by Joni Grady
Sunday, January 30, 2012

I’m going to talk about webs of life, at least 4 of them, and a period of time spanning 350 million years. That these webs grew and spread and intersected and finally became so inextricably mixed that I wonder if they can ever be separated, is one of the great ironies of my life.

The first interdependent web that concerns us is the one that existed at least 350 million years ago when the world had erupted with life on land and sea. The climate wasn’t that different from our own though our continents were unrecognizable and proto North America was situated near the equator. There were swamps in what is now West Virginia and Pennsylvania and a shallow sea covered large areas to the west. There were huge palm-like trees and weird creatures living on land, and, like now, jillions of microscopic creatures and plants and algae in the sea, all connected and nourished by the sun and the air. There was so much life that when it died it often got buried in the swamps or the bottom of the ocean without being decomposed by bacteria first. In the oceans this resulted in large masses of organic material being buried under subsequent deposits as shale was formed from mud. This massive organic deposit later became heated and transformed under pressure into oil from the Mississippian period. On land, with less heat and pressure you get coal and the Pennsylvanian period. It was a pretty good system if you want to make fossil fuels and have lots and lots of time to wait. Millions and millions of years. Time for the continents to drift around some more, for species to come and go, for ice ages to pull the water out of the seas, and warm periods to put it back, for mountain ranges to rise and be eroded and rise again, for many more webs of life to be created. And some of that was destined to be buried and transformed into oil and coal, or maybe tar sands and peat, as well. Meanwhile the oil is moving out of its source rock, flowing through permeable formations, getting trapped by impermeable ones, waiting like an imprisoned creature to be set free.

I very much doubt that Colonel Edwin L. Drake thought of it that way, however, when he began looking for oil in the 1850s, many tens of millions of years later. Oil springs, like water springs, were known near Titusville, Pennsylvania, indeed, Native Americans had used oil from seeps for hundreds of years to waterproof clothing and canoes. The Seneca Oil Company was founded on the belief that if you could just get the oil out of the ground instead of waiting for it to rise by itself, you could corner the lamp fuel industry instead of relying on whales which were hard to come by and getting harder all the time. Drake and his crew struck oil at about 69 ft in 1859, leading to the first of many oil “booms” around the world and forming the first node in the interconnected, interdependent web of the oil industry—and many millions of human lives. [Read more…]

December 2, 2012
by Keo Cavalcanti

Taoism has been my practice for almost 25 years, almost half of my life. The centerpiece of this practice is a little book, the Tao Te Ching, written some 2,500 years ago (for those interested in a good translation, I recommend the edition translated by Gia-Fu Feng and Jane English, published by Vintage Books). There are other Taoist writings that are part of the Chinese collection of philosophical classics, but the Tao Te Ching is central. NOTE: The link will take you to an online version of the translation.

In the novel Roderick Hudson writer Henry James proposes an interesting definition of happiness: “True happiness… consists in getting out of one’s self. But the point is not only to get out – you must stay out. And to stay out you must have some absorbing errand” (I got this quote and the title for the sermon from Janna Malamud’s book, An Absorbing Errand, Counterpoint Books, 2012).

The thought of finding happiness through a distraction is too delicious to ignore. So, this Sunday morning I’m inviting you to consider its possibilities. I am hoping that you will be intrigued with the notion of an absorbing errand too. In his novel Henry James seems to be saying that perhaps the only way we can be saved from our intense self-absorption, from our relentless preoccupation with ourselves, is to find a distraction; a distraction that shifts our focus of attention…

But James is also saying something else. He is saying that this is no simple, small errand. This errand must be absorbing. It must be entrancing, captivating. It must be something that makes us forget all other pressing matters. It must be something that keeps us occupied, immersed and engrossed in both its practice and logic.

An Absorbing Errand in pdf format

October 21, 2012
by Richard Wolf

Two decades ago, in the mountains of North Carolina, I worked with two Mayan day-keepers.  I learned a time-keeping system for interpreting 13 tones and 20 glyphs, counting in concurrent cycles, within constructs of larger numbered patterns. 

As with western astrology, one can look to the tone and glyph of one’s birth date for clues as to identity, orientation, or mission.  My entry count and glyph are 2 – Cimi.  This date signifies a polarized orientation (2), together with the further polarizing Cimi as “world-bridger”, also translated as “death”.

The motion or role of Cimi is equalization through polarization.  This sounds and is daunting but especially resonates with the “mission” aspect of my situated life-form.   “Division toward Unity” might be my personal motto.  But Mayan day-keeping isn’t really our topic today. I just present this to offer some background and qualification for my offering you this particular talk, initially entitled “Our Unwelcome Familiar”, which evolved into “…the same motion.”, and now into the current working title of “…to the same motion.  1725.”. 

Reverend Emma Chattin and Noel Levan, offering our past two Sunday messages, provided some fascinating threads of paradox and duality.   I thought I’d dare us to take a few more steps, if you want to go, toward a few more indefinite, apophatic dualisms:  ones like birth / death;  living / dead; us / them;  then-of-the-past / then –of-the-future.  That third one could also be seen as harmonic tension between the disguised opposites of linear time and eternity.  I invite us to consider our own traditional or emergent apophatic supports, the unique and shared ways we live beyond grief and survive through loss.

[Read more…]

October 14, 2012
by Noel Levan

Each week I sit with people who are at odds with one another, in my capacity as a mediator at the Fairfield Center downtown. I listen intently as they lambast one another, accuse one another, deride, demean, power-trip, and so much less frequently collaborate for their mutual well-being and the well-being of their children. The relationship that they once en-joyed having gone south, will never return. I see all too frequently that these individuals have a paucity of interpersonal communication skills, lack general awareness, and are living in fear; of victimization and of poverty. I see poverty of words, poverty of ideas and poverty of action, and every time, when the case is finished, when I’ve typed up the agreement that will go before a judge for ratification, I am exhausted from my effots. I’ve done my best to assist these people to make better sense of their situation, to improve their awareness of the potential for better communication and thought-full actions; in short, to care about each other. I also, more-often than not sigh, in great relief, recognizing how immensely blessed I am, in so many ways.

The mediation process is (for me) about getting to “what works”. My directive to clients is, “We’re here to create a document that will work for you and your children, for the foreseeable future.” I talk with clients about how they know that things change in their lives and whatever we come up with today may only be workable for them until such time as something changes significantly enough to warrant changing the document, so that it continues to work for them.

That’s mediation. It’s empowering people toward just solutions to difficult and ongoing, relationship-based interactions.

When I sit with them and witness all the extremes of their emotions, part of my job is to reflect it back; acknowledge and praise their participation (under less-than-ideal circumstances), validate their feelings and ensure that the other person is present to hear those feelings. I know that quite often it’s hard to hear that you’ve caused another pain, and it’s also hard to forgive and move on; particularly when there are children who (hopefully) benefit from the presence of each of their parents.

My observation in mediation and in my own relationships bring me (almost forcibly) to consider how our world “works” and/or doesn’t work.

Over the years my views have changed; who’s haven’t?

[Read more…]

September 23 2012
by H. B. Cavalcanti

All preaching is an exercise in metaphorical analysis. We compare things similar in some ways but dissimilar in others; hoping that in sorting out the differences we may derive some insight and wisdom for the journey.

This morning, I want to invite you look at your life as a garden. Clearly, this comparison has clear limitations – our lives are far more important than a small patch of land. But there are parallels too intriguing for us to pass up on such interesting exercise.

Think, for instance, of the seasonal nature of both lives and gardens. Think of the labor and craft that is involved in creating meaningful patterns out of sheer wild growth. Think about the transforming qualities that cultivating a plot bring into our lives; or the deep satisfaction in engaging in a fulfilling practice.

I believe that metaphorical analysis counterbalances our Western ways. As heirs of the Enlightenment, we are prone to dwell on rationality. We tend to use reason to study things. By taking them apart and deductively putting them back together we measure evidence, explain variations, find correlations in their interactions. Rationality allows us to replicate other people’s experiments, to test reality for what it is…

Obviously, this kind of rationality has served us well on a good number of fields (mine included). It has launched both industrial and informational revolutions. It has greatly improved the way we produce goods and services. It has created efficient and effective labor-saving devices for home and work. And it has organized urban life on unbelievable scale – from highway traffic to electric grids to health care to waste and water treatment.

Rationality follows a predictable pattern – it is linear, it sequences events, it tests hypotheses in a fastidious and careful way. Thus, it allows us to organize the rhythms of our everyday life in an orderly sequence that has provided us with great comfort and much progress.

[Read more…]

Linda A. Dove

July 28, 2012.

I was born on a Saturday. And you probably all know the ditty? Saturday’s child works hard for a living.

This morning I’m going to talk about my work and ask you to share about yours.

I owe much of who I am today to the different types of work I’ve done in my life.

After many other jobs, I was a World Bank official in international aid for 19 years. I’ll use just that job as an example of my theme.

In your OOS, there’s a brief (if simplistic) guide to the main facts about the World Bank.

Let me give you a feel for the grassroots efforts the World Bank makes in developing countries—work that doesn’t often get into the media.

And then I’ll share with you how my Bank work helped me affirm what values I wanted to live by.

I’ll tell you a bit about just one little project in Bangladesh when I was a new recruit in the Bank.

I’ve chosen a project in education since you’ve all been to school, many of you have worked in education, and some of you know firsthand the desperate conditions in very poor countries.

Like so many others, I was in the international aid field through a wish to make some difference in the world. But any naïve idea I had about having lots of personal power to do this in the short-term was quickly blown away by reality.

You all know how controversial international aid is, and that’s a whole other discussion.

Today, I want to emphasize the complexity of the path from hard work to results—

from designing a project to actually improving people’s lives.

[Read more…]