Ms. Kitty's Saloon and Road Show

A Life of Work, Part 4

2012-01-25T15:43:00.001-08:00

During the four years I spent at Iliff School of Theology, in Denver, I had many opportunities to experience ministerial responsibilities. The required curriculum at Iliff gave me some of those but others just happened along during my student years.

I actually consider myself to have been a minister from the day I experienced that definite wakeup call to ministry, the day when Robert Latham said, "Kit, you missed your calling; you ought to be a minister". From that moment on, I looked for opportunities to use what I already knew in pastoral ways; I asked our assistant minister Joe Willis to let me visit people in the congregation who might need some extra care and he introduced me to Vera Mulhauser, an elderly woman at JUC who had lost her husband a few weeks before she had a disabling stroke and went into nursing care at a local facility.

I visited Vera a couple of times a week for six years. This was a very formative experience for me as I lost any discomfort I might have had about nursing homes or disabled people; I came to know the staff at Vera's place, as well as many of the other residents and helped Vera form relationships with them, despite her limited speech and shyness.

During the Iliff years, in addition to being pastoral with Vera, I became the student minister for the Prairie Wind UU Fellowship in Gillette, Wyoming, and during one spring term I drove back and forth to Gillette (800 miles round trip) in my little Geo. Snowy conditions kept me from going as often as I would have liked; I think I made two or three trips, preaching, doing a child dedication ceremony, and meeting with individuals. I'd drive up on Friday and come home on Sunday afternoon. I must have been a little nuts, but I LOVED this experience! It was during my first year of seminary.

During the summer following my first year, I took the required 10 week, 400 hour course entitled Clinical Pastoral Education. I was one of an interfaith, very diverse group of students who met with a supervisor in the mornings doing group work together, sorting out our theology of pastoral care, learning to tolerate and even understand each other. I was the only UU; others were Catholic, Seventh Day Adventist, Bible Baptist, Methodist, Episcopal, and none-of-the-above renegades who just wanted to be chaplains.

In the afternoons, we fanned out to individual learning sites; mine was the St. Anthony North facility in Westminster, where I teamed up with real chaplains to learn what it was like to do ministry in a medical setting. This was exciting and challenging and hard. My first day, I attended the death of a patient. The next, I met a man dying of cancer. Every day had its wrenching and yet illuminating lessons. Every couple of weeks, I was on-call at St. Anthony Central, a trauma center which served the entire metro area, receiving murder victims, criminals, drug overdoses, unsuccessful suicides. Blood all over the ER, every time I was there. On my last night of on-call, I was called to the maternity ward where a baby (aka fetal demise) had died during the birth process; I went with the young father to the mother's bedside to tell her what had happened. A rollercoaster of a summer yet one of the most valuable times of my life.

During three of my seminary years, I was also preaching about once a month at various churches in the Mountain Desert District, which stretched from Montana to the Texas border. I preached in Gillette, Parker, Boulder, Colorado Springs, Denver, Golden, Greeley, Littleton, Pueblo, Los Alamos, Albuquerque, and Cheyenne. Some of these towns had more than one congregation; all in all I think I preached at 13 different churches. I also preached monthly at the Pueblo congregation one year and led them through the Welcoming Congregation curriculum.

My third year of seminary was spent as a fulltime intern at Boulder UU Fellowship, a fairly Humanist congregation which rented space at that time in the Masonic Temple in downtown Boulder. My supervising minister was the wonderful Catharine Harris. This was probably the most important formative experience of my preparation for ministry. Catharine was a good role model, a fine preacher, pastorally skilled, and had a reverential presence at rites of passage such as memorial services.

From Catharine I learned the importance of collaboration and not being cocksure. It's no wonder I got a 2 at the MFC that year; I was way too sure of myself and needed a little comeuppance. All Catharine ever said about it was "you know, Kit, you're the intern, not the associate minister here". It didn't sink in what that meant until the MFC told me the same thing. But that year was a revelation to me about my own background and skills; I was meant to be a minister, I could see myself in that role, I could do it, people responded to me as a minister. Rather than shake my confidence, Catharine and the MFC helped me see that I would be a better minister if I didn't come on so strong, if I scaled back my bulldozer tendencies.

During my final year at Iliff, I had time to process much of what had happened so far in my life and in my training. I visited a Spiritual Director once a month all year, at the MFC's request, and I began to pull my experiences together into some kind of coherent shape. My course load was somewhat lighter, so I took on a work study job with a faculty member Dr. Joan Van Becelaere, also a UU. During this year, I began to plan with a committee how my ordination would take place; never shy about taking charge, I had some firm ideas about how it ought to go. I'm a little embarrassed to realize that this has been a defining characteristic my whole life, but I've sure gotten a lot done!

Graduation with honors on May 30 and ordination on May 31, 1999---whew! My house was on the market and I would be moving to Portland, Oregon, to serve Wy'east UU Congregation in July.

HALLELUJAH!

2012-01-23T12:14:00.000-08:00

My District 10 Washington State Senator, Mary Margaret Haugen, has just stated that she will support the marriage equality legislation now before the House and Senate. She had been a holdout for a long time and has now become the deciding vote in a tight Senate debate. I haven't yet heard her testimony, but it is extremely exciting to be part of this historical campaign.

The State of the Congregation: a sermon

2012-01-22T08:35:00.001-08:00

THE STATE OF THE CONGREGATION
Rev. Kit Ketcham, January 22, 2012

In two days, our President, Barack Obama, will give his State of the Union Address to Congress and to the American people. I’m going to get a jump on him by giving you all my State of the Congregation message today.

Mr. Obama’s address will doubtless take into consideration the strides made during his term of office so far and make a case for improvements he sees as necessary to bring our nation into closer alignment with the vision that created this country, the vision of a nation ruled by the people. He will also address the mission that underlies the American dream: a mission to provide for the wellbeing and freedom of American citizens.

My message has to do with mission and vision as well. Almost 20 years ago, this congregation was founded as an outpost of liberal religion on South Whidbey Island. It has flourished since that time, offering an oasis of welcome for those looking for a church home that was founded on reason, religious freedom, and as a united effort to serve the needs of others.

And as we prepare together for a major transition in ministerial leadership, it’s a good time to assess where we are, as regards our vision and our mission. We don’t have a catchy phrase that states who we are and what our purpose is; we do have a lengthy statement of our identity and purpose which appears in official documents, but if I were to paraphrase that statement in a few words, I would say that we are a religious community which fosters Love and Justice, here among us, out in the Whidbey Island community, and in the wider world.

Vision and mission sermons can be a little ho-hum and I have cogitated about how to make these remarks scintillating and gripping and memorable. But it’s a serious topic as well, offering ideas that I think you may appreciate as you plan for the years ahead here at UUCWI.

I have some observations about several areas of congregational life that I think will be informative and helpful: governance; religious education for both adults and children; building issues; how we care for one another; how we approach our justice work; worship, which is our public face in the world; and special ministries which have emerged over the three and a half years since we moved into this worship space.

Governance, by my definition, is how the board of trustees and other leaders, both as individuals and as groups, manage our resources and encourage support of the congregation. This includes internal communications, wise policies and procedures, stewardship, and being role models for others as they strive to uphold our Covenant of Right Relations and promote the Principles of UUism.

Our religious education efforts include adult programming, from introductory classes in UUism, discussion groups modeling critical thinking as well as offering social time, and considering current moral issues in human life. These programs have grown markedly over the past three years.

And our religious exploration classes for children and youth have expanded and give our young people opportunity to learn how to be good citizens as well as learning to care about those who are different from themselves, while forming their own Unitarian Universalist identity, a way of seeing the world that will serve them well as adults.

Our building issues revolve, to a great extent, around using our sanctuary and classrooms as community gathering places, not just for our own use, but for the use of the larger community, particularly for those groups aligned with our religious principles. This means, of course, keeping up with the maintenance of the building and, in addition, always being attuned to making it more beautiful and spiritually fulfilling.

Caring for one another is an essential part of our mission as a faith community, and we live this out in a number of ways---pastoral care by me and our chaplain Sally, others providing transportation and emergency service to those in need, all of us giving appreciation for the many daily tasks performed by volunteers such as ushering, bringing refreshments, helping with the children, greeting newcomers warmly, and helping to grow and strengthen the connections between us by attending congregational events. Our Covenant of Right Relations helps us figure out how to handle our differences of opinion in positive, safe ways.

But caring for one another is only part of why we’re here. We depend on this strong, safe community to give us support when we seek justice in the larger world. It is most effective to be part of a group when we urge the legislature to support marriage equality, fair immigration standards, education reform or to end torture.

When we all contribute to the morning collection for South Whidbey Commons or the Hub for Youth or Planned Parenthood, we are collectively supporting agencies and programs that benefit our larger community and improve the world for many people.

Worship on Sunday mornings and our Wednesday evening EvenSong group are our public face in this community, our effort to nurture the spiritual growth of those who attend. For this reason, worship services are carefully planned and carried out, so that those who attend and participate receive an experience that will inspire, comfort, provoke to action, and cause them to think and feel more deeply. We welcome all and invite all to feel part of the community while they are here.

In addition, we have developed some specialized ministries which you may not yet think of as part of the vision and mission of the congregation: first, our visual arts gallery and the efforts of the VAC to assure that the entire building is as aesthetically harmonious as possible; second, our music concert series, which is open to the entire community and features incredible musical offerings and artists; and third, our expanding library which offers a book lending service to anyone who is interested in exploring progressive religious issues.

These are the categories I’ve considered as I’ve thought about the abilities of this congregation, the needs of this faith community, and the needs of the larger community on Whidbey Island and beyond.

Here are a few things I’d like to see happen, partly as an outgrowth of what I’ve started here, others as new directions you might take.
These are already being talked about in committees and leadership meetings, so few will be surprised by them. Your ideas are important too and I hope you will share them with the leaders of the congregation.

Here’s one I know is already under consideration, because it’s an ongoing tension between those who are responsible for the aesthetic harmony of a church facility and those who are responsible for its practical usage. Every congregation has to figure out how to maintain the beauty of the space while taking into consideration such concerns as the acoustics, structural integrity, and financial limitations.

I know our VAC (Visual Arts Committee) and BAG (Building and Grounds) leaders are always working to both preserve the beauty and make it accessible to all. I hope that they and you will continue the conversation and find a balance between these two complementary yet sometimes divergent services. I also think, by the way, that something is going to have to be done about expanding the available parking!

Another possibility is one I know is also under consideration: to increase the social action involvement of the congregation, by aligning with Good Cheer or Whidbey Island Nurtures or Whidbey Island Share a Home, or some other agency on the island which dovetails with our outreach mission, giving every person in the congregation, hopefully even the kids, a chance to be part of a hands-on effort to help in the community. I’ve been part of other congregations which had an all-congregation social action project, and it was a huge success!

One ongoing need must be addressed, I think, if the congregation is to continue to flourish. There are lots of small jobs that need to be done week after week after week and even though we have almost 100 members now, these jobs tend to be done by the same small group of people, week after week after week. Very few people seem to step up to do those small chores.

These little jobs are opportunities to get to know people, to do your part to keep things flourishing, and yet they often go begging. The jobs I’m thinking about are ushering, making coffee and bringing a few goodies on Sunday morning, showing up for work parties, serving on a task force or committee, volunteering with the children.

I would urge each of you to find a place to serve: as an usher, coffee-maker, refreshment bringer, on work parties and landscaping days, on a committee, or helping with the kids. The time spent will be enjoyable and you will find yourself developing a real sense of belonging. It will be worth it to you and will help the congregation thrive.

I have a couple more ideas which have not been talked about widely: we have a wonderful music series which is open to the entire community and enjoyed by all who attend. Mostly we’ve used it as a fund-raising activity and it’s been quite successful that way, as we’ve raised money for UUCWI projects and for community agencies such as Good Cheer. But what if we could begin to think of it as spiritual outreach to the community as well and find ways to illustrate UU principles in some way?

Subtly, of course, as the series is not intended to be a worship service, but music is definitely a spiritual experience for many people. Can we openly acknowledge that experience and help people see that music is deeply evocative of the human spiritual experience? I wonder if we can somehow identify this as a ministry without scaring people into fearing they’ll be proselytized if they attend? It’s worth thinking about, I believe.

And my second thought is that we might think how we could do the same with our art gallery. I wonder if the artists who exhibit here could be asked to consider the spiritual nature of their work, offer some words in their descriptions of that nature, maybe even connect that nature to a UU principle. Again, this must all be carefully done. But we are a spiritual community and it makes sense to think about what we do for the larger community as ministry, as spiritual not secular.

I’ll be preaching about these two ideas more fully in later sermons this spring, one in two weeks with Eileen Soskin and one later on with, I hope, the help of the VAC. I believe that the Arts are truly Sources of our UU Living Tradition, that they are sources of great spiritual and religious inspiration and must be integrated into the life of our congregation and its outreach into the community.

BENEDICTION: Our worship service, our time of shaping worth together is ended, but our service to the world begins again as we leave this place. Let us go in peace, remembering the strengths we bring as individuals and as a community to our mission. May we strive to continue the good work we have begun and look eagerly to the next steps in our ministry, as we move through this time of transition. Amen, Shalom, Salaam, and Blessed Be.

A Life of Work, Part 3C

2012-01-20T14:12:00.001-08:00

I have been snowed in all week, which was good for sermon prep, packing up books, and noodling around on Facebook, HuffPost, MissCellania, and the friends' blogs I regularly peruse, but it only just occurred to me that I could spend this Friday afternoon (as the rain washes away all the snow) writing the blog post I've been thinking about.

This particular entry in the "Life of Work" series concerns my experience at Iliff School of Theology in Denver, between 1995 and 1999. It took me four fulltime years to complete my Master of Divinity degree because of the various credentialing requirements of the UUA. Iliff is a United Methodist seminary, very liberal, and one of the best in the nation for a good grounding in religious academics.

I was like a kid in a candy shop most of the time, though I was thoroughly tired of the Apostle Paul a few times during these four years and longed for the broader curricula of Starr King or Meadville. But Denver was home at the time and it made the best sense to stay in my own house during this major undertaking. It was an easy commute, I was in familiar territory, I didn't have to leave my home congregation, and I knew people all up and down the Mountain Desert District. Getting preaching gigs and weddings and an internship would not be difficult under the circumstances.

I enrolled in the fall of 1995, one of a class of about 70 students, most much younger than I. I wasn't the oldest, at 53, but I was up toward the top of the heap, at least among those students who were preparing for fulltime ministry.

My advisor was Dr. Pamela Eisenbaum, a Jew whose area of expertise was the middle ground between the Hebrew scriptures (aka Old Testament) and the Christian scriptures (aka New Testament). She was young and smart and we worked well together. She encouraged me in some of the coursework choices I might have avoided otherwise and I benefited greatly from her wisdom.

I won't go into every course in detail, but the required curriculum at most Christian seminaries includes Bible study, including the various ways of interpreting original texts, History of Christianity, Pastoral Care, Preaching, Worship/Liturgy, Ethics, Social Justice, and ways to explore each of these areas more deeply. The UUA required that each candidate for parish ministry must take one course in Clinical Pastoral Education, i.e., chaplaincy work in a hospital or other setting, and a year of parish internship.

My favorite classes were Bible and especially exegesis of the Bible--aka interpretation via probing of the culture, the language, the symbolism, etc.--, Pastoral Care, Worship/Liturgy, Christian History, Women in Religion, and UU History and Polity. I struggled with Theology classes, even though I am a Christian at heart, because I have what is called a "low Christology", meaning that I do not believe that Jesus is/was God. My CPE experience was a high point as well.

During this time, I had some work study experiences, one time as an assistant for a faculty member and another as a Field Experience facilitator for first year students. These put me in a position to get to know professors and other faculty members in a different way, as well as incoming students who were struggling with their discernment around ministry issues.

As my first two years of classes came to an end, I found a fulltime internship at the Boulder Unitarian Fellowship, just up the highway from where I lived in Golden. My supervisor was the Rev. Catharine Harris, still my friend and mentor. This experience was transformative as Catharine helped me get my feet on the ground, helped me sort out what internship meant (not associate minister!), and helped me learn another meaning of the word humility. I was pretty sure I was the best thing since sliced bread and had to learn that I was not.

It was late in my internship year when I went before the Ministerial Fellowship Committee for an oral exam, one of the many hoops to jump through before official Fellowship status is granted. My sermon was timed perfectly, I answered most of the questions well, and when I left the room I thought I'd probably wowed them. It took a long time for them to call me back in for a verdict and when they did, I was shocked. They didn't think I'd done as well as I did and gave me not the ultimate grade of a "One" but the penultimate: a "Two" plus a requirement.

"You're too intense," they said to me (at which I of course bristled intensely). "We want you to have a year of Spiritual Direction before we consider you ready for Fellowship. You're good but you're too intense." I was crushed and embarrassed to tell anyone what my score was; I moped around Chicago with a couple of friends who had, of course, gotten "Ones". But the important thing was that I had passed, just not as brilliantly as I'd expected.

A year of Spiritual Direction turned out to be a huge blessing, however, and I was eventually grateful for the requirement, as it made my final year of seminary much more valuable. I had a new view of myself as a minister, a spiritual companion to help me sort things out as I went, and I finished the year graduating with honors on May 30, 1999, with ordination at my home church in Golden the next day.

These four years, even though I wasn't earning much money at it, were some of the hardest work-years of my life. My brain was stretching, I was learning exciting stuff, meeting new friends, and preparing for the work that felt like the logical next career: ministry.

A Life of Work, Part 3B

2012-01-11T13:01:00.000-08:00

And there will probably be a Part 3C too.

After I was married (an unusual affair which shocked my mother and inlaws, no doubt, as it was held in the Gold Hill Inn, in Colorado, and officiated by---not clergy, but---Judge Ted Rubin, my H-T-B's boss at Denver Juvenile Court), my work life changed substantially.

I was no longer the sole support for myself; my husband (HTB means husband to be) and I pooled our money and he pretty much controlled it, with my acquiescence (and a good thing it was, too, as I was stupid about money, never having had much and finally having A Credit Card of my own). He was pretty tightfisted, which was as much a problem as overspending, at least to me.

But within a few months of our marriage, the Christian Center was subsumed into Curtis Park Community Center, and the H and I began to consider what my next occupation would be. H had been an English teacher in Westminster schools and suggested that I might consider getting teaching credentials. It would probably be the only way I'd ever get to use my book-learned Spanish professionally, so I decided to do that.

I checked out Colorado Women's College in Denver, got a job there, and shortly discovered that not only could I take classes tuition free, but I could read the course materials and test out of some classes. Within a year, I had my teaching credentials and was ready to do a semester of student teaching.

But the jobs I had at CWC were interesting; they were totally entry-level but gave me contact with students and faculty, which I enjoyed. I served for several months as the Registrar's clerk, taking applications, filing materials, and making appointments. Later in this stint, a new Psych professor was looking for a secretary and I transferred to the office of Dr. Joel Greenberg. Dr. G was an interesting guy and I typed manuscripts and letters while reading the material for education classes and occasionally attending an education class. I didn't take very many classes, as I was able to test out of several. My college friends were right----there's very little that's interesting about education classes, so this was a true benefit.

Student teaching at Morey Junior High was another eye-opener for me; my students were mostly Black and Latino and many of them knew far more Spanish than I did. Classroom management was my main bugaboo, as these kids were pretty juicy. But I had a good experience, by and large, and by the end of the term, I felt ready to take on my own classroom. I applied to Denver Public Schools, in hopes of returning to Morey, but hadn't heard anything late into the summer, so I decided to apply to other districts.

(Note: in April of this student teaching term, the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. occurred, a devastating experience for my students and the whole inner-city Denver community. The community had felt safe up to this time and though there was little violence in Denver (at least not like other major cities experienced it), we knew we were living in explosive times.)

While applications were pending across the metro area, H and I had the opportunity to attend the first Colorado Outward Bound School, a six-weeks course in the Rockies, climbing mountains, rappelling down cliffs, white-water rafting, sailing Sunfish boats on mountain lakes, three-day solos without food or fire, long, long hikes and getting lost, culminating in some good friendships, much improved survival skills, and massive leaps in self-esteem. COBS was a very good experience for me!

When we returned to the city, I had a job opportunity and then an interview with Dick Frost, the principal of Evergreen Junior High in the foothills of the Rockies. He seemed impressed by my Outward Bound experience and hired me to teach three levels of Spanish, starting immediately. I taught Spanish at EJHS for four years, profiting from my OBS hugely as I told wild tales to my students about rapids named "Hell's Half Mile" and how not to rappel down 150 foot cliffs. I was the drama coach, as well, and can brag today that the late Randy Van Wormer was one of my drama students. I love his song "Just When I Needed You Most". He was a cute kid as a sevie.

For two years, I organized a white-water raft trip for 9th grade students at EJHS, though I couldn't go on the second one because of pregnancy (mine). The students were a mixed bag of "Gilmore's Gorillas", the name given to the social studies classes I'd been given when I rashly offered to take on the kids nobody else wanted in their classes---the underachievers, the do-nothings, the hippies, the bums. Dick Frost's assumption was that I would work miracles with these kids because I'd been to Outward Bound. I don't know about that, but we did have a good time! (Gilmore was my married name.)

Pregnancy and the FS's birth changed my work life again. For two years, I was on maternity/educational leave; the FS was born in August of 72, I went back to school for a Master's in Guidance/Counseling, while subbing in the school district. Subbing was fun, but also challenging. Many teachers didn't leave very good lesson plans, so I always took my own bag of tricks, with stories to tell, games to play with Spanish words, and other diversions to help keep me sane. I found it was essential to learn some names as quickly as possible; it bolstered my authority to be able to call some miscreant by his/her actual name. Kids were actually pretty well-behaved in the 70's and I liked it when they'd tell me (though they may have been lying) "we like you better than Missus Soandso".

I also put in two years as a Spanish teacher at O'Connell Junior High, in the district. Field trips were a big deal and the H and I and the FS chaperoned a few, most notably a camping trip with 9th grade Spanish students to Bandelier National Monument, where one morning I woke up to discover that the H had not returned from visiting a neighboring campsite where substances were being consumed. I roused the FS, who was about 3, and we went looking for Daddy, whom we found curled up and snoring at the other campsite. Sheesh! Nobody ever found out about that, luckily, but it knocked another huge hole in what I'd hoped was a good marriage. It could have meant the loss of my job and his, for he was working for the same school district by then, as an attendance counselor.

In 1976, I got a counseling job at Creighton Junior High in Lakewood and stayed there for 13 years, until I realized that one of my seventh graders had been a fetus the last time I'd seen him. It was time to move on, I realized.

But at Creighton, I really developed a style of teaching and counseling that served me well. I co-wrote a peer counseling curriculum with Carolee Hayes, which was accepted into the district's junior high curricula regulars and became used around the district in other schools. I instituted a lot of groups for counseling: divorce, addiction, adoption, under-achieving gifted kids, anger management.

My own marriage was struggling, however; the FS was about 7 years old, and after a difficult summer, the H and I separated and then divorced. We shared custody, so the FS lived with me parttime and his dad parttime. We all had a hard time as we sorted out living arrangements, discipline, homework and school behavior. Once we regained some equilibrium, my life seemed to soar without the burden of substance abuse; I began to date, had some good relationships and some not-so-good, and the former H also seemed happier, giving up the sauce though not the grass, and getting some therapy.

In 1989, I transferred to Oberon Junior High and spent six more years as a counselor, with more groups, more peer counseling classes, and adapting to the many changes demanded by federal and state mandates. By 1995, I was thoroughly burned out and ready for another change. I had felt a strong call to the ministry in 1992 (outlined in the post MAGNIFICAT published in December 2011), but had not yet been able to respond to it, as I was too young with too few years in the district to apply for early retirement.

However.... stay tuned for Part 3C.

Dark of Winter: Reflections

2012-01-08T09:03:00.000-08:00

WINTER REFLECTIONS
Rev. Kit Ketcham, January 8, 2012

The morning I started to write this homily, I’d just gotten back from a quick half-hour walk up Bush Point Road and home again. We’d come through yet another night of blustery winds and driving rain and I wasn’t sure it was a good idea, but my yearning to be outside whatever the weather overrode my sensible but boring other option---to go to the gym, ride the bike and work the machines for half an hour.

So I’d bundled up with ear muffs and gloves, zipped up my jacket, and headed out. It was breezy but not too bad, the air was dry, not drizzly, and even though cars whizzed by constantly, it was good for my mood to be outdoors.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately about my life, the situations that have shaped me, the decisions I’ve made that were regrettable or wonderful. And my walk in the breezy, chilly air that morning found me taking stock of yet another set of circumstances in life that have brought me to the place I am, at age 69 and a half.

Since last March, when I began to change some habits so that I could shed some weight and improve my general health, I’ve spent a lot more time outdoors walking than practically any other time in my life! I’ve had my favorite places to walk----Greenbank Farm, South Whidbey State Park, Double Bluff beach.

But the old standby has, surprisingly, been a walk from my house up to Mutiny Bay road and back, a journey of about half an hour. I don’t have to drive to get there, it’s about a mile and a half round trip, I can do it easily before nearly anything else in the morning, and though it’s busy, I’ve never felt threatened by the traffic---and there’s always that beautiful vista of the Sound and Olympics once you top that first knoll.

But as winter approached and sunrise came later and later, I knew I’d need to make a winter plan. I’d become too fond of the walking and being outdoors to give it up and go exclusively to the gym. I decided I’d walk every day it wasn’t pouring rain or whipping gale force winds. Those days I’d go to the athletic club and do my stint on the bike and machines.

Last spring, when I started my walking regime on Bush Point Road, I expected it to be boring and trafficky, just a way of getting some exercise, not something I would come to crave. But quickly, I became familiar with the sights and sounds of nature alongside the road: a coyote, once, and a couple of deer; the horsetails poking up through the mud, the wild currant and blackberries leafing out, slugs by the millions, streamlets in the barrow pits and eagles and hawks strafing the meadows.

All last spring and summer I enjoyed watching the cycles of growth alongside the road. When the leaves began to fall, I took handfuls of colorful leaves back home to decorate. But I was not looking forward to winter, when the trees would be bare and the leaves crushed into muck.

The time came, however, when sunrise was so late that I decided I’d better go to the gym more often, and I have, but I still longed to be outdoors. I’d go to Greenbank Farm on an occasional free afternoon; those vistas are beautiful too and the traffic is not a problem----just the deposits of large-caliber dogs whose owners forget to clean up after them.

But I needed to be outdoors! And finally I decided that I’d walk the road every possible chance. And doing so has reconnected me with the value of winter in my life.

As Effie and I talked about this service and shaped its design, choosing hymns and readings to create the atmosphere we hoped for, we shared our thoughts about what the winter season has come to mean to each of us spiritually.

We talked about the dark of winter, how we have each feared the dark in our own lives, either as a child for whom darkness meant the scary unknown or as a woman fearful for her safety on a dark street.

During our lives, we each discovered a need to reframe our ideas about the dark, for we found it limited our lives too greatly. In our own ways, we came to see the dark of winter not as a fearful time but as a fertile time.

Effie mentioned that she had come to see the winter dark as warm and cozy, a womb-like place in which we grow until we are ready to emerge into the light.

For what is wintertime but a so-called fallow season, a time in which the earth does its work underground, reintegrating the fallen leaves into the soil, resting as the amalgam of microbes, water, green material, and time replenish the stores of nutrients in the life-giving body of the planet? Mother Earth is not a misnomer, is it?

I remember my time as an expectant mother, from the time my pregnancy was confirmed, right through the long months of waiting and waiting and waiting---many days joyous, many days uncomfortable and emotional. I remember when I first felt my child move; that moment reminds me now of the first shoots of early plants in my garden.

And when he was born, three weeks early, he wasn’t quite ready to come into the light and needed extra time in hospital care where he received some extra support.

Greta Crosby once wrote:
"Let us not wish away the winter.
It is a season to itself, not simply the way to spring.

When trees rest, growing no leaves, gathering no light, they let in
sky and trace themselves delicately against dawns and sunsets.

The clarity and brilliance of the winter sky delights.
The loom of fog softens edges, lulls the eyes and ears of the quiet, awakens by risk the unquiet.
A low dark sky can snow, emblem of individuality, liberality, and aggregate power. Snow invites to contemplation and to sport.

Winter is a table set with ice and starlight.

Winter dark tends to warm light: fire and candle;
winter cold to hugs and huddles;
winter want to gifts and sharing; winter tedium to merrymaking;
winter danger to visions, plans and common endeavoring -- and to the zest of narrow escapes;

Let us therefore praise winter, rich in beauty, challenge, and
pregnant negativities."

I like that! Pregnant negativities! Turning what could be seen as merely harshness of weather and season into warm light, hugs and huddles, gifts and sharing, merrymaking in the face of boredom, vision, plans, and zesty experience.

Living in Denver, where winter started in October and sometimes lasted till May, I was always waiting for spring. My younger life in the PNW had convinced me that spring ought to start in February---because it does begin to peep through the cold then, here. So I’d begin looking for evidence on Groundhog Day but always had to wait until the March Chinooks out of the west thawed the ground enough that the crocuses could start to croak and I could plant the peas.

I still eagerly look forward to the green shoots of daffodils, tulips, and iris as they respond to the warmth of a southern wall; I still lift my face to the faint warmth of a sunny January day. But I’ve learned that winter is not just the warmup act to spring. Winter is a season for being still, for quiet reflectiveness, for lying fallow, for letting the work take place internally.

We are animals, after all, animals who make far too much out of our humanity sometimes, expecting to conquer winter as we have conquered (we think) rivers and mountains. But all our conquest of nature is strictly in our heads; our soft animal bodies respond to the cold and dark in very primal ways. We nest, we hunker down, we huddle around fires and candlelight, we conserve our strength, we rest.

That is the meaning of winter. Spring, with all its resurrection and rebirth and re-energizing, is an exhausting season. Winter is the time of rest before the long hours of labor begin. We need winter. As the late Max Coots has said, “winter is the poor soul’s fertilizer”, and if we avoid its nourishment, we may fail to use much of our creative potential, our ability to bring forth new life, new commitment, new growth.

What does winter do to our spiritual lives? Certainly winter can be a dark time, not just a time of rest but of pain and anguish. It can be hard to stay and rest within that painful season. But when we do, we reap rewards.

For winter clarifies. Between the bright light, the clear air, and the absence of foliage on trees and shrubs, winter lets us see farther and more clearly. The landscape may be bleak and barren, but we can see it better. In winter, our lives, too, show themselves more clearly.

Winter reveals, stripping away fluff. A tree, streamlined and stripped of leaves by the harsh wind, looks stronger, more steadfast than it does when its branches are fluffed by greenery. In winter, we are most conscious of our basic needs---food, shelter, companionship.

Winter covers, whether with snow or ice or vast puddles of water, transforming an ordinary scene into a new place. We respond to that new place with our creative selves, playing in the snow, coping with the ice, splashing in the puddles.

And winter strengthens. We test ourselves against winter wind, ice-glazed roads, snowy ski trails, and our muscles and our brains answer by adding cells, devising new strategies, responding to danger with increased intelligence.

We have such a short time to be here. In winter, we are acutely aware of the fragility of life and of the need to use our lives as fully and as openly as we can. Winter is a time for introspection, for healing our wounds, for hibernating and storing our strength. We come together in this community to share our lives, share our journeys, share our struggles.

Can we, in the interstices, the spaces between the events of our busy lives, find time to be at rest, to be at home with one another? Can we let ourselves be enriched by winter?

Can we move from fear and anxiety about the cold and dark to a new acknowledgement of the spiritual gifts of winter? Can we trust that even in the hardest times---the winters of our discontent, the cold and barren and scary times of life---we can find hope and vision made clearer by the stripping away of the old and the transformation of that old stuff into something new?

This is the challenge of the wintertime as well as its gift, that within each negative, there is a positive. We can’t see it immediately, most of the time. We need time, we need awareness, we need perspective.

We can’t know immediately, upon learning of a tragic event, what that positive might be. When we learned of the death of a beloved child on Christmas Day, a freaky accident of nature, we were stunned into grief at the loss to family and friends.

But enough people believed in the healing power of community that quickly the effort spread to support and give assistance in the time of terrible need. Nothing can replace the loss of a child and this was not the aim of the outpouring of aid. Its intent was to tell the Leonard family and each other that we shared their grief, that we would be present to help as long as needed, and that their pain could be tempered---not quenched, but tempered---by the care of the community.

What do we here offer to each other in the wintertime? When we come together in this room or in each other’s homes, what do we give and receive from each other? For me, it is a listening ear, a chance to laugh together, to share a meal, to offer support and receive encouragement. These quiet mutual needs and offerings are the gifts of this season. May we give and receive them joyfully.

I close with these thoughts from our friend the Rev. Dave Bieniek, who has shared his wisdom with us several times: This is the season of Epiphany, the date in the Christian calendar that celebrates the arrival of the Wise Men at the baby Jesus’ cribside. The Magi had to travel at night, in order to follow the star, a risky venture in the absolute dark of the Asian sky two thousand years ago. They faced huge dangers. And so must we.

“Sometimes we must stand in the dark in order to see the light that is guiding our lives. It is necessary for us to walk through our fears, our grief, our pain in order to find the treasure that lies on the other side. It is true, we need the dark in order to see the stars.”

Let’s sing our closing song, followed by a time of silence, before our benediction.

Closing song: #55, Dark of Winter

BENEDICTION: Our worship service, our time of shaping worth together, is ended, but our service to the world begins again as we leave this place. Let us go in peace, rejoicing in the gifts of winter, committed to sharing our joy within this community and reaching out to those beyond these walls. May we remember our strength while acknowledging our needs and may we both give and receive in right measure. Amen, Shalom, Salaam, and Blessed Be.

Marriage Equality in Washington State

2012-01-07T18:20:00.000-08:00

At a Town Hall today in Bayview, on Whidbey Island, State Senator Mary Margaret Haugen was greeted by a large group of marriage equality proponents, as the state legislature is about to consider the issue of granting full civil marriage rights to all Washington couples. This is the text of my opening remarks.

Senator Haugen, thank you for coming today to listen to the concerns of your constituency. We know you are eager to serve us to the best of your ability and we appreciate your commitment. My name is Rev. Kit Ketcham. I am a longtime ally of the gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender/intersex community and have supported equal marriage rights for all couples for many years.

As a minister in this county, this community, and a Washington native, I urge you to support equal marriage rights for all couples by voting yes when the marriage equality legislation soon to be considered in the legislature comes to the floor of the Senate.

Religious faiths have the right to determine for themselves whose marital unions they will sanctify, but the State has no business denying this fundamental civil right to ALL its citizens, as our Governor Chris Gregoire has stated so eloquently. Human rights should not go to a vote, as in a referendum; it should become law because it is right.

I urge you to take this step, vote yes on the upcoming marriage equality legislation, and make our state a place where all loving couples can enjoy the many benefits of civil marriage. Such an action takes moral courage and I believe that you have that moral courage.

Domestic partnerships are good but they stop short of full equality. They are the equivalent of archaic “separate but equal” laws which have hampered this nation’s progress and cast aspersions on our national character. Please do your part to end this unfair infringement on our citizens’ civil rights.

Senator Haugen was courteous and listened to concerns during the 90 minute session but only said she would "consider" our requests for full inclusion in the civil rights open to heterosexual couples.

A Life of Work, Part 3A

2012-01-05T10:37:00.000-08:00

Those of you who were alive and cognizant on November 22, 1963 know where you were and how you found out that President John F. Kennedy had been assassinated. I was watching General Hospital on TV while my dad and I ate lunch at home. We watched for hours, stunned, as events unfolded and our country reeled from the shock of losing our President and the metamorphosis overnight from Camelot to we didn't know what.

I had been thinking about the possibility of either going to seminary in Berkeley, CA, or moving to PA and applying at the American Baptist Convention headquarters where my friend Kathy worked. Neither possibility seemed attractive to me, given national events, and I instead applied to be a caseworker for Washington State Department of Public Assistance. They needed a new person in the Klickitat/Skamania county office and I was hired right away. A month of training at headquarters in Seattle and I was ensconced in the Skamania county courthouse by February of 1964.

It was both exciting and lonely to live in Stevenson, WA, in a tiny apartment on Main Street. I had no idea how to entertain myself and was nervous about going places alone, even in this small town. But the work was challenging and opened my eyes further to the poverty and bleakness suffered by the elderly, single mothers, the disabled, and the addicted. I lived in Stevenson for a year, the latter part of that time in an apartment on the banks of the Columbia River, and went home every weekend to stay with my parents in Goldendale; weekends alone and friendless were unbearable. After that lonely year, I was transferred to the Goldendale office, where I could live with my folks all the time.

Unfortunately, my religious views had changed a great deal because of my religion classes at Linfield and the mind-changing theology I'd heard during my Green Lake summer. It wasn't very comfortable to listen quietly to the conservative, anti-modernist views of my family members; I wasn't articulate enough at that time to disagree without risking the loss of my family relationships. So I kept quiet and found my health suffering. The family doctor was blunt: "You need to move away from your parents and strike out on your own; you can't live this way. You don't really have physical problems, you have other problems."

But where to go? In an effort to relieve the boredom and cognitive dissonance of living at home in a small town with my conservative parents, I signed up for a class about the "Life of Jesus" being offered at the Yakima Baptist church, which was taught every Tuesday night for six weeks. To get to Yakima from Goldendale required a trip across treacherous Satus Pass from the Klickitat valley to the Yakima valley. I was fearless, even in the snow, in my desperation, and one night met a young man representing the American Baptist Convention and their program for juvenile offenders. He was cute, but more importantly, he was an angel of salvation---he knew about jobs with the ABC in community centers all over the US and he hooked me up with the director of programming at Baptist-run Christian centers.

In September of 1965, I became an American Baptist home missionary at the Denver Christian Center, where I did after-school programming for children of all ages. I worked with some terrific people, including Lydia Ortiz, a woman about my age who became a wonderful friend, and Rev. George Turner, who had recently returned from Selma, Alabama, where he had been part of the Civil Right marches with Martin Luther King, Jr. My social conscience was beginning to grow and expand; it was impossible to overlook the poverty and the racial discrimination suffered by the kids and adults who frequented the Christian Center. In addition, I taught a preschool class for a semester, a pre-cursor to the federal Head Start programs which began at almost the same time. It was a thrilling place and time to start becoming a social activist.

But a year after I arrived, the DCC became a United Way agency and lost some of its Baptist affiliation; it was merged with several other similar community centers in Five Points and became the Curtis Park Community Center. I was invited to stay on, but I had met the (Unitarian) man I would later marry and decided to leave the Christian Center and go back to school to get teaching credentials. The leadership of the Center was changing as well and I would no longer be working with Lydia and George; it was a good time to leave. My missionary life had lasted a year and a half, the same length of time as my caseworker life.

A Life of Work, Part 2

2012-01-02T15:07:00.000-08:00

Linfield College, a small Baptist-supported liberal arts college in McMinnville, Oregon, was my home away from home for the four years after high school. Moving to McMinnville after many years in tiny Athena was a shock and an adventure for me. Living in a dorm with a roommate, experiencing campus life, meeting people from all over the U.S., learning things I'd never heard about in Sunday School----these were delicious and horizon-stretching years.

However, I had to come home in the summertime and that was a challenge. I needed a job during the summer and felt I'd outgrown pea and wheat truck driving. There weren't many job opportunities but I lucked out by being hired to be the timekeeper for the pea harvest outfit I'd driven truck for previously. This meant going from field to field, recording the name of every worker, the hours the crew had come on, when they left the job, and those sorts of details.

I also visited the quonset huts where the migrant workers lived, to verify addresses on occasion. It was my first real encounter with the poverty and grimy living conditions provided by the company. Other than the high school boys and girls who worked in the fields, the men who pitched peas into the viners were transients, Mexican day laborers, winos, and other wandering workers. My rudimentary Spanish was helpful, but I wasn't very fluent. Mostly the workers were adult men; few families followed the pea and wheat crops. The migrant workers were paid daily; we teenagers were paid weekly.

During my sophomore year, I was hired to be a clerk at the new Linfield bookstore, which had been renovated and needed extra staff. However, I was more interested in browsing the shelves than in helping customers and eventually was let go from this job. My first and only firing!

That summer, I went home to a new town. My family had moved from Athena to Goldendale, Washington, where my dad became the pastor of the Baptist church. Dad asked around town and found me a job as receptionist at the Goldendale Sentinel, the local weekly newspaper. I learned to use a cash register, to take special orders, and to wait on customers---more successfully than I did the job at the Linfield bookstore!

Junior year I didn't have a job until summer time, when I drove a bus full of screaming kids out to the strawberry and bean fields of the Yamhill valley near McMinnville and spent the day as a row boss, checking to make sure the kids had picked their rows clean, weren't filling their hallecks or bags with dirt and rocks to make them weigh more, and then driving them back to the starting point again. This was a lot of fun; lots of Mexican migrant families with kids---good for my Spanish! In fact, I decided to major in Spanish, thinking I'd be a UN interpreter one day. And living in a rental house in McMinnville with a couple of other girls was a blast! We were always entertaining and I managed to learn a few things about romance.

Senior year I was the dorm counselor, the so-called "senior girl", at one of the dorms. For this responsibility I got a slight cut in tuition and the dry cleaning concession, which paid a small stipend. I also got to contend with the potential panty-raids, drunken frosh girls, and campussing punishments. At Christmas, I decided not to go home right away and took a job at the local Penney's to make a bit of Christmas cash.

During my senior year, the fourth year in a row that I had been a member of the a cappella choir, I received encouragement from friends to apply to be on the young adult staff at the American Baptist Assembly grounds in Green Lake, Wisconsin. I was accepted and set off by train to Wisconsin shortly after graduation. It was the first time I had ever been far from home alone.

This three month interlude was one of the best experiences of my life. I met other college age young people from across the US, all with the same religious background I had but much more worldly! Linfield suddenly seemed tame by comparison. My job was as a snack bar worker (very hard on the waistline!), but it was only for a few hours a day. We had special activities and programming, as well as access to the high-powered and very liberal Baptist thinkers of the day (1963). I dated several of the guys and made long-lasting friendships with people I'm still connected to through Facebook. I even fell in love, at least temporarily!

At the end of the summer, I headed back to Goldendale again, while several of my fellow staffers headed for the Civil Rights rally with Martin Luther King Jr. in Washington DC. I wanted to go with them, but I did not have the courage. My courage to act came a few years later.

Instead, I went home to Goldendale with no idea of what I would do with myself. I didn't have enough Spanish fluency to be an interpreter for the UN and a degree in Spanish wasn't going to get me very far in Goldendale! So I stayed with my parents, watched soap operas with my dad over lunch, and on Nov. 22, 1963, as we were watching General Hospital, the whole world changed.

In the distance, by the side of the road...

2011-12-30T08:37:00.000-08:00

one day a few weeks ago, as I took my morning walk up toward Mutiny Bay and back, I saw what looked like the body of an animal----a rabbit, maybe, or a raccoon which had been hit by a car. I cringed as I walked toward it, not wanting to look at the kind of mess a car can make of a small animal. Having accidentally hit a rabbit or possum one night earlier (it managed to run into the bushes, so I'm not sure what it was or if it was a fatal blow), I was attuned to the feelings that accompany that kind of moment in life. There's a fatalism about it, a sense of inevitability, that an animal that runs in front of a speeding car is doomed, unless it is ultra fast or the car driver ultra nimble.

But it was a cat, a large tortoiseshell, a little blood by its mouth but otherwise unmutilated outwardly by its encounter with a force faster than its four feet. I stood there for a moment thinking about my own tortie Lily, glad that it wasn't my girl, and wondering whose mama cat it might be. There's hardly anyone living along that stretch of road, so this cat had been a little ways from home. It's a busy road, too, and I worry about Max when he's out on the loose. Lily never goes beyond the deck, so she's safe, as is Loosy. But a cat in the country faces many dangers.

I continued my walk toward Mutiny Bay thinking about what a lonely death that would be for an animal. Swift, maybe, but lonely, with no one to mourn or cover its body or pet it gently as life ebbs, to talk to it quietly and witness the inevitable. No one to lift it up and carry it away and bury it, except maybe the highway cleanup guys who remove other road kill from the island's roadways.

On Mutiny Bay road, there was a mom standing with her three little boys waiting for the school bus, and I went over to her and stood talking while the bus rolled up and rolled away. "I didn't want to ask this in front of the boys," I said, "but there's a cat that's been hit by a car up the road and I wondered if you know if it belongs to anyone." She didn't know whose it might be and we both shook our heads about all the feral cats in the local woods.

The next day, I took the same walk up the road and the cat's body had been removed. I wondered if it was the county crew who had taken her or if owners had found her. Or it might have been a scavenger animal who dragged the carcass off. It was unanswerable.

But I found myself remembering the cat every time I walked by the spot where she had lain. I walk that road two and three times a week, so I did a lot of thinking about the loss sustained when an animal, beloved or not, is killed.

One day, I noticed an interesting bit of garbage, a couple of sticks that had been deposited by the latest windstorm, I figured, with a bit of white toilet paper ensnarled between them. It looked a bit like an iconic cross, but it couldn't be, I told myself; it's just a piece of trash that looks like a cross.

I forgot about it on a couple of walks but then I noticed it again, right near the place where the cat had died. I took to watching for it, still assuming it couldn't be anything but an accidental configuration of garbage.

Today, I stopped and picked it up to confirm my assumption: two pine sticks, bound into the shape of a rustic cross by plastic ribbon, tied carefully in the back and placed just so on the side of the road, half buried by dead grass, right at the site of the cat's death.

Oh. Oh. Oh.

A Life of Work, Part I

2011-12-26T15:23:00.001-08:00

As I prepare for retirement, I've been thinking about my work life, looking back over the years since I was eleven or twelve and asked to do babysitting periodically for children in my dad's little congregation. I was born in 1942, so when I began my work-for-pay life, it was about 1954. It's now almost 2012 and that means that I have spent the last 58 years working at one thing or another. No fulltime work till I was out of college, but a combination of full-time school and part-time work is pretty significant.

So I'm planning to write a few posts about my work life over the years and what those jobs/careers were, what they meant to me, and the life lessons I received. As I reach the end of my work years, I'm gratified to see just how valuable these experiences were and how much I received from the effort I put in. I haven't always been a hard worker; in my early years, I sluffed off on the job, even got fired for that once. But overall I learned to work smarter, to do a good job without cutting corners but by being choosy about the kind of effort I made.

Those babysitting jobs were a chance for me to see how other people lived, to notice that other families had different books on their bookshelves than mine did. I used to love babysitting for the Nelsons----they had things like the Decameron and Chaucer's Canterbury Tales on their shelves, books that were, as yet, unfamiliar to me. I would pore over them, not for their erudite wisdom but to see if it was true that they had slightly dirty parts. No dirty books on the Ketcham bookshelves! I didn't find much, but I kept looking! Pay for babysitting in those days was 25 to 50 cents an hour.

At church, my sister and I were asked to help wash communion glasses and tidy up after services; we got to experience one of the perks of being preacher's kids-----swilling the leftover grape juice and munching communion bread. No pay attached, just these benefits. At home, we were expected to clean our bedroom weekly, do dishes, set the table, babysit our brother; for this we received a small allowance which grew slightly larger on each birthday.

When I turned 13, my dad taught me to drive a stick shift and I was hired as a pea truck driver in the fields of eastern Oregon. It wasn't necessary to have a driver's license, as we were only able to drive in the fields, not on the highway. We were paid 85 cents to a dollar an hour for 12 hours of work daily during pea harvest. Our job was to haul peavines from the fields being harvested to the line of peaviners stationed at one end of the field. This job was the cool thing to do for teenage girls in Athena and we had a good time. We had plenty of downtime between trips, as we'd have to wait our turn to load and then wait to dump the load back at the viners. So I always had a book or a notebook with me to pass the time.

Once I had my driver's license, I was also able to drive a wheat truck. Wheat season followed pea harvest by a few weeks and the girls' job was to drive the threshed wheat kernels from the field to the grain elevator in town. We were paid about a dollar an hour for 12 hours a day of work. There were a few hazards working in harvest jobs: once my wheat truck caught fire and burned up; in the pea fields, there were occasionally rattlesnakes in the loads so we were careful when we got up in the load to goof around. Once or twice I worked the night shift in pea harvest, which was kind of eerie, as it was hard to tell where you were in the field; you had to watch for the dim lighting on the swathers and loaders to tell where to go to get your load. And it didn't feel as safe out there at night, working with transients and other unfamiliar folks.

Lessons learned? Everybody works, you do it because it needs to be done, it feels good to be useful, it feels good to earn a paycheck. And it's boring to sit around the house all summer and do nothing!

A Christmas reflection

2011-12-24T14:20:00.000-08:00

It's Christmas Eve afternoon. The ertesuppe is ready for my supper tonight after the annual Christmas Eve service, which, thankfully, is being conducted by a super-team of worship leaders and not me. I offered to conduct tomorrow morning's service and I'm looking forward to it.

It feels important to have a service tomorrow, Sunday, because that's what we do. Who knows who might need a place to be on Christmas Sunday morning? I certainly need a place to be tomorrow morning. Christmas can be a lonely time for people, especially if they are single or far from family (I'm in both categories), and we need to be available for them (and for me!).

So I knew I'd be meeting my own needs by doing Christmas Sunday morning. And those needs included a nice holiday meal. So, with the help of a few other folks, we are going to roll out a bit of a feed. I've roasted a juicy turkey breast and a small ham, found cranberry sauce, bread, and other accoutrements, and have lugged it all over to the church refrigerator.

Our service tomorrow will be a Sharing Service. That is, I have invited folks to come casual (including pajamas for children, if that's easier), bring stories of winter holidays to share, plus something to contribute to the potluck, and we'll choose songs on the spur of the moment. We'll sit in the round, not rows, and look into each others' faces. I won't be offering a homily but will have a few stories of my own to contribute if the need arises.

I hope we'll talk together instead of my blathering on. I hope the kids will bring a new toy or two and their own impressions of the holidays. I hope our Jewish members will come, and our Muslim and Christian and atheist and agnostic members. I hope it isn't ALL about Christmas but that we look at this season through a larger lens, of welcoming the light, sharing what we have, giving gifts of kindness and affection instead of focusing on material gifts.

I've often had a hard time with Christmas because of its commercialism, the frenetic quest to do everything perfectly, the focus on one religious holy day instead of acknowledging the holy days of other faiths. I think the folks who whine their "War on Christmas" laments are stupid for their refusal to understand this immutable fact. It's not just Christmas this time of year----it's Hanukkah and Kwanzaa and Solstice and Divali. And Christmas is artificially placed at this time of year----likely because of the pagan celebration of the solstice. Jesus was probably born in the springtime.

So there. And, in case you wondered, "ertesuppe" is Norwegian for split pea soup, a Ketcham traditional Christmas Eve supper. Then I'll open my one gift (that's a Norwegian custom too) from my friend Sue, unless the FS's gift arrives later this afternoon, listen to some nice music, and go to bed early so I can be up and around in plenty of time for tomorrow's festivities.

Merry Everything, Everyone!

One human life...

2011-12-13T07:43:00.000-08:00

Sitting on the shuttle bus as it made its way onto the Mukilteo ferry Sunday night, all I could think about was getting home and going to bed, weighed down by cats grateful to see me, and getting a bit of rest in my own home before a busy day on Monday.

It had been a wonderful weekend in Reno, visiting the Favorite Son and Daughter in law and the One and Only Grandson, being present at the memorable ceremony in which the FS would receive his BA degree, meeting some of his friends, celebrating his achievement, and finishing off the weekend with a visit to his church, the UU Fellowship of Northern Nevada. I was tired and ready for my own routine again, grateful for the Whidbey SeaTac shuttle's service to and from the island.

We had been crossing the water for only a few minutes when the alarm sounded: blaaattt, blaaattt, blaaattt. Oh no, I thought, please don't be doing one of your interminable practice rescue routines---I just want to go home. I felt the engines and the boat slow down and I sagged. What were they doing at this time of night? It's ten o'clock, for heaven's sakes.

Then the captain came on the horn: "We have just learned that a person has witnessed someone jumping from the vessel. We are launching a rescue boat immediately, have notified the authorities, and will begin a search. I ask our passengers to go to the rails and assist crew members in watching the waters for the person who may have jumped."

My fellow passengers in the shuttle and I looked at each other in shock. Those who were warmly dressed went out on the deck to see if they could help. Others of us stayed inside the bus. I went out for a brief time but wasn't dressed warmly and my coat was inside my luggage, so I didn't stay long.

The roiling water around the boat seemed too cold and rough for anyone to survive in it long, but I watched the circles from the ferry searchlights, looking for anything that might resemble a human form. Nothing.

Back in the bus, we were all in that state of mind that follows the announcement of a human crisis: how do we react to this? can we help? if we can't help, what do we do? what was this person thinking, feeling, doing? And---how long is this going to take to resolve? what is the human obligation in a crisis like this?

I am not proud to tell you that I just wanted to go home. I wanted to do the right thing, but I just wanted to go home, not prowl the waters for a person who was probably dead by now, who wanted to be dead, who hadn't considered the effect of his act on his fellow passengers or his loved ones or the crew of the Cathlamet ferry who would be asked to rescue him or recover his body.

As time passed and we crisscrossed the waters between Mukilteo and Clinton, the captain would update us on the situation: "We are waiting for the Coast Guard to arrive." "We have word that the State Patrol will be involved." "We are beginning a systematic search of the waters, in a grid pattern, so the vessel will be making many turns and reversals." "Will the person who left a black leather computer case in the passenger compartment please come and pick it up?" (At that one, we passengers exchanged glances----this sounded ominously like the warnings you hear in airport security zones. We realized that it probably was an effort to discover if the case belonged to the missing person.)

And finally, after 90 minutes of circling and recircling the waters between the two ferry docks, as search boats and helicopter began to arrive and take over the search, the captain informed us that the State Patrol and Coast Guard had released us from our part in the search and we headed for the Clinton dock. "Thank you for your patience and your assistance," said the captain, and he signed off.

I phoned the friend who was going to pick me up at the Freeland Shell station, which is the shuttle's drop point, and let her know that we'd be there about 12:15. My gratitude for her willingness to come get me, even though it was way past her bedtime as well, got me thinking.

And I realized that the conveniences of ferry and shuttle and willing friends, the joys of celebratory weekends, all these are secondary to what happened that icy, moonlit night on Saratoga Passage: one human life was worth more than all of the conveniences we'd arranged for ourselves. One human life----an as-yet-unidentified and desperate soul who leapt into the frigid waters of the Sound---was more important than my busy Monday or my warm bed or the schedules of any of us there that night. One human life.

There's a quote from Rabbi Tarfon that speaks to me, as I reflect on this experience:

"Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it."

We are not free to abandon the work. We are not free to abandon the work. We may not be obligated to complete it, but we are not free to abandon it. Those who put the value of one human life above the convenience of others model behavior that inspires me.

MAGNIFICAT...

2011-12-04T17:49:00.000-08:00

MAGNIFICAT: Our response to our Call
Rev. Kit Ketcham, Dec. 4, 2011

Lest those of you who are recovering Catholics seize up in response to the Latin word which is the title of this sermon, let me reassure you that I have a different slant on the phrase “Magnificat anima mea Dominum”, which means, in translation, “my soul magnifies the Lord”.

I respond, not literally but metaphorically, to this phrase in a different way than perhaps a devout traditionalist would. It’s one of my favorite things about Unitarian Universalism, the heretical idea that there is more than one way to interpret the Bible, more than one way to find meaning in it, more than one way to make that meaning significant in our lives.

The story in the gospel of Luke, where the song of Mary uses this language, comes out of the legends surrounding the birth of Jesus. Mary, the mother of Jesus, as you may recall, has been visited by an angel who has told her that she will conceive and bear a special child, the son of God.

This is a pretty big deal, obviously, but Mary has a couple of questions: why me, for starters? and she’s not married yet, so how does the angel propose to solve that problem?

The angel tells her that she has found favor with God and has been chosen to be the mother of his child, that God will come to her and will make it possible for her, a virgin, to bear a child. For proof, the angel reminds her that her cousin Elizabeth, who is past childbearing age and was thought to be barren, has now conceived and will also bear a son in a few months.

Because of this more or less convincing evidence, Mary says yes, okay, here am I, let it be with me as you have explained it, she says. And in her song, she expresses her gratitude and her acceptance of this new direction for her life.

In Christian legend, Mary has been “called” by God to bear the Son of God, to bring the Messiah into the world. She is apparently expected to receive this call with grace, without fear, and to bend her will to the will of God, despite the obvious challenges and even outrage that her unmarried pregnancy will inspire. And she responds with a hymn of joy that she has been chosen for this unimaginable responsibility.

Mary’s not the only human being to feel called to an immense responsibility, a life of challenge and perhaps difficulty. Many of us may have felt this same call, though we may not have responded to it with Mary’s grace and acceptance.

What is a “Call”? Recently, I met with my fellow ministers from Bainbridge and Vashon Islands and Port Townsend. It was my job during this quarterly meeting to bring the program, an hour of conversation or some theological challenge that would give us new fodder for our ministries, catch us up on each others’ lives, and send us home again refreshed and energized.

I’ve been thinking a lot about being called to the ministry and what that means now that I have decided to retire in a few months. My original call to the ministry was clear and unambiguous; parish ministry was what I felt God was calling me to do. But now I’m going to retire! How will my call change, once I am no longer the minister of a congregation? Am I excused from it, once and for all? Have I done all I was supposed to do?

So I asked my colleagues----Barbara and Jaco Ten Hove from Bainbridge, Liz Stephens from Vashon, and Bruce Bode and Debra Thorne from Pt. Townsend, plus retired colleague Barry Andrews----to share their sense of call with our group.

I asked these questions: what does it mean to be called to a particular life work? What has been your experience of being called? Who were the people who were part of your call process? Were there encouragers? Discouragers? How has your sense of call changed over the years? How do you think it might change?

We sat in silence for a few moments and then shared our stories. I could sense the significance of each person’s experience; we shared tears, laughter, frustration, all in an effort to express what it meant to us to be called to the ministry.

We defined “the Call” as an inner urging, shaped by our discoveries about ourselves. One person saw himself as specifically called to teach, to offer religious education rather than to preach. Another had experienced a growing understanding of himself as a generalist, capable in many areas of ministry but always with a need to be out in the community inspiring others to work together to solve common problems.  

One person had spent all her adult life in the ministry and had changed her style and her expectations of herself over the years, as her life experiences expanded. Another had been stymied by life in pursuing her call and was only now able to complete the training she had longed for, in order to fulfill her sense of call.

Yet another had been badly hurt by her first experience and had almost called it quits completely but was now back in school to complete a Doctor of Ministry degree and was in search for a new ministry. I found these stories revealing and poignant; I shared many of their experiences.

I realized that I had first felt that inner urging way back in my early school days, when one of the songs we often sang in youth group or even in school music groups was the old song “Follow the Gleam”. Does anyone remember that old song? Let me sing the words of the first verse to you and join in if you remember it:

“To the knights in the days of old, keeping watch on the mountain height,
Came a vision of Holy Grail and a voice through the waiting night:
Follow, follow, follow the gleam, banners unfurled o’er all the world;
Follow, follow, follow the gleam of the chalice that is the Grail.”

The words of the second verse are pretty old-fashioned and I have to translate pretty hard to turn them into metaphors that work for me, but the message is clear:

“And we would serve the King and loyally him obey,
In the consecrate silence know that the challenge still holds today.
Follow, follow, follow the gleam, standards of worth o’er all the earth;
Follow, follow, follow the gleam of the Light that shall bring the dawn.”

At the time, I had no idea how I would follow any gleam. I had no desire to be a foreign missionary and contend with snakes or bugs or be far from home in a hot, jungly environment. But following the gleam seemed like a good idea, so I cherished it and thought about it. A lot.

As a preacher’s kid, I had a strong identification with my dad; I was proud of him, wanted to please him, and looked for opportunities to make him proud. School was doing the trick at the time; I was a good student.

But in the months after college graduation, I was at a loss. Casting about for a job, I briefly entertained the idea of entering seminary, but all the Baptists were training women to do was to be directors of Christian Education and that didn’t appeal to me. It never occurred to me I could actually be a minister.

My first real career was as a welfare worker for Washington State. This was eye-opening work, as I dealt with people in extreme poverty. Living with my parents was a temporary necessity but it wasn’t easy, as my worldview had shifted drastically, with a college education and now the desperate circumstances of the clients I worked with.

After awhile, I landed a job in Denver as an American Baptist Home Missionary (whew, no snakes or hot jungles for me!), making my parents very proud and giving me further experience in providing service to the desperately poor of the inner city, at the Denver Christian Center.

Marriage meant that eventually I left the Denver Christian Center and went back to school for teaching credentials. I taught Spanish for a few years but was about one page ahead of the kids in the book and soon realized that I was better at listening compassionately to troubled students than at teaching them to conjugate verbs. So more education, this time a Master’s degree in Guidance and Counseling which prepared me for a long career as a junior high school counselor in a large Denver area school district.

Marriage to a UU man also meant that I discovered a good religious fit in UUism and became active in a UU congregation. My experiences as a teacher and counselor felt good; I was living a life of service helping kids. And my family was pleased with me, at least about the education part, if not about the change in my religious perspective.

But it always felt like there might be something more out there. After 25 years of public education, I was getting bored, frustrated with the low morale of my fellow teachers, and alarmed by the huge problems kids had, problems that I could not resolve for them and had to watch as life inflicted its pain on my students.

But what about you? I’m guessing that many of you have felt a distinct call to a life’s work. Some of you may have gradually felt a clarity about what you wanted to do with your life. And I’ll bet some of you are still looking. Maybe you felt an urge to pursue a sense of call but were unable to satisfy that urge because of life’s circumstances; maybe you are waiting for the right moment----retirement, children raised, house finished, whatever it might be.

I’d be interested in knowing: have you felt a call to some life’s work? (raise hands) It doesn’t have to be a paying career; it could be something more basic than a job. Our life’s work doesn’t have to have a paycheck attached.

As Joann and I talked about this service, she mentioned that when she became a school librarian, even though she had resisted it initially, she found she took to it like a fish to water. It was a natural fit; she had not known it would be so. It was that “duh” moment, a serendipity of timing, being in the right place at the right time. And though she is now retired from active librarianship, we see Joann continuing to follow the call of books---telling stories to the children here, helping with the congregation’s library, and offering her skills wherever they are needed.

The rewards of finding our life’s work are many----the satisfaction of getting started in it, rising to the challenge, the stimulation of a new path that becomes more exciting as one progresses along that path.

In 1992, we had a new minister at Jefferson Unitarian Church in Colorado and I angled to be on the Committee on Ministry, mostly so I could get to work with this new guy who was charismatic and full of new ideas for our sluggish congregation.

In September, at our kickoff service of the new church year, I was asked to give a short homily about our theme, which was “Dreams dreamed; Dreams come true”. I guess they thought all my experience as a teacher and lunchroom supervisor gave me special expertise in speaking to a bunch of churchgoers.

So I got up in the pulpit that Sunday morning long ago, spoke to the group about the dreams we had dreamed as a congregation, the sorrows we’d endured, the changes we’d made, and the ways we had grown. I got some laughs, even saw a tear or two, and sat down much relieved and feeling like I’d gotten through my assigned role adequately.

As I took my seat in the front row of the choir section, our minister, the Rev. Robert Latham, got up in the pulpit, turned to where I was sitting, and said to me, in front of everyone there, “Kit, you missed your calling. You ought to be a minister.”

I swear to you it was like the proverbial two by four between the ears of the balky mule; I was stunned. For the whole rest of the service, I couldn’t think of anything else. Of course I ought to be a minister! I had been practicing for that role all my life without realizing it----working with people who needed compassion, learning about the injustices and oppression so many people in our world experience, becoming an enthusiastic, if limited, musician, honing my public speaking and my counseling skills. I could do it! I could be a minister!

It took awhile to get there. It wasn’t until 1995 and a powerful reminder of my call while I was attending General Assembly in Spokane, having recently retired from my counseling job and having become free to go back to school to follow the inner urge to serve in this new and more challenging work, the work of ministry.

It had taken me a long time to get ready to answer the call that had grown in me since childhood, even though I didn’t recognize it until I was 50 years old. When I did, my whole life fell into place. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Here’s the thing about a call to a life’s work, whether that’s music or art or teaching or law or ministry or raising happy children, whether we spend our whole lives at it or come to it later in life----answering the call to a higher purpose gives our lives significance in the face of the insignificance conferred by the universe.

A call is bound up with a sense of needing our lives to have meaning, significance. It may come to us very early in life, perhaps through the example of a parent or a teacher or coach or other leader.

It can be sidetracked, permanently or temporarily, by abuse or loss, but it can also be an opportunity for the “called” person to respond to that abuse or loss by doing something to find meaning in the awful experience.

Remember Mary and her Magnificat, at the beginning of this sermon? You might think that this is the case of a woman taken advantage of, forced into an uncomfortable situation by an unwanted pregnancy or superstition which made her interpret a mere dream as a vision of call.

My colleague the Rev. Hank Peirce has a different take on Mary’s song of praise to God. Here’s what he thinks, in an essay called “Occupy Advent”. First he quotes the Magnificat, the song of Mary:

And Mary said, "My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant. For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name.…. He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts; he has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate; he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent empty away…

Hank continues: “In order to merge (the Occupy movement) and Advent I introduce to you, Mary. Yes that Mary, mother of Jesus, pregnant teenager married to a dude way older than (she), the virgin, you know who I mean. … But look at what she says in the passage known as either the Song of Mary or as the Magnificat (Luke 1: 46-55.) “My soul magnifies the Lord.” That's not a shy statement, is it? and keep reading, this lowly knocked up teenager is speaking revolution!

"God has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts." "God has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly." "God has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty."

“ It is not the kind of thing we find printed on a Hallmark greeting card; she has connected God with revolution, a Judaean coup d'etat. No wonder people get tattoos of her; this is radical, powerful stuff. In fact its message is so subversive that for a period during the 1980's the government of Guatemala banned the reading of the Magnificat in public. Who knew?

“Today, I hope you take some time to think about how radical your beliefs are… and ask yourself. Are you living what you believe?”

And I would ask, are we living what we believe? Are we living what we are called to do with what Mary Oliver has called our “one wild and precious life”?

Let’s pause for a time of silent reflection and prayer.

BENEDICTION:
Our worship service, our time of shaping worth together, is ended, but our service to the world begins again as we leave this place. Let us go in peace, remembering that we as religious folk are called to make meaning with our lives, not to spend them wastefully or superficially. May we continue to seek out the best ways to live our lives, in right relationship with others, in work which makes the world a better place, and in love for those who are our neighbors and for ourselves. Amen, Shalom, Salaam, and Blessed Be.

Turning Toward the Morning

2011-11-27T13:38:00.000-08:00

TURNING TOWARD THE MORNING
Rev. Kit Ketcham, Nov. 27, 2011

I remember discovering this song that we’ve just sung with Ken at a fairly bleak time of my life. It was late fall in Colorado, the golden aspen groves on the mountain slopes were now starkly bare of their leaves, we’d had two feet of snow on Halloween, my marriage was over, my son was struggling, my paycheck barely lasted from month to month, and I was dreading the cold Rocky Mountain winter ahead.

One of my great pleasures in life then was attending the monthly acoustic music jams of the Denver Friends of Folk Music. And one Saturday night, a fellow folkie requested this song, and its words resonated with me and my anxious mood.

I was curious to know where the song came from. I was familiar with the New England composer Gordon Bok’s work and looked for something from Gordon Bok about why he wrote the song “Turning Toward the Morning”. Here’s what I found.

"One of the things that provoked this song was a letter last November from a friend who had had a very difficult year and was looking for the courage to keep on plowing into it. Those times, you lift your eyes unto the hills, as they say, but the hills of … November can be about as much comfort as a cold crowbar.

You have to look ahead a bit, then, and realize that all the hills and trees and flowers will still be there come Spring, usually more permanent than your troubles. And if your courage occasionally fails, that's okay, too: nobody expects you to be as strong (or as old) as the land." - Gordon Bok

I liked that idea, of not dwelling too much on the bleakness of today’s troubles and deliberately looking ahead to the brighter days of spring.

But I also liked another, less obvious, theme within this song and that was the idea that this man took his friend Joanie’s sorrow seriously and gave her the one gift he felt he had to give: a song that reminded her that he cared about her sorrow and, with his music, might help her lift her sight from the icy mud of her surroundings and offer her courage and support by pointing to the simple fact that the world is always turning toward the morning.

Late fall can be a hard time of year, as the days grow shorter and shorter, sunny days are few and far between, and the darkness consumes more and more of our waking hours. It’s cold and often rainy and windy; we worry when the power goes out, unsure of how long it will be out and whether we will be able to stay warm. And the season seems to grind on and on. Often the upcoming holidays just add to our anxiety and gloom.

Spring seems very far away in November. The holidays can distract us, but we need more than distraction sometimes. We need people and places we can depend on. We need to find the truths about the world that sustain us, give us hope, give us reason to keep pushing on, even when life’s troubles have overcome us and we see no easy way out.

Sometimes the only way out is through and November is like that.

I was grateful to Judy when she suggested friendship as a theme for this service which signifies the beginning of a season of waiting for the light, of celebrating, in various faith traditions, the hope inherent in the change of seasons at the winter solstice, the sustaining grace of a menorah that never goes dim, the sweet joy of a child’s birth, all occasions of growing light and diminishing darkness.

These relics of ancient legend and history represent the truth of light and warmth and survival, of the mystical and the pragmatic, of the life process that includes both birth and death, both darkness and bright splendor.

Remember that old camp song “Make new friends but keep the old, one is silver and the other gold”? Or Carole King’s “You’ve Got a Friend” and Paul Simon’s “Bridge Over Troubled Waters”. All these songs speak of the faithfulness and kindness of friends, the human need for friendship and connection with companions, the need for friends to see us through tough times.

I used to be kind of wary of making friends, never quite sure I could count on them. Even best friends have a way of occasionally letting us down or hurting us. Sometimes we learn that a person we thought of as a friend really doesn’t like us very much or inexplicably disappears from our lives.

Sometimes there are exclusions that deliver a message---you’re not our kind of people, so we’re not inviting you to the party, to our church, to our inner circle. Ouch! I suspect we’ve all had a few moments like these. And some of them we brush off because they’re not important; others make us feel rejected at a deep level, make us wonder if we are worthy of friendship.

I was talking with a person recently about an experience she’d had in which she felt excluded---possibly unintentionally, but….she wasn’t sure. And it stirred up old feelings for her, of times when she’d felt similarly excluded or watched others being excluded. Even though she was long past those experiences, the reminders stung.

What are our experiences with friendship? Where do we find our closest friends and comrades?

How many of us here still have some contact with friends from our early days, maybe even elementary school? How long have you known your longest-term friend? (?????)

Why do we maintain contact with some of our earliest friends? What keeps us coming back to them?

Judy and I talked a bit about the common characteristics of our favorite friendships: there’s a comradeship, a sense of being able to be ourselves with a person; we have actual conversations, not just gossip or monologues; it’s nice to have somebody to float an idea by, a person who will understand, critique maybe, but not censure. With the very best of friends, we felt we were able to think at a higher level, especially with someone who could listen as well as converse.

I’ve noticed that shared loss can create a bond. Long years ago, one of my best high school friends, Audrea Montee, died of liver cancer. Audrea and I had palled around all during grade school and high school; she was a crackerjack softball player, smacking that ball way out into left field and then trotting leisurely around the bases as fielders scrambled after the ball which was often lost in the weeds of the far outskirts of the diamond. Audrea was pretty chubby, which slowed her down a bit as she rounded the bases, but she was the home run queen of our class.

She and I were friends partly because we were both kind of teenage misfits, me because I was a preacher’s kid and a brainiac and she because she was quite heavy and had to wear matronly clothes, instead of the popular Pendleton reversible skirts that were a hot item in high school. I didn’t have such a skirt either, so we had that in common, but mainly we just liked each other. She was funny and smart and shrugged off the teasing she got because of her weight; I learned how to do that from her.

When she died at about age 50, a consciousness of mortality seemed to hit some of us McEwen High School grads hard. Out of our tiny graduating class of 20 or so, eight had died young, some in farm accidents or car wrecks, some by cancer or other disease. And so it became important to us who still lived to find each other and hang on.

When I moved back to the PNW in 1999, we started getting together, sometimes in Athena, sometimes at each others’ homes. And a core group of six women formed that has become one of the most important friendship groups I’ve ever experienced.

The interesting thing is that we weren’t close friends in high school, though we knew each other well. All of the other women in the group were part of a different crowd. They could date and go to the movies or go dancing; they had boyfriends and were cheerleaders. I didn’t and I wasn’t. My social life consisted of Baptist Youth Fellowship and other church activities. My school achievements were Honor Roll and Student Body treasurer. Not the stuff of high school dreams!

But in our later years, when we were all in our fifties, we needed each other because our world was changing. No matter where we lived, what our careers meant to us, whatever our different circumstances had been in high school, the people who had been part of our lives for such a long time were dying.

We couldn’t keep that from happening, but we could forge bonds of friendship that honored our long association and the common memories of growing up together in our small community.

Not long after Audrea’s death, another friend, Donna Myers, died suddenly of a massive heart attack. And what had been just a vague idea in our minds became a project. Donna’s grandson, Riley, was in Doernbecher Children’s hospital in Portland with leukemia and the family had no health insurance. Could we help Donna’s family?

Somebody discovered that a softball tournament in Pendleton was being organized as a fundraiser. Maybe we could participate! How long had it been since any of us played softball? How good would we be without our slugger, Audrea? It didn’t matter.

So on a chilly November Saturday almost ten years ago, “Donna’s Team” formed and played the crummiest softball you ever saw. But luckily, it was one of those jokester games where all you had to do was pay off the umpire and get a re-do on your strike-out or your being tagged at home plate. We played with toy bats and hollow plastic softballs. We actually won one game, thanks to my son Mike’s willingness to play and be one of the goofier, more entertaining players on the field.

I still have my Donna’s team t-shirt and hat, mementos of a time when friends fought back the dark for a little boy whose Grandma had been one of us.

We need each other, sometimes, to fight back the dark. Sometimes friends come to our aid when we have an emergency; they take us in when the power goes out; they cover for us when we are ill. They buck us up by listening understandingly (or just by listening, whether they understand us or not!), even if they can’t do a thing to help.

We receive countless gifts from our friends, intangibles we can hardly name. And what do we give, what can we give, in return for this kindness and support?

The thing is, friends give their presence and their aid without any expectation of return. It’s not a you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours, much of the time. It’s somebody stepping in when there are few other alternatives; it’s somebody seeing our need when we are reluctant to admit our neediness.

It’s not, usually, a “calling in of a chip” as we hear in the gangster movies on TV. “He owes me a favor” seems more like a business deal than an act of friendship, though I imagine sometimes that’s what we need.

What have been some of the gifts you’ve received this past Thanksgiving week? This national holiday has become a time to express our gratitude for blessings received. Because of the economic crisis in our country, our blessings may have morphed from material things to generosity measured in a different way.

What are the gifts you have received recently from others? Let’s take a moment to reflect and then share some of those gifts. (think, share)

The generosity of both friends and strangers, plus our family members, is a sweet thing to consider. These gifts of time and energy fill our hearts and give us strength for the cold days ahead.

But gratitude is a two way street. We receive gratefully from others, cherishing the thought and the generosity that those gifts of spirit entail. And we also give those gifts to others, grateful for the opportunity to be a giver of gifts of spirit.

You and I have doubtless encountered many people who give only so they can receive something in return. There’s something uncomfortable about being either the giver or receiver with a person like that. The best gifts are given with no expectation of return; the best gifts are received with no expectation of payback. These are gifts of the spirit.

What are the spiritual gifts you have to give to others? Let’s take a moment to reflect, once again, and then share some of those thoughts. (think, share)

The gifts of the spirit are numerous and have often been incorporated as pillars of some of the world’s great religions. They are universal values and we all have them to impart and to receive.

Here’s what I think, after considering how we might both give and receive the gifts of the spirit. I’ve selected seven from the long lists available out there on St. Google.

One of them is wisdom. We seek wisdom from others and we are able to offer our own wisdom to those who seek it from us. Wisdom is the result of our own life experiences and can be both general and specific.

Another is understanding. We strive to understand another’s life circumstances and to extend that understanding to those we meet. When someone really understands us and we know it, that gift is priceless.

How about the ability to make good decisions? This comes from conscience, the ability to differentiate between right and wrong. We support others who make good decisions, who choose for the right instead of the wrong; and we receive from those who make right decisions, because we are better able to choose right behavior ourselves because of them.

Then there’s courage, revealed in the strength of character that develops when we don’t back away from situations that scare us, when we accompany a friend on a journey through terminal illness, when we encourage another to do the hard, fearsome thing because it’s right.

Knowledge is another gift. Our knowledge of the universe and of a life of integrity offer us a way to find meaning in life despite its apparent randomness. We can share knowledge when appropriate and we can receive knowledge gracefully, even when it contradicts a fondly held belief.

Wonder and awe are a gift that is sometimes lacking in us worldly adults. We often let go of our ability to stand struck with awe at the beauty of the universe and of the human creation; children give us back this gift, many times over. But this is a gift we can give ourselves, as well as others, if we just take the time.

Reverence is the final gift on my list. Our desire for rationality and empirical experience sometimes makes it hard to be reverent in the face of our knowledge of good and evil, especially when evil seems so much more in evidence than good. But reverence has the ability to infuse daily life with deeper meaning, like water on a withered plant.

Gordon Bok sings his gift of spirit to his friend Joanie, “oh, my Joanie, don’t you know that the stars are swinging slow, and the seas are rolling easy, as they did so long ago, if I had a thing to give you, I would tell you one more time, that the world is always turning toward the morning.”

Let’s pause for a time of silent reflection and prayer.

BENEDICTION:
Our worship service, our time of shaping worth together, is ended, but our service to the world begins again as we leave this place. Let us go in peace, remembering that we have gifts of the spirit to offer to each other and spiritual gifts to receive as well. May we reflect upon the gifts we have to give; may we receive gratefully the gifts that others hold out; and may we hold fast to the truth, that the world, both literally and metaphorically, is always turning toward the morning. Amen, Shalom, Salaam, and Blessed Be.

Horrified and Outraged

2011-11-11T09:22:00.000-08:00

That's me---by the news unfolding this week about the authorities at Penn State who allowed obvious sexual abuse of children to occur, abuse which was observed directly and could have been stopped in the moment by those who saw it. Abuse which was not reported in a timely way and which resulted in the blackened reputation of Penn State authorities and the university itself, to say nothing of the untold damage it did to its victims.

It took me back to my days as a junior high school counselor who blew the whistle on two colleagues who were revealed as sexual predators and who victimized two of my students. Both of these men were people I had worked with on a variety of projects; one was a high school principal and one was a teacher in my own school. I liked both of them very much and it never occurred to me that either would prey on children.

I turned them both in and suffered the numbing realization that men I liked and had trusted could betray children, their parents, me, and other colleagues in this dreadful way. They, in fact, betrayed a whole community of school district employees and residents of the district, as well as their own families.

These weren't scummy guys on the surface---they were well-thought of, highly trusted employees. Neither of them looked suspiciously deviant; both were well liked by students and fellow employees.

Yet the naked high school principal attempted to lure a teenage student of mine into his bedroom one afternoon, on the pretext of giving him a tip for mowing his lawn. The boy said no thanks and left, went home and told his dad, who told him to notify me the next day. I told my principal, as the law required, and waited in his office while my principal called the district superintendent. The offense was followed up internally, the man was reassigned to a job where he was not in contact with students, but he was not prosecuted, to the best of my knowledge. I have never felt comfortable about the resolution of this situation; it was handled more as a personnel matter than as a prosecutable offense. But the boy had not been touched, just invited into a creepy situation. I suppose that was their rationale and, at that time, the parents had the right not to press charges, which they did not do.

While I was serving the same small junior high, a group of girls came to my office to say that they were uncomfortable with the way a teacher was treating one of their friends, inviting her into a locked teacher's workroom for a long spell of time from which she would emerge with her hair and makeup mussed up. I invited the girl in for a conversation in which she admitted that the relationship with the teacher was intimate and that she was in love with him. Risking her trust, I notified my principal, who went farther this time and notified the police; her parents pressed charges and the man lost his job. He was eventually deprived of his teaching certificate, but not until he had gone to another district and done it again, befriending a 13 year old girl who was vulnerable to his attention and then becoming intimate with her.

Why does the public not understand the horrific damage done to a person whose identity as a human being is warped so indelibly by sexual abuse? Our sexuality is such an integral part of our being, our identity, that to have it misused is to create a confusion that may never go away. To allow this to happen to any person, young or old, is immoral, unethical, and illegal. In my years as a counselor, I learned to ask every pre-suicidal kid "have you ever been sexually molested?" Nearly every single one of these kids had been violated sexually, in some way.

I am always concerned when I hear a male friend say that an older person initiated him sexually when he was a child or young teen; I am not surprised when that male friend has trouble with relationships, trouble with addictions, trouble with homophobia, trouble with peace of mind. For him it may have been a chance to brag about losing his virginity to someone who saw him as sexually desirable; many of these men suffer consequences that they do not associate with this experience and I feel sad about that.

If you learn that something like this is happening, please do the right thing and report it. It's worth risking the loss of trust by a child, who may well see later that you were not betraying him or her but rather intervening in a life-threatening situation.

Whose Are We?

2011-11-06T14:43:00.000-08:00

WHOSE ARE WE?
Rev. Kit Ketcham, Nov. 6, 2011

During the past several months, Unitarian Universalist ministers across the country have been thinking together about theology. You might expect that all ministers would think about theology constantly, and we do, to some extent, but in our Unitarian Universalist Living Tradition, we explore and rethink our stances on various theological issues, separately and together, and frequently, something that distinguishes us from our fundamentalist colleagues.

And because of our pluralistic nature as a religion---that is, our acceptance of a wide variety of faith stances, from atheism to Buddhism, paganism, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and beyond---because of this pluralism among us, we find great joy and sometimes consternation in tussling with theological ideas that might not resonate with each of us.

One such question before us hometown theologians right now is the title of this sermon: “Whose Are We?”

Some of our Buddhist colleagues have objected to the implication they see in this question, that somehow human beings belong to a deity. Because Buddhism is a non-theistic religion, that is an uncomfortable place to be challenged, particularly among colleagues where we are committed to be open to challenge and asked to consider hard questions that we might not find very comfortable or easily answerable.

This is one of the things I love best about Unitarian Universalism: that we are each free to build our own theology, to tussle with the big questions on our own and together with others, to find acceptance for ourselves among each other and to find acceptance for each other within our own hearts.

So let me give you a chance to chime in. I am asking you this question. Let me phrase it in three different ways: Whose Are You? Who or What do you belong to? Who or what has a claim on you? Let’s take a moment to consider this in silence and then I’ll give you a chance to call out some of your own answers. (chime, silence)

A Quaker teacher, Douglas Steere, has said that the ancient question “What am I?”, which is a fundamental theological question, inevitably leads to a deeper one, “Whose am I?” because there is no identity outside of relationships. You can’t be a person by yourself, he believes.

And my colleague the Rev. Victoria Safford writes: To ask “Whose am I?” is to extend the questions far beyond the little self-absorbed (ego), and wonder: Who needs you? Who loves you? To whom are you accountable? To whom do you answer? Whose life is altered by your choices? With whose life is your own all bound up, inextricably, in obvious or invisible ways?”

When I was a kid, goofing around outside late on a summer afternoon in our little town of Athena, Oregon, eventually I’d hear my mother’s familiar whistle: pheeoreet, wait a few beats, and pheeoreet again. When I heard it, it was time to come home and set the table for supper or do some other chore or just come in and get ready to go somewhere That whistle was a pointed reminder that I had a connection with my family that I was expected to honor. I rarely pretended not to hear the whistle; it was too important to maintain that connection. And my friends recognized it too. Some of them also had their family signals to which they were bound.

When I married and joined the Gilmore family back in 1967, I was comforted to learn that Larry my husband and his parents and brothers also used a whistle: phephoophephoopheiphoo.
The grandchildren, as they grew up with Larry’s parents and uncles nearby, responded to that whistle just as my sister and brother and I responded to our family whistle. It was a connection, a reminder, a badge that identified us as belonging to one another.

As Mary and I were designing this service, we brainstormed our own possible responses to the question “Whose Are We?” We came up with an extensive list, and you have offered many of the same ideas.

As Max Ehrmann wrote in his old poem Desiderata, “You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars.” And we started with that at the head of the list: we belong to the universe.

But then it started to occur to us that there are many more things and persons and ideas that we might belong to. We might belong to the things in our lives that influence us; to the people we influence; to our culture, our education, to the media, to our addictions, our organizations.

Do we belong to the things and people we control? Do we belong to our choices or do our choices belong to us? Who or what controls us? And if those things or people control us, does that mean we belong to them?

This is a much stickier question than it might appear on the surface. No wonder a lot of religious people stick with the orthodox answer: we belong to God. And no wonder there is a considerable amount of pushback to that answer, once you look beneath the surface.

What does it mean “to belong” to someone or something? When you “belong” to someone or something, how do you know? What does that word mean? Is it a good thing, “to belong”?

Women may particularly bridle at the assumption that someone can “belong” to another, since feminists have historically fought the idea that they can be given away, traded, used as chattel.

“Belonging” was used as a prison for women and children, for centuries. Men, too, have had their times of imprisonment in slavery or indentured servitude. I still have a hard time with a lot of the popular songs of my adolescence, the “I love you, so you belong to me” variety of song which implies that love means possession.

Perhaps another lens for looking at this question might be “Who or what do I need? Who or what needs me?” I remember a painful moment when, after several months of marriage, my husband said to me, “I don’t want to need you and I don’t want you to need me.”

This set a trajectory for our marriage that was damaging. We each had our different sets of meaning for the word “need”. Because it was the 60’s and because male/female relationships were in transition in our culture, I tried to take that message with a grain of salt and not let my feelings be hurt. But it was hard. I knew there would be times when I would need him; would he be there? I knew there would be times when he would need me; should I be there for him? What did this mean? I was never sure.

Ultimately it sent us in very different directions and made the marriage difficult. We needed each other and couldn’t acknowledge it without losing face. And I, because it was in my nature to give more than I got, was there for him, whether he was there for me or not. He too came through in my times of deepest need, but we did not “belong” to each other in a positive sense, and it was a problem.

Many folks refuse to join organizations (congregations included) because they’re afraid to be needed or to need something or someone. I’ll bet many of us hate asking for help! I do, for sure. That may be a hangover from my difficult marriage or it might just be the common curse of the competent woman, but I have a hard time asking someone to help me, even in an emergency. Thank goodness that, on more than a few occasions, people in my life have been willing and even eager to step forward and provide what I needed. And I have done the same for others.

So let’s examine this new set of questions together: who or what do I need? A time of silence first and then let’s share. (chime, silence)

And how about the second of the two questions: who or what needs me? (chime, silence)

How does shared need relate to this larger question of belonging? If we need each other, is that who we belong to?

Antoine de Saint-Exupery, in The Little Prince, wrote:

"Nothing's perfect," sighed the fox. "My life is monotonous. I hunt chickens; people hunt me. All chickens are just alike, and all men are just alike. So I'm rather bored. But if you tame me, my life will be filled with sunshine. I'll know the sound of footsteps that will be different from all the rest. Other footsteps send me back underground. Yours will call me out of my burrow like music. And then, look! You see the wheat fields over there? I don't eat bread. For me, wheat is no use whatever. Wheat fields say nothing to me. Which is sad. But you have hair the color of gold. So it will be wonderful, once you've tamed me! The wheat, which is golden, will remind me of you. And I'll love the sound of the wind in the wheat..."

The fox speaks of taming as a way of establishing connection. We diehard individualists might not cotton to the idea of taming or being tamed, but what might that mean if we went deeper?

Taming can mean creating a mutual synergy, a connection between individuals or forces that creates an entity larger than either individual or force. When wolves were domesticated into dog breeds, that taming resulted in a greater strength for both animal and human.

Probably most of us have seen movies or read books like The Horse Whisperer or other stories in which something or someone wild and perceived as destructive has been brought into harmony with other creatures by careful, gentle treatment.

I think of recent news items of prisoners working with unruly dogs or other animals to help them become socialized and productive citizens of the animal kingdom. The prisoners themselves are changed by this work.

Or of unlikely mothering or friendship between unlike species: the dachshund mother who nursed the runt piglet; the sheep named Albert who became the best friend of an orphaned baby elephant; the ancient golden retriever who found a friend in a fish pond---a koi with whom he would touch noses.

What does all this have to do with us? Good question.

When our ministers’ chapter got together a couple of weeks ago to examine the question “Whose are We?”, I found it a very engaging exercise to look deep into my heart and see what I found. Since then, I have done even more thinking in preparation for this service. My thoughts are not fully formed but I will share them with you.

Following the thread of the question, looking at “whose am I?”, I started, as did Mary and I earlier, with the idea of belonging. What or whom do I belong to?

Well, I belong to my family, for one thing. I am connected by blood to men and women whose history can be traced back several centuries to towns and hamlets in Northern Europe, where they arrived after millennia of migration out of Africa. My family has a claim on me. I need them and they need me. We belong to each other.

I belong to the things in my life who need me to take care of them; these are binding relationships for me and I do not take them lightly. My pets, of course, but also my friendships, the people who depend on me for comfort, for companionship, for the services I have provided in the past and promise to provide for the foreseeable future. They need me and I need them.

I belong to this community of souls, you, the people with whom I have forged such strong bonds of needing and being needed, of belonging to something bigger than myself which cares for me and which I care for. You are mine and I am yours.

I am inextricably connected to the earth. I need it for sustenance, for comfort, for power. And I like to think that it needs me, for appreciation, for protection, for the actions I can take which will keep the earth healthy and productive.

I am connected to the sun, which warms and lights my life, which offers its magic to the earth, bringing forth each season in its time, each season affecting my life with its challenges and its encouragement. I don’t know if the sun needs me, but I need it!

I am connected to the moon, whose phases delight me and light up my nightward path. That moon belongs to me and I to it, in this mutuality of belonging to the earth, for the moon certainly belongs to the earth. Where would the tides be without it? Or without the sun?

But beyond sun and moon and earth and stars and people and other creatures, is there something else? Something else I belong to?

And I come around at last to an answer that satisfies me: I belong to my Source, the wellspring of life from which I came, from the desire implanted in every living thing---to create.

The Source of all which is unimaginable, unexplainable, beyond all created things, within all created things, moving in mystery and shrouded in light, from which all life has emerged. I do not use the word God very much because it is too narrow to express what I want to express. All human-created terms are inadequate to describe the Source of Life.

From the Source of Life emerge all things, all creatures, all Love and Passion, Anger and Sorrow, all natural law, all Science, all legend and myth, all consciousness and intuition. And we can understand and explain only a fraction of it.

Whose am I? Whose are we? There are multiple answers to that question, none of them exactly alike. My answer may be very different from yours, and that’s okay. We need not think alike to love alike.

And maybe that’s what it all comes down to in the end. Love Divine, all loves excelling, that dwells in each of us and makes us bearers of the Source of Life. Simple and but oh so hard to explain with human language, yet revealed in human experience through the communities of love we form, through this community of love we have here, today.

Let’s pause for a time of silent reflection and prayer.

BENEDICTION: Our worship service, our time of shaping worth together, is ended, but our service to the world begins again as we leave this place. Let us go in peace, remembering who we belong to and who belongs to us, those embodiments of the Source of Life which give our own lives such meaning. May we cherish and protect those persons and things in our lives to which we belong in mutuality and may we take every opportunity to strengthen the connections we feel between us. Amen, Shalom, Salaam, and Blessed be.

Buying more down time

2011-11-03T08:42:00.000-07:00

In a conversation with a friend recently, I admitted to behavior I'm not totally proud of but seem to need badly: buying down time.

As I get closer to retirement (about 8 months away), I find myself less interested in causes and projects I would have warmed to immediately, if I were in a different place in my life. Sometimes I'm open about it: "I can't attend your start-up meeting because I'm trying not to get involved in things I can't continue to work with". Other times I'm evasive: "A pastoral situation arose that I needed to schedule during the time I would have attended your gathering". Occasionally, I feel like I'm lying (call it fibbing, to lessen my sense of guilt, maybe): "I will be off-island that day" and then I go off-island, just to be off when I said I'd be off.

I don't need to say once more that I'm tired. You've heard that often enough. I notice in myself, however, that there is good reason to back off from additional causes and projects. It does make sense not to involve myself or the congregation in causes and projects that require immediate high degrees of attention or a longterm commitment. I won't be here long enough to do what's necessary and the congregation has other big issues on its plate, with the search for a new minister to occupy them; I don't want to duck out in June leaving them with a project I committed them to.

What am I doing with my extra time? Not much. Well, I guess I'm enjoying it, enjoying the freedom extra down time provides, enjoying the lessened responsibility, anticipating the anonymity of a new town and new activities. My extrovert nature seems to be taking a back seat to my introvert nature right now. I want to be alone more, want fewer expectations from others (the jam is a good example----I have become much less regular in my attendance and often leave before it's over), am uneasy when someone in the grocery store introduces me as "our minister" and the other person says, "oh, Kit, I've heard good things about you".

The major thing that I won't slack off on is my responsibility to the congregation. I don't want to be a lame duck minister for the next several months, don't want anyone to have reason to gripe that I'm not doing my job. The needs of the institution and the constituency are second only to my own health. And I'm deeply interested in what happens within the congregation because I have become so closely tied to it. It will be hard to cut those ties when the time comes. But for now it is my insurance policy, that my work with them is so meaningful and satisfying. May we all have the strength to loosen the ties when we must.

Learnings from our recent ministers' gathering

2011-10-30T17:26:00.001-07:00

At our ministers' so-called "retreat" last week (so-called because we work hard, rather than loaf), we tackled the questions about covenant inherent in the larger question "Whose are We?" We reflected on the promises that we make to those with whom we are in relationship: our Source, our Calling, the Community we serve, and our Colleagues.

These were productive reflections for me, as we conversed in triads about these promises, the quality of the relationships and the quality of the covenants we have formed. I journalled about each session and made a list of what I saw about myself. I list some of those things here.

• I see my Source as God/Higher Power/the Power beyond human power/Love.
• I am tentative in my trust of Love---from my Source and from other humans.
• I have promised to love (Source, other humans particularly family, friends, congregants) and I am faithful to that promise, with some lapses.
• I keep on professing love even when I don't feel consumed by it. I feel grateful for the love I hope and believe is there and for the opportunity to express love.
• The promise to love my Source and to be loved by my Source in return is the foundation of my covenant with that Source, even when I am doubtful.
• I have felt called to serve others and God in that way since I was a teenager.
• I have followed that call with a sense of urgency and singlemindedness, working in a variety of helping professions from college graduation until the present time.
• My call continues to be to serve, then, now, and until my life ends.
• Even though I may rest for a time, at retirement, my ongoing call is to serve.
• I have not ever had second thoughts about my call---no doubts, very few barriers.
• I promised to love and to care for and to serve my constituents---clients, kids, congregants, church, institution---and have done so to the best of my ability.
• My relationships with the people I serve are best when I collaborate with them in service---service WITH, not just service to.
• I have promised to trust the people I serve and though there have been some disappointments, this feels right.
• My role models for collegial relationships have been up and down: my dad and the other pastor in Athena (contentious); my dad with another pastor in Goldendale (good); MDD colleagues (gossipy and tense at times); PNW colleagues (strict but kind).
• I made some serious mistakes in the area of collegial relationships, did penance, made amends, as I understood what pain I'd caused.
• I am very careful now to keep my covenant and relationships with colleagues as clean and open as possible.
• I do feel very connected to many colleagues, but not to all.
• Those to whom I feel less connected are those whose relationships are clearly more aligned with others and are less friendly to me. (Not unfriendly, just more distant.)

This was a valuable exercise. Since I'm preaching on the question "Whose Are We?" on November 6, I am figuring out how to relate my new understandings to the needs of my congregation. Wish me luck!

Stress and Ministry

2011-10-23T07:54:00.000-07:00

Yesterday's memorial service was the third I have conducted in a year---not too big a deal for most ministers, but different somehow, in that each of the three deaths had a huge impact on me and on the congregation.

Some deaths in a congregation go largely unremarked because the person who has died has been inactive for a long time, the death was not unexpected, and their influence and leadership in the past has been largely forgotten, though it may have had a significant impact on the trajectory of the congregation at one time.

Each person who died in the past year had had a huge impact on the trajectory of the congregation within the past year, each death had special circumstances surrounding it, and each person had had a strong and vital relationship with me and others in the congregation. None of them was unknown, none was a "former" leader, each of them had been a generous contributor of financial support and leadership expertise right up until the time of death or disability.

The first person who died in this cycle was a former president, current canvass chair, constant greeter of new people who walked through our doors, a major power in the financing and building of our new meeting hall. He died five months after a terrible fall in his home, lingering in a mixed state of hope and despair for his loved ones. His memorial service brought hundreds of people into our sanctuary; it was SRO for two solid hours of memories.

The second person who died in this cycle was the widow of the man who had first died. She was found by her daughter on the floor of her bedroom, having died suddenly while getting ready for the day, nine months after her husband's death. I arrived on the scene only a short time after the daughter found her, having been called by the sheriff's deputy who didn't want to leave her alone to wait for the mortuary to arrive. She too had been a mover and shaker and contributor of financial and leadership support. Her memorial service too brought hundreds of people into our sanctuary and we revisited the loss of her husband as well.

The third person who died in this cycle was a man who had defied death for years after lethal physical health concerns first slowed him down. At last everything that could be done had been done and he decided, with his family, to quit taking the medications that had been presumably keeping him alive for years and to let nature take its course. Instead of his dying immediately, as expected, he experienced improved cognition and a mellowed personality and he enjoyed several weeks of "saying goodbye" and conversations with friends all over the map. The extra time enabled him to choose the time and place of his death, and he died peacefully at that time, with family and friends at his side. We got to say our goodbyes in the last moments of his life and then to sit quietly with his body as it became a shell instead of a living organism.

I am tired today. I am looking forward to the next few days of relaxation with colleagues at our UUMA fall retreat. I need it more this year than I ever have. I am more deeply aware of the stresses of ministry than I have ever been.

There have been unexpected blessings and lessons from the felling of these three mighty "oaks of righteousness". I have been privileged to be invited into the homes of these families, to share their sorrow and their secrets, to learn what nobody else has known about these families, to keep all these things in my heart and make decisions, with the family's sayso, about what is revealed and what remains unsaid. I feel like another family member because of these deaths and the needs of those who survive.

I have come to see death as simply another step in life; I do not experience deaths now as something to be prevented, fended off, avoided at all costs. People die. We are sorrowful but we go on. Our lives change and we adapt. There are holes in our lives and we investigate them and then walk around them or fill them in.

I, as the minister who will shepherd family and friends through the process of grief and memory, acknowledge death in these ways while watching out for the bereaved ones whose sorrow prevents them from going on, navigating the secrets and the stories-for-prime-time with an eye to protecting the privacy of the family while revealing the life of the beloved dead.

These responsibilities are an honor, a privilege, AND a huge stressor. I am both wearied and buoyed up by the blessings and lessons. I love this work. And I am glad I am leaving it for now. (You will note that I said "for now".)

A Replay of a golden oldie, to be offered on Oct. 23, 2011

2011-10-19T14:03:00.000-07:00

Note: Because the weekend is full of a Bayview Sound gig on Friday and a huge memorial service on Saturday afternoon, I'll be reprising a service created when I was a student minister in Colorado. Hope you enjoy the printed version.

THE GOD QUESTION
by Rev. Kit Ketcham

OPENING WORDS:

SYMPOSIUM
by Joe Rush, member of Boulder UU Fellowship, 1935

“God,” said the theologian,
“Is a triune entity
Of Holy Spirit, Father, Son,
Yet One for all eternity.”

A workman dropped his pick, and spat,
As he frowned and scratched his head.
“Why, God”--he labored with the thought--
“God saves our souls when we are dead.”

“God is a myth!” the atheist spoke
With an air of studied scorn.
“Chance rules; and man, stern nature’s joke,
Once dead, might never have been born.”

A tired old lady, bent and gray,
Closed the Book and met my eyes:
“For years I’ve trusted Him;
one day He’ll call me home beyond the skies.”

“God loves me,” smiled a little girl,
Pausing breathlessly at play.
Her father groaned, “Oh Godless world!”
The day his child was laid away.

“The Lord of Hosts is on our side!”--
And they urged men on...to die:
Somewhere beyond the battle tide
“Gott mit uns!” echoed back the cry.

O Power that wields insensate sod
To a dim celestial plan,
Is man the image of his God,
Or God a counterpart of man?

STORY FOR ALL AGES:

“Children’s Letters to God”

Dear God, in Sunday School they told us what You do. Who does it when you are on vacation? Jane

Dear God, I read the Bible. What does “begat” mean? Nobody will tell me. Love, Allison

Dear God, If you watch me in church Sunday, I’ll show You my new shoes. Mickey
Dear God, Are you really invisible or is that a trick? Lucy
Dear God, Did you mean for the giraffe to look like that or was it an accident? Norma
Dear God, Please send me a pony. I never asked for anything before. You can look it up. Bruce
Dear God, Instead of letting people die and having to make new ones, why don’t You just keep the ones You have now? Jane
Dear God, Who draws the lines around countries? Nan
Dear God, I went to this wedding and they kissed right in church. Is that okay? Neil
Dear God, What does it mean You are a jealous God? I thought you had everything. Jane
Dear God, Thank you for the baby brother, but what I prayed for was a puppy. Joyce
Dear God, I think about You sometimes even when I’m not praying. Elliot
Dear God, My brother told me about being born, but it doesn’t sound right. They’re just kidding, aren’t they? Marsha
Dear God, We read Thomas Edison made light. But in Sunday School they said You did it. So I bet he stoled Your idea. Donna
Dear God, I didn’t think orange went with purple until I saw the sunset You made on Tuesday.That was cool. Eugene

READING:

“New Microsoft Product Bulletin” (from the Internet)

Microsoft Corporation today announced its intent to purchase, copyright, and upgrade God Himself. The new product would be named, predictably enough, “Microsoft God”, and would be available to consumers sometime in late 2006. “Too many people feel separated from God in today’s world,’ said Dave McCavaugh, director of Microsoft’s new Religions division. “Microsoft God will make our Lord more accessible, and will add an easy, intuitive user interface to him, making him not only easier to find, but easier to communicate with.”

The new Microsoft Religions line will be expanded to include a multitude of add-on products to Microsoft God, including: Microsoft Missionary: This conversion software will import all worshiper accounts and prayer files over from previous versions of God, or from competing products like Buddha or Allah.

Microsoft God for the World Wide Web: This product links Microsoft God with Microsoft Internet Information Server using the proprietary Omnipotent MaxiModem, making our Lord accessible from the World Wide Web using a standard Web browser interface. It also introduces several new Web technologies, including Dynamic Divine Salvation and Active Prayer Pages. Donations for the poor can be transferred via the Secure Alms Server.

Microsoft Prayer: Using a Windows-based WYSIWYG interface, this product will allow worshipers to construct effective prayers in a minimum of time. Prayer Templates will make everyday prayers, like saying grace and children’s bedtime prayers, a snap. The Guardian Angel Secure Prayer Channel and Instant Thought Transfer technologies allow guaranteed,
instantaneous deliver of the prayers to Microsoft God servers, and Prayer Wizards enable the user to construct new types of prayers with a minimum theological learning curve.

Microsoft Savior: This shareware product will allow worshipers to transfer their sins to the password protected Secure Confessional Database, free for a trial period of forty days and forty nights.

Thereafter, for unlimited eternal usage and free Born Again upgrades, sinners are required to register and remit monthly tithes and offerings. Major credit cards accepted. Future transgressions will then be atone and a clear line of secure communications to the Microsoft God Salvation Server will be provided.

Additional products to be available by spring of 2012: Gabriel’s Trumpet sound card; Revelation and Rapture, version 666, decryption software; Joyous Scepter joystick; Visions 7-D Graphics card; Gideon book “God for Dummies”; Celestial Sounds Thunderbolt 20 gigawatt speaker system; SimParadise and SimCreation software; AfterDark Flying Cherubs screensaver.
For more information, visit his web site at: http://www.pearlygates.org/god.html or email him at:almighty1@heaven.net.

REFLECTION:

“Struggling with the God Concept”

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if relating to the idea of God were as easy as buying a new software product for our computers? Certainly it would be less of a hassle than figuring out whether or not Prayer fits our own belief systems or whether Salvation makes any sense in the post-modern paradigm or whether Science is our Savior or our Satan. Think of the relevance of the new Scripture: Microsoft God for Dummies.

We laugh at the very notion that Ultimate Reality can be reduced to a computer program and yet, in this age of quick-as-a-wink transmission and instantaneous feedback, we wish it were so easy. We’ve gotten spoiled by the ease with which we can communicate with other continents, with satellites on missions to outer space, with the guy on the cellphone in the next car. But the idea of God remains elusive and frustrating.

Our service today is an offbeat look at relationships between the human and the Divine-- whatever you may conceive that to be. One of our UU struggles is with the concept of God. As a pluralistic faith, we are accustomed to the idea that not everyone believes in God. Buddhism, for example, and other nonWestern faith traditions have looked to ancestors and tradition for their wisdom. Nontheists in Western countries have long felt that there is little scientific evidence for the idea of God and tend to think of God as a human invention.

Whatever your thinking may be about the idea of God, we hope that you will find food for thought in this service as we explore some of the many ways human beings have thought about God, Goddess, the Spirit of Life, the Divine Source, the Mother and Father of us all, you supply your own metaphor or expression!

Anselm, an 11th century Christian theologian, applied scholarly logic to theological controversy and speculation. He wrote a statement in which he attempted to prove the existence of God by means of logical deduction. He wrote:
“This proposition is indeed so true that its negation is inconceivable. For it is quite conceivable that there is something whose non-existence is inconceivable, and this must be greater than that whose non-existence is conceivable. Wherefore, if that thing than which no greater thing is conceivable can be conceived as non-existent; then, that very thing than which a greater is inconceivable is not that than which a greater is inconceivable; which is a contradiction. “So true is it that there exists something than which a greater is inconceivable, that its non-existence is inconceivable; and this thing art Thou, O Lord our God.”

Tough going, isn’t it? When I first read this, in my Church History class a few years ago, I burst out laughing. It seemed like a joke. However, nobody else in that Iliff classroom seemed to find it as funny as I did, so I had to do some thinking about it. And I realized that proving the existence of God has been a problem that human beings have struggled with since time immemorial.

As for me, I prefer a poetic attempt. Let me read a poem which better captures the mystery that I think human beings have been struggling with. The name of the poem is “Epiphany” and it is by Pem Kremer.

“Lynn Schmidt says
She saw you once as prairie grass,
Nebraska prairie grass.
She climbed out of her car on a hot highway,
Leaned her butt on the nose of her car,
Looked out over one great flowing field,
Stretching beyond her sight until the horizon came.
Vastness, she says,
Responsive to the slightest shift of wind,
Full of infinite change,
All One.
She says when she can’t pray,
She calls up Prairie Grass.”

When I think of moments spent on prairie grasslands, on a mountainside, at the ocean, in a midnight sky, a field of sandhill cranes, a desert shelf, an immense river canyon, God is not just a theory to me.

In our efforts to describe the force we may call God or Source of Life or Love, we often get frustrated and irritated. It’s not easy to describe something which is invisible yet sort of visible, loving yet dangerous, all powerful yet tragically bumbling, getting a lot of credit for creativity but not really measuring up to some of our own human standards. Despite humankind’s apparent complete dependence on nature, or God as some call it, we often wish that this incredible Force would get its act together and behave in a responsible and predictable way. Like we do.

Ken Merrell and Frank Allen will explain further.

READING:

ADAM’S LAMENT
by Nicholas Biel, adapted by Lev Ropes

There I was, on the third day, dust, common ordinary dust
Like you see on a country road after a dry spell.
Nothing expected.
Me expecting nothing neither.

On the sixth day, HE comes along and blows,
And, “In my image” he says, like he was doing me a favor.
Sometimes I think if he’d waited a million years, then I’d be tired of being dust,
But after two, three days, what can you expect?
I wasn’t used to being even dust and he makes me into Man.
He could see right away from the look on my face, that I wasn’t so pleased,
So he’s gonna butter me up.
He puts me in this garden, only I don’t butter.
Then he brings me all the animals.
I should give them names.
What do I know, names?
“Call it something,” he says, “anything you want.”
So I make up names--bear, wolf, mouse, lion, snake...
It’s crazy, but that’s What he wants.
Later in the day, I get rummy, and I’m running out of ideas.
Peccary, platypus, emu, gnu. “I got gnus for you”, I think.
Finally I’m naming animals since 5 a.m., I’m tired, I go to bed early.
In the morning, I wake up and there SHE is, sitting by a pool admiring herself.
“Hello, Adam,” she says. “I’m your mate, I’m Eve.”
“Pleased to meet you,” I say, and we shake hands.
Actually, I’m not so pleased.
From time immemorial, nothing.
Now, rush, rush, rush; two days ago I’m dust, yesterday all day I’m naming animals,
And today I got a mate already.
Also I don’t like the way she looks at herself in the water.. or at me!
Well, you know what happened. I don’t have to tell you.
There were all those fruit trees; she took a bite, I took a bite, the snake took a bite,
and quick like a flash-- out of the garden.
Such a fuss over one lousy apple, not even ripe yet (there wasn’t time since creation.)
Now I’m not complaining.
After all, it’s his garden.
He don’t want nobody eating his apples, that’s his business.
What irritated me, is the nerve of the guy.
I don’t ask him to make me even dust; he could have left me nothing, like I was before.
Also, I didn’t ask for Cain, for Abel...
I didn’t ask for nothing, but anything goes wrong, who gets the blame?
Sodom, Gomorrah, Babel, Ararat....me or my kids catch it--fire, flood, pillar of salt.
“Be patient, be a little understanding,” says Eve, “look, he made it, it was his idea, it breaks down, so he’ll fix it.”
But I told him one day, “you’re in too much of a hurry.
In six days you make everything there is and you expect it to run smoothly?
Something’s always gonna happen.
If you’d thought it out more first, made a plan, asked for advice, you wouldn’t have so much trouble all the time.”
But you couldn’t tell him nothing.
He knows it all.
Like I say, he means well, but he’s a meddler and he’s careless.
For example, he coulda made that woman so she wouldn’t bite no apple.
All right, all right, so what’s done is done,
but all the same, he should’ve known better,
or at least he coulda blown on some other dust.

READING:

“Why God Never Got Tenure” (internet)

1. He had only one major publication.
2. It was written in Aramaic, not English.
3. It has no references.
4. The abstract was not published in a reputable journal.
5. There are serious doubts that he wrote the manuscript himself.
6. Though he created the world, what were his significant accomplishments since?
7. His cooperative endeavors have been quite limited.
8. The scientific community could not replicate his results.
9. He unlawfully performed not only animal, but human, testing.
10. He rarely came to class, just told his students to read the textbook.
11. He expelled his first two students for exhibiting an unusual appetite for knowledge.
12. His office hours were infrequent, and usually inaccessible, held on a mountaintop.
13. Although he only established 10 requirements to pass his course, most of his students failed the test.

REFLECTION:

“When God Doesn’t Measure Up”

As a species, we’re often disappointed in God. The Divine just doesn’t come through in the ways we think it ought to. We ask hard questions: why would a supposedly loving God send his/her children to burn in hell just for being human? why would God make some people survive an accident and others die horribly? what on earth possessed God to make a platypus? or a black widow spider?

If God is Love, why does Love often hurt so much? how come the God of the Hebrew Bible and the God of the New Testament are so different? if God wants us to swallow all this stuff about creation and miracles and dry bones rising again, how come God gave us brains? if God is all-powerful, how come there’s disease and war and famine and human beings who are evil?

We have a lot of questions. And the traditional answers aren’t satisfactory to most of us UUs. So many of us just refuse to speculate. It doesn’t do any good to ask questions that are impossible to answer. Unlike many scientific hypotheses, the theory of God seems impossible to prove.

Others of us LIKE to speculate. We think about the beauty of the earth and the glory of the skies and we are awed by the wonders surrounding us. So God doesn’t compute scientifically. What DOES make sense to us are the incredibly intricate laws of nature. They seem to be a clue of some kind to a mystery that is inexplicable.

And, we are forced to admit, human beings haven’t exactly been the most responsible bits of creation. We have used our much-vaunted free will to eliminate and despoil much of the bounty which originally existed on this planet. And we’re arrogant and self-satisfied. We fight a lot--we fight over God and whose side God is on. We invent the most incredible excuses for torturing our fellow human beings.

We are greedy and grabby and grouchy, often in the name of God. When we look at the history of humankind, it’s a little bit embarrassing to think that much of the destruction we have witnessed over the centuries has been attributed to God’s alleged promise to prefer one group or religion over all others.

I think God may have been misquoted. Let’s hear now a couple of different points of view from Mary Goolsby and Carol Bingman:

READING:

“INVENTING SIN” by George Ella Lyon

God signs to us
We cannot read.
She shouts
We take cover.
She shrugs
And trains leave the tracks.
Our schedules! we moan,
Our loved ones! God is fed up.
All the oceans she gave us,
All the fields, All the acres of steep seedful forests,
And we did what?
Invented the Great Chain of Being
And the chain saw Invented sin.
God sees us now,
Gorging ourselves and
Starving our neighbors,
Starving ourselves and
Storing our grain,
And she says I’ve had it!
You cast your trash upon the waters--
It’s rolling in,
You stuck your fine, fine finger Into the mystery of life to find death.
And you did.
You learned how to end
The world in nothing flat.
Now you come crying to your mommy,
Send us a miracle!
Prove that you exist!
Look at your hand, I say,
Listen to your scared heart.
Do you have to haul the tide in,
Sweeten the berries on the vine?
I set you down a miracle among miracles,
You want more?
It’s your turn.
YOU SHOW ME!

READING:

“ On the Origin of Dogs and Cats” (internet)

It is reported that the following edition of the Book of Genesis was discovered in the Dead Sea Scrolls. If authentic, it would shed light on the question “where do pets come from?”

And Adam said, “Lord, when I was in the garden, you walked with me everyday. Now I do not see you any more. I am lonesome here and it is difficult for me to remember how much you love me.”

And God said, “I will create a companion for you that will be with you forever and who will be a reflection of my love for you, so that you will know I love you, even when you cannot see me. Regardless of how selfish and childish and unlovable you may be, this new companion will accept you as you are and will love you as I do, in spite of yourself.”

And God created a new animal to be a companion for Adam. And it was a good animal. And God was pleased.

And the new animal was pleased to be with Adam and he wagged his tail. And Adam said, “But Lord, I have already named all the animals in the Kingdom and all the good names are taken and I cannot think of a name for this new animal.”

And God said, “Because I have created this new animal to be a reflection of my love for you, his name will be a reflection of my own name, and you will call him DOG.”

And Dog lived with Adam and was a companion to him and loved him. And Adam was comforted. And God was pleased. And Dog was content and wagged his tail.

After awhile, it came to pass that Adam’s guardian angel came to the Lord and said, “Lord, Adam has become filled with pride. He struts and preens like a peacock and he believes he is worthy of adoration. Dog has indeed taught him that he is loved, but no one has taught him humility.”

And the Lord said, “I will create for him a companion who will be with him forever and who will see him as he is. The companion will remind him of his limitations, so he will know that he is not worthy of adoration.”

And God created CAT to be a companion to Adam. And Cat would not obey Adam. And when Adam gazed into Cat’s eyes, he was reminded that he was not the Supreme Being. And Adam learned humility.
And God was pleased.
And Adam was greatly improved.
And Cat did not care one way or the other.

REFLECTION:

“Why Humans Fail; When Humans Need More”

In the poem Mary read, God is portrayed as an irritated momma, someone who has given all she has to nurture and support her children and finds that they are ungrateful and grasping. She’s fed up, she says. This is an image parents can relate to! Have our own children been unfailingly grateful and responsible? Hardly, though we love and cherish them. God as disgusted parent is a satisfying concept, even to those of us who resist defining God. We know what it’s like to have our best work taken for granted, destroyed, unappreciated. If there were a God, we figure she’d be ticked.

And I wonder what you thought as you listened to Carol? How many of us have dogs? And how many have cats? What do we learn from our fellow inhabitants of the planet? That any creature could treat us with such unfailing and unconditional devotion as a dog is overwhelming to me.

My long-gone pal Snicker, a border collie mix who showed up at our house in Athena one day, survived all the disrespect that three kids could dish out and loved and protected us all the days of his life. When he died, he left quite a hole in our lives.

And then there were all the cats who allowed us to feed and house them. Smokey, Matkatamiba, Sam the First, Sam the Second, Kitsa the first, Kitsa the Tooth and now Loosy and Lily. When a cat loves you, it’s an honor. Cats don’t just dish out their affection to anyone, you have to earn it. Cats will leave home if they don’t like the atmosphere. When our son was born, Sam the First moved across the street until Mike was old enough to learn some manners.

Kitsa the First, on the other hand, took a motherly interest in Mike and when he had some baby illness, she’d curl up next to him in the crib where he could clutch her fur and be comforted.
A dog’s love is unconditional; a cat’s love is an gift. And both are a privilege, as we humans learn to care for the gifts of the Creator.

But human beings may cherish the idea of God for one main reason, so that we may feel that we are not utterly alone in the universe. Despite all our efforts to provide for ourselves a nurturing
and loving life within a community like this, we’re all aware that there may come a time in our lives when we are utterly alone, when no one hears us when we call, when no one comes to see if we’re okay, when, as the old hymn goes, “other helpers fail and comforts flee, help of the helpless, O abide with me.”

Whether we believe in a God of any kind or whether we are uninterested in the very concept, we are all subject to human loneliness. And in that existential night, we may wonder. Is there Someone? Is there Something beyond humanity? Something or Someone I may never understand but which I wish for, to bring me comfort when I am stricken with fear, to hold my hand when I am dying, to be with me when I am all alone. God works under these circumstances, at least for many of us. There’s no explaining it, except in terms of human need.

Thomas Dorsey wrote a wonderful old gospel song 50 years ago when his wife died, a song which has passed from being religious to being a piece of Americana. Its language is too literal for most of us, but it doesn’t take much imagination to think of “Precious Lord” as whatever that mysterious Force might be that we want to comfort us in that darkest night, the companion when all others are gone, the antidote to loneliness. Perhaps that is the whole point to the idea of God.

Let’s sing that old hymn, “Precious Lord, Take My Hand”, #199

CLOSING WORDS:

“What do I believe about God?” by Rev. Kit Ketcham

What do I believe about God?
I am an atheist, if you ask me about the old white guy in the sky.
I am a believer, if you ask me about nature or spirit or love.
I am an agnostic, if you ask for proofs of God.
I am a believer, if you ask for my experience of God.

To me, God is all--nature, spirit, love, cosmos, creation.
God is in all--in me, in you, in my belongings, in my animals and the garden I tend, in all beings, animate and inanimate.
God is in my relationships--with myself, with other beings, with the universe.
God is beyond all--infinite, endless, limitless.

How can I know God? How can I not know God?
God is all around me, God is within me, God is beyond me.
God is in all my experience, yet beyond my experience.
God is mystery, yet I know God when I tend my garden, when I care for my pets, when I nurture my relationships.

God is invisible, yet I view God in the starry sky, in a mountain meadow, in a mighty storm.
God is infinite, yet I experience God in the limitless ocean, in an endless prairie of grass, in the wind which cools the hot day.
God is not human, yet I pray for God’s guidance;
God is impersonal, yet I seek God’s blessing;
God is detached, yet I feel God’s presence.
God is genderless, yet I sense God’s understanding of my womanhood.
God is changeless, yet I am aware of the continuous growth of creation.
What do you believe about God?

BENEDICTION: Our worship service, our time of shaping worth together is ended, but our service to the world begins again as we leave this place. Let us go in peace, remembering that whatever we think about God, we are all brothers and sisters under the sky. May we look for the divine in each other and may we treat each other with the gentle care that the sacred deserves. Amen, Shalom, Salaam, and Blessed Be.

Why Religious Education Matters

2011-10-16T14:06:00.000-07:00

WHY RELIGIOUS EDUCATION MATTERS
Rev. Kit Ketcham
Oct. 16, 2011

My son was a senior in high school, a longtime member of the youth group at Jefferson Unitarian Church in the Denver area, when the congregation decided to undertake an all-congregation social action project, as the chief community supporter of a local agency called Family Tree. Their mission was supporting families in transition, families whose poverty and crises had made life pretty unstable for them.

The project made it possible for every person in the congregation to be involved with social action work in a hands-on way. Activities with the project included food drives, child care provision, computer literacy training, home repair, transportation to appointments, thrift shop support, auto repair, and that sort of thing.

Everyone in the congregation was excited about it. I even had a chance to act as Mrs. Santa Claus at a holiday party for families served by Family Tree and I did some light gardening and a few other things. Others taught computer skills, did cooking classes, babysat kids, provided gifts at Christmas and birthdays, painted apartments, replaced lightbulbs and bathroom and kitchen supplies for the transitional housing development owned by Family Tree which was shelter for some of these families.

The youth group that year decided to do a paper drive, to restock the supplies of paper products in the Family Tree storage facility. And one Sunday morning, as I sat in the front row of the choir, the double doors at the back of the sanctuary suddenly swung open and a phalanx of disreputable-looking teenage boys, in double file formation, strode into the sanctuary, arraying themselves in a wide V across the front of the room.

My son led the parade and, in his long black leather trenchcoat, holey jeans, tattered shoes, skull and crossbones t-shirt, and long black hair under his backwards baseball cap, he swung around to face the congregation as his pals did the same, hands on hips, fixing folks with their steely gaze.

He dramatically held open one side of his coat and pointed to the items he had duct-taped to the lining: “We’re having a paper drive to support Family Tree”, he said in a gruff voice, “and we want you to bring (as he pointed out each item) paper towels, toilet paper, diapers, spiral notebooks for kids in school, copy paper, note cards, all kinds of paper products.”

He went on to show all the items on both sides of the open trenchcoat, then snapped it shut around him, affixed that steely gaze on the congregation, and then said, “cuz if you don’t, I’m gonna date all your daughters.”

Yes, my son is a legend at Jefferson Unitarian Church for this and other incidents; in fact, one tactless wag remarked, when my son was only about 8 and suffering the effects of a parental divorce and some other limitations, (he said to me )“we need to G...-proof this church.”

I’ve told you, I believe, that my son’s life was transformed by the religious education he got at Jefferson Unitarian Church. He had a very tough time growing up. He was small for his age, too smart for his own good, learning disabled and possibly hyperactive to boot, and had some health issues that got in his way.

And what he got from his religious education had nothing to do with theology and everything to do with being a human being in a world he didn’t create, couldn’t control, and often couldn’t understand.

In RE, which we now call Religious Exploration, he and the other kids in his age group learned about how to treat people, how to treat the earth, and heard the stories of people in ancient times, whose religious leaders, such as Moses, Mohammed, Jesus, and the Buddha, told those stories to make a spiritual and practical point.

My son and Scott and Laura and Bre and Kirk and Camsie and all the other kids had a chance to ask all the questions they could think of about religion and spiritual experience. The adults who spent these hours with them learned who they were and offered the kids their own experience as guides.

When they were small, the stories and experiences included songs about loving, about not being afraid to be who they were, about looking out for other creatures. All families, no matter how they were configured, were okay; it was okay to have two dads or two moms or maybe just one mom and a stepdad or maybe no mom, just a dad. And of course a mom and a dad who lived apart or lived together---that was okay too, as were grandparents and guardians.

As they got older and the inevitable skirmishes between kids or between adults and kids took on greater meaning, they’d have long conversations and make agreements about how they would be together as a group. Their classroom bloomed with graffiti and posters of rock bands.

At one point, all the 8th graders were part of a sex ed class which was explicit, comprehensive, focused on physical and emotional health and safe sexual practices. This group met all during their 8th grade year, with a couple of retreats, all-day sessions, with carefully structured and presented examples of contraceptives, of the variety of sexual identities and preferences in the human population, sexually transmitted diseases, AND the ongoing teaching of waiting until they were more mature before having their first sexual experience.

My son was still struggling with a few issues in 8th grade and his relationships within this group were fragile. Adults who had known him for most of his life worked with him gently and consistently; they didn’t give up on him and kick him out of the program, but he was not Mr. Popularity.

There was a followup program for 9th graders the next year, a much-anticipated coming of age trip to the Four Corners area---Arizona, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico---to visit the Native American communities there and learn about their religious and cultural practices.

But at the end of 8th grade, many of the kids who would have been included in that important trip declared that if (my son) was going, they would not go. What a blow!

Our Director of Religious Education sat down with him to discuss this setback. I don’t know what they said to each other, but at the end of the conversation, he sent word through the DRE to the kids who were rejecting him in this way and apologized for his earlier behavior, said he hoped they would change their minds, and promised to change his ways. Which he did.

The group of teenagers who went to the Indian reservations together that spring for ten days came back changed, more grown up, with greater understanding of another culture, of other people, of other religious practices, of each other and of themselves. They seemed clear-eyed in a way they had not been in 8th grade.

They all, including my son, still had a few rough edges, but they were, after all, 15 years old. The important thing was that their religious education had given them an experience which was life-changing, open-hearted, and accepting of others, while demanding accountability from each other.

This is what we want a religious education to do, after all---expand understandings, make students aware of the validity of other religious paths, help them learn about their own, and develop ways of being in the religious world that are respectful, kind, and accepting of differences.

Not only do our children need this kind of teaching, but we all do! We all need to know more about our neighbors on this planet, in order to live together in peace.

I would never have learned this kind of thing in my Baptist Sunday School years. In fact, I remember the class session when I was in about 8th grade, when a fellow student asked the question of our teacher “what is circumcision and why was it important to the Jews?”

We didn’t get a straight answer; our teacher blushed vividly and muttered something about asking our parents. But those kids in the Unitarian Universalist sex ed class called “About Your Sexuality” would have gotten an accurate and understandable answer. Of course, UU parents being who they are, many of those kids would probably have known that already, except maybe for the religious importance of the ritual.

So many myths and misunderstandings exist about other religions that it’s no wonder we have so much religious conflict on this planet.

Some may have a slight basis in truth but have been circulated and recirculated for so long, particularly if they have gotten circulated electronically, that they have taken on an aura of truth which is hard to dispel even with factual information.

Some emerge from hateful lies and deliberate misstatements. Others arise out of misinterpretation of ritual statements within liturgy.

For example, I sent a note out to my colleagues on our UU ministers’ internet discussion list and got some responses from them. One woman told a story of visiting her childhood church with her children. Here’s what she wrote me:

When our oldest, who is now 33, was about 8, I took her and her younger sisters to a Dutch Reformed church - I grew up in that (church) and my parents were very active and when there was an anniversary celebration, I was invited to say some words about my father's experience there; he had physically helped rebuild it after a fire in 1915 or so...

The service was really wonderful until there was communion. When the Domini (what I was raised to call ministers in that church) said, "this is my body and this my blood," my oldest literally turned ashen and said, a little loud, "They eat people here." Fortunately we were sitting with some family friends so it wasn't all over (the room)... she still remembers that and the fun she had up to that point...

Other colleagues responded with these ideas: that Islam is a religion of hate. That Sikhs are violent. That Jews have horns. That Mormons aren’t Christian. And one woman reminded me of the bumper sticker that rebuts a persistent blaming of women for all the world’s problems: Eve Was Framed!

Some misconceptions and outright falsehoods are completely unbelievable and others have a mixed heritage of truth and fabrication. Some have been deliberately spread about as truths in order to discredit a religion, as well as individuals associated with that religion. I’ll bet you’ve received a few online yourselves.

Here is what the rumor-investigating webpage Snopes.com says about its work:
A familiar aspect of many religions is the use of narratives such as parables and fables to teach and reinforce moral attitudes and religious principles in forms easy to assimilate and remember. Likewise, urban legends are narratives often used to spread and reaffirm societal mores and beliefs, and since much of our moral code is mirrored in religion, the world of parables and urban legendry frequently intersect.

Here are some of the questions the rumor-debunking web page Snopes.com has investigated and sorted out. First the true ones, of which there are only a few: June 10, 2000, was proclaimed by Gov. George W. Bush to be officially “Jesus Day” in Texas; Billy Graham and John Wayne did have a hand in the creation of the song “It Is No Secret”; lightning did strike a church during a sermon after the preacher identified thunder as the voice of God; and some folks do often attempt to avoid monetary amounts totaling $6.66.

And then there are the funny but not true: NASA scientists did not discover a lost day in time; certain symbols displayed on the packaging of a variety of grocery items do not signify that their manufacturers have paid a secret tax to the Jews; scientists drilling in Siberia did not punch through to Hell; and the exclamation “holy smoke” does not derive from the burning of the ballots used to elect a Pope.

Some are truly weird: Alabama did not redefine the value of “pi” to 3, to bring it in line with Biblical precepts; a group known as the “Second Coming Project” is not seeking to clone Jesus from the DNA of holy relics; a man contemplating suicide did not receive a phone call from God; part of the process of determining that a Pope has died do not call for him to be tapped on the forehead with a silver hammer; and airlines are not avoiding pairing Christian pilots and co-pilots out of fear that the Rapture will snatch away both crew members capable of landing the flight.

But the false one that made my skin crawl was this one:
A Saudi Arabian newspaper ran an article claiming that Jews use the blood of teenage Christians and Muslims in foods created to celebrate the Jewish holiday of Purim. Part of this was true---the newspaper did indeed run such an article, describing at great and false length the supposed process of acquiring the blood, preparing it for use in food and then using it as an ingredient in pastries eaten during the Purim feast.

The article itself was a complete fabrication and a continuation of an ancient fable called “blood libel”. It is an outgrowth of the story of the Passover, when the Hebrews were led out of slavery in Egypt after a ritual which involved painting the doorposts of their homes with the blood of a freshly sacrificed lamb. This ritual was distorted into rumors that the Jews use the blood of Christian children in this rite and it is an anti-Semitic story that has persisted for centuries and still arises today.

The publication of this story was roundly discredited and condemned by religious leaders worldwide, but it is evidence of the deep animosity between religious people in the Mid East.

Just as the gift of a comprehensive and unbiased sex education tends to lead to a healthier sexual being, a comprehensive and unbiased religious education can lead to a healthier religious person. And, it seems to follow that healthier religious people are the foundation of a healthier society.

How do we accomplish this? In our small way, here at UUCWI, how can we contribute to a religiously healthy and better-educated community?

The secular community struggles with its own issues of education, as does the religious community. We want to pass along our biases and opinions, whether at home or in a classroom. We want our children to do things our way and it can be hard to see whether “our way” is an honest and healthful way, especially when our own religious education is scanty and incomplete.

Here’s what I think: I am encouraged, this fall, by the plethora of educational opportunities for adults in our congregation: in addition to Sunday services that provide spiritual uplift and challenge our thinking, we have opportunities to learn about the ancient roots of religion as revealed by archaeology, to be part of a discussion group focused on ethical living and character development, to consider the pillars of our individual theologies, to be in a group of spiritual companions, and to learn more about our own faith tradition, Unitarian Universalism.

Quite a lot of you are involved in these classes, and after the first of the year, we have a similarly interesting and challenging slate of opportunities available.

Our own religious education is a critical element in our ability to change the world. If we neglect our own knowledge and understanding of religion, ours and others, we are less able to counteract the false messages of those who would demonize and persecute those of different faiths. And if our own understandings are not well-thought-out, we run the risk of giving misinformation to our children, grandchildren, and others.

So my first recommendation is that we each undertake to increase our understandings and knowledge of religion, not only our own but the religions of our neighbors and friends. Instead of labeling Mormonism a cult, let’s learn more about it. Instead of shooing the Jehovah’s Witnesses away from our door, let’s invite them in once in awhile. Let’s counteract the hateful messages of anti-Jewish or anti-Muslim proponents with a message of tolerance and reason.

And my second recommendation is that we become actively involved with the religious explorations of our own young people, here in our congregation. Let’s visit their classrooms, get to know the children and their parents and teachers. Let’s help out in some way, whether by volunteering in the classroom or bringing treats or offering to chaperone an activity. Most importantly, let’s share our increased knowledge with our children, communicating with them at their own level but emphasizing the importance of learning about the world and the world’s religious faiths.

This is not easy stuff. Learning new ways can be hard; this congregation has tended to leave religious education in the hands of our professional educators. But it is not just the job of our DRE Vanessa or our teachers Natasha, Kim, and Evan. It is the job of every one of us to help educate our children, to give them accurate information and loving guidance.

Religious education means changing our own attitudes, looking at our values, and adjusting our behavior. This is hard, challenging stuff. And it’s also religious education to the core, according to Tandi Rogers, our district program coordinator.

In closing, I’m happy to tell you that the teenage boy whose challenge to our Colorado congregation was the topic of our opening story, has become a young man with a family, active in his Reno, Nevada, UU congregation, where he serves as a worship leader, and where he is (Ithink) a credit to his own religious upbringing.

Mike learned the things he learned because the adults in his younger life cared about him, cared that he become a man with values he’d thought through, values that helped him find his way in a complicated world, values that shape his actions and responses to the challenges he faces today.

Might all of our children have the same wisdom and guidance from us here in this community.

Let’s pause for a time of silent reflection and prayer.

BENEDICTION: Our worship service, our time of shaping worth together is ended, but our service to the world begins again as we leave this place. Let us go in peace, remembering that our lives have benefited greatly from the religious education we received, whenever we received it. May we strive to give the children of this congregation the best religious guidance we can, that they might go forth in life with greater understanding, greater compassion, and greater sense of purpose. Amen, Shalom, Salaam, and Blessed Be.

Thinking about the future and other things

2011-10-06T16:33:00.000-07:00

The Future has figured large in my thinking lately. And I feel a need to write it down, even though my thoughts are jumbled and veer between ecstasy at the thought of not working any more and terror at the thought of not working any more. And it has nothing to do with income.

Just now I was looking at what I need to do tomorrow, which isn't very much, and wondering how I would fill the day if I didn't have a project of some kind. That's the kind of thinking that causes me terror.

Earlier today I was walking up the road and counting "only so many more board meetings of such and such agency" and "I've done my last Water Ceremony" and wondering "what will it be like to live in a totally new place?" That's the kind of thinking that gets me all charged up.

I am tired. Since 1964, I have served in one helping profession after another: welfare worker, Baptist missionary, junior high school Spanish teacher, junior high school guidance counselor, and now minister. The helping professions, I think, are among the most demanding careers in our culture, and I've spent a long time working to help people get their feet under them, grow up, figure out who they are, and meet their spiritual needs. That's almost 50 years of mostly-enjoyable but challenging work. No wonder I'm tired!

It's been a long haul but a joyful one. I've loved my work, each job, almost each person, and have felt fulfilled and successful nearly all of the time. I've had my failures, but I managed to learn something valuable from each of them. And now it's time to lay that burden down and figure out what I want to do with the rest of my life.

I figure I have 15 to 20 good years left. That's a long time. And for those years, I probably won't have responsibility for anyone but myself. I want connection with people----stimulation without too much leadership demanded from me. I'd like to just watch for awhile instead of having to organize and lead things.

I've also been thinking of the possibility of finding a partner, a companion, some nice guy who is my equal in many ways and would enjoy my company. I hope for good conversations, a little romance, shared activities, and a shared life. Not marriage, but good company. I have done a little looking on online sites but the results were not encouraging.

My best romances have been with musicians----one a guitar player and old timey square dancer and the other a banjo player who loved to hike. These were outstanding relationships, but, as happens, we went our separate ways. The guitar player is happily married to someone else and the banjo guy recently died. But they gave me gifts of love and fun that have lasted me a long time. It was because of these two fellows that I learned that I could sing. I'm great friends with a local guy who is a guitar/bass/mando/dobro/washboard player, but he's not interested in more and that's okay.

I have noticed that I tend to be drawn toward weirdos. Wait, that's not fair. I'm drawn toward eccentric men because they look interesting. I have also had a pattern over time of trying to befriend the men that nobody else liked much, the men who had deficiencies that I overlooked because they were interesting. None of those men have lasted long in my life.

This pattern, I think, started with my Spanish prof, Dr. Malone, in college; few people liked Dr. M because he was so tough on students. So I decided I'd like him and get him to like me. Dr. M was not the sort to hit on women students and I wasn't interested in that either; I wanted him to like me because I was a good Spanish student and excited about my studies.

I married the man I married because everyone told me he would never get married---he was just a Don Juan type of guy. Now there was another challenge! I didn't notice his serious quirks at first but they became a huge problem over time. Luckily, the Favorite Son was the beautiful product of the marriage and made those years worth while.

Boyfriends after divorce tended to be oddball guys who didn't last long; I wasn't that stable a person either, so I guess we deserved each other. But into that mix dropped Mr. Guitar for several years and later, Mr. Banjo, and their caring for me helped me see that I deserved something better than weirdos. I deserved a nice, normal guy---who was interesting!

But when I went into the ministry, dating and romance stopped short. Before seminary, I briefly dated a professor at the seminary but once I enrolled, that ended. In seminary, I had no time or interest, and men outside the seminary were clearly a bit intimidated and tended to shy away.

Since then, my only romance was with a lovely guy in Portland who was seriously wounded by a hurtful divorce and also struggling with having been molested as a teenager; he wasn't eccentric but he didn't have any energy for a relationship. He needed therapy, not romance.

Recent experiences with prospective fellows have been disappointing. I've had the experience of being placed on a pedestal because of the "Reverend" bit and then knocked off that pedestal for unfathomable reasons. I've been enjoined from hugging someone I like a lot because he has an antipathy for touch.

Okay, so this may be a little too much soul-baring. Sorry about that. But as I lose weight (26 pounds now!) and start to feel pretty again, I am eager to have some romance in my life. The odds tend to be against women my age, no matter how slim they've gotten, but I want to give it a shot! Maybe there is some nice, normal guy out there who is liberal, a good conversationalist, unfazed by the ministry label, a musician, and looking for a nice woman his age who can sing.

Do you know anybody you'd like to introduce me to?

Our Seven Principles, our First Principle, and our Covenant of Right Relations

2011-09-25T15:16:00.000-07:00

THE SEVEN PRINCIPLES
Rev. Kit Ketcham, Sept. 25, 2011

When I was in seminary, I took a class entitled “Worship and Liturgical Arts”, in which we were divided into small groups of three, all from the same denomination, and assigned 10 minute slots of time in which we presented a mini-worship service representing our faith tradition.

These tiny worship moments began each class period; we met in the oaken hall of the seminary chapel with its stained glass, pipe organ, and velvet padded seating, and did our best to present a minuscule version of our liturgy. We were all first-year students and this was a big challenge!

There were three of us Unitarian Universalist students in the class, a distinct minority amid the ranks of the mainline Protestant denominations represented. We were determined to present our faith in a stellar light, proud of our reputation as free thinkers, social justice advocates, and, historically, political catalysts who had helped to bring the fledgling United States of America into being.

So what if the others had their Apostles Creeds and stately prayers? We had our Principles and once we revealed them, surely all would desert their stodgy mantras and climb aboard the UU bandwagon.

The format of the class was that each group would present its worship service at the beginning of the class session; we would meet in the chapel instead of in the classroom and after worship, we would adjourn to the classroom to evaluate and discuss the elements of the worship service for the edification of its worship leaders.

My UU compatriots and I designed a pretty nice 10 minute service; our worship committee here would have been pleased. We settled on a chalice lighting, a hymn, a responsive reading using our Seven Principles, and a benediction. There’s not really much you can do in 10 minutes!

We lit our chalice that morning, sang our favorite hymn “Spirit of Life”, led the responsive reading of our principles, and offered the benediction.

When we went back into the classroom, expecting high praise and the inevitable questions about where the nearest UU congregation might be, the room was strangely silent. Our professor said encouragingly, “Thoughts?” But the silence persisted.

We weren’t sure what to think. At last, one brave man raised his hand and said, “umm, that reading. Those are nice things to say, yes, but they don’t seem very religious. They seem more civic-minded, like something you’d read in a civics textbook.”

This incident has stuck in my mind for a long time and I’ve experimented with various ways of understanding it, of interpreting it, of explaining it. At the time, however, I was dumbstruck and unable to formulate much of a defense. The three of us sat numbly and wondered if we were really going to fit, there at Iliff School of Theology, that training ground for United Methodist and other Protestant clergy in the making.

Our professor gave us a chance to respond to the critique and we did so, perhaps inadequately in our naivete, explaining that our religious tradition was rather different from Protestantism in many ways and that we came from a long line of radicals and heretics who simply didn’t do things in an orthodox way.

But the moment, disturbing as it was, caused me to take a fresh look at the principles of UUism, to try to understand what that student saw there that left him bewildered. And what I saw, as I compared it to the various creeds of mainline denominations, was a profound statement of purpose that emphasized humanitarian behavior toward other humans and the world we live in. That wasn’t religion, to my student colleague. His idea of religion was expressed in the Apostles’ Creed, which reads thusly:

I believe in God the Father Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth;
And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord:
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, dead, and buried;
the third day he rose from the dead;
he ascended into heaven,
and sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty;
from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting. Amen.

It’s beautiful----and it would never work for us. Too many certainties within this statement. Too many assertions that are difficult to prove. Too many otherworldly and restrictive pronouncements that make entry into the religious tradition seem exclusive and narrow, at least to my mind.

Now, as a person with an American Baptist upbringing, I was quite unfamiliar with creeds when I went to seminary. The Baptists have historically been non-creedal in that they have never tried to tell their members exactly what to believe, though I understand that the Southern Baptists have now broken that unwritten rule and do have a statement of required belief.

But I’d never had to pledge allegiance to a set of statements of religious belief, like the Apostles’ or Nicaean creeds. “I love Jesus and want to take him into my heart” was no problem for me as a child and I find it appealing even now, now that I know much more about who Jesus was and what he taught. That simple sentence only meant that I wanted to live as Jesus lived, with passion for justice and mercy and love of humankind.

I know that many devoted Christians don’t necessarily accept all the statements in the creeds they recite and the beliefs of many non-creedal denominations are stated more generally than explicitly.

But I love our Seven Principles. I find them deeply religious in that they point out the importance of how we treat each other and the earth and its creatures. That, to me, is a sacred charge, a sacred responsibility.

In carrying out these precepts, I believe we also stay in better relationship with the power beyond human power, the power that many call God and which I think of as the mysterious and sacred laws of the Universe, not fully understood but in a partnership with all its living creatures.

As you may have learned when you took Philosophy 101 in college, any philosophical movement has a main guiding principle, called the First Principle.

This is the statement that sets the trajectory for the development of the philosophy, in our case the rest of our faith tradition’s commitments. This is the Overture, if you think of it in musical terms, the piece that says who we are and what we are about.

Our First Principle, I believe, is profound and it sets us apart from many religious faiths, most of which mention a deity in their first principle. Let’s look at it together. You’ll find it in your O/S, on the back page.

“We, the member congregations of the Unitarian Universalist Association, covenant to affirm and promote: the inherent worth and dignity of every person.”

From this simple statement flow all the rest of our principles, moving from a faith in the value of a human life to the responsibilities dictated by that faith in human life: justice, equity and compassion, acceptance, encouragement, a search for meaning, the right of conscience, the use of the democratic process, the goal of peace, liberty and justice for all humankind, and a recognition of our place in the interdependent web of existence, not our pre-eminence, but our partnership with others in the universe.

For me this is much more relevant to my life than any creed based on otherworldly teachings. It gives me freedom and a framework for my behavior. It is a covenant, not a creed, a mutual agreement, not a set of required beliefs.

As Sandy and I talked about how we wanted to shape this service, we shared stories of what it was like to raise our sons within this faith. We agreed that we had watched our sons learn about themselves and other people as they studied these principles.

We saw them discover who they were and how to be in good relationship with others and with the earth. We saw them thinking through the big issues of life, not looking for easy answers but for the answers that made sense to them. Our boys learned that our principles are strong guides for life, even life in these difficult times.

What I most appreciate is how my son Mike has taken seriously our First Principle. It may have been because others in our congregation respected his worth and dignity enough to be honest and caring with the teenage Mike about behaviors that were interfering with his success. They told him, honestly and caringly, what they felt when he behaved in certain ways.

And to his credit, because (I like to think) he had learned that this was the right way to do it, he listened, he apologized for mistakes he’d made, and he vowed to do better. And then he did what he said he’d do. And his life changed dramatically.

Our First Principle sets the trajectory for our life together as a community and as a religious faith. It’s hard, though, to discern just how to respond to a person whose behavior has been hurtful, perhaps even cruel or criminal.

I’m occasionally asked “what about Hitler? Osama bin Ladin? Murderers, rapists, abusers? Do they have worth and dignity?” And my answer is yes---but no person, regardless of his or her worth and dignity, must be allowed to hurt others deliberately or to wreak havoc within a community. All the worth and dignity in the world cannot exempt a person from taking responsibility for hurtful actions.

And our own sense of our worth and dignity is essential to our ability to act appropriately in our relationships with each other, with the earth, and with ourselves. When we act out of an understanding that all creatures, human and others, have worth and dignity, our interactions with them take on new meaning and importance.

A couple of years ago, the board of our congregation undertook the writing of a valuable document, a covenant of right relations to help us deal with the inevitable misunderstandings and hurt feelings that can arise easily in any community.

A task force of members of the board, the committee on ministry, and myself collected and examined covenants written and adopted by many other UU congregations. Some were very general, some very specific, and, in the long run, we created a document that we brought to the congregation for discussion, an event that took place about a year ago. We read it together a few minutes ago.

We discussed it as a group, made adjustments here and there, and, in February of this year, it was adopted unanimously by the congregation. It is a set of promises we make to one another, promises based on the goals set forth in our Affirmation statement. Let’s say our Affirmation together: “Love is the spirit of this congregation and service is its practice. This is our great covenant: to dwell together in peace, to seek truth in love, and to help one another”.

By approving the promises which fulfill this great covenant, we agreed to be careful with our relationships with each other and to behave toward each other with peaceful responses, loving action, and service to one another and to the community.

I think the decision to write and vote democratically on this Covenant of Right Relations shows a clear commitment to our Seven Principles and recognizes them as religious actions.

When I was a teenager, trying to sort out the many do’s and don’t’s of Baptistness---no dancing or drinking or cardplaying or worldly movies---I happened upon a scripture text that made infinitely good sense to me. It probably happened when my Sunday School class was studying the Hebrew prophets and we read this text in the book of Micah, chapter 6, verses 6-8:

In this interchange, an unknown seeker asks a probably sarcastic question of the prophet: “With what shall I come before the Lord and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”

And the answer comes thusly: “He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”

For me, this said it all. It dispensed with fretting over what movies might be worldly, whether dancing was allowed, whether drinking a glass of wine was evil, whether any of these sacrifices were going to appease and mollify a stern Father God.

Doing the right thing was more important than all the sacrifices in the world. And that became my inner plumbline, the conscience which directed my actions.

Our Seven Principles are guidelines for right living, for living in ways that affirm and promote justice, kindness, and humility in the light of all that is sacred.

Our First Principle states that every person, every person, has worth and dignity inborn and that respect for that worth and dignity must be part of our response to all persons, even when they behave badly. For to do otherwise is to damage our own sense of worth and dignity.

And our Covenant of Right Relations is where the rubber meets the road; it helps us sort out both our own behavior and how we respectfully address the behavior of others, always remembering that each of us is worthy of respectful treatment.

Let’s pause for a time of silent reflection and prayer.

BENEDICTION: Our worship service, our time of shaping worth together, is ended, but our service to the world begins again as we leave this place. Let us go in peace, remembering that our relationships with ourselves, with others, and with the universe are at their best when we are respectful and honor the worth and dignity of all. May we strive to be at our best as we live together in this Beloved Community. Amen, Shalom, Salaam, and Blessed Be.

NOTE: The Covenant of Right Relations mentioned above is printed in an earlier post. Scroll down, thou good and faithful reader.

One of the difficult things about ministry...

2011-09-22T07:27:00.000-07:00

is the need to listen to someone talk about the many ways in which the someone is rejected by those he or she loves. I can think of several folks over the course of my life who have had this habit; some were teenagers who, one hopes, will get the picture soon and quit relying on whining as a way to get what they need or think they need.

Whining can take several forms but the most annoying, to me, is the insistence on others' responsibility for the "victim's" behavior. I've heard fellow ministers, particularly those who have a hard time with congregation after congregation, refuse to consider how he or she might be complicit in the so-called victimizing. I've heard younger siblings (mine and others') translate a well-deserved retaliatory move as a deliberate, unprovoked attack (no, there's no excuse for violence, but, hey, we were kids). I've heard layleaders blame the minister for everything wrong in the congregation. I've heard middle schoolers cry bully when they had gone too far in pestering another student and got taken down a peg or two (no, there's no excuse for real bullying and it does need to be addressed, but it's very hard to sort out sometimes).

In each case, the victim refused to look at how his (or her) own behavior might have been inappropriate and had contributed to the negative response he got. Instead, it was all somebody else's fault and he (or she) was determined to bear up as best he (or she) could. Of course, that often means that the rejection will continue, rather than be addressed constructively.

Last time it happened, it was with a longtime acquaintance whose church (not mine) had not responded to him in the way he felt it should have; he's also on the outs with most of his family. I listened for awhile and then responded "it sounds like you've been rejected a lot in your life. Have you looked at why that might be happening?". I was thinking he might tell me how he thought he had contributed to the problem, but he wasn't there at all. Instead, I got a long list of all the ways he'd been rejected---by his church, his ex-wives, his children, his former friends.

I thought back to my history with this person and mentally noted all the ways he expects others to serve him, his rather alarming appearance, his taking advantage of others' kindness, and I quit pursuing the topic. It wasn't going to change his behavior.

I'm not a therapist. I recommend therapy quite often to people who bend my ear about how badly others treat them. I tend to think that we often invite the reactions people have to us and it's important to sort out which of those reactions are meaningful and which are just because someone was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

That "poor me" persona is hard to be around. Sometimes people really deserve pity and don't deserve the kind of rejecting response they get. I'm inclined to think, however, that most of those who listen to whiners wish that the whiner would grow up, get a shrink, and get a life.

As I'm sitting down to start writing Sunday's sermon...

2011-09-19T08:49:00.000-07:00

I'm struck by how much fear influences our behavior. Even me, Ms. Kitty the Dauntless Proprietress of the Saloon and Road Show. I am often (always?) on guard against the possibility that I may be wounded somehow by another's behavior or opinions or ideas. I pre-defend myself in subtle and not so subtle ways.

I pre-purchase pain, as my mentor the Rev. Robert T. Latham has so aptly put it. I expect the worst while wishing for the best. It's probably an outcome of my history, but my history doesn't begin to compare with that of others who have been far more traumatized by life than I.

Walking Bush Point Road this morning, enjoying the crisp air and thinking about conversations I've had lately, I suddenly was gripped by the realization that we humans are all afraid, we are all in pain, and our behavior reflects our desire not to experience any more pain. Consequently we overreact to opinions and ideas that are not our own, we may even demonize those who are different, and we personalize chance remarks that seem to reflect our fears. I'll bet some of you right now are wondering if I'm talking about you! See what I mean?

I'm not talking about you, I'm really talking about me. But you are welcome to wear these shoes too if they fit.

Anyhow, the Covenant of Right Relations that my congregation voted in last winter will form the centerpiece of this sermon and as I re-read it, I recognized that, though this document may seem general and idealistic, it is a true effort to deal with the pain of human living, that pain often connected to conflict and discomfort between people who share a community.

I print it here for your perusal. It was the effort of a task force who looked at the CRRs of several congregations and used the inspiration received from those documents to create this one.

The Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Whidbey Island

Covenant of Right Relations

Love is the spirit of this congregation and service its practice. This is our great covenant: to dwell together in peace, to seek truth in love, and to help one another.

Our promises:

¥ We warmly welcome all.
¥ We speak with honesty, respect and kindness.
¥ We listen compassionately.
¥ We express gratitude for the service of others.
¥ We honor and support one another in our life journeys, in times of joy, need and struggle.
¥ We embrace our diversity and the opportunity to share our different perspectives.
¥ We address our disagreements directly and openly, and see conflict through to an authentic resolution.
¥ We serve our spiritual community with generosity and joy, honoring our commitments.
¥ We strive to keep these promises, but when we fall short, we forgive ourselves and others, and begin again in love.

PS. Our congregation mulled it over, discussed it thoroughly, and voted it in last winter.

Milestones and Transitions

2011-09-12T06:54:00.000-07:00

MILESTONES and TRANSITIONS
Rev. Kit Ketcham, Sept. 11, 2011

Three years ago, on our first Sunday in this building, I told you a Sufi story that I’d like to repeat today because I think it has as much meaning for us now as it did then. It goes like this:

High on a far off mountain, a little spring flowed out of a hidden source. As the water from the spring flowed down the mountain, it passed through all kinds of places, rocky ravines, quiet meadows, past beaver dams and through lakes and ponds.

Sometimes the little stream leaped and danced and bubbled as it raced down a canyon or sometimes it drifted lazily through a forest meadow or even disappeared underground for a short distance. It had never encountered an obstacle that it couldn't surmount, either by leaping over it or going under it or around it or wearing away the hard rock that captured it.

But one day it reached the edge of a vast desert. "Hey, no problem," said the little stream to itself. "I've never been stopped by any obstacle before. No desert is going to stop me now!"

So the stream flung itself at the desert. And its waters disappeared, absorbed by the sand. It threw itself at the hot desert sand again and again. And every time, its waters disappeared.

"This can't be," said the stream. "If the wind can cross the desert, certainly I, a stream, can cross it too!" And it continued to fling itself at the hot sand. And every time, its waters disappeared.

"But it is my destiny to cross the desert," cried the stream, in despair. And as it rested dejectedly at the edge of the desert, getting its strength back, and wondering what to do next, it heard a small, still, whispery voice. And this is what the stream heard the desert say.

"You can't cross the desert using your old ways," said the desert. "I am not like a boulder or a tree or a rocky ledge. It is no use hurling yourself at the desert like that. You will never cross the sand this way; you will simply disappear or turn into marshland."

"But how I can get across?" cried the stream. "I don't know any new ways; I only know the old ways. The wind can get across the desert. Why can't I?"

"The wind is your new way," said the desert. "You must let the wind carry you across the hot sands."

"How can that be?" asked the stream. "How can the wind carry me?"

"You must let yourself be absorbed into the wind," said the desert. "The wind will catch you up in that way and carry you across the desert."

"No!" cried the stream. "I am a stream with a nature and an identity all my own. I don't want to lose myself by being absorbed into the wind."

"But that's what the wind does," said the desert. "The wind will catch you up and carry you across the desert and set you down again very lightly so you can become a stream again. Trust me and trust the wind."

"But I might not be the same stream on the other side of the desert, if I've been absorbed by the wind and carried a long way. I won't be myself if I let the wind carry me and set me down again in a new place."

The desert understood the stream's fear but it also understood the mystery.

"You're right," said the desert. "But you won't be the same stream, no matter what. If you stay here, you will turn into a marshland and that's not a stream either. If you let the wind carry you across the desert, the real you, the real heart of you, the essence of everything you truly are, will arise again on the other side to flow in a new course, to be a river that you can't even imagine from where you are standing now."

"How can this happen?" asked the stream, mystified by this new idea.

"The wind has always done this," said the desert. "It takes up the water and carries it over the desert and then lets it fall again. The water falls as rain and it becomes a river, joined by waters from all over the world which have crossed the deserts to come together."

"But can't I just stay the same?" asked the stream.

"You cannot in any way remain the same," whispered the desert. "Movement is your very nature. It will never cease until your true destination has been reached."

As the stream considered this, it began to remember where it had come from and it had a memory deep in its heart of a wind that could be trusted and a horizon that was always out of reach but always a new beginning.

So the stream took a deep breath and surrendered itself to the power of the wind and the wind took the vapor of the stream in strong and loving arms and took it high above the desert, far beyond the horizon, and let it fall again softly at the top of a new mountain.

And the stream began to understand who it really was and what it meant to be a stream. (Adapted from versions by All Souls UU in Washington DC and Leonard Ingram)

Why might I tell you this story again, at the beginning of yet another new year? It’s because three years ago we had a challenge----how to become a congregation with a new home, new faces, new ways of serving each other and our community. We rose to that challenge and learned to be the congregation we were at heart: able to use our new home for the good of the community and for our own good, even though it was scary and we knew we had to change from our old ways of doing things.

Now we have new challenges to face during the coming year. First, we have lost three mighty oaks from our congregation during the past several months: Baird Bardarson, Peggy Bardarson, and Malcolm Ferrier. The loss of these three leaders has created a hole in our hearts as well as in our community. As we think about what these three leaders did for this congregation, we may wonder how we will ever fill their shoes.

Second, every week we welcome new faces, new friends with new ideas, many of whom keep coming back and contributing fresh understandings, asking good questions, becoming members and friends within the community. It’s exciting to meet so many new and wonderful folks as they come through these doors, but it can also be a challenge to remember all the new names, all the new faces, and give tribute to all the new ideas they bring.

And third, I recently let you know that I will be retiring from my ministry here at the end of next June. That means another new challenge, to find the right minister to serve you after I have begun my new life in retirement.

Like the little stream trying to cross the desert, this congregation is facing the need to change yet again, to learn new ways of being together, to step into the shoes left by our three late leaders, to involve our new folks in groups and gatherings, learning about them and cherishing their company, and to learn to work with a new minister, someone different from me, someone whose ideas are fresh and new, someone who will attract even more visitors and friends into this community, and bring a vision of service and spiritual life that will stretch and transform this congregation once again.

I believe that this congregation is ready to meet these challenges, ready to thrive in new ways, ready to bring new service to each other and to the community around us. I look forward to an exciting and productive year together. Let’s pause for a time of silent reflection and prayer.

Revenge and its aftermath...

2011-09-11T08:05:00.000-07:00

are not pretty. Rightfully enraged by the terrorist attacks on us on Sept. 11, 2001, the United States responded vengefully, wreaking havoc on lands and peoples thought to be complicit in the development and sponsorship of fanatical extremists. Those men, who used their anger against the Western way of life to try to destroy the symbols of that way of life, were wrong for what they did, but we too were wrong in responding vengefully.

In the ten years since that dreadful day, we have not gotten better as a nation or as a democracy. We have become polarized over religion, polarized over social issues, polarized over politics. For a few brief moments, post-9/11, we seemed united as a nation and the world was united with us.

Now, and in my opinion largely because of our vengeful response, we have estranged ourselves from much of the world, from our own best interests, from our own best nature. The terrorists (or the guiding light behind the terrorists) somehow knew that to do something unspeakable to us would encourage us to bankrupt ourselves financially, morally, and spiritually, in an attempt to get revenge. And that is exactly what has happened.

We have largely forgotten the heroism of those who responded immediately to the destruction, the courage of the first-responders who sacrificed themselves for others, the bravery of those on airplanes who called home to say goodbye and then deliberately crashed the fateful plane in a Pennsylvania field instead of in the White House.

We call up their memory on each anniversary, we support their families and loved ones, and we grieve their deaths and disabledness. But we do not let their heroism deter us from our need for revenge. And that is where America made its big mistake.

We now are on the brink of financial disaster, neighbors and friends are alienated over treatment of those considered "The Other", whether gay, lesbian, Muslim, Mexican, or anyone different, millions are jobless because of the financial decisions of corporations whose primary concern is profits, not people. And the entire world population is affected by these conditions in our land, because we called for revenge, not for rebuilding of connections, not for diplomacy or negotiated peace, not for recognition of the ways our privileged lives had impinged upon others we did not even know.

On this ten year anniversary, I honor the survivors, the heroes, the ones who responded to tragedy with love. I mourn those sacrificed by others' anger. And I cry for my nation, this land I love, which made such a rash decision post-9/11 to go to war instead of finding a peaceful and non-violent response.

The cat came back...

2011-09-04T06:09:00.001-07:00

though not the very next day. We gave it five days of a good try, but when I got the message from Bill yesterday morning that Max had holed up in a corner of the shed's "attic" and wouldn't come out, we both decided this wasn't working and I went to get him.

It took 20 minutes of coaxing and dropping the key words "a little something", "a little sip (of halfnhalf)", "home", "petting", but eventually he scrambled dustily out of the hideyhole he'd found (I think it was quite a tight fit because I could hear him scratching as though he were trying to turn around in a small space), came to me, and I grabbed him.

I had to stand on a ladder to do all this coaxing and I wasn't sure he would be coaxable, but now my Mad Max is home again, much to his delight (and, secretly, mine). It was lovely to have him back, to rollick down the road with me to get the paper this morning, even to have him once again lording it over Loosy and Lily, who are not exactly thrilled--more resigned than anything.

I'm not sure what is going to happen next. It's clear he's too attached to me and too afraid of others to be transplanted easily. It may be that I'll find a way to take him with me next summer when I move or maybe even I can return him to the farmer who gave him to me in the first place. At the farmers' market yesterday I asked him what he thought and he said he'd check with his family.

It was interesting to notice what his return has meant to my spirits. I had worried about him constantly while he was gone, hoping for the best and missing him. The responsibilities of pastoral ministry with my congregation right now are particularly heavy and I am looking at another major memorial service and after-care very shortly. Max's return relieved one major concern and I feel much more able to cope with it all.

This weekend I have my friend Sue visiting till Tuesday morning. Today it's church, a lunch bunch at the local Chinese place, and a music party tonight here at my house. Fun all day long! And Max is back. Whew.

Spiritual but not Religious?

2011-09-01T07:59:00.001-07:00

There's been quite a bit of conversation, pro and con, about a recent blog post by a UCC writer here. The writer has an interesting style and made me laugh because she's genuinely funny in her frustration.

But several responses I've read criticize the snarky tone of her post and express some readers' own frustration with the snarky approach, as well as their own take on the S but not R person. There's certainly room for many opinions on this topic. Mine tends to be that she's being snarky about a collective SBNR person she meets, not an identifiable one. Yes, she's lumping them all into one category, when I can think of more than one type of SBNR, and maybe that's overgeneralizing on her part. But she's funny and frustrated and she has a point of view that many of us may share.

She's reacting to the SBNR who would rather avoid entanglement with an actual community of seekers and who lumps all religious people into the category of hypocrites/social climbers/weirdos/gullibles who'll believe anything they're told by a clergyperson. I think that's a legitimate concern, but she doesn't explore the whys.

SBNRs, I notice, have often been turned off by conventional religious paths and have simply decided not to look any longer, finding their community needs met by civic causes or family groups or 12 step programs. I'm not sure there's anything wrong with that. Conventional religious paths do seem to attract their share of hypocrites, social climbers, weirdos and gullibles. But all communities have them----civic groups, families, 12 steppers, you name it.

As I was walking this morning, checking out the sweet pea seed pods on the road to see if they're ready for harvesting, I thought of where I most encounter the SBNR phrase. I've seen a lot of it over the years, particularly every time I check out Match.com to see if anyone remotely interesting has turned up in my neck of the woods.

And the SBNR phrase seems to appear quite frequently in the profiles of those fellows who (if you can tell anything from an online profile) are trying way too hard to be cool. They talk about how they love to ski and boat and take long walks on the beach. I'm guessing they wear one or more gold chains, sport a bit of chest hair under their carefully unbuttoned Hawaiian shirts (it's hard to tell from the photos), and the SBNR phrase is calculated to seem cool.

Unfortunately, it also says "I would prefer not to think too hard or commit to something larger than myself". Sheesh, give me a good die-hard atheist (well, maybe not Dawkins or Harris) or agnostic (are agnostics die-hards?) or even a not-too-conservative Christian. When I talk about the big questions of life, I want someone who can offer a point of view that is meaty, not overly cynical, and who isn't annoyed by an opposing point of view if offered mildly.

So I'm on both sides of this question. We do need to think about why people opt for SBNR instead of aligning with a religious community and we might want to clean up our acts. If an SBNR person starts sniffing around our congregations, let's treat them gently and not reinforce their stereotypes; they take a little TLC and may eventually realize that a congregation can be spiritual AND religious.

New Job, New Friends, New Digs...

2011-08-30T14:01:00.001-07:00

for Max. I just took him over to the farm on Double Bluff where he was welcomed warmly by Bill and Ron, his new friends. They showed me his new digs---a spacious shed with resident mice where he will spend the next few days getting acquainted with his responsibilities and friends. He'll be in charge of patrolling the several acre property and decimating the small varmint population both indoors and out.

This is a mostly-guys hangout, which will be a change for Max who has grown up in an all-female environment. Ron and Bill are nice guys who like cats a lot and will give him lots of love and food and interesting things to check out.

I'm sort of looking at it the same way I looked at the situation when the Favorite Son left home with his car packed full of stuff and headed for Lake Mead to work on a lake steam boat---new job, new friends, new digs. It's not as hard to accept that way----for the FS and for Max, it's the next step in life, having a good job, earning his keep, making new friends, living somewhere new.

One more thing checked off the "getting ready for retirement" list. Now where's that tissue box?

Unforeseen issues of impending retirement, part 1

2011-08-29T07:10:00.000-07:00

It's been a couple of weeks now since I announced to the congregation that I would be retiring next June and leaving the island. I anticipated a number of the issues I would need to deal with during this year. In no particular order, they seemed to be finding a home for Max, finding a new home for me and the cats in Astoria, dealing with all the issues of moving---packing, donating, selling, transporting---saying goodbye to all the friends and members of the congregation and the great love I have received from them, figuring out the financial ramifications of a one-income life, being the best minister I can be in the months I have left with this congregation rather than a lame-duck, thinking about who I am when I'm not wrapped in the mantle of a career.

One issue that has cropped up several times now, from a variety of folks, is "why aren't you staying on the island?" I'm very clear about why I'm not staying on the island but it's hard to explain to people. To most who live here, South Whidbey is nirvana, a progressive haven of environmental awareness, political liberalism, a wonderful, beautiful place to live. I think of it that way too, but I'm still leaving the island.

I am looking forward to living in Astoria, meeting new people, shopping regularly at Fred Meyer instead of Pay-less (commonly called Pay-more locally), being at the ocean with big waves instead of bitsy Puget Sound waves, NOT working for as long as I can stand it, finding out what I can do besides minister, counsel, teach, etc.

But that's not the only reason I'm leaving the island. I'm also leaving because I have an obligation to the new minister not to get in the way of that new relationship with this beloved community. I have an obligation to myself and the congregation not to watch as the necessary changes occur because of the new minister. I would rather not know which of my programs and sacred cows will need to be jettisoned after I'm no longer the minister (at least not right away).

If I am still on the island, I could find myself in passive competition with the new person and that's not what I want to do. Not only would it not be a collegial way for me to behave, it would drive me crazy to see congregants in the store or at events and have to redirect every conversation away from how things are going at the church. It's not good for them and it's not good for me.

I've seen cases where former ministers stayed in the community they'd served and caused trouble (usually inadvertently) because they had a hard time letting go of their relationships with congregants while seeing them around the community, and the new minister felt a little uneasy about it. It's easy to say that the new minister ought to be more confident and self-assured, but the reality is that most people starting a new job need time to learn the ropes, the systems, the community being served, and they need support.

The rule of thumb among my colleagues is that, when we leave a congregation at retirement, we stay away from the congregation for at least a year, maybe two. If we live in the same community as our former congregation, we attend church somewhere else. We don't interfere with our successor's bonding process by hanging around, offering advice, or listening to complaints about the new person.

I hate explaining this to people, I've found, because it sounds like a "turf" issue, seems to portray the new person as a wussie who can't stand on his/her own merits, and makes me look like a victim who is torn from the bosom of my community at retirement and forced to wander among the thistles somewhere, bereft.

The relationship ministers have with their congregations is both professional and personal. We live and work among those we serve; we create strong bonds of love and interdependency; we become closer to some than to others because of the ways we serve our congregants; we are with them at the most jubilant of times and the most sorrowful of occasions.

When we perform the sacred acts of ministry, we do so with every ounce of the professional training and comportment we have gained over the years; at the same time, we feel deeply and personally the great sorrow and loss of each beloved life departed, each disagreement with those we love.

The responsibility and privilege of ministry is (are?) both wonderful and awful. We rarely know this when we graduate from seminary and leap joyfully into our first ministry. It takes a few hard knocks to fully appreciate what ministry means---being professional in the hardest of times, being personal mainly in private. Sometimes parishioners know what we're going through; usually they don't.

So, yes, I'm leaving the island. It's because I want to live in Astoria. Would you mind handing me a tissue?

I wanna be a dog...or maybe a cat

2011-08-28T07:37:00.000-07:00

An Animal Blessing Service
August 28, 2011

I WANNA BE A DOG

Welcome to our Animal Blessing service, all you humans and the animals who brought you here. I want to start off by asking you to help me read a poem that needs some sound effects, okay? This is actually a song, but we're going to use it as a poem. Here’s how it goes. Every time you hear me say “O I wanna be a dog”, I want you to pant like a dog (hhhh) four times and again after the next phrase. You’ll catch on really quickly, I’m sure!

O I wanna be a dog (hhhh), wanna wag my tail (hhhh)
Chase cars and knock over garbage cans,
Bite the lady who brings the mail!

O I wanna be a dog…, wanna drool on the floor ….
Get pats on the head, chase cats, get fed,
Chew your shoes and bark at the door.

O I wanna be a dog… wanna dig big holes….
Wanna sniff French poodles and basset hounds
And pee on telephone poles.

O I wanna be a dog….wanna big wet nose….
Wanna run in the street, get mud on m’feet
And jump up onto your clothes!

I wanna have dog breath, I wanna learn to growl,
Scratch fleas and ticks and run after sticks
I want the moon to make me howl!

O I wanna be a dog….I wanna sleep on the ground….
Bein’ human these days is just a little crazed,
I just wanna be a hound!

How many of you would just as soon be a dog sometimes? Especially when things get a little nutso in your life? Wouldn’t it be nice to be a dog and get treats and do tricks and just give doggie kisses to everyone? Instead of having to pay bills and go to the store and mow the yard and do all those human things? Of course, not all dogs have it that easy, but I’d want to be a nice Golden retriever in a nice family.

Or who would like to be a cat? Cats have a pretty good life----all that cream and petting and bossing the humans around. Cats kind of run my house----they meow me awake in the morning, they meow for me to pet them or give them food, they hog all the extra space on the bed so I can hardly move. They have a pretty good life at my house. Of course, I’m not that crazy about Max’s tendency to bring in dead critters for me to clean up. I know they’re presents from him, but I didn’t ask for them!

Did you ever hear the story about how pets were created? It was recently discovered and here’s how I heard it:  A newly discovered chapter in the Book of Genesis in the Bible has provided the answer to "Where do pets come from?" It is now part of the ancient story of Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden.

Adam said, "Lord, when I was in the garden, you walked with me everyday. Now I do not see you anymore. I am lonesome here and it is difficult for me to remember how much you love me."

And God said, "No problem! I will create a companion for you that will be with you forever and who will be a reflection of my love for you, so that you will love me even when you cannot see me. Regardless of how selfish or childish or unlovable you may be, this new companion will accept you as you are and will love you as I do, in spite of yourself."

And God created a new animal to be a companion for Adam. And it was a good animal. And God was pleased. 

And the new animal was pleased to be with Adam and he wagged his tail. And Adam said, "Lord, I have already named all the animals in the Kingdom and I cannot think of a name for this new animal."

And God said, "No problem! Because I have created this new animal to be a reflection of my love for you, his name will be a reflection of my own name, and you will call him DOG."

And Dog lived with Adam and was a companion to him and loved him. And Adam was comforted. And God was pleased. And Dog was content and wagged his tail.  After a while, it came to pass that Adam's guardian angel came to the Lord and said, "Lord, Adam has become filled with pride. He struts and preens like a peacock and he believes he is worthy of adoration. Dog has indeed taught him that he is loved, but perhaps a little too well."

And God said, "No problem! I will create for him a companion who will be with him forever and who will see him as he is. The companion will remind him of his limitations, so he will know that he is not always worthy of adoration."

And God created CAT to be a companion to Adam. And Cat would not obey Adam. And when Adam gazed into Cat's eyes, he was reminded that he was not the supreme being.

And Adam learned humility. And God was pleased. And Adam was greatly improved. And Dog was happy. And Cat didn't give a hoot one way or the other. 

But you know, it’s not just our pets who make our lives on this earth more worthwhile. There are animals and other living creatures who also help to keep our lives in balance and teach us good lessons about living.

St. Francis of Assisi lived over 800 years ago in Italy and he loved animals too. Stories are told about St. Francis taming a wolf who had been scaring a small village, about his preaching to the birds, and protecting the creatures of the woods and fields. Our blessing today of the animals we care for is to show our understanding and our agreement with St. Francis’s idea that animals are so important in our lives that we must always protect them and take care of them.

We have come to understand that we must not use animals carelessly, that if they work for us, as horses and cows and donkeys and dogs and other working animals do, we have a responsibility to see that they do not work too hard or too long or under bad conditions and that they receive good care, good food, good shelter.

Many of us have come to understand that using animals for food is something that must be done carefully and respectfully. Some of us don’t eat meat any more. Some of us eat only plants and their products for food. Some of us eat meat and fish but look for meat and fish that is humanely produced. And we don’t eat too much of it or eat it just because it’s the trendy thing to do.

Our relationships with animals, whether they are our pets or our source of food or work or the wildlife we see in the fields and forest and oceans, must be in balance. We must not overfish the oceans; we must not overwork our work animals; we must not use up animals or animal habitat unnecessarily.

When our earth and its creatures are in balance, our lives are more in balance too. We are happier when our animals are happy and well-cared-for. We receive so much love from our pets when they are happy and we feel bad when they are sick or injured or afraid.

What does it feel like to be out of balance? When you are dizzy, what does that feel like? Being dizzy is a kind of being out of balance. We can’t walk straight, we feel a little sick, we might even fall down. It’s not very much fun to be dizzy, even if sometimes we do it to be funny.

So we bless our animals today to tell them in our own way that they are important to us, that they help keep our lives in balance, and that we appreciate all that they do for us.

And what is a blessing, you might ask? A blessing is a very strong wish and hope for good things for someone or, in this case, for our animals. When we bless them, we are wishing and hoping that they will have good health, good things to happen to them, good people to take care of them. And we are also promising them that we will help them have good health, good things, good people in their lives.

Our behavior toward our animals tells them even better than words that we care for them. So we are promising them the blessing of our good care. They bless us every time they purr or lick our face or take us for rides or give us eggs or milk or meat. And even when they do something naughty, like my Max does every once in awhile, I still promise to take good care of him, even when I’m a bit mad at him.

How we’re going to do our blessing is this: We’ll do smaller animals first and work our way up through the dogs and larger animals. And we’ll go outside to bless horses and other larger animals. I’m going to ask the owner what the animal’s name is and then I’m going to say, “Bless you _____ and may you live a long and happy and healthy life.” And we’ll give each animal a treat.

At the end of the blessing, we’ll have a time of silence in memory of all the dear animals that have blessed our lives and have given us so much love before they died. During that time of silence, I’ll invite you to call out the names of those animals who have died and whose memory still gives us joy, even though we miss them very much.

Before we sing our final song, I will lead us in a commitment promise to our animals, saying out loud a pledge to treat animals with care and respect, in our homes, in our lands, and in meeting our food needs.

BLESSING CEREMONY
SILENCE (chime, speak names)

COMMITMENT PLEDGE (repeat after me)
I promise to treat the animals in my life with respect and care.
I promise to care for my pets by giving them good food, shelter, and love.
I promise to care for wildlife/ by caring for the forests, fields, and oceans where they live.
I promise to care for working animals by treating them kindly and gently.
I promise to care for food animals/ by respecting the gift they give with their bodies.
I make these promises knowing that my life is connected to theirs.
May it be so.

SONG: All God’s Critters

Max's new digs...

2011-08-26T08:58:00.000-07:00

look like a go. I went over to Bill P's place on Double Bluff to check it out and it looks like a workable situation. Max can be outdoors as much as he wants, there will be several people living on the property (small apartment units) who love animals, nobody seems to be a cat molester as far as I can tell, and the grounds he'll patrol are huge, with several outbuildings and a big old barn.

Bill and his pal Ray (?) will let me know when they've fixed up one outbuilding with temporary screens to keep Max inside until he's bonded to the folks feeding him, and then he can go in and out at will. When they've completed the work, I'll take him over and they'll start getting acquainted with him. I told them that if it doesn't seem to be working out, I'll come and get him and keep looking for a spot, but I think it will work out.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed but I know I'm going to miss him terribly.

Decision-making about The Move...

2011-08-25T05:33:00.000-07:00

has started and one that has been hanging over my head for awhile is "what am I going to do about Max?" Longtime hangers-on at Ms. Kitty's know that Max the Magnificent, the Massacree-er, is both a beloved fixture at the Saloon and Roadshow AND an attractive nuisance.

When I first started thinking about moving to Astoria, I realized that Max needed to stay on the island, for my wellbeing and his. There are a few organizations on the island who help to place animals who can't accompany their owners to new digs and I started investigating them, figuring I'd make some contacts here and there and by Aug. 1, 2012, I'd surely have found a place for him. Taking him with me was out of the question; paying pet deposits for three cats would be expensive and it's very possible that the only places I'd find to rent would be places where he couldn't go outdoors safely.

A few days ago, I realized that if Max were to have a new home well in advance of my move, it would simplify the move a lot, ease my anxiety about the timeline, make the older cats' lives less anxious, eliminate the need to take him to the kennel every time I want to go out of town, and (I hope) end my need to clean up after the occasional urinary indiscretion (yes, we had another one recently). Let's face it, Max's life here at Cottontail Acres has been marked (pun intended) by messes: disemboweled critters left on the deck and walkways, soaked, odorous bedding, horrible vomitus.

I knew I would miss him, even so, but I decided to look actively for a placement for him right away, so he could be settled in before the rains start. And yesterday morning, in our local version of craigslist, there appeared an ad:

Wanted
One Hardworking Barn Cat
I recently lost a dear barn cat who lived on a beautiful piece of property overlooking Double Bluff ... There is a barn, multiple outbuildings on 5 acres to patrol – a fantasy job for any barn cat, with plenty of opportunity for advancement in the mouse-eating world.
If you have such a barn cat that is seeking new digs, please contact me.
Bill P.

So I made contact with Bill P and the kind voice on the phone said he thought Max might be a good fit. So I'm going to visit this afternoon and check out the potential new home for my rascally boy. If I feel confident that Bill P is truly kind and that the new digs will work for my Max, I will let him go and explore new territory.

I realize there are risks involved, but there are as many risks if he stays with me. As I went walking yesterday, mulling over the prospect of letting him go, I could see the analogy between letting go of Max and letting go of my dear congregation. Max will miss me (and I him) but he will learn to love another caregiver; his new fields of opportunity will offer plenty of excitement and lots of mice. The congregation will miss me (and I them) but they will learn to love another minister; the possibilities for their outreach and growth will increase with new energy and ideas from a new person. And my life will simplify and ease with each letting-go decision.

Letting go of longtime responsibilities and enjoyments weighs on my mind somewhat. Not to be a minister? Not to be a singer? Not to be a caregiver? Not to be a teacher? a counselor? a provider of information?

And the taking on of possible new roles weighs heavy as well: to be old? to be dependent someday? to be alone? to make new friends? to find new outlets for creativity and enjoyment? to make a new life in a place where I know few people? Risky and exciting, both. Stay tuned!

I know it's healthy to be...

2011-08-21T07:18:00.001-07:00

self-critical, but sometimes when I'm reading UU blogs, I get really tired of the seemingly endless litany of what Unitarian Universalist congregations and ministers and establishments and laity and officers and Boston and the hymnal and worship practices and general philosophy/theology are doing wrong.

As if the world weren't hard enough on us already, we pile on even more self-critique. We're pitifully small, we're confused about our message, we ministers need to be more careful about what we say and do and wear, we're elitist, classist, aging, not growing, you name it---we're guilty of it.

And much of this self-critique is true! But sometimes I just want to scream "People, we're human, we're not perfect, deal with it!"

It seems to me that all the self-critique we put out there, particularly in blogs where we are self-editing, is a kind of self-flagellation, where we beat our breasts and publicly apologize for being imperfect. It seems to me that we lack collective self-esteem and feel a need to beat ourselves up for not saving the world faster, more efficiently, more perfectly, and able to convert others to our way of doing things.

When I was working with middle school kids, the hardest one to work with was the kid who was constantly complaining about his/her own imperfections and apologizing for every mistake, as though it were a criminal offense. That kid needed me to help him/her see his/her strengths, take some pride in his/her skills and successes.

The next hardest was the one who complained constantly about others' imperfections, pointing out all the mistakes others made, even though his/her performance was not exactly stellar. That kid needed to focus on his/her own performance, not that of others.

Self-critique is a good thing but it can be more discouraging than encouraging. And it's really boring after awhile. So here I am, being one of those who critiques others rather than my own performance. There's such an aura of sanctimony about self-critique sometimes. I think that's why it bothers me so much.

And yet here I am, being sanctimonious about sanctimony elsewhere. Sorry---I am a worthless worm today. Tomorrow may be better.

So the cat is out of the bag....

2011-08-16T08:45:00.001-07:00

figuratively speaking, and I am relieved. I have been carrying around the secret of my impending retirement for many months now. It has constrained me in ways I didn't even know until I wrote the letter, informed the board, and then had the letter mailed to the congregation.

The letter arrived in most mailboxes yesterday and I also posted it here and on Facebook. Interesting to be using social media to get the word out---for instant feedback, there's no equal to FB and blog.

Colleagues responded first, with encouragement and thoughtful advice. They mostly are thrilled for me and I suspect they crave the kind of personal time retirement can bring. Ministry gives a distinctive shape to one's life and it doesn't allow for very much personal time. I thought I detected a note of slight envy, as well as the message to not slip off the map while wallowing in the freedom from ministerial duties.

Response from congregants has been slowly coming in and, by and large, they're excited for me and sad for themselves. My friend A warned me yesterday over our lunch not to be surprised if people experience "abandonment issues" and start acting crazy. We'll see how that turns out. I would hope that this healthy bunch of folks would be able to deal just fine.

I do feel sad about leaving them and I feel sad that this news has come on the heels of a tragic death and another impending death in our midst. But there wasn't a better time and I was having a hard time keeping my mouth shut. Still, when I announced it to the board, one fellow said "so, it comes in threes". Maybe that means we're done with loss for awhile.

I find myself checking off things mentally: this time next year I won't go to a board retreat, or plan an adult RE program, or conduct the animal blessing or the water ceremony or... And I won't need to sort out problems like hurt feelings in a congregant or the request to return by a former member who caused difficulty in the past or submit newsletter items.

It's a mixed bag, of course, because I will miss doing many of these things. And yet I won't wake up in the night, either, wondering what the best response is to the disgruntled congregant or the difficult former member. No more deadlines! No more sermon scrambling! No more UUCWI, in just 10 more months.

And that's tough. UUMA guidelines make it clear that former ministers have a duty to the incoming minister to clear out for awhile, give the new person plenty of room to make his/her own connection to the beloved community. I'll have to figure out what to do about some of my connections with the congregation, like Facebook, but generally I respect the guidelines and will be careful not to interfere with the new configuration of leadership.

It's a good thing that I'm moving 200 miles away, by choice. I won't need to do the awkward dance of fobbing off conversations in the grocery store that wander into UUCWI business that I can't share. My job will be to be caring but not involved, not competing with the colleague who is in the process of bonding with this congregation I love so dearly.

A letter to my congregation

2011-08-15T08:07:00.000-07:00

This letter was mailed to my congregation on Saturday, Aug. 13, and should arrive in their mailboxes today:

The Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Whidbey Island
20103 Highway 525, P.O. Box 1076, Freeland, WA 98249 •
(360) 321-8656
August 9, 2011

My dear Whidbey friends,

We are beginning our ninth year of ministry together and I am looking forward to it with great anticipation. We have a strong leadership team, a growing, vital membership, outstanding adult and children's programming, incredible talent in many areas, and a beautiful facility to share with our community. It will be a wonderful year, I predict, and I am excited about it.

UUCWI has become a strong and growing congregation. That enables me to decide that it is a good time for me to end my ministry with you. I plan to retire from the active UU ministry on June 30, 2012, and will be moving to a new home in Astoria, Oregon, next summer, where I am looking forward to starting a new phase of my life. I have experienced some of the very happiest years of my life here on Whidbey Island and I will miss you all very much when I move away. But the future for you and for me looks bright and promising.

We have accomplished a lot together and you have many more achievements and outreach projects ahead of you. Your service to the Whidbey Island community will grow and prosper and you will find a new minister who will help you fulfill new dreams, new ideals, new ways to serve each other and the larger community.

During the coming months, our board of trustees will work with our Pacific Northwest UU district staff to make decisions about finding a new minister and will keep you the congregation in the loop during this process. Your thoughts and involvement will be crucial to the process of finding just the right person to serve you in the future.

I'm looking forward to this last year together and expect that we will continue our work together this year in exciting ways. Just imagine the possibilities!

Much love,

Kit

The Flaming Chalice

2011-08-14T13:39:00.000-07:00

THE FLAMING CHALICE: What it means to Unitarian Universalists
August 14, 2011
Rev. Kit Ketcham

Hey, remember when we’d go to summer camp and sit around a big bonfire at night, make googly eyes at each other across the flames, and sing goofy songs like this? Sing with me if you remember it:

One dark night, when we were all in bed, old Missus O’Leary put a lantern in the shed. The cow kicked it over and winked her eye and said “There’ll be a hot time in the old town tonight! Fire, fire, fire, fire!”

Whether we experience it in a friendly way---around a campfire or in front of a fireplace in a cozy room----or as a frightening event in our lives, there’s something compelling about fire. We seem drawn to its light, its warmth, its flickering magic, the smoke that rises into the skies. And we also may shrink from its glare, its inferno-like heat, the caustic fumes it can generate and we fear its destructive power even as we kindle a small cooking fire.

We light candles for our own quiet times, or when we desire a sense of the holy. We take care not to let fire get out of control, we keep fire extinguishers handy in our kitchen, by the hearth, and at the campsite. We gaze in horror at times at the destructive nature of fire upon homes, landscapes, property, and we also marvel at its regenerative powers when the ravaged forest begins to bloom again.

A cup, too, a goblet, a container for lifegiving substances, has significance to us. How many mugs with funny sayings on them have you received over your lifetime? We give and receive gifts of containers, from silly mugs to beautiful silver goblets to beer steins and even pasta bowls.

All of these gifts are intended to hold something we value---our morning cup of tea, a celebratory glass of champagne, a cold brew, a hearty meal. We look at the goofy mug and think of its giver----our child who tells us we’re the best mom or dad ever, our sister or brother who can’t resist making one more joke about the difference in our ages.

We raise our champagne goblets high and drink a toast to the bond between newlyweds. We look at the intricate designs on that authentic German beer stein and marvel at the colors and figures on its surface. We pour savory sauce over the pasta in the wide bowl and anticipate its delicious flavors.

Our flaming chalice is a combination of these two things: a bit of fire and a container to hold it. A flame and a safe environment for that flame.

Today we’re going to consider how our flaming chalice came to be important to Unitarian Universalists, the variety of meanings ascribed to it, a bit about its history, and what it means that we light it at the beginning of every worship service and even at board meetings and committee gatherings. And I’m going to ask you for your thoughts a few times.

The flaming chalice was not always our iconic symbol of UUism. It came into being at least twenty years before Unitarians joined forces with Universalists to become the religious movement we are today, and it took 20 more years to become our symbol.

The flaming chalice design was the creative idea of an Austrian artist named Hans Deutsch, in 1941. Deutsch had been living in Paris but ran afoul of Nazi authorities for his critical cartoons of Adolf Hitler. When the Nazis invaded Paris in 1940, he fled, with an altered passport, into Portugal where he met the Rev. Charles Joy, who was the director of the Unitarian Service Committee.

The Service Committee had been founded in Boston to assist Eastern Europeans, among them Unitarians as well as Jews and homosexuals, people who needed to escape Nazi persecution. From Lisbon, Rev. Joy oversaw a secret network of couriers and agents.

Deutsch was impressed by the work of the Service Committee and wrote to Rev. Joy: “There is something that urges me to tell you…how much I admire your utter self denial (and) readiness to serve, to sacrifice all, your time, your health, your well being, to help, help, help.”

The USC (Service Committee) was an unknown entity in 1941, which was a huge disadvantage in wartime, when establishing trust quickly across barriers of language, nationality, and faith could mean life instead of death. Disguises, signs and countersigns, and midnight runs across guarded borders were how refugees found freedom in those days.

So Rev. Joy asked Hans Deutsch to create a symbol for the USC’s papers, as he said, “to make them look official, to give dignity and importance to them, and at the same time to symbolize the spirit of our work…When a document may keep a man out of jail, give him standing with governments and police, it is important that it look important.”

So Hans Deutsch drew a simple design, and Rev. Joy wrote to his colleagues in Boston that it was “a chalice with a flame, the kind of chalice which the Greeks and Romans put on their altars. The holy oil burning in it is a symbol of helpfulness and sacrifice…” (Sorry it's sideways)

Joy noted that the chalice suggests, to some extent, a cross, and he emphasized that for Christians the cross represents its central theme of sacrificial love.

The flaming chalice design was made into a seal for papers and a badge for agents moving refugees to freedom. In time it became a symbol of Unitarian Universalism all around the world and of the humanitarian call to action by people of faith who were willing to risk all for others in a time of urgent need. Every Sunday UUs all over the world light the chalice as a time-honored ritual---in huge congregations and tiny ones, big historical sanctuaries, rented strip mall spaces, and even home living rooms.

I’m wondering----what does lighting the chalice mean to you all, when we kindle this flame at the beginning of our worship time? Let’s pause for a time of silence while we consider this question. And then we’ll take a few moments to share our thoughts. I know that folks who are newer to UUism may have a different perspective than longer-time UUs. Your perspective is important, too. (chime, silence, chime)

What does our lighting of the chalice say to you? How do you see it?
(Cong. response)

I’ve listened to others reveal what the lighting of the flame means to them, at the beginning of worship or a meeting of some sort. The chalice lighting is often preceded by words of dedication or poetry or the wisdom of some sage, carefully chosen to focus on the event beginning, whether that is a time of worship, of memorializing, of honoring, or doing sacred work.

The lighting of the chalice signifies, to many, the moment at which we move into another realm, into a sacred time, into a time in which we consider matters of worth and value, a time in which we find wisdom and strength in the act of being together in community. It focuses our attention on the work at hand, when we light the chalice before a board or committee meeting, and it reminds us that the work of the religious community is sacred work.

The words of the chalice lighting I turn to most often tell us that the flame stands for our values, values of truth, gratitude, humility, courage, compassion, and generosity. It reminds us that we are together to grow and to learn. And together we repeat the phrase “may love reign among us here, in this hour of community”.

Now let’s think about the possible meanings of combining the vessel of the chalice with the living, breathing flame. Here is a container for nourishment—the chalice--and here is an ever-changing, comforting yet dangerous element—the flame. What spiritual significance might be found in this juxtaposition of these two disparate elements? Let’s think about this idea. (chime, silence, chime) What are your thoughts?

Not long ago, our UU ministers’ email chatline considered the significance of the flaming chalice and how that meaning has developed in our own understandings since the custom began, sometime in the 80’s, introduced by the youth’s and women’s caucuses at a long ago General Assembly, when youth and women were beginning to have a huge effect on the direction of Unitarian Universalism.

You have named some of the very things they named. Here are their thoughts: the chalice is a container for the holy. The chalice signifies open-hearted community where all are welcome. The chalice is a poetic, visual metaphor for community. In dreamwork it indicates a need for spiritual nourishment. The chalice bowl is deep and wide, big enough to contain many paths and ideas, hopes and intentions.

The ministers said that to them, the flame is a conduit to the transcendent. It is ever-changing, alive, untouchable, dangerous; it can tempt and also heal. The flame is a symbol of spiritual transformation; it reminds us of the sacrificial flame of antiquity. It is a light in the darkness. It brings change, creation, rebirth. It is a cauterizing, purifying element.

The flaming chalice, as our iconic symbol of UUism, came into being at a time of great global turmoil. The forces of oppression and tyranny were strong across the earth. Few were able to withstand and survive that assault, but underground, beneath the surface, there was constant clandestine activity by those who resisted, those who dedicated themselves to saving others who were in danger, regardless of the personal cost.

Interestingly, a chalice design similar to our original design by Hans Deutsch mysteriously appears on the cover of a book entitled “The Ideal Gay Man: the Story of Der Kreis” or the story of “The Circle”, the international gay literary journal published from 1932-1967. Except for a slight difference in the curve of the flame, the two drawings might be the same thing. Did Deutsch draw both symbols? I can’t say for sure and am not willing to pay over $100 for this out of print book!

But the significance of a chalice and a flame adorning official-looking documents enabling refugees to leave Nazi Germany and serving as the symbol of a journal which published gay European writers-----that’s interesting. Not only interesting, but compelling.

It makes me ask, what does the flaming chalice stand for? And what might it challenge us to do? Let’s take another moment of silence to think about this symbol and its challenge. (chime, silence, chime)

In the songs Ken sang for us earlier, the flame’s reputation for passion and intensity comes through hot, ardent, eager. Also steamy! Light My Fire and Ring of Fire are classics in the country rock world, making no secret of the heat of passion that drives us mammals to find each other and make new mammals.

Passion drives us in many ways, not just sexually, and it is this passion for action that the flame of the chalice expresses to me. Your thoughts just now also seem to reflect your desire for passion, for fire in your lives as well as the comfort of the sacred space we create with our Beloved Community.

Last week at our annual board retreat, we talked about the new year of church life coming up and how we as your chosen leaders might shape the year. There was a deep desire among us to make particular facets of this community stronger and more infused with passion.

We talked about our children’s and adults’ religious programming and the energy we want to pour into both those areas. And we also learned that many of us want our Social Responsibility work to become a centerpiece of congregational life, for both adults and children, that our neighbors and friends on Whidbey Island be able to live lives that are healthy, safe, and happy, at least in part because of what we can offer them.

We talked about aligning with other congregations and groups on the island to improve housing for those who have no housing, who perhaps live in the woods in tents in the rain or in their vans in isolated parking lots and small parks.

Our interest in this need on the island is borne out by our sponsorship of the WISH agency, the Whidbey Island Share a Home agency whose director, Doris Newkirk, spoke to us last Sunday. (And, by the way, our special offering last Sunday produced $500 as a gift to WISH. Thank you very much for your generosity!)

That night after the retreat, I got a phone call from Doris Newkirk who, serendipitously, was calling a special board meeting of the WISH board to discuss a possible avenue for creating a homeless shelter here on Whidbey. She was thrilled and so was I! Imagine if we could be part of that work, perhaps as part of an interfaith coalition to provide for those families whose economic situation is too fragile for them to have their own homes.

Now there’s a flaming chalice challenge in the tradition of the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee! But it’s not the only one. If working with the homeless isn’t your bag, what about working with our children? Kids respond to adults’ passionate interest in the world. And they need your passion to have the best possible religious education we can offer.

I like the symbolism of our congregation, our sanctuary, being a sort of chalice, a community that is safe, healing, and nourishing, welcoming all into its circle. I like the symbolism of our passion to help our community being the flame set inside the chalice, warming us, inspiring us, moving us to action.

I like to think of the lighting of our chalice on Sundays and before our meetings as a visual and heartfelt reminder that we are together in love and commitment, safe within these walls but eager and ready to move out into the community to be of service to those who need us.

And each of us embodies the message of the chalice; each of us can be that safe haven, that healing presence, that source of nourishment to those we meet on life’s path. And each of us can offer the passion nourished within these walls to those beyond these walls. As one of my heroes the late Dag Hammersjold once famously wrote, “Each morning we must hold out the chalice of our being to receive, to carry, and give back.”

Let’s pause once more for a time of silent reflection and prayer.

CLOSING HYMN: “#1028 “The Fire of Commitment”

BENEDICTION: Our worship service, our time of shaping worth together, is ended, but our service to the world begins again as we leave this place. Let us go in peace, remembering that we carry within us the same fire that lights our chalice flame. May we carry our passion and fire into our daily lives, committed to doing whatever we can to serve our neighbors and friends as we live out the symbol of our flaming chalice. Amen, Shalom, Salaam, and Blessed Be.

Sometimes our instincts tell us more...

2011-07-31T07:20:00.000-07:00

than our minds. Coming home on Thursday instead of today was an act of instinct. I couldn't explain exactly why I felt I had to come home: muscle spasms? yes, sort of. Malcolm's impending death? yes, but he is still hanging in there. tired of camping? okay, but so tired as to miss Cape Lookout? None of it really clicked.

And then, yesterday afternoon, I got a call from the Island County Sheriff's deputy. Could I please come over to the home of a member of the congregation who had just died unexpectedly. The deputy didn't want to leave the daughter home alone without company, waiting for the mortuary to come.

These are the calls that ministers hope never come, but they always do. The member lives very close to me---walking distance even---but I dashed the quarter-mile or so in the car, not wanting to spend an extra moment in transit and not sure what I might need. Two sheriff's cars in the driveway and a shocked-into-numbness daughter, who had found her mother on the bedroom floor.

By the time the mortuary guy arrived an hour or so later, we had notified family members, church leadership and close friends, and other sisters had arrived to be with their sister and to say goodbye to their mother. All the preliminary legalities had been satisfied----no signs of foul play, a case number with the sheriff, no autopsy needed because of her age. Just shocked and suddenly bereaved adult children and friends...and me, their minister who they turned to immediately.

What an honor, to be in this position. An honor as well as a horrible, heavy duty. One of the joys---and sorrows----of ministry is to be of service in these kinds of moments, to provide the container for grieving, to perform the rituals which allow for healing, to be present at the holy time when life ends, to break the news gently and lovingly to those who are most affected by the death. And to do all this non-anxiously, calmly, without losing self-control---that's where one great sorrow lies, that my love for this person and my grief at losing her must take second place until the needs of her family and our congregation can be properly addressed.

So I grieve to friends outside the congregation, to colleagues on the ministers' chat line. I ask for help from those who can think more clearly than I this morning---and they provide that steady calm, that steady hand, that steady voice that I need to hear, helping me know once again that my presence is my most valued gift at this time. Nothing I can say or do will make it easier, but just being there is enough to help them get through this sad experience.

We will soon send out an email to the congregation advising them of this sudden death and inviting them to come to the church, for we will have a time of silence and candles of honor, to share our grief and be together after the service, in honor and memory of Peggy Bardarson, longtime member and beloved pillar of our community.

Amen, Shalom, Salaam, and Blessed Be.

Back early...

2011-07-29T13:58:00.000-07:00

from my self-imposed electronic fast. Actually, I cheated a bit, as we have a parishioner who is in his last days of life, and I needed to stay slightly in touch. The iPhone let me get email and phone messages without too much trouble, so I'd check in periodically to see if there was any news.

It was an interesting and revelatory trip. I'd thought I'd spend tons of time reflecting away in my cute little heron-bedecked notebook and I did spend a lot of time writing, but not as much as I'd hoped about "who I am at my core, without the trappings and stereotypes of a vocation".

Along about the second day, after recording my daily happenings, I did manage to write this:

Who am I?:
--female, early elderhood, healthy, few aches and pains, self-sufficient at present.
--pleasant looking, a few scars and warts, well-cared-for, good smile (good teeth), kempt
--smart, curious, many interests but few hobbies, lots of general knowledge but not well-informed enough to argue with anyone who knows more.
--religious AND spiritual, a pray-er, grateful, loving, cheerful, helpful, gracious
--competent: ministry, counseling, teaching, singing, modest, shy about too much fanfare
--musician: read music, love harmony, sing loudly on key, alto

Dislikes (in self as well as in others): whining or being whined at, complainers (self included), arrogance, know-it-alls, illogical or unkind conservatism, bossiness, short-sightedness, unfounded anger, monologuists, nonsense in the service of politics

Likes: openness, clarity, good grammar and spelling, stories, laughing, funny (but kind) people, kindness, thoughtfulness, beauty, friendship, good conversation, eccentricity--to a point.

Is that helpful? I haven't decided. At least these will be the qualities I retain once I shed the robe and stole. Also, I'm not sure the list is finished.

I did do some exploring down the Oregon coast and have pretty well settled on Astoria as my next home, whenever I am ready. It's a lovely little town, right at the confluence of the Columbia River and the Pacific Ocean.

I spent two nights at Ft. Stevens State Park, which is immense, and my favorite spot was the South Jetty observation tower, from which the Columbia River bar is visible. This crossing is dubbed "the graveyard of the Pacific" because it has drowned so many people and ships. It's such a challenge that large cargo ships are required to have a specially-trained Astoria bar pilot guide them across the bar; you can see the helicopters shuttling pilots back and forth between ship and harbor.

I stood on the tower deck and the words of an old song came to me, by Alfred, Lord Tennyson:

CROSSING THE BAR

Sunset and evening star
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;

For though from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crossed the bar.

I remembered a little bit of the tune, so I sang as much of the words as I could remember, tears in my eyes, thinking of Malcolm who is dying, Gil and Janis who have died recently, and my mother and father who liked this old hymn. And I sang on pitch. Alto.

An electronic fast...

2011-07-24T07:31:00.000-07:00

starts tomorrow, as I take off for a week-long road trip during the last stretch of my vacation. Things here on the island are calm, nobody is actively dying (I assume), and (unlike last year) there is no apparent reason for me to abort this mission.

I'm planning to catch the Keystone ferry at 8:45 tomorrow morning and head for Olympic National Park and the Makah reservation at Neah Bay. Once at Neah Bay, I intend to take the trail that runs from a tribe-maintained parking lot out to the farthest tip of land of Cape Flattery, overlooking Tatoosh Island and the Pacific. It's about 3/4 of a mile and I've never walked it before. It's been on my "bucket list" for a long time and I'd hoped to do it last year but had to cancel at the last minute.

I've been slowly packing for a week, surreptitiously gathering items in the spare bedroom, keeping the door shut so the cats don't worry too much. Yesterday morning when Max wandered in for a nap, I swept him up and hustled him off to the kennel before he knew what was happening. I hate worrying about whether I'll be able to catch him and get him there in plenty of time, so I often take him over a day early.

I'll look for a good camping spot around Neah Bay or Kalaloch for that evening and head for Astoria OR the next morning. I've rented a RoadTrek camping van from my friends MK and Eileen and will be camping out six of the seven nights of the trip, with the final night in Manzanita OR with friends June and Ralph.

People are often aghast at my eagerness to camp by myself. Frankly, I love doing that. It's a special kind of solitude, with a campfire and early morning coffee at a picnic table and a long walk on the shoreline in the dawn. It's a time of peace that can't be attained at home with newspapers and TV and internet and phone. I'm not planning to take my laptop, so I won't be seeking out free wifi cafes on the trip. I'll have my cell phone, just in case, and can check my home voice mail, but those who email me will have to wait.

I won't be strictly doing my WW food routines, but I will be careful enough to maintain what I've lost (19.6 lbs so far). I will indulge with a Tillamook ice cream cone and a breakfast burrito while I'm in that area. If I eat out, it'll be fishy stuff primarily. I don't want to feel food-guilty while I'm detoxing from stress.

Other stops on the road will be Ft. Stevens State Park outside Astoria, for two nights, and at Cape Lookout State Park, outside Tillamook. I'm not going any farther south than Tillamook, as I'll be doing some scouting around for possible retirement locales in the future. Anywhere up and down the North Oregon coast is where I want to be, and these two small cities are lovely places.

I've promised my Aunt Sigrid that I will visit her in Portland before I come home and I'll make every effort to do that, though I discovered that I'll only be in Portland on Sunday, when she's apt to be in church. So I may have to make do with a phone call. I did visit her earlier in the month when I was at the Mensa AG. My sister and I worry about her a little bit, since she lives alone and has had some health issues. Our cousins are attentive but can't do everything and she's our last elder on my mother's side of the family.

I've been thinking about retirement some more and have made some decisions about when and how, but one of the things I want to do some reflecting and journaling about is what my identity will be when I no longer am in a vocation that has been so defining. I've always been in a profession that had "moral weight"----welfare caseworker, missionary, teacher, guidance counselor, minister---and those professions have such an impact on how others relate to me that I'm wondering what it will be like not to have those roles attached to me, especially when I move to an area where no one knows much about me.

An interesting challenge!

Mensa Annual Gathering Redux

2011-07-11T07:21:00.000-07:00

As it turned out, several Whidbey Island Mensans went to the AG in Portland. It was fun spending time with Penelope; our trip down was one long meaty conversation. She has a way of asking questions and responding to the answers that inspires me to talk (a lot). I noticed this as I launched into yet another extended answer to one of her questions and dimly realized that I was talking far more than she.

It's funny----you'd think a preacher would have a hard time shutting up when given an opportunity to talk, but I am more comfortable listening to somebody else. I am uneasy talking about myself unless specifically assigned to do so. Like in a sermon, for example. And here I was, rattling on about whatever she asked, words flowing steadily in a more or less coherent stream. Heavens! It was lovely and I didn't feel the least bit self-conscious. She had asked, after all, so I considered it permission to spiel on and on (and on).

She and Richard and I attended a couple of lectures together, most notably one by Richard Lederer entitled "Conan the Grammarian" and were gratified to learn that it is NOT ungrammatical to end a sentence with a preposition (graceful speech trumps awkward construction) NOR is it ungrammatical to split infinitives (again, graceful construction is more important). And he should know. He is a well-known linguistic and language expert, also a Mensan, and writes for the Mensa Bulletin. He's also very funny. We came away feeling quite smug about our own grammar knowledge but also learning a few new things (none of which I can remember at the moment).

This AG was much more about such sessions than about seeing old friends, though I did see a few familiar faces. I attended a session about aging well and making sure one's living quarters were appropriate to one's abilities. Nothing too new there. But my retirement ponderings made it an appropriate session for me.

I also attended a session on dating outside one's demographic. Aka, are "cougars" really drunken older women who feel trapped by their life's circumstances (think Mrs. Robinson) and trying to seduce innocent younger men or are they women who prefer to date men (or, I guess, women) who are more their speed and inclination? The speaker for that lecture was Miss International Cougar, a beautiful woman of about 45 who nearly always dates men who are many years younger and finds them more to her liking than men older than she who can't keep up with her or have expectations that are unattractive.

Another session was the nightly "fishbowl" in which a group of men and women ask gender and sex questions of each other in a setting which allows for confidentiality and honesty. In my group, the women far outnumbered the men, but we did get to hear some pretty straightforward questions and answers: Viagra---what's it like to take it? what can a man do to be the most appealing to a woman? (one answer: the dishes) where is the G spot? what is a total turnoff for a man, sexually? etc. There were some pretty spicy questions and answers, but, as one participant said, "hell, I don't know anybody here----here's what I think".

One thing about a large gathering of Mensans: we tend to let our most outrageous selves hang out at these functions. The Eccentrics were out in full force, with beanies and nerdy slogans on t-shirts stretched tight over large bellies, bellicosity on both ends of the political spectrum, wild outfits, and the like. It was somewhat disturbing to see how many members of the upper 2% IQ scores are hugely obese, to the point of needing electric scooters to navigate. When one mostly uses one's brain instead of one's body, the outcome is inevitable. It was not a pretty sight. And yet, the brains inside those immense bodies are working just fine---except in the area of health.

Richard and I were scheduled to perform at the Sunday night cabaret and we had practiced quite a lot to get ready. We were planning to offer a few of our songs from our former group Trilogy, old Hoagy Carmichael and Irving Berlin stuff from the 20's and 30's. I was pretty dubious about my staying power---we were scheduled for an 11:30 p.m. slot---but, despite a few glitches and a few less-than-happy exchanges with the organizer, it turned out fine and I felt we gave a good show. Unfortunately, we didn't start till midnight and by then most of the audience was gone. But those remaining were enthusiastic and appreciative.

Will I go back to a national Mensa gathering? Probably not. It's expensive to stay in a hotel for four nights and adding air fare and meals to the package ups the cost. Next year's gathering is in Reno, where the FS lives, but I'm going there for his graduation in December and don't particularly want to go back in the hot summertime. I'll stick to local gatherings like our monthly TGIF on the island and an occasional foray into Seattle events.

With an hour to go...

2011-06-30T07:51:00.000-07:00

before I pick up my pal Penelope for our trip to the Mensa Annual Gathering in Portland, there's enough time to write a quick post about how excited I am about doing this.

I joined Mensa thirty years ago, when my mom, seeing how stupid I felt after the breakup of my marriage, urged me to try my luck and take an IQ test. In my capacity as a school counselor, I had just given my young nephew Joel an IQ test, which he'd blasted the lid off of, to enable him to join Mensa.

"You could do that too, you know," my mom said. "Don't you remember when you were in 7th grade and Mr. S called us in to talk to us about you? We didn't say much to you about it, but his message was that you were undoubtedly a gifted child and we needed to provide you with the best education we could manage. At that time, you tested in the 140 level. You're probably still there, even if you feel dumb." (Words paraphrased, obviously.)

So I thought about it and eventually enlisted my friend Arline, the school psychologist at the junior high where I worked, to give me the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS), figuring that if my brain had deteriorated, as I was afraid it might have, at least she was sworn to confidentiality and nobody would have to know.

But there I was, still, in that range, whether I felt stupid or not. And I sent in my test results, certified by a qualified psychologist, and was duly accepted into Mensa, the high IQ society.

I dithered for months, wondering if I had made a huge mistake. I was afraid to tell people, for fear they'd think I was bragging, for fear of being labeled a brainiac (which I certainly didn't feel like), for fear of being put down as someone who thought overly highly of myself. What good was it to belong to Mensa if I wasn't comfortable telling people?

And then I went to my first meeting of the Denver group, a gathering in a buffet restaurant before a monthly general meeting on some topic. It was like walking into a comfortable, casual home with people who liked me immediately, understood and laughed at my jokes, told their own esoteric funny stories, reveled in punny humor, and weren't the least bit stuck on themselves because of their high intelligence.

Over the years since then, I've honed my leadership skills as an officer in the Denver group (if leading UUs is like herding cats, try Mensans!), spent a few years working with gifted underachieving adolescents in schools, and generally having a blast most (not all) of the time. I got my first writing-for-publication experience writing monthly columns for the Matrix, Denver Mensa's newsletter; I got my first conflict reduction experience as LocSec/President of Denver Mensa for several years; I found some of my fondest friends and lovers in the group (fond, not necessarily normal). And I also got temporarily disillusioned and dropped out for a few years.

Re-entering Mensa when I came back to Oregon in 1999 put me in a whole different Mensa milieu, fun but not as demanding as my earlier leadership experience. And moving up to this area meant I became a member of the Western Washington Mensa group, where friend Richard and I started the Whidbey Island "Thank Goodness It's Friday" second Friday Happy Hour, alternating between Freeland's China City bar and the San Remo Grill in Oak Harbor.

I haven't been to an AG (Annual Gathering) since at least 1991---twenty years. And in scanning the roster of registrants, I'm aware that I will only know a handful of attendees at the gathering. But I believe that there will be the same high spirits, stimulating presentations, and convivial shmooze sessions that have always characterized an AG for me.

So there---I'm out of the closet on this. I am a smart person, even though I don't act like it sometimes. I am not vain about it; my parents and brother and sister are also smart. And then there's Joel! My son became a Mensan when he was old enough to take a junior high IQ test. My ex-husband is also eligible. It's pure luck on my part to be smart and I have a responsibility to be humble about it and use it well.

I have noticed that as I got more and more involved in ministry, my interests changed and shifted and I was less interested in what Mensa was doing. I have spent the past twenty years immersed in ministry, with its search for meaning rather than information. But there's always been a little spark of curiosity in me about science and behavior patterns and human development---not just what they mean in isolation but in relationship to my vocation. And if IQ has had anything to do with ministry, I hope it has been to be intelligent about my relationships, to curb my weirder responses that are an attempt to be funny, and to offer understanding and comfort to others who often offend because they are "too smart for their own good".

In fact, I once thought I might write a book with that title, about what it's like to be a gifted kid grown into a gifted adult, to go from obnoxiously smart to more socially acceptable intelligence. It's been a journey that has had its ups and downs. I still do dumb things occasionally and, even as I smack my forehead in frustration, I still know that I am a wiser person, due in large part to my life experiences.

Mensa is NOT a place where people sit around and stroke their egos. At least I've never seen that happen. Mostly I see people who are blossoming in the accepting atmosphere of a place where they are understood and appreciated for their weird humor, eccentric interests, and creative ideas. If you feel a little off-kilter sometimes in a world that doesn't see things the way you do, consider visiting a Mensa meeting and see what you think. You might find a new home.

At Cross Purposes?

2011-06-26T08:23:00.000-07:00

AT CROSS PURPOSES? UUISM AND CHRISTIANITY
Rev. Kit Ketcham, June 26, 2011

A couple of months ago, I was talking with a friend who is one of the organizers of the local PFLAG group (Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays). She had asked about renting a room here in our building to hold their meetings and I was encouraging her, telling her a little bit about the layout, that sort of thing, and mentioning that Unitarian Universalists have long been in the forefront of civil rights for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender folks.

She seemed excited and interested and was willing to prepay the first few months’ worth of rent right then and there. But then she hesitated, put her wallet back in her purse, and said ruefully, “I’d better check with the rest of the group before I commit us to renting from you. There are a few in the group who won’t walk into a church, even a liberal one, because of the wounds they’ve experienced in other churches.”

I’d had a similar experience at another time with a conservative Jewish friend who was talking with me about where she attends synagogue and why. Her group of Chabad Lubavitch Jews were very uncomfortable meeting in a sanctuary which was called a church. They preferred secular rooms in a hotel to anything which might display a Christian symbol such as a cross.

And in my first congregation, down in Portland, the very fact of meeting in a United Methodist sanctuary, with its several crosses prominently displayed, was enough to encourage a small group of congregants to kick up a fuss and push for a change of venue.

Where does this anger and fear come from? And why does it pop up in our midst? It’s been said that Unitarian Universalists are open to religious symbols from all world religions----except Christianity.

There is, among many Unitarian Universalists, a deep discomfort with Christian ideology and doctrine. Some say it’s because of the supernatural aspects of Christianity---the virgin birth, the physical resurrection and the deity of Jesus, the anthropomorphic definition of God. Others say it’s because of the pain inflicted upon those denounced and excluded because of their race or gender or sexual orientation or culture or religion or other arbitrary characteristic. Some folks have experienced cruelty firsthand that had nothing to do with exclusion and everything to do with control of a child or a woman.

Yet we express respect for other similarly supernatural or exclusionary religions and we select inspirational quotes and stories from traditions which also have their negative histories; Islam, for example, has both cruelty and compassion written into the Koran, yet when our friend Jamal Rahman comes to speak to us of Islam, we pay attention as he unwraps the mysteries of his tradition and explains its contradictions.

What’s going on here? I’ve thought about this a lot and, though I don’t have my own painful past experiences with Christianity, I do think I’ve figured a few things out.

Pain is a powerful deterrent, even keeping us from experiencing delight and love when we’ve had hurtful experiences. Rape or abuse victims often struggle with life’s opportunities and challenges because of the pain inflicted by a rapist or an abuser. Love and pain are often so closely intertwined that it’s hard to distinguish where one ends and the other begins.

We’ve doubtless had our own experiences with love and pain, some of those experiences healthy and normal and others degrading and humiliating. We may have learned our own ways of avoiding pain, healthy and unhealthy as those ways may be.

It can be hard for a man who was the victim of molestation at the hands of an adult male to trust other men, to express affection to a male friend by an embrace or holding a hand. It can be hard for a woman who has been sexually assaulted to work through the pain and fear engendered by that violence. A gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender person can find it very difficult to put him or herself again in a situation which has previously resulted in humiliation. A child treated cruelly remembers that cruelty and tries to avoid it as an adult.

It’s hard to leave behind old, painful experiences, but our own desire for health may cause us to seek a healing solution, rather than try to avoid all contact with anyone or anything that might remind us of the old trauma. We tend to support efforts to help our wounded veterans heal from the effects of Post-Trauma Stress, rather than continuing to experience and re-experience the pain and conditioned responses of psychic and physical battle wounds.

So I would like to suggest that it makes sense for us to take a hard look at whatever pain Christianity has caused us and come to grips with it, rather than avoiding Christian symbolism, criticizing “churchy” hymns and language, and generally scorning Christianity as if it were a noxious religious movement.

Because it’s not. And, it’s our own history we’re scorning. We may have moved on down the evolutionary religious path, but we still started out as Christian, we owe a great deal of our existence to the effort to reclaim the best of Christianity while letting go of the worst and moving on.

And we have a lot of Christian cousins who are walking only a little bit behind us, letting go of exclusionary doctrines, opening their arms to all folks, working for justice and equity and world community, reinterpreting the Bible through a lens of liberation and acceptance of others.

And we miss out when we overlook the strides many Christian denominations have made, when we fail to encourage their hard work and refuse to forgive them for their errors.

I feel very sad about the great pain caused by such monumentally damaging events as the Crusades, the Holocaust, the dogmas which deny women the right to choose or to protect their bodies from pregnancy, the church laws which prevent women from serving as clergy, the literal interpretations of ancient purity laws which ostracize and condemn sexual minorities.

A great deal of harm has been done by these kinds of practices and policies. Christian church leaders often forget that their founder, the Jesus they claim to revere and follow, did not utter any of these statements of exclusion. In fact, scholarly research is hard pressed to reveal exactly what Jesus did say about anything, since the Gospels of the New Testament, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, were written long after Jesus’ death, years after those with first-hand experience of Jesus’ ministry had died, all based on oral reports handed down from generation to generation and written down by ancient scribes in their own words, not Jesus’.

When I first came to serve this congregation, in 2003, I lived in Seattle for a couple of years and during that time I got connected with an interfaith clergy group called the Religious Coalition for Equality, which was working to support legislation giving all couples the equal right to legal marriage.

It was a exciting thing to do, to sit down with other clergy (Jewish, Protestant, Catholic, Muslim, Buddhist, Pagan, and UU) and talk about how we could best make this happen.

It was a revelation to me to find many Christian clergy walking with me and others as we marched on the King County Courthouse to give our clergy petition to Ron Sims, King County Executive, asking for marriage licenses to be granted to same-sex couples and supporting the men and women who had attempted to get marriage licenses and were denied.

And scanning the list of signatures on that petition, I found a preponderance of Christian clergy representing all mainline denominations. There were United Methodist, United Church of Christ, Presbyterian, Evangelical Lutheran, Unity, Catholic, Episcopalian, Disciples of Christ, and….Baptist. American Baptist, that is, not Southern or Conservative or any other of the many Baptist brand names.

In fact, when I was first invited to be part of the Religious Coalition for Equality, I was a bit taken aback---but proud and pleased---to find that my former Christian tradition, American Baptist, was strongly represented and, in fact, we held our meetings at the First Baptist Church of Seattle.

It was hard for members of the gay community to walk through those doors in the early days of our work together. It took a great deal of courage to be openly gay and attend a mainline church. But once they’d taken that step, most found a welcoming and supportive environment where they could be themselves without fear of condemnation.

This past winter, a rash of highly publicized suicides by teenagers suspected of being gay or lesbian resulted in a campaign spearheaded by the controversial sex columnist of Seattle’s alternative newspaper The Stranger, Dan Savage.

Prominent and not-so-prominent men and women across the nation, from all walks of life, told the stories on video of their own growing up gay experiences, with the theme of “It gets Better”.

Though the word hasn’t gotten out to every American teenager yet, and there continues to be bullying and humiliation directed toward those presumed to be gay or lesbian, the “It Gets Better” campaign has had a great deal of airplay, with over 22,000 videos produced and distributed on YouTube and other outlets over the past several months. You may have seen some of those videos and thrilled to the stories told by people you may not even have known were gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender.

Some of those videos were made by straight friends who told their own stories of transformation and could testify that, for former bigots as well, things could get better. I could make a video myself, telling the story of moving beyond my own discomfort with the visit of my friend Fern, who came out to me in the 70’s and scared me to death when she wanted to stay overnight.

I think liberal Christianity could use an “It’s Gotten Better” movement! But we Unitarian Universalists have a complicated history when it comes to our relationship with our Christian cousins.

Did it start with the controversy in 325 of the common era, when those who denied the Trinity were condemned as heretics? Or in 544 c.e. when the doctrine of universal salvation was rejected as blasphemy? Those ancient roots established our spiritual ancestors as free thinkers and question askers, not always compliant with orthodoxy.

Our heresies endured, throughout subsequent centuries, across Europe and into North America. Both were persecuted in Europe and both emigrated to the American colonies as Pilgrims, seeking religious freedom.

Here in the newly established United States of America, our founding fathers and mothers proclaimed their separation from traditional Christianity in such areas as women’s rights, the divinity of Jesus, and heaven’s rewards for all.

As President, Thomas Jefferson compiled his own version of the four Gospels, removing passages which he felt were against the life and morals of Jesus, a little book which is available still and known as “The Jefferson Bible”.

William Ellery Channing preached a revolutionary sermon entitled “Unitarian Christianity” in which he delineated the differences between orthodox Christianity and that of seekers of a less supernaturally-based faith.

Other preachers such as Theodore Parker and Ralph Waldo Emerson further explored the limits of traditional doctrines and set forth their thoughts about a free thinking, open minded faith, presenting the findings of science as more valid than ancient purity laws defining human life and opening eyes to God as seen through Nature’s wonders in the literary awakening known as Transcendentalism.

Eventually, the two denominations of Universalism and Unitarianism became stand-alone alternatives to traditional Christianity and in 1961, merged to become who we are today, the Unitarian Universalist Association.

One of our major sources, rational humanism, a reaction to the evangelical fervor and emphasis on supernatural events of traditional Christianity, influenced the continuing development of our faith and its emphasis on rationality and scientific inquiry dominated our faith for many years, until a hunger for spiritual expression began to assert itself and many of us began to take another look at the spiritual practices of more ancient faiths.

Buddhism, Hinduism, paganism, these all had mystical practices that offered something science did not: a pathway into the mysteries of mind and body that could not be explained by rational means.

As this hunger for spiritual experience developed, so did resistance on the part of those whose UUism was largely humanistic. Spirituality seemed to some too much like supernaturalism, irrational rather than rational, and the phenomenon known as “cross cringe” began to emerge, as UUs distanced themselves from a Christianity that no longer worked for them.

The symbol of the Christian cross came to mean subjugation, hypocrisy, and patriarchy in the minds of those who were trying to find a way to combine rational thought and spiritual practice, and many found comfort in Eastern and indigenous spiritual practices rather than the spiritual practices of Christianity.

Unfortunately, this had the effect of distressing the large numbers of Unitarian Universalist Christians who began to feel unwelcome in our midst yet didn’t really fit in traditional, even liberal, Christian congregations.

Something had to happen and the UU Christian Fellowship emerged as a way to recognize and honor the values imparted by our Christian heritage and to support those whose Christianity fit well within our UU community.

I wrote an essay for my blog several years ago about “cross cringe” and one of my readers made this comment:

"IMHO, it would help UUs and Xtians on either side of the "cross-cringe" divide to be reminded that the UU concern for things like justice, equity, compassion, and radical inclusion (sprang)… from the mouth of Jesus, who himself was retelling the message of the Hebrew prophets and who in turn has been retold and preserved through the Christian tradition for 2,000 years…

We UUs of today learned our own cherished principles from our Christian UU predecessors, who learned them from reading Jesus in the Bible. We may have wandered so far away from a formerly Scripture-centered religious orientation that some of us no longer pay much or even any attention to the Bible, but it is still the original source of most of our UU values; we didn't just think them up on our own.

To Christians, the Cross is not a symbol of hypocrisy, patriarchy and subjugation, but of the same principles that we too hold dear, and that our only recently divergent traditions were originally learned from the same source.   To reject the supernatural cosmology of Christianity or the abusive practices or attitudes of certain Christian subcultures is one thing, but we cannot reject its moral principles and sources without ultimately also rejecting our own, for they are in large measure the same."

I think my reader is saying something we need to think about. When we lump all Christian thought and all Christian behavior and all Christian practice into one objectionable pile, we do ourselves and our neighbors a great disservice. Would that we could come to see the Christian symbol of the cross as a reminder of the compassionate spirit, selfless action, and inclusive practice of the teacher Jesus, whose teachings changed the world, even though they have been much distorted and altered over the centuries. There are still Christians who strive to follow those footsteps, many of them within our own communities.

It is a disservice to our faith when we fail to live out our own principles of acceptance and respect for others’ spiritual paths, especially when our own heritage is what we are rejecting.

We are no longer adolescents who feel the need to disparage and rebel against our parents’ ways. We are loving, compassionate, justice-seeking adults, trying to teach our children to be respectful and caring in a world that often seems to discourage love and compassion.

The Jewish prophet and teacher Jesus of Nazareth is quoted in both the gospels of Matthew and Luke in this way:

“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye." 

So as we work to encourage our b/g/l/t friends and our Jewish neighbors to trust us with their spiritual lives, to reassure them that we UUs have friendship and hospitality to share, as we urge victims of violence to look for peace of mind and heart through therapeutic experience, may we also see that, as Jesus’s ancient words point out, we too may have a vision problem, a problem we need to address before we consider others’ limitations.

Let’s pause for a time of silent reflection and prayer.

BENEDICTION: Our worship service, our time of shaping worth together, is ended, but our service to the world begins again as we leave this place. Let us go in peace, remembering our long history and the ways our Christian ancestors have shaped us. May we honor that heritage, in addition to the several sources which also shape our faith, and may we open our hearts to the understandings and wisdom of all our sources, not just the ones we like the best. Amen, Shalom, Salaam, and Blessed Be.

I am one of those NOT going to ...

2011-06-23T06:51:00.001-07:00

Charlotte, NC, where the 50th anniversary of Unitarian Universalism is being celebrated at the annual General Assembly.

Despite the blandishments of HOT WEATHER, I would prefer to stay here on my island in Puget Sound where it is raining again and where I have just had to fill up my home fuel tank for over $1000, after a mere six months of daily furnace usage. It is June 23 and the furnace is running again because the outside air is 50 degrees. But I love it in the Pacific Northwest more than any other place on the earth, even if it does get a little rainy at times.

There is a part of me that misses the organized chaos and bonhomie of GA, the wisdom of colleagues who've stayed the course for 50 and 25 years, reconnecting with people I see very seldom and maybe have only met on Facebook.

I have only been to one GA since I moved to the island in 2003, and that one was in Portland, just down the road. I may never go again, even when I retire and can participate in the ceremony of the Living Tradition as a minister going into retirement. It just isn't appealing to travel across the country, spend bushels of money, and dress well every day in order to maintain my professional image among the laity.

I'd rather stay home with the cats, wear my jeans and sweatshirts, and go to the local jam, cook my own meals, go to bed at a decent hour, and miss out on all the educational and collegial fun. I remember GA's as being absolutely frantic; I always felt I needed to attend multiple educational and governance sessions but I inevitably skipped out on most of them and schmoozed with friends in the exhibit hall. The guilt of spending all that money to hang out around the booths and the buddies rather than boning up on stewardship campaigns and other ministerial topics----that eventually became too much of a burden. So I don't go any more.

Instead, I am going to indulge in an activity next weekend that I haven't enjoyed for 20 years, in fact ever since I began my journey into ministry: the Mensa Annual Gathering which, in a stroke of luck, is in Portland OR! At an AG, I never feel guilty about avoiding all the educational sessions and schmoozing with friends in the hospitality suite or the bookstore or the game room or the nightly fishbowl conversations. In fact, that's what I go for.

Their business meeting takes a couple of hours in the front end of the weekend and nobody is required to go. And everybody likes my jokes, which can be slightly raunchy at times and not appropriate for professional occasions. This time I'm even going to strut my stuff at the after-hours cabaret, since Richard is also a Mensan and also going to the AG. We're gonna do some of our Hoagy Carmichael songs and I'm going to wear a slinky dress and sing "Stardust" into the ears of some so-called geniuses whom I haven't seen for 20 years and just hope they have their hearing-aids turned up.

All this thinking about retirement has me looking with great interest at a future down the road which has fewer professional responsibilities and much more time for kicking up my elderly heels. At the beach. Maybe with a dog. Tidepools in the early morning. Big waves. "Ocian in view. O the joy!"

I was a teenage Pea Bum and...

2011-06-21T08:46:00.000-07:00

I'm tired. And beginning to really feel my age. Not to worry you, FS and other family and friends, but I am at an age where retirement is beginning to look pretty attractive. Not that I have quit loving my work---quite the opposite: I love it as much as ever. But I'm at that point in life where I realize that I don't want to work forever.

My first job, at age 12, was babysitting, which I didn't much like. When I turned 13, my dad taught me to drive a stick shift and I went to work for the same pea farmer as all the other Athena girls my age, driving big open-air truckloads of peavines from field to viners, for 85 cents an hour, 12 hour shifts. It was hot, dusty work and we loved it. It seemed logical that the boys driving swathers and loaders made $1 an hour; their job was a little more demanding---they had to fix their tractors when they broke down, while we girls just sat and waited for the field boss to come fix our trucks.

It wasn't always a safe job, either; sidehills were dangerous places to drive alongside a loader and feel the peavines shooting out of the loader chute against the high side of our truck beds. Sometimes the load would stack up unevenly against the high side, making the truck lurch precariously onto two wheels. Hills that were really steep required bulldozers to pull the trucks up the hill vertically instead of risking a tipped-over truck and injured driver.

But it was my job every summer until I turned 16 and got my driver's license. Then I could add wheat truck driver to my resume' and began to earn $1 an hour for 12 hour shifts, on top of the pea harvest pay. Peas came first, in June and very early July, and then wheat ripened in later July and August.

From that early work experience grew a strong desire to be employed in something at all times and I worked pretty much non-stop from then on: strawberry row boss, receptionist, book store salesperson, dorm counselor, snack bar hostess, welfare worker, missionary, teacher, counselor, minister. From age 12 till now is 57 years of Puritan Work Ethic, giving the best I could manage under a variety of conditions, always with responsibility hanging heavy on my mind. No wonder I'm tired!

And the prospect of retirement, of fulfilling a longtime dream to move to the Oregon Coast and live out some of my days, is more and more appealing. I will hate to leave Whidbey Island when I retire, but collegial guidelines will demand that of me, so that the new minister doesn't feel the competition of my presence in the community and so that congregation members don't feel tempted to turn to me instead of the new minister. That's the hardest part of leaving a congregation behind---saying goodbye.

But I'm thinking I will make the decision to retire within the next couple of years, maybe sooner, and help the congregation take the needed steps to prepare for a new minister, figuring out the financing, the search process, the infrastructure necessary to take this large step in the life of the congregation.

When I retire, I want to do it right. I want it to be at a good time in the congregation's life, if possible, and in my life with good health and strong energy in me to enjoy the years of new leisure time. I want to try something new---being a docent at Haystack Rock, working with community theatre, volunteering at something new, walking the beach every day, even in the rain. I want new shorelines, bigger waves, real tide pools, few deadlines. Maybe I'll write something besides sermons and newsletter columns!

At this point, it's just a gleam in my eye. But it will happen when the time is right.

Shall we dance?

2011-06-12T07:48:00.000-07:00

EMBRACING THE OTHER
Rev. Kit Ketcham, June 12, 2011

I don’t remember all the pieces of the scenario that day, but it was September and my father and I were standing on a downtown McMinnville, Oregon, street. I think we might have just had lunch before he got back in the car to go home to Athena, after helping me move into my dorm at Linfield College. I think this would have been my sophomore year.

I do remember looking at the nearby movie theater marquee and noticing that some movie musical I was hoping to see was playing. Now, I had not seen many movies up to that point in my life, mostly those shown at church, which were always with a missionary theme, and also the epic movies “The Ten Commandments” and “The Robe”. Instructional movies in school were fine, but not much else was permitted by my strict Baptist environment.

There had been a few clandestine family trips to the drive-in theater in a town 15 miles away from Athena, where nobody would be likely to see the preacher’s family swilling Pepsis and munching popcorn, in defiance of the small-town norm that proclaimed that ministers and their families must be above such worldly pleasures!

My father noticed me gazing at the movie theater and took this opportunity to say something like this: “Betsy, you are now officially an adult. You are 18 years old. You are old enough to make your own decisions about all the things we have asked you not to do while you were living at home. We trust you to make good decisions.”

I was stunned. I had not expected to be given my parents’ permission to step outside of the conventional expectations of our conservative little family.

But I tried to be cool, not betray my amazement by babbling some childish remark which might make him regret what he’d said.

We said our goodbyes and hugged each other, he hopped in the old Dodge station wagon and chugged away, while I stood on the corner wondering if he knew that his words of permission had come a little late.

I had already made the decision to go to the movies and had seen a few during my freshman year. I’d even gone to a dance or two and though I didn’t know my left foot from my right on the dance floor, it was fun to sway back and forth with my equally inept partner, in time to the music.

In fact, I had learned first hand just why the Baptists were against dancing. It was too much fun, too intimate, too encouraging of additional intimacies that might lead to …..what? well, you doubtless have heard the old jokes: Baptists don’t dance because they consider it to be making love standing up. Of course, that’s also related to why they don’t make love standing up----somebody might think they were dancing.

Of course, most of the other youth in our Athena Baptist Youth Fellowship did go to school dances, just not the preacher’s kids. And Linfield was a Baptist college at the time. Apparently not all Baptists had the same rules. And didn’t my dad drive us all to those drive-in movies every summer? Clearly there were variations in the seriousness of these rules!

There was a piece of me that was relieved to hear Dad giving me permission to make my own rules about things that had previously been taboo. There was another piece of me that struggled to get past my guilty fears, particularly about dancing. Dancing was intimate, it was moving in harmony with another person, it was tempting and sexy and scary.

And though I went to several dances during my college years, I was invariably nervous and stiff as a board in my movements. It was as though I really believed dancing was wrong and my body couldn’t relax.

Interestingly, I’ve never completely conquered that sense of discomfort and tension, even though I enjoy dancing, even got good at it during one period in my life when I did a lot of square and contra dancing. I’m uptight and stiff and nervous, at least at first, about stepping on my partner’s toes, particularly in the close-up positions.

I was thinking about dancing as I took my morning walk the other day and I was singing a little ditty as I walked, a song a friend had sent to me via Facebook on the occasion of my birthday: “God danced the day you were born, the angels did the bump to Gabriel’s horn; God danced the day you were born, so grateful for the gift of you.” Isn’t that fun?

But imagine God or the Universe dancing! What would that mean? Infinitely large entities bopping to the music of the spheres? Now there’s some toe-stepping-on behavior that we might want to watch out for! But the truth is that the universe does dance; the planets and galaxies seem to be moving all the time. And we move with them, involuntarily and more or less smoothly.

The ancient poet Rabindranath Tagore expresses it this way:

The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures.

It is the same life that shoots in joy through the dust of the earth in numberless blades of grass and breaks into tumultuous waves of leaves and flowers.

It is the same life that is rocked in the ocean-cradle of birth and of death, in ebb and in flow.

I feel my limbs are made glorious by the touch of this world of life. And my pride is from the life-throb of ages dancing in my blood this moment.

When Terra and Eileen and I met to design this service, we talked about Eileen’s idea for the topic: how to be in right relationship with people we love who are radically different from us in their religious or political outlook.

We talked about the ways we had felt uneasy, badgered, silenced, even rejected, because of our differences, the times we had felt that those differences were an invisible but smelly elephant in the living room.

I remembered the times when my dear mother, out of concern for the state of my afterlife, would send me endless tracts about salvation, write letters full of concern, and pray for my soul. I felt almost as if I was hiding inside a protective shell while she beat on it with a stick, to make me change my mind and come over to her side of the Jordan river.

Terra and Eileen had their own memories about occasions like these and as we talked, we began to see that what we were engaged in with our dear ones was a kind of dance, a dance in which both partners were uneasy, unsure of what they were doing, tense and stiff and even antagonistic.

This dance is no fun. It’s scary. We risk losing our relationships over this kind of tense, conflicted dance. We are on edge, self-protective in case our toes are endangered, we don’t know what to say, how to be true to our own dance form without hurting the partner.

And yet, we want to dance. We want to be understood; we want to understand. We want to find the steps that will let us move in harmony with each other, without sacrificing our own integrity or that of the other person.
--------------------------------
“Shall We Dance?” (Eileen)
--------------------------------

Shall we dance? And what dance steps shall we agree to use? What does the music call us to do? Can we relax and be in tune with our partner? Can we let them lead and we follow? Can we lead and encourage them to follow? Can we do this with humor and understanding, especially when both sets of our toes are vulnerable?

How many of us have friends, neighbors, and relatives who are very different from us in their outlook? And how do we maintain good relationships with them considering those deep divisions? The differences might be religious or political or philosophical; we might have agreed NOT to discuss certain topics for the sake of family or neighborhood harmony.

But any time important parts of our whole selves have to be hidden from those we care about, there is pain. And we can see from the tenor of our national political conversations, that NOT discussing our differences in calm and reasonable terms is NOT helping our country be its best self.

When my mother persisted in her efforts to get me to return to my childhood faith, I didn’t handle it very well. I wrote long impassioned, defensive to the point of insulting letters to her, sent her tracts back to her or tossed them in the trash. I was angry that she couldn’t see my point of view.

Finally, my sister wisely reminded her of my legendary stubbornness and suggested she quit banging her head against my wall. And she did, to her credit, though I know she kept praying for me! And her ongoing, unconditional love for me eventually opened my eyes to a way of being in better relationship with her.

Only a few years later, my mother suffered several small strokes and was unable to put many words together coherently. But one of the few sentences she could utter was one she used a lot: “I love you so much.”

It wasn’t “I love you but I’m afraid you’re going to hell” or “I love you and you ought to do what I tell you”. It was just “I love you,” a sentence that set aside the squabble about whose religion was right in favor of the clear truth of our love for each other. The squabble became meaningless in the face of the universal truth of mutual Love.

And luckily, I had learned a little more compassion by then, having gone through my own set of transformative experiences and coming out on the other side with a better understanding of relationships and their importance in my own life.

Through those experiences, I had learned to look for the common ground between me and those I disagreed with. I had learned to look at what had brought them to where they were in life. I had learned that my impassioned disagreements weren’t going to change anyone’s mind. I had learned that NOT discussing hard things wasn’t going to help; there would always be a big smelly elephant in the room.

I’m still not great at it, so when Eileen suggested this topic for today’s service, I knew it would be a good one for me to think about.

Terra loaned me a little book entitled “Gracious Space” by Patricia Hughes, described as a practical guide for working better together. It’s aimed at workplace discourse and seeks to address the issue of our coarsening national civil discourse by improving it in the workplace.

Hughes notes that nationally and individually, we have become hardened in our arguments with each other, polarized to the extent of disabling government efforts to meet our citizens’ needs. We are distrustful, conflictual, and we tend to form our opinions based on sound bytes, not reasonable conversations.

She quotes an adapted Arabian proverb, poetically expressed by Dinah Craik:

“Oh, the joy---
The inexpressible comfort
Of feeling safe with a person,
Having neither to measure words
Nor weigh thoughts,
Pouring them all out just as they are,
Chaff and grain together,
Certain that a loving hand will sift through,
Keep what is worth keeping,
And with a breath of kindness---
Blow the rest away.”

It’s universal, isn’t it? The Arab sage who first expressed this deep need for safety and comfort with another person was speaking for, I’d guess, all of humankind.

How much of human misery could be prevented or healed by the gift of safety and comfort in the presence of other people? Not just one other person, but a universe of safe, trustworthy, compassionate people.

I think we human beings want less defensive, safer, reasonable conversations with each other. I believe we want to be able to learn from each other. I believe we are curious about others and yet too afraid of hurting or being hurt to dare to ask for information.

“What if I ask my brother to tell me more about why he is so politically conservative? Won’t he just tease me again about being a liberal? Won’t he just ridicule me or try to get me to agree with him? Won’t we just go away mad?”

“What if I ask my sister to tell me more about her objection to abortion? Won’t she assume I’m trying to change her mind and get her to agree with me? Won’t this endanger our relationship if we can’t agree on the issue?”

Patricia Hughes, in her little book, speaks of two dimensions to creating Gracious Space. She points out that in order to experience the first dimension, that of Spirit, we have to create a gracious spirit within ourselves.

That inner life of graciousness is something we carry within ourselves; it is trusting and eager to learn, it is open, vulnerable, and compassionate. Gandhi once said, memorably, that we must be the change we want to see in the world.

To cultivate this spirit of inner grace, we need to examine our approach to life in this world. Do our days feel tough or joyful? Are we patient and curious about new ideas? Are we constantly rushing or do we relish a slower pace? How do we show compassion for those in need?

In this way, we can discover our innate strengths and see where we might try to improve. For most of us, it takes time and conscious effort to develop an inner spirit of graciousness and openness.

The second dimension of Gracious Space is Setting, the care we take to provide a place that is welcoming and comfortable for those we seek to understand.
In our own lives, as we play host to those who are so different from us, a little intention can go a long way. Hospitality is the foundation of a gracious setting, an intentionally comfortable and accepting space.

Remember when we were renting space elsewhere and the cross was a prominent fixture in the room? Though many of us didn’t mind it a bit, many others of us didn’t feel quite comfortable with that symbol of a different faith so prominent in the room.

It’s one reason we use the word “congregation” in our name, rather than “church”, preferring the more inclusive term. A setting in which all feel comfortable and accepted is a gracious setting. Are there ways we can create a gracious setting in which our gracious spirits can welcome others who are different, religiously, spiritually, politically, philosophically?

And once we’re there, with our gracious inner spirit and our gracious outer setting, what then? How do we initiate the dance?

“Shall we dance?” What common ground do we have? Can we start there? How can we learn more about our neighbor, our friend, our relative, without badgering, without insisting on there being one right answer, without patronizing or anger or defensiveness? Can we find compassion and understanding by just listening to another’s stories? Can we find a way to support the other’s efforts to live a life of integrity and good will? Can we respond to the other’s efforts to change our minds with gentle firmness but without rejecting them?

I wish I’d had the wisdom and compassion to say to my mother long ago, “Please, mom, these conversations are hurting our relationship. I feel badgered. Can we shape them differently so that we both feel understood?”

My sister and I have found common ground in talking about the efforts of each of our congregations to help the poor and needy in our communities. We may diverge sharply on our theology, but we are in step when it comes to reaching out to the poor and homeless of our communities.

Interestingly, I was talking recently to a realtor who lives just up the road from me, and she told me that the South Whidbey Community Church, a nondenominational evangelical congregation which is fairly new on the south end, has just bought the piece of property across the highway from us here at UUCWI.

And it makes me wonder: when we are neighbors with this very different congregation, can we reach out to them with love and care, despite our religious differences? If they are receptive, can we have a conversation that is gracious in spirit and in setting? If they are uneasy or rejecting, can we respond with compassion and openheartedness? Is there any common ground that we can share?
In other words, can we, shall we dance?

BENEDICTION: Our worship service, our time of shaping worth together, is ended, but our service to the world begins again as we leave this place. Let us go in peace, remembering those in our lives who are different from us in outlook and understanding. May we look for ways to create an inner spirit of grace and an outer spirit of welcome, that we might grow in understanding and compassion for all humankind, regardless of our differences. And may we find great joy in embracing the other. Amen, Shalom, Salaam, and Blessed Be.

It only works if you work it.

2011-05-30T08:20:00.001-07:00

Those words I spoke to myself as I drove away from my Oak Harbor physician's office two months ago. I had driven the 30 miles or so to my appointment with her, rehearsing the words I wanted to say, the reasons I wanted to give: "I don't want to take statins to reduce cholesterol; I don't want to take bone density drugs; I can't lose weight; I'm not willing to double my exercise routine."

I knew it would be a hard sell, though she's not an ogre and my numbers aren't really terrible. They're pretty normal for someone of my age bracket, my health history and my heritage. She'd persuaded me to try a statin and a bone density drug a couple of years ago and my experience was not particularly good. I had side effects I wasn't willing to live with and I quit taking them eventually. But the cholesterol had jumped up again and I was going to have to deal with that in some way.

Sitting next to her as she unveiled the latest lipid panel scores, I heard myself, right out of the blue, when she asked "how's your diet and exercise plan working out for you?", ---I heard myself say "well, I guess I could go back to Weight Watchers." And saw her smile and say "yes, WW is a good food program." And nothing more. Clever doctor.

I groaned inwardly. I have tried Weight Watchers often enough that I definitely know how it works. Only once have I lost enough weight that I could become a life member and it was 30 plus years and pounds ago. Every time I'd sign up, I'd think "God, these meetings are boring; I know better than these housewives and old fat ladies; I'll just weigh in and do it on my own."

And after a couple of weeks, I'd flake off and toss the materials once again, putting the desire to be slender back on the shelf with the cute dresses and dancing shoes, as well as the confidence I used to feel when talking to an interesting and available gentleman.

In the car on that drive home, I remembered the day when Annaliza Rachelbeth called me up and said to me "we're going to lunch today and we're going to talk about why you keep getting mixed up with all these alcoholic losers". And we did and I found AlAnon, which changed my life radically-----because I worked it. I got a sponsor, I worked the steps, I did what I needed to do to get my life back on track, away from the alcoholic losers and toward a spiritual journey that has brought me here to this place and time.

"It only works if you work it" I told myself on that drive home. I could scorn the meetings, play around with the program, cheat constantly, and stay right where I am physically, with elevated cholesterol and a bad attitude toward exercise. Or I could work it, really take it seriously, develop food and exercise habits that would last me the rest of my life, and improve my health permanently---and maybe regain that confidence I once felt with men. AlAnon did that for me spiritually, but only because I worked it.

I've been working it now for two months. Thirteen pounds gone. Exercising five or more days a week. Smiling a lot. Taking old baggy jeans to the thrift store. Buying new pants in smaller sizes. Bragging. Eating great food. Enjoying the meetings and the new friends. It's working! But only because I'm working it.

Thinking about collaborative ministry

2011-05-23T09:11:00.001-07:00

Before seminary was a gleam in my eye, I was lucky to be a member of Jefferson Unitarian Church in Colorado, under the leadership of the Rev. Robert Latham, who introduced our congregation to the concept of shared ministry. Robert was the author of a chapter in the Congregational Handbook which outlined the charge of a Committee on Ministry, a relatively new concept at that time in the UUA.

I liked what he was telling us about shared ministry, the idea that ministry is not just the minister's job. It is the job of every member of a congregation, to find a place to serve others and to uphold the mission of the congregation. The minister might be the one in the pulpit most Sundays, but the ministry of the congregation was not a one-person job. The COM's basic task was to review if and how that was happening, which was quite a departure from the older concept of a Ministerial Support Committee and a much bigger job!

Anyhow-----from Robert, I learned how valuable it is to share the pulpit. Robert asked laypersons to serve in a variety of ways during a service, from songleading and chalice lighting to offering readings and personal reflections relevant to the theme. He asked me to help him on several occasions, even letting me pick out my own readings for some services. At the same time, he read (correctly, I think) JUC's hunger for "Joys and Sorrows" as a hunger for more participation in worship, and he helped to feed it by inviting people to share the pulpit. At the same time, he weaned us off of a lengthy, rambling J&S session by changing its format to "Milestones" and scheduling it only once a month.

As I got ready to graduate, be ordained, and start serving a congregation myself, I took the lesson of shared ministry with me and in every congregation, I have instituted that participatory, collaborative model as fully as local circumstances allowed.

Moving to Whidbey several years ago gave me the chance to expand his model into my own ministry and I was surprised recently to realize that the way we create meaningful worship here is somewhat different from how it's done in many other congregations.

Twelve people from our worship team (far more than any other congregations attending) hopped on the ferry one Saturday morning to attend an all-day worship workshop across the water at a nearby UU church. We knew it would be good, as it was being taught by my colleague the Rev. Barbara Wells ten Hove. And it was an eye-opener, not because it was all new to us but because our approach was far more collaborative than others. We learned some great things, but the greatest may have been that we are unique, at least given the sample we experienced that day.

Our approach has evolved over the years because we have moved from being a tiny, totally layled congregation, where all services were pulled together by volunteers and were pretty hit and miss sometimes, to being an 84 member congregation with a half-time minister who is in the pulpit twice a month. It also moved from being active only from September through mid-June to all-year-round services.

When I first came, I came for one long weekend, preaching on Sunday but doing committee work and pastoral care on Friday, Saturday and Monday. When I moved to the island, I was able to spread my work out over a full 5-7 days and as my availability increased, so did my hours and my income. I began preaching twice a month and the worship committee planned the other 2-3 services.

We began to offer trainings every fall, we changed the title of our service leaders from "facilitator" and then "layleader" to "worship leader", a title appropriate for me those times when I took on that role when we had a UU minister as a guest, and we became much more reflective about what "quality" worship meant. What worked best for us in worship? What was distracting or less meaningful? What about those times when a service worked well for us but didn't work for someone else? How could we help people with this concern?

Gradually, we became a committee of about eight with a host of well-trained, experienced worship leaders. We required all worship leaders to attend the fall training and hosted a spring "best practices" and "thank you" luncheon for all who had served during the year.

A couple of years ago, I began to invite the worship leader who had volunteered to serve during one of my services to a session in which we not only picked hymns and readings and children's story but also talked about the sermon topic and how we might address it. I wanted to know the WL's thoughts on the topic; how did s/he view this topic? What might s/he want me to address? What did s/he have to add to my thinking? This conversation preceded the service by about ten days, giving us lots of time to get just the right elements and for my thinking on the sermon to percolate.

Some of this is only possible because I preach every two weeks; I'm not sure if I could do it if I were preaching every week. But the evolution of our process has resulted in a worship team that is confident, deeply spiritual in its approach to worship, and feels like equal partners as we create worship that works.

Yesterday we had our thank-you luncheon for worship leaders and talked about what each person found most meaningful in our worship planning and leading; many, perhaps most, valued the collaborative process we had developed. I'm not sure how this will play out down the line, as someday I will retire and a new minister will come on the scene. It may take another new turn at that time.

I just hope that whoever follows me, in the years to come, will find this collaborative worship ministry to be satisfying and worthy of continuing in some way. It has certainly been satisfying to me, not to have to do it all alone.

A dedication ceremony for new artwork and library

2011-05-08T14:45:00.000-07:00

DEDICATION CEREMONY
FOR OUR NEW ARTWORK, DOOR, AND LIBRARY
May 8, 2011

This morning we dedicate the gifts of creativity which we have received from many hands and hearts. To begin, I’d like to invite Nola Allen, Mary Goolsby, and Eileen Walker to come forward to tell us how this beautiful wall hanging came into being. Will the members of the Visual Arts Committee and the many other folks who helped with this creation please stand?

Please stand and we will read together our words of dedication.

CONGREGATION, TO DEDICATE THE FABRIC ART

Grateful for the gift of beauty we see before us and thankful for the many hands and hearts which created it, we dedicate this piece of art to the service of our community. May its colors and shapes remind us of the beautiful world in which we live and of our responsibility to nurture and protect that beauty. May those who created it for our sanctuary be blessed and may they continue to bring new visions into our world.

Please remain standing and turn around to face the carved doors. John, will you please come to the podium and tell us how these doors came to be? Will those who helped John with this work of art please stand?

Let’s read together our words of dedication. (I don't yet have pix of the doors or the library.)

CONGREGATION, TO DEDICATE THE CARVED DOORS

Grateful for the gift of beauty we see before us and thankful for the hands and hearts which created it, we dedicate these doors to the service of our community. When they are open wide, may they welcome all persons to enter this sanctuary; when they enclose us, may they create a space of safety and peace. May those who created it for our sanctuary be blessed and may they continue to bring new visions into our world.

Our library is the result of a huge gift of books from my friend Don Cooper, as well as those donated by members of this congregation. Don is a retired linguistics professor, who was moving from Ohio to South Carolina and wanted to bestow a gift upon our congregation. Over the course of several months, he sent us 13 or 14 heavy cartons of books, which were sorted, catalogued, and eventually shelved on the book cases in our hallway. He wrote this statement for me to read for you today:

“In this new religious world of America, in which there are twice as many Moslems as Episcopalians, I thought that it would be helpful for you to have available library resources which will help you to know who your neighbors are in religious terms. I hope that you will extend this collection according to your own tastes and interests by looking into what is available from such sources as( Beacon Press and Skinner House, UU-related publishing houses.)”

I’d like to ask the craftsmen who built the shelves and those who helped with design, plus the librarians in the congregation who sorted, catalogued, and shelved the books, plus devising the check-out system.

Let’s read together our words of dedication.

CONGREGATION, TO DEDICATE THE LIBRARY

Grateful for the gift of knowledge and inspiration for our searching and thankful for the hands and hearts which created this library, we dedicate our new library to the service of our community. May its many volumes inspire us to search for truth and meaning. May those who created it be blessed and may they continue to bring new inspiration into our world.

Let’s give one more gesture of appreciation for the many hands, hearts, and minds which have given us these gifts today.

.

Freedom and Creativity: a homily

2011-05-08T14:44:00.001-07:00

FREEDOM AND CREATIVITY
Rev. Kit Ketcham, May 8, 2011

Who was the creative one in your family? Was it you? (raise hand if so) Were you the artist? the musician? The writer or poet? Who was the non-creative person? What did it feel like to be creative? What did it feel like to be considered non-creative?

In my family, my sister and my mother were the creative ones. They both loved to draw and I have a very flattering pencil portrait that my sister drew for me when I was in college. My mother had been a sketcher and a painter in her younger days but only picked up a drawing pencil now and then during her mothering days; when she went back to college at Ellensburg in midlife, she again picked up her pencils and brushes and created some beautiful paintings which still exist in our family storerooms.

I was the musician---sort of. That is, I could play the piano for hymn singing at my dad’s church, I could read music pretty well and carry a tune, and I was in the a cappella choir in college. And I also have a store of poems written in grubby notebooks while sitting in a truck in a hot field of wheat or peas, awaiting my turn to load my truck.

My dad and brother tended more toward craftsman skills; both were experts with their hands, whether it was to build backyard forts or repair damaged wiring or install any number of household amenities---plumbing, appliances, you name it, they could do it. And I’m sure my brother still can. My dad, of course, was also a writer of sermons, few of which survive except in my memory.

Small town American culture, in the 50’s, did not encourage great creativity, did not give creativity much freedom to blossom. There were no art or drama classes in my tiny high school, no creative writing classes, little attention given to musicality.

Girls took home ec; boys took shop. Our creative impulses were channeled into practical applications. Too much interest in art or drama or poetry or dance got one labeled an eccentric, an oddball, a free thinker, out of place in the small community where good crops were the primary focus and any creative effort should be directed toward that goal.

Children in every generation seem to have had similar experiences. My online friend “Mile High Pixie”, who lives in Denver but grew up in the South, wrote something interesting in her blog recently and I asked her if I could quote her. Pixie became an architect who loves her work, if not its politics. This was her childhood experience decades after mine.

I drew a great deal, but I never wrote much down, per se, as it always seemed like my mind went so much faster and farther than my hands could write…. But (the) names (of my imaginary characters) remain in my head like it's 1983: Botae, a multi-talented woman; her dad Oz, who looked like my mom's Dad in Michigan and was born super-old and nearly died at birth …; and Mr. Invy, who was mayor of Legoland and somehow allowed (the punk rock band) Devo to move into the neighborhood and drive around in their red-and-black van, which my sister named "Devo-Machine" and would dead-pan narrate its thoughts and voice.…
I didn't tell a lot of people about these characters, as I seemed to know/feel even as a child that imagination would be mocked. I kept my drawings to myself, mostly, although (my sister) was really good about encouraging and adding onto my ideas.

As children, we are often creative and free in our self-expression, at least when we are left to our own devices, but many children are discouraged later in life, told we can’t draw, can’t sing, can’t write a coherent line, and our creative life is cut short, at least until we get new messages of encouragement and begin to regain our freedom of expression.

We have honored today the women and men who have given us the gifts of our fabric art and the system of hardware that makes it movable; the beautifully carved wooden doors and the strong arms and hands that mounted them; the cartons and cartons of donated books which were then sorted and categorized, the design process for the shelving which would hold them, AND the careful creation and crafting of those shelves, followed by their secure mounting on the walls.

We are the recipients of hours of creative energy and hard work. We cannot overestimate the importance of these gifts nor the value of the act of creation which is the hallmark of human endeavor.

This is a joyful day, partly because it celebrates the lives of those who are mothers, those who mother others’ children, those who look out for others both adult and child in their everyday lives. It is joyful too because we have all received this wonderful Mother’s Day present in these gifts of artistic and literary creativity.

And yet there is a tinge of dark remembrance in this year 201l, ten years out from that terrible day in 2001 when we Americans received the gut punch of September 11, with its monumental death toll and psychic damage.

One week ago we learned that the instigator of that murderous act had been tracked down and killed by our armed forces. Millions of Americans rejoiced that Osama bin Laden was dead. Millions across the world danced in the streets. Others refused to believe that it was true. Still others, like me and perhaps many of you, were disturbed by public gloating over the death of this man.

And yet he has been the death of creativity in many, many human lives, some live taken by those murderous plane crashes, some lives taken by the heroic acts their own compassion and professionality demanded of them. Other lives were simply too damaged by their pain to go on.

Still others, however, used their creative impulses and training to make something worthwhile out of the destruction of life in general and individual lives in particular. Works of art and architecture, poetry, music, dance, stories, and other artistic expressions have been created out of that terrible event. Children were conceived out of the irresistible human urge to make sure that life goes on.

Osama bin Laden sought to punish America, to make us so afraid that we would be hamstrung and impotent as a people. To some extent, he succeeded. We now have tighter reins on our freedoms; we are not as carefree nor do we feel as safe as we once did. But we are still free to love and to create beauty in all its forms.

As our newly dedicated works of art proclaim, to create is to bring new life into the world. That new life might be an infant, or it might be a poem, a painting, a play, a carving, a stitchery, a sturdy library shelf, a photo, a dance, a song, a building, a garden, a recipe, a pot of soup, a friendship.

Our responsive reading this morning and the insert which accompanies it draw our attention to the difficulties women and mothers encounter as they raise families, maintain their own health and their families’ health, and struggle to bring children into the world safely.

Because human reproduction is the place where the creative urge begins, we must safeguard it, in order to safeguard the process of creativity. To do so, we must work toward basic health care for men, women and children, toward safe contraception for all, toward comprehensive, accurate sex education for all, and to maintain legal protections for those who must end a pregnancy, offering sympathy instead of punishment.

“Every night a child is born is a holy night,” wrote Sophia Lyon Fahs, one of our UU foremothers. A creative spirit is the birthright of every child and we, the adults in that child’s life, are the nurturers of that spirit. I hope that we would be supportive of our children’s desire to express themselves creatively, offering encouragement rather than criticism, acceptance rather than skepticism.

And I hope that we will always be supportive of those children’s parents, mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, grandparents, all those who are raising our children, for in their hands is the future of all human creativity.

Let’s pause for a time of silent reflection and prayer.

BENEDICTION: Our worship service, our time of shaping worth together, is ended, but our service to the world begins again as we leave this place. Let us go in peace, remembering the joy of this day and appreciating the many gifts of creativity we enjoy. May we honor and protect the creative spirit within each other and within ourselves, that we may live to the fullest of our human potential. Amen, Shalom, Salaam, and Blessed Be.

The challenges of the liturgical year....

2011-04-28T08:14:00.000-07:00

when you're not really a liturgical person weigh me down some years, and this year is one of them. I struggled with Easter and eventually approached it from the sort-of-back-door of my deeply-held Universalism. Growing up a Baptist, I didn't get a lot of ceremonial stuff and have never felt the need for it.

I'm tired of the effort to rehash the ancient story in a new way. I just couldn't manage it this year. I did like the way the sermon came together and it did make sense of Easter for me one more time. But I feel uncomfortable with both the commercialism of the season and its liturgical expectations.

The story of a good and brilliant, compassionate and deep-thinking, courageous man whose efforts to get people to turn inward to find the Kingdom of Heaven set the religious world on a new trajectory----that's a really good story and it deserves to be told over and over.

But we seem to get stuck there. We re-enact the drama of the story from beginning to end and then drop the effort to live the life that good man promised we'd have if we looked within ourselves to find the compassion and connection we need. It's as though, once Jesus was dead, the impetus to find that inner joy disappeared for most folks in the welter of meeting their daily needs.

We celebrate the holiday liturgically, intone the right words, wave the right icons, and overlook the deep internal need to find our inner wellsprings of joy, from which our ability to give deep Love arises. It just feels hollow some years, as though we are mouthing words we don't really understand or believe, because we are not observing the real message of Jesus, which was to find that deep Love within and give it to others.

I have long felt puzzled by the need many have to believe that Jesus was God, that he really did turn water into wine, raise the dead, heal the sick, rise from his own tomb. Those events, true or not, are not the point of his ministry. The point is the message of Love---for God, for neighbor and enemy, for self. I don't believe that Jesus was a perfect being but I do believe he had discovered something essential about human living and an awful lot of so-called Christians are overlooking it.

I walked the road outside my door this morning, waving at cars driving by on their way to work, enjoying the blooming wild currant, the horsetails sticking up through the mud, the tiny slug-lets all along the road, the intriguing deer paths through the brambles, and then the broad view of Puget Sound, the shipping lanes, and Port Townsend across the way. It's a busy, not-so-scenic road but there is much life to share in a short walk, and I've come to find it a source of renewal and peace. Reveling in the actual season of spring, which predates any tale of resurrection, feels more appropriate than anything else, this year.

Why I am a Universalist and what that has to do with Easter

2011-04-24T13:44:00.000-07:00

WHY I AM A UNIVERSALIST:
And what that has to do with Easter
Rev. Kit Ketcham, April 24, 2011

My recent issue of Time Magazine practically heated up the mailbox last week when it arrived. The headline “What if there’s no Hell?” screamed as loudly as another headline decades ago, when Time asked its readers “Is God dead?”

I’d heard about this controversy weeks before, when the news came out that Pastor Rob Bell, of the Mars Hill Bible Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan, had written a new book entitled “Love Wins: a Book about Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of every person who ever lived”.

In the book, Pastor Bell questioned the orthodox doctrine of traditional Christianity, that everyone who did not accept Jesus as Lord and Savior was doomed to eternal torment in the fires of hell.
He tells the story of visiting an art exhibit which included quotations from a variety of heroes of justice, including Mahatma Mohandas Gandhi. A visitor to the exhibit had stuck a note next to the Gandhi quotation stating “Reality Check: Gandhi’s in hell.”

Bell thought to himself, “Really? Gandhi’s in hell? He is? We have confirmation of this? Somebody knows this? Without a doubt? And that somebody decided to take on the responsibility of letting the rest of us know?”

That’s the opening story in his book Love Wins, and he goes on to suggest that the message of Jesus is that all persons who ever lived could have a place in heaven, whatever that turns out to be, because of God’s eternal love and mercy.

Not surprisingly, this bold statement of universal salvation hit the conservative world like a bomb. By now they’ve tried to kick him and his church out of the Southern Baptists, they’ve condemned him to the eternal torment of theological disdain and censure, and one young North Carolina pastor was fired by his church for endorsing the book.

The president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Albert Mohler, says “When you adopt universalism and erase the distinction between the church and the world, then you don’t need the church, and you don’t need Christ, and you don’t need the cross. This is the tragedy of non-judgmental mainline liberalism, and it’s Rob Bell’s tragedy in this book too,” implying that Pastor Bell had just signed over his passport to Satan.

Interesting, huh? But from a traditionalist perspective, taking away hell means taking away the most powerful weapon the traditional church has in its arsenal for those Christian soldiers.

Without hell, where is the incentive to turn to Jesus as savior? If Gandhi is in heaven, why bother with accepting Christ? If the words in the Bible about hell and heaven are not literally true, what does that say about women or homosexuality? These are questions that can undermine much of conservative Christianity.

Bell’s startling revelation of his changing theology found a champion in also-deposed African American Pentecostal preacher the Rev. Carlton Pearson, who, a few years ago, also came out of the evangelical closet as a universalist, stating his belief that God’s mercy and grace would extend to all persons, regardless of their belief or behavior, and he identified as a Universalist publicly.

In addition, after Pearson was kicked out of his own denomination, he was welcomed by our Tulsa OK congregation, All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church, where he is getting a feel for what universalism means in another sense---the radical inclusion of all people in the beloved community.

For that is what Universalism has come to mean in this day and age, among theologians in our faith tradition of Unitarian Universalism: the belief that all persons have inherent worth and dignity and receive the gifts of Divine love and grace and forgiveness.

We have let go of an insistence on an after-life in either heaven or hell and, instead, believe that heaven and hell are both available to us humans right here on earth, before death. And it is our job to help to create heaven, not hell, for our fellow creatures.

As John Murray, one of our Universalist forefathers wrote, in a few lines included in the readings in our hymnal:
Go out into the highways and by-ways. Give the people something of your new vision. You may possess a small light, but uncover it, let it shine, use it in order to bring more light and understanding to the hearts and minds of men and women. Give them not hell, but hope and courage; preach the kindness and everlasting love of God.

Now, Rob Bell’s and Carlton Pearson’s universalism is probably not just like our Universalism; they both come from the conservative Christian tradition and still strongly hold many traditional beliefs. They accept a small-u universalism which is merely one strand in their statements of belief. But ours is so important to our way of being religious in this world, that we capitalize that U and make it part of our name.

What is Universalism and what does it mean about our religious tradition? Let me give you a little history, tell you why I am very much a Universalist in my own theology, and what that has to do with Easter.

Both Unitarianism and Universalism are ancient re-interpretations of Biblical narratives. Unitarianism started out as a disbelief in the Christian idea of the trinity. Originally, Unitarian thought was labeled anti-trinitarianism, because that’s how it was originally proposed. It meant a belief in God as a Unity, not as a Trinity, three in one, and it began in the third century of the Common Era.

Universalism was originally the idea that a loving God would not condemn his children to the eternal fires of hell, no matter how bad we were, whether or not we believed in Jesus as savior, and it, too, originated in the third century. Universalism originally meant universal salvation, and it is this definition that Rob Bell is talking about.

As the institutional structure of Christianity grew, orthodoxy crowded out these two alternative ways of interpreting the Bible. In fact, those who believed these different ideas were often persecuted, kicked out of the church, even killed. Their heretical beliefs were forbidden and even today conservative Christianity considers them anathema.

But they didn’t die out. Free thought has a way of rearing its head again and again despite attempts made to stamp it out. And over the centuries since those rebellious times, the ideas of God as One and Salvation for All have been resurrected again and again.

Today, we belong to a small, energetic, progressive, extremely liberal faith tradition which has taken those two concepts and reinterpreted them for an age in which the definitions of God and salvation have changed radically from those ancient days and have become even more relevant to a world in need of healing.

Why am I a Universalist? A story from the history of this very congregation illustrates one reason why:

It was just a normal Sunday, with the normal familiar smiles and  greetings as people passed by me before joining others in the sanctuary, that Sunday in 2005. 

There had been the normal “hi, so nice to see you today! and.....how’s your mom? and........what do you hear from so and so? and.......welcome to our UU congregation! would you like a nametag? and...........yes, I think there is a plan to go out for a meal after the service; I hope you can come. and........how are you feeling these days?”  

UU congregations are always on the lookout for visitors and this  congregation was no different. We want to be able to say hello, offer a  friendly smile----and a nametag!------and demonstrate the best welcome we  can offer to someone new, someone who was perhaps hurting, perhaps  lonely, perhaps unfamiliar with UUism, or----perhaps a longtime UU looking for a new church home. It’s our normal Sunday routine.  

On this particular Sunday, however, members of our small  congregation took one look at the visitor coming through the door and did  a double take. No, it wasn’t President Bush, coming to see how we liked  his environmental policies or disaster response; it wasn’t some glamorous  movie star or bedraggled reality show survivor; it wasn’t the mayor of the  small town or any other well known local personage.  

This visitor’s appearance was startling in itself, and I could feel my  own apprehensions rise up. Why would anyone choose to look the way this person did? I quickly began to think about how best to approach this  individual; how would others in the congregation respond to him?  

And then, I saw one of our greeters, Malcolm Ferrier, step forward toward our visitor and the two ordinary looking people who had come in with him. I saw a friendly smile on Malcolm’s face and then a handshake; I watched as he helped them prepare nametags and gave them orders of service; and when the three visitors came to where I was standing, outside the sanctuary door, I had been given a clear model for how we were going to welcome our unusual visitor.  

“Cat”, as we came to know him that day, is a Native American who  has adopted the unusual practice of changing his appearance to resemble  that of his totem animal, a tiger. Cat is tattooed with tiger-like markings; he  uses special contact lenses to give his eyes a catlike shape and color; his  nails are shaped into claws; his face has been surgically altered to a more  feline shape and his teeth are sharp and fang-like.  

Cat is not your typical visitor. Wherever he goes in the community,  people stop and stare and perhaps walk the other way. Now, I don’t  know all the reasons Cat looks the way he does. There are lots of  questions in my mind about how he has chosen this path.  

But on that day, my task and that of the rest of us attending that  service was to welcome Cat and his friends, to make a place for them  among us, to offer them the simple hospitality of our sacred space, of our  worship time, to invite them to have a cup of coffee and a cookie after the  service, to go with our group to the Chinese place for a meal after church.

It was not to shoo them away from our door, to refuse to speak to them, to pretend we didn’t see them. It was an opportunity to get to know someone who was radically different, both in appearance and in lifestyle, and to welcome them into our lives. We could not know in advance whether this was a safe thing to do or not; we had to trust in the ability of Love to smooth the way.

Cat came to church here only once but I hope he went away knowing that there was at least one place where he was accepted as a human being, not as a creature to be shunned and ridiculed or used as a commodity but as a fellow human with a story to tell.

This is why I am a Universalist: because I believe that there is a force in the universe more powerful than human strength and yet available within each human heart. I believe that the force I name is Love, radical, inclusive Love, Love beyond the commercially popular versions of movies, songs, and ad campaigns, the Love that is, in my mind, the Kingdom of Heaven that Jesus preached.

Nothing in human life is more challenging than to love our neighbor as ourselves, to see our tears in another’s eyes, to reach out to others, no matter how scary or off-putting they may seem, not merely tolerating difference nor dismissing its importance. We humans are naturally wary of strangers; it is a mechanism that once served us well and now keeps us from rejoicing in diversity, though diversity will be our salvation in the end.

And there’s that word again, salvation. Universal salvation to me, these days, is the sense that I can walk unafraid in this world because I love with this Love and am loved in return. It isn’t always safe to love and to be loved, but that is a risk I am willing to take because of the joy it brings me.

And it is my salvation from a fragmented and anxious life, giving me a life of delight and a sense that I am living rightly, no matter what difficulties and dangers I may experience.

So what does this all have to do with Easter? Universalism is a religious philosophy of radical and overpowering love and this is exactly what this season means, whether we’re talking about the Christian Easter, or a pagan spring celebration, or a Passover release from bondage. We’re talking about love.

As Rev. Mark Morrison-Reed has written: “Universal Salvation insists that no matter what we do, God so loves us that she will not and cannot consign even a single human individual to eternal damnation. Universal Salvation is the consequence of Universal love, the recognition that love is the grounding, the basis of all….
The great insight of Universalism is that you do not have to coerce people into loving one another. The commandments are not threats. If they are not fulfilled, God will not withdraw love. No one has ever or will ever draw true love out of another with punishment. God’s love is given to all. Love is a more positive force for good than fear ever will be. Behind this is a simple truth: in being loved we learn to love.”

Now, it doesn’t matter whether we are agnostics or atheists or non-theistic in our thinking about God. We know what radical love means because we can see it in our lives and in the lives of those around us. We can experience it by giving it to others, for it inevitably rebounds to us full force.

Let me close with these words from the Rev. Ellen Cooper-Davis:
I am a Universalist. I believe that there is an inexhaustible, inescapable love that will not let us go. It is there in every corner of the world. It is there in our moments of greatest connection and joy. It is there in moments of excruciating suffering and sorrow. It is there even when we willfully turn away from it and seek to be isolated, alone and apart.
Nothing and no one is outside the reach of this Love. (Love) can sustain those in despair,…empower those whom society has written off… strengthen those who want to…turn back (on) that Love…. It can awaken us to the words that Jesus spoke--the Kingdom of Heaven is within you, it is here, now…
Perhaps the comfortable, the wealthy, the self-righteous are right to be afraid of such a message... Because it could turn the world on its ear, and the inheritors of the kingdom--the poor, the meek, the peacemakers--would be equal at last.

Let’s pause for a time of silent reflection and prayer on this Easter morning.

BENEDICTION: Our worship service, our time of shaping worth together, is ended but our service to the world begins again as we leave this place. Let us go in peace, remembering that the power of Universal Love which is within us is not to be hoarded but to be shared. May we seek out the places where our Love can make a difference and may we give Love freely, not only to our friends and neighbors, but to ourselves and to our enemies. Amen, Shalom, Salaam, and Blessed Be.

Gratitude and Generosity: it works if you work it.

2011-04-10T14:31:00.000-07:00

LOVING AND CHEERFUL GIVERS: the Sermon on the Amount
Rev. Kit Ketcham, April 10, 2011

I’d like to invite you all to center yourselves comfortably in your seats, perhaps close your eyes if you’d like, and enter a time of quiet reflection and thought with me. And as you relax into this time, I’d also invite you to be aware of this space, its quiet warmth, the tiny sounds of children down the hall, the tall shafts of fir trees outside the windows, the light streaming through those trees, the movement of the breeze.

Let yourself feel the presence of others in this room, those you love and those you don’t yet know, those who challenge you and those you challenge, those you are curious about and those whom you know well.

As we sit in silence for a few moments, I invite you to experience the feelings associated with this place, these individual people, this community of seekers. There may be feelings of pleasure, and joy, and happiness. Or uncertainty, or confusion, or pain. There may be memories of laughter, memories of sorrow, memories of pride and accomplishment. Whatever they are, let yourself experience those feelings during these moments. (chime, time of silence, ending with chime)

I don’t know about you, but when I take time to just sit in this sanctuary, experience the people around me, sing together, see the trees and greenery through these spacious windows, bask in the light that streams through the windows and almost feel the breeze as it rocks the trees, I feel profoundly grateful that I am alive in this time and place.

There is a sense of being filled with something almost inexpressible, a sense of being in a good place, of being with good people, of doing something good for others.

I wonder how many of you may have had a similar sensation, perhaps during our reflective time right now or at some other time in your experience with this congregation. Have any of you had those feelings? Who would be willing to share a couple of words about a sense of gratitude for something that has happened to you here. (sharing of gratitude items)

Many of you have said things just now that jibe with my own sense of gratitude for this place and its people. This past week, I sat down and brainstormed all the things about this congregation and this place that give me that sense of gratitude and fullness. It turned out to be a huge list!

I first listed the many hands and hearts that do the tasks that keep us afloat, because that was the easy list: our religious education staff, the volunteers and the parents of our wonderful children; those who spend hours tending our landscape and the little repairs and upgrades that the building always needs; the folks who have learned how to use our sound system and help out as needed; those who built the library shelves, sorted and catalogued the books, and developed the system for checking them out; our ushers who do so much on Sunday morning to get us ready for our worship service.

The art works we enjoy on the walls of the foyer were chosen and hung by those who have an eye for beauty and creativity; we have people who make a special effort to reach out to befriend those who need special care---our shutins and those whose memories and abilities have been taken away by illness. The folks who bring refreshments, make the coffee, clean up the kitchen afterwards.

The Lyceum 2.0 task force which offers us a program on science and ethics every month. Our wonderful musicians and the wide range of musical experience they bring. Our volunteer choir directors and our vibrant choir.

Dinners for newcomers. A worship committee that spends many hours making sure we have high quality, inspirational worship every week. The laughter and creativity that our auction offers us because of the hard work of its creators and supporters.

Our administrative team, the board and our incomparable administrator, who oversee and carry out the workings of the congregation, its programming, its financial stability, the nuts and bolts of governance and administration. Our Leadership Council comprised of someone from every committee and working group in the congregation, staying abreast of the many activities of the congregation.

Our social responsibility council which encouraged us to give away our offering once a month and helped us see how much good we could do for the many local agencies which need our help.

Our communications team, putting together our newsletter, our website, our Friday messages, and doing all the printing for our worship and other activities.

Those who offer and attend our adult programs, from circle dinners, to koffee klatches, dine outs, classes, and other opportunities. Our history keepers, those who collect our history and keep its memory alive. Our greeters and hospitality providers, and all the regular givers of time, talent, and treasure.

That’s a long list, indeed. How many of you heard your own contributions mentioned? Did I miss anything? And those are just the everyday tasks of keeping our congregation smoothly operating and doing its important work in the world.

But there are other less tangible and even more important sources of gratitude for me. Every time I see a rambunctious child being gently and lovingly corrected, every time I see friendships developing between adults and children, every time I see adults making efforts to understand children rather than just expressing their disapproval, I am reminded of my own experience as a parent in a congregation years ago.

I’m reminded of a young single mom, me, and her rambunctious seven year old, a little boy who wasn’t sure how to behave in school or church, who didn’t understand what was going on between his parents, whose intelligence and maturity didn’t match up, who was smaller and more hyper than the other kids, who had no obvious talents other than being a smart-aleck and a clown.

We his parents were at a loss to know how to make the divorce easier for him, how to help him with his difficulties, and we were grieving the changes in our lives as well. So we all just kind of struggled along, with my ex and I apologizing for the many incidents of shoving or rowdiness or other misbehavior. We knew we all still needed the church, but it could be tough with a child who was having such a hard time.

But there were teachers and others in the religious education program who understood and loved our little boy. They didn’t give up. They saw the potential within this little smarty-pants, and they worked with him to help him with his frustrations and his fears, his sorrow and his self-control.

And it didn’t happen overnight, but by the time he was a teenager, he had mastered the art of friendship, the ability to joke and tease appropriately, the self-understanding and compassionate heart to reach out to others who were struggling.

And now, I’m pleased to say, that little boy now become a man is an active leader in the UU congregation he attends in another town, where he lives with his wife and family. Life is not always rosy for him, but he has the tools and the foundation to make good decisions.

That’s what Religious Educators and others who work with children in this congregation are doing right now. They are carrying on the work that those wonderful religious educators at Jefferson Unitarian Church did for me and my family those many years ago. My gratitude knows no bounds for the work of our religious educators.

What else brings that sense of fullness and gratefulness to me? I see how you all reach out to each other, offering friendship, welcoming new folks and my heart fills up. I see all the children who come and sit on the rug to hear a story, and I can’t help but smile. I hear of those who offer to transport someone to an appointment or who offer support to those in difficult transitions and my heart swells with thanks.

I see how you all enjoy each others’ joys and grieve with others’ sorrows. I see people walk into this room, look around, and I know they are seeing the same beauty and serenity and welcome that I find here. And there have been times when the music has been so lovely that I am left speechless and overcome by thankfulness that we have had the experience and that we have had it together.

Melody Beattie has written: “Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion into clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.”

And Winston Churchill once wrote, “We make a living with what we get. But we make a life with what we give.”

How is your gratitude expressed in the world? Do you find yourself wanting to do something to share your sense of fullness with others? When you are feeling lonely and deprived, has another’s generous kindness made a difference for you?

One lonely Saturday morning when I was living in Seattle, I was having my usual Grand Slam breakfast at the local Denny’s, and I noticed a group of young men and women off in one corner, laughing and drinking coffee. I remembered how my son, when he was about their age, used to drink coffee with his friends from work at the local Denny’s near our Denver home, and I smiled to see that age-old habit repeating itself in Seattle youth.

But I was very surprised, when I asked my server for the bill, to discover that it had been picked up and paid for by the group of young people I’d been observing. I went over to say thank you to them as I left the restaurant, and they mentioned that they were paying it forward, doing something nice for someone else because they had been the recipients of kindness earlier in the morning and wanted to share their gratitude.

There’s a member of this congregation who, when he sees me at El Corral restaurant once in awhile, pays my bill before I get to the cash register. This kindness cannot be ignored, so I have begun paying the bill of someone else in the restaurant, stealthily pointing someone out to Fernando and quickly leaving before they notice.

It would be easy to just say thank you to this person and go on my way with a smile, forgetting what it means to be the recipient of another’s generosity. And I did that for awhile, just being secretly pleased that this person would do this for me. It didn’t occur to me right away that there was more I could do. And then some friends came to El Corral and sat with me, and, guess what, it occurred to me then and I had the opportunity and took it.

Being able to give them the gift of a delicious meal was every bit as pleasant as being the recipient!

This ties in with another insight I had awhile back, the idea that “It works if you work it”. That’s a 12 step mantra, often echoed at the end of meetings, but it works in everyday life very well.

I have the habit, as perhaps some of you do, to regard advice from others as something I have to respond to politely, consider, and then let go of. Sometimes I don’t even consider the advice, particularly if I didn’t ask for it. Sometimes if I ask for the advice, I still don’t consider it, even when it’s good advice and intended to be helpful. “ I’ve made my mind up, don’t confuse me with your thoughts” seems to be my MO on occasion.

But it really works against me. It keeps me from acknowledging that others have good ideas, workable ideas, ideas that could actually improve my life!

For a long time, years ago, I denied the idea that I had some pretty unmanageable things going on in my life---I kept ending up with people who took more than they gave, treated me rudely frequently, and I had no idea what to do about it.

And then one morning, early on a rare day off from school when I was trying to sleep in, a friend woke me up with a phone call, suggested we meet for lunch, and, once we were together, she said essentially, “you need to figure out why you keep ending up with all these people who treat you this way.” And, for once in my life, I listened.

I took her advice, I started going to AlAnon meetings, and I decided to go the whole route, work the 12 steps and do them conscientiously and faithfully. If I had not done that, I suspect I would still be repeating the mistakes of old. It wasn’t so much the 12 steps that saved my bacon, it was my realization that “it only works if you work it”.

Gratitude is kinda like that. We can say thank you to people who compliment us or do something nice for us or perform a service of some kind, dishing us up pasta salad at the deli or helping us straighten out some financial issue over the phone. We can express appreciation to our kids or spouse for chores done or favors offered. We often say thank you and go on our way without really considering what it means that people are kind to us or that efforts are made in our behalf.

But gratitude as a spiritual practice really works-----if you really work it. I’ve noticed that when I really let myself experience the gratitude I feel, whether it’s for everyday kinds of things---the thank yous I hand out to those who help me or speak kindly to me----or for the larger gratitude I feel when I witness some act of kindness and generosity toward others, when I let myself really absorb the meaning of those acts, my sense of gratitude grows and my behavior toward others becomes more generous and kind.

I leave a bigger tip or I add a compliment to my thank you or I offer something helpful in return or I say yes to the Equal Rights Washington caller on the phone and promise to send in my pledge right away. Gratitude enhances my life, it improves my relationships with those around me, and the generosity which is the outpouring of that gratitude increases.

Gratitude works. It works to open our eyes to the wonders of our lives, the people we are in relationship with, the beauty of the earth and its creatures, the majesty and mystery of the universe.

Gratitude works. When we experience gratitude, we also tend to become more giving. We learn the transformative power of giving, its ability to lighten our mood, heal our hurts, improve our sense of well-being, change our hearts from fearful to joyful, strengthen our connections with each other; it teaches us to look deeply at ourselves, helps us see that giving and receiving are equal in value, gives us a chance to offer our unique gifts, connects us to the greater whole, gives us new eyes to see the world around us, to experience oneness with that world and to see its truths.

As we enter this stewardship season, I hope that each of us will think deeply about our gratitude to this congregation, this place of worship, the ways in which we reach out to each other and to the larger community. I hope that we will all express our gratitude for the gifts we’ve received here by being as financially generous as we can manage, within our own circumstances.

My practice every year is to increase my financial pledge by $300 a year. That’s an extra $25 a month. I can do that and I find that my heart expands and becomes even fuller, as I express my gratitude for the joy that serving this congregation brings me.

One theologian has said that if our only prayer in life is “Thank you, thank you, thank you”, that would be enough. But we have been given so much that “our gratitude calls us to give back, to find ways to bless the world as we have been blessed. Generosity is making love visible in the world. We offer our gifts as we build the beloved community.”*
(* from the Rev. Tom Disrud)

This is our religious home. We have work to do in the world. May our gratitude and our dedication to this religious community lead us to generosity that will sustain its work in the coming years.

Let’s pause for a time of silent reflection and prayer.

BENEDICTION Our worship service, our time of shaping worth together, is ended, but our service to the world begins again as we leave this place. Let us go in peace, grateful for the love that has created and sustained this place and these people. May we express our gratitude in all the ways we are able and may we experience the joy of giving until it feels good. Amen, Shalom, Salaam, and Blessed Be.

The Living Tradition Institute...

2011-04-03T08:18:00.000-07:00

might not be a familiar concept to you, if you are a Unitarian Universalist in a different district. It is, as far as I know, unique to the Pacific Northwest District, though there may be similarly shaped opportunities in other districts.

It began as an effort to offer guided theological reflection workshops to interested laypersons from a cluster of local UU congregations. It was the brainchild of four of my colleagues from the North Olympic Ministers group: Jaco and Barbara Wells ten Hove, Liz Stevens, and Bruce Bode, and began last year as a traveling workshop at each of the three congregations represented by their ministers. It was a big enough success that the group decided to offer it again this year.

They invited me to participate to the extent I found possible, given that it takes a good deal of cash and time to get over to the Kitsap/Quimper/Bainbridge area where the three congregations are located. I opted, at least for this year, to participate mainly as a small group facilitator and yesterday I had that opportunity.

I was thrilled, when I advertised the LTI for Whidbey folks, to watch the list of interested participants grow. We ferried eight folks over to the Quimper congregation for a full day of lecture and discussion of the theological questions of Soteriology (salvation/wholeness/preparation for death) and Ontology (the nature of Being/Reality), seen through the lens of Rev. Fred Campbell's concept of the Four Faiths of Liberal Religion.

Rev. Campbell sees Humanism, Naturalism, Mysticism, and Theism to be the four threads which generally comprise most UU congregations, as well as many other liberal congregations. The purpose of the LTI's workshop was to help participants find the thread that most nearly describes their approach to their faith and to discuss with others the aspects of their spiritual journey.

As I facilitated my group (Naturalists), I was struck by the eagerness with which people shared their thoughts and views, not arguing, just speaking their own truth. It seemed to be both reassuring and clarifying for most of the people in the Naturalist group to hear others' thoughts; there was both agreement and disagreement on certain points, particularly when someone shared a more mystical experience but attributed it to "unknowable" when others saw it as "ultimately knowable".

I see myself as a humanistic naturalist, if that makes sense---very grounded in the natural world from whence most of my spiritual experiences arise, but receiving my strength and joy from sharing values with my human community. That is not to say that I am not a mystic, for I have had and continue to have mystical experiences that are grounded in nature; and it is not to say that I am not a theist, for I have an ongoing relationship with the Power beyond human power, which I find in myself as well as outside myself.

My group of congregants, coming home on the ferry, talked about how we might offer these same ideas to our Whidbey congregation in the coming months. What a thrill for a minister, to find my beloved congregants excited about theology and eager for more! What a delight!