November 2005 Archives

"You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man."

- Frederick Douglass

In my post on Monday, I proposed that it would be a good idea for the Commission on Appraisal to examine our social justice work including our witnessing in the form of resolutions, etc. because it is a source of some controversy amongst us.

When I was an undergraduate, a long time ago, my English professor related a story about a famous colleague. His intent was to help us understand the life of the mind. In an interview this famous professor was asked what he did at the University, and he answered "I read Joyce." It was as I had been served up a parable. I came back to that story again and again. I read Joyce myself, but by god, there was a limit! To spend a life reading Joyce! I couldn't get my brain around that.

I first read I and Thou in 1964, probably the same year I heard the above story. Buber was difficult then, and Buber continues to be difficult. I have read Buber a many times. I am beginning to understand that professor, but unlike me, I am sure he understood Joyce for all his efforts. Buber's work influences my thinking, but how can I explain it! Perhaps to explain Buber is not what I am called to do. I am beginning to think based on my latest read of Buber, that I am called to apply Buber.

The Story: "When gold was discovered in Colorado in 1858, it resulted in a long stream of gold diggers with families going to the Rockies. This led to serious white encroachments on Cheyenne lands. To give protection to the white settlers, Fort Bent at Arkansa river got transferred into a military post, and was renamed to Fort Lyon. About 30 miles north to the fort in the inhospitable arias where the wide spread  prairie meet the Rocky Mountains, a small southern Cheyenne band  used to have their wintercamp on a  place called "Sand Creek". Their chief was Black Kettle.

Black Kettle was promised that his people would be left in peace as long as they stayed out of trouble. Black Kettle assured them that his people didn´t want any wars, all they wanted was to live in peace. He also believed that the white man and the Indians could coexist with each other.

On November 28 1864 Col. John.M.Chivington led his troup of volunteers to Sand Creek, and on the dawn of November 29 the troups had reached the sleeping Indian camp. One of the Indian women had heard the horses and sound the alarm, but Black Kettle told his people not to worry since the white officers at Fort Lyon had promised them protection. So he put up the American flag on the top of his tent to announce that this was a peacful and friendly camp.

But when the cavalry started to ride down the ridge towards the camp Black kettle realized that this wasn´t a friendly visit. Then the shooting started, the Indians were in panic, the soldiers indiscriminately killed women and children. Black Kettle who belived his people were under peace protection was helpless as his people were massacred. Over 200 Cheyenne died in this slaughter, about 75 of them where warriors the rest were mostly elderly men, women and children.

After the massacre Chivington returned to Denver where he bragged about how he fought and won the battle with the Cheyenne, and in a theatre he put up about 100 scalps to proof his victory. Black Kettle survived the massacre but was killed four years later by the 7th U.S cavalry at the Washita River."

Source is a web site of Native American History,  it seems to be an individual effort.

I was just in high school.  The Presidential election was dominating the media attention, and attracting my attention.  Who would win, Kennedy or Nixon?  I asked my mother who she would vote for, she indicated that she might not vote at all!  What?  It seemed a contradiction to my Unitarian understanding.  Well, she explained,  my Father was a Democrat and she was a Republican, and if they voted they would just cancel each other out, and so they decided not to bother.

Later it occurred to me that my Mother was not excited about Nixon and my father was not excited about Kennedy, and their no vote pack would not last until November.  They did vote, and the result indicated that the country was just as divided and nearly as uncommitted as my parents.  I grew up in a Unitarian Universalism that was politically diverse,  my congregation was made up of good religious liberals who expressed themselves as Republicans and Democrats.  Several years later as a first time voter,  I voted in the Republican primary against Goldwater, and ended up voting for LBJ.  Then,  I demonstrated against LBJ's on the day of his inauguration.  My political orientation was becoming independent and critical to the politicians of both political parties.  I am not now and never have I been a Democrat.  I was a registered Republican for a few months.  That was a long time ago.

At the funeral of his very good friend
the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,
a very old Ralph Waldo Emerson stood quietly.

Someone approached the great philosopher to greet him
and to offer their condolences.
Emerson looked at Longfellow's grave
and shared these words with his comforter
"that gentleman has a sweet, beautiful soul,
but I have entirely forgotten his name.."
***************************************************

Tom Engelhardt argues that beginning with the vigils led by Cindy Crawford soon followed by the spectacle of the inept response to Katrina the Bush administration has lost its ability to shape the political conversation.  The fear card no longer works, leaving the administration reacting to events rather than providing leadership to the Republican coalition.  This is a tipping point in the political balance of influence, those who speak clearly for progressive values will be heard. 
Engelhardt writes;  If you want to wet an index finger yourself and hoist it airwards to see which way the winds are blowing, then just check out how the media has been framing in headlines the recent spate of administration attacks. Headline writing is a curious in-house craft -- and well worth following. Changing headline language is a good signal that something's up. When the President attacks, it's now commonly said that he's "lashing out" -- an image of emotional disarray distinctly at odds with the once powerful sense of the Bush administration as the most disciplined White House on record and of the President and Vice President as resolutely unflappable.  (Read the rest of the article.)
This radical change in public sentiment is not the work of Democrats, they have shown themselves to be followers rather than leaders.  Last summer I wrote about the role of the prophet.  Cindy Sheehan is not the spokesperson that many would have chosen, but the Wizard has been exposed, and the Right wing is in disarray, and that is due to the actions of tens of thousands of grass roots prophets speaking and witnessing for a vision beyond practical power and imperial interests.

Too often in the narrowness of our anxiety
We ignore the broader horizon of Thy justice

We would grow, Source of Life,
grow to majestic proportions,
Become, instead of atoms of isolation,
Solar systems, even galaxies of connection.
Until thy spirit, abiding in us,
Shall infuse and transform
The whole of Creation.

Enlarge us, we pray,
By Thy holy presence in our lives,
Create in us a sympathy so robust
That we will feel our kinship
With all who struggle and suffer,
On this green globe which is our common home.

Forgive us our negligence and our transgressions.
Confirm us in all the ways of reason and virtue,
That we may finally be worthy
Of the great gift of Life which is ours.

Amen

By Dwight Brown (which was Mediation #1 in Exaltation; A Mediation Manual, compiled by David B. Parke.

Radical Hapa published Male Privilege Checklist this morning which announced itself as an unabashed imitation of Peggy McIntosh "Unpacking the Backpack of White Privilege."  In that the link to Peggy McIntosh's article was broken, I decided to hunt it down.  Below is a reprinting of this often cited paper, which is useful for individuals and groups that decide to confront white privilege.  It addresses the misunderstanding that arises within Unitarian Universalist circles based on the notion that white privilege is simply a "bad attitude."

This is the thirty-fifth anniversary of the annual Day of Mourning on Coles Hill overlooking Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts, one of the early sites of the European invasion of the Americas.  I was there in 1970, and while I have returned on many occasions, I have been there in spirit and solidarity every year.  It is hard to witness the fact of genocide in face of the national ritual of self congratulations and privilege.  But there are signs that more and more dominant culture people are willing to look at there past to help them understand the violence and arrogance of the present regime.  If one wants to understand Bush and Cheney one must look back to opening chapters of the European settlement of the Americas.  What was the first act of those who arrived on the Mayflower?  Upon arriving at what is now Provincetown at the tip of Cape Cod, a boat of armed men was sent ashore who stole the entire winter food supply of the village of Native people.  Then they proceeded to what is now Plymouth where the people of God founded their armed and aggressive Bible commonwealth.  The children of the Mayflower (joined by those who aspire to that heritage) now use their power to steal the natural resources of the entire world.

Robert Jensen writes:  "Thanksgiving is the day when the dominant white culture (and, sadly, most of the rest of the non-white but non-indigenous population) celebrates the beginning of a genocide that was, in fact, blessed by the men we hold up as our heroic founding fathers. 
The first president, George Washington, in 1783 said he preferred buying Indians' land rather than driving them off it because that was like driving "wild beasts" from the forest. He compared Indians to wolves, "both being beasts of prey, tho' they differ in shape."
Thomas Jefferson -- president #3 and author of the Declaration of Independence, which refers to Indians as the "merciless Indian Savages" -- was known to romanticize Indians and their culture, but that didn't stop him in 1807 from writing to his secretary of war that in a coming conflict with certain tribes, "[W]e shall destroy all of them." 
As the genocide was winding down in the early 20th century, Theodore Roosevelt (president #26) defended the expansion of whites across the continent as an inevitable process "due solely to the power of the mighty civilized races which have not lost the fighting instinct, and which by their expansion are gradually bringing peace into the red wastes where the barbarian peoples of the world hold sway." Roosevelt also once said, "I don't go so far as to think that the only good Indians are dead Indians, but I believe nine out of ten are, and I shouldn't like to inquire too closely into the case of the tenth." 

Jensen argues that those who overcome this legacy must join the witnesses on Copes Hill, and make the fourth Thursday in November into a day of awareness and renewal, by taking stock of the genocide that is foundational to the national history.

So let us  celebrate and feast, with awareness of our history and a commitment to transformation.

Adam Frankl quit his graduate studies and went to work for the Kerry Campaign in 2004.  He writes of the lessons he learned in that campaign:
Back in the primaries, I was drawn to John Kerry for the same reason lots of other people were. I thought he was the electable candidate. He was a veteran, and that was important, I thought, during a wartime election. He was a moderate and that was important, I thought, for a centrist country. Howard Dean was true to his heart, and I admired him for it, but I still thought he just wasn't "electable." Well, the 2004 election proved that maybe I'm not as good at judging a candidate's electability as I thought I was.

In fact, if you go back a few years, some of our best presidents didn't seem all that electable when they were candidates. Not long before he became president, no one thought Bill Clinton was electable. When John F. Kennedy set out for the presidency, all the party leaders and influential democrats were against him. The lesson I learned is this: you should pay just as much attention to your heart as to your head when it comes to selecting a candidate.
This is the link to the other lessons he learned.

Mobilizing people to the kind of make change that Unitarian Universalists aspire to in our principles and purposes, in our hymns and poetry, and yes in our resolves at Assembly requires leaders with a vision, who can make passionate connection to the suffering that people are experiencing, and who can speak about those concerns with conviction.  The calculation that the United States is "a centrist country" and we must compromise our values if we are to be effective in politics is a statement that we don't have faith that our values are transformative, and constitute good news for a suffering world.  Wasn't it Tolstoy who responded to the objection that Christianity had failed, with the observation that it had never been tried.  And if we were arrested for being a Unitarian Universalist, would there be enough evidence to convict us?

Its a scandal that our science teachers have become rigid, teaching only evolution theory, when they could be teaching the alternative theory that a divining intelligence preordained things just the way they are in this most perfect of worlds.  The movement to turn old fashioned one-paradigm-at-time science classes into forums for discussion of every interest groups favorite theories is only beginning.

from the Institute for Stork Research and Science

Two different theories exist concerning the origin of children: the
theory of sexual reproduction, and the theory of the stork. Many
people believe in the theory of sexual reproduction because they have
been taught this theory at school. In reality, however, many of the
world's leading scientists are in favor of the theory of the stork.
If the theory of sexual reproduction is taught in schools, it must
only be taught as a theory and not as the truth. Alternative
theories, such as the theory of the stork, must also be taught.

Evidence supporting the theory of the stork includes the following:

1. It is a scientifically established fact that the stork does exist.
This can be confirmed by every ornithologist.

2. The alleged human fetal development contains several features that
the theory of sexual reproduction is unable to explain.

3. The theory of sexual reproduction implies that a child is
approximately nine months old at birth. This is an absurd claim.
Everyone knows that a newborn child is newborn.

4. According to the theory of sexual reproduction, children are a
result of sexual intercourse. There are, however, several well
documented cases where sexual intercourse has not led to the birth of
a child.

5. Statistical studies in the Netherlands have indicated a positive
correlation between the birth rate and the number of storks. Both are
decreasing.

6. The theory of the stork can be investigated by rigorous scientific
methods. The only assumption involved is that children are delivered
by the stork.

submitted by Linda Sherry to the open UUMA Huumor List.

On November 8,  I reported that "the IRS has initiated an investigation into the tax-exempt status of All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena. This investigation was prompted by an anti-war sermon given by George Regas in the run up to the 2004 election. I believe that you share my concern about the chilling impact this investigation may have on religious critics of government. People of conscience must remain free to stand up for their beliefs in public while refraining from endorsing any particular candidate. To show support for All Saints,

I join with Faith Voices for A Common Cause in encouraging you to electronically sign a letter of concern that can be found at the following address:

http://interdependencedeclaration.org/allsaints/statement.html

On Friday, the Republican leadership in the House of Representatives attempted to shore up the crumbling facade of "support" for the continuing U.S. invasion of Iraq with a phony resolution calling for immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq.  The day before Rep. John Murtha, a hawkish Democrat and Vietnam veteran had denounced the U.S. occupation as not winnable and introduced a resolution calling for a repositioning of U.S. troops outside Iraq's borders.  A furious debate ensued over the Republican resolution, during which Representative Schmidt (R) of Ohio announced "a telephone call" from a Marine denouncing Murtha which she reported said "Stay the course.  He also asked me to send Congressman Murtha a message, that cowards cut and run.  Marines never do."  This transparent cheap shot was met immediate boos, and denunciation of Schmidt.  But who was this Marine that the Congresswoman quoted?  Read and weep.

Schmidt is not alone in the use of this tactic.  But it raises some interesting questions for Unitarian Universalists.  Some would argue that commenting on this political hack's conduct is political, and Unitarian Universalists should be about religious questions and some how ignore these contentious questions.  Yet,  there is a whole history of criticism of the transgressions of political leaders going back to the ancient Hebrew prophets, Chinese sages, and indigenous shamans.  But Unitarian Universalism in recent years has been infected with the notion that religion is a personal, subjective thing, and our congregations are organized to supply spiritual services to seekers.

That this "religion is about me" orientation is a departure from the liberal religious tradition should go without saying, we should simply ask our consumers to look at the history of religious liberalism.  But I think it points to a bigger problem,  the Commission on Appraisal beat around the bush trying to define what holds us together,  commenting on our lack of a common theology.  I have expressed my opinion on our common framework in earlier posts: we are not an religion light; we have a framework that arises from religious humanism and Protestantism; and we share a consensus on what is and what are not sources of authority for our religious positions.  I am not sure we need a common theology, so much as a common understanding of what we are committed to do this world.  This common understanding of our commitments must be theologically grounded, but why can't liberal Christians, liberationists of marginalized peoples, pagan revivalists, and humanists of various kinds all contribute their own theological understandings to that common commitment?

My political theology argues that human communities thrive under conditions of authentic relationship, relationships grounded in recognition of the creative and transformative nature of being in process.  The story systems of Judaism, Christianity, the liberal humanist tradition and the Cherokee people inform my thinking and ethical perspectives.  Therefore Schmidt has violated right relation, and is a contagion on the body politic.

But I can imagine a Unitarian Universalist coming to the conclusion that character assassination is violation from other political theologies..  Given my commitment that religious liberalism must be defined by a common public commitment to this world,  I would be disappointed in a Unitarian Universalist who has no political theology,  and seeks only personal religious meanings, or a Unitarian Universalist who has reduced their religious understanding to justify this kind of conduct from either Republicans or Democrats.

I was serving an historical Universalist church, and I was visiting shut-ins. The widows that I would visit that afternoon had been Universalists all their lives, and their parents and grandparents before them. Universalism was part of their heritage going back to the Green Mountain Revolution. They loved the church, which their families had raised and finished in three days after a mass meeting and songfest (rallye) led by Quillen Hamilton Shinn (1845-1907).

Both loved it when I came a visiting, and both always apologized that they hadn't gotten dressed up for the Pastor.

There is an aspect of the minister/congregant relationship which I have never fully accepted. Blame it on John Calvin. Seems the Reformer of Geneva instructed his clergy to visit every citizen of Geneva in their homes once a year. The purpose: to check up on the morals of the parish.

Thus "parish calling" was originally related to "the police" function of the clergy. (Does enforcer have a kinder ring to your ears.) And while we might love to think of pastoral care as a loving ministry of care, there are congregants who would be horrified to show any of their weaknesses, confess any of their sins, or share their problems. The Pastor might judge them "not righteous Unitarian Universalist!"

Not that Unitarian Universalist ministers are not called upon to enforce the rules, to guard the congregation against predators and disruptors. We are expected to be guardians of the community's covenant. But when a congregant feels called to put on the best face, and get dressing up for the Pastor (literally or metaphorically) I feel they have the wrong guy. Not my role! Not me! But it happens again and again.

I have witnessed the easy going, accepting style of liberal clergy all my life, and so this idea of Pastor as cop seems incongruous, but the ghost of Calvin's parlor spies goes on and on.

Gordon McKeeman. wrote: Universalism is not faith in the inevitability of heaven which supports me as I face death but faith in the reality of love. The old Universalist heresy claimed that God's love knew no limits and would find the sinner no matter how far from holiness she or he strayed. The fundamental nature of reality is love.

Universalism as it is commonly understood is the "everybody is saved no matter what" religion rather than the "God is boundless love" religion.

At the time of the rise of Universalism, the Calvinists and Methodists utilized the threat of hell to scare listeners into accepting Christ, and thus the Universalist emphasis on "no hell" was popular counter to deformed practice. But when Universalism came to be understood as assuring a positive result for our soul's final destination it had less appeal, especially among liberals. Liberals didn't imagine themselves as candidates for hell.

But the power of love, fundamental to reality and surpassing our willfulness is a gospel whose time is always now. To preach the larger hope, and boundless love, Universalism for our time.

It is so easy to shift away from this central message for our gospel, to preach greater understanding, and more inclusive ways of being, to preach justice and fidelity to truth. All these things are good, but they lack transformative power without the renewing the message of boundless love at the heart of the cosmos.

Richard Rohr writes: "There are two ways of being a prophet. One is to tell the enslaved that they can be free. It is the difficult path of Moses. The second is to tell those who think they are free that they are in fact enslaved. That is the even more difficult path of Jesus."

Most religious liberal congregations consist of people who think they are free, but are bound by consumerism, conformity to social norms, and "the demands of the work ethic." Inviting these free agents to a consideration that they might be enslaved to these "systems" is hard work, but necessary for transformation. It does not lend itself to proclamation, and scolding.

And what if the prophet is successful? Through the medium of prophetic ministry, a person arrives at the point of recognition, comes to understand that indeed he or she is in fact bound to "principles and powers of this present era" - what then? How does one achieve authentic freedom in a society of sham freedom?

What is nature of the freedom that the prophet proclaims?

Is it freedom from? Freedom from poverty, tyranny, violence, and abuse? Freedom from sexism, racism, and classist presumptions?

Or is it freedom to? Freedom to learn, travel, achieve ones goals. Freedom to live in dignity, in love, and in justice?

To achieve freedom from, one must be liberated from an external tyranny, To achieve freedom to, one must be empowered.

The Jesus of history can be read as inviting his listeners into a new relationship, a community in the presence of the divine (kingdom of God) which was within us, between us, and all around us.

Is this a way of understanding freedom? If this is a way of understanding freedom, we might call it the freedom of profound relationship, and renewed personhood. And it promises to be both liberating and empowering!

Sometimes the covenant community is challenged, does it mean what it says about seeking right relations among members? How can we limit unacceptable behavior? And what are the consequences if a member violates the covenant of community?

William Ellery Channing wrote wisely about the limits of our freedom-in-community: "No (one) is excommunicated from our church save by the death of goodness in (their) own heart."

Sometimes religious liberals read Channing as saying that in a Unitarian Universalist church that every member can do anything they want and remain a member. This is the idea that freedom is a license for the individual to what they will against the community. Some religious liberals hesitate to recognize that indeed "goodness in the heart" can be as experienced as dead. But such reasoning is false optimism based on denial, not a grounded and genuine religious optimism based on the potential of transformation. Love cannot become incarnate among a collectiion of people that has no mutual and shared expectations, such a group is a crowd, not a community.

The liberal church does not set up creedal tests, nor do we require saintly behavior of its members, but we do ask that members respect other members of the community, and contribute to the work of building community. When a member organizes against other members of the congregation, and slanders the leading members of the congregation because they do not get their way, they have chosen to become antagonists to that congregation and the congregation has the responsibility to ask that member to cease and desist from their antagonism. If they refuse to cease their disruptive behavior, then that person must be removed from membership. This is essential for the life of the covenant community, and it is usually to the good of the antagonist as well. They are more likely to overcome their antagonistic behavior, when given a break from the emotions of the conflicted situation.

Is the "death of goodness in the heart" absolute? No, "goodness" is matter of behavior and it is manifestly relational. A person might be considered "good" in a dozen other contexts, but the judgement whether "goodness in the heart" necessary for a congregation's own right relationships can only be determined by that particular community. The congregation in our polity is responsible for determining its own membership. It is not for individuals to declare their "goodness" and then carry out disruption in a congregation.

Liberals lament the nomination of a right wing ideologue to replace retiring Sandra Day O'Connor. After the re-election of George W. Bush and the right wing control over both branches of Congress, and the possibility of a right wing Supreme Count are seen putting the government firmly in control of reaction.

But Howard Zinn reminds us:

It would be naive to depend on the Supreme Court to defend the rights of poor people, women, people of color, dissenters of all kinds. Those rights only come alive when citizens organize, protest, demonstrate, strike, boycott, rebel, and violate the law in order to uphold justice."

and

"The Constitution gave no rights to working people: no right to work less than twelve hours a day, no right to a living wage, no right to safe working conditions. Workers had to organize, go on strike, defy the law, the courts, the police, create a great movement which won the eight-hour day, and caused such commotion that Congress was forced to pass a minimum wage law, and Social Security, and unemployment insurance."

Zinn might also point out that it was movements of the people who created public schools, overcame Slavery, and a century later Jim Crow. He argues that our political culture tries to narrow our consciousness, so that we focus on who is running for President, or who the President is nominating for the Supreme Court. Thus instead of being active in shaping policy, we become victims of the decisions of the political elites.


Samuel Alito can be defeated, but not by depending on politics as usual. Democracy depends on "an aroused citizenry, demanding that the promise of the Declaration of Independence--an equal right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness--be fulfilled.

Howard Zinn, Creating Justice and below is from Evan Derkacz in his The myth of the conservative nation

"And so it is with Alito and Roe. The surfacing of Alito's clear opposition to Roe v. Wade -- that it's not supported by the Constitution -- has been downplayed by conservatives. Some warn that this single issue shouldn't be the focus of opposition to Alito, that it won't fly.

They're only partly correct.

Noting that previous to the surfacing of Alito's clear opposition, Americans believed, 33-29% that Alito wouldn't overturn Roe (with 38% unsure), and that a majority would oppose Alito 53-37%, were they to believe that he would overturn it, Chris Bowers writes: "Never has obfuscation become more important for a Supreme Court nominee. If the country begins to believe in large numbers that Alito would overturn Roe, his nomination is sunk."

Every hour, someone commits a hate crime. Every day, at least eight blacks, three whites, three gays, three Jews and one Latino become hate crime victims. Every week, a cross is burned.

What can you do to prevent hate crimes? Tolerance. org has resources for you.  This site contains action plans for campus groups, community groups, public school students and teachers, parents.  Churches working to become multi cultural and welcoming congregations especially need to look at these materials, let us make every community a hate free zone.

U.U. Enforcer wrote "I skipped J. Sparks' grave since he is best known for a sermon someone else did at his ordination." Funny thing what historians do to a man's reputation, they give prominence to some people and obscurity to others, and Jared Sparks should know this, he was a historian. Let us see what Britannica Online has to tell us about the good Doctor Sparks.

American publisher and editor of the North American Review, biographer, and president of Harvard College.
Educated at Phillips Exeter Academy and Harvard College, Sparks served as minister of the First Independent Church (Unitarian) from 1819 to 1823. From then until 1830, under his ownership and editorship, the North American Review became the arbiter of literature in New England. He was appointed the first professor of secular history at Harvard and served as president of the college from 1849 to 1853.
He was the author of biographies of Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, and Gouverneur Morris. He edited The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, 12 vol. (1829€“30) and 25 volumes of The Library of American Biography (1834€“48). Sparks believed that patriotism obliged him, when editing source materials, to omit passages likely to cause international ill will, and he sometimes embellished what the Founding Fathers had actually written. The exacting scholarly standards of a later age rendered much of his work obsolete.

He was born May 10, 1789, Willington, Conn., U.S. He died March 14, 1866, Cambridge, Mass.

Those exacting standards of a later day! The idea that history writing serves a political purpose, and that historian is advised not to upset to many established opinions is still standard operating procedure. Historians who point out the flaws in the official story are labeled revisionists, and "controversial."

But in his own time Jared Sparks was the model of the public intellectual. The Dial was founded by the Transcendentalist Club to overcome the power of The North American Review.
While he was at the Baltimore Church, he was also chaplain to the U.S. House of Representatives. Before he was ordained he was a published and well regarded author of Unitarian theological writings. Thomas Jefferson apparently appreciated his Unitarian Miscellany as the following letter from Jefferson attests.

To The Reverend Jared Sparks

MONTICELLO, NOVEMBER 4, 1820.

SIR, -- YOUR favor of September 18th is just received, with the book accompanying it. Its delay was owing to that of the box of books from Mr. Guegan, in which it was packed. Being just setting out on a journey I have time only to look over the summary of contents. In this I see nothing in which I am likely to differ materially from you. I hold the precepts of Jesus, as delivered by Himself, to be the most pure, benevolent, and sublime which have ever been preached to man. I adhere to the principles of the first age; and consider all subsequent innovations as corruptions of His religion, having no foundation in what came from Him. The metaphysical insanities of Athanasius, of Loyola, and of Calvin, are, to my understanding, mere relapses into polytheism, differing from paganism only by being more unintelligible. The religion of Jesus is founded in the Unity of God, and this principle chiefly, gave it triumph over the rabble of heathen gods then acknowledged. Thinking men of all nations rallied readily to the doctrine of one only God, and embraced it with the pure-morals which Jesus inculcated. If the freedom of religion, guaranteed to us by law in theory, can ever rise in practice under the overbearing inquisition of public opinion, truth will prevail over fanaticism, and the genuine doctrines of Jesus, so long perverted by His pseudo priests, will again be restored to their original purity. This reformation will advance with the other improvements of the human mind, but too late for me to witness it. Accept my thanks for your book, in which I shall read with pleasure your developments of the subject, and with them the assurance of my high respect.

"And this day shall become a memorial for you, and you shall observe it as a festival for the LORD, for your generations, as an eternal decree shall you observe it. For seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, but on the first day you shall remove the leaven from your homes ... you shall guard the unleavened bread, because on this very day I will take you out of the land of Egypt; you shall observe this day for your generations as an eternal decree. - Exodus 12:14-17

Religions mark rituals of reference. remembering events that define the identity of the people.  Often these rituals of reference mark memories of suffering, enslavement, humiliation, and then liberation and renewal.  Christianity has the Passion which is answered by the Resurrection marked by Good Friday and Easter.  Judaism has an ancient memory of slavery and a subsequent passing over to freedom,  ritually celebrated at Passover.  Judaism returns to this theme again and again in other rituals of reference such as Purim and Chanukah.

Many Native American communities recall the long marches of forced removals with rituals of reference.  It is a scandal among indigenous peoples that dominant culture spiritual seekers come to celebrate Native American spirituality,  because they seem in such a rush to be one with nature, and one with the dance,  but clueless about the suffering and brokenness that the rituals seek to address.

The spirituals of the African American people arose to address terror and degradation.  Slavery and after emancipation Lynch Law are the context for these songs of freedom.  When religious liberals sing these songs, what suffering are they addressing?    When we sing that we will let our light shine,  what long nights of terror are we defying.  What horrors do we wish to overcome?  If we sing these songs with out deep congregational reflection on the context of their origins, and recognition that for the community of origin they are rituals of reference are we not celebrating cheap grace?

When questions of cultural misappropriation are raised around the singing of African American spirituals, it is not simply a concern that "white people don't clap on the right beat" or "y'all don't sing with gusto and passion" - the concern is taking a song that has context in community memories and represents a ritual of reference in the African American community,  and seems to be used for some other purpose in the liberal congregation.  Much of the writing on this subject by dominant culture ministers and musicians appears to be defensive and more concerned with rights, than with responsibilities.

Appropriate use requires communicating the context under which the song arose and the meaning in depth for the community of origin.  In that context that the singing of such music would contribute toward our common struggle for wholeness and right relations.

In 1822, the United States invited a delegation of the Osage people to visit Washington, D.C., the government sought to woo and wow these people from the where the Ozarks meet the Plains with the glitz and glory of white man's civilization. Akidatonka (which was mistranslated into English as "Big Soldier")* saw what there was to see and shared these perceptions with the Indian Agent who interviewed him when he returned to his homelands.


I see and admire your manner of living, your good warm houses, your extensive corn-fields, your gardens, your cows, oxen, work-horses, wagons, and a thousand machines that I know not the use of; I see that you are able to clothe yourselves, even from weeds and grass. In short, you can do almost what you choose. You whites possess the power of [subduing] almost every animal [to your] use. You are surrounded by slaves. Everything about you is in chains, and you are slaves yourselves. I fear if I should exchange my pursuits for yours, i too should become a slave. Talk to my sons; perhaps they may be persuaded to adopt your fashions, or at least recommend them to their sons; but for myself, I was born free, was raised free, and wish to die free. . . I am perfectly contented with my condition.

Story cited in Spirit and Resistence: Political Theology and American Indian Liberation

* there are no soldiers in Osage society, the whole male population was responsible for defense of the community, Akidatonka is better translated as "large man who watches over the community."

On November, 14th, 1918, Margaret Sanger was arrested for operating a birth control clinic.  "The movement she started will grow to be, a hundred years from now, the most influential of all time," predicted futurist and historian H.G. Wells in 1931. "When the history of our civilization is written, it will be a biological history, and Margaret Sanger will be its heroine."

Willie Lynch, the expert of slave economics is visiting Virginia from the West Indies for the purpose of teaching the Virginians how to create submissive slaves. My purpose in printing these documents is show that the racist relation developed several hundred years ago continues as a social relation in our time. Racism isn't simply a bad attitude, something that the bigot does and the good person is unaffected by, rather it is a historically instituted social relation that affects both the whites and people of color. Lynch encourages his listeners to turn the African into an object for manipulation, to degrade their interpersonal relations, and humiliate them to better control them. Part 1 was posted on November 12.

Part 2 of Making a Slave by Willie Lynch

THE BREAKING PROCESS OF THE AFRICAN WOMAN

Take the female and run a series of tests on her to see if she will submit to your desires willingly. Test her in every way, because she is the most important factor for good economics. If she shows any sign of resistance in submitting completely to your will, do not hesitate to use the bullwhip on her to extract that last bit of [b----] out of her. Take care not to kill her, for in doing so, you spoil good economics. When in complete submission, she will train her offsprings in the early years to submit to labor when they become of age. Understanding is the best thing. Therefore, we shall go deeper into this area of the subject matter concerning what we have produced here in this breaking process of the female nigger. We have reversed the relationship; in her natural uncivilized state, she would have a strong dependency on the uncivilized nigger male, and she would have a limited protective tendency toward her independent male offspring and would raise male offsprings to be dependent like her. Nature had provided for this type of balance. We reversed nature by burning and pulling a civilized nigger apart and bullwhipping the other to the point of death, all in her presence. By her being left alone, unprotected, with the MALE IMAGE DESTROYED, the ordeal caused her to move from her psychologically dependent state to a frozen, independent state. In this frozen, psychological state of independence, she will raise her MALE and female offspring in reversed roles. For FEAR of the young male's life, she will psychologically train him to be MENTALLY WEAK and DEPENDENT, but PHYSICALLY STRONG. Because she has become psychologically independent, she will train her FEMALE offsprings to be psychologically independent. What have you got? You've got the nigger WOMAN OUT FRONT AND THE nigger MAN BEHIND AND SCARED. This is a perfect situation of sound sleep and economics. Before the breaking process, we had to be alertly on guard at all times. Now, we can sleep soundly, for out of frozen fear his woman stands guard for us. He cannot get past her early slave-molding process. He is a good tool, now ready to be tied to the horse at a tender age. By the time a nigger boy reaches the age of sixteen, he is soundly broken in and ready for a long life of sound and efficient work and the reproduction of a unit of good labor force. Continually through the breaking of uncivilized savage niggers, by throwing the nigger female savage into a frozen psychological state of independence, by killing the protective male image, and by creating a submissive dependent mind of the nigger male slave, we have created an orbiting cycle that turns on its own axis forever, unless a phenomenon occurs and re-shifts the position of the male and female slaves. We show what we mean by example. Take the case of the two economic slave units and examine them close.

THE NEGRO MARRIAGE

We breed two nigger males with two nigger females. Then, we take the nigger male away from them and keep them moving and working. Say one nigger female bears a nigger female and the other bears a nigger male; both nigger females-being without influence of the nigger male image, frozen with a independent psychology-will raise their offspring into reverse positions. The one with the female offspring will teach her to be like herself, independent and negotiable (we negotiate with her, through her, by her, negotiates her at will). The one with the nigger male offspring, she being frozen subconscious fear for his life, will raise him to be mentally dependent and weak, but physically strong; in other words, body over mind. Now, in a few years when these two offsprings become fertile for early reproduction, we will mate and breed them and continue the cycle. That is good, sound and long range comprehensive planning.

WARNING: POSSIBLE INTERLOPING NEGATIVES

Earlier, we talked about the non-economic good of the horse and the nigger in their wild or natural state; we talked out the principle of breaking and tying them together for orderly production. Furthermore, we talked about paying particular attention to the female savage and her offspring for orderly future planning, then more recently we stated that, by reversing the positions of the male and female savages, we created an orbiting cycle that turns on its own axis forever unless a phenomenon occurred and reshifts positions of the male and female savages. Our experts warned us about the possibility of this phenomenon occurring, for they say that the mind has a strong drive to correct and re-correct itself over a period of time if it can touch some substantial original historical base; and they advised us that the best way to deal with the phenomenon is to shave off the brute's mental history and create a multiplicity of phenomena of illusions, so that each illusion will twirl in its own orbit, something similar to floating balls in a vacuum. This creation of multiplicity of phenomena of illusions entails the principle of crossbreeding the nigger and the horse as we stated above, the purpose of which is to create a diversified division of labor; thereby creating different levels of labor and different values of illusion at each connecting level of labor. The results of which is the severance of the points of original beginnings for each sphere illusion. Since we feel that the subject matter may get more complicated as we proceed in laying down our economic plan concerning the purpose, reason and effect of crossbreeding horses and niggers, we shall lay down the following definition terms for future generations. Orbiting cycle means a thing turning in a given path. Axis means upon which or around which a body turns. Phenomenon means something beyond ordinary conception and inspires awe and wonder. Multiplicity means a great number. Means a globe. Crossbreeding a horse means taking a horse and breeding it with an ass and you get a dumb, backward, ass long-headed mule that is not reproductive nor productive by itself. Crossbreeding niggers mean taking so many drops of good white blood and putting them into as many nigger women as possible, varying the drops by the various tone that you want, and then letting them breed with each other until another circle of color appears as you desire. What this means is this: Put the niggers and the horse in a breeding pot, mix some asses and some good white blood and what do you get? You got a multiplicity of colors of ass backward, unusual niggers, running, tied to backward ass long-headed mules, the one productive of itself, the other sterile. (The one constant, the other dying, we keep the nigger constant for we may replace the mules for another tool) both mule and nigger tied to each other, neither knowing where the other came from and neither productive for itself, nor without each other.

CONTROLLED LANGUAGE

Crossbreeding completed, for further severance from their original beginning, WE MUST COMPLETELY ANNIHILATE THE MOTHER TONGUE of both the new nigger and the new mule, and institute a new language that involves the new life's work of both. You know language is a peculiar institution. It leads to the heart of a people. The more a foreigner knows about the language of another country the more he is able to move through all levels of that society. Therefore, if the foreigner is an enemy of the country, to the extent that he knows the body of the language, to that extent is the country vulnerable to attack or invasion of a foreign culture. For example, if you take a slave, if you teach him all about your language, he will know all your secrets, and he is then no more a slave, for you can't fool him any longer, and BEING A FOOL IS ONE OF THE BASIC INGREDIENTS OF ANY INCIDENTS TO THE MAINTENANCE OF THE SLAVERY SYSTEM. For example, if you told a slave that he must perform in getting out "our crops" and he knows the language well, he would know that "our crops" didn't mean "our crops" and the slavery system would break down, for he would relate on the basis of what "our crops" really meant. So you have to be careful in setting up the new language; for the slaves would soon be in your house, talking to you as "man to man" and that is death to our economic system. In addition, the definitions of words or terms are only a minute part of the process. Values are created and transported by communication through the body of the language. A total society has many interconnected value systems. All the values in the society have bridges of language to connect them for orderly working in the society. But for these language bridges, these many value systems would sharply clash and cause internal strife or civil war, the degree of the conflict being determined by the magnitude of the issues or relative opposing strength in whatever form. For example, if you put a slave in a hog pen and train him to live there and incorporate in him to value it as a way of life completely, the biggest problem you would have out of him is that he would worry you about provisions to keep the hog pen clean, or the same hog pen and make a slip and incorporate something in his language whereby he comes to value a house more than he does his hog pen, you got a problem. He will soon be in your house.

In today's New York Times, Gail Collins writes "Another election has come and gone, and with it yet another demonstration of American voters' fascinating indifference to the sexual behavior of their public officials."

. . . .

"The terrible truth is that great public leadership and domestic fidelity do not really go hand in hand. Some of our favorite national leaders were unreliable on the domestic front. Franklin Roosevelt comes to mind, as does John F. Kennedy. And the current mood of the electorate seems to clearly favor the argument that things were better when the worst thing the president did wrong was have sex with an intern in the Oval Office."


But all the examples that history provides (and there are many come to mind) are male politicos.  Is this really and example of public indifference to sexual misconduct by public officials, or is one more sign that "the old double standard" of ancient patriarchy is still a part of the expectations of moral Americans?  Is it really "what one does in ones own bedroom is one's private business" or is it "boys will be boys."    Gail Collins begins to explore this in her editorial column asking whether the voters would extend a similar latitude to a female politico.  Her conclusion, probably not.

This speech was delivered by Willie Lynch on the bank of the James River in the colony of Virginia in 1712. Lynch was a British slave owner in the West Indies. He was invited to the colony of Virginia in 1712 to teach his methods to slave owners there. (The term "lynching" is derived from his last name.)

I believe that part 1 and part 2 together will contribute to better understanding that institutional racism has its origins in a choice that the conquering Europeans made about how they would relate to Africans, Asians, and Native Americans. Racism is not simply the result of prejudice, but a justification of domination that creates a relationship between oppressor and oppressed. That relationship must be consciously deconstructed and a new relationship between people based on justice and equality be established.

[beginning of the Willie Lynch Letter]

Greetings,

Gentlemen. I greet you here on the bank of the James River in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and twelve. First, I shall thank you, the gentlemen of the Colony of Virginia, for bringing me here. I am here to help you solve some of your problems with slaves. Your invitation reached me on my modest plantation in the West Indies, where I have experimented with some of the newest, and still the oldest, methods for control of slaves. Ancient Rome would envy us if my program is implemented. As our boat sailed south on the James River, named for our illustrious King, whose version of the Bible we cherish, I saw enough to know that your problem is not unique. While Rome used cords of wood as crosses for standing human bodies along its highways in great numbers, you are here using the tree and the rope on occasions. I caught the whiff of a dead slave hanging from a tree, a couple miles back. You are not only losing valuable stock by hangings, you are having uprisings, slaves are running away, your crops are sometimes left in the fields too long for maximum profit, you suffer occasional fires, your animals are killed. Gentlemen, you know what your problems are; I do not need to elaborate. I am not here to enumerate your problems, I am here to introduce you to a method of solving them. In my bag here, I HAVE A FULL PROOF METHOD FOR CONTROLLING YOUR BLACK SLAVES. I guarantee every one of you that, if installed correctly, IT WILL CONTROL THE SLAVES FOR AT LEAST 300 HUNDREDS YEARS. My method is simple. Any member of your family or your overseer can use it. I HAVE OUTLINED A NUMBER OF DIFFERENCES AMONG THE SLAVES; AND I TAKE THESE DIFFERENCES AND MAKE THEM BIGGER. I USE FEAR, DISTRUST AND ENVY FOR CONTROL PURPOSES. These methods have worked on my modest plantation in the West Indies and it will work throughout the South. Take this simple little list of differences and think about them. On top of my list is "AGE," but it's there only because it starts with an "a." The second is "COLOR" or shade. There is INTELLIGENCE, SIZE, SEX, SIZES OF PLANTATIONS, STATUS on plantations, ATTITUDE of owners, whether the slaves live in the valley, on a hill, East, West, North, South, have fine hair, course hair, or is tall or short. Now that you have a list of differences, I shall give you an outline of action, but before that, I shall assure you that DISTRUST IS STRONGER THAN TRUST AND ENVY STRONGER THAN ADULATION, RESPECT OR ADMIRATION. The Black slaves after receiving this indoctrination shall carry on and will become self-refueling and self-generating for HUNDREDS of years, maybe THOUSANDS. Don't forget, you must pitch the OLD black male vs. the YOUNG black male, and the YOUNG black male against the OLD black male. You must use the DARK skin slaves vs. the LIGHT skin slaves, and the LIGHT skin slaves vs. the DARK skin slaves. You must use the FEMALE vs. the MALE, and the MALE vs. the FEMALE. You must also have white servants and overseers [who] distrust all Blacks. But it is NECESSARY THAT YOUR SLAVES TRUST AND DEPEND ON US. THEY MUST LOVE, RESPECT AND TRUST ONLY US. Gentlemen, these kits are your keys to control. Use them. Have your wives and children use them, never miss an opportunity. IF USED INTENSELY FOR ONE YEAR, THE SLAVES THEMSELVES WILL REMAIN PERPETUALLY DISTRUSTFUL. Thank you gentlemen."

LET'S MAKE A SLAVE

It was the interest and business of slave holders to study human nature, and the slave nature in particular, with a view to practical results. I and many of them attained astonishing proficiency in this direction. They had to deal not with earth, wood and stone, but with men and, by every regard, they had for their own safety and prosperity they needed to know the material on which they were to work, conscious of the injustice and wrong they were every hour perpetuating and knowing what they themselves would do. Were they the victims of such wrongs? They were constantly looking for the first signs of the dreaded retribution. They watched therefore with skilled and practiced eyes, and learned to read with great accuracy, the state of mind and heart of the slave, through his sable face. Unusual sobriety, apparent abstractions, sullenness and indifference indeed, any mood out of the common was afforded ground for suspicion and inquiry. Frederick Douglas LET'S MAKE A SLAVE is a study of the scientific process of man-breaking and slave-making. It describes the rationale and results of the Anglo Saxons' ideas and methods of insuring the master/slave relationship. LET'S MAKE A SLAVE "The Original and Development of a Social Being Called €˜The Negro.'" Let us make a slave. What do we need? First of all, we need a black nigger man, a pregnant nigger woman and her baby nigger boy. Second, we will use the same basic principle that we use in breaking a horse, combined with some more sustaining factors. What we do with horses is that we break them from one form of life to another; that is, we reduce them from their natural state in nature. Whereas nature provides them with the natural capacity to take care of their offspring, we break that natural string of independence from them and thereby create a dependency status, so that we may be able to get from them useful production for our business and pleasure.

CARDINAL PRINCIPLES FOR MAKING A NEGRO

For fear that our future generations may not understand the principles of breaking both of the beast together, the nigger and the horse. We understand that short range planning economics results in periodic economic chaos; so that to avoid turmoil in the economy, it requires us to have breadth and depth in long range comprehensive planning, articulating both skill sharp perceptions. We lay down the following principles for long range comprehensive economic planning. Both horse and niggers [are] no good to the economy in the wild or natural state. Both must be BROKEN and TIED together for orderly production. For orderly future, special and particular attention must be paid to the FEMALE and the YOUNGEST offspring. Both must be CROSSBRED to produce a variety and division of labor. Both must be taught to respond to a peculiar new LANGUAGE. Psychological and physical instruction of CONTAINMENT must be created for both. We hold the six cardinal principles as truth to be self-evident, based upon following the discourse concerning the economics of breaking and tying the horse and the nigger together, all inclusive of the six principles laid down above. NOTE: Neither principle alone will suffice for good economics. All principles must be employed for orderly good of the nation. Accordingly, both a wild horse and a wild or natur[al] nigger is dangerous even if captured, for they will have the tendency to seek their customary freedom and, in doing so, might kill you in your sleep. You cannot rest. They sleep while you are awake, and are awake while you are asleep. They are DANGEROUS near the family house and it requires too much labor to watch them away from the house. Above all, you cannot get them to work in this natural state. Hence, both the horse and the nigger must be broken; that is breaking them from one form of mental life to another. KEEP THE BODY, TAKE THE MIND! In other words, break the will to resist. Now the breaking process is the same for both the horse and the nigger, only slightly varying in degrees. But, as we said before, there is an art in long range economic planning. YOU MUST KEEP YOUR EYE AND THOUGHTS ON THE FEMALE and the OFFSPRING of the horse and the nigger. A brief discourse in offspring development will shed light on the key to sound economic principles. Pay little attention to the generation of original breaking, but CONCENTRATE ON FUTURE GENERATION. Therefore, if you break the FEMALE mother, she will BREAK the offspring in its early years of development; and when the offspring is old enough to work, she will deliver it up to you, for her normal female protective tendencies will have been lost in the original breaking process. For example, take the case of the wild stud horse, a female horse and an already infant horse and compare the breaking process with two captured nigger males in their natural state, a pregnant nigger woman with her infant offspring. Take the stud horse, break him for limited containment. Completely break the female horse until she becomes very gentle, whereas you or anybody can ride her in her comfort. Breed the mare and the stud until you have the desired offspring. Then, you can turn the stud to freedom until you need him again. Train the female horse whereby she will eat out of your hand, and she will in turn train the infant horse to eat out of your hand, also. When it comes to breaking the uncivilized nigger, use the same process, but vary the degree and step up the pressure, so as to do a complete reversal of the mind. Take the meanest and most restless nigger, strip him of his clothes in front of the remaining male niggers, the female, and the nigger infant, tar and feather him, tie each leg to a different horse faced in opposite directions, set him afire and beat both horses to pull him apart in front of the remaining niggers. The next step is to take a bullwhip and beat the remaining nigger males to the point of death, in front of the female and the infant. Don't kill him, but PUT THE FEAR OF GOD IN HIM, for he can be useful for future breeding.
__________________

I recall when I first identified with Unitarianism. (It was a few years before the merger.) A Jewish child, assuming I was Christian in an orthodox sense, expressed his objections to the divinity of Jesus. I answered that I was Unitarian and said that we thought Jesus was a prophet who taught love and human community. (I probably used other words, like brotherhood of mankind, it was the 1950s.) I guess I was 12, give or take a year.

Where did I get the "religious education" to be able to articulate a low christology in a playground conversation? And more importantly how did I form an identity to claim a Unitarianism as "me" separate and apart from Christian orthodoxy, and even my friends Jewish presumption that all gentiles are alike?

My formation was the gift of my parents in the fist place, and secondarily from my congregations religious education offerings. I can not credit the American Unitarian Association directly with my religious formation, but what the Association did, and did not do, influenced my parents, and my local congregation.

When I was child, Sophia Lyons Fahs was the major influence on both Unitarian and Universalist religious education. The two denominations' joint religious education program consisted of teaching an approach, and writing children's books. Books that could be read by parents to children, and when the child was ready, books that the child could read. The Sunday school teachers read these books as well. The Sunday school teachers taught Sunday school as a lay ministry, they were not volunteers who filled in on "the 2nd and 4th Sundays a month for 10 weeks." They developed their own plan, they did not receive a lesson plan that broke down the teaching goals for each session.

Our present religious education materials assume that our RE teachers are too busy to read books, they are too busy to be reflectively engaged in a lay ministry, that they are busy volunteers that need to be provided with a lesson plan so that they can deliver a curriculum.

Jess writes of concerns about our religious education program.

"Just got the UUWorld in the mail today, and it just goes to prove my point regarding the great disservice Unitarian Universalism offers our kids. We mean well, we really do, but we're collectively falling on our faces.

The so-called UU & Me! page, I'm sorry, it's awful. Direct quote from the section on "Ideas & Me!":

Q: Do we believe in Jesus?

A: We think Jesus was amazing.

Come on. What a non-answer, which is exactly the problem!!!"

I won't engage in critique of this web site's offerings, nor will I engage in defending it. The UU and Me! page is a religious education project of the Church of the Larger Fellowship, a congregation based on correspondence, which has recently moved into the internet age. Its intention is to minister to isolated UUs. Its religious education materials go way beyond UU and Me!, and they provide great resources for parents that want to "home school" their children's religious education.

The question Jess raises for me, however, is the role of the parent and the teacher. I am convinced that magazines, canned curriculums for busy volunteers, and web sites can ever be substitute for parents as educators, and dedicated "Sunday School" teachers. Congregations need to support parents as educators, and support the religious avocation, the lay ministry of teacher. The parish minister is called to be "teacher" to the congregation, and I can't see how this role can be fulfilled if ministers come to rely on packaged UUA material.

I think the UUA has a role to play as resource developer. But the religious formation of children is a responsibility of the covenant community, the congregation that seeks to be a center of transformation and renewal of right relationship. The UUA staff as a service providers can never be a substitute for religious community.

A tale from Ramakrishna

A young spiritual novice had just been taught by his guru that he is identical in essence with the power of the universe.

(Atman {true self} is Brahman {Consciousness and Being of All} is the central teaching of Hinduism)

He walks away in a state of estatic absorption, and he is going down the road leading out of the village, he beholds, coming in his direction, a huge elephant bearing a howdah on its back with a driver riding on the beast's neck. Striding along, the young candidate for sainthood is mediating on the proposition, "I am Brahmin; all things are Brahmin." When he sees the huge elephant coming toward him, he thinks, the elephant, too, is Brahmin. We are all one.

Meanwhile, the elephant, with its bells jingling to the rhythm of its stately approach, is bearing down upon the novice who, in his ectasy, is maintaining his course in the middle of the road. And the driver, seeing this becomes alarmed and starts shouting, "Clear teh way! Clear the way, you idiot. Clear the way! But the youth, caught up in the rapture, is thinking, "I am Brahmin; the elephant is Brahmin," and when he hears the shouts of the driver, he adds, "Should Brahmin be afraid of Brahmin? Should Brahmin clear the way for Brahmin"

The distance rapidly closes. The driver keeps shouting; the elephant lumbers on; the youth, continuing his meditation, holds the center of the road. Suddenly, as a collision is about to take place, the elephant reaches out with its trunk, picks up the novice, and hurls him into the bushes.

Physically shocked and spiritually stunned, the youth recovers his senses enough to stand up, dust off his clothes, and return to the guru for further instructions.

Somewhat indignant, he blurts out an account of of his expereince with the elephant and continues, "You told me that I was Brahman."

"Yes," answered the guru, "and so you are."

"You told me that all things are Brahman."

Yes, "responded the guru, "all things are indeed Brahman."

"The elephant, then, was Brahman, too? asked the youth, his voice edging toward hysteria.

"So it was," replied the guru. "that elephant was Brahman." But why didn't you pay attention to the voice of Brahman, shouting from the elephants neck, and get out of the way."


This story from Ramakrishna is presented as told by William Houff, Infinity in Your Hand: A guide to the spiritually curious.

George Tinker begins his book Spirit and Resistence: Political Theology and American Indian Liberation with this observation:

"In 1803, the United States purchased the entirety of Osage land - from France. Osages yet today are trying figure that one out. It had to do with something called the Louisiana Purchase and something to do with with some obscure european legal doctrine called the "right to discovery." What it ever had to do with the Osage people, who were never privy to his doctine or included in the negotiation leading to the purchase, is still a mystery."

Theologians deal with mysteries, and to the indigenous people of this land, the presenting mystery by which they judge Christianity is their conquest and the lies and deceptions that the conquering people have told themselves about that conquest. For Native peoples being conquered by people with no respect for the truth and no respect for history is the stuff of theological reflection. Tinker is emerging as the theologian of liberation for indigenous peoples, "he probes American Indian culture, its vast religious and cultural legacy, and its ambiguous relationship to the tradition-historic Christianity-that colonized and converted it".

In a previous work, Missionary Conquest Tinker explored the history of Christianity relative to the indigenous peoples of Turtle Island (North America.) Conversion was conceived as a way of turning native peoples into clones of Europeans culturally, spiritually, and economically. Now the books publishers ask "after five hundred years of conquest and social destruction, he says, any useful reflection must come to terms with the political state of Indian affairs and the political hopes and visions for recovering the health and well-being of Indian communities." Can dominant culture Christian theology provide any answers to the problems that the missionary conquest have wrought?

Not without a complete overhaul, and Tinker precedes to deconstruct some of the sacred cows of dominant culture Christian theology. Tinker is critical of recent liberal and New Age co-opting of Native spiritual practices, Tinker also offers a critical corrective to [South American] liberation theology. He shows how Native insights into the Sacred Other and sacred space helpfully reconfigure traditional ideas of God, Jesus' notion of the reign of God, and our relation to the earth. From this basis he offers novel proposals about cultural survival and identity, sustainability, and the endangered health of Native Americans."۬
Spirit and Resistance: Political Theology and American Liberal Liberation by۬George E. "Tink" Tinker is Professor of American Indian Cultures and Religious Traditions at Iliff School of Theology, Denver, Colorado. He is an enrolled member of the Osage Nation. Among his many publications are Missionary Conquest (Fortress Press, 1993) and Native American Theology (co-authored, 2001).

A paradox to ponder (suggested by William Hough in his "Infinity in Your Hand: A Guide for the Spiritually Curious"

It is not easy to be enlightened (aware, awake.)


(if it were everyone would already be enlightened.)


At the same time you are already enlightened,
you are just not aware of your enlightenment.



Ken Wilbur puts it this way. It is not that an individual is first an ego (a self conscious self) and then may become a Buddha (enlightened one, one who is awake)-- it is that he was first a Buddha and then became an ego.

Molly Ivans gives us an interesting insight into federal management styles including former FEMA director Michael "Heckuva Job" Brown.

For example Ivans writes:

As Katrina sent a 30-foot wall of water toward Mississippi, Brownie, steeped in disaster relief work at his former job with the International Arabian Horse Association, asked a top aide the burning question: "Tie or not for tonight? Button-down blue shirt?"
Read the rest of her article here.

TypePad is very slow today, some problem with their servers being overloaded. They have temporarily disabled comments. I had a heck of a time earlier today posting, and then it duplicated the posts. Sorry if you saw Marjorie's name a lot.

I looked at Moveble Type and WordPress, and it looks do-able, but I think I will wait for a slack week. Maybe July. Spent to much time on tech stuff today.

Marjorie Bowens-Wheatley submitted this comment to my "The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated." I will follow up with some discussion on this idea in a forthcoming post.


"Clyde Grubbs' discussion of the growth of liberal religion raises questions that suggest a new way of thleinking for Unitarian Universalists.

If we paid more attention to mission (as do many mainstream Christian churches), we might learn that what brings in the crowds in. Communities are transformed through transforming people. It is a dual/-interactive process.

Our Association has chosen a model of building large churches, with 300 or more attending worship soon after start-up. We are told that starting new congregations of this kind in urban areas is too expensive, and therefore not viable. So, we abandon the cities and, as Clyde says, "accept the suburban captivity of our movement?"

It may be that the way to build liberal religion in urban areas is to start small. The success of the small group ministry movement suggests to me that with enabling support (i.e., religious professionals trained and committed to a model of empowerment from below), small group ministries in urban areas can grow our faith among people we are not presently reaching. In my congregation, for example, our strongest small group focuses on anti-racism and multiculturalism. This covenantal group meets in homes and has attracted people who have not joined our church. Some have told us that the Sunday morning service simply doesn't meet their cultural needs, but they are committed to this covenant group and to its work.

If we look at the ministry of Jesus, he did not wait for the masses--300 or more--to do his ministry. Not coincidentally, his ministry grew through house churches that yes, sometimes were supported by patrons--including women of means.
If the Association gave the same support to religious professionals committed to urban and community ministry, we might see the growth of Unitarian Universalism among a constituency that does not mirror our current demographic."

Back in Oct 2004, on the eve of the election Rev. George F. Regas of All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, California preached a sermon, in which he imagined how Jesus would admonish Bush and Kerry if he debated them. Regas never urged parishioners to vote for one candidate over the other, but he did say that he believes Jesus would oppose the war in Iraq, and that Jesus would be saddened by Bush's positions on the use and testing of nuclear weapons.  In his sermon, Regas, who from the pulpit opposed both the Vietnam War and 1991's Gulf War, imagined Jesus participating in a political debate with then-candidates George W. Bush and John Kerry. Regas said that "good people of profound faith" could vote for either man, and did not tell parishioners whom to support.

Now the IRS is threatening his church that it may be endanger of losing its tax exemption.  The present Rector J. Edwin Bacon said the church had retained the services of a Washington law firm with expertise in tax-exempt organizations.  And he told the congregation: "It's important for everyone to understand that the IRS concerns are not supported by the facts."  The  tax law provides non profit status to religious organizations but forbids the endorsement of candidates, and pending legislation,  Speaking about public issues of concern to a religious body is protected by the Constitution.  The religious right flagrantly violates the law by specific instructions to congregants about who to votes for, and what legislation to support or oppose.  Thus this appears to be a case of political interference with a church that opposes the Bush administration.

In an October letter to the IRS, Marcus Owens, the church's tax attorney and a former head of the IRS tax-exempt section, said, "It seems ludicrous to suggest that a pastor cannot preach about the value of promoting peace simply because the nation happens to be at war during an election season."  Owens said that an IRS audit team had recently offered the church a settlement during a face-to-face meeting.  "They said if there was a confession of wrongdoing, they would not proceed to the exam stage. They would be willing not to revoke tax-exempt status if the church admitted intervening in an election."

The church declined the offer.  "I'm appalled," said 70-year-old Anne Thompson of Altadena, a professional singer who also makes vestments for the church.
"In a government that leans so heavily on religious values, that they would pull a stunt like this, it makes me heartsick."

Joe Mirando, an engineer from Burbank, questioned whether the 3,500-member church would be under scrutiny if it were not known for its activism and its liberal stands on social issues.  "The question is, is it politically motivated?" he said. "That's the underlying feeling of everyone here. I don't have enough information to make a decision, but there's a suspicion."

The above is adapted from Common Dreams Newsletter, the full story by Patricia Ward Biederman and Jason Felch

Mark Twain retorted that he was still alive, contradicting learned commentators who were reporting his death.  It has been reported that Unitarian Universalism is dying.  Apparently based on the way congregations report their voting membership to the UUA we are averaging a growth rate of 1% per annum, and this is smaller than the national growth rate.  Thus the argument goes that we are losing "market share," and therefore experiencing relative decline.  While this an area of concern for those of us who cherish the future of liberal religion, quantitative measurements do not necessarily lend themselves to uncontroversial  judgments. 

First, what is the nature of the growth of population in the United States?  If the composition of the United States relative to race, ethnicity, age distribution etc.  was more or less the same as it was in 1970 (the high point of twentieth century dues payers to the UUA relative to the U.S. population) then the UUA statistical decline in market share would indicate decline relative to this static conception of population.    It would tell us that we did not need a cultural change within Unitarian Universalism, but rather an organizational one.  We would need to build more big suburban churches.  Train more "boss" ministers.  We would need to do what we have always done, but better.

But if the US population is growing among people  that we have never attracted:  among non white, non Protestant,  and not "middle class" (in the mid twentieth century meaning of that term,)  then perhaps Unitarian Universalist growth would require that we look at the limitations of our cultural and religious identity.  By 2050 the population of the United States will be more than 50% non white.  Diana Eck argues that  we have become the most religiously pluralistic country in the world with growing numbers of Moslems, Buddhists,  Hindus, earth centered traditions, and other ways of being religious not normative in America of just a few decades ago.  In the 1970s, our members were typically highly credentialled employees of corporations and governments.  The better paying of these jobs are disappearing, and now our employed U.U. membership often comes to us highly stressed and overworked, and we have many who are among the increasingly underpaid and under appreciated service functionaries (teachers, librarians, social workers, and technical level scientific workers.)  The former often can't afford to live in the communities that they serve.  Meanwhile we gaining a larger percentage of self employed professionals, artisans, and creative entrepreneurs who don't have to live in suburbia, and set up shop in small towns in the Mountains, and in the pine woods of the Southeast.  Who will we grow among?  What is the future of the suburb?

Dan Harper makes an argument that Unitarian Universalist ministers are educated to lead pastoral sized congregations, and if their leadership style was better suited for a larger church, then our Unitarian Universalist churches would grow.  Perhaps, but it still leaves open the question, among whom would we grow? 

There is considerable interest among Unitarian Universalists in the growth of large independent churches that serve the perceived needs of a consumer orientated population.  These "market driven" churches are directed by staff, and the core supporters and power brokers are smaller core of committed evangelicals.  They use innovative technologies to enhance the worship experience.  It would be an interesting discussion if we could talk about the pluses and minuses of such an approach,  and whether it could be adapted Unitarian Universalism.  But we still need to ask, who joins these "mega-churches?"  There is considerable evidence that they are the once upon a time constituents of the declining conservative and mainstream evangelical churches.  Thus they are recycled UCCs, Episcopalians, Baptists, Disciples, Presbyterians and  Methodists.  These denominations are losing members, it isn't simply liberal Protestantism that is in decline,  it is the old forms of denominational Protestantism. 

Where are these mega-churches?  They are located on sprawling campuses in the new growth suburbs fueled by white flight.  Forty years ago we took that road ourselves,  undermining our public ministry and turning us into a religion that serves individual seekers rather than a wounded world.

There is a second problem with the declining "market share statistic,"  by counting voting members of congregations are we really counting those who identify with Unitarian Universalism?  No. we are simply counting those who a congregation chooses to report to the UUA as "voting members" for purposes of paying the annual program fund.  Those of my readers who has been on a church board  know that the number that is reported is an understatement of the size of the congregation.  Thus, we need to distinguish between 1) those who identify as Unitarian Universalists, 2) the total constituency of Unitarian Universalist congregations, organizations, affiliate groups, and ministries, and 3) total number of voting members of Unitarian Universalist congregations.  Is it possible that the first two could rise significantly while the third category would grow slower?  I think that is not only possible, but we are experiencing that institutional dislocation at the present time.  It is a fact that we have experienced rapid increases in paid staff in our congregations, and increases in attendance, yet slower increases in those who get reported to Boston.  Perhaps this fact has more to do with the slow death of the form of historical Protestantism, than it does to the eminent death of the religious movement known as Unitarian Universalism. 

Third, the growth of voting membership in congregations is uneven.  Some congregations have experienced double digit growth, and some congregations have experienced absolute decline in membership.    The Districts of the UUA in the Northeast of the United States have lost members or showed small increases, while the Districts in the other parts of the country have seen significant growth in total voting member registrations in the last decade.  Why?  Some of growth in the "sunbelt" has been fueled by rapid population growth, and some of the fall off in the "frost belt" is the result of declining and aging populations.  But our "sun belt" congregations lack the endowments and capital funds to respond to population growth, while the "frost belt" congregations are often living off funds assembled by the generousity of Unitarians and Universalists in the nineteenth century.

It would be a good thing if we could discuss with confidence a growth strategy for Unitarian Universalism based on firm knowledge of demographics and precise knowledge of who our members are, but I believe that such a project is much more complex than citing our favorite statistics to bolster our pet arguments.  Nevertheless,  I suggest my critique opens several new areas of discussion even if that discussion is somewhat speculative without more information:  1) Can we continue to be a religion of the declining (in relative size at least) privileged white anglo culture and not expect to experience decline relative to the population of the United States as a whole?  2) Does it make sense to mimic the mega-church if the mega-church is really a parasite on the declining Protestant form of organization?  3) Are we going to continue to accept the suburban captivity of our movement?  4) While we may need large churches in urban communities and large suburbs as bases for our public ministry, don't we also need small house churches to tap the energy of small group ministries as ways of reaching entirely new populations and  generation life styles with new ways of being church.  Perhaps some of our ministers should be trained to be enablers of other peoples lay ministries while others will be trained to be boss ministers in a large budget mega-church.  Let God call ministers to ministries based on personal discernment that may or may not fit into the church growth current fad of choice.

If I haven't tested my readers patience with my radicalism let me advance one more critique.  If we continue to think of ourselves as a "denomination" - a nineteenth century invention of middle class white Protestantism and if do not adopt to the demographic changes that our country is undergoing we will eventually die.  But if we reframe our self conception and come to understand ourselves as a movement of religious liberals in which covenant communities are not necessarily housed in expensive campuses, and led by boss ministers, we might contribute to transformation of the American religious experience.  Once again.

There are Kanjobal Indian refugees living in near me in Indiantown, Florida.  They have fled from Guatemala to Florida seeking asylum.  (See below for more information.)  I have a previous entry on the Maya, as does Hafidha Sofia.

My poor, poor country
people trying to escape
not knowing what direction
all points look the same
the boom of the bombs
drives them
c
r
a
z
y
Planes flying over sad
towns throwing bombs
on innocent people
Poor, sad, sad people
destroyed by the arms
of rich countries
and though
gentle,
have served the killers
Oh sorrow, sorrow, sorrow
LAND OF THE QUETZAL
By Jose Lows Perez-Aguirre
16-year-old Mayan refugee boy in Florida
Guatemala,
land of corn
of wheat
which feeds your impoverished children.
Oh Guatemala beautiful land
land of the hormigo
musical tree
of which your children
have created
the marimba
marimba of the sweet notes
which resound in the Huehueteca
Mountains
where the quetzal cries bitterly
seeing your children
banished
by the stranger.
Your children set on the rocks
where, unfortunately
you cannot feed them
While the cruel strangers
exploit your children
and enjoy
your riches.

Boothby, Neil writes:

As Kanjobal Indians, direct descendants of the ancient Mayan civilization, "the struggle," as the elder chose to call it, has indeed been a long one. IN 1524 A.D., Spanish officials arrived in Guatemala and set in motion a 450-year era of exploitation. In the absence of rich gold and silver deposits, Indians bore the burden of Spain's colonizing efforts, working as virtual slaves on their buildings, cities and roads. Native states were dismembered and Indians concentrated into local communities tightly controlled by Crown officials and priests. Exhaustive labor incarceration and disease leveled the indigenous population to less than 40 percent of its preconquest total. The ensuing colonial period and even Guatemala's own independence in 1821 did little to change the plight of the Maya. Expropriation of communal lands, debt bondage, vagrancy laws and the absence of meaningful land reform in this century have left Guatemala's indigenous people impoverished.

Consumer groups have been lobbying to pass new laws requiring restaurant chains to place basic nutrition information on menus and menu boards. This would fill "a gaping hole in consumer information."

Advocates argue that Americans eat half of all meals outside the home. Restaurants should be required to provide calorie, fat, and sodium content on menus and menu boards, before consumer buy the product? "Marketers call such placement at the "point-of-purchase" and recognize that it's the most effective way of influencing consumer behavior with information."

Read how MacDonald's move is an attempt to fend of such laws with a meaningless gesture.

How will New Orleans be rebuilt? And by whom? Some of the plans of some very powerful people look forward to eliminating poverty by eliminating poor people! There is already rampant real estate speculation that is working to drive the price of housing up. Can the city that gave us Jazz,and so much more, become a community of equality and justice?


A collection of environmental, political, and academic leaders share their unique visions for reconstructing the Big Easy post-Katrina

Today I spoke to a Garden Festival at the Treasure Coast Unitarian Universalist Church in Stuart, Florida. There were Master Gardeners, and two specialists from the University of Florida, artisans selling garden pottery, and stainglass plus several larger vendors selling flowers. People from the community came and visited our grounds looking for flowers to plant in their gardens this winter. I spoke, I felt sadden by my subject. It was a beautiful day. A great day for a garden festival.

I said:
This is the land of Ais, known to the the first Europeans as the Indians of the coast. They were a tall, healthy people who fished along the inlets, and rivers and planted crops. What we now call the Indian River was once known as River of Ais. There were 25000 Ais living here when the Spanish came in 1513. By 1610 the last Ais was dead. The Spanish enslaved the Ais people, and disease, forced labor, and the violence of oppression overcame an ancient community of fishers, growers and manufacturers. They built houses, including civic houses, developed manufacture of baskets, pottery, cooking ovens, colored woven clothing, and jewelry. They practiced settled agriculture.

To the people of this land the world was "alive with spirit." The animals and plants were relatives, and all the creatures lived together in one family under the loving care of our mother earth and our father sky - the earth world was a sacred realm in which people lived, and moved and had their being. They celebrated the earth. The people of this land spoke to animals, and sang to the plants. Dances celebrated planting and tending of plants. They told stories of each of the plants that sustained them in every day of their lives.

They found the world as a blessing. It was intregal to their lives to live in harmony with the world. Music and dance were an central part of the Ais everyday life, but these enchanting sounds and graceful movements were lost along with the people themselves. We have only tiny glimpses into that culture, such as the use of gourds for rattles, a drum created by beating on a large rock with a club, and flutes made from reed, cane or bark. The women were reported to have donned shell belts, formed themselves into a large circle, and danced with a side stepping motion around a central fire at a certain ceremony whose meaning is now lost. Based on knowledge of other communities we can assume it was a celebration of the renewal of the plants that they grew. These people are lost, however, we can imagine the haunting sound of those tinkling shells in the night.

These are the crops grown by the Ais for thousands of years before Columbus.

· maize · gourd · beans · citrons · squash · sunflowers pumpkins

Wild Plants Collected for food, baskets, fishing gear, clothing, housing.

· acorns · palm berries · smartweed · hickory nuts · wild cherries · plums · persimmon· bullrush · blackberries · blueberries nut sedge elderberries huckleberries· buttonbush peppervine poke weed watershield ground cherries amaranth · sea grapes bristlegrass broomgrass coco plums
· spatterdock cattail coontie · yucca ache prickley pear cabbage palm· morning glory sea oats water lily· saw palmetto
· goosefoot rivercane yaupon

The native people lived in relation with this land. Some people will say the Ais were animists, that they pre-modern, and superstitious. I am not impressed with such ideas.

I believe that they lived with wisdom, a wisdom that arose from their relationship to the earth, a wisdom that allowed them to relate to the storms and the rains and the dry times as well. For us in this beginning of a new millenium, we need to ask does are present way of living with this land, shows the wisdom that sustained the Ais, who resided here and sustained the environment for over six thousand years.

Today you will be hearing much discussion of native plants, and how much less intrusive these plants are to the Florida environment. I believe there is wisdom in cultivating native plants. I think they might also teach us about living in this place, this land of the Ais.

Day 12 after Hurricane Wilma, egrets on the lawn, nice sea breeze, its about 80° F.

Our church building stood fine, most of our damage was to the trees. Five days ago the lawn was full of trees, and branches and little pieces of roofing from somebodies home blown miles to land on our lawn. Eight trees were pulled up by their roots.

Six men from the congregation came and hauled the branches away, pulled the trees up by ropes being pulled by a car, built braces to support the uprooted now replanted trees and the lawn looks almost perfect. The winter flowers will need to be planted.

Hurricane Season is over in three weeks. For us, the hurricane thing has gotten old. Florida is wonderful from November through April. Then it becomes hot and stormy in May, that lasts through October.

It is paradise for a season.

I read the seminarian's blogs, and I applaud their efforts to define a personal theology, to come to grips with a Unitarian Universalist identity, to develop skills, and to find their unique preaching voices. All of these are essential, and I feel confident that these writers will have wonderful ministries.

But there is one little thing I would like to add to the conversation. The society in which Unitarian Universalists do ministry is very stressful, and the social support systems for most people in our society are weak or non existent. Churches are places where people come who need help, and some of these needy people present "mental health" problems. In many of our churches as many of a quarter of the membership is clinically depressed, and a significant number will tell you that they are "borderline." Narcissism is our most common character disorder and it can present as a "right to express myself" with demands and tantrums. Narcissism denied takes the form of long term antagonism. Other clergy will point out that I haven't even mentioned passive aggressive styles among board members, and burnout among volunteers.

Many Unitarian Universalist parish ministers spend considerable time and energy doing pastoral care with people whose problems are complex and long lasting. Within a few years of parish ministry you will be called on to do a memorial service for a congregant who has committed suicide, and deal with person who is a perpetual disrupter and antagonist. You will experience members of your congregation who divorce and come to church and have fights at joys and sorrows. Or you may have the visitor who is carrying a weapon, or who makes unwanted sexual advances at other visitors or members, or who becomes so enraged by your sermon that (s)he threatens you with violence. All these events, and many others I have experienced and these and many others have been experienced by other ministers as well.

So what does this have to do ministerial formation?

Well there is the spiritual preparation. If you are dependent on the members of your congregation for support, or if you need their approval to do effective ministry you will be disappointed. Developing a strong sense of your pastoral self requires a few years of practice in ministry, but it begins with spiritual disciplines such as prayer, journaling and mediation and those can be formed in seminary.

You can't have too many units of Clinical Pastoral Education. One is required, but I would recommend a second unit. Or a field work experience in a mental health facility, or crisis center. Doing some "ministry with youth" is another good place to pick up some experience with yourself working with people in crisis. I am not sure that interns get as much experience with "themselves as pastor" while working with difficult people. It is hard to convey the radical difference between "being a pastor" and being a friend, social worker, youth worker, and even an intern. The transference that you will receive as a "spiritual leader" is powerful, potentially transformative, and also potentially demonic. Reflecting in evaluation forms on the process of becoming aware of "yourself as pastor" becomes a cliché after awhile, but will be a matter of professional survival when you become the object of everyones projections of what a person of God should do (for them.)

Courses in pastoral psychology are useful, but not not as helpful as clinical experience. And learning to work with "colleagues" is essential. I have tried to create a support group of other ministers who discuss pastoral care concerns several times. They usually last two or three years and then we need to reconstitute them. (Ministers move, so a group of six colleagues will have turnover in three years.) But they are invaluable, for the moral support, as a means of self care, and as way of gaining perspective on some very demanding pastoral situations.

Ministry formation is both a matter of head and heart. My maxim is from a back country Palestinian rabbi. "See, I send you out as sheep among wolves. Be then as wise as snakes, and as gentle as doves." Matthew 10.16

Classical theism presents a concept of "God" that is outside the "Creation" and is all knowing, all powerful, present everywhere, transcending our capacities to be comprehended. Yet this God is fully described by theologians who accept a special revelation as understood by a particular faith tradition.

The explanations for theism raise problems of circularity, and many reject God as a result. Unless we make a serious and honest reckoning with the God of theism, attempts by religious liberals to deal seriously with divine - human encounter is associated with this problematic theism. The following is a passage from Paul's Tillich's The Courage To Be (1952) where he seeks to point toward the God above the God of theism.

"The God above the God of theism is present, although hidden, in every divine-human encounter. Biblical religion as well as Protestant theology are aware of the parodoxical character of this encounter. They are aware that if God encounters man God is neither the object nor the subject and is therefore above the scheme into which theism has forced him. They are aware that personalism with respect to God is balanced by a transpersonal presence of the divine. They are aware that forgiveness can be accepted only if the power of acceptance is effective in man. They are aware of the paradoxical character of every prayer, of speaking to somebody to whom you cannot speak because he is not "somebody," of asking somebody of whom you cannot ask anything because he gives or gives not before you ask, of saying "thou" to somebody who is nearer to the I than the I is to itself. Each of these paradoxes drives the religious consciousness toward a God above the God of theism.

The courage to be which is rooted in the experience of the God above the God of theism unites and transcends the courage to be as a part and the courage to be as oneself. It avoids both the loss of oneself by participation and the loss of one's world by individualization. The acceptance of the God above the God of theism makes us a part of that which not also a part but is the ground of the whole. Therefore our self is not lost in a larger whole, which submerges it in a life of a limited group. If the self participates in the power of being-itself it receives itself back. For the power of being acts through the power of the individual selves. It does not swallow them as every limited whole, every collectivism, and every conformism does. This why the Church, which stands for the power of being itself or for the God who transcends the God of religions, claims to be the mediator of the courage to be. A church which is based on the the authority of the God of theism cannot make such a claim. It inescapably develops into a collectivist or semi-collectivist system itself.

Paul Tillich, The Courage to Be.

Mircea Eliade wrote:

The process of the desacralization of the world, of life, and of history, which triumphs today is due above all to our inability to grasp the mystery of the camouflaging of the sacred in the profane.

The world in which we move, and live and have our being as sacred home, as Mother Earth, and Father Sky. The world as in which we relate to our extended family of fellow creatures. This has been lost by the modernist way of objectifying and manipulating nature, so that the world becomes a thing. And we become aliens to ourselves, to each other and the cosmos that is our source and sustains our lives.

Is it as simple as Eliade pronounces, an inability to grasp the hidden sacred in the ordinary? Perhaps.

We say desacralization, but the world is the same world that it always has been for us, it is we who have lost our way, and our ability "to grasp." it is interesting that Eliade uses the metaphor of tactile sense, rather than the metaphor of sight, or the metaphor of hearing.

It much of Western religious writing we "see" the truth, and "hear" the wisdom. But we also embrace, hold, and "grasp."

Gary Kowalski who serves the First Unitarian Universalist Church in Burlington, Vermont has written an important book for religious liberals, Science and the Search for God. The book provides its readers with a good introduction to relation between religion and genuine scientific inquiry, and helps its readers to make the distinction between the philosophical stance known as materialism and new findings of science. Materialism, a legacy of the ancient dualisms of heaven and earth, spirit and flesh, mind and matter has become merged in the minds of many with science. But Kowalski in a popular style and with excellent illustrations argues convincingly that contemporary science has moved beyond the limits of reductionism and materialism, and introduces liberal religious thinkers such as Charles Hartshorne who have developed theological approaches that are more compatible with science as it is actually done.

But materialism continues to have its adherents. Kowalski writes:

Like some slow-growing disease, the ideology of materialism has gradually infected the scientific world-view and then popular culture, slowly but surely taking over the senses, one by one.  As defined by the dictionary, materialism is the "philosophical doctrine that matter is the only reality and that everything in the world, including thought, will and feeling can be explained in terms of matter alone."  

Materialism robs us of our vitality and saps the will to change.  And it's hard to imagine anyone crawling into such a mental straightjacket voluntarily.  Naturally, it didn't happen all at once.  The process began with the Copernican revolution as science addressed the question of where we are.    Human beings learned that they were living in a universe much larger than they supposed, but hardly one in which our kind held ay special place or privileged position.  In the nineteenth century came the Darwinian revolution,  which examined the question of how we got here.  The longstanding mystery of the origin of the species yielded to explanations based upon chance and necessity.  Finally, materialism invaded the inner world of the personality -the question of who we are-as within the twentieth century advances in genetics and molecular biology seemed to unlook the ultimate secret of the mind and consciousness itself.

Not too long ago, it was still possible to believe that each person possessed an eternal soul, a divine spark, a sacred essence. The individual was seen as a moral agent and creative force within the unfolding drama of history, but breakthroughs in genetics have seemingly reduced ingenuity and daring, heroism and sacrifice, to nothing more than the chance combinations of chromosomes.  As Francis Crick, the discover of DNA, has written, "the astonishing hypothesis is that €˜you,' your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and your freewill, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells, and their associated molecules.?

But what is modern physics saying about matter? Kowalski continues his critique of materialism: "Ernest Rutherford , first discovered the atomic nucleas almost a hundred years ago.  When he was first asked to describe his discovery he replied to the effect that "Something - we don't know what - is doing something - we don't know how."

The bafflement among physicists that Rutherford expressed has only increased as the atom has revealed more and more of its workings, we have muons and mesons, which seem multiply geometrically, and even these subatomic particles have been analyzed and we find quarks and the quarks appear to be strings, not things at all.   Our universe rests on a firm foundation of one dimensional strings of vibrating energy."


Matter?  What matter?   The fundamental building block of all material existence, mere flashes in the microsphere.

Is it possible?  The Universe seems to be made up of nothing,  nothing but pulsating waves of energy.  How much to you weigh,  how tall are you?   Take away the empty space, and you and me would be reduced to sparks of energy no larger than grains of sand.  But wait, a grain of sand is full of energy.  Go to the beach, and get some.  There is enough energy stored in that sands atoms, to drive a city for a week.   A child's bucket full of sand if the energy could be released could power a hundred thousand automobiles for a year. 

Energy / mass / matter /stuff.

Empty space isn't what it used to be....we are now told that space is charged with cross currents of wave fields, and these field are constantly giving birth to particles,  energy taking form,  becoming what we once called matter.   And then disappearing again, in a fraction of a nanosecond.  

So much for God created the heavens and the earth,   and so much for the apocalypse, as well.   The beginning of matter happens every moment of eternity, and the end of matter as well. A different theology is needed for a universe in constant flux, neither materialist nor theist. My stance is pan-en-theist, the universe is holy, creative, and conscious of itself.

"Don't mourn, organize!"  wrote Joe Hill.  In these times when politicians lead us into senseless wars, and fail to promote the general welfare, when Presidents nominate reactionaries to fill judicial appointments, there is a lot of "what can we do, we are so powerless" expressed in liberal circles.

Some writers have some ideas about how we should organize to assure that the United States becomes a country that resembles the ideals of Unitarian Universalists enshrine in principles and put on tee shirts.

Ruth Conniff writes about encouraging progressive candidates so that reactionaries don't win by default.

Molly Ivans writes about a simple campaign to convert the spending priorities of the United States from the military to quality education.  She writes that this would be a revolution in values and consequences. 

Young adult John Bravo DiMicoli writes about running as a candidate for the New York City Council and the lessons he learned. If only the Democrats could learn from DiMicoli.

To the people of this land - as well as to many contemporaries who commit to living deliberately, and who seek to be aware of the world that has been given to us all - the world is "alive with spirit."

Some "intellectuals" would tells us that this world understanding is something they call animism,  and dismiss it as pre-modern and "superstitious."  The more mechanical and arrogant "science" that was in vogue in  the first half of the twentieth century lent authority to the imperiousness of modernist anthropologists of religion, whose own world view saw nature as an object to be manipulated, rather than the outward form of our mother earth and our father sky - that sacred realm in which we lived, and moved and had our being.

I am not in awe of "the science" of those who think of the cosmos as dead matter,  devoid of consciousness and vitality - I find that way of thinking dangerous and if my readers might indulge me  "unscientific."  Materialism as an intellectual movement has impoverished thinking and created the dangerous ideologies of the capitalism and communism.  Sometimes the materialists would have us believe that they are "naturalists."  The more materialist of the humanists are fond of that dodge.

Naturalists are those who seek a explanation of all events based on explanations drawn the processes of nature,  naturalists do not seek "supernatural" explanations.  Why did the Hurricane come?  The supernaturalist argues about a God that directs hurricanes,  a naturalist would point toward warm water causing updrafts of air, and wind currents forming convection cooling, and stirring currents.  But the naturalist is not compelled to the materialist conclusion that the earth is a mechanical system rather than a living ecology that learns and changes based on those learnings.  A naturalist is not compelled to ascend into "human only" ethics, but may assert with Gary Kowalski that animals have souls, and should not be subjected to vicious treatment nor raised for slaughter.

Edward Abbey speaks to me and for me as a cosmic mystic, pan-en-theist, religious humanist when he writes:
"How strange and wonderful is our home, our earth,
With its swirling vaporous atmosphere,
Its flowing and frozen climbing creatures.
The croaking thing with wings that hang on rocks
And soar through fog, the furry grass, the scaly seas. . .

How utterly rich and wild
Yet some among us have the nerve,
The insolence, the brass, the gall to whine
About the limitations of earthbound fate
And yearn for some more perfect world beyond the sky.

We are none of us good enough
For the world we have."

Some have argued that religious humanist perspectives necessarily descend into "anthro-centric" points of view,  incapable of self criticism directed at the hubris of modernism with its "humankind against nature" mythologies that provide the rationales for the ecological destruction that we witness.  But religious humanism is not inherently modernist, nor is religious humanism incapable of transcending the dominant culture's technocratic corporatism and imperialism.  A liberating, multicultural, anti-oppressive religious humanism that realizes that the earth does not belong to us, but rather that we belong to the earth is being born.  A religious humanism that proclaims with ancient wisdom that our earth is sacred,  we are part of nature, and we are connected intimately and passionately with the whole.

Again, Philocrites has contributed to the Unitarian Universalist on-line community with a thoughtful post outlining his editorial policy relative to publishing comments.  I found Philocrites post remarkably kind and well reasoned toward those who violate internet etiquette and standards of civil discourse.

Recently, I had to turn on the moderate comments switch on my weblog manager because of a troll, and I resent his violation of community.  I also deleted his "comments" which had nothing to do with the post or conversation at hand, but rather boiler plate reiterations of long discredited accusations directed at one of our ministers and a liberal religious congregation that acted to guard its community against disruption.  After deleting his comments, he accused me of censorship!  Nonsense!  Editorial discretion is not censorship, I am a publisher, not a government oversight agency.  Publishers are responsible for the contents of their publications, including the writing of guest commentators.

Philocrites mentioned that he tries to keep his professional responsibility separate from his personal contribution as a publisher of a blog.  My reasoning is a little different, I am an elected member of the Unitarian Universalist Association Executive, and as such I am very aware of the UUMA's Code of Professional Conduct and the Guidelines for Ministry.  For me to tolerate trolling on my weblog would be condoning internet libeling and thus a violation of those professional standards.  I promise my readers that I won't allow "commentators" to use my weblog  in a way that  violates professional relational standards.

I feel strongly that a Unitarian Universalist on-line community can enrich our religious movement with honest and civil dialogue on matters of importance to our faith community.  But in order to do that the webloggers must honor standards of that bring credit to Unitarian Universalism.