PeaceBang

Maybe We Should Switch To Decaf at Coffee Hour?

I just posted this huge thing at Coffee Hour, where the joint is jumpin’, it’s really jumpin. Come on cats,
and check your hats. I mean, this joint is jumpin.

http://www.coffeehour.org/archives/002105.html#5193

P.S. I loathe, loathe, loathe that public radio show, “Sound and Spirit.”
http://www.wgbh.org/pages/pri/spirit/
Ellen Kushner has the most saccharine, puerile tone. She makes me want to spit pieces of cigar out the side of my mouth and talk like Jimmy Cagney all day.

Revenge Can Be Kind of Sweet, Admit It

Hey Jude
Originally uploaded by Peacebang.

This is a bone I’m throwing to those of you who care not a whit about Unitarian Universalism and just live for PeaceBang’s snarky pop culture commentary (and if you do, I wish for you a life).

Okay, you all know that the scrumptrulescent Jude Law cheated on his boho-princess fiancee Sienna Miller with their NANNY, right? And you know that he issued a public apology, right?

Well, did you happen to know who it was that hired the long-legged, blonde nanny in the first place?

Think real hard.

Yes, it was Jude Law’s EX, Sadie Frost.

Who was herself, I believe, cheated upon when Mr. Law stepped out with Miz Miller.

And that’s what I call a beautiful revenge.

Other People’s "Good News"

There’s another good and serious conversation going on at Boy in the Bands:

http://www.universalistchurch.net/boyinthebands/archives/how-much-christian/#comment-13178

We’re getting into some very important stuff here, kids. Derek’s posts in particular resonate with me, as he shares his sense of pain that the good news of the loving God we know through Jesus is considered “old news” or even “bad news” among many of our co-religionists.

But Derek makes another point I’d like to briefly touch on. He says that he used to believe in the deep pluralism of the one-world-religion universalists of the Kenneth Patton ilk (as opposed to the “salvation for everyone” Universalism of, say, Hosea Ballou — and yes, I know he was a restorationist. Wasn’t he?). ANyhoo, if I hear him correctly, Derek no longer feels that that kind of Unitarian Universalism has integrity, or is possible.

I’m WITH you, Derek. You know why? Because westerners who decide to groove on world religions mostly do so in an uncritical, flavor-of-the-month manner, picking and choosing what they like from a faith tradition and blithely ignoring all the icky, exclusionary material — whether it be cultural, theological or practical. That’s bogus.

Furthermore, and this is even worse, One-World-Religion universalists totally fail to realize that they’ve never been given permission by the practitioners of those “other” religions to claim them for their own use. You may ask: who has the authority to bar me from using the sacred words of concepts of any world religion? I respond that it is the faith claims of those traditions themselves that should give you pause, if not entirely keep your muddy boots out of the holy of holies. If we don’t know what those faith claims are — if it’s just too inconvenient or too much work to learn them — then ten cuidado. Be careful.

I’m guilty of this; don’t think I’m not. Which is why I more and more rely on literature, film, theatre, art and poetry than materials from world religions in the making of analogies and in the crafting of what I hope will feel like a spiritually energizing, enlightening narrative.

I think the Indiana Jones series illustrates this just smashingly. The spiritual explorer thinks he or she is grabbing a really cool artifact from the past, and unwittingly unleashing all manner of hell.

No, I haven’t started the paper yet, but the house is clean, the pesto made, the potatoes boiled, the shrimp ready for grilling. Why do you ask?

P.S. While I don’t advocate “borrowing” bits and pieces from world religions in careless ways, I do think this is a Jim Dandy of an idea:

http://www.differentreligionsweek.org/

Why It’s Dumb To Dis’ Humanists

Jeff is writing some very deep and good stuff about Unitarian Universalism over at Transient and Permanent: http://transientandpermanent.blogspot.com/

You may want to read it and the comments, too.
He’s talking about the troubling “anti-Humanist” sentiments he hears being thrown around in seminary/ies.

To be Unitarian Universalist is to be humanist!
I don’t understand it.

Maybe this will help: Those Unitarian Universalist participants in congregational life who have no time, love or respect for anything whatsoever that smells “religious” to them often go by the “humanist” label. I won’t take that from them, but what they really are to me is “religion-phobic.” And yes, they’re destructive and yes, they’re often of a certain generation and yes, gods help you if you try to serve in ministry (lay or ordained) in ways that provoke their ire and anxiety. They are Extra High High High Maintenance.

But they’re not really Humanists, which carries connotation of loving humanity (phil - anthropy), of reasonableness, of love of Wisdom (philo-sophy), of true tolerance, of engagement.

I was very complimented and relieved recently when one of my congregants said she described me to an inquirer as a Christian Humanist. I’ve joked pretty often with my people about my multi-hyphenated theological identity, and was pleased as punch that she got beyond my shenanigans (”Jewishly Christian Transcendentalist Witch Unitarian Universalist” for example) to the truth of the matter.

Jeff also has a nice discussion going there on Universalism as the new fashionable theological orientation. I think that’s connected to feminism, and have said so on his blog.

I know you think I’m procrastinating on writing my paper but I’m REALLY NOT. I really am not. It just looks that way!!

Personal to Dena: sure, link away, baby!
Personal to ChaliceChick: Your question about totally re-defining words vs. intrepreting them is important and I’m glad you brought it up again. I have a response in draft form that I intend to fix up and get out there in the next few days. Or after I get back from vacation.
Peace.
Bang.

Just Another Critique of Unitarian Universalist Practices

I’m always slightly depressed when I hear a Unitarian Universalist say that their minister “gave a talk” on various religious traditions. “This week we heard about Hinduism,” they’ll say, or “We’re hearing a talk about Islam next week.”

PeaceBangers know by now that PeaceBang believes in the sermon which instructs, and guides, and heals, and challenges, and digs into the guts.
I believe that congregations gather on Sunday mornings to gather the strength and wisdom they need to get through the week, and a “talk” on Hinduism — while potentially very interesting — does not accomplish this goal.
We have a whole wonderful secular culture — books, magazines, radio shows, television programs, continuing education courses at the nearby college, book groups, etc., ad nauseum, to sate our exclusively intellectual curiosity. Church is something else. It is a place where we remember, in the words of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, that we are not human beings having a spiritual experience, but are spiritual beings having a human experience. Theology and belief have little or nothing to do with accepting that basic premise. Church is the place we “remember backwards” and contemplate the moment of our death, and consider whether we have earned for ourselves a shining name and the regard of other humans, or if we have merely hoarded experiences and knowledge like a squirrel stores nuts for the winter. We do make claims in our congregational life, whether we admit to that or not. One of the claims we make is that how we live matters. An examination of “other people’s” religious practices does very little to help us collectively confront how we are living.

I know that Stanley Hauerwas is hardly a favorite with religious liberals, but it wouldn’t hurt to acquaint ourselves with some of his trenchant critique of liberalism.

Listen to Stanley Hauerwas on the problems with the modern university, and apply it to congregational life:

” Universities, of course, pride themselves on ‘freedom of speech,’ as well as providing a ’safe’ place for ‘radical opinions,’ but that is exactly how conflict is domesticated. Namely, you can think and say anything you wish as long as you accept the presumption that you do not expect anyone to take you seriously. Thus, the presumption that students ought to be educated to ‘make up their own minds’ since indoctrination is antithetical to ‘education.’ Of course teaching students to ‘make up their own minds’ is a form of indoctrination, but since it underwrites the hegemonic character of liberalism, few notice it as such.

Students [congregants], as a consequence, approach curricula [church life] not primarily as students but as consumers. Teachers [ministers] are expected to present in class in an objective fashion various alternatives. If asked, ‘Which one do you think is true?’ the teacher is expected to say, ‘That is not my task. I am trying to help us understand the best options so that you can come to a reasonable judgment on your own.’ Students are thus further inscribed into capitalist practices in which they are taught to think that choosing between ‘ideas’ is like choosing between a Sony or a Panasonic. It never occurs to them that the very idea that they should ‘choose’ is imposed.”

– Stanley Hauerwas, “Positioning,” from Dispatches from the Front

I hope you can see how providing a series of sermons on the Chinese buffet of world religions relates to Hauerwas’s point.
Meanwhile, I have a 20-page paper to write and a dinner party to prepare for this evening.

Avatar

You may notice that my profile picture of the little girl warrior with the peace sign on her face is gone, and has been replaced by a languid sock monkey.

Neither image is really “me,” but when I went to a blogger meet-up in the spring, someone met me and remarked that I didn’t look anything like my photo.

He thought that little girl with the peace sign face was moi! So I’m just trying to avoid confusion.

I’m not a sock monkey in real life, but I play one on TV.

When Sheep Go Bad

Klan Sheep
Originally uploaded by Peacebang.

Wait until the Southern Poverty Law Center hears about this.

(P.S. It’s a joke! But don’t they look like they’re going to burn a cross on some minority sheep’s lawn? Honestly, I don’t know why they can’t make their little outfits less menacing. It makes some of us nervous).

Speaking of Onions (But Not Blooming Onions)

Best Comic Headline of the Day

“Bush Awaits Orders From Rove On Handling Of Rove Scandal”

www.theonion.com

In other news, I got my first mammogram yesterday.

OUCH!

Me to the technician:
“If you’re going to press my boob that hard, at least buy me dinner first!”
Her: “Oh, I hear that all the time. Please don’t breathe.”

Mr. Emerson

July 15th came and went and I forgot to encourage you to read Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Divinity School Address, which he gave to the graduating class of divines at Harvard on July 15, 1838.

Well, here it is. If you’re a Unitarian Universalist, you ought to acquaint yourself with it:

http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/transcendentalism/authors/emerson/essays/dsa.html

If you’re a fan of “Self-Reliance,” remember that it was written soon after the firestorm that was unleashed as a result of the “Address.” Emerson was feeling hurt, misunderstood and defensive; hence the slightly defiant, juvenile tone of “Self-Reliance.”

Enjoy.

Obesity Steakhouse

I went to Outback Steakhouse (”no rules, just right!”) last night, which is usually a depressing no-no for me, but I was at the mall and hankering after a quick burger, so I went. First of all, there is something soul-destroying about the uber-cuteness of their Australian theme. My heart goes absolutely cold at the word “bonzer.”

When I walked in, a cursory glance around the place revealed that 90% of the diners were grossly obese. I was by far the slimmy of the evening, and that’s WACK, jack. I remembered Jungian genius James Hillman’s shocking and offensive (but possibly true) point that other nations hate Americans partly because we’re so ugly, and we impose our ugly, fat, inelegant personal aesthetic on every landscape we inhabit.

This is part of the reason I am personally committed to never, ever wearing sneakers as a tourist in other nations.

I’m heading up next week to spend seven to ten days in O Canada. St. Saveur, then Montreal. Any blogger friends from up there? Wanna have coffee?

I’m going to walk on the beach now, and then hunker down to start my TWENTY PAGE PAPER on “the body at worship.”

I’d rather be “the body at hammock” today.

Resolution of my “Sweeney Todd In Concert” date dilemma: I’m going with my friend who played Anthony in the production I did ten years ago! Sometimes things just work out. His wife is due with their first child in three weeks, so he’s taking the opportunity to get out with a pal one last time before the Baby Storm hits.