PeaceBang

Darth Vader Would Like To Light A Candle of Concern

So we can conclude a few things from this article.

One, it’s never a good idea to drink that much boxed wine.

Two, there were way more people in Britian in 2001 who identified their religion as Jedi than there are Unitarian Universalists on membership rolls right now in congregations in the entire world.

May the Force be with you.

Why I Publish Sermons On the Internet

This just made my day:

Hi Rev. Weinsten,

My name is [D.W.] and I am emailing you from ____, Idaho. I just wanted to let you know that you were an absolute lifesaver last week at the ______ Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, and I’m sure you aren’t even aware of it I serve on the Sunday Services Committee, and we were holding our annual Stewardship Pledge Drive. Our minister, [name here], is currently on Sabbatical, and we had a local speaker scheduled to present on Sunday. Unfortunately, he was forced to leave town late Saturday evening to tend to a family emergency. In a panic, I searched the UU website for a worthwhile sermon that I could read that would speak about our Stewardship theme. That is when I found your wonderful sermon “They Need to Give”!! So, long story short, I read your sermon last Sunday (giving all of the credit to you, of course!) and it was a HUGE hit!! I can’t thank you enough for crafting such a beautiful sermon. Your wonderful message saved the day in [Our City, Idaho] and gave peace to one very stressed out service coordinator who needed to find a sermon at the very, very last minute

Thank you again! You can delight in the knowledge that an entire Fellowship clear across the country heard and loved your beautiful sermon!

- D.W.

I don’t know what UU website this lovely man is referencing [This just in! It turns out that the sermon in question given at the opening worship of a district meeting a few years ago, was a Sermon For the Day at the UUA website! Heck if I knew! - PB] , but I’m glad to have been of help to one of our congregations without having had to lift a finger to do so. For that I thank our church secretary and our webmistress for publishing my sermons so they can be read by anyone who cares to, used (with attribution, of course) by my colleagues who find merit in them, and save the day for a super stressed-out layman in Idaho. COOL! Yay for the internets!

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

Welcome, Beauty Tips Readers, and Sorry!

Dear BTFM powder pigeons,

Many of you have written in a panic to inform me that the BTFM site keeps kicking you over here. Not to worry, my master internets guru will have the kinks worked out in no time! Meanwhile, browse the PeaceBang blog and see you soon back at Beauty Tips…

xoxo PB

PeaceBang Is 42 Years Old Today

… and she has 42 little nuggets of wisdom that may or may not interest you over here.

P.S. On #42, I don’t actually hate birthday cake. I just don’t love it as much as I love crunchy, salty, fried things. It was just an example.

Gordon, R.I.P.

Gordon, Gorgonzola, Dr. Smoothenstein, Dordy, who died today at noon, we will always love you.

(Halloween 2006. “Pleashe remove this ridiuloush hat as shoon as poshible. Itsh not a good shtyle for me at all.”)

Thank you for the being the best, the handsomest, the sweetest, the most velvety-eared, most loyal, precious dog in the world. Thank you for being my sister’s canine familiar, therapist, beloved companion, wing man, and best four-legged friend for over a decade. Thanks for being there at all times and in all seasons. We thank God for you.

I’m so grateful that you won’t suffer any more, but we sure will miss you. Say hello to Dukey and Pippin and Henry and Trilby and Buster for us. Great spirits, all. Dearly beloved and sorely missed.

Big hugs to Aunt Kiki. As Lucas said just now to me (as I sit here typing and crying) with that special tilt of his head and in his typically dulcet toddler tones, “DON’T BE SA-AD!”

Happy Thanksgiving

Before

After. And that’s what it’s all about. For one day, at least.

Hey, Southern Cali!

I just met with my student minister and we were talking about my favorite quote, “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” (Hebrews 10:31) I’m so fascinated by the way moderns have domesticated God, taking the grey-haired old man thing quite seriously (by that I mean that when people reject God-concepts, it’s usually the grey-haired old man — either the doddering and impotent or raging and vengeful version — that they reject). I rarely hear any one talk about God as pure spirit, undomesticated, glorious, in-breaking and dreadfully inconvenient. I remember actually getting on my knees in prayer during my seminary years and sobbing, “Please stop burning in me so hard.” I felt like the proverbial work horse, “rid hard and put away wet,” all foamy on the flanks at the end of the day, definitely on the edge of breaking, starting to feel for that famous bush from the Book of Exodus. Scripture tells us that the bush burned but was not consumed, but I started to get the idea that it still wasn’t a lot of fun to be that bush.

All this reflection on God as fire led me to wonder insane and hellish it must feel out in Southern California right now, where people are fleeing real flames, not spiritual ones. All these apocalyptic natural disasters over the past years; are there more than usual or is it just that I’m getting older and the world smaller and I’m paying closer attention?

How are you, California readers? Please comment and tell us what’s going on for you. Are you evacuated or providing shelter for someone else who has evacuated? Do tell, and know that we’re praying for you here in PeaceBangland.

Dr. Smoothenstein

This guy has been on my mind a lot lately.

The photo was taken last April when I got wound up really tight after Easter and took a few days off to visit SisterBang in Connecticut. I am inhaling that dog as pure medicine (it only looks like I’m choking him!).

This elegant old gent is my sister’s canine familiar, Gordon. I wish you could see these two together. For the past 13 years they’ve been like one animal; you know how centaurs have the body of a horse and the head of a man? Well, my sister has the body of a woman with the body of dog attached at the hip. She is the consummate Dog Person. A fierce New England spinster like me, she eschews the company of troublesome men and is loyal to her hound, who in turn worships her. Every time she gets involved with a new romance he gets positively addled. You can read the cartoon bubble over his head: “What did I do wrong? Why she does not love only me any more? But I am so much more cuter and more well-mannered than this guy! Plus also I smell a lot better!”

I remember when I was living down in Maryland and SisterBang came to visit. I walked out of the church building and into the sun to look for her in the parking lot. As is typical of her, she was already surrounded by children and had Gordon by her side. She was wearing a simple toga-like sun dress and flat leather sandals, her long hair down and shining. He sat smooth and burnt caramel colored, unperturbed by the long drive and eminently patient with the adoring children. They looked like a painting of Artemis and her hound.

So it seems that Gordon, Count Dordonski, Dr. Smoothenstein, Mr. Bologna Ears, is ailing. He has cancer in his nasal passages and an enlarged heart. He has had some seizures and bleeding that indicates the cancer may have metastasized. SisterBang is not the kind of person who would expect her animal companion to endure lots of frightening and uncomfortable procedures for her sake. She is willing to let him go. He is getting ready to go over the Rainbow Bridge.

Gee, it’s hard to think about our family without Dords in it. But we all know that the essence of doggie is energy and life, and when they get old and sickly, it’s only fair to let them go. As I said to my sis, “It’s not like he needs more time to work on that great literary legacy he hoped to leave.”

They’re the simplest of creatures but our greatest teachers of complex wisdom.

I’ll get to snoggle with him next Tuesday night on my way down to Pennsylvania, where I have a date to trick-or-treat with Superman and Spiderman.

Why I Love Scott Wells More Than Ever Today

So you know I got a Dell Inspiron 1420 a few months ago and HATED Windows Vista; found it totally unusable. I finally got a techie to replace it with Windows XP again which was costly but worth it.

It looks like there are serious problems. The computer feels a bit like a heart transplant patient — hopeful but not so sturdy. Very vulnerable and needing constant vigilance, like, “I love you, please don’t die.”

Yesterday Dell tried to send me some sort of instant software “update” (more like “screw up”) which interacted badly with my upgraded machine and caused the whole system to go kaflooey. I called tech support just now and they wash their hands of me because I changed the OS. I can understand that. I can also understand why I do not recommend Dell for anyone, ever. How is going back to Windows XP an “upgrade?”
I was a fool not to send that Inspiron back when I got it, but the church year was starting and I was in no position to leisurely shop around.

So I have a huge funeral tomorrow morning for the oldest member of our congregation and here’s why I’m not panicking – Scott Wells recommended to me that I switch to gmail a few months back, and it just so happens that the draft of the memorial service is safely in cyberspace as a Google Document, which means I can access it from this old computer or from my office.

This isn’t how I wanted to spend my day off, but I feel eminently better knowing that at least my most pressing professional obligation is safely in the ether where I can work on it later today, print it out, and not start working an ulcer. As far as everything else goes, I did a back-up on disk just the other day so I’m not feeling much pain except for a massive inconvenience and potential pain in the pocketbook again.

Love ya, butter lamb!! And for the rest of you, you can consider this a little commercial for gmail and Google.