Daisy the Dog has been recovering from an injury and today was a high point. Clean dressings, fewer drugs and no vet visit tomorrow. She’s on the mend.

We’ve gone to the vet every day for several days, and I usually pick up Daisy on the way home. But before we make it home, she needs a comfort break. And since she’s clearly feeling better, the walk was longer than usual. We saw commuters on the sidewalk, in cars and buses and on bikes. We paused to watch a motorcade with police blaze up Embassy Row. But I quickly turned back to the dog.

We made it to a grassy bank: a park-like area near a major road. Across the road stands a large tree, a plane tree, I think and so typical in cites. It’s leaves have already gone yellow, and a sudden breeze brought a flurry of the beautiful but dead leaves towards us. One stuck to Daisy’s fur.

I choked at the sight, and stifled a tear: I had a responsibility to care for this dog and there was so much traffic. Everything must, at last, die. The leaves have died and blow away. But Daisy is alive today. Alive, getting better and sniffing happily. And I was happy and thankful on an autumn day.

I got in a discussion behind the walled garden of Facebook about hymns, copyright and what we (as ministers and content providers) and I’ve brought some of my comments here. In particular, what do we do with hymn texts we think are in the public domain, and thus subject to republication, reuse or adaptation. But the text may seem a little one-sided…

It’s easier to show something is in copyright, than prove that it’s not. The before-1923 date is true, but there are works up to 1977 (when the law changed) that may be in the public domain. And that doesn’t got into the issue of licenture, including permissive licenses; see Creative Commons. It’s a tricky business. A fun place to start: http://librarycopyright.net/resources/digitalslider/

Another thing to keep in mind: liturgical elements that ministers write. Each of us have created copyrighted content. You don’t need to register an item to have copyright anymore. We can give permission each time (a pain), watch our works get cribbed without permission (annoying) or have it left untouched by the skiddish (a waste).

We can be good model of stewardship by providing our own “some rights reserved” licensing, using a Creative Commons model license. I’ve written about it, and license some works, but the Open Siddur people make a strong, maximalist case for licensing creative works, so they get the link. http://opensiddur.org/decision-tree/

The Universalist mission to Korea didn’t last long, and tantalizingly little has been written about it. It was surely a subset of the Japanese mission work, and during this period — some time in the 1920s — Korea was occupied by Japan.

This photo, from the 1927 Universalist Year Book, is the first I’ve ever seen related to the work, but as you can see by the caption, there’s not much detail here either. It’s printed between two pages about the Japanese Universalist Convention, but there’s no reference within that convention’s entry.

Can’t wait to get the 1928 Year Book.

Given Daisy the Dog’s recovery and other must-dos, I think the blogging for the rest of the month (and early November?) will be light, and restricted to:

1. Thoughts in progress about Universalist polity, particularly as it applies today.
2. Historical documents which later blogging will reference.
3. Perhaps some liturgical tidbits I’ll use myself and would want to share.

Our little Daisy the Dog suffered an injury earlier this week. She’s now under going treatments, and because she’s in a good bit of pain gets pain management medication. This means pills, and she’s not a good pill taker at the best of times. Because she’s already distressed — and not eating — we’ve relented on her usual diet. This is where I’d like you to come in.

Husband and I are vegetarians. We feed Daisy a balanced, vet-approved vegetarian diet. We love her, and we care about other animals, too, so much so that we don’t eat them. But we’re feeding her a particularly stinky (and vet-supplied) meat diet to stimulate her appetite and cover the bitterness of the pills.

As vegetarians go, we’re pretty mellow, not the least because I used to be an obnoxious anti-vegetarian not all that many years ago. Better to share a recipe or a dish, than to be a nuisance.

So the ask. Can you please put meat or eggs aside for a meal or two while Daisy recovers? And if given a choice, less boneless breast of chicken is probably best. Apart from the harm to the birds, it’s almost flavorless, hard to cook well and its preparation has a huge injury rate. It was the first thing I gave up in my path to vegetarianism.

And if not that, perhaps a hash brown breakfast in place of eggs? Skip bacon; a smaller steak?

We love Daisy, and would do anything for her. But it’s hard to to love one animal and not remember the harm to others.

So may I impose on you? A few less meat or egg dishes until Daisy gets back to normal?

A similar post, like Wednesday’s. Musing on a reality that “might ought could” (as we say in the South) be examined, even challenged.

Is it practically possible, say, in a larger city or even a  large college town, to pastor a church without a car? I’m not sure it is. It assumes your home, church and most parishioners — not to mention civic events — are conveniently clustered, or accessed by reliable (and Sunday-serving) transit.

And a shame, too. Car ownership is a huge cost — and car maintenance a financial crap shoot. My husband and I haven’t had a car in six or seven years, and have saved a bundle, and that’s considering the occasional car rental or cab.

Reimbursements only go so far. I hear so much from ministerial colleagues about student debt and making ends meet. A car-free ministry would be a big help.

But, does anyone here do it?

Legislative and court successes have expanded same-sex couples access to legal marriage; my husband and I have benefited from it. It’s exciting to see the couples line up on the first “legal” day. Some of these will then get married on the courthouse steps, or some location nearby. It’s particularly encouraging to see Unitarian Universalist ministers take their place there.

And these often long-awaited, but surely quickly organized weddings make a visible challenge to the now-normal way of getting married, with expensive jewelery, elaborate arrangements and a cast of thousands. I usually advise couples to elope, and these courthouse-step services look only a short step away from an elopement. Not only do I approve, but I’m glad to see the option depicted so joyously.

But then I recall another norm, or former norm: pre-marital counseling. I’m not really qualified to do it, and I’m not convinced it’s necessary. So, for those few weddings I do these days, I don’t offer or require it. And I wonder if that was part of the arrangement that lead a couple and minister to meet on the courthouse steps?

Do you, dear wedding officiant, offer or require pre-marital counseling? Any particular reason, either way?

John Simcox mentioned getting an 1880 book by interlibrary loan called “Aion-Aionios” in a recent comment. I have that book — and now you can get a copy, too.

The Greek Word Aion-Aionios, Translated in the Holy Bible, Shown to Denote Limited Duration by Rev. John Wesley Hanson, A. M.

Hanson was a demominationally-popular writer. But why care about this subject? To show that “eternal punishment,” that is, “aionian” punishment did not mean “ceaseless, without end” but a period of time applicable to that being discussed. He cites examples of “everlasting” or “eternal” (so translated) events that have, in fact, ended.

My attention was drawn yesterday to a site called Black Metal Universalism, the only obvious purpose of which is the sale of t-shirts emblazoned with “All Souls” in a design that is a bit too daring for this 45-year-old to wear non-ironically.

So is it “our Universalism” or not? There are certainly independent Universalists, but most (any?) aren’t so culturally edgy and the success of the Universalist Christian t-shirts at the UU Christian Fellowship table at General Assembly suggests this comes from within “the family”.

I looked up the domain registration. The site was registered the day before yesterday, but no name! Naughty, naughty.

But all is forgiven. I approve of this kind of material culture; it helps reinforce a sense of belonging without depending on real estate….

As we lope to church, let’s recall that the Universalist General Convention commended so many years ago

that the first Sunday of October, in each year, be set apart as Memorial Sunday, for commemorating those friends who, during the year, have been taken away by death.

I think it’s place there to anticipate the great and general thanksgiving and memorial — All Souls Day — a month later. Few, if anyone observes the day (also called the Sunday of the Commemoration) today, and some of the Universalist Christians who might chose it would rather observe the ecumenical World Communion Sunday, which is also today.

This service, from the extinct Church of the Redeemer, Chelsea, Mass. — a fountainhead of liturgical innovation — offers hints for its observance, and the date makes me suspect that many of the dead remembered died in the Civil War.

The UUA October Board packet is up, and the good news is that there is a action scheduled to admit a new member congregation to the UUA. I don’t recall an application going this far and not being accepted, so let’s assume it’s going to happen. But that means that for the second year in a row, only a single congregation will be admitted to the UUA. (This is the last Board meeting of the year.)

But take joy where you can; I’ll recap the worrying signs later.

My best wishes to the thirty members of the Iowa Lakes Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, of Okoboji, Iowa. It has existed for nine years, but presumably only recently become large enough to petition for membership.

It sits in the middle of the Spirit Lake/Dickenson County, Iowa micropolitan area — one of the smallest in the country — and the nearest Unitarian Universalist congregation is the Nora Church, Hanska, Minnesota, about 80 miles away. So it serves people who would have otherwise not had a Unitarian Universalist church nearby.

From whence comes the right to worship? Is it a Christian liberty that individual Christians have, or is it a grant to the church, that stands as Christ’s beloved and is delegated to individual Christians as a benefit?

I ask this because I wonder about the nature of the church. The former is the more ‘protestant’ approach, and the one that sits better for Universalists, no matter how churchly. (Post-Christian formulations have their own logic, but we’ve not really resolved the question: can Christians worship indefinitely in a non-Christian setting.)

Universalists, at least in their earliest phase, were an awfully anarchic group. The Winchester Profession, the foundational and yet minimal theological standard, is a double witness to this anarchy. First, it was developed in response to civil action challenging organized Universalism’s departure from the Congregational standing order. Second, it makes that explicit mention in its three short articles that Christians “ought to maintain good order” — the kind of recognition that reads more as a grudging concession than a core, heartfelt value. Otherwise, why would such a common assumption be written in?

But if the early Universalists were anarchic, their late nineteenth-century heirs, whose influence continues to today, were not and are not. If anything, we’re saddled with institutional responsibility, professionalized standards, good manners and stifling inertia. We have more money than our ancestors could have used, and yet ache under shortfalls. We have plans and processes, but no new congregations.

Reading Universalist newspapers in the antebellum era, hardly a week would pass — and certainly not a month — without news of a new society cropping up. How is that possible? We are not the same country then as now, and each era has its own benefits, but correctable difference in inescapable: that the early Univeralists were encouraged to form societies to meet a local need, rather than to serve a common, national brand. There was an objective, if minimal standard, that if met all but promised recognition. The self-organized societies (later known as parishes, to distinguish themselves from secular organizations) could organized empowered conventions that could (and did) seek national recognition. Many of these effort perished while small and new, but you could say the same of secular organizations and businesses. Anything worth doing is worth failing at. Or, the lack of failure is also the lack of attempting. There’s no shame in trying and failing.

Back to the question of who “owns” prayer. If the mandate for worship rests on the individual Christian, then the purpose of the church is in some sense the activation of that mandate. That is, to provide encouragement and resources. It is a means, not an end. As we remind ourselves, we could, should we wish, worship alone. Could, and perhaps out. But one role of the church is to stand for Jesus, that we may ask, “teach us to pray” — and be sure there was someone there to teach us.

There are (for me anyway) two truisms for this blog.

1. The less time I put into a blog post, the more likely I’m going to get disproportionately large interest.
2. The more time I put into a blog post, the more likely I will never finish it.

My recent title-only blog post about a Winchester Profession-based fellowship is proof of the first truism. I jotted out the thought — in the form of the title — and scheduled it yet unwritten to post on the Winchester Profession’s anniversary. I had the full intent to actually write something but my blogging dried up, and with it my attention to the schedule.

But, with respect to the second truism, I won’t labor the thought too much now. Some scattered idea, which will have to do for now.

1. The Winchester Profession is at the same time a sufficient, liberal, foundational and historical way to encompass a variety of expressions of Universalism.
2. An online search shows it still resonates with people.
3. A fellowship or some other free-standing entity organized on a non-geographic basis and dependent on some distributed mode of communication can provide a way to “go deeper” in this tradition, without threatening or agitating those who feel no affection for it.
4. Deeper consideration will more likely suggest more practical and useful actionable steps than drawing up a list out of nothing.
5. A fellowship, however, need only to be as engaged and organized as its members need, thus can weather times of relative inactivity (should they come) better than, say, a church.

There’s a UUA Board meeting scheduled for October 16 to 19, but the Board packet isn’t up yet. Does this seem late?

Surely I’m not the only one who (tries to) read it?

I was recently asked by a serious, but still developing, student of Universalism what five books I would recommend. That’s a hard question to answer. While I’ve been reading for a long time on Universalism, the fact is that I’m a very slow reader and it takes forever for me to work something book-length, which is probably why so much of my reading has been from reports, journals and newspapers.

And my have shifted over time. And so many theological universalists writing today start from a different perspective than the liberal tradition of churched Universalism. Or is it just being ornery?

But I would definitely start with these:

1. Anne Lee Bressler. Universalist Movement in America, 1770-1880. But it is so blasted expensive. See here for access to the early chapters, and if they’re compelling there’s always the library.
2. Stephen Marini. Radical Sects of Revolutionary New England. Supports the ornery thesis.
3. Ernest Cassara, ed. Universalism in America. Each time I go back to this, the less I like it but it’s still the best one-volume documentary anthology available.
4. George Hunston Williams. American Universalism. Slim, but valuable.
5. James Relly. Union. What got John Murray started. I put it up here.

I’ve avoided the works where Unitarians recast Universalism in their own image because it’s so groovy, Kenneth Patton’s manifestos and the drearier institutional tomes. Dear readers, other suggestions? Please state why you recommend.

With the building sales at Meadville Lombard, the leadership crisis at Starr King, the closure of Bangor and the God-knows-what at General (Episcopal) (one, two)… well, it’s easy to have misgiving about the future of seminaries, and with it the future of ministerial formation.

When I looked back to the 1927 Universalist Year Book, I’m reminded that the future is contingent. Affairs needn’t have turned out the way they did. For instance, did you know there was a ministerial training program in Chattanooga, Tennessee? I didn’t, and I wonder if it was the premature death of the Harriman, Tennessee parish — Tennessee Universalism was far from strong; these were the only two churches in the state and thus they had no convention of their own — that caused this to end, too.

The School of Evangelism, Chattanooga, Tenn.

A school for the special training for the ministry for those unable to attend the regular theological schools of the Universalist Church.

Organized 1917. Has the use of the Q. H. Shinn Memorial Church for study purposes.

Board of Management: Manager, The Minister of the Q. H. Shinn Memorial Church; Vice-Manager, the Chairman of the Educational Committee of the Board of Trustees of the General Convention; Sec.-Treas., Rev. W. H. McGlauflin, D.D.; Mrs. J. W. Vallentyne, Rev. Francis B. Bishop, D.D., M. O. Hill, and Mrs. J. G. McGowin.

The minister was a B. H. Clark, of whom I know nothing. The education committee didn’t exist, but if the scholarship committee was intended, then that was Lee McCollester, of Tufts. We already met Dr. McGlauflin in a sad episode about thirty years prior.

I’ll keep my eyes open for more details.

There has been some buzz online about Ello.co, another in the would-be world of anti-Facebooks. Yes, I signed up for it; no, I don’t think it’ll kill Facebook. I’ll be happy if it survives. (Also, I’ve given away all my invites.)

I’d rather people flock to one of the notes of the distributed Disapora network — it’s technologically more mature — but after a flurry of activity three years ago, it’s largely gone dark. (Anecdotally, the Ello launch has revived interest, if some Twitterers are to be belived.)

A problem that each service has is finding your friends, even if they are subscribed. So these are my accounts; say hello:

• Ello: https://ello.co/scottwells
• Diaspora: https://joindiaspora.com/u/bitb

Click this to join Diaspora. The schtick is that it’s decentralized, without a Big Bad Corporation at the top, so you can also pick a node from this list; it seems some people chose based on what country the host is in — to take advantage of privacy laws — or by the quality of service. That’s all I know.

I also use Newsblur to manage my RSS (blog and news) feeds, and I have a single follower. (Hello.) If you want to see what I’m reading and promoting, follow me here.

Regular readers: feel free to use the comments to promote your accounts on lessor-known social networks.

The main reasons I review Universalist historical documents is to

• try to see Universalists as they saw themselves and not though the (now more customary) Unitarian lens
• uncover hidden or lost accomplishments
• understand the structural reasons for Universalist decline, rather than the shoddy theological suggestions offered, usually keyed to the inevitability of consolidation with the Unitarians

Yesterday, I went to the Library of Congress. Much of the time was eaten up transitioning to the new electronic system — which you have to do on site! — so I only got to review one book: the 1927 Universalist Year Book. But there is a book scanner, so I’ll be processing the parts I scanned for weeks.

1927 (or thereabouts) is important because

• it’s after the 1923 copyright watershed, and so won’t be found online
• some kind of merger was likely, but whether it would be Unitarian or Congregationalist was a live issue
• the decline had begun, but the Depression-era devastation hadn’t

Daisy the Dog took me out on my evening walk, and we happened upon the aftermath of the dedication, at the Indonesian embassy, of the statue of Saraswati, the Hindu deity of learning.

I was glad to see the dedication plaque: the right-hand plinth had a rough top for ages, and I thought it might have been vandalized!

If you are devoted to Saraswati, you can find her statue on Massachusetts Avenue, between 20th and 21st Streets, near the north exit of the Dupont Circle subway station.

First broadcast thirty years ago today on BBC2. Back when we thought we’d all be nuked. I mention it now in thanksgiving. Alas, the video, once easy to find, has been pulled down.

There is a practical take-away from this historical episode; keep reading.

Abigail and John  Adams, the departing ambassador to Great Britain, and John Murray, the Universalist minister, sailed together back to America on the same vessel, the Lucretia, in the spring of 1788. Unitarian Universalists today recall Abigail Adams’s recollection of Murray’s preaching, as recorded in her journal.

This is Sunday 27 April. Mr. Murry preachd us a Sermon. The Sailors made them-selves clean and were admitted into the Cabbin, attended with great decency to His discourse from these words, “Thou shalt not take the Name of the Lord thy God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him Guiltless that taketh His Name in vain.” He preachd without Notes and in the same Stile which all the Clergymen I ever heard make use of who practise this method, a sort of familiar talking without any kind of dignity yet perhaps better calculated to do good to such an audience, than a more polishd or elegant Stile, but in general I cannot approve of this method. I like to hear a discourse that would read well. If I live to return to America, how much shall I regreet the loss of good Dr. Prices Sermons. They were always a delightfull entertainment to me. I revered the Character and Loved the Man. Tho far from being an orator, his words came from the Heart and reached the Heart. So Humble, so diffident, so liberal and Benevolent a Character does honour to that Religion which he both professes and practises.

We usually think little of the Dr. Price in this passage, the Unitarian minister, Richard Price. At that time, he preached to the now-defunct Gravel Pit Chapel, but had previously preached to extant Newington Green congregation. He was followed at the Gravel Pit Chapel by Joseph Priestley, and was celebrated in his own right.

So we have two preaching forbears in this passage, but they have very different preaching styles, each with their own appeals. I suppose I’m more like Murray, feeling that the physicality of preaching can be harmed by the close preaching from a manuscript.

I do use a manuscript, but I use it as a preparation of what I plan to say, including any quotations I need and to keep me from failing if I freeze. I also include notes on how to preach the sections of the sermon. In short, if you read what I wrote, it would not be what you hear, and certainly not be “a discourse that would read well.”

And I doubt I’m alone.

The takeaway? I hate converting my eccentric preaching notes into a printed article. While often requested, it’s really a different art and a different work. At best, I might create an impression of the sermon that reads well. But it takes time; it’s not a matter of reformatting a word processor document.

Please consider that before making such a request of your minister. That time is probably better spent in other ways, or, at least allow funds in the church budget for a transcriptionist and a proper editor.

http://universalistchurch.net/universalist-symbols-of-faith/1803-winchester-profession/

So, this hasn’t been a weekly Thursday feature as I intended. Nor is this, properly speaking, a Ubuntu Linux-only feature, as it’s uses LibreOffice Writer, and that’s available for Windows and Mac OS X, too. (It is free and open-source software — FOSS — and you can get it here.)

A small thing — making it easy to put the information in an order of service (or a theater or music program) flush left and flush right respectively. Years ago, I would tab, tab, tab the biblical citation, or hymn name or the anthem composer over. Then I’d shim in extra spaces until the right margin wrapped to a new line…then I’d remove a space to pull the line back. It’s hacky, and never quite even. Here’s the right way.

Let’s start with a 5½ by 8½ inch page, as that’s letter paper folded in half and a common size for orders of service. And, for the sake of argument, half-inch margins. (Click the images to see them full-sized.)

To set the page size, use these menus. Format > Page > Page tab

Now, the idea of using tabs to set the left-hand information flush left and the right-hand information flush right isn’t entirely wrong. But the correct tab will be a “right tab” setting on the right margin. 5½ inch width, less a ½ inch margin on each side, and that means the “right tab” needs to be set at 4½ inches.

To add a tab, use these menus. Format > Paragraph >Tabs tab

As you see, you can use a “fill character” — like dots — to guide the eye. But that seems a little old-fashioned, so I didn’t; you may feel otherwise.

Which means in this example, you can type in “Opening hymn” and tab once to give its name.

And here is that file. Something to build on.

Is there something you’d like to see, to improve your church publications?

I’m going to meditate on the tradition of “lyric theism.” But first, some documents to give some context.

From Modern Words of Religion, edited by Carlyle Summerbell (1915)

THE POETIC EXPRESSION OF UNITARIANISM

The representative expressions of the Unitarian habit of mind are not to be sought in the fields of theological scholarship or Biblical learning, but in a lyric utterance of singular significance. “It is not an accident,” said one of the best interpreters of Unitarianism, “that out of a religious movement which is supposed to be a movement of sheer rationalism and dissent there has grown up the most clearly defined type of religious poetry which our country has produced. It is not an accident that the lyrics of Longfellow and Lowell and Holmes and Bryant and Emerson proceed from lives bred in the rational piety of the Unitarians. And when we pass from the great masters it is no surprise that from a group of minor poets of the same tradition — Samuel Longfellow and Samuel Johnson and Hedge and Hosmer and Gannett and Chadwick — there has proceeded a strain of lyric theism whose music penetrates many a church, the doors of which are closed against the poets. That means that beneath the vigorous rationalism or the sincere dissents of the descendants of the Puritans there is this deep movement of religious life, a consciousness of God that only a poet can express, a spiritual lineage that unites this little fellowship of free people to the whole great company of the witnesses of the real presence of God.

I saw something clever when Husband and I vacationed in Toronto this summer. We passed by a United Church of Canada parish church — a huge edifice, with what I guess is historically small congregation. But they did something smart to make it seem welcoming and lively.  Something other urban churches could do.

On the church sign, which many pedestrians would pass, you would see a panoramic photograph of the church interior, taken during a Sunday service. So while I dimly recall the grey stone — or was it dark brick? — of the church, I recall the warm interior view well enough to write about it now…

Meet Candace Lucretia Fulham Skinner. I found her through the Internet Archive image mass upload, in The Fulham Genealogy. She was married to a Universalist minister, but was a force, and a teacher and editor in her own right.

A force, it seems, presaged by her enormous head. But her whole story is grand. See highlights below, and you can read her whole biography in the book below.

b. in Ludlow, Vt, April 28, 1828; d. Dec. 16, 1899 in Waterville; m. June 29, 1854, Rev. JOSEPH OBERLIN SKINNER, A. M., a Universalist Clergyman, b. Feb. IS, 1816; d. Jan. 12, 1879 in Waterville

During several of her latest years her sight was impaired so as to prevent any considerable use of her eyes in reading, writing, or study; and entirely incapacitate her for the various kinds of artistic work with a needle at which she was an adept, and in which she had found great delight.

She inherited in considerable measure the massive brain of her father, Sewall Fulham, her head having a circumference of 23½ inches, with much of his intellectual power and his marvelous memory; and she developed these to the uttermost by the studious habits of a lifetime. Her opportunities for instruction were limited to the common school and the village academy, in which she ranked as one of the best of her class; but in these she made only the beginning of her scholarly attainments, which finally reached a degree of excellence known to few.

For some years she was a teacher of public and private schools; and between 1847 and 1850 she taught French to pupils of the academy at Ludlow. In 1850 she became Preceptress of the Liberal Institute at Waterville, Me., a Universalist school, in which she was associated, first, with James P. Weston, D. D., afterwards Pres. of Lombard University; and finally with Harris M. Plaisted, in later times Member of Congress and Governor of Maine. Here her fitness for the position was so well recognized that, when occasion required, she was intrusted with the instruction of any and all classes. Her scholarly accomplishments included a thorough knowledge of the Latin and the French languages; a less acquaintance with the Greek and Italian; familiarity with botany; and the mastery of English in all its details. And she was an excellent mathematician.

On Sunday, Feb. 5, 1878, while engaged in a funeral service at the Congregational Church of Waterville, Mr. Skinner was prostrated by paralysis, which, after nearly a year of helplessness, caused his death. He had been Editor of the Universalist Register, a statistical annual of the denomination, for several years; and, during his disability, she gathered the data, prepared the copy, and directed the publication of the issue of 1879. In the following year she was appointed Editor by the Universalist Publishing House, and she continued the work until after the publication of the number for 1881, when a long and severe sickness terminated the employment.

In my experience, attempts to introduce technology lessons for lawyers means an opportunity for clergy, too. Small-firm lawyers and clergy very often have this much in common: a need for technology, perhaps more than is currently thought, and few opportunities to learn about it, even though they have a deep educational background. I mentioned this resource for typography, later generalized. (Bookmark that second link; you can thank me later.)

So I intend to follow Coding for Lawyers the same way. Using Markdown (lesson2) for sermons — I do — is something I’d recommend for those who just need to “get it on paper” with a minimum of fuss.

Thanks to @internetrebecca (Rebecca Williams) for the citation.

A quick thought.

Why should the principal worship service be on a Sunday, particularly late Sunday morning? There are reasonable arguments for Christians, as it commemorates Christ’s resurrection. But that argues for a weekly sunrise service, and — let me tell you — if that were an option, I’d gladly take it. I don’t have to get up to milk the cows then walk miles to the chapel. The customary 11 a.m. service breaks up one of my day’s off. But I’ll gladly do it. Others won’t.

And for Unitarian Universalists, most of whom aren’t Christian, the remaining reasons are customary or cultural.

For new churches, who (1) have to appeal to people to take time to meet and (2) need to find a place to meet, Sunday morning must be the worst time, particularly since some of space best suited for worship are churches, and these are occupied then.

As I said, quick thought.

More from the Internet Archive upload to Flickr…

Universalist pioneer and minister John Murray died this day in 1815. While known in his own day as Father Murray, and honored for his early leadership, his own theological views were largely disregarded in his own lifetime.

His works, formerly hard to find, have been brought to light again by scanning projects. His Letters and Sketches of Sermons are particularly noteworthy.

His autobiography, finished by his wife Judith Murray, was often cited as an influential spiritual classic.

So, before I break this apart, I want to show you an old order of service from the defunct Church of the Messiah (Universalist) in Philadelphia. (I wrote about Messiah Home, it’s former retirement home here.)

Thanks to friend and Unitarian Universalist minister Hank Peirce for photo of the original text.

UNIVERSALIST CHURCH OF THE MESSIAH
Broad St. and Montgomery Avenue
Philadelphia 22, Pa.

ORDER FOR MORNING SERVICE — SUNDAY 11 A.M.

Organ Prelude

The congregation will stand for the

Doxology

From all that dwell below the skies

Let the Creator’s praise arise,

Let the Redeemer’s name be sung,

Through every land, by every tongue.

The congregation will be seated for the

Invocation to be followed by

The Lord’s Prayer

Hymn

Responsive selection

Soprano Solo

Scripture

Prayer Organ Response

Announcements

Offering

Hymn

Sermon

Hymn

Benediction

Moments of Silence

Organ Postlude

I clearly need to let my facial hair grow out, and find some wax. Even today’s overwrought hipsters have nothing on these Universalists of yore.

Details here, in a 1896 book about the Ocean State’s leading men. Search for “Universalist” to find other laymen, though none has a moustache as profound as Thayer. Woonsocket homeopath Robert G. Reed comes close.

Installed at the All Souls Universalist church in Worcester, Mass. in 1889; details here.

His bio, here, left column.

Click the image for a  link back to the original image; here it is in the book.

It’s still standing, and still a church: St. George Greek Orthodox. And really, doesn’t look like it was built for them?

View Larger Map
 

Yesterday, Cory Doctorow wrote that millions of public domain images, recovered from Internet Archive’s optical text recognition, have been uploaded to Flickr. The listing includes the text context, and a link back to the book. Like a image index as much as an image resource.

So I’m looking for Universalists, of course. Because the books include local histories and “who’s who”-type works, I’m getting hits for lay persons and lesser-known churches.

And I’ll be posting them.

I’ve enjoyed blogging less lately. Looking back, the every-day blogging schedule was too demanding. The main reason I would write some days was the certain knowledge that, once the daily chain broke, my readership would decline. Indeed, I now get about half the readers I got when I’d post once a day or more.

And why do the numbers matter? It’s not that I have to justify my reach to anyone, and I don’t accept advertising. The numbers matter because I was willing to let increased readership feed my self-esteem. I didn’t write — or don’t think I wrote — anything I don’t believe, but I did appreciate the feedback and the spikes in readership.

But — not to put too fine a point on it — it isn’t worth it. What is worth it?

One of the lessons of the ministry is that you get early-on is that you may not know where or when you do some good, and I suppose the same is true for churches, too. Sometimes it’s the listening ear, the kind word or the open door that does more good — or so we hear, or imagine — than programs, or planning or a fine education or stained glass. But I wonder if that’s not face saving; perhaps not untrue, at least in the past, but a less-than-productive use of time, talent and treasure. And in a secularizing world, we can make a clear and candid review of the work of the church and the ministry, or others will do it for us.

The same thought occurs: what is the value of our work, what reason do we have to engage it, and its value to others?

I’ve shortened my morning prayers and vespers to make them more appropriate for use alone, and brief enough to read before and after work.

I’ve take out the provision for readings and all but the fixed psalms (and after looking for a portable New Testament and Psalter!) so I can use the one book. But a little more scripture — to hang my thoughts on, to reflect on, to find guidance in — would be right.

I’ve subscribed to Moravian Daily Texts, which I get by email each day and which they’ve been printing since 1731! Two, very brief readings. Just about short enough to post on as the Community Wayside Pulpit or perhaps even to tweet. “Little chapters” if you pray the breviary.

I took a break from blogging and — knowing I wouldn’t want get back to writing immediately — prepared several evergreen posts to run this week. (I’ll write about a couple of things I found in Toronto next week.) Which is one reason you’ve not see me comment on Ferguson (or Gaza or ISIS) here

But since I tend not to write about current political affairs anyway, I was inclined to keep my own counsel about the killing of Mike Brown and the crisis in Ferguson, Missouri once I returned. What more could I say that many others had said? The (putative) Left was active in social media and print. And often said with a manic parroting, as if to counter and perhaps overwhelm the (putative) Right. I only went to show that Twitter and Facebook — one space-limited; the other limited by algorithm — is poorly suited for the needed discourse. It seems too much like shouting or sniping.

I figured the truth — or a reasonable likeness — would appear in time, and it was the autopsy reports and the appalling behavior of law enforcement and elected officials that signaled that Michael Brown’s death was irregular, unnecessary and suspicious. And that his death unlocked suppressed fear, hardship and resentment among black residents in the city; similar feelings and experiences among others (particularly other black Americans) elsewhere; and heightened concerns about the false-militarization of police forces.

I’m writing this in a particularly cool and formal voice, because I think that’s more respectful, and respect is important. Respect to the dead and the communities can remain even when respect to structures of authority are in tatters. While I expect we will learn more about Michael Brown’s death, I’m not optimistic that his case will have an adequately just outcome. A cool and measured tone, too, because that’s the typical liberal position of discourse. We’re not radicals, but that’s no boast.

American politics have tacked so far to the Right in the last three or four decades that liberals and the liberalish have been cast in the role of the Far Left, a position we neither deserve or can maintain. It seems to me the true Far — or perhaps more aptly, Deep — Left bases its politics out of the experience of deep, usually communal, suffering. Liberals, so far as I’ve seen, are usually separated from this experience by a generation or two. And we can admire the passion of the Deep Left, envious of its moral immediacy, and compelled by the sense of rightness it brings — but we cannot share it’s feeling. It’s out of our experience. (Though some with experiences may also want to hide it. Hidden addiction. Hidden violence. Hidden poverty. Hidden illness. That’s a matter for another time.)

But for most of us in liberal circles, the cares and concerns will be different. Those who need to survive will care about different things than those who have the room to improve.Improvement being that hallmark of religious and political liberalism. But the drive to improve can be burdensome, and if you’re trying to keep body and soul together, improvement is an unaffordable luxury.

The Ferguson affair is a challenge to the liberal experiment. Can we bear to feel helpless? Can we be, and not improve, when appropriate? Can we — should we — be liberal: a moderate, moderating force? Can we bear to say no to those to our Left when we’re bidden to go too far?

Lord, help us. But help the people of Ferguson first; the focus should be on them.

With all the talk about student debt, low salaries, missing employment, unwanted bivocationality and plain-old poverty in the ministry, it makes some sense to address ways of saving money as a way of making-do, because structural change (and success is not guaranteed) takes time.

That’s a good reason to put free-of-charge Ubuntu Linux on an old “obsolete” computer, to give it modern utility.

With concerns about online privacy invasion, copyright overreach and vendor lock-in, it makes sense to use an operating system that is backed by a community that takes your concerns seriously.

That’s a good reason to use free-to-use Ubuntu Linux, which has a community that takes these concerns seriously.

With brand-consciousness trumping utility, and the work of the ministry still being an under-served market, it makes sense to seek out an operating system that is easy (or easier) to build upon and responsive to active, if unprofitable, groups that create tools for their own use.

That’s a good reason to use free-to-adapt Ubuntu Linux, which has deep communities that address very specific needs, including those of congregations and ministers.

But Ubuntu, like all Linux versions, have a reputation — no longer fair — of being difficult or esoteric to install, maintain or use.

If you used a Linux version before, I recommend you try one again, as a group of more user-friendly versions have developed and improved in recent years. 

And that’s a good reason for me to start a weekly feature — each Thursday — demonstrating a feature or tool on the current long-term support version of Ubuntu Linux, probably the best used and most generally useful member of the desktop/laptop Linux family.

One of the principles I brought into my morning and evening prayer practice is that I would read the prayers as printed until became accustomed to them. I would borrow their voice and let it become mine as I learned the internal logic of the services. I refused to be trapped by my own sensibility: a sensibility evoked with the joke about Unitarian Universalists reading ahead to see if they agree with the words of a hymn. Being a Unitarian Universalist is, too often, questing after fixing things whether they need fixing or not.

So I took time to listen. Now that I have a sense of this voice and rhythm, I’ve begun to make alterations. Very small one. (I’ll write about a replacement soon.) These are the micro-alterations that a person or congregation, familiar with a liturgical text, will make, possibly without planning and likely without notice. An appeal less to change, but a flexibility that keeps the prayer from drawing too much attention to itself.

1. Small changes to gendered language. “All men” become “all.” Or “men” become “people.” Matriarchs join patriarchs. But I leave the “he” pronouns for God. Changing them would pull me too far out of prayer; instead, I pronounce these pronouns softly — more like”ee” — and keep going.
2. Pacing some items — less timely, less resonant prayers, say — faster than others. You can always slow down when they’re needed.
3. Inserting petitions into collects. That’s a blog post of its own.
4. Stopping, and sometimes repeating, a prayer.

This is more a request than a blog post, and I’m reaching out to people in the Independent Catholic or Independent Sacramental movements, and particularly those in structured communities, like parishes or worship groups.

How do you organize your groups? How do you work between groups? In what way does your group function like “establishment” churches and which way does it not?

I would appreciate any feedback, and I think we generally have much to learn as religious institutions have their privileged place challenged.

As I’ve written before, we Unitarian Universalists need to organize new churches to replace those that shrink and die, and to reach those unserved by those that exist.

But to what end? To put it plainly, what is it that churches do that others couldn’t do better?

And it isn’t that the question is academic. The opportunity cost of organizing, staffing and maintaining churches is very high. Say, about a thousand dollars of giving per year per member, providing for some measure of paid minister and without a deep endowment, not to mention the costs of cultivating appropriate leadership. Are the existing churches themselves costly optional extras to, well … what’s at the core is the real issue.

Is it simply community, that fallback substitute not only for mission, but for deity itself? (To think about how often it is evoked as the source of inspiration.) If so, Unitarian Universalists become nothing more than a high-minded social club. Far from progressive, a bring-your-own theological model replaces mutual care and support for a sink-or-swim contest. Or as Jesus put it, “if your son asks you for bread, do you give him a stone?”

Moreover, I think that churches have meaningful reasons for being, and that many of them are deep and decent. But these are far from uniform, determined more by history, locality and grace than by the would-be guiding hand of a central organization.

That’s why I get so angry when congregational polity — the one constant referent in our history — is derided as counter-productive or obsolete. A successful appeal to centralize power has to prove that what it offers is more valuable than what’s lost. And since the common core is all but undefined, and the local, particular sources of mission are all but unrecognized, such a move is nothing but an avoidable disaster.

Another passage from Elbridge Gerry Brooks’s Our New Departure, pages 85, opening his chapter on sin. I wish this was more simply written, but it makes me think of more recent preachments on the “re-discovery” of sin among Unitarian Universalists. But Brooks shows this dynamic isn’t new and cautions about flying from one pole of opinion to another — and then confronts us across the years: once you find sin to be real, what are you going to do about it?

It is the penalty of all reform that those who wage it, opposing one error or abuse, necessarily incur the risk of swinging into another. Perhaps this has had no more striking illustration than is furnished in the rebound from the exaggerated doctrines of the sacrificial theology concerning sin, — as to its infinite enormity, on the one hand, and as to the vindictive and horrible punishment by which only can God duly attest His hatred of it, on the other. Not to enter into the broad field thus opened, however, it is enough now to ask whether we, as a people, have not shared in this extreme rebound. Arraigning and controverting these doctrines, have we not had speculations among us, and even definitely declared conclusions, the inevitable effect of which, logically, has been either to make sin an inconsiderable affair, a slight disturbance which is to be beneficently overruled, or to deny that there is really any such thing? Have there not been periods in our history, indeed, when such theories have to no small extent determined the burden of our pulpits, and the thought of our people? And do they not yet quite largely mingle in the opinions that prevail among us?

But are such theories morally healthful? Are they favorable to quickness of conscience, or to a propelling and inextinguishable sense of obligation? Do they tend to distress us with a rebuking consciousness of the guilt of sin, or to induce humiliation and penitence on account of it? In few words, are they fitted spiritually to arouse and stimulate anybody? to fill anybody with a loathing and abhorrence of sin?

I’ll be away from the blog — but surely thinking of grand things to write — for the whole week. Talk among yourselves and I’ll return on August 17 or 18.

Stay cool!

I’ve moved from a traditional Universalist prayerbook’s evening prayer to vespers — a related service, but very different in structure and tone — because it is more meditative, more focused on the night, and night as a foreshadow of death. But considering death then turns us back to life, so the experience isn’t gloomy, but a solace.

This prayer speaks to me as the apex of vespers. That “…shall be heard by us no more” is hopeful: our future lies in God, and generations will live after us.  That’s hope.

O blessed God, who neither slumberest nor sleepest; Take us into thy gracious keeping for this night; and make us mindful of that night when the noise of this busy world shall be heard by us no more. O Lord, in whom we trust, help us by thy grace so to live that we may never be afraid to die, and grant that at the last as now our evensong may be: I will lay me down in peace, and sleep, for thou, Lord, only makest me dwell in safety. Amen.

It’s not clear who wrote this prayer, or when. It is distinctly Universalist, but has echoes in other sources. It was written no later than 1863 — an age well acquainted with painful memories of the dead — and appeared in James Martineau’s Common Prayer for Christian Worship, so he may be the source.

I ask the question “How much church can you get for minimum wage?” not to suggest that low-waged workers should be segregated into their own parishes, but consider the proportional sacrifices and ability to give.

I routinely advocate for the formation of new churches: to keep up with population growth, to replace those declining and defunct, and engage with under-represented groups of people. But this doesn’t mean we have the same level of resources we did in the 1980s or 1940s (or 1880s or 1640s.)

One down side of a secularizing culture is that it’s harder to make a case for funding a religious endeavor, unless, perhaps there’s some attendant ethnic or cultural reason. And with a trend of declining wealth, stagnant wages and increasing student debt, the people who are left to contribute are likely to have less to spare.

We’re coming out of church culture of big asks, big sacrifices and big capital projects. But that just doesn’t seem realistic — certainly not in the same way — in the future.

Now, we look at millions of America who are just keeping body and soul together. The churches have to prove their value; double so with new ones.

So, how much church can you get for minimum wage? And more importantly, how will they work? And what will they do?

The church, in its history, has been impoverished, tested, challenged and troubled. I can survive, even prosper. But how?

It’s a bit of an overstretch — after all, I have an interest in Stanton Coit and denominational data generally — but I only write substantively about Christianity in the UUA. I write about worship in Christian terms. I write about mission in Christian terms. I write about connections among Unitarian Universalist Christians, and in ecumenical settings. I write about problems Christians have.

What about everyone else?

Well, for one thing, I know more about Christians than other Unitarian Universalists. There are fewer Christians, so there are fewer people to write. Many are personal friends. I am a member of a Christian church that’s a member of the UUA. And Christians make up a small minority among Unitarian Universalists.

For another, much of what I write applies to other Unitarian Universalists, especially since our habits and opportunities rest on a common foundation. If you’re willing to apply it to your own situation, you might discover some insights. (Christians are asked to translate meta-narratives all the time; it can be done.)

But the most important reason, is that I want to cultivate a particular voice that speaks consistently and predictably to and from the faith situation I dwell in. Unitarian Universalist Christians, while often spoken of as a singular group, really is remarkably diverse in theology, applied polity, politics and life situations.

There’s enough of a there there to give it some focus, to support the faithful and upbuild the body. I hope to do this by writing. I hope many people find this valuable (including non-Unitarian Universalist Christians) and it seems to be the work God has set out for me. It’s enough without planning to speak for or about those with whom I have a too-thin understanding.

The “Boy in the Bands” moniker began as a terrible double pun: a throw-away name to sign up for a site I rarely visit today. I was in a pastorate when I began this blog, and wore a collar and Geneva bands, with gown and hood in the pulpit.

I don’t wear a clerical collar often these days: I’m not in a pastorate, for one. And when I preach supply, and then visit after the service it draws too much attention. And a dress shirt and tie is more comfortable. So, I’ve gone from the kind of bands (or tabs, if you like) that you tie on and wear under a clerical collar, to the kind that you tuck in.

Tuck in, that is, between my neck and the shirt and over the tie to hide it. Here am (left) I before assisting with communion at First Universalist Church on the Sunday of General Assembly. (Had I been preaching, I might have worn my hood, too. But the real reason is that I didn’t want to pack it. The gown was borrowed.)  It’s a comfort to only carry a couple of ounces of linen to “suit up.”

I’m writing about the bands, not to draw attention to me or them, but because a younger minister was drawn to this elegant custom, and wanted to get a set.

Alas, they’re German, ordered from Germany with the help of an expat former church member. That was about eleven year ago (and they’re still in wonderful shape.)

I got them from church textiles workshop of Diakonie Neuendettelsau. The “hohlsaum” (handworked decorative holes), made of linen. This is the one I got.

And when you click through, you’ll want the Reformed (Reformiert) style. The Steckbeffchen (insert-bands). I got the 17 cm long ones; then again, I’m 6-foot-4.

Good luck after that. I don’t read German, and the site doesn’t assume Anglophones would want their product. Or non-Germans, for shipping.

I though: perhaps the Transylvanians have something similar, and their tailors could also use the work. By which I mean the Reformed Church.(Though I’ve never seen them.)  As the late Bishop Szabo, of the Transylvanian Unitarian church put it when I was kitting him out for a communion service, “we don’t wear the Moses’ tablets…”

But ministers. you might try then. Someone ought to keep tabs on you.

Sorting through my photos. A few last things to share from 2014 General Assembly.

Banner Parade begins

So, I’ll be preaching at Universalist National Memorial Church (UNMC) on September 21, and since I don’t preach much these days, I figured I had better start getting some words down now or else I’ll never be ready. Be prepared to see non-sequitur blog posts that link obliquely to that sermon until then; I do sometimes use this blog as a commonplace.

Since, wherever possible, I used the appointed readings from the Revised Common Lectionary (RCL), I figure I’ll start there. It’s not because they’re inherently magical, but the wide selection gets me out of my comfort zone, deposits me in narrative and releases me from that terrible problem: choosing what pearl of wisdom to preach on. Also, the Consultation on Common Texts, which produced the RCL, is one of the few places where Unitarian Universalist Christians are welcomed ecumenically, so I want to support that.

Now, the texts themselves. UNMC typically has two texts read, and the RLC appoints three, including a variant Old Testament lesson, both of which have their own psalm. So I’ll pick two of five options. (I don’t preach out of psalms as much as I once did.)

September 21, 2014 is the fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost, or in some traditions known as Proper 20. (I’m not a fan of the numbered proper custom, but that’s how you’ll find resources, so better to cite it.) Here are all the texts.

Having reviewed them before, I decided on the main (or “continuous”) Old Testament reading, rather than the alternative “thematic” text, which I’ll use in concert with the Gospel.

That gives me

• Exodus 16:2-15, the giving of manna
• Matthew 20:1-16, the parable of the workers

Not sure which will be the main preaching text yet, but I may drop hints soon enough.

“I will pray for you” and its secularized version “I’m thinking of you” are still lively expressions of concern, and often deeply valued by the person thought of or prayed for. Friends have approached me, asking for prayer, only last week.

“Of course,” I said. And I mean it, and I have a plan to fulfil that request. I will pray for you.

There’s a technique to adding petitions to collects. To review, collects (accent on the first syllable) are a variety of prayer with a particular structure, and they are typically prayed in a set series, with special collects added for particular occasions. In the morning and evening prayer the Universalists historically used, the collects come at the end. The collect “for all Conditions of Men” is a good place to add petitions, so I’ll show it as printed, and then as I pray it. Prayers for clergy and congregations (I always pray for my ministers and church, for what it’s worth), for this and other nations, for special occasions, and my blessings in this life come in other places.

As printed:

O God, the Creator and Preserver of all mankind, we humbly beseech thee for all sorts and conditions of men; that thou wouldest be pleased to make thy ways known unto them, thy saving health unto all nations. More especially we pray for the good estate of the Church Universal; that it may be so guided and governed by thy good Spirit, that all who profess and call themselves Christians may be led into the way of truth, and hold the faith in unity of spirit, in the bond of peace, and in righteousness of life. Finally, we commend to thy fatherly goodness all those who are any ways afflicted or distressed, in mind, body, or estate; that it may please thee to comfort and relieve them according to their several necessities, giving them patience under their sufferings, and a happy issue out of all their afflictions. And this we beg for thy mercy’s sake in Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

How I pray it today:

O God, the Creator and Preserver of all mankind, we humbly beseech thee for all sorts and conditions of men; that thou wouldest be pleased to make thy ways known unto them, thy saving health unto all nations. More especially we pray for the good estate of the Church Universal; and in particular the churches in Iraq, that it may be so guided and governed by thy good Spirit, that all who profess and call themselves Christians may be led into the way of truth, and hold the faith in unity of spirit, in the bond of peace, and in righteousness of life. Finally, we commend to thy fatherly goodness all those who are any ways afflicted or distressed, in mind, body, or estate; particularly Anna, Bailey and Carter; the refugees in Syria and Gaza; and people suffering with bulimia that it may please thee to comfort and relieve them according to their several necessities, giving them patience under their sufferings, and a happy issue out of all their afflictions. And this we beg for thy mercy’s sake in Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The semicolons are your friends. Added petitions seem to fit there naturally, or at the end of sentences. I’ll later share some resources about finding additional, particular (“proper”) collects.

For decades, perhaps generations, Universalists applied the honorific term father and mother to honored elders. The most obvious use is Father and Mother Murray — John and Judith — but there are others, none recent.

So I wondered: how did one earn the honor, to whom was it applied (generally, for it was surely not ministers only, and, which particular persons were so called) and when did the practice fade? I know the term brother, to describe a minister, has survived into living memory. I recall Brother (Leonard) Prater, for instance; he died in the 1990s. And the translation of honored and beloved siblinghood can easily be transferred to parenthood.

I’ll post or link future findings from here.

Each evening, for vespers, I “sing” the Bonum Est Confiteri, Prasm 92:1-4 as it read in the rubrics, and included in the Coverdale version:

¶ Then shall be sang the following Psalm:

Bonum Est Confiteri.

It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord: and to sing praises unto thy name, O Most Highest;
To tell of thy loving-kindness early in the morning: and of thy truth in the night-season;
Upon an instrument of ten strings, and upon the lute: upon a loud instrument, and upon the harp.
For thou, Lord, hast made me glad through thy works: and I will rejoice in giving praise for the operations of thy hands.

Do I sing it? No. But there a different ways congregations can use this (and other psalms and canticles):

1. Read in in unison.
2. Read in by alternating verses or half verses; alternating between a worship leader and congregation, or between halves of the congregation.
3. Read in unison, but book-ended with a sung antiphon. More often seen in newer hymnals.
4. Chanted: plainsong or Anglican chant being two options.
5. A metrical version sung to a psalm tune — “Old 100th” was the tune for an early metrical version of Psalm 100.
6. A hymn based closely on the psalm.

The Sternhold and Hopkins metrical psalter is the likely choice for option 5, giving us, in common meter:

It is a thing both good and meet
to praise the highest Lord,
And to thy Name, O thou most High,
to sing with one accord:

To shew the kindness of the Lord,
before the day be light,
And to declare his truth abroad,
when it doth draw to night;

On a ten-string’ed instrument,
on lute and harp so sweet,
With all the mirth you can invent
of instruments most meet.

An assortment of hymns evoking Psalm 92 may be found here.

The point: a rubric and a text may be used in more than the literal way.

I’m a vegetarian, and have been for (what?) a year or two. Not for health reasons, or ecological ones, but for ethical and religious reasons. More about that later, maybe.

And when you read personal  narratives of vegetarianism, there comes that assumption that there must be a reason, other than simply not liking to eat meat. There has to be some higher purpose, as if the cuisine isn’t enough. It’s not just a diet, but a diet that calls for an apologia and even a meta-narrative. Others do this — oh, ye paleo or raw food people — but most people don’t, and probably wonder why. And as someone who used to make wicked jokes about vegetarianism, I know that “eating on purpose” can be annoying.

But here’s the thing. All else being true,  it’s cheaper (overall) to be a vegetarian, and especially about a century or more ago when vegetarians were organizing into groups. Meat was expensive — heck! food was expensive. So for some diners — this is where proper history helps — simple vegetarian fare was (first and foremost) affordable, served with a side of moral uplift and resolve.

So what?

Think about churches. There are true believers and people who are in vested in the institutions. The “churchiness” of it. The theology. But  many will care about the stained glass or the organ. A kind word over coffee. Or learning in a class with other oddballs. “Unchurchy” reasons. One reason that you can find non-Christians in all kinds of Christian churches; a liberal approach to participation.

The secret lesson of the vegetarians is that the high — no, not high, but particular, formal and sacrificial — commitment approach to church life, which works for “churchy” people like me, is a turn-off for people who want to make their own experience in our shared setting. There’s room for all kinds of people, including those who are “churched” for their own needs and own convenience.

[Later. Title fixed.]

One of the oldest Internet communities for Unitarian Universalist Christians is the UUCF-MIN list. But as email has lost some of its cachet, and Facebook and Twitter have taken over some of its utility, the list has had less and less traffic, and now is more often quiet than not.

I sent an email to check in: to see if the mailing list is live, and to see if its former participants were still present and interested. They are. Some people, after all, just don’t like Facebook or Twitter or any other social network.

If you are interested, and are a Unitarian Universalist and kindred Christian ministers or seminarians,in the United States or anywhere in the world, you are welcome to ask the moderators to join. (I think there was a provision for non-fellowshipped ministers who served denominational churches, but I cannot find any note of that now.) But don’t ask me: I’m not one of them now!

Summer is at its peak. It’s hot. And for reasons outside your control, the otherwise-reliable power supply has been cut. No air conditioning, and since you don’t know when it’s going to come back (it will come back, right?) you don’t dare pillage the fridge, so to preserve the chilled food you have left.

What do you do to stay feeling cool? These make my list

• keep the curtains closed when the sun is up
• try to draw a breeze by opening two or more windows
• keep meals light and cold, or at least uncooked
• keep the lights out, even if modern lights don’t produce much heat any more
• take frequent, light showers (or at least make good use of a damp wash cloth)
• drink as much cold water as possible
• air the bedclothes before sleeping
• wear modern fibers, which wick sweat, dry quickly and minimize feeling sticky

Of these, all but the last was common in my grandparents’ day, and perhaps their grandparents’.

When we read about — heck, know — about highly educated (and deeply indebted) ministers who are unemployed or under-employed in church work, it’s not hard to sense that times are changing, and are very unlikely to return to the go-go days of postwar Protestantism. The power is going out: short stoppages now, but there may be a day when the grid fails completely. We need to prepare for this risk, and be grateful that we still have choices (if not always happy one) and that these are not fundamentally life and death issues.

And, looking back on that hot weather solutions list, I’d like us to consider the wisdom of an earlier time that faced some of the same problems and had to cope. Relying on a practical ministerial education more, say, than an academic model. Forming more parish yokes. Making ministerial fellowship more flexible for dip in and out of (better paying, one would hope) secular work. Revisiting credentialed lay ministry, an inheritance from the Universalists, was only formally laid down a few years ago. Not to mention making conference attendance and professional development less of a financial burden.

There is surely room for modern technology, but I bet we already know and have known the essential steps to making necessary changes. The will is another matter. Until then, the heat is on.

Twice a day now, I pray for the President of the United States and others “in civil authority” as part of my morning and evening prayer practice. It is not only a hallowed practice, but one that gets its warrant in the same breath as a testimony made for universal salvation, namely 1 Timothy 2:1-4:

I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.

(Reading on in the same chapter, I’m not so fond about the part about women teaching; the author of this letter makes a hash out of his Genesis prooftext, too. I digress.)

But the prayer appointed in the evening is increasingly problematic. I’ve given a good try, but I need to find a replacement. It reads:

Almighty God, whose kingdom is everlasting and power infinite; Have mercy upon this whole land; and so rule the hearts of thy servants, The President of the United States, The Governor of this State, and all others in authority, that they, knowing whose ministers they are, may above all things seek thine honor and glory; and that we and all the people, duly considering whose authority they bear, may faithfully and obediently honor them, in thee and for thee, according to thy blessed Word and Ordinance; through Jesus Christ our Lord who, with thee and the Holy Ghost, liveth and reigneth, world without end. Amen.

Close versions of this prayer have been in use in the United States in a number of different prayer books for two hundred years. Also, if you were saying Evening Prayer among traditionalists in the Church of England, you would note it is in the place of the state prayers (particularly “Prayer for the Queen’s Majesty”). Which is by way of saying this prayer bears more of the markings of a prayer for a Christian ruler than a prayer Christians would make for their elected leaders in a secular democracy. And while the author to Timothy had no imagining of our modern democracy, neither were the powers prayed-for either Christian or particularly sympathetic, so the tone of this prayer seems unnecessarily deferential.

We can do better.

So, my husband and I rode to the eastern terminus of the Washington Metro Silver Line on opening day yesterday. This is the first new subway — really, an elevated line — since 1991, and it goes through and past Tysons Corner, a local byword for big shopping malls, wide highways and mammoth office blocks. And until now, access by car or difficult bus connections. The plans for the future include more residents, and replacing an old-style suburban built environment with one more urban. But that’ll take many years.

As, indeed the rest of the planned, but not yet built, Phase 2 of the Silver Line. At least that’s scheduled for 2018, and not decades away. But the reason I suspect most in-town Washingtonians want to ride the Silver Line is to reach Dulles Airport, but that station is in Phase 2.

But the options to Dulles have improved.

The old “medium cheap” brown Washington Flyer bus — that only came in as far as East Falls Church Metro station — has been replaced by a blue Silver Line Express, to the Wiehle-Reston East station, the current terminus. It’s a shorter run, and also cheaper at $5.

Here are some notes:

When you arrive at Wiehle-Rest East, well, you’re really in a parking and bus transfer center. The station is in the median of the major arterial Dulles Toll Road, and so there’s no direct access.  Go up the adjacent escalator, turn right out the enclosed vestibule. You’re now in an open-air plaza; turn right again. About thirty feet or so ahead is a path; look left. You will see a covered foot bridge over the Dulles Toll Road to the station ticketing area. There you can buy your fare; I’d recommend getting a SmarTrip card from one of the sales machine. You’ll save the cost of the card almost immediately, and spare yourself the trouble of fiddling with a paper fare card (for which there’s a $1 surcharge) and money. And there are discounts for using one.

Proceed though the gates, and down to the platform. and take any train.

Stand behind the bumpy edge on the platform.

When using escalators, stand on the right and walk on the left, unless it’s just packed solid.

On the return trip, just get on the bus. You’ll pay at the airport.

It’s been a hard week in the news. Central American children in the borderlands. The deaths in Gaza. The Malaysian flight downing. Frightening news — let’s hope not all true — from ISIS/ISIL. You’d be forgiven for being overwhelmed.

But please spare a prayer for the Christian minority of Iraq, and particularly of Mosul, an ancient community that’s been extirpated. Remember them, as they take refuge, mainly in Iraqi Kurdistan.

This interview on Religion and Ethics Newsweekly is of Syrian Catholic (that is, in union with Rome) Patriarch Ignatius Youssef III Younan.

Another advertisement from the 1912 Universalist Register was for the “Cross and Crown” system of pins and accessories, to award Sunday School participation. You still see these for sale in old-fashioned church supply stores, but while there used to be named versions for all major denominations, you hardly see any other than Baptists today; the generic “attendance” variety prevail today. And they’re not nearly so refined as the one I saw some years ago: the treasured possessions of elder Universalists, kept from childhood.

Back in 2002, I bought up the last of the Universalist “Cross and Crown” pins from Whittemore’s, a much loved but now defunct New England church supply house.

The Optimist’s Good Morning is a book of prayers and written selections, published by Little, Brown in 1907 but it’s also a Universalist Publishing House title, and so not-surprisingly full of Universalist authors (and a few who aren’t, like Confucius.)

Florence Hobart Perin, the compiler, was herself a Universalist leader, and presumably the same Florence Hobart who was the clerk of the old Boston Association in the late 1890s.

George L. Perin (link to picture), is the most cited author, was something of a denominational celebrity and former missionaries to Japan. (I’ve had a devilish time connecting Florence and George.) You might recognize some of the other names in it, like Quillen Shinn, Henry Nehemiah Dodge, Mary Livermore, Charles R. Tenney, Edwin C. Sweetser, Frederick A. Bisbee, Frederic Perkins and Wilburn D. Potter.

It speaks to an upbeat kind of Universalism that I’ve seen little written about, but for which each of these Perins were long-time proponents, if the print record is correct.

I wrote about a New Testament with psalter I ordered; it arrived last Wednesday.

It could be worse. I can imagine furtive looks about the “faith sharing” helps, and I might agree with you. But they’re moderate evangelical and are easy enough to ignore, in part because they assume a particular insider’s attitude to scripture and the Christian faith. Nothing offensive (if you accept that Christianity is an evangelizing religion) but I may use those pages to paste my prayers.

The bigger problem is the combination of a soft (non-leather) cover and thin India paper, typical for Bibles. The binding slumps in my day bag, and the thin corners dog-ear.

The translation in NRSV, which is a decently middle-of-the-road. The type is slightly larger and more legible than I feared, so that’s good and the price was good. It weighs 165 grams — less than 6 ounces — and fits easily in the hand.

A modest endorsement.

The 1912 copy of the Universalist Register I wrote about had illustrations and advertising in the back. Such fun. One of the images was of one of the locations of the Universalist Publishing House, then on Boylston Street, very close to the Arlington Street Church.

The building is still there, perhaps incorporated into the building next door, thus throwing off the street numbers. And I gather the street-front cafe is this restaurant: Parish Cafe.

Can any Boston readers confirm? Have any eaten there?

Ann Lee Bressler’s The Universalist Movement in America is an important resource in understanding Universalist history — and it’s incredibly expensive. A hard copy is now $90. (I got a reader’s copy ages ago.)

The good news is that you can read a “Free sample” — the introduction and chapter one; which are incredibly important — in Google Play, to help you decide if you want to buy the epub ($68!) or rent it ($34!) … or read it at a theological library.

Another passage from Elbridge Gerry Brooks’s Our New Departure, pages 74 and 75.

Although the language sounds like ransom theory, this is an exposition of the moral influence view of atonement (also loved in antiquity), and a modern view of sin in human relationships. For this reason, it’s worth muscling past language that would place this in another, inaccesible time. (The race bit, for instance; but since it’s at the end of a widening band of human relationships, I assume he means “human race”. But the idea that God has an ownership claim on us might be harder to digest.)

Even in our mere human relations, considering the vast net-work in which we are woven, we are not our own. We belong to the Past, as the heirs of its blessings; to the Present, as the stewards of its responsibilities; to the Future, as the guardians of its welfare. We belong to our parents; to our brothers and sisters, if we have them; to our families and homes; to our associates and friends; to every human being who has done us a kindness, or who needs our aid; to our country; to our race. How much more, then, to Christ and to God! We have not a faculty — of body or of mind, we have not a gift. This is the central fact of which God, through Christianity, is seeking to make us aware. This is the meaning of His Fatherhood. It is equally the meaning of our Brotherhood. The cross is the consummate proclamation of this fact, in concrete. It is God’s sense of ownership and His great consequent interest in us, — it is Christ’s marvellous love, willing at any price to gain possession of us, put into sensible form; and in whomsoever its power is at all felt, self-assertion is so far vanquished, and the will of God, as expressed in Christ, becomes supreme.

Last night, the Unitarian Universalist ministerial college openly lamented the death of Unitarian Universalist minister Jennifer Slade, who died on Tuesday and who was discovered Thursday.

I want to express my sympathy to her family, and to her congregations. I am praying for you and her, and for others — including a number of ministers — shaken and feeling vulnerable by her death. I trust the “better angels” to mutual care and the communion of the churches to help.

The news of her death was reported by the Unitarian Church of Norfolk (Virginia) (Unitarian Universalist), where she was the development minister for about a year. There are, to date, few details and none about any service.

Before that, she served ministries in Clinton, North Carolina and (for more than a decade) at Greenville, S.C. I knew her, or rather of her, in passing and by reputation when I lived and ministered in the South.

Be good to one another.

There are many years of the Universalist Register, the denominational directory, on either side of the turn of the twentieth century available from Google Books. But there’s a catch. The most useful part (I think) is the set of charts identifying the location of parishes and churches, their membership, minister, clerk and how often they meet for worship. These are printed at ninety degrees to the running text, and the Google’s scanning treated them like images, and lifted them out of the text. Not helpful.

I found a single issue of the Register — the 1912 edition — scanned by and from the Library of Congress. A touch of irony: the charts are printed right way up, so it wouldn’t have mattered.

Lots of fun things therein.

Ah, I let my subscription to the Universalist Herald, “The Oldest Continuously Published Liberal Religious Periodical in North America” lapse, but I corrected that before General Assembly. Since then I’ve gotten an issue — and I’m so glad I’m back!

You should get yours, too, here.

For the last week or so I’ve been praying an abridged version of Universalist morning and evening prayer (evening prayer, rather than the morning prayer and vespers PDF I posted) at home. Abridged in that I don’t read out the dialogues, opening words or anything to direct the congregation. No hymns and obviously no sermon.

A psalm or two, a reading, and the usual prayers. I add a collect for the day, and I’m slowly working through various resources to find these, and collects for special occasions.

I’m getting used to the rhythms of grammar of the prayers, and I add to specific petitions more naturally each day. I started using small sticky notes to remember particular people places or situations in my prayers. Some elements are showing their age; others provide timeless comfort.

Even after a few days, I can feel something changing my direction towards God, and I look for new discoveries in the days and years to come.

When we look at the norms of Christian worship, there is a standard of time, however frequently it’s broken. (Non-Christian Unitarian Universalists note this, too, considering where we get our worship habits.)

To put it so briefly as to risk being misleading, daily prayer should go up morning and night each day, and we should attend to the Table each Sunday, and that’s excluding duplicated services on Sunday morning. Two times seven is fourteen, plus one equals fifteen. So ideally a congregation should have at least fifteen worship services a week, if not more. But who does that? Some Episcopal cathedrals, if you’re lucky. And the occasional parish in Advent or Lent. But a leaner schedule is more customary, considering staffing costs or parishioner demand. Even a few decades ago, mainline Protestants would commonly have two services outside Sunday morning (Sunday evening and a midweek evening service, often on Wednesday) and communion once a month. This create a roughly the same ideal-weekly proportion of worship services over the course of a month. In short, a more appropriate rhythm developed, and one that seemed appropriately scaled. Some small town churches — we certainly see this among Universalists — take that to an even smaller scale. A service a month or so and communion once a year (if ever) based on the ability to secure a minister’s services. (How many of us have preached on a circuit?) Indeed, include too-cold or too-hot weather, and I suspect you find the UUA’s ten-services-a-year minimum. And now the ideal-weekly schedule gets pulled out over a year. But perhaps that’s appropriate, given the size and resources of the congregation, and the size of the community. The rhythms adjust to fit the capacity of the congregation, which might have a much (or more) to do with leadership as money.

And so, if this is true of worship, it is surely also true of mission and education, to name two other key functions of a church. And sometimes, particularly in small churches, one function will exist to the practical exclusion of the others. We all know of churches that struggle to stage a Sunday service. And how some Fellowship-era congregations existed primarily at first as Sunday schools. Some can even exist only as mission, or at least at their mission arm. Here I’m thinking of little Universalist churches that closed, leaving a women’s  organization — sometimes for decades — is a group dedicated to fellowship and possibly for service not a valid expression of the church?

And so to my point. A church may not have the expected size or scope of activity and yet may be a genuine expression of church. It may start small, grow in size and complexity, and then later contract and simplify. The right goal needn’t be continued and progressive development, but graceful adaptation to new conditions and the good sense to make the most of it.

In case you wanted to see the printed services used at First Universalist Church, Providence, held over General Assembly, please download this PDF (4.2 Mb). I created this not out of the 1941 edition of A Book of Prayer for the Churches that First Universalist, Providence, uses, but the 1957 edition printed by the recently defunct First Universalist Church, Woonsocket, Rhode Island. (I got it on eBay.) Just to be clear that the tradition isn’t a nineteenth-century re-enactment, but long-held. And there’s a difference.

But the text for morning prayer and vespers in the two editions is the same. Note: we prayed vespers and not evening prayer. Evening prayer developed from vespers (the evening service) and compline (the service before bed) so that raises the question: why does the book have both? I don’t know, except to think that some churches used one and some the other. I’ll have to analyze their differences.

A word about how they ran. The pastor of First Universalist, Providence, lead the services making “micro-alterations” and applying local, customary ceremonial. We were supported in our singing and chanting by organ and organist. With readings (Old Testament and Gospel in the morning; New Testament epistle for vespers), sung responses, psalm, a brief address, and a hymn (vespers only) the services ran about 20-25 minutes in the morning and fifteen for vespers.

One feature of the opening ceremony at General Assembly is the welcoming new congregations. Normally — and perhaps I’m dating myself — there are several welcomed into membership. Except this year there was only one congregation, the lowest I’ve ever seen. Congratulations to Original Blessing, Brooklyn. But when I asked the question does it matter? The answer is undoubtedly yes.

Not all young congregations survive. Not all young congregations encourage the ministerial college by providing employment. Not all young congregations contribute talent for common work, or funds. Not all young congregations reflect well on the common fellowship, or add to mutual encouragement.

But all congregations do depend on the strength that new growth provides. Some congregations have gotten larger over the last few years, and some have gotten smaller. But nothing lives forever. To keep from shrinking, we need new congregations, and one isn’t enough. We need leaders with experience to foster new congregations, and one isn’t enough to found them.

So, again, I’m happy for Original Blessing. I only wish it had some cradle mates.

I went ahead and orderod what seemed to be the most practical New Testament with Psalter; it arrives on Wednesday. Not in love with the theme and it seems to be (non-leather) softback, but the size, translation and price are right. And I can use the “helps” as a substrate to paste on prayer material.

Faith-Sharing NRSV New Testament with Psalms (Cokesbury)

If that doesn’t do, I’ll go for one of these.

Bring your prayerbook! I’ll grow out my beard! Portland, ho! (An earlier video, possibly NSFW, for context.)

Unitarian Universalist Christians have no mission society or support base to help new Christian churches organize. And while that would probably be helpful, you have to work with what you have. Better to build from attainable work than to plan and plan fruitlessly.

So I commend to my readers six projects or habits that Unitarian Universalist Christians could undertake to make the work of starting new churches that much easier:

1. Talk up funding, whether it be by Faithify, some other crowdfunding platform. private pledge or Chalice Lighters. Stand ready to give.
2. If you preach, be willing to license sermon texts to be read in the new congregation.
3. Be available to attend worship of a new congregation, if one gathers within a reasonable travel distance.
4. Commit to praying for the new congregation regularly.
5. Research online for meeting locations for the new congregation. Prepare a spreadsheet with the map coordinates.
6. Survey what talents you already have that might be useful to a congregation — copy editing, digital image processing, sewing, contract review  come to mind quickly — and offer your services. Be prepared to decline graciously.

I dashed these out in less than fifteen minutes. I bet you can think of more.

This quotation from Elbridge Gerry Brooks’s Our New Departure (page 14) sticks with me. Again, this has an echo of familiarity.

Has not our effort been to convince the head that ‘orthodoxy’ is not true, and that God is good, and that all men are to be saved, rather than so to present the fact of God’s persistent and pleading love, and of the ultimate repentance and obedience of all, as to convict the heart of sin, to quicken the conscience to a sense of guilt, and to bring the people, in penitence and a confession of personal need and obligation, to their knees? In a word, has not our labor been theological more than experimental, aiming to make Christian Universalists, and to build and consolidate a Universalist denomination, rather than to make Universalist Christians, compacted and consecrated in the Universalist Church?

The deepest and most interior meanings of Christ’s work have never been wholly overlooked among us; but, as the rule, we have given more attention to the fact that he is to save, than to the question, How ?

The oldest known melody…

A hymn to Nikkal, a Ugarit and Caananite goddess of fruit and wife of the moon god, Yarikh (and namesake of Jericho.)

All I know from memory about the Ugarit language is that it’s an ancient Semitic language that you could learn in the religion department at my alma mater, UGA (University of Georgia) and the co-incidence made me laugh.

But no youthful trifles here. This is a beautiful work, and fitting at high summer. If I only had grapes and figs and apricots. I am entranced by this music, nearly three and a half millenia on. (Thanks to hymnologist and Esperatist Leland “Haruo” Ross for posting this on Facebook.)

Dear readers: I’m looking for a New Testament and Psalter. A very specific kind, for daily prayer, and I want to know if you’ve seen what I want. This is a bleg: a blog beg.

It ought to be:

1. Compact, say smaller than 4×6 inches
2. Hard-bound to survive a book bag, and not leather bound (as I’m a vegetarian)
3. Ideally a modern but literary translation
4. Loosely bound a plus, so I can paste in prayers in the covers

I suppose a Bible on my phone would work, but that’s a depressing, fiddly thought. Second best so far is a little KJV Gideon New Testament and Psalter, but they’re more portable than useful.

Any ideas? Any suggestion much appreciated.

So much happened to General Assembly this year that I forgot to mention the new issue of satirical magazine, The Beacon, appeared. Whatever you do, do not repeat to the activities printed therein at home.

Download it here: http://www.pdf-archive.com/2014/06/26/beacon-ga-2014/

I don’t have much love for Facebook, so why do I use it so much? Because other people use it, and I use it to attract people to this blog. But revelations about post manipulation and human social experimentation is coaxing me to try alternatives. I could use some, er, independence.

I’m revisiting the Disapora* social network, a decentralized and more privacy focused alternative. But its strength is its weakness. Personal privacy means its hard to find your friends, and if your friends aren’t there, you be back to Facebook to find them. It would be hopeless and dispiriting, unless you remember that AOL was once king of the hill…

So, I’ll use both and encourage you to reach out to me there.

Later. See https://joindiaspora.com/ to learn more. To sign up: You’ll need a “pod” — a node on the decentralized network — and the link I previously shared may not work, since it seem in the time I drafted this post, my pod has stopped taking registrations.

Here is a list of other nodes. Some people choose them based on the country they’re hosted in; others favor uptime or the version of Diaspora used.

I’m bitb on the joindiaspora.com node.

It was a good General Assembly, but for (me, anyway) the soft relationships defy programming. Trust and relationship building, arts of the ministry, stories that shape identity. Evidence about strength and weakness, and a willingness to address both. There was a spirit, and I don’t want to crush it with explanation. It was so good that I didn’t finish this thought on-site!

So, what’s the takeaway? Unclear. Perhaps we can experiment by spinning up some projects. Experimentation is also in the air. I mentioned Faithify for those that need funding, but sometimes there’s an itch that needs scratching at no cost than the doing.

I was lunching with a couple of colleagues in Christian churches who preach from the Revised Common Lectionary. We identified a need to share notes: ideas, themes, resources. Something simple.

Is this something you could use? Be interested in participating in? If so, please say so in the comments.

Horrible for Daisy the Dog! Some of her favorite sniffing places at the little, angular park in our neighborhood are trapped behind chain link fencing and barbed wire. The park has no formal name, but its impossible to not call it Schevchenko, for the large monument to Taras Shevchenko, “bard of Ukraine” in the middle of it. It has also been the site of rallies and demonstrations since the Russian-prompted annexations of Ukraine. Someone tucked a Ukrainian flag under Schevchenko’s right arm.

Not that you can get to the monument now. The fence went up yesterday, and when I walked Daisy last night, the plaza had been plowed up to the concrete slab.

Putin’s doing? More likely the National Park Service. Many of the plaza’s concrete tiles had come loose or eroded to reveal sharp reinforcing wire. The fountain hasn’t worked in our time in the neighborhood. Time for restoration. If Daisy can cope.

So, I made it to church Sunday, was greeted and then asked: how you seen the new church website. I had seen a preview, but not the release.

Seeing as I was the lead on the last revision a decade ago, I knew it was overdue for a refresh. And a new breeze is blowing…

I’m glad to point to Universalist National Memorial Church’s site at universalist.org.

A few weeks ago, I mentioned a set of nicely-formatted orders of service/bulletins from First Church (Unitarian), Boston, that I found in the archives at the Andover-Harvard library. They were preserved in a file about coordinated opposition to the consolidation of the Unitarians and the Universalists because the minister’s message in them. But I recognized its good taste and yet was hesitant to post the photos of the order of service. Unless something is plainly public — websites and reported statistics come to mind — or of historic interest, I won’t discuss the business of a congregation. Is this too recent? We are talking about 1960: the matter is old (and decided) news and it’s very clear that I’m not going to get around to making a mockup of it.

So here are the photos. Click through to see enlargements. Lean but elegant stuff, this.

In the last generation, I’ve seen a revolting amount of ecclesiastic “mansplaining”: condescending depictions of Universalism, out of a Unitarian lens, to re-cast my tradition as something sweet, loving, emotive, poor, rural and homey. The whole thing reeks of Victorian sexual politics. Something like this: Universalism was a country girl who, smitten by a Boston Brahmin, is “ruined” by him and destined to be his bride and subordinate. Today, a doting Mrs. Unitarian (neé Universalist) gets brought out for special occasions to be told how sweet she is, but nobody asks her anything. (If there is truth in any of it, it is outsized admiration of the Unitarians.)

The whole idea is offensive, and you would have a reason to be angry with my metaphor if I didn’t hear Universalism described in gendered, female terms in the 1990s and early 2000s. Times are changing, I hope, with a renewed interest in Universalism on its own terms. So, it is to correct the previous misconception, and to offer a cautionary tale for today’s Universalists that I share this passage from Elbridge Gerry Brooks’s 1874 Our New Departure, a manifesto to help bring Universalism to its new phase in mission. (I’ll be quoting heavily from Brooks as I read his book.)

In addition to giving us a contemporary frame, this passage from his chapter “A Survey of the Field” helps explain how fragile Universalism was when, a few decades later, the foundations collapsed. This passage begins at page 43, but engaged readers will want to read on, or even read the whole chapter. It’s not a happy review — the sweet revisionism would be more pleasant — but it explains more than a fable and (perversely) makes me feel closer to Universalists now almost 150 years past.

And looking within the lines of our organization, while we can truthfully say that no church shows a higher average of people upright in business, kind to the poor, every way reputable, it cannot be said that devout affections and a religious conscience are by any means general among us. We are not a praying people — that is, in the sense in which this phrase is commonly employed. Praying Universalists, in this sense, there are, many of them; how many there are who pray in the voiceless secrecy of their communion with God, it is for no human pen to assume to say. But the custom of family, social, or stated private prayer does not, to any considerable extent, prevail among us, because there is no prevailing sense of duty in these directions; and how rare it is to find those in our congregations who can be called to lead in public prayer, we all know. We have opinion rather than faith; more nominal assent than spiritual impulse or purpose. Our parishes far outnumber our churches; and where churches exist, they, as the rule, are very small, with a male membership lamentably disproportionate to that of the congregations. And then look abroad: what mean the so-called Universalist societies — alas, so many of them! — dead or dormant? What mean the Universalist meeting-houses sold, or rented, or standing unused, given up to decay, monuments to our dishonor? And last, but not least, what mean the fields where for years Universalism — or what has borne that name — has been preached to no visible effect in the spiritual vitality of the people, [44] and only to result in a sickly and struggling life for the congregations, or in final wreck and dispersion? For two successive years, not long since, I spent several vacation Sundays with one of our oldest parishes in New England, trying to make the dead bones live. The community is a thriving one, and the Universalists, so-called, have all the advantage of numbers, wealth, and position. But having sold their house of worship, the most of them first allowed themselves to be bodily transferred to an attempt to build up a Unitarian society; and this experiment having failed, they have since sunk into comparative apathy, and though having occasional preaching, seemed, the last I heard of them, to be dying of spiritual inanition. Nor, unfortunately, is this a solitary case — so far as the substantive facts of apathy and inanition are concerned. The question presses, then, What mean these things? And still further, how are we to account for the religious deadness and the indisposition to do anything for the organization of parishes, or the support of public worship, in so many sections where a nominal Universalism widely prevails? There are counties in my native state (New Hampshire), where what is called Universalism may almost be said to be the prevalent form of religious thought, and where there is no lack of pecuniary ability, which are complete wastes as regards any active Christian effort, save as an occasional Sunday’s preaching may intermit the dearth. Other states show similar districts.

So, Faithify, the Unitarian Universalist crowdfunding platform, launched at General Assembly, with some fanfare and with a raft of inaugural projects.

And http://t.co/KjPlZtqyvK launches pic.twitter.com/CdF5wKwsQs

— Scott Wells (@bitb) June 25, 2014

This is how it works in a nutshell: entities put forward fundable projects, and the general (Unitarian Universalist) public votes with its dollars. It uses technology to simplify the “elite function” of vetting projects and managing funds. If donors pledge enough to reach the project goal, the pledges get called in and the project gets funded. If not, the pledges aren’t called in and the project gets no funding.

I have a couple of structural misgivings about Faithify, but I’ll keep these to myself, at least until the the first round of projects’ deadlines pass. (I’d be happy to be proved wrong.)

So no thoughts about Faithify for now, except:

1. if one “elite function” can be usefully distributed — ideas that have been bubbling away while I consider open government projects — what about others? Sometimes the ecosystem creates a gap that can be filled organically, such as bloggers filling in (partially) for an independent denominational press. Faithify, if successful, could challenge how programs get funded, and thus prioritized: the reverse of the current system. And if funding projects, then what? LinkedIn for settlement?
2. Pledge, of course. I made mine to the “Miracle Among The Ruins Project Two: Missional Community Room” project of the A Third Place Community Foundation/The Welcome Table Church of Turley, Oklahoma.

I’ve been to First Universalist Church in Providence a few times over the years, but never so long as over General Assembly, when the church hosted morning prayer and vespers, and the usual Sunday service with a special observance of Holy Communion.

Here are a mix of photos, taken after the services in the sanctuary, lounge and dining room, with a focus on interesing tidbits. You know I’m going to make something of that Universalist Comrades (men’s group) emblem.

I’m getting back into the swing of blogging, and I’m working on posts that focus on particular subjects brought up at the General Assembly of the Unitarian Universalist Association. But I thought I’d say something first about this year’s General Assembly as a whole.

First, I go to General Assembly to meet friends and to network a bit; I’m not a delegate and not on any UUA committee. I don’t have any formal role, and this is true of about a half of the people who show up. But despite my best effort, the official work of General Assembly usually gets in the  way of my emotions. So, I prepare myself to come back home tired, frustrated and even angry. It’s not that I want to have a bad time, but forewarned is forearmed.

Something was different about General Assembly 2014, and I’m not quite sure what or why. Admittedly, I have a partial view of the thing.  I only registered for two days, and so did not attend many workshops. And I didn’t attend Ministry Days so, my experience was shorter and some others. There’s nothing like getting older to provide some prospective. But some of the people I spoke to on-site experienced the same thing.

The General Assembly felt calm. True, I bookended my days with morning and evening prayer at First Universalist Church, Providence, and it was centering. I will write about this later, but I don’t think that’s why GA felt calm. Perhaps because there was no big protest action, either at our host city or internal to General Assembly. Perhaps it was because there was enough food at different price points, the lack of which has been a problem as past General Assemblies. And there was no election.

I didn’t see people crying in the hallways. I didn’t hear edgy tones of voice. I didn’t see young people running in the hallways. (Indeed, they were pros.)

So, I’m looking for feedback. If you were at General Assembly, is this your sense?

If you were at the 2014 General Assembly, or watched it by streaming video, you would have seen in the opening ceremony — the one with the banner parade, greetings, adoption of the rules and the first worship service — a prayer from Hymns of the Spirit, and you may have wondered “how did that happen”? It’s not exactly in the daily consciousness of Unitarian Universalists. 

The prayer hits at about 1:35:20, read by service leader and Unitarian Universalist minister Erika Hewitt. You’ll have to listen in; it’s not printed in the prepared printed document.

The prayer, a confession, is from a Hymns of the Spirit, or more accurately, the Services of Religion that usually prepended it. A composite and adaptation of the prayer of confession from Service Eleven (which I began to muse on here) and the second prayer of aspiration from Service Eight.

So who wrote them?

• “O Thou unseen source of peace and holiness…” by Von Ogden Vogt.
• “Into this house of light we come…” by (don’t be shocked) Von Ogden Vogt.

The Unitarian Universalist Association’s General Assembly wasn’t the only meeting last week. Note that the Supreme Council of the Hungarian Unitarian Church — that’s an ethno-linguistic denominator, as it includes the larger part of the church in Transylvanian Romania — met June 27 and 28 in Koloszvar (Cluj).

Unlike General Assembly today, it seems to be a more purely deliberative body and less a convocation. But what little I know comes thanks to Google Translate and the large set of photos.

A version of the Religion & Ethics Newsweekly report about trafficked women — into forced marriage or prostitution — from Vietnam into China was repeated tonight on the PBS Newshour.

A good review of a bitter case of modern slavery, with a few hopeful signs, which you may view or review here.

It’s clear that I’m not going to get much conventional blogging done. The tone of this General Assembly — and I’m not been to one since Charlotte — has seemed particularly warm and sensible. Not frantic, not want you. Might be a little smaller than recent GAs, but the credentials report will speak to that soon enough. A good feeling; I welcome comments at GA, and questions from without.

Follow me at @bitb and GA related tweets with hashtag #uuaga.

Currently watching Ron Robinson (who is also the Executive Director of the Unitarian Universalist Christian Fellowship) about his work work in Turley, Oklahoma.

No blog posts pre-written from now to the end of General Assembly. Heading out today and hope to see many of the attendees today.

Blogging rontinues from Providence!

Last night, in the Cheshire town of Stalybridge, a new fellowship launched publicly: the Fellowship of Non-Subscribing Christians.

“Non-Subscribing” in the sense of not subscribing the Westminster Confession of Faith, and thus shorthand for a particularly Irish form of liberal Christianity, distinct from (but co-operative with) British Unitarianism. Nevertheless, this new fellowship isn’t formally linked to the Non-Subscribing Presbyterian Church of Ireland, and the fellowship extends its work over Ireland and Great Britain. Alas, nothing said about the United States or Canada!

 July 2. They have photos of their event up on Flickr.

I was reading the 1960 edition of well-known Unitarian minister and liturgist Von Ogden Vogt’s Art and Religion that explained his vision of the opening part of worship. This is his chapter “The Order of Liturgy” — so influential that it’s cited as a such here. The following chapter “Introit and Antiphons” anticipated a revival of that liturgical use among mainline Protestants, but which have little purchase among Unitarian Universalists.

The book’s in copyright, but the original 1921 edition is in the public domain: that’s what follows. And if there’s any difference between 1921 and 1960 in these two chapters (there is an appendix) it has escaped my attention.

Von Ogden Vogt is important for understanding the influential — if now little used — Services of Religion that prepend the joint Unitarian and Universalist red Hymns of the Spirit. There’s no doubt in my mind that he’s behind making an introit an option for the services, though, as he explains in Art and Religion, these ought to be composed afresh. What he doesn’t write about is the sequence, particular to Unitarians so far as I’ve seen, of

• Opening words
• Exhortation
• Invocation
• Confession (sometimes broadly conceived)

The exhortation (which also sets the tone of worship) is the innovative part, and fills the role of the introit.

Cover from a “getting ready for General Convention 1915” newsletter. On the special train that took delegates to California!

But where does the name come from? My guess:

• UGC: Universalist General Convention
• WUMA: Women’s Universalist Missionary Association (I’m guessing. The organization tended to change names. A precursor to the UU Women’s Federation.)
• YPCU: Young People’s Christian Union
• SS: probably Sunday School (Union)

A couple of blog posts about worship before we dive into General Assembly. If you’re attending in Providence, perhaps we can meet?

The problem. There are at least two basic problems when you meet a liturgical text:

1. if there are directions (rubrics), deciding how you make the right decisions among various choices, and
2. understanding the intent of the liturgy-creator when you want to add in extra resources or make a substitution.

Without this understanding, it’s easy to get into a rut, confusing to make exceptions for special occasions, hard to correct eccentricies — those useages that have crept into worship that feel wrong, but you can’t put your finger on why — and almost impossible to add something new. Or, just as bad, hard to justify removing something that fills an emotional need for some, but just doesn’t work well in worship.  (I’m looking at you, Joys and Concerns.)

And, without knowing what the purpose of the words, actions and artifacts of worship are, it almost surely means the depth of worship is left undelved.

Also, what may work for a congregation of 20, may not work for a congregation of 64, which may not work for a congregation of 147. (These are the real, reported 10th percentile, 50th percentile and 80th percentile for United States Unitarian Universalist congregations.) Worship needs to be flexible enought to grow and shrink in scale, to reflect the capacity of the congregation.

It’s a daunting task if you have an education in worship, and must seem wickedly arcane and arbitrary if you don’t. And there’s a shortage of explanatory and theoretical material. So I try to surface what I can.

(I have some Von Ogen Vogt that I need to digest; that’ll be first.)

This segment, from this week’s Religion and Ethics Newsweekly, pushes one my buttons: the experience that churches with just enough space are the ones that tend to survive. A recession following a big building campaign, or a congregation with unaffordable maintainance costs often leads to closure.

That, and once a religious building is lost in an expensive, built-out city (New York, Washington and Boston come to mind) it is very hard to build one later.

Innovation and mixed use is one answer.