PeaceBang

Where’s The Emerson Bio-Pic We’ve Been Waiting For?

Could someone please make it their summer project to write a great screenplay about Mr. Emerson and his buds? We’ve just had this great HBO series on John Adams, so why not Waldo, HUH? Carlos Baker’s book Emerson Among the Eccentrics would give an enterprising writer plenty of good starting material (not that execrable waste of trees by Susan Cheever; who in hell was her fact-checker?) and there are loads of good roles for great actors!

I mean, isn’t it time that we got Sam Waterston on board with this? He’s my choice to play RWE. I’ll let you nominate your own choices for characters like Thoreau, Walt Whitman (cameo), Margaret Fuller, Lydian Emerson, the Peabody sisters, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Bronson Alcott, and Horace Mann.

Chris Walton, you’re going to be home a lot this summer with the baby, aren’t you? We can DO this thing!

Singing ‘Bout Jesus in the UU Context

Suzanne wants to resurrect the thread of comments from this old post, and I say why not? I’m working on a paper and will start a ten-day intensive course tomorrow, so original material is unlike to issue forth from my fingertips until much later in May.

She writes,

Peacebang, I’m going to resurrect this thread, because it’s something I grapple with on a daily basis. I am a spiritually open and ritually eclectic person; I’ve ministered musically in Reformed synagogues, Episcopal churches (high and low), American Baptist, and (yes) Wiccan circles and pagan networks. I am now at my first UU position. How to choose hymns and anthems that support the sermon, provide liturgical flow, and have a spiritually meaningful component is shockingly difficult. Many of the best and most suitable music uses the word “God,” and (Oh NO!) often refers to Jesus. The word “God” is tolerated if I don’t overuse it. But if I use the J-word too often, I am severely and immediately criticized. Then if I don’t use the J-word often enough, I hear about that, too. The same group of people who wish for non-theistic language also want more classical or traditional music. WTH? Traditional church music without Jesus mentioned? I guess “Jesu Christe” is ok because if it’s in Latin it doesn’t count??? So I began to change a few words here and there to “UU-ify” the language of our anthems, which actually became ridiculous. (My husband said “why don’t we just say ‘Jello’ whenever the words say ‘Jesus?’ Everybody likes it, and there’s always room for it.”) Finally I had to write a newsletter column in which I told the congregation to trust me: I don’t have a religious agenda, but a spiritual one. I also told them I would trust them as well: I would trust them to use their own brains; I trust that all references to the Divine in the music I choose will be interpreted in any way they wish or need. I don’t care what images they have, or whether they believe in God. But they have chosen to call their institution a “church,” and that implies a spiritual component, which I believe can exist with or without a belief in God. I feel shackled by the bonds of the congregation’s contentiousness.

I marvel at how a denomination that is so proud of its inclusiveness should be so bitter and exclusive to the Christians (or even the theists) in its midst. Yet everybody wants that special Christmas Eve service, and to sing the old carols with the original words. I suppose Jesus, who advocated a radical form of inclusivity based on loving others, is not so radical or his teachings so alarming when he is kept eternally in the manger.

You can’t have it both ways, UUA-ers. You are either inclusive or not.

Suzanne, thanks for your testimonial on Unitarian Universalist Christophobia, which is still alive and well among us, even though from my own perspective we’ve come a long way in the past ten years. At least more UUs know that both Unitarianism and Universalism have exclusively Christian historical roots, and I experience much less Christian-bashing and ignorant comments than I used to. But that may be because people more know who I am; I’m not sure.

These days when people ask me “How can you be a UU a be a Christian?” I sense that they mean it with more openness and less hostile challenge than when the question came to me formerly. I receive anywhere from 20-50 e-mail inquiries and letters per year asking me how to be UU and Christian (or to remain Christian and join with the UUs), and I haven’t been angrily asked to leave Unitarian Universalism for at least a year (now that’s progress!).

In this blog and everywhere I go, I have been exhorting Unitarian Universalists to understand that “Christianity” is not a monolith, that we are too often willfully ignoring evidence of a huge liberal Christian world out there in favor of perpetuating myths of Unitarian Universalist uniqueness, and that this has got to stop if we want to live into our own claims of being accepting and intelligent people. I have been actively participating in ecumenical Christian life for many years and answering dozens of questions per year about why I am there (as in, “Why are you here, heathen?”). It gets tiring, this role of defending myself to hostile Christians who have been insulted for too long by Unitarian Universalists (or are just plain prejudiced), and defending my life in Christ to wounded or just plain hostile UUs who claim to be intellectuals but who know precious little of Christianity beyond what offended their spirits in 8th grade (the age they decided religion was all nonsense, and particularly the religion of Christianity).

To speak more directly to your point of being a UU Music Director, I do think it fair for the congregation to request minimal Jesus references if they’re not a Christian congregation. While I have every sympathy for your struggle, and while I cheer your ability to name hypocrisy when you see it, and while I totally dig your analysis that the baby Jesu in the manger is not nearly as threatening as the living Jesus who passionately challenges our spiritual inertia and social sins, I still think it makes some sense to ask, “If we’re not officially Christian, and if Christian Scripture isn’t part of the larger liturgy, why would we import Jesus only for the musical segments of the service?” That, for me, is about liturgical integrity as much as it is about theological distaste or mistrust.

All that said, I think your ministry with the congregation sounds like an excellent one, and that your newsletter column was a brave and wise invitation to individual discernment and more conversation among you. If anything, the congregation needs to know that there’s not a huge repertoire of purely secular (ie, “God-free”) music arranged for choral performance that would work well for Sunday morning worship. Your respectful invitation that they stop censoring you (your phrase, “I feel shackled by the bonds of the congregation’s contentiousness” pierces me to the heart) and your logical conclusion that “church” implies spirituality and yes, God-language, feels RIGHT ON to me. Hang in there, Music-Maker. Chances are you are doing much good in fighting for the right to include sacred music in this congregation. I don’t doubt that there are many in the pews who appreciate your struggle without even knowing that it is going on, and that you will do much good to the God/Christ-phobic by inviting them to move beyond fear and hostility into a place of comfort and more integrity around our much-vaunted commitment to inclusivity.

Blessings on your ministry, and on your congregation.

Syllabus Shock

Holy Doctor of Ministry, Batman!

I just got a gander of my May intensive course on congregational discernment (”Grounded in God”) and broke out in a cold sweat at the number of books and papers assigned, including one due THIS WEDNESDAY AT NOON. And here I was thinking I had all the time in the world to ease into class and to write the 20-page paper I have due for the class that is just finishing up tomorrow!!

Good thing we’re all stocked up in the pantry and I’m catching up on laundry and I hope I’ve prepared SweetieBang for ten days of me with my face stuck in a book or at the computer every waking hour, commencing May 7th. Holy cannoli. Wish me luck, everyone.

See you at the Festival of Homiletics, if not here beforehand.

Kiss of peace, PB

Three Month Check-In

As my regular readers know, I met SweetieBang while vacationing in Florida at the end of January. We spent four days together which were not the torrid days you might imagine, considering what happened next — which is that he drove up the entire East Coast a week later and moved in with me. Those days were filled with laughter and yes, romance, but mostly with comfort. With a sense of kinship. With a feeling of having come home in some ineffable way.

We are not an obvious couple. We are, in fact, total opposites in many significant ways. He is Buddhist in his ways of thinking and processing information, while I am thoroughly imbued by Christian practice. I am an academic. He is intellectual but definitely not academic. I am ambitious. He simply wants to do a good day’s work and earn an honest paycheck. I am mercurial, extroverted and dramatic. He is almost consistently positive and definitely introverted, more animated around me in the privacy of our home than anywhere else. I am a leader. I set a course and want to bring others along. He is an true individualist; not leading and not following but finding his own path and ambling along it.

We are also alike in some important ways. We are both inescapably Jewish in temperament and humor. We are generational peers, but I am four years older. We are both musical. We share a love of food and have large appetites. We love animals and neither of us has ever wanted to parent a child. We both have an edge, but mine is far sharper and honed by years of feminist rage. His is keen, sharpened by years of silent and solitary observation of inane human behavior. We tend to have the same visceral admiration or dislike for the same people and things.

“It’s the people that you hate together
Bait together
Date together,
That make marriage a joy.”
- from “It’s The Little Things You Do Together” from Company
Lyrics, Stephen Sondheim

We have no idea what insanity led us to agree to share our lives after knowing each other only four days. Had a friend of mine done this, I would be shaking my head and predicting disaster. But my friends and congregants, thank God, have been wonderful, respecting an innate wisdom that I myself doubted and welcoming Greg with open arms. He has a good natural knack for being the Minister’s Guy. His sophisticated technique in establishing the appropriate persona is to be himself and not worry about anything, which I think is a good one. He likes church. He goes sometimes and not others. He genuinely likes and cares about people and is comfortable at coffee hour. He admires the church’s commitments and hopes that his work schedule will allow him to be involved in our environmentalist work in some meaningful way. He does not own a tie but says that he wants to buy a summer-weight blazer so he can “doodly do” around with me to formal events. For a guy who lived on a tropical island in swim trunks and flip-flops for years before I met him, I think this shows fairly astonishing flexibility.

It has been incredibly stressful at times. We have fought. But we fight pretty constructively, and we have quickly learned how to make up and move on. He has a talent for defusing terrible situations that I greatly admire. We brought a dog into our little family almost right away, contributing another set of stressers to our new relationship. Our beagle baby is expensive, he requires constant care and discipline, and Greg and I don’t always agree on how to achieve those things. For all his Zen equanimity in most other matters, I find that he is an over-protective, worried Jewish papa when it comes to Max. This makes me laugh. I love having found the chinks in Greg’s peaceable warrior armor.

He is Togetherness Man, I am Give-Me-Some-Space Girl. We are learning to cross borders into each other’s territory, to grant space or companionship as acts of love, respect and compromise. This makes me want to spend more time with him and I think it makes him much more comfortable with my desire for privacy and time alone or with others. He goes off to work and says, “I won’t see you for another seven hours.” I say “ONLY SEVEN?” We laugh a lot. He makes me laugh every day. He does not take me too seriously, which helps me to not take myself so seriously. This is a wonderful development, even though it makes me peevish at times.

He never used a personal computer before he met me, doesn’t have an e-mail account, and doesn’t mind that I write about him, as long as its in the interest of sharing wisdom about relationships in general and not just to dish. My interpretation, not his words.

What happened here? What is this story about, so far? I think it is about timing and luck and I think it is about commitment. I have been attracted to plenty of men I’ve met on vacations. I’ve been smitten in St. Louis and intrigued in New York City and gone ga-ga in Elizabethtown, Kentucky. I’ve been addled in Philadelphia and pined in Columbia, Maryland and almost married in Minnesota. The big difference here is that this time, the object of my initially very-casual-interest turned out to be a true mensch who was ready to commit himself to someone, who recognized in me that someone, and did not hesitate to take his heart out of his body, slap it on the table in front of me, and say, “Take this. I want you have it.” It was a good heart. I could see that immediately. As for my own, it was split in two: I had a Minister’s heart that was joyful, open and pulsing with life. My women’s heart was cold, shriveled and tucked away under layers of anger, resentment, hurt and disappointment. I took it out, showed it to him, said, “It’s not in very good shape but it’s what I’ve got.” He said, “Looks good to me, we’ll have it all fixed up in no time.”

This was a non-verbal transaction. For a woman who is used to analyzing everything within an inch of its life, that is profoundly refreshing. We don’t talk endlessly about “our relationship,” we just have it. A friend said to me that the first three months would be a nightmare, and then we would know whether or not we had something real. My friend guessed that we would. He just felt it.

And we do. So I want to say happy spring to my Pan, my ocean blue-eyed boy, my Troll Mate, my sweetheart. Congratulations, kid. We made it through the first three months and for all our struggles, they’ve been revelatory, and you are the best insane decision I’ve ever made.

There’s Something About Mary

Oh dear, darling UU minister colleagues and lay people,

I’m working on a paper on why Unitarian Universalists love the poetry of Mary Oliver so much that she’s become “sacred scripture” to many of us (certainly her poetry is used liturgically on a frequent basis in our congregations).

I’d love to hear from you.
1. Do you love Mary Oliver’s poetry? Why?
2. Do you use it in worship? Approximately how often and in what place in the service?

Thank you!! Gracias! Merci! Tack!

“The Orphanage:” A PeaceBang Review

This film by Guillermo Del Toro (who did “Pan’s Labyrinth”) was truly scary and has lingered with me since we saw it a few nights ago. The acting is terrific, the sets and cinematography gorgeous, and the screenplay is deeply disturbing. It’s the kind of movie where, the day after you see it, you’ll be calling the person you saw it with at work and saying things like, “Do you think she killed him, or would you really blame the ghost? Or was it ultimately the mother of the ghost, would you say?” And then you’ll talk about it and then you’ll say, “I’m afraid to go upstairs. When are you coming home?” And the other person won’t even think that’s ridiculous, because he’s been kind of afraid to go to the basement at work all day himself.

Just leave lots of room to think about everything that happens, and leave time to go back and replay certain scenes. I’m not a fan of horror movies but this was wonderful.

Barack Denounces His Pastor

And it just makes me sick.
It’s a capitulation to the muckraking media.
Maureen Dowd called it political patricide, which sounds just right (forgive the pun).
It’s a failure to stay the course of integrity, insisting that Americans look beyond the sensationalism of a few phrases spoken by a very fine minister who is a known, and respected, radical progressive.
And above all, it’s all the evidence we need that the liberal church has absolutely no credibility or relevance when it comes to the hothouse of presidential elections. It is evidence of the profound failure of the liberal church — and I submit that we are irrelevant and that we have failed because we are not united, we have allowed ourselves to become invisible to most and mocked and stereotyped by those who do “see” us and don’t like what they see.

We have played Inclusive Nice Guy for so long that when one of us dares to speak in tongues of fire in the true liberal prophetic way, we can neither protect or defend him.

And so he has been cast out by one of the only men who should have had the courage to say, “Yes, this is my church. It is a church of free thought and dissent, where we rage with as much passion against ignorance and injustice as the hellfire and brimstone preachers whose theology we utterly reject.”

The teaching moment is over, and it’s politics as usual.

[This just in: Thanks to commenters Philocrites and Melody who have tuned me into a part of the story I wasn’t aware of, which is Rev. Wright’s discrediting of Obama to the National Press Club. I’ll have to read about that and catch up. But I know that I’ll still be heartbroken when I’ve done that, just adding another layer of complexity to my emotions. - PB]

[Thank you all for your interesting comments. I find that I agree most of all with Rev. P’s assessment. After having read the entire transcript of the talk at the National Press Club, I do not consider his remarks a denunciation of Barack Obama, nor do I hear in him an out-of-control ego. After all, he never asked for all this attention to be focused on himself. That’s all I’ll say now, but to add this, too, which does not surprise me. - PB]

Heard Outside A Nursing Home

A six year-old boy swinging off his mother’s arm leaving Plymouth Life Care Facility on Saturday afternoon, in the cheeriest of tones:

“This would be a good place to get dead at.”

Even though someone I love very much did “get dead” at this very place the next day, I still smile at that little boy’s blithe observation, and I think my dear parishioner would have found it hilarious, too.

NOW IS THE TIME Strong-Arming

Friends,
I am not trying to be a trouble-maker here, but since there are so few forums for Unitarian Universalist laymen and women and ministers to speak frankly together about Associational issues of concern, I thought it worthy to pull this comment from “Rev E” from the previous post and to invite further reflections on her experience:

I don’t see many comments about PeaceBang’s lead-in, which was the tremendous pressure put on us clergy last year to hold an “Association Sunday,” and help raise funds for the UUA’s “Now Is the Time” campaign.

Although it’s slightly off-topic, I’d like to weigh in as a minister who *did* designate the UUA as the recipient of our regular “half basket” giveaway (in October), but who bitterly resented the UUA’s process & tone during its campaign, for the following reasons:

1. It’s not an exaggeration to say that I felt downright harassed by the UUA, and in particular by Stephan Papa’s team (whom I’ve dubbed the “Papa Posse”). They literally chased me down the corridors of Portland’s convention center, left many high-pressure voice mails for me at the office, and otherwise insinuated the primacy of their project into the fabric of my congregation. I don’t think my experience was unique; many of us were virtually strong-armed into either holding an Association Sunday, or defending our (unpopular) decision not to.

2. UUA material crowed about the need for money for “growth” and “advertising.” Like PeaceBang, I’m not thrilled with the content of our TIME magazine ads, but I’m satisfied enough with the sheer publicity. When I received detailed information about the funds raised, however, only in the small print was it mentioned that 25% of those monies would be given to congregations with ministers of color. Ministers of color? FINE. Admirable, even, for an Association with a commitment to anti-racism & multiculturalism. But it’s the *process*, people! Don’t tell me that 25% of a stated goal of one million dollars (!) falls under the category of “publicity.” I still feel misled by the UUA’s lack of transparency around the use of those funds.

3. Call me a fool, but I honestly thought that Association Sunday was a one-time deal. Perhaps I just wasn’t paying attention. Now that I understand that the UUA expects this to be an annual event, I just feel weary. The only silver lining in this gray cloud of disappointment is that my District has chosen to distribute its “Now Is the Time” payout back to us, the congregations, in the form of grants.

Thanks to all in the PeaceBang community for your thought-provoking comments, and all that I learn from you.

Thank you for your honest critique, Rev. E, wherever you are. I echo your sentiments. I was also very put off by the strong-armed tactics used by “the Papa Posse,” and will not fall prey to them again. “Fool me once…” and so on. I must also be naive, because I assumed that NOW IS THE TIME/Association Sunday was a one-shot deal, and will have to speak with my lay leaders about the implications of an annual expectation that we do this. I personally don’t intend to support a second big additional gift to the UUA for advertising or anything else in the coming fiscal year. I want to know much more about how the monies raised last year were/are being spent, and to what good end.

And in case I wasn’t clear about this: I think it truly offensive for the UUA to leave messages on any minister’s private study line requesting that we call a UUA staffer to discuss our participation in a fund-raising campaign for them. The barrage of e-mails and mailings we also received were overkill and thoroughly obnoxious (and how much did they cost??)

Again, if this sort of campaign happens on a rare occasion and has clearly exciting outcomes, I’ll tolerate it with little grumbling. But to hear that “Association Sunday” may be an annual expectation is not only exhausting, it is very upsetting (perhaps we’d like to vote as congregations on this? How many of us want to pay for what amounts to piles of junk mail generated by NOW IS THE TIME?), and I hope it’s not true. Our congregations serve the good of the Association by being strong, well-regarded local congregations, by giving our fair share in dues for the services we receive from HQ, and by sending a team of committed delegates to our General Assembly. Requests for gifts above and beyond these should be few, far-between, and made with far more respect and less pushy, cheerleadery, “All the cool kids are doing it! CMON, quit worryin’ about all those pesky details about how we’ll spend the money” fervor. Like I said, fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, not gonna happen.

Killing Off the Independent Affiliate Organizations of the UUA: PeaceBang Finally Yaps Her Flap

When the UUA board decided to KO the Independent Affiliate Organizations last year, I kept my blogging mouth closed about it. I beefed about it with colleagues and laypeople, and I recognize that a residual bit of fall-out was that I did not enthusiastically participate in the UUA’s big “NOW IS THE TIME” campaign. My laypeople were as lukewarm as I — mostly wondering how, exactly, all this money would be spent in a way that would undeniably strengthen Unitarian Universalist life — and we folded in “NOW IS THE TIME” with our regularly scheduled General Assembly service, declining to make it a special worship service. This decision, and our skepticism about the specific goals and vision of NOW IS THE TIME may have drastically limited the amount of money my unusually generous congregation raised for the effort.

(I am always offended to the ends of my hair when any UUA organization expects congregations to have a special “Something Sunday” to promote a cause or program and take up an offering. First of all, we have a liturgical tradition to respect and although we are committed to thematic worship, we are not committed to Theme Sundays, which are too often as inauthentic and contrived as theme parks. “This and That Sunday” smacks of boosterism and presumes that the worshiping congregation is a captive audience to be exploited for the purpose of “education” — as in “you need to be ‘educated’ about our pet issue/organization so that we can pry open your wallets”– as opposed to ministered unto and challenged to become more conscious and responsible human beings in general. It is for the local church to decide when and shall it is worthy to take up a special offering for the relief of suffering people or for the support of organizations deemed worthy by a trusted committee of the congregation charged to discern such things. When appeals for “Give Me Money” Sundays come to us in the mail, my Worship Chair and I gnash our teeth and then promptly relegate them to the recycling bin.)

I was personally disgusted by the dissolution of the Independent Affiliate Organizations. It seemed a lazy, unnecessary, ignorant and cavalier decision by the UUA board. I have not said so in public until now. Today, however, I received a letter from an esteemed elder colleague who has eloquently put into words what I would like to now endorse with my own, “TELL IT, Brother!” With his permission, here is the Rev. Dick Fewkes’ letter to the UUA leadership about his distress regarding their decision, and his own subsequent decision to refrain from sending financial support to 25 Beacon Street in the future.

Dear Bill,

This is to let you know why I have decided I can no longer make any more
personal contributions to the UUA. The reason is because of my deep and intense
disapproval of the UUA Board action to remove Independent Affiliate Status from
the overwhelming majority of such organizations. Among others I am a member of the UU Christian Fellowship, the UU Buddhist Fellowship, the UU’s For Jewish
Awareness, the UU Psi Symposium (of which I am President), the UU Historical
Society, the UU Retired Ministers & Partners Association, plus I have been a
supporter of Project Harvest Hope, Uniquest, UU Women and Religion, UUs for
Ethical Treatment of Animals, and UUs for Justice in the Middle East.

It hardly needs to be noted that these fine IA organizations have provided
programs, guidance and inspiration for hundreds of individual UUs as well as to
countless UU churches, congregational leaders, educators, ministers and GA
delegates for so very many years. More than a hundred and sixty years ago
Theodore Parker complained to his fellow Unitarian colleagues that they had
struck his name out of their Almanac and asked him to resign from their Boston
Association because of disagreement over his theological views. I wonder what he
would think about the removal from the pages of our UUA Directory of any
reference to these former IA organizations and denial of their previous right to
sponsor lectures and programs at the General Assembly under their own auspices.

Moreover, their removal was based on an overemphasis of a few lines at the end
of our principles and purposes in the UUA By-Laws about “serving the needs of
member congregations”, while forgetting that the IA’s were the institutional and
organizational embodiments of the sources of our living tradition: words and
deeds of prophetic women and men—wisdom from the world’s religions—Jewish,
Christian, Humanist and Earth Centered teachings, etc.—all of them excellent
examples of “the religious pluralism which enriches and ennobles our faith.” It
seems that the UUA Board was “proof texting” one part of the principles and
purposes while ignoring the far greater significance of what many of us consider
the heart and soul of our multi-faith religious tradition. “That transcending
mystery and wonder” needs to be incarnated in specific UU related groups and
organizations in order for individual UU’s and our various member congregations
to be informed as to who we are and what we stand for in
our many forms of faith and ethical action. You have taken these sources of
faith away from us and denied us the right to be informed of their existence.

A bumper sticker slogan expresses my sentiments about this unfortunate action on
the part of the UUA Board: TO QUESTION IS THE ANSWER. I for one question the
right and authority and wisdom of the Board in taking this action without the
debate and approval of the General Assembly and its member churches and
delegates. [emphasis mine - PB] Moreover, I respectfully request that the Board seriously consider
reversing or rectifying its action so as to restore IA status (or something
comparable) to the organizations cited above. Not to do so is to forfeit my
financial support to a denomination and religious institution that I hold dear.

Sincerely,
The Rev. Richard M. Fewkes, Minister Emeritus, First Parish of Norwell, Mass.