A Pilgrimage of Sorts

I sold myself at the service auction to give a tour of Walden pond, with stories and quotations from Henry David Thoreau. People bought it! So yesterday we went, never mind that the forecast was for showers. The forecast was wrong, and we had a great time. It had been a little challenging to choose what to say about Thoreau's Walden journey to a group that had not, like the Adult Enrichment class I gave a few years ago, actually read the book first. And I wasn't sure I wanted to focus on "Walden" itself. There was a passage in "A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers" that talked about places near Manchester NH -- the village of Amoskeag, the little mountains called Uncanoonuc, the lake above the dam, and the village of Hooksett. So I read that on the way from here to there. But also, we wanted to get to know each other. Several of us had taken different names -- I pointed out that Thoreau had done that, too, having started out as David Henry.

There was the background of his going -- the tragedy of losing his brother to lockjaw, the disappointing stay in New York City, the threat of a particularly stupid war with Mexico, the growing concern that there would be Civil war, and his own father's desire for a nice, big, house, which Henry helped him build. And the idea that this was not all that far from town and dinner invitations and visits from friends, a place more of open fields than it is now, with a stand of pine woods that Emerson had bought and offered him as a place to build a retreat. And the pond, the lovely pond, still there looking placid and inviting.

And some quotations that showed his interest in enlightenment, a spiritual experience about which he and his friends were newly excited, now that translations from the Sanskrit were becoming available. The important thing is to wake up and stay awake (Richardson says Thoreau himself suffered from narcolepsy, so this would have been of interest on more than one level). And to live in constant anticipation of the dawn. The fact that this period was one of great productivity, the period when Thoreau wrote his only two book-length pieces, and grew so much as a writer and speaker, that was important to mention. And that he had gone to spend that famous night in jail from his lodging in the woods.

The personal things drew their attention -- who he loved, how he dressed, playing the flute by moonlight while floating in his boat in the pond, his sister bringing pies from home, his struggle with TB. His last words, prompted by someone asking if he could see the other side of that dark river separating this life from the next -- "One life at a time."

The weather was perfect, the company was engaging, our lunch at the Walden Grill was delicious, and the experience of Concord today was fun. I guess it was a pilgrimage, at least for me, to revisit our holy curmudgeon's places and refresh my sense of him. I was glad of the occasion.

Trusting the Process

I'm in the middle of a strange journey. I resigned as minister at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Manchester, quite sure that my ministry with that congregation had reached its conclusion. June is my last month with them. At the same time, I face a really challenging market as I look to move into intentional interim ministry. I've been trusting the process, and it has become a long, strange trip. A ministry awaits, of what kind, in what location, I am not quite sure. Will it be the interim ministry I set out to find? or something else?

It began gradually about twelve months ago, and went into second gear around January. But no real information was available until April, and no real action was possible until the last week of that month. I had rounded up resources to help me get through it: an interim minister who was not going to be searching this year to serve as a coach, a friend from seminary to serve as confidante, a shrink, just to be on the safe side. And I went to an expensive intensive session of career counseling to get clear about my inner and outer strengths and challenges.

The final list of congregations arrived for Round One, and I did my best to pick congregations that would not be wildly popular with everyone else while at the same time being more or less up my alley. Since this was my first time doing it, I went mostly on guesswork. I have some ideas about advance preparation for next time.

My coach came back from the conference of professional interim ministers with the word: "If you want to work this year, you need a website." I had thought it was an option to do it the old way with a portfolio of documents that could be express-mailed to interested congregations, so I set about to get online. I called a member of the congregation who has been helpful with IT stuff. He showed me the way to a site where a domain name and a website could be set up. "Website tonight!" it called itself, but it took me all weekend and a lot of intense concentration to get a reasonable facsimile of a job search website up and running.

That Monday, we found out which congregations had gotten our records. I took a chance and emailed their contact people to let them know my web address. And waited.

Soon, one congregation called to say I didn't look like the minister they were looking for. But soon after that, others called, and we set up telephone appointments for interviews. I had three nice interviews with three congregations that all looked as if we could make beautiful music together, but ultimately, as Round One was ending, they all called to say they had picked someone else. Deep breath and wait for round two. And start thinking about Round Three, the alternatives to Transitions Office facilitated interim ministries. A nicely-situated half-time ministry. Overseas temporary ministries. And pretty soon, three more listings from Transitions. One quick response and another good interview, but no, I was not their final choice. And now the pace has slowed. One of the new ones is really looking for a consulting minister who might stay. So is the half-time prospect. And the last one hasn't been in touch yet.

Maybe this is my chance to do something really different -- volunteer with some organization that saves the world's forests? -- and so I have begun my inquiries into that. The overseas possibilities are still alive. A friend is interested in one of them for her sabbatical, so maybe I should just chill on that one. A few more pictures on my website, but will anyone be looking at it? It will be perfect just in time for the market to close. My confidante's telephone ear is getting tired, but she's happy to encourage me. My references are eager to speak yet again about my sterling qualities. My coach continues to be helpful.

My little team and I are trusting the process. One of my reference people from inside the congregation said it today, "it will come, and maybe from a completely unexpected place." Tonight, I'm taking a deep breath, looking at the new crescent moon, and remembering to trust. Trust and do my footwork. Along with so many others in this little market and so many others in this big world of recession. The right thing is out there, coming closer. May it be so.

Violence, Nonviolence, winning, losing

Today's news bring the somewhat surprising revelation of the end of the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka. Long a militant movement dedicated to the establishment of a homeland for Tamil people in their majority Sinhalese country, they have been decisively defeated after a thirty year struggle. Today's news also brings the story that nonviolent pro-democracy activist Daw Aun Sang Suu Kyi is being tried for a crime in connection with the invasion of her home by a supporter who swam across the lake to the place where she was being held under house arrest. The Sinhalese have won against the Tamils: it remains to be seen whether the result will be repression or coexistence with mutual respect. The pro-democracy activists continue to struggle in Myanmar with no visible results.

Violence has ultimately failed in Sri Lanka. Nonviolence has not yet overcome the institutional repression in Myanmar. The caring observer is perplexed. I want to believe that nonviolence holds the key. But the balance of violence-based power in both countries is in the hands of their governments.

If nonviolence is the answer, then shouldn't the state-sponsored violence be curtailed? In Myanmar, the government doesn't believe in democracy, so of course they don't believe in the peace in which democracy can flourish. In Sri Lanka, there is a democracy of sorts, dominated by the Sinhalese majority. Do they want to sponsor the peace in which democracy can flourish for the Tamils as well as for them?

I don't know what I am learning from the news today. I believe in peace, and I believe in nonviolence, and I wonder if justice can be achieved at all.

Communicating Passionately

I chatted with representatives of several Unitarian Universalist congregations recently because I'm looking for a new job. All three groups spoke in guarded terms of the "disagreements" they had going in their congregations. I was bemused that somehow I had made connections with three seemingly very different groups, scratched the surface, and found the same kind of trouble: ongoing disagreements that were sapping the strength of their church communities. Then I spoke with a colleague who had led a number of congregations. She said it was really, really common.

Because look, she said, we are the people who assert our freedom and our individuality while at the same time proclaiming our welcome of all different kinds of people with all different kinds of views. Right, I thought, as I remembered a conversation with a psychologist who told me she thought UU's, in contrast to "normal" Protestant denominations, were mostly intuitive types on the Meyers-Briggs scale. An intuitive type myself, I am painfully aware of our tendency to come up with a brilliant idea about the general outline of whatever-it-is, letting the details sort of take care of themselves (or not). I'm always looking around for someone more on the "sensible" side of that scale to help me complete any plan. So there we are, big on proclamations and short on specifics. And in congregational life, it seems we are paying a price.

That made me think of another time when I started following the advice of a book on how to get along with my children. It was awhile ago, and I believe the book was "How to talk so your kids will listen; how to listen so your kids will talk." There were definite formulas about what to say.

"I have confidence you can figure out what to do" ... or, more to the point,

"What you are suggesting is contrary to my deeply held values."

It seemed very artificial, but I was determined. Gradually it became more natural. I did learn how to talk so they would listen and listen so they would talk. We did better with some things than others.

Now I'm thinking of those days again as I think of congregations and their needs for internal communication about important things. Our deeply held values get dragged into what's happening at church with not-surprising frequency.

It turns out there is a whole mini-industry built around the need for people to get along at work, another place where people's deeply held values can rub up against each other in a big way. And sort of entwined with the industry of helping people in workplaces get along is another set of institutes and programs aimed at making peace among people who are actually at war or close to it. Of course, we can make use of some of this.

I'm most taken with the work of Marshall Rosenberg and his followers, called Nonviolent Communication or Compassionate Communication, and alongside that with some work of the Harvard Negotiation Project summed up in the book Difficult Conversations.

What I'm wondering is what it would take to get a whole congregation to go around for a substantial period of time speaking in ways that feel artificial about things they haven't dared speak about for fear of what might happen. The use of "I-statements" is just the beginning. Does anyone have a clue about how to make this work? (The intuitive with the big idea is reaching out to the sensibles to complete the plan...)

Kind of a Surprise

The gallery was packed on Wednesday morning as the state Senate took up the question of same-gender marriage. I didn't get in, because I had been standing outside with two others from church holding a sign supporting both same-gender marriage and transgender rights. The bill to include transgender in the list of categories for nondiscrimination went down to defeat -- the silly argument that there was enough text in the law to do the job already apparently carried the day. But somehow, same-gender marriage passed!

People I saw afterward (and I wasn't in the gallery, where it was surely different) were subdued. What would the governor do? I think we found it kind of a surprise after all discouraging hype and all the bluster from the opponents. The explicit separation of civil and religious marriage, explicitly allowing religious communities to make their own decisions apparently made the difference. There had been creative thinking in the heat of the thing. A last-minute change crafted in the moment made it work.

It even took a few days for New Hampshire Freedom to Marry to organize a petition drive to address the governor. I think they must have been surprised, too. But yes, Governor Lynch does need to hear from us. In these times of economic difficulty compounded by a health scare, it is great to be able to move forward with legislation that will actually make life better for some people without spending a lot of money!