Let's Talk About It
If you were in the British Isles or Northern Europe centuries ago, if you lived in the rural areas or the forests, if you celebrated the changes of the seasons with your neighbors, then at this time of the year you, like us today, would have been deeply buried in snow, and looking forward to a spring that seemed far, far away.
You would have celebrated Beltane, or May Day, last spring, that time when everyone goes outdoors and parties. Nine months later, or around Feb. 1, you would have celebrated Imbolc, which, among other things, celebrates the first lactation of the ewe. You may very well have gotten pregnant at Beltane and given birth on Imbolc, so thank goddess that the ewe and her thickly calorific milk was around to nourish your child. Celebrations don't get any more earth-centered than that.
Even if perchance you have given birth recently, you are probably not currently rejoicing that your ewe is now lactating. We are ever so much abstracted from the original meanings of most of our holidays. Yet it remains deeply human for us to want to party in the spring and cocoon in February. Finding protection from the weather is not sufficient; we also need to plan for spring.
Back then, you may have planned how not to get pregnant again on Beltane. This may have involved procuring some mugwort or wormwood, which can work as herbal birth control. A visit to the local herbalist might have been in order, who, when the Christians invaded, would have been hunted as a witch.
You might have spent the winter making clothing, much of which would have been green or dark brown in color, because you would have used the local plants to make cloth and dyes. Centuries later, folklore would have preserved your fashions in those elusive brownies and little people, and characters from Robin Hood to Peter Pan. These folks were considered magical and elusive, mostly in escaping the same forces that chased down the herbalists.
Whether the Ground Hog sees his shadow or not was at one time an augur of when one might give birth. Whether or not one believes now that a sunny day on February 2 means a longer winter, it is certainly a universal hope this year that our very snowy winter at least do us the courtesy of being short.
So while we continue to dig ourselves out from this season, those of us from northern European stock ought well give thanks to the ewes that nurtured our ancestors, and, like them, try to stay warm while looking forward to the revelries of spring.
-- February 2011
A few years ago a friend was performing with an improv troupe in Red Bank. A sketch took place in a coffee shop. After being told all the options my friend replied, "I'll have an extra-medium."
Not only did I find this response hilarious, it struck my philosophical funny bone. Perhaps this is because my usual temperament runs to the extremely moderate, which occasionally is mistaken for lack of interest. I contend that moderation, especially today, is a radical response, and a most useful one.
Last week I had my annual medical checkup. My doctor sent me the results of the blood work, which measures scores of things. I am only vaguely familiar with most of them, but I understand one important aspect. The healthy thing is to have one's scores within a range. Too much or too little of anything indicates trouble.
I was happy to find that with regard to my blood I am indeed extra-medium.
This useful definition of health might also be applied to much of the public discourse. For instance, I find compromise to be very much like potassium or calcium. Too little or too much is unhealthy. When our politicians compromise either too little or too much, nothing gets done and the patient, our nation, gets sick. With the proper amount of compromise comes progress.
Pride is a similar quality, whether national or personal. One needs a healthy amount, not too much. I'm finding as I age that exercise can also be like that. It used to be impossible for me to get too much exercise. Not now.
Anger certainly qualifies as an emotion that is most healthy in moderation. I learned this fairly recently. My dad had so much anger that I grew up thinking that it is best not to have any. Later I learned that it was not that he had so much anger, but that it was about the only emotion he knew how to express. This was a problem for many men of his generation.
I found that unexpressed anger accumulates like cholesterol in one's arteries, and is every bit as likely to lead to severe health problems. I'm still not great at it, but, like a few sessions on the treadmill every week, expressing anger is a good thing to do, even if it is not much fun.
Not everything is good in moderation. There is no amount of hate or bigotry that is healthy. Ignorance, if left untreated, is unhealthy not only to the ignorant, but to everyone exposed to it. Love seems to be useful in increasingly large amounts, though placement is also important.
Buddha understood this. The Middle Way is all about moderation. Yet as we approach 2011 it still seems like a new, even radical idea. So this year I toast to an extra-medium New Year. Happy moderation to all and to all a good night!
--January 2011
On November 12th, I was asked to deliver the opening prayer at the H.A.N.D.S award dinner, honoring community achievement. Among those honored was Martial Bonhomme, the founder of Lanbi Community Center for the Haitian Community that meets in our Parish Hall two evenings every week. This was my prayer.
Our dear heavenly father, our dear heavenly mother, grandfather, grandmother, sister, brother, aunt and uncle and especially our dear heavenly cousins: hear our prayers.
Unitarian Universalists say hello to the while family! Especially the cousins, because you know, everybody's everybody else's cousin if you look far enough. Barack Obama and Sarah Palin are cousins!
All religions talk about regeneration, renewal, rebirth or being born again. This is my prayer tonight, as expressed by Jane Jacobs in The Death and Life of Great American Cities.She wrote: "Dull, inert cities, it is true, do contain the seeds of their own destruction and little else. But lively, diverse, intense cities contain the seeds of their own regeneration, with energy enough to carry over for problems and needs outside themselves."
So let us pray: May we germinate the seeds of our own regeneration, as lively, diverse, intense city with energy enough to carry over for problems and needs outside of ourselves.
In the name of God and all those energetic souls who have come before us, we pray. Amen.
--December 2010
At the Board meeting in October, the following "to do" list was approved in hopes it would enable newcomers and visitors to feel more at home. While this is important for people who attend the many worship services and meetings hosted by our partnering organizations, it is also important for our congregation, in our desire to grow in numbers and effectiveness in the larger community.
Just as we are addressing deferred maintenance issues for our buildings, so also must we attend to how we attract, welcome and assimilate new members. The items below are hardly revolutionary. They just require actual doing. We are not of a size where we can delegate this to a committee or staff. While Greg, as Church Administrator, and I can do the record-keeping, and our new Super can post the signs, it is finally the responsibility of each member to make a visitor's first time with us a good one.
--Nov. 2010
Later this month I will be using the Television series "Mad Men" as my text. This show began depicting the late 1950,s and is now in the mid-1960,s. Already some things have changed quite a lot in addition to the width of the ties. Some women have risen from the secretarial pool to management and copy writing. Muhammad Ali has challenged everyone’s idea of a sports hero. The Beatles have invaded America.
Recalling that time is very easy for me, yet I understand for a great many people today it is history. Whether or not they come to understand it may determine, both personally and collectively, whether they are doomed to repeat it.
I recall a few years ago when my mother would visit from Ohio and have long talks about the "old days" with our daughter Erica when she was in middle and high school. She told her exciting and dubious stories about Prohibition and always went into detail about the various dogs throughout her life. She also told her about what it was like to be a young woman in the 1930's and 1940's.
Most women were "housewives." In my mother's social circle she was a rarity because she had finished high school. Among the families in transition from farm to factory, few went beyond. Most stayed their entire lives close to where they had been born. The Depression was rough, and my mother grew very tired of corn soup. My grandfather was grateful for work from the WPA. He had helped plant the trees in the park by the state highway.
"It's altogether different today," my mother would say, with what I always thought was a bit of envy. Erica always enjoyed these talks, because my mother was a skilled storyteller and did not sugarcoat anything. I think it helped Erica appreciate her opportunities and encouraged her to go as far and as high as she can go.
That kind of honest talk between generations is rare. One thing I have always liked about church work is it is one of the few places where one gets to work with and be friends with people of all ages. Even in our congregation, which tends to be a bit heavy toward those who lived through the "Mad Men" years, there are opportunities to get to know people who don't remember the Clinton Administration!
I invite all of us to take advantage of this opportunity. No matter what your age, there are folks in worship and at coffee hour who have vastly different life experiences.
Take time to hear their stories. Take time to tell yours.
--Oct. 2010
When I hear the phrase "the mosque at Ground Zero," I'd think it was going to be built on exactly the place that that twin towers used to be, if I did not know it was going to be built two blocks away.
Two blocks may not seem very far in Northwood, Ohio or Huntington, Indiana, but in Manhattan it is a long way. That is, within two blocks of Ground Zero there are more varieties of people, businesses and houses of worship than there are in most American cities and some states. We who live near Manhattan and have any reason to go there frequently, understand that one will encounter all sorts of people from all sorts of places doing all sorts of things. The idea of a mosque at that location obviously offends some people. The reality is that it would soon get lost in the great mishmash of activity and be ignored by everyone except those it is intended to serve.
That is, unless you are a bigot, or worse, prey upon the fears of religious and ethnic bigotry for political advantage.
While Franklin Roosevelt said, "We have nothing to fear but fear itself," American history is replete with political parties, candidates and power brokers that not only pandered to fear, but used rhetoric that increased it.
In colonial days, Puritans were so prejudiced against Baptists that Rhode Island was created so the Baptists could escape persecution.
In the decades before the Civil War, anti-Catholic sentiment ran so high it created its own political party, called the "Know Nothing Party." They believed that there were too many Catholics and others immigrating to this country. Catholics were accused of giving their ultimate loyalty to the Pope and therefore were untrustworthy as American citizens. This persisted for a very long time, down to the candidacy of John Kennedy.
Another form of anti-immigrant fever was directed against Italians in the 1920's, culminating with the Sacco and Vanzetti trial in 1920. While history is still debating their guilt, there is no debate about one thing. Their trial was used to incite fear of immigrants who had committed the "crime" of being Italian.
Rich and influential anti-Semites like Henry Ford published newspapers and magazines, ostensibly to report the news, but which were in fact a front for prejudice and bigotry. Today Henry Ford would own a cable television station or two.
Charles Lindbergh was able to get away with anti-Semitic views for years because he was such an admired American hero. People like Ford and Lindbergh, giving respectability to hatred, contributed to American's slow and inadequate response to the Holocaust.
Japanese citizens, some who had been born in America and had been loyal citizens for decades, endured displacement to interment camps during World War II for the quot;crime" of being Japanese, justified by claims of national security.
No African American needs to be told that America has a long history of prejudice, and of acting on the basis of that prejudice. Nor do Latinos need to be reminded that hatred of immigrants or people assumed to be immigrants increases during tough economic times.
Thus, one ought to be mindful today not just of the "debate" about the "mosque at Ground Zero," but what that "debate" is fueling in other parts of the country. It does not get reported as widely, but several mosques across the country, which have been peaceful and established for decades, have become the targets of protests and demonstrations calling into question their loyalty as Americans and even their right to exist.
An additional shameful irony is that the proposed mosque is being built by Sufis. They are the mystics of Islam, by far the least doctrinaire and about as likely to be terrorists as Methodists. This country could use an introductory course in comparative religion.
The current cover for prejudice is that, while the "Ground Zero mosque" has a legal right to be built, to do so would be "insensitive." Thus pressure is building on politicians to come out against the mosque for this reason.
While I may even agree that it is "insensitive," I do not believe it is my job as a member of the clergy or as a citizen to pass judgment on the sensitivity of other religions. If I did, it would be a full time job.
It is my job, as clergy and as citizen, to stand on the side of tolerance and American ideals against prejudice and fear mongering. If any mosque or any religion or any organization is found to be engaged in terrorism or any illegal activity, of course it should be pursued and prosecuted. But there is no law in this country against being Muslim, or building a mosque anywhere that local zoning and community governance allows.
There was never a law against being Catholic, Jewish, Italian or Japanese, either. It seems that many religions and ethnicities must pass through an initiation of hate and fear before they are accepted as true and loyal Americans. Muslims, too, will pass the initiation and decades from now people will wonder how such a sad state could have come to pass in America.
-- September 2010
The Flower Communion was created by our own Norbert Čapek to give Unitarians a way to celebrate a communion unencumbered by doctrine or rigid ritual. When I was ordained to the UU ministry in 1974 it was considered a quaint and slightly foreign custom of historical interest. I did not know of any UU congregations that had any kind of communion, flower or otherwise, other than those which were vestiges of UU Christianity.
When Cakes for the Queen of Heaven, an adult education curriculum for women, became popular in the 1980's, part of its lasting influence was a new appreciation of ritual performed in a specific UU context. The Flaming Chalice jumped off the pages of countless church stationeries and became embodied on altars, lit every Sunday. The Flower Communion became an important worship event, often marking, as ours does, the end of the regular season of worship.
It expresses our connection and appreciation of the natural world. UU’s tend to believe that humans must care for the earth in order for the earth to maintain its many life forms, including, of course, us. Like any communion, its meaning tends to be aspirational. That is, we accept that our actions fall short of our intentions, even if we do not use words like "sin" and "sinner."
We, like most Americans and the developed world, particularly fall short when it comes to our relationship with petroleum. While few of us thought that "drill, baby, drill," was a good idea, even fewer of us have taken concrete and meaningful steps toward alternatives. In this respect, the drilling advocates have greater congruency between their values and actions than we. If your ultimate value is to have cheap gas and big, comfortable vehicles, and you are willing to sacrifice almost anything for them, then yes, drill away. The current oil spill should cause them no concern.
For those of us who value the natural order, and believe that there is no future for our species if others become extinct, the current disaster is another tragedy in a seemingly endless string. We wonder if possibly, just possibly, this horrible event might be the one finally to awaken voters and political leaders to take the steps necessary to, well, survive. But like the drug addict who is not able to quit, there is little evidence we will change. Is there any environmental shock so appalling that it might change the entrenched behaviors enabled by corporate greed and citizen indolence?
I have been writing articles like this for many years. Many of us have been environmental activists. Yet the spills get bigger and the forces that create them seem to yield to nothing. Still there abides a hope that a collective change of heart is somehow not impossible. In this hope we offer our flower communion.
--June 2010
Dorothy Height died on April 10 at age ninety-eight. She was President of the National Council of Negro Women for forty years and was one of the most solid cross beams in the foundation of the Civil Rights movement. Among a great many of her contributions was "Wednesdays in Mississippi" in the 1960's, that brought together Black and white woman from both north and south.
Congressman John Lewis recently said that the road that brought Obama to the White House began in Selma. He is correct. The way for that road was cleared by people like Ms. Height. Her generation also paved it and planted trees and flowers along the way.
One of the great distortions of history is the "great man" approach. One person, almost always a man until very, very recently, is singled out as a leader of a movement or nation. History is then taught as the story of that man’s bravery and wit, or his calumny. During the process that person becomes boring and unreal to successive generations of school children.
It is not my perception that history proceeds like that, now that I have had the opportunity to observe just a few decades of it. Yes, individual leaders, some closer to heroes, others more villainous, depending on one’s point of view, are important to history. But there is never just one leader and nothing of historical significance is ever accomplished alone, even assassinations.
If Obama stands on the shoulders of Martin Luther King, then King stands upon Dorothy Height, A. Phillip Randolph and many others. These leaders depend on countless local leaders, and finally, to the ordinary person willing to do what he or she can.
Most of us are not Obamas or Kings or Heights. We seldom are even leaders in our communities, at least not for any length of time. Yet all that great historical personalities have accomplished depends upon the action of the rest of us, who have not devoted our lives to a cause.
If I were a conspiracy nut, and sometimes I think I am, I would conclude that the "great man" approach is a conspiracy. The powerful retain their power by constantly telling everyone that change is caused by great individuals, not by thousands or millions of people leaving their comfort zones to simply do what they can.
That might be the mission of our congregation here in Orange. We must do what we can.
--May 2010
Sunday, April 25 will be a special Sunday for us. The worship service will be centered on Arts Unbound, the non-profit organization in the Valley that is dedicated to the artistic achievement of youth, adults and seniors with disabilities. We have invited artists, staff and their families to join with us. After worship there will be an exhibit of their art in the Parish Hall.
This is another opportunity to partner with a local organization to show some of the good things that are happening in Orange. Arts Unbound has studios and a shop in the Valley at 542 Freeman St., which I encourage all of us to visit. This is a beautiful space, and just the beginning of what this part of town can become.
Perhaps soon we can take an active role in doing for our Main St. area what Valley Arts, which is the larger organization of Arts Unbound, is doing for the Valley: making it a more attractive, inviting and hospitable space. One thing that can help is attending a workshop sponsored by The Heart of Orange, at the Presbyterian Church on Main St., Saturday, April 10 from 10-4, even if you can attend only part of the day.
One of the projects they are considering is the beautification of Tony Galento Plaza and the Orange train station. Another is a public art and garden installation on Scotland Rd. where the day laborers gather early in the morning. This can show everyone that the community cares about these men and that location.
The growth and vibrancy of our church is vitally linked with the rebirth of Orange as a welcoming community where people gather to enjoy life and each other. Please feel free to invite friends and neighbors to these events. Even if they have their won religious affiliations, it helps everyone to get more people to these events, so more people can get the word that Orange is on the move!
Kathleen and I just got back from a week in Costa Rica, mostly in the rain forest of the Osa Peninsula. This was a great vacation not only for what it had (nature) but also for what it did not have (cell phones, television, newspapers, internet).
I had returned only a few minutes when I was feeling very sad for what we have here in the United States today instead of civilization. I could name any number of events or unfolding stories, but the one I found saddest of all was the news that those opposing women's reproductive freedom had found some success in African American neighborhoods by saying that legal abortions were a plot and conspiracy to eliminate Black people. I'm sure you have heard about this by now.
I'll not go into the details of the lies and twisted fear mongering this has entailed. It is just too painful to write down, honestly. I can only anticipate and lament the material and spiritual costs of having to struggle against them. Just the fact that I am writing about it, when I would prefer to give this space to something more positive and encouraging, is a very small example.
Injecting more fear between the races, creating more paranoia among poor people of color, with the hope of turning long time allies into enemies is just a bit too, well, as I wrote above, sad. I know I will be discussing this in the days and week ahead. Time that could have been spent making progress will be burned just trying to hold one's ground.
I remember when abortion was illegal. Perhaps more of us who do need to speak more frankly about those days.
Finally, we must continue to stress that women's right to choose is exactly that. The best way we can encourage that is to be true to Unitarian Universalist first principles of thinking for one's self, becoming informed about options, and reaching out to help those in need of support as they strive to live independent productive, empowered lives.
We will overcome, yes. I just never cease to be amazed and saddened at some of the things people will put out there which need to be overcome.
If there were ever a month of activities that present an opportunity to invite people to join with our community, it would be February.
February 14 is our annual Jazz Worship, featuring David Braham, Raymond Johnston, Santi Debriano and Diego Lopez. I mentioned this to a friend of mine who is a professional jazz historian and critic. When he heard the name "David Braham" he decided to attend! Just because Dave is our friend, we may not understand how highly he is esteemed in the jazz world. Likewise, Ray knocks them dead in the city regularly. I know of no other UU group anywhere that rocks the house for worship the way we do on this Sunday. Let people know!
The very next Sunday will present Olympia's Daughters, including our own Jackie Diggs and Carmen Pinto. The first time I heard them, at a UU General Assembly, I could hardly believe this was a UU group! They celebrate women and social justice from our spiritual perspective.
Finally, on the afternoon of Feb. 28 Bill Stafford is planning a benefit concert for Haiti in our newly renovated Parish Hall. When this work was done, we hoped it would be used for just such an event. Bill will not only organize it with lots of help from lots of people across several communities, but will also leave us a blueprint to follow for future events.
It may not be easy to invite friends and people you know from other community activities to come to your church. In a way, it sounds too much like religions many became UU to avoid. Keep in mind you are not asking for their souls, but only their presence. Also keep in mind that Jessie Turk was a member here only about ten years. She was well into her 70's when somebody said to her, "You sound like a Unitarian." She was of course, and was an outstanding example of one the rest of her life.
Suppose someone had invited her to worship at a UU church or to a benefit concert decades earlier? Surely both her life and the life of the congregation would have been even more fortunate. Perhaps you know someone today who "sounds like a UU." Perhaps you know someone who does not sound anything like a UU but you know shares our values of equality and justice? Tell them what we are doing in February. People know us from our community action. It is time they know us as a congregation, too.
--Feb. 2010
Let's Talk About ItUnitarian Universalists are great talkers, sometimes not to our advantage. There is a famous example of how UU's do theology. If there is one sign saying "Heaven" and another saying "Discussion of Heaven," we head toward the discussion.
As Homer Simpson would say, "It's funny 'cause it's true." However, replace "Heaven" with "Social Justice and Equality" and suddenly choosing discussion isn't so funny.
Yet, as Peter Seeger reminded us from the Old Testament, there is a time for every purpose unto both heaven and justice. In January and part of February, it is time to discuss.
Our book discussion of "Wrestling with Moses" by Anthony Flint begins January 11 from 6:30 to 8 PM in the minister~Rs study. It tells the struggle between Jane Jacobs and Robert Moses for the heart and soul of New York, in the battles over urban renewal. Jacobs had all the people behind her; Moses all the power. It is a good story about how communities sustain and re-create themselves.
We will meet six consecutive Mondays. The book can be obtained from Amazon.com and elsewhere on line. Molly Kaufman also has some complimentary copies available through the University of Orange. You can contact her at or leave a message for her at HANDS at 973-678-3110. We will be discussing the introduction and the first two chapters on Jan. 11. Last year's discussion was lively and informative. Let's do it this year, too!
After coffee hour following worship January 24, from 12:30-3 will be another chance for discussion. Doug Zelinski, Program Consultant from the Metro NY UU District, will lead what we are calling a planning session.
We have recently received a generous bequest from Jessie Turk's estate, earmarked for our "reserve fund." The Board has also been considering adding a quarter-time church administrator's position. We also need to decide how we want to fund and staff our Religious Education program for the near future. The January 24 meeting will give us an opportunity to share ideas and strategies before we need to make officially binding decisions at our annual meeting in the spring.
The early February pagan ritual of Imbolc symbolizes, among other things, the decision of what seeds to plant in the spring. This is what we are doing, using the most UU of all rituals: discussion. Do join us.
--January 2010
Book Discussion Resumes in JanuaryLast winter several of us gathered to discuss Mindy Fullilove's book Root Shock, which helped us understand the impact of decades of urban renewal on cities like Orange. Beginning Monday, January 11, in the minister's study we will read and study Wrestling with Moses: how Jane Jacobs took on New York's master builder and transformed the American city by Anthony Flint, which was published last July.
Jane Jacobs is the author of The Death and Life of Great American Cities, published in 1961, which is the great critique of urban renewal. But she was not just a writer. She was also a community activist who organized against Robert Moses and his plans to build a super highway through Greenwich Village. Wrestling with Moses is the story of that struggle and triumph.
Wrestling with Moses is available on line and in book stores. Molly Kaufman of the University of Orange also has copies. In fact, we hope to have some community folks join us, who have signed up for the discussion through the University of Orange.
Part of the fun and meaning of last year's discussion was having people in attendance who had lived in Newark, Pittsburgh and Orange when the urban renewal projects we were reading about were undertaken. I'm sure many of us will remember the Village before and after the times of this book.
This discussion is no mere intellectual exercise: it will help us understand what is required of us to fulfill our mission of urban ministry in a revitalized neighborhood and city.
If you are interested, simply get the book on line, or from Molly, read the introduction and chapter one, and show up in my office on January 11 at 6:30.
--December 2009
Planning the Next War or SomethingOne of the several appealing qualities I found in Barack Obama is that he is not a Baby Boomer. Or, more precisely, he is at its demographic tail. Someone who was barely in high school when the Vietnam War ended doesn't really qualify in my book. I think this is a real advantage, especially when it comes to war. Soon we will see if it is.
Recently we have heard the predictable voices clamoring to send more troops, expend more American lives and treasure in Afghanistan. To me, the arguments and the emotions sound all too familiar. To me, I fear that the results will be also.
I fear that at some point in the future we will be asking, "What were we thinking? Why did we waste so much for so little? How could we have been so blind?" Meanwhile, other voices will be looking for blame. Who lost Afghanistan?
One of the most psychologically astute terms for understanding this kind of controversy is "the inter-generational transmission of trauma." It has lots of applications, most of them very sad.
For Americans of a certain age it is manifested in seeing every conflict, from international warfare to grocery cart collisions at Path Mart, through the distorting lens of Vietnam. While ideologically I am not a pacifist, as a practical matter I have opposed every military adventure in my lifetime, including the bombing of Serbia to prevent ethnic cleansing, which actually seemed to have worked.
That's why I'm glad we don't have another Boomer in the White House. President Obama's deliberations have been called "dithering" by those, like Dick Cheney, for whom the very idea of thinking something through is as foreign as Islam. They appear to me to be advocating another round of the "ready, fire, aim," military strategy.
But I might be wrong. I also see every war through my Boomer lenses. It is time for other eyes, which see the present and even the future more clearly, to make the decisions. One looks to that time, seemingly ever approaching but never quite present, when a decision for something other than war might prevail.
--November 2009
Unitarian Universalist Urban MinistryOn Sunday, September 27 I preached at the First Parish UU Church in Scituate, Massachusetts, where I served from 1978-89. It was part of their 375th anniversary celebration. In my sermon I recalled several significant events while I was there, among them our involvement in what is now called the Unitarian Universalist Urban Ministry (www.uuum.org).
It was founded by Rev. Joseph Tuckerman in 1826. Tuckerman's vision was to help the poor of Boston by appealing to the affluent. It took many forms over the years. In the 1980’s various suburban congregations, including Scituate, helped renovate and decorate Renewal House, a facility for battered women and their children. This gave a hand-on component to social justice that UU's find all too seldom. The result was a long-standing commitment to the Urban Ministry.
Our congregation is one of the few UU urban ministries in New Jersey. Yet the Montclair congregation is right up the road, and certainly that town has some urban issues. Morristown, home to a UU fellowship, has worse police relations with immigrant workers than Orange. As Dr. Mindy Fullilove says in her book Root Shock, it is hard to realize that the Springfield Ave. that runs through Summit and right by its UU church, is the same Springfield Ave. that begins in Newark and continues through Irvington.
Unitarian Universalists value their individuality and UU congregations value their autonomy. But neither individuality nor autonomy can accomplish everything. Sometimes we need to work together. I have begun to speak with ministers of these other congregations. It is too early to tell what, if anything, might come of the discussions.
We might find we have much more to offer each other than we had known. We might find we do not. If we do, let's get on with it! If we don't, then at least we will know that we don't. Even disappointing information is useful, and nothing would be lost except the hope that what one minister began in Boston almost two hundred years ago might be recreated here.
--October 2009
"Death Panels?"That the health care reforms proposed by the Obama administration will include "death panels" is even less likely than that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. However, the lie did highlight, once the smoke had cleared, one part of the reform that, to me at least, is very important: end of life counseling.
It was back in the 1970’s, in divinity school, that I first came upon the idea of a memorial society. This would help people understand their options regarding burials, funerals and so on. UU churches were at the forefront of this movement all over the country. Rev. Don McKinney of Brooklyn became a nationally known leader.
From this came the idea of the living will, death with dignity, hospice and the durable power of attorney for health care. For many years, end of life counseling was unnecessarily dominated by arguments over euthanasia. Dr. Kevorkian, practicing on the extreme edge of this issue, was not much help to the average family.
A lot of Unitarian Universalist ministers were, and still are. Ask just about any of us, and we will tell you that one of the things that UU does right is deal with end of life issues. We have all had the experience of doing counseling, or memorial services, where families of other faiths have been grateful and amazed at our approach. Many other religions, apparently, still fall back on "God's will" and liturgical formulae.
Far more UU's have living wills and health care proxies than members of other faiths, I am sure. But this current attack, veiled and screwball as it is, reminds me that the freedom to end life with dignity is not irrevocably won. Continued attention to court cases and state legislation is important. Even more critical is the attention given this by you and your family.
If you don't have a living will and durable power of attorney for health care, get one! If you want to talk about the how’s and why’s, I’m here for you. Also, it is not enough just to have these documents. Your health care providers need to know you have them. This means not only your primary care physician, but also any staff of any facility where you or a family member may get medical care. Medical staff can only act according to your wishes if they know what they are!
There is an extremely important health and quality of life issue. To have it be used as a political football in the most distorted way possible is beneath contempt. But if it causes people who have not thought about such things to start, perhaps it is worth it.
Sept.2009
"And Liberty, Justice and Marriage for All"As a Unitarian Universalist minister, I have spent much of my career in active opposition to government, while at the same time appreciating a government that is founded on one’s right to be opposed to it. That is why I have never been completely comfortable acting as an agent of the state. I do this in one and only one area: when performing a marriage.
I have long thought that it ought to be un-constitutional for the state to decide who can officiate a marriage or get married. I have also thought that this idea, like so many I hold, would never, ever become widely accepted. On this topic, I may be wrong. Recently I have heard several scholars, politicians and advocates across the political spectrum, say it was time for the state to divest of its power over marriage.
The argument goes like this. The state does have a compelling interest in seeing that contracts between people are fulfilled, that children are protected, and so on. However, "marriage" is a religious rite or sacrament. The state should no more decide who can perform or take part in this rite than it decides who can take communion, be bar mitzvah'ed or lead our May Pole Dance.
I suggest rather that two people who wish to enter into a civil union may do so, provided they have the ability to enter into any kind of contract. People, who then wish to participate in the ritual of marriage, may do so, according to their religion or beliefs. I can perform same sex weddings. If some other clergy chooses not to, fine. I suspect many heterosexual couples would choose only the civil union, just as many today have civil marriages at a courthouse.
Could civil unions be expanded to more than two people? I don’t know contract law well enough to comment, but I suspect there would be a way. Why not?
Many say that same sex marriage is now just a matter of time. Yet justice delayed is justice denied. While waiting for the younger generation's values to become dominant, or waiting for my logical and constitutional reform to be enacted, the New Jersey legislation is seemingly close to making same sex marriages legal. As I become aware of ways we can support this legislation, I will share them.
This threatens to become one of those issues where an intransigent few obstruct social just for the many; when the people have moved on while the law lags behind. Anything we can do as a congregation or as individuals to further this cause, we should do.
-June 2009
Change Is HardSomebody once said that Ralph Waldo Emerson was not an iconoclast, despite his many new beliefs, concepts and approaches to spirituality and religion. After, all, "iconoclast" literally means "breaking icons." Emerson did not break icons; he gently removed them from the altar.
This remains a good model for Unitarian Universalism. I have tried, if not always succeeded, not to do violence to the many icons of orthodoxy. Rather I have sought to find wider meaning in them, and, on occasion, to set new icons next to them. In the case of the many and long-suppressed images of female deities, I have tried to aid in the effort to restore them.
There is no idea that has taken on more iconic meaning of late than "change." It is the very nature of change that often separates ideologies. Reduced to the lowest common denominator, it seems to me that conservatives simply think that change is bad, and liberals think it is good. In either case, to use the current commentator's cliche, one thing is for certain: change is hard.
Another important aspect of change is how it is facilitated, especially when change of a very high order is hoped for. The traditional way of bringing on such change is war. The bigger the war, the bigger the change. Various fundamentalists believe that monumental change, and therefore monumental war, loom just over the horizon. One now hears that, according to some ancient calendar or another, the world will come to an end in 2012. While throughout history others have set dates and, obviously, been proven wrong, eventually somebody will get it right, though I personally believe that the human species will have long since evolved into something else before our planet is ready to cash in.
In the meantime, I intend to pursue the idea that profound change requires neither war nor devastating destruction. I continue to believe, with just enough evidence to keep me believing it, that humans will somehow find the common will to enable the planet and all life forms upon it, to live and continue to sustain life.
Passover, Easter, May Day, Opening Day and just plain Spring certainly help me with this belief. So does being part of a community of people who see the possibilities within us, not just the liabilities.
Change we can believe in. If this were only a political slogan to replace one group of politicians with another, it would not be worth repeating five minutes after election day. For me it means continuing to work for social justice, equality and ecological sustainability, knowing that this is not working for three things but for one thing. One very big thing.
--April 2009
Understanding Root ShockSome of us may be familiar with Dr. Mindy Fullilove's book Root Shock. Its subtitle is "How tearing up city neighborhoods hurts America, and what we can do about it." It draws upon examples from around the country, including many from Essex County. As a part of the first class that attended desegregated public schools in Orange, she has experienced the best and worst of the urban experience.
From 7-8:30 PM on the Mondays of April, beginning April 6, I will be leading a book discussion of Root Shock in the Minister's Study. I have also offered this through the University of Orange, so we may also have folks from the larger community.
The book is available at Amazon.com. Please read the first two chapters before the first meeting.
For decades there has been some thought, both within and without our congregation, that staying in Orange has been a foolish, or quixotic thing to do. Yet, a fool persisting in his folly becomes wise. As one of the few, if not the only, Unitarian Universalist congregations in New Jersey within a truly urban environment, we have the opportunity to contribute not only to the revitalization of Orange, but also to helping Unitarian Universalism better understand and respond to its own avowed mission of social justice. Having some of us come together and learn from Mindy's fine work, and talk together about what we can do about it, will be a good step toward a wider and more skilful ministry, both for our congregation and our movement.
--March 2009
Spring TrainingAh, the news that spring training has begun! While we northeasterners shiver, deep within the bowels of winter, we are warmed with the knowledge that our baseball teams have begun to pull themselves together once again. Yes, we are assured, winter does not endure. Persephone will again dance upon the land.
I remember my father and his brothers discussing at this time of year, what seeds would be planted in the fields they cultivated in common, a mutual inheritance. One year, corn; another, soybeans. I always rooted for corn, since its tall stalks made meandering through the fields a far more mysterious adventure than the beans, which never made it above one's knees.
I was taught at an early age it would not be wise to plant corn every year. And so it is with our lives. I never thought of Groundhog Day as a religious holiday until I saw the movie of that name, when I realized that the little animal's shadow was all we had left of the glorious Imbolc pagan holiday, also called St. Brigit's feast day.
As the movie showed so well, if you want to get different results: do things differently! You want something more nourishing to your soil this year than corn, then you must not plant corn! So obvious, yet so hard to apply in our own lives, and in the lives of our organizations, political, social, or, of course, religious.
We are just beginning a process of looking at membership issues in our congregation: how we can better serve our members and reach out to others. Unlike Bill Murray's character in the movie, we are not afforded endless opportunities. Rather like our baseball teams, this is an excellent season to plan, inventory our resources, and encourage each other. Come the fall, again like the teams and my family's fields, we will see how wise the planting, how faithful the cultivation, how bountiful the harvest.
--February 2009
Was a Unitarian Universalist Elected President?Last year I wrote "Could a Unitarian Universalist be Elected President?" I concluded in the negative, as I assumed the electorate would insist on an orthodox believer, if not a fundamentalist. As Mark Twain said more or less: "It's not what you don’t know; it's what you know for certain that turns out to be mistaken."
If Unitarian Universalists are going to claim Thomas Jefferson, Ted Sorenson and Kurt Vonnegut, they might as well claim Barack Obama. In the first chapter of Dreams from My Father he writes about his grandfather in 1960:
In the back of his mind he had come to consider himself as something of a freethinker – bohemian, even. He wrote poetry on occasion, listened to jazz, counted a number of Jews he'd met in the furniture business as his closest friends. In his only skirmish into organized religion, he would enroll the family in the local Unitarian Universalist congregation; he liked the idea that Unitarians drew on the scriptures of all the great religions.
He goes on to say that his grandmother, who died the day before the election, was more skeptical and stubbornly independent, insisting on thinking everything through for herself. She sounds like she would have been more at home as a Universalist!
In any case, his grandparents were among the very few who would have accepted, even in Hawaii, their daughter dating, and having a son with, a very Black African man. In years to come they were on several occasions Obama's primary care givers. One can safely surmise that the local congregation was one of the few supportive institutions for them, even if they never became more than marginal members.
By the longstanding rules of the South, one drop of blood makes you Black. Then by the same rule I claim Barack Obama as a Unitarian Universalist! That he later chose membership in a liberal Christian church with a strong social justice ministry is exactly what we encourage our children to do: develop their own minds and spirits, and channel them into institutions that make a difference.
That's what Unitarian Universalist churches do: support people like Obama’s grandparents: people who seek to be progressive, lead lives and raise children with expansive spirits and compassion minds. And that’s why it is so important for every UU church to be welcoming and let their local community know where they are and what they stand for. You never know when some freethinking bohemian poet might need our help raising a grandchild!
--January 2009
Hope and the HolidayI've been giving Christmas sermons and writing holiday newsletters for over thirty years. Of course, "hope" has often been the theme. For those among us who relate well to our Judeo-Christian traditions, clearly hope is a primary part of the holiday. For those given to more secular expressions, the coming of the light is a great metaphor of the longing for justice and equality. The pagans have a big party and invite everyone!
Never in my life have I seen this season so linked with real peoples' real day-to-day hopes for their own future. This presidential election has released years, generations, of hope from across all lines of difference. This is all the more reason that those of us given to reflection and examination keep looking deeply at what is happening and what lies ahead.
The hope I have held for the world during my life heretofore has arisen from the ashes of disappointment and loss. I have hoped as an element of my personal belief, not from any expectation I have for the world. Hope was abstract, distant, an intellectualized concept to be contemplated, or a fragile emotion to be nurtured, not a reality to be experienced.
Now everything has changed. Or has it? What has changed is the opportunities that appear before us. What has not changed is how we need to respond to events. We ought to face our future using a blend of reason and revelation, just as those first Unitarian heretics did in New England during the early years of our nation.
Reason will help us direct our energies in useful ways. Revelation will keep the fires of those energies burning. Our approach to religion not only gives us the means, but in fact requires of us, to be at the same time both faithful and thoughtful. This year brings a different approach to the holidays. The rituals will be the same, the decorations just as shiny, but the hope is a lot more down to earth.
--December 2008
Worship AssociatesFollowing worship on Sunday, November 9, I will lead a meeting for those interested in becoming Worship Associates. This is a fairly new concept within Unitarian Universalism, and, as with many such concepts, we are free to adapt whatever process fits our congregation.
A Worship Associate is a member who is well-versed in creating and conducting worship, from setting up altars and chalices, developing orders of worship, finding readings and music, to creating and delivering sermons.
Many of our members have experience in these areas, but there has been no systematic way that we can invite people to acquire them, nor support and guide their efforts. Worship Associates attempts to change this: creating a safe place to learn worship arts.
This is a natural component of shared ministry. Worship is still the center of the UU experience, so a congregation cannot truly share ministry if they do not share worship, including the pulpit.
At this first meeting we will outline the basic elements of worship, and how they are put together in a cohesive whole to best serve our worship needs. Though there are as many ways to create worship as there are preachers, I will share some of what has proven useful to me. I will also be available to coach anyone who wishes to develop these skills.
Unitarian Universalist congregations contain so many interesting stories, experiences and points of view. Worship Associates attempts to bring this richness to worship in new and exciting ways.
--November 2008
How Amazing shall be Our Grace?In my last sermon, I spoke briefly about John Newton, who wrote 'Amazing Grace.' He was a slave trader. I have heard it said that he had a vision, and then turned his ship around and quit trading slaves. He did not. He did survive a terrible storm at sea, and, determining that he was saved only by the grace of God, thereafter decided to treat his slaves much more kindly. But he continued in the trade while advocating better treatment for slaves. He and others like him, though to us it seems they moved with glacial slowness, did enable the next generation to take further steps, leading to the abolition of slavery in England in 1833.
How could he continue in the slave trade? It seems horrifying that a person could take such tepid action against such monumental injustice. What grace history grants the present! It enables us to see clearly what those at the time could not. It allows us to think well about ourselves. Surely, if we had lived then, we would have been bolder.
But we live today. The demands of justice are as great as at any other point in history. How will history judge us?
There is an election coming. While I have serious questions with the way the United States chooses its candidates, conducts its elections and governs, I believe that who wins elections matters. If our Unitarian Universalist faith means anything, it means that every one of us has time to give and work to do. Now.
--October 2008
Showing UpA quick web search finds that there is some disagreement as to the exact percentage of life that is "showing up." It seems to vary between a simple majority and as much as 90 percent. One thing is for certain: Woody Allen is among those who believe it is a very large percentage.
Eschewing the question for now as to what exactly is that ten or twenty percent of life that is not showing up, let us move ahead to what showing up is, its relationship to life, and why we ought to do it.
Showing up requires not pre-judging your performance or anyone else's. Expecting yourself to be at your best before showing up is a prescription for either judging yourself too easily, or simply not showing up very often. None of us is at our best very often, or it wouldn't be our best. What we show up with most of the time, is not our best, it's our ordinary. One must accept the reality of our own ordinariness if we are to show up very much at all.
Nobody we meet is at his or her best all the time, either. That doesn't excuse any of us for being wretched on a regular basis, but it does make a good argument for striving toward an agreeable consistency.
All of which is a way of saying what Unitarian Universalists, even ministers, have a difficult time saying: "Come to church."
Toward the end of last spring's worship year, I was asked what could we do to increase church growth. I said, "Come to church." Attend worship regularly. Attend our special events and social gatherings. That is the single most important act that any church member does.
Many of our members show up very frequently, but others of us are less so. Sometimes this is what feels best. Sometimes one would like to attend more, but it just doesn't happen. For a congregation our size, frequent attendance is extremely important.
In only one year as your minister, I have been impressed and touched by many of our worship services and events. They are among the most meaningful and joyous that I have experienced. At least part of what makes them so is that we had a critical mass participating. Any visitors wishing to join us should see us at our best, with as many of us present as possible.
Regardless of how important showing up may be in life, it is essential for a small congregation. I don't claim to have many answers, but I have the answer to "What can I do to help our church grow?" Show up.
September 2008
It's a Long SeasonAs many of you know, I'm a big baseball fan. My team is the Detroit Tigers. It is a way of keeping my mid-western roots nourished without actually having to live there. It is a good symbolic exercise. Life in that rustbelt, automobile graveyard is often disappointing. So is rooting for the Tigers.
In the off-season, the team made several high-profile deals, the sum of which caused no small number of prognosticators to conclude that the MoTown nine would not merely excel, but prevail.
As I write this, the Tigers are in last place. Rooting for the Tigers requires decades of stoic devotion, which, thus far in my lifetime, has yielded exactly two World Series championships, the last in 1984.
Being a Tiger fan is not as woeful as rooting for the Cubs, who have not had a championship in a century, or the Mariners, who have done very little of note in their entire, if limited, existence. It is, however, similar to rooting for liberalism to triumph in politics.
Even when liberalism acquires a few heavy hitters, it seldom results in a winning team.
But it's a long season. There is still time to turn this around, get everybody on the same page, and fulfill the potential everybody saw back before the games began.
I'm not counting on it. I've seen defeat snatched from the jaws of victory too often.
There is, of course, a key difference between baseball and politics.
Baseball really matters.
Politics, on the other hand, is a shadow show, a diversion from the real issues and their solutions.
Fortunately, the Unitarian Universalist Association and its member congregations are not political organizations. They are religious. We are not, in reality, an extension of the left wing of the Democratic Party. We do not bar Republicans from membership. Really, we don't.
Therefore, as the long election season draws out to what shows every sign today of disappointing, even enraging, the vast majority of citizens no matter who is the last candidate standing, it is our calling as Unitarian Universalists to continue to work for peace and justice. Equally important, perhaps more, is our task to provide consolation, and inspire the will to move forward in a world where hopes and dreams are subverted by political processes, which change leaders frequently without changing much about how power is distributed or used.
But remember, every few decades, even the Tigers win it all.
June 2008
A New Citizens for Responsible GovernmentFifty years ago last month the Citizens for Responsible Government succeeded in desegregating the Orange schools. Last year we celebrated this success at the church.
On June 8, from 2-5 PM in the Parish Hall, we will be taking that celebration to the next level. Dr. Mindy Fullilove, who attended one of the desegregated schools, will show a short film she made of the event. We will be inviting various education and cultural leaders of the town, to encourage them to show the film to their people. Kathy Grady will also share the works of the Arts on Cleveland project for this year.
Then we will divide ourselves into small groups to take what Dr. Fullilove calls a "Community Burn Index." Just like human beings, a town that suffers too many burns or cancers will be at risk. Armed with Polaroids and digital camera, the groups will walk various streets of Orange to record the good, the bad and the ugly of our town. We will then re-gathered to report and discuss what we found. Helping in this effort will be Pat Morrissy, Executive Director of HANDS, the redevelopment organization in Orange which has done more than any other group to heal Orange's wounded neighborhoods.
Finally, A new Citizens for Responsible Government will develop an agenda to go forward. Two primary players in the desegregation of the schools, Maggie Thompson, a member of our congregation, and Ben Jones, the first African-American to serve on the Orange Cit Council, have been central to our planning. They are living links between the struggles and successes of fifty years ago and the action that is needed today. Since our congregation has been at the same off-Broadway site for over a century, we are a natural place for such re-vitalization to move forward.
I will prepare fliers for those who choose to take around our neighborhood after church, inviting people to attend. This will literally get us out of our church and into action. For years our congregation has chosen to stay in an urban area, when many other UU churches decided it would be to their advantage to move to what they perceived as greener pastures. Perhaps in moments of doubt or frustration you have wondered if we made a wise decision, or should keep making it. June 8 will show you why.
May 2008
Earthquake or Hairball?In the fall of 1995, I was driving through Marin County, north of San Francisco, listening to a radio call-in pet show. "My cat sometimes acts strange for no reason at all," the caller began, "She will suddenly act very cautious, almost fearful, her back will arch, and she will begin to stir. Then, just as suddenly, she settles down and is fine again."
The expert host replied, "Most animals, and especially cats, are sensitive to various vibrations and sounds that humans don't perceive. In our area, for instance, there are often slight earth tremors that we don't feel, that can be very upsetting to cats. When they feel it, they don't know if a bigger earthquake is coming, or not. They become very agitated for a moment, and when the tremor subsides, they settle down again."
"Or," the expert continued, "it might be just a hairball."
Earthquake or hairball, that is the question.
How often I find myself identifying with that cat. I suddenly get anxious and fearful, from some horrible piece of information, some distant rumbling. I wonder if it is a foreboding of one of those disasters that various later-day Nostradamuses (or is it Nostradamusi?) have been predicting at least since the duck-and-cover 1050's? Soon the rumblings recede, or I am distracted by news of an important baseball trade or celebrity rehabilitation.
Then again, sometimes I find that what is affecting me is not cosmic, but personal, more hairball than earthquake. Today, for instance, my right shoulder hurts. I often misplace my sunglasses and cell phone. My multi-task list tends toward having just one too many items. Taken together, they can form a perfect storm of personal annoyance, that, just for a moment, can seem much more significant that it really is. The moment passes, and I settle down again, like the cat that has succeeded in dealing with his personal issues through creative expectoration.
I don't know if a cat's sensitivity to distant rumblings can actually cause hairballs, but I do believe that humans, with our increasing worldwide inter-connectivity, suffer personally with the shifts and fissures of the world. Whether it is the housing and credit crisis, the possibly of endless war, or melting ice caps, we humans now share with our feline friends the ability to perceive and recoil in response to forces that move mountains continents away.
So, our unsettled anxieties may be caused either from the earthquake of world events, or discomforts far more personal. They may be connected, or not. In any case, it is useful to at least try to make some determination; least we take world events too personally, or blame the world because we can't find our cell phone.
April 2008
From Carolina to KathmanduVirginia Ward was already retired from the U. S. Foreign Service when I arrived as the new minister of the First Universalist Church of Sampson County at Red Hill, in Clinton, North Carolina, in the fall of 1974. She walked with a cane, her frame bent over, her body under attack everywhere from crippling arthritis.
Eastern North Carolina was about the worst place in the world for arthritis, since it was located in the southwest corner of The Great Goshen Swamp. It was great for growing dragonflies the size of robins, bad for arthritis. Red Hill was completely flat, getting its name from the very large clumps of wild rose bushes that appeared from a distance as red hills.
Like a number of church members, Virginia had been born and raised in the Universalist Church, went away to college and career, and retired back home. It made for a congregation far more sophisticated and worldly than the locale would indicate. Virginia, for instance, had spent a number of years in Kathmandu, Nepal, helping local women better care for their families in various ways: teaching nutrition, first aid, and even a little family planning.
I loved visiting her home. Outside, it was a new townhouse in Wilmington. Inside, it was Nepal. It was the first time I had seen a real home decorated with such beautiful, exotic things. It was as though everything she used, even the smallest teaspoon, was a work of art. She was also the first person I met who had meditated, not as a New Age discovery, but as something she had learned in Asia decades ago. Her meditation helped manage her arthritis pain.
One summer, I broke my ankle and returned to worship in the fall wearing a cast. After a few weeks, it came off. I went easy on the leg, of course, while also being impatient to get back to normal. One Sunday, she called me to her after worship.
"Don't limp!" she said, most emphatically. I didn't realize it, but I had fallen into a slight limp, because I found, if I limped a little bit, I could walk a little faster. Virginia saw that I was doing something she must have worked very hard not to do for many years.
"Walk as slowly as you have to walk, but don't limp!" she explained. "If you favor the leg now, it might never heal properly. If you walk slowly but straight, you'll be fine. All it takes is fighting through a little pain now."
Of course she was right. She knew about fighting through pain. Just to leave home and come to church was an act of will.
When I visited Kathmandu in 1996, I did so at least in part because of Virginia. The way she described the land, the people and the culture made it sound wonderful and exotic and she was absolutely right. When I spent a week trekking around base of Anna Purna, I did not limp.
March 2008
"The Neighborhood of Boston"In 1978, I had four whole years of pastoral experience, but was very excited about the opportunity before me. I was to begin as minister of the First Parish Unitarian Church in Scituate, Massachusetts, near Boston, the Mecca of Unitarianism. These old "first parishes" are the historic heart of our movement. Most of them, including Scituate, were founded before the Revolutionary War, becoming Unitarian early in the nineteenth century, when liberal theology was sweeping New England.
The more conservative members didn’t sit still for having their churches taken over by heretics who thought reason had a place at worship, and took their cases to court. The Unitarians won. The judge deciding the case happened to be Unitarian. Fortunately, we know that all Unitarians are fair-minded and impartial, so naturally the case was judged solely on its merits. Basically, the decision said that the orthodox could take their theology with them, but had to leave the church communion silver and deed to the land.
So, in nearly every town square near Boston there is a First Parish Unitarian Church, and a First Trinitarian Congregational Church around the corner. Scituate is no exception.
My wife and I had just arrived. The moving van might still have been in the drive. I was away, on some early pastoral duty. The minister of the Congregational Church visited, and warmly welcomed us. As he left he said, "By the way, your church has our communion silver and we need it returned."
Later that same day, the minister of the UU Church in Plymouth visited. That, of course, is the "mother church," a few yards from Plymouth Rock. He warmly welcomed us and added, as he left, "And if the Congregationalists ask for the silver, don’t give it to them!"
My wife, not having learned the fine points of Unitarian history, asked me, upon my return, what exactly was going on. I explained that there was some disagreement over who really owned the communion silver. "Who has it now?" she asked.
"We do," I responded. "A state court even said it is legally ours, but the Congregationalists disagree. If we gave them the silver it would be admitting that their claims were correct."
"When was the court case?" she wondered.
"1825," I said.
Unitarians were once said to believe in the Fatherhood of God, the Brotherhood of Man, and the Neighborhood of Boston. Of these three, Boston abides.
February 2008
Crossing New BridgesOn Friday, January 18, adults and children from all the schools and many other organizations in Orange will gather at City Hall at 8:30 AM and march to the middle school, in commemoration of the march across the Edmund Pettis Bridge in Alabama in March of 1965, led by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. This was the march that, viewed throughout America on the evening news, showed marchers being beaten, and raised national consciousness of the civil rights struggle.
The key to the success of the march was the non-violent response of the marchers. Had they fought back, it would have been reported as just another race riot, police having to quell those troublesome Negroes and Yankee white agitators, who numbered among them several UU ministers.
While Dr. King has been remembered nearly to the point of irrelevancy, his method of non-violence has been lost. There is a cycle of wisdom to the teaching of non-violence to which Unitarianism is central. For Gandhi learned his principles from Emerson and Thoreau, those Transcendentalist New Englanders who were among the first Americans to encounter Buddhism and bring its teachings into their lives.
King learned from Gandhi, but there the teaching has not been brought forward. African American participation in the political process has increased considerably, helping all minorities to sit closer to the tables of power, but it has also given African Americans their share of corrupt politicians, just as all the ethnic groups in America that came before.
Meanwhile, the message of violence is everywhere, as is the message that winning thorough competition is the way to get ahead, with little opportunity to teach the wisdom of cooperation, or what advantage might be found in collective action. While the most fundamental goals of the Civil Rights era seem to have been met, ghettos still exist, with an increasing and evermore disenfranchised underclass, not to mention an immigrant population facing a no-nothing, nativist response a hundred years out of date.
I'm sure Martin Luther King would have vastly preferred that he be forgotten and the principles of non-violence remembered. But that would give each generation of the downtrodden a visible path to justice. Apparently, America would rather honor the memory of a man, and forget what he taught that made him memorable. I’ll be marching January 18, hoping to find new bridges to cross.
January 2008
Santa BobbyWhen I was about seven years old, Christmas was extremely important to me, and Santa Claus the center of that importance. You can imagine my elation when, on Christmas Eve, he came to visit me at my home, outside of Toledo, Ohio.
I heard sleigh bells outside the front door. I knew it was a stranger, because nobody who knew us came to the front door. I heard a deep voice loudly saying, "Ho, ho, ho!" I used my boyish powers of deduction to conclude that it just might be possible that Santa Claus himself was outside my door!
Now, I had seen Santa’s helpers at various local venues: Tiedke’s Department store, where everybody went, or LaSalle’s, which had the best toy department, or even Lampson’s, where the fancy people shopped. I knew these were not the real Santa, merely useful surrogates. But, a home visit? And on Christmas Eve? I hadn’t been that good!
My mom and dad opened the door and it was Santa! How could it be anyone else? Red suit, white trim, white beard, funny hat, bag of toys. It all fit. He was a big guy, too. Bigger than my dad, more than sufficiently round, taller than his department store helpers. I didn’t understand from the literature that Santa could have been a defensive tackle had he so desired.
Then I noticed his boots. There was something ersatz about them. They weren’t boots at all. They were shoes, with black patent leather spats over them, simulating boots. This aroused my suspicion. Hey, I recognized those shoes! They were my cousin, Bobby Berger’s! He was a big guy, just like Santa. And he was a really nice guy, which fit the playing Santa profile. I did not underestimate this, as Bobby was of an age when most guys ignored little kids or were mean to them.
I looked behind the whiskers. It was Bobby! I exclaimed this loudly. Then I didn’t know what to feel.
I first felt duped, because it wasn’t really Santa and for a few minutes I thought it was. Then I felt good, because it was Bobby, who, when I stopped to think about it, was about as good as Santa to be visiting, anyway.
Now, over fifty year later, I feel much more than just good about it. It is a primary memory of loving kindness to children that I will always have with me. Because my kindly cousin Bobby thought enough about me to play Santa and play it extremely well, I have about ten minutes of truly believing the real Santa Claus had come to visit me.
When I heard that Bobby died earlier this year, back in Ohio, after a long illness, my first memory was of his playing Santa. I am uncertain of the characteristics of immortality, but surely creating unsurpassed wonder and joy in a child is one of them.
December 2007
Could a Unitarian Universalist be Elected President?I am a big baseball fan, even following games in spring training. But I don’t think I’d follow them if they began the day after the last game of the season. The prelude to the real thing would be just too long.
Which is why I haven’t been paying much attention to this extended sparring of presidential hopefuls.
I did happen to catch a bit of a Democratic Party "debate" a few weeks ago. They were asking the candidates about their prayer lives! Did anyone else find this a sad commentary on our current civic life? I found this appalling, in far worse taste than asking candidates about their undergarments, which was asked several times when the other Clinton was running.
Worse, every candidate answered using his or her best approximation of piety! Oh, how I longed to hear anyone say, "My attitude and practice regarding prayer is as personal and deeply held as any value I hold. Therefore I will keep it private, which is where it belongs in an American public political forum."
"If elected, I promise to uphold the constitution, which guarantees that no religion shall be held superior to any other, and indeed, there be no religious test for office, and that no citizen shall be held in higher or lower esteem in the eyes of government based on one’s practice, or non-practice, of religion. My administration will return to a traditional American value that has been sadly, tragically missing: tolerance."
Could a Unitarian Universalist be elected President today? Adlai Stevenson received the Democratic nomination twice, of course. Even given the average UU's liberalism, I believe the greater stumbling block would be explaining his or her "religion." What, you haven’t been born again? You believe there is room for many religions, not only in the world, but in the same congregation! You believe atheists and agnostics can be moral? Male and female, gay and straight, are equal? You have no sin, no hell, no damnation? You don’t believe your religion is the one true faith?
You think Mitt Romey has trouble explaining why he doesn’t have three wives, or Rudy Giuliani has trouble explaining why he did have three, just imagine a Unitarian Universalist trying to explain, well, anything. UU doesn’t fit well into a sound bite, current national advertising attempts notwithstanding. With a fair number of the electorate insisting on a president with a child's grasp of salvation, and even the relatively reasonable candidates pandering to them, I don’t think a UU could be elected today. Which is sad for the UUA, and sadder for the USA.
November 2007
"Dancing Baptists"Billy Peterson is a birthright member of the First Universalist Church of Sampson County in Clinton, North Carolina, where I was ordained and served the first four years of my ministry. He has a carefully written letter by his great-grandfather, dating from the 1880’s, resigning his membership in the local Baptist Church.
The issue, it seems, was fiddle playing. That is, the Baptists didn’t like Mr. Peterson to play his fiddle, especially not for dancing. His resignation quotes copiously from the Old Testament about David and Solomon playing something that wasn’t too different from a fiddle, states that the "joyful noises" recommended to be made to the Almighty seems to him rather like fiddle playing. He became a founding member of the Universalist Church. I can attest that the Universalist congregation did indeed rejoice in fiddle playing, guitar playing, banjo picking and various other ways to accompany the many dances they hosted.
Winnifred Chestnutt, who was well into his 90s when I was there, summed it up best. "There wouldn’t be any Universalists around here," he told me, "If the Baptists had just let us dance."
So, sometimes, when people ask me about Universalists, I say that they are "dancing Baptists."
When the Zen master D. T. Suzuki fist visited America, he was asked what was the theology of the Buddhists. He said, "I don’t think Buddhists have what you call theology, as I understand this word."
"Well, what do you have?" he was asked.
"We dance."
It is often said, sometimes even by Unitarian Universalists, that we suffer from a lack of theology. I’ve studied theology. I’ve known theology. From my experience, we are far better served by dancing.
Oct.2007
Bringing an Old War HomeThe teenagers arrested in connection with the murder of three college students in Newark may not have been members of the Salvadoran gang, MS-13, but there is evidence that they were at the very least enamored of them. It has been reported that their MySpace pages were full of admiring gang references, though Newark Mayor Cory Booker has stressed that there is no evidence linking the murders to gang activity. The victims were, however, killed in ritual, gang-like fashion.
MS-13 has its origins in the Salvadoran Civil War. Salvadoran immigrants, coming to Los Angeles in the 1980s, banded together in response to the Mexican and other gangs already at work there. Early gang members had been members of various warring factions in that civil war, in which the United States supported a right wing military government that they had aided in coming to power, against various leftist and Marist rebels. U.S. government policy considered the rebels part of the Communist threat. Therefore, anything to defeat them was justified.
These immigrants, displaced from their nation, were experienced in violence, which tore apart their families and homes. Now, future generations have institutionalized this violence in the form of gang and other criminal activity. And so three young college students die in Newark because of a Latin American civil war twenty years ago.
This isn’t new. Frank and Jesse James, the Younger Brothers, many of the outlaw gangs of the Old West were former Confederate soldiers, or men of their next generation.
We have often heard in recent years that "We have to fight them over there so we don’t have to fight them here." What a lie. There is no "here" as opposed to "there." There is no "us" and "them." There is only one earth and only one humanity. We either support peace everywhere or we support peace nowhere. Which of our children will die in twenty years because of the violence our government is exporting now?
August 27, 2007