starts July 16th)

  • Support for the
    Chrysalis Training Program
  • Support for General
    Assembly Youth Caucus

Sara Eskrich: Youth Ministry
Associate (Starts July 16th)

  • Support for the YRUU
    Leadership
  • Support implantation of
    recommendation from the consultation on youth ministry.

This will be the group that will
carry us through next year as we work to transform how we do youth ministry in
our movement.

Beth Dana and Laura Manning will
be leaving the Youth Office in August.  Keep an eye out for how we will be
honoring the amazing work they have done here.  We will be holding parties later
in the summer

Please let me know if you have any
questions,

Jesse
Jaeger

*******************************************************************

Jesse C.
Jaeger

Youth Ministry
Director

Unitarian Universalist
Association

25 Beacon
St

.

Boston

, Ma
02108

jjaeger@uua.org

www.uua.org/yruu

617-948-4359
(work)

617-367-4798
(fax)

 

UU Just Journey Goes To Chiapas

✇ WWUUD?
12 June 2007 at 23:43
By: radicalhapa

“The situation of the indigenous peoples varies across the continent
but has many points of contact with the Chiapas situation. . . . In
Chiapas, there are not only great social inequities but extreme
poverty, harsh political repression against the people, and no system
of justice whatsoever.”
—Samuel Ruiz, May 10, 1998

Join UUSC and the Colectivos de Apoyo, Solidaridad y Acción (or CASA)
(Support, Solidarity and Action Collectives) for the Indigenous
Rights and Spirituality JustJourney to Chiapas, Mexico. This
JustJourney is an experiential intercultural seminar that examines
the interplay of human rights issues and the call to ministry in the
context of a world of increasing exclusion, oppression, and inequality.

As a participant in the Indigenous Rights and Spirituality
JustJourney, you will engage in face-to-face dialogue with those on
the forefront of the struggle for human rights, many of whom have
been motivated by their faith. You will immerse yourself in the
current situation faced by indigenous peoples in Chiapas by visiting
autonomous indigenous communities, women’s cooperatives, and
nongovernmental organizations.

In Chiapas, you will meet with human rights defenders and advocates
to discuss the current conflict and human rights. You will also meet
with religious leaders to discuss topics such as ecumenism,
indigenous theologies, and the themes of privilege and solidarity.

Some questions that participants will explore are:

# How does the struggle of the indigenous people in Chiapas inform
our understanding of social, economic, and cultural rights?
# How is the call to uphold and advance peace, liberty, and justice
for everyone informed by this experience?
# What role religion/faith plays in the development of an indigenous
peasant movement and social struggle?
# What does it mean to be “in resistance”?

Theological/spiritual reflection and mentorship are an intrinsic part
of this experience. Participants are expected to share what they have
learned and reflected upon with their congregations, schools, and
communities.

Joining this JustJourney as cofacilitators will be Peter Morales,
senior minister, Jefferson Unitarian Church, Golden, Colo., and Colin
Bossen, cofounder of CASA and minister of the UU Fellowship of
Pottstown, Pa.

Cost: $950 per person for seminarians and $1,150 for ministers and
other participants. This includes lodging and most meals, in-country
transportation, interpreting, programming, pre- and post-trip
orientation materials, and contributions to communities. It does not
include airfare to and from Tuxtla Gutierrez, Chiapas, or any
incidentals. Participants are responsible for making travel
arrangements to and from Tuxtla Gutierrez.

Application deadline: June 29, 2007. There are some partial need-
based scholarships available for seminarians. Seminarians may be able
to obtain credit for the experience. Limited space is available, and
priority will be given to seminarians and ministers.

For more information, contact Xenia Barahona at justjourneys@uusc.org
or 800-388-3920. You can also visit the UUSC web-site at http:

If you have any questions please feel free to contact me.

love,

Colin

Colin Bossen
Contract Minister
Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Pottstown
http://www.uupottstown.org
202.276.3579 (cell)

I feel the suffering of millions. And yet, when I look up at the sky,
I somehow feel that everything will change for the better, that this
cruelty too will end, that peace and tranquility will return once
more. — Anne Frank

———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Fred L Hammond <fredlhammond@yahoo.com>
To: Confidential discussions among UU Ministers Association members <uuma-chat@lists.uua.org>
Date: Tue, 12 Jun 2007 19:05:08 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Re: [UUMA-Chat] UUSC Just Journey to Chiapas, August 2-11
Just
wanted to add an enthusiastic plug for this UUSC delegation to Chiapas.
I participated in the Meadville Lombard class that Colin
co-facilitated to Chiapas a few years ago and it was a wonderful and
moving experience.  With the national discussion on immigration bills,
the timing of this event could not be better.  You will gain insights
regarding this justice issue that will aid in your understanding our
neighbors to the south.

  Colin, thank you for keeping these opportunities to increase our informed understanding and compassion on these issues.

  Blessings,
Fred L Hammond
  Still in between but things are in the works… stay tuned.

Colin Bossen <cbossen@mindspring.com> wrote:
  Dear Colleagues:

I wanted to alert you to an exciting UUSC delegation I am co-
facilitating this summer. Here’s an e-flyer:

“The situation of the indigenous peoples varies across the continent
but has many points of contact with the Chiapas situation. . . . In
Chiapas, there are not only great social inequities but extreme
poverty, harsh political repression against the people, and no system
of justice whatsoever.”
—Samuel Ruiz, May 10, 1998

Join UUSC and the Colectivos de Apoyo, Solidaridad y Acción (or CASA)
(Support, Solidarity and Action Collectives) for the Indigenous
Rights and Spirituality JustJourney to Chiapas, Mexico. This
JustJourney is an experiential intercultural seminar that examines
the interplay of human rights issues and the call to ministry in the
context of a world of increasing exclusion, oppression, and inequality.

As a participant in the Indigenous Rights and Spirituality
JustJourney, you will engage in face-to-face dialogue with those on
the forefront of the struggle for human rights, many of whom have
been motivated by their faith. You will immerse yourself in the
current situation faced by indigenous peoples in Chiapas by visiting
autonomous indigenous communities, women’s cooperatives, and
nongovernmental organizations.

In Chiapas, you will meet with human rights defenders and advocates
to discuss the current conflict and human rights. You will also meet
with religious leaders to discuss topics such as ecumenism,
indigenous theologies, and the themes of privilege and solidarity.

Some questions that participants will explore are:

# How does the struggle of the indigenous people in Chiapas inform
our understanding of social, economic, and cultural rights?
# How is the call to uphold and advance peace, liberty, and justice
for everyone informed by this experience?
# What role religion/faith plays in the development of an indigenous
peasant movement and social struggle?
# What does it mean to be “in resistance”?

Theological/spiritual reflection and mentorship are an intrinsic part
of this experience. Participants are expected to share what they have
learned and reflected upon with their congregations, schools, and
communities.

Joining this JustJourney as cofacilitators will be Peter Morales,
senior minister, Jefferson Unitarian Church, Golden, Colo., and Colin
Bossen, cofounder of CASA and minister of the UU Fellowship of
Pottstown, Pa.

Cost: $950 per person for seminarians and $1,150 for ministers and
other participants. This includes lodging and most meals, in-country
transportation, interpreting, programming, pre- and post-trip
orientation materials, and contributions to communities. It does not
include airfare to and from Tuxtla Gutierrez, Chiapas, or any
incidentals. Participants are responsible for making travel
arrangements to and from Tuxtla Gutierrez.

Application deadline: June 29, 2007. There are some partial need-
based scholarships available for seminarians. Seminarians may be able
to obtain credit for the experience. Limited space is available, and
priority will be given to seminarians and ministers.

For more information, contact Xenia Barahona at justjourneys@uusc.org
or 800-388-3920. You can also visit the UUSC web-site at http:

If you have any questions please feel free to contact me.

love,

Colin

Colin Bossen
Contract Minister
Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Pottstown
http://www.uupottstown.org
202.276.3579 (cell)

I feel the suffering of millions. And yet, when I look up at the sky,
I somehow feel that everything will change for the better, that this
cruelty too will end, that peace and tranquility will return once
more. — Anne Frank

Advertisements

Kenyon Farrow is at UUA GA in Portland

✇ WWUUD?
12 June 2007 at 21:06
By: radicalhapa

Letters from Young Activists co-editor Kenyon Farrow will be speaking with Unitarian Universalists in Portland June 23rd!

VoiceMale

✇ WWUUD?
12 June 2007 at 21:02
By: radicalhapa

VoiceMale is a monthly e-newsletter from a UU writer and leader of the UUMen, Neil Chethik who helped co-organize a panel of young men’s experiences with Unitarian Universalism at General Assembly last year in St Louis that I helped organize from my young adult role.

June 2007 VoiceMale Newsletter from Neil
Chethik

Link to articles:

Topic 1: Dumping the
‘Soul Mate’

Topic 2: How to Mark
Father’s Day – When Your Father is Gone

Topic 3: Where do Men
Meet Their Future Wives?

Topic 4: Neil to Appear
on NBC’s "Today" Show on Monday, June 18

Neil Chethik is a speaker, author, and expert
specializing in men and family issues. He is author of FatherLoss: How Sons Deal
With the Deaths of Their Dads (Hyperion 2001) and VoiceMale: What Husbands
Really Think of Their Wives, Their Marriages, Sex, Housework, and Commitment
(Simon & Schuster 2006). Neil is writer-in-residence at the Carnegie Center
for Literacy and Learning in Lexington, Ky. He is married to Kelly Flood and the
father of 13-year-old Evan.

ICE Raids in Portland OR Now

✇ WWUUD?
12 June 2007 at 13:54
By: radicalhapa
There will be a meeting tonight at St. Andrew’s Church at 806 NE Alberta St
in Portland, OR 97211 at 7:30 for the family members of those affected by raids.
ICE has a policy of not going into churches.
 
Please spread the word to family members or close friends.
Siovhan Sheridan-Ayala, Attorney
Catholic Charities Immigration Legal
Services
901 SE Oak St. # 105
Portland, OR 97214
503-542-2855 x 30

Body Image

✇ WWUUD?
11 June 2007 at 14:03
By: The Eclectic Cleric
"Everything I like is either illegal, immoral, or fattening" -- W C Fields

And you don't have to look too long at me to know which way my appetites run. But today I'm wondering about the implicit corollaries: does this mean that skinny people are either criminals, perverts, or just incredibly dull? According to the BMI (Body Mass Index) calculator, I either need to lose 65 lbs or grow a foot taller in order to be considered "normal" -- and even though I'd be perfectly willing to compromise by splitting the difference, I'm afraid I'm pretty much stuck being the height I am (or perhaps even a little shorter) for the rest of my natural life.

The thing is, I don't really see myself as heavy...that is, not unless I inadvertantly catch a glimpse of myself from the side while walking past a picture window. As a kid growing up, and all throughout my twenties, I was not just thin...I was scrawny -- a walking, talking scarecrow of a man whose legs were much longer than his waist was around. No doubt smoking two packs of cigarettes and drinking a dozen cups of coffee a day was a big part of maintaining my boyish figure, but eventually I cleaned up my act, got married, and started eating regular, home-cooked meals...as well as attending lots of church potlucks and coffee hours, wedding receptions, lunch and breakfast meetings, or simply eating food passed to me through the window of my car while driving from one appointment to another. Like a lot of Americans, my lifestyle was good for about 5 pounds a year...which over the years added up to quite a bit around the middle. I came by my weight honestly, in the service of the Lord.

I think the thing that bothers me most is the stereotype that "fat" people are in some way lazy, undisciplined, and psychologically incapable of controling their own appetites. I hate what these stereotypes do to the self-esteem of young women in particular, and the relentless manner in which our society simultaneously entices us to stuff our mouths with all sorts of sickeningly sweet processed food products as though we were feed-lot cattle being fattened for the slaughter, while at the same time bombarding us with images of toned, tanned, well-developed models and the message that we are somehow morally flawed if we fail to measure up to those same standards of appearance. And, of course, there are plenty of products we can buy to help us in THAT task as well.

Of course, as a religious leader, I'm also concerned about the smug sense of sanctimonious spiritual superiority and contempt slender people sometimes exhibit toward the more rotund. Culturally, slim seems to mean disciplined, restrained, self-controlled, while heftier souls are seen as self-indulgent, slothful gluttons. But honestly now, who would you rather YOUR children play with...the happy, smiling (and enlightened) bald guy, or that long-haired emaciated fellow executed between two theives? It's just a simple question. I'm not trying to inspire a crusade or anything.





Anyway, the truth of the matter is that what you eat and the kind of lifestyle you live are much more important to your health and well-being than how much you actually weigh. According to what I've been reading (Mark Hyman, Ultrametabolism: The Simple Plan for Automatic Weight Loss), "starvation" diets and other rapid weight loss schemes tend to be a lot more dangerous than too much weight itself. When you trick your body into thinking that it’s starving, your metabolism actually slows way down, in order to try to keep you alive for as long as possible through hard times. Likewise, as you do lose weight, you tend lose both fat and muscle, while at the same time your body starts to crave all of those horrible high-calorie, high-fat foods it thinks it needs to get you going again in a hurry. So when you do finally give in to your appetite (and you WILL eventually give in...it’s like trying not to breathe), the tendency is to binge, and to gain back rapidly whatever weight you've lost. But the weight comes back almost entirely in the form of fat cells, which burn far fewer calories to sustain themselves than the muscle cells that you've lost, leaving you in even worse shape than before....

SO INSTEAD, TRY THIS....

1. Get regular exercise -- every day. Both strength training to build muscle, and interval training (which involves high exertion followed by periods of rest), in order to increase your metabolic "baseline."

2. Reduce the stress in your life. Practice regular meditation. Learn Tai Chi. Get eight hours of sleep at night, and develop a more reasonable daily schedule.

3. Drink plenty of water. And while you're at it, take a daily multivitamin. Experiment if you like with other nutritional supplements, like vitamin C or Omega 3 fish oils. Make certain your body has all the essential nutrients it needs to metabolize your food efficiently.

4. Eat early and often. Graze, don’t Gorge. Always start the day with a healthy breakfast (fruit, yogurt, granola or oatmeal, a boiled egg). Then try to eat smaller, more frequent meals throughout the day, stopping a few hours before bedtime. But there is a caveat. You can’t just “graze” on whatever high-calorie, processed snack food happens to be within reach. You also need to focus on consuming wholesome, healthy foods:

• lots of colorful fruits and vegetables.
• lots of fiber: whole grains and plants.
• natural Omega 3 fatty acids: wild salmon and free-range eggs.
• lean, quality protein: beans, nuts, fish, organic free-range meat.
• foods with a low glycemic index and slow glycemic loads.
• anti-inflammatory foods (in moderation, of course): chocolate, almonds, red wine.
• detoxifying foods: antioxidants like broccoli and green tea.

And above all, read the labels of processed foods... go for ZERO Transfats! ZERO High Fructose Corn Syrup! And just say no to all that Cake and Candy, the Cookies and Chips. Learn to take pleasure in what you eat, rather than seeing it as either a source of self-indulgence or a source of guilt. And now a few more bullet points to endeth the lesson:

• Vary your workouts: swim, cycle, golf, play basketball!
• Try to walk whenever and wherever you can. And always take the stairs.
• Eat Intentionally: Buy Locally and Organic.
• Eat Spiritually: Semi-vegetarian and low on the food chain.
• Eat Slowly. Savor the food. Savor the experience.
• Stay away from fast food restaurants. NEVER eat in your car.
• And while you're at it, get rid of your TV.
• Buy new clothes you love and which fit you well.
• Read cookbooks without guilt. Learn to love good, healthy, wholesome, homemade food.

In any event, I'm sure inspired by all of this, and I hope that you are too. But I'm certainly not going to crucify myself if I don't see dramatic results right away. I really wrote this all for myself, and am sharing it simply because...well, because I can. And because I hope that maybe someone else will be helped by what I'm learning....

* this post was written in honor and memory of my mother, Betty Jo Jensen, June 25, 1934 - June 3, 2007, who lost 70 lbs in the last year and a half of her life (after being diagnosed with diabetes), only to be killed in a matter of weeks by a very aggressive metastatic breast cancer.

Profound Transitions

✇ WWUUD?
7 June 2007 at 11:53
By: The Eclectic Cleric
And after all, the title of this blog does say "mostly," and I'm sure that once you've read to the end you'll understand the necessity of this mid-year update. Two very important pieces of news in my life: one very good, one very sad....

The good news is that I'm moving...again. This time away from the faux rural environs of Walden Pond "Down East" to the rustic coast of Maine. Not Down East Down East, mind you, but at least as far east as Portland ME on the the beautiful shores of Casco Bay....which is still south of the 45th parallel, and thus not nearly so northerly as its sister city of Portland OR, where I lived for 14 years waiting to get back to Seattle. But two weeks ago now I received a unanimous call from the congregation of the First Parish Church to become their next settled minister, and will be moving around the first of August to begin preaching there the Sunday after Labor Day. So, a very exciting opportunity for me, both personally and professionally. You can read all about my new pulpit at the First Parish Website: www.firstparishportland.org Cell phone and e-mail remain the same. Or you can write to me at the church.



But the sad news is very, very sad. On Mother's Day, following the first Sunday Worship Service of my week-long "audition" in Portland, I went back to my hotel to phone my Mom to wish her a happy holiday and tell her how things were going. But I didn't get an answer, so I simply assumed that she was out having a good time with my brother Kurt and his family, and that I would catch up with her when they got back. About an hour later I received a call from my Dad, who informed me that the reason my Mom wasn't answering the phone was that she was in the hospital, with a very aggressive metastatic recurrance of her breast cancer which had already spread to her spine and her liver. To make a long story short, over a matter of just a few weeks we watched her prognosis go from a few years to a few months to a matter of days...and last Sunday morning at a little after 4 am she passed away. Fortunately, all of her family was able to get to Seattle to say good bye, except for her sister who was treking in India and isn't scheduled to return home until tomorrow. And although this was all very sudden, I also take some comfort in the knowledge that her death was also very peaceful, and happened quickly.

As a minister I've been down this same road with many other families, and in a way I'm grateful for their generosity in inviting me into their lives this way, so that I might be better prepared now that it has happened in my own family. And yet I am also starting to see how one is never really prepared for these major life transitions. My family of origin is very much a matri-lineal, matri-local ethnological unit; my mother was our anchor and her home was our snug harbor, and even though my brothers and I are all fine sailors in our own right, we are already starting to feel a little adrift. Strange also to watch my sister-in-law reluctantly promoted/drafted into the role of matriarch, while I experience that subtle shift of role from first-born male child to unmarried brother-in-law. And yes, family chaplain. And obituary author....

Here are the words I wrote for the local newspaper, before I had the benefit of discovering on her hard drive drafts of a memoir she was working on, similar to the early childhood reminiscences her mother also committed to paper late in life. I'm reading through those now, and thinking about posting them on line. But for now, this is how we would like to remember our Mom.

Betty Jo Jensen, a resident of Camano Island, passed away Sunday June 3, 2007 at the Providence Medical Center in Everett following a brief and sudden illness. She was 72 years old.

Betty Jo was born June 25, 1934 in Ballard Washington, and was the oldest daughter of Nathan Krause and Susan Steele Krause. In 1999 she retired to her cottage on Juniper Beach, following a 22 year career as a medical librarian at Evergreen Hospital in Kirkland, Providence Medical Center in Ballard, and at both Saint Luke's and Saint Joseph's hospitals in Bellingham.

A 1952 graduate of Ballard High School, Betty Jo attended college at Washington State University, where she majored in Home Economics and was a member of Delta Gamma sorority. She worked briefly as an elementary school teacher following her college graduation, and later enrolled as a graduate student at the University of Washington, where she studied textiles and natural dyes. In 1993 she served as chair of the Pacific Northwest Chapter of the American Medical Librarians Association. On occasion she also taught tailoring at the Bellingham Vocational Technical school.

A lifelong avid reader and crafter, in retirement Betty Jo was an active member of the Camano Island Quilters, as well as a participant in several book clubs. She loved to travel, especially to Europe, where she particularly enjoyed attending intergenerational Elderhostel workshops with two of her grandchildren, Michael and Emily. In addition to her interests in quilting, embroidery and other textile arts, Betty Jo was a superb cook of both gourmet cuisine and traditional "comfort" foods, and was especially admired by those lucky enough to enjoy them for her wild blackberry pies.

Betty Jo married her High School sweetheart, Jerry Jensen, on July 30 1955. They divorced in 1980, but remained close friends. Betty Jo is survived by her three sons: Tim, a Unitarian Minister in Portland, Maine; Kurt, an architect employed as a project manager by the University of Washington; and Erik, a New York City investment banker; as well as by her sister, Mary Lou Krause of Seattle; and seven grandchildren.

As a member of the People's Memorial Association, the final disposition of Betty Jo's remains was by cremation. Several small, private memorial receptions are planned for this summer at various locations. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made in Betty Jo's name to the American Cancer Society.

Here's a link to my mom's unpublished memoir, preceeded by readings, homily and principle eulogy from her memorial service:

Betty Jo Remembers

A Tale of Two Monicas

✇ WWUUD?
24 May 2007 at 11:17
By: The Eclectic Cleric


OK, this was just way too obvious to pass up. But honestly, which is the greater scandal -- consensual sexual activity on the job between a married man and an intern half his age (which is, admittedly, pretty scandalous), or systematically attempting to undermine the integrity of the Justice Department by hiring attorneys based principally on their ideological qualifications, and firing others because of their refusal to pursue politically-motivated proscecutions? Personally, I'm much more offended by the pink slips than I was the blue dress...but what really bothers me is my growing numbness to the feeling of outrage. Have I simply stopped paying attention? Or am I just TOO outraged to care anymore?

When I think about how much money was squandered investigating the Clintons -- and indeed, the whole "Clinton-hating" industry, that "vast Right Wing conspiracy" which seemed to live and breathe solely to slander a sitting President -- and then listen to the sanctimonious indignation expressed at Jimmy Carter's recent criticism of the smirking, scowling shortcomings of THIS administration...well, I do feel a little queasiness in the pit of my stomach. When I think about how the Rehnquist Court ruled that a sitting President could legally be deposed in a civil lawsuit because it dealt with activities outside the official scope of his office, while the current administration hides its malfeasance from Congress behind claims of "Executive Privilege," I can still feel a little outrage welling up in my throat. But when I stumble across images like this....



Well, it just makes me nostalgic for the good old days....



"Nobody cares how much you know...

✇ WWUUD?
23 May 2007 at 12:11
By: The Eclectic Cleric
...until they know how much you care." Now there's a fantastic piece of advice for clergy everywhere. And maybe not just clergy either. Here are a few more words of wisdom about being a pastor, compliments of John Esau: "Ten Things I didn't learn in seminary"

When I was fresh out of seminary myself (Harvard, no less), I thought I knew an awful lot about "doing ministry," but I still had an awful lot to learn about "being" a minister. Now, after more than a quarter-century (and half a lifetime) in this line of work, it's hard for me to imagine not being a minister -- or even whether it is possible for me to stop being a minister, whether or not I am actively doing ministry at the moment. And the wisdom represented by these timeless little aphorisms seems so much more important than all the history and theology and even scripture I studied academically as a seminarian. Not that academic knowledge isn't important (and valuable) too. But without this other, it's an external knowing, rather than a knowing of the soul. Or to put it another way, no matter how much book learning we may possess (and trust me, I possess a lot), we all still learn our vocation "on the job" -- and it is only after this baptism by fire that the things we learn from books begin to make sense.

Yes, ministry is a political vocation...and like politics, all ministry is local. Our people want us to succeed, but we will never fully live up to their expectations...or even, quite frankly, our own. And so we need to learn how to get out of our own way, and let the spirit work through us. Because it's not ABOUT us. Ministry will demand everything we have to give it if we let it, and yet it will also fulfill us and renew us in ways that are hard to imagine without having experienced it firsthand. And at the end of the day, there's always tomorrow...and even when we close our own eyes to open them no more, someone will be there to "Salute the Arriving Moment." And that is part of what makes ministry both a privilege and a gift...a vocation to be embraced in humility and gratitude and devotion....

What I Wrote to the Good People at First Parish

✇ WWUUD?
22 May 2007 at 14:04
By: The Eclectic Cleric
Woke up Monday morning in my hotel room at the Eastland, with the sunshine finally streaming through my window after days of gray, drizzly weather. Not that I’m complaining about the rain; after all, I grew up in Seattle, where we invented Starbucks precisely for rainy days just like the ones I experienced here. But even so, the bright morning sunlight really helped me appreciate that a new day was dawning, and that it was time to leap out of bed and enjoy it.

As I said on Sunday at the congregational meeting, I feel both deeply grateful and profoundly delighted about the overwhelming vote inviting me to settle here as your next Parish minister. And I also feel humbled by your confidence in my ministry, and as excited as all of you about the promises and the challenges of the days ahead. It is indeed customary for clergy to accept their call “with God’s help,” and no doubt I will often have occasion to appeal for Divine intervention during my tenure here. But it is really YOUR help that I’m counting on. I truly do love my job, and I like to think that over the years I’ve become reasonably proficient at it. But I couldn’t do it without all of you. Your presence and participation are what make this church possible. You ARE the congregation of the First Parish Church in Portland Maine.

These next few months will be busy ones for me, as I complete my duties in Carlisle, attend the UUA General Assembly in Portland, OR (and visit briefly with my family afterwards), and then return to Massachusetts in order to pack for my move to Portland ME sometime around the 1st of August. In the meantime, I expect to be in fairly regular contact with the lay leadership team here at First Parish, as we prepare for the start of the new program year in September. This is indeed an exciting time. Let’s all enjoy the dawning of our new day!

Just a UU Feeling Horrified at War

✇ WWUUD?
22 May 2007 at 02:06
By: radicalhapa

I’ve got a sickened, callousing, obsessive feeling in my body as I watch the unfolding violence in Lebanon on CNN.  The violence, and the interconnectedness of the international actors including the US make me angry and frustrated.  Sometimes it is all I can do to take one step.  Can’t forget.

48 Hours Of A UUA Staffers Life

✇ WWUUD?
22 May 2007 at 01:28
By: radicalhapa

We celebrated the publication of Amarillo Agua (translated name will be Murky Waters in Spanish) here in Guayaquil until 10pm Monday evening CST, Ecuador.  George Brown, a youth from Texas and GA Youth Caucus leader, Groundwork Member, and DRUUMM YaYA Steering Committee member, among other wonderful things, and I took a hike up to the Faro de Luna – a lighthouse overlooking the inlets around Guayaquil (largest city and commercial port of Ecuador).  Walked back down the 450 steps, and chilled out talking about parents.  I then talked for hours with mi amor, and now will sleep at about 3am CST.

Tuesday I’m getting up at 7am CST, taking a flight to Miami, to Denver, to Portland, arriving at 11pm PST.  Packing, printing, hugging the kids and mi amor, and then sleeping (maybe watch the season finale of Heros??).

Wednesday I’m getting up at 5am PST for a 630am flight to Denver, to San Antonio, and then driving out to U Bar U for the Groundwork Anti-Racism Training Program training of trainers.  May all the movement not pull my roots from the earth!

Finally May 28th I’ll be home with no plans to travel for work until late July, if then.  Back from sabbatical and at times in a higher gear I didn’t know I had.

Finding Our Way Home + Photos from UU Ministers of Color

✇ WWUUD?
21 May 2007 at 09:09
By: radicalhapa

It was really nice to read Qiyamah’s new blog this morning and see photos of so many loving souls, and to see my baby!  I’ve been missing her, and the family terribly this week, away during an intensive 3 weeks of commitments outside Oregon.

The Journey Home

✇ WWUUD?
20 May 2007 at 20:22
By: The Eclectic Cleric
OK, now it REALLY is official. Unanimous vote this morning to call me as the next settled minister of the First Parish Church in Portland, Maine -- only the 20th called and settled minister (I'm told) in the congregation's almost 350 year history. Of course, several of those guys (and yes, they were all guys) served more than a half-century, which has a tendency to skew the curve a little. In any event, I feel both thrilled and honored by the congregation's vote of confidence in my ministry, and also humbled by the tremendous responsibility it represents. It's always a privilege when people freely choose to CALL you their minister. It's a privilege ministers must continue to earn every single day, if we are to be worthy of the honor. Discipline, Integrity, and Fidelity. Essential qualities for a minister. Essential qualities for us all.

Here's the text of today's sermon. Reading was from T.S. Eliot's "Little Gidding."


THE JOURNEY HOME

a sermon preached by the Rev. Dr. Tim W. Jensen
at the First Parish Church of Portland, Maine
Sunday May 20th, 2007


Having struggled through the blizzard and arrived at the station only to discover that the train to Boston had been delayed by snow, three Unitarian Universalist ministers retired to the bar to wait. They waited for an hour, and still no train; then two hours; until finally, after nearly three hours had passed, one of the ministers looked up from their conversation and noticed, not only had the train arrived, but that it was already pulling out of the station! Grabbing up their baggage, the three ministers sprinted for the platform. One was just able to leap aboard; then the train picked up speed, and the other two were left behind.…

A porter had witnessed this entire episode, and as the two remaining ministers passed him on their way back to their table, he called out to them “tough break, missing your train like that.”

“Oh, we’ll be all right,” the oldest and the wisest of the ministers responded. “It’s young Jensen there I’m worried about. He was here to see us off!”

OK, I admit it. Maybe this story didn’t happen exactly the way I just told it. But there’s still more truth to it than you might expect. There’s something about Unitarian Universalists — and about Unitarian Universalist ministers in particular — that makes us loathe to miss the train, or the bus, or the boat, or whatever, even when we have no particularly compelling reason from moving on from where we are. It’s the flip-side of our reputation as a questioning faith — a religion of progress and growth. We also tend to be a trendy faith, restless in our search for the avant garde, a religion of perpetual motion.

During the latter part of the nineteenth century, there was a brief affirmation, written by the Reverend James Freeman Clarke, which was very popular within our movement, and which sums up much of this questing spirit. It affirmed “The Fatherhood of God, the Brotherhood of Man, the Leadership of Jesus, Salvation by Character, and the Progress of Mankind Onward and Upward forever.”

Today the gendered language makes this statement sound archaic and vaguely inappropriate to our more “progressive” ears. But the sentiment it expresses still remains strong. We are one people, accountable to the same ultimate reality, inspired by the great religious teachers of the past, yet at the end of the day personally responsible for our own ethical choices in the quest for spiritual transcendence and its associated “free and responsible search for truth and meaning”…and the journey itself is endless: “onward and upward forever.” We see ourselves as a Religion of Progress, where the Process is more important than the Product. And this is why the habit of running for the train sometimes takes over, even when we’d come along simply to say “farewell.”

The theme of religious quest or spiritual journey is one that appears in most of the world’s great religions. But this notion that life is in some way a “perpetual pilgrimage” is really quite unique. And from time to time one also hears murmuring that, while the trip is fine, it might also me nice to “arrive” every once in awhile — to have a place where we can rest and hang our hats, a place to call our “home.”

I see evidence of this spirit everywhere — from the widespread use of common symbols (such as this flaming chalice) in our worship, to the renewed emphasis on “mission” and “covenant,” and the periodic efforts to rework our “Principles and Purposes” statement, which seems to revive itself every few years.

Some of this, I suspect, is simply a response to Unitarian Universalism’s recent growth and revitalization — the search for something new to replace the sense of homogeneity that had resulted from that old, implicit Unitarian creed of “The Fatherhood of God, the Brotherhood of Man, and the Neighborhood of Boston.” But it is also, I think, a realization that the statement “Unitarian Universalists are people who believe that beliefs must change as circumstances change” makes us sound a little wishy-washy: as though belief itself counts for little, and change is what we truly worship.

There are several related questions at issue here, and I want to take just a moment to unravel them a little, so that we can look at them together in a logical sequence. The first question has to do with the nature of pluralistic religion, in which each individual is essentially free to believe whatever his or her experience inspires them to believe. The second has to do with the idea of “progress” itself: what does it mean to progress “onward and upward forever?” And then finally (at least for this morning) is this notion of religious quest or pilgrimage, and what it is we are actually hoping to find at the conclusion of our journey.

Because of what I do for a living, from time to time I am asked by folks unfamiliar with Unitarian Universalism to explain our religion to them in twenty-five words or less: the so-called “Elevator Speech.” It’s a difficult challenge, as you might imagine, and as I’m sure many of you appreciate from your own experience. I’ve been at it for over a quarter-century now, literally more than half my lifetime; and I’m still not sure that I’m any better at it now than I was when I first started.

Outsiders sometimes simply have a tough time grasping the dynamic nature of it all. “Surely you must know that you believe,” they say. And I answer, “Yes. But what I believe and what others in my church believe are not necessarily one and the same. One of the principal tenets of our religion is that individuals must be free to seek the truth in their own way, without having the beliefs of others forced upon them.”

Usually that’s enough to get your typical Fundamentalists scratching their heads in amazed confusion. But every once in awhile I’ll run across folks who are, themselves, potential Unitarian Universalists. “But if you say that people are free to believe whatever they want,” these budding UUs will ask, “what about someone like Hitler, who sincerely believed that it was OK to murder millions of Jews?”

It’s a legitimate question, this challenging issue of Moral Relativism, one which in many ways represents the Achilles heel of our movement; and so I must explain that, no, Hitler was not a good UU — that the freedom to choose one’s own beliefs does not imply some sort of solipsistic world in which all beliefs are equally valid, and that one of the reasons that Unitarian Universalists meet in congregations such as this one is so that we can validate our beliefs (and the experiences that have informed them) by comparing them to the beliefs and experiences of other, trusted fellow seekers.

Some beliefs, quite frankly, are not as good as others; and the way that Unitarian Universalists have traditionally distinguished between the two is by looking at the results: “By their fruits shall ye know them.” In other words, Religious Pluralism is not the same as Moral Relativism; the freedom to choose one’s own beliefs is not a license to behave as one will.

Unitarian Universalists are not free to believe whatever we want or wish. We are compelled to believe what our reason and our experience tell us to be true. And since no human being is possibly omniscient (that, in the western world, at least, is a quality ordinarily reserved for God), there will naturally be a certain amount of diversity of belief within an undergirding consensus of methodology and value. The statement that human reason and human experience are the ultimate arbiters of religious truth carries with it an unspoken belief about the nature of reality, and of truth itself. And it is from this underlying sense of agreement that our freedom to disagree has its origin.

This brings us, quite naturally, to the question of Progress: how do we differentiate between a good belief and a better belief, or even between a good belief and a bad one? This is not nearly so easy a task as it might sound. Let’s take a relatively simple example.

If you are in business, and you have a gadget that will do a certain job in a certain time at a certain price, and someone brings you a gizmo that will do the same job in less time for half the price, that’s progress. (Unless, of course, you are a gadget manufacturer, in which case maybe its time to start thinking about starting a second career).

If the gizmo will do a better job, or maybe even a second job on top of the first job, but it costs a little more and takes a little longer, that may or may not be progress — it all depends on your particular needs.

And if it doesn’t do the job at all, at any price, then it’s obviously not progress, and if you go ahead and buy the gizmo anyway, you probably won’t be in business very long.

When dealing with issues of religion, however, this process becomes infinitely more complicated. Indeed, just deciding what the “job” is — what you want your religion to do for your life — is often a lifetime task. Most religions provide these answers for the believer — the “job” is to be saved, to gain eternal life. We UUs often speak of the “search for truth” as our great religious task — never specifying what it is we should do with this truth once we find it. Indeed, this is precisely the problem we’ve been looking at this morning — it’s fine to search, but what do we do if we should (God forbid!) actually find something? Are we merely looking for better ways to look? Is there no tangible core to our faith, a “job” that must be done?

It has sometimes been said that the one constant thing we can rely on in life is change. Yet it also often seems as if those who are actually closest to whatever is changing have the hardest time recognizing what is really going on. For example, we’ve all heard the phrase “A prophet is not without honor, except in their own country, and in their own house;” and I suspect most of us know the story behind it as well. At about the age of thirty, (still a relatively young man, even by the standards of his own day, although certainly no longer a kid), Jesus of Nazareth went to the Jordan River to see and hear the famous religious teacher, John the Baptist, who some thought might even be the Messiah, a prophet who would purge the nation of corrupting, foreign influences and create a kingdom in which God and God alone would rule.

And Jesus experienced something there at the River Jordan that profoundly changed his life, and the subsequent history of the world as well. In fact, he found the experience so disturbing that he actually went out into the desert for forty days (or so the tradition tells us) just to think it over. And when he came back and started to tell people about his vision, they listened in great numbers.

What did he say?

You don’t have to wait until everything is perfect in order to start doing what is right. God’s kingdom is all around us: open your eyes and see it. This is good news if you are poor; it means freedom to those who are captive and oppressed. Because this is what God wants us to do — to heal the broken-hearted, and to set at liberty those who have been bruised. This is the year acceptable to the Lord.

But when Jesus got back to Nazareth, his own hometown, the people there were a little more skeptical. “We know this guy,” they said. “Who is he to be telling us all these things? He grew up right here; we’ve all known him since he was a little baby. He’s nothing special. His father didn’t even own his own house, and had to support the family by working for wages as a manual laborer. Show us something more, carpenter’s son, if you truly expect us to believe all these crazy things you’re saying. Solve your own family’s problems before you start telling us how to solve ours.” The message was the same for everyone who heard it. But some folks were just too set in their ways to listen. They were too familiar with this newly-minted prophet; they were unable appreciate how much he himself had changed.

Now admittedly, Change is not always Progress in and of itself. Things can change for the better, and things can change for the worse. Thus, whatever changes we embrace over time regarding what we do or do not believe as the result of our religious quest should, in some way, help us to live better lives. They should help us to understand and deal with our limitations, and with the fact of our own mortality; they should help us to improve our relationships with other human beings, and with the natural world in which we live. Insight, inspiration, understanding are important. But mere knowledge alone is not enough. We also need to be able to live these changes, to put into practice the things that we have learned, in order to transform both ourselves, and the world around us.

For some, this may be as profoundly simple as learning to accept ourselves and the world around us for what we are: the knowledge that we are all going die before achieving even a fraction of our potential, and that the world will somehow survive without us. For others, it may lead to a series of crusades for civil liberties and social reform: a quest for peace and justice. I myself have always felt inspired by the sentiments of the so-called “Serenity” prayer attributed to Reinhold Niebuhr, which I have seen now in so many forms: the courage to change the things I can, the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, and the wisdom to know the difference.

This tension exists at the core of all great religious questions: a tension between accepting the limits imposed upon us by nature, and the indomitable struggle to transcend them. And progress, at least in my current view, is coming to see more precisely just where the line between them lies, and then living one’s life as close to that line as possible.

Wither, then, do we journey? And for what do we search? We search for Wholeness: for that elusive harmony of being that lingers in the boundary between mortality and transcendence. And the end of all our exploring, as the Poet tells us, will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time. Not a place in the sense of somewhere or something we might touch or taste or own; not even a spark or a soul or a supernatural force; but a Spirit: a breeze, a breath, a thing felt but not seen. A whole which is greater than the sum of all its parts, but which cannot be explained in analogy to any one of them.

And the real mystery is that while we cannot fully comprehend this reality, we do share of it — we participate in it. We are a part of the whole, and yet we are whole within ourselves, and in this sense, truly, we have been created in the image of God, and can know God best through a deep knowledge of ourselves.

Perhaps, as Unitarian-Universalists, we are forever destined to be chasing after trains. But it’s nice to think that every once in awhile we are free to sit in the lounge for a few hours longer, to savor a warming apéritif and listen to the blizzard rage around us, to enjoy the company of friends, to wait for the next train, and be a few hours late to Boston. The Journey Home does not always require perpetual motion. At times it’s important just to sit, and wait, and listen....

THE QUEST FOR WHOLENESS (AND THE JOURNEY HOME)

✇ WWUUD?
20 May 2007 at 19:20
By: The Eclectic Cleric
a sermon preached by the Rev. Dr. Tim W. Jensen
at the First Parish Church in Portland, Maine
Sunday May 20th, 2007


Having struggled through the blizzard and arrived at the station only to discover that the train to Boston had been delayed by snow, three Unitarian Universalist ministers retired to the bar to wait. They waited for an hour, and still no train; then two hours; until finally, after nearly three hours had passed, one of the ministers looked up from her drink and noticed, not only had the train arrived, but it was already pulling out of the station! Grabbing up the suitcases, the three ministers dashed for the platform. One was just able to leap aboard; then the train picked up speed, and the other two were left behind.…

A porter had witnessed this entire episode, and as the two remaining ministers passed him on their way back to the bar, he called out to them “tough break, missing your train like that.”

“Oh, we’ll be all right,” the oldest and the wisest of the ministers responded. “It’s young Jensen there I’m worried about. He was here to see us off!”

OK, I admit it. Maybe this story didn’t happen exactly the way I just told it. But there’s still more truth to it than you might expect. There’s something about the nature of Unitarian Universalists — and of Unitarian Universalist ministers in particular — that makes us loathe to miss the train, or the boat, or what have you, even when we have no particularly compelling reason from moving on from where we are. It’s the flip-side of our reputation as a questioning faith — a religious of progress and growth. We also tend to be a trendy faith, restless in our search for the avant garde, a faith of perpetual motion.

During the latter part of the nineteenth century, there was a brief affirmation, written by the Reverend James Freeman Clarke, which was very popular within our movement, and which sums up much of this questing spirit. It affirmed “The Fatherhood of God, the Brotherhood of Man, the Leadership of Jesus, Salvation by Character, and the Progress of Mankind Onward and Upward forever.” Today the gendered language makes this statement sound archaic and vaguely inappropriate to our more “progressive” ears, but the sentiment it expresses still remains strong. We are one people, accountable to the same ultimate reality, inspired by the great religious teachers of the past, yet at the end of the day personally responsible for our own ethical choices in the quest for spiritual transcendence and its related free and responsible search for truth and meaning…and the journey itself is endless: “onward and upward forever.” We see ourselves as a Religion of Progress, where the process is more important than the product. And this is why the habit of running for the train takes over, even when we’d come along simply to say “farewell.”

The concept of a religious quest or journey is one that appears in most of the world’s great religions. But this notion that life is in some way a “perpetual pilgrimage” is really quite unique. And from time to time one also hears murmuring that, while the trip is fine, it might also me nice to “arrive” every once in awhile — to have a place where we can rest and hang our hats, a place to call our “home.” I see evidence of this spirit everywhere — from the widespread use of common symbols, such as this flaming chalice, in our worship, to the emphasis on “mission” and “covenant” and the periodic efforts to rework our “Principles and Purposes” statement, which seems to renew itself every few years. Some of this, I suspect, is simply a response to Unitarian Universalism’s recent growth and revitalization — the search for something new to replace the sense of homogeneity that had resulted from that old, implicit Unitarian creed of “The Fatherhood of God, the Brotherhood of Man, and the Neighborhood of Boston.” But it is also, I think, a realization that the statement “Unitarian Universalists are people who believe that beliefs must change as circumstances change” makes us sound a little wishy-washy: as though belief itself counts for little, and change is what we truly worship.

There are several related questions at issue here, and I want to take just a moment to unravel them a little, so that we can look at them together in a logical sequence. The first question has to do with the nature of pluralistic religion, in which each individual is essentially free to believe whatever his or her experience inspires them to believe. The second has to do with the idea of “progress” itself: what does it mean to progress “onward and upward forever?” And finally (at least for today) is this notion of religious quest or pilgrimage, and what it is we are actually hoping to find at the conclusion of our journey.

Because of what I do for a living, from time to time I am asked by folks unfamiliar with Unitarian Universalism to explain our religion to them in twenty-five words or less. It’s a difficult challenge, as I’m sure many of you can appreciate from your own experience — I’ve been at it for the better part of a quarter-century now, and I’m still not sure that I’m any better at it than I was when I first started. Outsiders sometimes have a tough time grasping the dynamic nature of it all. “Surely you must know that you believe,” they say. And I answer, “Yes. But what I believe and what others in my church believe are not necessarily one and the same. One of the principal tenets of our religion is that individuals must be free to seek the truth in their own way, without having the beliefs of others forced upon them.”

Usually that’s enough to get your typical Fundamentalists scratching their heads in confused amazement. But every once in awhile I’ll run across folks who are, themselves, potential Unitarians. “But if you say that people are free to believe whatever they want,” these budding UUs will ask, “what about someone like Hitler, who sincerely believed that it was OK to murder millions of Jews?” It’s a legitimate question, one which in many ways represents the Achilles heel of our movement; and so I must explain that, no, Hitler was not a good UU — that the freedom to choose one’s own beliefs does not imply a solipsistic world in which all beliefs are equally valid, and that one of the reasons that Unitarian Universalists meet in churches is so that we can verify our beliefs and the experiences that have informed them against the beliefs and experiences of other, fellow seekers. Some beliefs, quite frankly, are not as good as others; and the way that Unitarian Universalists have traditionally distinguished between the two is by looking at the results: “By their fruits shall ye know them.” In other words, Religious Pluralism is not the same as Moral Relativism; the freedom to choose one’s own beliefs is not a license to behave as one will.

Unitarian Universalists are not free to believe whatever we want or wish. We are COMPELLED to believe what our reason and our experience tell us to be true. And since no human being is possibly omniscient (that, in the western world, at least, is a quality ordinarily reserved for God), there will naturally be a certain amount of diversity of belief within an undergirding consensus of methodology and value. The statement that human reason and human experience are the ultimate arbiters of religious truth carries with it an unspoken belief about the nature of reality, and of truth itself. And it is from this underlying sense of agreement that our freedom to disagree has its origin.

This brings us, quite naturally, to the question of Progress: how do we differentiate between a good belief and a better belief, or even between a good belief and a bad belief? This is not nearly so easy a task as it might sound. Let’s take a relatively simple example. If you are in business, and you have a gadget that will do a certain job in a certain time at a certain price, and someone brings you a gizmo that will do the same job in less time for half the price, that’s progress. (Unless, of course, you are a gadget manufacturer, in which case maybe its time to start thinking about applying to Divinity School and beginning a second career). If the gizmo will do a better job, or maybe even a second job on top of the first job, but it costs a little more and takes a little longer, that may or may not be progress — it all depends on your particular needs. And if it doesn’t do the job at all, at any price, then it’s obviously not progress, and if you go ahead and buy the gizmo anyway, you probably won’t be in business very long.

When dealing with issues of religion, however, this process becomes infinitely more complicated. Indeed, just deciding what the “job” is — what you want your religion to do for your life — is often a lifetime task. Most religions provide these answers for the believer — the “job” is to be saved, to gain eternal life. We UUs often speak of the “search for truth” as our great religious task — never specifying what it is we should do with this truth once we find it. Indeed, this is precisely the problem we’ve been looking at this morning — it’s fine to search, but what do we do if we should (God forbid!) actually find something? Are we merely looking for better ways to look? Is there no tangible core to our faith, a “job” that must be done?

It has sometimes been said that the one constant thing we can rely on in life is change. Yet often it seems as if those who are actually closest to whatever is changing have the hardest time recognizing what is really going on. “A prophet is not without honor, except in their own country, and in their own house.” You all know that story, don’t you? At about the age of thirty, still a relatively young man, even by the standards of his own day (although certainly no longer a kid), Jesus of Nazareth went to the Jordan river to see and hear the famous religious teacher, John the Baptist, who some thought might even be the Messiah, a prophet who would purge the nation of corrupting, foreign influences and create a kingdom in which God and God alone would rule.

And he had an experience there at the River Jordan that profoundly changed his life. In fact, he found it so disturbing that he actually went out into the desert for forty days (or so the tradition tells us) just to think it over. And when he came back and started to tell people about his vision, they listened in great numbers. What did he say? You don’t have to wait until everything is perfect in order to start doing what is right. God’s kingdom is all around us: open your eyes and see it. This is good news if you are poor; it means freedom to those who are captive and oppressed. Because this is what God wants us to do — to heal the broken-hearted, and to set at liberty those who have been bruised. This is the year acceptable to the Lord.

But when he got back to Nazareth, his own hometown, the people there were a little more skeptical. “We know this guy,” they said. “Who is he to be telling us all these things? He grew up right here; we’ve all known him since he was a baby. He’s nothing special. His father didn’t even own his own house, and had to support the family by working as a manual laborer. Show us something more, carpenter’s son, if you truly expect us to believe all these crazy things you’re saying. Solve your own family’s problems before you start telling us how to solve ours.” The message was the same for everyone who heard it. But some folks were just too set in their ways to listen. They were too familiar with this newly-minted prophet; they were unable appreciate how much he himself had changed.

Now admittedly, change is not always progress in and of itself. Things can change for the better, and things can change for the worse. Thus, whatever changes we embrace over time regarding what we do or do not believe as the result of our religious quest should, in some way, help us to live better lives. They should help us to understand and deal with our limitations, and with the fact of our own mortality; they should help us to improve our relationships with other human beings, and with the natural world in which we live. Insight, inspiration, understanding are important. But mere knowledge alone is not enough. We also need to be able to live these changes, to put into practice the things that we have learned, in order to transform both ourselves, and the world around us.

For some, this may be as profoundly simple as learning to accept ourselves and the world around us for what we are: the knowledge that we are all going die before achieving even a fraction of our potential, and that the world will somehow survive without us. For others, it may lead us on a series of crusades for civil liberties and social reform: a quest for peace and justice. I myself have always felt inspired by the sentiments of the so-called “Serenity” prayer attributed to Reinhold Niebuhr, which I have seen now in so many forms: the courage to change the things I can, the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, and the wisdom to know the difference. This tension exists at the core of all great religious questions: a tension between accepting the limits imposed upon us by nature, and the indomitable struggle to transcend them. And progress, at least in my current view, is coming to see more precisely where the line between them lies, and then living one’s life as close to that line as possible.

Wither, then, do we journey? And for what do we quest? We quest for Wholeness: for that elusive harmony of being that lingers in the boundary between mortality and transcendence. And the end of all our exploring, as the Poet tells us, will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time. Not in the sense of somewhere or something we might touch or taste or own; not even a spark or a soul or a supernatural force; but a Spirit: a breeze, a breath, a thing felt but not seen. A whole which is greater than the sum of all its parts, but which cannot be explained in analogy to any one of them. And the real mystery is that while we cannot fully comprehend this reality, we do share of it — we participate in it. We are a part of the whole, and yet we are whole within ourselves, and in this sense, truly, we have been created in the image of God, and can know God best through a deep knowledge of ourselves.

Perhaps, as Unitarian-Universalists, we are forever destined to be chasing after trains. But it’s nice to think that every once in awhile we are free to sit in the lounge for a few hours longer, to savor a warming apéritif and listen to the blizzard rage around us, to enjoy the company of friends, to wait for the next train, and be a few hours late to Boston. The Journey Home does not always require perpetual motion. At times it’s important just to sit, and wait, and listen.

Imitation is the Highest Form of Flattery

✇ WWUUD?
20 May 2007 at 10:56
By: radicalhapa

This I learned when I was 14 playing Tenor Sax in the High School Jazz Band.  I was reminded of it today in talking about copy catting Best Practices.

UU Goes to Catholic Liberation Mass

✇ WWUUD?
20 May 2007 at 10:47
By: radicalhapa

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It was packed, overflowing, I estimate over 1,000.  Females and Males participated in the mass leadership, even young girls with the young boys.  It was Catholic, but the message focusing on the empowering and justice centered aspects of a loving God of the poor.  I didn’t understand all of it.

It felt informal, yet out of all the Masses I’ve been to in Ireland, USA, Philippines, Guatemala, Mexico, I sensed the most parishioner attention during the service and the sermon.  The Padre walked down among us, with notes in hand, and preached, and was a great physical presence – lots of looking up at the ceiling, waving of arms, stretching out hands.

Photographs from UUSC Water as a Human Rights Delegation

✇ WWUUD?
18 May 2007 at 21:55
By: radicalhapa

We were joined last night by brother George, and now we are 5.  Our small delegation is collaborating with Mi Cometa, and receiving an incredible amount of media attention as well.  We’ve had 4 newpaper articles, a radio and a television interview.  I had my photo in the paper today from our excursion yesterday out boating and observing the sewage discharge into the tributaries that lead to the delta wetlands surrounding the City of Guayaquil.  It was low tide, and we were able to see the environmental devastation which added a powerfully moving backdrop to the human habitation of poor along the waters edge.  Here are 32 photos taken with brother George’s camera.

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