UUA General Assembly

We invite you to come to the UUA General Assembly (GA) 2011, June 22 – 26, in Charlotte, N.C. This will mark the 50th anniversary of the merger of the American Unitarian Association and the Universalist Church of America. Our Thomas Jefferson District is the host for this [...]]]>  

UUA General Assembly

We invite you to come to the UUA General Assembly (GA) 2011, June 22 – 26, in Charlotte, N.C. This will mark the 50th anniversary of the merger of the American Unitarian Association and the Universalist Church of America. Our Thomas Jefferson District is the host for this historic event, and Annette Marquis, our district executive director, has challenged us to send as many members and friends as possible. An added incentive for this GA is that the keynote speaker will be Karen Armstrong, the noted theologian and author of “A History of God.”

We know the costs of attending GA can be prohibitive for some, and so a scholarship fund has been established to help defray the costs for those who need assistance. The fund currently stands at $500, and we hope others will help it grow.

Four people have already signed the chalice at HUU where we are marking our progress in committing to attend the UUA General Assembly next June. As you are ready, we invite you to add your name to the flame of the chalice as we get “fired up” about going to GA in Charlotte in 2011.

As part of GA, you can Experience wonderful and uplifting worship services as well as hear terrific speakers. You might also choose to participate in our democratic process as the business of GA is conducted.

Subscribe to the  GA Blog

Read more General Assembly, A Meeting of Congregations

Proud of What? ~ Bringing The Other Home

How do we celebrate our differences? Perhaps we begin by celebrating that we are different.

Jesus entered Jericho and made his way through the town. There was a man [...]]]> July 25, 2010
GLBTIQQ PRIDE SUNDAY
by Rev. Emma Chattin

Proud of What? ~ Bringing The Other Home

How do we celebrate our differences?
Perhaps we begin by celebrating that we are different.

First Reading ~ Luke 19 : 1-9

Jesus entered Jericho and made his way through the town. There was a man there named Zacchaeus. He was the chief tax collector in the region, and he had become very rich. He wanted to see who Jesus was, but he was too short to see over the crowd. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree beside the road, for Jesus was going to pass that way.

When Jesus came by, he looked up at Zacchaeus and called him by name. “Zacchaeus!” he said. “Quick, come down! I must be a guest in your home today.” Zacchaeus quickly climbed down and welcomed Jesus with great delight. But the people were displeased. “He has gone to be the guest of a notorious sinner,” they grumbled. Zacchaeus stood his ground and said, “I will give half my wealth to the poor, and if I have cheated people on their taxes, I will give them back four times as much!” Jesus responded, “Today salvation has come to this home, for this is what it means to be a true descendant of Abraham and Sarah.”

Second Reading ~ from “Who Is Your Other”, by Eliacin Rosario-Cruz.

The children of the Enlightenment inherited the meticulous process of scientific classification. Following this process, everything was given its own place. But this process did not belong to the sciences alone—our communities of faith adopted this hard model of categorization as well. Categorization of this kind is no different from the behavior we frown upon in the Gospels when teachers of the law tried to manipulate and domesticate Jesus. While in Jesus we see the completion of the law, this truth was not accessible to the priests, Pharisees, and other religious professionals. They were neck deep into the myth of being the only ones who truly knew the right teachings, the accepted societal rules, and correct spiritual behavior. And then a callous craftsman with sawdust still in his hair, from a little town that nothing good was known to come out of, came to be the Other who would disturb the boring parade of sameness.

Proud of What? ~ Bringing The Other Home

Happy Pride Day!

PRIDE events commemorate the riots that began at the Stonewall bar in New York City, June 28, 1969 — the first instance in American history when the homosexual community stood up and stood its ground. It was not pretty, but it was in response to city laws that were not pretty… laws against things like … prohibiting same sex dancing… prohibiting alcohol from being served to a known homosexual… and a social atmosphere that shouldered and forced the LGBT community to the very margins, to the hardest bars and most dangerous places, to a handful of shabby clubs operated by organized crime and routinely raided by police in a general show of law and order, usually in quiet exchange for money (nudge nudge, wink wink).

That particular night, on June 28, someone rose up… and said…. No More. Someone stood their ground. Heads were busted, bottles thrown, and everything spiraled out of control. Crowds gathered and grew. It wasn’t pretty, it wasn’t legal, it wasn’t neat, but from the descriptions of everyone who was there, it was an oddly positive chaos.

Now, reliable rumor has it, and legend has formed around it, that the riots were begun and fueled by the least among those in the club. The smallest in social stature. The hustlers. The kids. The Drag Queens. Their barricade line was not some solemn row. No, it was a linked chorus line, complete with high kicks. Many climbed up nearby lamp posts… pelting police with bottle caps, bottles, stones, and high heels.

The riots escalated and went on for three days, eventually resulting in a cohesive community, and culminating in the First Gay Rights Bill in this country codified into law in New York City. However, i would be remiss if I did not mention that, in order to make the Bill more palatable, the word “Transvestite” was removed, shouldering away from the table many of the very individuals who had begun the movement. The lesson here? Everyone has an other. And everyone is someone else’s other.

[ And who is your other? And to whom are you an other? ]

In any event, PRIDE recognizes that that moment, that night, the hairpin drop heard round the world, and is celebrated in typically queer fashion… sometime… usually summerish… from May to September… with picnics, parades, and dances… And today it will be celebrated in Harrisonburg with the 4^th annual Pride in the Park. Everyone is invited. J

Now you say… Emma…. Gays are not so oppressed now…. my response? We have pitifully few relationship rights, and even questionable protection under the law … especially when the Attorney General of my own state, the Commonwealth of Virginia, recently said that he does not believe that Gays and Lesbians are covered under the 14^th amendment… more specifically… the equal protection clause… you know… the one that requires states to provide equal protection under the law to all citizens? We must still stand up and stand our ground in 2010…. and say… No More. And good Virginians must stand with us, because I will guarantee that you don’t have to shake ANYONE’s family tree very hard… before one of us will fall out of it! We are here, we are queer… and we are family!

In thinking about celebrating PRIDE, I had to think about a few things. First of all, what am I proud of? And second, the nuances of how we authentically celebrate our differences without inadvertently creating divisions. The first thing that came to mind for the latter was a line from the U2 Song, ONE: We’re one, but we’re not the same. We get to carry each other…

It expresses the thought that Unity is not uniformity, and Diversity is not Division. It’s a paradox of sorts, but I think the best parts of our world are expressed as paradox and as mystery.

I think Harrisonburg UU is a place like that … where there is less certainty… and more wonder… forming a space for conversation… celebrating the uniqueness and the diversity of humanity and human beliefs, without passing judgment, and at the same time, creating a space for the multiplicity of human expressions of divinity. Or Humanity. Or Unity.

A new concept? Like all good concepts, perhaps a very old one.

This from the poem One Song, by Rumi, a 13^th century Muslim Sufi poet :

All religions, all this singing

One Song.

The differences are just

Illusion and vanity.

The Sun’s light looks

A little different on this wall than

It does on that wall,

And a lot different on this other one,

But it’s still one light.

It looks a lot different on this other one. The Other one.

The other. The other is different, foreign, frightening, strange, the one in whom you cannot see yourself.

In the book, “Mighty Stories, Dangerous Rituals: Weaving Together the Human and the Divine”, the authors put it this way: “The Other is our future waiting to happen. The Other is the parable and myth that looms on our horizon. They are sources of anxiety, fear, and sometimes violence. They are also necessary, for without the other, without the stranger, we are bereft of the distance we need to discover the God who is wholly other, and even to glimpse ourselves more clearly.”

Now, when we human beings encounter the other (any kind of other), there are generally three paths that can be taken. The first is to attack and destroy the other. This behavior is manifested in violence, prejudice, genocide, hate crimes. The second it to wall ourselves off from the other, pretend the other is not even there, does not even exist. That’s denial. Or, we can engage the other, and perhaps discover ourselves in the process.

Two Jewish philosophers who I greatly admire, Martin Buber, and Emmanuel Levinas, even suggest THAT LOVE IS LEARNED in the encounter with the other.

Love

Love looks A little different on this wall than It does on that wall,

And a lot different on this other one wall,

But it’s still… Love. It’s still Love.

One love, but we’re not the same.

At some point in my life I became aware of the other … within myself. The Other I met within me was the Queer Other, the other that made me a part of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Trans, Intersex, Queer, and Questioning community.

I tried as best as I could to wall off that other within me.

Yet had that other not been within me, I would have grown up living a life less aware of most of the world around me, and with a sense of white privilege so ingrained I would not have been able to even see it without the distance of perspective that the Other provides. Because I would have believed that I was right by birthright. That I knew everything that mattered- and if I didn’t know it, then it didn’t matter. I would have been completely unaware of the privilege I possessed, Neck deep in knowing that I was right. I would never have known any other way.

I am so grateful that didn’t happen. Because encountering the other within me truly and wholly made me a different person from who I was…. and made me the person that I was made to be…. the person I was meant to be.

I am so very grateful for that encounter, and that the other within me looked me in the eye, took my hand, and led me home.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Anyone who knows me knows that I love a good story. In fact, I believe it is the stories of our lives, the narratives we form, that help to shape us, our lives… who we are… and who we become. And I believe they are powerful, because, with just a small shift of perspective, we suddenly see things differently, and then everything changes …. and nothing is ever the same again.

In a moment. In an instant. In the span of a breath… Pivotal precedents, when we finally see something, catch a glimpse of something. We are moved, we look at it differently; the only thing that changes is our perspective — and that changes everything!

The Bible is filled with such good stories. Stories with meaning stories with relevance. Stories that teach us about ourselves… by showing us OTHERS. By letting us see others. Every story in the Bible has an assortment of trees by the side of the road that we can climb to get a better perspective, a better glimpse of Wisdom… of the Divinity that is a part of all of us.

Sadly, I think that aspect of the Bible is largely overlooked in today’s world. People want a rule book, they want a law, they want something they can use to enforce their views on others. In order to force the other to change. When, in truth, the change the Bible brings about is the change within our own hearts, not the hearts of the others. It changes US. That’s what good stories do.

Our first reading today is from the Gospel of Luke.

And Luke sure can tell a good story.

Many of the stories found ONLY in this Gospel are among the Bible biggies… … the greatest hits and most memorable… the Prodigal Son… the Good Samaritan…. (which is the consummate story of The Other!)…. And this little story today… the story of Zacceaus.

A wee story about a wee little man…

Now, back in the day, tax collectors were not viewed very favorably. And not a lot has changed, has it? But back then, it was even worse. Tax collectors were seen as traitors, colluding with the enemy occupier, cheaters, sinners, crooks. So Zacceaus was an outcast, an Other in many ways. Life for a wealthy short tax collector in Jericho could not have been a very easy social existence.

And so when people lined the streets to get a glimpse of Jesus, this teacher whom they had heard of, on his way to Jerusalem, it is no wonder that Zacceaus was cut out. They were standing in the way, and no one there moved aside for him. You can even imagine him being shouldered away, intentionally pushed back… by those who were simply born taller.

But Zacchaeus would not take no for an answer.

He went down the parade route and climbed up a sycamore-fig tree.

The type of tree is significant. It bore fruit that was fed to pigs, and as such, it was considered to be a “dirty” tree, a tree that Jews avoided. Yet here was Zacchaeus, audaciously climbing this tree… to get a better view of Jesus. Not only that, but it gave Jesus a better view of Zacceaus.

And Jesus called Zacceaus out.

What can we say about that moment?

Something connected in them?

They recognized the other…. in each other?

Lloyd Douglas, a writer and preacher’s kid,

wrote in his classic “The Mirror” in 1945, as he imagined this exchange….

“Zacchaeus,” said the carpenter gently, “What did you see that made you desire such peace?” “Good teacher — I saw mirrored in your eyes — the face of the Zacchaeus I was meant to be.”

Now who is the other here, and who took the other home to family? Zacceaus, whom Jesus affirmed as being a part of the family of Abraham and Sarah? Or Jesus, the stranger in whom Zacceaus saw the other, and who Zaceaus invited into his home? The other often offers us such reciprocity. Because we are sometimes the other’s other as well.

I brought the other home to my family in the form of me.

Suddenly, my family was one with an “other” in it.

No one can pretend that’s easy, and my “otherness” was quite complex.

But I kept showing up, I kept climbing that tree.

I kept going out on a limb. And in time, my family changed.

They came to see me above the grumbling crowds. They called my name.

They eventually became an advocate, standing up for the GLBT community, standing ground for others. My otherness changed my family …. like a good story can change a person.

I brought the other home to my church in the form of me… home to my community… home to my work place…

Our GLBT community brings The Other home… to our families … to our society… to our work places… to our churchs … in unexpected places, and in unexpected ways.

But don’t expect a celebration, people.

What did the people do in the story of Zaccreas? Did they cheer? Were they happy? No. They grumbled. They grumbled when they saw Love coming alive right before their very eyes! They grumbled! We may bring the other home, but do not expect a parade. Except on Pride Day. J

I encountered the other within myself, the other, looking for a way up and out. And just as Zacceaus climbed up a tree to see Jesus, to see Wisdom more clearly…. so my very complex queerness enabled me to see much more clearly.

Many grow up with a domesticated Jesus, one who has been sanitized for their comfort and protection. But because of my experience as an outsider, that is not the Jesus of my experience. The Jesus of my experience is one who makes the crowds grumble. Makes people uncomfortable. Looks around, finds the other, and calls the other home to family.

So I am grateful to the other within me for opening my eyes

For teaching me how to live, and how to love

This is what I am most proud of.

I am proud of our community’s ability not to take no for an answer, to extend ourselves, to climb up, to climb out… with the courage to go out on a limb… to see who we really are. I am proud of each and every soul that seeks to find, to face, and to see their true self clearly above the grumbling crowds that surround us. I am proud of those who stand their ground. I am proud of those who look the other in the eye, and see themselves there, and see there the divinity within.

I am proud of those who take the other by the hand,

and take them home to family… to community…

to society… to work….

to church…. to self…

and home… to the very Heart of Divinity… to Love.

Zacceaus?

Zacceaus went on to become the first Bishop of Caesarea, located midway between modern-day tel-aviv and Haifa in Israel. And according to reliable legend, Zacceaus was given the name Mattias, which means “Gift From God”, and took the place of Judas among the apostles.

My thought for the world today?

Stand and rise on the side of love… or sit to the side…

But please… don’t stand in the way.

And may we here never be afraid to go out on a limb

to bring the other home… to our human family.

Are you looking for a great, affordable  experience for your family, one with lots of adventures and filled with friends? If so, then  SUUSI  may be just what you are looking for! The  Southeast Unitarian Universalist Summer Institute or SUSSI for short, is being held July 18 – 24, 2010 in Radford, VA,

The chalice is a symbol. We need symbols in our lives; we can’t do without them. We utilize hundreds of symbols every day, including the words we use.

What does the chalice symbolize for you?

For [...]]]> A Talk By James J. Geary
Delivered before the Harrisonburg Unitarian Universalist Church
16 May 2010

Chalice Reading

The chalice is a symbol. We need symbols in our lives; we can’t do without them.
We utilize hundreds of symbols every day, including the words we use.

What does the chalice symbolize for you?

For me the chalice symbolizes itself — fire. Think about fire. Fire is energy. Fire is the essence of the universe. Fire is everything. Everything is from fire. Our sun, from which we come, from which we gain sustenance, is fire. The stars, from which we have come, are fire. We are fire, slow-burning, very complex fires. The stars are energy in action. Our sun is energy in action. And we, carrying within us the life force, are energy.

Like the Hindu god, Shiva, fire is the creator and destroyer of worlds. Fire is life, fire is death, fire is we, fire is the essence of the universe.

Talk 5%. A Very Long Spiritual Journey

Good morning.

Well, here we are — again. Oh, I know I said I was 95 per cent sure my last talk was really my last talk. That’s the meaning of the 5 % in the title of today’s talk.
I had a five percent chance of speaking again.

I have a piece of trivial news. Two days ago I turned 96. I don’t believe it!

I have a couple of readings:

The first is a short poem by the famous English novelist, Thomas hardy. The title
is: Waiting Both

A star looks down at me,
And says: “Here I and you
Stand each in our degree:
What do you mean to do, —
Mean to do?”I say: “For all I know,

Wait, and let Time go by,
Til my change come.” —
”Just so,” The star says: “So mean I: —
So mean I.”

The following reading is an excerpt from Pleasures, a poem by the California poet, Robinson Jeffers.

There is a higher pleasure;
To lie among cold stones my older bothers — God knows I am old enough,
But not like granite — to lie quietly embarnacled
Under the film of surf and look at the sky,
I strain the mind to imagine distances
That are not in man’s mind: the planets, the suns, the galaxies, the super galaxies, the incredible voids
And lofts of space: our mother the ape never suckled us
For such a forest: the vastness here, the horror, the mathematical unreason, the cold awful glory,
The inhuman face of our God: It is pleasant and beautiful.

=============

During the past 20 years, I have enjoyed some inspiring services from members of this fellowship, especially personal spiritual journeys. So I thought I’d try to interest you in mine..

In this talk I discuss the two principal intellectual loves of my life, philosophy and natural beauty.

I‘ll begin this talk with a mental picture, a picture of me crying when I was about 11 years old.. I had been promised I could visit with a family friend on his orchard estate for a few days. And then the promise had been withdrawn; and I was weeping. And my Uncle Leslie said something strange. He said the grief I was suffering was balanced by the joy I had felt when the promise was first made.

I couldn’t handle that. What he said certainly didn’t do anything to assuage my hurt feelings. But I remembered it. Little could I have imagined, however, that the philosophy or psychology that my uncle expressed would become one of the two sustaining pillars of my mature philosophy of life.

A normal 11 and 12-year-old boy, of course, doesn’t think about philosophy. I was interested in family, school, and taking solitary walks with my big reddish brown collie. Our house was the first in a new subdivision, which meant my not having many peers. But it did provide me with a variety of nearby fields, hills, and woods to roam in.

Then, when I was 13, something mystical occurred, something abstruse, amorphous, transcendent. On my walks I would find myself stopping and staring into the distance, at the mountains, at a sunset, for long minutes at a time. I was entranced, carried away with wonder and rapture. I think I was trying to understand, I knew not what.

Also at about that time in my life, and maybe as part of that mystical feeling, I was developing a deep love of the outdoors, of the distant mountains, of nature. I was beginning to have an appreciation and love for the beauty and mystery of the natural world.

I think it was about that age that I began to take an interest in the intellectual discussions at the dinner table. My parents had separated when I was four. My immediate family consisted of three siblings, my mother, my divorced Uncle Leslie, and my widowed Aunt Vedy. My mother and Uncle Leslie were the brainy ones, the eggheads.  From them I learned about evolution. And that knowledge greatly influenced my thinking. I learned about liberal politics. I learned much of the story of the Bible, although both had repudiated the Christian dogma enthusiastically embraced by their father.

My mother, raised in a small, mountainous Southern town, with probably an eighth grade education, rejected Christian dogma totally. Her apostasy was a product of her exceptional and penetrating mind. and her voluminous reading. Christian dogma was her bete noir. She said she was exposed to Methodism but it didn’t take.

As a consequence of her views, I never went to any church. So unlike many of you, I am not an apostate from the Christian religion or any other religion. My mother and Uncle Leslie were nature lovers. And that probably inspired me and reinforced my own mystical feelings for the beauty and mystery of the natural world. I think my love of nature became even deeper and encompassing than theirs.

My mother had a strong and tenacious influence on my spiritual life; my Uncle Leslie even more. I often call him my guru. I was particularly taken by his conviction that pleasure and pain are balanced, as he had expressed that night I was so disappointed. He introduced me to Emerson’s Essay on Compensation, and that became a sort of bible for me. It confirmed for me the view that the law of action and reaction applies to human emotion, that pleasure is paid for by pain, and pain is balanced by pleasure. I firmly believe that to this day.

During my teen years, I began to think more and more about the nature of the world, the universe. Gradually the idea solidified in my mind — again influenced by my uncle — that all action, all effects, are the result of cause and effect. High school physics and chemistry and the natural laws proposed by Isaac Newton supported me in this belief. I became a determinist. Lately I learned that Albert Einstein also was a determinist.

Well, those two concepts became the life-long pillars of my philosophy — one, that human emotions are balanced, that pleasure and pain are opposite sides of the same coin; and, two, that there is no break, no hiatus in the law of cause and effect, that every action, every thought, has a history of cause and effect going back ad infinitum.

At the University of Virginia, I took a course in beginning philosophy, but I declined to take any other philosophy courses. I was a bit arrogant. I didn’t want to dilute my personal philosophy. My major was the natural sciences.

Well, there is nothing like marriage, service in World W II, a growing family of girls, and a newsman’s job to keep one busy and dampen down philosophical contemplation.. Then there was a divorce and two important creative jobs, both very demanding.

The first of those jobs, as director of the five-year Virginia Centennial of the Civil War, made me a department head of the State government for seven years. The nature and dimension of the observance were on my shoulders. The second job, as the original director of the New Market Battlefield Park, brought me happily back to these western Virginia mountains in 1966. But, again, the character of the park and its museum/visitor center would be up to me. I was very busy.

Still I was confident that some day I was going to study traditional philosophy and the great minds of the past.

And I had not lost my love of nature, of the beauty of the starry night, of sunsets, of a child’s face, a sleek horse, and especially of mountains.

Ten years after I came to the Valley, I began to take night courses in philosophy at JMU. I took several in the next three years. Then in the spring of 1979, I took a course on Hinduism from a young man fresh out of the University of Chicago, Wade Wheelock. I enjoyed his course and took several other Oriental courses from him, on Chinese religions, a second course on Hinduism, two courses on Buddhism, and one on Islam. Wade and I became good friends.

I continued to take philosophy courses until I had enough credits for a second bachelors degree. They included: Introduction to Philosophy, Ancient Philosophy, Modern Philosophy, American Philosophy, Philosophy of Religion, Medieval Philosophy, Hume and Mill, Introduction to Ethics, Philosophy of Science, and Introduction to Logic.

I graduated in May of 1985 with Distinction in Philosophy and Religion. I had a grade average of 3.75. It would have been a 4.0 except that I was thinking of pursuing a master’s degree at the University of Virginia, so I studied for the Graduate Record Exam instead of for the final exam in my course in logic. I missed one whole question.

I was elected to Phi Sigma Tau, the national honor society in philosophy, and to Theta Alpha Kappa, the national honor society of religious studies and theology. I was 71 years old.

That panoply of courses in Western philosophy, together with my study of Oriental philosophy and religion, deepened and broadened my concepts of our world. But they did not alter my basic personal philosophy in which I embraced determinism and postulated equilibrium in human emotions. I believe the study of Eastern religions, especially Buddhism, did more than Western philosophy to advance my spiritual quest and provide me with a deeper appreciation of existence, the universe and my relation to it, and to my fellow human beings.

In August of 1989 Wade Wheelock told me a group was forming that he thought I might find interesting. So I went with him to the home of Dan and Jerry Spitzer, for the fourth meeting of what would become this fellowship. I remember Wade saying to a woman as we converged near the entrance, “It’s Beryl isn’t it?” She said it was. The movers and shakers for establishing a UU church were Deb and Randy Mitchell. The following Sunday I went with them and their three children to the Waynesboro UU church, which was in a house. The service began, and someone lit the
chalice.

“What’s this?” I thought. “Is this some kind of ancient cult, a savage worship of fire?” Well, in time I came to appreciate the meaning of the chalice for UUs. And I remained interested in the Harrisonburg group, which contracted to meet at the Jewish Temple on Sunday nights.

My first talk to this incipient fellowship was delivered at the Temple the following January. I said, among other things, that I had come to terms with death, that I had no fear of death. I said we were not individuals before we were born and we would not be individuals after we die, no afterlife. That talk was one of 16 I have made to this fellowship, not counting this one.

My association with HUU has been very good for me. I can’t say it has changed any of my basic beliefs, but, as I have said before, it has fine-tuned them. The searching, self delving required in preparing these 17 talks has required that I focus on my spiritual and aesthetic self. I have also benefitted from the talks that others have made. I reviewed and took a new look at my conceptions of beauty, of happiness, of morality, of my social values and prejudices. I gave a whole service on overcoming the prejudices of my youth..

So what do all those years of study and contemplation leave me with?

Well, I was confirmed in my belief there is no free lunch — we pay for everything.

I also realized how incredibly lucky I have been — good luck; and how luck, good and bad, is the controlling factor in people’s lives. Of course, I believe I have paid for my good luck.

`I realized we live in a world that is, paradoxically, both benign and very dangerous.

I’ve also learned that we humans are a social species — we need each other.

I’ve come to believe that we humans are largely egos. I have an equation: egg plus sperm equals ego.

As for purpose and meaning in life, I have not found any, except to live and produce and nurture the next generation.

The notion of the universe involves the concept of infinity, which I believe is impossible for the human mind to grasp. We cannot wrap our minds around there being an end to space or time, nor there not being and end to space or time. Nevertheless, I have come to believe that the universe is eternal — no creation, no beginning and no end. I don’t believe the Big Bang was the beginning. For me an everlasting universe is the easiest answer to the ancient question of creation.

On the practical level, I think and I hope I have learned how better to deal with my fellow human beings.

And, finally, my studies have confirmed for me the continuing two foundations of my philosophy of life: that everything is determined, that there is no suspension of the law of cause and effect; and that human emotions are balanced, that pleasure and pain complement each other.

But in the end, we really don’t know much, do we? Maybe there are no verities except change. I read that Socrates said it was the beginning of wisdom to realize we don’t know anything. And especially we don’t know why — so many whys. Why is the universe? Why am I? Why am I comfortable and in reasonably good health at age 96, instead of being some starving Haitian woman. Why am I human instead of being a mouse or a frog or a cow.

Well enough of what the Buddha said was useless speculation. The important thing for me is that I am at peace with myself and with my world. I enjoy my association with family and with friends. I observe the passing scene. I enjoy contemplating the great pageantry of human existence, unsavory as a lot of it is. I still love life and the beauty of our natural world.

I want you to know that HUU has been good for me in another way, perhaps the most important way. It may surprise you that members of this fellowship constitute most of Pat’s and my social life. We are home bodies. Aside from relatives, most of our friends, come to this building. Because of my impaired hearing, I have a hard time interacting with most of you in this noisy venue. But you are my friends.

In one way, this may be goodbye — goodbye from this pulpit. I am not making any promises; I’ve learned my lesson. But I want you to know, I’ve enjoyed expressing my thoughts over the past 20 years to this friendly and sympathetic assembly. For me these talks have been satisfying ego trips. Thank you for all those years of listening.

If our UU district drops Thomas Jefferson’s name, we will put ourselves in the company of those on the Texas Board of Education who plan [...]]]> (This opinion by Chris Edwards and Robin McNallie is in response to a request for members’ feedback from Bernie Mathes, our delegate to the Jefferson District meeting May 1):

If our UU district drops Thomas Jefferson’s name, we will put ourselves in the company of those on the Texas Board of Education who plan to downsize his place in that state’s school curriculum! Late-night comedians may have fun with that, but we think it’s a bad idea.

TJ was a complicated, flawed figure who shared in the evils of his time and place (owning slaves, though opposing slavery). History is filled with complicated and flawed people (like, maybe, all of us) — and that includes those who make outstanding contributions to humankind. Such as Jefferson.

If for nothing else, he deserves to be honored by UU’s for his authorship of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom (for its text, see http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/jefferson_vsrf.html).

A post by the American Humanist Association reads, “The Virginia statute was nothing more or less than the statutory precursor to the guarantee of religious freedom contained in the First Amendment to our federal Constitution. Noted historian Henry Steele Commager called the Virginia statute “probably the most famous single document in the history of religious freedom in America.”

This freedom is enshrined in Unitarian Universalist principles and especially needs our support and promotion now, with the rise of theocracy movements in our country and the world.

In Texas, ironically, the NY Times reports that the education board plans “to cut Thomas Jefferson from a list of figures whose writings inspired revolutions in the late 18th century and 19th century, replacing him with St. Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin and William Blackstone. (Jefferson is not well liked among conservatives on the board because he coined the term ‘separation between church and state.’)”

Is this company we want to keep?

Better choices might include our District adopting a hyphenated name, pairing Jefferson with an inspiring leader of color. Or, how about considering approaches to reconciling our nation’s polarized communities? We could check out the “Coming to the Table” movement, which has brought together descendants of slaves and slave-owners, starting with the Jefferson and Hemings families, to promote understanding and dialogue (and has a base in Harrisonburg): see http://www.comingtothetable.org/about/history/. The UU community certainly needs to become more multicultural (as UU World articles have called for). Let’s look for positive, meaningful ways.

Chris and Robin

First Reading John 6:1-13 Feeding The Five Thousand

Some time later, Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee– also called Lake Tiberias –and a huge crowd followed him, because they saw the signs he gave by healing the sick. Jesus climbed the hillside [...]]]> By Rev. Emma Chattin
March 14, 2010

First Reading
John 6:1-13
Feeding The Five Thousand

Some time later, Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee– also called Lake Tiberias –and a huge crowd followed him, because they saw the signs he gave by healing the sick. Jesus climbed the hillside and sat down there with his disciples. It was shortly before the Jewish feast of Passover. Looking up, Jesus saw the crowd approaching and said to Philip, ‘Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?’ Jesus knew what he was going to do, but asked this to learn Phillip’s response. Philip answered, ‘Six months’ wages would not buy enough bread to give each of them a little mouthful!’ One of the disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said, ‘There is a child here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people?’ Jesus said, ‘Make the people sit down.’ Now there was a great deal of grass in the place; and as many as five thousand families sat down. Then Jesus took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed them to those who were seated; so also with the fish, giving out as much as they could eat. When the people had eaten their fill, Jesus told the disciples, ‘Gather up the leftover pieces, so that nothing gets wasted.’ So they picked them up, and filled twelve baskets with the scraps left over from the five barley loaves.

Second Reading
Adapted from~
Jesus and Buddha as Stories by Professor David Loy

…. Our minds need stories just as much as our bodies need food. ‘Story’ in this case means….all our mythologies, folktales, legends, epics, novels, philosophies, ideologies, including, of course, our religious beliefs. Just like food builds and rebuilds our bodies, stories build and rebuild our minds (or spirits, if you prefer) because it is through them that we learn what the world is, who we are, what is important in this world, and how we are to live in it. ….. If we look at religion-stories from this perspective, we can appreciate them in a different way.

….. The analogy between stories and food is actually quite a good one, I think. An occasional dose of fast food or junk food is usually not too bad for us, but a diet that consists only of (fast food burgers), fries and soda pop is unhealthy. Just as we need to eat something to sustain our bodies, so we need stories to provide meaning and structure for our lives. One of the worst problems with our consumer culture is that, just as it encourages us to eat too much junk food, so it encourages us to watch and listen to too many junk stories, with simplistic and predictable plots focused on violence and sex, and with predictable effects on the lives [and spirits] of those [who become exclusively] devoted to them.

The myth which inspires me most of all is the story of Shakyamuni Buddha. ….. The core of the Buddha story is a search for wisdom… The Buddha’s life-quest is elegant in its structure and deeply moving, because it forcefully reminds us not to repress our awareness of the illness, old age and death that haunt our lives, but to use that awareness to motivate and energize our search for the meaning of our own life and death. His awakening is described in various ways, and there even seems to be something intentionally ambiguous about it, but some essential points stand out: the understanding we need is not a conceptual one; we can resolve the anguish of our lives not by accumulating things but by overcoming the greed, ill-will and delusion of our own minds; this involves letting-go of the sense-of-self that [causes one to] feel alienated from others in the world.

Reflection: What Feeds You?

Good Morning. Welcome to Stewardship Sunday!
My name is Emma Chattin, and I’ll be your server.
On the menu this morning, some of the synonyms of Stewardship….
Attention… Care… Cherishing, Protecting, Preserving….
Nurturing… Nourishing… Feeding….
And some of the side dishes….
Giving Thanks… Generosity…. Gathering…
Sharing… Caring…. Growing… Letting Go…
Some mighty good vittles!
Yawl hungry?

What does Stewardship Sunday mean?

It’s a day when the community considers the way in which it sustains itself and prepares for growth; a day when the community considers the realistic and tangible means to support its mission, its vision, what it is doing in the community, and how to do so for more people (in some cases, many more people); the practical considerations of new programs, more seats… and the basics of looking around at some point and thinking… with a sense of gratitude, and perhaps some anxiety as well:
How do we care for all these people?
How do we feed them?

Now there are two things that churches generally do not like to talk about, and, not surprisingly, those are the same two things most often at the root of problems and conflict- both for church communities, and, also, not surprisingly, in most intimate relationships. Those two things are Sex and Money. And, I will be honest with you, I am quite comfortable talking about both.

Because the things we don’t talk about- and maybe try not to think about -must be talked about and thought about, because the issues that we do not have the courage or the will to discuss are the ones that will destroy the very thing that they could have otherwise created and built up if we were only to approach them openly. Folktales and great mythology reveal this timeless truth to us again and again.

But that doesn’t mean we just jump right on into either topic without some preparation. It matters that we talk about them, but it also matters most HOW we talk them.

SEX & MONEY.

Both can expose some of our deepest sensitivities and insecurities. Both can impact our sense of self-worth in some very complicated and tricky ways. Both can be used, misused, even exchanged, in perhaps the most oldest exchange, one for the other; and both can be approached in a less than pleasing, completely insensitive, and even vulgar manner.

Yet, if we are sincerely and fully true to our principals and beliefs, then both subjects can and should be approached without shame as beautiful gifts, as expressions of intimacy, and as a means of vital connection with one another.

Money is not some great and all powerful thing; it is not the be all be-all-end-all; it is not the ultimate prize or reward for a life well lived; it isn’t fair and it knows no sense of morality other than the purse, wallet, or hand it happens to be in at the time. Wars are waged over it, people are killed for it, and some people lose all sense of humanity in the pursuit of it. Perhaps this is why we sometimes hesitate to discuss it, because money seems guilty of so many things by association and through exchange. And yet, it is not the end but rather the means to the end. It is not the result but rather a tool through which we achieve a result. It is not to be held tightly. It is, however, an important resource, and a resource that, like water, and life itself, functions best when it flows freely.

I’m familiar with giving as a means of sustaining a spiritual community, and giving as a spiritual principal- as a means of individual spiritual growth. Let me talk about the latter for a moment.

Though there is some variation, many faith traditions have some sort of prescribed level of giving. My own tradition centered on tithing, or a giving level of 10%. The origin of this practice is deep in the Hebrew Bible, and it is a hotly debated subject in some circles. In fact, much has been written in both Christian and Jewish communities as to why this level no longer applies. It matters less to me what the figure is, and more that so many people spend so much time and energy trying to make it less or avoiding the topic of giving altogether. I find that interesting… because I believe is the end goal is less about giving something up, and more about learning to let go.

So back in the old days, it was 1/10, or 10% of a person’s harvest or livestock. Nowadays, people will ask, 10% of gross or net? Do investments count? How about money contributed to an IRA? When a person asks such questions, I can gather that they have perhaps already missed the point of giving as a spiritual principal of “letting go”.

In the old days they would haul their sacrifice up to an altar…. and burn it. I once asked dad that if God likes burned meat so much why didn’t we just bar-b-que in church? Dad told me it’s not that God likes burned meat- the sacrifice was burned so that someone wouldn’t be tempted to return to the altar later and get their offering back. Makes sense. I have known people in church communities who behave in a similar manner- always wanting to get their offering back in some way, or wanting to maintain control of it. Again, the lesson of giving is about learning to let go.

Also, if the offering was burned, no one really knew how big or small it was. There were no boasting rights or entitlements. That is, I give x and y gives z… and so I am more entitled…. … entitled to a better seat… a better hymnal… a better parking space. Giving as a spiritual principal involves no such quid pro quo.

…. or I give z amount, and I don’t want it used for postage stamps… or to pay the electric bill… but for something REALLY important ….

Again… missing the entire point of letting go. In the old days what happened to the offering? It went up in smoke. Giving as a spiritual principal is all about the practice of letting go of the gift once it leaves your fingertips. You do that often enough, and even what is at your fingertips is no longer held tightly in your grasp. And THAT, I think, is what giving as a spiritual principal is all about.

The story in today’s First Reading is about an apparent lack of resources in a community. It is also perhaps one of the most popular stories in the Jesus tradition, and the only so called “miracle story” in the ministry of Jesus that appears in all four of the canonized Gospels. Clearly, this story communicates something very important, meaningful, and moving about the experience of following Jesus, so much so that I can imagine this story being told over and over again in each of the gospel communities before finally being written down by their respective scribes (“Hay, do you remember the time… feeding all those people? Wow, those were the days!).

While the version in each of the 4 canonized gospels have variation, they all convey the essence of a very remarkable story. Feeding 5000 + people from a basket of five loaves and two fishes. Wow! And having more left over in the end than what they began with – a basket of left-overs for each of the twelve disciples!

That kind of multiplication, that kind of expansion of resources, is often used as a metaphor for the fund raising efforts of many church communities, and the imagery of over-flowing offering baskets was not lost on many a rural preacher praying for a miracle during budget formation time.

But the question for us today is … how do we absorb this story?… How do we consume it? As a miracle? A magic trick? The sudden and momentary suspension of some sort of natural law that otherwise seems to govern the rest of us?

When I was a child, a magician pulled a coin from my ear and gave it to me. I was amazed. For a moment. And then I told him I had another ear. Well…. if he could pull a coin from one ear, surely he could pull one from the other. And he did. And then, where else could we pull one from? And then, what would stop him from pulling dollar bills? Or even bigger bills from bigger ears? From everyone’s ears! And making the whole room wealthy, and eventually making the entire world rich and satisfied! All of our problems solved! What a wonderful thing! And how could I learn to do it?

My father explained to me, after pulling me off the stage (much to the performer’s relief), that things are not always what they appear to be.

That very same thought is what inspired some German theologians, called rationalists, who reflected on this story of the loaves and fishes during the Age of Enlightenment, to offer possibilities, different ways of reading this story.

The Enlightenment. The late 1600′s… thru the 1700′s…. and sometimes I think they were more enlightened than we are now, as we stumble about a few hundred years later, with religion and science once again being cast in opposition to one another, as opponents on a battlefield warring for POWER and CONTROL, rather than acting as partners in helping us to understand and / or simply accept ourselves, each other, and the wonderful universe in which we live.

The rationalists proposed a few possibilities, among them… that seeing the act of a child’s generosity, and the gratitude expressed for it, inspired the people gathered there to respond with their own acts of generosity…. That as the basket was passed… those there who had more food with them than was needed to satisfy their hunger… contributed to the basket…. And those there with a need, received from the basket. In this way, the entire crowd gathered there was able to meet the needs of the crowd. And the people did so through amazing generosity, by letting go of what they might otherwise have held to tightly.

Now, to me, that’s a REAL miracle. Not some meaningless magic trick, or some gift given on a divine whim that is unavailable to the rest of us, but rather a moment….. a moment like a sunrise, that is available to anyone who chooses to open themselves up to the experience… to open themselves up to the beauty of the moment….. to the grassy field, to the needs of their neighbor, to experience, for one glimmering moment, the awesome interconnectivity of everything around them.

For me, a miracle is a moment in which the living Spirit of goodness and generosity moves in us around us and through us … because we have opened ourselves to that possibility. For me, a miracle is a moment in a story when the human and the divine momentarily touch, join, embrace, and kiss… People are inspired with a spirit of greatness……

…rising above the small, petty, and self-centered focus that usually drives us… lifting us to embrace the better angels of human nature….. And suddenly, feeding a multitude with a small basket of fish donated by a child seems well within the reach of a multitude— And suddenly there is a moment in which people must actively participate for the good of needs far beyond their own, transcending their own sense of self. That’s a real miracle.

(We may not sing with Smokey Robinson, folks, but we ARE the miracles).

Of course, the story of the loaves and the fishes is recorded so that you may believe whatever you wish to believe. I am not out to change minds, simply suggest possibilities.

But … let’s take a moment and try it on for size. Let’s step into the story. Let’s become a part of the story ourselves, and see how it feels.

Imagine yourself among the multitude there, 5,000 people standing about, 5,000 tired sweaty people, like an open-air Jimmy Buffett concert, only there are many entire families, all elbow to elbow, some pushing, some shoving…

What happens next? We are instructed to sit down. In a grassy field. Don’t know about you, but I have been to enough open-field concerts and farm parties to know that sitting down in a grassy field is a right relaxing experience.

Suddenly everyone is well grounded, has their space well defined. Begins to relax. Maybe even open up a bit. “Hey, you ready for the Passover feast? Yeah, me neither. But we’re looking forward to it anyway.” What can be more Zen and in the moment than stopping and sitting…. not being anxious… not fretting about… o no on what am I gonna eat!! But stopping, sitting, taking a moment… to just BE.

We look. We see. A child has five loaves and two fishes. Now that a child would have such a bounty packed is noteworthy, as is the fact that the feast of Passover is approaching. We see this new Rabbi… what is he doing? He is … wait… is he going to try to feed all of us with that? (there is laughter) Then… what’s he doing? He is giving thanks! Amazing. He seems to be really grateful for that little bit. And wait now… the little boy is letting go of his meal… and suddenly into the crowd the basket goes….

You look into your own basket or pouch. You have two pieces of fish, 4 packs of crackers, an apple, olives, dates…. it’s more than you need, really… and this person next to you has a full wineskin… and he’s offering you a drink… you know, this is actually quite nice ….

Some people read stories literally, everything as fact, and existing as something completely separate from themselves, apart from who they are as a person. And some people savor stories with delicacy, with delight. Consuming them, absorbing them, letting the story become a part of them, and they a part of it.

In the introduction to his book Gates of the Forest, Elie Wiesil relates a rabbinical story that is often used to communicate the power of narrative .

When the great rabbi Israel Bal Shem Tov saw misfortune threatening the Jews, it was his custom to go to a certain part of the forest to meditate. There he would light a fire, say a special prayer, and the miracle would be accomplished and the misfortune averted.

Later, when his disciple, the celebrated Maggid of Mezeritch, had occasion, for the same reason, to intercede with heaven, he would go to the same place in the forest and say: “[Creator] of the Universe, listen! I do not know how to light the fire, but I am still able to say the prayer.” Again, the miracle would be accomplished.

Still later, Moshe-Leib of Sassov, in order to save his people once more, would go into the forest and say: “I do not know the prayer, but I know the place and this must be sufficient.” It was sufficient and the miracle was accomplished.

Then it fell to Israel of Rizhin to over come misfortune. Sitting in his armchair, his head in his hands, he spoke to God: “I am unable to light the fire and I do not know the prayer; I cannot even find the place in the forest. All I can do is tell the story, and this must be sufficient.” And it was [Wiesel, 1966, Introduction].

Did the event of the loaves and the fishes happen?

I don’t know. What I do know is that what I have is the story, and stories are powerful. My own faith journey is less about a study of historical facts and events, and more about a search for how I may better fit into my present. And good stories help me do that. Good legends, good epics. it matters less about the context and more about good meaningful narrative. I can get more out of a good episode of Star Trek, or Buffy the Vampire Slayer, than most minister’s sermons.

The answer to “What feeds me?” as a person is clear. It is stories.

A Native American grandfather was talking to his grandson about how he felt. He said, “I feel as if I have two wolves fighting in my heart. One wolf is the vengeful, angry, violent one. The other wolf is the loving, compassionate one.”
The grandson asked him, “Which wolf will win the fight in your heart?”
The grandfather answered: “The one I feed.”

What feeds you? As a person? And do you nourish and nurture and care for that which feeds you? Is it social justice? Personal growth? Economic justice? A sense of community connection? Mowing the grass? Working outside?
What feeds you?

I dare say that each of you have, will, can, and do… seek and find nourishment … satisfying and fulfilling spiritual nourishment …. here. In this community.

This spiritual community is very unique. In many ways, and for many reasons. I love that you are a lay-led. I love that you have done marvelous things as a community. You have spruced up your building, made all sorts of improvements, created a parking lot, new sign, have stood as a testament of social justice to the poor, the hungry, the alone, the wounded, the sick… you sent people to Washington DC to march on the side of love… there is a literal litany of things this community has done.

And today, you are going to feed a multitude…. a multitude that has the opportunity to nourish in return the community that has fed it in so many ways.

And you also have an opportunity to become a part of the story that is unfolding and being told here. I encourage you to open yourself fully to that exciting possibility.

Oh… and speaking to the community,
what is the answer to “What feeds you?”

You do. :

Readings: 1) “thy eyes look to me mild. Out of maize @ air/ your body’s made and moves. I summon, see,/ from the centuries it./I think you won’t stay. How do we/ linger, diminished, in our lovers’ air,/ implausibly visible, to whom, a year,/ years, over interims; or [...]]]> Sunday service by Robin McNallie
3.28.2010

Readings:
1) “thy eyes look to me mild. Out of maize @ air/ your body’s made and moves. I summon, see,/ from the centuries it./I think you won’t stay. How do we/ linger, diminished, in our lovers’ air,/ implausibly visible, to whom, a year,/ years, over interims; or not;/ to a long stranger; or not; shimmer @ disappear.”
John Berryman, “Homage to Mistress Bradstreet”

2) “Sometimes the sun is only shadowed by a cloud that we cannot see his luster although we may walk by his light, but when he is set, we are in darkness till he arise again. So God doth sometime veil His face but for a moment that we cannot behold the light of His countenance as at some other time.”
Anne Bradstreet, “Meditation 50”

When I agreed to do this morning’s service, I was in the middle of reading Sarah Vowell’s well-received 2008 book on the 17th c. Massachusetts Bay Puritans, “The Wordy Shipmates.” I recommend it highly. Vowell, an audaciously cheeky commentator on that society, is also true to the historical record and shrewd in her judgments on it. She is essentially a stand-up comedian doing a sort of antic impression of Perry Miller, Harvard University’s pre-eminent authority on the New England Puritans and the later Transcendentalists. Although Vowell doesn’t seriously contradict H. L. Mencken’s oft recycled definition of Puritanism as “the sneaking suspicion that someone somewhere is having a good time,” she does suggest that there are, at least, a few redeeming qualities to Puritan society which should perhaps come as good news to UUs since our Unitarian branch is the evolved offspring of Puritan congregationalism; we won’t be harmed either from owning up to that dour and dyspeptic past or knowing it more fully. Since Vowell devotes considerable space to Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson, we can infer that a positive attribute she finds in the Massachusetts colony is the quality of the dissenters it produced—before banishing them to Rhode Island.

I would like, however, to direct my own remarks to another woman of that patriarchal world not covered by Vowell, the other Anne—Bradstreet. To students seeking to pass their masters exams in American Literature Anne Bradstreet is the answer to the question: “ What poet was the first in the English speaking New World colonies to have a volume of poetry published in London in the year 1650?” The title of that book, probably supplied by a market savvy publisher of the time, is “The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America.” Anne, incidentally, was peeved initially, because her brother-in-law had delivered the draft of it to London without her knowledge. The universal moral here: Keep your best china and all loose manuscripts hidden when having your in-laws over.

Three noteworthy facts to remember about that book’s publication: 1) its author was indeed a woman, 2) its author was indeed a Puritan—to the Puritan mind writing poetry was deeply suspect, a product of idleness and sensuous inclinations, unless the verse served as an aid to creedal indoctrination , as, for example, the famous “New England Primer” with such exemplary couplets as “In Adam’s fall/ we sinned all,” and 3) “The Tenth Muse” is rarely read today, its contents deemed to be very derivative of the work of a French poet , DuBartas, popular at the time. Bradstreet’s distinctive voice is largely absent, save in the Prologue where she upbraids male poetasters for not acknowledging that women too can create worthy verse.

The works by Bradstreet that do make contemporary anthologies are her so-called “domestic” poems. In these she evinces repeatedly a fierce love for husband Simon and her eight children, seven of whom survived, remarkably, the primitive conditions of that time and place to reach adulthood. She, in the main, writes an unadorned verse in simple patterns of standard rhyme and meter. The voice heard in the poems is what invests them with the power to reach the modern reader. It is both direct and guileless, doubtlessly because Bradstreet is addressing only herself or an intimate circle of family and close friends. She is confessional but rarely falls into the well of self-pity. Some readers have detected a resemblance between Bradstreet and her 19th c. New England successor, Emily Dickinson, who also went largely unpublished in her life.

I will bring that voice into this sanctuary whose simple elegance I think Anne would have approved of. Of the poems I have read by her, this one addressed to Simon, is the one that most powerfully stirs me. Truly there are many great, even outstanding poems by others that, even with their greater refinement, move me far less. It is titled by editors “Before the Birth of One of Her Children”; its power to move us is reinforced by our knowledge of the all too real and considerable dangers of child bearing in that colonial era. “ All things within this fading world hath end,/ Adversity doth still our joys attend;/ No ties so strong, no friends so dear and sweet,/ But with death’s parting blow is sure to meet./ The sentence past is most irrevocable,/ A common thing, yet oh, inevitable./ “How soon, my dear, death may my steps attend,/ How soon’t may be thy lot to lose thy friend,/ We both are ignorant, yet love bids me/ These farewell lines to recommend to thee,/ That when that knot’s untied that made us one,/ I may seem thine, who in effect am none./ And if I see not half my days that’s due,/ What nature would, God grant to yours and you;/ The many faults that well you know I have/ Let be interred in my oblivious grave;/ If any worth or virtue were in me, let that live freshly in thy memory/ And when thou feel’st no grief, as I no harms,/ Yet love thy dead, who long lay in thine arms,/ And when thy loss shall be repaid with gains/Look to my little babes, my dear remains./ And if thou love thyself, or lovedst me, These O protect from step-dame’s injury./ And if chance to thine eyes shall bring this verse,/ With some sad sighs honour my absent hearse;/ And kiss this paper for thy love’s dear sake,/ Who with salt tears this last farewell did take.”

American poet John Berryman, a reader who came obsessively under Bradstreet’s spell, spent five years in the aftermath of WW11 studying her life and work, leading up to the publication in 1953 of his “Homage to Mistress Bradstreet,” a 57 stanza tribute but really more like a feverish valentine. Knotty and elliptical, the poem presents a speaker who at junctures seems hard to identify—is it Berryman, Bradstreet or an amalgam of the two, the latter a clear possibility given the author’s fervent embrace of his subject. I cannot decide whether I find “Homage” to be truly touching or genuinely disturbing. The ambivalence may be attributed to my awareness of Berryman’s later suicide.

Berryman, clearly, seems to have identified with the turbulent spirit he detected in Mistress Anne. He evidently saw her like himself as being at war with the surrounding culture. I believe he was barking up the wrong Anne. Unlike Anne Hutchinson, the public rebel, Bradstreet’s conflict was essentially inner and private. We need to remember that this Anne was a poet and what W. B. Yeats said of a poem: it is the argument the poet is having with himself (or herself). I would like to suggest that the advent of Anne’s recurrent struggle between her earthly attachments and her duty to the God whom by the dictates of her faith she needs to love, honor, and obey can be pinpointed at that moment she arrived in Massachusetts in 1630. She tells her children in a letter she leaves them as she approaches death, this in about her sixtieth year, that upon first viewing the new scene, “My heart rose.” Those three monosyllables convey to me incredible poignancy. Imagine if you can. Here is a young girl, daughter of Thomas Dudley, steward to the Earl of Lincoln, who had at one time eight tutors and a large library at her disposal, who, at sixteen, recently married to Cambridge educated Simon Bradstreet, accompanied him and her beloved father on the
Arbella , the ship which was to take this vanguard of Puritans to the Bay Colony, the first cresting wave of the great Puritan migration of the 1630’s.

What can we, both reasonably and intuitively, infer about the young Anne’s state of mind at that moment when her “heart,” she tells us, “rose”? Trepidation certainly at the wilderness around her, possibly even terror and, not least, a stabbing pang of regret at all that has been left behind. She must have felt quite literally forsaken of God, God forsaken. Her bulwark against despair had to be her bond with family–father, husband, and the eight children she gave birth to over time, “my little babes, my dear remains.” Essentially, this is her perpetual conflict, a struggle between her love of this world, her attachments therein, and her duty to God, whom, by the dictates of her Puritan faith she needs to love, honor, and obey above all else. In this same final letter she confesses to the struggle, still, seemingly, ongoing, as she approaches death: “Many times hath Satan troubled me,” she writes, “concerning the verity of the Scriptures, many times by atheism how I could know whether there was a God; I never saw any miracles to confirm me, and those which I read of, how did I know but they were feigned. That there is a God my reason would soon tell me by the wondrous works that I see, the vast frame of the heaven and earth, the order of all things, night and day, summer and winter, spring and autumn, the daily providing for this great household upon the earth, the preserving and directing of all to its proper end. The consideration of these things would with amazement certainly resolve me that there is an Eternal Being. But how should I know He is such a God as I worship in Trinity, and such a savior as I rely upon?…. I have argued thus with myself. That there is a God, I see. If ever this God hath revealed Himself, it must be in His word, and this must be it or none.” I detect in that last sentence desperation more than doubt even. What she seems to imply, is that her professed faith is a gamble that she is making that she might possibly lose, indeed, might already have lost.

In recent years, some readers have wanted to see Anne Bradstreet as a stealth secularist, one writer dubbing her “the worldly Puritan.” Such a view seems to me to be an example of the wish becoming the conclusion. Her writing, taken en toto, simply doesn’t support it. This morning’s reading from Anne’s Meditation 50 in which she depicts her God coming and going like the sun is in effect registering her own persistent cycling between faith and doubt, also referenced in her parting letter. Against the poems expressing earth-anchored love of husband and children is, for instance, her poem “The Flesh and the Spirit” which employs the debate format, a poetic tradition that dates to the Middle Ages and, continues to appear, some times in disguise, up to the 20th century. The debate typically pits the claims of this life and this world against those of the next. The soul, as might be expected, normally gets the last word, although in the 20th century the tables tend to be turned as in Wallace Stevens’ magnificent meditation “Sunday Morning.” In Mr. Stevens you truly have a real honest-to-godless secularist. But Bradstreet accords the last word, and, in essence, the victory garland to the soul. Although many readers , even fairly devout ones, can claim that the arguments of the flesh seem more compelling in her poem, just as in John Milton’s “Paradise Lost” Satan seems more convincing than God, Bradstreet explains why this is so. She says in her 13th meditation “The reason why Christians are so loath to exchange this world for a better is because they have more sense than faith: they see what they enjoy; they do but hope for that which is to come.” That is her way of saying this world is a real turn-on, a wholesale aphrodisiac, and who knows this better, as we have seen already, than Anne herself. In “The Flesh and the Spirit,” however, as in another poem where she consoles herself concerning the loss of her house to fire, she asserts that the eternal lease on life offered by Heaven trumps the immediate gratifications of earth.

Puritan, poet, woman, wife, mother, Anne Bradstreet was caught in a duality she couldn’t in the end bring to congruence. She remained divided between her heart’s present attachments—“Earth is the right place for love./ I don’t know where it’s likely to go better,” to quote Robert Frost—and her expectation of heaven—“My hope and treasure lies above” as she says in her loss- of- home poem.

When Henry David Thoreau lay on his death bed, a relative asked him, as one story has it, if he had prepared himself for the next world. His reply? “One world at a time.” For Mistress Bradstreet, I believe, Heaven couldn’t be dismissed, but it could wait.

A pledge is an offer and a plan to contribute an amount of money you choose to your church over the course of the July-June financial year. 

How is this different from putting money in the plate?

Your pledge is the money HUU counts on. The Sunday cash offering [...]]]> What is a pledge?

A pledge is an offer and a plan to contribute an amount of money you choose to your church over the course of the July-June financial year. 

How is this different from putting money in the plate?

Your pledge is the money HUU counts on. The Sunday cash offering provides a small amount of additional income. 

How many people pledge?

In 2008-09 HUU received 29 pledges of support; in 2009-10, 34 pledges. This year we hope for 40 pledges.  

How much should I pledge?

We hope you will give at a level that reflects your ability to contribute and your enthusiasm for HUU. Every household’s ability to give is different.  The range of individual pledged amounts is very wide. 

Every pledge raises our level of participation, and that encourages others to believe that HUU is worth their financial support. All pledges are valuable because they help the governing body of the church plan the budget that members vote on in May.   

In other words, no pledge is too small. In recent years, the average pledge has been in the $1,350 – $1,450 range. This year we are hoping that pledges will average $1,500. 

How do I make a pledge?

You can pick up a pledge card at the table by the door at HUU. Put your completed pledge card (in its envelope) in the collection basket. 

Or send the Treasurer an email with your pledge amount. Include your name and address so that he can set up a record for you. Send your pledge to Treasurer@huuweb.org . 

Do I have to be a member to pledge?

No. Some people prefer not to be members of any church or have not yet decided to join HUU.

 When should I pledge?

We carry out our pledge drive in March and wrap it up in April. The Finance Committee and the Board have to have a budget ready in May for the annual meeting of the congregation. The new fiscal year begins in July. 

You can pledge at any point in the year by sending an email to Treasurer@huuweb.org .

Who knows how much I pledge?

The Treasurer, currently Ralph Grove. He doesn’t share this information with anyone. 

How do I pay my pledge?

We’re UUs, so as you might suppose, everyone decides this for him- and herself. You can write one big check; you can put a check in the collection basket on a regular basis; you can mail a check to the church if you don’t come to services often. 

If you pledge, any check you put in the Sunday offering will be credited toward your pledge unless you specify that it is for some other purpose. If you want to make pledge payments in cash, put the money in an envelope with your name on it.

What if I can’t pay my pledge?

An email message to Treasurer@huuweb.org enables him to change the record he keeps of each pledge. Circumstances change; and any changes you find you must make are confidential. 

What if I forget how much I pledged or how much I’ve paid on my pledge?

Send an email to Treasurer@huuweb.org . Ralph Grove will answer you promptly. He also sends statements twice a year. 

What’s the bottom line?

You are free to pledge or not pledge. Gifts of your time, energy, and just your presence are valuable to HUU, too. We act in faith that those who can, will pledge, enabling us to provide HUU with those resources that only money can buy.

We have great goals for HUU and a big challenge to pay for them.  Can we feed our appetite for a richer experience at HUU? The Finance Committee offers us this background information.

HUU Member/Friend Giving Statistics

62 members and 18 friends

FY09

29 pledges [...]]]> Nourishing HUU Financially For Fiscal Year 2011 

We have great goals for HUU and a big challenge to pay for them.  Can we feed our appetite for a richer experience at HUU? The Finance Committee offers us this background information.

HUU Member/Friend Giving Statistics

62 members and 18 friends

FY09

29 pledges totaling $42,125

average pledge = $1,453

FY10, the year that is now in progress

34 pledges totaling $45,800

average pledge = $1,347

Prospects for FY11, the New Year

The preliminary income budget for FY11 (next year) uses an estimate of 38 pledges totaling  $51,300 and an average pledge of $1,350

The preliminary expense budget – ordinary ongoing expenses and committee proposals for stronger programming and pay equity – is $8,400 more than the estimated income.

To fund the preliminary expense budget from current income, HUU would need 40 pledges for a total of $60,000 – an average pledge of $1,500.

HUU’s Average Expenditure Per Member

$757 (2008-09)

$894 (projected 2009-10)

$1,079 (goal for 2010-11): a 20% increase over the prior year yet 10% less than the UUA average of three years ago

Average Expenditure Per Member in All UU Congregations

$1,203 (2007-08)

163,789 UU members in 1,042 UU churches