March 2006 Archives

Its Friday afternoon, and it has been a busy week. Tomorrow is a board meeting, and I will be proposing that the congregations leadership must discuss some contentious issues.

1) Why they should become a fair compensation congregation.

2) Why they should develop a policy on how to handle disruptive people.

Of course neither of those topics have anything to do with my sermon topic for Sunday, "Satan Reconsidered." I just finished it.

I will be able to spend some time after the Board meeting with my packet preparation. Getting ready to move on has added to my "to do" list.

Tomorrow is the first of April, and during April I will travel to three separate cities for important meetings. And the search for an interim position will become intense.

I am preparing a sermon on Evil, and on that personification of evil, Satan. Seems like a perfectly ordinary Unitarian Universalist topic to me.

Explore Evil, talk about "evils" and the idea of Evil itself. Introduce the Prince of Darkness and talk about his history in Hebrew Scriptures and early Christianity.

Help the listeners decide whether they believe in an array of evils, or whether their is something to the idea of Evil itself. Contrast this to non Western non-dualisms.

I mention this topic to some of my colleagues and they wondered how I could get away with that topic in a UU church. The devil and Evil, next you'll be preaching about Sin and Redemption. Well Passion 'sunday is coming up, and Easter too.

I do get away with it. I think it is because I use words like "Let me suggest..." and "or you might look at this way."

No witnessing. Much probing.

I am getting a packet ready.  My colleagues in ministry know what that means, sorting though the photographs.  Hmmm.  Put that in.  Take that out.

I thought I would include a few pics of a younger Clyde.

A Sermon on Global Warming given in Stuart, Florida on March 19, 2006

Sometimes a preacher cuts some material out of a sermon. Perhaps it seems to divert from the intent of what the preacher wants to say, sometimes it is too radical, or too spiritual for the audience, or adds unnecessarily to the length. Here is an outtake from a sermon I wrote in 1996. I don't know why I cut it.

I have preached the sermon in different versions since then, but this is the first time the out take has been made public. It is a peak into my preaching soul from ten years ago.

I'll publish the sermon. I wonder where it was supposed to fit?

Preached at the Treasure Coast Unitarian Universalist Church in Stuart, Florida on March 5th 2006

Robert Parry writes that relative to reporting the truth about the war against Iraq the corporate media has proven to a failure. 

He writes: Over the past three years, as the Bush administration has unveiled the United States as an imperial power that plays by its own rules, it has dawned on more and more Americans that the old institutions - the Congress, the courts and the press - that were supposed to protect the Republic had long since crumbled into decay.

Yet, because of the lingering Watergate myth, many Americans were most shocked to find that the scrappy, idealistic Washington press corps had evolved into a careerist, courtier news media. Even well-informed Americans were perplexed over how the press had become almost the opposite of its press clippings.

He exposes the myth of a liberal media.

Where is our liberal doctrine of sin, when we need one?  How do we speak of the well intended but vain attempts of privileged and powerful to do right, and be good, without really changing the way we live our lives?  Perhaps by examining the folly of works righteousness in its most affluent and exaggerated forms.  In an article originally in the Wall Street times we read of some examples of homes built by wealthy and socially aware folk who seek to be environmentally righteous, but somehow fail by their very efforts.  Daniel Asks writes:

These houses aren't just ridiculous; they're monuments to sanctimony. If architecture is frozen music, these places are congealed piety, demonstrating with embarrassing concreteness the glaring hypocrisy of upper-class environmentalism. The sad thing is that, by pouring so much money into ostentatious eco-design, the people who built homes like this have purchased status at the cost of doing some real environmental good.

Bear in mind that merely building a gigantic house consumes an enormous amount of energy and other resources, which is why it costs so much to do so. Situating a home all by itself on a large piece of land, far from the pre-existing community infrastructure, does not make it a model of environmentally conscious design. And having a second home--which takes nearly a day of driving to reach--is unlikely to make a dent in global warming.

There is more, much more.

I feel inhibited when it comes to ranting and publishing it. Sometimes I can work myself up to it. But I am so concerned with being reasonable, and communicating with my audience that I check myself.

Now if I am watching television and I see and hear some report of bureaucratic absurdity, or malicious behavior then I begin to mutter and curse. My spouse thinks it eccentric. I should learn to write it down, and spread my concerns to the world.

Meanwhile here is the model rant, I will be studying it for when I have learned to let it rip.

I have been rethinking a People So Bold, redesigning it into several different "weblogs" - one will be a blog of my personal commentary on things, the second will be a collection of sermons, essays and reports I have written,and the third will be a scrapbook of material that I think my readers might be interested in but are not by me, thus they are more a reference collection.  I will add podcast and photo albums in time.

The work of setting up the rough design went okay this morning, but there is a long way to go.  I will publish it on my own site.

The Long Walk of the Navajo, also called the Long Walk to Bosque Redondo, was an Indian removal effort of the United States government in 1863 and 1864. The plan called deporting all Navajo from their native lands, which were called, in the Navajo language, Dinetah. (Dinetah included land from northeastern Arizona through western New Mexico, and north into Utah and Colorado.) The Navajo cultivated crops on the fertile floors of canyons, including Canyon de Chelly, home to the ancient Anasazi people.  The first contingents began arriving March 13 and 14, 1964.

(Banner from Navaho, info and banner were hat tipped from Peace Buttons.)

Yesterday, I was talking with a retired minister about Florida.  The subject drifted from native plants to native people, and what we knew about Florida before 1491.  I expressed my opinion that "indigenous wisdom" has much to teach us, and he expressed surprise.  "You mean that you think there is something behind all that superstition," he said, "aren't you romanticizing the past?"  The liberal clergy have had a love affair with modernism, and many continue to suffer under the prejudice that all thinking by pre - Enlightenment people was irrational and not worth serious consideration.

I have been thinking a lot about "indigenous wisdom" lately.  The Six Nations (Iroquois) told stories about the "three sisters" which were corn, squash, and beans.  They told how these three food plants were gifts to the people, how the people learned to care for and cultivate these together, and the stories told the people that the cosmos was broken when three sisters were not grown together.

Superstition?

We now know of that corn, squash, and beans provide complimentary proteins, provide a balance of fibers and complex carbohydrates, and planting them together provides a natural nitrogen depletion and renewal cycle thus contributing to a sustainable agriculture.

The so called science advanced by modernism is based on reductionism,  breaking things into smaller and smaller mechanism.  But the observations of the indigenous people led to wisdom, because it was based on seeing connections.

The illustration is from Cooking with the Three Sisters.

I have been writing a sermon on the Feminine Mystique this week. I have had my share of meetings and pastoral consultations, and my phone calls and the oh so urgent email. But a lot of the week has been engaged in sermon writing.

It is like that every week I write a sermon, but this week is a little different. I lot of energy went into writing the sermon. Usually I have energy to spare.

I read the book back in 1963. I have changed and the world has changed since then, so reading the book was an exploration of those changes. I could only touch on them in the sermon, but I have meditated on changes all week. There was no "women's movement' in 1963, this book is credited with igniting what was to be an explosion. I remember the explosion, it was a few years later. The women's caucuses, the demands. I was working in the peace movement. I was supporting the Black Empowerment Movement. Yes the demands were just, but we have to stop the napalm from falling, can't this wait. Yes, I remember the demands.

And I remember the invitations to go to all male groups to talk about our feelings about feminism. I was for the demands, now I have to talk about my feelings? Why? Yea NOW. Now let me free Angela Davis. Isn't that more pressing? Her trial is coming up. So this week some old conflicted feelings were revisited.

But what took most of the energy was confronting Freud once again. She argues against Freud's understanding of women. I had forgotten that that was an issue. Struggling with Freud was important back then, but does anyone take drive / repression seriously as a dynamic anymore? But that was the orthodoxy then, to think psychology was to think of ego and id, and most of my congregants were educated before the Freud was critiqued out of favor. And it was the feminists beginning with Friedan who led the charge against that idea system.

How to develop that in a sermon? Ah ha! Good old Margaret Fuller to the rescue, talk of androgyny! She was way ahead on the idea that the nature of human beings both men and women was to express themselves creatively. On the other hand, Freud assumes an essentialist distinction between men and women. Contrasting those ideas made my journey in "human nature" less a chore, but for a while I was stuck. It wasn't a history of the flaming chalice sermon.

I think this sermon that I just finished is simple enough to keep everyone with me, and challenging enough to keep me wanting to preach again.

Its that time of the year. Twelve more to go!

I reprint here a study of one state, but all states have similar problems with automobiles. Florida's emergency rooms are in crisis because of auto accidents.

Car reliance is roadblock for California
By Paul Dorn which was an op-ed article published in the Sacramento Bee, 01/23/05

In his second State of the State speech on January 5, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger put his finger on the major source of California's financial distress. "This is a car-centered state," said the Governor.

Unfortunately, Governor Schwarzenegger failed to identify this dependency on automobiles as a problem. "Californians can't get from place to place on little fairy wings," said the Governor. "We need roads."

The Governor's condescension aside, there is a growing recognition that California's over-reliance on cars is hurting our economic competitiveness, harming our health, damaging our environment, and emptying our bank accounts. We can no longer afford our expensive car habit, which costs us plenty beyond the considerable expense of roads, vehicles, fuel, insurance, and maintenance.

Housing

California's high housing costs challenge low- and moderate-income workers while hurting business' ability to attract top-flight talent. This affordable housing crisis is exacerbated by our car-centered transportation system. The huge acreage needed for the movement and parking of automobiles drives up the cost of the remaining land. This expansive pavement reduces our community's tax base, shifting the tax burden onto the non-paved properties, again raising the cost of housing. Precious public money devoted to road maintenance and construction diverts funds away from affordable housing development, education, healthcare and other useful social spending. Off-street garage parking--often required by outdated zoning codes--adds even more to the costs of residential construction.

Healthcare

Motor vehicle crashes kill more than 4,000 Californians every year, and 310,000 car crash survivors require expensive ambulance response, emergency room care, pharmaceutical treatments, and lengthy rehabilitation. This highway carnage adds stress on our heavily burdened healthcare system, driving up the costs of insurance and medical care. Our health care costs are further increased by automobile-related stress, noise, toxic emissions, and the obesity-inducing sedentary lifestyle facilitated by our drive-thru car culture.

Water

Managing California's water resources for the needs of residents, agriculture, industry, and wildlife is a serious challenge, made more severe by the impact of our car dependency. Auto-derived toxins and particulates contaminate surface water sources. Leaky underground tanks at the thousands of gas stations needed to fuel our vehicles contaminate groundwater. Our car-dependent sprawl hinders the replenishment of aquifers, and contributes to erosion and heavy silting of streambeds.

Investment

The considerable expense of owning and maintaining an automobile contributes to the abysmally low savings rate of Americans. Yet this expensive automobile is parked for 90 percent of its lifespan, representing a huge amount of social wealth tied up in rusting automotive metal. Even more capital is consumed in a Sisyphean task of maintaining roads and streets to barely accommodate ever growing traffic. The incredible amount of social wealth needed to support auto-dependency means fewer resources are available for more productive investment, slowing our economic growth and holding down wages.

***

For decades, California's transportation spending has heavily favored automobiles. We are now paying the price of this unbalanced policy. Improving the efficiency of California's transportation system will require a more balanced, multimodal approach that includes transit, walking, and bicycling. We also need policies to better connect transportation investment with land use to discourage destructive and expensive sprawl.

Certainly, as Governor Schwarzenegger suggests, California needs more roads. But we are in greater need of sidewalks, bike lanes, transit systems, and passenger rail. Above all, we need political leadership to tackle the costly auto-addiction of our "car-centered state."

Paul Dorn is executive director of the California Bicycle Coalition (www.calbike.org).

Robert Cornwell writes:

It has taken more than three years, tens of thousands of Iraqi and American lives, and $200bn (£115bn) of treasure - all to achieve a chaos verging on open civil war. But, finally, the neo-conservatives who sold the United States on this disastrous war are starting to utter three small words. We were wrong.

I read the Feminine Mystique as an undergraduate over forty years ago. My woman friend at the time had read the Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir (1949) and challenged me to read it. I didn't find de Beauvoir's analysis applied my experience, and always the polemicist, I argued Betty Friedan understood America. I hadn't struggled with Marx yet, and so getting de Beauvoir was beyond my liberal comprehension of the time. I now understand the difference between the two books, between phenomenological analysis and journalism, but in 1963 I found Friedan related more to my experience.

I am re-reading the Feminine Mystique now. Betty Friedan is dead, and she was one of those constants in my life as the decades passed. I forgot what she said in the book, I just knew that it had been part of revolutionizing my consciousness and informing my critique of systemic oppressions. Re-reading it I recognize that my analysis is much deeper and more developed than what is presented in this book. I had imagined it as being profound, because that is how I remembered its impact on me. Women according to Friedan had been shaped by a "mystique" formed by popular culture in the 1950s that made being a mother and housewife the highest calling that a women could aspire to, but women yearned to exercise their talents by productive work in the world. The culture scorned this attitude, and so women repressed the desire for creative and meaningful work, much like Victorian women had repressed their sexuality. The result was depression, shopping till they dropped, excessive use of drugs and frequent visits to the therapist. A little too limited to the middle class experience of the 1950s I would say now, but I was an undergraduate and most of the women I knew were struggling with the reality that Friedan described.


Friedan had more influence on my generation than de Beauvoir. But in time I came to prefer advocates who saw the connection between race, class and gender, beginning with Angela Davis and other Marxists who went beyond dogma to analysis. Now I read women theologians and ethicists and Betty Friedan doesn't compel me as she did in 1963. But I probably would never have been prepared to read Sharon Welch without Betty Friedan. Thanks for being there then, and later.

Cyclists worked to get the streets of the United States paved in the late 19th and early 20th century, and bicycle repair shops were the mechanics for the new horseless carriages.  Now the drivers think cyclists don't belong on the streets.

Most trips in an automobile are less than 5 miles in length, about 20 minutes on a bike.  If 20% of those trips were on a bike instead of a car, it would make a radical difference in traffic, pollution and in gasoline prices.

Many Unitarian Universalists say that they want to deal with issues of class in America.  Many of the social justice issues that Unitarian Universalists work with directly confront economic injustice,  for example Florida churches have been involved with farmworker issues, and churches in many states are involved with issues involving fair housing, living wage, and affordable health care.  But Unitarian Universalists continue to ask for material dealing with classism. 

I was a trade union organizer in my young adult years and taught labor history for more than a decade before I returned to theological school.  For me, dealing with issues of classism means to join in struggles to organize the unorganized,  raise the minumum wage,  provide good public schools, affordable housing and quality affordable health care.  But these struggles don't answer the question of classism for middle class folks, how does one deal with classism and remain middle class?  Joining the labor movement appeals to me, but apparently not to everyone.  Perhaps this is website will be helpful to those who want to help overcome classism without ever learning to sing Solidarity Forever.

In this country one can not effectively struggle against the inequalities of class or race without fighting both classism and racism.  While this Class Acton is dedicated to educating about classism, it deos counterpose classism to racism.

The incompetence of George W. Bush is becoming scandal even among Republicans, who are reacting with anger as he lies to them, insults their intelligence and then goes on television and lies again.

He was told two days before Katrina struck New Orleans that the levees would break. Here he is on videotape lying about Hurricane Katrina.

Attempting to deflect attention from the hierarchies role in shielding pedaphiles and other abusers among its clergy the Vatican has attempted to scape goat gays in the priesthood.
Perhaps the new Pope thought that his would simply accept this example of pass the blame, but clergy are beginning to speak out. The movement to return the church to the people has been long and hard, but it will not be denied.

These efforts are of interest to religious liberals because overcoming authoritarianism and dogmatism in any and all religious communities advances freedom and that authentic spirituality that we have covenanted to affirm and promote.