Have a Happy & Safe Holiday...

Fun and Frolic in Salt Lake City

OK - I was going to go all the way and label this "Fear and Loathing," as a true tribute to the late Hunter S. Thompson, but there didn't seem to be any fear and loathing present. Befuddlement and confusion and some real joy - yes.

My friend and fellow blogger, Ogre, has a wonderful post up about the failure of the Article II revision in plenary. I'm as disappointed and mystified as Ogre as to why this proposal failed. The Commission on Appraisal spent two or three years soliciting feedback from congregations, including widely distributing two previous drafts for comments before submitting the final proposal to the Board of Trustees to put on the GA Agenda.

Current language for Article II of the UUA Bylaws can be found here.

The proposed language for revising Article II can be found here.

Here's what I liked about the revision (and would have said on the plenary floor, had I ever reached the "pro" microphone):

"I want to thank the Commission on Appraisal for all its hard work and word-wrestling over the past three years. As one who was unhappy in the extreme with the original draft published last fall, I'm equally pleased with the final proposal, for three main reasons:

First, this proposal grounds us in our historical and present ecclesiology of covenant, and in the covenantal relationship between our congregations.* It repeatedly reminds us that, as a bylaw, it applies to the member congregations, therefore this is not a creed which we expect individuals to adopt. In this way, it actually works against the creeping creedalism to which the current principles have been party.

Second, the Sources section of this proposal grounds us in the Unitarian and Universalist traditions. To use a tree metaphor: Unitarianism and Universalism are our roots. They are strong and deep, and serve as a pipeline through which we receive sustenance. Any tree needs strong roots to be healthy. The other sources are grafts to the main trunk, some larger (more influential), and/or older (with a longer history), than others. Every tree needs roots, to maintain a healthy tree with strong, outreaching branches.

Finally, the language changes to the third, fifth, and seventh principles serve to broaden our statement of values beyond just our individual members - and beyond just our congregations. I've heard some objections to substituting the word "reverence" for the word "respect" in the seventh principle, as if this were introducing god-language into the principles. I beg to point out that, according to the Commission on Appraisal's study on theological diversity, the interdependent web has already become the core of many Unitarian Universalists' theology. As such, I believe the word "reverence" is appropriate, as an acknowledgment of what is already fact for many of us."

At this point, I tend to agree with a former polity professor, who confided that he thought the revision would have been passed had it been amendable. In fact, 5 of the 7 responsive resolutions brought forward in the final plenary session concerned this proposed bylaw revision. In any case, I hope that this will stimulate deeper conversation in our congregations - and fuller understanding of what the principles are, and what they are not. Perhaps then we will also have a deeper understanding of what Unitarian Universalism is, and what it is not.

*Shout out to the Rev. Alice Blair Wesley, for her ongoing work in helping all of us to understand our historical covenants, and how they continue in the present day.

Too True

I've been absent for good reasons. My old laptop crashed & burned a couple weeks ago. Right after commencement, in fact. Most of my files were backed up (thank goodness), but I lost my internet "favorites" folders, so in my nonexistent spare time I've been trying to find links I once had bookmarked. It's a slow process... And I'm wrapping things up at my internship. Then off to UUMA Ministry Days & UUA General Assembly! I know I'll see some of my fellow bloggers there. Give me a shout if you want to get together, 'kay?

I post the above instead of the nasty rants I drafted about: the murder of Dr. Tiller in his church and how this limits the options of women who find out after the half-way point of a pregnancy that it might be lethal to them; or the attempt to remove Baby Be-Bop and other young adult fiction dealing with any sexual themes from the shelves of the West Bend, WI library; or the outrageous and sad shooting at the Holocaust Museum today.

To paraphrase one of my favorite bloggers, "Jesus, I am sick of this."

Number Five?

New Hampshire may become state # 5 to make civil marriage possible for gays and lesbians. Here's what CNN has to say about it right now. Interesting quote from the gov:

Lynch said any such measure needs to "make clear that [clergy and other religious officials] cannot be forced to act in ways that violate their deeply held religious principles."

What about those of us (clergy & other religious professionals) whose deeply held religious principles are already being violated by not being able to legally unite in marriage loving, caring, committed people who happen to be of the same gender?

Just sayin'...

Commencing...

I am no longer a seminarian. As of yesterday, I am a "Master of Divinity." Of course, none of us really masters the divine - though I know and have known many who seem to express the divine quite well through their work, compassion, and love. I'm grateful for them...

Many good people helped me through the past four years, not the least of which my DH. He is a brick, a rock, a - whatever metaphor you choose to use to indicate something solid to rest upon. I am so very lucky he loves me.

I'm also grateful for my fellow students and the classmates who graduated with me. When one is in the theological minority it helps that everyone else is willing to listen to new ideas - and to challenge one to explain, dig deeper, expand, and develop those ideas into solid theology. One particular friend who began with me graduated last year. We still talk every couple weeks. He tells me what is happening in his pastorate, and I share what I can of my internship. We continue to be sounding boards for each other, and I'm more grateful than I can say for his friendship. Thank you to all my fellow "masters."

I've benefited from several wonderful professors, too. A couple knew more than the average bear about Unitarian Universalism, and for them I'm particularly grateful - even if one was particularly pushy about getting me to figure out where I stood within my own tradition. Everything I learned in the seminary from which I graduated will stand me in good stead as I go forth & try to do interfaith work. (In fact, it already has!)

I'm going to miss this place. I'm going to miss these people (already do). I will carry what I learned from these years and these relationships with me for the rest of my life.

And, life goes on. Another month and my internship will be done. A few more months and I have a Very Important Interview. What happens after that? I don't know. Life is uncertain - it is always uncertain. But for now, life is pretty darn good!

Noonday Prayer - Hope

Noonday Prayer service has been a blessing for me this year. It is something I will miss at the end of this internship. Usually our gatherings are quite small, no more than 5 or 6 people besides the leader. The nuns who run this agency cum coffee shop are open and friendly, and appreciate poetry as much as scripture. They’ve taught me much about interfaith interaction, living with an open heart and mind.

I’ve been incredibly busy for a couple of weeks – and will be for another week or so – and neglected to post last week’s Noonday Prayer…

We talked about hope. The center is called the Hopes Center, so it seemed appropriate. I began with dictionary definitions of hope:

• The feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best
• Something in which expectations are centered
• To look forward to with desire and reasonable confidence

I read a blog post about hope, and a quote from Vaclav Havel. Havel wrote that hope is “an orientation of the spirit, an orientation of the heart…It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.”

Then we shared our experiences and thoughts on hope, hopefulness and hopelessness. One person confessed to not having an orientation toward hope, but despair, and said that the quotation from Havel helped. The conversation was rich and deep.

And we prayed – we prayed for hope, we prayed for best outcomes, we prayed for the wisdom to follow the path that makes sense, the path that is right and good. We live in hope.

Blessed Be and Amen.

Noonday Prayer - On Prayer

I've been contemplating prayer a lot during my internship. I think this picture represents what many of us envision when we think of prayer. Someone with folded or clasped hands, maybe a bowed head, reciting a memorized prayer as part of a liturgy - or quietly praying to God as s/he envisions the divine. I recently facilitated a class on reclaiming the positive aspects of our religious past. Many UUs (though not all) come to Unitarian Universalism from other traditions. Often, they come with emotional baggage, feeling wary of church/religion/the holy. So, it was fascinating to me when one person in the group asked a question about prayer.


This woman was raised Roman Catholic. Why, she said, did they not teach us what prayer really could be? Why did I have to wait until I was a grandmother to stumble upon a book by a Buddhist monk to learn how to pray?




Good question. Different cultures approach prayer in different ways - and have different practices. There are Jewish prayer shawls... and Indian prayer shawls...



.
and Tibetan prayer flags... and prayer candles





There are also many different kinds of prayer - spoken, silent, individual, contemplative prayer, body prayer (dance or other motion), pastoral prayer in worship, and so on - and I haven't yet mentioned music as prayer, or the contemplation (or creation) of visual art as prayer. I've been glad to have the opportunity to lead noonday prayer several times this spring. I'm leading again today - and my theme is going to be prayer.

Most people who come to these devotional sessions are Christian, so I'll open with this familiar prayer from the Gospel of Matthew:

"Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come.
Your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And do not bring us to the time of trial,
but rescue us from the evil one." Matthew 6:9-13, NRSV

Notice any differences between this and the one you might have learned as a child? The one I learned as a child used King James Version language, asked for forgiveness for trespasses, and ended with "for thine is the kingdom forever and ever."

I'm taking along Neil Douglas-Klotz's Prayers of the Cosmos: Meditations on the Aramaic Words of Jesus, with his line-by-line alternative translations of the Lord's Prayer, as well as a few others. One is pieced together from Douglas-Klotz's translations. One is a prayer to the Divine Mother, written by a dear friend several years ago, explicitly echoing the Lord's Prayer - but from a divine feminine point of view. The other is one addressed to "Our Mother, whose body is the Earth," which I found in one of several collections of readings and prayers I have.

Hopefully, we will have a rich discussion of prayer and it's multitude of meanings and practices!

And - we will pray, each in our own way, to the God of our varied understanding.

Amen and Blessed Be.