Toll for the Old Year, Ring in the New

When is New Years?

Free to use, by Funnyexpo

It is an accident of history that we mark the change of the year on January 1 instead of in the Fall as most earth-relating cultures do. I resonated deeply with the many observances that fall in the Halloween season, but it is nice to make something meaningful of the New Year observances going on all around us.

Bells!

For the New Years Eve service at the UU congregation in Amado AZ I was asked to create a bell ceremony. So off I went, down the rabbit hole of bell meaning and lore. Bells are sounded to signal the beginning or end of class, an emergency, a wake-up call. In medieval days the town crier rang a bell for attention before reciting the news. Most congregations I visit use a bell to signal the beginning of the service and often a bell at the end of the service or after every period of silence. Some congregations use a Tibetan singing bowl. Some use a chime. Some a classic carillon-shaped bell.

Courtesy https://bevinbells.com/

About that classic bell shape: One writer suggests that in Christian tradition (or possibly pre-christian traditions) the empty dome of the bell represents the vault of heaven, its lip represents the horizon of the earth, and the clapper represents the power of word and voice while the emptiness within the dome represents all that is contained between the heaven and the earth. With this respect, the ringing of the bell represents a Divine message being created in the heaven and delivered to the earth in order to eliminate all evils.

Courtesy http://www.verdin.com

If you've ever lived near a Catholic church you know that the bells are ringing all the time. Every bell has a purpose and meaning. Every bell is ringing out a message about church teachings. The incarnation is celebrated by the Angelus bell which is rung at 6 pm. The bell is rung in a specific pattern. Traditionally a Hail Mary is said with the ringing of the bell. The form of the Angelus prayer was standardized by the 17th century — the triple stroke repeated three times, with a pause between each set of three (a total of nine strokes), sometimes followed by a longer peal.

(I've included the script, below, for the "toll out the old, ring in the new" ritual used at the Amado congregation Dec. 31, 2017.)

The Incarnation

The incarnation. The incarnation is the way that the divine manifests on earth. In Catholic tradition the focus is on Jesus the Christ and how God came to earth, in the person of Jesus, through the gift of Mary. Christian doctrine is that the church itself is the body of Christ. If Christ is god on earth, and the church is made up of those who are part of the congregations, then the people are the body of Christ… Not a big leap to the teaching of Unitarian Universalism – WE are the hands and feet of God. We are the heart and lungs, we are the eyeballs, throat, ears and even the Achilles’ tendon of god, all the parts, even the ones that are often overlooked, are parts of the divine body. The queer, disabled, rich, unhoused, immigrant, elder, type A, messy, imperfect folks are part of this body. We are how God acts on earth. Unitarian Universalism looks for the ways that we are manifesting divine love in our own living.

We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the bells tolling for the past and ringing in the future. We are the result of all that has gone before. Others have been building the body of divine love on earth. Others have been doing the work of justice. Others have been creating beauty and joy. Others have cared for the children cooked the meals and held back the forces of despair and destruction. As they pass out of this life, they pass on a legacy. Sacred compost. The cycle of life that gives nourishment.

Honoring the Ancestors

Miguel and his great grandmother in the Pixar movie “Coco”

I invite you to meditate on honoring the gifts of your ancestors. I invite you to identify an ancestor of blood, an ancestor of spirit from history, or an ancestor from fiction who you want to claim inspiration from. I struggled with one of my ancestors… Grandmother Warren - hard to love but gave determination.

I have created an ancestor altar at my home on the hearth. It has photos of my mom and grandparents, it has a hawk feather from the location where my ministers chapter usually meets, to remind me of past colleagues. It has a monk/spirit person candle holder to remind me of the Earth-relating, justice-seeking, spiritual torchbearers of the past. It has a small fuzzy cheetah figure in remembrance of my best friend.

What might you do to help you remember the gifts that have been passed down to you. The legacy that you carry on? Some people write a note and keep it in their wallet or hang some photos on their wall, some people play certain pieces of music or enjoy certain foods, some take up a craft, like knitting. What will you do?

Honoring the future

WE are the hands and feet of God. We are how God acts on earth. Look now for the ways that we are manifesting divine love in our own living.

We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the bells tolling for the past and ringing in the future. How have we been building the body of divine love on earth? How do we do the work of justice? How shall we create beauty and joy? How have we cared for the children cooked the meals and held back the forces of despair and destruction? What is your legacy already? Sacred compost.

This is your invitation to imagine what one action you will take - to honor and give gifts to your descendants. How will we use the gifts we have been given? What do you want this year’s enlivening compost to be? What will we offer in thanksgiving, that does honor to our ancestors and commitment to descendants. What action will you take. What is the thing that only you can do to make a difference, no matter how small? Pick one. You need to be able to come back to this one small thing tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow for all of 2018.

Ritual: Tolling out 2017

(Credit to Dana Topping of UUCGV, Amado who co-created this ritual.) On this last day of the year 2017 we wish to commemorate those who have passed away, to remember how their lives have touched ours, to feel compassion for how deep, yet how fragile our human bonds. Our ritual this morning will be to name those for remembrance followed by the tolling of a bell to carry our thoughts out to wherever souls congregate.

Women praying in front of the sacred bell.
Botatoung Paya. Yangon. Myanmar
Contributor: Pep Roig / Alamy Stock Photo

(1) The first remembrance is for prominent people. There are so many gone this year - I have chosen a few.

(names)

BLESSED BE THESE WE HOLD IN OUR HEART MEMORY. 3 BELLS

(2) Our second remembrance is for those in our congregation who have passed away this year:

(Names)

BLESSED BE THESE WE HOLD IN OUR HEART MEMORY. 3 BELLS

(3) Our third remembrance is for your friends and family and people important to you. Please call out these names that we all might hear and know them.

BLESSED BE THESE WE HOLD IN OUR HEART MEMORY. 3 BELLS

(4) Our fourth remembrance is for the multitude of people unknown by us, but known in their human circumstance of dying in natural disasters, political upheavals, wars, individual acts of violence, and self harm.

BLESSED BE THESE WE HOLD IN OUR HEART MEMORY. SUSTAINED BELL.

Prayer

ORIGINALLY FROM SANIOSAN-DEACTIVATED20160202

Please join me in the spirit of prayer, of heartfelt connection, and reflection. As the ancient sumerian myth goes, the goddess Erishkagel, queen of the underworld cried out in pain because she received all those who passed into the underworld. Oh my insides, she cried, Oh my outsides. Even Goddesses need empathy. Even the queen of the dead needs to know that we care. Our empathy can save the world. The losses are huge, the people and the planet cry out in pain. We can cry with them and our tears help to heal. Showing up to mourn, to remember, is still showing up. Let us show up for our beloved community.

Oh beloved of the world, who comes to us as compassion,

Community,

Hope

We honor you, we honor you, we honor you

We call on your name.

Amen

Blessed be

The Winter King and the America Myth

Self-Compassion Body Prayer

I'm a big fan of body prayers. I have several. This is one for self-compassion that I discovered from the musical group Libana. 

I will be gentle with myself, I will love myself

I am a child of the universe

Being born each moment.

by Libana

Here is Libana singing it.

The ASL that I use to interpret this song is:

Gentle, Love, Baby, Universe, Tree, Day

(Errata: I should have spread my fingers more for tree, and used one forfinger instead of the whole hand for day.)

Me Too, Truth, Reconciliation, and Survival

Me Too

Elissar / Creative Commons

I started seeing the #MeToo hashtag in social media in October. November contained revelation after revelation about abuse, harassment, and inappropriate behavior.

I kept remembering getting free of an abusive relationship (MANY years ago.) How hard it is! So much sympathy for those who are struggling. So much hope for you finding the person who is just as perfect for you... and who doesn't hurt you!

October was domestic violence awareness month. The #MeToo campaign swept through FaceBook and Twitter, with the complex dynamics about who wanted to and who should participate.

#MeToo invited people who move through the world perceived as feminine to indicate that they had been sexually harassed, attacked, molested, or otherwise subjected to the power-ploys of people turned bullies and our pervasive rape-culture.

As Dana Milbank put it succinctly in a recent Washington Post opinion piece: "sexual harassment and sexual predation are, at core, about the abuse of power. Not all bullies are sexual predators or sexual harassers. But most sexual harassers and predators are bullies."

Consent Culture

A nice cup of tea. By Laurel F from Seattle, WA (Tea)
 [CC BY-SA 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

We all have much work to do to transform our culture into a consent culture. Let's say it again: What is consent culture? "Consent culture is a culture in which asking for consent is normalized and condoned in popular culture. It is respecting the person's response even if it isn't the response you had hoped for..." (onlywithconsent.org/blog/consent-culture)

As a British video puts it... Consent culture is listening for the answer when you offer someone tea. If they say, "no" you don't serve it anyway. If they say "Maybe later" you don't insist. If they fall asleep you don't pour tea down their throat.

Transforming from rape-culture to consent-culture is happening in big ways as perpetrators are being exposed and called to account. It also needs to happen in small ways, in the daily interactions we have. Those of us indoctrinated as "nice women" need to undo that training, and stop passing it down! 

Fine, Just Fine

creative commons

How did I get into an abusive relationship? How did it happen that I thought it was OK to have my movements controlled and my friendships monitored? My mother is a strong woman and my father is a respectful man. I grew up surrounded by academics and small-business-people in a small college town in Oregon.

I do know it crept up on me as I made excuses, but I still can't completely answer those questions. I think the answer lies in the culture, not my particular story. We in the US of A have all been complicit with bullying or had moments of being bullies and we are all survivors of bullying, in varying degrees and ways.

As the Pagans say: As above, so below. The macrocosm is reflected in the microcosm. And as the feminists say: the personal is political. Our national identity and history is reflected in our family and community culture. As long as our economic system is capitalism... As long as our political system is rule of the rich and privileged disguised as Democracy, As long as our foreign policy is based on colonialism and exploitation, and our domestic history is founded on un-atoned for genocide and enslavement, we will be complicit in rape culture. (This is not to say that the USA is uniquely this way, just that I can only speak for my own context.)

The night I came to my senses and fled the relationship, began as a nice night together with friends. Later in the evening, when my partner was a little tipsy, it turned violent. I was bitten, scratched, thrown, and punched. I remember thinking to myself, in a dazed sort of way "Wow, that's why cartoonists draw stars and birds spinning around someone's head after they are hit in the head." A kind neighbor allowed me, barefoot and pajama-clad, to make a phone call. My partner sipped another vodka and orange crush and spat, "I'm fine, just fine" bitterly at the police officer and me while I packed a bag and left for a safe place. The hospital patched up my bites and bruises. The DA declined to prosecute because my injuries were not "gory enough." The Order of Protection was not terribly effective as I was stalked at bus stops, at work, and through the mail.

A mutual friend (Let's call them "Sam") cluelessly offered to "mediate our lover's spat." That failure to believe me is the moment that pains me the most to this day. Yes, my partner was damaged by a history of family violence, sexual abuse, and alcoholism - and participated in the rape culture we were enmeshed in. Yes, my partner was weak and wrong and trespassed against me in a heinous way. Yes, I needed to get away and keep myself safe. Yes, I had to work with a therapist who told me many times that I could have a relationship with all the joy and connection and WITHOUT the abuse. And, yes, I now have that relationship. But not to be believed, to have my experience minimized, for Sam to imagine that they had an ability, and a right, to try to bring an abused woman back to her abuser - that horrifies me to this day. Let us not enable!  (Here's a link to an interesting post about premature forgiveness, the blogger is an evangelical Christian who is working to stop domestic abuse and violence in the church - fascinating!) 

Truth, and Reconciliation

Source: Wikipedia Creative Commons

As revelation piled on revelation in the past months, my spouse and I kept saying to each other. 'DUH! of course!' Franken and Rose and nearly EVERY man socialized as an American (and probably almost every) man has had a moment when he lived out the demands of our dominant culture. Maybe it was only when drunk or high. Maybe it was only once. Maybe it was comparatively less egregious, (and if so, thank goodness for small favors) but are we surprised?

It takes ACTIVE WORK to NOT participate in the culture you are enmeshed in and trained to. Same goes for every one who lives within our racist, capitalist, sexist, able-ist (etc.) culture. There is no shame in occasionally being tired, or inattentive, or clueless. There's a difference between being a jerk and being a predator. Though both are something to be grieved and changed. There IS shame in not believing those who are harmed/oppressed, and not taking responsibility, apologizing, making amends, and working to make it not happen again. We are human, not monsters, nor angels. We FAIL. We must call each other to do better. We must individually and collectively commit to FAIL FORWARD.

We cannot create consent culture by simply punishing people we have identified as devils or bad people. Universalist theology, faith in the future, requires that we find new ways to move forward together. In that way we earn forgiveness and create our future. We need justice. We need compassionate justice. We need to know the truth and we need Restorative Justice.

Or Not

This detail scene, from the Papyrus of Hunefer
(c. 1275 BCE), shows the scribe Hunefer's heart being
weighed on the scale of Maat against the feather of truth,
 by the jackal-headed Anubis. The ibis-headed Thoth,
scribe of the gods, records the result. If his heart
equals exactly the weight of the feather, Hunefer
is allowed to pass into the afterlife. If not, he is eaten
by the waiting chimeric devouring creature Ammit
composed of the deadly crocodile, lion, and hippopotamus.
Vignettes such as these were a common illustration
 in Egyptian books of the dead. 

Sometimes we can separate those who cluelessly slip up now and then, and those who intentionally abuse, hurt and humiliate women (and men) as an expression of their power. I think the litmus for making that separation has to do with how they respond when faced with the harm they have caused. Are they able to take responsibility? To make amends? To take steps to make the world, and their behavior different?

There's also the dimension of how the IMPACT of an 'innocent wolf whistle' will be WAY out of proportion to the INTENT for a woman who has been terrorized, harassed, etc. Which is why our justice system, that depends on a jury of peers, instead of the victim themselves, to determine justice, is better than the alternative. I would not want, nor would I expect a survivor to emulate blind, compassionate justice.

When I found myself face-to-face with my abuser, 10 years later, I realized I personally was not ready to reconcile. I may never be. I hope that she has done her work. I hope that the relationships she has include consent and respect. It has been ten more years now. I hope that she has been held accountable and gone through the most important actions as a result of being an abuser: that she has found the ways she can make consent culture a reality in her sphere of influence. I am clear that my job was to do my work, not hers. I needed to begin learning how NOT to participate in rape culture. Sometimes I have been a bully. Sometimes I have participated as the victim. Often I am a survivor. Usually I am healing and growing. Always, I am failing forward in my own way.