Talking about dying can be a lot of laughs

Or so it seemed at our workshop this afternoon, when a group from the congregation met to discuss memorial services and how to die well. Though our topic was supposedly morbid, we had a lot of fun and the afternoon felt well-spent. I gave them a form to fill out to make their wishes known to family members when they die, and we spent a good deal of time talking about memorial services and funerals that they had both loved and hated.

Doctrinal services were a major sticking point for most. As Unitarian Universalists, we have a celebratory approach to life and death and do not find "he's gone to be in a better place" very helpful most of the time. People both loved and hated the near-traditional "open mic" (or community sharing) time, recognizing the danger and the beauty of having a time of extemporaneous remarks.

It felt like people needed to get some things off their chests, during the conversation, and yet it was hilarious and dark humor was the order of the day.

We're going to meet again after the holidays to talk about "pre-death" stuff, hospice, power of attorney, and that sort of stuff that we didn't have time for today.

I thought you'd like to know.

Planning your own memorial service...

is the class I'm teaching this afternoon to a small group of congregants. I'm not totally finished with the sermon on world religions as a source of our faith, but I have set it aside temporarily in order to prepare adequately for teaching the class.

In the run-up to the weekend, one person who will be attending asked if it would be possible to spend some time talking about pre-death matters, such as assisted suicide and preparing for death from a terminal illness. I had already planned to offer some material about Compassion and Choices (the former Hemlock Society), Memorial Societies, and the work of hospice, but his question made me think about the many health concerns an aging population has.

A couple of years ago, a fellow in another congregation decided, after years of very bad health, to hasten death by refusing food and water. It did not take long for his body's organs to shut down and bring the comfort of death. His family was in agreement with this decision and did not oppose his wishes; he was, after all, in his 90s and had lived a long, full, productive and loving life. He had no regrets and wanted to avoid a long drawn out death; he felt he had been dying for a year or more already, was very uncomfortable, and wished to move on to whatever the Universe might have to offer beyond life, if anything.

So I'm looking forward to the class, expecting to get to know this group of congregants better in a setting that offers them an opportunity to talk about one of the most intimate stages of life, dying. I'll let you know how it goes.

Arrrgggh! I can't find what I'm looking for!

Don't you hate that? I've been scouring the house for a book I bought from another minister some time ago, which should help me in composing this Sunday's sermon, and I CAN'T FIND IT! It's not the end of the world, because I put a note out on the ministers' chat line asking for their thoughts about how "the wisdom of the world's religions" has enhanced their personal Unitarian Universalism, and I've gotten a few responses. But one response reminded me about Peter Richardson's book "Exploring our UU Identity", so I went searching for it, knowing I have it. And I CAN'T FIND IT!

So maybe you can help, dear readers. If you are a Unitarian Universalist, can you tell me how your own personal belief system is enhanced by the wisdom of the world's religions? I have my own thoughts on it, but I would like to offer more examples than my own. And please let me know if it's okay to share it with my congregation. I'll post the sermon Sunday night.

"Enlighten"-ed, at last!

This fall I have been preaching monthly on the Sources of Unitarian Universalism. You know, the ones listed in the front of the hymnal and on many an Order of Service and almost completely disregarded by UUs everywhere. In addition to the sermon, I've been offering an evening of conversation about the Source, a kind of "extra credit" activity that includes refreshments (both alcoholic and non) and an activity to stimulate conversation.

This coming Sunday I am preaching on the Third Source: wisdom from the world's religions which inspires us in our ethical and spiritual life. For the activity, I found a game, "Enlighten", which is a kind of religious Trivial Pursuit board game. I had a hard time visualizing just how to play it so I enlisted a small crew of women to help me figure it out.

We met last night for a soup and salad supper and then tackled the game. I thought I might know a few answers after reading a bit of Huston Smith, but the questions were hard! Even the Christianity and Judaism questions were beyond me in many cases. But we persisted and gradually figured out the rules and started doing better on the questions.

The real bonus of the evening was the hilarity engendered as we tried to pull answers out of our aging brains, knowing that we had some knowledge about the question but not enough to be completely sure of ourselves. We'd get some right, unexpectedly, and then get something we were sure of completely wrong. And the penance for making a mistake---well, that too was a fascinating and laughter-producing exercise!

And we learned a lot! The conversation night will be the Saturday after Thanksgiving and I hope to get a few takers, even with the awkwardness of the date. What I hope people learn is how complex religion is, the incredible variety of human religious experience and thought. It doesn't matter so much whether folks know the answers to the questions or how the game turns out.

It does matter to me that we understand the strong drive to create meaning out of life, to decipher its complexities and create rituals to comfort, to communicate with the Divine, and to honor the glory of the earth. If we can find that in ourselves, we will be "enlightened" indeed.

IN OTHER NEWS: My brother Buz has had heart problems much of his adult life and has struggled to maintain his health with a variety of interventions, including massive heart surgery to repair his almost-nonfunctional heart. He has just come successfully through yet another intervention, this one lasting over 9 hours, to install a Ventricle Assist Device. The VAD will keep his failing heart pumping for another couple of years, during which time he will be awaiting a heart transplant. The problem is that he is a great big guy---6'4", 240 or so pounds, barrel-chested, not fat---and will need a great big heart to sustain him.

I often ask myself if I would have his courage and fortitude, to endure the kinds of tests and defibs and meds and implants and surgeries that he has endured. He is fortunate to have a terrific wife, my sister-in-law, who has been part of this process ever since they met and married a few years ago. He is 9 years younger than I am, way too young to have to experience all this. And yet he continues to be sweet-natured, optimistic, hopeful, and determined to live as well and as long as he possibly can. Seeing this strength in him has strengthened me and I am so happy he is my brother.

Fulfilling a long-repressed desire

Today I attended the first gathering of the local cast of the upcoming production of the (are you ready?) Vagina Monologues.

It's true. I am going to be a member of the cast of this season's local production, to be held Feb. 9 and 10. Part of me can hardly believe I have signed up for this and part of me can hardly wait to get out there on stage and say all those words out loud that for years I could barely even think!

As I sat in the session today, listening to the self-introductions of the other women in the cast, I relived all my old embarrassment about "naughty" words, got past that brief moment, and then, as we read through the script, wondered what the heck my congregation was going to think about my being up there on stage spouting "Coochie Snorcher" and "Sugar Dish" and "Cunt" and all those other euphemisms and rather questionable terms. I hope they won't be too scandalized.

I'm trying to decide if I'll light a candle at Joys and Concerns in the next couple of weeks and announce my theatrical debut! Maybe I'll get a fairly tame part, but today I got to read part of the segment entitled "My Angry Vagina" and got so into it that I got cheers and guffaws when I finished. Whew! Heady stuff!

There's a lot of laughter because parts of the play are hilarious, but there are also horrifying moments about rape and violence. It was quite an experience to be part of that group today, thinking about our own experiences of love and betrayal, pain and joy. The commonality of women's experience has already begun to draw us together.

There has been criticism of the play by some who feel that it's overly critical of men, too focused on violence and brutality. I didn't get that version today, I guess, as the 40 or so scenes we read were pretty well balanced. Still, there's something initially quite shocking about women saying out loud all the slang words for vagina, boldly and without embarrassment or reticence. These words have been often used in debasing ways. The play turns that debasement into glory and honor and pride. May it be so.

Updates on Maxwelton

I came home this evening to find this little scene. Loosy has apparently been won over.



The Bad Boy of Bush Point scores another one!

A grim experience

On Wednesday, I thought I'd stop by the Everett Social Security office on my way into Seattle to straighten out a glitch in my Social Security stuff in person. I hate doing things like that on the phone, because it's so hard to make sure that the person on the other end understands completely. My experience with Big Gov has been that employees assigned to these kinds of jobs have learned to be slow to make sense of what I'm trying to tell them. (Of course, it's not that I am poor at expressing myself on the phone----never!) So it seemed that a good strategy would be to go to the office and talk to a person face to face, show him/her the mysterious letters received, update some missing information, and ask humbly for advice.

The only grim part of that experience was the long wait, not the few minutes spent with a clerk. The young woman who helped me was courteous, well-prepared to answer my questions and allay my concerns. It did take an hour of waiting for my number to be called, as there were very few clerks and each conference with a client seemed to take inordinate amounts of time.

No, the grim part was watching the room fill up with a wide assortment of people: parents there to get a social security number for a child; little kids running around the room; Russian, Asian, Latino immigrants; people on crutches or hobbling painfully; sons and daughters accompanying an aged parent; a homeless man arguing loudly with a clerk about how he had no address and had not gotten his check and had no money to live on.

The atmosphere was so dank and dreary, the people's faces so resigned and wary, the wait so long and tedious and, seemingly, unnecessary. Even though my problem seemed easily solvable, my spirits began to sink as I watched this pool of humanity grow, overhearing the tense conversations at the cubicles, cringing to hear the anger and frustration in the voices raised in protest at some bureaucratic decision, wondering about the lives represented there, dependent on Social Security for livelihood.

For I wondered about the staff as well: two beautiful young women, courteously and yet sternly doling out advice, regulations, "I"m sorry buts": an older woman arguing with a client about how she'd have to repay a good deal of what she'd received; a big blonde male security guard who swaggered around the packed room, gun, cell phone, and club on his belt; and a succession of men and women who'd pop their heads out a door, call out a name, wait for a response, and disappear again. What must it be like to work in that situation every day? What a grim way to make a living----saying no to people who are desperate? feeling beleaguered by the neediness of clients and hemmed in by regulations? finding meaning in---what? (Ms. Theologian, what do you think?)

It was grim, all right, and I only had to experience it for an hour. If my frustration grew and my sense of optimism faded in that short time, what must it have been like for those staff members and, most especially, for those who had to wait and wait and wait for their chance to argue politely (or not so politely) with those whose duty it was to serve them? I can imagine.

Eschatology? What the Hell?

What's your eschatology? created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Moltmannian Eschatology Jürgen Moltmann is one of the key eschatological thinkers of the 20th Century. Eschatology is not only about heaven and hell, but God's plan to make all things new. This should spur us on to political and social action in the present. Moltmannian Eschatology 70% Amillenialist 55% Dispensationalist 40% Preterist 35% Postmillenialist 25% Premillenialist 5% Left Behind 0%

A dilemma of part-time ministry

A colleague nearby wrote to the ministers' email chat recently asking about how often a half-time minister should be preaching per month. Most responses to the question dealt with the number of hours required to write a sermon, how many hours a month the minister is expected to work, and other "quantitative" issues. The logic was that if a minister is half-time, s/he should preach twice a month.

I disagree with that logic, not because it is unreasonable but because it fails to address a fundamental need of a growing (or hoping-to-grow) congregation. That need is for an ongoing, steady, informed presentation of Unitarian Universalist theology, principles, and sources from the pulpit. If our primary public outreach is our worship service, which is open to all comers, every time we open the sanctuary doors, visitors should be treated to Unitarian Universalism. They shouldn't get some off-topic speaker or clumsily-done pet cause; they should get a real UU message.

Years ago, when Robert Latham was my minister at Jefferson Unitarian Church in Golden, Colorado, he was preparing to go on sabbatical for a few months and gave his sabbatical committee, of which I was a member, some very good advice, as we started thinking about how we would fill the pulpit while he was gone. He said, and I'm paraphrasing, "Every service has to have a Unitarian Universalist theme. It has to deal with our theology, our principles and sources, our values, our social justice outreach, and it has to be grounded in what we believe to be our saving message."

When I worked with the worship committee in my first pastorate, I taught them this same principle and I have emphasized it in every one of my congregations. The first one was getting ready to offer services all summer long and I insisted that each service be planned with this theme in mind. I called it protein, UU protein. Without UU protein, a UU worship service isn't much different from a Rotary meeting. It doesn't satisfy our religious mission. Protein forms the building blocks for our physical bodies; religious protein forms the building blocks for our religious selves.

And this is what growing congregations need to have, every single Sunday. If that means that a halftime minister preaches twice a month, the other two services need to offer just as strong a UU message as if it were the minister in the pulpit. Lay people can do this very well, if they understand the principle of protein. Guest speakers from a nearby non-profit or university can offer something nourishing if adequate effort is made to link his/her topic to UU values. If it means that the halftime minister preaches three times a month, leaving one service for a lay or outside speaker, the same principle applies. And the halftime minister who is preaching three times a month should cut back on other involvements within the congregation. This, of course, depends on the priorities of the congregation, which, in a small group, are not always growth-oriented, unfortunately. And I'm not talking growth in numbers but in strength, commitment, and UU identity.

A small congregation which can only afford parttime ministry needs to consider how important it is to their growth to have a steady UU message from the pulpit every week without fail. Otherwise, visitors who come looking for a faith community may get an erroneous message about our faith. And that is not conducive to healthy growth. We want people to get a clear picture of what UUism can mean to them.

Maxie makes headway; Loosy pouts.

Lily has relented. Loosy is still mad.

So what's yours?

Get a Cash Advance

Update on Maxwelton

During the three days I was on retreat earlier in the week, I asked friends to take Maxie in, since I wasn't sure how Loosy and Lily would treat him if they were alone in the house with him, with "room service" only every twenty-four hours. I'm sure the two of them were relieved to have a reprieve from this manicky little guy and the friends were charmed. They barely let me take him back home on Wednesday.

When I returned, cat cage in hand, I could almost see the girls' eyes rolling in mock consternation, but since then they have seemed to consider Maxie their number one show. You've seen cats watching birds intently; well, this is the latest manifestation of their attitude----crouched and watching. No hissing (well, hardly), no batting at him, a little discreet chasing----Maxie is in the process of winning the girls over.

I took him to the vet yesterday for his kitten exam and he was diagnosed only with the normal fleas, earmites, and probable worms, for which cures were applied and he seems mostly flea-free now, though an occasional tiny corpse can be combed from his otherwise impeccable white and orange fur.

He has begun to be quite friendly and cuddly, now that he's not afraid of the big cats any more. He realizes that he's the master of the house----we all seem to sit and stare when he's in the room. Today I lay down with my book after lunch and all three cats joined me on the bed, lying within a few inches of each other. I'm confident I'll have a photo to share of catly togetherness soon.

Watched Sense and Sensibility tonight to get an Alan Rickman fix. Emma Thompson and Kate Winslett were quite charming as well. The whole Jane Austen thing is something I've never particularly gotten, but I do like this movie. And my little heart goes pitter-pat over Alan Rickman, even as Snape. The dark, brooding, oddly ethical hero----my kinda guy! I also watched "Snow Cake" recently. A good movie too. Sigourney Weaver was quite remarkable.

Enough for tonight.

Rebel With or Without a Cause?

It was one of the best retreats I've attended here in the PNWD. It was rather mysteriously described in the registration materials---"a look at contemplative spiritual practice" is how I think it was portrayed. Or some such.

In any case, for our first session, Monday evening, we were surprised by the presenter's saying (get that, saying?) A LOT about silence and how important it was, setting me (and probably others) up for bigtime resistance to his efforts. He must have talked non-stop for half an hour and then said "get comfortable, we're going to meditate for a half hour or more in silence". Hooray, he's going to shut up! And then he said "when we leave this room, we will go back to our rooms in silence, spend the rest of the evening in silence, and in the morning, we will return to this room at 7 a.m., do Qi Gong in silence and have a silent breakfast."

Huh? Did I sign up for this? I have plenty of silence and solitude in my life! I come here for companionship and support from my colleagues, not to be separated from them by silence! Okay, maybe some of THEM need solitude and silence, but is that fair to me? I didn't sign up for this!

I sat and squirmed during the silent meditation, uncomfortable on the floor where I'd chosen to sit instead of a chair, plotting how to get out of the rest of the retreat. The problem was I couldn't think what else I would do. I hadn't paid big bucks for the retreat to go shopping in suburban Seattle or visit the nearby park. I had a few books along but didn't relish sitting still and reading them; I had brought them to put myself to sleep with.

When he released us to leave, it wasn't even 8:30 p.m. and one person asked plaintively "but what about evening worship?", receiving the unspoken reply that "this is worship". We or maybe it was just I who sulked off to my room upset by the sudden shift in the expectations of our retreat.

Alone in my room in silence, I decided that the next morning I would NOT go to the Qi Gong session but would do my normal retreat-morning routine of getting a cup of coffee in the dining room about 7, writing in my journal for awhile, reading the paper and checking email, and appearing at 8 a.m. breakfast. I'd give the morning worship and session a try, but if it didn't work for me, I was booking it out of there, off to the delights of the nearby outlet center.

At worship, the leader said, "our service this morning will be in Quaker style, with those who are moved to speak doing so out of the fullness of their hearts." And unexpectedly it all began to work for me, because as people spoke into the quiet room, I felt connected with my colleagues in deeper ways than usual, listening to them and speaking my own truth. Despite the difference from our own carefully constructed collegial worship services, this open-ended flow of silence and spontaneous speech and song was the most refreshing communal worship I have experienced in awhile.

I ended up attending every minute of every program session that day and delighting in opportunities to sit outdoors in the crisp fall air, under trees, in the sun and fog, reflecting on my place in the natural world, looking for what the earth has to teach me, the answers to my questions about life's meanings.

I am glad to be home again but the memories of this retreat, with my initial resistance appearing comic in retrospect, will stay with me for a long time. The retreat was significant as well, in that many others had experienced the same resistance I had, had been drawn in by the silent peace of the worship experience, and stayed to reap the same benefits I had.

Maxie's having a sleepover

while I head off for a three day retreat with the PNWD ministers. Max has made a lot of progress in the past week and, in fact, I was hopeful that I would have a snuggly picture of him and Lily snoozing within a whisker's length of each other this afternoon. But the tender scene didn't last long enough for me to capture it photographically, so you'll have to wait. Loosy is still quite unfriendly to Max, but Lily is warming up and barely bares her teeth when he encroaches on her territory. It's just a matter of time.

A couple of local friends are taking Max in while I'm gone, as I didn't feel he was ready to be alone with the L's for three days, being re-supplied with food only every 24 hours by the catsitter. When I dropped him off, he busily undertook to explore his new digs and had settled in quite nicely under my friends' rapt gaze. Their old kitty Miss Ophelia recently gave up the ghost, so they had extra cat litter and bowls and were happy to take him in for a few days.

I'm very much looking forward to this retreat. I need a break. In tallying up my hours recently, I realized that by the end of today, I will have worked over 90 hours, a far cry from the 60 I'm contracted for. It all had to be done, but I'm realizing that I have got to quit being so available! Maybe in November? In any case, I will be offline for the most part till Wednesday, though I may be able to check email periodically. See you when I get back!

What Poet are you? I'm delighted to be...

I took the "If You Were a Poet..." quiz on gURL.com
		I am... Emily Dickinson Do you have a 19th century sensibility? Or are you an intellectual? Do you write a lot? Because it seems like you have a lot in common with classic American poet, Emily Dickinson. Read more... Which poet are you?

Tired tonight after a long day

I left home this morning about 7:30 to make sure I was in the Keystone ferry line in plenty of time to catch the 8:45 ferry to Port Townsend. From there it would be an hour's drive to Seabeck, on Hood Canal, for the quarterly Seabeck Conference Center board meeting. My horoscope this morning said to avoid travel at all costs and I would have been grateful if fog had kept the ferry out of commission, but no such luck. Every day this week has been full and it would have been nice to have an excuse to stay close to home!

The board meeting itself was interesting and lunch was delicious, but I had to excuse myself a bit early, as the meeting was running overtime, so that I could get back to the ferry dock and catch the 3:45 boat home. I missed the boat by two cars and had to sit in the ferry line for almost two hours, so when I finally got on board at 5:15, I was pretty fried.

So I'm tired. Too tired to watch TV or a movie or read a book. Not too tired, apparently, to write a blog post, even if it's all about being tired.

Tomorrow will be the first day I've had in several days to catch up on household stuff. We're doing our Association Sunday this weekend and I'm pretty pleased with what the committee has come up with. All I have to do is the offering and the benediction. Others are doing the rest.

After church, I'll be heading out to the Ministers' Retreat in Federal Way, and I am looking forward to some rest. I counted up the hours I've spent this month working my 1/3 time job. I'm contracted for about 60 hours and so far I have put in 90! Yikes, gotta do something about that next month.

Others have written lately about the overload on ministers and the options available for help: mates, kids, friends. For a single minister, as a few have pointed out, there are not very many. If single Rev. Whosit doesn't do it, it won't get done. And that means everything: church work, laundry, meals, scheduling.

I'm lucky to be working parttime, I realize. I don't have all the professional demands on my time that a fulltime minister does. But I do have all the domestic demands and there's nobody but me to do them. Luckily, I've been operating singly for a long time and have a few systems in place that reduce the stress. But it's so easy to get overloaded in this work. Nobody but me can count the hours I spend and nobody but me can say no to the extra work. But it's hard to say no when someone needs to talk or needs a hospital or home visit.

We're all working way too hard and too long. That goes for PeaceBang, Jess and Obijuan, Chalice Chick, and all of us who want to do good work out there, no matter where we serve or who we serve. But I guess I'd rather work hard than be bored with too much time on my hands. Chances are we all would.

I'm babbling. Good night.

PS. Maxie has settled in enough that he is fearlessly harassing Lily and Loosy. They're still bugeyed, but no fur has flown---yet. I'm going to let some friends take care of him while I'm gone, rather than take a chance on leaving them all here in the house together for three days with only a neighbor kid coming by periodically.

Feeling Useful

Tuesday is my day to volunteer as a chaplain up at the hospital. Some days, my visits are unremarkable; conversations are brief or ho-hum, though I feel I'm offering something helpful when I stop by a patient's room. Yesterday was unusually satisfying.

In the cafeteria before I started my rounds, I found a seat in the crowded room with an elderly woman who was perusing a sheaf of papers while eating her lunch. I caught the word "grief support" at the top of one page and, in the course of our chatting, mentioned that I was volunteering there as a chaplain that day. She asked me if I had met her United Methodist pastor and from there the conversation quickly unfolded into the story of her husband's death very recently. He had died suddenly of a heart attack while she was away from home for a couple of days and her son found him dead on the floor of their home. "I've watched friends and relatives die long, slow deaths from illness," she said, "and I'm glad he died as he did. He would have hated being sick. But I miss him."

Upstairs on the ward, an elderly man awaiting the next test in a string of tests told me about his wife who is experiencing increasing dementia and the effort to find a place where the two of them could be together without his having to be her primary caretaker and what a relief it was to have found such a place nearby. He was more concerned about her than the illness that had landed him in the hospital. It was nothing compared to her struggles, according to him. Yet he has a life-threatening condition. "I miss who she used to be," he said, "because now all she does is sleep."

Peeking into the next room, I found a bright-eyed young woman in bed, big grin, big bandage on her right hand. Her parents were with her and she told me what had happened. It seems that there was this power sander in the wood shop classroom and she was working on a piece of wood and it slipped and she sanded her hand pretty much right down to the muscle and nerves. But they were all receptive and eager to talk, as it was a long time before she could have surgery to graft skin back onto her hand. We chatted for a few minutes, then I excused myself to visit the person in the next bed, same room.

Groaning, this youngish woman told me about the terrible pain she was experiencing and how she had been plagued by it for several days. It was kidney stones, she said, and all she could do was live through it. But what kind of pastor was I, she asked, as she was looking for a new church to attend. I told her I was a Unitarian Universalist and asked where she had been going to church; she mentioned a large community church over on the mainland. I volunteered to go look up the addresses of some local churches that might be easy for her to reach when she was well and started out of the room toward the pastoral care kiosk where we keep such lists.

But as I passed by the "sanded" girl, they stopped me and said, "are you the pastor of the church that's building a building on the highway? We're thinking about coming to visit." So we chatted a bit more about that when I returned with the church information for her neighbor.

Down the hall I encountered a familiar face but couldn't think where I'd met her. She was with an elderly woman who appeared to be quite feisty and inquisitive. The younger woman recognized me and introduced herself as having visited my congregation a couple of weeks earlier; she was the live-in companion for the elderly woman, who had just had a test that had taken the starch out of her and needed to be rehydrated. Overhearing our conversation, the elderly woman burst out, "I'm a Unitarian, a die-hard Humanist, and I'm darned glad to meet you! I wanted to come to church last Sunday but didn't feel up to it because of prepping for this darned test. But I'm coming the next time you're preaching, darn it!"

What a day! This little hospital has only about 25 beds and often there are reasons why I don't stop by and talk to every patient---a nurse is with the patient, or family members are carrying on conversations and I don't want to interrupt, or the patient is asleep. Because there's no pastoral care office or place to hang out and wait for opportunities to make contact, we usually just make a couple of passes down the halls and consider that enough.

But this day was unusually rich in that every room I visited contained someone with whom I felt I made a personal contact. That's such a rewarding way to spend time. I felt useful and inspired and connected by the hour or so I spent there.

Lily waits anxiously by the door

A couple more

Maxwelton