Hands in the Air? General Assembly from Afar

I've been watching the live streaming of General Assembly: our annual meeting, conference, convention, celebration and UU Revival. If it weren't for the security restrictions, our lack of funds and my spouse's heart attack, I would want to be there in person!

GA is usually the high point of my year: I revel in Universalism, the hands-in-the-air worship services, spectacularly moving music, huge crowds, great speakers, dancing, singing, connecting with friends and meeting new ones. GA is an extravert's paradise -- each day, I have more energy than the day before as the ecstacy builds, until I shout Hallelujah all the way home!

Certainly, those of us watching on our laptops aren't having that experience, but we can still be inspired and challenged from afar. Plenary II, featuring debate on a business resolution urging us to make a strong commitment to youth and young adult ministry, was outstanding. To hear youth and young adults express their yearnings for belonging, support, guidance and empowerment was thrilling. To hear a few older delegates express their misgivings about the proposed resolution because it didn't include details about how to improve youth and young adult ministry in our congregations was sobering, but familiar.

In the end, I was proud to see a large majority vote for the resolution. What is so wrong about being idealistic, about expressing a vision for the future? I love hearing someone cast the vision. Because once we've got the vision, we can figure out the details ourselves -- the planning and execution of the objectives in our day-to-day church lives.

I don't want those select few who attend GA to tell the rest of us how to do something, but showing us why, giving us a challenging vision for the future is great.

With goosebumps,

Elizabeth

Flower Communion: A UU High Holy Day

I attended three different Flower Communions this spring because I love the legacy of Norbert Capek, flowers and our UU rituals. At James Reeb UU Congregation, Rev. Darrel robed for the service, calling Flower Communion one of our "High Holy Days"! He had set up the chairs in the round, with a fabric-covered table in the center, complete with the Chalice, orchids and a few large vases full of water. We took our flowers up and made beautiful bouquets with them, then went up later to take a different flower. Wow! I'd never been to FC at a small congregation before, so didn't realize how creative one can be with the ritual elements.

The other two services were at my hUUge congregation, with choirs singing and the usual benches-facing-the-pulpit setup. But at the Saturday service, ushers sent baskets of flowers around so we could each take one. The usual Sunday thing is for the flowers to just be at the pulpit for folks to take if they want after the service ends, so that dispersing the flowers is not part of the ritual. The services where we took flowers and held and smelled them had more meaning to me, because grasping a flower that represents the beauty and uniqueness of a fellow human is much more profound than gazing at a bouquet from afar. It's important to me for rituals to be participatory -- open to all of us, no matter what.

When I was a little girl, I never liked watching the priest conduct an elaborate ritual to mix himself a drink that only he could have. I don't like unexplained, exclusionary rituals that don't ring true for me. Flower Communion, with its melding of natural beauty, community, inspiration, courage and justice is as real at it gets. Thank God for religious freedom and for those who gave their lives to uphold it.

One more note: Now that I've embraced the notion that a ritual is simply a repeated action that has a deeper meaning beyond the physical and has a beginning, a middle and an end, I have been empowered to celebrate and even create my own family rituals. (Learned this at the 2006 Meadville Lombard Winter Institute.)

A Sweet June Day to all,
Elizabeth

One Heart Attack, Two Arteries and Three Stents

My world has been very small since Thursday because Sam (my spouse) had a heart attack. He comes home from the hospital tomorrow with two newly-opened arteries, nitroglycerine tablets and lots of information. He has a new role -- "cardiac patient" -- to add to all his other roles.

As scary as this journey has been, I know that our religion has made us stronger, more centered and more easily able to focus on the present than we would otherwise be. These qualities seem more essential than ever now.

But we're buoyed not only by Unitarian Universalism, but by our faith community, by the many people offering their help, support, thoughts and prayers, butternut squash soup and New Yorker cartoons. By watching a toddler push a footstool around the hospital room, being visited by a favorite minister and reading a lovely card from a baritone in our chorus.

Blessed be,
Elizabeth

Where Is the Love?

I watched the new DVD Listening To Experience, put out by the UUA. Listening To Experience features twelve parish ministers answering six big questions about growing congregations. At one point during the DVD, the ministers begin to discuss the love they have for their congregations, emphasizing that without that love, they wouldn't be effective religious leaders for their congregations, wouldn't have the energy for the hard work and certainly not the vision and growth they've had. One of the ministers said that new clergy ought not to accept calls with congregations with whom they have not fallen in love!

Following up on the DVD, Tandi Rogers Koerger has an article in the current (pre-GA) issue of The Religious Leader called "Love Or Infatuation." Koerger asks some pointed questions to help clergy determine whether they feel mature love or merely infatuation for their congregations:

Would I be able to let this congregation go if I believed it were the best thing?
Am I willing to wait for this congregation if they are not ready to grow?
Do I respect and admire this religious community?
If I were in an argument with my lay leaders, would I still feel the same way?

According to Koerger, mature love lasts through the difficult times, even through a decline in membership. Each party accepts the imperfection of the other, finds joy in giving as well as receiving and feels a responsibility toward the other's well-being. Most importantly (to me), both parties are honest and trustworthy.

I remember listening several years ago to a minister describe his former congregants: how they lined up after worship services to tell him what he did wrong and how they relied on him to plan his own installation party. "It wasn't a good fit," was his diplomatic explanation. I saw it differently: they didn't love him the way we did.

May we all experience mature love,
Elizabeth

A Test of Commitment: My Cat Has Diabetes

My large neutered male tabby cat, Shadow, has been diagnosed with diabetes. This means twice-daily insulin shots: 4 units with a little syringe at 8 AM and 8 PM. Surprise! I've had Shadow for nine years, I think. Got him from my sister Margaret when her life involved multiple addresses at apartments from Manhattan to Pacific Beach (California). Until now, he's always been low maintenance: not interested in escaping or getting treats or diving into freshly-dryed laundry or vomiting on our white rug or draping himself across my shoulders (thank God, because he weighs fourteen pounds). Totally unlike my other cat. Shadow enjoys laps, guests with large purses, kibble, being chased and getting brushed. Completely reasonable!

This twice-daily insulin ritual requires an adjustment on my part. Not on Shadow's because he doesn't even notice the injection! What am I learning from this? Well, my belief about pets has always been that once we aquire one, we must remain committed and responsible. I remember thinking long and hard before getting a kitten back in 1995, because a kitten could be a 25-year responsibility and would include having to live only in places that allow cats and never dating anyone allergic to them. (Yes, I was single back then.)

Our commitments get tested all the time. I've certainly had that happen over and over as a lay leader. The first time I had to miss a Madison festival because of a Covenant Group Ministry facillitator training, I complained loudly beforehand, "Shit! My paid job never conflicted with a festival!" But, the training was absolutely wonderful: fulfilling and fun, and the first time I facillated a training (fantastically). Came home exhausted and had to lie on the couch for two hours to recover, but was really proud of myself for rising to the challenge.

Since then, I've missed a number of events because of my church responsibilities, but have found them worth it. We'll see if I feel that way next month, when I'll have to miss part of the National Women's Music Festival for a leadership orientation at my church.

But back to having to give my cat an injection twice a day, every day -- good heavens, it is almost 8 PM. Responsibility calls.

Elizabeth

"We Live Within God" -- Marcus Borg

Theologian Marcus Borg spoke in Madison recently. I've read Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time, but not heard the Borg before. He explained "progressive Christianity" as being centered in God, concerned with our life on earth, inclusive, respectful of other faiths, seeing the Bible as metaphor and/or in a historical context and mainly trying to live like Jesus lived. Aspiring to live a life of compassion, equality and justice here on earth!

When Dr. Borg finished, I looked at my list of attributes of progressive Christianity and realized that none of them contradicts Unitarian Universalism. In fact, the attributes sound exactly like UUism to me! Obviously, believing that Jesus is divine is not part of progressive Christianity -- it's not about beliefs, it is about actions. I loved the talk, of course. I had heard rumors before that progressive Christians don't focus on the Afterlife or the divinity of Jesus or believe that God is omnipotent, but hadn't heard all this from the mouth of a progressive Christian (don't get out much, I guess).

Someone asked about believing in God during the Q&A time. "Isn't this based on a belief in God, so you need to believe in God in order to be a progressive Christian?" Borg basically said No! He said that God is the indescribable, the essence of what is -- the "is-ness." Our life here is God; we live within God. It doesn't make sense to say that there isn't an "is" -- we're all experiencing being here right now. That is how Borg describes God -- in the most broad way possible.

I felt great for several days after hearing Borg. Even now, the declaration "we live within God" feels good. It calms and centers me (especially if I'm outside or can look out a window at a living expression of nature).

Too bad more Madison Unitarian Universalists did not attend, because many of them think that there is only one type of Christian (the Fundamentalist). Unfortunately, it cost $50 to hear Marcus Borg give his talks ( lunch was included). Sam didn't go -- just me, because $100 would be too much to spend on a lecture.

I'm gazing out the window at apple blossoms. It's especially wonderful to live within God during May!
Elizabeth

Being "Childfree" on Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all mothers and Happy Not-a-Mom Day, too! I am "childfree," "childless by choice," not a mother, a woman who decided not to have children. I sometimes feel surrounded by mothers and grandmothers, especially in May when it seems that almost every woman I know at my UU congregation is a mom. I spent a good chunk of this weekend at a training on non-violent communication with twelve moms and just one other non-mom. (No men came to the training.) Children and grandchildren were discussed at length, of course. Many women had plans to see their families for Mother's Day or had just come back from seeing them.

Somehow, when I was a child, I learned that having children would limit a woman's choices -- her chances of graduating from college, having a middle class lifestyle, and being able to do what she wanted would be greatly reduced by having children. (Yes, I grew up in the 1970's, becoming an adult in the early 1980's.) I witnessed high school girls dropping out because of pregnancy, their dreams for the future forgotten. That's how I saw it, anyway!

I was determined never to have children right up until age 28, when I began to think that perhaps having a child would not be so bad. Everyone had aways assured me that I would love my own kid, even if I "hated children." Funny how people are so sure of this!

In contemporary US society, not having children is more accepted than ever before. I find, though, that at church a woman in her 30s and 40s is assumed to be a mother. It's as if people assume that women in this age range would not be at church if it weren't that they need religious education for the kids. Hey, I'm here for me! Yes, my own faith development, my need for community, my hunger for justice, my wish to connect with the sacred bring me to a faith community.

It's all about me, I guess. Good thing I'm not a mother....
Elizabeth