FROM 01/01/07 TO 03/31/07
The Enemy/Victory
War words motivate, it seems, even when their designations are vague. We hear much of “the enemy” in Iraq. An obvious “enemy” is al-Qaeda, which entered and recruited in Iraq after the U.S. invasion. Often, however, “the enemy” is expanded to include anyone (other than U.S. occupiers) with a gun, or with “suspicious” intentions. Shi’a or Sunni militias or “insurgents” may be “the enemy.” That would include most families in Iraq who have fathers, brothers, children, cousins or neighbors in militias. It includes all of Iraq’s political leaders. After-all, to the extent they are democratically elected to that extent they are sensitive to their constituencies, those who elected them, who in turn are Arab Sunni, Shi’a, or Kurd Sunni. And all either have family in militias or see them as protectors in case of civil chaos. It is hard to be sure what is really happening when you don’t speak Arabic. What would “victory” (that other motivating word) look like? Total pacification? There will be no “victory,” only tragedy, for Iraqis and occupiers alike. When just about everyone could be “the enemy” or the enemy’s sister or mother, perhaps it is time to lift the occupation and leave.
03/30/07
The Free Pulpit
Blogs are supposed to stir up hornets’ nests (see Blog: the Shape of Worship, 03/12/07). Of course if you have a beautiful or historic worship room with a large mahogany pulpit front and center facing rows of nailed down pews, you won’t mess it up making a hodgepodge of incongruence inspiring no one. We have to make the most of what we have. Hence model two for the shape of worship: the symbol of the free pulpit. The preaching function is central in our tradition and whoever steps into a free pulpit is sponsored to speak freely to our religious communities. Not only then and there, but we empower our leaders to speak as free agents of the prophetic tradition in the surrounding society. A free religious community requires a most exacting spiritual practice from preachers and parishioners alike for it to prosper. Perhaps that is why there are so few Unitarian Universalists on the planet. Emerson once said, “Your goodness must have some edge to it, else it is none.” Prophets tend to have difficult edges at times. “Afflict the comfortable, comfort the afflicted” has its place, certainly. But look at the times we are living in. Think of the process of the preacher wrestling with how to say what must be said. And the parishioner who must wrestle with their response. I know. The free pulpit is one of the great symbols – and living realities – of our lives together!
03/23/07
Grandmother in Hell
Along about 1976 I heard a story about one of my predecessors who served the First Parish In Kennebunk, ME. A revivalist named Cochran had a camp meeting in town and the Unitarian minister and a parishioner thought it might be good to attend a session. About midway through, the preacher declared, “Even my grandmother is in Hell.” Shortly afterwards the Unitarian minister and his parishioner rose to leave. The revivalist saw his rhetorical opportunity and asked them if they were sure they would not land in Hell too. The minister turned and replied, “No. Any messages for your grandmother?” That’s about the size of it.
03/21/07
Apis Mellifera
The domestic honey bee has declined fifty percent in the last twenty years. But last fall massive die-offs were observed leading to a new term, “colony collapse disorder.” Agribusiness abjectly depends upon these bees to produce a third of our food supply. There are of course other pollinators for those of us with one fruit tree or a row of beans: bumblebees, hummingbirds, bats, butterflies, wasps, flies, beetles, moths various wild bees (providing we have wild places for them to live), but all are vulnerable in today’s environment of pesticides, herbicides, mites, anywhere in their annual cycles or migrations north and south. Imagine a world without angiosperms, flowering plants! They came into being about 110 million years ago in a co evolution with pollinators. Seventy-five percent of crop species we depend upon for food in turn depend upon pollinators. In our toxic environment die-offs of whole species are increasingly common. History is full of surprises. This one we may not survive! Keep your fingers crossed at the Equinox.
03/20/07
“This is it”
A cartoon once pictured two Zen monks sitting beside each other in extended meditation. The young monk (novice) turned to the old monk (lifetime veteran) whispering a question, “What comes next?” The old monk suddenly opened one eye wide. He replied, “This is it.” Meditation is a settling into a state of equilibrium where you and everything else simply flows through consciousness without ripples, noise, striving, dissonance, distractions or controlling attachments. It may take years. If your life is full of stress, dis-ease, somber responsibilities, and confusion, it will. But if you find you are there after staring at a tree for awhile or listening to waves for an afternoon, “This is it.”
03/19/07
Empire
As I regard the general American attitudes toward the rest of the world I see much condescending, ‘holier-than-thou,’ why can’t they be more like us, attitudes. We seem surprised, incredulous, even hurt when others see us with alternative perspectives. Why do “they” hate us? Our pervasive ignorance makes us easily manipulated by special interests which perpetuate economic and political dominance managed by financial arrangements and a military with mercenary contractors. When you live inside an empire’s home base it is hard to see it. You identify with it as subjective reality. In history, with few exceptions, the last people to see the seeds of vulnerability and implosion are those holding the reins of political power. Can we extricate ourselves from the hegemony of empire at home and abroad? So far I have not found a political leader aware enough to lay out a plan. Have you? (ptemr@aol.com)
03/17/07
Deep Waters
Last summer Eleanor and I were sailing in Rockland harbor in a gentle breeze. The green water there is very deep. Beneath the ripples stirred by wind and the surface bugs fish look for is a vast unknown. I can hear the Dinghy cutting through water waving, feel the gliding, see the wake gradually fading. Only darkness remains. Water is often likened to the unconscious depths of the psyche. There is a bias in this picture, however, as our unconscious is omni directional. Only a tiny part of the whole self is in the spotlight of consciousness at any moment. Most of who we are in any nanosecond lives outside our attention, to unimaginable fathoms. Experiencing these depths can be a scary adventure. Leviathan lurks there. (In these very waters my gr gr gr grandfather’s brother, Charles, drowned.) Know your range for swimming. But venture! Be receptive! Explore! It is a deeper you that comes into the spotlight of fresh revelations. And you will return to ‘shoot the mooring’ and row ashore.
03/15/07
The Shape of Worship
Eastern Orthodoxy derives from a deep Mediterranean tradition of miracle and initiation into the mysteries. Worship was always in a rectangular room with a railing across the front (usually east) end. The laity and uninitiated would sit in the outer seats, the initiated and various orders of ordained priesthood on the inner side of the railing. It was they who administered the miracle from the altar to the waiting tongues of the congregation. Often an additional screen behind the railing obscured visual contact with the miracle itself at the high altar. The congregation could hear the singing of the rituals but not see them performed at the altar. There was great drama and mystery in the dispensation and experience of sacred worship.
Unitarian Universalists have removed altar, screen and railing, replacing miracle with words in the raised pulpit (often a lectern on a platform). But the form remains pseudo Mediterranean, with expectations that words will work miracles for laity. It remains a non-equalitarian worship form. The “gifts” (I Corinthians 12: 4-12) of the people are ignored, out of the line of sight. Until we sit in circles of worship, when we can see and respond to the “gifts” present in our congregations there will be a profound disconnect between what we say about community and how we enact it in our practice of worship. In our ancient form of assembly we will vaguely expect miracles where only words (in moments profound and moving of course) are to be experienced.
03/12/07
Consciousness Beyond Consciousness?
Is there a consciousness beyond our human consciousness? Can such a consciousness absorb our own? Can this consciousness beyond in some way communicate to our consciousness, attract it, inform it, direct it? These questions are likely unanswerable as there is no non-anecdotal evidence to give an answer shape. There are prophets in the Semitic traditions who heard voices from another consciousness or Being: as for an Isaiah or a Muhammad. The Vedantists intuit an impersonal Brahman, beneath transient realities. We often hear a surmise from others that there “must be something more.” Some are so curious that there may be other beings “out there” that giant radio telescopes have been erected to “hear.” So far we have caught only silence. It is a vast universe. It can be lonely here, our finite consciousness on this small planet. That this loneliness is widely felt is evidenced by our myriad listenings, invokings, speculations. Scriptures, psalms, worship in the temples of our humanity all respond to a loneliness we feel. There is a vast universe spinning in emptiness “out there” and an equally vast spinning in emptiness within. We live in two infinitely receding vistas of wonder. In the midst of this in our lives, consciousness is emerging. Could it be that something remains after each of us fades away? Could we be in the presence of an emergence, uniquely here on earth, of evolutionary significance out to/into the spinning spectrum of which we are a part? Stay attuned!
03/10/07
Ancient Reptiles
Florida has a primeval quality, even with its tens of thousands of slow traffic lights and its congested freeways. In every body of fresh water you have to assume there may be an alligator lurking. The alligator is perfectly capable of eating you whole, or at least an arm or a leg. This species has been here since the age of the dinosaurs, keeping warm under the sun, floating just beneath the water’s surface, watching, waiting. Florida also has its ancient pelicans, and palms and politicians. But the alligator is most wild and unapproachable. It has no sense of humor. It has teeth and hunger and patience. It knows no names or faces. I haven’t been close enough to see if its eyes blink. It does not wag its tail for us. Or if it does it is not telling.
03/07/07
Imagining the Brain
Our brain is both more unified and more complex than any descriptions of it. Just as we now know the human heart is a muscle pumping blood so too the human mind is a functioning aspect of fifty billion or so neurons as part of our bodies. The idea of faculty psychology, that we “have” a reasoning faculty with another composed of the passions and that both vie for the attention of the will, is obsolete. It was once thought that there was a little man in a compartment in the mid-brain somewhere, often called the conscience, directing neural traffic, a master chemist or electrician firing neurons. Likewise the analogy of the computer does not reflect the workings of the human brain. Memory, for example, is not like a hard disk with bits stored for retrieval. Rather experience must be reconstituted to be “remembered” as if it were happening again in the present. We are embodied. All which we know, all that courses in our brains comes through and is expressed through our bodies. Whether or how signals may be experienced other than through our senses and the emotional states of our bodies and the systems which emerge from this foundation we do not and perhaps cannot imagine.
03/03/07
Up/Down Metaphor
Up of course is better. I say “of course” because the metaphor up is more, down is less (or lesser) makes “common sense.” “Fill up my cup.” My cup runneth over.” It is always better to have a full cup than an empty one. We ascend a mountain for enlightenment. Except among Taoists one doesn’t descend the mountain for spiritual growth. Unlike the valley a mountain top has a rarified atmosphere away from the responsibilities, burdens, complications of society down in the valley. Those too heavily burdened don’t climb. Nearly every Surah in the Qur’an contrasts heaven and earth, the former always better. There is, however a “down side” for this metaphor. We can cast aside so much of our baggage, become so en-ligntened, that our feet leave the ground. I was impressed in Egypt and India that to enter a temple of religion one must remove one’s shoes, to be in touch with earth, sole to ground. Those who reach the seventh chakra of enlightenment must also learn the art of returning, entering the relational world of down-to-earth. Food for the spirit must be balanced by food for the body. To starve the one deprives the other of sustenance. Life requires full-fillment as well as en-lightenment, soul-filling experience as well as spiritual union. Heaven and earth meet in the human heart (fourth chakra). “The Kingdom of God is in the midst of you/within you.” (Luke 17:21)
03/01/07
Seventh Generation Unitarian
My wife, Eleanor, is a seventh generation Unitarian and her mother, Catharine, a sixth. What may be distinctive of such a lineage as opposed to my first generation status? Cathy believes if you expect to be buried from a church you should support it in the interim. She very much continues the ethos of the founders, responsible stewardship of American social values. Unitarians had much to do with establishing these and as a volunteer and voter she supports them. My wife is more of the Transcendentalist strain, God was experienced as a shaft of light through the shoulder blade. We form an original life, take hold of it and shape the world. Both Cathy and Eleanor are not backward about getting things done out there! How would they label their form of Unitarianism? If pressed, “cultural Christian.” But it is the living of it rather than the characterization of it that matters.
2/28/07
Extraverting
It is remarkable how much there is to talk about! Winter quarters in Naples, FL, are very congenial even when shared with two extraverted types, my wife, extraverted feeling (ENFJ) and mother-in-law, extraverted thinking (ESTJ). They walk two blocks to the beach, two miles on the beach and back again and they still talk a blue streak on returning. I am amazed how many sentences it takes to wash a window or to prepare two cheese and calamata olive sandwiches! As to how much spoken is consequential, I am likely their peer there, introverted feeling (INFP). Today they have a luncheon and movie outing. How peaceful!
02/27/07
Religious Authority
Ministers, priests, gurus, sages, elders often find themselves in the position of bringer of revelation or at least interpreter of it. Parishioners wish to absorb or accept a reality which compensates the imbalances in their lives, that resolves inner crises, that makes life whole. Such is the pastoral role, to honor that trust until a person is able and ready to take up their issues and to render them conscious, i.e. to grow spiritually. It is a humble position to live for the duration, to be in a sense the projection of the shadows of others, or at least to be an intermediary in that process. Our responsibility is truly to mediate the process so that spiritual freedom may develop in lives thus entrusted to our care. This relationship is fraught with danger and explosive power in the growth process. It is important not to take these growth pains personally but rather to be grateful in being present as an agent sponsoring so central a reality or capacity in our human nature.
02/24/07
Washing Dishes/Hands
I once had a parishioner who regularly declined to shake my hand at the door following worship. Germs! Of course she was right, hygienically. A daily ritual, perhaps thrice daily, is the washing of dishes. For most vermin apparently, covering with soap and waiting 15 seconds before rinsing (“Happy Birthday” once through, adagio) is sufficient, as it is for washing our hands. Then of course it is best to air dry your pots and pans rather than rubbing them with a dish towel. Who knows how many billions of germs propagate in perpetually damp cloths? We could of course easily obsess on this, but it is prudent to have in mind, especially during flu season or after entertaining grimy dinner guests.
02/22/07
Gilded Age Opulence
We visited the Flagler Museum today, a mansion of Henry Flagler who made his money in grain, salt and Standard Oil. He was builder of Florida East Coast Railway and of Whitehall, this 55 room winter house (1902). I suppose one should be impressed with the electric chandeliers, wood paneling, paintings and plumbing. The nude statues of Greek goddesses and gods were quite a departure for a “PK,” son of a Presbyterian minister. (There was, however, an Odell pipe organ in the music room.) The dining room was manorial, the servants’ rooms Spartan. Everything was Greek, Roman and Baroque. There was a plain porcelain Kwan Yin representing the “Far” East and a painting of camels and Bedouins representing the “Near” East. I was impressed with a pounded and punctured metal art nouveau floor lamp in the Library and an alabaster two wick Roman lamp in the Green Room. But I found it hard to imagine real humans living there. It was a “third order” paradise, not a home, “a place for everything and everything in its place,” no allowance for clutter or creative chaos. It was all living in the externals. Even books lined up and dusted in the Library, with antique leather spines, were for show, not study. I can imagine Mr. Flagler, three piece suit, hat, cane and pocket timepiece with gold chain, out supervising his Railroad while his third wife administered the household. He had a proper state funeral as I suppose and Palm Beach has his museum. My house too is of the “Gilded Age,” 6 rooms (1882). I am grateful my great grandfather was in tinware peddling and not in oil.
02/21/07
An Unequivocal NO !
With an unprecedented three airplane carrier groups in the Persian/Arabian Gulf, I wonder about U.S. plans for Iran. Their presence itself is a provocation. Pilgrims on boats and planes bound for Mecca, fishermen in small vessels, beware! How do you discern a spy or saboteur from a tourist or merchant? Meanwhile on land in Iraq, likewise, how do you distinguish an Iranian Shi’a pilgrim from a weapons smuggler? Will “Coalition” soldiers be given permission to cross borders in pursuit? Will a “minor” incursion into Iran be ordered? Will any such “incidents” be met with a stern and unambiguous rebuke in Congress? I will likely support the candidate for 2008 who can announce NOW a firm and unequivocal NO to any violation of Iran’s borders or airspace. If such is not forthcoming with a marshalling of American public opinion it would not surprise me if a parting shot of the Bush Presidency were a bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities.
02/19/07
Orphan’s Religion
I recently heard of orphanages in India which receive not only young orphans but designations of “their religion.” They raise the children in the religion of their deceased parents. If an infant or three year old has a religion or is of a religion, how would you know what it is? How would you tell a Muslim infant from an Hindu infant? Why would a piece of paper giving an infant a religious label have any relevance? Is not the birthright of any child on the planet, all human religion? Is it not sufficient to assume a potentiality in us all that must find and develop a religious or spiritual orientation? In its emergence for the individual it may or may not carry the label of one’s parents, dead or alive.
02/17/07
Mountain Peak Pluralism
There are many trails ascending the mountain of spiritual journeys. There are diverse shrines and perspectives along each trail. Beyond trees or ledges, overviews of wondrous landscapes not seen from other vantage points. We step through unique experiences and landmarks not imagined before. When trails converge at the peak have we all been traveling to the same religious goal? Most advocates of interreligious pluralism would say, “yes.” But how can we know? In my vision of pluralism I see us as being together there in our shared humanity. We may recognize our common natures with profound insight into its infinite variations. And when it comes time to descend to our vocations in the valley to take another route, gaining new perspectives, in-sights. If life is kind, we may ascend and descend multiple times until we become deeply affirmative within ourselves of the pathways of our humanity. The spiritual emergence on this planet moves one more iteration through us.
02/15/07
Coke’s Double Standard
Coke is omni present in China, everywhere red signs and aluminum cans. Removable tabs on Coke cans were banned in the United States many years ago for good environmental and aesthetic reasons. My first day in China in 1996 at the Altar of Heaven I noticed thousands of aluminum tabs in the cracks between ancient porcelain tiles. Likewise in Taoist, Confucian and Buddhist temples and the Forbidden City, tabs everywhere. It stirs me to anger and disgust on every recall. What process runs through a Coke executive’s mind and conscience? If it is not good here why implement the policy there? Is an action moral if you can get away with it? Is that the American corporate standard?
02/12/07
Becoming “More Diverse”
A well meaning liberal in a congregation of mostly white liberals asked me how they might become “more diverse.” My impression was that they were quite miscellaneous in views, preferences and backgrounds already. More diverse didn’t appear to me their most pressing issue. More coherence, more desire and capacity to promote spiritual growth through disciplines of mutual challenge and support seemed more germane. My advice was to become yourself that which you hope to attract. If Spanish speakers are those you wish to assimilate begin to speak and to sing Spanish yourselves in Sunday worship each week. And more than that become “Hispanic” in your internal processes, not only in external appearances. At least read the great poets “south of the border.” Otherwise such talk is a dreamy dry wind leading nowhere.
02/08/07
Florida Tornado
Several hundred miles north of here tornados touched down destroying hundreds of homes, killing two dozen people. When interviewed most were stoical but several said words to the effect, “Thank the good Lord for bringing me safely through this.” If God was responsible for saving a person’s life then who or what do they think was responsible for the total devastation all around them and the deaths of their neighbors? The insurance industry has an alternative theological premise. Flood, fire, wind are all “acts of God.” These acts are what you insure yourself against. Intolerable for the insurance industry are the words of Jesus, “do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Let the day’s own trouble be sufficient for the day.” (Matthew 6:34) Most of us take out insurance to hedge our bets. But don’t credit God for your good or bad luck. Instead it really would be wise to “consider the lilies of the field, how they grow . . . “
02/06/07
Ahmadenejad/Bush Correspondence
Mr. Ahmadenejad wrote Mr. Bush a rambling letter last year in which he attempted to tap into common religious ideals with an invitation to dialogue. Believing in progressive revelation for “the people of the book” he was able to express Christian ideals as a portion of his own. Tragically Mr. Bush opted not to give him the courtesy of a reply. Had the two men entered into dialogue, and therefore the beginnings of a personal relationship, it is hard to see how U.S./Iranian relations could have deteriorated further than they have already. If Mr. Bush had taken pen in hand we might have discovered something of his religious orientation. Thus far it appears to be a Manichean form of Evangelical faith. We have not glimpsed its inner aspects. What we see are projections of evil onto enemies, implying a kind of self-justification as a warrior for the good. We see only a primitive dualism and have not been given more, assuming there is more. Is it too much to ask of our President that he write his letter revealing at least a glimpse of his spiritual values to his adversary before, “heaven forbid,” the bombs descend.
02/04/07
Battle Hymn of the Republic
For several generations now Unitarian Universalists have excluded from our hymn books that stirring hymn by one of our own, Julia Ward Howe. It was the marching song of Union soldiers going into battle. You would think at least the feminists among us would insist on inclusion of this work by a passionate and thinking (ESTJ) woman. Perhaps it was her apocalyptic vision that is off-putting: “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord” or “He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored. . .” Wrong gender here. Theological implications may be a consideration but I believe the key is even deeper. Religious liberals have become rather squeamish of late over in-your-face violence. We are after-all “a gentle loving people.” The reality that
profound spiritual experience and releases of raw violence are ever so close in the human brain is too dangerous to entertain. The passionate ideal and goal to abolish slavery connected to the bloodiest war in American history. We ignore history to our peril. We need only look around us at the connections of violence and religion in so many places on the planet to know that simple denial will not suffice. To sing this hymn together could be cathartic, to get us in touch again with a part of ourselves we must wrestle with to become capable of better addressing our world.
02/02/07
Ten Commandments
I once had the chair of the United Fund Drive in Kent, Ohio, affirm to me, “Well, we all believe in the Ten Commandments.” I felt awkward and let it go by with a nod. He was a young, assertive, nice guy with a flair for leading organizations. But I wondered if he actually had read them or even knew where to find them. He was a good citizen, generous, a family man (wife, two kids and a picket fence) and a mainstream Protestant. I resisted the temptation to respond with, “Which Ten Commandments?” (Exodus 20: 1- 17, 34: 12-31, Deuteronomy 5: 4-21) It is of course a covenant directed to the worship of one tribal God over any others in the vicinity with a special emphasis upon keeping the Sabbath holy (sundown Friday through sundown Saturday). This was surely not the world of CVS or Wal-mart, open 24/7. The remaining list of rules and prohibitions are fairly standard in many societies. But these rules or those of any other list are not sufficient guides for living a moral and ethical life. One of the three is quite different, called by some “the Ritual Decalogue.” While it too stresses the importance of the Sabbath, it ends with the prohibition, “You shall not boil a kid in its mother’s milk.” When I was minister of a parish founded in 1711, I received a number of genealogical inquiries from west of the Connecticut River. In several instances the only entry in the old Record Books was the exclusion of their ancestor from communion for “violation of the seventh commandment.” I assume their descendants were grateful never-the-less in the knowledge their forebears had lived and breathed, albeit heavily, on farms in Needham, Massachusetts.
02/01/07
Mongol Tolerance
For a century and a half most of Asia enjoyed religious tolerance. The Mongol Khans were animists, worshipping the Eternal Blue Sky, though Buddhist, Christian and Muslim influences traversed the wide Mongolian steppes. One evening in 1254, the same year Jewish texts and heretics were being burned in France, Mongke Khan gathered together a religious drinking party to debate the fine points of Buddhist, Christian and Muslim theology. Differences were great among and within religions. There were for example Christian Nestorians, Assyrians, Armenians, Catholics, Orthodox and Manicheans. Representatives would question and respond to each other and then the debaters with the Khan and his court would all have a round of black airak, rice wine or mead. After a few hours arguments tended to become incoherent. The Christians lapsed into singing hymns. Not to be outdone Muslims earnestly recited Quranic passages and the Buddhists retired to one side for silent meditation. (for this and more examples I recommend Weatherford's Genghis Khan ©2004)
01/31/07
Local/Global
A friend found this website and pronounced it "very New England." I once worried about being too 'embedded' but have come to believe that strong local ties provide the best foundation for global citizenship. It is rare today for a person to have a powerful attachment to one place and to travel with wide affiliations. I was fortunate to spend a majority of my summers as a child in the house I now own. The family elders provided a depth of family stories and wealth of experiences all within sight of our "piazza." The landscape of ash trees, Mechanic Street neighbors, fields, shipyard and piers, ledges and sea has only gently transformed over the last six decades. The ties are intact. But my affirmations have ranged over five continents, the lore of history, the flowing through time and space on this globe of religious experience, my wrestling with issues of our human nature, how it can be shaped, develops, enjoys, grieves, can be fulfilled, all this has been intentionally in a global embrace. In my travels in twenty countries and many more in the world's scriptures and dramas of human emergence here, I have never perceived myself as an alien. I have always belonged to my experience even as I have always belonged on the Maine coast. Of course we are not trees with roots. We were made for locomotion. But in the center of orientation, among the many wondrous landscapes of our home, there is one landscape, one home base.
01/30/07
16.5 Mil. For Wine and Cars
Naples, FL, spawned a party called the Winter Wine Festival at the Ritz-Carlton Golf Resort yesterday. This year a record 16.5 million was raised "for the kids" of Collier County Children's Charities which raised 55.26 million this year. Three pages of the local paper were devoted to pictures of the wealthy hugging, wine glasses in hand, joyfully winning auction bids for "lots" of wine and cars. Topping the bids was two million for a 2008 Rolls-Royce Phantom Drop Convertible by a Naples developer. With such largesse I assume he pays his workers living wages with full benefits (so that their children are not among the charity cases of Collier County).
It occurs to me Children's Charities must have many hundreds of children as "clients." I assume their parents saw the same three newspaper pages of joyful celebration and are veterans of filling out "intake forms." There was a time when the physical and educational wellbeing of children was considered a government responsibility. Elected officials were responsible to their voters, now alas "clients" of charitable NGO's. There was a reciprocity of shared concerns between voters and their elected officials. But government now seems increasingly responsive to opulent interests which require tax "relief." "That government of the people, by the people, for the people" is becoming a treasured memory of past aspirations. And too many nice people, even liberals, with good hearts are collaborators in the demise of democracy.
01/28/07
Bottomless World
NBC the last two nights gave us reports from "the bottom of the world." I'm wondering what kind of a sphere NBC thinks it is broadcasting on. Another evidence of disoriented reporting. I suppose their sphere has a "top" too. Another journalist called his book, "Flat Earth." What millennium is he addressing? Millions of school children sit in classrooms with flat wall maps where Canada is "up" and Mexico is "down." To my knowledge only Buckminster Fuller's dymaxion map removes this prejudice. But his map was only invented about 70 years ago, far too recent to have penetrated the orthodoxies of secondary education. Students along the Maine coast can lift that fog if they reflect a bit. Mariners all know that the further northeast you sail you are traveling "down east." "Up" is "down" and "down" is "up," or at least "over to." Hopefully our prevailing winds will change the mindset of the rest of our spherical planet before even Mainers forget what they know.
01/20/07
Speed Limits
It seemed as if I was crawling. Actually I was driving 40 mph, 5 over the speed limit. Cars were passing me to the left and to the right at 10 to 20 mph faster. I caught up to all at the next light. We are perceptually geared to high speeds in an age of freeways, video games and computer downloads. Forever, for a web site to open, is 30 seconds watching that little wheel spin.
I recommend patience when driving as a spiritual discipline. Not slowness as a hazard on the highway. Not complaisance, losing your edge, or worse, passive aggressive driving. But why knot your stomach, why lock your jaw until the pain becomes conscious? And why punish an elder driver who reacts slowly or an out-of-towner trying to acclimate? Be patient, accommodate your unhappy stressed-out neighbors. Try to ignore bullies in their Hummers by not provoking them or certain cool youth who vibrate the neighborhood with a loud hip-hop beat. Attempt a compassionate relation to the many underlying causes for poor and inconsiderate driving behaviors, even when there is no excuse for them. Attend the presence of all others around you, your fellow travelers on this planet. Yes, we share a common life. Enjoy your own company. Be patient.
01/12/07
Iraq Update
If nothing else Mr. Bush is a master political strategist. Had he proposed nothing his prospects could not be worse. Now if he fails to quell violence with the buildup of troops he announced yesterday, he may be able to blame Democrats for non-cooperation or at least reveal them as ineffectual. If he by some stretch of the imagination "succeeds" - who knows, history is full of surprises - he may gain something of a reward politically for persisting in "what is right." I doubt any lasting success will come of this, perhaps a temporary reprieve for the Iraqi government, perhaps some boost for the 2008 American elections if it should last that long. But the genie is out of the bottle for tribal/sectarian violence in Iraq. Such machinations take a generation to cool. And of course the idea that a "democracy" of any depth has been established there is a sham. The whole frame of this "war" was ill founded and tragic. It introduces a chaos into the world which will not be tamed in our lifetimes.
01/11/07
Ordination
In 1965 Ken Patton asked me what I was planning to be ordained to. It hadn't occurred to me to be ordained to "the Christian ministry" so without being asked the default might have been to "the Unitarian Universalist ministry." Fortunately on reflection I chose instead "the Ministry of Religion," to which the congregation of the First Universalist Church of Kent, OH, as the ordaining body, concurred. It was a major hinge event for me, breaking through ecclesiastical inertias of the mind.
Several decades later I walked along a forest path on Mt. Hiei and came to a beautiful Buddhist worship hall, with three colossal gold Buddhas. I sat on the floor downwind from a large incense burner to gain my bearings. Soon two priests entered and began morning rituals. As I sat quietly one of the priests met my gaze and I felt a connection with him. Following the observance we briefly spoke neither understanding each other's language. He took an old string of beads from a peg high on the temple wall, showed me how to hold it and we bowed to each other in respect. In that experience it dawned on me that we are colleagues in the Ministry of Religion, something I remember each time I rub my string of 108 beads.
01/10/07
Travel As Pilgrimage
Until age 52 I had not traveled outside North America. Even so I was struck with how oblivious travelers could be, staring at their feet, talking a blue streak, curbing their dogs, wandering in tour herds foraging on fried dough or travel mix. Beginning in Egypt in 1991 we selected sites to visit: ancient mosques, Coptic churches, a synagogue in Cairo, city of a thousand minarets; Luxur and Karnak temples; Imhotep's step pyramid; and the site of Heliopolis where one glorious obelisk of the sacred seven remains (others being in Istanbul, Rome, Paris, London and New York). Travel alone or with a companion. Visit where your values are. Enter into your spiritual inheritance as participant pilgrim. In museums don't enter too many rooms, or read too many plaques with names and dates. Bring one treasure into your heart. After hearing the call to prayer sung in the doorway of Al-Rifa'i Mosque, I will always live in Egypt.
01/06/07
Human Nature: Good? Evil?
The old Calvinists believed human nature is born evil. Many religious liberals have gravitated to the opposite premise, that we are born good. Neither rings true for me. They both seem to be self fulfilling prophesies. If we believe ourselves to be corrupt within, we will have a tendency to prove this hypothesis in our behavior. For Calvinists that would be proof of a need for "salvation." Those who see human nature as good find a kind of salvation in the present, expecting a person to act from their best selves, bringing them back to the good. This seems as naïve as the Calvinist view seems jaundiced.
Instead I see us as born innocent. Human nature is as it is, hundreds of billions of cells, connected in incredibly complex systems, with a vast potential for good or evil. We need only look at the spectrum of actions in the world's religious traditions to see both alternatives of this human potential and the many shades between. If we look carefully we can see the human organism as seeking its own well-being. Not only food, shelter, safety but fulfilling relationships and creative engagement. We are social animals and we can discern norms of good relationship, good societal wellbeing, and good self-fulfillment. It behooves us to nurture these in the young, to hold the world open for their potential for good, and for their unique contribution for life ongoing. To see us as born innocent ups the ante for our care for the young among us, to make the world a better place for human development, fulfillment, enlightenment.
01/04/07
Heaven/Hell
Since Zoroastrian times it has been common to threaten reward/punishment for behavior in this life with a commensurate destiny in an after life. Heaven is often indicated as "up" as in "she's in a better place now" (pointing towards sky). Conversely some are anticipated as going "down" to hell, somewhere in a hot place of torture in earth's crust. Such notions are of course artifacts of a past age when earth was thought to be a flat island surrounded by water (for example see Genesis 1: 6-8). Today we know we live on a sphere. Sky is not "up" but rather "out" surrounding earth's surface. "Heaven/hell," if they can be said to be useful terms at all, exist in the present. We live our "heaven" or "hell" in this life, each day, as inward states compensating our thoughts, actions, in the living now. It is time to put aside flat earth projections and to live in the realities.
01/02/07
New Year's Day
The sand was bright warm as I strolled barefoot at surf's edge in Naples, FL, gathering pieces of coral, shells shaped like butterflies, shells grown on shells, dozens of tiny landscapes. From such my ancestors mined and burned limerock into fine mortar 200 years ago in Rockland, ME. Today's pastime was far removed from the gallows in Iraq where U.S. occupying soldiers delivered Saddam Hussein to be hanged. We are still fighting the colonial wars fired by our thirst for oil. Like the ill-fated Athenian Empire 2400 years ago we defer tending well being of our foundations at home to feed delusions of empire, the power and profiteering of the few. The sun is warm on my back; the chickens will not come home to roost today.
01/01/07
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