Wednesday, July 29, 2009
And now for something completely different:
This also has an Italian title which, when translated, is "humorous duet by two cats".
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Commiserating with President Obama
Boy, have I been there! Not quite as earth-shakingly, as in the "stupid" heard round the world a few days ago, but definitely in my own way.
It's hard to get used to the idea, whether you are a politician or another kind of public figure (like a minister), that your words, your careless, angry, delighted, public words, have a great deal of power. Not the kind of power you might want, either, but the kind of power that gets you in hot water.
Years ago in a parish far far away, my congregation was voting on a matter of some controversy. I had advised one particular path but how much support I had for that position among members---well, it wasn't enough to get me past the faux pas of audibly saying "YES!" with a both-thumbs-up when the vote approved my recommendation.
Dissidents felt immediately angry with me; supporters felt embarrassed by my lapse; I felt defiant initially, then embarrassed, then humbled enough to offer an apology.
Rookie ministers have this huge lesson to learn: the power of our words, even when nobody seems to be paying attention and they've all fallen asleep in the pews, is far greater than we expect it to be. Say something snarky, say something politically incorrect, say something stupid, say something too revealing, say something anyone can misinterpret----you will be on the hot seat. You don't have to be in the pulpit to say stupid things; you can be at a potluck or just talking to a staff member or teaching a class. You might just be in the grocery line and there isn't a parishioner in sight----if somebody knows you're a minister, you're ON and don't you forget it!
So I sympathize with President Obama. He shot from the hip and scattered a lot of buckshot around, some of it hitting him in places he didn't intend. In fact, he probably didn't intend any of it. This is a guy who has been trying, for God's sake and that of the American people, to get some movement on health care reform; he's been tactfulizing his words for weeks now.
Losing it in public and using a naughty word like "stupid" is not too surprising, after what he's been working on and with whom he's been working. "Stupid" probably actually refers to some of the roadblocks that have been thrown up by his opponents, but Sgt. Crowley, poor guy, took it in the shorts. Neither Crowley nor Gates had any extra tact going on themselves, Gates just home from a trip and Crowley trying to do his job.
One thing that has struck me in all this is that a neighbor apparently turned Gates in. A neighbor? Didn't the neighbor recognize the guy? What kind of a neighborhood is this where people don't recognize the folks who live across the street or next door? No wonder Crowley was suspicious. And no wonder Gates was peeved.
It's hard to get used to the idea, whether you are a politician or another kind of public figure (like a minister), that your words, your careless, angry, delighted, public words, have a great deal of power. Not the kind of power you might want, either, but the kind of power that gets you in hot water.
Years ago in a parish far far away, my congregation was voting on a matter of some controversy. I had advised one particular path but how much support I had for that position among members---well, it wasn't enough to get me past the faux pas of audibly saying "YES!" with a both-thumbs-up when the vote approved my recommendation.
Dissidents felt immediately angry with me; supporters felt embarrassed by my lapse; I felt defiant initially, then embarrassed, then humbled enough to offer an apology.
Rookie ministers have this huge lesson to learn: the power of our words, even when nobody seems to be paying attention and they've all fallen asleep in the pews, is far greater than we expect it to be. Say something snarky, say something politically incorrect, say something stupid, say something too revealing, say something anyone can misinterpret----you will be on the hot seat. You don't have to be in the pulpit to say stupid things; you can be at a potluck or just talking to a staff member or teaching a class. You might just be in the grocery line and there isn't a parishioner in sight----if somebody knows you're a minister, you're ON and don't you forget it!
So I sympathize with President Obama. He shot from the hip and scattered a lot of buckshot around, some of it hitting him in places he didn't intend. In fact, he probably didn't intend any of it. This is a guy who has been trying, for God's sake and that of the American people, to get some movement on health care reform; he's been tactfulizing his words for weeks now.
Losing it in public and using a naughty word like "stupid" is not too surprising, after what he's been working on and with whom he's been working. "Stupid" probably actually refers to some of the roadblocks that have been thrown up by his opponents, but Sgt. Crowley, poor guy, took it in the shorts. Neither Crowley nor Gates had any extra tact going on themselves, Gates just home from a trip and Crowley trying to do his job.
One thing that has struck me in all this is that a neighbor apparently turned Gates in. A neighbor? Didn't the neighbor recognize the guy? What kind of a neighborhood is this where people don't recognize the folks who live across the street or next door? No wonder Crowley was suspicious. And no wonder Gates was peeved.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
What a way to begin married life!
Just had to post this. I'd love to officiate at a wedding that began like this!
When health trumps promises
Way last year, I welcomed a colleague into our pulpit as the first half of a pulpit exchange. She is the fulltime minister of a congregation about 400 miles away from here and was on her way to a gathering in the San Juan islands, so it was very convenient for her to preach for us one Sunday in October.
In return, we arranged that I would go to her church this weekend and preach for her congregation. Unfortunately, once I got home from my Eliot week, I started feeling ill. It began as a scratchy throat, progressed into congestion for a couple of days, and has now settled into a very very sore throat, untameable by even the strongest pain relievers or lozenges. So I am miserable---partly from the sore throat and partly from the need to cancel my weekend 400 miles away.
I hate to let people down. In recompense, I will send her a check for a speaker's fee, so that it feels more fair. But I'm reminded that when you do work like this, you have to make some hard choices. Fortunately, most congregations keep a folder of backup plans for such emergencies. My own congregation manages this sort of thing very well, as it did when my wayward retina forced me to cancel on them.
This isn't as drastic as a detached retina but it brings to mind the same lesson----health sometimes has to trump promises. It just bothers me a lot that this has happened to me twice now this year. I like to think of myself as having excellent health, high energy, and unlimited resources. At age 67, perhaps it's not as true as it once was.
In return, we arranged that I would go to her church this weekend and preach for her congregation. Unfortunately, once I got home from my Eliot week, I started feeling ill. It began as a scratchy throat, progressed into congestion for a couple of days, and has now settled into a very very sore throat, untameable by even the strongest pain relievers or lozenges. So I am miserable---partly from the sore throat and partly from the need to cancel my weekend 400 miles away.
I hate to let people down. In recompense, I will send her a check for a speaker's fee, so that it feels more fair. But I'm reminded that when you do work like this, you have to make some hard choices. Fortunately, most congregations keep a folder of backup plans for such emergencies. My own congregation manages this sort of thing very well, as it did when my wayward retina forced me to cancel on them.
This isn't as drastic as a detached retina but it brings to mind the same lesson----health sometimes has to trump promises. It just bothers me a lot that this has happened to me twice now this year. I like to think of myself as having excellent health, high energy, and unlimited resources. At age 67, perhaps it's not as true as it once was.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Post-Eliot Reflections
Eliot Institute is a week-long summer camp at Seabeck, WA, which attracts a couple hundred campers for a week in July and a week in August. There is also a June session at Naramata, BC, since it is an international entity. I've been to both July and August but not yet to Naramata.
This past week at July Eliot featured the Rev. Stefan Jonasson from Winnipeg talking about "Letters of the Spirit", the many ways reverence is expressed in sacred texts of many kinds. The drill is that the speaker, in this case Stefan, speaks every morning (about an hour) Sunday through Friday, and after his talk, we meet in small groups to discuss questions he's posed. It's a very good format and I always enjoy it.
This July I was chaplain for the camp, a pretty easy duty though we did have a short memorial service for a longtime camper who died this past spring. I also had opportunities to talk with other campers about spiritual or ministry issues. I enjoy being chaplain, but this time I felt quite low-key in my approach to the role. I just didn't have the energy to put myself out there much.
I think it was possibly that I attended my 50th high school reunion on Friday and Saturday and had to hurry up to Seabeck on Sunday, a day late, and it took some of the excitement out of seeing old friends and making new ones at Eliot. I was also pretty tired from the long drive, which started at 6 a.m. Sunday morning and ended at about 2 p.m. that afternoon. It's a pretty long haul from Pendleton to Seabeck!
But the reunion was worth every long moment of driving. We started gathering on Friday afternoon at the parking lot of Athena's elementary school; a couple of our group had set up their RVs side by side and erected a canopy to keep out the hot sun. Beer in the coolers, snacks on the table, people we barely recognized alongside us.
What a shock to see formerly carrot-topped Danny Moore, one of my academic rivals in the race for top honors in our graduating class of 20, snowy-topped but still lanky and funny and full of stories about his life since we'd seen him last. Danny, now Daniel, is the composer of a couple of pretty wellknown songs ---Shambala and My Maria---and many others I can't think of immediately. Needless to say, we were impressed! And really thankful that he'd made the effort to come to the reunion. It was his first time back in Athena since graduation and he filled in the details. Turns out he never has done anything but music----dropped out of college as a sophomore and went to LA to sing and compose. And he's never had a day job.
Anyhow, people I once was a bit intimidated by (boys, especially) turned out to be human beings too, funny and still cute and willing to talk to formerly-dweebish me. I was never one of the popular girls---too much the goody-two-shoes---but all that was old news during the reunion and we had a great time reminiscing.
Athena is a small community halfway between Pendleton, Oregon, and Walla Walla, Washington. It is primarily wheat and peas country and harvests of both were going on as we met. The weather is always very hot in the summer (about 95 on this weekend). This particular weekend was also Caledonian Days, their annual Highland Games festival, because of Athena's Scottish roots. The high school was McEwen High, though now it has consolidated with another small high school nearby (Weston) and is, strangely, the "Tiger-Scots", conflating two rather diverse mascots. Oh well.
We were sobered to realize that of our 20 class members, 10 of them are now dead. Some died in accidents but a significant number died of cancer. Since Athena is south-east of Hanford, the nuclear armaments plant now mostly demobbed, there is concern that these deaths were due to the "downwind" effect. Athena was officially declared Not a Downwind Site, but you have to wonder. Of course, this is also a town which is surrounded by fields which get significant amounts of pesticides, via crop-dusters. And it may also be significant that most of those who died of cancer still lived in the area. There are cancer survivors as well in our class.
During my time away, I got a panicky email from the catsitter----Max had escaped. He had apparently torn open a screen on a window and hightailed it into the briar patch. He came back eventually but once inside, he did a pretty good job of soaking the comforter on the guest bed. So I spent a couple of days, once back, cleaning that up thoroughly. Fortunately, it only got the comforter, which can easily be washed and is synthetic, so odors don't tend to linger.
Okay, you're caught up now. Hope you've all been okay. I'm fighting off a cold, which descended on Sunday and has diminished a bit but is keeping me from feeling very energetic. Friday I leave again to complete my half of a pulpit exchange that started last October, when my colleague Annie Holmes spoke at UUCWI. I'm going to Roseburg OR to preach in her church this weekend, taking it easy both ways (it's about 400 miles one way), visiting friends to and from. I'll be back Monday. Pray for me----I'm tired of traveling!
This past week at July Eliot featured the Rev. Stefan Jonasson from Winnipeg talking about "Letters of the Spirit", the many ways reverence is expressed in sacred texts of many kinds. The drill is that the speaker, in this case Stefan, speaks every morning (about an hour) Sunday through Friday, and after his talk, we meet in small groups to discuss questions he's posed. It's a very good format and I always enjoy it.
This July I was chaplain for the camp, a pretty easy duty though we did have a short memorial service for a longtime camper who died this past spring. I also had opportunities to talk with other campers about spiritual or ministry issues. I enjoy being chaplain, but this time I felt quite low-key in my approach to the role. I just didn't have the energy to put myself out there much.
I think it was possibly that I attended my 50th high school reunion on Friday and Saturday and had to hurry up to Seabeck on Sunday, a day late, and it took some of the excitement out of seeing old friends and making new ones at Eliot. I was also pretty tired from the long drive, which started at 6 a.m. Sunday morning and ended at about 2 p.m. that afternoon. It's a pretty long haul from Pendleton to Seabeck!
But the reunion was worth every long moment of driving. We started gathering on Friday afternoon at the parking lot of Athena's elementary school; a couple of our group had set up their RVs side by side and erected a canopy to keep out the hot sun. Beer in the coolers, snacks on the table, people we barely recognized alongside us.
What a shock to see formerly carrot-topped Danny Moore, one of my academic rivals in the race for top honors in our graduating class of 20, snowy-topped but still lanky and funny and full of stories about his life since we'd seen him last. Danny, now Daniel, is the composer of a couple of pretty wellknown songs ---Shambala and My Maria---and many others I can't think of immediately. Needless to say, we were impressed! And really thankful that he'd made the effort to come to the reunion. It was his first time back in Athena since graduation and he filled in the details. Turns out he never has done anything but music----dropped out of college as a sophomore and went to LA to sing and compose. And he's never had a day job.
Anyhow, people I once was a bit intimidated by (boys, especially) turned out to be human beings too, funny and still cute and willing to talk to formerly-dweebish me. I was never one of the popular girls---too much the goody-two-shoes---but all that was old news during the reunion and we had a great time reminiscing.
Athena is a small community halfway between Pendleton, Oregon, and Walla Walla, Washington. It is primarily wheat and peas country and harvests of both were going on as we met. The weather is always very hot in the summer (about 95 on this weekend). This particular weekend was also Caledonian Days, their annual Highland Games festival, because of Athena's Scottish roots. The high school was McEwen High, though now it has consolidated with another small high school nearby (Weston) and is, strangely, the "Tiger-Scots", conflating two rather diverse mascots. Oh well.
We were sobered to realize that of our 20 class members, 10 of them are now dead. Some died in accidents but a significant number died of cancer. Since Athena is south-east of Hanford, the nuclear armaments plant now mostly demobbed, there is concern that these deaths were due to the "downwind" effect. Athena was officially declared Not a Downwind Site, but you have to wonder. Of course, this is also a town which is surrounded by fields which get significant amounts of pesticides, via crop-dusters. And it may also be significant that most of those who died of cancer still lived in the area. There are cancer survivors as well in our class.
During my time away, I got a panicky email from the catsitter----Max had escaped. He had apparently torn open a screen on a window and hightailed it into the briar patch. He came back eventually but once inside, he did a pretty good job of soaking the comforter on the guest bed. So I spent a couple of days, once back, cleaning that up thoroughly. Fortunately, it only got the comforter, which can easily be washed and is synthetic, so odors don't tend to linger.
Okay, you're caught up now. Hope you've all been okay. I'm fighting off a cold, which descended on Sunday and has diminished a bit but is keeping me from feeling very energetic. Friday I leave again to complete my half of a pulpit exchange that started last October, when my colleague Annie Holmes spoke at UUCWI. I'm going to Roseburg OR to preach in her church this weekend, taking it easy both ways (it's about 400 miles one way), visiting friends to and from. I'll be back Monday. Pray for me----I'm tired of traveling!
Sunday, July 19, 2009
A video making the rounds here in Washington
If you are a Washington resident and are asked to sign the petition to put this proposition on the November ballot, please decline to sign. Equal rights are not a voting issue.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Updates: reunion, Max, July Eliot
Okay, we have a lot of ground to cover, so let's get on with it. I don't know if I'll be able to post again before the 18th, so here goes.
On Thursday last, I got up very early, hit the 5:10 a.m. ferry and hightailed it for Moses Lake, to catch a day with my sister and her family. I'd left the cats plenty of food, covered the bed carefully to discourage urinary punishments by Maxwelton, and though I was a bit worried about whether Max would beat up on Loosy, I figured my precautions would cover all the bases otherwise.
Friday I got a message from the catsitter: Max had pried open the window screen in my bedroom (don't ask me how he did it) and had left the premises. Gone. Disappeared. And though she had looked everywhere outdoors, he was not to be found. She was distraught, I was philosophical though a little worried. I told her to put some dry food outside on the deck and that he'd likely be back eventually.
Also Friday I had left Moses Lake and headed south to Pendleton, where I'd rented a motel room (air conditioned---a necessity out there) and gussied up for the reunion. After all, I was going to be seeing people I hadn't seen for 50 years and wanted to look less like the preacher's pious daughter and more like the more worldly preacher.
The reunion was a blast and I'll tell you more about that at some point. This morning, I left P'ton at 6 a.m. and drove for 8 hours to get to Seabeck, where I am about to fall into bed to sleep the sleep of the overly tired and formerly tipsy. But imagine my delight to get an email from the catsitter informing me that Max had returned.
Hallelujah!
On Thursday last, I got up very early, hit the 5:10 a.m. ferry and hightailed it for Moses Lake, to catch a day with my sister and her family. I'd left the cats plenty of food, covered the bed carefully to discourage urinary punishments by Maxwelton, and though I was a bit worried about whether Max would beat up on Loosy, I figured my precautions would cover all the bases otherwise.
Friday I got a message from the catsitter: Max had pried open the window screen in my bedroom (don't ask me how he did it) and had left the premises. Gone. Disappeared. And though she had looked everywhere outdoors, he was not to be found. She was distraught, I was philosophical though a little worried. I told her to put some dry food outside on the deck and that he'd likely be back eventually.
Also Friday I had left Moses Lake and headed south to Pendleton, where I'd rented a motel room (air conditioned---a necessity out there) and gussied up for the reunion. After all, I was going to be seeing people I hadn't seen for 50 years and wanted to look less like the preacher's pious daughter and more like the more worldly preacher.
The reunion was a blast and I'll tell you more about that at some point. This morning, I left P'ton at 6 a.m. and drove for 8 hours to get to Seabeck, where I am about to fall into bed to sleep the sleep of the overly tired and formerly tipsy. But imagine my delight to get an email from the catsitter informing me that Max had returned.
Hallelujah!
Wednesday, July 08, 2009
Another quibble
It surprises me that there's some resistance to the ritual of the laying on of hands, as done for our new UUA president, the Rev. Peter Morales, as he took office recently. Here's what Wikipedia has to say, and it's pretty clear that the ritual is not only for ordination but also to bless and to confer authority. Boy, if there's anything the UUA prez needs, it's blessing and authority! And he might need a bit of that healing property too at some point.
Wikipedia says:
Wikipedia says:
The laying on of hands is a religious practice found throughout the world in varying forms. In Christian churches, this practice is used as both a symbolic and formal method of invoking the Holy Spirit during baptisms, healing services, blessings, and ordination of priests, ministers, elders, deacons, and other church officers, along with a variety of other church sacraments and holy ceremonies.
| (I tried to make this gap smaller, but it didn't work. Wiki goes on...) |
The tradition of the laying on of hands has its roots in the times of the bible. The laying on of hands was an action that conferred blessing or authority. To wit, Isaac blessed his son Jacob by laying hands (Genesis 27), and Aaron and the High Priests who succeeded him transferred the sins of the Children of Israel to a sacrificial goat (Leviticus 16:21). Finally, in the Old Testament priests were ordained by the laying on of hands.
In the New Testament the laying on of hands was associated with the receiving of the Holy Spirit (See Acts 8:14-19). Initially the Apostles laid hands on new believers as well as believers who were called to a particular service. (See Acts 6:5). In the early church, the practice continued and is still used in a wide variety of church ceremonies, such as the ceremony of confirmation, where a bishop, priest, or minister lays hands on the confirmand and prays for them to receive the Holy Spirit. Many churches also lay hands on a person when commissioning them to particular work, such as missionary or pastoral service.
In its healing form, the laying on of hands is based on biblical precedent set by Jesus. Jesus would walk for days, offering his healing power to peasants and whores, alike. Both Christian and non-Christian faith healers will lay hands on people when praying for healing, and often the name of Jesus is invoked as the spiritual agency through which the healing of physical ailments is believed to be obtained.
Me again: to be sure, the ritual of laying-on-of-hands has been primarily reserved in UUism for the act of ordination and I can understand the questions, but it seems to me that a bit of googling would reveal the definition to be bigger than objectors might have thought.
Tuesday, July 07, 2009
Standing Alongside Lovers
I know there are quibbles with the heavy emphasis right now on the UUA's "Standing on the Side of Love" campaign, but I like it. I would be hard-pressed to uncover anything more theologically apt for UUs than to focus our attention on Love and its power and meaning in the world. I don't want us to argue about this in the comments, though, okay?
Because this post is not about that campaign. Instead, it is about this past Sunday afternoon when I got to stand alongside two lovers and proclaim their love to the gathering of friends and family members, sanctify it with my love and that of the community, and promise to stand by it and by them.
The love that was present on Sunday afternoon was so visible, so joyous, so full of life and energy that it eclipsed the fear and hesitance that is often present when two women decide to make their love public.
As the two brides came down the aisle together, their faces outshone the light slanting in through the sanctuary windows. Their bridal garb----a white dress here, a resplendent rainbow tunic there---quietly represented the meaning of the moment: this love is pure, this love is beautiful and everlasting---and legitimate. This love can speak its name.
In their words to each other, they acknowledged the 15 years they have been partners and spoke those ancient words of commitment to each other: to love, honor and cherish, for always. In those 15 years, they have already loved and honored and cherished a thousand ways, just as lovers have always tried to do.
In their words to their community, they thanked friends and family for their love and asked these dear ones to stand by them, to defend their love if necessary, and to support their marriage as they grow together in this new way.
"Standing on the Side of Love" isn't just the title of a hymn or a campaign or a new curriculum. It is active, giving, steadying, speaking truth, looking at life through this lens of Love, that human attribute that gave us life, that gives us reason for living, that gives us strength and hope.
When we ask ourselves "what does love mean to me?", we have an opportunity to go beyond the political issues of love, beyond the romantic notions of love, beyond the materialistic trappings of love, to find where love crosses paths with our own lives, where we do not love enough, where we unexpectedly find love, where we are afraid to love.
To quote from the wedding ceremony: "Love is not a mere feeling. It is active, nurturing, giving". Where else might we employ love? in cultural issues? in political arenas? is it to be reserved for certain family and community use alone?
Love is larger than any other force I can think of. I hope, I intend to stand alongside it.
Because this post is not about that campaign. Instead, it is about this past Sunday afternoon when I got to stand alongside two lovers and proclaim their love to the gathering of friends and family members, sanctify it with my love and that of the community, and promise to stand by it and by them.
The love that was present on Sunday afternoon was so visible, so joyous, so full of life and energy that it eclipsed the fear and hesitance that is often present when two women decide to make their love public.
As the two brides came down the aisle together, their faces outshone the light slanting in through the sanctuary windows. Their bridal garb----a white dress here, a resplendent rainbow tunic there---quietly represented the meaning of the moment: this love is pure, this love is beautiful and everlasting---and legitimate. This love can speak its name.
In their words to each other, they acknowledged the 15 years they have been partners and spoke those ancient words of commitment to each other: to love, honor and cherish, for always. In those 15 years, they have already loved and honored and cherished a thousand ways, just as lovers have always tried to do.
In their words to their community, they thanked friends and family for their love and asked these dear ones to stand by them, to defend their love if necessary, and to support their marriage as they grow together in this new way.
"Standing on the Side of Love" isn't just the title of a hymn or a campaign or a new curriculum. It is active, giving, steadying, speaking truth, looking at life through this lens of Love, that human attribute that gave us life, that gives us reason for living, that gives us strength and hope.
When we ask ourselves "what does love mean to me?", we have an opportunity to go beyond the political issues of love, beyond the romantic notions of love, beyond the materialistic trappings of love, to find where love crosses paths with our own lives, where we do not love enough, where we unexpectedly find love, where we are afraid to love.
To quote from the wedding ceremony: "Love is not a mere feeling. It is active, nurturing, giving". Where else might we employ love? in cultural issues? in political arenas? is it to be reserved for certain family and community use alone?
Love is larger than any other force I can think of. I hope, I intend to stand alongside it.
Saturday, July 04, 2009
The Impatient Ms. Kitty Comes Out of Hiding
Usually I am the soul of patience. In my opinion, anyhow. I am polite to telemarketers, indulgent with rebellious youth, tolerant of my cats' tendency to wake me up way too early, able to listen to criticism reflectively (at least in public), and grateful for the attentions of those I've asked to help me fix something. Like my Comcast internet service.
For two weeks, I have suffered the inconvenience of not being able to send email on my primary account name with Comcast. I didn't discover it right away; it began to dawn on me that I hadn't gotten responses to several emails sent to people who normally sent me a note in return. So I began to check things out and, yup, nobody for two weeks had gotten any messages from me.
In addition, for approximately the same period of time, all the comments for this blog had been landing in my spam folder, where I would find them, mark them "not Spam" and respond to them from my inbox.
This all seemed to coincide with some newly unveiled "improvements" on the Comcast home page, so I figured if I was just patient, it would all resolve, though I took the precaution of calling the tech desk at Comcast to ask them to check my account.
The techie at Comcast couldn't find anything wrong but reset the account and made a referral to the Big Techie who could investigate further. When the reset didn't accomplish anything, I decided to dig a little deeper. It turned out that my two secondary account names were able to send messages, so I forwarded all the messages coming into my primary inbox to one of the secondary inboxes and limped along that way for another week.
Thursday I called back to Comcast to see if the Big Techie had learned anything yet and was told I'd have to be patient a little longer----the 72 hours of wait time wasn't quite up yet and I'd be hearing something soon.
Friday morning, magically, the primary account was able to send messages and comments to Ms. Kitty's were landing in the regular inbox. I was delighted, naturally, and thanked the invisible Big Techie and his/her supervisor in the Cosmos in my prayers for the gift of repaired internet service.
Friday afternoon, Big Techie called. There's nothing wrong with your Comcast account, he said, and there hasn't been all along. It's not our fault, your email must have something wrong with it and all the recipients' services are blocking it. This was said in a somewhat accusatory tone of voice, as though he suspected me of sending porn or spam and deserved to be blocked by AOL, Whidbey Telecom, Earthlink, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc. No solutions or suggestions offered as to how to deal with this and instead his tone of voice touched off an internal response I hadn't even known I was capable of.
"STOP!" I said to him after a few minutes. "You're not listening to me. This is my experience and it is related to Comcast. I am sending out the same kind of email I have always sent out, it is not spam or porn, it coincided with changes Comcast made to its home page, and I am convinced that it is connected."
His response was to reiterate his "not our fault" mantra over and over, talking over me, and eventually I just slammed down the phone in frustration. The interesting thing was that I felt absolutely no regret or guilt, no need to apologize for my attitude, nothing but impatience with how Big Techie had come across. A good customer service rep needs better people skills and I hope he gets them.
Of course, in retrospect, I realize that he is probably right, that whatever it was, it wasn't really Comcast. Somehow my primary account was erroneously marked as suspect, possibly connected to the name of this blog because it is slightly bawdy, and comments to Ms. Kitty's are emailed to my primary account. The fact that they both corrected simultaneously seems significant.
I may be entirely wrong in my theorizing but it's the best I can do. And while I am prepared to admit that Big Techie might be right, I am not inclined to apologize for my impatience. I do wonder where it came from, though. I just started taking a medication to improve my cholesterol numbers and am enough of a hypochondriac to wonder if three days of Zocor could make me an irascible old lady. I guess time will tell.
There are times it is safe to be impatient, hang up on somebody who is being rude, and enjoy the satisfaction of having spoken one's mind and acted impatiently under the circumstances. There are other times it is not safe to do so. I hope to be able to tell the difference!
For two weeks, I have suffered the inconvenience of not being able to send email on my primary account name with Comcast. I didn't discover it right away; it began to dawn on me that I hadn't gotten responses to several emails sent to people who normally sent me a note in return. So I began to check things out and, yup, nobody for two weeks had gotten any messages from me.
In addition, for approximately the same period of time, all the comments for this blog had been landing in my spam folder, where I would find them, mark them "not Spam" and respond to them from my inbox.
This all seemed to coincide with some newly unveiled "improvements" on the Comcast home page, so I figured if I was just patient, it would all resolve, though I took the precaution of calling the tech desk at Comcast to ask them to check my account.
The techie at Comcast couldn't find anything wrong but reset the account and made a referral to the Big Techie who could investigate further. When the reset didn't accomplish anything, I decided to dig a little deeper. It turned out that my two secondary account names were able to send messages, so I forwarded all the messages coming into my primary inbox to one of the secondary inboxes and limped along that way for another week.
Thursday I called back to Comcast to see if the Big Techie had learned anything yet and was told I'd have to be patient a little longer----the 72 hours of wait time wasn't quite up yet and I'd be hearing something soon.
Friday morning, magically, the primary account was able to send messages and comments to Ms. Kitty's were landing in the regular inbox. I was delighted, naturally, and thanked the invisible Big Techie and his/her supervisor in the Cosmos in my prayers for the gift of repaired internet service.
Friday afternoon, Big Techie called. There's nothing wrong with your Comcast account, he said, and there hasn't been all along. It's not our fault, your email must have something wrong with it and all the recipients' services are blocking it. This was said in a somewhat accusatory tone of voice, as though he suspected me of sending porn or spam and deserved to be blocked by AOL, Whidbey Telecom, Earthlink, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc. No solutions or suggestions offered as to how to deal with this and instead his tone of voice touched off an internal response I hadn't even known I was capable of.
"STOP!" I said to him after a few minutes. "You're not listening to me. This is my experience and it is related to Comcast. I am sending out the same kind of email I have always sent out, it is not spam or porn, it coincided with changes Comcast made to its home page, and I am convinced that it is connected."
His response was to reiterate his "not our fault" mantra over and over, talking over me, and eventually I just slammed down the phone in frustration. The interesting thing was that I felt absolutely no regret or guilt, no need to apologize for my attitude, nothing but impatience with how Big Techie had come across. A good customer service rep needs better people skills and I hope he gets them.
Of course, in retrospect, I realize that he is probably right, that whatever it was, it wasn't really Comcast. Somehow my primary account was erroneously marked as suspect, possibly connected to the name of this blog because it is slightly bawdy, and comments to Ms. Kitty's are emailed to my primary account. The fact that they both corrected simultaneously seems significant.
I may be entirely wrong in my theorizing but it's the best I can do. And while I am prepared to admit that Big Techie might be right, I am not inclined to apologize for my impatience. I do wonder where it came from, though. I just started taking a medication to improve my cholesterol numbers and am enough of a hypochondriac to wonder if three days of Zocor could make me an irascible old lady. I guess time will tell.
There are times it is safe to be impatient, hang up on somebody who is being rude, and enjoy the satisfaction of having spoken one's mind and acted impatiently under the circumstances. There are other times it is not safe to do so. I hope to be able to tell the difference!
Thursday, July 02, 2009
July and Independence
Ever since I started with this lovely congregation, back in 2003, I've been setting aside July as the month I "go on vacation". I have the best intentions: to stay out of their hair, to avoid discussing congregational business, to respond only to emergencies, to do a bit of traveling off-island, and to have a lot of fun.
Problem is, ministry is fun, mostly. I do refrain from making recommendations about issues and business, unless it's of an emergency nature. I do go traveling a bit. I do some entertaining of non-church friends and meet those friends for coffee or a jam or barbecue occasionally.
There is one situation that is critical and cannot be abandoned. I will continue to visit and care for this individual as I can during my "vacation". Independence from pastoral care is one of those ministerial duties that doesn't really seem to exist. There is always someone who can't be set aside for a month; too much can happen when someone is very ill. I want to be available if possible when the end comes.
But today I'm going up to Coupeville for lunch with two Astoria friends and next week I'll head for Moses Lake to spend one day and night with my sister and family before going to my 50th high school reunion in Athena. Class of 59, McEwen High School Scotties, Athena, Oregon---go you Scots!
The reunion actually takes place every year in July in Athena, during Caledonian Days, a celebration of Scottish life and customs, with dancing, dog trials, that sort of thing. We grads (and it's "whoever's still vertical") hang out in the park or over by the high school parking lot in RV's, drinking beer and eating barbecue, decorating our class float for the Saturday parade, and reminiscing about old times. It will be fun.
Sunday morning I have to scoot back up to Puget Sound to be the chaplain at July Eliot, the PNW's UU summer camp. That too will be fun.
Now if I can just go incognito to worship on the Sundays I'm here. It's the first year we've had July services and there are some cool things happening on Sunday. Maybe I can wear a nametag that says "I'm only here for worship and coffee hour; no business conversations, please".
Problem is, ministry is fun, mostly. I do refrain from making recommendations about issues and business, unless it's of an emergency nature. I do go traveling a bit. I do some entertaining of non-church friends and meet those friends for coffee or a jam or barbecue occasionally.
There is one situation that is critical and cannot be abandoned. I will continue to visit and care for this individual as I can during my "vacation". Independence from pastoral care is one of those ministerial duties that doesn't really seem to exist. There is always someone who can't be set aside for a month; too much can happen when someone is very ill. I want to be available if possible when the end comes.
But today I'm going up to Coupeville for lunch with two Astoria friends and next week I'll head for Moses Lake to spend one day and night with my sister and family before going to my 50th high school reunion in Athena. Class of 59, McEwen High School Scotties, Athena, Oregon---go you Scots!
The reunion actually takes place every year in July in Athena, during Caledonian Days, a celebration of Scottish life and customs, with dancing, dog trials, that sort of thing. We grads (and it's "whoever's still vertical") hang out in the park or over by the high school parking lot in RV's, drinking beer and eating barbecue, decorating our class float for the Saturday parade, and reminiscing about old times. It will be fun.
Sunday morning I have to scoot back up to Puget Sound to be the chaplain at July Eliot, the PNW's UU summer camp. That too will be fun.
Now if I can just go incognito to worship on the Sundays I'm here. It's the first year we've had July services and there are some cool things happening on Sunday. Maybe I can wear a nametag that says "I'm only here for worship and coffee hour; no business conversations, please".
Monday, June 29, 2009
Letter to President Obama
I wrote a letter to President Obama which is copied into the comments section of the previous post on DADT. Write a letter yourself! This is a serious humanitarian concern.
This is NOT a confidentiality issue...
because I'm not going to talk about people, except generally. But it's an issue about which confidentiality and controversy swirl: Don't Ask, Don't Tell. That's the dubious policy of the U.S. Armed Forces, whose unintended consequences have resulted in witchhunts in our military units. It is against military law to do anything which would indicate that a person is homosexual and it is alsoagainst military law to ask if a person is homosexual. So all kinds of subterfuge occur to get around this policy and harass people for their sexual orientation.
Last night I sat and listened to a seasoned veteran of our armed forces give advice to men and women who are gay or lesbian and in the military. It was chilling, especially to hear the tactics used by some in the military to "out" gay and lesbian servicemembers. These tactics amount to stalking, in my opinion, and the personal stories shared included being together as a couple two hours away from the military base and suddenly being joined by a group of military colleagues who just happened to be in the same place at the same time.
Or being asked repeatedly by a member of the opposite sex why s/he won't date a man/woman. Or being sexually harassed and told "you and your partner just come with us and we'll show you what really works". Or being photographed in a public place with one's partner whose looks seem to indicate gayness. Or having one's personal room on the base searched by "superiors" looking for evidence, on the grounds that "everything on the base belongs to the military".
Men and women who have served our country well and who wish to continue to serve our country are being hounded out of the military in droves and by devious and cruel tactics. I heard references to women being raped "to show them how real sex should be", to people being injured by apparently deliberate actions of a colleague in order to get information, even to a killing that may have occurred because of hatred toward her for her lesbianism.
If a servicemember objects to this kind of treatment, that's further evidence, in the eyes of the military. If a servicemember lies about his/her sexuality, that's further evidence and, additionally, it's illegal to lie about it. It is against military law to live as a domestic partner, to marry one's partner, to acknowledge one's sexual orientation or engage in any physical affection with a member of the same sex.
The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network was formed to offer legal and moral assistance to servicemembers who are faced with this kind of career-busting treatment. No homosexual person in the military is safe, because once the authorities have homed in on someone, they may promise to drop all charges in exchange for the names of other gays and lesbian servicemembers. This is a false promise, because to drop charges in this situation would be illegal.
Even if one's commanding officer is gay or lesbian and seems to be in a protective position, s/he is not, for the officer is him/herself in danger and can be discharged as well. One's only hope seems to be for an honorable discharge at this point, as a known gay person is out, no matter what, it appears.
Hounding gays and lesbians out of the military certainly seems counterproductive for our nation, seeing as how we are hard-pressed to muster enough volunteers already. And the secrecy engendered by DADT leads to cruel and inhumane treatment of good people by people who are threatened by homosexuality. And, like the proverbial butterfly on a pin, the good people have no recourse except to put up with it, leave their careers, or die.
Excuse me while I write President Obama. I'll let you know if I hear something back. While we're at it, why don't you write something too? Our bglt friends and neighbors and the defenders of our country need us to help.
UPDATE: I have posted my letter to President Obama in the comments section of this post.
Last night I sat and listened to a seasoned veteran of our armed forces give advice to men and women who are gay or lesbian and in the military. It was chilling, especially to hear the tactics used by some in the military to "out" gay and lesbian servicemembers. These tactics amount to stalking, in my opinion, and the personal stories shared included being together as a couple two hours away from the military base and suddenly being joined by a group of military colleagues who just happened to be in the same place at the same time.
Or being asked repeatedly by a member of the opposite sex why s/he won't date a man/woman. Or being sexually harassed and told "you and your partner just come with us and we'll show you what really works". Or being photographed in a public place with one's partner whose looks seem to indicate gayness. Or having one's personal room on the base searched by "superiors" looking for evidence, on the grounds that "everything on the base belongs to the military".
Men and women who have served our country well and who wish to continue to serve our country are being hounded out of the military in droves and by devious and cruel tactics. I heard references to women being raped "to show them how real sex should be", to people being injured by apparently deliberate actions of a colleague in order to get information, even to a killing that may have occurred because of hatred toward her for her lesbianism.
If a servicemember objects to this kind of treatment, that's further evidence, in the eyes of the military. If a servicemember lies about his/her sexuality, that's further evidence and, additionally, it's illegal to lie about it. It is against military law to live as a domestic partner, to marry one's partner, to acknowledge one's sexual orientation or engage in any physical affection with a member of the same sex.
The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network was formed to offer legal and moral assistance to servicemembers who are faced with this kind of career-busting treatment. No homosexual person in the military is safe, because once the authorities have homed in on someone, they may promise to drop all charges in exchange for the names of other gays and lesbian servicemembers. This is a false promise, because to drop charges in this situation would be illegal.
Even if one's commanding officer is gay or lesbian and seems to be in a protective position, s/he is not, for the officer is him/herself in danger and can be discharged as well. One's only hope seems to be for an honorable discharge at this point, as a known gay person is out, no matter what, it appears.
Hounding gays and lesbians out of the military certainly seems counterproductive for our nation, seeing as how we are hard-pressed to muster enough volunteers already. And the secrecy engendered by DADT leads to cruel and inhumane treatment of good people by people who are threatened by homosexuality. And, like the proverbial butterfly on a pin, the good people have no recourse except to put up with it, leave their careers, or die.
Excuse me while I write President Obama. I'll let you know if I hear something back. While we're at it, why don't you write something too? Our bglt friends and neighbors and the defenders of our country need us to help.
UPDATE: I have posted my letter to President Obama in the comments section of this post.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
I was a Hallman supporter yesterday; I'm a Morales supporter today.
One of the things I have most appreciated about UUA presidential elections is the camaraderie and friendly rivalry between candidates. I was first getting active in UU congregational and district life when John Buehrens and Carolyn Owen-Towle were running for president, sixteen years ago. They set a standard, in my mind, of how elections between two very different, highly qualified candidates can be conducted.
They were colleagues and friends first. They were competitors second. And, when John Buehrens won that election, Carolyn Owen-Towle was a gracious runner-up. John led the UUA in positive directions, mentoring and encouraging leaders, providing continuity of purpose and mission. Carolyn did not publicly second-guess or criticize him; if she had concerns, she voiced them only in confidential settings.
Eight years later, Bill Sinkford and Diane Miller conducted the same kind of respectful campaign. Though there was considerable hope among many that a woman would win the election this time, when Bill was elected, it was clear that gender was not such an important factor to the electorate and there was little whining about that loss, as far as I could tell, despite Diane's considerable leadership strengths and charisma.
Now, another eight years later, Peter Morales and Laurel Hallman have conducted yet another respectful, yet intense campaign. And Peter has won, decisively. I supported Laurel in her candidacy; I believed that her strengths outweighed Peter's in some important areas. Yet I knew that either candidate would take the UUA in directions that would add to our strength and growth as a religious tradition which hopes to adjust the trajectory of society.
Yesterday I was a Hallman supporter. Today I am still a Hallman supporter because she is one terrific minister, leader, human being. But Peter can count on me as he forges ahead with his goals for our faith tradition. Today I am also a Morales supporter.
They were colleagues and friends first. They were competitors second. And, when John Buehrens won that election, Carolyn Owen-Towle was a gracious runner-up. John led the UUA in positive directions, mentoring and encouraging leaders, providing continuity of purpose and mission. Carolyn did not publicly second-guess or criticize him; if she had concerns, she voiced them only in confidential settings.
Eight years later, Bill Sinkford and Diane Miller conducted the same kind of respectful campaign. Though there was considerable hope among many that a woman would win the election this time, when Bill was elected, it was clear that gender was not such an important factor to the electorate and there was little whining about that loss, as far as I could tell, despite Diane's considerable leadership strengths and charisma.
Now, another eight years later, Peter Morales and Laurel Hallman have conducted yet another respectful, yet intense campaign. And Peter has won, decisively. I supported Laurel in her candidacy; I believed that her strengths outweighed Peter's in some important areas. Yet I knew that either candidate would take the UUA in directions that would add to our strength and growth as a religious tradition which hopes to adjust the trajectory of society.
Yesterday I was a Hallman supporter. Today I am still a Hallman supporter because she is one terrific minister, leader, human being. But Peter can count on me as he forges ahead with his goals for our faith tradition. Today I am also a Morales supporter.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Confidentiality is a bear.
I say that having started two different posts in the past five minutes, thinking that both topics are germane, have gotten me upset about a political or personal issue, and are worthy of further exploration.
Each post was a few sentences underway and then I got a chill: what if this post accidentally reveals something that is confidential? who would be hurt? does it pass the litmus test: is it kind, is it true, is it necessary?
The kind and true parts were there. I could make the post both kind and true. But there is no way I could overlook the "necessary" part. Is it ever necessary to talk about situations of adultery or sexual orientation without the permission of those involved? Nope, not ever.
Confidentiality is one of those tempting-to-set-aside-in-favor-of-drama ethical issues. As both a minister and school counselor, I've known this for a long time. It has also helped me understand that I love drama and the temptation to tell a dramatic story, with identities well-concealed, is something I have to watch out for.
Sometimes it can be done carefully. But the two issues I was tempted to write about began to raise questions in my mind about privacy concerns. So you're not going to get a dramatic story about DADT (don't ask; don't tell) or about my flummoxed reaction upon seeing this morning's headlines about Gov. Sanford. Not that I don't have big opinions about both of them, but my personal connection to each issue, the dramatic story I'd love to tell, makes it too close to the bone for some folks.
Maybe what I can tell you is how ambivalent I feel when I see journalists picking away at the flaws in the work or the life of public figures. While I know that this is one of the hazards of being in public life, I am also appalled that nothing in those lives can be private, that it is all open to scrutiny and speculation.
We as a country seem to feed on the flaws of others; witness Fox News's approach to dissecting every word and gesture of those they don't like. But it's interesting to me to witness, as well, the hypocrisy of those who point the fingers. I need to remind myself that when I point fingers, I too run the risk of hypocrisy. For who among us can cast the first stone? Not me.
Each post was a few sentences underway and then I got a chill: what if this post accidentally reveals something that is confidential? who would be hurt? does it pass the litmus test: is it kind, is it true, is it necessary?
The kind and true parts were there. I could make the post both kind and true. But there is no way I could overlook the "necessary" part. Is it ever necessary to talk about situations of adultery or sexual orientation without the permission of those involved? Nope, not ever.
Confidentiality is one of those tempting-to-set-aside-in-favor-of-drama ethical issues. As both a minister and school counselor, I've known this for a long time. It has also helped me understand that I love drama and the temptation to tell a dramatic story, with identities well-concealed, is something I have to watch out for.
Sometimes it can be done carefully. But the two issues I was tempted to write about began to raise questions in my mind about privacy concerns. So you're not going to get a dramatic story about DADT (don't ask; don't tell) or about my flummoxed reaction upon seeing this morning's headlines about Gov. Sanford. Not that I don't have big opinions about both of them, but my personal connection to each issue, the dramatic story I'd love to tell, makes it too close to the bone for some folks.
Maybe what I can tell you is how ambivalent I feel when I see journalists picking away at the flaws in the work or the life of public figures. While I know that this is one of the hazards of being in public life, I am also appalled that nothing in those lives can be private, that it is all open to scrutiny and speculation.
We as a country seem to feed on the flaws of others; witness Fox News's approach to dissecting every word and gesture of those they don't like. But it's interesting to me to witness, as well, the hypocrisy of those who point the fingers. I need to remind myself that when I point fingers, I too run the risk of hypocrisy. For who among us can cast the first stone? Not me.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Bayview Sound photo shoot
Thought you might like to see one of the photos we took today for publicity for an upcoming gig.
Photo by Bridgit Smith.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
A Spiritual Journey: 10 years of ordained ministry
A SPIRITUAL JOURNEY: THE LESSONS OF 10 YEARS OF ORDAINED MINISTRY
Rev. Kit Ketcham, June 21, 2009
Rev. Kit Ketcham, June 21, 2009
It was my turn to speak that day in September of 1992, our ingathering service at the beginning of the new church year at Jefferson Unitarian Church in Golden, CO. As a member of the Committee on Ministry, I’d volunteered to give a brief homily or sermonette on the ups and downs of the past year and our dreams for the new church year. I figured I could handle a bunch of Unitarians; after all, I’d been rasslin’ junior high kids in classrooms and lunchrooms for a couple of decades.
So I got up in the pulpit, delivered my remarks with a couple of stories and reminders of what our congregation’s year had meant to us and to the community, and returned to my seat. I figured I’d done all right---people paid attention, I saw a few nods, even a few smiles and some tears.
Our minister, the Rev. Robert Latham, was next in the pulpit and when he got up there, he turned to where I was sitting in the choir and said to me, “Kit, you missed your calling. You ought to be a minister.”
It was like the proverbial thunderbolt: I was stunned and sat for the rest of the service with Robert’s words echoing in my ears. I ought to be a minister? I ought to be a minister? I ought to be a minister!
Reviewing my life so far as I sat there, I realized that I had accumulated a number of the skills I could see that a minister needed: counseling, teaching, music, writing, herding cats---or rather junior high kids---, even public speaking, if you count lunchroom duty and the use of a bullhorn on a playground. Maybe I could be a minister! Maybe I could do it! Yes, I think I could!
But over the next months, reality set in. I wasn’t very close to retirement; my son was barely out of high school and still living at home and I was pretty well loaded down with the responsibilities of a single parent household. So it didn’t make any sense at all to quit my job as a school counselor and start studying at the local theological school. My calling was put on the back burner and eventually even set aside.
But in 1995, three years later, the thunderbolt took a second swing. I had been elected a delegate to the UU General Assembly which was meeting in Spokane that year, and it was impossible to ignore the deeply buried desire in me to someday be one of the ministers participating in those events. I had been able to retire that year, unexpectedly, would be receiving an early-retirement bonus from the school district, and my son was living on his own.
After a long conversation with one of the women ministers I knew best, I went straight back to Colorado and enrolled at Iliff School of Theology in Denver, a very liberal United Methodist seminary. And in May of 1999, I graduated from Iliff and was ordained to the UU ministry by JUC, all in the same weekend.
Now, ten years after that momentous weekend, I’ve been looking back over that stretch of time, from the thunderbolt that called me into ministry those many years ago to this moment today, here in this beautiful room, with this congregation of loving people, and have been thinking about all I’ve learned about ministry that might mean something to you all, as a congregation and as individuals.
Because ministry is about service to others; it’s about bringing one’s experiences, learning, and compassion together in one desire—to bring hope and courage to one’s fellow humans, acting with integrity and purpose in creating positive change in the world.
Learning about ministry started for me at a very early age, as the eldest child of an American Baptist minister. From my dad, the Rev. Merritt Bernhardt Ketcham, I learned the importance of public service. I saw my dad serve on the library board of his small town, do electrical work for needy parishioners, drive migrant workers to their jobs in eastern Oregon fields, and serve his community in countless small ways.
I also learned from him that sermons should never be boring! My dad wasn’t a particularly gifted preacher, but he wasn’t boring! And I learned that ministry is very stressful work, that you can be the lightning rod for disgruntled members, and that you MUST take good care of your health because the stresses of ministry were a factor in my dad’s early death at age 60.
I learned from being a member of the Ketcham family how valuable a faith community is. Our family was literally supported by our congregations at times, since my dad’s salary was probably never much more than $400 a month and on this he made sure his kids went to college. And I learned well the value of membership in a faith community and have been a member of a congregation almost ever since I was a child.
In the congregations I joined, whether it was Baptist or Unitarian Universalist, I watched the politics of “church” unfold. I saw how easy it was to criticize and that it can have hurtful, permanent consequences. As a member of the Committee on Ministry at JUC, I saw the pain of petty criticism and the value of constructive, kind critique that took place face to face, not as an anonymous comment on a survey or in the parking lot after a worship service.
I saw how easily a promising career can be derailed by a vindictive person. And I saw how important, no, essential, it is to expect and demand ethical behavior from a minister. I saw people, both women and men, damaged by a sexual relationship with a minister who exploited their neediness.
But the negative side of ministry did not deter me. I knew I had learned a great deal from being a preacher’s kid and from being an active layperson in several congregations. I thought I knew where most of the potholes were and vowed to avoid them. So off I went to seminary.
I loved this experience of scholarship, writing, exploring Biblical literature, designing worship. I was not so crazy about the emphasis on doctrine which is a normal byproduct of a Christian seminary, however liberal. There were times I thought I would scream if I heard another word about Paul the Apostle! And the Trinity, for most of my fellow students, was a given; a Unitarian view was exotic and as one of about a dozen UU students at Iliff, I felt like the yeast in a loaf of bread dough! It had never occurred to many of my Christian peers to question the concept of Trinity!
Nevertheless, I loved my seminary experience, finally learning what the word “theology” meant in practical terms. A chaplaincy internship and a full year of parish internship at the Boulder UU Fellowship with my mentor Catharine Harris led me to believe that I was pretty hot stuff!
I was a top student at Iliff, did well in my chaplaincy and parish experiences, and when I got ready to go to the Ministerial Fellowship Committee in April of 1998, I was pretty sure they’d pat me on the back and give me an A Plus Plus and send me back to seminary for my final year as the best candidate for UU ministry they’d ever seen.
You can probably see what’s coming here, can’t you? And it was from the MFC that I began to learn probably the most important lesson a minister can learn: humility. Instead of the A Plus Plus I expected, they told me I was too intense (I think they might have preferred the word “cocky” but were too polite to use it) and needed to undertake a year of spiritual direction before they would grant me preliminary fellowship status.
A year of spiritual direction----that meant sessions with someone who could help me figure out some of the spiritual issues I was struggling with—like humility, for example, or spiritual practice, or how to be in right relationship with family members who were very conservative and were sure I was doomed to hell.
It was one of the best years of my entire life. I learned how important an active spiritual life and a regular spiritual practice are to me. I learned to pray, to pray to a Power I couldn’t describe or name or see or touch, yet who felt like a second skin, part of myself.
After graduation and ordination, in Colorado, I packed all my stuff, my cats, and headed for Portland, where I would be the first fulltime minister for a small congregation named Wy’east. And there my real education about ministry began to take shape. Everything else, it turned out, had been preliminaries.
During the four years I spent serving Wy’east, a congregation which had been formed out of conflict with a minister in another church, I encountered some of the typical problems of a small group undergoing dramatic change: disagreements about worship style, power struggles with each other about a multitude of issues, deep deep fear that a minister would try to change everything they loved, even the time of day the congregation met.
And I was a rookie! I was a rookie who had recently undergone quite a shock, learning that I didn’t know everything there was to know about ministry. Many mistakes later, on the part of the congregation and myself, we patched things up and I made preparations to move on.
But the lessons learned from that experience made me a much better, much wiser minister. I learned that too much ego is very dangerous; when one thinks too highly of oneself, one becomes a target! I learned to listen to and learn from criticism but to let go of unkind or anonymous criticism.
I learned that my strengths can also be my weaknesses, when I push them too far. My friendliness and warmth can become intrusive or too personal; my leadership can be seen as bulldozing; my way with words can lead me into eloquent defensiveness!
I learned how important it is to say that I am sorry for a mistake, for a remark that seemed unkind or insensitive, for an action taken in haste. I learned that I needed to atone for mistakes, to make amends, to repair damaged relationships. And I learned, perhaps most importantly of all, that I am only human, that I will make mistakes, that I need to listen when called to account, and that my behavior as a minister speaks far more loudly than any sermon.
These are personal lessons, as well as ministerial lessons. These are things I needed to learn as a human being. All of the lessons I’ve mentioned can be useful in ordinary life, the life of a retiree, for example, or a teacher or a parent or a musician or a cook or spouse. We’ve each of us experienced these kinds of learnings over our own lifespans. Some of the lessons have “taken”; some of them we may have ignored, preferring not to look too hard at our own lives.
Many of us, I suspect, myself included, have looked at other persons in judgment and said to ourselves, “boy, that person really needs to learn a thing or two!” Negative judgment of others may be one of the hardest lessons to learn and I confess I’m still working on it, every day. It may be that the best I can ever achieve is learning to keep my mouth shut, instead of speaking my negative judgments out loud!
So what does this all have to do with you and me and our relationships with each other, in this congregation? Or in any congregation or group that we may belong to in the future?
Here are a few lessons I believe are valuable for us as a congregation now and in the future to take to heart and keep in our memory banks, in our history, in our everyday work together. They are in no particular order and I rather imagine they are not the only lessons we need to learn! They are just the ones I’ve come up with as I thought about this sermon.
#1. Conflict is a product of living together. Conflict will always arise when people work and play together. It is normal. But it doesn’t have to hurt people if it’s handled thoughtfully. And by thoughtfully, I mean that differences of opinion must be stated tactfully, without conveying scorn or impatience with the other person. Conflict builds up in an unhealthy way when it’s handled secretively, with mean words and actions.
Talking about someone critically behind their back is not helpful; speaking face to face with someone, tactfully and caringly, is much more effective. And I always remember my dad’s admonition at this point. When I think about criticizing someone, I must ask myself “is it kind? Is it true? Is it necessary?”
#2. Human beings sometimes act out the pain in their personal lives by disrupting congregational life, causing heartache and pain in others by stirring up trouble in the congregation. This is a time for others to act with compassion and love, not by taking sides but by understanding the pain that has come forth in an inappropriate way and helping to alleviate that pain, if possible. And, if not, taking steps to protect the community by creating policies to deal with disruptive behavior. This kind of covenanting is better done during peaceful times, by the way, not in anger.
#3. And great turmoil can open us up to great joy, if we remember our mistakes and learn from them, rather than shoving them underground, refusing to deal with them or make amends. You may remember the movie “Love Story” in which a favorite line for many couples was “Love is never having to say you’re sorry”. Unfortunately, this romantic line is untrue.
Love means saying sorry whenever it’s appropriate, not glossing over mistakes but owning up to them, making amends if necessary. Many couples carried that line right into the marriage counseling office and left it there, sadder and wiser.
Let’s go back in time again, to that moment at the General Assembly in Spokane in 1995 when the call to ministry came again to me. I woke up the next morning in my hotel room with an old song running through my head.
On my way back to Colorado, after deciding I would enroll at Iliff as soon as possible, I stopped by my parents’ gravesite in Goldendale and sat at their headstone to sing this old song. For me at that moment, it was a personal commitment of myself to the journey of ministry, a moment when I understood that I was taking steps which would change my life forever, giving me a responsibility that I would never shed, that would shape my character in ways I could not predict, and give me challenges that I could only hope to meet.
I’ve printed the words in the order of service and I’d like to ask you to sing it with me if you know it or just read along as we sing. Whenever I think of these words, I think of the importance of being true, of being pure, humble, brave, giving, strong and loving. I know I will stumble, but I must return to these values in order to be the best I can be.
It occurs to me that these are good values for a congregation as well, that if we can strive to be together in these ways, we will continue to be the healthy, growing faith community that we have become over the past several years.
Please join me. Nola will play the tune for us, and then let’s sing together.
Let’s pause for a time of silent reflection and prayer.
BENEDICTION: Our worship service, our time of shaping worth together, is ended but our service to the world begins again as we leave this place. Let us go in peace, remembering that our lives are a series of lessons, no matter what our circumstances have been. We can learn positive ways of being in the world from these lessons or we can retreat into misery and unhappiness, causing unhappiness in others around us. May we as individuals and as a congregation strive to use the lessons of our lives in helpful, not hurtful ways, seeking always to give love and justice and compassion to each other and to the larger community. Amen, Shalom, Salaam, and Blessed Be.
So I got up in the pulpit, delivered my remarks with a couple of stories and reminders of what our congregation’s year had meant to us and to the community, and returned to my seat. I figured I’d done all right---people paid attention, I saw a few nods, even a few smiles and some tears.
Our minister, the Rev. Robert Latham, was next in the pulpit and when he got up there, he turned to where I was sitting in the choir and said to me, “Kit, you missed your calling. You ought to be a minister.”
It was like the proverbial thunderbolt: I was stunned and sat for the rest of the service with Robert’s words echoing in my ears. I ought to be a minister? I ought to be a minister? I ought to be a minister!
Reviewing my life so far as I sat there, I realized that I had accumulated a number of the skills I could see that a minister needed: counseling, teaching, music, writing, herding cats---or rather junior high kids---, even public speaking, if you count lunchroom duty and the use of a bullhorn on a playground. Maybe I could be a minister! Maybe I could do it! Yes, I think I could!
But over the next months, reality set in. I wasn’t very close to retirement; my son was barely out of high school and still living at home and I was pretty well loaded down with the responsibilities of a single parent household. So it didn’t make any sense at all to quit my job as a school counselor and start studying at the local theological school. My calling was put on the back burner and eventually even set aside.
But in 1995, three years later, the thunderbolt took a second swing. I had been elected a delegate to the UU General Assembly which was meeting in Spokane that year, and it was impossible to ignore the deeply buried desire in me to someday be one of the ministers participating in those events. I had been able to retire that year, unexpectedly, would be receiving an early-retirement bonus from the school district, and my son was living on his own.
After a long conversation with one of the women ministers I knew best, I went straight back to Colorado and enrolled at Iliff School of Theology in Denver, a very liberal United Methodist seminary. And in May of 1999, I graduated from Iliff and was ordained to the UU ministry by JUC, all in the same weekend.
Now, ten years after that momentous weekend, I’ve been looking back over that stretch of time, from the thunderbolt that called me into ministry those many years ago to this moment today, here in this beautiful room, with this congregation of loving people, and have been thinking about all I’ve learned about ministry that might mean something to you all, as a congregation and as individuals.
Because ministry is about service to others; it’s about bringing one’s experiences, learning, and compassion together in one desire—to bring hope and courage to one’s fellow humans, acting with integrity and purpose in creating positive change in the world.
Learning about ministry started for me at a very early age, as the eldest child of an American Baptist minister. From my dad, the Rev. Merritt Bernhardt Ketcham, I learned the importance of public service. I saw my dad serve on the library board of his small town, do electrical work for needy parishioners, drive migrant workers to their jobs in eastern Oregon fields, and serve his community in countless small ways.
I also learned from him that sermons should never be boring! My dad wasn’t a particularly gifted preacher, but he wasn’t boring! And I learned that ministry is very stressful work, that you can be the lightning rod for disgruntled members, and that you MUST take good care of your health because the stresses of ministry were a factor in my dad’s early death at age 60.
I learned from being a member of the Ketcham family how valuable a faith community is. Our family was literally supported by our congregations at times, since my dad’s salary was probably never much more than $400 a month and on this he made sure his kids went to college. And I learned well the value of membership in a faith community and have been a member of a congregation almost ever since I was a child.
In the congregations I joined, whether it was Baptist or Unitarian Universalist, I watched the politics of “church” unfold. I saw how easy it was to criticize and that it can have hurtful, permanent consequences. As a member of the Committee on Ministry at JUC, I saw the pain of petty criticism and the value of constructive, kind critique that took place face to face, not as an anonymous comment on a survey or in the parking lot after a worship service.
I saw how easily a promising career can be derailed by a vindictive person. And I saw how important, no, essential, it is to expect and demand ethical behavior from a minister. I saw people, both women and men, damaged by a sexual relationship with a minister who exploited their neediness.
But the negative side of ministry did not deter me. I knew I had learned a great deal from being a preacher’s kid and from being an active layperson in several congregations. I thought I knew where most of the potholes were and vowed to avoid them. So off I went to seminary.
I loved this experience of scholarship, writing, exploring Biblical literature, designing worship. I was not so crazy about the emphasis on doctrine which is a normal byproduct of a Christian seminary, however liberal. There were times I thought I would scream if I heard another word about Paul the Apostle! And the Trinity, for most of my fellow students, was a given; a Unitarian view was exotic and as one of about a dozen UU students at Iliff, I felt like the yeast in a loaf of bread dough! It had never occurred to many of my Christian peers to question the concept of Trinity!
Nevertheless, I loved my seminary experience, finally learning what the word “theology” meant in practical terms. A chaplaincy internship and a full year of parish internship at the Boulder UU Fellowship with my mentor Catharine Harris led me to believe that I was pretty hot stuff!
I was a top student at Iliff, did well in my chaplaincy and parish experiences, and when I got ready to go to the Ministerial Fellowship Committee in April of 1998, I was pretty sure they’d pat me on the back and give me an A Plus Plus and send me back to seminary for my final year as the best candidate for UU ministry they’d ever seen.
You can probably see what’s coming here, can’t you? And it was from the MFC that I began to learn probably the most important lesson a minister can learn: humility. Instead of the A Plus Plus I expected, they told me I was too intense (I think they might have preferred the word “cocky” but were too polite to use it) and needed to undertake a year of spiritual direction before they would grant me preliminary fellowship status.
A year of spiritual direction----that meant sessions with someone who could help me figure out some of the spiritual issues I was struggling with—like humility, for example, or spiritual practice, or how to be in right relationship with family members who were very conservative and were sure I was doomed to hell.
It was one of the best years of my entire life. I learned how important an active spiritual life and a regular spiritual practice are to me. I learned to pray, to pray to a Power I couldn’t describe or name or see or touch, yet who felt like a second skin, part of myself.
After graduation and ordination, in Colorado, I packed all my stuff, my cats, and headed for Portland, where I would be the first fulltime minister for a small congregation named Wy’east. And there my real education about ministry began to take shape. Everything else, it turned out, had been preliminaries.
During the four years I spent serving Wy’east, a congregation which had been formed out of conflict with a minister in another church, I encountered some of the typical problems of a small group undergoing dramatic change: disagreements about worship style, power struggles with each other about a multitude of issues, deep deep fear that a minister would try to change everything they loved, even the time of day the congregation met.
And I was a rookie! I was a rookie who had recently undergone quite a shock, learning that I didn’t know everything there was to know about ministry. Many mistakes later, on the part of the congregation and myself, we patched things up and I made preparations to move on.
But the lessons learned from that experience made me a much better, much wiser minister. I learned that too much ego is very dangerous; when one thinks too highly of oneself, one becomes a target! I learned to listen to and learn from criticism but to let go of unkind or anonymous criticism.
I learned that my strengths can also be my weaknesses, when I push them too far. My friendliness and warmth can become intrusive or too personal; my leadership can be seen as bulldozing; my way with words can lead me into eloquent defensiveness!
I learned how important it is to say that I am sorry for a mistake, for a remark that seemed unkind or insensitive, for an action taken in haste. I learned that I needed to atone for mistakes, to make amends, to repair damaged relationships. And I learned, perhaps most importantly of all, that I am only human, that I will make mistakes, that I need to listen when called to account, and that my behavior as a minister speaks far more loudly than any sermon.
These are personal lessons, as well as ministerial lessons. These are things I needed to learn as a human being. All of the lessons I’ve mentioned can be useful in ordinary life, the life of a retiree, for example, or a teacher or a parent or a musician or a cook or spouse. We’ve each of us experienced these kinds of learnings over our own lifespans. Some of the lessons have “taken”; some of them we may have ignored, preferring not to look too hard at our own lives.
Many of us, I suspect, myself included, have looked at other persons in judgment and said to ourselves, “boy, that person really needs to learn a thing or two!” Negative judgment of others may be one of the hardest lessons to learn and I confess I’m still working on it, every day. It may be that the best I can ever achieve is learning to keep my mouth shut, instead of speaking my negative judgments out loud!
So what does this all have to do with you and me and our relationships with each other, in this congregation? Or in any congregation or group that we may belong to in the future?
Here are a few lessons I believe are valuable for us as a congregation now and in the future to take to heart and keep in our memory banks, in our history, in our everyday work together. They are in no particular order and I rather imagine they are not the only lessons we need to learn! They are just the ones I’ve come up with as I thought about this sermon.
#1. Conflict is a product of living together. Conflict will always arise when people work and play together. It is normal. But it doesn’t have to hurt people if it’s handled thoughtfully. And by thoughtfully, I mean that differences of opinion must be stated tactfully, without conveying scorn or impatience with the other person. Conflict builds up in an unhealthy way when it’s handled secretively, with mean words and actions.
Talking about someone critically behind their back is not helpful; speaking face to face with someone, tactfully and caringly, is much more effective. And I always remember my dad’s admonition at this point. When I think about criticizing someone, I must ask myself “is it kind? Is it true? Is it necessary?”
#2. Human beings sometimes act out the pain in their personal lives by disrupting congregational life, causing heartache and pain in others by stirring up trouble in the congregation. This is a time for others to act with compassion and love, not by taking sides but by understanding the pain that has come forth in an inappropriate way and helping to alleviate that pain, if possible. And, if not, taking steps to protect the community by creating policies to deal with disruptive behavior. This kind of covenanting is better done during peaceful times, by the way, not in anger.
#3. And great turmoil can open us up to great joy, if we remember our mistakes and learn from them, rather than shoving them underground, refusing to deal with them or make amends. You may remember the movie “Love Story” in which a favorite line for many couples was “Love is never having to say you’re sorry”. Unfortunately, this romantic line is untrue.
Love means saying sorry whenever it’s appropriate, not glossing over mistakes but owning up to them, making amends if necessary. Many couples carried that line right into the marriage counseling office and left it there, sadder and wiser.
Let’s go back in time again, to that moment at the General Assembly in Spokane in 1995 when the call to ministry came again to me. I woke up the next morning in my hotel room with an old song running through my head.
On my way back to Colorado, after deciding I would enroll at Iliff as soon as possible, I stopped by my parents’ gravesite in Goldendale and sat at their headstone to sing this old song. For me at that moment, it was a personal commitment of myself to the journey of ministry, a moment when I understood that I was taking steps which would change my life forever, giving me a responsibility that I would never shed, that would shape my character in ways I could not predict, and give me challenges that I could only hope to meet.
I’ve printed the words in the order of service and I’d like to ask you to sing it with me if you know it or just read along as we sing. Whenever I think of these words, I think of the importance of being true, of being pure, humble, brave, giving, strong and loving. I know I will stumble, but I must return to these values in order to be the best I can be.
It occurs to me that these are good values for a congregation as well, that if we can strive to be together in these ways, we will continue to be the healthy, growing faith community that we have become over the past several years.
Please join me. Nola will play the tune for us, and then let’s sing together.
I WOULD BE TRUE
I would be true, for there are those who trust me;
I would be pure, for there are those who care.
I would be strong, for there is much to suffer;
I would be brave, for there is much to dare (2x).
I would be friend of all, the foe, the friendless;
I would be giving and forget the gift.
I would be humble for I know my weakness;
I would look up, and laugh and love and lift (2x).
I would be true, for there are those who trust me;
I would be pure, for there are those who care.
I would be strong, for there is much to suffer;
I would be brave, for there is much to dare (2x).
I would be friend of all, the foe, the friendless;
I would be giving and forget the gift.
I would be humble for I know my weakness;
I would look up, and laugh and love and lift (2x).
Let’s pause for a time of silent reflection and prayer.
BENEDICTION: Our worship service, our time of shaping worth together, is ended but our service to the world begins again as we leave this place. Let us go in peace, remembering that our lives are a series of lessons, no matter what our circumstances have been. We can learn positive ways of being in the world from these lessons or we can retreat into misery and unhappiness, causing unhappiness in others around us. May we as individuals and as a congregation strive to use the lessons of our lives in helpful, not hurtful ways, seeking always to give love and justice and compassion to each other and to the larger community. Amen, Shalom, Salaam, and Blessed Be.
Friday, June 19, 2009
Sara at Orcinus says it far better than I could.
I have struggled for a long time to know how to address, coherently that is, the craziness that has sent insane people into the streets to kill innocent folks, folks they thought God wanted them to kill.
Sara, writing at Orcinus this morning, says it far better than anyone I have heard yet. You can read her words here.
I read her and her partner Dave quite often and find them to be well-informed, thoughtful, and perceptive. Also bitingly cogent and with a minimum of snark.
Sara, writing at Orcinus this morning, says it far better than anyone I have heard yet. You can read her words here.
I read her and her partner Dave quite often and find them to be well-informed, thoughtful, and perceptive. Also bitingly cogent and with a minimum of snark.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
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