PeaceBang

Little Blessings

It’s been Health Crisis Week in the life and ministry of PeaceBang, but today I was greatly cheered by two things:

1. We’re having one of those amazingly gorgeous autumns during which you can’t imagine living anywhere but New England and,

2. My nephews are being a chicken and a pumpkin for Halloween.

I haven’t even seen the photos yet and I’m already cracking up.

Dawkins, "The God Delusion"

I saw Dawkins on the Colbert Report the other night. He was a good sport.

I found this review of his book debunking religion interesting:

http://tinyurl.com/y73o9k

Unitarians get a very weird shout-out on the third page of the review. Dawkins apparently hypothosizes that there are very few atheists in prison, to which the reviewer parenthetically adds, “Even fewer Unitarians, I’ll wager.”
I’m not sure what he’s saying. Is this a correlary to the old atheists in foxholes thing? Is this guy suggesting that an atheistic orientation or a specifically Unitarian faith is too corpse-cold to sustain a prisoner through the tribulations of incarceration? What do you think? Is he right? Have you ever known anyone who was incarcerated? I have, and I think he has a point.

Has anyone read the actual book? Comments?

REVIVE at REVIVAL!

I remember the first Revival of the Unitarian Universalist Christian Fellowship in 1999. It was in New Orleans and I worked on the planning committee. We had NO IDEA what we were doing! None!

So I showed up in New Orleans and had a few days of vacation to explore that beautiful, wonderful, tragic city. I met my friend Poppa T Holder at a hotel — he’s gay, don’t get excited — and we had a great time carousing (by the way, Poppa T is profiled in a terrific article in the recent issue of Out magazine). I sang karaoke for the first time and became enamored of hot sauce, a passion that endures to this day.

When I got to the conference, I had never been to a gathering of the UUCF outside of Harvard Divinity School. There were about 90 people there, and we did things like SING GOD AND CHRIST-CENTERED HYMNS. Some people WAVED THEIR HANDS IN THE AIR (Chuck Thomas, where are you, dude? All grown up, married and a daddy now!). I walked around in a kind of bubble of thrill and confusion and anxiety and tremendously fragile hope. We had workshops on PRAYER and we had a HEALING SERVICE that cracked me open like a little egg and I wept and got a runny nose all over the beautiful people who laid hands on me in prayer and love.

I was BAPTIZED! It turned out to be very controversial with some people who thought it was bad ecclesiology. I didn’t think Jesus would have a problem with my being baptized outside of a church community, seeing as he probably just dipped people in the River Jordan, or whatever, without worrying about their community of Christian formation. I wasn’t offended by the critics, just bemused. I think there’s a way to say, “I have to question the way this was done, but congratulations on this important moment and welcome to the faith.” But they were just snotty. Hey, by their fruits ye shall know them.

We all went out to Bourbon Street one night and I wound up barfing into the sink of my dorm room later on. I wasn’t inebriated, I swear. I think I was just really excited and overstimulated and the food was too rich for me.

So all in all, it was totally thrilling and really weird because I had never been a Christian in community before, and I made some wonderful friends and just let myself be filled with joy and commitment.

Someone in a UU setting asked me soon after that why I became a Christian. I said, “Because I’m not mature enough to be a Buddhist.”

Anyway, I’m very much looking forward to joining the UUCF community again for the –what is it, the fourth? — REVIVAL conference in New York City in two weekends. When we started this thing, we just had no idea that they would become a tradition, let alone that they would feature speakers like Gary Dorrien and draw participants from all over the country.

http://www.uuchristian.org/2006/new-york-city-revival-update/#more-58

Hey, original REVIVAL pals, looking forward to seeing you there, and making new friends.

Look Ma, No Eggshells! No Whirlwind!

New Englanders have a reputation as being brusque, cold folks, and there’s some truth to that. But something else I have noticed since moving back to New England (or maybe it’s just my current community) is that topics that get treated with kid gloves in other settings are broached here with comfort, eminent reasonableness and openness when I least expect it.

In other places I’ve lived and served in ministry, I would often prepare for a conversation or meeting by strategizing how I might carefully and gingerly allude to a painful aspect or dysfunction of the project or of our process. It was like Eggshell Walking 101, and I would sit at whatever meeting tightly wound until the sound of the first crunching. After the meeting, I would have to process through everything everyone said to figure out what was said, if you know what I mean.

Since I got back to New England, though, I have found that there’s almost no need for this kind of strategy. When I think it’s time to start tiptoeing over the eggshells at a meeting, someone inevitably mentions the Big Unspeakable Thing in a very reasonable and open way, and as soon as they do, five other people say something like, “Right. I was wondering about that, too. Here’s what I think.”

I don’t have to go away trying to figure out what someone “said,” because they just say it. And I just want to KISS them for it.

I remember something rather hairy going down in a former congregation of mine. A couple was going through a very dramatic divorce and there was lots of stunning betrayal and shocking behaviors involved. It was actually one of several similar divorce scenarios in the community, something I hope never to go through again with a congregation. The hysterical emotion generated by the shock was like a whirlwind for one woman, which I couldn’t walk through to offer her much help or support at all. When that happens, there’s not much a pastor can do, since a pastor’s role is to represent the stability of God’s love even in the face of evidence that human beings are capable of seriously crummy behavior. Who wants a message of stability when you can have drama, blame, lashing out and hysteria? For some hurt people it’s a matter of time, for others, they just don’t want to let you in, period.

Back in merry old New England, I notice that there’s just not a lot of desire for hysteria and drama. Maybe — and I’m not joking here, I truly mean it because I know how long traumatic memory lasts — maybe we got it out of our system in 1692 when friends watched beloved neighbors swinging at the end of a rope for the crime of witchcraft.

Whatever the case, it’s still revelatory to me when a group of my New Englanders get together and go, “Yep, this certainly is extremely painful” or “I noticed that this is a fairly serious dysfunctional problem” and proceed to express diverse opinions about it all without creating that impenetrable whirlwind of hysteria.

I just want to KISS THEM for it.

There’s Always A Milestone

Last year I was 39 for most of the year and reflecting on turning 40. Where was I in life? How did I get there, when should I schedule my first eye-lift, blah blah blah.

This year is my tenth in the parish ministry. I feel like I started this work yesterday , so it’s hard to believe I’ll have completed a decade as a “Rev.” as of June 14, 2007. Therefore, this is also a year to reflect: what has this all meant? Will it always be this intense? If it wasn’t, would I find it as fulfilling? How have I changed? Am I touching lives in a good way? And so on and so on.

As I was considering refinancing my graduate school loan the other day (anyone want to donate $31K to The Cause?), I thought about committing to a 20-year payback period. I’m 40, I’ll be 60 then and still working, it makes sense (God willing my health permits and the crick don’t rise in the form of the market crashing or other unforeseen circumstance). I was cleaning the house while thinking about this issue and I just stopped dead in my tracks. TWENTY YEARS ‘TIL I’M SIXTY.

I thought, holy holy cow, girl, you had better pace yourself. You’ve thought nothing of serving a congregation full time, teaching, working on a doctorate, pretty constantly coming up with new program ideas for your congregation, being a very counseling-centered pastor, writing two blogs, engaging in activism on a pretty regular basis (although not on an impressive basis), busting your butt trying to be a consistently strong preacher and worship leader, doing denominational work, and keeping one foot in the theatre and music worlds. That’s fine for now, but is it fair to expect this level of activity for another 20 years? No one else will expect it of you, but will you expect it from you?

So today in church when we sang,

Guide my feet
while I run this race
For I don’t want to run this race in vain…

Boy, was I feeling it.

Tarot

I gave mini tarot readings at my church harvest fair today. Whoo, am I wiped out. I did about 8 of them, bam, bam, bam and they were all incredibly intense. The energy was very good today and the cards tuned me in to extremely specific information to help guide the querents. When I say something very specific about someone’s life — something that I could not possibly have known or picked up from any non-verbal cues — believe me, I’m as shocked as the querent. I don’t know how it works. I am well aware that in another time and place I would have been executed for witchcraft and divination for doing this.

It always surprised me who lines up for this kind of thing. First of all, I don’t think I’ve done readings at this church before, although I’ve offered them for auction items at other congregations I’ve served. I find that I really like the intensity of a 15-20 minute reading, but the energy can be a bit wild, as though riding white rapids. A fundamentalist Christian mother, then her daughter. A middle-aged rationalist man who shakes with emotion once the cards start to reveal his story. A retired man and his wife in discernment about their life path. A woman who has recently taken up the study of Kabbalah. Most people I’ve never met before who just came to the church fair for the food, the fun, the crafts and the digging for used treasures.

One thing that concerns me is that although I shuffled the deck between readings, set all the cards facing one way again, and had the querents all shuffle the deck for themselves, several of the cards emerged again and again. This leaves me wondering: is there a community energy that the cards were expressing? I wish now that I had written down the specific cards that kept emerging for people. It would have been interesting to spend some time meditating on the images.

And now, in my psychically depleted state, it’s time to dig back into tomorrow morning’s sermon on that guy Moses, who did a whole lot of magic tricks himself (not that Tarot is a “magic trick” per se, but hey, you know what I’m saying).

Violating the Privacy of the Mind And the Body

This just makes me ill. It’s like a primer on Pathologically Not Getting It:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/20/washington/20priest.html?th&emc=th

Oh yeah, they swam nude and the priest fondled him when he was 12 years old but it wasn’t “rape or penetration or anything like that,” so “let bygones be bygones.” “Remember the good times we had” and get over it already. And the neighbor, what a BRILLIANT insight: “He couldn’t have done this because he was so quiet.” Let’s make her our new poster girl for community denial.

It goes on and on and on. Generation after generation. This is why we have to have rules and laws that legislate morality — because so many men still don’t get that you don’t treat children in a sexualized way, period. You don’t fondle, you don’t rape, you don’t penetrate, you don’t exploit them for your pleasure. Why is this so hard to understand? Why is this still considered a grey area for so many men, and even priests, who should be more deeply in touch with the inherent dignity and privacy of the developing child than the average guy?

We blame a lot of Catholic sexual abuse on the hierarchical structure of the Church. There’s good reason for that blame, but I am beginning to think that this is more than an ecclesiological corruption. I am beginning to see a correlation between violating a child’s private inner life in the form of catechisms and doctrines that permit no freedom to privately discern important existential truths, and the tacit institutional permission to similiarly violate the privacy of the child’s body. I’m not trying to be a theologian here, just an angry woman who would like children to be able to come of age unmolested by adults.

If it’s part of the Catholic tradition to penetrate children’s minds at a young age and demolish their privacy regarding theological reflection and decision-making, can it really be so shocking that penetration and violation of the privacy of their bodies is not far behind?

We must protect children’s freedom of religious imagination just as surely as we protect them from physical molesters and exploiters. They are two pieces of the same cloth.

[This post has generated HOT STUFF with some readers. Wally Nut posts his own thoughts here http://grandfathertree.blogspot.com/2006/10/power-corrupts.html and here’s Sallie Ellis responding in the “nay” at http://missellis.blogspot.com/2006/10/response-to-peacebangs-privacy-post.html– PB]

The Museum of Bad Art: Madonna and Smile

We’re having our church fall fair tomorrow, and SisterBang just sent me this beauty from the Museum of Bad Art, acquired at a church fair:

http://www.museumofbadart.org/collection/portraiture-6.html

When Things Break

I bought a Hewlett-Packard printer with a copier and scanner function many months ago. It sat there forever in its lovely box, all full of high-tech, multi-function promise. I finally set the thing up a few weeks ago only to discover that it was a lemon. I bought it back to Office Max. The manager handed me another one exactly like it (I had no receipt) and sent me out the door. Such a deal, thought I. “What a guy,” thought I. Until I got home and unpacked the bloody thing and found that it had been set up already and was itself a lemon. If it was just a FLOOR MODEL, Miss Manager-Over-The-Phone, why did you feel the need to install printer cartridges in it? HUH?

I schlepped the stupid thing back to Office Max and got what I should have gotten in the first place: an Epson. I set it up in a brainless few minutes and it works beautifully. Done. But since I didn’t have a receipt, I had to spend another $100. Exhalation of fury.

Direct TV idiocy: the channels on my little bedroom TV went out. I hardly watch the thing, so I let it go for a few months. Finally called the 800 number for help and spent 30 minutes on the line with a sweet Minnesota-sounding woman who tried in vain to tutor me on how to fix the bloody transponder. Finally, she agreed to just send me a technical homeboy to get it taken care of. I was stuck at home for the 4-hour period he was scheduled to show up, and he fixed the problem in about five minutes. I WISH MISS MINNESOTA HAD JUST SENT OUT HOMEBOY IN THE FIRST PLACE.

A week later, the living room set channels go kaflooey. I wouldn’t care, except I want to be able to get PBS for October 25th, so I can see the documentary I told you about. Again, the service can’t be fixed by my noodling around inside with some guy over the phone tutoring me. Again, I have to block out a chunk of my day to wait around for a technical homeboy to show up. Technical homeboy #2 gets here at 1:30, climbs up on the roof, replaces a part, and fixes it all in five minutes. HOW COME HOMEBOY #1 DIDN’T DO THIS IN THE FIRST PLACE?

Meanwhile, Woogoo.com is telling me I have to contact my credit card company in order to get a refund for the deposit I made on one of their rat-infested hotel rooms in NYC. I have to fight with them to get them to act like a legitimate business and just refund ma damn money. I’m staying at my cousin’s. I don’t need the room. I’m still fighting with them via e-mail, corresponding with someone whose first language is obviously not English. PLEASE CALL ME ON THE PHONE, I write. THIS WOULD BE SO MUCH EASIER ON THE PHONE.
Exhalation of fury.

A marriage equality organization wants me to contact my legislators and write letters to the editor to block a ballot initiative that could imperil gay marriage in Massachusetts. In 21 days, the legislature will vote on whether or not to put the issue out on a ballot to let the voters decide for or against a constitutional amendment that will overturn the SJC decision that made gay marriage legal.
I know. It’s confusing. I may not even have it quite right yet.
The materials from the organization say, “Tell your legislators to vote against the constitutional amendment!!”
Just as I’m getting ready to call my senator and my rep, I look more closely at the instructions. They’re totally misleading. If I call my anti-gay marriage senator and say, “Please don’t vote for the constitutional amendment,” he’s just going to say, “That’s not what we’re voting on, ma’am. We just want to allow the democratic process to take place and bring it to the voters. This is a vote on whether or not to put the issue on a ballot for a popular vote.”

I do not like being set up to look like an uninformed twerp to my state senator who can easily shoot me down with one condescending correction.
I exchange two or three e-mails with the organization clarifying what the legislative process really is and trying to get talking points that will be accurate and persuasive. WHY COULD I NOT HAVE BEEN PROVIDED ACCURATE TALKING POINTS IN THE FIRST PLACE? DO YOU WANT MY HELP, OR DO YOU WANT TO SEND ME OUT TO LOOK LIKE A FOOL?

This is how the week has gone.

And guess what? I crawl into bed full of irritation and the first thing to go is the nightly prayer practice. I am TOO IRRITATED to pray. Isn’t that smart? Isn’t that just going to do me a world of good? How about eating two bags of Pirate’s Booty? That will be MUCH better for me. Also a Skor bar as a treat today. Like I need that. What am I, a puppy who learned how to pee on the paper? I deserve a treat?

So instead of reading the Bible and my King’s Chapel or Universalist Prayer Book and slowly traveling through the liturgy with a peaceful and open heart these days, I’m reading chapters in Eugene Peterson’s A Long Obedience In the Same Direction. I have my pencil in hand as I read, and while I let the good Christian instruction minister to me, I get to also go, “THIS IS STUPID” and underline bad parts (like when Peterson makes unbelievably ignorant and insulting remarks about Buddhism and calls the Buddha “a big fat guy” — boy, do I get mileage out of that one. Probably five minutes of full body irritation).

Right now it gives me great solace that Jesus was so often irritated with his disciples. I get to growl around and go, “I don’t have to be patient! JESUS wasn’t patient!”

So it’s a struggle. I’m working on a sermon on the first of the Ten Commandments and while I am trying very hard to make something meaningful and beautiful of it, there is a little voice inside going, “WHO CARES ABOUT THE TEN COMMANDMENTS? THIS IS JUST STUPID!”

If I can manage it, I will pray to be relieved of all this irritation, but don’t count on it any time soon. I know myself too well. You could pray for me if you feel so moved, but DON’T EXPECT IT TO WORK. IT’S JUST STUPID.

UU Minister In Media Blitz

Hank, we love ya. Here’s the latest in his media blitz, and it’s hilarious:

http://www.weeklydig.com/news_opinions/articles/hardcore_for_the_lord/

Whoever wants to join Holy Cow and the Calves, raise your hand.