I'm reading Gil Rendle's engaging book on "The Multigenerational Congregation." His general thesis is that our congregations have large clusters of members of the "GI" generation, and large clusters of (late) baby boomers, and very few folks in-between those two groups. This leads to a creative tension that can sometimes turn into disconnects in the congregation as the pre-1946 (people 63 and over) act based on their values and assumptions and the post-1946 generation (post '56 are who you'll mostly find in a congregation) act based on their values and assumptions.
If you think about the disagreements you've witnessed in your congregation you may find that this fits.
I haven't gotten to the part where he explains how to overcome these disconnects (though I have some ideas), but I got to thinking about the health care debates, the racial sub-text (and sometimes main-text) in our national dialogues now.
Are we having the same generational disconnect around health care, environmental protection, equal marriage, etc? and are we having the debates, all over again, that raged between Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Dubois?
There may be more parallels (and I invite folks' contributions) but what struck me first was the three characteristics of the "GI" generation named by Rendle (paraphrasing mine):
1) Delayed gratification: the idea is that if you keep your own nose clean, hunker down, and just work hard, it will come right in the end. Washington advocated this approach, even using it to postpone agitation for civil rights.
2) Identification with the group: the idea is that the group is the norm and individuals need to conform to the group. Washington demanded, and received fierce loyalty from his followers, condemning those who broke away from the 'party line.' This idea is also used to establish white middle class reality as The Reality and thus to marginalize all other people. There were epithets to refer to black people acting like white people in Booker T. Washington's day, and they were leveled at him.
3) An assumption of sameness that arose from an assumption that there was such a thing as a single truth or a single right way that all should adhere to. This 'one-size-fits-all' approach to truth prevented white americans from hearing the unique experiences of black americans, prevented people with power from recognizing the goods of diversity, and led many black americans to accept the pronouncements about truth that fell from B.T. Washington's lips.
I will leave the conclusions that may be drawn about current events, and individual congregations to my readers.
For a positive spin on delayed gratification see the T.E.D. talk on "Don't Eat the Marshmallow." I also feel very strongly that identification with the human race, across difference, and indeed with all life, is critical for the future of our survival. As with everything, there are pros and cons to the life stance of the GI generation.
Wisdom from our bodies, tribes, land, and universal experience to help those who feel adrift to learn and live their gifts.
Friday, August 28, 2009
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
The dream of reconstruction
A quick thought... I'm reading my texts for a J-Term (January) class. Just learned something that either didn't stick, or wasn't taught, in history class. During the reconstruction, post civil war, people in southern states turned out in record numbers to vote. Setting aside the fact the women were denied the vote at that time, the fact is that previously disenfranchised people, including poor whites, were having a say in government for the first time. This is the time when public education was first founded in a serious way in the United States of America. What an amazing legacy. At that time there were two black Senators in the US Senate. (A high-water mark we are having a hard time eclipsing more than 100 years later!)
This is also the time when priviliged individuals, who were used to concentrating the community's wealth into their own pockets, reacted. They responded with a "states rights" argument, and an anti-socialism argument, and a campaign to discredit black people and working class people. The campaign succeeded, eliminating all but a few token people of color in positions of power by 1876. The campaign included violence, in the form of the KKK and others, in a terrorist action that used intimidation and assassination to eliminate the progress made during reconstruction.
The paralells to our current debates are chilling. The individuals who are calling for "the good old days", states rights, capitalism uber-allis, and a demonization of people of color and poor people, are continuing the tradition that partnered with lynchings, disenfranchisement, and oppression until, at least, the civil rights era of the 60's, and in reality, until now.
Frankly I really, really, do not want to go back to the "good old days" because those were the days of slavery, where women "knew their place", and immigrants and free people of color were pitted against each other. Some days I have some real trouble telling those days from these. Other days I'm very very grateful for the civil rights struggle led by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Frederick Douglass through Martin Luther King and now... Moveon.com.
Let the dream of true democracy that was expressed so fervently during reconstruction never die, and may we all continue the struggle for human rights and dignity. Senator Kennedy was one of our companions in that struggle. I thank him for all the good he was able to achieve, and hope that we can remain faithful to the work that must be done.
This is also the time when priviliged individuals, who were used to concentrating the community's wealth into their own pockets, reacted. They responded with a "states rights" argument, and an anti-socialism argument, and a campaign to discredit black people and working class people. The campaign succeeded, eliminating all but a few token people of color in positions of power by 1876. The campaign included violence, in the form of the KKK and others, in a terrorist action that used intimidation and assassination to eliminate the progress made during reconstruction.
The paralells to our current debates are chilling. The individuals who are calling for "the good old days", states rights, capitalism uber-allis, and a demonization of people of color and poor people, are continuing the tradition that partnered with lynchings, disenfranchisement, and oppression until, at least, the civil rights era of the 60's, and in reality, until now.
Frankly I really, really, do not want to go back to the "good old days" because those were the days of slavery, where women "knew their place", and immigrants and free people of color were pitted against each other. Some days I have some real trouble telling those days from these. Other days I'm very very grateful for the civil rights struggle led by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Frederick Douglass through Martin Luther King and now... Moveon.com.
Let the dream of true democracy that was expressed so fervently during reconstruction never die, and may we all continue the struggle for human rights and dignity. Senator Kennedy was one of our companions in that struggle. I thank him for all the good he was able to achieve, and hope that we can remain faithful to the work that must be done.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Racism, Single-Payer Health Care, and a Public Option
I've held off posting on this as the issues continue to be complex and to change shape. However, the announcement from Gibbs, at the white house, and the clip of Obama, both backpedalling on the public option for health care reform have made me mad!
There are legitimate concerns about the bills coming out of committee so far... How to pay and where the savings will be found are two complex and worrisome items. I appreciate the conservative voices asking questions. This will make the final reform better.
However, the rabble-rousing, lies, rumor, and hate-mongering must stop! The sad thing is that it isn't just Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh who are speaking lies and inciting fear and anger. Senators, Congresspeople, Sarah Palin, and official spokes-people of lobbyist front-groups like "Patient's First" are feeding the fear and anger.
Inciting to riot. Inciting to assassination. Inciting to threats of violence. Results in death threats, swasticas on posters and defacing public property... Results in people attending Presidential Town Hall meetings wearing guns and sporting the same slogan Timothy McVeigh wore on his t-shirt.
We've already seen what such rhetoric results in. The anti-abortion activists have killed and injured. And they have successfully terrorized officials and service providers so that safe, legal, late-term abortions are nearly impossible to get in most states now.
I'm also concerned about the tactic of inciting white resentment and fear on racial grounds. Tim Wise describes this well: here. Supporting his argument is this article from AFL-CIO site, pointing out the fear and reaction to change and its association with race. Texas may bar students from learning about Chavez, Thurgood Marshall. Finally, Melissa Harris-Lacewell spotted this tactic and named it early on in this video.
A single payer solution to health care would benefit all Americans except for the privileged few who are making money from the current state of the industry. We have successfully done it for veterans. We've mostly successfully done it with Medicare/Medicaid, other countries are providing far superior outcomes for their citizens through state run health care. The facts are so clear that the mere fact that the debate has grown shrill, involves guns and fists and hate-speech, shows that the debate is not about health care. It is about something else, and that something else, I believe, is race.
Come on Americans: Thomas Jefferson regretted his compromise around slavery and the fact that the country he helped to found did not live up to his vision and his words. We still have a chance to fulfill the vision of a land where we believe that everyone is created equal, and has certain inalienable rights, including equal protection under the law and the ability to pursue life, liberty, and happiness.
Let your congresspeople know that you support fair health care for all, and that you do not plan to be distracted by racial politics and fear-mongering. See Move On for signs, schedules, etc. and stay informed! I rely on Rachel Maddow.
There are legitimate concerns about the bills coming out of committee so far... How to pay and where the savings will be found are two complex and worrisome items. I appreciate the conservative voices asking questions. This will make the final reform better.
However, the rabble-rousing, lies, rumor, and hate-mongering must stop! The sad thing is that it isn't just Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh who are speaking lies and inciting fear and anger. Senators, Congresspeople, Sarah Palin, and official spokes-people of lobbyist front-groups like "Patient's First" are feeding the fear and anger.
Inciting to riot. Inciting to assassination. Inciting to threats of violence. Results in death threats, swasticas on posters and defacing public property... Results in people attending Presidential Town Hall meetings wearing guns and sporting the same slogan Timothy McVeigh wore on his t-shirt.
We've already seen what such rhetoric results in. The anti-abortion activists have killed and injured. And they have successfully terrorized officials and service providers so that safe, legal, late-term abortions are nearly impossible to get in most states now.
I'm also concerned about the tactic of inciting white resentment and fear on racial grounds. Tim Wise describes this well: here. Supporting his argument is this article from AFL-CIO site, pointing out the fear and reaction to change and its association with race. Texas may bar students from learning about Chavez, Thurgood Marshall. Finally, Melissa Harris-Lacewell spotted this tactic and named it early on in this video.
A single payer solution to health care would benefit all Americans except for the privileged few who are making money from the current state of the industry. We have successfully done it for veterans. We've mostly successfully done it with Medicare/Medicaid, other countries are providing far superior outcomes for their citizens through state run health care. The facts are so clear that the mere fact that the debate has grown shrill, involves guns and fists and hate-speech, shows that the debate is not about health care. It is about something else, and that something else, I believe, is race.
Come on Americans: Thomas Jefferson regretted his compromise around slavery and the fact that the country he helped to found did not live up to his vision and his words. We still have a chance to fulfill the vision of a land where we believe that everyone is created equal, and has certain inalienable rights, including equal protection under the law and the ability to pursue life, liberty, and happiness.
Let your congresspeople know that you support fair health care for all, and that you do not plan to be distracted by racial politics and fear-mongering. See Move On for signs, schedules, etc. and stay informed! I rely on Rachel Maddow.
Friday, August 14, 2009
"Deathers" versus good sense
I've been watching in amazement as lobby groups, Republican lawmakers, and right-wing "pundits" whip Americans into fear-fueled anger through outright lies. I admit to being a bit of a Pollyanna. I constantly assume that people wish to act with honor and to use words, not violence, to get their way. I'm frequently disillusioned, painfully, but keep holding onto hope for the future.
Meanwhile, I want to put in a word for good sense.
If you haven't taken a look at the Five Wishes web site, do so now (http://fivewishes.org.) this is a fine organization advocating for living wills/advance directives with a heart.
First, and most importantly:
1. You will not have YOUR wishes followed unless you communicate them clearly.
2. You will not be able to communicate them clearly once you are on a ventilator, unconscious, brain damaged, or otherwise incapacitated.
3. MOST deaths are NOT instant, where there would be no decisions to be made. Most deaths in the US are NOT at home, surrounded by family and friends, they are in hospitals surrounded by machines and tubes and extreme interventions that YOU HAVE THE RIGHT to make decisions about!
4. You will die. Don't you want as much control over that as you can reasonably get?
5. Communicate now, not later.
Whether you prefer profit-driven corporations or the government administering your health care payments has NOTHING to do with your right to make your own decisions about how you are cared for.
I cannot say strongly enough: Not only do you owe it to yourself, you owe it to your loved ones, and even to the doctors and nurses who are faced with impossible decisions, to put something in writing.
During my hospital chaplaincy internship I listened to a nurse, almost in tears, speaking about the torture of extensive, invasive, medical treatment provided to a woman who, luckily, came out of her coma long enough to say "Stop". This patient died a few weeks later, peacefully, without machines invading her every function and putting a barrier between her and her loving family.
Another patient DID want everything done that could be done, and his story was, luckily, a happy one, as he is now undergoing the months of retraining and therapy to regain use of his body and brain, and experts have hope that he will someday be able to live a full life again.
Another patient came in with a five wishes document and the social worker shared with me her joy and gratitude that she didn't have to work with quarreling family in extremity, doctors with varied perspectives on the definition of their jobs, or confused and helpless nurses attempting to guess what the patient might like. She had worked in a hospital long enough to know that "it can't happen to me" happened to people all of the time.
It doesn't matter which route you want to take: put your wishes on paper. It doesn't matter if you expect to change your mind. It is easy to change the documents later. If you don't know how to make these decisions, talk to your spiritual advisor, talk to your physician, check out the fivewishes.org web site. (The donation is worth it, they provide lots of useful information as well as the forms.)
And remind anyone who is frightened by the "deather" lies that a living will is about putting choice into the hands of the patient. It is the OPPOSITE of the rumors. Take control of your end of life decisions. Make a death plan. It is as important as a birth plan, as important as how you plan to care for your children, as important as how much you love your family, as important as how much you respect your self. Just do it.
[Update on 8/20/09 - Check out pages 425-432 on language about end of life decision-making in the current bill. at this site. You can also check at the urbanlegends.com site for more info)
Meanwhile, I want to put in a word for good sense.
If you haven't taken a look at the Five Wishes web site, do so now (http://fivewishes.org.) this is a fine organization advocating for living wills/advance directives with a heart.
First, and most importantly:
1. You will not have YOUR wishes followed unless you communicate them clearly.
2. You will not be able to communicate them clearly once you are on a ventilator, unconscious, brain damaged, or otherwise incapacitated.
3. MOST deaths are NOT instant, where there would be no decisions to be made. Most deaths in the US are NOT at home, surrounded by family and friends, they are in hospitals surrounded by machines and tubes and extreme interventions that YOU HAVE THE RIGHT to make decisions about!
4. You will die. Don't you want as much control over that as you can reasonably get?
5. Communicate now, not later.
Whether you prefer profit-driven corporations or the government administering your health care payments has NOTHING to do with your right to make your own decisions about how you are cared for.
I cannot say strongly enough: Not only do you owe it to yourself, you owe it to your loved ones, and even to the doctors and nurses who are faced with impossible decisions, to put something in writing.
During my hospital chaplaincy internship I listened to a nurse, almost in tears, speaking about the torture of extensive, invasive, medical treatment provided to a woman who, luckily, came out of her coma long enough to say "Stop". This patient died a few weeks later, peacefully, without machines invading her every function and putting a barrier between her and her loving family.
Another patient DID want everything done that could be done, and his story was, luckily, a happy one, as he is now undergoing the months of retraining and therapy to regain use of his body and brain, and experts have hope that he will someday be able to live a full life again.
Another patient came in with a five wishes document and the social worker shared with me her joy and gratitude that she didn't have to work with quarreling family in extremity, doctors with varied perspectives on the definition of their jobs, or confused and helpless nurses attempting to guess what the patient might like. She had worked in a hospital long enough to know that "it can't happen to me" happened to people all of the time.
It doesn't matter which route you want to take: put your wishes on paper. It doesn't matter if you expect to change your mind. It is easy to change the documents later. If you don't know how to make these decisions, talk to your spiritual advisor, talk to your physician, check out the fivewishes.org web site. (The donation is worth it, they provide lots of useful information as well as the forms.)
And remind anyone who is frightened by the "deather" lies that a living will is about putting choice into the hands of the patient. It is the OPPOSITE of the rumors. Take control of your end of life decisions. Make a death plan. It is as important as a birth plan, as important as how you plan to care for your children, as important as how much you love your family, as important as how much you respect your self. Just do it.
[Update on 8/20/09 - Check out pages 425-432 on language about end of life decision-making in the current bill. at this site. You can also check at the urbanlegends.com site for more info)
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Walking together in CPE
Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) is almost my entire world right now. I'm working full time at a major hospital which is the region's trauma center. We students spend some mornings in group processing our experiences, some mornings in education, but all afternoons and some mornings visiting patients (and every 10 days we spend an overnight as the on-call chaplain for the whole hospital.)
I've been assigned a unit where I see a lot of people who were in car accidents and are recovering (or not.) Seeing the grave consequences of a moment's inattention, I've become a MUCH more cautious driver!
After I overcame the first week jitters, and the many hours of wandering around feeling lost (literally and figuratively,) I've begun to be enfolded in the awe of the work that chaplains do. We are witness to acts of courage and love. We are there to hear heartbreaking stories and to celebrate with a person who didn't expect to live.
The 23rd psalm addresses the feeling well: 'though I walk through the valley of death.' When I walk through that valley, I will fear no evil if I know someone is walking with me. For some people God walks with them. For others, their family and friends fulfill that role, and for many, having a chaplain there to "walk" with them connects them to their God or other source of grace.
In CPE, so far, I've begun to understand the metaphor of walking together religiously in a much more concrete way. We may be walking together when we are attending the same church, but we are truly walking together when you can be present with me in my times of fear and pain and despair and anger.
I hold a strong image of "walking together" from the Civil Rights museum in Atlanta. There are full size statues of the people walking together on the march to Selma. The art installation is of about 15 people, but it includes people from all walks of life, able-bodied and differently abled, young, old, men, women...
It may be time to add to that image of 'walking together' the image from a childhood book about Florence Nightengale: the lady with the lamp. In that image I see a compassionate woman, walking between the beds of the wounded and dying, ready to sit with a soldier, and to tend to his body or to his heart.
I am doing a very small part on my two units. Every day I regret that I wasn't able to talk with more patients or to sit with more families. At the same time, I am grateful that I have the gift to listen, and the honor to walk with those who welcome this hospital chaplain into their journeys.
I've been assigned a unit where I see a lot of people who were in car accidents and are recovering (or not.) Seeing the grave consequences of a moment's inattention, I've become a MUCH more cautious driver!
After I overcame the first week jitters, and the many hours of wandering around feeling lost (literally and figuratively,) I've begun to be enfolded in the awe of the work that chaplains do. We are witness to acts of courage and love. We are there to hear heartbreaking stories and to celebrate with a person who didn't expect to live.
The 23rd psalm addresses the feeling well: 'though I walk through the valley of death.' When I walk through that valley, I will fear no evil if I know someone is walking with me. For some people God walks with them. For others, their family and friends fulfill that role, and for many, having a chaplain there to "walk" with them connects them to their God or other source of grace.
In CPE, so far, I've begun to understand the metaphor of walking together religiously in a much more concrete way. We may be walking together when we are attending the same church, but we are truly walking together when you can be present with me in my times of fear and pain and despair and anger.
I hold a strong image of "walking together" from the Civil Rights museum in Atlanta. There are full size statues of the people walking together on the march to Selma. The art installation is of about 15 people, but it includes people from all walks of life, able-bodied and differently abled, young, old, men, women...
It may be time to add to that image of 'walking together' the image from a childhood book about Florence Nightengale: the lady with the lamp. In that image I see a compassionate woman, walking between the beds of the wounded and dying, ready to sit with a soldier, and to tend to his body or to his heart.
I am doing a very small part on my two units. Every day I regret that I wasn't able to talk with more patients or to sit with more families. At the same time, I am grateful that I have the gift to listen, and the honor to walk with those who welcome this hospital chaplain into their journeys.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
And when the time comes, to let it go
Mary Oliver's poetry has been on my mind (just completed a final paper focussing on her poetry.) So it a poem came to mind on this Memorial day weekend.
This is a weekend of letting go, and a weekend of celebrating what was, and a weekend of new beginnings. Friday was my last day at work at Cornell University. Over 15 years of calling this institution my professional home has come to an end. I'm feeling dislocation, sadness, and joy. This new space in my life creates possibilities that did not exist before. It is also a great wrench to let go of the identity given to me by my profession. I've been grieving the losses for a while. Loss of co-worker relationships. Loss of dreams. Loss of income. This grief, grief that is hard to express in the face of other's congratulations, sometimes makes me irritable.
This is a weekend of letting go, and a weekend of new beginnings. Thousands of students graduated this weekend and last. The town was full of strangers driving the wrong way on our confusing Ithaca streets, drunken students stumbling home after celebrations, and be-robed, proud graduates strutting their accomplishments. This is another grief that is hard to express in the face of other's congratulations. I hope that they do make the time to pause and feel the losses. Loss of classmates, loss of studying as a life's focus, loss of freedom from facing the necessity of earning a wage.
Living in a college town gives us an opportunity to face the lesson of Mary Oliver's poem, over and over. Wonderful and dear friends come, spend 2, 4, (or more if they are on the famous "Cornell PHD plan") years with us, and then move on. We must open our hearts to these gifts knowing that they will leave us.
This is a weekend of celebrating what once was, the courage of men and women fighting to protect the country they loved, and a weekend of letting go, remembering their losses, and grieving the cost of war. These many loves and losses, small and large, deserve our mindfulness.
May we all have the courage to be fully with the impermanent loves and endeavors of the now. And may we have the courage to grieve and let go when the time comes. And may we remember, that every loss invites us to a new beginning.
“In Blackwater Woods,” by Mary Oliver
Look, the trees
are turning
their own bodies
into pillars
of light,
are giving off the rich
fragrance of cinnamon
and fulfillment,
the long tapers
of cattails
are bursting and floating away over
the blue shoulders
of the ponds,
and every pond,
no matter what its
name is, is
nameless now.
Every year
everything
I have ever learned
in my lifetime
leads back to this: the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other side
is salvation,
whose meaning
none of us will ever know.
To live in this world
you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it
against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.
This is a weekend of letting go, and a weekend of celebrating what was, and a weekend of new beginnings. Friday was my last day at work at Cornell University. Over 15 years of calling this institution my professional home has come to an end. I'm feeling dislocation, sadness, and joy. This new space in my life creates possibilities that did not exist before. It is also a great wrench to let go of the identity given to me by my profession. I've been grieving the losses for a while. Loss of co-worker relationships. Loss of dreams. Loss of income. This grief, grief that is hard to express in the face of other's congratulations, sometimes makes me irritable.
This is a weekend of letting go, and a weekend of new beginnings. Thousands of students graduated this weekend and last. The town was full of strangers driving the wrong way on our confusing Ithaca streets, drunken students stumbling home after celebrations, and be-robed, proud graduates strutting their accomplishments. This is another grief that is hard to express in the face of other's congratulations. I hope that they do make the time to pause and feel the losses. Loss of classmates, loss of studying as a life's focus, loss of freedom from facing the necessity of earning a wage.
Living in a college town gives us an opportunity to face the lesson of Mary Oliver's poem, over and over. Wonderful and dear friends come, spend 2, 4, (or more if they are on the famous "Cornell PHD plan") years with us, and then move on. We must open our hearts to these gifts knowing that they will leave us.
This is a weekend of celebrating what once was, the courage of men and women fighting to protect the country they loved, and a weekend of letting go, remembering their losses, and grieving the cost of war. These many loves and losses, small and large, deserve our mindfulness.
May we all have the courage to be fully with the impermanent loves and endeavors of the now. And may we have the courage to grieve and let go when the time comes. And may we remember, that every loss invites us to a new beginning.
“In Blackwater Woods,” by Mary Oliver
Look, the trees
are turning
their own bodies
into pillars
of light,
are giving off the rich
fragrance of cinnamon
and fulfillment,
the long tapers
of cattails
are bursting and floating away over
the blue shoulders
of the ponds,
and every pond,
no matter what its
name is, is
nameless now.
Every year
everything
I have ever learned
in my lifetime
leads back to this: the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other side
is salvation,
whose meaning
none of us will ever know.
To live in this world
you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it
against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Belief-O-Matic
I just completed the course "Our Theological House" offered by Starr King School for the Ministry. The course explored Unitarian Universalism's theological roots and attempted to name some theological centers to the dynamic, diverse, contemporary movement that is Unitarian Universalism.
So, for entertainment, I took the Beliefnet.com Belief-o-matic test again. Not only was it fun to see the questions, and to be able to recognize which theological category they were attempting to assess, it was also interesting to see the results.
The top three haven't changed. Secular Humanism has risen as I've begun to listen more carefully to the reasoning behind it. That most liberal of Christian faiths (Quaker) continues to hit my top three.
I don't know if that means I'm boring and changing very little, or if it means "Phew! I picked the right religion in which to become a minister!"
1. Unitarian Universalism (100%)
2. Liberal Quakers (89%)
3. Neo-Pagan (83%)
4. Secular Humanism (80%)
So, for entertainment, I took the Beliefnet.com Belief-o-matic test again. Not only was it fun to see the questions, and to be able to recognize which theological category they were attempting to assess, it was also interesting to see the results.
The top three haven't changed. Secular Humanism has risen as I've begun to listen more carefully to the reasoning behind it. That most liberal of Christian faiths (Quaker) continues to hit my top three.
I don't know if that means I'm boring and changing very little, or if it means "Phew! I picked the right religion in which to become a minister!"
1. Unitarian Universalism (100%)
2. Liberal Quakers (89%)
3. Neo-Pagan (83%)
4. Secular Humanism (80%)
Friday, May 08, 2009
An Ethic for Religious Sharing
First, a Definition of Terms:
However, in the case of Unitarian Universalists as a group, sharing is almost never between equals. Unitarian Universalists as a group are middle and upper class, north american, white. We are historically colonizers, oppressors, beneficiaries of racist systems. This requires additional ethical obligations when considering enjoying the spiritual gifts of others.
- Appropriation - The act of participating in a ritual or meaning making event, or the use of an artifact (or replica of an artifact) that originates, or seems to originate, in a cultural/religious context other than one's own.
- Misappropriation - Appropriation without respect for, acknowledgement of, nor deep understanding of the culture/religion being appropriated. Appropriation without permission.
- Cultural Borrowing - Appropriation. Often used in place of "appropriation" due to the emotional overtones of the word appropriation.
- Religious Sharing - the gift of giving permission to use, or offering access to, cultural/religious rituals, symbols, etc. of ones own tradition, and the respectful acceptance of that gift on the part of members of other cultures.
However, in the case of Unitarian Universalists as a group, sharing is almost never between equals. Unitarian Universalists as a group are middle and upper class, north american, white. We are historically colonizers, oppressors, beneficiaries of racist systems. This requires additional ethical obligations when considering enjoying the spiritual gifts of others.
- First: Know where you stand. You cannot know when you are sharing and when you are not, you cannot know who you are and what you have to offer, until you know your own history and place. You also cannot know why you need what you think you need to borrow unless you know your self. What is your personal, congregational, and movement-wide history? Your heritage? Geneology? What resources do you bring to the table? How do you define yourself and your movement? What is your theology...
- Second: Know what you are borrowing. Do you know where the sage smudge stick comes from? If you don't, perhaps incense, or some other smoke ritual that you DO know the source for will need to take its place until you can do your research. As a Jun player, I need to know what the name of the song I am playing is, what rituals and vocals it is played with, and what is the dance. What is the cultural context? What do I know about the ritual/symbol itself? Is it public domain?
- Third: What is the provenance of what you are borrowing? How did this come to you. Can you name the teacher/book/source? Do you trust the teacher/book/source? Did you get permission? Do you trust the source of the permission? I try to know the teacher, the teacher's teacher, and the ethnicity of the people from whom I learned a drumsong. For instance, it matters that the lineage is fairly direct since that means to me that the people who teach me have the authority to do so.
- Fourth: Know from whom you are borrowing. What do you know about the history of the people? The culture? the current situation of these people?
- Fifth: Are you in right relations with the people you are benefiting from? If you are benefiting from Luisah Tish's insights from Yoruba tradition, are you in a mutually respectful relationship with the African American and Caribbean community? As a drummer who has benefited from expat. African teachers, am I active in supporting the interests of West African or African-American people?
- Sixth: Give credit. Put it in the order of service. State the names of the sources of this tradition when you use it, especially in public.
- Seventh: When you mess up. Forgive yourself, and begin again in love. Do your best...
Here's how this works for me in the context of music... I try to use my traditional djembe and juns for playing traditional West African music. I play West African drumsongs that I know the context of, and songs I learned from a person of that culture, or from a respectable student of someone from that culture. I always acknowledge the tradition and people who originated the song. I try to honor the context of the playing: at least acknowledge that I'm playing a harvest song out of season if I opt to do so. When I'm just noodling around and playing African-inspired drumming I try to clarify that this is what I'm doing. In return for the gift of drum and dance in my life I spent several years promoting teachers and helping them make a living after arriving in the US of A and have taught classes to kids of color as a way of lifting up and passing along the genius of that heritage. I always acknowledge teachers and sources. When an African American person confronts me about "ripping off her culture" I am prepared to speak to that accusation without defensiveness. I truly believe it is more important to keep the traditions alive than to respond to the criticism by stopping playing. But in exchange for that gift I have responsibilities.
This approach is more complex for Unitarian Universalists because the first step is less defined for us. With music I have a pretty good idea of the musical traditions that belong to the American culture and where they came from (Ken Burn's "History of Jazz" is one great source of knowledge.) The history of Unitarian Universalist religious elements is just as complex, but less well documented and accessible. That doesn't let us off the hook, but it does mean the work will not be done easily or done quickly. It is still worth doing.
Monday, May 04, 2009
UU Pedagogy of the Oppressed
Or, on what theological basis rests our commitment to Educating to Counter Oppression
One core Unitarian, and Universalist, value is a value of education. This is to be expected from a religious tradition that focusses on development of individual character and freedom of thought, but it is also to be expected of a tradition that (and I'm speaking of Universalists here) was a part of the lives of the poor and working class, struggling to make it in the early years of America. In many times and places we see a commitment to education as a way of creating freedom and opportunity when there is none. I just read Rosemary Brae McNatt's auto-biography "Not Afraid of the Dark" and this commitment to education as a way to counter oppression is explicitly illustrated in her story.
Our commitment to personal, educational growth, and growth toward justice, is how we express our historical theological, our most deeply held, values. First, our belief that every person is a child of God, loved by God, and love-able, as expressed in the Universalist statement of faith: "...God as eternal and all-conquering love... the supreme worth of every human personality..." and by Channing and Emerson. Channing, in his "Likeness to God" sermon and Emerson, for instance, in this quote: "God enters in through a private door into every person" and both of them in their work for abolition.) Second, the connectedness of all. I believe Martin Luther King found inspiration from first corinthians, 12:26 “if one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it, and if one part is honored, all the part are glad” when he penned "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." in his letter from Birmingham jail. This is a part of our Christian heritage and of the gift from our Process theologians, and even the scientists among us (those who are able to continue to be open to the findings of quantum physics) who, in philosophy, and in science, showed us that we are truly interconnected in far more than a spiritual or psychological way.
It is not a surprise that those two values are the alpha and omega of our association's principles: "Inherent worth and dignity of every being" and "Interconnected web of all existence." These two values require that we recognize the ways in which (as Rev. Rebecca Parker puts it) we are "in the midst of the flood" of oppression and harm. These understandings of god and man require us to stand with those who are most harmed, and to remember to both afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted. (A phrase first coined in reference to newspapers, but used often in reference to religion.)
Two paragraphs of Rev. David Bumbaugh's statement of UU faith make the connection between historic and current Unitarian Universalist theologies and a commitment to countering oppression: "We believe that the moral impulse that weaves its way through our lives, luring us to practices of justice and mercy and compassion, is threaded through the universe itself and it is this universal longing that finds outlet in our best moments."
"We believe that our location within the community of living things places upon us inescapable responsibilities. Life is more than our understanding of it, but the level of our comprehension demands that we act out of conscious concern for the broadest vision of community we can command and that we seek not our welfare alone, but the welfare of the whole. We are commanded to serve life and serve it to the seven times seventieth generation." The piece that is more current is the work that is being done by the religious naturalists, who I see as the successors of the religious humanists.
Another theme that is discernible in Bumbaugh's statement and which flows through our history, is this sense of creating heaven on earth, the idea of building the "city on the hill" that our Puritan forebears came to this country to do. We have inherited a conviction that paradise is both achievable, and that it is our responsibility to bring it into being. This requires that we turn our hands and hearts to fighting injustice, ending violence, and celebrating the diverse complexity that is life's yearning toward life. I believe that the Pagan theologies, and some aspects of feminist theology, which are also rivers feeding Unitarian Universalist theologies, are a part of this idea that we are all a part of a community, and that our role in this community is to celebrate one another in all our diversity.
(Rev. Bumbaugh presented these ideas, and others, at the Meadville Lombard January Convocation, 2009)
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
A Website Home
I'm taking the plunge. I pulled all my websites down about 6 years ago when I realized I didn't much like having personal information plastered all over the world wide web.
But it is time to put up a professional site. And, gosh it is easy using google sites. [grin]
So... To see some essays and worship services... (and perhaps more in the future) click to http://sites.google.com/site/abeltaine/Home
Please do let me know if you have ideas for improvements, or what you'd like to see.
But it is time to put up a professional site. And, gosh it is easy using google sites. [grin]
So... To see some essays and worship services... (and perhaps more in the future) click to http://sites.google.com/site/abeltaine/Home
Please do let me know if you have ideas for improvements, or what you'd like to see.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
A Covenant
A possible congregational covenant of membership:
"We, the members of [name of congregation] do covenent together in the spirit of love and in the knowledge that we are all related in the interdependent web of life, to walk together in compassion, holding ourselves and each other accountable to the ever-renewing revelation that leads us to becoming our best selves, nurturing the beloved community, and creating a just world."
The covenants created by our forebears in puritan New England of the 16th century frequently included the phrase "in the spirit of our lord jesus christ." I updated this to "in the spirit of love." Many early covenants also included a reference to a creedal statement about God or the scriptures. I replace this with the phrase about the "Interdependent web of life" and specifically included the word "related" to evoke feminist theology of relationship and the indigenous theologies made famous through the phrase "all my relations."
Most of those early covenants spoke of walking together. That metaphor still expresses a visceral truth for me. We do not need to think alike to love alike and we do not need to agree with one another in order to walk side-by-side. This reminds us that this is a covenant: a promise to behave in a certain way, not to believe a certain thing. This phrase reminds me of the art installation at the civil rights museum in Atlanta, celebrating the walk to Selma: People of all shapes and sizes, on crutches, in wheelchairs, carrying babies, leaning on a neighbor, walking together in a common cause.
Compassion and Accountability are the twin items that come next. Compassion is needed lest we lose our respect for the inherent worth of every being. Accountability is needed to guard against the excesses of compassion that Rabbi Edwin Friedman so eloquently warns against.
Ever-renewing revelation reminds us that we seek insights from the past, but cannot rest from our seeking. There are many truths and we are all able to provide a piece of the truth. The commitment then is to becoming the best selves we can be, to nurture a beloved community, and to create a just world.
What Is Ministry (written 1-21-08)
Ministry is a lot like parenting. When you are a parent your heart is walking around outside your body. For the minister that heart is the movement as a whole, the people you minister to, and the web of existence, with its heart of love, to which you are accountable. When you are a parent you encourage your children to become their best selves, cheer when they do, and ache when they struggle. A parent or a minister must model, teach, nurture, and challenge the individuals in beloved community to reach for a common vision of what is good.
Some may object to the imagery of minister as parent because they have experienced parents who are controlling, non-self-differentiated, or downright dangerous. We have probably all experienced or heard stories about ministers who present similar problems. And that is another way in which ministry is like parenting: It is an awesome responsibility. A struggling minister can make a lasting destructive imprint on the congregation. A successful minister can be a powerful force for good.
The art of ministry is to call people toward their best selves. That takes the form of modeling, where the minister constantly strives to live a life of integrity, harmony, and vision. Being our best selves requires that we heed the call to do the work of nurturing and teaching and challenging others and are faithful to ourselves, to each other, and to the work that must be done. We are constantly transforming ourselves, being reborn into who we will be. This requires that we learn to ride the roller-coaster of change, embrace and celebrate it, and pay careful attention to the process of change.
Harmony, not balance is possible when you know that sometimes the focus must be outward, and sometimes inward. Sometimes self care takes a back seat and sometimes a deeply renewing vacation is the right thing. All things come around again and again in a spiral, but they don’t come neatly in balanced packages.
Ministry takes the form of teaching or fostering an atmosphere where mistakes are a part of the glorious adventure of being human, and at the same time, every individual is held accountable for failures of nerve or heart. A harmony of forgiveness and vision creates a congregation that is safe enough to join, but challenging enough to encourage transformation. The minister must forgive herself, and her congregants, many times over and must learn from those mistakes, and trust that the opportunity will come around again to begin again, in love.
Teaching itself has gone through a transformation in our culture as we move from a modernist sensibility to a post-modern sensibility. The teacher of old was the sage on the stage providing the wisdom from on high to the assembled masses. The teacher now is a guide on the side, facilitating learning and offering a piece of his or her journey and reflection to those who wish to participate in the dance. Teaching and learning is a process of entering into dynamic relationship with others.
Ministry takes the form of articulating a vision where everyone is intrinsically valuable; and at the same time reminding us all that our task in life is to make the world a better place. Each of us is a child of the universe, constantly being reborn into something new. Each individual, where-ever they are in their life process, is precious and deserves to be treated with respect and provided basic human rights. We each bring a gift to the world in the blessing of our existence. This blessing also comes with a responsibility. We are responsible for our selves and for the world around us. This is the task I was taught when I first started camping: Leave the campsite in better shape than you found it. The minister also has the responsibility to leave the congregation and members of the congregation in at least no worse shape, but preferably better shape than they were found in.
Vision is many things, including teaching, speaking truth, and nurturing. Vision is not a one way experience. It needs to be articulated and held up, but it also needs to be received. Vision must be embraced as learning, accepting challenge, and relying on those who sustain you.
Finally, ministry nurtures the community in which this work is done. We need each other and we need to do the good work of loving well with and for one another. Nurturing one another, the community as a whole, and the Unitarian Universalist movement cares for individuals and the world. This may take the form of calling others to be accountable for right relationships with one another. It may take the form of being open to learning what I have done that has hurt another, or broken our covenant. This beloved community is the congregation, where we learn from one another, are sustained by one another, and are called to be our best selves.
Caring for people and the entire web of life, loving deeply and well, is sustaining and inspiring. Regardless of whether you spell God as “good” or “love” or something else, we each bring a piece to the table about what God is and our many gifts can be honored and celebrated without diminishing our companions’ gifts. Commitment to this work is renewing when it is done in joy and love. Our deep selves recognize when this work is being done in a loving way. We recognize people who are committed without guilt and passionate without hate and are attracted to them because we instinctively know that this work can and should be done this way.
"It is a blessing each of us was born. It matters what each of us does with our lives. What each of us knows about god is a piece of the truth. We don’t have to do it alone.” These words from our youth sustain and inform my vision of Unitarian Universalism, of being human religiously, and of being a minister.
I will say "Yes"
Call. The traditional understanding of a call to ministry is that the call comes from God. That’s an odd word for someone like me, who spent many years reciting reasons to reject all organized religion, and Christianity in particular. It is a particularly odd word for someone who let go of the old guy in the sky early in life and isn’t expecting to see a burning bush or to hear a personal message from a supernatural being.
Call. Yes. I've been called. And yes, I'd have to say the call came from god. I first heard the call to ministry from my mother. As we wrapped gifts for children in town, whose parents couldn’t get them holiday presents, she was showing us that all people had inherent worth and dignity. I also was led to a call by my father, our walks in the Oregon wilderness allowed the trees and sagebrush to call to me, letting me know that we are all a part of an interdependent web.
As I grew, the call grew clearer and sharper. Participation in Camp Fire Girls continued the conversation with the ocean and mountains, but also singing together at a campfire, worshipping together at Grand Council Fire, and working together to mentor younger girls added a call to creating community, and an understanding of the spiritual work needed in building a world of inner growth and outer justice.
When I came out as a lesbian the call gained words and a specific voice in women's music and folk music. Ferron’s sang: “You know love has finally called for me, I will not wilt upon its stage” and Sweet Honey in the Rock sang: “We who believe in freedom cannot rest” and Holly Near sang “We are a Gentle Angry People.” These songs spoke of the gift of companions in the struggle of life and our responsibility to serve life and love in the face of fear.
First you have to hear the call, then you have to say yes to it. When I attended my first General Assembly (the annual gathering of representatives and enthusiasts of Unitarian Universalist congregations from across the United States.) I heard a gifted minister use the phrase: "Many are called but most are frozen."
For me, the call was drowned out by the easy path, the struggle to find a spiritual home, and explorations in loving well and accepting love. Twelve years ago I found that spiritual home in Unitarian Universalism. During that time I fell in love and created a loving family. With new-found spiritual resources I no longer felt the restricting dependence on material resources.
After five years in seminary, preparing to make the transition, I am now called to devote all that I am to ministry. The voices of god are clearly before my eyes, close enough to touch, and in my ear, when I hear the news about neighbors who won’t be able to afford health insurance, church members turning to one-another for a community of spiritual depth as they face loss, and the beauty of the willow, transforming itself in spring.
Yes. I heard a call, I saw a call, and it is time to live that call.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Innocent hands?
I was raised among a reverence for innocence. Later, in women's studies courses I discovered the damage done to women by this reverence for innocence. I encountered lives destroyed by the assumption that losing one's innocence automatically made one a whore. When there are only Madonnas and Whores, there is no room for the sexual woman who can be proud of all she is.
The theology I learned in my religious studies courses taught that sin equalled a loss of innocence. Carnal knowledge, gambling, drinking, lying, cheating, stealing... All these classic sins are also classic antonyms of innocence. If it is stifling to put woman in a cage of innocence or fallen sinfulness, it is equally soul killing to do so with any human being.
There is a middle path. A path that acknowledges that no one among us is without sin. The truth that theologian Reinhold Neibuhr and former UUA President Bill Schulz both warn of: that there is an intrinsic cruelty, intrinsic sinfulness, within each and every one of us suggests that we need to stop seeking to restore an innocence that never existed, and certainly stop seeking to preserve the innocence that does not now exist. If we 'get over ourselves', and stop fruitless striving, then we can start from a realistic place of exploring what we CAN do. No-one is exempt from trying because they have "soiled hands." That stops us from throwing stones and stops us from paralyzing ourselves, hating ourselves, or giving up.
I'm thinking of sin lately in a non-traditional sense, the idea that sinning is anything that works against the good of the whole, the life-force, the impulse to greater complexity and uniqueness and connectedness. Sin as Racism. Sin as oppression. Sin as internalized homophobia. Sin as systemic processes that harm.
I am reminded of the Buddhist monks who refuse to drive over 10 miles per hour. They do not refuse, like the Jains, to drive at all, just not to go so fast that the number of bug lives ended on their watch goes over some threshold they can bear. They have found the middle path. They have not abdicated their responsibility to avoid sin. But they also are not trying to live entirely sin-free.
There is something wonderful about accepting each person's frailty, complicity, and humanness, without rejecting our responsibility. How many voices will be in our choir, how many bodies will be on the front lines working against injustice, how many arms will be open to love if we can accept that none of us is innocent, but all of us matter.
This same note sounds in the Alcoholics Anonymous process, where people admit that they are helpless, and therefore are able to do something about their disease. I am not perfect, but I am able to do something, one day at a time.
And again, we come round to the idea that there are no clean hands. There are idle hands or there are hands that are soiled but willing to do the work. (I think I heard that in the context of Desmond Tutu talking about the truth and reconciliation process.)
Perhaps if we could stop wringing our hands, and stop throwing them up in the air in despair, we'd be able to get to work building what needs to be built, undoing what needs to be undone, and repairing what can be repaired.
Our hurting world needs a theology without innocence, a new theology that loves us as we are while demanding that we heal ourselves and our world.
I am reminded of the Buddhist monks who refuse to drive over 10 miles per hour. They do not refuse, like the Jains, to drive at all, just not to go so fast that the number of bug lives ended on their watch goes over some threshold they can bear. They have found the middle path. They have not abdicated their responsibility to avoid sin. But they also are not trying to live entirely sin-free.
There is something wonderful about accepting each person's frailty, complicity, and humanness, without rejecting our responsibility. How many voices will be in our choir, how many bodies will be on the front lines working against injustice, how many arms will be open to love if we can accept that none of us is innocent, but all of us matter.
This same note sounds in the Alcoholics Anonymous process, where people admit that they are helpless, and therefore are able to do something about their disease. I am not perfect, but I am able to do something, one day at a time.
And again, we come round to the idea that there are no clean hands. There are idle hands or there are hands that are soiled but willing to do the work. (I think I heard that in the context of Desmond Tutu talking about the truth and reconciliation process.)
Perhaps if we could stop wringing our hands, and stop throwing them up in the air in despair, we'd be able to get to work building what needs to be built, undoing what needs to be undone, and repairing what can be repaired.
Our hurting world needs a theology without innocence, a new theology that loves us as we are while demanding that we heal ourselves and our world.
Though you have broken your vows a thousand times... Come, yet again, come.