Thinking about collaborative ministry

Before seminary was a gleam in my eye, I was lucky to be a member of Jefferson Unitarian Church in Colorado, under the leadership of the Rev. Robert Latham, who introduced our congregation to the concept of shared ministry. Robert was the author of a chapter in the Congregational Handbook which outlined the charge of a Committee on Ministry, a relatively new concept at that time in the UUA.

I liked what he was telling us about shared ministry, the idea that ministry is not just the minister's job. It is the job of every member of a congregation, to find a place to serve others and to uphold the mission of the congregation. The minister might be the one in the pulpit most Sundays, but the ministry of the congregation was not a one-person job. The COM's basic task was to review if and how that was happening, which was quite a departure from the older concept of a Ministerial Support Committee and a much bigger job!

Anyhow-----from Robert, I learned how valuable it is to share the pulpit. Robert asked laypersons to serve in a variety of ways during a service, from songleading and chalice lighting to offering readings and personal reflections relevant to the theme. He asked me to help him on several occasions, even letting me pick out my own readings for some services. At the same time, he read (correctly, I think) JUC's hunger for "Joys and Sorrows" as a hunger for more participation in worship, and he helped to feed it by inviting people to share the pulpit. At the same time, he weaned us off of a lengthy, rambling J&S session by changing its format to "Milestones" and scheduling it only once a month.

As I got ready to graduate, be ordained, and start serving a congregation myself, I took the lesson of shared ministry with me and in every congregation, I have instituted that participatory, collaborative model as fully as local circumstances allowed.

Moving to Whidbey several years ago gave me the chance to expand his model into my own ministry and I was surprised recently to realize that the way we create meaningful worship here is somewhat different from how it's done in many other congregations.

Twelve people from our worship team (far more than any other congregations attending) hopped on the ferry one Saturday morning to attend an all-day worship workshop across the water at a nearby UU church. We knew it would be good, as it was being taught by my colleague the Rev. Barbara Wells ten Hove. And it was an eye-opener, not because it was all new to us but because our approach was far more collaborative than others. We learned some great things, but the greatest may have been that we are unique, at least given the sample we experienced that day.

Our approach has evolved over the years because we have moved from being a tiny, totally layled congregation, where all services were pulled together by volunteers and were pretty hit and miss sometimes, to being an 84 member congregation with a half-time minister who is in the pulpit twice a month. It also moved from being active only from September through mid-June to all-year-round services.

When I first came, I came for one long weekend, preaching on Sunday but doing committee work and pastoral care on Friday, Saturday and Monday. When I moved to the island, I was able to spread my work out over a full 5-7 days and as my availability increased, so did my hours and my income. I began preaching twice a month and the worship committee planned the other 2-3 services.

We began to offer trainings every fall, we changed the title of our service leaders from "facilitator" and then "layleader" to "worship leader", a title appropriate for me those times when I took on that role when we had a UU minister as a guest, and we became much more reflective about what "quality" worship meant. What worked best for us in worship? What was distracting or less meaningful? What about those times when a service worked well for us but didn't work for someone else? How could we help people with this concern?

Gradually, we became a committee of about eight with a host of well-trained, experienced worship leaders. We required all worship leaders to attend the fall training and hosted a spring "best practices" and "thank you" luncheon for all who had served during the year.

A couple of years ago, I began to invite the worship leader who had volunteered to serve during one of my services to a session in which we not only picked hymns and readings and children's story but also talked about the sermon topic and how we might address it. I wanted to know the WL's thoughts on the topic; how did s/he view this topic? What might s/he want me to address? What did s/he have to add to my thinking? This conversation preceded the service by about ten days, giving us lots of time to get just the right elements and for my thinking on the sermon to percolate.

Some of this is only possible because I preach every two weeks; I'm not sure if I could do it if I were preaching every week. But the evolution of our process has resulted in a worship team that is confident, deeply spiritual in its approach to worship, and feels like equal partners as we create worship that works.

Yesterday we had our thank-you luncheon for worship leaders and talked about what each person found most meaningful in our worship planning and leading; many, perhaps most, valued the collaborative process we had developed. I'm not sure how this will play out down the line, as someday I will retire and a new minister will come on the scene. It may take another new turn at that time.

I just hope that whoever follows me, in the years to come, will find this collaborative worship ministry to be satisfying and worthy of continuing in some way. It has certainly been satisfying to me, not to have to do it all alone.

A dedication ceremony for new artwork and library

DEDICATION CEREMONY
FOR OUR NEW ARTWORK, DOOR, AND LIBRARY
May 8, 2011

This morning we dedicate the gifts of creativity which we have received from many hands and hearts. To begin, I’d like to invite Nola Allen, Mary Goolsby, and Eileen Walker to come forward to tell us how this beautiful wall hanging came into being. Will the members of the Visual Arts Committee and the many other folks who helped with this creation please stand?

Please stand and we will read together our words of dedication.

CONGREGATION, TO DEDICATE THE FABRIC ART

Grateful for the gift of beauty we see before us and thankful for the many hands and hearts which created it, we dedicate this piece of art to the service of our community. May its colors and shapes remind us of the beautiful world in which we live and of our responsibility to nurture and protect that beauty. May those who created it for our sanctuary be blessed and may they continue to bring new visions into our world.

Please remain standing and turn around to face the carved doors. John, will you please come to the podium and tell us how these doors came to be? Will those who helped John with this work of art please stand?

Let’s read together our words of dedication. (I don't yet have pix of the doors or the library.)

CONGREGATION, TO DEDICATE THE CARVED DOORS

Grateful for the gift of beauty we see before us and thankful for the hands and hearts which created it, we dedicate these doors to the service of our community. When they are open wide, may they welcome all persons to enter this sanctuary; when they enclose us, may they create a space of safety and peace. May those who created it for our sanctuary be blessed and may they continue to bring new visions into our world.

Our library is the result of a huge gift of books from my friend Don Cooper, as well as those donated by members of this congregation. Don is a retired linguistics professor, who was moving from Ohio to South Carolina and wanted to bestow a gift upon our congregation. Over the course of several months, he sent us 13 or 14 heavy cartons of books, which were sorted, catalogued, and eventually shelved on the book cases in our hallway. He wrote this statement for me to read for you today:

“In this new religious world of America, in which there are twice as many Moslems as Episcopalians, I thought that it would be helpful for you to have available library resources which will help you to know who your neighbors are in religious terms. I hope that you will extend this collection according to your own tastes and interests by looking into what is available from such sources as( Beacon Press and Skinner House, UU-related publishing houses.)”

I’d like to ask the craftsmen who built the shelves and those who helped with design, plus the librarians in the congregation who sorted, catalogued, and shelved the books, plus devising the check-out system.

Let’s read together our words of dedication.

CONGREGATION, TO DEDICATE THE LIBRARY

Grateful for the gift of knowledge and inspiration for our searching and thankful for the hands and hearts which created this library, we dedicate our new library to the service of our community. May its many volumes inspire us to search for truth and meaning. May those who created it be blessed and may they continue to bring new inspiration into our world.

Let’s give one more gesture of appreciation for the many hands, hearts, and minds which have given us these gifts today.

.

Freedom and Creativity: a homily

FREEDOM AND CREATIVITY
Rev. Kit Ketcham, May 8, 2011

Who was the creative one in your family? Was it you? (raise hand if so) Were you the artist? the musician? The writer or poet? Who was the non-creative person? What did it feel like to be creative? What did it feel like to be considered non-creative?

In my family, my sister and my mother were the creative ones. They both loved to draw and I have a very flattering pencil portrait that my sister drew for me when I was in college. My mother had been a sketcher and a painter in her younger days but only picked up a drawing pencil now and then during her mothering days; when she went back to college at Ellensburg in midlife, she again picked up her pencils and brushes and created some beautiful paintings which still exist in our family storerooms.

I was the musician---sort of. That is, I could play the piano for hymn singing at my dad’s church, I could read music pretty well and carry a tune, and I was in the a cappella choir in college. And I also have a store of poems written in grubby notebooks while sitting in a truck in a hot field of wheat or peas, awaiting my turn to load my truck.

My dad and brother tended more toward craftsman skills; both were experts with their hands, whether it was to build backyard forts or repair damaged wiring or install any number of household amenities---plumbing, appliances, you name it, they could do it. And I’m sure my brother still can. My dad, of course, was also a writer of sermons, few of which survive except in my memory.

Small town American culture, in the 50’s, did not encourage great creativity, did not give creativity much freedom to blossom. There were no art or drama classes in my tiny high school, no creative writing classes, little attention given to musicality.

Girls took home ec; boys took shop. Our creative impulses were channeled into practical applications. Too much interest in art or drama or poetry or dance got one labeled an eccentric, an oddball, a free thinker, out of place in the small community where good crops were the primary focus and any creative effort should be directed toward that goal.

Children in every generation seem to have had similar experiences. My online friend “Mile High Pixie”, who lives in Denver but grew up in the South, wrote something interesting in her blog recently and I asked her if I could quote her. Pixie became an architect who loves her work, if not its politics. This was her childhood experience decades after mine.

I drew a great deal, but I never wrote much down, per se, as it always seemed like my mind went so much faster and farther than my hands could write…. But (the) names (of my imaginary characters) remain in my head like it's 1983: Botae, a multi-talented woman; her dad Oz, who looked like my mom's Dad in Michigan and was born super-old and nearly died at birth …; and Mr. Invy, who was mayor of Legoland and somehow allowed (the punk rock band) Devo to move into the neighborhood and drive around in their red-and-black van, which my sister named "Devo-Machine" and would dead-pan narrate its thoughts and voice.…
I didn't tell a lot of people about these characters, as I seemed to know/feel even as a child that imagination would be mocked. I kept my drawings to myself, mostly, although (my sister) was really good about encouraging and adding onto my ideas.

As children, we are often creative and free in our self-expression, at least when we are left to our own devices, but many children are discouraged later in life, told we can’t draw, can’t sing, can’t write a coherent line, and our creative life is cut short, at least until we get new messages of encouragement and begin to regain our freedom of expression.

We have honored today the women and men who have given us the gifts of our fabric art and the system of hardware that makes it movable; the beautifully carved wooden doors and the strong arms and hands that mounted them; the cartons and cartons of donated books which were then sorted and categorized, the design process for the shelving which would hold them, AND the careful creation and crafting of those shelves, followed by their secure mounting on the walls.

We are the recipients of hours of creative energy and hard work. We cannot overestimate the importance of these gifts nor the value of the act of creation which is the hallmark of human endeavor.

This is a joyful day, partly because it celebrates the lives of those who are mothers, those who mother others’ children, those who look out for others both adult and child in their everyday lives. It is joyful too because we have all received this wonderful Mother’s Day present in these gifts of artistic and literary creativity.

And yet there is a tinge of dark remembrance in this year 201l, ten years out from that terrible day in 2001 when we Americans received the gut punch of September 11, with its monumental death toll and psychic damage.

One week ago we learned that the instigator of that murderous act had been tracked down and killed by our armed forces. Millions of Americans rejoiced that Osama bin Laden was dead. Millions across the world danced in the streets. Others refused to believe that it was true. Still others, like me and perhaps many of you, were disturbed by public gloating over the death of this man.

And yet he has been the death of creativity in many, many human lives, some live taken by those murderous plane crashes, some lives taken by the heroic acts their own compassion and professionality demanded of them. Other lives were simply too damaged by their pain to go on.

Still others, however, used their creative impulses and training to make something worthwhile out of the destruction of life in general and individual lives in particular. Works of art and architecture, poetry, music, dance, stories, and other artistic expressions have been created out of that terrible event. Children were conceived out of the irresistible human urge to make sure that life goes on.

Osama bin Laden sought to punish America, to make us so afraid that we would be hamstrung and impotent as a people. To some extent, he succeeded. We now have tighter reins on our freedoms; we are not as carefree nor do we feel as safe as we once did. But we are still free to love and to create beauty in all its forms.

As our newly dedicated works of art proclaim, to create is to bring new life into the world. That new life might be an infant, or it might be a poem, a painting, a play, a carving, a stitchery, a sturdy library shelf, a photo, a dance, a song, a building, a garden, a recipe, a pot of soup, a friendship.

Our responsive reading this morning and the insert which accompanies it draw our attention to the difficulties women and mothers encounter as they raise families, maintain their own health and their families’ health, and struggle to bring children into the world safely.

Because human reproduction is the place where the creative urge begins, we must safeguard it, in order to safeguard the process of creativity. To do so, we must work toward basic health care for men, women and children, toward safe contraception for all, toward comprehensive, accurate sex education for all, and to maintain legal protections for those who must end a pregnancy, offering sympathy instead of punishment.

“Every night a child is born is a holy night,” wrote Sophia Lyon Fahs, one of our UU foremothers. A creative spirit is the birthright of every child and we, the adults in that child’s life, are the nurturers of that spirit. I hope that we would be supportive of our children’s desire to express themselves creatively, offering encouragement rather than criticism, acceptance rather than skepticism.

And I hope that we will always be supportive of those children’s parents, mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, grandparents, all those who are raising our children, for in their hands is the future of all human creativity.

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

BENEDICTION: Our worship service, our time of shaping worth together, is ended, but our service to the world begins again as we leave this place. Let us go in peace, remembering the joy of this day and appreciating the many gifts of creativity we enjoy. May we honor and protect the creative spirit within each other and within ourselves, that we may live to the fullest of our human potential. Amen, Shalom, Salaam, and Blessed Be.

The challenges of the liturgical year....

when you're not really a liturgical person weigh me down some years, and this year is one of them. I struggled with Easter and eventually approached it from the sort-of-back-door of my deeply-held Universalism. Growing up a Baptist, I didn't get a lot of ceremonial stuff and have never felt the need for it.

I'm tired of the effort to rehash the ancient story in a new way. I just couldn't manage it this year. I did like the way the sermon came together and it did make sense of Easter for me one more time. But I feel uncomfortable with both the commercialism of the season and its liturgical expectations.

The story of a good and brilliant, compassionate and deep-thinking, courageous man whose efforts to get people to turn inward to find the Kingdom of Heaven set the religious world on a new trajectory----that's a really good story and it deserves to be told over and over.

But we seem to get stuck there. We re-enact the drama of the story from beginning to end and then drop the effort to live the life that good man promised we'd have if we looked within ourselves to find the compassion and connection we need. It's as though, once Jesus was dead, the impetus to find that inner joy disappeared for most folks in the welter of meeting their daily needs.

We celebrate the holiday liturgically, intone the right words, wave the right icons, and overlook the deep internal need to find our inner wellsprings of joy, from which our ability to give deep Love arises. It just feels hollow some years, as though we are mouthing words we don't really understand or believe, because we are not observing the real message of Jesus, which was to find that deep Love within and give it to others.

I have long felt puzzled by the need many have to believe that Jesus was God, that he really did turn water into wine, raise the dead, heal the sick, rise from his own tomb. Those events, true or not, are not the point of his ministry. The point is the message of Love---for God, for neighbor and enemy, for self. I don't believe that Jesus was a perfect being but I do believe he had discovered something essential about human living and an awful lot of so-called Christians are overlooking it.

I walked the road outside my door this morning, waving at cars driving by on their way to work, enjoying the blooming wild currant, the horsetails sticking up through the mud, the tiny slug-lets all along the road, the intriguing deer paths through the brambles, and then the broad view of Puget Sound, the shipping lanes, and Port Townsend across the way. It's a busy, not-so-scenic road but there is much life to share in a short walk, and I've come to find it a source of renewal and peace. Reveling in the actual season of spring, which predates any tale of resurrection, feels more appropriate than anything else, this year.

Why I am a Universalist and what that has to do with Easter

WHY I AM A UNIVERSALIST:
And what that has to do with Easter
Rev. Kit Ketcham, April 24, 2011

My recent issue of Time Magazine practically heated up the mailbox last week when it arrived. The headline “What if there’s no Hell?” screamed as loudly as another headline decades ago, when Time asked its readers “Is God dead?”

I’d heard about this controversy weeks before, when the news came out that Pastor Rob Bell, of the Mars Hill Bible Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan, had written a new book entitled “Love Wins: a Book about Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of every person who ever lived”.

In the book, Pastor Bell questioned the orthodox doctrine of traditional Christianity, that everyone who did not accept Jesus as Lord and Savior was doomed to eternal torment in the fires of hell.
He tells the story of visiting an art exhibit which included quotations from a variety of heroes of justice, including Mahatma Mohandas Gandhi. A visitor to the exhibit had stuck a note next to the Gandhi quotation stating “Reality Check: Gandhi’s in hell.”

Bell thought to himself, “Really? Gandhi’s in hell? He is? We have confirmation of this? Somebody knows this? Without a doubt? And that somebody decided to take on the responsibility of letting the rest of us know?”

That’s the opening story in his book Love Wins, and he goes on to suggest that the message of Jesus is that all persons who ever lived could have a place in heaven, whatever that turns out to be, because of God’s eternal love and mercy.

Not surprisingly, this bold statement of universal salvation hit the conservative world like a bomb. By now they’ve tried to kick him and his church out of the Southern Baptists, they’ve condemned him to the eternal torment of theological disdain and censure, and one young North Carolina pastor was fired by his church for endorsing the book.

The president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Albert Mohler, says “When you adopt universalism and erase the distinction between the church and the world, then you don’t need the church, and you don’t need Christ, and you don’t need the cross. This is the tragedy of non-judgmental mainline liberalism, and it’s Rob Bell’s tragedy in this book too,” implying that Pastor Bell had just signed over his passport to Satan.

Interesting, huh? But from a traditionalist perspective, taking away hell means taking away the most powerful weapon the traditional church has in its arsenal for those Christian soldiers.

Without hell, where is the incentive to turn to Jesus as savior? If Gandhi is in heaven, why bother with accepting Christ? If the words in the Bible about hell and heaven are not literally true, what does that say about women or homosexuality? These are questions that can undermine much of conservative Christianity.

Bell’s startling revelation of his changing theology found a champion in also-deposed African American Pentecostal preacher the Rev. Carlton Pearson, who, a few years ago, also came out of the evangelical closet as a universalist, stating his belief that God’s mercy and grace would extend to all persons, regardless of their belief or behavior, and he identified as a Universalist publicly.

In addition, after Pearson was kicked out of his own denomination, he was welcomed by our Tulsa OK congregation, All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church, where he is getting a feel for what universalism means in another sense---the radical inclusion of all people in the beloved community.

For that is what Universalism has come to mean in this day and age, among theologians in our faith tradition of Unitarian Universalism: the belief that all persons have inherent worth and dignity and receive the gifts of Divine love and grace and forgiveness.

We have let go of an insistence on an after-life in either heaven or hell and, instead, believe that heaven and hell are both available to us humans right here on earth, before death. And it is our job to help to create heaven, not hell, for our fellow creatures.

As John Murray, one of our Universalist forefathers wrote, in a few lines included in the readings in our hymnal:
Go out into the highways and by-ways. Give the people something of your new vision. You may possess a small light, but uncover it, let it shine, use it in order to bring more light and understanding to the hearts and minds of men and women. Give them not hell, but hope and courage; preach the kindness and everlasting love of God.

Now, Rob Bell’s and Carlton Pearson’s universalism is probably not just like our Universalism; they both come from the conservative Christian tradition and still strongly hold many traditional beliefs. They accept a small-u universalism which is merely one strand in their statements of belief. But ours is so important to our way of being religious in this world, that we capitalize that U and make it part of our name.

What is Universalism and what does it mean about our religious tradition? Let me give you a little history, tell you why I am very much a Universalist in my own theology, and what that has to do with Easter.

Both Unitarianism and Universalism are ancient re-interpretations of Biblical narratives. Unitarianism started out as a disbelief in the Christian idea of the trinity. Originally, Unitarian thought was labeled anti-trinitarianism, because that’s how it was originally proposed. It meant a belief in God as a Unity, not as a Trinity, three in one, and it began in the third century of the Common Era.

Universalism was originally the idea that a loving God would not condemn his children to the eternal fires of hell, no matter how bad we were, whether or not we believed in Jesus as savior, and it, too, originated in the third century. Universalism originally meant universal salvation, and it is this definition that Rob Bell is talking about.

As the institutional structure of Christianity grew, orthodoxy crowded out these two alternative ways of interpreting the Bible. In fact, those who believed these different ideas were often persecuted, kicked out of the church, even killed. Their heretical beliefs were forbidden and even today conservative Christianity considers them anathema.

But they didn’t die out. Free thought has a way of rearing its head again and again despite attempts made to stamp it out. And over the centuries since those rebellious times, the ideas of God as One and Salvation for All have been resurrected again and again.

Today, we belong to a small, energetic, progressive, extremely liberal faith tradition which has taken those two concepts and reinterpreted them for an age in which the definitions of God and salvation have changed radically from those ancient days and have become even more relevant to a world in need of healing.

Why am I a Universalist? A story from the history of this very congregation illustrates one reason why:

It was just a normal Sunday, with the normal familiar smiles and 
greetings as people passed by me before joining others in the sanctuary, that Sunday in 2005.


There had been the normal “hi, so nice to see you today! and.....how’s your mom? and........what do you hear from so and so? and.......welcome to our UU congregation! would you like a nametag? and...........yes, I think there is a plan to go out for a meal after the service; I hope you can come. and........how are you feeling these days?” 


UU congregations are always on the lookout for visitors and this 
congregation was no different. We want to be able to say hello, offer a 
friendly smile----and a nametag!------and demonstrate the best welcome we 
can offer to someone new, someone who was perhaps hurting, perhaps 
lonely, perhaps unfamiliar with UUism, or----perhaps a longtime UU looking for a new church home. It’s our normal Sunday routine. 


On this particular Sunday, however, members of our small 
congregation took one look at the visitor coming through the door and did 
a double take. No, it wasn’t President Bush, coming to see how we liked 
his environmental policies or disaster response; it wasn’t some glamorous 
movie star or bedraggled reality show survivor; it wasn’t the mayor of the 
small town or any other well known local personage. 


This visitor’s appearance was startling in itself, and I could feel my 
own apprehensions rise up. Why would anyone choose to look the way this person did? I quickly began to think about how best to approach this 
individual; how would others in the congregation respond to him? 


And then, I saw one of our greeters, Malcolm Ferrier, step forward toward our visitor and the two ordinary looking people who had come in with him. I saw a friendly smile on Malcolm’s face and then a handshake; I watched as he helped them prepare nametags and gave them orders of service; and when the three visitors came to where I was standing, outside the sanctuary door, I had been given a clear model for how we were going to welcome our unusual visitor. 


“Cat”, as we came to know him that day, is a Native American who 
has adopted the unusual practice of changing his appearance to resemble 
that of his totem animal, a tiger. Cat is tattooed with tiger-like markings; he 
uses special contact lenses to give his eyes a catlike shape and color; his 
nails are shaped into claws; his face has been surgically altered to a more 
feline shape and his teeth are sharp and fang-like. 


Cat is not your typical visitor. Wherever he goes in the community, 
people stop and stare and perhaps walk the other way. Now, I don’t 
know all the reasons Cat looks the way he does. There are lots of 
questions in my mind about how he has chosen this path. 


But on that day, my task and that of the rest of us attending that 
service was to welcome Cat and his friends, to make a place for them 
among us, to offer them the simple hospitality of our sacred space, of our 
worship time, to invite them to have a cup of coffee and a cookie after the 
service, to go with our group to the Chinese place for a meal after church.

It was not to shoo them away from our door, to refuse to speak to them, to pretend we didn’t see them. It was an opportunity to get to know someone who was radically different, both in appearance and in lifestyle, and to welcome them into our lives. We could not know in advance whether this was a safe thing to do or not; we had to trust in the ability of Love to smooth the way.

Cat came to church here only once but I hope he went away knowing that there was at least one place where he was accepted as a human being, not as a creature to be shunned and ridiculed or used as a commodity but as a fellow human with a story to tell.

This is why I am a Universalist: because I believe that there is a force in the universe more powerful than human strength and yet available within each human heart. I believe that the force I name is Love, radical, inclusive Love, Love beyond the commercially popular versions of movies, songs, and ad campaigns, the Love that is, in my mind, the Kingdom of Heaven that Jesus preached.

Nothing in human life is more challenging than to love our neighbor as ourselves, to see our tears in another’s eyes, to reach out to others, no matter how scary or off-putting they may seem, not merely tolerating difference nor dismissing its importance. We humans are naturally wary of strangers; it is a mechanism that once served us well and now keeps us from rejoicing in diversity, though diversity will be our salvation in the end.

And there’s that word again, salvation. Universal salvation to me, these days, is the sense that I can walk unafraid in this world because I love with this Love and am loved in return. It isn’t always safe to love and to be loved, but that is a risk I am willing to take because of the joy it brings me.

And it is my salvation from a fragmented and anxious life, giving me a life of delight and a sense that I am living rightly, no matter what difficulties and dangers I may experience.

So what does this all have to do with Easter? Universalism is a religious philosophy of radical and overpowering love and this is exactly what this season means, whether we’re talking about the Christian Easter, or a pagan spring celebration, or a Passover release from bondage. We’re talking about love.

As Rev. Mark Morrison-Reed has written: “Universal Salvation insists that no matter what we do, God so loves us that she will not and cannot consign even a single human individual to eternal damnation. Universal Salvation is the consequence of Universal love, the recognition that love is the grounding, the basis of all….
The great insight of Universalism is that you do not have to coerce people into loving one another. The commandments are not threats. If they are not fulfilled, God will not withdraw love. No one has ever or will ever draw true love out of another with punishment. God’s love is given to all. Love is a more positive force for good than fear ever will be. Behind this is a simple truth: in being loved we learn to love.”

Now, it doesn’t matter whether we are agnostics or atheists or non-theistic in our thinking about God. We know what radical love means because we can see it in our lives and in the lives of those around us. We can experience it by giving it to others, for it inevitably rebounds to us full force.

Let me close with these words from the Rev. Ellen Cooper-Davis:
I am a Universalist. I believe that there is an inexhaustible, inescapable love that will not let us go. It is there in every corner of the world. It is there in our moments of greatest connection and joy. It is there in moments of excruciating suffering and sorrow. It is there even when we willfully turn away from it and seek to be isolated, alone and apart.
Nothing and no one is outside the reach of this Love. (Love) can sustain those in despair,…empower those whom society has written off… strengthen those who want to…turn back (on) that Love…. It can awaken us to the words that Jesus spoke--the Kingdom of Heaven is within you, it is here, now…
Perhaps the comfortable, the wealthy, the self-righteous are right to be afraid of such a message... Because it could turn the world on its ear, and the inheritors of the kingdom--the poor, the meek, the peacemakers--would be equal at last.

Let’s pause for a time of silent reflection and prayer on this Easter morning.

BENEDICTION: Our worship service, our time of shaping worth together, is ended but our service to the world begins again as we leave this place. Let us go in peace, remembering that the power of Universal Love which is within us is not to be hoarded but to be shared. May we seek out the places where our Love can make a difference and may we give Love freely, not only to our friends and neighbors, but to ourselves and to our enemies. Amen, Shalom, Salaam, and Blessed Be.

Gratitude and Generosity: it works if you work it.

LOVING AND CHEERFUL GIVERS: the Sermon on the Amount
Rev. Kit Ketcham, April 10, 2011

I’d like to invite you all to center yourselves comfortably in your seats, perhaps close your eyes if you’d like, and enter a time of quiet reflection and thought with me. And as you relax into this time, I’d also invite you to be aware of this space, its quiet warmth, the tiny sounds of children down the hall, the tall shafts of fir trees outside the windows, the light streaming through those trees, the movement of the breeze.

Let yourself feel the presence of others in this room, those you love and those you don’t yet know, those who challenge you and those you challenge, those you are curious about and those whom you know well.

As we sit in silence for a few moments, I invite you to experience the feelings associated with this place, these individual people, this community of seekers. There may be feelings of pleasure, and joy, and happiness. Or uncertainty, or confusion, or pain. There may be memories of laughter, memories of sorrow, memories of pride and accomplishment. Whatever they are, let yourself experience those feelings during these moments. (chime, time of silence, ending with chime)

I don’t know about you, but when I take time to just sit in this sanctuary, experience the people around me, sing together, see the trees and greenery through these spacious windows, bask in the light that streams through the windows and almost feel the breeze as it rocks the trees, I feel profoundly grateful that I am alive in this time and place.

There is a sense of being filled with something almost inexpressible, a sense of being in a good place, of being with good people, of doing something good for others.

I wonder how many of you may have had a similar sensation, perhaps during our reflective time right now or at some other time in your experience with this congregation. Have any of you had those feelings? Who would be willing to share a couple of words about a sense of gratitude for something that has happened to you here. (sharing of gratitude items)

Many of you have said things just now that jibe with my own sense of gratitude for this place and its people. This past week, I sat down and brainstormed all the things about this congregation and this place that give me that sense of gratitude and fullness. It turned out to be a huge list!

I first listed the many hands and hearts that do the tasks that keep us afloat, because that was the easy list: our religious education staff, the volunteers and the parents of our wonderful children; those who spend hours tending our landscape and the little repairs and upgrades that the building always needs; the folks who have learned how to use our sound system and help out as needed; those who built the library shelves, sorted and catalogued the books, and developed the system for checking them out; our ushers who do so much on Sunday morning to get us ready for our worship service.

The art works we enjoy on the walls of the foyer were chosen and hung by those who have an eye for beauty and creativity; we have people who make a special effort to reach out to befriend those who need special care---our shutins and those whose memories and abilities have been taken away by illness. The folks who bring refreshments, make the coffee, clean up the kitchen afterwards.

The Lyceum 2.0 task force which offers us a program on science and ethics every month. Our wonderful musicians and the wide range of musical experience they bring. Our volunteer choir directors and our vibrant choir.

Dinners for newcomers. A worship committee that spends many hours making sure we have high quality, inspirational worship every week. The laughter and creativity that our auction offers us because of the hard work of its creators and supporters.

Our administrative team, the board and our incomparable administrator, who oversee and carry out the workings of the congregation, its programming, its financial stability, the nuts and bolts of governance and administration. Our Leadership Council comprised of someone from every committee and working group in the congregation, staying abreast of the many activities of the congregation.

Our social responsibility council which encouraged us to give away our offering once a month and helped us see how much good we could do for the many local agencies which need our help.

Our communications team, putting together our newsletter, our website, our Friday messages, and doing all the printing for our worship and other activities.

Those who offer and attend our adult programs, from circle dinners, to koffee klatches, dine outs, classes, and other opportunities. Our history keepers, those who collect our history and keep its memory alive. Our greeters and hospitality providers, and all the regular givers of time, talent, and treasure.

That’s a long list, indeed. How many of you heard your own contributions mentioned? Did I miss anything? And those are just the everyday tasks of keeping our congregation smoothly operating and doing its important work in the world.

But there are other less tangible and even more important sources of gratitude for me. Every time I see a rambunctious child being gently and lovingly corrected, every time I see friendships developing between adults and children, every time I see adults making efforts to understand children rather than just expressing their disapproval, I am reminded of my own experience as a parent in a congregation years ago.

I’m reminded of a young single mom, me, and her rambunctious seven year old, a little boy who wasn’t sure how to behave in school or church, who didn’t understand what was going on between his parents, whose intelligence and maturity didn’t match up, who was smaller and more hyper than the other kids, who had no obvious talents other than being a smart-aleck and a clown.

We his parents were at a loss to know how to make the divorce easier for him, how to help him with his difficulties, and we were grieving the changes in our lives as well. So we all just kind of struggled along, with my ex and I apologizing for the many incidents of shoving or rowdiness or other misbehavior. We knew we all still needed the church, but it could be tough with a child who was having such a hard time.

But there were teachers and others in the religious education program who understood and loved our little boy. They didn’t give up. They saw the potential within this little smarty-pants, and they worked with him to help him with his frustrations and his fears, his sorrow and his self-control.

And it didn’t happen overnight, but by the time he was a teenager, he had mastered the art of friendship, the ability to joke and tease appropriately, the self-understanding and compassionate heart to reach out to others who were struggling.

And now, I’m pleased to say, that little boy now become a man is an active leader in the UU congregation he attends in another town, where he lives with his wife and family. Life is not always rosy for him, but he has the tools and the foundation to make good decisions.

That’s what Religious Educators and others who work with children in this congregation are doing right now. They are carrying on the work that those wonderful religious educators at Jefferson Unitarian Church did for me and my family those many years ago. My gratitude knows no bounds for the work of our religious educators.

What else brings that sense of fullness and gratefulness to me? I see how you all reach out to each other, offering friendship, welcoming new folks and my heart fills up. I see all the children who come and sit on the rug to hear a story, and I can’t help but smile. I hear of those who offer to transport someone to an appointment or who offer support to those in difficult transitions and my heart swells with thanks.

I see how you all enjoy each others’ joys and grieve with others’ sorrows. I see people walk into this room, look around, and I know they are seeing the same beauty and serenity and welcome that I find here. And there have been times when the music has been so lovely that I am left speechless and overcome by thankfulness that we have had the experience and that we have had it together.

Melody Beattie has written: “Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion into clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.”

And Winston Churchill once wrote, “We make a living with what we get. But we make a life with what we give.”

How is your gratitude expressed in the world? Do you find yourself wanting to do something to share your sense of fullness with others? When you are feeling lonely and deprived, has another’s generous kindness made a difference for you?

One lonely Saturday morning when I was living in Seattle, I was having my usual Grand Slam breakfast at the local Denny’s, and I noticed a group of young men and women off in one corner, laughing and drinking coffee. I remembered how my son, when he was about their age, used to drink coffee with his friends from work at the local Denny’s near our Denver home, and I smiled to see that age-old habit repeating itself in Seattle youth.

But I was very surprised, when I asked my server for the bill, to discover that it had been picked up and paid for by the group of young people I’d been observing. I went over to say thank you to them as I left the restaurant, and they mentioned that they were paying it forward, doing something nice for someone else because they had been the recipients of kindness earlier in the morning and wanted to share their gratitude.

There’s a member of this congregation who, when he sees me at El Corral restaurant once in awhile, pays my bill before I get to the cash register. This kindness cannot be ignored, so I have begun paying the bill of someone else in the restaurant, stealthily pointing someone out to Fernando and quickly leaving before they notice.

It would be easy to just say thank you to this person and go on my way with a smile, forgetting what it means to be the recipient of another’s generosity. And I did that for awhile, just being secretly pleased that this person would do this for me. It didn’t occur to me right away that there was more I could do. And then some friends came to El Corral and sat with me, and, guess what, it occurred to me then and I had the opportunity and took it.

Being able to give them the gift of a delicious meal was every bit as pleasant as being the recipient!

This ties in with another insight I had awhile back, the idea that “It works if you work it”. That’s a 12 step mantra, often echoed at the end of meetings, but it works in everyday life very well.

I have the habit, as perhaps some of you do, to regard advice from others as something I have to respond to politely, consider, and then let go of. Sometimes I don’t even consider the advice, particularly if I didn’t ask for it. Sometimes if I ask for the advice, I still don’t consider it, even when it’s good advice and intended to be helpful. “ I’ve made my mind up, don’t confuse me with your thoughts” seems to be my MO on occasion.

But it really works against me. It keeps me from acknowledging that others have good ideas, workable ideas, ideas that could actually improve my life!

For a long time, years ago, I denied the idea that I had some pretty unmanageable things going on in my life---I kept ending up with people who took more than they gave, treated me rudely frequently, and I had no idea what to do about it.

And then one morning, early on a rare day off from school when I was trying to sleep in, a friend woke me up with a phone call, suggested we meet for lunch, and, once we were together, she said essentially, “you need to figure out why you keep ending up with all these people who treat you this way.” And, for once in my life, I listened.

I took her advice, I started going to AlAnon meetings, and I decided to go the whole route, work the 12 steps and do them conscientiously and faithfully. If I had not done that, I suspect I would still be repeating the mistakes of old. It wasn’t so much the 12 steps that saved my bacon, it was my realization that “it only works if you work it”.

Gratitude is kinda like that. We can say thank you to people who compliment us or do something nice for us or perform a service of some kind, dishing us up pasta salad at the deli or helping us straighten out some financial issue over the phone. We can express appreciation to our kids or spouse for chores done or favors offered. We often say thank you and go on our way without really considering what it means that people are kind to us or that efforts are made in our behalf.

But gratitude as a spiritual practice really works-----if you really work it. I’ve noticed that when I really let myself experience the gratitude I feel, whether it’s for everyday kinds of things---the thank yous I hand out to those who help me or speak kindly to me----or for the larger gratitude I feel when I witness some act of kindness and generosity toward others, when I let myself really absorb the meaning of those acts, my sense of gratitude grows and my behavior toward others becomes more generous and kind.

I leave a bigger tip or I add a compliment to my thank you or I offer something helpful in return or I say yes to the Equal Rights Washington caller on the phone and promise to send in my pledge right away. Gratitude enhances my life, it improves my relationships with those around me, and the generosity which is the outpouring of that gratitude increases.

Gratitude works. It works to open our eyes to the wonders of our lives, the people we are in relationship with, the beauty of the earth and its creatures, the majesty and mystery of the universe.

Gratitude works. When we experience gratitude, we also tend to become more giving. We learn the transformative power of giving, its ability to lighten our mood, heal our hurts, improve our sense of well-being, change our hearts from fearful to joyful, strengthen our connections with each other; it teaches us to look deeply at ourselves, helps us see that giving and receiving are equal in value, gives us a chance to offer our unique gifts, connects us to the greater whole, gives us new eyes to see the world around us, to experience oneness with that world and to see its truths.

As we enter this stewardship season, I hope that each of us will think deeply about our gratitude to this congregation, this place of worship, the ways in which we reach out to each other and to the larger community. I hope that we will all express our gratitude for the gifts we’ve received here by being as financially generous as we can manage, within our own circumstances.

My practice every year is to increase my financial pledge by $300 a year. That’s an extra $25 a month. I can do that and I find that my heart expands and becomes even fuller, as I express my gratitude for the joy that serving this congregation brings me.

One theologian has said that if our only prayer in life is “Thank you, thank you, thank you”, that would be enough. But we have been given so much that “our gratitude calls us to give back, to find ways to bless the world as we have been blessed. Generosity is making love visible in the world. We offer our gifts as we build the beloved community.”*
(* from the Rev. Tom Disrud)

This is our religious home. We have work to do in the world. May our gratitude and our dedication to this religious community lead us to generosity that will sustain its work in the coming years.

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

BENEDICTION Our worship service, our time of shaping worth together, is ended, but our service to the world begins again as we leave this place. Let us go in peace, grateful for the love that has created and sustained this place and these people. May we express our gratitude in all the ways we are able and may we experience the joy of giving until it feels good. Amen, Shalom, Salaam, and Blessed Be.

The Living Tradition Institute...

might not be a familiar concept to you, if you are a Unitarian Universalist in a different district. It is, as far as I know, unique to the Pacific Northwest District, though there may be similarly shaped opportunities in other districts.

It began as an effort to offer guided theological reflection workshops to interested laypersons from a cluster of local UU congregations. It was the brainchild of four of my colleagues from the North Olympic Ministers group: Jaco and Barbara Wells ten Hove, Liz Stevens, and Bruce Bode, and began last year as a traveling workshop at each of the three congregations represented by their ministers. It was a big enough success that the group decided to offer it again this year.

They invited me to participate to the extent I found possible, given that it takes a good deal of cash and time to get over to the Kitsap/Quimper/Bainbridge area where the three congregations are located. I opted, at least for this year, to participate mainly as a small group facilitator and yesterday I had that opportunity.

I was thrilled, when I advertised the LTI for Whidbey folks, to watch the list of interested participants grow. We ferried eight folks over to the Quimper congregation for a full day of lecture and discussion of the theological questions of Soteriology (salvation/wholeness/preparation for death) and Ontology (the nature of Being/Reality), seen through the lens of Rev. Fred Campbell's concept of the Four Faiths of Liberal Religion.

Rev. Campbell sees Humanism, Naturalism, Mysticism, and Theism to be the four threads which generally comprise most UU congregations, as well as many other liberal congregations. The purpose of the LTI's workshop was to help participants find the thread that most nearly describes their approach to their faith and to discuss with others the aspects of their spiritual journey.

As I facilitated my group (Naturalists), I was struck by the eagerness with which people shared their thoughts and views, not arguing, just speaking their own truth. It seemed to be both reassuring and clarifying for most of the people in the Naturalist group to hear others' thoughts; there was both agreement and disagreement on certain points, particularly when someone shared a more mystical experience but attributed it to "unknowable" when others saw it as "ultimately knowable".

I see myself as a humanistic naturalist, if that makes sense---very grounded in the natural world from whence most of my spiritual experiences arise, but receiving my strength and joy from sharing values with my human community. That is not to say that I am not a mystic, for I have had and continue to have mystical experiences that are grounded in nature; and it is not to say that I am not a theist, for I have an ongoing relationship with the Power beyond human power, which I find in myself as well as outside myself.

My group of congregants, coming home on the ferry, talked about how we might offer these same ideas to our Whidbey congregation in the coming months. What a thrill for a minister, to find my beloved congregants excited about theology and eager for more! What a delight!

I wanna get a dog.

I'm gonna get a dog one of these days. I have started gazing with interest at the dogs featured in the WAIF videos on Facebook and fantasizing about taking walks with a lovely middle aged golden retriever who I may have rescued, who greets me with love in his or her eyes, thrilled to see me when I come home, grateful for my care.

I want a dog because I would like to find a man who will love me this way. The men I love tend to treat me like cats treat me. They are affectionate, but mostly so I'll feed them. They'll accept my affection but prefer that I not make any demands. They don't understand why I behave the way I do and they refuse to do what I ask, behaving in passive-aggressive ways----mostly by ignoring me or failing to hear me.

Max comes to me for petting when he has been outside all day and has missed me, but it's always on his terms, not mine. Loosy will pester me to sit down and let her hop up, but I can't pick her up to cuddle. Lily whines and moans around the house, ignoring my comforting words, and wants me to feed her from my plate but either gobbles down half my offering or totally ignores it, after begging for it.

I think a beautiful dog would be a way to show that I am a person who wants to be cherished, the way a dog cherishes his/her owner. I could walk the dog on the beach and meet people that way. A dog would express his or her own joy at the arrival of a guest; cats don't do that---they often hole up under the bed or in another room and refuse to socialize. Loosy is different that way, but she can be very annoying.

It may be that owning cats says something about a woman that invites men to treat her as her cats treat her. Not that I'd ever give up my cats completely, but I do wish for a companion who would treat me like a dog would treat me. (And hopefully housebroken.)

Celebrating the Mystery

CELEBRATING THE MYSTERY
Rev. Kit Ketcham, March 27, 2011

What’s your most puzzling mystery? Let’s hear some of those thoughts! Just call them out.

How many of us like to read murder mysteries or watch detective shows or movies? How many of us enjoy doing puzzles---jigsaws, word games, logic problems? How many of us just plain enjoy figuring things out? And how many of us, once we’ve figured something out, let go of it and assume it will always be true?

Human beings are pattern finders, searchers for understanding, curious as cats, creators of fundamental concepts which underwrite our world views.

And we are puzzled by any number of things: the secret of life, why human beings are the way they are, how did we all get here, what is beyond the stars and planets that we can’t see---at least, not yet?

We wonder why people come to believe what they do about the way the world works. We wonder why we (or anyone else) are so unwilling to change our minds once we’ve made them up.
It can drive us humans nuts to realize that our logical thinking doesn’t seem to bring us to the same conclusions as others’ logical thinking and we may wonder who is wrong.

I remember thinking that if I could just explain to my parents exactly why I was a Democrat rather than a Republican, they would immediately become Democrats.

I remember thinking that if I could just show my family members why I didn’t believe that Jesus was God, they would quickly see the error of their thinking and change their minds.

I frequently carry on long imaginary conversations with various individuals who don’t agree with me, laying out ever so clearly and succinctly why they ought to agree with me, and then I realize that they probably never will agree with me and I might as well give up! But, of course, I don’t give up these futile imaginary conversations---I’m still having them!

These are such common human puzzles that the real mystery is why we still don’t understand them. Sort of like the common cold, which we can dissect and alleviate the symptoms of but can’t really cure.

As UUs, we love mystery. It’s an important part of our faith. In fact, our first source (if you look at the list of our sources on the back of our O/S) is “direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder, affirmed in all cultures, which moves us to a renewal of the spirit and an openness to the forces that create and uphold life.”

But mystery also makes us uncomfortable. If we can’t explain it, our rational minds get edgy. We want answers, so that we can go on to the next mystery. We want things to be explained because we want to go beyond the initial mystery through the new doorway that will open once the mystery is solved.

We thirst for knowledge, sometimes knowledge of the most trivial sort. I can be driving down the road, searching for knowledge and suddenly realize the triviality of what I’m searching for---which recently has been a confirmation of my belief that three chrome diamonds arranged in a particular order is the company logo for Mitsubishi cars. What a dumb thing to want to know! And yet, my human mind persists in looking at every car to see if I can prove this to myself. Once I’ve confirmed it, I can let go of it, but until then, my eyes are peeled for that particular industrial icon.

Why on earth would this be so? I hope there is some rational evolutionary or human survival explanation for it, because I think that this instinct for pattern-finding, for seeing how bits of information connect may have some redeeming value, no matter how irritating!

I read an article recently about coincidence and the human awareness of coincidence, unusual occurrences. The author, Tom Rees, pointed out a psychological link between belief and politics that has to do with noticing coincidences and finding meaning in those unusual occurrences.

The experiment involved a computer monitor which flashed dots and single words on a screen and participants were asked to push a button noting the position of the dot as above or below a word. Unexpectedly and randomly, a word would appear within a box, rather than simply written on the screen, and many participants hesitated a second or two before pushing the button to indicate the position of the dot. The take-away idea from the experiment was that participants were pondering the meaning of the unexpected change.

The interesting thing was that those who responded most strongly to the change were those who also reported being religious as a result of personal experience. They found it harder than others to dismiss the coincidence. For religious folk, unusual events had meaning.

We watch for patterns and draw links between coincidences. Sometimes those linkages are based on pretty lightweight assumptions, like my assumption that there must be very few Mitsubishi automobiles on the island because of the difficulty of my recent effort to discover their connection to a particular hood ornament of their logo. I will probably eventually give up and Google it, just to end the search with a new bit of knowledge.

Let’s think for a moment about the various forms of mystery that are part of our human existence. There is, of course, the mystery of existence itself. How did nothing turn into something? What is the reality of that something? Is this reality all there is?

How do we make sense of what science offers us, as the scientific process of forming and testing hypotheses reveals a spectrum of such mind-boggling concepts as quantum theory, relativity theory, string theory and the idea of an infinite, yet growing, universe and even parallel universes?

Though we may have unraveled the mysteries of physical conception, birth, growth, and death in many creatures, including humankind, we have not yet figured out the mystery of consciousness, the mystery of mind, one attribute which seems to differentiate humankind from the rest of the animal kingdom. We are not only alive, but we know that we are alive. Is our human consciousness part of a universal consciousness? In our mysterious personal experiences we may have sensed a connection with a consciousness beyond our own individual consciousness. What’s that about?

And what is Love? Really? And hate? What is that, and why do we love and hate? Where does the urge to create come from? We create much more than just additional human beings; we create beauty and music, art and dreams. These too are mysteries, mysteries of an everyday sort, mysteries we confront daily, mysteries whose answers seem to appear and then disappear, as our lives change.

As we age, the mysteries of the future confront us, as well as the mystery of death’s meaning. What will the world be like for our descendents? What will our children face, our grandchildren? What will the end of our individual lives bring? How will we die? And if time and space are one and the same, will anything ever really end?

The late Forrest Church, UU minister extraordinaire and prolific author, once wrote “My faith is grounded on two principles, humility and openness”. He went on to describe the importance of mystery in his own life. At the time, he was facing a terminal diagnosis of cancer; he knew that his life was ending within a few months and he was coming to the end of his writing life. Now there’s a mystery to contemplate!

Mystery, he said, fosters humility in our lives, reminding us of our limits, the limits of what we can know and of our individual perspectives. We are fallible, we are ignorant about many things, we are incapable of learning or understanding many things. And yet this is not a reason for despair, only a reason for humility, an awareness that we need not know everything in order to live good lives.

Mystery also encourages openness, reminding us to stay open to new learnings, new understandings, ready to face the unexpected with courage and strength. I have learned not to pray for certain outcomes, but rather to pray for the ability to cope, whatever the outcome might be.

As Dave and I were talking about this service and how we might design it, we had a great conversation about our own mysteries and the things about human life that boggle our minds.

And, interestingly, one of the mysteries we puzzled over the most is why some human beings are content NOT to engage with mystery but choose certainty instead, certainty that often seems to have a pretty flimsy foundation, certainty that often seems fearful of engagement with mystery.

One of those places in which certainty defeats mystery for many people is in the realm of religion. Another is in the realm of science. Another is in the realm of ethics and morality. And, of course, these overlap in many areas of their concern: the source of life, the creation of earth and its creatures, the origins of the universe, the purpose of human life, when human life begins, when human lives end and what happens after death.
What is so scary about mystery? Well, as I mentioned in our recent service on Evolution, people fear huge changes in their world view. If they take the chance of diverging from the familiar, the well-worn, the traditional or orthodox views or teachings, where do they go?

When I think back to when I took the leap of diverging from my family’s reliance on Baptist belief and practice, I knew I was taking a huge chance. I knew I might be estranged permanently from my family and the friends of my childhood. I hoped they would understand and continue to love me, but I had no real guarantees, other than trust in their love for me.

And when I did make the leap, I suffered some of those consequences. Not to the extent of shunning or dissociation, but they were hurt and angry for a long time. And so was I, as I felt they were reacting unfairly. We made it through this painful time partly because I was far away in Denver and didn’t come home very often. I also gradually learned how to talk with them about the values we hold in common, rather than specific theology.

It feels so sad to me to hear stories similar to mine in many ways, but which have a less positive outcome. I know people who turned to Unitarian Universalism or another religion different from their inherited faith and experienced much more drastic reactions: shunning, excommunication, disownment, physical rejection and expulsion.

Rejection by a family unit is severely painful and cruel and, instead of its resulting in a change of heart in the one rejected, it fosters deep anger and long-lived grief. These wounds may never heal. Is it any wonder that many people cling to a more orthodox and traditional world view? That they resist the curiosity that invites them to explore other views? That they fight any effort made by a changing culture to adapt to new knowledge and new understandings of human living?

We often criticize our fundamentalist friends and neighbors for their limited world view, whether they are religious or political or moral conservatives. We tend to think that there’s something wrong with anyone who declines to explore new knowledge and new ideas. WE made the leap to that new place; why are they so scared? Why don’t they trust themselves to think critically? Why are they satisfied with the measly, out-of-step religious rewards of security based on supernatural concepts? Or the desire to save money rather than serve the poor? Or the deeply embedded fear of sexuality?

What are they so afraid of? In addition to rejection by family and friends, many people are terrified of the challenge of changing everything they’ve come to believe about God, the Bible, homosexuality, evolution, sexual norms. Will they be able to cope with an influx of new ideas and permissions? Will they go crazy? Will they act out? Who will help them through this crisis of faith and culture?

If they make the leap, will their anger toward the apparent false teachings of their early years keep them from finding a new location in a new paradigm? We all know folks who are still angry with their parents or their former religious tradition or their teachers for the values and teachings imposed upon them as children. This anger can keep them immobile for a long time, preventing them from exploring the new avenues they see.

At about this point in our conversation, Dave had a great idea. “What if,” he said, “we did something to reach out? What if there was a way we could say, ‘ya know, it’s not so scary out here. We’ve learned how it’s going to play out and it’s okay. The world won’t end if you decide to explore it. It’s not a terrible thing, to change your mind. And you won’t be alone. We’re here. We will help.’”

As I thought about it, I realized what a much better approach Dave’s would be than the imaginary “what’s wrong with you?” conversations I often have with those people who don’t agree with me about any number of things! And I’ve decided to try to shape those imaginary conversations into something more receptive and sympathetic on my part.

And it occurred to me that maybe there are stepping stones on this path to a more progressive, less restrictive faith.

Remember the times when you’ve been out hiking in the hills and have come upon a rushing stream with only a set of rocks as a passageway across the water? On both banks, there is safety. To cross from one safe place to another requires courage, balance, and surefootedness. It’s possible we’ll get our feet wet, maybe even fall in. But if we don’t make the effort we won’t get to the other side, the other safe place, the next point on our journey.

In life, we start with the teachings we inherit from our families. Those may be religious teachings or morality lessons or opinions about any number of things, passed down through the generations before us.

We accept them pretty trustingly for many years, until our own experiences lead us to question their accuracy. That experience might be education or a friend or teacher who opens a door or our own maturing bodies and brains.

At this point, for many of us, the cognitive dissonance, the sense of our modern knowledge being out of sync with traditional knowledge, begins to work on us. Adolescence is the time when the ability to think abstractly clicks in and suddenly it’s clear that we don’t believe what our parents believe. How do we handle this? We’re still dependent on our families for support.

The choice to go or to stay must be made. And eventually, many of us stepped off of the safe bank of tradition and placed our feet on the first stepping stone, moving toward the solid ground on the other side of the stream.

Sometimes we get stuck and stay in the middle of the stream for a long time. If we have no companion on the path, we may not have the courage to go on alone and we retrace our steps to the safe place we just left. But if there’s someone nearby to fish us out of the creek, or if we have a sturdy walking staff, we are likely to take the next step and the next, with the faith that we will be okay on the other side.

So what does this all mean? It seems to me that it’s understandable that many people prefer the certainty of the answers of their inherited faith, political stance, or moral values. Fear prevents many people from risking the loss of a world view. Arguing doesn’t change minds---ours or theirs.

What can we do with this understanding? Can we be more compassionate? More willing to listen? More able to find the values we hold in common? Less likely to be scornful? More interested in making new friends than in excluding anyone who doesn’t agree with us? Because it seems to me that the more we disdain those who don’t agree with us, the more polarized our society becomes and the less able we are to change minds. Our only tool is modeling our values, not in rejecting people.

Mysteries abound in our human lives. Perhaps this is one we can solve. I’m reminded of a song called “Get Together”, from the 60’s: the last verse says “You hold the key to love and fear, all in your trembling hand; just one key unlocks them both, it’s there at your command. Come on, people now, smile on your brother, everybody get together, try to love one another right now.”
Let’s pause for a time of silent reflection and prayer.

BENEDICTION: Our worship service, our time of shaping worth together, is ended, but our service to the world begins again as we leave this place. Let us go in peace, remembering that we can help to alleviate others’ fear by listening with compassion. May we have the courage to seek friendship with people who are different from us and may we live our values of justice, mercy, and love, in order that others may be free. Amen, Shalom, Salaam, and Blessed Be.

The Ferry schedule between Whidbey and the mainland...

is going to be disrupted for three weekends, starting today, and folks are understandably upset about it. Instead of a reasonable 15 minute voyage between the dock on Whidbey and the mainland dock at Mukilteo every 30 minutes, we now will en(joy?dure?) a 50 minute voyage between Whidbey and the next south-most ferry dock at Edmonds, several miles farther away. Those sailings will be every 90 minutes, rather than 30. It's a major inconvenience and I predict long lines and much gnashing of teeth.

The thing is, it has to happen and we've had lots of warning and advice about how to make it less painful. The Mukilteo dock is badly in need of repair and weekends, though not the perfect time because there is no perfect time, at least mostly affects visitors, rather than commuters. Of course, we are a recreational destination and fewer visitors cuts into our economic base. It's mud season, but when the skies are not dumping water on us, we have a fairly steady stream of customers coming to our shores.

Isn't it interesting how we fuss and moan about unavoidable, relatively minor obstacles in our path? We spend a lot of time worrying about that kind of thing and much less time thinking about the ways they can actually enhance our lives.

I think it will be kinda fun to travel south on the ferry to Edmonds; it's a shoreline I've never seen. It will increase my travel time a lot, on my way to Vashon tomorrow, but it will give me a chance to open my newest book---"Cutting for Stone"---which I hope I'll remember to put in the car. Waiting in line to board may be a hassle, but, again, I've got my book and no drastic time table.

I know others aren't so lucky, but we can make it worse than it really is, just by fretting.

A sense of contentment despite...

all the awful things going on in the world. My mind can barely contain the sorrows ringing the world right now: earthquake and tsunami destruction of life and home; tyrants killing their own people in order to maintain power; countless people, animals, and even landforms in the grip of massive change. Even though I'm not turning on the news or reading it online, my consciousness reels at the pain and sorrow afoot in the world, now and forever. Makes my wet basement seem like a walk in the park.

I woke up this morning feeling a bit blue, creaky from vaccing out gallons of water in the basement for a couple of days now; I'm getting ready to travel to Vashon this weekend to preach and also to officiate a memorial service for one of their beloved community and congregation leaders, Jennie Hodgson. Jennie was a stalwart at the Vashon Island Unitarian Fellowship during the years I served them and I was honored to be asked to perform this service.

But it's hard. Doing a memorial service for someone so beloved--not only by the congregation but by me--is difficult. Much easier are those services where my main emotion is compassion for the bereaved and less pity for myself. The world is less jolly without Jennie, who was always able to see the funny side of life, always on the move organizing this or that, inventing new ways of doing things. She is much missed, even though I rarely saw her once I'd moved to Whidbey.

Still, I have the opportunity this time to write the eulogy and compile many of the memories offered by her family into a portrait of a woman whose cheery, indomitable spirit endeared her to all who knew her. Writing it this morning has given me a lift, as though her spirit came down and touched me on the shoulder, laughing as if to say "isn't this a hoot?"

And despite the aching back from vacuuming the basement, the scubbed knuckles from wrestling with installing the new windshield wiper blades, the annoyance of occasional internet interruptions, I feel content. I've done a good job for Jennie. I'm ready to lead that service with not only my heart but my head.

Now if I can just figure out the temporary ferry schedule for the weekend!

Evolution Rocks: the sermon

EVOLUTION ROCKS: THE SERMON
By Rev. Kit Ketcham, March 13, 2011

I wonder what my Dad was thinking as we sat side by side in the tiny theatre on the Linfield College campus, my freshman year. It was Parents’ weekend, and my folks had driven from Athena to McMinnville to spend the weekend with me. I was excited about the opportunity to introduce them to my college life, to some of my professors and my new friends, and to walk with them around our beautiful campus.

One of the highlights of the weekend was to be a theatre production by student actors, so I bought three tickets and after dinner on Saturday night in the campus dining room, we entered the small space and found our seats.

The play was “Inherit the Wind” by Jerome Lawrence and Robert Lee, a dramatization of the famous Tennessee trial, in which Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan squared off over the state law which prohibited the teaching of evolution in school classrooms.

I had had no teaching about evolution in my high school biology class. Somehow the creation of the earth had been skipped over entirely and we’d gone straight on to dissecting earthworms without considering where the earthworms came from. Every church in the county taught the story of Genesis as historical fact and I had never heard a dissenting voice on the matter. Nor had I heard any voice dissenting with the Genesis story.

Or should I say stories? Because there is more than one Genesis account of the creation of the earth and its creatures. We’ll get to that later.

But for now, I sat there oblivious, watching the play. I was more interested in the friends I had in the cast and how they were doing, than I was in what seemed to be yet another story about how we all got here. I was not a very adept theologian—or science student--at that point in my life!

The characters sparred over Biblical references that lacked logic, with one character needling the other with questions like “where did Cain’s wife come from if Adam, Eve, Cain and Abel were the first humans?” and “what would happen if the sun stood still as it is written in the story of Joshua who needed more time to win a battle?” and the other answering smugly that he believed God had his own ways of making these things happen and that he believed firmly that these things were God’s will, even though he couldn’t explain them any further.

I wonder what my mother thought as she listened politely, knowing that my father’s beliefs were being systematically questioned and shot down as we sat there. It took me long years to recognize how hard it must have been for both of them to sit quietly and not get up and leave the theatre. It may have been a relief to them that I was more interested in pointing out my friends in the cast than discussing the topic of the play.

I didn’t even realize at the time that “Inherit the Wind” was making another point as well: condemning the recently concluded anti-Communist investigations of the House Unamerican Activities Committee, headed up by Senator Joe McCarthy.

The play was about intellectual freedom, of course, not specifically about evolution, but for my parents, it must have been a shock to see that the nice Baptist college they had sent their innocent daughter to was a hotbed of modernism. To their credit, they did not yank me bodily out of school and make me go to Multnomah School of the Bible instead. They continued to help with my tuition, gave me encouragement at every turn and never criticized when I’d write home about all the exciting things I was doing.

But somehow I figured out that my parents and I were on two different tracks when it came to the Bible and Christianity.

And I began to be very careful about what I revealed about what I was learning. I did my best to stay within the lines they’d drawn, at least at home. My dad’s health was an issue and I was afraid to upset him, for fear it would trigger a heart attack or other setback. And I loved my parents deeply. I could not bear the thought of being estranged from my family.

So I got adept at finding the metaphorical meanings of the scripture, rather than the literal meaning, and when we did talk, I thought metaphorical truth while they undoubtedly thought literal truth. The Genesis stories were metaphorical and mythical, not historical, in my mind, but I was not going to tip my hand.

That metaphorical meaning of the Genesis account was underscored by my Old Testament professor in seminary many years later when he pointed out that there were actually two different stories of the creation in Genesis, not just one.

The first story is the poetic tale of seven days of work, six days of separate physical acts of creation, and ending with a day of rest on the seventh day. This story runs from Genesis 1, verse 1, through Genesis 2, verse 6, and then seems to change and tells a somewhat different version of the creation, with no mention of seven days and with an extended description of Adam and Eve and the life given to them in the garden of Eden.

This version brings forth the ancient tale of Eve’s being created from Adam’s rib and describes the story of the serpent’s temptation and betrayal, resulting in Adam and Eve’s expulsion from the garden for disobeying the order of God not to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

If you read the King James Version, which is all we had for centuries, you would miss the distinctions between the two stories; it would look as though the author simply took a different tack and decided to retell the story from a new angle.

But Biblical scholarship over the past century has noted the use of two different names for God, one from Canaanite culture and one from Judean culture, two different emphases, (the first on physical creation and the second on moral issues), and two different orders of creation (the first naming plant creation before humans, the second naming human creation before plants).

These differences led most scholars to believe that these are two distinct stories, written down centuries apart, by two different sources. One story seemed clearly to be the sort of tale told around ancient campfires, a way of explaining the existence of human beings, the creatures who lived in proximity to those humans, the usages that humans were to make of those living things, and the need for rest after many days of hard work.

The second story is of moral importance, whereas the first is an oral legend of physical creation. The second story describes God’s relationship with his human creation; this story is of a parental figure who commands obedience, gives many gifts and requires discipline and resistance of temptation, even temptation he has set before them. When his children succumb to that temptation, he punishes and curses them.

The first story describes a benevolent creator; the second, a paternalistic, vengeful figure.

Editorial comment: It’s interesting to me to note that many, perhaps most, of the religious traditions which take these stories literally tend to worship a more paternalistic and harsh God, while those who understand the stories to be metaphorical have a softer, gentler deity in their hearts. Interestingly, too, the doctrines of literal-minded religious faiths tend to be more rigid, less open to acts of compassion. Not that metaphorical-minded religions are perfectly compassionate, but there seems to be more of an openness to new truth in most of the more progressive religious traditions.

The Clergy Letter Project, founded by Dr. Michael Zimmerman, a professor at Butler University, has had as its goal, for the past 6 years, proving that science and religion are not incompatible, that thousands and thousands of clergy from all faiths understand the importance of science and religion in human lives and believe that the two disciplines do not have to be mutually exclusive.

Dr. Zimmerman has written the following: Ever since the Scopes Trial in 1925, evolution has been under attack by those who think it is more important to promote their narrow religious perspective than to understand the natural world. In the immediate aftermath of the Scopes Trial, virtually all traces of evolution vanished from American science textbooks and evolution remained missing until the early 1960s, when Americans realized that Soviet science education was fast outpacing American science education.

Creationists, in the name of religion, first outlawed the teaching of human evolution and then, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that unconstitutional, they began to use a number of ruses to promote their religious doctrines by claiming they were in favor of freedom of inquiry. They pretended to turn their religion into science by calling it "creation science" and when that too was ruled unconstitutional they changed the name again and promoted "intelligent design." The U.S. courts also ruled that strategy unconstitutional. Despite all of these legal setbacks, creationists have kept up their relentless attack on evolution, the most important concept in all of biology. It has been termed a religion. It has been portrayed as nothing more than a "theory." And it has been characterized, by those with precious little biological background, as pseudoscientific claptrap.

Despite the lack of intellectual and scientific substance to the attacks on evolution, the constant refrain from creationists that evolution is responsible for virtually all of modern society's ills has largely shaped the public's perception of the issue. Large segments of the public, ignorant of both basic biology and common theology, reject evolution believing that it is bad science and contrary to their religious beliefs. Even as scientists, building upon the principles of evolutionary theory, make the most astounding breakthroughs in the understanding of the human genome, leading to medical advances previously only dreamed possible, creationists work tirelessly to keep evolution from being taught in our public schools. Most politicians are scared to endorse this basic biological principle fearing a backlash in the name of religion…

(The Project) purposefully brings attention to (an) issue that religious fundamentalists find most abhorrent. (Project) participants are not looking to deify Darwin, however. Instead, they are simply attempting to demonstrate that his ideas, reshaped enormously in the 152 years since he published On the Origin of Species, are important to a modern worldview and are fully compatible with modern religious teachings. By doing this, they are proudly taking active steps to publicly define religion in a positive manner.

Other authorities support and amplify Zimmerman’s case. Paul Horwitz, a physicist turned education researcher, in an online article published this month by Education Week, says this:

“My opinion is that creationism in all its forms, including intelligent design, is not science; and that it is vitally important that we not teach nonscience as if it were science… Creationism is not science because it introduces causes outside of nature in order to explain observations of nature… Theories like that do not foster inquiry; rather, they close off discussion…That’s why creationism shouldn’t be taught as science, not because it’s wrong, but because it isn’t science… The goal of science is to discover things, to create new knowledge, to understand new phenomena. Nonscience does none of these things… It also eliminates…any opportunity to discover natural explanations for natural phenomena… To allow nonscience to be taught as though it were science would be a mistake of literally global dimensions.”

Horwitz goes on to say that he would love to teach a class that contrasted creationism/intelligent design and science in order to help students appreciate the difference. I wish he would!

The intersection of religion and science has become a political issue, pitting those who would ban these scientific findings in classrooms against those who see it as an issue of intellectual freedom and a violation of the separation of church and state. Creationists tend to see the issue as a denial of God, of the existence of power beyond human power and often call their adversaries “atheists” and “heretics”.

Charles Darwin himself had doubts about his faith, as he explored his findings and the conclusions they led to. He struggled with friends and family who tried to get him to set aside his work and cleave to a traditional faith. But he could not set aside his reasoning and his integrity in order to stay within the bounds of his culture and society.

Charles Darwin was one of us, a Unitarian from birth, though in later life he attended Anglican schools. Eventually he married Emma Wedgwood, a strong Unitarian herself, who accepted his ideas but feared that his radical beliefs might separate them in the afterlife. (I guess she wasn’t also a Universalist, or she would have known better!)

Though Darwin’s findings were revolutionary and controversial, they gradually found acceptance across the scientific community and even among liberal clergy in the Anglican tradition. Darwin had started out an orthodox believer, but after his voyage on The Beagle, where he collected much of his information and knowledge, he became an avowed agnostic and no longer attended any church.

He died a wellknown, if not completely well-accepted, scientist and philosopher. He was wrongfully associated with the proliferation of such ideas as Eugenics and Social Darwinism, theories which invoked ethical concerns about treatment of the poor and sickly. He himself did believe that females were less eminent than males because of sexual selection, but a woman named Antoinette Brown Blackwell, the first woman ordained to parish ministry in the United States, disputed that claim eloquently in her own writings.

In recent years, I’ve become more and more concerned about what I see as the creeping miasma of distrust of and resistance to science and its contributions to human life and understandings.

Perhaps it’s because of the conflicting claims of the pharmaceutical industry, or because research seems to issue confusing and contradictory reports about the effects of any number of health issues. Whatever it is, we have begun to look askance at the claims of science.

It’s probably a good thing to be critical of science, to investigate for ourselves the claims of research and to be aware of the many temptations scientists have, as they scramble for funding of their research and deal with the promises of money in exchange for certain findings, particularly as our economy is stretched tighter and tighter and research is often paid for by corporations, not unbiased regulatory agencies.

But it feels to me like a place where Unitarian Universalists can contribute to a greater understanding of the scientific process, the findings of science, the ethical issues involved, the intended and unintended consequences of each new finding. And it was for this reason that we started, this past fall, the Lyceum 2.0 series of dialogues between Whidbey Islanders and scientists from the University of Washington and other agencies.

It feels like a social action project of sorts, to offer to the community an opportunity to discuss with women and men who are deeply involved in their various scientific discipline, to ask them pointed questions about the ethics and consequences of their discoveries, and to dispel some of the suspicion which is so prevalent in society. I am so glad that many of you attend those lectures and actively participate in the conversation. (The next one is a week from Wednesday!)

But, returning to the evolution debate, I am convinced that the issue for the fundamentalist community is one of fear, fear of changing beliefs, fear that the consequences of that change will be a crisis of faith.

For after all, humankind’s understanding of the power beyond human power, which many call God, has changed radically as science has advanced our knowledge of the universe. Our little world was once considered to be the center of creation and we believed that the sun, moon, and stars revolved around it every day and night. We were the most important place in the universe and under God’s special care. As our knowledge of the sun, moon, and stars grew, we began to understand that we were only one of billions of planets and solar systems, our sun only one of millions of suns, our world a speck in the sky to somebody else.

Change is hard. Change is scary. And though I still wonder about my parents’ thoughts on that night in 1960, I am confident that, if there is any consciousness left to them after death, they have more understanding of it all than I do. I can only do my best to comprehend the mystery of creation and what it means in our world today. And I think that, if they were able to tell me anything today, they would tell me that they love me and trust me to do my best to understand and to serve the world with my understanding.

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 Science and Reasoning are foundational to our religious life but that they are not deities to be worshipped. They are tools to use as we discover the meaning of life. May we be gentle with those who disagree with us and may we serve our world with compassion and strength. Amen, Shalom, Salaam, and Blessed Be.

Evolution Rocks: the song, by Overman

Tomorrow's sermon is a belated contribution to the Clergy Letter Project's Evolution Weekend, which others tended to observe on Feb. 14. At my church we do Valentines Day on Valentines Day weekend, so we postponed our Evolution service for a month.

This song will be the special music/aka "reading" for the service. Ken Merrell will sing and play it on his ukulele. Should be a smash! Listen to it here (I can't get the link to publish, sorry): http://www.overman.info/evolutionrocks.html

You'll get the sermon tomorrow. I kinda like it myself.

iPhone, uPhone, we all phone for iPhone...

Lame, yes. But no lamer than my resistance to actually carrying around my new iPhone. I've been taking it slow, learning to do one thing or another, but never actually tucking the phone in my pocket or purse so that I could pull it out and use it for something.

The Favorite Son called the other day to talk----on the iPhone----and, of course, there was nobody home. On the iPhone, that is. He had to call the landline to find me. I was, of course, home by the landline. He was disappointed, to say the least, and so was I. Because I bought the thing so that I could do all the kool things he can do with his iPhone. And I'm not doing them. Yet.

There's a piece of me that just doesn't want to be available all the time. I'm a little nervous that, if I carry my phone around TURNED ON, I will be inundated with calls. I will be one of those folks walking through the grocery store talking on the phone, doing pastoral care over the broccoli, checking out the nutrient count of an unlabeled product via Google, or GPSing my way home from downtown Freeland. This is not a pretty picture.

I need the right kind of pockets to carry an iPhone; that's one of my excuses. Jeans pockets are too tight and shirt pockets too loose. I don't want it clipped to my belt or waistband like guys do. I'd be forever (this is assuming, of course, that people actually did call me a lot) pulling up my shirt to get at my belt or waistband, and, again, this is not a pretty picture. I have a friend who wears hers in a little pouch around her neck, festooned with keys and nestled among the credit cards and driver's license. This would be handy for many occasions, but I'm not too sure about the dangling aspects of phonewear.

I am enchanted, however, with the iPhone's capability. How very easy it is to phone the FS or text him or send him a picture of my new hair color (though he did not comment when we talked, which I attribute to the seriousness of the conversation we had). It's a snap to take a picture of myself or the cats or the snowfall.

There's a philosophical aspect to all this too. As I think about it, my sense of my life right now is as a rock in the middle of a stream, just observing the life around me, letting it flow, not needing to document it constantly. I am less concerned about UUA politics or even the urgent issues of injustice the world is experiencing right now; I don't mind about the UUA politics part, but I am trying to understand my present less-than-avid passion for collective bargaining or MidEast revolution or reproductive rights or the like. I still care and support the same liberal issues, but I have been letting others do the passion part. (One important exception: bglt civil rights will always be something I'm passionate about---I have too many bglt friends right here on my doorstep to let that slide.)

Uh oh, another blog post. As I said before, don't get used to it! I'm not preaching again till March 13, and at that time you will be faced with "Evolution Rocks".