The following is an "homilito" which wrapped up our service this afternoon, coming after three artists in the congregation had shared their experiences as a folk artist, a writer/poet, and a musician. This is my reflection on creativity and spirituality.
REFLECTIONS ON THE CREATIVE EXPERIENCE AND SPIRITUALITY
Rev. Kit Ketcham, May 18, 2008
I have never thought of myself as artistic. I’m one of those people who has always figured if I couldn’t draw a straight line, I wasn’t artistic. My sister and mother, now, they could draw pretty well. They were artistic. I wasn’t.
I did like to sing and play the piano but I was mostly a workhorse, able to do a decent job but not particularly talented, just adequate. Oh sure, once in awhile I’d get a chance to sing by myself, mostly because I knew all the words to the old folk songs, especially the raunchy ones, and sometimes people said I sounded pretty good.
But there were moments when something happened to me, in the music. Maybe it would be feeling myself caught up in the harmonies of the choir around me. Maybe it would be the experience of improvising harmonies as I sang.
Maybe it would be a particularly tuneful day for my vocal chords. Maybe it would be singing an old lullaby to my child. But it didn’t really mean anything, wasn’t very important.
Many years passed in this way and then came a time when I was asked to sing one of those folk songs I knew by heart at the memorial service of a friend. It’s a kind of philosophical, metaphorical song entitled “River” by Bill Staines and it sings about life as a river. The last verse is particularly poignant, with these words: “one day when the flowers are blooming still, one day when the grass is still green, my rolling waters will round the bend and flow into the open sea…”
I was pretty sure that I would have a hard time singing that verse, that my voice would break, that I would not be able to continue. My friend Alan’s life had rounded a bend and had flowed into the open sea, unexpectedly, mingling there with all the other lives gone before him, leaving behind the lives of his wife and two teenage sons.
I almost turned down the request, afraid I couldn’t do it properly. But Alan’s wife persisted, saying he had learned the song from me and she knew he would want me to sing it.
The day of the memorial service, I went to the church, spent a few minutes practicing with the guitarist who would accompany me, and then it was time to begin the service.
It came time for me to sing and I stood next to the guitarist, my stomach clenched with anxiety, wanting to do well but afraid I would falter. I made it through the first verses and choruses just fine and then the guitarist took his musical break before the final verse.
Just as I opened my mouth to sing those most difficult words, my heart pounding, I looked out into the congregation gathered there and saw another friend, Mary, looking back at me. She smiled at me, with tears in her eyes, and all of a sudden, I felt the song begin to sing itself.
It flowed out of me, in notes and phrasings I didn’t even recognize as mine. My voice was strong and clear and true. There was something happening that was beyond me, that was beyond my control, that was expressing my love for my friend Alan, that was receiving the love of my friend Mary, and pouring out all that sense of relationship and connection with them.
A new understanding of my connection to others through music was born that day and left me shaken and humbled by that experience.
Our service today has been about “The Arts” as a source of spiritual inspiration for Unitarian Universalists. But I’m not sure we’re just talking about “Art”, per se.
The Arts, whether visual, aural, vocal, written, kinesthetic, are expressions of human creativity, a life force so powerful that we have evidence of it going back into pre-history. It is a primeval force, ecstatic and uncontrollable, and it has driven human beings beyond the requirements of daily survival as long as human memory has existed.
Unitarian Universalist theologian, Henry Nelson Wieman, has posited that the creative force in the universe is another name for God, that this divine power exists in all of us and in all of creation.
I find that image very meaningful. As we’ve heard each of our speakers this afternoon, have listened to our choir, listened to the poems, sung the songs, looked at the visual arts displayed, I think I’ve seen and heard a common thread---that there is something that pours out of us at those moments when we are caught up in creating or experiencing beauty or meaning or relationship or growth. It’s something beyond normal daily life, something so thrilling and engaging that it surely is a part of our spiritual nature.
Of course, we say “the Arts” and yet we know in our hearts that creativity is expressed in many ways, not all of them beautiful and comforting, some of them quite disturbing, some even dangerous.
The creativity in human beings has brought us as a species to a place of high technology, of great beauty, and fearsome understanding of what we have done.
Today we have considered the creative experience and its relationship to spirituality. I find the creative experience to be so foundational to my spiritual nature that I have become attuned to it in other parts of my daily life, hearing it in conversations, tending the plants in my garden, in cooking a meal, even in figuring out how to jerry-rig functional mechanisms to keep my cats confined on the deck.
My colleague, the Rev. Rick Davis, minister of our congregation in Salem, Oregon, has proposed that we consider recognizing formally the importance of the Arts as a Source of our Unitarian Universalist faith. He suggests this wording: “The living tradition that we share draws from many sources (including) the Creative arts, which reveal to us the face of life’s beauty and joy, its enduring truth and meaning and which opens our hearts to feelings of awe and gratitude.” He goes on to say that art and spirituality are so intertwined that they cannot be separated.
Whether or not this ever happens, we know how important the creative arts are in our own lives. I’m grateful to our artists today for speaking to us, and for bringing the creations of their hands and hearts for us to experience.
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 within each of us there is a burning spark of creativity, the spark of life that has brought forth great beauty in the world and gives us the ability to connect with each other and with the divine as we experience that creative spark in others. May we find beauty and inspiration in all of life’s ventures and may we offer our own creativity freely and lovingly. Amen, Shalom, Salaam, and Blessed Be.
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Sunday Quiz
After you die... Heaven After death, you will exist in heaven. Everything and everyone you love will constantly surround you for all of eternity. You lucky scoundrel. | ||||
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Take this quiz at QuizGalaxy.com |
Thanks to James at Monkey Mind for this quiz.
Saturday, May 17, 2008
I wish I had a before and after picture to show you!
Today, in addition to being Syttende Mai, Norway's Constitution Day, was the day we welcomed worker bee guests from the Port Townsend and Woodinville congregations to help us with a huge blitz of work all day on the new building.
Both these congregations had offered to send crews to help us with our building project and we decided that today was the best day to organize it. We'd stored up several major efforts that were perfect for a large work party to undertake. And, luckily, the clouds parted and we had a beautiful warm day as well.
Several weeks ago, when Woodinville and Port Townsend agreed to come on May 17, our building committee reacted with a little alarm. Would we have enough work for them to do? Who had thought this up?
So since I was the one who had thought this up, I suggested that I organize a picnic as a hospitality gesture to our guests, and then I started worrying about it. But it all turned out beautifully!
We had a simple picnic with hot dogs, chips, salad, and dessert, plus soda, water, a little beer. People brought mountains of cookies and other sweets, plus salads. I provided the grill and the hot dogs (did you know they make vegan hot dogs? and some people were grateful that they were provided), chips, and drinks, plus the condiments for hot dogs and the tableware.
And we had a total of about 30 people, if you count the few who just wandered through, had a hot dog and left. All the cookie leftovers will have a second showing at social hour after church tomorrow, as will the leftover chips.
It has been a truly marvelous day. We got so much done on the building----painting, particularly----and on the grounds, removing blackberry bushes (did you know how well a front-loader rips those babies right out of the ground?). Our new sign out front is beautiful and now fully visible from the road. The earthy color of the building, with its dark green metal roof and dark red trim, is perfectly suited for the locale. It is really looking fabulous.
I'll post pictures when I get some more. But right now I think I'll go take a hot bath!
Both these congregations had offered to send crews to help us with our building project and we decided that today was the best day to organize it. We'd stored up several major efforts that were perfect for a large work party to undertake. And, luckily, the clouds parted and we had a beautiful warm day as well.
Several weeks ago, when Woodinville and Port Townsend agreed to come on May 17, our building committee reacted with a little alarm. Would we have enough work for them to do? Who had thought this up?
So since I was the one who had thought this up, I suggested that I organize a picnic as a hospitality gesture to our guests, and then I started worrying about it. But it all turned out beautifully!
We had a simple picnic with hot dogs, chips, salad, and dessert, plus soda, water, a little beer. People brought mountains of cookies and other sweets, plus salads. I provided the grill and the hot dogs (did you know they make vegan hot dogs? and some people were grateful that they were provided), chips, and drinks, plus the condiments for hot dogs and the tableware.
And we had a total of about 30 people, if you count the few who just wandered through, had a hot dog and left. All the cookie leftovers will have a second showing at social hour after church tomorrow, as will the leftover chips.
It has been a truly marvelous day. We got so much done on the building----painting, particularly----and on the grounds, removing blackberry bushes (did you know how well a front-loader rips those babies right out of the ground?). Our new sign out front is beautiful and now fully visible from the road. The earthy color of the building, with its dark green metal roof and dark red trim, is perfectly suited for the locale. It is really looking fabulous.
I'll post pictures when I get some more. But right now I think I'll go take a hot bath!
Friday, May 16, 2008
Wiser? Time will tell.
Maxie came home late last night, hungry and a bit spooked, but uninjured. He's just lucky I was still up and about, having decided late to watch TV for a few minutes to unwind before bedtime. I'm normally in the sack by 9:30 or so because I'm up so early.
Sitting in front of the TV, I can look out at the dark deck but I can't see anything much, just reflections in the glass of the room behind me. But something moved in my field of vision and at first I figured it was one of the other cats, moving around in the dining room. Just to make sure, I turned around and scanned it---no Loosy or Lily was prowling around there. So I decided to get up and check outside, and there he was.
He seems happy to be home and yet I'll bet this happens again. I still don't know how he gets off the deck and back on again. If I figure it out, I may take steps to seal off the opening, but I don't want to take a chance on making it impossible for him to get back on the deck, if his choice of exitway is a flying leap from above.
I may just have to live with this tension and make the best of it.
One nice thing was that the FS called yesterday afternoon to offer condolences, after reading my post about the Missing Member of the Family. So I called him back to let him know that Max had returned.
Thanks to yesterday's commenters for their comfort and concern.
Sitting in front of the TV, I can look out at the dark deck but I can't see anything much, just reflections in the glass of the room behind me. But something moved in my field of vision and at first I figured it was one of the other cats, moving around in the dining room. Just to make sure, I turned around and scanned it---no Loosy or Lily was prowling around there. So I decided to get up and check outside, and there he was.
He seems happy to be home and yet I'll bet this happens again. I still don't know how he gets off the deck and back on again. If I figure it out, I may take steps to seal off the opening, but I don't want to take a chance on making it impossible for him to get back on the deck, if his choice of exitway is a flying leap from above.
I may just have to live with this tension and make the best of it.
One nice thing was that the FS called yesterday afternoon to offer condolences, after reading my post about the Missing Member of the Family. So I called him back to let him know that Max had returned.
Thanks to yesterday's commenters for their comfort and concern.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
California Supremes for Marriage Equality
Hallelujah! Just Hallelujah! I am so glad this has happened. Congratulations to all the men and women who have been hoping and praying for this day to come.
It's 6 a.m. and he's not home yet.
Max jumped off the deck yesterday afternoon about 3:30 and never came back. The other two times he jumped, he was back within a couple of hours. This time, he's not.
We are all feeling the loss of his presence. As aggressive and feisty toward Loosy and Lily as he was, he was also just a kitten, a teenage kitten to be sure, but with vestiges of kittenhood still---the ability to fall limply into a pile of sleeping catfur, to curl up on my bosom while I lie in bed reading my book, to experience the wonder of the bunnies and deer that inhabit the yard. Always eager to go out outside on the deck, he would haunt the door yowling or, if I was here at the computer, he'd watch me hawklike and if I made a move to get up, he was galloping down the hall toward the deck door, always hopeful that I intended to let him out.
Last night when it was time to go to bed, after I put a bowl of food and water out on the deck, just in case he came back in the night, after I stole one of the several catbeds around the house to put out for him, just in case, I sat on my bed and cried.
He's not coming back, I'm sure of it. He has been gone too long. He's either lost or hit by a car or killed by a predator. Of course I'll check with my neighbors, but it's most likely that his sense of adventure got the best of him and he went too far to find his way back, was too exposed by his white fur and spotted by a coyote or a raptor. He's still light enough to be lifted by a large bird, even though he'd put up quite a fight.
I haven't completely given up hope, of course. I'll keep the bowl of food out for awhile. I'll check the roads and the neighbors. But I think Maxie is gone.
I'm not at the point of being able to see that it means less stress for the other cats or that my cat food and vet bills will diminish or that I can put out one less litter box, that I can quit worrying about cat pee on the bed. These were reasons that I almost turned him over to the animal shelter a few months ago. Now they just seem like stupid reasons for wanting to give him away.
He brought immense joy and love into my life, got the older cats moving faster, and was a source of amusement and entertainment, all his short life. It's hard to say goodbye.
We are all feeling the loss of his presence. As aggressive and feisty toward Loosy and Lily as he was, he was also just a kitten, a teenage kitten to be sure, but with vestiges of kittenhood still---the ability to fall limply into a pile of sleeping catfur, to curl up on my bosom while I lie in bed reading my book, to experience the wonder of the bunnies and deer that inhabit the yard. Always eager to go out outside on the deck, he would haunt the door yowling or, if I was here at the computer, he'd watch me hawklike and if I made a move to get up, he was galloping down the hall toward the deck door, always hopeful that I intended to let him out.
Last night when it was time to go to bed, after I put a bowl of food and water out on the deck, just in case he came back in the night, after I stole one of the several catbeds around the house to put out for him, just in case, I sat on my bed and cried.
He's not coming back, I'm sure of it. He has been gone too long. He's either lost or hit by a car or killed by a predator. Of course I'll check with my neighbors, but it's most likely that his sense of adventure got the best of him and he went too far to find his way back, was too exposed by his white fur and spotted by a coyote or a raptor. He's still light enough to be lifted by a large bird, even though he'd put up quite a fight.
I haven't completely given up hope, of course. I'll keep the bowl of food out for awhile. I'll check the roads and the neighbors. But I think Maxie is gone.
I'm not at the point of being able to see that it means less stress for the other cats or that my cat food and vet bills will diminish or that I can put out one less litter box, that I can quit worrying about cat pee on the bed. These were reasons that I almost turned him over to the animal shelter a few months ago. Now they just seem like stupid reasons for wanting to give him away.
He brought immense joy and love into my life, got the older cats moving faster, and was a source of amusement and entertainment, all his short life. It's hard to say goodbye.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Letting go
Max has twice now disappeared from the deck for an hour or so at a time. How he gets off, I don't know. How he gets back on, I don't know. But twice now I have had to shut the door to the deck not knowing where he is, just hoping he will return and knowing that I have no way of protecting him, short of curtailing everybody's freedom in this house.
Which I am not willing to do, to myself or to the other cats who show no interest in leaving the safety of the deck.
The mystery is not why Max might want to leave the deck, which is a good ten feet off the ground in most places and made more difficult by the arrangement of planter boxes, wire fencing, and the like all around the perimeter. There are bunnies all over the yard, tantalizingly close, and I suspect he has gone to chase them.
The other reality is that there are also coyotes, eagles, owls, and other predators around and the odds are that he will one day not be able to get back on the deck before they see him.
This is a really tough and scary decision to have to make, but I have to let go of his safety, to some extent. If he is going to get off the deck somehow without my knowing how it's happening, he is going to have to take his chances with the dangers. And that means that I am also taking chances. I have done about all I can to close up the places where he can wiggle through. Short of keeping him inside and off the deck, which I am not willing to do, there is no way of assuring his complete safety.
So---it's like a kid who needs to be able to strike out on his own, drive the car to school or wherever, learn to do something that scares his mother, take a risk, and learn the lessons of that risk.
The parent who allows this lives with the anxiety that "he's too young" or "he'll be killed" or variations on that panicky theme when we wake up at 4 a.m. and he's not home yet. I know I stand the chance of losing Max, just as I stood the chance of losing the Favorite Son in one of his escapades.
This also applies to ministry. Sometimes issues come up in a congregation and a minister has to say to herself, this is going to have to be their issue, not mine. I am going to have to let go of the outcome of their decision. And I remind myself of the adage I've learned from my colleagues, "this is not the hill I'm willing to die on."
It's hard to know when to let go and when to hang on and fight it out. Do we see this happening anywhere else in the world?
Which I am not willing to do, to myself or to the other cats who show no interest in leaving the safety of the deck.
The mystery is not why Max might want to leave the deck, which is a good ten feet off the ground in most places and made more difficult by the arrangement of planter boxes, wire fencing, and the like all around the perimeter. There are bunnies all over the yard, tantalizingly close, and I suspect he has gone to chase them.
The other reality is that there are also coyotes, eagles, owls, and other predators around and the odds are that he will one day not be able to get back on the deck before they see him.
This is a really tough and scary decision to have to make, but I have to let go of his safety, to some extent. If he is going to get off the deck somehow without my knowing how it's happening, he is going to have to take his chances with the dangers. And that means that I am also taking chances. I have done about all I can to close up the places where he can wiggle through. Short of keeping him inside and off the deck, which I am not willing to do, there is no way of assuring his complete safety.
So---it's like a kid who needs to be able to strike out on his own, drive the car to school or wherever, learn to do something that scares his mother, take a risk, and learn the lessons of that risk.
The parent who allows this lives with the anxiety that "he's too young" or "he'll be killed" or variations on that panicky theme when we wake up at 4 a.m. and he's not home yet. I know I stand the chance of losing Max, just as I stood the chance of losing the Favorite Son in one of his escapades.
This also applies to ministry. Sometimes issues come up in a congregation and a minister has to say to herself, this is going to have to be their issue, not mine. I am going to have to let go of the outcome of their decision. And I remind myself of the adage I've learned from my colleagues, "this is not the hill I'm willing to die on."
It's hard to know when to let go and when to hang on and fight it out. Do we see this happening anywhere else in the world?
Monday, May 12, 2008
Sabbathing...
is not easy for me. I like my work too much to put it on the shelf for very long. Even in the checkout lane of the grocery store I seem to have my minister antenna out and I notice things---whether the checker looks harried or whether a parishioner I see among the salad fixings hasn't been at church for awhile. I find it hard to turn it off.
So after yesterday's wonderful, exhausting service, I looked at today's calendar page and thought, "I don't have anything I HAVE to do tomorrow. So, I'm not going to get up and hustle off to the gym; I'm going to take a walk over at SW State Park instead. I'm going to make a rhubarb crisp with the wonderful rhubarb that my garden has produced. I'm going to ..... well, what am I going to do with myself if I don't get busy on this coming Sunday's order of service or write a board report or a newsletter article?" I wasn't sure how the day would develop if I didn't work.
But I decided I needed to do it. There are very few days when I don't do something work-related. I think about sermons in the car; I answer emails from parishioners; I'm "working", in some way, much of the day, even if it's only thinking. Today I put church stuff on the shelf as much as I could and just did things for myself and my own restoration.
Of course, the haircut I was looking forward to became a chance to talk with Amy, who goes to our church and whose little boy was dedicated yesterday, so I guess I did do a little.
But mostly, I have been successful in putting church matters out of my mind today. I have put off writing my board report until tomorrow, even though that's later than I normally do it, since the board meeting is Wednesday. It won't hurt. And the O/S for Sunday is already pretty much done and doesn't need to be sent to our administrator until Wednesday. I can put off writing the homily until later as well, since there are other speakers besides me on Sunday and my part is smaller than usual.
art.
It's felt good. Tonight Trilogy rehearses here at my house so I don't even have to go anywhere.
But it does remind me that I need some other sources of self-care besides the good feeling of a job well done. I want to get in the habit of doing things for myself, things that don't necessarily cost anything (like a walk in the park) but are just done for my own pleasure. I guess today was a start. I am well aware that it will take some effort on my part, because it's so important to me to be "useful". Spending time on myself---is that useful? I may have to reframe my ideas of usefulness.
So after yesterday's wonderful, exhausting service, I looked at today's calendar page and thought, "I don't have anything I HAVE to do tomorrow. So, I'm not going to get up and hustle off to the gym; I'm going to take a walk over at SW State Park instead. I'm going to make a rhubarb crisp with the wonderful rhubarb that my garden has produced. I'm going to ..... well, what am I going to do with myself if I don't get busy on this coming Sunday's order of service or write a board report or a newsletter article?" I wasn't sure how the day would develop if I didn't work.
But I decided I needed to do it. There are very few days when I don't do something work-related. I think about sermons in the car; I answer emails from parishioners; I'm "working", in some way, much of the day, even if it's only thinking. Today I put church stuff on the shelf as much as I could and just did things for myself and my own restoration.
Of course, the haircut I was looking forward to became a chance to talk with Amy, who goes to our church and whose little boy was dedicated yesterday, so I guess I did do a little.
But mostly, I have been successful in putting church matters out of my mind today. I have put off writing my board report until tomorrow, even though that's later than I normally do it, since the board meeting is Wednesday. It won't hurt. And the O/S for Sunday is already pretty much done and doesn't need to be sent to our administrator until Wednesday. I can put off writing the homily until later as well, since there are other speakers besides me on Sunday and my part is smaller than usual.
art.
It's felt good. Tonight Trilogy rehearses here at my house so I don't even have to go anywhere.
But it does remind me that I need some other sources of self-care besides the good feeling of a job well done. I want to get in the habit of doing things for myself, things that don't necessarily cost anything (like a walk in the park) but are just done for my own pleasure. I guess today was a start. I am well aware that it will take some effort on my part, because it's so important to me to be "useful". Spending time on myself---is that useful? I may have to reframe my ideas of usefulness.
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Beautiful Chaos!
Mother's Day started out awfully early this morning, as most mornings do. But I'd gotten to bed quite late last night after spending the evening at a local bistro listening to a couple of friends (Deja Blooz is their group name). We stuffed ourselves on appetizers and desserts, compliments of my darling brother's Christmas gift, which was a generous gift certificate to this place in Langley. But it meant I was late going to bed, which makes NO difference to the cats, who are up and at my door by 5:15 a.m. without fail.
So the morning started off a little bleary-eyed anyhow and the day was going to be a full one. I had a wedding consult at 1 p.m. with a couple who are being married in July, and then our DRE Lorie and I had to prep our meeting space for the Big Production---a intergenerational service with Flower Communion, Child Dedication, and Re-creation of the Simple Gifts Still Life all rolled into one.
Whenever you're working with kids to put together an intergenerational service, you can count on its being chaotic and unpredictable. However, you can also count on its being absolutely adored by the congregation---at least here on the island.
We were dedicating six kids, which is quite a passel of parents and children all up front. And we didn't really have a chance to rehearse any of the program, other than the music. So we just had to go forward hoping for the best.
Well, it was marvelous. There were all kinds of goof-ups but none of them mattered much. The dedication brought tears to people's eyes, the re-creation of the still life was lovely, and the Flower Communion seemed to touch people's hearts as well.
What I like about the child dedication I've worked out is the words I use with each child and parent. I ask the parent(s) the child's name, then I repeat the name, dip a rosebud in the "holy" water and touch the child's head with it, saying "I touch your head that you might learn to think clearly", touch the lips, saying "I touch your lips that you might learn to speak truth", touch the heart, saying "I touch your heart that you might learn to love deeply", touch the hands, saying "I touch your hands that you might learn to serve others", and touch the parent(s), saying "I touch your parents that they might always remind you how deeply you are loved". Then I say, "welcome, Zoe, (or whoever) to the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Whidbey Island.
Our DRE gives each child a little bag with a sugar lump (for the sweetness of life), bitter herbs (for the sorrow of life), a Susan B. Anthony dollar (for UU ancestry), and I forget the other items, but each is significant in some way.
To watch the children's faces is truly wonderful. One little boy kissed the rosebud as I touched his lips. The sigh from the congregation was audible.
We have really worked hard to build up an RE program that works. Our meeting time of 4 p.m. is really difficult for families and it's been a slow go. But we are hopeful that when we move to a morning service, things will change for the better. Lorie, bless her heart, has managed to build the program immensely since she came two years ago. She is absolutely a gem and has recruited her whole family to be part of the congregation. We have dedicated five children from her immediate family!
Anyhow, tonight I'm going to bed a bit early and bask in the memories of a wonderful day.
On top of it all, the Favorite Son called and we had a great conversation. Their Fellowship in Reno has just had candidating week for their new minister-to-be. He didn't know yet if the new guy had been voted in, as they are not yet members and didn't stay for the vote, but they were optimistic. The FS is more than just my son; he's also my friend, which is a lovely relationship to have with a person whose face I used to have to scrub!
So the morning started off a little bleary-eyed anyhow and the day was going to be a full one. I had a wedding consult at 1 p.m. with a couple who are being married in July, and then our DRE Lorie and I had to prep our meeting space for the Big Production---a intergenerational service with Flower Communion, Child Dedication, and Re-creation of the Simple Gifts Still Life all rolled into one.
Whenever you're working with kids to put together an intergenerational service, you can count on its being chaotic and unpredictable. However, you can also count on its being absolutely adored by the congregation---at least here on the island.
We were dedicating six kids, which is quite a passel of parents and children all up front. And we didn't really have a chance to rehearse any of the program, other than the music. So we just had to go forward hoping for the best.
Well, it was marvelous. There were all kinds of goof-ups but none of them mattered much. The dedication brought tears to people's eyes, the re-creation of the still life was lovely, and the Flower Communion seemed to touch people's hearts as well.
What I like about the child dedication I've worked out is the words I use with each child and parent. I ask the parent(s) the child's name, then I repeat the name, dip a rosebud in the "holy" water and touch the child's head with it, saying "I touch your head that you might learn to think clearly", touch the lips, saying "I touch your lips that you might learn to speak truth", touch the heart, saying "I touch your heart that you might learn to love deeply", touch the hands, saying "I touch your hands that you might learn to serve others", and touch the parent(s), saying "I touch your parents that they might always remind you how deeply you are loved". Then I say, "welcome, Zoe, (or whoever) to the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Whidbey Island.
Our DRE gives each child a little bag with a sugar lump (for the sweetness of life), bitter herbs (for the sorrow of life), a Susan B. Anthony dollar (for UU ancestry), and I forget the other items, but each is significant in some way.
To watch the children's faces is truly wonderful. One little boy kissed the rosebud as I touched his lips. The sigh from the congregation was audible.
We have really worked hard to build up an RE program that works. Our meeting time of 4 p.m. is really difficult for families and it's been a slow go. But we are hopeful that when we move to a morning service, things will change for the better. Lorie, bless her heart, has managed to build the program immensely since she came two years ago. She is absolutely a gem and has recruited her whole family to be part of the congregation. We have dedicated five children from her immediate family!
Anyhow, tonight I'm going to bed a bit early and bask in the memories of a wonderful day.
On top of it all, the Favorite Son called and we had a great conversation. Their Fellowship in Reno has just had candidating week for their new minister-to-be. He didn't know yet if the new guy had been voted in, as they are not yet members and didn't stay for the vote, but they were optimistic. The FS is more than just my son; he's also my friend, which is a lovely relationship to have with a person whose face I used to have to scrub!
Friday, May 09, 2008
Good Friday!
No, I'm not several weeks late. Today is---or will be---Good Friday in a very personal way: the various workmen who have visited my property in the last three days have determined that the leak in my waterline is easily fixable, that it is not galvanized pipe which would have required a complete replacement of the line, and that it can be done today in a short period of time! (They're here now working on it!)
Is that Good News or what?
In other matters, I am feeling very happy about a number of things going on in the congregation right now:
1. Our intergenerational Mother's Day/Flower Communion/Child Dedication service is coming together nicely. We are dedicating 6 kids, all members of families new to the congregation, which is a thrill in itself. We always give a rosebud to each child, which looked like it was going to cost an arm and a leg these days, but I found a miniature rose bush which has 6 lovely buds and blooms on it. So it's even a green gift!
2. I'll be performing 3 weddings and doing 3 preaching gigs this summer, all of which I enjoy very much and fatten up my savings account a bit. I was getting a little bit worried about whether I was going to be doing anything income-producing this summer and all of a sudden several things came in. And there could be more in the offing.
3. The compilation of responses to our stewardship campaign has just been published and I was thrilled to read many, many warm and loving responses to my work here as a minister. It's always a little scary to peruse something like that, because many times criticisms are stated so blatantly and unkindly that it's quite painful, even though they may be legitimate concerns. Remember this, if you're ever asked to fill out a survey on your minister!
4. And it's a beautiful day here on the island!
Is that Good News or what?
In other matters, I am feeling very happy about a number of things going on in the congregation right now:
1. Our intergenerational Mother's Day/Flower Communion/Child Dedication service is coming together nicely. We are dedicating 6 kids, all members of families new to the congregation, which is a thrill in itself. We always give a rosebud to each child, which looked like it was going to cost an arm and a leg these days, but I found a miniature rose bush which has 6 lovely buds and blooms on it. So it's even a green gift!
2. I'll be performing 3 weddings and doing 3 preaching gigs this summer, all of which I enjoy very much and fatten up my savings account a bit. I was getting a little bit worried about whether I was going to be doing anything income-producing this summer and all of a sudden several things came in. And there could be more in the offing.
3. The compilation of responses to our stewardship campaign has just been published and I was thrilled to read many, many warm and loving responses to my work here as a minister. It's always a little scary to peruse something like that, because many times criticisms are stated so blatantly and unkindly that it's quite painful, even though they may be legitimate concerns. Remember this, if you're ever asked to fill out a survey on your minister!
4. And it's a beautiful day here on the island!
Thursday, May 08, 2008
Go, Hillary, Go?
I'm not really sure I know what I mean by this. Do I wish Hillary would remove herself from the race so we can get on with electing a different president with a real campaign strategy? Sort of. Or do I wish Hillary would hang in there and represent women all the way to the top, whether that's a win or a lose? Yes to that one too.
I listened to the tenor of her remarks after losing the NC primary and barely winning IN and I thought "this is one dedicated lady. She isn't going to give up and let down her constituents. She's going to take it all the way, win or lose. The women of America are her sisters and she's going as far as she can."
It's a little like (IMHO) a woman with breast cancer who, because she loves life, because she doesn't want to leave her loved ones, because she is a fighter who has surmounted other difficulties, because she believes she owes it to those who love her to keep on fighting, a woman who tries every last treatment available, even the ones that are as bad as the disease, just to be able to say she tried everything before she let go.
There's a piece of me that knows that this is not necessarily a good strategy. There's another piece of me that understands completely why she would do it. I might do it too.
And yet, there's a point in life when the loved ones of a dying person want to say to that person, "it's okay to go now, it's okay to let go, we'll be all right, you've done your job".
Go, Hillary, Go. Whichever way you want to take that.
I listened to the tenor of her remarks after losing the NC primary and barely winning IN and I thought "this is one dedicated lady. She isn't going to give up and let down her constituents. She's going to take it all the way, win or lose. The women of America are her sisters and she's going as far as she can."
It's a little like (IMHO) a woman with breast cancer who, because she loves life, because she doesn't want to leave her loved ones, because she is a fighter who has surmounted other difficulties, because she believes she owes it to those who love her to keep on fighting, a woman who tries every last treatment available, even the ones that are as bad as the disease, just to be able to say she tried everything before she let go.
There's a piece of me that knows that this is not necessarily a good strategy. There's another piece of me that understands completely why she would do it. I might do it too.
And yet, there's a point in life when the loved ones of a dying person want to say to that person, "it's okay to go now, it's okay to let go, we'll be all right, you've done your job".
Go, Hillary, Go. Whichever way you want to take that.
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
Updates and Gratitude
Thanks to Mile High Pixie and another, unnamed reader who both suggested ways to make the water shut-off time shorter and less handicapping. Does it ever help to have friends in the blogosphere who know a thing or two about plumbing! MHP is an architect in Denver and understands about the installation of things like plumbing and water lines. Pixie, I'm grateful! And to Ms. Unnamed, a reader here on the island, my gratitude as well for suggesting a temporary patch on the leak during the drying-out period.
How my workers will respond to these suggestions is yet to be determined, but I feel better prepared to tackle the repair with them because goodhearted people have helped me see the possibilities. A thousand thanks!
Yesterday I went into Seattle to meet with the remnants of the board of the Religious Coalition for Equality, which is considering affiliation with Equal Rights Washington, a formerly small effort that has the potential to become an umbrella group for many of the groups which have formed around the issue of marriage equality. Since the enactment of domestic partnership benefits in Washington state, the push for full marriage equality has slowed. It hasn't died, but the urgency has lessened.
Our decision was that we would pursue it, if ERW could grant some requests---that we be able to offer the religious message about equality through ERW and not be subsumed into that organization, that we have clergy on their board, that when financially feasible we have a staff member dedicated at least in part to fundraising with our religious donors.
The religious message, we concluded, is essential and must not be subsumed into the general message. We are the Davids, the defenders of the faith, pitted against the Goliaths of the local conservative megachurches, whose angry rhetoric is what always seems to make the papers, not our message of love and acceptance.
So it was a good day yesterday, seeing RCE friends for the first time in six months, and then finding the advice of plumbing-knowledgeable friends in my email!
Today I shall marshall the water-fighting forces of the island! and do the laundry, the grocery shopping, the vacuuming, the petunia-planting.
How my workers will respond to these suggestions is yet to be determined, but I feel better prepared to tackle the repair with them because goodhearted people have helped me see the possibilities. A thousand thanks!
Yesterday I went into Seattle to meet with the remnants of the board of the Religious Coalition for Equality, which is considering affiliation with Equal Rights Washington, a formerly small effort that has the potential to become an umbrella group for many of the groups which have formed around the issue of marriage equality. Since the enactment of domestic partnership benefits in Washington state, the push for full marriage equality has slowed. It hasn't died, but the urgency has lessened.
Our decision was that we would pursue it, if ERW could grant some requests---that we be able to offer the religious message about equality through ERW and not be subsumed into that organization, that we have clergy on their board, that when financially feasible we have a staff member dedicated at least in part to fundraising with our religious donors.
The religious message, we concluded, is essential and must not be subsumed into the general message. We are the Davids, the defenders of the faith, pitted against the Goliaths of the local conservative megachurches, whose angry rhetoric is what always seems to make the papers, not our message of love and acceptance.
So it was a good day yesterday, seeing RCE friends for the first time in six months, and then finding the advice of plumbing-knowledgeable friends in my email!
Today I shall marshall the water-fighting forces of the island! and do the laundry, the grocery shopping, the vacuuming, the petunia-planting.
Monday, May 05, 2008
Dang!
Much as I love this house, I may have to find another place to live. Last fall, I noticed that my electrical bill had jumped $50 in one month, for no good reason---no rate hike, no unusually cold weather, lots of energy-saving measures on my part. It has stayed so high all winter that I decided to go on budget-billing, but when the utility company re-averaged my usage, the budget-bill stayed really high.
So I told my landlord (a Sacramento guy, a good guy, but he's never lived on the island) about my concern and he kind of pooh-poohed it, said it was probably just the weather, etc. So I told him I'd pay for a plumber to come look at the hot water heater, which was one of the possibilities.
The plumber came today and pronounced the water heater in fine shape, but he had the good sense to ask about other things and we finally figured out that the pump in the wellhouse is running constantly (at 220 v.) because there is a leak in the water line between the well and my house. No wonder my electricity bill is so high!
To fix it will require shutting off the water to the house, digging out a trench to expose the pipe, letting it dry out a bit, and then replacing the pipe, probably all the way back to the wellhouse, a couple hundred yards away. I don't know how long all that will take and I'm not sure how I will cope with that situation!
I guess I will, but it's a big pain. And the lower part of my yard is a swamp! Water is bubbling out of a hole in the ground in the yard.
Stay tuned.
So I told my landlord (a Sacramento guy, a good guy, but he's never lived on the island) about my concern and he kind of pooh-poohed it, said it was probably just the weather, etc. So I told him I'd pay for a plumber to come look at the hot water heater, which was one of the possibilities.
The plumber came today and pronounced the water heater in fine shape, but he had the good sense to ask about other things and we finally figured out that the pump in the wellhouse is running constantly (at 220 v.) because there is a leak in the water line between the well and my house. No wonder my electricity bill is so high!
To fix it will require shutting off the water to the house, digging out a trench to expose the pipe, letting it dry out a bit, and then replacing the pipe, probably all the way back to the wellhouse, a couple hundred yards away. I don't know how long all that will take and I'm not sure how I will cope with that situation!
I guess I will, but it's a big pain. And the lower part of my yard is a swamp! Water is bubbling out of a hole in the ground in the yard.
Stay tuned.
Sunday, May 04, 2008
Shaping Worth Together
SHAPING WORTH TOGETHER: HOW WE WORSHIP
Rev. Kit Ketcham, May 4, 2008
The late Kenneth L. Patton, a staunch Humanist preacher, poet, and hymnist, wrote these words, which I feel are a fitting beginning for our time together today:
Let us worship with our eyes and ears and fingertips;
let us love the world through heart and mind and body.
We feed our eyes upon the mystery and revelation
in the faces of our brothers and sisters.
We seek to know the wistfulness of the very young
and the very old,
the wistfulness of people in all times of life.
We seek to understand the shyness behind arrogance,
the fear behind pride,
the tenderness behind clumsy strength,
the anguish behind cruelty.
All life flows into a great common life,
if we will only open our eyes to our companions.
Let us worship, not in bowing down,
not with closed eyes and stopped ears.
Let us worship with the opening of all the windows of our beings,
with the full outstretching of our spirits.
Life comes with singing and laughter,
with tears and confiding,
with a rising wave too great to be held in the mind
and heart and body,
to those who have fallen in love with life.
Let us worship, and let us learn to love.
The word “worship” is scary for lots of Unitarian Universalists, evoking as it does the idea of adoration of a deity. And that is one definition of the word “worship”. It’s just not the one we use.
It can also mean rituals of reverence and praise and it can mean ardor or passion toward another person. These are all legitimate definitions of the word “worship”. Again, they are not the definitions we Unitarian Universalists generally use when we think about worship.
No, we tend to go back to the original language, the Old English, the combination of two ancient words, “weorth” and “schippe”. One word means worthiness and the other means to shape. What we UUs usually mean by the word worship is “to shape that which is worthy”, to take note of, to treasure, to think about, to share that which is worthy.
I’ve always liked this way of defining the term worship. For me, it goes beyond what is normally meant and expands its meaning beyond deity, beyond prescribed adoration, beyond personal preference.
My own experiences with worship, with shaping worth together, have been as varied as yours may have been, beginning in my Baptist childhood with a pretty conservative rehashing of ancient King James Version Bible passages, interspersed with some great hymn singing, an occasional communion service, and long prayers.
When I first walked into a Unitarian Universalist sanctuary for worship, my experience was rather different, though it was still pretty much the same format, with much better preaching, meditation instead of a long pastoral prayer, and hymns whose words seemed more in line with my thinking though without the energy my Baptist pals had mustered.
As I got more accustomed to the differences between the Baptist worship services of my youth and my Unitarian Universalist experiences with worship, I started to develop ideas of my own about how things should go.
As a member of Jefferson Unitarian Church in Colorado for almost 25 years, I had my gripes. Gosh, I’d think, this preacher sure is boring, or, over my head, or too flip, or looks weird. Gee, the choir sure sounded flat. Boy, I wish my neighbor wouldn’t talk during the prelude. And, I like Joys and Concerns but does it HAVE TO go so long? I had my complaints, for sure.
And then I had a remarkable two by four between the eyes. After I had given a short homily one Sunday as a member of the Committee on Ministry, our minister Robert Latham got up in the pulpit, turned to me, and said, “Kit, you missed your calling. You ought to be a minister.”
And Sunday worship began to take on a whole new meaning for me. As a congregation leader and potential seminary student, I was invited to go to the district’s Leadership School, where I began to learn about what worship means. I learned the idea of “shaping worth together”. I had a chance to share my own ideas about what was worshipful and what was not.
I learned that my gripes were common gripes but that they really weren’t getting at the heart of worship. That is, what I disliked often meant something entirely different to someone else.
My boring or too intellectual preacher was a source of wonderful stimulation to someone else. Another person appreciated the hours of work that went into a choral performance and forgave all the flat notes. For every gripe of mine, there was a response that helped me see that my worship experience was not just about me and my preferences, that other worshippers needed something different.
The Rev. Barbara Hamilton Holway, our teacher for Worship Arts at Leadership School, told us all that in corporate worship----and that means when we all come together in the same place to experience the same hour of meaning and value----in corporate worship, we have a chance to receive several different gifts of worship
There’s the gift of silence for those who crave a contemplative time. There’s the gift of the spoken word for those who learn by listening. There’s the gift of singing together for those who love to be part of voices raised in song. There’s the gift of poetry or artistic expression for those whose reverence is inspired by creativity.
There’s the gift of the responsive word for those who love to speak aloud the beautiful words of others. There’s the gift of the joys and concerns of the gathered community for those whose love and care for friends and neighbors is at their essence. There’s the gift of laughter for those whose spirits need a lift and the gift of solemnity for those who are in a serious place.
And so, Barbara reminded us, when we are in worship together, every element may not serve us individually perfectly. But a UU worship service is designed to offer the many gifts of worship to the great variety of people who gather there, and what is not meaningful and worshipful to me is very possibly deeply meaningful and worshipful to the person sitting beside me.
When I started seminary, I was immersed in an interfaith stew of fellow students and learned to appreciate the many gifts of Christian worship, and of worship with a pagan flair or in the contemplative style of Buddhism, and found great meaning in some elements and less in others. When a fellow student griped about some less-than-meaningful-to-him element, I was able to share my mentor’s teachings.
But I continued to be a little bit frustrated by my experiences in corporate worship. Some of this was because I was in seminary and attuned to critiquing what I saw being presented in worship. Some of it was because worship wasn’t well-conducted. But somehow even JUC’s high quality worship services didn’t always inspire me.
And then I came to the point in my training where I had to qualify for inclusion in the Unitarian Universalist Ministers Association, by jumping through the credentialing hoops of a committee called the Ministerial Fellowship Committee, the dreaded MFC.
I’d read everything on the reading list, I’d done all the seminary work, gotten good grades, high evaluations on my chaplaincy training and my internship. I figured I was probably THE best candidate ever to arrive before the MFC----secretly, of course, I was scared to death. So I did what I often do when I’m scared and that is come across extra strong.
After my half hour interview with the MFC, I went out to the lobby of the hotel where we were being interviewed to wait for them to decide and call me back in. And I waited and waited and waited. Finally, after almost an hour, a wait which was a lot longer than most other candidates had endured, somebody came to get me.
My heart was pounding. What did the delay mean? I sat down in my appointed seat and the chair of the committee said to me, “Kit, we’re giving you a rating of 2, not a 1. 2 is a passing rating, but we think you’re way too intense to be easily accepted by a Search committee or a typical congregation. We want you to spend your final seminary year with a Spiritual Director before you are qualified for Preliminary Fellowship.”
Well! I was polite. I didn’t scream out my defensive objections. I thanked them sweetly and went out silently fuming. Intense? Me? I saw the rating of a 2 and the assignment of a contingency to be completed, as failure. I was unable to see anything positive in having gotten anything less than a great big gold star!
Fortunately the years I spent in 12 step work were invaluable to me, as I cooled down later and got over my sense of embarrassment at having been less than a perfect student, I could acknowledge that yes, I am intense, I am strong-willed, I am even egotistical at times. And maybe Spiritual Direction wouldn’t be so bad.
For those who are not familiar with the term, Spiritual Direction is simply the undertaking of a spiritual search with a companion who is trained to guide another person through the common spiritual questions and dilemmas of life. It’s a bit like counseling, but it’s spirit-oriented, not goal-oriented.
So I hunted up a Spiritual Director. Her name was Ann and she agreed to meet with me for a year, during my senior year in seminary. At our first visit, she asked me to think about what spiritual practice I would like to develop.
That was in September of 1998, ten years ago, and when I chose to develop a prayer life, with Ann’s help, I never dreamed what effect it would have on my spiritual development, and, in fact, on my ability to find meaning in ordinary human experiences of all kinds. It changed my perspective and my life.
My colleague the Rev. Susan Maginn, of Wy’east UU Congregation in Portland, has written: “There is a pretty profound relationship between…(having a spiritual practice and coming to worship services.)
“In our personal spiritual practice, we are able to go into the quiet of our being and meet our own personal needs for engaging the spirit. We all have our own ways of developing our spiritual maturity. For some of us spiritual practice is expressive - in art, music, writing, hiking in the woods.
“For some of us it is more contemplative – prayer, meditation or memorizing poetry. We choose a practice that is our holy task. We regularly set aside holy time to make it so.
“When we come together for Sunday worship, we are doing something different. My hope is that our spirits will certainly be enriched by our Sunday worship services, but this time is not personal spiritual practice. It is an expression of our shared path. We are a people who are bound together by a covenant to walk in the ways of love. Worship is a celebration of this.
“When we do one without the other, our spiritual needs will not be met. If all we do is personal spiritual practice, we will be missing the sacred community. If all we do is community worship, then we will be asking the community worship to meet our very personal needs, which community worship is not designed to do. A new member of ..this congregation… described this eloquently. She said, ‘One goes deep, while the other goes wide’.”
And this is what I learned from developing a personal spiritual practice: that focusing on my own spiritual life in a regular, conscientious way helped me find meaning in every worship service I attended, whether it was well-done or not, whether it met my individual need that day or not, whether the choir was great or the preacher was boring.
It was no longer just about my needs, for my individual spiritual needs were being met by my personal spiritual practice. Being together in worship was about being part of a loving community as the community experienced a loving time together.
Last week, our guest preacher, the Rev. James Kubal-Komoto spoke to us about “how to become a more spiritual person in 15 minutes a day”. Do you remember what he told us about the four elements of spiritual living? Let’s remind ourselves of them. James spoke about integrating four attitudes or behaviors into our daily lives.
He spoke about compassion and kindness, how much more deepening is an attitude of care for other human beings than is an attitude of criticism. That was the first thing he suggested: compassion and kindness.
The second thing was gratitude, the ability to be thankful for what we have in life instead of wanting more and more and more stuff or money.
The third was acceptance, and he used the Serenity Prayer as an example: Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
And the fourth was faithfulness, faithfulness to our values, faithfulness to a life of integrity and commitment.
A personal spiritual practice brings these elements of spirituality into our daily lives. You may find your deepest yearnings satisfied by time in the woods or on the water or in your garden; you may find it listening to music or creating something beautiful; you may find it in silence and meditation. You may find it, as I did, in a daily prayer time.
I’m certainly not advocating that you should all do any one thing I suggest, as a spiritual practice. I can suggest things all I want---that’s the freedom of the pulpit! But you have the right to disagree or to choose your own path---that’s the freedom of the pew! A very important freedom in UUism.
But I would like to suggest strongly that in order to get the very most possible out of any worship service, any time of corporate worship, whether it’s here or down the road at a more conservative church, that each of us should have a personal spiritual practice, a time in which we think about and focus on such attributes as compassion, gratitude, acceptance, and faithfulness.
One of the remarkable things that I have gained from my daily prayer time is an ability to feel a kinship with even those religious folks who are on the other end of the religious spectrum from me: compassion and understanding for how important their faith and their own practices are to them; gratitude for having found my own path which resonates for me so well; acceptance that this is who they are and that their paths are right for them, at this time in their lives, as are mine; and then faithfulness to my own values and a commitment to continue to work for those values in the world.
Recently I had the opportunity to speak to my ministerial colleagues about my own spiritual journey, my odyssey, a privilege which most ministers in our district receive once or so during their career. I spoke to them for about an hour about my life and then asked if anyone had questions.
During the Q and A period, one colleague raised her hand and asked, “Kit, where does your spirit of “happy positivity” come from?” She went on to say that this was her experience of me, that not much got me down very permanently, that I seemed to be able to grow and rise above fairly negative experiences.
I pondered that for a moment, surprised by the question as I certainly have my down times, my low energy, depressive moments, but I realized, and answered her thus, that I had faked it for a long time, for many years of my life, and that it had shifted in the past twenty years or so because of my experiences in such programs as AlAnon and my regular prayer practice.
Without these two discoveries in my life, I think I would still be faking it, not wanting to reveal myself too much, afraid that others would critize. And it was learning about myself through 12-step work and prayer that gave me the courage to be truly myself, to survive the low blows that life always delivers.
As we think about our worship times together, our corporate worship, and plan how to make these times even better when we move into our own sanctuary, filled with our own symbols and a deeper sense of our own identity as a congregation, I hope that each of us will consider how we might deepen our personal spiritual lives, whether by disciplined repetition of a practice like meditation or prayer, whether by time spent creating beauty out of the earth or fabric or paint or music or words, whether by contributing to the wellbeing of our community by service to others or by spending time in nature or in reading poetry.
I’m not sure it matters just what we choose as a spiritual practice, just that it must invite us daily into deeper consideration of our own relationship to ourselves, to other beings, and to the earth on which we live. When we are able to set aside worries and anxieties for a time and focus on who we are and what we may become through a personal spiritual practice, we deepen our own lives and give ourselves more “worth” to shape when we come together as a community. In addition, we will have more to share with the community beyond our walls.
It is my prayer that we each may find within ourselves that wellspring of compassion, gratitude, acceptance, and faithfulness, and that we will bring a renewed vision of worship to our times together, as we grow and prosper as a congregation.
Let’s pause for a time of silent reflection and prayer.
Hymn #318 “We Would Be One”
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 own spiritual lives are enriched and deepened by the personal spiritual practices which we undertake. May we recognize their value to our life together in this Beloved Community and may we come each week with joy and anticipation of our time together here. Amen, Shalom, Salaam, and Blessed Be.
Rev. Kit Ketcham, May 4, 2008
The late Kenneth L. Patton, a staunch Humanist preacher, poet, and hymnist, wrote these words, which I feel are a fitting beginning for our time together today:
Let us worship with our eyes and ears and fingertips;
let us love the world through heart and mind and body.
We feed our eyes upon the mystery and revelation
in the faces of our brothers and sisters.
We seek to know the wistfulness of the very young
and the very old,
the wistfulness of people in all times of life.
We seek to understand the shyness behind arrogance,
the fear behind pride,
the tenderness behind clumsy strength,
the anguish behind cruelty.
All life flows into a great common life,
if we will only open our eyes to our companions.
Let us worship, not in bowing down,
not with closed eyes and stopped ears.
Let us worship with the opening of all the windows of our beings,
with the full outstretching of our spirits.
Life comes with singing and laughter,
with tears and confiding,
with a rising wave too great to be held in the mind
and heart and body,
to those who have fallen in love with life.
Let us worship, and let us learn to love.
The word “worship” is scary for lots of Unitarian Universalists, evoking as it does the idea of adoration of a deity. And that is one definition of the word “worship”. It’s just not the one we use.
It can also mean rituals of reverence and praise and it can mean ardor or passion toward another person. These are all legitimate definitions of the word “worship”. Again, they are not the definitions we Unitarian Universalists generally use when we think about worship.
No, we tend to go back to the original language, the Old English, the combination of two ancient words, “weorth” and “schippe”. One word means worthiness and the other means to shape. What we UUs usually mean by the word worship is “to shape that which is worthy”, to take note of, to treasure, to think about, to share that which is worthy.
I’ve always liked this way of defining the term worship. For me, it goes beyond what is normally meant and expands its meaning beyond deity, beyond prescribed adoration, beyond personal preference.
My own experiences with worship, with shaping worth together, have been as varied as yours may have been, beginning in my Baptist childhood with a pretty conservative rehashing of ancient King James Version Bible passages, interspersed with some great hymn singing, an occasional communion service, and long prayers.
When I first walked into a Unitarian Universalist sanctuary for worship, my experience was rather different, though it was still pretty much the same format, with much better preaching, meditation instead of a long pastoral prayer, and hymns whose words seemed more in line with my thinking though without the energy my Baptist pals had mustered.
As I got more accustomed to the differences between the Baptist worship services of my youth and my Unitarian Universalist experiences with worship, I started to develop ideas of my own about how things should go.
As a member of Jefferson Unitarian Church in Colorado for almost 25 years, I had my gripes. Gosh, I’d think, this preacher sure is boring, or, over my head, or too flip, or looks weird. Gee, the choir sure sounded flat. Boy, I wish my neighbor wouldn’t talk during the prelude. And, I like Joys and Concerns but does it HAVE TO go so long? I had my complaints, for sure.
And then I had a remarkable two by four between the eyes. After I had given a short homily one Sunday as a member of the Committee on Ministry, our minister Robert Latham got up in the pulpit, turned to me, and said, “Kit, you missed your calling. You ought to be a minister.”
And Sunday worship began to take on a whole new meaning for me. As a congregation leader and potential seminary student, I was invited to go to the district’s Leadership School, where I began to learn about what worship means. I learned the idea of “shaping worth together”. I had a chance to share my own ideas about what was worshipful and what was not.
I learned that my gripes were common gripes but that they really weren’t getting at the heart of worship. That is, what I disliked often meant something entirely different to someone else.
My boring or too intellectual preacher was a source of wonderful stimulation to someone else. Another person appreciated the hours of work that went into a choral performance and forgave all the flat notes. For every gripe of mine, there was a response that helped me see that my worship experience was not just about me and my preferences, that other worshippers needed something different.
The Rev. Barbara Hamilton Holway, our teacher for Worship Arts at Leadership School, told us all that in corporate worship----and that means when we all come together in the same place to experience the same hour of meaning and value----in corporate worship, we have a chance to receive several different gifts of worship
There’s the gift of silence for those who crave a contemplative time. There’s the gift of the spoken word for those who learn by listening. There’s the gift of singing together for those who love to be part of voices raised in song. There’s the gift of poetry or artistic expression for those whose reverence is inspired by creativity.
There’s the gift of the responsive word for those who love to speak aloud the beautiful words of others. There’s the gift of the joys and concerns of the gathered community for those whose love and care for friends and neighbors is at their essence. There’s the gift of laughter for those whose spirits need a lift and the gift of solemnity for those who are in a serious place.
And so, Barbara reminded us, when we are in worship together, every element may not serve us individually perfectly. But a UU worship service is designed to offer the many gifts of worship to the great variety of people who gather there, and what is not meaningful and worshipful to me is very possibly deeply meaningful and worshipful to the person sitting beside me.
When I started seminary, I was immersed in an interfaith stew of fellow students and learned to appreciate the many gifts of Christian worship, and of worship with a pagan flair or in the contemplative style of Buddhism, and found great meaning in some elements and less in others. When a fellow student griped about some less-than-meaningful-to-him element, I was able to share my mentor’s teachings.
But I continued to be a little bit frustrated by my experiences in corporate worship. Some of this was because I was in seminary and attuned to critiquing what I saw being presented in worship. Some of it was because worship wasn’t well-conducted. But somehow even JUC’s high quality worship services didn’t always inspire me.
And then I came to the point in my training where I had to qualify for inclusion in the Unitarian Universalist Ministers Association, by jumping through the credentialing hoops of a committee called the Ministerial Fellowship Committee, the dreaded MFC.
I’d read everything on the reading list, I’d done all the seminary work, gotten good grades, high evaluations on my chaplaincy training and my internship. I figured I was probably THE best candidate ever to arrive before the MFC----secretly, of course, I was scared to death. So I did what I often do when I’m scared and that is come across extra strong.
After my half hour interview with the MFC, I went out to the lobby of the hotel where we were being interviewed to wait for them to decide and call me back in. And I waited and waited and waited. Finally, after almost an hour, a wait which was a lot longer than most other candidates had endured, somebody came to get me.
My heart was pounding. What did the delay mean? I sat down in my appointed seat and the chair of the committee said to me, “Kit, we’re giving you a rating of 2, not a 1. 2 is a passing rating, but we think you’re way too intense to be easily accepted by a Search committee or a typical congregation. We want you to spend your final seminary year with a Spiritual Director before you are qualified for Preliminary Fellowship.”
Well! I was polite. I didn’t scream out my defensive objections. I thanked them sweetly and went out silently fuming. Intense? Me? I saw the rating of a 2 and the assignment of a contingency to be completed, as failure. I was unable to see anything positive in having gotten anything less than a great big gold star!
Fortunately the years I spent in 12 step work were invaluable to me, as I cooled down later and got over my sense of embarrassment at having been less than a perfect student, I could acknowledge that yes, I am intense, I am strong-willed, I am even egotistical at times. And maybe Spiritual Direction wouldn’t be so bad.
For those who are not familiar with the term, Spiritual Direction is simply the undertaking of a spiritual search with a companion who is trained to guide another person through the common spiritual questions and dilemmas of life. It’s a bit like counseling, but it’s spirit-oriented, not goal-oriented.
So I hunted up a Spiritual Director. Her name was Ann and she agreed to meet with me for a year, during my senior year in seminary. At our first visit, she asked me to think about what spiritual practice I would like to develop.
That was in September of 1998, ten years ago, and when I chose to develop a prayer life, with Ann’s help, I never dreamed what effect it would have on my spiritual development, and, in fact, on my ability to find meaning in ordinary human experiences of all kinds. It changed my perspective and my life.
My colleague the Rev. Susan Maginn, of Wy’east UU Congregation in Portland, has written: “There is a pretty profound relationship between…(having a spiritual practice and coming to worship services.)
“In our personal spiritual practice, we are able to go into the quiet of our being and meet our own personal needs for engaging the spirit. We all have our own ways of developing our spiritual maturity. For some of us spiritual practice is expressive - in art, music, writing, hiking in the woods.
“For some of us it is more contemplative – prayer, meditation or memorizing poetry. We choose a practice that is our holy task. We regularly set aside holy time to make it so.
“When we come together for Sunday worship, we are doing something different. My hope is that our spirits will certainly be enriched by our Sunday worship services, but this time is not personal spiritual practice. It is an expression of our shared path. We are a people who are bound together by a covenant to walk in the ways of love. Worship is a celebration of this.
“When we do one without the other, our spiritual needs will not be met. If all we do is personal spiritual practice, we will be missing the sacred community. If all we do is community worship, then we will be asking the community worship to meet our very personal needs, which community worship is not designed to do. A new member of ..this congregation… described this eloquently. She said, ‘One goes deep, while the other goes wide’.”
And this is what I learned from developing a personal spiritual practice: that focusing on my own spiritual life in a regular, conscientious way helped me find meaning in every worship service I attended, whether it was well-done or not, whether it met my individual need that day or not, whether the choir was great or the preacher was boring.
It was no longer just about my needs, for my individual spiritual needs were being met by my personal spiritual practice. Being together in worship was about being part of a loving community as the community experienced a loving time together.
Last week, our guest preacher, the Rev. James Kubal-Komoto spoke to us about “how to become a more spiritual person in 15 minutes a day”. Do you remember what he told us about the four elements of spiritual living? Let’s remind ourselves of them. James spoke about integrating four attitudes or behaviors into our daily lives.
He spoke about compassion and kindness, how much more deepening is an attitude of care for other human beings than is an attitude of criticism. That was the first thing he suggested: compassion and kindness.
The second thing was gratitude, the ability to be thankful for what we have in life instead of wanting more and more and more stuff or money.
The third was acceptance, and he used the Serenity Prayer as an example: Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
And the fourth was faithfulness, faithfulness to our values, faithfulness to a life of integrity and commitment.
A personal spiritual practice brings these elements of spirituality into our daily lives. You may find your deepest yearnings satisfied by time in the woods or on the water or in your garden; you may find it listening to music or creating something beautiful; you may find it in silence and meditation. You may find it, as I did, in a daily prayer time.
I’m certainly not advocating that you should all do any one thing I suggest, as a spiritual practice. I can suggest things all I want---that’s the freedom of the pulpit! But you have the right to disagree or to choose your own path---that’s the freedom of the pew! A very important freedom in UUism.
But I would like to suggest strongly that in order to get the very most possible out of any worship service, any time of corporate worship, whether it’s here or down the road at a more conservative church, that each of us should have a personal spiritual practice, a time in which we think about and focus on such attributes as compassion, gratitude, acceptance, and faithfulness.
One of the remarkable things that I have gained from my daily prayer time is an ability to feel a kinship with even those religious folks who are on the other end of the religious spectrum from me: compassion and understanding for how important their faith and their own practices are to them; gratitude for having found my own path which resonates for me so well; acceptance that this is who they are and that their paths are right for them, at this time in their lives, as are mine; and then faithfulness to my own values and a commitment to continue to work for those values in the world.
Recently I had the opportunity to speak to my ministerial colleagues about my own spiritual journey, my odyssey, a privilege which most ministers in our district receive once or so during their career. I spoke to them for about an hour about my life and then asked if anyone had questions.
During the Q and A period, one colleague raised her hand and asked, “Kit, where does your spirit of “happy positivity” come from?” She went on to say that this was her experience of me, that not much got me down very permanently, that I seemed to be able to grow and rise above fairly negative experiences.
I pondered that for a moment, surprised by the question as I certainly have my down times, my low energy, depressive moments, but I realized, and answered her thus, that I had faked it for a long time, for many years of my life, and that it had shifted in the past twenty years or so because of my experiences in such programs as AlAnon and my regular prayer practice.
Without these two discoveries in my life, I think I would still be faking it, not wanting to reveal myself too much, afraid that others would critize. And it was learning about myself through 12-step work and prayer that gave me the courage to be truly myself, to survive the low blows that life always delivers.
As we think about our worship times together, our corporate worship, and plan how to make these times even better when we move into our own sanctuary, filled with our own symbols and a deeper sense of our own identity as a congregation, I hope that each of us will consider how we might deepen our personal spiritual lives, whether by disciplined repetition of a practice like meditation or prayer, whether by time spent creating beauty out of the earth or fabric or paint or music or words, whether by contributing to the wellbeing of our community by service to others or by spending time in nature or in reading poetry.
I’m not sure it matters just what we choose as a spiritual practice, just that it must invite us daily into deeper consideration of our own relationship to ourselves, to other beings, and to the earth on which we live. When we are able to set aside worries and anxieties for a time and focus on who we are and what we may become through a personal spiritual practice, we deepen our own lives and give ourselves more “worth” to shape when we come together as a community. In addition, we will have more to share with the community beyond our walls.
It is my prayer that we each may find within ourselves that wellspring of compassion, gratitude, acceptance, and faithfulness, and that we will bring a renewed vision of worship to our times together, as we grow and prosper as a congregation.
Let’s pause for a time of silent reflection and prayer.
Hymn #318 “We Would Be One”
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 own spiritual lives are enriched and deepened by the personal spiritual practices which we undertake. May we recognize their value to our life together in this Beloved Community and may we come each week with joy and anticipation of our time together here. Amen, Shalom, Salaam, and Blessed Be.
Saturday, May 03, 2008
Corporate Worship and Personal Spiritual Practice
The quest for a deeper spiritual life often draws people into faith communities, be they Christian, Pagan, Buddhist, Unitarian Universalist, whatever. And I have often listened to people express their frustration that the worship services they commonly attend or occasionally visit don't meet their spiritual needs.
Maybe it's the use of uncomfortable religious language, maybe it's that people talk during the prelude, maybe it's the wording of the hymns or the cadence of the hymns or the unfamiliarity of the hymns, maybe it's a preacher who isn't intellectual enough or too intellectual, maybe it's perceived hypocrisy on the part of the members of the congregation. Or maybe it's something else.
This litany of complaints has always bothered me and I haven't known quite how to respond to it, outside of listening patiently. I understand completely that longing for spiritual nurture during corporate worship. I've been there...and I've come back again. I rarely feel that disconnect any more, even when I attend services that are much different from what I prefer. I couldn't think why that was, until recently.
The past few weeks have helped me sort out what has brought me to this place.
The kickoff event was our recent ministers' retreat, at which I was the honored Odyssian, the person who is invited to describe her/his life's spiritual journey, outlining the events in a life that has culminated in ministry. I had prepared for this moment for months, ever since I learned that I would be the presenter.
But even though I had done exactly what I had to do to prepare, I had not connected all the dots in my life until one questioner, at the end, asked me, "Kit, where does your spirit of 'happy positivity' come from?" The questioner went on to say that this was how she experienced me, usually cheerful and "up", resilient in the face of life's difficult challenges, and she wondered how I managed that.
It took me a moment to respond, which I did, rather incompletely, I'm afraid. But the question stayed with me and I've spent a good deal of time pondering a better answer.
The following Sunday, my friend and colleague James traded pulpits with me and his topic was "How to become a more spiritual person in 15 minutes a day". Because I preached at his church at 9:30 a.m. and our service is at 4 p.m., I was able to hear what he had to say. He emphasized the attributes of a fulfilling spiritual life as compassion, gratitude, acceptance, and faithfulness. And something clicked for me.
I thought back to another moment at our retreat when another friend and colleague told our small covenant group about the linkage she saw of personal spiritual practice and fulfilling corporate worship. I had asked her to send me the newsletter column she'd written about this idea, so I reread what she'd written.
And the puzzle piece fell into place for me: a regular spiritual practice which helps me focus on the qualities of a spiritual life (as in James' sermon) also helps me find nurture in corporate worship.
Many years ago, I discovered through AlAnon my own need for a regular spiritual practice. At that time, I used AlAnon meetings, work with my sponsor, and sponsoring others as a spiritual practice. It helped me stay on track emotionally and behaviorally, letting go of falseness in my outward presentation and being true to myself more freely.
When I went to seminary, I no longer regularly attended 12 step meetings. But in seminary I began to work with a spiritual director and covenanted with my SD to develop a spiritual practice. What I chose was prayer, that ancient practice which I had used cursorily as a child and almost never as an adult.
I began to pray nightly in 1998 and as I integrated prayer into my daily life, both in the evenings and during the day at moments of gratitude and need, I found my appreciation for all life increasing and my dissatisfaction with others lessening.
When I connected the dots, I could see that my beginning of a regular spiritual practice was also the beginning of a more honest and open me, a less critical me, a more accepting me, a more easily nourished me. This meant that I wasn't getting all my spiritual needs met by corporate worship; I was coming to worship already pretty well nourished and was free to treasure the sense of coming together with people I love, something I can't do by myself.
What my colleague said, in her column, was essentially that corporate worship is designed to meet the needs of the whole body of worshippers; it can't meet individual needs completely. Each worshipper's experience in a Sunday service will be more satisfying, more spiritual, if s/he has nurtured her/himself spiritually during the week with a personal spiritual practice.
So I've really learned something important about worship and spiritual practice. And I'm going to tell people tomorrow during the sermon about this wonderful gift. You'll get a chance to read it when I get it posted.
Maybe it's the use of uncomfortable religious language, maybe it's that people talk during the prelude, maybe it's the wording of the hymns or the cadence of the hymns or the unfamiliarity of the hymns, maybe it's a preacher who isn't intellectual enough or too intellectual, maybe it's perceived hypocrisy on the part of the members of the congregation. Or maybe it's something else.
This litany of complaints has always bothered me and I haven't known quite how to respond to it, outside of listening patiently. I understand completely that longing for spiritual nurture during corporate worship. I've been there...and I've come back again. I rarely feel that disconnect any more, even when I attend services that are much different from what I prefer. I couldn't think why that was, until recently.
The past few weeks have helped me sort out what has brought me to this place.
The kickoff event was our recent ministers' retreat, at which I was the honored Odyssian, the person who is invited to describe her/his life's spiritual journey, outlining the events in a life that has culminated in ministry. I had prepared for this moment for months, ever since I learned that I would be the presenter.
But even though I had done exactly what I had to do to prepare, I had not connected all the dots in my life until one questioner, at the end, asked me, "Kit, where does your spirit of 'happy positivity' come from?" The questioner went on to say that this was how she experienced me, usually cheerful and "up", resilient in the face of life's difficult challenges, and she wondered how I managed that.
It took me a moment to respond, which I did, rather incompletely, I'm afraid. But the question stayed with me and I've spent a good deal of time pondering a better answer.
The following Sunday, my friend and colleague James traded pulpits with me and his topic was "How to become a more spiritual person in 15 minutes a day". Because I preached at his church at 9:30 a.m. and our service is at 4 p.m., I was able to hear what he had to say. He emphasized the attributes of a fulfilling spiritual life as compassion, gratitude, acceptance, and faithfulness. And something clicked for me.
I thought back to another moment at our retreat when another friend and colleague told our small covenant group about the linkage she saw of personal spiritual practice and fulfilling corporate worship. I had asked her to send me the newsletter column she'd written about this idea, so I reread what she'd written.
And the puzzle piece fell into place for me: a regular spiritual practice which helps me focus on the qualities of a spiritual life (as in James' sermon) also helps me find nurture in corporate worship.
Many years ago, I discovered through AlAnon my own need for a regular spiritual practice. At that time, I used AlAnon meetings, work with my sponsor, and sponsoring others as a spiritual practice. It helped me stay on track emotionally and behaviorally, letting go of falseness in my outward presentation and being true to myself more freely.
When I went to seminary, I no longer regularly attended 12 step meetings. But in seminary I began to work with a spiritual director and covenanted with my SD to develop a spiritual practice. What I chose was prayer, that ancient practice which I had used cursorily as a child and almost never as an adult.
I began to pray nightly in 1998 and as I integrated prayer into my daily life, both in the evenings and during the day at moments of gratitude and need, I found my appreciation for all life increasing and my dissatisfaction with others lessening.
When I connected the dots, I could see that my beginning of a regular spiritual practice was also the beginning of a more honest and open me, a less critical me, a more accepting me, a more easily nourished me. This meant that I wasn't getting all my spiritual needs met by corporate worship; I was coming to worship already pretty well nourished and was free to treasure the sense of coming together with people I love, something I can't do by myself.
What my colleague said, in her column, was essentially that corporate worship is designed to meet the needs of the whole body of worshippers; it can't meet individual needs completely. Each worshipper's experience in a Sunday service will be more satisfying, more spiritual, if s/he has nurtured her/himself spiritually during the week with a personal spiritual practice.
So I've really learned something important about worship and spiritual practice. And I'm going to tell people tomorrow during the sermon about this wonderful gift. You'll get a chance to read it when I get it posted.
Thursday, May 01, 2008
Little Warrior news
Little Warrior is in the thick of it these days. Yes, it was recurrent Wilms' tumor. Yes, she has had more surgery. She's in surgery today. Her mom, Lizard Eater, is blogging about it as often as she can. Read her thoughts at The Journey and please keep praying. Whatever you may believe about prayer, believe that it helps. It may bring about healing rather than a cure, but that too is an answer, and a good one. Of course, we hope for sudden miraculous cures, but the healing that comes from learning to live with a terrible, grievous situation is also priceless.
UPDATE: Little Warrior is out of surgery and home with her family tonight. Her surgery was to place a port so that chemo can be administered. Everybody's worn out, but they are home. Hallelujah!
UPDATE: Little Warrior is out of surgery and home with her family tonight. Her surgery was to place a port so that chemo can be administered. Everybody's worn out, but they are home. Hallelujah!
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Troubled by the Radical Wright
I know that I will vote for whoever the Democratic candidate is, in November. I am not sure who it's going to be and though I favor Obama, I also think that Hillary Clinton is a viable candidate.
BUT, and it's a big one: I am deeply troubled by the turn I see in Obama's journey, that he has had to denounce his former mentor and pastor the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. I understand why he has had to do that. I think the Rev. Wright is Wrong.
I haven't read every word of every news article nor watched every moment of every broadcast featuring the Wright Wreverend. However, I have seen enough of his recent behavior (speeches, interviews) to form a tentative conclusion: Rev. Wright is not comfortable seeing a black man, an African American man, in the Presidency.
I have a hard time understanding why he has made some of the comments and judgments he's made in the last couple of days unless he is unconsciously sabotaging Obama's run for the White House out of his own fear.
What fears might Rev. Wright have? He might fear that too much success for a black man might set a standard for other African Americans that will require a change of attitude on their part. One person's moving from the stereotype of victimhood to the highest office in the land requires that all persons in Obama's racial group begin to think of themselves as potentially capable and not potential victims.
He might fear for Obama's safety. I mentioned in an earlier post my own fear for Barack Obama---and for Hillary Clinton as well. Our heroes and heroines tend to get shot down, metaphorically and physically. The person who sticks his/her neck out tends to get his/her head bopped.
He might fear a loss of face on his own part, if he has to back down from anything in order to secure the nomination for Obama. He might be one of us preachers who gets defensive and angry when criticized, even legitimately done.
He might fear for the future of the black church. He might fear for his own safety and that of his family and congregation.
There are many fears that may be driving the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. These are just the ones that come to me tonight.
BUT, and it's a big one: I am deeply troubled by the turn I see in Obama's journey, that he has had to denounce his former mentor and pastor the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. I understand why he has had to do that. I think the Rev. Wright is Wrong.
I haven't read every word of every news article nor watched every moment of every broadcast featuring the Wright Wreverend. However, I have seen enough of his recent behavior (speeches, interviews) to form a tentative conclusion: Rev. Wright is not comfortable seeing a black man, an African American man, in the Presidency.
I have a hard time understanding why he has made some of the comments and judgments he's made in the last couple of days unless he is unconsciously sabotaging Obama's run for the White House out of his own fear.
What fears might Rev. Wright have? He might fear that too much success for a black man might set a standard for other African Americans that will require a change of attitude on their part. One person's moving from the stereotype of victimhood to the highest office in the land requires that all persons in Obama's racial group begin to think of themselves as potentially capable and not potential victims.
He might fear for Obama's safety. I mentioned in an earlier post my own fear for Barack Obama---and for Hillary Clinton as well. Our heroes and heroines tend to get shot down, metaphorically and physically. The person who sticks his/her neck out tends to get his/her head bopped.
He might fear a loss of face on his own part, if he has to back down from anything in order to secure the nomination for Obama. He might be one of us preachers who gets defensive and angry when criticized, even legitimately done.
He might fear for the future of the black church. He might fear for his own safety and that of his family and congregation.
There are many fears that may be driving the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. These are just the ones that come to me tonight.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Meeting the other Kit Ketchum/am
When I first attended a General Assembly, way back in 1995, I proudly wore my nametag emblazoned with my name (this was before I was in seminary) as Kit Ketcham, Jefferson Unitarian Church, Golden, Colorado. It was dripping with all the ribbons that one gets at GA---the green delegate ribbon, the various UUSC honor congregation ribbons, stickers showing support for Green Sanctuary, Welcoming Congregation, and what not.
I was casting glances about the registration lobby, looking for familiar faces and scanning nametags, just like everyone else was. I knew a few folks from the UUA because of having been a semi-finalist for the District Executive job in the Mountain Desert District and there was one particular fellow I had my eye on, to see if we might be, well, you know.
Anyhow, I was scanning, others were scanning, and out of the blue, a couple of folks who were also casing the room looked at my nametag and said, "Kit Ketcham! You're not the Kit Ketcham I know!" And in conversation, it turned out that there is another Kit Ketcham in UU Land. She spells her last name with a -um instead of an -am, but that doesn't matter much because Ketcham is one of those names with several spellings (-am, -em, -um, -im, and even -om, I suppose), and we assume we're all related.
So this piqued my interest. Another Kit Ketch-something, amazing! I had learned that she was a wellknown lay leader in the Twin Cities and I wanted to meet her. This has been a hope of mine for some years now.
Well, guess what! She found Ms. Kitty's the other day and we have been comparing family notes. I had some Ketcham stuff that Joel the Neff had dug up and I sent it to her, while she sent me some stuff.
It looks like we truly are related! Her family roots in England appear to be the same as my family roots in England. Our American ancestors lived in different parts of the country but there are similar names on our family trees.
Isn't this cool?
I was casting glances about the registration lobby, looking for familiar faces and scanning nametags, just like everyone else was. I knew a few folks from the UUA because of having been a semi-finalist for the District Executive job in the Mountain Desert District and there was one particular fellow I had my eye on, to see if we might be, well, you know.
Anyhow, I was scanning, others were scanning, and out of the blue, a couple of folks who were also casing the room looked at my nametag and said, "Kit Ketcham! You're not the Kit Ketcham I know!" And in conversation, it turned out that there is another Kit Ketcham in UU Land. She spells her last name with a -um instead of an -am, but that doesn't matter much because Ketcham is one of those names with several spellings (-am, -em, -um, -im, and even -om, I suppose), and we assume we're all related.
So this piqued my interest. Another Kit Ketch-something, amazing! I had learned that she was a wellknown lay leader in the Twin Cities and I wanted to meet her. This has been a hope of mine for some years now.
Well, guess what! She found Ms. Kitty's the other day and we have been comparing family notes. I had some Ketcham stuff that Joel the Neff had dug up and I sent it to her, while she sent me some stuff.
It looks like we truly are related! Her family roots in England appear to be the same as my family roots in England. Our American ancestors lived in different parts of the country but there are similar names on our family trees.
Isn't this cool?
Saturday, April 26, 2008
An Engineer's Guide to Cats
I found this over in the comments on Miss Kitty's Educated and Poor. You will find it very useful.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHXBL6bzAR4&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHXBL6bzAR4&feature=related
Rockhoppers Open Mic performance
Trilogy performed again last night at Rockhoppers. We sang four songs: Heart and Soul, Skylark, a medley of Lazy Bones and Bidin' My Time, and God Bless the Child.
Here's the URL: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/373481
If I get time later, I may embed the video, but right now I'm in a rush to go teach a class.
Here's the URL: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/373481
If I get time later, I may embed the video, but right now I'm in a rush to go teach a class.
Friday, April 25, 2008
Only a little news
I encourage you to read Lizard Eater's blog about how Little Warrior is doing. She says it much better than I can.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Praying and praying and praying
Please keep Lizard Eater and her small daughter Little Warrior in your prayers. LW undergoes surgery today for checking out and removing a "small spot" on one of her organs, which may or may not be a sign of a relapse of the Wilms' she fought off in her first year of life. Little Warrior is only two years old. Please pray.
Whether or not you believe that prayer induces miracles, what prayer certainly can do is bring hope and peace to those in desperate places, when they realize that they are not all alone in their pain, that others care deeply and are forming a network of love to catch them if they fall too far.
LE and LW and their family need us and this is one thing we can do.
Whether or not you believe that prayer induces miracles, what prayer certainly can do is bring hope and peace to those in desperate places, when they realize that they are not all alone in their pain, that others care deeply and are forming a network of love to catch them if they fall too far.
LE and LW and their family need us and this is one thing we can do.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Blogging from the Ministers' Spring Retreat
I've been at the Palisades Retreat Center in Federal Way (WA) since Sunday night. This retreat was significant to me because it was my turn to offer the Tuesday night program, which always features the Spiritual Odyssey of one of the ministers.
I've been in this district since August 1, 1999, and there is a careful list kept of who arrived when, so that Odyssey assignment can be doled out according to longevity in the district. I've known for several months that I would be offering my Odyssey to my colleagues on April 22, 2008, and I have been preparing for a long time.
I spent a long time jotting down the events of my life that have led me to ministry and the place I'm in right now, going back and filling in pertinent details, recalling the important times that shifted my trajectory, and thinking deeply about the sense of call that has landed me here.
Tonight, for about an hour, I got to tell my colleagues the story of my life, particularly the moments that were significant in my journey, and then answering their questions about things that needed more explanation.
It was exhausting and wonderful and exhilarating at the same time. I feel closer to all of them, very much appreciated and respected, and I am terrifically glad it's done. It's a once in a lifetime experience for most of us, if we stay in the same district for most of our career.
Part of the pleasure of doing it came from my desire to leave a record of my life for my son. I have cherished the few written stories that my mother left for us kids and wanted to give the FS something more complete. I also put together a picture book of significant moments and people in my life and placed some favorite mementoes on a table so that folks could look through them later.
It has been a wonderful, thrilling night! And so goodnight...
I've been in this district since August 1, 1999, and there is a careful list kept of who arrived when, so that Odyssey assignment can be doled out according to longevity in the district. I've known for several months that I would be offering my Odyssey to my colleagues on April 22, 2008, and I have been preparing for a long time.
I spent a long time jotting down the events of my life that have led me to ministry and the place I'm in right now, going back and filling in pertinent details, recalling the important times that shifted my trajectory, and thinking deeply about the sense of call that has landed me here.
Tonight, for about an hour, I got to tell my colleagues the story of my life, particularly the moments that were significant in my journey, and then answering their questions about things that needed more explanation.
It was exhausting and wonderful and exhilarating at the same time. I feel closer to all of them, very much appreciated and respected, and I am terrifically glad it's done. It's a once in a lifetime experience for most of us, if we stay in the same district for most of our career.
Part of the pleasure of doing it came from my desire to leave a record of my life for my son. I have cherished the few written stories that my mother left for us kids and wanted to give the FS something more complete. I also put together a picture book of significant moments and people in my life and placed some favorite mementoes on a table so that folks could look through them later.
It has been a wonderful, thrilling night! And so goodnight...
Saturday, April 19, 2008
The Lost Generation
I couldn't figure out how to embed this, but I want you to see it. It's a winner in an AARP sponsored contest for young people.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42E2fAWM6rA&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42E2fAWM6rA&feature=related
Friday, April 18, 2008
"Let's You and Him Fight"...
was the name of one of the games in a 60's era book "Games People Play" by Dr. Eric Berne. This particular game tended to be a romantic game, where a woman set up two men to fight over her.
But the mind-numbing series of debates between Obama and Clinton seem to have that flavor as well: ask questions that will cause the two candidates to fight among themselves.
How helpful is that? Are we choosing a presidential candidate on the basis of his/her ability to fight with someone, to come up with zingers that will demolish the other, to exhibit more cool-headed responses than the other, to reveal more dirt on the other, to one-up the other in a never-ending escalation of barbs and putdowns, to defend one's honor by attacking the other's honor?
Please, give me a break! I have quit watching the debates or reading about them. At least in a romantic game, there's a story to be told. It might not be a story with a happy ending; it might be a very stereotypical, anti-feminist, heterosexist story. But it has more story power, in terms of relationship, than this endless sniping at the behest of those who should have better things to do than voyeuristically setting up two basically decent human beings to fight.
What advice might I give to the candidates? Refuse to play the game. Challenge it. Call it what it is. Don't let them manipulate you.
But the mind-numbing series of debates between Obama and Clinton seem to have that flavor as well: ask questions that will cause the two candidates to fight among themselves.
How helpful is that? Are we choosing a presidential candidate on the basis of his/her ability to fight with someone, to come up with zingers that will demolish the other, to exhibit more cool-headed responses than the other, to reveal more dirt on the other, to one-up the other in a never-ending escalation of barbs and putdowns, to defend one's honor by attacking the other's honor?
Please, give me a break! I have quit watching the debates or reading about them. At least in a romantic game, there's a story to be told. It might not be a story with a happy ending; it might be a very stereotypical, anti-feminist, heterosexist story. But it has more story power, in terms of relationship, than this endless sniping at the behest of those who should have better things to do than voyeuristically setting up two basically decent human beings to fight.
What advice might I give to the candidates? Refuse to play the game. Challenge it. Call it what it is. Don't let them manipulate you.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Oh great!
No wonder I've been getting a lot of search hits looking for Miss Kitty. They just busted a brothel south of Seattle and the madam advertises as Miss Kitty on Craigslist. Terrific. It's not me!
Island Life
Whidbey is a different kind of place than I have ever lived before. I've lived in small towns but never in a place where wildlife was so prolific and outnumbered me right in my own yard. I live a little way out of town on several acres of grassy, blackberry-ed, alder-ed, conifer-ed land and every day I see bald eagles and hawks overhead, in addition to numerous small birds. I see deer on my grass and bunnies on the edge of the blackberry brambles and under the forsythia thicket.
This morning as I was driving to the gym which is just a little too far to walk on a darkish morning, I realized I hadn't seen my resident deer for a few days and remembered last summer when a deer carcass remained by the side of the road for days because it was a holiday weekend and the roadkill crews weren't on duty. I sent up a little prayer that my three-doe herdlet would survive another year.
And then I saw an ominous lump on the shoulder up ahead. The limp body of a young doe lay sprawled on the side of the road, clearly the victim of someone who couldn't stop in time to avoid her as she tried to cross the road. I don't know if she's one of my girls or not, but I have a bad feeling about it.
In other news, I've been letting Max go out on the deck with the other cats now and he is obsessed by the wider world this opens up to him. With his white coat, he's much more visible than the other cats and I always watch for predator birds overhead, but he's a happy boy right now----if he's outside. Otherwise he's scratching at the door, mewing piteously and looking quite frantic. After all, there are huge, slow flies out there and he is "desperately needed to eradicate them for the safety of the whole household, Mom, don't you get it?"
We have now gone more than two weeks without "an incident" and I am hoping the worst is over. Everyone seems healthy and happy, including me, except for the remnants of a cold that make me sound stuffy.
On Sunday, I will travel down to Palisades retreat center to join my colleagues in a three day R & R retreat. I am the "Odyssian" this time, the person whose turn it is to offer an evening session describing my spiritual journey. I've been working on it for months and am just about ready to go, except for putting together the mementoes I want to display.
I'm ready for a little R & R and time with friends in a beautiful spot. It's been a long winter.
UPDATE: Max managed to get off the deck today but I found him before he could get too far. So the deck has had to be further fortified to foil him. We'll see what happens next.
This morning as I was driving to the gym which is just a little too far to walk on a darkish morning, I realized I hadn't seen my resident deer for a few days and remembered last summer when a deer carcass remained by the side of the road for days because it was a holiday weekend and the roadkill crews weren't on duty. I sent up a little prayer that my three-doe herdlet would survive another year.
And then I saw an ominous lump on the shoulder up ahead. The limp body of a young doe lay sprawled on the side of the road, clearly the victim of someone who couldn't stop in time to avoid her as she tried to cross the road. I don't know if she's one of my girls or not, but I have a bad feeling about it.
In other news, I've been letting Max go out on the deck with the other cats now and he is obsessed by the wider world this opens up to him. With his white coat, he's much more visible than the other cats and I always watch for predator birds overhead, but he's a happy boy right now----if he's outside. Otherwise he's scratching at the door, mewing piteously and looking quite frantic. After all, there are huge, slow flies out there and he is "desperately needed to eradicate them for the safety of the whole household, Mom, don't you get it?"
We have now gone more than two weeks without "an incident" and I am hoping the worst is over. Everyone seems healthy and happy, including me, except for the remnants of a cold that make me sound stuffy.
On Sunday, I will travel down to Palisades retreat center to join my colleagues in a three day R & R retreat. I am the "Odyssian" this time, the person whose turn it is to offer an evening session describing my spiritual journey. I've been working on it for months and am just about ready to go, except for putting together the mementoes I want to display.
I'm ready for a little R & R and time with friends in a beautiful spot. It's been a long winter.
UPDATE: Max managed to get off the deck today but I found him before he could get too far. So the deck has had to be further fortified to foil him. We'll see what happens next.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
What a relief!
Thank you for your thoughts in behalf of these friends and neighbors.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 16, 2008
1:30pm PST
UPDATE: NIGERIAN AUTHORITIES RELEASE AMERICAN FILM CREW FROM CUSTODY
Washington State Senator Maria Cantwell’s office has just received word that the four Americans and one Nigerian citizen who have been held in custody since Saturday by Nigerian authorities have been released to American Embassy personnel in Abuja.
The U.S. Ambassador in Abuja, Nigeria told Cantwell’s office that the Seattle-based filmmakers were picked up by a van from the detention center and taken to a hotel where they will spend the next two nights before “final processing” by Nigerian authorities.
The film crew had been issued a visa to return to Nigeria to complete a documentary about the impact of oil production on the Niger Delta. They were taken into custody on April 12th at a military checkpoint before being transferred to Nigerian State Security. Authorities claimed the film crew was violating laws by traveling in a restricted area. Attorneys for the Americans insisted that no laws were broken.
The families of director Sandi Cioffi, producer Tammi Simms, and photographers Sean Porter and Cliff Worsham are awaiting telephone calls from them to confirm their safe release.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 16, 2008
1:30pm PST
UPDATE: NIGERIAN AUTHORITIES RELEASE AMERICAN FILM CREW FROM CUSTODY
Washington State Senator Maria Cantwell’s office has just received word that the four Americans and one Nigerian citizen who have been held in custody since Saturday by Nigerian authorities have been released to American Embassy personnel in Abuja.
The U.S. Ambassador in Abuja, Nigeria told Cantwell’s office that the Seattle-based filmmakers were picked up by a van from the detention center and taken to a hotel where they will spend the next two nights before “final processing” by Nigerian authorities.
The film crew had been issued a visa to return to Nigeria to complete a documentary about the impact of oil production on the Niger Delta. They were taken into custody on April 12th at a military checkpoint before being transferred to Nigerian State Security. Authorities claimed the film crew was violating laws by traveling in a restricted area. Attorneys for the Americans insisted that no laws were broken.
The families of director Sandi Cioffi, producer Tammi Simms, and photographers Sean Porter and Cliff Worsham are awaiting telephone calls from them to confirm their safe release.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Sweet Crude Film Crew Detained
Joel Bisina, the Nigerian husband of a Whidbey Island friend, Mary Ella Keblusek, has been detained by the authorities, with the Sweet Crude film crew, for reasons that are not clear. Mary Ella is a woman on the island who has been active in a number of causes, including the Whidbey Institute's many progressive workshops and film series. She's also the friend of several of my parishioners, as well as myself, and her compassion for others is endless.
I am reproducing her recent email about the situation below and I ask you to hold her and Joel and the film crew in your thoughts and prayers, that the situation might be resolved safely and justly. I will add additional information as it becomes available.
"Dear friends – For those of you who are hearing this for the first time, over the weekend my husband Joel Bisina and four crew members from the documentary Sweet Crude were detained in the Niger Delta.
Below are our two press releases, one from late Sunday night and an update from Monday. If you have a moment, the best thing you could do to help is to disseminate these broadly. We believe the media exposure is really helping.
If you live in Washington State, we’d like you to know that Senator Cantwell’s office has been ‘leading the charge’ and Senator Murray’s office has also been very helpful. So if you feel like sending them a little email of support, thanks and keep it up, that would also be great.
You might also want to check out some of the other media on this story:
- http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/358989_film15.html
- http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2004348198_websims15m.html
Please hold all of us in your thoughts.
Mary Ella"
---------------------------
Press release dated April 14, 2008:
CONTACT FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Leslye Wood, Press Secretary, Sweet Crude Movie
Phone: 206.282.0880 / 206.915.4339
Email: media@sweetcrudemovie.com
Louise Rafkin, Studio Naga
Phone: 510.928.3612
Email: louise@louiserafkin.com
UPDATE: AMERICAN DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKERS DETAINED IN NIGER DELTA
SEATTLE, April 14, 2008 – Nigerian government officials finally allowed a U.S. Embassy representative to visit the four American filmmakers being held in custody in Abuja by Nigerian State Security. This is the government’s first concession since detaining the Seattle-based film crew on Saturday morning.
Nigerian officials claim the group is being “detained for investigation” in accordance with Nigerian law. However, the Americans have been denied access to legal representation. Nigerian law evidently stipulates that detainees either be released or charged within 48 hours. No charges have been filed at this time.
Aaron Hellman, a spokesperson for the Overseas Services, a division of the State Department, says that the Americans are reportedly tired but in good health. Hellman said he had no information about the conditions in which they are being held. He said an Embassy representative would return to check on them tomorrow (Tuesday) but would not disclose any details about the Embassy's plan to help gain their release.
Senators Maria Cantwell, Russ Feingold, John Kerry and John Tester are currently working the channels to press the U.S. State Department to get involved.
The four Americans, along with a Nigerian citizen, were taken into custody by the Nigerian military April 12th, while traveling by boat in the Niger Delta. The filmmakers had been issued a visa by the Nigerian government granting them permission to return to Nigeria complete their documentary, Sweet Crude. The film crew has been actively documenting the impact of oil production on the Niger Delta since 2005 and was known to authorities.
Director Sandy Cioffi, along with producer Tammi Sims and photojournalists Cliff Worsham and Sean Porter entered the country legally on April 5th. They were accompanied by Joel Bisina, a Nigerian being held in custody with them. Bisina is the founder of a Warri-based NGO, Niger Delta Professionals for Development.
No communication has been received since Saturday April 12th, 8:30 am PDT. Family, friends and colleagues are making a plea for safe and immediate release.
I am reproducing her recent email about the situation below and I ask you to hold her and Joel and the film crew in your thoughts and prayers, that the situation might be resolved safely and justly. I will add additional information as it becomes available.
"Dear friends – For those of you who are hearing this for the first time, over the weekend my husband Joel Bisina and four crew members from the documentary Sweet Crude were detained in the Niger Delta.
Below are our two press releases, one from late Sunday night and an update from Monday. If you have a moment, the best thing you could do to help is to disseminate these broadly. We believe the media exposure is really helping.
If you live in Washington State, we’d like you to know that Senator Cantwell’s office has been ‘leading the charge’ and Senator Murray’s office has also been very helpful. So if you feel like sending them a little email of support, thanks and keep it up, that would also be great.
You might also want to check out some of the other media on this story:
- http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/358989_film15.html
- http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2004348198_websims15m.html
Please hold all of us in your thoughts.
Mary Ella"
---------------------------
Press release dated April 14, 2008:
CONTACT FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Leslye Wood, Press Secretary, Sweet Crude Movie
Phone: 206.282.0880 / 206.915.4339
Email: media@sweetcrudemovie.com
Louise Rafkin, Studio Naga
Phone: 510.928.3612
Email: louise@louiserafkin.com
UPDATE: AMERICAN DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKERS DETAINED IN NIGER DELTA
SEATTLE, April 14, 2008 – Nigerian government officials finally allowed a U.S. Embassy representative to visit the four American filmmakers being held in custody in Abuja by Nigerian State Security. This is the government’s first concession since detaining the Seattle-based film crew on Saturday morning.
Nigerian officials claim the group is being “detained for investigation” in accordance with Nigerian law. However, the Americans have been denied access to legal representation. Nigerian law evidently stipulates that detainees either be released or charged within 48 hours. No charges have been filed at this time.
Aaron Hellman, a spokesperson for the Overseas Services, a division of the State Department, says that the Americans are reportedly tired but in good health. Hellman said he had no information about the conditions in which they are being held. He said an Embassy representative would return to check on them tomorrow (Tuesday) but would not disclose any details about the Embassy's plan to help gain their release.
Senators Maria Cantwell, Russ Feingold, John Kerry and John Tester are currently working the channels to press the U.S. State Department to get involved.
The four Americans, along with a Nigerian citizen, were taken into custody by the Nigerian military April 12th, while traveling by boat in the Niger Delta. The filmmakers had been issued a visa by the Nigerian government granting them permission to return to Nigeria complete their documentary, Sweet Crude. The film crew has been actively documenting the impact of oil production on the Niger Delta since 2005 and was known to authorities.
Director Sandy Cioffi, along with producer Tammi Sims and photojournalists Cliff Worsham and Sean Porter entered the country legally on April 5th. They were accompanied by Joel Bisina, a Nigerian being held in custody with them. Bisina is the founder of a Warri-based NGO, Niger Delta Professionals for Development.
No communication has been received since Saturday April 12th, 8:30 am PDT. Family, friends and colleagues are making a plea for safe and immediate release.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Belief Divides; Doubt Unites
Two years ago, the fellow who purchased my auction item of the right to choose a sermon topic suggested the idea that "belief divides and doubt unites". The English actor Peter Ustinov was one of many who coined phrases with that theme and my congregant and his wife had seen a play in Seattle where the adage was featured in a poster.
Tragically, before he and I could have a conversation about the sermon, he died suddenly and the sermon has been on hold ever since. His wife has grieved his tragic death long and hard and has not been ready to set a date for me to offer the sermon until now. We have set the date for June 15 and I will talk with her about it in advance, to get a sense of where she thinks he might have wanted me to go with it.
I have seen many references to this concept lately: the Dalai Lama, visiting Seattle right now, referred to how religious belief is so often a source of conflict and division. We see belief, both secular and religious, causing division in our presidential campaign. We as Americans are deeply divided by belief.
This is going to be a hard sermon to write, because I am still grieving the man's death as well. I want to honor him and do so in a way that recognizes his many strengths and the contributions he made to our congregation. Yet I still feel the loss strongly and find my emotion about it creeping in whenever I start to think about how to present his topic.
Your thoughts about this topic might help me start to get past the grief and on into serving his memory appropriately. Please have at it! It would be a great kindness. I'll be grateful for your help.
Tragically, before he and I could have a conversation about the sermon, he died suddenly and the sermon has been on hold ever since. His wife has grieved his tragic death long and hard and has not been ready to set a date for me to offer the sermon until now. We have set the date for June 15 and I will talk with her about it in advance, to get a sense of where she thinks he might have wanted me to go with it.
I have seen many references to this concept lately: the Dalai Lama, visiting Seattle right now, referred to how religious belief is so often a source of conflict and division. We see belief, both secular and religious, causing division in our presidential campaign. We as Americans are deeply divided by belief.
This is going to be a hard sermon to write, because I am still grieving the man's death as well. I want to honor him and do so in a way that recognizes his many strengths and the contributions he made to our congregation. Yet I still feel the loss strongly and find my emotion about it creeping in whenever I start to think about how to present his topic.
Your thoughts about this topic might help me start to get past the grief and on into serving his memory appropriately. Please have at it! It would be a great kindness. I'll be grateful for your help.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Detente, for now
It's been a week since the last cat pee incident. Everyone is happily eating the vet's kibble, so that's a go and it's not too expensive. And I gave raw food a brief try but I can see that it will take more effort to get them to eat it regularly. I have affixed a plastic lining to the coverlet that gets the pee the most often and have ordered a waterproof blanket to add to my arsenal of weapons.
And here are pictures that seem to testify to the growing maturity of all three of the cats. I was watching Sweeney Todd on a DVD last night and this little scene was certainly in contrast to the spurtings and crashings of the movie.
Wednesday, April 09, 2008
Here's a fun one...
Winnie the Pooh was a favorite book when I was small and we read it to our son. Somebody once called me Tigger, so this is not surprising.
Your Score: Tigger
You scored 17 Ego, 13 Anxiety, and 15 Agency!
And as they went, Tigger told Roo (who wanted to know)
all about the things that Tiggers could do.
"Can they fly?" asked Roo.
"Yes," said Tigger, "they're very good flyers, Tiggers
are. Strornry good flyers."
"Oo!" said Roo. "Can they fly as well as Owl?"
"Yes," said Tigger. "Only they don't want to."
"Why don't they want to?" well, they just don't like it
somehow."
Roo couldn't understand this, because he thought it
would be lovely to be able to fly, but Tigger said it was
difficult to explain to anybody who wasn't a Tigger himself.
You scored as Tigger!
ABOUT TIGGER: Tigger is the newest addition to the Hundred Acre Wood, and he lives with Kanga and Roo, because Roo's strengthening medicine turned out to be the thing that Tiggers like best. Tigger is bouncy and confident -some of his friends think he is a little TOO bouncy and confident, but attempts to unbounce him tend to be fruitless.
WHAT THIS SAYS ABOUT YOU: You are a positive and confident person. You feel capable of dealing with anything and everything, and funnily enough, you usually ARE. You don't worry about much, and you love to go out and find new adventures.
Your friends and family might sometimes be a little exasperated by your boundless enthusiasm. You don't like to admit your mistakes, and when you find yourself in over you head, you tend to bluff your way out of things. You would be surprised, however, at how happy the people around you would be if you would actually admit to a mistake. It would make you seem more human, somehow.
| Link: The Deep and Meaningful Winnie-The-Pooh Character Test written by wolfcaroling on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test View My Profile(wolfcaroling) |
Sunday, April 06, 2008
Source #6: Wisdom of Earth Centered Religions, the sermon
SOURCE #6: WISDOM OF EARTH-CENTERED TRADITIONS
By Rev. Kit Ketcham, April 6, 2008
When I was a kid in elementary school, like many of you, no doubt, and like Margot Adler, we spent some extended period of time one year learning about the many gods and goddesses of early peoples: Norse, Roman, Greek, and Egyptian gods and goddesses were the basic groups we covered.
I remember being impressed that four days of the week were actually named after Norse gods and goddesses: Tuesday, for Tyr, god of war and sky; Wednesday, for Woden, god of wisdom and head honcho of the Norse pantheon; Thursday, for Thor, god of thunder; and Friday, for Freya, goddess of love and beauty (and fertility, though I didn’t know it at the time).
As a young Scandinavian, I was pretty pleased with my ancestral deities, though my devout Christian parents were quick to make sure I understood that Norse, Roman, Greek, and Egyptian gods and goddesses were myths, not real. Only the Christian God and Jesus were real and I should not ever forget that!
Of course, being a heretic-in-the -making, though unaware of it at the time, I kept silent about my questions: how do we know that there’s only God and Jesus? What about the similarity between the Roman god Zeus impregnating the mortal mothers of such heroic figures as Hercules and Perseus? Isn’t the Christian God just as violent as Jupiter or Zeus? And as unpredictable as Loki, the Norse trickster god? If the Christian God mated with the mortal Mary, isn’t the son Jesus just a godling, not a true god? And so on.
The answers to these questions never came to me with blinding clarity but it did gradually dawn on me over several years that gods and goddesses were a cultural phenomenon, that religions were often hereditary, not chosen, that understandings of the Divine were as varied as human beings are varied, and that female figures were pretty much left out of the Christian pantheon.
Since we Baptists were nervous about Catholicism, we didn’t count Mary or any of the other female saints, who were clearly not godlike anyhow since they were only venerated, not really worshipped, according to our Catholic neighbors.
Eventually, I left Baptistness behind and signed up as a Unitarian Universalist and began to explore what it meant to be part of a faith tradition that was so pluralistic that it included Christians, Jews, atheists and agnostics, Buddhists, pagans, and humanists, among others.
In the process of learning about my new religious path, I began to be aware of the dearth of female spiritual and religious teaching in my past. I knew the stories of such heroines as Esther and Ruth and the Virgin Mary, from my Bible studies, but I did not know anything about women’s spiritual experiences. I knew what my own spiritual experiences had been---sort of--- but I had never looked at how they might be similar to other women’s experiences, because of our common biology and societal roles.
Gradually, through reading such classics as “The Chalice and the Blade” by Riane Eisler and the works of such feminist theologians as the Rev. Shirley Ranck, who wrote “Cakes for the Queen of Heaven”, I began to see how important the role of female experience could be to a complete understanding of my spiritual life.
I could see that traditional roles for females in the church were changing and that my life might even change because of them.
This was in the 70’s and 80’s, when feminism was in an earlier stage, an angry stage, a stage when women were refusing to abide by the old ways of being female, when they were demanding an equal place at the table, fighting for rights that they had long been denied.
At the same time, as Margot Adler has written, nature writers such as Loren Eiseley and Rachel Carson, were warning society that the natural world was being defiled, that human beings had misused their power on the earth, had misread the Genesis story which seems to advocate human domination over the earth.
The Transcendentalist poets and authors of the 19th century, including Henry David Thoreau, had long proclaimed that Divinity was in all of nature and Unitarians had begun to acknowledge the importance of naturalism in religion.
Searching for the roots of women’s spirituality, hungry for evidence that women’s strength and wisdom had once been much more important to society, eager for connection with other women to explore the spiritual meanings of female life, women began to look backwards in time, back to pre-Christian days when Mother Earth was revered and the life-giving role of woman’s sexuality was more valuable than a sexy physical appearance.
Ancient Celtic traditions seemed to offer something that women had long intuited but had not concretized---rituals which celebrated woman strength, motherhood, and agedness--not servitude to males but honor and respect for wisdom which came from the female experience of menstruation, pregnancy, birth, raising young and caring for others.
Many women affiliated with Wiccan covens and other pagan religious groups, as did men who also wanted to honor female wisdom. But it wasn’t easy to be a pagan worshipper in those days and even now it can be difficult.
Though the word “pagan” simply means “country dweller” and “heathen” means “heath dweller”, the words had come to imply something very pejorative: witches, black magic, Satanism, evil. And though authentic Wiccan witches had good solid scholarship to back up their claims of virtue and though modern witches are not actually burned at the stake any more, to announce that one was a witch or Wiccan was tantamount to announcing one’s membership in an evil cult. At least in the public eye.
As Wicca and other nature-based religious groups grew, so did an interest in indigenous religions, primarily Native American spirituality. The ceremonies and rituals of the First Nations were widely used by white seekers who wanted to find alternatives to traditional religious worship.
This practice was often viewed with misgiving by Native Americans, who saw their ancient rituals misappropriated by those who had no personal connection to the traditions of the ethnic group they were copying. In fact, it felt to many like additional oppression by the dominant society, particularly when some practitioners, both white and Native, commercialized the rituals by charging admission or teaching workshops so that others could make money off of the religious practice.
Despite the problems with the upsurge in interest in earth-centered religions, it was clear that the passion for nature-based religious expression emerged from a basic human understanding---that there is power beyond human power, that it is unseen and transcendent, and that it is important to find ways to be in relationship with that power, mysterious and inexplicable as it may be.
Science is inadequate to explain completely the mysteries of birth, life and death. Human will is not content to passively accept these mysteries; human will wants to know why they exist, what can be done to meet the challenges of birth, life and death, how to safeguard life, to savor life, to express gratitude for life. Human will desires meaning, not just mechanics.
And so the energy began to build among women and among nature-based practitioners to acknowledge the power of these ideas, to connect them to our UU 7th principle, our commitment to respect for the interdependent web of existence, of which human beings are all a part.
And out of this interest, a group of Unitarian Universalists who practice earth-based religious rituals formed the Covenant of UU Pagans, or CUUPs, as it is known. CUUPs groups began to invite other UUs into their circle, hosting events for the natural cycles of the earth’s year: solstice, equinox, harvest, planting, birth and death.
In 1995, acceptance of the importance of earth-based traditions to our UU movement resulted in a General Assembly vote which added the 6th Source to our avowed Sources. You’ll notice that in most of our hymnals, which were printed before 1995, the 6th Source does not appear. We print it on our O/S every week, however, and I would invite you to read it with me now.
Let’s start with the introductory phrase: The living tradition which we share draws from many sources: and moving on down, Spiritual teachings of earth-centered traditions, which celebrate the sacred circle of life and instruct us to live in harmony with the rhythms of nature.
What does the language of this Source mean to us as Unitarian Universalists? We are not all members of the Covenant of UU Pagans, for example, but this Source nevertheless enriches our spiritual lives as well.
Many of us who have given up on the traditional concept of God as an old white guy in the sky have come to see God as the power beyond human power, the natural powers of the universe, the mysteries which we only partly understand, the puzzles that science works diligently to figure out, the forces of nature which we cannot control but can only respond to---wind, rain, sun, moon, tides, gravity, night and day.
And we recognize the need to be in harmony with those mysteries, to learn to work with them instead of trying to bend them to our will.
We recognize, as well, that the earth, the universe, is the original sacred text of humankind, that all knowledge that humans have gained comes from our observations and our relationships with the earth and universe.
As Unitarian Universalists, we are committed to stewardship of the earth. We understand that we are part of the resilient yet fragile web of life, that damage to that web is damage to ourselves and our neighbors.
What does it mean that we celebrate the sacred circle of life? What does it mean to live in harmony with the rhythms of nature? It doesn’t necessarily mean that we join a CUUPs chapter or live in a teepee. It does mean that when we celebrate a birthday, we think of the sacredness of each life and what that life means to us and to others. It does mean that when we come together to mourn the loss of a life, we think of the sacredness of that life and how that life has changed us, how we have been affected by that life.
It does mean that when we marry or when our friends and loved ones marry, that this relationship, this bond between two people, strengthens and increases the love in the world, thereby strengthening and increasing the love we experience in the world.
And love is surely one of those mysterious powers beyond human power, whose visibility is revealed more in actions than in science.
It means that we are respectful of the natural world, that we remember that clear-cutting a slope without repairing the damage of the loss of vegetation means that the earth downhill from the slope will be carried away by the next rains and that this will cause damage to us as well as to the earth.
It means that we grow our own food, as we can, and are attuned to what we can grow in our climate, in our soil, in our seasons, in the space we have. It means that we are careful about what we add to the soil, to the water table, to our own food supplies.
It means that we recognize that we can hurt the earth and we refrain from doing so, as much as possible. It means that we recognize that other species depend on us for justice and mercy, as do other human tribes. We recognize that we are part of the interdependent web, not the masters of it, and we are humble in that role.
Some of you read my internet weblog, titled Ms. Kitty’s Saloon and Roadshow (thank you for your readership!) and may have read recent responses to a post in which I asked people to tell me how their own UUism is enhanced or affected by our 6th Source, earth-centered religious wisdom.
There were a variety of responses to my query, one of them very critical of modern paganism, citing the lack of historical evidence for ritual forms that could be used in this century, critizing those who seem to show off their paganism without having thought it through very thoroughly, who use pagan or native rites without a deep sense of respect and connection to the tradition. His words hit a nerve among some other responders, who felt that their legitimate religious path was being unfairly judged.
Knowing this critic very well, since he is my son, a longtime reader of my blog, I know that he is critical always of form for form’s sake, critical of those who seem shallow in their understanding and passion and impatient with anyone who seems to be acting out a part rather than being authentic.
I was pleased by other readers’ responses to his critique: courteous yet expressing discomfort with what felt unfair and laying out their own thoughtful foundation for their attraction to earth-based religious practices.
One such response came from a fellow I know mainly as Ogre. Ogre is a seminary student, a deep thinker and a born and raised UU. He found his UUism enhanced by the light of paganism.
He wrote:
“I've come back through the door and am not an actively practicing Pagan. But I'm very sympathetic. There were insights that made Christianity far more accessible, meaningful and palatable, for example. There were experiences that left my comfortable agnostic-inclinations... at least discomfited. More than anything, it provided me a radically different perspective on religion. …Modern Paganism, in most cases, is consistent with Classical Paganism in that it's minimally concerned with issues of orthodoxy--but rather with orthopraxy. Soaking in that for a couple decades gave me a perspective on UUism and its relationship to the mainstream of religion in North America that is incredibly valuable.
“It provides a vibrant, pulsing, living heartbeat to my UU pantheism.
“It also permitted me to participate in shaping liturgy and worship in ways that will forever be valuable to me. …. And I can at least see some ways to channel that into the sometimes stiff shape of a typical UU congregation and its services.”
Other responders, such as Lizard Eater, said similar things:
“ … it was as if I had been living locked up in a single house, and suddenly the front door was opened wide. Concepts that I had felt in my heart, had a name here, and were affirmed. Magick! A power given to all! A duality of female/male energy! Goddess! Seasons! A connection to the earth. A lack of judgment. A universal impetus to do good, not harm. Karma.
“Wicca was a part of my journey and parts of it remain with me still. And ultimately, it has given me a deeper appreciation for Unitarian Universalism. I was born and raised UU and so it was something that I could take for granted. But now, when someone walks in our doors and after their first UU worship experience, with glowing eyes, they say, “This is my religion, that I never knew existed” … I know what they mean. I’ve had that moment, too. Through Wicca.”
There’s a reading in our hymnal entitled The Eternal Verity by Waldemar Argow, which reads in part: “Ancient as the home is the temple; ancient as the workbench is the altar…Older than written language is spoken prayer…religion is the first and last—the universal language of the human heart..For an eternal verity abides beneath diversities, we are children of one great love, united in our one eternal family.”
In acknowledging the wisdom of earth-based traditions, even though knowledge of their actual ancient rituals may be sketchy and modern earth rituals seek to re-enact their power, we do a very human thing. We go back in time to discover how our ancestors, our foremothers and fathers respected and sought harmony with the powers of the universe.
In our 6th Source, we UUs acknowledge that our origins offer essential pathways to relationship with all there is. Though we seek answers to our questions through science, we also know that answers do not necessarily contain meaning, that there are some things which are too important to be understood fully and that living in the mystery is sometimes more valuable than unraveling it.
Do answers diminish the importance of meaning? Not at all. But religion and culture evolve and answers change. Meaning may also change as human beings come to learn more from our relationship with mystery.
Unitarian Universalism is a process. It is not a religion carved in stone, but a living tradition, open to new understandings, new meanings.
And if, in our wondering about the mysteries of the earth and universe, we do not rush headlong into scientific inquiry but pause to reflect upon and find worth in the unexplained, the mystery, perhaps then we can understand and appreciate the magnetism of earth-centered spirituality and its importance to our own faith.
Let’s pause for a time of silent reflection and prayer.
Hymn #163, For the Earth Forever Turning
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 roots go deep in history, beyond early Christianity and Judaism and other world religions, into pre-history, into a time when the earth, the moon, the sun, the stars were all we knew. May we acknowledge those roots with appreciation and respect and may we bring them into our daily spiritual lives by honoring and living in harmony with the cycles of nature. Amen, Shalom, Salaam, and, most especially these pagan, hallowed words, Blessed Be.
By Rev. Kit Ketcham, April 6, 2008
When I was a kid in elementary school, like many of you, no doubt, and like Margot Adler, we spent some extended period of time one year learning about the many gods and goddesses of early peoples: Norse, Roman, Greek, and Egyptian gods and goddesses were the basic groups we covered.
I remember being impressed that four days of the week were actually named after Norse gods and goddesses: Tuesday, for Tyr, god of war and sky; Wednesday, for Woden, god of wisdom and head honcho of the Norse pantheon; Thursday, for Thor, god of thunder; and Friday, for Freya, goddess of love and beauty (and fertility, though I didn’t know it at the time).
As a young Scandinavian, I was pretty pleased with my ancestral deities, though my devout Christian parents were quick to make sure I understood that Norse, Roman, Greek, and Egyptian gods and goddesses were myths, not real. Only the Christian God and Jesus were real and I should not ever forget that!
Of course, being a heretic-in-the -making, though unaware of it at the time, I kept silent about my questions: how do we know that there’s only God and Jesus? What about the similarity between the Roman god Zeus impregnating the mortal mothers of such heroic figures as Hercules and Perseus? Isn’t the Christian God just as violent as Jupiter or Zeus? And as unpredictable as Loki, the Norse trickster god? If the Christian God mated with the mortal Mary, isn’t the son Jesus just a godling, not a true god? And so on.
The answers to these questions never came to me with blinding clarity but it did gradually dawn on me over several years that gods and goddesses were a cultural phenomenon, that religions were often hereditary, not chosen, that understandings of the Divine were as varied as human beings are varied, and that female figures were pretty much left out of the Christian pantheon.
Since we Baptists were nervous about Catholicism, we didn’t count Mary or any of the other female saints, who were clearly not godlike anyhow since they were only venerated, not really worshipped, according to our Catholic neighbors.
Eventually, I left Baptistness behind and signed up as a Unitarian Universalist and began to explore what it meant to be part of a faith tradition that was so pluralistic that it included Christians, Jews, atheists and agnostics, Buddhists, pagans, and humanists, among others.
In the process of learning about my new religious path, I began to be aware of the dearth of female spiritual and religious teaching in my past. I knew the stories of such heroines as Esther and Ruth and the Virgin Mary, from my Bible studies, but I did not know anything about women’s spiritual experiences. I knew what my own spiritual experiences had been---sort of--- but I had never looked at how they might be similar to other women’s experiences, because of our common biology and societal roles.
Gradually, through reading such classics as “The Chalice and the Blade” by Riane Eisler and the works of such feminist theologians as the Rev. Shirley Ranck, who wrote “Cakes for the Queen of Heaven”, I began to see how important the role of female experience could be to a complete understanding of my spiritual life.
I could see that traditional roles for females in the church were changing and that my life might even change because of them.
This was in the 70’s and 80’s, when feminism was in an earlier stage, an angry stage, a stage when women were refusing to abide by the old ways of being female, when they were demanding an equal place at the table, fighting for rights that they had long been denied.
At the same time, as Margot Adler has written, nature writers such as Loren Eiseley and Rachel Carson, were warning society that the natural world was being defiled, that human beings had misused their power on the earth, had misread the Genesis story which seems to advocate human domination over the earth.
The Transcendentalist poets and authors of the 19th century, including Henry David Thoreau, had long proclaimed that Divinity was in all of nature and Unitarians had begun to acknowledge the importance of naturalism in religion.
Searching for the roots of women’s spirituality, hungry for evidence that women’s strength and wisdom had once been much more important to society, eager for connection with other women to explore the spiritual meanings of female life, women began to look backwards in time, back to pre-Christian days when Mother Earth was revered and the life-giving role of woman’s sexuality was more valuable than a sexy physical appearance.
Ancient Celtic traditions seemed to offer something that women had long intuited but had not concretized---rituals which celebrated woman strength, motherhood, and agedness--not servitude to males but honor and respect for wisdom which came from the female experience of menstruation, pregnancy, birth, raising young and caring for others.
Many women affiliated with Wiccan covens and other pagan religious groups, as did men who also wanted to honor female wisdom. But it wasn’t easy to be a pagan worshipper in those days and even now it can be difficult.
Though the word “pagan” simply means “country dweller” and “heathen” means “heath dweller”, the words had come to imply something very pejorative: witches, black magic, Satanism, evil. And though authentic Wiccan witches had good solid scholarship to back up their claims of virtue and though modern witches are not actually burned at the stake any more, to announce that one was a witch or Wiccan was tantamount to announcing one’s membership in an evil cult. At least in the public eye.
As Wicca and other nature-based religious groups grew, so did an interest in indigenous religions, primarily Native American spirituality. The ceremonies and rituals of the First Nations were widely used by white seekers who wanted to find alternatives to traditional religious worship.
This practice was often viewed with misgiving by Native Americans, who saw their ancient rituals misappropriated by those who had no personal connection to the traditions of the ethnic group they were copying. In fact, it felt to many like additional oppression by the dominant society, particularly when some practitioners, both white and Native, commercialized the rituals by charging admission or teaching workshops so that others could make money off of the religious practice.
Despite the problems with the upsurge in interest in earth-centered religions, it was clear that the passion for nature-based religious expression emerged from a basic human understanding---that there is power beyond human power, that it is unseen and transcendent, and that it is important to find ways to be in relationship with that power, mysterious and inexplicable as it may be.
Science is inadequate to explain completely the mysteries of birth, life and death. Human will is not content to passively accept these mysteries; human will wants to know why they exist, what can be done to meet the challenges of birth, life and death, how to safeguard life, to savor life, to express gratitude for life. Human will desires meaning, not just mechanics.
And so the energy began to build among women and among nature-based practitioners to acknowledge the power of these ideas, to connect them to our UU 7th principle, our commitment to respect for the interdependent web of existence, of which human beings are all a part.
And out of this interest, a group of Unitarian Universalists who practice earth-based religious rituals formed the Covenant of UU Pagans, or CUUPs, as it is known. CUUPs groups began to invite other UUs into their circle, hosting events for the natural cycles of the earth’s year: solstice, equinox, harvest, planting, birth and death.
In 1995, acceptance of the importance of earth-based traditions to our UU movement resulted in a General Assembly vote which added the 6th Source to our avowed Sources. You’ll notice that in most of our hymnals, which were printed before 1995, the 6th Source does not appear. We print it on our O/S every week, however, and I would invite you to read it with me now.
Let’s start with the introductory phrase: The living tradition which we share draws from many sources: and moving on down, Spiritual teachings of earth-centered traditions, which celebrate the sacred circle of life and instruct us to live in harmony with the rhythms of nature.
What does the language of this Source mean to us as Unitarian Universalists? We are not all members of the Covenant of UU Pagans, for example, but this Source nevertheless enriches our spiritual lives as well.
Many of us who have given up on the traditional concept of God as an old white guy in the sky have come to see God as the power beyond human power, the natural powers of the universe, the mysteries which we only partly understand, the puzzles that science works diligently to figure out, the forces of nature which we cannot control but can only respond to---wind, rain, sun, moon, tides, gravity, night and day.
And we recognize the need to be in harmony with those mysteries, to learn to work with them instead of trying to bend them to our will.
We recognize, as well, that the earth, the universe, is the original sacred text of humankind, that all knowledge that humans have gained comes from our observations and our relationships with the earth and universe.
As Unitarian Universalists, we are committed to stewardship of the earth. We understand that we are part of the resilient yet fragile web of life, that damage to that web is damage to ourselves and our neighbors.
What does it mean that we celebrate the sacred circle of life? What does it mean to live in harmony with the rhythms of nature? It doesn’t necessarily mean that we join a CUUPs chapter or live in a teepee. It does mean that when we celebrate a birthday, we think of the sacredness of each life and what that life means to us and to others. It does mean that when we come together to mourn the loss of a life, we think of the sacredness of that life and how that life has changed us, how we have been affected by that life.
It does mean that when we marry or when our friends and loved ones marry, that this relationship, this bond between two people, strengthens and increases the love in the world, thereby strengthening and increasing the love we experience in the world.
And love is surely one of those mysterious powers beyond human power, whose visibility is revealed more in actions than in science.
It means that we are respectful of the natural world, that we remember that clear-cutting a slope without repairing the damage of the loss of vegetation means that the earth downhill from the slope will be carried away by the next rains and that this will cause damage to us as well as to the earth.
It means that we grow our own food, as we can, and are attuned to what we can grow in our climate, in our soil, in our seasons, in the space we have. It means that we are careful about what we add to the soil, to the water table, to our own food supplies.
It means that we recognize that we can hurt the earth and we refrain from doing so, as much as possible. It means that we recognize that other species depend on us for justice and mercy, as do other human tribes. We recognize that we are part of the interdependent web, not the masters of it, and we are humble in that role.
Some of you read my internet weblog, titled Ms. Kitty’s Saloon and Roadshow (thank you for your readership!) and may have read recent responses to a post in which I asked people to tell me how their own UUism is enhanced or affected by our 6th Source, earth-centered religious wisdom.
There were a variety of responses to my query, one of them very critical of modern paganism, citing the lack of historical evidence for ritual forms that could be used in this century, critizing those who seem to show off their paganism without having thought it through very thoroughly, who use pagan or native rites without a deep sense of respect and connection to the tradition. His words hit a nerve among some other responders, who felt that their legitimate religious path was being unfairly judged.
Knowing this critic very well, since he is my son, a longtime reader of my blog, I know that he is critical always of form for form’s sake, critical of those who seem shallow in their understanding and passion and impatient with anyone who seems to be acting out a part rather than being authentic.
I was pleased by other readers’ responses to his critique: courteous yet expressing discomfort with what felt unfair and laying out their own thoughtful foundation for their attraction to earth-based religious practices.
One such response came from a fellow I know mainly as Ogre. Ogre is a seminary student, a deep thinker and a born and raised UU. He found his UUism enhanced by the light of paganism.
He wrote:
“I've come back through the door and am not an actively practicing Pagan. But I'm very sympathetic. There were insights that made Christianity far more accessible, meaningful and palatable, for example. There were experiences that left my comfortable agnostic-inclinations... at least discomfited. More than anything, it provided me a radically different perspective on religion. …Modern Paganism, in most cases, is consistent with Classical Paganism in that it's minimally concerned with issues of orthodoxy--but rather with orthopraxy. Soaking in that for a couple decades gave me a perspective on UUism and its relationship to the mainstream of religion in North America that is incredibly valuable.
“It provides a vibrant, pulsing, living heartbeat to my UU pantheism.
“It also permitted me to participate in shaping liturgy and worship in ways that will forever be valuable to me. …. And I can at least see some ways to channel that into the sometimes stiff shape of a typical UU congregation and its services.”
Other responders, such as Lizard Eater, said similar things:
“ … it was as if I had been living locked up in a single house, and suddenly the front door was opened wide. Concepts that I had felt in my heart, had a name here, and were affirmed. Magick! A power given to all! A duality of female/male energy! Goddess! Seasons! A connection to the earth. A lack of judgment. A universal impetus to do good, not harm. Karma.
“Wicca was a part of my journey and parts of it remain with me still. And ultimately, it has given me a deeper appreciation for Unitarian Universalism. I was born and raised UU and so it was something that I could take for granted. But now, when someone walks in our doors and after their first UU worship experience, with glowing eyes, they say, “This is my religion, that I never knew existed” … I know what they mean. I’ve had that moment, too. Through Wicca.”
There’s a reading in our hymnal entitled The Eternal Verity by Waldemar Argow, which reads in part: “Ancient as the home is the temple; ancient as the workbench is the altar…Older than written language is spoken prayer…religion is the first and last—the universal language of the human heart..For an eternal verity abides beneath diversities, we are children of one great love, united in our one eternal family.”
In acknowledging the wisdom of earth-based traditions, even though knowledge of their actual ancient rituals may be sketchy and modern earth rituals seek to re-enact their power, we do a very human thing. We go back in time to discover how our ancestors, our foremothers and fathers respected and sought harmony with the powers of the universe.
In our 6th Source, we UUs acknowledge that our origins offer essential pathways to relationship with all there is. Though we seek answers to our questions through science, we also know that answers do not necessarily contain meaning, that there are some things which are too important to be understood fully and that living in the mystery is sometimes more valuable than unraveling it.
Do answers diminish the importance of meaning? Not at all. But religion and culture evolve and answers change. Meaning may also change as human beings come to learn more from our relationship with mystery.
Unitarian Universalism is a process. It is not a religion carved in stone, but a living tradition, open to new understandings, new meanings.
And if, in our wondering about the mysteries of the earth and universe, we do not rush headlong into scientific inquiry but pause to reflect upon and find worth in the unexplained, the mystery, perhaps then we can understand and appreciate the magnetism of earth-centered spirituality and its importance to our own faith.
Let’s pause for a time of silent reflection and prayer.
Hymn #163, For the Earth Forever Turning
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 roots go deep in history, beyond early Christianity and Judaism and other world religions, into pre-history, into a time when the earth, the moon, the sun, the stars were all we knew. May we acknowledge those roots with appreciation and respect and may we bring them into our daily spiritual lives by honoring and living in harmony with the cycles of nature. Amen, Shalom, Salaam, and, most especially these pagan, hallowed words, Blessed Be.
A Sunday Quiz
Hmm, I assume I'm a girl Spiderman.
Your results:
You are Spider-Man
Click here to take the Superhero Personality Test
Your results:
You are Spider-Man
| You are intelligent, witty, a bit geeky and have great power and responsibility.  |
Click here to take the Superhero Personality Test
Saturday, April 05, 2008
Update on Neo-Paganism Post and Cat Stuff
The responses to my recent post asking for input on how neo-paganism and UU values coincide have revealed widely divergent views on the topic, from deep cynicism and pained responses to that cynicism to personal theological reflections on how earth-centered faith practices have enhanced others' UU experience.
I'm not sure how I will end up using the responses in my sermon, but I am certainly better-informed than I was a few days ago! And I'm very thankful to all who responded. The conversation is still open, and I'm hoping that the Favorite Son will add more of his thoughts to the melange.
As far as the cat situation goes, I have been researching making cat food, as Ms. Theologian has suggested, and I just came back from ACE hardware where I bought a 1 mil dropcloth which I plan to attach to the back of a coverlet, so that I can protect the bedcovers with something besides the vinyl-backed tablecloth which crackles noisily when moved.
In addition, the pheromone diffuser seems to be having a positive effect (as much as I can tell---all three are zonked out on the bed in there and have not had any fights on the bed that I know of). If there is another accident by anyone, well, I am not sure what my next step will be.
Thanks for all the kind thoughts and suggestions.
I'm not sure how I will end up using the responses in my sermon, but I am certainly better-informed than I was a few days ago! And I'm very thankful to all who responded. The conversation is still open, and I'm hoping that the Favorite Son will add more of his thoughts to the melange.
As far as the cat situation goes, I have been researching making cat food, as Ms. Theologian has suggested, and I just came back from ACE hardware where I bought a 1 mil dropcloth which I plan to attach to the back of a coverlet, so that I can protect the bedcovers with something besides the vinyl-backed tablecloth which crackles noisily when moved.
In addition, the pheromone diffuser seems to be having a positive effect (as much as I can tell---all three are zonked out on the bed in there and have not had any fights on the bed that I know of). If there is another accident by anyone, well, I am not sure what my next step will be.
Thanks for all the kind thoughts and suggestions.
Thursday, April 03, 2008
Cat Stuff
Time to pour out my heart about cat stuff again. This time it's Lily, who produced a puddle on the bed with a red tinge. No bladder infection but lots of crystals in her urine. She's not acting sick but she has been extra affectionate to me since I came back from the beach on Sunday. That in itself is a little odd, as she's not usually the type to jump up in my lap and cuddle. I have wondered, when she did it, if she was trying to ace out Max, who is almost always on my shoulder or chest purring madly when I'm sitting or lying down.
When the vet said I needed to change her diet to the expensive vet food, I almost cried. She wouldn't eat the canned stuff when we tried it earlier and it's three times the cost of the Friskies. But the vet said we could experiment with the kibble and try to get her to drink more water, as that's the key to the crystals most times.
In addition, the vet asked if Lily was under a lot of stress and I had to admit that Max has become not only very clingy to me but also very aggressive toward both Lily and Loosy. She suggested getting a little diffuser to put a calming pheromone into the bedroom where the puddles occur; this has the effect of providing a scent that is similar to the facial gland marking scent and seems to calm anxious cats.
So I dropped another hundred bucks for this whole episode and we still don't know if we've got it fixed. My friend Susan the cat whisperer is off-island today but I left her a message and will probably hear from her later. Maybe she can add her thoughts as well.
On the bright side, a colleague referred a couple to me for a wedding, which will fatten up my bank account this summer---hopefully I can spend it on something besides vet bills!
When the vet said I needed to change her diet to the expensive vet food, I almost cried. She wouldn't eat the canned stuff when we tried it earlier and it's three times the cost of the Friskies. But the vet said we could experiment with the kibble and try to get her to drink more water, as that's the key to the crystals most times.
In addition, the vet asked if Lily was under a lot of stress and I had to admit that Max has become not only very clingy to me but also very aggressive toward both Lily and Loosy. She suggested getting a little diffuser to put a calming pheromone into the bedroom where the puddles occur; this has the effect of providing a scent that is similar to the facial gland marking scent and seems to calm anxious cats.
So I dropped another hundred bucks for this whole episode and we still don't know if we've got it fixed. My friend Susan the cat whisperer is off-island today but I left her a message and will probably hear from her later. Maybe she can add her thoughts as well.
On the bright side, a colleague referred a couple to me for a wedding, which will fatten up my bank account this summer---hopefully I can spend it on something besides vet bills!
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
Writing a sermon about the wisdom of earth-centered traditions as a Source of UUism
The title of the post says it all. A number of UU bloggers are closely connected with our Sixth Source, which states "spiritual teachings of Earth-centered traditions which celebrate the sacred circle of life and instruct us to live in harmony with the rhythms of nature". Doubtless many blog readers are also affiliated with earth-centered traditions.
As I'm writing, using my own experiences as a kid learning about the pantheons of gods and goddesses in elementary school and the occasional sermon or UU world article about modern Neo-Paganism, I'm finding it to be such an important source of our faith that I am looking forward to offering my thoughts about it this Sunday.
I'd like to invite my Pagan readers and fellow bloggers to weigh in on how UUism and their own Pagan connections intersect. Can you give me some personal insights on your spiritual path that might help me offer an authentic look at this Source through your eyes? And will you give me permission to quote you, if I see something particularly helpful?
Thanks for whatever you are willing and able to offer.
As I'm writing, using my own experiences as a kid learning about the pantheons of gods and goddesses in elementary school and the occasional sermon or UU world article about modern Neo-Paganism, I'm finding it to be such an important source of our faith that I am looking forward to offering my thoughts about it this Sunday.
I'd like to invite my Pagan readers and fellow bloggers to weigh in on how UUism and their own Pagan connections intersect. Can you give me some personal insights on your spiritual path that might help me offer an authentic look at this Source through your eyes? And will you give me permission to quote you, if I see something particularly helpful?
Thanks for whatever you are willing and able to offer.
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