Death for Michael Addison?

It was a dreadful deed done by a young man with a violent past. He shot the police officer, and he had been thinking of shooting cops for days, if not longer. Is death the answer for this crime?

I think of lynchings, of course, when I think of the death penalty. And I think of the many mistakes made in the many courts where death was meted out only to be overturned when more evidence was gained. This one is not one of those. But lynching is still on my mind, since this criminal is black, being tried in the white state of New Hampshire.

There is no clear answer in the Bible, though for Christians, the example of the life of Jesus certainly points toward punishments that do not result in death. His way was one of nonviolence.

In John 8:3-11, Jesus intervenes in the case of a woman about to be stoned to death for adultery, saying "Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her." Depending on what you believe about apostolic witness, this is pretty straightforward. But this story is not attested by any other gospel, nor does it appear in the earliest manuscripts of the Book of John. Is it truly the teaching of God? No matter how much I like it, I find it a slim support for not casting stones.

In Romans 13: 1-5, the Apostle Paul writes of the importance of submitting to the authority of government. But this is the teaching of someone who leads a community that does not govern. Paul's people are not able to choose whether government will impose death on some criminals or not. So his advice is to accept what cannot be changed. We, however, live in a world where there is some choice about what government requires, and in this case, the jury has a choice about what sentence to impose.

In Matthew 5:21-22, Jesus clearly teaches that Christians should not kill, or even be angry with others. But at the same time, in the very same chapter of Matthew, Jesus affirms the rightness of the Law of Moses, saying "Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets...Not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished." And the Law of Moses affirms the death penalty.

Then there's the much quoted "all who take the sword will perish by the sword" in Matthew 26: 51-52. Michael Addison is one who has taken the sword, so to speak, and some would argue that Jesus calls for such a one to perish by the sword. But this is circular unless the sword is in the hand of God, for someone else must "take the sword" to kill him -- and presumably also suffer the same condemnation. I'm inclined to see this teaching as offering the lesson that violence only leads to more violence.

So that's where I end in a reflection on Christian scriptures and the death penalty. Violence only leads to more violence. If we deplore the violence that cost Officer Briggs his life, then it is only appropriate to find a way to punish without violence. We must be the change we wish to see in the world.

The jury will decide, regardless of what Scripture or other authority may say. I think it's time we gave some thought to adjusting the laws of our state to take this decision out of the hands of future juries. Let us punish without violence, I say, for those who take the sword will perish by the sword.

Thanks

The news is that there is a radio station that is already into Christmas music, the idea being that people need a lift from all the woeful tidings of the season. Excuse me, but what happened to Thanksgiving?

I get a lift from giving thanks, especially when times are hard. Gratitude is, in fact, one of the big spiritual practices of the world's religions. Give thanks, they say. Giving thanks is important, they say. It's important because it is uplifting. People need a lift from all the woeful tidings of the season, so let us undertake the spiritual practice of giving thanks.

Imagine all the years when harvests were thin, and survival through the winter was a dicey prospect. What did our foreparents do? They worried, of course, but also they gave thanks. And why not? The world is full of many wonders. Life is amazing. Every day I wake up, it's time to give thanks. And throughout the day there are many moments to be grateful. Grateful for the smile of the waitress at the coffee shop. Grateful for the greeting of my co-worker. Grateful for the opportunity to make what I can of another day. Letting gratitude run through my day, pretty soon I realize I am in love with life, indeed, that I am happy, that I am in awe of nature and human invention, and so much more. And yes, my 401(k) is toast.

There are so many bad things that happen, things for which gratitude is really not the appropriate response. But then, through the rage and disappointment, beyond the tears, it turns out there is something, not the central event, but something around the edges, there is something for which to be thankful. Those little crumbs of gratitude from around big awful events are important. They make a trail that can lead us from bitterness to forgiveness, from despair to renewed hope, a trail of crumbs through the dark places that can take us back out again.

So let us not go quite yet to the forgettable and commercial uplift of Christmas songs on the radio. Let's take time for Thanksgiving first, and tune up our spiritual practice of gratitude. It's something within ourselves that will deliver the goods as we face these hard times. And it's good to start with giving thanks.

Turning?

Turning is what people say we need to do as a nation. We have somehow gotten onto the wrong path, and we must turn now to a better way. We have chosen a President who promises change, and surely turning to a better way would be another way of putting that. But what is our relationship now to that choice? Have we done our part of the work by making up or minds and voting? I hope that is not all we little people plan to do.

I'm thinking of our country as a large piece of equipment, a big truck, or a ship, something that takes a lot of energy to turn. And this turning is not even so simple as a change of direction for an earth mover, a truck, or a ship. Besides, the pieces of the turning all seem to be interrelated, and not all the levers that control the parts are in the hands of our new president. He controls some of them, and influences some of them, but not all of them, and as he has carefully reminded us, not yet. We chose, and fell back in amazement at our work, which truly is amazing, but it is not done yet -- he starts work on January 20. The other elected officials we chose at the same time will be working with him, whether as partners in his vision or as loyal opposition. That will certainly help us get pointed toward a different direction, but the change of direction involves other institutions than government.

There is still work for us to do. We need to hold to the vision with its interconnected parts, a vision partly in the hands of government, partly influenced by government, and to some degree outside government control. A new way of doing international relations, lowered reliance on fossil fuels, a better system for access to health care, better public education, and a renewed commitment to protecting the habitability of the planet, these are the major headings of what's involved. First, government will have to deal with the immediate crises in the financial markets and the "real" economy. It's important for us to hold the vision of the changes we need, and to start working on them directly as opportunity presents itself.

Maybe there are new "green" enterprises to be started. Maybe the are ways to promote good health practices, from healthy eating to exercise without getting involved with government programs. Maybe there are ways to lead change with local initiative before they make up their minds at the national level. Maybe there are tiny international efforts at outreach that we can make our own.

People are going to be doing things on a small scale that help direct the change that is starting to happen. Some people will be doing things on a larger scale outside the realm of government. Will they be people who value human dignity and diversity? will they be people who value the use of democratic processes everywhere in society? One way to make sure they will be people who have the values we teach in Unitarian Universalism is for them be members of our faith community -- perhaps you? or someone you know? or someone who hasn't yet found us? We are a larger faith in the sense that we direct our attention to the deep needs of our world here and now, rather than to some imagined other world. And I say we need to be a larger faith in numbers, too, in order to help make this turning happen in the right way, in a way that is good for people in all walks of life and good for all living things, in a way that is good for the Earth.



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Decisions

So here we are at the end of October, making decisions about how to cast our ballots for president on November 4th. We hope these decisions have everything to do with considering what we value, comparing it to what we think might be delivered, using good judgment about aligning our interests with our candidates.

In some ways, it's an exercise in faith. We have no idea what the candidates will really do when they get elected. Sometimes we hope they will do something a little different than what they have promised. For me, I'm hoping that "clean coal" turns out to be something we can live without, and that promises in that department need not be kept. Sometimes, once they are elected, they just change their minds about what they can or want to do, and there we all are.

So we look deeper. There's that surface level where we can calculate whose health care plan or tax plan looks like a better deal for us, and even which one looks like a better deal in terms of the kind of country we'd like to live in. Who is this person? And who are the people around him? What are the indicators of the qualities of character we look for? Yes, it's about character, but not in the sloganeered way we have known in past campaigns.

Unitarians used to believe that good character itself brought a kind of salvation, and indeed, we spend a lot of energy in our congregations considering how to be good people, people of good character. Our seven principles are guides to character as well as being guides to action in the world. So I suggest as a handy guide to the character of our next president a quick check of our own seven principles:

Does he respect the worth and dignity of every person?
Does he model justice, equity, and compassion in human relations?
Does he accept others and encourage them -- if not to spiritual growth, then to finding their own way to a good life?
Does he pursue a free and responsible search for truth and meaning?
Is his way of working with others a model of democratic process?
Does he reach out in meaningful ways toward a world of peace, liberty, and justice for all?
And by his actions does he show respect for the interdependence of all life on our Planet?

If he passes the UU Principles Character Test in addition to promising policies and actions you approve, I say, the choice will be clear. If your deep intuition still tells you something else, I say, examine the sources of your deep intuition. This year's election is not just about getting on with our same way of being a country. It's about finding another way. Character can help us find the leader for that vitally important task.

Intensive Beach

I had signed up to take an intensive class in Unitarian Spiritual Practice as a student at large at Meadville Lombard Theological School, a week of intensive immersion in learning the spiritual practices of our Unitarian ancestors, mainly the Transcendentalists. Rev. Rob Hardies was going to be teaching it, And it was going to be at Ferry Beach, on the coast of Maine. This was a double attraction, important learning and agreeable location, so I was sure it would be worth the rather astonishing cost.

Now I can report that it was a good choice. Seventeen of us gathered six hours a day for five days in a large room normally used for things involving yoga mats and exercise balls. We had read a large number of books and articles and signed up to do presentations on others that not all of us were reading. (I was part of the Theodore Parker team). I confess, I had not been as well prepared as I intended to be, but I was able to hang onto the thread of the conversation throughout.

The practice of self-culture was at the center of Transcendentalist spirituality, a practice that owed a lot to the way the Puritans had done things before, but also reached across the Atlantic to the German and English Romantics. It had everything to do with starting your day intending to become a better person, examining yourself on a daily basis through keeping a journal and reflecting prayerfully, and consecrating your life to the good of all. In their hands, at that time in the development of American culture, it became a powerful tool for social change. It can be argued that echoes of self-culture still echo down the years in our culture today. As a particularly poignant example, we listened together to Barak Obama's acceptance speech and heard them.

And all week we had a succession of the kind of sweet summer days that make people come back to the Maine coast year after year. Sunshine, a little breeze, cool at night and warm in the day. Not too hot. The water, of course, was too cold for real swimming, which was just as well, since we were not really free during the prime beach hours. There was plenty of walking on the beach, enjoying the porch facing the sea, listening to the waves, smelling the air, and imbibing the sense of peace that comes with all this beachiness. How could we keep on being up tight in a place designed to let go, surrounded by others doing much less stressful things than taking a graduate level Seminary class.

I am heading home refreshed and inspired, ready to start the church year with the spirit of those New England ancestors who loved Nature, loved one another, and loved the Spirit.

Spiritual but not religious

When I read that there are more people out there in the world who claim to be Unitarian or Unitarian Universalist than there are members of our congregations, I am really confident that we have quite a congregation out there of folks who say they are "spiritual but not religious". True, some of those self-described Unitarian Universalists who don't attend our congregations are more skeptical than spiritual, but there are those who really do think they can be spiritual on their own.

To some extent, it's possible. Many of us prefer the church of nature, taking time out on weekends to go hiking or cross-country skiing or birding or whatever. This is good. Nature can be spiritually nourishing. Our spiritual ancestor, Henry David Thoreau, turned to nature for spirituality more than to other humans. But his friend, Ralph Waldo Emerson, chided him for being too often alone, and urged him to take someone else along on his rambles. Emerson thought there could be no spirituality without human companionship, it seems. Others of us just live our lives, reading books that remind us of the spirit, Conversations With God, Tuesdays with Morrie, books by Thich Nhat Hanh or the Dalai Lama, and contemplating life in what we hope is a spiritual way. But what is spirituality if it does not require anything of you beyond reading books? The spirituality based on books --even the spirituality based on attending occasional weekend workshops -- this is also incomplete without people with whom to talk it over, without the challenge to actually put the spirituality into practice.

Being "religious" can get to be a problem, though. You go someplace where people all believe some things in common, and what if you don't agree? I'm thinking there really are only a couple of things we believe in Unitarian Universalism, when it comes right down to it:
We believe in welcoming. We believe in trying to find our own spiritual paths. We believe in testing our experiences of the source of meaning and guidance through sharing with others as well as thinking it over for ourselves. And we believe in reaching out to help others, no matter where we or they are on our spiritual journeys. And that's about it.

Is it a religion? We think so. But you don't have to be "religious" to be part of it.

Sadness and Fear

We still don't really know why he did it. But he did, and apparently he was a person who hated everything we stand for. That was enough to trigger a moment not only of sadness and prayer for the people directly involved, but also of fear for ourselves. I'm sure Manchester, New Hampshire, is not the only conservative place with a Unitarian Universalist Church, so my thoughts and prayers go out to my sisters and brothers in those other places, places where it's not inconceivable that some gun toting, disgruntled desperado could choose killing us as a form of self expression.

Our congregation's history includes an episode of terrible vandalism, a crime never solved, when the whole interior of the church was systematically trashed. Was it a hate crime? No one knows, but for the people who were there, it sure felt like it. Personal histories of our members include hateful encounters-- people who were fired from jobs because of their sexual orientation, people who were threatened, even actually attacked, for traveling in the company of someone of the same gender. My own history stretches back in time and across the miles to my childhood in Northern Virginia where my parents were threatened for being "n-er lovers" and all kinds of liberals were referred to as "communists", a time when I learned to be very cautious about expressing my views.

The tree of fear has real roots, and this event has watered them with blood. Let us use it as an opportunity to remember the bad old days and to notice the badness of today, sure, but let us also use this as a time to resolve again that our views have importance in the world, importance that is worth a calculated risk. These risks need to be acknowledged. But let us reflect on them and use those reflections develop the courage we need to stand for what is right in ways that can reach out effectively to our surrounding communities.

Visions from Chautauqua

It's not like anything else, this gated village on a lake in the not-so wilds of far western New York State. Families come and stay there for a day, a weekend, a week, or all summer, where a feast of cultural opportunities is spread before them. I got up early for Zen meditation with a senior teacher from a well-known Zen center. Others got up early to go sailing or play tennis. Still others slept late in the blissful quiet of this mostly car-free environment. Worship services, lectures, conversations, book signings, concerts, recitals, every hour had another cultural temptation to absorb. Some of the cottages are quite grand, while others are modest. There are hotels and condos catering to most budgets (no campground, though -- there is a definitely higher-than-average-income feel about the place), and really, they are quite interested in making sure there is not a lot of driving of cars. That's what got my attention.

We had paid over $4.00 per gallon the last time we filled the tank on our way over there from New England, so it's not surprising that fuel was on my mind. So here's the deal. There's a little "downtown" area with the library, some shops, a post office, and a grocery store at the center of the place. The other places to go are within walking distance, though there is a trolley service of sorts, and a bus, both making the rounds on a regular basis. Out by the main gate there's an early morning farmers' market for fresh local produce. You can almost just go there and stay all summer without going "off campus" as they say. It's true, there's not a lot of privacy, because the lots are all small and everyone is always out on the front porch.

I spoke with a woman who said she had been coming for over twenty years, arriving from New York City with her carry-on bag, gathering up the things she would have stored from the last season, settling into the same room in the same residence year after year. And in all this time, she has not brought a car with her. I actually didn't ask if she owned one, which maybe she doesn't, since she lives in The City. It seems she wrote a book a long time ago that is still used in schools, that still brings her a dependable stream of cash that makes this vacation possible. But adjustments have to be made. This year, she will have to have someone drive her out to the pharmacy in town, because the delivery service has been changed from the drug store she always had used to a different one, and she hadn't gotten around to changing her prescription. About once a week, someone drives her to town so she can do a few errands, visit the "big" grocery store, and so forth. Otherwise, she walks or takes the trolley or the bus. There's plenty to do, and people she knows who either stay all summer themselves or drift through by the week.

I couldn't help thinking our regular neighborhoods could be more like this. There's Boys' and Girls' Club for the younger set every week day. There are electric carts for people with mobility issues. One payment includes all the culture you can absorb. And while you actually are able to leave at any time, there's not much need. Why not get out of our cars and start walking and biking and taking public transportation? Get to know our neighbors as we walk past one another's porches? I'm sure we wouldn't be living the way we are if there hadn't been some big drawbacks to this old-timey way of doing things, but this glimpse of it made me think that what is old might just become new again. I say, let's take our vision from Chautauqua, and invent a new kind of neighborhood that works without having to drive so much.

Florida in June

The General Assembly of the Unitarian Universalist Association gathered in Fort Lauderdale towards the end of June, giving me yet another chance to celebrate my birthday in an exotic location without my family anywhere around. It's generally worth it, as it was this time in ways that I am still sorting out in my head, producing an untidy flood of documents that I am still sorting out on my desk. But going to South Florida in June left me with one very clear impression: people should not be living in such numbers on this hot, fragile, wet, beautiful, sandy shore.

So there we were, gathered into a neat, security-checked corner of this place, one that could be made to appear much like any other convention center, air conditioned into not having to go outside, offered food much like any other convention food, so we could pretend that humans were in fact supposed to be here. For the Haitian cab drivers, it seemed like home. And for us, too, it seemed like home, the home we re-create every year so we can celebrate our milestones, have our conversations about theology and practice, argue about how to do the social justice we want to do, and just generally get into our way of being together -- worship of words and songs and music and artistic ambiance, shopping and schmoozing in the exhibit hall, listening in the plenary sessions, participating in workshops. We might as well be on another planet, and our Planet Convention is in South Florida this year.

I find it difficult to do General Assembly, so this sense that people ought not to live here, ought not to visit here, this sense of wrongness fit right in with my mood. But by limiting the amount I did, by focusing on reconnecting with colleagues, I was actually able to enjoy the time I spent on Planet Convention. I met new friends at the International Council of Unitarian Universalists' booth and related activities. I met old friends at the Andover Newton Theological School event. I hung out with the women of E-Meetinghouse, people with whom I share an electronic fellowship but do not see, especially in groups, unless I come here. My workshop on "Eight Spiritual Practices to Save The World" went well, and I made new friends around that.

I found one friend who also has a General Assembly birthday and had dinner with him. I discovered another friend has a General Assembly birthday, so I had dinner with her the next night. I came away with tasks to do to follow up on new and old connections, and with a sense that I actually look forward to General Assembly next year.

Maybe now that I have conquered the thought that people ought not go to places like that, I can persuade members of the congregation I serve that they, too, should visit Planet Convention, wherever it happens, to make new friends, learn new ways, and celebrate with thousands of others like us.

Thinking of Norbert

Norbert Capek was not just the inventor of the Flower Ceremony, he was a devoted father. So when Flower Sunday happened to fall on Fathers' Day, it was clearly time to talk about Capek's life. I realized by the response to what I said that this was a story unfamiliar to many members of our congregation. (Yes, I get it -- if I don't tell it, no one else will!) They didn't know he had re-planted Unitarianism in Czechoslovakia, that the teachings of his church about freedom of thought and growing your faith from within were considered treason once the Germans came, that he had died in a gas chamber after being worked nearly to death in Dachau.

It feels as if the channels for spreading UU stories to adult members of this congregation, for teaching the UU's of Manchester, New Hampshire, about our very own movement, are very thin. There's Sunday morning. There's the often unread newsletter. There's the library -- unfunded, and a new part of our enterprise, so not a really well-developed resource and not yet widely used. And there's the Adult Enrichment program, most effectively used for teaching spirituality these days. There's this blog, and its companion meant for the local community. I'm intrigued by the flow of comments on my Eagle Scout reflection -- maybe this channel is not as thin as I think.

Our own website is mostly used for sharing information about events, and the UUA's website is so big and complex, it's hard to know and access what's on it. I'm thinking that as the internet gets to be more like TV, it could be possible to share more stories that way. But could we do it well? accurately? attractively? And I'm wishing someone else would do it, of course. Days seem very long already. So much to share, so little time! And so few channels to attract and hold their attention!

I'll hold the good thought, do my best, and hope to say what needs to be said in ways that convey it to those ready to absorb. So much to do, so little time!

Flight of Eagles

There were three of them this year, young men from our congregation who completed all the work to become Eagle Scouts in the Boy Scouts of America, the highest level of scouting. They are now scouts for life, according to the way of the BSA. They worked hard in different ways, one with a project to create a little park in a downtown neighborhood, another with a soccer camp and used-equipment collection to benefit young Iraqi soccer players, and the third with a huge project to brighten up the meditation garden at our church. All of them showed leadership and creativity. All of them learned lessons of character and citizenship that will be with them all their lives. So of course, we honored them with little ceremonies in church. The first was in January, and the second was just today, June 8. We felt proud.

We also felt a little ambivalent. Not about the young men who earned this honor. But about the relationship of the values of our religious movement with those of the larger Boy Scouts of America. We feel a little sneaky and underhanded as we celebrate our flight of Eagles, because we are painfully aware that the BSA does not accept boys and men who have minority sexual orientations. Two of our adult members earned the rank of Eagle Scout. One of them proudly volunteers in the local scouting organization, at times feeling conflicted about the values of his church and the values of scouting. He assisted in the presentation of our congratulations to our new Eagles. The other, a gay man, has returned his insignia and certificate. He did this because he knew the scouts would not have accepted him if they had known of his sexual orientation.

When I spoke with this second man, the one who resigned, he said that yes, it was okay for us to celebrate the new Eagles in our flock. Much of who he is as an adult, he said, had to do with what he learned through scouting. So he was glad for the experience. And yet, he is not welcome. I'm sorry it has to be like this. I'm glad that scouting is there for those of our boys who fit in with their program. I salute their achievement. I hope the presence of Unitarian Universalist adults among the ranks of scout leadership will help bring change from within.

Old People

I spent much of the month of May's "extra" time attending to the pastoral needs of a dear old lady and her family as she drifted gently toward death. I was glad to do it. We had her memorial service on May 31, an excellent time, because there are flowers in everyone's garden that could be gathered to brighten the church. She herself had often brought garden flowers for services, so it reminded us of her. She and her husband had lived long lives in a network of communities. They had been vital participants in the activities of our congregation, of Star Island, their family, and several other organizations dedicated to worthy causes. We all loved them. Her husband had died last October, leaving her, after sixty-some years, adrift in a world without him. It was a conscious decision on her part -- she wasn't feeling well, she didn't want to go on without him -- there was a moment we all knew that she had decided no to go on living.

It was sad to realize that this was happening, yet there was nothing to do but accept. And gradually, the life force ebbed from her body, although she remained alert in the moments when she was not too tired. Her family gathered. Her friends dropped in for short visits. She loved people, so these visits revived her while they lasted. But it became clear she was allowing herself to get overtired -- so the visits had to end. We hated that part.

Sometimes, when someone in her nineties dies, hardly anyone remembers. We had another elder lady die last fall, someone who had been out of touch with the congregation for years, living in a retirement home, someone whose interests had all faded as she aged, who had slipped more deeply into dementia in recent years. Her husband had died in the spring, and by fall, she was ready to "go and be with him." Much about her story was the same -- a long marriage, a long life into her nineties, the death of her beloved husband a few months earlier, a decision not to go on living. And when it was over, there were a very few people who remembered and still cared. They had had no children, and most of their friends has passed from this life before them. The nephew and niece who were their guardians did care, but there was no other extended family who chose to be at the memorial service. A dozen old people gathered, plus the nephew -- the niece had gone back to the midwest where she now lives-- to remember her life and say goodbye.

Not so with our lady of May. When we celebrated her life, over two hundred relatives and friends crowded into our modest sanctuary. There were so many stories -- touching, funny, poignant, colorful -- together we summoned up a hologram of her presence, resolved to be like her as much as we could, laughed and wept, and bid her farewell. It was a death that had come in its time, since it is imprudent to make any claims on the future at ninety-one, and yet we all wished she had gone on living -- just a little while, for us. And there was so much food. Her son had sent word not to make a fuss, only to be told that not fussing was not going to be possible. Everyone wanted to bring something to the reception. This was a good thing, because everyone wanted to stand around and talk and eat and drink punch and coffee for a long time, even after a long formal service.

It's not really true that we choose our endings, although I suspect there is more choice than we think, those of us on the outside. Having watched these dear elders live their last days, weeks, and months, though, I suspect there are some things we should remember as we lurch forward into old age. Mainly, it seems to be about having friends and having interests. Life continues to flow through us as we remain engaged with the living of it. Belonging to a church, with its constant resupply of people of younger ages, seems just right. As the lives of the younger ones help maintain the interests of the older ones, the wisdom and simple presence of the older ones blesses the younger ones. Families can sometimes be like this, but families can get small. A person needs multiple communities and multiple interests long into old age, no doubt about it. There truly is something wrong with shutting people away into colonies of the elderly and letting them find community only among people in older age. Let the doors be open between the generations!

Tale of Two Seders

Our UU Congregation has its own version of a Passover seder most years, and this year it fell on the first day of "real" Passover. We gathered, families bringing young children, families bringing elderly parents, adults with Judaism in their past, adults with no clue about what Passover might be, for an ordered celebration, a dinner with traditional foods, and our own approximation of a Haggaddah. Everything was in English, the songs were mostly selected from songs of freedom we know from other contexts ("Go down, Moses, way down in Egypt land. Tell old Pharoah, let my people go!") And some things were about Unitarian Universalists, those who have tried to help when people -- especially Jewish people -- were being killed, and those who stood by. We allied ourselves in spirit with the people who were slaves in Egypt. They had been in "a narrow place", the English translation of the Hebrew word for "Egypt", and somewhere in our histories as families, as individuals, as cultural groups, we have all been there. In our usual style, it was informal, with readings shared all around, requiring minimal leadership. And in our usual style, the food was copious and excellent. Our cooks followed Jewish recipes and used no leavening anywhere. Someone had found some bottles of nice dry kosher wine, and of course, there was grape juice. A good time was had by all.

I had the pleasure of attending the seder at the home of the Conservative rabbi and his wife the following night. It was a wonderful, convivial gathering of a dozen people, including some teenagers, but otherwise all older adults. The table was decorated to illustrate the ten plagues that Moses allowed God to send to the Egyptians. Little plastic frogs were everywhere (we need these for the little kids at the UU Seder next year!). And finger puppets, one for each plague. And Elijah's cup was joined by Miriam's well in a place of honor. There was a song about Miriam and the women dancing on the shores of the Red Sea after the people had crossed over. Of course the fine china and crystal and silver and linen marked this as a very different kind of occasion than the one in our church basement, but I know of seders in synagogue basements, too. In contrast with our group of mostly newbies, with a few execptions, everyone there had been doing multiple seders all their lives as part of the rhythm of the Jewish liturgical calendar. There was rich chanting in Hebrew, and of course songs that everyone else knew in Hebrew. Still, the main story was told in English, shared around the table the same way we had done ours the night before. If you wanted, you could read your part of the story in Hebrew, but the requirement was to include the English as well. As in our UU seder, things got informal and even a little silly at times, as people enjoyed each other's company.

I came away feeling all right about the way our congregation does Passover. It's a UU Passover, of course, but it's true enough, to my ear, eye, and tongue, to the "real thing". It's a combination of serious purpose and informal tone, reaching out in gratitude to the Holy, promising to remember, feeling our unity around the table. Children and their parents leave with many things to talk over. Another time, though, I'm going to try to get my congregation together with a group from a Jewish congregation for seder, to bring a live experience of interfaith celebration into what for us borders of make-believe.

A Great Celebration

I was among the 250 or so happy Unitarian Universalists who got to celebrate the joining of the New Hampshire/ Vermont District of the Unitarian Universalist Association with the Northeast District (Maine) on April 11 and 12. What a party! There were a banner parade, choral singing with percussion, and a rapid-fire “testimony” time on Friday night that got us all thinking about what a lot of Good News there is to share about our congregations in these three states. And a well-run meeting in which delegates from the two districts met simultaneously for their last separate annual meetings, culminating in a vote to merge, consolidate, or whatever it was we called it. Then our surprise keynote speaker, Ginny Courter, UUA Moderator proceeded to knock our socks off with an alternately hilarious and touching presentation encouraging us to go ahead and let people know about our faith. I missed the grand ceremonial worship service because I had long ago agreed to do a wedding that afternoon for a couple near and dear to the congregation’s hearts, but all reports were that it was energetic and inspiring. Members of the congregation who attended came back energized, though tired.

So now two are one, with a bigger voice and fewer votes in the UUA, though our fewer votes will emerge as the longer-serving of our Trustees reaches the end of his tenure next year. And we’re too big for any of the congregations to be able to house our annual meetings and conferences. I trust we will make up for all that by having a critical mass that will bring new energy to our associations here in northern New England. It will certainly be easier to staff one District instead of two, and to staff it well instead of sketchily. I’m excited about the presence of a small church specialist among us, since this is a part of the world with many little congregations tucked away here and there, bringing civilization to the boonies.

May Northern New England speak and sing with a new voice that energizes the whole region with the good news of Unitarian Universalism, the faith we make for ourselves in conversation with one another.

Service and Peace

I went to a peace march and rally in Concord on Saturday, along with six or seven others from our congregation. Two of our delegation participated in the reading of names, the nearly 4,000 U.S. service people who have died in the war, plus many more civilians, both U.S. and Iraqi. They read in shifts for 13 hours to say the names. And those names are just the beginning. The group Code Pink had collected shoes and lined them up along the sidewalks of the square in front of the State House -- combat boots, yes, and flip-flops, high heels, little sneakers, and other kinds of civilian shoes, to remind us not only of the soldiers, but of the everyday people whose lives have been taken by this war. As we walked to the State House from the other side of the river, passing cars honked and gave us the peace sign (one or two offered the "other" salute). We even walked with a police escort along the street for a couple of blocks, heady stuff! A very funky marching band accompanied our parade. We chanted, "What do we want? Peace! When do we want it? Now!"
For me, there was a certain bitter nostalgia. I was glad to see that many of those marching were too young to remember those other marches. Not even born in Vietnam times. Some who would not remember the first Iraq incursion. There was music -- their kind of music, and mine, too, for the day.
There were speeches. Nabil Migalli, head of the New Hampshire Arab American league, spoke passionately about the false pretenses under which the war was started and the tremendous damage it has done to our national security and our stature in world opinion. He reminded us that terrible things are being done in our names for no good reason. Then a young veteran took the stage, Will Hopkins, to speak of his experience in this war, and of the price paid by so many returning veterans in the form of dreadful injuries, and in the form of hidden injuries of the spirit -- the flashbacks, the fear that doesn't stop, the reluctance to seek treatment. We will be paying for this war in the very fabric of our own culture for a long, long time.
It's a cultural question-- we value military service to our country to defend the peace we have within our borders. And then we squander the lives of those loyal Americans who enlist for this valuable service as if they were so many electronically generated images on a computer screen. We need to reincarnate our thinking about this service so as to respect it more. Real people with real families, real hopes and dreams of life within the borders the service supposedly defends, real blood, real muscles, real arms and legs and heads.
If our faith, Unitarian Universalism, is about God, then it must be about God incarnated in everyone, the spirit of life that animates us all, the precious and sacred made flesh . The flesh too sacred to be thrown so lightly into harm's way. And from the response to the march from the passersby, I'm thinking there are a lot of Americans who share this faith without actually saying that's what it is. Wholly human -- holy human. Something divine within us all, too precious to be thrown away.

Different Uses for a Church

It was Sunday, and on a Sunday our church is full of life. Meditation starts at 8:00, then the Our Whole Lives class at 9:00, warming up the place for the main events, Adult Worship and Children's Church, at 10:00. This particular day, there were both a class for potential new members and a Religious Education Committee meeting right after social hour. It's not always totally busy for me, but this week, it was.

I sat with the Religious Education folks, then went over to the Newcomers class, where I was scheduled for a cameo appearance. I had work to do coming out of the RE Committee meeting, so I sat down to do it after the class was done (3 new people "signed the book" to become members!). The Finance Committee had asked for a detailed justification of the budget for our prospective new Director of Religious Education. I created it and shipped it off to the other concerned parties for comment. Then I prepared my evening discussion class, "Co-creating the Church We Want" and went home to get a bite to eat.

Sunday evening is full: The youth group meets, the Social Responsibility Committee meets, there's and AA meeting, and the discussion I was leading happened to be meeting. I locked my purse in my office and headed off to the other side of the building to meet my fellow co-creators. The conversation was rich -- we actually opened up some things that seriously need wider discussion and resolution -- and I was feeling pretty wired by the time I got back to the office. A good kind of wired, the way I feel when a lot has happened and I need to process. There was some more stuff to do at the computer, wired or not, and it was about an hour before I was ready to go home.

But as I looked around, it became clear that my purse was missing. Money, ID, cards, keys, missing. I called the police. I called my landlady to let me in. Then I went home and called all the credit card offices. Someone had apparently already used one of my cards at several stores. Then the next day, it became clear that someone had broken into the other office and into the closet where we keep the safe, and maybe they had used keys they found to open the safe. But the money had left the building before they got there. I lay awake most of the night, trying to process, but mostly just freaking out.

I thought that yes, a church has many functions. We provide a place of calm and quiet for meditation, age-appropriate worship for young people and adults, instruction in dealing with life's persistent questions, conversation about how to be our own best selves both individually and collectively, opportunities for healing, and now, apparently, someone was thinking we were a sort of informal ATM.

Of course. A church collects money on a Sunday, so Sunday evening must be the right time to redistribute it to someone who needs it. I don't accept this idea. Especially when the person doesn't even have an account with us! Building security. Not my favorite concern. But there we have it -- if we don't want to be an ATM, we'll have to tighten things up. I like it that church is many different things to different people on Sunday and throughout the week. But there are limits.

Spiritual Knee

I love to ski. It's one of the ways I connect with the highest truth and the deepest love -- I feel the oneness of everything when I'm floating downhill with those long flat things stuck to my feet. Songs of the universe pass through my head and the sky opens up to let the energies of the heavens connect with those of the earth. In the days when I had a partner who shared skiing with me, a day on the slopes generally served as the best appetizer for an evening of high-powered love. Both the skiing and the lovemaking are/were spiritual practices for me.

So now this year, I come to a time when my right knee has enough arthritis in it to provoke a flareup. At first, I didn't know what it was. I spent weeks contemplating life with a sore knee. I limped up and down stairs. I couldn't do yoga. I couldn't take long walks. I couldn't ski. It was awful. "So this is how it feels to be in your 80's," I thought. I was so unhappy. I'm quite a few years away from being in my 80's, not at all ready to go there. Though many people my age have real physical limitations. I thought of them and felt grateful. Acceptance, I thought. That's the spiritual practice for this knee. And it was.

But non-acceptance was also a worthwhile practice. I went to the doctor and accepted a shot of cortisone and a prescription for anti-inflammatory pills. I took my friends' advice and started taking glocosamine. Finally, after weeks and weeks of one thing and another, I can dance and I can ski.

First, it was dancing. I go contradancing, which although it is quite energetic, is always done in places where you can stop and go home with very little trouble. Somebody told me to get new shoes with less resistance to turning. I did, and it was great! Then, I went for an afternoon to a smoothly groomed, pretty boring ski place. I got cold from not exercising enough while heading down hill, but my knee came through beautifully.

I paid attention to my knee. I let it tell me what to do. And it did. One step after another became clear as I paid attention to what it said.

So my spiritual practice of accepting the truth and paying attention to my knee has led me from despair to readjustment. Maybe I'll never ski aggressively again, or maybe I will. I'll pay attention and not just make up some story about what's going to happen. I will be guided in the way that works. After all, It's my spiritual knee that will take me to where I need to go.

Experimenting with Worship Time

We're experimenting with worship time. Some members and friends of the congregation work nights or Sunday mornings and find it really difficult to get to church on Sunday at 10:00 AM the only time church "happens" for us. One mother confessed that she has a tight turnaround with taking her son to a sports practice and almost never makes it to church -- plus, she really, really isn't a morning person! To those of us who have been Unitarian Universalist forever, it seems very unnatural to think of church happening at a different time. I still wish they wouldn't have youth sports practice on Sunday mornings, because we still really can't have Sunday School any other time. But with our experiment, now Mom can come, but only once a month, at 5:00 PM on the second Saturday of the month, January 12, this month. (check our website for other months: www.uumanchester.org)

I can tell you it's very sweet. There's something about the silence outside in the evening -- no doubt this will change when spring comes, but for now, silence -- and the smaller congregation makes it more intimate. We sing together, keep silence together, take our time in sharing joys and concerns, and reflect together on the theme of the week. Sometimes the sermon is cut short to allow for discussion, so it's less formal. The light is different, the stained glass windows look different, and there's just something about the calm energy of that time of day that makes everything flow together nicely. Then, sometimes, we go somewhere to get a bite to eat and socialize afterward.

I'm hoping many more people discover this experiment with worship time. Maybe you if you're nearby? We'd love to have you!