We’re inviting op-eds, essays, and stories about the #MeToo movement. What does the #MeToo movement mean to you, as a person of faith?

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People of faith are rising up for Roe #RiseUpforRoe, because all people deserve access to safe, affordable reproductive health care, including abortion.

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‘Tis the season for search! And since I am not in search, haven’t been for five years and do not intend to be for the forseeable future, let me spill some tea for those of you dedicated laypeople who are serving on your congregation’s search committees.

I am going to be blunt because that’s my style and because we are in a religious tradition that practices WASP emotional culture, which means that we often communicate in vague or excessively “nice” terms unless we’re outright arguing about something.  It is a communication style that privileges the highly emotionally controlled  and poker faced, and creates subtle power jousting in place of open and forthright conversation. I have always hated it (see Waking Up White By Debby Irving for an engaging personal analysis of white New England emotional culture).

If you don’t know what your team or your congregation’s emotional culture is or how it is informed by your congregation’s ethnic, racial, economic, geographic and historical context, I highly recommend working with Essential Partners, whose Executive Director, the Rev. Parisa Parsa is a UU minister and fantastic facilitator.

When it comes to ministerial search, UUs are pretty thoroughly grounded in 19th century mentality and archetypal consciousness. I know this because I have been studying the evolution of American liberal religious clergy archetype for decades (with particular focus on New England Congregationalist traditions, of which we are part) and I can confidently say that while UUs are catching up to the 21st century in some ways, we are very far behind that in terms of ministerial search and call: both the process and the way we evaluate ministers. We know intellectually that ministers have a very different job now than they did at the end of the 19th century, but our hearts and imaginations are still attached to the expectations of yesteryear.

We want a scholar who can wax eloquent on literature, the Bible, theology, and the latest Bill McKibbon piece. We want a warm pastor who knows everyone and makes a lot of personal visits (even though people are not home these days and if they are, an unscheduled guest is an unwelcome intrusion). We want our minister to attend all leadership meetings, all programs, all social justice actions, community interfaith organizations, and local events we’d like to see them at. We want a fabulous preacher and a creative liturgist. We want a whizbang financial expert and fundraiser. We want someone who is strong but not so strong that they can’t be controlled or managed by disapproval, we want someone visionary but not so much that they move us beyond our comfort zone, someone challenging but not too demanding, and someone spiritual but not too religious.

We want someone who is available 24/7 to respond to “my” e-mails but who faithfully observes their day off to model healthy self-care. Winking face emoji here.

The question, “How many evenings a week do you feel it is wise and fair to expect a minister to be out doing church business, and what do you consider church business” should be at the top of your interview questions. It will generate a crucial conversation, I promise you. I also promise you that this question will not have been part of the congregation’s survey, which asks the congregation what they want, and says not a word about what they intend to do to manage their own expectations or to contribute to the next minister’s effectiveness. Here’s a fun fact: when I was ordained in 1997, we got in touch with people in person and on the phone. Very occasionally, paper note or letter. Today, I respond to messages by phone on three phone lines and voice mail accounts, by e-mail, text message and Facebook messenger. Sometimes by letter. The resulting stress around keeping communications organized is profound and unprecedented in history.

Search Committees and church leaders need to know that ministry has changed radically since Ferguson for most Unitarian Universalist ministers. Please make room to have that conversation. Many of us have been engaged in anti-racism and social justice work and learning for a long time, but community organizing and engagement has become exponentially more intense and demanding since the election of Trump.

If I may make a side rant (and I am going to) I would opine that the Congregational Survey that accompanies the great Ministerial Search is actually a fairly appalling document, as it encourage individualistic, consumeristic notions about what a ministerial search really is and what it should accomplish. It leads each individual person who fills out the survey into a spirit of entitlement: “What would YOU like? What do YOU want to see?” and should be jettisoned in favor of congregational discernment led by leaders or facilitators over a series of community meetings so as to determine the congregation’s vision of ministry, mission and priorities. The outcomes and consensus from these meetings should be shared with the candidates, who then have a far more accurate sense of the job they’d be signing on to do than is provided by a collection of personal, individual opinions.

All that said, my love and respect and gratitude go out to you, Search Committee members! I am of the opinion that you are working way too hard and for far too long on finding your next minister, and that upsets me for you. You are sacrificing endless nights and weekends to a ridiculously overwrought and prolonged process that was designed during an era when ministerial tenures were far longer than they are today, when the church enjoyed a place of prominence in society that it no longer has, and when reasonable expectations for volunteer engagement were completely different than they are now.

I am not sure what the average tenure is for Unitarian Universalist parish ministry but I believe it’s around six to eight years. This means that congregations are responsible around every five or so years for recruiting a Search Committee that will labor for one to two years to settle a minister who serves for only three or four times that long. Something’s gotta give, and I am looking forward to seeing what UUA Settlement Director, the Rev. Keith Kron, and others, figure out.

Dear Search Committees, the internet has changed everything about the way we do search. Much of it is positive development, allowing ministers and lay people to know more about each other, to explore the wider communities each one comes from, and to share materials extremely easily. I think this is a wonderful thing, and I remember with gratitude and fondness how often the Search Committee Chair of my current congregation and I checked in about small details relating to pre-candidating and also larger questions about each other. I was able to ask her questions for the entire committee that she was able to respond to within 24 hours. This rapidity was a help in our discernment process.

And yet the internet has also opened the door to many legitimate questions regarding public ministry, use of social media and published materials on websites. Please leave room in your interview process to explore these topics. Some questions you might consider are:

How do you use social media in your ministry, if at all?

Is there anything about you or by you floating around the internet that you think we should know about?

How do you use the various social media platforms differently (e-mail, blogging, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, etc.), and how do you anticipate using them in your role as the minister of our congregation? How will that be different from your personal use or independent on-line ministry?

Search Committee, you should ask your prospects about their administrative skills and expectations. Will they be expected to keep posted office hours in the church building? Why? Will they be chief of staff or a “kind of” supervisor without the authority to hire and fire employees? Who is currently on the staff, how long have they been there, and are they regularly evaluated? By whom and using what tools?

Staff administration is one of the areas that Search Committees tend not to think about much at all, as it is one of the least known and understood aspects of professional ministry. Congregational surveys generally do not address it, but it is one of the areas of church life that can blow up the fastest and lead to protracted conflict, congregational fracturing and resignation. Ministerial candidates should ask about the staff: who are they, are they members of the church, do they have fan clubs or fiefdoms, are there conflicts with the minister in the past that the candidate should know about.

Dear Search Committee, please do not obsess or experience undue anxiety about the theological orientation of your candidate. If they are grounded in Unitarian Universalist religious life and have served successfully as parish ministers, they know how to minister to a theologically pluralistic congregation. Focus not so much on theology but on talent, excellence of communication skills, strength in writing and delivery, and relationality. Look for depth. Look for someone who is able to speak in passionate, coherent, theologically grounded terms about our movement, the purpose of the church in society at this moment in history and in your local context. Ministers are living beings just as we serve a living tradition. If you parse their old sermons for evidence that they’re “too Christian” or “too humanist” or “too mystical” for your congregation (which probably means for you, personally, be honest), you are doing your search process a disservice. Preachers preach to a specific congregation, not for the general public.  The minister’s former congregation is not yours; the people and the pastoral relationships will be different in every UU setting. It is a general feature of good Unitarian Universalist ministers to find language that ministers to a variety of communities without sacrificing their own integrity.

Dear Search Committee, a minister cannot “grow your congregation.” Only the congregation can do that. If you pose that question to your candidate, I hope the candidate asks you the same question: what is the congregation doing to share its ministry outside its walls, what is the congregation doing within the church to promote fellowship, meeting new people, integrating them into the life of the congregation, creating meaningful relationships, sharing spiritual growth? Some of this happens through programming and through the work of professionals: if I was in search I would want to hear about how, but mostly I would want to hear an honest assessment of the lay people’s ethos of hospitality and evangelism. If it’s lacking, that’s okay. It’s important to know. It’s not unusual and it’s not a crime. But it’s essential that all who love the Church to know that its health and vibrancy and growth is the work of ALL who minister — and that’s everyone, not just the ordained. A new minister should be someone you feel can articulate this in a life-giving and inspirational way, not do it for the church.

Now, I can say this because I serve a blessedly well-endowed congregation and am very well compensated: Unitarian Universalists are notoriously cheap. Despite the Rev. Ralph Mero’s and other concerned advocates for clergy financial stability hard work for many years to address the issue of fair compensation for religious professionals in our Assocation (and that includes religious educators, church staff and musicians), Unitarian Universalists are still too often trying to save a buck to keep their churches open.

This is misguided and unethical. Let me speak some truth to you about the work of ministry: there is no such thing as “2/3” or “3/4 time” ministry. It is a mythical beast, somewhat akin to the Sasquatch or the Loch Ness Monster. Ministry means being available when people need you, and it is therefore impossible to carve out a week with clearly delineated time off and time on.

For example, Fridays are my day off. Is this to mean that I am to ignore all of the responses to phone calls or emails that I sent out on Wednesday that arrive in my inbox on Friday? Of course it can’t mean that, unless I am to expect our church staff and everyone else to cool their heels while I ignore everything for a day. What about the person who is in pain and reaches out? I respond. What about the ministry team that meets on Fridays and needs the minister to attend and support them? Because I am employed full time, with full benefits, vacation time, and an extremely supportive and talented staff, I can swap days off to meet the needs of the congregation and my own schedule. A part time minister has a much harder time accomplishing this, and winds up giving many extra hours of unpaid labor.

I came out of seminary with $70,000 of debt (and that was just for my M.Div.). This is not unusual. The Unitarian Universalist ministerial formation process is extremely expensive and the subsequent paychecks generally not stupendous. Please work faithfully with your candidates to find a fair wage and clear expectations for their work week and year.

If your congregation cannot afford full-time ministry, that is nothing to be ashamed of. It merely means that the laity must be engaged and clear about the scope of their own and the minister’s roles and responsibilites. It means that you must set aside a little bit of extra time on a regular basis to check in with your part time minister about whether or not the “part time” status is real and true, or if they are finding that the work of the church is seeping into their every day in ways that seem to demand response and involvement.

I think that is enough for now, dear Search Committee member and ministers in search. There is much more to say but this will do for a part one of what may become a longer series.

Good luck! Blessings on your work and your discernment!

It was a few years ago at General Assembly that gender-neutral bathrooms started appearing. The year they were officially introduced was my first as an official G.A. chaplain—one of four ministers asked to offer spiritual support at our annual assembly of congregations. As I settled into my office at the beginning of the week, I wondered what concerns, feelings, thoughts, or issues people would bring.

Mostly, it was the bathrooms. There was fear and questions. What would they encounter in a gender neutral bathroom? Would people of different genders be “side by side”? Would urinals be “blocked off”? What was the etiquette? What about the discomfort? What if…? I didn’t have all the answers, but I found the questions revealed much about gender privilege.

It turns out many of us have never had to think about the social discomforts of walking into a bathroom, much less fear of violence based on our identity. However, that week at G.A., I heard from transgender persons the incredible relief of being “in the same boat” with the rest of their beloved community. Finally, we were all a little uncomfortable with the bathrooms—and working together to find a new “normal,” a new way of finding our way toward comfort. The discomfort that transgender people may experience every day in public restrooms, cis-gender persons (those of us whose external gender expression matches our internal understanding of gender or our gender assigned at birth) were feeling too, because our hearts were opening to sharing space in new ways. We all got to figure out what it feels like to live in a world with more equal access for all.

Starting this year, you’ll notice educational material popping up in bathroom stalls and new signage inviting you into the conversation. It’s not the solution, but it’s a start.

What is the big deal about bathrooms these days?  Bathrooms have long been contested social spaces. Over the centuries they have been segregated by race, class, and gender. They have been places where people have experienced violence and systemic oppression. Even at UCE, there have been challenges and confrontations, but as we learn to trust each person to know what bathroom is right for them, we will make UCE an even more inclusive and safe space. Our church has gender-neutral bathrooms for all as well as gender-specific bathrooms, where each individual can choose where they should be. My prayer is that you find a bathroom that works for you, and use it freely in peace!

I want to tell you about Evanston’s Sanctuary Resolution that we will vote on next Sunday at 10:00 a.m.

Last year, after the presidential election, interfaith clergy in Evanston gathered for our monthly luncheon. For years we have talked about how to work together for the common good. The election hit us, as a group, hard. We knew there was hard work ahead.

We asked, “What can we do?” So the Evanston interfaith community “gathered on the side of love” at Fountain Square to commit ourselves to action—to side with, as the Hebrew Scriptures teach, the “orphan, widow, and stranger.” In the Bible, the idea of stranger specifically includes the immigrant, the stranger to your land who brings both discomfort and gifts.

We said that very cold November day we would consider the ideas of sanctuary and solidarity, and at the next clergy lunch up went sign-up sheets for what would become three “Evanston4All” teams: a Faith Resource Team; a Solidarity Response Team; a Uniting Voices Team.

Rev. Eileen has been working with the Evanston4All Solidarity Response Team, which would respond to events like immigration raids or hate-based acts in non-violent ways. I have been co-leading the Faith Resources Team to provide theological grounding, speakers, and liturgy for Evanston faith-based public rallies and solidarity gatherings. Finally, there is our Uniting Voices Team to educate and rebuild through non-violent communication, cooperation, courageous dialogue, and shared action.

Dozens of congregations and community organizations have been participating, learning, and training—and now it is our turn to respond as a leader institution in Evanston. From Evanston4All’s work, the interfaith coalition has written a Community Sanctuary Resolution for us to adopt. A team of lawyers with specializations in immigration law has vetted the language, and the document’s brilliance is that is does not dictate how UCE, or any individual congregation, will be a “sanctuary.” Instead, it offers many choices on ways we can live into our aspirations to comfort and aid the most vulnerable among us in these times. There are far more choices in the document than any one congregation can implement, but that is the point. We must work together.

We held a rally on November 12 to introduce the resolution to the community. You can read about who showed up here.

On December 17th UCE will have a special Sunday of Solidarity. We will begin with a short service at 9:15 where we will sing, reflect on the Christmas message as it relates to our times, and celebrate as always our commitment to justice. At 10:00 we will gather to vote on Evanston’s Sanctuary Community Resolution, which, again, says not what actions we will take (that comes next!) but that we will work with other communities of faith in Evanston to do all we can, in our own ways, as a community of solidarity, strength, and hope. Evanston’s mayor and police chief have both spoken in support of this resolution. I hope that you, too, will vote “yes” on this resolution for which Evanston’s entire interfaith community has worked for a year. It is a gift to our congregation and all our neighbors.

Many years ago I enjoyed keeping a fish tank which I would stare into mindlessly whenever a bad case of writer’s block would hit. My last one was like a little Zen water garden with exotic, slow moving goldfish and delicate plants that invited me into a mesmerizing little 10-gallon world. After an unfortunate tank accident, the goldfish and I parted ways.

I kept the filter and gravel for a long time, and during a slow writing time in seminary I decided to jump back into keeping fish.  at a garage sale I found a tank, so it was off to the fish store where I purchased two fancy goldfish, $2.50 each. Before leaving the store I noticed some tiny frogs which were playfully darting up to the top of a tank for air. The store attendant said the frogs wouldn’t grow much larger than an inch and could live with goldfish, eating whatever food floated to the bottom of the tank. I wanted them.  I had to have them.

At $3,50 each, they were mine!

For the first several weeks the two frogs lived in a tiny conch shell at the bottom of the tank. They always seemed to be hungry, and I called them my hungry ghosts after the Buddhist beings with throats so small they can never be satisfied. By the time the frogs had doubled in size, they started lunging after the goldfish, which I discovered on the Web is a favorite food.

I also discovered  that my new pets were African Clawed Frogs, and like the store attendant said, they live their entire lives, up to 15 years, completely submerged. That’s where truth-in-salesmanship ended. Small? Full grown they would reach the size of a fist. Scavengers? No, completely carnivorous, preferring to gulp down small goldfishes whole. To dissuade them from eating my other pets, I fed them minnows, which they considered appetizers. My goldfish were in a constant state of panic, my peaceful underwater Zen garden now a zone of carnage.

I had a decision to make: goldfish or frogs. I thought about all the personality my frogs had:  Their favorite pose was to float on top of the water, arms outstretched, as if in meditation. They often snuggled next to each other in the little hallowed out log on the bottom of the tank. Other times they swam playfully in long arcs from one end of the tank to the other. When I cleaned the tank they grabbed my fingers and harmlessly nibbled on me. They were actually trying to eat me but I’m bigger than them and they have no teeth. I finally gave the slow swimming fancy fish to a neighbor’s kids, bought some faster swimmers, and settled into the idea that I would own my Clawed African Frogs for a very long time.

A shorter version of this story is to be my “story for all ages” on Sunday, for I’ve always thought of this story as a good illustration for the phrase “you might not get what you want, but you get what you need.” Over the years (many), my frogs did give me much to think about. They opened up spiritual work for me around animal totems. They reminded me on a daily basis of the spiritual trap of unfulfilled hunger and consumption — and the myth of the hungry ghosts. The illustration isn’t perfect, but it does make me think about the difference between what I think I want and the different outcome I often get. My life has many times been blessed in that tension.

People know ministers as busy people, but what our weeks look like is shrouded in some mystery. With so many pulls on our time, attention, and hearts, carefully compartmentalizing tasks is essential to serving you well. Here is what a typical week in ministry looks like.

Monday

My work week begins on Tuesday morning since I take my “Sabbath” on Mondays. I’m careful not to schedule anything on the Sabbath because I’m fitting most of a regular two-day weekend into one day. Sometimes I have to spend Monday reading in preparation for the Sunday service if I know the week is going to be a demanding one, but I keep things on a quiet level.

Tuesday

On Tuesday morning, I usually spend between two and four hours catching up on your e-mail from the weekend, as well as making phone calls. By Tuesday afternoon I’m focused on worship service planning. This includes picking hymns and readings, coordination music or special tech elements, and making sure the time for all ages is squared away. The staff often needs my attention on Tuesday to debrief things that came up on Sunday morning or to ask for assistance with their various goals for the week. I have five “reports,” and I love working with staff to make sure they are supported. Once a month the Chicago-area minister’s Tuesday meeting is scheduled, so on those weeks I usually prepare the order of service on Monday.

A typical week might start like this, plus Sunday.

Wednesday

Wednesday usually sees me meeting with congregants and congregational/community leaders. Pastoral calls come up throughout the week, but if I can, I try to do them Wednesday morning. I often have community meetings as well. I focus on office and administrative work in the afternoons, which includes filing, report writing (generally two or three a month), financial matters, and wrapping up my email backlog.

In a recent study by LifeWay research, ministry-related meetings and electronic correspondence can drive the number of hours a pastor works beyond the median of 55 hours, with 42 percent of pastorals now working 60 or more. 70-80 hour weeks are not uncommon. E-mail and other electronic correspondence eat up between two and six hours a week for half of these pastors surveyed, while 14 percent indicate they spend at least 10 hours a week in electronic correspondence. I would definitely be in the latter group; this is a very communicative congregation, and I’m involved with various activities at the local, regional, and national levels.

Thursday

Thursday is “staff day.” It begins with an Executive Team meeting at 9am followed by a general staff meeting. In the afternoon, I meet with individual staff and our intern to provide weekly supervision as her “teaching pastor.” Thursday afternoon I’m blessed to be able to play trombone for an hour with our three other church trombonists, and then I try and tie up my week so I can focus on the sermon on Friday.

Friday

Friday is my writing day if I’m lucky. According to church consultant Thom Rainer, most pastors spend 10-18 hours a week preparing the Sunday message. The UUA recommends that churches allow ministers to devote 30 percent of their time to the Sunday service, or 15-20 hours. My average, I would say, is 16 hours to research, organize, coordinate, write, and rehearse—so my writing “day” always stretches into Saturday. Friday is also when I write newsletter articles and finish board reports that may be due that evening.

Saturday

Saturday is time to catch-up on email from Friday, more writing, and time for workshops, weddings, memorial services, local events, and congregational social activities. I almost also conduct a service run-through or rehearsal on Saturday afternoon to make sure everything reads the way it should and to check the tech.

You’ll notice I have left out a few things: evening meetings, emergency visits to the hospital, church crises that need immediate attention, social justice events and outreach, and some of the many things we share in our church life. Welcome to a week in the life of your ministers.

And then it’s Sunday once again!

It’s hard not to look at the suffering following Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria plus the earthquakes in Mexico and not have deep empathy for those people suffering. (Indeed, you may be one of them.) As each disaster happened I wondered, “what would I do to prepare?” and drew on my Gulf Coast childhood memories of hurricanes and flooding. The difference is that Washington, D.C. (my home) is likely to get different disasters, and now that I am an adult need to be responsible for myself and my family, and helpful so far as I can to my neighbors. And I need to be a good world-citizen to others not near me who need immediate help.

So, what to do? I’m talking about material preparation, but also spiritual and probably political preparation, the last being what power can be harnessed to overcome political roadblocks. (We’ve seen evidence of this this week.)

I’ve been documenting some plans and identifing some resources. Until then, what are your plans (or habits) for when disasters strike? What tools do you need to prepare? What incentives or encouragments do you need to take steps now?

Feel free to comment as I work through this myself.

The Non-Subscribing Presbyterian Church of Ireland is an interesting church of 4,000 or more souls in Ireland (the island), mostly in Northern Ireland (that part of the United Kingdom) but one that’s hard to get a lot of current information about. I’m sure its status contributes to this: “kindred” to Unitarians (as the formula went a century ago) but distinct from the Unitarians found across the Irish Sea. But some good news today.

Davis Steers, a NSPCI minister and writer, has put together a site about the church’s history and I look forward to reading it.

My UniversalistChristian.net site — one of the places I stash Universalist Christian documents — got infected and so rather trying to clean it, I have completely take it down.

I’m really long past giving my documents sites a collective scrub, so I plan on doing that, with other security updates besides. I’ll appreciate your patience.

Returning to the Service and Hymn Book for the Unitarian League of Lay Centers, I wanted to share my process of understanding it. I think that starts with getting the texts of this hard-to-find book public. A searchable text also makes it easier to annotate, which then gets us closer to understanding how these early twentieth-century Unitarians viewed the liturgy, and from that their religion.

The “services” are really opening sequences, with a pastoral prayer: in a sense an abbreviated morning prayer before the hymn-framed sermon. It’s a familiar format. There are two forms here: the first two services are more elaborate, and for general use. The last three — Righteousness and Peace, A Service of Thanksgiving and a Commemorative Service — outside the sequence of numbered services are more elaborate, perhaps for use on civil holidays … or civil crisis.

The ten numbered services in the middle are an exended responsive reading matched to what might be called a “pastoral prayer.” That is, that kind of page-long, non-topical general prayer so often found in print in that era, and which continues as the most common genre of prayer in Unitarian Universalism (and elsewhere I bet.) A good period Universalist source of this genre, is Charles Hall Leonard’s 1915 Light and Peace and I bet many of my readers will also think of Rauschenbusch’s Prayers of the Social Awakening. My point is this: even without composing new prayers, it would have been easy for a local lay leader to match up extra prayers and extra responsive reading (they were commonly published in their own volumes, too) and club together new opening sequences, even if that meant obliging the members to buy a second book, or using a job printer. An appealing thought that.

Back to our text:

I thought it would be easier to dictate the text — around 9,500 words — into Google Drive and edit it from there, than to try and straighten all the photos of the pages and OCR them. I’ve included links to the page photos, and the “before” and “after” of the text editing below. (When I publish this page, I will not have started on the editing.)

Photos of the first (liturgical) part of the Lay Centers book

Lay Centers book as dictated

Lay Centers book as it be being edited

I’m looking to find liturgical elements in Service and Hymn Book for the Unitarian League of Lay Centers drawn from contemporary Unitarian works — and there were several. I thought it would be helpful to see what family of resources and what influences were in play.

The American Unitarian Association Book of Common Worship (1913) — only responsive readings — begins with, of all things, the late antique hymn of praise, the Te Deum, under the appropriate title “Praise to God.” It’s unusual because it’s hardly the most unitarian of texts, and so I include it here.

We praise thee, O God; we acknowledge thee to be the Lord.
All the earth doth worship thee, the Father everlasting.

To thee all creatures cry aloud, the heavens and all the powers therein;
The vast array of thy creation continually doth worship thee, holy, holy, holy. Lord, God of the universe;

Heaven and earth are full of the majesty of thy glory.
The glorious company of the apostles praise thee;

The goodly fellowship of the prophets praise thee;
The noble army of martyrs praise thee;

The holy church throughout all the world doth acknowledge thee, the Father of an infinite majesty:
The everlasting Light of all that live, Spirit of grace and truth, the Comforter.

Thou art the King of glory, O Lord; thou art the ever blessed God our Father.
When thou lookest upon us in our low estate, thou dost not despise our humble prayer.

Thou settest us free from the bondage of sin, and dost open the kingdom of heaven unto all the faithful.
Thou callest upon us to enter in and to dwell with thee for ever.

We believe that thou art Judge of all the earth.
We therefore pray thee, help thy children, to whom thou hiast revealed the knowledge of thy love;

May we be found faithful in the keeping of thy law.
O Lord, save thy people, and bless thy heritage.

Govern them, and lift them up for ever.
Day by day we magnify thee, and we worship thy name ever, world without end.

Vouchsafe, O Lord, to keep us this day without sin.
O Lord, have mercy upon us, have mercy upon us.

O Lord, let thy mercy lighten upon us, as our trust is in thee.
O Lord, in thee have we trusted; let us never be confounded.

More than three years ago, I wrote about a Unitarian effort about 110 years past for the creation of “lay centers” that in many ways anticipated the post-WWII Fellowship Movement. (This was itself called for ten years prior.)

There’s little said about this episode, and little evidence of it apart from a few articles and a small worship guide. I intended to say more about the book — famous last words — but it is fragile and rare enough that I did not want to subject it to a flatbed scanner.

So I’ll pick up where I left off, and using my phone camera hope to find some efficiencies in bringing the contents of this book to light.

In the meantime, review those past articles:

• A hymnal from Fellowship Movement prehistory (April 3, 2014)
• Inside the Lay Centers service book (April 4, 2014)
• List of hymns in the League of Lay Centers hymnal (April 5, 2014)
• “A Hundred Unitarian Sunday Circles” (1895) (April 6, 2014)

For the next 18 minutes or so I’m going to talk to myself. You’re welcome to listen, of course. You don’t have to leave or anything. I may use second and third person some -- you, they, them -- but I’m really just talking to myself. When I preach I try to do what Emerson suggested good ministers do -- present “life passed through the fire of thought” or in my case, “anxiety and insecurity passed through the fire of thought plus a little Ativan.” Anyway, enough meta, let’s dig in.

Some months ago, Dana and I agreed on a date for me to preach. She then told me the theme for the month was zest---and some part of me groaned. I don't really like the word zest. I'm not sure I trust it. It seems a little false, a little saccharine, a little _much_. You see, I like reserved. I like measured. I like sang froid. Zest strikes me as being entirely too energetic. Zest feels exposed -- I'm sorry, is my zest showing? I'm happy enough to zest a lemon -- but anything else and I draw the line.

Zest comes from the the almost identical French word. They just add an "e" at the end because they're, well, y'know, French. No offense, Maryse. Though that said, they do have this weird thing where the person who gets the most votes becomes president, so make of all that what you will. Anyway, the word derives from cooking---that little bit of lemon or orange peel that we add for flavor. Zest adds flavor to cakes, scones, and, it turns out, lives.

What do we mean when we say someone is living with zest, doing something with zest?

Zest connotes engagement. Zest conveys enjoyment. Zest speaks of enthusiasm.

And isn’t that how many of would say we wish to live. The blessed Saint Henry of the Pond summarized it when he said, “I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life.” We want to live authentically, intentionally, consciously and with a deep passionate engagement. We want a life full of rich, poignant flavors. Who wants a bland life? We want to live, in short, with zest. And yet many of us don’t.

My wife Julia will be the first to say that enthusiasm is not my strong suit. It's something that causes stress in our relationship because Julia is a very enthusiastic person. She does many things with an admirable amount of zest. If she's going to do something she really digs in and gets the dirt under her nails. Julia makes little happy noises and gets messy when she eats. Me, I am quiet and my fingers are pretty much always clean after a meal. Julia will get up and dance even if no one else is dancing. She’ll sing out whenever the spirit moves her. I admire that...and also cringe a bit.

Enthusiasm, zest, takes engagement. It takes commitment. It takes trust. It takes letting go. And I have trouble with all of that. I grew up in a family where there wasn't a lot of room for my feelings or needs. Pretty much all of the emotional energy in the house went into yelling and arguing. Anything left over mostly fueled an impressive amount of seething resentment, anger, and fear. I didn’t grow up in some Dickensian hell, but there wasn't a lot of space for healthy emotion. There was way too much drama between my parents for my feelings to get acknowledged or validated.

And so I learned not to express much. I learned restraint and disengagement. I didn't practice zest because the only thing my family did with zest was hurt each other. I explored Buddhism and even, if I’m honest, misused its teachings to convince myself that lack of feelings was some kind of spiritual progress.

Ultimately zest is hard for me because it implies vulnerability -- you can't fully engage anything worthwhile without putting yourself out there. You can't dance with zest if you're worried that everyone's looking at you. You can't sing with zest if you are worried about being off-key. You can't make love with zest if you're mostly worried about how your thighs jiggle or if your belly's too big. You simply cannot live with zest if you're routinely splitting your mental and emotional energy between doing what you're doing ...and... worrying about what you're doing.

Sometimes we don't live with zest because we've bought into the culture of celebrity and expertise which says if you’re not really good at something, you shouldn’t do it. Kids don’t usually have this problem. Ask a kid to sing or draw a picture and they’ll usually dig in whether they do it “well” or not. My guess is that there are a number of folks in the room who enjoy singing but don't do it with zest because they fear they don't sing well -- and sometimes that fear is justified. But we too often buy into this idea that we have to sound like Beyonce or Lin-Manuel Miranda. If we're going to dance we better look like John Travolta or Ginger Rogers. I frequently hear people say things like, "Oh, I love to paint, but I'm not very good at it." "I want to dance, but I'll just look silly." Well thank the gods you didn’t do what you enjoy, but at least sort of kept your dignity. How many times do we not do things, not for lack of enjoyment, but because we fear we’re not good enough? Simply put, we think too much and experience too little.

Zest implies getting lost in the moment, getting lost in the joy. And here's where I see in myself the need to get on-board with zest. As I get older I see more and more how useless it is trying to manage other people's expectations and experience of me. Being up here, even as used to public speaking as I am, feels a little scary, a little threatening. Am I doing a good job? Will I say anything useful? Is this just all really obvious and trite? Am I going to offend anyone?

But I can't manage your experience of me. I can't tell you how to feel or what to think or determine if you'll get anything out of my words. The only thing I can manage is myself. I can't manage you or Julia and certainly not my eight-year-old Ben. I can't manage other people's attitudes or experiences. I can just manage myself.

But I'd be dishonest if I suggested that it’s easy to let go of everything that holds you back. Those chains aren't so easily broken. And so zest requires not only vulnerability but courage. Anyone who's overcome any fear knows how difficult it can be. So what do we do? One thing is to embrace life's brokenness. Nothing was perfect to begin with: not you, not me, not America, not Sweden, not anything or anyone. Once I remember that everyone feels some kind of crack in their soul -- that everyone is afraid of something, insecure about something, worried about something -- then I can be more gentle with myself and others. I get doctors and nurses bringing cases to the hospital ethics committee complaining how irrational a patient or family is acting. When I talk with the purported crazies, I see people who are fighting for the very base of Maslow’s hierarchy -- just trying to stay alive. We’re asking them to make incredibly high-stakes complex decisions and we’re surprised when they act out. Any animal will lash out when cornered. And I do with these poor people what I’m learning to do with myself -- slow down, really acknowledge how difficult this is, and, above all, be gentle. It’s amazing how far gentleness can go with others and with ourselves.

Our internal voices can be so harsh. My experience as a chaplain and as a person with a trauma background is that we often talk to ourselves in ways we would never tolerate from other people. If I make a mistake, it’s not uncommon for the voice inside to go on a rant about how stupid or lazy I am. I wouldn’t put up with that from someone else. I see this need in the people I counsel, but I often forget to be a bit gentler with myself. Self-compassion is critical. We need to be forgiving of ourselves and lower the stakes a bit.

And the stakes are usually pretty low especially if we remember how little interest anyone else really has in how we live. I think this is one of those lessons we need most when we’re younger, but I still need to recall it. Most people are as self-absorbed as we are. Ask yourself how much you actually pay attention to or remember the foibles and quirks of others and you’ll have a good guide to how little anyone is paying attention to you.

I’ll be 48 this week and I now have the privilege of looking back and seeing how dumb I was for most of the preceding decades. How much I worried what other people thought. How much I tried to fit in. And I have absolutely no doubt that it simply wasn’t worth it. What do we lose by acting with zest? Maybe we protect a few pounds of dignity, but lose of ton of fun.

Because part of living and enjoying life with zest is acknowledging the finite nature of it. We all die -- some way too soon, many unexpectedly, and a few having accomplished everything they wanted to. Some allow awareness of death to inspire them to live more fully. Some, however, let that specter hover over their shoulder for much of their lives.

And that unknown endpoint requires us to live an examined life. And we can start with something most of us have with us right now in our pockets or purses. What is the item in your life which most accurately represents your life priorities? What do you think? It's not your house, or your books, or even your browser history. It's your calendar. Show me your calendar and I will show you what is most important to you.

The simple fact is, any hack minister can get up here and spout platitudes exhorting you to live with more zest. And if the only effect is to create a slight stirring in your soul and a transient feeling of commitment then we've both wasted our time. But when we get down to the proverbial brass tacks, you are the only one who can make these changes. If you look at your calendar, look at your life and don't like what you see, then schedule your life differently. Ideas are great, intentions are lovely, but I am challenging you to actually make a date with zest. What is something you want to do that fills you, that gives your life more flavor? It doesn't have to be a trip around the world or volunteering to do relief work in Syria. It can be taking an art class or scheduling 30 minutes to do some coloring. It can be a walk in the woods or reading a book you never thought you’d enjoy. If you feel like you've been spending your time wrong, take an hour or a day to mourn those choices and then reorient yourself to the present and future and make different choices. Everyone says, "I need to make time for X." I do it too. It's one of the dumbest things we say. No one makes time for anything. You have every drop of time you're ever going to have. The only choice you have is how you spend your time.

Now if you’re a single parent or struggling with serious issues then there may be a period where you’re focusing on survival more than zest--and that is completely understandable. But I encourage you, even in the midst of those incredible demands to find bits of time for a little zest. If for no other reason than to remind yourself of why you’re trying to survive. Everything passes eventually: ulcers and cancer and infidelity and even adolescence I’m told--and as long as you’re living, it’s worth seizing moments here and there to help sustain you.

People know the musical Fiddler on the Roof? It's the story of a Jewish family in 1905 dealing with the anti-Semitic dictates of the Russian government and the huge challenges of a changing culture. One of the more popular songs from the musical is "L'Chaim, To Life." A raucous song that speaks to the need to celebrate even in the midst of challenges and pain -- indeed, this is one of the main themes of the movie. How does one balance the constant "slings and arrows" of life while not succumbing to exhausted sadness? Life is as precarious as a fiddler on the roof. Zest does not imply obliviousness. Ignorance is not zest. It's easy to feel overwhelmed. Many of us feel over-scheduled, under-slept, and being propelled forward at a disturbing rate. And the news these days can simply be exhausting. The vulnerability and courage of zest calls us to stay thoughtfully engaged.

I struggle with this. My job involves bearing witness to an entire catalog of human suffering. And I am one of the many who feel a background level of stress that I never anticipated and that can be directly traced to a Tuesday evening last November. I am living with an existential dread of where my country and planet are going. And I know this congregation is no more politically homogenous than we are spiritually homogenous, and so I am speaking for myself. How do I live with enthusiasm and zest when I fear for my safety, the safety of innocents caught up in a freshly uncovered and seemingly endless supply of hate, and a political system that seems horribly disfigured by money and made dysfunctional by an appeal to the lowest common denominator of our most selfish instincts? I've found myself rather closer to tears these days and more afraid for the future.And here I come back to Jewish culture. Victor Frankl was a Jewish physician and well-known author. He and his family were captured by the Nazis and most of them killed. Viktor survived and went on to live a life of joy, purpose, and meaning even having endured some of the most hellish dehumanizing environments people have ever endured. And he did so, in part, by recognizing that one cannot control the external world. Ultimately we have little control over what happens to us. You can eat vegan, run marathons, and still get cancer or Alzheimer's or be killed by Nazis or terrorists. Tragedy takes no account of love or desire. Frankl saw this and came to understand that the only thing he could control was his response to events, his attitude in any given set of circumstances.

And I am trying to follow his lead and understand that the only thing I can manage is my own attitude, my own response to the events in my life. And ultimately, what is my choice? I can succumb to the worry and stress or I can acknowledge the horror and injustice of a universe that has precious little concern for my own world and still choose life, choose zest. Because I lose much more in the worrying than I gain from preemptive dread and pessimism.

Zest in life is a choice just as it with food. You can choose a lifetime a bland meals and experiences or choose spice. And yeah, you’ll get indigestion every once in a while. There’s a saying about how “I don’t regret the things I have done, I regret the things I haven’t done.” It’s true enough that it’s attributed to a number of people. And generally speaking, I think it is true. I regret more the times I said no, the times I didn’t dance, didn’t sing, didn’t let myself sink into the experience of the moment. It can be hard to add more zest. It’s just like a kid -- they tend to dislike new flavors. But if you can get them to keep trying, just a few bites at a time, they will eventually develop a taste for whatever it is. And we can do the same. We can say yes a bit more. Sing a little louder. Learn a few dance steps. And eventually develop a broader palate, develop a real taste for zest. I hope you’ll open life’s menu and look for some spice.

Thanks, namaste, blessed be, l’chaim.

I was going through notes and files on my computer, and see that I received fellowship with the Unitarian Universalist Association, through its Ministerial Fellowship Committee, twenty years ago two days ago; that is on July 7, 1997.

It’s a nostalgic week for several reasons — some personal — but seeing old classmates report on Facebook their experience of the General Assembly of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and this anniversary are particularly poignant. (I went to Brite Divinity School, a Disciples seminary, and also graduated in 1997.)

Would I do it all over again? Probably, because my happy life would be so much different without it. I met my husband while serving in my last pastorate, so we would have never met without this journey in ministry. My character has been improved in ways I can’t fully express by it, and have many good friends in the ministry without whom my life would be poorer. But those are not the usual reasons for entering and continuing in the ministry, and hardly good ones seen from the outside and all the costs counted. So much of my writing and secular non-profit work is to put flesh on dry bones,

But this is not a complaint or lament, but rather a word of thanks for those I have served with and near, and who have helped me put some context into what ministry means in these fast-moving two decades.

For reasons too long to go into now, I was tracking down threads in the Classic Reform tradition of Reform Jewish liturgics a couple of weeks ago. Suffice it to say that it was in parallel with some of the liturgical developments in Unitarian churches in the late nineteenth century. There were some friendships crossing the divide, or at least cooperative parterships. It’s hard to tell how far or wide without a deep dive.

So, I was reading the Adoration ending sequence from the Sabbath evening service in the Union Prayer Book, in wide use in Reform temples through the early 1970s. This is the Aleinu, for those familiar with the traditional Hebrew name. I thought, “this looks familiar.”

As well it should. Capitalization aside, the first part of the Aleinu was dropped in almost verbatim as the Exhortation — that is, a beginning sequence — of the First Service of the Services of Religion, the services prepended to the 1937 joint Unitarian-Universalist Hymns of the Spirit.

So, it reads:

Let us adore the ever-living God, and render praise unto him who spread out the heavens and established the earth; whose glory is revealed in the heavens above and whose majesty is manifested throughout the earth. He is our God and there is none else; wherefore in awe and wonder we bow the head and magnify the Eternal, the Holy One, the Ever Blest.

That’s the same hymnal that has the Jewish text translated by a Unitarian minister, “Praise to the Living God” as its first hymn.

And if you’ve read this far and are at the UUA General Assembly in New Orleans, you may be interested in Shabbat Worship, presented by Unitarian Universalists for Jewish Awareness on Friday, June 23, 5:00 pm in the Hilton Riverside Windsor Room.

Cross-posted to HymnsoftheSpririt.org

This brief blog post exists to frame the one that will follow in a day or two. It will be a tutorial to use newly-released features in some free software to make print items — I’m thinking orders of service and newsletters — more attractive and professional-looking.

I’ll do this because there’s so little cost (time or materials) difference between something that looks ratty and something we can be proud of, and this tool can make one step closer to pride.

But ratty too often wins. I can’t do anything about over-long announcements or pointless minister’s columns written out of necessity on deadline. Or grammatical errors that appear seemingly out of nowhere. (Actually, I could have, because I have done all of these.) But when a task needs to be done, sometimes the only good thing you can say about it is that “it’s done now.”

As churches have to make do with less money, fewer people and less cachet in the community, this tension between “must do” and “it’s not great” will become more pronounced and painful. Surely, some customs may vanish, perhaps the print newsletter. Others may be helped by outsourcing and automation. (Churches are not immune to this, and volunteer time has value.) And some will be improved by better tools and training to use them.

But the goal is not so much the better appearance, say, for print pieces; but greater pride for those who produce and read them.

A version of this post was originally created as for the June 10 newsletter for the Universalist Christian Initiative.

I don’t think it is a spoiler to state the the film Wonder Woman (link plays audio) has been re-set to take place in World War One, and that is has scenes of wartime fighting. (She’s been around seventy-five years as a heroic Amazon warrior-princess and was introduced in the Second World War.)

I like the film very much, and if you like action films you should see it; it includes themes that I can’t discuss without giving away the plot. It was it in mind that I afterwards started reading John van Schaick’s The Little Corner Never Conquered, an account of the work of the American Red Cross in Belgium in World War One, and immediately thereafter. It’s available at Archive.org here.

The “little corner” refers to that part of northwest Belgium unoccupied by the Germans, west of the Western Front, but though unoccupied was still atacked, creating refugees, and maiming and killing countless numbers of people. Van Schaick (pronounced “van skoik”) was a Universalist minister, and indeed a ministerial predecessor of mine in the Washington parish, known since 1930 as Universalist National Memorial Church. Even now, the parish parlor is named for him, his wife Julia and her parents. But van Schaick was not there in a ministerial role — he took a leave of absence — serving with the American Red Cross; he and Julia and the others were there to help those who could not help themselves, and did so with humility worth emulating. They accepted constraints (still not universally held); they did what was needed by taking the lead and cue from Belgians. They were there to support, not to control. All of this starting a hundred years a few weeks ago…

It’s a thrilling read, but not an adventure story; understatement hides horrors. John repeats Julia’s work as a nurse’s aide — a matter-of-fact list, from a day book? — caring for wounded American soldiers behind the lines:

Took down records of the wounded American soldiers, four papers for each. Collected patients’ letters, took them to censor, who was a wounded officer on top floor. Translated a letter written in Italian into English, so censor could pass on it. Got the passes for the slightly wounded going out. Fed soldiers helpless through wounds in hands or arms, or very ill. Gave out newspapers, fruit, matches, cigarettes and writing paper. Handed out uniforms for men going out for the day and other clothing like socks and underwear. Washed feet. Prepared special soup on alcohol lamp. Bathed very ill men on head and hands with cologne. Put into English lists of surgical appliances and material the French surgeons were asking of the American Red Cross. Attended funerals of the boys who died and was the only woman at the grave of some of them. Got the wreaths for these funerals, tied them with our colors and put them on the casket. Brought back the American flag from the grave. Wrote to families of the dead boys. Prepared little boxes in which boys could keep bullets or pieces of shell taken out of them. Helped an American sergeant entertain his French sweet-heart and her mother who had come to visit him. Telephoned. Sorted, counted and sent out dirty linen. Got men ready to take motor rides. Wrote letters for men. Interpreted for doctors, nurses and patients. Mended clothes. Picked up trash. (p. 52)

How horribly maimed must have the “very ill” been? The thought of Julia Romaine van Schaick’s care, as an stand-in for all those who risked health, safety and life humbles me. She was not there in a religious capacity, but her humanitarian care looks a lot like the soul of ministry to me. Remember them, too, in these centennial years — and remember those who put themselves at risk today in your charitable giving and, if the opportunity opens, with your talents. And remember: stories like these call us to higher service, if we would listen.

Want more? Yesterday I visited the National Postal Museum. A new exhibit on World War One opened. If you can’t make it to Washington, D.C., see highlights on their website.

My Fellow Soldiers: Letters from World War I

There are people who follow directions, and there are those who take a more, shall we say, flexible approach. I am the latter. It’s...

The post Some Assembly Required So Follow The Directions. Or Not. Whatever. appeared first on Christine Organ.

In the PBS show Call the Midwife, it’s usually clear when to call the midwife. Nature is pretty good that way. “You’ll know when to call,” the professionals tell expectant mothers, and they do!

Getting in touch with a minister is very much the same process, when you want us, just call! You’ll know when.

There are so many reasons to call: You or a loved one find themselves suddenly in the hospital, wanting a visit. There is something in your life that has thrown you off balance, and you’d like a listening ear or spiritual support. You’ve experienced a significant loss, or are having an experience you don’t feel you can tell anyone. Maybe you’d like to let the community know what is happening in your life and don’t know how to get it into “Joys and Sorrows.”

Sometimes people don’t call because they think the minister knows, or should know, what is happening, or they hesitate calling because they don’t want to be a bother. First, it’s never a bother. Second, when a community grows to a size like ours, it’s impossible for any one person to track all the individual needs of our church. We are making changes to do better, and in the fall we will have a more robust, and of course secure, database system to tracks calls.

My heart breaks when I learn that someone wanted a call or visit and I didn’t know until it’s too late. Unless you call the church and speak with a staff member, don’t assume that information has been passed along, or that I know how often you’d like to talk or visit. I, or someone on our lay or professional pastoral support team, do try and call when we suspect there is an issue. But it’s true: In a church, ministers are the “first or last to know anything.”

Sometimes there are good reasons members don’t want calls or visits, so I never assume anything. They may be private people, or there may be an overwhelming amount of covenant group support (I hear this a lot, and it’s a good thing), or they prefer quiet to conversation. I never take it personally when people don’t want to see me.

Sometimes things fall through the cracks. I might miss a Facebook post, or a Caring Bridge post winds up in my spam folder. Both of these have happened this year, and connections were missed as a result. Please, if you want a minister or pastoral care team member to call or visit, do let us know.

How? For a response within 24 hours, you can call the church office or my Google voicemail, 773-800-9550, which sends me your message. If you want to call my cell phone for immediate contact, the front office can provide that information to members of the church. A note: I usually have my cell phone in sleep mode after 9pm (which automatically drops calls to voicemail), but if you call twice in three minutes, you get around that feature and can reach me 24 hours a day. I trust you’ll use that feature mindfully. I have had to block one or two folks over the years who’ve repeatedly used that feature to call me about church business at 11pm. Nope. It’s there for when you need it.

Once we’ve made contact, we can arrange for a hospital visit or pastoral counseling in my office. I’m often asked, how does pastoral counseling work? Pastoral counseling is different than therapy or clinical counseling in that ministers don’t diagnose mental health concerns. A minister is trained to listen and be a spiritual guide. Sometimes that means we may be more direct than a therapist when you ask for advice. Sometimes our role is less direct than a therapist when you tell me you just want a listening ear—someone with whom you can share a story. Pastoral counseling is also not on-going. The expectation is that after three or four sessions, a member is ready to move on or be referred to a clinical therapist. During grief work following a trauma or significant loss, care might extend for a longer period—but always with the expectation that the member will be getting “therapy,” if needed, by a mental health professional.

The bottom line is this: If you want a minister to call or visit, just let us know. So … coming this fall to PBS … It’s “Call the Minister!” (Not really…)

In a recent service at First Parish in Concord, I shared this image with the children.  I asked my husband Peter Bowden to draw it after the classic illustration by Christopher Cranch.  “What do you think this drawing is?” I asked the children.  They laughed and cried out, “An alien!” “A monster!”  “A mutant!”

I explained that it is actually an illustration of a spiritual experience.  When we become a “Transparent Eyeball” as Ralph Waldo Emerson described in his famous essay “Nature”, we have a sense of oneness with everything that surrounds us.  When we open our senses to the natural world, we can experience connection with all of creation of which we are a part.

As Emerson wrote in 1836, “Standing on the bare ground, — my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space, — all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God.”

This coloring page is free for you to use as an educational tool or just for fun!

Download:  Transparent Eyeball Coloring Page (PDF)

The idea of the transparent eyeball first appeared in Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay, Nature, published in 1836. This illustration by Peter Bowden is based on a drawing by Christopher Pearse Cranch, ca. 1836-1838.

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Attached media: https://web.archive.org/web/20211108094759/https://amyfreedman.files.wordpress.com/2017/06/emerson_transparent_eyeball_facebookheader.jpg

In brief, the Desert Mothers were third- and fourth-centry acetic, monastic women who took to the Egyptian desert. They, and the Desert Fathers, often developed a reputation as spiritual teachers. Their wisdom continued as an oral tradition and later set down.

Here are two sayings from particulary well-regarded Mother Syncletica:

Do not let yourself be seduced by the delights of the riches of the world, as though they contained something useful on account of vain pleasure. Worldly people esteem the culinary art, but you, through fasting and thanks to cheap food, go beyond their abundance of food. It is written: “He who is sated loathes honey.” (Prov. 27.7) Do not fill yourself with bread and you will not desire wine.’

She also said, ‘Those who have endured the labours and dangers of the sea and then amass material riches, even when they have gained much desire to gain yet more and they consider what they have at present as nothing and reach out for what they have not got. We, who have nothing of that which we desire, wish to acquire everything through the fear of God.

(Apophthegmata Patrum: The Sayings Of The Desert Fathers, Sr. Benedicta translation)

I was telling some friends that I thought the biggest un-talked-about story in Unitarianland is the discussion of Neoliberalism that came up during the Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches early in Holy Week — not the best time for ministers overseas to take note, to be sure.

Andrew Brown, the minister to the Cambridge church, wrote about this at the time (“Neoliberalism’s Destructive Influence Both Inside and Outside the Modern Unitarian Movement, ” April 13,  Caute) and so I would recommend you read that; I’m running down the links he suggests and going to find that George Monbiot book I bought and never got around to reading. (We’ve all done that, right?)

What made me think this was important was the how sungly most of us are within a Neoliberal worldview and how that undercuts our faithfulness; limits our ability to use it effectively where appropriate; and (getting back to the issues that were captivating American Unitarian Universalists this Holy Week) distorts the ways we speak with one another.

I was going to write up this beautiful analysis, but by the time I did that (if I ever did that) the moment would be lost. Instead, I recommend the above article — and that we keep it on our radar.

Later: I’ve already made one fix to a note, and created a pretty hacky PDF of the book — ignore the title page and how the chapters are numbered at the top — by request. Again, better asthetics later.

Download the PDF at http://universalistchristian.org/books/ancient-history/ancient-history.pdf.

I’ve also created an ePub — to download at http://universalistchristian.org/books/ancient-history/ancient-history.epub — and I’d appreciate feedback on its readability.

Two days ago, I mentioned how I was processing the Ancient History of Universalism for the web. I’ve gotten to a good stopping place and would like to share the work with you.

It’s on the site I use for my Universalist Christian Initiative, at http://universalistchristian.org/books/ancient-history/.

A fascinating read, but a slow start so you may want to jump into the middle. Chapter nine is a story of intrigue with a vivid mental picture of what is now the West Bank. I imagine it would have been thrilling to those who would have had no other way to “see” it.

And be sure to dig into the footnotes, which in several places show the progress of scholarship in the generations after Hosea Ballou, II, particularly this note on whether Theodoret was a Universalist and whether Universalism was condemned at the Fifth Ecumenical Council. Other notes, apologies from Ballou, for works he could not afford to buy or borrow to consult leave a twinge, particularly since they can be looked up online in scanned reproduction today.

Like this …

As you may note, it’s a very basic design; the whole book with notes and index (no internal links, I’m afraid) is a mere 162 kb. My goal is to make bulky resources like these easy to download on the fly, with aesthetic improvements later. If you see typos — I couldn’t have gotten them all — send me a note and I’ll make periodic fixes.

Some process notes. I got the messy text from https://archive.org/details/ancienthistoryof1872ball, I edited the text with the Atom editor, in Markdown, and processed it with pandoc. (If you’re comfortable with the command line.)

pandoc -s -S --toc -c basic.css inputtext.md -o output.html

I was inspired by a set of very vulgarly-named and written websites promoting simple web design, the names of which are outside the standards of this blog. Search for the most vulgar words you know, plus “website” and you’ll surely find one, but there’s a competition of imitators. I also consulted Practical Typography’s section on websites for confirmation.

I’ve worked up the outline of a style guide for this book, which I learned years ago helps maintain consistancy and easy for modern readers. I really should type that up.

I’ve been writing a blog since 2003, and this is post #4,000. I saw this coming and thought it deserved a little something extra.

Earlier this week I was speaking with a friend and colleague about Universalism and Eastern Orthodoxy, and recalled to him Hosea Ballou II’s 1828 Ancient History of Universalism, which traced the doctrine from the period from the end of the writing of the New Testament to thhe Fifth Ecumenical Council, particularly in the East. Among other things, the work positions Universalism within the entirety of Christian history and not as an innovation then a scant two or three generations old. And given the role Hosea Ballou II played within the denomination, his influence would have been important in his lifetime. I thought to read it, and knowing from my early (1990s) transcription projects that the best way to read one of these old works — and retain any memory of it — is to edit it for web publication, and that’s what I am doing to celebrate post #4,000.

It’s not the first edition nor the second, but the 1872 edition, with added notes. I’m about half-way through, and will post it online as a web page and intend to create an epub edition, suitable for most book readers. (If you want a print reproduction copy of the first edition, get one here.)

And what value is it today? Among other things, to see how a leading and influential Universalist saw his faith and contrasted with others (allegory is silly; reason, good) and to have handy access to those texts (including biblical texts) that early Universalists used to support the faith. And perhaps past both of these, to enjoy a grand piece of period scholarship and to inspire new studies; I’ve since ordered a modern history of Origen to take me where HB2 couldn’t.

I’ll post afresh when and where the files go up.

No sooner did I beg off following news from the UUA Board than a couple of people kindly noted news in the Board packet for the meeting this weekend. There was — with a gigantic and startling packet of recent Board correpondence — the news, that the First Universalist Society, Hiram, Maine had “dissolved.” (I prefer the term “disbands” as it seems less like it was dropped in a barrel of acid.)

The Hiram church was not large. In my copy of the 2001 UUA directory, it reported four members. Even in 1878 (a quick look at the registers online) only show 28 families in the parish. The inland town has also never been large, and while in a beautiful setting that doesn’t mean that any church could keep residents, or attract ministers. Its existance, in any form, was its accomplishment.

It was listed as federated. I don’t know what it’s federation partners were, but if they continue I hope they have long years of ministry ahead. (Perhaps this community church, converted last year to a cultural center?) If not, I hope the people of Hiram find and create ministry where they can.

A friend asked if the church in the header was Universalist. Indeed it is, or was. That is Universalist Meeting House, Hingham, Massachusetts. The image, now in the public domain, was extracted and hosted a Flickr.

This is the original source, The History of the Town of Hingham, Massachusetts.

Phoebe Hanaford was one of its pastors. The church disbanded in 1929 — so many disbanded in that decade — and the building, which still stands, has been converted to a private house.  Its papers are in the Unitarian Universalist archive at Harvard-Andover Library.

A couple of centuries ago, had I been a General Baptist — a group later folded with the Unitarians — I might be at the annual conference, held in London each Easter Monday. This Easter Monday I want to revisit my relationship with the Unitarian Universalist Association. You may see your experience in my words.

First, I’m not storming off in a huff, but hasn’t this last week been a challenge? Or is that the last year? Last decade? But there is this malaise, and it’s only improved by not thinking about the UUA.

In fact, not being in a pastorate since 2003, I’ve had little functional connection to the central institutions of the UUA, but had thought it better to stay as engaged as possible. I felt that was my responsibility. Even now I have some forms on my desk to fill out. So I follow the programs, read the Board minutes, stay informed and attend General Assembly when possible. But even though there aren’t fewer words, there’s less to read. Theological conversations? Engaging with counterparts overseas? A new hymnal? (New churches for that matter?) I look at the work of the UUA that appealed to me twenty years ago, and see less every year. Much of what continues has been sourced outside the UUA (or dropped), and with unseating of the independent affiliates (and the undermining of the Commission on Appraisal) that “outside” is also sidelined. GA workshops, save the UUCF communion service, are worthless to me. (Lunch is always an option.)  If I seem farther away from the center, maybe it’s because the scope of the UUA has shrunk, and I’ve spoken to others who feel the same way.

Instead, so much of the work of the UUA seems invested in maintaining the UUA itself. And the language of “your UUA” and “our saving faith” (definition forthcoming) seems to replace program with identity. But as Universalist Christian, that’s a non-starter. I could use programs, but the majority identity, itself under stress from demographic changes that all the old mainline churches face, actually makes it harder to make a claim a place in a theological federation.

So, what’s left that mostly works? Ministerial credentialing, the retirement plan, and (for those in search) settlement. I read the UUWorld, and I really like Elaine McArdle‘s writing. If everything else magically vanished, I might notice, but might not care. (Others will have other lists, of course.)  If the other work is meaningful, it would find a new home anyway.

There are, of course, friends and colleagues who do good work, and I want to support them; I can do this directly. There’s a vacuum (vacUUm?) that will needed to be filled. But there’s no reason I should examine UUA membership data if it’s clear from the outset that the outcome is “smaller.” If the UUA does not make communal religious life easier and richer, then others will find a way to do it better. Maybe the next president — I have no opinion about who that should be — will improve things, and if that happens I hope someone will tell me. In the meantime, I will focus on the innovators, the activity at the fringes, co-workers in the ecumenical world and my personal friends. I don’t have time to worry about the UUA, and so that’ll be the last I have to say on the subject.

A couple of weeks ago, I found the online archive of the Unitarian Universalist Church, in Muncie, Indiana, and found the summary order of service from April 18, 1954: Easter Sunday.

Here it is:

This was First Universalist Church, as it was know then, and just renamed from St. John’s Universalist Church. Let’s decode the service.

The “tell” is from the first line. The service is the Easter service from Services of Religion, prepended to the “red hymnal,” The Hymns of the Spirit.

This makes the hymns (483) “Fairest Lord Jesus” and (192) Charles Wesley’s famous “Christ the Lord Is Risen Today.” The doxology (500) begins “Praise God the love we all may share.”

Responsive Reading 72, entitled “Easter,” is mainly drawn from the third and fourth chapter apocryphal Wisdom of Solomon (the citations in the index should read verses 1-9, not verse 19; it’s a mix of KJV and RV, with some heavy edits) and reads:

The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God,
And there shall no torment touch them.

In the sight of the unwise they seemed to die,
And their departure is taken for misery,
And their going from us to be utter destruction:

But they are in peace: and their hope full of immortality.
And having borne a little chastening, they shall receive great good:

For God proved them, and found them worthy for himself.

And in the time of their visitation they shall shine forth,
And the Lord shall reign over them for ever.

The faithful shall abide with him in love:
Because grace and mercy are to his chosen.

For in the memory of virtue is immortality:
Because it is recognized both before God and before men.

But a righteous man, though he die before his time, shall be at rest.

For honorable old age is not that which standeth in length of time,
Nor is its measure given by length of years:

But understanding is gray hairs unto men,
And an unspotted life is ripe old age.

Being made perfect in a little while,
he fulfilled long years;
For his soul was pleasing unto the Lord:

For the path of the just is as a shining light
That shineth more and more unto the perfect day.

It’s interesting that the anthems proceed thematically from Thursday to Sunday. I tried to track down the organ music and anthems, but none of the titles are distinct enough to shake anything useful out of Google.

And the preacher? The Rev. Sidney Esten (1892-1965) was not the church’s pastor. (That was the famous Russell Lockwood, would be installed that fall; perhaps he hadn’t arrived yet?) After studying at St. Lawrence, Esten was ordained and served at the long-gone Anderson, Indiana Universalist church; he also taught school. Money was tight, and — per his obituary from the Indiana Academy of Science (PDF) — it seems Anderson was his only pastorate. But he married people and supplies pulpits for years. (Sounds familiar.) He later got a graduate degree and taught science in an Indianapolis high school. He was a  “noted authority on birds” — indeed, feeding birds when he died suddenly.

I would have been happy to have been there. Can you image the flowers? Happy Easter to you, when it comes!

Attached media: https://www.tinalbporter.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/My-whiteness.m4a

The Unitarian Universalist church in Muncie, Indiana has a Universalist foundation, and so I was happy to find a digitized archive online today while I was casting around for citations for today’s Universalist Christian Initiative newsletter.

Haven’t dug much into it. Enjoy!

http://libx.bsu.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/UUCRec

Daniel Bragg Clayton was born on April 18, 1817 in what is now Woodruff, SC.  He died November 12, 1906 after having suffered a heart attack in Greenville, NC.

He grew up in a Baptist household, converting to Universalist after reading Universalist newspapers and hearing South Caroloma circuit riding Universalist minister Allen Fuller preach. He was ordanined by Fuller and took over the circuit, when Fuller moved west. In the late 1840s, Clayton himself moved west; settling in Mississippi.

During the Civil War, his home and library were burned down, and Clayton returned to SC. After the war, he owned a hotel in Columbia, and preached part time.

In 1880, he moved to Atlanta.  Rev. Clayton briefly supported the nascent Universalist church started by Rev. W.C. Bowman in 1879. Clayton is thought to have edited a new paper, Atlanta Universalist, started at this time in Atlanta. It is believed that Clayton found this newspaper a “losing business” and turned the subscription list over to Burruss and his Herald (published in Alabama.  Source The Larger Hope: The First Century of the Universalist Church of America 1770 – 1870.

He returns to Columbia a few years later, and except for a short time living in Cash’s Depot; he spends the rest of his life in Columbia. Well the rest of his life where he is not a traveling Universalist missionary that is. Father Clayton goes to preach in Georgia. Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessese, North Carolina – and even once as far west as Texas.

From the Universal Register, 1907

Rev. Daniel Bragg Clayton, D.D., suddenly passed away, at the home of his son, William Clayton, in Columbia, S. C., Nov. 13, 1906. He arose early in the morning and was preparing to start on a trip to Greenville, N.C. He had put everything in readiness for his journey; when he stooped down to pick up an article. While in this attitude he fell, and within three minutes breathed his last.

Father Clayton was born in Spartanburg County, South Carolina, on April 8, 1817, and from this it will be seen that if he had lived until April 8, next, he would have attained to the age of ninety years. Sixty-eight years of this long life were spent in the ministry of the Universalist Church.

It was in 1838, while teaching school in his native county, that he heard his first Universalist discourse. The sermon was delivered by Rev. Allen Fuller, a native of Massachusetts, who had arrived in South Carolina a few years before. This sermon made a profound impression on the mind of the young teacher, who had been brought up in the Baptist church. He soon severed his connection with that church and became the ardent, tireless advocate of Universalism.

Sixty-eight years ago the Southern people knew little of this faith. Everywhere it was “evil spoken against.” The pubic advocate of Universalism was almost universally regarded as a dangerous character, and for that reason he suffered much of social ostracism. Only a few had the moral courage to face the unkind, unjust opposition that had to be encountered on every hand. But a few fearless souls have ever been found to bravely and as witnesses for the truth. Father Clayton was one of that number.

While he encountered opposition at every step, instead of yielding to, or compromising with, what he conceived to be false, it only nerved him to greater efforts in the propagation of what he believed to be true and just. Possessing an unusual degree of the sterling qualities of character, he had little patience with the shams and vices of life. With him the paramount question was in no sense one of time-service, of policy; but it was ever one of truth, of right, of principle.

In regard to his worth and ability as a minister, as an advocate of the faith of the Universalist Church, I need say little to the people among whom be labored. It is well known to them all that, as an expounder of the Scriptures and and an advocate of the correct principles of living, he has had no superior in the Scriptures.

Perhaps he has had no superior anywhere. His marvelous familiarity with the Bible has constantly been a matter of surprise to those who have been privileged to hear him preach. During his long ministry he held no less than twelve oral discussions, and at no time did the cause of truth suffer in his hands.

Not only did he largely master the teachings of the Scriptures, but he was also master of himself – was able to control himself on all occasions—and for these reasons he was the greater power in theological discussions.

During his entire ministry he was preeminently a Bible preacher. The negative side of his preaching related in the main to the errors of partialism.

In relation to the fundamentals of the Christian faith he was always positive. He realized that no minister could fulfil a constructive mission by preaching his doubts. Not long since he remarked to the writer that most people could find doubt enough without the assistance of the minister.

In early life his opportunities for an education were meager. But by studious habits and close application to the few books at his command he rapidly acquired a splendid elementary education. During his entire ministry he was a close, painstaking student, adding knowledge to knowledge, until few were his peers in either breadth or profundity of knowledge.

Father Clayton’s life was one of ardent service and true self-denial. He lived for a cause, and that cause was the emancipation of humanity from error and sin. He was surely guided by the spirit of the Master, going about doing good. His motive to service was of the highest. Filled with the love of truth and right, and filled with affection for the universal brotherhood, he was directed in the way of unselfish, unremitting toil.

For all that he did and for all that he accomplished never once did he ask for pecuniary reward. Not once during his great ministry of sixty-eight years did he ask for a public collection in his own behalf. Neither did he work for a salary during any portion of this time. But he had his reward—not in dollars and cents, but in treasure worth infinitely more—in the coinage of God’s kingdom. His reward was ever present in the consciousness of faithful service in the kingdom of the Divine Master.

Often have we heard him say he wished to die in harness. His wish has been granted him. Having put his hand to the plow never once did he look back. To the very last he publicly advocated the truths that had been precious to him.

During the past summer and autumn he did much preaching, often traveling long distances. In early summer he made a missionary tour extending into Mississippi. Later in the season he came to North Carolina and gave the writer of this sketch much valuable assistance. Following the meeting of the North Carolina Convention early in October, he went to South Carolina, expecting to come back to North Carolina in a short time. On the morning of Nov. 13 he had gotten everything in readiness for this later journey, when the final summons came.

It is needless to add that Father Clayton has been held in the highest esteem by Universalists in the South, while others, not of this persuasion, have shown him the respect his noble life has commanded.

Speaking of his pedigree the morning following his death, “The State,” of Columbia has this to say:

“Dr. Clayton was descended from Capt. Newport, for whom Newport News, Va., was named, and on the other side from Capt. Bragg, also of the British navy. Capt. Newport’s wife. Miss Ball, was a sister of the wife of George Washington. Newport and Bragg were the great-greatgrandfathers of Dr. Clayton.

Of his grandfathers two were Baptist ministers during the Revolutionary war. Three of his great grandfathers and four great-grand-mothers sleep their last sleep in Spartanburg County. The other great grandfather died in the Revolutionary war, and the place of burial is unknown. Both grandfathers and one grandmother also were buried in Spartanburg County. The other grandmother died in Alabama. William Clayton, father of the deceased, married May Newpart Bragg, descended from the old British sea captain who brought hope to the starving, despairing colonists. Daniel Bragg Clayton, who passed away yesterday, was born on Enore River. His boyhood was one of hard work.”

The funeral service was conducted by the writer at the home of the eldest son of the deceased, Mr. William Clayton. Thus closes a long and useful life. Bui he will continue to live, not only in the spiritual realms, but also in the hearts of a great multitude that his noble life has blessed in the past.

Thomas Chapman

Source: The Universalist Register for the Year 1907 found in Google Books, pages 120 – 123
Other Research

• Philosopedia.org entry for Danial Bragg Clayton
• Forty-Seven Years in the Universalist Ministry autobigraphy by D.B. Clayton
• Happy Day: Or the Confessions of a Woman Minister (1901) by Emma Eliza Bailey who describes Clayton in her autobiography

Roger Dewey Bosworth was born in Moville, Iowa, November 25 1912.  He died in Cherokee, Iowa on Feb 14, 1959 after a brief illness.

Bosworth received a BA degree from Morningside College, Sioux City in 1935.

On August 14, 1940, the Iliff School of Theology awarded Roger Bosworth the degree of Doctor of Theology. His doctoral thesis was “The Criticism of Religion in the Philosophy of George Santayana.”

In March 1940, Bosworth became a member of the First Universalist Church of Denver.

In April 1940, Bosworth was ordained by the Universalist Church of America and was then called as the settled minister of First Universalist Church of Denver.

He later accepted a call to the combined Unitarian-Universalist Atlanta church where he served until 1945.  Rev Bosworth resigned is Atlanta pastorate  when he was named as the National Director of Youth Activities of the Universalist Church. He later resigned that position to take up lecturing and writing.

Dr. Bosworth served thirteen years in the Universalist parish ministry, five years in Denver, five years in Atlanta, Georgia, and three years in Columbus, Ohio.

Also see Andover-Harvard Theological Library

Universalist Church of America. Central Fellowship Committee. Records, 1919-1959.

• bMS 405/4 (25) Roger D. Bosworth, 1936-1945.
• bMS 405/4 (26) Roger D. Bosworth, 1946-1947.

Seen now on Twitter, that swastikas were scratched on the doors of Fourth Universalist, in the Upper West Side of NewYork.

Here are some of the tweets that speak about it.

2 swastikas were scratched into the wooden doors of the Unitarian Universalist Church on Central Park west#1010wins pic.twitter.com/Bz1enTxHmp

— Carol D'Auria (@CarolDAuria) March 1, 2017

A hate crime being investigated at a Universalist congregation on the UWS. Why the reverend believes they were… https://t.co/pgaMuwozZ4

— Alice Gainer (@GainerTV) March 1, 2017

UWS Universalist Church Vandalized With Swastikas https://t.co/jdYm8IO3OP via @Gothamist

— Nulla dies sine line (@moodylonerphile) March 1, 2017

Last month, in a fit of despair, I emailed my minister and some other leaders at our church and said LET’S DO SOMETHING! Let’s...

The post This Is What Love and Compassion Looks Like appeared first on Christine Organ.

Over the years, troves of images have been released into the public domain or under liberal licences. The most recent release is from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. (Search page)

Here is “The Church at Gloucester“by Childe Hassam (1918) and now in the public domain. The church is, of course, the Universalist church — the first in the Americas.  John Murray was its pastor; Judith Murray, a founder, was an author and leading figure in Gloucester.

A small blog administration note. I like this theme, but that header image needs to change. And I’ll try out the extra features.

The UUA Board packet went online on January 20 for the meeting this week. (I must have been occupied by something else then.)

See https://www.uua.org/uuagovernance/board/packets/board-packet-january-2017

Skimming through, so far:

• Two new covenanting communities, a name change, and “The Hattiesburg Fellowship (Hattiesburg, MS) has dissolved.”
• GA Planning committe recommends Providence for GA 2020.

From time to time, I consult Percy Dearmer‘s The Parson’s Handbook to test the standards of liturgical norms. I don’t always agree with him — little wonder as we come from very different places within Christianity — but you can’t fault him for his thoroughness and style. (To tell you the truth, I read it for pleasure, as I do travel guides and cookbooks.)

The book went through twelve editions in his lifetime, with a thirteenth (heavily altered, I gather) thereafter. Some are in the public domain, and I’m making a list below as a directory.

• 1899, second edition. https://archive.org/details/theparsonshandbo00dearuoft
• 1902, fourth edition (United Kingdom). https://archive.org/details/parsonshandbookc00dear
• 1902, fourth edition (United States). https://archive.org/details/parsonshandbook00deargoog
• 1907, sixth edition. https://archive.org/details/parsonshandbookc00dearuoft

So, it’s 2017 now. I’m in that group of people who wants to make New Year’s resolutions, but doesn’t keep them well. I’ve made ill-fated resolutions about losing weight so many times that I’ve given up on them. I’ll try these ten non-resolutions instead:

1. Try to keep my sodium intake down. That should help with my blood pressure.
2. Find and use a tailor to make my clothing fit. Easier than trying to tailor myself.
3. Try to walk a bit more. It’s the most exercise I get, so I might as well get more.
4. Move my diet closer to vegan (I’m already a vegetarian) particularly by restricting egg consumption. I don’t really like them anyway, and it’s a good way to lose some more saturated fat.
5. Work on core strength. Do those exercises I learned in physical therapy. A concrete step to overcoming back pain.
6. Settle on a good haircut, with a reliable barber. I wasn’t going to lose skull weight anyway, so a good haircut would help my head look better. Ditto the beard.
7. Cut back on white bread. I like it, but it sits on me like lead.
8. Try to take outings that don’t focus on getting food or eating.
9. Take the stairs more and see if that helps strengthen my knees, or see an orthopedist if it doesn’t.
10. Learn to stretch my back to help relieve back pain.

So I won’t make a resolution to lose weight, but will endeavor to change those behaviors that will get me closer to having those health and appearance improvements that I attribute to weight loss. After all, it’s not the particular number of pounds that I want.

We’ll see if that works, or at least if I can keep up with it.

<work in progress> to describe the Industrial home.

So, ministers: how many of you, particularly in the free traditions, have your own “book” — often a three-ring binder — where you keep sermon and service texts, and perhaps a calendar and other flat items? (I keep Geneva bands in mine.)

I’ve written about this subject before and have bought several of these books myself but they tend to be utilitarian and covered in vinyl, and the best-looking of these are perversely the ones that fall apart the fastest.

Cloth-covered board and glazed paper covers are sometimes available. There’s one book I’ve had for years, with a textured surface looking more like leather, but made of paper; it’s falling apart, and no longer for public use.

A few weeks ago I found this binder from the Martha Stewart collection. I got it on Amazon for $6 and the red color seem suitably ecclesiastic. (There is also a teal version.)

The description wasn’t clear but it’s the same kind of pebbled paper that my old standby has and seems sturdy, if a bit stiff. I think it’s going to be a favorite.

There’s been a flood of new Bootstrap-y sites for churches made over the last couple of years, and I’m sure that’s the kind of thing that some other churches would want and cannot afford.

I’m looking at the new default business-minded WordPress theme — Twenty Seventeen — and it pushes some of the same buttons that those other sites push. Cutting edge design? Hardly? But it might what a church needs to refresh its look, and it has features that should make it easy to manage by non-pros.

For a week or so, I’ll have the default Twenty Seventeen theme up. (I’m not selling plants now.)

This is (almost) what I preached today at Universalist National Memorial Church, Washington, D.C. from the lessons from Titus and Luke.

I’d like to think Pastor Dave Gatton for inviting me back into the pulpit this morning.

Merry Christmas to you all.

The Christmas story, as accounted in the Gospel of Luke, is so familiar that we might not hear the words. Even if you were not brought up in a church and are, say, under 50 years of age, there’s a good chance you learned this passage from Luke off television, from A Charlie Brown Christmas, in Linus’s staggering but guileless spotlight speech.

Mary and Joseph on to Bethlehem. No room in the inn. The manger. The angels and the shepherds: these are familiar and friendly.

But this year, it’s hard not to hear the words with renewed meaning, starting at the beginning of the passage from Luke:

In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. All went to their own towns to be registered.

This was no simple census. It was a foreign intrusion and assertion of power from Rome. Resented, sparking the political movement of Zealots we would meet later, in Jesus’ ministry. Judea, his home, was then administered from Syria, the eastern reach of the Roman Empire, and later united with it. The holy family were vulnerable, and then threatened under Herod’s murderous rage.

The name Syria leaps up from this passage. Aleppo, an ancient city, existed then under another name, so with our new focus on Aleppo, it’s possible to imagine how it was for Jesus’ family in those days, or others like them. The terror and the dying. The wanderings and hunger. Living just beyond the reach of help, but shaped by powerful forces.

That was a time in Judea of religious and political radicalization which ultimately led within a matter of decades to the end of the temple, a radical transformation of Judaism and the end of an independent Israel until living memory. I need not tell you the state of the world today In this telling, the gospel crashes into today.

But, apart from a historical curiosity, what does that show us? That there is suffering always? Are we stuck with endless violence and suffering. If so, what joy is there in Christmas then? Or, put another way, apart from the celebrating, what gospel is there in Christmas.

First, it’s worth owning that we have a lot invested in Christmas, perhaps too much, which has little to do with that first Christmas. Christmas today is a magical, mysterious, otherworldly, amazing, terrifying, bewildering and perplexing time of the year. Its power is palpable and recognizable. I can’t think of another religious holiday in the United States that is so easily made emotionally and socially available to all whatever their religious beliefs. In some ways it is an all-purpose celebration of goodness and hope and that should be available to everybody.

This, on its own, has religious value. As Christians, we should look towards that time that in both now and not-yet, when will we be whole and God will be all-in-all. As with the Lord’s Supper, we share our feasting and happiness in thanksgiving and preparation for that Heavenly Feast before us.

But Christmas is the foundation of an even greater hope, if we can move past the conventions of the telling — the peppermint and snow-flecked trimmings — we see the world around us is not what it seems. The Gospel of Christmas is the direction, pointing us on the way we should go.

We already know in our hearts that the world is not as it should be, as it must be. The soul craves a world refreshed and transformed, and we must bear witness to it. This is the source of true and lasting gladness.

In the passage from Paul’s letter to Titus, we learn to grow in confidence, knowing that our relationship to God is not from what we can provide God, but because of the relationship that God has initiated with us and which is manifested through Jesus’s life which we celebrate today, “we might be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”

We have to remember that the Christmas story is not about one child who managed to attract God’s love and attention but as one child who leads us all back to God’s care. It’s also important how this happens.

The story itself is a story of a “reversal of Fortune”: a reversal of what is important.

Did God’s approved leader appear with strength and might, from a position of power, in a center of power to conquer? None of these happened.

Jesus was born to the Jewish nation, itself very small, and not in Rome, but far from the centers of power. And the promised savior appeared not as a political or military leader but as a newborn infant.

The hope of the ages is knowing that in our smallness, and our powerlessness, and our short lives, and that we might live richly and fully and yet without hurting or dominating one another.

(If you wonder why we gather in prayer the rest of the year, it’s to learn how.)

And yet we are not left alone. God dwells with us, another girt of Christmas. And so we live in hope, and with promises from God reflected in scripture and confirmed buy an inner voice of Truth.

If we are sad or distressed or perplexed or harassed, if we are troubled or menaced or persecuted or embarrassed remember that you are a child of the Living God and that God came to Earth to lead us through a child. And so we grow as children to adulthood with earnestness curiosity joyfulness and loving kindness.

So we celebrate Christmas, even if not in the conventional way. It’s not a prize for being good, but an orientation to how life should be, particularly when everything is going wrong.

The future does not belong to us. But it is before us. Let us approach it with a Christmas spirit: with kindness, love and boldness.

It’s not the most important thing in the world, but churches could do a better job with printed orders of service, which is keenly felt on Christmas Eve, when churches often get their largest congregations all year.

I’ve written about this over the years, and I’m far from convinced that that the two- or three-column theatrical program style is the best option, even when every last blessed word is printed out. (Such is the irony in too many Episcopal parishes, with an ignored prayerbook in the pew, and a veritable book published for each service.)  And there’s unlikely to be one solution that works everywhere. And, as before, it’s not the most pressing problem…

But, in any case, I’m always glad to see others join in.  Like David Schwartz, senior co-minister at First Unitarian, Chicago, a church with a long history of liturgical standard-raising, who presents the beginnings of order of service style guide. Good on him!

Read it on his own Tumblr blog. (Memory and Hope)

Oh, the Trump train is boarding, and all the powerful schemers are climbing abord. They are going to a land called America Great Again and they think we all will go with them.  But they are confused, most of America is confused, about where they are actually going.  They believe that America is Great is where each generation has more money, more financial opportunity, than the generation before.  

For example, The New York Times just published an article (“The American Dream, Quantified at Last,” by David Leonhardt) which begins with the fact that historian James Truslow Adams coined the term “American Dream” in his 1931 book The Epic of America.  They quote his definition of the American Dream as “that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement.”  

The problem is that they use this definition to only focus on income, as revealed in income tax data.   But Adams went on, immediatly after the words quoted, to say that the dream was not just about income and because of that people msunderstand the dream.   Adams said, “It is a difficult dream for the European upper classes to interpret adequately, and too many of us ourselves have grown weary and mistrustful of it. It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position.”

That sounds like the UU dream, the one that causes to wake up to the social order of the day.  We see the social order does not recognize people as they are, or empower them to attain their fullest stature.  Instead, the social order uses the sugar of income to ensure the oppressing, alienating, degrading and marginalizing of so many of us.  We wake each tme we mark the Transgender Day of Rememberance, or stand with those who say “Black Lives Don’t Matter Enough Yet.”  If we are moved by the True American Dream, and relize it is still only a dream, it moves us to leave the Trump Train and seek instead the most holy and beautiful, Peace Train. The dream causes us to wake up and “stay woke” as my allies put it.  

Please, join with me in making America “woke” again, seeking not the dream of money and cars only, but also the dream of peace, love justce and compassion.

Time again to point out the Open Hymnal Project, which has a special PDF booklet of public domain Christmas hymns, (direct link) and a ZIP (archive) file GIF (image) files of individual files that should make it easier for you to put individual hymns in an order of service, downloadable from the main page.

See this page for an index of available hymns, Christmas or not, from which you can download related files, including single PDFs and GIFs.

If you are in Washington, D.C. on Christmas morning — it’s a Sunday this year — join me at the Universalist National Memorial Church, at 1810 Sixteenth Street, N.W. at 11 a.m. I’ll be preaching,using the second Revised Common Lectionary texts for Christmas, if you’re following along.

You’ll get a warm welcome, even if it’s cold outside.

Attached media: https://web.archive.org/web/20211108072749/https://thomasperchlik.files.wordpress.com/2016/12/img_0945.jpg

In the coming years, we know that the fight for environmental justice, and the struggle to unwind American racism, and even the work to end homelessness, will be more difficult and complicated. How do we appoah these struggles peaceully?

Recently I was given the privilege of talking with Brian Hovis on Panorama TV about how to deal with divisiveness after the recent national elections. I hope you get a chance to see it and talk to others about my ideas of peacemaking. However, to underscore a part of my thought I want to share what a great Texas writer and sharp wit, Molly Ivins, once wrote:

“It is not the symphony of voices in sweet concert I enjoy, but the cacophony of democracy, the brouhahas, and the donny-brooks, the full-throated roar of a free people busy using their right to freedom of speech. Democracy requires rather a large tolerance for confusion and a secret relish for dissent. This is not a good country for those who are fond of unanimity and uniformity.”

This is also true of our UU religious communities which value democratic processes highly. For example, though a minority, there are many UUs who are very conservative on some issues and who back politically conservative candidates. Sometimes they feel they must hide their thoughts in UU congregations for fear of alienating others, or of being ostracized. Part of “opening minds, filling hearts and transforming lives,” is seeking mutual understanding. We must have a willingness to not only disagree on some things but to be open and honest about understanding why we sometimes disagree.  

Further complicating the situation is the fact that it is against US law for any religious organization to support a particular candidate for election, or to affiliate with any particular political party. However, we religious communities are supposed to take moral stands, even on politically charged issues, legislation, and laws. Thus, despite minority opinions to the contrary in UU congregations, we fought for marriage equality and celebrated the US Supreme Court’s decision as a moral victory for us as well as for all people.  

In the coming years, we know that the fight for environmental justice, and the struggle to unwind American racism, and even the work to end homelessness, will be more difficult and complicated. Let us open our minds and hearts to one another, and may we hear within the cacophony of democracy the deeper harmonies of Peace.  

With Wishes for Wellness,

Thomas

In the early evening on December 1^st, 1955,

a woman leaving work sat on a bus in Montgomery.

In the early evening, a tired woman leaving work

sat down on a seat on a bus in Montgomery.

In the early evening, a tired black woman left work

and took a seat in the “colored” section of a bus in Montgomery.

In the early evening, after a long day of work,

a tired and weary black woman

took a seat in the “colored” section

behind the white section on a crowded bus in Montgomery.

In the early evening, on December 1^st 1955,

after a long day of work making clothes for white people,

a tired weary black woman took her seat

in the “colored” section behind the white section

on a crowded, standing room only bus in Montgomery.

When all the white seats were taken,

this tired weary black woman was told to stand

so white people could sit down.

In the early evening, on December 1^st, 1955,

after a long day of work making clothes for white people,

a tired weary black woman took her seat in the “colored” section

behind the white section on a crowded,

standing room only bus in Montgomery.

When all the white seats were taken,

she was told to stand to make room

so white people could sit down,

this tired weary black woman,

named Rosa Parks, said

“No.”

Four days later, the Women’s Political Council initiated the Montgomery Bus Boycott. The boycott lasted 381 days and when it ended, the buses were no longer segregated.  Rev. King’s home was fire bombed shortly after the boycott began which led to the decision to not just overturn Montgomery’s Bus policy but to seek the overturn of the Alabama segregation law. On December 20 1956, the US Supreme Court upheld the state’s ruling that this state law was unconstitutional and Rosa Parks then sat in the front seat of a bus.

This was not a random act that Rosa Parks took. Her finding courage to remain in her seat was not done on a spur of the moment in the vain hopes that her community would rally to her side. No, Rosa Parks was already active in her community.

The Women’s Political Council formed 9 years earlier precisely over this issue of black people being arrested because they sat down in empty seats that were not designated for black passengers. This event was 9 years in the making building coalitions across Montgomery.   In March of 1954, The Women’s Political Council meets with Mayor Gayle about ending the pay-in- front-and-enter-in-the-rear policy of the bus company. With no response from his office, they write to warn him that there are 25 organizations preparing for a city-wide boycott of the city busses.

Jo Ann Robinson, president of the Women’s Political Council, in 1987 wrote about the Montgomery boycott and said: We organized the Women’s Council and within a month’s time we had over a hundred members. We organized a second chapter and a third, and soon we had more than 300 members. We had members in every elementary, junior high, and senior high school. We had them organized from federal and state and local jobs; wherever there were more than ten blacks employed, we had a member there. We were organized to the point that we knew that in a matter of hours we could corral the whole city.^[i]

When she told her chapter heads that Rosa Parks had been arrested, she was told, “You have the plans, put them into operation.”  She stayed up creating the stencils to print out 35K flyers calling for the boycott to begin on the 5^th.  There was no social media in those days to make an instant announcement—there were mimeographs.

Rosa Parks joined the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP in the 1930s.  She served as secretary of the chapter. She and her husband would have meetings in their house.  These were dangerous times with numerous executions by the KKK. Young black men were falsely accused of raping white women and were given the death sentence.  The chapter fought to assist these individuals. She is quoted as saying, “I remember 1949 as a very bad year. Things happened that people never heard about because they never were reported in the newspapers. At times I felt overwhelmed by the violence and hatred, but there was nothing to do but keep going.^[ii]”

As a member, she attended the Highlander Center in the summer of 1955 to receive training.  Rosa Parks once remarked to Studs Terkel that this training had “everything” to do with her ability to remain seated on December 1.  The form of training was called Popular Education which is defined as the empowerment of adults through democratically structured cooperative study and action, directed toward achieving more just and peaceful societies, within a life sustaining global environment.^[iii]  

She was invited back to Highlander in March of 1956 to talk about the boycott her arrest sparked.  She was asked by Myles Horton, co-founder of Highlander Center, this question.

What you did was a very little thing, you know, to touch off such a fire. Why did you do it; what moved you not to move? I’m interested in motivations – what makes people do things. What went on in your mind; Rosa?

Rosa Parks answered: Well, in the first place, I had been working all day on the job. I was quite tired after spending a full day working. I handle and work on clothing that white people wear. That didn’t come in my mind but this is what I wanted to know; when and how would we ever determine our rights as human beings? The section of the bus where I was sitting was what we call the colored section, especially in this neighborhood because the bus was filled more than two-thirds with Negro passengers and a number of them were standing. And just as soon as enough white passengers got on the bus to take what we consider their seats and then a few over, that meant that we would have to move back for them even though there was no room to move back.^[iv]

How would we ever determine our rights as human beings?  Parks in her autobiography would later state she wasn’t overly physically tired that fateful day, as she was more tired of giving in.

Donny Hathaway—wrote a song Tryin’ Times. The version I remember is the one by Roberta Flack–

Tryin’ times. That’s the world is talkin about. …

folks wouldn’t have to suffer
If there was more love for your brother
But these are tryin’ times …

A whole lot of things that’s wrong is going down,

I don’t understand it from my point of view
I remember somebody said do unto others
As you would have them do unto you

Then folks wouldn’t have to suffer
If there was more love
But these are tryin’ times,

Today, we are in need of courageous hearts again.  We need those who are willing to sit down, when told to move to the back; willing to stand, when told to sit and obey; willing to organize, when told to wait and see.

These are tryin’ times. Different perhaps from the days when Rosa Parks decided to sit, but as I look around me, I smell those days rising again.  It is intoxicating and like the field of poppies on the way to the Emerald City, it will lull us to sleep.

Unless we mobilize and organize now, we won’t be able to protect ourselves or our friends—who are immigrants, who are queer, who are black, who are Muslim, who are water protectors. The safe thing, the safe thing is to carry nosegays so we cannot smell the stench and blinders so we cannot see what is happening.  And being white and silent means we could squeak by at the risk of losing our soul.

Do this and our silence makes us accomplices in the hateful cloud that is swirling around us.  Already, Mosques have received threats of genocide coming their way. There have been threats in our schools, and in the market place against those who are marginalized.

Already, gays and trans folks have been warned that whatever rights they have achieved will be removed. The very first bill pre-filed for this next Alabama legislative session is a bathroom bill aimed against our Trans gender friends. With Trump in the White House, Alabama will feel emboldened to pass this and other hate filled bills against its citizens.

The mainstream media will fall in line. In fact, it is already happening. If you look at what mainstream media is reporting it is based on allegation driven news rather than evidence driven news^[v]. So instead of making the lack of evidence the news, they are making the allegation the news, which when repeated over enough times is accepted as truth.  We saw that when FBI chief Comey announced there were emails connected to Hillary found on Weiner’s lap top. It was an allegation that proved to be absolutely nothing and the media dug into the allegation and fueled that pile of sticks hoping there would smoke and fire. There was nothing. We have seen people repeat the allegation as fact and do not care there was no evidence for it.  The new word of the year is Post-Truth. Or as one Trump surrogate stated on NPR, there are no facts, facts no longer exist^[vi].

We have already seen Trump threaten the media. His tantrum regarding his meeting with the New York Times was both informative and a warning.  Do not cross him as President.  He will retaliate.

So we are living in a different kind of world where Orwell’s Animal Farm and 1984 are no longer fictional pieces but the new reality—where white supremacists can call protesters un-American, and allegations can be called truth and evidence is called falsehood. We cannot sit back and watch like this is a football game, where we cheer the witty comebacks of our favorite team and then gnash our teeth when they fumble.  No, we need to find the courage to be engaged in this Brave New World.

We need to find the courage to be willing to risk our freedom like Rosa Parks did when she chose to remain seated.  Her action had consequences.  And in this new world order, our actions will have consequences but we must be willing to stand strong to the hate-mongering that is increasing around us.

But finding courage is not done in a vacuum.  Rosa Parks did not do this without any forethought, she did this because she had been prepared for that moment. She was surrounded by a community that supported one another—that mobilized around her action. She educated herself on the issues to understand the power dynamics of what was happening. Others were educated as well.  They worked together to prepare for the opportunity to resist.  We need to be studying up on how to live under a demagogue.  We need to be educated just as Rosa Parks was educated in popular education so when she resisted, she could do so with conviction and moral integrity.  And inspire others to follow her lead.

Describing that first day of the boycott, Martin Luther King writes During the rush hours the sidewalks were crowded with laborers and domestic workers, many of them well past middle age, trudging patiently to their jobs and home again, sometimes as much as twelve miles. They knew why they walked, and the knowledge was evident in the way they carried themselves. And as I watched them I knew that there is nothing more majestic than the determined courage of individuals willing to suffer and sacrifice for their freedom and dignity^[vii].

May it be so.

[i] http://www.crmvet.org/info/robinson.htm

[ii] https://the-spark.net/np762801.html

[iii] http://www.reimaginerpe.org/node/1172

[iv] http://www.crmvet.org/disc/parks_mbb.pdf

[v] https://storify.com/jayrosen_nyu/evidence-based-vs-accusation-driven-reporting

[vi] https://www.rawstory.com/2016/12/trump-booster-scottie-nell-hughes-gets-blasted-on-npr-after-saying-theres-no-such-thing-as-facts/

[vii] http://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis55.htm#1955mbbholt

(c) Fred L Hammond 2016

The holidays can be a tricky time for parents. On top of the pressure to give my kids the childhood memories of pine-scented trees...

The post The Day My Son Learned What Generosity Looks Like appeared first on Christine Organ.

Wipf and Stock publishes more theological works that deal with issues of universal salvation (if not institutional Universalism) than anyone else — and probably on a scale unrivaled since the heyday of the Universalist Publishing House. (They have a wide-ranging catalog.)

So when I learned that they are having a sale — 30% off list and free media mail shipping — I said “yes, thank you.” I got The Renewal of All Things: An Alternative Missiology by Waldron Byron Scott, and All Set Free: How God is Revealed in Jesus and Why That is Really Good News by Matthew J. Distefano.

Looking forward to Christmas reading.

Say what you will about 2016, but one thing’s for sure: it has not been boring. In fact, it’s been a whirlwind of emotions,...

The post NEW BOOK! Here In The Middle: Stories of Love, Loss, and Connection From the Ones Sandwiched In Between appeared first on Christine Organ.

Counter to the prevailing opinion, I’m not a fan of church banners that highlight social or political issues — they seem to soak up the energy and capital that might be applied directly to the need — but if you do put one up, make it big and out of reach.

In my neighborhood, at the Church of the Pilgrims (Presbyterian), Dupont Circle, Washington, D.C. It just went up.